The US presidential race took a bizarre turn when the State Department disclosed that workers had improperly rummaged through the passport files of all three candidates. Senator Barack Obama called for a congressional investigation.
The snooping first surfaced against Obama, the Illinois Democrat whose file was accessed three time this year. In the course of Friday, however, department officials said the contract workers with access to the files also had dipped into the private information of New York Senator Hillary Clinton, the other Democratic hopeful, and Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has wrapped up his party's nomination.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who reportedly only heard of the incidents starting on Thursday, apologized to the candidates and promised her department would investigate.
But Obama was not satisfied and said Congress should investigate to insure the probe was not "simply an internal matter."
It was unclear whether the incidents were politically motivated. But they dominated US news at the start of a quiet holiday weekend and were a welcome diversion for the Obama campaign after a week of political battering over incendiary remarks by the candidate's longtime pastor.
The passport issue flared as Obama, locked in an increasingly nasty nomination battle with Clinton, secured a key endorsement, the backing of New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.
Richardson served former president Bill Clinton -- candidate Clinton's husband -- as UN ambassador and energy secretary.
"You are a once-in-a-lifetime leader," Richardson said, speaking at a spirited rally in Portland, Oregon, with Obama at his side. "Above all, you will be a president who brings this nation together."
The passport disclosures were a major embarrassment for the State Department and viewed as a serious breach of privacy. The snooping into supposedly secure government records on politicians recalled a 1992 case in which a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted for searching Bill Clinton's passport records when he was running against US president George H.W. Bush.
Two of the workers who breached Obama's records on Jan. 9 and Feb. 21 have been fired. A third worker, who accessed the Illinois senator's file on March 14, had only been reprimanded. It subsequently turned out that person had also looked at the McCain file earlier this year.
Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the individual no longer has access to passport records.
"I can assure you that person's going to be at the top of the list of the inspector general when they talk to people, and we are currently reviewing our [disciplinary] options with respect to that person," McCormack said.
The two fired contractors worked for a company called Stanley Inc. Earlier this week, the 3,500-person company won a five-year, US$570 million contract to support passport services at the State Department. The company refused comment, but a State Department official confirmed that the two contractors had been employed at Stanley. The official requested anonymity because the information had not been publicly released.
In the Democratic battle, winning Richardson's backing was a major boost for Obama, and was seen as a rebuke to Clinton because of Richardson's service in her husband's administration. Richardson is also a Democratic superdelegate and former presidential candidate.
Richardson's backing of Obama, who aspires to become America's first black president, could show most dramatically among the governor's fellow Hispanics -- the US' largest ethnic bloc, which has largely backed Clinton.
He told Democrats it was time to stop bickering and get behind Obama, but the Clinton campaign dismissed the endorsement.
Senior strategist Mark Penn, noting Clinton's February victory in the New Mexico primary, said, "Perhaps the time when he could have been most effective has long since past."
Penn added that he didn't think it was a "significant endorsement."
The nod from Richardson had been sought relentlessly by both Obama and Clinton. Bill Clinton even went to Richardson's New Mexico home in January to watch the US' premier television sporting event, the football Super Bowl.
As a Democratic superdelegate, Richardson has a key role in the tight race for nominating votes and could bring other superdelegates to Obama's side. He also has been mentioned as a potential running mate for either candidate.
Obama leads Clinton among delegates whose votes were determined by primaries or caucuses, 1,406 to 1,249. But neither is on track to win enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination -- 2,024 are needed. So the outcome could be decided by superdelegates -- elected and party officials who can choose whomever they like.
Including Richardson, Clinton leads 250 to 215 among superdelegates who have announced a choice. About 40 percent have not declared.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS