U.S. sanctions against any country offering asylum to Edward Snowden

10:42 AM

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News in america

WASHINGTON — U.S. sanctions against any country offering asylum to Edward Snowden advanced in Congress Thursday as the 30-year-old National Security Agency leaker remained in a Moscow airport while Russia weighed a request for him to stay permanently.

The measure introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., demands the State Department coordinate with lawmakers on setting penalties against nations that seek to help Snowden avoid extradition to the United States, where authorities want him prosecuted for revealing details of the government’s massive surveillance system. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the proposal unanimously by voice vote as an amendment to next year’s $50.6 billion diplomacy and international aid bill.

“I don’t know if he’s getting a change of clothes. I don’t know if he’s going to stay in Russia forever. I don’t know where he’s going to go,” Graham said. “But I know this: That the right thing to do is to send him back home so he can face charges for the crimes he’s allegedly committed.”

Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered Snowden asylum since his arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport a month ago, shortly after identifying himself as the source of a series of news reports outlining the NSA’s program to monitor Internet and telephone communications. It was believed he would then fly to Cuba. The U.S. then canceled his passport, stranding him, with Russia yet to authorize his request for temporary asylum or allow him to fly on to another destination.

Snowden wants permission to stay in Russia, his lawyer said Wednesday after delivering fresh clothes to his client. It’s unclear how long the Kremlin will take to decide on the asylum request.

Graham said Snowden’s revelations have had “incredibly disturbing” implications for national security.

The Obama administration says the surveillance has foiled a number of terrorist plots against the United States. It says the public outing of its programs are helping terrorist groups change their tactics.

The case also has sparked tension between Moscow and Washington at a sensitive time, less than two months before President Barack Obama’s planned talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and again at a G-20 summit in St. Petersburg.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday the U.S. was “seeking clarity” about Snowden’s status. The head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, warned that “providing any refuge to Edward Snowden will be harmful to U.S.-Russia relations.”

The relationship is already strained by a Russian crackdown on opposition groups, American missile-defense plans in Europe and the former Cold War foes’ opposing views of the civil war between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime and rebels.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Deal Congress allow United States ship arms to Syrian rebels

8:55 AM

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News in america

A deal reached in Congress to allow the United States to ship arms to Syrian rebels could spur more support from other nations, blunting the military gains of dictator Bashar Assad and preventing him from crushing the rebel movement.

Syrian rebels say the decision by U.S. lawmakers to go along with President Obama's plan announced weeks ago to arm their factions will give them an edge.

"American military support may not be sufficient in and of itself, but American leadership in close coordination with our allies ... will create a significant shift on the ground," said Mazen Asbahi, president of the Syrian Support Group, a U.S.-based group of Syrians who are aiding the rebels.

Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, issued a statement saying committee members questioned the plan but have agreed it can move forward.

"The House Intelligence Committee has very strong concerns about the strength of the administration's plans in Syria and its chances for success," Rogers, R-Mich., said in a statement issued this week.

Rogers and other committee members declined to elaborate on the deal.

Obama announced in June that he intended to provide the rebels lethal means to combat Assad's forces after they crossed a "red line" by using chemical weapons against rebel strongholds in cities. The White House has said it planned to provide "light arms" to the rebels.

But no arms flowed because of concerns on Capitol Hill, among them worries that the arms would wind up in the hands of the many al-Qaeda aligned groups that are fighting in Syria.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that the military aid is to prevent Assad and his allies from crushing the Syrian opposition movement.

"The aid is intended to help the opposition resist Assad and eventually prevail," Carney said.

But Tony Badran, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the decision to arm the rebels is hampered by the administration's lack of a clear reason for sending the weapons.

"Are we trying to help the rebels fight the jihadis, defeat the regime or cement the stalemate?" Badran said.

The White House says it wants Assad to enter negotiations for his own departure, but "why would Assad negotiate when you're declaring you have no intention of helping the rebels win?" Badran said.

The White House has said it intends to funnel arms to the Free Syrian Army, a collection of Syrian Army defectors and former officers who have been battling Assad's forces for more than two years. The aid will be overseen by the Supreme Military Council of the Syrian Revolution, a coalition of FSA commanders.

The aid will put the weight of the United States and its friends behind a secularist opposition movement and show a commitment to "seeing this conflict through to a better end," Asbahi said.

Khaled Saleh, a spokesman for the Syrian Military Council, who is based in Turkey, said the aid will help give the United States more influence in Syria in picking who will ultimately prevail against Assad's forces.

Assad's forces have killed nearly 100,000 people, according to the United Nations. Foreign fighters have flooded in, such as members of the terrorist group Hezbollah who are backing Assad. Sunni Muslim jihadists who oppose Assad because he is a member of the Alewites, a Shiite offshoot, are also fighting with al-Qaeda in Syria.

Military advisers from Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps have also streamed into Syria to keep Assad in power, and Russia has been providing Assad with arms.

Syria rebel groups have been pleading for a no-fly zone and armor-piercing rockets to counter heavy weaponry such as tanks and fighter jets of Assad's. Some Republicans and Democratic senators, such as John McCain and Carl Levin, have wanted to provide advanced weapons or U.S. airstrikes but Obama has refused to go that far.

"Arms alone may not be sufficient, but when you add training, intelligence and tactical support you'll start seeing changes on the ground," Asbahi said.

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US Vice President Joe Biden visit to India to discuss bilateral issues

9:43 AM

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political news

Washington: Joe Biden will be on his maiden visit to India as US Vice President Monday to discuss key bilateral issues, including trade, energy and defence, to make Indo-US ties the most important strategic partnership of the 21st century. 

During his four-day-long stay in India, Biden will hold meetings with top leadership, including President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Biden, accompanied by his wife Jill will arrive in New Delhi this morning, would focus on four key issues of economic and trade ties, energy and climate change; defense co-operation and a wide range of regional co-operation. 

The 70-year-old Vice President had visited New Delhi in 2008 as a Senator. He will also hold talks with Vice President Hamid Ansari and the Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj.

All his meetings have been scheduled for July 23, at the end of which he would attend a dinner hosted in his honour by Vice President Hamid Ansari. 

Biden will spend the next two days - July 24 and 25 - in Mumbai, where he is scheduled to meet the business leaders at a round table and deliver a policy speech at the Bombay Stock Exchange. 

He is expected to set up an "ambitious vision" for India-US relationship. He will leave for Singapore on July 25. 

PTI

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US fighter jets dropped bombs on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia

10:24 PM

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News in america

US fighter jets dropped inert bombs on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's coast during a training exercise that went wrong, it has emerged.

The two planes jettisoned four bombs in more than 50m (165 ft) of water, away from coral, to minimise damage to the World Heritage Site, the US navy said.

The jets had intended to drop at a bombing range on a nearby island, but Tuesday's mission was aborted.

The AV-8B Harriers were low on fuel and could not land loaded, the navy added.

The emergency happened during the training exercise Talisman Saber, involving US and Australian military personnel.

The two jets had been instructed to target the bombing range on Townshend Island.

However, the mission was aborted when hazards were reported in the area.

The planes then dropped the bombs in the marine park off the coast of Queensland. None of the devices exploded.

Each bomb weighed 500lb (226kg), according to the US TV network NBC.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral structure rich in marine life.

It stretches for more than 2,600km (1,680 miles) along Australia's eastern coast.

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Woman killed ridding 14-story roller coaster at Six Flags, no foul play

9:52 PM

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News in america

usatoday : Police have ruled out foul play as local media identified the woman who fell to her death while riding a 14-story roller coaster at a Six Flags amusement park in Arlington, Texas.

The Dallas Morning News and local TV station WFAA said the family of the woman who died has identified her as Rosy Esparza of Dallas. Relatives told the Dallas Morning News the accident occurred on her first visit to Six Flags Over Texas.

Arlington Police Sgt. Christopher Cook told The Associated Press there appears to have been no foul play in Friday's death.

Police say the Texas Department of Insurance, which approves amusement rides, is involved in investigating the accident. The Star Telegram in Fort Worth reported the coaster will remain closed until the end of the in-house investigation.

Park spokeswoman Sharon Parker confirmed that a woman died while riding the Texas Giant roller coaster — the tallest steel-hybrid coaster in the world — but did not specify how she was killed. However, witnesses told local media outlets that the woman fell.

John Putman told the Star-Telegram that he was in line awaiting his turn on the ride when the car from which the woman fell returned to the ground. Putman said a man and woman got out.

"They were screaming, 'My mom! My mom! Let us out, we need to go get her!' " Putman said.

Carmen Brown of Arlington was waiting in line as the victim was being secured in for the ride. She told The Dallas Morning News the woman had expressed concern to a park employee that she was not secured correctly in her seat.

"He was basically nonchalant," Brown said. "He was, like, 'As long as you heard it click, you're fine.' Hers was the only one that went down once, and she didn't feel safe. But they let her still get on the ride."

She said the victim fell out of the ride as it made a sudden maneuver.

"The lady basically tumbled over," she said. "We heard her screaming. We were, like, 'Did she just fall?'"

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Helen Thomas in her 92 died Saturday at home in Washington

11:32 PM

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News in america

WASHINGTON — Helen Thomas, whose keen curiosity, unquenchable drive and celebrated constancy made her a trailblazing White House correspondent in a press corps dominated by men and later the dean of the White House briefing room, died Saturday at home in Washington. She was 92.

Her death, which came after a long illness, was announced by the Gridiron Club. Ms. Thomas was a past president of that organization.

Ms. Thomas covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama for United Press International and, later, Hearst Newspapers. To her colleagues, she was the unofficial but undisputed head of the press corps — her status ratified by the signature line she uttered at the end of every White House news conference, “Thank you, Mr. President.”

Her blunt questions and sharp tone made her a familiar personality not only in the parochial world inside the Washington Beltway but also to nationwide television audiences.

Presidents grew to respect, even to like, Ms. Thomas for her forthrightness and stamina, which sustained her well after the age at which most people had settled into retirement. President Bill Clinton gave her a cake on Aug. 4, 1997, her 77th birthday. Twelve years later, President Obama gave her cupcakes for her 89th. At his first news conference in February 2009, Mr. Obama called on her, saying: “Helen, I’m excited. This is my inaugural moment.”

But 16 months later, Ms. Thomas abruptly announced her retirement from Hearst amid an uproar over her assertion that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back where they belonged, perhaps Germany or Poland.  Her remarks, made almost offhandedly days earlier at a White House event, set off a storm when a videotape was posted.

In her retirement announcement, Ms. Thomas, whose parents immigrated to the United States from what is now Lebanon, said that she deeply regretted her remarks  and that they did not reflect her “heartfelt belief” that peace would come to the Middle East only when all parties embraced “mutual respect and tolerance.”

“May that day come soon,” she said.

Ms. Thomas’s career bridged two eras, beginning during World War II when people got their news mostly from radio, newspapers and movie newsreels, and extending into the era of 24-hour information on cable television and the Internet. She  resigned from  U.P.I. on May 16, 2000, a day after it was taken over by an organization with links to the Unification Church

Weeks later, Ms. Thomas was hired by Hearst to write a twice-weekly column on national issues. She spent the last 10 years of her working life there.

When Ms. Thomas took a job as a radio writer for United Press in 1943 (15 years before it merged with the International News Service to become U.P.I.), most female journalists wrote about social events and homemaking. The journalists who covered war, crime and politics, and congratulated one another over drinks at the press club were typically men.

She worked her way into full-time reporting and by the mid-1950s was covering federal agencies. She covered John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960, and when he won she became the first woman assigned to the White House full time by a news service.

Ms. Thomas was also the first woman to be elected an officer of the White House Correspondents’ Association and the first to serve as its president. In 1975, she became the first woman elected to the Gridiron Club, which for 90 years had been a men-only bastion of Washington journalists.

Ms. Thomas was known for her dawn-to-dark work hours, and she won her share of exclusives and near-exclusives. She was the only female print journalist to accompany President Richard M. Nixon on his breakthrough trip to China in 1972.

“Helen was a better reporter than she was a writer — but in her prime had more than her share of scoops the rest of us would try to match,” Mark Knoller, the longtime CBS News White House reporter, wrote in a Twitter message on Saturday morning. And, he added, “Pity the poor WH press aide who would try to tell Helen, ‘You can’t stand there.’ ”

In the Watergate era, she was a favorite late-night confidante of Martha Mitchell, the wife of John N. Mitchell, Mr. Nixon’s attorney general and campaign official. Mrs. Mitchell told Ms. Thomas that responsibility for the “third-rate burglary” at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington and the cover-up that followed it had gone far above the midlevel officials who were implicated early on.

People with a vested interest in discrediting Mrs. Mitchell hinted that she was emotionally unstable and that she drank too much. But volatile or not, she was right. Ms. Thomas called Mrs. Mitchell, who died in 1976, “one of the first victims, and perhaps the only heroine, of the Watergate tidal wave.”

On April 22, 1981, three weeks after the attempt on President Ronald Reagan’s life, Ms. Thomas and a reporter for The Associated Press interviewed the president, who told them of the “paralyzing pain” he had felt when a bullet went into his chest and of the panic that had overcome him when he could not breathe.

In 1971, Ms. Thomas married Douglas Cornell, a widower, who was about to retire as a White House reporter for The A.P. and was 14 years her senior. He died in 1982.  

Ms. Thomas wrote half a dozen books. Her first, “Dateline: White House,” was published by Macmillan in 1975. Four others were published by Scribner: “Front Row at the White House: My Life and Times,” in 2000; “Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President: Wit and Wisdom From the Front Row at the White House,” in 2003; “Watchdogs of Democracy? The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public,” in 2006; and “Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do,” written with Craig Crawford, in 2009. With the illustrator Chip Bok, she also wrote a children’s book, “The Great White House Breakout,” about a little boy whose mother is president.

Helen Thomas was born in Winchester, Ky., on Aug. 4, 1920, and grew up in Detroit, one of 10 children of George and Mary Thomas. Her father, who could not read or write, encouraged his children to go to college.

In 1942, when Ms. Thomas graduated from what is now Wayne State University in Detroit with a major in English, the country was at war. She went to Washington to look for a job.

She found one, as a waitress. But she did not last long. “I didn’t smile enough,” she recalled years later.

Soon The Washington Daily News hired her in a clerical job; soon after that, she began her career with the United Press news service.

“Where’d this girl come from?’” she asked of herself in an appearance before a women’s group in 1999. “I love my work, and I think that I was so lucky to pick a profession where it’s a joy to go to work every day.”

Before she left U.P.I. in May 2000, the news service had been shrinking its payroll and closing bureaus for years, a decline that led to its takeover by News World Communications, the organization founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church. It also publishes The Washington Times, a favorite of conservative readers in Washington.

 “I do not intend to stay,” she said on departing. “United Press International is a great news agency. It has made a remarkable mark in the annals of American journalism and has left a superb legacy for future journalists. I wish the new owners all the best, great stories and happy landings.”

Ms. Thomas bitterly opposed the war in Iraq and made no effort to appear neutral at White House news conferences, where some of her questions bordered on the prosecutorial. In her last book, she wrote that most White House and Pentagon reporters had been too willing to accept the Bush administration’s rationale for going to war.

In an interview with The New York Times in May 2006, Ms. Thomas was characteristically uncompromising and unapologetic.

“How would you define the difference between a probing question and a rude one?” she was asked.

“I don’t think there are any rude questions,” she said.


Mark Landler contributed reporting.

nytimes

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Police investigate Kanye West for battery

7:36 PM

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News in america

Kanye West told photographers not to talk to him.

He told them that on July 12 when he was walking through LAX and the cameras were in his face. And on Friday, he got ticked off again at LAX.

"Can we talk to you Kanye?" says one of the videographers in a TMZ video. "What's going on, man?"

Kanye glares back, clearly not happy as he's walking out the door of the airport.

"What's going on, man? ... You're a cool guy. ... Why can't we talk to you?" the cameraman continues, as Kanye walks on, jaw clenched. And just as Kanye is about to get in a car, he stops and turns to look at the guy.

"Kanye, c'mon. I don't want to fight with you," says the videographer. Silent Kanye walks toward him, the cameraman says, "Dude, seriously. I don't want to fight with you."

Replies Kanye, "You're trying to get me in trouble ... so I'll have to pay you, like, $250,000."

Kanye then lunges at the camera.

TMZ reports that the cameraman was taken to the hospital. And that Kanye could be facing felony charges, based on the photographer claiming Kanye was trying to rob him of his camera.

The Los Angeles Times reports that sources said no injuries were visible on the photographer, but that a battery investigation has been launched by LAPD

E! News says a police statement confirms the investigation is taking place, and that the photographer hurt his hip.

And AP reports that LAX police Sgt. Steve Savala said numerous witnesses were interviewed about the afternoon incident to compile a report for detectives to investigate.

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Lawyers for Osama bin Laden's son-in-law was tortured by the U.S.

10:15 AM

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terrorism news

NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Osama bin Laden's son-in-law claimed in court papers Friday that he was tortured by the U.S. and asked a judge to dismiss the terrorism case against him.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith's attorneys said in papers in Manhattan federal court that their client is charged in a flawed document that fails to adequately explain how he was part of a conspiracy to kill Americans. They said the statute of limitations had expired and that he was denied due process.

They also said he was interrogated at length during a 14-hour flight to the United States earlier this year during which "he was subjected to a variety of deprivation techniques and harsh treatment which constitute torture."

Abu Ghaith, 47, has been held without bail since he was brought to the United States in March to face charges that he conspired against Americans in his role as al-Qaida's spokesman after the Sept. 11 attacks. Authorities say he had appeared in propaganda videos that warned of further assaults against the United States as devastating as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people. Abu Ghaith, who has pleaded not guilty, would be the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to stand trial on U.S. soil since 9/11.

In an affidavit filed to support a request to suppress a 22-page statement he made to authorities, the Kuwaiti-born Abu Ghaith said he left Afghanistan in 2002 and entered Iran, where he was arrested in mid-year and held by elements of the Republican Guard before he was detained in prisons and interrogated extensively. He said he was told by Iranian government officials that the U.S. government was aware he was being held in jail in Iran and that Iran had turned over a number of prisoners to the United States already.

Abu Ghaith said he was released from Iranian custody on Jan. 11, when he entered Turkey, where he was detained and interrogated before he was released on Feb. 28. He said he was heading home to Kuwait on a plane to see family when the flight landed instead in Amman, Jordan, where he was handcuffed and turned over to American authorities.

He said he had learned through other detainees and news sources over the years that the U.S. had engaged in waterboarding, beatings, freezing rooms, sleep deprivation, electrical shocking, the use of dogs and noise torture, humiliation while naked and other practices.

"I believed that I was now in American custody, and I anticipated increasing degrees of physical and psychological torture, which terrified me," he wrote.

He said he was kept naked on the plane for several minutes as a man in military clothing photographed his body.

"I was terrified, and I saw that there were several men on board, and at least one woman present, who observed me while I was naked from her location behind a partially-drawn curtain at the front of the plane," Abu Ghaith said.

He said he was interrogated over the next 13 hours with a few breaks in a cold plane. He said he was only given a small bottle of water and one orange to eat. He said he soiled his clothing and feet and urinated on the floor when he tried to relieve himself in the plane's restroom while handcuffed as a soldier watched.

"The soldier shouted and cursed at me in English and made threatening gestures, and I was made to kneel and clean up the urine from the floor using bits of paper, while my hands were shackled at my waist. It was terrifying to be confined in a small airplane toilet cleaning the floor while the soldier yelled at me and threatened me," he said.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the defense motion.

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