Nation & World Briefly

Former South Korean President Roh commits suicide amid widening corruption scandal

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) " Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun " whose hard-won reputation as a corruption fighter was tarnished by bribery allegations that drew in his family and closest associates " jumped to his death Saturday while hiking in the mountains behind his rural home. He was 62.

After leaving his family a suicide note, Roh threw himself off a steep cliff around 6:40 a.m., police and lawyer Moon Jae-in said in the southern port city of Busan.

"I'm indebted to too many people. Too many people are suffering because of me," Roh wrote in the note left on his computer. "Don't be sorry; don't blame anybody. It's destiny." He asked to be cremated and a small gravestone erected in his hometown.

A self-taught lawyer who lifted himself out of poverty to reach the nation's highest office in 2003, Roh had prided himself on being a "clean" politician in a country with a long history of corruption. Recent allegations that he accepted $6 million in bribes from a Seoul businessman were deeply troubling to the ex-leader.

"I have no face to show to the people. I am sorry for disappointing you," an emotional Roh said last month before turning himself over to Seoul prosecutors who grilled him for 13 hours about the allegations.

His suicide " the first in South Korea by an ex-president " stunned the nation. South Koreans nationwide huddled around TV screens watching news broadcasts. Supporters flooded his Web site with condolences.

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Obama salutes veterans, urges fellow Americans to do the same this Memorial Day weekend

WASHINGTON (AP) " President Barack Obama saluted veterans and urged his countrymen to do the same this Memorial Day weekend, saying the nation has not always paid them proper respect.

In his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama said people can honor veterans by sending a letter or care package to troops overseas, volunteering at health clinics or taking supplies to a homeless veterans center. He said it could also mean something as simple as saying "thank you" to a veteran walking by on the street.

"We have a responsibility to serve all of them as well as they serve all of us," Obama said. "And yet, all too often in recent years and decades, we, as a nation, have failed to live up to that responsibility. We have failed to give them the support they need or pay them the respect they deserve.

"That is a betrayal of the sacred trust that America has with all who wear and all who have worn the proud uniform of our country," he said.

The president planned to attend a Memorial Day ceremony Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.

Obama said he was committed to giving troops the training and equipment they need and making certain the Veterans Affairs Department had the money it needed. He also noted that he had signed a bill into law that would eliminate waste in defense projects and was working to improve the economy so that veterans can find a good job, provide for their families and earn a college degree.

"That is what Memorial Day is all about," Obama said. "It is about doing all we can to repay the debt we owe to those men and women who have answered our nation's call by fighting under its flag. It is about recognizing that we, as a people, did not get here by accident or good fortune alone."

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Scorched earth, craters mark Sri Lanka war zone; civilians describe shelling by both sides

NORTHEAST COAST, Sri Lanka (AP) " Sri Lanka's former war zone is a wasteland, its earth scorched and pocked by craters. Cars and trucks lie overturned near bunkers beside clusters of battered tents.

The government has denied firing heavy weapons into what had been a battlefield densely populated with civilians. But the helicopter tour the military gave U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a group of journalists Saturday revealed widespread devastation.

Civilians who escaped the zone said they came under intense shelling from both the rebels and the government.

"We ran for our lives from the shelling in the north," said one man who gave his name as Krishnathurai. "It was coming from both sides, the Tamil Tigers and the military, and we were stuck in the middle."

The sandy coastal strip where the final battles of the quarter-century civil war were fought was dotted with patches of charred earth and deep recessions. Dark craters were visible amid the grayish earth along the coast.

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As Supreme Court pick nears, Obama offers portrait of what he wants " and what he's weighing

WASHINGTON (AP) " On the verge of choosing his first Supreme Court nominee, President Barack Obama has already provided a profile of the person he is likely to pick: an intellectual heavyweight with a "common touch," someone whose brand of justice means seeing life from the perspective of the powerless.

Obama is expected to announce his nominee this week, as early as Tuesday. His words, his young presidency and his own life experience reveal what the nation should expect " and help explain how the president is making a decision that will endure long after he leaves office.

"You have to have not only the intellect to be able to effectively apply the law to cases before you," Obama said in an interview carried Saturday on C-SPAN television. "But you have to be able to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes and get a sense of how the law might work or not work in practical day-to-day living."

That quality " Obama calls it empathy " is a huge factor in picking a successor to retiring Justice David Souter. Among the others Obama is weighing: judicial philosophy, intellectual sway, gender, ethnicity, age and the politics of Senate confirmation.

He is expected to choose a woman, and perhaps someone who is Hispanic, but insists he will not be "weighed down" by demographics.

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Relatives: Dreams of buying a home and big-city life died when rural Iraqi family was killed

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) " The beautiful, dark-haired girl in the photograph stands near a wall in pre-invasion Iraq. What is unseen and now lost, her family says, is her dream of moving to the big city and getting married.

"Abeer was a strong woman," said her aunt, Ameena Hamza Rashid al-Janabi. "She was very proud to be young."

Relatives of the girl, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, and prosecutors detailed the teen's hopes and life during the civilian trial of former Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, in western Kentucky. They showed pictures of the family at home, and relatives recounted their aspirations for a better life.

Green, of Midland, Texas, was convicted of multiple counts, including conspiracy and murder in the March 2006 killings of 14-year-old Abeer and her father, mother and 6-year-old sister near Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. But jurors couldn't reach a decision Thursday on an appropriate punishment for Green, resulting in the ex-soldier receiving a life sentence rather than the death penalty.

Al-Janabi family members testified at the guilt and sentencing phases of Green's trial, telling jurors through an interpreter about the al-Janabi family " Kassem, Fakhriya, Abeer, and Hadeel, who were killed in the attack, and two boys, Mohammed and Ahmed, who weren't home during the slayings.

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Annoyed passer-by pushes Chinese suicide jumper off bridge; he lands on emergency cushion

BEIJING (AP) " Chen Fuchao, a man heavily in debt, had been contemplating suicide on a bridge in southern China for hours when a passer-by came up, shook his hand " and pushed him off the ledge.

Chen fell 26 feet (8 meters) onto a partially inflated emergency air cushion laid out by authorities and survived, suffering spine and elbow injuries, the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.

The passer-by, 66-year-old Lai Jiansheng, had been fed up with what he called Chen's "selfish activity," Xinhua said. Traffic around the Haizhu bridge in the city of Guangzhou had been backed up for five hours and police had cordoned off the area.

"I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest," Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities' attention to their appeals."

Xinhua said Lai was "taken away by police" but did not elaborate.

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Socialite, Nobel economist push plan to boost foreign aid by giving private donors greater say

LONDON (AP) " An unlikely duo of a fashion heiress and a Nobel Prize-winning economist is pushing a controversial plan to boost aid to the developing world by giving wealthy donors a greater say in how the money is distributed.

Backed by the head of the United Nations and a bevy of billionaires, supermodels and pop stars, socialite Renu Mehta and economist James Mirrlees say a private-public partnership on foreign aid is the only way to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, since governments are falling short of U.N. targets.

But the notion sits uneasily with critics already unhappy about the juxtaposition of champagne-fueled fundraisers and the poverty of those they are supposed to benefit. Critics argue it would set a dangerous precedent for the super-rich to determine foreign aid policies.

On its face, the Mehta-Mirrlees plan is simple. They are calling on the Group of Eight industrialized nations, which are meeting in Italy in July, to agree to match private donations with state aid. For every $100 pledged by the private sector, a government would add a matching $100 from existing aid budgets.

The plan seeks to address the fact that governments are falling behind in their commitments to the United Nations to donate 0.7 percent of gross national incomes to meet eight goals, including halving extreme poverty by 2015 from its 1990 level.

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Frumpy Scot who wowed world with her angelic voice to perform again on British TV talent show

LONDON (AP) " Britain's unlikely singing sensation Susan Boyle, the frumpy church volunteer who wowed the world with her angelic voice, was on Saturday voted into the next round of a TV talent show that propelled her to global fame.

The 47 year old, who lives alone with her cat Pebbles in one of Scotland's poorest regions, will now perform in a live show on Sunday, weeks after her surprising performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" from the musical "Les Miserables" shocked judges and charmed tens of millions of people worldwide.

Boyle's performance last month on the "American Idol"-style show "Britain's Got Talent" has been viewed almost 60 million times on You Tube, and saw the shy Scot feted by celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Demi Moore.

The awkward looking Boyle, who says she's never been kissed, was greeted with giggles from a skeptical audience and eye rolls from the show's famously sardonic judge Simon Cowell when she appeared in April " but startled viewers with her soaring voice.

In an update on her Twitter Web site, Moore wrote that Boyle's voice had "made me teary!"

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Search for new homes intensifies as 'Slumdog' child star falls sick

MUMBAI, India (AP) " The search for new homes for two impoverished child stars from the hit movie "Slumdog Millionaire" has intensified, as one child fell sick days after city authorities demolished the shanty where she lived, family members said.

Nine-year-old Rubina Ali came down with a fever Friday and spent a few hours in a local hospital, they said.

"I'm fine now, but I feel tired," Rubina said Saturday as she lay in bed, resting at her uncle's house.

Rubina's block was razed Wednesday to make way for a planned pedestrian overpass at a commuter train station in Mumbai. Last week, co-star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail's home was demolished, part of a pre-monsoon slum clearance drive.

Rubina and her parents have been staying with relatives. Azhar, 10, and his family have tied tarpaulins and blankets around a thin wood frame for shelter in the Garib Nagar " "city of the poor" " slum where both families live.

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Alaska gets tough with man who feeds bruins at his remote "Bear Haven" cabin

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) " Charlie Vandergaw is crazy about bears.

That's obvious in a documentary made last year by a British filmmaker at Vandergaw's remote Alaska cabin and featured in the recent Animal Planet series "Stranger Among Bears." The videos show him scratching the belly of one black bear as if it was the family dog, feeding a cookie to a large black bear sitting under a tree, and feeding dog kibble to a cub from his outstretched hand.

Vandergaw has been coexisting with bears this way for the last 20 years, and he wants to be left alone.

That is not likely to happen now that the state is using a beefed-up law to prosecute Vandergaw for feeding bears. Game officials consider feeding bears a danger to humans, especially if others duplicate the behavior.

Not everyone thinks the state needs to be going after a 70-year-old retired teacher and wrestling coach.