World/Nation Briefs May 31, 2011

Obama settles on Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama moved Monday to seal an overhaul of his national security team, selecting Army Gen. Martin Dempsey as the next Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman amid protracted battle in Afghanistan, U.S. involvement in the NATO-led effort against Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and a winding down of the war in Iraq.

Obama announced a new lineup of his top military leadership group in the Rose Garden of the White House just before venturing across the Potomac to pay tribute to the nation's war dead at Arlington National Cemetery. The Memorial Day announcements had been expected, although there was no immediate indication what the military leadership moves might imply for possible changes in military strategy.

Already, the president had turned, in late April, to CIA Director Leon Panetta to succeed Robert Gates as secretary of defense and chose to move Army Gen. David Petraeus from his command of the Afghanistan war effort to the United States to replace Panetta at the CIA.

Germany to shut down all nuclear power plants

BERLIN - Europe's economic powerhouse, Germany, announced plans Monday to abandon nuclear energy over the next 11 years, outlining an ambitious strategy in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster to replace atomic power with renewable energy sources.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she hopes the transformation to more solar, wind and hydroelectric power serves as a roadmap for other countries.

"We believe that we can show those countries who decide to abandon nuclear power - or not to start using it - how it is possible to achieve growth, creating jobs and economic prosperity while shifting the energy supply toward renewable energies," Merkel said.

Merkel's government said it will shut down all 17 nuclear power plants in Germany - the world's fourth-largest economy and Europe's biggest - by 2022. The government had no immediate estimate of the transition's overall cost.

The plan sets Germany apart from most of the other major industrialized nations. Among the other Group of Eight countries, only Italy has abandoned nuclear power, which was voted down in a referendum after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Bombs targeting Italian basekill five Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber blew up an explosives-packed car at the gates of an Italian military base Monday in one of two attacks on the relatively secure western city of Herat, killing at least five Afghans in a major commercial center slated to be handed over by NATO to Afghan control in July.

The bombings claimed by the Taliban were the second major attack in three days as insurgents expand their targets outside the southern and eastern theaters that were the focus of American offensives last winter. In other violence around Afghanistan, four NATO service members were killed Monday.

Taliban attacks inside Herat are rare, though there are violence-prone districts on the city's outskirts. But insurgents have been increasing attacks around the country since the group announced its spring offensive in late April and reaching into areas that had been fairly quiet until now.

The expansion of Taliban assaults into new areas suggests that the insurgents are making a statement about their reach just as NATO is trying to shift some more secure areas of the country to Afghan control. The international alliance aims to transition cities or provinces piecemeal to reach the goal of total Afghan control by 2014.

Serbia's president pushes to join European Union

BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia's President Boris Tadic said Monday it's time the European Union did its part by boosting his nation's efforts to join the bloc, arguing the arrest of war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic proves it is serious about rejoining the international fold.

Tadic also rejected speculation that authorities had known of Mladic's hiding place, but delayed his arrest to coincide with a visit by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The rumors have persisted because Mladic was found living not far from the capital, Belgrade, with relatives who share his last name.

"Any such comment makes no sense," Tadic said. "The truth is that we arrested Ratko Mladic the moment we discovered him."

Europe's most wanted war crimes fugitive Mladic was arrested on Thursday in a village north of Belgrade after 16 years on the run. He is charged by a U.N. war crimes court for atrocities committed by his troops during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

High winds fuelwildfires in Texas panhandle

AMARILLO, Texas -

Two wildfires have destroyed at least 12 homes on the outskirts of the Texas Panhandle city of Amarillo.

Texas Forest Service spokesman Marq Webb says the fires began burning early Sunday evening. He says low humidity, temperatures in the 100s and high winds created favorable conditions for fires.

He says firefighters are still battling wildfires across Texas on Monday. About 2.8 million acres have burned in the state since November.

The Forest Service reports that a fire on the southern edge of Amarillo destroyed five homes and damaged four others. The fire destroyed about 200 acres and is about 90 percent contained.

Another fire to the northwest hit 1,243 acres, destroyed seven homes and was about 80 percent contained on Monday.

Report questions Haitian quake death toll

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Far fewer people died or were left homeless by last year's devastating earthquake than claimed by Haitian leaders, a report commissioned by the U.S. government has concluded - challenging a central premise behind a multibillion-dollar aid and reconstruction effort.

The report, a copy of which was obtained Monday by The Associated Press, estimates the death toll was between 46,000 and 85,000, far below the Haitian government's official figure of 316,000. The report was prepared for the U.S. Agency for International Development but has not yet been publicly released.

The report has inconsistencies, however, and won't be released publicly until they are resolved, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Preeti Shah told the AP.

"The first draft of the report contained internal inconsistencies with its own findings," Shah said in a telephone interview from Washington. "We are reviewing these inconsistencies ... to ensure information we release is accurate."

- The Associated Press