US Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery





Feb 6, 2013 8:28am


Weekend mail delivery is about to come to an end.


The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays, but will continue to deliver packages six days a week, the USPS announced at a news conference this morning.


While post offices that open on Saturdays will continue to do so, the initiative, which is expected to begin the week of August 5, will save an estimated $2 billion annually. The USPS had a $15.9 billion loss in financial year 2012.


“America’s mailing habits are changing and so are their shipping habits,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said. “People will say this is a responsible decision. It makes common sense.”


The service reduction is the latest of Postal Service steps to cut costs as the independent agency of the U.S. government struggles with its finances.


To close its budget gap and reduce debt, it needs to generate $20 billion in cost reductions.


USPS officials have pushed for eliminating mail and package delivery on Saturdays for the past few years, but recent data showing growth in package delivery, which is up by 14 percent since 2010, and projected additional growth in the coming decade made them revise their decision to continue package delivery only.


Saturday mail delivery to P.O. boxes will also continue.


Research by the post office and major news organizations indicated that 7 out of 10 Americans support switching to five-day service.


Since 2006, the Postal Service has reduced annual costs by $15 billion, cut the career force by 28 percent and consolidated 200 mail-processing locations.


The USPS announced in May it was cutting back on the number of operating hours instead of shuttering 3,700 rural post offices. The move, which reduced hours of operation at 13,000 rural post offices from an eight-hour day to between two and six hours a day, was made with the aim of saving about $500 million per year.


The cutback in hours last year resulted in 9,000 full-time postal employees’ being reduced to part time plus the loss of their benefits, while another 4,000 full-time employees became part time but kept their benefits.


gty us postal service lpl 130206 wblog U.S. Postal Service to End Saturday Mail Delivery

                                              (Image Credit: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)



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Iran's Ahmadinejad kissed and scolded in Egypt


CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution.


The trip was meant to underline a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state, President Mohamed Mursi, last June. But it also highlighted deep theological and geopolitical differences.


Mursi, a member of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, kissed Ahmadinejad after he landed at Cairo airport and gave him a red carpet reception with military honors. Ahmadinejad beamed as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.


But the Shi'ite Iranian leader received a stiff rebuke when he met Egypt's leading Sunni Muslim scholar later at Cairo's historic al-Azhar mosque and university.


Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old seat of religious learning, urged Iran to refrain from interfering in Gulf Arab states, to recognize Bahrain as a "sisterly Arab nation" and rejected the extension of Shi'ite Muslim influence in Sunni countries, a statement from al-Azhar said.


Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a news conference he hoped his trip would be "a new starting point in relations between us".


However, a senior cleric from the Egyptian seminary, Hassan al-Shafai, who appeared alongside him, said the meeting had degenerated into an exchange of theological differences.


"There ensued some misunderstandings on certain issues that could have an effect on the cultural, political and social climate of both countries," Shafai said.


"The issues were such that the grand sheikh saw that the meeting ... did not serve the desired purpose."


The visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.


"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his trip.


He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.


Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.


OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES


At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of improving relations and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.


Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.


Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr sought to reassure Gulf Arab allies - that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran - that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.


"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he said in remarks reported by the official MENA news agency.


Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.


"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.


Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.


"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he told Reuters. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."


Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.


Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.


Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a mosque beside Cairo's mediaeval Citadel alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.


(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir, Marwa Awad and Alexander Diadosz; Writing by Paul Taylor and Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Roche and Robin Pomeroy)



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BP profits slide on US oil spill fallout






LONDON: British energy giant BP on Tuesday said its net profits slumped by more than half last year on fines and asset sales linked to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, ahead of a US trial later this month.

Earnings after tax tumbled 54 percent to $11.58 billion (8.6 billion euros) in 2012, compared with $25.7 billion in 2011, BP said in a results statement.

Adjusted net profit, stripping out fluctuations in the value of inventories, plunged by almost 50 percent to $11.99 billion.

The London-listed group took a pre-tax charge of $4.1 billion for the fourth quarter in relation to the Gulf of Mexico disaster, taking its total clean-up bill to $42.2 billion.

Profits were hit also by divestments, including the sale of BP's 50-percent stake in the troubled Russian joint venture TNK-BP to the main Russian oil producer Rosneft.

BP added it was still assessing the impact of the deadly attack at its joint venture in the In Amenas gas site in Algeria last month, but remained committed to the country.

The energy major also revealed it had reached its target to sell $38 billion of assets a year earlier than originally planned, as it sought to meet the bill for the oil spill costs.

However, the sell-offs pushed annual production lower. Output sank more than five percent to 2.319 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, excluding TNK-BP's output.

The results were issued one week after a US judge approved a $4.5-billion deal in which BP pleaded guilty to criminal charges from the 2010 oil spill.

The devastating blast on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010 killed 11 people and unleashed some 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

Later this month, BP will face a mammoth trial consolidating scores of remaining lawsuits stemming from the worst environmental disaster to strike the United States.

It must also still resolve a civil case on environmental fines which could amount to as much as $18 billion if gross negligence is found. BP also remains on the hook for billions in economic damages, including the cost of environmental rehabilitation.

Despite plunging profits, chief executive Bob Dudley argued that the group was well positioned for long-term growth.

"We have moved past many milestones in 2012, repositioning BP through divestments and bringing on new projects. This lays a solid foundation for growth into the long-term," said Dudley in Tuesday's earnings release.

"Moving through 2013 we will deliver further operational milestones and remain on track for delivery of our ten-point strategic plan, including our target for operating cash flow growth, by 2014," he added.

BP shares rose 1.67 percent to stand at 469.75 pence in late trading on London's FTSE 100 index, which was up 0.71 percent to 6,291.47 points.

The company's results were meanwhile published three weeks after a fatal Islamist attack on the BP-operated In Amenas gas plant, in a hostage-taking siege that ended with the deaths of almost 40 captives, mostly foreigners.

"We are working with our partners to assess the impact of the incident and intend to resume activities when it is safe to do so," BP said on Tuesday.

"BP remains committed to operating in Algeria, where we have high-quality assets and have been present for over 60 years."

The In Amenas gas field is a joint venture between BP, Norwegian group Statoil and Algerian state-owned oil firm Sonatrach.

-AFP/ac



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VHP's PIL against Shinde's 'Hindu terror' remarks dismissed

ALLAHABAD: A petition filed by Vishwa Hindu Parishad against Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde's "Hindu terror" remarks was dismissed by the Allahabad high court today.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Shiva Kirti Singh and Justice Dilip Gupta dismissed in limine the Public Interest Litigation which had sought to make Shinde, the Cabinet Secretary and the Union Home Secretary respondents.

Significantly, the Home Secretary had, barely a few days after Shinde accused BJP and RSS of running training camps for terrorists, stated that there was "evidence" to suggest that a number of terror accused in the country had links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The statements have caused much consternation among the Sangh Parivar outfits, including the BJP which is the main opposition party.

In the PIL, it had been alleged that the January 20 statement of the Union home minister was "scandalous", "provocative", "against the soul of the Constitution" and had "adversely affected national harmony and social structure, putting national security and sovereignty in danger".

The PIL had prayed for issuing directions to the Centre to frame rules with regard to issuing statements besides demanding an "independent judicial inquiry into the truth of the statement".

However, Additional Solicitor General of India K C Kaushik, appearing on behalf of the Centre, contended that the PIL was "misconceived" and liable to be "dismissed as not maintainable".

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens


CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.


The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.


The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.


In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.


That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.


In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.


"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."


The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.


Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.


But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.


In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.


The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.


Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.


"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.


Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.


"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.


Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.


"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.


___


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Boy Rescued in Ala. Standoff 'Laughing, Joking'













The 5-year-old boy held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama is in good spirits and apparently unharmed after being reunited with his family at a hospital, according to his family and law enforcement officials.


The boy, identified only as Ethan, was rescued by the FBI Monday afternoon after they rushed the underground bunker where suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was holding him. Dykes was killed in the raid and the boy was taken away from the bunker in an ambulance.


Ethan's thrilled relatives told "Good Morning America" today that he seemed "normal as a child could be" after what he went through and has been happily playing with his toy dinosaur.


"He's happy to be home," Ethan's great uncle Berlin Enfinger told "GMA." "He's very excited and he looks good."


Click here for a psychological look at what's next for Ethan.


"If I could, I would do cartwheels all the way down the road," Ethan's aunt Debra Cook said. "I was ecstatic. Everything just seemed like it was so much clearer. You know, we had all been walking around in a fog and everyone was just excited. There's no words to put how we felt and how relieved we were."


Cook said that Ethan has not yet told them anything about what happened in the bunker and they know very little about Dykes.


What the family does know is that they are overjoyed to have their "little buddy" back.










Ala. Hostage Standoff Over: Kidnapper Dead, Child Safe Watch Video









Alabama Hostage Standoff: Jimmy Lee Dykes Dead Watch Video





"He's a special child, 90 miles per hour all the time," Cook said. "[He's] a very, very loving child. When he walks in the room, he just lights it up."


Officials have remained tight-lipped about the raid, citing the ongoing investigation.


"I've been to the hospital," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson told reporters Monday night. "I visited with Ethan. He is doing fine. He's laughing, joking, playing, eating, the things that you would expect a normal 5- to 6-year-old young man to do. He's very brave, he's very lucky, and the success story is that he's out safe and doing great."


Ethan is expected to be released from the hospital later today and head home where he will be greeted by birthday cards from his friends at school. Ethan will celebrate his 6th birthday Wednesday.


Officials were able to insert a high-tech camera into the 6-by-8-foot bunker to monitor Dykes' movements, and they became increasingly concerned that he might act out, a law enforcement source with direct knowledge told ABC News Monday. FBI special agents were positioned near the entrance of the bunker and used two explosions to gain entry at the door and neutralize Dykes.


Who Is Jimmy Lee Dykes?


"Within the past 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," the FBI's Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."


Richardson said it "got tough to negotiate and communicate" with Dykes, but declined to give any specifics.


After the raid was complete, FBI bomb technicians checked the property for improvised explosive devices, the FBI said in a written statement Monday afternoon.


The FBI had created a mock bunker near the site and had been using it to train agents for different scenarios to get Ethan out, sources told ABC News.


Former FBI special agent and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett said rescue operators in this case had a delicate balance.


"You have to take into consideration if you're going to go in that room and go after Mr. Dykes, you have to be extremely careful because any sort of device you might use against him, could obviously harm Ethan because he's right there," he said.






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Syrian opposition chief says offers Assad peaceful exit


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged President Bashar al-Assad on Monday to respond to his initiative for dialogue, saying it was aimed at ending the bloodshed and helping "the regime leave peacefully".


Speaking after meeting senior Russian, U.S. and Iranian officials at the weekend, Alkahtib said none of them had a plan to end the civil war and Syrians must find their own resolution.


"The big powers have no vision ... Only the Syrian people can decide on the solution," the Syrian National Coalition leader told Al Jazeera Television.


The moderate Islamist preacher announced last week he was prepared to talk to Assad's representatives. Although he set several conditions, the move broke a taboo on contacts with authorities and dismayed many in opposition ranks who insist on Assad's departure as a precondition for negotiation.


Alkhatib said it was not "treachery" to seek dialogue to end a conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from their country and millions more are homeless and hungry.


"The regime must take a clear stand (on dialogue) and we say we will extend our hand for the interest of people and to help the regime leave peacefully," he told the Qatar-based channel. "It is now in the hands of the regime."


Assad announced last month what he said were plans for reconciliation talks to end the violence but - in a speech described by U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as narrow and uncompromising - he said there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".


Syria's uprising erupted 22 months ago with largely peaceful protests, escalating into a civil war that pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority and whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years.


POWERS DIVIDED


The violence has divided major powers, with Russia and China blocking U.N. Security Council draft resolutions backed by the United States, European Union and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that could have led to U.N. sanctions on Assad. Shi'ite Iran has remained his strongest regional backer.


Alkhatib said that the international deadlock meant that only Syrians could stave off further humanitarian disaster.


"We will find a solution, there are many keys," he said. "If the regime wants to solve (the crisis), it can take part in it. If it wants to get out and get the people out of this crisis, we will all work together for the interest of the people and the departure of the regime."


One proposal under discussion was the formation of a transitional government, Alkhatib said, without specifying how he thought it could come about. World powers agreed a similar formula seven months ago but then disagreed over whether that could allow Assad to stay on as head of state.


Activists reported clashes between the army and rebel fighters to the east of Damascus on Monday and heavy shelling of rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs. The Jobar neighborhood, on the southwestern edge of Homs, was hit by more than 100 rockets on Monday morning, one activist said.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 180 people had been killed across the country on Sunday, including 114 rebel fighters and soldiers. Sunday's death toll also included 28 people killed in the bombardment of a building in the Ansari district of the northern city of Aleppo.


Assad has described the rebel fighters as foreign-backed Islamist terrorists and said a precondition for any solution is that Turkey and Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states stop funding, sheltering and arming his foes.


Rebels and activists say Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite military group Hezbollah have sent fighters to reinforce Assad's army - a charge that both deny.


ECONOMIC SUPPORT


"The army of Syria is big enough, they do not need fighters from outside," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Berlin on Monday.


"We are giving them economic support, we are sending gasoline, we are sending wheat. We are trying to send electricity to them through Iraq, we have not been successful."


Another Iranian official, speaking in Damascus after talks with Assad, said on Monday that Israel would regret an air strike against Syria last week, without spelling out whether Iran or its ally planned a military response.


"They will regret this recent aggression," said Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.


Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden all met Alkhatib in Munich at the weekend and portrayed his willingness to talk with Syrian authorities as a major step towards resolving the war.


But Alkhatib is under pressure from other members of the exiled leadership in Cairo for saying he would be willing to talk to Assad, albeit on condition that Assad releases 160,000 prisoners and issues passports to the tens of thousands who have fled to neighboring countries without travel documents.


Walid al-Bunni, a member of the Coalition's 12-member politburo, dismissed Alkhatib's meeting with Salehi.


"It was unsuccessful. The Iranians are unprepared to do anything that could help the causes of the Syrian Revolution," Bunni, a former political prisoner, told Reuters from Budapest.


Bunni said the Coalition was preparing a meeting of all its 70 members in Cairo to hear from Alkhatib about his diplomatic moves.


Alkhatib, whose family are custodians of the Umayyad Mosque in the historic centre of Damascus, is seen as a bulwark against the radical Islamist Salafist forces who wield heavy influence in the armed opposition.


(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Kevin Liffey)



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Israel preparing for post-Assad Syria chaos






JERUSALEM: Israel has implicitly confirmed it carried out an air strike in Syria, sparking a warning from Iran, but the Jewish state's next step in anticipation of a post-Bashar al-Assad era remains a mystery.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak told a defence conference in Munich on Sunday that an air raid last week that Syria said targeted a military complex near its capital was "another proof that when we say something we mean it."

He reiterated that Israel would not allow advanced weapon systems to fall into the hands of Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Damascus.

The minister stopped short of giving explicit confirmation of the air strike and there has still been no official comment from either the Israeli military or the government.

The New York Times, citing a senior US military official, reported Sunday that the air strike may have damaged Syria's main research centre on biological and chemical weapons.

Barak's comments came a day after US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Washington was increasingly concerned that "chaos" in Syria could allow Hezbollah to obtain sophisticated weapons from the Damascus regime.

"The chaos in Syria has obviously created an environment where the possibility of these weapons, you know, going across the border and falling into the hands of Hezbollah has become a greater concern," Panetta told AFP.

The Israeli raid on Wednesday targeted surface-to-air missiles and an adjacent military complex believed to house chemical agents, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Syria has threatened to retaliate.

In a sign of increased border tensions, Israel has moved three of its Iron Dome missile defence batteries to its north, from where they can cover possible fire from Syria or Lebanon.

Iran's security chief Saeed Jalili, on a visit to Damascus on Monday, implicitly warned that Israel would be made to regret its actions.

"Just like it regretted all its wars... the Zionist entity will regret its aggression against Syria," said Jalili, who heads Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

"The Muslim world supports Syria," Jalili said. "Syria is at the forefront of the Muslim world's confrontation" with Israel.

Ephraim Halevy, a former head of Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency, wrote Monday in top-selling daily Yediot Aharonot that his country had no intention of becoming embroiled in Syria's internal turmoil.

"Israel is not involved in the Syrian civil war or in the Iranian warfare on Syrian soil," he wrote.

"From all standpoints, it would have preferred that this conflict had not broken out in the first place, and for Israel to continue to enjoy the absolute quiet along the armistice lines drawn between the two states following the (1973) Yom Kippur War."

"This is the reason that it has displayed restraint both in its actions and in its dearth of official statements," Halevy added.

The raid "shows how the new security situation in Israel is complex and complicated," military analyst Avi Issacharof wrote on the news site Walla. "This new year will be decisive for Israel, not only in the context of the Iranian nuclear programme."

Israeli leaders fear a possible transfer of Syrian chemical and biological weapons to Hezbollah, but also that a general destabilisation of the country could turn it into a preserve of radical Islamist groups.

"A number of ideologically radical groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda have infiltrated the governmental vacuum (in Syria) that contributes to the chaos," said Issacharof.

Israeli leaders, particularly Barak, have repeatedly predicted President Assad's imminent fall and the military is planning its response.

Israel plans to declare a buffer zone inside Syria border to prevent radical groups from getting too close to its territory when the embattled Damascus regime topples, security sources told AFP on Sunday.

- AFP/jc



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India's reaction to Mali conflict differs from Syrian, Libyan crises

NEW DELHI: The conflict in Mali has evoked a very different reaction from India as compared to Syrian or Libyan unrest. Last week, India committed $1 million to the upgrade of the Mali army as it gears up to fight Islamists and fighters of the al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

In fact, New Delhi has even committed to ramp up its contribution to $100 million after the conflict in the African nation. In December 2012 - during its last month in the UN Security Council - India had co-sponsored a French resolution UNSCR 2085 that supported an African Union-ECOWAS military force in Mali.

The French military intervention in Mali also has not prompted the expected negative reaction from New Delhi. This is primarily because the target this time is al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups in that region, where India, like others, is developing economic interests. On the contrary, India's reaction to the France-led operation in Libya in 2011 was much more negative. Many in the Indian government believe that the Mali crisis was a natural blowback of the Libya conflict. However, sources said, France had kept India in the loop on the Mali operation, said sources.

Off the record, Indian officials express fears that these may spread, because of what they believe is a deadly cocktail of Islamist extremist ideology, widespread poverty, lack of governance and vast amounts of arms and weapons. Most of these weapons were taken out of Libya after the fall of Gaddafi regime. The Libyan operation gave humanitarian intervention, (or, R2P in UN parlance) a bad name in the Indian mind.

Indian support to the French operation in Mali is predicated on it being a primarily counter-terror operation. Syed Akbaruddin, MEA spokesperson, said, "We unequivocally condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Wherever and by whosoever committed, regardless of their motivation, we consider it criminal and unjustifiable. We also believe that the fight against the scourge of terrorism must be unrelenting."

On Monday, French president Francois Hollande paid a surprise visit to Timbuktu, Mali, while the French operation is concentrating its energies on targeting the al-Qaeda fighters who have melted into the desert, mountains and caves outside the cities. The situation in northern Mali is yet to stabilize with many Tuareg fighters still holed up there. The French forces are trying to keep control of the cities and clear them of the Islamists and Tuaregs, but with the fighters at large, there is always the possibility of the repeat of Afghanistan, and resurgence after the foreign forces have left.

Meanwhile, the Support and Follow-up Group (SFG) on Mali is scheduled to meet in Brussels on Tuesday to work on the political process and transition in Mali. The meeting will bring together the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS), the United Nations (UN), Mali's neighbours and other nations in the region.

Read More..

Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens


CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.


The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.


The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.


In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.


That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.


In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.


"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."


The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.


Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.


But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.


In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.


The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.


Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.


"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.


Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.


"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.


Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.


"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.


___


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org


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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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