Chavez swearing-in can be delayed: Venezuelan VP

CARACAS (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez's formal swearing-in for a new six-year term scheduled for January 10 can be postponed if he is unable to attend due to his battle to recover from cancer surgery, Venezuela's vice president said on Friday.

Nicolas Maduro's comments were the clearest indication yet that the Venezuelan government is preparing to delay the swearing-in while avoiding naming a replacement for Chavez or calling a new election in the South American OPEC nation.

In power since 1999, the 58-year-old socialist leader has not been seen in public for more than three weeks. Allies say he is in delicate condition after a fourth operation in two years for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area.

The political opposition argues that Chavez's presence on January 10 in Cuba - where there are rumors he may be dying - is tantamount to the president's stepping down.

But Maduro, waving a copy of the constitution during an interview with state TV, said there was no problem if Chavez was sworn in at a later date by the nation's top court.

"The interpretation being given is that the 2013-2019 constitutional period starts on January 10. In the case of President Chavez, he is a re-elected president and continues in his functions," he said.

"The formality of his swearing-in can be resolved in the Supreme Court at the time the court deems appropriate in coordination with the head of state."

In the increasing "Kremlinology"-style analysis of Venezuela's extraordinary political situation, that could be interpreted in different ways: that Maduro and other allies trust Chavez will recover eventually, or that they are buying time to cement succession plans before going into an election.

Despite his serious medical condition, there was no reason to declare Chavez's "complete absence" from office, Maduro said. Such a declaration would trigger a new vote within 30 days, according to Venezuela's charter.

RECOVERY POSSIBLE?

Chavez was conscious and fighting to recover, said Maduro, who traveled to Havana to see his boss this week.

"We will have the Commander well again," he said.

Maduro, 50, whom Chavez named as his preferred successor should he be forced to leave office, said Venezuela's opposition had no right to go against the will of the people as expressed in the October 7 vote to re-elect the president.

"The president right now is president ... Don't mess with the people. Respect democracy."

Despite insisting Chavez remains president and there is hope for recovery, the government has acknowledged the gravity of his condition, saying he is having trouble breathing due to a "severe" respiratory infection.

Social networks are abuzz with rumors he is on life support or facing uncontrollable metastasis of his cancer.

Chavez's abrupt exit from the political scene would be a huge shock for Venezuela. His oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor, while critics call him a dictator seeking to impose Cuban-style communism on Venezuelans.

Should Chavez leave office, a new election is likely to pitch former bus driver and union activist Maduro against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state.

Capriles lost to Chavez in the October presidential election, but won an impressive 44 percent of the vote. Though past polls have shown him to be more popular than all of Chavez's allies, the equation is now different given Maduro has received the president's personal blessing - a factor likely to fire up Chavez's fanatical supporters.

His condition is being watched closely by Latin American allies that have benefited from his help, as well as investors attracted by Venezuela's lucrative and widely traded debt.

"The odds are growing that the country will soon undergo a possibly tumultuous transition," the U.S.-based think tank Stratfor said this week.

(Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Thousands stuck in China airport as country freezes

BEIJING: Thousands of angry passengers were stranded after heavy fog delayed flights at a Chinese airport early on Saturday, as the country was shivered through its coldest weather in almost three decades.

Ten thousand passengers were stuck in Changshui International Airport in the southern Chinese city of Kunming on Saturday morning after thick fog grounded more than 280 flights, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Angry passengers stranded at the airport for more than a day struggled with airline staff, damaging computer equipment belonging to an airline, while police broke up scuffles, a photographer present at the scene late on Friday told AFP.

"The passengers were really furious, they kept going to the service desk to ask for information, but didn't get any answers," the photographer said.

Flights at the airport resumed on Saturday afternoon after the fog lifted, Xinhua said.

China is suffering its coldest winter for 28 years, the news agency on Saturday quoted China's Meteorological Administration as saying.

Temperatures recorded over the country since November have averaged minus 3.8 degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit), while northeast China saw average temperatures of minus 15.3 degrees Celsius, its coldest winter for 43 years.

Plunging temperatures trapped around 1,000 ships in sea ice off eastern China's Shandong province this week, Xinhua reported, while snowfall delayed more than 140 flights in Beijing last month, the China Daily said.

An annual Ice and Snow Festival in the northeastern city of Harbin, famous for its enormous ice-sculptures, is scheduled to open on Saturday, as temperatures in the city fall below minus 24 degrees Celsius.

Temperatures in northern China are expected to pick up next week, although parts of south China will continue to experience snow, Xinhua reported.

- AFP/xq

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NIA arrests Lokesh Sharma in 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts case

MUMBAI: National Investigation Agency (NIA) today formally arrested key accused in 2007 Samjhauta Express blast case, Lokesh Sharma, in connection with the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts case.

Sharma, who is already under judicial custody, was produced before a special court here, which remanded him in NIA custody till January 19, police said.

"Sharma was produced before the court which remanded him in NIA custody till January 19", said special NIA Prosecutor Rohini Salian.

With Sharma's arrest, the number of accused held in connection with the 2006 Malegaon bomb blasts has reached 4.

The multiple bomb explosions in Malegaon, a communally sensitive powerloom town in Nashik district in northern Maharashtra, about 200 kms from here, had occurred near a mosque on September 8, 2006 killing 37 people and injuring over 100.

After the blasts, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had arrested nine suspects. However, the MCOCA court had granted bail to all of them on November 5, 2012.

The probe into the blast was handed over to CBI which endorsed the ATS findings. The case then went to NIA, which came into existence in 2009, post the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.

In November last, NIA had told the court that the confession of Swami Aseemanand, arrested in 2007 Hyderabad Mecca Masjid bomb blast case, pointed at the involvement of a right-wing group in the Malegaon attack.

Malegaon had seen another attack in 2008 allegedly by right wing Hindu groups. Sadhvi Pragya Singh and former Lt Col Srikant Purohit had been arrested in connection with the blast.

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FDA: New rules will make food safer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.

The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.

The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. The new guidelines were announced Friday.

Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.

Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.

"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.

The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.

The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.

The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.

Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.

In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."

The new rules could cost large farms $30,000 a year, according to the FDA. The agency did not break down the costs for individual processing plants, but said the rules could cost manufacturers up to $475 million annually.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the success of the rules will also depend on how much money Congress gives the chronically underfunded agency to put them in place. "Resources remain an ongoing concern," she said.

The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.

Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.

"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

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Debt Limit Negotiating Tactic? No Negotiating

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walk away from the podium after Obama made a statement regarding the passage of the fiscal cliff bill in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Analysis

New for 2013: In the Washington, D.C. fiscal wars we’ve gone from everything must be on the table to politicians declaring they won’t debate.

The fiscal cliff deal either averted disaster or compounded the problem, depending on who you ask. It certainly created new mini-cliffs in a few months as Congress and the president square off on the debt ceiling, spending cuts and government funding. But it also made sure the vast majority of Americans won’t see as big a tax hike as they might have.

President Obama was pretty clear late on New Year’s night as he reacted to Congress’s passage of a bill to take a turn away from the fiscal cliff. He won’t negotiate with Republicans about the debt ceiling.

“Now, one last point I want to make,” said the president, before wrapping up and hopping on Air Force One for a redeye to Hawaii. “While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed.”

(Read more here about the Fiscal Cliff)

That’s pretty clear. No debt ceiling negotiation. Then he added for emphasis: ”Let me repeat: We can’t not pay bills that we’ve already incurred. If Congress refuses to give the United States government the ability to pay these bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic — far worse than the impact of a fiscal cliff.”

But in Washington, saying you won’t do something these days has almost become like an opening bid. At least, that’s how Republicans are treating the president’s line in the sand.

“The president may not want to have a fight about government spending over the next few months, but it’s the fight he is going to have because it’s a debate the country needs,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, in an op-Ed on Yahoo! News about 36 hours later. “For the sake of our future, the president must show up to this debate early and convince his party to do something that neither he nor they have been willing to do until now.”

“We simply cannot increase the nation’s borrowing limit without committing to long overdue reforms to spending programs that are the very cause of our debt,” McConnell said.

The national debt is soon set to reach $16.4 trillion. That’s not a problem that can be solved with one bill or budget. And the two sides will have to figure out some sort of way to talk about entitlement/social safety net reform – meaning things like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – in addition to cutting spending and, most importantly, hope for an improving economy, to deal with those deficits.

House Speaker John Boehner, who has several times now failed to reach a big, broad fiscal deal with President Obama, told colleagues, according to The Hill newspaper, that he’s done with secret White House negotiations. He wants to stick with the constitutional way of doing things, with hearings and bills that are debated on Capitol Hill rather than hatched by the vice president and Senate Republicans.

Okay. Obama won’t negotiate on the debt ceiling. McConnell won’t not negotiate on the debt ceiling. Boehner doesn’t to do things by the book.

But McConnell won’t negotiate on taxes any more.

“Predictably,” McConnell had written earlier in his post, “the president is already claiming that his tax hike on the ‘rich’ isn’t enough. I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes. That debate is over.”

It’s a new chapter in the ongoing fiscal saga in Washington. Back when the two sides were talking about a grand bargain or a big deal – some sort of all-inclusive reform that would right the listing deficit with one flip of the rudder – the popular trope was that “everything must be on the table.” That’s basically how Obama put it back in the summer of 2011 when he and Boehner failed to reach a grand bargain. He wanted higher taxes – they were calling them revenues back then. More recently, after Obama won the election and when he and Boehner were trying to hammer out another grand bargain to avert the fiscal cliff, Boehner wanted entitlements on the table. That means he wanted to find ways to curb future spending.

Both sides are declaring they won’t debate certain points, but this far – a full two months – before the mini-cliffs start, those are easier declarations to make than they will be when the government is in danger of defaulting or shutting down.

Even though they’re trying to take elements off the table, both men hope that coming negotiations can be a little more cordial and a little less down-to-the wire.

“Over the next two months they need to deliver the same kind of bipartisan resolution to the spending problem we have now achieved on revenue — before the 11th hour,” wrote McConnell.

“The one thing that I think, hopefully, in the New Year we’ll focus on is seeing if we can put a package like this together with a little bit less drama, a little less brinksmanship, not scare the heck out of folks quite as much,” said Obama.

That’ll be tough if neither side will talk about what the other side wants to talk about.

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Lebanon asks for $180 million to aid Syrian refugees

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon, now a haven for 170,000 Syrians fleeing civil war, has asked foreign donors for $180 million to help care for them and said it will register and recognize refugees after a year-long hiatus.

The Beirut government has officially sought to "dissociate" itself from the 21-month-old struggle in Syria, nervous about the destabilizing impact of the increasingly sectarian conflict in its bigger neighbor on its own delicate communal balance.

But there has been pressure from humanitarian agencies and the public to do more to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The cabinet, which approved the measures after a six-hour session on Thursday night, rejected a proposal by Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, a Christian, to close the border to stop the influx into Lebanon, where mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian refugees now account for almost 5 percent of the population.

Bassil belongs to the Free Patriotic Movement, part of a political alliance with Shi'ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

However, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Thursday that the border should stay open for refugees.

Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour told reporters after the cabinet debate: "The Lebanese state will register the refugees...and guarantee aid and protection for the actual refugees in Lebanon."

Until now Syrian refugees have found shelter with local communities in Lebanon, rather than being housed in camps, as in the other two main host countries, Jordan and Turkey. Abu Faour did not say if camps would now be constructed.

"FIRST CONCRETE PLAN"

Lebanon's ambivalent attitude to the new arrivals is partly a legacy of its own 15-year civil war, a conflict fuelled by sectarian tensions which linger on, especially over the presence of 400,000 Sunni Palestinian refugees in the country.

Ninette Kelley, representative of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in Lebanon, said the government's action was "the first concrete plan" it had presented to the international community.

She said Lebanon had previously given formal recognition to Syrian refugees who entered via official border points, but not to those who had crossed illegally, either because they feared authorities or to escape violence near their homes.

This group accounts for around 30 percent of all Syrian refugees in Lebanon and the government's decision should allow them to register for legal refugee status, Kelley said.

"Initially the government jointly registered Syrian refugees with UNHCR through its High Relief Commission. It stopped in 2011 as the numbers became larger due to insufficient capacity," she said, adding that joint registration would now resume.

The United Nations says more than 560,000 Syrians have fled abroad. In Lebanon, many not hosted by friends or relations live in shacks of wood and plastic sheeting. In the southern city of Tyre, they brave the winter cold and wash in the sea.

Lebanese politics is marred by sectarian divisions that have been inflamed by the mainly Sunni revolt against Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is derived from Shi'ite Islam.

Syria-related violence has flared periodically in the northern port of Tripoli, which has a Sunni majority and an Alawite minority, as well as in Beirut and Sidon in the south.

Assad's Lebanese opponents blame Syria, which stationed troops in Lebanon from 1976 to 2005, for the unresolved killing of Lebanese security official Wissam al-Hassan in October.

Hassan had been leading an investigation that implicated Damascus and Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni.

(Reporting by Issam Abdallah, Oliver Holmes and Ayat Basma; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Spare elephants or I'm off to Russia: Bardot

PARIS: French cinema legend Brigitte Bardot on Friday threatened to follow Gerard Depardieu to Russia unless two elephants under threat of being put down are granted a reprieve.

In a surreal twist to the saga over Depardieu's move into tax exile, the veteran animal rights campaigner said she would emulate his request for Russian nationality unless authorities intervened to save Baby and Nepal.

The two elephants face being put down because they have been diagnosed with tuberculosis and have been deemed a threat to the health of other animals and visitors to the Tete d'Or zoo in Lyon.

City authorities ordered the elephants to be put down last month but a petition organised by their original owner, circus master Gilbert Edelstein, resulted in them being granted a temporary reprieve over Christmas.

Bardot said in a statement she would be leaving France if the reprieve was not made permanent.

"If the powers that be have the cowardice and the shamelessness to kill Baby and Nepal... I have decided to take Russian nationality and quit this country that is nothing more an animal cemetery," Bardot said.

Bardot, 77, has been a high-profile supporter of Depardieu in his spat with the French government over his decision to take up residence in neighbouring Belgium for tax reasons.

She said last month that her fellow actor, who was branded "pathetic" by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, had been the "victim of extremely unfair persecution".

-AFP/fl

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No consensus on death penalty for rape

NEW DELHI: Central and state governments today failed to evolve a consensus on death penalty for rape convicts even as they seem to have agreed on the definition of juvenile by bringing down the age bar to 16 from 18 years.

The day-long meeting of chief secretaries and DGPs, convened by the Centre in the wake of the gang rape of a girl in Delhi, discussed threadbare various ways to check crime against women and agreed to take steps for protection of women and initiating speedy trial and conviction of criminals.

"There is no consensus on amending the law to include capital punishment for rape. One or two chief secretaries have suggested but majority kept mum on the issue," said a senior officer who attended the meeting.

Home minister Sushilkumar Shinde said all suggestions, including death penalty for rape, put forward by the chief secretaries and DGPs would be considered by the central government.

The representatives of state governments and top home ministry officials said rape convicts should be sentenced to life till death without any leniency or without parole.

Government had in December 4, 2012, introduced a bill in Parliament seeking to amend the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, by replacing the word 'rape' by the words 'sexual assault' to make the offence of sexual assault gender-neutral and also widening its scope. It proposes to enhance the punishment from the present seven years jail to life.

There was a general consensus on the definition of juvenile by bringing the age bar to 16 from 18 years in the conference.

One of the six accused in the Delhi gang rape case was juvenile and many people fear that he may escape punishment for the crime because of his juvenile status.

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Chelsea Clinton Raises Profile During Mom's Illness

While Hillary Clinton was in the hospital it was daughter Chelsea -- not the secretary of state or the former president Bill Clinton -- who spoke for the family.

She, along with the State Department, doled out what little information the family wanted to share in a series of tweets and when her mother was released from the hospital, it was Chelsea who delivered the thanks on behalf of her parents, tweeting her gratitude to the doctors as well as those who kept her mother in their thoughts while she recovered from a blood clot.

When Hillary Clinton leaves office, possibly at the end of this month, it will be the first time since 1982 that a Clinton will not be holding a public office.

The watch will be on whether Hillary Clinton makes another run for the White House in 2016, but almost inevitably people will also be watching to see if Chelsea Clinton decides to run for office, too.

"Americans always look for dynasties: Bush, Kennedy, Cuomo, Clinton … it's some kind of continuity. There will always be pressure on her to run for public office," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political strategist in New York.

"She's learning from the two best politicians in recent American history and she understands when to hold them and when to fold them," Sheinkopf said.

That sense of dynasty could also present a significant hurdle.

James Devaney/Getty Images

Secretary of State Clinton: Mystery Health Issues Watch Video

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Undergoing Blood-Thinning Therapy Watch Video

"She's got to A, demonstrate that she has the charisma of her father, or B, demonstrate that she has the policy chops of her mother. And I think like most people she is somewhere in between," a former Hillary Clinton aide from her 2008 campaign said. "People are judging her through each of her parents and it's an impossible standard."

Chelsea Clinton, 32, has inched towards a possible political career in recent statements and has become more politically active.

In an interview with Vogue published in August she was more open to it than she has been in the past, telling the magazine, "Before my mom's (presidential) campaign I would have said no," but "now I don't know."

"I believe that engaging in the political process is part of being a good person. And I certainly believe that part of helping to build a better world is ensuring that we have political leaders who are committed to that premise. So if there were to be a point where it was something I felt called to do and I didn't think there was someone who was sufficiently committed to building a healthier, more just, more equitable, more productive world? Then that would be a question I'd have to ask and answer."

Clinton also spoke of a change in her private to public life:

"Historically I deliberately tried to lead a private life in the public eye," she told the magazine. "And now I am trying to lead a purposefully public life."

Besides her work as a special correspondent with NBC, Chelsea Clinton has taken on high profile roles with her father's Clinton Global Initiative. She sits on several corporate boards and has both moderated and sat on panels discussing both women in politics and childhood obesity, among other issues.

She has also worked toward making same-sex marriage legal in New York last year, as well as gay marriage referendums in Maine, Maryland, Wisconsin and Washington state, all of which were successful in November. She has also been active in superstorm Sandy recovery, most notably delivering aid to the devastated Rockaways with her father.

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Myanmar says jets used against Kachin rebels

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military has used jets to attacks rebel fighters in northern Kachin state, the government said on Thursday, its first admission of an intensification of a conflict that has raised doubts about its reformist credentials.

Rebel sources have reported aerial bombings, shelling and even the use of chemical weapons since December 28 after the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) ignored an ultimatum to stop blocking an army supply route in the hilly, resource-rich state where more than 50,000 people have been displaced.

Official newspapers said that air support was used on December 30 to thwart KIA fighters who had occupied a hill and were attacking logistics units of the Tatmadaw, as Myanmar's military is known.

"The Tatmadaw troops cleared Point-771 hill and its surrounding areas where the KIA troops were attacking the Tatmadaw logistic troops," the New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, said. "The air cover was used in the attack."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced concern on Wednesday over reports of helicopters and fighter jets being used in the state bordering China. The KIA said the attacks were intended to clear the path for an assault on its headquarters in Laisa.

Ban called on Myanmar's government to "desist from any action that could endanger the lives of civilians" and reiterated demands for humanitarian aid groups to be granted access, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement.

President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian administration insists it wants a ceasefire and political dialogue. It says troops have acted only in self-defense and on Thursday denied having plans to seize the KIA's stronghold.

DOMINANT MILITARY

The escalation of fighting has raised doubts about the sincerity of the reformist ex-generals running the government and the extent of their power in a country the size of Britain and France plagued by decades of internal conflict.

Some analysts and diplomats say central government is either not fully committed to peace with the KIA or unable to assert control over the military, which still dominates politics and the economy despite formally ceding power in March 2011.

Colonel James Lum Dau, a Thai-based spokesman for the KIA's political wing, said Kachin officials on the ground had reported up to 300 people killed in air strikes.

"We are in a defensive position. Right now more people are suffering not only bombings, but shelling and spraying of chemical weapons with helicopter gunships and jets," he said. "Only god knows what to do. We are praying."

It is difficult for journalists to independently verify accounts from the two sides.

Fighting erupted in Kachin in June 2010, ending a 17-year truce, and has continued even as government negotiators have agreed ceasefires elsewhere with ethnic Shan, Chin, Mon and Karen militias after decades of fighting in border areas.

Mistrust runs deep between the military and the KIA, which was once backed by China, and multiple rounds of talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire have gone nowhere. Analysts say a history of bad blood and a battle for control of resources, including highly lucrative jade, could be stoking the unrest.

Zaw Htay, a senior official in Thein Sein's office, told Reuters no air strikes had taken place but K-8 trainer jets had provided cover fire to protect ground troops from rebel attacks. The military, he said, had no intention of seizing the KIA's headquarters.

"The president has said this and at the same time he has invited KIA leaders to come and talk with him in Naypyitaw, but they still haven't responded," Zaw Htay said.

(Additional reporting by Paul Carsten in Bangkok; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould)

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Guang Ming Industrial Building at Paya Lebar up for collective sale

SINGAPORE: Guang Ming Industrial Building, located at No 65 Upper Paya Lebar Road, has been put up for collective sale.

The freehold industrial 'white site' has a land area of 19,789 square feet.

Its marketing agent Cushman & Wakefield says the site is expected to fetch more than S$58 million.

Among the likely interested parties for the site include small to mid-sized developers and those companies looking for a site to locate their corporate headquarters, adds Cushman and Wakefield.

Developers can build up to a gross floor area of some 70,000 sq ft, including some 20,000 sq ft of retail and commercial space.

This is based on a maximum allowable plot ratio of 3.5.

Cushman & Wakefield's Director of Investment Sales Christina Sim says prime locations like Tai Seng and Paya Lebar will make the building a "hot commodity".

She adds that "the special 'white zoning' of the site will give an added boost to its development potential.

The tender will close on 5 February 2013.

- CNA/de

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Nine more succumb to cold wave in North

NEW DELHI: North India was gripped by bone chilling cold today as temperatures nosedived across the region claiming nine more lives.

Capital Delhi recorded a maximum temperature of 12.7 degrees celsius, 8 less than normal and a minimum of 4.4 degrees celsius, 3 less than the usual.

Kashmir Valley continued to reel under intense cold as temperatures across the state plunged further, even as the fringes of the famous Dal Lake here were frozen for the first time this winter.

The summer capital Srinagar registered the coldest night of the season for the second time this winter as minimum temperature dropped to minus four degrees Celsius.

Cold wave continued unabated in Uttar Pradesh as nine more persons succumbed to the chill in the state, taking the death toll this winter to 116.

Two persons each died in Deoria, Chandauli and Gazipur districts, followed by one each in Bijnor, Jhansi and Barabanki, officials said.

Najibabad was the coldest place in the state where the minimum temperature was recorded at 2.4 degrees, the Met office said, adding that maximum temperatures also remained below normal by 5 to 11 degrees over some parts of western UP.

Night temperatures plummeted in most parts of the region, including Allahabad, Faizabad, Moradabad, Agra, Meerut, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bareilly and Jhansi divisions.

Mercury plummeted in parts of Rajasthan where Mount Abu recorded zero degrees Celsius.

Bikaner also recorded a low of 0.4 degree Celsius. Intense cold continued its grip on most parts of Punjab and Haryana today as a thick blanket of fog played havoc with normal life in the region.

The minimum temperatures hovered between four degrees celsius below normal to four notches above normal in most parts of Punjab and Haryana, the Met office said here.

In the plains of Punjab and Haryana, Narnaul reeled under a low of 0.5 degrees celsius, which was four notches below normal making it the coldest place in the region.

While Karnal braved a low of 4.2 degrees celsius, three notches below normal, the minimum temperature at Chandigarh was 4.7 degrees celsius.

Among other places in the twin agrarian states, Bhiwani settled at a low of 4.8 degrees celsius followed by five degrees celsius at Hisar, 5.2 degrees celsius at Patiala, one notch below normal, 5.6 degrees celsius at Ludhiana and 6 degrees celsius at Ambala.

The night temperatures were up by an average upto two degrees celsius in the region, the Met office said.

However, a thick blanket of fog in the morning at most places in the region affected all modes of travelling, disrupting normal life.

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Flu? Malaria? Disease forecasters look to the sky

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a 10 percent chance of showers today, but a 70 percent chance of flu next month.

That's the kind of forecasting health scientists are trying to move toward, as they increasingly include weather data in their attempts to predict disease outbreaks.

In one recent study, two scientists reported they could predict — more than seven weeks in advance — when flu season was going to peak in New York City. Theirs was just the latest in a growing wave of computer models that factor in rainfall, temperature or other weather conditions to forecast disease.

Health officials are excited by this kind of work and the idea that it could be used to fine-tune vaccination campaigns or other disease prevention efforts.

At the same time, experts note that outbreaks are influenced as much, or more, by human behavior and other factors as by the weather. Some argue weather-based outbreak predictions still have a long way to go. And when government health officials warned in early December that flu season seemed to be off to an early start, they said there was no evidence it was driven by the weather.

This disease-forecasting concept is not new: Scientists have been working on mathematical models to predict outbreaks for decades and have long factored in the weather. They have known, for example, that temperature and rainfall affect the breeding of mosquitoes that carry malaria, West Nile virus and other dangerous diseases.

Recent improvements in weather-tracking have helped, including satellite technology and more sophisticated computer data processing.

As a result, "in the last five years or so, there's been quite an improvement and acceleration" in weather-focused disease modeling, said Ira Longini, a University of Florida biostatistician who's worked on outbreak prediction projects.

Some models have been labeled successes.

In the United States, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of New Mexico tried to predict outbreaks of hantavirus in the late 1990s. They used rain and snow data and other information to study patterns of plant growth that attract rodents. People catch the disease from the droppings of infected rodents.

"We predicted what would happen later that year," said Gregory Glass, a Johns Hopkins researcher who worked on the project.

More recently, in east Africa, satellites have been used to predict rainfall by measuring sea-surface temperatures and cloud density. That's been used to generate "risk maps" for Rift Valley fever — a virus that spreads from animals to people and in severe cases can cause blindness or death. Researchers have said the system in some cases has given two to six weeks advance warning.

Last year, other researchers using satellite data in east Africa said they found that a small change in average temperature was a warning sign cholera cases would double within four months.

"We are getting very close to developing a viable forecasting system" against cholera that can help health officials in African countries ramp up emergency vaccinations and other efforts, said a statement by one of the authors, Rita Reyburn of the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea.

Some diseases are hard to forecast, such as West Nile virus. Last year, the U.S. suffered one of its worst years since the virus arrived in 1999. There were more than 2,600 serious illnesses and nearly 240 deaths.

Officials said the mild winter, early spring and very hot summer helped spur mosquito breeding and the spread of the virus. But the danger wasn't spread uniformly. In Texas, the Dallas area was particularly hard-hit, while other places, including some with similar weather patterns and the same type of mosquitoes, were not as affected.

"Why Dallas, and not areas with similar ecological conditions? We don't really know," said Roger Nasci of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is chief of the CDC branch that tracks insect-borne viruses.

Some think flu lends itself to outbreak forecasting — there's already a predictability to the annual winter flu season. But that's been tricky, too.

Seasonal flu reports come from doctors' offices, but those show the disease when it's already spreading. Some researchers have studied tweets on Twitter and searches on Google, but their work has offered a jump of only a week or two on traditional methods.

In the study of New York City flu cases published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the authors said they could forecast, by up to seven weeks, the peak of flu season.

They designed a model based on weather and flu data from past years, 2003-09. In part, their design was based on earlier studies that found flu virus spreads better when the air is dry and turns colder. They made calculations based on humidity readings and on Google Flu Trends, which tracks how many people are searching each day for information on flu-related topics (often because they're beginning to feel ill).

Using that model, they hope to try real-time predictions as early as next year, said Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University, who led the work.

"It's certainly exciting," said Lyn Finelli, the CDC's flu surveillance chief. She said the CDC supports Shaman's work, but agency officials are eager to see follow-up studies showing the model can predict flu trends in places different from New York, like Miami.

Despite the optimism by some, Dr. Edward Ryan, a Harvard University professor of immunology and infectious diseases, is cautious about weather-based prediction models. "I'm not sure any of them are ready for prime time," he said.

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Senate Swears in a Historic 20 Female Senators

Today the Senate will make history, swearing in a record-breaking 20 female senators – 4 Republicans and 16 Democrats – in office.

As the 113th Congress is sworn in today on Capitol Hill, ABC "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer has an exclusive joint interview with the historic class of female Senators.

Diane Sawyer's complete interview will air on World News this evening.

"I can't tell you the joy that I feel in my heart to look at these 20 gifted and talented women from two different parties, different zip codes to fill this room," Sen. Barbara Mikulksi, D-Md., said while surrounded by the group of women senators. "In all of American history only 16 women had served. Now there are 20 of us."

Senator-elect Deb Fischer, R-Neb., becomes today the first women to be elected as a senator in Nebraska.

"It was an historic election," Fischer said, "But what was really fun about it were the number of mothers and fathers who brought their daughters up to me during the campaign and said, "Can we get a picture? Can we get a picture?' Because people realize it and -- things do change, things do change."

The women senators all agree that women will be getting things done in this new Congress, a sign of optimism felt for the new Congress, after the bruising battles of the 112th Congress.

"We're in force and we're in leadership positions, but it's not just the position that we hold. I can tell you this is a can-do crowd," Mikulski said of both Democrats and Republican senators in the room. "We are today ready to be a force in American politics."

And while the number of women in the Senate today makes historic, many of the women agreed that they want to keep fighting to boost those numbers. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said that women are still "underrepresented" in the Senate.

"I think that until we get to 50, we still have to fight because it's still a problem," Boxer said. "I think this class as you look around, Republicans and Democrats... I think that because of this new class and the caliber of the people coming and the quality of the people coming, I think that hopefully in my lifetime -- and I really do hope and pray this is the case -- we will see 50 percent. "

No Sorority Here, Even With the Will to Work Together

The cooperation does not make them a "sorority," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., says. There are real differences in ideology and personality and they don't want their gender to define them as senators.

But the women also admit that they believe having more women in the room would help in fierce negotiations, compromise, and legislating on Capitol Hill, traits they say do not come as naturally to their male colleagues in the Senate. That sentiment enjoys bipartisan support among the women of the Senate.

"What I find is with all due deference to our male colleagues, that women's styles tend to be more collaborative," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said by nature women are "less confrontational." Sen-elect Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, says that women are "problem solvers."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., says that women have a camaraderie which helps in relationships that are key to negotiations on Capitol Hill, something she says comes natural to women more than men.

"I think there's just a lot of collaboration between the women senators and... advice and really standing up for each other that you don't always see with the men," she said.

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Air raid on petrol station in Damascus suburb kills 30: activists

AMMAN (Reuters) - At least 30 civilians were killed on Wednesday when Syrian warplanes bombed a petrol station in a rebellious suburb on the eastern edge of Damascus, two opposition campaigners on the scene said.

"I counted at least 30 bodies. They were either burnt or dismembered," said Abu Saeed, an activist who arrived at the area in the Muleiha suburb of Damascus an hour after the raid occurred at 1:00 PM (1100 GMT).

Another activist, Abu Fouad, said warplanes had bombarded the area as a consignment of fuel arrived and crowds packed the station.

Video footage taken by activists, which could not be independently verified, showed a body of a man a helmet on a motorcycle amid flames that had engulfed the site, apparently hit while in a line of vehicles waiting for petrol. A man was also shown carrying a dismembered body.

Muleiha is one of a series of Sunni Muslim suburbs ringing the capital that have been at the forefront of the 21 month revolt against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, who belongs to the Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect.

Government forces control the center of Damascus and have been pounding the suburbs from the air.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Gold rallies on fiscal deal

SINGAPORE: Gold prices receive a boost as US lawmakers finally approved a bill to address the fiscal cliff.

The precious metal rose as much as US$29 an ounce from last week's close of US$1,655.70 a troy ounce on December 28.

The deal struck in the US Congress has helped arrest the threat of the world's largest economy falling into a deep recession.

But some analysts said it is just a knee-jerk reaction and the rally may not be sustainable.

Gold is often seen as a safe haven for investors and is commonly used as a hedge against inflation and a store of wealth especially in times of uncertainty.

Despite a bullish outlook on gold in 2012, the precious metal only managed a modest gain of seven per cent from the start of the year.

It also underperformed against equities which saw Asian stock markets gaining about 20 per cent. For instance the Hang Seng Index up 22.9 per cent , STI gained 20.6 per cent, Nikkei's up 23 per cent in 2012.

The latest move by the US Congress to pass a bill to end the fiscal cliff crisis has lifted sentiment on gold investing.

Some investors expect gold prices to propel higher since the deal may lead to a weakening of the US dollar and this means gold prices will rise as investors switch into the precious metal.

Yet, most experts are not too sanguine of its prospects and expect the impact on gold prices to be muted at best.

"We have the debt ceiling issue which we address somewhere in end February, early March and then we expect a gradual recovery in the US economy in the second half of this year," said Roy Wellington Teo, a foreign exchange and precious metals strategist at ABN Amro (Asia).

He added: "Therefore, we think a stronger US dollar towards the second half of this year could potentially lead to gold prices trend lower towards US$1,500 an ounce end of this year."

Swiss lender UBS expect gold prices to make a steady climb later this year when investors start to worry about inflation when economic growth returns.

During inflation, the value of key currencies like the US dollar and Japanese yen will weaken and this will prompt investors to switch into gold and boost prices.

US said it expects the precious metal to reach USD$1,950 a troy ounce by the first half of this year and is likely to show better performance in 2013.

Dominic Schnider, head of NTAC Research at UBS, said: "Overall the gold price will definitely lag equities but it is still going to be a good asset in your portfolio if you consider we still have a lot of risk factors out there including monetary debasement which is actually a big topic especially with the recent development in Japan."

Looking ahead, experts said gold prices will get a further boost if the US Federal Reserve extends its stimulus programme.

This is expected to inject more liquidity into the financial system.

Avtar Sandu, a business development senior manager at Phillip Futures, said: "We have low interest rate environment, we have all the QEs and we have all the central banks that are buying gold. All these will slowly drive the prices of gold forward."

Yet, some analysts warned that it may not be all glitter for gold this year.

They said that inflation may ease in 2013 and concerns over inflation may be misplaced.

- CNA/fa

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Trinamool suspends leaders over dance row

KOLKATA: Ruling Trinamool Congress on Wednesday suspended party leaders and workers after they were seen showering money at dancing girls at an event to celebrate the Mamata Banerjee-led party's foundation day ceremony.

The decision came following severe criticism from political parties, the women's commission and intellectuals, after the partymen — including zila parishad member Meer Taheer Ali — were caught on camera showering money on skimpily-dressed women dancers who were hired for the event in South 24-Parganas' Bhangore Tuesday evening.

Party MP Derek O'Brien, who condemned the incident on Wednesday morning and assured that action would be taken within 48 hours, tweeted Tuesday afternoon that the accused men have been suspended from the party.

O'Brien did not rule out expulsion of the suspended cadres from the party.

Earlier, the "erotic dance" controversy left Banerjee's Trinamool Congress embarrassed after the opposition CPM, the Congress and the National Commission for Women took a dig at the party leadership.

National Commission for Women chairperson Mamta Sharma dubbed the incident as "shameful".

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

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Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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Obama Hails 'Cliff' Deal, Warns of Next Fiscal Fight

Minutes after the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan Senate deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" and preserve Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans making less than $400,000 per year, President Obama praised party leaders and wasted little time turning to the next fiscal fight.

"This is one step in the broader effort to strengthen our economy for everybody," Obama said.

Obama lamented that earlier attempts at a much larger fiscal deal that would have cut spending and dealt with entitlement reforms failed. He said he hoped future debates would be done with "a little less drama, a little less brinksmanship, and not scare folks quite as much."

But Obama drew a line in the sand on the debt ceiling, which is set to be reached by March.

"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether they should pay the bills for what they've racked up," Obama said. "We can't not pay bills that we've already incurred."

An hour after his remarks, Obama boarded Air Force One to rejoin his family in Hawaii, where they have been since before Christmas.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

House Republicans agreed to the up-or-down vote Tuesday evening, despite earlier talk of trying to amend the Senate bill with more spending cuts before taking a vote. The bill delays for two months tough decisions about automatic spending cuts that were set to kick in Wednesday.

A majority of the Republicans in the GOP-majority House voted against the fiscal cliff deal. About twice as many Democrats voted in favor of the deal compared to Republicans. One hundred fifty-one Republicans joined 16 Democrats to vote against the deal, while 172 Democrats carried the vote along with 85 Republicans.

The Senate passed the same bill by an 89-8 vote in the wee hours of New Year's Day. If House Republicans had tweaked the legislation, there would have been no clear path for its return to the Senate before a new Congress is sworn in Thursday.

The vote split Republican leaders in the House. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, voted yes, and so did the GOP's 2012 vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

But House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., the No. 2 Republican in the House, voted no. It was his opposition that had made passage of the bill seem unlikely earlier in the day.

The deal does little to address the nation's long-term debt woes and does not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff."

Indeed, the last-minute compromise -- far short from a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction -- sets up a new showdown on the same spending cuts in two months amplified by a brewing fight on how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.

"Now the focus turns to spending," said Boehner in a statement after the vote. "The American people re-elected a Republican majority in the House, and we will use it in 2013 to hold the president accountable for the 'balanced' approach he promised, meaning significant spending cuts and reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving our country deeper and deeper into debt."

Republicans hope that allowing the fiscal cliff compromise, which raised taxes without an equal amount of spending cuts, will settle the issue of tax rates for the coming debates on spending.

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Syria starts 2013 with aerial strikes and clashes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrians woke on New Year's Day to countrywide aerial bombardment, while President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels fighting to topple him clashed on the outskirts of the capital.

Residents of Damascus entered the new year to the sound of artillery hitting southern and eastern districts that form a rebel-held crescent on the outskirts of the capital, the center of which is still firmly under government control.

In the center, soldiers manning checkpoints fired celebratory gunfire at midnight, causing alarm in a city where streets were largely deserted.

"How can they celebrate? There is no 'Happy New Year'," Moaz al-Shami, an opposition activists who lives in the capital's central Mezzeh district, said over Skype, his voice trembling with anger.

He said rebel fighters attacked one checkpoint in the district of Berzeh early on Tuesday. Opposition groups said mortar bombs hit the southwest suburb of Daraya, where the army launched a military offensive on Monday to retake the battered district.

Assad's air force pounded Damascus's eastern suburbs, as well as rebel-held areas in the second city Aleppo, and several rural towns and villages, opposition activists said.

An estimated 45,000 people have been killed in the revolt, which started in early 2011 with peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms but turned into an armed uprising after months of attacks on protesters by security forces.

A resident of the central city of Homs, who asked to remain anonymous, said shells had landed on the Old City early on Tuesday.

Homs lies on the strategic north-south highway and parts of the ancient city have been leveled during months of clashes. Government forces ousted rebels from the city early last year but militants have slowly crept back in.

"The Old City is under siege. There is shelling from all sides," he said.

The opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, reported 160 people killed on the final day of 2012, including at least 37 government troops. The group's reports cannot be verified.

BOMBARDMENT

The civil war in Syria has become the longest and deadliest of the conflicts that rose out of the uprisings that swept through the Arab world over the past two years.

Many Sunni Muslims, the majority in Syria, back the rebellion, while Assad, who hails from the Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect, is backed by some minorities who fear revenge if he falls. His family has ruled Syria harshly since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.

Assad's forces have lately relied more on aerial and artillery bombardment, rather than infantry. Residential areas where rebels base themselves have been targeted, killing civilians unable to flee. Schools and queues of people buying bread have been hit.

Rebels have taken swathes of the north and the east but have struggled to hold cities, complaining that they are defenseless against Assad's Soviet-built air force.

A year ago, many diplomats and analysts predicted Assad would leave power in 2012. But he has proved resilient and none of his inner circle have defected. He still largely retains control of his armed forces.

Diplomatic efforts to end the war have faltered, with the rebels refusing to negotiate unless Assad leaves power and him pledging to fight until death.

Most Western and Arab states have called for him to leave power. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

In the final days of 2012, international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi called on countries to push the sides to talk, saying Syria faced a choice of "hell or the political process".

One Damascus resident, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said the usual new year's eve crowds were absent from the increasingly isolated capital.

"There was hardly anyone on the streets, no cars, no pedestrians. Most restaurants, cafes and bars were empty," she said. Some young people gathered at three bars in the old city.

"There was music but nobody was dancing. They just sat there with a drink in their hands and smoking. I don't think I saw one person smile," she said. The midnight gunfire caused alarm.

"It was very scary. No one knew what was going on. People got very nervous and started making phone calls. But then I discovered that at least on my street, the gunfire was celebratory."

(Editing by Peter Graff and Alison Williams)

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Sengkang West LRT loop now fully operational

SINGAPORE: Some commuters in Sengkang will find it easier to get around the estate on the LRT.

On Tuesday, the trains on the Sengkang West LRT ran in both directions throughout the day, instead of only during the morning and evening peak hours.

Cheng Lim LRT Station, which is on the Sengkang West LRT, also started operations on Tuesday.

Previously, trains on the Sengkang LRT ply either one of the two loops - the East Loop or the West Loop.

The trains were crowded, especially during the peak hours on weekdays and on weekends.

SBS Transit hopes the move will better meet the travel needs of commuters.

It added that an additional 1,033 trips will be added to the line each week.

- CNA/fa

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Pakistani judicial panel to arrive in India by end of January

NEW DELHI: The Pakistani judicial commission, which will cross examine four witnesses in 26/11 terror attack case, is expected to arrive here by the end of January after approval of the Bombay high court.

The agreement on the visit of the second Pakistani judicial commission to Mumbai was finalised on December 25 in Islamabad following several rounds of discussions on complex technical and legal issues between a four-member visiting Indian delegation and Pakistani officials.

The home ministry will approach the Bombay high court within a day or two to seek its approval for the visit of the Pakistani panel and cross examination of the four witnesses of the Mumbai terror attack case, official sources said.

The witnesses are Metropolitan Magistrate Rama Vijay Sawant-Waghule, who recorded the confessional statement of hanged terrorist Ajmal Kasab, chief investigating officer Ramesh Mahale and two doctors from the state-run Nair and JJ Hospitals who had conducted autopsies of nine terrorists.

The cross examination of the four witnesses is required to take the ongoing 26/11 case in a Rawalpindi court to its logical conclusion.

Seven terrorists, including Lashkar-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, were charged with planning, financing and executing the attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008.

Once the approval of the high court is received, New Delhi will convey the same to Islamabad which in turn will inform the Lahore high court for intimation to the Rawalpindi court.

During its visit, the Indian team secured assurance from Pakistani authorities that the findings of the second judicial commission would not be summarily rejected by the anti- terrorism court that is conducting the trial of seven men.

The findings of the first Pakistani judicial commission that visited India in March 2012 were rejected by the anti-terrorism court as the panel's members were not allowed to cross-examine the Indian witnesses.

After the judicial panel visits India and cross examines the four witnesses, Islamabad will be expected to reciprocate by granting an Indian judicial commission access to Pakistani suspects when it visits the country at a later stage.

The trial of the Pakistani suspects has made little or no headway for months due to various technical and legal issues.

The Lahore high court has barred the anti-terrorism court from using Kasab's confession while defence lawyers have contended that existing Pakistani laws do not allow witnesses in another country to depose via video conferencing.

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.

Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.

Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.

The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.

In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.

Clinton's complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton's care.

The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.

This isn't the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

"Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a problem."

It isn't uncommon for presidential candidates' health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.

Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.

"Wouldn't that be exciting?" House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. "I hope she goes. Why wouldn't she?"

Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.

"Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl," Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. "The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level."

Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking "Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

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Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

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Senate Approves 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal, Sends to House

Two hours after a midnight deadline for action, the Senate passed legislation early New Year's Day to avert the so-called fiscal cliff with an overwhelming vote of 89-8.

Senate passage set the stage for a final showdown in the House, where a vote could come as early as today.

"While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay," President Obama said in a statement shortly after the vote.

"There's more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I'm willing to do it. But tonight's agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans."

The bill extends Bush-era tax cuts permanently for individuals making less than $400,000 per year and couples making less than $450,000 but allows the top marginal tax rate on incomes above those levels to rise to 39.6 percent.

Capital gains taxes would rise to 20 percent from 15 percent.

The measure would raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million, prevent the alternative minimum tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers and extend unemployment benefits for one year.

'Fiscal Cliff': Lawmakers Scramble for Last-Minute Deal Watch Video

Lawmakers also decided at the last minute to use the measure to prevent a $900 pay raise for each member of Congress due to take effect this spring.

The steep "sequester" budget cuts scheduled to go into effect with the New Year -- a $1.2 trillion hit to defense and domestic programs -- would be postponed for two months.

"I've said all along our most important priority is protecting middle-class Americans, this legislation does that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said early this morning prior to the vote.

The deal at hand does little to address the nation's long-term debt woes, however, and does not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff."

Indeed, the last-minute compromise -- far short from a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction -- could set up a new showdown on the same spending cuts in two months amplified by a brewing fight on how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.

Reid said he is "disappointed" they were unable to achieve a broader deal but that the compromise was necessary.

"We tried," he said. "If we did nothing, the threat of a recession is very real."

Speaking after Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the deal an "imperfect solution" and noted this should not be the model on how things get done in the Senate.

McConnell also thanked Vice President Joe Biden, who visited Capitol Hill late Monday night and brokered the deal with Senate Republicans.

The measure must now move to the Republican-led House.

Five Senate Republicans and three Democrats voted against the plan, but the large margin of passage was seen as boosting the bill's prospects in the House, even though fiscal conservatives were poised to vehemently oppose the deal when it comes to the floor for a vote.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said the House would not vote on any Senate-passed measure "until House members, and the American people, have been able to review" it.

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Assad's forces push to retake Damascus suburb

AMMAN (Reuters) - Heavy fighting raged on the outskirts of Damascus on Monday as elite troops backed by tanks tried to recapture a strategic suburb from rebels in one of the largest military operations in that district in months, opposition activists said.

Five people, including one child, died from army rocket fire that hit Daraya, the activists said. Daraya is one of a series of interconnected Sunni Muslim suburbs that ring Syria's capital and have been at the forefront of the 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

"This is the biggest attack on Daraya in two months. An armored column is trying to advance but it being held (back) by the Free Syrian Army," said Abu Kinan, an opposition activist in the area, referring to a rebel group.

He said that tens of thousands of civilians had fled Daraya during weeks of government assault but that 5,000 remained, along with hundreds of rebels. Daraya is located near the main southern highway leading to the Jordanian border 85 kms (50 miles) to the south.

Activists said the military is trying to push back rebels who have been slowly advancing from the outskirts of Damascus to within striking distance of central districts inhabited by Assad's Alawite minority sect.

Assad's forces have mostly relied on aerial and artillery bombardment, rather than infantry. Rebels have been able take several outlying towns and have clashed with government troops near Damascus International Airport, halting flights by foreign airlines.

Another activist in Damascus with connection to rebels, who did not want to be named, said Daraya has been a firing position for rebels using mortars and homemade rockets. From it, they have been able to hit a huge presidential complex located at a hilltop overlooking Damascus and target pro-Assad shabbiha militia in an Alawite enclave nearby known as Mezze 86.

"So far they have missed the palace but they are getting better. I think the regime has realized that it no longer can afford to have such a threat so close by, but it has failed to overrun Daraya before," he said.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Oliver Holmes and Peter Graff)

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India's cash-to-the-poor welfare reform starts

NEW DELHI: India's government is to roll out on Tuesday the first phase of its hugely ambitious plans to hand out cash to welfare claimants in what it considers a "game-changer" policy 18 months ahead of elections.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram, speaking before the start of the direct cash transfers on January 1, said 20 out of India's 629 districts would change over to the new system with a further 23 to follow in February and March.

In all, money for 23 separate welfare schemes -- mostly education funds which were previously disbursed to third parties by the central government -- will now be paid into the bank accounts of an estimated 200,000 beneficiaries.

"This is a game-changer for governance... this is a game-changer in how we account for money, it is game-changer in how the benefits reach the individual," Chidambaram told a press conference on Monday.

For example, scholarships for higher education for low-caste students which were previously paid to a university would instead be transferred directly to the individual who would then pay for his or her studies.

The advantage is that the government can confirm the money has reached the intended claimant, without them having to pay bribes to secure their due or officials diverting the funds for other purposes.

Critics counter that the government has been too quick in pushing forward a pet project and is bound to face enormous implementation problems because of the complex technology and public administration required.

Chidambaram said that there was no intention at this stage to start handing out cash in place of subsidised food, fuel and fertiliser -- three key benefits for the poor included in India's US$61-billion annual welfare budget.

"There will be glitches. There will be a problem here or a problem there. These will be overcome by our people standing out in the districts," added Chidambaram, who said the cash scheme would be rolled out nation-wide.

Mexico and Brazil are considered the world leaders in cash welfare schemes, using their Progresa/Oportunidades and Bolsa Familia programmes respectively to target the poor.

- AFP/xq

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Prayers for Ajmal Kasab at mosque: Police launch probe

KOCHI: Police have launched an investigation into the offering of prayers at a mosque here for Ajmal Kasab, who was hanged for carrying out the Mumbai terror attack in 2008.

The prayers were reportedly offered by an imam on November 23 after the Friday namaz at the mosque at nearby Trikkakara. After the namaz, prayers were offered for departed souls and the priest had reportedly included the name of Kasab.

When the incident leaked out, police began a probe and questioned the mosque's authorities and those who had participated in the prayers.

The managing committee of the mosque removed the imam from the post after learning about the incident, committee sources said.

Investigation is on, police said. Kasab was hanged in Yerawada jail in Pune on November 21.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

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Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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