DAMARA, Central African Republic (AP) — More than 30 truckloads of troops from Chad line the two-lane highway just outside of Damara, supporting Central African Republic government forces who want to block a new rebel coalition from reaching the capital.
In a display of force, the turbaned fighters hold their rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons they threaten to use if the rebels seeking to oust President Francois Bozize push this far south.
Gen. Jean Felix Akaga, who heads the regional force known as FOMAC, says a push on Damara, just 75 kilometers (45 miles) north of the capital, would be “a declaration of war” on the 10 Central African states.
“For us, Damara is the red line that the rebels cannot cross,” Akaga said Wednesday. “If they attack Damara, we will attack.”
The United Nations called for talks between the government and rebels and the Security Council scheduled closed consultations on the Central African Republic on Thursday afternoon.
The multinational force brought journalists up to Damara, where they touted the strength of the Chadian troops, who along with forces from Republic of Congo and Gabon are helping to stabilize the area.
The rebels, though, appear to be holding their positions after taking a string of towns including Sibut, which is 70 miles (112 kilometers) further north from Damara.
Back in 2003, troops under Bozize seized the capital amid volleys of machine-gun and mortar fire, and he then dissolved the constitution and parliament. Now a decade later it is Bozize who himself could be ousted from power.
On Wednesday, he announced through a decree read on state radio that he was dismissing his son, Francis, as defense minister. Chief of Staff Guillaume Lapo also was being replaced.
The president already has promised to form a coalition government with rebels and to negotiate without conditions. It’s a sign of how seriously Bozize is threatened by the rebel groups who call themselves Seleka, which means alliance in the Sango language.
Bozize says there’s one point not up for negotiation: he does not intend to leave office before his term ends in 2016.
“We can’t destroy the country. I don’t think that a transition is a good solution for the rebels, for Central African Republic or for the international community,” said Cyriaque Gonda, a spokesman for the political coalition behind Bozize.
But mediators for the government and others note the rebels — an alphabet soup of acronyms in French, UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK — want Bozize gone. And that’s the only issue the disparate group seems unified on. Seleka is a shaky alliance that lumps together former enemies.
In September 2011, fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead in the town of Bria and more than 700 homes destroyed.
“Even if they show unity in the military action, we know that they are politically very disunited, the only thing that holds them together is the opposition to the current president,” said Roland Marchal, a Paris-based expert on Central African Republic. “If they take control of the capital I think that divisions would appear quickly.”
Gonda, who has negotiated on behalf of the government with the rebels, says some of them couldn’t even accept sitting together as recently as 2008.
Meanwhile, in some parts of the capital, Bangui, a city of 700,000, life continued as normal, while in others the military buildup was evident.
Trucks full of soldiers bounced on rutted roads dotted with shacks where people can charge mobile phones. Police officers stopped vehicles at intersections. Troops from neighboring nations have arrived including about 120 soldiers each from Republic of Congo and Gabon to help stabilize the area between rebel and the government forces.
In the Bimbo neighborhood, traders went about their business, selling everything from leafy greens to meat at roadside stands.
“We don’t support what the rebels are doing,” said banana farmer Narcisse Ngo, as a young boy played nearby with a monkey corpse for sale along with other meat. “They should be at the table negotiating without weapons. We are all Central Africans.”
Bozize, who seized power while the democratically elected president was traveling outside the country, managed to win elections in 2005 but in the years since he has faced multiple low-level rebellions that have shattered security across the northern part of this large but desperately poor country.
He won the 2011 election with more than 64 percent of the vote, though the United States said the voting was “widely viewed as severely flawed.” The U.S. evacuated its diplomats from Bangui last week.
The most prominent among the rebel groups in Seleka is the UFDR, or Union of Democratic Forces for Unity.
Human Rights Watch, which has documented abuses by both government forces and rebel groups operating in the country’s north, says the UFDR rebellion “has its roots in the deep marginalization of northeastern CAR, which is virtually cut off from the rest of the country and is almost completely undeveloped.”
The rebels, though, also have included some of Bozize’s former fighters who helped bring him to power in 2003 but later accused him of failing to properly pay them, among other grievances, Human Rights Watch says.
For the people now caught in the middle, they want life to return to normal.
“Everyone is suffering here — we have nothing to eat,” said Daniel Ngakou, 55, as he watched the Chadian troops patrol his hometown of Damara. “The women are searching in the bush all day for food. We just don’t know what will happen.”
The United Nations called on the government and the rebels Wednesday to focus on dialogue that can avert violence and lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and respect for the 2008 Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement. That deal was signed by the government and three major rebel groups.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky reiterated the U.N. Security Council’s call last week for all parties to refrain from any acts of violence against civilians, respect human rights and seek a peaceful solution.
“We welcome regional efforts to seek a political solution and reinforce security,” Nesirky told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.
While the United Nations has temporarily withdrawn its staff from Central African Republic, Nesirky said the world body remains engaged in efforts to resolve the crisis.
He said U.N. special representative Margaret Vogt “has remained in close dialogue with the key parties in the Central African Republic and the region and has offered support to political negotiations,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Oleg Cetinic in Paris and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police say a paparazzo was hit by a car and killed after taking photos of Justin Bieber‘s white Ferrari on a Los Angeles street.
Los Angeles police Officer James Stoughton says the photographer, who was not identified, died at a hospital shortly after the crash Tuesday evening. Stoughton says Bieber was not in the Ferrari at the time.
The sports car was parked on the side of Sepulveda Boulevard near Getty Center Drive after a traffic stop. The photographer was struck as he walked across the boulevard after taking pictures.
Stoughton says no charges are expected to be filed against the motorist who hit the man.
A call to a spokesperson for the singer was not immediately returned Tuesday night.
Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News
PARIS (Reuters) – Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday after lawmakers passed a bill preventing huge tax hikes and spending cuts that had threatened to push the economy into recession.
Futures for the S&P 500 were up 1.7 percent, Dow Jones futures were up 1.2 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 1.3 percent at 1103 GMT.
The House of Representatives voted for a bill passed on Monday by the Senate that will raise taxes on wealthy individuals and families and preserve certain other benefits that will, together, soften some of the blow that would have been sustained without an agreement to avoid the “fiscal cliff.
(Reporting by Blaise Robinson; editing by Simon Jessop)
Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(Reuters) – La Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos aprobó la noche del martes un proyecto de ley del Senado para evitar 600.000 millones de dólares en aumentos de impuestos generalizados y recortes de gastos automáticos conocidos como el “abismo fiscal”. A continuación los detalles:
* Retrasa en dos meses la primera entrega de recortes de gastos automáticos, mientras el Congreso trabaja en un plan para reemplazarlos.
* Genera 620.000 millones de dólares en ingresos en un período de 10 años a través de una serie de aumentos de impuestos a los estadounidenses más ricos.
* Extiende permanentemente los recortes de impuestos promulgados en 2001 por el ex presidente republicano George W. Bush para los ingresos por debajo de 400.000 dólares por persona, o de 450.000 dólares por familia. Los ingresos por encima de ese nivel serían gravados en un 39,6 por ciento, frente a la tasa actual de un 35 por ciento.
* Por encima de ese umbral de renta, las tasas de impuestos sobre las plusvalías y los dividendos volverían a un 20 por ciento, desde el 15 por ciento.
* Limita las exenciones personales y deducciones detalladas para los ingresos por encima de 250.000 dólares, o de 300.000 dólares por hogar.
* Aumenta la tasa del impuesto de sucesiones a un 40 por ciento para las sucesiones de más de 10 millones de dólares por pareja, por encima del nivel actual de 35 por ciento.
* Incluye una solución permanente para el impuesto mínimo alternativo.
* Extiende los beneficios de seguro de desempleo durante un año para dos millones de personas.
* Extiende el crédito tributario por hijos, el crédito por ingreso fiscal y el crédito fiscal de matrícula durante cinco años.
* Extiende el crédito fiscal para la investigación y la experimentación y el crédito fiscal para producción eólica hasta finales de 2013. Extiende el 50 por ciento de depreciación de la prima por un año.
* Evita un recorte en los pagos a los médicos que tratan a pacientes de Medicare.
Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News
We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:
RELATED: ‘Roseanne’ Predicted Internet Addiction; A Weather Alert from Hell
Filmmaker Ryan James Yezak boiled down the biggest stories of 2012 into four minutes. And, yes, Honey Boo Boo made it in there:
RELATED: Even Batman Gets Tripped up by Apple Maps
RELATED: The Videos You Shouldn’t (and Probably Couldn’t) Try at Home
So, raise your hand if you knew Patrick Stewart and company were having this much fun behind the scenes at Star Trek: The Next Generation.
RELATED: Here’s a Video of George Takei Reading ’50 Shades of Grey’
RELATED: Cookie Monster Batman and the Dog You Wish You Had
Marvel’s Stan Lee — the guy who created characters like the Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and the X-Men — turned 90 the other day. In honor of him and his heroes, here are all his cameos from all of the Marvel movies he helped create:
And, finally, it’s 2013 somewhere… right? Please take caution when announcing that news to this very excitable baby. Happy New Year!
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
TAMOUN, West Bank (AP) — An arrest raid by undercover Israeli soldiers disguised as vegetable vendors ignited rare clashes in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, residents said, leaving at 10 Palestinians wounded.
Israeli army raids into Palestinian areas to seize activists and militants are fairly common. The raids are normally coordinated with Palestinian security forces, and suspects are usually apprehended without violence.
The clashes began early Tuesday after Israeli forces disguised as merchants in a vegetable truck arrested one man. Regular army forces then entered the town, prompting youths to hurl rocks to try to prevent more arrests.
Israeli forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition as youths set tires and bins on fire to block the passage of military vehicles. In several hours of clashes, dozens of masked youths hid behind makeshift barriers, hurling rocks and firebombs at soldiers.
Faris Bisharat, a resident of Tamoun, said 10 men were wounded, some by live fire. Bisharat said the wanted men belong to Islamic Jihad, a violent group sworn to Israel’s destruction. It wasn’t clear how many men Israeli forces sought to arrest. There were no immediate details on how seriously the 10 were hurt.
The Israeli military said it arrested a “terrorist affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group.” It said two soldiers were injured during the raid.
The fighting, which broke out in several parts of the town of some 8,000 people, were a rare, angry response. It was also unusual for Israeli forces to use live fire toward Palestinian demonstrators. Israel says it uses live fire only in extremely dangerous situations.
Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Growing concern that problems with the new electronic Oscar voting system could lead to record-low turnout has prompted the motion picture academy to extend the deadline for members to vote for Oscar nominations.
But next week’s highly anticipated announcements looming, the extension is only for a day, until Friday. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Monday any votes received after the new deadline will not be counted.
“By extending the voting deadline we are providing every opportunity available to make the transition to online balloting as smooth as possible,” said the academy’s chief operating officer, Ric Robertson, in a statement. “We’re grateful to our global membership for joining us in this process.”
Reports of difficulty accessing the Oscars’ first-ever online voting system and fears that it could be hacked have raised questions about balloting for the 85th annual contest. Earlier this year, the academy and its longtime accountants, PricewaterhouseCoopers, partnered with the electronic voting firm Everyone Counts Inc. to develop the system.
“There’s considerable concern from many members that voter participation will be at record lows this year because the people who wanted to take a chance on this new cutting-edge system are either giving up on it or worried they won’t be able to cast their votes,” said Scott Feinberg, awards analyst and blogger for The Hollywood Reporter.
In the past, Oscar voting has been compiled strictly through paper ballots sent through the mail. The new system allows members to choose between voting online or sticking with a traditional mail-in ballot.
Morgan Spurlock, the documentary filmmaker whose 2004 film “Super Size Me” was nominated for best documentary, posted on Twitter last week that he wasn’t able to log on to vote electronically and his ballot was instead mailed to him.
“The password they sent didn’t work for my log-in — and they couldn’t email me a new log-in, only snail mail,” tweeted the 42-year-old director.
The academy said it has made several voting resources available to members, including assisted voting stations in Los Angeles, New York and London, and a 24-hour support line.
A spokesman for Everyone Counts didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Besides online voting, a retooled nomination period could also affect the competition.
Organizers moved up the unveiling of the Oscar nominations to Jan. 10. That change puts the announcement three days before Hollywood‘s second-biggest awards ceremony, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association‘s Golden Globes, which are scheduled for Jan. 13.
Oscar overseers originally said the switcheroo would give the academy’s nearly 6,000 members more time to see nominated films before the Feb. 24 awards ceremony, but Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter noted that the change gave voters less time to see potential contenders during the first phase of voting, when members decide on nominees.
“If the turnout is lower among older members, more traditional Oscar contenders will probably receive fewer votes, and otherwise edgier films that appeal more to younger people could fare better,” said Feinberg. “Because of the way that best-picture voting works, it could increase the chances of a movie like ‘The Master’ or ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ getting in.”
Ultimately, because of the inherent secrecy involved in selecting Oscar winners, Feinberg said it will be impossible to know what affects — if any — this year’s voting changes have on the ceremony, where as many as 10 films could be vying for the best-picture award.
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Online:
http://www.oscars.org
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.
Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News
1 January 2013 Last updated at 05:47 ET
President Obama said a larger deal could be accomplished “in several steps”
The US Senate has approved a deal to avert general tax hikes and spending cuts known as the “fiscal cliff”.
The bill, which raises taxes for the wealthy, came after lengthy talks between Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Republicans.
The House is due to consider it later. Spending cuts have been delayed for two months to allow a wider agreement.
Congress missed the deadline to pass a bill, but few effects will be felt as Tuesday is a US public holiday.
Tax cuts approved during the presidency of George W Bush formally expired at midnight (05:00 GMT).
Without approval in the House, huge tax rises for virtually all working Americans will kick in automatically.
Analysts warned that if the full effects of the fiscal cliff were allowed to take hold, the resulting reduction in consumer spending could spark a new recession.
American politicians certainly know how to take it to the wire – and just a little bit beyond”
End Quote
The compromise deal reached on Monday seeks to avoid this by extending the tax cuts for Americans earning under $ 400,000 (£246,000) – up from the $ 250,000 level Democrats had originally sought.
A huge spending cut that would see $ 1.2tn cut from the federal budget over 10 years has been deferred for two months, allowing Congress and the White House to reopen negotiations.
The Senate approved the compromise bill by 89-8. “If we do nothing, the threat of a recession is very real,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said. “Passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt, far from it.”
In addition to the income tax rates and spending cuts, the package includes:
• Rises in inheritance taxes from 35% to 40% after the first $ 5m for an individual and $ 10m for a couple
• Rises in capital taxes – affecting some investment income – of up to 20%, but less than the 39.6% that would prevail without a deal
• One-year extension for unemployment benefits, affecting two million people
• Five-year extension for tax credits that help poorer and middle-class families
‘Imperfect solution‘
President Barack Obama welcomed the Senate vote.
“Leaders from both parties in the Senate came together to reach an agreement that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support today that protects 98% of Americans and 97% of small business owners from a middle class tax hike,” he said in a statement.
Jennifer Steinhauer in The New York Times writes: “The confusing struggle to head off a national fiscal crisis has made one thing crystal clear: The era of the Big Deal is over.”
In The Washington Post, David A Fahrenthold says:”The New Year’s Eve agreement between [Vice-President Joe] Biden and [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell provided a glimpse at the ways that personality quirks and one-to-one relationships can still change the course of Washington politics.”
The Wall Street Journal says: “The wider deal doesn’t do much to control the US’s long-term budget woes, which are driven largely by entitlement spending, especially on health care, left untouched in this agreement.”
“While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said: “It took an imperfect solution to prevent our constituents from a very real financial pain, but in my view, it was worth the effort.”
The BBC’s Mark Mardell in Washington says many of the Republicans who dominate the House dislike the deal and may stand on their principle.
Speaker John Boehner said the House would consider the deal but left open the possibility of amending the Senate bill – which would spark another round of legislation.
“Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members… have been able to review the legislation,” Mr Boehner and other House Republican leaders said in a statement.
The current House can legislate until Wednesday, when it is replaced by a new chamber chosen during last November’s election.
BBC News – Business
WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.
Clinton didn’t suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.
Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.
The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.
In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.
Clinton’s complication “certainly isn’t the most common thing to happen after a concussion” and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University’s stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton’s care.
The area where Clinton’s clot developed is “a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It’s how the blood gets back to the heart,” Goldstein said.
Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.
Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.
This isn’t the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband’s second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.
Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.
Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?
After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.
Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.
Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.
“Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist,” said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. “Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn’t a problem.”
It isn’t uncommon for presidential candidates’ health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.
Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.
Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.
“Wouldn’t that be exciting?” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. “I hope she goes. Why wouldn’t she?”
Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.
“Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl,” Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. “The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level.”
Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking “Clinton 2016″ mugs and tote bags.
Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton’s three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.
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Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.
Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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