Two blasts rock Istanbul; deaths reported

/europe

ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- Two explosions rocked suburban Istanbul Sunday night, injuring several people, according to journalists and video footage from the scene.

Video footage from the scene showed several bloodied people being transported into ambulances.

The back-to-back blasts happened in Istanbul's Gungoren community at about 10 p.m., a journalist with Turkish news agency DHA told CNN Turk. The journalist, Zafer Karakoc, said he witnessed the explosions.

Police did not immediately report official injury and death tolls, but Turkey's state-run Anadolu Ajansi news agency reported eight fatalities.

Up to 30 people were taken to hospitals, journalist Andrew Finkel told CNN.

Video footage from the scene shows several bloodied people being transported into ambulances.

Dozens of firefighters and paramedics were on the scene.

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Obama showed independent streak in lobbyist dealings

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WASHINGTON — On Wednesday nights during Illinois General Assembly sessions, a group of lobbyists and lawmakers used to gather at the headquarters of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association for a weekly poker game. Barack Obama, who represented part of Chicago as state senator from 1997-2004, was a regular.

These days, Obama says lobbyists are part of the problem with Washington, and he refuses to accept their fundraising help. But during his eight years in Springfield, Ill., Obama played golf and basketball with them and hit them up for campaign donations, according to records and interviews. He shared meals with them, though he was careful to pay his own way, they say.

Obama also accepted lobbyist money when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, and he later used his influence to help secure grants for 16 Illinois-based institutions represented by six of his lobbyist contributors, public records show.

He did all that while retaining a reputation for independence. "I can't remember a time that state senator Obama wasn't on the side of the consumers," said David Kolata, executive director of the non-partisan Illinois Citizens Utility Board.

A look at Obama's past relationships with lobbyists shows that, for most of his political career, Obama wasn't as attentive to the appearance of coziness with special interests as he is now. But it also shows that he often voted against the interests of his lobbyist friends, and he helped pass two significant upgrades to Illinois campaign finance and ethics laws.

"I think that he understood that lobbyists had valuable information and are a part of the system," said Illinois lobbyist Paul Williams, an Obama contributor who represents the cable television industry, a major electric utility and other powerful interest groups. "But he doesn't necessarily want to be tied to or indebted to their financial support, which might have an influence on his decision-making process."

Obama has said he stopped taking money from lobbyists and political action committees when he began running for president in January 2007 because he came to believe that special interests were too influential in Washington. Before that, his Senate campaign committees took in $140,400 in lobbyist contributions from 2003-06, and $1.2 million from PACs, out of about $16.3 million raised, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

In an interview last month with USA TODAY, Obama said his self-imposed ban on lobbyist and PAC donations means there are "fewer strings attached to me." He said, for example, that a lobbyist who raises campaign funds for him "is going to have some very specific interests that they want you to deal with," adding, "I'm never in that situation."

Records suggest a more complicated reality. As a U.S. senator, for example, Obama helped secured three grants totaling nearly $8 million for military fuel-cell research and other projects at Chicago State University. The university's lobbyist, Anita Estell, contributed $1,500 to Obama in 2004. Other employees at her then-firm, Van Scoyoc Associates, gave Obama $2,750, records show.

Last year, Estell brought Chicago State to her new firm, Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus. While Estell by then was barred from giving, Polsinelli lawyers who aren't lobbyists contributed $7,498 to Obama's presidential campaign, records show.

Estell said Obama was inclined to aid a minority-serving school. Donations "may matter with some candidates; I don't think it matters with him," she said.

Although he did business with lobbyists, Obama in 1998 helped pass a bill restricting lobbyist gifts and fundraisers near the Illinois Capitol building in Springfield. In 2003, he helped draft gift restrictions for state employees. And in Congress last year, he worked to enact disclosure requirements for lobbyists who raise funds for lawmakers.

He also cast some high-profile votes against powerful interest groups. In May 2003, for example, SBC Communications, Illinois' main telephone provider, deployed dozens of lobbyists who lined up much of the Democratic establishment behind legislation that consumer groups said would increase phone bills.

Michael Lieteau, a lobbyist for SBC, had played poker and basketball with Obama. Lieteau recalled, noting, as other lobbyists did, that Obama always paid his own tab.

Obama was one of just six Democratic senators who voted no. He sided against the Democratic governor, the Democratic House speaker and his mentor, Democratic Senate President Emil Jones. Even the political consultant he had hired to help him run for the U.S. Senate in 2004, David Axelrod, was working for SBC.

Bush defends decision to attend Olympics

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By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY

TOYAKO, Japan — President Bush on Sunday defended his decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games next month, saying that skipping the event "would be an affront to the Chinese people."

Bush said that he "doesn't need the Olympics to express my concerns" about China's human rights record, something he said he has consistently done in past meetings with Chinese leaders. In Beijing next month, he intends to cheer on U.S. athletes. "It's an athletic event," he said.

Bush made the comments in a press conference here with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on the eve of the annual Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations.

Fukuda also ended speculation by declaring that he would attend the Aug. 8 opening of the Games. Some human rights groups have called for world leaders to boycott the ceremony to protest China's repression of dissidents and its support for pariah states Burma and Sudan.

"You don't have to link the Olympics to politics," Fukuda said. "I would not like the Chinese to become unhappy. We are neighbors, after all."

Meeting in a resort on the northern Japanese island Hokkaido, the leaders of the G8 nations — the United States, Japan, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Canada and Italy — will work through a packed three-day agenda covering topics such as:

•Global warming

•Soaring energy and food prices

•Economic uncertainty following the collapse of the U.S. housing market

• The nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran

•Aid for Africa

Fukuda hopes to use the G8 summit to broker a deal to reduce by 50% worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Bush has balked at the idea, believing that any G8 agreement to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases — which trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming — would be meaningless unless emerging economic powerhouses China and India sign on, too.

"The president's trying to shift the blame to developing countries," says Alden Meyer, policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit environmental group. Meyer said that China and India have already signaled at a climate change conference in Indonesia, last December that they're willing to accept emissions-cutting targets.

"On the topic of climate change, this year will be a place-holder summit," William Antholis, managing director of the Brookings Institution think tank, predicted.

Antholis said that U.S. presidential contenders Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama were more committed than Bush to stopping global warming. When a new U.S. president meets G8 leaders again in Italy next year, he said, "industrial nations may finally step up to the global challenge of cutting emissions."

In an hour-long meeting Sunday afternoon, Bush, who was celebrating his 62nd birthday, sought to reassure Fukuda on another issue sensitive in Japan: the abduction by North Korea of at least 17 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.

Last month, the United States removed North Korea from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism — a reward for Pyongyang's progress toward dismantling its nuclear weapons program. The decision was widely criticized in Japan, which wants to see North Korea pressured into accounting for the missing Japanese.

"As a father of little girls, I can't imagine what it would be like to have my daughter just disappear," Bush said. He said he told Fukuda "the United States will not abandon you on this issue."

Weather aids tired firefighters in Calif.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Firefighters on Sunday took advantage of cooler, damper weather to battle a vast blaze ravaging Santa Barbara County as they tried to gain a foothold against the fire before the expected return of hotter, drier conditions.

Moist air currents from the ocean cooled temperatures to the high 70s Sunday, helping fire crews keep the four-day-old blaze from spreading. The fire, which has been burning since Tuesday, was less than a third contained Sunday afternoon.

"We've got a window here with the humid weather that's really helping us. But we know we're in this for the long haul," said Dixie Dies, spokeswoman for the state Incident Management Team.

Temperatures are forecast to start climbing Monday and to reach the 90s by Thursday. The moist air currents are expected to dissipate, causing drier conditions, Dies said.

Lightning strikes were also possible as a new weather system moves in, forecasters said.

The fire, 28% contained Sunday night, has consumed about 13 square miles of Los Padres National Forest.

Nearly 2,700 homes were in jeopardy earlier in the weekend, but by Sunday night many of the evacuation orders were lifted or downgraded to warnings.

"People are filtering back to their neighborhoods and they're very happy," said forest spokesman John Ahlman. Some mandatory evacuations remained in scattered mountain communities south of Highway 154 and in areas on the west end of the fire, Ahlman said. He did not have exact numbers of how many homes were affected.

Firefighting crews made progress Sunday in controlling the fire's perimeters, said Santa Barbara County spokesperson Carrie Topliffe.

"It's pretty well stopped on the southern flank, where most of the structure threat was," Topliffe said.

The fire is blazing through 15 to 20-foot tall forest in extremely steep, rocky terrain. Crews are relying mainly on drops of flame retardant by helicopters and DC-10s to control the burning ridges and canyons, Dies said.

Officials decided Sunday that the nearly 1,200 firefighters, from 22 states and the District of Columbia, are sufficient to combat the fire, Dies said. "They're working incredibly hard," she said.

The fire still had the potential to roll through a hilly area of ranches, housing tracts and orchards between the town of Goleta and Santa Barbara.

Investigators suspect the fire was human-caused. The U.S. Forest Service has asked for public help in determining how it was set.

Sunday's cooler weather also helped firefighters advance on a two-week-old blaze that has destroyed 22 homes in Big Sur, at the northern end of the Los Padres forest.

"The fog held on a little bit stronger than was originally anticipated, which was great for the crews out working on the lines," said Sarah Gibson, a spokeswoman for the command post in charge of fighting the blaze.

The improved weather did have some drawbacks. Fog made the takeoff of firefighting aircraft more difficult and hampered efforts to start controlled burns to clear out brush ahead of the advancing wildfire, Gibson said.

The fire, which has charred 113 square miles, was 11% contained, a slight jump from the day before. Fire officials said crews were burning out brush between the fire's edge and Big Sur's famed restaurants and hotels and cutting more lines to halt flames creeping down from ridge tops.

"The biggest challenge is whether or not the containment lines that they're building now and continuing to improve are going to hold as the fire approaches," said Rolf Larsen, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

Wildfires have burned more than 800 square miles of land and destroyed at least 69 homes throughout California, mainly in the northern part of the state, in the past two weeks. One firefighter died of a heart attack while digging fire lines.

About 1,400 fires have been contained, but more than 330 still burned out of control Sunday morning.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who on Saturday visited a command post in the coastal region of Santa Barbara County, has ordered 400 National Guard troops to be trained in wildfire fighting so they could help fight the state's blazes.

He also urged lawmakers to adopt his budget plan for a $70 million emergency surcharge on home and business insurance policies to buy more firefighting equipment.

California now has a year-round fire season and needs the money from the fee, which should cost the average homeowner about $1 a month, Schwarzenegger has said.

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