Myanmar grants access to one U.S. aid shipment

By FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Writer

The governing military junta in Myanmar has agreed to allow a single U.S. cargo aircraft to bring in relief supplies for victims of a devastating cyclone, the Bush administration said Friday.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the United States welcomed the go-ahead to land a U.S. military C-130 in the country on Monday. He said he hopes this is the beginning of continued aid flowing into Myanmar from the United States, other nations and international relief agencies.

Earlier Friday, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. office of foreign disaster assistance, had said that skilled aid workers were being forced to sit on the sidelines as victims of last week's cyclone were dying. His comments reflect mounting frustration among the United States and other countries as they wait for permission from the military-led government to begin trying to help.

Said Johndroe: "We will continue to work with the government of Burma to allow other assistance. We hope that this is the beginning of a long line of assistance from the United States to Burma." Myanmar is also known as Burma.

Johndroe also said that while the U.S. still has limited leeway to help, "One flight is much better than no flights."

"They're going to need our help for a long time," Johndroe said. He spoke in Crawford, Texas, where President Bush's daughter, Jenna, will be wed on Saturday.

The breakthrough came after days of waiting on the U.S. side. It is not yet known what supplies will be included. U.S. aircraft have been positioned in Thailand and elsewhere nearby waiting for permission to transport supplies to the cyclone-devastated country.

The U.S. military has C-130 cargo aircraft and about a dozen helicopters in the region, ready to fly supplies into Myanmar. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Friday that the aircraft could reach Myanmar in a few hours.

In addition, U.S. Navy ships have begun moving from the Gulf of Thailand toward Myanmar to be available if needed.

Johndroe said he could not speak to one specific cause for the breakthrough, but added: "Clearly the junta has determined that the magnitude of this disaster requires additional assistance."

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current junta came to power after snuffing out a 1988 pro-democracy movement against the previous military dictatorship, killing at least 3,000 people in the process. The junta also violently crushed protests last year.

Luu had urged the generals to allow access to foreign aid teams, including a group of U.S. specialists waiting in Thailand; he said desperately needed supplies are piling up on airport tarmacs.

"This is a very vulnerable population, and a shock of this magnitude is going to take people right off the cliff," Luu told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a foreign affairs think tank in Washington.

He said the message to the junta is clear: If it allows U.S. officials in, "we will be able to make a difference."

"People are dying, and it's approaching a week," he said.

Myanmar's ruling military junta earlier seized two planeloads of critical aid sent by the U.N. The U.N. food program suspended help after the action, but later said it is sending two planes to Myanmar to help hungry and homeless survivors.

Officials have said that up to 1.9 million people are homeless, injured or threatened by disease and hunger, and only one out of 10 have received some kind of aid in the six days since the cyclone hit.

Tony Banbury, Asia director for the U.N. World Food Program, said by satellite from Thailand that the "big issue" is: What are the Myanmar authorities going to do? The WFP, he said, will keep working, but "I don't think we have much leverage with the authorities."

"Our hands are getting more and more tied," he said. "The situation is obviously desperate."

Sein Win, an exiled leader of Myanmar's opposition, said in an interview that the United States and other nations must more strongly pressure China, which is seen as having significant economic and political influence with Myanmar's generals.

"The world is not telling China to do what they should do ... to save people," Win said. He added that China has leverage over Myanmar, and said "the question is whether they are going to use it or not."

Making a Martyr of Bhutto

By ARYN BAKER

Just days before parliamentary polls in Pakistan, leading Prime Ministerial contender and anti terrorism crusader Benazir Bhutto was shot dead during an election rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. "She has been martyred," said party official Rehman Malik. The Associated Press, citing Malik, reported that Bhutto was shot in the neck and the chest before the gunman blew himself up. At least 20 bystanders were killed in the blast. Bhutto was rushed to a hospital But, at 6:16 p.m. Pakistan time, she was declared dead.

""How can somebody who can shoot her get so close to her with all the so-called security?" said a distraught Husain Haqqani, a former top aide to Bhutto, shortly after news of her death flashed around the world. Haqqani, who served as a spokesman and top aide to Bhutto for more than a decade, blamed Pakistani security, either through neglect or complicity, in her assassination. "This is the security establishment, which has always wanted her out," he said through tears.

For the past several months Pakistan has been plagued by a wave of violence that has seen hundreds of civilians killed in similar bombing attacks; and hundreds more military personnel, prompting President Pervez Musharraf to declare a state of emergency. On December 16th, Musharraf lifted the state of emergency, stating that the threat had been contained. The bombings, however, continued. Just hours before her assassination, Bhutto, 54, met with visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss the threat of terrorism against both countries.

The U.S. has long supported a return to power by Bhutto, who was perceived to be a moderate willing to work with Washington on the war on terror. She was also seen as a democratic leader who would serve as a counter to the plummeting popularity of Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 military coup. It was thought that a power-sharing deal between the two, in which Musharraf stayed on as president while Bhutto lead as prime minister, would promote stability in this nuclear armed nation of 165 million. But from the day of her arrival in Pakistan after eight years in exile, Bhutto's return has been marred by violence.

On October 18th, a pair of bombs detonated in the midst a welcome home rally in Karachi for the former two-time prime minister, killing some 145 in a deliberate attempt on her life. The organization responsible for the carnage has not yet been identified, but Bhutto said she suspected al Qaeda and some unspecified members of Musharraf's government who did not want to see her return to power. Despite the clear threat to her life, Bhutto continued to campaign publicly with the kind of mass rallies that are the cornerstone of politicking in Pakistan. "I am not afraid," she told TIME last month, "I am ready to die for my country."

Haqqani, now a professor at Boston University, isn't sure what the latest bloodshed means for his country. "Will the Pakistani military realize that this is going to tear the fabric of the nation apart, and so really get serious about securing the country and about getting serious in dealing with the extremist jihadis?" he wondered. But he made clear he feels the best chance for such a policy has just evaporated. "She did show courage, and she was the only person who spoke out against terrorism," he said. "She was let down by those in Washington who think that sucking up to bad governments around the world is their best policy option."

Within hours of the assasination, protests and riots broke out in Pakistan's main cities. In Rawalpindi, vegetable vendor Naeem, 25, said Bhutto's murder would hurt Pakistan's poorest, who were among Bhutto's most loyal supporters. "People were hoping her government would help the lower classes and now she is gone," he said. Syeda Asmat Begum, 73, who lives in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, told TIME that "everywhere sadness prevails. We are in fear that even our leaders are not safe from the bombardment of suicide bombers and bullets."

That was a view felt around the country. In Lahore, where shops and restaurants closed and the streets emptied of people except for the center of town where Bhutto supporters gathered to vent their anger, Majid Iqbal, 26, an engineering student was trying to hitch a ride home because bus services had stopped. "People are very worried," says Iqbal, who called his family in his home village outside the city as soon as he heard the news. "If a leader of a great party is not secure then how can the Pakistani people be secure? At this time Pakistan's future is fragile."

Speaking on television outside the hospital where Bhutto died, the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif said, "I myself feel threatened... Are things in control now? Had things been in control, would this have happened?" Bhutto's rival said, "We both were struggling for the same cause, and we had signed the charter of democracy." On camera, he addressed Bhutto's supporters, "I assure you that I will fight your war from now." He said, "It is tragic not only for [her party] but also for my party."

Pakistan can ill afford to sacrifice the few moderate leaders it has left. Bhutto's death will plunge the upcoming elections into uncertainty and the country further into instability. At the news of her assassination, many of her loyalists rioted in the streets of Pakistan. There will be many tense days ahead for the Musharraf government as it deals with this political crisis. And that's good news for terrorism. With reporting by Khuda Yar Khan/Islamabad, Simon Robinson/Lahore and Mark Thompson/Washington

Dry cleaner wins missing pants case

"Pants not worth $54 million" - Judge

By LUBNA TAKRURI, Associated Press Writer

A judge ruled Monday in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city's consumer protection law by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson's expectations of the "Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window, District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands" or to agree to demands that the merchant would have reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.

Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.

Pearson, an administrative law judge, originally sought $67 million from the Chungs, claiming they lost a pair of trousers from a blue and maroon suit, then tried to give him a pair a pair of charcoal gray pants that he said were not his. He arrived at the amount by adding up years of alleged law violations and almost $2 million in common law fraud claims.

Bartnoff wrote, however, that Pearson failed to prove that the pants the dry cleaner tried to return were not the pants he taken in for alterations.

Pearson later dropped demands for damages related to the pants and focused his claims on signs in the shop, which have since been removed.

The court costs amount to just over $1,000 for photocopying, filing and similar expenses, according to the Chungs' attorney. A motion to recover the Chungs' tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees will be considered later.

Chris Manning, the Chungs' attorney, praised the ruling, which followed a two-day trial earlier this month.

"Judge Bartnoff has spoken loudly in suggesting that, while consumers should be protected, abusive lawsuits like this will not be tolerated," Manning said in a statement. "Judge Bartnoff has chosen common sense and reasonableness over irrationality and unbridled venom."

Pearson did not immediately respond to a call and an e-mail seeking comment.

Faith got me past marital woes - Clinton

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

In a rare public discussion of her husband's infidelity, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that she probably could not have gotten through her marital troubles without relying on her faith in God.

Clinton stood by her actions in the aftermath of former President Clinton's admission that he had an affair, including presumably her decision to stay in the marriage.

"I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought," Clinton said during a forum where the three leading Democratic presidential candidates talked about faith and values.

"I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without my faith," she said in response to a question about how she dealt with the infidelity.

The forum, sponsored by the liberal Sojourners/Call to Renewal evangelical organization, provided an uncommon glimpse into the most personal beliefs of Clinton and rivals John Edwards and Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record). The three candidates were invited by Sojourners founder Jim Wallis; most of the other Democratic candidates appeared on CNN later Monday to discuss their faith.

The most intimate question came about the Clintons' relationship, one of the world's most debated marriages but one that the husband and wife rarely speak openly about.

Clinton said she's "been tested in ways that are both publicly known and those that are not so well known or not known at all." She said it's those times when her personal faith and the prayers of others sustain her.

"At those moments in time when you are tested, it is absolutely essential that you be grounded in your faith," she said.

Edwards revealed that he prays — and sins — every day. The crowd gasped loudly when moderator Soledad O'Brien asked Edwards to name the biggest sin he ever committed, and he won their applause when he said he would have a hard time naming one thing.

"I sin every single day," said Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee. "We are all sinners and we all fall short."

Edwards, wearing a purple tie to match Sojourners' signature color, promoted himself as the candidate most committed to the group's mission of fighting poverty. He said he doesn't feel his belief in evolution is inconsistent with his belief in Christ and he doesn't personally feel gays should be married, although as president he wouldn't impose his belief system on the rest of the country.

"I have a deep and abiding love for my Lord, Jesus Christ," Edwards said, but he said the United States shouldn't be called a Christian nation.

He said he has been going to church since he was a child and was baptized as a teen. He said he strayed from his faith as an adult and it came "roaring back" when his teenage son died in 1996.

"It was the Lord that got me through that," Edwards said, along with both of his wife's cancer diagnoses.

Clinton acknowledged that talking about her religious beliefs doesn't come naturally to her.

"I take my faith very seriously and very personally," she said. "And I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves."

Each candidate was given 15 minutes to appear before the packed auditorium at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium and a live audience on CNN. They were questioned by O'Brien and by church leaders across the country.

Obama's appearance focused more on policy than the personal. Asked whether he agreed with President Bush's portrayal of the current global struggles in terms of good verses evil, Obama said there is a risk in viewing the world in such terms.

He said he believes that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were the result of evil. But he said that the United States' treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay is unjust.

"The danger of using good verses evil in the context of war is that it may lead us to be not as critical as we should about our own actions," Obama said to applause.

Currency impasse overshadows U.S.-China deals

Reuters

The United States and China struck civil aviation and financial sector access deals on Wednesday but they made no headway on the divisive issue of Chinese currency reform, stoking anger on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers said they would move ahead with proposals to slap tariffs on Chinese imports because of Beijing's reluctance to redress the huge trade imbalance between the economic giants with a revaluation of the yuan.

The anger in Congress overshadowed U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's claim of "tangible results" in the second leg of a "strategic economic dialogue" with Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi.

Wu, for her part, said the "complicated" relations between Washington and Beijing needed careful handling and cautioned against retaliatory steps.

"It calls for direct consultation and dialogue between us, instead of easy resort to threat or sanctions," Wu said after two days of closed-door talks with Bush administration officials.

The official China Daily newspaper said in an editorial that both countries bore responsibility for the trade gap between them and warned against U.S. impatience for a rapid cure.

"The dialogue made it clear that a confrontational approach focusing on so-called immediate results only complicates the situation and adds nothing to problem solving," it said.

China's stellar economic growth was indeed too dependent on exports, the daily said, but it was also "all too obvious that the U.S. consumers spend too much and save too little, resulting in their country's current account deficit."

Tension was heightened during the talks by mounting concern about the safety of Chinese exports after reports about toxic toothpaste and contaminated pet food.

U.S. officials said they stressed to their Chinese counterparts that food and medicine safety was a "top concern."

"Recent events have forced very clearly as one of our top concerns the safety of food and medicine," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said.

CHINA "DOING ITS BEST"

The most concrete outcome of the talks was a deal committing China to remove a bar on new foreign securities firms and resume issuing licenses for securities companies, including joint ventures, in the second half of 2007.

That was a coup for former Goldman Sachs chairman Paulson, who has made gaining greater access to the Chinese financial sector a key objective.

The two sides also agreed on a new aviation pact that U.S. transportation officials said would more than double the number of passenger flights between the two countries by 2012.

Meanwhile, Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Ma Xiuhong said a Chinese business delegation on a 24-state U.S. tour had signed $32.6 billion in deals so far.

The buying spree appeared timed to soften U.S. congressional criticism of China's practice of managing its currency, the yuan, in a way that U.S. lawmakers and companies complain makes Chinese products unfairly cheap in U.S. markets.

But the chairman of the powerful House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, New York Democrat Charles Rangel, said after a meeting between Wu and committee members that "we're moving forward" on tariff legislation.

Rangel favors a bill to let the Commerce Department levy duties on Chinese goods to offset the "subsidy" effect of China's exchange-rate policies.

Rangel's swift decision suggested that time was running out for Paulson to show that persuasion is sufficient to get China to permit the yuan to appreciate more quickly.

In July 2005, China abandoned an 11-year-old practice of holding the yuan fixed against the dollar and revalued it by 2.1 percent. But since then it has risen only a further 6 percent, frustrating U.S. legislators.

The head of China's central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, said China had pressures of its own to deal with that made it hard to speed up currency reform.

"They may think that we can accelerate the speed of reform, but we think that we already try our best, and domestically we have pressure to slow down," Zhou told reporters after meeting the lawmakers.

China remains an emerging-market economy only partly driven by free-market forces, but its cheap labor force and exporting prowess have enabled it to become the world's fourth-largest economy, behind the United States, Japan and Germany.

Chinese Ministers, Bush to Meet on Trade

Associated Press

Preparing to meet President Bush, Chinese ministers sought to soothe congressional anxiety about Beijing's trade practices after high-level economic talks yielded few results.

Discussions Wednesday between senior Bush administration officials and the largest high-level Chinese delegation ever to visit the United States also failed to reach a breakthrough in the countries' biggest dispute: China's undervalued currency.

After the talks, Vice Premier Wu Yi, leading the Chinese group, met privately with frustrated congressional leaders. She also planned separate meetings Thursday with Bush and senators.

Wu, speaking through an interpreter, said Wednesday that her discussions with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers were "very good," but she provided no other details.

After the meeting, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charles Rangel said the Chinese told lawmakers they needed more time to overhaul their currency system and make other changes.

Rangel, a New York Democrat, told reporters that his committee planned to move forward with legislation; some of the bills being considered would impose stiff penalties on Chinese imports for what critics say are unfair Chinese trade practices that have driven U.S. trade deficits to record levels and cost thousands of manufacturing jobs.

Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading critic of China, described the frustration he said his colleagues felt. "There's never any action," he said in an interview. "I don't think a press release is going to assuage Congress' worries. We need results."

Despite the criticism, both Wu and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, head of the U.S. delegation at the talks, sounded positive about the importance of the new high-level "strategic economic dialogue" between the countries, which occur twice a year.

The delegations agreed Wednesday to more than double the number of daily passenger flights between the two nations by 2012, going from 10 to 23. Cargo flights also were increased. The gains fell short of the openings the Bush administration had hoped to achieve.

In the area of financial services, China agreed to a slight expansion in business opportunities for U.S. companies but not the lifting of caps on foreign ownership of banks, securities firms and insurance companies that U.S. firms had sought.

China also rejected U.S. requests that it accelerate the revaluing of its currency, the yuan, which American manufacturers contend is undervalued by as much as 40 percent. That makes Chinese products cheaper for Americans and U.S. goods more expensive in China.

For her part, Wu called the talks "a complete success" and said it was important to continue direct consultations between the two nations rather than resorting to "threat and sanctions."

U.S. business groups had a decidedly more downbeat response.

"It's clear that this dialogue has been nothing but a cynical Bush administration exercise in spin and public relations," said Kevin Kearns, president of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents small and medium-size manufacturing companies. "The failure of the White House's approach is now clear, so the ball is clearly in Congress' court."

White House Moves to Replace Wolfowitz

Associated Press

The White House said Friday it will move quickly to find a successor -- preferably an American -- for departing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz as the administration sought to rebuild relationships strained by the controversy.

Wolfowitz a day earlier announced that he would step down at the end of June, his leadership undermined by a furor over compensation he arranged in 2005 for Shaha Riza, a bank employee and girlfriend.

"Traditionally, the American nominee has become the World Bank president. We want to move swiftly in this process," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "We want to make sure that we are selecting the best individual for the job. We want someone who has a real passion for lifting people out of poverty."

The European Commission called Friday for a quick appointment, saying the poverty fighting institution needs "stable and strong political leadership."

Wolfowitz's departure ends a two-year run at the development bank that was marked by controversy from the start, given his previous role as a major architect of the Iraq war when he served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon.

It also ends a potential political headache for President Bush, who had named Wolfowitz to the post.

The Wolfowitz flap had been seen as a growing liability that threatened to tarnish the poverty-fighting institution's reputation and hobble its ability to persuade countries around the world to contribute billions of dollars to provide financial assistance to poor nations.

The bank "needs to rebuild it credibility immediately, regain its focus and devote its full attention to its clients," said the bank's staff association, which, along with former bank officials, aid groups and some Democratic politicians, had wanted Wolfowitz to resign.

As he left his home Friday morning, Wolfowitz, struck a conciliatory tone, telling The Associated Press that he is "particularly grateful for the hard work" of the bank's staff. "We have accomplished a lot in the last two years ... I am happy to claim a little bit of credit but it couldn't happen without them."

Asked if the president had received any recommendations yet, Fratto responded: "Not that I'm aware of. I see lots of speculation in newspaper articles, and I'm not going to comment on names."

Fratto also said he wasn't aware of Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair -- who recently met with Bush at the White House -- being mentioned as a candidate to head the World Bank in conversations between the two leaders.

Bush's selection must be approved by the World Bank's board.

Among those mentioned as a possible replacement for Wolfowitz were former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who was Bush's former trade chief; Robert Kimmitt, the No. 2 at the Treasury Department; Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; former Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.,; Stanley Fischer, who once worked at the International Monetary Fund and is now with the Bank of Israel; and former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

The 185-nation bank, created in 1945 to rebuild Europe after World War II, provides more than $20 billion a year for projects such as building dams and roads, bolstering education and fighting disease. The bank's centerpiece program offers interest-free loans to the poorest countries.

By tradition, the bank has been run by an American. The Bush administration keenly wanted to keep that decades-old practice intact as it dealt with the Wolfowitz situation. The United States is the bank's largest shareholder and its biggest financial contributor.

Paulson, who will work with the president on finding a successor to Wolfowitz, said, "I will consult my colleagues around the world as we search for a leader." That suggested a more consultive approach to finding a new head of the bank.

Bush's selection of Wolfowitz in 2005 for the bank post had stunned Europeans and some other countries. Europeans were upset that Bush would tap someone so closely associated with the Iraq war. After the pay controversy erupted a month ago, Europeans led the charge for Wolfowitz to resign.

Ute Koczy, a development policy spokeswoman for Germany's opposition Greens, argued that it was time to ditch that "wretched tradition" of an American heading the World Bank, and a European running the IMF. But a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel dismissed the idea.

"There is absolutely no question for the (German) government over the United States of America continuing to fill the top job at the World Bank," spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters in Berlin.

Germany "has no doubt" that the U.S. administration will "make a convincing personnel proposal -- one that does justice to the demands of the World Bank in this situation," Steg said.

Japan's Finance Minister Koji Omi told reporters at a finance meeting of major economic powers in Potsdam, Germany, that it was wise to keep an American as president of the World Bank.

Wolfowitz waged a vigorous battle to save his job and maintained he had acted in good faith. He was all but forced out, however, by the finding of a special bank panel that he violated conflict-of-interest rules in his handling of Riza's pay package.

After days of negotiations, Wolfowitz got what he wanted -- an acknowledgment from the bank's board that he did not bear sole responsibility for the conflict-of-interest furor surrounding his handling of the pay package.

The bank board said it was clear that a number of people had erred in reviewing Riza's pay package. The board's statement made no mention of any financial arrangements related to Wolfowitz's departure, nor did it speak to Riza's future.

Gun control returns as issue for 2008 candidates

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer

Gun control has been treated with a mix of silence and discomfort in the presidential campaign, a stance that may become insupportable once the nation finds its voice in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech mass murder.

Democrats have been deliberately muted for months on an issue that, by their own reckoning, contributed to and perhaps sealed their defeat in the 2000 presidential election. That's when Al Gore's call for gun registration cost him votes in rural America and dulled the party's appetite for taking on the gun lobby.

Top Republicans in the race are trying to close ranks with their party's conservative base on a variety of issues, making gun control an unusually sensitive one for them, too, thanks to their liberal views in the past.

Enter the massacre at Blacksburg, Va., an attack so horrific it froze the presidential campaign in place. Candidates called off events and expressed only sorrow, not opinion, in the first hours.

Advocates of any stripe raised their gun agenda at their peril.

"I think that people who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride ... I've got nothing but loathing for them," Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said. "To those who want to try to make this into some little crusade, I say take that elsewhere."

But the bloodiest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, with 33 dead, is certain to set off a debate that those who would be president can hardly sit out in the days and weeks ahead.

Rudy Giuliani waded gently into it Wednesday, a day after GOP rival John McCain said that the attack did not throw him off his support for constitutional gun rights.

"Obviously, this tragedy does not alter the Second Amendment," Giuliani said in a statement. "People have the right to keep and bear arms and the Constitution says this right will not be infringed."

His emphasis on state-by-state solutions to gun control in the GOP primaries contrasts with his past enthusiasm for a federal mandate to register handgun owners — an even stiffer requirement than registering guns.

Giuliani, as New York mayor and former Senate candidate, and Mitt Romney, as Massachusetts governor, supported the federal ban on assault-type weapons, background checks on gun purchases and other restrictions reviled by many gun-rights advocates.

The other New Yorker in this race, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, also supported proposals for state-issued photo gun licenses, as well as a national registry for handgun sales, in positions laid out for crime-weary New Yorkers in 2000.

In this campaign, candidates in both parties who've ever taken a shot at a prey are playing up their hunting credentials. Others are highlighting their allegiance to the constitutional right to bear arms or avoiding the question altogether.

Now such questions are unavoidably in their face.

"Not talking about an issue may be successful in the short term but it's never a successful long-term strategy," said James Kessler, policy and gun-control specialist at Third Way, a Democratic centrist group. "I don't think that a candidate will be punished for supporting gun safety measures this time around."

But, he said he thought that after Columbine, lawmakers could pass legislation requiring background checks on weapons bought at gun shows "and we didn't."

Mass shootings have often been the catalyst for legislative action on gun control, with mixed results.

And with Democrats controlling Congress partly on the strength of new members from rural parts of the country, few lawmakers were expecting the Virginia Tech assault to revive the most far-reaching gun-control proposals of the past, such as national licensing or registration.

In 1999, after the Columbine High School killings in Colorado left 15 dead,lawmakers unsuccessfully introduced dozens of bills to require mandatory child safety locks on new handguns, ban "Saturday night specials," increase the minimum age for gun purchases and require background checks on weapons bought at gun shows.

A month after the Columbine shootings, then-Vice President Gore cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to advance a juvenile crime bill that included gun show restrictions. But the bill died in negotiations with the House.

McCain has a long record of voting for gun rights in the Senate but changed some of his views, sponsoring legislation to support the gun show restrictions he once opposed.

And Democratic candidate John Edwards, despite recently highlighting his boyhood outings hunting birds, rabbits and deer as well as his respect for gun ownership rights, backed his party's main gun control measures when he was in the Senate.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as a state lawmaker in the 1990s, supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tougher state restrictions on firearms.

Gun control seemed far from the minds of voters before the murders Monday. In an AP-Ipsos poll taken last week in which respondents were asked to name the most important problem facing the country, few if any spontaneously mentioned guns or gun control. That's likely to change in response to the Blacksburg rampage.

The Virginia Tech senior and Korean native identified as the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was a legal permanent resident of the U.S., meaning he could legally buy a handgun unless he had been convicted of a felony. The campus killings were carried out with 9 mm and .22-caliber handguns.

"I think when a guy walks in and shoots 32 people it's going to cause there to be a lot of policy debate," President Bush said. "Now is not the time to do the debate until we're actually certain about what happened and after we help people get over their grieving."

Supreme Court upholds ban on controversial abortion procedure

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The administration defended the law as drawing a bright line between abortion and infanticide.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups as well as the leading association of obstetricians and gynecologists have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.

"I applaud the Court for its ruling today, and my hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation's laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life," said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

Said Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: "This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety. ... This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them." She had argued that point before the justices.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday's ruling.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The law bans a method of ending a pregnancy, rather than limiting when an abortion can be performed.

"Today's decision is alarming," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in dissent. She said the ruling "refuses to take ... seriously" previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman's uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.

Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common.

In 2000, the court with key differences in its membership struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortions. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman's right to make an abortion decision.

The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman's health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.

But federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting up Wednesday's ruling.

Kennedy's dissent in 2000 was so strong that few court watchers expected him to take a different view of the current case.

Kennedy acknowledged continuing disagreement about the procedure within the medical community. In the past, courts have cited that uncertainty as a reason to allow the disputed procedure.

But Kennedy said, "The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice."

He said the more common abortion method, involving dismemberment, is beyond the reach of the federal ban.

While the court upheld the law against a broad attack on its constitutionality, Kennedy said the court could entertain a challenge in which a doctor found it necessary to perform the banned procedure on a patient suffering certain medical complications.

Doctors most often refer to the procedure as a dilation and extraction or an intact dilation and evacuation abortion.

The law allows the procedure to be performed when a woman's life is in jeopardy.

The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.