Egyptians vote on divisive constitution

CAIRO/ALEXANDRIA (Reuters) - Egyptians queued in long lines on Saturday to vote on a constitution promoted by its Islamist backers as the way out of a political crisis and rejected by opponents as a recipe for further divisions in the Arab world's biggest nation.

Soldiers joined police to secure the referendum after deadly protests during the buildup. Street brawls erupted again on Friday in Alexandria, Egypt's second city, but voting proceeded quietly there, with no reports of violence elsewhere.

President Mohamed Mursi provoked angry demonstrations when he issued a decree last month expanding his powers and then fast-tracked the draft constitution through an assembly dominated by his Muslim Brotherhood group and its allies. At least eight people were killed in clashes last week outside the presidential palace.

His liberal, secular and Christian opponents says the constitution is too Islamist and tramples on minority rights. Mursi's supporters say the charter is needed if progress is to be made towards democracy nearly two years after the fall of military-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak.

"The sheikhs (preachers) told us to say 'yes' and I have read the constitution and I liked it," said Adel Imam, a 53-year-old queuing to vote in a Cairo suburb. "The country will move on."

Opposition politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on Twitter: "Adoption of (a) divisive draft constitution that violates universal values and freedoms is a sure way to institutionalize instability and turmoil."

Official results will not be announced until after a second round of voting next Saturday. But partial results and unofficial tallies are likely to emerge soon after the first round, giving some idea of the outcome.

In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of voters who cast ballots. A little more than half of Egypt's electorate of 51 million are eligible to vote in the first round in Cairo and other cities.

Rights groups reported some abuses, such as polling stations opening late, officials telling people to vote "yes", bribery and intimidation.

But Gamal Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, which is monitoring the vote, said nothing reported so far was serious enough to invalidate the referendum.

"Until now, there is no talk of vote rigging," said Eid.

TRANSITION

Christians, making up about 10 percent of Egypt's 83 million people and who have long grumbled of discrimination, were among those waiting at a polling station in Alexandria to oppose the basic law. They fear Islamists, long repressed by Mubarak, will restrict social and other freedoms.

"I voted 'no' to the constitution out of patriotic duty," said Michael Nour, a 45-year-old Christian teacher in Alexandria. "The constitution does not represent all Egyptians."

Howaida Abdel Azeem, a post office employee, said: "I said 'yes' because I want the destruction the country is living through to be over and the crisis to pass, and then we can fix things later."

Islamists are counting on their disciplined ranks of supporters and the many Egyptians who may fall into line in the hope of ending turmoil that has hammered the economy and sent Egypt's pound to eight-year lows against the dollar.

Mursi was among the early voters after polls opened at 8 a.m. (1:00 a.m. Eastern Time). He was shown on television casting his ballot shielded by a screen and then dipping his finger in ink - a measure to prevent people voting twice.

Turnout was high enough for voting on Saturday to be extended by four hours to 11 p.m. (4 p.m. Eastern Time). One senior official on the committee overseeing the referendum said Saturday's vote could continue on Sunday if crowds were too heavy to allow everyone to cast ballots in one day. Voting for Egyptians abroad that began on Wednesday has been extended to Monday, the state news agency reported.

After weeks of turbulence, there has been limited public campaigning. Opposition politicians and parties, beaten in two elections since Mubarak's overthrow, only announced on Wednesday that they backed a "no" vote instead of a boycott.

TWO DAYS

The second round will be held in other regions on December 22 because there are not enough judges willing to monitor all polling stations after some said they would boycott the vote.

Egyptians are being asked to accept or reject a constitution that must be in place before a parliamentary election can be held next year to replace an Islamist-led parliament dissolved in June. Many hope this will lead Egypt towards stability.

If the constitution is voted down, a new assembly will have to be formed to draft a revised version, a process that could take up to nine months.

The army has deployed about 120,000 troops and 6,000 tanks and armored vehicles to protect polling stations and other government buildings. While the military backed Mubarak and his predecessors, it has not intervened in the present crisis.

(Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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Football: Benteke rampant as Aston Villa curb Liverpool's revival

LIVERPOOL, United Kingdom: Christian Benteke scored twice and made another goal as Aston Villa checked Liverpool's recent resurgence with a 3-1 win at Anfield in the Premier League on Saturday.

Liverpool were bidding for a fourth consecutive win in all competitions but failed to convert a string of first-half chances and were punished when goals from Benteke and Andreas Weimann put Villa 2-0 up at half-time.

Benteke struck again early in the second half and although Steven Gerrard pulled one back, it was too late to prevent Paul Lambert's side - the youngest Villa team ever to start a Premier League game - from extending their unbeaten run to five league games.

Victory eased Villa's relegation fears by carrying them up to 14th place, four days after they beat Norwich City 4-1 to reach the League Cup semi-finals, while Liverpool slipped two places to 12th.

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers had talked up his side's chances of a top-four finish in the build-up to the match and they certainly began the game with ambition.

Villa goalkeeper Brad Guzan had to be alert after visiting defender Eric Lichaj diverted Stewart Downing's low cross towards his own goal, while Gerrard could only shoot straight at Guzan from just inside the penalty area.

Downing and Joe Allen fired narrowly wide for the hosts, before Nathan Baker had to produce a last-ditch challenge to thwart Jonjo Shelvey.

Luis Suarez returned to the Liverpool line-up after suspension and he spurned a fine chance in the 27th minute, placing a tame half-volley within Guzan's reach from Shelvey's lay-off.

The hosts were punished for their wastefulness two minutes later, when Benteke gathered possession in the inside-left channel before arrowing a low drive into the bottom-left corner from 25 yards.

It was almost 2-0 shortly afterwards, Weiman lobbing onto the roof of the net following a miscued header from Glen Johnson, but five minutes before the interval, the Austrian made no mistake.

A sweeping move culminated in Weimann rolling a pass into the box for Benteke, whose cute back-heel found Weimann rushing in to dispatch a crisp shot across Pepe Reina.

Rodgers introduced Joe Cole at half-time but he was to play an unwitting role in Villa's third goal in the 51st minute.

After the former England man was robbed in midfield, Benteke collected possession and the Belgian striker was allowed to advance deep into the Liverpool box before prodding the ball past Reina.

Johnson had a penalty appeal turned down when his header seemed to strike Baker's arm, before Gerrard stooped to head home Johnson's left-foot shot to give the hosts an 87th-minute consolation.

English Premier League results:

Liverpool 1 Aston Villa 3
Manchester Utd 3 Sunderland 1
Newcastle 1 Manchester City 3
Norwich 2 Wigan 1
QPR 2 Fulham 1
Stoke 1 Everton 1

- AFP/de

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Jundal is an Indian operative: Rehman Malik

NEW DELHI: A day after he offended his hosts by seeking to draw a comparison between Babri demolition and Mumbai terror attack, Rehman Malik was at it again on Saturday. The visiting interior minister festered India's 26/11 wound by saying that Abu Jundal, who had coordinated the terror strikes of Ajmal Kasab and nine other Laskhar terrorists from the Karachi control room, worked for an Indian intelligence agency.

"Abu Jundal is an Indian. We are also curious as to how he and others landed in Pakistan. He was a known criminal. He worked as a source of an Indian intelligence agency. I am not saying this. He himself has said so. I have seen records," Malik said in an exclusive conversation with the TOI.

The remark may outrage the Indian government, considering Pakistan went to great lengths to block Jundal's deportation from Saudi Arabia. Pakistan's diplomats had even told Saudi authorities that Jundal was a Pakistani, citing the passport and the national identity number issued to him.

In fact, while talking to TOI, Malik also underlined the involvement of two other Indians, including Ansari (Fahimuddin?) in the 26/11 attack, who had been to Pakistan. "We have to figure out all these...whether non-state actors from the two sides are acting at the instance of a third power. You are aware that things had taken an alarming turn, with both countries massing their troops on the border. Things would have been worse if the leadership on both sides had not shown maturity," said Malik, who is on a three-day official visit to India.

Denying the charge that Pakistan was reluctant to get to the bottom of the conspiracy behind 26/11 specifically when all evidence are there on Pakistani soil, Malik said that the trial would have been completed by now if a Judicial Commission from Pakistan had been allowed to cross-examine the four crucial Indian witnesses in the Mumbai attack case when it had visited India (in March, 2012). He also said that with the Indian government agreeing to let in the judicial commission visit Mumbai and cross-examine the witnesses "very soon", the trial in Pakistan (of Lashkar commander Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi and six other accused) in the 26/11 case would be concluded swiftly.

Responding to a question, Malik repeated his insistence that the two countries should let bygones and be bygones in order to have better ties: a pitch which is seen by here as code for saying that India should drop its insistence for punishment to 26/11 perpetrators as the pre-condition for discussing Jammu & Kashmir and other contentious issues.

However, he avoided a specific answer when asked the same "let's-move-on by forgetting the past" should require Pakistan to withdraw its claims over J&K. "We have to forget that India and Pakistan are enemies... We are converging on Kashmir issue. It is part of composite dialogue... we are not forgetting 26/11... I am not saying forget the incident. I am only saying that forget the feeling of animosity. Let us create an era of brightness".

Malik, who met PM Manmohan Singh on Saturday, sought to douse the controversy he triggered by drawing a parallel between the Babri demolition and the terror attack on Mumbai. "There is no comparison whatsoever between Babri Masjid demolition and the 26/11 attacks. Babri mosque (demolition) was actually an ethnic issue... It was actually a sectarian strife... My remarks should not be taken in a negative way. I have no intention to interfere with inter-faith matters," said the visiting minister, adding that Pakistan itself is a victim of sectarian strife among the Shias and the Sunnis.

The former police officer, who is known for his loyalty to the Bhutto clan, had on Friday hushed his host Indian home minister Sushilkumar Shinde by seeking to draw a parity between the 1992 demolition of Ayodhya mosque and the lethal assault on Mumbai in November, 2008.

Malik clarified that his intention was not to cause controversy or hurt anyone, claiming that he was merely trying to alert both countries to the consequences of sectarian violence. "Extremism is on the rise on both sides, and steps should be taken to check it," he said.

The Pakistani interior minister said he during his meetings with both the PM and national security advisor Shivshankar Menon pitched that Indian agencies should share the details of their investigations into 26/11 with Islamabad.

He claimed that the frostiness in ties post-26/11 has already thawed. "I have found great hope between people of the two countries... incidents are happening because we were not every close ... after Bombay (Mumbai) blats, how many things have happened?... Whenever India has said we suspect some area we have searched and even shared info... Intelligence to intelligence, government to government and ministry to ministry... everybody is interacting. With interaction comes friendship. All incidents happening can be averted with friendship... you are spending millions we are spending million (security)... we have to fight poverty and extremism. At government level, we have done many things...now people-to-people contact will clear the misunderstanding. We have created a situation for this now".

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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Conn. Shooter Adam Lanza: Quiet, Bright, Troubled

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed 20 kids and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school Friday, was very bright, say neighbors and former classmates, but he was also socially awkward and deeply troubled.

"[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said family friend Barbara Frey. A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."

READ full ABC News coverage of the Connecticut shootings.

On Friday morning, Lanza shot his mother Nancy in the face at the home they shared in Newtown, and then drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Dressed in black combat gear, he broke a window at the school, which had recently had a new security system installed, and within minutes had shot and killed six adults and 20 schoolchildren between the ages of five and 10.

The shooting stopped when Lanza put a bullet in his own head. Multiple weapons were found at the scene, including two semiautomatic handguns registered to his mother. A Bushmaster rifle registered to Nancy was discovered outside in the car.

Long before Lanza's spree, however, residents of Newtown had noticed that tall, pale boy was different, and believed he had some kind of unspecified personality disorder.

"Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old," wrote aneighbor and former classmate Timothy Dalton on Twitter. "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised."

In school, Lanza carried a black briefcase and spoke little. Every day, he wore a sort of uniform: khakis and a shirt buttoned up to the neck, with pens lined up in his shirt pocket.

Newtown School Massacre: 20 Children, 7 Adults Dead Watch Video

Newtown Teacher Kept 1st Graders Calm During Massacre Watch Video

A former classmate in his 10th grade honors English class, Olivia DeVivo, says he "was always very nervous and socially awkward."

She told ABC News that "he didn't really want to be spoken to" and that when teachers would call on him "it appeared physically difficult for him to speak."

Lanza avoided public attention and had few, if any, friends. He liked to sit near the door of the classroom to make a quick exit.

He even managed to avoid having his picture in his high school yearbook. Instead of his portrait, the space reserved for Adam Lanza says "Camera Shy." And unlike most in his age group, he seems to have left little imprint on the internet – no Facebook page, no Twitter account.

Lanza's parents Peter and Nancy Lanza married in New Hampshire in 1981, and had two sons, Adam and his older brother Ryan, who is now 24 and lives in New Jersey.

The Lanzas divorced in 2009 after 28 years of marriage due to "irreconcilable differences." When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a "parenting education program."

Adam was 17 at the time of the divorce. He continued to live in Newtown with his mother. His father now lives in his Stamford, Connecticut with his second wife.

Peter Lanza, who drove to northern New Jersey to talk to police and the FBI, is a vice president at GE Capital and had been a partner at global accounting giant Ernst & Young.

Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24, has worked at Ernst & Young for four years, apparently following in his father's footsteps and carving out a solid niche in the tax practice. He too was interviewed by the FBI. Neither he nor his father is under any suspicion.

"[Ryan] is a tax guy and he is clean as a whistle," a source familiar with his work said.

Police had initially identified Ryan as the killer. Ryan sent out a series of Facebook posts saying it wasn't him and that he was at work all day. Video records as well as card swipes at Ernst & Young verified his statement that he had been at the office.

Two federal sources told ABC News that identification belonging to Ryan Lanza was found at the scene of the mass shooting. They say that identification may have led to the confusion by authorities during the first hours after the shooting.

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U.S., rebels urge gloomy Moscow to help oust Assad

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's rebel leadership and the United States seized on Russian pessimism over President Bashar al-Assad's future to urge Moscow to help push its ally into ceding power and end the battles closing in around his capital.

"We want to commend the Russian government for finally waking up to the reality and acknowledging that the regime's days are numbered," the U.S. State Department spokeswoman said after a senior Kremlin envoy conceded publicly on Thursday that Assad's opponents could win the 20-month-old civil war.

"The question now is, will the Russian government join those of us in the international community who are working with the opposition to try to have a smooth democratic transition?" U.S. spokeswoman Victoria Nuland added in Washington.

In Marrakech, where his new coalition won recognition from other international powers as the legitimate leadership of Syria, rebel political leader Mouaz al-Khatib said he believed Russia, ally and arms supplier to the Assad dynasty since Soviet times, was looking for ways out of its support for a lost cause.

"I believe that the Russians have woken up and are sensing that they have implicated themselves with this regime, but they don't know how to get out," al-Khatib told Reuters. He held them "particularly responsible" for helping Assad with arms but said Moscow need not "lose everything" in Syria if it changed tack.

Under President Vladimir Putin, wary since last year's Libyan war of what Russia sees as a Western drive to use the United Nations to overthrow national leaders it dislikes, Russia has blocked U.N. efforts to squeeze Assad, who has also had strong support from his long-time sponsor Iran.

But Mikhail Bogdanov, a deputy foreign minister and the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, was quoted as saying in Moscow: "One must look the facts in the face."

"Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out." The Syrian government, he said, was "losing control of more and more territory" and Moscow was preparing to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary.

Nuland said Bogdanov's comments demonstrated that Moscow now "sees the writing on the wall" on Syria and said Russia should now rally behind U.N. efforts to prevent a wider bloodbath.

"They can withdraw any residual support for the Assad regime, whether it is material support (or) financial support," she said. "They can also help us to identify people who might be willing, inside of Syria, to work on a transitional structure."

DIPLOMACY

International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who has met Russian and U.S. officials twice in the past week, is seeking a solution based on an agreement reached in Geneva in June that called for the creation of a transitional government in Syria.

But Russia has repeated warnings that recognition of al-Khatib's coalition, notably by the United States, is undermining diplomacy, and rejected U.S. contentions that the Geneva agreement sent a clear message that Assad should step down.

Nuland said the Brahimi meetings could lay the framework for a political structure to follow Assad:

"We've said all along to the Russians that we are concerned that the longer that this goes on, and the longer it takes us to get to an alternative political path for Syria, the only path is going to be the military one and that is just going to bring more violence.

"We all ought to be working together."

Bogdanov, whose government has suggested that Assad himself should be allowed to see through a transition he has promised, suggested the rebels and their allies were set on a military solution and he gave little hint of detente with Washington.

"The fighting will become even more intense and (Syria) will lose tens of thousands and, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of civilians," Bogdanov was quoted as saying. "If such a price for the removal of the president seems acceptable to you, what can we do? We, of course, consider it absolutely unacceptable."

The head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said elsewhere: "I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse."

A U.S. official said: "Assad probably still believes that Syria is his and illusions can die hard. But Assad and those closest to him have got to be feeling the psychological strain of fighting a long war that is not going their way."

DAMASCUS BATTLES

But Al-Khatib, who played down Western concerns of sectarian Sunni Islamists in rebel ranks, warned that the fighting was far from over, even as it has begun to rattle the heart of Assad's power in Damascus. On Wednesday, a car bomb killed at least 16 people in a nearby town which is home to many military families.

"The noose is tightening around the regime," al-Khatib said.

"(But) the regime still has power. People think that the regime is finished, but it still has power left, but it is demoralized and however long it lasted its end is clear."

Day and night, Damascenes can hear the thunderous sound of bombardment aimed at rebel-held and contested neighborhoods.

The city's streets have now turned into a labyrinth of checkpoints and road blocks, with several major roads permanently closed off to traffic by concrete barriers.

"We escape from one place and trouble follows," said one grandmother, Um Hassan, as she described to Reuters her family's flight from one neighborhood to another as fighting seeps into the capital. "I don't know where we can keep running to."

Nonetheless, al-Khatib played down demands for their allies to provide heavier weaponry - a request long resisted by governments wary of anti-aircraft missiles and other hardware reaching Islamist rebels who might turn them against the West.

"The Syrian people ... no longer need international forces to protect them," he said, not specifying whether he meant a no-fly zone, arms supplies or other military support.

The opposition chief said he was willing to listen to proposals for Assad to escape with his life - "The best thing is that he steps down and stops drinking the blood of the Syrian people" - and outlined three scenarios for a change of power:

Al-Khatib ruled out the Russian proposal suggesting Assad hand over power to a transitional government while remaining president, saying it was "disgraceful for a slaughtered nation to accept to have a killer and criminal at its head".

The British-based Syrian Observatory said war planes bombed rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and artillery was hitting Daraya and Moadamiyeh, southwestern areas near the centre where rebels have been fighting for a foothold.

Syria has relied on war planes and helicopters to bombard rebel districts but Damascus denied accusations by U.S. and NATO officials that it had fired Scud missiles in recent days. The foreign ministry said the long-range missiles were not used against "terrorist groups," a term it uses for the rebels.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests which were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Michael Roddy) For an interactive look at the uprising in Syria, please click on http://link.reuters.com/rut37s

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I'll answer crime questions in neutral country: McAfee

MIAMI: Anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee said in a TV interview Friday that he was willing to answer questions about the murder of his neighbor in Belize in a neutral country.

McAfee, who insists he is innocent, also admitted that he was worth "less than" US$5 million -- a day after saying he was broke -- though it was unclear how he would access that money.

"I've said in any neutral country I will meet and answer any questions you want," McAfee told the CNBC business TV network.

"I'm certainly not going to turn myself into the authorities who have been trying to lay their hands on me for months now. I will not go back to Belize," he said.

Authorities in Belize want to question McAfee about the death of Gregory Faull, a 52-year-old Florida expatriate who was found by his housekeeper with a 9-mm bullet in his head, lying in a pool of his own blood.

McAfee fled Belize to Guatemala with his 20 year-old girlfriend, but was then deported to the United States. He says he went on the run because he feared for his life, claiming corruption among Belizean police and politicians.

Belize has an extradition treaty with the United States, so if murder charges are filed he could be sent back to the Central American nation.

McAfee, who is staying in a popular Miami Beach hotel, has become a local attraction. A cloud of reporters and TV news crews follow his every step.

"If I am charged, of course, I'll go through the process, but they are not going to charge me. Let me be clear: I had nothing to do with the murder of Gregory Faull," McAfee said.

McAfee was evasive when CNBC asked him about his fortune, which was once estimated at more than US$100 million.

"My accountant may know what I'm worth. I have not asked him recently ... I'm 67 years old. I eat well and have enough money for food. And clothes. I really don't have a clue, sir," McAfee said.

When further pressed, McAfee said he was worth "less than US$5 million, certainly."

And where is that money?

"I believe it's in the pockets of the politicians in Belize now. I think they're in the process of doing an acquisition of my resources," he said.

On Thursday, McAfee told ABC television in Miami that he has "nothing now" beyond some clothes, shoes, and cash a friend dropped off for him.

McAfee, who says a book and a movie is in the works as he sells his life story, earlier told AFP his immediate focus was getting his girlfriend Sam and another friend, Amy, into the United States.

- AFP/jc

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Turban pride restores as Sikhs wins school turban ban case against France in UN

AMRITSAR: The UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has ruled that France's ban on the wearing of "conspicuous" religious symbols in schools - introduced in a law adopted in March 2004 - violated a Sikh student's right to manifest his religion, protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

"The UNHRC has made our nine year wait for justice worthwhile, since the French law was passed against religious signs in public schools in 2004. The UNHRC has once again proved to be the beacon of light for the freedom of thought, conscience and religion by upholding that the Article 18 right under the ICCPR to manifest ones religion, cannot be overridden merely by pleading secularity without producing any evidence that the Sikh Turban would affect the right of other students or would affect order in the school," said Legal Director, United Sikhs, a Sikh NGO, Mejindarpal Kaur while talking to TOI over phone from Paris on Friday.

She said that in a decision that was sent out this week to the United Sikhs legal team, in relation to a complaint made by Bikramjit Singh in 2008, the Committee accepted that the wearing of a turban was regarded as a religious duty for a Sikh and was also tied in with his identity; and that France had not justified the prohibition on the wearing of the turban.

She further informed that the Committee accepted that the France was entitled to uphold the principle of secularism (laicite), a means by which a state party might seek to protect the religious freedom of all its population.

She informed that the Committee went on to express that France had "not furnished compelling evidence that by wearing his keski (small turban),Bikramjit would have posed a threat to the rights and freedoms of other pupils or to order at the school.Kaur informed that less than a year ago, the UNHRC had also concluded that France had violated the religious freedom of 76 year old Ranjit Singh when he was asked to remove his turban for his ID photograph. "A UN decision is still awaited for Shingara Singh, whose passport has not been renewed by France because he refused to remove his turban for his ID photograph" said she.

Quotes President of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, Paramjit Singh Sarna said Bikramjit Singh is an Indian national and it should have been the responsibility of the Indian government to protect his religious freedom abroad so that he and other Sikhs were not banned from wearing the turban in French public schools:

"Religion and politics are two wheels that balance civil society. If one wheel comes off, society ceases to be stable. Laicite or secularity is the oil that ensures that the two wheels keep moving. Sikhs do not see laicite as the enemy. We see it as our friend to help us be good citizens. United Sikh's France Director Shingara Singh.

"Our stand for the turban will not only benefit France but the whole world Gurdial Singh of the Turban Action Committee of France, who has been defending campaign relentlessly.

The Turban is not a sign of oppression. It's a practice of freedom," said Mejinderpal Kaur quoting Bikramjit Singh, who after being expelled from school, completed his education privately and is now a project engineer with an engineering firm in Paris.

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APNewsBreak: Texas cancer probe draws NCI scrutiny

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The federal National Cancer Institute says it's taking a fresh look at a troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting effort already being scrutinized by prosecutors and lawmakers in Texas.

The U.S. government's cancer research agency confirmed Friday that upheaval within the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas caught its attention. NCI spokeswoman Aleea Farrakh Khan told The Associated Press that officials are "evaluating recent events" at CPRIT.

CPRIT is on an exclusive list of NCI-approved funding entities, which includes the American Cancer Society. The designation is a federal seal-of-approval that signals high peer review standards and conflict of interest policies.

Khan says NCI has made no decisions about CPRIT or contacted the agency directly.

Prosecutors are investigating CPRIT following an $11 million award to a private company that bypassed review.

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More Than 20, Mostly Kids, Killed at Grade School

More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News.

The massacre involved two gunmen at a Connecticut school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.

State Police confirm that one shooter is dead. A second gunman is apparently at large. Car-to-car searches are underway.

It's unclear how many people have been shot, but 25 people, mostly children are dead, multiple federal and state sources tell ABC News. That number could rise, officials said.

It is the worst shooting in a U.S. elementary school in recent memory.

The shooting comes just three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts opened fire in a busy Portland, Ore., mall killing two before turning the gun on himself.

Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, about 12 miles east of Danbury.

Watch State Police News Conference Live at 1 p.m. at ABCNews.com

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state. Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State Police source.

Shannon Hicks/The Newtown Bee

Connecticut School Shooting: 3 Victims Hospitalized Watch Video

Connecticut School Shooting: 1 Gunman Confirmed Dead Watch Video

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

LIVE UPDATES: Newtown, Conn., School Shooting

While some students have been reunited with their parents on the school's perimeter, one group of students remains unaccounted for, according to a source with a child in the school.

The school is kindergarten through fourth grade.

CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.

Three patients have been taken to Danbury Hospital, which is also on lockdown, according to the hospital's Facebook page.

"Out of abundance of caution and not because of any direct threat Danbury Hospital is under lockdown," the statement said. "This allows us simply to focus on the important work at hand."

Newtown Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June said in a statement that the district's school were locked down because of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety of all students and staff."

State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown.

All public and private schools in the town are on lockdown.

"We have increased our police presence at all Danbury Public Schools due to the events in Newtown. Pray for the victims," Newtown Mayor Boughton tweeted.

State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.

A message on the school district website says that all afternoon kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no mid-day bus runs.

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Russia says Syrian rebels might win

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels are gaining ground and might win, Russia's Middle East envoy said on Thursday, in the starkest such admission from a major ally of President Bashar al-Assad in 20 months of conflict.

"One must look the facts in the face," Russia's state-run RIA quoted Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. "Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out."

Bogdanov, a deputy foreign minister and the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, said the Syrian government was "losing control of more and more territory" and Moscow was preparing to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary.

Syria has relied on war planes and helicopters to bombard rebel districts but Damascus denied accusations by U.S. and NATO officials that it had fired Scud missiles in recent days.

The foreign ministry said the long-range missiles were not used against "terrorist groups," a term it uses for the rebels, who now hold an almost continuous arc of territory from the east to the southwest of Damascus.

The head of NATO said he thought Assad's government was nearing collapse and the new leader of Syria's opposition told Reuters the people of Syria no longer needed international forces to protect them.

"The horrific conditions which the Syrian people endured prompted them to call on the international community for military intervention at various times," said Mouaz al-Khatib, a preacher who heads Syria's National Coalition.

"Now the Syrian people have nothing to lose. They handled their problems by themselves. They no longer need international forces to protect them," he added in the interview on Wednesday night, accusing the international community of slumbering while Syrians were killed.

He did not specify whether by intervention he meant a no-fly zone that rebels have been demanding for month, a ground invasion - which the opposition has warned against - or arms.

He said the opposition would consider any proposal from Assad to surrender power and leave the country, but would not give any assurances until it saw a firm proposal.

In the latest blow to the government, a car bomb killed at least 16 men, women and children in Qatana, a town about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of Damascus where many soldiers live, activists and state media said.

The explosion occurred in a residential area for soldiers in Qatana, which is near several army bases, said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He put the death toll as 17, including seven children and two women. State news agency SANA said 16 people had died.

State television showed soldiers walking by a partly collapsed building, with rubble and twisted metal on the road.

The pro-government Al-Ikhbariya TV said a second car bomb in the Damascus suburb of al-Jadideh killed eight, most of them women and children.

Apart from gaining territory in the outskirts of Damascus in recent weeks, rebels have also made hit-and-run attacks or set off bombs within the capital, often targeting state security buildings or areas seen as loyal to Assad, such as Jaramana, where twin bombs killed 34 people in November.

The Pakistani Foreign Office said security concerns had prompted it to withdraw the ambassador and all Pakistani staff from the embassy in the central suburb of East Mezzeh, a couple miles from the Interior Ministry.

BACK TO THE WALL

With his back to the wall, Assad was reported to be turning ever deadlier weapons on his adversaries.

"I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch said some populated areas had been hit by incendiary bombs, containing flammable materials such as napalm, thermite or white phosphorous, which can set fire to buildings or cause severe burns and respiratory damage.

The British-based Syrian Observatory said war planes were bombing rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and artillery was hitting Daraya and Moadamiyeh, southwestern areas near the centre where rebels have been fighting for a foothold.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests which were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

The United States, European powers and Arab states bestowed their official blessing on Syria's newly-formed opposition coalition on Wednesday, despite increasing signs of Western unease at the rise of militant Islamists in the rebel ranks.

Western nations at "Friends of Syria" talks in Marrakech, Morocco rallied around a new opposition National Coalition formed last month under moderate Islamist cleric al-khatib.

Russia, which along with China has blocked any U.N. Security Council measures against Assad, criticized Washington's decision to grant the coalition formal recognition, saying it appeared to have abandoned any effort to reach a political solution.

Bogdanov's remarks were the clearest sign yet that Russia is preparing for the possible defeat of Assad's government.

"We are dealing with issues of preparations for an evacuation. We have mobilization plans and are clarifying where our citizens are located," Bogdanov said.

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said the Russian position remained largely unchanged but the situation on the ground gave Moscow an interest in finding an agreed solution, even if the chances of such a solution remained slim.

"If Russia's position on Syria had been a brick wall, it is now a brick wall with a crack in it," the spokesperson said.

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Golf: US 2014 Ryder Cup captain Watson wants Tiger on team

NEW YORK: Eight-time major golf champion Tom Watson, named on Thursday to be captain of the 2014 US Ryder Cup squad by the PGA of America, said that he sees Tiger Woods being on that team.

Citing the 14-time major champion's hunger for victory, Watson said a healthy Woods would be a certainty on the 12-man US lineup by virtue of a captain's selection even if he is unable to qualify on points.

"I want him on my team," Watson said. "Tiger is maybe the best player in history. If he's not on the team, he's going to be number one in my picks."

Watson, who at 63 is the oldest captain in US Ryder Cup history, had been critical of Woods in the aftermath of his infamous sex scandal.

But Watson said he admires Woods for his determination to win and Woods was among the first to applaud Watson's appointment.

"I would like to congratulate Tom Watson on his selection as Ryder Cup captain," Woods said in a statement. "I think he's a really good choice. Tom knows what it takes to win and that's our ultimate goal.

"I hope I have the privilege of joining him on the 2014 United States team."

Watson, a five-time British Open champion, was selected in hopes of ending an American slump in the biennial golf showdown. Europeans have won five of the past six Ryder Cup matches, including at Medinah near Chicago last September.

"It's going to be a great journey. I hope that we will change the tide," Watson said.

The prior US Ryder Cup captain age mark belonged to Sam Snead, who was 57 when he guided the Americans in 1969.

Watson called the tension of the Ryder Cup as huge as any golf event.

"The pressure is incredibly strong," he said. "The pressure of playing in the Ryder Cup is greater or as great as in any event. My job is to help them deal with that pressure.

"I've lived for that pressure and lived underneath that pressure all my career."

Watson will be 65 when the next Ryder Cup is contested in 2014 at Gleneagles in Scotland. Having won his first major title in Scotland at Carnoustie in 1975 and taken four major crowns on Scottish soil, Watson said he knew he wouldn't have the crowd in 2014.

"They are going to be cheering against me," he said.

Watson first served as the US captain in 1993, the last time a US squad won a Ryder Cup on European soil.

"I really wanted the challenge to do it again," Watson said. "I was waiting for about 20 years to get the call.

"I loved it the first time. It's just a great honor to be able to do it again.

"This time we need 14 1/2 points."

Watson becomes the first repeat US Ryder Cup captain since 1987, when Jack Nicklaus guided the Americans at his Muirfield Village home course but the Americans suffered their first defeat on US soil.

Brandt Snedeker, like Woods a member of this year's losing squad, backed Watson as well.

"Obviously they were looking outside the box, given our recent failures," Snedeker said in a posting on the tour website.

"They wanted to get a guy who has had success and commands respect. I think that's why they went this way: to get the US to rally around him as a way to rejuvenate the American side.

"Tom is one of the best competitors of all time. He's going to bring that fire and unwillingness to lose and mental strength that has defined his career."

Saying he hoped to bring the "Watson luck" to the US side, Watson said his role was inspirational and informational more than motivational.

"They don't need to be motivated. My job is to maybe inspire a little bit," Watson said. "The most important thing is to be there to help them out."

Among the lessons Watson cited was arriving early to allow bodies time to adjust to time changes before tinkering with stroke mechanics.

PGA of America president Ted Bishop said there was no problem selecting Watson despite him not having played full-time on the PGA circuit in 14 years.

"We're just tired of losing Ryder Cups," Bishop said, explaining that Watson's appointment was in large part due to that "weariness".

Watson, who won 39 PGA titles - the last at the 1998 Colonial, had no worries about age differences, citing contact with several top players and his playing in a few events alongside many of today's stars, including the Masters and British Open.

"I deflect that very simply by saying we play the same game," Watson said.

-AFP/ac

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Killing of fishermen: Italy summons Indian ambassador

ROME: Italy has summoned India's ambassador to insist that India's Supreme Court issue a decision soon concerning two Italian naval guards detained since February for the deaths of two Indian fishermen mistaken for pirates.

Italy maintains the shooting occurred in international waters and that as a result, Rome should have jurisdiction.

India claims the ship was in Indian territorial waters. The Indian Supreme Court is to decide on Italy's petition to try the sailors at home.

In a statement Thursday, the foreign ministry said it was "profoundly bewildered" why the court hasn't ruled even though arguments ended three months ago. It asked for a decision before Christmas.

The sailors were providing security on a cargo ship when they allegedly shot the fishermen. The dispute has strained diplomatic relations.

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Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker

LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.

Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.

With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.

"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.

The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.

The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.

— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.

— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).

— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.

Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.

While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.

"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.

Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.

Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.

"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.

"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.

___

Online:

www.lancet.com

http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org

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Fiscal Cliff Talks' Latest Victim? Sandy Relief

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner just can't seem to break through an impasse in their "fiscal cliff" talks, increasing pessimism about a deal by Christmas and now threatening to sidetrack billions in federal aid for victims of superstorm Sandy.

After weeks of public posturing and private negotiations, both sides remain firmly dug in with their opposing positions on tax hikes and spending cuts for deficit reduction.

"The president wants to pretend spending isn't the problem," Boehner told reporters today. "That's why we don't have an agreement."

House Republicans are demanding significant changes to entitlement programs to curb spending, which Democrats flatly oppose. The White House, invoking the president's re-election and public opinion polls on its side, still insists there will be no deal without a tax-rate increase on the top 2 percent of U.S. income-earners.

"Until the Republicans realize this, are willing to do what is right, we are going nowhere," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

The gridlock on how to best reduce the deficits and debt threatens to derail another pressing piece of business at hand: the White House's $60 billion emergency-relief request for states devastated by Sandy.

Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

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Some Republicans are balking at the size of the request -- which was endorsed by the governors of the affected states, including New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie -- noting that its price tag would nearly wipeout any deficit savings Democrats are seeking next year by raising tax rates on the rich.

Other lawmakers have said the aid package should be offset with a fresh batch of spending cuts, which could be hashed out in committee hearings early next year. FEMA still has $5 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, they say, enough to last until March.

Congressional leaders on both sides warned members Wednesday to prepare for a working Christmas in Washington unless a compromise can be reached soon. The "fiscal cliff" hits in 19 days, triggering a cascade of automatic tax hikes and deep spending cuts that could thrust the economy back into recession.

Obama and Boehner have traded a series of proposals over the past few days, speaking at least once by phone this week. The president lowered his desired target for new tax revenue from $1.6 trillion to $1.4 trillion; Boehner has indicated his willingness to raise more than the $800 billion he put on the table.

But the Ohio Republican said today that the two sides are nowhere near a deal.

"More than five weeks ago, Republicans signaled our willingness to avert the 'fiscal cliff' with a bipartisan agreement that is truly balanced and begins to solve our spending problem," Boehner said. "The president still has not made an offer that meets these two standards."

Obama predicted Monday that Republicans will ultimately accept tax hikes for the wealthy and signaled new willingness to make "tough" spending cuts. But he did not offer specifics.

"If the Republicans can move on that [taxes], then we are prepared to do some tough things on the spending side," Obama told ABC's Barbara Walters this week. "Taxes are going to go up one way or another. And I think the key is that taxes go up on high-end individuals."

In the event both sides cannot reach a broad deal, there is still some optimism about a last-ditch effort by both parties to prevent an income tax hike on 98 percent of earners.

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North Korea launches rocket , raising nuclear arms stakes

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far away as the continental United States.

"The satellite has entered the planned orbit," a North Korean television news reader clad in traditional Korean garb announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics "Chosun (Korea) does what it says".

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. (0100 GMT), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and was more successful than a rocket launched in April that flew for less than two minutes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it "deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit", the first time an independent body has verified North Korean claims.

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the U.N. Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North's first nuclear test.

North Korea is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state's "military first" programs put in place by his late father, Kim Jong-Il.

North Korea hailed the launch as celebrating the prowess of all three members of the Kim family to rule since it was founded in 1948.

"At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung," its KCNA news agency said. Kim Il Sung, the current leader's grandfather, was North Korea's first leader.

The United States condemned the launch as "provocative" and a breach of U.N. rules, while Japan's U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely from the Security Council as China, the North's only major ally, will oppose them.

"The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences," the White House said in a statement.

U.S. intelligence has linked North Korea with missile shipments to Iran. Newspapers in Japan and South Korea have reported that Iranian observers were in the North for the launch, something Iran has denied.

Japan's likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on Sunday and who is known as a hawk on North Korea, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution "strongly criticizing" Pyongyang.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman reiterated that the rocket was a "peaceful project".

"The attempt to see our satellite launch as a long-range missile launch for military purposes comes from hostile perception that tries to designate us a cause for security tension," KCNA cited the spokesman as saying.

"STUMBLING BLOCK"

China had expressed "deep concern" prior to the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

On Wednesday, its tone was measured, regretting the launch but calling for restraint on any counter-measures, in line with a policy of effectively vetoing tougher sanctions.

"China believes the Security Council's response should be cautious and moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists.

Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, said: "China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we'll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors."

A senior adviser to South Korea's president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the United Nations and Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took power when his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe the launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of his death. The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung.

Wednesday's success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.

"This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un," said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of people are malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its workers overseas.

Many of its 22 million people need handouts from defectors, who have escaped to South Korea, for basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy - per capita income is less than $2,000 a year - one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

It wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.

The North is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for about half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

It has also been enriching uranium, which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on big natural uranium reserves.

"A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile," said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

"But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry."

The North says its work is part of a civil nuclear program although it has also boasted of it being a "nuclear weapons power".

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO, Sui-Lee Wee and Michael Martina in BEIJING,; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Birsel)

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UN court sentences Srebrenica commander to life for genocide

THE HAGUE: The UN's Yugoslav war crimes court found Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir guilty of genocide for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, and sentenced him to life in jail.

"The majority of the court finds you guilty" of crimes including genocide, judge Christoph Flugge told the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

"Zdravko Tolimir, you are hereby sentenced to life imprisonment," the judge then told the gaunt former commander, who crossed himself three times before the verdict was handed down.

The majority of the court's judges agreed with prosecutors who had asked for a life sentence, saying Tolimir, now 64, was involved in "massive" crimes committed at the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves in July 1995.

They said they were "of a massive scale, severe in (their) intensity and devastating in (their) effect."

Judges said Tolimir -- whom they called the "right-hand man and eyes and ears of (Bosnian Serb army commander) Ratko Mladic," -- who is also being tried by the court -- had overseen Bosnian Serb army officers conducting the slaughter of at least 6,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica.

Conducting his own defence, Tolimir said that what happened at Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia in July 1995 amounted to "fighting against terrorist groups", rather than the murder of Muslim men and boys after Dutch peacekeepers at the "safe" enclave were overrun by Mladic's forces.

Tolimir, said Judge Flugge, "had full knowledge of the despicable criminal operations and himself furthered their goals," in this brutal episode in the Balkans country's bloody 1992-95 war that claimed 100,000 lives and left 2.2 million others homeless.

Apart from genocide, Tolimir was found guilty on six other counts including extermination, murder, persecution and forcible transfer.

Judges said prosecutors did not prove a count of deportation beyond reasonable doubt in relation to the attacks on Srebrenica and Zepa.

During his trial prosecutors said the former intelligence chief was part of a grand scheme to murder thousands of Muslim men and boys and expel thousands of woman and children from the enclave in order to create a "mono-ethnic Serb state."

The prosecution also alleged that about 25,000 women, children and elderly people were forcibly transferred from the enclaves to Muslim-controlled territories, while thousands of men and boys old enough to bear arms were executed and dumped in mass graves.

Tolimir was involved in a "joint criminal enterprise" to "summarily execute and bury thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys aged 16 to 60 captured from the Srebrenica enclave," according to the charge sheet.

During the trial, prosecutors said Mladic relied on Tolimir to "carry out the slow strangling of the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves" to create conditions which would force the Muslim population "to give up hope of survival."

Tolimir is the most senior Serb to have a verdict handed down by the UN war crimes court since two Croatian generals and two former Kosovar guerrillas were acquitted last month, sparking Serbia's ire.

In 2004, Radislav Krstic became the highest-ranking Bosnian Serb officer to be sentenced on appeal to 35 years in jail for his role in the Srebrenica massacre.

Arrested in May 2007 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tolimir had seen his trial delayed several times due to ill-health.

Mladic, also dubbed "the Butcher of Bosnia," was arrested in Serbia last year, and now faces 11 counts before the same Hague-based court, including for the Srebrenica massacre.

-AFP/ac

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Ravi Shankar harnessed folk tunes with equal felicity

NEW DELHI: Perhaps the finest novel written by Hindi-Urdu literary genius Munshi Premchand, Godan, was miserably adapted to the big screen by film director Trilok Jetley in 1963. Despite having proven performers like Raj Kumar and Kamini Kaushal in lead roles, the movie sank without a trace.

But the film had at least one endearing footnote: a bunch of folksy compositions flavoured with the salt of village India. Bollywood cineastes would surely recall a boisterous Mehmood singing, Pipra ke pathwa sareekhe dole manwa ke hiyera mein uthath hillor, purwa ke jhokwa se aayo re sandeswa ke chalein aaj deswa ki ore (lyricist: Anjaan, singer: Rafi), and dancing past the fecund cornfields. Hori khelat nand lal Biraj mein, also sung by Mehmood onscreen, is another number that amiably captures the movie's hinterland feel. Both these songs also underline the versatility of composer Ravi Shankar: he could harness folk tunes with the same felicity with which he played ragas on his complex sitar. It is clear that the Benaras-born musician never forgot his childhood days.

Ravi Shankar's most memorable Hindi film compositions came in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anuradha (1961), where the born-to-break-hearts Leela Naidu made her debut. The film revolved around a singer conflicted between her love for music and her idealist doctor husband ( Balraj Sahni). The masterclass musician's melody-driven, semi-classical tunes harmonized perfectly with Shailendra's meaningful poetry to bring out the protagonist's predicament.

With Lata at her rapturous, nuanced best, every Anuradha song is 10/10 -- Jaane kaise sapnon mein (Raag Tilak Shyam), Saanwre saanwre kahe mose (Raag Bhairavi), Kaise din beete, kaise beeti ratiyan and Hai re woh din kyon na aaye. The songs of Anuradha were a commercial as well as a critical success. And it is surprising that Ravi Shankar composed only fleetingly for Hindi cinema thereafter. May be, he was too busy teaching music to the Beatles.

The next notable film in his Bollywood ouvre came much later in 1979; Gulzar's Meera, a much-talked and little-seen movie. The lyricist-director's dream project was based on the life and music of the 16th century poet-princess, Meerabai. It was a difficult subject and the surprise choice of Ravi Shankar as music director shows how he was valued by serious filmmakers. The movie was a letdown but its music, especially some of the bhajans such as Jo tum todo piya and Mere to giridhar gopal, became chartbusters. Incidentally, Ravi Shankar controversially used Vani Jairam, and not Lata Mangeshkar for the songs.

Few remember that Ravi Shankar started his Hindi film career providing music for two progressive movies: KA Abbas' Dharti Ke Lal (1946) and Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar, which won the Grand Prize in Cannes. Reminiscent of the Saigal era, the compositions in these films failed to create a major impact.

It was with his background score for Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955) that Ravi Shankar really came into his own illustrating how music can play such a major role in a movie's mood building. In the famous train scene, the swish of the wind and water, the approaching sound of the steam locomotive and the two kids rushing through the field of Kaash flowers - is a fitting example of subtle, minimalist music. Even in the other two movies of the Apu Trilogy, Aparajito and Apur Sansar, Ravi Shankar provided the background score. He also gave the music for Paras Pathar, one of Ray's underfeted works.

The Indian composer earned an Oscar nomination for Richard Attenborough's Gandhi. The overwritten background music, actually, is one of the film's weakness. But Ravi Shankar, the musician, was too big a brand for even the Oscar awards committee to ignore.

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

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Oregon Mall Shooting Hero Gets Customer to Safety

A store employee at the Clackamas Town Center mall used his knowledge of the shopping complex to hustle a customer out of the building during Tuesday's shooting rampage and then twice went back inside to guide other shoppers to exits and safety.

Allan Fonseca, who works at Lancome counter in Macy's and was waiting on Jocelyn Lay when they heard shots fired about 3:30 p.m. Thinking quickly, Fonseca got her behind the counter to hide.

"We both just looked at each other and knew that this was a serious situation and it was a gunman and we both just dove down below the Lancome counter there for a little protection," Lay told "Good Morning America." "And the gunfire just kept going off."

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Lay said that she began praying for the Lord to protect her and the other shoppers in the mall. She said Fonseca, as a store employee, knew exactly what to do, and she credits him as her hero.

"He said that we needed to evacuate, and he took me by the hand and took me down the escalator and out to safety," she said.

Once Fonseca was sure that she was safe, he then turned to her and said, "I'm going to go back and help other people."

Fonseca said that because he is familiar with the exits in the mall, he felt that he would be able to help shoppers escape the gunfire.

"I felt that if I knew how to get out of the mall and out to safety then I should share that knowledge with everyone else, like the shoppers that don't come here regularly and don't know all of the exits," he said. "So I decided to go back up because I wanted to see if there was anybody in panic or didn't know where to do."

Fonseca returned to the mall and evacuated the lower level of the Macy's store, and then went back up to the "shooting floor" to look for his co-workers. Lay says she's not sure she would have done if he hadn't been there to get her out of harm's way.

"I probably just would have stayed there and probably would have had a little more fear because it's one of those situations where you've seen in previous shootings, the gunman keep shooting and keep looking for different people," she said. "I would have huddled there and hoped and prayed."

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IMF loan to Egypt delayed as crisis deepens

CAIRO (Reuters) - A vital $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Egypt will be delayed until next month, its finance minister said on Tuesday, intensifying the political crisis gripping the Arab world's most populous nation.

As rival factions gathered in Cairo and Alexandria for a new round of demonstrations, Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said said the delay in the loan agreement was intended to allow time to explain a heavily criticised package of economic austerity measures to the Egyptian people.

The announcement came after President Mohamed Mursi on Monday backed down on planned tax increases, seen as key for the loan to go ahead. Opposition groups had greeted the tax package, which had included duties on alcoholic drinks, cigarettes and a range of goods and services, with furious criticism.

"Of course the delay will have some economic impact, but we are discussing necessary measures (to address that) during the coming period," the minister told Reuters, adding: "I am optimistic ... everything will be well, God willing."

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said Egypt had requested that the loan be delayed by a month.

"The challenges are economic not political and must be dealt with aside from politics," he told a news conference.

Kandil said the reforms would not hurt the poor. Bread sugar and rice would not be touched, but cigarettes and cooking oil would go up and fines would be imposed for public littering. In a bid to rebuild consensus, he said there would be a national dialogue about the economic program next week.

In Washington, the IMF said Egypt had asked for the loan to be postponed "in light of the unfolding developments on the ground". The Fund stood ready to consult with Egypt on resuming discussions on the stand-by loan, a spokeswoman said.

GUNMEN OPEN FIRE

On the streets of the capital, tensions ran high after nine people were hurt when gunmen fired at protesters camping in Tahrir Square, according to witnesses and Egyptian media.

The opposition has called for a major demonstration it hopes will force Mursi to postpone a referendum on a new constitution.

Outside the presidential palace, dozens of protesters succeeded in pushing down two giant concrete blocks forming a small part of a wall blocking access to the site.

Thousands of flag-waving Islamist Mursi supporters, who want the vote to go ahead as planned on Saturday, assembled at a nearby mosque, setting the stage for further street confrontations in a crisis that has divided the nation of 83 million.

In Egypt's second city of Alexandria, thousands of rival demonstrators gathered at separate venues. Mursi's backers chanted: "The people want implementation of Islamic law," while his opponents shouted: "The people want to bring down the regime."

The upheaval following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year is causing concern in the West, in particular the United States, which has given Cairo billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The turmoil has also placed a big strain on the economy, sending foreign currency reserves down to about $15 billion, less than half what they were before the revolt two years ago as the government has sought to defend the pound.

"Given the current policy environment, it's hardly a surprise that there's been a delay, but it is imperative that the delay is brief," said Simon Williams, HSBC economist in Dubai. "Egypt urgently needs that IMF accord, both for the funding it brings and the policy anchor it affords."

The IMF deal had been seen as giving a seal of approval to investors and donors about the government's economic plans, vital for drawing more cash into the economy to ease a crushing budget deficit and stave off a balance of payments crisis.

MASKED ATTACKERS

In central Cairo, police cars surrounded Tahrir Square in central Cairo, the first time they had appeared in the area since November 23, shortly after a decree by Mursi awarding himself sweeping temporary powers that touched off widespread protests.

The attackers, some masked, also threw petrol bombs that started a small fire, witnesses said.

"The masked men came suddenly and attacked the protesters in Tahrir. The attack was meant to deter us and prevent us from protesting today. We oppose these terror tactics and will stage the biggest protest possible today," said John Gerges, a Christian Egyptian who described himself as a socialist.

The latest bout of unrest has so far claimed seven lives in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and opponents who are also gathering outside Mursi's presidential palace.

The elite Republican Guard which protects the palace has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the graffiti-daubed building, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades.

The army has told all sides to resolve their differences through dialogue, saying it would not allow Egypt to enter a "dark tunnel". For the period of the referendum, the army has been granted police powers by Mursi, allowing it to arrest civilians.

The army has portrayed itself as the guarantor of the nation's security, but so far it has shown no appetite for a return to the bruising front-line political role it played after the fall of Mubarak, which severely damaged its standing.

OPPOSITION MARCHES

Leftists, liberals and other opposition groups called for marches say the hastily arranged constitutional referendum is polarizing the country and could put it in a religious straightjacket.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent opposition leader and Nobel prize winner, said the referendum should be postponed for a couple of months due to the chaotic situation.

"This revolution was not staged to replace one dictator with another," he said in an interview with CNN.

Opposition leaders want the referendum to be delayed and hope they can get sufficiently large numbers of protesters on the streets to change Mursi's mind.

Islamists, who dominated the body that drew up the constitution, have urged their followers to turn out to show support for the president and for a referendum they feel sure of winning.

The opposition says the draft constitution fails to embrace the diversity of the population, a tenth of which is Christian, and invites Muslim clerics to influence lawmaking.

(Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Peter Graff and Will Waterman)

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