BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea's new young leader will have to share power with an uncle and the military after the death of his father Kim Jong-il as the isolated country shifts to collective rule from strongman dictatorship, a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said.
The source added that the military, which is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal, has pledged allegiance to the untested Kim Jong-un who takes over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since it was founded after world War Two.
The source also said Beijing was only notified of Kim's death earlier on Monday, the same day that North Korean state television broadcast the news. Kim died on Saturday.
The source declined to be identified but has correctly predicted events in the past, telling Reuters about the North's first nuclear test in 2006 before it took place.
The situation in North Korea appeared stable after the military gave its backing to Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong-un, the source said.
"It's very unlikely," the source said when asked about the possibility of a military coup. "The military has pledged allegiance to Kim Jong-un."
With no military strongman, North Korea will be ruled by collective leadership, including Kim Jong-un, his uncle and the military, the source said.
Jang Song-thaek, 65, brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il and the younger Kim's uncle, was named in 2009 to the National Defense Commission, the supreme leadership council Kim Jong-il led as head of the military state.
The source also said the North Korea test-fired a missile on Monday to warn the United States not to make any moves against it. Pyongyang also had no immediate plans for further tests barring an escalation of tensions.
"With the missile test, (North) Korea wanted to deliver the message that they have the ability to protect themselves," the source said.
"But (North) Korea is unlikely to conduct a nuclear test in the near future unless provoked" by the United States and South Korea, the source said.
The North's nuclear program has been a nagging source of tensions with the international community. Pyongyang carried out nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, and has quit six-party talks with South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia on abandoning its nuclear program and returning to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
China, the North's closest ally and biggest provider of aid,
on Tuesday welcomed the new North Korean leader to visit after his father's death. Chinese President Hu Jintao and Vice-President Xi Jinping also visited the hermit state's embassy in Beijing to express their condolences on Tuesday. Roads leading to the embassy were blocked.
Still the prospect of instability on its northeastern border worries China. North Korea has been pressed by China to denuclearize and is willing to do so on condition that North and South Korea, the United States and China sign an armistice replacing a 1953 ceasefire agreement, the source said.
The two Koreas have been divided for decades and remain technically at war since their 1950 to 1953 conflict ended with an armistice but no peace agreement. The United States backed the South, while China supported the North in that conflict.
Pyongyang also is convinced there are U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea and demands Washington pull them out, the source said.
Impoverished and squeezed by international sanctions for conducting its nuclear and missile tests, North Korea has increasingly turned to Beijing for help to fill the gap left by the drying up of economic assistance from South Korea and the United States.
(Editing by Brian Rhoads and Jonathan Thatcher)
Selasa, 20 Desember 2011
Samsung Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note to Receive Android 4 in Q1 2012
Samsung’s Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets will receive an upgrade to Android 4 or Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012, the company has announced.
The first two devices (as previously announced) to receive the upgrade will be Samsung Galaxy S II and Samsung Galaxy Note, and this should occur sometime in the first quarter of 2012.
Other devices will “soon follow,” says Samsung. The full lineup of ICS-upgradeable devices at this point includes the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S II LTE, Galaxy Note, Galaxy R, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7, and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.
Samsung will give out separate announcements for each device, detailing OS update schedule for individual markets.
Other manufacturers have announced ICS upgrades for their flagship smartphones as well. HTC recently announced that Ice Cream Sandwich is coming to several of its smartphones in early 2012. Motorola’s Droid Razr will get to the latest version of Android in early 2012.
(mashable.com)
The first two devices (as previously announced) to receive the upgrade will be Samsung Galaxy S II and Samsung Galaxy Note, and this should occur sometime in the first quarter of 2012.
Other devices will “soon follow,” says Samsung. The full lineup of ICS-upgradeable devices at this point includes the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S II LTE, Galaxy Note, Galaxy R, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7, and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus.
Samsung will give out separate announcements for each device, detailing OS update schedule for individual markets.
Other manufacturers have announced ICS upgrades for their flagship smartphones as well. HTC recently announced that Ice Cream Sandwich is coming to several of its smartphones in early 2012. Motorola’s Droid Razr will get to the latest version of Android in early 2012.
(mashable.com)
Hundreds of coffins shipped to flood-hit southern Philippines as death toll nears 1,000
ILIGAN, Philippines — The government shipped more than 400 coffins to two flood-stricken cities in the southern Philippines on Tuesday as the death toll neared 1,000 and President Benigno Aquino III declared a state of national calamity.
The latest count listed 957 dead and 49 missing and is expected to climb further as additional bodies are recovered from the sea and mud in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro cities.
( Aaron Favila / Associated Press ) - Philippine Navy personnel arrange coffins that will be shipped with drinking water, clothes and other relief goods to flood-stricken Cagayan De Oro and Iligan cities on board a Philippine Navy ship in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday Dec. 20, 2011. Nearly a thousand people died in massive flash floods when tropical storm Washi hit the country last week in one of the worst disasters to strike the region in decades.
.
A handful of morgues are overwhelmed and running out of coffins and formaldehyde for embalming. Aid workers appealed for bottled water, blankets, tents and clothes for many of 45,000 in crowded evacuation centers.
Navy sailors in Manila loaded a ship with 437 white wooden coffins to help local authorities handle the staggering number of dead. Also on the way were containers with thousands of water bottles.
Most of the dead were women and children who drowned Friday night when flash floods triggered by a tropical storm gushed into homes while people were asleep.
Dozens of grieving relatives of at least 38 victims wept openly during funeral rites at the Iligan city cemetery. Many wore masks to try to block the stench of decomposing bodies.
“We have to give the dead a decent burial,” Mayor Lawrence Cruz said. He said authorities were using part of the cemetery’s passageway to build tombs.
A Briton was the first foreigner reported dead in the flooding, according to the British Embassy in Manila. It didn’t provide details.
Aquino, on a visit to Cagayan de Oro on Tuesday, said the declaration of a national calamity will help local authorities gain quick access to recovery funds and keep prices of basic goods stable.
“Our national government will do its best to prevent a repeat of this tragedy,” Aquino told residents who came to greet him.
He said there would be an assessment of why so many people died, if there was ample warning that a storm would sweep through the area, and why people living along riverbanks and close to the coast had not been moved to safety.
“I do not accept that everything had been done. I know that we can do more. We must determine what really happened,” Aquino said. “Must this end in tragedy? We knew that (storm) was coming. There should have been efforts to avoid the destruction.”
The U.N. food agency flew in 3 tons of high-protein biscuits together with water tanks, blankets, tarpaulins and tents for some 75,000 people. Shortage of water was still a major problem in the two cities.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
“The United Nations and its partners stand ready to support the government in responding to this disaster,” the deputy spokesman added.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The latest count listed 957 dead and 49 missing and is expected to climb further as additional bodies are recovered from the sea and mud in Iligan and Cagayan de Oro cities.
( Aaron Favila / Associated Press ) - Philippine Navy personnel arrange coffins that will be shipped with drinking water, clothes and other relief goods to flood-stricken Cagayan De Oro and Iligan cities on board a Philippine Navy ship in Manila, Philippines on Tuesday Dec. 20, 2011. Nearly a thousand people died in massive flash floods when tropical storm Washi hit the country last week in one of the worst disasters to strike the region in decades.
.
A handful of morgues are overwhelmed and running out of coffins and formaldehyde for embalming. Aid workers appealed for bottled water, blankets, tents and clothes for many of 45,000 in crowded evacuation centers.
Navy sailors in Manila loaded a ship with 437 white wooden coffins to help local authorities handle the staggering number of dead. Also on the way were containers with thousands of water bottles.
Most of the dead were women and children who drowned Friday night when flash floods triggered by a tropical storm gushed into homes while people were asleep.
Dozens of grieving relatives of at least 38 victims wept openly during funeral rites at the Iligan city cemetery. Many wore masks to try to block the stench of decomposing bodies.
“We have to give the dead a decent burial,” Mayor Lawrence Cruz said. He said authorities were using part of the cemetery’s passageway to build tombs.
A Briton was the first foreigner reported dead in the flooding, according to the British Embassy in Manila. It didn’t provide details.
Aquino, on a visit to Cagayan de Oro on Tuesday, said the declaration of a national calamity will help local authorities gain quick access to recovery funds and keep prices of basic goods stable.
“Our national government will do its best to prevent a repeat of this tragedy,” Aquino told residents who came to greet him.
He said there would be an assessment of why so many people died, if there was ample warning that a storm would sweep through the area, and why people living along riverbanks and close to the coast had not been moved to safety.
“I do not accept that everything had been done. I know that we can do more. We must determine what really happened,” Aquino said. “Must this end in tragedy? We knew that (storm) was coming. There should have been efforts to avoid the destruction.”
The U.N. food agency flew in 3 tons of high-protein biscuits together with water tanks, blankets, tarpaulins and tents for some 75,000 people. Shortage of water was still a major problem in the two cities.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
“The United Nations and its partners stand ready to support the government in responding to this disaster,” the deputy spokesman added.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
HTC faces US smartphone ban
HTC has been ordered to withdraw Android phones from the US market, following a ruling from the International Trade Commission that the company's violating a patent held by Apple.
Still, it could have been much worse for HTC: the initial complaint covered 10 patents, of which only one has been upheld. This relates to a feature known as data tapping, which allows users to grab embedded information such as a phone number and use it, say by making a call.
HTC will now attempt to remove the feature from its phones by the 19 April 2012 deadline, or face having the phones pulled from the shelves.
Rather sweetly, HTC's claiming the decision was actually a victory, on the grounds that only one patent infringement claim was upheld - and it may have a point.
"This ruling falls far short of anything would force HTC out of the US market in the near term. Also, out of ten patents originally asserted, Apple finally prevailed on only one," says patent expert Florian Mueller.
"Apple will need a higher 'hit rate' in the future, and it will have to enforce patents that are greatly more impactful than this one. Out of ten patents originally asserted, Apple finally managed to enforce one, and it's one of medium value."
Some of the other patent infringements originally asserted, says Mueller, would have had a far greater impact on HTC if upheld - one covering real-time signal processing, for example.
"Apple needs to find several more patents of the 'data tapping' kind - or, alternatively, one or two fundamental patents for which there's no viable workaround - in order to really have competitive impact with its many litigations targeting Android."
(tgdialy.com)
Still, it could have been much worse for HTC: the initial complaint covered 10 patents, of which only one has been upheld. This relates to a feature known as data tapping, which allows users to grab embedded information such as a phone number and use it, say by making a call.
HTC will now attempt to remove the feature from its phones by the 19 April 2012 deadline, or face having the phones pulled from the shelves.
Rather sweetly, HTC's claiming the decision was actually a victory, on the grounds that only one patent infringement claim was upheld - and it may have a point.
"This ruling falls far short of anything would force HTC out of the US market in the near term. Also, out of ten patents originally asserted, Apple finally prevailed on only one," says patent expert Florian Mueller.
"Apple will need a higher 'hit rate' in the future, and it will have to enforce patents that are greatly more impactful than this one. Out of ten patents originally asserted, Apple finally managed to enforce one, and it's one of medium value."
Some of the other patent infringements originally asserted, says Mueller, would have had a far greater impact on HTC if upheld - one covering real-time signal processing, for example.
"Apple needs to find several more patents of the 'data tapping' kind - or, alternatively, one or two fundamental patents for which there's no viable workaround - in order to really have competitive impact with its many litigations targeting Android."
(tgdialy.com)
Sony PS Vita sales fall shy of 3DS launch volume
Mobile-mad Japanese gamers bought 321,400 PS Vita handheld consoles this past weekend, local market watcher Enterbrain has revealed.
A lot of units, to be sure, but behind Nintendo's 3DS launch, which saw 371,000 units snapped up in a similar two-day period.
The original PSP clocked up two-day launch sales of 166,000 units back in 2004.
Nintendo shouldn't get cocky. The 3DS has arguably a broader appeal than the Vita. Yet 3DS sales plunged quickly once eager fans had acquired the device. It has largely failed to build a more mainstream audience.
Sony hopes the Vita will reach beyond its core fanbase. But it faces an uphill struggle persuading folk who already game on smartphones to buy a second device.
Hardcore gamers won't mind carrying two gadgets, knowing that the Vita delivers a better gaming experience than a phone, but more casual gamers may favour single-device convenience.
The PS Vita goes on sale over here at the end of February 2012. You can read Reg Hardware's preview of the PS Vita, based on a play with some of the launch titles, here. ®
(reghardware.com)
A lot of units, to be sure, but behind Nintendo's 3DS launch, which saw 371,000 units snapped up in a similar two-day period.
The original PSP clocked up two-day launch sales of 166,000 units back in 2004.
Nintendo shouldn't get cocky. The 3DS has arguably a broader appeal than the Vita. Yet 3DS sales plunged quickly once eager fans had acquired the device. It has largely failed to build a more mainstream audience.
Sony hopes the Vita will reach beyond its core fanbase. But it faces an uphill struggle persuading folk who already game on smartphones to buy a second device.
Hardcore gamers won't mind carrying two gadgets, knowing that the Vita delivers a better gaming experience than a phone, but more casual gamers may favour single-device convenience.
The PS Vita goes on sale over here at the end of February 2012. You can read Reg Hardware's preview of the PS Vita, based on a play with some of the launch titles, here. ®
(reghardware.com)
Stocks: All eyes on Europe
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- U.S. stocks poised for higher open Tuesday, but investors remain cautious as they await developments in Europe.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (COMP) futures were higher ahead of the opening bell. Stock futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.
U.S. stocks closed sharply lower Monday, as bank shares took a beating amid fresh concerns about the debt crisis in Europe.
Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) fell below $5 per share on Monday, its lowest level since the worst of the financial crisis in March 2009. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500), Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) also fell sharply.
The sell off was driven by speculation that BofA and other big U.S. banks will need to raise more capital, said David Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams.
U.S. banks have been hit by concerns about their exposure to bonds issued by fragile governments in the eurozone. In addition, traders pointed to reports that tougher regulations on banks could come to pass sooner than expected.
Also on Monday, the European Central Bank warned that "contagion effects" have intensified, as borrowing costs have risen for larger euro-area governments -- a sign of the continuing difficulties facing the region.
0:00 / 1:48 Forget Europe. Watch Asia
World markets: European stocks were mixed in morning trading. Britain's FTSE 100 (UKX) shed 0.2%, while the DAX (DAX) in Germany added 0.8% and France's CAC 40 (CAC40) rose 0.9%.
Asian markets ended mixed. The Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP) lost 0.1%, while the Hang Seng (HSI) in Hong Kong ticked up 0.1% and Japan's Nikkei (N225) edged higher 0.5%.
Economy: The Census Bureau will release data on housing starts and building permits issued in the month of November Tuesday morning.
Analysts surveyed by Briefing.com expect housing starts hit 627,000, and building permits to stand at 633,000 for November -- up from 628,000 and 653,000 respectively in the month prior.
Companies: Firms including food producers General Mills (GIS, Fortune 500) and ConAgra (CAG, Fortune 500), and investment banking firm Jefferies Group (JEF), will report their quarterly results before the opening bell on Tuesday.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect General Mills to report earnings per share of 79 cents, up from 76 cents a year ago; while ConAgra is expected to post earnings of 43 cents a share, down from 45 cents last year.
Jefferies expected to post earnings of 14 cents a share, down from 35 cents a year ago.
Fortune 500: Worst stocks of 2011
Late Monday, AT&T (T, Fortune 500) announced that it had abandoned its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile, a deal that would have created by far the nation's largest wireless company.
Currencies and commodities: The dollar fell against the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen.
Oil for January delivery rose 36 cents to $95.16 a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery fell $8.90 to $1,605.60 an ounce.
Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury was little changed, with the yield holding steady at 1.81% from late Monday.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (COMP) futures were higher ahead of the opening bell. Stock futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.
U.S. stocks closed sharply lower Monday, as bank shares took a beating amid fresh concerns about the debt crisis in Europe.
Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) fell below $5 per share on Monday, its lowest level since the worst of the financial crisis in March 2009. Citigroup (C, Fortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), JPMorgan (JPM, Fortune 500), Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) also fell sharply.
The sell off was driven by speculation that BofA and other big U.S. banks will need to raise more capital, said David Rovelli, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Canaccord Adams.
U.S. banks have been hit by concerns about their exposure to bonds issued by fragile governments in the eurozone. In addition, traders pointed to reports that tougher regulations on banks could come to pass sooner than expected.
Also on Monday, the European Central Bank warned that "contagion effects" have intensified, as borrowing costs have risen for larger euro-area governments -- a sign of the continuing difficulties facing the region.
0:00 / 1:48 Forget Europe. Watch Asia
World markets: European stocks were mixed in morning trading. Britain's FTSE 100 (UKX) shed 0.2%, while the DAX (DAX) in Germany added 0.8% and France's CAC 40 (CAC40) rose 0.9%.
Asian markets ended mixed. The Shanghai Composite (SHCOMP) lost 0.1%, while the Hang Seng (HSI) in Hong Kong ticked up 0.1% and Japan's Nikkei (N225) edged higher 0.5%.
Economy: The Census Bureau will release data on housing starts and building permits issued in the month of November Tuesday morning.
Analysts surveyed by Briefing.com expect housing starts hit 627,000, and building permits to stand at 633,000 for November -- up from 628,000 and 653,000 respectively in the month prior.
Companies: Firms including food producers General Mills (GIS, Fortune 500) and ConAgra (CAG, Fortune 500), and investment banking firm Jefferies Group (JEF), will report their quarterly results before the opening bell on Tuesday.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect General Mills to report earnings per share of 79 cents, up from 76 cents a year ago; while ConAgra is expected to post earnings of 43 cents a share, down from 45 cents last year.
Jefferies expected to post earnings of 14 cents a share, down from 35 cents a year ago.
Fortune 500: Worst stocks of 2011
Late Monday, AT&T (T, Fortune 500) announced that it had abandoned its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile, a deal that would have created by far the nation's largest wireless company.
Currencies and commodities: The dollar fell against the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen.
Oil for January delivery rose 36 cents to $95.16 a barrel.
Gold futures for February delivery fell $8.90 to $1,605.60 an ounce.
Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury was little changed, with the yield holding steady at 1.81% from late Monday.
Syria, Egypt and Middle East unrest - live updates
11.06am: Syria's president Assad has a signed a new law that will impose the death penalty on anyone caught distributing weapons "with the aim of committing terrorist acts".
The regime has branded political opponents as terrorists since the start of the uprising, so the new law appears to be another signal of its determination to carry on with the crackdown.
10.49am: The Democratic Alliance, a political bloc in which the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is the biggest player, has released a statement throwing its support firmly behind the protesters
.
Confirming its intention to participate in the sit-in at the supreme judiciary court until violence against protesters is halted and executive powers are handed over to the new parliament, it says:
Scaf (Supreme Council of Armed Forces) has failed in the management of the transitional period up to this critical moment, and it bears full responsibility for immediate cessation of violence, abuse of the citizens, assault of female demonstrators, the targeting of the revolutionaries who stood in the face of heavy-handed attacks, and for the immediate release of all protesters detained for no legal reason.
The conferees insist on bringing to justice and accountability military leaders and security officials responsible for ordering and carrying out violent attacks on the protesters, sitters and demonstrators, and on the formation of a special independent judicial commission of inquiry to take the necessary measures for the afore-mentioned purpose with full authority to initiate an investigation with the military and the security forces in charge of the area at the time. The conferees also condemn attempts to tarnish the image of the revolution and the revolutionaries who were always determined to maintain the peaceful nature of their protest and sit-in, which lasted nearly three weeks without any attack on a single institution.
10.46am: Video filmed by the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm TV
at dawn today shows security forces in riot gear and protesters hurling projectiles at each other. What sounds like gunshots can be heard in the background.
Four people were killed in the raid on this morning's raid on Tahrir Square, a doctor told Ahram Online (see 10.07am).
10.22am: Reports of the killing of scores of Syrian army defectors in Idlib are sketchy, but the area is known to be a centre of desertion.
Dissident Ammar Abdulhamid claimed 72 defectors were killed in Kinsafrah.
The Syrian Observatory for Human said 60 to 70 defected troops were killed as they fled military positions between Kinsafrah and Kefer Quaid.
Last week residents of Kinsafrah were filmed hoisting an independence flag after reports that hundreds of troops switched sides in the town.
10.07am: Four people were killed when the Egyptian security forces raided Tahrir Square this morning,
a doctor told Ahram Online reports.
Yamen El Genedy, a doctor at the Omar Makram Mosque field hospital, told Ahram Online that he saw four people admitted at 8 this morning. All of them had been shot dead. "The bullets had entered and exited their bodies, making it seem like the result of snipers. The force of the gunshots was very strong," said El Genedy. One of the deaths, he added, was a 19-year-old.
9.50am: The US state department has also appears to suspect Syria of playing for time by signing a deal with the Arab League to allow in observers.
Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters:
We've seen too many broken promises from the Syrian regime, so we're really less interested in a signed piece of paper than we are in actions to implement commitments made.
We firmly support the calls by the Arab League and the stipulations in this agreement that monitors, international human rights monitors, would have unfettered access to all locations in Syria, that the violence will stop, that all political prisoners will be released, and that armed elements of the Syrian regime will be withdrawn from populated areas. So it's on that basis that we will judge the seriousness of the Syrian regime with regard to this – its apparent acquiescence now to the Arab League's proposal.
On the other hand, Russia and China have welcomed the deal.
Russia's foreign ministry said:
We believe the document signed in Cairo offers an opportunity to use a mechanism of independent monitoring on the ground, to provide protection for all Syrian citizens and to stabilize the situation. This chance must be utilized.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/7682071.html?
8.21am: Welcome to Middle East Live. Grim reports of escalating violence in both Syria and Egypt continue to emerge. Here's a round up of the latest developments.
Syria
• Up to 70 army deserters were killed on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, making it one one of the bloodiest days in uprising so far.
A survivor told the Observatory that defected soldiers were shot by machine gun fire
as they tried to flee their base. It also counted 40 civilians shot dead across Syria in the crackdown on protests.
• The regime of president Bashar al-Assad has signed an Arab League initiative that will allow observers into the country, in a move seen as another stalling tactic by Damascus.
Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, said the observers will have a one-month mandate that could be extended by another month if both sides agree. The observers will be "free" in their movements and "under the protection of the Syrian government," he said, but would not be allowed to visit sensitive military sites. Dissident Ammar Abdulhamid said the deal gave the regime more time
to allow the crackdown to continue:
The move was not a concession, but another stalling tactic. Assad was just granted several weeks of respite in which he can do pretty much what he wants, knowing that nothing will take place in the meantime on the regional or international scene to hurt him.
• The authorities have released US-born blogger Razan Ghazzawi who was charged last week with fomenting sectarian strife and spreading false information through a secret organisation.
The Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, where she worked, said in a statement that Ghazzawi was freed on Sunday night on bail.
Egypt
• Egyptian troops and riot police raided Cairo's Tahrir Square early on Tuesday in their latest attempt to evict protesters who want the ruling military to immediately step down, according to a field hospital doctor.
Ahmed Saad said a 15-year-old protester was in critical condition after suffering a gunshot wound in the attack, AP reports.
• Prominent political personalities and newly elected MPs are planning to stage a sit-in at Cairo's supreme judiciary court to demand immediate halt of violence against protesters, Jadaliyya reports.
The sit-in will also demand an immediate transfer of power from military to civilian rule, it says.
• Amnesty has condemned the excessive use of force used by the army against protesters.
"It is clear that either the military police has been given orders to disperse demonstrators at any cost, or the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces does not control the army and security forces. Either scenario is equally worrying," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
• US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has accused the security forces of targeting female protesters for beatings.
In a speech in Washington she said:
Recent events in Egypt have been particularly shocking. Women are being beaten and humiliated in the same streets where they risked their lives for the revolution only a few short months ago. And this is part of a deeply troubling pattern. Egyptian women have been largely shut out of decision-making in the transition by both the military authorities and the major political parties. At the same time, they have been specifically targeted both by security forces and by extremists ...
Women are being attacked, stripped, and beaten in the streets. This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonours the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform, and is not worthy of a great people.
• Revolutionaries are partly to blame for the clashes, according to a Foreign Policy magazine article by Steven Cook from the Council on Foreign Relations.
He writes:
What is perhaps most disturbing is that the weekend's battle ... didn't seem to have a point. The young toughs who descended on Qasr al-Aini Street after news spread of the Army's efforts to clear the area seemed less concerned with principle than combat ...
If the revolutionaries and their supporters are now stunned that the Islamists -- both the Brotherhood and the Salafists -- are set to dominate post-uprising Egypt, they must take a hard look at what they have done, or not done, over the last 11 months. Indeed, their ability to read Egyptian public sentiment is as bad as that of the military, and a good deal more myopic.
The Muslim Brothers are just about the only ones who have played post-Mubarak Egypt well.
• Thousands of historic manuscripts are feared destroyed after the Institute of Egypt, a research centre set up by Napoleon Bonaparte during France's invasion in the late 18th century, caught fire during the clashes.
Volunteers have spent the past two days trying to salvage what's left of some 192,000 books, journals and writings from the Institute.
Iraq
• Iraq's Shia-led government has issued an arrest warrant for the vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi, the country's highest ranking Sunni official, on terrorism charges.
The move, a day after the last US troops left Iraq and ended the nearly nine-year war, could signal a sharp escalation in the sectarian tensions that drove Iraq to the brink of civil war a few years ago.
Libya
• A Libyan military commander and rebel leader has launched legal proceedings against the British government over his rendition and alleged "barbaric" treatment meted out to him and his pregnant wife.
Abdel Hakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and a former leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is suing ministers and MI6 for the part he claims they played in secretly sending him and his wife to Libya in March 2004.
Posted by
Matthew Weaver and Haroon Siddique
Tuesday 20 December 2011 11.15 GMT guardian.co.uk
The regime has branded political opponents as terrorists since the start of the uprising, so the new law appears to be another signal of its determination to carry on with the crackdown.
10.49am: The Democratic Alliance, a political bloc in which the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party is the biggest player, has released a statement throwing its support firmly behind the protesters
.
Confirming its intention to participate in the sit-in at the supreme judiciary court until violence against protesters is halted and executive powers are handed over to the new parliament, it says:
Scaf (Supreme Council of Armed Forces) has failed in the management of the transitional period up to this critical moment, and it bears full responsibility for immediate cessation of violence, abuse of the citizens, assault of female demonstrators, the targeting of the revolutionaries who stood in the face of heavy-handed attacks, and for the immediate release of all protesters detained for no legal reason.
The conferees insist on bringing to justice and accountability military leaders and security officials responsible for ordering and carrying out violent attacks on the protesters, sitters and demonstrators, and on the formation of a special independent judicial commission of inquiry to take the necessary measures for the afore-mentioned purpose with full authority to initiate an investigation with the military and the security forces in charge of the area at the time. The conferees also condemn attempts to tarnish the image of the revolution and the revolutionaries who were always determined to maintain the peaceful nature of their protest and sit-in, which lasted nearly three weeks without any attack on a single institution.
10.46am: Video filmed by the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm TV
at dawn today shows security forces in riot gear and protesters hurling projectiles at each other. What sounds like gunshots can be heard in the background.
Four people were killed in the raid on this morning's raid on Tahrir Square, a doctor told Ahram Online (see 10.07am).
10.22am: Reports of the killing of scores of Syrian army defectors in Idlib are sketchy, but the area is known to be a centre of desertion.
Dissident Ammar Abdulhamid claimed 72 defectors were killed in Kinsafrah.
The Syrian Observatory for Human said 60 to 70 defected troops were killed as they fled military positions between Kinsafrah and Kefer Quaid.
Last week residents of Kinsafrah were filmed hoisting an independence flag after reports that hundreds of troops switched sides in the town.
10.07am: Four people were killed when the Egyptian security forces raided Tahrir Square this morning,
a doctor told Ahram Online reports.
Yamen El Genedy, a doctor at the Omar Makram Mosque field hospital, told Ahram Online that he saw four people admitted at 8 this morning. All of them had been shot dead. "The bullets had entered and exited their bodies, making it seem like the result of snipers. The force of the gunshots was very strong," said El Genedy. One of the deaths, he added, was a 19-year-old.
9.50am: The US state department has also appears to suspect Syria of playing for time by signing a deal with the Arab League to allow in observers.
Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters:
We've seen too many broken promises from the Syrian regime, so we're really less interested in a signed piece of paper than we are in actions to implement commitments made.
We firmly support the calls by the Arab League and the stipulations in this agreement that monitors, international human rights monitors, would have unfettered access to all locations in Syria, that the violence will stop, that all political prisoners will be released, and that armed elements of the Syrian regime will be withdrawn from populated areas. So it's on that basis that we will judge the seriousness of the Syrian regime with regard to this – its apparent acquiescence now to the Arab League's proposal.
On the other hand, Russia and China have welcomed the deal.
Russia's foreign ministry said:
We believe the document signed in Cairo offers an opportunity to use a mechanism of independent monitoring on the ground, to provide protection for all Syrian citizens and to stabilize the situation. This chance must be utilized.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/7682071.html?
8.21am: Welcome to Middle East Live. Grim reports of escalating violence in both Syria and Egypt continue to emerge. Here's a round up of the latest developments.
Syria
• Up to 70 army deserters were killed on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, making it one one of the bloodiest days in uprising so far.
A survivor told the Observatory that defected soldiers were shot by machine gun fire
as they tried to flee their base. It also counted 40 civilians shot dead across Syria in the crackdown on protests.
• The regime of president Bashar al-Assad has signed an Arab League initiative that will allow observers into the country, in a move seen as another stalling tactic by Damascus.
Syria's foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, said the observers will have a one-month mandate that could be extended by another month if both sides agree. The observers will be "free" in their movements and "under the protection of the Syrian government," he said, but would not be allowed to visit sensitive military sites. Dissident Ammar Abdulhamid said the deal gave the regime more time
to allow the crackdown to continue:
The move was not a concession, but another stalling tactic. Assad was just granted several weeks of respite in which he can do pretty much what he wants, knowing that nothing will take place in the meantime on the regional or international scene to hurt him.
• The authorities have released US-born blogger Razan Ghazzawi who was charged last week with fomenting sectarian strife and spreading false information through a secret organisation.
The Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, where she worked, said in a statement that Ghazzawi was freed on Sunday night on bail.
Egypt
• Egyptian troops and riot police raided Cairo's Tahrir Square early on Tuesday in their latest attempt to evict protesters who want the ruling military to immediately step down, according to a field hospital doctor.
Ahmed Saad said a 15-year-old protester was in critical condition after suffering a gunshot wound in the attack, AP reports.
• Prominent political personalities and newly elected MPs are planning to stage a sit-in at Cairo's supreme judiciary court to demand immediate halt of violence against protesters, Jadaliyya reports.
The sit-in will also demand an immediate transfer of power from military to civilian rule, it says.
• Amnesty has condemned the excessive use of force used by the army against protesters.
"It is clear that either the military police has been given orders to disperse demonstrators at any cost, or the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces does not control the army and security forces. Either scenario is equally worrying," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
• US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has accused the security forces of targeting female protesters for beatings.
In a speech in Washington she said:
Recent events in Egypt have been particularly shocking. Women are being beaten and humiliated in the same streets where they risked their lives for the revolution only a few short months ago. And this is part of a deeply troubling pattern. Egyptian women have been largely shut out of decision-making in the transition by both the military authorities and the major political parties. At the same time, they have been specifically targeted both by security forces and by extremists ...
Women are being attacked, stripped, and beaten in the streets. This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonours the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform, and is not worthy of a great people.
• Revolutionaries are partly to blame for the clashes, according to a Foreign Policy magazine article by Steven Cook from the Council on Foreign Relations.
He writes:
What is perhaps most disturbing is that the weekend's battle ... didn't seem to have a point. The young toughs who descended on Qasr al-Aini Street after news spread of the Army's efforts to clear the area seemed less concerned with principle than combat ...
If the revolutionaries and their supporters are now stunned that the Islamists -- both the Brotherhood and the Salafists -- are set to dominate post-uprising Egypt, they must take a hard look at what they have done, or not done, over the last 11 months. Indeed, their ability to read Egyptian public sentiment is as bad as that of the military, and a good deal more myopic.
The Muslim Brothers are just about the only ones who have played post-Mubarak Egypt well.
• Thousands of historic manuscripts are feared destroyed after the Institute of Egypt, a research centre set up by Napoleon Bonaparte during France's invasion in the late 18th century, caught fire during the clashes.
Volunteers have spent the past two days trying to salvage what's left of some 192,000 books, journals and writings from the Institute.
Iraq
• Iraq's Shia-led government has issued an arrest warrant for the vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi, the country's highest ranking Sunni official, on terrorism charges.
The move, a day after the last US troops left Iraq and ended the nearly nine-year war, could signal a sharp escalation in the sectarian tensions that drove Iraq to the brink of civil war a few years ago.
Libya
• A Libyan military commander and rebel leader has launched legal proceedings against the British government over his rendition and alleged "barbaric" treatment meted out to him and his pregnant wife.
Abdel Hakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and a former leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is suing ministers and MI6 for the part he claims they played in secretly sending him and his wife to Libya in March 2004.
Posted by
Matthew Weaver and Haroon Siddique
Tuesday 20 December 2011 11.15 GMT guardian.co.uk
HTC: ITC Apple decision “is a win for HTC”
HTC may have been banned from importing some of its smartphones into the US, but the company is still describing the outcome of its patent suit with Apple as a success. The US ITC “declared an actual victory for HTC” the company told the FT, because out of the ten infringements Apple alleged, only one was found to be valid. Meanwhile half of the claims on a previous ruling have also been rejected.
HTC has until April 19 to comply with the decision of the ITC, which either means modifying offending products or ceasing import of them by that point. It seems from the company’s reaction to the ruling that it will be opting to tweak Android to bring it in line, something HTC claims will demand little effort.
“Since the infringing elements identified by the ITC involve and impact only a very minimal part of the user interface” HTC said in a statement to the Taiwanese stock exchange, “we will remove it as soon as possible and sell non-infringing products.”
Although we’ve seen bizarrely upbeat reactions to apparently negative rulings from companies in the past, IP opinion seems to be leaning on the side of HTC with this particular judgement. “If I’m HTC – and particularly if I’m Google – I’m feeling a lot better today than if I’m Apple” former ITC vice-chairman Ron Cass has said, the elements the Cupertino company failed to persuade the court on being arguably more important than what, exactly, it did convince about.
Still, HTC faces more challenges than simply legal complaints. The company’s recent revenues took a nose-dive as its late 2011 line-up failed to hold up to the competition, with HTC saying it will “focus on the product” next year to turn its fortunes around. That could include a pair of flagship devices, one Windows Phone and the other Android, details of which leaked yesterday.
(slashgear.com)
HTC has until April 19 to comply with the decision of the ITC, which either means modifying offending products or ceasing import of them by that point. It seems from the company’s reaction to the ruling that it will be opting to tweak Android to bring it in line, something HTC claims will demand little effort.
“Since the infringing elements identified by the ITC involve and impact only a very minimal part of the user interface” HTC said in a statement to the Taiwanese stock exchange, “we will remove it as soon as possible and sell non-infringing products.”
Although we’ve seen bizarrely upbeat reactions to apparently negative rulings from companies in the past, IP opinion seems to be leaning on the side of HTC with this particular judgement. “If I’m HTC – and particularly if I’m Google – I’m feeling a lot better today than if I’m Apple” former ITC vice-chairman Ron Cass has said, the elements the Cupertino company failed to persuade the court on being arguably more important than what, exactly, it did convince about.
Still, HTC faces more challenges than simply legal complaints. The company’s recent revenues took a nose-dive as its late 2011 line-up failed to hold up to the competition, with HTC saying it will “focus on the product” next year to turn its fortunes around. That could include a pair of flagship devices, one Windows Phone and the other Android, details of which leaked yesterday.
(slashgear.com)
Japan Mulls Buying Chinese Govt Bonds To Improve Ties
TOKYO (Dow Jones)--Japan should consider holding Chinese government bonds to strengthen ties with its Asian neighbor, the finance minister said Tuesday, but analysts say such a step could be a move toward diversifying Japan's foreign reserves, now mainly denominated in dollars.
Finance Minister Jun Azumi made the comments just days ahead of a planned visit to China by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. It was the first time Japan clearly indicated an intention to shift part of its foreign reserves into yuan-denominated Chinese debt.
"It is true that we've been having discussions that could bring huge advantages to (both Japan and China) if we make it possible for both sides to buy each other's government bonds," Azumi told a news conference.
"Our country currently has no Chinese bonds. My assessment is that our holding those products would be beneficial to building relationships between us," he said.
Japan's $1.3-trillion reserves are second in size only to China's. They are currently held mainly in U.S. Treasury bonds, with a small portion in euros.
Japanese officials said the two sides were seeking a deal on various forms of cooperation during Noda's two-day visit from this Sunday, including a plan to hold each other's sovereign debt.
The Nikkei reported Tuesday that Japan is considering investing as much as $10 billion in Chinese government debt over time.
The purchases may be part of efforts to mend ties strained by differences over wartime history and recent territorial disputes. But analysts say it may also be an attempt by Tokyo to protect the value of its foreign reserves in the face of the persistently strong yen.
"The aim of this action would be diversification of Japan's foreign reserves and helping China make its currency more internationally popular," said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
With the yen near a record-high against the dollar, Japan's has unrealized losses of tens of trillions of yen in its foreign reserve account.
But Azumi said any investments in Chinese debt wouldn't mean Japan was moving away from the dollar and the euro. Even a $10 billion investment in the yuan would be less than 1% of Japan's total reserves.
A Japanese official familiar with the matter said China will effectively determine how much of its debt can be bought by Japan, and there has been no decision yet on the amount.
The official also said it would be wrong to expect Tokyo to start investing in Chinese debt immediately after Noda's trip. Even if such purchases are made, they made not be publicized, he added.
Japan has so far not invested in Chinese debt. But Beijing stepped-up its buying of Japanese government debt in 2010, surprising Japanese officials and drawing calls by some lawmakers for China to allow Japan to buy its debt as well.
-By Takashi Nakamichi, Dow Jones Newswires; +81-3-6269-2818; takashi.nakamichi@dowjones.com
-Takashi Mochizuki contributed to this article
(online.wsj.com)
Finance Minister Jun Azumi made the comments just days ahead of a planned visit to China by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. It was the first time Japan clearly indicated an intention to shift part of its foreign reserves into yuan-denominated Chinese debt.
"It is true that we've been having discussions that could bring huge advantages to (both Japan and China) if we make it possible for both sides to buy each other's government bonds," Azumi told a news conference.
"Our country currently has no Chinese bonds. My assessment is that our holding those products would be beneficial to building relationships between us," he said.
Japan's $1.3-trillion reserves are second in size only to China's. They are currently held mainly in U.S. Treasury bonds, with a small portion in euros.
Japanese officials said the two sides were seeking a deal on various forms of cooperation during Noda's two-day visit from this Sunday, including a plan to hold each other's sovereign debt.
The Nikkei reported Tuesday that Japan is considering investing as much as $10 billion in Chinese government debt over time.
The purchases may be part of efforts to mend ties strained by differences over wartime history and recent territorial disputes. But analysts say it may also be an attempt by Tokyo to protect the value of its foreign reserves in the face of the persistently strong yen.
"The aim of this action would be diversification of Japan's foreign reserves and helping China make its currency more internationally popular," said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.
With the yen near a record-high against the dollar, Japan's has unrealized losses of tens of trillions of yen in its foreign reserve account.
But Azumi said any investments in Chinese debt wouldn't mean Japan was moving away from the dollar and the euro. Even a $10 billion investment in the yuan would be less than 1% of Japan's total reserves.
A Japanese official familiar with the matter said China will effectively determine how much of its debt can be bought by Japan, and there has been no decision yet on the amount.
The official also said it would be wrong to expect Tokyo to start investing in Chinese debt immediately after Noda's trip. Even if such purchases are made, they made not be publicized, he added.
Japan has so far not invested in Chinese debt. But Beijing stepped-up its buying of Japanese government debt in 2010, surprising Japanese officials and drawing calls by some lawmakers for China to allow Japan to buy its debt as well.
-By Takashi Nakamichi, Dow Jones Newswires; +81-3-6269-2818; takashi.nakamichi@dowjones.com
-Takashi Mochizuki contributed to this article
(online.wsj.com)
House GOP to Reject Stopgap Payroll Tax Cut
With the Senate adjourned for the holidays, House Republicans are moving to shelve a bipartisan two-month extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut that cleared the Senate over the weekend and are demanding instead that their fellow lawmakers return to the Capitol for negotiations.
After a spate of bipartisanship last week, the combatants are back in full-throated warfare over President Barack Obama's payroll tax initiative and other expiring measures, including jobless benefits for almost 1.8 million people who will lose them next month if Congress doesn't act.
Instead of accepting a two-month stopgap Senate measure that would ensure fighting continues into February, Republicans said they would move Tuesday to set up an official House-Senate negotiating panel known as a conference committee. The Senate's top Democrat said he would refuse to negotiate until the House passes the short-term version.
Both sides insist they want to extend the provisions before a Dec. 31 deadline, but that will prove difficult. After overwhelmingly passing a two-month extension Saturday, senators raced for the exits in the belief that the House would see no alternative but to go along. The Senate isn't scheduled to resume legislative work until Jan. 23.
The Senate's short-term, lowest-common-denominator approach would renew a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, plus jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, and would prevent a huge cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
But House Republicans quickly erupted in frustration at the Senate measure, which drops changes to the unemployment insurance system pressed by conservatives, along with cuts to Obama's health care law. Also driving their frustration was that the Senate, as it so often does, appeared intent on leaving the House holding the bag — leaving it no choice but to go along.
"With millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, it would be unconscionable for Speaker (John) Boehner to block a bipartisan agreement that would protect middle-class families from the thousand-dollar tax increase looming on January 1st," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who negotiated the two-month extension with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The 2 percentage point tax cut provides about a $1,000 annual tax cut for a typical earner making about $50,000 a year.
Both sides were eager to position themselves as the strongest advocates of the payroll tax cut, with House Republicans accusing the Senate of lollygagging on vacation and Senate Democrats countering that the House was seeking a partisan battle rather than taking the obvious route of approving the stopgap bill to buy more time for negotiations.
Just a couple of weeks after many Republicans made it plain they thought that the payroll tax cut — the centerpiece of Obama's autumn jobs agenda — hadn't worked and that renewing it was a waste of money, Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting touting their support for the president.
"Do you want to do something for 60 days that kicks the can down the road?" said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. "Or do you want to do what the president asked us to do? And we're people who don't agree with the president all that often."
"I've never seen us so unified," Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said as he left a two-hour, closed-door meeting Monday night where Republicans firmed up their plans. He said the payroll tax cut that has been in effect this year failed to create any jobs, but he favored extending it for another 12 months because "it's tough to raise taxes when you're in a down economy."
Congress' approval ratings are in the cellar, in part because of repeated partisan confrontations that brought the Treasury to the brink of a first-ever default last summer, and more than once pushed the vast federal establishment to the edge of a partial shutdown.
This time, unlike the others, Republican divisions were prominently on display.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate, 89-10, on Saturday had the full support of McConnell, the Republican leader, who also told reporters he was optimistic the House would sign on. Senate negotiators had tried to agree on a compromise to cover a full year, but were unable to come up with enough savings to offset the cost and prevent deficits from rising.
The two-month extension was a fallback, and officials say that when McConnell personally informed Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of the deal at a private meeting, they said they would check with their rank and file.
But on Saturday, restive House conservatives made clear during a telephone conference call that they were unhappy with the measure.
Ironically, until the House rank and file revolted, it appeared that Republicans had outmaneuvered Democrats and Obama on one point.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate required the president to decide within 60 days to allow construction on a proposed oil pipeline that promises thousands of construction jobs. Obama had threatened to veto legislation that included the requirement, then did an about-face.
The president recently announced he was delaying a decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections, meaning that while seeking a new term, he would not have to choose between disappointing environmentalists who oppose the project and blue-collar unions that support it.
(abcnews.go.com)
After a spate of bipartisanship last week, the combatants are back in full-throated warfare over President Barack Obama's payroll tax initiative and other expiring measures, including jobless benefits for almost 1.8 million people who will lose them next month if Congress doesn't act.
Instead of accepting a two-month stopgap Senate measure that would ensure fighting continues into February, Republicans said they would move Tuesday to set up an official House-Senate negotiating panel known as a conference committee. The Senate's top Democrat said he would refuse to negotiate until the House passes the short-term version.
Both sides insist they want to extend the provisions before a Dec. 31 deadline, but that will prove difficult. After overwhelmingly passing a two-month extension Saturday, senators raced for the exits in the belief that the House would see no alternative but to go along. The Senate isn't scheduled to resume legislative work until Jan. 23.
The Senate's short-term, lowest-common-denominator approach would renew a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, plus jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, and would prevent a huge cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
But House Republicans quickly erupted in frustration at the Senate measure, which drops changes to the unemployment insurance system pressed by conservatives, along with cuts to Obama's health care law. Also driving their frustration was that the Senate, as it so often does, appeared intent on leaving the House holding the bag — leaving it no choice but to go along.
"With millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, it would be unconscionable for Speaker (John) Boehner to block a bipartisan agreement that would protect middle-class families from the thousand-dollar tax increase looming on January 1st," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who negotiated the two-month extension with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The 2 percentage point tax cut provides about a $1,000 annual tax cut for a typical earner making about $50,000 a year.
Both sides were eager to position themselves as the strongest advocates of the payroll tax cut, with House Republicans accusing the Senate of lollygagging on vacation and Senate Democrats countering that the House was seeking a partisan battle rather than taking the obvious route of approving the stopgap bill to buy more time for negotiations.
Just a couple of weeks after many Republicans made it plain they thought that the payroll tax cut — the centerpiece of Obama's autumn jobs agenda — hadn't worked and that renewing it was a waste of money, Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting touting their support for the president.
"Do you want to do something for 60 days that kicks the can down the road?" said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. "Or do you want to do what the president asked us to do? And we're people who don't agree with the president all that often."
"I've never seen us so unified," Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said as he left a two-hour, closed-door meeting Monday night where Republicans firmed up their plans. He said the payroll tax cut that has been in effect this year failed to create any jobs, but he favored extending it for another 12 months because "it's tough to raise taxes when you're in a down economy."
Congress' approval ratings are in the cellar, in part because of repeated partisan confrontations that brought the Treasury to the brink of a first-ever default last summer, and more than once pushed the vast federal establishment to the edge of a partial shutdown.
This time, unlike the others, Republican divisions were prominently on display.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate, 89-10, on Saturday had the full support of McConnell, the Republican leader, who also told reporters he was optimistic the House would sign on. Senate negotiators had tried to agree on a compromise to cover a full year, but were unable to come up with enough savings to offset the cost and prevent deficits from rising.
The two-month extension was a fallback, and officials say that when McConnell personally informed Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of the deal at a private meeting, they said they would check with their rank and file.
But on Saturday, restive House conservatives made clear during a telephone conference call that they were unhappy with the measure.
Ironically, until the House rank and file revolted, it appeared that Republicans had outmaneuvered Democrats and Obama on one point.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate required the president to decide within 60 days to allow construction on a proposed oil pipeline that promises thousands of construction jobs. Obama had threatened to veto legislation that included the requirement, then did an about-face.
The president recently announced he was delaying a decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections, meaning that while seeking a new term, he would not have to choose between disappointing environmentalists who oppose the project and blue-collar unions that support it.
(abcnews.go.com)
Egypt Tahrir clashes rage on for fifth day
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police and soldiers fired weapons and used batons and teargas for a fifth day on Tuesday in the latest effort to clear Cairo's central Tahrir Square of opponents of army rule, amid mounting international concern about the violence.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned as "shocking" incidents such as one in which two Egyptian soldiers were filmed dragging a woman protester on the ground by her shirt, exposing her underwear, then clubbing and kicking her.
"This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people," Clinton was quoted as saying in a speech at Washington's Georgetown University.
General Adel Emara, a member of Egypt's ruling military council that took over after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February, said on Monday the attack on the woman protester was an isolated incident that was under investigation.
The United States, which saw Egypt as a staunch ally in the Mubarak era, gives Cairo $1.3 billion a year in military aid.
Gunfire rang out across Tahrir Square at dawn as security forces charged hundreds of protesters attempting to hold their ground, activists and a Reuters journalist at the scene said.
After a night of clashes, hundreds of people were in Tahrir in the morning, although traffic was still flowing through.
Medical sources say 13 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the violence that began on Friday in Tahrir and nearby streets leading to parliament and the cabinet office.
Army generals and their advisers have condemned the pro-democracy protesters, sometimes in extraordinarily harsh terms.
"HITLER'S INCINERATORS"
"What is your feeling when you see Egypt and its history burn in front of you?" retired general Abdel Moneim Kato, an army adviser, told al-Shorouk daily, referring a government archive building set alight during clashes. "Yet you worry about a vagrant who should be burnt in Hitler's incinerators."
Emara said "evil forces" wanted to sow chaos and that said soldiers had shown "self-restraint" despite provocation.
"What is happening does not belong with the revolution and its pure youth, who never wanted to bring down this nation," he said. Despite the actions of the security forces in Tahrir, Emara denied that the army had given orders to clear the square.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the use of "excessive" force by the Egyptian authorities. Rights groups said suppliers should not send small arms to Egypt.
The flare-up has also marred a staggered parliamentary election that began on November 28 and ends on January 11, but the army has said a promised transition to civilian rule will go ahead.
Results so far suggest the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties will dominate the lower house.
Before the latest charge by the security forces in Tahrir, protesters had been trying to tear down a brick wall the army had put up to block access to parliament, located nearby.
"Hundreds of state security forces and the army entered the square and began firing heavily. They chased protesters and burned anything in their way, including medical supplies and blankets," said a protester who gave his name only as Ismail.
"Some of those who fell had gunshot wounds to the legs," he added, speaking by telephone from Tahrir.
Politicians and members of parliament who had been staging a sit-in nearby tried to enter the square but were forced to turn back as the gunfire and clashes raged on, Ismail said.
The violent crackdown has alarmed rights group. Amnesty International urged arms suppliers to stop sending small arms and ammunition to Egypt's military and security forces.
Reporters Without Borders said the army's "systematic use of violence against media personnel," was blocking access to information in and around the square.
Many Egyptians want to focus on building democratic institutions, not street activism, but have nevertheless been shocked by the tactics of security forces in and around Tahrir.
The latest violence broke out just after the second stage of a six-week election for Egypt's new parliament that starts a slow countdown to the army's return to barracks. The military has pledged to hand power to an elected president by July.
Hard-core activists have camped in Tahrir since a protest against army rule on November 18, which was sparked by the army-backed cabinet's proposals to permanently shield the military from civilian oversight in the new constitution.
(Additional reporting by Shaimaa Fayed and Dina Zayed; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
(reuters.com)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned as "shocking" incidents such as one in which two Egyptian soldiers were filmed dragging a woman protester on the ground by her shirt, exposing her underwear, then clubbing and kicking her.
"This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people," Clinton was quoted as saying in a speech at Washington's Georgetown University.
General Adel Emara, a member of Egypt's ruling military council that took over after President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February, said on Monday the attack on the woman protester was an isolated incident that was under investigation.
The United States, which saw Egypt as a staunch ally in the Mubarak era, gives Cairo $1.3 billion a year in military aid.
Gunfire rang out across Tahrir Square at dawn as security forces charged hundreds of protesters attempting to hold their ground, activists and a Reuters journalist at the scene said.
After a night of clashes, hundreds of people were in Tahrir in the morning, although traffic was still flowing through.
Medical sources say 13 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the violence that began on Friday in Tahrir and nearby streets leading to parliament and the cabinet office.
Army generals and their advisers have condemned the pro-democracy protesters, sometimes in extraordinarily harsh terms.
"HITLER'S INCINERATORS"
"What is your feeling when you see Egypt and its history burn in front of you?" retired general Abdel Moneim Kato, an army adviser, told al-Shorouk daily, referring a government archive building set alight during clashes. "Yet you worry about a vagrant who should be burnt in Hitler's incinerators."
Emara said "evil forces" wanted to sow chaos and that said soldiers had shown "self-restraint" despite provocation.
"What is happening does not belong with the revolution and its pure youth, who never wanted to bring down this nation," he said. Despite the actions of the security forces in Tahrir, Emara denied that the army had given orders to clear the square.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the use of "excessive" force by the Egyptian authorities. Rights groups said suppliers should not send small arms to Egypt.
The flare-up has also marred a staggered parliamentary election that began on November 28 and ends on January 11, but the army has said a promised transition to civilian rule will go ahead.
Results so far suggest the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties will dominate the lower house.
Before the latest charge by the security forces in Tahrir, protesters had been trying to tear down a brick wall the army had put up to block access to parliament, located nearby.
"Hundreds of state security forces and the army entered the square and began firing heavily. They chased protesters and burned anything in their way, including medical supplies and blankets," said a protester who gave his name only as Ismail.
"Some of those who fell had gunshot wounds to the legs," he added, speaking by telephone from Tahrir.
Politicians and members of parliament who had been staging a sit-in nearby tried to enter the square but were forced to turn back as the gunfire and clashes raged on, Ismail said.
The violent crackdown has alarmed rights group. Amnesty International urged arms suppliers to stop sending small arms and ammunition to Egypt's military and security forces.
Reporters Without Borders said the army's "systematic use of violence against media personnel," was blocking access to information in and around the square.
Many Egyptians want to focus on building democratic institutions, not street activism, but have nevertheless been shocked by the tactics of security forces in and around Tahrir.
The latest violence broke out just after the second stage of a six-week election for Egypt's new parliament that starts a slow countdown to the army's return to barracks. The military has pledged to hand power to an elected president by July.
Hard-core activists have camped in Tahrir since a protest against army rule on November 18, which was sparked by the army-backed cabinet's proposals to permanently shield the military from civilian oversight in the new constitution.
(Additional reporting by Shaimaa Fayed and Dina Zayed; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
(reuters.com)
Deutsche Telekom $3B Fee Buys T-Mobile Time
Deutsche Telekom AG, whose proposed $39 billion sale of T-Mobile USA to AT&T Inc. (T) collapsed yesterday, has about a year before it needs to start the search for another partner amid rising costs for improving its network.
A breakup package that includes the payment of $3 billion in cash to Deutsche Telekom will only cover T-Mobile’s expenses for 12 to 24 months, said Wolfgang Specht, an analyst at WestLB AG in Dusseldorf. If T-Mobile doesn’t find a new partner after that time, it risks failing to generate enough operating cash flow to cover capital spending, he said.
“Stabilization is the first step and then it’s about finding a new partner in the medium term,” said Specht, who has an “add” recommendation on Deutsche Telekom shares. “In the long run a standalone strategy seems impossible. Everything from here on is only a second-best solution.”
AT&T and Deutsche Telekom agreed to abandon this year’s biggest transaction, which would have created the largest U.S. mobile-phone operator and dethroned market leader Verizon Wireless. Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom cited unwillingness by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission to change their “non-supportive stance” even after the companies proposed changes to the size and structure of the March 20 transaction. The Justice Department sued in August to block the deal.
Roaming Agreement
Deutsche Telekom fell 1.5 percent to 8.76 euros at 9:48 a.m. in Frankfurt, valuing Europe’s largest phone company at 37.8 billion euros ($49 billion). Before today, the stock had dropped 7.3 percent since the takeover was announced.
T-Mobile is valued at about $19 billion, Berenberg Bank analyst Paul Marsch wrote in a Dec. 12 note, citing a survey the bank held with about 40 investors “a few weeks back.”
In addition to the $3 billion in cash, T-Mobile will receive a package of wireless frequencies from AT&T in 128 market areas, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Washington and San Francisco. The separation agreement also includes a roaming deal lasting at least seven years, which Deutsche Telekom said will improve T-Mobile’s coverage to 280 million potential customers from 230 million.
T-Mobile spends about $3 billion annually on capital expenditures, including network upgrades, WestLB’s Specht estimates. Upgrading to the long-term evolution technology being rolled out by its competitors, including new spectrum, may cost $8 billion to $9 billion and such a process may take three years, said Jonathan Atkin, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.
Sprint Talks
T-Mobile USA lost 849,000 contract customers in the first nine months of the year. Its operating income before depreciation and amortization was $3.91 billion in that period, compared with $4.14 billion a year earlier.
Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Officer Rene Obermann had planned to part with T-Mobile USA to focus on restoring growth in Europe amid a debt crisis that has reduced demand for phone services. Before Deutsche Telekom agreed on the deal with AT&T, it had also held talks with Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), people with knowledge of the matter said in March. Sprint remains a potential suitor for T-Mobile in the future, said RBC’s Atkin.
“They’ll need to make the asset as competitive as they can, not only to bring in good results for the operating business, but also in order to fetch a better price at a future date,” he said.
T-Mobile may reduce the costs of an LTE rollout by sharing next-generation wireless infrastructure with AT&T or Sprint, Atkin said. For additional frequencies, T-Mobile may look to Clearwire Corp. (CLWR) or Sprint for more spectrum, or wait for the next round of spectrum auctions in the U.S., which may come in as little as six months, he said.
Verizon Deal
T-Mobile missed a potential opportunity to purchase additional wireless frequencies this month after Verizon Wireless agreed to buy spectrum valued at $3.6 billion from cable companies Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) and closely held Bright House Networks LLC. Phone companies need wireless frequencies to add capacity to meet increasing demand for high-speed mobile Internet devices.
Deutsche Telekom may revisit plans, shelved after the AT&T agreement, to sell its U.S. tower network. Those assets may be worth as much as $3 billion, RBC’s Atkin estimated.
“We think they will go back to the old fashioned sort of plan - run the business,” Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Robin Bienenstock wrote in a note today. “T-Mobile USA will compete for prepay customers and hope that Sprint or someone else comes under enough strain they free up more spectrum.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Cornelius Rahn in Frankfurt at crahn2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net
A breakup package that includes the payment of $3 billion in cash to Deutsche Telekom will only cover T-Mobile’s expenses for 12 to 24 months, said Wolfgang Specht, an analyst at WestLB AG in Dusseldorf. If T-Mobile doesn’t find a new partner after that time, it risks failing to generate enough operating cash flow to cover capital spending, he said.
“Stabilization is the first step and then it’s about finding a new partner in the medium term,” said Specht, who has an “add” recommendation on Deutsche Telekom shares. “In the long run a standalone strategy seems impossible. Everything from here on is only a second-best solution.”
AT&T and Deutsche Telekom agreed to abandon this year’s biggest transaction, which would have created the largest U.S. mobile-phone operator and dethroned market leader Verizon Wireless. Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom cited unwillingness by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission to change their “non-supportive stance” even after the companies proposed changes to the size and structure of the March 20 transaction. The Justice Department sued in August to block the deal.
Roaming Agreement
Deutsche Telekom fell 1.5 percent to 8.76 euros at 9:48 a.m. in Frankfurt, valuing Europe’s largest phone company at 37.8 billion euros ($49 billion). Before today, the stock had dropped 7.3 percent since the takeover was announced.
T-Mobile is valued at about $19 billion, Berenberg Bank analyst Paul Marsch wrote in a Dec. 12 note, citing a survey the bank held with about 40 investors “a few weeks back.”
In addition to the $3 billion in cash, T-Mobile will receive a package of wireless frequencies from AT&T in 128 market areas, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Washington and San Francisco. The separation agreement also includes a roaming deal lasting at least seven years, which Deutsche Telekom said will improve T-Mobile’s coverage to 280 million potential customers from 230 million.
T-Mobile spends about $3 billion annually on capital expenditures, including network upgrades, WestLB’s Specht estimates. Upgrading to the long-term evolution technology being rolled out by its competitors, including new spectrum, may cost $8 billion to $9 billion and such a process may take three years, said Jonathan Atkin, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.
Sprint Talks
T-Mobile USA lost 849,000 contract customers in the first nine months of the year. Its operating income before depreciation and amortization was $3.91 billion in that period, compared with $4.14 billion a year earlier.
Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Officer Rene Obermann had planned to part with T-Mobile USA to focus on restoring growth in Europe amid a debt crisis that has reduced demand for phone services. Before Deutsche Telekom agreed on the deal with AT&T, it had also held talks with Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), people with knowledge of the matter said in March. Sprint remains a potential suitor for T-Mobile in the future, said RBC’s Atkin.
“They’ll need to make the asset as competitive as they can, not only to bring in good results for the operating business, but also in order to fetch a better price at a future date,” he said.
T-Mobile may reduce the costs of an LTE rollout by sharing next-generation wireless infrastructure with AT&T or Sprint, Atkin said. For additional frequencies, T-Mobile may look to Clearwire Corp. (CLWR) or Sprint for more spectrum, or wait for the next round of spectrum auctions in the U.S., which may come in as little as six months, he said.
Verizon Deal
T-Mobile missed a potential opportunity to purchase additional wireless frequencies this month after Verizon Wireless agreed to buy spectrum valued at $3.6 billion from cable companies Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) and closely held Bright House Networks LLC. Phone companies need wireless frequencies to add capacity to meet increasing demand for high-speed mobile Internet devices.
Deutsche Telekom may revisit plans, shelved after the AT&T agreement, to sell its U.S. tower network. Those assets may be worth as much as $3 billion, RBC’s Atkin estimated.
“We think they will go back to the old fashioned sort of plan - run the business,” Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Robin Bienenstock wrote in a note today. “T-Mobile USA will compete for prepay customers and hope that Sprint or someone else comes under enough strain they free up more spectrum.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Cornelius Rahn in Frankfurt at crahn2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net
Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Gingrich assails judges as he courts conservatives
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — As he works to rev up his conservative base in Iowa with just two weeks to go until the state's caucuses, Newt Gingrich is launching a full-throated assault on a reliable GOP target: judges.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
There is little love for the judicial branch among the Republicans seeking the White House. But Gingrich's ridicule has been, by far, the sharpest and the loudest. And it's taken a central role as his campaign struggles to stay atop polls in Iowa, a state where irate social conservatives ousted three judges who legalized same-sex marriage.
"I commend the people of Iowa for sending a strong signal that when judges overreach that they can find a new job," Gingrich told about 200 supporters who turned out to hear him speak in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday.
Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed "radical" rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he'd consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.
In the final debate before voters weigh in at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, Gingrich called the courts "grotesquely dictatorial." He cast the fight in stark religious terms reminiscent of the culture wars, in which a secular, legal elite was encroaching on religious liberties.
The targets of Gingrich's strongest derision: the West Coast's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a perennial punching bag for the right, and a federal judge in Texas who banned prayer in a public school.
The rhetoric — in which Gingrich promises a more muscular executive branch that would simply ignore some federal court rulings it disagrees with — draws applause on the campaign trail. But among some conservative legal experts who, like Gingrich, embrace a more limited judicial role, his ideas are being met with alarm.
Two former attorneys general named to the nation's top law enforcement post by Republican President George W. Bush have slammed Gingrich's proposal.
Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge, said Gingrich's ideas were "dangerous, ridiculous, totally irresponsible, outrageous, off-the-wall and would reduce the entire judicial system to a spectacle."
Alberto Gonzales was disturbed by the provision that would allow Congress to police judicial decisions. "I cannot support and would not support efforts that would appear to be intimidation or retaliation against judges," he said.
Gingrich's chief Republican rival, Mitt Romney, also chimed in, using Gingrich's remarks on judges as further evidence to suggest the former Georgia congressman isn't steady enough to be president.
"His comments about the justices and the Congress, sending the Capitol police to bring in judges — that's not exactly a practical idea or a Constitutional idea," Romney said.
Bert Brandenberg, executive director of the nonpartisan group Justice at Stake, which favors an independent judiciary, said Gingrich's ideas "would plunge the rule of law into chaos and dysfunction."
"They would make courts answer to politicians rather than the law and Constitution," he said.
But Gingrich said he approaches the issue as a historian, not a lawyer. In a 54-page paper peppered with quotes from The Federalist Papers, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson, he outlines what he says is a judicial power grab that the founders never intended.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn said that while GOP criticism of judges has faded as a national issue, "here in Iowa, it resonates more than most places."
The battle over gay marriage became a fresh rallying cry for social conservatives in the state in 2009. Gingrich knows this well. He provided $200,000 in seed money to what became a successful effort to remove three of the judges who held same-sex marriage in the state was constitutional. That won him support from key evangelicals in the state.
And his strong words on the stump have found an appreciative audience.
"Why shouldn't judges have to answer questions about what they do, just like everyone else, especially if they are out there pushing their own agenda?" asked 62-year-old Tom Hall of Cedar Rapids, who attended a Gingrich speech in nearby Hiawatha.
Still, not everyone thought the issue was a winner.
Bob Wachtel, a 63-year-old house painter, had crossed the Mississippi River from Geneseo, Ill., to hear Gingrich speak in Davenport on Monday. He called the fixation on judges distracting.
"There is plenty to talk about with jobs and the economy, and that's what people are really worried about," Wachtel said.
Follow Shannon McCaffrey: www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Syria unrest: Dozens of army deserters 'gunned down'
Dozens of army deserters have been shot dead by Syrian troops as they tried to flee their bases and join anti-government protests, reports say.
Activist groups said more than 70 defectors were gunned down in the north-western Idlib province.
They said Monday's death toll across the country could exceed 110 - which if true would make it one of the deadliest days of the uprising.
Damascus earlier agreed to an Arab League deal to allow monitors in.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the Arab League had accepted amendments demanded by Damascus.
The Arab League said an advance team of observers would go to Syria this week.
In a separate development, the UN General Assembly voted by a strong majority to condemn the Syrian authorities for the crackdown, which has left some 5,000 people dead since the protests against President Bashar al-Assad began in March.
The non-binding resolution - passed by a vote of 133 to 11, with 43 abstentions - demanded an immediate end to human rights abuses and called on Damascus to implement the Arab League plan.
Deal 'amendments'
On Monday, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a soldier who defected had reported the deaths of 60-70 army deserters by machine-gun fire in Idlib province - the main stronghold for army defectors.
"They were killed while trying to run away from their military positions on the way between the villages of Kensafra and Kefer Quaid, in Zawyia Mountain, in Idlib district," the group said.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem: "We do not seek to waste time. It is us seeking a solution"
The Observatory said another 40 people had died across the country, including three government soldiers were killed in fighting with armed rebels in Idlib.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission - a coalition of 40 opposition grassroots groups - said the number of defecting soldiers who died in Idlib reached 72.
Overall, it said, 114 people had died across the country on Monday, a toll which included nine deaths in Deraa and nine in Homs.
The claims cannot be independently verified as foreign media are banned from reporting in Syria.
The Arab League plan is key to developments at the UN, because it might help bridge a divide which has paralysed the Security Council.
Western nations would like to see tough action against Damascus, while Russia, China and others are wary of taking any action at all.
But they all support the Arab plan, and it features in a new draft Security Council resolution recently proposed by Russia.
The two sides appear to support it for different reasons: Western states see it as a way to exert greater pressure on Damascus, hoping to speed a transition to a more democratic order.
Russia sees it as a way to prevent international intervention in the dispute, such as UN sanctions.
Negotiations on the Russian draft are only just beginning, so it's not yet clear if the Arab plan will indeed be the compromise that leads to agreement.
The government of President Assad says it is fighting armed gangs, trying to destabilise Syria.
The alleged shooting of the deserters came just hours after Damascus finally put its signature to the Arab League deal to deploy observers in Syria.
After the protocol was signed at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Damascus had agreed because it wanted help to find a "political solution".
"We want to emerge from this crisis and build a safe, modern Syria - a Syria that will be a model of democracy," he said.
"The signing of the protocol is the beginning of co-operation between us and the Arab League and we will welcome monitors."
He said Syria's sovereignty would be protected because the Arab League had agreed to amendments to the deal, which also calls for all violence to be halted, for the withdrawal of troops from the streets and the release of detainees.
The observers would be "free" in their movements and "under the protection of the Syrian government", he added, but would not be allowed to visit sensitive military sites.
Mr Muallem said he was confident that the observers would support the government's assertion that "armed terrorist groups" were stirring up trouble, and targeting security personnel and civilians.
Damascus 'manoeuvring'
The Arab League's Secretary General, Nabil al-Arabi, told reporters that an advance party led by one of his assistants would travel to Syria in the next two or three days to prepare for the arrival of monitors.
The observers will have a one-month mandate that can be extended by another month if both sides agree.
But the leader of the Syrian National Council, an opposition umbrella group, dismissed the government's decision as "just a ploy".
The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says there is much scepticism in activist circles about the government's willingness to implement a peace plan which could result in large parts of the country falling out of its control.
Since mid-November, Syria wavered on whether to agree to the deployment of observers, prompting the Arab League to impose a range of economic sanctions.
In that time, more than 900 civilians have been killed by Syrian security forces, including 80 children and 29 women, according to the LCC.
(bbc.co.uk)
Activist groups said more than 70 defectors were gunned down in the north-western Idlib province.
They said Monday's death toll across the country could exceed 110 - which if true would make it one of the deadliest days of the uprising.
Damascus earlier agreed to an Arab League deal to allow monitors in.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said the Arab League had accepted amendments demanded by Damascus.
The Arab League said an advance team of observers would go to Syria this week.
In a separate development, the UN General Assembly voted by a strong majority to condemn the Syrian authorities for the crackdown, which has left some 5,000 people dead since the protests against President Bashar al-Assad began in March.
The non-binding resolution - passed by a vote of 133 to 11, with 43 abstentions - demanded an immediate end to human rights abuses and called on Damascus to implement the Arab League plan.
Deal 'amendments'
On Monday, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a soldier who defected had reported the deaths of 60-70 army deserters by machine-gun fire in Idlib province - the main stronghold for army defectors.
"They were killed while trying to run away from their military positions on the way between the villages of Kensafra and Kefer Quaid, in Zawyia Mountain, in Idlib district," the group said.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem: "We do not seek to waste time. It is us seeking a solution"
The Observatory said another 40 people had died across the country, including three government soldiers were killed in fighting with armed rebels in Idlib.
The Syrian Revolution General Commission - a coalition of 40 opposition grassroots groups - said the number of defecting soldiers who died in Idlib reached 72.
Overall, it said, 114 people had died across the country on Monday, a toll which included nine deaths in Deraa and nine in Homs.
The claims cannot be independently verified as foreign media are banned from reporting in Syria.
The Arab League plan is key to developments at the UN, because it might help bridge a divide which has paralysed the Security Council.
Western nations would like to see tough action against Damascus, while Russia, China and others are wary of taking any action at all.
But they all support the Arab plan, and it features in a new draft Security Council resolution recently proposed by Russia.
The two sides appear to support it for different reasons: Western states see it as a way to exert greater pressure on Damascus, hoping to speed a transition to a more democratic order.
Russia sees it as a way to prevent international intervention in the dispute, such as UN sanctions.
Negotiations on the Russian draft are only just beginning, so it's not yet clear if the Arab plan will indeed be the compromise that leads to agreement.
The government of President Assad says it is fighting armed gangs, trying to destabilise Syria.
The alleged shooting of the deserters came just hours after Damascus finally put its signature to the Arab League deal to deploy observers in Syria.
After the protocol was signed at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said Damascus had agreed because it wanted help to find a "political solution".
"We want to emerge from this crisis and build a safe, modern Syria - a Syria that will be a model of democracy," he said.
"The signing of the protocol is the beginning of co-operation between us and the Arab League and we will welcome monitors."
He said Syria's sovereignty would be protected because the Arab League had agreed to amendments to the deal, which also calls for all violence to be halted, for the withdrawal of troops from the streets and the release of detainees.
The observers would be "free" in their movements and "under the protection of the Syrian government", he added, but would not be allowed to visit sensitive military sites.
Mr Muallem said he was confident that the observers would support the government's assertion that "armed terrorist groups" were stirring up trouble, and targeting security personnel and civilians.
Damascus 'manoeuvring'
The Arab League's Secretary General, Nabil al-Arabi, told reporters that an advance party led by one of his assistants would travel to Syria in the next two or three days to prepare for the arrival of monitors.
The observers will have a one-month mandate that can be extended by another month if both sides agree.
But the leader of the Syrian National Council, an opposition umbrella group, dismissed the government's decision as "just a ploy".
The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says there is much scepticism in activist circles about the government's willingness to implement a peace plan which could result in large parts of the country falling out of its control.
Since mid-November, Syria wavered on whether to agree to the deployment of observers, prompting the Arab League to impose a range of economic sanctions.
In that time, more than 900 civilians have been killed by Syrian security forces, including 80 children and 29 women, according to the LCC.
(bbc.co.uk)
Czechs pay last respects to dissident-turned-leader Havel
Czech President Vaclav Klaus and the widow of Vaclav Havel agreed to hold a state funeral Friday as citizens waited as long as three hours to pay their last respects to the anti-communist dissident playwright who became president.
The government declared a state of mourning beginning Wednesday and leading into the first state funeral in more than 30 years, Premier Petr Necas said Monday. European Union sessions in Brussels, Belgium, held a minute of silence to honor Havel, the first post-communist Czech head of state, who died Sunday. Czechs left thousands of candles and flowers on Wenceslas Square, the center of the 1989 Velvet Revolution.
"He was the symbol of what happened here in November 1989. He did a lot for the Czech Republic, for its transition to democracy, to the structures of the European Union," Necas said Sunday on state-run television. "He still had a lot to offer in politics as well as society."
Havel, who died in his sleep after a long illness, was an international icon for opposing totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet bloc and helped lead the country to democracy. He was president for almost 13 years.
Black flags fluttered at Prague's Hradcany Castle, the seat of the president's offices overlooking the capital, as Klaus and others signed a condolence book. Across town, hundreds of people with flowers lined up at the former St. Anna Church to view his remains. Havel's widow, Dagmar Havelova, laid red roses on the simple wood coffin.
Havel was president of Czechoslovakia from the end of 1989 until 1992. In 1993, he became president of the Czech Republic, which was founded after the split of Czechoslovakia into two countries, a move he opposed.
The former Czech leader, whose motto during the transition to democracy was "Love will triumph over lies and hatred," was frail and leaned on a cane in his last public appearance Dec. 10, when he greeted the Dalai Lama in Prague.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a statement called Havel "an inspiration" to human rights defenders around the world, while singer Lou Reed, whose band the Velvet Underground had an influence on Havel, wrote on his website that the former president was a "true hero in a world bereft."
(philly.com)
The government declared a state of mourning beginning Wednesday and leading into the first state funeral in more than 30 years, Premier Petr Necas said Monday. European Union sessions in Brussels, Belgium, held a minute of silence to honor Havel, the first post-communist Czech head of state, who died Sunday. Czechs left thousands of candles and flowers on Wenceslas Square, the center of the 1989 Velvet Revolution.
"He was the symbol of what happened here in November 1989. He did a lot for the Czech Republic, for its transition to democracy, to the structures of the European Union," Necas said Sunday on state-run television. "He still had a lot to offer in politics as well as society."
Havel, who died in his sleep after a long illness, was an international icon for opposing totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet bloc and helped lead the country to democracy. He was president for almost 13 years.
Black flags fluttered at Prague's Hradcany Castle, the seat of the president's offices overlooking the capital, as Klaus and others signed a condolence book. Across town, hundreds of people with flowers lined up at the former St. Anna Church to view his remains. Havel's widow, Dagmar Havelova, laid red roses on the simple wood coffin.
Havel was president of Czechoslovakia from the end of 1989 until 1992. In 1993, he became president of the Czech Republic, which was founded after the split of Czechoslovakia into two countries, a move he opposed.
The former Czech leader, whose motto during the transition to democracy was "Love will triumph over lies and hatred," was frail and leaned on a cane in his last public appearance Dec. 10, when he greeted the Dalai Lama in Prague.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a statement called Havel "an inspiration" to human rights defenders around the world, while singer Lou Reed, whose band the Velvet Underground had an influence on Havel, wrote on his website that the former president was a "true hero in a world bereft."
(philly.com)
White House Stands by Biden Statement That Taliban Isn't U.S. Enemy
The White House on Monday defended Vice President Joe Biden for saying that the Taliban isn't an enemy of the United States despite the years spent fighting the militant Islamic group that gave a home to Al Qaeda and its leader Usama bin Laden while he plotted the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"It's only regrettable when taken out of context," White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the vice president's remarks in an interview published Monday.
"It is a simple fact that we went into Afghanistan because of the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. We are there now to ultimately defeat Al Qaeda, to stabilize Afghanistan and stabilize it in part so that Al Qaeda or other terrorists who have as their aim attacks on the United States cannot establish a foothold again in that country," Carney continued.
During Biden's interview with Newsweek last week, the vice president said it's "good enough" for the U.S. if Afghanistan stops being a "haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America" and its allies. He added that the U.S. is supportive of a reconciliation process between the Afghan government and the Taliban even if it's questionable whether a reconciliation is possible.
"Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That's critical," Biden said. "There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy, because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us."
Biden said that the U.S. is on a dual track in Afghanistan -- keep the pressure on Al Qaeda and support a government that is strong enough to "negotiate with and not be overthrown by the Taliban."
Carney said the U.S. did not send the military into Afghanistan because the Taliban were in power, and the vice president's point was that "while we are fighting them, it is not the elimination -- the elimination of the Taliban is not the issue here."
Indeed, the U.S. entered Afghanistan just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans to rid the country of Al Qaeda, whose leader had been an invited guest and offered safe haven for years by the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist.
Today, fewer than 200 Al Qaeda terrorists reportedly remain in the country. But military officials say the primary attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan are being conducted by fighters loyal to the Taliban and the Taliban-tied Haqqani network, both of which are based out of neighboring Pakistan and freely cross the treacherous border.
According to Reuters, U.S. officials are hopeful that 10 months of secret negotiations with Taliban insurgents will soon result in a breakthrough that will allow the U.S. to leave Afghanistan as scheduled by 2014 without leaving the country to the whims of the hardline group.
Reuters reported Sunday the deal the U.S. is considering would include a prisoner release of Taliban detainees in Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a renunciation of violence and international terrorism, part of reconciliation talks with the government headed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The U.S. also would offer unequivocal support for establishing a Taliban office in an Islamic country that it could use as a diplomatic headquarters, Reuters reported, and would demand preconditions such as a renunciation of violence, a break with Al Qaeda and respect for the Afghan constitution. Carney said Monday that the U.S. has been clear that those conditions "would need to be met."
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Biden's remarks -- as well as Biden's and President Obama's belief that the Taliban are not the enemy -- are "bizarre, factually wrong and an outrageous affront our troops carrying out the fight in Afghanistan." He said the comments also reflect the administration's policy of "appeasement."
"The Taliban harbored the terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on Sept 11. The Taliban continues to wage war against us and our allies, a conflict in which we have lost over 1,800 troops. The Taliban receives arms and training from Iran. And the Taliban seeks to reinstate a tyrannical government that violently rejects basic notions of human rights and oppresses minorities. The Taliban is clearly a bitter enemy of the United States," Romney said in a statement late Monday.
(foxnews.com)
"It's only regrettable when taken out of context," White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the vice president's remarks in an interview published Monday.
"It is a simple fact that we went into Afghanistan because of the attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. We are there now to ultimately defeat Al Qaeda, to stabilize Afghanistan and stabilize it in part so that Al Qaeda or other terrorists who have as their aim attacks on the United States cannot establish a foothold again in that country," Carney continued.
During Biden's interview with Newsweek last week, the vice president said it's "good enough" for the U.S. if Afghanistan stops being a "haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America" and its allies. He added that the U.S. is supportive of a reconciliation process between the Afghan government and the Taliban even if it's questionable whether a reconciliation is possible.
"Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That's critical," Biden said. "There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy, because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us."
Biden said that the U.S. is on a dual track in Afghanistan -- keep the pressure on Al Qaeda and support a government that is strong enough to "negotiate with and not be overthrown by the Taliban."
Carney said the U.S. did not send the military into Afghanistan because the Taliban were in power, and the vice president's point was that "while we are fighting them, it is not the elimination -- the elimination of the Taliban is not the issue here."
Indeed, the U.S. entered Afghanistan just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans to rid the country of Al Qaeda, whose leader had been an invited guest and offered safe haven for years by the Taliban government that ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist.
Today, fewer than 200 Al Qaeda terrorists reportedly remain in the country. But military officials say the primary attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan are being conducted by fighters loyal to the Taliban and the Taliban-tied Haqqani network, both of which are based out of neighboring Pakistan and freely cross the treacherous border.
According to Reuters, U.S. officials are hopeful that 10 months of secret negotiations with Taliban insurgents will soon result in a breakthrough that will allow the U.S. to leave Afghanistan as scheduled by 2014 without leaving the country to the whims of the hardline group.
Reuters reported Sunday the deal the U.S. is considering would include a prisoner release of Taliban detainees in Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a renunciation of violence and international terrorism, part of reconciliation talks with the government headed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The U.S. also would offer unequivocal support for establishing a Taliban office in an Islamic country that it could use as a diplomatic headquarters, Reuters reported, and would demand preconditions such as a renunciation of violence, a break with Al Qaeda and respect for the Afghan constitution. Carney said Monday that the U.S. has been clear that those conditions "would need to be met."
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Biden's remarks -- as well as Biden's and President Obama's belief that the Taliban are not the enemy -- are "bizarre, factually wrong and an outrageous affront our troops carrying out the fight in Afghanistan." He said the comments also reflect the administration's policy of "appeasement."
"The Taliban harbored the terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on Sept 11. The Taliban continues to wage war against us and our allies, a conflict in which we have lost over 1,800 troops. The Taliban receives arms and training from Iran. And the Taliban seeks to reinstate a tyrannical government that violently rejects basic notions of human rights and oppresses minorities. The Taliban is clearly a bitter enemy of the United States," Romney said in a statement late Monday.
(foxnews.com)
House GOP to reject stopgap payroll tax cut
WASHINGTON (AP) — With the Senate adjourned for the holidays, House Republicans are moving to shelve a bipartisan two-month extension of the Social Security payroll tax cut that cleared the Senate over the weekend and are demanding instead that their fellow lawmakers return to the Capitol for negotiations.
After a spate of bipartisanship last week, the combatants are back in full-throated warfare over President Barack Obama's payroll tax initiative and other expiring measures, including jobless benefits for almost 1.8 million people who will lose them next month if Congress doesn't act.
Instead of accepting a two-month stopgap Senate measure that would ensure fighting continues into February, Republicans said they would move Tuesday to set up an official House-Senate negotiating panel known as a conference committee. The Senate's top Democrat said he would refuse to negotiate until the House passes the short-term version.
Both sides insist they want to extend the provisions before a Dec. 31 deadline, but that will prove difficult. After overwhelmingly passing a two-month extension Saturday, senators raced for the exits in the belief that the House would see no alternative but to go along. The Senate isn't scheduled to resume legislative work until Jan. 23.
The Senate's short-term, lowest-common-denominator approach would renew a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, plus jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, and would prevent a huge cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
But House Republicans quickly erupted in frustration at the Senate measure, which drops changes to the unemployment insurance system pressed by conservatives, along with cuts to Obama's health care law. Also driving their frustration was that the Senate, as it so often does, appeared intent on leaving the House holding the bag — leaving it no choice but to go along.
"With millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, it would be unconscionable for Speaker (John) Boehner to block a bipartisan agreement that would protect middle-class families from the thousand-dollar tax increase looming on January 1st," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who negotiated the two-month extension with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The 2 percentage point tax cut provides about a $1,000 annual tax cut for a typical earner making about $50,000 a year.
Both sides were eager to position themselves as the strongest advocates of the payroll tax cut, with House Republicans accusing the Senate of lollygagging on vacation and Senate Democrats countering that the House was seeking a partisan battle rather than taking the obvious route of approving the stopgap bill to buy more time for negotiations.
Just a couple of weeks after many Republicans made it plain they thought that the payroll tax cut — the centerpiece of Obama's autumn jobs agenda — hadn't worked and that renewing it was a waste of money, Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting touting their support for the president.
"Do you want to do something for 60 days that kicks the can down the road?" said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. "Or do you want to do what the president asked us to do? And we're people who don't agree with the president all that often."
"I've never seen us so unified," Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said as he left a two-hour, closed-door meeting Monday night where Republicans firmed up their plans. He said the payroll tax cut that has been in effect this year failed to create any jobs, but he favored extending it for another 12 months because "it's tough to raise taxes when you're in a down economy."
Congress' approval ratings are in the cellar, in part because of repeated partisan confrontations that brought the Treasury to the brink of a first-ever default last summer, and more than once pushed the vast federal establishment to the edge of a partial shutdown.
This time, unlike the others, Republican divisions were prominently on display.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate, 89-10, on Saturday had the full support of McConnell, the Republican leader, who also told reporters he was optimistic the House would sign on. Senate negotiators had tried to agree on a compromise to cover a full year, but were unable to come up with enough savings to offset the cost and prevent deficits from rising.
The two-month extension was a fallback, and officials say that when McConnell personally informed Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of the deal at a private meeting, they said they would check with their rank and file.
But on Saturday, restive House conservatives made clear during a telephone conference call that they were unhappy with the measure.
Ironically, until the House rank and file revolted, it appeared that Republicans had outmaneuvered Democrats and Obama on one point.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate required the president to decide within 60 days to allow construction on a proposed oil pipeline that promises thousands of construction jobs. Obama had threatened to veto legislation that included the requirement, then did an about-face.
The president recently announced he was delaying a decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections, meaning that while seeking a new term, he would not have to choose between disappointing environmentalists who oppose the project and blue-collar unions that support it.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
After a spate of bipartisanship last week, the combatants are back in full-throated warfare over President Barack Obama's payroll tax initiative and other expiring measures, including jobless benefits for almost 1.8 million people who will lose them next month if Congress doesn't act.
Instead of accepting a two-month stopgap Senate measure that would ensure fighting continues into February, Republicans said they would move Tuesday to set up an official House-Senate negotiating panel known as a conference committee. The Senate's top Democrat said he would refuse to negotiate until the House passes the short-term version.
Both sides insist they want to extend the provisions before a Dec. 31 deadline, but that will prove difficult. After overwhelmingly passing a two-month extension Saturday, senators raced for the exits in the belief that the House would see no alternative but to go along. The Senate isn't scheduled to resume legislative work until Jan. 23.
The Senate's short-term, lowest-common-denominator approach would renew a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, plus jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, and would prevent a huge cut in Medicare payments to doctors.
But House Republicans quickly erupted in frustration at the Senate measure, which drops changes to the unemployment insurance system pressed by conservatives, along with cuts to Obama's health care law. Also driving their frustration was that the Senate, as it so often does, appeared intent on leaving the House holding the bag — leaving it no choice but to go along.
"With millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, it would be unconscionable for Speaker (John) Boehner to block a bipartisan agreement that would protect middle-class families from the thousand-dollar tax increase looming on January 1st," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who negotiated the two-month extension with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The 2 percentage point tax cut provides about a $1,000 annual tax cut for a typical earner making about $50,000 a year.
Both sides were eager to position themselves as the strongest advocates of the payroll tax cut, with House Republicans accusing the Senate of lollygagging on vacation and Senate Democrats countering that the House was seeking a partisan battle rather than taking the obvious route of approving the stopgap bill to buy more time for negotiations.
Just a couple of weeks after many Republicans made it plain they thought that the payroll tax cut — the centerpiece of Obama's autumn jobs agenda — hadn't worked and that renewing it was a waste of money, Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting touting their support for the president.
"Do you want to do something for 60 days that kicks the can down the road?" said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. "Or do you want to do what the president asked us to do? And we're people who don't agree with the president all that often."
"I've never seen us so unified," Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said as he left a two-hour, closed-door meeting Monday night where Republicans firmed up their plans. He said the payroll tax cut that has been in effect this year failed to create any jobs, but he favored extending it for another 12 months because "it's tough to raise taxes when you're in a down economy."
Congress' approval ratings are in the cellar, in part because of repeated partisan confrontations that brought the Treasury to the brink of a first-ever default last summer, and more than once pushed the vast federal establishment to the edge of a partial shutdown.
This time, unlike the others, Republican divisions were prominently on display.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate, 89-10, on Saturday had the full support of McConnell, the Republican leader, who also told reporters he was optimistic the House would sign on. Senate negotiators had tried to agree on a compromise to cover a full year, but were unable to come up with enough savings to offset the cost and prevent deficits from rising.
The two-month extension was a fallback, and officials say that when McConnell personally informed Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of the deal at a private meeting, they said they would check with their rank and file.
But on Saturday, restive House conservatives made clear during a telephone conference call that they were unhappy with the measure.
Ironically, until the House rank and file revolted, it appeared that Republicans had outmaneuvered Democrats and Obama on one point.
The two-month measure that cleared the Senate required the president to decide within 60 days to allow construction on a proposed oil pipeline that promises thousands of construction jobs. Obama had threatened to veto legislation that included the requirement, then did an about-face.
The president recently announced he was delaying a decision on the pipeline until after the 2012 elections, meaning that while seeking a new term, he would not have to choose between disappointing environmentalists who oppose the project and blue-collar unions that support it.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Kim Jong Il's body laid out for mourners
PYONGYANG, North Korea - The body of North Korea's long-time ruler Kim Jong Il was laid out in a glass coffin Tuesday as weeping mourners filled public plazas and state media fed a budding personality cult around his third son, hailing him as "born of heaven."
North Korea's official television showed still photos of Kim in the coffin surrounded by wreaths, his body covered with a red blanket and his head on a white pillow. A giant red curtain covered a wall behind Kim.
Kim Jong Un — Kim's third son and successor — visited the coffin along with top military and Workers' Party officials and held a "solemn ceremony" as the country mourned, state TV said. One woman apparently wiped tears from her eyes.
As "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley reports, what's happening inside North Korea now, and what will happen in the coming days and weeks, remains largely a mystery.
In spite of the public rally around the young Kim Jong Un, his youth and lack of command experience relative to the senior military leadership in the country, mean even seasoned North Korea observers can't be sure who's in charge of the impoverished nuclear power with a history of unprovoked violence. (Watch the full report in the player above)
Kim died of a massive heart attack caused by overwork and stress, according to the North's media. He was 69 — though some experts question the official accounts of his birth date and location.
Although there were no signs of unrest or discord in Pyongyang's somber streets, Kim's death and the possibility of a power struggle in a country seeking nuclear weapons and known for its secrecy and unpredictability have heightened tensions in the region.
With the country in an 11-day period of official mourning, flags were flown at half-staff at all military units, factories, businesses, farms and public buildings. The streets of Pyongyang were quiet, but throngs of people gathered at landmarks honoring Kim, footage from Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang showed.
Kim's body was in the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, a mausoleum where the embalmed body of his father — national founder Kim Il Sung — has been on display in a glass sarcophagus since his death in 1994.
"Our General (Kim Jong Il) is our people's benevolent father," said Ri Ho Il, a lecturer at the Korean Revolutionary History Museum. "He defended our people's happiness, carrying on his forced march both night and day."
North Korean officials say they will not invite foreign delegations and will allow no entertainment during the mourning period.
North Korean state media have given clear indications that Kim Jong Un will succeed him. Since Kim's death they have stepped up their lavish praise of the son, indicating an effort to strengthen a cult of personality around him similar to that of his father and — much more strongly — of Kim Il Sung.
The Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday described Kim Jong Un as a "a great person born of heaven," a propaganda term only his father Kim Jong Il and his grandfather Kim Il Sung had enjoyed. The Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party, added in an editorial that Kim Jong Un is "the spiritual pillar and the lighthouse of hope" for the military and the people.
It described the twenty-something Kim as "born of Mount Paektu," one of Korea's most cherished sites and Kim Jong Il's official birthplace. On Monday, the North said in a dispatch that the people and the military "have pledged to uphold the leadership of comrade Kim Jong Un" and called him a "great successor" of the country's revolutionary philosophy of juche, or self reliance.
But concerns remain over whether the transition will be a smooth one.
Soon after the death was announced Monday, President Barack Obama agreed by phone with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to closely monitor developments. Japan's government also said it was being vigilant for any "unexpected developments."
South Korea's military has been put on high alert, and experts warned that the next few days could be a crucial turning point for the North, which though impoverished by economic mismanagement and repeated famine, has a relatively well-supported, 1.2 million-strong armed forces.
Kim's death could set back efforts by the United States and others to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. Concerns are also high that Kim Jong Un — being young and largely untested — may feel he needs to prove himself by precipitating a crisis or displaying his swagger on the international stage.
Kim Jong Il was in power for 17 years after the death of his father, and was groomed for power years before that. Kim Jong Un only emerged as the likely heir over the past year.
North Korea conducted at least one short-range missile test Monday, South Korean officials said. But they saw them as a routine drill.
"The sudden death of Kim Jong Il has plunged the isolated state of North Korea into a period of major uncertainty. There are real concerns that heir-apparent Kim Jong Un has not had sufficient time to form the necessary alliances in the country to consolidate his future as leader of the country," said Sarah McDowall, a senior analyst with U.S.-based consultants IHS.
Some analysts, however, said Kim's death was unlikely to plunge the country into chaos because it already was preparing for a transition. Kim Jong Il indicated a year ago that Kim Jong Un would be his successor, putting him in high-ranking posts.
South Korea's president urged his people to remain calm while his Cabinet and the Parliament convened emergency meetings Tuesday. Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said his government is refraining from moves that may exasperate North Korea.
© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(cbsnews.com)
North Korea's official television showed still photos of Kim in the coffin surrounded by wreaths, his body covered with a red blanket and his head on a white pillow. A giant red curtain covered a wall behind Kim.
Kim Jong Un — Kim's third son and successor — visited the coffin along with top military and Workers' Party officials and held a "solemn ceremony" as the country mourned, state TV said. One woman apparently wiped tears from her eyes.
As "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley reports, what's happening inside North Korea now, and what will happen in the coming days and weeks, remains largely a mystery.
In spite of the public rally around the young Kim Jong Un, his youth and lack of command experience relative to the senior military leadership in the country, mean even seasoned North Korea observers can't be sure who's in charge of the impoverished nuclear power with a history of unprovoked violence. (Watch the full report in the player above)
Kim died of a massive heart attack caused by overwork and stress, according to the North's media. He was 69 — though some experts question the official accounts of his birth date and location.
Although there were no signs of unrest or discord in Pyongyang's somber streets, Kim's death and the possibility of a power struggle in a country seeking nuclear weapons and known for its secrecy and unpredictability have heightened tensions in the region.
With the country in an 11-day period of official mourning, flags were flown at half-staff at all military units, factories, businesses, farms and public buildings. The streets of Pyongyang were quiet, but throngs of people gathered at landmarks honoring Kim, footage from Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang showed.
Kim's body was in the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, a mausoleum where the embalmed body of his father — national founder Kim Il Sung — has been on display in a glass sarcophagus since his death in 1994.
"Our General (Kim Jong Il) is our people's benevolent father," said Ri Ho Il, a lecturer at the Korean Revolutionary History Museum. "He defended our people's happiness, carrying on his forced march both night and day."
North Korean officials say they will not invite foreign delegations and will allow no entertainment during the mourning period.
North Korean state media have given clear indications that Kim Jong Un will succeed him. Since Kim's death they have stepped up their lavish praise of the son, indicating an effort to strengthen a cult of personality around him similar to that of his father and — much more strongly — of Kim Il Sung.
The Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday described Kim Jong Un as a "a great person born of heaven," a propaganda term only his father Kim Jong Il and his grandfather Kim Il Sung had enjoyed. The Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers' Party, added in an editorial that Kim Jong Un is "the spiritual pillar and the lighthouse of hope" for the military and the people.
It described the twenty-something Kim as "born of Mount Paektu," one of Korea's most cherished sites and Kim Jong Il's official birthplace. On Monday, the North said in a dispatch that the people and the military "have pledged to uphold the leadership of comrade Kim Jong Un" and called him a "great successor" of the country's revolutionary philosophy of juche, or self reliance.
But concerns remain over whether the transition will be a smooth one.
Soon after the death was announced Monday, President Barack Obama agreed by phone with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to closely monitor developments. Japan's government also said it was being vigilant for any "unexpected developments."
South Korea's military has been put on high alert, and experts warned that the next few days could be a crucial turning point for the North, which though impoverished by economic mismanagement and repeated famine, has a relatively well-supported, 1.2 million-strong armed forces.
Kim's death could set back efforts by the United States and others to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. Concerns are also high that Kim Jong Un — being young and largely untested — may feel he needs to prove himself by precipitating a crisis or displaying his swagger on the international stage.
Kim Jong Il was in power for 17 years after the death of his father, and was groomed for power years before that. Kim Jong Un only emerged as the likely heir over the past year.
North Korea conducted at least one short-range missile test Monday, South Korean officials said. But they saw them as a routine drill.
"The sudden death of Kim Jong Il has plunged the isolated state of North Korea into a period of major uncertainty. There are real concerns that heir-apparent Kim Jong Un has not had sufficient time to form the necessary alliances in the country to consolidate his future as leader of the country," said Sarah McDowall, a senior analyst with U.S.-based consultants IHS.
Some analysts, however, said Kim's death was unlikely to plunge the country into chaos because it already was preparing for a transition. Kim Jong Il indicated a year ago that Kim Jong Un would be his successor, putting him in high-ranking posts.
South Korea's president urged his people to remain calm while his Cabinet and the Parliament convened emergency meetings Tuesday. Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said his government is refraining from moves that may exasperate North Korea.
© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
(cbsnews.com)
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