Nation & World Briefly 7/08

Joint Chiefs chairman: Strike on Iran remains option

WASHINGTON (AP) - A military strike to thwart Iran's nuclear weapons capability remains on the table but could have grave and unpredictable consequences, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday.

"I worry a great deal about the response of a country that gets struck," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It is a really important place to not go, if we can not go there in any way, shape or form."

Iran is perhaps one to three years away from getting the bomb, leaving a small and shrinking opening for diplomacy to avert what he said could be a dangerous nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Mullen said.

"I think the time window is closing."

Mullen said President Barack Obama's diplomatic outreach to Iran holds promise, despite political upheaval and deadly protests following Iran's disputed presidential election.

Ethnic strife spreads in western China

URUMQI, China (AP) - Sobbing Muslim women scuffled with riot police, and Chinese men wielding steel pipes, meat cleavers and sticks rampaged through the streets Tuesday as ethnic tensions worsened in China's oil-rich Xinjiang territory, forcing officials to declare a curfew.

The new violence in Xinjiang's capital erupted only a few hours after the city's top officials told reporters the streets in Urumqi were returning to normal following a riot that killed 156 people Sunday. The officials also said more than 1,000 suspects had been rounded up since the spasm of attacks by Muslim Uighurs against Han Chinese, the ethnic majority.

The chaos returned when hundreds of young Han men seeking revenge began gathering on sidewalks with kitchen knives, clubs, shovels and wooden poles. They spent most of the afternoon marching through the streets, smashing windows of Muslim restaurants and trying to push past police cordons protecting minority neighborhoods. Riot police successfully fought them back with volleys of tear gas and a massive show of force.

After the crowds thinned out, a curfew was announced from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. Police cars cruised the streets in the evening, telling people to go home, and they complied.

Former Bush aide testifies on prosecutor firings

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Bush White House official Karl Rove was questioned by House Judiciary Committee lawyers Tuesday on any role he may have played in politically motivated firings of U.S. attorneys.

Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., confirmed Rove's closed-door appearance through a committee spokesman who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

The committee has been seeking answers on who created the list of federal prosecutors who would lose their jobs. Conyers has suspected the trail led to the White House but couldn't prove it.

Former President George W. Bush asserted executive privilege for Rove and former White House lawyer Harriet Miers and refused to let them testify.

Nine U.S. attorneys were fired. An internal Bush Justice Department investigation concluded that political considerations played a part in at least four of the dismissals.