Despite emerging deal, US to miss fiscal cliff deadline

WASHINGTON: US lawmakers missed a deadline to avoid the "fiscal cliff" budget crunch Monday but inched towards a deal to ease the worst impact of the crisis by heading off economy-busting tax hikes.

In dramatic New Year's Eve brinkmanship, Republicans and the White House reached an agreement that means only the richest Americans will pay more tax, but were still deadlocked on how to avert $109 billion in automatic government spending cuts.

Despite the emerging deal, the economy will technically go over the cliff at midnight after aides to Republican leaders in the House of Representatives said no vote on a pact could be scheduled in time on Monday.

Senators meanwhile were still hoping for a late-night vote if a deal is finalized. The legislation would then go to a House vote on Tuesday.

While automatic spending cuts and tax hikes will come into force on January 1, global stock markets will be closed on New Year's Day, giving lawmakers a few more hours of breathing room before panic over the US economy sets in.

"If a deal is reached, there's little difference between a vote tonight or tomorrow to give members a chance to review," a House Republican source said.

President Barack Obama earlier said a deal was close though not done and the top Senate Republican negotiator Mitch McConnell, who thrashed out a compromise with Vice President Joe Biden, agreed.

"It appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight. It's not done. There are still issues left to resolve, but we're hopeful that Congress can get it done," Obama said at the White House.

Sources said the deal would include a two-month postponement of the sequester, the sweeping package of automatic government spending cuts that is feared, especially by the Pentagon.

It would also mean a return to Bill Clinton-era tax rates for top earners to 39.6 percent, starting at a threshold of annual household earnings of $450,000 and above.

Obama had originally campaigned for tax hikes to kick in for those making $250,000 and above and his acceptance of a higher threshold has already angered liberals, though still represents a political victory.

As he tried to sell the emerging deal to his Democratic Party's liberal base, he said it would extend tax credits for clean energy firms and also unemployment insurance for two million people due to expire later Monday.

It was also expected to include an end to a temporary two percent cut to payroll taxes for Social Security retirement savings and Medicare health care programs for seniors and changes to inheritance and investment taxes.

The president angered Republicans in remarks in which he warned -- in what is certain to be a bitter fight over cutting the deficit -- that he was not done with seeking higher taxes for the rich.

"Now, if Republicans think that I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone... then they've another thing coming," Obama said, and also poked fun at the glacial pace of Congressional deliberations.

Republicans immediately took to the floor of the Senate to complain.

Senator John McCain accused Obama of ridiculing Republicans and of needlessly antagonizing House of Representatives' members who will be required to vote for an eventual deal.

Republican Senator Bob Corker said his heart was pounding with disappointment at Obama's remarks.

"I know the president has fun heckling Congress. I think he lost probably numbers of votes with what he did," he said.

"It's unfortunate he doesn't spend as much time solving problems as he does with campaigns and pep rallies."

Signs that a deal could be close cheered investors Friday as US markets rose before closing for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 166.03 points (1.28 percent) at 13,104.14.

Even as a deal neared, both sides were gearing up for the next legislative showdown over the need to lift the government's statutory borrowing limit of $16.4 trillion, which was reached Monday.

The Treasury will now take extraordinary measures to keep the government afloat for an undisclosed period of time until the ceiling is raised. Republicans are already demanding spending cuts in return.

"I think there is going to be a pretty big showdown next time when we go to the debt limit," McCain told CNN.

-AFP/ac

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Bombs kill 23 across Iraq as sectarian strife grows

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 23 people were killed and 87 wounded in attacks across Iraq on Monday, police said, underlining sectarian and ethnic divisions that threaten to further destabilize the country a year after U.S. troops left.

Tensions between Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions in Iraq's power-sharing government have been on the rise this year. Militants strike almost daily and have staged at least one big attack a month.

The latest violence followed more than a week of protests against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by thousands of people from the minority Sunni community.

No group claimed responsibility for any of Monday's attacks, which targeted government officials, police patrols and members of both the Sunni and Shi'ite communities.

Seven people from the same Sunni family were killed by a bomb planted near their home in the town of Mussayab, south of Baghdad.

In the Shi'ite majority city of Hilla, also in the south, a parked car bomb went off near the convoy of the governor of Babil province, missing him but killing two other people, police said.

"We heard the sound of a big explosion and the windows of our office shattered. We immediately lay on the ground," said 28-year-old Mohammed Ahmed, who works at a hospital near the site of the explosion.

"After a few minutes I stood up and went to the windows to see what happened. I saw flames and people lying on the ground."

In the capital Baghdad, five people were killed by a parked car bomb targeting pilgrims before a Shi'ite religious rite this week, police and hospital sources said.

Although violence is far lower than during the sectarian slaughter of 2006-2007, about 2,000 people have been killed in Iraq this year following the withdrawal last December of U.S. troops, who led an invasion in 2003 to overthrow Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.

SUNNIS PROTEST

Violence also hit Iraq's disputed territories, over which both the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region claim jurisdiction.

Three militants and one Kurdish guard were killed in the oil-producing, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, where militants driving a car packed with explosives tried to break into a Kurdish security office.

Earlier on Monday, two policemen were killed in Kirkuk when a bomb they were trying to detonate exploded prematurely. An army official and his bodyguard were also killed in a drive-by shooting in the south of the city.

Kirkuk lies at the heart of a feud between Baghdad and Kurdistan over land and oil rights, which escalated last month when both sides deployed their respective armies to the swath of territory along their contested internal boundary.

Efforts to ease the standoff stalled when President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd seen as a steadying influence, suffered a stroke and was flown abroad for medical care in December.

Maliki then detained the bodyguards of his Sunni finance minister, which ignited anti-government protests in the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold on the border with Syria.

A lecturer in law at Baghdad University said the protests could help create the conditions for militant Islamist groups like al Qaeda to thrive.

"Raising tension in Anbar and other provinces with mainly Sunni populations is definitely playing into the hands of al Qaeda and other insurgent groups," Ahmed Younis said.

More than 1,000 people protested in the city of Samarra on Monday and rallies continued in Ramadi, center of the protests, and in Mosul, where about 500 people took to the streets.

In the city of Falluja, where protesters have also staged large rallies and blocked a major highway over the past week, gunmen attacked an army checkpoint, killing one soldier.

Protesters are demanding an end to what they see as the marginalization of Sunnis, who dominated the country until the U.S.-led invasion. They want Maliki to abolish anti-terrorism laws they say are used to persecute them.

On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, himself a Sunni, was forced to flee a protest in Ramadi when demonstrators pelted him with stones and bottles.

The civil war in neighboring Syria, where majority Sunnis are fighting to topple a ruler backed by Shi'ite Iran, is also whipping up sectarian sentiment in Iraq.

"The toppling of President Bashar al-Assad and empowerment of Sunnis (in Syria) will definitely encourage al Qaeda to regain ground," Younis said.

(Reporting by Ali al-Rubaie in Hilla, Mustafa Mahmoud and Omar Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ali Mohammed in Baquba and Ahmed Rasheed and Aseel Kami in Baghdad; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Space Pictures This Week: Ice “Broccoli,” Solar Storm

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  Happy Trails

  Photograph by Alex Cherney, TWAN

  Amateur astronomer Alex Cherney captured these star trails as they blazed above Lake Tyrrell, a salt lake in Victoria, Australia in October 2011 and posted to The World At Night website December 25, 2012.

  (See pictures of another Australian salt lake, Lake Eyre.)

  Published December 31, 2012

  
  











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  Tokyo From Space

  
  Image courtesy DLR

  The sprawling Japanese capital Tokyo looks like a funky computer chip in this image taken by Germany's Earth-observing satellite TerraSAR-X and released December 20.

  Launched in 2007, the satellite's radar sensors map Earth from 319 miles (514 kilometers) up in a near-polar orbit.

  Published December 31, 2012

  
  











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  Extreme View

  
  Image courtesy SDO/NASA

  NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory snapped this extreme ultraviolet view of an active region on the sun as it rotated into view from December 16 to December 18. Ultraviolet light makes it easier to trace the whorls and loops created by superheated gas, or plasma, and the sun's magnetic field lines.

  Active solar regions such as this create space weather that, when aimed at Earth, can disrupt satellite communications and electronics. (See more pictures of solar activity and space weather.)

  Published December 31, 2012

  
  











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  Saturn’s Dark Side

  
  Image courtesy SSI/Caltech/NASA

  This image of the unlit side of Saturn's S rings, released December 24, was taken with visible light by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

  The shadow of Saturn's innermost major moon, Mimas, is visible as a black oval south of the rings' shadow. For those with completely dust-free computer monitors, Janus, another Saturnian moon, is visible as a tiny white speck above the planet's north pole. (Learn about Saturn's major moons.)

  Published December 31, 2012

  
  











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  A River Runs Through It

  
  Image courtesy ESA/JAXA

  The European Space Agency released this picture—taken by Japan's satellite ALOS—of Italy's longest river on December 14.

  The Po river and its surrounding fields divide Italy into its northern and southern regions. The Japanese used ALOS, which they lost contact with in late April 2011, to generate precise land maps, monitor disasters, and conduct resource surveys. (Read an excerpt from National Geographic magazine about the Po river.)

  Published December 31, 2012

  
  











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  Glacial "Broccoli"

  
  Image from DigitalGlobe/Getty Images

  The Moshniy glacier, located on the Russian archipelago Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean, calves chunks of ice and debris into a pattern reminiscent of broccoli in an image released December 20.

  Novaya Zemlya was a sensitive military area during the Cold War, and was also the site of the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated. The energy released by the 50-megaton "Tsar" bomb was ten times that of all the explosions set off during World War II.

  Published December 31, 2012

  
  











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  Image courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASA

  Published December 31, 2012

  
  

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What Happens If We Go Over the Fiscal Cliff?

America is swiftly approaching the fiscal cliff.

President Obama and congressional leaders have talked for weeks with varying degrees of frequency and success at compromising, and one precept resonates throughout the public statements of politicians and economists: the so-called "fiscal cliff" would be a very bad thing.

But what actually happens if Washington takes us over it?

As has been well documented, the "cliff" is not one thing, but a ball of expiring economic provisions that lead to automatic policy changes at year's end, loosely grouped under the catch phrase. They fall into two categories, taxes and spending.

Should we fall off the cliff, the tax code would change most dramatically with the expiration of the so-called "Bush tax cuts," which created new brackets and lowered tax rates for both middle-class and high earners. According to the Tax Policy Center at the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution, the average American taxpayer would see a tax hike of $3,446, ABC's David Muir reported for "World News."

Where do the hikes fall, exactly? For many tax brackets, rates would jump by at least three percentage points. The middle class would see the worst of it, according to analysis from the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan research arm that studies policy changes at Congress's request.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo|Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

For high earners, married couples making more than $222,300 but less than $397,000, rates would jump from 33 percent to 36 percent. For the highest earners, couples making over $397,000, taxes would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

But they'd rise for almost everyone else, too. Couples making $145,900 - $222,300 would see a rate jump from 28 percent to 31 percent. Couples making $72,300 - $145,900 would see rates jump from 25 percent to 28 percent.

The middle class would take the biggest hit: Married couples earning $60,350 - $72,300 would see tax rates jump from 15 percent to 28 percent. That means that without any credits or deductions, a couple making $65,000 would go from taking home $55,250 to taking home $46,800 next year if Congress and the president fail to strike a deal.

The cliff's tax implications go beyond the simple income-tax rate: The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and the estate tax are also on the table with year-end deadlines.

The AMT is a tax that prevents high earners from escaping income-tax liability by claiming too many deductions. Taxpayers over a certain income add back certain deductions to see if they must pay a minimum rate. Ever since Bush's tax cuts, Congress has repeatedly extended an "AMT patch" to maintain the income threshold. According to the Congressional Research Service, if Congress doesn't act again this year, that threshold will drop from $74,450 to $45,000 for married couples and from $48,450 to $33,750 for individuals, exposing more people to the alternative minimum.

The estate tax, demonized by Republicans as the dreaded "death tax," would change significantly. Right now, estates of over $5.12 million are taxed at a maximum of 35 percent. If Congress doesn't act, next year estates of over $1 million will be taxed at 55 percent.

No one likes paying taxes, but the spending side of the cliff isn't supposed to be all that fun, either.

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‘Fiscal cliff’ resolution falls to Biden and McConnell, longtime Senate colleagues

In the end, it came down to two 70-year-old men, talking on the phone.

They are not the most powerful men in Washington: Each, in his own way, is a second fiddle. Joseph R. Biden is vice president. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is the Senate minority leader, in charge only of the senators who are not in charge.

But these two men — rivals, colleagues and wary friends for almost 28 years — were the ones called upon to try to close a deal that had eluded all the negotiators before them.

Their last-minute resolution of the “fiscal cliff” crisis Monday night provided a glimpse into the ways in which personality quirks and personal relationships still matter in a Washington defined mostly by partisanship and raw political power.

Raw power had its chance.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) didn’t have enough strength to strike a bargain with the president and make it stick with his House colleagues.

President Obama, intent on showing his own strength, alienated those from whom he sought compromise.

Both of those leaders said they wanted a big, historic deal to solve some of the country’s financial problems. They could not manage it. Instead, they got what Biden and McConnell could wrangle on the phone at the last minute: a small deal that solved few of the big problems outside the immediate crisis.

On Monday, while they talked, the rest of Congress waited. And complained. “There are two people in a room deciding incredibly consequential issues for this country, while 99 other United States senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives — elected by their constituencies to come to Washington — are on the sidelines,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said on the Senate floor.

Thune was wrong about one thing: In a day of phone conversations, Biden and McConnell were never actually in the same room.

But Thune was right that legislators had, essentially, been cut out of the legislative process.

“At least we would have had an opportunity to debate this, instead of waiting now until the eleventh hour,” Thune said.

By now, however, nobody on Capitol Hill should have been surprised at how this would end.

Monday marked the third time in two years that a congressional cliffhanger had ended with a bargain struck by McConnell and Biden. The first time came in late 2010, during a year-end showdown over the expiring Bush-era tax cuts. The second was in August 2011, during the fight over the “debt ceiling.” In both cases, Washington’s new power players — Obama and the tea-party-infused House GOP — couldn’t reach an agreement. They were saved by a bargain struck in Washington’s oldest tradition, not much changed from the days of Henry Clay except the size of the dollar figures and the presence of a phone.

Two men, both with 20-plus years in the capital, working out the final touches alone.

Washington’s two unofficial “closers” are remarkably different. The smiling, garrulous Biden has a reputation for empathy: You could spot him as a politician from 40 yards away. McConnell is reserved, deliberate and highly calculating. He only looks like a politician within the arcane, closed world of the Senate.

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Talks stall as fiscal cliff looms

WASHINGTON: Two days of last-gasp talks produced no deal Sunday between US political leaders struggling to averting a fiscal calamity due to hit the American and world economy within hours.

Party leaders in the US Senate groped for a compromise to head-off a punishing package of spending cuts and tax hikes that is due come into force on January 1 and which could roil global markets and plunge the US into recession.

Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell warned that, despite through-the-night talks, negotiators were still a long way from success, as they raced against the ebbing 2012 calendar in search of a compromise.

McConnell told AFP he received no response to a "good faith offer" to Senate Democrats and had spoken twice by telephone with his old friend and sparring partner Vice President Joe Biden in the hope of breaking the stalemate.

Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed that talks were at a standstill, and warned that Americans could ring in the New Year with no deal to avert a budget disaster known as the "fiscal cliff."

"There is still significant distance between the two sides, but negotiations continue," Reid told the Senate, after huddling for nearly two hours with his Democratic caucus on one of the latest December Senate workdays in 50 years.

"There is still time left to reach an agreement, and we intend to continue negotiations," he said, as he ordered the Senate back into session at 11:00am (1600 GMT) Monday, New Year's eve and the last day before the deadline.

Reid said Democrats were unwilling to brook talk of social security cuts.

"This morning, we have been trying to come up with some counter-offer to my friend's proposal," Reid told the Senate. "We have been unable to do that."

The already tense mood on Capitol Hill had soured during Sunday's confusing hours, when some lawmakers tossed out varying versions of what may or may not be in Democratic and Republican offers.

"I'm incredibly disappointed we cannot seem to find common ground. I think we're going over the cliff," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Twitter.

Moderate Democrat Clair McCaskill was also pessimistic.

"This is definitely not a kumbaya moment," she said.

Earlier, President Barack Obama accused Republicans of causing the mess, saying they had refused to move on what he said were genuine offers of compromise from his Democrats.

"Now the pressure's on Congress to produce," Obama said, in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" that was recorded on Saturday, a day after he expressed modest optimism that a deal could be reached.

Obama said it had been "very hard" for top Republican leaders to accept that "taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit, as part of an overall deficit reduction package."

But Republicans were irked by Obama's tone.

"I don't know if this is the president saying $250 (thousand) or 'Go to hell'," Graham told reporters, referring to Obama's insistence that taxes rise on households income greater than a quarter million dollars per year.

The Senate's number two Democrat, Dick Durbin, said Republicans want the tax threshold be raised to $550,000 per household and that Democrats might counter with $450,000, considerably higher than the president's $250,000.

But Reid warned: "We're still left with a proposal they've given us that protects the wealthy and not the middle class. I'm not going to agree to that"

If no deal is reached, a package of tax cuts for all Americans that was first passed by then-president George W. Bush will expire on January 1.

All American workers will see their own paycheck hit and the broader economy will suffer from massive automatic spending cuts across the government.

Experts expect the US economy to slide into recession if the standoff is prolonged, in a scenario that could cause turmoil in stock markets and hit prospects for global growth in 2013.

The president won re-election partly on a platform of raising taxes on the rich, but Republicans who run the House of Representatives oppose tax hikes as a point of principle and claim Obama is addicted to runaway spending.

Any deal must pass the Senate, before going to the House, where such is the power of the conservative bloc of the Republican Party, it is unclear whether any solution backed by Obama can win majority support.

If leaders fail to find agreement, Obama has demanded a vote on his fallback plan that would preserve lower tax rates for families on less than $250,000 a year and extend unemployment insurance for two million people.

Republicans admitted such an option could emerge on Monday.

-AFP/ac

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Chavez suffers new post-surgery complications

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is suffering further complications linked to a respiratory infection that hit him after his fourth cancer operation in Cuba, his vice president said in a somber broadcast on Sunday.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro flew to Cuba to visit Chavez in the hospital as supporters' fears grow for the ailing 58-year-old socialist leader, who has not been seen in public nor heard from in three weeks.

Chavez had already suffered unexpected bleeding caused by the six-hour operation on December 11 for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area, and officials say doctors then had to fight a respiratory infection.

"Just a few minutes ago we were with President Chavez. He greeted us and he himself talked about these complications," Maduro said in the broadcast, adding that the third set of complications arose because of the respiratory infection.

"Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is confronting this difficult situation."

Maduro, flanked by his wife Attorney-General Cilia Flores, Chavez's daughter Rosa Virginia and her husband, Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, said he would remain in Havana while Chavez's condition evolved.

Chavez's resignation for health reasons, or his death, would upend politics in the OPEC nation where his personalized brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.

The president's allies have been openly discussing the possibility that he may not be able to return to swear in for his third six-year term on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.

Opposition leaders say a postponement would be another signal Chavez is not in a fit state to govern and that new elections should be called to choose his replacement.

They believe they have a better shot against Maduro, who was named earlier this month by Chavez as his heir apparent, than against the charismatic president who for 14 years has been nearly invincible at the ballot box.

Any constitutional dispute over succession could lead to a messy transition toward a post-Chavez era in the country with the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Maduro has become the face of the government in Chavez's absence, imitating the president's bombastic style and sharp criticism of the United States and its "imperialist" policies.

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago and Mario Naranjo; Ediitng by Kieran Murray and Todd Eastham)

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How to Banish That New Year's Eve Hangover

For those of us who enjoy the occasional cocktail, the holiday season would be incomplete without certain treats of the liquid variety. Some look forward to the creamy charms of rum-laced eggnog; others anticipate cupfuls of high-octane punch or mugs of warm, spiced wine.

No matter what's in your glass, raising one as the year winds down is tradition. What could be more festive? The problem is, one drink leads to two, then the party gets going and a third is generously poured. Soon, the music fades and the morning arrives—and with it, the dreaded hangover. (Explore a human-body interactive.)

Whether it's a pounding headache, a queasy stomach, sweating, or just general misery, the damage has been done. So now it's time to remedy the situation. What's the quickest way to banish the pain? It depends who you ask.

Doctors typically recommend water for hydration and ibuprofen to reduce inflammation. Taking B vitamins is also good, according to anesthesiologist Jason Burke, because they help the body metabolize alcohol and produce energy.

Burke should know a thing or two about veisalgia, the medical term for hangover. At his Las Vegas clinic Hangover Heaven, Burke treats thousands of people suffering from the effects of drinking to excess with hydrating fluids and medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"No two hangovers are the same," he said, adding that the unfavorable condition costs society billions of dollars-mostly from lost productivity and people taking sick days from work.

Hot Peppers for Hangovers?

So what's the advice from the nonmedical community? Suggestions range from greasy breakfasts to vanilla milkshakes to spending time in a steamy sauna. A friend insists hot peppers are the only way to combat a hangover's wrath. Another swears by the palliative effects of a bloody mary. In fact, many people just have another drink, following the old "hair of the dog that bit you" strategy.

Whether such "cures" actually get rid of a hangover is debatable, but one thing's for sure: the sorry state is universal. The only people immune to hangovers are the ones who avoid alcohol altogether.

So for those who do indulge, even if it's just once in awhile, see our interactive featuring cures from around the world (also above). As New Year's Eve looms with its attendant excuse to imbibe, perhaps it would be wise to stock your refrigerator with one of these antidotes. Pickled herring, anyone?

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Hillary Clinton Hospitalized With Blood Clot

Dec 30, 2012 8:11pm

(MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images)

Secretary Hillary Clinton was hospitalized today after a doctors doing a follow-up exam discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago.

She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours, Deputy Assistant Secretary Philippe Reines said.

Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required, Reines said.

Clinton, 65, originally fell ill from a stomach virus following a whirlwind trip to Europe at the beginning of the month, which caused such severe dehydration that she fainted and fell at home, suffering a concussion. No ambulance was called and she was not hospitalized, according to a state department official.

The stomach virus had caused Clinton to cancel a planned trip to North Africa and the United Arab Emirates, and also her scheduled testimony before Congress at hearings on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

According to a U.S. official, the secretary had two teams of doctors, including specialists, examine her after the fall.  They also ran tests to rule out more serious ailments beyond the virus and the concussion. During the course of the week after her concussion, Clinton was on an IV drip and being monitored by a nurse, while also recovering from the pain caused by the fall.

SHOWS: World News

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Hillary Clinton hospitalized with blood clot

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was hospitalized in New York on Sunday after doctors monitoring her recovery from a concussion discovered a blood clot, according to a statement from her office.

The statement said that “in the course of a follow-up exam, Secretary Clinton’s doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago. She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at New York-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours.

“Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required.”

Clinton aide Philippe Reines, who issued the statement, declined to provide further details.

Reines said on Thursday that Clinton’s recuperation was continuing and that she was expected to resume her office schedule this week.

Clinton has not been seen in public since the first week in December, when she reportedly contracted a stomach virus during a trip to Europe. On Dec. 15, the State Department said that she had fainted at her home two days earlier, as a result of dehydration from the virus, and had sustained a concussion. The State Department said that her doctors had advised further rest.

During her absence, Clinton canceled an overseas trip and scheduled testimony before Congress about the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. She also did not appear at the White House on Dec. 21, when President Obama introduced Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) as his nominee to succeed Clinton, 65.

Republicans have said that they are likely to hold up Kerry’s nomination hearing until Clinton testifies about the Benghazi attack, but the impact of this new disclosure was unclear.

Clinton said this summer that she would not stay in her job in a second Obama term.

Before the announcement about Clinton’s hospitalization, Obama appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and reaffirmed an earlier decision by Clinton to carry out all 29 recommendations made by a State Department review panel that examined the circumstances surrounding the attacks in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11. “My message to the State Department has been very simple, and that is we’re going to solve this,” he said. “We’re not going to be defensive about it; we’re not going to pretend that this was not a problem — this was a huge problem.”

Obama said one major finding — that the State Department relied too heavily on untested local Libyan militias to safeguard the compound in Benghazi — reflected “internal reviews” by the government. “It confirms what we had already seen based on some of our internal reviews; there was just some sloppiness, not intentional, in terms of how we secure embassies in areas where you essentially don’t have governments that have a lot of capacity to protect those embassies,” he said.

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The gang-rape on a bus that sickened India

NEW DELHI: After spending her evening watching "Life of Pi" in a New Delhi mall, the 23-year-old student and her male companion were looking for a quick lift home when a bus with tinted windows pulled over.

The pair were then subjected to a catalogue of violence and sexual depravity which has evoked comparisons with Anthony Burgess's novel "A Clockwork Orange" and brought simmering anger over the plight of women to the boil across India.

The Indian news channel NDTV greeted news of her death in the early hours of Saturday in a Singapore hospital with the banner headline "RIP: India's Daughter", in a reflection of how her plight had moved the nation.

Ever since she was attacked on the night of December 16, the country's leaders have lined up to offer their prayers and condemn the attack as well as paying for her treatment in Singapore.

Although the identity of the young woman has not yet been released, reports have said she was a medical student who hailed from a rural area of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state which borders the capital New Delhi.

Her parents, who had travelled to Singapore after she was flown out by air ambulance on Wednesday night, are said to have sold their small piece of land in order to fund their daughter's education, often limiting their own meals to little more than rotis with namak (bread with salt), according to NDTV.

"These are simple, rustic people, who have never dreamt of boarding an aircraft, much less travel to a foreign country in an air ambulance," a source at the hospital told Singapore's Straits Times after meeting her relatives.

Before flying out to Singapore, the woman had managed to give an interview to police at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital about the events on the night of her attack.

Police and prosecutors have outlined how six men picked the pair up outside the mall in a school bus which they had taken for a joyride after drinking heavily.

Even before they stopped outside the mall, they had allegedly picked up another passenger and then forced him to hand over the contents of his wallet.

After getting into an argument with the woman's male companion, the group are then alleged to have lashed out at the pair before taking turns to rape the woman in the back of the bus while driving around Delhi for some 45 minutes.

They also sexually assaulted the woman with a rusting metal bar, leaving her with severe intestinal injuries, before hurling her out of the vehicle.

The bus would have had to cross numerous police checkpoints at that time of night but at no stage was the vehicle pulled over by officers.

After news of the attack emerged, small-scale protests quickly swelled and were then repeated across the country -- fuelled in part by anger at the police's use of teargas and water cannon.

The Indian government has set up a commission of inquiry to investigate what mistakes were made on the night of the attack and in its aftermath.

But in an address to chief ministers from the country's states who gathered in New Delhi on Thursday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh acknowledged that it was far from an isolated event.

"We must reflect on this problem, which occurs in all states and regions. It requires greater attention by the central government and states," he said.

Gang-rapes happen on such a regular basis that they are rarely reported in the Indian press although the attack in Delhi has led papers to shine a rare spotlight on such attacks.

On Thursday night, it emerged that a 17-year-old girl had committed suicide after police allegedly tried to persuade her to drop a complaint of gang-rape and instead either accept a cash settlement or even marry one of her attackers.

After quoting from the infamous gang-rape scene in Burgess's novel, a columnist for The Hindu wrote this week that "few Indians will need a dictionary of the teenage slang Burgess invented to grasp the horror of this passage".

"For progress to be made, we must begin by acknowledging this one fact: the problem isn't the police, the courts or the government. The problem is us," wrote Praveen Swami.

- AFP/ck

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India gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Indian gang rape victim whose assault in New Delhi triggered nationwide protests died of her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, potentially threatening fresh protests in India where her case is a rallying point for women's rights.

The 23-year-old medical student, severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been flown to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for specialist treatment.

"We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (3:45 p.m. ET Friday). Her family and officials from the High Commission (embassy) of India were by her side," Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in a statement.

Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women's rights activists say. But the brutality of the December 16 assault sparked public outrage and calls for better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.

The case has received blanket coverage on cable television news channels. The woman has not been identified but some Indian media have called her "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure".

"We are saddened to learn that she has succumbed to her injuries, and would like to extend our deepest condolences to her family during this time of bereavement," Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Earlier on Friday, the hospital had reported that the woman's condition had taken a turn for the worse. It said that her family had been informed and were by her side.

T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, said after her death that the family had expressed a desire for her body to be flown back to India. Moments later, the woman's body was loaded into a van and driven away.

Talking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Raghavan declined to comment on reports in India accusing the government of sending her to Singapore to minimize the possible backlash in the event of her death.

Some Indian medical experts had questioned the decision to airlift the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky maneuver given the seriousness of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best possible care in India.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government has been battling criticism that it was tone-deaf to the outcry and heavy handed in its response to the protests in the Indian capital.

"It is deeply saddening and just beyond words. The police and government definitely have to do something more," said Sharanya Ramachandran, an Indian national working as an engineer in Singapore.

"They should bring in very severe punishment for such cases. They should start recognizing that it is a big crime."

"SIGNIFICANT BRAIN INJURY"

The Singapore hospital said earlier that the woman had suffered "significant brain injury" and was surviving against the odds. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before being flown to Singapore.

Protests over the lack of safety for women erupted across India after the attack, culminating last weekend in pitched battles between police and protesters in the heart of New Delhi.

New Delhi has been on edge since the weekend clashes. Hundreds of policemen have been deployed on the streets of the capital and streets leading to the main protest site, the India Gate war memorial, have been shut for long periods, severely disrupting traffic in the city of 16 million.

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

Many protesters have complained that Singh's government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.

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

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin in New Delhi and Saeed Azhar and Edgar Su in Singapore; Editing by Michael Roddy and Mark Bendeich)

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How to Banish That New Year's Eve Hangover

For those of us who enjoy the occasional cocktail, the holiday season would be incomplete without certain treats of the liquid variety. Some look forward to the creamy charms of rum-laced eggnog; others anticipate cupfuls of high-octane punch or mugs of warm, spiced wine.

No matter what's in your glass, raising one as the year winds down is tradition. What could be more festive? The problem is, one drink leads to two, then the party gets going and a third is generously poured. Soon, the music fades and the morning arrives—and with it, the dreaded hangover. (Explore a human-body interactive.)

Whether it's a pounding headache, a queasy stomach, sweating, or just general misery, the damage has been done. So now it's time to remedy the situation. What's the quickest way to banish the pain? It depends who you ask.

Doctors typically recommend water for hydration and ibuprofen to reduce inflammation. Taking B vitamins is also good, according to anesthesiologist Jason Burke, because they help the body metabolize alcohol and produce energy.

Burke should know a thing or two about veisalgia, the medical term for hangover. At his Las Vegas clinic Hangover Heaven, Burke treats thousands of people suffering from the effects of drinking to excess with hydrating fluids and medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"No two hangovers are the same," he said, adding that the unfavorable condition costs society billions of dollars-mostly from lost productivity and people taking sick days from work.

Hot Peppers for Hangovers?

So what's the advice from the nonmedical community? Suggestions range from greasy breakfasts to vanilla milkshakes to spending time in a steamy sauna. A friend insists hot peppers are the only way to combat a hangover's wrath. Another swears by the palliative effects of a bloody mary. In fact, many people just have another drink, following the old "hair of the dog that bit you" strategy.

Whether such "cures" actually get rid of a hangover is debatable, but one thing's for sure: the sorry state is universal. The only people immune to hangovers are the ones who avoid alcohol altogether.

So for those who do indulge, even if it's just once in awhile, see our interactive featuring cures from around the world (also above). As New Year's Eve looms with its attendant excuse to imbibe, perhaps it would be wise to stock your refrigerator with one of these antidotes. Pickled herring, anyone?

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Epic Journey: Did Moses' Exodus Really Happen?

In the Bible, he is called Moses. In the Koran, he is the prophet Musa.

Religious scholars have long questioned whether of the story of a prophet leading God's chosen people in a great exodus out of Egypt and the freedom it brought them afterwards was real, but the similarities between a pharaoh's ancient hymn and a psalm of David might hold the link to his existence.

Tune in to Part 2 of Christiane Amanpour's ABC News special, "Back to the Beginning," which explores the history of the Bible from Genesis to Jesus, on Friday, Dec. 28 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

Christian scripture says Moses was content to grow old with his family in the vast deserted wilderness of Midian, and 40 years passed until the Bible says God spoke to him through the Burning Bush and told him to lead his people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. According to tradition, that miraculous bush can still be seen today enclosed within the ancient walls of St. Catherine's Monastery, located not far from Moses' hometown.

But there was another figure in the ancient world who gave up everything to answer the call from what he believed was the one and only true God.

Archaeologists discovered the remains of the ancient city of Amarna in the 1800s. Egyptologist Rawya Ismail, who has been studying the ruins for years, believes, as other archaeologists do, that Pharaoh Akhenaten built the city as a tribute to Aten, the sun.

G.Sioen/De Agostini/Getty Images

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She said it was a bold and unusual step for the pharaoh to leave the luxurious trappings of palace life in Luxor for the inhospitable landscape of Amarna, but it might have been his only choice as the priests from the existing religious establishment gained power.

"The very powerful Amun-Ra priests that he couldn't stand against gained control of the whole country," Ismail said. "The idea was to find a place that had never been used by any other gods -- to be virgin is what he called it -- so he chose this place."

All over the walls inside the city's beautiful tombs are examples of Akhanaten's radical message of monotheism. There is the Hymn to the Aten, which translates, in part, to: "The earth comes into being by your hand, as you made it. When you dawn, they live. When you set, they die. You yourself are lifetime, one lives by you."

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Some attribute the writing of the hymn to Akhanaten himself, but it bears a striking resemblance to a passage that can be found in the Hebrew Bible: Psalm 104.

"If you compare the hymns from A to Z, you'll find mirror images to it in many of the holy books," Ismail said. "And if you compare certain parts of it, you'll find it almost exactly -- a typical translation for some of the [psalms] of David."

Psalm 104, written a few hundred years later, references a Lord that ruled over Israel and a passage compares him to the sun.

"You hide your face, they are troubled," part of it reads. "You take away your breath, they die, And return to dust. You send forth your breath, they are created, And you renew the face of the earth."

Like the psalm, the Hymn to Aten extols the virtues of the one true God.

"A lot of people think that [the Hymn to Aten] was the source of the [psalms] of David," Ismail said. "Putting Egypt on the trade route, a lot of people traveled from Egypt and came back to Egypt, it wasn't like a country living in isolation."

Ismail believes it is possible that the message from the heretic pharaoh has some connection to the story of Moses and the Exodus, as outlined in the Hebrew Bible.

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Any ‘fiscal cliff’ deal must get through political obstacle course in next few days

Turning the newfound optimism for a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” into an actual deal will take 72 hours of deft political and procedural maneuvering through many of the same traps that have so far prevented an agreement.

Democrats and Republicans still have very different notions of who should pay higher taxes and who shouldn’t. And whatever party leaders come up with must still go through the thicket of politics in the slow-moving Senate and the anything-goes House.

“We’re trying to get the Rubik’s Cube all lined up,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Friday evening.

The first step began Friday night, when senior aides to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) began negotiating pieces of a fiscal puzzle that must be fit together by the time the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

Those talks are expected to continue Saturday, when both chambers of Congress will be shut down so Senate leaders can craft a deal that both of their caucuses are willing to accept.

Taxes remain the primary sticking point. Republicans have signaled a willingness to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for all income up to $400,000, while Democrats prefer the $250,000 figure that Obama campaigned on, according to sources in both parties.

Tied into that discussion was another over the estate tax, with Republicans and some western Democrats pushing to keep estates worth up to $5 million exempt from taxes, while Obama pushed to lower the threshold to $3.5 million.

Politically, the key is not just to pass something out of the Democratically controlled Senate, but also to do so with enough votes from Republicans to compel their House counterparts to support a deal. A bill with limited support from Senate Republicans would be dead on arrival in the GOP-dominated House, aides in both chambers said.

The critical deadline for the Senate-based negotiations is Sunday afternoon, according to Reid and McConnell. If they can come up with something by then, the Senate could approve it by late Sunday or late Monday morning, giving the House the rest of New Year’s Eve to consider it.

Even under this optimistic timeline, Senate and House leaders would need cooperation from the hard-liners in their respective caucuses, who could turn to procedure to block a compromise.

Under normal Senate rules, for instance, a new piece of legislation could take a full week to begin consideration, have full debate and then final passage.

To avoid that, the Senate would instead likely take up a bill that has already passed the House — and which keeps all taxes at their current rates — and gut it and replace it with new language. Even so, McConnell would need to ensure that the most conservative Republicans don’t filibuster the measure or then force a lengthy 30-hour debate, which is allowed under Senate rules.

If all of that can be worked out, the Senate would ship a bipartisan deal across the Capitol Rotunda by Sunday night or Monday morning.

The first thing that would have to happen in the House is an agreement to waive a rule instituted under Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) that requires a full day between the time a bill is published and when it is voted on.

Boehner has also discussed amending a Senate-passed bill with a more conservative tilt on taxes — a possibility he again raised during Friday’s White House meeting.

“Let us know what you come up with, and we’ll consider it — accept or amend it,” Boehner told the other leaders, according to the notes of a Boehner aide.

Amending the bill would send it back across the Senate for last-minute consideration, with many of the same procedural hurdles applying again and with the clock ticking steadily toward midnight.

Most congressional aides, however, have little faith in the speaker’s ability to amend anything, because Democrats would withhold their votes and he would need at least 217 Republicans to support him. That would set up a replay of Boehner’s ill-fated “Plan B” from last week, in which several dozen Republicans refused to support any increase in tax rates.

If there were not 217 GOP votes to amend the bill, Boehner would then hold a vote. And if enough Democrats and Republicans supported it and Obama were willing to sign it, Washington would have a deal.

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World's smelliest and largest flower blooms in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO: Hundreds of visitors are flocking daily to a botanical garden in south-eastern Brazil to watch the rare blooming of the Titan arum, the world's smelliest and largest tropical flower.

Also known as the "corpse flower" because of a smell likened to rotting flesh, it began blooming on Christmas Day and is already beginning to close, botanist Patricia Oliveira told AFP.

The flower "has a lifespan of 72 hours, during which its stink and meat-coloration attract pollinators: carrion flies and beetles," added Oliveira, who works at the Inhotim garden, about 445 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, housing the massive flower.

Titan arum, also known by its scientific name, "Amorphophallus titanum", which means misshapen giant penis, is native to the rainforests of western Sumatra. It rarely flowers, is incredibly difficult to cultivate and takes six years to grow.

Thursday, this Brazilian specimen reached 167 centimetres in height, but the species can grow up to over three metres tall.

This "is the second time it bloomed. The first time was in December 2010," Oliveira said.

When it flowers, the bloom has the same temperature as that of the human body, which helps spread its pungent smell.

The species was first described in 1878 by Italian natural scientist Odoardo Beccari. Ten years later, it bloomed in a London botanical garden and its next flowering occurred in 1926.

-AFP/fl

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CAR appeals for French help against rebels, Paris balks

BANGUI (Reuters) - The president of the Central African Republic appealed on Thursday for France and the United States to help push back rebels threatening his government and the capital, but Paris said its troops were only ready to protect French nationals.

The exchanges came as regional African leaders tried to broker a ceasefire deal and as rebels said they had temporarily halted their advance on Bangui, the capital, to allow talks to take place.

Insurgents on motorbikes and in pickup trucks have driven to within 75 km (47 miles) of Bangui after weeks of fighting, threatening to end President Francois Bozize's nearly 10-year-stint in charge of the turbulent, resource-rich country.

French nuclear energy group Areva mines the Bakouma uranium deposit in the CAR's south - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.

The rebel advance has highlighted the instability of a country that has remained poor since independence from Paris in 1960 despite rich deposits of uranium, gold and diamonds. Average income is barely over $2 a day.

Bozize on Thursday appealed for French and U.S. military support to stop the SELEKA rebel coalition, which has promised to overthrow him unless he implements a previous peace deal in full.

He told a crowd of anti-rebel protesters in the riverside capital that he had asked Paris and Washington to help move the rebels away from the capital to clear the way for peace talks which regional leaders say could be held soon in Libreville, Gabon.

"We are asking our cousins the French and the United States, which are major powers, to help us push back the rebels to their initial positions in a way that will permit talks in Libreville to resolve this crisis," Bozize said.

France has 250 soldiers in its landlocked former colony as part of a peacekeeping mission and Paris in the past has ousted or propped up governments - including by using air strikes to defend Bozize against rebels in 2006.

But French President Francois Hollande poured cold water on the latest request for help.

"If we have a presence, it's not to protect a regime, it's to protect our nationals and our interests and in no way to intervene in the internal business of a country, in this case the Central African Republic," Hollande said on the sidelines of a visit to a wholesale food market outside Paris.

"Those days are over," he said.

Some 1,200 French nationals live in the CAR, mostly in the capital, according to the French Foreign Ministry, where they typically work for mining firms or aid groups.

CEASEFIRE TALKS

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement saying its members "condemn the continued attacks on several towns perpetrated by the 'SELEKA' coalition of armed groups which gravely undermine the Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement and threaten the civilian population."

U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said the U.S. embassy had temporarily suspended operations and the U.S. ambassador and other embassy personnel had left the country.

Officials from around central Africa are due to meet in Bangui later on Thursday to open initial talks with the government and rebels.

A rebel spokesman said fighters had temporarily halted their advance to allow dialogue.

"We will not enter Bangui," Colonel Djouma Narkoyo, the rebel spokesman, told Reuters by telephone.

Previous rebel promises to stop advancing have been broken, and a diplomatic source said rebels had taken up positions around Bangui on Thursday, effectively surrounding it.

The atmosphere remained tense in the city the day after anti-rebel protests broke out, and residents were stocking up on food and water.

Government soldiers deployed at strategic sites and French troops reinforced security at the French embassy after protesters threw rocks at the building on Wednesday.

In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry said protecting foreigners and embassies was the responsibility of the CAR authorities.

"This message will once again be stressed to the CAR's charge d'affaires in Paris, who has been summoned this afternoon," a ministry spokesman said.

He also said France condemned the rebels for pursuing hostilities and urged all sides to commit to talks.

Bozize came to power in a 2003 rebellion that overthrew President Ange-Felix Patasse.

However, France is increasingly reluctant to directly intervene in conflicts in its former colonies. Since coming to power in May, Hollande has promised to end its shadowy relations with former colonies and put ties on a healthier footing.

A military source and an aid worker said the rebels had got as far as Damara, 75 km (47 miles) from Bangui, by late afternoon on Wednesday, having skirted Sibut, where some 150 Chadian soldiers had earlier been deployed to try and block a push south by a rebel coalition.

With a government that holds little sway outside the capital, some parts of the country have long endured the consequences of conflicts in troubled neighbors Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo spilling over.

The Central African Republic is one of a number of nations in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local forces try to track down the Lords Resistance Army, a rebel group responsible for killing thousands of civilians across four African nations.

(Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas and Louis Charbonneau; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Paul Simao)

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Gen. 'Stormin Norman' Schwarzkopf Dead at 78

H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the retired general credited with leading U.S.-allied forces to a victory in the first Gulf War, has died at age 78, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News.

He died today in Tampa, Fla., a U.S. official told the Associated Press.

Schwarzkopf, sometimes called "Stormin' Norman" because of his temper, actually led Republican administrations to two military victories: a small one in Grenada in the 1980s and a big one as de facto commander of allied forces in the Gulf War in 1991.

"'Stormin' Norman' led the coalition forces to victory, ejecting the Iraqi Army from Kuwait and restoring the rightful government," read a statement by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "His leadership not only inspired his troops, but also inspired the nation."

Schwarzkopf's success during what was known as Operation Desert Storm came under President George H.W. Bush, who said today through his office that he mourned "the loss of a true American patriot and one of the great military leaders of his generation."

"Gen. Norm Schwarzkopf, to me, epitomized the 'duty, service, country' creed that has defended our freedom and seen this great nation through our most trying international crises," Bush said. "More than that, he was a good and decent man -- and a dear friend."

Bush's office released the statement though Bush, himself, was ill, hospitalized in Texas with a stubborn fever and on a liquids-only diet.

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Schwarzkopf, the future four-star general, was born Aug. 24, 1934, in Trenton, N.J. He was raised as an army brat in Iran, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, following in his father's footsteps to West Point and being commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1956.

Schwarzkopf's father, who shared his name, directed the investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping as head of the New Jersey State Police, later becoming a bridgadier general in the U.S. Army.

The younger Schwarzkopf earned three Silver Stars for bravery during two tours in Vietnam, gaining a reputation as an opinionated, plain-spoken commander with a sharp temper who would risk his own life for his soldiers.

"He had volunteered to go to Vietnam early just so he could get there before the war ended," said former Army Col. William McKinney, who knew Schwarzkopf from their days at West Point, according to ABC News Radio.

In 1983, as a newly-minted general, Schwarzkopf once again led troops into battle in President Reagan's invasion of Granada, a tiny Caribbean island where the White House saw American influence threatened by a Cuban-backed coup.

But he gained most of his fame in Iraq, where he used his 6-foot-3, 240-pound frame and fearsome temper to drive his troops to victory. Gruff and direct, his goal was to win the war as quickly as possible and with a focused objective: getting Iraq out of Kuwait.

"If it had been our intention to take Iraq, if it had been our intention to destroy the country, if it had been our intention to overrun the country, we could have done it unopposed," he said at a military briefing in 1991.

He spoke French and German to coalition partners, showed awareness of Arab sensitivities and served as Powell's operative man on the ground.

Powell today recalled Schwarzkopf as "a great patriot and a great soldier," who "served his country with courage and distinction for over 35 years."

"He was a good friend of mine, a close buddy," Powell added. "I will miss him."

Schwarzkopf retired from the Army after Desert Storm in 1991, writing an autobiography, becoming an advocate for prostate cancer awareness, serving on the boards of various charities and lecturing. He and his wife, Brenda, had three children.

Schwarzkopf spent his retirement in Tampa, home base for his last military assignment as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command.

ABC News' Dana Hughes, Gina Sunseri and Polson Kanneth contributed to this report.

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US childhood obesity dips for first time in decades: study

CHICAGO: Obesity rates among small children may finally be on the decline after more than tripling in the United States the past 30 years, a study out Wednesday indicated.

The study found that obesity rates peaked in 2004 and then declined slightly among low-income children aged two to four who receive benefits from a federal food stamp program called SNAP.

"To our knowledge, this is the first national study to show that the prevalence of obesity and extreme obesity among young US children may have begun to decline," wrote lead author Liping Pan of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"The results of this study indicate modest recent progress of obesity prevention among young children. These findings may have important health implications because of the lifelong health risks of obesity and extreme obesity in early childhood."

Obesity is most prevalent among minority and low-income families and has been associated with a range of health problems and premature death.

The researchers analysed data from a paediatric nutrition surveillance system which monitors almost half of the children eligible for federally funded maternal and child health and nutrition programs.

They were able to access height and weight data from 27.5 million children aged two to four in the 30 states which consistently reported their data.

In 1998, obesity levels were at 13.05 percent of the children. This rose to a peak of 15.36 percent in 2004 before declining to 14.94 percent in 2010.

Extreme obesity rates rose from 1.75 percent in 1998 to a peak of 2.22 percent in 2003 before slipping down to 2.07 percent in 2010, the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. David Ludwig said the declines seen are not enough, and he urged an overhaul of the federal food stamp program (SNAP) to help low-income families tackle obesity by eliminating junk food and adding more fruit and vegetables to their diet.

"SNAP is essential for hunger prevention in the United States, but its exclusive focus on food quantity contributes to malnutrition and obesity, and is misaligned with the goal of helping beneficiaries lead healthier lives," wrote Ludwig, who works in an obesity prevention centre at Boston Children's Hospital.

While other federal food programs, like the free meals offered in schools, have been revised to focus on healthful eating, SNAP has no regulations to influence the quality of food purchased.

Ludwig noted that it pays for an estimated US$4 billion in soft drinks per year, which adds up to about 20 million servings of soda a day.

"The public pays for sugary drinks, candy, and other junk foods included in SNAP benefits twice: once at the time of purchase, and later for the treatment of diet-induced disease through Medicaid and Medicare," he wrote.

"The nation's US$75 billion investment in SNAP could provide a major opportunity to reduce the burden of diet-related disease among low-income children and families if policies that promote nutritional quality are instituted."

More than a third of US children were overweight in 2008, the CDC found in a previous study.

Childhood obesity rates jumped from seven percent of children aged six to 11 in 1980 to 20 percent in 2008. The number of obese teens aged 12 to 19 jumped from five percent to 18 percent over the same period.

-AFP/fl

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Mental illness, poverty haunted Afghan policewoman who killed American

KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan policewoman suspected of killing a U.S. contractor at police headquarters in Kabul suffered from mental illness and was driven to suicidal despair by poverty, her children told Reuters on Wednesday.

The woman was identified by authorities as Narges Rezaeimomenabad, a 40-year-old grandmother and mother of three who moved here from Iran 10 years ago and married an Afghan man.

On Monday morning, she loaded a pistol in a bathroom at the police compound, hid it in her long scarf and shot an American police trainer, apparently becoming the first Afghan woman to carry out such an attack.

Narges also tried to shoot police officials after killing the American. Luckily for them, her pistol jammed. Her husband is also under investigation.

Her son Sayed, 16, and daughter Fatima, 13, described how they tried to call their parents 100 times after news broke of the shooting, then waited in vain for them to come home.

They recalled Narges's severe mood swings, and how at times she beat them and even pulled out a knife. But the children said she was consistent in bemoaning poverty.

"She was usually complaining about poverty. She was complaining to my father about our conditions. She was saying that my father was poor," Sayid said in an interview in their damp, cold two-room cement house.

On the floor beside him were his mother's prescriptions and a thick plastic bag filled with pills she tried to swallow to end the misery about a month ago. On another occasion, she cut her wrist with a razor, Sayed said.

"My father was usually calm and sometimes would say that she was guilty too because it wasn't a forced marriage. They fell in love and got married."

There was no sign in their neighborhood of the billions of dollars of Western aid that have poured into Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, or of government investment.

RAW SEWAGE, STAGNANT WATER, DIRT ROADS

The lane outside their home stank of raw sewage.

Dirty, stagnant water filled holes in dirt roads nearby, where children in tattered clothes played and butchers stood by cow's hooves in shops choked by dust.

Afghanistan is one of the world's poorest nations, with a third of its 30 million residents living under the poverty line.

The sole distractions from the daily grind appeared to be a deck of playing cards and a compact disc with songs from Iranian pop singers, scattered on the floor of a room where Narges would lock herself in and weep, or sit in silence.

At times, Narges would try to focus on building her children's confidence, telling them to be guided by the Muslim holy book, the Koran, to tackle life's problems.

Sayed and Fatima said she never spoke badly of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Neighbor Mohammad Ismail Kohistani was dumbfounded to hear on the radio that Afghan officials were combing Narges' phone records to try to determine whether al Qaeda or the Taliban could have brainwashed her into carrying out a mission.

But he was acutely aware of her mental problems and often heard her scream at her husband, whose low-level job in the crime investigation unit of the police brought home little cash.

Kohistani, who operates a small sewing shop with battered machines, never imagined his neighbor could be accused of a high-profile attack that raised new questions about the direction of an unpopular war.

"I became very depressed and sad," said Kohistani, sitting on the floor few feet from a tiny wood-burning stove in Narges's home, alongside family photographs and a police training manual.

Fatima would often seek refuge in Kohistani's house when her mother's behavior became unbearable. "She did not hate us, but usually she was angry and would not talk to us," said Fatima, her eyes moist with tears.

Nevertheless, she missed her mother. The children were staying with a cousin.

"I ask the government to free my mother, otherwise our future will be destroyed," said Fatima.

Officials described it as another "insider shooting", in which Afghan forces turn on Westerners they are meant to be working with to stabilize the country. There have been over 52 such attacks so far this year.

The shooting at the police headquarters may have alarmed Afghanistan's Western allies. But some Afghans have grown numb to the violence.

Kohistani's 70-year-old father Omara Khan, who sports a white beard, sat twirling prayer beads beneath a photograph of Narges in a black veil beside one of her husband.

Asked what he thought of the attack, he laughed.

"This is common in Afghanistan," said Khan, who lived through decades of upheaval, including the 10-year Soviet occupation and a civil war that destroyed half of Kabul and killed some 50,000 civilians.

"People are killed every day."

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Space Pictures This Week: Green Lantern, Supersonic Star

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  Green Lantern

  Image courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASA

  Another glorious, backlit view of the planet Saturn and its rings has been captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, as seen in a picture released December 18.

  On October 17, during its 174th orbit around the gas giant, Cassini was deliberately positioned within Saturn's shadow, "a perfect location from which to look in the direction of the sun and take a backlit view of the rings and the dark side of the planet," according to NASA.

  (Related: "Ten Best Pictures From NASA's Cassini Probe—Saturn, More.")

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  











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  Starry Night

  Photograph by Wally Pacholka, TWAN

  The Milky Way glitters over Yosemite, California, in a picture taken December 14 and submitted to the astronomy-education project The World at Night (TWAN).

  Our galaxy is far larger, brighter, and more massive than most other galaxies. From end to end, the Milky Way's starry disk, observable with the naked eye and through optical telescopes, spans 120,000 light-years.

  (See Milky Way pictures inNational Geographic magazine.)

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  











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  Celestial Ornament

  Image courtesy G. Bacon, STScI/ESA/NASA

  The Hubble Space Telescope has spied a nearby planetary nebula that resembles a holiday ornament wrapped in a ribbon, as seen in a picture released December 18.

  Planetary nebulae such as NGC 5189 represent the final brief stage in the life of a medium-size star like our sun.

  (See more nebula pictures.)

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  











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  It's a Bird, It's a Plane

  Photograph by Shamil Zhumatov, Reuters

  A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carries U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to the International Space Station on December 19.

  While floating some 240 miles (390 kilometers) above Earth's surface, the space station has hosted a rotating international crew since November 2000.

  (See our space-exploration timeline.)

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  











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  Martian Hazard

  Image courtesy Caltech/NASA

  Still not home for the holidays, NASA's Mars rover Opportunity keeps plugging away on the red planet's surface.

  Here, the rover's hazard camera scans a target called Onaping at the base of Copper Cliff in the Endeavor crater. At least Opportunity calls home.

  (See "Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds.")

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  











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  Jewel Box

  Photograph by Rolf Olsen, Your Shot

  A star cluster named Jewel Box sparkles in a picture submitted to the Your Shot photo community on December 18.

  Visible as a faint smudge with the naked eye under dark skies, the Jewel Box is located 6,440 light-years away towards the constellation Crux, or the Southern Cross. The bright orange star in the centre of the cluster is known as Kappa Crucis.

  (See another picture of Jewel Box.)

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  











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  Supersonic Star

  Image courtesy Caltech/NASA

  The giant star Zeta Ophiuchi is having a "shocking" effect on surrounding dust clouds in this infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, released on December 18.

  Stellar winds flowing out from this fast-moving star are making ripples in the dust, creating a bow shock seen as glowing gossamer threads only visible in infrared.

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  











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  Image courtesy Jesse Allen, EO-1/USGS/NASA

  Published December 26, 2012

  
  

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