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adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-74784403689888913622012-11-06T01:50:00.001-08:002012-11-06T01:50:26.137-08:00Suicide bomber kills 9 outside army base near Baghdad<div> <p class="description">(Reuters) - As the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, 51, signed into law a revamp of the national healthcare system and authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden but struggled to revive the economy and create jobs. As the United States holds its presidential election on Tuesday, here are key facts about Obama, the nation's first black president. - Barack Obama has a personal background like no other president in U.S. history. His mother, Ann Dunham, was a white woman from Kansas and his father, Barack Obama Sr. ...</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-69401481713489128202012-11-06T01:20:00.001-08:002012-11-06T01:20:26.418-08:00Putin dismisses Russian defense minister after scandal<div> <p class="first">MOSCOW (Reuters) - <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_0">Russian President Vladimir Putin</span> dismissed <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_1">Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov</span> on Tuesday after the ministry was drawn in to an <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_5">investigation</span> into allegations of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_4">fraudulent sales</span> of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_6">military assets</span>.</p> <p>Putin was shown on television informing <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_2">Sergei Shoigu</span>, a former emergencies minister, that he wanted him to replace Serdyukov.</p> <p>(Reporting by <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_3">Thomas Grove</span>, Editing by Timothy Heritage)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-67809633438576688272012-11-06T01:15:00.001-08:002012-11-06T01:15:25.413-08:00Israel advances plans for 1,213 new West Bank settlement homes<div> <p class="first">JERUSALEM (Reuters) - <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_1">Israel</span> has announced plans to press ahead with construction of 1,213 homes on annexed <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_5">West Bank</span> land, defying <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_3">international opposition</span> to its settlement policies.</p> <p>The <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_0">Israel Land Administration</span> on Monday published notices inviting bids from contractors to build on plots in Ramot and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_2">Pisgat Zeev</span>, urban settlements that Israel has declared part of Jerusalem.</p> <p>The plans call for the building of 607 new homes in Pisgat Zeev and 606 in Ramot. Tens of thousands of Israelis already live in the two areas.</p> <p>The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said on Tuesday that an additional tender for the construction of 72 homes in the West Bank settlement of Ariel was reissued on Monday after a previous notice failed to attract winning bidders.</p> <p>Palestinians want to create a state in the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_4">occupied West Bank</span> and the Gaza Strip, with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_7">East Jerusalem</span> as its capital but they say <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_8">Israeli settlement</span> building will cripple the viability of any future country.</p> <p>Israel cites historical and Biblical links to the West Bank, which it captured in a 1967 war. Some 500,000 settlers and about 2.5 million Palestinians live in the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352190312_6">West Bank</span> and East Jerusalem.</p> <p>Most countries consider settlements Israel has built in occupied territory as illegal under international law.</p> <p>(Writing by Ori Lewis, Editing by Jeffrey Heller)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-90271858608189321652012-11-06T01:00:00.001-08:002012-11-06T01:00:26.943-08:00Florida's New Battleground: The State Supreme Court<div id="storyspan02"> <div class="avcontent listen"> <p>Audio for this story from <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Ftemplates%2Frundowns%2Frundown.php%3FprgId%3D3%26amp%3BprgDate%3D11-06-2012">Morning Edition</a> will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET</p> </div> <p class="date">November 6, 2012</p> </div><div id="storytext"> <div id="res163411172" class="bucketwrap photo300"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/10/22/barbarapariente-595cea15633960b0a75cddd07d3a14efe49469e8-s2.jpg" width="300" class="img300 enlarge" title="Every six years, Florida voters get to decide whether a state Supreme Court justice gets to stay on the bench. Conservative activists are campaigning against Justice Barbara Pariente's retention." alt="Every six years, Florida voters get to decide whether a state Supreme Court justice gets to stay on the bench. Conservative activists are campaigning against Justice Barbara Pariente's retention."/><div class="captionwrap enlarge"><a class="enlargeicon" alt="Enlarge" title="Enlarge Image" href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B"><span>Enlarge</span></a> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Matt Stamey</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">Gainesville Sun /Landov</span></span> <p>Every six years, Florida voters get to decide whether a state Supreme Court justice gets to stay on the bench. Conservative activists are campaigning against Justice Barbara Pariente's retention.</p> </div> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/10/22/barbarapariente-595cea15633960b0a75cddd07d3a14efe49469e8-s51.jpg" title="Every six years, Florida voters get to decide whether a state Supreme Court justice gets to stay on the bench. Conservative activists are campaigning against Justice Barbara Pariente's retention." alt="Every six years, Florida voters get to decide whether a state Supreme Court justice gets to stay on the bench. Conservative activists are campaigning against Justice Barbara Pariente's retention."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html"><span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Matt Stamey</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">Gainesville Sun /Landov</span></span> <p class="caption">Every six years, Florida voters get to decide whether a state Supreme Court justice gets to stay on the bench. Conservative activists are campaigning against Justice Barbara Pariente's retention.</p> </div> </div> <p>In Florida, Supreme Court justices are nominated by a commission and appointed by the governor. Every six years, they're up for retention. Voters decide whether to keep them on the bench or let them go.</p> <p>Since the system was put in place in the 1970s, retention votes have been pro forma affairs, with justices doing little fundraising or campaigning.</p> <p>But this year is different.</p> <p>One ad, paid for by Americans for Prosperity, a national political action group founded by conservative billionaire David Koch, touched off a campaign by conservative activists who set their sights on reshaping one of the state's most powerful bodies.</p> <p><strong>A New Battleground</strong></p> <p>The ad criticizes the justices for blocking a 2010 initiative that opposed Obamacare. It was one of several decisions by the court in recent years that have angered conservatives.</p> <p>"Shouldn't our courts be above politics?" the ad asks.</p> <p>Fred Lewis, one of three Supreme Court justices up for retention, says conservative groups are injecting politics into a judiciary that's intended to be nonpartisan and independent.</p> <p>"When you turn a judicial process into a popularity contest, then you have judges of whatever level looking over their shoulders before they make a decision," Lewis says. "And that's not the way this democracy is going to remain."</p> <div id="res163410903" class="bucketwrap photo300"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/10/22/fredlewis-23442baa2c7cb03dd41701e7e69347d0f6d20c43-s2.jpg" width="300" class="img300 enlarge" title="Speaking at the University of Florida in Gainesville, state Supreme Court Justice Fred Lewis said Florida's courts should be independent. Lewis is one of three justices fighting to keep his seat." alt="Speaking at the University of Florida in Gainesville, state Supreme Court Justice Fred Lewis said Florida's courts should be independent. Lewis is one of three justices fighting to keep his seat."/><div class="captionwrap enlarge"><a class="enlargeicon" alt="Enlarge" title="Enlarge Image" href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B"><span>Enlarge</span></a> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Matt Stamey</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">Gainesville Sun /Landov</span></span> <p>Speaking at the University of Florida in Gainesville, state Supreme Court Justice Fred Lewis said Florida's courts should be independent. Lewis is one of three justices fighting to keep his seat.</p> </div> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/10/22/fredlewis-23442baa2c7cb03dd41701e7e69347d0f6d20c43-s51.jpg" title="Speaking at the University of Florida in Gainesville, state Supreme Court Justice Fred Lewis said Florida's courts should be independent. Lewis is one of three justices fighting to keep his seat." alt="Speaking at the University of Florida in Gainesville, state Supreme Court Justice Fred Lewis said Florida's courts should be independent. Lewis is one of three justices fighting to keep his seat."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html"><span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Matt Stamey</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">Gainesville Sun /Landov</span></span> <p class="caption">Speaking at the University of Florida in Gainesville, state Supreme Court Justice Fred Lewis said Florida's courts should be independent. Lewis is one of three justices fighting to keep his seat.</p> </div> </div> <p>In response, the three justices have begun active campaigns of their own.</p> <p>Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente, also up for retention, criticized David Koch and Americans for Prosperity at a meeting with the editorial board of the <em>Orlando Sentinel</em>.</p> <p>"We now have an out-of-state group wading into the Florida judicial system," Pariente told <em>Sentinel</em> editors. "That should be for any Floridian a wake-up call that our judicial branch is under attack"</p> <p>Faced with attacks by Americans for Prosperity and other groups, this year the three justices have collectively raised more than a million dollars.</p> <p>In addition, the state Bar Association and many in Florida's legal community have rallied to support the justices.</p> <p>Defend Justice from Politics, a group formed to support the justices' retention, fought back with an ad of its own challenging the politicization of the retention vote.</p> <p>"Newspapers call it a power grab, political intimidation and a hijack of our justice system," the ad says. "Want to stop the politicians from trying to take over the Supreme Court? Then stand up for our justices."</p> <p><strong>Republicans Split Over Campaign</strong></p> <p>Ratcheting up the pressure on the justices recently, Florida's Republican Party also announced it is opposing their retention.</p> <div class="container con1col small" id="con163412603"> <div id="res163412592" class="bucketwrap internallink insetonecolumn inset1col"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F09%2F26%2F161830542%2Fanother-iowa-judge-faces-ballot-box-battle-due-to-same-sex-marriage-ruling" id="featuredStackSquareImage161830542" class="photowrap"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/09/26/iowa_judge_wiggins_sq-4a0070f687106fca765c50fbcf1f3b5cfce10ef2-s1.jpg" class="img138" title="Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins, right, faces a retention vote Nov. 6." alt="Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins, right, faces a retention vote Nov. 6."/></a> <h3 class="slug"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F">It's All Politics</a></h3> <p><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F09%2F26%2F161830542%2Fanother-iowa-judge-faces-ballot-box-battle-due-to-same-sex-marriage-ruling">Another Iowa Judge Faces Ballot Box Battle Due To Same-Sex Marriage Ruling</a> <span class="stationid"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iowapublicradio.org">WOI</a></span></p> </div> <div id="res163412571" class="bucketwrap internallink insetonecolumn inset1col"> <h3 class="slug"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F">It's All Politics</a></h3> <p><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2010%2F11%2F03%2F131032419%2Fiowa-judges-ousted">Iowa Judges Ousted</a></p> </div> </div> <p>It's the first time the Florida GOP has ever taken a stand opposing a sitting justice. The head of the state party, Lenny Curry, rejects charges that Republicans are playing politics with the state's highest court.</p> <p>"They're on the ballot. This is the law right now," Curry says. "And if our critics don't like the law, then they ought to try to change the law. If they don't think judges should be up for a do-not-retain vote, then work to change the law."</p> <p>Curry says the proposal came from the party's grassroots â" Republican activists around the state who have been unhappy with recent court decisions.</p> <p>Paula Dockery, a Republican state senator, says she doubts that. Dockery is one of several prominent Republicans critical of her party's decision to work to unseat the justices.</p> <p>She notes that much of the money for Americans for Prosperity comes from outside Florida.</p> <p>"What do out-of-state interests care about the Florida Supreme Court justices? So, it leads one to believe that this is a test run for their attempts to do this in other states," Dockery says.</p> <p>The battle over judicial retention in Florida comes two years after conservatives won a similar fight in Iowa â" ousting three members of the state Supreme Court who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. This year, as in Florida, conservatives are working in Iowa to reshape the state's highest court â" opposing retention for a fourth Supreme Court justice.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-48343152865804376642012-11-06T00:45:00.001-08:002012-11-06T00:45:24.910-08:00Putin dismisses Russian defense minister<div> <p class="first">MOSCOW (Reuters) - <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_0">Russian President Vladimir Putin</span> dismissed <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_1">Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov</span> on Tuesday after the ministry was drawn in to an <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_5">investigation</span> into allegations of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_4">fraudulent sales</span> of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_6">military assets</span>.</p> <p>Putin was shown on television informing <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_2">Sergei Shoigu</span>, a former emergencies minister, that he wanted him to replace Serdyukov.</p> <p>(Reporting by <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352188917_3">Thomas Grove</span>, Editing by Timothy Heritage)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-53744886426947497432012-11-06T00:40:00.001-08:002012-11-06T00:40:25.714-08:00Thousands of Greeks strike over spending cuts<div> <p class="first">ATHENS (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Greek workers began a 48-hour strike on Tuesday to protest a new round of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352189893_1">austerity</span> cuts that unions say will devastate the poor and drive a failing economy to collapse.</p> <p>The strike was called by Greece's two biggest labor organizations and is the third in two months against spending cuts and reforms that <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352189893_0">Prime Minister Antonis Samaras</span> wants parliament to approve on Wednesday to unlock international aid.</p> <p>Transport was severely disrupted across the country and schools, banks and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352189893_2">local government</span> offices were shut. Hospitals were working on emergency staffing.</p> <p>The government has implored Greeks to endure the cuts to avoid national bankruptcy but a quarter of the nation is jobless, poverty and suicide levels are soaring and many feel angry with the political class.</p> <p>"They should go to hell and beyond," said <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352189893_3">Anais Metaxopoulou</span>, a 65-year-old pensioner.</p> <p>"They should ask me how I feel when I have to go to church to beg for food. I wouldn't hurt a fly but I would happily behead one of them."</p> <p>Athens needs parliamentary approval for the package - which includes slashing pensions by as much as a quarter and scrapping holiday bonuses - to ensure its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders release more than 31 billion euros ($40 billion) of aid, much of it aimed at shoring up banks.</p> <p>The strike coincides with the vote in parliament on Wednesday when the government is expected to just about win backing for austerity cuts and labor reforms that the smallest party in Samaras's coalition has refused to back.</p> <p>NOTHING LEFT TO CUT</p> <p>"We are striking on Tuesday and Wednesday to send a message to the government - these measures must not pass!" said Nikos Kioutsoukis, general secretary of the GSEE private sector union that called the strike along with the ADEDY public sector union.</p> <p>"It's unacceptable that the people have to pay for the funds bankers are getting from the state."</p> <p>Trains, buses and the subway came to a halt. Many flights have been canceled, ships remained tied up at ports and taxi drivers also stayed off the streets.</p> <p>Police beefed up security for midday rallies in Athens that often end in small-scale rioting and clashes with hooded protesters. About a dozen police vans were on standby around the main square outside parliament.</p> <p>Greece has gone through several rounds of austerity that has helped shrink its economy by a fifth since the debt crisis exploded but failed to get its finances back in order.</p> <p>The country's public debt is seen at a whopping 189 percent of gross domestic product next year and Athens is expected to be widely off track from targets under its latest bailout agreed with the troika of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.</p> <p>Some Greeks say the latest cuts could tear society apart.</p> <p>"Someone needs to tell them there's nothing left to cut," said Vassilis Dimosthenous, a 50-year-old construction worker who has been without a job for 10 months.</p> <p>"They've made our daily lives unbearable. If only I was 10 years younger I'd leave this place."</p> <p>(Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou; Writing by Deepa Babington; editing by Giles Elgood and Anna Willard)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-71339464834610295292012-11-06T00:05:00.001-08:002012-11-06T00:05:25.419-08:00South Korea extends nuclear probe, risks power shortfall<div> <p class="first">SEOUL (Reuters) - <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_0">South Korea</span>'s main <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_1">nuclear power</span> supervisor extended an <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_7">investigation</span> into forged <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_5">safety certificates</span> for reactor components to three more facilities on Tuesday, a day after shutting down two reactors.</p> <p>South Korea generates 30 percent of its electricity from 23 <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_4">nuclear reactors</span> at state-owned plants, and the government warned of the potential for unprecedented power shortages due to the shutdowns as demand peaks in winter.</p> <p>Authorities were at pains to stress that the parts involved related to non-crucial aspects of the plants' operation and posed no risk to safety. Yet in the aftermath of the Fukishima nuclear accident in Japan, there were concerns the discovery could tarnish the image of the country's nuclear program.</p> <p>"The commission will verify all the components at the reactors by setting up a private and public team...We will make regulations to supervise them," said one of the nine members of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, who could not be named as he was not authorized to speak to the media.</p> <p>A spokesman at the commission added that members of the private and public joint team would be announced on Wednesday at the earliest, along with their investigation schedules.</p> <p>The three additional reactors under investigation are still running. The two reactors already shut down will remain closed until the parts are replaced.</p> <p>With another five reactors already closed for regular maintenance and glitches, a total of 6,500 megawatts of power capacity has been removed from the grid, from a total capacity of 81,740 MW.</p> <p>The two shut reactors, each able to supply 1,000 MW, were found to have components with certificates purportedly from U.S. and Canadian regulators that had been forged by the suppliers of the parts.</p> <p>The latest incident comes after a series of problems in south Korea's nuclear power sector this year. Several reactors have been shut down for varying periods for malfunctioning, and officials at state-owned <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_3">Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power</span> (<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_8">KHNP</span>) have been investigated for receiving bribes, according to local media.</p> <p>"There were a lot of glitches earlier this year in reactors management. Those in charge of the matter often said they didn't know, but not knowing is also a problem," said Kim Jin-woo, president and chief executive of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_2">Korea Energy Economics Institute</span>, a government thinktank for energy policy.</p> <p>KHNP, fully owned by state-run utility <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185932_6">Korea Electric Power Corp</span> (KEPCO), reported that eight firms that supplied parts had forged 60 certificates to cover 7,682 items between 2003 and 2012, the ministry and the company officials said.</p> <p>KHNP declined to identify the eight firms.</p> <p>SOUTH KOREA TO CUT CONSUMPTION</p> <p>Government officials said that South Korea would take measures to cut power consumption rather than hiking imports of alternative fuels to feed additional electricity generation.</p> <p>"We will not increase our purchases of LNG and coal compared with what we have usually bought for the peak winter demand," said an official at the Ministry of the Knowledge Economy, adding that most power plants were operating at full capacity anyway.</p> <p>"We will control demand. We are holding meetings to detail the control measures."</p> <p>South Korea generates 40 percent of its 81,740 megawatts of power with coal, 30 percent with nuclear and the remainder with liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to government data.</p> <p>The government aims to maintain 4,500 megawatts of reserve power generation capacity over projected demand, officials said.</p> <p>Peak power demand will likely eat into the target safety margin this winter and strain the grid. Excess capacity is expected to be 2,750-5,400 megawatts in November and December, and could fall to 2,300 megawatts in January and February, according to the government forecast on Monday.</p> <p>South Korea, which experienced nationwide power cuts in September of last year, has been campaigning to encourage consumers to save energy in the peak seasons of summer and winter.</p> <p>Authorities imposed fines on public buildings that kept doors open while running air conditioning this summer and stipulated that thermostats in big department stores and hotels be set at 26 degrees Celsius, several degrees higher than usual.</p> <p>It has also built up fuel supplies that could be deployed during an emergency through such measures as filling up LNG storage.</p> <p>(Reporting by Meeyoung Cho; Additional reporting by Eunhye Shin and Jumin Park; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Simon Webb)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-66386895965751831592012-11-05T23:30:00.001-08:002012-11-05T23:30:26.828-08:00U.S. clears sale of Lockheed missile defense system to UAE, Qatar<div> <p class="first">WASHINGTON (Reuters) - <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_5">Qatar</span> and the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_0">United Arab Emirates</span> have requested the sale of up to $7.6 billion in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_2">Lockheed Martin Corp</span> missile-defense systems to counter perceived threats and lower their dependence on U.S. forces, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_8">the Pentagon</span> announced on Monday.</p> <p><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_3">The Defense Security Cooperation Agency</span> (DSCA), which oversees foreign arms sales, formally notified lawmakers on Friday that it had approved the possible sales, which come against the backdrop of heightened tensions with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_1">Iran</span>. The notifications were posted to the agency's website late on Monday.</p> <p>Lawmakers now have 30 days to block the potential sales although such action is rare since deals are carefully vetted with lawmakers weeks before the notifications are posted.</p> <p>The sale is part of Washington's ongoing effort to deepen its cooperation with Gulf nations on <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_6">missile defense</span> and increase pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.</p> <p>Lockheed told reporters in August that Saudi Arabia and its closest regional partners in the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_7">Gulf Cooperation Council</span> had shown interest in the company's Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352185229_4">THAAD</span>) weapon systems.</p> <p>Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met GCC officials in September and U.S. officials said initial missile-defense sales could be announced soon.</p> <p>The GCC is a political and economic alliance linking Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Washington has been working with Gulf states on a bilateral basis, not as a group, to boost the range of radar coverage and related capabilities across the Gulf for the earliest possible defense against any missiles fired by Iran.</p> <p>The United States and its allies say Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability under the cover of a civil program. Iran denies this, but has been hit with a series of international sanctions over its nuclear work.</p> <p>REGIONAL SHIELD</p> <p>On Monday, the Pentagon said Qatar had requested the possible sale of two THAAD fire units, 12 launchers, 150 interceptors, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $6.5 billion.</p> <p>The UAE, which signed an initial order for $1.96 billion of THAAD weapons systems in December, requested an additional 48 THAAD missiles, 9 launchers and other equipment valued at $1.135 billion, according to the DSCA notification.</p> <p>It said the proposed sale would contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping two countries that have been and remain key forces "for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East."</p> <p>Raytheon Co is another key contractor on the program.</p> <p>THAAD is a U.S. Army system designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles with an interceptor that slams into its target.</p> <p>It can accept cues from Lockheed's Aegis weapons system, satellites and other external sensors, and works in tandem with the PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 terminal air-defense missile. THAAD includes its own radar along with interceptors and communications and fire control units.</p> <p>U.S. officials have said their ultimate goal is a regional shield that can be coordinated with U.S. systems, a system similar to Washington's drive to expand missile defense to protect NATO's European territory against ballistic missiles that could be fired by Iran.</p> <p>THAAD is part of a layered missile shield being built to defend the United States and its friends and allies against ballistic missiles of all ranges and in all phases of flight. The system is being optimized against Iran and North Korea.</p> <p>(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Robert Birsel)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-20333709150172663132012-11-05T22:45:00.001-08:002012-11-05T22:45:25.702-08:002 N.H. Villages Cast First Presidential Ballots<div id="storytext"> <p>Residents of two tiny villages in northern New Hampshire headed to the polls at midnight, casting the first Election Day votes in the nation.</p> <p>After 43 seconds of voting, President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney each had 5 votes in Dixville Notch.</p> <p>In Hart's Location, Obama had won with 23 votes, Romney received 9 and Libertarian Gary Johnson received 1 vote. Thirty-three votes were cast in 5 minutes, 42 seconds.</p> <p>The towns have been enjoying their first-vote status since 1948 and it's a matter of pride to get everyone to the polls.</p> <p>Hart's Location Selectman Mark Dindorf says you could call it a friendly competition to see who gets votes tallied first, although he says Hart's Location is a town and Dixville Notch is a precinct.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-63231258113910295802012-11-05T17:55:00.001-08:002012-11-05T17:55:25.148-08:00How Sandy's Path Could Chart A Course For Romney's Victory<div id="storytext"> <div id="res164372790" class="bucketwrap image large"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/ap318296074480-cfb70e19247402813629bfbbed37386c02d98285-s6-c10.jpg" data-original="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/ap318296074480-cfb70e19247402813629bfbbed37386c02d98285.jpg" class="img lazyOnLoad" title="Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses while speaking at a campaign rally at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on Monday." alt="Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses while speaking at a campaign rally at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on Monday."/><div class="captionwrap caption"> <p>Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses while speaking at a campaign rally at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on Monday.</p> </div> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Charles Dharapak</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span> <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164372409%2Fhow-sandys-path-could-chart-a-course-for-romneys-victory%3Fft%3D1%26amp%3Bf%3D1003" class="enlargebtn" title="Enlarge">i</a> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/ap318296074480-cfb70e19247402813629bfbbed37386c02d98285-s51.jpg" title="Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses while speaking at a campaign rally at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on Monday." alt="Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses while speaking at a campaign rally at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on Monday."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html image_data"> <p class="caption">Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pauses while speaking at a campaign rally at the Patriot Center at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on Monday.</p> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Charles Dharapak</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span></div> </div> <p>Over the pre-election weekend, we began hearing people, mostly Republicans, say that if Mitt Romney does not win the presidency this week it will be because of superstorm Sandy.</p> <p>That could be savvy analysis, or it could be the first signs of a search for an excuse. Either way, it's premature. For the moment, the Romney campaign should be looking for a way to turn the storm to its benefit.</p> <p>The first thing to be learned from Sandy is trajectory. Sandy began its destructive tour of the American mainland in Florida, and that is where the former governor of Massachusetts needs to begin his march on Election Night.</p> <p><strong>Sandy's Path</strong></p> <p>If Romney wins Florida, he instantly leaps into real contention by adding that state's 29 electoral votes to the 191 that virtually everyone agrees he already has locked up (counting all the states the GOP ticket won in 2008 plus Indiana).</p> <p>Florida lifts the nominee to a projected 220, with just 50 to go to the White House. Following the Sandy track sends him northward to two more battleground states that felt Sandy's wrath just a week ago, North Carolina and Virginia. Most map- and chart-makers (including us here at NPR) have already awarded North Carolina to Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. If close-fought Virginia follows suit, the R-R team suddenly has 248 electoral votes and a gale-force wind at their back.</p> <p>One more coastal state that took a hit from Sandy still looks winnable for the GOP, and that is the once-safely conservative enclave of New Hampshire. This is the site of a longtime Romney vacation home and the place where his campaign for the nomination really got going. He ended his final full day of campaigning there Monday night.</p> <p>But even with Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire in hand, Hurricane Mitt would still be stuck at 252 votes.</p> <p><strong>Unpredictable Path</strong></p> <p>At this point, let us remember that hurricanes are notoriously unpredictable. Hurricane Mitt needs to be ready to move in unexpected directions.</p> <p>One possibility for a breakout would be Pennsylvania, which received a glancing blow at its eastern extremes from Sandy. The state has 20 electoral votes, enough to pass the magic 270. It has not been seen as a toss-up since summer, but narrowing polls there in recent weeks have given Republicans hope.</p> <p>The Romney campaign is running TV ads there, and the candidate himself added an event in the state on the final weekend and a closing rally in Pittsburgh on Election Day itself.</p> <p>If the late assault fails to rip Pennsylvania loose from the Obama camp, then the next target over on the Great Lakes is Ohio. This is a state where the race has always been close and where the Romney campaign has spent heavily in time and TV advertising cash. Republican superPACs and other independent-expenditure entities have also targeted the state and pounded the president (and Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown). While both those incumbents remain ahead in the polls, their margins are slim at best.</p> <p>Parts of Ohio did feel the storm last week as it moved inland. Parts of the state are also susceptible to Republican messaging late in a presidential campaign. And to capture the state's 18 electoral votes would bring the "Follow Sandy" strategy's yield to exactly 270.</p> <p><strong>Reduced Voter Turnout</strong></p> <p>Here's one more way the storm could help Romney. Hundreds of thousands of voters will find it more difficult to turn out in the New York and New Jersey metro areas. Although state and local officials have done what they could to provide alternatives and looser rules, many of these voters will be too busy and distracted to take part.</p> <p>That could lower the vote in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and parts of New England as well. A suppressed vote in these Democratic areas heightens the chance that Romney could come out ahead in the national popular vote â" even if he doesn't in the Electoral College.</p> <p>The split between the national popular vote and the Electoral College was already a prospect before Sandy came along to make it more plausible. But in an election contest this grinding, with even small swing states getting multiple candidate visits, any change in the weather can seem dramatic.</p> <p>And a divergence between the popular and electoral tallies would prolong the ordeal of this election season indefinitely, and make it more difficult for the president to lead in his second term.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-90190188077600230102012-11-05T16:15:00.001-08:002012-11-05T16:15:25.264-08:00New York To Allow Voters To Cast Ballots By Affidavit<div id="storyspan02"> <div class="avcontent listen"> <p>Audio for this story from <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Ftemplates%2Frundowns%2Frundown.php%3FprgId%3D2%26amp%3BprgDate%3D11-05-2012">All Things Considered</a> will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET</p> </div> <p class="date">November 5, 2012</p> </div><div id="storytext"> <p>Governor Andrew Cuomo agreed to issue an executive order to allow voters to cast ballots at any polling site, even outside their neighborhoods. Voters will sign affidavits that they're legally registered to vote. Some polling places were rendered unusable by Hurricane Sandy. Melissa Block talks to Quil Lawrence for more.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-13159955308758818612012-11-05T16:10:00.001-08:002012-11-05T16:10:27.618-08:00Cautious reformers tipped for new China leadership<div> <p class="first">BEIJING (Reuters) - <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_6">China</span>'s ruling Communist Party will this month unveil its new top leadership team, expected to again be an all-male cast of politicians whose instincts are to move cautiously on reform.</p> <p>Sources close to the leadership say 10 main candidates are vying for seven seats on the party's next <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_20">Politburo Standing Committee</span>, the peak decision-making body which will steer the world's second-largest economy for the next five years.</p> <p>Only two candidates are considered certainties going into the party's 18th congress, which starts on Thursday: leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping and his designated deputy, Li Keqiang, who are set to be installed as president and premier next March.</p> <p>Of the remaining eight contenders, only one has the reputation as a political reformer and only one is a woman.</p> <p>Following are short biographies of the candidates, including their reform credentials and possible portfolio responsibilities.</p> <p>XI JINPING</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: Considered a cautious reformer, having spent time in top positions in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, both at the forefront of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_7">China</span>'s economic reforms.</p> <p>Xi Jinping, 59, is <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_8">China</span>'s vice president and President Hu Jintao's anointed successor. He will take over as Communist Party boss at the congress and then as head of state in March.</p> <p>Xi belongs to the party's "princeling" generation, the offspring of communist revolutionaries. His father, former vice premier Xi Zhongxun, fought alongside Mao Zedong in the Chinese civil war. Xi watched his father purged and later, during the Cultural Revolution, spent years in the hardscrabble countryside before making his way to university and then to power.</p> <p>Married to a famous singer, Xi has crafted a low-key and sometimes blunt political style. He has complained that officials' speeches and writings are clogged with party jargon and has demanded more plain speaking.</p> <p>Xi went to work in the poor northwest Chinese countryside as a "sent-down youth" during the chaos of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and became a rural commune official. He went on to study chemical engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing and later gained a doctorate in Marxist theory from Tsinghua.</p> <p>A native of the poor, inland province of Shaanxi, Xi was promoted to governor of southeastern Fujian province in 1999 and became party boss in neighboring Zhejiang province in 2003.</p> <p>In 2007, the tall, portly Xi secured the top job in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_9">China</span>'s commercial capital, Shanghai, when his predecessor was caught up in a huge corruption case. Later that year he was promoted to the party's standing committee.</p> <p>- - - -</p> <p>LI KEQIANG</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: Seen as another cautious reformer due to his relatively liberal university experiences.</p> <p>Vice Premier Li Keqiang, 57, is the man tipped to be <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_10">China</span>'s next premier, taking over from Wen Jiabao.</p> <p>His ascent will mark an extraordinary rise for a man who as a youth was sent to toil in the countryside during Mao's Cultural Revolution.</p> <p>He was born in Anhui province in 1955, son of a local rural official. Li worked on a commune that was one of the first places to quietly revive private bonuses in farming in the late 1970s. By the time he left Anhui, Li was a Communist Party member and secretary of his production brigade.</p> <p>He studied law at the elite Peking University, which was among the first Chinese schools to resume teaching law after the Cultural Revolution. He worked to master English and co-translated "The Due Process of Law" by Lord Denning, the famed English jurist.</p> <p>In 1980, Li, then in the official student union, endorsed controversial campus elections. Party conservatives were aghast, but Li, already a prudent political player, stayed out of the controversial vote.</p> <p>He climbed the party ranks and in 1983 joined the Communist Youth League's central secretariat, headed then by Hu Jintao.</p> <p>Li later served in challenging party chief posts in Liaoning, a frigid northeastern rustbelt province, and rural Henan province. He was named to the powerful nine-member standing committee in 2007.</p> <p>- - - -</p> <p>WANG QISHAN</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: A financial reformer and problem solver with deep experience tackling tricky economic and political problems.</p> <p>Wang Qishan, 64, is the most junior of four vice premiers and an ex-mayor of Beijing. But he has a keen grasp of complex economic issues and is the only likely member of the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_0">Standing Committee</span> to have been chief executive of a corporation, leading the state-owned <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_11">China</span> Construction Bank from 1994 to 1997. As such, he may take a leading role in shaping economic policy, including trade and foreign investment.</p> <p>Wang is an experienced negotiator who has led finance and trade negotiations as well as the Strategic and Economic Dialogue with the United States. He is a favorite of foreign investors and has long been seen as a problem solver, sorting out a debt crisis in Guangdong province where he was vice governor in the late 1990s and replacing the sacked Beijing mayor after a cover-up of the deadly SARS virus in 2003.</p> <p>Wang is also a princeling, son-in-law of a former vice premier and ex-standing committee member, Yao Yilin. His possible portfolio could be chairman of the National People's Congress (China's rubber-stamp parliament), head of parliament's advisory body, executive vice premier (responsible for economic issues) or the party's top anti-corruption official.</p> <p>- - - -</p> <p>LIU YUNSHAN</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: A conservative who has kept domestic media on a tight leash.</p> <p>Liu Yunshan, 65, may take over the propaganda and ideology portfolio for the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_1">Standing Committee</span>.</p> <p>He has a background in media, once working as a reporter for state-run news agency Xinhua in Inner Mongolia, where he later served in party and propaganda roles before shifting to Beijing.</p> <p>As minister of the party's Propaganda Department since 2002, Liu has also sought to control <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_12">China</span>'s Internet, which has more than 500 million users. He has been a member of the wider Politburo for two five-year terms ending this year.</p> <p>Liu has not worked directly for the Communist Youth League, but is aligned to it through his lengthy career in an inland, poor province, long ties to the party's propaganda system and close relationship with Hu Jintao.</p> <p>- - - -</p> <p>LI YUANCHAO</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: A reformer who has courted foreign investment and studied in the United States.</p> <p>Li Yuanchao, 61, oversees the appointment of senior party, government, military and state-owned enterprise officials as head of the party's powerful organization department. On the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_2">Standing Committee</span>, he could head the fight against corruption.</p> <p>Li, whose father was a vice-mayor of Shanghai, has risen far since his parents were persecuted and he was a humble farm hand during the Cultural Revolution.</p> <p>Politically astute, Li can navigate between interest groups, from Hu's Youth League power base to the princelings.</p> <p>As party chief in his native province, Jiangsu, from 2002 to 2007, Li oversaw a rapid rise in personal incomes and economic development, attracting foreign investment from global industrial leaders such as Ford, Samsung and Caterpillar.</p> <p>He earned mathematics and economics degrees from two of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_13">China</span>'s best universities and a doctorate in law. He also spent time at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in the United States.</p> <p>- - - -</p> <p>ZHANG DEJIANG</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: A conservative trained in North Korea.</p> <p>Zhang Dejiang, 65, saw his chances of promotion boosted this year when he was chosen to replace disgraced politician Bo Xilai as Chongqing party boss. He also serves as vice premier in charge of industry, though his record has been tarnished by the downfall of the railway minister last year for corruption.</p> <p>Zhang is close to former president Jiang Zemin who still wields some influence. He studied economics at Kim Il-sung University in North Korea and is a native of northeast <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_14">China</span>.</p> <p>On his watch as party chief of Guangdong, the southern province maintained its position as a powerhouse of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_15">China</span>'s economic growth, even as it struggled with energy shortages, corruption-fuelled unrest and the 2003 SARS epidemic.</p> <p>- - - - -</p> <p>ZHANG GAOLI</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: A financial reformer with experience in more developed parts of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_16">China</span>.</p> <p>Zhang Gaoli, 65, party chief of the northern port city of Tianjin and a Politburo member since 2007, is seen as a Jiang Zemin ally but also acceptable to President Hu, who has visited Tianjin three times since 2008. Zhang is an advocate of greater foreign investment and he introduced financial reforms in a bid to turn the city into a financial center in northern <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_17">China</span>.</p> <p>He was sent to clean up Tianjin, which was hit by a string of corruption scandals implicating his predecessor and the former top adviser to the city's lawmaking body. The adviser committed suicide shortly after Zhang's arrival.</p> <p>A native of southeastern Fujian province, Zhang trained as an economist. He also served as party chief and governor of eastern Shandong province and as Guangdong vice governor.</p> <p>Zhang is low-key with a down-to-earth work style, and not much is known about his specific interests and aspirations. But with his leadership experience in more economically advanced cities and provinces, including party secretary of the showcase manufacturing and export-driven city of Shenzhen, he could be named executive vice premier.</p> <p>- - - - -</p> <p>WANG YANG</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: Seen by many in the West as a beacon of political reform.</p> <p>Wang Yang, 57, is party chief of the export dependent economic hub of Guangdong province. He was not included in a list of preferred <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_3">Standing Committee</span> candidates drawn up by Xi, Hu and Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, according to sources close to the leadership, but is firmly in the running.</p> <p>Born into a poor rural family in eastern Anhui province, Wang dropped out of high school and went to work in a food factory at age 17 to help support his family after his father died. These experiences may have shaped his desire for more socially inclusive policies, including his "Happy Guangdong" model of development designed to improve quality of life.</p> <p>Concerned about the social impact of three decades of blistering development, he lobbied for social and political reform. However, this approach has drawn criticism from party conservatives and Wang has more recently adopted the party's more familiar method of control and punishment to keep order.</p> <p>- - - - -</p> <p>YU ZHENGSHENG</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: Relatively low-key but considered a cautious reformer.</p> <p>Yu Zhengsheng, 67, is party boss in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_18">China</span>'s financial hub and most cosmopolitan city, Shanghai.</p> <p>His impeccable Communist pedigree made him a rising star in the mid-1980s until his brother, an intelligence official, defected to the United States. His close ties with Deng Pufang, the eldest son of late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, spared him the full political repercussions but he was taken off the fast track.</p> <p>Yu bided his time in ministerial ranks until bouncing back, joining the Politburo in 2002. However, the princeling's age would require him to retire in 2017 after one term.</p> <p>- - - - -</p> <p>LIU YANDONG</p> <p>REFORM CREDENTIALS: Uncertain.</p> <p>Liu Yandong, who turns 67 this month, is the only woman given a serious chance to join the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_4">Standing Committee</span> but is considered a dark horse. She is a princeling also tied to President Hu's Youth League faction.</p> <p>If promoted, she could head up parliament's advisory body, but her age would also force her to retire after only one term.</p> <p>Her bigger challenge is that no woman has made it into the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_5">Standing Committee</span> since 1949. Not even Jiang Qing, the widow of late Chairman Mao Zedong, made it that far.</p> <p>Liu, daughter of a former vice-minister of agriculture, is currently the only woman in the 25-member Politburo, a minority in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352158578_19">China</span>'s male-dominated political culture. She has been on the wider Politburo since 2007 as one of five state councilors, a rank senior to a cabinet minister but junior to a vice-premier.</p> <p>(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones, Ben Blanchard, Benjamin Kang Lim and Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing. Additional reporting by Chris Ip, Grace Li, Jean Lin, Young Wang, Alice Woodhouse and Julie Zhu; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Mark Bendeich)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-66489194203628124622012-11-05T15:45:00.001-08:002012-11-05T15:45:26.170-08:00Pakistani scientist loses appeal on shooting conviction<div> <p class="first">NEW YORK (Reuters) - A <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352157185_3">U.S.</span> appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction and 86-year prison sentence of a Pakistani neuroscientist for shooting at FBI agents and soldiers after her arrest in Afghanistan.</p> <p>The 2nd <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352157185_2">U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals</span> in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352157185_4">New York</span> said a lower court judge had not erred in allowing <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352157185_0">Aafia Siddiqui</span>, 40, to testify in her own defense at trial and in allowing certain evidence against her.</p> <p>Siddiqui, whose conviction was widely criticized in Pakistan, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352157185_1">Richard Berman</span> in September 2010. She was convicted by a <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352157185_5">New York</span> federal jury of attempted murder, armed assault and other charges.</p> <p>She was arrested in July 2008 by Afghan police, who said she was carrying two pounds (900 grams) of sodium cyanide and crumpled notes referring to mass casualty attacks and New York landmarks.</p> <p>The day after her arrest, she grabbed an M-4 rifle in her interrogation room and started shooting while yelling "death to America," the trial jury heard.</p> <p>No U.S. agents or soldiers were hit, but Siddiqui was shot and wounded in response, according to U.S. prosecutors.</p> <p>Siddiqui's defense lawyers, three of whom were paid by the Pakistani government, argued that their client had shot at the U.S. officials in a panic and said the crime lacked any connection to terrorism.</p> <p>On appeal, her attorneys challenged her conviction and sentence on many grounds. They said the judge improperly allowed jurors to consider the crumpled notes, and that the judge should never have allowed Siddiqui to decide whether to take the stand.</p> <p>"The district court went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that Siddiqui understood the implications of testifying and had the capacity to testify," the opinion said.</p> <p>Dawn Cardi, an attorney for Siddiqui, was not immediately available to comment.</p> <p>The appeals court also sided with Berman in finding that Siddiqui had likely premeditated the attack, and that terrorism sentencing requirements were applicable because of her willingness to harm Americans.</p> <p>(Reporting by Basil Katz; Editing by Todd Eastham)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-60656481538152655042012-11-05T15:40:00.001-08:002012-11-05T15:40:25.305-08:00Last Of The Early Voters In Ohio Make A Scene<div id="storytext"> <div id="res164356912" class="bucketwrap image large"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/293865_553583774658372_99342861_n_wide-13cce753aa658a3266fb9e405fa2f586248e8c2c-s6-c10.jpg" data-original="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/293865_553583774658372_99342861_n_wide-13cce753aa658a3266fb9e405fa2f586248e8c2c.jpg" class="img lazyOnLoad" title="Mimes perform at the Franklin County Early Voting Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday." alt="Mimes perform at the Franklin County Early Voting Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday."/><div class="captionwrap caption"> <p>Mimes perform at the Franklin County Early Voting Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday.</p> </div> <span class="creditwrap rightsnotice">Courtesy Karen Kasler</span> <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164344400%2Flast-of-the-early-voters-in-ohio-make-a-scene%3Fft%3D1%26amp%3Bf%3D1003" class="enlargebtn" title="Enlarge">i</a> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/293865_553583774658372_99342861_n_wide-13cce753aa658a3266fb9e405fa2f586248e8c2c-s51.jpg" title="Mimes perform at the Franklin County Early Voting Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday." alt="Mimes perform at the Franklin County Early Voting Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html image_data"> <p class="caption">Mimes perform at the Franklin County Early Voting Center in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday.</p> <span class="creditwrap rightsnotice">Courtesy Karen Kasler</span></div> </div> <p>For thousands of voters in Ohio, Election Day is going to be a day of rest â" because they worked hard to vote on Sunday.</p> <p>Thousands stood in long lines at voting sites in northeast Ohio, in southwest Ohio and in central Ohio. But the Franklin County Early Voting Center may have had the most carnival-like atmosphere.</p> <p>It was set up along a six-lane thoroughfare near an interstate in an old department store. The idea was to create easy access with lots of free parking. But that wasn't the case on Sunday. Traffic was backed up nearly a mile in both directions, and parking was at a premium â" some voters parked across the street and dodged cars as they ran across six lanes to reach the polling station.</p> <p>And once there, it was hard to find <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fkarenkasler%2Fstatus%2F265179681609895936%2Fphoto%2F1" target="_blank">the end of the line.</a> It went from the front of the building past two other closed stores, then around the side, then back to an apartment complex. Then it snaked back beside a big-box furniture store and <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fvideo%2Fvideo.php%3Fv%3D553953707954712%26amp%3Bsaved" target="_blank">weaved through rows of parked cars</a>.</p> <p>The scene was not unexpected. It was the only weekend voting in Ohio for the 2012 cycle, and it only came to pass after a lengthy court battle between Ohio's Republican secretary of state and, in part, the Obama campaign that <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ohio.com%2Fnews%2Fbreak-news%2Fu-s-supreme-court-says-ohio-ballots-can-be-cast-final-weekend-before-nov-6-1.342513" target="_blank">ended at the U.S. Supreme Court.</a> The court said ballots could be cast on the final weekend before the election.</p> <p>And so a scene unfolded. A volunteer in a Democratic Party T-shirt called new arrivals to the end of the line with a bullhorn, as a Republican volunteer stood by and tried to hand out sample ballots. All along the line, activists tried to get voters' attention with activities that ranged from the expected to the bizarre. There were dancing people costumed as <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fvideo%2Fvideo.php%3Fv%3D553951831288233%26amp%3Bsaved" target="_blank">Sesame Street characters</a>, in a clear effort to remind voters that Republican Mitt Romney doesn't support federal funding for public television.</p> <p>There was a Lincoln impersonator in a Democratic Party T-shirt. There were mimes performing choreographed routines to religious music. There were abortion rights and anti-abortion activists carrying dueling signs and following each other around. There were food trucks. And there was even a man selling election-related trinkets for those who wanted to remember the 2012 election.</p> <p>The wait to get to the front door was easily 90 minutes, and once inside, another massive line with another 90-minute wait to reach a voting booth.</p> <p>But most people were in good spirits, resigned to the wait for the opportunity to cast their ballot early. However, with all the passion, there were a few arguments. Many started around the signs carried by the abortion rights and anti-abortion activists. A lone advocate in a heavy-duty outdoor worksuit and ball cap carrying a pro-Romney sign got into a shouting match with an Obama supporter while observers chanted "PBS! PBS!"</p> <p>With all this going on, the quiet inside the building was almost jarring.</p> <p>In the end, the long line kept moving. A Board of Elections spokesman said about 800 people were voting each hour. A total of 3,700 people voted during the four hours the Franklin site was open on Sunday â" though it had to stay open late to accommodate those who were in line when it closed at 5 p.m.</p> <p>About 15,000 voters cast ballots at this site this weekend, though those who did so on Friday or Saturday weren't treated to the entertainment that marked Sunday.</p> <p><em>Karen Kasler is chief of the Statehouse News Bureau for Ohio Public Radio and Television.</em></p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-78899392461839424142012-11-05T15:30:00.001-08:002012-11-05T15:30:27.020-08:00All Across Syria, A Bloody Day<div id="storytext"> <div id="res164364432" class="bucketwrap image large"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/syria_car_bomb_custom-b467c804063970aeef732a52b812dea5d4ed64c0-s6-c10.jpg" data-original="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/syria_car_bomb_custom-b467c804063970aeef732a52b812dea5d4ed64c0.jpg" class="img lazyOnLoad" title="Syrians gather at the site of a car bombing Monday that killed 11 people and wounded dozens in the capital Damascus, according to the SANA news agency, which provided the photo. The violence in the city was described as some of the worst in recent months." alt="Syrians gather at the site of a car bombing Monday that killed 11 people and wounded dozens in the capital Damascus, according to the SANA news agency, which provided the photo. The violence in the city was described as some of the worst in recent months."/><div class="captionwrap caption"> <p>Syrians gather at the site of a car bombing Monday that killed 11 people and wounded dozens in the capital Damascus, according to the SANA news agency, which provided the photo. The violence in the city was described as some of the worst in recent months.</p> </div> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Sana/Handout</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">EPA /LANDOV</span></span> <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fthetwo-way%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164352051%2Fall-across-syria-a-bloody-day%3Fft%3D1%26amp%3Bf%3D1004" class="enlargebtn" title="Enlarge">i</a> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/syria_car_bomb_custom-b467c804063970aeef732a52b812dea5d4ed64c0-s51.jpg" title="Syrians gather at the site of a car bombing Monday that killed 11 people and wounded dozens in the capital Damascus, according to the SANA news agency, which provided the photo. The violence in the city was described as some of the worst in recent months." alt="Syrians gather at the site of a car bombing Monday that killed 11 people and wounded dozens in the capital Damascus, according to the SANA news agency, which provided the photo. The violence in the city was described as some of the worst in recent months."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html image_data"> <p class="caption">Syrians gather at the site of a car bombing Monday that killed 11 people and wounded dozens in the capital Damascus, according to the SANA news agency, which provided the photo. The violence in the city was described as some of the worst in recent months.</p> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Sana/Handout</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">EPA /LANDOV</span></span></div> </div> <p>The fighting in Syria was both nasty and widespread on Monday. Here's a summary of some of the worst fighting:</p> <p>â" Two deadly car bombings took place, one in a residential neighborhood in Damascus that killed 11 people, according to Syria's state-run SANA news agency. The other one, near the central city of Hama, generated wildly conflicting claims. An activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the suicide attack killed 50 government soldiers and allied gunmen. But the government put the death toll at two civilians.</p> <p>â" Palestinian refugees, who have mostly stayed out of the Syrian fighting, fought on both the pro-government and anti-government sides in battles around Damascus, according to <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2Factivist-group-at-least-50-troops-killed-in-syria%2F1682893%2F" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>. One of the flashpoints was the Yarmouk, the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria.</p> <p>Overall, the fighting in the Syrian capital was described as some of the worst in months.</p> <p>â" The northern city of Aleppo, one of the main battlegrounds the past few months, was again the scene of heavy shooting.</p> <p>"We are living in terror at night," a Syrian pharmacist named Samir <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fhostednews%2Fafp%2Farticle%2FALeqM5jTSYRQy3Cj0keVlfgg4iAj7WkQQw%3FdocId%3DCNG.e472e831153a393bff6d127c063f3120.4d1">told AFP</a> following fighting in Aleppo. "We hear everything â" gun battles, tank shelling, explosions...The clashes before dawn today were the worst all week."</p> <p>â" The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported air raids that targeted several sites in northern Syria, <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.yahoo.com%2Fair-strike-kills-20-rebels-syria-observatory-134726596.html" target="_blank">including the town of Haram</a>, where it said 20 rebels were killed.</p> <p><em>(Sophia Jones is an intern with NPR News.)</em></p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-25849977641576931412012-11-05T15:25:00.001-08:002012-11-05T15:25:24.341-08:00Legal Battle Surrounds Florida Early Voting Dispute<div id="storytext"> <div id="res164360538" class="bucketwrap image large"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/voting1_wide-ca00d631241c3a1af055144d053d3c84ee60d9b0-s6-c10.jpg" data-original="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/voting1_wide-ca00d631241c3a1af055144d053d3c84ee60d9b0.jpg" class="img lazyOnLoad" title="Floridians stand in line during the last day of early voting in Miami on Saturday. A judge extended early-voting hours in one Florida county Sunday after Democrats sued to allow more time." alt="Floridians stand in line during the last day of early voting in Miami on Saturday. A judge extended early-voting hours in one Florida county Sunday after Democrats sued to allow more time."/><div class="captionwrap caption"> <p>Floridians stand in line during the last day of early voting in Miami on Saturday. A judge extended early-voting hours in one Florida county Sunday after Democrats sued to allow more time.</p> </div> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Alan Diaz</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span> <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164355695%2Flegal-battle-surrounds-florida-early-voting-dispute%3Fft%3D1%26amp%3Bf%3D1003" class="enlargebtn" title="Enlarge">i</a> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/voting1_wide-ca00d631241c3a1af055144d053d3c84ee60d9b0-s51.jpg" title="Floridians stand in line during the last day of early voting in Miami on Saturday. A judge extended early-voting hours in one Florida county Sunday after Democrats sued to allow more time." alt="Floridians stand in line during the last day of early voting in Miami on Saturday. A judge extended early-voting hours in one Florida county Sunday after Democrats sued to allow more time."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html image_data"> <p class="caption">Floridians stand in line during the last day of early voting in Miami on Saturday. A judge extended early-voting hours in one Florida county Sunday after Democrats sued to allow more time.</p> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Alan Diaz</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span></div> </div> <p>Early voting ended in Florida on Saturday. But on Sunday, some county elections officials opened their offices to allow people to vote using absentee ballots.</p> <p>In Miami-Dade County, elections officials opened the office for over-the-counter absentee voting, but then inexplicably shut down. A couple of hundred waiting voters began chanting and pounding on the doors. An hour later, the office reopened.</p> <div class="container con1col small" id="con164361911"> <div id="res164361482" class="bucketwrap internallink inkinsetonecolumn inset1col"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F04%2F164279449%2Fnow-its-all-about-election-day-turnout" id="featuredStackSquareImage164279449" class="photowrap"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/04/romney_sq-0de8158129fa2e5b8334af485d576bc122e41abf-s1.jpg" class="img138" title="Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney poses with children during a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sunday." alt="Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney poses with children during a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sunday."/></a> <div class="bucketblock"> <h3 class="slug"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F">It's All Politics</a></h3> <p><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F04%2F164279449%2Fnow-its-all-about-election-day-turnout">Two Days Out: It's All About Election Day Turnout</a></p> </div> </div> <div id="res164361427" class="bucketwrap internallink inkinsetonecolumn inset1col"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F02%2F164205676%2Fis-romney-son-gunning-to-steal-ohio-vote-by-rigging-voting-machines" id="featuredStackSquareImage164205676" class="photowrap"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/02/ap90335621789_sq-15e5973125cd7ca463ba4811659702895ba51c9f-s1.jpg" class="img138" title="Tagg Romney, the eldest son of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, shakes hands with Barbara Irby at GOP headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., last month." alt="Tagg Romney, the eldest son of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, shakes hands with Barbara Irby at GOP headquarters in Lynchburg, Va., last month."/></a> <div class="bucketblock"> <h3 class="slug"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F">It's All Politics</a></h3> <p><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F02%2F164205676%2Fis-romney-son-gunning-to-steal-ohio-vote-by-rigging-voting-machines">No, Romney's Son Is Not Gunning To Steal Ohio Vote By Rigging Voting Machines</a></p> </div> </div> <div id="res164361534" class="bucketwrap internallink inkinsetonecolumn inset1col"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F03%2F164102300%2Fnonvoters-the-other-abstinence-movement" id="featuredStackSquareImage164102300" class="photowrap"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/02/non_voters_sq-13c7f684c0dc8721daf259ec093bfb46a5e88eda-s1.jpg" class="img138" title="Non voters" alt="Non voters"/></a> <div class="bucketblock"> <h3 class="slug"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F">It's All Politics</a></h3> <p><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F03%2F164102300%2Fnonvoters-the-other-abstinence-movement">Nonvoters: The Other Abstinence Movement</a></p> </div> </div> </div> <p>On Monday, Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Penelope Townsley said the problem was that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican serving in a nonpartisan post, hadn't approved the absentee voting.</p> <p>"At the same time, we were experiencing operational difficulties, including not enough resources. Once the mayor was briefed, he authorized that we continue," Townsley said.</p> <p>By operational difficulties, Townsley is referring to the huge number of voters who showed up, overwhelming her small staff and ballot printing machines.</p> <p>Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation earlier this year that imposed new restrictions on voting, many of which were overturned by the courts.</p> <p>One provision that remained in place reduced the days for early voting from 14 to eight. That led to long lines at early polling stations across the state last week, and some waits of four or more hours.</p> <p>Early voting was very important to Florida Democrats in 2008, when a strong early-vote turnout helped Barack Obama carry the state.</p> <p>Last week, a series of Democrats sent letters to Scott asking him to add days for early voting. He refused, so Democrats went to court. That's when county elections officials who were named in the lawsuit decided to allow in-person absentee voting.</p> <p>At the Miami-Dade elections office on Monday, it was a scene disturbingly reminiscent of Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election. A couple of hundred people waited in line to cast absentee ballots, but there were also hordes of reporters and TV trucks, along with officials and party activists holding competing news conferences.</p> <p>Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was also there, on behalf of the Obama campaign. He said encouraging people to vote was something upon which Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree.</p> <p>"Unfortunately, that's not what we're seeing here in Florida and other states where you see a concerted effort on the part of the Republicans, in this case on the part of Gov. Rick Scott, to discourage voting, to make it difficult for people to vote," Villaraigosa said.</p> <p>In Tampa on Monday, it was Florida's former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist â" now an independent â" speaking out on behalf of the Obama campaign and encouraging people to cast last-minute absentee ballots.</p> <p>Florida's Republican Party hasn't challenged the move by elections supervisors to allow last-minute voting by absentee ballots. But clearly, some Republicans aren't happy about it.</p> <p>"I think you're starting to see some nefarious actions already coming from the other side because there's been an incredible turnout from Republican voters on the early voting down here in Florida," Florida GOP Rep. Allen West told Fox News.</p> <p>Miami-Dade elections officials say they expect more lines when the polls open Tuesday, but they say they're ready.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-71514044276510158632012-11-05T15:20:00.001-08:002012-11-05T15:20:34.454-08:00Hard-Hit Long Island Awaits Power As Temps Drop<div id="storyspan02"> <div class="avcontent listen"> <p>Audio for this story from <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Ftemplates%2Frundowns%2Frundown.php%3FprgId%3D2%26amp%3BprgDate%3D11-05-2012">All Things Considered</a> will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET</p> </div> <p class="date">November 5, 2012</p> </div><div id="storytext"> <div id="res164362123" class="bucketwrap photo624"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/lipa_sandy_custom-66b151aa10ba1a7d97714421df6d585011ea0ca2-s4.jpg" width="624" class="img624 enlarge" title="A plea to the Long Island Power Authority for electricity to be restored is posted on a barrier Wednesday in Mastic Beach, N.Y. The south shore Long Island community was among the hardest hit by the storm that pounded the northeast earlier in the week." alt="A plea to the Long Island Power Authority for electricity to be restored is posted on a barrier Wednesday in Mastic Beach, N.Y. The south shore Long Island community was among the hardest hit by the storm that pounded the northeast earlier in the week."/><div class="captionwrap enlarge"><a class="enlargeicon" alt="Enlarge" title="Enlarge Image" href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B"><span>Enlarge</span></a> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Frank Eltman</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span> <p>A plea to the Long Island Power Authority for electricity to be restored is posted on a barrier Wednesday in Mastic Beach, N.Y. The south shore Long Island community was among the hardest hit by the storm that pounded the northeast earlier in the week.</p> </div> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/lipa_sandy_wide-f68d09b15c0f66e09a40ea66ff9f1131520da37c-s51.jpg" title="A plea to the Long Island Power Authority for electricity to be restored is posted on a barrier Wednesday in Mastic Beach, N.Y. The south shore Long Island community was among the hardest hit by the storm that pounded the northeast earlier in the week." alt="A plea to the Long Island Power Authority for electricity to be restored is posted on a barrier Wednesday in Mastic Beach, N.Y. The south shore Long Island community was among the hardest hit by the storm that pounded the northeast earlier in the week."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html"><span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Frank Eltman</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span> <p class="caption">A plea to the Long Island Power Authority for electricity to be restored is posted on a barrier Wednesday in Mastic Beach, N.Y. The south shore Long Island community was among the hardest hit by the storm that pounded the northeast earlier in the week.</p> </div> </div> <p>A week after Hurricane Sandy hit the region, roughly a million people are still without power in the New York area, and more than one-third of those live on Long Island.</p> <p>In the hierarchy of hurricanes that have hit Mastic Beach, N.Y., over the years, this one ranks near the top, according to Mayor Bill Biondi.</p> <p>"This is the worse we've had in a long time," Biondi says. "I guess the only thing that was worse than this ... was the hurricane of 1938. I haven't seen or heard anything in between those years that was worse than this one."</p> <div id="res164362320" class="bucketwrap photo300"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/mayor-bill-bondi_edit_vert-34d9d3119d15ba354036319f53e09002f8009637-s2.jpg" width="300" class="img300 enlarge" title="Mastic Beach Mayor Bill Biondi looks over a map of the flooding in his community from Hurricane Sandy. More than a thousand homes here were inundated with seawater." alt="Mastic Beach Mayor Bill Biondi looks over a map of the flooding in his community from Hurricane Sandy. More than a thousand homes here were inundated with seawater."/><div class="captionwrap enlarge"><a class="enlargeicon" alt="Enlarge" title="Enlarge Image" href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=javascript%3Avoid%280%29%3B"><span>Enlarge</span></a> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Steve Henn</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">NPR</span></span> <p>Mastic Beach Mayor Bill Biondi looks over a map of the flooding in his community from Hurricane Sandy. More than a thousand homes here were inundated with seawater.</p> </div> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/mayor-bill-bondi_edit_vert-34d9d3119d15ba354036319f53e09002f8009637-s51.jpg" title="Mastic Beach Mayor Bill Biondi looks over a map of the flooding in his community from Hurricane Sandy. More than a thousand homes here were inundated with seawater." alt="Mastic Beach Mayor Bill Biondi looks over a map of the flooding in his community from Hurricane Sandy. More than a thousand homes here were inundated with seawater."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html"><span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Steve Henn</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">NPR</span></span> <p class="caption">Mastic Beach Mayor Bill Biondi looks over a map of the flooding in his community from Hurricane Sandy. More than a thousand homes here were inundated with seawater.</p> </div> </div> <p>Temperatures are now dropping, but restoring power to these neighborhoods is a challenge. Mayor Biondi says the seawater that flooded homes here has corroded wires, creating countless fire hazards. A picture on his cell phone shows scorched siding on a house nearby.</p> <p>"[So] that's pretty much what could happen," he says. "An electrical box â" it starts to crackle and the next thing you know is the house goes on fire."</p> <p>Biondi says all the residents here want the power back on, but if the town moves too fast and hooks up houses like this it could make things worse.</p> <p><strong>Frustration Is Building</strong></p> <p>At the town hall Monday morning, townspeople pour in pleading for power.</p> <div class="container con1col small" id="con164361197"> <div id="res164361227" class="bucketwrap internallink simple simple"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fthetwo-way%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164288404%2Frecovery-to-take-quite-a-long-time-in-storm-ravaged-breezy-point">Recovery To Take 'Quite A Long Time' In Storm-Ravaged Breezy Point</a> <span class="date">Nov. 5, 2012</span></div> <div id="res164361198" class="bucketwrap internallink simple simple"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fthetwo-way%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164346982%2Fsuperstorm-sandy-latest-figures-how-to-help-those-in-need">Superstorm Sandy: Latest Figures & How To Help Those In Need</a> <span class="date">Nov. 5, 2012</span></div> <div id="res164361289" class="bucketwrap internallink simple simple"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2012%2F11%2F04%2F164185424%2Finsurance-companies-rethink-business-after-sandy">Insurance Companies Rethink Business After Sandy</a> <span class="date">Nov. 4, 2012</span></div> <div id="res164361287" class="bucketwrap internallink simple simple"><a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2012%2F11%2F04%2F164193857%2Flevee-rebuilding-questioned-after-sandy-breach">Levee Rebuilding Questioned After Sandy Breach</a> <span class="date">Nov. 4, 2012</span></div> </div> <p>"It's bedlam," says Ann Smith, the town receptionist. "People want their electricity ... everybody expects us to concentrate just on them and there are an awful lot of people down here who are very bad off. They've lost their homes; they have lost everything."</p> <p>Now the area is bracing for another storm; a nor'easter that is expected to hit this town on Wednesday.</p> <p>"Right now we do have teams of assessors out there trying to go home to home," says Deputy Mayor Gary Stiriz. "[They're] trying to get an accurate assessment of what homes can be lived in and what homes are uninhabitable at this point."</p> <p>Stiriz says there are about 5,000 homes here, and authorities say more than a thousand are flooded. The storm surge crashed through the barrier beaches on Fire Island that usually protect this little town. It cut a new inlet that is 3,000-feet wide and brought more than four feet of water flooding into some neighborhoods.</p> <p>When flood water drained away it left a mix of fuel oil and sewage behind, and the insides of many homes are now highly toxic.</p> <p>Stiriz spent his life building a business on the Great South Bay â" a marina â" that suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage when most of it washed away this week. On top of that, his roof blew off and his home was destroyed.</p> <p>"All of the things you acquire when you have wood shops and motor shops and metal shops, [all gone]," Stiriz says.</p> <p>Stiriz is a native, and his family has been here since the 1920s. His own father rode out the 1938 hurricane and tidal wave. All his life his father told him to be careful, because anything invested in on the waterfront is "eventually going to become hurricane food."</p> <p>"Now, I know what he meant," he says.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-92056976790575924112012-11-05T15:15:00.001-08:002012-11-05T15:15:27.653-08:00Crossroads GPS Redefines 'Social Welfare' Political Action<div id="storytext"> <div id="res164366122" class="bucketwrap image medium"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/150866730-e94a935cd71d00ad58a04e36449e2d098195bbb3-s6-c10.jpg" data-original="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/150866730-e94a935cd71d00ad58a04e36449e2d098195bbb3.jpg" class="img lazyOnLoad" title="Karl Rove, the founder of Crossroads GPS and a former adviser to President George W. Bush, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla, on Aug. 28." alt="Karl Rove, the founder of Crossroads GPS and a former adviser to President George W. Bush, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla, on Aug. 28."/><div class="captionwrap caption"> <p>Karl Rove, the founder of Crossroads GPS and a former adviser to President George W. Bush, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla, on Aug. 28.</p> </div> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Spencer Platt</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">Getty Images</span></span> <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164364802%2Fcrossroads-gps-redefines-social-welfare-political-action%3Fft%3D1%26amp%3Bf%3D1003" class="enlargebtn" title="Enlarge">i</a> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/150866730-e94a935cd71d00ad58a04e36449e2d098195bbb3-s51.jpg" title="Karl Rove, the founder of Crossroads GPS and a former adviser to President George W. Bush, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla, on Aug. 28." alt="Karl Rove, the founder of Crossroads GPS and a former adviser to President George W. Bush, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla, on Aug. 28."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html image_data"> <p class="caption">Karl Rove, the founder of Crossroads GPS and a former adviser to President George W. Bush, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla, on Aug. 28.</p> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Spencer Platt</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">Getty Images</span></span></div> </div> <p>With all the really big numbers flying around this campaign season, here's one more: $165,062,250.</p> <p>That's how much Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS has spent attacking Democrats and helping Republicans this election. Perhaps this number doesn't seem so special, compared to the $1 billion spent by President Obama's campaign, and at least $900 million by Gov. Romney's team.</p> <p>There is one critical difference, though.</p> <p>Every donor who gives $200 or more to a federal candidate, party or superPAC is identified â" name, address, date, amount, occupation, employer â" to the public. Whether it's a retired schoolteacher who has given $10 a month over two years to Obama for America, or casino magnate Sheldon Adelson cutting another $5 million check to Restore Our Future.</p> <p>But who's giving to Crossroads GPS?</p> <p>Well, that's a secret. Not secret from everyone, mind you. Rove and those who run Crossroads know, the IRS will know, and there's a strong chance the Republican candidates that Crossroads is working to help already know. But the public has no right to know. Not ever.</p> <p>There is no way for the casual viewer of Crossroads' many tens of thousands of television ads to understand that distinction. And perhaps the casual viewer doesn't even care about that distinction. Nonetheless, it goes to the heart of the post-Watergate reforms that sought both to limit the influence of the wealthy in elections and to make the system transparent.</p> <p>It has been seen for decades as a fundamental premise of campaign finance: The public has an absolute right to know who gave and who got, so it can make an informed judgment as to what those contributors might want, and then hold the elected officials accountable afterward, if it appears they are hewing to the wishes of their biggest donors.</p> <p>And make no mistake â" these are BIG donors, indeed.</p> <p>Rove named his group Crossroads GPS, for "Grassroots Political Strategies," but its donor base has been anything but. The public IS allowed to know how many large donations it and other groups registered as "social welfare organizations" under IRS rules receive.</p> <p>An NPR analysis of those filings showed that in its first year and a half in existence, nearly 90 percent of the $77 million Crossroads collected came from million dollar donors â" as few as 16 and no more than 24 individuals or corporations. Two of the donations were $10 million each.</p> <p>That was the money collected through Dec. 31, 2011. How much the group raised in this election year, and in what quantities, will not be known until April 15, 2013, at the earliest.</p> <p>Again, though, WHO gave all those millions that paid for all those ads is a matter between Rove and his donors. The public cannot and will not know, not unless the donors themselves choose to tell us.</p> <p>Crossroads GPS is not the first 501(c)(4), as they are known, to get involved in elections. Groups have been doing so for years.</p> <p>The Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for more campaign finance disclosure, <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Freporting.sunlightfoundation.com%2Foutside-spending%2Fnoncommittees%2F">updates a list</a> of these and other tax-exempt groups that are actively involved in the election. It numbers into the many dozens, and the total spent on explicit, vote-for, vote-against ads is more than a quarter billion dollars. That doesn't include at least another couple of hundred million dollars on ads that did not have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission.</p> <p><strong>Largest, By Far</strong></p> <p>Several things, though, make Crossroads stand out.</p> <p>First is the scale of its activity. It is No. 1, by far, atop Sunlight's list. In fact, an NPR analysis of FEC data as of this morning shows that Crossroads has this election spent $71 million on explicitly political broadcast ads, phone calls, mailers and so forth â" which puts it at No. 3 in total "independent expenditures" â" that is, spending that is not coordinated with a candidate. It's behind Restore Our Future ($142 million) and American Crossroads (Crossroads GPS's sister organization, which, as a superPAC, DOES disclose its donors: $105 million), but ahead of Priorities USA Action (the pro-Obama superPAC: $65 million), and the U.S.Chamber of Commerce ($32 million).</p> <p>Second is the circumstance of its origin. The League of Conservation Voters is the liberal 501(c)(4) group that Crossroads loves to point to when questioned about its political spending. Yet not only is the amount it has spent so far on explicit ads ($11 million) dwarfed by Crossroads' total, Crossroads has little in common with the environmental group, which was formed in 1969 by a mountaineer to push for tougher environmental laws. In contrast, Crossroads was created in 2010 by Republican political operatives who have used most of the money they've gathered to attack Democratic officeholders and candidates.</p> <p>Third, no liberal tax-exempt group has ever had anywhere near the influence on a presidential election as Crossroads has had on this one. Rove's outfit began running tens of millions of dollars in TV ads hammering President Obama and Democratic senators in the spring of 2011. For about a year they had the airwaves essentially to themselves and to like-minded conservative "C4s" like Americans for Prosperity (backed by the billionaire Koch brothers).</p> <p>At a time when Romney was battling Republican rivals for the nomination, spending money to beat the likes of Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, Crossroads and a handful of other conservative C4s kept up the drumbeat with ads in (and almost exclusively in) the battleground states. It's hard to know exactly how much these ads dragged down Obama's poll numbers â" but Crossroads officials like to suggest that it was quite a bit.</p> <p>In an Aug. 1, 2012 op-ed in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, Rove boasted of the role Republican outside groups had played in keeping Romney competitive with Obama heading into the final stretch. While Romney's campaign had spent $42 million on ads, the outside groups had spent "$107.4 million more in ads attacking Mr. Obama's policies or boosting Mr. Romney coming from outside groups (with Crossroads GPS, a group I helped found, providing over half)."</p> <p>In other articles that questioned how effective all this outside spending has been, Crossroads has responded, perhaps correctly, that without it, Obama would have been much further ahead going into the final months without them.</p> <p><strong>IRS Designation</strong></p> <p>What happens to Crossroads GPS after the election is an open question. There is still the matter of its tax status. The IRS has not yet formally approved its application as a 501(c)(4). The agency has received numerous complaints about the volume of Crossroads' political activity, but it does not comment on its decision-making process in individual cases.</p> <p>Nonprofits are allowed to spend an infinite amount on "issue" advocacy, but only a limited quantity on overtly political messages. The IRS guidance on this is somewhat vague â" social welfare organizations can engage in politics so long as that is not their primary activity. Precisely what "primary" means is not spelled out, but a number of nonprofit groups interpret it to mean that as long as politics makes up less than 50 percent of their total expenses, they are okay.</p> <p>This explains why over the first half of the year, Crossroads representatives steadfastly described their advertising as issue-oriented, despite the minor-key music and ominous narration and uniformly harsh attacks on Obama and Democratic Senate candidates. Because the magic words "vote" or "defeat" or "this November 6th" where absent, the ads were "issue advocacy," Crossroads officials argued.</p> <p>By late-summer, Crossroads had spent more than $94 million on these "issue" ads against Obama and Democratic congressional candidates. But that phase of Crossroads' strategy appeared to end in late July, when ads directly telling viewers to vote against Obama, Senate Democratic candidates and even some House Democratic candidates began to air.</p> <p>(On a side note, Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio objected to an <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fitsallpolitics%2F2012%2F10%2F24%2F163577834%2Ftax-exempt-crossroads-gps-airs-first-direct-vote-mitt-romney-ad">earlier NPR article</a> on this issue because it stated that Crossroads had just a few months earlier said that it was only interested in advancing issues, not engaging in electoral politics. However, for many months, Crossroads officers, when asked what the group hoped to accomplish, responded with a singular answer: to discuss issues such as the debt, Obamacare and the economy. Even as late as July 20, Crossroads president Steven Law told NPR this: "When Crossroads GPS advertises it talks about issues. It talks about policy positions that we'd like to advance, and it holds office holders, like President Obama, accountable for how they've been on those issues." One week later, Crossroads reported to the FEC that it was airing its first explicitly political ad this election, telling voters to defeat Nevada Rep. Shelley Berkley in her race for the Senate.)</p> <p>As of Monday morning, Crossroads GPS has reported $71 million in explicitly political ads opposing Democrats and supporting Republicans, according to an NPR analysis of FEC filings. More than $15 million has been against Obama, $8 million against Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine and $6 million against Berkley.</p> <p><strong>Direct Call To Vote Romney</strong></p> <p>Last month, Crossroads even spent $5 million telling viewers to vote for Romney. While the openly political ads against the Democrats still mentioned the debt or Obamacare, the ad supporting Romney mentioned none of those issues that, just months earlier, Crossroads had said were at the core of their mission.</p> <p>It features the parents of a boy who died of cancer nearly 25 years ago. They recount how Romney ministered to him, helping him write a will and delivering his eulogy. The ad closes with the words "Please vote Mitt Romney for president" on the screen.</p> <p>Crossroads spokesman Collegio told NPR in an email: "Nonprofit groups are allowed to undertake some political activity as part of their missions as long as it's not the central thing they do." He pointed out again that environmental groups with non-profit status are also running political ads against Republicans.</p> <p>Regardless of how this plays with the IRS, the donors who gave Crossroads their millions with the expectation of secrecy probably have little to fear, according to several campaign finance lawyers. The worst-case scenario for the group is that it would be denied its tax-exempt status and face hefty fines, which would probably lead to it shutting down, with its principals popping back up with new groups for the next election cycle.</p> <p>But given its centrality to the Republican effort this year, Rove himself, as Crossroads' co-founder and star fundraiser, may face other consequences.</p> <p>It appears that Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads together did pull in the $300 million they announced as a goal earlier this year. If Romney wins the presidency and Republicans take full control of Congress, Rove clearly would have something to brag about.</p> <p>But what happens if, despite all these seven- and eight-figure checks, Obama wins anyway? And what if, as appears more and more likely, the Senate remains Democratic?</p> <p>Political observers are already speculating about the gaggle of a few dozen angry billionaires demanding an explanation from Rove. Rove's statement this weekend that Hurricane Sandy had helped Obama improve his standing in the polls only added to the idea that former President George W. Bush's political guru is already starting to lay the groundwork for some serious explaining come Wednesday morning.</p> <p><strong>2014 And Beyond</strong></p> <p>Yet whatever happens on Tuesday, and regardless of what happens to Crossroads GPS or Rove going forward, their involvement in the election this year will have enormous implications for the country's campaign finance system in the years to come.</p> <p>The ability to give to a group deeply involved in political advertising while keeping that donation secret from the public is greatly valued, it turns out. Giving large checks to a superPAC can bring unwanted enmity, for example, from customers â" half of whom might be supporting the opposing candidate in a big election. Rove has shown that it's possible to harness a small number of such individuals and corporations and essentially build a parallel political party. A party with almost no rules, no local or state functionaries to worry about, answerable only to itself and its donors.</p> <p>The U.S. Supreme Court opened the door to this with its 2007 and 2010 rulings in <em>Wisconsin Right to Life</em> and <em>Citizens United</em>. In that latter case, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that such unlimited donations are acceptable because of the transparency that modern technology affords with, for example, the Internet.</p> <p>This election, upwards of $400 million will be spent on political advertising, the donors of which will never be known to the voting public. Despite this, it does not seem likely that the high court will revisit either of those cases soon. And given the impending makeup of Congress, legislation addressing this is equally unlikely. Republicans who once championed instant and full disclosure prior to <em>Citizens United</em> now oppose attempts to bring disclosure rules to tax-exempt groups that engage in politics.</p> <p>At least â" they oppose those attempt right now, when they are benefiting from the overwhelming majority of this secret money.</p> <p>But what conservative partisans do today, liberal partisans could copy tomorrow. It may only be a matter of time before one or two or a dozen Democratic versions of Crossroads pop up with the goal of defeating Republicans using millions of dollars from secret donors.</p> <p>Perhaps that's what it will take, a number of oxen to be gored from both parties, before the idea of fully disclosing who gave and who got is once again embraced as a fundamental principle.</p> <p><em>S.V. Dáte is congressional editor on NPR's Washington Desk.</em></p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-10530921363259652672012-11-05T14:50:00.001-08:002012-11-05T14:50:26.680-08:00Republican Grab For Senate Seats May Not Come Easy<div id="storyspan02"> <div class="avcontent listen"> <p>Audio for this story from <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Ftemplates%2Frundowns%2Frundown.php%3FprgId%3D2%26amp%3BprgDate%3D11-05-2012">All Things Considered</a> will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET</p> </div> <p class="date">November 5, 2012</p> </div><div id="storytext"> <p>Melissa Block talks with senior Washington editor Ron Elving about the Senate races to watch on Tuesday.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-12026899913321987162012-11-05T14:45:00.001-08:002012-11-05T14:45:25.310-08:00Thousands Of New Yorkers Homeless After Sandy<div id="storyspan02"> <div class="avcontent listen"> <p>Audio for this story from <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Ftemplates%2Frundowns%2Frundown.php%3FprgId%3D2%26amp%3BprgDate%3D11-05-2012">All Things Considered</a> will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET</p> </div> <p class="date">November 5, 2012</p> </div><div id="storytext"> <p>Tens of thousands of people have been forced out of their homes as a result of superstorm Sandy. Melissa Block talks with Martin Kaste about the situation and the government's response.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-17464950863098784402012-11-05T14:40:00.001-08:002012-11-05T14:40:35.082-08:00EPA Cites Hyundai, Kia For Inflating Gas Mileage On 900,000 Cars<div id="storytext"> <div id="res164363950" class="bucketwrap image large"><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/ap50773535376-cc58c69c1b20c4c3cf7df50b88c8fd3355369dc1-s6-c10.jpg" data-original="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/ap50773535376-cc58c69c1b20c4c3cf7df50b88c8fd3355369dc1.jpg" class="img lazyOnLoad" title="The Environmental Protection Agency found Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, overstated the fuel economy ratings on about 900,000 cars." alt="The Environmental Protection Agency found Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, overstated the fuel economy ratings on about 900,000 cars."/><div class="captionwrap caption"> <p>The Environmental Protection Agency found Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, overstated the fuel economy ratings on about 900,000 cars.</p> </div> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Nam Y. Huh</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span> <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fblogs%2Fthetwo-way%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2F164362408%2Fepa-cites-hyundai-kia-for-inflating-gas-mileage-on-900-000-cars%3Fft%3D1%26amp%3Bf%3D1003" class="enlargebtn" title="Enlarge">i</a> <p><img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2012/11/05/ap50773535376-cc58c69c1b20c4c3cf7df50b88c8fd3355369dc1-s51.jpg" title="The Environmental Protection Agency found Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, overstated the fuel economy ratings on about 900,000 cars." alt="The Environmental Protection Agency found Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, overstated the fuel economy ratings on about 900,000 cars."/></p> <div class="enlarge_html image_data"> <p class="caption">The Environmental Protection Agency found Hyundai and its sister company, Kia, overstated the fuel economy ratings on about 900,000 cars.</p> <span class="creditwrap"><span class="credit">Nam Y. Huh</span>/<span class="rightsnotice">AP</span></span></div> </div> <p>If you bought a Hyundai or Kia over the past three years, you could soon be getting some money back from the two automakers.</p> <p>The Environmental Protection Agency says the South Korean carmakers, owned by the same parent company, overstated the gas mileage on 900,000 vehicles over the past three years. The EPA discovered the bloated figures during an audit of gas mileage tests undertaken by the companies. The agency said last week it was investigating how the carmakers arrived at the numbers.</p> <p>Here's more from <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2012%2F11%2F02%2F164159559%2Fepa-finds-hyundai-kia-overstated-gas-mileage" target="_blank">The Associated Press</a>:</p> <blockquote class="edTag"> <p>"The EPA found inflated gas mileage on 13 models from the 2011 through 2013 model years, including Hyundai's Elantra and Tucson, and Kia's Sportage and Rio. The window sticker mileages were overstated on about one-third of the cars sold by the companies during the three years.</p> <p>"As a result, Hyundai and Kia will have to knock one or two miles per gallon off the vehicle stickers of most of their models. Some models will lose three or four miles per gallon. The Kia Soul, a funky-looking boxy small SUV, will lose six from its highway figure, lowering it from 34 mpg to 28 mpg."</p> </blockquote> <p>The EPA is looking into the errors; the AP reported the agency wouldn't comment on whether the companies will be fined or if a criminal investigation is under way.</p> <p>Automakers typically put their vehicles though an EPA-mandated test and submit the data to the government. The result is the number you see when you go out to buy a car. But, says Jerry Hirsch, who covers the automotive industry for the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, the EPA conducted its own testing after several complaints about the Hyundai Elantra.</p> <p>"The EPA got enough complaints where it decided, 'Let's test this car again,'" he tells Melissa Block, host of NPR's <em>All Things Considered</em>. "It tested the car and found out that its results were different than the results tested by Hyundai. So then they said, 'Wow! This is unusual.' And they went back and tested a whole bunch of cars that are produced by both Hyundai and Kia."</p> <p>In a <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kia.com%2F%23%2Fpress" target="_blank">statement on Kia's website</a>, the company apologized for the rating, and said both it and Hyundai are "voluntarily adjusting the fuel economy ratings for approximately 900,000, or 35 percent of, 2011-2013 model year vehicles sold through October 31, 2012."</p> <p>The statement blamed the inflated estimates on "procedural errors at the automakers' joint testing operations in Korea."</p> <p>Here's more from the statement:</p> <blockquote class="edTag"> <p>"Both companies are putting in place a comprehensive reimbursement program for affected current and former vehicle owners to cover the additional fuel costs associated with the fuel economy rating change. Customers will receive a personalized debit card that ill reimburse them for their difference in the EPA combined fuel economy rating, based on the fuel price in their area and their own actual miles driven. In addition, as an acknowledgment of the inconvenience this may cause, we will add an extra 15 percent to the reimbursement amount."</p> </blockquote> <p>The <em>LA Times</em>' Hirsch tells NPR's Block that it's likely to cost the companies $50 million to $60 million dollars. Ultimately, though, he says it's unlikely to have a long-term impact.</p> <p>"This is a black eye for the companies and they've really oriented their advertising and marketing to fuel economy, but you also have to put this in perspective," he says. "This is a pocketbook issue. It's not a safety defect. No one's getting killed. No one's getting hurt. There's no risk to drivers. And I think this is a bruise that will heal pretty quickly."</p> <p>The controversy did, however, worry investors who dumped shares in the companies. <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com?key=11fe087258b6fc0532a5ccfc924805c0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2F2012-11-05%2Fhyundai-kia-shares-tumble-on-overstated-mileage-claims.html" target="_blank">Bloomberg reported</a> that in trading in Seoul Monday, Hyundai and Kia lost a combined $4.7 billion in market value. Hyundai, South Korea's No. 1 carmaker, fell 7.2 percent. Kia, No. 2, lost 6.9 percent.</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-62239747423095288362012-11-05T14:35:00.001-08:002012-11-05T14:35:26.051-08:00Haqqani network hit with U.N. sanctions: U.S. envoy<div> <p class="first"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151968_4">UNITED NATIONS</span> (Reuters) - The <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151968_1">U.N. Security Council</span>'s Taliban sanctions committee on Monday added the Pakistan-based <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151968_0">Haqqani network</span>, accused of high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, and its chief of suicide operations to a <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151968_3">U.N.</span> blacklist, the United States said.</p> <p>"These sanctions oblige all U.N. member states to implement an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo against (Qari) Zakir and the Haqqani Network," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement.</p> <p>(Reporting by <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151968_2">Louis Charbonneau</span>; Editing by Will Dunham)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5704506123616725275.post-25047968976205625682012-11-05T14:30:00.001-08:002012-11-05T14:30:30.560-08:00Iran slams anti-nuclear weapons treaty as discriminatory<div> <p class="first">UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Discriminatory implementation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has left many countries feeling that being a party to the anti-atom bomb pact hinders cooperation in the field atomic energy, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_1">Iran</span>'s U.N. ambassador said on Monday.</p> <p>Western diplomats and analysts have long expressed concern that Iran might one day follow <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_0">North Korea</span>'s example and pull out of the NPT and produce a bomb. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.</p> <p>Speaking at a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on the annual report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_6">Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee</span> sought to assure countries that despite Tehran's reservations about the way the treaty is enforced, Iran does not plan to pull out.</p> <p>"Iran ... is fully committed to its legal obligations, and its nuclear activities are, and have always been, exclusively for peaceful purposes," Khazaee said. He added that Tehran considers development of the full nuclear fuel cycle an "inalienable right" under the NPT.</p> <p>Western powers and their allies fear Iran is amassing the capability to produce atomic weapons, an allegation Tehran rejects. The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt nuclear-fuel work, but Tehran has pressed ahead with uranium enrichment.</p> <p>Khazaee accused the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_5">United States</span>, Britain and France of supplying Israel - which is not a party to the 1970 treaty aimed at preventing the spread of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_3">nuclear arms</span> and is widely assumed to be the Middle East's sole nuclear power - with atomic "assistance and cooperation."</p> <p>"The application of a discriminatory, selective, highly restrictive and politically motivated approach in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_4">nuclear cooperation</span> ... has given rise to this impression that being an NPT party is not a privilege, because rather than facilitating, it impedes nuclear cooperation," he said.</p> <p>Israel neither confirms nor denies having nuclear arms.</p> <p>NUCLEAR DISCRIMINATION?</p> <p>In a written message to the 193-nation assembly, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_7">IAEA</span> Director-General Yukiya Amano reiterated his oft-stated concerns about the agency's decade-long probe of Iran's nuclear program.</p> <p>"Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable us to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities," his statement said. "Therefore, we cannot conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."</p> <p>Some analysts agree the non-proliferation regime is discriminatory, since the five permanent U.N. Security Council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - are all permitted to maintain nuclear arsenals, although they have pledged under the NPT to negotiate on eradicating such arms.</p> <p>Russia and the United States, which possess the bulk of the world's nuclear weapons, have reduced the size of their atomic arsenals, although both still possess thousands of warheads. None of the other perm-five members has yet given up their capability.</p> <p>The NPT bars non-nuclear weapons states from developing or acquiring them.</p> <p>The IAEA statement expressed similar frustrations about the agency's investigations into North Korea and Syria. It said Pyongyang's statements about uranium enrichment and construction of a light-water reactor were "deeply troubling."</p> <p>In a typically fiery speech, North Korea's deputy U.N. envoy Ri Tong Il told the assembly the IAEA was irrelevant to the situation in Asia because the agency was a puppet of Washington.</p> <p>"The situation on the Korean peninsula is on the brink of explosion and nobody knows when the war will break out," he said, adding that the United States and South Korea were to blame. He said six-party aid-for-disarmament talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea were nearly "dead."</p> <p>North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors at the end of 2002 when it restarted its mothballed Yongbyon nuclear facilities.</p> <p>Pakistan, which like its neighbor India has nuclear arms but is not a member of the NPT, also complained to the General Assembly about the discriminatory way in which atomic technology is made available to some states, but not others.</p> <p>"Pakistan believes in an equitable, non-discriminatory and criteria-based approach to advance the universally shared goals of non-proliferation and promotion of peaceful uses of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_8">nuclear energy</span>," Pakistani Ambassador Masood Khan said.</p> <p>Pakistan, which was embarrassed after it was revealed in 2003 that Pakistani technology had been sold to both Iran and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1352151175_2">North Korea</span>, has long been irritated by a bilateral U.S.-India deal on the transfer of civilian nuclear technology to India.</p> <p>That agreement went against a long tradition according to which countries producing nuclear technology pledged not to supply atomic equipment to states outside the NPT, or to treaty signatories in violation of it.</p> <p>Frustrated by its status as a nuclear pariah, Pakistan has been turning to China for nuclear cooperation.</p> <p>The IAEA statement also said that the agency continued to have questions about a site in Syria's desert Deir al-Zor region that U.S. intelligence reports say was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons before Israel bombed it in 2007.</p> <p>Amano's statement reiterated his request for information about Deir al-Zor, which Syria says was a conventional military site, and other locations in Syria.</p> <p>(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by David Brunnstrom)</p> </div><img src="http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> adminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09871094651561249048noreply@blogger.com