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রবিবার, ১০ ফেব্রুয়ারি, ২০১৩
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Filipino extremists face new foe: fellow rebels
MANILA, Philippines (AP) ? After years of fighting the government from hidden jungle bases in the southern Philippines, an Al-Qaida-linked militant group is facing a new adversary: fellow Muslim insurgents who can match their guerrilla battle tactics and are eager to regain their lost stature by fighting the widely condemned terrorist group.
The emerging enmity between the Abu Sayyaf militants and the Moro rebels could bolster a decade-long campaign by the Philippines and Western countries to isolate the al-Qaida offshoot Abu Sayyaf, which remains one of the most dangerous groups in Southeast Asia.
In their first known major clash, Abu Sayyaf gunmen battled rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front in fighting early this week, leaving at least 22 combatants dead in the mountainous jungles on southern Jolo Island. A Moro rebel was beheaded ? Abu Sayyaf's signature act.
Bonded by blood ties and war, the two armed groups had co-existed for years on Jolo in a predominantly Muslim region, where abject poverty, guns and weak law enforcement have combined in an explosive mix to fuel their rebellions and pockets of lawlessness.
The trouble began after the Moro rebels ? seeking to regain their former dominance in the region ? tried to arrange the release of several hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf, including a prominent Jordanian TV journalist and two European tourists. When the Abu Sayyaf commanders refused to free the hostages, Moro rebels launched an attack.
The Moro rebels are now trying to rescue the captives and end the Abu Sayyaf's reign, Moro commander Khabier Malik told The Associated Press.
"We breath the same air, speak the same language and live and fight in the same jungle," he said by telephone. "We're a bigger force and we cannot allow this small group to reign with this brutality."
For years, a shadowy alliance is believed to have existed between the groups. While the Moro rebels signed a limited peace deal with the government years ago, some Moro commanders are suspected of giving sanctuary to Abu Sayyaf men and carrying out kidnappings for ransom with them.
"Collusion between the Abu Sayyaf Group and MNLF members ? many of whom are relatives ? on Jolo is a major reason why large swaths of the island have been essentially ungovernable for years," said Bryony Lau of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank. The government "should consider whether the recent clash has shifted relations between them in a way that could make it easier to isolate senior figures of the Abu Sayyaf Group."
But the rift offers no easy answers for the Philippines. Weaning the Moro rebels from hardened militants would mean a true government alliance with the rebels, some of whom are suspected of involvement in attacks on civilians and government forces.
Walking a tightrope amid the clashes, President Benigno Aquino III said the Moro offensive was not sanctioned by his government. But government officials also are not trying to stop the fighting, presumably hoping each group weakens the other. Police and soldiers have simply set up checkpoints to seal off the area around the fighting, trying to keep it from spilling into other rural areas.
Sulu provincial Governor Abdusakur Tan said he would allow the Moro attacks to continue, at least for now.
"They're cleaning their ranks. These kidnappers are either their former members or one of their own," Tan said.
The Moro National Liberation Front spearheaded an underground movement in the early 1970s for a separatist Islamic state. But it dropped its secessionist goal when it accepted limited autonomy for minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation's south, prompting key guerrillas to break away, including a Libyan-educated radical, who established the Abu Sayyaf.
Another major guerrilla bloc broke off from the original Moro group and formed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has emerged as the country's largest Muslim rebel group.
The Moro rebels were not required to disarm under the landmark 1996 peace deal, allowing fighters to settle to their Jolo communities with their weapons. The accord also lacked a provision to formally enlist the rebels in hunting down criminals and terrorists straying into their strongholds, an oversight that may have helped foster collusion years later between the Moro rebels and the Abu Sayyaf.
Philippine officials forged such a pact in peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front with impressive results. Hunted by U.S.-backed Filipino troops in 2005, Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and other militants sought refuge in a stronghold Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which turned them away. Janjalani, then among the most-wanted terrorist suspects in Southeast Asia, was killed by troops the following year on Jolo.
The Abu Sayyaf ? "Bearer of the Sword" in Arabic ? was founded with funds and training believed to come from a collection of Asian and Middle Eastern radical groups, including al-Qaida. It came to U.S. attention in 2001 when it kidnapped three Americans, one of whom was beheaded, along with dozens of Filipinos and openly swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden's movement.
The kidnappings prompted Washington to deploy hundreds of troops in the south in 2002 to train Philippine forces and share intelligence, helping the military capture or kill most of the Abu Sayyaf's top commanders. Now without a central leader, the group has less than 400 armed fighters, who the military says are constantly on the run from U.S.-backed local offensives.
Philippine security officials attribute the Abu Sayyaf's resilience to the difficulty of hunting down small pockets of fighters by soldiers unfamiliar with the vast mountainous jungles of Jolo and outlying islands.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/filipino-extremists-face-foe-fellow-rebels-084254946.html
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Opposition slams Venezuela devaluation, shoppers fret
CARACAS (Reuters) - Opposition leaders derided another currency devaluation by President Hugo Chavez's government as evidence of economic incompetence, while some anxious Venezuelans hit shops on Saturday in fear of price increases.
Though unseen in public since cancer surgery two months ago in Cuba, government ministers said Chavez personally ordered the fifth devaluation of the bolivar in a decade of socialist economics in the OPEC nation - this time by 32 percent.
"The Maduro-Cabello duo are finishing off our Venezuela, we must not allow it!" said opposition leader Henrique Capriles, accusing Vice President Nicolas Maduro and Congress head Diosdado Cabello of squandering revenue from high oil prices.
"They spent the money on (election) campaigning, corruption and gifts abroad. What a lying government!" Capriles said on Twitter.
The measure was announced before a four-day weekend for Venezuela's Carnival holiday to minimize political or market repercussions. It had been widely forecast by economists as a way of redressing distortions including a black market rate for dollars at four times the old official level of 4.3 bolivars.
Raising the rate to 6.3 bolivars will boost state finances by providing more local currency for each dollar of oil export revenue. But it also hikes prices for imports crucial to the oil-dependent economy, potentially fueling inflation - though the state will seek to brake that using price controls.
WALL STREET PRAISE
Maduro, who is Chavez's preferred successor should his cancer force a new presidential election, said the move was needed to optimize revenues, including to fund flagship social programs that are wildly popular among Venezuela's poor.
He said the devaluation was also a response to attacks on the bolivar by capitalist "speculators," adding that more economic measures would be announced in the days ahead, in line with Chavez's instructions to ministers who visited Havana.
"Our commander-president has decided them with full consciousness and clarity ... to guarantee economic growth and diversification this year," Maduro said. "We will push ahead with the perfect plan for the people's victory."
Critics, however, flooded Twitter with mocking references to a "red package," or socialist version, of an old-style International Monetary Fund economic package hated by leftists.
"The devaluation is not due to the crisis of global capitalism. It's due to the government's irresponsibility and worrying incoherence," said Ramon Aveledo, head of the opposition Democratic Unity coalition.
On Wall Street, analysts praised the move as necessary - albeit overdue - given the impact on state finances of heavy spending during Chavez's re-election campaign last year, and the soaring black market rate for the dollar.
Some calculated it would generate extra revenue equivalent to more than 3 percent of GDP.
"It is a positive development," said Goldman Sachs' Alberto Ramos. "Clearly, the economic and financial cost of waiting outweighed the political cost of the unpopular move to devalue."
The illegal rate jumped again, according to websites, immediately after the announcement. Publishing that rate is illegal in Venezuela. Some analysts predicted the government would be obliged to devalue again soon.
VENEZUELANS DEBATE MEASURE
On the streets of Caracas, ideological sparring and complicated economic calculations gave way to anxiety at the prospect of yet more price rises in an economy that for decades has suffered one of the world's highest inflation rates.
Already packing stores due to shortages of some goods, some shoppers began buying even more before prices rose.
"I'm sure everything will go up on Wednesday, so we have to take advantage now," said Alicia Leon, 67, packing a trolley with vegetables, fruit and other food at a supermarket in Caracas's bustling Chacao neighborhood.
Downtown in the emblematic Bolivar Square named for Venezuela's independence hero, and the president's idol, Simon Bolivar, 55-year-old Chavez supporter Omaira Fermin said she trusted the government to help the people.
"Salaries will rise thanks to President Chavez," she said. "There's a global financial crisis. Of course, Venezuela can't be immune to that. The problem is capitalism."
Officials have been at pains to stress that Chavez is still driving policy from his hospital in Cuba, despite Venezuelans having heard nothing from him since his December 11 operation.
They say he is improving after his fourth surgery for a cancer first diagnosed in his pelvic area in mid-2011. But there is no word on any homecoming date yet. Many Venezuelans suspect he will not be able to return to active rule.
Devaluations generally make a nation's exporters more competitive by lowering the cost of production.
But critics say the move is unlikely to contribute to a significant expansion of domestic industry because of the government's battle with the private sector, extensive price controls and sometimes uncompensated expropriations.
The central bank president, finance minister, energy minister and other senior officials met on Saturday to inaugurate Venezuela's new currency authority that will supervise the changes from Wednesday.
"We have hard work ahead," Finance Minister Jorge Giordani said at the event, shown live on TV.
Venezuela's heavily-traded bonds are likely to rise on the devaluation, given the healthier picture for state coffers.
(Additional reporting by Girish Gupta, Mario Naranjo and Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Vicki Allen)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/opposition-slams-venezuela-devaluation-shoppers-fret-154924110--sector.html
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শনিবার, ৯ ফেব্রুয়ারি, ২০১৩
NYC, New England brace for 1 to 3 feet of snow
A group of men help push a sports car up a snow-covered street in the Old Port section of Portland, Mane, during a snow storm, Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. The storm is expected to dump up to two feet of snow on the region. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A group of men help push a sports car up a snow-covered street in the Old Port section of Portland, Mane, during a snow storm, Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. The storm is expected to dump up to two feet of snow on the region. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
A runner runs in the snow in the park along Commonwealth Ave in Boston, Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Snow began falling across the Northeast on Friday, ushering in what was predicted to be a huge, possibly historic blizzard and sending residents scurrying to stock up on food and gas up their cars. The storm could dump 1 to 3 feet of snow from New York City to Boston and beyond. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Mary Ann Bova walks along a slippery snow covered sidewalk during a winter storm in Buffalo, N.Y., Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. In some upstate areas, snow fell early Friday morning and was expected to increase throughout the day, with the heaviest accumulations expected in eastern New York on Friday night.(AP Photo/David Duprey)
Riders wait in a bus stop where color-tinted windows collect snow during a storm, Friday, Feb. 8, 2013, in Portland, Maine. The National Weather Service says a blizzard warning is issued Friday evening for the southern coast. The forecast calls for up to 2 feet of snow and winds gusting to 50 mph.(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Morning rush hour traffic makes it's way over the Williamsburg bridge into Manhattan, Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 in New York. A storm poised to dump up to 3-feet of snow from New York City to Boston and beyond beginning Friday could be one for the record books, forecasters warned, as residents scurried to stock up on food and water and road crews readied salt and sand. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
BOSTON (AP) ? A storm that forecasters warned could be a blizzard for the history books began clobbering the New York-to-Boston corridor Friday, grounding flights, closing workplaces and sending people rushing to get home ahead of a possible 1 to 3 feet of snow.
From New Jersey to Maine, shoppers crowded into supermarkets and hardware stores to buy food, snow shovels, flashlights as well as generators ? something that became a precious commodity after Superstorm Sandy in October. Others gassed up their cars, another lesson learned all too well after Sandy. Across much of New England, schools closed well ahead of the first snowflakes.
"This is a storm of major proportions. Stay off the roads. Stay home," said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.
The snowstorm mercifully arrived at the start of a weekend, which means fewer cars on the road and extra time for sanitation crews to clear the mess before commuters in the New York-to-Boston corridor of roughly 25 million people have to go back to work. But it could also mean a weekend cooped up indoors.
Rainy Neves, a mother of two in Cambridge, Mass., did some last-minute shopping at a grocery store, filing her cart to the brim.
"Honestly, a lot of junk ? a lot of quick things you can make just in case lights go out, a lot of snacks to keep the kids busy while they'd be inside during the storm, things to sip with my friends, things for movies," she said. "Just a whole bunch of things to keep us entertained."
In heavily Catholic Boston, the Archdiocese urged parishioners to be prudent about attending Sunday Mass and reminded them that, under church law, the obligation "does not apply when there is grave difficulty in fulfilling this obligation."
Halfway through what had been a mild winter across the Northeast, blizzard warnings were posted from parts of New Jersey to Maine. The National Weather Service said Boston could get close to 3 feet of snow by Saturday evening, while most of Rhode Island could receive more than 2 feet. Connecticut was bracing for 2 feet, and New York City was expecting as much as 14 inches.
By Friday evening, the New York-to-Boston corridor was getting swirling snow and freezing rain. Early snowfall was blamed for a 19-car pileup in Cumberland, Maine, that caused minor injuries.
The snow was expected to be at its heaviest Friday night and into Saturday. Forecasters said wind gusts up to 75 mph could cause widespread power outages and whip the snow into fearsome drifts. Flooding was expected along coastal areas still recovering from Superstorm Sandy.
Meteorologist Jeff Masters of Weather Underground said the storm was actually a collision of two storms, and may end up among the Boston area's Top 5 most intense ever.
"When you add two respectable storms together, you're going to get a knockout punch with this one," he said.
It could break Boston's all-time snowstorm record of 27.6 inches, set in 2003, forecasters said. The storm also comes almost 35 years to the day after the Blizzard of '78, a ferocious storm that dropped 27 inches of snow, packed hurricane-force winds and claimed dozens of lives.
Masters said the region could get a break from warmer air trailing behind that is expected to push temperature up to the 40s by Monday. "It's going to be not that difficult to dig out, compared to maybe some other nor'easters in the past, where it stayed cold after the storm went through," he said.
Drivers were urged to stay off the streets lest their cars get stuck, preventing snowplows and emergency vehicles from getting through. New York City ran extra commuter trains in the afternoon to help people get home before the brunt of the storm hit.
Amtrak stopped running trains in cities around the Northeast on Friday afternoon. Airlines canceled more than 4,200 flights through Saturday, and New York City's three major airports and Boston's Logan Airport began shutting down in the afternoon.
Interstate 95 in Rhode Island was closed to all but essential traffic. In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick enacted a statewide driving ban for the first time since the Blizzard of '78. Hours before the ban went into effect at 4 p.m., long lines formed at gas stations, some of which were almost out of fuel.
James Stone said he was saving the remaining regular gas at his station in Abington, Mass., south of Boston, for snowplow drivers.
"It hasn't snowed like this in two years," Stone said. "Most people are caught way off-guard."
In New York, Fashion Week ? a series of designer showings, with some activities held under tents ? went on mostly as scheduled, though organizers put on additional crews to deal with the snow and ice, turned up the heat and fortified the tents. The snow did require some wardrobe changes. Designer Michael Kors was forced to arrive at the Project Runway show on Friday in Uggs.
For Joe DeMartino of Fairfield, Conn., being overprepared was impossible: His wife was expecting their first baby Sunday. He stocked up on gas and food, got firewood ready and was installing a baby seat in the car. The couple also packed for the hospital.
"They say that things should clear up by Sunday. We're hoping that they're right," he said.
Said his wife, Michelle: "It adds an element of excitement."
The snow was too much of a good thing in some places. In New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut's Skiing Carnival was canceled because of the snowstorm. In Maine, the National Toboggan Championships in Camden were postponed from Saturday to Sunday, and the Camp Sunshine Polar Plunge was put off until March.
At Rosie's Liquors in Abington, Mass., customers were lined up eight to 10 deep Friday, snapping up rum, wine and 30-packs of beer.
"We've been absolutely slammed. It's almost been like Christmas here," manager Kristen Brown said. "A lot of people are saying, 'I'm going to be stuck with my family all weekend. I need something to do.'"
___
Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Whitman, Mass., Rodrique Ngowi in Watertown, Mass.; John Christoffersen in Fairfield, Conn., and Bob Salsberg in Boston contributed to this report.
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U.S. Postal Service loses $1.3 billion in just 3 months
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Postal Service lost $1.3 billion in the October through December quarter, officials said on Friday, days after the beleaguered mail agency announced plans to cut back on Saturday delivery to save money.
The Postal Service lost $3.3 billion in the same period a year earlier.
This year, extra mail tied to the November elections and stronger revenue from holiday-related packages contributed to a better quarter, USPS Chief Financial Officer Joe Corbett said.
But he said the Postal Service still expects to face extremely low levels of cash during 2013.
"The need for such cost-saving initiatives like five-day mail delivery are borne out by the continuing loss of first-class mail and the resulting deep and unsustainable financial losses," Corbett said on Friday.
"We cannot continue to operate on a precipice," he said.
The mail service has been grappling with tumbling mail volumes as Americans communicate more online, and has struggled under the weight of massive required payments for future retiree health benefits.
The Postal Service defaulted last year on two payments to the federal government and lost almost $16 billion during the fiscal year.
The October through December period, which is the first quarter of the Postal Service's fiscal year, is typically the strongest because of the holidays.
Officials said total mail volume during the quarter fell to 43.5 billion pieces from 43.6 billion a year earlier. A dip in first-class mail volume was mitigated by the 3.6 percent rise in standard volume, largely due to official election and political mail.
The Postal Service also set aside less this year for its annual payment for future retiree health benefits, which contributed to a 9.8 percent drop in operating expenses to $18.9 billion during the quarter.
Last year, the Postal Service had to account for two such payments after Congress delayed a payment initially due in 2011. The mail agency defaulted on both but still had to account for them in financial reports.
Officials said they expect to default again on this year's $5.6 billion payment, which is due at the end of September.
CALLING ON CONGRESS
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe again called on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation alleviating the agency's woes. The agency wants to stop making the payments for future benefits and to take over its own health care plan, among other changes.
Lawmakers tried last year to pull together legislation to overhaul the agency's business model but were unable to agree on how to do it.
With gun control, immigration and looming federal spending cuts dominating Congress's attention this year, it appears unlikely lawmakers will tackle postal legislation soon.
In an effort to spur Congress to act, the mail agency earlier this week announced plans to stop delivering first-class mail on Saturdays starting in the first week of August. The agency said cutting back to five-day mail delivery would save $2 billion a year.
The move prompted an outcry from postal unions and some lawmakers, who argued the Postal Service was circumventing Congress. Lawmakers for decades have prevented the Postal Service from scrapping Saturday delivery.
"My encouragement to Congress would be to please not put any restrictions on us moving ahead," Donahoe said. "We've got to make this change, we've got to get savings."
The Postal Service will continue delivering packages on Saturdays and will keep post offices on their normal schedules.
Packages have been a bright spot in a series of bleak financial reports as Americans order products from online retailers such as e-Bay Inc and Amazon.com Inc.
The Postal Service said shipping and package revenue rose 4.7 percent over the same quarter a year ago.
(Reporting by Elvina Nawaguna and Emily Stephenson; Editing by James Dalgleish and Bob Burgdorfer)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-postal-loses-1-3-billion-oct-dec-143128853--sector.html
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Kiefer Sutherland honored by Harvard theater group
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) ? Golden Globe-winning actor Keifer Sutherland has been awarded the pudding pot after being honored as Man of the Year by Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals.
The roast for the actor took place despite a massive snowstorm hitting the Boston area. The Friday evening event, including presentation of the traditional pudding pot, was moved to the Charles Hotel in Cambridge.
The 46-year-old Sutherland has been in dozens of films. He's perhaps best known for his role as Jack Bauer in the television series "24," for which he won Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy awards. He is currently starring in the television show "Touch."
Last year's Man of the Year was Jason Segel.
The 2013 Woman of the Year, Marion Cotillard (koh-tee-YAR'), was honored last week.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kiefer-sutherland-honored-harvard-theater-group-124925214.html
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Amazon To Set Up Secondhand Ebook Marketplace
Amazon wants to sell your used ebooks. It recently won a patent to allow people to hock off their read ebooks on its marketplace. Of course, ebooks don?t suffer from wear and tear, but think of the resale process as more of a way to transfer your book licences. This is already in action in a way?users can currently ?lend? out Kindle books, which then disappear from your device as your friend holds the copy in their digital libraries. Another service called ReDigi also exists, launched about a year-and-a-half ago. The company has pointed out that Amazon?s patent, filed in 2009, employs a different technique of reselling, where a copy of an Amazon book is downloaded to a new device as the old one is deleted from the original owner?s bookshelf. ReDigi says that its method is different: a user?s copy is ?moved? to ReDigi?s servers before it is downloaded to the new device. The company says this means that the book isn?t copied, and that only originals move around. Sounds like semantics to me, since Amazon?s method allows for only one copy at a time, anyway. Nonetheless, the startup must be dismayed. Amazon?s patent indicates that it wants dibs not just on your digital products but their afterlife as well, which doesn?t bode well for other online secondhand marketplaces.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/W4zpPd_GRO0/
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