Winter Chill Descends on Frozen Fiscal Cliff Talks

A chill has descended on Washington just in time for tonight's lighting of the National Christmas Tree.

President Obama will preside over an evening festival of star-studded carols and sparkling displays of holiday cheer on the White House Ellipse.

But don't expect any of the holiday good will to warm the political frost over the fiscal cliff talks.

The White House is mandating that tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans must be part of any deficit-reduction deal with congressional Republicans, who stand equally opposed. Negotiations have ground to a standstill.

"There's no prospect for an agreement that doesn't involve those rates going up on the top 2 percent of the wealthiest," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Wednesday.

He also said the administration is "absolutely" willing to allow the package of deep automatic spending cuts and across-the-board tax hikes to take effect Jan. 1 if they don't get some increase in those tax rates.

Toby Jorrin/AFP/Getty Images

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Obama spoke by phone with House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday, the first time both men had been in contact in one week. On Monday, Boehner attended a White House holiday party but did not greet Obama.

Republicans say Obama has fixated on tax hikes for the rich at the exclusion of entitlement program reforms to curb spending, which they are seeking as part of a "balanced" deal.

"The president talks about a balanced approach, but he's rejected spending cuts that he has supported previously and refuses to identify serious spending cuts he is willing to make today," Boehner said Wednesday. "This is preventing us from reaching an agreement."

As the showdown continues, Obama will take his tax argument on the road to Virginia, visiting the home of a middle class family to highlight the importance of lawmakers extending current, lower tax rates for 98 percent of U.S. earners.

Both parties agree they should be extended before they expire at the end of the year. But they remain tangled in the broader debate over spending cuts and upper-income tax rates.

The average American family of four would pay an estimated $2,200 more in taxes next year if the rates for middle-income earners are not extended.

Economists say a failure to resolve the standoff before Dec. 31 could thrust the U.S. economy back into a recession, a prospect many Americans are also worried about, according to a new poll.

Fifty-three percent of voters say lawmakers' failure to avoid the "cliff" would be "bad for their personal financial situation," compared to just 13 percent who said it wouldn't, according to the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The same poll found a majority – 53 percent – trusting Obama and Democrats more than Republicans to work out a deal in the deficit negotiations.

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Rubio, Ryan look to the future during award dinner speeches

Two high-profile Republican members of Congress who stand at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the party after a stinging presidential defeat delivered speeches Tuesday night aimed at turning the page with a fresh emphasis on inclusion and a renewed focus on growing the middle class.

“Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity now is to create the conditions that allow it not just to survive, but to grow,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), the Leadership Award recipient at a dinner hosted by the Jack Kemp Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization named for the late congressman and Housing and Urban Development secretary.

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Britain faces more austerity pain

LONDON: Finance minister George Osborne on Wednesday warned Britons that they faced an extra year of austerity measures and insisted that reversing his belt-tightening measures now would be a "disaster".

Chancellor of the Exchequer Osborne said Britain would face spending cuts and tax hikes until 2018 -- after the coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron had already previously extended the programme by two years to 2017.

The bleak announcement in a budget update, coming alongside news that the government is slashing its outlook for economic growth, is likely to heap further pressure on the administration mid-way through a five-year term in power.

Addressing parliament on Wednesday, Osborne also admitted that the government would fail to meet its official target for reducing public debt as a proportion of British economic output by 2015-16.

"It is taking time but the British economy is healing after the biggest financial crash in our lifetime," Osborne insisted in his Autumn Statement.

Confirming that he was prolonging the government's austerity programme to 2017-18 -- beyond Britain's next general election due in 2015 -- Osborne said: "We are making progress. It's a hard road, but we are getting there. Britain is on the right track and turning back now would be a disaster."

Explaining why he was extending cuts in public spending and hiking taxes again, Osborne said the British economy faced "deep-seated problems at home and abroad."

Britain's Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, which came to power in 2010, has imposed a series of painful austerity measures to slash a record deficit that was inherited from the previous Labour administration.

Cameron and Osborne have overseen the loss of tens of thousands of public-sector jobs, slashing workforces in the military, health service and various state departments.

The government has also faced huge demonstrations from disgruntled workers ans students in response to the cuts.

The main opposition Labour party said Osborne's economic plans were "in tatters".

The party's finance spokesman Ed Balls said: "Today, after two and a half years, we can see, people can feel in the country, the true scale of this government's economic failure.

"Our economy this year is contracting, (and) the chancellor has confirmed government borrowing is revised up this year, next year and every year."

Britain meanwhile slashed its economic outlook, forecasting the economy would shrink by 0.1 percent this year and then return to growth in 2013, according to figures published alongside the budget update.

The new forecast, issued by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) fiscal watchdog, showed a sharp drop on the previous 2012 growth estimate of 0.8 percent that was given in Osborne's annual budget in March.

The OBR added that British gross domestic product was forecast to grow by 1.2 percent in 2013. That compared with previous guidance for greater expansion of 2.0 percent.

Osborne also revealed that debt as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) was now expected to fall in 2016-17 -- a year later than the government's previous forecast.

Recent official data showed that Britain had escaped from recession in the third quarter of this year, with its economy growing by a robust 1.0 percent.

However the return to growth was owing to one-off factors such as the London Olympics and rebounding activity after public holidays in the second quarter.

"The message... is that we are making progress," Osborne said.

Osborne had some positive news for motorists and businesses, postponing a hike in fuel tax due to have come into force in January and saying he would cut corporation tax by one percentage point to 21 percent in 2014.

The coalition has blamed the recession largely on the debt crisis in the neighbouring eurozone, but the main opposition Labour party claims that the downturn was mainly owing to the hefty cuts in state spending.

On the eve of the budget update, Osborne pledged to invest £5.0 billion (6 billion euros, $8 billion) in schools, transport and science over the next two fiscal years, with the cash sourced from a new raft of spending cuts across most civil service departments.

And on Monday, Osborne launched a campaign against "tax dodgers" and "cowboy advisers" to claw back £2.0 billion a year, as lawmakers alleged that multinationals such as Starbucks and Google are avoiding huge tax bills.

-AFP/ac

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Deoband fatwa describes perfume with alcohol, tattoo and women receptionists as un-Islamic

LUCKNOW: Two fatwas issued by leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in last two days have left many in Muslim community perplexed in the state. While a fatwa as described working of women as receptionists against sharia law, another termed tattoo and use of perfume with alcohol content as un-Islamic.

A Pakistan-based company had asked whether it could appoint a Muslim woman as a receptionist. In reply, the seminary said that Muslim women working in offices as receptionist is un-Islamic because Muslim women are not allowed to appear before men without veil. Mufti Zulfikar Ali, Muslim cleric and president of UP Imam organisation, also said that the Muslim women can work in institutions after wearing the veil but the work of a receptionist is to constantly interact with people, which should not be practised.

In the second case a youth in his query had asked that is tattoo valid in shaira law?. He said that one of his friends who has a tattoo on his arm and it would cost him a huge sum if he goes for a surgery to remove it. In such a condition what should be done, he said in his query. The seminary, in its reply, said that prayers of those, who have tattoo on their bodies or have sprayed perfume with alcohol in it is not valid. Another Islamic seminary, Bareli Markaz has backed the Deoband's decree saying that the tattoo on body is against the tenets of Islam.

Earlier, Darul Uloom Deoband had issued a fatwa against manufacturing and selling of firecrackers. It stated that manufacturing and selling of firecrackers is against Sharia law and bursting of crackers is misuse of money, hence it should be avoided. Another fatwa recently had described donation of blood and body parts was against the tenets of Islam.

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Scientific Results From Challenger Deep

Jane J. Lee

The spotlight is shining once again on the deepest ecosystems in the ocean—Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (map) and the New Britain Trench near Papua New Guinea. At a presentation today at the American Geophysical Union's conference in San Francisco, attendees got a glimpse into these mysterious ecosystems nearly 7 miles (11 kilometers) down, the former visited by filmmaker James Cameron during a historic dive earlier this year.

Watch a video interview with Cameron on exploring deep-sea trenches.

Microbiologist Douglas Bartlett with the University of California, San Diego described crustaceans called amphipods—oceanic cousins to pill bugs—that were collected from the New Britain Trench and grow to enormous sizes five miles (eight kilometers) down. Normally less than an inch (one to two centimeters) long in other deep-sea areas, the amphipods collected on the expedition measured 7 inches (17 centimeters). (Related: "Deep-Sea, Shrimp-like Creatures Survive by Eating Wood.")

Bartlett also noted that sea cucumbers, some of which may be new species, dominated many of the areas the team sampled in the New Britain Trench. The expedition visited this area before the dive to Challenger Deep.

Marine geologist Patricia Fryer with the University of Hawaii described some of the deepest seeps yet discovered. These seeps, where water heated by chemical reactions in the rocks percolates up through the seafloor and into the ocean, could offer hints of how life originated on Earth.

And astrobiologist Kevin Hand with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, spoke about how life in these stygian ecosystems, powered by chemical reactions, could parallel the evolution of life on other planets.

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John McAfee Seeks Asylum, Thanks God for 'Sanity'

Eccentric software tycoon John McAfee, wanted for questioning in the shooting death of his neighbor, has made his escape from Belize to Guatemala, where he told ABC News he will be seeking asylum.

"Thank God I am in a place where there is some sanity," McAfee said. "I chose Guatemala carefully."

McAfee, 67, has been on the run from police in the Central American country of Belize since the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull. Investigators said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of the former developer, who was found shot in the head in his house on the resort island of San Pedro, but that they wanted to question him.

McAfee has been hiding from police ever since – a tactic his new lawyer, Telesforo Guerra, says was necessary.

"You don't have to believe what the police say," Guerra told ABC News. "Even though they say he is not a suspect they were trying to capture him." Guerra is Guatemala's former Attorney General, and, says McAfee, the uncle of McAfee's 20-year-old girlfriend, Samantha.

McAfee says the government raided his beachfront home and threatened Samantha's family.

"Fifteen armed soldiers come in and personally kidnap my housekeeper, threaten Sam's father with torture and haul away half a million dollars of my s___," claimed McAfee. "If they're not after me, then why all these raids? There've been eight raids!"

Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images

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McAfee will hold a press conference at 3 p.m. Eastern Time in Guatemala City to announce his asylum bid. He has offered to answer questions from Belizean law enforcement over the phone, and denies any involvement in Faull's death.

For three weeks, McAfee has been on the run, blogging about his flight, flinging accusations at the Belize government and demanding the release of several friends who have been arrested. He zipped around in speedboats and vans, dyed his hair and beard black and said he'd been sleeping in a bug-infested bed.

Over the weekend, a post on his blog claimed that he had been detained on the Belizean/Mexico border.

On Monday, a follow-up post said that the "John McAfee" taken into custody was actually a "double" who was carrying a North Korean passport with McAfee's name.

That post claimed that McAfee had already escaped Belize and was on the run with Samantha and two reporters from Vice Magazine.

McAfee did not reveal his location in that post, and a spokesperson for Belize's National Security Ministry, Raphael Martinez, told ABC News on Monday that no one by McAfee's name was ever detained at the border and that Belizean security officials believed McAfee was still in their country.

However, a photo posted by Vice Magazine on Monday with their article, "We Are With John McAfee Right Now, Suckers," apparently had been taken on an iPhone 4S and had location information embedded in it which revealed the exact coordinates where the photo was taken - in the Rio Dulce National Park in Guatemala – as reported by Wired.com.

A subsequent blog post on McAfee's site confirmed that the photo had mistakenly revealed his location, and said that Monday was "chaotic due to the accidental release of my exact co-ordinates by an unseasoned technician at Vice headquarters."

"We made it to safety in spite of this handicap," the post reads. "I had to cancel numerous interviews with the press yesterday because of this and I apologize to all of those affected."

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Senate rejects treaty to protect disabled around the world

The Senate has failed to ratify an international treaty intended to protect the rights of those with disabilities, as a bloc of conservatives opposed the treaty believing it could interfere with U.S. law.

The Senate voted 61 to 38 to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, a tally that fell short of the two-thirds needed to sign on to an international treaty.

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Android extends global smartphone lead: survey

WASHINGTON: Google's Android operating system will power more than two-thirds of smartphones sold worldwide in 2012, and will remain the dominant platform for at least the next four years, a survey showed Tuesday.

The survey by the research firm IDC showed Android will be the platform for 68.3 per cent of smartphones shipped in 2012, far ahead of 18.8 per cent for the iOS platform used on Apple's iPhone.

"IDC forecasts Android to be the clear leader in the smartphone mobile operating system race, thanks in large part to a broad selection of devices from a wide range of partners," the market tracker said.

"Samsung is the leading Android smartphone seller though resurgent smartphone vendors LG Electronics and Sony, both of which cracked the top five smartphone vendors during the third quarter, are not to be overlooked. IDC believes the net result of this will be continued double-digit growth throughout the forecast period."

The report said Android will retain the top position through 2016, when it will have 63.8 per cent of the market in the face of increased competition from Apple, Microsoft's Windows Phone and others.

"Android is expected to stay in front, but we also expect it to be the biggest target for competing operating systems to grab market share," said Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC.

"At the same time, Windows Phone stands to gain the most market share as its smartphone and carrier partners have gained valuable experience in selling the differentiated experience Windows Phone has to offer."

Llamas said other players jockeying for market share will include Research in Motion's BlackBerry, which releases a new operating system next year, and the open-source Linux system.

BlackBerry, which until a few years ago was the dominant smartphone, will see its market share slide to 4.7 per cent in 2012, according to IDC, and to 4.1 per cent by 2016.

Linux will be used on two per cent of smartphones this year and 1.5 per cent in 2016, it said. Windows will grow from 2.6 per cent this year to 11.4 per cent in 2016, IDC said.

Apple's iOS will remain the clear number two platform but will be "cost prohibitive for some users within many emerging markets," IDC said.

"In order to maintain current growth rates, Apple will need to examine the possibility of offering less expensive models," it said.

The report said the overall worldwide mobile phone market will grow just 1.4 per cent in 2012, the lowest annual growth rate in three years. The total number of devices sold is expected to be around 1.7 billion.

The forecast reflects an estimated 39.5 per cent growth in smartphones, but declines in sales of other kinds of mobile phones.

"Sluggish economic conditions worldwide have cast a pall over the mobile phone market this year," said IDC's Kevin Restivo.

"However, the fourth quarter will be relatively bright due in part to sales of high-profile smartphones, such as the iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S3, in addition to lower-cost Android-powered smartphones shipped to China and other high-growth emerging markets."

- AFP/fa

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GMR row: India tells Maldives not to take any coercive action

MALE/NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday made it clear to the Maldives that no arbitrary or coercive measure should be taken in the GMR case pending the outcome of the legal proceedings, underlining that any such action would inevitably have adverse consequences for bilateral relations.

This was conveyed by external affairs minister Salman Khurshid when his Maldivian counterpart Abdul Samad Abdullah telephoned him up in the wake of the scrapping of the airport contract to the GMR by the Maldivian government Abdullah had mentioned that his government would not allow relations between India and Maldives to be undermined and that there was consensus on this issue, Syed Akbaruddin, the external affairs ministry spokesperson, told reporters here.

Khurshid reminded his Maldivian counterpart of his earlier discussions and stressed that "the legal processes involved in the GMR case should be permitted to take their own course based on the contractual obligations of the parties involved".

"The Maldivian government should not allow the situation to go out of hand," said the spokesperson while giving details of the telephonic conversation and the message conveyed by Khurshid to Abdullah.

"In this context, it is expected that no arbitrary and coercive measures should be taken pending the outcome of the legal process underway," said the spokesperson.

"Resort to any such actions would inevitably have adverse consequences for relations between India and the Maldives," he added.

In response to another question regarding the volatile situation in the Maldives, the spokesperson said India was concerned over reports from the Maldives about continuing violence and intimidation against elected representatives and expressions of radical sentiments.

"There is need to ensure that the rule of law is upheld and principles and tenets of democracy are maintained. We will continue to monitor the situation closely," he said.

However, the Maldives government has decided to go ahead with its plan to take full control of Male airport after ousting India's GMR. The call by the Maldives foreign minister was aimed at pacifying India, which is deeply upset over the cancellation of the airport contract given to Indian firm GMR.

The Maldives minister explained legal and other reasons behind the cancellation of the project, said official sources.

The sources added that Abdullah sought India's understanding and hoped it will not hurt bilateral ties, said the sources.

Abdullah conveyed to Khurshid that a detailed communication on the GMR issue will be sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

On his part, Khurshid conveyed India's displeasure at the decision and underlined that the scrapping of the biggest single Indian FDI in the Maldives will negatively impact bilateral trade ties and the larger relationship.

In a move to put pressure on Male, India has put on hold aid to the Maldives after the Maldives government Monday decided to take control of the international airport despite a Singapore court staying the suspension of the contract given to India's GMR-led consortium.

The high court of Singapore suspended the Maldives government's decision last week to terminate the $500 million contract awarded to the consortium for developing the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport at Male.

The Maldives government, however, has chosen to defy the court order.

"We will continue the airport takeover and Inshallah next Saturday onwards MACL (state-controlled Maldives Airport Company Ltd) will be running the airport," Defence minister and acting transport minister Mohamed Nazim told reporters in Male Monday.

Upset at the Maldives government's attitude, India has put on hold $25-million budgetary commitment to Male, said reliable sources Monday. The bilateral ties will be affected, said the sources. The Indian government is also studying the court order and its implications, said the sources.

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Pictures We Love: Best of November

Photograph by Qais Usyan, AFP/Getty Images

The family of a five-year-old Afghan girl, victim of an alleged rape by a 22-year-old man, sits at her hospital bedside in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, on November 12. News agencies reported that the assailant, a neighbor, was later detained by police.

(Read about the continued struggle of women in Afghanistan in National Geographic magazine.)

Why We Love It

"The perspective and stark lighting reinforce how small and defenseless this little girl is—her body engulfed by the bed and blankets, with only her feet showing. The bedframe appears to trap her and her family, just as they are trapped in this cycle of violence."—Monica Corcoran, senior photo editor

"This image has a symbolic quality. The light draws our attention immediately to the girl. We see, however, nothing to identify her. It could be any girl who is lying there. Her family at her bedside and their facial expressions indicate that rape affects not only the victim. Overall, this image shows the universality of human suffering."—Amina El Banayosy, photo intern

Published December 4, 2012

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