Senate’s pragmatic ranks depleted by one with Chambliss’s departure

The trio of Southern gentlemen came to the Senate together in 2003, the leading edge of a renegade Republican class set on shaking up the chamber’s staid ways and aggressively promoting the Bush White House’s conservative agenda.

Ten years later, Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) are now establishment dealmakers and elder statesmen — roles that earn them respect in Washington but could lead to tough challenges from fellow Republicans when they run for re-election next year.

On Friday, Chambliss announced that there would be no re-election for him, opting for retirement over another run that was certain to include a heated primary challenge, possibly from several candidates. Chambliss took pains to say that he would have won and instead cited Washington “gridlock” as his reason for retiring.

Regardless, Chambliss’s departure is another blow to the pragmatic wing of the Senate, with a lineup of potential successors all hailing from the staunchly conservative camp of the Georgia GOP.

Chambliss’s successor is likely to contribute to a rightward movement over the past four years that has made the ranks of Senate Republicans more conservative, but also led to repeated political disappointment. A handful of 2010 and 2012 Republican primaries produced nominees who bungled their way to general election defeat, when victory once appeared certain.

What happens with the other two Southerners could go a long way to determining the ideological makeup of the Senate Republican caucus.

Alexander and Graham are both running, raising money and appearing throughout their states. Alexander, a former two-term governor and U.S. education secretary, has the stronger footing for the moment, having locked up the endorsements of his state’s GOP congressional delegation and every prominent Republican state official. Graham has no prominent challenger yet, but Palmetto State Republicans are sizing up the race trying to decide if he’s ripe for a challenge.

That Alexander, Chambliss and Graham have found themselves in this situation, a decade after debuting as rabble rousers who helped return the chamber to GOP control, is the latest demonstration of how much the Republican Party has changed. Its voters more than ever demand a confrontational tone and in-your-face tactics, the sort of behavior that they have shied away from.

“The big change is in terms of strategy and tactics,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, noting that the three incumbents are all fairly conservative in their policy positions. “The war has changed. Republican voters want every fight to be hand-to-hand combat. They don’t want to give any ground.”

Alexander rejected the idea that the trio had “gone Washington” as they each became more powerful. “I know my way around here. We’re each finding our niche, and that’s pretty normal after 10 years,” he said in a recent interview.

Before his Friday announcement, Chambliss had been viewed as the most vulnerable Republican incumbent to a challenge from within. His apostasies to the new Republican posture were numerous in recent years, most prominently being his close partnership with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) in an effort to craft a bipartisan package of tax hikes and entitlement cuts to rein in the federal government’s $16.4 trillion debt.

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Thousands march in Washington for gun control

WASHINGTON: Thousands of people marched in Washington to demand stronger gun control legislation, in a solemn rally six weeks after the shock massacre of young children at a Connecticut school.

Protesters, backed by senior officials, marched in silence for around 30 minutes along the National Mall near the US Capitol and Washington Monument, carrying white placards marked with the names and pictures of gun crime victims.

The demonstration came after the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that saw a gunman mow down 20 young children and six adults, sparking a furious national debate over gun ownership. The shooter used a military-style assault weapon and handguns.

"No more talk. We must act, we must act, we must act," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, telling the crowd that when he headed up a network of Chicago schools from 1990 to 2000, a child was buried every two weeks due to gun violence.

"This has to change. Our children, our families, our communities, our country deserve better," he said to thunderous applause.

Around 270 million guns are in circulation in the United States -- almost one weapon for every man, woman and child -- where more than 32,000 people were fatally gunned down in 2011 alone.

Among the protesters were several friends, neighbors and relatives of the Newtown shooting victims.

Under chilly temperatures, the demonstrators held banners reading "Ban Assault Weapons Now" and "My children are more important than your guns."

Colin Goddard, survivor of the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech university that left 33 people dead including the gunman, said the latest spate of gun violence should trigger change.

"Enough is enough," he said. "Today is not the finish line, today is the starting block. This is not an individual race, but this is a team relay."

Washington Mayor Vincent Gray, who has come out in support of gun control, called for action to keep "each other safe from arms those irresponsible and irrational people who still go across our cities and our states and have access to guns in ways that they should not."

Duncan pledged that President Barack Obama's administration "will do everything in our power to make sure that we pass legislation that makes our children, our families, our communities safer."

In the wake of the Connecticut deaths, Obama signed 23 executive orders and also called on Congress to pass new laws in a series of sweeping measures aimed at addressing gun violence.

The proposed measures include a ban on military-style assault rifles and the closing of loopholes that allow many gun buyers to avoid background checks.

But securing congressional action will be difficult as many Republicans are vehemently opposed to the White House's plans, contending that the measures will infringe upon the constitutional right to bear arms.

Opposition to new laws is not purely along party lines. Some Democrats from states where hunting and shooting sports are popular support gun rights.

An ABC News poll this week found 53 percent of Americans back Obama's gun control plans, while 41 percent view it unfavorably.

"We know the fight will be difficult but that we will prevail," said march organizer Molly Smith.

- AFP/fa

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Sonia Gandhi was apologetic for Congress's midnight submission of suggestions: Justice J S Verma

NEW DELHI: Suggestions of the Congress party on changing anti-rape laws were delivered past midnight to Justice J S Verma leading to party chief Sonia Gandhi tendering an apology to him for the odd timing.

Justice Verma also said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were instrumental in forming the committee which gave far reaching recommendations favouring comprehensive amendments to criminal laws.

"Past mid-night, someone came to my residence, woke me up and wanted to hand over personally (the Congress party's suggestions). But somehow the Congress president came to know of it. She was very gracious and next day she rang me up personally and profusely apologised to my great embarrassment. I had to tell her do not do this," he told Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate Programme.

Justice Verma headed the three-member committee which was constituted by the government in the wake of the December 16 gangrape incident to suggest amendments to anti-rape laws.

On January 23, the committee submitted its recommendations seeking minimum 20 years imprisonment for gangrape and life term for rape and murder but refrained from prescribing death penalty. It also suggested amendment of criminal laws to provide for higher punishment to rapists, including those belonging to police and public servants.

New offences have been created and stiffer punishment has been suggested for those committing rape and leaving the victim in a vegetative state. These include disrobing a woman, voyeurism, stalking and trafficking.

Justice Verma said he took the chairmanship of the committee after Chidambaram called him up at the behest of Prime Minister Singh and he had not talked to Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde even once till now.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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Squatter, Bank of America Battle for $2.5M Mansion

Bank of America is taking a Florida man to court after he attempted to use an antiquated state law to legally take possession of a $2.5 million mansion that is currently owned by the bank.

Andre "Loki" Barbosa has lived in a five-bedroom Boca Raton, Fla., waterside property since July, and police have reportedly been unable to remove him.

The Brazilian national, 23, who reportedly refers to himself as "Loki Boy," cites Florida's "adverse possession" law, in which a party may acquire title from another by openly occupying their land and paying real property tax for at least seven years.

The house is listed as being owned by Bank of America as of July 2012, and that an adverse possession was filed in July. After Bank of America foreclosed on the property last year, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's Office was notified that Barbosa would be moving in, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

The Sun-Sentinel reported that he posted a notice in the front window of the house naming him as a "living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury."
On Facebook, a man named Andre Barbosa calls the property "Templo de Kamisamar."

After Barbosa gained national attention for his brazen attempt, Bank of America filed an injunction on Jan. 23 to evict Barbosa and eight unidentified occupants.

In the civil complaint, Bank of America said Barbosa and other tenants "unlawfully entered the property" and "refused to permit the Plaintiff agents entry, use, and possession of its property." In addition to eviction, Bank of America is asking for $15,000 in damages to be paid to cover attorney's expenses.

Police were called Dec. 26 to the home but did not remove Barbosa, according to the Sentinel. Barbosa reportedly presented authorities with the adverse possession paperwork at the time.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Povery Law Center, says police officers may be disinclined to take action even if they are presented with paperwork that is invalid.

"A police officer walks up to someone who is claiming a house now belongs to him, without any basis at all, is handed a big sheaf of documents, which are incomprehensible," Potok said. "I think very often the officers ultimately feel that they're forced to go back to headquarters and try to figure out what's going on before they can actually toss someone in the slammer."

A neighbor of the Boca property, who asked not be named, told ABCNews.com that he entered the empty home just before Christmas to find four people inside, one of whom said the group is establishing an embassy for their mission, and that families would be moving in and out of the property. Barbosa was also among them.

The neighbor said he believes that Barbosa is a "patsy."

"This young guy is caught up in this thing," the neighbor said. "I think it's going on on a bigger scale."

Barbosa could not be reached for comment.

The neighbor said that although the lights have been turned on at the house, the water has not, adding that this makes it clear it is not a permanent residence. The neighbor also said the form posted in the window is "total gibberish," which indicated that the house is an embassy, and that those who enter must present two forms of identification, and respect the rights of its indigenous people.

"I think it's a group of people that see an opportunity to get some money from the bank," the neighbor said. "If they're going to hold the house ransom, then the bank is going to have to go through an eviction process.

"They're taking advantage of banks, where the right hand doesn't know where the left hand is," the neighbor said. "They can't clap."

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Court says Obama exceeded authority in making appointments

President Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by making appointments when the Senate was on a break last year, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The court’s broad ruling would sharply limit the power that presidents throughout history have used to make recess appointments in the face of Senate opposition and inaction.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit flatly rejected the Obama administration’s rationale for appointing three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) while the Senate was on a holiday break.

Chief Judge David B. Sentelle sharply criticized the administration’s interpretation of when recess appointments may be made, saying it would give the president “free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction.” He added, “This cannot be the law.”

The issue seems certain to end up before the Supreme Court, which ultimately could clarify a president’s authority to fill his administration and appoint federal judges when a minority of the Senate blocks consideration of his choices.

Although recess appointments have been made throughout the nation’s history, they have been more commonly made by modern presidents who face partisan opposition that has made it hard for nominees to even receive a vote in the Senate.

Additionally, Friday’s decision casts doubt on hundreds of decisions the NLRB has made in the past year, ranging from enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements to rulings on the rights of workers to use social media.

The ruling also raises questions about the recess appointment of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to head the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and about the actions taken by the agency during his tenure, including major new rules governing the mortgage industry. Obama named Cordray at the same time as the NLRB nominees, and his appointment is the subject of a separate lawsuit in D.C. federal court.

The White House criticized the court ruling. “The decision is novel and unprecedented, and it contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Friday. “We respectfully but strongly disagree with the ruling.”

Presidents from both parties have made hundreds of recess appointments when the Senate has failed to act on nominations. Ronald Reagan holds the record with 243. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, made 105, and it was during his term that Senate Democrats began holding pro-forma sessions, some lasting less than a minute, when the Senate went on break. They contended that that kept the Senate in session and did not allow Bush to make recess appointments.

Republicans took up the practice when Obama was elected. But Obama decided to challenge it in January 2012, when the Senate was on a 20-day holiday but holding pro-forma sessions every three business days to block presidential action.

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Mini-tornado hits Australian town amid flood warnings

SYDNEY: A "mini-tornado" hit Australia's east coast on Saturday, officials said, as they warned parts of Queensland state to prepare for flooding, with torrential rains lashing the state set to intensify.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said the storm had caused much damage near Bundaberg, about 300 kilometres north of Brisbane, and several people were reportedly injured.

"We've had... what appears to be a mini-tornado, there are reports of significant damage," he told reporters in Brisbane.

"Unroofing of various buildings around that town, power lines down and potentially an incident where a tree has gone down on a motor vehicle with, I believe two occupants. We have declared a disaster in that area."

Queensland has experienced days of extremely heavy rainfall in the wake of tropical cyclone Oswald, and Newman warned that the government had concerns about potential flooding in Bundaberg and further south in Maryborough.

In Gladstone, north of Bundaberg, there are fears that flood waters could impact hundreds of properties, with evacuations already taking place.

Newman said south east Queensland is expected to receive up to 300 millimetres of rainfall in the coming days as he warned that many beaches were closed due to high winds, high tides and dangerous surf conditions.

"The rain event has only just started, there will be more intense rain over the next two days," he said.

"Right now we are trying to get a handle on what the potential impact of those rainfall figures across the catchment will be."

Queensland experienced massive floods in early 2011 that ultimately claimed more than 30 lives, flooded thousands of homes and brought the state's capital Brisbane to a standstill, and Newman said he was aware that people were anxious.

But he said the city's dams, which were already releasing controlled discharges, would be able to absorb the floodwaters if the forecasts were correct.

He said a key difference from 2011 was that the dam levels now are already lower than they were then.

"I understand that people are anxious," he said. "This is a tightrope, because I want to make sure that people have all the information but I don't want to alarm them unnecessarily. We are monitoring this very closely."

- AFP/fa

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Pilgrims from 54 countries participate in Paryavaran parade at Mahakumbh

LUCKNOW: Close to a thousand pilgrims - from across India and around the world -- will march together to celebrate Republic Day on the banks of the Ganga at the Kumbh Mela on Saturday, as part of an environmental parade to call for India's independence from pollution and to pay homage to the war heroes, who have faithfully served India's past.

The initiative has been taken by Swami Chidanand Saraswati, Founder of Ganga Action Parivar and President of Parmarth Niketan Ashram, Rishikesh, who said that participants from of all castes, creeds and cultures will come together to call for an Indian "Clean Revolution."

The parade goers, hailing from more than 54 countries, as well as students from the northeast states of India, will wave their national flags, colorful banners and slogan-signs calling for all to keep 'Mother India and Mother Ganga' pollution-free.

Talking to reporters he stated, "We are gathering to send a strong message that together, we can clean up the Ganga, just as She cleanses us. Today, we celebrate our freedom of sovereignty, but we are not truly free until our country is liberated of pollution. We must continue to work and to strive for the freedom to live in a country blessed with clean air, water and land. Ganga's rights are our rights! We worked and fought long and hard for our own independence. Now we must work for Ganga's rights!"

It may be noted that nearly 3 billion liters of sewage and chemical waste are poured into the Ganga. This dumping, combined with the obstruction and diversion of its water has resulted in water shortages, toxic drinking water, and the virtual disappearance of segments of the river.

The event will also pay respect to the war heroes, who have protected the land, culture and people of India. In doing so, it will send a message of inspiration for all to serve in the footsteps of these martyrs and veterans in order to preserve our environment.

The procession will begin at 4pm on banks of the Ganga on the main Kumbh Mela grounds, sector 2, police line, near the fort and will end at Sangam Nose, main snan ghat, approximately 1.5 km from starting point.

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Pictures: The Story Behind Sun Dogs, Penitent Ice, and More

Photograph by Art Wolfe, Getty Images

If you want the beauty of winter without having to brave the bone-chilling temperatures blasting much of the United States this week, snuggle into a soft blanket, grab a warm beverage, and curl up with some of these natural frozen wonders.

Nieve penitente, or penitent snow, are collections of spires that resemble robed monks—or penitents. They are flattened columns of snow wider at the base than at the tip and can range in height from 3 to 20 feet (1 to 6 meters). The picture above shows the phenomenon in central Chile. (See pictures of the patterns in snow and ice.)

Nieve penitente tend to form in shallow valleys where the snow is deep and the sun doesn't shine at too steep an angle, said Kenneth Libbrecht, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who studies ice crystal formation.

As the snow melts, dirt gets mixed in with the runoff and collects in little pools here and there, he said. Since the dirt is darker in color than the surrounding snow, the dirty areas melt faster "and you end up digging these pits," explained Libbrecht.

"They tend to form at high altitude," he said. But other than that, no one really knows the exact conditions that are needed to form penitent snow.

"They're fairly strong," Libbrecht said. "People have found [the spires] difficult to hike through."

—Jane J. Lee

Published January 25, 2013

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WH, Senators to Begin Push on Immigration Reform

The White House and a bipartisan group of senators next week plan to begin their efforts to push for comprehensive immigration reform.

President Barack Obama will make an announcement on immigration during a Tuesday trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, the White House said on Friday. The Senate group is expected make their plans public around the same time, the Associated Press reported.

See Also: Where Do Labor Unions Stand on Immigration?

For Obama, immigration reform is a campaign promise that has remained unfulfilled from his first White House run in 2008. During his 2012 re-election campaign, the president vowed to renew his effort to overhaul the nation's immigration system. It has long been expected that Obama would roll out his plans shortly after his inauguration.

The president's trip to Las Vegas is designed "to redouble the administration's efforts to work with Congress to fix the broken immigration system this year," the White House said.

Ever since November's election, in which Latino voters turned out in record numbers, Republicans and Democrats have expressed a desire to work on immigration reform. Obama has long supported a bill that would make many of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants without criminal records eligible to apply for an earned pathway to citizenship, which includes paying fines and learning English.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

But the debate over a pathway to citizenship is expected to be contentious. Other flashpoints in an immigration reform push could include a guest-worker program, workplace enforcement efforts, border security, and immigration backlogs.

In a statement, the White House said that "any legislation must include a path to earned citizenship."

Ahead of his immigration push next week, Obama met today with a group of lawmakers from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), including chairman Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas) , Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), and CHC Immigration Task Force Chair Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), the latter's office said. CHC members are expected to play a pivotal role in the debate.

"The president is the quarterback and he will direct the team, call the play, and be pivotal if we succeed. I am very optimistic based on conversations with Republicans in the House and Senate that we will do more than just talk about the immigration issue this year," Gutierrez said in a statement following the CHC meeting with Obama. "The president putting his full weight and attention behind getting a bill signed into law is tremendously helpful. We need the president and the American people all putting pressure on the Congress to act because nothing happens in the Capitol without people pushing from the outside."

A bipartisan group of eight senators, which includes Menendez, has also begun talks on drafting an immigration bill and will play an integral part in the process of passing a bill through Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been participating in talks with others senators, has also unveiled his own outline for an immigration proposal.

The group of senators have reportedly eyed Friday as the date when they'll unveil their separate proposal, according to the Washington Post.

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OPM plans to shake up charity program raise concerns about reduced donations

The Office of Personnel Management wants to shake up the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), the charitable-giving system for federal employees, but in the process the agency could risk losing donors and reducing contributions.

One rule under review by the Obama administration would “eliminate the use of cash, check and money order contributions. Instead, all donations will be required to be made through electronic means.”

This could “streamline the operations,” as proposed rules from OPM suggest, but whether it also would “increase the effectiveness of the program to ensure its continued growth and success” is questionable.

The reason: In 2011, the last year for which OPM data are available, just 22 percent of the money pledged was donated electronically. Moreover, 88.4 percent of the donors did not make electronic contributions.

So, a move to electronic-only donations would seem to put CFC at risk of losing a majority of its donors. The proposal worries executives of some charitable organizations, even as they welcome other sections of the plan.

Federal employees contribute through the CFC to various charities. Donations exceeded $272 million in 2011. That’s a lot of money, but it represents a drop of almost $10 million from 2009, the high point.

An OPM spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on rules under review. In the 53-page document that contains the proposed regulations, however, OPM Director John Berry wrote:

“These proposed changes will introduce efficiencies and cost savings into the CFC by leveraging technology that was not widely available just a few years ago. They will make the CFC more efficient, more transparent, more accountable and more relevant to Federal, Postal and military service personnel who want to make the biggest impact with their donations.”

Scott Jackson, chief executive of Global Impact, said electronic giving can save $14 a pledge, by reducing processing costs.

“That’s very, very powerful,” he added. How the change to electronic-only contributions might effect donations presents “important issues to work through,” he said. Global Impact administers the overseas campaign of the CFC.

Those issues leave Stephen M. Delfin “highly concerned.” He is president and chief executive of America’s Charities, a group that works with CFC organizations. Delfin said he is worried that the rules, previously reported by the Federal Times, could result in lower donations.

“You have to be careful,” he said. “Technology is not a panacea.”

Marshall Strauss, chief executive of the Workplace Giving Alliance, a consortium of CFC federations, agreed. Although he thinks “electronic donations are an excellent addition to the campaign,” he said he worries that relying solely on that “may dramatically reduce the number of people giving and the overall receipts of the campaign. Many thousands of people prefer to give by check or even cash, and we would hope the government would preserve these options.”

In addition to electronic-only giving, Delfin and others have concerns about a proposal to eliminate 184 local CFC committees in favor of fewer and larger regional panels.

This would require “a reduced number of Federal personnel for oversight purposes,” according to the plan.

But it also would diminish the sense of community that charitable leaders say is crucial in motivating individuals to give.

Dumping the local committees will shrink the “person-to-person feeling of the campaign, which is very, very important,” said Kalman Stein, president and CEO of EarthShare, which was recently selected to administer the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area.

Stein said that he doesn’t think OPM understands “how critical that local component is” and that he is “very concerned the campaign will decline precipitously” if the Local Federal Coordinating Committees are eliminated.

“Our history shows that more consolidation leads to less donations,” said Stein, who, along with Strauss, was a member of the CFC-50 Commission. The commission, formed in 2011 to mark CFC’s 50th anniversary, issued a report last year. A number of its recommendations were incorporated into OPM’s proposals.

But Stein said consolidating the local committees into regional ones would go “way beyond the commission’s recommendations.”

The commission said its 24 recommendations were designed to further encourage a “history of giving” by federal employees, who have “set the standard for workplace giving to charitable organizations.”

But the recent decrease in donations “is a cause for concern,” the report said.

Now there is concern that parts of the OPM plan could make the situation worse.

Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.

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Man sails from PNG to Australian island on twig raft

SYDNEY: A Polish man was lucky to be alive on Friday after sailing from Papua New Guinea to a north Australian island on a raft made of twigs and sticks, through crocodile and shark-infested waters, during a cyclone.

The man was found washed up in mangroves on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait, a treacherous stretch of water that lies between the two countries.

What made his survival even more miraculous was that he attempted the trip in the aftermath of Cyclone Oswald, with 1.5 metre (five foot) swells and 40 knot winds, rescue authorities said.

"It's the first time I've heard of someone trying to cross the Torres Strait in a raft in the middle of a cyclone," Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) spokeswoman Jo Meehan told AFP, adding that the flimsy raft was held together with string.

"It's not something we'd recommend. Navigation in the area is challenging for normal vessels, it's quite treacherous with reefs and rocks, and he did it in high winds and high seas.

"He's very lucky to have made it."

Australian immigration authorities said they were waiting to interview the man and it was not clear whether he was carrying a passport.

"He has been transferred to Thursday Island where he has been detained," a spokesman said, adding that the man was being medically assessed before being interviewed to find out why he made the trip.

AMSA was alerted when residents of Saibai, which is part of Australia but only four kilometres from Papua New Guinea, spotted the man offshore on Thursday.

They sent a helicopter and a customs ship but failed to find him, so they called in local police who discovered the exhausted man in the mangroves.

Australian media reported said the Pole, who has not been named, set off from Sigabadura village in Papua New Guinea on Wednesday and that locals tried talking him out of the voyage.

One report, citing Australian authorities, said he had been dropped in Papua New Guinea by a yacht.

- AFP/fa

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India to continue to push for David Headley's extradition after he gets 35 years in jail

NEW DELHI: India on Friday said it will continue to press for extradition of David Headley from the US after the Pakistani-American LeT terrorist escaped death penalty for helping plot the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and sentenced to 35 years in jail by an American court.

External affairs minister Salman Khurshid said the government was "slightly disappointed" over the quantum of sentence, saying the 52-year-old convict should have got the "severest sentence".

Asserting that India's demand was Headley should be tried in India, Khurshid said he would have possibly got a "serious and severe" sentence in this country. Khurshid, however, said the sentence handed over to Headly was a "beginning".

"The 35 year sentencing and what the judge said is a beginning. We understand there are legal procedures in the US but nevertheless the position we have, the request(extradition) that we have made remains intact," Khurshid told reporters.

Union home secretary R K Singh also said that India will push for Headley's extradition.

Congress spokesman Rashid Alvi expressed disappointment at the verdict and demanded that he should be tried in India. BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy demanded that Headley should be extradited to India and be tried under Indian laws and given capital punishment.

"I think going by what the judge has said this should go "I think going by what the judge has said this should go a long way in hopefully conveying a very clear message that the kind of things that have been going on in the past will not be tolerated," Khurshid said. US District Judge Harry Leinenweber said yesterday, "The sentence I impose, I'm hopeful it will keep Mr Headley under lock and key for the rest of his natural life."

The judge said it would have been much easier to impose the death penalty. "That's what you deserve".

Headley had entered into a plea bargain with the US investigators under which he escaped death sentence. "Mr. Headley is a terrorist," the judge said while imposing the sentence on 12 counts in a packed court.

Leinenweber also said, "He commits crime, cooperates and then gets rewarded for the cooperation.

"No matter what I do, it is not going to deter terrorists. Unfortunately, terrorists do not care for it. I do not have any faith in Mr Headley when he says that he is a changed person now.

"I do believe that it is my duty to protect the public from Mr Headley and ensure that he does not get into any further terrorist activities. Recommending 35 years is not a right sentence".

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Deformed Dolphin Accepted Into New Family

In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)—animals not usually known for forging bonds with other species—had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

The researchers observed the group in the ocean surrounding the Azores (map)—about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal—for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Among terrestrial animals, cross-species interactions are not uncommon. These mostly temporary alliances are forged for foraging benefits and protection against predators, said Wilson.

They could also be satisfying a desire for the company of other animals, added marine biologist John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society (the Society owns National Geographic News).

Photographs of dogs nursing tiger cubs, stories of a signing gorilla adopting a pet cat, and videos of a leopard caring for a baby baboon have long circulated the Web and caught national attention.

A Rare Alliance

And although dolphins are known for being sociable animals, Wilson called the alliance between sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin rare, as it has never, to his knowledge, been witnessed before.

This association may have started with something called bow riding, a common behavior among dolphins during which they ride the pressure waves generated by the bow of a ship or, in this case, whales, suggested Francis.

"Hanging around slower creatures to catch a ride might have been the first advantage [of such behavior]," he said, adding that this may have also started out as simply a playful encounter.

Wilson suggested that the dolphin's peculiar spinal shape made it more likely to initiate an interaction with the large and slow-moving whales. "Perhaps it could not keep up with or was picked on by other members of its dolphin group," he said in an email.

Default

But the "million-dollar question," as Wilson puts it, is why the whales accepted the lone dolphin. Among several theories presented in an upcoming paper in Aquatic Mammals describing the scientists' observations, they propose that the dolphin may have been regarded as nonthreatening and that it was accepted by default because of the way adult sperm whales "babysit" their calves.

Sperm whales alternate their dives between group members, always leaving one adult near the surface to watch the juveniles. "What is likely is that the presence of the calves—which cannot dive very deep or for very long—allowed the dolphin to maintain contact with the group," Wilson said.

Wilson doesn't believe the dolphin approached the sperm whales for help in protecting itself from predators, since there aren't many dolphin predators in the waters surrounding the Azores.

But Francis was not so quick to discount the idea. "I don't buy that there is no predator in the lifelong experience of the whales and dolphins frequenting the Azores," he said.

He suggested that it could be just as possible that the sperm whales accepted the dolphin for added protection against their own predators, like the killer whale (Orcinus orca), while traveling. "They see killer whales off the Azores, and while they may not be around regularly, it does not take a lot of encounters to make [other] whales defensive," he said.

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It's Official: Women Will Serve in Combat

Women will soon be able to serve in combat, as things officially changed with the stroke of a pen today at the Pentagon.

At a joint news conference, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Charman Gen. Martin Dempsey signed a memorandum rolling back a 1994 directive prohibiting women from doing so.

"They serve, they're wounded, and they die right next to each other," Panetta said of women and men in the military. "The time has come to recognize that reality.

"If they're willing to put their lives on the line, then we need to recognize that they deserve a chance," Panetta said, noting that he wants his own granddaughters and grandsons to have the same opportunities in their lives and careers.

The change won't be immediate, however. While Panetta announced that thousands of new positions will now be open to women, he has asked the military branches to submit plans by May on how to integrate women into combat operations. He set a January 2016 deadline for branches to implement the changes, giving military services time to seek waivers for certain jobs.

Both Panetta and Dempsey said they believe the move will strengthen the U.S. military force.

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"Ultimately, we are acting to strengthen the armed forces," Dempsey said. "We will extend opportunities to women in a way that maintains readiness, morale and unit cohesion."

Women have already served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, as ABC News' Martha Raddatz and Elizabeth Gorman reported in 2009: Prohibited from serving in roles "whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground," women in support roles, nonetheless, served in support roles on the frontlines, where they have fought, been wounded and died.

Women have also flown combat missions since 1993 and have served on submarines since 2010.

Panetta noted that 152 women have died serving in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dempsey said he realized a change was inevitable when he noticed two female turret gunners protecting a senior military officer.

"It's clear to all of us that women are contributing in unprecedented ways to the military's mission of defending the nation," Panetta said. "Women represent 15 percent of the force of over 200,000 [and] are serving in a growing number of critical roles on and off the battlefield.

"I've gone to Bethesda to visit wounded warriors, and I've gone to Arlington to bury our dead. There's no distincton."

Panetta and Dempsey said President Obama supported the move, while warning them to maintain military readiness as they considered the change.

Obama hailed the move in a written statement

"Today, by moving to open more military positions -- including ground combat units -- to women, our armed forces have taken another historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens," he said.

"This milestone reflects the courageous and patriotic service of women through more than two centuries of American history and the indispensable role of women in today's military," Obama said.

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OPM plans to shake up charity program raise concerns about reduced donations

The Office of Personnel Management wants to shake up the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), the charitable-giving system for federal employees, but in the process the agency could risk losing donors and reducing contributions.

One rule under review by the Obama administration would “eliminate the use of cash, check and money order contributions. Instead, all donations will be required to be made through electronic means.”

This could “streamline the operations,” as proposed rules from OPM suggest, but whether it also would “increase the effectiveness of the program to ensure its continued growth and success” is questionable.

The reason: In 2011, the last year for which OPM data are available, just 22 percent of the money pledged was donated electronically. Moreover, 88.4 percent of the donors did not make electronic contributions.

So, a move to electronic-only donations would seem to put CFC at risk of losing a majority of its donors. The proposal worries executives of some charitable organizations, even as they welcome other sections of the plan.

Federal employees contribute through the CFC to various charities. Donations exceeded $272 million in 2011. That’s a lot of money, but it represents a drop of almost $10 million from 2009, the high point.

An OPM spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on rules under review. In the 53-page document that contains the proposed regulations, however, OPM Director John Berry wrote:

“These proposed changes will introduce efficiencies and cost savings into the CFC by leveraging technology that was not widely available just a few years ago. They will make the CFC more efficient, more transparent, more accountable and more relevant to Federal, Postal and military service personnel who want to make the biggest impact with their donations.”

Scott Jackson, chief executive of Global Impact, said electronic giving can save $14 a pledge, by reducing processing costs.

“That’s very, very powerful,” he added. How the change to electronic-only contributions might effect donations presents “important issues to work through,” he said. Global Impact administers the overseas campaign of the CFC.

Those issues leave Stephen M. Delfin “highly concerned.” He is president and chief executive of America’s Charities, a group that works with CFC organizations. Delfin said he is worried that the rules, previously reported by the Federal Times, could result in lower donations.

“You have to be careful,” he said. “Technology is not a panacea.”

Marshall Strauss, chief executive of the Workplace Giving Alliance, a consortium of CFC federations, agreed. Although he thinks “electronic donations are an excellent addition to the campaign,” he said he worries that relying solely on that “may dramatically reduce the number of people giving and the overall receipts of the campaign. Many thousands of people prefer to give by check or even cash, and we would hope the government would preserve these options.”

In addition to electronic-only giving, Delfin and others have concerns about a proposal to eliminate 184 local CFC committees in favor of fewer and larger regional panels.

This would require “a reduced number of Federal personnel for oversight purposes,” according to the plan.

But it also would diminish the sense of community that charitable leaders say is crucial in motivating individuals to give.

Dumping the local committees will shrink the “person-to-person feeling of the campaign, which is very, very important,” said Kalman Stein, president and CEO of EarthShare, which was recently selected to administer the Combined Federal Campaign of the National Capital Area.

Stein said that he doesn’t think OPM understands “how critical that local component is” and that he is “very concerned the campaign will decline precipitously” if the Local Federal Coordinating Committees are eliminated.

“Our history shows that more consolidation leads to less donations,” said Stein, who, along with Strauss, was a member of the CFC-50 Commission. The commission, formed in 2011 to mark CFC’s 50th anniversary, issued a report last year. A number of its recommendations were incorporated into OPM’s proposals.

But Stein said consolidating the local committees into regional ones would go “way beyond the commission’s recommendations.”

The commission said its 24 recommendations were designed to further encourage a “history of giving” by federal employees, who have “set the standard for workplace giving to charitable organizations.”

But the recent decrease in donations “is a cause for concern,” the report said.

Now there is concern that parts of the OPM plan could make the situation worse.

Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.

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Resurgent inflation dampens Vietnam stimulus hopes

HANOI: Vietnam's inflation accelerated in January, according to official data, reducing expectations of further monetary stimulus to boost the economy.

Consumer prices were up by 7.07 percent this month from a year earlier, following a 6.8 rise in December, the General Statistics Office in Hanoi said in a statement. Month-on-month prices gained 1.25 percent.

A further increase in prices is expected next month due to high demand before the Lunar New Year festival which starts on February 10, one Hanoi-based banker who did not want to be named told AFP.

Vietnam repeatedly raised interest rates in 2011 to prevent the economy from overheating and to rein in double-digit inflation, but with the economy cooling the authorities last year resumed monetary stimulus efforts.

The central bank in December cut interest rates for the sixth time since March as annual economic growth slowed to the weakest pace in 13 years, at roughly five percent for 2012.

Resurgent inflation is now seen as limiting the scope for further monetary stimulus that could stoke price pressures.

"It will not be easy to keep inflation below the government's initial target of 6.9 percent" in 2013, said one independent analyst who asked not to be named.

"The authorities will have to be very careful about future monetary policy. It is too early to say if they will have to raise interest rates again. They are in the middle of nowhere and don't know which path to follow."

The communist nation's economic woes are compounded by worries over toxic debts in the banking sector, falling foreign direct investment and a string of financial scandals among state-owned firms.

- AFP/al

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Deformed Dolphin Accepted Into New Family

In 2011, behavioral ecologists Alexander Wilson and Jens Krause of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany were surprised to discover that a group of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)—animals not usually known for forging bonds with other species—had taken in an adult bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).

The researchers observed the group in the ocean surrounding the Azores (map)—about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of Lisbon, Portugal—for eight days as the dolphin traveled, foraged, and played with both the adult whales and their calves. When the dolphin rubbed its body against the whales, they would sometimes return the gesture.

Among terrestrial animals, cross-species interactions are not uncommon. These mostly temporary alliances are forged for foraging benefits and protection against predators, said Wilson.

They could also be satisfying a desire for the company of other animals, added marine biologist John Francis, vice president for research, conservation, and exploration at the National Geographic Society (the Society owns National Geographic news).

Photographs of dogs nursing tiger cubs, stories of a signing gorilla adopting a pet cat, and videos of a leopard caring for a baby baboon have long circulated the web and caught national attention.

A Rare Alliance

And although dolphins are known for being sociable animals, Wilson called the alliance between sperm whale and bottlenose dolphin rare, as it has never, to his knowledge, been witnessed before.

This association may have started with something called bow riding, a common behavior among dolphins during which they ride the pressure waves generated by the bow of a ship or, in this case, whales, suggested Francis.

"Hanging around slower creatures to catch a ride might have been the first advantage [of such behavior]," he said, adding that this may have also started out as simply a playful encounter.

Wilson suggested that the dolphin's peculiar spinal shape made it more likely to initiate an interaction with the large and slow-moving whales. "Perhaps it could not keep up with or was picked on by other members of its dolphin group," he said in an email.

Default

But the "million-dollar question," as Wilson puts it, is why the whales accepted the lone dolphin. Among several theories presented in an upcoming paper in Aquatic Mammals describing the scientists' observations, they propose that the dolphin may have been regarded as nonthreatening and that it was accepted by default because of the way adult sperm whales "babysit" their calves.

Sperm whales alternate their dives between group members, always leaving one adult near the surface to watch the juveniles. "What is likely is that the presence of the calves—which cannot dive very deep or for very long—allowed the dolphin to maintain contact with the group," Wilson said.

Wilson doesn't believe the dolphin approached the sperm whales for help in protecting itself from predators, since there aren't many dolphin predators in the waters surrounding the Azores.

But Francis was not so quick to discount the idea. "I don't buy that there is no predator in the lifelong experience of the whales and dolphins frequenting the Azores," he said.

He suggested that it could be just as possible that the sperm whales accepted the dolphin for added protection against their own predators, like the killer whale (Orcinus orca), while traveling. "They see killer whales off the Azores, and while they may not be around regularly, it does not take a lot of encounters to make [other] whales defensive," he said.

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Pentagon to Allow Women in Combat

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will lift a longstanding ban on women serving in combat, according to senior defense officials.

The services have until this May to come up with a plan to implement the change, according to a Defense Department official.

That means the changes could come into effect as early as May, though the services will have until January 2016 to complete the implementation of the changes.

"We certainly want to see this executed responsibly but in a reasonable time frame, so I would hope that this doesn't get dragged out," said former Marine Capt. Zoe Bedell, who joined a recent lawsuit aimed at getting women on the battlefield.

The military services also will have until January 2016 to seek waivers for certain jobs -- but those waivers will require a personal approval from the secretary of defense and will have to be based on rationales other than the direct combat exclusion rule.

The move to allow women in combat, first reported by the Associated Press, was not expected this week, although there has been a concerted effort by the Obama administration to further open up the armed forces to women.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended in January to Secretary Panetta that the direct combat exclusion rule should be lifted.

"I can confirm media reports that the secretary and the chairman are expected to announce the lifting of the direct combat exclusion rule for women in the military," said a senior Defense Department official. "This policy change will initiate a process whereby the services will develop plans to implement this decision, which was made by the secretary of defense upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey sent Panetta a memo earlier this month entitled, "Women in Service Implementation Plan."

Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

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"The time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service," the memo read.

"To implement these initiatives successfully and without sacrificing our warfighting capability or the trust of the American people, we will need time to get it right," he said in the memo, referring to the 2016 horizon.

Women have been officially prohibited from serving in combat since a 1994 rule that barred them from serving in ground combat units. That does not mean they have been immune from danger or from combat.

As Martha Raddatz reported in 2009, women have served in support positions on and off the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, putting them at equal risk. Hundreds of thousands of women deployed with the military to those two war zones over the past decade. Hundreds have died.

READ MORE: Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan

"The reality of the battlefield has changed really since the Vietnam era to where it is today," said Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a former military helicopter pilot who lost both her legs in combat. "Those distinctions on what is combat and what is not really are falling aside. So I think that after having seen women, men, folks who -- cooks, clerks, truck drivers -- serve in combat conditions, the reality is women are already in combat."

Woman have been able to fly combat sorties since 1993. In 2010, the Navy allowed them on submarines. But lifting restrictions on service in frontline ground combat units will break a key barrier in the military.

READ MORE: Smooth Sailing for First Women to Serve on Navy Submarines

READ MORE: Female Fighter Pilot Breaks Gender Barriers

Panetta's decision will set a January 2016 deadline for the military service branches to argue that there are military roles that should remain closed to women.

In February 2012 the Defense Department opened up 14,500 positions to women that had previously been limited to men and lifted a rule that prohibited women from living with combat units.

Panetta also directed the services to examine ways to open more combat roles to women.

However, the ban on direct combat positions has remained in place.

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Indian panel likely to recommend tougher rape law

NEW DELHI: A government commission tasked with looking at India's sex crime laws after the gang-rape of a student on a New Delhi bus is expected to recommend tougher sentences as it reports its findings Wednesday.

A three-member commission led by former chief justice of India Jagdish Sharan Verma will hand over its recommendations to the government, which faced violent protests following the fatal gang-rape on December 16.

"The report will be submitted to the home ministry today and the committee members will give details of their recommendations to the media," ministry spokesman Kuldeep Singh Dhatwalia told AFP.

Judge Verma received thousands of suggestions after he set January 5 as a deadline for comments from jurists, women's groups and other forums to revamp existing legislation to deal with sex offenders.

The panel was formed in late December amid demands for greater protection for women after the brutal assault of a 23-year-old student by six rapists after she boarded a bus in New Delhi with her boyfriend.

India's 153-year-old penal code stipulates rapists should serve a minimum of seven years in prison and a maximum of life, while gang-rape convicts face a minimum term of 10 years and life imprisonment.

Media reports say India's ruling Congress party has suggested the death penalty for rapists in exceptional cases, while "chemical castration" -- using drugs to eliminate sex drive -- has also been raised.

The government, which has announced new "fast-track" courts to speed up India's notoriously slow justice system and efforts to boost the number of women police officers, has declined to comment on the panel's work.

Though sexual harassment is commonplace in India, the student's gang-rape has touched a nerve, leading to an outpouring of criticism about the treatment of women in Indian society.

Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi on Sunday condemned the "shameful" social attitudes that she said led to crimes like gang-rape. The case had "shaken the entire country", she added.

-AFP/fl

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Slight respite from cold conditions in Kashmir Valley

SRINAGAR: Residents of Kashmir got a slight respite from the bitter cold conditions as the night temperatures across the Valley registered an increase of several degrees.

The weather has remained dry even as the met department predicted light rainfall or snowfall for Wednesday and Thursday.

Most of the water bodies across the Valley, including the world famous Dal Lake, continued to be partially frozen. The summer capital Srinagar, which recorded a low of minus 5.3 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, was warmer by two notches at minus of 3.2 degrees Celsius during the night, a met department spokesman said.

He said the highway town of Qazigund in south Kashmir registered an increase of over six notches in the night temperature to settle at minus 4.0 degrees Celsius as against Tuesday's minus of 10.3 degrees Celsius.

The night temperature in Kokernag settled at a low of minus 8.2 degrees Celsius as compared to minus 8.7 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, the spokesman said.

He said in north Kashmir's Kupwara town, where the previous night's minimum was minus 4.8 degree Celsius, the minimum temperature showed an increase of three degrees to settle at a low of minus 1.7 degree Celsius during the night.

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The Promise and Perils of Mining Asteroids

Encouraged by new space technologies, a growing fleet of commercial rockets and the vast potential to generate riches, a group of entrepreneurs announced Tuesday that they planned to mine the thousands of near-Earth asteroids in the coming decades.

The new company, Deep Space Industries (DSI), is not the first in the field, nor is it the most well-financed. But with their ambition to become the first asteroid prospectors, and ultimately miners and manufacturers, they are aggressively going after what Mark Sonter, a member of DSI's board of directors, called "the main resource opportunity of the 21st century." (Related: "Asteroid Hunter to Be First Private Deep-Space Mission?")

Prospecting using miniaturized "cubesat" probes the size of a laptop will begin by 2015, company executives announced. They plan to return collections of asteroid samples to Earth not long after.

"Using low cost technologies, and combining the legacy of [the United States'] space program with the innovation of today's young high tech geniuses, we will do things that would have been impossible just a few years ago," said Rick Tumlinson, company chairman and a longtime visionary and organizer in the world of commercial space [not sure what commercial space means].

"We sit in a sea of resources so infinite they're impossible to describe," Tumlinson said.

Added Value

There are some 9,000 asteroids described as "near-Earth," and they contain several classes of resources that entrepreneurs are now eyeing as economically valuable.

Elements such as gold and platinum can be found on some asteroids. But water, silicon, nickel, and iron are the elements expected to become central to a space "economy" should it ever develop.

Water can be "mined" for its hydrogen (a fuel) and oxygen (needed for humans in space), while silicon can be used for solar power systems, and the ubiquitous nickel and iron for potential space manufacturing. (See an interactive on asteroid mining.)

Sonter, an Australian mining consultant and asteroid specialist, said that 700 to 800 near-Earth asteroids are easier to reach and land on than the moon.

DSI's prospecting spacecraft will be called "FireFlies," a reference to the popular science fiction television series of the same name. The FireFlies will hitchhike on rockets carrying up communication satellites or scientific instruments, but they will be designed so that they also have their own propulsion systems. The larger mining spacecraft to follow have been named "DragonFlies."

Efficiencies

It all sounds like science fiction, but CEO David Gump said that the technology is evolving so quickly that a space economy can soon become a reality. Providing resources from beyond Earth to power spacecraft and keep space travelers alive is the logical way to go.

That's because the most expensive and resource-intensive aspect of space travel is pushing through the Earth's atmosphere. Some 90 percent of the weight lifted by a rocket sending a capsule to Mars is fuel. Speaking during a press conference at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in California, Gump said that Mars exploration would be much cheaper, and more efficient, if some of the fuel could be picked up en route. (Related: "7 Ways You Could Blast Off by 2023.")

Although there is little competition in the asteroid mining field so far, DSI has some large hurdles ahead of it. The first company to announce plans for asteroid mining was Planetary Resources, Inc. in spring 2012—the group is backed by big-name investors such as Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, filmmaker James Cameron, and early Google investor Ram Shriram. DSI is still looking for funding.

Owning Asteroids

While these potential space entrepreneurs are confident they can physically lay claim to resources beyond Earth, there remain untested legal issues.

The United Nations Space Treaty of 1967 expressly forbids ownership of other celestial bodies by governments on Earth. But American administrations have long argued that the same is not true of private companies and potential mining rights.

While an American court has ruled that an individual cannot own an asteroid—as in the case of Gregory Nemitz, who laid claim to 433 Eros as a NASA spacecraft was approaching it in 2001—the question of extraction rights has not been tested.

Moon rocks brought back to Earth during the Apollo program are considered to belong to the United States, and the Russian space agency has sold some moon samples it has returned to Earth-sales seen by some as setting a precedent.

Despite the potential for future legal issues, DSI's Gump said his group recently met with top NASA officials to discuss issues regarding technology and capital, and came away optimistic. "There's a great hunger for the idea of getting space missions done with smaller, cheaper 'cubesat' technology and for increased private sector involvement."

Everyone involved acknowledged the vast challenges and risks ahead, but they see an equally vast potential—both financial and societal.

"Over the decades, we believe these efforts will help expand the civilization of Earth into the cosmos, and change what it means to be a citizen of this planet," Tumlinson said.

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Al Qaeda Commander Killed for the 3rd Time

The second in command of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen in December, according to a news report by Arabic television network Al Arabiya, the third time the former Guantanamo detainee has been reported dead since 2010.

According to the report, Said al-Shihri died last month after sustaining severe injuries from a joint U.S.-Yemeni airstrike that targeted a convoy in which he was riding. The al Arabiya account, based on information from "family sources," said that the airstrike left al-Shihri in a coma. He allegedly died soon after and was buried in Yemen.

On Tuesday afternoon, hours after the initial report, a Yemeni government official denied having any information regarding the death of al-Shihri, according to Arabic news site al-Bawaba.

No photos of a body have yet surfaced and no mention of his death has appeared on jihadi forums.
This is the third time al-Shihri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has been reported killed since 2009. In 2010, the Yemeni government claimed it had captured him. In September 2012, Yemeni news sites reported he was killed in an American drone strike.

PHOTOS: Terrorists Who Came Back from the Grave

READ: Gitmo Detainee turned terror commander killed: Reports

Al-Shihri, a "veteran jihadist," traveled to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to fight coalition troops, only to be captured weeks later, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He was sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he stayed for six years before being released to Saudi Arabia. There, he entered a so-called "jihadi rehab" program that attempted to turn terrorists into art students by getting them to get "negative energy out on paper," as the program's director told ABC News in 2009.

READ: Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'

But just months after he supposedly entered the fingerpainting camp, al-Shihri reappeared in Yemen where he was suspected to have been behind a deadly bombing at the U.S. embassy there.

At the time, critics of the "jihadi rehab" program used al-Shihri as evidence that extremists would just go through the motions in order to be freed.

Click Here for the Blotter Homepage.

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At second inauguration, Obama relishes the rituals, as well as the smaller moments

The second time seemed to charm him.

The choreography of President Obama’s ceremonial inauguration Monday was nearly identical to that of his swearing-in four years ago: church, motorcade to the Capitol, invocation, oath, address, luncheon, parade, dancing.

This time, however, the man taking the oath of office was an experienced president, not a first-term senator. And Obama seemed determined to relish the rituals and have himself some fun.

In his public remarks, he spoke with conviction. From the Capitol steps, he asserted his intention to bind the nation closer together. He was sober in addressing members of Congress at a luncheon.

But the president also found joy in the smaller moments. He blew kisses as he walked the parade route with his jubilant wife, Michelle, beside him. He bobbed his head and grooved watching a drill group from Iowa pass by and waved the shaka sign to the marching band from his Hawaiian high school alma mater. On the dance floor later, he nuzzled his wife’s hair and crooned in her ear.

There was a majesty and gravity to Monday’s proceedings, but this time, unlike four years ago, Obama knows what his office demands, as well as the limits on its power. His life is not in transition like it was then. He is settled.

He seemed to recognize that the next time the country pauses to inaugurate a president, the Obamas will be moving out of the White House, departing the city by helicopter and heading home. After the ceremony on the Capitol steps, as the president headed inside, he turned back and stopped.

“I want to take a look, one more time,” Obama said. “I’m not going to see this again.”

He stood still and looked out at the panorama of flags waving and people, hundreds of thousands of them, cramming the Mall and chanting his name.

It was as if he wanted to engrave the picture on his mind.

And he seemed to savor such moments throughout the day.

When the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” he turned and broadly winked at his daughters, Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11.

Myrlie Evers-Williams, a civil rights activist whose husband, Medgar Evers, was assassinated in 1963 in his Mississippi driveway, delivered the invocation. She spoke of being challenged by adversity — “For every mountain, you gave us the strength to climb,” she said — and Obama, his eyes closed in prayer, lifted his shoulders and took a deep breath.

“Amen,” he said at the end of her prayer.

A man behind the president shouted, “Hallelujah!”

When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. delivered the president’s oath at 11:50 a.m., Obama flubbed a word, “the office of president of the United Sta—.” But it didn’t matter. He had recited the official oath correctly a day earlier, on Jan. 20, the inauguration date mandated by the Constitution. (His daughter Sasha already had congratulated him, too: “You didn’t mess up,” she told him in the Blue Room. )

Then, once Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) introduced him as “the 44th president of the United States,” Obama looked down and smiled. He gathered himself and pushed his chin up, understanding his role in addressing the nation far more clearly than he could have the first time around.

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RP's Jeyaretnam to hold Meet-the-People session on Wednesday

SINGAPORE: Reform Party candidate Kenneth Jeyaretnam has said he plans to hold a Meet-the-People's session on Wednesday evening.

He met Punggol East residents at Rumbia LRT Station at 7.30am on Tuesday, a day after he cancelled a feedback session with residents due to flu.

Speaking to Channel NewsAsia after breakfast, Mr Jeyaretnam said he will continue to walk the ground. So far, he has visited less than half of the 127 blocks in the ward.

Mr Jeyaretnam described the nine-day campaigning period as "inadequate", but believes he will be able to cover between 25 and 50 per cent of the remaining blocks.

He said residents have been generally positive thus far.

He added: "I think many people like our policies and they like our pledge to be a full-time MP, to live in the community and the fact that I am probably the best qualified candidate to raise the important national issues in Parliament."

Mr Jeyaretnam said the party has drawn up a list of residents' concerns on issues such as salary stagnation, housing affordability for young couples, and cleanliness and maintenance of the neighbourhood.

- CNA/al

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Cold wave continues to sweep Rajasthan

JAIPUR: Cold wave conditions on Tuesday continued to sweep Rajasthan where Sriganganagar recorded a low of 2.3 degrees Celsius.

Churu, Pilani, Chittorgarh, Dabok and Jaipur shivered at 2.8, 3.1, 3.5, 3.8 and 4.4 degrees Celsius respectively.

Other places recorded a low between 4.5 and 9 degrees Celsius, according to a MET report here.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Inauguration: 7.5 Things You Should Have Seen

A presidential inauguration is a big, long event that lasts all day and into the night–and who has time to really watch it? People have jobs, ones that don’t let you off for a federal holiday.

Everyone (or, at least, some) will be talking about it, which means potential embarrassment for anyone who doesn’t know what happened. Thankfully, ABC employs  news professionals stationed in Washington, D.C., to pay attention to these kinds of things and boil off some of the less noteworthy or interesting stuff, presenting you with short videos of everything that really mattered. Or at least the things a lot of people were talking about.

A full day of paying attention to President Obama’s second Inauguration leads one of those professionals to offer these 7 1/2 things:

1. Beyonce Sang the National Anthem

Boy, howdy! Did she ever? Beyonce has essentially become the Obama’s go-to female performer: She recorded a music video for Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative in 2011, and she performed at the president’s last inauguration in 2009. Her velvety, soulful “Star Spangled Banner” is getting good reviews.

2. Kelly Clarkson Also Sang

Kelly Clarkson is not as “in” with the First Couple as Beyonce seems to be, but they let her sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and she did a pretty good job with it. This was kind of weird, though, because at one point she said she loved Ron Paul, although she later said she would vote for Obama.

3.  Obama Talked About Gay Rights

This may not seem shocking since more than half the country, including President Obama, supports gay marriage. But the president made a point of mentioning gay rights during his speech, equating the struggles of the LGBT community with those of  past civil rights movements, and in doing so made history.

He name-checked Stonewall, the New York City bar that was raided by police in 1969 sparking riots to protest the anti-gay crackdown. And he actually used the word “gay”: “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said in his address.

Plenty of inaugural addresses have been chock full of rhetoric about freedom and equality, but in the last four years, the political culture surrounding gay rights has changed significantly, as more states legalized same-sex marriage and as broad swaths of the country got more comfortable with homosexuality in general. Obama’s “evolution” on gay marriage, and now his inaugural address, have helped signify that change.

4. Joe Biden Made Jokes and Shook Hands With People

Could we expect anything less?

Here’s how the Vice President toasting Sen. Chuck Schumer instead of President Obama at the big luncheon:  ”I raise my glass to a man who never, never, never operates out of fear, only operates out of confidence, and a guy–I’m toasting you, Chuck.” Watch it:

And here he is, scurrying around and jovially shaking hands with people along the parade route:

5. Richard Blanco Read a Poem That Was Sort of Whitman-esque, But Not Entirely

Cuban-born Richard Blanco became America’s first openly gay, Latino Inauguration poet. He read a nine-stanza poem entitled “One Today,” which set a kind of unifying American tableau scene.

6. Obama and Michelle Walked Around Outside The Limo

President Obama walked part of the parade route, from the Capitol to the White House, with Michelle. They waved to people. It is not entirely abnormal for a president to do this at an inaugural parade. But they walked quite a ways.

7. John Boehner: ‘Godspeed’

The speaker of the House presented American flags to Obama and Biden, telling them: “To you gentlemen, I say congratulations and Godspeed.”

7 1/2. Sasha and Malia Were There. 

Obama’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, were there. They didn’t really do much, but they did wear coats of different shades of purple that got a lot of  attention on Twitter.

Reports of the daughters looking at smartphones and applying lip gloss highlighted their day. As did this .gif of Sasha yawning.

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After the first black president, who will be second?

President Obama’s historic election in 2008 and his reelection last year proved decisively that race is no longer an insurmountable hurdle to high political office in the United States.

But the current pool of possible candidates suggests that the next black president will not be taking the oath of office anytime soon.

“In the shadow of Barack Obama, there’s not been a lot of growth,” Cornell Belcher, a pollster who was involved in the president’s 2008 campaign, said. “It is really hard for minorities to get elected at the statewide level, and before you start talking about president, frankly, you have to get elected to statewide office.”

The notion of a post-Obama reformation of black politics has not been borne out at the ballot box, as black politicians continue to struggle to win the statewide offices that are the traditional paths to the presidency.

While the election of the first black president marked a significant break from the country’s history of racial prejudice, race still matters: The vast majority of black elected officials are put into office by black voters. Even Obama needed large numbers of black and Latino votes to win, particularly last year, when a majority of whites voters voted for someone else.

Ashley Bell, a former county official in Georgia who switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party with an eye on a future run for statewide office, said that Obama “did convince a lot of young black politicians that they can aspire to crossover offices. We may not live in a post-racial America, but I think we do live in a new era of politics where, on either side of the aisle, everyone knows that a good political candidate is one with crossover appeal, be they white or black or Latino.”

While the country’s changing demographics will favor political leaders of color in the future, the current landscape remains challenging for minority candidates seeking statewide office, particularly governorships and U.S. Senate seats, the typical steppingstones to presidential bids.

Deval L. Patrick (D-Mass.) currently is the nation’s only black governor, and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is the only black member of the Senate, having recently been appointed to fill a vacancy.

Patrick, 56, is often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate, but he has said he has no plans to run in 2016. No other black politicians’ names have come up on the short list of credible contenders for the next national election.

On the GOP side of the aisle, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has been mentioned as a possible candidate but has steadfastly denied any interest. Colin Powell, who preceded Rice as President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, was once a favored GOP prospect, but he also declined to run.

Most recently, Herman Cain, a black Georgia businessman, was briefly a hit among Republican grass-roots activists in the run-up to the primaries, but he dropped his candidacy after a woman revealed a longtime extramarital affair and other women accused him of sexual harassment.

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China labour camps set for abolition: legal official

BEIJING: China's hugely controversial "re-education" labour camps are set to be abolished this year, state media Monday quoted a senior legal official as saying.

It is another signal that the widely criticised system -- where people can be sentenced to up to four years' "re-education" by a police panel, without an open trial -- is coming to an end.

The comments come after the Communist Party's new leader Xi Jinping said the party recognised as a "pressing problem" that it was "out of touch with the people".

About 60,000 people are detained in the camps, officials say, most of whom serve from six months to a year.

Opponents say the camps are used to silence government critics and would-be petitioners who seek to bring their complaints against officials to higher authorities.

Earlier this month reports emerged briefly that the system -- known as laojiao -- would be abolished. But they were swiftly deleted and replaced with predictions of reforms, with few details and no timetable.

Chen Jiping, deputy director of the China Law Society, was quoted by the China Daily as saying that a key meeting had agreed tightly to limit use of the system until it could be scrapped by China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC).

It added in reported speech that he described laojiao as having "made its contribution at a time when the Communist Party of China was consolidating the republic and rectifying social order, but now China has well-established legal systems".

"Ending the system requires the approval of the top legislature which originally endorsed laojiao in 1957," the paper said. The annual session of the NPC is due to be held in March.

Currently, people sentenced under the laojiao system are forced to perform manual labour such as farm or factory work, but do not receive a criminal conviction.

Authorities will need to replace it with alternative punishments for those accused of petty offences, the paper added.

"Chen's remarks suggest offenders are likely instead to get a court hearing, short-term detention or a fine," the newspaper said, citing "experts".

The scheme has faced growing criticism for being open to abuse and public anger has erupted over sentences deemed too harsh.

In a case which shocked the nation, Tang Hui, a mother whose 11-year-old daughter was abducted, raped and forced into prostitution, was sentenced to 18 months of laojiao after she demanded death penalties for seven men convicted in the case.

The 40-year-old also accused two police officers in her home city of Yongzhou, in the central province of Hunan, of being complicit in the crime. She was released within a week following public outrage.

Party officials visited Tang on Friday as part of an investigation into the decision to punish her. She is claiming compensation.

Earlier this month the official microblog of the CCTV state news channel quoted Meng Jianzhu, a member of the powerful 25-strong Politburo who oversees politics and legal affairs, as saying that China would stop using the system.

The reports were quickly removed, but the following day the China Daily said the government "will push reforms".

At the time news of the changes was widely welcomed on China's hugely popular microblogging sites.

-AFP/fl

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