Oscar-Tango | despardes.com

Hillary collapses during speech
BUFFALO, NY, JAN 31: US Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton collapsed Monday during a speech on Social Security, a radio station reported.

According to the report, Clinton told the crowd she was feeling weak and had had a stomach virus. Clinton started to speak then collapsed.

Clinton, 57, was treated by an emergency crew at the scene and declined to be taken to a hospital. She was scheduled to speak later Monday at a Catholic college about health care. Several hundred people were waiting to hear that address. There were also hundreds of anti-abortion protesters waiting at the college.Clinton's 58-year-old husband underwent quadruple bypass surgery in September.

U.S. OFFICIAL: ISRAEL MIGHT ATTACK IRAN'S NUKE SITES
American envoy John Bolton, the State Department's top international security official, repeated U.S. allegations Monday about an Iranian nuclear weapons program and said Israel might attack Iran's nuclear sites because the Jewish state has "a history" of such actions.

"The vice president said we're very concerned that this might happen," Bolton said, referring to a recent statement by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Israel destroyed the Osirak reactor in Iraq. They have a history of this," Bolton said.

Earlier this month Cheney said it was possible Israel might attack Iran if it became convinced Tehran posed a nuclear threat.

Israel's nuclear weapons program is thought to include about 200 warheads deployed on ballistic missiles and aircraft and on three submarines, according to the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Israel is also believed to stock chemical and biological weapons, according to the Carnegie Endowment and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which track such issues.

Israeli officials do not comment on the country's nuclear weapons potential.

"Israel isn't a threat to the United States. We don't treat different cases the same," he said, adding that the United States favors "a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction."

Developing...

Gitmo detentions 'unconstitutional'
JAN 31: A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that the Guantanamo Bay terrorism suspects can challenge their confinement and the procedures in their military tribunal review process are unconstitutional. According to U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green, the prisoners at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have constitutional protections under U.S. law. Bush administration attorneys argued the prisoners have no constitutional rights and their lawsuits challenging the conditions of their confinement and seeking their release must be dismissed.

Green also ruled that some of the suspects have brought valid claims under the Geneva Convention, the international treaty protecting the rights of prisoners of war.

Her ruling probably will not be the final word on the issue. A different federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19 dismissed the cases of seven Guantanamo prisoners on the grounds they had no recognizable constitutional rights and were subject to the military review process.

The cases could be appealed to the U.S. appeals court, and then ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Audits: US lost $9 billion in Iraq
JAN 31: The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found. But the official who led the CPA, L. Paul Bremer III, submitted a blistering, written reply to the findings, saying the report had "many misconceptions and inaccuracies," and lacked professional judgment.The report said the occupation authorities failed to ensure funds were not used to pay "ghost" employees and cited one example where occupation officials authorized payment for about 74,000 guards but only a fraction of these could later be validated. In another example, about $1.5 billion in cash allocations was made to Iraqi banks between January and April 2004 for operating expenses, yet spending plans supported only about $498 million in these expenses.

One of the main benefactors of Iraq funds was Texas-based firm Halliburton, which was paid about $1.7 billion dollars out of those funds to bring in fuel for Iraqi civilians. UN auditors have asked for a full accounting of these funds.