C M Y K A8 The Daily Commercial Wednesday, April 1, 2009 Leaders divided on how to Taliban lift nations from recession threatens White House TOM RAUM Associated Press ASSOCIATED PRESS In this image from TV, former Khmer Rouge prison commander Kaing Guek Eav, also known as “Duch” reads a statement during a trial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Tuesday. Khmer Rouge prison chief pleads for forgiveness GRANT PECK Associated Press PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The man accused of being the Khmer Rouge’s chief torturer put down his prepared speech, removed his eyeglasses and gazed at the courtroom audience as he pleaded for forgiveness from the country he helped terrorize three decades ago. “At the beginning I only prayed to ask for forgiveness from my parents, but later I prayed to ask forgiveness from the whole nation,” Kaing Guek Eav (pronounced “Gang Geck Ee-uu”) — better known as Duch (“Doik”) — recounted on the second day of his trial before Cambodia’s genocide tribunal. The hundreds of spectators seated on the other side of a glass wall in the courtroom — including relatives of the regime’s victims — listened intently to the gripping testimony. The tribunal’s proceedings are the first serious attempt to fix responsibility for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians from starvation, medical neglect, slave-like working conditions and execution under the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, whose top leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998. Duch, 66, is charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as murder and torture and could face a maximum penalty of life in prison. Cambodia has no death penalty. He commanded the group’s main S-21 prison, also known as Tuol Sleng, where as many as 16,000 men women and children are believed to have been brutalized before being sent to their deaths. The indictment read out in court Monday contained wrenching descriptions of the torture and executions he allegedly supervised. Duch betrayed no emotion as he listened to allegations that his prisoners were beaten, electrocuted, smothered with plastic bags or had water poured into their noses, and that children were taken from parents and dropped to their deaths or that some prisoners were bled to death. LONDON — Desperate but divided on ways to lift their nations from economic misery, world leaders converged for an emergency summit Tuesday holding scant hopes of finding a magic-bullet solution for the crisis that brought them hurrying to London. Even as President Barack Obama and the others were arriving, the U.S. acknowledged its allies would not go along with a massive burst of stimulus spending, while Europe was forced to backpedal from hopes for tighter financial regulation. Instead, leaders are trumpeting the limited common ground they could reach, including more money for the International Monetary Fund and closer scrutiny of hedge funds and tax havens. As for the broader issues, they’re hoping for the best — or at least that they will do no harm. With turbulent world markets watching closely, the stakes are high, especially for America’s new president, stepping onto the world stage for the first time to deal with the economic crisis and to meet face-to-face with many other leaders. One global change is being acknowledged: The forum for grappling with world economic problems has grown beyond the established eight post-war economies that dominated previous economic summits — the U.S., Britain, Germany France, Japan, Canada, Italy and Russia. Now, 20 nations are coming together in London, with fast-growing developing economies such as China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia — important players in any effort to coordinate economic policy — sitting as full negotiating partners. “For the first time, there’s a recognition that major emerging markets and developing countries have a critical role at the table,” said Mike Froman, a White House international economic adviser. But will that mean action to stop a global downward spiral? Froman acknowledged that there have been few examples of international gains in times of crisis. “The depression was made ’great’ by the lack of cooperation,” he said, noting that nations like to keep control over their own ISHTIAQ MAHSUD Associated Press CHARLES DHARAPAK / AP President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wave as they stand outside Air Force One at London’s Stansted International Airport, on Tuesday. fiscal and monetary policies. And global leaders were quarreling up to the last minute before the summit. Adding to the pressure, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday the leaders cannot afford to let the week pass without making substantial progress in fixing the world’s economy. “We have to obtain results, there is no choice, the crisis is too serious to allow us to have a summit for nothing,” he said. European countries are pushing for a tougher regulatory system for global finance, while the U.S. is emphasizing more spending — an idea that holds little interest for Europeans wary about debt. Obama planned a round of meetings with leaders on Wednesday, including Queen Elizabeth II, summit host British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the presidents of Russia and China. The world economy is in far worse shape than when the group of rich and developing countries last met in November and set lofty goals for international cooperation. Trade is deteriorating, protectionism is on the march and joblessness is rising. Street demonstrations have increased, and widespread protests are expected in London this week. Brown, the host, had initially trumpeted the gathering as “a new Bretton Woods — a new financial architecture for the years ahead.” But the meeting was shaping up as bearing little similarity to the 1944 conference in New Hampshire where the winners of World War II gathered to set postwar global monetary and financial order. Seniors Clip Here TAX PREPARATION $ 00 49 Flat Rate Brown’s spokesman said the prime minister had spoken briefly by telephone on Tuesday with Obama, who was on Air Force One. “It’s an opportunity for both of them to take stock of where we were,” Brown’s spokesman Michael Ellam said. World Bank President Robert Zoellick called for the G20 to back a $50 billion liquidity fund to keep global trade moving. In rich countries, he said, “people talk of bonuses or no bonuses. In parts of Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food.” London does not have a good history for successful economic summits. One held in London in 1933, attended by more than 1,000 world leaders and financial officials — although not President Franklin D. Roosevelt — met for six weeks and then gave up. Still, most leaders were upbeat Tuesday as they headed to London. “It is important and necessary for the summit to take credible decisions which will help to halt and reverse the current slowdown and to instill a sense of confidence in the global economy,” said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Summit partners will meet for dinner on Wednesday evening, then hold a business meeting on Thursday. A draft of the communique circulating ahead of the meeting suggested that global leaders will embrace stimulus spending totaling about $2 trillion. But that includes a number of measures already announced. Leaders of European countries, led by Germany’s Angela Merkel, continued to resist calls for more stimulus and for printing money as the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have done to try to jump-start a recovery. DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — The commander of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Tuesday for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy and said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the White House that would “amaze” the world. Baitullah Mehsud, who has a $5 million bounty on his head from the U.S., said Monday’s attack on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore was retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against militants along the Afghan border. “Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world,” Mehsud told The Associated Press by phone. He provided no details. Mehsud has never been directly linked to any attacks outside Pakistan, but attacks blamed on his network of fighters have widened in scope and ambition in recent years. The threat comes days after President Barack Obama warned that alQaida is actively planning attacks on the United States from secret havens in Pakistan. Pakistan’s former government and the CIA named Mehsud as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to al-Qaida, and of training suicide bombers. In his latest comments, Mehsud identified the White House as one of the targets in an interview with local Dewa Radio, a copy of which was obtained by the AP. In Washington, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said he had not seen any reports of Mehsud’s comments but that he would “take the threat under consideration.” Mehsud also claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing that killed four soldiers Monday in Bannu district and a suicide attack targeting a police station in Islamabad last week that killed one officer. Such attacks pose a major test for the weak, year-old civilian administration of Pakistan. By Appointment Only • Confidential/Professional Service ’s Catholic Schoo l u a P . l St Call - (352) 728-3300 Experience Quality Education • Non-Catholic Students Welcome Lake County Tax Advisory Group 712 S. 14th Street/Hwy 27 Leesburg, FL 34738 Register Now Your child should be part of our family. 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