Sgt Justin Griffith wants atheists to be given more respect in the armed forces

In a land of faith and flag, Justin Griffith is challenging the US military to abandon its religious ties.

When he was a child growing up in Plano, Texas – a place he describes as the “oversized, goofy buckle on the Bible belt” – he would bring his bible to science class and debate his teachers on the finer points of evolution.

“In my head, I won every time,” says Mr Griffith, now 29.

But somewhere along the way, his penchant for picking ideological fights with the non-religious got him in trouble. He found it harder and harder to argue with the points they were making. At 13, he suffered a crisis of faith.

“It was so painful. I lost my religion before I lost my first girlfriend. Nothing that big had ever happened to me, and I didn’t have any coping skills,” he says.

Mr Griffith found peace with his atheism, but he is not done sparring with the opposite team.

As an active-duty sergeant in the US Army, he’s leading the charge to get atheists more respect in the armed forces. In the process he is earning attention, both positive and negative, from around the world.

Protest rock

Mr Griffith’s most ambitious project is Rock Beyond Belief, a day-long event on the military base Fort Bragg, North Carolina, complete with children’s activities, rock concerts and a lecture by atheism’s most visible proponent, author and scientist Richard Dawkins.

It is an ambitious plan in an organisation still respectful of religious traditions and in a town that holds Christian values dear.

Scheduled for 31 March, Rock Beyond Belief comes two years after another controversial concert at Fort Bragg, “Rock The Fort”.

Sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, Rock the Fort was billed as an “evangelical event” with Christian bands, family activities, and an emphasis on spreading the gospel to the entire community.

Despite attracting criticism for hosting the event, the top brass at Fort Bragg said they would be willing do the same for an event thrown by a different religious group.

“So the next day, I raised my hand and said, ‘Fort Bragg, I’ve got an event’,” says Mr Griffith.

The concert was originally scheduled for 2011, but was postponed until his group could secure the same location as Rock The Fort: an outdoor field capable of hosting thousands of people, in view of the Main Post Chapel.

Though the Rock Beyond Belief concert is the most public of Mr Griffith’ s efforts to make the military more accepting of atheists, it is not his only one.

“We have a lot of work to do,” he says.

Military culture is full of religious ideology and symbolism, says Griffith. For instance, he cites the traditional flag-folding ceremony, which cites faith in God in multiple instances.

“These things have been here for years. It’s tradition,” he says. “How do we go about getting them out?”

Prior to planning the concert, he registered his complaints against the army’s spiritual fitness test, a campaign that he continues.

That test, implemented last year as part of a wider resiliency and suicide-prevention program, rates service members on the strength of their spiritual life.

He’s also working to ensure that servicemembers can have “atheist” listed on their official military records.

“It took me a year and a half to get my records changed to atheist. When I told them I was atheist, they put ‘no religious preference’,” he says. “I told them that’s unacceptable. I do have a preference, and that’s atheism.”

These records are important, he says, because of the end-of-life services provided to soldiers who may have been wounded in war.

“I want them to know that I am an atheist: do not pray; do not do last rites; do not do any goofy ceremonies for me,” he says.

Bigger microphone

Mr Griffith counts about 100 members in Fort Bragg’s atheist community, which meets weekly off-base, since it is not yet recognised as a distinctive faith group by the military.

He also works with other atheist groups on military bases across the country.

Through his efforts, Mr Griffith has become a figurehead within the atheist movement. His bloggets around 100,000 hits a month and he says he puts in about 40 hours a week of activism on top of his military duties. In July, he was appointed the military director of American Atheists.

“I definitely have a bigger microphone now,” he says.

But with that bigger voice comes bigger criticism. Because atheists so often fight to keep religion out of public property or government activities, they are perceived as being anti-Christian.

When Fox News reported on Rock Beyond Belief, it focused on a music video by Aiden, one of the bands performing at the concert. That video featured images burning churches and references to burning synagogues and holy books.

Mr Griffith says the band was referring to sectarian violence in the name of religion, not an appeal for atheists to incite violence.

Still, the article resulted in an influx of hate mail and death threats.

Military microcosm

Though the general public is not always receptive to atheism, the military itself offers a promise of acceptance.

Aside from recognised Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups, Fort Bragg has resources for other faiths, including Buddhists and Wiccans, a Pagan religion.

“The army really is a microcosm of the entirety of our nation,” says Benjamin Abel, a spokesman for Fort Bragg. “We serve the people, and we have an incredibly diverse population of people in the United States.”

He notes that there are steps religious groups can go through to gain more visibility on base.

The fight by atheists, he says, reminds him of the struggle the base’s Wiccan members endured years ago.

“Through history, the military has generally been out in front of a lot of social issues. We integrated the military first, we just had the recent change of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’, [and] women have been integrated in the military for a long time.

“We’re not out there as a force for social change, but we certainly don’t shy from it,” says Mr Abel.

While Mr Griffith does not believe in God, he does believe in the military.

A few months ago he re-enlisted for another five-year tour of duty, and plans to make his career in the service.

“I never would have gotten anywhere without the army. It taught me to be a man,” he says.

“The army is so good, it deserves these little corrections – and I do consider them little, in the scale of how great the army is.”

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has warned of a war between Khartoum and South Sudan because their failure to settle a dispute over an oil export deal.

Al-Bashir told Blue Nile TV on Friday that war “is a possibility” because of escalating tensions with Juba over the spat.

But he said his government will “not be the initiators of such a war.”

Landlocked South Sudan shut down oil production late last month after it accused Sudan of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil.

South Sudan broke away from its northern neighbor Sudan on July 9 last year.

Sen. Joe Haynes announced Friday that he will not seek re-election in 2012, saying a newly redrawn district by Republicans wasn’t necessarily a factor in his decision.

However, the Goodlettsville Democrat, who has served in the Senate for 28 years, did note what he called an “interesting symmetry” in the circumstances surrounding his decision to run in 1984 and the one he would face 2012.

“In 1984, the ruling Democratic majority literally changed the district to exclude my home in an attempt to protect a Democratic incumbent,” said Haynes, whose district includes large parts of Nashville in Davidson County.

“This year, the ruling Republican majority has radically changed my district in an attempt to draw a district more favorable to a Republican candidate.”

He said he still believes he could win.

Haynes, 75, said his “family, a huge stack of unread books and a little-used fishing boat demand my attention now.”

He is the fourth Democratic lawmaker to announce he won’t run for re-election in the fall.

The others are Rep. Harry Tindell of Knoxville, and Sens. Roy Herron of Dresden and Eric Stewart of Belvidere, who is running for Congress.

Congressional Budget Office bean counters are taking a fresh look at President Obama’s national health care law, and will have updated figures on key provisions in March, director Doug Elmendorf testified this week in Congress.

Though he stopped short of saying there would be a full re-scoring of the law.

Several factors could make the health care law significantly more costly than advertised at the time of passage in March 2010. For instance, the law was crafted in a way to delay enactment of the major spending provisions until 2014, to make the legislation appear cheaper under the CBO’s 10-year budget window (then 2010 to 2019).  Now, the budget window has moved up to 2022, meaning it takes into account an extra three years of full enactment.

When Elmendorf testified before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., asked him out the cost estimates for Medicaid spending and health insurance exchange subsidies would be effected now that CBO’s long-term unemployment forecast has deteriorated. Campbell noted that at the time of its original estimate, CBO was expecting an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent in 2014, but now that’s projected to be 8.7 percent.

“That piece alone would raise the cost of the Affordable Care Act,” Elmendorf said, referring to the formal name for the legislation. “I don’t know by how much.”

Elmendorf said the CBO would update its estimates of the cost of coverage expansions under the health care law.

On Thursday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also pressed Elmendorf on health care cost estimates, arguing that the number of employers who would be dumping workers on government-run exchanges and simply paying a fine would be higher than originally projected.

Elmendorf responded that in addition to updating the coverage provisions for March, the CBO was working on a separate analysis that would contain a range of estimates about how the cost of the health care law would be affected if certain assumptions were wrong one way or the other.

Researchers deduced that there had been water present during a warmer period lasting up to 5,000 years in the distant past, but this would have been too little time for life to establish itself on the surface.

The findings published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal were based on soil collected during the 2008 Nasa Phoenix mission to Mars.

Experts spent three years painstakingly scrutinising individual particles of soil to determine whether or not the planet was habitable.

The analysis, by Imperial College London researchers, showed that soil on Mars is formed under similarly arid conditions to the Moon.

The sample was taken from Mars’s icy northern arctic region, but separate studies have shown the entire planet is covered with the same type of soil.

Dr Tom Pike, who led the research, said: “We found that even though there is an abundance of ice, Mars has been experiencing a super-drought that may well have lasted hundreds of millions of years.

“We think the Mars we know today contrasts sharply with its earlier history, which had warmer and wetter periods and which may have been more suited to life.

“Future NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) missions that are planned for Mars will have to dig deeper to search for evidence of life, which may still be taking refuge underground.”

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and President Barack Obama

Taliban leader Mullah Omar purportedly sent a letter to President Barack Obama last year indicating an interest in peace talks, US officials have claimed.

College president’s commitment to diversity included defending hate-crime hoaxer

Claremont McKenna College, a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, has earned international infamy for fraudulently misreporting its SAT scores to game the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Richard Vos, dean of admissions since 1987, resigned in disgrace Monday, starting a nationwide debate about the role of SATs in higher education and the integrity of Claremont’s admission process. But absent from any analysis is this: Vos began falsifying SAT scores in 2005, right around the time Claremont began to institutionalize racial preferences. An investigation of the data since released suggests that Claremont manipulated the school’s scores to cover up admittance of under-qualified minority students.

A former employee of one of the world’s largest international banks has provided WND with more than 1,000 pages of documents, including customer account ledgers for dozens of companies through which the financial institution was laundering money each month, according to the whistleblower.

“I found many accounts through which hundreds of thousands of dollars were being flowed as a conduit on a monthly basis,” John Cruz, an account relationship manager who worked in the HSBC southern New York region. told WND.

As WND reported, Cruz has a raft of customer account records he claims are evidence of an international money-laundering scheme involving hundreds of billions of dollars by London-based HSBC, which reportedly is under investigation by a U.S. Senate committee.

To illustrate the point, WND and Cruz selected the bank checking account ledger for a particular HSBC commercial account, called “Company ABC” for the sake of this article, for the months May through August 2009.

In the exhibits below, WND has redacted all information that might be used to identify the account holder, including removing the account number from the bank statements.

Company ABC was identified in HSBC records with the following information:

• “Delivery Service, DHL, office products, packages.”
• Located on West 39th Street in New York City, in operation for four years and organized under New York corporate laws.
• The account was identified as being 100 percent owned by a person from Malaysia who had non-resident status in the United States and a permanent address in West Hempstead, N.Y.
• The account registration was deficient in any meaningful “Know Your Customer” information, expect to list for the owner a New York drivers’ license number.
• The file described the business as: “SHIPPING COMPANY, OFFICE ON THE 9TH FLOOR, EMPLOYEES, DESKS, COMPUTERS, PRESIDENT’S OFFICE, OPERATIONS ON 13TH FLOOR.”
• The file noted that the business was last paid a site visit on March 10, 2009, by the HSBC branch manager in E. Northport, Long Island.
• The file listed the annual revenue of the company as $2 million. But also lists the gross for the 2008 tax return as $2,782,857.

“The first words out of my mouth when I first visited Company ABC in person were that this company is bogus,” Cruz said. “There were a few small boxes lying around and a few envelopes – but nothing of value, no large packages or anything else that would justify hundreds of thousands of dollars of business being transacted here on a monthly basis.”

Cruz said he found two women on Company ABC’s 13th floor, but they seemed to be only sitting at desks and talking.

“It turned out that the two women did not speak English,” he said. “So, when I said, ‘Hello,’ they just nodded. There were no managers or other employees around, so I left.”

As seen in Exhibit 1, for the month from May 7, 2009, through June 5, 2009, Company ABC started with an opening balance of $628,081.74 and a closing balance of $328,228.99.

On May 15, 2009, a debit reflects that $300,100 was wired from the account to an unspecified location via a telephone transfer.

Other than to be credited $247.25 on May 28, 2009, the account shows no other activity.

A team of attorneys from the American Freedom Law Center today asked a court in New York for a preliminary injunction that would uphold the principle of free speech in the advertisements on the transit authority’s facilities.

A lawsuit had been filed last fall over the refusal by the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority to accept advertising that calls for support for civilized man and opposition to the savage acts of terrorism the world has known in recent years.

Officials with the AFLC said today they’d asked for a preliminary injunction to protect freedom of speech as the case works its way through the system.

“The MTA’s ‘demeaning speech’ policy is operating here as a viewpoint-based restriction on our clients’ speech,” said David Yerushalmi, senior counsel for the organization. “Viewpoint discrimination is the most egregious form of content discrimination under the First Amendment.”

The organization is working on behalf of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. The request for an injunction went to the U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York.

“Here, the MTA would rather violate a law-abiding, private citizen’s right to freedom of speech than offend those who support violent jihad against Israel and others,” said Robert Muise, the AFLC’s senior counsel. “The American Freedom Law Center is committed to fighting this pernicious form of civilization jihad that undermines our fundamental rights.”

The ad that was refused by the transit authority, which has carried a wide range of commercial, political and religious messages on its facilities, was the statement, “In Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man. Support Israel.”

The ad was offered as a response to an earlier ad run by a pro-Palestine group.

But it rejected the pro-Israel ad, “claiming that it violated its policy against displaying ‘images or information that demean an individual or group of individuals on account of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.’”

According to the papers filed with the federal court, the MTA, by policy and practice, intentionally dedicates its advertising space on vehicles to expressive conduct.

Under that policy, it has allowed the message, “Muslims for Peace, Love for All, Hatred for None … WHY ISLAM.”

It also permitted, “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?”

And it allowed the pro-Palestine, “Be on our side. We are the side of peace and justice. End U.S. military aid to Israel.”

The AFDI submitted its proposed ad to CSB Outdoor, which is an agent for the MTA. It was a political message that responded directly to the pro-Palestine message posted earlier.

“The anti-Israeli advertisement suggests that Israel’s military is the impediment to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and that U.S. military aid to Israel also acts as an impediment to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. In other words, the anti-Israel advertisement blames Israel, its military, and U.S. military aid to Israel as the cause of Palestinian terror directed against innocent civilians in Israel and abroad.”

The subsequent ad request from AFDI said there is no comparison or equivalence
between “savage civilian-targeting violence and Israel’s civilized struggle for survival in a part of the world where civilized behavior is overshadowed by terrorism, despotism, and brutality.”

The MTA rejected the ad because of its “demeaning speech” policy.

But the real effect is that a viewpoint that the U.S. foreign policy supporting Israel in the face of savage violence is correct is being censored, officials said.

“The Constitution does not permit the government, in this case the MTA, to take sides on political issues by silencing one side of the debate,” Muise said.

In a commentary about the dispute, Geller wrote that similar issues have come up in Seattle, San Francisco and Washington.

“The ad is actually referring to the Islamic jihadists who are determined to destroy Israel. And they are savage,” she wrote. “Truth is radical. Morality is radical. But a genocidal ideology is not radical or savage.”

Her book, “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance,” also documents such situations.

“Tell me again why the word ‘savage’ is inaccurate. Everyone is shocked (shocked, I tell ya) by the use of the word savage for savages. As long as the Palestinian Authority continues its savage policy to foment violence and promote hatred, and teaches its children to hate, the number of young Muslims willing to blow themselves up or to slit Israeli throats will continue to increase. That is savage. The Palestinian Authority propaganda of ‘Holocaust denial, racial slurs, anti-Jewish epithets and glorification of terrorists’ is savage,” she wrote.

She cited as savagery: targeting civilians, terrorism against Jews, torture of hostages, the bloody hacking death of a family, Munich, and the “endless demonization of the Jewish people…”

“But we are supposed to tiptoe around the savages, so as not to enflame the savages,” she wrote. .

Israeli facilities in North America — and around the world — are on high alert, according to an internal security document obtained by ABC News that predicted the threat from Iran against Jewish targets will increase.

“We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase … on both our guarded sites and ‘soft’ sites,” stated a letter circulated by the head of security for the Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic States. Guarded sites refers to government facilities like embassies and consulates, while ‘soft sites’ means Jewish synagogues, and schools, as well as community centers like the one hit by a terrorist bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people.

The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, told an audience at a closed forum in Tel Aviv recently that Iran is trying to hit Israeli targetsbecause of what it believes are Israeli attacks on it nuclear scientists. Yoram Cohen said that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the same militant wing of the government linked to the recent alleged plot against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., is working tirelessly to attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in order to deter Israel.

Local and regional law enforcement and intelligence officials in U.S. and Canadian cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Toronto have been monitoring the situation closely for several weeks, and have stepped up patrols at Israeli government locations and Jewish cultural and religious institutions. They have issued awareness bulletins reminding officers to stay vigilant.

Federal officials in those cities told ABC News that they have also increased their efforts to watch for any threat stream pointing to an imminent attack on either Israeli facilities, Jewish cultural or religious institutions or other “soft targets.”

“When there is posturing like this, we always pay extra attention to any threat streams,” one federal official said.

“The thwarted assassination plot of a Saudi official in Washington, D.C., a couple of months ago was an important data point,” added the official, “in that it showed at least parts of the Iranian establishment were aware of the intended event and were not concerned about inevitable collateral damage to U.S. citizens had they carried out an assassination plot on American soil.”

“That was an eye opener, showing that they did not care about any collateral damage,” the federal official said.

After the disruption of the alleged plot, regional intelligence centers issued bulletins similar to the recent Israeli warning.

“In the past few weeks, there has been an escalation in threats against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,” one regional document noted. “Open source has reported many demonstrations against Israel are expected to be concentrated on Israeli embassies and consulates. Such demonstrations have occurred internationally as well as domestically. These demonstrations could potentially turn violent at local synagogues, restaurants, the Israeli Embassy and other Israeli sites. … Law enforcement should be vigilant when making periodic checks at all Jewish facilities.

And the Israeli bulletin warned that Israel’s own passports might be used by terrorists intent on carrying out a plot.

“According to our evaluation there is a possibility that the forged passports will be used in order to pass as Israeli citizens at the security checks in Israel and around the world. Israeli security authorities may consider an Israeli citizenship as a [criterion] to proceed with a more lenient security check in secure sites such as airports, etc.,” the letter stated.

Israeli Military Strike Against Iran?

The Israeli security bulletin came in the midst of heated rhetoric on the part of the U.S., Iranian and Israeli political religious and military leadership and follows the recent assassination of a key scientist in Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. If the rhetoric is to be believed, there is a deep concern that Israel might launch a military strike against Iran during the spring of 2012.

The intelligence community assessment of that possibility, based on interviews conducted by ABC News, is considerably more nuanced, taking into account as it does the political will of the United States during an election year, the fragile nature of Great Britain’s coalition government , the willingness of other allies to join in an offensive, the roles of Russia and China and Saudi Arabia in such a confrontation, and whether Israel would really be willing to launch a unilateral strike.

“But in this situation, the political rhetoric is actually quite important,” one official told ABC News. “And that is why the official position — of the U.S, England, France, Canada, Israel and allies — is that nothing is off the table.”

An apparent shift in the Israeli/U.S. relationship has complicated matters, however, said the official. In the past, Israel would probably have given the U.S. a heads up were it to launch a strike. Now that might not be the case. Among the English-speaking allies of the U.S., say multiple intelligence officials, there is currently a very limited expectation of any early warning.

While much of the public attention has focused on Israel and the rifts within its leadership on how to respond to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the reality for Iran’s leadership is also problematic. After threatening to strangle the world oil supply through the straits of Hormuz, Iran “has boxed itself into a corner,” said one Western intelligence official. “It would be quite humiliating for them to back down.”

The Israeli security letter sums up the resultant risks very clearly.

“In conclusion, we operate according to the information that Iran and Hezbollah are working hard and with great intensity to release a ‘quality’ attack against Israeli/Jewish sites around the world.”

Pedestrians enter a subway pass at the closed Doukisis Plakentias metro station during a 24-hour strike in Athens, Greece, on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012.

Greece’s fight to win its second international bailout may only open a new chapter in its struggle to remain in the euro area.

The rescue plan, which European officials and Greek creditors say may be wrapped up in coming days, includes a loss of more than 70 percent for bondholders in a voluntary debt exchange and loans likely to exceed the 130 billion euros ($171 billion) now on the table.

That won’t stanch the bleeding, say economists including Holger Schmieding of Berenberg Bank in London. Greece will be saddled with too much debt, too little growth and too large a budget hole to do without even more money that euro nations led by Germany are increasingly reluctant to offer, they say.

“Greece is in deep trouble,” Schmieding said in a Jan. 30 report. “The current Greek adjustment program is failing. Excessive austerity, a lack of supply-side reforms, administrative incompetence and political deadlock have pushed the Greek economy into an apparent death spiral. More of the same will not work.”

As Greek officials negotiate with representatives of the so-called troika — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund – Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann may travel to Athens this weekend for talks over a swap involving Greek debt with a face value of about 200 billion euros.

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said today the country is close to completing the bailout talks.

‘Final Phase’

“We are in the final phase of this very critical process to shape a new financing program for Greece and to complete the loan agreement which will lighten the burden of public debt and ensure funding for years to come,” Papademos said in a statement posted on his website.

The euro is headed for a weekly decline against all of its 16 major peers. It rose 0.2 percent to $1.3169 at 11:45 a.m. in London. The yield on Germany’s benchmark 10-year bond fell 1.5 basis points to 1.84 percent, while the yield on Italian 10-year bonds declined 2 basis points to 5.58 percent.

Creditors are prepared to accept an average coupon of as low as 3.6 percent on new 30-year bonds in the exchange, said a person familiar with the talks, who declined to be identified because a final deal hasn’t been struck yet. The aim is to cut Greece’s debt load to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020 from 162 percent in 2011. The alternative is an uncontrolled default that may lead to deeper losses and ripple effects throughout Europe.

Agreement Seen

An agreement could be reached “in the coming weeks, maybe days,” said Ackermann, also chairman of the Institute of International Finance. The group, based in Washington, has more than 450 financial firms as members and is representing private creditors in the talks.

Meantime, the finance ministers of the AAA-rated euro countries — Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland — are set to meet today in Berlin to discuss options.

“We can’t pay into a bottomless pit,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said yesterday. “Greece needs a new program, there’s no question about that, but Greece must create the conditions for it.”

Greece remains in intensive care more than two years after triggering Europe’s debt crisis, testing the patience of other European Union nations. Last November, when discussing the Greek situation, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the first time raised the prospect of a country’s exit from the euro.

Contagion

Failure to control Greece’s troubles helped to push Ireland and Portugal into rescue programs, to raise borrowing costs for Italy and Spain, to embroil the European Central Bank in a controversial program of sovereign-bond purchases and to prompt Standard & Poor’s to stripFrance of its top credit rating.

Greece has lagged behind budget targets set when it won an initial, taxpayer-funded rescue of 110 billion euros in May 2010, prompting euro-area threats to cut off aid and hastening a German push to make bondholders contribute. The country is in its fifth year of recession, with a budget deficit still close to 10 percent of gross domestic product and unemployment of around 18 percent.

Bond Payment

Facing a 14.5 billion-euro bond payment on March 20 and general elections as soon as April, Papademos’s caretaker government must heed familiar calls by the euro area and the IMF for tighter austerity to complete the talks on a second aid package. The demands are also for lower wage costs and the deregulation of professions including lawyers and truck drivers.

The cuts risk triggering a “social explosion,” Hieronymos II, the head of Greece’s Orthodox Church, said in a statement posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Athens.

“We are being asked to take even larger doses of a medicine that has proven to be deadly and to undertake commitments that do not solve the problem, but only temporarily postpone the foretold death of our economy,” the Archbishop said.

Greece will default on its debt and is likely to leave the euro, Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman said yesterday at a conference in Moscow.

“The Greek situation is essentially impossible,” Krugman said. “They will default on their debt. In fact they already have. The question is whether they will also leave the euro, which I think at this point is more likely than not.”

Mexico’s epidemic of violence first erupted in 2006, according to most accounts. But an ex-Muslim from India, who serves as a Christian pastor along the Texas-Mexican border, believes the problem began much earlier, with human sacrifice, witches, and the adoration of death in ancient Aztec days.

Bombay-born Mujahid Hussein, 41, who found Jesus aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean 17 years ago, is now known as David Elijah. He was ordained by Kings Revival Church International of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the largest and fastest growing congregation in the Middle East.

“There are few places in America more evil, or more steeped in witchcraft and demonic influences, along with false prophets, divination and corruption, than the border region of northern Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas,” Elijah told The Christian Post.

He pastors a church, leads an evangelistic healing and deliverance ministry, and hosts a weekly broadcast, “Avivamiento Del Rey,” on Radio Vida, a local Christian station in McAllen, Texas, just across the border from Reynosa, Mexico. The weekly program is heard in Spanish and English in Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, Texas and the western U.S., on a variety of AM frequencies.

“The worship of Santa Muerte (Holy Death, or Saint Death) is widespread, especially among the drug cartels, but it’s also rapidly growing among the general population in Mexico and in Hispanic communities in the U.S.,” he said.

Human blood is sometimes offered to gain the favor of this idol, which is depicted in illustrations and statues as a skeleton wearing a hooded robe, holding a scythe or globe. Some link Santa Muerte to the Aztec goddess of the dead, Mictecacihuatl.

“Beheadings, like the ones we see the cartels doing, were part of ancient Aztec human-sacrifice rituals. The adoration of death and the use of witchcraft have been practiced in Mexico for longer than anyone knows, and are regaining popularity,” he said.

While the violence in Mexico fills headlines, problems in the border area of south Texas seldom make the news but are just as serious, he said, especially in the spiritual realm. The population of the Rio Grande Valley is at least 90 percent Hispanic, and thousands of Mexicans from Mexico are flooding into the region, fleeing the violence in their homeland.

“A large majority of the Valley’s population is Catholic, but the Catholicism here is mixed up with ancient pagan rites, witchcraft, false religions like Santeria, Voodoo, Palo Mayombe, and other demonic cults, and the worship of false saints like ‘Saint’ Death and Jesus Malverde,” Elijah said.

“Basically, it all adds up to Satan worship, which feeds the violence and every other problem, like poverty, drought, hunger, chronic ill health, lack of jobs, and hopelessness,” he said.

While the main focus of his ministry is evangelism, he said there’s so much demonic activity it has to be dealt with in order to reach the lost.

“Intercessory prayer, prayer walks, extended worship, planting churches, setting up a school to train evangelists and pastors, these are just some of the things we’re doing, in addition to deliverance. I grew up in India where I learned at a young age about demons and demonization. I saw what it did to people. It’s real. When evil spirits invade a person’s life, that person needs deliverance. Jesus set the example by casting out demons,” Elijah said.

He shook his head and smiled. “Just about every Baptist who visits India becomes a Pentecostal.”

Then he grew serious.

“From the syncretism here along the border, from the mixture of Catholicism, witchcraft and idolatry, come blasphemies that always arise whenever something is exalted above God. Worshiping anyone, anything, or any idol instead of the Lord God Almighty brings escalating violence, mutilations, bombings, murders and slaughters for the sake of money, power and pride.

“Mexico is now the greatest exporter of cocaine, more than Columbia. In 2004, the mayor of Matamoros (directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas) officially recognized Santa Muerte as a saint. When the local seat of authority is recognizing a demonic cult as legitimate, all hell breaks loose. There are several Satanist churches operating openly in Matamoros that used to have to hide their existence. The local population supports them. Also in 2004, videos of al- Qaida beheadings went viral on the Internet, and now that old Aztec human-sacrifice ritual is being carried out all across Mexico.”

Elijah said the unclean spirits controlling the cartels have slithered into many levels of Mexican society and have also invaded the church on both sides of the border.

“When anyone begins dabbling in the occult and witchcraft, it brings spiritual defilement by attracting unclean spirits. You can’t be messing around with the devil and say you’re a Christian. Here in the Valley, the spirit of divination is taking over pulpits through false prophets and false prophetesses who are prophesying over people, laying on hands, causing all sorts of problems.

“The lack of discernment in the body of Christ is huge. People are impressed by what seem to be spiritual gifts, but they don’t realize there’s a ‘familiar spirit’ that counterfeits the Holy Spirit. They haven’t been taught that all signs and wonders aren’t from God. They don’t understand that even apparent healings can be deceptions in these end times when the Bible says wickedness will abound.”

In addition to the almost 50,000 estimated to have died in Mexico’s drug violence, another 10,000 have disappeared without a trace. Many of these, Elijah is convinced, are the victims of Satanic rituals that require human sacrifice.

“There’s lots of really gruesome stuff going on.”

Many of the murders and mutilations are so horrific and unwarranted, he said, there’s no reasonable explanation other than to conclude they’re inspired by the devil himself.

“There’s even a counterfeit Lord’s Supper where instead of bread and wine, human flesh and blood are used.”

Elijah said such abominations aren’t taking place only in Mexico.

“Come visit McAllen, Texas, sometime and take a look at the witchcraft shops operating on Main Street. They must have plenty of customers and be making good money to be able to afford the rent on such prime locations.

“On both sides of the border, so many people go to church on Sunday, then on Monday they go to a witch to get healed. They call them curanderas, faith healers. They don’t find any power in the church, so they go to someone who does have power. The only problem is, it’s Satanic power, and they get worse – they get demonized.”

That’s where Elijah’s deliverance meetings come in. They’re set up like prayer meetings, beginning with what Elijah calls “extravagant worship,” whereby the gathered believers sing praises to Jesus with great fervor for much longer than during a typical church worship session. He says it takes time to enter the presence of God, and many churches never get there because they seldom spend enough time worshiping.

Following praise and worship, those who feel they need deliverance are instructed to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to them their unconfessed sins, and then repent. They are prayed for, and the unclean spirits troubling them are identified by name and commanded to depart in the name of Jesus Christ.

“And usually, they do,” Elijah said.

An observer for The Christian Post was present at a deliverance session involving a man from Mexico who’d heard Elijah’s program on the radio and had called in, asking for help. The man was invited to Elijah’s house church where, according to the man, a demon was cast out of him.

This is how he explained his experience, speaking in rapid, excited Spanish, while a woman translated.

“When the pastor commanded the evil spirit to come out, I felt like there was a kitten inside my stomach that was being pulled out of me by its tail. It was stabbing its claws deep into my stomach and holding on with all its strength because it didn’t want to leave.

“It hurt me very bad, but finally it went out, and I felt like heavy chains had been lifted off me. I haven’t felt this good in a really long time.”

Elijah said this sort of experience occurs regularly at his deliverance meetings.

He said demons often seem to “nest” in the stomach, and usually when they’re expelled, the person they’re cast out from will spit up a foul, dark liquid that doesn’t look or smell like ordinary vomit.

He said he’d seen much demonic activity in India, and knew it was real. He said most people in America don’t believe in demons because they’ve never encountered them, or aren’t able to recognize demonic influence for what it really is.

The Obama administration is working to attract more private funding for mortgage markets while winding down government-backed housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told reporters that administration officials are exploring legislative options for overhauling the nation’s housing finance system with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, as well as with academics and other non-government agencies and advocacy groups.

In a white paper last February, the administration outlined three options for a long-term overhaul of the U.S. housing market. Each of those options proposed the elimination of Fannie and Freddie, though they differed on how or whether to replace the two agencies.

Congressional Republicans have also advocated shutting down the taxpayer-backed mortgage agencies, but on a faster timetable.

“We’re in a much earlier stage on housing reform” than with some other financial regulatory changes, said Geithner, though he add that, “What we’re going to try to do is lay the foundation for consensus.”

Geithner doesn’t expect a consensus any time soon. “It’s going to be a complicated process,” he said. “We don’t expect to legislate this year.”

The administration’s priority “is to repair the damage to homeowners, the housing market, and neighborhoods caused by the crisis,” Geithner said, referencing new measures posed by the president this week that would make it easier for struggling homeowners to refinance at record-low interest rates, thus reducing the size of their monthly mortgage payments.

The Republican presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney told CNSNews.com today that if elected Romney will rescind in its entirety a regulation finalized last month by the Obama administration that requires all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that cause abortions.

The Obama administration’s final version of the regulation effectively exempted only an actual church—such as a Catholic parish—from the regulation, while insisting that it would be fully enforced on individuals, private business owners, non-religious private-sector organizations and insurers.

Romney published an op-ed in the Washington Examiner today in which he said he would eliminate the rule that compels “religious institutions” to purchase health-care plans that cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives. Romney did not say in the op-ed, however, whether he would eliminate the rule insofar as it applies to individuals, private-sector businesses, non-religious private-sector organizations and insurers.

“And on day one I will eliminate the Obama administration rule that compels religious institutions to violate the tenets of their own faith,” Romney wrote in the Examiner. “Such rules don’t belong in the America that I believe in.”

Through his campaign press office, CNSNews.com asked Romney today via email about this: “Will Mitt Romney, on day one, rescind this mandate in its entirety—as the Catholic Church has urged the current administration to do—so that individuals, employers and insurers who have a ‘moral or religious objection to contraception or sterilization’ will not be forced to violate the tenets of their own faith or act against their consciences?”

Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams responded: “Yes–Governor Romney would rescind the mandate in its entirety.”

Some media reports have erroneously said that the U.S. Catholic bishops have simply asked the Obama administration to expand the religious exemption in the regulation so that it would cover religiously affiliated organizations such as Catholic hospitals, universities, and charitable organizations as well as Catholic parishes. In fact, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops informed the administration, in writing, in comments submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services, that the bishops believed the regulation in its entirety violated the First Amendment rights of individuals, employers and insurers and must to be rescinded in its entirety.

“First, we comment on the mandate that all health plans cover prescription contraceptives, sterilization, and related patient education and counseling,” the bishops told HHS. “This mandate, we submit, should be rescinded in its entirety.”

“[A]s applied to individuals and organizations with a religious objection to contraceptives, sterilization, and related counseling and education, the HHS mandate violates various protections under the Religion Clauses and Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (‘RFRA’) and the Administrative Procedure Act (‘APA’),” said the bishops.

“Second, we comment on the regulation’s religious exemption (‘HHS exemption’ or ‘the exemption’),” said the bishops. “The exemption provides no protection at all for individuals or insurers with a moral or religious objection to contraceptives or sterilization, who will experience burdens to conscience under this new mandate. Instead, it provides protection only to employers with similar objections, and even then to a very small subset of religious employers.”

“By failing to protect insurers, individuals, most employers, or any other stakeholders with a religious objection to such items and procedures, the HHS exemption, like the mandate itself, violates the First Amendment and the APA,” said the bishops.

“In sum,” they said, we urge HHS to rescind the mandate in its entirety.”

It took several minutes and a woolly hat to resolve the latest differences among the loose alliance of Russian opposition groups challenging Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule.

Unable to agree on the order of a protest march through Moscow on Saturday, the organizers, gathered round a few tables shoved together in a crowded Moscow cultural centre, borrowed the hat from a woman bystander and drew lots from it.

A row was averted. Non-affiliated protesters will lead the march, increasing pressure on Putin to allow free elections and open up the political system, and they will be followed by liberals, right-wing groups and nationalists.

The many groups behind the biggest protests since Putin rose to power disagree on more than they agree on, and their chaotic meetings are often an exercise in conflict resolution.

Fearing the Kremlin will exploit any public differences, they are keeping their political demands and sensitive political discussions to a minimum to help maintain the fragile unity.

“A coalition as broad as this can only concentrate on achieving one goal,” said Maxim Blant, a journalist debating the protest movement with other civic activists during a political discussion one snowy evening this week.

“The groups involved all want a level playing field for political competition in Russia. This unites them even though they have different values otherwise. They understand the rules of the game – they must focus on the one goal that unites them.”

TEST OF MOMENTUM

Two opposition rallies in Moscow on December 10 and December 24 attracted tens of thousands of people angered by allegations of fraud in a parliamentary election on December 4 that was won by Putin’s ruling United Russia party.

Saturday’s march will test the opposition’s ability to keep up the momentum despite freezing weather, Putin’s refusal to meet their main demands and the prime minister’s all-but certain victory in a presidential election on March 4.

We know that Putin will win on March 4. But we want to ensure he is naked and wet when he enters the Kremlin, with all respect for him gone,” said Sergei Parkhomenko, a journalist who is part of the organizing committee.

Protesters were also united by an announcement by Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev on September 24 that they plan to swap jobs after the presidential election, a move seen by many Russians as openly flouting democracy.

The protest movement has brought together such diverse figures as former chess champion and opposition politician Garry Kasparov, environmental campaigner Yevgenia Chirikova, anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who has expressed nationalist views, and left-wing leader Sergei Udaltsov.

None has emerged as the group’s leader although Navalny, 35, is widely seen as having the potential to step into that role. At the first organizational meeting, his seat, marked by a place name, was empty at the start because he had been jailed for 15 days for his role in an earlier protest in December.

One of the organizers, liberal politician Boris Nemtsov, served in government under President Boris Yeltsin but others, such as novelist Boris Akunin, have no experience of politics and are not affiliated with any political party.

Chirikova, who led a campaign to prevent the Khimki forest outside Moscow being bulldozed to make way for a highway, said the groups’ differences should not be seen as a weakness.

“Our campaign over Khimki forest brought together right-wing people, left-wing people, all sorts of people. That’s why we succeeded,” she said, explaining that the broad support base had made the authorities sit up and take notice.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION

When problems arise, the protest leaders have so far managed to get round them at their regular meetings staged in premises lent to them by sympathizers. Unable to agree on a list of speakers before the December 24 rally, they held a popularity poll on the Internet, allowing supporters to decide for them.

When Nemtsov and an ally, Vladimir Ryzhkov, called at the first meeting for the protesters to add a call for Putin to quit to their list of demands, they were shouted down by others who did not want to politicize the protests at that stage.

At times the discussions threaten to become heated.

Akunin’s concerns that it was too cold to have speeches at the end of Saturday’s march, and Udaltsov’s call for no political leaders to speak, were beaten back by others such as Ryzhkov and Nemtsov.

Such disputes have to be settled quickly to avoid opening deep-seated divides. Nemtsov, for example, is reviled by nationalists and leftists for his role in free-market reforms in the 1990s, when, they say, Russia sold its wealth too cheaply.

Liberals fear the nationalists will try to hijack the protests to press their calls for immigrants to leave the country, while leftists are just as wary of liberals’ beliefs in market reforms.

Any row would quickly grab the public’s attention. The protest organizers allow the media to attend their meetings and stream them on the Internet, even though much of the discussion focuses on mundane issues and the participants can often be seen looking bored and tapping away on their iPads or mobile phones.

Fears that the Kremlin could try to exploit any differences between the opposition forces mounted in December after a media outlet published a recording of telephone calls in which Nemtsov used profanities to describe Chirikova and derided supporters as “office plankton” who had never seen a riot policeman.

Nemtsov said the recordings were partly falsified and intended to deter support and split the opposition.

“They will not succeed: it will have the opposite effect and more people will come out,” he said at the time.

COMPETING PROTESTS

The main opposition protests were suspended over the long New Year holiday, when Russia comes to a halt, and Saturday’s march to a square across the Moscow River from the Kremlin will show whether the opposition can still mobilize large crowds.

A few isolated opposition protests have taken place since December. A banner reading “Putin, go away” was erected on a rooftop near the Kremlin on Wednesday and hundreds of people on Sunday drove cars trailing white ribbons, the protest symbol, to show defiance of Putin.

So far, 26,000 people have registered for Saturday’s protest on social network sites, the organizers say, but some registered weeks ago and their commitment cannot be taken for granted after temperatures fell below -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) in Moscow this week.

Putin’s supporters also plan a rally at the same time in another part of the capital but it is not expected to attract as many people as the opposition protest.

Novelist Akunin said support for the protest movement was growing but the weather would be an important factor.

“Wrap up well and bring some hot tea,” Nemtsov said, offering some advice to protesters.

The protest organizers have agreed to repeat the demands Putin has ignored – a rerun of the parliamentary election, the release of prisoners jailed for political reasons, reform of the political system, dismissal of the central election commission chief and registration of more political parties.

A key demand was added without any dissent among the opposition groups at the latest meeting – sympathizers should be urged not to cast a single vote for Putin on March 4.

One committee member, Olga Romanova, said funds were running low and this could affect efforts to arrange a video and sound system for speakers at the end of the march.

One of the organizing committee drew attention to the need to mobilize support outside Moscow – a key issue because Putin, president from 2000 until 2008 and prime minister since then, has stronger support outside the big cities.

PUTIN ON COURSE FOR VICTORY

Opinion polls show Putin, a former KGB spy, will win the election although he acknowledged on Wednesday that he might not win in the first round.

Putin, 59, has outlined token political reforms in response to the protests but has also mocked the demonstrators – saying they lack leadership and goals, and suggesting they are funded by foreign governments. The opposition denies the allegation.

Putin has also likened the white ribbons the protesters wear to condoms, and a decision by election officials to prevent liberal leader Grigory Yavlinsky running for president was seen by the opposition as Putin laying down the gauntlet.

“Something has changed in Russia and only people like Putin – one person living in a bunker – could say it hasn’t,” Chirikova said. “People have realised there is no chance of change coming from above, from Putin.”

The United States created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months in January and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to a near three-year low, giving a boost to President Barack Obama.

Nonfarm payrolls jumped 243,000, the Labor Department said on Friday, as factory jobs grew by the most in a year. The jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent – the lowest since February 2009 – from 8.5 percent in December.

The gain in employment was the largest since April and it far outstripped the 150,000 predicted in a Reuters poll of economists. It hinted at underlying economic strength and lessened chances of further stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

“More pistons in the economic engine have begun to fire, pointing to accelerating economic growth. One of the happiest persons reading this job report is President Obama,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands.

The payroll gains were widespread – from retail to temporary help, and from construction to manufacturing – an indication the recovery was becoming more durable.

A survey of households showed the unemployment rate declined even as new job seekers flooded into the labor force. Economists had expected the jobless rate, which has now fallen 0.8 percentage point since August, to hold steady.

“I think this is a sign that maybe the economy is reaching that holy grail of a self-sustaining economic expansion,” Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh, told Reuters Insider.

The outlook was further brightened by a separate report showing service sector activity quickened last month to a near one-year high. A gauge of service sector employment touched a six-year high.

Stocks on Wall Street were up more than 1 percent at midday, while U.S. Treasury debt prices fell sharply as investors dialed back expectations on Fed easing. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies.

The employment report contrasted with a fairly glum assessment of the economy offered by the Fed last week.

Officials at the central bank have been debating whether to buy more bonds – a program dubbed QE3 – to drive interest rates lower. It also raised doubts about the Fed’s expectation that it could hold interest rates near zero at least through late 2014.

“At the very least this scales back QE3 (quantitative easing) odds. The surprisingly persistent decline in the unemployment rate also calls into question how firmly wedded the Fed is to the late-2014 rate guidance,” said Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.

Interest rate futures indicated that at least some traders were beginning to lay bets the Fed could move interest rates up in early 2014.

Fed fund futures were pricing in a 38 percent chance of a January 2014 rate hike, up from 29 percent before the report, and the first better than even chance of a rate hike was in April 2014, according to CME Group, where the contracts are traded.

DON’T MUCK IT UP

Obama welcomed the strong jobs report and urged Congress to extend a payroll tax cut and benefits for long-term unemployed, which expire at the end of this month.

“Now is not is not the time for self-inflicted wounds to our economy. I want to send a clear message for Congress. Do not slow down the recovery that we are on, don’t muck it up,” he said at a firehouse in Arlington, Virginia.

Republicans acknowledged the improvement in the labor market, but said the jobless rate was still too high.

“Our economy still isn’t creating jobs the way it should be and that’s why we need a new approach,” said House Speaker John Boehner.

While employment growth has quickened there are no jobs for three out of every four unemployed people and 19.3 million Americans are either out of work or underemployed. The level of employment is still 5.57 million from its pre-recession level.

But steady progress is being made. The economy added 60,000 more jobs in November and December than previously reported.

In addition, average hourly earnings rose four cents, which should help to support spending. The report suggested that expectations of a slowdown in U.S. economic growth in the first quarter were not yet impacting on companies’ hiring decisions.

Employment in the private sector surged 257,000 – the largest gain since April. Government payrolls fell 14,000, the least since September.

U.S. economic growth accelerated to a 2.8 percent annual rate in the final three months of 2011, but it was widely expected to slow as businesses ease back on efforts to rebuild inventories and exports slip amid a likely recession in Europe.

Some economists cautioned that January’s jobs figures could overstate the pulse of the recovery, citing still lackluster consumer confidence, income and spending growth.

While some said the jobless rate could drop below 8 percent by year end, others warned it would likely move up in the near-term as people who had given up the search for a job re-enter the workforce.

“For this to mark an upturn in the labor market, then businesses will have to continue to hire on this scale throughout the winter,” said Kathy Bostjancic, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Conference Board in New York.

CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM

The unemployment rate has now declined for five straight months, although part of the drop reflects discouraged Americans giving up the hunt for work.

A broad measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have stopped looking and those working only part time but who want more work, slipped to a near three-year low of 15.1 percent in January from 15.2 percent in December.

Revisions to the payrolls figures showed 180,000 more jobs were created last year than previously believed.

Mild winter weather boosted employment last month in construction, which added 21,000 jobs after a 31,000 increase in December. Manufacturing payrolls surged 50,000, the largest gain in a year, after rising 32,000 the prior month.

Overall, the goods-producing sector added 81,000 jobs last month, the most since January 2006.

Transportation and warehousing employment increased 13,100 and courier jobs only fell 1,500. Last month, the Labor Department reported a large increase in courier jobs in December, but revisions showed they actually declined.

Retail employment rose 10,500 after gaining 6,200 in December. Temporary help services jumped 20,100 after rising 8,300, a potentially good sign for future permanent hiring.

Prime Minister David Cameron will make an official visit to the US next month, the White House has said.

Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha will be in the US on 13-14 March.

A spokesman said President Barack Obama would welcome Mr Cameron to “highlight the fundamental importance of the US-UK special relationship”.

The two leaders will discuss the forthcoming Nato and G8 summits, as well as developments in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

‘Liberties and values’

The White House spokesman said: “The visit will highlight the fundamental importance of the US-UK special relationship and the depth of the friendship between the American people and the people of the United Kingdom, as well as the strong personal bond that has developed between the two leaders and their families.

“It will also be an opportunity to recall the valour and sacrifice of the US and British armed forces and their long tradition of standing shoulder to shoulder beside each other in defence of our liberties and shared values.

“The visit will underscore the strength of our economic links, which contribute to millions of jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.”

The White House said issues such as Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iran, human rights and global economic stability and growth would be on the agenda.

“They will also review progress in the implementation of the various initiatives launched during the president’s state visit to the UK last year,” said the spokesman.

Troop withdrawal

Downing Street confirmed on Twitter that Mr Cameron and his wife had accepted the invitation to visit the White House.

A message from the official @Number10gov account said: “The Prime Minister and Mrs Cameron have accepted invitation from @whitehouse for official visit the US on 13th & 14th March.”

Downing Street said on Thursday that British troops would step back from their lead combat role in Afghanistan by the end of 2013.

Mr Cameron’s spokesman said UK and international troops would offer a “supporting combat role” in 2014.

The prime minister had previously said the UK’s military role in Afghanistan would be completed by the end of that year.

Mr Obama became the first US president to address members of both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall when he and wife Michelle were on a two-day state visit to the UK in May last year.

Mr Cameron made his first official visit to the US as prime minister in July 2010.

At least 37 people have been killed in South Sudan during a shoot-out at a peace meeting aimed at ending recent violence, officials said.

Officials from three states and the UN had met for talks in the remote town of Mayendit in Unity state in an effort to reduce inter-ethnic tensions.

The talks were called after a series of clashes, including one in which 74 people were killed earlier this week.

Thousands of people have been displaced in the violence.

According to the UN, the fighting took place when four trucks of gunmen arrived at the meeting after a row broke out, and began to shoot indiscriminately.

The gunmen included policemen from different units, soldiers, bodyguards and armed wildlife officials, according to AFP news agency.

Many others were wounded in the confrontation, including a UN staff member.

Correspondents say the lack of security in South Sudan, which became independent last July, is one of its greatest challenges.

Hundreds of people have also been killed in a series of tit-for-tat cattle raids in Jonglei state in recent weeks.

Ending a week that began with consensus but fractured into contention, the Senate voted Thursday to strengthen insider-trading bans for its members, and in the process agreed to ban bonuses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Macexecutives.

After spending the afternoon voting on a score of amendments that had hampered negotiations earlier in the week, the Senate overwhelmingly passed on a 96-3 vote the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Only Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Richard Burr of North Carolina, both Republicans, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico Democrat, were opposed.

Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, scored a win with his amendment to ban Fannie and Freddie bonuses, after sponsors of the legislation had urged their colleagues to avoid proposing unrelated pet projects — a request that was promptly ignored by members of both parties.

The legislation, which President Obama called for in his State of the Union address, specifies that members of Congress are subject to an existing 1934 law banning trading based on insider information.

Hopes had been high that it would sail smoothly to passage, after theSenate overwhelmingly voted Monday to begin debating it, creating a moment of rare bipartisan harmony. But by the next day, lawmakers had proposed more than a dozen amendments, prompting threats by Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, to shut down debate.

After two days of closed-door negotiations, lawmakers reached a deal, easing fears by the sponsoring senators — Republicans Scott P. Brownof Massachusetts and Susan M. Collins of Maine, and Kirsten E. Gillibrand, New York New York, and Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent — that even a bipartisan bill would end in gridlock.

Mr. Obama applauded the passage and promised a prompt signature.

“No one should be able to trade stocks based on nonpublic information gleaned on Capitol Hill,” Mr. Obama said. “So I’m pleased the Senatetook bipartisan action to pass the STOCK Act. I urge the House of Representatives to pass this bill, and I will sign it right away.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, indicated he will call for a vote in his chamber in the next few weeks.

“We will quickly review the entire bill and the amendments that were added [Thursday] to ensure that public servants, whether in the legislative or executive branch, do not personally profit from insider information,” Mr. Cantor said.

Focused on transparency, the STOCK Act also mandates stricter disclosure requirements for members of Congress, requiring them to reveal their sales and purchases of stocks within 30 days instead of once a year.

Over a period of four hours Thursday, the Senate voted on some 20 amendments, rejecting some and accepting others.

The upper chamber extended the 30-day requirement to federal employees and exempted mutual funds from the requirement, because owners don’t control those trades. Senators also agreed by voice vote to broaden mortgage disclosure requirements for members of Congressand some executive employees and to expand the possibility for members of Congress to lose their federal pension if convicted of a felony.

But the Senate also defeated a number of amendments, voting down a bipartisan amendment offered by Sens. Patrick J. Toomey, Pennsylvania Republican, and Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, that would have permanently banned all earmarks, a measure they have been pushing for the past few months.

Lawmakers also rejected an amendment offered by Mr. Coburn that would have required that, before the Senate considers legislation, the Congressional Research Service must determine whether it would duplicate existing programs. They also roundly defeated two amendments expressing an intent to limit Senate terms and require members of the Senate to divest themselves of individual company stock.

Conservatives are asking a reasonable question: Will a Mitt Romney candidacy turn into another debacle like Sen. John McCain’s in 2008? The Arizona maverick was said to be the most “electable” of the Republican nominees. ManyGOP voters held their noses and supported Mr. McCain. Yet he was defeated – convincingly – byBarack Obama. Following Mr. Romney’s crushing victory in Florida’s Republican primary this week, many rank-and-file activists are wondering whether history is about to repeat itself.

The emergence of Newt Gingrich isn’t being driven by a love for the former House speaker. Rather, many conservatives are rallying behind him because he is the only viable alternative to Mr. Romney. Unlike the former Massachusetts governor,Mr. Gingrich is willing to wage a frontal assault on President Obama’s leftist policies. He is not afraid to attack Mr. Obama relentlessly – and with passion, emotion and courage. Gingrich Republicans argue that Mr. Romney possesses no ideological core, that he lacks any fundamental conservative convictions.

Moreover, Gingrich supporters think Mr. Romney is simply another moderate Republican in the mold of Bob Dole and Mr. McCain. Just as those men crashed and burned, so will Mr. Romney, in their view. In their eyes, the Republican Party is about to commit suicide: By abandoning its principles in favor of power, the GOP will lose both. Hence, Mr. Romneymust be stopped – even if it means backing a flawed candidate like Mr. Gingrich. This is why his followers are urging him to fight on in the remaining 46 states.

There are similarities between Mr. Romney and Mr. McCain. Both are establishment Republicans. Both are distrusted and disliked by large segments of the conservative movement – especially talk radio. Both have signature issues – Romneycare, McCain-Feingold – that constitute major political liabilities. And both lack personality and charisma. Yet that is where it ends.

In fact, the two men could not be more different. Mr. Romney is a much stronger candidate. He is more articulate, telegenic and disciplined and possesses a considerably deeper grasp of the issues. Mr. Romneywould be the first GOP nominee since President Reagan to be able to defend Republican positions effectively. The Bushes, Mr. Dole and Mr. McCain were all dismal failures regarding a key aspect of politics: communication. This alone makes Mr. Romney a serious threat to Mr. Obama’s re-election.

Most important, there is one overriding difference between Mr. Romneyand Mr. McCain: The former venture capitalist is not a creature of Washington. The Arizona senator had spent decades on Capitol Hill. He was and still is the consummate insider. During the 2008 campaign, he came across – like Mr. Dole in 1996 – as a career politician, someone obsessed with process and Senate wheeling and dealing.

Mr. Romney is the exact opposite. He has spent most of his life in the private sector, running a successful business and turning around troubled corporations. He has what Mr. McCain never had: genuine executive experience. Also, unlike Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney understands free-market capitalism. He is a pro-business Republican who will repeal Obamacare, slash burdensome regulations, cut government spending and unleash the economy’s animal spirits. The divergent perspectives of the two men can be seen on illegal immigration. Mr. McCain has championed amnesty; Mr. Romney staunchly opposes it. Mr. McCainembodies Beltway Republicanism, while Mr. Romney adheres to more traditional GOP beliefs such as states’ rights, market-driven growth and a thriving entrepreneurial class. Mr. Romney is running to loosen Washington’s suffocating grip on national life; Mr. McCain cannot imagine life without Washington’s daily involvement. This was Mr. McCain’s Achilles’ heel in 2008.

The great irony is that it was Tea Party conservatives – running on a platform of limited government, low taxes and balanced budgets – who propelled the GOP to make historic gains in the 2010 election. Yet the two leading candidates for the movement’s presidential nomination come from the establishment. The right is understandably demoralized.

His rhetoric notwithstanding, Mr. Gingrich is not an insurgent. In fact, he is less electable and less conservative than Mr. Romney. The former House speaker’s record is littered with betrayals on a wide range of issues – he supports massive ethanol subsidies, something even Al Gore concedes is a clean-energy boondoggle; he championed a health care individual mandate for more than a decade, including publicly praising Romneycare in 2006; he backed caps on carbon emissions and demanded government action to combat climate change, including filming a TV ad with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; he voted to create the Department of Education; he believes in some form of amnesty; he took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac; and he wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in massive projects, such as building a space colony on the moon, establishing a huge power-grid corridor across the Northeast and modernizing ports in Charleston. S.C., and Jacksonville, Fla. In short, Mr. Gingrich is a big-government corporatist masquerading as a conservative populist.

Mr. Romney has serious weaknesses. He is certainly not a Reagan nationalist – my kind of Republican. But he has several indispensable qualities: He can beat Mr. Obama. He can stop America’s decline into a second-rate power. He can reverse our slide toward socialism and economic ruin. He can turn around the bankrupt corporation that is America. “The perfect is the enemy of the good,” wrote the French philosopher Voltaire. Mr. Romney is far from perfect. He is, however, good enough. He is not the second coming of John McCain. He can win in November. For that alone, he deserves conservative support.

A petulant, angry, and defiant Attorney General Eric Holder refused yesterday to take any responsibility for the growing scandal surrounding Operation Fast and Furious, the ill-conceived and incompetently managed program in which federal agents allowed thousands of guns to be purchased in the United States by known suppliers to Mexican drug cartels. The hope was to be able to use the weapons to link drug bosses to particular crimes, making it easier to prosecute them. But federal officials lost track of more than 1,400 of the weapons, two of which were used in the slaying of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry just before Christmas in December 2010.

In testimony last year before the House Oversight and Government Operations Committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa of California, Holder said he first learned about Fast and Furious only after media reports began appearing about the congressional investigation started in the wake of Terry’s slaying. He subsequently recanted that statement and acknowledged being told about the program by aides a few months before the media reports. He has since strenuously denied intentionally misleading Congress about when he first learned of Fast and Furious, and has accused congressional Republicans of using the program to concoct a partisan witch hunt.

But at yesterday’s hearing, Issa and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who has also been probing the Fast and Furious program, released a detailed report about their investigation, saying new documents they obtained demonstrate Holder’s department “had much greater knowledge of, and involvement in, Fast and Furious than it has previously acknowledged.” Despite the widespread knowledge within the department, however, the report said “senior Department officials showed a serious lack of inquisitiveness when it came to discovering details about Operation Fast and Furious. They knew as early as April 2010 that ATF’s Phoenix Field Division … had previously used this same tactic of gunwalking. Still, these officials failed to ascertain the true scope of the program. Later, when whistleblowers came forward with information and supporting documents, these same officials provided false information to Congress and refused to get to the bottom of the matter.”

Holder’s attitude before the committee yesterday could only be described as contemptuous. At one point, Rep. Raul Labrador read a dozen quotes from Holder over a period of more than a decade in which he had claimed his staff did not inform him about assorted matters. The attorney general disdainfully replied, “maybe this is the way you do things in Idaho or wherever you are from.” Labrador was born in Puerto Rico and represents an Idaho congressional district.

Rather than the country bumpkin Holder appears to consider him, Labrador is a lawyer and the former managing partner of a law firm. More important, he is an elected member of Congress tasked by the Constitution to ask whatever questions he deems appropriate in in a congressional oversight hearing probing executive branch law enforcement activities. As much as he clearly chafes under such oversight, Holder should be relieved of his duties.

All four of the female MPs who served in the previous parliament lost their seats. Liberals, who had five seats in the previous parliament, now have just two.

Voters punished pro-government MPs during Thursday’s parliamentary election, reducing them to a small minority, the results showed.

Only two of 13 former MPs who the public prosecutor questioned over corruption charges were re-elected, and the rest either lost or did not contest the poll.

Following the announcement of the results, hundreds of opposition supporters gathered at the campaign tents of candidates they backed to celebrate the outcome.

Speaking after his victory, new opposition MP Obaid al-Wasmi warned all “corruption files will be opened,” including claims that hundreds of millions of public funds were stolen.

“I tell the decision-makers that the Kuwait of tomorrow will not be the same as of the Kuwait of yesterday,” said the outspoken independent opposition figure.

The snap election was called after the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state dissolved parliament following youth-led protests and bitter disputes between the opposition MPs and the government.

The vote followed a fierce campaign amid heightened sectarian and tribal tensions that impacted on the results, with hardliners making gains and moderates losing.

An independent Scotland would be heavily indebted and at increased risk of default, placing greater restrictions on economic and fiscal policy, a think tank has warned.

“Even with a favourable settlement on future oil revenues, its fiscal balances are likely to be volatile with large deficits in some years as a result of its dependence on oil revenues. Under these assumptions fiscal debt is likely to be around 70pc of GDP,” NIESR said.

Scotland should continue to use the pound even if it votes for independence, the think tank said, because it is so highly integrated with the rest of the UK.

“This would bring with it its own set of problems; as the example of the eurozone shows, using a currency which a parliament has no direct control over brings restrictions,” said Angus Armstrong of NIESR.

He said an independent Scotland would issue its own bonds, presumably in sterling. “Like any other country, the issue of Scottish government bonds without the ability, in extremis, to print money to repay creditors opens up the possibility of default, albeit in very remote circumstances.

Argentina has accused David Cameron’s government of fanning the row over the Falklands Islands in an attempt to distract the British public from high unemployment.

He spoke as a small group of protesters marched on the UK embassy in Buenos Aires, burning a British flag. A branch of the British-owned bank HSBC was also attacked yesterday.

Tensions over the Falklands have been rising as the 30-year anniversary of the war between Argentina and Britain approaches.

The clashes came as Prince William arrived in the Falklands for a six-week stint with the Royal Air Force. Buenos Aires has labelled him a “conqueror” and called his deployment a “provocation”, but the UK has insisted it is merely routine.

London has also announced that it will deploy one of the country’s most lethal warships, the HMS Dauntless, to the area. Buenos Aires has accused the British government of trying to militarise the conflict.

The sabre-rattling has also been somewhat fuelled by the release of the new Meryl Streep film “The Iron Lady”, in which the actress portrays Margaret Thatcher during the Falklands war.

Argentine critics have praised Streep’s acting but panned the film itself. Film-goers in Buenos Aires shared their views.

“It didn’t fool me,” Mario Huguet, 75, a psychoanalyst who called Mrs Thatcher a word unfit for publication, said after seeing the premiere.

“It presents her as a senile grandmother, but the Argentine dictators also got to be old and pitiful.”

Argentina has received the backing of Latin American countries for its claim of sovereignty over the remote, wind-lashed islands, which were occupied by Britain in 1833.

The dispute erupted into warfare in April 1982 when Argentine troops seized the islands, only to be routed in a 74-day war that claimed the lives of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons.

Diplomatic friction between Argentina and Britain has intensified since 2010, when London authorized oil exploration in the waters near the islands.

Yesterday the Venezuelan government backed Argentina, saying it “is not alone in its legitimate claim to the right of sovereignty” over the islands.

“The decision to send a warship to the Falklands, along with the aggressive statements of Prime Minister David Cameron and of (Foreign Secretary) William Hague (…) show an unacceptable attitude” that “causes the rejection of the entire Latin American continent and the Caribbean,” a Venezuelan statement said.

In December, the South American Mercosur trading bloc agreed to prevent ships flying the Falklands flag from entering their ports.

Mercosur includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela has announced its intent to join the group.

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity has reversed its decision to halt fundingof breast-screening grants to Planned Parenthood, the organization announced Friday.

In a statement, Komen for the Cure Founder and CEO Nancy Brinker apologized for “recent decisions” and said the organization would continue to fund Planned Parenthood. Brinker’s full statement is below, via the Dallas Morning News, which first broke the story:

We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

It is our hope and we believe it is time for everyone involved to pause, slow down and reflect on how grants can most effectively and directly be administered without controversies that hurt the cause of women. We urge everyone who has participated in this conversation across the country over the last few days to help us move past this issue. We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Starting this afternoon, we will have calls with our network and key supporters to refocus our attention on our mission and get back to doing our work. We ask for the public’s understanding and patience as we gather our Komen affiliates from around the country to determine how to move forward in the best interests of the women and people we serve.

We extend our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support we have received from so many in the past few days and we sincerely hope that these changes will be welcomed by those who have expressed their concern.

The reversal comes after days of intense backlash over Komen’s initial decision Tuesday. As The Blaze previously reported, the charity was accused of caving to anti-abortion activists opposed to funding Planned Parenthood because of the abortion services it provides.

According to the Associated Press, the grants that Planned Parenthood affiliates used for breast exams and related services totaled $680,000 last year. At least one top Komen official quit over the decision to halt funding, and 26 U.S. senators signed a letter urging the charity to reconsider.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) vowed today that she will join with the Obama administration in standing up against the Catholic Church in defending a new regulation that will require Catholic individuals to buy, and Catholic institutions to provide, health insurance plans that cover sterilizations and artificial contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.

The Catholic church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraception and abortion are morally wrong and the Catholic bishops of the United States have argued that forcing a Catholic individual to purchase a health insurance plan that covers these things–or forcing a Catholic institution to provide such a plan–forces Catholics to act against their consciences and is a violation of the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

In letters being read from the pulpit in Catholic parishes across the nation, Catholic bishops are saying: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

At her Wednesday press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Pelosi: “The administration has issued a regulation that will require all health-care plans to cover sterilization and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions. This would force Catholic individuals and institutions to act against their consciences. All across the nation, Catholic bishops are saying:–

Pelosi responded: “Is this a speech, or do we have a question in disguise as a speech?”

CNSNews.com continued: “‘We cannot–we will not—comply with this law.’ Catholic bishops are saying they will not comply with this law. Will you stand with your fellow Catholics in resisting this law or will you stick by the administration?”

Pelosi: “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius first announced the proposed regulation in August as part of the initial implementation of Obamacare. The regulation, as proposed, was set to take effect on Aug. 1 of this year. In September, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent public comments on the regulation to HHS. In these comments, the bishops called the regulation an “unprecedented attack on religious freedom” and urged that it be rescinded.

In November, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with President Obama and personally explained to him the Catholic Church’s objections to the regulation.

On Jan. 20, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the regulations would go forward and will take effect for most health care plans as of Aug. 1. However, Sebelius gave religiously affiliated non-profit organizations—such as Catholic hospitals, universities, and charitable organizations—an additional year to “adapt” to the mandate. For them, it now set to take effect on Aug. 1, 2013.

Following Sebelius announcement, the Catholic bishops put out a statement calling the regulation “literally unconscionable.” Meanwhile, Catholic bishops around the country have been calling on Catholics to oppose the regulation.

Many of the bishops have published letters that priests are reading to their congregations. The letters explain the Catholic objections to the regulation and call for Catholics to resist it.  Many of these letter include the following passage from the letter Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va., and Bishop Francis DiLorenzo of Richmond, Va., have asked their priests to read at Mass this coming Sunday:

“In so ruling, the Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences, or to drop health coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing do). The Administration’s sole concession was to give our institutions one year to comply.

“We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

The supreme leader of Iran issued a blunt warning Friday that war would be detrimental to the United States — and that Iran is ready to help anyone who confronts “cancerous” Israel.

“You see every now and then in this way they say that all options are on the table. That means even the option of war,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during Friday prayers in Tehran. “This is how they make these threats against us.

“Well, these kinds of threats are detrimental to the U.S.,” he said. “The war itself will be 10 times as detrimental to the U.S.”

Khamenei’s rhetoric is hardly new. But the timing of his comments could prove critical with nuclear talks around the corner.

Tensions between Iran and world powers have been ratcheted up in the aftermath of an alarming nuclear watchdog agency report in November that said Tehran was likely developing nuclear weapons.

The standoff grew more serious this week with renewed fears of an Israeli pre-emptive strike on Iran to take out its suspected nuclear weapons program.

Khamenei said Iran will support any nation or group that stands up against Israel.

“The Zionist regime is really the cancerous tumor of this region and it needs to be removed and will be removed,” Khamenei said to a cheering crowd.

He said Iran doesn’t interfere in other nations but has aided militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in conflicts with Israel in Gaza and Lebanon.

His comments came after stern comments Friday from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

“Today, unlike in the past, there is a broad global understanding that it is crucial to stop Iran becoming nuclearized and that no options should be taken off the table,” he said.

Barak said allowing Iran to continue on its path will be far more complex and dangerous in blood and money than cutting it off now.

“Those who say in English, ‘later,’ may find later is too late,” he said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he feared Israel could attack Iran sometime this spring in an effort to destroy its suspected nuclear weapons program, according to a senior administration official.

The official declined to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the information.

The United States and its allies have warned that Iran is trying to make a nuclear weapon. Iran insists that its nuclear program is for civilian energy purposes.

A new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center said the United States needs to put more teeth into its threat to use military power against Iran.

The Washington think tank recommended in its report that Washington should undertake visible, credible military preparations to go along with more intense sanctions and diplomatic efforts.

The military activities could include naval deployments, military exercises and positioning supplies in the region.

To stop Iran’s nuclear clock, the report said, the United States “needs to make clear that Iran faces a choice: it can either abandon its nuclear program through a negotiated arrangement or have its program destroyed militarily, by the United States.”

The report also said the United States should give credibility to the Israeli military threat against Iran by selling Israel two to three KC-135 aerial refueling tankers and 200 GRU-31 bunker-buster munitions.

Former Sen. Chuck Robb, who co-chaired the task force that wrote the report, said the group advocates neither war nor a military strike at the moment, but believes the United States will only be effective if it takes credible steps to let Iran know it is serious.

Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby said Panetta “has made it clear that he is comfortable with the military capabilities we have and operate in the region.”

However, Kirby said, “the U.S. military must and will be ready to provide the president options should those options be desirable.”

Khamenei blamed Western powers for Iran’s troubles, starting with the brutal eight-year war Iran fought with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the 1980s and continuing with the latest round of punishing international sanctions.

“So far we have overcome all these challenges and none of them managed to bring (Iran) to its knees,” Khamenei said. “We have stood firm and strongly treaded our course.”

Syrian army and security officers detained and tortured children with impunity during the past year, a rights group said in a report Friday, as it urged the United Nations to take action.

The Human Rights Watch report comes as the U.N. Security Council considers a draft resolution intended to pressure Syria to end its months-long crackdown on anti-government demonstrators — and as violence continues unabated in Syria.

At least 28 people were killed across Syria on Friday, including three children and three defected soldiers, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of opposition activists.

A Security Council meeting ended Thursday evening without agreement on the text of the draft, according to U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice.

However, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters that the draft resolution had been agreed upon and would be sent to the governments of Security Council members for consultation, according to Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

“We have the text which we shall send to our capital cities and will wait for the result,” Churkin said.

Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council “to demand that the Syrian government end all human rights violations.”

Syria must also be made to cooperate with monitoring teams sent by the Arab League and the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global monitor said.

“Children have not been spared the horror of Syria’s crackdown. Syrian security forces have killed, arrested, and tortured children in their homes, their schools, or on the streets,” said Lois Whitman, children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.

“In many cases, security forces have targeted children just as they have targeted adults.”

The organization said it has documented at least 12 cases of children detained under inhumane conditions and tortured, as well as children shot while in their homes or on the street.

“Human Rights Watch has also documented government use of schools as detention centers, military bases or barracks, and sniper posts, as well as the arrest of children from schools,” a statement from the group says.

The draft of the resolution discussed Thursday had dropped demands from an Arab League plan for Syria to form a unity government and for President Bashar al-Assad to delegate power to his deputy.

“We had what I would characterize as sometimes difficult but ultimately useful discussions,” Rice told reporters. “We’re still working. This is not done.”

She said the Moroccans, who submitted the original draft, would come back with another version that could be voted on. “In any case, there are some still complicated issues that our capitals will have to deliberate on and provide each of us with instructions on.”

Pakistan’s U.N. ambassador, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, insisted Thursday evening that council members “are two words” apart on agreeing on the text.

Before the talks, Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said that even a watered-down resolution would pressure the Syrian government.

U.N. diplomats said the changes reflected a big concession to Russia, which has been reluctant to sign on to any plan that could be seen as a mandate for regime change in Damascus, as occurred in Libya after it signed a resolution calling for a no-fly zone.

Russia, which has said it is concerned about the prospect of a Syrian civil war and does not want al-Assad pushed from power, has made clear it will not accept an arms embargo or economic sanctions.

A call for other nations to follow the Arab League members in adopting measures such as sanctions against Syria had also been dropped from the latest version of the draft resolution.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud had said he hoped to have the text finalized by the end of Thursday and suggested that a vote could happen as soon as Friday, or Monday if necessary. Other diplomats suggested that a vote over the weekend was possible.

U.S. and European diplomats insisted that the revised text still fully endorsed the Arab League plan and that it did not need to spell out every detail to have the same meaning.

“It will still put pressure on the Syrian government, because they realize that Russia cannot stand up forever. And they are under great pressure now. And, you know, Russia does not want to be against the people,” Elaraby said.

Asked why Libya was seen as a case for international intervention because of the threat of a massacre, whereas Syria has seen thousands of deaths but no intervention, Elaraby cited the situation on the ground, the geopolitical location of Syria, the fact it has a strong, regular army — “and, maybe, there is no oil in Syria.”

The economic element could be a factor, he suggested, especially in a year when the United States and France are holding presidential elections and when Europe is in the grip of a debt crisis.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday: “This is not Libya, the situation is different, what we are looking to do is to support the plan of the Arab League, which is quite clear on how a peaceful Syrian lead transition could go forward.”

At least 7,100 people, including 461 children, have died since the start of the Syrian uprising in March, according to the Local Coordination Committees.

The United Nations estimated in December that more than 5,000 people have died since March. But the global body has not been able to update that figure because of the insecurity.

CNN cannot independently confirm opposition or government reports from Syria because access to the country is limited.

More than 100 people have now died as a result of freezing weather in Ukraine since last Friday, the government has announced in Kiev.

Most of the 101 who died were homeless people and 64 of them were found dead on the streets, the emergencies ministry said.

Hundreds of others have been treated in hospital for frostbite, hypothermia and other cold-related conditions.

Temperatures plunged to below -35C in parts of eastern Europe this week.

At least eight more deaths were reported in Poland on Thursday, bringing the death toll there since last week to 37.

Cold weather deaths have been reported across eastern and central Europe

• Russia recorded cold 64 cold weather deaths for the whole of January, Interfax news agency reports, but it is unclear if this is related directly to the hard frosts which began last week
• In Serbia at least 11,000 villagers have been trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in mountainous areas, the Associated Press reports
• In Italy, weather experts said it was the coldest week for 27 years.

Gas burn

In Ukraine, more freezing weather was forecast for Friday, with overnight temperatures set to fall to as low as -32C in the north and west.

The authorities closed schools and colleges and set up nearly 3,000 heating and food shelters across the country.

Health officials instructed hospitals not to discharge homeless patients, even after treatment, in order to save them from the cold.

Eastern Europe's freezing weather has hit the poorest hard, particularly in Greece

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov announced that the country had burnt 1bn cu m of gas in just three days.

The country’s gas order from Russia for the whole of 2012 is 27bn cu m.

“It’s a very hard time for the country,” he said, promising that the difficulties would be overcome.

The Russian gas supplier, Gazprom, said Ukraine was exceeding the level of gas consumption envisaged in the contract.

Most Russian gas exports to EU countries transit Ukraine. On Thursday Austria’s energy firm OMV reported a 30% drop in its supply of Russian gas, while Italy’s gas distributor Snam Rete Gas said its Russian gas was down by about 20%.

In the winter of 2009 Russia accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas meant for European customers. Gazprom cut supplies, leaving more than a dozen countries short of Russian gas.

Some, like Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia, are almost completely dependent on supplies via Ukraine and so were left with major shortages, during a very cold spell in Europe.

‘Take exercise’

Ukraine’s Emergencies Minister Viktor Baloga has advised the public to take more exercise as a remedy against the cold.

“You need to get up in the morning, take active exercise and work,” he was quoted by Ukrainskaya Pravda as telling reporters on Wednesday.

“It hasn’t killed anyone yet and only makes a person fitter.”

His personal advice to keep warm, he added, was to “run 8-10km [5-6 miles] every morning and bathe in cold water, all year round”.

Gunmen in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula have kidnapped two American women tourists, Egyptian security sources say.

They were travelling in a small bus with three other tourists from St Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh when it was stopped by the gunmen.

One official told the Reuters news agency that the men wanted a ransom.

Bedouins kidnapped 25 Chinese workers in northern Sinai earlier this week, but released them unharmed after a day.

They were demanding the release of fellow tribesman who were jailed after the 2004 bomb attack at the resort of Taba that killed 31 people.

Search operation

The Americans were reportedly travelling through the Wadi al-Sual area of Sinai, about 40km (25 miles) from St Catherine’s, when a vehicle carrying masked men armed with machine-guns forced the bus to stop.

The gunmen took the tourists’ money and valuables before grabbing the two women, forcing them into a vehicle and fleeing into the mountains.

Their Egyptian tour guide was also kidnapped, AFP news agency said.

The three other tourists who had been in the bus were left behind.

Police teams assisted by a military plane are searching for the Americans, state television reported.

One officer believed the kidnappings were meant to pressure the authorities to release Bedouins detained for their role in kidnapping the Chinese workers; others said the motive was financial.

Tribesmen in Sinai have been involved in a series of confrontations with security forces in recent months.

A gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel has also repeatedly been sabotaged, though Sinai’s tourist resorts have remained largely secure.

At least two people have been killed in the latest unrest in the Egyptian capital Cairo, amid continuing anger over 74 deaths after a football match in Port Said on Wednesday.

Many Egyptians blame the authorities for failing to protect fans.

A demonstrator and a soldier died on Friday as clashes continued outside the interior ministry, with police firing tear gas at stone-throwing crowds.

Violence on Thursday left two dead in Suez and hundreds injured.

Revenge for revolution?

The latest bout of unrest began on Wednesday, after a pitch invasion in Port Said, when Cairo’s visiting al-Ahly side were attacked after losing to the local al-Masry side. Seventy-four people died and over 1,000 were injured.

Most of the dead were believed to be al-Ahly supporters. Hardcore fans – known as “ultras” – have accused the authorities of allowing the killings to happen.

They say the authorities wanted revenge because the ultras were among those battling the police during last year’s revolution that ousted strongman leader Hosni Mubarak.

Anger over the deaths has combined with widespread frustration at the pace of reforms undertaken by Egypt’s interim military rulers.

On Thursday, about 10,000 protesters gathered outside the interior ministry, where they clashed with security forces preventing them from reaching the building. Hundreds were injured, health officials said.

The BBC’s Yolande Knell in Cairo says protesters spent the night dismantling concrete security walls erected around the ministry last November after a previous outbreak of unrest.

Thousands gathered outside the ministry on Thursday and became embroiled in angry clashes with security forces. Officers used tear gas to disperse the crowds.

The health ministry said more than 1,000 protesters were injured, some with broken bones, most suffering from tear gas inhalation. Some 54 police officers and soldiers were also reported injured.

Spreading unrest

By Thursday night, the unrest had spread across the country. Two people were shot dead in Suez as a crowd of hundreds attempted to overrun a police station.

On Friday, protests resumed outside the interior ministry in Cairo, where at least one protester was reported dead. A soldier also died from injuries sustained on Thursday, state media said.

In Alexandria, a protest march is heading for the regional offices of the military government.

Protester Wael Nawara told the BBC’s Network Africa programme that many middle-ranking officers loyal to the former president were still in charge at the ministry and were “conspiring against revolution”.

“There have been many calls throughout the last few months of restructuring the ministry of interior to bring the officers who are responsible for earlier deaths to trial, but nothing really has changed much in the behaviour of the ministry,” he said.

The government has dismissed several senior officials in response to the football deaths.

Port Said’s director of security and the head of investigations were suspended and are now in custody.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister says his country “cannot support” a draft United Nations Security Council resolution on Syria.

According to the Interfax news agency, Gennady Gatilov said that despite changes that took some of its concerns into account, Russia could not support the text in its current form.

“This is not enough for us,” he said.

The resolution, drafted by European and Arab countries, endorses an Arab League plan for Syria.

The US economy created 243,000 jobs in December, the highest total for nine months, official figures show.

The rise was much more than expected. Analysts had forecast an increase of about 150,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3%, which was the lowest rate in nearly three years, and down from a revised rate of 8.5% in December.

News of the jobs growth boosted share prices, with the Dow Jones index rising almost 1% on opening.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index rose 1.2% while Germany’s Dax rose 1.4%. The Cac 40 in France was 0.6% higher.

Employment boost

Job growth was widespread, with large gains in business services, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing.

Leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and hotels, added 44,000 jobs.

Retailers added nearly 11,000 jobs, and professional and business services, which includes higher paying jobs in accounting, architecture and engineering, gained 70,000 – the most in 10 months.

Factories added 50,000 workers, much more than expected and a one-year high.

Retailers added 10,500 workers and construction employment rose by 21,000. Analysts believe the figure was helped by a mild US winter, which boosted employment in those sectors.

The report was also buoyed by revisions to November and December data, which showed 60,000 more jobs created across the two months than previously reported.

Upbeat data

Lindsey Piegza, economist at FTN Financial, said: “It was a better-than-expected report, the strongest report that we’ve seen in quite some time.

“The big question is whether the reason we’re seeing the unemployment rate drop is because more and more people are dropping out of the labour force.

“I know the market wants to rally on this number but remember we need a minimum of 250,000 just to cover demographic change.”

The figures add to a range of data pointing to a gradual US economic recovery.

Last week, it was announced that the US economy expanded at a 2.8% annual pace in the October-December quarter, a full percentage point higher than in the previous quarter.

Earlier this week, a survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) indicated that the US manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest pace in seven months in January.

At least five people have been killed and more than a dozen injured in an attack on a police station in western Colombia.

The violence in Villa Rica comes a day after 11 people were killed in an explosion in Tumaco, in the south.

Police blamed that attack on the left-wing rebel group, the Farc.

The rebels have been stepping up their offensive against the security forces since their leader was killed in a military operation in November.

Police officials said the commander of the police station, three civilians and one child died when explosive devices went off outside the police station in Villa Rica, in Cauca province.

Targeted attacks

Eighteen police officers were in the station at the time of the explosion.

Preliminary investigations indicate gas cylinders laden with explosives were used in the attack.

On Wednesday, 11 people were killed and 79 injured when an explosive device went off outside a police station in the Pacific port city of Tumaco.

The explosion happened as the police commander for the region, Gen Jorge Nieto Rojas, and his senior staff were meeting at the station to devise a new strategy to fight drug trafficking in the area.

Gen Nieto Rojas was not hurt.

Three hundred extra police have been sent to Tumaco to improve security and help track down those behind the attack.

Minister of Defence Juan Carlos Pinzon has offered 1,200 million-peso reward ($670,000; £425,000) for information leading to the capture of alias Rambo, the Farc rebel suspected of the attack.

Mayor of Tumaco Victor Gallo has imposed a nighttime curfew and schools stayed closed on Thursday.

Tumaco is one of Colombia’s most lawless cities, where drug trafficking gangs and leftist rebels fight for control of the lucrative Pacific coast drug smuggling routes.

The recovery remains “frustrating slow” in the United States, and now Europe’s debt crisis is posing additional challenges, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Thursday.

“Risks remain that developments in Europe or elsewhere may unfold unfavorably and could worsen economic prospects here at home,” Bernanke told the House Budget Committee.

But he also assured lawmakers that the Fed is doing everything in its power to prevent an economic slowdown in the U.S.

“We are in frequent contact with European authorities, and we will continue to monitor the situation closely and take every available step to protect the U.S. financial system and the economy,” Bernanke said.

Europe’s debt problems started in Greece more than two years ago, and the situation there has yet to be fully resolved.

Repeating points he has made before Congress in prior appearances, Bernanke told the committee members that while cutting the national debt should be a priority over the long term, they should also take great care not to impede the current economic recovery.

“Do no harm is an important piece of advice I would offer you,” Bernanke said.

Fed to keep rates low until 2014

Rep. Scott Garrett, a Republican from New Jersey, slammed Bernanke for giving Congress advice on how to fix the struggling housing market. The Fed is in charge of monetary policy, and Republicans have critiqued Bernanke for overstepping his bounds by giving its opinion on fiscal matters.

“I was truly taken aback when just recently, as you know, the Fed issued in an unsolicited white paper on housing policy where if you didn’t advocate for, you certainly mirrored much of the positions of this administration,” Garrett said.

“Well, Congressman, first the Fed has a lot of interest in housing. It’s important for the economy. It’s important for monetary policy,” Bernanke said.

“We were trying to provide pros and cons, analysis, background. I’m sorry if you think we went too far,” he added.

The House hearing comes a week after the Fed said it intends to keep interest rates low until the end of 2014, a move that signals the central bank fears the economy will not recover fully for another three years. The Fed also laid out a goal to keep inflation around 2% each year, while it also tries to bring down the unemployment rate.

Fed forecasting breaks new ground

Many Republicans, including Rep. Paul Ryan, oppose the move, fearing it could trigger rapid inflation later on.

“I think this policy runs the great risk of fueling asset bubbles, destabilizing prices and eventually eroding the value of the dollar,” Ryan said. “The prospect of all three is adding to uncertainty and holding our economy back, in many of our judgments.”

While Ryan commended Bernanke for the Fed’s recent efforts to increase its transparency, he also pressed him on the inflation question.

Bernanke responded, “We are not seeking higher inflation. We do not want higher inflation and we’re not tolerating higher inflation.”

The Fed forecasts the unemployment rate will remain high in 2012, ending the year between 8.2% and 8.5%. It also cut its predictions for growth, forecasting U.S. gross domestic product will expand by only 2.2% to 2.7% this year.