World/Nation Briefs June 7, 2013
IRS official
apologizes for $4M conference
WASHINGTON - An Internal Revenue Service official whose division staged a lavish $4.1 million training conference and who starred as Mr. Spock in a "Star Trek" parody shown at the 2010 gathering conceded to Congress on Thursday that taxpayer dollars were wasted in the episode.
"We're now in a very different environment" with new IRS spending curbs, Faris Fink, a top deputy in the agency's small business division at the time, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Fink, who now heads that 24,000-employee division, said he believes many of the expenditures "should have been more closely scrutinized or not incurred at all and were not the best use of taxpayer dollars."
The mea culpa was echoed by new acting IRS chief Danny Werfel as the embattled agency struggled to contain public and congressional ire over its targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status and its spending of $49 million on 225 employee conferences over the past three years.
PM calls for
end to Turkey protests
ISTANBUL - Turkey's prime minister took a combative stance on his closely watched return to the country early Friday, telling supporters who thronged to greet him that the protests that have swept the country must come to an end.
In the first extensive public show of support since anti-government protests erupted last week, more than 10,000 supporters cheered Recep Tayyip Erdogan with rapturous applause outside Istanbul's international airport.
Despite earlier comments that suggested he could be softening his stand, Erdogan delivered a fiery speech on his return from a four-day trip to North Africa. "These protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end as of now," he said.
Transplant policy rules come
into question
WASHINGTON - It's a life or death matter: Who gets the next scarce donated organ? In an unprecedented challenge to the nation's transplant system, a federal judge has allowed one dying child - and a day later another - to essentially jump the line in rulings that could have ramifications for thousands of people awaiting new organs.
Over and over, the nation debates the fairness of transplant policies, from Mickey Mantle's liver in the 1990s to people today who cut their wait times by moving to another city where the list is shorter. But back-to-back rulings by a federal judge this week appear to be a legal first that specialists expect to prompt more lawsuits from people seeking a shorter wait, just like the parents of two patients in a Philadelphia hospital - 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan and 11-year-old Javier Acosta.
"People who have privilege or people who complain more loudly or have political voice shouldn't be able to claim special treatment," said Lawrence O. Gostin, a prominent health law professor at Georgetown University, who questioned the legal basis of the rulings. Transplant policies aim to be "fair and just for everyone, not just for that one heart-wrenching case."
North Koreaproposes talks with rival South
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Friday proposed working-level talks with South Korea to be held in a border city on Sunday as the rivals look to mend ties that have plunged during recent years amid hardline stances by both countries.
In another sign of easing tensions ahead of the proposed meeting, Pyongyang said in a statement that it would reopen a Red Cross communication line with South Korea in their truce village later Friday. The North shut the communication line in March during a tense period marked by North Korean threats of war and South Korean counter-threats.
The statement by an unidentified spokesman for the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which handles relations with Seoul, followed the countries' agreement Thursday to hold talks on reopening a jointly run factory complex and possibly other issues. The easing tension also comes ahead of a summit by the leaders of China and the United States in which the North is expected to be a key topic.
- Associated Press