Blair makes final call for climate control

LONDON -- Tony Blair, in his last news conference as British prime minister, joined California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday in calling for world leaders to take action on climate change.

"We can show leadership," Schwarzenegger said, while praising Blair's own policies.

In Europe, the governor's appeals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are seen as a sign of growing popular support in the United States to combat global warming, even if critics say the Bush administration has been reluctant to do so.

Last year, Schwarzenegger signed a law committing California to reducing its emissions by 25 percent by 2020. He visited Blair after meeting Monday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has made global warming issues a priority.

Blair said he saw "growing popular will" around the world for individuals, businesses and governments to reduce their carbon footprint. He also rejected arguments that a choice must be made between economic growth and a reduction in emissions. "It is a false choice," Blair said.

Women journalists targeted as violence surges in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Farida Nekzad began receiving menacing calls on her cell phone a half hour after arriving at the funeral of a fellow female journalist assassinated by gunmen.

" 'Daughter of America! We will kill you, just like we killed her,' " she quoted the man on the phone as saying as she stood near the maimed body of Zakia Zaki, the owner of a radio station north of Kabul.

Part of Zaki's face was blown away by three attackers who entered her home and shot her seven times with pistol and automatic rifle fire in front of her 8-year-old son this month.

" 'At least people can recognize her from one side of her face. We will shoot your face, and nobody will recognize you,' " Nekzad quoted the caller as saying before she hung up on him.

The lives of Afghan women and girls have improved vastly since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, who stripped women of most rights and made them virtual prisoners in their own houses.

In cities and some rural areas, women can now go to school and work outside the home. But this month has seen a rising number of attempts to quash these advances with threats and violence.

Venezuela signs oil agreements

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips refused to sign deals Tuesday to keep pumping heavy oil under tougher terms in Venezuela's Orinoco River basin, signaling their departure from one of the world's largest oil deposits.

Analysts said the move, however, won't have a major effect on supplies or lead to higher prices at U.S. pumps because production by the two companies will shift to other producers who agreed to the pacts.

Four major oil companies -- U.S.-based Chevron Corp., BP PLC, France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil ASA -- signed deals to accept minority shares in the oil projects under new terms set by President Hugo Chavez's government.

"Exxon Mobil is disappointed that we have been unable to reach an agreement on the terms," the Irving, Texas-based company said in a statement. "However, we continue discussions with the Venezuelan government on a way forward."

300 militants killed or wounded in fighting in Palestinian camp

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Some 300 Islamic militants have been killed or wounded in the monthlong battle with Lebanese troops in a Palestinian refugee camp, leaving only a few dozen fighters still hiding in the besieged camp, Defense Minister Elias Murr said Tuesday.

In an interview with the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, Murr said the Lebanese army has cornered the remaining members of the al-Qaida-inspired Fatah Islam group in a small section of the Nahr el-Bared camp, located near the northern port city of Tripoli.

The military now controls 80 percent of the camp, the minister said.

The army has captured about 40 militants of different nationalities, including those suspected of links to al-Qaida, Murr said. He said the group's leader, Shaker al-Absi, who has not been seen since fighting broke out May 20, was now taking residents as "human shields," though he gave no other details.

The fighting in Nahr el-Bared has been Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war, and is believed to have claimed the lives of at least 60 militants and more than 20 civilians.

It came amid a fierce power struggle between Lebanon's Western-backed government and the opposition led by the militant Hezbollah group.

Laura Bush: AIDS fight must also consider nutrition, malaria

DAKAR, Senegal -- First lady Laura Bush picked vegetables and handed out mosquito nets Tuesday to emphasize that fighting AIDS in Africa also means tackling some of the continent's even more widespread afflictions -- malnutrition and malaria.

"It's often overlooked that one of the essential things in the treatment of AIDS or HIV is good nutrition," she said after touring a garden whose produce is used to supplement the meals of AIDS patients at a Dakar hospital.

Mrs. Bush gave mosquito nets to AIDS patients as a doctor explained that insect-borne malaria -- the biggest killer in Senegal -- is even more dangerous for those who are HIV positive.

The first lady and her daughter Jenna are on a four-nation African tour in which Mrs. Bush is expected to focus on how the U.S. can help a poverty-stricken continent provide health care and economic opportunity. Mrs. Bush is also visiting Mozambique, Zambia and Mali on her third trip to Africa.

They were accompanied on Tuesday's visit by Senegal's first lady, Viviane Wade, and her daughter. The four women picked eggplants and kale at the Fann Hospital garden in this West African capital. AIDS patients at the hospital tend the garden, and they are instructed on how vegetables can boost their nutrition, and they are allowed to sell excess produce for income.

Assassins kill 2 more tribal leaders in Baghdad

BAGHDAD -- Two more tribal leaders were assassinated in Baghdad on Tuesday, a day after a bombing at a hotel downtown killed 13 people, including members of a Sunni Muslim council that recently had allied with U.S. forces fighting Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida.

Sheik Hamid Abdul Farhan al-Shujairi, a Sunni, was shot in a mainly Sunni area of Baghdad, police said. He reportedly had attended a conference several weeks ago supporting the government and fighting insurgents.

Gunmen murdered Hamid Abid Sarhan al-Shjiri, the sheik of the mixed Sunni-Shiite Shijirat tribe, while he sat in his car in the capital's southern al-Saidiyah neighborhood.

The deaths came as Iraqi authorities tried to determine how a bomber made it through a tight security cordon Monday at the Mansour Hotel and detonated explosives that killed at least six members of the Anbar Salvation Council, a Sunni tribal coalition that had been cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

Among the dead was Sheik Fasal al-Gaood, a council leader and former governor of Anbar province who had long advocated working with the United States before the U.S. military finally embraced his group late last year.

An al-Qaida-affiliated group in Egypt claimed responsibility for the blast, which devastated the Mansour's lobby, where al-Gaood and other Sunnis had gathered to meet with Shiite Muslim tribal leaders. Witnesses said they thought that a suicide bomber had set off the charge, though the scale of the destruction suggested that the bomber might have had assistance.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A4.