"Plan B" is dead; what's next for "fiscal cliff"?

House Speaker John Boehner's big idea for a backup "Plan B" exploded Thursday night when, after days of wrangling with his own troops, he realized he didn't have enough votes to pass the tax cut part of his plan.  With four days until Christmas and 11 until the effects of the "fiscal cliff" begin the big question today is: what happens now?

Obama and Boehner to talk?

Boehner sent House Republicans home for Christmas after last night's legislative collapse, ensuring nothing will be passed until Dec. 27 at the earliest, when members are due back in town.  That leaves Boehner and President Obama to keep negotiating - something that ground to a halt after Boehner announced he was moving forward with his "Plan B" earlier in the week. 

But the two are at a stalemate, even though they're not that far apart in their proposals. In their most recent offers, Mr. Obama was offering $1.2 trillion in revenue and $800 billion in spending cuts; Boehner was offering $1 trillion in revenue and $1 trillion in spending cuts.  Also, the president agreed to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire on those making over $400,000; Boehner is supporting a $1 million threshold, to the consternation of some in his party who don't want anyone's taxes to go up.

The president is hoping to get to Hawaii for Christmas - he was planning on leaving town today but without a "fiscal cliff" deal, it's unclear whether he'll get to the Aloha State at all for the holiday.  Meantime, Boehner wakes up today with the realization that he has a seemingly irreparable schism within his own ranks: there are just enough Republicans who refuse to budge on taxes and are demanding more spending cuts, especially on entitlement programs such as Medicare, therefore gumming up the works for any progress Boehner wants to make on the "fiscal cliff".

Ultimately, negotiations between the president and Boehner might be over, especially since it's clear to all parties after last night that Boehner doesn't have the votes to get any compromise through the House.

Obama and Reid to offer a solution?

Boehner seemed to throw up his hands after calling off the "Plan B" vote Thursday night saying the solution to averting the "cliff" is in the hands of Mr. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass. Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff," Boehner said Thursday night in a written statement. "The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the January 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation's crippling debt. The Senate must now act."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement tonight: "The President's main priority is to ensure that taxes don't go up on 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses in just a few short days. The President will work with Congress to get this done and we are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy."

The Senate is in session today before recessing until Dec. 27; both the president and Reid will attend a memorial service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, so action between the two, if any, would begin this afternoon at the earliest.

Over the "cliff"?

The only way to reach a deal may be to let the nation go over the "cliff." When that happens, the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts will mean that taxes on nearly all Americans will go up. That fact would seem to make it easier for House Republicans to back a "fiscal cliff" deal, since they would be voting for a tax cut, not a tax hike.

But going over the "cliff" could have significant consequences. To be clear, the "cliff" is actually more of a slope: The $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts are phased in over a decade - it's not the immediate punch to the cut that "cliff" implies - and there are budgetary maneuvers that can at least somewhat soften the blow of both the tax hikes and spending cuts. But going over the "cliff" could spook the markets and once again shake world perceptions of the ability of the U.S. government to function effectively. And if a deal is not reached relatively soon after the deadlilne, the $500 billion in tax hikes and $200 billion in spending cuts in the first year will likely start pushing the nation back into recession.

How will the markets react?

Many eyes will be on Wall Street to see how it reacts to the growing realization that the over the "fiscal cliff" scenario may be closer to reality than anyone hoped.

Things were not looking up early this morning: Asian markets across the board closed slightly down for the day after news of the "Plan B" withdrawal broke.

Read More..

NRA to Speak on Stopping Newtown Repeat

For the past week, leadership at the National Rifle Association has largely stayed away from the media, but this morning the group may weigh in on how to keep a deadly shooting massacre like last week's at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school from happening again.

The NRA will hold a news conference in Washington, D.C., just before 11 a.m.

Its leadership has held off on interviews this week after refusing to appear on Sunday morning public affairs shows this past weekend.

The group came under pressure after Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 children and six adults before shooting himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown last Friday.

"Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting," the group said in a press release Tuesday. "The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

NRA News anchor Ginny Simone said Thursday that in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, membership surged "with an average of 8,000 new members a day."

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the NRA is partially to blame for the tragedy.

"We're not trying to take away your right to advance the interests of gun owners, hunters, people who want to protect themselves," Bloomberg told "Nightline" anchor Cynthia McFadden in an interview Thursday. "But that's not an absolute right to encourage behavior which causes things like Connecticut. In fact, Connecticut is because of some of their actions."

Christian Gooden/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP Photo

President Obama Launches Gun-Violence Task Force Watch Video

President Obama on Gun Control: Ready to Act? Watch Video

Joe Biden to Lead Task Force to Prevent Gun Violence Watch Video

The guns used in the attack were legally purchased and owned by the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza, who Adam Lanza shot to death before his assault on the school.

In the aftermath of the shooting, many, including Bloomberg, have called for stricter regulations on the type of weapons used in this and other instances of mass gun violence this year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said she intends to introduce a bill banning assault weapons on the first day of next year's Congress -- a step the president said he supports.

President Obama announced Wednesday that Vice President Joe Biden will head a task force of leaders from across the country that will evaluate the best solutions to reduce gun violence in the United States.

Obama said he will "use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this."

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, of which Mayor Bloomberg is co-chair, released a letter to President Obama signed by more than 750 mayors calling on him to produce a plan to "make it harder for dangerous people to possess guns."

The letter asked for mandatory background checks for gun buyers, a ban on high-capacity rifles and ammunition magazines, and a designation of gun trafficking as a federal crime.

ABC News' George Stephanopoulos looked at whether strict gun control laws like those that have worked for the United Kingdom and Japan could work for the U.S. on "Good Morning America" Thursday.

Others have argued that, rather than banning guns, the government should be arming teachers and administrators in schools so that they can defend students in the event of another school shooting.

While Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a measure that would have let guns into schools on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell praised the idea.

Speaking on the NRA's daily news program Tuesday, Dave Koppel of the Independence Institute said the teachers at Sandy Hook should have had weapons.

"We'd certainly be talking about fewer innocent people and children dead," Koppel said.

While a national debate over the necessary solutions to prevent a tragedy of this nature from ever happening again wages on, Connecticut residents will have to wait "several months" before the final Connecticut State Police report on the Newtown shootings is complete.

Read More..

Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said.

The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect has dominated leadership of the Sunni Muslim majority - rumbles on.

Opposition sources said rebels had won some territory in the strategic southern town of Morek and were surrounding the Alawite town of al-Tleisia.

They were also planning to take the town of Maan, arguing that the army was present there and in al-Tleisia and was hindering their advance on nearby Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground in the conflict.

"The rockets are being fired from there, they are being fired from Maan and al-Tleisia, we have taken two checkpoints in the southern town of Morek. If we want to control it then we need to take Maan," said a rebel captain in Hama rural area, who asked not to be named.

Activists said heavy army shelling had targeted the town of Halfaya, captured by rebels two days earlier. Seven people were killed, 30 were wounded, and dozens of homes were destroyed, said activist Safi al-Hamawi.

Hama is home to dozens of Alawite and Christian villages among Sunni towns, and activists said it may be necessary to lay siege to many minority areas to seize Morek. Rebels want to capture Morek to cut off army supply lines into northern Idlib, a province on the northern border with Turkey where rebels hold swathes of territory.

From an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, Alawites have largely stood behind Assad, many out of fear of revenge attacks. Christians and some other minorities have claimed neutrality, with a few joining the rebels and a more sizeable portion of them supporting the government out of fear of hardline Islamism that has taken root in some rebel groups.

Activists in Hama said rebels were also surrounding the Christian town of al-Suqeilabiya and might enter the city to take out army positions as well as those of "shabbiha" - pro-Assad militias, the bulk of whom are usually Alawite but can also include Christians and even Sunnis.

"We have been in touch with Christian opposition activists in al-Suqeilabiya and we have told them to stay downstairs or on the lowest floor of their building as possible, and not to go outside. The rebels have promised not to hurt anyone who stays at home," said activist Mousab al-Hamdee, speaking by Skype.

He said he was optimistic that potential sectarian tensions with Christians could be resolved but that Sunni-Alawite strife may be harder to suppress.

SECTARIAN FEARS

U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.

"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of the U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.

Deeper sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.

Some activists privately voiced concerns of sectarian violence, but the rebel commander in Hama said fighters had been told "violations" would not be tolerated and argued that the move to attack the towns was purely strategic.

"If we are fired at from a Sunni village that is loyal to the regime we go in and we liberate it and clean it," he said. "So should we not do the same when it comes to an Alawite village just because there is a fear of an all-out sectarian war? We respond to the source of fire."

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.

The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.

Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.

A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.

Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.

Rebels said on Thursday they had negotiated to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.

Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.

A resident in Damascus said dozens of families were returning to the camp but that the army had erected checkpoints. Many families were still hesitant to return.

LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN

Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.

The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.

They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.

Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.

Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.

Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.

The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors from the government as well as from the army, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.

The conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces on Thursday arrested an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Read More..

China economic growth likely to pick up: analysts

SHANGHAI: China's economic growth may pick up to above 8 per cent in 2013, as economists expect the government to launch policies to boost recovery.

The country is expected to report 7.5 per cent this year, the slowest pace in recent years.

Economists say investment will remain as the pillar of growth the Chinese economy in the short term, despite the government's push for consumption.

The new government may also ease some current property curbs to achieve immediate growth.

As exports are expected to remain weak, China's growth now largely relies on investment and consumption.

Experts say the country's new leaders need to roll out short-term measures to achieve immediate results and gain public support.

This is likely to start with loosening some control over the property market.

Real estate accounts for about 25 per cent of China's GDP directly and indirectly.

"Trading volume has been decreasing very quickly in the recent market, and this is a big blow to the recent investment," said Gary Liu, executive deputy director of CEIBS Lujiazui Institute of International Finance.

"For the central government, it's probably very difficult to announce that we will give up the real estate market policy because they always want to maintain their image; they care about the housing price. But the local government will loosen the real estate market policy and the price will pick up, probably not as quickly as past years, but still I think has a large space to go."

Consumption is another key growth pillar.

On top of improving income distribution and social security system to encourage spending, experts believe, it is important to encourage wealthy Chinese to spend their money at home.

This group of rich Chinese accounts for about 20 per cent of the total population, but they hold 80 per cent of China's wealth.

"What they buy overseas is mostly branded goods, which Chinese companies don't have," said Sun Lijian, vice dean of the Economy School at Fudan University.

"We need to upgrade our industries and create Chinese brands, which are recognized in the world. Our goal for next year is to attract these rich people to spend in China."

According to experts, consumers in the cities tend to splurge on properties or cars. But there are curbs and heavy traffic to consider.

China is now looking for new ways to drive growth in consumption, and encouraging urbanization could be the answer.

Qian Qimin, co-director of market research at SWS Research Co Ltd said: "For example, when people from the countryside move to towns, they need to buy cooking utensils, home appliances and furniture. This will be a good way to push consumption. Now in cities, consumption has generally reached a plateau. People in cities have own almost all the living necessities."

The Chinese economy is well on its way recovery, but experts say any major changes will have to wait till the ruling party's third plenary session or meeting of top politicians next October.

- CNA/xq

Read More..

Galaxy S3 Premium Suite upgrade starts U.K. rollout

Samsung's Galaxy S3 owners in the U.K. arey getting the Premium Suite upgrade the company has been teasing this month.

Samsung announced today that the U.K. rollout of its Premium Suite upgrade kicks off today. The company failed to provide details on where else the software will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

The Premium Suite upgrade for the Galaxy S3 was announced earlier this month. The update delivers a wide range of features, including multiple window support, a "smart rotation" feature that automatically rotates the screen based on the user's face position, and a predictive function that will open certain applications based on the user's actions (plug in headphones, and it'll open the music app, for example).

Here are two videos showing off many of the upgrade's features:

Read More..

New York Stock Exchange to be sold

NEW YORK The New York Stock Exchange (NYX) is being sold to a rival exchange for about $8 billion, ending more than two centuries of independence for the iconic Big Board.

The buyer, IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE), an upstart exchange based in Atlanta, made clear Thursday that little would change for the iconic trading floor in Manhattan's financial district if regulators approve the deal.

There will be dual headquarters in New York and Atlanta and ICE will open an office in Manhattan. NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer will become president of the combined company and CEO of NYSE Group.

ICE said that the tie-up will create a top exchange operator covering a diverse lineup of markets and boosting efficiency.

"We believe the combined company will be better positioned to compete and serve customers across a broad range of asset classes by uniting our global brands, expertise and infrastructure," said IntercontinentalExchange Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher. "With a track record of growth and returns, clearing and M&A integration, we are well positioned to transform our combined companies into a premier global exchange operator that remains a leader in market evolution."

Sprecher will keep his positions. Four members of the NYSE board will be added to IntercontinentalExchange's board, expanding it to 15 members.

NYSE Euronext Inc. shareholders can chose to receive either $33.12 in cash, .2581 IntercontinentalExchange Inc. shares, or a combination of $11.27 in cash plus .1703 shares of stock.

IntercontinentalExchange plans to fund the cash portion of the acquisition with a combination of cash and existing debt. It added that the addition of NYSE will help it cut costs and should boost its earnings by more than 15 percent in the first year after the deal closes.

The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies, but still needs the approvals by regulators and the shareholders of both companies. It's expected to close in the second half of next year.

Exchanges have repeatedly attempted to merge recently as competition intensifies and commissions decline.

Last year, IntercontinentalExchange and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. made a failed $11 billion bid to buy NYSE Euronext.

Earlier this year, European regulators blocked Deutsche Boerse AG from buying NYSE Euronext.

Shares of NYSE jumped 40 percent in premarket trading to $33.75 and are headed for a new high for the year. Shares if ICE rose 5 percent, to $134.98.

Shares of both companies had been halted in premarket trading earlier Thursday.

Read More..

Virginia Tech Survivor Fights Back Against Guns

Colin Goddard knows what it's like to be in a classroom when an armed man bursts through the door and starts randomly shooting people. Goddard was a student at Virginia Tech when a gunman shot him and killed 32 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

"It was the most terrifying nine minutes of my life," Goddard told Terry Moran of "Nightline" Wednesday.
"One moment you're conjugating French verbs, the next you're shot."

Four of Seung-Hui Cho's bullets hit Goddard April 16, 2007. Three of the bullets are still in him and serve as a constant reminder in his work with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Goddard does more than just lobby and appear in public-service announcements. He says he goes undercover to show how easy it is to buy guns without any background check. It's the subject of his documentary called "Living for 32," after the 32 people who died at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

"There is not one thing that will stop all shootings," Goddard said. "
There's not one policy that will save us all, but a background check is something that will make it more difficult for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun."

School Shooting Survivor Documents Gun Law Fight Watch Video

Virginia Tech Documentary Debuts at Sundance Watch Video

In "Living for 32," Goddard says he was able to buy, for example, an Egyptian Maadi AK-47, a TEC-9 and a MAC-11 machine pistol at gun shows across the United States.

"I bought the same gun that was used to shoot me," he said. "I bought it all, all without a background check and it was all legal. My question is, 'Why is that legal?'"

Only licensed dealers are required by law to perform background checks on the people to whom they sell guns while private sellers can make gun-show sales with no background checks.

This is known as the "gun-show loophole" and Goddard has made it his mission to close it.

In one instance, Goddard was able to buy the Maadi Egyptian for $660 and was told by the dealer "there's no tax and no paperwork."

The dealer requested to see Goddard's Ohio driver's license. When Goddard couldn't provide it, he was still able to purchase the gun by providing an Ohio address instead.

"I didn't think I was going to be able to do it at first," he said. "And then once I did it once, then twice, then three times. I was like, 'Wow, this is really easy.'

"Toward the end I wasn't even thinking about it. I tried to do it as quickly as I could, say as few words as I could."

Polls show that a majority of Americans favor closing the loophole.

Goddard says closing the loophole won't end all gun violence, but that the government can do better.

The Brady Campaign recently launched a YouTube series, "We Are Better than This," in the wake of last week's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The videos feature celebrities and, perhaps more significantly, families of mass-shooting victims.

In the first three videos, Goddard appears, as do Lonnie and Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Redfield Ghawi, died in the Aurora, Colo., mass shooting in July.

Read More..

Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels thrust into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday, activists said, pursuing a string of territorial gains to help cut army supply lines and cement a foothold in the capital Damascus to the south.

They have made a series of advances across the country, seizing several military installations and more heavy weaponry, hardening the threat to President Bashar al-Assad's power base in Damascus 21 months into an uprising against his rule.

Rebels said a day earlier they had captured at least six towns in Hama province. On Thursday heavy fighting erupted in Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground.

The opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels were trying to take checkpoints in Morek, one of which they had already seized, and described the town as a critical position for the Syrian army.

"The town of Morek lies on the Damascus-Aleppo road ... it has eight checkpoints and two security and military headquarters. If the rebels were able to control the town they would completely sever the supply lines between Hama and Damascus to Idlib province," the group said in an email.

Idlib is in the rebel-dominated north bordering on Turkey.

The British-based Observatory has a network of activists across the country. Activist reports are difficult to verify, as the government restricts media access into Syria.

Fighting in Hama could aggravate Syria's sectarian strife as it is home to many rural minority communities of Alawites and Christians. Minorities, and particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad himself belongs, have largely backed the president. Syria's Sunni Muslim majority has been the engine of the revolt.

"Rebels are trying to take Mohardeh and al-Suqaylabiya, which are strongholds of the regime and are strategic. The residents are Christian and the neighboring towns are Alawite. The rebels worry security forces may be arming people there," said activist Safi al-Hamawi, speaking on Skype.

He said the opposition feared skirmishes that had previously been largely Sunni-Alawite could spread into a broader sectarian conflict.

"I think it is still unlikely, because the residents have tried to maintain neutrality, but if the battle became a sectarian clash, it could be a catastrophe. Christians and Muslims could suddenly find themselves enemies."

U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.

"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.

The deepened sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.

The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.

FIGHTS FOR DAMASCUS CAMP

Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with bouts of heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.

A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.

Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.

But rebels said on Thursday they were negotiating to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.

Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.

Despite warnings of continued violence, a video released by activists on Thursday showed dozens of people returning to Yarmouk. Most of the people in the footage were men, suggesting entire families may not be venturing back yet.

"There are still negotiations going on between the Palestinians and the rebels. The rebels want control of the checkpoints to be sure they can keep supply routes open to central Damascus," said a rebel who asked not to be named.

"Palestinians want their fighters to run the checkpoints so the army will stop attacking and people can go home. But we are worried there are government collaborators among them."

The fighter said rebels were looking to ensure their Palestinian allies could keep open access for rebels in Yarmouk, which they have described as a gateway to central Damascus.

LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN

Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.

They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.

Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.

"This is the end of you, Bashar you dog," one of the fighters said. The remains of two army trucks, which the rebels said had been blown up, stood nearby on a single track dirt road crossing a flat brown plain between snow-capped mountains.

The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.

Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.

Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.

The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors not only from the army but from the government as well, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.

But the conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces arrested on Thursday an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government to solve a crisis that has killed more than 40,000 Syrians.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Read More..

Moon concedes S. Korea presidential election

SEOUL: Liberal candidate Moon Jae-In conceded victory Wednesday in South Korea's presidential election to conservative Park Geun-Hye, saying he "humbly" accepted the decision of the voters.

"Everyone did their best but I lacked the ability," Moon told reporters outside his Seoul residence. "I humbly accept the outcome of the election."

- AFP/ck

Read More..

Get a 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $19.99 shipped

Get 32GB of USB 3.0-powered flash storage for under $20.

(Credit:
Ice Monkey)

Regular readers know that flash-drive prices have plummeted in the past year. But you know what all those dirt-cheap drives have had in common? A USB 2.0 interface.

What is this, 2001? USB 2.0 is over, man. It's the digital equivalent of the horse and buggy. And yet it's still pretty rare to find flash drives that support the newer, faster USB 3.0 spec.

That's why I'm jazzed about today's deal. While supplies last, Ice Monkey has the Super Talent ST3U32ST1K 32GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $19.99 shipped. Elsewhere it sells for at least $28.

The black-and-turquoise drive features a retractable USB plug (my favorite design), backward compatibility with USB 2.0, and a one-year warranty. (I mention this last item not because it's especially good -- quite the opposite -- but because there's a mistake in Ice Monkey's product-features list. It says "5 Manufacturer Warranty," but I double-checked with Super Talent, and it's indeed just one year.)

With rated sequential read and write rates of 90MB/second and 16MB/second, respectively, the drive should blow the doors off any USB 2.0 storage you've used in the past. (That's assuming, of course, that you plug it into a USB 3.0 port. If you've purchased a PC within the last year or so, you should have at least one of them.)

According to Ice Monkey's "stock meter," the company has a full inventory of these drives, though how many actual units that means is anybody's guess. Also, it's worth noting that Ice Monkey has a fairly mediocre score over at ResellerRatings.com, with poor communication and slow shipping being the big complaints. (I've heard similar complaints of late about Daily Steals, Ice Monkey's "sister" company.)

Thus, if you're in a big hurry, you may want to spend extra to get it elsewhere. If not, well, this is one of the best deals on a speedy, high-capacity flash drive I've seen this year.

Bonus deal: Speaking of big hurries, it's hard to beat e-mail delivery. For a limited time, and while supplies last, Walmart is offering a $50 iTunes eGift Card for $40. You can use the card for yourself or send it along to someone else as a gift, all with just a few minutes' worth of clicking.

Deals found on The Cheapskate are subject to availability, expiration, and other terms determined by sellers.

Curious about what exactly The Cheapskate does and how it works? Read our FAQ.

Read More..