In the aftermath of Friday's Newtown school shooting, we've heard tales mostly horrifying and occasionally heroic, from surviving witnesses and mourning citizens alike, but this one lies somewhere in between, all the more unshakeable. One six-year-old Sandy Hook student played dead in her first-grade classroom, her family pastor said late Sunday, with the kind of quick thinking that ended up saving her life but now leaves her with the unshakeable memories of watching all her classmates being shot and killed. ...
Read More..
Pentagon to Reimburse Pakistan $688 Million
Label: World
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon quietly notified Congress this month that it would reimburse Pakistan nearly $700 million for the cost of stationing 140,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan, an effort to normalize support for the Pakistani military after nearly two years of crises and mutual retaliation.
The biggest proponent of putting foreign aid and military reimbursements to Pakistan on a steady footing is the man President Barack Obama is leaning toward naming as secretary of state: Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has frequently served as an envoy to Pakistan, including after the killing of Osama bin Laden, and was a co-author of a law that authorized five years and about $7.5 billion of nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan.
The United States also provides about $2 billion in annual security assistance, roughly half of which goes to reimburse Pakistan for conducting military operations to fight terrorism.
Until now, many of these reimbursements, called coalition support funds, have been held up, in part because of disputes with Pakistan over the Bin Laden raid, the operations of the C.I.A., and its decision to block supply lines into Afghanistan last year.
The $688 million payment — the first since this summer, covering food, ammunition and other expenses from June through November 2011 — has caused barely a ripple of protest since it was sent to Capitol Hill on Dec. 7.
The absence of a reaction, American and Pakistani officials say, underscores how relations between the two countries have been gradually thawing since Pakistan reopened the NATO supply routes in July after an apology from the Obama administration for an errant American airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November 2011.
Mr. Kerry’s nomination would be welcomed in Pakistan, where he is seen as perhaps the most sympathetic to Pakistani concerns of any senior lawmaker. He has nurtured relationships with top civilian and military officials, as well as the I.S.I., Pakistan’s most powerful intelligence agency.
But if he becomes secretary of state, Mr. Kerry will inherit one of the hardest diplomatic tasks in South Asia: helping Pakistan find a role in steering Afghanistan toward a political agreement with the Taliban. As the United States, which tried and failed to broker such an agreement, begins to step back, Pakistan’s role is increasing.
For a relationship rocked in the past two years by a C.I.A. contractor’s shooting of two Pakistanis, the Navy SEAL raid that killed Bin Laden and the accidental airstrike, perhaps the most remarkable event in recent months has been relative calm. A senior American official dealing with Pakistan said recently that “this is the longest we’ve gone in a while without a crisis.”
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said, “Pakistan-United States relations are settling down to a more stable trajectory.”
The interlude has allowed the United States to reduce the huge backlog of NATO supplies at the border — down to about 3,000 containers from 7,000 when the border crossings reopened — and to conduct dry runs for the tons of equipment that will flow out of Afghanistan to Pakistani ports when the American drawdown steps up early next year.
Moreover, the two sides have resumed a series of high-level meetings — capped by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s meeting this month with top Pakistani officials in Brussels — on a range of topics including counterterrorism, economic cooperation, energy and the security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, concurred. “There’s greater convergence between the two countries than there has been in eight years,” she said. “It’s been a fairly quick kiss and make up, but it’s been driven by the approaching urgency of 2014, and by their shared desire for a stable outcome in the region.”
The one exception to the state of calm has been a tense set of discussions about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. United States officials have told their Pakistani colleagues that Islamabad’s move to smaller, more portable weapons creates a greater risk that one could be stolen or diverted. A delegation of American nuclear experts was in Pakistan last week, but found that the two countries had fundamentally divergent views about whether Pakistan’s changes to its arsenal pose a danger.
Declan Walsh contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Iran leader gets the clicks with Facebook rumor
Label: TechnologyDUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A Facebook page purportedly created by Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attracted nearly 10,000 followers on Tuesday although the site’s content and style raise serious questions about its authenticity.
Iranian authorities had no immediate comment on the site, which apparently went online last week but only recently gained prominence among social media watchers. Despite the possibility that it is a hoax, the page has generated at least 170 comments — laudatory and derogatory, and nearly all in Farsi — that highlight the deep political divisions in Iran and possibly opposition fervor from expatriate Iranians.
One post compared Khamenei to a celebrated ruler of ancient Persia, Cyrus the Great, who significantly expanded the Persian empire 2,500 years ago.
Another wrote: “Mr. Khamenei, how are you visiting this page? With proxy?”
It was a reference to Iran’s blocking of Facebook and many other Western social media sites, and the efforts to bypass the restrictions using proxy server links from outside Iran.
The U.S. State Department said Monday it will keep tabs on the page, but had no comment on whether it was genuine or not. Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland joked that Washington is curious how many “likes” the Khamenei page receives.
But much about the page — including an informal photo of Khamenei riding in a car — suggested it was not sanctioned by Iran’s top leader. It is also highly unlikely that Khamenei would endorse a banned outlet such as Facebook.
The Net is not unknown territory for Iranian leaders, however. Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others have official websites. Also, some senior Iranian clerics issue religious opinions by email.
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Gossip Girl's Identity Revealed in Series Finale!
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
TV News
By Aaron Parsley
12/18/2012 at 09:20 AM EST
Did you figure it out?
The series finale of Gossip Girl, which aired Monday on the CW, had it all: two weddings (Blair marries Chuck; Serena marries Dan), two stunning wedding gowns (powder blue, beaded Elie Saab Couture on B, and a gold and white strapless Georges Chakra Couture on S), cameo appearances by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Rachel Bilson and Kristen Bell (as themselves, reading the roles of Blair and Serena from a script written by Dan), the return of Jenny Humphrey (briefly!) and the reveal of Gossip Girl's identity. And it's not Dorota.
The person behind the mysterious blog that has kept tabs on the Upper East Side's elite was not a girl at all – it was Brooklyn's very own Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley).
Dropping Bell's trademark voice, the real Gossip Girl explained in a typical, if more masculine, voiceover:
"The Upper East Side was like something from Fitzgerald or Thackeray – teenagers acting like adults, adults acting like teenagers, guarding secrets, spreading gossip all with the trappings of truly opulent wealth. And membership into this community was so elite you couldn't even buy your way in. It was a birthright – a birthright that I didn't have. And my greatest achievements would never earn it.
"All I had to compare it to was what I read in books. But that gave me the idea: I wasn't born into this world ... maybe I could write myself into it. I overheard enough conversations to mimic the voice of the Constance girls, but every writer needs his muse and it wasn't until that photo of Serena in the white dress that I knew I had something strong enough to actually create a legend and launch a website.
"Within weeks I was getting dozens of emails with stories about Upper East Siders, so I posted them anonymously. And then I got more. Before long it was a monster. Everyone was sending tips ... When Serena came back from boarding school, I wrote my first post about me, Lonely Boy, the outsider, the underdog. I might have been a joke but at least people were talking about me."
How did the others react? With shock and disbelief. Dorota asked for vodka.
"Gossip Girl ruined our lives," Blair (Leighton Meester) said. "He schemed and lied and spread horrible stories."
But Serena (Blake Lively) found acceptance: "What he did was ... write a love letter," she said. "And not just to me, to all of us. It made me realize that I don't want to run away, that you guys are my family. I belong here. And so does Dan."
"I guess that means it's all over now," Blair said. "That we can all grow up and move on."
"Yeah," added Dan, "Gossip Girl's dead."
Xo, xo!
Wall Street edges up at open on "cliff" optimism
Label: BusinessIn the aftermath of Friday's Newtown school shooting, we've heard tales mostly horrifying and occasionally heroic, from surviving witnesses and mourning citizens alike, but this one lies somewhere in between, all the more unshakeable. One six-year-old Sandy Hook student played dead in her first-grade classroom, her family pastor said late Sunday, with the kind of quick thinking that ended up saving her life but now leaves her with the unshakeable memories of watching all her classmates being shot and killed. ...
Read More..
In Spain, Having a Job No Longer Guarantees a Paycheck
Label: WorldWorking but Waiting:
The Times’s Suzanne Daley reports on struggling Spanish workers who have avoided losing their jobs but often face weeks or months without paychecks.
VALENCIA, Spain — Over the past two years, Ana María Molina Cuevas, 36, has worked five shifts a week in a ceramics factory on the outskirts of this city, hand-rolling paint onto tiles. But at the end of the month, she often went unpaid.
Still, she kept showing up, trying to keep her frustration under control. If she quit, she reasoned, she might never get her money. And besides, where was she going to find another job? Last month, she was down to about $130 in her bank account with a mortgage payment due.
“On the days you get paid,” she said at home with her disabled husband and young daughter, “it is like the sun has risen three times. It is a day of joy.”
Mrs. Molina, who is owed about $13,000 by the factory, is hardly alone. Being paid for the work you do is no longer something that can be counted on in Spain, as this country struggles through its fourth year of an economic crisis.
With the regional and municipal governments deeply in debt, even workers like bus drivers and health care attendants, dependent on government financing for their salaries, are not always paid.
But few workers in this situation believe they have any choice but to stick it out, and none wanted to name their employers, to protect both the companies and their jobs. They try to manage their lives with occasional checks and partial payments on random dates — never sure whether they will get what they are owed in the end. Spain’s unemployment rate is the highest in the euro zone at more than 25 percent, and despite the government’s labor reforms, the rate has continued to rise month after month.
“Before the crisis, a worker might let one month go by, and then move on to another job,” said José Francisco Perez, a lawyer who represents unpaid workers in the Valencia area. “Now that just isn’t an option. People now have nowhere to go, and they are scared. They are afraid even to complain.”
No one is keeping track of workers like Mrs. Molina. But one indication of their number can be seen in the courts, which have become jammed with people trying to get back pay from a government insurance fund, aimed at giving workers something when a company does not pay them.
In Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city, the unemployment rate is 28.1 percent and the courts are so overwhelmed that processing claims, which used to take three to six months, now takes three to four years.
Since the start of the crisis in 2008, the insurance fund has paid nearly a million workers nationally back pay or severance. In 2007, it paid 70,000 workers. It is on track to pay more than 250,000 this year, and experts say the figures would be much higher if not for the logjam in the courts.
Often the unpaid workers, like Mrs. Molina, whose company is now in bankruptcy proceedings, hope their labor will keep a struggling operation afloat over the long run. Unemployment benefits last only two years, they point out, and they wonder what they would do after that. But in the meantime, they cannot even claim unemployment benefits. And no amount of budgeting can cover no payment at all.
Beatriz Morales García, 31, said she could not remember the last time she went shopping for herself. A few years ago, she and her husband, Daniel Chiva, 34, thought that they had settled into a comfortable life, he as a bus driver and she as a therapist in a rehabilitation center for people with mental disabilities. His job is financed by the City of Valencia, and hers by the regional government of Valencia.
They never expected any big money. But it seemed reasonable to expect a reliable salary, to take on a mortgage and think about children. In the past year, however, both of them have had trouble being paid. She is owed 6,000 euros, nearly $8,000. They have cut back on everything they can think of. They have given up their landline and their Internet connection. They no long park their car in a garage or pay for extra health insurance coverage. Mr. Chiva even forgoes the coffee he used to drink in a cafe before his night shifts. Still, the anxiety is constant.
“There are nights when we cannot sleep,” he said. “Moments when you talk out loud to yourself in the street. It has been terrible, terrible.”
Mrs. Morales said it was particularly hard to watch other mothers in the park with their children while she must leave her own toddler to go to work, unsure she will ever get paid.
“We are working eight hours, and we’re suffering more than people who are not working,” she said.
The couple’s pay has been so irregular that they are having a hard time even keeping track of how much they are owed, because small payments show up sporadically in their account.
Rachel Chaundler contributed reporting.
Hillary Clinton Recovering at Home from Concussion
Label: LifestyleBy Andrea Billups
12/17/2012 at 08:35 AM EST
Feel better, Hillary!
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to recover from a concussion she suffered after falling early last week in her Washington, D.C., home.
She was alone at the time she passed out and her concussion was not diagnosed until days later.
The concussion was not severe, her doctors said, reports and was due to dehydration suffered after a trip the former first lady took to Europe, NBC News.
Her fall will keep Clinton, who continues to be discussed as a possible presidential contender for 2016, from testifying before Congress on the attack in September in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and two Navy Seals.
"She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors," the State Department said in a statement this weekend. "At their recommendation, she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials."
Clinton, 65, who last week was named one of Barbara Walters's 10 most-fascinating people, plans to step down from her secretary post early next year. U.S. Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, will reportedly be named by the Obama administration as her replacement.
Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.
Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.
"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.
A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.
High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.
Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.
"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.
"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.
Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.
Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.
She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.
"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."
After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.
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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.
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Online:
Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5
Wall Street poised for higher open on "cliff" optimism
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street was set to open higher on Monday as investors were encouraged by signs of movement on "fiscal cliff" negotiations over the weekend.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner edged slightly closer to President Barack Obama's key demands as they try to avert the tax hikes and spending cuts that are set to take effect in the new year.
Sources familiar with the talks confirmed that Boehner proposed extending low tax rates for everyone who has earned less than $1 million, and rates would rise for wages above that. But Boehner's new positions were still far from those held by Obama.
"It does solidify that a deal is very close and it could be announced by the end of this week," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. "We could be surprised. We could actually have a Santa gift that a deal has been reached."
Uncertainty over when and if a federal budget deal will be done has kept investors cautious in what is already a normally quiet trading period heading into year-end.
Investors are worried the economy could slide back into recession if the full brunt of the tax and spending changes is allowed, though most expect a deal will eventually be reached.
Monday's economic data was less cheery as manufacturing activity in the New York region declined for a fifth month in a row in December.
S&P 500 futures rose 5.8 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration of the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 33 points and Nasdaq 100 futures added 11 points.
If the S&P 500 sustains its gains through the session, the index would snap a two-day losing streak. Despite the uncertainty of fiscal cliff talks, the S&P has performed well in the last month, grinding higher in mostly light volume.
Clearwire Corp
Apple Inc reversed earlier losses in premarket action and was up 0.5 percent at $512.23 even as Citigroup cut its rating to 'neutral' from 'buy' and slashed its price target to $575 from $675.
Apple shares have tumbled nearly 30 percent in about three months, losing 3.8 percent on Friday alone and helping lead the overall market lower.
The tech giant said it sold more than 2 million of its new iPhone 5 smartphones in China during the three days after its launch there on Friday, but the figures did not ease worries about stiffer competition.
American International Group Inc may raise as much as $6.5 billion from the sale of its remaining stake in AIA Group Ltd, exiting a business the U.S. insurer started nearly 100 years ago. AIG was up 1.7 percent at $34.44.
Networking equipment company Cisco Systems Inc
(Editing by Kenneth Barry)
IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Dec. 15
Label: WorldNEWS A 20-year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with pistols and a rifle killed 26 people — 20 of them children — in an attack in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, before committing suicide on Friday. It was America’s second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. James Barron reports.
European Union leaders pledged on Friday to take further steps to set up common banking rules for the bloc, but they delayed plans for a shared budget for the euro zone nations as pressure appeared to be easing on the single currency. James Kanter reports from Brussels.
The lesson of Japan’s last major election, which ousted the long-dominant Liberal Democrats, was that a growing hunger for change had seemed to reach a threshold. But voters look ready to return that party to power Sunday, determined to punish the governing Democratic Party for failing to rein in bureaucracies and mishandling the 2011 nuclear crisis. Martin Fackler reports from Kanazawa, Japan.
At the global treaty conference on telecommunications in Dubai, the United States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff. What was that all about, and what does it say about the future of the Internet? Eric Pfanner reports from Dubai.
The U.S. defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, signed a deployment order on Friday to send 400 American military personnel and two Patriot air defense batteries to Turkey as its tensions intensify with neighboring Syria. Germany and the Netherlands will also send Patriot batteries. Thom Shanker and Michael R. Gordon report.
Xi Jinping, the new Communist Party chief and civilian commander of the Chinese military, is moving quickly to make strengthening the country’s armed forces a centerpiece of what he calls the “Chinese dream” of national rejuvenation. Edward Wong reports from Guangzhou.
Nearly a decade after the German government embarrassingly failed in an attempt to ban the country’s leading extreme-right political party, the upper house of Parliament on Friday voted to initiate a new effort to have the National Democratic Party deemed unconstitutional. Melissa Eddy reports from Berlin.
SPORTS It’s tough to find a place where this Olympic year didn’t leave a trace, from hermetic Saudi Arabia to tiny Grenada. But for Britain, 2012 was a true annus mirabilis, and the London Games were not the only force behind it. Christopher Clarey looks back.
ARTS Increasing scarcity of Old Masters continues to drive up prices, even in hard economic times, but some bargains of rare beauty can still be had. Souren Melikian writes from London.
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