CAIRO, Egypt, May 30--An American member of Al-Qaeda warned President Bush on Tuesday to end US involvement in all Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the Sept. 11 suicide assault, according to a new videotape.
Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam Al-Amriki, said Al-Qaeda would not negotiate on its demands, AP wrote.
“Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech,“ he said in the seven-minute video.
Gadahn, who has been charged in a US treason indictment with aiding Al-Qaeda, spoke in English and the video carried Arabic subtitles. The video appeared on a Web site often used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of Al-Qaeda’s media wing, as-Sahab.
Gadahn, who appeared in an Al-Qaeda video last September in which he called on Americans to convert to Islam, demanded that Bush remove all U.S. military and spies from Islamic countries, free all Muslims from US prisons and end support for Israel. He said a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq alone would not satisfy Al-Qaeda.
Ben Venzke at IntelCenter, a US government contractor that monitors Al-Qaeda messages, said the group likely did not believe any of its demands would be met.
“It essentially allows Al-Qaeda to say that it has provided fair warning and is thus no longer responsible for the outcome,“ Venzke said in a statement.
Gadahn, a California native, is the first American to be charged with treason in more than 50 years and could face the death penalty if convicted. He also was indicted on a charge of providing material support to terrorists.

Turkish military trucks carry tanks towards the Iraqi border, in the southeastern Turkish town of Mardin, May 30.

ANKARA, Turkey, May 30--Turkey has sent large contingents of reinforcement soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers to its border with Iraq as debate heated up over whether to stage a cross-border offensive to hit Kurdish rebel bases.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday urged the United States and Iraq to destroy bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq as Turkish military deployed more tanks and soldiers on the border, AP said.
The images of military trucks rumbling along the remote border with Iraq’s Kurdish zone and tanks being transferred on trains and trucks to beef up an already formidable force there have occupied television screens and front pages of several newspapers in the last few weeks.
The Turkish military has said it routinely reinforces the border with Iraq in the summer to prevent infiltrations by the guerrillas.
“The PKK must be eliminated as a problem between Iraq and Turkey,“ Turkey’s special envoy to Iraq, Oguz Celikkol, told CNN-Turk television on Wednesday before a visit to Iraq to discuss Turkish demands that Iraq and US forces crack down on the group.
Asked whether Turkey could take unilateral action, Celikkol said: “Our expectation is that this issue is resolved before it comes to that point.“
Erdogan said a cross-border Turkish operation was not off the table.
“The target is to achieve results. Our patience has run out. The necessary steps will be taken when needed,“ Erdogan said.
Past cross-border operations have yielded mixed results, with many guerrillas sheltering in hide-outs and emerging to do battle again once the bulk of Turkish units withdrew from Iraq.
The Turkish military says up to 3,800 rebels are now based across the border in Iraq and that up to 2,300 operate inside Turkey.
Iraqi Kurdish groups have threatened to resist a Turkish incursion. If US forces--who are stretched thin across Iraq--take action, they risk alienating Iraqi Kurds, the most pro-American group in the region. If they don’t, they risk increased tensions--and possibly worse--with two powerful rivals.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 30--A lawyer challenged the suspension of Pakistan’s chief justice by President Pervez Musharraf Wednesday on the grounds that the military ruler is not a constitutionally elected leader.
Musharraf removed independent-minded chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on March 9 alleging misconduct, a move which has sparked deadly protests and left the country in crisis, reported Reuters.
“If he (Musharraf) is constitutionally elected, I am out of the court,“ senior counsel and former judge Fakharuddin G. Ibrahim told the Supreme Court in Islamabad.
Ibrahim was speaking on behalf of a petition by the bar association of southwestern Baluchistan province, one of 24 petitions being heard alongside Chaudhry’s own appeal against his suspension.
Musharraf ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October 1999 in a bloodless coup and later appointed himself president. In April 2002 he held a referendum to legitimize his presidency but critics say it was rigged.
But the country’s constitution did not allow a president to be elected in this way, which therefore meant that Musharraf was not legally able to suspend Chaudhry, Ibrahim said.
Musharraf is “making a mockery of the constitution,“ Ibrahim said.
The chief justice’s petition says that it was illegal of Musharraf to have suspended him and to have referred the charges to an accountability body called the Supreme Judicial Council.
The Supreme Court suspended the council’s proceedings on May 7 to decide which body should be dealing with the case.
Chaudhry on Tuesday filed a written statement to the court describing the events after March 9, when he said he was intimidated by Musharraf and military generals who wanted him to resign, but he refused.

ROME, May 30--Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi threatened to step down if internal dissent dogging his government alliance continued, in remarks published Wednesday.
“I want the necessary room to really govern, and then I’ll leave, as promised. But if I don’t have that room, I’ll go now,“ Prodi said in an interview with La Repubblica daily.
Prodi, who won April 2006 parliamentary election by a small margin, is backed by a wide-ranging alliance of political parties, from radical communists to Christian democrats, AFP said.
But in the interview, he said that each of his proposed measures was being “torn apart“ by his own allies. “We can’t go on like this,“ he said.
On election, Prodi announced a “shock therapy“ for Italy to reform the country and balance its finances, a promise that made him unpopular with many voters and caused dissent in his alliance.
But in the lengthy interview, in which Prodi appears somewhat bitter, he said he was now changing his tune. “Either we do as I say, or I leave,“ he said. He has already promised to step down before the next election, scheduled for 2011.
Local elections last weekend resulted in gains for the centre-right parties, but the opposition failed to land the knock-out blow to Prodi’s centre-left alliance government that it had been looking for.

Russia's new intercontinental ballistic missile takes off from Plesetsk launching pad, May 29.

MOSCOW, May 30--Russia tested new missiles Tuesday that a Kremlin official boasted could penetrate any defense system, and President Vladimir Putin warned that US plans for an anti-missile shield in Europe would turn the region into a “powder keg.“
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia tested an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads, and it also successfully conducted a “preliminary“ test of a tactical cruise missile that he said could fly farther than existing, similar weapons, AP said.
“As of today, Russia has new tactical and strategic complexes that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems,“ Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. “So in terms of defense and security, Russians can look calmly to the country’s future.“
Ivanov is a former defense minister seen as a potential Kremlin favorite to succeed Putin next year. Both he and Putin have said repeatedly that Russia would continue to improve its nuclear arsenals and respond to US plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic--NATO nations that were in Moscow’s front yard during the Cold War as Warsaw Pact members.
Meanwhile, ex-Soviet Lithuania came out Wednesday in favor of a missile shield in Europe, pouring fuel on a burning row between Washington and Moscow over a project that Russia warns could reignite an arms race.
“Our country needs these systems. There is a threat that in some years unstable countries will get the technical capability to attack. The world must restrain this process,“ Lithuanian Defense Minister Juozas Olekas said during a visit to Moldova, another ex-Soviet republic, AFP said. “One of the solutions is an anti-missile system offered by NATO.“
The tiny Baltic republic, which joined NATO and the European Union after the Soviet collapse, is on Russia’s north-western border, making the prospect of an anti-missile deployment there politically explosive.

Shimon Peres

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, May 30--Israel’s elder statesman Shimon Peres said Wednesday he will run for president, the second try at the ceremonial post by the man respected abroad but often dismissed as a perennial loser at home.
“I have decided to be a candidate for the presidency of the state,“ the Nobel peace laureate told lawmakers from his centrist Kadima party ahead of a June 13 vote in parliament on the new head of state.
“I have decided to thus respond to the requests of numerous Israelis, including the prime minister, lawmakers and ordinary people to provide what could ultimately be my last contribution to the country,“ said the 83-year-old deputy prime minister.
Peres ran for the largely ceremonial post seven years ago, but suffered a shock defeat at the hands of Moshe Katsav, then a relative unknown who is today ending his term in disgrace amid a looming indictment on a string of charges including ape, AFP said.
“I have held practically all of the most senior public posts, I have known failures but also successes,“ Peres said, adding that he would become president “with God’s help.“
The remark was a tacit admission that his assuming the post was far from certain, despite a political pedigree that eclipses any rival, having held just about every major office in a career stretching back half a century.
So far, only MP Reuven Rivlin from the main rightwing opposition Likud, and Colette Avital, of the centre-left Labour party, have announced their intention to run. Hopefuls must officially submit their candidacies by June 3.

KIEV, Ukraine,
May 30--Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych on Wednesday warned of problems in resolving a two-month political crisis in this former Soviet republic, the Interfax news agency reported.
“Problems have appeared, although I don’t want to focus too much attention on them since we agreed that we could find an answer to these questions today“ at a session of parliament, Yanukovych was quoted as telling cabinet ministers.
“The answer will hopefully be positive. If we do not find an answer, that would be bad,“ Yanukovych said as lawmakers prepared to vote on a series of measures to pave the way for early legislative elections, AFP reported.
President Viktor Yushchenko and his rival Yanukovych struck a deal on Sunday in which the two leaders agreed to hold polls on September 30 in order to end their power struggle.
Under the terms of the deal, Yushchenko would formally set the election date only once parliament passed the relevant measures at sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Rakhat Aliyev

Nursultan Nazarbayev

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, May 30--Kazakh authorities on Tuesday have issued an international arrest warrant for the powerful son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbayev who faces abduction charges and has publicly criticized the longtime leader.
Rakhat Aliyev, the husband of Nazarbayev’s daughter Dariga, was put on a wanted list for alleged involvement in the suspected February kidnapping of two senior managers of a bank he controls, the Interior Ministry said in a statement, AP said.
Aliyev was suspected of an attempt to unseat his father-in-law in 2001 and recently advocated the establishment of a monarchy in the Central Asian former Soviet republic.
He was fired from his position as deputy foreign minister after the abduction allegations in February and was sent to be Kazakhstan’s ambassador in Austria.
Aliyev, who is still in Austria, was dismissed from that position on Saturday, hours after he publicly accused Nazarbayev of a “retreat to totalitarian Soviet past“ and said he would run for president in 2012. He also rejected the abduction allegations against him, saying they were fabricated on Nazarbayev’s orders.