Liana Grete

17.12.2010., petak

Inmates flee prison in Mexico; bomb targets police

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – More than 140 inmates escaped from a prison in Nuevo Laredo on the U.S. border on Friday while hours later suspected hitmen blew up a car near Monterrey in a burst of violence in Mexico's brutal drug war.

The 149 prisoners slowly filed out the main entrance of a prison in Nuevo Laredo across from Texas in the early hours of Friday, said two police sources in northern Tamaulipas state, in a brazen move underscoring Mexico's weak prison system.

Later on Friday in the small town of Zuazua on the northern outskirts of Monterrey, an SUV exploded, injuring two people and knocking out power. It was the first such explosion near Mexico's richest city, a business center with close U.S. ties.

While authorities declined to say if the two incidents were linked, Zuazua lies on the highway between Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo and the area has become a major flashpoint in the drug war since early 2010, when a cartel split into rival factions.

"Yes, there was an explosion. A car exploded outside Zuazua's police station," said a spokeswoman for Zuazua's civil protection service who declined to be named.

Jorge Domene, a spokesman for Nuevo Leon state that includes Zuazua and Monterrey, blamed organized crime and said the explosion was aimed at intimidating police. "It is obvious this is a message to the authorities," he told Milenio TV.

Rivals from the Gulf cartel and the Zetas gang are fighting for Nuevo Leon and the neighboring state of Tamaulipas in a wider cartel war across Mexico over smuggling routes into the United States and local criminal rackets. The war has killed more than 30,000 people since late 2006, according to official figures. Media reports put the sum at more than 33,000.

In a new tactic, suspected drug hitmen began using explosives in cars this year, first in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's deadliest city across from El Paso, Texas, in July and then in Ciudad Victoria in Tamaulipas in August.

PRISON BREAK

In Nuevo Laredo, soldiers and federal police surrounded the prison. Many of the escaped prisoners were believed to be serving sentences for drug trafficking.

"They left by the front door, which points to complicity of the prison guards," said a police source who declined to be named for security reasons.

The attorney general's office confirmed the prison break in the town across from Laredo, Texas, but gave no more details.

The escape follows a string of breaches across northern Mexico, underscoring the challenges that President Felipe Calderon faces as he battles powerful drug cartels.

Calderon, who sent thousands of troops across the country to fight drug gangs, has vowed to clean up prisons that in the past have allowed drug lords to live in luxury or escape when they please. But the conservative leader has struggled to contain corruption and lawlessness in the prison system, which is run partly by state and local governments.

The federal government said on Friday the prison break was deplorable and urged the state government to take action to find the fugitives and clean up its prison system.

In September, 85 prisoners escaped from a prison in the nearby border city of Reynosa. Authorities discovered in July that prison officials had allowed convicts out of a prison in northwestern Durango state to carry out revenge attacks before returning to cells for the night.

(Additional reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz in Mexico City; Editing by Eric Beech)

- 23:57 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Venezuela congress grants Chavez decree powers

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan lawmakers granted President Hugo Chavez broad powers Friday to enact laws by decree, undermining the clout of a new congress that takes office next month with a bigger opposition bloc.
Chavez opponents condemned the move as a power grab, saying the law will be a blank check for the leftist leader to rule without consulting lawmakers. The National Assembly approved the special powers for 18 months.
A new congress goes into session Jan. 5 with an opposition contingent large enough to hinder approval of some types of major laws. Opposition lawmakers say decree powers now give Chavez a blank check to rule autocratically while ignoring the congress.
Chavez has argued he needs decree powers to fast-track funds to help the victims of recent floods and landslides, and also to hasten Venezuela's transition to a socialist state.
The president's critics view the law as one of many controversial measures being pushed through in the final weeks of a lame-duck congress.
Another measure under discussion Friday was the revised "Social Responsibility Law," which would impose broadcast-type regulations on the Internet and ban online messages "that could incite or promote hatred," create "anxiety" in the population or "disrespect public authorities."
Questions remain about how the Internet regulations would be enforced.
"They're accusing me of being a dictator," Chavez had said of the decree powers on state television Thursday night, dismissing the criticism as unfounded. "We're building a new democracy here that can't be turned back."
The law to grant Chavez decree powers, the fourth such legislation of his nearly 12-year presidenccy, also will allow him to unilaterally enact measures involving telecommunications, the banking system, information technology, the military, rural and urban land use, and the country's "socio-economic system."
Among the planned decrees already announced, Chavez intends to increase the value-added tax, now 12 percent, to raise funds for coping with the disaster caused by weeks of heavy rains. The government is erecting tents to house thousands left homeless and is accelerating public housing construction.
Critics accuse Chavez of taking advantage of the disaster to tighten his grip on power.
"Once again the government shows its authoritarian, arbitrary and antidemocratic character," newly elected lawmaker Tomas Guanipa said in a statement.
Chavez has enjoyed near total control of the National Assembly since the opposition boycotted 2005 elections.
That is set to change Jan. 5, when the new congress takes office with 67 of the 165 seats controlled by the opposition — enough to prevent Chavez from having a two-thirds majority that is needed to approve some types of major legislation and to confirm Supreme Court justices.
Anticipating that shift, pro-Chavez lawmakers earlier this month appointed nine new Supreme Court justices, reinforcing the dominance of judges widely seen as friendly to his government.
Lawmakers on Friday also approved a new banking law that describes banking as a "public service" and clears the way for increased state intervention in the sector. Venezuela's private banks make up about 70 percent of the banking industry, while the government controls the rest.

- 23:51 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Nigeria drops charges against Halliburton, Cheney

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria's anti-corruption agency said on Friday it had dropped bribery charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and oil services company Halliburton after the company agreed to pay a fine.

"It was formally dropped today," Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) spokesman Femi Babafemi said. He said the Nigerian government had agreed to an offer made by Halliburton to pay fines totaling up to $250 million.

Halliburton, which has said the Nigerian charges have no legal basis, confirmed that they were dropped but declined additional comment.

The EFCC said it received the offer when it met with officials representing Cheney and Halliburton in London last week after filing 16-count charges at a federal high court in Abuja in a case dating back to the mid-1990s.

Cheney served as U.S. vice president under George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009.

Houston-based engineering firm KBR, a former Halliburton unit, pleaded guilty last year to U.S. charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in the Niger Delta.

KBR and Halliburton reached a $579 million settlement in the United States. But Nigeria, France and Switzerland have conducted their own investigations into the case.

The EFCC last week charged Halliburton Chief Executive David Lesar, Cheney, and two other executives. It also filed charges against Halliburton as a company, which was headed by Cheney during the 1990s, and four associated businesses.

Halliburton split from KBR in 2007. It has said that its current operations in Nigeria -- raided by the EFCC last month -- were not involved in the Bonny project and that there is no legal basis for the charges.

Babafemi said although the investigation into Halliburton was over, the EFCC was still pursuing a case against a number of Nigerians who it says accepted bribes from the U.S. firm.

Shares of Halliburton fell 31 cents, or less than 1 percent, to $39.96 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Noah Barkin)

- 23:44 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

NKorea warns SKorea to stop live-fire drills

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea warned South Korea on Friday not to stage artillery drills on a front-line island the North bombed last month, saying it would hit back even harder than in the previous attack that killed four South Koreans.
The North warned the South against similar drills before the Nov. 23 shelling that destroyed homes and renewed fears of war on the divided peninsula.
South Korea has said it plans one-day, live-fire drills sometime between Saturday and Tuesday on Yeonpyeong, a tiny island that is home to fishing communities and military bases and sits just seven miles (11 kilometers) from North Korean shores. Seoul says the drills' timing will depend on weather and other factors and, despite the North's threats, the exercises will go ahead as planned.
The North, which claims nearby waters and has said it considers such drills an infringement of its territory, responded to similar firing exercises by raining artillery shells on Yeonpyeong, killing two marines and two construction workers.
The assault was the first by the North to target a civilian area since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and it has caused anger and shock in the South, where TV screens and newspapers were filled with stunning images of islanders fleeing their bombed-out, burning homes.
A senior North Korean military official said in comments carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency that if South Korea goes ahead with more drills on Yeonpyeong, "unpredictable self-defensive strikes will be made."
"The intensity and scope of the strike will be more serious than the Nov. 23 (shelling)," the North said in the notice that was sent to South Korean military officials Friday.
The North said the planned drills are an attempt "to save the face of the South Korean military, which met a disgraceful fiasco" during last month's clash.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's government has faced stinging criticism that his military was unprepared for the attack and reacted too slowly and too weakly. He has since replaced his defense minister and vowed to boost troops and weapons on islands along the Koreas' disputed western sea border.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said Friday that the North's threats wouldn't stop the planned drills. Seoul has said they are part of "routine, justified" exercises and has warned that it is prepared to deal with any North Korean attack. Representatives of the American-led U.N. Command that oversees the armistice that ended the Korean War will observe the drills.
The tough words from the Koreas came as a high-profile U.S. state governor visited North Korea on Friday.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has frequently been an unofficial envoy to the North, said he wanted to visit the North's main nuclear complex and meet with senior officials during his four-day trip, though details of his schedule were unclear. He said ahead of the visit that he expected to get some sort of message from the North.
"My objective is to see if we can reduce the tension in the Korean peninsula," Richardson said at the airport in Pyongyang, according to Associated Press Television News.
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called the South's exercises routine and said they pose no threat.
"North Korea should not see these South Korean actions as a provocation," Crowley told reporters Thursday.
Still, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, voiced worry of a potential chain reaction of firing and counter-firing if the drill is misunderstood or if North Korea reacts negatively.
"What you don't want to have happen out of that is for us to lose control of the escalation," he told reporters at the Pentagon. "That's the concern."
Amid the rising tensions, American diplomats were holding a series of meetings in the region.

In Beijing, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg held closed-door meetings with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo. Beijing's top foreign policy official returned last week from talks in Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. China has come under growing pressure to push ally North Korea to change its behavior.

Dai said it was urgent that all parties prevent escalating tensions, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

The U.S. special envoy for six-party talks, Sung Kim, met Friday for talks with South Korean nuclear envoy Wi Sung-lac. Kim did not talk to reporters after the meeting.

Pyongyang is believed to be seeking one-on-one talks with the United States before returning to six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations hosted by China. Those talks also include South Korea, Japan, and Russia.

Crowley said that before any discussions can happen, North Korea must cease provocations, reduce tensions in the region, improve ties with South Korea and take steps to abandon its nuclear programs.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Nov. 23 attack on the tiny island of Yeonpyeong "one of the gravest provocations since the end of Korean war."

Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, urged North Korea to show restraint and called on both Koreas to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula.

- 23:36 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Calif. regulators OK major greenhouse gas rules

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California regulators on Thursday approved the first system in the nation to give polluting companies such as utilities and refineries financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to pass the key piece of California's 2006 climate law — called AB32 — with the hope that other states will follow the lead of the world's eighth largest economy. State officials also are discussing plans to link the new system with similar ones under way or being planned in Canada, Europe and Asia.
California is launching into a "historic adventure," said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state's air quality board.
"We're inventing this," she said. "There is still going to be quite a bit of action needed before it becomes operational."
California is trying to "fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now," said Nichols.
A standing-room only board chambers featured testimony from more than 170 witnesses Thursday. Outside the chambers, a few climate change skeptics held signs reading "Global Warming: Science by Homer Simpson."
Some businesses that would fall under the new rules say the system could dampen California's already flagging economy, complicate lawmakers' efforts to close a $28.1 billion revenue shortfall and lead to an increase in the price of electricity.
The rate increases, however, would still need approval from the state.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the board he is sensitive to the recession, but argued that many of the new jobs being created under the system are in the clean technology industry.
"The real jobs we're creating right now are green jobs. Since 2006 or so green jobs have been created 10 times faster than in any other sector, so it's also an economic plus," he said.
But he said reducing greenhouse gas pollution is not just about climate change, but about human health and national security.
"I despise the fact that we send $1 billion a year to foreign places for our oil and to places that hate us. We send this money to people that hate us and that are organizing terrorists and trying to blow up our country," he said.
Supporters say the system will help spur economic recovery and innovation, pushing business to invest in clean technologies.
They say the billions of dollars the state collects in the system could help fund clean air programs and help offset any increases in utility rates. Details of the uses of these new funds is still uncertain.
California has already enacted the strictest climate-related regulations in the country involving renewable energy mandates for utilities, tighter fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles and low-carbon fuel standards.
The state's landmark climate law had a Jan. 1, 2011, deadline for devising and enacting the so-called cap-and-trade system.
Here's how it would broadly work:
A company that produces pollution, such as a utility or a refinery, buys a permit from the state that allows it to send a specified amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air each year.

Those permits could then be bought and sold by the polluters in a marketplace.

If a company in Fresno is 15 percent under its pollution allowance, it can sell the unused portion to a company in Long Beach that has exceeded its quota. The Fresno company gets to keep the money.

Polluters can even make a profit, if the marketplace sets a price above the initial cost of the permit.

The lone dissenting board member, Dr. John Telles, said he had concerns that the new market created by the regulation was too vulnerable to cheating.

"We're potentially vulnerable here to be manipulated," he said. "And I don't see enough safeguards in the design of the market."

The board's staff said it would be working on market issues in the coming year before the launch of the program, but recognized that they were creating something that had not been tried before.

Adding another wrinkle, a company that exceeds its allowance can also buy what are called "offsets." These can be bought by companies with forestry or other projects that reduce greenhouse gases.

Those companies can sell those to polluters in the marketplace, also at a profit.

Under the new California rules, regulators would enforce limits on heat-trapping gas emissions beginning in 2012, eventually including 85 percent of the state's worst polluters.

The amount of allowed emissions would be reduced over time, and the regulations would expand in 2015 to include refineries and fuel distributors, such as oil companies.

The cap would reach its lowest level in 2020, when California wants its greenhouse gas emissions reduced to 1990 levels.

Ninety percent of the allowances would be free in the first years of the program to give industry time to upgrade to cleaner equipment or account for increased future costs as the cap tightens.

Over time, as the cap gets lower and fewer allowances are available, costs would rise.

"The idea is to incentivize clean technology over fossil fuels by putting a price on carbon," said Jon Costantino, a senior adviser at a Sacramento law firm who formerly served as the climate change planning manager at the Air Resources Board.

Business groups raised concerns that the board had not yet given hard details about what each facility's allowances would be.

"It's crucial for companies to know what their compliance requirements are going to be far in advance," said Dorothy Rothrock of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association.

"There are definitely going to be some costs incurred right up front for these companies," she said.

State officials say they had to act, because of years of delays in Washington. "The goal of (the law's) authors in 2006 was to lead by example, and being a leader you have to bring others along with you," Nichols said.

A bill to place a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases nationwide narrowly passed the U.S. House in the summer of 2009, after arm-twisting by President Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders.

But the measure died in the Democrat-controlled Senate — because all Republicans and some Democrats from coal- and industry-heavy states balked about how it would raise electricity bills.

Obama, who made the climate bill the centerpiece of his Democratic agenda, pulled support for it after the midterm elections put Republicans in control of the House. The president said he would be looking at other ways to address climate change.

While the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed the first-ever rules to reduce greenhouse gases from large industrial polluters, the GOP, with some support from Democrats, vows in 2011 to block it from moving ahead with the regulations.

California's system, however, could end up being linked to ones being developed in other countries. State officials are talking with the European Union as well as provinces in China and Canada to link systems.

In the U.S., New Mexico narrowly approved its own cap-and-trade program last month and OK'd the state's participation in a regional market. There is another market in the works in the Midwest. Another program exists in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

___

Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello in Washington contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects details of other markets in last paragraph. An interactive map detailing the amount industrial carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. is available in the _national/industrial_carbon_emissions folder. This story is part of AP's general news and financial services.)

- 23:30 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

'Ratlines' threaten White House Afghan war plans

CAMP HANSEN, Afghanistan – A major threat to the success of President Barack Obama's Afghan war strategy is the clandestine traffic that snakes along the rough roads of the country's East and South, providing insurgents with weapons and other supplies from neighboring Pakistan.
The farm towns of the central Helmand River Valley are safer, the Taliban are less intimidating and less capable nearly a year after the region became a test case for a revised U.S. war strategy for Afghanistan, commanders there said Thursday.
But those gains are undercut by the ease with which militants exploit the fluid border with Pakistan.
"There's a ratline running right down there" into Pakistan, said Col. David Furness, a Marine commander who gave an update on Helmand's restive Marjah district hours before the White House offered an upbeat assessment of the nine-year war.
"They go back and forth in small groups," using civilian trucks and other vehicles to ferry supplies to militants fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Furness told reporters. His Marines find electrical components for homemade bombs that bear the stamps of Pakistani manufacturers, he said.
Pakistan's role as a refuge and supply source for militants is a big fault line in Obama's plan to secure major population centers in the southern and eastern Afghanistan, the two places where fighting is heaviest.
The role of Afghanistan's eastern neighbor in sustaining the insurgency is a major reason that the White House's review of the war warns that while the momentum of the Taliban has been reversed in some areas, those gains "remain fragile and reversible."
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, toured small U.S. bases near the front lines in Helmand and Kandahar provinces Thursday, where he said he saw evidence that the strategy is paying off with better trust among U.S. and Afghan officers and civilians and signs that local government figures are more responsive and accountable.
Overall, he said he saw qualified progress.
"There have been improvements but there is still a long way to go," he told reporters who accompanied him.
In Pakistan earlier in the week, Mullen spoke about the problem of militant refuges there that allow fighters to regroup and rearm before returning to Afghanistan to fight U.S. and NATO forces.
A five-page public summary of the classified White House Afghan war review frames the delicate problem of Pakistan's role in the insurgency in mild terms, saying dealing with safe havens will require "greater cooperation with Pakistan along the border." The areas of most concern — the Pakistani provinces of North Waziristan and Baluchistan, are not mentioned by name.
Pakistan has made progress against safe havens over the past year, the summary says, and suffered great losses as a result. But Pakistani authorities have almost exclusively focused on militants who pose a threat inside Pakistan. So far they have refused a U.S. request to take on militants in North Waziristan, the place used most frequently to target U.S. forces.
The White House summary softens the rough edges of Washington's often contentious dealings with Pakistan, apparently in recognition that a confrontational approach has not worked and endangers the fragile U.S.-backed civilian government.
Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Washington this week that combined US-Pakistani efforts along the Afghan border to interdict insurgents have been moving faster in the past two months than in the previous 18 months and that the insurgents' ability to do cross-border operations from their Pakistani safe havens has been "measurably diminished."
"Is it enough? Not yet," Cartwright told a Pentagon news conference. "But it is in fact turning in a direction and accelerating at a measurable pace. It is definitely starting to have an effect."
Mullen visited this plywood and canvas base near the key town of Marjah, which has served as a model for the counterinsurgency strategy Obama outlined a year ago. To carry out that plan, Obama pledged 30,000 additional U.S. troops, the first of which were the Marines sent to Helmand Province.
Mullen thanked Marines, many of whom had served three or sometimes four tours in southern Afghanistan.

"As difficult a fight as Marjah was initially, against sort of the expectations that were laid out there ... I think progress there has been significant," he said.

It took longer to flush militants from Marjah than military planners expected, and even longer to fill crucial local government billets. The town is mostly quiet now, but militants or low-level fighters remain there, military officers in Helmand say.

Mullen came away from his visit to Forward Operating Base Wilson in Kandahar Province worried about what militants flushed from the area may do when warm weather returns in the spring.

Some may have taken refuge in Pakistan, although in this region it may be more likely the militants have slipped deeper into the countryside.

"We have rooted out the Taliban where they have been for a long time — years,' Mullen said, referring to areas of Zhari Province where the base sits, and surrounding areas.

"It's the first time that has happened. So the question is where do they go and what do they do after the fact? Do they come back?"

___

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

- 23:23 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

EU to change treaty for new euro rescue plan

BRUSSELS – European Union leaders are changing the treaty that underpins the bloc to make room for a huge new rescue system for countries that get into debt trouble in the long term. But they aren't ready to beef up the bailout fund they have in place today.
That resistance to bold, fast moves now — led by Germany, the region's economic engine — marked a summit of EU leaders wrapping up Friday.
Pressure on the leaders mounted after a rating agency revealed new worries about Greece, where protests against debt-driven austerity measures turned violent this week. Spain — which many economists warn is too big to bail out with the existing euro750 billion ($992.85 billion) fund — also faced worryingly higher borrowing costs Thursday.
But policymakers meeting Thursday night in Brussels stressed that, for now, the pot of money is big enough.
"There will be no enlargement and deepening of the volume" of the fund, said Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who also heads the group of 16 countries that use the euro.
EU President Herman Van Rompuy insisted that only about 4 percent of the region's bailout fund has been utilized since it was introduced in May.
However, he said that "the heads of state and government of the eurozone stand ready to do whatever is required to ensure the stability of the eurozone as a whole."
Van Rompuy spoke after EU leaders agreed to change their central treaty to allow for a permanent rescue plan for countries that run into financial trouble after 2013, when the existing bailout fund expires.
The treaty change contains no details on the new rescue plan, which won't come into force until 2013, but is a necessary legal step.
The two-sentence addition to the treaty will allow countries that use the euro to "establish a stability mechanism to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro as a whole."
Any aid to heavily indebted countries under the new mechanism would be subject to strict conditions, similar to the steep budget cuts and measures to improve economic competitiveness imposed on Ireland and Greece in their bailouts.
EU leaders had agreed to set up the so-called European Stability Mechanism at their previous summit in October and finance ministers outlined its broad features at the end of November.
It will be more than just a bailout fund. In a first step, it will provide rescue loans to countries that face a crisis of liquidity — that is, if they can't access money quickly enough to pay off their debts. Crucially, however, the ESM will also be able to force private creditors to assume some losses when a country is deemed insolvent.
"This is a major economic decision," said Jose Manuel Barroso, the head of the EU's executive Commission.
Champions of the mechanism argue that it is necessary to protect taxpayers in economically strong countries like Germany from having to pay for the profligacy of 'peripheral' countries like Greece or Portugal. It will also help prevent states from building up unsustainable debts in the future, as investors will push up interest rates in light of potential losses on their bonds.
"Everybody has to stick to the rules and avoid that suddenly the Dutch taxpayer has to suffer for the abuse in Greece. Up to now, countries could get away with it," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
Finance ministers of the 27 EU nations will now begin working out details of the new mechanism, including how much money eurozone nations are willing to chip in and when exactly private creditors would be involved.
A plan by Luxembourg's Juncker to introduce pan-European bonds to stabilize funding costs for weaker euro members also found no takers given strong opposition from Germany. But Juncker said he believed the final word on the bonds had not yet been spoken.

As leaders were meeting in Brussels, more questions arose over their current strategy to tackle the crisis.

Moody's Investors Service warned that "a multi-notch downgrade" of Greece's bonds was possible, since the country's debt turned out to be even bigger than expected. Greece was only saved from default in May by a euro110 billion rescue loan from other eurozone nations and the International Monetary Fund.

The rating agency warned that support for the struggling nation might be less strong in the future than it had previously assumed.

The government in Athens is facing growing discontent from its citizens. A general strike escalated into violence Wednesday, as unions and other demonstrators protested salary cuts and weakened collective bargaining powers.

The European Central Bank on Thursday sent a strong political signal to EU leaders that they need to do more to salvage their joint currency, saying it needed to almost double the size of its capital coffers, which have been strained by its investments in vulnerable government bonds.

It is the first time in its almost 12-year history that the ECB has asked national central banks for a capital injection.

Meanwhile, Spain — the eurozone economy many view as too big to bail out — had to pay significantly higher interest rates to borrow euro2.4 billion ($3.21 billion) from bond markets Thursday.

__

Geir Moulson in Berlin, Raf Casert in Brussels, Ciaran Giles in Madrid and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

- 23:16 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Officials: CIA gave waterboarders $5M legal shield

WASHINGTON – The CIA agreed to cover at least $5 million in legal fees for two contractors who were the architects of the agency's interrogation program and personally conducted dozens of waterboarding sessions on terror detainees, former U.S. officials said.
The secret agreement means taxpayers are paying to defend the men in a federal investigation over an interrogation tactic the U.S. now says is torture. The deal is even more generous than the protections the agency typically provides its own officers, giving the two men access to more money to finance their defense.
It has long been known that psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen created the CIA's interrogation program. But former U.S. intelligence officials said Mitchell and Jessen also repeatedly subjected terror suspects inside CIA-run secret prisons to waterboarding, a simulated drowning tactic.
The revelation of the contractors' involvement is the first known confirmation of any individuals who conducted waterboarding at the so-called black sites, underscoring just how much the agency relied on outside help in its most sensitive interrogations.
Normally, CIA officers buy insurance to cover possible legal bills. It costs about $300 a year for $1 million in coverage. Today, the CIA pays the premiums for most officers, but at the height of the war on terrorism, officers had to pay half.
The Mitchell and Jessen arrangement, known as an "indemnity promise," was structured differently. Unlike CIA officers, whose identities are classified, Mitchell and Jessen were public citizens who received some of the earliest scrutiny by reporters and lawmakers. The two wanted more protection.
The agency agreed to pay the legal bills for the psychologists' firm, Mitchell, Jessen & Associates, directly from CIA accounts, according to several interviews with the former officials, who insisted on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The company has been embroiled in at least two high-profile Justice Department investigations, tapping the CIA to pay its legal bills. Neither Jamie Gorelick, who originally represented the company, nor Henry Schuelke, the current lawyer, returned messages seeking comment. Mitchell and Jessen also didn't return calls for comment.
The CIA would not comment on any indemnity agreement.
"It's been nearly eight years since waterboarding — an interrogation method used on three detainees — was last used as part of a terrorist detention program that no longer exists," CIA spokesman George Little said.
After the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mitchell and Jessen sold the government on an interrogation program for high-value al-Qaida members. The two psychologists had spent years training military officials to resist interrogations and, in doing so, had subjected U.S. troops to techniques such as forced nudity, painful stress positions, sleep deprivation and waterboarding.
But those interrogations had always been training sessions at the military's school known as SERE — Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. They had never conducted any actual interrogations.
That changed in 2002 with the capture of suspected al-Qaida facilitator Abu Zubaydah (ah-BOO' zoo-BY'-dah). The agency believed tougher-than-usual tactics were necessary to squeeze information from him, so Mitchell and Jessen flew to a secret CIA prison in Thailand to oversee Zubaydah's interrogation.
The pair waterboarded Zubaydah 83 times, according to previously released records and former intelligence officials. Mitchell and Jessen did the bulk of the work, claiming they were the only ones who knew how to apply the techniques properly, the former officials said.
The waterboarding technique involved "binding the detainee to a bench with his feet elevated above his head," formerly top-secret documents explain. "The detainee's head is immobilized and an interrogator places a cloth over the detainee's mouth and nose while pouring water onto the cloth in a controlled manner."
The documents add that "airflow is restricted for 20 to 40 seconds and the technique produces the sensation of drowning and suffocation." The session was not supposed to last more than 20 minutes.
The psychologists also waterboarded USS Cole bombing plotter Abd al-Nashiri (ahbd al-nuh-SHEE'-ree) twice in Thailand, according to former intelligence officials.
The role of Mitchell and Jessen in the interrogation of confessed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a bit murkier.

At least one other interrogator was involved in those sessions, with the company providing support, a former official said. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in Poland in 2003, according to documents and former intelligence officials.

The CIA inspector general concluded in a top secret report in 2004 that the waterboarding technique used by the CIA deviated from the rules outlined by the Justice Department and the common practice at SERE school. CIA interrogations involved far more water poured constantly over the prisoner, investigators said.

"One of the psychologists/interrogators acknowledged that the agency's use of the technique differed from that used in SERE training and explained that the agency's technique is different because it is `for real' and is more poignant and convincing," the inspector general's report said.

It was not clear whether Mitchell or Jessen made that remark.

Justice Department prosecutor John Durham is investigating whether any CIA officers or contractors, including Mitchell and Jessen, should face criminal charges.

In at least two instances, Mitchell and Jessen pushed back. During Zubaydah's interrogation, the psychologists argued he had endured enough waterboarding, believing they had reached the point of "diminishing returns." But CIA superiors told them to press forward, two former officials said.

In another case, Mitchell and Jessen successfully argued against waterboarding admitted terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh (RAM'-zee bin-al-SHEEB') in Poland, the official said.

On top of the waterboarding case, Mitchell and Jessen also needed lawyers to help navigate the Justice Department's investigation into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos.

Mitchell and Jessen were recorded interrogating Zubaydah and al-Nashiri and were eager to see those tapes destroyed, fearing their release would jeopardize their safety, former officials and others close to the matter said.

They often contacted senior CIA officials, urging them to destroy the tapes and asking what was taking so long, said a person familiar with the Durham investigation who insisted on anonymity because the case's details remain sensitive. Finally the CIA's top clandestine officer, Jose Rodriguez, made the decision to destroy the tapes in November 2005.

Durham investigated whether that was a crime. He subpoenaed Mitchell, Jessen & Associates last year, looking for calendars, e-mails and phone records showing contact between the contractors and Rodriguez or his chief of staff, according to a federal subpoena. They were ordered to appear before a grand jury in northern Virginia in August 2009.

Last month, Durham closed the tapes destruction investigation without filing charges.

- 23:09 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

VJax catches 3 TD passes from Rivers to lead Bolts

SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Chargers have regained their December swagger, thanks to Vincent Jackson's return and a smash-mouth defense.
Jackson caught a career-high three touchdown passes, Philip Rivers surpassed 4,000 yards passing for the third straight season and the Chargers beat Alex Smith and the San Francisco 49ers 34-7 on Thursday night to stay alive in the AFC West race.
Jackson reminded the Chargers just what they missed when he sat out 10 games during a nasty contract dispute.
"Since I've been here, it's like I had never left," said Jackson, who had his first three TD grabs of the season, of 58, 11 and 21 yards.
"He seems to be in midseason form," Rivers said. "I feel like he's been here for 15 weeks. That's a credit to the way he practices."
The Chargers (8-6) pulled within a half-game of AFC West leader Kansas City (8-5), which lost 31-0 at San Diego on Sunday.
San Francisco was probably the toughest test left for the Chargers, who finish with games at Cincinnati (2-11) and Denver (3-10). If San Diego wins out and the Chiefs lose once, the Chargers will win their fifth straight division title.
The Chargers came within 4:26 of having consecutive shutouts for the first time in their 51-year history.
The 49ers (5-9) could wind up 7-9 and in a three-way tie and still win the NFC West, the NFL's weakest division.
Rivers and Jackson came out early in the fourth quarter and the Chargers leading 31-0.
Rivers was 19 of 25 for 273 yards, giving him 4,141 for the season. He tied Hall of Famer Dan Fouts' team record set from 1979-81. Jackson had five catches for 112 yards.
"He and Phil have such a good rapport," center Nick Hardwick said. "They both know what's going on, and they've studied for hours together. We were expecting him to come in and explode, and that's what he's done. He's a beast. He does things other players can't do, and he did it tonight."
Unhappy that the Chargers didn't give him a long-term deal, Jackson sat out the first seven games. He then missed three more games while serving a team-imposed suspension. The move cost him some $3 million in salary.
When he returned at Indianapolis on Nov. 28, he pulled a calf muscle two plays in and was done for the night and the next game.
On the fourth play from scrimmage, Rivers wound up and threw deep. The 6-foot-5 Jackson slowed down and reached out over 6-foot Nate Clements' head to make the catch at about the 15 before outracing the cornerback into the end zone.
Jackson exploited a mismatch against linebacker Takeo Spikes for an easy 11-yard catch just before halftime.
Jackson pulled in a 21-yarder early in the fourth quarter, getting the ball just past the pylon. The play was upheld after a review.
Mike Tolbert had a 1-yard TD run in the third quarter and Nate Kaeding kicked field goals of 25 and 39 yards.

Smith fell far short of having the happy homecoming he was hoping for. Coming off a promising return following a five-game absence, he was 19 of 29 for 165 yards with one interception and was sacked six times.

"We wanted it bad," linebacker Brandon Siler said of the shutout that just eluded the Bolts. "We were saying on the sideline, 'Don't give up anything cheap.' It hurts a little bit, but I think we already know we're a good defense. We proved that."

San Francisco's only score came on Brian Westbrook's 3-yard run with 4:26 left.

The 49ers watched as both a field goal and a touchdown came off the scoreboard in a span of four plays early in the second quarter.

Jeff Reed kicked a 38-yard field goal but San Diego's Antonio Garay was whistled for unnecessary roughness for trying to gain leverage, giving the 49ers first-and-goal at the 10. Smith scrambled and dove at the left pylon on third down and it was ruled a touchdown. The Chargers challenged and it was reversed, with Smith ruled down inches from the goal line. On fourth down at the 1, Siler threw Anthony Dixon for a 2-yard loss.

"I just read the play and got in there," Siler said. "I think it takes the energy and the momentum out of a team when you do something like that."

Said Smith: "It continued to get one-dimensional for us. When you play a defense of that caliber, they're the No. 1 defense for a reason. They played well."

Smith was playing against his hometown Chargers for the first time in the regular season.

Michael Crabtree had just three catches for 17 yards and Pro Bowl tight end Vernon Davis didn't have a catch until the waning minutes, finishing with one for 4 yards.

"This team has highs and lows, but if we are fortunate enough to go to the playoffs, I think we deserve to go," 49ers coach Mike Singletary said.

NOTES: The Chargers tied the team record for consecutive shutout quarters at seven. ... 49ers DT Justin Smith was ejected after making contact with umpire Garth DeFelice following a play. The lineman was in an argument with at least one Chargers player when he appeared to shove DeFelice, who was trying to keep him out of the scuffle.

- 23:02 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Drug used in Okla. execution could gain wider use

MCALESTER, Okla. – A sedative Oklahoma used to execute a death row inmate that is commonly used to euthanize animals could become more popular because of a nationwide shortage of a key ingredient in several states' lethal injection formulas, death penalty experts say.
John David Duty is believed to be the first person in the United States whose execution included the use of pentobarbital. The 58-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. Thursday at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Oklahoma and several other states traditionally have used the barbiturate sodium thiopental to put an inmate to sleep, followed by two other drugs — pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes muscles, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
But Hospira Inc. — the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental — said Thursday new batches of the drug could be available "in the first quarter" of next year. They blamed the shortage on problems with its raw-material providers.
"It's a little uncertain if sodium thiopental will be available, so the states will be looking at what's happening in Oklahoma," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "If it works reasonably well, other states might go that way."
Oklahoma prisons spokesman Jerry Massie said after the execution that there did not appear to be any problems with the new drug.
Strapped to a gurney and wearing an eye patch over his right eye, the heavyset Duty apologized to his victim's family.
"I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me, not for my sake, but for your own," Duty said. "Thank you, Lord Jesus. I'm ready to go home."
The lethal drugs began to flow at 6:12 p.m., and Duty's breathing became labored one minute later. At 6:15 p.m., he appeared to stop breathing and the color began to drain from his face.
Duty and two other death-row inmates had challenged the state's decision to use pentobarbital, arguing it could be inhumane because a person could be paralyzed but still aware when a painful third drug is administered to stop the heart. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling against the other two inmates. Duty did not take part in the appeal.
Executions have been delayed in California, Arkansas, Tennessee and Maryland as a result of protocol changes, including the use of new drugs, Dieter said. In Ohio and Washington, laws were passed to allow for the use of sodium thiopental specifically, he said.
But Oklahoma's law calls for the use of a fast-acting barbiturate to be administered first, which gave the state the flexibility to use pentobarbital, Massie said.
"I think Oklahoma is the only state where this issue has come to a head over a new drug," Dieter said. "The other states that haven't been able to do it. It's because the state courts wanted more time to review the overall protocol changes."
Experts testified at a November federal court hearing that no other U.S. state uses pentobarbital during executions. Massie and Dieter both said before Thursday's execution that they believed Duty would be the first U.S. inmate put to death using the drug.
"I have not seen that (pentobarbital) has been used before in this context," Dieter said. But, he noted, "Some states don't say exactly what drugs are used and have kept that out of the public eye."
Dieter also acknowledged that China, which is increasingly favoring lethal injection as a method of execution, may have used the drug before.
Jim Rowan, a capital defense attorney and a board member of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, was concerned about the lack of evidence on the effects of the use of the drug on humans.
"No one who has been put to death has come back and testified about what it felt like," said Rowan, who gathered outside the governor's mansion in Oklahoma City with about a dozen protesters. The group held a vigil once they learned Duty had been pronounced dead.

At a federal court hearing in November over the use of the new drug, an anesthesiologist testified on video that that the 5,000 milligrams of pentobarbital Oklahoma planned to use is enough to cause unconsciousness and even death within minutes, and even a defense expert testified that amount of pentobarbital would be fatal.

Duty pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the 2001 slaying of 22-year-old Curtis Wise. At the time, Duty was serving three life sentences for rape, robbery and shooting with intent to kill.

According to court records, Duty strangled Wise with a sheet.

___

Associated Press writer Rochelle Hines contributed to this report.