Page Editor: C.J. Risak, 754-0427 LAKE CITY REPORTER NATION & STATE SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2011 Miami imam, 2 sons charged with supporting the Taliban By RASHA MADKOUR Associated Press MIAMI A Miami imam and two of his sons were arrested Saturday on charges they provided some $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization, officials said. Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, was arrested after morning ser- vices at the Miami. Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, where he is an imam. One of his sons, Izhar Khan, 24, an imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Florida., was arrested after morning services there. Another son, Irfan' Khan, 37, was detained at his hotel room in Los Angeles around the same time. The men are U.S. citizens. Their mosques are not suspected of wrongdoing, officials said. Attempts to reach the men's fami- lies, attorneys and mosques were unsuccessful Saturday. Also named in the indictment are three others at large in Pakistan - Hafiz Khan's daughter, grandson and an unrelated man, all three of whom are charged with handling the distri- bution of funds. The indictment lists about $50,000 in transactions. The funds were used to buy guns, support militants' fami- lies and promote the cause of the Pakistani Taliban, according to the indictment. It also alleges that Hafiz Khan owns a madrassa, or religious school, in his native Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan that shelters members of the Pakistani Taliban and trains children to become militants. U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer noted that the investigation was sparked by suspicious financial activity and was not based on an undercover sting operation. "This is based on the defendant's words, actions and records," Ferrer said at a news conference Saturday. The indictment recounts recorded conversations in which Hafiz Khan allegedly voices support for attacks on the Pakistani government and American troops in the region. The Pakistani Taliban is a wing of the terrorist group that began in Afghanistan. It claimed responsibility for a pair of suicide bombings that killed more than 80 people on Friday in what it said was vengeance for the killing of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. The group has also been linked to the attempted Times Square car bombing in New York in May 2010. If convicted, the South Florida men face up to 15 years in prison for each of the four counts listed in the indict- ment. It's not the first terror case to come out of the area. In June 2006, a group that became known as the "Liberty City Seven" was arrested in the Miami neighborhood by that name. They had been accused in a plot to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower. Five men were convicted, while two were acquitted. The plot never got past the discussion stage, which led defense attorneys and national ter- rorism experts to describe the case as overblown. Obama to speed up oil production By DARLENE SUPERVILLE and DINA CAPPIELLO -Associated Press WASHINGTON Amid growingpublicunhappiness over gas prices, President Barack Obama is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast and hold- ing more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska. But the moves won't calm spiraling prices at the pump any time soon. Obama said Saturday that the measures "make good sense" and will help reduce U.S. consumption of imported oil in the long term. But he acknowledged anew that they won't help to immediately bring down gasoline prices topping $4 a gallon in many parts of the country, and an oil industry analyst agreed. 'There is practically nothing that Washington can do that would mate- rially change the price of fuel in this country," said Raymond James analyst ,Pavel Molchanov, not- ing that the United States produces about 5 percent of the world's petroleum while consuming about 20 percent. "Given that imbal- ance, there is simply no policy shift that could plau- sibly come from the fed- eral government that can significantly change that dynamic." An oil industry group praised Obama's move as a first step with a "couple of positive nuggets" but contended that more was needed to boost oil produc- tion. Erik Milito,, upstream director for the American ,Petroleum Institute, called in a statement for more access to key shale reserves and construc- tion of a pipeline that would import crude from !Canadian oil sands. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who is opposed to diilling .off the Atlantic coast, expressed concern about possible dangers to -the environment "I think it is disappointing he .would pursue a strategy that comes with consider- ASSOCIATED PRESS Exxon Mobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson (foregound), accompanied by fellow oil company executives, gestures while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee. able risk while offering no hope of driving down gas prices," Menendez said in a statement. Obama's announce- ment followed passage in the Republican-controlled House of three bills - including two this week - that would expand and speed offshore oil and gas drilling. Republicans say the bills are aimed at eas- ing gasoline costs, but they too acknowledge that ben- efits won't come fast. The White House had announced its opposition to all three bills, which are unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, saying the mea- sures would undercut safe- ty reviews and open envi- ronmentally sensitive areas to new drilling. But Obama is adopting some of the bills' provi- sions. Answering the call- of Republicans and Democrats from Gulf Coast states, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that he would extend all Gulf leases that were affect- ed by a temporary morato- rium on drilling imposed after last year's BP oil spill. That would give companies additional time to begin drilling. The administration had been granting extensions f BOOtS . a 2I ',o s \s'. Knife Sharpeners Summer Clothing Arriving Reef Guy Harvey Salt Life F121 E Bp r, a e Ct 36)7576 Why the space shuttle fleet is retiring, and what's next By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer WASHINGTON As the space shuttle program winds down, questions are flying about what's happening and why. The launch countdown began Friday for the second-to- last flight. Some answers about the end of the space shuttle: Q: Why are the shuttles retiring? A: The shuttles are aging and expensive, their key task is nearly com- pleted and NASA wants to use the money spent on them to do something new. They've been flying since 1981, hauling up pieces of the International Space Station. The panel that investigated the 2003 Columbia accident concluded: "It is in the nation's interest to replace the Shuttle as soon as pos- sible." Q: Who decided to stop flying shuttles? A: President George W. Bush made the decision in 2004. He wanted astro- nauts to go back to the moon, and eventually to Mars. For NASA to afford to build a new spaceship to reach those goals, it had to stop spending about $4 bil- lion a year on the shuttle program. But President Barack Obama dropped the moon mission. His plan has NASA building a giant rocket to send astronauts to an asteroid, and eventu- ally Mars, while turning over to private companies the job of carrying cargo and astronauts to the space station. Q: When does the shut- tle program end? A. There are two flights left. Shuttle Endeavour, set to launch Monday, is carrying a $2 billion sci- ence experiment to the space station. Atlantis makes the final shuttle trip this summer with spare parts for the station. The third surviving shuttle Discovery made its final voyage earlier this year. Two other shuttles - Challenger and Columbia were destroyed in acci- dents that killed a total of .14 astronauts. Q: What was the shuffle program all about? A: It was supposed to make getting into space cheap, simple and safe with a launch virtually every week. It didn't accomplish that. But it was the best way to get big items - such as satellites and the Hubble Space Telescope case by case, but senior administration officials said the Interior Department would institute a blanket one-year extension. New safety requirements put in place since the BP spill also have delayed drill- ing in Alaska, so Obama said he would extend lease terms there for. a year as well. An oil lease typically runs 10 years. Lease sales in the western and central Gulf of Mexico that. were postponed last year will be held by the middle of next year, the same time period required by the House. A sale off the Virginia coast still would not happen until 2017 at the earliest. But Obama said he would speed up environ- mental reviews so that seis- mic studies to determine how much oil and gas lies off the Atlantic Coast can begin. To further expedite drill- ing off the Alaskan coast, where such plans by Shell Oil Co. have been delayed by an air pollution permit, Obama said he would create an interagency task force to coordinate the necessary approvals. He also will hold annual lease sales in the vast National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska's North Slope. Officials said the most recent sale was last year, but that they had not been held on any set sched- ule. The moves come as Americans head into the summer driving season and gas prices remain high. A gallon of regular cost $3.97 on average nationwide Saturday, according to the AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. That's up from $3.81 a month ago and $2.88 a year ago, but it's about a penny less than a week ago. The I would on their May 1( new loca Owner Tonya Townsend at 623-1246. mma lmFW-, UF. IL I -f *i '" * - into orbit and fix them if needed. For the space station, it was a combi- nation moving van and construction crane. What made the shuttle unique was its ability to do all kinds of things. Q: What happens to the space shuttles? A: They'll be shipped off to museums. Endeavour goes to the California Science Center in Los Angeles and Atlantis will stay at Kennedy Space Center for its visi- tor complex. Discovery's new home will be the Smithsonian Institution's hangar near Washington Dulles International Airport. Enterprise, a shuttle prototype used for test flights, goes to New York City's Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Q: What about the space station? A: The life of the space station has been extended to at least 2020 and it could continue on even longer. It's now big enough for six people. They conduct science research, from astronomy to zoology, and help scientists understand what is needed for longer missions in space, such as going to Mars. Q: What about the astronauts? Do they still have jobs? A: Some will; More than a dozen astronauts will still go to space and live on the space station. Others will wait around for slots on still-to-be-built space- ships, including the ride to an asteroid. Others will leave the program. The same thing happened after the Apollo program ended nearly 40 years ago. Q: How will astronauts get to the space station? A- NASA will continue to buy seats on Russian Soyuz capsules to. ferry space station residents. The $56 million price per head will go up to $63 mil- lion, which is still cheaper per person than the space shuttle. Q: Is there any other way to get into space? A: Not from U.S. soil once the shuttles retire. NASA could eventually use the commercial rock- ets and capsules, being developed by private companies. Two compa- nies predict they could fly astronauts to the space station within three years. NASA is under orders to build a giant rocket to go beyond Earth orbit. Lake City Reporter like to congratulate 0, 2011 ribbon cutting ceremony for their nation at 2744 W Hwy 90, Lake City. Page Editor: C.J. Risak, 754-0427 LAKE CITY REPORTER NATION & STATE SUNDAY, MAY 15, 2011