Hamas looks flush with cash
$540 million set for budget despite Gaza blockade
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Gaza’s Hamas Parliament approved a government budget of $540 million for 2010, legislators said Saturday, suggesting that a tight border blockade isn’t stopping the cash flow to the Islamic militants.
Up to $60 million stems from local taxes and the rest from “gifts and outside assistance,” said legislator Jamal Nassar. Iran is believed to be one of Hamas’ main financial backers, with cash assistance hauled through smuggling tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Nassar and fellow lawmaker Yahia Moussa refused to provide a detailed breakdown of the spending plan, and it was impossible to verify that Hamas indeed has $540 million at its disposal.
However, a border blockade by Israel and Egypt — first imposed in 2006 and tightened after Hamas overran Gaza a year later — has not weakened the militants. With only humanitarian aid and a few basic items entering Gaza through border crossings, the tunnels are the main supply line for cash, weapons and a wide range of goods.
Egypt is installing an underground barrier along its border with Gaza in an attempt to stop the smuggling.
The Hamas government has about 32,000 people on its payroll, including civil servants and members of the security forces. About $30 million of the budget would go to Arab residents of Jerusalem and Islamic sites in the city, Nassar said, without explaining how the money would reach its destination.
Earlier Saturday, Israeli warplanes destroyed two tunnels under Gaza’s border with Israel. The Israeli military said tunnels had been dug as part of plans to carry out attacks in Israel. The airstrikes came in response to Gaza rocket fire two days earlier on the Israeli border community of Netivot, the military said.
The Israel-Gaza border has been relatively quiet in the past year, since the end of Israel’s three-week war on Hamas, meant to halt Gaza rocket fire.
Somali charged in ax attack on cartoonist
COPENHAGEN — An ax-wielding Somali man with suspected al-Qaida links was charged Saturday with two counts of attempted murder after he was accused of breaking into the home of a Danish artist whose Prophet Muhammad cartoon outraged Muslims three years ago. The suspect, shot twice Friday by a police officer, was rolled into court on a stretcher, his face covered. Efforts to protect the artist — 74-year-old Kurt Westergaard, left — were stepped up.
NATION
Pastor gets $2.4 million after donations plea
LAKE FOREST, Calif. — Evangelical pastor Rick Warren says his call for donations to fill a $900,000 deficit at his Southern California megachurch has brought in $2.4 million.
Warren announced the sum to cheers at a Saturday service, and said the total includes only money brought in person to Saddleback Church by New Year’s Eve.
Warren called the donations “amazing” and says the church will start the new decade with a surplus.
Warren made an appeal to members on the church’s Web site Wednesday, asking for donations to overcome a collections shortage.
Warren delivered the invocation at the inauguration of President Barack Obama and is the author of numerous books, including the best-selling “The Purpose Driven Life.”
FAA watching airline
FORT WORTH, Texas — The Federal Aviation Administration is increasing oversight of American Airlines after three mishaps during landings last month.
Jetliners’ wingtips touched the ground during two landings, one in Charlotte, N.C., on Dec. 13, the other in Austin, Texas, on Dec. 24. And in Jamaica, a plane overshot the runway during heavy rain Dec. 22.
FAA officials said in a statement they will conduct a review of the mishaps to see if there might be a larger issue. A spokesman for American said the company is conducting its own investigation.
WORLD
Iran threatens West with 1-month nuclear deadline
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TEHRAN, Iran — Iran set a one-month deadline Saturday for the West to accept its counterproposal to a U.N.-drafted nuclear plan and warned that otherwise it will produce reactor fuel at a higher level of enrichment on its own.
The warning was a show of defiance and a hardening of Iran’s stance over its nuclear program, which the West fears masks an effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its program is only for peaceful purposes, such as electricity production, and says it has no intention of making a bomb.
“We have given them an ultimatum. There is one month left and that is by the end of January,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.
Mexico nabs drug suspect
MEXICO CITY — Mexican federal police said Saturday that they captured a top member of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.
The arrest of Carlos Beltran Leyva comes two weeks after Mexican troops killed his brother Arturo Beltran Leyva in a shootout. The two men and their three brothers founded the cartel.
Arturo Beltran Leyva was the reputed cartel chief. His death and the capture of his brother constitute much-needed, back-to-back victories in President Felipe Calderon’s 3-year-old drug war.
Carlos Beltran Leyva was arrested Wednesday in Culiacan, capital of the northern state of Sinaloa, according to The Public Safety Office. It announced his capture Saturday night.
Picasso among stolen art
MARSEILLE, France — About 30 works of art, including paintings by Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau, have been stolen from the home of a private collector in southern France, police said Saturday.
The theft was carried out while the owners were on vacation abroad, said the police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy. The break-in was discovered by a caretaker at the home in La Cadiere-d’Azur, a medieval Provencal village.
The value of the stolen art is still unclear, as the owners, who were to return home over the weekend, are preparing to take an inventory, the official said.
Federal and local Marseilles officials are investigating.
THE NUMBER: $4.4 billion
What alcohol costs Britain’s health system each year, according to a new report. The cash-strapped National Health Service — the U.K.’s taxpayer-funded medical system — spends double what it did five years ago to treat patients for drink-related problems, the report said. Total funding for the health care system is currently around $162 billion a year. The report — published by the NHS Confederation, a health-care providers organization, and the Royal College of Physicians, which represents doctors — warns that the country’s notorious drinking culture is putting an unacceptable strain on hospitals and medical staff.