Afghanistan: Blast kills 7 civilians in east

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An explosion killed seven Afghan villagers Sunday as they tried to pull bodies of insurgents killed from the rubble of a village mosque after a night raid by NATO and Afghan troops in the country's east, officials said. Four insurgents and an Afghan soldier were also reported to have been killed.
The predawn operation in Sayedabad district was aimed at capturing a Taliban fighter who had holed up in a village, said Wardak province spokesman Shahidullah Shahid . The international and Afghan forces captured their target but came under attack from insurgents, sparking a two-hour gunfight during which at least one large blast sounded, he said. Four insurgents were dead by the time fighting ended around 4:30 a.m.
Then at about 6 a.m. local time, residents came out to find the local mosque partly destroyed and started digging through the rubble to uncover bodies. Shahid says something exploded as they dug, killing seven civilians. He says the insurgents were wearing suicide vests, but it was not immediately clear if that caused the explosion.
A spokesman for international forces in Afghanistan confirmed that four insurgents were killed but did not have any immediate reports of civilian deaths.
"I am aware of reports that indicate there may have been civilians killed and ISAF and Afghan officials are assessing the situation to determine the facts," said Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the international military coalition in Afghanistan.
He said that there was no airstrike as part of the operation, but that the NATO and Afghan troops did discover a large cache of weapons, which they destroyed there on the site, causing a large explosion.
The NATO force said in a statement that an Afghan soldier was also killed in the operation.

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6 arrested in new rape of a bus passenger in India

NEW DELHI (AP) — Police said Sunday they have arrested six suspects in another gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws.
Police officer Raj Jeet Singh said a 29-year-old woman was the only passenger on a bus as she was traveling to her village in northern Punjab state on Friday night. The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated pleas and drove her to a desolate location, he said.
There, the driver and the conductor took her to a building where they were joined by five friends and took turns raping her throughout the night, Singh said.
The driver dropped the woman off at her village early Saturday, he said.
Singh said police arrested six suspects on Saturday and were searching for another.
Gurmej Singh, deputy superintendent of police, said all six admitted involvement in the rape. He said the victim was recovering at home.
Also on Saturday, police arrested a 32-year-old man for allegedly raping and killing a 9-year-old girl two weeks ago in Ahmednagar district in western India, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Her decomposed body was found Friday.
Police officer Sunita Thakare said the suspect committed the crime seven months after his release from prison after serving nine years for raping and murdering a girl in 2003, PTI reported Sunday.
The deadly rape of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus in December led to the woman's death and set off an impassioned debate about what India needs to do to prevent such tragedies. Protesters and politicians have called for tougher rape laws, police reforms and a transformation in the way the country treats women.
"It's a very deep malaise. This aspect of gender justice hasn't been dealt with in our nation-building task," Seema Mustafa, a writer on social issues who heads the Center for Policy Analysis think tank, said Sunday.
"Police haven't dealt with the issue severely in the past. The message that goes out is that the punishment doesn't match the crime. Criminals think they can get away it," she said.
In her first published comments, the mother of the deceased student in the New Delhi attack said Sunday that all six suspects in that case, including one believed to be a juvenile, deserve to die.
She was quoted by The Times of India newspaper as saying that her daughter, who died from massive internal injuries two weeks after the attack, told her that the youngest suspect had participated in the most brutal aspects of the rape.
Five men have been charged with the physiotherapy student's rape and murder and face a possible death penalty if convicted. The sixth suspect, who says he is 17 years old, is likely to be tried in a juvenile court if medical tests confirm he is a minor. His maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.
"Now the only thing that will satisfy us is to see them punished. For what they did to her, they deserve to die," the newspaper quoted the mother as saying.
Some activists have demanded a change in Indian laws so that juveniles committing heinous crimes can face the death penalty.
The names of the victim of the Dec. 16 attack and her family have not been released.

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Roadside bomb kills 14 Pakistani soldiers

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — A roadside bomb hit a Pakistani army convoy Sunday in a mountainous militant stronghold in the northwest, killing 14 soldiers, one of the deadliest attacks against the army in that sector, intelligence officials said.
The North Waziristan tribal area is a major trouble spot that the military has been reluctant to tackle. The remote region is home to Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida militants at war with the government. It is also used as a sanctuary by other militants who have focused their attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.
The attack Sunday occurred near Dosalli village in North Waziristan, said Pakistani intelligence officials. The blast destroyed two vehicles and damaged a third, they said.
The 14 dead and 20 wounded were brought to a military hospital in the nearby town of Miran Shah, the officials said.
Pakistani military officials confirmed the bombing but said four soldiers were killed and 11 others wounded. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.
Then officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
The Pakistani military is worried that if it targets its enemies in North Waziristan, that could trigger a backlash whereby other militants in the area turn against Pakistan. The most powerful group in the area, the Afghan Haqqani network, is also believed to be seen by the army as a potential ally in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw, making a military offensive even more complicated.
North Waziristan has been a sore point in relations between Pakistan and the United States. Washington has repeatedly pushed Islamabad to launch an operation in the area, especially against the Haqqani network, considered one of the most dangerous groups fighting in Afghanistan. But Pakistan has refused.
North Waziristan has also become an increasing problem for Pakistan. It is the only part of the tribal region where the army has not conducted an offensive, and many Pakistani Taliban militants have fled there to escape army operations. The Taliban and their allies have staged hundreds of attacks across Pakistan that have killed thousands of people.
One of those allies, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, carried out a twin bombing at a billiards hall in the southwest city of Quetta on Thursday that killed 86 people. The attack targeted minority Shiite Muslims, whom many radical Sunnis consider heretics.
Thousands of Shiites protested in Quetta for a third day Sunday, pressing their demands for greater security by blocking a main road with dozens of coffins of relatives killed in the attack on the billiards hall.
Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf traveled to Quetta on Sunday and met with representatives from the Shiite community in an attempt to pacify the protesters, said Dawood Agha, who attended the meeting.
The country's religious affairs minister failed the day before to persuade them to bury those killed in attack.
The group is demanding that the provincial government be dismissed and the army take over responsibility for the city, Shiite leader Ibrahim Hazara said.
On Saturday the prime minister ordered authorities to give policing powers to paramilitary forces in Quetta to improve law and order, but the move did not appear to satisfy the protesters.
More than 400 Shiites died in attacks in Pakistan in 2012, the deadliest year in history for the minority sect, according to Human Rights Watch. The rights group has accused the government of not doing enough to protect Shiites.
Also Sunday, a Pakistani cleric and thousands of his supporters left the eastern city of Lahore on a "long march" to demand sweeping election reforms before national elections expected this spring.
Police officer Suhail Sukhera estimated the crowd to be at least 15,000. They left for Islamabad in hundreds of buses, cars and trucks. Some waved flags and pictures of the 61-year-old Sunni Muslim cleric, while others shouted, "Revolution is our goal, brave and religious leader Qadri."
Critics of Qadri, who returned last month after years in Canada, are worried he is bent on derailing elections, possibly at the behest of the country's powerful military — allegations the cleric has denied.
Qadri has a large following that extends outside Pakistan and has a reputation for speaking out against terrorism and promoting his message through hundreds of books, an online television channel and videos.
Now, Qadri's focus is on Pakistan's election laws. He is suggesting vaguely worded changes, such as making sure candidates are honest as well as ending exploitation and income disparities so that poor people are free to vote for whomever they want.
His plan to hold a massive rally in Islamabad on Monday has alarmed many members of Pakistan's political system. The government has deployed a large number of police throughout the capital and set up shipping containers to block protesters from reaching sensitive areas.
Qadri accused the provincial government of Punjab, where Lahore is the capital, of harassing his supporters Sunday to make it difficult for them to participate in the march.
"These negative tactics will not work, and God willing the march will reach Islamabad with a sea of people," Qadri told reporters.

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Different challenges in Central African Rep., Mali

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Two land-locked, desperately poor African countries are gripped by rebellions in the north that have left huge chunks of both nations outside of government control. Neighboring countries are rushing troops into Central African Republic only a few weeks after rebels started taking towns but Mali's government is still awaiting foreign military help nearly one year after the situation there began unraveling. Here's a look at why there's been quick action in one country, and not in the other.
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THE INSURGENTS
The simple answer lies in the vastly different challenges faced by intervention forces. Northern Mali is home to al-Qaida-linked militants who are stocking weapons and possess stores of Russian-made arms from former Malian army bases as well as from the arsenal of toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The local and foreign jihadists there are digging in and training forces in preparation for jihad and to repel an invasion. Central African Republic, by contrast, is dealing with home-grown rebels who are far less organized and have less sophisticated weapons.
The numbers of troops being sent to Central African Republic are relatively small — Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Gabon are each sending about 120 soldiers. The rebels stopped their advances toward the capital on Dec. 29, perhaps at least in part because of the presence of the foreign troops who have threatened to counterattack if the rebels move closer to Bangui, the capital. In Mali, it will take far more than the 3,000 African troops initially proposed for a military operation to be successful in ousting the militants, analysts say.
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THE MISSION
The military objectives are also a stark contrast. In Central African Republic, neighboring nations have a mandate to help stabilize the region between rebel-held towns and the part of the country that is under government control. The intervention force will fire back if fired upon, but so far are not being asked to retake the towns already in rebel hands.
The mission in Mali that foreign forces are slowly gearing up for is far more ambitious. It involves trying to take back a piece of land larger than Texas or France where militants are imposing strict Islamic law, or Shariah. Making things even more complicated there: A military coup last year that created chaos and enabled the rebels to more easily take territory has left the country with a weak federal government and the country's military with a broken command-and-control structure, and with its leaders reluctant to give real power to the civilians.
"In Mali you have a very undefined mission. What does it mean to retake the country and give it back to government forces that were not able to hold it in the first place?" noted Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Central African Republic's situation "is a more limited, defined and frankly somewhat easier mission in the military sense," she said.
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THE TERRAIN
Northern Mali is a scorching desert that is unfamiliar to many of the troops who would be coming from the West African regional bloc of countries known as ECOWAS. By contrast, Central African Republic's neighbors already have been pulled into past rebellions in the country.
Chadian forces helped propel President Francois Bozize into power in 2003 and they have assisted him in putting down past rebellions here.
"These forces — particularly the Chadians — have been there before," Cooke said. "They know the players, they have an interlocutor in Bozize however fragile he is. This is familiar territory to them."
The Economic Community of Central African States, or ECCAS, also already had established a peacekeeping force in Central African Republic known as MICOPAX.
"From the beginning, they knew that they needed to have troops on the ground. MICOPAX was already there, had already been deployed there. There was already a structure in place," said Thierry Vircoulon, project director for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group.
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DIFFERING MOTIVATIONS
The rebels in Central African Republic are made up of four separate groups all known by their French acronyms — UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK. They are collectively known as Seleka, which means alliance in the local Sango language, but have previously fought one another. For instance, in September 2011 fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead and more than 700 homes destroyed. Insurgent leaders say a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army wasn't fully implemented and are demanding payments to former combatants among other things. Rebel groups also feel the government has neglected their home areas in the north and particularly the northeast, said Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service.
In northern Mali, the Islamist rebels are motivated in large part by religion. Al-Qaida fighters chant Quranic verses under the Sahara sun , displaying deep, ideological commitment. They consider north Mali as "Islamic territory" and say they will fight to the death to defend it. They also want to use the territory to expand the reach of al-Qaida-linked groups to other countries. This would seem to make other countries more motivated to intervene in Mali than in Central African Republic, but the challenges are so steep and convoluted that an intervention mission is still on the drawing board.

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Mali's Islamists withdraw cease-fire pledge

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — An Islamist group in northern Mali says it's suspending its pledge to halt hostilities less than a month after it agreed to do so.
The group Ansar Dine said negotiations with the Malian government are ultimately aimed at a military intervention to oust the Islamists from the West African nation and are not true peace talks. Still, the group said it remains committed to a dialogue with the Malian government in Bamako even though it is keeping its military options open.
The original offer had drawn skepticism from some observers, who noted the group's links to al-Qaida's North Africa branch.
Ansar Dine, which says it seeks autonomy for northern Mali, has been behind public executions, amputations and whippings in the area that it seized last year.

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New child soldier fears in C. African Republic

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The U.N. children's agency says it's concerned about a growing number of children being recruited by armed groups in Central African Republic as President Francois Bozize's government faces a rebellion in the north.
UNICEF said Friday it has received "credible reports that rebel groups and pro-government militias are increasingly recruiting and involving children in armed conflict."
Souleymane Diabate, UNICEF Representative for Central African Republic, said children who have become separated from their families amid the instability are at the greatest risk.
UNICEF estimates that even before the latest crisis here some 2,500 children were part of armed groups in the country long plagued by rebellions. Rebels have seized 10 towns in a month's time.

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Mission to Drill Into Buried Antarctic Lake Called Off

After fighting with the Antarctic ice for 20 hours through Christmas Eve, a British Antarctic Survey team has reluctantly called off its mission to retrieve water samples from an ancient subglacial lake.
The decision to halt drilling through the ice down toward Lake Ellsworth came after the team failed to connect the project's main and secondary boreholes, Martin Siegert, the lead investigator for the project, said on the project's blog.
Lake Ellsworth lies under 2 miles (3 kilometers) of ice and has been sealed off from the outside world for up to 1 million years. Scientists with the survey have been engaged in a 16-year attempt to drill down and take water samples from the lake. They say that if microbes and other forms of life are living in the frigid water, away from sunlight, those life forms may help researchers better understand the origins of life on Earth and the possible forms life could take on other planets.
The scientists were trying to connect the boreholes via a cavity located 300 meters (984 feet) below the ice surface. The cavity recirculates water from the main borehole and would have equalized pressure had the drill penetrated Lake Ellsworth.
Running low on supplies
The camp has been on the ice since Nov. 22, and drilling started on Dec. 13, using a specially designed hot water drill. The effort to establish the connection took so much hot water and fuel that the scientists must now return to the United Kingdom and regroup for next year. [Extreme Living: Scientists at the End of the Earth]
"For reasons that are yet to be determined, the team could not establish a link between the two boreholes at 300 meters depth despite trying for over 20 hours," wrote Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Bristol. "During this process, hot water seeped into the porous surface layers of ice and was lost. The team attempted to replenish this water loss by digging and melting more snow, but their efforts could not compensate. The additional time taken to attempt to establish the cavity link significantly depleted the fuel stocks to such a level as to render the remaining operation unviable. Reluctantly the team had no option but to discontinue the program for this season.
"This is, of course, hugely frustrating for us, but we have learned a lot this year," Siegert said. "By the end the equipment was working well, and much of it has now been fully field tested. A full report on the field season will be compiled when the engineers and program manager return to United Kingdom."
Drilling in extreme conditions
The harshness of the Antarctic environment and the complete darkness of winter there mean that the team can be at the site only during the comparatively mild months of austral spring and summer, from November through January.
This was not the first snag in the project. A circuit used in the main boiler that supplies hot water to the drill burned out twice earlier this month, forcing the team to await resupply.
At the time, Siegert noted that such difficulties are not unusual when working in Antarctica. "It's a very hostile environment; it's very difficult to do things smoothly," he said on the project's blog.
The drill would have crunched through the ice to the fresh lake water, then sent 24 titanium canisters through the borehole to take water samples. When the drill first started up, the team had to shovel snow in shifts for three days and three nights to melt enough for the needed 15,850 gallons (60,000 liters) of water, according to the project's blog.
Race to find life
The British group is one of several teams racing to recover water samples from lakes trapped beneath the Antarctic ice.
A group of Russian scientists is drilling down into the waters of Lake Vostok, the largest of Antarctica's buried lakes. The team reached the lake's waters during the last drilling season, on Feb. 5, but the few microbes it found in the retrieved samples were all contaminants from the drilling apparatus.
However, another group of scientists has found a thriving community of microbes in Lake Vida, another buried Antarctic lake that is thought to have been isolated from the rest of the world for about 2,800 years.

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YEARENDER-Rugby-Sting in the tail for All Blacks after stellar year

After ending their World Cup pain in 2011 New Zealand stamped their authority all over 2012, only for their triumphant run to be cut short spectacularly in the final game of the year.
When the All Blacks ran out at Twickenham on Dec. 1 within three games of matching their record 23-match unbeaten sequence and, with only an 18-18 draw with Australia blotting their copybook, they were being touted as the best team of all time.
But in an afternoon that encapsulated the tantalising unpredictability and eternal appeal of international sport, they fell to their second-worst defeat, 38-21, against England.
A sweep of the International Rugby Board's (IRB) awards - Steve Hansen was named best coach, Dan Carter best player and the All Blacks best team - will have been scant consolation for a team who bucked the trend of recent World Cup winners by kicking on and improving in the year after their success.
Hansen made sure his squad kept developing with the introduction of players who brought an extra dimension to an already superb side. He blooded nine new players as he started the reconstruction of a side that would otherwise be dominated by players in their mid-30s by the time they defended their title in England in 2015. Changes is the first-choice side saw Aaron Smith inject verve at scrumhalf while fearsome winger Julian Savea's tally of 12 tries in nine tests in his debut season tells its own story.
Their brand of rugby was a step up even from that which they displayed in last year's triumph on home soil, mixing all the physicality expected of the All Blacks with a ruthless exploitation of turnover ball and an explosiveness out wide that few teams were able to stop. "This year they have shown they are one of the great sides," said their former captain Sean Fitzpatrick. "They are trying to play the perfect game. They want to take it to a new level."
Hansen was not drawn into the debate about where his side might stand in the all-time rankings.
"It's for other people to judge whether we are the greatest team or not - or if we are a great team," Hansen said after his team's 25th successive win over Wales.
Australia were unable to match their neighbours on a regular basis but they bow to nobody when it comes to resilience.
Ravaged by injuries and humiliated 33-6 by France, the Wallabies climbed off the canvas to end their season with a hat-trick of wins over England, Italy and Wales.
Stopping the New Zealand juggernaut via their June draw was also an impressive display a month after they had been whacked 31-8 by South Africa.
CLEAN SWEEP
Heyneke Meyer's first year in charge of the Springboks produced a home series win over England and a November three-game European clean sweep in which they won every one of their lineout throws.
But they managed only two wins in the Championship and were held to a draw by Argentina amid criticism, hardly original, that their physical approach was one-dimensional.
After crying out for years for more meaningful competition, Argentina got their wish and performed creditably in their first year in the Championship, and they played twice as many matches in 2012 as they had in any previous non-World Cup year.
They grew into the competition, developing expansive rugby and losing only narrowly away to Australia.
Coach Santiago Phelan and his squad, always increasing in depth and quality, will have learned a lot to take into their second year, though they looked exhausted in their final November match in Dublin when they were thrashed 46-24.
New Zealand and Argentina's anti-climatic finales were as nothing, though, compared with Wales's precipitous fall.
Having followed up their run to the World Cup semi-finals with their third Six Nations grand slam in eight years, they lost their next seven games, including yet another to their Cardiff nemeses Samoa.
That defeat and the heartbreaking last-minute loss to Australia, their fourth of the year, had calamitous consequences because Wales dropped into the third tier of seeds for the 2015 World Cup in England, and subsequently into a group with Australia and the hosts.
Even getting out of the pool stage looks a big ask and should Wales get through in second place they would be likely to find South Africa and then potentially New Zealand in their way.
That seeding looked an unlikely scenario when the Welsh became top dogs in Europe in March. Opening the Six Nations with a narrow win in Ireland, they sandwiched home wins over Scotland and Italy around only their second Twickenham success in 22 years.
They finished off with a 16-9 Cardiff victory over France, gaining a modicum of revenge for their one-point World Cup semi-final loss.
England's solid Six Nations, in which they beat France and hammered Ireland to finish second, earned stand-in coach Stuart Lancaster the job on a permanent basis.
Assistant Graham Rowntree said Lancaster had "dragged English rugby out of the gutter" following the off-field antics and dull play that marked their 2011 World Cup campaign.
It was a strange year for Scotland, who finished bottom of the Six Nations after losing every game, beat Australia, Fiji and Samoa on their June tour then lost at home to the All Blacks, Springboks and Tonga.
That last defeat was the final straw for coach Andy Robinson, who resigned.
Coach Declan Kidney was predicted to be close to departing Ireland after five successive defeats, including a 60-0 June mauling by New Zealand. However, the demolition job on Argentina in their final November test secured their World Cup seeding and, in debutant winger Craig Gilroy, they may have uncovered a gem.
Next year's main attraction is the British and Irish Lions' tour of Australia where fans will hope for something similar to 2001 when the series was effectively decided in the Wallabies' favour by Justin Harrison's lineout steal in the last minute of the final test.

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OFFICIAL CORRECTION-Cricket-Australia beat S.Lanka by innings and 201 runs

MELBOURNE, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Australia beat Sri Lanka by an innings and 201 runs in the second test on the third day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday to seal their three-match series 2-0.
Scores: Sri Lanka 103-9 & 156 (K. Sangakkara 58; M. Johnson 4-63) v Australia 460 (D. Warner 62, S. Watson 83, M. Clarke 106, M. Johnson 92 not out; D. Prasad 3-106, S. Eranga 3-109)

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Cricket-Australia v Sri Lanka - second test scoreboard

MELBOURNE, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Scoreboard on the third day of
the second test after Australia beat Sri Lanka by an innings and
201 runs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday.
Australia sealed the three-match series 2-0.
Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bat
Sri Lanka first innings 156
Australia first innings (overnight 440-8)
D. Warner c Prasad b Mathews 62
E. Cowan c M. Jayawardene b Prasad 36
P. Hughes run out 10
S. Watson c Samaraweera b Prasad 83
M. Clarke c M. Jayawardene b Eranga 106
M. Hussey c Herath b Dilshan 34
M. Wade c Eranga b Prasad 1
M. Johnson not out 92
P. Siddle c M. Jayawardene b Eranga 13
N. Lyon c sub b Mathews 1
J. Bird b Eranga 0
Extras (b-9, lb-5 w-6 nb-2) 22
Total (all out, 134.4 overs) 460
Fall of wickets: 1-95 2-117 3-117 4-311 5-313 6-315 7-376
8-434 9-451 10-460
Bowling: C. Welegedara 14.4-6-38-0, S. Eranga 27-2-109-3
(nb-2, w-5), D. Prasad 26-2-106-3 (w-1), A. Mathews 16-3-60-2,
R. Herath 39-7-95-0, T. Dilshan 12-1-38-1
Sri Lanka second innings
T. Dilshan c Cowan b Johnson 0
D. Karunaratne run out 1
K. Sangakkara retired hurt 27
M. Jayawardene b Bird 0
T. Samaraweera lbw b Bird 1
A. Mathews b Johnson 35
D. Prasad c Hughes b Lyon 17
R. Herath not out 11
S. Eranga c Cowan b Siddle 0
P. Jayawardene absent hurt 0
C. Welegedara absent hurt 0
Extras (lb-10, nb-1) 11
Total (for nine wickets; 24.2 overs) 103
Fall of wickets 1-1 2-1 3-3 4-13 5-74 6-102 7-103
Bowling: M. Johnson 8-0-16-2, J. Bird 9-1-29-2 (nb-1),
P. Siddle 5.2-0-32-1, Lyon 2-0-16-1

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UPDATE 3-Cricket-Australia thrash Sri Lanka to seal series

(Updates with result)
* Australia seal series 2-0
* Sangakkara retires hurt
MELBOURNE, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Australia humiliated Sri Lanka by an innings and 201 runs to win the second test before tea on day three at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday, and seal their three-match series 2-0.
Needing 305 runs to make Australia bat again, Sri Lanka surrendered after adding only 103 in their second innings, with a top order collapse and a raft of injuries cutting the match short.
After bowling Australia out for 460 in the first hour, Sri Lanka staggered to lunch at 43-4 and lasted less than 12 overs after the interval.
Sri Lanka lost Kumar Sangakkara to injury after lunch when he retired hurt on 27 after being struck on the glove by a searing delivery from man-of-the-match Mitchell Johnson.
With seamer Chanaka Welegedara and wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene absent injured, pacemen Johnson and Peter Siddle, and spinner Nathan Lyon shared the remaining three wickets to wrap up the match early and render next week's third and final test in Sydney a dead rubber.
Angelo Mathews held firm to top-score for Sri Lanka with 35, but lived dangerously and was out bowled by Johnson when attempting a hook that rebounded onto the stumps.
Dhammika Prasad struck two successive sixes off Lyon but was caught at cover by Phillip Hughes for 17 on the next ball.
Siddle clinched the winning wicket by having Shaminda Eranga caught by Ed Cowan for a duck.
After dismissing Australia before lunch, Sri Lanka lost three wickets in the first 12 balls of their innings, and a fourth less than four overs later to leave Sangakkara and all-rounder Mathews fighting a virtually hopeless cause.
Australia lost their last two wickets for the addition of 20 runs in the first hour, leaving Mitchell Johnson stranded on 92, but the mercurial paceman was consoled with a direct hand in the first two Sri Lanka wickets.
A horrible misunderstanding between openers Dimuth Karunaratne and Tillakaratne Dilshan led to the former run out for one on the third ball of the innings.
Karunaratne pushed the ball to the off side for a single but the pair changed their minds about a second run, allowing David Warner to flick the ball to Johnson who dived to throw the stumps down from point-blank range.
Dilshan was gone for a first-ball duck with the next delivery off Johnson when he tried to fend off a short delivery, only to flick an edge onto his thigh pad that rebounded for a simple catch to Cowan at short leg.
Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene was heading back to the dressing room for a duck in the next over, shaping to leave the ball but playing onto his stumps to give debutant Jackson Bird his first wicket of the morning.
The 26-year-old seamer struck again in the sixth over of the day, trapping Thilan Samaraweera lbw.
The batsmen called for a review of the decision but the video system showed the ball clattering into leg stump.
Mathews earlier removed Nathan Lyon for one, while Shaminda Eranga wound up the Australian innings by bowling Bird for a duck, frustrating Johnson's bid for a second test century.

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NKorea says it has detained a US citizen

North Korea said Friday that an American citizen has been detained after confessing to unspecified crimes, confirming news reports about his arrest at a time when Pyongyang is facing criticism from Washington for launching a long-range rocket last week.
The American was identified as Pae Jun Ho in a brief dispatch issued by the state-run Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang. News reports in the U.S. and South Korea said Pae is known in his home state of Washington as Kenneth Bae, a 44-year-old tour operator of Korean descent.
An expert said he is likely to become a bargaining chip for the North, an attempt to draw the U.S. into talks. Five other Americans known to have been detained in North Korea since 2009 were all eventually released.
North Korean state media said Pae arrived in the far northeastern city of Rajin on Nov. 3 as part of a tour.
Rajin is part of a special economic zone not far from Yanji, China, that has sought to draw foreign investors and tourists over the past year. Yanji, home to many ethnic Korean Chinese, also serves as a base for Christian groups that shelter North Korean defectors.
"In the process of investigation, evidence proving that he committed a crime against (North Korea) was revealed. He admitted his crime," the KCNA dispatch said.
The North said the crimes were "proven through evidence" but did not elaborate.
KCNA said consular officials from the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang visited Pae on Friday. Sweden represents the United States in diplomatic affairs in North Korea since Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations.
Karl-Olof Andersson, Sweden's ambassador to North Korea, told The Associated Press he could not comment on the case and referred the matter to the U.S. State Department.
The State Department was not immediately able to provide any additional information about the report.
The operator of a Korean language website for the Korean community in the Northwest, Chong Tae Kim of JoySeattle.com, said the detainee's father lives in Korea and his mother lives in Lynnwood, Washington.
"She hopes the State Department and Swedish Embassy help with his release," he said Friday. "She's trying not to speak to reporters, fearing that could affect her son's release."
The office of U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene says it has reached out to the mother and is pressing the State Department for information.
"We are very concerned about it and seeing what can be done on our end to help with this," said spokesman Viet Shelton.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell on Friday would only say that they were aware of the detention and that Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is providing consular services.
"We can, indeed, confirm that a U.S. citizen has been detained in North Korea," Ventrell said, adding that he could not say more because of privacy restrictions.
In Seoul, the Segye Ilbo newspaper reported last week that Bae had been taking tourists on a five-day trip to the North when he was arrested. The newspaper cited unidentified sources.
News of the arrest comes as North Korea is celebrating the launch of a satellite into space on Dec. 12, in defiance of calls by the U.S. and others to cancel a liftoff widely seen as an illicit test of ballistic missile technology.
The announcement of the American's detainment could be a signal from the North that it wants dialogue with the United States, said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. He said trips by former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter to North Korea to secure the release of other detained Americans created a mood for U.S.-North Korea talks.
"North Korea knows sanctions will follow its rocket launch. But in the long run, it needs an excuse to reopen talks after the political atmosphere moves past sanctions," Cheong said.
Cheong said he expects that the American will be tried and convicted in coming months. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has the power to grant amnesty and will exercise it as a bargaining chip, Cheong said.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said earlier this week that Washington had been trying to reach out to Kim.
"Instead, that was met not only with an abrogation of agreements that had been made by the previous North Korean regime, but by missile activity both in April and in December," she told reporters.
She said Washington had no choice but to put pressure on Pyongyang, and was discussing with its allies how to "further isolate" the regime.
In April 2009, a North Korean rocket launch took place while two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were in North Korean custody after allegedly trying to sneak into the country across the Tumen River dividing the North from China.
They were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor before being released on humanitarian grounds after Clinton flew to Pyongyang to negotiate their release.
Subsequently, three other Americans were arrested and eventually released by North Korea. All three are believed to have been accused of illegally spreading Christianity.
North Korea has several sanctioned churches in Pyongyang but frowns on the distribution of Bibles and other religious materials by foreigners. Interaction between North Koreans and foreigners is strictly regulated.

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Gunmen kill 11 Pakistanis, Afghans in SW Pakistan

An official says gunmen have killed eleven Pakistanis and Afghans in a border town of southwestern Pakistan as they were trying to cross to Iran to travel on to Europe as illegal migrants.
Local government official Zubair Ahmed said Saturday the shooting took place late Friday in the Sunsar town of southwestern Baluchistan province.
He said the dead and wounded were Afghans and Pakistanis.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but hundreds of such Pakistanis and Afghans are captured by Iranian border guards every year for illegally trying to travel to Europe to find better jobs.
Iran deports such detainees after questioning.
Quetta is the capital of impoverished Baluchistan province, where nationalist groups have also waged a low-level insurgency.

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People flee Japan nuke disaster to faraway Okinawa

 Okinawa is about as far away as one can get from Fukushima without leaving Japan, and that is why Minaho Kubota is here.
Petrified of the radiation spewing from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant that went into multiple meltdowns last year, Kubota grabbed her children, left her skeptical husband and moved to the small southwestern island. More than 1,000 people from the disaster zone have done the same thing.
"I thought I would lose my mind," Kubota told The Associated Press in a recent interview. "I felt I would have no answer for my children if, after they grew up, they ever asked me, 'Mama, why didn't you leave?'"
Experts and the government say there have been no visible health effects from the radioactive contamination from Fukushima Dai-ichi so far. But they also warn that even low-dose radiation carries some risk of cancer and other diseases, and exposure should be avoided as much as possible, especially the intake of contaminated food and water. Such risks are several times higher for children and even higher for fetuses, and may not appear for years.
Okinawa has welcomed the people from Fukushima and other northeastern prefectures (states) affected by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami that set off the nuclear disaster. Okinawa is offering 60,000 yen ($750) a month to help relocating families of three or four pay the rent, and lower amounts for smaller families.
"We hope they feel better, maybe refreshed," said Okinawan official Masakazu Gunji.
Other prefectures have offered similar aid, but Okinawa's help is relatively generous and is being extended an extra year to three years for anyone applying by the end of this year.
Most people displaced by the disaster have relocated within or near Fukushima, but Okinawa, the only tropical island in Japan, is the most popular area for those who have chosen prefectures far from the nuclear disaster. An escape to Okinawa underlines a determination to get away from radiation and, for some, distrust toward Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that operates Fukushima Dai-ichi.
Kazue Sato lived in fear of radiation because the roof of her home in Iwaki, a major city in Fukushima, was destroyed by the earthquake.
And so she moved with her husband, a chef, back to Okinawa, where she had grown up. She now lives in her grandparents' home and hopes to turn it into a coffee shop with her husband.
But Sato is still struggling with depression, especially because her old friends criticized her for what they thought were her exaggerated fears about radiation. She struggles with a sense of guilt about having abandoned Fukushima.
"Little children have to wear masks. People can't hang their laundry outdoors," she said. "Some people can't get away even if they want to. I feel so sorry for them."
Sato and Kubota are joining a class-action lawsuit being prepared against the government and Tokyo Electric on behalf of Fukushima-area residents affected by the meltdowns. It demands an apology payment of 50,000 yen ($625) a month for each victim until all the radiation from the accident is wiped out, a process that could take decades, if ever, for some areas.
Independent investigations into the nuclear disaster have concluded that the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was unprepared for the massive tsunami, in part because of the nuclear industry's cozy relationship with government regulators.
"We think people have the right to live in an environment not polluted by radiation that may harm their health, and that right has been violated by this accident," Izutaro Managi, one of the case's lawyers, said in a meeting earlier this month for plaintiffs in Naha, a major Okinawan city.
Japan's statute of limitations requires that the lawsuit be filed no later than March 11, 2014. About 20 of the evacuees in Okinawa have signed on to the lawsuit, which has gathered 100 other people in the three weeks since it began.
Kubota, who now works part time for an Okinawa magazine publisher, said the problem is that no one is taking responsibility for the accident.
"Seeking accountability through a lawsuit may feel like such a roundabout effort. But in the end, it's going to be the best shortcut," she said.
She is getting health checkups for her children, fretting over any discovered problems, including anemia, fevers and nosebleeds.
Her fears are heightened by the fact that she and her children had lived in their car right after the disaster, which had liquefied the land and destroyed their home. They had unknowingly played outdoors while the nuclear plants had been exploding, she recalled.
The disaster ended up separating her family. Her husband refused to leave his dentist practice in Ibaraki Prefecture. They argued over whether to relocate, but she knew she had to leave on her own when he said: "There is nothing we can do."
These days, he visits her and their two boys, ages 8 and 12, in her new apartment in Okinawa on weekends. He sends her money, something he didn't do at first.
"I wake up every day and feel thankful my children are alive. I have been through so much. I have been heartbroken. I have been so afraid," she said.

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Afghan leader: Foreigners to blame for corruption

Afghanistan's president accused on Saturday the countries that fund hisgovernment and military with enabling the widespread corruption that undermines his efforts to establish rule of law in the war-wracked country.

Graft and payoffs are widely recognized as a major problem facing Afghanistan as the government works to establish authority over a volatile country and win the trust of the people over from the Taliban insurgency. The country regularly ranks among the most corrupt in the world in indexes and nearly every Afghan has stories of having to pay a bribe to a police officer or a government official.

International donors have long argued that they are trying to help Karzai's administration clean up the endemic corruption but are stymied by his unwillingness to prosecute political allies. Karzai in turn has repeatedly said that he has not been given the ability to control the billions of dollars flowing in to Afghanistan from foreign countries and so has not been able to police the funding.

"Corruption in Afghanistan is a reality, a bitter reality," Karzai said in a nationally televised speech. "The part of this corruption that is in our offices is a small part: that is bribes. The other part of corruption, the large part, is hundreds of millions dollars that are not ours. We shouldn't blame ourselves for that. That part is from others and imposed on us."

Karzai argued that foreign donors give contracts to high-ranking Afghan officials or to their relatives in an effort to gain influence over the government, thereby sowing the seeds for corruption.

As an example, he brought up his half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was seen as the main power broker in southern Kandahar province before he was assassinated by insurgents in 2011. Karzai recalled a conversation with former U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal in which McChrystal told Karzai to rein in his brother because he was corrupt. Karzai said he pointed out that it was the U.S. government, not the Afghan government, that was awarding contracts to Ahmed Wali Karzai.

"I asked him, why have you given contracts to the president's brother? Why give to him and to other high ranking government officials?" Karzai told the crowd assembled for the speech at a high school in the capital.

The question of the roots of corruption in Afghanistan is only going to become more important in the coming years, as donors have made much of their future funding conditional on evidence that the Afghan government is cleaning up the pervasive system off payoffs and patronage. And there has been debate within the Afghan government over who to blame.

Even at Saturday's event, Karzai's top anti-corruption official spoke first and pointed his finger at other Afghan officials, without mentioning the international donors. He said that the courts have not done enough to prosecute corruption cases and administration officials and lawmakers need to be forced to explain things like large property acquisitions.

"The system is the problem," Azizullah Ludin told the crowd.

Karzai has repeatedly taken populist stances against his foreign allies, placing blame on them for many of the country's ills. In the past, he has said that NATO local offices known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams undermine the Afghan government's authority by doling out money directly to the public, and that foreign countries encourage criminality by funding private security companies that operate outside the law. The foreign security companies have since been shut down and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams are being phased out.

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Mob in Pakistan kills man accused of burning Quran

 A mob in southern Pakistan stormed a police station to seize a mentally unstable Muslim man accused of burning a copy of Islam's holy book, beat him to death, and then set his body afire, police said Saturday.
The case is likely to raise further concerns about the country's harsh blasphemy laws, which can result in a death sentence or life in prison to anyone found guilty. Critics say an accusation or investigation alone can lead to deaths, as people take the law into their own hands and kill those accused of violating it. Police stations and even courts have been attacked by mobs.
Local police official Bihar-ud-Din said police arrested the man on Friday after being informed by residents that he had burned a Quran inside a mosque where he had been staying for a night.
An angry mob of more than 200 people then broke into the police station in the southern town of Dadu and took the accused man, who they say was under questioning. Din said police tried their best to save the man's life but were unable to stop the furious crowd.
He said that police had arrested 30 people for suspected involvement in the attack, while the head of the local police station and seven officers had been suspended.
Past attempts by governments in predominantly Muslim Pakistan to review these laws have met with violent opposition from hardline Islamist parties.

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What's behind Russia's bill banning US adoptions?

A Russian bill that had seemed initially like a tit-for-tat response to US legislation now looks to be exploding into broad legislation that bars almost any US citizen from engaging in non-business activity in Russia – including the adoption of Russian children.
Russia's State Duma on Wednesday passed a bill, in key second reading, that would ban all adoptions of Russian children by US citizens, order the closure of any politically-active nongovernmental organization with US funding, and block US passport-holders from working in any nonprofit group that authorities deem connected with politics. The bill passed the 450-seat Duma overwhelmingly, with just 15 deputies opposed.
The now radically-amended Dima Yakovlev bill, named after one of 19 Russian children who have died because of alleged negligence of his American adoptive parents in the past two decades, goes far beyond the originally-stated intent to respond to the US Senate's Magnitsky Act, signed into law by President Obama last week.
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The initial bill, which passed first reading last Friday, would have levied economic and visa sanctions against US officials allegedly involved in human rights abuses against Russians. Among the categories of Americans to be hit in the original bill were adoptive parents who abused their Russian-born children and officials involved in the extradition and prosecution of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a New York court last year.
Experts say that might have been a straightforward symmetrical response to the Magnitsky Act, which targets Russian officials implicated in the 2009 prison death of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and other alleged individual human rights abusers.
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But with the amendments loaded on this week, the bill that Duma deputies seem set to pass on third reading Friday – a prerequisite for it reaching the desk of President Vladimir Putin – casts a far wider net.
The Kremlin has not so far commented. But the proposed adoption ban has met with unexpected pushback from some Russian government departments. One of those is the Foreign Ministry, which has spent years negotiating a bilateral US-Russia adoption agreement that finally came into force last month.
CAUTION
The adoption ban "is not right, and I am sure that the State Duma will make the right decision in the end," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the official ITAR-Tass agency before the Duma voted. "International adoption as an institution has a full right to exist."
Others who've cautioned the Duma against making "emotional" decisions that might need to be corrected later include the speaker of the upper house of parliament, Valentina Matvienko, and education minister Dmitry Livanov.
Some analysts say the Duma is out in front of the Kremlin, in passing even more draconian laws than they are asked to, because deputies of the majority United Russia faction are still stung by the accusations of the protest movement that erupted at the time of Duma elections a year ago, claiming that the pro-Kremlin party won by fraud and voter coercion, and were therefore an illegitimate parliament.
"They are still offended by all the criticism, and the jibes that United Russia is 'the party of rogues and thieves'," says Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow.
"They were given the task to react to the Magnitsky Act, but they started adding all sorts of amendments onto it.... I think they are doing this just out of spite, to show the opposition that they have the power, and they can do what they want. It's very likely that Putin will play 'good cop' in the end, and remove some measures, like the adoption ban, when this lands on his desk," Mr. Mukhin says.
ADOPTION
Other experts say that the long-running political opposition to foreign adoptions is a key plank in the program of emerging Russian nationalists, and that genuine support for this measure in the Duma shouldn't be underestimated.
Russia has officially suspended adoptions several times in the past few years, usually amid the media storm that results any time an adopted Russian child dies through abuse or negligence at the hands of American parents.
About 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by American families in the past two decades, of whom a confirmed 19 have died in circumstances of parental abuse or negligence. In one case that led to a tsunami of outrage in Russia, a 7-year-old Russian boy was put on a plane to Moscow by his adoptive mother with a "to whom it may concern" note pinned to his clothes saying he was too much trouble to look after.
There are about 650,000 registered orphans in Russia, but Russian law requires that only those who cannot be adopted domestically – usually for health reasons – may be made available for foreign adoption.
"If they go ahead and ban adoptions to the US, we'll have to close down," says Galina Sigayeva, a representative of New Hope Christian Services, a US adoption agency that's specialized in Russia for almost 20 years, and has been through all the past crises and managed to retain its accreditation amid ever-tightening restrictions.
"We have assisted in the adoption of 140 children to the US, and we have kept in touch with all of them and followed their lives in America. This is our duty. All of those children had health problems, and had been rejected for adoption by Russian citizens. So what kind of gloomy future do children like this face if the Duma closes down adoptions to the US?" Ms. Sigayeva says.

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South Korea elects its first woman president, Park Geun-hye

The United States has proposed a boundary between Lebanon and Israel's maritime economic zones to help end a lingering dispute over rival claims and open up oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
If the idea is accepted by both sides, it will reduce the risk of renewed conflict between the two enemy states and hasten Lebanon’s efforts to begin tapping the billions of dollars of natural gas estimated to be lying beneath the seabed.
The proposal, which was submitted to both countries recently, is a compromise on the overlapping exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundaries individually submitted by Lebanon and Israel, which left 330 square miles in dispute.
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There are major economic interests at stake. The US Geological Survey (USGS) estimated in March 2010 that the Levantine basin, which includes the territorial waters of Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Cyprus, could hold as much as 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of gas. The estimated gas deposit represents about 8.5 percent of known global total deposits, according to an assessment by USGS in June.
“The US has offered some ideas and the parties have them under careful consideration,” said a source familiar with the US proposal who would only discuss the subject under condition of anonymity. “Both sides appear to be interested in an equitable solution, which sums up what international law requires in resolving disputes of this nature.”
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The US has been mediating a solution between Lebanon and Israel since mid-2011, partly to neutralize another potential trigger for war, partly to allow both countries to peacefully exploit the fossil fuel wealth beneath the seabed of the eastern Mediterranean, and partly in the hope that US oil companies can secure exploitation contracts.
Surveys conducted off the Lebanese coast have confirmed Lebanon’s untapped oil and gas wealth.
Gibran Bassil, Lebanon’s energy minister, has claimed that surveys have shown that the area off the southern Lebanon coast alone contains 12 trillion cubic feet of gas which “could be enough to cover Lebanon’s electricity production needs for the next 99 years.”
Lebanon submitted its proposed EEZ boundary with Israel to the United Nations in October 2010, selecting an endpoint 82 miles out at sea, equidistant between coastal promontories on Cyprus, Israel, and Lebanon – standard cartographic procedure for such cases.
But in July 2011, Israel submitted its own version of the boundary to the UN. Its end point lay some 10 miles northeast of Lebanon’s final point, creating a 330 square mile overlap.
The maritime dispute quickly provoked bellicose rhetoric. Israel, which already moved ahead with parceling up oil and gas concessions in its northern coastal waters, has drawn up a multimillion dollar plan to defend its interests, while Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah warned the Jewish state to stay out of the disputed zone.
Nabih Berri, the Lebanese parliamentary speaker, said in September that “we will not compromise on any amount of water from our maritime borders and oil, not even a single cup."
However, Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s prime minister, is believed to be supportive of a quick resolution to the dispute. And despite his defiant tone, Mr. Berri has been the most active Lebanese leader in pushing for the exploitation of Lebanon’s off-shore resources, suggesting that the value of the fossil fuel waiting to be tapped will overcome reservations over a compromise with Israel.
Furthermore, new technologies and rising fuel prices are making economically viable many oil and gas reservoirs around the world that were previously considered commercially unattractive. If Lebanon and Israel cannot resolve their EEZ boundary, international oil companies may choose to exploit oil and gas opportunities elsewhere rather than invest in an area that could prove the trigger for a future war.

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Israel moves to further seal off Jerusalem from West Bank

Israeli officials today approved plans for 2,612 new homes to be built on Givat HaMatos, or Airplane Hill, which is set to become the first new Jerusalem neighborhood to be built outside Israel's internationally recognized borders since 1996.
The placement profoundly concerns Palestinians and advocates of a two-state solution. They say that it and other building projects under way would make drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state unworkable by fragmenting Palestinian areas, and thus could deal a devastating blow to the two-state solution.
“I believe that Givat HaMatos is a deal-breaker,” says Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli attorney and founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, which tracks developments that could jeopardize a two-state solution. “How many times can you cut a worm in half and the worm starts wiggling?”
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Some 549 new homes in Givat HaMatos for Arab residents were also approved yesterday, but went largely unnoticed amid a series of Israeli moves to expand building in East Jerusalem and the highly controversial area of E1, which would create an Israeli bubble deep into the West Bank. Critics of Givat HaMatos have called it a mini-E1.
The US State Department yesterday used unusually strong language to criticize what it characterized as a “continuing pattern of provocative action” that jeopardizes a two-state solution.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs takes issue with that criticism. “Jerusalem is our capital and we feel like it’s not particularly controversial or provocative at all for us to build in it – we’ve been here for 3,000 years now,” says Paul Hirschson, deputy spokesperson for the ministry. “It’s not only a geographical area, it’s an idea. It’s our idea, and we put it on the map.”
DRIVING A WEDGE
In the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Old City, and expanded the borders of the city to include strategic high ground. As a result, the size of the city more than tripled virtually overnight. Israel annexed the whole area, proclaiming a united Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital. But the international community never recognized that annexation beyond the pre-1967 border, also known as the Green Line due to the color of magic marker that was used to draw the map, and considers the expanded portions of the city to be occupied land.
While much of East Jerusalem remains predominantly Arab, the Jewish presence there has expanded to roughly 200,000. Jewish neighborhoods have been established in areas that drive a wedge between Arab areas of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, in what some say is a calculating political game akin to tick-tack-toe. The cumulative effect, say Palestinians and their supporters, is that it is becoming increasing impractical to establish a viable, contiguous Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.
Under the Clinton Parameters, laid out by President Clinton in 2000 and widely accepted as the guidelines for drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state, Arab areas would be assigned to Palestine and Jewish areas would be assigned to Israel.
But Mr. Seidemann says that the establishment of Givat HaMatos would make it impossible to implement the Clinton Parameters, because it would cut off the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa from the West Bank. Mr. Hirschson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs disputes this, and takes issue with the “racial” perspective on building in Jerusalem, saying at the end of the day, Israel is building for Israeli residents – Jewish and Arab.
Givat HaMatos would also put the final link in a largely Jewish “buffer” between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. And it would connect Har Homa, the last neighborhood to be established outside the 1967 lines, with Jerusalem – creating a southern bubble similar to the eastern bubble of E1 and the adjacent Maale Adumim area, though on a smaller scale.
“We are witnessing today a very crucial moment … a moment of irreversibility,” Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian presidential candidate and democracy activist, told journalists at a dinner yesterday. “If people expect that Palestinians will accept living in a system of Bantustans, a system of apartheid … then they are mistaken.”
A CHILL WIND IN BETHLEHEM
While the uptick in building plans has hit all Palestinians hard, they have put a particular damper on Christmas festivities in Bethlehem this year, squeezing the beleaguered Christian community and their Muslim neighbors both economically and politically.
“I’m not a Christian man, but to me, Christianity is a very important part of why Palestine is a holy land,” says senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath, standing on a grassy knoll of Givat HaMatos with the Mar Elias monastery behind him. “This is at the heart of a part of Palestine in which Christian Palestinians have a real presence. That is being threatened.”
Traditionally the Christmas procession to Bethlehem begins at the Mar Elias monastery, but today it is separated from Bethlehem by the concrete wall erected by Israel after a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings beginning in 2000.
Today, Palestinians are confined to 13 percent of the Bethlehem District, with wide swaths of land taken up by Israeli homes and related infrastructure, such as roads for West Bank settlers.
Building is continuing apace in Har Homa. Israel plans to extend its separation barrier through the nearby Christian town of Beit Jala, renowned for its olive oil. The plans, which would cut off 58 families from their olive groves, are pending an Israeli supreme court decision in February.
In addition, there is talk of reestablishing an Israeli military outpost in neighboring Beit Sahur, a stronghold of nonviolent resistance and the birthplace of the International Solidarity Movement during the first intifada.
“For us it’s very scary, it’s reminiscent of what happened in Jabal Abu Ghomoneih [Har Homa],” says activist and professor Mazin Qumsiyeh. “Bethlehem has become like a ghetto.”
A local Catholic priest finds hope only in appealing to a higher authority.
“Only God can help us … only God can change the mind of everybody to give us our rights,” says Ibrahim Shomali.

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Newtown shooting cranks up Canada's gun-control debate

Though the massacre in Newtown, Conn., last week has drawn sympathy from all over the world, it has a particular resonance in Canada.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 26 victims dead, including 20 children, comes just a week after the 23rd anniversary of Canada's own "Montreal Massacre," which reshaped the country's gun laws. Moreover, it occurred even as Canadians recently renewed calls for stricter controls on firearms access here amid ongoing efforts by the Conservative government to ease firearms laws.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered his condolences to the Newtown victims' families while calling the shootings “senseless.” But critics here accuse Mr. Harper's government of practically standing alone among Western nations in rolling back gun-control protections in recent years – most noticeably by scrapping the "long-gun" registry, which logged all of the country's rifles and shotguns, in 2011.
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“It has been a useful issue for the Conservative government over the last few years; the registry for a long time was a symbol of government waste,” says Blair Brown, an associate professor of history at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and the author of “Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada.”
There are an estimated 8 million legally owned guns in Canada, representing about 18 percent of Canadian households. Canada's gun laws are more strict than those of the US. Canadian federal law requires that all restricted and prohibited weapons – including all handguns – be registered with the government. Canada also requires licenses to buy, own, and use firearms.
Canada's strict gun regime, including the now repealed long-gun registry, was introduced by the Liberal government in the mid-1990s, in large part prompted by the Montreal Massacre, in which, on Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine shot and killed 14 women at the Montreal's École Polytechnique before killing himself.
Montreal was also the setting for another school shooting in 2006, at Dawson College, where one student was killed and 19 were wounded before the killer turned his guns on himself. And Toronto has increasingly been the setting in recent years of messy gun battles and shootings in crowded public places, often with guns that have either been smuggled in from the US or stolen from registered gun owners.
HAS GUN-LAW RELAXATION GONE TOO FAR...
Canadian gun-control advocates argue that still more restrictions are needed. They point out that the type of hunting rifle used by Lepine in Montreal is sold by Canadian Tire, an iconic Canadian chain of hardware stores – much as critics of America’s gun culture note that the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, used in the Sandy Hook shootings, is readily sold by chains like Wal-Mart.
And Heidi Rathjen, who witnessed the Montreal Massacre in 1989 and is now part of a group of survivors and family members of the tragedy who advocate for stricter gun controls, says that rifles, shotguns, and many assault-style weapons remain easily accessible in Canada.
To Ms. Rathjen, the Harper government has done more to erode gun laws than simply scrap the long-gun registry: “They’ve weakened provisions around licensing. While it remains true that you need a license to purchase a gun, a seller no longer has to check the validity of your permit.”
“The fact that there’s been terrible shootings and gun-related deaths has never made a difference. They’ve been very uncompromising in their position, they’ve done everything they could to please the gun lobby, and they plan to do more,” adds Rathjen.
Still, the government has shown signs that there are limits to how far it'll go. Earlier this month, on the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, the prime minister distanced himself from several recommendations of the government-appointed Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee – a group comprised almost entirely of gun enthusiasts and advocates – when it was reported that the committee recommended eliminating all together the most restrictive “prohibited” category of firearms – which includes automatic assault rifles.
“The government has absolutely no intention of weakening that category of protection,” Harper was quoted as saying in the Toronto Star.
Another conservative recommendation that would see gun licensing go from five-years to a 10-year renewal term – which opposition critics pointed out would provide less opportunity to do background and mental health checks of registered gun owners – was later dropped. And mental health and gun ownership have gained renewed traction as details of the Sandy Hook killer come out.
... OR NOT FAR ENOUGH?
But to Canada’s gun lobby, the existing licensing and registration regime is restrictive enough. According to Blair Hagen, with Canada’s National Firearms Association, if the government recognized the right of citizens to bear arms, it would make any debate about their safe use and ownership a lot easier.
“All of the emphasis has been put on controlling and limiting the access to the firearms, and in some ways I can understand that,” says Mr. Hagen. “But the effects and failures of that system have to be accounted for now. How can you stop a determined person from getting access to these things? Seems to me if they’re determined, no law is going to stop them.”
Like their southern counterparts, the US National Rifle Association, the NFA is reluctant to talk about gun control in light of the Newtown tragedy. “Is this the time to talk about those things, after a massive tragedy like this? I don’t think so. I think it’s got to be done a lot more rationally, and done with a purpose rather than a reaction,” says Hagen.
But Rathjen questions whether the NFA and others opposed to gun control will ever commit to such a discussion willingly. She points out that Harper took a hard line on an assault-weapons ban – but only after the CFAC’s recommendations came to light after gun-control advocates pressed the matter, and in the midst of Canada marking the anniversary of its saddest chapter of gun violence.
“I don’t know if this makes any difference to them – the human tragedy of the Sandy Hook shootings – because they’ve ignored the evidence, they’ve ignored the opinions of experts that say that the long-gun registry is essential, that say that it saves lives, that it helps reduce gun-related crime,” she says.

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