Falling behind in line: Jon Fitch has no clue why his GSP rematch hasn?t come yet

Nick Diaz will get his shot, then it looks like Carlos Condit and Jake Ellenberger are in the running for a fight against Georges St-Pierre. Where's the guy who's 13-1-1 in the UFC at 170 pounds?

Jon Fitch is still wondering why he seems to be on the outside looking in when it comes to a title fight against the welterweight champ.

"It's confusing and I try not to think about it because I just want to focus on my fight and be able train again," Fitch told ESPN1100/98.9 FM in Las Vegas.

When pressed further by Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole, Fitch unloaded.

"It is frustrating because the truth of the matter is, I don't understand what the problem is. No one's come up to me and said 'we don't like what you're doing. Do this differently.' I've gotten absolutely zero feedback about what's going on," Fitch said. "I have no idea what's happening or why certain guys are getting title shots. It's a complete mystery to me and no one's approached me and said anything about my style or what I'm doing good or bad."

More than a few fans have turned against Fitch and his methodical style. On Fitch's Wikipedia page, one even went as far as labeling him "Decision [expletive]."

"I don't know who these people are (calling me boring). It's a mystery. I've never met one of these people ever in my life. I've never been told that by anyone in the UFC. I've never been told that by anyone I've ever met in any of my signings. I don't understand where it's coming from either," said Fitch.

An dominant victory win, could change everything. Fitch, who's strung together five straight decision wins and draw since his UFC 87 loss against GSP, faces the very tough Johny Hendricks. With Hendricks' developing striking game backed by a college wrestling background that includes two NCAA national titles, Fitch will score major points if he can finish his opponent at UFC 141.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Falling-behind-in-line-Jon-Fitch-has-no-clue-wh?urn=mma-wp9951

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Afghan officials: Fire from Pakistan led to attack

Afghanistan-bound trucks carrying supplies for NATO forces parked as authorities close border at Torkham border post in Pakistan on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011. Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters and fighter jets of firing on two army checkpoints in the country's northwest and killing 24 soldiers. Islamabad retaliated by closing the border crossings used by the international coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Qazi Rauf)

Afghanistan-bound trucks carrying supplies for NATO forces parked as authorities close border at Torkham border post in Pakistan on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011. Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters and fighter jets of firing on two army checkpoints in the country's northwest and killing 24 soldiers. Islamabad retaliated by closing the border crossings used by the international coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Qazi Rauf)

A Pakistani border security guard stands alert as authorities close border down the Torkham border for NATO vehicles in Pakistan on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011. Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters and fighter jets of firing on two army checkpoints in the country's northwest and killing 24 soldiers. Islamabad retaliated by closing the border crossings used by the international coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zubair)

Afghanistan-bound trucks carrying supplies for NATO forces sit parked as authorities close the border at Torkham border in Pakistan on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011. Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters and fighter jets of firing on two army checkpoints in the country's northwest and killing 24 soldiers. Islamabad retaliated by closing the border crossings used by the international coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Qazi Rauf)

Pakistan army soldiers carry coffin of Saturday's NATO attack victims for funeral in Peshawar, Pakistan on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011. Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters and fighter jets of firing on two army checkpoints in the country's northwest and killing 24 soldiers. Islamabad retaliated by closing the border crossings used by the international coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

Afghanistan-bound containers carrying supplies for NATO forces parked as authorities close Chaman border in Pakistan on Sunday, Nov 27, 2011. Pakistan on Saturday accused NATO helicopters and fighter jets of firing on two army checkpoints in the country's northwest and killing 24 soldiers. Islamabad retaliated by closing the border crossings used by the international coalition to supply its troops in neighboring Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Shah Khalid)

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? Afghanistan officials claimed Sunday that Afghan and NATO forces were retaliating for gunfire from two Pakistani army bases when they called in airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, adding a layer of complexity to an episode that has further strained Pakistan's ties with the United States.

The account challenged Pakistan's claim that the strikes were unprovoked.

The attack Saturday near the Afghan-Pakistani border aroused popular anger in Pakistan and added tension to the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, which has been under pressure since the secret U.S. raid inside Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden in May.

Pakistan has closed its western border to trucks delivering supplies to coalition troops in Afghanistan, demanded that the U.S. abandon an air base inside Pakistan and said it will review its cooperation with the U.S. and NATO.

A complete breakdown in the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is considered unlikely. Pakistan relies on billions of dollars in American aid, and the U.S. needs Pakistan to push Afghan insurgents to participate in peace talks.

Afghanistan's assertions about the attack muddy the efforts to determine what happened. The Afghan officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said it was unclear who fired on Afghan and NATO forces, which were conducting a joint operation before dawn Saturday.

They said the fire came from the direction of the two Pakistani army posts along the border that were later hit in the airstrikes.

NATO has said it is investigating, but it has not questioned the Pakistani claim that 24 soldiers were killed. All airstrikes are approved at a higher command level than the troops on the ground.

Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen offered his deepest condolences and said the coalition was committed to working with Pakistan to "avoid such tragedies in the future."

"We have a joint interest in the fight against cross-border terrorism and in ensuring that Afghanistan does not once again become a safe-haven for terrorists," Rasmussen said in Brussels.

NATO officials have complained that insurgents fire from across the poorly defined frontier, often from positions close to Pakistani soldiers, who have been accused of tolerating or supporting them.

The U.S. plans its own investigation. Two U.S. senators called Sunday for harder line on Pakistan.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Pakistan must understand that American aid depends on Pakistani cooperation. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Pakistan's moves to punish coalition forces for the airstrikes are more evidence that the U.S. should get its troops out of the region.

On Sunday, Pakistani soldiers received the coffins of the victims from army helicopters and prayed over them. The coffins were draped with the green and white Pakistani flag.

The dead included an army major and another senior officer. The chief of the Pakistani army and regional political leaders attended the funerals.

"The attack was unprovoked and indiscriminate," said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. "There was no reason for it. Map references of all our border posts have been passed to NATO a number of times."

There were several protests around Pakistan, including in Karachi, where about 500 Islamists rallied outside the U.S. Consulate.

The relationship between the United States and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation in a strategically vital part of the world, grew more difficult after the covert raid that killed bin Laden in May.

Pakistani leaders were outraged that they were not told beforehand. Also, the U.S. has been frustrated by Pakistan's refusal to target militants using its territory to stage attacks on American and other NATO troops in Afghanistan.

A year ago, a U.S. helicopter attack killed two Pakistani soldiers posted on the border, and a joint investigation by the two nations found that Pakistani troops had fired first at the U.S. helicopters.

The investigation found that the shots were probably meant as warnings after the choppers passed into Pakistani airspace.

After that incident, Pakistan closed one of the two border crossings for U.S. supplies for 10 days. There was no indication of how long it would keep the border closed this time.

On Sunday, about 300 trucks carrying supplies to U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan were backed up at the Torkham border crossing in the northwest Khyber tribal area, the one closed last year, as well as at Chaman, in the southwestern Baluchistan province.

Militants inside Pakistan periodically attack the slow-moving convoys, and torched 150 trucks last year as they waited for days to enter Afghanistan.

"We are worried," said Saeed Khan, a driver waiting at the border terminal in Torkham and speaking by phone. "This area is always vulnerable to attacks. Sometimes rockets are lobbed at us. Sometimes we are targeted by bombs."

Some drivers said paramilitary troops had been deployed to protect their convoys since the closures, but others were left without any additional protection. Even those who did receive troops did not feel safe.

"If there is an attack, what can five or six troops do?" said Niamatullah Khan, a fuel truck driver who was parked with 35 other vehicles at a restaurant about 125 miles, or 200 kilometers, from Chaman.

NATO uses routes through Pakistan for almost half of its shipments of non-lethal supplies for its troops in Afghanistan, including fuel, food and clothes. Critical supplies like ammunition are airlifted directly to Afghan air bases.

NATO has built a stockpile of military and other supplies that could keep operations running at their current level for several months even with the two crossings closed, said a NATO official closely involved with the Afghan war, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

NATO once shipped about 80 percent of its non-lethal supplies through Pakistan. It has reduced that proportion by going through Central Asia. It could send more that way, but that would make NATO heavily dependent on Russia at a time when ties with Moscow are increasingly strained.

Pakistan also gave the U.S. 15 days to vacate Shamsi Air Base in Baluchistan. The U.S. uses it to service drone aircraft targeting al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal region when weather problems or mechanical trouble keeps the drones from returning to their bases in Afghanistan, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The drone strikes are very unpopular in Pakistan, and Pakistani military and civilian leaders say publicly that the U.S. carries them out without their permission. But privately, they allow them to go on, and even help with targeting for some of them.

___

Faiez reported from Kabul. Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, Matiullah Achakzai in Chaman, Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-27-Pakistan/id-70f43263dd51439cbfbc755696872c37

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Germany and France examine push for euro zone integration (Reuters)

BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? Germany and France are exploring radical methods of securing deeper and more rapid fiscal integration among euro zone countries, aware that getting broad backing for the necessary treaty changes may not be possible, EU officials say.

Germany's original plan was to try to secure agreement among all 27 EU countries for a limited change to the Lisbon Treaty by the end of 2012, making it possible to impose much tighter budget controls over the 17 euro zone countries -- a way of shoring up the region's defenses against the debt crisis.

But in meetings with EU leaders in recent weeks, it has become clear to both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy that it may not be possible to get all 27 countries on board, EU sources say.

Even if that were possible, it could take a year or more to finally secure the changes while market attacks on Italy, Spain and now France suggest bold measures are needed within weeks.

As a result, senior French and German civil servants have been exploring other ways of achieving the goal, either via an agreement among just the euro zone countries, or a separate agreement outside the EU treaty that could involve a core of around 8-10 euro zone countries, officials say.

No firm decisions have yet been reached.

Reuters exclusively reported on November 9 that French and German officials were discussing plans for a radical overhaul of the European Union to establish a more fiscally integrated and possibly smaller euro zone.

"The Germans have made up their minds. They want treaty change and they are doing everything they can to push for it as rapidly as possible," one senior EU official involved in the negotiations told Reuters. "Senior German officials are on the phone at all hours of the day to every European capital."

While Germany and France are convinced that moving toward fiscal union - which could pave the way for jointly issued euro zone bonds and may provide more leeway for the European Central Bank to act forcefully - is the only way to get on top of the debt crisis, some other euro zone countries are unable or unwilling to move so rapidly toward that goal.

Not only Greece, Ireland and Portugal, which are receiving EU/IMF aid, but also Italy and Spain and some east European countries such as Slovakia, would either find it difficult under current economic conditions to meet the budget constraints Germany wants, or simply do not agree with the aim.

Consequently, the French and German negotiators are exploring at least two models for more rapid integration among a limited number of euro zone countries, with the possibility of folding that agreement into the EU treaty at a later stage.

TWO MODELS

One is based on the Pruem Convention of 2005, also known as Schengen III, a treaty signed among 7 countries outside the EU treaty but which was open to any member state to join and was later acceded to by 5 more EU states plus Norway.

Another option would be to have a purely Franco-German mini-agreement along the lines of the Elysee treaty of 1963 that other euro zone countries could also sign up to, officials say.

"The options are being actively discussed as we speak and things are moving very, very quickly," a European Commission official briefed on the discussions told Reuters.

One source said the aim was to have the outline of an agreement set out before December 9, when EU leaders will meet for their final summit of the year in Brussels.

Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, which represents EU member states, is supposed to deliver a preliminary report on treaty change at the summit. He has held extensive talks with EU leaders in recent weeks to gauge the feasibility of bringing about rapid treaty changes.

Sarkozy, who has made two speeches in the past two weeks highlighting the need for more rapid fiscal integration in the euro zone, and has acknowledged that it may be inevitable that a 'two-speed Europe' emerges, is due to make another keynote address on December 1 which could provide a platform for laying out in more detail the ideas that he and Merkel are developing.

A senior German government official denied there were any secret Franco-German negotiations, but emphasized that both countries saw the need for treaty change as pressing and were exploring how to achieve that in the best way possible.

"Germany and France are continuing to focus on proposals for a limited treaty change that can be presented at the EU summit in December," the official said, emphasizing that there was a need to act quickly to get changes in place.

Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday that Merkel and Sarkozy were working on a new Stability Pact, setting out national debt limits, that could be signed up to by a number of euro zone countries and which would allow the ECB to act more decisively in the crisis.

"If the politicians can agree to a comprehensive step, the ECB will jump in and help," the paper quoted a central banker as saying.

The ECB has bought the bonds of euro zone strugglers in intermittent fashion when they have reached crisis point. Economists say it has to act much more radically to turn the market tide but the central bank, and Germany, has opposed any such move. Commitments to binding fiscal rules by euro zone governments may be the cover it needs to change tack.

"It would be a real disaster if this strategy which is in fact no strategy, this muddling through, were to continue for some months," Peter Bofinger, one of the five "wise men" who formally advise the German government on the economy, told Irish state broadcaster RTE.

"If this bond run is not stopped it will really endanger the stability of the European and even the global financial system. Bold action by the ECB is definitely needed."

Reuters reported a similar possibility on Friday, with euro zone officials saying that if much tighter fiscal integration could be achieved among euro zone states, it would give the ECB more room to maneuver and buy sovereign bonds.

BARGAINING PLOY?

While EU officials are clear about the determination of France and Germany to push for more rapid euro zone integration, some caution that the idea of doing so with fewer than 17 countries via a sideline agreement may be more about applying pressure on the remainder to act.

By threatening that some countries could be left behind if they don't sign up to deeper integration, it may be impossible for a country to say no, fearing that doing so could leave it even more exposed to market pressures.

"Some of this is just part of the posturing you hear -- it's pressure from Germany to go for treaty change as quickly as possible," the official involved in the negotiations said.

"To some extent you have to see these ideas as part of the bargaining chips that are being put on the table."

The risk for Merkel and Sarkozy is that if they do ultimately decide to push for a sideline agreement involving only 8-10 euro zone states, it would send a clear signal to the markets that the euro zone is split and that some countries are not seen as full members of the currency union.

That could either mean that some countries in the euro zone are left with fewer voting rights, even if they still use the euro, or it could mean that some countries decide, ultimately, that they would be better off without the euro -- a camp that officials say Greece, the crucible of the debt crisis, could fall into.

(Reporting by Luke Baker, Julien Toyer in Brussels, Carmel Crimmins in Dublin and Andreas Rinke and Gernot Heller in Berlin; Writing by Luke Baker, editing by Mike Peacock)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111127/bs_nm/us_eurozone_crisis

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Sachin Tendulkar closing in on 100th hundred (Reuters)

MUMBAI (Reuters) ? Sachin Tendulkar was on course for his 100th international century while Rahul Dravid completed a milestone to lead India's strong reply in the third and final test against West Indies on Thursday.

The hosts, chasing an imposing first-innings total of 590 by West Indies, were 281 for three at the close of the third day with Tendulkar (67) and VVS Laxman (32) at the crease.

The 38-year-old Tendulkar, with 51 centuries in tests and 48 in one-dayers, needs one more to get to the coveted ton that has eluded him since he last made three figures in the 50-over World Cup in April.

Playing in front of a 20,000 crowd at his home Wankhede Stadium ground, the master batsman hit five boundaries and a six as he added 57 for the fourth wicket with Laxman.

Tendulkar's only blemish came when he edged leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo on 58 but wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh failed to hold on to the tough chance.

Dravid (82) became the second player after Tendulkar to reach 13,000 runs in tests, and also brought up 1,000 runs in a year for the third time in his career as he made his 62nd half-century.

He added 86 runs for the third wicket with Tendulkar before being clean bowled while attempting to cut part-time spinner Marlon Samuels.

SUBLIME DRIVE

The 38-year-old Dravid also put on 71 for the second wicket with Gautam Gambhir (55) after India lost Virender Sehwag (37) before the lunch break.

Dravid went past the 13,000-mark with a sublime cover drive off Darren Sammy, one of his 11 boundaries.

Gambhir hit eight boundaries before he edged to Baugh after trying to hook a high bouncer by paceman Ravi Rampaul.

Sehwag began in typically explosive fashion, striking three fours and a six before he was bowled by West Indies captain Sammy.

Medium-pacer Sammy, who was swatted for a six by Sehwag in his first over, managed to breach the batsman's defence with a ball that moved back off the pitch after the openers had put on 67.

Sehwag and Gambhir took India past 50 in 11 overs but the hosts slowed considerably after the fall of the first wicket, adding seven runs in 4.3 overs up to the break.

Earlier, India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin completed his second five-wicket haul in three tests as West Indies were finally bowled out in the morning.

Resuming on 575 for nine, the visitors added 15 runs in 3.1 overs before Bishoo was bowled for 12 by Ashwin.

Ashwin, 25, who grabbed a maiden five-wicket haul on his debut in the first test in Delhi, finished with five for 156 from 52.1 overs.

Building on half-centuries from the top six batsmen, including Darren Bravo's classy 166, West Indies have almost certainly ended any hope India had of inflicting a 3-0 series whitewash.

(Editing by Tony Jimenez; To query or comment on this story, email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/india/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111124/india_nm/india607043

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Video: Black Thursday? Holiday shopping comes early?????????????????????

Spencer Platt?/?Getty Images

You don?t have to wait until Black Friday to find holiday shopping deals, reports NBC?s Craig Melvin.

Related Links:

TODAY.com home page

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/45414556/

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Cooking can be surprisingly forgiving

Network analysis confirms ingredient swaps are feasible

Web edition : Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

If your pumpkin pie recipe calls for cinnamon but you?ve used the last of it, nutmeg, ginger or cardamom will do. Out of olive oil? Try applesauce. A new in-depth analysis of recipes, reviews and suggestions from an online foodie site reveals that many recipes are more flexible than standard cookbooks suggest.

Researchers mined more than 40,000 recipes and nearly two million reviews from the website Allrecipes.com, investigating various aspects of cooking and ingredient preferences. ?We wondered if the analysis would let us see how flexible recipes are,? says coauthor Lada Adamic of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Her team discovered that there?s a lot of wiggle room. The analysis, reported online November 16 at arXiv.org, identified several clusters of ingredients that can be swapped for one another.

For the uninitiated, using less sugar than called for, or substituting or skipping an ingredient altogether, could ruin a dish. But distilling the collective wisdom of recipe reviews revealed alternates that would allow even the culinarily challenged to improve a dish or tailor it to their tastes.

Adamic, Michigan?s Chun-Yuen Teng and Yu-Ru Lin of Harvard and Northeastern University in Boston generated a list of the top 1,000 ingredients, which accounted for 94.9 percent of the ingredients in the database. The team noted heating methods, such as broiling and simmering, and various food processing techniques, both mechanical (such as grinding) and chemical (such as marinating). Recipe ratings and regional preferences within the United States were also taken into account.

Then the team created a huge diagram of ingredients that are frequently substituted for one another, yielding a network of clustered communities of swappable ingredients. A sweet potato community, for example, includes yams, pumpkin, potatoes, parsnips and butternut squash. Milk, butter, chicken broth and sugar all have recipe doppelgangers. And in some instances, dropping ingredients all together won?t hurt a dish.

A second ingredient diagram connected complementary ingredients, pairings that are found together more often than expected by chance. This network split cleanly into two communities, one sweet and one savory. The only other community detected was a small satellite cluster comprising alcoholic drink ingredients.

Recipes that had healthier substitutions were typically rated more highly by users, the researchers found, suggesting that making such swaps easier for users to find ? such as with a roll-over or pop-up on a website ? would enhance user experience. Restaurants or meal planners might even learn a thing or two, says Lin, perhaps experimenting with healthier replacements on menus.

Other foodie preferences also emerged. Recipes that called for processing foods in some way, rather than just tossing ingredients together, were rated more favorably. This link could relate to a longstanding hypothesis regarding the development of bigger brains in the evolution of humans and our hominid relatives, the team speculates. Processing food mechanically and chemically makes extracting nutrients easier, reducing the cost of digestion. Such techniques may have allowed more nutritional resources to be allocated toward growing bigger brains (SN: 8/22/11).

Which cooking method is preferred, however, appears to depend on regional tastes. While baking is popular everywhere, marinating and grilling are favored in the West and Mountain regions, and in the West this often entails seafood. Frying is especially popular in the South and Northeast, a trend that prompted Teng to look more closely at the data. The recipes suggest that while the frying signature of the South emerges from the soul food tradition, Northeasterners use a lot of bacon (especially in chowdah) and have a lot of recipes for buffalo wings.

?This research gives us a lot of insight into how different people want to eat their food, whether they prefer quick or healthy,? says Vaidehi Venkatesan who, with Ali Minai at the University of Cincinnati, is investigating the relationships among various cuisines. ?It is a really great paper.?

And the research project helped the scientists feel slightly more at ease in their own kitchens. ?I?ve felt more comfortable leaving out nutmeg,? Adamic says.

Found in: Numbers and Science & Society

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/336419/title/Cooking_can_be_surprisingly_forgiving

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In NH, Obama to push for payroll tax cut extension (AP)

MANCHESTER, N.H. ? Targeting Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, President Barack Obama begins a year-end push to extend payroll tax cuts in a state that so far has been overrun by Republicans seeking to deny him a second term.

During a speech Tuesday at a Manchester high school, the president was to argue that a failure to extend the tax breaks would hurt middle-class families already struggling amid a shaky economy, effectively daring congressional Republicans to block the extension and thus increase taxes.

"If we don't act, taxes will go up for every single American, starting next year. And I'm not about to let that happen," Obama said Monday, previewing the message he was expected to deliver.

But if Republicans are in Obama's sights, he's firmly in theirs, too.

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is airing his first TV ads in the Granite State, and they are sharply critical of Obama's economic record. He also ran ads in New Hampshire newspapers that say to Obama, "I will be blunt. Your policies have failed."

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Obama would not be discussing the Republican presidential field while in New Hampshire.

But Carney took a swipe at Romney's ad, which plays Obama's voice from the 2008 presidential campaign declaring "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." Obama, however, was quoting the McCain campaign, a distinction that the ad doesn't make and that alters its meaning. In fact, the Romney press release announcing the ad contains Obama's full quote: "Senator McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote, if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose."

"Seriously? I mean, an ad in which they deliberately distort what the president said?" Carney said. "It's a rather remarkable way to start. And an unfortunate way to start."

The president's trip follows the collapse of the special congressional deficit-reduction supercommittee, which failed to reach a deal on $1.2 trillion in cuts. Democrats had hoped to tuck the payroll tax extension, as well as a renewal of jobless benefits for the unemployed, into a supercommittee agreement.

With that option seemingly off the table, the White House plans to make a full-court press for a separate measure to extend the payroll tax cuts before they expire at the end of the year ? and set up Republicans as the scapegoat if that doesn't happen.

The White House says a middle-class family making $50,000 a year would see its taxes rise by $1,000 if the payroll tax cuts are not extended.

Republicans aren't wholly opposed to the extension. In fact, party members sent the White House a letter in September stating that extension of the payroll tax cut is one element of Obama's $447 billion jobs bill where the two sides may be able to find common ground.

Some Republicans worry that the tax cut extension would undermine the solvency of Social Security, and others are opposed to any effort to pay for the renewal by taxing the wealthiest Americans.

Last year's cut in the 6.2 percent payroll tax, which raises money for Social Security, was accomplished with borrowed money. The White House has been vague on exactly how it wants to see another round of cuts paid for; spokesman Jay Carney on Monday said only that the money should come from "asking millionaires and billionaires to pay a little bit extra."

A senior administration official said the president would not insist on the cuts being paid for immediately. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal administration strategy.

The 2 percent payroll tax cut expiring in December gave 121 million families a tax cut averaging $934 last year at a total cost of about $120 billion, according to the Tax Policy Center. Economists say allowing the cuts to expire would harm an economy already hobbled by 9 percent unemployment.

Obama wants to cut the payroll tax by another percentage point for workers, at a total cost of $179 billion, and cut the employer share of the tax in half as well for most companies, which carries a $69 billion price tag.

The issue could appeal to independent voters in low-tax New Hampshire, the presidential swing state Obama won in 2008. With Republican candidates blanketing the state with an anti-Obama message ahead of the Jan. 10 primary, the president and his surrogates, including Vice President Joe Biden, are seeking to steal some of the spotlight for their economic message.

It's been nearly two years since Obama visited New Hampshire. And on Tuesday, he'll find a state that has shifted distinctly to the right since his 2008 victory. Recent polls indicate that, if an election between the two of them were held today, Obama would lose by roughly 10 percentage points to Romney.

Romney's print ads, in the form of an open letter, say the evidence on Obama's economic stewardship is "unequivocal" ? his policies have "fallen short even by the standards your own administration set for itself."

"Far from bringing the crisis to an end, (they) have actively hindered economic recovery," the ad says.

___

Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in Manchester, N.H., contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama

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Siemens Financial Services Announces Commercial Finance ...

Siemens Financial Services Announces Commercial Finance Operations in India

With the Indian economy predicted to require EUR 5.2 trillion (Rs. 343.2 trillion) in capital expenditure between now and 2020 (based on Global Insight data), Siemens Financial Services (SFS) is rolling out its range of Commercial Finance solutions to help business and public sector customers in India to invest efficiently, and to maximize growth opportunities in a rapidly developing economy. This follows the approval of the Reserve Bank of India to operate SFS? Commercial Finance business as a Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC).

The expansion of its presence in the Indian market represents a significant milestone for SFS, and is expected to become a significant part in the company?s strategic growth plans. The unit is globally aiming to strengthen its asset base over the medium terms, based on ambitions to become a leading player in its chosen markets and the vendor financing sector. This initiative will help empower Siemens customers in India, and clients of third party technology vendors, with comprehensive solutions in the energy, industry, infrastructure & cities and healthcare areas.

Roland W. Chalons-Browne, CEO of Siemens Financial Services said, ?Financing becomes more and more important in this dynamic and challenging environment, where organizations are looking for access to efficient financing in order to grasp the huge growth opportunities even in difficult economic times. Our financing operations in India allow us to better align with the Siemens sectors. We provide a perfect combination of technologies and financing solutions to customers. We also strengthen our presence in key growth markets, including the financing of third party technology and sales.?

Sunil Kapoor, CEO for the SFS Commercial Finance business in India, said, ?Financing plays an important role in speeding up decision-making, facilitating cash flows and helping bring innovative solutions to market faster. By having our own NBFC license and company, we are in a position to offer loans, leasing and other financial products from India as part of our offering to all sorts and sizes of organization, and as a result, we can provide essential support for Siemens and other B2B vendor financing requirements.?

Siemens research shows that capital expenditure in key Indian markets will be very strong between now and 2020, with the Healthcare sector investing over EUR 200 billion (Rs. 13.2 trillion), Industry more than EUR 125 billion (Rs. 8.25 trillion) and Utilities over EUR 800 billion (Rs. 52.8 trillion). The Commercial Finance business in India will offer tailored financing arrangements in the form of loans and other finance products, as permitted by the Reserve Bank of India, to address this market. Financing will be available for all organization sizes, from SMEs through to large corporations and public sector bodies, with a focus in the Energy, Healthcare, Industry and Infrastructure & Cities sectors, as well as a range of third party markets.

SFS Commercial Finance India is headquartered in Mumbai, and will have customer contacts in many locations across the country. In the initial phase, the financing solutions will be provided out of Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Pune.

Source: http://www.worldleasingnews.com/news/siemens-financial-services-announces-commercial-finance-operations-in-india/

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Fox News viewers less informed about current events, poll shows (Los Angeles Times)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/164944952?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Small Business Saturday: A Guide for Shoppers and Stores

Round two of Small Business Saturday ? another post-Thanksgiving national shopping day launched in 2010 ? is taking shape as consumers and businesses prepare for the Nov. 26 event.

Small Business Saturday?s goal is to to steer shoppers toward local independently owned businesses during the holiday season instead of bigger stores on Black Friday or online on Cyber Monday.

This year, the campaign is getting a more support from social media sites such as Facebook, Foursquare and Google. American Express cardholders, for example, can sync their Foursquare accounts to their cards to receive a $25 credit after spending $25 or more on Small Business Saturday. At this time a year ago, the event?s Facebook Page had fewer than 1 million Likes. Now, the page has 2.3 million Likes.

Below are some tips for shoppers and stores on how to get involved in the movement.

---

What Is Small Business Saturday?

---

American Express and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg created the annual day-long initiative last year to boost sales for struggling small business. ?One purchase is all it takes,? say people in the above video. ?So pick your favorite local business and join the movement.?

Statistics from American Express OPEN show the inaugural event had some impact: Forty-one elected officials declared Nov. 27, 2010, Small Business Saturday, and people sent 30,000 tweets using the hashtags #SmallBusinessSaturday and #SmallBizSaturday.

?Last year, we saw a 28 percent rise in sales volumes for our small business merchants versus the same day in 2009,? said Mary Ann Fitzmaurice Reilly, SVP at American Express OPEN.

The list of supporters for 2011 continues to grow as more cities, states, advocacy groups, public officials and corporate partners jump on board.

---

How to Participate as a Consumer

---

Small Business Saturday has grown through press coverage and word-of-mouth marketing offline and online. You can contribute to the latter on the campaign?s Facebook Page or on Twitter by using the hashtags #SmallBusinessSaturday and #SmallBizSaturday.

As an incentive, you can get $25 back on Small Business Saturday. You have two ways this year to receive the $25 credit for spending $25 or more at a small business:

• Register your American Express Card here.
• Sync your Foursquare account to your American Express Card here.

FedEx this year also gave away 40,000 $25 gift cards, which have all already been claimed.

---

How Small Businesses Can Prepare

---

Like last year, American Express gave $100 in free Facebook advertising to 10,000 business owners. And although those have all been claimed, many more tools are available for your business to prepare for Nov. 26.

Facebook:

Google:

• My Business Story: Create custom videos using YouTube?s editing tool to entice your customers.

YourBuzz:

• Take charge of engagement: YourBuzz is a tool that allows users to read and respond to customer reviews and online mentions in one location. For Small Business Saturday, YourBuzz is offering $200 in free advertising credits on LinkedIn Ads ($100 for 6,500 business owners) and Facebook ($100 for 10,000, which is all used up).

Go Social:

• Coupon-less offers: Provide mobile-based deals to your American Express card-wielding customers.

FedEx:

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/11/22/small-business-saturday-november-26-guide/

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16 Online Resources for Preparing the Perfect Thanksgiving (Mashable)

Whether you plan to whip up a lavish feast for your in-laws or stick with the kids table, there are always ways to prepare for Thanksgiving. The tips below can help absorb some of the holiday stress, even if all you plan to do is stuff your face and watch football.

[More from Mashable: Google Music: Everything You Need to Know]

Read on to discover 16 online resources that can help plan a successful and fulfilling Thanksgiving holiday.

1. Invites: Before you even start planning the menu, make sure to send out a memorable invite or reminder card. Try exploring Someecards if you?re up for something witty and bold. If not, an interactive card is sure to keep guests on their toes for the big reunion.

[More from Mashable: Guys Scream Like Girls in New Justin Bieber Commercial [VIDEO]]

2. Food Prep: Practice your cooking skills in advance by viewing the Food Network?s Thanksgiving Live! show on Nov. 20. Experts will offer tips, solutions and recipes for cooking the best meals. Act quickly to add your own questions or to tune in live via Skype.

3. Travel: Whether you?re traveling 10 or 3,000 miles for turkey day, it?s important that you make travel cheap and efficient. Use the GasBuddy mobile app to discover the cheapest gasoline prices in your vicinity.

4. D?cor: As the leaves begin to fall and the weather chills outside, you?re concerned with making sure it?s warm and cozy inside. If you don?t have a fireplace, there?s an app for that. Then spice it up with a variety of DIY centerpieces that feature mother nature?s finest elements. Finally, make sure each person is accounted for by personalizing your table?s place settings.

5. Cooking: It's turkey time! Are you sure you know what you?re doing? If not, Butterball has the best tips, like how to pick and cook a turkey, complete with videos and step-by-step guides -- as well as a telephone helpline for last-minute kitchen emergencies. Still lost? This interactive quiz from Bon Appetit helps plan your meal depending on timeframe and number of guests.

6. Vegetarian: There are plenty of healthy and meatless alternatives for those PETA or calorie-conscious guests. Or try a non-traditional protein option, like pork or roast beef.

7. Entertainment: Instead of zoning out in front of a football game or answering the same old questions from Aunt Kathy, try a playing a game that involves everyone. Go on a scavenger hunt, or play a game like Fictionary ? which bring out the competition in my family.

8. Leftovers: Rather than waste that half-eaten turkey, prepare it for a variety of meals over the following week.

Share your own tried and true holiday resources in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Flickr, QuintanaRoo, intersubjectiv

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20111119/tc_mashable/16_online_resources_for_preparing_the_perfect_thanksgiving

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Business-Dress Rehearsal for Thanksgiving: The Feast in the ...

I had Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. Roast turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, Brussels sprouts, a modest scoop of sweet potatoes. I begged off when it came to the cornbread stuffing because I?ve been trying to go easy on the carbs these days, and also, you know, um, it wasn?t actually Thanksgiving.

It was just a normal working day, and I wound up eating this festive holiday repast out of a flimsy takeout container at my desk. I tried to eat it pretty fast because it seemed as though the gravy was about to leak through the bottom.

In other words, I succumbed to something that?s become a weird sub-ritual of American life ? one that automatically precedes the macro-ritual of Thanksgiving itself: the Corporate Cafeteria Thanksgiving Preview, or C.C.T.P.

You know the drill. You go to work one day, and lunchtime inches closer, and you get hungry. You head off to the office cafeteria thinking, ?Hmmm, maybe I?ll go for the stir-fry station today, or I could try to impose a little nutritional discipline and stick to the salad bar, or if the Global Nation of the Day happens to be Greece, I could get some Greek salad and souvlaki ? ?

But then you float into the cafeteria and see this long line. No matter where I?ve worked, there?s always a long line for the C.C.T.P. Why is that? We?re all going to have the exact same meal in a week, folks ? why do we feel compelled to have it now?

Yesterday I did one of those cafeteria reconnaissance swoops where you sort of glide past a food station, craning your neck and surveying the spread. I saw the turkey, the stuffing, the gravy. I thought: ?No way. I really do not need a full Thanksgiving dinner right now. It will be heavy, I will get all sleepy, I have an important meeting at 2, and besides, we are all having the exact same meal in a week.?

Then I got in line for it.

I couldn?t say no. This remains inexplicable to me. Maybe the part of the human brain that is patched into the appetite sector gets so hopped up with pre-Thanksgiving cranberry-fantasia anticipation that when our synapses finally start to pick up the homey scent of turkey, we?re like mice in a laboratory maze ? we reflexively click the lever because we want the treat.

How do you feel about the Corporate Cafeteria Thanksgiving Preview? Do you tend to avoid it ? or give in? And do you have any theories on why this has become so prevalent in American life? What?s going on here?

Source: http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/business-dress-rehearsal-for-thanksgiving-the-feast-in-the-company-cafeteria/

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Martha Rosenberg: Blockbuster Drug Causes Cancer, TB and ...

How did Abbott Laboratories' Humira become an $8 billion a year drug, capable of anchoring an entirely new drug company as Abbott splits into two?

How did it become a blockbuster even though such drugs (which include Remicade, Enbrel and Cimzia and are called TNF blockers) are linked to TB, rare cancers and lethal infections like histoplasmosis?

How did it become a blockbuster even though Humira is only approved for the rare conditions of rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis adults, Crohn's disease, psoriatic arthritis and chronic plaque psoriasis?

The same way all expensive, dangerous drugs become blockbusters: An easy touch FDA bought doctors and doctor groups, PR firms to establish diseases as "public health threats" and massive direct-to-consumer advertising.

The FDA-approved Humira, the first TNF blocker to use human, not mice or hamster, three months early, in 2002 and its Arthritis Advisory Committee announced the following year that TNF blockers are not, repeat not, necessarily linked to lymphoma.

Abbott enlisted the public relations giant Edelman to "educate" doctors about the exciting new drug and to team with the Arthritis Foundation. It also enlisted the health care advertising heavy Harrison and Star, which created an "up close and personal" campaign for Humira that "any doc can vibe with."

And Abbott gave out free samples of Humira to seniors in 2003 while it lobbied Congress to get the drug's $15,000 to $20,000-a-year costs on the Medicare dole. It wasn't even Halloween. (P.S. -- it worked!)

It inserted Humira ads for Crohn's disease in Chicago college and weekly newspapers and ran "educational" online radio shows about how to live with Crohn's even though the disease affects only one percent of the population. It also runs "Hate psoriasis. Love clearer skin" ads in in high budget magazines like Humira is a beauty cream instead of an immune suppressor.

In fact, Abbott advertised Humira so widely, pharmaceutical reporters asked why since the general public can neither afford the drug nor does it need it. "Rheumatoid arthritis is a market where people often don't know what they have for a while," and it is often "misdiagnosed," said Abbott Vice President of Specialty Operations Heather Mason in classic disease-selling Pharma language.

When Pharma sells a disease to justify a drug, the disease is always "under-recognized," with "barriers" and "stigmas" preventing treatment and with under-recognized social costs and "burdens."

Sure, Humira is expensive, Joel M. Kremer, M.D., an Abbott consultant, told the New York Times in 2008, but there are unrecognized social burdens. "Inadequately treated rheumatoid arthritis typically leads to multiple joint replacements, lost productivity, lost tax revenue and a greatly diminished quality of life, as well as an increased risk of life-threatening infections and cardiovascular disease," he said. "You have to consider what it costs to fix a bridge against what it will cost when the bridge collapses."

In Reviews in Gastroenterological Disorders in 2007, Abbott consultant Stephen Hanauer, M.D., echoed the cheaper-to-treat argument. Humira treatment reduces "overall costs" and enhances "patients' quality of life," he says.

But is it really cheaper to give patients Humira when they could use less expensive and dangerous drugs that don't suppress the immune system?

The Cochrane Collaboration, an international, not-for-profit drug review organization says of drugs like Humira (also called biologics), "Overall, in the short term biologics were associated with significantly higher rates of total adverse events, withdrawals due to adverse events and TB reactivation," and stresses that, "There is an urgent need for more research regarding the long-term safety of biologics and the comparative safety of different biologics."

In 2008, the FDA announced that 45 people died from fungal diseases from taking Humira, Enbrel, Remicade and Cimzia -- 20 percent of those who got sick! People who lived near the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys were especially at risk. The same year, the FDA investigated Humira for 30 reports of childhood cancer and its links to lymphoma, leukemia and melanoma in children. Yes, lymphoma.

This year, the FDA warned that Humira can cause, "a rare cancer of white blood cells," in young people and five patients died during Humira trials in Italy. In the October 5 issue of JAMA an article warns that "potentially fatal Legionella and Listeria infections are the latest opportunistic infections to be added to the boxed warning for medications that block tumor necrosis factor (TNF)," such as Humira. The FDA's Adverse Events Reporting System discloses 80 cases of Legionella and 14 deaths and 26 cases of Listeria and seven deaths in people on TNF blockers. Other articles, this year, link drugs like Humira to heart problems.

Still, the Humira spin machine is humming as Abbott prepares to found an entire company on the blockbuster drug. An investigator with the Italian trials called the deaths "bad luck" and not necessarily Humira-related. (Trials were not stopped.) An avalanche of Pharma planted articles dispute the heart findings. And Abbott is seeking approvals to market Humira for ulcerative colitis and pediatric Crohn's disease. Projections say that Humira and a similar drug will "drive nearly two-thirds of the growth in the ulcerative colitis market in the United States."

Maybe there will be free samples.

Martha Rosenberg's first book, "Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health," will be published by Prometheus Books next year.

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-rosenberg/abbot-laboratories-humira_b_1071823.html

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Many boomers avoid living wills, say they're young (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Many baby boomers don't have end-of-life legal documents such as a living will ? and some say it's because they feel healthy and young in their middle-age years and don't need to dwell on death.

An Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll found that 64 percent of boomers ? those born between 1946 and 1964 ? say they don't have a health care proxy or living will. Those documents would guide medical decisions should a patient be unable to communicate with doctors.

"I'm very healthy for my age," said Mary McGee, 53, of Archbald, Pa. "So, death and dying isn't on my mind a lot."

McGee, a computer programmer, exercises five to seven days a week, everything from aerobics to kickboxing, and her parents are alive and healthy.

The same goes for 57-year-old Sandy Morgan in Richmond, Va., a retired teacher who is working part time for an executive search firm.

"I don't think of myself in terms of my age group," said Morgan, who runs three miles a day twice a week, practices yoga twice a week and takes part in a rigorous fitness boot camp twice a week. Her parents, in their early 80s, are healthy, too ? so living wills aren't on her radar.

"I just feel like it's something I'll probably think about in my late 60s or 70s," she said.

A living will spells out a patient's wishes for medical care if he or she is unable to communicate with doctors.

The health care proxy, also known as a health care power of attorney, allows an individual to select a person he or she trusts to make decisions about medical care should the patient become incapacitated.

Kathy Brandt says living wills and health care proxies are a good idea for everyone whether they are healthy and young or older and not so healthy.

Brandt, a senior vice president at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, said the two documents can spare families a painful fight and ensure that patients receive ? or don't receive ? the medical treatment they wish should they end up in a situation where they can't speak for themselves.

The living will is not "all or nothing," said Brandt. A person could say he or she wants everything, something or nothing. For example, one person may want heroic measures taken to prolong life, while another may want to be resuscitated but decide against being dependent on breathing machines long-term.

Brandt pointed to high-profile cases such as the Florida family fight over Terri Schiavo as a smart reason to draft a living will and health care proxy.

At 26, Schiavo collapsed at her St. Petersburg home in 1990 with no end-of-life care instructions in writing. Her heart stopped and she suffered what doctors said was irreversible brain damage that left her in a permanent vegetative state. Her husband said his wife would not have wanted to live in a vegetative state; her parents wanted her kept alive.

What ensued was a years-long legal battle that involved dozens of judges in numerous jurisdictions, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and Congress. Schiavo's feeding tube was ordered removed in 2005. About two weeks later, she died.

Each state has its own forms for proxies and living wills, said Brandt. And while it's a legal document, she said, you don't need an attorney to draft one. The forms need to be witnessed, but that's it. She advises giving copies to plenty of people ? family, friends, colleagues ? so a person's wishes are well-known.

For baby boomer William Walsh in Petersburg, Va., drafting a living will hasn't crossed his mind.

"I just haven't really thought about it to tell you the truth," said Walsh, 61. "You always think something is going to happen to the other guy, not you."

Walsh said no one in his family has ever needed one, but also said he might give the idea more thought.

The AP-LifeGoesStrong.com poll was conducted June 3-12 by Knowledge Networks of Palo Alto, Calif., and involved online interviews with 1,416 adults, including 1,078 baby boomers. The margin of sampling error for results from the boomers is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Knowledge Networks used traditional telephone and mail sampling methods to randomly recruit respondents. People selected who had no Internet access were given it for free.

___

AP Polling Director Trevor Tompson, Deputy Polling Director Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://surveys.ap.org

http://family.lifegoesstrong.com/most-midlifers-do-not-have-living-will

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111116/ap_on_he_me/us_aging_america_boomers_end_of_life

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Damascus attack left 20 killed, wounded: opposition (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) ? An attack by army defectors on a major intelligence complex in a Damascus suburb left 20 security police dead or wounded, prompting retaliation by security forces on the neighborhood, residents and opposition sources said Thursday.

Wednesday's attack on an Air Force Intelligence complex in Harasta was the first on a major security target in the eight month uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, indicating that fighting could be spreading to Syria's centers of power.

"The defectors used rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns and managed to inflict casualties on those who were within the ... outer wall," said an operative involved in supplying the defectors.

There was no confirmation of the attack from authorities. Syria's ban on most foreign media makes it hard to verify reports of events on the ground from activists or officials.

One of the residents of the suburb, who declined to be named, said there were no casualties among the attackers, and that the operation lasted for 10 minutes. He said the defectors were mostly from the Damascus suburbs of Harasta and Douma, which have taken the brunt of a crackdown on protests demanding Assad's removal in rural Damascus.

Residents said around 70 people have been arrested in the last 24 hours, with Air Force Intelligence agents raiding houses and destroying several businesses.

"Roadblocks have been set up everywhere in Harasta, especially in al-Seil neighborhood, where activists are concentrated. Five textile workshops were ransacked," another resident said.

"Air Force intelligence trucks are patrolling the suburb also, and the agents are carrying RPGs," he said.

Together with Military Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence is in charge of preventing dissent within the army. The two divisions have been instrumental in a crackdown on the uprising against Assad which the United Nations says has killed 3,500 people.

Syria blames the violence on armed groups backed by foreign powers, and says more than 1,100 soldiers and police have been killed since the uprising erupted in March.

Syria's military is controlled by Assad's brother Maher and members of their minority Alawite sect, while the army is comprised mostly of Sunni Muslims, who also form the majority of Syria's population and have been defecting from the army in mounting numbers.

The pervasive security apparatus, dominated by Alawites, underpins the power structure. Security chiefs of an estimated eight major secret police organizations answer directly to Assad.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111117/wl_nm/us_syria

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With eye on militants, Israel builds Africa ties (AP)

JERUSALEM ? Israel has identified eastern Africa as an important strategic interest and is stepping up ties with nations in the region in a joint effort to control the spread of Islamic extremists, officials said Thursday.

In effect, Israel would become a player siding with Christian-led African nations in conflicts with Muslim movements, a fault line that has sharpened around the continent in recent years. Israeli moves come as the United States as well has hiked up military support for African governments, in large part to combat al-Qaida-linked groups.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hosted the leaders of Uganda and Kenya earlier this week, following a meeting at the United Nations in September with the president of the newly liberated South Sudan, the mainly Christian and animist nation that gained independence from Muslim Arab-led Sudan in July.

The outcome of the meetings ? and the extent of Israel's moves to ally with the Africans ? remains murky. Kenya's leader went so far as to say Israel promised to provide security assistance to his country to help protect its borders Israeli officials say such claims are premature, but say an alliance with Kenya and other eastern African countries is natural.

"We have joint interests and we believe that mutual cooperation can be beneficial to us all," said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev.

Uganda and Kenya have been battling al-Shabab, a Somalia-based group that is linked to the al-Qaida terror network. At the same time, there are growing fears that Sudan and South Sudan could return to war because of lingering disputes.

Israel believes that al-Qaida elements are now active in the Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Desert ? territories that both border Israel's southern flank.

In Israel's eyes, eastern Africa poses a potential hinterland where al-Qaida and other Islamic militants could potentially forge ties with similarly minded groups just to the north in Egypt and Gaza. Israeli officials already believe that Sudan is a pathway for smugglers providing weapons to militants in Gaza and the Sinai and that al-Qaida-linked groups in Egypt were behind a deadly cross-border raid in August that killed eight Israelis.

Officials also recall a 2002 attack in which militants bombed an Israeli-owned luxury hotel on Kenya's coast near the city of Mombasa, killing 13 people. The militants also tried to shoot down an Israeli airliner at the same time.

"Israel has a significant part in the war against terror," said Shaul Shay, an Africa expert at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center near Tel Aviv. "Israel has an interest to fight al-Qaida everywhere, including Africa."

He said any assistance that Israel can provide would be "blessed" by the African leaders.

The extent of that assistance remains unclear.

Upon returning to Kenya, Prime Minister Raila Odinga said Netanyahu promised to help build "a coalition against fundamentalism," bringing together the countries Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Tanzania. Kenya also said Israel's president, Shimon Peres, told him Israel was ready to make "everything available to Kenya" for internal security.

Netanyahu's office refused to comment on Odinga's claims, while Peres' office suggested the Kenyan leader had gone too far.

An official in the president's office said Peres had boasted that Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world regarding homeland security and would be happy to share its expertise with any country fighting "global terror." But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was a sensitive diplomatic matter, said no specifics were discussed.

An Israeli diplomat who participated in the meetings with the African leaders said they had expressed "great concern" about the unrest rocking the Arab world, and that it could somehow lead to the rise of Islamic extremism in Africa.

He said no formal deals were signed, and the African leaders had not presented a formal "shopping list." Instead, he said the sides "expressed concern and desire to think together and create partnerships of concern."

"The concern is genuine," he added, saying there would likely be follow-up meetings between diplomats and security officials to discuss "in more practical terms" ways to cooperate. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities.

Israel's top ally, the United States, is already playing a growing role in Africa's military battles, providing counterterrorism training and equipping militaries, particularly in Central Africa to "preclude terrorists from establishing sanctuaries," according to the U.S. Africa Command. In Somalia, the U.S. helps support 9,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi to fight militants in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. America has given Kenya $24 million in aid this year "to counter terrorists and participate in peacekeeping operations."

Israel already has military ties with several African countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania and the Ivory Coast.

Relations with Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan have not yet reached that stage, though Israel's Defense Ministry has given clearance for private Israeli security firms to operate in those nations, including some arms sales. Israeli defense officials say intelligence sharing is limited to a few close allies at this stage.

"The Ministry of Defense has excellent relations with a number of friendly nations in Africa, especially internal security and counterterrorism," an official said, refusing to elaborate. He was not allowed to be identified under ministry regulations.

Israel has a long history of involvement in Africa, sending experts in agriculture and development, as well as military advisers and mercenaries, over the years. Israelis were a common sight in a broad swath of Africa, from Ghana to Uganda, including some involved in the diamond trade around the continent.

Relations cooled following the 1973 Mideast war, when, under Arab pressure, many countries severed ties with the Jewish state. Israeli ties with apartheid era South Africa also harmed its standing in Africa. Israel was one of the last countries to denounce apartheid.

Israel's relations with African countries have largely been repaired. Two years ago, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman traveled to five African nations, the first such visit to the continent in 20 years.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111117/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_africa

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France frets about prized AAA debt rating (AP)

PARIS ? The interest rate France pays to borrow money rose again Monday ? and along with it fears that the country will lose its cherished AAA credit rating.

Theoretically at least, that rating ? the highest a nation can have ? allows France to borrow money from the markets cheaply.

But France pays more than nearly every country that has a Triple A rating from all three of the major ratings agencies, except Australia, whose economy is less than half the size, and tiny Austria, which pays about the same rate.

On Monday, the yield on France's 10-year bond ? the usual yardstick for a country's borrowing costs ? rose 0.05 percentage points to 3.42 percent. That's nearly twice Germany's and significantly more than the roughly 2 percent paid on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes.

Some say with yields that high, France retains the AAA rating in name only, since the country has already lost the benefit of the rating, namely low borrowing costs.

No one is actually expecting France to default, but its higher yields reflect investor concern about the country's fundamentals: its overall debt load and the annual budget deficits it runs. And, since the credit ratings of France and Germany underpin the eurozone stability fund set up to tackle Europe's debt crisis, a change in the French rating could be seismic, affecting the entire European bailout plan.

Not to mention that a lower credit rating could mean that President Nicolas Sarkozy gets tossed out of office in next spring's presidential election.

"Let's not delude ourselves: In the markets, French debt is already not AAA," Jacques Attali, an economist and adviser to Sarkozy, told the La Tribune newspaper recently.

The government roundly denounced that comment, and Christian Noyer, the governor of the Banque de France, told the Le Figaro newspaper it was preposterous to think that France wouldn't repay its debts. That, in effect, is what a rating measures: It's the agency's assessment of how good a bet a country or a company is for investors.

Still, France hasn't balanced a budget in three decades, and its deficit ran 7.1 percent of its GDP last year ? more than twice the legal limit of 3 percent in the 17-nation eurozone. It also is paying a significant amount to help bail out other troubled eurozone members such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

The importance of France's debt rating stretches way beyond the country's borders, since Europe's bailout fund derives its own Triple A rating from the ratings of Germany and France. In the wake of a French downgrade, the bailout fund would most likely need more money to keep its rating ? and in this era of austerity and discontent with the euro system, most other euro countries will likely refuse.

A French downgrade, in other words, would rock the eurozone ? a fact that underscores just how fragile the continent's bailout system really is.

At home, the credit rating also has psychological and political importance. Sarkozy is already suffering from very low poll numbers, and he and his conservative party both know that losing the rating could seal their fate in the two-round election next April and May.

Sarkozy has not yet said he's running, but it's widely assumed he'll be the UMP party's candidate.

Sarkozy has staked his credibility on meeting a series of deficit-reduction targets and balancing France's budget by 2016. In order to stay on track, his government has been forced twice this year to introduce a raft of extra cuts.

And many say those savings are still not enough, with growth so slow ? France recently lowered next year's growth forecast to 1 percent.

"The question is not if France will be downgraded, the question is to know when France will be downgraded," said Marc Touati, an analyst with Assya Compagnie Financiere.

France had a preview of what the loss of the AAA rating might look like last week when a mistaken alert by Standard & Poor's told some clients on Thursday that France had been downgraded. The agency corrected the note an hour and a half later, calling it a technical error and confirming that France's rating remained at AAA and its outlook was stable.

In the interim, however, already rising bond yields jumped and on Monday they closed 0.26 percentage points higher than where they started Thursday.

The speculation about France's rating is not just talk: Moody's said last month it is reviewing the country's outlook ? the part of the rating that indicates where the agency thinks the country is going. For now, that outlook is stable, but that could change. If it does, that could also send borrowing costs up, even if the rating itself stays at AAA.

Some analysts mused that S&P's mistake indicated the company was indeed reviewing France's rating.

It's hard to say how much an AAA-rating is worth. Touati said France could easily take on a one-notch loss but that further downgrades could be "catastrophic."

The U.S. suffered a one-notch downgrade this summer ? from S&P ? and its yields have actually fallen since, but most economists consider the country a special case: As the world's largest economy and the printer of the world's reserve currency, the U.S. and its bonds provide a safe haven for investors in times of turmoil, regardless of their rating.

A study this summer by JPMorgan Chase bond strategists showed just a slight increase in lending rates when countries lose their AAA rating.

Daniel Gros, the director of the Centre for European Policy Studies, predicted that, if nothing else, a downgrade would make France's bond yields more volatile ? drawing attention daily to concerns about France's fundamentals. He predicts a change to France's rating in the next 12 months ? and says there's probably very little Sarkozy's government can do about it.

"What markets are looking for is not so much action by this government, but much more signs of the necessary social cohesiveness you need" for reforms that balance budgets in the long term, Gros said.

Unfortunately for the French president, social cohesiveness is not something a leader can order up.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111114/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_france_financial_crisis

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