NEWS,19.12.2012

Obama wants gun policy recommendations by JanUARY

US President Barack Obama has directed a Cabinet group to give him recommendations by next month on ways to tighten the regulation of guns in the wake of the Connecticut massacre of schoolchildren.Responding to national outrage over Friday's killing of 20 children, aged six and seven-years-old, Obama held a White House news conference to announce that Vice President Joe Biden will lead an effort to craft policies to crack down on gun violence.Obama said he believed Americans would support the reinstatement of a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips, and a law requiring background checks on buyers before all gun purchases, which would close a loophole that allows sales at open-air gun shows without such background checks.Saying gun control cannot be the only solution to the problem, Obama expressed support for making it easier for Americans to get access to mental health care "at least as easy as access to a gun," he said.Under pressure from fellow Democrats to act, Obama insisted the guns issue would not be ignored this time. Previous appeals for more gun regulation have died even as mass shootings have continued.With Biden at his side, Obama said the group would give him proposals that he could outline in his State of the Union speech in late January. Cabinet members involved include Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan."This is not some Washington commission," Obama said. "This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside."This is a team that has a very specific task to pull together real reforms right now."The Newtown, Connecticut, shooting of so many schoolchildren by a 20-year-old gunman has shocked Americans in ways that previous mass shootings have not. The gunman's mother and six adults at the school were also killed before he shot himself.Some previously adamant opponents of increased gun control have expressed a willingness to consider more regulation. Even the powerful National Rifle Association, the lobby group that has sought time and again to stymie gun legislation, said this week that it would be prepared to offer meaningful contributions to ensure there is no repeat of Newtown.Obama himself has done little to rein in America's gun culture in his four years in office. His administration has to a certain extent expanded gun rights by permitting the carrying of firearms in national parks.Asked why he has been a no-show on the subject until now, Obama defended himself, saying he has been dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."I don't think I've been on vacation," he said, adding the Newtown massacre "should be a wake-up call for all of us"."We may never know all the reasons why this tragedy happened," Obama told reporters. "We do know that every day since, more Americans have died of gun violence."If there is even one thing that we can do to prevent any of these events, we have a deep obligation, all of us, to try."We know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and political divides and, as I said on Sunday night, there's no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society."The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence and prevent the very worst violence."Obama added he would push such a proposal "without delay", citing as a model a previous ten-year ban on assault weapons military-style semi-automatics that Congress allowed to expire in 2004.Whatever steps Obama's task force comes up with are likely to face some criticism because many Republicans see the US Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms as sacrosanct."What we're looking for here is a thoughtful approach that says we can preserve our Second Amendment, we can make sure that responsible gun owners are able to carry out their activities, but that we're gonna actually be serious about the safety side of this," Obama said.Obama has tapped Biden to lead other high-profile initiatives, including efforts on a deficit-reduction compromise with congressional Republicans in 2011.US Representative Ron Barber, who was wounded in a 2011 Arizona shooting that targeted his predecessor, Gabrielle Giffords, welcomed the effort and echoed other Democratic lawmakers' calls to ban military-grade guns."We cannot go on blithely believing that we can solve this problem in other ways," Barber said at a news conference earlier at the Capitol."We have to look at the weaponry used and we have to look at the people who use it and we have to do something about both,"Friday's massacre was the fourth shooting rampage to claim multiple lives in the United States this year.

Obama vows to veto fiscal cliff plan

President Barack Obama on Wednesday warned Republicans he would veto their "Plan B" plan to avert the looming fiscal cliff crisis, saying it would dump pain disproportionately on the middle class. The move came as hopes faded for an imminent deal to avert a year-end combination of tax hikes and huge spending cuts which analysts fear could spark a new US recession and damage the fragile global economic recovery.Republican House Speaker John Boehner framed the legislation, which would raise taxes on those earning more than $1m, in case his talks with Obama on a broader plan to trim the US deficit do not bear fruit by the deadline.His gambit was the latest move in a tense game of brinkmanship between the Democratic White House and Republican House, which has deep political ramifications for the balance of power in Washington during Obama's second term.White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said the Boehner plan meant that the wealthiest Americans would still benefit while students and families would lose critical tax cuts and health and unemployment benefits they need.Pfeiffer said the plan would also "perversely" not include spending cuts that Republicans have demanded in talks with Obama."This approach does not meet the test of balance, and the president would veto the legislation in the unlikely event of its passage."If Boehner and Obama do not reach a deal before the end of the year, George W Bush-era tax cuts on all Americans will expire and taxes will go up.Obama campaigned on renewing tax cuts for people earning less than $250 000 but has since moved the threshold in negotiations with Boehner up to $400 000.Boehner spokesperson Brendan Buck called what he said was the White House's opposition to a back-up plan "bizarre and irrational”."In the absence of a 'balanced' solution from the president ... we must act to stop taxes from rising across the board in 12 days," he said.Earlier this week, hopes were rising for a deal but Boehner's decision to put a Plan B on the House floor has some observers wondering whether he can sell a deal with Obama to his own restive caucus.White House officials privately say that they believe Obama has made significant compromises in search of a deal with Boehner, including agreeing to a Republican plan to calculate the impact of inflation on the Social Security retirement plan, which could slow the growth of benefits.

Global disasters cost $140bn

Natural and man-made disasters around the world this year, including Superstorm Sandy, will cost at least $140bn (€106bn), according to a study published by Swiss insurance group Swiss Re on Wednesday.The insurance industry will cover about $65bn of all losses from such catastrophes, the study showed, ticking in above the average for the past 10 years.It nevertheless marked a significant drop from 2011, when massive earthquakes and flooding forced insurers to dish out more than $120bn to cover disaster-related losses.Natural catastrophes alone this year will lead to more than 11 000 deaths and $60bn in insured claims, Swiss Re said in a statement.But after two years when natural disasters such as the devastating Haiti earthquake and Pakistan floods were largely concentrated in Asia Pacific and South America, "2012 is dominated by large, weather-related losses in the US", it added. The "top-five insured loss events" had all happened in the US, it pointed out. They included Hurricane Sandy which wreaked havoc across the east coast of the country, as well as in the Caribbean and the Bahamas at the end of October."Estimates for the insured cost of the devastation are between $20 and $25bn," it said, though "it is still too soon to gauge the final overall damage".In addition, extremely dry weather conditions in the US had led to "one of the worst droughts in recent decades, affecting more than half of the country", the study showed. Drought-related agricultural losses there were expected to swell to $11bn, it added.

Claims from superstorm Sandy in check

The Lloyd's of London insurance market said it can cope comfortably with claims from Superstorm Sandy that could cost it up to $2.5bn, the third-biggest loss in its 324-year history.There will be no impact on the market's central fund, a cash reserve used to meet claims, if any of the insurance syndicates operating at Lloyd's finds itself unable to pay."The Lloyd's insurance market remains financially strong and, while claims from this storm could still evolve over time, the market's total exposure is well within worst-case scenarios," Chief Executive Richard Ward said on Wednesday. Sandy, which killed 132 people as it swept through the northeastern United States on October 29, is expected to cost the insurance industry up to $25bn, making it the second-costliest storm after hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the top of the Lloyd's estimated range, Sandy would displace last year's Thai floods as the market's third-biggest loss, surpassed only by Katrina and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Those disasters cost Lloyd's $4.3bn and $3bn respectively, without adjusting for inflation.Sandy came towards the end of a relatively uneventful year for natural catastrophes, in contrast with 2011, which was the industry's second-costliest year on record after Japan's Tohoku earthquake and Thailand's worst floods in half a century. Analysts say that insurers' claims bill for 2012, as a whole, will be relatively subdued and most should turn a profit for the year."My overriding view is that all Sandy will do is turn what would have been an exceptionally profitable year back into an average to slightly below average year," Espirito Santo analyst Joy Ferneyhough said. Insurers look set to absorb about $65bn in catastrophe claims this year, slightly more than half the $120bn they picked up in 2011, reinsurer Swiss Re said on Wednesday. Lloyd's, a group of about 80 competing insurance syndicates that traces its origins back to a 17th century London coffee house where merchants insured ships, has historically borne 10% of the claims from big natural disasters.Insurers and analysts have said that accurately assessing the final bill from Sandy is difficult because of the size of the affected region, which includes New York and other densely populated and industrialised areas.

NEWS,13.11.2012

Latin America's middle class now rivals poor, study finds

Rapid economic growth and more inclusive social policies in Latin America in the last decade have lifted 50 million people into the middle class, which for the first time rivals the poor in number, the World Bank has said in a new study.Rising income levels have also created a 'vulnerable' class, which at 38% makes up the largest income group.These people hover just above poverty, living on a daily income between $US4 and $US10 per person."As poverty fell and the middle class rose... the most common Latin American family is in a state of vulnerability," the World Bank, the global development lender, said in a report looking at the middle class and economic mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean . The World Bank measures the middle class as people who have economic security, facing less than a 10% chance of falling back into poverty.For the region, that translates into a daily income of $US10 to $US50 ($12 and $61) per person.Roughly 30% of the population now falls into that category, equal to the third of people still in poverty a remarkable shift in a continent that has been known for its vast income inequalities, dominated by the poor and a narrow slice of the rich.With global economic expansion, and redistributive policies in some countries, at least 40 percent of the region's population has moved to a higher economic class between 1995 and 2010.In Brazil, the region's largest nation and the world's sixth biggest economy, booming commodity-led growth and conditional cash transfers helped pull 30 million people out of poverty under left-leaning former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.Across the region, the rise of the middle class has had clear effects, helping countries like Brazil become less reliant on foreign assistance and less amenable to foreign pressure.Latin America is now the only region in the world with narrowing income inequality, the World Bank said in a report last month, though the rich-poor divide remains higher than in most developed countries.It has nudged some countries toward greater democracy, and raised hopes for businesses eager to take advantage of the growing consumer tastes for everything from the Internet to financial services.The question is whether this rapid rise can continue, especially with the global slowdown.While families have improved their situation in the last decade, children are often still bound by the incomes and education of their parents, meaning mobility between generations remains low, the World Bank said.It is unclear whether the middle class's rising expectations can by themselves create a society of more equal opportunities.Traditionally in Latin America the middle class has opted out of public services like education and health if they can afford to do so, creating a fragmented society where the poorest members are stuck with subpar social protection. Low taxation has also exacerbated the problem of low-quality services, the World Bank said."The middle classes may not automatically become the much-hoped-for catalytic agents for reforms," the Bank said.

US re-elected to UN Human Rights Council

The United States was re-elected on Monday to another three-year term on the UN Human Rights Council in the only contested election for the organisation's top human rights body.The US was competing with four countries for three open seats belonging to the Western Group on the council. Germany and Ireland were also elected by the 193-member General Assembly. Greece and Sweden lost out.US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said her country was "pleased and proud to have been re-elected to a second three-year term"."I'm proud to say that, today, the Obama administration's leadership of the Human Rights Council has delivered real results. Today's vote affirms that active US leadership in the Human Rights Council and throughout the United Nations system will continue to pay real dividends for Americans and for the rest of the world," Rice said following the voteGermany's UN Ambassador Peter Wittig also praised the vote, thanking member states for their support."It was a good sign that we had a healthy competition at least in the Western Group, we could explain and promote our human rights agenda and we believe this also should also be an example for other regional groups," Wittig said.African, Asian, Eastern European and Latin American countries put forward uncontested slates, meaning candidates were virtually certain of winning one of the 18 open seats up for grabs in this year's election on the 47-member council.Several human rights groups have criticised a number of the candidates as unqualified, including Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Venezuela.On Monday, Venezuela's UN Ambassador Jorge Valero said his country's efforts to become a member of the council had "unleashed a truly unusual campaign"."It's important to emphasise that Venezuela has committed itself to defend the sovereignty and liberty of people," Valerio said in an apparent allusion to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's comments that Venezuela would oppose any actions or aggressions against allied countries such as Syria or Cuba.The five Western nations competing for seats were all deemed qualified by the rights groups as was Estonia, which was elected from the Eastern Europe groupAlso elected on Monday were Argentina, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gabon, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Montenegro, Pakistan, South Korea, Sierra Leone and the United Arab Emirates. They begin three-year terms on 1 January 2013.Jamil Dakwar, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Programme, welcomed the US re-election to the council."Despite an imperfect human rights record, US membership on the council helped turn the tide on key issues, especially in the area of LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] rights, freedom of speech and association, and women's rights," Dakwar said in a statement. "Now that the Obama administration has won a second term, human rights at home and abroad should be a high priority." The Human Rights Council was created in March 2006 to replace the UN's widely discredited and highly politicised Human Rights Commission. But the council has also been widely criticised for failing to change many of the commission's practices, including putting much more emphasis on Israel than on any other country and electing candidates accused of serious human rights violations.Former President George W Bush's administration boycotted the council when it was established because of its repeated criticism of Israel and its refusal to cite flagrant rights abuses in Sudan and elsewhere. But in 2009, then newly elected President Barack Obama sought to join the council, saying the US wanted to help make it more effective. Rice said Obama's decision was vindicated on Monday when the US was re-elected to serve on the council with 131 votes."The United States is clearly of the view that the Human Rights Council clearly has its flaws ... including its excessive focus on Israel, but it is also a body that is increasingly proving its value and we've been proud to contribute to some of what we think are some of the finer moments of the Human Rights Council it's approach to Syria, it's approach to Sudan, it's approach he situation in Libya with the commission of inquiry."

Satellite shows N Korea missile activity

Satellite imagery indicates North Korea has been testing rocket engines, a sign it continues to develop its long-range ballistic missiles, a US academic institute said on Monday.The analysis provided to The Associated Press is based on satellite images taken as recently as late September of the Sohae site on the secretive country's northwest coast. In April, the North launched a rocket from there in a failed attempt to propel a satellite into space in defiance of a UN ban.The analysis on the website of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, which is called "38 North", said it remains unclear whether the North is preparing another rocket launch but predicted it may embark on new rocket and nuclear tests in the first half of 2013.The analysis underscores the challenges posed by the North's weapons programmes to the United States and its allies as President Barack Obama heads into his second term. Washington's most recent attempt to negotiate a freeze in the North's nuclear programme and a test moratorium in exchange for food aid collapsed with the April launch that the US regarded as a cover for testing ballistic missile technology.In 2009, North Korea tested a long-range missile and its second nuclear weapon within months of Obama taking office, and the 38 North analysis says North Korea may conduct new tests in the aftermath of presidential elections recently completed in US and due in December in South Korea. That could be viewed as a tactic to exert more pressure on the close allies as the North seeks recognition as a nuclear power.Last month, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said North Korea continues to prepare for such tests, and the North, angered by Washington's recent agreement to let Seoul possess missiles capable of hitting all of its territory, has recently claimed that the US mainland is within range of its missiles.According to South Korea's Defence Ministry, North Korean missiles are believed to have a range of up to about 6 696km, putting parts of Alaska within reach. But the North is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to hit a distant target and miniaturise a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile. The North has a spotty record in test launches, raising doubts about whether it is truly capable of a long-distance attack.The 38 North analysis concludes that since the failed launch on 13 April of the Unha-3 rocket that disintegrated shortly after takeoff, the North has conducted at least two, and possibly more, tests of large rocket motors at a test site less than a kilometre away. The tests are critical for the development of new rockets."Pyongyang's large motor tests are another clear sign that its missile programme is moving forward. Whether there will be another long-range missile test this spring remains unclear but is a distinct possibility," said Joel Wit, a former US State Department official and editor of 38 North.A 9 April satellite image shows what appear to be dozens of fuel tanks near a stand used for conducting tests of rocket engines. A 17 September image shows the tanks are no longer there, and a flame trench has been stained orange and surrounding vegetation has been burned from the exhaust of an engine. An image from 28 September indicates a further test has taken place.The analysis was written by Nick Hansen, a retired expert in imagery technology with a 43-year experience in national intelligence.He concludes the tests were likely of the first-stage engines of the Unha-3 or the new, bigger KN-08 long-range missile first viewed in a military parade in Pyongyang shortly after the April launch attempt.The capabilities of the KN-08 and whether it could pose a potential threat to the continental United States remains unclear. Some analysts have also questioned whether the half-dozen of KN-08 missiles shown at that parade were genuine or just rigged up for show.The analysis by 38 North says the 28 September images also show construction work on the upper platform of a launch tower at Sohae to enable it to accommodate even larger rockets than the Unha-3 or KN-08.

NEWS,19.03.2012.

Gunman kills three children, teacher outside school

A teacher and his two sons are among four dead after a gunman opened fire outside a school in France. The 30-year-old Jewish teacher and his 3-year-old and six-year-old sons were killed outside a Jewish school in the city of Toulouse just before school started. Another child between 8-10 years old was also killed. Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said a 17-year-old was wounded. The gunman escaped on a motorbike.” The attacker was shooting people outside the school, and then pursued children into the school, before fleeing on a heavy motorbike," Valet told reporters. The attack's being linked with two similar shootings by a motorcycle gunman in the region last week, in which three French paratroopers of Arab extraction was killed in the same area of southwest France.” I saw two people dead in front of the school, an adult and a child ... Inside, it was a vision of horror, the bodies of two small children," one father, searching for his son at the Ozar Hatorah school among crowds of distraught parents and children, told RTL radio. The soldiers, one of Caribbean and two of Muslim origin, also been killed in drive-by shootings and prosecutors opened an anti-terrorism investigation into all three attacks although it was not clear whether the motive was political or purely racist. The prosecutor confirmed that the same calibre firearm was used in the attack as in the killing of the three soldiers in two separate attacks by a man who escaped on a scooter. He could not say if it was exactly the same weapon. President Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, the Socialist opposing him in his uphill bid for re-election in May, both rushed to the scene.Sarkozy said he was struck by the similarities between the three attacks.” We don't know who this killer is and what is the exact link is to the drama that has hit the military community," Sarkozy said after arriving in Toulouse. "Everything must be done so that the killer is stopped and has to pay for his crimes.” Our schools must keep functioning, our compatriots that want to worship at synagogues, mosques and churches must be able to continue to do so. We should not give ground to terror.” Police cordoned off the school and a spokesman for the interior ministry said security was being tightened at all other Jewish schools in the country. France's 600,000-strong Jewish community is Europe's largest. There was mayhem around the small school in a leafy upscale neighbourhood of Toulouse, a booming industrial town. "All the children at this school were my children," one tearful mother told LCI television. The father looking for his son expressed disbelief: "How can they attack something as sacred as a school, attack children only 60 centimetres (two feet) tall?" he told RTL radio. As messages of condolence poured in from across Europe, representatives of France's Jewish community voiced their solidarity.” The whole Jewish community is in mourning," said Rabbi Moshe Lewin, a spokesman for France's great rabbi. "In the face of such a drama, such a horror, one cannot but go there.” Public prosecutor Valet said investigators were studying video evidence from the school shooting and the attack on Thursday in the nearby town of Montauban that killed two soldiers and left a third seriously injured. The three men, aged between 24 and 28, were shot while in uniform as they tried to withdraw money from a cash machine close to the barracks of the 17th parachute regiment. A third soldier, aged 30, was killed the previous weekend in Toulouse. Investigators said the same weapon had been used in both incidents. The shootings could thrust security back to the top of the agenda in a bitter electoral campaign that has been dominated by issues of taxation and immigration. Political analyst Stefane Rozes, head of CAP political consultancy, said the shooting was unlikely to have a decisive impact on France's election campaign as all candidates were strongly condemning the violence.