WASHINGTON Feb 21 (Reuters) - Raymond Davis, the American held in Pakistan on double murder charges for an incident in Lahore last month, is employed by the CIA as a contractor, U.S. sources closely following the case said on Monday.

Davis, who is being held in a Lahore jail amid a diplomatic dispute on whether he has diplomatic immunity, was working as a "protective officer," the sources said.

Both Julian Assange and his website, WikiLeaks, have been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.  A member of the Norwegian Nobel committee says the site promotes human rights, democracy and freedom of speech.  

Lake Shore Drive remained closed Wednesday afternoon, as city workers continued removing stranded vehicles from the roadway in an effort to reopen the road as soon as possible.

Lake Shore Drive was a disaster area overnight, as motorists found themselves stranded for up to 12 hours and ended up in the hospital.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, many motorists were just trying to get home, but the blizzard made that impossible.

Initially, Lake Shore Drive was moving smoothly as the evening rush began, but conditions began to deteriorate following several accidents. There were three accidents between Fullerton Parkway and Belmont Avenue 7:15 and 7:45 p.m., one of them involving a CTA bus. Shortly afterward, there were two more accidents in the northbound lanes just south of North Avenue.

The accidents caused cars and buses to back up, and as the snow piled up, vehicles became immobilized and off-ramps became impassable. Lake Shore Drive was closed at 7:58 p.m., and fire and police personnel worked to move as many cars as possible off the highway and remove people who could not get out on their own.

City officials said 700 to 900 cars were involved in the overnight traffic jam on Lake Shore Drive just south of North Avenue. In response, 13 ambulances were dispatched and remained on the scene all night, along with 26 fire companies with 130 firefighters.

Fire personnel were organized into two task forces with 30 firefighter-medics equipped on snowmobiles.

Police also dispatched 30 officers to the Drive, mayor’s chief of staff Raymond Orozco said.

Orozco said first responders tried to get to stranded motorists as quickly as possible, but winds of 60 to 70 mph and snow falling at a rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour made that extremely difficult.

Fire crews were unable to see even one car in front of them for a period of time, Fire Commissioner Bob Hoff said.

Before the city shut down the Drive, traffic had been crawling; it took upwards of an hour to travel only a mile. Many cars were without a full tank of gas, and ended up running out.

WBBM Newsradio 780 was flooded with calls from stranded motorists who said they had been stuck on Lake Shore Drive for over seven hours and saw people abandoning their cars.

Newsradio 780′s Lisa Fielding reports Sue Baker left her Hyde Park office around 5 p.m. and nearly seven hours later, she remained in the same spot, “We haven’t moved. It’s kinda scary. There are snow drifts on our cars now.”

Evanston attorney Craig Roeder says he got on Lake Shore Drive at 6 p.m. and headed north. He says he crept and crawled until just south of Fullerton Parkway, when traffic ground to a halt around 9:30 pm.

And there he sat, in whiteout conditions for six hours, until 3:20 a.m. when WBBM Newsradio 780’s David Roe was interviewing him on the phone.

Source: Chicago.cbslocal.com

Two alleged narcotics traffickers aligned with a right-wing paramilitary terrorist organization in Colombia have been convicted of conspiring to import multi-ton quantities of cocaine into the United States.

Christian Fernando Borda and Alvaro Alvaran-Velez were extradited from Colombia a year ago and were convicted by a federal jury Thursday.

The Justice Department said Borda led an organization that obtained cocaine from paramilitary groups and smuggled in more than 1,500 tons in drums of palm oil from Colombia in 2005, with additional shipments in 2005 and 2006. The department said Alvaran-Velez, an associate of Borda, facilitated cocaine shipments.

They were allied with Autodefenses Unidas de Colombia, an umbrella group for far-right paramilitary groups that has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/09/colombians-convicted-cocaine-smuggling-plot/#ixzz1CQSRV2p5

 

Picture highlights from the BBC’s extraordinary new celebration of humankind

Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea

Photographs by award-winning photographer Timothy Allen.

Obama's Promises

Presidents and promises have been comrades since the birth of our nation. Sometimes, the vows have been bold: Lyndon B. Johnson pledged to eliminate poverty in his 1964 State of the Union Address. Obviously, that didn't happen. Other times, the promises have been mostly fulfilled, as when Roosevelt announced his historic New Deal. Throughout his campaign, President Obama made more than 500 promises to our nation, according to PolitiFact, a service from the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times that assesses the truth behind politicians' statements. Here is how PoliFact says the president is doing.
Foreclosure prevention fund
'The Fund will not help speculators, people who bought vacation homes or people who falsely represented their incomes.'
PolitiFact rating: Compromise
Repeal the Bush-era tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 (couple) or $200,000 (single)
'At a time when Americans are working harder than ever, we are taxing income from work at nearly twice the level that we're taxing gains for investors,' Obama said. 'We've lost the balance between work and wealth.'
PolitiFact rating: Stalled
Require health-insurance
coverage for all children
'Barack Obama and Joe Biden will require that all children have health-care coverage … [and] expand the number of options for young adults to get coverage by allowing young people up to age 25 to continue coverage through their parents' plans.'
PolitiFact rating: Promise Kept
Build an electronic health
information system
'Barack Obama and Joe Biden will invest $10 billion a year over the next five years to move the U.S. health-care system to broad adoption of standards-based electronic health-information systems, including electronic health records. They will also phase in requirements for full implementation of health IT and commit the necessary federal resources to make it happen.'
PolitiFact rating: In the Works
Assure that the Veterans Administration budget is prepared as 'must-pass' legislation
'Obama will meet early in the budgeting process each year with congressional leaders and the nation's leading Veterans' Service Organizations (VSOs) to ensure the VA budget is always given 'must-pass' status.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Begin drawing down combat
troops from Iraq
'Barack Obama will work with military commanders on the ground in Iraq and in consultation with the Iraqi government to end the war safely and responsibly within six months.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Deploy additional troops to Afghanistan
'As Obama removes our combat brigades from Iraq, he will send at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan, where the Taliban is resurgent. He will also provide our armed forces with the reset capability that they need. He will replace essential equipment, and he will ensure that our men and women in uniform get the care and support they have earned.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Close Guantanamo Bay
'As president, Barack Obama will close the detention facility at Guantanamo. He will reject the Military Commissions Act, which allowed the U.S. to circumvent Geneva Conventions in the handling of detainees. He will develop a fair and thorough process based on the Uniform Code of Military Justice to distinguish between those prisoners who should be prosecuted for their crimes, those who can't be prosecuted but who can be held in a manner consistent with the laws of war and those who should be released or transferred to their home countries.'
PolitiFact Rating: Stalled
End the use of torture
'Barack Obama will end the use torture without exception. He also will eliminate the practice of extreme rendition, where we outsource our torture to other countries.'
PolitiFact Rating: In the Works
New rules barring paid lobbyists from serving as administration officials
'No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Broken
Require full disclosure and a waiting period for budget earmarks
'The Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act will shed light on all earmarks, disclosing the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, along with written justification, 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate.'
PolitiFact Rating: Compromise
Create tough new financial regulations
'I'll put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road I've been calling for since March--rules that will keep our market free, fair and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept
Provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
'Obama and Biden support a system that requires undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.'
PolitiFact Rating: Stalled
Create 5 million new 'green industry' jobs
'Obama and Biden will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid. A principal focus of this fund will be devoted to ensuring that technologies that are developed in the U.S. are rapidly commercialized in the U.S. and deployed around the globe.'
Politifact Rating: In the Works
Create a cap-and-trade system to control global-warming emissions
'As president, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming--an 80 percent reduction by 2050 … These reductions will start immediately, and we'll continue to follow the recommendations of top scientists to ensure that our targets are strong enough to meet the challenge we face.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Broken
Increase funding for national parks
and forests
'As president, he and Joe Biden will repair the damage done to our national parks by inadequate funding and emphasize the protection and restoration of our National Forests.'
PolitiFact Rating: Promise Kept