theSun | THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20 2008 9

news without borders

Obama taps first

African-American AG
WASHINGTON: US
president-elect Barack
Obama has tapped
longtime lawyer Eric
Holder to be attorney
general, who if
confirmed would
become the first
African-American
to hold the post,
US media said on
Tuesday.
Holder (pix), who
served as deputy attorney
general under former
president Bill Clinton, has
accepted Obama’s invitation to
head the Justice Department,
Newsweek magazine said,
citing legal sources close to the
presidential transition.
The report was later
confirmed by NBC news.
“Obama offered Holder
the job and he accepted,”
Newsweek said, adding that “the
announcement is not likely until
after Obama announces his
choices to lead the Treasury and
State departments.”
Holder faces Senate
confirmation hearings
in order to officially
take on the post.
Holder, 57, is
a partner in the
Washington law
firm of Covington
and Burling. He has
served as a superior
court judge in the
nation’s capital and was
named the capital’s US
attorney by former president
Clinton before taking the post of
deputy attorney general under
Janet Reno in 1997.
Newsweek reporter Michael
Isikoff, who broke the story, said
Holder “lives and breathes the
culture of the Justice Depart-
ment”. “He served for years
in the public integrity section
of the Justice Department,
and prosecuting political
corruption,” Isikoff said.
The current US attorney gen-
eral is Michael Mukasey. – AFP

Cheney indicted by Texas grand jury

WASHINGTON: A local Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick
Cheney and former US attorney general Alberto Gonzales on charges con-
nected to the alleged abuse of inmates in a private prison system, Texas
newspaper Brownsville Herald reported on its website on Tuesday.
It said the grand jury in Willacy County, hearing evidence presented
by District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, returned several counts against
Cheney and Gonzales as well as Texas officials including a state senator
and state district judges.
The indictment cites Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group, a ma-
jor brokerage and mutual fund firm with financial interests in private prison
companies that run federal detention centres, the paper reported.
It charged that Cheney had a conflict of interest and was responsible
for “at least misdemeanour assaults” on detainees. Gonzales, who was
US attorney general from 2005-07 under US President George W. Bush,
is charged with using his influence to halt an investigation into alleged
abuses at the prisons, the Herald reported. – dpa

Biggest active underground thermal lake

BUDAPEST: An underground thermal lake Hungarian officials say
is one of the biggest in the world was unveiled on Tuesday after
its discovery below a Turkish bath in the capital Budapest.
“This is the biggest active, water-filled thermal water cave and
hall in the world,” speleologist Sandor Kalinovits, one of the lake’s
discoverers, said during a tour of the cave below one of Budapest’s
more affluent residential districts.
The lake, discovered earlier this year, lies in a subterranean
hall 86m long, 27m wide and 15m high and belongs to the Janos
Molnar cave. Budapest is built above a labyrinth of caves filled
with warm thermal water and many have only partially been
explored. City officials plan to apply to Unesco to declare the cave
system a World Heritage Site. – Reuters

Ban expresses concern over Gaza

NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Israel’s prime minis-
ter on Tuesday he was deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation
in Gaza and urged Israel to allow UN aid workers into the territory.
“The secretary-general today telephoned Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert to express his deep concern over the consequences of
the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza,” the UN press office
said in a statement. “He strongly urged the prime minister to facilitate
the freer movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies and of
concerned United Nations personnel into Gaza.”
Olmert denounced the continuing rocket fire into Israel from Gaza,
but “agreed to look seriously into the urgent matter” raised by Ban, the
statement said. – Reuters

Chen out of hospital

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s former president Chen Shui-bian was released
from hospital and sent back to a detention centre yesterday, as he
entered the second week of a hunger strike to protest his arrest
on graft allegations.
Chen left the hospital by ambulance while dozens of support-
ers gathered and honked air horns as he was driven back to the
detention centre. Doctors said earlier yesterday that Chen’s condi-
tion had visibly improved although he was still refusing to eat.
Chen was rushed to hospital on Sunday suffering from dehy-
dration, four days after going on hunger strike in protest at what
he says are politically-motivated allegations against him.
Chen, whose pro-independence stance in office set him against
Beijing, has repeatedly accused the island’s China-friendly govern-
ment of being behind the allegations. – AFP