Violence flares in Cairo as Egyptians vote

CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamists attacked the offices of an Egyptian opposition party newspaper on Saturday, security sources said, as people voted on a new constitution intended to pull the country out of a growing political crisis.

The newspaper of the Wafd party in Cairo was targeted with petrol bombs and birdshot, the sources said, in the latest of a series of violent incidents surrounding a divisive referendum designed to pave the way to national elections next year.

The attack came as officials began counting votes after polling stations closed at 11 p.m. (1600 ET).

Official results will not come until after a second round of voting in remaining areas of the country next Saturday, but conflicting claims were already emerging from the rival camps.

A spokesman for the opposition National Salvation Front said it had indications that 60-65 percent of voters in Cairo and other cities had rejected the new constitution, while President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood allies said that after 1 million votes had been counted, 72.5 percent were in favor.

Mostafa Shafik, managing editor at Wafd's newspaper, which is located next to the party headquarters, said his offices had been damaged.

"The attackers used Molotov cocktails to enter, which left minor areas burned," he said.

A Reuters photographer saw a dozen or so cars damaged inside the Wafd headquarters' grounds, their windows broken. Glass was also broken in the headquarters, but he saw no immediate signs of fire damage. Two people appeared to have been injured.

Wafd blamed followers of Hazem Abu Ismail, a Salafist preacher, for the attack, but he used his Facebook page to deny involvement.

Violence in Cairo and other cities has marred the run-up to the referendum. Several party buildings belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party have been burned in protests.

Rival factions armed with clubs, knives and swords fought in the streets of Alexandria on Friday. Opposition supporters trapped a Muslim preacher inside his mosque after he backed a "yes" vote in favor of the constitution.

ANGRY DEMONSTRATIONS

President Mursi provoked angry demonstrations when he issued a decree last month expanding his powers and then fast-tracked the draft constitution through an assembly dominated by his Muslim Brotherhood group and its allies. At least eight people were killed in clashes last week outside the presidential palace.

His liberal, secular and Christian opponents say the constitution is too Islamist and tramples on minority rights. Mursi's supporters say the charter is needed if progress is to be made towards democracy nearly two years after the fall of military-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak.

"The sheikhs (preachers) told us to say 'yes' and I have read the constitution and I liked it," said 53-year-old Adel Imam as he queued to vote in Cairo on Saturday. "The country will move on."

Turnout was high enough for voting to be extended by four hours in Cairo and some other cities.

In order to pass, the constitution must be approved by more than 50 percent of voters who cast ballots. A little more than half of Egypt's electorate of 51 million are eligible to vote in the first round in Cairo and other cities.

Rights groups reported some abuses, such as polling stations opening late, officials telling people to vote "yes", bribery and intimidation.

But Gamal Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, which is monitoring the vote, said nothing reported so far was serious enough to invalidate the referendum.

TRANSITION

Christians, making up about 10 percent of Egypt's 83 million people and who have long complained of discrimination, were among those waiting at a polling station in Alexandria to oppose the basic law. They fear Islamists, long repressed by Mubarak, will restrict social and other freedoms.

"I voted 'no' to the constitution out of patriotic duty," said Michael Nour, a 45-year-old Christian teacher in Alexandria. "The constitution does not represent all Egyptians."

Howaida Abdel Azeem, a post office employee, said: "I said 'yes' because I want the destruction the country is living through to be over and the crisis to pass."

Islamists are counting on their disciplined ranks of supporters and the many Egyptians who may fall into line in the hope of ending turmoil that has hammered the economy and sent Egypt's pound to eight-year lows against the dollar.

Mursi was among the early voters after polls opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT). He was shown on television casting his ballot shielded by a screen and then dipping his finger in ink - a measure to prevent people voting twice.

The second round will be held in other regions on December 22 because there are not enough judges willing to monitor all polling stations after some said they would boycott the vote.

Egyptians are being asked to accept or reject a constitution that must be in place before a parliamentary election can be held next year to replace an Islamist-led parliament dissolved in June. Many hope this will lead Egypt towards stability.

If the constitution is voted down, a new assembly will have to be formed to draft a revised version, a process that could take up to nine months.

The army has deployed about 120,000 troops and 6,000 tanks and armoured vehicles to protect polling stations and other government buildings. While the military backed Mubarak and his predecessors, it has not intervened in the present crisis.

(Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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Russia arrests opposition leaders at banned rally

MOSCOW: Russian police on Saturday arrested several opposition leaders, including well-known blogger Alexei Navalny, as hundreds of people packed a central Moscow square in defiance of an official ban to protest Vladimir Putin's rule.

Scores of Muscovites, many holding white roses, defied the authorities by turning up at Lubyanka Square, the seat of the FSB security services, despite temperatures of minus 14 degrees C (seven degrees F) and warnings that the unsanctioned rally would be broken up.

Navalny, possibly the most charismatic figure in the protest movement against the Russian president, was detained a day after investigators launched a new criminal probe against him for suspected fraud. patisserie

"It's raving mad. (They) simply snatched me from the crowd," Navalny tweeted from inside a police van.

Besides Navalny, police also arrested Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of leftist group the Left Front, and activists Ilya Yashin and Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Putin's late mentor Anatoly Sobchak.

"Looks like I am a very dangerous criminal," Sobchak quipped on Twitter.

The prominent figures arrested all noted on Twitter that the police vans holding them had been equipped with webcams to keep close watch on their behaviour.

Police put the turnout at around 500 people, half of them journalists and bloggers, but an AFP correspondent said the real number of the protesters appeared to be significantly higher.

People laid white lilies, carnations and chrysanthemums at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to victims of Stalin-era purges adorning the square, as a helicopter hovered overhead.

One hour into the rally, the monument was blanketed by piles of flowers.

"Our authorities are repressive," one protester, 48-year-old businessman Andrei Genin, told AFP, sporting a white ribbon, the symbol of the opposition movement against Putin.

City authorities had earlier banned an opposition march through the city, and the opposition Coordination Council had urged Russians to simply turn up at Lubyanka Square.

On the eve of the protest, Russian authorities launched a second major investigation against Navalny, accusing the protest leader and his brother Oleg of embezzling 55 million rubles ($1.8 million, 1.4 million euros) from a trading company.

Navalny, who has already been charged with embezzlement in an earlier case in which he faces up to 10 years in prison, vowed to press ahead with his political activism.

In a separate event, his supporters convened in the Russian capital to establish a new political party that would represent the interests of middle-class urbanities, the backbone of the anti-Putin protests.

Dubbed "The Popular Alliance", the party will promote the "middle class and the European choice", activist Leonid Volkov told Echo of Moscow radio, noting that Navalny himself would not be an official member.

The opposition movement is hoping to maintain momentum despite internal divisions between liberals, leftists and nationalists and the authorities' tough crackdown on dissenters since Putin's return to the Kremlin in May.

Even supporters admit that the euphoria that marked the first opposition protests that erupted after fraud-tainted parliamentary polls last December has largely died down.

Up to 120,000 people gathered near the Kremlin walls at the peak of the protests last winter, a huge number for a country that lost its taste for street politics after the turbulent 1990s.

The last major rally, in September, drew around 14,000 people, according to police, though the opposition argued many more had shown up.

Weeks after his inauguration, Putin signed off on a raft of laws that critics have attacked as a bid to quash dissent.

Scores of activists now face jail time for taking part in a May 6 protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration and for alleged plans to overthrow the Russian strongman with the help of foreign sponsors.

Ahead of Saturday's rally, Moscow prosecutors delivered a warning to leading activists, while police urged Russians to refrain from "provocations".

Smaller rallies were held in several cities across Russia.

Sixty people held a 40-minute march in Tomsk in western Siberia despite temperatures of minus 35 degrees C, a representative of the Solidarnost (Solidarity) movement, Ksenia Fadeyeva, told AFP.

Fourteen people marched in the city of Krasnoyarsk in eastern Siberia, police said.

- AFP/de

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Interaction key to end Kudankulam-like stir: IAEA chief

KORIYAMA (FUKUSHIMA): UN nuclear watchdog IAEA chief Yukiya Amano on Saturday called for 'better communication and higher transparency' in dealing with Kudankulam-like protests. Even as he sought to distance himself from both sides — protesters as well as votaries of nuclear power —the director-general said that the issue of spent N-fuel, which is at the core of protests in India, was one of the lessons the world learnt from the accident at Fukushima Daiichi N-plant in Japan last year.

Amano was talking exclusively to TOI here on the sidelines of the Fukushima ministerial conference that saw many smaller countries pleading for nuclear power generation to deal with rising fossil fuel prices and climate change issues. The conference, which was presided over by Japanese foreign minister Koichiro Gemba, was held to strengthen N- safety worldwide.

"I don't have any particular comment on opposition to nuclear power anywhere, or those who support it, but if I can give a recommendation, we need to share both good news and bad news to be able to get a better understanding of the problem," he told TOI, replying to a query about protests in India that have delayed the commissioning of the first unit at Kudankulam.

"Communication is one of the areas where we need to improve and IAEA has been organizing meetings of global experts to look into this. We have to explain complicated things in a simple manner and it is only through better communication and higher transparency that we can achieve this," he added.

Amano admitted that the safety aspect of the spent N-fuel was a very important issue. The government's 'success' in acquiring reprocessing rights from Russia has become a millstone around its neck as this prevents it from sending the spent or used fuel back to Russia. The government painstakingly maintains that it considers spent fuel an asset that is used to produce electricity.

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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Conn. Shooter Adam Lanza: Quiet, Bright, Troubled

Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who killed 20 kids and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school Friday, was very bright, say neighbors and former classmates, but he was also socially awkward and deeply troubled.

"[Adam] was not connected with the other kids," said family friend Barbara Frey. A relative told ABC News that Adam was "obviously not well."

READ full ABC News coverage of the Connecticut shootings.

On Friday morning, Lanza shot his mother Nancy in the face at the home they shared in Newtown, and then drove her car to Sandy Hook Elementary School. Dressed in black combat gear, he broke a window at the school, which had recently had a new security system installed, and within minutes had shot and killed six adults and 20 schoolchildren between the ages of five and 10.

The shooting stopped when Lanza put a bullet in his own head. Multiple weapons were found at the scene, including two semiautomatic handguns registered to his mother. A Bushmaster rifle registered to Nancy was discovered outside in the car.

Long before Lanza's spree, however, residents of Newtown had noticed that tall, pale boy was different, and believed he had some kind of unspecified personality disorder.

"Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were five years old," wrote aneighbor and former classmate Timothy Dalton on Twitter. "As horrible as this was, I can't say I am surprised."

In school, Lanza carried a black briefcase and spoke little. Every day, he wore a sort of uniform: khakis and a shirt buttoned up to the neck, with pens lined up in his shirt pocket.

Newtown School Massacre: 20 Children, 7 Adults Dead Watch Video

Newtown Teacher Kept 1st Graders Calm During Massacre Watch Video

A former classmate in his 10th grade honors English class, Olivia DeVivo, says he "was always very nervous and socially awkward."

She told ABC News that "he didn't really want to be spoken to" and that when teachers would call on him "it appeared physically difficult for him to speak."

Lanza avoided public attention and had few, if any, friends. He liked to sit near the door of the classroom to make a quick exit.

He even managed to avoid having his picture in his high school yearbook. Instead of his portrait, the space reserved for Adam Lanza says "Camera Shy." And unlike most in his age group, he seems to have left little imprint on the internet – no Facebook page, no Twitter account.

Lanza's parents Peter and Nancy Lanza married in New Hampshire in 1981, and had two sons, Adam and his older brother Ryan, who is now 24 and lives in New Jersey.

The Lanzas divorced in 2009 after 28 years of marriage due to "irreconcilable differences." When they first filed for divorce in 2008, a judge ordered that they participate in a "parenting education program."

Adam was 17 at the time of the divorce. He continued to live in Newtown with his mother. His father now lives in his Stamford, Connecticut with his second wife.

Peter Lanza, who drove to northern New Jersey to talk to police and the FBI, is a vice president at GE Capital and had been a partner at global accounting giant Ernst & Young.

Adam's older brother Ryan Lanza, 24, has worked at Ernst & Young for four years, apparently following in his father's footsteps and carving out a solid niche in the tax practice. He too was interviewed by the FBI. Neither he nor his father is under any suspicion.

"[Ryan] is a tax guy and he is clean as a whistle," a source familiar with his work said.

Police had initially identified Ryan as the killer. Ryan sent out a series of Facebook posts saying it wasn't him and that he was at work all day. Video records as well as card swipes at Ernst & Young verified his statement that he had been at the office.

Two federal sources told ABC News that identification belonging to Ryan Lanza was found at the scene of the mass shooting. They say that identification may have led to the confusion by authorities during the first hours after the shooting.

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U.S., rebels urge gloomy Moscow to help oust Assad

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's rebel leadership and the United States seized on Russian pessimism over President Bashar al-Assad's future to urge Moscow to help push its ally into ceding power and end the battles closing in around his capital.

"We want to commend the Russian government for finally waking up to the reality and acknowledging that the regime's days are numbered," the U.S. State Department spokeswoman said after a senior Kremlin envoy conceded publicly on Thursday that Assad's opponents could win the 20-month-old civil war.

"The question now is, will the Russian government join those of us in the international community who are working with the opposition to try to have a smooth democratic transition?" U.S. spokeswoman Victoria Nuland added in Washington.

In Marrakech, where his new coalition won recognition from other international powers as the legitimate leadership of Syria, rebel political leader Mouaz al-Khatib said he believed Russia, ally and arms supplier to the Assad dynasty since Soviet times, was looking for ways out of its support for a lost cause.

"I believe that the Russians have woken up and are sensing that they have implicated themselves with this regime, but they don't know how to get out," al-Khatib told Reuters. He held them "particularly responsible" for helping Assad with arms but said Moscow need not "lose everything" in Syria if it changed tack.

Under President Vladimir Putin, wary since last year's Libyan war of what Russia sees as a Western drive to use the United Nations to overthrow national leaders it dislikes, Russia has blocked U.N. efforts to squeeze Assad, who has also had strong support from his long-time sponsor Iran.

But Mikhail Bogdanov, a deputy foreign minister and the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, was quoted as saying in Moscow: "One must look the facts in the face."

"Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out." The Syrian government, he said, was "losing control of more and more territory" and Moscow was preparing to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary.

Nuland said Bogdanov's comments demonstrated that Moscow now "sees the writing on the wall" on Syria and said Russia should now rally behind U.N. efforts to prevent a wider bloodbath.

"They can withdraw any residual support for the Assad regime, whether it is material support (or) financial support," she said. "They can also help us to identify people who might be willing, inside of Syria, to work on a transitional structure."

DIPLOMACY

International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who has met Russian and U.S. officials twice in the past week, is seeking a solution based on an agreement reached in Geneva in June that called for the creation of a transitional government in Syria.

But Russia has repeated warnings that recognition of al-Khatib's coalition, notably by the United States, is undermining diplomacy, and rejected U.S. contentions that the Geneva agreement sent a clear message that Assad should step down.

Nuland said the Brahimi meetings could lay the framework for a political structure to follow Assad:

"We've said all along to the Russians that we are concerned that the longer that this goes on, and the longer it takes us to get to an alternative political path for Syria, the only path is going to be the military one and that is just going to bring more violence.

"We all ought to be working together."

Bogdanov, whose government has suggested that Assad himself should be allowed to see through a transition he has promised, suggested the rebels and their allies were set on a military solution and he gave little hint of detente with Washington.

"The fighting will become even more intense and (Syria) will lose tens of thousands and, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of civilians," Bogdanov was quoted as saying. "If such a price for the removal of the president seems acceptable to you, what can we do? We, of course, consider it absolutely unacceptable."

The head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said elsewhere: "I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse."

A U.S. official said: "Assad probably still believes that Syria is his and illusions can die hard. But Assad and those closest to him have got to be feeling the psychological strain of fighting a long war that is not going their way."

DAMASCUS BATTLES

But Al-Khatib, who played down Western concerns of sectarian Sunni Islamists in rebel ranks, warned that the fighting was far from over, even as it has begun to rattle the heart of Assad's power in Damascus. On Wednesday, a car bomb killed at least 16 people in a nearby town which is home to many military families.

"The noose is tightening around the regime," al-Khatib said.

"(But) the regime still has power. People think that the regime is finished, but it still has power left, but it is demoralized and however long it lasted its end is clear."

Day and night, Damascenes can hear the thunderous sound of bombardment aimed at rebel-held and contested neighborhoods.

The city's streets have now turned into a labyrinth of checkpoints and road blocks, with several major roads permanently closed off to traffic by concrete barriers.

"We escape from one place and trouble follows," said one grandmother, Um Hassan, as she described to Reuters her family's flight from one neighborhood to another as fighting seeps into the capital. "I don't know where we can keep running to."

Nonetheless, al-Khatib played down demands for their allies to provide heavier weaponry - a request long resisted by governments wary of anti-aircraft missiles and other hardware reaching Islamist rebels who might turn them against the West.

"The Syrian people ... no longer need international forces to protect them," he said, not specifying whether he meant a no-fly zone, arms supplies or other military support.

The opposition chief said he was willing to listen to proposals for Assad to escape with his life - "The best thing is that he steps down and stops drinking the blood of the Syrian people" - and outlined three scenarios for a change of power:

Al-Khatib ruled out the Russian proposal suggesting Assad hand over power to a transitional government while remaining president, saying it was "disgraceful for a slaughtered nation to accept to have a killer and criminal at its head".

The British-based Syrian Observatory said war planes bombed rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and artillery was hitting Daraya and Moadamiyeh, southwestern areas near the centre where rebels have been fighting for a foothold.

Syria has relied on war planes and helicopters to bombard rebel districts but Damascus denied accusations by U.S. and NATO officials that it had fired Scud missiles in recent days. The foreign ministry said the long-range missiles were not used against "terrorist groups," a term it uses for the rebels.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests which were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Michael Roddy) For an interactive look at the uprising in Syria, please click on http://link.reuters.com/rut37s

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Football: Wenger lucky to avoid sack, says Wright

LONDON: Arsenal legend Ian Wright claims Gunners manager Arsene Wenger is lucky to still have a job because any other boss would have been sacked for going so long without success.

Wright, one of the club's all-time greats, has added his voice to the growing criticism of Wenger in the aftermath of Tuesday's humiliating League Cup quarter-final defeat at Bradford.

Wenger, 63, has not delivered a trophy since the FA Cup in 2005 and the dismal display against League Two minnows Bradford, which ended with a penalty shoot-out loss, has only increased Wright's belief that the Frenchman is losing his fight to stop Arsenal sliding into obscurity.

Wright, who played under Wenger at the end of his seven-year spell with Arsenal, claims his former boss is now living off past glories that will take years to recapture.

"I wouldn't say 'surely he has to go', but it is a unique position he's in because I think any manager in any country in any world with a record like this and no prospect of light at the end of the tunnel, they would've been gone," Wright told Absolute Radio's RocknRoll Football show.

"People are holding onto the fact to what Arsene has done, and people are saying he is going to tarnish what he has done, but I don't think that will ever happen.

"However, it is a long way back. I feel there are a lot of deluded Arsenal fans who are out in the wilderness still saying 'in Arsene we trust' and stuff like that."

Wenger is rightly regarded as Arsenal's greatest ever manager after leading the club to three Premier League titles, four FA Cup and a Champions League final during his 16-year reign, as well introducing an eye-catching style of play that became the envy of the rest of Europe for several years.

But there has been a gradual disintegration of Wenger's squad in recent years, with the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie all making moves to more successful clubs.

Wright, who lost his status as Arsenal's record goalscorer to Thierry Henry, believes Wenger needs to be more honest about the state of his squad rather than continually defending the indefensible.

"You hear him doing interviews afterwards saying, 'I have got a great team with a great spirit', but we are not seeing that," Wright added.

"He does not tell the truth for me, he does not say what is happening.

"What is going on? Have you got any money to spend or haven't you? Is it the fact the board are giving you the money and you are not spending? Is that too hard a question to answer for Arsenal?"

-AFP/ac

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Sushil Kumar Shinde, Rehman Malik operationalise new visa regime

NEW DELHI: Travel between India and Pakistan will become easier with the operationalisation of a new visa regime on Friday that allows multi-city visas for up to five cities, visitor visas for two years for senior citizens and children below 12 years, visa on arrival for senior citizens, and group tourist visa, besides exempting specified categories of businessmen from police reporting.

The visa agreement was operationalised by home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and visiting Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik, both of whom agreed that it would promote people-to-people contact between the two countries. The visa agreement was signed by the two sides on September 8. Malik said the new visa agreement was not only historic but a step forward for peace.

Outlining the key features of the new visa regime, Shinde said visas can now be granted for five places as against the earlier restriction of three cities. Visitor visas can be issued for up to two years where the applicant is above 65 years of age, where a national of one country is married to a national of the other country and children below 12 years accompanying their parents.

Senior citizens (above 65 years of age) can now avail of visa on arrival, to be issued at Attari/Wagah post for 45 days with a single entry. This will, however, take effect only from January 15, 2013.

In a move aimed at promoting economic ties between the neighbours, business visa norms have been eased, with businessmen with income above 5 million Pakistani rupees or having an annual turnover above 30 million Pakistani rupees now exempt from police reporting.

Indians and Pakistanis can travel to each other's country in groups comprising 10-50 members. The groups, organized by approved tour operators and travel agents, will be issued group tourist visas for 30 days. Group visas will, however, be issued from March 15, 2013.

Entry and exit from different designated check-posts has been allowed, if indicated in the application, though a person can exit from Attari/Wagah on foot only if he had also made the entry on foot from the same check-post.

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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More Than 20, Mostly Kids, Killed at Grade School

More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News.

The massacre involved two gunmen at a Connecticut school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.

State Police confirm that one shooter is dead. A second gunman is apparently at large. Car-to-car searches are underway.

It's unclear how many people have been shot, but 25 people, mostly children are dead, multiple federal and state sources tell ABC News. That number could rise, officials said.

It is the worst shooting in a U.S. elementary school in recent memory.

The shooting comes just three days after masked gunman Jacob Roberts opened fire in a busy Portland, Ore., mall killing two before turning the gun on himself.

Today's shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, about 12 miles east of Danbury.

Watch State Police News Conference Live at 1 p.m. at ABCNews.com

State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state. Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State Police source.

Shannon Hicks/The Newtown Bee

Connecticut School Shooting: 3 Victims Hospitalized Watch Video

Connecticut School Shooting: 1 Gunman Confirmed Dead Watch Video

A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.

LIVE UPDATES: Newtown, Conn., School Shooting

While some students have been reunited with their parents on the school's perimeter, one group of students remains unaccounted for, according to a source with a child in the school.

The school is kindergarten through fourth grade.

CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.

Three patients have been taken to Danbury Hospital, which is also on lockdown, according to the hospital's Facebook page.

"Out of abundance of caution and not because of any direct threat Danbury Hospital is under lockdown," the statement said. "This allows us simply to focus on the important work at hand."

Newtown Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June said in a statement that the district's school were locked down because of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety of all students and staff."

State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown.

All public and private schools in the town are on lockdown.

"We have increased our police presence at all Danbury Public Schools due to the events in Newtown. Pray for the victims," Newtown Mayor Boughton tweeted.

State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.

A message on the school district website says that all afternoon kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no mid-day bus runs.

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Russia says Syrian rebels might win

MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels are gaining ground and might win, Russia's Middle East envoy said on Thursday, in the starkest such admission from a major ally of President Bashar al-Assad as the 20-month-old civil war closes in on Damascus.

Moscow was "finally waking up to reality", the United States said and it called on Russia to withdraw all support for Assad, who NATO and the rebels' new political leader forecast was heading for collapse.

"One must look the facts in the face," Russia's state-run RIA quoted Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. "Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out."

Bogdanov, a deputy foreign minister and the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, said the Syrian government was "losing control of more and more territory" and Moscow was preparing to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "We want to commend the Russian government for finally waking up to the reality and acknowledging that the regime's days are numbered.

"The question now is, will the Russian government join those of us in the international community who are working with the opposition to try to have a smooth democratic transition?"

Syria has relied on war planes and helicopters to bombard rebel districts but Damascus denied accusations by U.S. and NATO officials that it had fired Scud missiles in recent days.

The foreign ministry said the long-range missiles were not used against "terrorist groups," a term it uses for the rebels, who now hold an almost continuous arc of territory from the east to the southwest of Damascus.

The head of NATO said he thought Assad's government was nearing collapse and the new leader of Syria's opposition told Reuters the people of Syria no longer needed international forces to protect them.

"The horrific conditions which the Syrian people endured prompted them to call on the international community for military intervention at various times," said Mouaz al-Khatib, a preacher who heads Syria's National Coalition.

"Now the Syrian people have nothing to lose. They handled their problems by themselves. They no longer need international forces to protect them," he added in the interview on Wednesday night, accusing the international community of slumbering while Syrians were killed.

He did not specify whether by intervention he meant a no-fly zone that rebels have been demanding for month, a ground invasion - which the opposition has warned against - or arms.

He said the opposition would consider any proposal from Assad to surrender power and leave the country, but would not give any assurances until it saw a firm proposal.

In the latest blow to the government, a car bomb killed at least 16 men, women and children in Qatana, a town about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of Damascus where many soldiers live, activists and state media said.

The explosion occurred in a residential area for soldiers in Qatana, which is near several army bases, said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He put the death toll as 17, including seven children and two women. State news agency SANA said 16 people had died.

State television showed soldiers walking by a partly collapsed building, with rubble and twisted metal on the road.

The pro-government Al-Ikhbariya TV said a second car bomb in the Damascus suburb of al-Jadideh killed eight, most of them women and children.

Apart from gaining territory in the outskirts of Damascus in recent weeks, rebels have also made hit-and-run attacks or set off bombs within the capital, often targeting state security buildings or areas seen as loyal to Assad, such as Jaramana, where twin bombs killed 34 people in November.

The Pakistani Foreign Office said security concerns had prompted it to withdraw the ambassador and all Pakistani staff from the embassy in the central suburb of East Mezzeh, a couple miles from the Interior Ministry.

BACK TO THE WALL

With his back to the wall, Assad was reported to be turning ever deadlier weapons on his adversaries.

"I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch said some populated areas had been hit by incendiary bombs, containing flammable materials such as napalm, thermite or white phosphorous, which can set fire to buildings or cause severe burns and respiratory damage.

The British-based Syrian Observatory said war planes were bombing rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and artillery was hitting Daraya and Moadamiyeh, southwestern areas near the centre where rebels have been fighting for a foothold.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests which were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

The United States, European powers and Arab states bestowed their official blessing on Syria's newly-formed opposition coalition on Wednesday, despite increasing signs of Western unease at the rise of militant Islamists in the rebel ranks.

Western nations at "Friends of Syria" talks in Marrakech, Morocco rallied around a new opposition National Coalition formed last month under moderate Islamist cleric al-Khatib.

Russia, which along with China has blocked any U.N. Security Council measures against Assad, criticized Washington's decision to grant the coalition formal recognition, saying it appeared to have abandoned any effort to reach a political solution.

Bogdanov's remarks were the clearest sign yet that Russia is preparing for the possible defeat of Assad's government.

"We are dealing with issues of preparations for an evacuation. We have mobilization plans and are clarifying where our citizens are located," Bogdanov said.

The fall of Damascus to the rebels was not a prospect Moscow relished: "The fighting will become even more intense and (Syria) will lose tens of thousands and, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of civilians," Bogdanov told Russia Today television.

"If such a price for the removal of the president seems acceptable to you, what can we do? We, of course, consider it absolutely unacceptable."

Nuland said Russia should now back away from Assad: "They can withdraw any residual support for the Assad regime, whether it is material support (or) financial support," she said.

"They can also help us to identify people who might be willing inside of Syria to work on a transitional structure."

A British Foreign Office spokesperson said the Russian position remained largely unchanged but the situation on the ground gave Moscow an interest in finding an agreed solution, even if the chances of such a solution remained slim.

"If Russia's position on Syria had been a brick wall, it is now a brick wall with a crack in it," the spokesperson said.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans in Beirut, Samia Nakhoul and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Marrakech, Andrew Quinn in Washington and Mohammed Abbas in London; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald)

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Swimming: Le Clos strikes double blow, Seto in rookie win

ISTANBUL: South Africa's Olympic 100m butterfly champion Chad Le Clos added the world short course crown to his collection on Thursday with a commanding victory in the final.

Le Clos won in 48.82sec, ahead of American duo Thomas Shields, in 49.54sec, with Ryan Lochte, who captured gold in the 200m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle relay on Wednesday, taking bronze in 49.59sec.

"I was a little nervous before the final. Lochte was a bit of an unknown. But I had him and Shields in the lanes next to mine, so it was a good set-up on both sides," said the 20-year-old Le Clos, whose time was a championship record.

Japanese teenager Daiya Seto won his first international title with victory in the 400m medley.

The 18-year-old's 3min 59.15sec pushed the great Hungarian Laszlo Cseh, who clocked 4:00.50, into second place.

Cseh, a seven-time European champion, has still to claim a world title.

"I did not feel good in the butterfly leg, but I tried to fight. In the backstroke leg I could relax and finish well," said Seto.

"Even though this is short course, these are still world championships and I am very excited. This victory is going to give me confidence for the long course competitions."

Seto wasn't the youngest winner on the night.

That honour went to 15-year-old Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte who won the women's 50m breaststroke, having taken a long spell out of the sport following her 100m gold at the Olympics.

The teenager won in a time of 29.44sec ahead of Jamaica's Alia Atkinson, in 29.67, and Sarah Katsoulis of Australia in 29.94sec.

"I really didn't expect it," said Meilutyte. "At the moment it feels just like I have swum a normal race, but it will start sinking in. It's crazy."

America's Olympic 100m backstroke champion Matt Grevers won his first individual world title over the same distance, dethroning favourite Stanislav Donets of Russia.

Grevers touched in 49.89sec with Donets in 49.91sec.

"Stanislav is without doubt the king of the short course and I am the king of the long course," said Grevers.

"I considered myself pretty good, but he was as well. I am glad I beat him on this one."

- AFP/ac

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Govt seeks Trai's opinion on cable monopolies

NEW DELHI: The government has sought broadcast regulator Trai's views to prevent monopolistic operations by cable operators and multi-system operators, expressing concern that it might have serious implications in terms of competition, pricing and healthy growth of the cable TV sector in the market.

In a statement, the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry said, "It has been observed that cable TV distribution is virtually monopolized in some states as operation of the entire cable TV network is dominated by a single entity. At present, there are no restrictions on the issue of accumulation of interest in terms of market share in a city, district, state or country by individual MSOs and LCOs in the cable sector."

MSOs and cable operators are free to operate in any area of their choice after obtaining registration from the ministry. "It is felt that such monopolies may not be in the interest of consumers and may have serious implications in terms of competition, pricing and healthy growth of cable TV sector in that market," the ministry said.

The ministry has requested Trai to provide its recommendations on whether "in order to ensure fair competition, improved quality of service, and equity, should any restriction be imposed on MSOs/LCOs to prevent monopolies/accumulation of interest? If yes, what restrictions should be imposed and what should be the form, nature and scope of such restrictions?" The regulator will also explore the necessity of amending the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.

MSOs and cable operators are required to be registered with local post offices to be able to operate in the permitted areas of registration. However, as per recent amendments in the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Rules 2012, it has become mandatory for MSOs to register with the I&B ministry to operate.

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Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker

LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.

Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.

With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.

"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.

The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.

The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.

— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.

— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).

— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.

Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.

While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.

"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.

Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.

Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.

"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.

"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.

___

Online:

www.lancet.com

http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org

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Fiscal Cliff Talks' Latest Victim? Sandy Relief

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner just can't seem to break through an impasse in their "fiscal cliff" talks, increasing pessimism about a deal by Christmas and now threatening to sidetrack billions in federal aid for victims of superstorm Sandy.

After weeks of public posturing and private negotiations, both sides remain firmly dug in with their opposing positions on tax hikes and spending cuts for deficit reduction.

"The president wants to pretend spending isn't the problem," Boehner told reporters today. "That's why we don't have an agreement."

House Republicans are demanding significant changes to entitlement programs to curb spending, which Democrats flatly oppose. The White House, invoking the president's re-election and public opinion polls on its side, still insists there will be no deal without a tax-rate increase on the top 2 percent of U.S. income-earners.

"Until the Republicans realize this, are willing to do what is right, we are going nowhere," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

The gridlock on how to best reduce the deficits and debt threatens to derail another pressing piece of business at hand: the White House's $60 billion emergency-relief request for states devastated by Sandy.

Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

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Some Republicans are balking at the size of the request -- which was endorsed by the governors of the affected states, including New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie -- noting that its price tag would nearly wipeout any deficit savings Democrats are seeking next year by raising tax rates on the rich.

Other lawmakers have said the aid package should be offset with a fresh batch of spending cuts, which could be hashed out in committee hearings early next year. FEMA still has $5 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, they say, enough to last until March.

Congressional leaders on both sides warned members Wednesday to prepare for a working Christmas in Washington unless a compromise can be reached soon. The "fiscal cliff" hits in 19 days, triggering a cascade of automatic tax hikes and deep spending cuts that could thrust the economy back into recession.

Obama and Boehner have traded a series of proposals over the past few days, speaking at least once by phone this week. The president lowered his desired target for new tax revenue from $1.6 trillion to $1.4 trillion; Boehner has indicated his willingness to raise more than the $800 billion he put on the table.

But the Ohio Republican said today that the two sides are nowhere near a deal.

"More than five weeks ago, Republicans signaled our willingness to avert the 'fiscal cliff' with a bipartisan agreement that is truly balanced and begins to solve our spending problem," Boehner said. "The president still has not made an offer that meets these two standards."

Obama predicted Monday that Republicans will ultimately accept tax hikes for the wealthy and signaled new willingness to make "tough" spending cuts. But he did not offer specifics.

"If the Republicans can move on that [taxes], then we are prepared to do some tough things on the spending side," Obama told ABC's Barbara Walters this week. "Taxes are going to go up one way or another. And I think the key is that taxes go up on high-end individuals."

In the event both sides cannot reach a broad deal, there is still some optimism about a last-ditch effort by both parties to prevent an income tax hike on 98 percent of earners.

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North Korea rocket launch raises nuclear stakes

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far away as the continental United States.

"The satellite has entered the planned orbit," a North Korean television news reader clad in traditional Korean garb announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics "Chosun (Korea) does what it says".

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. (0100 GMT), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and was more successful than a rocket launched in April that flew for less than two minutes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), a joint U.S.-Canadian military organization, said that the missile had "deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit".

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the U.N. Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North's first nuclear test.

North Korea is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state's "military first" programs put in place by his late father, Kim Jong-il.

North Korea hailed the launch as celebrating the prowess of all three members of the Kim family to rule since it was founded in 1948.

"At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung," its KCNA news agency said. Kim Il Sung, the current leader's grandfather, was North Korea's first leader.

The United States condemned the launch as "provocative" and a breach of U.N. rules, while Japan's U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely from the Security Council as China, the North's only major ally, will oppose them.

"The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences," the White House said in a statement.

U.S. intelligence has linked North Korea with missile shipments to Iran. Newspapers in Japan and South Korea have reported that Iranian observers were in the North for the launch, something Iran has denied.

Japan's likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on Sunday and who is known as a hawk on North Korea, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution "strongly criticizing" Pyongyang.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman reiterated that the rocket was a "peaceful project".

"The attempt to see our satellite launch as a long-range missile launch for military purposes comes from hostile perception that tries to designate us a cause for security tension," KCNA cited the spokesman as saying.

"STUMBLING BLOCK"

China had expressed "deep concern" prior to the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Jinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

On Wednesday, its tone was measured, regretting the launch but calling for restraint on any counter-measures, in line with a policy of effectively vetoing tougher sanctions.

"China believes the Security Council's response should be cautious and moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists.

Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, said: "China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we'll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors."

A senior adviser to South Korea's president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the United Nations and Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took power when his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe the launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of his death. The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung.

Wednesday's success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.

"This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un," said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of people are malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its workers overseas.

Many of its 22 million people need handouts from defectors, who have escaped to South Korea, for basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy - per capita income is less than $2,000 a year - one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

It wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.

The North is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for about half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

It has also been enriching uranium, which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on big natural uranium reserves.

"A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile," said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

"But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry."

The North says its work is part of a civil nuclear program although it has also boasted of it being a "nuclear weapons power".

(This story has been refiled to clarify reference to NORAD in paragraph five)

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO, Sui-Lee Wee and michael Martina in BEIJING,; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Birsel)

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Swimming: Lochte strikes double gold

ISTANBUL: US swim star Ryan Lochte bagged two golds on the opening day of the world shortcourse championships on Wednesday to add to the five medals he won in the London Olympics in the summer.

The American first led from start to finish to win the men's 200m freestyle before he teamed up with Anthony Ervin, James Feigen and Matthew Grevers to win the 4x100m freestyle relay.

Lochte was pushed hard by Germany's world record holder Paul Biedermann in the 200m freestyle, but he clocked 1min 41.92sec to claim his 15th career world short course championships gold medal.

The second gold was secured in a much tougher contest and needed anchor leg swimmer Grevers to chase down and overtake Russia's Artem Lobuzov and then hold off the late charge of Italy's Filippo Magnini to secure Lochte's 16th gold medal in the championships history.

Those two golds saw the US team sit atop the medals standings at the end of day one, with the USA women adding a third gold by winning the final race of the day, the 4x200m freestyle relay.

The quartet of Megan Romano, Chelsea Chenault, Shannon Vreeland and Allison Schmitt were pushed all the way by Russia, but Schmitt's greater strength over the final 200m brought them home in front.

Elsewhere it was a good day for eastern European women. Hungary's Katinka Hosszu set a competition record of 2:02.20 when she won gold in the 200m buttefly and in doing so became the first Hungarian woman to win a medal in championship history.

Hosszu returned to the pool 30 minutes later to overhaul compatriot Zsuzsanna Jakabos in the final stages of the women's 400m individual medley and win bronze behind Great Britain's Hannah Miley and Ye Shiwen of China.

Lithuania's 15-year-old Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte meanwhile twice broke the championship record on her way to the 50m breaststroke final. In the morning session she finished in 29.56 and then lowered it 29.51 in the semifinal.

-AFP/ac

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Heavy snowfall, storm warning in Himachal

MANALI: High hills of Himachal would get heavy snowfall while some parts may witness snow storms on Thursday and Friday. Meteorological department has warned that the effect of fresh western disturbance would be seen on the entire state.

After lower regions of Himachal, including Shimla and Manali received first snowfall of the season on Tuesday, the state witnessed coldest night with Keylong freezing at -8.5 degrees celsius. Minimum temperature of Kalpa and Manali was -5.4 and -3 degrees celsius, the coldest in this season. Shimla (2.6), Sundarnagar (1.3), Bhuntar (1.7), Dharamshala (7.4), Una (4.7), Mandi (4.3), Nahan (5.4), Palampur (4.5) and Solan (0.5) also reeled under severe cold conditions. Most of the parts of state woke up to white layer of frost on ground.

Met department director Manmohan Singh said western disturbance that brought snowfall on Tuesday has receded and a fresh western disturbance would show its effect after December 13. "High hills of the state would get more snowfall while mid and low hills may experience rain with thundershowers."

On Thursday, sky was crystal clear which triggered the fresh wave of cold in Himachal. According to experts, the calm weather is just a beginning of the storm that is going to strike on state on Thursday.

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

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Oregon Mall Shooting Hero Gets Customer to Safety

A store employee at the Clackamas Town Center mall used his knowledge of the shopping complex to hustle a customer out of the building during Tuesday's shooting rampage and then twice went back inside to guide other shoppers to exits and safety.

Allan Fonseca, who works at Lancome counter in Macy's and was waiting on Jocelyn Lay when they heard shots fired about 3:30 p.m. Thinking quickly, Fonseca got her behind the counter to hide.

"We both just looked at each other and knew that this was a serious situation and it was a gunman and we both just dove down below the Lancome counter there for a little protection," Lay told "Good Morning America." "And the gunfire just kept going off."

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Lay said that she began praying for the Lord to protect her and the other shoppers in the mall. She said Fonseca, as a store employee, knew exactly what to do, and she credits him as her hero.

"He said that we needed to evacuate, and he took me by the hand and took me down the escalator and out to safety," she said.

Once Fonseca was sure that she was safe, he then turned to her and said, "I'm going to go back and help other people."

Fonseca said that because he is familiar with the exits in the mall, he felt that he would be able to help shoppers escape the gunfire.

"I felt that if I knew how to get out of the mall and out to safety then I should share that knowledge with everyone else, like the shoppers that don't come here regularly and don't know all of the exits," he said. "So I decided to go back up because I wanted to see if there was anybody in panic or didn't know where to do."

Fonseca returned to the mall and evacuated the lower level of the Macy's store, and then went back up to the "shooting floor" to look for his co-workers. Lay says she's not sure she would have done if he hadn't been there to get her out of harm's way.

"I probably just would have stayed there and probably would have had a little more fear because it's one of those situations where you've seen in previous shootings, the gunman keep shooting and keep looking for different people," she said. "I would have huddled there and hoped and prayed."

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Egyptian army to host unity talks as crisis deepens

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's army chief will host national unity talks on Wednesday, seeking to end a growing political and economic crisis in the Arab world's most populous nation.

The meeting scheduled for 1430 GMT was called in response to a wave of protests since President Mohamed Mursi awarded himself sweeping powers on November 22 to push through a new constitution shaped by his Islamist allies, which is due to go to a referendum on Saturday.

"We will not speak about politics nor about the referendum. Tomorrow we will sit together as Egyptians," armed forces chief and Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said at a gathering of army and police officials on Tuesday.

Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled him to power in a June election, were expected to attend, while the main opposition coalition said it would decide on Wednesday morning whether to participate. The opposition stayed away from an earlier reconciliation meeting called by Mursi last weekend.

Outside the presidential palace - where anti-Mursi protesters are demanding the Islamist postpone the vote on a constitution they say does not represent all Egyptians - there was skepticism tinged with some hope.

"Talks without the cancellation of the referendum - and a change to the constitution to make it a constitution for all Egyptians and not the Brotherhood - will lead to nothing and will be no more than a media show," said Ahmed Hamdy, a 35-year-old office worker.

But the fact that the army was calling such talks "is an indication to all parties that the crisis is coming to a head and that they need to end it quickly", he said.

Earlier, finance minister Mumtaz al-Said disclosed that a $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund loan, a cornerstone of Egypt's economic recovery hopes, would be delayed until next month because of the crisis.

The delay was intended to allow time to explain a widely criticized package of economic austerity measures to the Egyptian people, Said told Reuters.

REBUILD CONSENSUS

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said the measures would not hurt the poor. Bread, sugar and rice would not be touched, but prices of cigarettes and cooking oil would go up and fines would be imposed for public littering. In a bid to rebuild consensus, he said there would be a public consultation about the program next week.

In Washington, the IMF said Egypt had asked for the loan to be postponed "in light of the unfolding developments on the ground". The Fund stood ready to consult with Egypt on resuming discussions on the stand-by loan, a spokeswoman said.

On the streets of Cairo, thousands of opposition supporters gathered outside the presidential palace to demand that Mursi postpone Saturday's referendum.

A bigger crowd of flag-waving Islamist Mursi backers, who want the vote to go ahead as planned on Saturday, assembled at two mosques and remained on the streets as night fell over the Egyptian capital. There were also protests in Alexandria and other cities.

The extended upheaval following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year is causing concern in the United States, which has given Cairo billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland emphasized "deep concerns" over the situation in Egypt and repeated calls on protesters to demonstrate peacefully and on security forces to act with restraint. She declined to be drawn on whether Washington believed the referendum should be postponed.

The latest unrest has so far claimed seven lives in clashes between the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition. But the Republican Guard has yet to use force to keep protesters away from the presidential palace, now ringed with tanks, barbed wire and concrete barricades.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair in Cairo, and Andrew Quinn in Washington; writing by Giles Elgood; editing by David Stamp)

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US stocks finish solidly higher

NEW YORK: US stocks finished solidly higher Tuesday, with gains in Apple, Google and Intel boosting the tech-rich Nasdaq.

Also helping were gains in Europe's markets on the back of a surge in German investor sentiment, to a seven-month high, and a successful Spanish debt auction that saw borrowing costs drop sharply.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 78.56 points (0.60 percent) to 13,248.44, scoring a fifth straight day of gains.

The broad-market S&P 500 added 9.29 (0.65 percent) at 1,427.84, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite leaped 35.34 (1.18 percent) to 3,022.30.

"The markets were impressive overall," said Joe Bell of Schaeffer's Investment Research. "European markets traded higher ahead of our open, which helped provide a bit of a boost early on."

The rally also came as the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee opened its final policy meeting of the year, with expectations that it will decide to expand bond purchase operations to replace the expiring "Operation Twist" bond swap program.

"It is widely expected that the FOMC will announce a new plan to buy long-term securities after Operation Twist ends. The main difference is that the new purchases (versus those made with 'Twist') will be unsterilized. That is, the new plan will carry the moniker of 'QE4,'" said Patrick O'Hare of Briefing.com.

The FOMC will announce its interest rate decision at 1730 GMT Wednesday.

The technology sector outperformed, leading the Nasdaq higher.

Apple, the biggest company by market valuation, gained 2.2 percent, Google added 1.7 percent and Intel jumped 2.8 percent.

Travel website TripAdvisor bounced 6.6 percent after media tycoon John Malone's Liberty Interactive paid $300 million for a controlling stake, giving a lift to other online travel companies. Expedia was up almost four percent and Orbitz Worldwide rose 3.0 percent.

But ticketing giant Priceline fell 0.4 percent.

Delta Air Lines added 5.1 percent after announcing the purchase of a 49 percent stake in Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic from Singapore Airlines for $360 million. Branson and his Virgin Atlantic will continue to hold a 51 percent controlling stake.

Insurer AIG climbed 5.7 percent to $35.26 after the US Treasury announced the successful sale of its final 234 million shares at an average of $32.50 a share.

Bond prices fell. The 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 1.65 percent from 1.62 percent late Monday, while the 30-year moved to 2.84 percent from 2.80 percent.

Bond prices and yields move inversely.

-AFP/ac

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