Gates: Obstructed efforts in Myanmar cost lives
SINGAPORE — Myanmar’s obstruction of international efforts to help cyclone victims cost “tens of thousands of lives,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday, reflecting the widespread frustration with the military government there.
With U.S. ships off the coast of Myanmar poised to leave because they have been blocked from delivering assistance to the ravaged country, Gates said the U.S. will continue to try to get aid in. In a speech to the annual Shangri-la Conference on International Security, he said the U.S. has not had problems helping other countries in natural disasters while still respecting their sovereignty.
U.S., Libya working on terrorism compensation
WASHINGTON — The United States and Libya agreed Friday to try to quickly compensate families of American victims of three terrorist attacks blamed on Libyan agents in the 1980s, a State Department official said Friday.
The settlement would speed up the resolution of lawsuits that have dragged on for two decades and clouded a deal that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi struck to give up weapons of mass destruction in return for improved relations with the United States. Libyan officials have become increasingly frustrated by what they regard as U.S. delays in making diplomatic and political concessions to Libya.
Chertoff says conventional terror arms key to focus
LONDON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff downplayed suggestions Friday that al-Qaida-inspired terrorists could launch a nuclear attack against the West, saying the U.S. was more concerned about their use of conventional arms.
Chertoff told students and journalists at London’s Oxford Union that while some Islamic militants appear interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction, they don’t yet pose a serious threat.
“In the immediate or near term, the focus is on conventional weapons, which can still be quite damaging. Something on the scale of 9/11 or the attacks on your transportation system. We have to look at the whole spectrum,” he said at the famed debating society.

goerie.com