the news in brief

(MCT) WASHINGTON – When John McCain grills Gen. David Petraeus this week during Senate… (MCT) WASHINGTON – When John McCain grills Gen. David Petraeus this week during Senate hearings on the status of the Iraq war, voters may pay more attention to McCain and two other would-be commanders-in-chief than they do to the top U.S. military commander in Iraq.

Petraeus and U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker are scheduled to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. McCain is the panel’s top Republican, and Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton is also a member.

Later Tuesday, the two officials are to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Democratic Sen. Barack Obama will ask questions.

The political stakes at these hearings are potentially huge for all three presidential candidates.

The one-on-ones with the war’s key American military and diplomatic figures are probably their last public chance to engage these officials for months, and the questions and answers should offer not only insight into the candidates’ thinking on the war, but also into how they’d deal with those in charge of the conflict.

The risks for McCain are probably greatest, analysts said, because he’s been unrelenting in his support of the unpopular war. Should that war turn uglier before Election Day, it could leave the Arizona senator particularly vulnerable.

“Iraq is a situation that’s completely, totally out of our control,” pollster John Zogby said.

That point is clear in the continuing clashes between the U.S.-backed Iraqi government and Shiite Muslim militias in southern Iraq and in Baghdad. Last month, an estimated 600 people were killed in the fighting, and on Sunday at least 22 more died when it erupted again in Baghdad’s Shiite Sadr City neighborhood. – David Lightman, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) BEIJING – Like many patriotic Chinese, Hu Jia broke into tears when Beijing lost out to Sydney, Australia, for the right to host the 2000 Olympic Games, and he was elated a year later when the city captured this year’s Summer Games. But the Olympic Games are proving anything but a boon for people such as Hu.

A Beijing court Thursday sentenced Hu, 34, a prominent activist, to a prison term of three years for posting five essays on overseas websites and for speaking to foreign reporters.

The verdict against Hu is the latest sign that Chinese officials see the run-up to the Olympic Games as a dangerous period in which any outcry should be dealt with harshly to discourage further dissent, a U.S. rights campaigner said.

“They are afraid of encouraging other protesters, other acts of protest,” said John T. Kamm, the executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based advocacy group that seeks the release of political prisoners in China, which it thinks may number around 30,000.

Beijing’s First Intermediate People’s Court convicted Hu of “inciting subversion of state power,” a catchall charge against enemies of the state. The official news agency Xinhua said Hu spread “malicious rumors and committed libel” and instigated people to overthrow China’s socialist system.

His conviction drew an international outcry from some, who think that China put Hu in prison to silence him ahead of the Olympic Games he longed to witness.

The U.S. Embassy issued a statement condemning the “specious charge” against Hu, saying that his work “should be applauded, not suppressed.” Amnesty International called it a “blatant perversion of justice,” and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said it was appalled. The European Union had warned China not to convict Hu. – Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers