Obama mistaken on name of Nazi death camp

By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 20 minutes ago

NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. - The Barack Obama campaign said Tuesday the candidate mistakenly referred to the wrong Nazi death camp when relating the story of a great-uncle who helped liberate the camps in World War II.

The Democratic presidential candidate said the story is accurate except that the camp was Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.

"Senator Obama's family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II — especially the fact that his great-uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald," campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically."

Aides said Tuesday that his grandmother's brother, Charlie Payne, helped liberate a Buchenwald sub-camp in April 1945 as part of the 89th Infantry Division.

In a meeting Monday with veterans, Obama discussed the importance of improving treatment for soldiers suffering post-traumatic stress. To illustrate his point, he talked about his own family.

"I had an uncle who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps. The story in our family was that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months," Obama said. "Now, obviously something had really affected him, but at that time there just weren't the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain."

Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet forces as they marched across Poland in January 1945. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says Americans liberated several death camps in Germany, including Buchenwald, Dachau and Mauthausen.

"On April 4, 1945, the 89th overran Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Ohrdruf was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops in Germany," according to the museum. "A week later, on April 12, Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, and Omar Bradley visited Ohrdruf to see, firsthand, evidence of Nazi atrocities against concentration camp prisoners."

Obama's mistaken mention of the camp on Monday quickly generated Internet chatter, ranging from puzzlement to outrage. The Republican Party demanded an explanation.

"It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there's no way Obama's statement yesterday can be true," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

Parents’ Grief Turns to Rage at Chinese Officials

By ANDREW JACOBS

Published: May 28, 2008

DUJIANGYAN, China — Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms during the earthquake in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protests in recent days, forcing officials to address growing political repercussions over shoddy construction of public schools.

Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

Jiang Guohua, the Communist Party boss of Mianzhu, knelt Sunday to ask parents of earthquake victims to abandon their protest. More Photos »

Parents of the estimated 10,000 children who lost their lives in the quake have grown so enraged about collapsed schools that they have overcome their usual caution about confronting Communist Party officials. Many say they are especially upset that some schools for poor students crumbled into rubble even though government offices and more elite schools not far away survived the May 12 quake largely intact.

On Tuesday, an informal gathering of parents at Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan to commemorate their children gave way to unbridled fury. One of the fathers in attendance, a quarry worker named Liu Lifu, grabbed the microphone and began calling for justice. His 15-year-old daughter, Liu Li, was killed along with her entire class during a biology lesson.

“We demand that the government severely punish the killers who caused the collapse of the school building,” he shouted. “Please, everyone sign the petition so we can find out the truth.”

The crowd grew more agitated. Some parents said local officials had known for years that the school was unsafe but refused to take action. Others recalled that two hours passed before rescue workers showed up; even then, they stopped working at 10 p.m. on the night of the earthquake and did not resume the search until 9 a.m. the next day.

Although there is no official casualty count, only 13 of the school’s 900 students came out alive, parents said. “The people responsible for this should be brought here and have a bullet put in their head,” said Luo Guanmin, a farmer who was cradling a photo of his 16-year-old daughter, Luo Dan.

Sharp confrontations between protesters and officials began over the weekend in several towns in northern Sichuan. Hundreds of parents whose children died at the Fuxin No. 2 Primary School in the city of Mianzhu staged an impromptu rally on Saturday. They surrounded an official who tried to assure them that their complaints were being taken seriously, screaming and yelling in her face until she fainted.

The next day, the Communist Party’s top official in Mianzhu came out to talk with the parents and to try to stop them from marching to Chengdu, the provincial capital, where they sought to prevail on higher-level authorities to investigate. The local party boss, Jiang Guohua, dropped to his knees and pleaded with them to abandon the protest, but the parents shouted in his face and continued their march.

Later, as the crowd surged into the hundreds, some parents clashed with the police, leaving several bleeding and trembling with emotion.

The protests threaten to undermine the government’s attempts to promote its response to the quake as effective and to highlight heroic rescue efforts by the People’s Liberation Army, which has dispatched 150,000 soldiers to the region. Censors have blocked detailed reporting of the schools controversy by the state-run media, but a photo of Mr. Jiang kneeling before protesters has become a sensation on some Web forums, bringing national attention to the incident.

One of China’s boldest magazines, the business journal Caijing, used its main commentary article in its latest issue to call on the government to step up investigations of faulty school construction. Xinhua, the official news agency, also issued a commentary saying a speedy official response was warranted.

The authorities in Beijing appear to recognize the delicacy of the issue. On Monday, a spokesman for the Education Ministry, Wang Xuming, promised a reassessment of school buildings in quake zones, adding that those responsible for cutting corners on school construction would be “severely punished.”

Local officials across Sichuan have also bowed to the pressure.

In Beichuan, officials announced an investigation into the collapse of a middle school there that killed 1,300 children.

Nepal is set to become republic

Many Nepalese are looking forward to becoming the world's newest republic

Nepal is due to become a republic and end 240 years of royal rule.

A newly-elected assembly is to meet in the capital, Kathmandu, with the tasks of abolishing the monarchy and preparing a new national constitution.

As the assembly was being sworn in on Tuesday a bomb explosion in the capital injured two people.

The assembly is huge and the ceremony, performed by an older member of the newly-elected body, saw 575 men and women being sworn in.

Many wore traditional clothing and used their mother tongues for the occasion in this ethnically mixed country.

Just 26 more members have yet to be nominated by the biggest parties.

Leave the palace

Nepal stands on the brink of huge change, says the BBC's Charles Haviland in the capital Kathmandu.

[The king] has no choice, but if he refuses to leave the palace we will use the law to force him out of there Baburam Bhattarai Maoist deputy leader

The assembly has been given the initial task of rubber-stamping the abolition of the monarchy.

Reports said King Gyanendra and Queen Komal were seen driving out of the royal palace on Tuesday afternoon, but it was not clear where they were going or for how long they would be gone.

Senior politicians have urged the monarch to leave the palace peacefully, but some have said force might be used if that does not happen.

"He has no choice, but if he refuses to leave the palace we will use the law to force him out of there," said Baburam Bhattarai, the deputy leader of the Maoists, Nepal's former rebels.

"Once a republic is declared the king will automatically lose his position and place in the palace," he told the Associated Press

Exactly how a republic will be voted in is still not clear.

Nepal's progress towards becoming the world's newest republic has been marred by bombs being planted in the capital for two days running this week.

On Tuesday, two explosive devices were left in a city centre park, but police said only one exploded, slightly injuring two people.

As before, pamphlets were found in the name of a little-known hardline Hindu group.

Some militant pro-Hindu and pro-royal factions are campaigning violently against Nepal's shedding of its royal - and its officially Hindu - status. (BBC)

Clintons campaign in Puerto Rico

PONCE, Puerto Rico - Hillary Rodham Clinton ended a three-day campaign swing across Puerto Rico the same way many Americans mark Memorial Day — with family, friends and a salute to the sacrifices of military men and women.

Clinton, who is trying despite the odds against her to catch up to Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, visited with Laura Santiago Suarez and Carlos Rivera Figueroa. Residents of a public housing project in Bayamon, the couple talked about their 21-year-old son, Jonathan, a soldier awaiting redeployment for another tour in Iraq.

Sitting in the living room of their apartment, Clinton said that once she is president she will end the war so "you will not have to worry about him going back to Iraq." She also talked about the high cost of electricity and gas in Puerto Rico, and said she wanted to see the island use solar and wind energy.

Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, also reunited with a family that received federal aid after Hurricane Georges in 1998. As first lady, Hillary Clinton had visited them to see how the storm affected Puerto Ricans.

It is the Clintons' long history with Puerto Rico — and Hispanic voters in general — that gives Clinton a decided edge in the island's presidential primary on June 1, not to mention that her home state of New York has approximately 1 million Puerto Ricans.

But Clinton needs something approaching a mathematical miracle to catch Obama in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Puerto Rico has 55 delegates at stake in its primary, but Obama had a total of 1,977 to Clinton's 1,779, according to the latest Associated Press tally. He was just 49 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination.

As Clinton wrapped up her Puerto Rican swing, Obama marked Memorial Day in New Mexico, a battleground state in the general election.

Obama told a group of veterans that he cannot know what it's like to walk into battle or lose a child in combat, since he has experienced neither, but he said he is committed to strengthening the military and improving veterans' services.

"As president of the United States, I will not let you down," he promised.

Obama said President Bush is asking the troops to do too much with too little, such as interacting with civilians without the necessary translators and handling nation-building tasks that could be done by the State Department and other agencies.

"We're asking them to be teachers, social workers, engineers, diplomats. That's not what they're trained to do," the Illinois senator said during a town hall-style meeting at the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces.

Heavy use of private contractors, such as Blackwater, also hurts troops, Obama said. Contractors are paid many times what U.S. personnel make, but they aren't subject to the same rules and their misconduct inflames anti-American sentiment, he said. And when troops return home, the Bush administration doesn't do enough to help those suffering from combat stress or to help them get civilian jobs, Obama said.

After his town hall event, Obama and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson laid wreaths at a memorial to the state's fallen soldiers. The wind knocked over the wreaths, scattering the flowers, and Obama and Richardson propped the wreaths against the monument and gathered the stray flowers.

They shook hands with onlookers, including a color guard of veterans, and Obama thanked them for their service.

In Puerto Rico, Clinton also spoke at a rally of union members from AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

"Puerto Rico should support Hillary because she understands you better," Bill Clinton told the crowd. The former president and the couple's daughter, Chelsea, will remain in Puerto Rico while Hillary Clinton heads to South Dakota and Montana, which hold the final primaries a week from Tuesday.

She ended her trip in San Juan at a ceremony to add names to a dark marble monument for Puerto Ricans who died fighting in the U.S. military.

The memorial, she told the crowd, shows why Puerto Ricans should be allowed a greater voice in the U.S. government. Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the general election for president.

"That is an injustice and an insult to the thousands and thousands of Puerto Ricans who have served America with heroism and honor," Clinton said.

Not all Puerto Ricans were happy with Clinton's visit.

Jorge Pedroza, president of the Council of Vietnam Veterans of Puerto Rico, said he was upset that she waited until the third day of her campaign swing to meet with veterans. He noted that Obama's first stop during his appearance Saturday was to visit with veterans.

"If she's here honoring the dead, what about the living?" Pedroza said. (By DEVLIN BARRETT)