President Barack Obama has limited ability to achieve his policy goals through legislation

Despite his win last week in a debt ceiling standoff with Republicans, President Barack Obama has limited ability to achieve his policy goals through legislation, which could result in increased use of executive powers, administration officials and Democratic strategists said.

The 16-day partial government shutdown highlighted Obama's challenges in basic governing. Although he refused to concede to Republicans in exchange for reopening the government and raising the U.S. borrowing limit, he could not block the emergence of what he called a "manufactured" crisis.

The president would now like to seize momentum to push forward three legislative priorities: the farm bill, immigration reform and a more lasting budget deal.

But his chances of progress on those issues, particularly immigration reform, depend on convincing embittered Republicans to work with a White House many of them detest. That leaves Obama more or less at the same strategic juncture he encountered before the shutdown began.

"His only play is to just keep being consistent about trying to find ways for bipartisan cooperation on the things that need congressional action and then try to continue what he's been doing for years now ... and that's looking for ways to move the ball through executive action," a senior White House official told Reuters.
"In that sense, nothing has changed in our approach except that we and the whole town had to burn however many weeks on this detour - which is a shame."

Already this year, Obama has relied on executive actions to enact climate change and gun control policies that had weak congressional support. He could use the same authority to bypass lawmakers on other regulatory questions.

But that strategy has limits. Some of the administration's climate rules are being challenged at the Supreme Court, and Obama still needs Congress to enact the major reforms that his advisers hope will define his legacy.

"Obama did himself no favors when it comes to his own policy priorities," said an aide to John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives.

"His refusal to negotiate in good faith makes it difficult for our members to work with him on other big priorities. Immigration reform, already a huge task, looks even tougher."

The error-filled rollout of Obama's signature healthcare program hurts his ability to focus on other domestic policy goals as well. Republicans plan to hammer the administration in coming weeks over flaws that have prevented people from signing up for health insurance through new exchanges.

House Republican efforts to delay or defund the healthcare law, popularly known as Obamacare, triggered the partial government shutdown.


BUILDING COALITIONS
Lawmakers' votes on Wednesday to prevent the United States from going into default showed a narrow pathway to finding bipartisan support.

The Democratic-led Senate passed the measure to reopen the government and extend the debt ceiling on an 81-18 vote, while the Republican-controlled House passed it 285-144.

That vote tally - 87 House Republicans supported the bill - combined with rock-solid unity among Democratic lawmakers, gives Obama's allies hope he can build other coalitions.

"I will look for willing partners wherever I can to get important work done," the president said on Thursday. "And there's no good reason why we can't govern responsibly, despite our differences, without lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis."

The first test of whether lawmakers can avert another crisis comes as a bipartisan panel considers a plan, due by Dec. 13, to reduce the deficit. Under the compromise forged last week, the government would be funded through Jan. 15 and the debt ceiling lifted through Feb. 7.

That tight time frame does not allow much room for the president's other policy priorities to gain traction.
Democrats believe, however, that Obama's bargaining hand may be strengthened by the thrashing Republicans took in opinion polls over their handling of the shutdown.

"This shutdown re-emphasized the overwhelming public demand for compromise and negotiation. And that may open up a window," said Ben LaBolt, Obama's 2012 campaign spokesman and a former White House aide.

"There's no doubt that some Republican members (of Congress) are going to oppose policies just because the president's for it. But the hand of those members was significantly weakened."

If he does have an upper hand, Obama is likely to apply it to immigration reform. The White House had hoped to have a bill concluded by the end of the summer. A Senate version passed with bipartisan support earlier this year but has languished in the Republican-controlled House.

"It will be hard to move anything forward, unless the Republicans find the political pain of obstructionism too much to bear," said Doug Hattaway, a Democratic strategist and an adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

"That may be the case with immigration - they'll face pressure from business and Latinos to advance immigration reform," he said.

A White House official said Obama's options for using executive action to advance immigration reform were largely exhausted. Last year, his administration relaxed deportation rules for children who came to the United States illegally with their parents. The move helped boost his support among Hispanics, a key voting bloc, in last November's election.

If a package of immigration measures does not move soon, Democrats hope the results will show up in Republican defeats in next year's congressional elections. If Democrats regain control of the House, the way could be smoothed for comprehensive immigration reform in the second half of Obama's final term.

A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government

A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away.

HHS didn’t want users to see Obamacare’s true costs
“Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering,” report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. “But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said.” Why was it delayed? “An HHS spokeswoman said the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies.” (Emphasis added.)

As you know if you’ve been following this space, Obamacare’s bevy of mandates, regulations, taxes, and fees drives up the cost of the insurance plans that are offered under the law’s public exchanges. A Manhattan Institute analysis I helped conduct found that, on average, the cheapest plan offered in a given state, under Obamacare, will be 99 percent more expensive for men, and 62 percent more expensive for women, than the cheapest plan offered under the old system. And those disparities are even wider for healthy people.
That raises an obvious question. If 50 million people are uninsured today, mainly because insurance is too expensive, why is it better to make coverage even costlier?

Political objectives trumped operational objectives
The answer is that Obamacare wasn’t designed to help healthy people with average incomes get health insurance. It was designed to force those people to pay more for coverage, in order to subsidize insurance for people with incomes near the poverty line, and those with chronic or costly medical conditions.

But the laws’ supporters and enforcers don’t want you to know that, because it would violate the President’s incessantly repeated promise that nothing would change for the people that Obamacare doesn’t directly help. If you shop for Obamacare-based coverage without knowing if you qualify for subsidies, you might be discouraged by the law’s steep costs.

So, by analyzing your income first, if you qualify for heavy subsidies, the website can advertise those subsidies to you instead of just hitting you with Obamacare’s steep premiums. For example, the site could advertise plans that cost “$0″ or “$30″ instead of explaining that the plan really costs $200, and that you’re getting a subsidy of $200 or $170. But you’ll have to be at or near the poverty line to gain subsidies of that size; most people will either not qualify for a subsidy, or qualify for a small one that, net-net, doesn’t make up for the law’s cost hikes.

This political objective—masking the true underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans—far outweighed the operational objective of making the federal website work properly. Think about it the other way around. If the “Affordable Care Act” truly did make health insurance more affordable, there would be no need to hide these prices from the public.

Subsidy verification created a traffic bottleneck
Comparable private-sector e-commerce sites, like eHealthInsurance.com, allow you to shop for plans and compare prices simply by entering your age and your ZIP code. After you’ve selected a plan you like, you fill out an on-line application. That substantially winnows down the number of people who rely on the site for network-intensive tasks.

The federal government’s decision to force people to apply before shopping, Weaver and Radnofsky write, “proved crucial because, before users can begin shopping for coverage, they must cross a busy digital junction in which data are swapped among separate computer systems built or run by contractors including CGI Group Inc., the healthcare.gov developer, Quality Software Services Inc., a UnitedHealth Group Inc. unit; and credit-checker Experian PLC. If any part of the web of systems fails to work properly, it could lead to a traffic jam blocking most users from the marketplace.”

Jay Angoff, a former federal official at the agency that oversees the exchange, told the Journal that he was surprised by the decision. “People should be able to get quotes” without entering all of that information upfront.

Weaver and Radnofsky say that the core problem stems from “the slate of registration systems [that] intersect with Oracle Identity Manager, a software component embedded in a government identity-checking system.” The main Healthcare.gov web page collects information using the CGI Group technology. Then that data is transferred to a system built by Quailty Software Services. QSS then sends data to Experian, the credit-history firm. But the key “identity management system” employed by QSS was designed by Oracle, and according to the Journal’s sources, the Oracle software isn’t playing nicely with the other information systems.

Oracle hotly denies these claims. “Our software is the identical product deployed in most of the world’s most complex systems…our software is running properly,” said an Oracle spokeswoman in a statement.

‘It’s awful, just awful’
Robert Pear and colleagues at the New York Times have a piece up today detailing the serious problems with the federal exchange, problems that may get worse, not better. They confirm what we already knew: that the Obama administration refused to delay the implementation of the exchanges, despite the well-known problems, because they were afraid of the political blowback. “Former government officials say the White House, which was calling the shots, feared that any backtracking would further embolden Republican critics who were trying to repeal the health care law.”

As I documented last week, IT and insurance experts have been saying for at least eight months that implementation of the exchanges was going badly, that as early as February officials were warning of a “third world experience.” The Times’ sources are just as blunt. “These are not glitches,” said one insurance executive. “The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our [conference calls with the administration], people say, ‘It’s awful, just awful.’”

“We foresee a train wreck,” said another executive in a February interview with the Times. “We don’t have the IT specifications. The level of angst in health plans is growing by leaps and bounds. The political people in the administration do not understand how far behind they are.” Richard Foster, the former chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said last week that “so much testing of the new system was so far behind schedule, I was not confident it would work well.”

Henry Chao, the deputy chief information officer at CMS who made the “third world experience” comment, was told by his superiors that failure to meet the October 1 launch deadline “was not an option,” according to the Times.

White House knowingly chose to court disaster
Think about it. It’s quite possible that much of this disaster could have been avoided if the Obama administration had been willing to be open with the public about the degree to which Obamacare escalates the cost of health insurance. If they had, then a number of the problems with the exchange’s software architecture would never have arisen. But that would require admitting that the “Affordable Care Act” was not accurately named.

The White House knew that its people on the front lines, people like Henry Chao, were worried that the exchanges would get botched. They saw the Congressional Research Service memorandum detailing that the administration has missed half of the statutory deadlines assigned by the law. But they were more afraid of the P.R. disaster of disclosing Obamacare’s high premiums than they were of the P.R. disaster of crashing websites. What you see is the result.

Velasquez Stops Junior Dos Santos in 5th

Cain Velasquez stopped Junior Dos Santos in the fifth round Saturday night at UFC 166 to retain the heavyweight title.

Dos Santos came out firing to start the final round, but Velasquez (13-1) worked him down to the mat only to have Dos Santos (16-3) get back up against the Octagon walls.

The two traded lefts before Velasquez landed a left and took Dos Santos down head-first to the mat, causing referee Herb Dean to stop the bout at 3:09.

"It was a pretty tough fight," Velasquez said. "It was very difficult. It was a tough night. I give him a lot of credit, he is a tough fighter. We were ready for everything. We trained hard in camp and prepared for everything. I tried to get him down this time. I was trying to throw crisper punches this time. I love the competition."

The fight was third between the two. Dos Santos beat Velasquez in 1:04 in the first meeting in 2011, and Velasquez won the second by unanimous decision in 2012.

"I'm definitely satisfied," Velasquez said. "I just hope there are no more excuses on his part. That's it. We don't look for the finish. We just put more pressure on and when it happens, it happens."

In the co-main event, Daniel Cormier (13-0) unanimously outpointed Roy Nelson (20-9) in a heavyweight bout, with all three judges scoring it 30-27.

Velaquez took Dos Santos down twice in a row midway through the third round with several rights and pounced on him on the ground, but Dos Santos was able to make it to his feet.

In the post-fight press conference Dana White said he thought the fight should have been stopped in the third round.

"I've been around this sport and boxing for a long time and seen men who are too tough for their own good," White said. "I think Junior Dos Santos is one of them in the last Cain fight and this Cain fight. I think that fight should have been stopped. I don't think he should have taken more punishment."

Velasquez remained on the attack, landing several rights with Dos Santos up against the wall, opening up cuts on Dos Santos' left ear and mouth.

Velasquez continued the attack to begin the fourth round, landing several combinations in the first 40 seconds of the fourth round, and he continued the assault up against the Octagon wall. Dos Santos was able to break free and land a left.

However, Velasquez landed more combinations, including a left that opened up a cut above Dos Santos' right eye that stopped the fight for a moment before it was determined he could continue. Following the restart, Velasquez continued to land combinations, with Dos Santos getting in a left once.

"He beat me up. What can I say?" Dos Santos said in the ring after the fight. "He's a great fighter. I just want to give a good fight to the fans."

Dos Santos was not in the post-fight press conference.

Velasquez landed several lefts to start the second round and a kick to the head as well, cutting Dos Santos on the bridge of his nose. Velasquez had Dos Santos locked up against the walls of the Octagon several times in the second round, but Dos Santos landed a right at the end of the second round.

Velasquez took Dos Santos to the mat midway through the first round, but was unable to land any hard shots, and Dos Santos got to his feet. The two went after it from the start, with Velasquez landing a couple lefts, and Dos Santos hitting an uppercut to go along with two lefts.

The crowd was firmly in Velasquez's corner throughout the fight, yelling "Si, se puede" numerous times for the Mexican.

Canada and the European Union have struck a free trade agreement

Canada and the European Union have struck a free trade agreement aimed at boosting growth and employment.

The deal will lower tariffs, streamline regulation, and cut red tape.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso agreed the deal at a meeting in Brussels on Friday.

Mr Barroso said they had reached a "breakthrough in negotiations" to achieve "a great agreement for both the European Union and Canada".

The deal still requires approval by parliaments and EU member states.
Once approved, the agreement aims to make it easier for companies in Canada and the 28-member EU bloc to invest in and sell to each other.
The European Union is Canada's second-largest trading partner behind the US.

Mr Harper said the agreement was "the biggest (trade) deal our country has ever made". It will give Canada access to a market of some 500 million people in the EU, making it bigger even than the country's North American Free Trade Agreement signed with the US and Mexico.

The European Commission expects the deal to increase bilateral trade in goods and services by a fifth to 25.7bn euros ($35bn; £21.7bn) a year.

The commission is negotiating trade pacts with more than 80 countries on behalf of the bloc's members following the collapse of the Doha global trade talks.

Brazilian: tonnes of raw sugar burnt down in port of Santos

 

Port authorities say the fire began in one of the overhead conveyor belts taking sugar into the warehouses

A fire in Brazil's largest port has burnt some 180,000 tonnes of raw sugar, damaging six warehouses and pushing international prices to a one-year high. 

The authorities in the port of Santos said it took six hours to bring the fire under control.
The cause of the blaze is still being investigated.

Brazil is the world's main sugar exporter, accounting for nearly half of international sales.
The terminal affected by the fire belongs to Brazilian sugar giant Copersucar.
Four other sugar terminals are operating normally, port authorities said.

Analysts say Brazil has enough port capacity to carry on with its usual export levels.

 

It took six hours for the firefighters to control the blaze at the sugar terminal

 

"International markets react because they know there will be a temporary drop. But other terminals will certainly make up for the accident," sugar market analyst Plinio Nastari told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Sugar prices in New York future markets went up by 6% when news of the fire broke, dropping later in the day.

Port authorities said that the fire began at around 06:00 local time (10:00 GMT) on a conveyor belt taking raw sugar into one of the warehouses.

They say this is the biggest fire in the history of the port of Santos, which exported 12.8 million tonnes of sugar in the first eight months of the year.

The port is located some 80km (50 miles) from Sao Paulo.
It was the gateway for much of Brazil's coffee exports in the 19th and 20th century and also the main point of entry for millions of European immigrants who arrived in Brazil until the 1950s.

Freed Florida murderers went to a jail to register as felons

 

 Joseph Jenkins (left) and Charles Walker (right)

Two convicted murderers freed from prison with forged paperwork dutifully went to a jail to register as felons several days after their release.

Florida officials are searching for Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker, both 34, who were serving life sentences.

Prison officials said they will tighten up their early-release policy to ensure there is no repeat of the blunder.
The falsified documents were not identified until several weeks after first convict's release.
It is not clear who made the bogus release documents, or if the escapes were related.

Jenkins walked free on 27 September and registered three days later at a jail in Orange County, Florida, about 300 miles (480km) from the prison where he was serving his sentence.

Walker was set free on 8 October from the same prison and registered on 11 October.
Fingerprints taken
 
The two prisoners apparently signed on to keep up the ruse that they had been released early by a judge.

 

End Quote Angelo Nieves Sheriff's office spokesman

Released felons are required to register as they re-enter the public, otherwise a warrant is issued for their arrest.

The registration process includes fingerprinting, images of which are uploaded to Florida police records.
A deputy at the jail verifies that felons do not have any outstanding warrants, according to jail spokesman Allen Moore.

Release documents bearing the forged signature of a sitting judge were processed through standard channels this autumn, officials have said.

Authorities received release orders bearing the faked signature of Orange County Chief Judge Belvin Perry, printed on Ninth Judicial Circuit letterhead.

The fabricated documents were processed by the Orange County clerk's office and sent to the Department of Corrections, which co-ordinated the inmates' release from Franklin prison in the city of Carrabelle, in the north of the state.

Sheriff's office spokesman Angelo Nieves told reporters: "This shouldn't have happened, but it did, and our concern is to get these individuals into custody."

Judge Perry said there were several red flags that should have alerted the court clerk's office or the corrections department, notably, how rare it is for a sentence reduction to come from prosecutors.
On Friday, Florida Corrections Secretary Michael Crews said prisons will now verify with judges, not just court clerks, before releasing prisoners early.

Authorities have been reviewing other releases based on modified court orders received from Orange County, to ensure no other inmates had been prematurely freed.

Jenkins was serving a life sentence for the 1998 shooting death of a father of six during a botched robbery.
Walker was sentenced to life in prison for the 1999 shooting death of a 23-year-old man. Walker said he did not mean to kill the man but fired three shots in warning because the man had been bullying him

UN aid chief calls for an "immediate pause in hostilities" in Moadamiyah

The UN's humanitarian chief has called for an "immediate pause in hostilities" in Moadamiyah, a rebel-held suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Valerie Amos said 3,000 people were evacuated last Sunday, but that the same number were trapped in the town amid continuing shelling and fighting.

Thousands of people were in a similar situations in towns across the country, she said.
The army has previously said rebel-held areas must surrender or starve.

Also on Saturday, activists said at least 16 soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing and fighting at a checkpoint near the mainly-Christian area of Jaramana.

State media blamed "terrorists" for the explosion but did not give details.
Rebels control much of the countryside around Damascus but Jaramana - a Christian and Druze area mostly loyal to President Bashar al-Assad - is still held by the government.

'Respect obligations'

In a statement, Baroness Amos said was "extremely worried by the situation unfolding across Syria where ordinary women, children and men are facing horrific violence and brutality from all sides of the conflict".

She said relief workers had been unable to access Moadamiyah for months, and that the ongoing conflict was preventing any rescue mission from going ahead.

"I call on all parties to agree an immediate pause in hostilities in Moadamiyah to allow humanitarian agencies unhindered access to evacuate the remaining civilians and deliver life-saving treatment and supplies in areas where fighting and shelling is ongoing," she said.

But she said this was not the only area of concern, citing Nubil, Zahra, old Aleppo town, old Homs town and Hassakeh as other places where people were in danger.

"Civilians must be allowed to move to safer areas without the fear of attack," she added.

Rare footage of the struggle to survive in rebel-held areas of Syria

"It is vital that all parties to the conflict respect their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian laws to protect civilians and to allow neutral, impartial humanitarian organizations safe access to all people in need, wherever they are in Syria."

Moadamiyah and at least two other Damascus's suburbs - Yarmouk and Eastern Ghouta - have been besieged by government forces for several months.

The situation has become so desperate that earlier this week Muslim clerics issued a religious ruling allowing people to eat cats, dogs and donkeys just to survive.

Those animals are usually considered unfit for human consumption in Islam.
Syrian activists say they are now starting to record the first deaths of complications caused by malnutrition.
On Friday, the US urged the Syrian government to allow relief convoys to reach starving civilians.

David Nott: "It's absolutely deliberate"

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki warned that "those who are responsible for atrocities in the Damascus suburbs and across Syria must be identified and held accountable".
More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, now in its third year. The unrest began in the midst of the Arab Spring regional uprisings, with protests against President Bashar Assad, before degenerating into civil war.
A British surgeon who volunteered in a hospital in northern Syria for five weeks told the BBC on Friday that he had treated pregnant women deliberately targeted by snipers.

David Nott said there "was definitely a game going on between the snipers".

"One day we would receive patients who had purely groin wounds, another day purely chest wounds or purely abdominal wounds. Then another day full-term pregnant ladies were coming in having been shot."
Most of the unborn babies and many of the women did not survive, he said.

International efforts to halt the violence have consistently faltered, but last month the UN Security Council broke its deadlock, voting unanimously to adopt a binding resolution on ridding the country of chemical weapons.

The move followed international outrage at a chemical weapons attack near Damascus in August.
UN experts are currently working in Syria, inspecting chemical weapons sites and destroying the arsenal, and say they have completed almost half their mission.

Israeli-Arab reportedly killed Syrian rebels is Alive: Family

An Israeli-Arab who was reportedly killed while fighting with the Syrian rebels is alive and has contacted his family, Channel 10 reported on Saturday.

Women’s empowerment builds international peace and security

 

When war erupts, women are often the first to experience the harsh brutality and the last to be called to the peace table.

At least 10 people have been killed in Belgian plane crash

At least 10 people have been killed after a small tourist plane crashed in Marchovelette near the city of Namur in south-east Belgium.

Scientist: Reveals mysterious Abominable Snowman..

The Himalaya’s mysterious Abominable Snowman might harbor an even deeper mystery, according to an Oxford University geneticist who says he has sequenced the mythic beast’s DNA and proved its existence.
For centuries, native people in the snow-peaked Himalaya Mountains have described an elusive apelike animal that roams the range, and which they call the yeti.

Bryan Sykes, a professor of genetics at Oxford, sequenced DNA taken from two unidentified animals killed in Himalaya ranges of India and Bhutan in recent decades.

The small samples — including a single hair found a decade ago, and the jawbone of a mummified animal discovered in the 1970s by a hunter — were compared to a database of thousands of known animals, and the results were intriguing.

The samples suggest, according to Sykes, that the animal many people have reported seeing may be an unknown species of bear, related to an extinct polar bear.

“This is a species that hasn’t been recorded for 40,000 years. Now, we know one of these was walking around ten years ago. And what’s interesting is that we have found this type of animal at both ends of the Himalayas. If one were to go back, there would be others still there,” Sykes told reporters.

Sykes believes the animal could be a hybrid descended from two species of bear, an extinct polar bear and a closely related brown bear.

He said accounts of hunters, mountaineers and others who claim to have seen a yeti, may have come face to face with an unknown bear that acts strangely.

“The fact that the hunter, who had great experience of bears, thought this one was in some way unusual and was frightened of it, makes me wonder if this species of bear might behave differently. Maybe it is more aggressive, more dangerous or is more bipedal than other bears,” he said.

Turkey rejected European Union criticism; welcomes report.

 Turkey on Saturday rejected European Union criticism of its handling of anti-government protests earlier this year, but said a report on its progress towards joining the bloc showed it had come closer to European economic and democratic standards.

In the government's first official response to the commission's report, released on Wednesday, EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis said the European Commission's support for fresh talks on a new policy area proved Turkey was making progress in the reform process.

"We are pleased that this year's progress report emphasises the important reforms Turkey has realised," Bagis said.

"It's indisputable that Turkey is now closer than ever to European Union standards in terms of democracy, human rights and economic developments," he said in an emailed statement.

The report on Turkish efforts to meet requirements to join the 28-nation EU may help breathe new life into Turkey's EU bid by backing the opening of talks on a new chapter.

But it also accused Turkish police of using excessive force to quell anti-government protests earlier this year and urged authorities to strengthen oversight of the police and to press ahead with investigations into their conduct.

Protests erupted across Turkey after police dispersed a sit-in against the demolition of an Istanbul park. Six people died and more than 8,000 were hurt in two weeks of clashes in June.

Bagis dismissed the report's criticism of how the government handled the protests.

"We consider it important to emphasise that we will never view efforts that employ violence and illegal methods against the peace of our nation and people as a struggle for rights," he said.

Turkey began talks with the EU in 2005, 18 years after applying. But its refusal to open its ports to Greek Cypriots and public opposition in Germany and France to a large, poor Muslim nation joining the bloc have stalled progress.

Bagis said he waited three days to respond to the report to protest its publication coinciding with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, when Turkish government offices are closed.

Boy Wanted for Sex Assault

 

The boy is wanted in connection with three sex assaults near the University of Manchester

Police searching for a boy believed to have carried out sex assaults in Manchester say they are concerned the attacks could escalate.

Detectives are appealing for anyone who recognises an e-fit of the boy, aged about 12, to contact them.
They are linking three assaults that have taken place in the past month near the University of Manchester.
Officers said they believed the boy had been recorded by CCTV cameras.

Women traumatised Det Ch Insp Colin Larkin said: "It is obviously very unusual and very worrying, that someone so young is committing such appalling attacks on women.

"The women are traumatised as a result of what happened and are being offered support by specially trained officers.

"Whatever the young boy's motivation, this is not a practical joke or a prank. His actions are disturbing
"Given his young age, I would appeal to anyone who may know him - schoolteachers, community leaders or possibly even family members - to either alert the police or bring this young man to a police station as soon as possible.

"We cannot allow these sexual assaults to escalate and we need to find him."
The first two attacks took place within 15 minutes of each other on 21 September.
A 27-year-old was approached from behind and grabbed in Lloyd Street North at 18:15 BST before she screamed and the offender ran off.

The next incident followed in Oxford Road when a 21-year-old woman was approached by a boy who made lewd comments as she left John Rylands library.

She carried on walking on Moss Lane East and was sexually assaulted by her assailant, who was described as a young boy, aged about 12, who wore green jeans and glasses.

The third attack took place at the Manchester Science Park in Lloyd Street South at about 14:15 BST on 5 October.

A 32-year-old woman was approached by two young boys and sexually assaulted by one of them.
He was described as being of Asian heritage, aged 12 to 13, of slim build and wearing baggy trousers and carrying a rucksack.

The woman pushed the boy away but he approached her again and sexually assaulted her for a second time before running off towards Pencroft Way with a second child.

White House reopening its doors to tourists after seven months

The White House is reopening its doors to tourists seven months after public tours were cancelled because of sequester spending cuts.

“The White House is pleased to announce the resumption of a limited schedule of East Wing and Executive Residence tours, beginning on Nov. 5,” the White House announced.

While tours of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue were previously available five days a week, they will now be run an average of just three days a week.

The Secret Service cancelled the tours in March because of staffing changes that they made to cope with the budget cuts. The move was met with outrage from tourists and lawmakers alike.
So, where did the money come from to reopen the tours?

“Last year’s sequestration came midway through in the fiscal year, and we were unable to adjust or re-allocate remaining funding to continue tours while still ensuring enough funding remained to meet all operational needs and avoid furloughing employees,” said Robert Novy, a spokesman for the Secret Service. “In light of the new fiscal year, the Secret Service is confident that, based on the continuing resolution, tours can operate while meeting operational requirements.”

The tours are only guaranteed to continue, however, until Jan. 15, 2014, when the current funding levels run out.

Mitch McConnell has the support of the entire Washington establishment

The past two weeks have not been easy for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The Kentucky Republican faced unruly caucus members such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who clashed with him as he tried to negotiate an end to the stalemate with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. And now McConnell, who already had a competitive re-election bid on his hands, has seen his political predicament in Kentucky grow even more perilous.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, which has been a leading anti-establishment GOP force, today endorsed McConnell’s Republican primary opponent, Matt Bevin.

“Mitch McConnell has the support of the entire Washington establishment, and he will do anything to hold onto power,” said Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund. “But if people in Kentucky and all across the country rise up and demand something better, we’re confident Matt Bevin can win this race.”

Allison Moore, a spokeswoman for McConnell, shot back: “Matt Bevin now has the dubious honor of standing with a self-serving DC fundraising group that made its name by recruiting and promoting unelectable candidates that ensured Barack Obama a majority in the Senate. They clearly care less about Kentuckians than they do about their reputation for supporting laughably bad candidates.”

But even as McConnell and his team look ahead to the big political fight to come, he’s spent the two days since the shutdown ended looking back at the wrangling on Capitol Hill. Here are four comments that offer a peek inside the senator’s head:

“They knew I had a weak hand, given the time we had squandered on this quixotic venture that had no chance of success, but they asked me to find a way out and I did. Most of them voted for it, too, which I appreciated.”

This quote is from a lengthy interview with the National Review’s Robert Costa.  Translation: McConnell is saying that the latest push to defund and dismantle the Affordable Care Act was likely too ambitious for its own good.  The Kentucky Republican is casting himself as the adult in the room who helped Republicans in his own legislative body veer back onto a more sensible path. 



“I’ve demonstrated, once again, that when the Congress is in gridlock and the country is at risk, I’m the guy who steps forward and tries to get us out of the ditch. So it’s been a bad 24 hours for her, and she’s going to need to find a new rationale.”

In the same interview, McConnell alluded to his Democratic Senate opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grime. He is trying to dismantle one of her main talking points — that McConnell is the embodiment of Washington dysfunction. McConnell is using the opportunity to say that he is fully capable of working across party lines — for the greater good.

“They may, depending upon the amount of heat they get from their constituents because of rising premiums, because of job loss, because of the chaos of the exchanges, they may be open to changes.” 

In an interview with The Hill’s Alexander Bolton, McConnell shares a view held by many Republicans: the Affordable Care Act’s design will lead to its own demise.  He is arguing that Democrats will eventually come to view Obamacare negatively, which could lead to an effort to drastically change the law.

“The Army Corps requested it, both House and Senate passed an authorization for it, and every senator — every single one — had a chance to review it and ask for it to be taken out.”

McConnell fiercely defended the decision to include in the final bill an earmark, which would help save the jobs of hundreds of people working on the Olmsted Locks and Dam project, portions of which are in Kentucky. In an interview with Politico, McConnell said the earmark enjoyed bipartisan support — an attempt to inoculate himself against attacks claiming he porked up the bill.

Western nations backing Kenya's counter-terrorism efforts: a moral dilemma

 Western nations backing Kenya's counter-terrorism efforts face a moral dilemma over whether to defer the International Criminal Court (ICC) trial of President Uhuru Kenyatta after last month's Islamist attack on the Westgate shopping centre, write BBC Africa's Solomon Mugera and Moses Rono.

The challenge is compounded by the tone coming from Nairobi that strongly suggests that Mr Kenyatta might not turn up for his trial at The Hague in November.

Since being indicted on charges, which he denies, of organising violence after the disputed 2007 elections, Mr Kenyatta has consistently said he would co-operate with the ICC.

But the reality of what having a president on trial abroad really means struck home when Islamist militants seized the Westgate mall in the Kenyan capital last month, leading to the deaths of at least 67 people.

Mr Kenyatta's deputy, William Ruto, was in The Hague in a related case at the time and he had to ask the court for special dispensation to adjourn the hearings and return home.

"Suppose Kenyatta was in The Hague attending his trial at the time the siege happened?" a source at the presidency wondered at the time.

Principle v realpolitik Independent Horn of Africa analyst Abdullahi Boru views the situation as a conundrum pitting justice against security.
"The West faces a dilemma of principle versus realpolitik," he told the BBC.

"Do they insist on saying the court should go ahead with the cases, or capitulate to the demands of the African Union (AU) and Kenya?"

African leaders have asked the UN Security Council to postpone Mr Kenyatta's trial - they have long accused the ICC of unfairly targeting African leaders.

They further asked the Kenyan president and Mr Ruto not to show up for their respective trials until the UN hears the request for a deferral.

The UK and France have championed the ICC as a vital tool to help bring to justice those politicians who carry out atrocities in their quest for power and would be loath to undermine the court by agreeing to the AU demand.

The US supports that principle but has not signed up to the ICC for fear its own soldiers could be prosecuted.

During Kenya's election campaign earlier this year, the UK and the US warned that a Kenyatta victory would have "consequences" for the country.

In the event, he turned this around, successfully portraying it as neo-colonial meddling in Kenya's sovereign affairs and was elected president.

Even before Westgate, this put the West in a difficult position.
'No longer personal'
 
Alongside Ethiopia, Kenya is a key ally in counter-terrorism efforts in the region.
Nairobi hosts a significant number of African offices for major multilateral organisations, and the world headquarters for the United Nations Environmental Programme.

As the biggest, most developed city in East Africa, it is home to a large number of Western expatriates.

Kenya also has strong intelligence - and other - links with the US and Israel.

As al-Qaeda and its branch in neighbouring Somalia, al-Shabab, have stepped up attacks in the region, both US and Israeli targets in Kenya have been hit by al-Qaeda militants.

The UN Security Council is now expected to decide whether to defer the trial of Mr Kenyatta or let it continue - both options entail considerable risks.

George Kegoro, the executive director of the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya, told the BBC that extensive lobbying was going on, including a recent visit to Addis Ababa by the 15 Security Council members for consultations with AU officials.

In Kenya, the debate is raging.
Kenyan law scholar Makau Mutua criticised the AU resolution seeking a deferral of Mr Kenyatta's case.
"The message is we can kill; we can maim; we can commit genocide; we can rape our people with impunity and that no court can bring us to account for those crimes," he told Kenya's private NTV channel.

While the US-educated Kenyan president is generally known to be easy going and diplomatic, at the AU summit, he lashed out at the court, and the West, leading many to ask whether he would still attend his trial.
"The ICC has been reduced into a painfully farcical pantomime, a travesty that adds insult to the injury of victims," Mr Kenyatta said.

"It stopped being the home of justice the day it became the toy of declining imperial powers."
While campaigning for the March 2013 presidential vote, Mr Kenyatta called his trial at the ICC "a personal challenge".

 

 

Uhuru Kenyatta (left) and William Ruto deny organising post-election violence

That now appears to have changed.

"Once that person is elected into office, there isn't anything personal about him," presidency spokesman Manoah Esipisu told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

He noted that the Kenyan electorate were fully aware of the charges against Mr Kenyatta and Mr Ruto when they were elected.

"There needs to be a balance between the legal process and his right to govern," he said.
Boost for militancy?
 
In the event that the UN fails to delay his case and Mr Kenyatta opts not to attend his trial, observers believe a warrant of arrest would be issued, turning him, and Kenya, into something of an international pariah, like Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

Such an eventuality is fraught with serious political risks, including possible destabilisation, which would undermine regional counter-terrorism efforts.

"Leadership by Kenya is required to deal with regional instability," Mr Esipisu said, arguing that this was why African leaders had called for Mr Kenyatta's trial to be delayed.

If Kenya were to react by withdrawing from the fight against al-Shabab, that would be a massive boost to the Islamist cause in the region.

However, Kenya's constitution specifically states that officials indicted by international courts must co-operate, making a boycott difficult for Mr Kenyatta unless the UN Security Council comes to his aid.
And the stakes are also high for the ICC.

This is by far its biggest case and backing down would deliver a potentially fatal blow to the court, which has been heavily criticised for only delivering one conviction in more than a decade.

"In the long-term, the Kenya cases are existential for the ICC," Mr Boru said.
"Failure in the Kenyan case will cement the feeling the court, aside from targeting Africans, has also failed to get successful prosecution of big fish."

That leaves the UN Security Council trying to square the circle of delivering justice without potentially destabilising East Africa.

President Kenyatta 'excused most of ICC trial

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta need not attend all of his trial on charges of crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court has said.

He is only required to be present at certain key parts of the case, a majority of judges ruled.

Mr Kenyatta has argued that attending the trial in The Hague would prevent him from governing the country.
Both Mr Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto deny charges of organising violence after the 2007 election.

Friday's ruling states that the Kenyan president must be physically present during the opening and closing statements, hearings where victims "present their views and concerns in person," the verdict, and any other sessions determined by the court.

'Demanding' The judges said that the exemption was granted "to accommodate the demanding functions of [Mr Kenyatta's] office as President of Kenya".

The decision was by a majority vote as presiding judge Kuniko Ozaki did not agree with the other two judges.

Last week, the African Union urged the UN Security Council to delay Mr Kenyatta's trial, which is due to start on 12 November.

African leaders accuse the ICC of unfairly targeting the continent; all the court's current cases are from Africa, and two serving presidents, Mr Kenyatta and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, have been indicted.

On Thursday a spokesman for the Kenyan presidency, Manoah Esipisu, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that there "needs to be a balance between the legal process and his right to govern".

An estimated 1,200 people were killed in the ethnic bloodshed which swept across Kenya after disputed elections in December 2007. Around 600,000 fled their homes.

Mr Ruto's trial began in September. He too was granted an exemption from attending parts of his trial, but the prosecution lodged an appeal against that decision, which is currently suspended.

The BBC's Anna Holligan, in The Hague, says the uncertainty over Mr Ruto's exemption means there is no guarantee that Mr Kenyatta's will be granted.

Mr Ruto's trial was adjourned for a week to allow him to return to Nairobi in the aftermath of the Westgate mall siege.

 

William Ruto's trial began in The Hague on 10 September

A suicide bomber strapped with explosives around his chest killed at least 13 people

MOGADISHU,- A suicide bomber strapped with explosives around his chest killed at least 13 people on Saturday outside a restaurant popular with Ethiopian and Somali troops in the town of Baladweyne in central Somalia, local officials said.

More than 10 people were also wounded in the explosion near a military base, local legislator Dahir Amin Jesow told Reuters by telephone from Baladweyne.

"A man with an explosives jacket entered unexpectedly in the tea shop where soldiers and civilians sat...and blew himself up," said local elder Ahmed Nur, speaking from the scene of the blast.

"I could see the bodies of several soldiers being carried, but I could not make out whether they were dead or injured."

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Ethiopian troops have been fighting Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia for much of the past decade.

Ethiopia waged an ill-fated war in Somalia in 2006-2009 and sent troops across the border again in 2011 to combat al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab militants, who were also battling Kenyan troops and an African Union military mission.

Australian bush fires: Military probes link to Lithgow blaze

 

This year's fires have come unusually early after unseasonably hot weather

 

Australia's military is investigating whether a training exercise using explosives may have started one of the huge bush fires burning in the state of New South Wales. 

The exercise took place at a base near the town of Lithgow in the Blue Mountains region on Wednesday.
It was the same day that a massive bush fire - which is still burning - began.

About 200 homes have been destroyed in dozens of fires which have been burning for several days.
The BBC's Jon Donnison in Sydney says this year's fires have come unusually early after unseasonably hot weather, and many are fearing a long and dangerous summer.

One man has died - possibly of a heart attack - while trying to protect his home.
The Australian Defence Force issued a statement about the fire burning between Lithgow and Bilpin, some 80 km (50 miles) north-west of Sydney, which is reported to have burned through 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) and destroyed properties.

 

 

It said it was investigating the circumstances of the fire, which began on defence land.
"The fire started on 16 October, the same day that defence personnel were conducting an explosive ordnance training activity," the statement said. "Defence is investigating if the two events are linked.

"Our thoughts are with those who have lost property or whose property is threatened by these devastating fires."

Firefighters have been trying to make the most of a relatively cool day to tackle about 20 fires that are burning out of control, but higher temperatures and strong winds are expected to create difficult conditions in the coming days.

New South Wales Rural Fire Service Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said Saturday's conditions were a "pause", but that the fire perimeter stretched for more than 500km.

"We're by no means out of the woods," he told broadcaster ABC. "It's just calmed down a little bit and obviously we're bracing ourselves for these worsening conditions."

Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said some of the fires were so large they would take some time to completely extinguish.

"Firefighters will be working on these fires for weeks," he said.
"It's all about reducing the risk of these fires to breach containment lines and run under hotter, drier, windier condition over coming days."

Smoke and ash from the wildfires have blanketed the Sydney skyline.
Satellite image of fires around Sydney

Islamist rebels say they were behind Somalia suicide bombing

The Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on Saturday that killed at least 13 people at a restaurant popular with Ethiopian and Somali troops in the town of Baladweyne in central Somalia.

"Our main target was Ethiopian and Djibouti troops who invaded our country. They were sitting there,' Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shabaab's military operation spokesman said.

He put the death toll from the attack at 25, including troops from Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia.
There was no independent word on whether any foreign soldiers were among the casualties in the bombing.

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama?

It’s enough to make even the most ardent Obama cynic scratch his head in confusion.

Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Who knew?

Car bomb explodes near Egypt army intelligence building

At least four people were wounded when a car bomb exploded near an army intelligence building in Ismailia, northeast of Cairo, on Saturday, security sources said.

The force of the blast caused part of the building's wall to collapse, one of the sources said.

Do It Now, Keep It Simple, Think. (Lessons From 10 Days Away)

I don’t relax or recreate well.
I walk an hour a day because my worry-wart physician tells me I must.  I am a terrible golfer.  (On an extremely good day, I shoot 92.) And I read thrillers and murder mysteries. (My favorite author? Peter Lovesey.)
That’s it, when it comes to non-work stuff.

So it was surprising that I didn’t drive either myself or my wife nuts as we spent 10 days some 4,500 miles from home in a place where I don’t speak the language.

What wasn’t surprising was that I kept filtering everything I saw, heard and experienced through the prism of how it could help me run my small business.
Here are the four things I learned while I was away.

1.  Keep it extremely simple, clear and short.  Between universal symbols–a knife and fork for restaurants, for example–and the country putting signs in English in pivotal places (such as the airport) we got along quite well as we traveled.  And it made me understand (even more) the need for communicating only what is necessary to get the job done.  I will be writing even shorter memos–and blogs–from now on.

2. Do it now. I don’t procrastinate. But I will work on multiple things simultaneously, which is fine when you have an infrastruture–like phone, electricity and Internet–that is always available.  It wasn’t where we were.  The infratstructure sort of worked some of the time. My takeaway from this:  From now on, I will always have one task–and the most important one whereever possible–completely  finished before I take a break.

3. Extended time to think is a good thing. I needed to make a major decision about the future of my business and I had been putting it off because change is not only scary, it’s hard.  The nice thing about the time away–as well as the nine hour flights each way and the times we were without power–was I realized I had no choice when it came to changing the direction of my company. There was no decision to make. The industry is evolving and either I get aboard the train, or I can start the count down on when I become irrelevant.

 I would have come to this conclusion anyway, but the extended period when I had time to think forced me to come to the decision faster. That is never a bad thing.
4. I really like Tuscan wines.
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Paul B. Brown is the co-author of Just Start: Take Action; Embrace Uncertainty and Create the Future published by Harvard Business Review Press.

Please note the blog appears every Sunday and Wednesday, with the occassional post like today.
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Italy court hands Berlusconi two-year ban from public office

MILAN, - A Milan court on Saturday ruled that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi should be barred from holding public office for two years following a conviction for tax fraud.

But, since Berlusconi is a senator, the court's decision will have no immediate effect and his expulsion from the Senate will depend on a separate vote in the upper house of parliament, expected to take place next month.

Saturday's ruling reflected the prosecution's request for a two-year ban. Berlusconi's lawyers, who can appeal to the supreme court, had asked for a one-year ban, the minimum under the law that was being applied in the Milan case. The maximum would have been three years.

Italy's supreme court on Aug. 1 definitively upheld a tax fraud conviction against the centre-right leader, rejecting his final appeal against an earlier four-year jail sentence.

The four-year sentence was commuted to one year, and, if the Senate expels him, Berlusconi will spend the year either under house arrest or in community service.

In the Aug. 1 ruling, the supreme court confirmed the conviction but ordered a further judicial review of a ban on holding public office imposed for the same offence.

The upper house's vote next month will effectively supersede the Milan court's decision because it will be based on a separate law, which, if he is expelled, would ban Berlusconi from public office for six years.

Losing his seat in the Senate would deprive Berlusconi, who is fighting a conviction for paying for sex with a minor among other legal cases, of his parliamentary immunity from arrest.

A special Senate committee opened the way earlier this month for a motion to expel Berlusconi.
The Senate is dominated by Berlusconi opponents from both the left and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and is expected to vote to strip him of his seat.

The decision over Berlusconi's future has been one of the most sensitive issues facing parliament.
Centre-left Prime Minister Enrico Letta's awkward coalition with Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) came close to falling when Berlusconi pulled his ministers out of the government last month.

The stated reason for the break was a disagreement over tax policy, but the weeks of tension over his impending expulsion helped poison the climate in the broad left-right coalition.

The August supreme court ruling involved inflated invoices at his Mediaset broadcasting empire and was the first definitive sentence he had received after dozens of previous trials on charges ranging from tax to sex offences.

The 76-year-old billionaire has protested his innocence, accusing magistrates of persecuting him since his entry into politics 20 years ago.

Italy court hands Berlusconi two-year ban from public office

MILAN, - A Milan court on Saturday ruled that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi should be barred from holding public office for two years following a conviction for tax fraud.

But, since Berlusconi is a senator, the court's decision will have no immediate effect and his expulsion from the Senate will depend on a separate vote in the upper house of parliament, expected to take place next month.

Saturday's ruling reflected the prosecution's request for a two-year ban. Berlusconi's lawyers, who can appeal to the supreme court, had asked for a one-year ban, the minimum under the law that was being applied in the Milan case. The maximum would have been three years.

Italy's supreme court on Aug. 1 definitively upheld a tax fraud conviction against the centre-right leader, rejecting his final appeal against an earlier four-year jail sentence.

The four-year sentence was commuted to one year, and, if the Senate expels him, Berlusconi will spend the year either under house arrest or in community service.

In the Aug. 1 ruling, the supreme court confirmed the conviction but ordered a further judicial review of a ban on holding public office imposed for the same offence.

The upper house's vote next month will effectively supersede the Milan court's decision because it will be based on a separate law, which, if he is expelled, would ban Berlusconi from public office for six years.

Losing his seat in the Senate would deprive Berlusconi, who is fighting a conviction for paying for sex with a minor among other legal cases, of his parliamentary immunity from arrest.

A special Senate committee opened the way earlier this month for a motion to expel Berlusconi.
The Senate is dominated by Berlusconi opponents from both the left and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and is expected to vote to strip him of his seat.

The decision over Berlusconi's future has been one of the most sensitive issues facing parliament.
Centre-left Prime Minister Enrico Letta's awkward coalition with Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) came close to falling when Berlusconi pulled his ministers out of the government last month.

The stated reason for the break was a disagreement over tax policy, but the weeks of tension over his impending expulsion helped poison the climate in the broad left-right coalition.

The August supreme court ruling involved inflated invoices at his Mediaset broadcasting empire and was the first definitive sentence he had received after dozens of previous trials on charges ranging from tax to sex offences.

The 76-year-old billionaire has protested his innocence, accusing magistrates of persecuting him since his entry into politics 20 years ago.