Obama Calls 10 Military Members to Thank Them

In keeping with holiday tradition, President Obama called 10 members of the U.S. armed services today to thank them for their service.

In the call made earlier today to two service members from the Army, the Marine Corps,  the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, the White House reports he “thanked them for their service and wished them and their families a happy Thanksgiving.”

The White House did not specify where the individuals called were based or stationed.
Both the president and first lady also took to Twitter today to tweet holiday thanks.
Obama tweeted, “Today, let’s pledge to help our fellow Americans in need, because we are greater together than we are on our own. #HappyThanksgiving -bo.”

While Michelle, tweeting from her FLOTUS account, thanked military families.
“This #Thanksgiving, let’s give thanks for all our brave men & women in uniform and their families. We’re so grateful for your sacrifice. -mo”
The “BO” and “MO” signature specifies the tweet was authored and sent directly from Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, respectively.

Central African Republic needs many more peacekeepers - EU

 

Sectarian killings spreading across the country
* Access for humanitarian workers hindered by security
* Deployment of AU peacekeepers slow, U.N. force not agreed (Adds ambassador change, diplomats)
By Joe Bavier
ABIDJAN, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Central African Republic needs up to four times more peacekeepers than are now deployed to quell a worsening sectarian conflict and provide security for aid workers, the European Union's top humanitarian official said.

The country has descended into chaos since the Seleka coalition of rebels, many of them from neighbouring Chad and Sudan, ousted President Francois Bozize in March.

France is preparing to boost its force in its anarchic former colony to at least 1,000 soldiers once a U.N. resolution is passed next week to improve security until a 3,600-strong African Union (AU) force is operational.

Paris, which already has around 400 troops based at the airport in the capital Bangui, has already started beefing up personnel and equipment in the country, diplomatic sources said.
Two sources also said France's ambassador to Central African Republic was being replaced, replicating a change of its envoy in Mali two months after French troops launched a mission there earlier this year to oust al Qaeda-linked militants.

France's foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment.
Around 2,500 regional peacekeepers deployed in the country are to be brought into the AU force.
"Clearly what needs to be done is beefing up of peacekeeping forces. Tripling or quadrupling what is there," EU aid chief Kristalina Georgieva said, warning they face a twin risk of a Somalia-like state collapse and potential genocide.


LOOMING TRAGEDY
"Unless there is an immediate, significant change in security conditions, these two risks can deepen so much that we have a tragedy on our hands. And we'll look back and say 'why didn't we act sooner'," she said.
Some 460,000 people, a tenth of the population, have fled the sectarian violence since the takeover by the mainly Muslim Seleka rebels, whose numbers Georgieva said had grown from around 5,000 fighters to some 20,000 today.

Fearing that tit-for-tat killings could escalate into full-blown war between the Christian majority and Muslims, who represent around 15 percent of the population, world powers are scrambling into action.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this month ordered his officials to start preparing for the likely deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission. But African leaders want to give the AU force time to try to stabilise the situation.

"There has to be a commitment now - not in one month, not in three months, now - to strengthen security," Georgieva told Reuters late on Wednesday during a visit to Ivory Coast.

She said rapidly deteriorating security was already hampering humanitarian assistance to the country of 4.6 million people and aid agencies worried that their workers could soon become targets of militia fighters.
Two local employees of the French humanitarian organisation ACTED were robbed and murdered in the country in September.

The French-drafted U.N. resolution would give a six-month mandate for French troops and the African-led International Support Mission (MISCA) to restore order, protect civilians and rebuild state authority.
"French troops will secure the main arteries and secondary roads," said a French diplomatic source. "It's completely feasible. This is neither al Qaeda in Mali nor al Shabaab in Somalia. I wouldn't say the Seleka is a flock of sparrows, but it should disband pretty quickly." (Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Bate Felix and Gareth Jones)

Zakaria: Big Fuss Over a Small Iran Deal

Critics of the agreement with the rogue state worry it may be the start of a beautiful friendship. It isn't

The opposition to the new agreement on Iran's nuclear program has been predictable but still puzzling. Here's what would have happened had there been no deal: Iran would have continued to build up its nuclear program, with no constraints or inspections.
We don't have to imagine that scenario; it's happened before. In 2003, Iran approached the U.S. with an offer to talk about its nuclear program, among other issues. The Bush Administration rebuffed Tehran because it believed that the Iranian regime was weak, had been battered by sanctions and would either capitulate or collapse if Washington just stayed tough.
So there was no deal. What was the result? In 2003, Iran had 160 centrifuges installed; it now has about 19,000.
It's true that Iran today is under tough sanctions, but it was under wide-ranging sanctions then as well. In addition, its nuclear program faced constant sabotage by Israeli and Western intelligence agencies. And yet the number of centrifuges grew exponentially.
The fact is that over the past decade, Iran has developed serious technical know-how in nuclear energy, with thousands of scientists and experts. And for an oil-rich country, the costs of a nuclear program are relatively modest. Iran's annual oil revenue, even under sanctions, is about $69 billion, according to an estimate from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The Geneva accord provides an opportunity to test Iran's intentions, one that had to be taken. China and Russia had signed on to the U.N. sanctions as a means of getting Iran to negotiate seriously, but once Iran was doing so, they would not continue to support punitive sanctions against it in perpetuity.
Israeli prime minister BIBI Netanyahu announced his opposition to the deal instantly. And yet nothing his government has done in a decade has stalled any part of Iran's program, whereas the Geneva deal freezes most of it and actually reverses one key element--the stockpile of near 20% uranium, which Tehran has committed to diluting or converting in a manner that prevents enrichment to the 90% level required for a nuclear bomb.
Netanyahu's approach seems to be a reprise of the Bush approach. He assumes that Iran is headed for collapse or capitulation, despite no evidence of either. (Remember, the Islamic Republic withstood eight years of bloody war with Iraq without surrendering.) Or else he believes that a military strike would set back Iran's nuclear program for long enough, and then there would be a regime change. This is wishful thinking, not strategy.
The concerns of the Gulf states--Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, in particular--are not as clearly articulated, but they are also deeply felt. Yet, again, it's unclear how not doing this deal would address their security concerns.
So what explains the fevered rhetoric and opposition? I think the fear is less of this deal than of what it might bring in its wake. Many imagine that this is the start of a rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran, which would fundamentally change the geopolitical landscape. It could place the U.S. on the side of the Shi'ite powers, Iran and Iraq, in the growing sectarian divide in the region. It could alter the balance of power in the world of oil--Iran's reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's in the region.

The Man Who Remade Motherhood

Joanne Beauregard is nothing so much as she is a mother. When she and her husband had trouble conceiving, Joanne quit her job as an accountant to focus full time on getting pregnant. When she did, she chose to give birth at home, without pain medication. Then, for months, Beauregard sat on the couch in her Denver-area living room, nursing her infant from sunup to sundown. She nursed much of the night as well, since the baby slept in bed with Beauregard and her husband Daniel, a software engineer.
When Beauregard got pregnant with her second child, she continued breast-feeding her..

FEATURE-In Vietnam, weary apparatchiks launch quiet revolution

HANOI, Nov 29 (Reuters) - The Vietnam of today wasn't what Le Hieu Dang had hoped for when he joined the Communist Party 40 years ago to liberate and rebuild a country reeling from decades of war and French and U.S. occupation.

The socialist system of the late revolutionary Ho Chi Minh has been corrupted, he says, by a shift to a market economy tightly controlled by one political party that has given rise to a culture of graft and vested interests.

"I fought in the war for a better society, a fair life for people. But after the war, the country has worsened, the workers are poor, the farmers have lost their land," Dang told Reuters.

"It's unacceptable. We have a political monopoly and a dictatorship running this country."
Opinions like this might be normal in many countries. But in Vietnam, where politics is taboo, free speech is stifled and the image of unity in the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) sacrosanct, analysts say the significance of comrades speaking out publicly cannot be understated.

The CPV-dominated National Assembly on Thursday approved amendments to a 1992 constitution that, despite a public consultation campaign, entrench the party's grip on power at a time when discontent simmers over its handling of land disputes, corruption and an economy suffocated by toxic debt amassed by state-run firms.

Dang is vehemently against the amendments, and not alone in his views, which are of the kind that have landed dozens of people in jail as part of a crackdown that's intensified as dissent has risen and internet usage soared to a third of the 90 million population.

Draconian cyber laws were tightened further on Wednesday, when the government announced a 100 million dong ($4,740) fine for anyone who criticises it on social media.

But what has jolted the party is that the loudest voices calling for a more pluralist system are coming not from the general public, but from within its own ranks, an open act of mutiny not seen since the CPV took power of a reunified Vietnam in 1975, after the communists' triumph over U.S. forces.

"Vietnam has entered a new phase. The existence of rivalries within the party is already known, but it's now more transparent in a way never seen in the past," said Jonathan London, a Vietnam expert at City University in Hong Kong.

"The rise of this group and its advice will influence the tenor of party discussion. What's clear is this is a period of uncertainty and competition."


CRISIS AND DEADLOCK
This year, Dang and 71 others, among them intellectuals, bloggers and current and former CPV apparatchiks, drafted their own version of the constitution, in response to a routine public feedback campaign ostensibly aimed at placating people and boosting the party's dwindling legitimacy.
Their draft was posted online and 15,000 people signed an accompanying petition calling for the scrapping of Article 4, which enshrines the CPV's political monopoly.

But lawmakers did the opposite and redrafted the article to expand the CPV's leadership role and the military's duty to protect it. In a summary of 26 million public opinions on the draft, a commission of the National Assembly said the majority of Vietnamese supported one-party rule.

"Theoretically, democracy is not synonymous with pluralism," the commission said in a report in May. "No one can affirm that multiple political parties are better than one party."

On Thursday, not a single lawmaker rejected the new draft, which expanded Article 4 to state the party is "the vanguard of the Vietnamese workers, people and nation".

A draft of the amendments, published weeks ago, outraged opponents.
The initial 72 democracy advocates were joined by others and 165 of them, including retired government officials, published a statement on the Internet two weeks ago warning lawmakers to reject the amendments.
They said if National Assembly members passed the amendments, they would be complicit in a "crime against the country and its people" and would "only push the country deeper into crisis and deadlock".


'BRIDGING ROLE'
Many of the party's open critics took part in the wars to liberate Vietnam from Western powers in the 1950s, '60s and '70s and have become new revolutionaries of sorts, confronting issues that most Vietnamese are afraid to discuss.

Nguyen Quang A was once part of an advisory think-tank which disbanded itself after the government introduced laws that limited the scope of its work five years ago.


It included former CPV members, diplomats, businessmen and academics. But they stay in touch at monthly meetings to debate social, economic and political issues, some of which they address in commentaries posted online.

"We want to create an environment to facilitate the emergence of other political forces and put forward a process to transition from dictatorship to democracy," he told Reuters.

"We hope some of our members can play a bridging role to make the party listen to us. It takes time, but we have to pressure them to change and convince people not to be afraid."

Dang and his CPV allies are going a step further. They plan to remain in the party so they can drum up support from disenchanted members to set up an opposition party to scrutinise the CPV's policies and keep it in check.

Despite their fierce rhetoric, they insist the plan to set up the Social Democratic Party is not an attempt to overthrow the ruling party but an attempt to create a more liberal coexistence between parties that would benefit the country.

Ho Ngoc Nhuan, vice chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of the Fatherland Front, the CPV's umbrella group that manages big organisations under Marxist-Leninist principles, said the feedback campaign and constitution amendments were a "tragic comedy" that showed the party was out of touch with the people.

It was time, he said, to shake up Vietnamese politics.
"We face many problems in Vietnam, big crises, so how can we solve it with one all-powerful party? We have to get their attention, so we're calling comrades in the party to join us so we can break this chain," Nhuan said, admitting that it was proving difficult to convince them.

Man Arrested for Forcing His Girlfriend to Wear a Literal Chastity Belt

If you’re into overbearing sociopaths and never going to the bathroom, ladies, have we got a match for you.
Police in Mexico have arrested a 40-year-old man in a rural community near Veracruz, after he allegedly kept a padlock on his 25-year-old girlfriend’s blue jeans to ensure she was faithful while he was away. In excruciating pain after being unable to go to the bathroom for hours the woman called authorities after she said she couldn’t take it anymore.  She said the man had been keeping a padlock on her jeans for years.
The man was arrested, but the woman refused to press charges. Her boyfriend signed a statement promising never to use a padlock on his girlfriend again, so that should definitely take care of it.

The 3 Best Champions League Goals From Matchday 5

Champions League matchday 5 saw yet another scintillating round of games between the best clubs in Europe.

There were some top goals scored across the continent, but here are the three best for this matchweek...

Police Arrest Nigerian With Cocaine Worth $500,000

(KANO, Nigeria) — Police say they have arrested a 28-year-old Nigerian carrying a half million dollars’ worth of cocaine stashed in speakers that he carried from Sao Paolo, in Brazil, to the northern Nigerian city of Kano.

Commandant Ambrose Umoru said Maduagwu Nnaemeka was arrested at Kano International Airport on Wednesday with 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of pure cocaine with a street value of 81 million naira.
Nnaemeka told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that he was given the speakers at Sao Paolo airport by a Nigerian stranger who begged him to carry them to Kano. He said he knew nothing about the cocaine they carried.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crimes estimates between 25 and 66 percent of cocaine bound for Europe from South America passes through West Africa.

The Secret of the Wonder Weapon That Israel Will Show Off to Obama

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Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

An Israeli missile from the Iron Dome defense system is launched to intercept and destroy incoming rocket fire from Gaza in Tel Aviv on Nov. 17, 2012

No tour of Middle East conflict zones could be complete without a stop at Sderot, an Israeli town of 24,000 that stands uncomfortably close to the Gaza Strip. The rain of rockets out of the Palestinian enclave has made Sderot famous for two things: the thickness of its roofs (even bus stops have reinforced concrete tops); and the collection of crumpled missiles arrayed in racks behind the police station. As a visiting VIP in 2008, U.S. Senator Barack Obama dutifully inspected what the machine shops of Islamic Jihad and Hamas fashioned from lengths of pipe and scrap metal. Low-tech doesn’t begin to cover it.

It’s a long way up the Mediterranean coast from Sderot to Haifa, and even farther to the showroom of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., the weapons-development branch of Israel’s military-industrial complex. Hi-tech doesn’t begin to cover it. Rafael developed the first precision-guided munitions — the precursor to the American-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions that replaced “dumb bombs” — and scores of other battlefield innovations, from IED detectors to floating drones. But the company’s most acclaimed invention is the one now President Obama will inspect moments after arriving in Israel on Wednesday: Iron Dome. It is a missile-interception system that has performed what Israelis regard as a miracle, draining a good bit of the fear out of the wail of an air-raid siren. During the last Gaza conflict, which lasted a week in November, Iron Dome knocked out of the sky a reported 84% of the missiles it aimed at — that is, the ones headed toward population centers. The rockets headed for open space its computers simply let fall. Rafael executives are understandably proud of Iron Dome, which after a few months on the job is performing at the level of a system that’s had seven years to work out the kinks. But they appear even prouder of the unlikely philosophy behind it. To make the most-tested, if not the most effective antimissile system in military history, Israeli engineers took a page from the Gaza militants they aimed to frustrate. The secret to Iron Dome is that it’s cheap.
(MORE: Iron Dome’s Lessons for the U.S.)

Consider the problem of volume. Since 2005, Gaza militants have fired more than 4,000 of their homemade rockets into Israel. Most cost a few hundred dollars each. Interceptors typically cost a few hundred thousand. “The main question that everyone asks is, ‘You’re firing a very costly missile against something very cheap,’” says Joseph “Yossi” Horowitz, a retired air-force colonel who markets air-and-missile defense systems at Rafael. “So our main mission was to reduce the cost.”

The economizing would be across the board, but the biggest savings were realized by reducing the size of the missile’s eyes — by far the most expensive component. An interceptor missile locks onto its target by following directions from the radar in its nose cone, typically packed with radio-frequency sensors of extravagant unit cost. An interceptor carried by a fighter jet has to be very smart, because it’s expected to find a missile being fired in its direction before it’s even in sight, one that could come from any direction. The nose-cone radar of an AIM/AMRAAM has so many RFs, or radio-frequency nodes, that it runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But a homemade missile coming out of Gaza is simply ballistic: it goes up and comes down. Rafael realized its launch and trajectory can be detected by ground radar, which would then transmit that information to the Iron Dome interceptor launched into the area of the sky where it’s headed. Only when the two missiles come near one another does the interceptor’s own radar come alive, guiding it to the incoming Qassam or GRAD and colliding with its own nose — where the warhead is positioned — in midair. It’s a delicate business, what with each missile traveling at 700 m per second.

“I can bring the interceptor in an accurate way, near the target, which means I can use the radar, the ‘seeker’ for a very short time,” says Horowitz. The shorter the time, the fewer the RF sensors required. “Saves money,” he says. How much? “Two digits: from hundreds of thousands of dollars to several thousand dollars.”

(MORE: ‘Iron Dome’ Protects Israel From Gaza’s Missiles: Will That Embolden It to Strike Iran?)
The savings mount up. Most guided missiles are made of so-called exotic materials, complex polymers designed to prevent the rocket from expanding or contracting as it travels through different altitudes. Again, not necessary for Iron Dome, which ascends only a few thousand feet. “Here we did it with aluminum,” Horowitz says. “Went across the street. Got some pipe.

The result is visible in this extraordinary YouTube video from a wedding in Beersheba, an Israeli city of 200,000. The incoming missiles are not visible in the night sky until the ascending Iron Dome interceptors find and destroy them — again and again and again. “We can do more, but in this video we do 12,” says Horowitz, a reserve colonel in the Israeli military’s air-defense section. “You are not looking for the best of the best. You are looking for some optimization.”

At about $50 million per battery — the launchers with 20 missiles each, ground radar and command-and-control center, led by an officer equipped with an abort button — Iron Dome still costs plenty, especially since Israel estimates it would need at least 13 of them to protect the entire country. It currently has five. But the U.S. Congress voted about $300 million to help close the gap, which is why the Israel Defense Forces will truck a battery to Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday to be photographed behind the American President.

That no previous antimissile system has performed so impressively might raise awkward questions about the norms of defense procurement in other nations. (For David’s Sling, the Israeli version of the Patriot 3, the U.S. intermediate-range interceptor that costs about $5 million per interceptor, Rafael is partnering with Raytheon, an American firm, and still aims do the job for one-quarter of the cost.) But for Israelis, the more pressing question is how to define success.
(MORE: Psychological Warfare with Missiles: Why Tel Aviv Matters)

Back to the Beersheba wedding. The revelry appears to carry on oblivious to the wail of air-raid sirens competing with the DJ (that song in the background is “Sunday Morning” by Maroon 5). If Israelis no longer scramble to shelters, then Iron Dome really has changed the dynamic. It’s not yet at that point; schools still close when the rockets fly, and parents stay home from work. But Rafael’s head of research and development, who began work on Iron Dome even before the government thought to ask for it, tells TIME that its overarching accomplishment is that it can break the pernicious cycle of escalation that can lead to things like invasions. The batteries can liberate Israel’s elected leaders from the public pressure that comes with mass casualties. “The big success of Iron Dome is not how many missiles we intercept,” says Roni Potasman, the executive vice president for R&D. “The main success is what happened in the decisionmaking civilian population environment. The quiet time. Clausewitz used to say the mission of the military is to provide the time for the decisionmakers to decide. Now, if out of 500 missiles, 10 of them get by and cause casualties, a school or kindergarten, then this is a whole different story.”

The more stubborn problem is that, even though Iron Dome knocked down 400 of the rockets fired out of Gaza in the last round of fighting, Hamas acts as though it prevailed in the conflict. What’s more, polls show 80% of Palestinians think so too, while only 1 in 4 Israelis think their side prevailed. Israeli warplanes killed scores of senior militants and destroyed hundreds of missiles and launchers on the ground, including Fajr-5 from Iran. But Hamas and Islamic Jihad still launched their own version of the Fajr, dubbed the M-75, toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem — unsettling Israelis who had previously considered themselves out of range and had not heard an air-raid siren since the Gulf War.

“[Gaza militants] were hit badly, much more than four years ago, but still I think they perceive it as a success,” says Potasman. “This is the Middle East….one side is looking at this reality from one angle; the other side looks from a totally opposite angle. That’s why we cannot communicate with them on a regular, normal basis, because you see one reality, and you look at this and you say, ‘Hey, what else can we do, to kill them? I mean, to kill them softly?’ And they look at this and they say, ‘Hey, we were able to hit Beersheba and Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. So our understanding of the reality and their understanding of the reality is totally different. It’s not the same book.”

Egyptian police arrest leading activist

CAIRO - Egyptian police arrested a leading political activist on Thursday after the prosecutor ordered he be detained for inciting protests, a security official said.

Alaa Abdel Fattah was a symbol of the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak. He was ordered arrested after taking part in protests organized in defiance of a new law that imposes heavy restrictions on demonstrations.

Las Vegas Man Gets New Trial Over PowerPoint Slide

A Las Vegas man accused in a 2011 crime spree was granted a new trial this week, after the Nevada Supreme Court ruled the jury might have been tainted by a PowerPoint slide featuring his battered face superimposed with the word "GUILTY."

The high court's ruling Wednesday reverses Frankie Alan Watters' convictions on charges of possessing a stolen car, grand larceny auto and failing to stop for an officer. State records show he's serving time in the Ely State Prison.

"Watters's principal defense was that he was not the man who stole the cars, just someone the police happened to find who matched the suspect's description," the ruling read. "The State has not shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the booking-photo slide sequence did not affect the jury's determination of Watters's guilt."

Watters, 27, was accused of stealing a car, wrecking it, stealing a second car, leading police on a high-speed chase, and running into a store, where he was arrested after being bitten several times by a police dog.

Defense attorneys cried foul when they previewed the slideshow that was set to accompany the prosecutor's opening statements, but a judge ruled the PowerPoint presentation was allowed, according to the ruling.

It featured a booking photo of Watters and animation that stamped the word "GUILTY" across his face in capital letters while the prosecutor verbally asked the jury to find Watters guilty of the charges.

Watters' attorneys said their client was "very upset" when he saw the slideshow.

The Clark County District Attorney's Office argued that the slide's appearance was harmless and wasn't admitted as evidence, adding that evidence of Watters' guilt was overwhelming.

But in the Supreme Court opinion, Justice Kristina Pickering wrote that the graphic's message crossed a line that prosecutors wouldn't be allowed to cross verbally — declaring the defendant guilty. It also cites research that visual information could be more persuasive than oral arguments alone.

In the Gandhi political bastion, India's rural poor eye Modi's promise

SHIVGARH, India, Nov 29 (Reuters) - If Sonia Gandhi and her Congress party need evidence that their policies of subsidies and safety nets for India's poor may no longer be enough to keep their support, they need look no further than her own constituency of Rai Bareli.

In the family borough in the northern heartland, which has been loyal to India's most powerful dynasty from the days of first Prime Minister Jawaharal Nehru, voters want electricity, hospitals and roads, more than the cheap food on offer.

Such a change of heart threatens to upend the Congress party's central calculation to win next year's election: that poor rural voters who make up the backbone of support will stay loyal because of the big welfare programmes it promotes, including a flagship $21 billion food subsidy scheme.

Instead, even in such a bastion of Congress support as Rai Bareli district, opposition leader Narendra Modi's message of growth and investment is gaining ground, despite critics' misgivings about his hardline Hindu nationalist roots and a perceived bias against the nation's minority Muslims.

"We don't need subsidised food ... It's a donation and we don't want that charity," said Arjun Rewal, a farmer in the Rai Bareli hamlet of Shivgarh in the centre of India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh.
"We need hospitals with doctors, we need roads, we need electricity supply and we need someone who can tackle inflation," the 52-year-old said, emphasising his point with a stab of his earth-brown finger.

Rewal and the farmers with him, who meet one evening a week in the grounds of an old palace, see Modi as the person who can deliver.

"In this area, for the first time, people are talking about another political leader and that is Narendra Modi," he said.

Modi has promised quick reforms and an end to a prolonged period of policy paralysis, pointing to the double-digit pace of expansion in the western state of Gujarat that he has governed for three terms.
Uttar Pradesh sends 80 members of parliament to New Delhi, more than any other state. In the last election in 2009, Congress won 21 seats and Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 10.

According to a recent opinion poll by AC Nielsen for the Economic Times, the BJP could win 27 seats in Uttar Pradesh in the next election, due by May, with Congress winning just 12.

Rahul Gandi, Nehru's great grandson, looks likely to lead the Congress into the election, but he was generally seen as lacklustre at state election rallies in Uttar Pradesh in 2012.


EXPECTATIONS
But it is not Rahul Gandhi's oratory that voters in his family's old constituency, first held by Nehru's son-in-law, Feroze Gandhi and now by Rahul's mother, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, are worried about.
With inflation outpacing agricultural growth for nearly a decade, many villagers have seen benefits eroded. In addition, demand is rising for pulses, dairy products and vegetables, which are not subsidised.

In neighbouring Barabanki district, the mood is similar as residents of Thalwara village gather on a circle of plastic chairs on a dusty patch of ground to air their views.

"Governments sitting in New Delhi or state capitals like Lucknow don't know the ground reality and make policies that don't help the poor," said Jaibaksh Singh, a farmer and former head of the village.
The expectations of rural voters changed with the arrival of television and later mobile phones, together with a demographic shift that means 65 percent of the population are less than 35 years old, said Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh.

"We can no longer go to the voters and say 'look, we built this road for you, now vote for us'. Today most people expect you to build that road. They don't think that we are doing them a favour by building that road," said Ramesh, one of the Congress party's most outspoken leaders.

However, the party seems reluctant to address voters' aspirations in its campaign, sticking instead to what until now has been the tried and tested formula of subsidised support for the rural poor.

Congress points to a record on poverty, which the government says fell to 25.7 percent of rural people in 2011/12 - about 217 million people - from 41.8 percent in 2004/05, using its yardstick of 816 rupees ($13.06) a month per person.

But millions still live without reliable electricity, schools are woefully understaffed and jobs scarce, while cheap food often ends up with traders who sell it on at a handy profit.

The Congress-led government is spending billions of dollars a year on food subsidies for the poor and on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, known as NREGA, which provides people with 100 days of paid, unskilled work a year.

Critics say nearly half the rice and wheat set aside for the handouts is siphoned off by corrupt officials and never reaches the people it is meant to help. In BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, the state government has tightened up on distribution and cut wastage dramatically.

"People have not gained from programmes like NREGA due to corruption. The same holds true for rice and wheat sale," said Singh in Thalwara. "The perception is gaining ground that the BJP will win and it will tackle corruption."

Israel Court Fines Woman Over Not Circumcising Son

An Israeli rabbinic court has fined a woman hundreds of dollars for refusing to circumcise her baby son, officials said Thursday, in a landmark case that has sparked a new uproar over the role of religion in the Jewish state.

The case shines a spotlight on a long-running debate over religious coercion in Israel, where generations of leaders have struggled to find a balance between the country's Jewish and democratic character.

Rabbinic courts in Israel have authority over certain Jewish family matters like marriage, divorce, conversion and burial. Their decisions are binding for families that agree to take part in them, though their rulings can be appealed in the country's secular court system. This particular case ended up in the rabbinic court as part of an ongoing divorce battle.

In the proceedings, the woman announced her refusal to circumcise the boy, saying she did not wish to harm him. The Israeli rabbinate's high court ruled last week the circumcision was for the child's welfare and that the woman must pay the equivalent of nearly $150 each day she refuses the circumcision be performed.

"The decision is not based only on religious law. It is for the welfare of a Jewish child in Israel not to be different from his peers in this matter," said Shimon Yaakovi, legal adviser to the rabbinical court.

He said it was the first time a religious court in Israel has punished a parent for refusing to circumcise a child. A year ago, a civil court also ruled in favor of circumcision in a parental dispute.

There is no law requiring circumcision in Israel, but the vast majority of Jewish boys undergo the procedure at the age of eight days in line with Jewish law, which sees the ritual as upholding a covenant with God.

The mother, whose named was not released in court documents, has argued that the rabbinical court does not have authority over the matter. The Justice Ministry, which is representing the mother, said Thursday it likely would appeal the case to Israel's Supreme Court.

There are no precise statistics on circumcisions in Israel. While most families perform the procedure either out of religious belief or to preserve an ancient tradition, tens of thousands of children are not circumcised, activists say.

Ronit Tamir, an anti-circumcision activist, called the rabbinic court's ruling "dangerous for democracy."

"It turns the government into a theocracy," she added.

Although most Israelis are secular, Israel's founding fathers gave Judaism a formal place in the nation's affairs. This has led to persistent tensions in Israeli society.

Jewish law defines a Jew as one who is born to a Jewish mother or who undergoes a demanding conversion process overseen by rabbinic authorities. People who do not meet these requirements, such as someone with only a Jewish father, can face difficulties with the religious authorities.

Civil marriage, for instance, is all but banned, forcing thousands of couples who either do not want a religious ceremony or don't qualify for one to travel abroad each year to marry. Likewise, soldiers who die in battle but are not Jewish under religious law are buried in separate cemeteries.

Afghan president condemns US airstrike that killed a child, wounded two women

KABUL - Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai said US forces had bombed a home in Helmand killing a small child and wounding two women on Thursday and condemned the attack as another sign of disregard for civilian life, his spokesman said.

The strike could not have come at a worse time, as Karzai is engaged in a stand-off with the American government over a bilateral security agreement that will help shape the presence of US troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

"It shows that US forces have no respect for the decisions of the Loya Jirga [council of elders] and life of civilians in Afghanistan," said Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi.

A contractor who led a botched building demolition that killed six people inside an adjacent store will face murder charges for allegedly using reckless methods to perform the low-bid job.

Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein on Monday recommended Jerusalem District Court President Hila Gristol to be the first inspector of the state's prosecutorial apparatus.



Weinstein headed a committee which made a recommendation to Justice Minister Tzipi Livni for the head of a new powerful oversight body which has been debated and fought over for years, only recently achieving consensus.

Those in favor of the new oversight department, which Gristol is expected to head, say that the prosecution does not crack down or correct its own errors and needs an outside body to do so


Those who opposed the new oversight body, expressed concerns that it would be used by politicians too intimidate the prosecution from pursuing public corruption cases.

Contractor Charged With Murder in Philly Collapse

A contractor who led a botched building demolition that killed six people inside an adjacent store will face murder charges for allegedly using reckless methods to perform the low-bid job.




Prosecutors described Griffin Campbell as "the center of culpability for the collapse," and said he ignored an architect's warning the night before that disaster was imminent. He was charged with six counts each of third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.



"The tragic and preventable collapse ... robbed our city of six amazing Philadelphians that perished in the rubble and left an additional 13 wounded," Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said at a news conference.



Griffin's subcontractor, equipment operator Sean Benschop, was charged this summer with involuntary manslaughter over the June collapse, and has been in custody.



The building owner who chose Campbell's $112,000 bid to take down three attached storefronts — when other bids were two or three times that amount — was not charged Monday. However, the grand jury has not finished its work, and Williams declined comment on whether owner Richard Basciano could be charged.



In the collapse, an unsupported brick wall crashed down onto a neighboring Salvation Army store, trapping shoppers and workers. Campbell was also charged with risking a catastrophe and criminal conspiracy in addition to the six counts of third-degree murder, six counts of involuntary manslaughter and 13 counts of endangerment.



A call to his cellphone went unanswered, but he was expected to surrender to detectives Monday afternoon.



Benschop allegedly operated heavy equipment while high on marijuana and painkillers. In addition to the earlier charges, the grand jury charged him Monday with criminal conspiracy.



Williams said Campbell alone chose the demolition method, cutting corners to meet a deadline and cut costs, as he was being paid a flat fee.



Rather than work from the top down and brace unsupported walls, Campbell instead removed the building's facade, then took out floor joists that he was given the right to salvage from the front of the four-story building to the back, authorities said. That left the brick side walls unsupported.



Meanwhile, heavy equipment being used at the scene and trains running underneath the site caused vibrations that made for an added risk, they said.



"This was a clearly hazardous demolition, not just on the day of the accident, but on the days and weeks leading up to the accident," said lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi, who represents several victims' families.



"The shame of this accident is that this (demolition process) was debated back and forth between STB (Basciano's company) and the Salvation Army," he said, referring to emails that show the collapse was predicted while the parties bickered. All the while, the thrift store stayed open for business.



"This was a game of chicken in which neither STB nor the Salvation Army wanted to blink, and six Philadelphians paid with their lives," Mongeluzzi said.



Basciano, a commercial developer once dubbed the pornography king of New York's Times Square, owned three adjacent, long run-down storefronts being razed to make way for redevelopment. His architect, Plato Marinakos, who had secured the demolition permit from City Hall, testified before the grand jury after he was promised immunity.



Several lawsuits have been filed against Basciano, Campbell, Benschop and others. The victims' lawyers also accuse the city of lax oversight of the demolition process, but the city is generally immune from such lawsuits. One of the victims was the 24-year-old daughter of the city treasurer.

PM convenes urgent meetings on whether Israel will join Horizon 2020, as EU sticks to settlement guidelines

Guidelines say every agreement with EU must include clause saying that it is not applicable beyond Green Line.


Netanyahu at meeting with Catherine Ashton, EU High Rep for Foreign Affairs, June 20, 2013. Photo: Courtesy - GPO

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held urgent consultations Sunday to discuss what Israeli officials termed the European Union's refusal to show the necessary flexibility on its settlement guidelines to allow Israel to join the massive Horizon 2020 project.



Israel and the EU have been in intensive talks since August looking for a formula that would enable Israel's participation in the flagship EU Research and Development program in light of EU settlement guidelines published in June barring the transfer of any money or funds to entities beyond the Green Line, including east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.



Related: EU officially publishes settlement guidelines despite Israeli objectionsEU weighs Israeli proposals to resolve settlement guidelines disputeThe guidelines stipulate that every agreement between the EU and Israel must include a clause saying that it is not applicable beyond the Green Line.



Israel has said it would not join the 80 billion euro program – Jerusalem would be expected to pay some 600 million euros into the project with the expectation of receiving 900m euro back in research grants and investments -- unless explicit understandings with the EU were reached on the implementation of these guidelines.



Intensive negotiations have been taking place on this matter since August.



Earlier this month Israel presented a number of compromise proposals to the EU, including one stating that while Israel accepted that the EU would not fund beyond the Green Line, it wanted to add a clause that this should not be seen as prejudging a final agreement with the Palestinians. .



Israeli officials said Monday, however, that the EU essentially told Israel that while they would like Israel's participation, the "guidelines are what they are," and that the decision to join the program was in Israel's hands. "They only showed flexibility on marginal issues," one official said, adding that a decision whether to accept the conditions had to be made at the political level.



European sources disputed this reading of the situation, saying that the EU did show "flexibility" and was looking for a "pragmatic way of implementing the agreement."



At the same time, one European source said, the EU did not want to be seen as granting a "victory" on this matter to Netanyahu or appear to the European public as backing down from its principles.



Netanyahu met on the matter Sunday afternoon with Education Minister Shai Piron, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, and Science Minister Yaakov Peri, and was scheduled to hold a second meeting on the matter in the evening. .



One idea that being considered if Israel does not join the project is to invest the 600 million euros directly into Israeli academic institutions and R & D projects.



Various academic bodies, such as the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, have implored the government to sign the Horizon 2020 agreement, arguing that not to do so would be a huge blow to Israeli research.

Obama apologizes for insurance cancellations due to Obamacare

President Barack Obama apologized Thursday to those Americans whose insurance plans are being canceled due to the federal health law he championed even though he said repeatedly they could keep their coverage if they liked.

"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," he told NBC News in an exclusive interview.

"We've got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this," he added.

Obama's comments come days after he attempted to clarify what he meant when he assured Americans in previous years that they would be able to keep their plans under the Affordable Care Act, a controversy that is prompting legislation in Congress to address it.

Obama further alters 'you can keep your plan' pledge

Republicans have hammered Obama over the promise since insurers began discontinuing coverage for some of the 12 million Americans who buy individual policies on the private market that don't meet Obamacare requirements for more comprehensive care.

Insurance companies appear to be doing this for a variety of reasons; some are pulling all their plans from certain states where they have fewer subscribers in order to save money.

In many cases, affected policyholders are being squeezed. They either don't qualify for subsidies to lower the cost of new premiums or they may have to pay more in the health care exchange marketplace.

When Obama says he's looking to fix it, he primarily means steps that can be taken administratively, senior administration officials said.

Some experts suggest one possible approach would be to ask insurers to delay the cancellation of plans and extend them into the New Year so that people are not left without insurance. That has been done, for example, in the state of California.

But House Speaker John Boehner said an Obama apology was in order and said the Republican-led House had its own plan in mind.

"What Americans want to hear is that the President is going to keep his promise. That's why the House will vote next week to allow anyone with a health care plan they like to keep it," Boehner said. "If the President is sincerely sorry that he misled the American people, the very least he can do is support this bipartisan effort. Otherwise, this apology doesn't amount to anything."

The administration eventually knew that many policies would be changed by the insurance carriers after Obamacare was introduced, and the associated political uproar since its October 1 online rollout has also angered Democrats and fueled Republican efforts to extend related controversies onto the campaign trail.

Vulnerable Senate Democrats voice concerns

In 2010, the Health and Human Services Department estimated that 40% to 67% of individual plans would eventually lose their "grandfathered" status, which only was conferred if a plan was purchased before the health care law was approved in 2010.

Although Obama said the "buck stops" with him on Obamacare problems to date -- including the rocky rollout of the website -- he still was resolute that his initiative to provide coverage for the uninsured and better coverage for many others would be better for the country.

"Most of the folks who ... got these cancellation letters, they'll be able to get better care at the same cost or cheaper in these new marketplaces," Obama said, also noting that "we have to make sure" people do not feel as if they've been betrayed by an effort carried out with their best interests in mind.

"They'll have more choice, they'll have more competition. They're part of a bigger pool. The insurance companies are going to be hungry for their business. So the majority of folks will end up being better off," he said.

Key elements of the health law prohibit discrimination for pre-existing conditions and require new plans cover maternity care, mental health and other areas. The program was developed to put comprehensive care within reach of millions of uninsured Americans.

About 95% of legal U.S. residents receive health insurance through private employers or the federal government, the Obama administration says. But more than 48 million Americans don't have any coverage.

Debunking 4 Obamacare myths: Both sides get it wrong

Obama's apology comes a week after similar refrains were made by Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius regarding the botched Obamacare online rollout.

Five things we learned from Obamacare records

WH: Chief tech officer too busy for congressional testimony

Asked if he thinks Americans will be able to trust what he says in the future, Obama said he thinks he'll ultimately be "judged on whether" Obamacare is better for Americans overall.

"When you try to do something big like make our health care system better ... there are going to be problems along the way, even if ultimately what you're doing is going to make a whole lot of people better off, and I hope that people will look at the end product and they're going to be able to look back and say, you know what, we now have protections we didn't have before," he said.

In the NBC interview, Obama reiterated the administration's line that he's "confident" a "majority of people" will be able to use the website and apply for insurance by November 30. But he did not say whether he would push back the March 31 deadline to enroll or the penalty for those who do not purchase insurance.

Obamacare depends on younger, healthier Americans to buy into the program and pay premiums to offset costs for covering older people who need more health care. Those without insurance who do not sign up for a plan face a fine.

What else could go wrong with Obamacare?

A Gallup poll conducted just over a week ago showed 36% of Americans said they didn't think that in the long run the Affordable Care Act would make much of a difference to their family's health care situation. Just over a third said the health care law would make matters worse, and one in four said that Obamacare would make things better.

Kerry’s Path Steepens in Israeli-Palestinian Talks

The developments could portend a harder line from Israel toward the Palestinians, and increase the pressure on Mr. Kerry to play a more muscular mediating role, three months after his intense personal campaign lured the adversaries back to negotiations after years of impasse. 

On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry pressed Israel more forcefully than he had before to limit new construction of settlements “in an effort to help create a climate for these talks to be able to proceed effectively.” But his own effort to cool temperatures came amid growing signs of a poisoned atmosphere, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel bluntly accusing the Palestinian leadership of fomenting distrust and evading difficult decisions.

The acquittal of Avigdor Lieberman, the former Israeli foreign minister who is among Israel’s most powerful and polarizing politicians, of corruption charges could further complicate matters. Mr. Lieberman is an outspoken nationalist and a West Bank settler, though his views on the peace process are not sharply different from Mr. Netanyahu’s. But his triumphant return to power — likely again as foreign minister — makes Mr. Lieberman an unpredictable force. 

Mr. Kerry, who came to Jerusalem to recapture the initiative in the moribund talks, struggled to keep them from slipping into a familiar cycle of recrimination on Wednesday. Under pressure from President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, he declared that the Palestinians had not accepted continued building in settlements as an Israeli condition for restarting talks, despite what Israeli leaders had indicated. 

“That is not to say that they weren’t aware, or we weren’t aware, that there would be construction,” Mr. Kerry said after meeting with Mr. Abbas in Bethlehem, in the West Bank. 

He emphasized that the United States considers the settlements to be “illegitimate.”

But hours before in Jerusalem, Mr. Kerry had sat stone-faced as Mr. Netanyahu said he was concerned about the prospect for progress in the talks “because I see the Palestinians continuing with incitement, continuing to create artificial crises, continuing to avoid, run away from the historic decisions that are necessary to make a genuine peace.” 

The dispute over settlements, officials said, led to a shouting match between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on Tuesday at their 16th session, as Mr. Kerry arrived here. While increasing expressions of outrage, particularly by the Palestinians, may be as much an effort to appease constituents as a reflection of what is happening at the negotiating table, the need to show steadfastness on both sides is a hint of the hurdles Mr. Kerry faces. 

Add to that delicate and complex equation Mr. Lieberman, 55, an immigrant from the Soviet Union and a populist hard-liner who has alienated international diplomats with undiplomatic outbursts and been both an important partner and an occasional rival to Mr. Netanyahu. Although he will not play a direct role in the peace talks even if he returns as foreign minister, he has embarrassed the prime minister by declaring, at inopportune times, that any agreement is decades away and by accusing Mr. Abbas of “diplomatic terrorism.” 

For Israel’s governing coalition, already deeply fractured over the Palestinian issue, the question now is whether Mr. Lieberman will join those challenging Mr. Netanyahu from the right, making a peace deal even more remote, or shift toward the center to expand his political base for a future campaign to become prime minister. An indication may come at the end of this month when the party he founded in 1999, Yisrael Beiteinu, decides whether to solidify the alliance it forged with Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party for this year’s elections and fully merge into a single faction, or break apart and operate independently again. 

“This is a man who works long-term: he’s not a tactician only, he’s a good strategist,” said Prof. Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University. “I don’t know whether he will split away from Netanyahu and say, ‘I’m the replacement from outside,’ or whether he will say, ‘O.K., I’ll try and support Netanyahu and one day be his successor.’ ”

Why Arabs Fear a U.S.-Iran Détente

PARIS — Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States over Washington’s approach to the Middle East were brewing for months before they burst into the open last week. 

First, there was the American inaction in Syria and lack of progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace. Then came America’s withdrawal of aid to the Egyptian military after the July coup. Now President Obama is pursuing a very public rapprochement with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s archrival. 

The mounting disagreements between the two longtime allies is now in full public view. Last week, the head of Saudi intelligence warned that it would stop cooperating with the United States on certain issues. That came just days after Saudi Arabia stunned even some of its own diplomats when it refused a rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council, citing its anger over the world’s failure to respond to the crisis in Syria.

This spat reflects the Arab world’s deepening frustration with American policy toward Syria, Egypt and Palestine — as well as extreme skepticism about a possible thaw in America’s relations with Iran. 

The Arabs have learned from bitter experience that whether by confrontation or collaboration, whatever Iran, America and Israel decide to do leaves them feeling trampled. Like an African proverb says: Whether the elephants fight or play, the grass gets trampled. 

America chose Iran and Israel, over their Arab neighbors, as its designated “regional cops” in the 1960s and ’70s, at the height of the Cold War. Since the United States and Iran became sworn enemies after the 1979 revolution, America’s military wishes have by and large been carried out by Arab proxies, often at great cost in blood, treasure and stability. Lebanon, Iraq and Syria are among the countries that have suffered immensely.

Strikingly, until last week, it was only Israel, not its Arab neighbors, that had criticized the thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations (even though Israel might gain a lot from a deal that curtails Iran’s nuclear ambitions).

But ultimately, reconciliation between America and Iran will require compromise over Arab, not Israeli, interests. And these interests are neither Washington’s to cede nor Iran’s to brush aside.

Arab powers fear that negotiations between America and Iran are likely to leave Israel as the one nuclear power in the region, while allowing its occupation of Palestine to continue unabated. 

Improved relations between Iran and America could offer benefits: a lifting of Western sanctions and American recognition (however grudging) of Iran’s growing regional influence, starting with Syria, Bahrain and the Gulf region. The United States could use Iran’s help to stabilize Syria — as it helped with Afghanistan after 9/11. 

But sooner than later, what appears to be a great diplomatic breakthrough may be revealed to be no more than hopping over a volcano. 

That’s because Iranian-American détente will likely deepen the sectarian divisions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, setting the stage for an all-out regionwide sectarian conflict. 

Since its 1979 revolution, Iran has become increasingly militarized and religiously radicalized. The Shiite-Sunni tensions that fueled the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 have only grown worse. 

As the Saudi government made clear last week, authoritarian Sunni regimes in the region will probably seek to undermine — rather than accept — any agreement that foresees growing Iranian influence in their backyard. 

That polarization will inadvertently help Al Qaeda and other extremist Sunni groups, who are bound to see in Iranian-Western rapprochement a tool to multiply their recruits by stoking sectarian hatred. It has already happened in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, and it’s likely to continue. 

The consequences are potentially disastrous. Shiite-Sunni fault lines extend through most oil-producing countries. The damage to the regional and global economy from a disruption in the supply of oil could be huge. 

But none of this is preordained or inevitable.

The theological roots of the Sunni-Shiite divide might go back 13 centuries, but the violence we are witnessing today is politically motivated and aggravated by foreign intervention in the region. 

The Arab states rejected America’s 2003 war in Iraq, which is now ruled by an authoritarian prime minister who is firmly under Iran’s influence. They are not taking kindly to Iran’s continued meddling in the region, including its military support for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, the Syrian opposition has rejected any role for Iran in talks over the future of their country. 

While the elephants have been playing, and fighting, Arab leaders have been watching and learning. They know that long-term regional stability is a game they can play, too. 

With 370 million people in 22 countries that range from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, Arabs are bound to disagree about plenty of things. But they generally support a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction — and that applies to both Iran and Israel. 

The Arab nations, because of their size and strategic significance, are indispensable in shaping the region’s future and its security. Alienating them is wrong — and dangerous. 

If, as Mr. Obama said recently at the United Nations, he believes that it is in America’s best interest “to see a Middle East and North Africa that is peaceful and prosperous,” he needs to make sure the Arabs are part of, and don’t lose from, any future bargain with Iran. 

UK suffers a 'shortage of talent' as over four million migrants take UK jobs

FOREIGN workers are snapping up UK jobs because Brits are not skilled enough.

JOBS: Employers are forced to look to migrants as Brits are not skilled enough for basic requirements 

“It is up to us to ensure that the right skills become readily available to employers at home and that they are no longer obliged to look further afield”

Industry leaders

Bosses have blamed poor education standards for forcing them to look overseas to fill one in five vacancies.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said there was a huge demand for home-grown talent.
But its report said British firms were increasingly having to hire from abroad, with the engineering, manufacturing and electronics sectors suffering the worst skill shortages.

Industry leaders have called on the Government to make sure youngsters leave school with decent maths and science qualifications.

It said: “Many employers have been forced to look overseas for workers with the expertise and experience needed to sustain their businesses and it is clear that migration will continue to be an important source of engineering skills for some time to come.

"But it is up to us, together, to ensure that the right skills become readily available to employers at home and that they are no longer obliged to look further afield.”

LOST: Young Brits need training in the correct skills to ensure they are fully employable
 

The department’s Prof John Perkins said more must be done to nurture the engineers of tomorrow amid fears a million jobless youngsters will be written off as a “lost generation”.

The warning followed PM David Cameron’s call for UK firms to shun Eastern European workers and encourage better training of British youngsters. Recent figures show over four million foreign-born workers are in UK jobs.

Meanwhile, experts are doubting the Government’s plan to cut net migration to “tens of thousands”.

Professor John Salt, from the Migration Research Unit at University College London, said: “It is not clear what happens next; where further cuts would come from, what policies would be needed to maintain a net inflow below 100,000, or what happens if an improving economy requires more skilled labour.”

Hospital staff criticised for not helping distressed 13-year-old after suicide attempts just months before she was found hanged

• Chelsea Clark was admitted to hospital after taking painkiller overdose
• She told staff she would try to kill herself again if she was released
• Teenager found hanged at home in Finchfield, West Midlands in June 2011

Hospital workers have been criticised for not doing enough to stop a 13-year-old girl from harming herself after she was sent home following an initial suicide attempt.
Grammar school pupil Chelsea Clark was found dead in her bedroom in Finchfield, West Midlands in June 2011.

She had previously spent eight days in hospital after taking a deliberate overdose, and told medics that she would try to kill herself again if she was sent home.
The teenager also told a school psychologist that she had cut herself after hearing voices, just two weeks before her parents found her hanged.

A 'serious case review' published yesterday by Wolverhampton Safeguarding Children Board found that hospital staff missed a number of opportunities to help Chelsea.
In spring 2011, the 13-year-old took an overdose of painkillers and spent eight days in a hospital which is not named by the report.
Doctors decided not to admit her to a specialist adolescent unit, and discharged her without a meeting to discuss her future care.
The decision came despite the fact that Chelsea 'was as clear as she was able to be that a return home would lead to a further suicide attempt', according to the report.
In the months leading up to her death, the schoolgirl ran away from home and wrote suicidal thoughts in her diary.

Vulnerable: The teenager was sent home by a hospital even though she said she would kill herself

Home: Chelsea's parents found her dead in her bedroom at their house in Finchfield, West Midlands

The review criticised 'a number of examples of individual sub-optimal practice' involving mental health staff, social workers and the police.
And it said a 'more effective collaborative effort' could have been made to keep Chelsea safe, 'if best practice had prevailed at all times'.
The review, which identified Chelsea only as 'FJ', made more than 30 recommendations to improve care and prevent a repeat of the tragedy.

It said: 'In essence, whilst apparently showing only limited signs of depression, FJ emerged as feeling lonely, helpless and stressed in the face of high levels of pressure from within her family.

'Observation of self-inflicted scarring on arms and abdomen by the GP and hospital respectively suggest also that FJ had found coping with her life more difficult than was obvious to others.'

An inquest in September heard that Chelsea, who attended Wolverhampton Girls' High School, may have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from her 'stifling' home life.

Struggles: Chelsea, pictured with a former teacher, had made a number of suicide attempts before her death

Pupil: The 13-year-old was studying at Wolverhampton Girls' High School at the time of her death

The girl's mother Margaret told the hearing that she had confiscated three mobile phones from her daughter and banned her from using social networks in an attempt to stop her contacting a 14-year-old boyfriend whom she met online.

'I was the baddie,' she said. 'She was resentful and angry towards me. It began to build up. I suppose she hated me.

'We all tried to talk to her about it but towards the end it was like talking to a stone wall.
'I would be the one who was saying, "You're not going down the road, you're not mixing with those teenagers." She really began to hate me because I was the one who had to make the stands with everything.'
Mrs Clark also described the horrific moment she and her husband found Chelsea dead in her bedroom after she returned home from a walk.

The teenager left a suicide note, but had been believed to be 'quite happy' at school in the days leading up to her death.

The coroner recorded a narrative verdict, saying it was 'not entirely clear that she intended to end her life'.

Zionist regime is an illegitimate and bastard regime

Iran's supreme leader warns hardliners not to undermine nuke talks; criticizes US's close ties with Israel.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at NAM Summit. Photo: REUTERS

 

"The Zionist regime is an illegitimate and bastard regime," Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday said of Israel, whose existence Tehran does not recognize.
Khamenei also criticized the United States for its close relations with Israel.

"The Americans have the highest indulgence towards the Zionists and they have to. But we do not share such indulgence," AFP quoted Khamenei as saying.

Khamenei also reiterated his view that he is not optimistic about the outcome of nuclear talks but said he saw no downside to holding the negotiations.

"With God's permission, we will not be harmed by these negotiations ... if the negotiations reach a conclusion then all the better, but if they don't it will mean that the country must stand on its own feet," Khamenei said.
Iran's supreme leader gave strong backing on Sunday to his president's push for nuclear negotiations, warning hardliners not to accuse Hassan Rouhani of compromising with the old enemy America.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's comments will help shield Rouhani, who has sought to thaw relations with the West since his surprise election in June, from accusations of being soft on the United States, often characterized in the Islamic Republic as the "Great Satan".

Iran will resume negotiations with six world powers, including the United States, in Geneva on Thursday, talks aimed at ending a standoff over its nuclear work that Tehran denies is weapons-related.

Rouhani hopes a deal there will mean an end to sanctions that have cut the OPEC country's oil exports and hurt the wider economy, but any concession that looks like Iran is compromising on what it sees as its sovereign right to peaceful nuclear technology will be strongly resisted by conservatives.

"No one should consider our negotiators as compromisers," Khamenei said in a speech, a day before the Nov. 4 anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran, a pivotal event in US-Iranian relations, the ISNA news agency reported.

"They have a difficult mission and no one must weaken an official who is busy with work," said Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran's dual clerical-republic system, including over the nuclear program.

He also criticized the United States for continuing to impose sanctions and threatening possible military action. Both Washington and its ally Israel say the military option to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons is something they do not rule out.

"We should not trust an enemy who smiles," Khamenei said. "From one side the Americans smile and express a desire to negotiate, and from another side they immediately say all options are on the table."

In September, US President Barack Obama insisted that the United States would "take no options off the table, including military options, in terms of making sure that we do not have nuclear weapons in Iran."

Who set Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun body was burned after his death

Wonders shall never end. Scientist with their mysterious believe and discoveries has mysteriously uncovered the circumstances behind the death of young Egyptian Pharaoh Prince Tutankhamu. 

 HOT TOPIC: King Tutankhamun's body was burned after his death 

Fresh research points to a mysterious burning of the young king after death, leaving his corpse in the poor state it is in today.

Egyptologist Dr Chris Naunton delves deep into the tomb of the Boy King on Channel 4 tonight and argues he was scorched when servants made mistakes as they tried to preserve the body.

CHARRED: The mummy's feet show that they have been set on fire 

Dr Naunton and his team carry out chemical tests on the pharaoh and come to the shocking conclusion that he must have burst into flames after being sealed in the coffin.
King Tutankhamun’s tomb was ­discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter.

FIERY PAST: Tutankhamun is believed to have spontaneously combusted after a botched attempt to embalm him.

The show will also try to solve one of the great mysteries of Ancient Egypt – what caused the king’s death.

The Killing of Pakistani Most wanted Taliban by the U.S. drones has spark a call for review of U.S.relationship with Pakistan.

The Killing of Pakistani Most wanted Taliban by the U.S. drones has spark  a call for review of U.S.relationship with Pakistan.

This was stated by the Prime Miniter on Sunday during a high profile meeting following the killing of Mehsud, who was declared WANTED with a 5Million Dollars bounty on his head.

Lebanese Army Arrested Man Torturing the Alawites in Tripoly

A man has been arrested by the Lebanese army following his suspicion of being involved in beating and torturing Alawites in Tripoly. According to report the man was arrested at the scene of the most heated area by the recent violence in Syria.

The president of Syria, Bashar Al-Assad is from the tribe Alawites in the Northern Syria. Alawites emanate from Shiite Islam. It is believed that Sunni muslims who is the second largest city in Syria is against the regime of Assad and supported vehemently the revolt against the present government.

On Saturday opponent carried out a surprise attack on a bus transporting workers from Beirut to Tripoli as it made a regular stop at the entrance to Bab al-Tebbaneh district.

They forced nine of them off the bus and pushed them into the Sunni-populated neighbourhood before opening fire on them and beating them.

The nine were all wounded, but none critically.
In a statement issued late Saturday, the army said it had detained one suspected assailant and identified other men involved in the attack, including a Syrian.

"As a result of a search and our investigations, we have identified the armed men and all those involved in the shooting operation," said the statement.

"Army units raided their hideouts and detained Yehia Samir Mohammed... and are working on chasing down the other suspects," it added.

Tripoli is the scene of frequent Syria-linked battles pitting Sunnis from Bab al-Tebbaneh against Alawites in neighbouring Jabal Mohsen.

The most recent killings was the  killing of  15 people on both sides and ended earlier this week when the army deployed along Syria Street, which separates the two districts and acts as the makeshift frontline.