Senate’s pragmatic ranks depleted by one with Chambliss’s departure

The trio of Southern gentlemen came to the Senate together in 2003, the leading edge of a renegade Republican class set on shaking up the chamber’s staid ways and aggressively promoting the Bush White House’s conservative agenda.

Ten years later, Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) are now establishment dealmakers and elder statesmen — roles that earn them respect in Washington but could lead to tough challenges from fellow Republicans when they run for re-election next year.

On Friday, Chambliss announced that there would be no re-election for him, opting for retirement over another run that was certain to include a heated primary challenge, possibly from several candidates. Chambliss took pains to say that he would have won and instead cited Washington “gridlock” as his reason for retiring.

Regardless, Chambliss’s departure is another blow to the pragmatic wing of the Senate, with a lineup of potential successors all hailing from the staunchly conservative camp of the Georgia GOP.

Chambliss’s successor is likely to contribute to a rightward movement over the past four years that has made the ranks of Senate Republicans more conservative, but also led to repeated political disappointment. A handful of 2010 and 2012 Republican primaries produced nominees who bungled their way to general election defeat, when victory once appeared certain.

What happens with the other two Southerners could go a long way to determining the ideological makeup of the Senate Republican caucus.

Alexander and Graham are both running, raising money and appearing throughout their states. Alexander, a former two-term governor and U.S. education secretary, has the stronger footing for the moment, having locked up the endorsements of his state’s GOP congressional delegation and every prominent Republican state official. Graham has no prominent challenger yet, but Palmetto State Republicans are sizing up the race trying to decide if he’s ripe for a challenge.

That Alexander, Chambliss and Graham have found themselves in this situation, a decade after debuting as rabble rousers who helped return the chamber to GOP control, is the latest demonstration of how much the Republican Party has changed. Its voters more than ever demand a confrontational tone and in-your-face tactics, the sort of behavior that they have shied away from.

“The big change is in terms of strategy and tactics,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, noting that the three incumbents are all fairly conservative in their policy positions. “The war has changed. Republican voters want every fight to be hand-to-hand combat. They don’t want to give any ground.”

Alexander rejected the idea that the trio had “gone Washington” as they each became more powerful. “I know my way around here. We’re each finding our niche, and that’s pretty normal after 10 years,” he said in a recent interview.

Before his Friday announcement, Chambliss had been viewed as the most vulnerable Republican incumbent to a challenge from within. His apostasies to the new Republican posture were numerous in recent years, most prominently being his close partnership with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) in an effort to craft a bipartisan package of tax hikes and entitlement cuts to rein in the federal government’s $16.4 trillion debt.

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India sees push for police reform after rape outcry

NEW DELHI: Sixteen-year-old Seenu was walking to her grandmother's house along a quiet street in northern India when a group of men dragged her into a car, took her to a secluded field and raped her in turns.

They filmed the act on their mobile phones and forced a pill into her mouth. She woke up an hour later, naked, bloodied, disoriented. The sun was just beginning to set as she put on her jeans and made her way back home.

When her father -- a gardener belonging to the "untouchable" or Dalit community which lies at the bottom of India's caste system -- found out what had happened to his only daughter, he killed himself.

Over the days that followed, Seenu (not her real name) and her mother made several trips to the nearest police station, defying threats from her upper-caste attackers, some of whom she knew.

Finally, when the Dalit community in her village held public protests and piled pressure on the police, the first arrest was made -- two weeks after the gang-rape. Since then, seven more men have been arrested.

Now living at her grandmother's home with six police officers as protection ahead of a court appearance next month, Seenu told AFP that rape victims like herself have problems reporting the crime "because police don't respect them".

"It makes me so angry. Why don't the police listen? Why don't they do their job? Why do they have to humiliate the girl or treat her like it's her fault she got raped?" she said, speaking softly so the officers did not overhear.

The gruesome gang-rape and murder of a student in New Delhi on December 16 last year prompted nationwide protests and a public outcry over how police handle sexual assault cases.

A beleaguered central government announced several safety measures earlier this month, including more night-time patrols by police in Delhi and the presence of at least a dozen female officers at every police station.

India suffers from a massive shortfall in the number of police on duty, currently employing only 129 officers per 100,000 people, according to data published in 2010 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

This compares to 227 officers per 100,000 people in the United States.

Also, in many cases police have been found displaying the same sexist prejudices prevalent in Indian society, leading them sometimes to encourage rape survivors to marry their attackers.

Last week, a judge at a Delhi court ordered police to pay 25,000 rupees ($470) as compensation to a 13-year-old rape survivor, for refusing to file a complaint and pushing her to settle the case with the alleged rapist.

J.S. Verma, a former chief justice of India heading a government commission looking into sex crime, lambasted the police on Wednesday for their apathy and "low and skewed priority of dealing with complaints of sexual assault".

In his report, Verma also called for an end to the so-called "two finger test", a practice decried as demeaning and flawed in which doctors attempt to determine if a rape victim is sexually active.

Stung by the hail of criticism, police officials in Delhi recently revived a "gender sensitisation" programme that originally ran from 2008-2011, enrolling all personnel on the course in a bid to improve their handling of women.

Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar promised that the force had been "jolted," leading it to "look at offences against women in a totally different way".

The government's plans to improve policing also include measures to recruit more women, who make up just 6.5 percent of the force, according to figures in the National Crime Records Bureau.

Maurice Nagar police station could be a model for the future. Located near a sprawling university campus, the recruitment of women has long been a priority and a female officer is required to be present at all hours.

The khaki-clad guards outside are female, the officer who registers complaints is female and many of the officers on duty, zipping in and out of traffic on motorbikes are female.

But even here an officer, Nazma Khan, dismisses the notion that police reform is a panacea.

"These crimes happen because of people with a messed-up mentality, who are everywhere," she told AFP.

"If we want to change the mentality then it has to change at school level, at homes, in the family, otherwise recruitment (of police) will not make a difference," she added.

To Seenu, the Dalit teenager whose parents cast off centuries of prejudice and oppression to educate their daughter and raise her to dream of someday becoming a doctor, such arguments offer no consolation.

"If the police don't change, girls like me will never get justice and soon enough, people will just stop expecting any justice in India."

- AFP/fa

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UP ignored in Padma awards, says Ram Gopal Yadav

GHAZIABAD: Senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav today alleged that Uttar Pradesh had been repeatedly ignored while deciding on the recipients of Padma awards.

"UP contributes for around 20 per cent of the nation's population, but when it comes to deciding Padma awardees, the state is always ignored," Yadav said at a function here on the occasion of the Republic Day.

The SP leader said the state has played an important role in the nation's independence and has given some top politicians to the country.

"Until people of Uttar Pradesh are not included in the committee for the awards, the state will continue to face discrimination," he said.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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Squatter, Bank of America Battle for $2.5M Mansion

Bank of America is taking a Florida man to court after he attempted to use an antiquated state law to legally take possession of a $2.5 million mansion that is currently owned by the bank.

Andre "Loki" Barbosa has lived in a five-bedroom Boca Raton, Fla., waterside property since July, and police have reportedly been unable to remove him.

The Brazilian national, 23, who reportedly refers to himself as "Loki Boy," cites Florida's "adverse possession" law, in which a party may acquire title from another by openly occupying their land and paying real property tax for at least seven years.

The house is listed as being owned by Bank of America as of July 2012, and that an adverse possession was filed in July. After Bank of America foreclosed on the property last year, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office was notified that Barbosa would be moving in, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The Sun-Sentinel reported that he posted a notice in the front window of the house naming him as a "living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury."
On Facebook, a man named Andre Barbosa calls the property "Templo de Kamisamar."

After Barbosa gained national attention for his brazen attempt, Bank of America filed an injunction on Jan. 23 to evict Barbosa and eight unidentified occupants.

In the civil complaint, Bank of America said Barbosa and other tenants "unlawfully entered the property" and "refused to permit the Plaintiff agents entry, use, and possession of its property." In addition to eviction, Bank of America is asking for $15,000 in damages to be paid to cover attorney's expenses.

Police were called Dec. 26 to the home but did not remove Barbosa, according to the Sentinel. Barbosa reportedly presented authorities with the adverse possession paperwork at the time.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Povery Law Center, says police officers may be disinclined to take action even if they are presented with paperwork that is invalid.

"A police officer walks up to someone who is claiming a house now belongs to him, without any basis at all, is handed a big sheaf of documents, which are incomprehensible," Potok said. "I think very often the officers ultimately feel that they're forced to go back to headquarters and try to figure out what's going on before they can actually toss someone in the slammer."

A neighbor of the Boca property, who asked not be named, told ABCNews.com that he entered the empty home just before Christmas to find four people inside, one of whom said the group is establishing an embassy for their mission, and that families would be moving in and out of the property. Barbosa was also among them.

The neighbor said he believes that Barbosa is a "patsy."

"This young guy is caught up in this thing," the neighbor said. "I think it's going on on a bigger scale."

Barbosa could not be reached for comment.

The neighbor said that although the lights have been turned on at the house, the water has not, adding that this makes it clear it is not a permanent residence. The neighbor also said the form posted in the window is "total gibberish," which indicated that the house is an embassy, and that those who enter must present two forms of identification, and respect the rights of its indigenous people.

"I think it's a group of people that see an opportunity to get some money from the bank," the neighbor said. "If they're going to hold the house ransom, then the bank is going to have to go through an eviction process.

"They're taking advantage of banks, where the right hand doesn't know where the left hand is," the neighbor said. "They can't clap."

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Court says Obama exceeded authority in making appointments

President Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by making appointments when the Senate was on a break last year, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court’s broad ruling would sharply limit the power that presidents throughout history have used to make recess appointments in the face of Senate opposition and inaction.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit flatly rejected the Obama administration’s rationale for appointing three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) while the Senate was on a holiday break.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle sharply criticized the administration’s interpretation of when recess appointments may be made, saying it would give the president “free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.” He added, “This cannot be the law.”

The issue seems certain to end up before the Supreme Court, which ultimately could clarify a president’s authority to fill his administration and appoint federal judges when a minority of the Senate blocks consideration of his choices.

Although recess appointments have been made throughout the nation’s history, they have been more commonly made by modern presidents who face partisan opposition that has made it hard for nominees to even receive a vote in the Senate.

Additionally, Friday’s decision casts doubt on hundreds of decisions the NLRB has made in the past year, ranging from enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements to rulings on the rights of workers to use social media.

The ruling also raises questions about the recess appointment of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to head the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and about the actions taken by the agency during his tenure, including major new rules governing the mortgage industry. Obama named Cordray at the same time as the NLRB nominees, and his appointment is the subject of a separate lawsuit in D.C. federal court.

The White House criticized the court ruling. “The decision is novel and unprecedented, and it contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Friday. “We respectfully but strongly disagree with the ruling.”

Presidents from both parties have made hundreds of recess appointments when the Senate has failed to act on nominations. Ronald Reagan holds the record with 243. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, made 105, and it was during his term that Senate Democrats began holding pro-forma sessions, some lasting less than a minute, when the Senate went on break. They contended that that kept the Senate in session and did not allow Bush to make recess appointments.

Republicans took up the practice when Obama was elected. But Obama decided to challenge it in January 2012, when the Senate was on a 20-day holiday but holding pro-forma sessions every three business days to block presidential action.

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Cycling: Armstrong lied to Oprah, says doping chief

LOS ANGELES: Lance Armstrong lied in his confessional interview with Oprah Winfrey and the shamed cyclist has two weeks to finally come clean, the US anti-doping official who pursued him for years has said.

Travis Tygart said in an excerpt of an interview with the CBS network that Armstrong failed to tell Winfrey the truth about several key points over doping -- including a claim that he raced drug-free in his comeback in 2009 and 2010.

Tygart, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) chief, said he has written to Armstrong to say that if he wants to lessen his lifetime sporting ban he must "cooperate fully and truthfully" by February 6, about drug-taking in the sport.

It is not clear if cooperation from Armstrong, who was stripped of all seven of his Tour De France wins last year, could take the form of testimony before a truth and reconciliation commission.

The International Cycling Union (UCI), which is under pressure from the World Anti-Doping Agency and USADA, on Friday agreed that such a platform would benefit the drug-damaged sport after a series of devastating doping cases.

Armstrong, a cancer survivor who during the Oprah interview admitted doping for the first time after years of vehement denials, said he would be willing to testify before such a commission if he were invited.

He also said that his record seven wins in the tour -- between 1999-2005 -- were fueled by performance enhancing drugs but insisted he was clean when he came out of retirement and raced in the Tour de France in 2009 and 2010.

Tygart, however, in the CBS interview which will air in full on "60 Minutes" on Sunday, said the latter claim is "just contrary to the evidence".

According to Tygart, expert reports based on the variation of Armstrong's blood values in 2009 and 2010 make it a "one to a million chance that it was due to something other than doping".

The USADA chief reiterated the assertions in the report issued last year by the agency on which it based its lifetime ban of Armstrong and the forfeiture of all his cycling results from August 1998.

The report led to Armstrong's demise after more than a decade of denials that he was a drug cheat during which he pursued a series of vitriolic attacks against several individuals who had accused him of doping.

Tygart told CBS that Armstrong may have lied about doping after his comeback because under the statute of limitations for criminal fraud, he would still be open to prosecution.

He also took issue with Armstrong's claim that the disgraced Texan's favored drug cocktail of blood-boosting EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone included just a small amount of EPO.

"He used a lot of EPO," Tygart told "60 Minutes", alleging that Armstrong was less than truthful when he told Winfrey that he had not pushed his teammates toward cheating.

"He was the boss," Tygart said in the excerpt.

"The evidence is clear he was one of the ringleaders of this conspiracy that pulled off this grand heist that... using tens of millions of taxpayer dollars defrauded millions of sports fans and his fellow competitors."

In the second segment of his interview with Winfrey, which aired over two nights on January 18-19, the 41-year-old Armstrong said he wants to compete again in sport -- perhaps marathons.

Immediately after Armstrong's first confession aired last week Tygart responded by saying that the former cyclist must testify under oath to have any hope of reducing his sanction.

"His admission that he doped throughout his career is a small step in the right direction," Tygart said.

"But if he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities."

- AFP/fa

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Cultural heritage, military might on display at Republic Day parade

NEW DELHI: A kaleidoscopic view of the country's rich cultural heritage and military prowess were on display at the 64th Republic Day parade on Saturday on the 8-km stretch from Rajpath to Red Fort.

An eager audience on both sides of the imposing Rajpath, the country's ceremonial boulevard facing the seat of power Raisina Hills, braved the winter chill and cheered loudly as the parade went past them portraying the rich and diverse culture of the country.

The icing on the cake was the 5,500-5,800 km ballistic Agni-V missile mounted on a road mobile launcher which was paraded by the Defence Research & Development Organisation as the crowd lapped it up with loud cheer.

General Officer Commanding (Delhi) Lt General Subroto Mitra led the synchronised military and police contingents as they marched to the cheerful tunes of bands through the 2-km Rajpath where President Pranab Mukherjee, also the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, took the salute for the first time after assuming office in July last year.

The impressive march-past was watched by the chief guest, Bhutan king Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Defence Minister A K Antony, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and top political and military brass.

Police and other paramilitary forces turned Delhi into a a virtual fortress for the Republic Day celebrations as helicopters scanned from air, snipers kept a hawk-eye vigil from rooftops and armed personnel at every nook and corner provided a ground-to-air security apparatus.

Minutes before the parade began, Singh, Antony and chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force laid wreaths at 'Amar Jawan Jyoti', an eternal flame in the memory of those who laid down their lives while defending the nation.

After the customary 21-gun salute and unfurling of the national tricolour by President Mukherjee, the spectacle began with four army helicopters flying above Rajpath carrying the national flag and the three flags of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The country showed its military strength with the MBT Arjun Tank, Armoured Ambulance Tracked Vehicle, BrahMos missiles and 214 mm Pinaka rockets, 15 Metre Sarvatra Bridging System.

The Army contingent from horse-mounted columns of the 61st Cavalry, Mechanised Infantry Regiment, Maratha Light Infantry, Dogra Regiment, Garhwal Rifles, Ladakh Scouts, 8 Gorkha Training Centre, Army Ordnance Corps and Territorial Army (Punjab) marched to the martial tunes.

The next to follow were smartly-dressed Navy personnel and then the Air Force contingent. The Air Force contingent was led by Flight Lieutenant Heena Pore.

A mini version of INS Vikramaditya which will join the Naval fleet by the end of this year was also part of the parade which highlighted Indian Navy's blue water operating capability.

The DRDO displayed the Armoured Amphibious Dozer (AAD), an indigenously developed versatile Combat Engineer support equipment with excellent earth moving and amphibious capabilities in varied terrain. Airborne Early Warning and Control System and Naval Sonar were also displayed.

Other marching contingents were those of camel-mounted BSF, Assam Rifles, Coast Guard, CRPF, ITBP, CISF, SSB, RPF, Delhi Police, NCC and NSS.

As the country's armed and police forces demonstrated their might, states and different departments put up an impressive show when they showcased their rich cultural diversity in full display in 19 tableaux -- 14 from states and five from ministries. '

This year, the number of tableaux has been reduced to 19 from last year's 23.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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WH, Senators to Begin Push on Immigration Reform

The White House and a bipartisan group of senators next week plan to begin their efforts to push for comprehensive immigration reform.

President Barack Obama will make an announcement on immigration during a Tuesday trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, the White House said on Friday. The Senate group is expected make their plans public around the same time, the Associated Press reported.

See Also: Where Do Labor Unions Stand on Immigration?

For Obama, immigration reform is a campaign promise that has remained unfulfilled from his first White House run in 2008. During his 2012 re-election campaign, the president vowed to renew his effort to overhaul the nation's immigration system. It has long been expected that Obama would roll out his plans shortly after his inauguration.

The president's trip to Las Vegas is designed "to redouble the administration's efforts to work with Congress to fix the broken immigration system this year," the White House said.

Ever since November's election, in which Latino voters turned out in record numbers, Republicans and Democrats have expressed a desire to work on immigration reform. Obama has long supported a bill that would make many of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants without criminal records eligible to apply for an earned pathway to citizenship, which includes paying fines and learning English.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

But the debate over a pathway to citizenship is expected to be contentious. Other flashpoints in an immigration reform push could include a guest-worker program, workplace enforcement efforts, border security, and immigration backlogs.

In a statement, the White House said that "any legislation must include a path to earned citizenship."

Ahead of his immigration push next week, Obama met today with a group of lawmakers from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), including chairman Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas) , Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and CHC Immigration Task Force Chair Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the latter's office said. CHC members are expected to play a pivotal role in the debate.

"The president is the quarterback and he will direct the team, call the play, and be pivotal if we succeed. I am very optimistic based on conversations with Republicans in the House and Senate that we will do more than just talk about the immigration issue this year," Gutierrez said in a statement following the CHC meeting with Obama. "The president putting his full weight and attention behind getting a bill signed into law is tremendously helpful. We need the president and the American people all putting pressure on the Congress to act because nothing happens in the Capitol without people pushing from the outside."

A bipartisan group of eight senators, which includes Menendez, has also begun talks on drafting an immigration bill and will play an integral part in the process of passing a bill through Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been participating in talks with others senators, has also unveiled his own outline for an immigration proposal.

The group of senators have reportedly eyed Friday as the date when they'll unveil their separate proposal, according to the Washington Post.

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OPM plans to shake up charity program raise concerns about reduced donations

The Office of Personnel Management wants to shake up the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), the charitable-giving system for federal employees, but in the process the agency could risk losing donors and reducing contributions.

One rule under review by the Obama administration would “eliminate the use of cash, check and money order contributions. Instead, all donations will be required to be made through electronic means.”

This could “streamline the operations,” as proposed rules from OPM suggest, but whether it also would “increase the effectiveness of the program to ensure its continued growth and success” is questionable.

The reason: In 2011, the last year for which OPM data are available, just 22 percent of the money pledged was donated electronically. Moreover, 88.4 percent of the donors did not make electronic contributions.

So, a move to electronic-only donations would seem to put CFC at risk of losing a majority of its donors. The proposal worries executives of some charitable organizations, even as they welcome other sections of the plan.

Federal employees contribute through the CFC to various charities. Donations exceeded $272 million in 2011. That’s a lot of money, but it represents a drop of almost $10 million from 2009, the high point.

An OPM spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on rules under review. In the 53-page document that contains the proposed regulations, however, OPM Director John Berry wrote:

“These proposed changes will introduce efficiencies and cost savings into the CFC by leveraging technology that was not widely available just a few years ago. They will make the CFC more efficient, more transparent, more accountable and more relevant to Federal, Postal and military service personnel who want to make the biggest impact with their donations.”

Scott Jackson, chief executive of Global Impact, said electronic giving can save $14 a pledge, by reducing processing costs.

“That’s very, very powerful,” he added. How the change to electronic-only contributions might effect donations presents “important issues to work through,” he said. Global Impact administers the overseas campaign of the CFC.

Those issues leave Stephen M. Delfin “highly concerned.” He is president and chief executive of America’s Charities, a group that works with CFC organizations. Delfin said he is worried that the rules, previously reported by the Federal Times, could result in lower donations.

“You have to be careful,” he said. “Technology is not a panacea.”

Marshall Strauss, chief executive of the Workplace Giving Alliance, a consortium of CFC federations, agreed. Although he thinks “electronic donations are an excellent addition to the campaign,” he said he worries that relying solely on that “may dramatically reduce the number of people giving and the overall receipts of the campaign. Many thousands of people prefer to give by check or even cash, and we would hope the government would preserve these options.”

In addition to electronic-only giving, Delfin and others have concerns about a proposal to eliminate 184 local CFC committees in favor of fewer and larger regional panels.

This would require “a reduced number of Federal personnel for oversight purposes,” according to the plan.

But it also would diminish the sense of community that charitable leaders say is crucial in motivating individuals to give.

Dumping the local committees will shrink the “person-to-person feeling of the campaign, which is very, very important,” said Kalman Stein, president and CEO of EarthShare, which was recently selected to administer the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area.

Stein said that he doesn’t think OPM understands “how critical that local component is” and that he is “very concerned the campaign will decline precipitously” if the Local Federal Coordinating Committees are eliminated.

“Our history shows that more consolidation leads to less donations,” said Stein, who, along with Strauss, was a member of the CFC-50 Commission. The commission, formed in 2011 to mark CFC’s 50th anniversary, issued a report last year. A number of its recommendations were incorporated into OPM’s proposals.

But Stein said consolidating the local committees into regional ones would go “way beyond the commission’s recommendations.”

The commission said its 24 recommendations were designed to further encourage a “history of giving” by federal employees, who have “set the standard for workplace giving to charitable organizations.”

But the recent decrease in donations “is a cause for concern,” the report said.

Now there is concern that parts of the OPM plan could make the situation worse.

Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.

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Sri Lanka bans women from being maids abroad

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has said that it would bar women of all ages from travelling abroad to work in menial jobs, following the beheading of a young nanny in Saudi Arabia.

Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella announced that women under 25 were now banned from going to the Arab state to work as maids, adding that it was the first step towards a worldwide travel ban for low-paying jobs.

The move was in response to the execution earlier this month at a prison in Riyadh of Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafik, who was only 17 when she was charged with smothering a four-month-old baby in Saudi Arabia in 2005.

"As a first step we are raising the age limit to 25. We will gradually move towards a total ban on our women going abroad to do low-paying jobs," Rambukwella told reporters.

He did not say by when the total ban would kick in, but said the authorities have started to discourage women from going to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia where most maids are paid less than $300 a month.

Nafik was beheaded after she was found guilty of smothering an infant in her care after an argument with the child's mother, the Saudi interior ministry has said.

The US and the United Nations led international condemnation of the Saudi authorities over the January 9 execution.

Nearly 1.7 million Sri Lankans are employed abroad and the $6 billion they sent home last year is a key source of foreign exchange for the government.

- AFP/sf

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Headley's sentencing is on expected lines: Indian officials

NEW DELHI: Indian agencies may be disappointed of leniency shown by US prosecutors to David Coleman Headley which spared him of death penalty but they are not shocked with the 35 years jail term for him by the American court as they think the 26/11 accused had ensured to escape from capital punishment long ago when he had entered into plea bargaining with the FBI.

Headley had, in fact, pleaded guilty on all 12 counts including his role in Mumbai terror attack only after getting such assurance during plea bargaining.

He, in lieu of this concession, had promised cooperation with US agency.

Officials here said that it was quite clear that Headley would not be handed death sentence nor he would be extradited to India as he had got this specific assurance in lieu of his cooperation immediately after his indictment by the FBI.

Considering this, the officials said, the 35 year jail term followed by supervised release for life seemed sufficient. This is exactly what they had expected from the US court, taking in view the Headley's plea bargaining deal, they added.

India is likely to formally react to the sentencing later on Friday.

Read More..

Deformed Dolphin Accepted Into New Family

In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)—animals not usually known for forging bonds with other species—had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

The researchers observed the group in the ocean surrounding the Azores (map)—about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal—for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Among terrestrial animals, cross-species interactions are not uncommon. These mostly temporary alliances are forged for foraging benefits and protection against predators, said Wilson.

They could also be satisfying a desire for the company of other animals, added marine biologist John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society (the Society owns National Geographic News).

Photographs of dogs nursing tiger cubs, stories of a signing gorilla adopting a pet cat, and videos of a leopard caring for a baby baboon have long circulated the Web and caught national attention.

A Rare Alliance

And although dolphins are known for being sociable animals, Wilson called the alliance between sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin rare, as it has never, to his knowledge, been witnessed before.

This association may have started with something called bow riding, a common behavior among dolphins during which they ride the pressure waves generated by the bow of a ship or, in this case, whales, suggested Francis.

"Hanging around slower creatures to catch a ride might have been the first advantage [of such behavior]," he said, adding that this may have also started out as simply a playful encounter.

Wilson suggested that the dolphin's peculiar spinal shape made it more likely to initiate an interaction with the large and slow-moving whales. "Perhaps it could not keep up with or was picked on by other members of its dolphin group," he said in an email.

Default

But the "million-dollar question," as Wilson puts it, is why the whales accepted the lone dolphin. Among several theories presented in an upcoming paper in Aquatic Mammals describing the scientists' observations, they propose that the dolphin may have been regarded as nonthreatening and that it was accepted by default because of the way adult sperm whales "babysit" their calves.

Sperm whales alternate their dives between group members, always leaving one adult near the surface to watch the juveniles. "What is likely is that the presence of the calves—which cannot dive very deep or for very long—allowed the dolphin to maintain contact with the group," Wilson said.

Wilson doesn't believe the dolphin approached the sperm whales for help in protecting itself from predators, since there aren't many dolphin predators in the waters surrounding the Azores.

But Francis was not so quick to discount the idea. "I don't buy that there is no predator in the lifelong experience of the whales and dolphins frequenting the Azores," he said.

He suggested that it could be just as possible that the sperm whales accepted the dolphin for added protection against their own predators, like the killer whale (Orcinus orca), while traveling. "They see killer whales off the Azores, and while they may not be around regularly, it does not take a lot of encounters to make [other] whales defensive," he said.

Read More..

It's Official: Women Will Serve in Combat

Women will soon be able to serve in combat, as things officially changed with the stroke of a pen today at the Pentagon.

At a joint news conference, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Charman Gen. Martin Dempsey signed a memorandum rolling back a 1994 directive prohibiting women from doing so.

"They serve, they're wounded, and they die right next to each other," Panetta said of women and men in the military. "The time has come to recognize that reality.

"If they're willing to put their lives on the line, then we need to recognize that they deserve a chance," Panetta said, noting that he wants his own granddaughters and grandsons to have the same opportunities in their lives and careers.

The change won't be immediate, however. While Panetta announced that thousands of new positions will now be open to women, he has asked the military branches to submit plans by May on how to integrate women into combat operations. He set a January 2016 deadline for branches to implement the changes, giving military services time to seek waivers for certain jobs.

Both Panetta and Dempsey said they believe the move will strengthen the U.S. military force.

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"Ultimately, we are acting to strengthen the armed forces," Dempsey said. "We will extend opportunities to women in a way that maintains readiness, morale and unit cohesion."

Women have already served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, as ABC News' Martha Raddatz and Elizabeth Gorman reported in 2009: Prohibited from serving in roles "whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground," women in support roles, nonetheless, served in support roles on the frontlines, where they have fought, been wounded and died.

Women have also flown combat missions since 1993 and have served on submarines since 2010.

Panetta noted that 152 women have died serving in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dempsey said he realized a change was inevitable when he noticed two female turret gunners protecting a senior military officer.

"It's clear to all of us that women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military's mission of defending the nation," Panetta said. "Women represent 15 percent of the force of over 200,000 [and] are serving in a growing number of critical roles on and off the battlefield.

"I've gone to Bethesda to visit wounded warriors, and I've gone to Arlington to bury our dead. There's no distincton."

Panetta and Dempsey said President Obama supported the move, while warning them to maintain military readiness as they considered the change.

Obama hailed the move in a written statement

"Today, by moving to open more military positions -- including ground combat units -- to women, our armed forces have taken another historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens," he said.

"This milestone reflects the courageous and patriotic service of women through more than two centuries of American history and the indispensable role of women in today's military," Obama said.

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Football: Real Madrid break 500m-euro mark to top money list

LONDON: Real Madrid have become the first club in any sport to generate more than 500 million euros in revenue in a single year, according to the business advisory firm Deloitte.

The company's Football Money League, published for the 16th time on Thursday, sees Spanish champions Madrid retain their hold on first place ahead of perennial rivals Barcelona.

In an unchanged top six, Manchester United remain third, Bayern Munich fourth, European champions Chelsea fifth and Arsenal sixth, but English champions Manchester City soar five places to seventh.

AC Milan fall one place to eighth, with Liverpool remaining ninth and Italian champions Juventus rising three places to complete the top 10.

Madrid's revenue rose by seven percent to 512.6 million euros in the 2011-2012 season, equivalent to £414.7 million or $644.7 million at June 2012 exchange rates.

It enabled the nine-time European champions to hold onto top spot in the ranking for an eighth successive year, matching United's record from 1996-1997 to 2003-2004.

"It is an impressive achievement for Real Madrid to have surpassed 500 million euros in revenue in a single year," said Dan Jones from Deloitte's Sports Business Group.

"Real have led the way in the phenomenal rate of revenue growth achieved by the game's top clubs, with the double-digit (10-percent) increase by the top 20 clubs representing continued strong performance in these tough economic times.

"The combined revenues of the top 20 clubs have quadrupled since we began our analysis in 1996-1997."

Madrid triumphed in the Spanish Liga in 2011-2012, ending three years of dominance by arch-rivals Barcelona, but lost out in the Champions League after being beaten by Bayern in the semi-finals.

Overall, the combined revenue of the world's 20 highest-earning football clubs grew by 10 percent on the previous year to reach 4.8 billion euros.

City's climb of five places was matched by German champions Borussia Dortmund, who rose to 11th, and Italian side Napoli (15th).

"Manchester City's Premier League title-winning season, combined with participation in the UEFA Champions League, helped drive 51-percent revenue growth to 285.6 million euros, the largest absolute and relative growth of any Money League club," said Deloitte's Austin Houlihan.

"The club's progress to the top of the English and European game means that they are set to remain a top 10 Money League club for the foreseeable future."

The only new entry in the list was English side Newcastle United, who moved into the top 20 at the expense of Spanish club Valencia after a surprise fifth-place finish in the Premier League last season.

The English top flight remains the most well-represented league in the ranking, with seven of the 20 clubs hailing from the Premier League.

The Deloitte Football Money League 2013 (position, previous year's position, club, country, revenue in 2011-2012):

1. (1) Real Madrid (ESP) 512.6 million euros (£414.7 million)

2. (2) Barcelona (ESP) 483 million (390.8 million)

3. (3) Manchester United (ENG) 395.9 million (230.3 million)

4. (4) Bayern Munich (GER) 368.4 million (298.1 million)

5. (5) Chelsea (ENG) 322.6 million (261 million)

6. (6) Arsenal (ENG) 290.3 million (234.9 million)

7. (12) Manchester City (ENG) 285.6 million (231.1 million)

8. (7) AC Milan (ITA) 256.9 million (207.9 million)

9. (9) Liverpool (ENG) 233.2 million (188.7 million)

10. (13) Juventus (ITA) 195.4 million (158.1 million)

11. (16) Borussia Dortmund (GER) 189.1 million (153 million)

12. (8) Inter Milan (ITA) 185.9 million (150.4 million)

13. (11) Tottenham Hotspur (ENG) 178.2 million (144.2 million)

14. (10) Schalke 04 (GER) 174.5 million (141.2 million)

15. (20) Napoli (ITA) 148.4 million (120.1 million)

16. (14) Marseille (FRA) 135.7 million (109.8 million)

17. (17) Lyon (FRA) 131.9 million (106.7 million)

18. (18) Hamburg (GER) 121.1 million (98 million)

19. (15) Roma (ITA) 115.9 million (93.8 million)

20. (new) Newcastle United (ENG) 115.3 million (93.3 million)

- AFP/al

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Is Akbaruddin Owaisi in a bad way?

HYDERABAD: In a development which could give the government sleepless nights, doctors attending on Akbaruddin Owaisi, the jailed MIM legislator, said his health was failing and the 41-year-old leader should be moved, at least, to a prison facility which is close to a multi-speciality hospital.

Owaisi junior is being treated at the Adilabad district hospital, which doctors said did not have modern medical facilities. "According to the last ultrasound done a few months ago, several abdominal adhesions, which are basically fibrous bands between tissues and organs were found and if this is not checked, it can quickly turn into sub-acute obstruction, which would need surgery," said Dr Verghese Muthai, a colorectal surgeon at Yashoda Hospital, Somajiguda.

"If left untreated for a long time, this can lead to full intestinal obstruction which is fatal," he added. Owaisi, who has been arrested for a hate speech delivered in Nirmal town last month, has been made to travel for hundreds of kilometres across three districts to appear before different courts after doctors in Adilabad said he was fit for travel.

Off late, his lawyers are moving bail petition on health grounds, which some observers say is quite common and the fact that he had happily attended party meetings regularly before he was jailed could be a further testimony to his fitness. "His health is not bad. He is okay. The stories of his bad health are being spread to get a quick bail," said a doctor who did not want to be named.

But what is perhaps making the government nervous is the absence of quality healthcare facilities in Adilabad and sources said that perhaps prompted authorities to move him to a guest house from the subjail where he was initially lodged.

Owaisi's case-sheet

Akbar suffering from abdominal adhesions.

Is due for three surgeries: For adhesions and hernia, tendon replacement in left arm and removal of bullet in thigh

Both kidneys working at sub-optimal levels

Also suffers from uticaria, a skin infection

Prone to drug allergies

Doc says should be shifted to a prison facility which is close to a multi-speciality hospital

Read More..

Deformed Dolphin Accepted Into New Family

In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)—animals not usually known for forging bonds with other species—had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

The researchers observed the group in the ocean surrounding the Azores (map)—about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal—for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Among terrestrial animals, cross-species interactions are not uncommon. These mostly temporary alliances are forged for foraging benefits and protection against predators, said Wilson.

They could also be satisfying a desire for the company of other animals, added marine biologist John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society (the Society owns National Geographic news).

Photographs of dogs nursing tiger cubs, stories of a signing gorilla adopting a pet cat, and videos of a leopard caring for a baby baboon have long circulated the web and caught national attention.

A Rare Alliance

And although dolphins are known for being sociable animals, Wilson called the alliance between sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin rare, as it has never, to his knowledge, been witnessed before.

This association may have started with something called bow riding, a common behavior among dolphins during which they ride the pressure waves generated by the bow of a ship or, in this case, whales, suggested Francis.

"Hanging around slower creatures to catch a ride might have been the first advantage [of such behavior]," he said, adding that this may have also started out as simply a playful encounter.

Wilson suggested that the dolphin's peculiar spinal shape made it more likely to initiate an interaction with the large and slow-moving whales. "Perhaps it could not keep up with or was picked on by other members of its dolphin group," he said in an email.

Default

But the "million-dollar question," as Wilson puts it, is why the whales accepted the lone dolphin. Among several theories presented in an upcoming paper in Aquatic Mammals describing the scientists' observations, they propose that the dolphin may have been regarded as nonthreatening and that it was accepted by default because of the way adult sperm whales "babysit" their calves.

Sperm whales alternate their dives between group members, always leaving one adult near the surface to watch the juveniles. "What is likely is that the presence of the calves—which cannot dive very deep or for very long—allowed the dolphin to maintain contact with the group," Wilson said.

Wilson doesn't believe the dolphin approached the sperm whales for help in protecting itself from predators, since there aren't many dolphin predators in the waters surrounding the Azores.

But Francis was not so quick to discount the idea. "I don't buy that there is no predator in the lifelong experience of the whales and dolphins frequenting the Azores," he said.

He suggested that it could be just as possible that the sperm whales accepted the dolphin for added protection against their own predators, like the killer whale (Orcinus orca), while traveling. "They see killer whales off the Azores, and while they may not be around regularly, it does not take a lot of encounters to make [other] whales defensive," he said.

Read More..

Pentagon to Allow Women in Combat

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lift a longstanding ban on women serving in combat, according to senior defense officials.

The services have until this May to come up with a plan to implement the change, according to a Defense Department official.

That means the changes could come into effect as early as May, though the services will have until January 2016 to complete the implementation of the changes.

"We certainly want to see this executed responsibly but in a reasonable time frame, so I would hope that this doesn't get dragged out," said former Marine Capt. Zoe Bedell, who joined a recent lawsuit aimed at getting women on the battlefield.

The military services also will have until January 2016 to seek waivers for certain jobs -- but those waivers will require a personal approval from the secretary of defense and will have to be based on rationales other than the direct combat exclusion rule.

The move to allow women in combat, first reported by the Associated Press, was not expected this week, although there has been a concerted effort by the Obama administration to further open up the armed forces to women.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended in January to Secretary Panetta that the direct combat exclusion rule should be lifted.

"I can confirm media reports that the secretary and the chairman are expected to announce the lifting of the direct combat exclusion rule for women in the military," said a senior Defense Department official. "This policy change will initiate a process whereby the services will develop plans to implement this decision, which was made by the secretary of defense upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey sent Panetta a memo earlier this month entitled, "Women in Service Implementation Plan."

Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

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"The time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service," the memo read.

"To implement these initiatives successfully and without sacrificing our warfighting capability or the trust of the American people, we will need time to get it right," he said in the memo, referring to the 2016 horizon.

Women have been officially prohibited from serving in combat since a 1994 rule that barred them from serving in ground combat units. That does not mean they have been immune from danger or from combat.

As Martha Raddatz reported in 2009, women have served in support positions on and off the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, putting them at equal risk. Hundreds of thousands of women deployed with the military to those two war zones over the past decade. Hundreds have died.

READ MORE: Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan

"The reality of the battlefield has changed really since the Vietnam era to where it is today," said Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former military helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in combat. "Those distinctions on what is combat and what is not really are falling aside. So I think that after having seen women, men, folks who -- cooks, clerks, truck drivers -- serve in combat conditions, the reality is women are already in combat."

Woman have been able to fly combat sorties since 1993. In 2010, the Navy allowed them on submarines. But lifting restrictions on service in frontline ground combat units will break a key barrier in the military.

READ MORE: Smooth Sailing for First Women to Serve on Navy Submarines

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Panetta's decision will set a January 2016 deadline for the military service branches to argue that there are military roles that should remain closed to women.

In February 2012 the Defense Department opened up 14,500 positions to women that had previously been limited to men and lifted a rule that prohibited women from living with combat units.

Panetta also directed the services to examine ways to open more combat roles to women.

However, the ban on direct combat positions has remained in place.

Read More..

Japan researchers grow kidney tissue from stem cells

TOKYO: Researchers in Japan said Wednesday they have succeeded in growing human kidney tissue from stem cells for the first time in a potential breakthrough for millions with damaged organs who are dependent on dialysis.

Kidneys have a complex structure that is not easily repaired once damaged, but the latest findings put scientists on the road to helping a diseased or distressed organ fix itself.

Kenji Osafune of Kyoto University said his team had managed to take stem cells -- the "blank slates" capable of being programmed to become any kind of cell in the body -- and nudge them specifically in the direction of kidney tissue.

"It was a very significant step," he told AFP.

Osafune said they had succeeded in generating intermediate mesoderm tissue from the stem cells, a middle point between the blank slate and the finished kidney tissue.

"There are about 200 types of cells in the human body, but this tissue grows into only three types of cells," namely adrenal cells, reproductive gland cells and kidney cells, he said, adding that as much as 90 percent of cultures in their research developed into viable mesoderm tissue.

This embryonic intermediary can be grown either in test tubes or in a living host into specific kidney cells.

Osafune and his team created part of a urinary tubule, a small tube in the kidney that is used in the production of urine.

While the research is not aimed at growing an entire working kidney, he said the method his team had developed would help scientists learn more about intermediate mesoderm development and may provide a source of cells for regenerative therapy.

"I would say that we have arrived at the preliminary step on the road to the clinical level," he said.

Osafune's research is published in online science journal Nature Communications.

-AFP/fl

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BJP will gain from Rajnath Singh: Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI: Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday congratulated BJP leader Rajnath Singh who is set to become party president, and said the party would "gain from this" move.

"I called up Shri Rajnath Singh ji and congratulated him. He brings with him vast experience of both organisation and administration," Modi said on micro-blogging site Twitter.

"Rajnath Singh ji served as agriculture minister in Atal ji's government (AB Vajpayee). He has always been associated with the farmers. BJP will gain from this," he said.

In dramatic developments on Tuesday, incumbent BJP president Nitin Gadkari announced that he would not seek a second term. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Rajnath Singh emerged as Gadkari's likely successor.

Rajnath Singh's name emerged after a series of meetings involving party leaders Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu, Ram Lal and Ananth Kumar.

BJP leaders are meeting in Delhi and name of the new president is likely to be announced later during the day.

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The Promise and Perils of Mining Asteroids

Encouraged by new space technologies, a growing fleet of commercial rockets and the vast potential to generate riches, a group of entrepreneurs announced Tuesday that they planned to mine the thousands of near-Earth asteroids in the coming decades.

The new company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), is not the first in the field, nor is it the most well-financed. But with their ambition to become the first asteroid prospectors, and ultimately miners and manufacturers, they are aggressively going after what Mark Sonter, a member of DSI's board of directors, called "the main resource opportunity of the 21st century." (Related: "Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?")

Prospecting using miniaturized "cubesat" probes the size of a laptop will begin by 2015, company executives announced. They plan to return collections of asteroid samples to Earth not long after.

"Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of [the United States'] space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago," said Rick Tumlinson, company chairman and a longtime visionary and organizer in the world of commercial space [not sure what commercial space means].

"We sit in a sea of resources so infinite they're impossible to describe," Tumlinson said.

Added Value

There are some 9,000 asteroids described as "near-Earth," and they contain several classes of resources that entrepreneurs are now eyeing as economically valuable.

Elements such as gold and platinum can be found on some asteroids. But water, silicon, nickel, and iron are the elements expected to become central to a space "economy" should it ever develop.

Water can be "mined" for its hydrogen (a fuel) and oxygen (needed for humans in space), while silicon can be used for solar power systems, and the ubiquitous nickel and iron for potential space manufacturing. (See an interactive on asteroid mining.)

Sonter, an Australian mining consultant and asteroid specialist, said that 700 to 800 near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach and land on than the moon.

DSI's prospecting spacecraft will be called "FireFlies," a reference to the popular science fiction television series of the same name. The FireFlies will hitchhike on rockets carrying up communication satellites or scientific instruments, but they will be designed so that they also have their own propulsion systems. The larger mining spacecraft to follow have been named "DragonFlies."

Efficiencies

It all sounds like science fiction, but CEO David Gump said that the technology is evolving so quickly that a space economy can soon become a reality. Providing resources from beyond Earth to power spacecraft and keep space travelers alive is the logical way to go.

That's because the most expensive and resource-intensive aspect of space travel is pushing through the Earth's atmosphere. Some 90 percent of the weight lifted by a rocket sending a capsule to Mars is fuel. Speaking during a press conference at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, Gump said that Mars exploration would be much cheaper, and more efficient, if some of the fuel could be picked up en route. (Related: "7 Ways You Could Blast Off by 2023.")

Although there is little competition in the asteroid mining field so far, DSI has some large hurdles ahead of it. The first company to announce plans for asteroid mining was Planetary Resources, Inc. in spring 2012—the group is backed by big-name investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, and early Google investor Ram Shriram. DSI is still looking for funding.

Owning Asteroids

While these potential space entrepreneurs are confident they can physically lay claim to resources beyond Earth, there remain untested legal issues.

The United Nations Space Treaty of 1967 expressly forbids ownership of other celestial bodies by governments on Earth. But American administrations have long argued that the same is not true of private companies and potential mining rights.

While an American court has ruled that an individual cannot own an asteroid—as in the case of Gregory Nemitz, who laid claim to 433 Eros as a NASA spacecraft was approaching it in 2001—the question of extraction rights has not been tested.

Moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo program are considered to belong to the United States, and the Russian space agency has sold some moon samples it has returned to Earth-sales seen by some as setting a precedent.

Despite the potential for future legal issues, DSI's Gump said his group recently met with top NASA officials to discuss issues regarding technology and capital, and came away optimistic. "There's a great hunger for the idea of getting space missions done with smaller, cheaper 'cubesat' technology and for increased private sector involvement."

Everyone involved acknowledged the vast challenges and risks ahead, but they see an equally vast potential—both financial and societal.

"Over the decades, we believe these efforts will help expand the civilization of Earth into the cosmos, and change what it means to be a citizen of this planet," Tumlinson said.

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Al Qaeda Commander Killed for the 3rd Time

The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.

According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike that targeted a convoy in which he was riding. The al Arabiya account, based on information from "family sources," said that the airstrike left al-Shihri in a coma. He allegedly died soon after and was buried in Yemen.

On Tuesday afternoon, hours after the initial report, a Yemeni government official denied having any information regarding the death of al-Shihri, according to Arabic news site al-Bawaba.

No photos of a body have yet surfaced and no mention of his death has appeared on jihadi forums.
This is the third time al-Shihri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been reported killed since 2009. In 2010, the Yemeni government claimed it had captured him. In September 2012, Yemeni news sites reported he was killed in an American drone strike.

PHOTOS: Terrorists Who Came Back from the Grave

READ: Gitmo Detainee turned terror commander killed: Reports

Al-Shihri, a "veteran jihadist," traveled to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to fight coalition troops, only to be captured weeks later, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He was sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he stayed for six years before being released to Saudi Arabia. There, he entered a so-called "jihadi rehab" program that attempted to turn terrorists into art students by getting them to get "negative energy out on paper," as the program's director told ABC News in 2009.

READ: Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'

But just months after he supposedly entered the fingerpainting camp, al-Shihri reappeared in Yemen where he was suspected to have been behind a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy there.

At the time, critics of the "jihadi rehab" program used al-Shihri as evidence that extremists would just go through the motions in order to be freed.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

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At second inauguration, Obama relishes the rituals, as well as the smaller moments

The second time seemed to charm him.

The choreography of President Obama’s ceremonial inauguration Monday was nearly identical to that of his swearing-in four years ago: church, motorcade to the Capitol, invocation, oath, address, luncheon, parade, dancing.

This time, however, the man taking the oath of office was an experienced president, not a first-term senator. And Obama seemed determined to relish the rituals and have himself some fun.

In his public remarks, he spoke with conviction. From the Capitol steps, he asserted his intention to bind the nation closer together. He was sober in addressing members of Congress at a luncheon.

But the president also found joy in the smaller moments. He blew kisses as he walked the parade route with his jubilant wife, Michelle, beside him. He bobbed his head and grooved watching a drill group from Iowa pass by and waved the shaka sign to the marching band from his Hawaiian high school alma mater. On the dance floor later, he nuzzled his wife’s hair and crooned in her ear.

There was a majesty and gravity to Monday’s proceedings, but this time, unlike four years ago, Obama knows what his office demands, as well as the limits on its power. His life is not in transition like it was then. He is settled.

He seemed to recognize that the next time the country pauses to inaugurate a president, the Obamas will be moving out of the White House, departing the city by helicopter and heading home. After the ceremony on the Capitol steps, as the president headed inside, he turned back and stopped.

“I want to take a look, one more time,” Obama said. “I’m not going to see this again.”

He stood still and looked out at the panorama of flags waving and people, hundreds of thousands of them, cramming the Mall and chanting his name.

It was as if he wanted to engrave the picture on his mind.

And he seemed to savor such moments throughout the day.

When the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” he turned and broadly winked at his daughters, Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, a civil rights activist whose husband, Medgar Evers, was assassinated in 1963 in his Mississippi driveway, delivered the invocation. She spoke of being challenged by adversity — “For every mountain, you gave us the strength to climb,” she said — and Obama, his eyes closed in prayer, lifted his shoulders and took a deep breath.

“Amen,” he said at the end of her prayer.

A man behind the president shouted, “Hallelujah!”

When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. delivered the president’s oath at 11:50 a.m., Obama flubbed a word, “the office of president of the United Sta—.” But it didn’t matter. He had recited the official oath correctly a day earlier, on Jan. 20, the inauguration date mandated by the Constitution. (His daughter Sasha already had congratulated him, too: “You didn’t mess up,” she told him in the Blue Room. )

Then, once Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) introduced him as “the 44th president of the United States,” Obama looked down and smiled. He gathered himself and pushed his chin up, understanding his role in addressing the nation far more clearly than he could have the first time around.

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Cathay asks crew to volunteer for early retirement

HONG KONG: Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific on Tuesday asked its cabin crew to volunteer for early retirement as part of its cost-cutting measures to boost profitability amid a global slowdown.

Cathay has been trying to trim costs after it fell into the red in the first half of 2012 with a HK$935 million ($121 million) loss, partly due to high fuel prices that have also dragged down other regional airlines' performance.

The airline said the scheme would be offered to flight attendants who joined the firm before September 1996, to cut cost as well as to help facilitate recruitment and promotion opportunities.

"It is also part of the airline's cost management measures," a spokeswoman said in a statement to AFP, adding that the airline has not set any target on the number of flight attendants that it hopes would sign up for the scheme.

The carrier has around 9,000 cabin crew members, who serve 170 routes in 42 countries and are among over 20,000 staff the airline employs worldwide. It did not say what number of crew members is eligible for the scheme.

Cathay averted an industrial action by its crews -- which had threatened to stop serving alcohol and smiling at passengers -- over the Christmas holidays last month after it agreed to improve their working conditions.

The protest was sparked by Cathay's bid to give a two percent pay rise to its employees this year, on top of a discretionary one-month bonus for 2012, falling short of the flight attendants union's demand.

Singapore Airlines, one of Cathay's rivals, earlier this month asked its captains to volunteer for unpaid leave after it posted a 69-percent plunge in profit in the carrier's financial year ending March 2012.

- AFP/al

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India, Pakistan spar over UN mission in Kashmir

UNITED NATIONS: India and Pakistan got into a verbal exchange at the Security Council on relevance of the UN observer group at the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, with India stressing the force's role has been "overtaken" by subsequent agreements signed by the two nations under which they resolved to settle differences "through bilateral negotiations".

The exchange occurred during a UN Security Council open debate on peacekeeping, which was organised by Pakistan under its current presidency of the 15-nation powerful UN body.

Presiding over the debate was Pakistan's foreign secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani, who said his country has been a "proud participant" in peacekeeping missions.

"Pakistan is also host to one of the oldest UN peacekeeping missions - the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). This Mission has played an important role in monitoring peace along the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir," Jilani said.

The reference to UNMOGIP was rejected by India's ambassador to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri, who suggested that it would be better to spend resources allocated for the observer group elsewhere in difficult economic times.

"Suffice it to point out that UNMOGIP's role has been overtaken by the Simla Agreement of 1972 between India and Pakistan, signed by the heads of the two governments and ratified by their respective parliaments.

"In times of austerity, we need to address the question whether the resources being spent on UNMOGIP would not be better utilised elsewhere," Puri said in his remarks at the debate, which was initially supposed to be presided over by Pakistan Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.

The Pakistani Supreme Court had last week ordered the arrest of Ashraf in connection with a corruption scandal.

Puri stressed that under the Simla agreement, the two countries had resolved to settle difference "by peaceful means" through bilateral talks.

At the end of the debate, Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN Masood Khan, speaking in his national capacity, responded to Puri's remarks saying that no bilateral agreement between the two nations has "overtaken or affected" the role or legality of the observer group.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Inauguration: 7.5 Things You Should Have Seen

A presidential inauguration is a big, long event that lasts all day and into the night–and who has time to really watch it? People have jobs, ones that don’t let you off for a federal holiday.

Everyone (or, at least, some) will be talking about it, which means potential embarrassment for anyone who doesn’t know what happened. Thankfully, ABC employs  news professionals stationed in Washington, D.C., to pay attention to these kinds of things and boil off some of the less noteworthy or interesting stuff, presenting you with short videos of everything that really mattered. Or at least the things a lot of people were talking about.

A full day of paying attention to President Obama’s second Inauguration leads one of those professionals to offer these 7 1/2 things:

1. Beyonce Sang the National Anthem

Boy, howdy! Did she ever? Beyonce has essentially become the Obama’s go-to female performer: She recorded a music video for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative in 2011, and she performed at the president’s last inauguration in 2009. Her velvety, soulful “Star Spangled Banner” is getting good reviews.

2. Kelly Clarkson Also Sang

Kelly Clarkson is not as “in” with the First Couple as Beyonce seems to be, but they let her sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and she did a pretty good job with it. This was kind of weird, though, because at one point she said she loved Ron Paul, although she later said she would vote for Obama.

3.  Obama Talked About Gay Rights

This may not seem shocking since more than half the country, including President Obama, supports gay marriage. But the president made a point of mentioning gay rights during his speech, equating the struggles of the LGBT community with those of  past civil rights movements, and in doing so made history.

He name-checked Stonewall, the New York City bar that was raided by police in 1969 sparking riots to protest the anti-gay crackdown. And he actually used the word “gay”: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said in his address.

Plenty of inaugural addresses have been chock full of rhetoric about freedom and equality, but in the last four years, the political culture surrounding gay rights has changed significantly, as more states legalized same-sex marriage and as broad swaths of the country got more comfortable with homosexuality in general. Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage, and now his inaugural address, have helped signify that change.

4. Joe Biden Made Jokes and Shook Hands With People

Could we expect anything less?

Here’s how the Vice President toasting Sen. Chuck Schumer instead of President Obama at the big luncheon:  ”I raise my glass to a man who never, never, never operates out of fear, only operates out of confidence, and a guy–I’m toasting you, Chuck.” Watch it:

And here he is, scurrying around and jovially shaking hands with people along the parade route:

5. Richard Blanco Read a Poem That Was Sort of Whitman-esque, But Not Entirely

Cuban-born Richard Blanco became America’s first openly gay, Latino Inauguration poet. He read a nine-stanza poem entitled “One Today,” which set a kind of unifying American tableau scene.

6. Obama and Michelle Walked Around Outside The Limo

President Obama walked part of the parade route, from the Capitol to the White House, with Michelle. They waved to people. It is not entirely abnormal for a president to do this at an inaugural parade. But they walked quite a ways.

7. John Boehner: ‘Godspeed’

The speaker of the House presented American flags to Obama and Biden, telling them: “To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed.”

7 1/2. Sasha and Malia Were There. 

Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, were there. They didn’t really do much, but they did wear coats of different shades of purple that got a lot of  attention on Twitter.

Reports of the daughters looking at smartphones and applying lip gloss highlighted their day. As did this .gif of Sasha yawning.

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After the first black president, who will be second?

President Obama’s historic election in 2008 and his reelection last year proved decisively that race is no longer an insurmountable hurdle to high political office in the United States.

But the current pool of possible candidates suggests that the next black president will not be taking the oath of office anytime soon.

“In the shadow of Barack Obama, there’s not been a lot of growth,” Cornell Belcher, a pollster who was involved in the president’s 2008 campaign, said. “It is really hard for minorities to get elected at the statewide level, and before you start talking about president, frankly, you have to get elected to statewide office.”

The notion of a post-Obama reformation of black politics has not been borne out at the ballot box, as black politicians continue to struggle to win the statewide offices that are the traditional paths to the presidency.

While the election of the first black president marked a significant break from the country’s history of racial prejudice, race still matters: The vast majority of black elected officials are put into office by black voters. Even Obama needed large numbers of black and Latino votes to win, particularly last year, when a majority of whites voters voted for someone else.

Ashley Bell, a former county official in Georgia who switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party with an eye on a future run for statewide office, said that Obama “did convince a lot of young black politicians that they can aspire to crossover offices. We may not live in a post-racial America, but I think we do live in a new era of politics where, on either side of the aisle, everyone knows that a good political candidate is one with crossover appeal, be they white or black or Latino.”

While the country’s changing demographics will favor political leaders of color in the future, the current landscape remains challenging for minority candidates seeking statewide office, particularly governorships and U.S. Senate seats, the typical steppingstones to presidential bids.

Deval L. Patrick (D-Mass.) currently is the nation’s only black governor, and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is the only black member of the Senate, having recently been appointed to fill a vacancy.

Patrick, 56, is often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate, but he has said he has no plans to run in 2016. No other black politicians’ names have come up on the short list of credible contenders for the next national election.

On the GOP side of the aisle, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has been mentioned as a possible candidate but has steadfastly denied any interest. Colin Powell, who preceded Rice as President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, was once a favored GOP prospect, but he also declined to run.

Most recently, Herman Cain, a black Georgia businessman, was briefly a hit among Republican grass-roots activists in the run-up to the primaries, but he dropped his candidacy after a woman revealed a longtime extramarital affair and other women accused him of sexual harassment.

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Tennis: Kuznetsova upsets Wozniacki at Australian Open

MELBOURNE: Two-time Grand Slam winner Svetlana Kuznetsova upset Danish 10th seed and ex-world number one Caroline Wozniacki in a tense three-set battle to make the Australian Open last eight on Monday.

The experienced Russian won 6-2, 2-6, 7-5 and will meet either top seed Victoria Azarenka or Russian Elena Vesnina in the quarter-finals.

It was a courageous win by Kuznetsova, who at 75 is the lowest ranked player left in the tournament after an injury to her right knee forced her to miss a big chunk of 2012, spending two months on crutches.

The injury meant she missed all post-Wimbledon events last year including the US Open, which ended her streak of 40 straight Grand Slam appearances dating back to 2002 at Flushing Meadow.

But Kuznetsova, who won the 2004 US Open and 2009 French Open, said she was feeling fresh again and delighted to be in the quarter-finals.

"I'm really happy with the result because in the second set I got stuck a bit," she said. "But I came out fighting in the third, and it's great.

"After 10 years of travelling I was getting tired," she added of her time on tour. "But I'm feeling fresh again and very happy to be in the quarter-finals because I struggled last year."

It was Wozniacki who was struggling on Monday. Her preparations for Melbourne were hurt by going out early at both the Brisbane and Sydney International tournaments, and her lacklustre form continued in Melbourne.

It was Kuznetsova who knocked her out of Sydney in the second round and while both players held their opening serves, the Russian put the Dane under pressure with some aggressive groundstrokes in the third game.

She won a crucial advantage on the second break point to go 2-1 ahead and consolidated the break by holding serve.

Kuznetsova kept pressing and got a second break in the seventh game when Wozniacki smashed a forehand into the net. She served out for the set but against the run of play, Wozniacki broke for a 2-0 lead in the second set.

The Russian lost her momentum and the Dane pushed on to get another break and take the set in 33 minutes.

It set up a tense decider and the Russian came out refreshed, taking a break for 2-1 with Wozniacki's frustration clear as she slammed her racquet to the ground.

The Dane dug deep to immediately break back as Kuznetsova lashed a forehand wide. The set became a battle with each player desperately trying to outsmart the other.

Kutznetsova finally got the breakthrough when Wozniacki netted a forehand on her serve to hand the Russian a 5-4 lead and she served out for the match.

- AFP/al

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