Pope pardons Vatican butler

Pope Benedict XVI granted his former butler a Christmas pardon Saturday, forgiving him in person during a jailhouse meeting for stealing and leaking his private papers in one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.
After the 15-minute meeting, Paolo Gabriele was freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lives with his wife and three children. The Vatican said he couldn't continue living or working in the Vatican, but said it would find him housing and a job elsewhere soon.
"This is a paternal gesture toward someone with whom the pope for many years shared daily life," according to a statement from the Vatican secretariat of state.
The pardon closes a painful and embarrassing chapter for the Vatican, capping a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons in the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
Gabriele, 46, was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found what they called an "enormous" stash of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment. He was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal on Oct. 6 and has been serving his 18-month sentence in the Vatican police barracks.
He told Vatican investigators he gave the documents to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he thought the 85-year-old pope wasn't being informed of the "evil and corruption" in the Vatican and thought that exposing it publicly would put the church back on the right track.
During the trial, Gabriele testified that he loved the pope "as a son loves his father" and said he never meant to hurt the pontiff or the church. A photograph taken during the meeting Saturday — the first between Benedict and his once trusted butler since his arrest — showed Gabriele dressed in his typical dark gray suit, smiling.
The publication of the leaked documents, first on Italian television then in Nuzzi's book "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers" convulsed the Vatican all year, a devastating betrayal of the pope from within his papal family that exposed the unseemly side of the Catholic Church's governance.
The papal pardon had been widely expected before Christmas, and the jailhouse meeting Benedict used to personally deliver it recalled the image of Pope John Paul II visiting Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot him in 1981, while he served his sentence in an Italian prison.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the meeting was "intense" and "personal" and said that during it Benedict "communicated to him in person that he had accepted his request for pardon, commuting his sentence."
Lombardi said the Vatican hoped the Benedict's pardon and Gabriele's freedom would allow the Holy See to return to work "in an atmosphere of serenity."
None of the leaked documents threatened the papacy. Most were of interest only to Italians, as they concerned relations between Italy and the Vatican and a few local scandals and personalities. Their main aim appeared to be to discredit Benedict's trusted No. 2, the secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Vatican officials have said the theft, though, shattered the confidentiality that typically governs correspondence with the pope. Cardinals, bishops and everyday laymen write to him about spiritual and practical matters assuming that their words will be treated with the discretion for which the Holy See is known.
As a result, the leaks prompted a remarkable reaction, with the pope naming a commission of three cardinals to investigate alongside Vatican prosecutors. Italian news reports have said new security measures and personnel checks have been put in place to prevent a repeat offense.
Gabriele insisted he acted alone, with no accomplices, but it remains an open question whether any other heads will roll. Technically the criminal investigation remains open, and few in the Vatican believe Gabriele could have construed such a plot without at least the endorsement if not the outright help of others. But Lombardi said he had no new information to release about any new investigative leads, saying the pardon "closed a sad and painful chapter" for the Holy See.
Nuzzi, who has supported Gabriele as a hero for having exposed corruption in the Vatican, tweeted Saturday that it appeared the butler was thrilled to speak with the pope and go home. "Unending joy for him, but the problems of the curia and power remain," he wrote, referring to the Vatican bureaucracy.
A Vatican computer expert, Claudio Sciarpelletti, was convicted Nov. 10 of aiding and abetting Gabriele by changing his testimony to Vatican investigators about the origins of an envelope with Gabriele's name on it that was found in his desk. His two-month sentence was suspended. Lombardi said a pardon was expected for him as well. He recently returned to work in the Vatican.
Benedict met this past week with the cardinals who investigated the origins of the leaks, but it wasn't known if they provided him with any further updates or were merely meeting ahead of the expected pardon for Gabriele.
As supreme executive, legislator and judge in Vatican City, the pope had the power to pardon Gabriele at any time. The only question was when.

Read More..

Aleppo's fledgling government reflects a society shaped by war

Members of the Syrian opposition in Aleppo are preparing to unveil what will be the most ambitious transitional government effort to come from inside Syria since the revolution began 21 months ago.
Aleppo’s Transitional Revolutionary Council, a civilian effort to provide government services in areas of northern Syria under opposition control, has created a 224-person Grand Assembly with representatives for every area of the province, even those still under government control. The new legislative body plans to have its first meeting within a month.
The creation of the opposition’s Grand Assembly comes on the heels of weeks of major rebel gains in northern Syria and is emblematic of their growing confidence in Aleppo. But the new legislature faces challenges finding sufficient funding and securing locations to meet, underscoring the challenges that remain despite recent progress.
Recommended: Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.
“What makes this project successful here in Aleppo is that most of Aleppo is liberated,” says Rafat Rifai, a freelance journalist who works as a consultant for the Transitional Revolutionary Council. Still, he adds, “the main financial resources are still with the regime so if the new assembly tries to take on the same role of the [Assad] government, it will need the same budget.”
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
The assembly has only limited funding. It comes from a mix of sources including Syrian expatriates and local businessmen, and the new Syrian opposition coalition formed in Doha last month is said to be considering offering assistance. The modest budget will force the group to prioritize its efforts on essentials such as repairing the electric grid and addressing bread shortages.
Throughout opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo province, citizens have formed a variety of ad hoc councils to manage their villages and neighborhoods in the absence of a central government, but the Grand Assembly is the first attempt to create a representative body that can begin to operate more like a traditional government body.
The new legislators were chosen in town hall style meetings by their communities. In areas still under control of the Assad army, representatives were selected from residents of these areas who had fled to opposition-controlled territory.
“We try to push them to choose the best and most qualified person to be the representative, not just the most popular,” says Shekary, who does not use his full name to protect his identity and serves as the media coordinator for the General Assembly.
Organizers say that with fighting still ongoing in Aleppo and reliable communication by telephone or Internet often impossible, a popular election to choose the 224 representatives would not have been feasible.
SEATS APPORTIONED BY SACRIFICE
The number of representatives each district receives is proportional to both its population and level of participation in the revolution. The latter is determined by a matrix that uses measurements such as the number of residents killed in the uprising and the level of destruction the community experienced.
Responding to a question about whether giving less representation to those who did not participate as heavily in the revolution could appear as a punitive measure, Hakeem Halabi says this current council is meant to serve as a transitional revolutionary government, which, for the time being, is run by those who started the uprising.
“We agree in the future we will have to have a popular vote,” says Mr. Halabi, co-leader of the temporary presidential committee for the Transitional Revolutionary Council, adding that the goal of the forthcoming assembly is to help achieve the goals of the revolution. "There are people with guns on the street and they deserve to get representatives.... If they don’t have a big enough voice, it will be hard to convince them to put down their guns.”
The assembly will hold its first meeting in Gaziantep, Turkey, just north of the Syrian border. Originally the group wanted to hold the meeting in Syria along the border where government jets seldom bomb, but a recent air strike against a border town made them reconsider.
The group says that they will conduct their meetings in Turkey, but return immediately upon their conclusion. Opposition forces have long criticized their leadership based outside the country for being out of touch with realities on the ground. The newly created Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, founded in Doha, enjoys more support within Syria, but still faces criticisms for operating outside the country.
“We consider ourselves more legitimate than the Doha coalition itself because this transitional council is 100 percent in Syria,” says Halabi.
Currently, there are no other provinces firmly enough under rebel control to consider something like the Aleppo Grand Assembly there, and there are no plans to use it as a model for temporary government in provinces that come under opposition control in the future.

Read More..

Uruguay postpones vote on 'state as dealer' approach to drug regulation - but not for long?

Uruguay has been on the vanguard of drug policy reform in the Americas, proposing a state regulatory market for the cultivation and consumption of marijuana. (See our cover on “Latin America reinventing the War on Drugs” here).
But last week the project’s No. 1 proponent – and perhaps the globe’s most trailblazing reformer – Uruguayan President Jose Mujica, told Parliament to postpone the vote.
President Mujica always said he would not go forward with the proposal if a majority of Uruguayans did not accept it. And a new poll by the firm Cifra shows 64 percent of those surveyed remain opposed.
Recommended: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz.
“Don’t pass a law because it has a majority in Parliament,” the president was quoted as saying in the local press. “The majority has to be in the streets.”
His words will generate a cheer from those opposed to such a radical rethink of the “war on drugs,” from United States drug officials to functionaries at the United Nations.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
But few think it means the project has been forever shelved, including those who don't explicitly favor it. In fact, Pablo Stratta, who is the secretary of the Mothers of the Plaza, an organization that fights against drug addiction, says that the polls do not reflect that people are necessarily against Mujica’s project but that it is simply not their top priority – an opinion his organization shares.
“Before we talk about legalizing any substance, whether it’s marijuana or any other, we have to start talking about addiction from a health perspective,” Mr. Stratta says. “There are many other problems to be talking about, such as the families of drug addicts, or the number of addicts living on the streets.”
Still, the news surprised those who support the increasingly bold moves around drug reform. Many proponents have looked at Uruguay’s proposal as a model for the globe; from new ballot initiatives in Washington and Colorado that make recreational marijuana use legal, to presidents in Mexico and Colombia calling for new solutions to the US “war on drugs.”
Martin Jelsma, a foremost drug policy reform proponent at the Transnational Institute, was attending a drug reform meeting in Bangkok when he read an article insinuating that Mr. Mujica’s motive in delaying the parliamentary vote on the subject stemmed from doubt.
He called his colleagues from the Uruguayan drug commission, where he is an adviser. And he says he, like Mr. Stratta, is convinced that it will pass in the future – the timing is just not right.
"There have been several other quite controversial and difficult issues to deal with,” Mr. Jelsma says, including abortion and gay rights.
“And there was still the clear hope from the president’s side that this project would be carried through with a clearer majority of support population wise. In that context there are still deep details to sort out … like the details of the proposal, how it relates to UN treaties, legal issues,” Jelsma says.
"I don’t have doubts myself that a good communication strategy and a good poll that does not reduce [the issue] to overly simplistic questions will show that there is a majority support for the direction in which Mujica and his government wants to go.

Read More..

South Korea charges North building missile that could reach US

South Korean defense officials say they have evidence showing a recent North Korean missile launch was to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
South Korean navy divers have recovered more than three tons of debris from the first stage of a missile Korean analysts say was fueled by a type of nitric acid developed in the former Soviet Union over 40 years ago for firing missiles with warheads more than 6,000 miles. The rocket, fired from a pad in northwestern North Korea on December 12, managed to put a small satellite into orbit, but officials offer the discovery of nitric acid as evidence of the real reason why North Korea was anxious to test it.
The defense ministry released a photograph of a truck carrying the most conspicuous piece of the debris – the gleaming white casing for the first stage. The word Unha in Korean lettering, the name of the rocket, was clearly visible.as it was in North Korean pictures of the rocket before the launch.
Recommended: Blast-off: 6 recent missile advances
“Definitely their main purpose is to have the capability of reaching the US west coast,” says Kim Tae-woo, former president of the Korea Institute for National Unification. “North Korea this time proved the capability of their ICBM."
The evidence of the rocket’s mission as a test of an ICBM, according to the defense ministry, was that the main piece of the wreckage was a container for “redfuming nitric acid” that’s not ordinarily used in missiles for launching satellites.
A member of the team that examined the rocket was quoted by Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, as saying they had found the rocket “was intended for testing ICBM technology rather than developing a space launch vehicle.” He said the team based this conclusion on the fact that “red fuming nitric acid” was used “as an oxidizer” and could “be stored for a long time at normal temperature.”
Navy divers reportedly found still more wreckage on Sunday and are still scouring the seabed of the Yellow Sea off the southwestern coast of South Korea.
The major piece picked up from a depth of 250 feet measured more than 25 feet long and nearly 8 feet in diameter. Mr. Kim, who worked for many years as a senior North Korea analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, says the success of North Korean scientists and engineers in launching the rocket “does not mean an immediate threat.”
“They are successful this time,” he says, but “it was just a simple test.” He adds that “their satellite technology is very primitive” – so much so that analysts here believeNorth Korea has lost touch with the 200-pound object as it circles the earth.
Mr. Kim is quick to add, however, that putting a satellite into orbit “is not their main target.” Rather, he says, the North Koreans want to develop the technology for firing a warhead a long distance – a highly complicated feat..
The great question is when and how North Korea will test the response of the incoming administrations of both the United States and South Korea. Park Geun-hye, daughter of the long-ruling dictator Park Chung-hee, assassinated by his intelligence chief in 1979, was elected as South Korea’s president last Thursday and is to be inaugurated in February.
“North Korea might be tempted to test John Kerry either by long-range missiles or another nuclear test,” says Lee Chang Choon, a retired South Korean diplomat whoserved as ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. President Obama has nominated Senator John Kerry to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
Recommended: Blast-off: 6 recent missile advances
North Korea has conducted two previous underground nuclear tests – in October 2006 and again in May 2009 – soon after test-firing long-range missiles.
Kim Tae-woo agrees with that assessment. “Traditionally North Korea may be preparing to test the will of the second Obama government,” he says. “North Korea definitely wants to test Mr. Kerry.”
North Korea has been celebrating the launch of the rocket – and the satellite – with exuberant displays in Pyongyang. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, reported by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency to have visited the launch site and personally penned the hand-written order to go ahead with the launch, urged more launches at a dinner Friday honoring scientists, engineers and technicians responsible for the launch 11 days ago. KCNA quoted the North Korean leader as urging them to develop “carrier rockets of bigger capacity” in order to put “a variety of more working satellites” into orbit.
The rocket is believed capable of carrying a payload of 1,200 pounds.
South Korea, says Kim Tae-woo, is developing ballistic missiles with a maxium range of 500 miles – enough to reach any target in the North, including the launch site of the Unha. “We can have a much greater deterrence,” he says, “but it takes time.

Read More..

Muslim scholars and clerics: suicide bombings are un-Islamic.

Suicide bombers in Afghanistan have shown little restraint: Wedding parties and even mosques and children have witnessed gruesome targeting by the Taliban against civilians.
But as attacks soared in the summer and fall, killing scores of civilians every week – including at least 40 Muslim devotees at a mosque in late October –public revulsion has turned into unprecedented condemnation.
For the first time in late January, Muslim scholars and clerics from around the world will come to Kabul specifically to condemn suicide bombings as un-Islamic. The conference will be the first to focus on suicide bombing, and its framers hope the result will reverberate beyond Afghanistan.
"Many times, scholars in Pakistan and Afghanistan have made statements but had no influence," says Mufti Shamsur Rahman Firotan, a religious scholar in Kabul. "This one will have influence, and will give the idea to the people that suicide attacks are forbidden. The message is for all: in Iraq, in Pakistan, all these [militant jihadist] groups."
Recommended: How well do you know global Christmas traditions? Take the quiz
Senior United Nations officials have challenged religious officials to speak more loudly against attacks carried out in the name of Islam, while Afghan religious scholars have long decried suicide attacks, with little response by the ultra-conservative Taliban. An official gathering this summer resolved that suicide attacks "have no legitimate foundation in Islam."
It had little effect at the time. But those declarations have now been further bolstered. Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam and respected by the Taliban, explicitly condemned suicide bombing.
Yet since Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah Al al-Sheikh issued such a high-profile public statement in late October, Taliban suicide attacks have continued, some with multiple bombers. But Afghan religious scholars say momentum is building against them.
One reason is because Mr. Abdulaziz “does have influence on the Taliban," says Mr. Firotan, who is a member of Afghanistan's Ulema Council of Islamic scholars, which has long campaigned against civilian deaths.
"The Taliban think we are their enemies, so they don't respect our declarations," says Mr. Firotan. "But Mufti Aziz is respected by them, and all around the Islamic world…. It has influence."
INVOKING MUHAMMED
The newsletter of Afghanistan’s religious scholars, called Al-Islam, publicized the Grand Mufti’s high-profile pronouncement against suicide bombing.
Invoking the Muslim prophet Mohammed, Abdulaziz noted that killing innocents has been forbidden for 14 centuries. He said justifying suicide attacks in the name of religion was a "misuse" of Islam.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
"Attacks, suicide attacks, and killing of the innocent have no place in Islam, and whoever conducts these are not just deprived of Paradise, but they will go to hell," Abdulaziz said according to Al-Islam. "There is jihad in Islam, but it is very different from killing of the innocent and suicide attacks [which does] not benefit the people and humanity."
The Taliban claims it has not "officially" received Abdulaziz's fatwa (or religious decree), says Firotan, but only heard about it.
'THIS IS NOT THE WAY'
The Quran makes clear that self-defense is acceptable, says Firotan, providing "there is no other way to live, but that is not the situation now."
For those who want to fight US forces, says Firotan, there are methods. "But this is not the way – to go to mosques, banks, bazaars, or shops. There, are 100 percent, some Taliban who are [also] against these actions."
As the Taliban has waged its insurgency in recent years, it has also increasingly targeted civilians, along with US and NATO military forces, Afghan security, and the government. By early summer, the toll caught the attention of the UN Special Representative Jan Kubis, who lamented in a speech that every morning started with “very sad news” of civilian deaths.
Addressing an Islamic cooperation conference in June, he said the previous “typical” week had 200 civilian casualties, with 57 dead. The week before registered 244 casualties, with 90 killed. One day saw three suicide bombings; another single day left 107 casualties.
Such a soaring toll was "unacceptable," Kubis said. "We keep hearing reports of suicide bombings, intimidation, targeted killings, assassination of elders, religious leaders, teachers, and scholars, burning of schools – all done in the name of Islam."
Yet Kubis noted that different interpretations are also heard, based on the Quran, that show such acts to be un-Islamic. The result has been confusion and questions in the minds of many Afghans.
"They are not anymore sure what is the truth, what is right, what is wrong, what is Islamic, what is non-Islamic," said Kubis. He challenged the religious scholars to magnify their voices: "You have a major role, a major responsibility to help."
That message has been transmitted many times by many religious scholars and officials, over many years. But it has yet to break through to those who favor such attacks, as “religious” as their ideology is meant to be.
EASIER SAID, THAN DONE
Even the writ of Taliban chiefs is limited, as shown by the example of fugitive leader Mullah Omar. In 1998 he condemned the use of anti-personnel landmines as "un-Islamic" and "anti-human."
Despite that, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) notes that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) placed by Taliban operatives are "by far the biggest killer of civilians" in Afghanistan. In the first nine months of this year, they caused 340 deaths – a nearly 30 percent increase from the same period the previous year.
Likewise, suicide attacks remain a pernicious killer, despite the volume of religious scholarship against it.
"Practically every family has suffered some form of attack by these suicide bombings or IEDs, and they don't look at it very kindly," says Massoumeh Torfeh, the director of strategic communications for UNAMA in Kabul.
Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban ambassador to the UN who is now a member of the High Peace Council, tasked by the government of President Hamid Karzai with talking to the Taliban, says the opinions of religious figures can have an impact.
"Afghanistan is a religious country, and absolutely the majority are listening to their religious scholars," says Mr. Mujahid. About the Taliban, he says: "They are human beings, and also they have their religious scholars."
Mujahid quotes the Quran, saying: "You have to fight against those who are fighting against you. But do not cross the limit."
That limit is beyond "proportional reaction," says Mujahid: "It means that when someone is fighting against you with their fists, you should not use a Kalashnikov."
The Taliban see themselves as "being attacked, that war is being waged against [them]," adds Mujahid. The High Peace Council is "trying our best to convince them that war is not to the benefit of any party [and to] settle everything by negotiations, not by fighting."

Read More..

Soccer-Marseille cling on with leaders after beating St Etienne

 Andre Ayew struck just before the break to give Olympique Marseille a 1-0 home win against St Etienne on Sunday and keep them level on points with leaders Paris St Germain.
As Ligue 1 goes into a three-week break, OM are third with 38 points, behind pacesetters PSG and second-placed Olympique Lyon on goal difference.
St Etienne, who last beat OM at the Velodrome in 1979, are 10th with 27 points from 19 matches.
The game got off to a rather dull start with neither team creating chances and Marseille looking cautious having lost their last two home games.
Marseille, however, went ahead on the stroke of halftime when Ghana striker Ayew, who will play in the African Nations Cup with the Black Stars from Jan. 19 to Feb. 10, headed home from a Rod Fanni cross.
Josuha Guilavogui was set up by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but Steve Mandanda dived into the midfielder's feet to deny St Etienne an early opportunity to equalise two minutes into the second half.
Fanni cleared Aubameyang's strike off the goal line 15 minutes from time to keep his team ahead.
Andre Ayew then came close to doubling the tally in the 85th minute after being set up by his younger brother Jordan, only for his low shot to be blocked by Stephane Ruffier.
Earlier, Valenciennes moved up to sixth on 29 points after goals by Gregory Pujol and Jose Saez gave the Northerners a 2-1 win against visiting Evian Thonon Gaillard.
Toulouse, who had bagged only four points from their last eight games, beat Sochaux 2-0 courtesy of goals by Adrien Regattin and Emmanuel Riviere.
On Saturday, PSG claimed a 3-0 win at Stade Brest and Lyon beat Nice 3-0 at home.

Read More..

Soccer-European roundup-Barca win again, Chelsea score eight

Dec 23 (Reuters) - Barcelona finished the year with a win at Real Valladolid and a record haul of 49 points for this stage of a La Liga season with Lionel Messi scoring his 91st goal of the calendar year while arch rivals Real Madrid lost at Malaga.
Chelsea eased the disappointment of their Club World Cup final defeat by beating Aston Villa 8-0 but Manchester United's lead over local rivals City at the top of the Premier league was cut to four points after they were held at Swansea City.
The Ligue 1 title race is a thriller with three teams - Paris St Germain, Olympique Lyon and Olympique Marseille - on 38 points at the halfway stage as European club football in the major leagues outside England heads into the winter break.
- -
SPAIN
Lionel Messi struck his 91st goal this year as unbeaten La Liga leaders Barcelona won 3-1 at Real Valladolid while Real Madrid slumped to a 3-2 defeat at Malaga where Jose Mourinho surprisingly left captain and keeper Iker Casillas on the bench.
The setback left champions Real 16 points adrift of Barca, who have a record haul of 49, and seven behind second-placed Atletico Madrid, 1-0 winners at home to Celta Vigo.
Valladolid kept a dominant Barca at bay until two minutes before halftime when Xavi turned a low cross into the net.
Messi doubled Barca's lead on the hour with a trademark run and finish for his 26th goal of the league campaign as he extended the calendar year record he broke earlier this month when he overhauled Gerd Mueller's 40-year-old mark of 85.
Substitute Cristian Tello added a third in what was the perfect tonic for Barca following the news that coach Tito Vilanova had to have throat surgery last Thursday and is starting a course of chemo- and radiotherapy.
- -
ENGLAND
Chelsea, playing with a swagger missing for much of the season, routed Aston Villa 8-0 to move up to third place while Premier League leaders Manchester United wasted the chance to move six points clear after a 1-1 draw at Swansea City.
Striker Fernando Torres began the rout after three minutes and David Luiz and Branislav Ivanovic made it 3-0 at the break. Frank Lampard marked his 500th Premier League game with a rasping fourth before Ramires (two), Oscar and Eden Hazard joined in the fun for Chelsea, who also missed a late penalty.
United, who led at Swansea through Patrice Evra before being pegged back by league top scorer Michu's 13th goal this season, hold a four-point advantage over Manchester City, who beat Reading 1-0 thanks to Gareth Barry's stoppage time goal.
United have 43 points from 18 games, followed by City on 39 and Chelsea - who handed interim manager Rafael Benitez his first home league win - on 32 with a game in hand.
United boss Alex Ferguson was left fuming after their match, saying Robin van Persie "could have been killed" by Swansea's Ashley Williams when the prone striker was struck in the head from point-blank range by a clearance after a foul was given.
- -
ITALY
A late double from substitute Alessandro Matri helped top of the table Juventus to a 3-1 victory at 10-man Cagliari after the Serie A leaders had missed a penalty.
Lazio's 1-0 win at Sampdoria put them second above Inter Milan who were held 1-1 by Genoa in the final matches of 2012.
Champions Juve have 44 points, eight ahead of Lazio with Fiorentina and Inter, who slipped to fourth, a further point behind.
Cagliari took the lead against Juventus through Mauricio Pinilla's 16th-minute penalty after Marco Sau was fouled.
But they had Davide Astori sent off in the 65th for a second booking and Juve finally scored 10 minutes later through Matri after Arturo Vidal blasted his spot kick into the stands.
Home keeper Michael Agazzi kept Cagliari in the match until Matri added his second in stoppage time and then Mirko Vucinic scored a flattering third for the visitors.
- -
FRANCE
Ligue 1 top scorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic netted his 18th goal of the season as Paris St Germain reached the halfway mark leading the standings with a 3-0 win at Stade Brest.
PSG have 38 points and are first on goal difference from Olympique Lyon, who beat visitors Nice 3-0, and Olympique Marseille, 1-0 winners at home to St Etienne thanks to Andre Ayew's first-half header.
Fourth-placed Stade Rennes, who beat AC Ajaccio 4-2, trail the top three by six points as Ligue 1 takes a three-week break.
- -
NETHERLANDS
Jeremain Lens's early double set PSV Eindhoven on the way to a 6-1 win over neighbours NAC Breda that left them top on goal difference from Twente Enschede who won 3-0 at AZ Alkmaar.
Lens opened the scoring after 11 minutes when he netted a rebound and while Breda goalkeeper Jelle ten Rouwelaar saved a penalty from Lens six minutes later, the PSV forward soon made amends with his second goal of the match.
Further strikes from Georginio Wijnaldum, Mathias Jorgensen, Luciano Narsingh and Juergen Locadia took PSV's league tally to 60 this season.

Read More..

UPDATE 3-Soccer-Ligue 1 summaries

Dec 23 (Infostrada Sports) - Summaries from the Ligue 1 matches on Sunday
Sunday, December 23
Olympique Marseille 1 Andre Ayew 45+1
St Etienne 0
Halftime: 1-0; Attendance: 37,007
- - -
Toulouse 2 Adrien Regattin 26, Emmanuel Riviere 85
Sochaux 0
Halftime: 1-0; Attendance: 16,401
- - -
Valenciennes 2 Gregory Pujol 14, Jose Saez 74
Missed penalty: Mathieu Dossevi 50
Evian Thonon Gaillard FC 1 Saber Khlifa 33
Red Card: Djakaridja Kone 73
Halftime: 1-1; Attendance: 14,308
- - -
Saturday, December 22
Bastia 4 Jerome Rothen 9, Anthony Modeste 13,63, Sambou Yatabare 26
AS Nancy 2 Benjamin Moukandjo Bile 51, Andre Luiz 76
Halftime: 3-0; Attendance: 1,200
- - -
Olympique Lyon 3 Lisandro Lopez 40, Anthony Reveillere 55, Bafetimbi Gomis 77pen
Red Card: Dejan Lovren 90
Nice 0
Red Card: David Ospina 74
Halftime: 1-0; Attendance: 30,903
- - -
Girondins Bordeaux 0
ES Troyes AC 0
Halftime: 0-0; Attendance: 19,726
- - -
FC Lorient 2 Maxime Barthelme 48, Pedrinho 90+1
Stade de Reims 2 Odair Fortes 6, Gaaetan Courtet 70
Halftime: 0-1; Attendance: 16,471
- - -
Ajaccio 2 Adrian Mutu 2, Fousseni Diawara 41
Stade Rennes 4 Julien Feret 17pen,72, Romain Alessandrini 44, Cheick Diarra 60
Halftime: 2-2; Attendance: 6,312
- - -
Lille 4 Nolan Roux 24,62, Dimitri Payet 43, Ryan Mendes Da Graca 74
Montpellier HSC 1 Souleymane Camara 82
Red Card: Younes Belhanda 45+1
Halftime: 2-0; Attendance: 44,735
- - -
Friday, December 21
Stade Brest 0
Red Card: Abdou Sissoko 34
Paris St Germain 3 Zlatan Ibrahimovic 55, Kevin Gameiro 73, Bernard Mendy 90+2og
Halftime: 0-0; Attendance: 14,601

Read More..

Soccer-Villa's Lambert keen to move on from Chelsea mauling

- While most managers fret over congested fixtures during the festive season, Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert must be thankful his shellshocked side have only two days to stew over Sunday's 8-0 mauling by Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Villa's worst ever league defeat has dragged them back into the relegation battle and the Midlands side now sit just three points above the drop zone.
The defeat was all the more galling for Villa given they had gone five games unbeaten in the Premier League since a 5-0 drubbing by champions Manchester City last month, while Chelsea's form had been patchy under interim coach Rafa Benitez.
Scot Lambert acknowledged his team had been second best in every department on Sunday.
"Everything that could go wrong went wrong," he told Villa's official website. "We have been on a really good run but we got beaten up today by a really good side. We were second best."
Spanish striker Fernando Torres needed just three minutes to confirm his return to form to put Chelsea 1-0 up, before David Luiz and Branislav Ivanovic made it 3-0 at the break.
Frank Lampard marked his 500th Premier League game with a fourth before Ramires (two), Oscar and Eden Hazard joined the fun for Chelsea, who also missed a penalty.
Stamford Bridge has not been a happy hunting ground for Villa, who were hammered 7-1 there in 2010.
Lambert said Sunday's defeat would sting his side into action and he was looking for a response when they host sixth-placed Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.
"You always learn when you win, lose or draw. That will be a wake-up call for us," he added.
"We only have two days to mull over it but we have to go again against Tottenham on Wednesday. I am sure whoever plays on Wednesday will atone for that."
Former Norwich boss Lambert has had a mixed start since taking over at Villa at the end of last season, taking just six points from their opening nine Premier League games.
However, their recent unbeaten run, which included an impressive 3-1 win over Liverpool at Anfield last week, gave the fans hope they had turned the corner.
Lambert said he had not given his players a roasting in the dressing room after the embarrassing defeat to Chelsea as they were well aware their level of performance was unacceptable.
"You can go in there and rant and rave all you want but it won't really do you much good. They know my feelings on it," he said. "But they know themselves that they have let everybody down."
Also on Sunday, Norwich City said they had come to an agreement with Lambert and Aston Villa to settle the dispute over his departure at the end of last season.
Villa will pay Norwich the original amount agreed in Lambert's contract with the Norfolk club, who will pay the former Scotland midfielder his bonus due after the 2011/12 season.

Read More..

Soccer-Benitez demands more after Chelsea smash eight

LONDON, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Rafael Benitez was still scribbling notes towards the end of Chelsea's 8-0 rout of Aston Villa on Sunday and after the game, the Spaniard said there was plenty of room for improvement.
As Chelsea made it 13 goals from two games since returning empty-handed from a 12,000-mile (19,312-kilometre) round trip to Japan for the Club World Cup a week ago, Benitez demanded even more from his players.
"I can see the team improving with the little things we wanted to improve," said Chelsea's interim manager after his team climbed to third in the English Premier League.
"But we can still improve some things. I say that after winning by eight."
Striker Fernando Torres, rediscovering the killer instinct he showed under Benitez at Liverpool, opening the scoring with a thumping header in the third minute at Stamford Bridge.
The goals kept flowing, Frank Lampard marking his 500th Premier League start with a sweetly struck fourth and Brazilian Ramires netting twice in an early Christmas stuffing of Villa.
"The players have been really focused since I arrived," Benitez, whose appointment angered Chelsea fans following last month's sacking of Roberto Di Matteo, said.
"They knew they had a new manager and they had to perform. We have to try to adjust things in every training session but I was impressed with the way we played.
"From day one, they were keen to learn and to improve," added the Spaniard, whose meticulous attention to detail are beginning to reap dividends for the Blues.
"Chelsea were a top side before I came here. They still are. You can see the team has confidence in themselves. They believe, they have good movement and they create chances."
Becoming the first holders to exit the Champions League at the group stage and then failing to compensate for it by lifting the Club World Cup, the pressure had been on Benitez.
Chelsea still trail Premier League pace-setters Manchester United by 11 points, and Manchester City by seven, albeit with a game in hand.
But Benitez, who has tinkered with his side to good effect since their gruelling trip to the Far East, believes Chelsea can climb back into the title race.
"Now we have to sustain this run and it will be easier for me to say we can compete," the Spaniard added.
Many of Chelsea's players had said while in Japan that having time away from the bearpit of the Premier League to work with and adapt to Benitez's style would bring its rewards.
"To win is always special, but the mentality of the players was good," said Benitez, game-by-game beginning to look the part in his official Chelsea suit.
Credited by the players for making the team more compact defensively, against a Villa side woefully out of their depth, Chelsea's attacking football was at times breath-taking.
"Even after we scored our sixth goal, we kept pushing forward for more," purred Benitez. "We had the balance we are looking for.

Read More..

Correction: Peru Quake Unreadiness Story

In a story that moved Dec. 9 and 23 about earthquake readiness in Lima, Peru, The Associated Press incorrectly listed the year and the magnitude of a quake that killed about 70,000 people. The 7.9-magnitude Peru quake occurred in 1970.
A corrected version of the story is below:
The earthquake all but flattened colonial Lima, the shaking so violent that people tossed to the ground couldn't get back up. Minutes later, a 50-foot (15-meter) wall of Pacific Ocean crashed into the adjacent port of Callao, killing all but 200 of its 5,000 inhabitants. Bodies washed ashore for weeks.
Plenty of earthquakes have shaken Peru's capital in the 266 years since that fateful night of Oct. 28, 1746, though none with anything near the violence.
The relatively long "seismic silence" means that Lima, set astride one of the most volatile ruptures in the Earth's crust, is increasingly at risk of being hammered by a one-two, quake-tsunami punch as calamitous as what devastated Japan last year and traumatized Santiago, Chile, and its nearby coast a year earlier, seismologists say.
Yet this city of 9 million people is sorely unprepared. From densely clustered, unstable housing to a dearth of first-responders, its acute vulnerability is unmatched regionally. Peru's National Civil Defense Institute forecasts up to 50,000 dead, 686,000 injured and 200,000 homes destroyed if Lima is hit by a magnitude-8.0 quake.
"In South America, it is the most at risk," said architect Jose Sato, director of the Center for Disaster Study and Prevention, or PREDES, a non-governmental group financed by the charity Oxfam that is working on reducing Lima's quake vulnerability.
Lima is home to a third of Peru's population, 70 percent of its industry, 85 percent of its financial sector, its entire central government and the bulk of international commerce.
"A quake similar to what happened in Santiago would break the country economically," said Gabriel Prado, Lima's top official for quake preparedness. That quake had a magnitude of 8.8.
Quakes are frequent in Peru, with about 170 felt by people annually, said Hernando Tavera, director of seismology at the country's Geophysical Institute. A big one is due, and the chances of it striking increase daily, he said. The same collision of tectonic plates responsible for the most powerful quake ever recorded, a magnitude-9.5 quake that hit Chile in 1960, occurs just off Lima's coast, where about 3 inches of oceanic crust slides annually beneath the continent.
A 7.9-magnitude coastal quake in 1970 a day's drive north of Lima killed about 70,000 people as landslides it triggered buried two villages in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. In 2007, a quake of like magnitude struck even closer, killing 596 people in the south-central coastal city of Pisco.
A shallow, direct hit is the big danger.
More than two in five Lima residents live either in rickety structures built on unstable, sandy soil and wetlands, which amplify a quake's destructive power, or in hillside settlements that sprang up over a generation as people fled conflict and poverty in Peru's interior. Thousands are built of colonial-era adobe.
Most quake-prone countries have rigorous building codes to resist seismic events. In Chile, if engineers and builders don't adhere to them they can face prison. Not so in Peru.
"People are building with adobe just as they did in the 17th century," said Carlos Zavala, director of Lima's Japanese-Peruvian Center for Seismic Investigation and Disaster Mitigation.
Environmental and human-made perils compound the danger.
Situated in a coastal desert, Lima gets its water from a single river, the Rimac, which a landslide could easily block. That risk is compounded by a containment pond full of toxic heavy metals from an old mine that could rupture and contaminate the Rimac, said Agustin Gonzalez, a PREDES official advising Lima's government.
Most of Lima's food supply arrives via a two-lane highway that parallels the river, another potential chokepoint.
Lima's airport and seaport, the key entry points for international aid, are also vulnerable. Both are in Callao, which seismologists expect to be scoured by a 20-foot (6-meter) tsunami if a big quake is centered offshore, the most likely scenario.
Mayor Susana Villaran's administration is Lima's first to organize a quake-response and disaster-mitigation plan. A February 2011 law obliged Peru's municipalities to do so. Yet Lima's remains incipient.
"How are the injured going to be attended to? What is the ability of hospitals to respond? Of basic services? Water, energy, food reserves? I don't think this is being addressed with enough responsibility," said Tavera of the Geophysical Institute.
By necessity, most injured will be treated where they fall, but Peru's police have no comprehensive first-aid training. Only Lima's 4,000 firefighters, all volunteers, have such training, as does a 1,000-officer police emergency squadron.
But because the firefighters are volunteers, a quake's timing could influence rescue efforts.
"If you go to a fire station at 10 in the morning there's hardly anyone there," said Gonzalez, who advocates a full-time professional force.
In the next two months, Lima will spend nearly $2 million on the three fire companies that cover downtown Lima, its first direct investment in firefighters in 25 years, Prado said. The national government is spending $18 million citywide for 50 new fire trucks and ambulances.
But where would the ambulances go?
A 1997 study by the Pan American Health Organization found that three of Lima's principal public hospitals would likely collapse in a major quake, but nothing has been done to reinforce them.
And there are no free beds. One public hospital, Maria Auxiliadora, serves more than 1.2 million people in Lima's south but has just 400 beds, and they are always full.
Contingency plans call for setting up mobile hospitals in tents in city parks. But Gonzalez said only about 10,000 injured could be treated.
Water is also a worry. The fire threat to Lima is severe — from refineries to densely-backed neighborhoods honeycombed with colonial-era wood and adobe. Lima's firefighters often can't get enough water pressure to douse a blaze.
"We should have places where we can store water not just to put out fires but also to distribute water to the population," said Sato, former head of the disaster mitigation department at Peru's National Engineering University.
The city's lone water-and-sewer utility can barely provide water to one-tenth of Lima in the best of times.
Another big concern: Lima has no emergency operations center and the radio networks of the police, firefighters and the Health Ministry, which runs city hospitals, use different frequencies, hindering effective communication.
Nearly half of the city's schools require a detailed evaluation to determine how to reinforce them against collapse, Sato said.
A recent media blitz, along with three nationwide quake-tsunami drills this year, helped raise consciousness. The city has spent more than $77 million for retention walls and concrete stairs to aid evacuation in hillside neighborhoods, Prado said, but much more is needed.
At the biggest risk, apart from tsunami-vulnerable Callao, are places like Nueva Rinconada.
A treeless moonscape in the southern hills, it is a haven for economic refugees who arrive daily from Peru's countryside and cobble together precarious homes on lots they scored into steep hillsides with pickaxes.
Engineers who have surveyed Nueva Rinconada call its upper reaches a death trap. Most residents understand this but say they have nowhere else to go.
Water arrives in tanker trucks at $1 per 200 liters (52 gallons) but is unsafe to drink unless boiled. There is no sanitation; people dig their own latrines. There are no streetlamps, and visibility is erased at night as Lima's bone-chilling fog settles into the hills.
Homes of wood, adobe and straw matting rest on piled-rock foundations that engineers say will crumble and rain down on people below in a major quake.
A recently built concrete retaining wall at the valley's head lies a block beneath the thin-walled wood home of Hilarion Lopez, a 55-year-old janitor and community leader. It might keep his house from sliding downhill, but boulders resting on uphill slopes could shake loose and crush him and his neighbors.
"We've made holes and poured concrete around some of the more unstable boulders," he says, squinting uphill in a strong late morning sun.
He's not so worried if a quake strikes during daylight.

Read More..

Chilean street dogs are protesters' best friends

They don't have demands, but they're loyal to the cause and are always on the front lines of the fight. They run with protesters, lap up shots from water cannons, bark at police in riot gear and sometimes even bite officers.
Stray dogs are truly Man's Best Friend for thousands of students and workers who demonstrate and clash with police nearly every day to press demands for education improvements, redistribution of Chile's wealth and environmental protections. As the protests become fixtures in this modernizing capital, normally unnoticed street dogs have become stars in their own right, with the Facebook fan pages and fawning media coverage to prove it.
"Blacky," a mutt adopted by young protesters, has become the most visible mascot, with rival fan pages totaling more than 7,000 subscribers or "likes." Blacky's admirers constantly upload pictures of him, many showing the mutt with a checkered kaffiyeh around his neck symbolizing the Palestinian resistance movement, dodging tear gas or growling at baton-wielding officers.
"Dogs are super loyal. They stand with the people and I think they support the students," said Catalina Echenique, 17, who is planning to study psychiatry.
Free-roaming dogs number in the millions in Chile in a situation the nation's Humane Society has called alarming. Dog owners rarely spay or neuter their pets, and commonly leave them outside when they go to work in the morning. Many roam the streets all day.
Dogs lurk around the presidential palace, take naps in parks and always seem in search of a bite to eat or the next protest.
While strays are feared in countries such as India, where tens of millions of street dogs have a reputation for biting people and spreading rabies, Chileans often feed and take care of strays. Protesters, for one, are glad to have the dogs on their side of the fight.
Students have been hitting the streets for more than a year and a half demanding overhauls to a school system that's been privatized since the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Protesters say families must struggle with underperforming public schools, expensive private universities and education loans at impossible interest rates.
Two military officers in impeccable white uniforms walked out of a subway station recently as two blackened mutts followed them ahead of a crowd of young protesters who booed and shouted insults.
More dogs followed the sounds of sirens — and the promise of a water jet some blocks away. Police fired tear gas and the hounds ran to chew on the canisters. From a plume of smoke, Blacky dashed out, this time wearing an orange bandanna.
A mass of students and hooded members of anarchist groups loitering at nearby parks flooded into the streets for yet another confrontation.
Meanwhile, Echenique sat in a circle with other students, a stray napping next to them while they prepared to clash with police.
"With a good education we can generate conscience to protect animals," she said.
Despite the propensity of dog packs to join protesters, they're not at constant war with the police.
Just a few blocks from the recent confrontation, police and pooches appeared to be enjoying a peaceful timeout. One stray snoozed under the noon sun next to a traffic officer at a busy intersection, while another quietly napped in the shade cast by paintings propped on artist easels in Santiago's main square, the Plaza de Armas.
"I see the ritual everyday: police dogs patrolling the streets and strays watching over their territory," said Mario Guitierrez, a 52-year-old artist at the square who plans to make the protest dogs the subject of his next work.
"They meet, they stare, and it seems like the police dogs get scared. The street dogs are brave!"
Police officer Eduardo Basaez of the department's canine training unit strolled by with Lola, his 7-year-old German shepherd. They have both been part of street clashes, but Basaez said police dogs and horses are being used less these days to keep them safe.
"Dogs go to the protests because of a pack instinct. They play with the water jets, they're happy and don't know what's going on," Basaez said. "I'm a dog lover and I feel sorry for the street dogs. I live in an apartment but if I had a tract of land I would take them all home with me.

Read More..

Bolivia's Morales visits Cuba after Chavez surgery

 Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a lightning trip to Havana where key ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery.
Morales did not speak to foreign journalists during his weekend visit. Cuban state-run media didn't confirm that he visited Chavez, but said he came "to express his support" for the Venezuelan president. The Cuban government had invited media to cover Morales' arrival Saturday and departure Sunday but withdrew the invitation with no explanation.
Photos released by Cuban media showed President Raul Castro greeting Morales at the airport in Havana.
Morales aides said Monday he planned to make a statement later about Chavez.
Chavez underwent on Dec. 11 his fourth cancer-related operation since last year, two months after winning reelection to a six-year term. Venezuelan officials say his condition is stable.

Read More..

Prosecutor killed in Guatemala along with 6 others

 Guatemala's attorney general dispatched a special team Monday to investigate the slaying of a federal prosecutor and six other people in an attack near the Mexican border.
Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz said she was sending prosecutors and investigators to the area of northern Guatemala where Irma Yolanda Olivares, who worked in one of the prosecutor's regional officers, was slain along with an official working for a government social service agency and five others on Sunday night.
President Otto Perez Molina blamed the attack on drug traffickers, who have taken over swathes of territory along the border with Mexico.
The Interior Ministry said that a group of armed, masked men had intercepted the sport-utility vehicle carrying Olivares and three other passengers, who were returning from the inauguration of a hotel in the city of La Mesilla. The attackers opened fire, then burned the victims' bodies, officials said. Three other people were found fatally shot and burned in another vehicle nearby, official said.
Officials were not immediately able to determine the identities of the three or whether they were killed by the same attackers, said Ricardo Guzman, sub-secretary general in the prosecutor's office.
"The death of a member of the attorney general's team is a serious attack against the institution and against the work done by each prosecutor's office to fight impunity in this country," Paz said.

Read More..

Morales mum on Cuba trip after Chavez surgery

 Bolivian President Evo Morales made a lightning trip this weekend to Havana where ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery, but was mostly silent Monday on the details of his trip or even whether he met with the ailing Venezuelan leader.
The secrecy surrounding his visit was sure to add to the uncertainty surrounding Chavez's condition, despite reassurances Monday from Venezuelan officials that the president was slowly improving.
The Venezuelan leader has not been seen or heard from since his Dec. 11 surgery. Venezuelan officials have given few specifics about his condition and have offered no information about his long-term prognosis.
Luis Vicente Leon, a pollster who heads the Venezuelan firm Datanalisis, said the government's daily but vague updates on the president's health seem designed to calm anxious Chavez supporters rather than keep the country fully informed. For government opponents, however, he said the updates likely raise more questions than they answer.
"It's more for the Chavez movement than the country in general," Leon said. "There's nothing that one can verify, and the credibility is almost nil."
Morales did not speak to the foreign media while in Havana. Journalists had been summoned to cover his arrival and departure, but hours later that invitation was canceled. No explanation was given, though it could have been due to confusion over Morales' itinerary as he apparently arrived later than initially scheduled.
Cuban state media published photos of President Raul Castro receiving Morales at the airport and said he came "to express his support" for Chavez, his close ally, but did not give further details.
At an event in southern Bolivia on Monday, Morales made no mention of his trip to Cuba, even though aides had told reporters that he might say something about Chavez's recovery. Later, Morales' communications minister did not respond directly to a question about whether the two South American presidents had met face-to-face, saying only that he "was with the people he wanted to be with" and had no plans to return to Cuba.
"The report that President Morales has given us is that Chavez is in a process of recovery after the terrible operation he underwent," Amanda Davila told The Associated Press.
Morales is the second Latin American leader to visit since Chavez announced two weeks ago that he would have the operation. Rafael Correa of Ecuador came calling the day of the surgery. Uruguay's Jose Mujica has expressed interest in making the trek.
The visits underscore Chavez's importance to regional allies as a prominent voice of the Latin American left, as well as how seriously they are taking his latest bout with cancer.
Chavez underwent his fourth cancer-related operation of the last year-and-a-half on Dec. 11, two months after winning reelection to a six-year term. Venezuelan officials say Chavez is stable and his recovery is progressing, though he was treated for a respiratory infection apparently due to the surgery.
If Chavez is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan constitution calls for new elections to be held. Chavez has asked his followers to back his vice president and hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, in that event.
In Caracas, Venezuelan Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read a statement Monday saying that Chavez is showing "a slight improvement with a progressive trend," is keeping up with events back home and sends Christmas greetings to Venezuelans.
Maduro and several Cabinet ministers attended a Christmas Eve Mass in Caracas to pray for the president. Maduro again assured Venezuelans that the president was recovering, though he and other officials continued to strongly suggest that Chavez would not return in time for his Jan. 10 inauguration.
Opposition leaders have argued that the constitution does not allow the president's swearing-in to be postponed, and say new elections should be called if Chavez is unable to take the oath on time.
But Attorney General Cilia Flores insisted the constitution lets the Supreme Court administer the oath of office at any time if the National Assembly is unable to do it Jan. 10 as scheduled.
"Those who are counting on that date, hoping to thwart the Revolution and the will of the people, will end up frustrated once again," Flores said. "What we have is a president who has been re-elected, he will take over, will be sworn in on that day, another day, that is a formality."
Jaqueline Farias, the head of government for the Caracas area, told the AP outside the church that "we are very happy because each hour the 'commandante' is showing signs that he is overcoming this phase of the operation, his fourth operation."
When asked if the president was breathing on his own, she said she didn't know and walked off, refusing to answer more questions.
Dozens of Chavez supporters gathered outside the church, some carrying posters of the president or wearing red T-shirts decorated with a photograph of just Chavez's eyes. Some women rushed to the church after seeing footage of the Mass on state television and yelled at security guards to let them inside.
"Chavez is going to be mad, if he sees this," said Andres Sanchez, an unemployed Chavez supporter watching a woman shouting at a guard that she wanted to pray for Chavez, too. "He told the ministers to talk to the people."
"Venezuela without Chavez is like a ship without a rudder," Sanchez said, his voice wobbling. "I pray to God that he recovers because he is a man who loves the people, the children, the elderly and everyone a little bit."

Read More..

TSX ends flat as RIM buckles, gold miners bounce

Canada's main stock index ended little changed on Friday as gold miners gained on safe-haven buying amid U.S. budget uncertainty, while BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plunged more than 20 percent.
The index's materials sector, which includes miners, rose 0.4 percent. Even though the price of gold was near its lowest level in four months, the gold-mining sub-sector added 0.9 percent as investors fretted over stalled U.S. budget talks that could throw Canada's largest trading partner back into recession.
"As our tiptoes are over the (U.S.) fiscal cliff and we're looking over the abyss, the markets are upset obviously, and this is sort of putting a damper on the stocks," said John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada.
"But we've had a mixed reaction in Canada, mainly because the resources have been much better, like gold for example, which is hedging into the uncertainty (around the budget talks)," he said, noting gold miners had been under pressure for the last two weeks.
Miner Barrick Gold Corp edged up 0.2 percent to C$33.29. Centerra Gold Inc jumped more than 3 percent to C$9.10.
Gold miners are playing catch-up after underperforming throughout the year and could rise further in 2013, said Gavin Graham, president at Graham Investment Strategy.
Shares of RIM dropped 22.2 percent to C$10.86 on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on the business that has set the company apart from its competitors.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> fell 3.01 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 12,385.70. It gained 0.7 percent for the week.
Efforts to avoid the looming U.S. "fiscal cliff" were thrown into disarray on Friday with finger-pointing lawmakers fleeing Washington for Christmas vacations even as the year-end deadline for action edged ever closer.
Graham said that until a deal is reached in the U.S. budget talks, investors will avoid economically sensitive Canadian stocks and those most closely tied to the U.S. economy: auto parts manufacturers, forestry companies and resource stocks generally.
"The resource sectors in Canada, which is half of the index, is going to be adversely affected, correctly or not," he said.
"Chinese demand is likely to pick up somewhat now with the new leadership there but people will be focused on the U.S. given that it is still by far the most important export market for Canada."

Read More..

Google working on "X Phone", "X" tablet to take on rivals - WSJ

Google Inc is working with recently acquired Motorola on a handset codenamed "X-phone", aimed at grabbing market share from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Google acquired Motorola in May for $12.5 billion to bolster its patent portfolio as its Android mobile operating system competes with rivals such as Apple and Samsung.
The Journal quoted the people saying that Motorola is working on two fronts: devices that will be sold by carrier partner Verizon Wireless, and on the X phone.
Motorola plans to enhance the X Phone with its recent acquisition of Viewdle, an imaging and gesture-recognition software developer. The new handset is due out sometime next year, the business daily said, citing a person familiar with the plans.
Motorola is also expected to work on an "X" tablet after the phone. Google Chief Executive Larry Page is said to have promised a significant marketing budget for the unit, the newspaper said quoting the persons.

Read More..

Instagram diverts attention from botched policy change with another new filter

Instagram messed up big time this week when it freaked everyone out with changes to its privacy policy related to licensing user photos for advertisements. After days of backlash, Instagram reverted back to its old terms of service. While the damage has already been done, Instagram is hoping a new update to its iOS and Android app will silence everyone. Instagram 3.4.0 adds a new filter called “Mayfair” that adds another hint of lavender to images and brightens up the center, support for 25 languages, photo sharing from any album, Facebook (FB) iOS 6 integration and various bug fixes. Version 3.4.0 comes hot off last week’s update that added the new “Willow” filter and numerous UI tweaks. Is a new filter enough to keep users from flocking to the new Flickr or Twitter apps; both with built-in filters? Instagram certainly hopes so.

Read More..

Suicide bombers attack mobile phone firms in Nigeria

Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of mobile phone operators India's Airtel and South Africa's MTN on Saturday in Nigeria's northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said.
Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously targeted phone firms, blowing up telephone masts and offices, saying the companies help the security forces catch its members.
"The one who hit the Airtel office was shot by military men before the bomb exploded ... at the MTN office the car rammed into the fence but no civilians were killed," Ibrahim Idris, the chief of police in Kano, told Reuters.
Airtel Nigeria's parent company Bharti Airtel, India's top cellphone operator, gave no immediate comment.
The national emergency agency confirmed the bombing and said it was not aware of any civilian casualties. The security forces have played down the death toll in previous bombings.
At least 2,800 people have died in fighting in the largely Muslim north since the sect launched an uprising against the government in 2009, watchdog Human Rights Watch says.
The sect wants to impose strict Islamic law on a country of 160 million people split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.
The group has previously targeted churches on Christmas Day and security has been increased in all the major northern cities, although security experts say given the scale of Christian worship in Nigeria they cannot protect everyone.
Kano, Nigeria's second largest city after the southern commercial-hub Lagos, was the site of Boko Haram's most lethal attack which killed at least 186 people in January in coordinated bombings and shootings.

Read More..

2 bombers target mobile phone firms in Nigeria

Authorities blame a radical Islamist sect for twin suicide car bombings targeting two major mobile phone companies, an official said Saturday, blacking out a top operator's network in most of Nigeria's northern commercial hub.
A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into the facilities of the Nigerian subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Ltd. of India at about 8 a.m. in the city of Kano, said Capt. Iweha Ikedichi, who speaks for a special taskforce deployed in Kano to reduce the threat of the Islamic rebels known as Boko Haram. The attack left an Airtel worker injured, authorities said. It also damaged a switch station, said James Eze, an Airtel spokesman. He said the company was still assessing how bad the damage was, but declined to comment further.
Switch stations control the regional mobile phone network and if they are seriously damaged, the entire network could go down. An Airtel staff who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press said the targeted switch station covered six northern states, including Kano. But while Airtel's network appeared to be down across Kano Sunday, calls to lines in some of the other states went through.
At about the same time as the Airtel attack, another bomber targeted the facilities of the Nigerian subsidiary of South Africa-based MTN Group Ltd., about two miles (three kilometers) away. That attack was botched by security officers who shot the bomber, causing an explosion at the company's gate, Ikedichi said.
The target of the foiled attack was MTN's switch station, said Funmilayo Omogbenigun, spokeswoman for Nigeria's largest cell phone network provider.
Authorities suspect the Boko Haram sect is behind the attacks. The group is held responsible for more than 770 deaths this year alone, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press. Boko Haram's campaign of bombings and shootings has targeted mosques, churches, schools, universities and government buildings. But, four months ago, the group broadened its scope by attacking mobile phone towers for the first time.
In September, a series of attacks damaged more than 31 towers operated by all the major mobile phone providers in the country. Other attacks have occurred since then, further straining the one link Nigeria relies on for communication in a country with very few landlines. While no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, the Islamist sect had threatened mobile phone companies earlier in the year, warning that they would be targeted for cooperating with the government to flush out its members.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with more than 160 million people, mobile phones serve as a valuable lifeline in both cities and rural communities. Landlines remain almost nonexistent, as the state-run telephone company has collapsed and repeated efforts to privatize it have failed. More 87 million mobile phone lines were in use in 2009, according to estimates.
"Never would we have expected that telecommunications could be targeted," said Damien Udeh, a spokesman for the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria. "It portends a dangerous situation for everybody, especially government.

Read More..

FBI question Benghazi consulate attack suspect

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — After months of asking, agents from the FBI questioned the only known suspect in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four diplomats, the suspect's Tunisian lawyer told The Associated Press Saturday.
Ali Harzi, a Tunisian, was detained in Turkey and extradited to Tunisia in October where authorities have said he is "strongly suspected" of being involved in the attack.
His lawyer, Anwar Oued-Ali, added that Harzi was also questioned about an attack on the U.S. embassy in Tunisia, a few days later, suggesting the American authorities are looking into if there is a connection between the two attacks.
The Sept. 11 assault by armed men in the Libyan city of Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stephens and three other American diplomats. Members of an Islamist militia, Ansar al-Sharia are suspected in the strike, but there has been little progress in the Libya-based investigation into the attack.
A few days later, a mob attacked the U.S. embassy in Tunis, destroying property and an American school in the area, resulting in four deaths. The attack was believed to be instigated by a local group also called Ansar al-Sharia, but it is unclear if it is connected to the Libyan organization.
In early November, Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Saxby Chambliss announced that Tunisia had agreed to allow the FBI to interview Harzi, but it took another month and a half to organize the interview due to legal questions over any infringements on Tunisian sovereignty.
In the end, three FBI investigators using a Moroccan translator posed questions to Harzi for three hours through the Tunisian judge presiding over the case.
Harzi's defense team was not allowed to attend the questioning on the grounds that he was being interviewed as a "witness" rather than a defendant.
Harzi is being charged by the Tunisians for "membership in a terrorist organization." Harzi denies the charges.

Read More..

Rebels threaten to storm 2 Syrian Christian towns

BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels have threated to storm two predominantly Christian towns in central Syria if residents do not "evict" government troops they say are using the towns as a base to attack nearby areas.
A video released by rebels showed Rashid Abul-Fidaa, who identified himself as the commander of the Ansar Brigade for Hama province, calling on locals in Mahrada and Sqailbiyeh to rise up against President Bashar Assad's forces or prepare for an assault.
"Assad's gangs in the cities are shelling our villages with mortars and rockets destroying our homes, killing our children and displacing our people," said Abdul-Fidaa, who wore an Islamic headband and was surrounded by gunmen. "You should perform your duty by evicting Assad's gangs," he said. "Otherwise our warriors will storm the hideouts of the Assad gangs."
Abdul-Fidaa accused regime forces of taking positions in the two towns in order to "incite sectarian strife" between Christians and the predominantly Sunni opposition. Assad belongs to the Alawite minority sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.
The threat comes just two days after a U.N. team investigating human rights abuses in Syria accused anti-Assad militants of hiding among the civilian population, triggering strikes by government artillery and the air force.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the activist group which reported the rebel ultimatum on Saturday, said such an attack by rebels could force thousands of Christians from their homes.
Russia's foreign minister, meanwhile, said that Moscow would welcome any country's offer of a safe haven to Assad, but underlined that Moscow itself has no intention of giving him shelter if he steps down.
Sergei Lavrov also said that Syria has consolidated its chemical weapons into one or two locations to protect them from a rebel onslaught. Russia, which has military advisers training Syria's armed forces, has kept close watch over Damascus's chemical arsenal, Lavrov added.
Syria refuses to confirm or deny if it has chemical weapons but is believed to have nerve agents as well as mustard gas. It also possesses Scud missiles capable of delivering them.
Concerns over the arsenal have escalated as the Assad regime suffers losses on the battlefield. U.S. intelligence officials have said it may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them. Both Israel and the U.S. have also expressed concerns the weapons could fall into militant hands if the regime crumbles.
Syria's conflict started 21 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. But the bloody crackdown that followed led rebels to take up arms, and the ensuing fighting transformed into a civil war. According to activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011.
Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Syria's population, say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people. They are fearful that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Islamic groups.
Clashes between troops and rebels in the central city of Homs, Syria's third largest, have already displaced tens of thousands of Christians, most of whom either fled to the relatively safe coastal areas or to neighboring Lebanon.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said some Christians and Alawites have also left Hama province in the past several days to escape violence. He said some of them found shelter in the coastal city of Tartus.
In Damascus, the new head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch said that Christians in Syria had deep roots in the country and were not part of the conflict. Speaking to reporters in the capital, Patriarch John X. Yazigi, urged rival factions to negotiate a settlement.
Violence continued elsewhere in the country on Saturday.
The Observatory said a car bomb went off in the Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun, killing at least five people and wounding others. A Syrian official in the capital confirmed the blast but had no immediate words on casualties.
Elsewhere, the Syrian army said in a statement carried on state-run TV that it had repelled a rebel attack on a military base that killed a regimental commander in the Damascus suburb of Chebaa.
And in Damascus, the state-run news agency SANA said gunmen assassinated Haider al-Sammoudi, a cameraman for the government's TV station. Several journalists working for state media have been assassinated over the past months.
In another development, 11 rebel groups said they have formed a new coalition, the Syrian Islamic Front.
A statement issued by the new group, dated Dec. 21 and posted on a militant website Saturday, described the group as "a comprehensive Islamic front that adopts Islam as a religion, doctrine, approach and conduct."
Several rebel groups have declared their own coalitions in Syria, including an "Islamic state" in the embattled northern city of Aleppo.
The statement said the new group will work to avoid differences or disputes with the other Islamic groups.
Syrian authorities meanwhile handed over to Beirut three Lebanese citizens who were killed last month in a clash with Syrian troops shortly after they crossed the border. Syria has so far returned 10 bodies to the Lebanese authorities and says it has no more.

Read More..

Egypt's vice president quits

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's state TV says Vice President Mahmoud Mekki has resigned.
Mekki's Saturday resignation was announced with more than five hours to go of voting in the second and final phase of a referendum on a disputed, Islamist-backed constitution. Mekki, a career judge, has said he intends to quit once the charter is adopted. The new constitution eliminates the post of vice president.
However, a statement by Mekki read on state TV hinted that the motive of his hurried departure could be linked to the policies of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
He said he first submitted his resignation last month but events forced him to stay on.
"I have realized a while ago that the nature of politics don't suit my professional genesis as a judge," he wrote.

Read More..

Ex-Tunisian dictator's property goes under hammer

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian authorities are putting property confiscated from ousted Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali up for auction. That includes a pair of miniature gold sphinxes, a diamond-encrusted pen and a staggering 39 luxury cars.
Officials hope the sale, which was inaugurated by Tunisia's Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali in Tunis Saturday, will fetch some 20 million dinar ($12.9 million) for the state.
One of the rarities up for grabs is a super-pricy Mercedes that belonged to Ben Ali's nephew. Mohammed Lassaad Hamayed of Tunisia's confiscation committee calls the car "a handmade gem made of carbon fibers that costs more than €2 million ($2.6 million)."
He says "only Mohamed VI (the King of Morocco) has a similar one."
Ben Ali was ousted by a popular uprising in January 2011.

Read More..

Egypt's central bank governor quits

CAIRO (AP) — State television says Egypt's central bank governor has resigned.
Farouq el-Oqdah's resignation is the second such high profile move on Saturday. Earlier on the day, Vice President Mahmoud Mekki resigned, saying he realized that politics did not suit his professional background as a judge.
The brief TV report did not say why el-Oqdah quit, but it ends days of media speculations about his intentions. Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his Prime Minister Hesham Kandil met with el-Oqdah earlier this week in what media reports said was an attempt to dissuade him from leaving.
His departure comes at a time when Egypt's pound has been losing value against the U.S. dollar and the postponement of a deal with the IMF for a much needed loan of $4.8 billion.

Read More..

Analysis: Democrats' discord undercuts Obama estate tax push

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Divisions among Democrats are undermining President Barack Obama's push to raise the U.S. estate tax on inherited wealth, just weeks before the arrival of the "fiscal cliff" could drive the present estate tax rate even higher than Obama proposes.
Action on the estate tax could be postponed. But in his successful re-election campaign, Obama called for wealthy Americans to pay more in taxes - and it is overwhelmingly the wealthy who pay the estate tax.
The outcome may hinge on whether Obama insists on his estate tax proposal - or something close to it - as forcefully as he has insisted on raising individual income tax rates for high income-earners, or whether he lets the issue be put off.
If a single facet of the complicated partisan stand-off over taxing the wealthy best captures Capitol Hill's fiscal gridlock, it may be the estate tax - a long-standing and volatile issue - that may finally be coming to a head.
"If you look at where the public is on tax issues compared to the last time this was debated - it is night and day," said Frank Clemente, campaign manager for left-leaning Americans for Tax Fairness. "They are deep into this tax fairness position."
The "fiscal cliff" is a collection of federal tax increases and automatic government spending cuts that, if allowed to take effect as scheduled early in 2013, could push the U.S. economy into recession, according to economists' forecasts.
Part of the picture is the estate tax.
Under laws signed a decade ago by former Republican President George W. Bush, the estate tax is applied to inherited assets at 35 percent after a $5 million exemption. That means a deceased person can pass on an inheritance of up to $5 million before any tax applies.
Inherited wealth passed to a spouse or a federally recognized charity is generally not taxed.
Obama wants to raise the rate to 45 percent after a $3.5 million exemption. If the Bush rates are allowed to expire and Congress does nothing, the rate will shoot up next year to the pre-Bush levels of 55 percent after a $1 million exemption.
SCHUMER ON ESTATE TAX
New York Senator Charles Schumer on Thursday said the Democrats' proposal to avert the "fiscal cliff" involves $1 trillion in immediate deficit reduction that includes new revenue from raising the estate tax to the level proposed by Obama.
No less a power broker than Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said this week, however, that he wants to hold the estate tax steady at current rates.
Baucus is up for re-election in 2014 from Montana. He says ranch and farm owners in his state would stand to lose if federal taxes rose on passing property to heirs.
"Rural Montana is much different than urban America," Baucus told Reuters in a brief interview in the U.S. Capitol.
He told a Montana newspaper on Sunday that he would even support scrapping the estate tax altogether, as most Republicans favor. A spokesman for Baucus - the Senate's top tax law writer - said he will seek as much estate tax "relief" as he can get.
At least three other rural-state Democratic senators have proposed extending current estate tax rates: Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
Spokesmen for Pryor and McCaskill said everything is on the table as Congress struggles to deal with the "fiscal cliff."
But one thing is clear: the voice of farming lobbyists is registering with Democrats on the volatile estate tax issue, although it is only marginally about farms and ranches.
BEYOND FARMS AND RANCHES
The estate tax's impact extends beyond farmers and ranchers. It applies mostly to very wealthy Americans, whose taxes have been specifically targeted for increase by a president whom voters returned to the White House just three weeks ago following a tough campaign in which taxes were a key topic.
Of the 3,600 estates subject to the estate tax this year, only 100 are classified as farming estates, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans pay nearly all of the estate tax under current rates, according to the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan fiscal policy think tank.
The number of estates subject to the tax would double under the plan proposed by Obama. About 300 farming estates would be subject to the tax under Obama's terms, which would raise about $100 billion in new revenue for the government over 10 years.
Republicans have benefited previously from Democratic division over the tax. In July, Senate Democrats shelved a plan to raise the estate tax with a symbolic extension of the Bush tax rates for the middle-class.
A senior Senate Democratic aide said the tax was pulled from the bill because Obama felt strongly about boosting the tax. It is unclear how hard he will fight for his position this time.
BY ANY OTHER NAME
The divide between the political parties over the tax is so wide that they cannot even agree on a name for it. Democrats call it the estate tax, as it is described in law.
Republicans, who generally want to repeal it, have another, more provocative name. They call it the "death tax" and characterize it as a penalty on being wealthy and successful.
First enacted nearly a century ago to combat the rise of dynastic wealth and check income disparity, the estate tax is the most progressive tax there is. That means it hits the wealthy much more than lower income groups.
It was a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, that proposed the first permanent inheritance tax, arguing that inheritance of "enormous fortunes" does a society no good.
"No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax," Roosevelt said.
Another decade passed before it was adopted in 1916, partly to fund World War I. The rate has waxed and waned, hitting a high of 77 percent prior to World War II.

Read More..

Canadian year-to-date budget deficit narrows in September

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's federal budget deficit dropped in the first six months of the fiscal year, falling to C$8.9 billion ($9.0 billion) in April to September from a C$11.8 billion shortfall in the same period of last year, the Department of Finance said on Friday.
The monthly deficit in September fell slightly to C$2.69 billion from C$2.75 billion in September 2011.
Revenues in the first six months of the fiscal year were up by 2.8 percent, compared with the same period in 2011, reflecting higher income tax revenues, excise taxes and duties, the finance department said.
Program expenses rose by 1.4 percent, mainly due to higher transfer payments.
September revenues fell by 0.1 percent from September 2011 while program expenses increased by 0.6 percent. Public debt charges fell by 7.6 percent.

Read More..

Number of ND 'income millionaires' jumps by 102

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A record number of North Dakotans reported seven-figure incomes last year, many of whom are benefiting from the state's oil bonanza, the state Tax Department says.
Figures released to The Associated Press show a record 634 people reported incomes of more than $1 million on their 2011 individual tax returns, up from 532 in 2010 and 384 in 2009. In 2006, while North Dakota's oil boom was in its infancy, there were 339 so-called "income millionaires."
About 90 percent of the drilling in western North Dakota occurs on private land.
Tax Department analyst Kathy Strombeck said the increase in the number of North Dakotans with million-dollar incomes comes largely from royalties paid to mineral owners by oil companies.
"Oil has a lot to do with it," she said. "I imagine we'll see growth for a while as we ratchet up projection."
Through September, North Dakota already has set an oil production record for the fifth consecutive year and the state is on pace to best the previous mark by more than 50 million barrels. The state Department of Mineral Resources said crude production through September totaled more than 173.9 million barrels, up from the record 152.9 million barrels set last year.
Tax Department records show the average adjusted gross income in the state increased from $53,036 in 2010 to $60,947 last year. The average adjusted gross income on 2006 returns was about $43,300.
The number of returns has jumped from 339,000 in 2006 to 403,625 last year. The total reported income has increased from $14.6 billion to $21.9 billion during those years, data show.
Tax Commissioner Cory Fong said the higher incomes and the increase in the number of people filing tax returns in the state "adds to the narrative of what we've got going on here in North Dakota."
The oil industry has helped grow wages throughout the state and created hundreds of high-paying jobs. It also has an effect on other industries, including wholesale trade and manufacturing, he said.
"In a way, it's lifting all boats," Fong said.
A strong overall economy and healthy agriculture sector also are factors, Fong said.

Read More..

Obama says Republican "fiscal cliff" plan out of balance

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama rejected a Republican proposal to resolve a looming fiscal crisis on Tuesday as "still out of balance" and insisted any deal must include a rise in income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.
Obama told Bloomberg Television that the Republicans' reliance on eliminating tax deductions instead of letting taxes rise on Americans making more than $250,000 a year would not raise enough money to fund the government.
House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, the top Republican in Congress, laid out a proposal on Monday that called for spending cuts but did not give any ground on Obama's call for an increase in tax rates for the top 2 percent of U.S. earners.
"Unfortunately, the Speaker's proposal right now is still out of balance. You know, he talks, for example, about $800 billion worth of revenues, but he says he's going to do that by lowering rates. And when you look at the math, it doesn't work," Obama said.
Obama, who won re-election last month, said it was important for Republicans to acknowledge that tax rates had to rise for top earners to raise revenue sufficient to balance spending cuts.
"We're going to have to see the rates on the top 2 percent go up. And we're not going to be able to get a deal without it," he said.
Obama said on Tuesday that while tax rates must go up for a "fiscal cliff" deal, it may be possible to lower rates at the top end of the scale late next year as part of tax reforms that would close loopholes and limit deductions.
"Let's let those go up," Obama told Bloomberg in an interview, referring to tax rates for the wealthiest Americans.
"And then let's set up a process with a time certain, at the end of 2013 or the fall of 2013, where we work on tax reform, we look at what loopholes and deductions both Democrats and Republicans are willing to close, and it's possible that we may be able to lower rates by broadening the base at that point."
Obama acknowledged there were more spending cuts that could be made and he pledged to work with Boehner to trim what he called excessive healthcare costs in the budget but that a deal was not possible without raising tax rates on the wealthy.
"There's probably more cuts that we can squeeze out, although we've already made over $1 trillion worth of spending cuts," he said.
Obama said there was not enough time this year to come up with an overhaul of the U.S. tax system and entitlement programs that Republicans want as a condition for an agreement to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts set to start in 2013 that economists predict will throw the economy into depression.
He said that despite weaknesses in Europe and Asia, he believed the U.S. economy is "poised to take off."
Obama added he is considering bringing a top business executive onto his economic team, but that the Senate confirmation process can be so difficult that some business executives shy away from government service.

Read More..

Republicans see some leverage in "fiscal cliff" talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republicans may have some leverage in their fiscal cliffhanger with President Barack Obama: the threat of forcing a disproportionate number of Democrats to pay the so-called alternative minimum tax.
Under U.S. law, taxpayers each year must pay the greater of regular federal income tax, or the AMT. The latter requires taxpayers to give up certain tax breaks, typically exemptions and deductions for state and local taxes and medical costs.
Only about 4 million taxpayers pay the AMT because Congress routinely passes a law to adjust for inflation, to spare middle-income and upper-middle income taxpayers. Without this legislative fix, called a "patch" by lawmakers, up to 33 million taxpayers will have to pay an AMT liability for 2012, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
That is one in five taxpayers.
The number of taxpayers affected by the AMT would jump because the AMT exemption amounts and income brackets do not automatically rise with inflation and also because across-the-board individual tax cuts a decade ago did not cut AMT rates.
States with the wealthiest taxpayers and the steepest state taxes, which typically cannot be deducted under the AMT, include New York, California and Illinois - Democratic strongholds.
That may make the threat of a lapse one of the Republicans' strongest cards after Obama's re-election last month on a theme of tax fairness.
"The AMT is one of the more significant pieces of leverage that the Republicans have," said Evan Liddiard, a former tax adviser to Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. "It will pinch harder in the blue states."
That may make Republicans less likely to agree to a bill that addresses only the AMT.
Obama's Democrats and Republicans, led by House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, have been battling while trying to keep from falling over a $600 billion "fiscal cliff" - a combination of tax increases and spending cuts due to be implemented early next year.
Now at a standstill, talks on how to avert the fiscal cliff have been largely focused on whether to renew low tax rates for the wealthiest taxpayers along with everyone else.
In a brief interview in the Capitol, Hatch said voters in the Democratic-leaning states will not be amused if their taxes go up unexpectedly.
"When they find out they are going to get hammered because of the AMT and the lack of plan by this administration to resolve that problem, yes, I think that will cost them (the Democrats) a few votes," Hatch said.
Because the latest AMT patch expired in 2011, it is in some ways more urgent to address the AMT than the Bush-era tax cuts expiring at the end of December.
Congress last patched the AMT in the lame-duck session in 2010. A bipartisan bill passed by the Senate finance committee to patch AMT for 2012 and 2013 was estimated to cost $132.2 billion.
The cost is one reason the AMT never gets patched permanently. Republicans generally want to scrap the AMT altogether; Obama's latest budget calls for adjusting it for inflation.
IRS WARNINGS
Further complicating the AMT picture is the chaos predicted for the tax-filing season due to begin on January 22, the first working day after Obama's inauguration ceremony in Washington.
A letter from the tax-collecting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller on potential agency problems related to the fiscal cliff focuses almost exclusively on the AMT.
Failure to "patch" the AMT could lead to 60 million taxpayers not being able to file tax returns or get a refund, in addition to a software nightmare for the IRS computer systems.
Miller wrote lawmakers on November 13 warning them of serious repercussions for taxpayers, including 28 million with a "very large unexpected tax liability," and delays in refunds for millions.
"Consistent with past practice, I have instructed IRS staff again this year to leave our core systems "as-is" with respect to the AMT, and hold off on the substantial design and engineering work" required otherwise, he wrote.
Miller last briefed the Senate Finance Committee about the need for action late last month, according to a Senate source.
Representative Richard Neal, a senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee who represents parts of Massachusetts, said fixing the AMT was an absolute must.
"It has to be done. It reaches too many people if it's not," Neal said. "I think it is again being used as (a) bargaining (chip)."
Republicans say they are holding out for a bigger deal.
"That is not going to solve the fiscal cliff," said Republican Representative Pat Tiberi, who leads the revenue sub-panel of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.
"It is a very important part of the tax code but once you start picking winners and losers in the tax code, how do you get ... the big deal done?"

Read More..

Obama Meets With Wounded Troops at Walter Reed

President Barack Obama has met with wounded service members during a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
The president traveled to the hospital just outside Washington by helicopter a few hours before the House was expected to consider a Republican proposal to address the "fiscal cliff."
The White House says the president met with 10 wounded troops during his stay. It was Obama's first visit to the hospital since Sept. 11.
Obama has frequently visited service members wounded in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars during his presidency.

Read More..

Cliff Poses Tiny Dollar Gap, Wide Political Ravine

When it comes to resolving their "fiscal cliff" impasse, the dollar gap between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner is tiny in federal terms. That masks a monumental political ravine the two men must try to bridge, with most of the burden on the now beleaguered Boehner.
Short of support from his own Republican Party, a chagrined speaker abruptly canceled a House vote Thursday night on his so-called Plan B. The measure would have prevented looming tax increases on everyone but people earning over $1 million annually, but was opposed by rank-and-file Republican lawmakers unwilling to vote for any tax increases at all.
Now Boehner, R-Ohio, and Obama seem likely to bargain anew over a broad package of tax increases and spending cuts, with Thursday night's GOP retreat weakening Boehner's leverage. Ticking ever louder is the start of the new year, which by law will usher in hundreds of billions in tax increases and spending cuts — the "fiscal cliff" — unless the two men avert it by crafting a compromise deficit-cutting package that can get through the GOP-run House and Democratic-led Senate.
Despite the impassioned political clash that the "cliff" has prompted, weeks of intermittent bargaining between Obama and Boehner have left them facing relatively miniscule dollar differences by Washington standards.
Obama wants to raise taxes by about $20 billion a year more than Boehner. The two men differ over spending cuts by roughly the same amount.
By almost any measure, $20 billion is real money. Yet compared to the $2.6 trillion the government expects to collect next year and to the $3.6 trillion it plans to spend, $20 billion barely registers — less than 1 percent of what the government already is on track to raise and spend. Relative to the U.S. economy, which should weigh in at well over $15 trillion next year, $20 billion is even smaller.
"The policy implication is very slight," Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan anti-deficit group, said of the $20 billion gaps between Obama and Boehner. "It's not worth the price of not getting a deal. And the impact on the economy is totally insignificant."
On the other hand, economists have warned that the "cliff's" massive tax boosts and budget cuts would heave the economy back into a recession, although likely a brief one.
Though the numbers separating them are small, Obama and Boehner have real policy disputes. Yet their inability to strike a compromise so far underscores that their problem is more than arithmetic: It's largely driven by the difficult politics that Obama and Boehner face in firming up support from their own parties.
Boehner's clout was weakened by the Plan B debacle, and it remains unclear how many GOP votes he could deliver for any compromise he might reach with Obama. Yet while his Plan B would have received virtually no Democratic votes, a bipartisan accord with Obama likely would get significant backing from House Democrats, lightening Boehner's load.
Even before Thursday, the president and the speaker each faced formidable political challenges.
Chastened by Obama's re-election, Boehner has violated a quarter-century of Republican dogma by offering to raise taxes, including boosting income tax rates on earnings exceeding $1 million annually.
Eager for a budget deal that would bolster his legacy and let him address other issues, Obama would cut the growth of Social Security benefits, usually off-limits to Democrats. He also would impose tax increases on a broader swath of people than millionaires — those with incomes over $400,000. That figure is a retreat from what he campaigned on: a $200,000 income ceiling on individuals and $250,000 on couples.
Those concessions mean that both men have angered lawmakers and staunch supporters of their respective parties. Neither wants to risk his political capital by embracing a deal his own party rejects.
"When you walk into a room and represent a group and you have to give ground to get a deal, you have to stay in that room as long as you can and you have to walk out with blood on your brow," said Joseph Minarik, research director for the Committee for Economic Development and a veteran of grueling budget talks as a former Clinton White House and House Democratic aide. "Otherwise, the people outside the room don't believe you've fought hard for them."
In their talks, Obama has proposed raising taxes by $1.2 trillion over the coming decade by boosting the current top 35 percent rate to 39.6 percent for income over $400,000, plus other increases on the highest-earning Americans.
He also says he's offered about $1.2 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, including slowing the growth of benefits from Social Security and other programs. His proposed spending cuts also include $400 billion in savings from Medicare and Medicaid, the health care programs for the elderly and poor whose defense Democrats consider precious priorities.
Boehner has offered about $1 trillion in tax increases and roughly the same amount in spending savings. An earlier Boehner offer included $600 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings — well more than Obama — but it's unclear whether the speaker is still seeking that figure.
Because of a dispute over how some savings are classified, Boehner says Obama's offer is really $1.3 trillion in higher taxes and only about $850 billion in spending cuts.
The House speaker says Obama's offer is not balanced because its new taxes and spending cuts are unequal. And he complains it does too little to control fast-growing benefit programs like Medicare, a chief driver of the federal government's mushrooming deficits.
Yet while their offers are relatively close, another obstacle they face is that even slight changes in the numbers could force politically significant policy alterations.
Adding, say, another $100 billion to the tax increase over 10 years could mean that people with incomes well below $1 million a year would get a tax increase, something Boehner wants to limit.
On the other hand, adding $100 billion more in spending cuts could mean a deeper hit than Obama wants to Medicare. The president prefers to limit Medicare cuts to the reimbursements that doctors and other health care providers receive, but ever deeper cuts could mean more doctors would be likely to stop treating Medicare patients — an outcome Democrats don't want.

Read More..