WASHINGTON: Bush urges journalists to honor slain colleague

Joining the capital’s media elite for a night of revelry and comic relief, President Bush turned serious long enough to urge journalists Saturday to honor slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by writing letters to his soon-to-be born son.

Pearl, South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted in Karachi on Jan. 23 and subsequently killed.

Bush, at the conclusion of the 117th annual Gridiron Club Dinner, urged the journalists to write letters to the boy, send them to the White House and said he would add his own letter to Pearl’s son.

NEW YORK: Financier’s aides sought pardon after 2000 election

Advisers to one-time fugitive financier Marc Rich waited until after the November 2000 election to approach the Clinton administration about getting Rich a presidential pardon, The New York Times reported.

Rich fled the country after he was indicted in 1983 on federal charges of evading more than $48 million in income taxes and illegally buying oil from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis. Clinton pardoned Rich on his last day in the White House, setting off a storm of criticism. Rich’s ex-wife, Denise Rich, is a major financial contributor to the Democratic Party.

E-mail messages between Rich’s advisers indicated that the effort to win a pardon began early in 2000. But the e-mails also noted the aides decided not to approach the president until “mid to late Nov.”

BOSTON: Logan Airport security report deletes infighting references

A final report on security lapses at Logan International Airport was purged of references that pointed to infighting as a contributing problem, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Massachusetts Port Authority hired Counter Technology Inc. last year to conduct a security risk assessment at the airport. Massport had called for the study before the two hijacked planes that crashed into the World Trade Center took off from Logan.

Preliminary drafts of the company’s report were circulated among top Massport executives in November and described a turf battle between Thomas Kinton, the aviation manager, and Joseph Lawless, the former head of airport security, Massport officials familiar with the document said in Saturday’s The Boston Globe.

When the final report arrived in January, however, it contained no criticism of Kinton and Lawless.

LONDON: Reports of Cabinet rift over Iraq attack are denied

A senior minister denied media reports Saturday that Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government was divided over whether to back possible U.S. military action against Iraq.

Britain has stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the war on terrorism, but news reports have said Blair’s increasingly hardline stance on Iraq has split the Cabinet and prompted senior ministers to threaten to resign.

“Reports of a Cabinet split on this are in fact completely wrong,” Labor Party chairman Charles Clarke said.