The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.
The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.
KOSHU, Japan: At least seven people were trapped inside a highway tunnel in Japan after it collapsed on Sunday, setting a car ablaze and raising fears of another cave-in that forced a halt to rescue efforts.
Two vehicles were crushed in the original collapse and one other was set ablaze when large concrete ceiling panels fell in inside one of Japan's longest motorway tunnels at nearly five kilometres long.
A comprehensive rescue effort was launched but more than five hours after the incident, workers pulled out of the tunnel because of concerns that more of the roof might collapse, a fire official told AFP.
The cave-in happened on Tokyo-bound lanes of the Sasago tunnel on the Chuo Expressway, 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of the capital, at around 8:00 am (2300 GMT Saturday), an official at the expressway traffic police said.
"Concrete ceiling panels, 20 centimetres (8 inches) thick, collapsed over 50-60 metres (yards)," an official from the East Yamanashi Fire Department told AFP by telephone.
"At least two vehicles were trapped under the debris. Another, a light vehicle, caught fire but the fire was under control, meaning almost extinguished, as of 11:00 am (0200 GMT)," he said.
NHK footage from inside the tunnel showed a white ambulance and several firefighters wearing protective gear, working in a section shrouded in smoke. A number of cars with their lights flashing were also seen.
"According to information from local fire authorities, seven people are missing but the number has not been confirmed," an official at the government's Fire and Disaster Management Agency told AFP.
The fire department official said emergency crews had pulled out of the tunnel shortly before 1:00 pm "due to the possibility of a secondary collapse".
A 28-year-old woman was taken to hospital by ambulance after she emerged from the tunnel by herself, a traffic police official said.
The woman told the fire rescue unit she had been travelling in a rented van with five other people, fire department official Kazuya Tezuka told AFP by telephone.
"I have no idea about what happened to the five others. I don't know how many vehicles were ahead and behind ours," she was quoted as saying.
The tunnel, which passes through hills not far from Mount Fuji, is one of the longest in Japan at 4.7-kilometres (three miles) long, according to the highway operator, and sits on a major road connecting Tokyo with the centre and west of the country.
One of the fire department officials told AFP that emergency workers had taken two women to hospital.
"Both were conscious. One of them, 28, suffered injuries to the head, face and and both hands. The other, 37, suffered bruising," he said.
"A truck driver inside the tunnel called a colleague for help. So he appeared to be trapped in his vehicle. An ambulance is on its way to him," he added.
A reporter for NHK said he happened to be driving through the tunnel on his way to Tokyo when it started to disintegrate.
"I managed to drive through the tunnel but vehicles nearby appeared to have been trapped," he said. "Black smoke was coming and there seemed to be a fire inside the tunnel."
Thick smoke inside the tunnel had hampered rescuers' attempts to reach the caved-in point, two kilometres (one mile) from the Tokyo-side exit, the fire department's Tezuka said.
Aerial footage on NHK showed several red trucks from the local fire department waiting outside the Tokyo side of the tunnel.
Dozens of people were seen waiting at an expressway bus stop just outside the exit. They were believed to have exited from the tunnel, NHK said.
A man in his 30s, who was just 50 metres (yards) ahead of the caved-in spot when the incident happened, recounted details of the terrifying experience.
"A concrete part of the ceiling fell off all of a sudden when I was driving inside. I saw a fire coming from a crushed car. I was so frightened I got out of my car right away and walked one hour to get outside," he told NHK.
"The traffic was not so heavy," he added.
A stream of people was seen coming out of the other exit after abandoning their vehicles in the tunnel, the broadcaster said.
- AFP/xq
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Saturday that voting inside the parliament would decide as to who is in favour of national interest and who is working for international interests.
"The government feels that their responsibility is to safeguard the interest of international market mafias instead of national interest and for saving the interest of international market mafias, the government is ready to compromise with national interests. Now, the parliament will decide as to who is in support of international market mafias and who are supporting national interests," said Naqvi.
The government's decision to allow foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart had triggered protest not only from opposition parties but also from some of its allies.
BJP had sought debate on the issue of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector, under the rule that entails voting after discussions.
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), V Narayanaswamy said the government would answer all the queries raised by the opposition parties in the parliament and will explain the benefits of allowing FDI in retail sector.
The lower house of parliament has set December 04 and 05 as the date to vote and debate on FDI. The dates for the upper house are yet to be decided.
Narayanaswamy said the government is confident of becoming victorious in the debate.
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.
Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.
The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.
The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
“Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot
Published November 30, 2012
(Brendan Smialkowski/AFP/Getty Images)
Bradley Manning’s former guards testified today that they did not intimidate the man accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrets website Wikileaks during a Jan. 18, 2011 incident that resulted in Manning being placed on a temporary suicide risk watch.
Manning’s attorneys cite the event as a key reason why his pre-trial confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., was unlawful and warrants the dismissal of the charges against him.
Manning faces life imprisonment on charges that he leaked the classified military and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks. Details of those charges will come at a trial scheduled for February and are not being discussed at this week’s hearing, which is focused on his nine-month confinement at Quantico from July 2010 to April 2011.
On Jan. 18, 2011 Manning was being moved to his daily “recreation call” in a room at the brig when he experienced an apparent anxiety attack. Manning said Thursday the guards escorting him seemed to have an aggressive attitude that made him feel nervous and ultimately feel faint.
Manning testified Thursday that he “lost my demeanor” during a later discussion with brig officials about the incident that led them to place him on temporary suicide risk watch.
Former Marine guards Lance Corporal Joshua Tankersly and Lance Corporal Jonathan Cline testified today that Manning had been moving around while his hand and leg restraints were placed on him for the escort to the exercise room. They said they reminded Manning that he should respond properly to their orders by referring to their ranks when he answered them.
When Manning entered the recreation room they described a situation in which Manning fell backwards and landed on his backside.
They then said that when out of his leg restraints Manning ran to a weightlifting machine, hid behind it and began to cry. Both Cline and Tankersly said they could not explain Manning’s behavior. Both guards were ordered to leave the room and were replaced by two other guards who escorted Manning back to his cell.
Cline said he was puzzled when a supervisor later told him “we intimidated him or something like that.”
Each guard said he could not recall if they sounded harsh when they talked to Manning on the way to the exercise room.
They both said that aside from the January incident, Manning was courteous and professional in his interactions with them. Both described him as an average prisoner, though Tankersly acknowledged that Manning was a high profile detainee who had the attention of high-ranking officials at the base.
“It’s hard to put ‘average’ on such a high profile, when you have higher ups on base come and check through to that see all was OK,” Tankersly said.
Gunnery Sgt. William Fuller, one of the senior officers at the brig, also testified today about his participation in a Classification and Assessment board that routinely assessed whether Manning’s Maximum Custody and Prevention of Injury status should be downgraded. The board never reduced Manning’s status during his stay.
Fuller acknowledged that before the January incident he and another brig official had considered a downgrade because Manning was “doing pretty good.”
He said the Jan. 18incident “kind of reset things … we had to keep him on Prevention of Injury.”
Fuller also cited Manning’s quiet interactions with him as a reason for keeping Manning on that status.
According to Fuller “he wouldn’t communicate … it seemed like he didn’t really want to talk” and that concerned him, given training he had received that being withdrawn could be an indicator of suicidal behavior.
Fuller admitted that the conversations were really just quick interactions to see how Manning was doing.. When asked to provide examples of longer exchanges he had with other prisoners, Fuller provided brief sentences. That led David Coombs, Manning’s defense attorney to say sarcastically, “so if he’d thrown in more words then he would have classified as a Chatty Patty?”
Manning’s attorneys claim that a protest on Jan. 17 by Manning supporters, at the entrance to the base, may have motivated an aggressive attitude towards the detainee.
Cline recalled other guards “were annoyed” by the protest” because it would close parts of the base and hinder or interrupt how they got home.” But Tankersly said the protest had no impact on Manning’s treatment.
The three Republican senators emerged grim-faced from a basement meeting room in the Capitol on Tuesday and took turns before a bank of televisions cameras, blasting away at the Obama administration for its handling of the deadly attack on an American outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
The first two were prominent national security heavyweights, Arizona’s John McCain and Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina. Then the third senator, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, stepped forward. A freshman in her second year and ranked 99th in seniority, Ayotte said she had not been swayed by the administration’s efforts to explain how and why U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice had initially suggested the attack was the result of a spontaneous street protest, instead of a coordinated terrorist attack.
NEW YORK: Ford Motor Company on Friday issued a recall of more than 89,000 vehicles in the United States and Canada amid concerns on engine fires.
The automaker said the voluntary recall affects SE and SEL models of the 2013 Escape and 2013 Fusion that are equipped with a 1.6-litre engine.
"Ford is voluntarily recalling these vehicles because of reports of engine overheating, resulting in engine fires while the engine is running. No injuries have been reported," it said in a statement.
2013 Escape or 2013 Fusion models with other engines are not affected.
In total, Ford estimates that about 73,320 Escapes and 15,833 Fusions with the engine in question have been produced and distributed for sale in both the United States and Canada, with most in the US market.
"Ford is working on a repair procedure," it said.
In July, the Dearborn, Michigan-based manufacturer recalled 11,500 2013 model Escape SUVs, sold in North America, with the same 1.6-litre engine, also amid fire concerns.
- AFP/xq
"Curfew has been lifted from all nine police station areas of Srinagar city as the situation remained peaceful following imposition of restrictions on Wednesday," a police spokesman said.
Curfew was imposed in Nowhatta, M R Gunj, Safakadal, Khanyar, Rainawari, Nigeen, Lal Bazaar, Zadibal and Parimpora police station areas on Wednesday after sectarian clashes broke out in Hawal area of the city.
Hawal, Gojwara and adjoining areas have become flash points for sectarian violence over the past couple of years during Muharram processions.
With the lifting of the curfew, normal life resumed in all parts of the city with schools, colleges, shops, offices and business establishments opening.
The examinations being conducted by the University of Kashmir were also held on Saturday after two days. The examinations scheduled for Thursday and Friday were cancelled due to curfew and will now be held at a later date.
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.
Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.
The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.
The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
“Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot
Published November 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 1:45pm
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
The outlook for reaching some sort of bipartisan agreement on the so-called “fiscal cliff” before the Dec. 31 deadline is looking increasingly grim. Shortly after noon today, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, appeared before the cameras to say the talks had reached a “stalemate.”
But there may be a glimmer of hope. There are currently 33 outgoing members of Congress — they’re either retiring or were defeated last month — who have signed the Grover Norquist pledge stating that they will not raise taxes. Those members, particularly the ones who have traditionally been somewhat moderate, could hold the key to that stance softening.
“You have 33 people who do not have to worry about the future political consequences of their vote,” said ABC political director Amy Walter. “These are people who theoretically can vote based purely on the issue rather than on how it will impact their political future.”
One outgoing member has publicly indicated a willingness to join with Obama and the Democrats on a partial deal.
“I have to say that if you’re going to sign me up with a camp, I like what Tom Cole has to say,” California Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack said on CNN on Thursday. Cole is the Republican who suggested that his party vote to extend the Bush tax-rates for everyone but the highest income earners and leave the rest of the debate for later. Mack’s husband, Connie, however, also an outgoing Republican member of Congress, said he disagreed with his wife.
But in general, among the outgoing Republican representatives with whom ABC News has made contact, the majority have been vague as to whether or not they still feel bound by the pledge, and whether they would be willing to raise tax rates.
“[Congressman Jerry Lewis] has always been willing to listen to any proposals, but there isn’t,” a spokesman for Rep. Lewis, Calif., told ABC News. “He’s said the pledge was easy because it goes along with his philosophy that increasing tax doesn’t solve any problems. However, he’s always been willing to listen to proposals.”
“Congressman Burton has said that he does not vote for tax increases,” a spokesman for Dan Burton, Ind., said to ABC.
“With Representative Herger retiring, we are leaving this debate to returning members and members-elect,” an aide for Wally Herger, Calif., told ABC News.
The majority of Congress members will likely wait until a deal is on the table to show their hand either way. However, it stands to reason that if any members of Congress are going to give in and agree to raise taxes, these would be the likely candidates.
An agreement will require both sides to make some concessions: Republicans will need to agree to some tax increases, Democrats will need to agree to some spending cuts. With Republicans and Democrats appearing to be digging further into their own, very separate territories, the big question is, which side will soften first?
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