Sierra Club, AFSCME say they back Obama

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama secured the endorsement yesterday of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a political-powerhouse union that was a strong backer of his former Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Barack Obama has the experience, judgment and strength to reinvigorate our economy and resurrect the American dream," AFSCME president Gerald W. McEntee said after the endorsement.

AFSCME is the largest union for workers in the public-service sector, with 1.4 million members nationwide. It represents government and private workers including nurses, bus drivers, child-care providers and librarians.

Obama reached out to union presidents and leaders yesterday in hopes of quickly unifying the nation's labor movement behind his candidacy after a grueling primary contest with Clinton.

Also yesterday, the Sierra Club said it would endorse Obama, a decision the environmental group said was made easier by Republican Sen. John McCain's support this week of repealing an offshore-drilling moratorium and expanding nuclear power.

- AP

HANOI, Vietnam - Cindy McCain harshly criticized Myanmar's military junta yesterday while vowing to make improving human rights there a priority if she becomes America's first lady.

Taking a cue from Laura Bush, who has also been a sharp critic of human-rights abuses in Myanmar, the wife of Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, said human life "doesn't matter" to Myanmar's leaders.

"It's just a terrible group of people that rule the country, and the frightening part is that their own people are dying of disease and starvation and everything else, and it doesn't matter," she said during a trip to Vietnam, where she has worked with a charity that helps children born with facial deformities.

She was traveling in Asia this week to showcase her charity work and get a close-up look at relief efforts for victims of last month's Myanmar cyclone.

She said she did not try to get an entry visa to Myanmar, knowing it would most likely be denied by the secretive government. Instead, the U.N. World Food Program in Thailand will brief her about its work today.

Also yesterday, she visited the Vietnamese coastal town of Nha Trang, where about 100 children born with cleft palates and cleft lips were awaiting free plastic surgery by the U.S. charity Operation Smile, for which she is a board member.

She has made several trips to the communist country where her husband was shot down during the Vietnam War and held more than five years as a prisoner of war.

"This is what I do, and this is what revitalizes me, personally," she said. She also planned to visit Cambodia to participate in charity work there.

- AP