Bush and Cheney, Together Again at Groundbreaking - New York Times

In their first public appearance together since leaving office, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney heaped praise on each other, putting behind them the tension of their final days in the White House when they fought over the president’s refusal to pardon the vice president’s ex-chief of staff. In his new memoir, Mr. Bush wrote that he worried that the fight had fractured their friendship.

Addressing a crowd of 2,500 supporters and Bush administration veterans, Mr. Cheney said the response to Mr. Bush’s book showed that the country had begun to re-evaluate him.

“Two years after you left office, judgments are a little more measured than they were,” Mr. Cheney said. “When times have been tough or the critics have been loud, you’ve always said you had faith in history’s judgment, and history is beginning to come around.”

Mr. Bush responded by hailing his No. 2 and recalling the decision to ask him to be the running mate in 2000. “As I stand here,” Mr. Bush said, “there is no doubt in my mind he was the right pick then, he was a great vice president of the United States and I’m proud to call him friend.”

Until this week, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had seen each other just once in private since President Obama was inaugurated. Mr. Cheney’s attendance was a rare public appearance since his long hospital stay for heart trouble this year. He appeared much thinner in his face and body, more hesitant in his gait, and he used a cane, although he put it aside when it came time to approach the lectern. After the speeches and ceremonial dirt turning, he quickly departed, while other luminaries lingered.

His daughter Liz Cheney said Mr. Cheney, 69, was gaining back his strength. “He lost weight when he was in the hospital this summer, as most people do, but he is feeling great and enjoying working on his book, and hanging out with his grandkids,” she said after the event.

His dry wit seemed intact as he took a poke at Mr. Obama’s recent admission that there were no such things as shovel-ready public works projects. Referring to the groundbreaking, he said, “This may be the only shovel-ready project in America.”

Mr. Bush, on the other hand, left his successor unscathed, as he has since leaving Washington.

“I believe the ultimate responsibility of a leader is to not do what is easy or popular but to do what is necessary and right,” Mr. Bush told the crowd. “The decisions of governing are on another president’s desk, and he deserves to make them without criticism from me. But staying out of current affairs and politics does not mean staying out of policy.”

Mr. Bush plans to use a public policy institute that will be housed at the center along with the traditional presidential library and museum to advance four causes he adopted as his own while in office: human freedom, global health, economic growth and education. He has also started a women’s initiative led by his wife, Laura Bush.

“He’s energized,” Andrew H. Card Jr., his first White House chief of staff, said in an interview. “He’s very much at peace. He’s reliving, but he’s not second-guessing. And he’s not opining. This is not a political event.”

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Indonesia disaster toll hits 377 as volcano erupts again - Reuters

Mount Merapi is seen emitting smoke from Sidorejo village, in Klaten, Central Java October 28, 2010, two days after its eruption.

Credit: Reuters/Andry Prasetyo

By Renjani Puspo Sari

JAKARTA | Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:28pm EDT

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupted on Thursday for the second time in a week, blasting vast plumes of ash into the sky, as the death toll from the initial eruption and a tsunami that hit remote western islands reached 377.

There were no immediate reports of new casualties after Merapi's second eruption. More than 40,000 people had fled or been evacuated from Merapi's slopes earlier in the week, but many started to return after the volcano appeared to become calmer.

Officials said the death toll from a tsunami that hit the remote western Mentawai islands on Monday had reached at least 343. The tsunami was triggered on Monday by a 7.5 magnitude quake. A day later, Mount Merapi on the outskirts of Yogyakarta city on Java island erupted, killing at least 34.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who had been due to take part in a summit of Asian leaders in Hanoi from Thursday to Saturday, flew back to Indonesia after the twin disasters.

"The president was very moved when he met the victims of the tsunami and earthquake," Yudhoyono's spokesman, Julian Pasha, told Reuters, adding that the president planned to return to Hanoi before Saturday.

"He has issued instructions for all aid to continue to flow in without disruption."

Parts of an early warning system installed after a huge 2004 tsunami killed more than 226,000 people had been stolen but overall the system still worked, said the head of the meteorological agency, Sri Woro Harijono.

"Yes, some of our sensors disappear because they are stolen, such as seismographs and solar cells," she said. "But it is just one or three sensors out of 100. The system works fine."

Local media reported that parts of the tsunami early warning system had not worked properly because they had been vandalized or removed, while Metro TV broadcast footage of villagers questioning the effectiveness of the warning system.

"This has also been reported to the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology but we also need to make sure this information is verified properly," said Pasha.

"We know that when the quake happened, within 10 minutes this enormous tsunami came. So maybe the speed with which it came meant that the early warning system didn't work."

Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Mount Merapi killed 1,300 people in 1930.

In December 2004, a tsunami caused by an earthquake of more than 9 magnitude off Sumatra killed more than 226,000 people. It was the deadliest tsunami on record.

(Writing by Sunanda Creagh, editing by Andrew Marshall)

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Social Security benefits again won't go up - Washington Post

For the second year in a row, the nearly 54 million retirees and other Americans who receive Social Security benefits will not get any cost-of-living increase in 2011 in their monthly checks, government officials announced Friday, renewing debate over whether the system offers enough help in a weak economy.

The absence of any growth in Social Security checks for consecutive years is unprecedented in the 31/2 decades that payments have been adjusted automatically based on the nation's inflation rate.

The news that retirement benefits will remain static was part of a trio of developments on Friday that drew attention to lingering effects of the recession. Taken together, the new reminders of the country's economic fragility carry large political stakes, coming 21/2 weeks before a midterm election in which the deficit and jobs are paramount concerns among voters.

In the White House and on Capitol Hill, Democrats immediately responded with fresh calls to give extra money to older Americans, a potent voting bloc, and other people who depend on Social Security. Republicans disparaged the idea, contending that it would deepen the deficit and skirt a more fundamental need to put the retirement system on solid financial footing for the long term.

While the parties argued in Washington, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled during a speech in Boston that the Fed was prepared to undertake a new round of unconventional efforts to spur economic growth, with inflation persistently low and unemployment high.

Separately, the Obama administration reported that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended in September hit $1.29 trillion, in part because of lagging tax collections. The budget gap was lower than the record of $1.4 trillion for 2009 but, as a percentage of the overall economy, was the second-highest since World War II.

The static Social Security payments are a side effect of the nation's low inflation. The Social Security Administration made its announcement moments after the Labor Department released the latest figures for the consumer price index. They show that prices for the third quarter of this year rose by 1.5 percent compared with a year earlier, but fell by 0.6 percent compared with the same period in 2008.

Last year marked the first time consumer prices fell since the automatic adjustment formula has existed, and Social Security recipients did not get an increase in their checks.

This year, the picture is more complicated. Consumer prices have risen slightly from a year ago. But under the government rules, consumer prices must have risen past their level when the last Social Security increase was awarded - in this case, 2008 - for another boost in benefits to take effect. The Labor figures show they did not increase that much.

About 73,000 District residents receive Social Security benefits, while Maryland and Virginia have about 826,000 and 1.2 million beneficiaries, respectively.

Leaders of the AARP, the influential lobby of Americans age 50 and older, said the organization has been deluged lately with complaints from members who depend on Social Security.

"It's like being stuck in neutral," said John Walker, 62, of South Arlington, who was laid off in 2008 from his trucking job and now lives on veterans' benefits and the early Social Security payments he began to collect this year. "I have the same income, but . . . seems like the basic necessities we have from day-to-day living go up. I don't think it's fair."

In early 2009, as part of its efforts to stimulate the economy, Congress approved a one-time $250 payment for each person on Social Security, even though the size of monthly checks had gone up that January by nearly 6 percent.

In his 2011 budget, President Obama proposed another such payment, and many congressional Democrats, courting older voters before the elections, have called for the same thing. So far, Congress has not acted.

On Friday, the White House renewed its call for another payment. "Many seniors are struggling in the face of the economic downturn, having seen their savings fall," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "Today's news that the Social Security Administration will for a second year not provide a cost of living adjustment for social security benefits highlights these struggles."

In July, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee's Social Security subcommittee, introduced legislation to provide a $250 payment to the program's recipients, at a cost of about $14 billion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she will schedule a vote on the measure when lawmakers return for a lame-duck session after the election. The legislation has 127 Democratic co-sponsors and none who are Republican.

In the Senate, which defeated a similar proposal in March, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that chamber would consider a $250 payment in its lame-duck session, as well.

GOP leaders oppose the idea. Don Stewart, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said, "He has a real deficit concern about this," noting that the $14 billion price tag is greater than the entire Kentucky state budget.

House Republican leaders on Friday avoided direct comments on the $250 payments. Instead, they attacked Democrats for not passing a measure earlier, if it was a priority for that party.

And Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on Ways and Means, said: "It will be difficult for many seniors to deal with the lack of a COLA for a second year in a row, but that will pale in comparison to the actual hardships future Social Security recipients will experience if Congress continues to ignore the program's underlying financial problems."

In addition to the nation's 38 million retirees age 65 and older, the lack of a cost-of-living adjustment will affect several other groups of people. They include family members of workers who died prematurely who receive Social Security survivors' benefits, as well as people who qualify for Social Security disability payments.

The formula that determines whether Social Security payments go up also is applied to benefits paid to retired and disabled veterans and retired railroad workers.

The typical retiree receives a Social Security payment of nearly $1,200 per month, or roughly $14,400 a year. A $250 payment would amount to a 1.7 percent increase.

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Key NATO supply route hit again in Pakistan - The Associated Press

Key NATO supply route hit again in PakistanBy ZARAR KHAN (AP) – 40 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD — Suspected militants attacked and set fire to around 20 tankers carrying oil for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Monday, the third such strike inside Pakistan in as many days, police said.

The attack took place on a supply line that has been closed by Pakistani authorities in protest at a NATO helicopter attack that killed three Pakistan troops on the border last week.

It will raise the stakes in the closure, which has exacerbated tensions between Washington and Islamabad but has been welcomed by Islamist groups opposed to Pakistan's support off the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

Police officer Umer Hayat said two people were killed in the attack close to the capital Islamabad by what he called "terrorists." The attackers opened fire on trucks that were parked at a poorly guarded terminal before setting them afire, he and other officers said.

The trucks were en route or waiting to travel to the Torkham border crossing along the fabled Khyber Pass, which is used to bring fuel, military vehicles, spare parts, clothing and other non-lethal supplies for foreign troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan's other main route into landlocked Afghanistan, in Chaman in the southwest, has remained open.

While NATO and the United States have alternative supply routes into Afghanistan, the Pakistani ones are the cheapest and most convenient. Most of the coalition's non-lethal supplies are transported over Pakistani soil after being unloaded at docks in Karachi, a port city in the south.

On Friday, a day after the closure of the Khyber Pass route to NATO and US traffic, there were two attacks on oil tankers headed to the country. The convoys take several days to reach the border after setting off from Karachi and make frequent stops.

Over the past two years they often have been attacked by militants, mostly in the northwestern border region where militants are strongest. They also have been targeted by criminals, who can sell the clothing, vehicles and other equipment they carry.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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