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“Until there is a change of heart and a change of compassion and a change of how the Cuban government treats its people, there’s no change at all,” Bush said at the State Department to the Council of Americas, a business group that advocates for democracy and open markets in the Western Hemisphere. “Cuba will not be a land of liberty so long as free expression is punished and free speech can take place only in hushed whispers and silent prayers. And Cuba will not become a place of prosperity just by easing restrictions on the sale of products that the average Cuban cannot afford.”

The White House also said Wednesday that the president spoke by videoconference this week with democratic activists in Cuba, an unprecedented move that may enrage the Castro government.

The developments are part of a stepped-up effort by Bush to talk about Cuba and press for political change since Fidel Castro officially stepped down in February after nearly a half-century ruling the island. Fidel’s brother, Raul, took over as president in the ailing leader’s place, and has unveiled a series of changes in Cuba since then, from raising salaries to dropping irritating limits on what Cubans can buy and sell.

For years, lawmakers of both parties have been trying to chip away at the United States’ Cold War-era trade, travel and home visit restrictions aimed at undermining a hostile government just 90 miles from U.S. shores. They contend the leadership change in Havana provides the opportunity to lift the embargo.

But Bush has stressed that a new Castro does not mean a new Cuba, and he did so again on Wednesday.

He said Cuba’s government must allow Cubans “to pick their own leaders in free and fair elections,” release all political prisoners and respect human rights “in word and deed.”

“This is the policy of the United States and it must not change until the people of Cuba are free,” the president said.

In the teleconference that occurred Tuesday, Bush spoke with Martha Beatriz Roque, one of the 75 pro-democracy activists arrested in a 2003 crackdown for offenses against the Castro regime; Berta Soler, the wife of an activist still jailed for treason, and Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who was released last year after 17 years in prison.

Some of what Bush heard echoed the challenges to his Cuba policy that he hears from some at home. Roque asked Bush to make it easier for Cuban Americans in the United States to visit family members on the island and send money to their relatives here.

The U.S. Interests Section in Havana, where the activists went to participate in the conference, did not say what, if anything, Bush said in response to Roque’s request. But his speech gave a clue that he’s not open to change in the current U.S. approach.

Also on the videoconference were Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Rice and Gutierrez, a Cuban American who left the island with his parents at age 6, chair the White House Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

Rice once said the commission was created to “accelerate the demise of Castro’s tyranny.” The Castros have dismissed it as an effort to destabilize Cuban society.

The activists said Bush congratulated them on their bravery.

“He’s a president who leaves power in 10 months, but he’s the head of state closest to the Cuban people,” Soler told The Associated Press later. “He is one of the few presidents worrying about Cuba’s problems.”

It was the first time Bush has spoken directly to opposition leaders on the island, the U.S. Interests Section said. The use of U.S. property in Havana to facilitate the conversation won’t please Cuba’s government, which tolerates no organized opposition and dismisses dissidents as U.S.-paid mercenaries trying to topple the communist system.

In March, Bush met at the White House with a former Cuban prisoner and his wife to mark the five-year anniversary of the 2003 arrests.

Associated Press writer Andrea Rodriguez contributed to this story from Havana.

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The country has been politically paralyzed for 16 months, unable to elect a new president because of a deadlock between government and opposition forces in which neither side has the strength to prevail over the other. Then came the telephone crisis: Last weekend, Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Druze minority and an arch enemy of Hizballah, accused the militant Shi’ite party of maintaining its own private telephone network, and of using security cameras to monitor Beirut airport with the possible aim of staging attacks or kidnappings. On Tuesday, the government followed up with an edict declaring Hizballah’s telephone network “illegal and unconstitutional”. It also launched an investigation into the alleged monitoring of the airport, and dismissed airport security chief General Wafiq Shuqeir, on suspicion of opposition sympathies.

Hizballah was having none of it, angrily declaring that the telephone network is part of its military wing — which it justifies as necessary to defend Lebanon against Israel — and warning anyone seeking to dismantle it would be treated as an “Israeli spy”. Within days, the two sides were shooting at one another.

Although Hizballah is known for its massive Iran-funded social welfare system that provides everything from soup to education, construction materials to matchmaking services for Lebanon’s Shi’ite underclass, cell-phone service is not part of the package — except for those who join its guerrilla army. One of the world’s most technically advanced and resourceful guerilla organizations, Hizballah had some time ago installed its own, in-house dedicated fiber-optic telephone network, connecting its headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut to its offices, military posts and cadres as far south as the Israeli border. During the summer 2006 war, Israel had jammed cellphone signals throughout south Lebanon and monitored the Lebanese telephone system, but Hizballah’s internal communications channels had survived thanks to its private fiber-optic system. Since the war, however, Hizballah has expanded the network to cover its new military frontline north of the United Nations-patrolled southern border district, and into the Bekaa Valley to the east. Part of the system incorporates a WiMAX network allowing long-distance wireless access for the internet and cell phones.

More recently, Hizballah has dug trenches for fiber-optic cables in the mainly Christian and Druze Mount Lebanon district and in north Lebanon, according to Marwan Hamade, the Lebanese minister of telecommunications. “It was confined to one or two small areas before and we overlooked it as part of their internal communications. But now it’s spread all over Lebanon,” Mr Hamade told TIME.

Wednesday’s violence overshadowed what was originally supposed to be a general strike called by Lebanon’s leading trade union to demand wage increases and to protest rising prices. But it quickly developed into a confrontation between supporters of the government and of the opposition. Hundreds of green-bereted Lebanese troops fanned out in Beirut as demonstrators blocked main roads with burning tyres and earth dumped by trucks. The airport road was severed and the airport was closed most of the day.

Soldiers dressed in riot gear struggled to separate rival groups of stone throwing youths. In the afternoon, gunshots and explosions echoed over the capital. Pro-government Sunni gunmen wearing ski masks set up checkpoints in their neighbourhoods, demanding to see identity cards from passers-by. An office belonging to the pro-government Future Movement was destroyed by opposition gunmen firing rocket-propelled grenades. The occupants escaped as the gunmen looted weapons and ammunition from inside the office.

By evening, the fighting had died down, but both sides have vowed not to yield. Hizballah supporters were seen carrying tents to the airport road to continue the blockade of the airport until the government rescinds its moves against the telephone network and reinstates General Shuqeir.

A Shi’ite source close to Hizballah said that armed fighters had deployed to the city center where opposition supporters have been encamped for 18 months in an anti-government sit-in. The fighters are on stand-by in case the camp comes under attack, the source said.

Although neither side seeks a civil war, their game of brinkmanship is growing increasingly dangerous. “The problem is that things might get out of hand,” says Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Center in Beirut. “If it gets much worse then the whole truce situation which has kept the peace these last few months might end.”

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah’s leader, is scheduled to give a rare press conference Thursday at which he is expected to outline his party’s future course of action. But the fact that the reclusive Hizballah leader is speaking to the press at all underlines the seriousness of the situation: The last time he appeared before the media was on July 12, 2006 — the day war broke out with Israel.

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By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 8, 6:21 AM ET
 
WASHINGTON - Strapped homeowners could refinance into government-backed mortgages and states would get money to deal with foreclosed property under Democrats’ housing aid plan.

The measures, slated for votes Thursday, constitute the most significant action Congress has taken to date to address the housing crisis that’s at the center of the nation’s economic woes.

President Bush has threatened to veto both measures, which he says reward lenders and speculators. Democrats counter that the bills will head off hundreds of thousands of foreclosures, stabilize the shaky housing market, and prevent neighborhood blight.

The centerpiece of their plan is a bill by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the House Financial Services Committee chairman, to have the Federal Housing Administration relax its standards and back up to $300 billion in more affordable, fixed-rate loans for borrowers currently too financially strapped to qualify.

Those homeowners could refinance into new loans if their lenders agreed to take substantial losses on the original mortgages. Borrowers would have to show they could afford to make payments on the new loans. They would have to share with FHA at least half of their proceeds if they profited from selling or refinancing again.

The plan is projected to help roughly 500,000 borrowers at a cost of $2.7 billion over the next five years.

A separate bill by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., would send $15 billion in loans and grants to states for the purchase and rehabilitation of foreclosed properties. Proponents say it will prevent blight in neighborhoods plagued by abandoned, foreclosed homes.

But Republican critics argue it rewards lenders and investors who own the property, and could act as an incentive for them to foreclose rather than find ways to help struggling borrowers stay in their homes.

Democrats, seeking Republican support for their housing package, were planning to attach a grab-bag of measures Bush has called for.

Those include legislation to overhaul the FHA, to more tightly regulate government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and authority for state and local housing finance agencies to use tax-exempt bonds to refinance distressed subprime mortgages.

The plan is also to include a housing tax credit of up to $7,500 for first-time home-buyers, to be paid back over 15 years. It would permanently raise the limit on the size of loans FHA could insure and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could buy to $729,750 in the highest-cost housing markets. Those caps are scheduled to fall at the end of the year, to $362,790 for the FHA, and to $417,000 for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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YANGON, Myanmar - Relief supplies from the United Nations began arriving in Myanmar Thursday, but U.S. military planes loaded with aid were still denied access by the country’s isolationist regime five days after a devastating cyclone.
The military junta also continued to stall on visas for U.N. teams seeking entry to ensure the aid is delivered to the victims amid fears that lack of safe food and drinking water could push the death toll above 100,000.

Two airplanes carrying high-energy biscuits, medicine and other supplies arrived in Yangon, and two others were to follow, U.N. officials said. The planes had waited for the last two days while the world body negotiated with the military regime to allow the material into the Southeast Asian nation.

In Yangon, the cyclone blew off the roof of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and snapped the electricity connection to her dilapidated lakeside bungalow, where she is under house arrest, a neighbor said.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has no generator and is using candles at night, said the neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Eric John told reporters that U.S. and Thai authorities earlier believe they had permission from Myanmar to land U.S. military C-130s. But Myanmar officials later made it clear that this was not the case.

John said it was not clear if they had reversed an earlier decision or if there was a misunderstanding.

Thailand Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej offered to negotiate on Washington’s behalf to persuade the junta to accept U.S. aid.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, sent more humanitarian supplies and equipment to a staging area in Thailand. A C-17 transport plane with water and food landed Thursday, joining the two C-130s in place, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said at the Pentagon. Another C-130 loaded with supplies was on its way, she said.

The Navy also has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in any relief effort, including an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters aboard.

The Navy was sending helicopters from the USS Essex to the staging area in Thailand, a defense official said Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

After they finish off-loading the helicopters, the Essex and the USS Juneau were expected to steam around the Malay Peninsula to be in a position closer to Myanmar.

The USS Harpers Ferry and a destroyer, the USS Mustin, were expected to head toward Myanmar on Friday, the official said.

Within days of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, the U.S. military sent dozens of Navy ships and some 15,000 military personnel to deliver food, tents and medical care to victims. It was the biggest U.S. military operation in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam war.

The government and the U.S. private sector also committed over $1.5 billion in aid.

Myanmar’s generals, traditionally paranoid about foreign influence, issued an appeal for international assistance after the storm struck Saturday. They have since dragged their feet on issuing visas to relief workers even as survivors faced hunger, disease and flooding.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband asked Myanmar’s junta to “lift all restrictions on the distribution of aid.” The U.N. also called the government to let aid and aid workers in.

“It is imperative at this point that they do open up and allow a major international relief effort to get under way,” Richard Horsey, who coordinates U.N. humanitarian aid out of Bangkok, told AP Television News.

The Association of Southeast Nations appealed to the international community to keep sending aid through Thailand.

“Please keep the help coming, keep the contributions coming, and if you have to, go to Thailand, park there and wait for redistribution from there,” said ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan.

China, Myanmar’s closest ally, urged the military junta to work with the international community. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China would give $4.3 million in aid in addition to an initial pledge of $1 million.

The U.N. said Thursday it has released $10 million from its emergency relief fund to help the cyclone victims. But between 30 and 40 visas requested by various U.N. agencies and private relief groups are pending with the Myanmar government, Horsey said.

The London-based human rights group Amnesty International said some donors were delaying aid for fear it would be siphoned off to the army.

The World Food Program’s regional director, Anthony Banbury, indicated the United Nations had similar concerns.

“We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off,” he said.

Myanmar’s state media said Cyclone Nargis killed at least 22,997 people and left 42,019 missing, mostly in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy delta. Shari Villarosa, who heads the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because safe food and water were scarce and unsanitary conditions widespread.

U.N. officials estimated as many as 1 million people were left homeless in Myanmar, which also is known as Burma.

Entire villages in the delta were still submerged from the storm, and bloated corpses could be seen stuck in the mangroves. Some survivors stripped clothes off the dead. People wailed as they described the horror of the torrent swept ashore by the cyclone.

“I don’t know what happened to my wife and young children,” said Phan Maung, 55, who held onto a coconut tree until the water level dropped. By then his family was gone.

The World Health Organization has received reports of malaria outbreaks in the worst-affected area, and fears of waterborne illnesses surfacing due to dirty water and poor sanitation also remained a concern, said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, deputy director of WHO’s Southeast Asia office in New Delhi.

“Safe water, sanitation, safe food. These are things that we feel are priorities at the moment,” she said.

Even near Yangon, the country’s largest city, stricken villagers complained that they had received no government assistance and were relying on aid from Buddhist monasteries.

“The government is not helping us. No aid is coming. There is no money, no rice,” said Mu Sanda, one of some 50 people huddled in a monastery dining room converted into an evacuation center in Kyauktan, 15 miles southeast of Yangon.

Myanmar’s state television Thursday showed Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein distributing food packages to the sick and injured in the delta and soldiers dropping food over villages. The date of the distribution was not given.

Navy vessels from India and planes from Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Laos and Bangladesh had arrived in recent days with medicine, candles, instant noodles, raincoats and other relief supplies, it said.

Although most Yangon residents were preoccupied with trying to restore their lives, activists wrote fresh graffiti on overpasses, including “X” marks — a symbol for voting “no” in a referendum Saturday on a new military-backed constitution. Voting has been postponed until May 24 in Yangon, some outlying areas and parts of the delta heavily damaged by the storm.

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WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton is pushing on in her race for the Democratic White House bid, despite calls to drop out. She has events scheduled today in the upcoming primary states of Oregon, South Dakota and West Virginia. Barack Obama will be in Washington today.
With her money drained and her options dwindling, a resolute Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed to press on with her presidential bid even as she and top advisers were hard-pressed to describe a realistic path for her to wrest the nomination from Barack Obama.

After a wrenching primary outcome Tuesday in which she was routed in North Carolina and barely won Indiana, Clinton made a hastily scheduled trip to West Virginia to show her determination to fight on. The state holds a primary next Tuesday.

“I’m so happy to be here in West Virginia and excited about the next week as we campaign here in this beautiful state about our country’s future,” Clinton told an audience at Shepherd University Wednesday.

She planned to return to the state Thursday, then fly to South Dakota and Oregon, which also have upcoming contests.

Also Wednesday, aides disclosed that Clinton had lent her campaign $6.4 million since mid-April, on top of a separate $5 million loan in February. She contributed $5 million on April 11, $1 million on May 1 and $425,000 on May 5.

Spokesman Howard Wolfson said the New York senator made the investment to keep pace with Obama, who has shattered all fundraising records and vastly outspent her in recent contests. The loan also reinforced her belief that the campaign must continue, Wolfson said, suggesting she would be willing to spend more of her own wealth if necessary.

“This is a sign of her commitment to this race, her commitment to this process and her commitment to ensure the voices of her supporters are heard,” Wolfson said.

Nonetheless, Tuesday’s results drastically reshaped the dynamic of the campaign, positioning Obama as the all-but-certain nominee and casting Clinton as a dogged but deluded also-ran. At least one prominent Democrat, Clinton supporter and former South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, called on Clinton to quit the race. Others held back, allowing her to assess the landscape and draw her own conclusion about how to proceed.

But at a news conference in West Virginia, the former first lady showed no sign of going anywhere. “I’m staying in this race until there’s a nominee,” she declared.

Clinton barely mentioned Obama but insisted, as she has throughout the race, that she would be the stronger candidate against Republican John McCain. While Obama has run strongest among blacks, college educated and younger voters and has produced record turnout among all three groups, Clinton pointed to her own strength among Hispanics and white, working-class voters, especially women. She noted they are the swing voters Democrats need to win a general election.

“What we have not been able to count on in the last elections are the voters that I’m getting,” she said.

Wolfson and chief strategist Geoff Garin echoed that argument in a conference call with reporters. They also described a scenario they said would keep her candidacy alive, including resolving disputed primaries in Florida and Michigan. Clinton won both contests but the results were voided because their timing violated Democratic Party rules.

But Clinton’s team acknowledged that even if both states’ delegations were seated, she would still not close the gap with Obama, who leads Clinton by about 150 delegates. Clinton said Wednesday that she would be sending a letter to Obama and Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean expressing her view that seating the Florida and Michigan delegations is a civil rights and voting rights issue.

Garin sought to put the best face on a bad turn of events, touting what he called a “come from behind” win in Indiana and saying the campaign had long expected her to lose North Carolina.

In fact, the campaign made an aggressive play in that state, nearly matching Obama in television ad spending in the closing days. Clinton also campaigned extensively in the state and her husband kept a separate, packed schedule of appearances — all to little avail.

Another sign of trouble came as a much-hoped for spike in Internet fundraising didn’t materialize after Tuesday’s results. After winning Pennsylvania decisively on April 22, the Clinton campaign said it raised about $10 million in 24 hours; aides Wednesday said they had seen a bump in online cash but nothing close to their post-Pennsylvania success.

Clinton brought in about $20 million total in April, aides said.

She attended a women’s fundraiser Wednesday night, expected to yield about $500,000. She has a Mother’s Day fundraiser scheduled with daughter Chelsea Clinton in New York on Saturday. She also signed a new fundraising e-mail to supporters.

“I know that we have a lot of steps to go. We have more elections that will take place,” Clinton told 1,500 women at Wednesday’s event in Washington. “We are being outspent, two to one, three to one, four to one, even five to one, but we have been able to battle back.”

Earlier, the candidate met with the candidate met with superdelegates on Capitol Hill in an effort to woo the undecided and keep her own supporters on board. Few had many words of encouragement.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, an early and enthusiastic Clinton backer, was uncharacteristically quiet when asked whether she should soldier on.

“It’s her decision to make and I’ll accept what decision she makes,” Schumer said. “This is still a close race, and you know, the decisions that Hillary Clinton makes are the decisions that, as a supporter of hers, I will abide by.”

For his part, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada refused to speculate on whether Clinton had any chance of winning the nomination.

“That’s not for me to judge,” Reid said.

Said Clinton supporter Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.: “I think we’re at a point where I would like to know what the strategy is, how it becomes doable, and that’s all I’ve been trying to say to people.”

___

Associated Press writers Liz Sidoti in Shepherdstown, W.Va., and Devlin Barrett, Erica Werner and Laurie Kellman in Washington contributed to this report.

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By JOHN GEROME, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 5 minutes ago
 NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like “Make the World Go Away” made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday.

Arnold died at a care facility near Nashville, said Don Cusic, a professor at Belmont University and author of the biography “Eddy Arnold: I’ll Hold You in My Heart.” His wife of 66 years, Sally, had died in March, and in the same month, Arnold fell outside his home, injuring his hip.

Arnold’s vocals on songs like the 1965 “Make the World Go Away,” one of his many No. 1 country hits and a top 10 hit on the pop charts, made him one of the most successful country singers in history.

Folksy yet sophisticated, he became a pioneer of “The Nashville Sound,” also called “countrypolitan,” a mixture of country and pop styles. His crossover success paved the way for later singers such as Kenny Rogers.

“I sing a little country, I sing a little pop and I sing a little folk, and it all goes together,” he said in 1970.

He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. The following year he was the first person to receive the entertainer of the year award from the Country Music Association.

The reference book “Top Country Singles 1944-1993,’” by Joel Whitburn, ranked Arnold the No. 1 country singer in terms of overall success on the Billboard country charts. It lists his first No. 1 hit as “It’s a Sin,” 1947, and for the following year ranks his “Bouquet of Roses” as the biggest hit of the entire year.

Other hits included “Cattle Call,” “The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me,” “Anytime,” “Bouquet of Roses,” “What’s He Doing in My World?” “I Want to Go With You,” “Somebody Like Me,” “Lonely Again” and “Turn the World Around.”

Most of his hits were done in association with famed guitarist Chet Atkins, the producer on most of the recording sessions.

The late Dinah Shore once described his voice as like “warm butter and syrup being poured over wonderful buttermilk pancakes.”

Reflecting on his career, he said he never copied anyone.

“I really had an idea about how I wanted to sing from the very beginning,” he said.

He revitalized his career in the 1960s by adding strings, a controversial move for a country artist back then.

“I got to thinking, if I just took the same kind of songs I’d been singing and added violins to them, I’d have a new sound. They cussed me, but the disc jockeys grabbed it. … The artists began to say, `Aww, he’s left us.’ Then within a year, they were doing it!”

Arnold was born May 15, 1918, on a farm near Henderson, Tenn., the son of a sharecropper. He sang on radio stations in Jackson, Tenn., Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis before becoming nationally known.

Early in his career, his manager was Col. Tom Parker, who later became Elvis Presley’s manager.

His image was always that of a modest, clean-cut country boy.

“You cannot satisfy all the people,” he once said. “They have an image of me. Some people think I’m Billy Graham’s half brother, but I’m not. I want people to get this hero thing off their mind and just let me be me.”

Survivors include a son and daughter.

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TUPELO, Miss. - An apparent tornado in Tupelo, Miss. has damaged a shopping mall and downed power lines.
There aren’t any reported injuries from the Thursday morning storm. Authorities are getting reports about fallen trees and debris across the area, and officials are being dispatched to check out the damage.

The Lee County sheriff’s office says officers spotted a possible tornado moving in and out of the clouds. Weather officials will have to confirm that the storm was a twister.

A number of northeast Mississippi counties and portions of northwest Alabama are under a tornado watch until midafternoon. Possible tornadoes also struck Oklahoma on Wednesday.

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By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, AP Business Writer
11 minutes ago
 NEW YORK - Consumers gave some of the nation’s retailers a little relief in April after months of dismal sales, gravitating toward less expensive discounters and wholesale clubs but generally still shying away from stores selling clothes and other non-necessities.

Monthly sales reports issued Thursday were better than expected, but still pointed to a consumer contending with rising gas prices, sagging home values and worries about jobs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. were among the top performers last month, while most mall-based apparel stores struggled.

“Consumers are focusing on value and price points and stretching their dollars,” said Ken Perkins president of RetailMetrics LLC, a research company in Swampscott, Mass. “They are feeling the pinch on multiple fronts.”

He and other analysts expect only a modest uptick in sales in May and June as consumers spend tax rebate checks that are starting to arrive.

“There’s too much going on,” in the economy, Perkins said. He and others expect shoppers to use the extra cash to pay down debt and catch up on utility and food bills.

According to a preliminary tally from Thomson Financial, 19 retailers beat estimates, while nine missed. The tally is based on same-store sales, or business at stores open at least a year; they are considered a key indicator of a retailer’s health.

Analysts said some retailers were forced to discount to bring business in. With the retailing first quarter having ended at the end of April, companies will start reporting their earnings next week, and any heavy markdowns will likely erode the profits of some companies.

Perkins estimates earnings for the industry will decline by 14.9 percent, compared to a projection in January of 5.3 percent profit growth. Still, earnings would be worse if retailers hadn’t been prudent about cutting costs and scaling back inventory, he said. In fact, Kohl’s Corp. actually raised its earning outlook on Thursday.

The UBS-International Council of Shopping Centers retail sales tally for April rose 3.6 percent, surpassing the 2 percent growth estimate. That followed a 0.5 percent decline the previous month, the weakest March in 13 years.

The retail industry expected a lift in April because of an extra shopping day last month compared to a year ago. That quirk depressed March sales by an estimated 2 percentage points, while inflating April figures, according to Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers. Analysts look at retail sales growth for the two months combined, which overall was a tepid 1.5 percent, in line with the average sales growth since the beginning of the industry’s fiscal year.

A deteriorating economy, soaring food and gas prices, limited credit and slumping home prices continue to unnerve shoppers. The Conference Board said late last month that Americans are gloomier about the economy than just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that consumer borrowing, particularly on credit cards and auto loans, rose in March at the fastest pace in four months, more than double the increase of the previous month. Perkins believes that increased borrowing could mean some consumers spent their tax rebates in advance of receiving the money.

In a statement Thursday, Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart Stores U.S. president and CEO, said the “economy continues to get tougher” and that customers increasingly are unable to stretch their dollars to the next pay day.

“As money gets tighter for them toward the end of the month, sales drop more than we have seen in the past,” he said.

Wal-Mart, which is rolling out more discounts, reported a 3.2 percent gain in same-store sales. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected a 2.1 percent gain. Including fuel, same-store sales climbed 3.8 percent.

The world’s largest retailer said business was helped by strong sales in grocery and health items as well as entertainment products like flat-panel TVs, video games and game consoles. The company said apparel sales continued to recover, despite cold weather, but home furnishings sales were weak.

Rival Target Corp. posted a 3.1 percent gain in same-store sales, below the 4.5 percent estimate, as consumers shopped for necessities such as food and skipped higher-priced items such as jewelry.

Costco reported an 8 percent increase in same-store sales, surpassing the 6.1 percent estimate.

TJX Cos. Inc., which operates discount apparel and home stores including T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, said same-store sales rose 8 percent, better than the 6.5 percent estimate.

Among department stores, Penney reported a 1.7 percent decline in same-store sales, though that was better than the 4.6 percent analysts expected. The top-performing merchandising areas in April were apparel and family footwear, while fine jewelry and home categories continued to experience weaker sales.

Nordstrom Inc. posted a 3.8 percent drop in same-store sales, worse than the 1.8 percent projection.

Limited Brands reported a 5 percent drop in same-store sales, below the 2.3 percent forecast.

Gap Inc suffered a 6 percent drop in same-store sales, worse than the 1.9 percent analysts anticipated.

Teen apparel chains had solid results, however; they often outperform other apparel retailers because teens are not forced to choose between necessities and their wardrobes.

Abercombie & Fitch Co. reported a 6 percent gain in same-store sales, surpassing the 2.3 percent estimate. Aeropostale Inc., whose clothing is about 30 percent cheaper than competitors like Abercrombie & Fitch, reported a 25 percent increase in same-store sales for the month. The figure surpassed the 7.1 percent estimate.

Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. posted a 4 percent increase in same-store sales, below the 5.6 percent estimate.

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By Aung Hla Tun
45 minutes ago
 YANGON (Reuters) - Desperate survivors cried out for aid on Thursday nearly a week after 100,000 people were feared killed by Cyclone Nargis, as pressure piled up on Myanmar to throw its doors open to an international relief operation.
 
The United States was awaiting approval from the ruling junta to start military aid flights, but the U.N. food agency and Red Cross/Red Crescent said they have finally started flying in emergency relief supplies after foot-dragging by the generals.

U.S. ambassador Eric John told a news conference in Bangkok

the United States and Thailand had thought the Myanmar generals had agreed to let a U.S military cargo plane fly in supplies.

But that turned out to be premature.

“We don’t have permission yet for the C-130 to go in, but I emphasize ‘yet”‘ John said.

Approval for such a flight would be significant, given the huge distrust and acrimony between the former Burma’s generals and Washington, which has imposed tough sanctions to try to end 46 years of unbroken military rule.

Aid has barely trickled into one of the world’s most impoverished countries, although experts feared it would be too little and too late to cope with the aftermath of Nargis, which also left one million homeless.

Witnesses have seen little evidence of a relief effort under way in the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta region.

“We’ll starve to death if nothing is sent to us,” said Zaw Win, a 32-year-old fisherman who waded through floating corpses to find a boat for the two-hour journey to Bogalay, a town where the government said 10,000 people were killed.

AID PLANES ARRIVE

The storm pulverized the delta on Saturday with 190 km (120 mph) winds followed by a massive 12 ft wave that caused most of the casualties and damage, virtually destroying some villages. It was the worst cyclone in Asia since 1991, when 143,000 people were killed in neighboring Bangladesh.

State television on Thursday night did not give an update of the death toll, which stood at 22,980 with 42,119 missing as of Tuesday. Diplomats and disaster experts said the real figure is likely to be much higher.

“The information that we’re receiving indicates that there may well be over 100,000 deaths in the delta area,” said Shari Villarosa, charge d’affaires of the U.S. embassy in Myanmar.

U.N. officials who had earlier complained the generals were putting up obstacles to an emergency airlift, said a half-dozen cargo planes had been allowed to land at Yangon airport.

The Red Cross/Red Crescent confirmed its first aid plane took off from Kuala Lumpur, carrying six tonnes of shelter materials.

World Food spokesman Paul Risley said aid agencies normally expect to fly in experts and supplies within 48 hours of a disaster, but nearly a week after this cyclone, few have been able to send reinforcements into Myanmar.

A country that has long been suspicious of the outside world is wrestling with a decision over whether to allow what would be the biggest international presence in the country in decades to help care for a sizeable portion of its population.

Some opponents accuse the junta of stalling because they don’t want an influx of foreigners into the countryside during Saturday’s referendum on an army-drafted constitution that looks set to cement the military’s grip on power.

Medicins sans Frontieres, which has 1,238 people in Myanmar, said it was ferrying aid into the delta via trucks and boats.

“We are focusing on those still alive; 50 percent of them have wounds and they are infected,” MSF official Frank Smithius in Myanmar told Australian radio. “Because of the winds and high water, people got smashed around.”

Jean-Michel Grand, executive director of Action contra la Faim in London, said the logistical obstacles were formidable.

“The roads are very poor or destroyed, and in many cases there were no roads before. Everybody’s looking at boats as an alternative. It’s going to be a massive logistics challenge.

British medical aid agency Merlin is converting a luxury cruise ship into a floating hospital to reach survivors.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej failed to reach Myanmar’s generals on Thursday after U.S. President George W. Bush asked him to intervene with them to expedite the international aid effort.

“We couldn’t reach them because the communication towers have been damaged,” government spokesman Wichianchot Sukchotrat said.

Amidst all the death and destruction, life asserted itself. Than Win, who lost seven of her 10 children to Nargis gave birth on Wednesday to a boy, she named “First Love.”

“After what happened, this is a beautiful present,” she said, lying on a wooden table in one of the few houses left standing in Bogalay town, where an estimated 10,000 died.

(Additional reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan, Grant McCool and Darren Schuettler in Bangkok, Jalil Hamid in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by Darren Schuettler)

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By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer
19 minutes ago
 
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Witnesses and security officials say Shiite supporters of Hezbollah and Sunni backers of Lebanon’s U.S.-allied government are clashing with automatic rifles and grenades.
 
The latest clashes follow a defiant speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in which he said the militant organizations would respond with force to any attacks.

It is the second day of clashes that have turned some Beirut neighborhoods into battlegrounds. The sectarian confrontation have also spilled over to other parts of the country.

The clashes are taking place on Corniche Mazraa, a major thoroughfare that has become a demarcation line between the two sides, and the Ras el-Nabeh area.

Television footage showed gunmen taking cover on street corners next to shuttered shops. There was no immediate word on casualties.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that the Lebanese government had declared war on his Shiite militant group by declaring its private telecommunications network an illegal threat to state security.

Nasrallah vowed to fight any attempts to disarm Hezbollah in a speech that hiked tensions already running high after a long-simmering political crisis between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the government erupted into sectarian violence.

“Those who try to arrest us, we will arrest them,” he said. “Those who shoot at us, we will shoot at them. The hand raised against us, we will cut it off.”

Celebratory gunfire rang out in Beirut as Nasrallah spoke live on television by videolink from a hiding place. The Hezbollah leader rarely appears in public for fear of assassination by Israel.

Lebanon’s U.S.-backed government also said Tuesday that it would dismiss the security chief of the country’s only international airport because he was suspected of ties to Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah.

Those decisions sparked sectarian clashes between supporters of Hezbollah and the government over the past two days. The violence emerged out of a long-simmering power struggle between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the Western-backed government for control of the country.

“The decision is tantamount to a declaration of war … on the resistance and its weapons in the interest of America and Israel,” Nasrallah said.

He offered a way out of the latest crisis, saying the “illegitimate” government must revoke its decisions against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah runs its own secure network of primitive private land lines. Nasrallah claimed the network helped the guerrillas fight Israel’s high-tech army in the 2006 summer war.

He said the telecommunications network was “the most important part of the weapons of the resistance” and added Hezbollah had a duty to defend those weapons.

He and other Hezbollah leaders have suggested they are regularly targeted by Israel and they need secure communications.

“I am not declaring war. I am declaring a decision of self-defense,” he said. The government has “crossed all the red lines. We will not be lenient with anyone.”

He said Maj. Gen. Wafiq Shukeir, the airport security chief that the government decided to remove, will stay in his post, rejecting any replacement.

The government’s decision to replace him came after pro-government leader Walid Jumblatt alleged Hezbollah had set up cameras near the airport — which is located in the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut — to monitor the movement of anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians and foreign dignitaries. Jumblatt suggested Hezbollah was planning to bomb aircraft to assassinate such figures.

Nasrallah rejected accusations by pro-government groups that Hezbollah was bent on staging a coup.

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