[unable to retrieve full-text content]The film follows Beat Generation notables — Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Lucien Carr — as college students in the 1940s. NPR's Bob Mondello says it may succeed where other movies about the poets have failed. (Recommended) Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NprProgramsATC/~3/LXPDWq2l2KI/beat-manifesto-kill-your-darlings-figuratively-and
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Sunday, October 20, 2013
Fox, Polian chide Irsay for criticizing Manning
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay backed down a bit after Broncos coach John Fox and former Colts general manager Bill Polian chided him for comments critical of Peyton Manning.
Fox used his weekly SiriusXM NFL Radio appearance Tuesday to criticize the Colts' owner for sounding ungrateful for all Manning did for his team and city, including winning a Super Bowl in 2007, and Polian used the same platform to say Irsay was wrong in both his facts and opinions.
After a series of tweets defending himself Tuesday night, Irsay took to Twitter on Wednesday to say he meant that if the Colts had given Manning better special teams and defense, they could have won more than one Super Bowl, instead of asking the quarterback to do too much.
He added that he found it hard to see how anyone could misinterpret his comments, but controversy sells, so he understands why people try to stir things up.
In a conference call with Denver media Wednesday, Colts coach Chuck Pagano said Irsay harbors no ill will toward Manning.
"I don't think there's anybody that Mr. Irsay respects and cares for more than Peyton," Pagano said. "What can't you say about Peyton? What he's done for this organization, what he's done for the city, our fans — what he's done for football — it's off the charts. And certainly all I know is that our owner has the utmost respect and love and passion for that guy and always will."
Irsay told USA Today in an interview Tuesday that the Colts turned to Andrew Luck two years ago and released Manning rather than pay him a $28 million roster bonus because they were looking for more playoff success.
"We've changed our model a little bit, because we wanted more than one of these," Irsay said, showing his Super Bowl ring. "(Tom) Brady never had consistent numbers, but he has three of these. Pittsburgh had two, the Giants had two, Baltimore had two and we had one.
"That leaves you frustrated. You make the playoffs 11 times, and you're out in the first round seven out of 11 times. You love to have the 'Star Wars' numbers from Peyton and Marvin (Harrison) and Reggie (Wayne). Mostly, you love this," Irsay added, showing his ring again, according to the newspaper.
Those comments were similar to the ones Irsay made in an interview with The Associated Press last summer, when the Colts owner said his only regrets about releasing Manning were that he wanted the star quarterback to throw his final pass as a Colt and he wished Manning had departed with more than one Super Bowl ring.
So, instead of relying on the high-charged offense Manning directed, Irsay said the team's future February celebrations would come more frequently if the Colts ran a more balanced offense and divided the budget more evenly between the offensive and defensive players.
Irsay's latest verbal barrage, coming as it did this week, created quite a buzz.
Fox normally isn't one to criticize anyone in public, but Irsay's comments clearly struck a nerve.
"I thought it was a bit of a cheap shot," Fox said on SiriusXM. "In my opinion, they were disappointing and inappropriate. You know, Peyton would never say anything because he's too classy to do that.
"They sounded a little ungrateful and unappreciative to me for a guy that's set a standard, won a Super Bowl, won division titles, won four MVP awards, and I'd be thankful for that one Super Bowl ring because a lot of people don't have one."
Polian fired back at his old boss, saying Irsay had it wrong.
"For one thing, I don't believe that Baltimore had two at the time that we were fired, all of us, Peyton, me and the rest of the staff, (coach) Jim Caldwell at the end of the '11 season," Polian said.
He said Irsay was "very upset" after the Colts lost to New Orleans in the 2010 Super Bowl, "and I think it's pretty telling that getting to the Super Bowl in his mind doesn't count. And for anyone who is in the game and who has to make that journey from training camp to the Super Bowl, you know that it's awfully difficult to get there.
"And as John Fox said ... if you have one, you count yourself lucky. I've had teams that have been to six Super Bowls and won one. I'm not ashamed of that record by any means, and I'm certainly not ashamed of what we did in Indianapolis."
Manning is 160-70 in the regular season — joining Brady as the only quarterbacks with 90 more wins than losses — but is just 9-11 in the playoffs with eight first-round exits.
The Broncos — who have won 19 of 23 games under Manning, but lost to Baltimore in the playoffs — visit the Colts on Sunday night in Manning's first return to Indianapolis since his teary-eyed goodbye news conference alongside Irsay in March 2012.
Irsay defended himself in a string of responses on Twitter on Tuesday night, when he quoted Manning as saying that both he and the owner wanted him to stay in Indianapolis but "circumstances forced our hand."
He finished with a joke, saying he hopes for old time's sake that Manning completes some passes to his old teammates such as safety Antoine Bethea.
Fox and Manning meet with the media following Wednesday afternoon's practice.
___
AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org
___
Follow AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fox-polian-chide-irsay-criticizing-manning-163758329--spt.html
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Soo Chul Kim confident he needs one punch to beat Bibiano Fernandes at One FC 11
One year after a TKO victory over Leandro Issa, South Korea’s Soo Chul Kim returns to One FC to defend his bantamweight title against interim champion Bibiano Fernandes, and he is confident his hands will be the key to the victory on Oct. 18 in Kallang, Singapore.
"I expect to show the world that I am the best mixed martial artist in this division," Kim told MMAFighting.com. "He is highly touted and very respected. I think it will be a huge victory for me if I can upset him. He has very good ground game but I think I can beat him in other areas."
Fernandes has been finished only once in his MMA career, when he lost via doctor stoppage to Urijah Faber in his second professional bout in 2006, but Kim believes he will make a statement by finishing one of the best 135-pound fighters in the world.
"Yes, I'm confident I can defeat him," he said. "His striking might have improved but I still think my striking is better. I have one punch knockout power and I will showcase it against Bibiano. I'm still young and only getting better and I will be much improved from the last time you saw me inside the One FC cage.
"(A win over Bibiano Fernandes) will definitely mean I am one of the best, if not the best, bantamweight in the world," he continued. "Everybody will be aware of me once I defeat one of the biggest names in the sport and one of the best in the world in Bibiano. One FC is such as big promotion and staying as their champion will make me one of the best in the world."
Kim has won three straight after going 1-4 between 2011 and 2012, and all the losses have helped him evolve as a mixed martial artist.
"It was a very good learning lesson," he said. "I learned to push myself further and began to really dedicate myself to completely train in mixed martial arts. You can really see the improvement I've made in such a short time and I am just getting started."
The South Korean fighter avenged one of his losses with his TKO win over Leandro Issa at One FC 6, and he wants the opportunity to beat the other three guys to ever defeat him: Andrew Leone, Gustavo Falciroli and Jae Hoon Moon.
"It was definitely a good feeling," Kim said. "Not only did I manage to avenge a loss, I also did it in decisive fashion and earned the world championship belt as well. I want to avenge all the losses I have on my record."
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Saturday, October 19, 2013
Rohingya kids in Myanmar: hard labor, bleak lives
In this Sept. 11, 2013 photo, a Muslim boy stands close to a barbed wire fence on the border of Myanmar and Bangladesh in Maungdaw, Rakhine state, Myanmar. Children are the biggest victims of policies that for decades have systematically discriminated against Rohingya Muslims. With little or no food security, poverty-stricken families often put kids to work instead of sending them to school. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Sept. 11, 2013 photo, a Muslim boy stands close to a barbed wire fence on the border of Myanmar and Bangladesh in Maungdaw, Rakhine state, Myanmar. Children are the biggest victims of policies that for decades have systematically discriminated against Rohingya Muslims. With little or no food security, poverty-stricken families often put kids to work instead of sending them to school. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Sept. 14, 2013 photo, Muslim boys collect gravel from a riverbed to use in road construction close to Lay Maing village, Maungdaw, Rakhine state, Myanmar. For many poverty-stricken Muslim families, even hard labor is a better option for their young boys than the badly broken education system. The government offers children a dollar a day to help with road repairs. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Sept. 12, 2013 photo, Muslim children carry bundles of sticks collected from a near by forest to sell as firewood close to Zay Di village, Maungdaw, Rakhine state, Myanmar. In this corner of Myanmar tens of thousands of Rohingya children born out of wedlock are “blacklisted” and do not exist in the government's eyes. They cannot go to public schools or get treatment in the state-run hospital without paying exorbitant bribes. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Sept. 13, 2013 photo, Muslim children of Lay Maing village carrying donated blue school bags walk to school in Maungdaw, Rakhine state, Myanmar. In this one corner of the country that is Muslim majority, they are among the lucky ones. Tens of thousands born out of wedlock are not recognized by Buddhist authorities and don't have access to education at all. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
In this Sept. 14, 2013 photo, Muslim women tend to their sick infants at a government-run hospital in Maungdaw, Rakhine state, Myanmar. With no accurate statistics for northern Rakhine, it's impossible to know how many children from tiny villages die before they ever make it to a hospital because their families cannot afford bribes demanded at checkpoints. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
MAUNGDAW, Myanmar (AP) — The 10-year-old struggles up the hill, carrying buckets filled with rocks. Though he tries to keep a brave face in front of his friends, his eyes brim with tears. Every inch of his body aches, he says, and he feels sick and dizzy from the weight.
"I hate it," whispers Anwar Sardad. He has to help support his family, but he wishes there was a way other than working for the government construction agency.
He adds, "I wouldn't have to live this life if I wasn't a Muslim."
The lives of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya children like Anwar are growing more hopeless in Myanmar, even as the predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million wins praise for ending decades of dictatorship.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is part of "Portraits of Change," a yearlong series by The Associated Press examining how the opening of Myanmar after decades of military rule is — and is not — changing life in the long-isolated Southeast Asian country.
___
The Muslim ethnic group has long suffered from discrimination that rights groups call among the worst in the world. But here in northern Rakhine state, home to 80 percent of the country's 1 million Rohingya, it is more difficult now for children to get adequate education, food or medical care than it had been in the days of the junta. They have few options beyond hard labor, for a dollar a day.
The Associated Press' visit to the area was a first for foreign reporters. Local officials responded with deep suspicion, bristling when Rohingya were interviewed. Police meetings were called, journalists were followed and people were intimidated after being interviewed, including children.
In a country torn by ethnic violence over the last 15 months, this is the one region where Muslim mobs killed Buddhists, rather than the other way around. And although only 10 of the 240 deaths occurred here, this is the only region where an entire population has been punished, through travel restrictions and other exclusionary policies.
Muslim schools known as madrassas have been shut down, leading to crowding in government schools, where Rohingya, who make up 90 percent of the population in this corner of the country, are taught by Buddhist teachers in a language many don't understand.
In the village of Ba Gone Nar, where a monk was killed in last year's violence, enrollment at a small public school has soared to 1,250. Kids ranging from preschoolers to eighth-graders are crammed so tightly on the floor it's nearly impossible to walk between them.
"Our teachers write a lot of things on the blackboard, but don't teach us how to read them," says 8-year-old Anwar Sjak. "It's very difficult to learn anything in this school."
There are only 11 government-appointed teachers — one for every 114 students. On a day reporters visit, they fail to show up — a common occurrence.
Rohingya volunteers try to maintain order. One man circles the room with a rattan cane, silencing the chatter by whacking the trash-strewn concrete floor.
Few kids have chairs or desks. Many are coughing. Others talk among themselves, flipping through empty notebooks. They look up at newcomers with dazed stares.
"If I could be anything, I'd be doctor when I grow up," Anwar says. "Because whenever someone in my family gets sick and we go to the hospital, the staff never takes care of us. I feel so bad about that.
"But I know that will never happen," the third-grader adds. "The government wouldn't allow it."
Rohingya are not allowed to study medicine in Myanmar. There are no universities in northern Rakhine, and Rohingya there have been barred from leaving the area for more than a decade. An exception that allowed a few Rohingya to study in Sittwe, the state capital, ended after last year's bloodshed.
"They don't want to teach us," says Soyed Alum, a 25-year-old from the coastal village of Myinn Hlut who holds private classes in his home for Rohingya kids.
"They call us 'kalar' (a derogatory word for Muslim). They say, 'You're not even citizens. . Why do you need an education?'"
Every year, thousands of Rohingya flee northern Rakhine and take perilous sea journeys in hopes of finding refuge in other countries. Because of the recent sectarian violence, in which 250,000 people, mostly Rohingya, were driven from their homes, rights workers anticipate that one of the biggest exoduses ever will begin as soon as the monsoon season ends this month and seas in the region calm.
Some historians say Rohingyas have been in northern Rakhine for centuries, though some living there now migrated from neighboring Bangladesh more recently. All are denied citizenship, rendering them stateless.
"They are all illegal," state advocate general Hla Thein says flatly.
They remain barred from becoming citizens, or from working in civil-service jobs. No Rohingya birth certificates have been handed out since the mid-1990s. Rohingya children are "blacklisted" — denied even basic services — if their parents are not officially married or previously reached a two-child limit that is imposed only on their ethnic group.
The official neglect commonly stretches into hatred.
A government minder assigned by the central government to facilitate the AP's trip asks why they are so eager to interview "dogs."
When young Rohingya girls peer into the open windows of the crew's vehicle, the minder bitterly mumbles crude sexual insults at them.
One thing the government does offer Rohingya kids is work, even if they are as young as 10. The Ministry of Construction, one of the bigger employers, offers them 1,000 kyat — a dollar — for eight hours of collecting and carrying rocks under the tropical sun.
Early in the morning, giant pickup trucks swing by villages to pick up dozens of sleepy-eyed boys — all of them Rohingya — and deliver them to riverbeds.
"See? They want to work," says U Hla Moe, the administrator of Lay Maing.
Later that day, he will summon children who were interviewed by reporters into his office — for the AP's security, he says. The children say he frightens them as he demands to know the questions they were asked and their answers.
Among the kids called in is Anwar Sardad, the 10-year-old stone carrier.
From 8 a.m. until dusk, he works alongside his twin brother and five or six other boys from their village, scooping up river rocks and briskly carrying them up a hill. They look more like little men than boys: No smiles. Each step sturdy and determined. Not an ounce of energy wasted.
Anwar is exhausted but works fast. He even stops to help friends when they struggle with their buckets.
Though the work is grueling, it will help the children and their families eat. The region has some of the country's highest chronic malnutrition rates, according to a report released last year by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department. That deprivation severely affects mental and physical development.
The work of humanitarian organizations has been greatly limited in northern Rakhine. A lack of vaccination coverage in the neglected area means they are exposed to almost every preventable childhood disease, says Vickie Hawkins, the deputy head of mission in Myanmar for Doctors Without Borders, which has worked in the area for 15 years.
If Rohingya children get critically ill, they might never make it to a hospital, either because their families cannot afford bribes demanded at checkpoints or because of the Sittwe travel ban.
Mohamad Toyoob, a 10-year-old Rohingya, has received medical care, but not the surgery that doctors have recommended.
He lifts up his shirt, pressing on the right side of his stomach, where he has felt sharp pain for the past three years. "I don't know what's wrong," he says. "It feels like there is something inside."
One diagnosis among the stack he has saved says "abdominal mass," followed by a series of question marks.
The doctors Mohamad saw at a limited-capacity public hospital are unable to perform the potentially life-saving surgery they recommended. To get it, he would have to go to Sittwe, which is off-limits, or Bangladesh. The latter is possible, if his family pays hefty bribes, but he may not be able to get back home.
Money is another obstacle: His family can't even afford his medication, let alone surgery.
He digs into a pocket and pulls out two little plastic bags filled with red, pink, yellow and light blue pills. They cost 200 kyat (20 cents) per day.
To get the money, Mohamad works with other village kids at the riverbank, struggling to lift rocks. Sometimes it makes the pain worse.
"My father lost his job after the violence," he says. "When he was working, we could afford it. But now we have nothing.
"I have to take care of myself."
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-15-Myanmar%20Portraits-Childhood%20Lost/id-5a3a876de9e74cb6aaa1e9522c3d5aedTags: charlie hunnam jimmy fallon
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Special prosecutor to look at Mo. sex assault case
MARYVILLE, Mo. (AP) — A northwest Missouri prosecutor announced Wednesday that he's asking for a special prosecutor to look at the case of a 14-year-old girl who says she was plied with alcohol and raped by a 17-year-old acquaintance.
Melinda Coleman, the mother of 14-year-old Daisy Coleman, claims justice was denied when Nodaway County prosecutor Robert Rice dropped felony charges against the 17-year-old boy last March, two months after Coleman found her daughter passed out on the family's front porch in below-freezing temperatures.
The county sheriff and Rice have insisted their investigation collapsed after the Colemans became uncooperative with investigators and refused to answer questions. Coleman says she and her daughter did cooperate and that investigators didn't do enough to push the case forward.
Rice stood behind his earlier statements at a news conference Wednesday but said he was asking a court to appoint a special prosecutor because of publicity surrounding the case and recent media stories questioning the integrity of the justice system in the county. Rice said the special prosecutor will investigate the case and decide whether charges will be refiled.
The case has drawn international attention to the small northwest Missouri town of Maryville after The Kansas City Star on Sunday published the results of a seven-month investigation. The newspaper's story described a town where many appeared to be closing ranks around the accused and blaming the girl.
The incident happened last January, when Daisy and a friend left the Colemans' house to meet some boys.
Daisy's 13-year-old friend also said she was forced to have sex with a 15-year-old at the same house, while another 17-year-old allegedly recorded the incident on a cellphone. The 15-year-old was charged in the juvenile system. Charges against the 17-year-old who allegedly videotaped the incident were also dropped last March.
Daisy said the boys gave her alcohol and she doesn't remember much of what happened next. The boys said the sex was consensual.
Rice has said there wasn't enough evidence to pursue the charges because the accusers had stopped cooperating and asserted their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Rice said Wednesday that he had been concerned about the Colemans' decision and so he had asked that they assert their Fifth Amendment right under oath in a deposition. He said he couldn't release the deposition because it's a closed record.
Asked to speculate on the accusers' reasoning, Rice said, "I can't go into their minds. I don't know. I can tell you this: We were very careful, very deliberate to make sure that they recorded that there was no misunderstanding, that they understood that at that time when they invoked their Fifth Amendment right that by doing so was going to force the dismissal of the case, that they understood that."
Coleman has told news outlets that she and her daughter are prepared to fully cooperate with investigators.
Robert Sundell, who represented the teen accused of assaulting Daisy, was out of the office Wednesday and didn't immediately return phone message left before and after the news conference.
The Associated Press does not generally name victims of sexual assault but is naming Daisy Coleman because she and her mother have been granting public interviews about the case. The AP is not naming the boys because there are no longer active charges against them.
The case has drawn comparisons to one in Steubenville, Ohio, where two 17-year-old high school football players were convicted of raping a West Virginia girl after an alcohol-fueled party in 2012. The case was furiously debated online and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the city's celebrated football team.
Before Rice's announcement Wednesday, pressure had been building on Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster to intervene. Koster's office has said it had no authority under state law to reopen the investigation on its own.
Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones, a Republican who had called on the Democratic attorney general to step in, said the decision to seek a special prosecutor is good progress.
"However we get to the point of examining this matter more closely is really irrelevant to me," said Jones. "The point is there seemed to be too many questions out there about this case for it to just be suddenly closed."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/special-prosecutor-look-mo-sex-assault-case-222108454.html
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Libyan pleads not guilty to terrorism charges
In this courtroom sketch, Abu Anas al-Libi, 49, second from left, sits as his lawyer David Patton, second from right, address Judge Lewis Kaplan, far right, in a federal courtroom in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013. Abu Anas al-Libi, a Libyan, pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in the deadly 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams)
In this courtroom sketch, Abu Anas al-Libi, 49, second from left, sits as his lawyer David Patton, second from right, address Judge Lewis Kaplan, far right, in a federal courtroom in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013. Abu Anas al-Libi, a Libyan, pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in the deadly 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams)
FILE - This file image from the FBI website shows Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the 1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the United States for more than a decade. Gunmen in a three-car convoy seized Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, outside his house Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013, in the Libyan capital, his relatives said. Two law enforcement officials say a team of U.S. investigators from the military, the intelligence community and the Justice Department has been deployed to question Abu Anas al-Libi, according to two law enforcement officials. (AP Photo/FBI, File)
In this courtroom sketch, Abu Anas al-Libi, 49, right, is lead away after answering terrorism charges in a federal courtroom in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013. Abu Anas al-Libi, a Libyan, pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in the deadly 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams)
In this courtroom sketch, Abu Anas al-Libi, 49, sits as his lawyer David Patton, right, address a federal court in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013. Abu Anas al-Libi, a Libyan, pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in the deadly 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams)
NEW YORK (AP) — An alleged al-Qaida member who was snatched off the streets in Libya and interrogated for a week aboard an American warship pleaded not guilty to bombing-related charges Tuesday in a case that has renewed the debate over how quickly terrorism suspects should be turned over to the U.S. courts.
Despite calls from Republicans in Congress to send him to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite interrogation, Abu Anas al-Libi became the latest alleged terrorist to face civilian prosecution in federal court in New York, the scene of several such convictions.
Al-Libi, wearing a thick gray beard, looked frail and moved slowly as he was led into the heavily guarded courtroom in handcuffs. An attorney said he had come to court from a New York hospital, where he was treated for three days for hepatitis C and swollen limbs.
The 49-year-old al-Libi was captured by American commandos during an Oct. 5 military raid in Libya and questioned for a week aboard the USS San Antonio.
He was indicted more than a decade ago in the twin 1998 bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans. If convicted, he could get life behind bars.
Known as one of al-Qaida's early computer experts, al-Libi is accused of helping plan and conduct surveillance for the attacks. He is believed to have used an early-generation Apple computer to assemble surveillance photographs.
The defendant kept his hands folded on his lap as the judge read the charges in a courtroom secured by about a dozen deputy U.S. marshals. The judge ordered him detained after a federal prosecutor called him a "clear danger."
Republicans stepped up their criticism of Obama for his administration's handling of al-Libi, saying he should have been sent to the American prison at Guantanamo Bay for more interrogation instead of being taken to the U.S. and given access to civilian courts and the legal protections they provide.
"He was a treasure trove of information," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
"The most dangerous thing we could do as a nation is to treat a captured al-Qaida terrorist as a common criminal, read them their Miranda rights and put them in civilian court before we have a chance to gather intelligence."
New York Republican Rep. Peter King, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said: "The real issue is the intelligence. Once he gets a lawyer, he holds the cards. ... Put it this way: Now he decides whether he will talk."
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont defended the administration, saying dozens of terrorists have been arrested and continued providing information.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we demonstrated to the rest of the world that we're not afraid of these people, that we have the best court systems in the world and we're going to use them?" he said.
Al-Libi's family and former associates have denied he was ever a member of al-Qaida.
"The presumption of innocence is not a small technicality here," his court-appointed attorney, David Patton, said in email sent after the hearing. In a 150-page indictment, al-Libi "is mentioned in a mere three paragraphs relating to conduct in 1993 and 1994 and nothing since. ... There is no allegation that he had any connection to al-Qaida after 1994, and he is eager to move forward with the legal process in this case."
Al-Libi's lawyer also said the defendant goes by the name Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai.
The prosecution in the United States is in keeping with a policy of bringing suspected al-Qaida sympathizers and operatives to civilian courts rather than military tribunals.
The civilian court prosecutions have continued before and after the Obama administration was forced to reverse its plans to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and several others in federal court in Manhattan.
Before the Sept. 11 attacks, several other major terrorism trials were held in New York, including those of blind Egyptian sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef, who was the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Just weeks before 9/11, four men were convicted in the embassy bombings and were sentenced to life in prison, two of them after a jury rejected the death penalty.
___
Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper and Eileen Sullivan in Washington and Frank Eltman on Long Island contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-15-Terror%20Trials/id-0a0ef4cf0dd543c3bb3b6f34f9e241f9Tags: Ink Master downton abbey eminem tesla model s What Did Riley Cooper Say
S&P 500 pushes further into record territory
NEW YORK (AP) — Investors shifted their focus from politics to profits on Friday and liked what they saw, pushing the Standard & Poor's 500 index further into record territory.
Two days after Congress struck a last-minute deal to keep the U.S. from a devastating default on its debt, investors were bidding up stocks on surprisingly good profits from companies in industries both old and new.
General Electric and Morgan Stanley rose after reporting higher earnings than financial analysts had expected. Google surged nearly 14 percent, topping $1,000 a share for the first time.
"We've moved from the dysfunction of Washington to the reality of the global economy, and it looks pretty good," said Ron Florance, deputy chief investment officer at Wells Fargo Private Bank.
Investors were also encouraged by a rebound in Chinese economic growth in the latest quarter.
The rise in stocks follows a budget standoff in Washington that kept hundreds of thousands of federal workers from their jobs for 16 days and could have forced the government to miss payments on its debt. Congress agreed Wednesday to fund the government and allow it to borrow through early next year.
The S&P 500 set a record for the second straight day. The broad index of 500 companies, up 22 percent this year, added 11.35 points, or 0.7 percent, to a record 1,744.50. The gain this year is the index's best since 2009, when it began its bull run. Since its recession low in March of that year, the S&P 500 has soared 158 percent, driven largely by a rebound in earnings, a housing recovery, greater investor confidence and the economic stimulus program by the Federal Reserve.
The Nasdaq composite was up 51.13 points, or 1.3 percent, at 3,914.28. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 28 points, or 0.2 percent, to 15,399.65, and is 277 points below its own record.
Christine Short, a senior manager at S&P Capital IQ, said investors are relieved that Washington pulled back from the abyss by extending the U.S. borrowing authority until Feb. 7. But she's not so sure how long the celebratory mood might last.
"We just bought ourselves a little more time, and the market seems to like that," she said. "But we're likely to go through the same cycle again in three months."
Another concern is earnings. Despite good reports from a few big companies Friday, the third-quarter reporting season has just started and most companies aren't expected to post blowout results.
Earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to have grown 3.4 percent from a year earlier, the smallest quarterly increase in a year, according to S&P Capital IQ. At the start of 2013, third-quarter earnings were expected to grow at nearly triple that pace.
What's driven stock prices up this year hasn't been earnings as much as investors' willingness to value them more. At the start of the year, stock buyers were paying $14 for every $1 of S&P 500 earnings, according to S&P Capital IQ. Now, they are paying more than $16.
Investors will have a better idea of the U.S. corporate profit picture next week when several big companies report results, including McDonalds on Monday and Boeing and Caterpillar on Wednesday and Ford on Thursday.
Google jumped $122.61 to $1,011.41 Friday. It reported a 36 percent jump in earnings after the stock market closed Thursday. An erosion in Google's ad pricing was more than offset by a big increase in the frequency of clicks on Google's ads.
General Electric rose 87 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $25.55, after topping analysts' expectations for net income, excluding charges for shedding its media and banking operations. Stock of GE, which makes jet engines and other industrial products, is the highest it's been since the start of the financial crisis in September 2008, when some investors doubted the company could survive intact.
Morgan Stanley rose 76 cents, to $29.69, a gain of 2.6 percent. The investment bank reported that its earnings nearly doubled on strong results in stock sales and trading, beating analysts' estimates. Morgan Stanley is up 55 percent this year, the most among major banks and nearly twice the gain of the next-best performing bank stock, Citigroup.
Nine of the 10 industries in the S&P 500 rose, led by information technology companies, up 1.8 percent. Stocks in the health-care industry fell 0.4 percent.
The Chinese government reported Friday that the world's second-largest economy grew by 7.8 percent in the three months ending in September, a pickup from the previous quarter. Investors have worried that slower growth would not only hurt big commodity exporters like Brazil and Australia but drag down the global economy, too.
Among other stocks making news:
— Chipotle Mexican Grill jumped $70.67, or 16 percent, to $509.74, the biggest gain in the S&P 500. The company reported that its third-quarter earnings rose 15 percent on higher traffic to its 1,500 restaurants.
— Voxeljet, a 3-D printing company from Germany, more than doubled in its debut offering, jumping $15.80 to $28.80. The company makes printers that build 3-D objects by layering plastic and other materials atop each other. It raised $84.5 million in its initial public offering.
In bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note was unchanged at 2.59 percent.
- Finance
- Investment & Company Information
- Morgan Stanley
- General Electric
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White House: health law change in budget deal is modest adjustment
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday defended the inclusion of a change to President Barack Obama's healthcare law in the proposed Senate budget deal as a modest adjustment, rather than a concession that the administration was making to prevent a debt default.
"The income verification provision ... was negotiated by Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans and is a modest adjustment to the existing Affordable Care Act law," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a briefing. "We've always said we were willing to make improvements and adjustments to the law," he added. "Ransom would be a wholly different thing."
(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Eric Beech)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-health-law-change-budget-deal-modest-174445926--business.html
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Friday, October 18, 2013
'Hot Wheels' Movie Puts Director Simon Crane In The Driver's Seat
By Charles Webb After what The Hollywood Reporter describes as months of negotiations, Simon Crane has signed on to direct a "Hot Wheels" movie based on the Mattel line of die-cast toy cars. Crane beat out "28 Weeks Later" director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo in the latest attempt at jump-starting the nascent "Fast & the Furious" […]Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/10/18/hot-wheels-movie-puts-director-simon-crane-in-the-drivers-seat/
Category: Phillip Lim Target Nick Pasquale
Category: Phillip Lim Target Nick Pasquale
Rupert Murdoch Re-Elected Chairman of 21st Century Fox
Shareholders of 21st Century Fox elected all of the company's board candidates, including chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and his two sons, Lachlan and James, at their annual meeting at Fox Studios in Los Angeles on Friday.
The meeting, which lasted a scant 30 minutes even with a delay for technical reasons, was sparsely attended and relatively uneventful.
STORY: News Corp Reports Higher Quarterly Revenue Than Expected
One shareholder, Tim Shaler of Christian Bros. Investment Services, made a plea to separate the CEO and chairmanship -- a request that had become an annual ritual at meetings long before 21st Century Fox split from News Corp -- but the proposal will undoubtedly be shot down once the votes are officially tallied. Last year, a similar proposal was defeated by about 70 percent to 30 percent.
Shaler, though, said the company's refusal to split the CEO and chairmanship, roles both held by Rupert Murdoch, show "a disregard not only for shareholders but also for corporate governanance."
No other shareholder made a public statement or even posed a question to the board members, most of whom were in attendance, including the three Murdochs and COO Chase Carey.
Activist shareholders also promoted a proposal to do away with the dual class of stock that allows the Murdoch family to control about 39 percent of the voting power at the company with only 14 percent of the shares. That proposal also lacked support and will likely lose when the votes are counted.
In his prepared remarks, Rupert Murdoch called the company's cable network programming its "engine of growth" and noted that the segment surpassed $10 billion in revenue for the first time in fiscal 2013.
Murdoch also boasted that investors in pre-split News Corp. have enjoyed a 95 percent return on their money since the company announced in June 2012 it would split into two entities, which is three times more than the S&P 500 and 25 percent better than its media peers.
"These numbers speak for themselves," Murdoch said.
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NVIDIA reveals the GTX 780 Ti, a new 'high-end enthusiast' GPU
NVIDIA's news day apparently isn't over just yet, as the company just revealed a new graphics card: the NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti. It's apparently hitting retail shelves this November, and it's just one step below the company's super high-end GPU, the Titan. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang didn't offer many specifics on ...Related Topics: Ted Cruz NASA Claire Danes lsu football Lady Gaga
Watch: Britney Spears Announces The Title Of Her 8th Album
Most Personal Album is Personal
Our dear Britney Spears, who is currently in London doing promo work for her new album and upcoming Las Vegas concert residency Piece of Me, made an in-studio appearance on Capital FM radio to make her world exclusive album title announcement. Britney, as you may know, has been talking a lot about her upcoming 8th album (due out on December 3) is her most personal album to date and, as such, it needs to be given the most personal title ever. The interview, which you can watch below, is really cute … Britney even puts on a foam hand and does a little something with it (don’t worry, it’s cute … not Miley) but it’s the album title announcement that is the real draw. Click below to watch … and learn :D
Britney Jean! I love it!! Because her third album was titled simply Britney, it makes sense that she would want to return to that personal feeling for the title of album number 8. Here is Britney‘s interview with Capital FM, which is deff worth watching all the way thru:
I love this interview … it’s really cute. The only thing missing from this interview is Britney‘s British accent. How amazing would it’ve been if Britishney came out to chat with these British radio DJs. Ah well, I guess she just saves the accent for us here in America ;) BUT I DIGRESS … Britney Jean, the album, is out on December 3! Woot!!!!! I love the title, do you?
[Source]
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From crab fishers to office staff, nation reboots
Jerry and Deb Treacy of Shelton, Conn., take in the views near the visitor's center at Saratoga National Historical Park on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013, in Stillwater, N.Y. The park, site of one of history’s most important battles, has reopened now that a temporary truce has been reached in Washington over the federal budget battle. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
Jerry and Deb Treacy of Shelton, Conn., take in the views near the visitor's center at Saratoga National Historical Park on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013, in Stillwater, N.Y. The park, site of one of history’s most important battles, has reopened now that a temporary truce has been reached in Washington over the federal budget battle. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
Farmer Kevin Scott unloads a truckload of soybeans Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013, on his land near Valley Springs, S.D. He said most farmers are more focused on harvesting than the government reopening but they are concerned Congress hasn’t passed a new farm bill. (AP Photo/Carson Walker)
In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News bureau, Capt. Randy Towe, right, guides Greg Poland searching for mangrove snapper in Everglades National Park, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013, near Islamorada, Fla. Thursday was the first day that Florida Keys guides and others could fish in the park's Florida Bay waters since a Washington budget impasse closed down much of the Federal government for 16 days. (AP Photo/Florida Keys News Bureau, Bob Care)
A worker removes cones at the entrance to the National Museum of the United States Air Force Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013, on the day it reopened after the government shutdown ended. (AP Photo/Dayton Daily News/Nick Graham)
Visitors return to Castle Clinton National Monument, in New York, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. Barriers came down at federal memorials and National Park Service sites, and thousands of furloughed federal workers — relieved but wary — returned to work across the country Thursday after 16 days off the job due to the partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The end of the federal shutdown means boats will be back out on the Bering Sea to fish for king crab. Loggers are being allowed back into national forests in Oregon. And barriers keeping nature lovers out of national parks across the country have been removed.
Crews on about 80 boats have been sitting out the multimillion-dollar harvest of red king crab because federal managers who assign fishing quotas were among workers furloughed during the government's partial shutdown. They're relieved that they'll soon be able to start their harvest, bringing back an industry that was one of many private sectors of the economy stalled around the country by the bickering in Washington.
"I'm glad the madness has ended," said Capt. Keith Colburn, a regular on Discovery Channel's popular reality show "Deadliest Catch."
Life started to return to normal as the federal government sprang back to life after the 16-day partial shutdown that came to a close after the House and Senate voted late Wednesday to end it. Even the popular panda cam at the National Zoo was back online, though the zoo itself won't reopen until Friday. Federal workers who were furloughed or worked without pay during the shutdown will get back pay in their next paychecks, which for most employees come Oct. 29.
National parks removed barriers and welcomed visitors who had previously been turned away. The Twitter feed of Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state posted a picture of the 14,411-foot mountain backed by blue skies, with the message "What a beautiful morning to welcome us back to Mount Rainier! Park gates are now open."
National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis said all 401 national park units — including landmarks such the Liberty Bell and Yellowstone — reopened Thursday.
Visitors from around the world flocked to Yosemite National Park to see such famous sites as El Capitan and Half Dome after weeks of closure brought local economies to a near standstill.
More than 20,000 National Park Service employees had been among the 800,000 federal workers sent home at the peak of the shutdown.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park spokeswoman Dana Soehn said that returning employees faced a backlog of work, particularly emails from people applying for permits, and other requests.
"All of those still required response now that we're back to work," said Soehn, adding that she realizes there could be another shutdown in the next few months.
"That is not a prospect that anyone is looking forward to," she said.
At the World War II Memorial, which became a flash point of anger and blame over the government shutdown, the memorial honoring more than 400,000 who died was calm and peaceful again. The memorial's fountains were turned back on, and there were no signs of the barricades that had limited access to the site during the shutdown.
The U.S. Forest Service started lifting a logging ban on national forests. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services restarted the computerized system used to verify the legal status of workers. Boat trips resumed to Alcatraz, the former federal prison in San Francisco Bay, with 1,600 tickets snapped up by tourists in the first hour of business.
Among the many sites reopening in Washington were the Smithsonian Institution's museums, which lost about $2.8 million in revenue during the shutdown, according to Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is tackling backlogs in several of its programs as furloughed workers return.
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan welcomed back workers in a video message posted on the agency's website.
"You are better than what we saw in Washington over the past few weeks," he told them. "And I want you to know that your work here at HUD is valued. It's important. It's necessary."
The Defense Department called back about 7,000 furloughed civilians. In an open letter to the workforce, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the department still faces budget uncertainty as Congress struggles to pass a 2014 spending bill and deal with automatic budget cuts. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said the department lost at least $600 million worth of productivity during the four days that civilians were furloughed.
In Cincinnati, Renee Yankey, a government alcohol and tobacco tax specialist, was sleep-deprived after staying up late to watch news of the shutdown-ending deal, but otherwise glad to be back at work with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.
"I can tell that the alcohol industry missed us," Yankey said. "The first thing I hear is 'I'm so glad I got a person on the phone!'"
Patrice Roberts, who works for Homeland Security, said she wasn't prepared for the emotional lows of the past 16 days.
"It's just frustrating having that kind of control over your life and just having it taken away from me," said Roberts, who is expecting another shutdown in January. "I'll be better prepared next time."
____
La Corte reported from Olympia, Wash. Associated Press writers Rachel D'Oro in Anchorage, Alaska; Matthew Barakat in Reston, Va.; Ben Nuckols in Springfield, Va.; Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; Michael Rubinkam in Pottsville, Pa.; Jeannie Nuss in North Little Rock, Ark.; Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia; Lucas L. Johnson II in Nashville, Tenn.; and Jessica Gresko, Brett Zongker, Andrew Miga and Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-18-Shutdown-Government%20Reopens/id-08efae76c5f848239d26ecaf19e68322Category: constitution day engadget Antoinette Tuff Iams Recall Deanna Burditt
Donald Glover Breaks Silence About Disturbing Instagram Posts
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Donald Glover
Community star Donald Glover has opened up about what led to his decision to post a series of disturbing Instagram confessions Monday.
His long list of dark admissions included: "I'm afraid my parents won't live long enough to see my kids," "I'm afraid people hate who I really am," "I'm afraid people think I hate my race," "I'm afraid people think I hate women," and "I'm scared I'll never grow out of bro rape." (The reference to "bro rape" refers to an early sketch by Glover's comedy troupe, Derrick Comedy.) They were handwritten on Marriott hotel stationery.
COVER STORY: 'Community's' Dan Harmon Reveals the Wild Story Behind His Firing and Rehiring
On Wednesday, Glover told People what spurred the posts.
"That night, we had a show, and then afterwards, I had this moment of feeling like, 'What's the point? Why am I even here?' " Glover said. "I just wanted to write down my feelings. I definitely was just expressing myself."
He emphasized that he is not suffering from depression.
"I was just tired of telling people I was tired. It felt like every day someone would ask, 'What's wrong. Are you OK?' " says Glover. "And I would say, 'I'm tired, I'm tired.' I didn't want to do that anymore. I guess sometimes not telling the truth is just as bad as telling a lie."
Still, he said he's glad he was able to get his thoughts off his chest.
STORY: 'Community's' Donald Glover Reduces Role for Season 5
"It felt like I had been holding on to something," he added.
Glover, who committed to a shortened season of Community this year -- ostensibly to focus more on his rap music as alter ego Childish Gambino -- also made several references to his career in the posts. In one, he denies that his music pursuits were the reason he left the NBC sitcom.
Asked by People to elaborate, he declined.
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
Obama Calls For Budget, Immigration Reform By Year's End
At the White House on Thursday, President Obama said "the American people are completely fed up with Washington."
Charles Dharapak/AP
At the White House on Thursday, President Obama said "the American people are completely fed up with Washington."
Charles Dharapak/AP
President Obama slammed the partisan standoff "spectacle" that he said had damaged the economy and America's international credibility, and called on Congress to pass a comprehensive budget, immigration reform and a farm bill by year's end.
He praised "Democrats and responsible Republicans who came together" to pass a last-minute deal to reverse a partial government shutdown and narrowly avert the expiration of the federal borrowing authority.
"Let's be clear, there are no winners here," he said Thursday. "These last few weeks have inflicted completely unnecessary damage to our economy."
"The American people are completely fed up with Washington," he added.
The president's remarks follow a 16-day hiatus in many government operations that he said had cost billions of dollars.
"There was no economic rationale for this," the president said of the shutdown.
"Today I want our people, our businesses and the rest of the world to know that our faith and credit remains unquestioned," he said.
Obama called for a renewed, bipartisan effort to pass a comprehensive budget, fix the "broken" immigration system and get a farm bill passed.
"This can and should get done by the end of this year," he said.
Finally, he said he had a message for federal workers, who were either furloughed or kept working without pay: "Thank you. Thanks for your service. Welcome back. What you do is important. It matters."
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With U.S. government reopened, conservative groups dig in
By Gabriel Debenedetti
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The conservative wing of the Republican Party spent no time licking its wounds after failing to roll back Obamacare as part of the last-minute fiscal deal, and pledged on Thursday to redouble its fight.
"Giving up on the Obamacare fight is giving up on the American people. We're not going to give up," declared an email signed by Heritage Action executive Michael Needham.
Heritage Action was among a handful of groups leading the conservative Tea Party movement's campaign to defund Obama's signature healthcare law - a push that shut down the federal government for 16 days, nearly resulting in an economically disastrous default on U.S. debt.
In the end, Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner blinked, and allowed a vote on a Senate plan that included a short-term increase in the debt ceiling and governing funding through January 15. The measure got 82 Republican votes - enough to secure its passage.
The Club for Growth, another staunchly conservative group, said it will direct it efforts through its political action committee.
On Thursday it endorsed Mississippi Republican State Senator Chris McDaniel in his race against Senator Thad Cochran, who voted for the fiscal deal and is up for re-election next year.
It is the third primary challenge to sitting lawmakers that the group has endorsed, and the second against a Republican.
"We'll have more," Club for Growth President Chris Chocola told Reuters in an interview. "The last couple weeks may have defined our opportunities a little bit better."
The government's partial shutdown ended shortly after midnight on Thursday, capping a standoff that left hundreds of thousands of federal employees without work.
The final agreement, crafted by Senate leaders Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell, set up a budget fight that will likely stretch into early 2014.
The deal included no measures to roll back Obamacare, and Republicans widely viewed that as a defeat. But as the party tries to regroup, some leaders criticized the groups leading the effort to defund the president's program.
'RADICALNESS'
Republican Senator Orrin Hatch told MSNBC on Thursday that the Heritage Foundation - where Heritage Action is based - was "losing (its) reputation because of some of this radicalness."
Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate and president of Americans for Tax Reform, said that proponents of defunding Obamacare "hurt the conservative movement, they hurt people's healthcare, they hurt the country's economic situation, and they hurt the Republican Party."
Norquist, who had urged a one-year delay in Obamacare as recently as August, said the defunding movement had gone too far.
But Chocola kept up his criticism of Obamacare and the Republican leadership for ultimately agreeing to a deal.
"I don't know if it was a deal, it was an outcome. And it was a bad outcome," the former Republican representative from Indiana said.
Obamacare, he said, is "nothing more than a new entitlement. ... It's unaffordable, bad healthcare - which is a bad combination."
Chocola's Club for Growth has been the largest donor to Republican Senator Ted Cruz, whose 21-hour floor speech helped set the stage for the partial shutdown.
Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler offered a similar assessment, saying his group will consider running advertisements if it sees opportunities to attack Obamacare.
He said the group intends to press lawmakers to explain their votes in favor of funding the law.
"If you're a Mark Pryor in Arkansas or a Kay Hagan in North Carolina, you had your chance" to oppose the deal, he said, referring to two Democratic senators up for re-election next year in conservative states.
"It's a liability for them, and it's something they're going to need to explain," Holler said.
Heritage Action is the political wing of the Heritage Foundation, the Washington-based conservative think tank run by former Tea Party Republican Senator Jim DeMint.
On Tuesday it helped scuttle a planned House vote by threatening to highlight lawmakers' votes on the group's closely watched scorecard. All but two of the 25 members with a score of least 90 percent on its card voted against the final deal.
Chocola said he was not satisfied with the vote, or even the options that were presented.
"Our position was, 'we're going to fight for the best thing offered.' And the only thing offered was Ted Cruz's position (to defund Obamacare)," he said.
The groups have not unveiled specific plans for the next budget fight.
Holler of Heritage Action said it was "too early to say exactly where the legislative leverage may exist in the coming months or what approach(es) would maximize that leverage."
(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Xavier Briand)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-government-reopened-conservative-groups-dig-230305985--business.html
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Analysis: U.S. 'soft power' takes a hit over government shutdown
By Paul Taylor
PARIS (Reuters) - A picture spoke volumes about the United States' loss of global prestige and influence due to the shutdown of its government in a partisan standoff over the federal budget and debt.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin beamed front and centre in the family photograph of Asian leaders at last week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bali.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, standing in for an absent President Barack Obama, detained at home by protracted budget negotiations, waved forlornly from the edge, about as far from the centre as possible without falling off the platform.
For an administration that has focused its foreign policy on a "pivot" to Asia, the world's most economically vibrant region, this may be more than a momentary setback. And not just in Asia.
Joseph Nye, the Harvard professor who coined the term "soft power" to describe a nation's ability to wield influence through its culture, values and governance rather than by force, said the United States had suffered a serious blow from the shutdown.
"It's clearly very damaging for American soft power in the sense that the reputation for effective management of government and of the world's reserve currency are hurt," Nye told Reuters.
Foreign governments and investors, from China to the Middle East, were bound to ask whether they should hold so much of their reserves in U.S. Treasury bonds and dollars, he said.
Obama and Congressional leaders agreed a temporary fix on Wednesday to keep the government running until January and raise the national debt ceiling, hours before it was set to lose the authority to borrow - a prelude to a potential default.
The president acknowledged on Thursday that the 16-day shutdown had hurt Washington's global position.
"Probably nothing has done more damage to America's credibility in the world, our standing with other countries, than the spectacle that we've seen these past several weeks," he said in a speech at the White House. "It's encouraged our enemies, it's emboldened our competitors, and it's depressed our friends who look to us for steady leadership."
Nye said the fiscal crisis had compounded damage to trust in the United States from revelations about the National Security Agency's tentacular global Internet surveillance by fugitive former intelligence consultant Edward Snowden.
"On culture and values, we are doing pretty well," he said. "But on government policies, whether on surveillance or on our management of the world's most important reserve currency, that's where the danger is."
CHINA CASHES IN
While Obama was marooned in the White House, Xi and Premier Li Keqiang swept around southeast Asia, dispensing goodwill, big investments and promises of surging trade, including with U.S. allies such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
The Chinese state news agency Xinhua excoriated the United States for putting international financial stability at risk with domestic "political brinkmanship". The lesson for America's creditors was that "U.S. Treasury bonds may no longer be a safe investment".
Gloating over Washington's paralysis, another Xinhua commentary said it was "perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world".
The risk of severe damage to the global economy from the U.S. government paralysis and a possible debt default - now banished for a few months at least - dominated meetings of the Group of 20 world leaders in St. Petersburg, Russia, last month and G20 finance ministers last week in Washington.
Putin berated the United States publicly over the uses and abuses of its power as he engineered a diplomatic deal to avert a U.S. military strike on Syria.
"Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy, but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan 'you're either with us or against us'," he wrote in the New York Times on September 11.
CORROSIVE
Former U.S. policy practitioners said the spectacle of a chronically divided political system unwilling to compromise on the big issues of taxation, public spending and borrowing had weakened the country's international sway.
"There is no question in my mind that this has a corrosive effect on American authority and influence in the world," said Samuel Berger, who was national security adviser to President Bill Clinton.
"For the president not to be able to go to Asia for the East Asia summit is a blow, with President Xi being able to be there, be triumphant, announce a $50-billion development fund, makes other Asian nations very uncomfortable about our steadfastness," Berger, who now chairs a global strategy consultancy, the Albright Stonebridge Group, told Reuters.
For U.S. allies in the Arab world and Israel, acutely sensitive to any fluctuation in American engagement and deterrence, the signals have been both confusing and worrying.
"When you look at how the Saudis are sensitive over this (U.S.) flirtation with Iran, at what has happened in Syria and Egypt, the sense that the United States is the only superpower in the Middle East is slowly fading away," said an Arab diplomat serving in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Arab governments and private fortunes are heavily invested in U.S. Treasury instruments and the stock exchange, so there are financial as well as geopolitical grounds for anxiety.
In a region where hard power counts for more than persuasion, Obama has presided over a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq and soon from Afghanistan, and avoided force against Syria over the use of chemical weapons, partly due to divisions in Congress.
That has fuelled doubts among Israelis, Saudis and others about his willingness to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability or wielding growing influence from Baghdad to Beirut.
With the United States increasingly independent of Middle East energy supplies due to its domestic shale gas bonanza, traditional clients fret that its commitment to their security is bound to diminish.
Similar concerns have surfaced in Central America. Javier Trevino, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister who sits in the lower house of Congress, said the United States' soft power was being compromised by the U.S. legislature's "myopic", parochial outlook, and that U.S. foes were benefiting.
"By not being able to quickly resolve internal political issues, it opens a window of opportunity for the United States' adversaries to push forward with their agendas," he said.
"The wrong signals are being sent to Russia, China, North Korea and Syria."
For Europeans weary of being lectured by the United States about their tortured management of the euro zone's debt crisis, and the risk it posed to the world economy, a little Schadenfreude was irresistible.
"If this had happened in Europe, what wouldn't they say about Europe?" Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, told the Euractiv news service.
"Imagine that we would have a shutdown at the level of EU institutions. What would they say about Europe? What caricatures there would be. What shaming there would be!"
LONG TERM, SHORT TERM?
Yet for all the criticism and hand-wringing, historical precedent suggests the damage to U.S. influence may not be enduring, given the dynamism of its innovative economy and the attraction of its popular culture.
The last U.S. government shutdown in 1996, of similar duration in a similar standoff between a Republican-dominated Congress and a Democratic president, caused barely a hiccup in Washington's global ascendancy, which was then at its peak five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"I tend to be with the Mark Twain line on this: that the reports of America's decline have been grossly exaggerated," said James Steinberg, a former deputy secretary of state who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
"I teach history now and ... there have been other times in American history where polarization has been great, where there have been deep divides and where we have been able to overcome them," he said, citing the civil war of the 1860s.
One senior European policymaker, Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg, said the longer-term impact of this shutdown may be monetary rather than political, but with strategic consequences - should Beijing lose its appetite for holding dollar reserves.
"Because it is an enormous advantage to be a reserve currency, it seems madness to even consider creating uncertainty around that status," Borg said. "For them (China), it must mean that at some time in the future they must leave the dollar."
(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Jeff Mason in Washington, Martin Petty in Bangkok, Simon Johnson in Stockholm, Adam Rose and Jonathan Standing in Beijing and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-u-soft-power-takes-hit-over-government-152224681.html
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