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JERUSALEM — Britain, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark summoned the Israeli ambassadors to their countries on Monday to protest Israel’s plans for increased settlement construction, an unusually sharp diplomatic step that reflected the growing frustration abroad with Israel’s policies on the Palestinian issue.
After the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly last week to upgrade the status of the Palestinians at the United Nations, Israel announced plans for 3,000 more housing units in contested areas east of Jerusalem and around the West Bank.
Israel raised particular alarms with its decision to continue planning and zoning work for the development of a contentious area known as E1, a project vehemently opposed internationally because it would partially separate the northern and southern West Bank, harming the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state.
The move raised questions in Israel about whether the country’s leaders were putting domestic political interests ahead of its foreign relations, with Israeli elections scheduled for late January.
“Bibi had to do something” in response to the United Nations vote, said Prof. Shmuel Sandler of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan Universiy, referring to the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, by his nickname, “first because he is Bibi and second because of the elections.”
Mr. Sandler said that Mr. Netanyahu, a conservative, was making the mistake of competing against those further to his right, adding, “But I don’t think he expected such a reaction” internationally.
Yet Israel remained defiant. The prime minister’s office issued a statement on Monday, saying, “Israel will continue to stand for its essential interests, even in the face of international pressure, and there will be no change in the decision it has taken.”
A press officer for United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement on Sunday that construction in E1 “would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution.”
European countries long opposed to Israeli settlement construction went beyond their usual statements of condemnation.
The countries that called in the Israeli ambassadors “expressed their strong protests about the announced settlement plans,” said Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Mr. Palmor said that the Israeli ambassadors told their hosts that Israel has been warning for months that the Palestinian bid at the United Nations would not go unanswered and would have implications.
Israel has described the bid as a unilateral Palestinian step that violates previous signed agreements. The Palestinians have long refused to negotiate with Israel without a halt in settlement construction.
France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark voted for the Palestinian upgrade, while Britain abstained. Although Israel had expected the resolution to pass, officials here expressed disappointment over the lack of support from several friendly European nations. Israel was particularly surprised by Germany’s decision to abstain in the vote, having expected Germany to go with Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Germany this week. Despite the so-called special relationship between Israel and Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has not minced words about her opposition to Israeli settlement construction in the past.
Philippe Lalliot, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, said in a statement on Monday that “Settlement activity is illegal under international law, hurts the confidence necessary for a return to dialogue and constitutes an obstacle to a just peace founded on the two-state solution.”
The British Foreign Office said it deplored the Israeli settlement plans and that it had called on the Israeli government to reverse the decision.
But Israeli officials denied that the government’s policies were isolating Israel.
“It is well known that Europe and Israel have a different approach on settlements,” said one Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is nothing new here. If European countries would have behaved differently in their vote at the United Nations last week,” he continued, “we may have reacted differently.”
Analysts here said that after showing strong support for Israel during its military campaign last month against Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, European countries had felt the need to bolster the more moderate Palestinian wing led by President Mahmoud Abbas in its United Nations bid.
At the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said, “Today we are building and we will continue to build in Jerusalem and in all areas that are on the map of the strategic interests of the State of Israel.”
But beyond the tit-for-tat measures set off by the United Nations vote, analysts pointed to a trend of deteriorating relations between Israel and Europe in particular.
“That is because the top-level people making decisions here in recent years are completely insular and out of touch with the rest of the world, especially regarding the Palestinians and the settlements,” said Mark Heller, a foreign-policy analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. “Self-righteousness may be good for domestic politics,” he said, but it is not a policy.”
At the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, 138 nations voted in favor of upgrading the status of the Palestinians and 41 abstained. The nine that voted against it were Israel, the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama and Palau.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish telecoms gear maker Ericsson has filed a request with the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban U.S. imports of products made by South Korean group Samsung,
The request from Ericsson, which said on Monday the products infringe on its patents, came after it sued Samsung for patent infringement in a U.S. court last week.
“The request for an import ban is a part of the process. An import ban is not our goal. Our goal is that they (Samsung) sign license agreements on reasonable terms,” spokesman Fredrik Hallstan said.
Ericsson said last week it was suing Samsung after talks failed to reach agreement on terms that were fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) over patents.
Samsung said it would defend itself against the lawsuit, adding that Ericsson had asked for “prohibitively higher royalty rates to renew the same patent portfolio”.
(Reporting by Sven Nordenstam; Editing by Dan Lalor)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Kristin Chenoweth and Jake Pavelka
FilmMagic (2)
"We have been spending a little time together," Chenoweth tells PEOPLE of her dates with the former Bachelor star.
The actress, 44, met her new man, 34, at an event in October and it was not long before the couple was spotted dining together in West Hollywood as well as more recently at a cafe near Pavelka's home in Texas.
Squeezing dates into her busy schedule has proven difficult in the past, admits Chenoweth, who performed at an Audi-sponsored Trevor Project event Sunday, and is currently rehearsing to co-host the American Country Awards, airing Monday, Dec. 10 on Fox.
"A lot of people know that I got hurt in July," says Chenoweth of suffering a head injury while filming The Good Wife. "I am doing so much better but I think it slowed me down and I've realized life is short. I want to do things that make me happy."
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Hassan al-Kubaisi considers it a gift from above that drivers in oil- and gas-rich Qatar only have to pay $1 per gallon at the pump.
"Thank God that our country is an oil producer and the price of gasoline is one of the lowest," al-Kubaisi said, filling up his Toyota Land Cruiser at a gas station in Doha. "God has given us a blessing."
To those looking for a global response to climate change, it's more like a curse.
Qatar — the host of U.N. climate talks that entered their final week Monday — is among dozens of countries that keep gas prices artificially low through subsidies that exceeded $500 billion globally last year. Renewable energy worldwide received six times less support — an imbalance that is just starting to earn attention in the divisive negotiations on curbing the carbon emissions blamed for heating the planet.
"We need to stop funding the problem, and start funding the solution," said Steve Kretzmann, of Oil Change International, an advocacy group for clean energy.
His group presented research Monday showing that in addition to the fuel subsidies in developing countries, rich nations in 2011 gave more than $58 billion in tax breaks and other production subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. The U.S. figure was $13 billion.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has calculated that removing fossil fuel subsidies could reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent by 2050.
Yet the argument is just recently gaining traction in climate negotiations, which in two decades have failed to halt the rising temperatures that are melting Arctic ice, raising sea levels and shifting weather patterns with impacts on droughts and floods.
In Doha, the talks have been slowed by wrangling over financial aid to help poor countries cope with global warming and how to divide carbon emissions rights until 2020 when a new planned climate treaty is supposed to enter force. Calls are now intensifying to include fossil fuel subsidies as a key part of the discussion.
"I think it is manifestly clear ... that this is a massive missing piece of the climate change jigsaw puzzle," said Tim Groser, New Zealand's minister for climate change.
He is spearheading an initiative backed by Scandinavian countries and some developing countries to put fuel subsidies on the agenda in various forums, citing the U.N. talks as a "natural home" for the debate.
The G-20 called for their elimination in 2009, and the issue also came up at the U.N. earth summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Frustrated that not much has happened since, European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Monday she planned to raise the issue with environment ministers on the sidelines of the talks in Doha.
Many developing countries are positive toward phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, not just to protect the climate but to balance budgets. Subsidies introduced as a form of welfare benefit decades ago have become an increasing burden to many countries as oil prices soar.
"We are reviewing the subsidy periodically in the context of the total economy for Qatar," the tiny Persian gulf country's energy minister, Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, told reporters Monday.
Qatar's National Development Strategy 2011-2016 states it more bluntly, saying fuel subsides are "at odds with the aspirations" and sustainability objectives of the wealthy emirate.
The problem is that getting rid of them comes with a heavy political price.
When Jordan raised fuel prices last month, angry crowds poured into the streets, torching police cars, government offices and private banks in the most sustained protests to hit the country since the start of the Arab unrest. One person was killed and 75 others were injured in the violence.
Nigeria, Indonesia, India and Sudan have also seen violent protests this year as governments tried to bring fuel prices closer to market rates.
Iran has used a phased approach to lift fuel subsidies over the past several years, but its pump prices remain among the cheapest in the world.
"People perceive it as something that the government is taking away from them," said Kretzmann. "The trick is we need to do it in a way that doesn't harm the poor."
The International Energy Agency found in 2010 that fuel subsidies are not an effective measure against poverty because only 8 percent of such subsidies reached the bottom 20 percent of income earners.
The IEA, which only looked at consumption subsidies, this year said they "remain most prevalent in the Middle East and North Africa, where momentum toward their reform appears to have been lost."
In the U.S., environmental groups say fossil fuel subsidies include tax breaks, the foreign tax credit and the credit for production of nonconventional fuels.
Industry groups, like the Independent Petroleum Association of America, are against removing such support, saying that would harm smaller companies, rather than the big oil giants.
In Doha, Mohammed Adow, a climate activist with Christian Aid, called all fuel subsidies "reckless and dangerous," but described removing subsidies on the production side as "low-hanging fruit" for governments if they are serious about dealing with climate change.
"It's going to oil and coal companies that don't need it in the first place," he said.
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Associated Press writers Abdullah Rebhy in Doha, Qatar, and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report
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Karl Ritter can be reached at www.twitter.com/karl_ritter
An Oceanside couple are scheduled to be in court Monday to face accusations that they kept an underage
Mexican immigrant as a sex slave, forcing her into prostitution and
beating her severely.
The girl had been smuggled into the U.S. at age 12, and the abuse by
Hernandez and Garcia occurred over a 21-month period, the Sheriff's
Department said.
Hernandez and Garcia forced the girl to care for their three children
and cook and clean for the family, as well as have sex with Hernandez,
according to Deputy G. Crysler, an investigator with the North County
Human Trafficking Task Force.
"When the girl victim refused to participate in the sex acts or did
not complete her tasks in a timely or correct manner, she was beaten,"
Crysler said.
The couple forced the victim into lying about her age so she could
work at a local restaurant, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money
she earned, according to the arrest documents. She was also forced into
having sex with older men, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money
paid by "johns," the documents said.
Authorities were called after the victim was allegedly beaten by
Garcia. Reunited with her family, she returned to Mexico. Recently,
she returned to the U.S. and is assisting in the criminal investigation,
according to the Sheriff's Department.
ALSO:
Lindsay Lohan is 'victim' despite criminal charges, lawyer says
Teacher pleads guilty to having sex with 17-year-old ex-student
Inmate charged in 1991 slaying, rape of 16-year-old Compton girl
-- Tony Perry in San Diego
Wissam Nassar
Egyptian police officers stood guard outside Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court on Sunday, while supporters of President Mohamed Morsi protested near the entrance of the building.
CAIRO — Egypt’s highest court on Sunday postponed its much-awaited ruling on the legitimacy of the legislative assembly that drafted a new charter last week, accusing a crowd of Islamists of blocking judges from entering their building on what it called “a dark black day in the history of the Egyptian judiciary.”
Although hundreds of security officers were on hand to ensure that judges of the Supreme Constitutional Court could get into the court, and civilians came and went without any problems, the accusations intensified a standoff between the judges appointed under former President Hosni Mubarak and Egypt’s new Islamist leaders that has thrown the political transition into a new crisis 22 months after Mr. Mubarak’s ouster.
Upon approaching the court on Sunday morning, the judges said in a statement that they saw crowds “closing the entrances of the roads to the gates, climbing the fences, chanting slogans denouncing its judges and inciting the people against them.”
The judges were prevented from entering “because of the threat of harm and danger to their safety,” the statement said, calling it “an abhorrent scene of shame and disgrace.”
As a result, the judges announced that they were “suspending the court’s sessions” until they could resume their work without “psychological and physical pressures.”
Anticipation of the court’s decision on the new constitution had set off the latest political crisis. Fear that the court would dissolve the assembly and undo months of work led President Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, to announce 10 days ago that his edicts were not be subject to judicial review until the completion of the constitution.
Despite Mr. Morsi’s attempt, the same anticipation of dissolution drove the Islamist-dominated assembly to rush out a hurried constitution before the court could act and against the objections of Egypt’s secular parties and the Coptic Christian Church. Judges appointed by Mr. Mubarak have previously dissolved the elected Parliament and the first constitutional assembly.
The sudden effort by the president and his Islamist allies to push through a constitution over any objections from their secular factions or the courts has unified the opposition, prompted hundreds of thousands of protesters to take to the streets and set off a wave of attacks on a dozen offices of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. A judicial trade association has urged judges across the country to go on strike, and some of the highest courts have joined it.
Over the weekend, Mr. Morsi continued to push his plans for the new constitution, setting a national referendum on it for Dec. 15.
“I pray to God and hope that it will be a new day of democracy in Egypt,” he said in a nationally televised speech, calling for a “national dialogue.”
But his recent tone and actions reminded critics of the autocratic ways of his predecessor, and have aroused a new debate here about his commitment to democracy and pluralism at a time when he and his Islamist allies dominate political life.
Mr. Morsi’s advisers call the tactics a regrettable but necessary response to genuine threats to the political transition from what they call the deep state — the vestiges of the autocracy of former President Mubarak, especially in the news media and the judiciary.
But his critics say they hear a familiar paranoia in Mr. Morsi’s new tone that reminds them of talk of the “hidden hands” and foreign plots that Mr. Mubarak once used to justify his authoritarianism.
“I have sent warnings to many people who know who they are, who may be committing crimes against the homeland,” Mr. Morsi declared in an interview with state television on Thursday night, referring repeatedly to secret information about a “conspiracy” and “real and imminent threats” that he would not disclose. “If anybody tries to derail the transition, I will not allow them.”
Rovio on Thursday updated its immensely popular Angry Birds Star Wars game to include 20 additional levels. The latest game in the bird-slinging franchise was released earlier this month and was an instant hit, topping the iTunes App Store in less than three hours. In the most recent update, gamers must help the birds escape from the AT-ATs and Pigtroopers on the remote ice world of Hoth. Luckily, the rebel birds have a secret weapon — Princess Leia.
“It is a dark time for the Rebellion,” Rovio wrote on its website. ”Evading the dreaded Imperial Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth. Unfortunately the evil Lord Vader discovers their hideout, and the desperate Rebel birds must escape the AT-ATs and Pigtroopers hot on their trail. But the Rebels have an ace up their sleeve with the debut of PRINCESS LEIA and her attractive new power!”
Angry Birds Star Wars is available for Android, iOS, Macs and PCs. The Hoth trailer follows below.
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Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Gaga – who surprised fans in Rio de Janeiro by playing soccer with neighborhood children earlier this month – took to Twitter to share her excitement over a pride of lions.
"SAFARI PICTURE: in this photo I'm about 10 feet from 13 lions, 2 cubs. I spent about 30 minutes w them and took a nap!" she Tweeted on Saturday, revealing a hat modified to fit her high ponytail.
"& yes I cut a hole in my bush hat so my pony could stick out," she later told her followers. "#SafariBarbie #Glambi my scarf was a gift from the Princess of Monaco, thanku!"
The singer, 26, is scheduled to perform at the Cape Town Stadium on Monday and raved about her experience in South Africa.
"Johannesburg was so wonderful, I can't really put it into words. Im so happy, I haven't slept yet. Laying in bed dreaming of the next tour," she Tweeted on Sunday.
Gaga is touring through March 2013.
CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.
The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.
Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.
This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."
Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.
The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.
And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.
But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.
The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.
Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.
"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."
Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.
People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.
The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.
The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.
The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.
Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."
Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.
One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.
Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.
Other changes include:
—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.
—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.
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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .
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