GOP Starting to Rebel Against No-Tax-Hikes Pledge

With the fiscal cliff looming for the United States, some Republican members of Congress said today they are ready to break a long standing pledge not to raise taxes.

"The only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming Greece. And Republicans should put revenue on the table," South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on ABC's "This Week."

Read more of the discussion of the fiscal on "This Week" today.

Graham's comments followed those by another Republican senator, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, who said last week he'll no longer abide by the pledge.

"I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge," he said in a local interview.

He got support today from House member Peter King, another Republican from New York.

"I agree entirely with Saxby Chambliss -- a pledge he signed 20 years ago, 18 years ago is for that Congress," King said on NBC's "Meet the Press." He added, "The world is changed and the economic situation is different."

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

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Read Matthew Dowd's analysis of the efforts to avoid the fiscal cliff.

This growing chorus is about the pledge that Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist has gotten hundreds of Republicans to sign. But in an interview with ABC News, Norquist says it's just a few deserters.

"The people who have made a commitment to their constituents are largely keeping it," he said. "The fact is there is more support for both protecting the rates, you saw the Republican leader in the house say rates are non-negotiable, and he also talked about revenue coming from growth."

But President Obama has said rates will go up for the wealthy. There could be some political cover for Republicans if the country actually goes over the cliff. All the Bush era tax cuts would expire, including those for the wealthy. Congress could then vote to actually reduce taxes for everyone expect the rich. Therefore, they wouldn't technically raise taxes and violate Norquist's pledge.

But Nordquist said he doesn't think the public would buy those political moves, and he also doesn't think the country will actually go over the cliff.

"I think we'll continue the tax cuts. Not raise taxes $500 billion. Obama made the correct decision (by extending the Bush tax cuts) two years ago," Norquist told us.

Leading Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin also said he believes a deal is possible now that the Thanksgiving holiday break is over.

"We can solve this problem," he said on "This Week," adding: "There's no excuse. We're back in town."

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Egypt's Mursi faces judicial revolt over decree

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi faced a rebellion from judges who accused him on Saturday of expanding his powers at their expense, deepening a crisis that has triggered violence in the street and exposed the country's deep divisions.

The Judges' Club, a body representing judges across Egypt, called for a strike during a meeting interrupted with chants demanding the "downfall of the regime" - the rallying cry in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.

Mursi's political opponents and supporters, representing the divide between newly empowered Islamists and their critics, called for rival demonstrations on Tuesday over a decree that has triggered concern in the West.

Issued late on Thursday, it marks an effort by Mursi to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. The decree defends from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.

It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt's new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the body with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of parliament.

Egypt's highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, said the decree was an "unprecedented attack" on the independence of the judiciary. The Judges' Club, meeting in Cairo, called on Mursi to rescind it.

That demand was echoed by prominent opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei. "There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says 'let us split the difference'," he said.

"I am waiting to see, I hope soon, a very strong statement of condemnation by the U.S., by Europe and by everybody who really cares about human dignity," he said in an interview with Reuters and the Associated Press.

More than 300 people were injured on Friday as protests against the decree turned violent. There were attacks on at least three offices belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement that propelled Mursi to power.

POLARISATION

Liberal, leftist and socialist parties called a big protest for Tuesday to force Mursi to row back on a move they say has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

In a sign of the polarization in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood called its own protests that day to support the president's decree.

Mursi also assigned himself new authority to sack the prosecutor general, who was appointed during the Mubarak era, and appoint a new one. The dismissed prosecutor general, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, was given a hero's welcome at the Judges' Club.

In open defiance of Mursi, Ahmed al-Zind, head of the club, introduced Mahmoud by his old title.

The Mursi administration has defended the decree on the grounds that it aims to speed up a protracted transition from Mubarak's rule to a new system of democratic government.

Analysts say it reflects the Brotherhood's suspicion towards sections of a judiciary unreformed from Mubarak's days.

"It aims to sideline Mursi's enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations.

"We are in a situation now where both sides are escalating and its getting harder and harder to see how either side can gracefully climb down."

ADVISOR TO MURSI QUITS

Following a day of violence in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, the smell of tear gas hung over the capital's Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011 and the stage for more protests on Friday.

Youths clashed sporadically with police near the square, where activists camped out for a second day on Saturday, setting up makeshift barricades to keep out traffic.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of Egypt's most widely read dailies, hailed Friday's protest as "The November 23 Intifada", invoking the Arabic word for uprising.

But the ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamist groups that have been pushing for tighter application of Islamic law in the new constitution have rallied behind Mursi's decree.

The Nour Party, one such group, stated its support for the Mursi decree. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, which carried arms against the state in the 1990s, said it would save the revolution from what it described as remnants of the Mubarak regime.

Samir Morkos, a Christian assistant to Mursi, had told the president he wanted to resign, said Yasser Ali, Mursi's spokesman. Speaking to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Morkos said: "I refuse to continue in the shadow of republican decisions that obstruct the democratic transition".

Mursi's decree has been criticized by Western states that earlier this week were full of praise for his role in mediating an end to the eight-day war between Israel and Palestinians.

"The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Marwa Awad, Edmund Blair and Shaimaa Fayed and Reuters TV; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Garment factory blaze kills 109 in Bangladesh

ASHULIA, Bangladesh: Rescue workers in Bangladesh recovered 109 bodies on Sunday after a fire tore through a garment factory, forcing many workers to jump from high windows to escape the smoke and flames.

Firefighters battled for several hours to control the blaze, which broke out on the ground floor of the nine-storey Tazreen Fashion plant, 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the capital Dhaka on Saturday evening.

Survivors told how panicked staff, mostly women, desperately tried to escape the factory, which the owner said made clothes for international brands including Dutch chain C&A and the Hong Kong-based Li & Fung company.

"There were more than 1,000 workers trapped in the factory," one worker who gave her name only as Romesa, 42, told local media from her hospital bed.

"I jumped from a window on the fourth floor and found myself on the third-storey roof of another building. Several people fell out of the window and died."

Bangladesh is a global centre for clothes manufacturing due to cheap labour, with many popular brands using huge factories to produce items for export to Western markets, but work conditions are often basic and safety standards low.

Dhaka district commissioner Yusuf Harun told AFP that the death toll was 109, including several workers who died while jumping from the building's upper floors.

"We laid the bodies out in the grounds of a nearby school and have now started handing them over to relatives," Harun said.

The director of the fire brigade, Major Mahbub, who uses one name, told AFP that most victims were found on the second floor and died of suffocation.

Mahbub said the blaze originated from the ground-floor warehouse and spread through the building, trapping workers who were working on the night shift.

"Those who could not jump died due to suffocation. The factory had three exits but since the fire was on the ground floor, workers could not come downstairs," he said.

The owner of the Tazreen factory, Delwar Hossain, told AFP by telephone that the cause of the fire was not yet known but he denied his premises were unsafe.

"It is a huge loss for my staff and my factory. This is the first time we have ever had a fire at one of my seven factories," he said, confirming that the premises made clothes for C&A and Li & Fung.

Relatives of the workers made phone calls to those inside the factory as it burned, locals told AFP, and one witness said firefighters were helpless as the blaze took hold.

"I came to the factory premises and found workers crying for help," Mohammad Ratan said. "As the fire spread to the upper floors, I saw many jumping from windows."

The cause was not immediately known but fires as a result of short circuits and shoddy electrical wiring are common in South Asian factories.

A blaze in a Pakistan garment factory fire in September killed 289 workers and injured 110 more. Two of the factory owners are facing murder charges.

"Global buyers who buy cheap apparel from Bangladesh do audit safety issues in factories. But these audits are often not actual inspections," said Babul Akhter, head of the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation.

According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, a Amsterdam-based textile rights group, since 2006 at least 500 Bangladeshi garment workers have died in factory fires.

Bangladesh has recently emerged as the world's second-largest clothes exporter with overseas garment sales topping $19 billion last year, or 80 per cent of national exports.

The sector is the mainstay of the poverty-stricken country's economy, employing 40 per cent of its industrial workforce.

Also in Bangladesh, at least 13 people were killed after a flyover under construction collapsed on Saturday in the southeastern port city of Chittagong.

- AFP/ck

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Rajya Sabha panel for power to Lokpal to sanction prosecution

NEW DELHI: Lokpal will have power to grant sanction to initiate prosecution against a public servant, a parliamentary committee has recommended, seeking to amend a provision in the bill which said no previous sanction was required for the ombudsman to bring charges.

The recommendation of the Rajya Sabha Select Committee on Lokpal comes against the backdrop of the stand taken by the government that the provision in the Lokpal Bill to do away with previous sanction was against the "principle of protection".

"...The proposal to do away with the requirement of previous sanction...where prosecution is proposed by Lokpal, would be against the principle of protection needed for the public servants," the Law Ministry had told the Committee when it was scrutinising the Bill passed by Lok Sabha .

The constitutional protection available to civil servants under Articles 311 and 320, clause 3(C) of the Constitution would also be adversely affected by the provisions of the proposed law, the Ministry had said.

The panel tabled its report in the Upper House on Friday along with a copy of the amended Bill.

The committee has recommended changes in the clause, which now reads, "...The Lokpal shall have the power to grant sanction for prosecution..."

Another amendment proposed by the Committee says that a bench of at least three Lokpal members will obtain "comments" of the competent authority and the public servant concerned before granting sanction to its Prosecution Wing or investigating agency to file a charge-sheet.

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

Read More..

After Sandy, World Hopes to Hear New US Voice on Climate Change

During a year with a monster storm and scorching heat waves, Americans have experienced the kind of freakish weather that many scientists say will occur more often on a warming planet.

And as a re-elected president talks about global warming again, climate activists are cautiously optimistic that the U.S. will be more than a disinterested bystander when the U.N. climate talks resume Monday with a two-week conference in Qatar.

"I think there will be expectations from countries to hear a new voice from the United States," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute in Washington.

The climate officials and environment ministers meeting in the Qatari capital of Doha will not come up with an answer to the global temperature rise that is already melting Arctic sea ice and permafrost, raising and acidifying the seas, and shifting rainfall patterns, which has an impact on floods and droughts.

They will focus on side issues, like extending the Kyoto protocol — an expiring emissions pact with a dwindling number of members — and ramping up climate financing for poor nations.

They will also try to structure the talks for a new global climate deal that is supposed to be adopted in 2015, a process in which American leadership is considered crucial.

Many were disappointed that Obama didn't put more emphasis on climate change during his first term. He took some steps to rein in emissions of heat-trapping gases, such as sharply increasing fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. But a climate bill that would have capped U.S. emissions stalled in the Senate.

"We need the U.S. to engage even more," European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told The Associated Press. "Because that can change the dynamic of the talks."

The world tried to move forward without the U.S. after the Bush Administration abandoned the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 pact limiting greenhouse emissions from industrialized nations. As that agreement expires this year, the climate curves are still pointing in the wrong direction.

The concentration of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide has jumped 20 percent since 2000, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, according to a U.N. report released this week. And each year, the gap between what researchers say must be done to reverse this trend, and what's actually being done, gets wider.

Bridging that gap, through clean technology and renewable energy, is not just up to the U.S., but to countries like India and China, whose carbon emissions are growing the fastest as their economies expand.

But Obama raised hopes of a more robust U.S. role in the talks when he called for a national "conversation" on climate change after winning re-election. The issue had been virtually absent in the presidential campaigning until Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast.

The president still faces domestic political constraints, and there's little hope of the U.S. increasing its voluntary pledge in the U.N. talks of cutting emissions by 17 percent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels.

Still, just a signal that Washington has faith in the international process would go a long way, analysts said.

"The perception of many negotiators and countries is that the U.S. is not really interested in increasing action on climate change in general," said Bill Hare, senior scientist at Climate Analytics, a non-profit organization based in Berlin.

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Clashes in Cairo after Mursi seizes new powers

CAIRO (Reuters) - Angry youths hurled rocks at security forces and burned a police truck as thousands gathered in central Cairo to protest at Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's decision to grab sweeping new powers.

Police fired tear gas near Tahrir Square, heart of the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak at the height of the Arab Spring. Thousands demanded that Mursi should quit and accused him of launching a "coup".

There were also violent protests in Alexandria, Port Said and Suez.

Mursi on Thursday issued a decree that puts his decisions beyond any legal challenge until a new parliament is elected. Opponents immediately accused him of turning into a new Mubarak and hijacking the Egyptian revolution.

"This is the point of no return for Mursi. He has dug himself deeper in a hole and won't know how to get out of it," said Ahmed Saleh, an activist who said many would stay in Tahrir square until Mursi withdrew the decree.

"The people want to bring down the regime," shouted protesters in Tahrir, echoing a chant used in the uprising that forced Mubarak to step down.

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations expressed concern at Mursi's move.

Mursi's rivals condemned him as an autocratic pharaoh who wanted to impose his Islamist vision on Egypt.

The president's aides said the decree was intended to speed up a protracted transition to democracy that has been hindered by legal obstacles

"I am for all Egyptians," Mursi said on a stage outside the presidential palace, adding that he was working for social and economic stability and remained committed to the revolution.

JUDGES MEET

Egyptian judges will meet on Saturday to respond to Mursi's move, which put him above the judicial oversight. The judges could threaten to go on strike, which would bring the judiciary to a halt.

Some non-Islamist political parties called for a million-strong march on Tuesday to demand that Mursi rescinds his decree.

But Islamist parties, including the Building and Development Party, accused Mursi's opponents of undermining the democratic process that brought him to office.

"Those calling for the downfall of President Mohamed Mursi have rejected democracy because President Mursi has been democratically elected by popular will," the party said in a statement. Mursi's decree would "save the revolution from the remnants of Mubarak's regime", it said.

Buoyed by accolades from around the world for mediating a truce between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip, Mursi on Thursday ordered that an Islamist-dominated assembly writing the new constitution could not be dissolved by legal challenges.

Mursi, an Islamist whose roots are in the Muslim Brotherhood, also gave himself wide powers that allowed him to sack the unpopular public prosecutor and opened the door for a retrial for Mubarak and his aides.

TURBULENCE AND TURMOIL

The president's decree has consolidated his power but looks set to polarize Egypt further, threatening more turmoil in a nation at the heart of the Arab Spring.

In Alexandria, north of Cairo, protesters ransacked an office of the Brotherhood's political party, burning books and chairs in the street. Supporters of Mursi and opponents clashed elsewhere in the city, leaving 12 injured.

A party building was attacked by stone-throwing protesters in Port Said, and demonstrators in Suez threw petrol bombs that burned banners outside the party building.

Although Washington has praised Egypt for its part in bringing Israelis and Palestinians to a ceasefire on Wednesday, it expressed reservations about Mursi's latest move.

"The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process, while the United Nations expressed fears about human rights.

"The decree is basically a coup on state institutions and the rule of law that is likely to undermine the revolution and the transition to democracy," said Mervat Ahmed, an independent activist in Tahrir protesting against the decree.

Leading liberal Mohamed ElBaradei, who joined other politicians on Thursday night to demand the decree was withdrawn, wrote on his Twitter account that Mursi had "usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh".

Almost two years after Mubarak was toppled and about five months since Mursi took office, Egypt has no permanent constitution, which must be in place before new parliamentary elections are held.

An assembly drawing up the constitution has yet to complete its work. Many liberals, Christians and others have walked out accusing the Islamists who dominate it of ignoring their voices over the extent that Islam should be enshrined in the new state.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and Sebastian Moffett in Brussels; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Tensions flare as protesters urge Thai PM to quit

BANGKOK: Thai police on Saturday fired tear gas and detained dozens of demonstrators as clashes erupted at the first major street protests against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's government.

About 17,000 police were deployed for the rally in Bangkok's historic district, which was organised by the royalist group Pitak Siam.

"In the name of Pitak Siam and its allies I promise that we will topple this government," the movement's head, retired general Boonlert Kaewprasit, declared from the rally stage.

The authorities expected tens of thousands of people to attend the demo, which comes about two and a half years after dozens of people died in a military crackdown on opposition protests in the heart of the capital.

By early afternoon police estimated that about 12,000 people had turned out.

Police said they fired tear gas at a group of protesters who removed barbed wire and barriers blocking their route in front of a UN building close to the main rally site.

"Tear gas was used in one area because protesters did not comply with the rules," said national police spokesman Major General Piya Uthayo.

About 100 protesters were detained while knives and bullets were confiscated, he said.

Seventeen people, including seven police officers, were treated for cuts and other injuries, officials said.

The authorities called in an extra 5,700 police after the skirmishes, but said they would allow the rally to go ahead at the Royal Plaza so long as the other protesters gathered peacefully.

The demonstrators, who included supporters of the influential "Yellow Shirt" royalist movement, called on Yingluck's government to stand down.

"I can't stand that they disrespect the king. I want the government to quit," said 48-year-old farmer Namsai Jantarat from the northern province of Chiang Mai.

Yingluck on Thursday voiced fears the protesters aimed to use violence and to "overthrow an elected government and democratic rule", in a televised address to the nation.

The government has invoked a special security law, the Internal Security Act (ISA), in three districts of the capital to cope with possible unrest.

"We will evaluate the situation daily and if it escalates we are ready to invoke emergency rule, but so far I think the ISA will be sufficient," Thai police chief General Adul Sangsingkaew said on national television.

Thailand has been rocked by a series of sometimes violent rival street protests in recent years, although an uneasy calm had returned after national elections in 2011.

Two months of mass opposition protests in 2010 by "Red Shirt" supporters of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra sparked a military crackdown that left about 90 people dead and nearly 1,900 wounded.

Thaksin's sister Yingluck is now prime minister after his political allies won a landslide election victory last year.

"This government ignores widespread disrespect of the monarchy and even supports the perpetrators. It is a puppet of Thaksin," Pitak Siam spokesman Vachara Riddhagni told AFP ahead of the demo.

Observers say prosecutions for insulting the monarchy have surged since royalist generals toppled Thaksin in a coup in 2006 following a series of mass protests by the Yellow Shirts.

Many of those targeted with lese majeste charges are linked to the Red Shirt movement, the rivals of the Yellows.

- AFP/xq

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3 die due to gas leakage at sugar mill

BIJNOR: Three persons were killed and two others fell ill due to methane gas leakage at Seohara Sugar Mill in the district, police said today.

Turbine operator Jagdish Singh, Lokesh and security guard Pradeep fell unconscious and later died when they tried to stop the leakage from a turbine of the distillery plant of Upper Ganges Sugar Mill yesterday, they said.

Two guards Kashinath and Vijay also became unconscious and were rushed to a hospital from where they were referred to Moradabad.

Executive president of the mill Sukhveer Singh announced that the widows of the deceased employees, Jagdish and Lokesh, would continue to receive salaries of their husbands.

An interim relief of Rs 1.25 lakh and due compensation would also be paid to them, he added.

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

Read More..