Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Senate debates insider trading ban for Congress (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Congress is rushing to take a mostly symbolic step to make clear to voters that its members are banned from insider stock trading, hoping to improve the sagging image that has their approval ratings at historic lows.

Senators were making the first move Monday. Their procedural vote was setting up action ? possibly this week ? to approve a bill that would require disclosure of stock transactions within 30 days and explicitly prohibit members of Congress from initiating trades based on non-public information they acquired in their official capacity. The legislation is aimed at answering critics who say lawmakers profit from businesses where they have special knowledge.

U.S. lawmakers already are subject to the same penalties as other investors who use non-public information to enrich themselves, but many voters don't realize it. No member of Congress in recent memory has been charged with insider trading. In 2005, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department investigated then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's sale of stock in his family's hospital company, but no charges were ever brought against the Tennessee Republican.

Voters, however, may believe lawmakers paid an annual salary of $174,000 are enriching themselves by making investments based on what they learn in Congress. A recent segment of CBS' "60 Minutes" in November questioned trades by a House committee chairman, the current speaker and his predecessor's husband. Speaker John Boehner, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., all denied wrongdoing. Bachus chairs the Financial Services Committee.

"Members of Congress are not above the law," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said before Monday's test vote. "We must play by the same rules every other American plays by." He said the bill "will clear up any perception that it's acceptable for members of Congress to profit from insider trading."

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of registered voters found 56 percent favored replacing the entire 535-member Congress. Other polls this year have given Congress an approval rating between 11 percent and 13 percent, while disapproval percentages have ranged from 79 percent to 86 percent.

Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn. said, "The numbers of people who have a favorable impression of this body are so low that we're down to close relatives and paid staff. And I'm not so sure about the paid staff."

Said Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., one of the bill's authors: "Beginning today, the Senate is embarking on a mission to help address the deficit of trust with the American people."

The bill is entitled the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. President Barack Obama endorsed it in his State of the Union speech last week and also raised the issue in his radio and Internet address Saturday.

The White House said Monday in a statement, "The administration believes this bipartisan legislation is an important first step to prevent members of Congress from profiting from their positions and calls for swift passage."

The Senate bill would prohibit lawmakers from tipping off family members or others about non-public information that could influence a stock's price, in addition to the explicit ban itself, and would require members to disclose stock transactions within 30 days. And it would direct the House and Senate ethics committees to write rules that would make insider trading violators subject to congressional punishment.

Other legislative branch employees also would be subject to the ban, but only those who are required to file annual financial disclosure statements would be subject to the reporting requirement. For 2012, employees making $119,554 or more are required to file disclosure statements..

House leaders hope to pass their version of the bill by the end of February, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said he wants to expand the legislation to include land deals and other transactions.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_go_co/us_congress_insider_trading

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Insight: From darkest India, an enlightened leader (Reuters)

PATNA, India (Reuters) ? There's an apocryphal story about Bihar, a sprawling state on the Gangetic plains of eastern India that for decades held the dubious honor of being the most violent, poverty-stricken and corrupt in the land.

A Japanese minister visiting in the 1990s, shocked at the decrepit buildings, the darkness at night even in the centre of town and the crumbling roads, declared that it was all solvable.

"Give me three years," he told a state leader, "and I can turn Bihar into Japan."

"That's nothing," came the laconic reply from his host. "Give me three days and I will turn Japan into Bihar."

Bihar is no longer the butt of jokes, however, not since Nitish Kumar took charge of the ruined state in 2005 and began to turn it around -- winning such respect that he stands a decent chance of one day becoming prime minister of India.

"My first priority was governance, my second priority was governance and my third priority was governance," Chief Minister Kumar told Reuters at his office in the state capital, Patna, a dusty city where property prices have soared to levels paid in far away New Delhi, even as its streets teem with the desperately poor.

"Bihar suffered not because of bad governance but because of a lack of governance."

When India launched reforms to open up its state-stifled economy 20 years ago, many states surged ahead, leaving behind the 3.5 percent "Hindu rate of growth" that had plagued the decades after the country's independence from Britain in 1947, and with it Bihar.

Bihar is still India's most impoverished state: landlocked, not blessed with resources and prone to catastrophic flooding, its annual per-capita income of about $400 is just a third of the national average. Its 104 million overwhelmingly farm-dependent people have India's worst literacy rate and the lowest proportion of households with electricity, and the state scores miserably on the U.N.'s Human Development Index.

It's hard to imagine that in ancient times Bihar was the centre of the flourishing Magadha empires and the region where the Buddha lived and attained enlightenment.

And yet the state's dismally low income level has grown 250 percent since Kumar took the helm, more than double the national average. The growth of its economy has surged into double figures to become India's second-fastest growing state, driven by hefty public spending on roads and buildings and rapid expansion in services such as hotels and restaurants.

RESTORING FAITH

Kumar has done much more than bring growth. Working until midnight most days for the past six years, he has declared war on crime and corruption, introduced an act that gives citizens the right to efficient public services, launched a frenzy of road-building, empowered women and promoted education, offering a free bicycle to every girl that registers in a Grade 9 class.

"Everything had gone to the dogs," said Prakash Jha, one of Bihar's favorite sons, a Bollywood film-maker who has chronicled many of the state's ills, including the once-thriving industry of kidnapping businessmen.

"What Nitish Kumar has been able to do is restore faith in the society of Bihar. We had almost given up, but now you feel you can do things in Bihar," said Jha, who has put his money where his mouth is, spending $12 million on a shopping mall and cinema multiplex in Patna, the state's first.

Kumar is not without detractors: critics say he is poor at delegating, causes bottlenecks by amassing all decision-making in his office and accomplishes far less than he claims.

"This is a government of denting, painting and decorating," said state opposition leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui. "It's all on the surface. Nitish Kumar will hold a ceremony to inaugurate the ditch and then another for the bridge built over it."

Still, the contrast between the hyper-active chief minister of Bihar and the central government in New Delhi could hardly be more stark after months of drift and policy paralysis under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that have contributed to a slowdown in the country's stellar economic growth.

AN IDEOLOGY OF HUMANISM

A vegetable garden borders the path that leads to the simple Patna bungalow where the chief minister has his office. On a shelf inside his sparsely furnished room, there are several trophies awarded by media groups for "Indian of the Year." There is just one picture on the wall, an image of Mahatma Gandhi, father of independent India.

Kumar's father was a freedom-fighter during British rule, but the son has always been implacably opposed to the Congress party that led the struggle for independence and its Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of leaders, defining himself more by his vision of social justice than any political group.

"His is not an ideology of a political party, it's an ideology of humanism," said M.J. Akbar, one of India's best-known newspaper editors and a former member of parliament for a Bihar constituency.

Meticulously turned out in a creaseless cream tunic, sleeveless Nehru jacket and a grey scarf, 60-year-old Kumar smiles gently as he explains his style of governance: "pro-poor and pro-people."

An engineering graduate, Kumar first got a toehold in state politics and then in New Delhi, where he was a member of parliament and the country's railways minister in a coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He won elections in Bihar for his Janata Dal (United) party six years ago and, in a ringing endorsement of his policies, he was voted back to power in 2010.

Kumar's party is still aligned with the BJP, and popular wisdom has is that if their coalition wins the general election in 2014 he could be a strong contender to become prime minister.

Does he dream of leading the country one day?

"Not really," he says diffidently. "Serving my own people gives me satisfaction. I don't have any ambition. I don't have that kind of desire."

Not content to sit in Patna for long, Kumar gets around Bihar's 38 districts, talking to people on streets and in village squares to find out what they want fixed. These audiences are followed by meetings with district officials at which he prods the state's bureaucracy to respond.

"Why is there darkness around the lamp?" he asked at one such meeting in Patna recently, when he was informed that a scheme to provide free meals for schoolchildren was least effective in and around the city. "This is the capital, you all live here, we have to improve this."

Later, when told of plans to hire more land records staff, he instructed officials to make sure there were desks and offices ready for them. "We don't want them loitering in the corridors," he said, his voice restrained but still dominating the room filled with more than 100 bureaucrats.

This direct and no-nonsense delivery belies his apparent bonhomie.

"He is a very confident person who disguises his confidence with a great amount of modesty," said Akbar.

VOTES ARE 'CASTE'

It is sometimes said that in Bihar people "don't cast their votes, they vote for their caste."

That is because, besides being blighted by poverty, its people have long been sharply divided by Hinduism's social hierarchy. In the fairly recent past, upper and lower caste groups kept private armies, and pitched battles between them or massacres by one side or another were common.

Fanning the caste-based politics of Bihar in the 1990s was Lalu Prasad Yadav, now a lawmaker in New Delhi. A charismatic leader from a "backward" caste whose trademark humor can make a budget speech sound like a stand-up routine, Yadav's reign was dubbed the "Jungle Raj" as the rule of law broke down.

Kumar also belongs to a minority "backward" caste and was aligned with Yadav for years before they parted ways. One factor behind his rise has been his resolve to woo voters not by social blocs but on the basis of his government's performance.

"Caste is the reality in the Indian system, but I have proved that caste does not decide the outcome of an election," he said.

Corruption is still endemic despite Kumar's crackdown. He has confiscated the houses of two corrupt officials to turn them into schools, and many others face the same fate, but critics say he is actually too tolerant of the graft around him.

Law and order remains a serious problem, too. In 2010, Bihar ranked second among the country's states for the number of people killed in violent crimes, and police seize tens of thousands of illegal firearms every year.

Still, many feel that Bihar is a safer place since Kumar launched an anti-crime drive. Residents now feel less frightened to drive at night in rural areas, where roadside hold-ups and kidnappings were once routine.

"Five years ago, if we had to travel from Gaya to Patna, we would leave by 3 in the afternoon so we could get to the city before dark," said Navendu Kumar Thakur, who runs a construction company in the state. Gaya is about 100 km (60 miles) south of the state capital. "Now, it doesn't matter if we leave at 9 at night, there's no problem on the road."

Kumar says restoring faith in the police and judiciary was a top priority.

"A reign of terror used to prevail in the society, Bihar used to be in the news for all the wrong reasons," he said. "My first task was to ensure rule of law and trust in the system."

WEAK ECONOMIC BASE

With the improvement in law and order, there has been tentative interest in setting up industries in Bihar, which is 90 percent dependent on agriculture after the mineral-rich region of Jharkhand was hived off into a separate state in 2000.

New industries in Bihar can receive up to 300 percent of capital invested in VAT refunds over 10 years, in addition to a host of other incentives.

"He (Kumar) has shown that grass can grow in a desert," said Prem Kumar Agrawal, part-owner of a biscuit-making plant in the Hajipur industrial park near Patna, where half a dozen factories have opened in the past six months. With 300 workers, his enterprise produces 70-75 tonnes of biscuits per day.

"I give Nitish 9 out of 10 in terms of industrial policy," Agrawal said. "Bihar is now on the map."

But the new factories are only part of the story: abandoned buildings litter the rest of the industrial park, the metal fences on road dividers are rusty and the link to the nearby highway is a potholed and narrow road.

Manufacturing has in fact contributed very little to the surge in the economy's growth: with power cuts common, highways often jammed and graft still thriving, few investors are willing to brave Bihar yet. No surprise, then, that Bihar was ranked bottom last year in a state-by-state survey of economic freedom.

Official figures show that even agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, has contracted for the past six years, suggesting that the Bihar boom has been far from inclusive. Much of the growth has instead been generated by hefty public spending on construction, which means the Bihar boom may not have a solid enough base to be sustainable.

Indeed, Bihar is Exhibit A for the case that India is a two-track economy, with industry-friendly seaboard states rushing ahead as others grow from extremely low bases.

Shaibal Gupta, secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute in Patna, reckons that even if Bihar's growth continues at its current double-digit clip it would take 18 years to catch up with the present-day wealth of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital, Mumbai.

"We can't call it a miracle," Gupta said. "It's some change at an initial level that should have happened 60 years ago."

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120131/wl_nm/us_india_bihar

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Researchers find cancer in ancient Egyptian mummy (AP)

CAIRO ? A professor from American University in Cairo says discovery of prostate cancer in a 2,200-year-old mummy indicates the disease was caused by genetics, not environment.

The genetics-environment question is key to understanding cancer.

AUC professor Salima Ikram, a member of the team that studied the mummy in Portugal for two years, said Sunday the mummy was of a man who died in his forties.

She said this was the second oldest known case of prostate cancer.

"Living conditions in ancient times were very different; there were no pollutants or modified foods, which leads us to believe that the disease is not necessarily only linked to industrial factors," she said.

A statement from AUC says the oldest known case came from a 2,700 year-old skeleton of a king in Russia.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_sc/ml_egypt_ancient_cancer

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Madonna says charity plans 10 schools in Malawi (AP)

NEW YORK ? Nearly six years after it was created, Madonna's Raising Malawi charity is set to break ground on the construction of schools in the impoverished country, but they will be run by the local community, not the superstar's organization.

According to organizers, work on the first school will start on March 30 in the Kasungu area, about 80 miles from the capital of Lilongwe, and all of the schools should be built by June 2013. Raising Malawi is providing $300,000 to the non-governmental organization buildOn to develop the schools. They'll serve about 1,000 boys and girls in the southern African nation.

"This remains a very big priority in my life and I am excited that with the help of buildOn we can maintain our ongoing commitment to move forward efficiently," Madonna said in a statement provided to The Associated Press.

Raising Malawi had originally intended to build all-girls schools that the organization would run. But it faced several obstacles in its goal, including complaints from some local farmers that they had been moved off land that Raising Malawi intended to use for its mission. Raising Malawi also had difficulty getting title to the land and there were concerns about the high costs of construction.

The new plan calls for "simple structures" that will be more practical and better serve Raising Malawi's original mission, said Trevor Neilson, who is helping to direct the project as partner of the Global Philanthropy Group. The approach will allow the program to serve twice as many children as before, Madonna said.

"I have learned a great deal over the last few years and feel so much more confident that we can reach out goals to educate children in Malawi, especially young girls, in a much more efficient and practical way," she said. Madonna has adopted two children from Malawi.

BuildOn has already built more than 50 schools in Malawi and 427 schools worldwide.

"For schools to be successful, they need to have community ownership and leadership," Neilson said in an interview Friday. "Raising Malawi shouldn't be running schools in Malawi. Local communities in Malawi should be running those schools, so that's a big part of the shift."

BuildOn has been working in Malawi for almost 20 years, said spokeswoman Carrie Pena. The organization works closely with the community, and locals even volunteer the labor to build the schools, according to Pena.

"It's absolutely a community-owned school," she said.

Neilson praised Madonna for sticking with her plan to build schools for Malawi's children despite several setbacks for the star, who is the director of the new movie "W.E.," out next week, and is this year's Super Bowl performer. Madonna brought in Global Philanthropy to work with Raising Malawi more than a year ago and removed the involvement of the Kabbalah Centre. She has practiced Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism.

"When the previous management team had those problems, I think a lot of people thought Madonna would give up," Neilson said "It would have been understandable, but instead she's going to reaching twice as many kids."

___

Online:

http://www.raisingmalawi.org

http://www.buildon.org/

___

Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_en_ce/us_people_madonna_malawi

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Sunday, January 29, 2012

College presidents wary of Obama cost-control plan (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Public university presidents facing ever-increasing state budget cuts are raising concerns about President Barack Obama's plan to force colleges and universities to contain tuition prices or face losing federal dollars.

Illinois State University President Al Bowman says the reality is that deficits in many public schools can't be easily overcome with simple modifications. Bowman says he's happy to hear Obama call for state-level support of public universities but adds that, given the decreases in state aid, tying federal support to tuition is a product of "fuzzy math."

Obama spelled out his proposal Friday at the University of Michigan.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/education/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_college_costs

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Gingrich says space exploration in US tradition (AP)

STUART, Fla. ? Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich says critics of his call to ramp up U.S. space exploration don't understand the power of science, technology and entrepreneurship to change the future.

Campaign rival Mitt Romney was referring to Gingrich earlier this week when he said that if any business executive recommended spending huge sums on colonizing the moon, he'd fire him.

But Gingrich said Abraham Lincoln recommended building a transcontinental railroad at a time necessary technology didn't exist, and a decade later the job was done. And that when President Kennedy started a program to put a man on the moon in the early 1960s the same thing happened.

Gingrich spoke on the 26th anniversary of the explosion that destroyed the space shuttle Challenger 73 seconds into flight, killing all seven aboard.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_sc/us_gingrich_space

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You Can Still Buy a 32GB HP TouchPad for $220 [Touchpad]

The HP TouchPad, the Michael Myers-like tablet that just won't die, just popped up on Woot for a pretty cheapish $220. Two benji's and a jacksonw will score you the 32GB version. That's a little more expensive than it was during the great firesale of 2011 but with webOS becoming open source, maybe there's value in it! More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/NeSdV7k5HI8/you-can-still-buy-a-32gb-hp-touchpad-for-220

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

The First View of the Lego Lord of the Rings Minifigs [Lego]

After the incoming Lego Minecraft, the other big Lego franchise that nerds everywhere are dying to get is Lego Lord of the Rings. This is the first view of its minifigs, captured by Huw Millington at London's Toy Fair. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/UumBnnoz9ws/the-first-view-of-the-lego-lord-of-the-rings-minifigs

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Killings shock Homs, United Nations to discuss Syria (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) ? Fighting erupted in Homs on Friday, a day after townspeople said Alawite militiamen killed 14 members of a Sunni Muslim family in one of Syria's worst sectarian attacks since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad flared in March.

The U.N. Security Council was to meet later in the day to discuss Syria before a possible vote next week on a new Western-Arab draft resolution aimed at halting months of bloodshed.

Russia, which joined China in vetoing a previous Western draft resolution in October and which has since promoted its own draft, said the Western-Arab version was unacceptable.

The draft contains "no fundamental consideration for our position" and is missing "key aspects that are fundamental to us," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.

The text, obtained by Reuters, calls for a "political transition," but not for U.N. sanctions against Assad's government, which Moscow, an old ally of Syria and an important arms supplier to Damascus, opposes.

Arab monitors headed for the Damascus suburb of Douma, where government troops battled rebel fighters the previous day as the struggle to topple Assad edged close to the Syrian capital.

Opposition activists said Syrian security forces killed seven people overnight, including four in Homs, a mostly Sunni city with minority Alawite neighborhoods that has become a fiercely contested battleground in the uprising. Two people were killed in Idlib and one in the Damascus suburb of Saqba.

Residents and activists said "shabbiha" militiamen from Assad's Alawite sect had shot or hacked to death 14 members of the Bahader family in Homs's Karm al-Zaitoun district, including

eight children, aged eight months to nine years old.

They said the slayings followed a hail of mortar rounds on the area which killed 16 people. "We also have 70 wounded," said a doctor treating casualties from the bombardment.

YouTube video footage taken by activists, which could not be independently verified, showed the bodies of five children, three women and a man in a house.

There was no comment from Syrian authorities, which enforce tight restrictions on independent media.

The British-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces had killed a total of 43 civilians on Thursday, including 33 in Homs, of whom nine were children.

REVENGE KILLINGS

Hamza, an activist in Homs, said the militiamen were taking revenge for deaths inflicted on their ranks by army defectors loosely grouped in the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Tit-for-tat sectarian killings began in Homs four months ago. Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, has dominated the political and security apparatus in Syria, a mostly Sunni nation of 23 million, for five decades.

At the U.N. Security Council meeting, Morocco was expected to distribute the new draft resolution backing an Arab League call for Assad to step down. An interim unity government would then prepare for elections and enact security reforms.

Syria, which says it is pursuing its own political reforms, has rejected the Arab plan as interference in its affairs.

The 10-month-old revolt against Assad edged closer to Damascus on Thursday as troops battled rebels in a town just north of the capital and a provincial governor spoke of negotiating local ceasefires.

(Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Beirut and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_syria

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Ahmadinejad says Iran ready for nuclear talks

(AP) ? Iran is ready to revive talks with the world powers, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday, as toughening sanctions aim at forcing Tehran to sharply scale back its nuclear program.

Even so, he insisted that the pressures will not force Iran to give up its demands, including to continue enriching uranium, that led to the collapse of dialogue last year.

The United States and its allies want Iran to halt making nuclear fuel, which they worry could eventually lead to weapons-grade material and the production of nuclear weapons.

Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes ? generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.

The 27-member European Union imposed an oil embargo against Iran on Monday, part of sanctions to pressure Tehran into resuming talks on the country's nuclear program. It follows U.S. action also aimed at limiting Iran's ability to sell oil, which accounts for 80 percent of its foreign revenue.

No date is set for the possible resumption of talks between Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany. Negotiations ended in stalemate in January 2011, and Iran later rejected a plan to send its stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad in exchange for reactor-ready fuel rods.

Iran had previously indicated that it is ready for a new round of talks. Ahmadinejad is the highest-ranking official to make the offer.

He accused the West of trying to scuttle negotiations as a way to further squeeze Iran.

"It is you who come up with excuses each time and issue resolutions on the verge of talks so that negotiations collapse," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Kerman in southeastern Iran. "Why should we shun talks? Why and how should a party that has logic and is right shun talks? It is evident that those who resort to coercion are opposed to talks and always bring pretexts and blame us instead."

A senior U.N. nuclear agency team is expected to visit Tehran on Saturday, the first such mission since a report in November that alleged Iran conducted secret weapons-related tests and that Tehran was on the brink of developing a nuclear weapon.

The delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency will be led by Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, who is in charge of the Iran nuclear file, and include Peri Lynne Johnson, the agency's senior legal official.

Johnson will be the only American in the three-person team. While IAEA officials are formally neutral, her citizenship could bring added attention from Iranian hard-liners.

Iran begun uranium enrichment at a new underground site built to withstand possible airstrikes earlier this month, in another show of defiance against Western pressure to rein in Tehran's nuclear program.

Centrifuges at the bunker-like Fordo facility near Iran's holy city of Qom are churning out uranium enriched to 20 percent. That level is higher than the 3.5 percent being made at Iran's main enrichment plant at Natanz, central Iran, and can be turned into warhead material faster and with less work.

Iran says it won't give up its right to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel, but it has offered to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to visit its nuclear sites to ensure that its nuclear program won't be weaponized.

Ahmadinejad also said sanctions and oil embargo will backfire because it has minimum trade with EU.

"Americans have not purchased Iranian oil for 30 years. Our central bank has had no dealings with them ... our (total) foreign trade is about $200 billion. Between $23 billion to $24 billion of our trade is with Europeans, making up about 10 percent of our total trade ... Iran won't suffer," Ahmadinejad said. His comments were posted on state TV's website.

The EU had been importing about 450,000 barrels of oil a day from Iran, making up 18 percent of Iran's oil exports.

In Beijing, the official Xinhua News Agency quoted the Foreign Ministry as opposing the latest EU measures on Iran.

"To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches," the statement said.

China, which is a major buyer of Iranian oil, has urged that the nuclear standoff be resolved through dialogue and consultation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-26-Iran-Nuclear/id-772b011b9c854059907ef5addc39bb02

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Palestinian leader: Talks with Israel over (AP)

RAMALLAH, West Bank ? A low-level dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians about a future border has ended without any breakthrough, the Palestinian president said Wednesday, reflecting the impasse plaguing the negotiations for at least three years.

President Mahmoud Abbas said he would consult with Arab allies next week to figure out how to proceed now. While frustrated with the lack of progress, Abbas is under pressure to extend the Jordanian-mediated exploratory talks, which the international community hopes will lead to a resumption of long-stalled formal negotiations on establishing a Palestinian state.

Israel said Wednesday it's willing to continue the dialogue. Abbas didn't close the door to continued meetings, saying he'll decide after consultations with the Arab League on Feb. 4.

A Palestinian walkout could cost Abbas international sympathy at a time when he seeks global recognition of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

The gaps between the leaders are vast, and Abbas believes there is no point in returning to formal negotiations without assurances, such as marking the pre-1967 war lines as a basis for border talks and halting Israeli settlement building on occupied lands. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says everything should be discussed in negotiations and insists he is serious about reaching a deal by year's end.

Though there have been talks off and on, the last substantive round was in late 2008, when Israel informally proposed a deal and the Palestinians did not respond. When Netanyahu took office the next year, he took the proposal, including a state in most of the territories the Palestinians claim, off the table.

A round started in late 2010 by President Barack Obama quickly sputtered over the settlement issue.

Visiting EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is scheduled to meet separately over the next two days with Abbas and Netanyahu to try to salvage the exploratory talks. Two officials involved in the contacts said she is trying to put together a package of Israeli incentives that would keep the Palestinians from walking away.

"We need to keep talks going and increase the potential of these talks to become genuine negotiations," Ashton said.

Before his meeting with Ashton, Netanyahu said, "We've been trying to make sure that the talks between us and the Palestinians will continue. That is our desire."

Under Jordanian mediation, Israeli and Palestinian envoys have met several times over the past month, including on Wednesday. The Quartet of international mediators ? the U.S., the U.N., the EU and Russia ? said last fall that it expected both sides to submit detailed proposals on borders and security arrangements in these meetings.

Palestinian officials said they submitted their proposals, but that Israel did not. Abbas suggested that exploratory talks could continue if Israel presented a detailed border plan.

"If we demarcate the borders, we can return to negotiations, but Israel does not want to do that," Abbas said Wednesday, after talks in Jordan with Jordan's King Abdullah II. His remarks were carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Palestinians are flexible on security arrangements, but would object to any Israeli presence in a Palestinian state, he said.

Netanyahu has said he would not give up east Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital, but has never outlined where he would draw a border.

Such a demarcation could set off a political firestorm in his governing coalition, particular among pro-settler parties, because it would spell out how many settlements would have to be dismantled at a minimum.

In the exploratory talks, Israel submitted a list of 21 issues that would need to be discussed, but didn't present positions.

The Palestinians have accused Netanyahu ? a reluctant latecomer to the idea of Palestinian statehood ? of seeking negotiations as a diplomatic shield, with no real intention of reaching an agreement.

An Israeli government official said Israel is committed to reaching a full accord before the end of the year. "We hope that the Palestinians aren't looking for an excuse to walk away from the table," the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

The two sides even disagree on how much time was set aside for these talks. The Palestinians said the deadline is Thursday, or three months after the Quartet issued its marching orders, while Israel believes it has until early April, or three months after the start of meetings.

In other developments Wednesday, the Geneva-based Interparliamentary Union protested the arrest of Hamas lawmakers by Israel in recent days. Five legislators have been arrested since last week, including Speaker Abdel Aziz Dwaik. The IPU, which represents 159 parliaments worldwide, said it is "extremely concerned" and demanded that the lawmakers be released.

Currently, 24 of 45 Hamas legislators from the West Bank are in Israeli detention on charges of membership in an illegal organization. Hamas lawmakers have been subject to arrest by Israel since the group defeated Abbas' Fatah movement in the 2006 parliament election.

Hamas alleged that the arrests are meant to sabotage presidential and parliamentary elections, tentatively set for late spring. Hamas has said it would only participate in elections if its candidates are safe from arrest by Israel.

Israel says the arrests are not politically motivated.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

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Mary Mary's Erica Campbell gives birth to girl

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2010 file photo, singer Erica Campbell of the duo Mary Mary, arrives at the 41st NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles. Campbell gave birth to Zaya Monique on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. The baby was six pounds, 12 ounces. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)

FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2010 file photo, singer Erica Campbell of the duo Mary Mary, arrives at the 41st NAACP Image Awards in Los Angeles. Campbell gave birth to Zaya Monique on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. The baby was six pounds, 12 ounces. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)

(AP) ? Erica Campbell of the Grammy-winning sister duo Mary Mary has given birth to a new daughter.

Campbell's representative says Zaya Monique was born Tuesday. The baby weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces.

Erica and her sister Tina comprise the gospel duo.

It's the third child for Campbell and her husband, producer-songwriter Warryn Campbell. The singer said she was blessed by the baby's birth and said the family "couldn't be more happy than we are today."

Campbell will be taking a few weeks off, but she'll soon have to return to work. Mary Mary, known for hits like "Shackles" and "God in Me," have a self-titled reality show that debuts March 29 on We TV.

___

Online:

http://www.mary-mary.com/us/home

http://www.wetv.com/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-01-25-People-Mary%20Mary/id-64e18c3546fa4d4bb0ab04465b0bc42c

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Lohan sued by pedestrian allegedly struck by star (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Lindsay Lohan's bad luck with cars continues after a woman who claims she was struck by the actress' sports car sued over her injuries Wednesday. Nubia Del Carmen Preza claims she was struck by Lohan's Maserati while walking through a West Hollywood intersection in September 2010.

Preza's lawsuit states she has suffered "disabling and serious personal injuries, pain, suffering and anguish" and that she is seeking damages for all her medical expenses and lost time at work. A call to her attorney, Gregory Picco, seeking additional details was not immediately returned.

It is the second lawsuit filed against Lohan this month involving an automobile mishap. A paparazzo sued Lohan Jan. 10, claiming that he was struck in January 2010 by a vehicle in which Lohan was riding. Grigor Balyan claims he was trying to shoot pictures of the actress in Hollywowhen he was hit.

Preza's lawsuit states Lohan was driving when she was hit on the afternoon of Sept. 1, 2010, at an intersection just south of the Sunset Strip. At the time, Lohan lived near the intersection.

Lohan's spokesman Steve Honig said neither Lohan nor her attorneys had been served with the lawsuit and could not comment on it.

The model and actress remains on probation for a 2007 drunken driving case filed after she was arrested twice that year on suspicion of driving while impaired.

One of the incidents sparked two civil lawsuits after Lohan chased a vehicle she thought was carrying her former assistant on Pacific Coast Highway. One of the cases has settled. The other, filed by three men who were in the SUV Lohan was driving, may go to trial in March.

Lohan's attorney in that case, Ed McPherson, has said the men had plenty of chances to get out of the vehicle and called the case "absurd."

The "Mean Girls" star has received two positive probation reports since a judge ordered her to perform weekly morgue cleanup duties in November. the actress may be off supervised probation by the end of March.

___

Follow Anthony McCartney at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_en_ot/us_people_lindsay_lohan

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

In GOP response, Daniels blames Obama for economy (AP)

WASHINGTON ? President Barack Obama has resorted to "extremism" with stifling, anti-growth policies and sought to divide Americans, not unite them, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday in the formal Republican response to the president's State of the Union address.

Eight months after deciding against a bid for his party's presidential nomination, Daniels used his nationally televised speech to lash out at Obama and cast the GOP as compassionate and eager to unchain the country's economic potential.

He took particular aim at Obama's efforts to raise taxes on the rich and castigate them for not contributing their fair share to the nation's burdens. Joined by Republicans on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trails, the GOP goal was to both blunt and shift the focus away from Obama's theme on Tuesday of fairness, which included protecting the middle class and making sure the rich pay an equitable share of taxes.

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant effort to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said, speaking from Indianapolis. "As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat."

"This election is going to be a referendum on the president's economic policies," which have worsened the economy, said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "The politics of envy, the politics of dividing our country is not what America is all about."

Also drawing frequent GOP attacks were Obama's proposed tax increases, which included making sure millionaire earners pay at least a 30 percent tax rate.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said Obama's proposals to boost taxes on the wealthy and give tax breaks for domestic U.S. manufacturers and others were "nothing more than the usual Washington game that has led to a tax code already littered with lobbyist loopholes."

Daniels is a rarity in the GOP these days ? a uniting and widely respected figure, contrasting with the divisiveness emanating from the contest for the presidential nomination being waged among former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and others.

President George W. Bush's first budget chief and a two-term Indiana governor, Daniels often rails against wasteful spending big budget deficits, though critics note he served during the abrupt shift from fleeting federal surpluses to massive deficits early in Bush's term.

"When President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true," Daniels said. He added that while Obama did not cause the country's economic and budget problems, "He was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse."

The night's rhetoric come at the dawn of a presidential and congressional election year in which the defining issues are the faltering economy and weak job market and the parties' clashing prescriptions for restoring both. Obama and congressional Democrats have focused on the more populist pathway of financing federal initiatives by taxing millionaires, while Republicans preach the virtues of less regulation and smaller government.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called Obama's address "a campaign speech designed to please his liberal base," and warned that he should keep legislation advancing his priorities "free from poison pills like tax hikes on job creators."

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who heads large group of House conservatives, said Obama's speech was riddled with "the ridiculous idea that America isn't fair because successful people get to keep too much of the money they earn."

Republicans fired back at Obama's vision of "an economy built to last," saying it was their party that understood the best way to trigger economic growth was to get the government out of the way.

"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly sane pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy," Daniels said.

Obama has halted, for now, work on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to Texas' Gulf Coast. Republicans say the project would create thousands of jobs, a claim opponents say is overstated. The administration has also pursued policies aimed at reducing pollution and global warming.

To underscore Obama's decision on Keystone, Boehner invited three officials from companies he said would be hurt by the pipeline's rejection to watch the speech in the House chamber, along with a pro-pipeline legislator from Nebraska, through which the project would pass.

Obama was delivering his address during a rowdy battle for the GOP presidential nomination that has ended up providing ammunition for Obama's theme of fairness.

That fight has called attention to the wealth of one of the top contenders, Romney, and the low ? but legal ? effective federal income tax rate of around 15 percent that the multimillionaire has paid in the past two years. Romney, in Florida campaigning for that state's Jan. 31 primary, released his tax documents for the two-year period on Tuesday.

"The president's agenda sounds less like `built to last' and more like doomed to fail," Romney said in Tampa, Fla. "What he's proposing is more of the same: more taxes, more spending, and more regulation."

Romney's chief rival at this point, Gingrich, said in a written statement that the top question about Obama's speech was whether he "will show a willingness to put aside the extremist ideology of the far left and call for a new set of policies that could lead to dramatic private sector job creation and economic growth."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_state_of_union_gop_reaction

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Barcelona awaits Real Madrid in Copa del Rey

By PAUL LOGOTHETIS

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 9:23 a.m. ET Jan. 23, 2012

MADRID (AP) -Real Madrid will likely abandon its defensive strategy and go on the attack against Barcelona in the second leg of the Copa del Rey quarterfinals on Wednesday.

Madrid coach Jose Mourinho has come under fire for his choice of tactics following last week's 2-1 loss to Barcelona, with the Portuguese coach repeatedly jeered during a 4-1 league win over Athletic Bilbao on Sunday.

But that victory displayed the potent attack available to Madrid, which leads Barcelona by five points in the Spanish league after scoring 67 goals in 19 games to complete the first half of the season.

Still, Mourinho did not apologize for Madrid's approach to the first leg, which has polarized much of the Portuguese coach's support, not only among fans but also the usually staunch Madrid press. On Sunday, Marca newspaper reported divisions inside the club's dressing room while Mourinho's name was jeered throughout the Bilbao match at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium for the first time since his arrival in 2010.

"They lead the league, they can still reach the semifinals of the Copa and they are into the next round of the Champions League. From an outside perspective, it's hard to read whether or not they have problems," Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta said on Monday.

Madrid's attack could get a boost if Argentina forward Angel di Maria returns from injury.

Defender Pepe's availability is uncertain after the Portugal international was benched against Bilbao following the fallout from his stamp on Lionel Messi's hand in the first leg.

Madrid has won only one of its last 13 meetings against Barcelona - April's Copa del Rey final - with nine losses over that period.

Barcelona is coming off a 4-1 league win at Malaga in which Messi notched his 10th career hat-trick for the European champions. Messi now has 36 goals in all competitions this season, while teammate Alexis Sanchez has also found his rhythm with the Spanish champions, the Chile forward scoring three goals in his last four games.

Also, Mirandes needs to beat Espanyol to become the first third division club to reach the semifinals since Fugueres in 2002. Mirandes trails 3-2 going into Tuesday's match at its 6,000-capacity Andova Municipal stadium.

Meanwhile, Valencia and Athletic Bilbao hold comfortable leads going into their away return legs.

Valencia travels across town to Levante on Thursday holding a 4-1 advantage and Bilbao is 2-0 up ahead of its game at Mallorca on Wednesday.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Clint Dempsey became the first American to score a hat trick in England's Premier League, helping Fulham rally from a halftime deficit to rout Newcastle 5-2 Saturday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44284319/ns/sports-soccer/

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Earthquake shakes northern Dominican Republic (AP)

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic ? A moderate earthquake struck Monday in the northern Dominican Republic but there were no reports of damage or injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.1. The epicenter was in the coastal town of Rio San Juan, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) north of the capital and 22 miles (35 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco de Macoris.

A seismology institute at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo said its equipment recorded a magnitude of 5.4.

Juan Manuel Mendez, director of the country's Emergency Operations Center, said emergency workers had fanned out in communities along the northern coast to check for damage or injuries but had so far found none.

Tremors were felt as far away as Cap Haitien in northern Haiti and along the west coast of Puerto Rico.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_dominican_republic_earthquake

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Monday, January 23, 2012

100 Years Ago: Vickers Machine Gun

THE TRACTIONEER: A new breed of farmer-engineer ushering in the era of mechanized agriculture, 1912 Image: Scientific American

February 1962

Error Codes
?Until quite recently the engineer who wanted to improve the quality of a communication channel concentrated his attention on reducing noise, or, to be more precise, on increasing the signal-to-noise ratio. The most direct way to achieve this is to increase the power of the signal. Within the past 15 years a host of new signal-processing devices?notably the electronic computer?have stimulated a different approach for transmitting signals with a minimum of error: the use of error-detecting codes. The principle underlying such codes has a long history. What is new is (1) a body of theory that tells the engineer how close the codes come to ideal performance and (2) techniques for constructing codes.?

Hiding Nukes
?It appears increasingly doubtful that an atomic-weapons test of significant dimension can be concealed either underground or in outer space. A five-kiloton nuclear explosion in an underground salt cavern near Carlsbad, N.M., in December was clearly recorded by seismographs as far away as Tokyo, New York, Uppsala in Sweden and Sodankyla in Finland. The seismograph records included tracings of the ?first motion,? considered critical in distinguishing between earthquakes and underground explosions.?

February 1912

Machine Replaces Muscle
?Probably no agricultural development of the last decade is of more interest or greater significance than the rapid advance in the use of the traction engine. The coming of the gas tractor was the first step in making power farming universally possible. The old-time thresherman was little more than a stationary engineer. With the coming of the all-purpose tractor, his duties multiplied. Besides keeping his engine in trim, he had to learn to drive straight, avoid holes and obstructions, and above all to earn money for the owner of the outfit by keeping it eternally on the move. Out of the necessity has grown a new type?a farmer-engineer of high caliber, tersely termed a ?tractioneer.??

Vickers Machine Gun
?Recently an improved type of the familiar Vickers light automatic rifle-caliber gun has made its appearance, and commands attention owing to its greater mobility and ingenious tripod. An appreciable reduction in weight has been also effected, for whereas the older weapon ready for use weighed 69 pounds, the new gun weighs only 36 pounds. This lessening of weight has been obtained by the use of high-class steel instead of gunmetal in the construction of all the parts.?

This water-cooled machine gun was used extensively during World War I, which broke out two years later. For a look into our archives at the technology of weapons and warfare in 1912, see the slideshow at www.ScientificAmerican.com/feb2012/warfare

February 1862

Does it Work for Shrapnel Wounds?
?The Committee on Military Affairs in the house of Representatives have under consideration the expediency of intro?ducing the system of Samuel Hahnemann [homeo?pathy] into the army. It was agreed to authorize Mr. Dunn to report a bill instructing the Medical Bureau of the War Department to permit, under certain restrictions as to number and qualifi?cations, the employment of graduates of regular Homeopathic colleges as army surgeons. This measure has been fought bitterly in committee, and has for its opponents the entire present medical force of the army. We understand that Gen. McClellan, who is a firm believer in homeopathy, is anxious to have the system tested in the army. Why not try it? It has thousands of firm believers in the country, and is rapidly gaining ground.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b4f380399d382141fe3b2522a9175149

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Posthumous US asylum bid highlights gang debate

Josue Rafael Orellana Garcia fled his impoverished neighborhood in Honduras for the United States as a teenager, to escape what began as teasing over his disabilities and escalated into what his mother said were threats to kill him if he did not join a gang.

Making his way illegally to New Jersey to be with his mother, he applied for asylum in 2008, claiming he'd be killed by gangs if forced to return to the small but violence-plagued nation. He lost his case, was deported in 2010, and last year was found dead, his body riddled with bullets. He was 20.

Now his family has taken the unusual step of trying to win him asylum posthumously. His attorney, Joshua Bardavid, said it's an effort to get the U.S. government to acknowledge the "entire system let him down" and to call attention to the plight of thousands of Central American teenagers.

But the case also highlights a growing debate among immigration experts over whether the grounds for asylum in the United States should be expanded to include more modern forms of conflict, such as gang violence.

To be granted asylum in the U.S., applicants must prove a well-founded and documented fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. They must also show that the government or ruling authority in their home country is unwilling or incapable of adequately protecting them.

U.S. Immigration Judge Frederic Leeds in Newark found Orellana's claims credible but said the young man had not sufficiently documented that he and his family had been targeted by gangs. Even if he had, there is no legal precedent for extending "the concept of family group to the concept of joining gangs," wrote the judge, while expressing appreciation for what he said were creative arguments on the young man's behalf.

Though the law does not consider the threat of gang recruitment as meeting the definition of a protected social group, some believe it should, said Dana Leigh Marks, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

"There are those who would argue the asylum law is old-fashioned and needs to be modernized, while others would argue it is a limited remedy that is not supposed to resolve all problems and allow everyone to qualify," Marks said.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the international body responsible for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers worldwide, issued a memo in 2010 urging courts to expand existing asylum law interpretations to consider victims of organized gangs as warranting protection, if their cases satisfy all other legal requirements.

But those who oppose expanding the class of potential asylum seekers say it could undermine an already overburdened U.S. immigration system with a flood of new applicants.

"There's no limit to the categories you could add by our (U.S.) standards. There is a lot of oppression in the world," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, an organization which advocates stricter immigration rules and believes asylum and all other aspects of immigration law should be decided by the U.S. Congress, not the courts.

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"We may find the treatment of women in some countries poor, compared to our standards, but would you say if they're treated poorly, they're a member of a particular social group?" Camarota said.

Ricardo Estrada, a minister of migratory affairs with the Honduran embassy in Washington, said he was not familiar with Orellana's case but that "it's likely that his story could be true, because conditions point to it."

"Lamentably, our country is going through a crisis of violence," Estrada told The Associated Press, in an interview conducted in Spanish. "The problem is enormous, and security is an issue the government is really trying to tackle, but it's very challenging with a government that has little resources in comparison to the narco-cartels, who often have better arms than the police."

Investigators face a huge backlog of homicide investigations, but have few resources, he said.

Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, according to a 2011 United Nations report which cited 6,200 killings, or 82.1 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, in 2010. Earlier this month, the Peace Corps withdrew all volunteers from the country, citing safety and security concerns. The U.S. agreed this past week to send a team of experts to help the Honduras government with "citizen security issues."

In a motion filed in December with the Board of Immigration Appeals, Bardavid argued that Orellana, as a result of being shot dead after being deported, now meets the burden of proof required of asylum applicants to show they would suffer irreparable harm if sent back to their country.

"I think it's something that needs to be acknowledged: that we failed him; that he came here seeking safety, and the entire system let him down," Bardavid said.

Spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly of The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the BIA, said the agency does not comment on pending cases or prior decisions.

Orellana's mother, Josefa Rafaela Garcia Mejia, lives legally in the United States under a program that allows immigrants from qualifying countries to live and work in the U.S. on a restricted visa. She said gangs killed her son, the youngest of her four children.

Orellana had been picked on from a young age after losing one eye and much of his hearing from being struck by a tree during Hurricane Mitch, which devastated much of Honduras in 1998, Garcia said. She sent money home, working as a home health aide in New Jersey, to support Orellana and his three siblings, and to buy him a glass eye.

As he got older, his mother said, Orellana told her in frequent phone calls that he was being pursued and threatened by gangs that controlled their San Pedro Sula neighborhood, trying to recruit young people. The threats got so bad, she said, her son fled, against her advice. He was alone at the age of 17 when he crossed illegally into the U.S. to join her in New Jersey.

In a court hearing in July 2009, the judge asked Orellana why, if he had been attacked several times by notorious Central American gangs, he had never gone to the police to file a report.

"Like I mentioned, we would call the police but the police were afraid to come where we lived," Orellana replied.

After Leeds' decision was upheld on appeal, the young man was deported to Honduras in March 2010. He disappeared on July 23, 2011, after telling his grandmother he was running to the store, his mother said. His body was discovered three days later in a nearby wooded area, according to a story in the Honduran newspaper La Tribuna.

"I say as a mother, as a Christian woman, my son was not involved with gangs; he never carried so much as a nail clipper," Garcia said, crying as she clutched a photograph of him. "If they had not deported my boy, he would not be dead."

___

Follow Samantha Henry at http://www.twitter.com/SamanthaHenry

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46092033/ns/us_news/

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Republican Convention Has '50-50' Chance Of Being Open: Former GOP Chair

TAMPA, Fla. -- Michael Steele, the former Republican national chairman who oversaw the writing of the party's nominating rules in 2010, told The Huffington Post Saturday night that the chances of an open -- that is, undecided -- GOP convention in Florida next August are now "50-50" after Newt Gingrich's victory in South Carolina.

"It's a real possibility," Steele told HuffPost. "Right now I'd say it's 50-50. The base wants its chance to have their say. They aren't going to want it to end early, before they get their chance, which means that the process could go all the way to Tampa."

And if it does, Steele says, the result will not be an unpalatable anti-democratic display of insider deal-making, but rather an advertisement for the ideological and grassroots input of the party.

"You would see the people who had the influence to begin with -- the Tea Party, the social conservatives, you name it, hashing it out right in front of us all. I think that is good."

There hasn't been an "open" or "brokered" convention since 1976, when President Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan each went to the convention in Kansas City without a majority of the delegates in hand. In one of the most celebrated moments in modern GOP history, the Mississippi delegation -- managed by a young operative named Haley Barbour -- chose to vote for Ford, even though most of the delegation was committed, in spirit if not in law, to Reagan.

There would be a kind of historical symmetry to another open convention this year, this time in Tampa. The 1976 episode fired the Reagan forces for 1980, when he swept to power and swept out President Jimmy Carter. It was the dawn of the Reagan Era, in which the Gipper was able to tie together the three constituent parts of the conservative moment -- fiscal (libertarian), social (anti-abortion) and hawk (Panama Canal, communism).

Thirty years later that coalition has fallen apart, and fallen into war with each other. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) represents the libertarian purists; former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) the social purists; and Newt Gingrich, Romney and Santorum all vie for the hawk part of the triad, while Paul tries to undercut the others.

Former House Speaker Gingrich (R-Ga.) constantly invokes Reagan on the campaign trail, but he has none of the charm or winsome personality that allowed Reagan to be the master of all factions. Paul and former Massachusetts Gov. Romney have money and machinery, but neither of them can be Reagan, either.

Besides lacking a Reagan, this year also has new rules and calendars, both of which were deliberately designed to stretch out the process -- though not necessarily in the cause of creating an open convention.

"We wanted to make sure everyone got their chance to be heard," Steele said. "And if that means it goes all the way to the convention, that's the way it will be."

The campaigns have been focused for months on detail: which states are winner-take-all, which choose proportionately. And there is one other wrinkle: "superdelegates," chosen mostly at state conventions later this year. They could hold the key -- and they would in fact more likely be state officials and politicians who more closely resemble old-time polls.

But there will be no smoke-filled room; there's no smoking in the convention center here.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/republican-convention-mitt-romney-south-carolina-primary_n_1221350.html

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Terrorist killed UK soldiers as they collected pizza

An Irish Republican Army dissident was convicted Friday for the 2009 murders of two unarmed British soldiers ? the first such killings in Northern Ireland for more than a decade ? but a second suspect was acquitted.

The judge sentenced Brian Shivers, 46, to life in prison after concluding he was one of two masked gunmen who riddled off-duty soldiers with more than 60 bullets as they collected pizzas outside an army base. Two soldiers died while four other men, including two delivery men, were wounded.

But Justice Anthony Hart said DNA evidence linking Colin Duffy, 44, to the attackers' getaway car was inadequate to prove he was the other gunman or involved in planning the attack.

Duffy, a reputed senior IRA dissident who has been at the focus of several previous failed police investigations, was expected to walk free from Antrim Crown Court west of Belfast.

The two soldiers slain, 21-year-old Patrick Azimkar and 23-year-old Mark Quinsey, were shot repeatedly at close range as they lay wounded on the ground outside the Massereene army barracks near Antrim. They and friends had gone to the gate to collect pizzas just hours before their scheduled deployment to Afghanistan.

Detectives appeared to catch a critical break when the attackers' escape vehicle was recovered intact. Throughout their decades of violence aimed at forcing Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom, members of the IRA and its dissident offshoots almost always burn their vehicles and clothes after shootings to destroy forensic evidence ? but this time, the fire set in the car had quickly petered out.

During the six-week trial, forensics specialists testified they found DNA traces of both Duffy and Shivers in the car.

Duffy's DNA was detected on a buckle of a seat belt and on a rubber globe ? equipment useful for the gunmen to protect their hands from absorbing traces of gun powder, or to leave fingerprints on the car.

Shivers' DNA was found on a book of matches in the car used in the failed bid to torch it.

The judge said other evidence against Shivers, including his contradictory explanations for where he was on the night of the attack, helped to convict him.

But the judge said the DNA evidence linked Duffy only to the car, not to the attack, and witnesses offered alibis for his location on the night.

"I consider that there is insufficient evidence to satisfy me beyond reasonable doubt that whatever Duffy may have done when he wore the latex glove, or touched the seat belt buckle, meant that he was preparing the car in some way for this murderous attack. And I therefore find him not guilty," Hart said during a judgment that took nearly three hours to read.

Azimkar and Quinsey were the first soldiers to be killed in Northern Ireland since February 1997, when an IRA sniper fatally shot Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick through the neck as he chatted to a motorist at a road checkpoint.

The BBC reported that the sister of Sapper Quinsey, Jaime Quinsey, said her family was "a little bit closer to justice" as a result of the court verdicts.

However, she told a press conference in Antrim on Friday that they were still not able to get closure and that the killings had been a "vicious and cowardly act".

The IRA called a cease-fire later that year and, in 2005, renounced violence and disarmed in support of Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace accord of 1998.

Several splinter groups continue to mount sporadic gun attacks and bombings, most recently Thursday night in Northern Ireland's second-largest city of Londonderry, when two bombs detonated near tourist and welfare offices.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46072821/ns/world_news-europe/

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