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This sparsely populated nation near the Arctic Circle has long clung to an ethos of rugged individualism where, unlike in most of Western Europe, the right to bear arms is deeply ingrained in the culture.

Stunned by the second school massacre in a year, however, Finns are questioning their gun laws and other social problems such as rampant alcoholism and high suicide rates.

Leading newspapers splashed the word “Why?” on their front pages, seeking answers into what drove Matti Saari, a 22-year-old student with no previous criminal record, to kill 10 people in a shooting spree at his vocational college before killing himself.

“It’s a time for very serious self-reflection,” said Bishop Simo Peura, who held a service for shocked residents of Kauhajoki after Tuesday’s massacre. “We have to ask ourselves what our values are and what kind of society we want to live in this country.”

In an editorial, the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet lamented the damage to the nation’s image.

“So we live in a country which not only stands out for domestic violence and other types of physical violence,” the paper said. “It is also reaching the top of the world in regard to mass murders in schools.”

In an eerily similar attack in November 2007, 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed eight people and himself at a school in Jokela, near Helsinki. Six years ago, a 19-year-old chemical engineering student killed six people and himself, and wounded 80 when he detonated a homemade bomb in a crowded shopping mall.

Because of the parallels between the two school attacks, police said it was possible that Auvinen and Saari had been in contact with each other.

“Their actions seem so similar that I would consider it a miracle if we did not find some connecting link,” lead investigator Jari Neulaniemi was quoted as telling Finnish news agency STT.

The gunmen in both school massacres posted violent clips on YouTube before the shootings, were fascinated by the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Colorado, and died after shooting themselves in the head.

Police said Wednesday they probably bought their weapons at the same gun store.

Meanwhile, the government pledged to tighten Finland’s gun laws and keep mentally unstable people from obtaining firearms.

Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said it was time to consider restricting access to guns in a country with more than 1.6 million firearms in private hands.

“We need to study if people should get access to handguns so freely,” Vanhanen told reporters on a visit to the college. “I’m very, very critical about the guns and during next few months we will make a decision about it.”

Interior Minister Anne Holmlund said the government was working on a proposal to restrict gun laws by giving police greater powers to examine gun applicants’ health records. Saari acquired a permit for his weapon in August, police said.

Finland has deep-rooted hunting traditions and ranks — along with the United States — among the top five nations in the world in civilian gun ownership.

After the last massacre, the government had pledged to raise the age for buying a gun from 15 to 18 but never did so.

Officials said it was too early to say if Saari suffered from mental illness, but doctors had treated Auvinen with antidepressants before the Jokela shootings.

The shootings have fueled concerns about disturbing trends among some Finnish youth, especially young men.

“There is an undercurrent of tension that people are not aware of,” said Jouko Lonnqvist of the psychiatry department at the University of Helsinki. He said depression had shifted from being a middle-aged problem to one affecting the young, but didn’t give figures.

The National Public Health Institute estimates that some 15 percent of 18- to 30-year-olds in Finland suffer from mental problems. Lonnqvist said other European countries have similar statistics.

In 2006, Finland had the second-highest suicide rate for teenagers between 15-19 in the European Union, after Lithuania, according to EU statistics agency.

Whether that signals a problem with guns is debatable. Especially in rural areas, Finns say their hunting traditions justify widespread gun ownership and claim that gun violence is still relatively rare.

The nation’s overall crime rate compared to the U.S. and other European countries is also considered low, according to the U.S. State Department Web site.

On the issue of drinking, Finland’s National Public Health Institute said last year that alcohol had become the country’s biggest killer of both men and women, and was the main single cause of accidents in the country. It was not known if Saari had a problem with drinking.

Salla Saari, a psychiatrist who headed a crisis group after last year’s school shooting at Jokela and unrelated to the gunman in Tuesday’s shooting, said the adulation of violence was a “worrying feature” among some young Finnish men who “don’t see the consequences of it.”

Stockholm University criminologist Jerzy Sarnecki said the copycat effect was likely a major factor in the two shootings.

“Each time it happens in a country, the probability that it will happen again gets higher,” Sarnecki said. “It triggers a terrible amount of fantasies in people who are psychologically unstable.”

Sarnecki said the school shootings around the world can be traced back to Columbine.

“Columbine left a very very strong impression because of the attention it got in the media,” he said. “There have always been young people who have been frustrated, the death philosophy has always existed, but now when this pattern has been created it is being repeated.”

In Kauhajoki, a town of 14,000 people, shock and despair reigned as residents sought to make sense of the massacre.

“I don’t have an answer to why this happened. It will continue to affect us for a long time to come,” Mayor Antti Rantakokko said.

Grieving residents placed candles and flowers outside the school, 180 miles northwest of Helsinki.

“How is this possible?” said Milja Jaakkola, with tears in her eyes as she clutched her young daughter. “There must be something wrong in this society, but I just don’t know what it could be.”

Barack Obama proposed reforms on Monday to rein in practices that led to the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Depression, while White House rival John McCain touted his own remedies and accused Obama of failing to provide leadership.

McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, pushed a plan he offered last week calling for an independent panel to oversee a Wall Street bailout that could cost as much as $1 trillion. He said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had too much power in the crisis.

“This arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable,” McCain, an Arizona senator, told a gathering of Irish-Americans in Scranton, Pennsylvania. “When we are talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, ‘trust me’ just isn’t good enough.”

Wall Street has been rocked by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, with global credit markets seizing up over concerns about the plummeting value of U.S. housing and securities based on home mortgages.

The Bush administration moved last week to restore calm in the markets, asking Congress to approve a plan that would enable the government to acquire up to $700 billion in home and commercial mortgages. The move aims to stabilize the firms by taking the bad assets off their books.

The crisis has dominated the campaign trail over the past week as Democrat Obama and Republican McCain tried to project leadership and outline the principles they believe should guide the process — although both have been essentially sidelined as the bailout is negotiated.

Obama has seen a steady rise in public opinion polls during the last week, however, with most polls showing the race essentially tied or Obama with a narrow lead and the economy remaining by far the top issue.

A CNN poll released on Monday indicated more Americans think Obama would do a better job handling an economic crisis than McCain.

In the poll of 1,020 people conducted Friday through Sunday, 49 percent said Obama would display good judgment in an economic crisis, compared with 43 who said the same about McCain.

According to the poll, Obama has a 10-point lead over McCain on the question of who would better handle the economy overall.

At a campaign rally in Wisconsin, Obama said he would aim to prevent another crisis by pushing for measures to curb the influence of lobbyists, streamline and strengthen regulatory agencies, crack down on no-bid government contracts and make government more open and transparent.

REFORM “BROKEN GOVERNMENT”

“No matter what solution we finally decide on this week, it is absolutely imperative that we get to work immediately on reforming the broken politics and the broken government that allowed this to crisis to happen in the first place,” he told a crowd of about 6,000 in Green Bay.

The first-term Illinois senator said an “ethic of irresponsibility” had swept through government, and McCain — a four-term Arizona senator and 26-year veteran of Washington who has largely favored deregulation — was part of the problem.

“When it comes to regulatory reform, Senator McCain has fought time and time again against the common-sense rules of the road that could have prevented this crisis,” he said.

McCain called for a bipartisan board to establish criteria for which firms get government help. He suggested billionaire investor Warren Buffet — an Obama supporter — as a potential member, as well as former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

McCain said his plan would keep people from losing their homes while protecting the capital markets, and he needled Obama for failing to put forward his own suggestions.

Obama has delayed offering a detailed plan while the solution is being hammered out in Congress.

“At a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, Senator Obama has simply not provided,” McCain said. “And the truth is that we don’t have time to wait for Senator Obama’s input to act.”

The two campaigns debuted new advertisements attacking each other, with McCain portraying Obama as a product of Chicago’s corrupt machine politics and Obama highlighting his charge that McCain’s health care plan would deregulate that industry the way banking was deregulated.

Some of John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s biggest fundraisers are executives from the stricken financial services industry, which will need all the help it can get from whoever wins the White House.

Merrill Lynch & Co.’s chief executive, for example, has raised more than $500,000 for McCain’s campaign. Obama has received at least $1.5 million collected by three senior executives at Lehman Brothers.

McCain and Obama each are considering how to avoid future collapses and the need for further costly government bailouts, steps that may include tougher banking and investment regulations. But executives from the same companies in the crosshairs of such decisions are helping these candidates get elected.

Obama is promising more regulation, as is McCain, and if the winner of the November election acts on the tough talk, a battle with banks, securities and investment firms and insurance companies could follow.

The tough talk is coming from candidates who have fueled their campaigns with Wall Street money. Securities and investment firms gave $9.9 million to Obama and $6.9 million to McCain through July, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a private group that tracks money spent in politics. The industry is McCain’s No. 3 contributor and Obama’s No. 4 contributor, according to the center.

Wall Street-based firms were among the most active at “bundling” contributions for the two candidates.

Three executives from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have raised at least half a million dollars for Obama. That firm is Obama’s top source of campaign money overall; its employees have contributed more than $690,000 to his campaign, according to the center.

Merrill Lynch’s chief executive, John Thain, has raised more than $500,000 for McCain. Merrill’s workforce likewise is McCain’s top donor, giving nearly $300,000.

Separately, employees from the commercial bank and insurance sectors gave McCain’s campaign $3.6 million and Obama’s campaign $3.4 million.

So, how can candidates who accept money from Wall Street be expected to crack down on it?

“Industries sink their tentacles into these candidates,” said Taylor Lincoln, a research director at Public Citizen, a non-partisan watchdog group.

Congress collects considerable money from Wall Street, too. Democratic candidates have accepted nearly $37 million from securities and investment firms in the current election, and Republicans have accepted nearly $29 million.

The industry’s contributions to all federal candidates and political parties: $101 million so far in this two-year election cycle.

Merrill Lynch and its new owner both will be looking for help from the White House. Merrill Lynch jumped into the arms of Bank of America Corp. over the weekend to avoid becoming the next Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy protection Monday.

Following a weekend that reshaped Wall Street, Goldman Sachs is the larger of the nation’s two remaining major independent investment banks. The other is Morgan Stanley, where employees have contributed $300,000 to Obama and $217,000 to McCain.

It’s still early, but Wall Street’s institutions may have good reason to worry about a new president, once they get past the life-and-death issue of financial survival.

In March, before the latest round of financial carnage, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he anticipated the next president and the next Congress would address Paulson’s blueprint for the biggest overhaul of government financial regulation since the Depression.

It would give the Federal Reserve more power over investment banks, collapsing banking agencies into one superagency. Now, more drastic plans are under consideration.

“We’ve gone from the point of thinking about consolidation of regulatory agencies to some fundamental change,” said Don Kettl, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “It seems impossible to escape at this point.”

John McCain on Sunday was briefed on Tropical Storm Fay, which scuttled a political fundraiser and is threatening to reach Florida as soon as Monday.

McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, visited the Orange County Emergency Operations Center near Orlando shortly after flying from Long Beach, Calif. Speaking to a pool of reporters, he was optimistic that local and federal officials will work together if the storm strikes.

“The good news is, obviously, no state is better prepared or organized to deal with whatever comes this way than the state of Florida,” McCain told reporters after his briefing.

McCain said he hoped the storm wouldn’t permanently hurt central Florida’s tourism industry, which includes theme parks like Disney World and Universal Studios.

“You’ll be in our thoughts and prayers. I am very impressed by what you’re doing and what you’re prepared to do. Coming from a state that is not often hit by a hurricane, I’m incredibly impressed,” the Arizona senator told local officials.

McCain has long criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina, which inundated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast, blaming poor leadership in the storm’s aftermath.

On Sunday he asked what would have to be done to mobilize federal help if Tropical Storm Fay strengthens into a hurricane and slams into parts of the Keys and South Florida as expected late Monday or early Tuesday.

So far, there is no FEMA involvement, officials said.

“We have assumed that for the first 72 hours we should rely on no one but ourselves. Because that’s how long it takes for help to come,” said Orange County Administrator Ajit Lalchandani.

McCain and Democratic rival Barack Obama are in a tight race in Florida, with polls showing the contest is within the margin of error despite Obama spending millions of dollars on television advertising.

McCain was scheduled to speak in Orlando on Monday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Obama was scheduled to speak on Tuesday, followed by President Bush on Wednesday.

The storm canceled a Sunday evening McCain fundraiser in Miami. McCain said the move was made out of “an overabundance of caution.”

Fay, the sixth storm of the 2008 Atlantic season, picked up some momentum Sunday afternoon as it headed toward Cuba, and could be a hurricane by the time it reaches the island’s center, forecasters said. The storm had maximum sustained winds near 50 mph.

Fay has already killed at least five people after battering Haiti and the Dominican Republic with weekend torrential rains and floods.

Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, a close McCain friend, also joined him in the briefing. Also present were Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a potential McCain running mate and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“We hope this storm does not turn into a hurricane, but if it does, the damage will be minimal,” McCain said.

A man with self-described mental health problems was ordered held without bail in Florida on Thursday on charges that he had threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.

Raymond Hunter Geisel was arrested by the Secret Service in Miami on Saturday after making threats before other participants against both Bush and Obama at a bail bondsman’s training course, according to federal court papers.

A Secret Service affidavit said Geisel denied making the threats. But he told a Secret Service agent, in comments he later described a joke, that if he wanted to kill Obama he would simply shoot him with a sniper rifle.

An unidentified female witness told investigators that Geisel had said during the course between July 25-28, “That n

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r, if he gets elected, I’ll assassinate him myself.” Obama would be the first black U.S. president if elected. Another witness was said to have overheard Geisel say at a hotel that he hated Bush and wanted to put a bullet in his head.

Police found an ample cache of ammunition, including armor piercing bullets, and a handgun in Geisel’s sport utility vehicle and the Miami hotel room where he was staying while attending the bail bondsman’s course. It is legal to possess armor-piercing bullets in Florida.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said the agency would not comment on the number of threats to government officials or political candidates detected at any given time, but that this “might be the first arrest” in connection with the current presidential campaign.

Court documents said Geisel, a long-term resident of Bangor, Maine, had described himself as a victim of physical and emotional abuse when he was younger and said he had voluntarily checked himself into a mental health facility in Maine for treatment of post traumatic stress disorder.

A bail bondsman pledges money or property as a guarantee that an accused criminal will appear in court.

President Bush has sharply criticized Moscow’s harsh military crackdown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying the violence is unacceptable and Russia’s response is disproportionate.

The United States is waging an all-out campaign to press Russia to halt its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

Bush, in an interview with NBC, said, “I’ve expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia.”

Earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney said that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BEIJING (AP) — President Bush sought to contain the explosive conflict in Georgia on Sunday as the White House warned that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.”

The crisis over a breakaway province, South Ossetia, appeared to ebb as Georgian troops began retreating and honoring a cease-fire, a claim Russia disputed. U.S. officials said Moscow was only broadening its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the region.

The sheer scope of Russia’s military response has the Bush administration deeply worried. Russia on Sunday expanded its bombing blitz in areas of Georgia not central to the fighting.

Vice President Dick Cheney spoke Sunday afternoon with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Cheney press secretary Lee Ann McBride said. “The vice president expressed the United States’ solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” McBride said.

Cheney told Saakashvili that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community,” McBride said.

A Russian official said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday; the figure could not be confirmed independently.

The president was to end his weeklong stay to Asia by attending a baseball game and other events Monday at the Beijing Olympics. The trip was meant mostly for fun and games — there have been plenty of both. But the fast-moving conflict in Georgia has grabbed his attention.

Bush, pressing international mediation, reached out Sunday to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads the European Union. The two agreed on the need for a cease-fire and a respect for Georgia’s integrity, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

In Washington, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the United States must work closely with Europe in condemning Russia’s actions.

“We cannot just go out alone on this and talk and act unilaterally. We don’t have much impact, I believe, in terms of our unilateral declarations anymore with the administration’s approach to the world,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. “We’ve got to stand together with European allies.”

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the provincial capital, Tskhinvali. In response, Russia launched overwhelming artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

“We’re alarmed by this entire situation, and every escalatory step is a further problem,” deputy national security adviser Jim Jeffrey told reporters.

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled the soldiers following the outbreak of fighting with Russia. The decision was a timely payback for the former Soviet republic that has been a staunch U.S. supporter and agreed to send troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition. Georgia was the third-largest contributor of coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain, and most of its troops were stationed near the Iranian border in southeastern Iraq.

The risk of the conflict setting off a wider war increased when Russian-supported separatists in another breakaway region of Georgia, Abkhazia, launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops to drive them out of a small part of the province they control.

Also, Ukraine warned Russia it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia’s coast.

“If those Russian ships leave that port in the Black Sea and if Ukraine decides that it is not going to allow those ships back into that port … that is a potentially much greater conflagration involving a wider regional area,” Levin said.

The White House sought to reassure that the administration — including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen — were talking to parties on both sides and trying for a diplomatic solution.

“We hope that there is no further bloodshed. There has been too much bloodshed already,” Jeffrey said.

Asked about the possibility of sending the U.S. military or other aid to Georgia, Jeffrey said, “Right now our focus is on working with both sides, with the Europeans and with a whole variety of international institutions and organizations to get the fighting to stop.”

Levin, too, did not see the chance of U.S. military involvement, though he said the U.S. needs to make clear to Russia that its action “is way out of line.”

“It has to be condemned and the world needs to stand against it,” Levin said.

Bush also tended to relations with China, again raising raised concerns to President Hu Jintao about how the host of the summer Olympics treats its own people.

Bush worshipped at a Beijing church and declared China has nothing to fear from expressions of faith. The message had the added punch of coming on China’s turf, as Bush has done before.

He managed time for a couple of marquee sporting events. With first lady Laura Bush, daughter Barbara and former President George H.W. Bush, he cheered from the stands of the Water Cube Olympic swimming venue. American Michael Phelps claimed the first of an expected string of gold medals by smashing his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley.

“God, what a thrill to cheer for you!” Bush told Phelps afterward.

At night, Bush watched the eagerly anticipated U.S.-China men’s basketball game.

Before the contest, he huddled with U.S. players in a corridor of the Olympic arena, putting his hand in with theirs and joining in a cheer, “One, two, three, U.S.A, go!”

he White House on Friday urged Russia and Georgia to peacefully resolve their dispute over South Ossetia.

“We urge restraint on all sides — that violence would be curtailed and that direct dialogue could ensue in order to help resolve their differences,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

She said the administration has been talking to both sides, trying to help resolve the issue.

“We will continue to be engaged,” Perino said in Beijing, where President Bush was attending the Olympics opening ceremonies.

Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said Bush discussed the issue with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when they chatted at a luncheon Friday for world leaders hosted by Chinese President Hu Jintao. Johndroe had no details about their talks.

Georgian troops launched a major military offensive Friday to regain control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili accused Russia, which has close ties to the separatists, of bombing Georgian territory.

A Russian official denied the bombing. But Putin said the Georgian attack will draw retaliation and the Defense Ministry pledged to protect South Ossetians, most of whom have Russian citizenship.

After a racially charged Democratic primary campaign that turned particularly ugly in its final days, voters will decide Thursday between a Jewish incumbent congressman and a black opponent who ran a television ad juxtaposing photos of him and a hooded Ku Klux Klan member.

Democrat Steve Cohen is the first white congressman from Memphis in more than three decades and one of only two white congressmen representing a majority black district.

The ad was run by his chief opponent, Nikki Tinker, a corporate lawyer whose supporters argue the 9th District in Memphis should be represented by a black candidate.

Low turnout was predicted for the primary, which will likely decide the next congressman in the heavily Democratic district that has returned incumbents to the House since 1974. The district is 60 percent black and 35 percent white, and Cohen won his first term after a 2006 primary in which a dozen black candidates, including Tinker, split the vote.

Tinker said her ad linking Cohen to the KKK for opposing a 2005 effort to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from a downtown park “merely states the facts. I think the nation needs to know Steve Cohen’s complete record.”

The ad, which ran in the campaign’s final days, drew condemnation Thursday from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. It juxtaposed pictures of a statue of Forrest, the founder of the KKK, and a hooded Klansman in front of a burning cross while asking, “Who is the real Steve Cohen?”

“These incendiary and personal attacks have no place in our politics, and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee,” Obama said in a statement.

Cohen, a former state senator with a long record as a civil rights supporter, led an effort last month to get the U.S. House to issue an unprecedented apology to black Americans for wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political science professor, said the KKK ad indicates Tinker knows her campaign is in trouble.

“Steve Cohen has been very conscious that he’s representing a black majority district, and he’s not a member of the KKK,” said Geer, who called such tactics risky. “Voters are not fools, and they can sort this out. They are savvy enough to figure out if the attack is credible or not. I’d be surprised if she wins.”

Another issue has been Cohen’s opposition to a House resolution labeling the killing of Armenians in World War I as genocide. The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the nonbinding resolution last year despite arguments it would anger Turkey, which allows U.S. military shipments headed for Iraq to cross its borders.

During a news conference at Cohen’s home Wednesday to call Tinker’s ad an act of desperation, a cameraman who identified himself as working for an Armenian-American citizens’ group interrupted. Cohen pushed the man, Peter Musurlian of Glendale, Calif., out of his house and called police.

Musurlian said his group supports Tinker because of Cohen’s opposition to the genocide resolution. The district does not have a large Armenian population.

In other primary races Thursday, former state Democratic Party Chairman Bob Tuke and former Knox County Clerk Mike Padgett have been the most active candidates for the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander.

Neither has managed to drum up much campaign cash or public attention, and yet both argue that Alexander is out of touch with Tennesseans and ripe to be picked off.

In the state’s other major congressional primary, in the solidly Republican 1st District in northeastern Tennessee, Republican Rep. David Davis is being challenged by Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe. The campaign heated up toward the end, moving from joint stump appearances to negative ads.

Tennessee’s other four congressional incumbents faced no primary opposition — Republican John Duncan of the 2nd District, and Democrats Jim Cooper of the 5th, Bart Gordon of the 6th and John Tanner of the 8th.

Republican Marsha Blackburn faced challenger Tom Leatherwood in the 7th District, while Republican Zach Wamp in the 3rd District and Democrat Lincoln Davis in the 4th District faced only token opposition.

Brazil and the United States are seeking to deepen a partnership in energy, especially by promoting biofuels and other alternatives to oil, US Deputy Secretary of Energy Jeffrey Kupfer said here Wednesday.

But while ethanol biofuel was one of the main topics discussed with officials during his three-day visit to Brazil, there was no change to US import tariffs on Brazilian ethanol, he told reporters.

Those tariffs will “run through to 2010,” he said, following the US congress’s decision to extend them by two years beyond their planned expiry date at the end of this year.

Brazil, the second-biggest producer of ethanol, after the United States, is lobbying hard for greater access to the US and European markets.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim last week warned that his country may take the US tariff issue to the World Trade Organization.

Brazil’s biofuel industry argues that its ethanol, derived from sugarcane, runs cleaner and more efficiently than the US sort, made from corn, and is less of a concern to critics who claim that biofuel production is reducing the amount of farm output dedicated to food production.

Kupfer, who was wrapping up his Brazil trip before heading to Colombia, stressed that Brazil and the United States were looking to “deepen that relationship and partnership” founded in a joint memorandum of understanding on energy production signed in 2003.

He said he and Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao discussed efforts to develop alternatives to energy from oil, including nuclear power.

“We talked about nuclear, something that is being revived in our country,” he said.

The Iraqi government could end this year with as much as a $79 billion cumulative budget surplus, based largely on ever-increasing oil revenues, congressional auditors say.

A report by the Government Accountability Office made public Tuesday prompted renewed calls from senators that Baghdad pay more of the bill for its own reconstruction, which has been heavily supported with U.S. funds.

The projected Iraq surplus, including unspent money from 2005 through 2008, has been building because of rising world oil prices, increasing Iraqi oil production, the government’s inability to execute budgets for spending its money and persistent violence in the country, the GAO said.

The report was requested by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“The Iraqi government now has tens of billions of dollars at its disposal to fund large-scale reconstruction projects,” Levin said in a statement. “It is inexcusable for U.S. taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for projects the Iraqis are fully capable of funding themselves.”

“It is time for the sovereign government of Iraq, using its revenues, expenditures and surpluses, to fully assume the responsibility to provide essential services and improve the quality of life for the Iraqi people,” Warner said.

The GAO said Iraq had an estimated cumulative budget surplus of about $29 billion from 2005 to 2007 and could have another surplus of up to $50 billion this year.

The expected surplus could be lower if Iraq passes stalled legislation for a $22 billion supplemental budget for 2008 — and if the government then executes the budget.

But the report noted oft-repeated factors holding the government back on its spending plans.

“First … (the) relative shortage of trained budgetary, procurement and other staff with the necessary technical skills as a factor limiting the Iraqi government’s ability to plan and execute its capital spending,” the GAO said, adding that a second problem is the government’s weak accounting systems.

“Third … violence and sectarian strife remain major obstacles to developing Iraqi government capacity,” it said.

The report also estimated that this year Iraq could generate $67 billion to $79 billion in oil sales. Other U.S. officials previously had said they expected the oil windfall to be about $70 billion.

“This substantial increase in revenues offers the Iraqi government the potential to better finance its own security and economic needs,” the GAO said.

Since 2005, the United States has funded a number of efforts to teach civilian and security ministries how to effectively execute their budgets.

The efforts included programs to advise and help Iraqi government employees develop the skills to plan programs and to effectively deliver government services such as electricity, water and security.