NPR 2010-11-08

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President Obama today promised to make "midcourse corrections" following his party's election losses last week. He did not provide specifics. Mr. Obama spoke¹ in Mumbai, India on the second day of a ten-day-long Asian tour. NPR's Corey Flintoff reports the president and the first lady managed to get in some sightseeing today.
Followed by a swarm² of photographers, the president and the first lady visited a 16th-century mausoleum in New Delhi that's widely considered to be an architectural precursor³ to the famed Taj Mahal. The president pronounced the monumental building to be "spectacular" and noted⁴ that it took only seven years to build. He joked that it would be hard to get something like that built in the United States in the same time frame and said the tomb was a work of good contractors⁵. Earlier in the day, the Obamas were greeted at the New Delhi airport by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It's unusual for a head of government to greet visiting dignitaries at the airport, but the prime minister accorded a similar honor to President Bush when he visited India in 2006. Corey Flintoff, NPR News, New Delhi.
President Obama is scheduled to travel to Indonesia Tuesday. But White House officials are keeping an eye on Mount Merapi. The volcano has been erupting for two weeks now. Julia Simon reports that many international flights to Indonesia are canceled because of volcanic⁶ ash.
Most domestic flights are still operating but many international flights to Indonesia are canceled because of fears of volcanic ash from the eruption⁷. That ash from the Merapi volcano has blown west, as far as the western Java city of Bandung. In Bali, flights are booked solid for several days because many passengers have re-routed trips from Java to the neighboring island. The volcano continues to rumble⁸ in central Java and Indonesians say this is Merapi's worst eruption in a century. Over 100 have died and hundreds of thousands are displaced. For NPR News, I'm Julia Simon in Jakarta.
Iran today proposed another round of international talks on its nuclear program. The Iranian foreign minister said Turkey is willing to host the discussions. Negotiations⁹ had broken down a year ago with the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. The six powers suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons and wants Iran to stop enriching uranium which could be used for warheads. Iran maintains it's developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Pakistani intelligence officials say US missile strikes have killed at least nine suspected militants¹⁰. The drone attacks took place in the main town in the North Waziristan tribal¹¹ region home to hundreds of Pakistani and foreign militants, many with ties to Taliban and al-Qaeda. The groups have been known to attack US troops across the border in Afghanistan.
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Greeks voted today in regional elections. Early returns show the Socialist¹² Party of Prime Minister George Papandreou is leading. He has said that he would call for early general elections if he didn't get enough public support for his stringent¹³ austerity measures.
Police in Germany today clash with anti-nuclear activists¹⁴ over a trainload of German nuclear waste being reprocessed in France. Eleanor Beardsley reports the train is carrying 123 tons of waste.
German activists chained themselves to the tracks today to try to keep the train from unloading its shipment. Protestors also rappelled down a high bridge. Police used water cannons¹⁵ and pepper spray to try to push back about 4,000 anti-nuclear activists. Germany receives waste shipments roughly every year under an agreement that sees spent fuel sent to France for reprocessing and returned for storage. Chancellor¹⁶ Angela Merkel is extending the life of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors¹⁷. She says that's necessary to keep energy cheap and readily available as the country works to develop renewable energy resources. But activists say the waste and containers storing it are unsafe. Saturday at least 25,000 protestors demonstrated against the shipment in the northern town of Dannenberg, the largest anti-nuclear protest in German history. For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.
Queen Elizabeth is joining Facebook. Buckingham Palace officials say her site will become available tomorrow, providing videos, photos and news items of the 84-year-old monarch¹⁸ and other members of the royal family. However, since this will be a corporate¹⁹ account, not a personal account on Facebook, people won't be able to ask to "friend" the Queen.