Obama knocks Clinton

Sen. Barack Obama Friday knocked Sen. Hillary Clinton for taking lobbyists' money and said she was too much a part of "business-as-usual in Washington" to bring about reform.

The Illinois Democrat's comments come after Clinton Thursday questioned his record of standing up to special interests.

"The problem we have is not a lack of good ideas," Obama said in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Friday. "It's that Washington today is a place where good ideas go to die."

"In this campaign, [Clinton has] taken nearly double the amount of money from lobbyists than any Democrat or Republican running for president," he said. "That's not being a part of the solutions business. That's being a part of business-as-usual in Washington."

Clinton has sharpened her attacks on Obama in recent days, possibly in response to the do-or-die situation she is facing over the next couple of weeks.

"I am in the solutions business. My opponent is in the promises business," Clinton has said many times on the campaign trail this week.

Clinton has also questioned her rival's ability to deliver on his rhetoric.

"There's a big difference between us -- speeches versus solutions, talk versus action. ... Speeches don't put food on the table. Speeches don't fill up your tank or fill your prescription or do anything about that stack of bills that keeps you up at night," she said during a campaign stop Thursday in Youngstown, Ohio.

The New York senator Thursday also questioned Obama's willingness to stand up to the nuclear and oil industries. In particular, she pointed to a 2006 bill that originally would have required the nuclear power plants to report any release of radiation into groundwater. Clinton suggested subsequent drafts were watered down after the nuclear industry objected to the new requirements.

On Friday Obama defended the nuclear bill, noting that Clinton supported the bill at the time, and said he could not move a stronger bill because the Republicans controlled the Senate at the time.

"It turns out that Sen. Clinton, who voted for this bill that I introduced and touted it on her Web site, thought it was pretty good then," he said. "Only in Washington can you vote for a bill, take credit for it, and then criticize the sponsor of the bill."

Obama also defended his vote for energy legislation -- a bill that Clinton dubbed "the Dick Cheney energy bill" and said gave "billions of dollars of breaks for the oil industry" -- in 2005, saying, "it was the best that we could do right now, given the makeup of Congress."

On Friday, Clinton didn't make any direct comments about Obama during a campaign stop at a Lockheed Martin plant in Akron, Ohio.

She said she was "deeply saddened" by the shootings at Northern Illinois University Thursday and "we just have to figure out how we're going to get smart about protecting our kids."

"I am bullish on America. I think our best days are ahead. It takes more than hoping for it to get it done," she added.

Obama received significant boost to his campaign Friday when he received the backing of the 1.9 million-member Service Employees International Union.

"We have an enormous amount of respect for Sen. Clinton, but it's now become clear members and leaders want to become part of an effort to elect Barack Obama the next president," union president Andy Stern said during a conference call announcing the union's endorsement.

Three sources told CNN that union leaders had deliberated on the endorsement via a conference call Thursday. Obama was the overwhelming choice of the union's state and national leadership, they said.

Obama also received the endorsement of the 1.3-million member United Food and Commercial Workers Union Thursday afternoon.

A union's endorsement can give a candidate much needed support because union members often act as "ground troops" that can canvas neighborhoods and staff phone banks for a campaign.

The two union endorsements could also help Obama in his increasingly heated struggle with Clinton for blue-collar voters in the delegate-rich states of Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.

Clinton's own supporters suggest the New York senator must do well in Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4 if she is to stop the momentum Obama has built by winning eight states in a row. The Clinton campaign has also said it is looking for a strong showing in the Pennsylvania primary April 22.

Obama now leads Clinton in the overall delegate count -- 1,253 to 1,211, according to CNN calculations.

News of the union endorsements comes as a superdelegate -- one of the Democratic Party officials or elected officials who could decide the nomination at the party's convention in Denver, Colorado, this summer -- said he would vote for Obama instead of Clinton, as he had previously pledged to do.

Rep. David Scott, an African-American from Georgia, told The Associated Press he would vote for Obama because he did not want to go against the will of the voters. Obama won the Georgia primary on Super Tuesday, February 5, and 80 percent of Scott's district voted for him, the AP reported.

"You've got to represent the wishes of your constituency," Scott told the AP on Wednesday. "My proper position would be to vote the wishes of my constituents."

The New York Times reported Friday that another black lawmaker from Georgia, Rep. John Lewis, was also going to shift his support to Obama from Clinton. Lewis is one of the most senior African-American members of Congress and a respected voice on civil rights.

Lewis' office, however, told CNN that The Times misrepresented his intentions and said Lewis had not decided to switch his support to Obama. But the AP reported many sources close to the Georgia lawmaker said he was torn over his earlier endorsement of

Who was Illinois school shooter?

Northern Illinois University on Friday identified the man who fatally shot five people in a classroom as Steven P. Kazmierczak, whom police described as an award-winning student "revered" by colleagues and faculty.

Kazmierczak, 27, who police said shot 21 people before shooting and killing himself, was an award-winning sociology student and a leader of a campus criminal justice group, according to school Web sites.

Concealing a shotgun in a guitar case, and tucking three other guns under his coat, Kazmierczak walked into a geology class in an NIU lecture hall Thursday afternoon and began firing, police said. The graduate student stopped to reload his shotgun before he took his own life, police said.

Kazmierczak was a student about 175 miles away at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, police said, and there "were no red flags" warning of any violent behavior.

One of Kazmierczak's advisers said that she enjoyed having him as a student and that he was "a nice person; he was a nice kid."

"I found Steven to be a very committed student, extremely respectful of me as an instructor and adviser," said Jan Carter-Black, an assistant professor in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's School of Social Work

Carter-Black was assigned to be Kazmierczak's faculty adviser when he enrolled in the school in the summer of 2007, and he was a student in her human behavior and social environment class last fall, she said


Carter-Black and Chris Larrison -- another School of Social Work associate professor who knew Kazmierczak -- described the gunman as pleasant, considerate and flexible.

"I was so surprised to see this today," Larrison said. Kazmierczak worked on a research project concerning mental health clinics under him, he said.

"It doesn't fit with the Steven" he knew, Larrison said.

The 27-year-old participated fully in the class -- which met for three hours once a week -- until he formally withdrew from it sometime before late September and became a part-time student, Carter-Black said.

He was lightening his course load so he could take on a position in the prison system, she said.

She didn't know if the position was in the federal or state system, but said he had discussed the decision with several faculty members. He later left the position at the prison, she said, but she didn't know under what circumstances.

"He was very committed to pursuing a career with prisoners," Larrison said. He said it was likely that the career interest corresponded with Kazmierczak's concentration in mental health.

Carter-Black and Larrison said Kazmierczak resumed full-time status this semester.

In 2006, Kazmierczak was a student at Northern Illinois, police said, where he worked on a graduate paper that described his interest in "corrections, political violence, and peace and social justice."

The paper said Kazmierczak was "co-authoring a manuscript on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons in the United States."

University police Chief Donald Grady said Kazmierczak "was an awarded student. He was someone that was revered by the faculty and staff and students alike."

Fellow students and faculty described Kazmierczak as "a fairly normal, unstressed person," Grady said.

People close to Kazmierczak said he was taking medication but had recently stopped, "and he had become somewhat erratic in the last couple of weeks," Grady said.

Police have found no notes that would explain the attack, and authorities have no known motive in the case, Grady said.

Kazmierczak's former landlord, Jim Gordon, said Kazmierczak moved out of DeKalb in June 2007 and left a forwarding address in Champaign.

Gordon said he didn't recognize the picture of his yearlong former tenant "at all," but his records indicated that Kazmierczak "always paid on time, never a noise problem, left the place spotless."

The university sociology department's Web site said he was the recipient of a dean's award for his graduate work in sociology in 2006. He had been accepted for the graduate program that fall, the Web site said.

Kazmierczak also was vice president of the university's Academic Criminal Justice Association, according to the group's Web site, and worked on a paper on self-injury in prisons with the group's current president.

Kazmierczak's paper, titled "Self Injury in Correctional Settings: 'Pathology' of Prisons or Prisoners?" was published in 2006, according to the university's sociology Web site.

The Academic Criminal Justice Association provides "NIU students and members of the DeKalb community with an opportunity to learn about and promote knowledge and understanding of all areas of the criminal justice system, especially corrections and juvenile justice," the Web site says.

DeKalb police asked the Polk County, Florida, Sheriff's Department to make "next of kin" death notification to Kazmierczak's father, Robert Kazmierczak, sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Rodgers said Friday.

"Please leave me alone. I have no statement to make," Robert Kazmierczak told CNN affiliate WESH from the porch of his Lakeland, Florida, home.

"It's a very hard time. I'm a diabetic," he said before breaking down in tears.

School President John Peters said Friday, without giving a name, that the shooter had graduated in 2006 with an undergraduate degree in sociology and then went on to do some graduate work through 2007.

He "had a very good academic record" and "was a very good student," Peters said, adding that there was "no indication" of any trouble involving him.

Kazmierczak had no arrest record and no known history of mental illness, and he had a valid state-required firearm ID card, so he had no problem buying the guns, one law enforcement source said.

Police said the only record of him in DeKalb County Circuit Court was a speeding ticket issued in December 2006. A police officer cited him amid snowy conditions for "failure to reduce speed -- resulting in an -- accident," in a white 2001 Honda. Kazmierczak was 6-foot-4 and 165 pounds, according to the record.

Kazmierczak pleaded guilty and paid a $75 fine. No one was injured in the accident, the record showed

Pakistan AG 'predicts vote-rigging'

Pakistan's attorney general said that Monday's parliamentary election will be "massively rigged," according to what Human Rights Watch says is an audio recording it obtained.

The humanitarian watchdog, which is one of many voices to raise questions about the fairness of the electoral process in Pakistan, released a report and an audiotape that it says contains the voice of Attorney General Malik Qayyum.

The attorney general's office swiftly issued a stiff denial, saying the conversation "had been clearly fabricated and cannot be denounced and renounced in stronger words."

Human Rights Watch said Qayyum was "advising an unidentified person on what political party the person should approach to become a candidate in the upcoming parliamentary election" when he made the remark in November more than a month before opposition candidate Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

The recording -- translated into English from Punjabi -- makes reference to opposition politicians Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister, and Bhutto, the late former prime minister who was assassinated in Rawalpindi on December 27. The election was to be held in early January but was postponed to Monday after Bhutto was killed.

The recording says:

"Leave Nawaz Sharif (pause)....I think Nawaz Sharif will not take part in the election (pause).... If he does take part, he will be in trouble. If Benazir takes part she too will be in trouble (pause)... They will massively rig to get their own people to win. If you can get a ticket from these guys, take it (pause).... If Nawaz Sharif does not return himself, then Nawaz Sharif has some advantage. If he comes himself, even if after the elections rather than before, ..yes."

CNN's translation of the recording basically matches the one posted by Human Rights Watch, which said the recording was made on November 21 during a phone interview "with a member of the media."

"Qayyum, while still on the phone interview, took a call on another telephone and his side of that conversation was recorded," the group said.

In reaction to Human Rights Watch, the attorney general's office said Qayyum has "no nexus with the holding of elections nor would he be privy to any special election-related information." It says the attorney general's office doesn't partake in politics and doesn't ask people to switch affiliations. It also wonders why the "so-called journalist who had these manufactured tapes in November" didn't release them right away.

"The news item and the so-called fabricated conversation is just simply part of a malicious campaign to malign the government," Qayyum's office said.

Human Rights Watch said Qayyum is a close associate of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and headed a two-judge panel that convicted Bhutto and her husband in a corruption case, and the Supreme Court eventually said that the convictions were "politically motivated."

HRW told CNN the recording wasn't released earlier because it was being authenticated.

Bush, First Lady Begin Tour Of Africa

U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Benin on Saturday, kicking off a six-day trip to a continent where he enjoys high approval ratings.

Bush and first lady Laura Bush will visit five nations during their Africa tour. In addition to Benin, the Bushes also will visit Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia.

According to a recent Pew poll of 47 nations, America's popularity remains exceptionally high across Africa.

Their trip -- Bush's second to the continent and his wife's fifth -- will largely focus on the United States' aid programs, which include initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and poverty.

Ahead of the visit, Bush on Thursday called Africa a "continent of potential," and said the United States is committed to helping it develop.

"It's a place where democracy is advancing, where economies are growing, and leaders are meeting challenges with purpose and determination," Bush said at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, where he and his wife, Laura, addressed the audience.

"Across Africa, people have begun to speak of the Lazarus effect -- where communities once given up for dead are coming back to life," he said, noting that the continent has "also witnessed some of mankind's most shameful chapters -- from the evils of the slave trade to the condescension of colonialism."

He added, "Even the joy of independence, which arrived with such promise, was undermined by corruption, conflict, and disease."

The United States also announced last February its plans to establish an African military command, called Africom, which it says would help prevent war. However, on Wednesday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said there are not expected to be any announcements concerning that program during Bush's trip.

The president also announced his intention to send U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Kenya to support efforts to reach political conciliation there.

The country erupted in ethnic violence after its December 27 presidential vote, in which incumbent President Mwai Kibaki keep his post. His opponent, Orange Democratic Movement leader Raila Odinga, blasted the results, saying the election was rigged, and he and his supporters declined to recognize the election as valid.

Violence has dropped as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan mediates talks between the two groups.

Powerful Union Expected To Endorse Obama

Sen. Barack Obama is expected to be endorsed Friday by the Service Employees International Union, one of the nation's most powerful, union officials have told The Associated Press.

The sought-after endorsement would be Obama's largest from organized labor, and give him a powerful boost against rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the March 4 presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas.

The 1.8 million-member union is likely to endorse Obama on Friday, the union officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

SEIU backing is one of the most important labor endorsements available. The organization has donated more than $25 million, mostly to Democratic candidates, since 1989. In addition, the union has a powerful get-out-the-vote structure and has been courted by all the Democratic candidates since the beginning of the race.

SEIU has delayed an endorsement since September, when it had Obama, Clinton and other Democratic candidates speak to its members in Washington. It eventually narrowed the field to Obama, Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, but could not make a decision.

The union allowed its state affiliates to make endorsements, and many backed Edwards.

Edwards dropped out of the race just before the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5, leaving the field to Obama and Clinton.

Union leaders decided after a conference call Thursday night to go with Obama.

The officials who spoke anonymously cautioned that the union was still voting, but Obama was "99 percent" likely to get the endorsement, one of the insiders said.

The union had announced earlier Thursday that "President Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger will discuss a major political announcement with reporters" on Friday.

Separately Thursday, Obama also won the backing of the United Food and Commercial Workers, a politically active union with significant membership in the upcoming Democratic battlegrounds.

The 1.3-million member UFCW has 69,000 members in Ohio and another 26,000 in Texas.The food workers also have 19,000 members in Wisconsin, which holds a primary Tuesday.

The union is made up of supermarket workers and meatpackers, with 40 percent of the membership under 30 years old. Obama has been doing especially well among young voters.

With an SEIU endorsement and the United Food and Commercial Workers' backing, Obama would only need to pick up one more union endorsement to be eligible to collect the Change to Win labor federation's support. There are seven unions in the federation, and it would take endorsements from at least four of them to make the federation consider a joint endorsement.

Obama was endorsed in January by UNITE HERE, which along with SEIU and the United Food and Commercial Workers, would give him three of the seven member unions. The Teamsters, the Laborers' International Union of North America, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America have yet to endorse a candidate.

The seventh union, the United Farm Workers, endorsed Clinton in January.

Obama also was endorsed earlier this month by the Transport Workers Union and the National Weather Service Employees Organization.

Former Student KIlls 5 At Northern Illinois University

A gunman dressed in black stepped from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday and shot 21 people, five of them fatally, then shot and killed himself, said university president John Peters.

"A lot of people were screaming. Everybody started running for the door," said student Zach Seward. "It was just complete chaos."

Four died at the scene, including the shooter, and two later died at a hospital, he said.

At least 22 people, including the gunman and a graduate student who was teaching an ocean sciences class, were shot, Peters said.

Late Thursday, dozens of students gathered on campus for a candlelight prayer vigil. Video footage showed students comforting one another and a young man playing guitar.

Official school events and classes were canceled until further notice, Peters said.

Seven counseling areas were set up throughout the campus, and hotlines were established.

NIU senior Daley Hamilton, 21, said most students were heading home to their parents. "My parking lot at my apartment is pretty sparse," she told CNN.

She said she and her roommate were planning to leave Friday. "We are really on edge and just kind of want to get out," she said.

Tributes were also surfacing online. A Facebook community called "Pray for Northern Illinois University Students and Families" had more than 14,000 members by late Thursday.

NIU student Amanda Hart Garner posted the school's fight song, including the lyrics: "Free, steadfast, devoted, true/We will always stand by you."

Seven of those wounded in the shooting were listed in critical condition.

Four of the fatalities were female, said Peters.

Most of the injuries are head and chest gunshot wounds, a hospital spokeswoman told CNN.

The gunman started shooting from a stage in the room shortly after 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET) in Cole Hall, officials said.

Police Chief Donald Grady said authorities do not yet know of a motive.

They know the identity of the gunman but have not released his name, Grady added.

The shooter was a graduate student at NIU in the spring of 2007. Currently he was not enrolled there but, Grady said, "He may have been a student elsewhere."

A preliminary investigation has not uncovered a police record on the gunman, and records showed he had no contact with NIU police while a student there, Peters said.

Gunman 'just started shooting'

Kevin McEnery said he was in the classroom when the gunman, dressed in a black shirt, dark pants and black hat, burst in carrying a shotgun.

"He just kicked the door open, just started shooting," said McEnery, who was in the class at the time. "All I really heard was just people screaming, yelling 'get out.' ... Close to 30 shots were fired."

There are about 162 registered students in the class that met in the large lecture hall.

A student described the classroom as having four exits -- two at the front and two at the rear.

"Witnesses say someone dressed in black came out from behind a screen in the front of the classroom and opened fire with a shotgun," Peters said.

At 3:03 p.m., NIU police responded, and four minutes later, the campus was ordered into "a lockdown situation," Grady said.

At 3:20, an all-campus alert went out via the campus Web site, e-mail, voice mail, the campus crisis hotline, the news media and various alarm systems, he said.

"The message basically was: There's a gunman on campus, stay where you are; make yourself as safe as possible," he said.

Rosie Moroni, a student at the school, told CNN she was outside Cole Hall near the King Commons when she heard shots coming from the classroom she was heading to.

The shot was followed by "a lot of people screaming," then people ran out the doors yelling, "He's got a gun, call 911," she said.

"It was complete chaos. It's very scary here right now."

By 4 p.m., DeKalb police had swept the area "and determined there was only one gunman" and that he was dead.

Grady said the man used three guns: a shotgun, a Glock handgun and a small-caliber handgun, and was still on the stage when he turned one of the guns on himself. The small-caliber handgun had not yet been recovered, he said.

The gunman started shooting with a shotgun, then switched to a handgun, said Grady.

Security around campus was increased in December when police found threats scrawled on a campus bathroom wall that included racial slurs and references to last April's Virginia Tech shootings.

One of the threats said "things will change most hastily" in the final days of the semester.

Peters said there is no evidence that points to a link between the December incident and Thursday's shooting.

Grady said it was unlikely authorities could have prevented Thursday's tragedy.

"As much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning," he said.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich declared a state of emergency, which will open the governor's disaster fund to reimburse local government entities for "extraordinary expenses related to the response in NIU DeKalb" and will allow the state Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance, the governor's office said in a statement.

Eighteen victims were taken to Kishwaukee Community Hospital, its Web site said.


Of those, seven were in critical condition and were flown to other hospitals. One fatality, a male, was confirmed -- but was not the gunman, the hospital said. Two were admitted, and eight others were discharged.

The 113-year-old school is 65 miles west of downtown Chicago and has an enrollment of more than 25,000. The campus covers 755 acres.

Australia To Support East Timor

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says his government will do all it can to safeguard democracy in East Timor after attacks on its president and PM.
On his second visit to East Timor in only two months, Mr Rudd said his support was "absolutely rock solid".

President Jose Ramos-Horta was seriously hurt in Monday's shooting, and is being treated in Australia.

Canberra deployed an additional 350 peacekeepers to Dili in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

In a three-hour visit, Mr Rudd held talks with Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who narrowly escaped injury when gunmen ambushed his car on Monday.

"The purpose of my visit today is to state in clear and loud terms that Australia will stand shoulder to shoulder into the future in the defence of East Timor's democratic system of government," Mr Rudd told a press conference.

"Australia is here for the good times, the bad times and the difficult times."

Australian troops - who now number about 1,000 - would remain in East Timor for as long as they were needed, he said.

The two leaders also discussed East Timor's long-term economic challenges - such as its weak infrastructure and soaring unemployment.

"Ensuring young people across Timor-Leste (East Timor) have a job is for business, but also this country's long-term stability," Mr Rudd said.

Mr Gusmao thanked Australia for its rapid response to Monday's events and its faith in the country's development.

"Our nation is a proud nation," he said. "A bullet can wound the president but can never penetrate the values of democracy."

Rebel leader

The situation in Dili has remained calm since Monday, despite fears of protests. A state of emergency declared by Mr Gusmao remains in place.

Several arrest warrants have been issued in connection with the attacks, which have been attributed to a group of rebels soldiers with grievances that date from a wave of violence in mid-2006.

Australian-led international forces are now combing the hills behind the capital for the remaining rebels.

Their leader, Alfredo Reinado, was killed in the attack on Mr Ramos-Horta's residence.



But in a BBC interview on Thursday, one of the rebels involved in the attacks, Gastao Salsinha, denied attempting to assassinate the two top leaders.

He said security personnel for President Ramos-Horta started the fire fight that killed Reinado.

Speaking from hiding, Mr Salsinha said he had now taken over as rebel leader.

East Timor won independence in 2002 after decades under Indonesian rule.