A group of senior retired generals and admirals are calling for Congress to amend a recent law that they say “dangerously interferes” with the ability of commanders to battle the epidemic of suicides among members of the military.
Legislation added to the 2011 defense authorization bill at the urging of gun-rights advocates prohibits commanders from collecting any information about weapons privately owned by troops.
SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met former US National Security Advisor General Brent Scowcroft at the Istana on Monday morning.
Mr Scowcroft is also President of the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm.
PM Lee and General Scowcroft exchanged views on a wide range of issues, including developments in the US as well as international and regional developments, according to Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While in Singapore, General Scowcroft will also meet Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law Mr K Shanmugam and former Minister Mentor Mr Lee Kuan Yew.
- CNA/jc
ANI Dec 1, 2012, 03.28PM IST
NEW DELHI: India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today said retail reform is a step taken by the Congress led-federal government to safeguard the interests of the international market mafias at the cost of national interest.
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Saturday that voting inside the parliament would decide as to who is in favour of national interest and who is working for international interests.
"The government feels that their responsibility is to safeguard the interest of international market mafias instead of national interest and for saving the interest of international market mafias, the government is ready to compromise with national interests. Now, the parliament will decide as to who is in support of international market mafias and who are supporting national interests," said Naqvi.
The government's decision to allow foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart had triggered protest not only from opposition parties but also from some of its allies.
BJP had sought debate on the issue of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector, under the rule that entails voting after discussions.
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), V Narayanaswamy said the government would answer all the queries raised by the opposition parties in the parliament and will explain the benefits of allowing FDI in retail sector.
The lower house of parliament has set December 04 and 05 as the date to vote and debate on FDI. The dates for the upper house are yet to be decided.
Narayanaswamy said the government is confident of becoming victorious in the debate.
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.
Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.
The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.
The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
“Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot
Published November 30, 2012
President Obama and his White House team appear to have drawn a line in the sand in talks with House Republicans on the "fiscal cliff."
Tax rates on the wealthy are going up, the only question is how much?
"Those rates are going to have to go up," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner flatly stated on ABC's "This Week." "There's no responsible way we can govern this country at a time of enormous threat, and risk, and challenge ... with those low rates in place for future generations."
But the president's plan, which Geithner delivered last week, has left the two sides far apart.
In recounting his response today on "Fox News Sunday," House Speaker John Boehner said: "I was flabbergasted. I looked at him and said, 'You can't be serious.'
"The president's idea of negotiation is: Roll over and do what I ask," Boehner added.
The president has never asked for so much additional tax revenue. He wants another $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years, including returning the tax rate on income above $250,000 a year to 39.6 percent.
TOBY JORRIN/AFP/Getty Images
Boehner is offering half that, $800 billion.
In exchange, the president suggests $600 billion in cuts to Medicare and other programs. House Republicans say that is not enough, but they have not publicly listed what they would cut.
Geithner said the ball is now in the Republicans' court, and the White House is seemingly content to sit and wait for Republicans to come around.
"They have to come to us and tell us what they think they need. What we can't do is to keep guessing," he said.
The president is also calling for more stimulus spending totaling $200 billion for unemployment benefits, training, and infrastructure projects.
"All of this stimulus spending would literally be more than the spending cuts that he was willing to put on the table," Boehner said.
Boehner also voiced some derision over the president's proposal to strip Congress of power over the country's debt level, and whether it should be raised.
"Congress is not going to give up this power," he said. "It's the only way to leverage the political process to produce more change than what it would if left alone."
The so-called fiscal cliff, a mixture of automatic tax increases and spending cuts, is triggered on Jan. 1 if Congress and the White House do not come up with a deficit-cutting deal first.
The tax increases would cost the average family between $2,000 and $2,400 a year, which, coupled with the $500 billion in spending cuts, will most likely put the country back into recession, economists say.
The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.
The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.
NEW YORK: It looks like a tough sell for the online daily deals sector.
After much excitement last year and a hyped public offering from Groupon, the main players are now focusing on saving money themselves as consumers show deal fatigue.
Sector leader Groupon, which went public a year ago with an offering at $20 a share, has seen its stock slide some 80 per cent. This week, chief executive Andrew Mason kept his job despite swirling rumors that he was to be ousted.
Rival LivingSocial said meanwhile it was cutting 400 jobs, or nearly 10 per cent of its staff, in a retrenchment which follows big losses for the company.
Lou Kerner of The Social Internet Fund said these firms are in trouble because of a "bubble" which inflated their value based on unrealistic expectations.
"Shoppers are very excited about the coupons at first, but over time they get fatigued and usage drops off. The business model needs to evolve," Kerner said.
The firms aim to make money by selling members deals for discounts on activities, items or services and then splitting the money with the businesses involved.
Both firms have been seeking to diversify, but have been struggling to become profitable.
"People dramatically overestimated the value of their email lists," Kerner told AFP.
"They have a lot of emails, which is valuable, and people like deals... But they need to get better deals that work better for merchants, that are more attractive to the buyers."
LivingSocial spokesman Andrew Weinstein said in an email that the Washington-based firm is seeking to realign costs "after two years of hyper-growth" in a move to "help us set the company on a path for long-term growth and profitability."
LivingSocial remains privately held, but Amazon, which owns a stake in the firm, has been forced to take a write-down of $169 million recently on that investment under accounting rules requiring a charge against earnings to reflect the lower estimated value of the company.
Groupon in November reported a loss of $3 million in results that came up shy of most analyst forecasts for a small profit, creating more pressure for the Chicago-based firm.
Groupon remains plagued by concerns about its accounting methods, as well as its strategy as it moves into direct retail sales.
Living Social claims to have 70 million members worldwide, and Groupon more than 200 million. But analysts say those numbers don't necessarily lead to profits.
"The type of customer attracted to these deals is often not the type of customer that the retailers want," said technology analyst and consultant Rob Enderle.
"In addition there is a ton of competition, making it very likely that several of these firms will fail."
The two firms are facing competition from small and large players: Google, for one, has a similar service called Google Offers, and recently snapped up the marketing firm Incentive Targeting to give it more tools.
Facebook began an effort in the sector but ended it last year after just four months.
Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research remains cautious on the deals sector.
Chowdhry said the deals firms have "a nice concept, a noble concept, but without any strong business model behind it."
"If you have some other business then it's fine," Chowdhry said. "You can drive traffic or business to something else. If you don't have something else, you're losing money."
- AFP/ck
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Saturday that voting inside the parliament would decide as to who is in favour of national interest and who is working for international interests.
"The government feels that their responsibility is to safeguard the interest of international market mafias instead of national interest and for saving the interest of international market mafias, the government is ready to compromise with national interests. Now, the parliament will decide as to who is in support of international market mafias and who are supporting national interests," said Naqvi.
The government's decision to allow foreign supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart had triggered protest not only from opposition parties but also from some of its allies.
BJP had sought debate on the issue of allowing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector, under the rule that entails voting after discussions.
Meanwhile, Minister in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), V Narayanaswamy said the government would answer all the queries raised by the opposition parties in the parliament and will explain the benefits of allowing FDI in retail sector.
The lower house of parliament has set December 04 and 05 as the date to vote and debate on FDI. The dates for the upper house are yet to be decided.
Narayanaswamy said the government is confident of becoming victorious in the debate.
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.
Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.
The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.
The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
“Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.
Published November 30, 2012
Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot
Published November 30, 2012
(Brendan Smialkowski/AFP/Getty Images)
Bradley Manning’s former guards testified today that they did not intimidate the man accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrets website Wikileaks during a Jan. 18, 2011 incident that resulted in Manning being placed on a temporary suicide risk watch.
Manning’s attorneys cite the event as a key reason why his pre-trial confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., was unlawful and warrants the dismissal of the charges against him.
Manning faces life imprisonment on charges that he leaked the classified military and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks. Details of those charges will come at a trial scheduled for February and are not being discussed at this week’s hearing, which is focused on his nine-month confinement at Quantico from July 2010 to April 2011.
On Jan. 18, 2011 Manning was being moved to his daily “recreation call” in a room at the brig when he experienced an apparent anxiety attack. Manning said Thursday the guards escorting him seemed to have an aggressive attitude that made him feel nervous and ultimately feel faint.
Manning testified Thursday that he “lost my demeanor” during a later discussion with brig officials about the incident that led them to place him on temporary suicide risk watch.
Former Marine guards Lance Corporal Joshua Tankersly and Lance Corporal Jonathan Cline testified today that Manning had been moving around while his hand and leg restraints were placed on him for the escort to the exercise room. They said they reminded Manning that he should respond properly to their orders by referring to their ranks when he answered them.
When Manning entered the recreation room they described a situation in which Manning fell backwards and landed on his backside.
They then said that when out of his leg restraints Manning ran to a weightlifting machine, hid behind it and began to cry. Both Cline and Tankersly said they could not explain Manning’s behavior. Both guards were ordered to leave the room and were replaced by two other guards who escorted Manning back to his cell.
Cline said he was puzzled when a supervisor later told him “we intimidated him or something like that.”
Each guard said he could not recall if they sounded harsh when they talked to Manning on the way to the exercise room.
They both said that aside from the January incident, Manning was courteous and professional in his interactions with them. Both described him as an average prisoner, though Tankersly acknowledged that Manning was a high profile detainee who had the attention of high-ranking officials at the base.
“It’s hard to put ‘average’ on such a high profile, when you have higher ups on base come and check through to that see all was OK,” Tankersly said.
Gunnery Sgt. William Fuller, one of the senior officers at the brig, also testified today about his participation in a Classification and Assessment board that routinely assessed whether Manning’s Maximum Custody and Prevention of Injury status should be downgraded. The board never reduced Manning’s status during his stay.
Fuller acknowledged that before the January incident he and another brig official had considered a downgrade because Manning was “doing pretty good.”
He said the Jan. 18incident “kind of reset things … we had to keep him on Prevention of Injury.”
Fuller also cited Manning’s quiet interactions with him as a reason for keeping Manning on that status.
According to Fuller “he wouldn’t communicate … it seemed like he didn’t really want to talk” and that concerned him, given training he had received that being withdrawn could be an indicator of suicidal behavior.
Fuller admitted that the conversations were really just quick interactions to see how Manning was doing.. When asked to provide examples of longer exchanges he had with other prisoners, Fuller provided brief sentences. That led David Coombs, Manning’s defense attorney to say sarcastically, “so if he’d thrown in more words then he would have classified as a Chatty Patty?”
Manning’s attorneys claim that a protest on Jan. 17 by Manning supporters, at the entrance to the base, may have motivated an aggressive attitude towards the detainee.
Cline recalled other guards “were annoyed” by the protest” because it would close parts of the base and hinder or interrupt how they got home.” But Tankersly said the protest had no impact on Manning’s treatment.
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