Time's Up: Sides Closing In on 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal

Congressional and White House negotiators are closing in on a deal to avert across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts that take effect at midnight, as the nation teeters on the edge of the so-called fiscal cliff.

An emerging tentative agreement would extend current tax rates for households making $450,000 or less; extend the estate tax at its current level of 35 percent for estates larger than $5 million; and prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers, sources said.

The deal would also extend unemployment benefits set to expire Tuesday and avert a steep cut to Medicare payments for doctors.

Both sides also seem willing to delay by three months automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs, the sources said, setting the stage for continued fiscal debate in the next few months tied to the debt ceiling.

Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are leading the negotiations, sources said, holding several "good" conversations late into Sunday night and continuing a dialogue early this morning.

They are trying to broker an elusive compromise on taxes and spending that can win the support of bipartisan majorities in the Senate and House.

Even if a deal is reached between Biden and McConnell, members in both chambers would still need to review it and vote on it later today. Passage is far from guaranteed.

"This is one Democrat that doesn't agree with that at all," Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of the tentative deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, and this looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up."

Failure of Congress to act on a tax measure by Tuesday morning would trigger income tax hikes on all Americans. The average family would pay an extra $3,446 in 2013 under the higher rates, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Regardless of the "cliff," virtually all workers are due to see less in their paychecks starting in January when the temporary 2 percent payroll tax cut will expire.

More than $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs will also begin to take effect later this week unless Congress delays or replaces them.

"It is absolutely inexcusable that all of us find ourselves in this place at this time," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday night on the Senate floor.

"Something has gone terribly wrong when the biggest threat to our American economy is our American Congress," he said, echoing a frustration shared by many Americans.

Republican and Democratic Senate leaders wrangled all weekend over the outlines of a deal, but those talks eventually hit a brick wall on GOP insistence that Social Security savings be included in a deal.

"I want everyone to know I'm willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner," McConnell said Sunday, noting that he had directly reached out to Biden to break the impasse.

As part of any deficit reduction deal, the White House wants to raise income tax rates on people making more than $250,000 a year, a threshold on which President Obama campaigned for re-election.

Republicans, caving on outright opposition to any tax increases, want a higher income threshold for the tax hike of around $450,000, sources said. They also want to prevent the estate tax from rising above its current 35 percent rate on estates of $5.1 million or more.

"There is still significant distance between the two sides, but negotiations continue," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Sunday evening. "There is still time to reach an agreement, and we intend to continue negotiations."

Both sides say the cost of failure is high.

"If we are not able to reach an agreement, it will be dire," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "Probably at least another million jobs lost, an unemployment rate over 9 percent, and putting us back into recession."

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Body of India rape victim cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The body of a woman, whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India, arrived back in New Delhi on Sunday and was cremated at a private ceremony.

Scuffles broke out in central Delhi between police and protesters who say the government is doing too little to protect women. But the 2,000-strong rally was confined to a single area, unlike last week when protests raged up throughout the capital.

Riot police manned barricades along streets leading to India Gate war memorial - a focal point for demonstrators - and, at another gathering point - the centuries-old Jantar Mantar - protesters held banners reading "We want justice!" and "Capital punishment".

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

The unidentified 23-year-old victim of the December 16 gang rape died of her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

The medical student had suffered brain injuries and massive internal injuries in the attack and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, police figures show. Reported rape cases rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to government data.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death and face the death penalty if convicted.

In Kolkata, one of India's four biggest cities, police said a man reported that his mother had been gang-raped and killed by a group of six men in a small town near the city on Saturday.

She was killed on her way home with her husband, a senior official said, and the attackers had thrown acid at the husband, raped and killed her, and dumped her body in a roadside pond.

Police declined to give any further details. One officer told Reuters no criminal investigation had yet been launched.

"MISOGYNY"

The leader of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, was seen arriving at the airport when the plane carrying the woman's body from Singapore landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh's convoy was also there.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body from the airport to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Her body was then taken to a crematorium and cremated. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman's family, New Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off guard. It took a week for the prime minister to make a statement, infuriating many protesters. Last weekend they fought pitched battles with police.

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure", by some Indian media could change that, though it is too early to say whether the protesters can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon added his voice to those demanding change, calling for "further steps and reforms to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice".

Commentators and sociologists say the incident earlier this month has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

Newspapers raised doubts about the commitment of both male politicians and the police to protecting women.

"Would the Indian political system and class have been so indifferent to the problem of sexual violence if half or even one-third of all legislators were women?" the Hindu newspaper asked.

The Indian Express said it was more complicated than realizing that the police force was understaffed and underpaid.

"It is geared towards dominating citizens rather than working for them, not to mention being open to influential interests," the newspaper said. "It reflects the misogyny around us, rather than actively fighting for the rights of citizens who happen to be female."

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Diksha Madhokin New Delhi and Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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E. Timor bids farewell to peacekeepers after 13 years

DILI: The UN ends its peacekeeping mission in East Timor Monday after 13 years of boots on the ground in Asia's youngest nation following a bloody transition to independence.

The mission, which saw the presence of some 1,500 UN troops and police, will take down its flag and send home the last of its peacekeepers, including five Portuguese officers, while a "liquidation team" of 79 will remain to tie up loose ends.

The mission began withdrawing troops in earnest in October when national police resumed responsibility for security, following the peaceful election of a new president and parliament.

"The Timorese people and its leaders have shown courage and unswerving resolve to overcome great challenges," United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) chief Finn Reske-Nielsen said in a statement.

"Although there remains much work ahead, this is an historic moment in recognising the progress already made."

Reske-Nielsen said the withdrawal did not mark an end to the partnership between the UN and the country, officially called Timor-Leste, as "challenges still remain".

"As peacekeepers depart, we look forward to a new phase in this relationship focusing on social and economic development."

Observers say there is little indication that there will be renewed violence in the short term, but public institutions, including the police force and judiciary, remain weak.

There are also concerns that rampant poverty, high unemployment rates among the youth and a fast-growing population could lead to future unrest.

Government critics have highlighted the economy's heavy reliance on significant but depleting offshore oil and gas reserves that they say benefit urban Timorese more than the regional poor.

The UN played a key role in the birth of East Timor, organising the 1999 vote that ended Indonesia's 24-year occupation, in which around 183,000 people -- then a quarter of the population -- died from fighting, starvation or disease.

It oversaw East Timor until 2002, when an independent government took over.

UN peacekeepers streamed in again in 2006, when a mass desertion among the armed forces prompted fighting between military factions and police, and street violence left at least 37 people dead and tens of thousands displaced.

The only major violence since was a failed assassination attempt on then-President Jose Ramos-Horta in 2008.

- AFP/jc

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GMR fallout? Visa now must for Maldivian medical tourists

NEW DELHI: India has tightened visas for Maldives in what is being seen as retaliation for the GMR fiasco in that country. New Delhi has stopped Maldivians from using their visa-free travel facilities to India for other activities like medical treatment, restricting it only to tourism.

India revised its earlier "liberal" interpretation of the 1979 bilateral visa agreement with Maldives this month which allowed thousands of Maldivians to use a 90-day visa-on-arrival facility — meant only for tourism — to travel for treatment in Indian hospitals. The Indian government indulged in Maldivians' liberal use of the facility. But that will no longer be allowed, said sources. Now, Maldivians will need valid medical visas for treatment in Indian hospitals or face deportation, New Delhi has warned.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid suggested that a lack of reciprocity by Male had forced India to cut down on its largesse in doling out visas. "We know that people from the Maldives come here for treatment but as far as visas are concerned, we will go strictly by the rules," said Khurshid. While India allowed Maldivians to seek treatment on tourist visas — as it never questioned the purpose of their visit —authorities in Male have admitted that there always was a "mutual understanding" that such travelers required medical visa.

Indications are that Maldives is already facing the heat. Calling for its nationals not to depend on any one country for treatment, Male has now approached Sri Lanka saying it wants to extend its healthcare scheme to some of the hospitals in Colombo. Now, Maldivians are queuing up outside the Indian High Commission to seek medical visas which are limited in number. The Maldivian home minister said they would approach Thailand for help in medical treatment for its citizens.

According to the Indian government, Maldives' interpretation of the visa agreement was always different and that until now it was more difficult for Indians to get into Maldives than the other way round. The fact that India workers' passports are confiscated by their employers is something India has repeatedly taken up with authorities in Male but to no avail.

According to India, Maldives detains and deports about 50 Indian nationals every year. Maldivian home minister Mohammed Jameel Ahmed denied the charge, saying that only four have been deported this year. But the Indian High Commission contradicted him on Saturday. "Regarding the deportation of Indian travelers from Male International Airport, the High Commission of India stands by its figures," said the High Commission in a statement. Unlike Maldives, India has also been giving tourist visas free of cost. After tightening visa regulations, India has put forward a list of demands to Maldives in which it has also sought quick release of 14 Indians detained in the Indian Ocean nation.

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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.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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President Suggests Small 'Cliff' Deal Likely

Dec 30, 2012 11:26am

With less than two days remaining for Congress to reach a budget agreement that would avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” President Obama today suggested that a small deal remains the best hope to avoid the perilous package of spending cuts and tax increases.

In an interview aired this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the president said if Republicans agreed to raising taxes on top income earners it should be enough to avoid the triggers that would execute the $607 billion measure. Economists agree that going over the cliff would likely put the country back in recession.

“If we have raised some revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to turn off what’s called the sequester, these automatic spending cuts, and that also would have a better outcome for our economy long-term,” he said.

Saying the “pressure is on Congress to produce,” the president did not specify what income level his party would deem acceptable as the cutoff for those who would see their tax rates remain at current levels. The president has called for expiration of the “Bush-era” tax cuts to affect household earnings over $250,000 since the campaign, but has reportedly floated a $400,000 figure in past negotiations. Speaker John Boehner once offered a $1 million cut-off in his failed “Plan B” proposal, which failed to garner enough support among the House Republicans.

“It’s been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader McConnell  to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit as part of an overall deficit reduction package,” the president said.

Domestic programs would lose $55 billion in funding should sequestration pass, including $2 billion to Medicare and unemployment benefits. The Pentagon would take a $55 billion loss as well, or 9 percent of their budget.

Repeating remarks he made Friday after a meeting with congressional leaders, Obama said that should negotiations fail he has asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to introduce a stripped- down proposal to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote – if it isn’t blocked.

“If all else fails, if Republicans do in fact decide to block so that taxes on the middle class do in fact go up on January 1, then we’ll come back with a new Congress on January 4, and the first bill that will be introduced on the floor will be to cut taxes on middle-class families,” he said of the worst case scenario. “I don’t think the average person is going to say, ‘Gosh, you know, that’s a really partisan agenda.’”

The interview was taped Saturday while Reid and his GOP counterpart Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky scrambled to their offices for a solution behind closed doors. Press staking out Capitol Hill reported little public activity from the leaders or their surrogates. If negotiations are successful, the lawmakers could introduce a bill for vote this afternoon.

But talk of a comprehensive budget deal is gone and would likely set up a series of smaller partisan roadblocks in the weeks and months to come. For example, if any hypothetical legislation managed to dodge tax increases for the middle class it would still not address the looming debt ceiling, which Treasury can avoid using accounting tricks for approximately two months.

A small deal may also not address the estate tax, another central point of the brinkmanship. Currently standing at 35 percent, Republicans want to leave that rate as-is after exempting the first $5 million in estate value. Meanwhile Democrats have called for a 45 percent tax after a $3.5 million exemption. Should negotiations fail, it would climb to 55 percent after a $1 million exemption after the New Year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Syria opposition leader rejects Moscow invitation

ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's opposition leader has rejected an invitation from Russia for peace talks, dealing another blow to international hopes that diplomacy can be resurrected to end a 21-month civil war.

Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old National Coalition opposition group has been recognized by most Western and Arab states as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.

But in an interview on Al Jazeera television, Alkhatib said he had already ruled out such a trip and wanted an apology from Moscow for its support for Assad.

"We have clearly said we will not go to Moscow. We could meet in an Arab country if there was a clear agenda," he said.

"Now we also want an apology from (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov because all this time he said that the people will decide their destiny, without foreign intervention. Russia is intervening and meanwhile all these massacres of the Syrian people have happened, treated as if they were a picnic."

"If we don't represent the Syrian people, why do they invite us?" Alkhatib said. "And if we do represent the Syrian people why doesn't Russia respond and issue a clear condemnation of the barbarity of the regime and make a clear call for Assad to step down? This is the basic condition for any negotiations."

With the rebels advancing steadily over the second half of 2012, diplomats have been searching for months for signs that Moscow's willingness to protect Assad is faltering.

So far Russia has stuck to its position that rebels must negotiate with Assad's government, which has ruled since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.

"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," Lavrov said on Friday.

That was immediately dismissed by the opposition: "The coalition is ready for political talks with anyone ... but it will not negotiate with the Assad regime," spokesman Walid al-Bunni told Reuters. "Everything can happen after the Assad regime and all its foundations have gone. After that we can sit down with all Syrians to set out the future."

BRAHIMI TO MOSCOW

Russia says it is behind the efforts of U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, fresh from a five-day trip to Damascus where he met Assad. Brahimi, due in Moscow for talks on Saturday, is touting a months-old peace plan for a transitional government.

That U.N. plan was long seen as a dead letter, foundering from the outset over the question of whether the transitional body would include Assad or his allies. Brahimi's predecessor, Kofi Annan, quit in frustration shortly after negotiating it.

But with rebels having seized control of large sections of the country in recent months, Russia and the United States have been working with Brahimi to resurrect the plan as the only internationally recognized diplomatic negotiating track.

Russia's Middle East envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who announced the invitation to Alkhatib, said further talks were scheduled between the "three B's" - himself, Brahimi and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.

Speaking in Damascus on Thursday, Brahimi called for a transitional government with "all the powers of the state", a phrase interpreted by the opposition as potentially signaling tolerance of Assad remaining in some ceremonial role.

But such a plan is anathema to the surging rebels, who now believe they can drive Assad out with a military victory, despite long being outgunned by his forces.

"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in Aleppo province, told reporters at his headquarters there.

Oqaidi said the rebels want Assad and his allies tried in Syria for crimes. Assad himself says he will stay on and fight to the death if necessary.

In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up cartoons showing Brahimi speaking to a news conference with toilet bowls in front of him, in place of microphones. Banners denounced the U.N. envoy with obscenities in English.

DIPLOMATS IMPOTENT

Diplomacy has largely been irrelevant to the conflict so far, with Western states ruling out military intervention like the NATO bombing that helped topple Libya's Muammar Gaddafi last year, and Russia and China blocking U.N. action against Assad.

Meanwhile, the fighting has grown fiercer and more sectarian, with rebels mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority battling Assad's government and allied militia dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Still, Western diplomats have repeatedly touted signs of a change in policy from Russia, which they hope could prove decisive, much as Moscow's withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall a decade ago.

Bogdanov said earlier this month that Assad's forces were losing ground and rebels might win the war, but Russia has since rowed back, with Lavrov last week reiterating Moscow's position that neither side could win through force.

Still, some Moscow-based analysts see the Kremlin coming to accept it must adapt to the possibility of rebel victory.

"As the situation changes on the battlefield, more incentives emerge for seeking a way to stop the military action and move to a phase of political regulation," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Meanwhile, on the ground the bloodshed that has killed some 44,000 people continues unabated. According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, 150 people were killed on Thursday, a typical toll as fighting has escalated in recent months.

Government war planes bombarded the town of Assal al-Ward in the Qalamoun district of Damascus province for the first time, killing one person and wounding dozens, the observatory said.

In Aleppo, Syria's northern commercial hub, clashes took place between rebel fighters and army forces around an air force intelligence building in the Zahra quarter, a neighborhood that has been surrounded by rebels for weeks.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Dominic Evans in Beirut and Steve Gutterman and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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'Cliff' pessimism delivers US stocks another loss

NEW YORK: US stocks sank for a fifth straight day Friday, showing more doubts that politicians will be able to agree a deal to fix the fiscal cliff with only days before the year-end deadline.

Shares were cautiously lower for most of the day after President Barack Obama returned from his vacation early to try to broker a deal with Democrat and Republican congressional leaders in the White House.

But without any positive signs late in the day and the weekend looming, traders gave up and sold off at a stronger pace in the last half hour.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished off 158.20 points (1.21 percent) at 12,938.11.

The broad-market S&P 500 lost 15.67 (1.10 percent) to 1,402.43, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite shed 25.60 points (0.86 percent) to 2,960.31.

"In the end, fiscal-cliff concerns dominated. No deal meant more worry, and we sold off," said Ryan Detrick of Schaeffer's Investment Research.

All 30 Dow blue chips were in the red, led by Hewlett-Packard (-2.6 percent), which was pushed lower after the SEC said it was looking into its subsidiary Autonomy.

In November, HP accused Autonomy of fraudulent accounting that was uncovered only after its $10 billion purchase of the British software firm in 2011.

Also on the Dow, Exxon lost 2.0 percent and Chevron 1.9 percent.

A rare gainer for the day was embattled bookseller Barnes & Noble, which although reporting that its Nook e-reader had disappointing Christmas sales, got a 4.3 percent boost on the announcement that British publisher Pearson would take a five percent stake in its Nook unit for $89.5 million.

Herbalife, under attack for weeks from short-selling hedge funds, bounced back with a 3.9 percent gain.

Facebook, which opened more than 2.5 percent lower on a report by audience tracker AppData.com that some 3.5 million people had stopped using its photo-sharing app Instagram daily over the past week, regained ground to finish with a loss of just 0.5 percent.

Facebook acquired Instagram earlier this year. The original price was pegged at $1 billion but the final value was less because of a decline in the social network's share price.

Bond prices rose. The 10-year US Treasury yield slipped to 1.71 from 1.72 percent late Thursday, while the 30-year edged lower to 2.88 percent from 2.89 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.

-AFP/ac

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Women suffer big in India's state vs rebels war

NEW DELHI:
* Soni Sori, a tribal teacher in a government school in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, was arrested in October last year on charges of being a courier between the Maoists and Essar Group which has mining interests in the region. She alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by the Chhattisgarh police and a Kolkata hospital that examined her had found stones in her private parts and rectum.

* In November this year, Chhattisgarh police and CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) rescued two minor tribal girls who were allegedly gang-raped by Maoists in Bijapur, Bastar district.

* In July 2004, the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama Devi in Imphal by Assam Rifles personnel had rocked the nation with several women's groups in Manipur coming out naked in the streets to protest. A few days back, Imphal witnessed mob violence over government's inaction on molestation of an actress by an NSCN (IM) cadre.

* On the night of February 23 and 24, 1991, personnel of the 4 Rajputana Rifles had raped about 30 women in Kunan Poshpora village in the border district of Kupwara in north Kashmir.

*A young girl in Jharkhand's insurgency-hit Khunti district had to flee a separatist camp after she was forced to sleep with five Naxalites every night, according to Baidyanath Kumar of the NGO Diya Seva Sansthan that had rescued her.

Even as the Delhi bus gang-rape case simmers, women in India's insurgency-hit areas —Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand or the North East — continue to be exploited sexually both by separatists and the security forces. Often, women endure sexual abuse in return for life of their families. Women in villages of border districts of Rajouri or Poonch in Jammu and Kupwara and Uri in Kashmir are known to submit to sexual exploitation by militants from across the border, besides giving them food and shelter, in return for the safety of their families. In fact, sources reveal that soldier husbands inform their wives in advance of their arrival on holidays so that the terrorists can move out of their homes in time.

In Naxalite-hit areas, many women end up being recruited in the cadres, where they are exploited sexually. Says Baidyanath Kumar, "The Naxals induct women by force for dual purpose. They serve as sex slaves and cook for them too." Shambhu Kumar, Ranchi ASP (Operations), adds, "99% of women Naxals, whether arrested or those who have surrendered complain of sexual harassment in the camps." Often, women are left with no choice — they either give into the state-sponsored vigilantes, Salwa Judum, or tag along with Maoist cadres.

Most often, cases of sexual crimes go unreported either due to remoteness of the location or victims choosing to stay silent out of fear or social stigma attached to such exploitation. Babloo Loitongbam, director of Imphal-based Human Rights' Alert, says, "In a conflict zone, targeting women's honour becomes a contest between the warring parties. And the reported cases of rape by army or the para-military forces in Manipur are just the tip of the iceberg. We have documented over 20 rape cases in the last few years but most go unreported." Even if the victim reports the crime, most of these cases remain unsolved and justice remains elusive.

Anjuman Ara Begum, a Guwahati-based law researcher, says that sexual crimes in armed conflicts are always treated with a 'forget and forgive' policy. "Security forces enjoy immunity as prior sanctions are required for initiating legal cases against them under Afspa (Armed Forces Special (Powers Act), 1958) and CrPC." Many states in the North East are under the Afspa.

— Reporting by Joseph John in Raipur, Oinam Sunil in Guwahati, M Saleem Pandit in Srinagar and Alok K N Mishra in Ranchi.

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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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