by Emily Straton, BBC News Analyst, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla

Published: April 13, 2010

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Filed at 3:18 p.m. ET

BOSTON (AP) -- When the Tea Party Express pulls into the city where the conservative movement got its name, the crowd will be as notable for who's not there as for who is.

Sarah Palin is the keynote speaker on Wednesday, but Republican Sen. Scott Brown is skipping the event. The movement claims his upset January election as its proudest moment.

Brown says he's too busy with his congressional duties, but Tufts University political science professor Jeffrey Berry says he believes the senator is worried about being associated with the movement's more radical elements.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker is also skipping the rally, saying he has a prior commitment 40 miles away in Worcester (WUH'-stur), the state's second-largest city.

Tea party rallies were being held Tuesday in Missouri, Nebraska and New York.

Posted by biginla at 8:29 PM BST

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by Suzanne Gould, BBC news, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla, who is in London on assignment

Published: April 13, 2010

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Filed at 2:58 p.m. ET

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- The flare-up over Sarah Palin's scheduled speech on a California State University campus has taken a twist after students discovered a portion of her confidential contract.

The document found in a campus Dumpster does not include her compensation for the June 25 speech to the CSU Stanislaus Foundation.

It does specify other requirements to be provided by the foundation, including round-trip, first-class airfare for two, a suite and two rooms at a deluxe hotel and transportation via SUVs or black town cars.

It also requires that Palin's lectern be stocked with water bottles and bendable straws.

The students say they acted on a tip that documents were being shredded inside the main administration building last Friday, a day that campus staff was supposed to be on furlough.

Posted by biginla at 8:24 PM BST

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We published an email exchange Thursday night between MSNBC President Phil Griffin and a David Shuster fan about his anchor’s indefinite suspension.

Mediaite spoke exclusively with Griffin today about the reasons behind the suspension, emailing with viewers and more.

“I said all along that this was about loyalty and looking out for this network and not our competition,” Griffin told Mediaite, who said in an email Thursday afternoon (obtained by Mediaite today), “We don’t pay David to help CNN figure out how to beat us.”

“Really, what upset me about this whole thing was how unfair it was to people who were loyal to the company,” he said. “That’s at the heart of this thing, that’s what makes it so difficult to get beyond.”

Griffin said he had emailed with several viewers who reached out to him regarding Shuster, but “I don’t think I will anymore.” He told Mediaite, laughing, “I do like engaging our viewers, I don’t like it when they immediately direct it to you.”

We received the email correspondences by way of the Facebook group, “Punish David Shuster with his own show!” a fan group with 298 members and counting. Obviously, these viewers who have reached out to Griffin and the fans on Facebook are upset Shuster has been taken off MSNBC. “I am too,” said Griffin. “I’d prefer we weren’t in this situation.”

As for whether Shuster returns to MSNBC during the remainder of his contract, Griffin said, “Dave and I have to work that out.”

On one level, it’s refreshing to see the President of a company engage with its customers at such a personal level. Obviously, it wasn’t an easy decision to take a long-time employee who anchored 10+ hours a week off the air. Directly addressing it with fans is rare. With Shuster’s future at MSNBC up in the air, the next question becomes where he goes next – although since he’s under contract for the remainder of 2010, we may have to wait several months to get any answer.

Posted by biginla at 7:48 PM BST

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Play Video Reuters  – Kyrgyzstan to expel former leader

• Slideshow:Protests in Kyrgyzstan
• Play Video Video:Kyrgyz riot victims mourned CBC.ca
• Play Video Video:Kyrgyz new leaders aim for control Reuters

AP – Kyrgyz men stand under a poster with the images of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Kyrgyz counterpart …

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Kyrgyzstan's interim leader told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday that her government will extend for a year the lease of a U.S. air base key to the war in Afghanistan, and guarantee the deposed president's safety if he steps down and leave the country.

The ousted ruler said he was willing to step down but he also wants immunity for his family and close circle as a condition to resign — an argument that could block a deal to transfer power and foment the turmoil gripping the Central Asian nation.

Roza Otunbayeva, the interim leader, told the AP that the agreement allowing the U.S. to use the Manas air base will be prolonged after the current one-year deal expires in July.

"It will be automatically extended for the next year," she said.

The U.S. base, at the capital's international airport, provides refueling flights for warplanes over Afghanistan and serves as a major transit hub for troops.

In the interview, Otunbayeva said her government is offering security guarantees for deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiyev if he steps down and leaves the country, but she wouldn't offer such immunity to his family.

"We will provide security guarantees which he's entitled to under the constitution," she said.

Bakiyev fled the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday after a rally against corruption, rising utility bills and deteriorating human rights exploded into police gunfire and chaos that left at least 83 people dead and sparked protesters to storm the government headquarters.

He told reporters in his home village in the south that he would resign and relinquish his claim on power if the interim authorities guarantee "my own security and the security of members of my family and those close to me."

Both the United States and Russia, which also has a military base in Kyrgyzstan, have watched the violence in the impoverished ex-Soviet Central Asian nation with concern.

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which is in charge of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, said troop transports to and from Afghanistan were suspended last week at the Manas air base. Refueling flights have continued.

Major John Redfield told The Associated Press that flights resumed briefly Friday and a few hundred troops were flown back to the U.S. on Monday after being stuck at Manas by the shutdown. Other than that, flights to and from Afghanistan remain indefinitely suspended.

Russia has watched the U.S. military presence in what it considers its backyard with unease, and it had pushed Bakiyev's government to evict the U.S. military.

But after announcing last year that American forces would have to leave the Manas base, Kyrgyzstan agreed to allow them to stay after the U.S. raised the annual rent to about $63 million from $17 million.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call Otunbayeva last week after her appointment as the interim leader and offer help, prompting speculation that Moscow was jockeying for greater clout in Kyrgyzstan at the U.S. expense.

Otunbayeva said Tuesday that she expects the U.S. to wrap up its campaign in Afghanistan, which would remove the rationale for the U.S. base, but added that "it's not an issue yet."

She said that her government would look at the contracts for supplying fuel to the U.S. base, but wouldn't immediately say that they would seek their revision. The opposition has alleged that Bakiyev's entourage has profited from those contracts.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with Otunbayeva over the weekend, to offer humanitarian aid and discuss the importance of the U.S. air base. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake is to travel to Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday for talks including the base status.

Otunbayeva told the AP that her government expects to continue receiving about $47 million a year in U.S. financial assistance, adding that foreign aid is vital for shoring up democracy in the impoverished nation. She said that her government also expects Russia to provide some urgent aid.

Kyrgyzstan has remained on edge, and the interim government has issued threats that it will launch a special operation to seize Bakiyev — a move that the ousted leader has repeatedly insisted would end in bloodshed.

Bakiyev signaled his readiness to resign hours after rallying with about 5,000 supporters in an apparent test of how much support he could muster to resist the opposition authorities. The crowd that greeted Bakiyev was highly emotional, but there have been doubts about how much real backing he has and whether he commanded enough loyalty in the security forces to mount serious resistance.

In the minutes before Bakiyev addressed reporters Tuesday afternoon at his family compound in Teyit, a short drive from Jalal-Abad, around 20 machine gun-toting guards in camouflage uniforms emerged into the courtyard in an apparent gesture to demonstrate their readiness to thwart any attempt by security forces to launch a raid on the house.

Bakiyev says he is eager to hold negotiations to bring an end to the political crisis, but that he wouldn't go to the capital to hold them. The interim government "cannot secure the safety of my passage to Bishkek," he said.

When asked specifically Tuesday if the new authorities are willing to extend guarantees to Bakiyev's brother and son, the security chief in the interim government, Keneshbek Duishebayev, declined comment. Those men are among the Bakiyev relatives most often accused of reaping massive wealth through improper channels; complaints about corruption were a prime issue in the events that drove Bakiyev out of the capital.

Otunbayeva indicated that her government's patience with Bakiyev is running out.

"His stay in Kyrgyzstan is posing a problem for the nation's future," she told the AP. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to guarantee his security as people are demanding to bring him to justice."

Asked where Bakiyev might go, she said she didn't know but then added that Bakiyev would probably like to join his sons, who are currently in Latvia.

____

Posted by biginla at 7:27 PM BST

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by Biodun Iginla, BBC News and the Economist

• Apr 11th 2010, 17:58 by N.B. | WASHINGTON, DC

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Posted by biginla at 7:15 PM BST

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JERUSALEM – Israel issued an "urgent" warning Tuesday to its citizens to leave Egypt's Sinai Peninsula immediately citing "concrete evidence of an expected terrorist attempt to kidnap Israelis in Sinai."

The statement from the Israeli prime minister's anti-terror office took the unusual step of calling on families of Israelis visiting the Sinai to establish contact with them.

Israel's anti-terror office has a standing travel advisory telling Israelis to stay out of the Sinai desert because of the threat of terror attacks. However, thousands of Israelis routinely ignore the warning and vacation in the desert and along its Red Sea coast.

Egyptian security officials said about 35,000 Israelis are in the Sinai now, and they expected thousands more to arrive later this month.

In the unusually strong statement, the Israeli anti-terror office called "on all Israelis residing in Sinai to leave immediately and return home. Families of Israelis residing in Sinai are asked to contact them and update them on the travel warning."

In 2004, suicide bombers attacked Egypt's Taba Hilton Hotel, just across the Israeli border, and several campsites where Israelis are known to vacation. Dozens of people were killed and hundreds wounded.

Israel controlled the Sinai from its capture in the 1967 war until returning it to Egypt in 1982 in the framework of a peace treaty between the two nations.

___

Additional reporting by Ashraf Sweilam in Rafah, Egypt.

Posted by biginla at 6:57 PM BST

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