briefs

(MCT) WASHINGTON – In light of the state of emergency declared by Pakistan’s embattled… (MCT) WASHINGTON – In light of the state of emergency declared by Pakistan’s embattled president, Pervez Musharraf, the Bush administration said Sunday it is “reviewing” the billions of dollars in aid the U.S. provides to this nuclear-powered nation in the heart of a terrorist-threatened region.

But despite Musharraf’s crackdown on opposition leaders and likely delay of elections, critics say Washington’s hands may well be tied for lack of another realistic option for trying to protect U.S. interests in Pakistan.

Much of the alliance that President Bush has forged with Musharraf – including delivery of $11 billion in U.S. aid to Islamabad since 2001 – has centered on a mutual interest in hunting down terrorists as well as keeping Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal out of the hands of Islamic extremists.

Yet now, experts say Musharraf’s much-questioned ability to pursue any offensive against terrorists could be even more limited. And with Musharraf locking down his capital, firing the chief justice and placing supreme court justices under house arrest, the Bush administration comes face to face with the conflict between its own policy of promoting democracy in troubled regions of the world and its reliance on Musharraf to maintain control of a potentially volatile nation.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted Sunday that the U.S. has not “put all its chips” on Musharraf, who is also the army chief of staff and first seized power in a military coup in 1999. She announced that the U.S. will be reviewing, but not necessarily suspending, all of the aid it provides to Pakistan because of the state of emergency declared Saturday night.

Yet critics of administration foreign policy say Bush’s partnership with Musharraf is the sole element of U.S. policy toward Pakistan.

“This administration has a Musharraf policy, not a Pakistani policy,” Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday. “It’s tied to Musharraf, and its hands are pretty well tied now.” – Mark Silva, Chicago Tribune

(MCT) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Veteran astronaut Scott Parazynski stepped out into one of the most dangerous spacewalks ever planned on Saturday and successfully repaired the International Space Station’s damaged solar array after nearly five hours of nail-biting work.

Cutting wires and harnessing damaged solar panels together, Parazynski dangled at the end of a boom attached to the end of a 58-foot robotic arm, studiously avoiding making contact with the electrical array, which could have badly shocked him or worse.

The mission was deemed critical by NASA after a tangled guy-wire got snagged on Tuesday while the array was being unfurled. The snag tore a two-and-a-half foot hole on one solar panel and slightly ripped another nearby. The damage to the station’s power system threatened to sink future space shuttle missions to the orbiting platform.

“Hooray,” Parazynski shouted when the array was unfurled to its full 110-foot length. “What an accomplishment!”

The achievement not only clears the way for future shuttle missions to station, but also sets the stage for the addition of a new European laboratory next month.

The daring walk by Parazynski enshrines the 46-year-old emergency room physician and veteran astronaut as an agency hero, and vindicates NASA engineers and mission managers who designed the daring repair procedure.

Even after the repairs were complete it took more time to get Parazynski and another spacewalking astronaut back into the shuttle. The astronauts re-entered the shuttle at about 1:20 p.m. after a spacewalk that lasted more than 7 hours in total. – Robert Block, The Orlando Sentinel