| |  | | | | | SHUTTING DOWN Feed My Inbox will be shutting down on January 10, 2013. To find an alternative service for email updates, visit this page. | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | | | | | The Guardian World News | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Unfestive jitters hit investors after Republicans failed to agree an alternative plan to avoid the fiscal cliff
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates after the US claims the Assad government has resumed firing Scud missiles at rebels and the UN's anti-genocide envoy warned of reprisal attacks against minorities in Syria
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hamid Karzai condemned the actions of Staff Sergeant Joseph Chamblin as inhuman, which came to light in a YouTube video A US marine staff sergeant who urinated on dead Taliban insurgents and posed for photographs with the bodies has pleaded guilty to two charges in a military court. His sentence was a reduction in rank and forfeiture of $500 (£307) in pay. Staff Sergeant Joseph Chamblin pleaded guilty on Thursday at a special court martial at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, to dereliction of duty for failing to properly supervise junior marines. He also pleaded guilty to wrongfully urinating on a deceased enemy combatant. The incident occurred during a counter-insurgency operation in Helmand province in Afghanistan in July 2011. It came to light in January this year when a videotape of the incident was posted on YouTube and other websites. The video showed four men in camouflage marine combat uniforms urinating on three corpses. One of them joked, "Have a nice day, buddy," while another made a lewd joke. The video was one of a series of offensive incidents involving US service members that roused Afghan ire and led to heightened tensions between Washington and Kabul. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, condemned the actions in the video as "inhuman" while the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, telephoned him to denounce the incident as deplorable and promise an investigation. Chamblin was charged with failing to properly supervise junior marines, failing to require junior marines to wear protective equipment, failing to report the misconduct of junior marines, failing to report the negligent discharge of a grenade launcher, and failing to stop the indiscriminate firing of weapons, the Marine Corps said in a statement. Chamblin waived his right to a jury and pleaded guilty to two counts before a military judge, the statement said. The judge levied a penalty that including 30 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, but because of a pretrial agreement Chamblin received a lesser sentence. The maximum penalty under the agreement was a reduction in rank to sergeant and a forfeiture of $500 in pay for one month, the statement said. The Marine Corps declined to release details about the evidence or the findings of the investigation because, it said, cases were still pending related to the urination video incident.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Republican House Speaker concedes there weren't enough votes to pass his 'Plan B' tax bill as it is abandoned by the party The stand-off between the White House and Congress over the 'fiscal cliff' turned into a full-blown crisis on Thursday night when Republican House Speaker John Boehner was publicly humiliated, unable to command enough support to secure passage of his own bill. Boehner had planned to push through the Republican-dominated House a bill that would have seen tax rises curbed for those earning $1 million a year or less. But he was forced to withdraw it in the face of a Republican revolt, with Tea Party-backed members unable to stomach the prospect of voting for any tax rise, even for those earning $1 million or above. Only hours earlier, his team had been confidently predicting it had enough Republican votes to get the bill through. But as the time for the vote neared, it became clear he did not have sufficient votes and called an emergency meeting. But Boehner was unable to win over the rebels. Afterwards he announced passage of the bill had been abandoned. "The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass," Boehner said. The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, responding to the House debacle, issued a statement saying: "The president's main priority is to ensure that taxes don't go up on 98% of Americans and 97% of small businesses in just a few short days. "The president will work with Congress to get this done and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly." The problem is that Obama no longer has a partner on the Republican side to reach a deal with, with Boehner having lost support. The onus will now be on the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, to come forward to try to stitch up a deal as he has so often in the past, though he shown no appetite for getting involved up until now. Earlier in the week, a deal had appeared close, with Boehner and Barack Obama thrashing out the details face-to-face and on the phone. But that effort has now ground to a halt. If Boehner cannot control his own Republican party, it is difficult to see how a deal is going to be reached before 1 January. Without an agreement by 1 January, every taxpayer in America will face a rise. Automatic cuts in federal spending will also kick in. The bill Boehner had been proposing to pass, the so-called 'Plan B', was primarily tactical, with no chance of ever becoming legislation. The Democratic-controlled Senate would have killed it and, on the remote chance of it making it out of Congress, Obama said he would veto it. The main aim of the 'Plan B' bill was to provide some cover for the Republicans so they would not get all of the blame if taxes go up. The Republicans and Obama are at odds over the scale of taxation and spending cuts. Obama wants tax rises to start at $400,000, not the Republicans' proposed $1 million. Obama has offered $800 billion in spending cuts but the Republicans are seeking $1.2 billion. Both the House and the Senate now look set to head off on holiday Friday with no deal in place. Having failed to get even a symbolic bill through, Boehner handed over responsibility to resolving the crisis to the Democrats, both Obama and the Senate leader Harry Reid. "Now it is up to the president to work with senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff," Boehner said. The problem is that if the Senate passes a bill that would see taxes rise for those earning $400,00 and above, the Republican-controlled House will kill it. The stand-off is almost a re-run of a similar one in spring and summer 2011 when Boehner and Obama almost reached a deal on resolving the debt crisis but it had to be abandoned after Boehner faced a revolt. Much of the Republican opposition is down to ideological distaste for voting for any tax rise. If the country goes over the fiscal cliff on 1 January , as seems increasingly likely, and every taxpayer sees a rise, there might then be a way out. Ideological Republicans could then vote for a Democratic bill to reverse most of the tax rises, at least for those earning $400,000 a year or less. Boehner faces re-election as Speaker next year but this debacle leaves a question over whether he commands enough loyalty in the Republican ranks any longer to make that a foregone conclusion.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Prime minister flies into Camp Bastion and hails 'real progress' made since UK forces came to country in 2001 The British prime minister, David Cameron, flew into Afghanistan on Thursday for a Christmas visit to troops serving there, days after announcing that thousands of them would head home in 2013. Cameron landed in Camp Bastion in southern Helmand province, base for most British forces in Afghanistan, amid tight security and then headed north to visit soldiers at a base 40 miles away in the troubled Gereshk valley. At a yard where troops were packing up military equipment to send home, he described the decision to bring nearly 4,000 British men and women home last year as a sign of success. "We have a staged plan for drawing down our troops which is based on the staged plan for building up the Afghan army and the Afghan police force," he said. "Frankly the Afghan army is doing better than we expected, there's more of them than we expected and that's why we are able to bring home so many troops." Cameron said this week that senior officers were impressed with the capabilities of Afghan forces, despite the setbacks of "green on blue" attacks this year in which 12 British troops have been killed by their Afghan colleagues. Already 500 soldiers have departed in the first stage of a withdrawal that will leave just over 5,000 troops in the country in 2014, and no combat forces after that. Most UK bases and checkpoints in Helmand have already closed, although there is still fierce fighting in some parts of the province. Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, conceded this week that the withdrawal of Nato forces would lead to "messy compromises", and that it is likely "some parts of Afghanistan will not be under central government control". He added: "It is not a perfect democracy and it never will be." But the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, on Thursday welcomed Cameron's announcement as a "timely decision" by the UK government. "Afghan security forces are prepared to ensure security and protect their country," the presidential palace said in a statement. Cameron said the handover was in line with Afghan aspirations to secure their own country, while ensuring the UK had met its main security objective – preventing the country from becoming a base for al-Qaida or similar groups as it had been under Taliban rule over a decade ago. "When I sit in No 10 Downing Street and look at where the plots that we face in terms of terror, where they come from, far fewer come from this part of the world than used to be the case when we first came to Afghanistan, so we have made real progress," he said. British leaders have in the past spent tens of millions of pounds of aid on building up the Afghan government and state. Cameron said they would leave behind a struggling but improved place. "Well of course this is a deeply challenged country, it has huge levels of poverty and instability and problems," he said. "But it's a far better place than it was here when we came in 2001 – the economy has grown, there are more children in school, there are more health services available. And there is, crucially – because this is our main national interest – there's an Afghan army and an Afghan police force." Heavy fog delayed the landing of Cameron's plane in Camp Bastion. After an overnight flight, the RAF C17 Globemaster military transporter he was travelling on circled the base for hours and then was diverted to nearby Kandahar airfield for refuelling. The unexpected stop meant Cameron had to cancel some plans, including a trip to the post office to see Christmas post arriving. In the afternoon he headed to a small base on the Helmand river where he dined with troops. He also remembered the 433 British troops who have died in Afghanistan, and the people they have left behind. "It is tough, it is difficult, we paid a high price and I once again pay tribute to all those who have fallen and their families and their loved ones who miss them so much." A news blackout on the visit, enforced for security reasons, was lifted late on Thursday evening. Cameron's trip came just a few months after a Taliban suicide squad burst into the base, killing two US marines and torching Harrier jets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Bernard Madoff's brother receives 10-year sentence in New York for crimes including conspiracy to commit securities fraud Peter Madoff will serve 10 years in prison for his role in his older brother's multibillion-dollar Ponzi fraud scheme, a US judge said on Thursday. Peter Madoff, 67, pleaded guilty in June to criminal charges including conspiracy to commit securities fraud for falsifying the books and records of the investment advisory company founded by his brother, Bernard Madoff. He agreed at the time not to oppose a request by prosecutors for a maximum 10-year prison sentence and agreed to an order requiring him to forfeit a symbolic $143.1bn. US district court judge Laura Taylor Swain approved the sentence on Thursday. "I am deeply ashamed of my conduct," Peter Madoff said at the sentencing. "I accept full responsibility for my actions." Bernard Madoff, 74, was sentenced in 2009 to a 150-year prison term and was ordered to forfeit $170.8bn. Eleven other individuals have faced criminal charges in connection with the fraud. Customers lost about $20bn, according to the trustee charged with recovering money for the victims. Peter Madoff, a lawyer, had been chief compliance officer and a senior managing director at the firm, Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities. Prosecutors said he helped create false and misleading documents designed to make it appear that the firm had an effective compliance programme. If the firm had such a programme, prosecutors said it would have shown that no real trades were taking place. He transferred millions of dollars within the Madoff family to avoid tax payments to the Internal Revenue Service and also put his wife on the firm's payroll in a non-existent job. In court papers filed on Monday, John Wing, a lawyer for Peter Madoff, said his client only learned Bernard Madoff had participated in a Ponzi scheme days before it became public. He argued his client had accepted responsibility and, as a result of the forfeiture, would be "penniless for the rest of his life." "Peter's life has been shattered by his brother's Ponzi scheme as well as his own conduct and guilty plea, and he will almost certainly live out his remaining days as a jobless pariah, in or out of prison," Wing wrote. Letters from dozens of friends, family members and business acquaintances in support of Peter Madoff were included in a 190-page filing to the judge. The letters and filing by his lawyers depict him as a younger sibling who looked up to his older brother. Peter Madoff "idolised his brother more like a father figure" and "never really seemed to be able to stand up to his brother," wrote Karen Binder-Brynes, Peter Madoff's psychologist of nine years. Binder-Brynes said her client was "traumatised" by the revelation of the Ponzi scheme after the news became public.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Founder of whistleblowing website marks six months' confinement in Ecuadorean embassy with bullish speech Julian Assange has said that WikiLeaks is preparing to publish 1m new secret government documents as he marked six months of refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London with a speech from its balcony on Thursday. The WikiLeaks founder has remained in the embassy to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden on suspicion of sexual offences. There is a permanent police guard and Assange will be arrested if he leaves the premises. Around 80 supporters gathered to hear Assange speak. They carried candles and held placards reading, "Don't shoot the messenger" and "Don't trust Sweden". Some sang Christmas carols as they waited for Assange from the first floor balcony, a short distance from Harrods department store. There were 60 additional police officers on duty. Assange emerged with a raised fist and greeted the crowd: "What a sight for sore eyes. People ask what gives me hope. The answer is right here," he said. He was momentarily disturbed when a journalist from Channel 4 shouted questions at him with a loudhailer, but he recovered and delivered a 15-minute speech which was high in rhetoric and low in novelty. "Six months ago I entered this building. It has become my home, my office and my refuge. Thanks to the principled stance of the Ecuadorean government and the support of its people, I am safe in this embassy and safe to speak from this embassy," he said. Assange said that as long as the US government sought to persecute him and the Australian government refused to support him, he had no choice but to remain in the Ecuadorean embassy. He said he was willing to negotiate with anyone. "However, the door is open, and the door has always been open, for anyone who wishes to use standard procedures to speak to me or guarantee my safe passage," he said. Assange did not mention Sweden or the woman he is alleged to have assaulted. He said attempts to prosecute him were an attack on freedom of speech before stepping back into the embassy. Time Blades, 40, one of Assange's supporters, said that he had been coming to the embassy to show his support for the WikiLeaks founder since August. "I come in defence of freedom of speech and to defend the right of Julian Assange to have asylum granted to him by a sovereign and independent country. This cannot go on for ever. The British government has to permit safe access to Ecuador for Julian Assange. This will only happen as a result of diplomatic pressure and the people pressure," he said. Ana Alban, the Ecuadorean ambassador, said in a statement that his government continued to support Assange.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Symbolic passage of 'plan B' comes as White House spokesman says Boehner and Obama have not spoken since Monday House Republicans were preparing to push through a "plan B" bill on the fiscal cliff crisis on Thursday, in a largely symbolic gesture that only served to highlight the extent of the deadlock in Washington. After days of hopeful talks between Barack Obama and Republican House speaker John Boehner earlier this week, negotiations appear to have reached an impasse. Hopes of a deal before Christmas have almost evaporated. The White House press spokesman Jay Carney said communications between Obama and Boehner had ceased. The two have not spoken since Monday. "Time's running short. I'm going to do everything I can to protect as many Americans from an increase in taxes as I can," Boehner said as he vowed to push ahead with a planned vote on his bill on Thursday night. Carney dismissed the bill, which the Democratic-led Senate said it will not consider and which the White House vowed to veto, as a "multi-day exercise in futility". Only hours before the vote, Boehner was facing a revolt among some conservatives who were refusing to back a tax-raising bill. About a dozen said emphatically they will not vote for it, while others refused to say or said they still had to make up their minds. Obama, who had been due to fly to Honolulu this weekend to begin a Christmas and New Year break with his family, is postponing his trip. The Senate announced it is planning to leave Washington on Friday and return to Washington next Thursday, much earlier than planned, in hopes of still reaching a deal before the 1 January deadline. The Republicans, who hold a solid majority in the House, were preparing to vote on a bill Thursday night that would restrict tax increases due to kick in on 1 January to those earning $1m a year or more. The bill is designed primarily to offer the Republicans some cover if every taxpayer sees a rise on that day. While polls suggest the Republicans are likely to be blamed, they will be able to point to the bill, saying that if it had been enacted, it would have prevented rises for more than 99% of the population. If Obama and Boehner were to suddenly reach an agreement, both the House and Senate would still be in session on Friday and both could return next Thursday in order to get legislation through before 1 January. Boehner, at a press conference on Capitol Hill, said: "Under current law, tax rates will go up on all taxpayers beginning 1 January unless the Congress acts and the president will sign the bill. Today, we'll vote to protect as many American families and small businesses as possible from the tax hikes that are already scheduled to occur. "The president has called on the House – again and again – to pass a bill to protect 98% of the American people from a tax hike. Well, today we're going to do better than that. Our bill would protect 99.81% of the American people from an increase in taxes." But the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, at an earlier press conference, said the bill was an empty gesture. "We are not taking up any of the things that they're working on over there now. It's very, very, very unfortunate the Republicans have wasted an entire week on a number of pointless political stunts." He added: "The bill has no future, if they don't know it now, tell them what I said," he added. The impasse comes at a time when the differences between Obama and Boehner appear to be minimal, with agreement reached on principle and divided only over the final figures. Obama wants the tax increases to kick in at $250,000 rather than $1 million. He is proposing $800bn in spending cuts whereas Boehner is looking for $1.2tn. Claiming it was not about the figures, Democrats identified the problem as Boehner being unable to deliver Republicans behind a tax-raising measure, a charge he denied. The Republicans countered that the problem was Obama being unable to sell spending cuts, particularly in entitlement programmes, to his own party. Boehner said: "I've become convinced," he added, "the president is unwilling to stand up to his own party on the big issues that face our country."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | WikiLeaks founder thanks supporters during appearance on balcony of Ecuadorean embassy in London WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Thursday night the "door is open" for talks to break the deadlock over his campaign to avoid extradition to Sweden. He made a rare public appearance on a balcony at the Ecuadorean embassy in London to mark the six-month anniversary of his sudden arrival at the building. He has since been granted political asylum by Ecuador's government but has remained inside the embassy. The Australian will be arrested if he steps outside as he has broken his bail conditions. He thanked his supporters, who stood in the street outside, some carrying lighted candles. He said: "Six months ago I entered this building. It has become my home, my office and my refuge. Thanks to the principled stance of the Ecuadorean government and the support of its people, I am safe in this embassy and safe to speak from this embassy." He said he had been sustained by the solidarity of his supporters and people around the world supporting WikiLeaks and freedom of the press. "While my freedom is limited, I am still able to work and communicate, unlike the 232 journalists who are in jail tonight." Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden over allegations of sexual assault, which he denies. He fears being sent to the United States to be questioned over his whistleblowing website. He said on Thursday that the Pentagon claimed recently that the existence of WikiLeaks was an "ongoing crime". Assange continued: "While that remains the case and while my government will not defend the journalism and publishing of WikiLeaks, I must remain here. "However, the door is open, and the door has always been open, for anyone who wishes to use standard procedures to speak to me or guarantee my safe passage." TV crews from across the world filmed the speech. There was an added police presence outside the embassy.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Comment by Russian president seems to indicate that Moscow now accepts that Syrian leader's days are numbered Vladimir Putin has signalled that he is not concerned about the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, insisting that Russia wants only stability in Syria. But he gave no sign of a policy shift that would help galvanise international action to help end the country's deepening crisis. "We are not that preoccupied with the fate of Assad's regime," the Russian president told a press conference. "We understand what's going on there and that his family has been in power for 40 years. Without a doubt, change is demanded. We're worried about something else – what happens next. We don't simply want for today's opposition, having come to power, to start fighting with the current authorities, who then become the opposition, and this continues for ever." Putin's remarks appear to confirm a growing feeling that Moscow now accepts that Assad's days are numbered, even if that has no immediate practical effect. Russia remains the Syrian regime's last significant ally and has shielded it from punitive UN sanctions. On Thursday, the UN published a report describing the role of foreign fighters and the now "overtly sectarian" nature of the crisis. "As the conflict drags on, the parties have become ever more violent and unpredictable, which has led to their conduct increasingly being in breach of international law," it said of the period between 28 September to 16 December. Paulo Pinheiro, a Brazilian UN expert, described a "clear shift" by Syrians towards identifying enemies by their religious or communal identity. The main sectarian lines fall between the Assad family's Alawite community, from which most of political and military figures hail, and the majority Sunni community, much of which supports the rebels. But minorities such as Armenians, Christians, Druze, Palestinians, Kurds and Turkmen have also been drawn in. "What we found in the last few months is that the minorities that tried to stay away from the conflict have begun arming themselves to protect themselves," Karen Abuzayd, a member of the UN group, told a news conference in Brussels. Syrian government forces had increasingly resorted to bombardments, including shelling hospitals, and evidence suggested that such attacks were "disproportionate", the report said. There were also accounts of summary executions by rebel groups, it added. Unlawful executions of captured government soldiers in Aleppo, Sabouk and Ras al-Ayn, where unarmed captives were gathered together and then gunned down, were under investigation. Pinheiro pointed to considerable evidence of the use of torture, particularly in government detention centres in Damascus. Interviewees' testimony indicated a "consistent and systematic pattern of torture" during which individuals were beaten and subjected to electric shocks while held in overcrowded underground cells. One victim who had been detained in a centre near Damascus for 30 days was subjected to electric shocks to his genitals. Alistair Burt, Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, said the UN report was a stark reminder of the horrific situation in Syria: "Those responsible for these appalling crimes will be held to account."
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former presidential candidate – who previously called same-sex marriage 'pagan behavior' – says his party needs to change It's what passes for vision in today's Republican party: recognizing a new political reality and not closing your eyes in denial. Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio showed they have it when they called for a more inclusive party following Mitt Romney's defeat. Romney showed he doesn't have it when he blamed that defeat on "gifts" the president handed out to his base. Another guy who has it: Newt Gingrich, who is now encouraging Republicans to rethink their position on gay marriage. "I think that [same-sex marriage] will be much more difficult than immigration for conservatism to come to grips with," Gingrich told the Huffington Post. "It is in every family. It is in every community. The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to ... accommodate and deal with reality." What's charming about Gingrich is that he did not try to dress up this analysis as a change of heart. His argument, instead, is explicitly political: The public has moved – let's chase them. "The reality is going to be that in a number of American states – and it will be more after 2014 – gay relationships will be legal, period," Gingrich said. Ballot measures legalizing same-sex marriage passed last month in Maryland, Washington and Maine. It was the first time gay marriage had passed in a statewide referendum, as opposed to being instituted through a court decision. Gingrich came to power as a purported budget hawk and has never been a hero to the social issues ideologues in the GOP. He has shared the sanctity of marriage with three partners so far. During the recent presidential campaign he showed himself willing to totter plenty far out on the limb of anti-gay bigotry, at one point calling same-sex marriage "pagan behavior" – and meaning it in a bad way. The underlying sense, however, is that Gingrich doesn't care deeply about the issue, except for how it plays on the hustings. He has shown similarly sensitive antennae on the question of immigration, taking the kind of moderate position during the Republican primary debates that Romney could beat the stuffing out of. Romney did, and won the primary, and then lost the general against the very argument Gingrich already owned. As for Romney's belief that President Obama had used gifts to win reelection, Gingrich had the same reaction as Jindal and Rubio – except Gingrich, for once, was more succinct. ABC News asked him about Romney's remark last month. "I just think it's nuts," Gingrich said.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Airports and roads affected before holiday weekend but forecasters say snowfall will not alleviate drought problems Four people died as the first major snowstorm of the season hit the US Midwest early on Thursday, threatening to disrupt some of the nation's busiest airports ahead of the holiday weekend. Forecasters warned that heavy snow coupled with strong winds could create blizzard conditions from Kansas to Wisconsin, after the storm blanketed the Rocky Mountains earlier in the week. In Chicago, officials at O'Hare International Airport reported more than 90 cancellations. In Iowa, state police said a 25-vehicle pileup had killed one person. In Wisconsin, sheriff's officials said slick conditions led to at least two deaths late on Wednesday, when a driver lost control of his car. In Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died on Tuesday night. Search and rescue crews on snowmobiles found her buried in the snow. On the southern edge of the storm system, high winds peeled roofs off buildings and toppled trucks in Mobile, Alabama, but injured no one. Tornado warnings remained in effect in parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama early Thursday. The moisture was welcome to farmers in the drought-parched region, but exerts said the storm wouldn't make much of an impact. "The snow is good, but in most instances it was less than one inch of liquid and if the soils are frozen, there will be little infiltration," said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "Welcomed, yes. A big changer to the overall drought, not really."
A report issued on Thursday by a consortium of federal and state climatology experts said that as of 18 December, large swaths of the nation's midsection remained blanketed in extreme and exceptional levels of drought, the worst levels on the measurement scale. Before the snow storm hit late Wednesday, nearly 27% of the High Plains was considered in the very worst level of drought – exceptional drought. "Severe" and "extreme" levels of drought also crept higher over the last week, according to the Drought Monitor report. Severe drought was spread over 86.2% of the High Plains, up from 86.12% the week before, while extreme drought area was pegged at 59.98% of the region, up from 58.39%. Exceptional drought was pegged at 26.99%, up from 26.91%. Drought conditions were most pervasive in Nebraska, according to the Drought Monitor report. Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Republicans and Democrats debate cost of adequate security for overseas operations in wake of attack on US consulate in Libya John Kerry, Obama's presumed choice as next secretary of state, has warned against the emergence of a security mentality that would seal US diplomats off from outside contact following the killing of the US ambassador to Libya. At a congressional hearing into institutional failures around the Benghazi consulate attack on 11 September – in which ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed – Kerry criticised the department he is expected to head for "failing to see the wood for the trees". The hearing by the Senate foreign relations committee committee, chaired by Kerry, followed the resignation of four senior State Department officials on Wednesday following the release of damning report on security failings that contributed to the attack. But Kerry also offered a vigorous defence of diplomacy as a means of staving off conflicts that are far more expensive in lives and money, and warned that that mission should not be compromised. "There will always be a tension between the diplomatic imperative to get outside the wire and the security standards that require our diplomats to work behind high walls, concertina wire and full body searches. We do not want to concertina wire America off from the world," he said. "We need to be safe but we also need to send the right message to the people that we're trying to reach." Drawing comparisons between his experiences in Vietnam and visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, he said: "As you pass through a village with masses of guns and big armoured personnel carriers and Humvees, the look of confusion and alienation from average Iraqis or Afghans, who just don't understand why we're rumbling through their streets that way, is unmistakable." Kerry said risks have to be taken in order for diplomacy to work. "We have an expeditionary diplomatic corps and they do face very real risks, every day, day in and day out. Bad things have happened before and bad things will happen again, unfortunately, in the future," he said. The outgoing secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was unable to attend the hearing after she fell ill, but will testify as a second meeting in January. The deputy secretary of state, William Burns, testified instead and backed Kerry by quoting Clinton as saying that "our diplomats cannot work in bunkers and be effective". The foreign affairs committee hearing was called to examine the results of the investigation into Stevens' death which found "systematic failures" of leadership and "grossly inadequate" security. Burns acknowledged the mistakes, saying that Clinton has ordered the implementation of all 29 of the report's recommendations, including five that are classified. "We learned some very hard painful lessons in Benghazi. We've already acted on them. We have to do better," he said. The hearing was far less partisan than the sometimes bitter charges levelled by Republicans against the White House during the presidential campaign when Barack Obama was accused of a cover up of al-Qaida's involvement in the Benghazi assault. There was only a brief mention on Thursday of the role played by Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, who was at the centre of Republican ire in recent months after she gave a misleading account of events in the days following the attack. Instead, the divisions emerged over the role of spending cuts in the failure to provide sufficient security to the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Kerry rebuked Congress for cutting the department's diplomatic security budget by hundreds of millions of dollars. "Congress also bears some responsibility here. Congress has the power of the purse. We use it for any number of things, but it's our responsibility. And for years we've asked our State Department to operate with increasingly lesser resources to conduct essential missions," he said. Pointing out that America's international affairs budgets was less that 10% of the Pentagon's $650bn of military spending, he said: "Adequately funding America's foreign policy objectives is not spending. It's investing in our long term security and more often than not it saves far more expensive expenditures in dollars and lives for the conflicts that we fail to see or avoid." Senator Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, noted that while $200m was cut from the State Department security budget, the Pentagon spent $388m on military bands. Some Republicans hit back. Senator Bob Corker said he was dismayed that the hearing was focussing on additional money. "We have no idea whether the State Department is using its money wisely or not," he said. "What I saw in the report is a department that has sclerosis, that doesn't think outside the box, that doesn't use the resources that it has in any kind. I cannot imagine sending folks out to Benghazi – after what we saw from the security cameras and the drones – I cannot imagine that we had people out there with a lack of security existing," he said. Corker said it if wasn't safe, Stevens and other officials should not have been sent. Boxer picked up on a central criticism of the report which said the US mission in Benghazi should not have relied on a pro-government Libyan militia for protection. Thomas Nides, deputy secretary of state for management and resources who is in charge of implementing the report's recommendations, responded that it would be almost impossible for the US to provide sufficient protection on its own. "The fact for us on the ground is we rely on local governments to protect us. We have to do that because we do not have enough troops on the ground, and most of the countries will not allow us to," he said. Senator Jim Risch, a Republican, said he has visited US embassies all over the world and was never impressed by the local security guards. "I feel really good when I see those marines standing there and they say 'Go on in, sir' when you walk in. But usually before that you have to go through a tranche of these locals," he said. "You get a real sense of incompetence when you go through there. Generally, those people are confused. Most of them you wouldn't meet going into a theatre here in the United States having the kind of competency they have." Another Republican, John Barrasso, asked Burns if the people who attacked the Benghazi consulate have yet been identified. Burns suggested not, saying that the FBI and other agencies are still pursuing the investigation.
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | From dragging a steamship across a mountain to eating his own shoes, Werner Herzog has always traded in the unexpected. Now he is co-starring in a Tom Cruise action film Werner Herzog has dragged a real-life steamship across a real-life mountain; he once pulled a gun on his longtime star collaborator Klaus Kinski and told him to act or die; he took a film crew to the lip of la Grande Soufrière, a volcano in Guadeloupe that seismologists had predicted would erupt at any moment (it didn't); he was accidentally shot in the stomach during a filmed interview with the BBC ("It is not a significant bullet") and once, aided by Californian chef Alice Waters, he cooked – with garlic and herbs – and then ate his own shoe, an event chronicled in his friend Les Blank's evocatively title docushort Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. These are the bedrock fables of the Herzog brand (if we may dare to dub it so in its 50th year), well known, widely shared, and that is the last I shall say of them here. The point being, the unexpected is what you expect from Werner Herzog. Co-starring in a Tom Cruise action movie, however, is exactly what you would not expect from Werner Herzog. Which means logically, I suppose, that it's exactly what you should expect. At any rate, here we are, to his surprise as much as my own, to talk of Jack Reacher, Cruise's latest thriller. This is the second time we have met (the first was in 2007, at his austerely beautiful house on the storied Wonderland Avenue in Los Angeles), but I'm still surprised he recognises me. And that he is so warm and gracious and hospitable: "John, please, let us be seated and drink something." Perhaps he enjoys people the way I like good movies, finding them more congenial on second viewing, when all surprise has been expended. For the next hour we talk widely and rather merrily of his life, and in particular, his American life since moving here in 1995. Jack Reacher is the first of Lee Child's novels to reach the screen, and Herzog, seen only in five or six scenes, with dead-eye contact lenses and a fingerless right hand, is the psychopathic Mister Big, a graduate of the Soviet Gulag, behind the film's central conspiracy. As he talks I am enraptured by his voice, its guttural qualities and syntax galvanising the English language from beneath, the words expectorated with a precision that enunciates every corner of every syllable, and delivered inlong, smoothly undulating sentences of essentially Germanic construction. "I was approached by the director and Tom Cruise. They wanted me. I think it's a logical idea because I've done parts before where I played really dysfunctional and outrageous and dangerous characters, like in Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey Boy, and because of that and other films they were interested in me. And I liked them for their professionalism and commitment – things that I prize myself." I am interested to know the ratio between his paycheque for this movie and the budget of any one of his last 10 films. Was he looking around the set thinking: "Oh, I could make 10 movies for the price of this one?" "No, the character and nature of a film is not necessarily related to the budget. And by the way, I have made bigger films myself than Jack Reacher, not in terms of money spent – money is not the best indicator of intensity. The production value – if you think of how it registers on the screen, when you look, for example, at Fitzcarraldo, there is much more production value on the screen than in most Hollywood films." He's been more prominent as an actor in recent years, especially since his exhilaratingly funny motormouth dad role in Julien Donkey Boy. He played a fictional version of himself in Incident at Loch Ness and had a priceless guest-spot on The Simpsons as a bitter German industrialist. "I like and I love everything that has to do with cinema, writing, directing, editing, creating music, and even acting. I just acted in a big German epic film – Heimat by Edgar Reitz. It's a very big epic – one single film that he's making for 30 years now. This one is called Die Andere Heimat – The Other Heimat. I play a very small cameo. We were looking at each other as somehow circling or completing a circle, because in one of his very early films I played a serial killer (Geschichten vom Kübelkind (1971) – Tales of a Trash-Can Kid) and half a century later I'm doing a film with him again. In other words, I have done some acting very early on in my career." (Aficionados will recall that circularity is a prominent motif in Herzog's work.) How did you do the mangled hand? Prosthesis? "Not a prosthetic hand, no. I had a hand dooble," as he pronounces it. Herzog, like Fritz Lang, Murnau, the Siodmak brothers and other German exiles, has now followed a distinctly German portion of his career with an American portion of no less import and greatness, and, as happened with this those earlier giants, America may not obliterate a distinctive cinematic voice, but it will always leave upon it an ineradicable imprint. Co-starring in a major Hollywood movie opposite the biggest movie star in the world was surely the farthest thing from Herzog's mind when he first visited the United States in 1963. "I came by boat," he recalls. "I was one of the last ones coming by boat. It was very, very nice, because for 10 days you anticipate to arrive. It's a different, old-fashioned way of approaching America, like the classic immigrant, landing in New York, as I did." He had visa problems, since his scholarship in Pittsburgh (which he revisited for the first time since to film Reacher) was tangentially related to Nasa, and security checks were suddenly needed. He dropped out and fled to Mexico and worked as a rodeo clown "because I couldn't even ride a horse" (demented details like this you don't even contest. If Herzog says it happened, I believe him), while making pocket change by smuggling. "At that time border controls were much more lax, and between the twin cities Reynosa and McAllen, Texas, over the Rio Grande, the road carried Mexican labourers who would work in McAllen and return home at night. They each had a special sticker on their windshield and so I stole one of them and I was always waved through. I earned a little extra money by bringing in TV sets without duties." Herzog didn't film in America until he shot the second half of Stroszek in Wisconsin in 1976 (a particularly naked, fresh-peeled-eyeballs response to bicentennial America, "much based on my own experiences in Pittsburgh"), followed by several documentary shorts, each obsessed by the incantatory qualities of the American demotic. How Much Wood Can A Woodchuck Chuck? captured livestock auctioneers and their insanely fast patter while Huie's Sermon captured a black preacher in full ecstatic flow. "I was fascinated by the outer limits of language and I would like to do Hamlet with the world champions of livestock auction because I'd like to see how does Hamlet function in under 14 minutes. And Huie's Sermon, again it's about that kind of incantation, the intensity of speech that goes into complete ecstasies. The bishop, an African-American bishop, is actually ranting against the Rolling Stones and all this immorality, and so in his regular sermon he himself actually outdoes Mick Jagger in the end! He goes completely ballistic!" There follows a distinct chuckle at the memory and I notice that for all his reputation as a misanthropic medieval seer-monk, apparently stepped fresh off an illuminated manuscript or tapestry, with his fierce, hooded, eagle's eyes and windswept German Romantic demeanour, we have actually been chuckling quite a lot this morning. Afterwards I corner Jack Reacher's director, Christopher McQuarrie and ask him about Herzog. He recalls a scene in which a character is shot out of a swivel chair. "Werner was on set that day and when we watched the playback he was the one who pointed to the chair, which was still waving back and forth on its axis like someone shaking their head, and ever the poetic mind, he said [he gives it his best Werner]: 'The man says yesss, but the chair says noh, noh, noh.' That's Werner – he notices shit."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Did the Washington Post and others underplay the story through fear of the News Corp chairman, or simply tin-eared judgment? So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence of Rupert Murdoch's ultimate and most audacious attempt – thwarted, thankfully, by circumstance – to hijack America's democratic institutions on a scale equal to his success in kidnapping and corrupting the essential democratic institutions of Great Britain through money, influence and wholesale abuse of the privileges of a free press. In the American instance, Murdoch's goal seems to have been nothing less than using his media empire – notably Fox News – to stealthily recruit, bankroll and support the presidential candidacy of General David Petraeus in the 2012 election. Thus in the spring of 2011 – less than 10 weeks before Murdoch's centrality to the hacking and politician-buying scandal enveloping his British newspapers was definitively revealed – Fox News' inventor and president, Roger Ailes, dispatched an emissary to Afghanistan to urge Petraeus to turn down President Obama's expected offer to become CIA director and, instead, run for the Republican nomination for president, with promises of being bankrolled by Murdoch. Ailes himself would resign as president of Fox News and run the campaign, according to the conversation between Petraeus and the emissary, K T McFarland, a Fox News on-air defense "analyst" and former spear carrier for national security principals in three Republican administrations. All this was revealed in a tape recording of Petraeus's meeting with McFarland obtained by Bob Woodward, whose account of their discussion, accompanied online by audio of the tape, was published in the Washington Post – distressingly, in its style section, and not on page one, where it belonged – and, under the style logo, online on December 3. Indeed, almost as dismaying as Ailes' and Murdoch's disdain for an independent and truly free and honest press, and as remarkable as the obsequious eagerness of their messenger to convey their extraordinary presidential draft and promise of on-air Fox support to Petraeus, has been the ho-hum response to the story by the American press and the country's political establishment, whether out of fear of Murdoch, Ailes and Fox – or, perhaps, lack of surprise at Murdoch's, Ailes' and Fox's contempt for decent journalistic values or a transparent electoral process. The tone of the media's reaction was set from the beginning by the Post's own tin-eared treatment of this huge story: relegating it, like any other juicy tidbit of inside-the-beltway media gossip, to the section of the newspaper and its website that focuses on entertainment, gossip, cultural and personality-driven news, instead of the front page. "Bob had a great scoop, a buzzy media story that made it perfect for Style. It didn't have the broader import that would justify A1," Liz Spayd, the Post's managing editor, told Politico when asked why the story appeared in the style section. Buzzy media story? Lacking the "broader import" of a front-page story? One cannot imagine such a failure of news judgment among any of Spayd's modern predecessors as managing editors of the Post, especially in the clear light of the next day and with a tape recording – of the highest audio quality – in hand. "Tell [Ailes] if I ever ran," Petraeus announces on the crystal-clear digital recording and then laughs, "but I won't … but if I ever ran, I'd take him up on his offer. … He said he would quit Fox … and bankroll it." McFarland clarified the terms: "The big boss is bankrolling it. Roger's going to run it. And the rest of us are going to be your in-house" – thereby confirming what Fox New critics have consistently maintained about the network's faux-news agenda and its built-in ideological bias. And here let us posit the following: were an emissary of the president of NBC News, or of the editor of the New York Times or the Washington Post ever caught on tape promising what Ailes and Murdoch had apparently suggested and offered here, the hue and cry, especially from Fox News and Republican/Tea Party America, from the Congress to the US Chamber of Commerce to the Heritage Foundation, would be deafening and not be subdued until there was a congressional investigation, and the resignations were in hand of the editor and publisher of the network or newspaper. Or until there had been plausible and convincing evidence that the most important elements of the story were false. And, of course, the story would continue day after day on page one and remain near the top of the evening news for weeks, until every ounce of (justifiable) piety about freedom of the press and unfettered presidential elections had been exhausted. The tape of Petraeus and McFarland's conversation is an amazing document, a testament to the willingness of Murdoch and the wily genius he hired to create Fox News to run roughshod over the American civic and political landscape without regard to even the traditional niceties or pretenses of journalistic independence and honesty. Like the revelations of the hacking scandal, which established beyond any doubt Murdoch's ability to capture and corrupt the three essential elements of the British civic compact – the press, politicians and police – the Ailes/Petraeus tape makes clear that Murdoch's goals in America have always been just as ambitious, insidious and nefarious. The digital recording, and the dead-serious conspiratorial conversation it captures so chillingly in tone and substance ("I'm only reporting this back to Roger. And that's our deal," McFarland assured Petraeus as she unfolded the offer) utterly refutes Ailes' disingenuous dismissal of what he and Murdoch were actually attempting: the buying of the presidency. "It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have," Ailes would later claim while nonetheless confirming its meaning. "I thought the Republican field [in the primaries] needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate." The recording deserves to be heard by any open-minded person trying to fathom its meaning to the fullest. Murdoch and Ailes have erected an incredibly influential media empire that has unrivaled power in British and American culture: rather than judiciously exercising that power or improving reportorial and journalistic standards with their huge resources, they have, more often than not, recklessly pursued an agenda of sensationalism, manufactured controversy, ideological messianism, and political influence-buying while masquerading as exemplars of a free and responsible press. The tape is powerful evidence of their methodology and reach. The Murdoch story – his corruption of essential democratic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic – is one of the most important and far-reaching political/cultural stories of the past 30 years, an ongoing tale without equal. Like Richard Nixon and his tapes, much attention has been focused on the necessity of finding the smoking gun to confirm what other evidence had already established beyond a doubt: that the elemental instruments of democracy, ie the presidency in Nixon's case, and the privileges of free press in Murdoch's, were grievously misused and abused for their own ends by those entrusted to use great power for the common good. In Nixon's case, the system worked. His actions were investigated by Congress, the judicial system held that even the president of the United States was not above the law, and he was forced to resign or face certain impeachment and conviction. American and British democracy has not been so fortunate with Murdoch, whose power and corruption went unchecked for a third of a century. The most important thing we journalists do is make judgments about what is news. Perhaps no story has eluded us on a daily basis (for lack of trying) for so many years as the story of Murdoch's destructive march across our democratic landscape. Only the Guardian vigorously pursued the leads of the hacking story and methodically stuck with it for months and years, never ignoring the underlying context of how Rupert Murdoch conducted his take-no-prisoners business and journalism without regard for the most elemental standards of fairness, accuracy or balance, or even lawful conduct. When the Guardian's hacking coverage reached critical mass last year, I quoted a former top Murdoch deputy as follows: "This scandal and all its implications could not have happened anywhere else. Only in Murdoch's orbit. The hacking at News of the World was done on an industrial scale. More than anyone, Murdoch invented and established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means." The tape that Bob Woodward obtained, and which the Washington Post ran in the style section, should be the denouement of the Murdoch story on both sides of the Atlantic, making clear that no institution, not even the presidency of the United States, was beyond the object of his subversion. If Murdoch had bankrolled a successful Petraeus presidential campaign and – as his emissary McFarland promised – "the rest of us [at Fox] are going to be your in-house" – Murdoch arguably might have sewn up the institutions of American democracy even more securely than his British tailoring. Happily, Petraeus was not hungering for the presidency at the moment of the messenger's arrival: the general was contented at the idea of being CIA director, which Ailes was urging him to forgo. "We're all set," said the emissary, referring to Ailes, Murdoch and Fox. "It's never going to happen," Petraeus said. "You know it's never going to happen. It really isn't. … My wife would divorce me."
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sale of nearly 200-year-old institution to Intercontinental Exchange comes amid historic shift to electronic trading The New York Stock Exchange called time on two centuries of independence on Thursday, agreeing to an $8.2bn takeover that will hand control of the icon of American capitalism to an Atlanta-based energy trader. The stock exchange's holding company, NYSE Euronext, has agreed to an offer of $33.12 a share in cash and stock from IntercontinentalExchange (ICE). ICE was founded in 2000, NYSE in 1817. The combined company would have headquarters in both ICE's home of Atlanta and in New York. The takeover comes amid a historic shift for Wall Street and stock exchanges around the world. The move to electronic trading, fierce competition between exchanges and the sharp decline in trading commissions has led to a wave of mergers and takeover offers that have failed amid regulatory concerns. The exchange, also called the Big Board, has moved to embrace technology in recent years but still also uses the "open outcry" system with traders in bright-coloured jackets shouting and waving their hands to make orders. Charles Geisst, author of Wall Street: A History and a finance professor at Manhattan College, said: "The NYSE has faded in the past few years, for most professionals this is a sign of the times. Trading could take place on the moon right now as long as you have the right communications." Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank, said: "The NYSE is an icon but it runs the risk of becoming irrelevant, it's just being outplayed by its more technologically savvy competitors." "When I started out NYSE was the stock market," said Ablin. "But things are changing at an exponential speed. It's become less and less relevant with every passing year." Last year ICE teamed up to make a bid for NYSE with Nasdaq, the New York-based exchange that is home to tech giants including Apple and Facebook. That deal fell apart amid regulatory concerns. The US bid followed an attempt to merge with Germany's Deutsche Borse, which triggered concern with European regulators and a protectionist backlash in Washington. NYSE Euronext's shares have fallen over 30% since the ICE and Nasdaq bid failed and ICE's latest offer is $3bn less than the previous one. "The Board of NYSE Euronext carefully considered a range of strategic alternatives and concluded that ICE is the ideal partner for NYSE Euronext in an evolving market landscape," said Jan-Michiel Hessels, the chairman of NYSE Euronext's board. The NYSE once dominated stock trading in the US but has been losing market share since the 1990s when the all-electronic Nasdaq opened for business and new rules allowed shares to be traded more freely across multiple venues. Today Chicago's CME is the predominant exchange in the US, valued at $17.5bn, $10bn more than NYSE Euronext. "There was a time when NYSE was 60-70% of the equities traded in the states. Now on a good day it's about 20%," said Geisst. The exchange moved to embrace the change in 2005 by buying electronic-trading company Archipelago and becoming a public company. In 2006 it merged with Euronext, which operates stock-exchange businesses in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal. ICE was founded in 2000 by chairman and chief executive officer Jeffrey Sprecher as an electronic commodity trading exchange. Sprecher has grown the business through a series of big deals. ICE now runs the world's biggest energy futures market and commodity markets in the US and Canada. The deal will add NYSE Liffe, the European derivatives exchange to ICE's portfolio, a business Sprecher has long coveted. "Our transaction is responsive to the evolution of market infrastructure today and offers a range of growth opportunities, while enhancing competition in US and European markets and broadening our ability to address new markets and offer innovative products and services on a global platform," said Sprecher.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow how the day unfolded after UN investigators warned that entire communities could be killed or forced out of Syria
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Former Republican presidential candidate says Kathryn Bigelow's film about hunt for Bin Laden is 'grossly inaccurate' The former presidential candidate John McCain is one of three US senators who have criticised the depiction of torture in Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's fact-based drama about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The film suggests that waterboarding and coercive interrogation tactics were instrumental in gathering information ahead of the successful raid on Bin Laden's compound in May 2011. McCain, a Republican senator for the state of Arizona, joined two Democrats – Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin – to write a public letter to Michael Lynton, the chairman and chief executive of Sony Pictures, which backed the picture. They claim that Zero Dark Thirty is "grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the capture". Feinstein is the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been investigating the interrogation programme adopted by the CIA during the Bush administration. She has insisted that information obtained by waterboarding did not play a significant role in the search for Bin Laden. The letter calls on Sony Pictures to "consider correcting the impression that the CIA's use of coercive interrogation led to the operation". Directed by Bigelow and scripted by Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty focuses on the behind-the-scenes operation to track Bin Laden via a shadowy network of al-Qaida couriers. The film implies that waterboarding was rife during the early years of George W Bush's "war on terror" but that the tactic was abandoned following Barack Obama's election in 2008. At one stage, Obama is shown on a TV screen insisting that "America doesn't torture." Bigelow won the best film and director Oscar for her last movie, The Hurt Locker, and Zero Dark Thirty is already tipped as a possible contender for the top awards next February. The film opens in the US this week and is released in the UK on 25 January.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Rebels, who say president failed to honour 2007 peace deal, agree to talks after Chad sends soldiers to help CAR army Rebels in the Central African Republic said on Thursday they have halted their advance towards the capital and are open to peace talks. A rebel coalition, complaining that President François Bozizé had failed to honour a 2007 peace deal, has marched to within 400km (250 miles) of the capital, prompting neighbouring Chad to dispatch soldiers to help CAR's army. "The advance of our troops has been unilaterally halted," the Seleka rebel alliance said in a statement sent to Reuters. The statement, signed by Justin Mambissi Matar, secretary general of the movement, said the push south had been put on hold after Chadian authorities pledged not to attack rebel positions. The rebel Seleka alliance said it was open to peace talks but would remain in the territory it has secured during a two-week advance, rejecting an appeal on Wednesday from the United Nations security council to withdraw from captured towns. The alliance is made up of breakaway factions from previous rebel groups that signed a 2007 peace deal. Chadian support was requested by CAR earlier this week, underscoring the fragility of the landlocked nation which is roughly the size of its former colonial master, France. Since independence in 1960, the country has endured decades of instability caused by a mix of local rebellions, banditry, ethnic tensions and the spillover of conflicts in neighbouring Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As a result, major investment in its timber, gold, uranium and diamond deposits have been discouraged. Some of the diamond deposits are now in rebel-held territory.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | French president says occupation and war leading to Algerian independence were 'brutal', but stops short of apology The French president, François Hollande, has acknowledged the "unjust" and "brutal" nature of France's occupation of Algeria for 132 years, but stopped short of apologising for the past as many Algerians have demanded. On the second day of his state visit to the north African nation, he told the two houses of parliament: "I recognise the suffering the colonial system has inflicted.". He specifically recognised the "massacres" by the French during the seven-year war that led to Algerian independence in 1962. The admission was a profound departure from Hollande's predecessors who, if not defending France's tormented past with Algeria, remained silent. The Socialist president's visit came as Algeria celebrates 50 years of independence from France, during which the two countries' ties have been fraught with tension. Hollande was travelling on Thursday to the western city of Tlemcen, the birthplace of the Algerian wartime nationalist Messali Hadj. Hollande said at the start of his visit that he and the Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, were opening a "new era" with a strategic partnership among equals. Large numbers of Algerians, and some political parties, have been seeking an apology from France for inequalities suffered by the population under colonial rule and for brutality during the war. However, Hollande said at a news conference on Wednesday that he would make no apologies. "History, even when it is tragic, even when it is painful for our two countries, must be told," Hollande told MPs on Thursday. "For 132 years, Algeria was subjected to a profoundly unjust and brutal system" of colonisation. "I recognise here the suffering that colonisation has inflicted on the Algerian people," he added. Hollande notably listed the sites of three massacres, including one at Setif where seven years ago Bouteflika compared French methods to those used by Nazi Germany and asked France to make a "gesture … to erase this black stain". The violence in Setif, 186 miles (300km) east of Algiers, began on 8 May 1945, apparently during a celebration of the end of the second world war. Demonstrators unfurled Algerian flags, which were banned at the time by the French. As police began confiscating the flags, the crowds turned on the French, killing about two dozen of them. The uprising spread and the response by French colonial troops grew increasingly harsh in the following weeks, including bombardments of villages by a French warship. Algerians say some 45,000 people may have died. Figures in France put the number of Algerian dead at about 15,000 to 20,000. Hollande and Bouteflika agreed to relaunch economic, strategic and cultural relations between the two countries on a new basis among equals. A new start must "be supported by a base", Hollande said, and "this base is truth". "Nothing is built in secretiveness, forgetting, denial," Hollande said. A Declaration of Algiers was published late on Wednesday saying that France and Algeria "are determined to open a new chapter in their relations" of "exceptional intensity" and spelling out political, human and economic goals. France announced a deal for the French carmaker Renault to build a factory in Algeria with cars destined for all of Africa. The long-negotiated joint venture will be 49% owned by Renault and 51% by two Algerian companies, according to a statement by Renault, the first carmaker to establish production facilities in Algeria. The factory will be located outside Oran, a port city west of Algiers, and eventually expand to an automotive training centre. The accord is one of about 15 agreements being signed during the visit, on topics ranging from culture to defence. Hollande, who came to the French presidency in May, made an initial break with the French past by officially recognising the deaths of Algerians at a 1961 pro-independence demonstration in Paris at the hands of French police. He referred to the "bloody repression" and paid homage to the victims of "this tragedy", for which an official death toll has never been issued.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Play the Global development game: identify the world's countries and territories, rank them according to GDP then fingers at the ready for the picture round
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | From Frank Ocean coming out to Jay-Z backing gay marriage, hip-hop seemed to be shaking off its homophobic mindset this year. But the genre still has a lot of growing up to do In November, A$AP Rocky gave an interview in which he somehow managed to be both inane and yet completely illuminating on the state of modern rap. "If you do certain things like snug fashion, high-end fashion, other things that's not really in the criteria of the small state of mind of the urban community, you're 'gay.' Different is 'gay.' Weird is 'gay'", he told Hip Hop DX. "That shit ain't gay. That's just different. I'm a heterosexual man. I never been gay a day of my life. I used to be homophobic, but as I got older, I realised that wasn't the way to do things. I don't discriminate against anybody for their sexual preference, for their skin colour … that's immature." The Purple Swag rapper may have been talking in circles, but his comments did at least offer signs that hip-hop was taking a more open-minded approach to sexuality than we've seen in the past. At the same time – thanks to his unneccesary need to remind us that he's definitely not gay (definitely not, all right?) – he spoke to a wide demographic, a generation born in the 90s, who can't recall a world before hip-hop existed and who regularly bookend their homophobic epithets with LOLs and smiley faces. It seems hip-hop still has a long way to go before we can say it's relaxed about homosexuality. Earlier this year a Twitter experiment tracked the use of words such as faggot and dyke over the course of three months, racking up a depressing 2.6m uses of homophobic language. It's likely that a great deal of those people make no real connection between active homophobia and calling someone "a total gay". Like Tyler, the Creator, they'll probably tell you they have gay friends, and they'll often be telling the truth. Rappers will say they're just words, there to shock, the language of a character they have created for the mic. For hip-hop, and for the teenagers who who see no problem in having both Justin Bieber and Ludacris on their iPod, the language of homophobia may have stayed the same but the culture has changed. It was only natural that as hip-hop grew into a multi-billion dollar industry it would need to align with what was happening in the rest of the America if it wanted to continue its ascent. That has meant an attachment to the process of change as a political statement and, over the last two years, huge social and political movements to advance gay rights, namely the It Gets Better project, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and the overturning of Proposition 8 in court. When Barack Obama went on record to say he supported gay marriage in May, his comments were backed by the likes of Jay-Z and even 50 Cent. Once more, though, we were light years from enlightened thought: the latter, perhaps unsurprisingly, turned his "support" into an appeal for organisations that stood up for the rights of heterosexual men to be defended from gay men who want to "grab your little buns". Reading on mobile? Watch here Nicki Minaj's prophecy that there would one day be a gay rapper might have seemed a long way off, but it was only a couple of months later that it (sort of) happened. Frank Ocean is not a rapper, but his affiliation with Odd Future has proved enough to bracket him within a world that had yet to send out an openly gay emissary. And when he did discuss his feelings for another man, it was by writing movingly of what it feels like to experience first love. While people threw themselves at Twitter and Facebook to show their support, the reaction from other rappers has been lukewarm. Despite Snoop Dogg and Russell Simmons offering encouragement, the most common reaction from hip-hop artists has been variations of the "whatever a man does in his own house" or "only God can judge you" line. Once again, Jay-Z was positive about Ocean's statement without ever going the extra mile to back him with a personal statement. His support came in the form of a (very good) blog that read: "We are all made better by your decision to share publicly," but the fact that it was written by journalist dream hampton [corr] saved him from having to find his own words about the younger rapper's sexuality. Frank Ocean's letter didn't quite mark a wave of change in attitude. We probably wont be seeing a flood of mainstream gay rappers anytime soon, even if the recent swath of psychedelically strange rappers – A$AP Rocky, Lil' B et al – have perhaps made it easier for "queer rappers" such as Zebra Katz, Mykki Blanco and Le1f to find a bigger audience on the more leftfield fringes. And whereas it's great to hear someone as high-profile as A$AP distancing himself from homophobia, rap still has a good deal of growing up to do. A$AP himself proved this by saying, later in that same interview "I'm getting bitches" – yet more shorthand for asserting one's own masculinity that we could all live without hearing ever again. Still, when Lil Wayne substituted No Homo with the words No Frank Ocean on a crappy remix earlier this year, he suddenly sounded like a lonely man. Slowly, things are changing for the better.
 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as UN investigators warn of 'deepening sectarian divides' in Syria
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Yannis Stournaras says Greece could yet be forced out of the eurozone if it cannot implement the tough fiscal reforms it has promised, but hopes for real progress in 2013
  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Follow live updates as UN investigators warn of 'deepening sectarian divides' in Syria
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Hong Kong financial authorities are investigating the Swiss bank over possible misconduct related to the Asian financial centre's benchmark interest rate Hong Kong financial authorities said on Thursday that they are investigating Swiss bank UBS over possible misconduct related to the Asian financial centre's benchmark interest rate. The announcement by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city's de facto central bank, comes a day after UBS agreed to pay $1.5bn in fines for trying to manipulate Libor. The HKMA said on its website that it has launched a probe to determine whether there was any wrongdoing by UBS when it submitted information used to set the Hong Kong Interbank Offered Rate. It will also try to find out if the misconduct had any "material impact" on setting the rate, known as Hibor. The authority said it was tipped off by other regulatory authorities about the possible misconduct involving the rate and other key ones in the region. UBS said in an email statement that it will "work closely with various regulatory authorities to resolve issues relating to the setting of certain global benchmark interest rates," but would not comment further because it is in "active discussions with these authorities." On Wednesday, UBS agreed to pay $1.5bn in fines in a settlement with US, British and Swiss regulators. The bank said some of its employees tried to rig the Libor rate, short for London Interbank Offered Rate, in several currencies. Libor is set daily using information that banks provide and is used to price trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including mortgages and credit cards. Hibor is used mainly by Asian lenders and borrowers.
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