Afghanistan to need financial support until 2024

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, front left, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, center, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, second from right in front, and Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul, right, join foreign ministers and world leaders for a group photo during an international conference on the future of Afghanistan, in Bonn, Germany, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Pool)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, front left, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, center, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, second from right in front, and Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul, right, join foreign ministers and world leaders for a group photo during an international conference on the future of Afghanistan, in Bonn, Germany, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Pool)

Members of the Afghan delegation attend the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, Germany Monday Dec. 5, 2011. A decade after the first Afghanistan conference, the international community discusses the future of its engagement in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/ Oliver Berg,Pool)

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, center, stands beside UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, right, at the international Afghanistan conference in Bonn, Germany, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. A decade after the first Afghanistan conference the international community discusses the future of its engagement in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

A man listens to a speech by Afghan President Hamid Karzai broadcast live from an international conference on Afghanistan taking place in Bonn, Germany, at a local restaurant in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. The United States and other nations vowed Monday to keep supporting Afghanistan's fragile economy after most foreign forces leave the country, as an international conference got underway in Bonn despite the crippling absence of key regional player Pakistan. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, center, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and Afghanistan Foreign Minister Salmai Rassoul listen at the former German parliament during the International Afghanistan Conference, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011 in Bonn, (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

BONN, Germany (AP) ? Afghanistan will need the financial support of other countries for at least another decade beyond the 2014 departure of foreign troops, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday at an international conference.

But the conference on the future of Afghanistan in Bonn was overshadowed by a public display of bad blood between the United States and Pakistan, the two nations with the greatest stake and say in making Afghanistan safe and solvent.

Pakistan boycotted the meeting to protest an apparently errant U.S. air strike last month that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the rough border with Afghanistan. The strike furthered the perception in Pakistan that NATO and the U.S. are its true enemies, not the Taliban militants that operate on both sides of the border.

"It was unfortunate that they did not participate," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. "I expect that Pakistan will be involved going forward and we expect them to play a constructive role."

Pakistan is seen as instrumental to ending the insurgency in Afghanistan because of its links to militant groups and its unwillingness, from the U.S. and NATO perspective, to drive insurgents from safe havens on its soil where they regroup and rearm.

During the one-day conference, about 100 nations and international organizations, including the United Nations, jointly pledged political and financial long-term support for war-torn Afghanistan to prevent it from falling back into chaos or becoming a safe haven for terrorists.

"Together we have spent blood and treasure in fighting terrorism," Karzai said. "Your continued solidarity, your commitment and support will be crucial so that we can consolidate our gains and continue to address the challenges that remain."

Donor nations did not commit to specific figures but pledged that economic and other advances in Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban government in 2001 should be safeguarded with continued funding. A donor conference will be held in July in Japan.

"We will need your steadfast support for at least another decade," Karzai told the delegates, echoing a recent assessment by the World Bank that predicted a sharp budget shortfall as the 130,000 international troops gradually withdraw.

The United States announced it would free more than $650 million in support for small community-based development projects in Afghanistan, frozen because of financial irregularities in Afghanistan's key Kabul Bank.

Afghanistan estimates it will need outside contributions of roughly $10 billion in 2015 and onward, slightly less than half the country's annual gross national product, mostly because it won't be able to pay for its security forces which are slated to increase to 352,000 personnel by the end of 2014.

Organizer Germany and the United States had once hoped this week's conference would showcase progress toward a political settlement between Afghanistan and the Taliban-led insurgency that 10 years of fighting by international forces has failed to dislodge. Instead, it became a status report on halting progress on other fronts and a glaring reminder that neither the Taliban nor Pakistan is ready to sign up to the international agenda for Afghanistan.

Participating nations pledged their support for an inclusive Afghan-led reconciliation process on condition that any outcome must reject violence, terrorism and endorse the Afghan constitution and its guarantee of human rights.

"The entire region has a stake in Afghanistan's future and much to lose if the country again becomes a source of terrorism and instability," Clinton told the delegates.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani later told The Associated Press in Lahore, Pakistan, that his country remains committed to working with Afghanistan to bring insurgent leaders into talks with the government.

"I think we have evolved some mechanisms, and we are ready to cooperate," he said, referring to meetings with Afghanistan's military and intelligence chiefs on a framework for talks.

The Bonn conference's final declaration outlines a series of "firm mutual commitments" for the decade following the troop withdrawal.

Afghanistan commits in the document to do its homework in terms of reform, fighting corruption, promoting good governance and strengthening democracy. The international community, in return, pledged to direct "financial support toward Afghanistan's economic development and security-related costs," conveying the message that Kabul can count on its partners beyond 2014.

"We reiterate our common determination to never allow Afghanistan to once again become a haven for international terrorism," the declaration stated.

Afghanistan's western neighbor, Iran, did join the conference, represented by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. That set up a rare occasion when two U.S. and Iranian representatives were in the same room, and came a day after Iran claimed it shot down a U.S. surveillance drone. The Pentagon has said it lost a drone last week in western Afghanistan due to mechanical failure.

Iran stands ready to support Afghanistan and an Afghan-led reconciliation process, Salehi said, while strongly condemning the idea of any military bases remaining after 2014.

The U.S. is currently seeking an agreement with the Afghan government establishing operating rules for the small number of remaining U.S. forces and other issues after international forces withdraw.

The conference pledged to support the Afghan security forces' "training and equipping, financing and development of capabilities beyond the end of the transition period" in 2014.

Despite more than a decade of international intervention, Afghanistan still ranks among the world's poorest and most corrupt nations.

It is failing in two major areas in particular: security and good government. Violence has gone up sharply this year with increasingly brazen attacks, and has spread to the once-peaceful north of the country. Widespread corruption is bedeviling attempts to create a viable Afghan government and institutions to take over when the U.S. and NATO leave.

Moreover, Afghanistan provides about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin. Money from the sale of opium is also used to fuel the insurgency, helping to buy weapons and equipment for the Taliban.

"The road ahead will remain stony and difficult. It will require endurance and tenacity," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said.

There are many measures of improvement in Afghanistan since 2001, however, including higher school enrollment, especially for girls, and better health. Afghans are living longer, fewer infants are dying and more women are surviving childbirth because health care has dramatically improved around the country in the past decade, according to an Afghan Health Ministry survey.

More than 6 million children are in school today, according to the United Nations. During the Taliban, girls were denied schooling, and before that most schools were closed because of fighting.

___

Chris Brummitt in Lahore, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-05-Afghanistan-Conference/id-b61605ef6e28429e9ef2df3d2000abef

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Too promiscuous to donate an organ? Maybe

The Star-Ledger

Organ transplant experts are worried that proposed new federal health guidelines will limit the number of available donors and recipients willing to accept organs newly classified as risky.

By JoNel Aleccia

If you've had sex with two or more partners in the past year, you may be considered a risky organ donor, at least according to proposed new federal health guidelines that have drawn sharp protests from transplant experts who?say?they're far too broad.?

?With the new guidelines, every college student in America will be high risk,? said Dr. Harry Dorn-Arias, a transplant?surgeon at the University of Virginia. ?Right now, it's probably a prostitute or a guy with a needle in his arm. Next time, it will be just a young guy."

Under the new?policy proposed this fall?by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deceased and living donors who were not monogamous in the previous 12 months would be considered at increased risk of transmitting HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C -- even if they had no other risk factors

CDC officials say the?proposed guidelines are aimed at making the organ supply safer and preventing accidental transmission of life-threatening infections. The policies wouldn?t absolutely ban anyone from donating, especially?in an exceptional or life-saving situation, but they would?call for?more scrutiny and testing.

?It?s geared for the patient so the patient knows as much as they can about the organ being transplanted in them,? said Dr. Matthew J. Kuehnert, director of the CDC?s office of Blood, Organ and Other Tissue Safety.

But transplant experts are outraged because they say the proposal arbitrarily focuses on monogamy and could limit both the number of available donors and the number of recipients willing to accept organs newly classified as risky.

They worry that potential living donors may balk at donating if they know their sexual history alone could raise questions about their suitability, particularly if the situation involved a family member.

?If you were going to give your organ to your mom or dad or sister, you?re going to be ashamed of that,? said Dorn-Arias. ?You?re either going to say no, or you?re going to lie.?

The proposed policy could also require families of deceased donors to answer uncomfortable questions -- ones they may not even know the answers to -- about the specific sexual behaviors of their loved ones.

??It?s probably going to triple what we consider high risk at this point,? said Tracy Giacoma, transplant administrator at the University of Kansas Hospital. ?It may scare patients off from taking these organs. More patients may die because they don?t take these organs.?

More than 28,000 organs are transplanted each year, but more than 112,000 people are on organ waiting lists, according to figures from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.??

The guidelines could affect a wide swath of?potential donors, particularly younger people.?About a quarter of women and nearly 30 percent of men ages 20 to 24 said they had two or more sexual partners in the past 12 months, according to a 2006-2008 report by the National Center for Health Statistics.

When tragic deaths occur, those are precisely the people who should donate their organs, if possible, Giacoma said.

"If you have a?[donor] that's 19 years old and he had multiple partners, we'll have to tell the recipient, this is a high-risk organ," she said.

The sexual partner tally is only one of several new factors that could tag a potential donor as being at increased risk of infection. It?s part of a larger set of guidelines that would update 1994 Public Health Service policies for preventing transmission of HIV through human tissue and organs.

"Our priority here is patient safety," said Kuehnert, who noted that the guidelines describe "increased risk," not "high risk," of infection. "[Patients] should know if they're getting an organ at elevated risk."

The 1994 guidlines exclude certain groups?as?donors,?including men who have had sex with other men within the past five years, people who've used IV drugs or exchanged sex for money or drugs in the past five years, hemophiliacs,?those exposed to HIV, and people who've had sex with anyone in those categories. They also limit people who've been incarcerated.

The new plan calls for the first-ever guidelines for testing living donors and it adds hepatitis B and hepatitis C to the list of must-test viruses, along with HIV, Kuehnert said. ?As it stands now, only HIV?is included in the guidelines, though most organ transplant centers do test for a range of other potential?diseases.?

The proposal also calls for use of the most sensitive tests available to detect infection?and for shorter testing windows to avoid transmitting infections, which occurs in an estimated 1 percent of transplant cases and has been fatal, Kuehnert said.

Between 2007 and 2010, the CDC participated in more than 200 investigations of suspect unexpected transmission of infections including HIV and hepatitis B and C, with dozens of cases confirmed, Kuehnert?added.

The risk of infection from organs may be rare, but it's real. Helen Boucher's husband, George, 54, of Pawtucket, R.I., died in 2005 after receiving a kidney tainted with a rare infection traced back to a virus from the donor's pet hamster.?The new guidelines wouldn't have helped?detect the Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis virus?--?known as LCMV --?but Helen Boucher, now 61, said preventing the trauma her family endured is worth any extra scrutiny.

"My gut feeling is if you want to be a donor, you?re doing a wonderful thing, but you also have to think about what could happen to the recipient," she said. "If I?m willing to be a donor, I?m willing to answer any of those questions that someone is going to ask of me."

The proposed guidelines shorten the time frame for many of the higher-risk behaviors from five years to one year. But?they also classify as risky people who have used kidney dialysis during that time; people who have snorted cocaine or heroin nasally; those who've been in prison, jail or juvenile detention centers for more than three consecutive?days in the past year; those who currently have or who have been treated for syphilis, gonorrhea or genital ulcers in the past year and people who have immigrated to the United States within the last year from a country with a high prevalence of hepatitis B.

Other aspects of the plan have drawn fire from transplant experts who object to?tests that might be too expensive and too slow for all centers to administer.

But it's the new emphasis on two or more sexual partners that has ignited most ire, judging from public comments about the proposal being accepted through Dec. 21 at www.regulations.gov.

?I am opposed to the guidelines as written,? wrote Dr. John Radomski, chief of surgery at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden, N.J. ?The list of high risk behavior seems way too broad.?

CDC officials downplayed the controversy, saying that the proposal is a draft and can be changed, particularly if there's strong evidence to support any alteration. They said the primary goal is to?obtain as much information about transplanted organs as possible, whether that comes from personal histories or advanced screening tests.

Using a set of behaviors to gauge risk makes sense, Kuehnert said, and studies suggest that having more than one sexual partner raises the risk of infection.

?We can quibble about whether it should be two sexual partners or three or five or 10, but we?ll have to have a cut-off point,? he said.

It may be a year or more before any new guidelines are final,?Kuehnert added.

Related stories:
Infected organs pose deadly transplant risk
Killer's quest: Allow organ donation after execution
Agencies consider new organ donation rules

?

Source: http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/02/9173566-too-promiscuous-to-donate-an-organ-maybe-cdc-says

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Debt and doubt loom large over Durban climate talks (Reuters)

DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) ? Economic crisis and the top three polluters China, the United States and India, loomed as obstacles to a new global deal at the start of a second make-or-break week of U.N. climate talks in the South African city of Durban.

After a first week of preliminary discussion, serious doubt hangs over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, whose first commitment period on tackling climate change expires at the end of next year.

The other major issue for debate is how to drum up finance to help poorer nations adapt to a warmer planet, while the developed world wrestles with sovereign debt problems.

China, the world's biggest carbon emitter, gave a lift to the climate talks at the end of last week by suggesting it might sign up to a legally-binding deal to cut emissions, but it has set conditions.

"China has talked about a legally binding deal after 2020. The question is if China will be legally-bound. That would be interesting," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said.

China failed to answer that question at a news conference and a European diplomatic source said it was bluffing.

"There's no way China will sign up legally, but it doesn't want to be blamed if the talks fail," the source said, asking not to be named.

China's conditions include that other big emitters sign up and that finance is provided under a Green Climate Fund agreed at talks last year in Cancun, which aims to channel up to $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing nations.

The U.S. special envoy for climate change Todd Stern said China's conditions were not acceptable.

"In order for there to be a legally-binding agreement that makes sense, all the major players are going to have to be in with obligations and commitments that have the same legal force," Stern said.

"That means no conditionality, no condition of receiving the financing, no trap doors, no Swiss cheese (with holes) kind of agreement."

In the United States, the second largest global emitter, environmental issues have become a flashpoint for argument between President Barack Obama's Democrats and the Republicans. A reluctant upper house, which failed to pass a climate bill last year, would block any deal to revive Kyoto.

The United States signed, but did not ratify Kyoto. One of its issues is that the boundaries between developed and developing nations have shifted and all big emitters should now be included on an equal basis in any new agreement.

India, the third biggest carbon emitter, has also stated it is not ready for a new binding agreement.

It argues its economic development is not as strong as China's and it should not be asked to take on legal targets for cutting emissions.

Neither India nor China is included in the goals set under the first commitment phase of the Kyoto Protocol, as they were regarded as developing when it was adopted in 1997.

The European Union has sought to take a lead in breaking the deadlock by promising to back a new agreement, but it too has a condition. It wants guarantees, which it has labeled a road map, that other big emitters will sign up too.

"Europe only accounts for 11 percent of global emissions, therefore a second commitment period with only Europe and a few other countries, it's hard to see how anybody could label that a huge achievement for the climate," Hedegaard said.

FOCUS ON ECONOMIC CRISIS

Europe's leadership has been undermined by the huge strain it is under from a sovereign debt crisis that is threatening to destroy the euro.

It is hoped a credible plan to prop up the single currency will emerge at an EU summit on Friday, also the last day of the UN climate talks in Durban.

"Negotiators can't look for a new angle from prime ministers on Friday as they can't take their focus off the eurozone crisis," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "That's the only issue on the agenda."

Negotiators have said there is no longer time to get new commitments sealed before the Kyoto Protocol's commitment period runs out at the end of the year, so they are instead aiming to agree on when new commitments can be forged.

The EU's aim is for a deal by 2015 to take effect by 2020 at the latest. The Kyoto Protocol only came into force eight years after it was adopted.

The commitment period for the developed nations to cut emissions by a minimum of five percent is just one clause in the Kyoto Protocol, the companion legislation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Without a new commitment period, the rest of the related agreements remain intact, but do not enforce action on lowering emissions.

South Africa, as host to the climate talks, is keen for another Kyoto Protocol, but is aligned with nations arguing that historically it has been responsible for very little of the pollution that is overheating the planet.

Now, it is among those most vulnerable to drought and crop failure associated with a warmer climate.

Underlying the need for urgent action to cap further temperature change, a report UK Met Office report released in Durban on Monday forecast global temperature would rise between three and five degrees Celsius this century if emissions are left unchecked.

A study released on Sunday found that even in a weak global economy emissions, which hit record levels last year, were still rising.

(Additional reporting by Agnieszka Flak, Jon Herskovitz, Michael Szabo, Andrew Allan; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111205/wl_nm/us_climate

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Gingrich leads in Iowa poll (The Arizona Republic)

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Musical glories in Rossini's biblical opera (AP)

NEW YORK ? Rossini was nearing the end of his opera-writing career in 1827 when he composed "Moise et Pharaon," a stirring musical setting of the Israelites' escape from Egypt.

This French adaptation of a piece he had written a decade earlier in Italian has some magnificent choral music and some glorious numbers for soloists. But though it deals with momentous events ? and climaxes with the parting of the Red Sea ? the plot is fairly static and it feels more like an oratorio than an opera.

So perhaps the best way to enjoy it is in a concert performance like the one put on by the Collegiate Chorale at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, with James Bagwell conducting soloists, chorus and the American Symphony Orchestra.

For most of the four acts, Moses has one confrontation after another with Pharaoh in a cycle that goes like this: Moses demands freedom for his people, Pharaoh refuses him, and God visits a plague upon the Egyptians. One of those plagues, which plunges the country into darkness, gives rise to the most inspired passage in the score ? a hushed choral plea for mercy accompanied by a long, winding melody in the orchestra.

There's also a love story between Pharaoh's son Amenophis and Moses' niece, Anai, which ends with her renouncing him and fleeing with her people. Surely Verdi had "Moise" in mind more than 40 years later when he wrote "Aida," about an Egyptian prince in love with a beautiful slave.

Anai's decision to renounce her lover is played out in the opera's biggest solo showpiece, a wonderful extended aria, "Quelle horrible destinee." Soprano Marina Rebeka sang it with gleaming tone and fearless coloratura phrasing that made her the star of the evening.

She had some competition from another soprano, the remarkable Angela Meade, who took the smaller role of the Pharaoh's wife, Sinaide. One wished Rossini had given her more opportunity to unfurl her imposing voice, which rang out on a couple of occasions on high C and above.

Both the title roles are written for bass-baritones. Veteran James Morris sang Moses with majestic authority but wobbly intonation; Kyle Ketelson deployed his burnished voice with impressive agility as Pharaoh.

As the unsympathetic Amenophis, tenor Eric Cutler fidgeted distractingly at his music stand but coped reasonably well with a difficult role full of high notes and rapid runs. Another tenor made a striking impression ? Michele Angelini as Moses' brother Aaron (here renamed Eliezer). Mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson sang with smooth, compelling tone as Moses' sister, Marie.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_en_mu/us_opera_review_moise_et_pharaon

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South Africa launches new drive to cut HIV infection (Reuters)

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) ? South Africa wants to cut new HIV infection rates by at least 50 percent within five years as it seeks to build on recent successes following years of failing to tackle AIDS and increased mortality, President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday.

Former President Thabo Mbeki was widely criticized for failing to take the AIDS epidemic seriously, leaving South Africa with one of one of the world's biggest HIV infected populations.

But the country has since made strides in tackling the pandemic, with a 50 percent reduction in the transmission of HIV from mothers to children seen between 2008 and 2010 due to greater access to life-saving antiretroviral drugs.

More than 13 million people were tested for the virus since April last year in a rigorous status awareness campaign.

"Indeed, we have achieved a lot in the fight against HIV and AIDS as South Africans, and also globally," Zuma said in a World Aids Day speech, before launching the country's second AIDS masterplan to run from 2012 to 2016.

The National Strategic Plan aims, among other goals, to reducing new HIV infections by at least a half, slash the number of tuberculosis infections and related deaths by a similar margin and have at least 80 percent of eligible patients on antiretroviral treatment.

"We cannot afford to deal with HIV and TB separately," Zuma said, adding the new emphasis, missing in the first program, was necessary given the high rate of co-infection between the two diseases.

The new plan also identifies sexual violence and intimidation against women as a key factor in the spread of

HIV/AIDS.

"Recent research in South Africa shows that we could prevent HIV infections in young women if they were not subjected to violence or intimidation by their partners," Zuma said.

(Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/aids/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/hl_nm/us_safrica_aids

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Wife: US official accused in Chile has Alzheimer's (AP)

NICEVILLE, Fla. ? An ex-U.S. Navy officer named in a Chilean extradition request tied to the 1973 execution of two Americans during the Pinochet dictatorship has Alzheimer's and is living in a U.S. nursing home, his wife said Thursday.

Patricia Davis told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her Florida home that her husband, former U.S. Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis, "doesn't open his eyes. He doesn't speak. ... He doesn't recognize me. I don't count anniversaries anymore."

She refused to say which nursing home he is living in.

Davis noted her husband previously denied charges that he was involved in the killing of journalist Charles Horman and student Frank Teruggi, both U.S. citizens. Horman's plight was dramatized in the Academy Award-winning 1983 film "Missing."

Ray Davis commanded the U.S. military mission in Chile at the time of the Sept. 11, 1973, coup that toppled socialist President Salvador Allende and put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power. As part of his duties, Davis worked as a liaison between the U.S. and Chilean militaries.

"He always spoke about them openly," Patricia Davis said of the charges against her husband. "He didn't have any hidden thing about this. He was always a perfect military man."

Chilean lawyer Sergio Corvalan, who represents Horman's widow, told the AP that he believed Ray Davis was in the U.S.

"That's the latest information that we have had," Corvalan said.

Horman had worked as a screenwriter for Chile's state film company during Allende's government and was investigating suspected U.S. military involvement in the coup when Chilean authorities detained him, according to the extradition request by Chilean Judge Jorge Zepeda, which was announced Tuesday.

Zepeda wrote that U.S. agents had labeled Horman's film activities "subversive," a characterization repeated by Chilean intelligence officials who later executed him. The request adds that "there are presumptions that following the covert operations that (Davis) completed in Chile, designated against Charles Edmund Horman Lazar, he decides to not annul the decision of the material authors of this death, despite having the possibility of doing it."

U.S. journalist John Dinges, who has written extensively about the history surrounding the coup, said the judge's request goes further than the movie "Missing," which accused U.S. officials of tacitly tolerating Horman's execution.

"They're saying (Davis) produced the information that led to his death and when Chileans consulted about it, he decided not to oppose it," Dinges said. "That's pretty strong, I think."

Chile's Supreme Court must still approve the extradition request. Tuesday's court statement also said retired Chilean army Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo had been charged in the murders. The request cites Chilean and U.S. documents from the period.

Dinges said the U.S. would not likely extradite Davis, but extradition treaties usually require the host country to conduct its own investigation into the matter as an alternative.

"Two American citizens killed by a friendly government with the suggestion that we might have had something to do with this ? it was never investigated but now it should be," Dinges said.

Reached by telephone Thursday, Terry Simon, a friend of Horman, said she was with him in the Chilean coastal city of Vina del Mar during the coup and said she believed Horman was killed because of information U.S. Navy officials shared with them as they waited to return to the capital.

Simon said Navy officials told them that U.S. ships were off the coast during the coup, and one American suggested he had been on board a Chilean ship then. Simon said she believes she wasn't arrested because she had moved to a downtown Santiago hotel, while Horman stayed at his house.

"I think because of what we learned ... and being with the U.S. naval group, I think that's why Charlie was picked up and killed," Simon said.

Davis gave Simon and Horman a ride back to Santiago, she said.

"Capt. Davis met us through the people in Vina, so it could have very well been that he was asking them questions and somehow found out they had really told us a lot of information at the time when the U.S. was denying any kind of support or involvement," Simon said.

Rafael Gonzalez Verdugo, an ex-Chilean intelligence officer, said he was asked to translate for Horman on Sept. 17, 1973, during an interview with Gen. Augusto Lutz.

"I ask if they see if there's information about Horman," Gonzalez said. "They don't hesitate and tell me, 'Negative.' ... This was the 17th. On the 18th, a military patrol delivers Horman to a morgue and say they found him in the street, shot."

___

Associated Press writer Bill Kaczor reported this story in Niceville, Eva Vergara reported in Santiago, Chile, and Jack Chang reported in Mexico City.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_on_re_us/us_chile_us_extradition

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