NPR 2010-01-18

From NPR News in Washington, I am Lakshmi Singh.

Five days after the earthquake in Haiti, search and rescue teams continue to look for survivors 1. NPR's Jackie Northam is traveling with a rescue convoy 3 about 40 miles outside the Haitian capital. She says a couple of factors are keeping rescuers hopeful.

You know they really are down to a critical time point now. The heat isn't as that as it could be at this time of year, also they say people are calling them in areas where they have air around them, in another word, some, some kind of bubble if you like, and they kind of move around until they are getting air, but the problem is actually getting to these places is such a slow process to do search and rescue.

NPR's Jackie Northam reporting.

Heighten security issues are now becoming a concern in Haiti's capital. One of the prisons in Port-au-Prince was destroyed in the earthquake allowing prisoners to break out. NPR's Amy Walter reports local police shot and killed four men who were believed to be escaped prisoners.

The police had pulled up in a pick-up truck, told these individuals to, to run out into what was actually a cemetery 4 and directly running into the cemetery, and they shot them, they shot them all, and that's, that's how Haiti right now is dealing 5 with the security problem. For me, it's not clear who is a prisoner, who is not, but the police evidently thought these people were prisoners and the day where they are dealing with the security problem is shooting them onsite. What the onlookers 6 said, they said they supported it, there is too much of security, potential security problem in Haiti. They didn't want these people to be more of problem in already unstable 7 situation.

NPR's Amy Walters reporting from Port-au-Prince.

President Obama spoke 8 about the work of slain 9 civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. before a church congregation on the eve of a federal holiday marking King's birthday. At the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church, Mr. Obama said some progress is better than none.

"Sometimes I get a little frustrated 10 when folks just don't want see that even if we don't get everything, we are getting something."

The president later flew to Massachusetts where he is expected to campaign for the Democratic candidate who is in a tight race for the Senate's seat of the late Senator Edward Kennedy. The special election is Tuesday. 

In some of the most blood public comments made to a pontiff, the Jewish leader in Italy told Pope Benedict XVI today that the Rome Catholic Church should have fought harder during World War Two to prevent Jews from being "transported to the ovens of Auschwitz" and that the church's silence all those years ago still hurts. Pope Benedict, during his first-ever visit to Rome Synagogue to heal Jewish-Catholic relations, defended the church's wartime record. He said the Vatican had provided assistance and often "did it in a hidden and discreet 11 way."

From Washington, this is NPR News.

Voters in Ukraine are taking part in their first presidential election since the 2004 Orange Revolution when pro-democracy protesters took to the streets. Exit polls indicate that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is trailing pro-Russian opposition 12 leader Viktor Yanukovych. Both of whom will likely compete in a run-off. The Reuters news service's report said Tymoshenko says she is prepared to reach out to former presidential candidates for their support in the second round of voting.

As Britain's enquiry into the Iraq War continues, a letter to be submitted to the investigator 13 of panel was released revealing that then Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned about meeting with President Bush a year before the war. The letter advised an invasion would quite likely be illegal. Larry Miller 14 has details from London.

The letter marks secret and personal was written by then Foreign Secretary Jack 2 Straw and sent to Tony Blair ten days before a meeting with President Bush at Crawford, Texas. The letter shows that a year before the invasion Blair was planning for an Iraq war, even though he was telling the British no decision had yet been made. Straw wrote the rewards for your visit to Crawford would be few and the political risks are high for both Blair and the British government. Straw said that threat from Iraq was no difference from those posed by Iran or North Korea. He wrote regime change is no justification 15 for military action. He also said that the big question is what will war achieve. Straw concluded there can be no certainty that any regime replacing Saddam Hussein would be any better. For NPR News, I am Larry Miller in London.

The Iraqi government has finalized 16 a deal with a group led by Royal Dutch Shell to develop a major oilfield and similar agreements are expected this month.

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