Monday News Roundup

by Sheri Divers [courtesy of Blog for America]

GOP Troubles May Hurt Bid To Retake Congress in 2008

The abrupt resignations last week of two Republican House members from their sensitive committee assignments have thrust lingering legal and ethics issues back into the limelight, potentially complicating GOP efforts to retake Congress next year.

On successive days, Wednesday and Thursday, Reps. John T. Doolittle (Calif.) and Rick Renzi (Ariz.) disclosed FBI raids on their wives' businesses. The men proclaimed their innocence, but the raids exposed their legal jeopardy. The announcements were only the most recent in a series of developments that have kept the focus on the old ethical and legal clouds that helped chase the Republican Party from power on Capitol Hill.

Democrats Recruiting Challengers for Growing Target List

When Rep. Sam Graves (R) won Missouri's 6th District in 2000 with 51 percent, it was assumed that he would be a regular Democratic target. His subsequent reelection percentages -- 63 percent in 2002, 64 in 2004, 62 in 2006 -- show how quickly Graves fell off Democrats' radar. No more.

Democrats believe they have convinced the outgoing mayor of Kansas City, Mo., Kay Barnes, to challenge Graves in 2008, in one of a handful of early recruiting successes that, national party strategists argue, will allow them to greatly expand the playing field of competitive races that November.

Baghdad’s ‘Great Wall of Adhamiya’

American forces, struggling to improve security in Baghdad, are turning to an approach with a 4,500-year history in the region: They are building a three-mile wall around the heavily Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya.

A news release said the project, which soldiers jokingly called “the Great Wall of Adhamiya,” was “one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence.”

Bush draws up list of candidates to replace Wolfowitz

The future of Paul Wolfowitz, the embattled President of the World Bank, was in further jeopardy last night after it emerged that the White House was drawing up a list of candidates to succeed him.

Most prominent on the list is Ashraf Ghani, the man credited with overhauling the economy of Afghanistan after September 11, The Times has learnt. Such an appointment would mark the first time a nonAmerican has held the position in the 60-year history of the global lender.

U.S. gender pay gap emerges early, study finds

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A dramatic pay gap emerges between women and men in America the year after they graduate from college and widens over the ensuing decade, according to research released on Monday.

One year out of college, women working full time earn 80 percent of what men earn, according to the study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, based in Washington D.C.

Ten years later, women earn 69 percent as much as men earn, it said.

US urges Iran to join Iraq talks

Condoleezza Rice is urging Iran to join her at a high-level conference on the future of Iraq next week, signalling that Washington is now ready for a serious exchange of views with Tehran after several months of resisting Iran’s advances in the region.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the US secretary of state said it would be a “missed opportunity” if Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s foreign minister, did not attend the minister-level meeting to be hosted by Egypt.

Ms Rice denied that the Bush administration’s Iran policy had ever been directed at regime change, insisting that the aim was to “have a change in regime behaviour”.