Algeria Hostage Crisis Over, One American Dead













After the Algerian military's final assault on terrorists holding hostages at a gas complex, the four-day hostage crisis is over, but apparently with additional loss of life among the foreign hostages.


One American, Fred Buttaccio of Texas, has been confirmed dead by the U.S. State Department. Two more U.S. hostages remain unaccounted for, with growing concern among U.S. officials that they did not survive.


But another American, Mark Cobb of Corpus Christi, Texas is now confirmed as safe. Sources close to his family say Cobb, who is a senior manager of the facility, is safe and reportedly sent a text message " I'm alive."










Inside Algerian Hostage Crisis, One American Dead Watch Video









American Hostages Escape From Algeria Terrorists Watch Video





In a statement, President Obama said, "Today, the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria. The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms. ... This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups in North Africa."


According to Algerian state media, 32 militants are dead and a total of 23 hostages perished during the four-day siege of the In Amenas facility in the Sahara. The Algerian Interior Ministry also says 107 foreign nationals who worked at the facility for BP and other firms were rescued or escaped from the al Qaeda-linked terrorists who took over the BP joint venture facility on Wednesday.


The Japanese government says it fears "very grave" news, with multiple casualties among the 10 Japanese citizens working at the In Amenas gas plant.


Five British nationals and one U.K. resident are either deceased or unaccounted for in the country, according to British Foreign Minister William Hague. Hague also said that the Algerians have reported that they are still trying to clear boobytraps from the site.




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Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes


That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts.


He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way.


As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it turned suddenly. He held out a black-and-gold bit of fabric embroidered with a screaming eagle.

“Senator Obama, I have something I want to give you,” the man said. “I’ve carried this military patch with me every day for 40 years, and I want you to carry it, and it will keep you safe in your journey.” Obama tried to refuse, but the older man persisted.

Big endeavors can find their meaning in small moments.

Later that day, Obama and his aides discussed the encounter. The future president pulled the patch from his pocket, along with about a dozen other items people had pressed upon him.

“This is why I do this,” he said. “Because people have their hopes and dreams about what we can do together.”

Two American stories intersected that morning in that elevator. The more famous, of course, is the one that begins its next chapter on Monday, as the nation’s first black president takes the oath of office for a second term.

But the other story also tells a lot about where this country has been and how far it has come.

No one in Obama’s small party that day noticed the man’s name tag or, if anyone did, the fact that it said Earl Smith was quickly forgotten.

No one knew how much of Smith’s life had been woven into a patch that, over four decades, found its way from the shoulder of an Army private to the pocket of a future commander-in-chief.

It was the only shred of cloth he had saved from the uniform of a nightmarish year in Vietnam. Smith fired artillery with a brigade that suffered 10,041 casualties during the course of the war. The brigade’s soldiers received 13 Congressional Medals of Honor.

The patch was waiting among his possessions when Smith was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1977 after spending three years in prison for a crime he claimed was self-defense.

Smith kept it close as his lucky charm while he rebuilt his life and his reputation, starting with a job vacuuming hallways and changing sheets in an Atlanta Marriott. He carried it with him as he traveled halfway around the world again, to positions in hotels far from home, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Along the way, as he tended to travelers and made sure VIP gatherings went smoothly, he met three U.S. presidents.

His instincts told him Obama would make it four.

Like just about anyone else who was alive on Nov. 22, 1963, Smith can describe exactly where he was when he heard the horrific news: He was coming off a high school football practice field in his home town of San Benito, Tex.

Though not yet old enough to have voted for the man slain in Dallas, “I was devastated — a lot of us young people were — because John Kennedy was the young president,” recalled Smith, now 68.

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Getting the law to work for you






SINGAPORE: The National Trades Union Congress and the Law Society of Singapore have launched a new initiative to educate working people on their legal rights.

The initiative called 'Law Works' will include a series of programmes that will be implemented to reach out to PMEs, working women and freelance professionals.

The year-long campaign will see the publication of a 10-part quick guide and on-site legal clinics.

At the clinics, workers will be able to consult with practising lawyers on specific legal issues.

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said this collaboration is very timely with the recent legislative changes.

These include the Retirement and Re-employment Act which was recently passed and the Employment Act which is currently being reviewed.

Chief Justice Menon said: "Amidst these changes to the labour laws, it is critical that workers be made aware of not only the existing legal position, and equally that they are apprised of such changes.

"The focus of the labour laws is firstly to safeguard the interests of workers by conferring rights upon them, and secondly to enable them to understand their obligations and responsibilities in the workplace."

- CNA/fa



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Chintan Shivir: Congress leaders pitch for Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate

JAIPUR: Amid talk that Rahul Gandhi will be given a larger responsibility, clamour for declaring the young leader as the Congress prime ministerial candidate grew louder at the party's Chintan Shivir on Saturday.

Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla, Jitin Prasada, senior leader Manishankar Aiyar batted for larger responsibility for Rahul as the party recognised the need to respond to the demands of "new changing India peopled by a more younger" generation.

Young leader Milind Deora said, "It is a consensus and feeling in the Shivir that youths should be empowered.

On the first day also, a number of leaders including Raj Babbar and Avtar Singh Badhana had demanded that Rahul should be declared Congress PM candidate before the party goes to next Lok Sabha polls.

"Rahul will lead the party during 2014 general elections and would be the prime ministerial candidate," party leader Sanjay Nirupam said before the discussions began on Day-2.

Uttar Pradesh leader Jitin Prasada said, "Things are being discussed as to how we can ensure participation of youths. Rahul is certainly our leader and he will lead 2014 general elections of Congress and the country as well."

Union minister Veeprappa Moily said, "Rahul is already a leader.We have stable leaders we are proud of them. Congress has always enjoyed great leadership. If there is any disconnect we are discussing these concerns and will ensure that there is proper connect."

About the demand for larger role to Rahul, Union minister Rajiv Shukla said, "It is to be decided by Sonia and Rahul, we can only demand and we are demanding.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development



The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")


As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.



A map of disputed islands in the East and South China Seas.

Map by National Geographic



Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")


"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")


"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.


On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.


"A Hot Place to Drill"


The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.


Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.


Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.


Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.


"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."


This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.


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Armstrong Tearful Over Telling Kids Truth













Lance Armstrong, 41, began to cry today as he described finding out his son Luke, 13, was publicly defending him from accusations that he doped during his cycling career.


Armstrong said that he knew, at that moment, that he would have to publicly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs and having oxygen-boosting blood transfusions when competing in the Tour de France. He made those admissions to Oprah Winfrey in a two-part interview airing Thursday and tonight.


"When this all really started, I saw my son defending me, and saying, 'That's not true. What you're saying about my dad? That's not true,'" Armstrong said, tearing up during the second installment of his interview tonight. "And it almost goes to this question of, 'Why now?'


"That's when I knew I had to talk," Armstrong said. "He never asked me. He never said, 'Dad, is this true?' He trusted me."


He told Winfrey that he sat down with his children over the holidays to come clean about his drug use.


"I said, 'Listen, there's been a lot of questions about your dad, about my career and whether I doped or did not dope,'" he said he told them. "'I always denied that. I've always been ruthless and defiant about that, which is why you defended me, which makes it even sicker' I said, 'I want you to know that it's true.'"


He added that his mother was "a wreck" over the scandal.


Armstrong said that the lowest point in his fall from grace and the top of the cycling world came when his cancer charity, Livestrong, asked him to consider stepping down.






George Burns/Harpo Studios, Inc.











Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: How Honest Was He? Watch Video









Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: Doping Confession Watch Video







After the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency alleged in October that Armstrong doped throughout his reign as Tour de France champion, Armstrong said, his major sponsors -- including Nike, Anheuser Busch and Trek -- called one by one to end their endorsement contracts with him.


"Everybody out," he said. "Still not the most humbling moment."


Then came the call from Livestrong, the charity he founded at age 25 when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.


"The story was getting out of control, which was my worst nightmare," he said. "I had this place in my mind that they would all leave. The one I didn't think would leave was the foundation.


"That was most humbling moment," he said.


Armstrong first stepped down as chairman of the board for the charity before being asked to end his association with the charity entirely. Livestrong is now run independently of Armstrong.


"I don't think it was 'We need you to step down,' but, 'We need you to consider stepping down for yourself,'" he said, recounting the call. "I had to think about that a lot. None of my kids, none of my friends have said, 'You're out,' and the foundation was like my sixth child. To make that decision, to step aside, that was big."


In Thursday's interview installment, the seven-time winner of the Tour de France admitted publicly for the first time that he doped throughout his career, confirming after months of angry denials the findings of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which stripped him of his titles in October.


He told Winfrey that he was taking the opportunity to confess to everything he had done wrong, including for years angrily denying claims that he had doped.


READ MORE: Armstrong Admits to Doping


WATCH: Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape


READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions






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Earl Smith is the man behind a military patch that President Obama prizes


That February morning in 2008 found Barack Obama decidedly out of sorts.


He was locked in one battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination that showed no signs of ending — and another with a vicious cold that felt the same way.


As he rode the service elevator in the backway of a convention hotel here, the snowy-haired African American operating it turned suddenly. He held out a black-and-gold bit of fabric embroidered with a screaming eagle.

“Senator Obama, I have something I want to give you,” the man said. “I’ve carried this military patch with me every day for 40 years, and I want you to carry it, and itwill keep you safe in your journey.” Obama tried to refuse, but the older man persisted.

Big endeavors can find their meaning in small moments.

Later that day, Obama and his aides discussed the encounter. The future president pulled the patch from his pocket, along with about a dozen other items people had pressed upon him.

“This is why I do this,” he said. “Because people have their hopes and dreams about what we can do together.”

Two American stories intersected that morning in that elevator. The more famous, of course, is the one that begins its next chapter on Monday, as the nation’s first black president takes the oath of office for a second term.

But the other story also tells a lot about where this country has been and how far it has come.

No one in Obama’s small party that day noticed the man’s name tag or, if anyone did, the fact that it said Earl Smith was quickly forgotten.

No one knew how much of Smith’s life had been woven into a patch that, over four decades, found its way from the shoulder of an Army private to the pocket of a future commander-in-chief.

It was the only shred of cloth he had saved from the uniform of a nightmarish year in Vietnam. Smith fired artillery with a brigade that suffered 10,041 casualties during the course of the war. The brigade’s soldiers received 13 Congressional Medals of Honor.

The patch was waiting among his possessions when Smith was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1977 after spending three years in prison for a crime he claimed was self-defense.

Smith kept it close as his lucky charm while he rebuilt his life and his reputation, starting with a job vacuuming hallways and changing sheets in an Atlanta Marriott. He carried it with him as he traveled halfway around the world again, to positions in hotels far from home, Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Along the way, as he tended to travelers and made sure VIP gatherings went smoothly, he met three U.S. presidents.

His instincts told him Obama would make it four.

Like just about anyone else who was alive on Nov. 22, 1963, Smith can describe exactly where he was when he heard the horrific news: He was coming off a high school football practice field in his home town of San Benito, Tex.

Though not yet old enough to have voted for the man slain in Dallas, “I was devastated — a lot of us young people were — because John Kennedy was the young president,” recalled Smith, now 68.

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Palestinians brace for new rightwing Israeli govt






RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinians are bracing for a new right-wing government that Israel's election is expected to produce, hoping that international and domestic moves will strengthen their position.

"There is complete ignorance and denial of the peace process and the two-state solution," warned Palestinian analyst Mahdi Abdul Hadi, director of the Passia think tank.

"Nobody is talking about the Palestinians."

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), said: "The absence of peace and the Palestinian question in the Israeli electoral discourse points to an inability to confront reality."

Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday, when they are expected to vote in a government which polls indicate could be even more right-wing than the outgoing administration.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud, which is running on a joint list with the hardline nationalist Yisrael Beitenu of Avigdor Lieberman, a settler and former foreign minister, is projected to win most seats.

And polls show the third biggest party -- and probably Netanyahu's biggest coalition partner -- will be the hardline religious nationalist Jewish Home, whose leader has pledged to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

"We're expecting a change for the worse and an increase in Israeli extremism, especially as Netanyahu is now allied with the extremists, and that doesn't bode well," Ashrawi told AFP.

The view from the Gaza Strip was equally gloomy.

"This Israeli election is a race to shed Palestinian blood, increase settlement activity and expel Palestinians," said Fawzi Barhum, a spokesman for Gaza's ruling Islamist Hamas movement.

Israel and Hamas engaged in eight days of bloody fighting in November over rocket fire on the Jewish state, which ended with the deaths of 177 Gazans and six Israelis.

Although an Egypt-brokered truce deal has largely been respected, it is only a matter of time before Israel's new government is drawn into a new confrontation with Hamas, experts say.

With the general election just days away, many believe the only answer is to strengthen the Palestinians' standing internationally and work towards overcoming the bitter rivalry between Hamas and Fatah, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

"There must be a new, strong and unified Palestinian position in the framework of a national unity programme to confront this Israeli challenge and to protect our people, our land and our holy places," Barhum said.

Implementation of a stalled reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas showed encouraging signs last month.

Passia's Abdul Hadi warned said that any progress would be in "slow motion" although integrating Hamas into the Palestinian political system "would be a clear message to Israelis: 'You cannot have your cake and eat it'."

The Palestinians hope the international community will pressure Israel to resume peace talks which have been on hold for more than two years over the issue of settlement construction.

"Palestinians... are hoping that something might come from Brussels or Washington," Abdul Hadi said.

In the meantime, with their new upgraded UN ranking as a non-member state, the Palestinians have a menu of more than 60 international organisations they could seek to join.

Speculation has centred on the possibility of them looking to join the International Criminal Court where they could challenge Israel on settlement building.

So far, the Palestinians have said they would only exercise that option as a last resort, in extreme cases such as settlement construction in the E1 area near Jerusalem which could potentially cut the West Bank in half.

A more immediate concern is a financial crisis faced by the Palestinian Authority, which has been unable to pay its employees after Israel withheld tax and tariff revenues as a punishment for the UN move.

"Maintenance -- survival of the PA, financially and politically -- both in house and in the region" will be high on the Palestinian agenda whoever comes to power in Israel on January 22, Abdul Hadi said.

- AFP/xq



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Congress is the only pan-India party: Sonia Gandhi

JAIPUR: Sonia Gandhi has said that Congress remains the most popular political party in India.

"Congress is the only pan-India party with presence in all cities and villages," Sonia Gandhi said.

The Congress president also said that the party should look at its strengths and weaknesses.

"There is increased competition and inroads have been made in our traditional strongholds," Congress chief Sonia Gandhi said.

Sonia Gandhi was addressing the Congress Party's 'Chintan Shivir' at Jaipur on Friday.

Ways to shore up the economy, women's empowerment, foreign affairs, organisational strength and the recent flash mob protests will be discussed at the Congress' strategy session at Jaipur Jan 18-20.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the party's de facto number two Rahul Gandhi will address the All India Congress Committee session on Jan 20, which will approve the Jaipur declaration.

That declaration is expected to serve as a guide to the party in the nine assembly polls to be held 2013 and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

(With inputs from IANS)

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters


Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.


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