Hillary Clinton attends service in India

MUMBAI, July 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent time Saturday with business leaders, rural women and a Bollywood star on the first full day of a trip to India.

Clinton, who arrived in Mumbai late Friday, spent the night at the Taj Mahal Hotel & Towers, one of the principal targets of last year's terrorist attacks. She began her day Saturday with a private memorial service attended by hotel workers, The Washington Post reported.

"Americans share a solidarity with this city and nation," Clinton said in the memorial book at the Taj Mahal. "Both our people have experienced the senseless and searing effects of violent extremism."

Her schedule for her three full days in India is unusual because her meetings with top public officials will all be Monday, the final day. On Tuesday, she travels to Thailand for talks with leaders in Bangkok and the Association of South-east Asian Nations meeting in Phuket.

After breakfast with nine male and female business leaders, Clinton spent time with representatives of the Self Employed Women's Association. Clinton encountered the group, which encourages rural women to make and sell handicrafts, as first lady in a 1995 trip to India.

Clinton also joined Aamir Khan, who produces and directs Bollywood movies as well as starring in them, for a town hall on education. The event was shown on national television.

Jemaah Islamiyah linked to Jakarta bombs

JAKARTA, July 18 (UPI) -- An unexploded bomb found at a hotel in Jakarta bears the trademarks of one of Indonesia's most active suspected bomb makers, police said Saturday.

Bomb-making materials were found in a search of a house belonging to Noordin Mohammad Top's father-in-law. police told The Wall Street Journal. Top allegedly is a leader in the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group and involved in most recent major bombings. He is being sought for his alleged part in the Bali bombings in 2002.

The search in Cilacap, a port on the island of Java, was carried out Tuesday as part of a more aggressive search for Top even before Friday's bombings. Ansyaad Mbai, head of counterterrorism in the Security Ministry, told the Journal the similarity was not definitive but was striking.

"The bomb in the Marriott was similar to ones we found in Cilacap," he said.

Officials said the suicide bombings Friday at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta killed nine people, increasing the toll from eight. The death toll included the bombers, who had not yet been identified.

Three Australians, including an embassy trade official, and a New Zealander were among the dead. All four were attending a talk by a U.S. business consultant based in Indonesia.

The rest of the dead were Indonesians. At least 53 people were injured, including 37 Indonesians, police said.

Captured ship, crew released by pirates

MOGADISHU, Somalia, July 18 (UPI) -- Somali pirates Saturday released a German-owned cargo ship and its 11 crew members they commandeered in the Gulf of Aden in two months ago, an official said.

Andrew Mwangura of the Seafarers Assistance Program told the Chinese news agency Xinhua the MV Victoria and its 11 Romanian crew members "are all safe."

The ship, carrying 10,000 tons of rice to Jeddah, had been seized May 5.

Another German ship, the Hansa Stavanger, hijacked in April with a crew of 24, remains in the pirates' hands. Somali pirates have taken dozens of ships and more than 250 hostages in the past year, extorting millions of dollars in ransom, though it wasn't known whether any money exchanged hands in the case of the Victoria.

Internal Notes Tate/Michelle: the BBC story wasn't signed and had no indication they did the reporting, hence their use of "reports," which is a good sign it's from non-usable sources and shouldn't be used. my search showed the only agency that had the pirates claiming to have received the ransom, another sign of where BBC got their story. i rewrote with Xinhua story since they said they talked by phone to someone quoted in their story.

Kyl: Healthcare proposals would cost $2T

WASHINGTON, July 18 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare reform proposals will increase government spending by $2 trillion, a Republican Party leader says.

Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., delivering the GOP's weekly radio address Saturday, also said Obama's healthcare program would "empower Washington, not doctors and patients, to make health care decisions."

"(The Democrats') plan would increase spending by more than $2 trillion when fully implemented, and would, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, add additional costs onto an already unsustainable system," Kyl said in the address, saying the plan would "impose a new tax on working families during a recession."

Kyl claimed one study contends the Democratic proposals "would also move millions of people who are happy with their current insurance to a new government plan."

The Republican warned Obama is bent on paying "for this new Washington-run health care system by dramatically raising taxes on small business owners," which, he said, "would cripple job creation, especially jobs for low wage-earners."

In his own address Saturday, Obama urged Congress to pass his healthcare reform program, which he said would improve care and lower costs without increasing the deficit.

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