In the News

WORLD

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentine prosecutors asked a judge Wednesday to issue an arrest warrant against former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and other Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed scores of people.

The decision to attack the center “was undertaken in 1993 by the highest authorities of the then-government of Iran,” prosecutor Alberto Nisman said at a news conference.

Nisman said the actual attack was entrusted to the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah.

The worst terrorist attack ever on Argentine soil, the bombing of the Jewish cultural center killed 85 people and injured more than 200 others when an explosive-laden vehicle was driven near the building and detonated.

Prosecutors urged the judge to seek international and national arrest orders for Rafsanjani, who was Iran’s president between 1989 and 1997.

The judge, under Argentine law, is allowed an indefinite amount of time to accept or reject the recommendations.

Federal Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral had no comment following the news conference by Nisman and fellow prosecutor Marcelo Martinez Burgo.

NATION

NEW YORK – Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s explanation that the city’s cleanup of the World Trade Center site was done quickly out of respect for victims’ families did little to quell the anger of some who fear the remains of their loved ones were overlooked.

Bloomberg said Tuesday that city officials who handled the World Trade Center cleanup years ago worked “as fast as we could” but said they were urgently trying to get remains back to the families.

Thirty-six more bone fragments were found Tuesday as workers continued sifting debris from subterranean cavities that were apparently missed during the initial cleanup.

Several large bones were accidentally discovered last week after a utility crew opened up a non-working manhole. Since then, the city has been tearing up the pavement and examining other underground pockets in the same vicinity, which is a service road along the western edge of the 16-acre site.

In the past few days, more than 130 bones and fragments have been recovered. The medical examiner’s office is working to match them to victims. The remains for more than 40 percent of the 2,749 victims still have not been identified.

STATE & LOCAL

RICHMOND – Mayor L. Douglas Wilder on Wednesday endorsed Democrat Jim Webb and his bid to unseat Republican George Allen in the U.S. Senate.

Wilder, Virginia governor from 1990 to 1994, promised to help Webb with voter turnout in the weeks leading to the Nov. 7 election. He said Webb could beat Allen if he gets a large voter turnout in the Hampton Roads and Richmond areas.

“Those are the battlegrounds,” Wilder said. “A lot will depend on the turnout in those areas.”

Webb said he’s sought Wilder’s counsel during the campaign.

“There is no living American who understands the demographics of Virginia like Douglas Wilder,” he said.

Wilder, who remains the nation’s first and only elected black governor, said he’s angry at the way President Bush has handled the Iraq war. And he says one big reason Webb is so close in the race is because of national voter anger toward Republicans in Washington.

Though a Democrat, Wilder has an unpredictable, often conservative streak that means Democrats can never take his backing for granted.

In 1997, Wilder withheld his endorsement for Democrat Donald Beyer, who lost that year’s governor’s race to Republican Jim Gilmore.

Wilder endorsed both of Allen’s Democratic opponents in Allen’s two previous statewide races – Sen. Charles Robb in 2000 and Mary Sue Terry in the 1993 governor’s race.