NASA launches $2.5 billion rover to Red Planet

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.?? NASA has launched its next Mars rover, kicking off a long-awaited mission to investigate whether the Red Planet could ever have hosted microbial life.

The car-size Curiosity rover blasted off atop its Atlas 5 rocket at 10:02 a.m. ET Saturday, streaking into a cloudy sky above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here. The huge robot's next stop is Mars, though the 354-million-mile (570-million-kilometer) journey will take eight and a half months.

Joy Crisp a deputy project scientist for the rover at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., called the liftoff "spectacular."

"This feels great," she said as she watched the rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral.

Pamela Conrad, deputy principal investigator for the mission at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said, "Every milestone feels like such a relief. It's a beautiful day. The sun's out, and all these people came out to watch."

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The work Curiosity does when it finally arrives should revolutionize our understanding of the Red Planet and pave the way for future efforts to hunt for potential Martian life, researchers said.

"It is absolutely a feat of engineering, and it will bring science like nobody's ever expected," Doug McCuistion, head of NASA's Mars exploration program, said of Curiosity. "I can't even imagine the discoveries that we're going to come up with." [Photos: Last Look at Curiosity Rover]

Long road to launch
Curiosity's cruise to Mars may be less challenging than its long and bumpy trek to the launch pad, which took nearly a decade.

NASA began planning Curiosity's mission ? which is officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL ? back in 2003. The rover was originally scheduled to blast off in 2009, but it wasn't ready in time.

Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years. So the MSL team had to wait until 2011.

That two-year slip helped boost the mission's overall cost by 56 percent, to its current $2.5 billion. But Saturday's successful launch likely chased away a lot of the bad feelings still lingering after the delay and the cost overruns.

"I think you could visibly see the team morale improve ? the team grinned more, the team smiled more ? as the rover and the vehicle came closer, and more and more together here when we were at Kennedy [Space Center]" preparing for liftoff, MSL project manager Pete Theisinger of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said a few days before launch.

A rover behemoth
Curiosity is a beast of a rover. Weighing in at 1 ton, it's five times more massive than either of the last two rovers NASA sent to Mars, the golf-cart-size twins Spirit and Opportunity, which landed in 2004 to search for signs of past water activity.

While Spirit and Opportunity each carried five science instruments, Curiosity sports 10, including a rock-zapping laser and equipment designed to identify organic compounds ? carbon-based molecules that are the building blocks of life as we know it.

Some of these instruments sit at the end of Curiosity's five-jointed, 7-foot-long (2.1-meter) robotic arm, which by itself is nearly half as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity.

The arm also wields a 2-inch (5-centimeter) drill, allowing Curiosity to take samples from deep inside Martian rocks. No previous Red Planet rover has been able to do this, researchers say.

"We have an incredible rover," said MSL deputy project scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL. "It's the biggest and most capable scientific explorer we've ever sent to the surface of another planet."

Learn more about Curiosity's mission (800kb PDF)

Curiosity is due to arrive at Mars in early August 2012, touching down in a 100-mile-wide (160-km) crater called Gale.

While the rover's launch was dramatic, its landing will be one for the record books, if all goes well. A rocket-powered sky crane will lower the huge robot down on cables ? a maneuver never tried before in the history of planetary exploration. [Video: Curiosity's Peculiar Landing]

A giant mound of sediment rises 3 miles (5 kilometers) into the Martian air from Gale Crater's center. The layers in this mountain appear to preserve about 1 billion years of Martian history. Curiosity will study these different layers, gaining an in-depth understanding of past and present Martian environments and their potential to harbor life.

Life as we know it depends on liquid water. So the rover will likely spend a lot of time poking around near the mound's base, where Mars-orbiting spacecraft have spotted minerals that form in the presence of water, such as clays and sulfates.

"Going layer by layer, we can do the main goal of this mission, which is to search for habitable environments, " Vasavada said. "Were any of those time periods in early Mars history time periods that could have supported microbial life?"

If Curiosity climbs higher, its observations could shed light on Mars' shift from relatively warm and wet long ago to cold, dry and dusty today, researchers said.

"We want to understand those transitions, so that's why we're headed there [to Gale]," said Bethany Ehlmann of JPL and Caltech in Pasadena.

Setting the stage for life detection
Curiosity isn't designed to search for Martian life. In fact, if the red dirt of Gale Crater does harbor microbes, the rover will almost certainly drive right over them unawares.

But MSL is a key bridge to future efforts that could actively hunt down possible Martian life forms, researchers said. Curiosity's work should help later missions determine where ? and when ? to look.

"We don't really detect life per se," Vasavada said. "We set the stage for that life detection by figuring out which time periods in early Mars history were the most likely to have supported life and even preserved evidence of that for us today."

You can follow Space.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow Space.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

? 2011 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45444246/ns/technology_and_science-space/

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Christian Bale Completes "End of the Batman Era"

Filming on The Dark Knight Rises has come to an end and, with it, so has the portrayal of this iconic super hero by Christian Bale.

"I wrapped a few days ago so that will be the last time I'm taking that [Batman hood] off," the actor star told the Philippine Daily Inquirer this week. "I believe that the whole production wrapped yesterday, so it's all done. Everything's finished. It's me and [director Christopher Nolan] - that will be the end of that Batman era."

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Bale and Nolan first teamed up in 2005 on Batman Begins, a critically-acclaimed installment of the franchise that earned $372 million across the globe. The Dark Knight then broke the $1 billion barrier and earned Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar.

The Dark Knight Rises, meanwhile, hits theaters on July 20, 2012 and also stars Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. We have a feeling it will do rather well at the box office.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/11/christian-bale-completes-end-of-the-batman-era/

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90% The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

All Critics (41) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (37) | Rotten (4)

Broken into nine chapters -- one for each year -- the documentary isn't a rigorous work but a felt piece of vital, if flawed, art.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is not your standard documentary dealing with racism in America.

A film that suffers from a surfeit of credulity.

You watch the material here and wonder whether most of the movies made about black people are meant to pacify general audiences, to distract them from demanding more of the movies.

It is mostly impressionistic - but, wow, some of those impressions really pack a punch.

This chronicle of pride and social upheaval is filled with vintage images and important voices.

What is most impressive about the film is that it manages to put human faces -- not just caricatures -- on the key figures of the movement.

It's thrilling to hear from unrepentant revolutionaries such as Angela Davis and amusing to hear from their bell-bottomed white lawyers.

It may not add up to a narrative, but it's a fascinating compilation -- a mixtape you may want to hear more than once.

"Mixtape" is about a foreign country. And the foreign country is ours.

Impressively made documentary that paints a fascinating portrait of an important period in American history, not least because the perspective stands in stark contrast to the American media's coverage of the same events at the time.

This fascinating documentary brings together material shot by Swedish documentarists and TV journalists dealing with the African American civil rights movement...

The timing of this release is more than perfect. And the story behind the film is nearly as interesting as the stories it tells.

It is not a comprehensive history but the footage is an extraordinarily potent reminder that the stand taken by black people eventually bore fruit.

Interesting stuff, though it sometimes looks like a block of unedited raw material.

Blazing interviews with Angela Davis and Stokely Carmichael supply stinging and unforgettable rhetoric: it simply can't fail with footage this wild.

Like the era it represents, there are highs and lows.

Like most mix-tapes, offers crackling content even when its contexts aren't clear.

The film is testament to the power of archival legwork in documentary-filmmaking.

While it assumes a fair bit of knowledge of the social changes exploding in sixties America, there's a wealth of fascinating material and punchy insights into an earth shaking movement.

It's a dizzying mess of perspectives and lacks a firm head on its shoulders, but history buffs will find this assembly of footage - largely unseen outside of Sweden - to be riveting and important.

From the fly-on-the-wall, cin?ma-v?rit? style of the '60s to a more aggressive, advocacy approach in the mid-'70s, "Mixtape" is a wide slice of nonfiction film history.

These are the men and women Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, and the networks didn't want us to know about.

More Critic Reviews

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_black_power_mix_tape_1967_1975/

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Mubarak-era premier picked to lead Egypt's Cabinet (AP)

CAIRO ? Egypt's military rulers picked a prime minister from ousted leader Hosni Mubarak's era to head the next government, according to state television, a choice that will almost certainly intensify criticism by tens of thousands of protesters accusing the generals of trying to extend the old guard and demanding they step down immediately.

Kamal el-Ganzouri, 78, served as prime minister between 1996 and 1999 and was deputy prime minister and planning minister before that. He also was a provincial governor under the late President Anwar Sadat.

"Illegitimate, illegitimate!" chanted the crowds at Cairo's central Tahrir Square on hearing news of el-Ganzouri's appointment.

"Not only was he prime minister under Mubarak, but also part of the old regime for a total of 18 years," said protester Mohammed el-Fayoumi, 29. "Why did we have a revolution then?"

The announcement followed a meeting late Thursday between el-Ganzouri and senior military ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. Tantawi was Mubarak's defense minister of 20 years and served in the government headed by el-Ganzouri.

El-Ganzouri will replace Essam Sharaf, who resigned this week after nearly nine months in office amid deadly clashes between police and protesters calling for the military to immediately step down.

Sharaf was criticized for being weak and beholden to the generals. The television announcement said el-Ganzouri will enjoy "authority," but did not elaborate.

El-Ganzouri's appointment was likely to deepen the anger of the protesters, already seething over the military's perceived reluctance to dismantle the legacy of Mubarak's 29-year rule.

Protesters chanting, "Leave, leave!" filled up Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday for what has been dubbed by organizers as "The Last Chance Million-Man Protest" aimed at forcing the military council to yield power.

Pro-reform leader and Nobel peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was mobbed by hundreds of supporters as he arrived in the square and took part in Friday prayers, leaving shortly afterward.

"He is here to support the revolutionaries," said protester Ahmed Awad, 35. "He came to see for himself the tragedy caused by the military."

Swelling crowds of demonstrators chanted, "The people want to bring down the marshal", in reference to Tantawi, who took over the reins of power from Mubarak.

The rally comes one day after the military offered an apology for the killing of nearly 40 protesters in five days of deadly clashes, mostly centered around Tahrir Square. This was the longest spate of uninterrupted violence since the 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak on Feb. 11. The streets were relatively calm on Friday as a truce negotiated Thursday in Cairo continued to hold.

The military also has said that parliamentary elections due to start Monday will go ahead on schedule despite the unrest in Cairo and a string of other cities to the north and south of the capital.

Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square ? angry at the military for failing to stabilize the country, salvage the economy or bring democracy ? say they will not leave the sprawling plaza until the generals step down in favor of a civilian presidential council. Their show of resolve resembles that of the rallies which forced Mubarak to give up power.

The military has rejected calls to immediately step down, saying its claim to power is supported by the warm welcome given to troops who took over the streets from the discredited police early in the anti-Mubarak uprising as well as an overwhelming endorsement for constitutional amendments they proposed in a March referendum.

Tantawi has offered another referendum on whether his military council should step down immediately.

Such a vote, activists say, would divide the nation and likely open the door for a deal between the military and political groups, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt's largest and best organized group, the Brotherhood is notorious for its opportunism and thirst for power. It was empowered after the fall of Mubarak, regaining legitimacy after spending nearly 60 years as an outlawed group.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt

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Wall Street falls 1 percent on Europe woes, China data (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Stocks fell about 1 percent on Wednesday, putting the S&P 500 on track for a sixth straight losing session as the euro zone crisis and weak Chinese data weighed on sentiment.

The latest U.S. data showed an unexpected rise in weekly jobless claims, while durable goods orders fell less than expected, but Wall Street had little reaction. Debt problems in Europe and the United States have pressured markets, with the S&P falling more than 5 percent over the last five sessions.

World stocks hit their lowest in six weeks Wednesday as weak demand in a German bond auction heightened fears the euro zone crisis would worsen. Banks have been among the worst performers as any exposure to European debt could erode profits.

Data showed Chinese manufacturing shrank the most in 32 months in November, intensified concerns about a global economic slowdown. U.S. crude oil fell 2.6 percent on fears of reduced demand from the world's No. 2 economy.

New U.S. jobless claims rose slightly last week but held below 400,000 for the third straight week, and consumer spending barely increased in October. Also durable goods orders rose, but details of the report were generally weak.

"Data is weak around the world, and there's a lot of bad news out there," said Uri Landesman, president at Platinum Partners in New York. "If the slowdown in China were to become a sustained problem, we would expect commodities to fare poorly."

The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) slid 139.03 points, or 1.21 percent, at 11,354.69. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was down 16.88 points, or 1.42 percent, at 1,171.16. The Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC) dropped 35.73 points, or 1.42 percent, at 2,485.55.

All ten S&P sectors were negative, with financials and energy the biggest losers. Energy shares (.GSPE) fell 1.9 percent while financials (.GSPF) lost 2.1 percent.

Trading volume is expected to be low on Wednesday ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, when markets are closed. That could amplify turbulence, which remains tied to Europe's volatility.

Deere & Co (DE.N) climbed 4.3 percent to $75 after quarterly earnings beat expectations and sales climbed 20 percent.

The U.S. Federal Reserve plans to run stress tests on six large U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N), using a hypothetical market shock that includes a deteriorating European debt crisis in an annual review. Bank of America fell 3.4 percent to $5.19 in premarket trading.

U.S. consumer sentiment held up in late November as some of the gloom over the economy ebbed, a report showed. Stocks barely budged after the numbers.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/bs_nm/us_markets_stocks

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'G.I. Joe 2' crew member killed during filming

NEW ORLEANS?? A crew member working on the film "G.I. Joe 2: Retalition" has been killed on the set in New Orleans in what the studio is calling an unusual accident.

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Paramount Pictures spokeswoman Virginia Lam said Wednesday that Mike Huber was killed Tuesday. She would not comment to The Associated Press on the circumstances surrounding his death.

New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Remi Braden says the accident occurred on property owned by NASA, so the federal government is heading the investigation. A spokesman for NASA did not immediately return a telephone call for comment.

Lam says the studio is fully cooperating with the investigation.

The sequel stars Bruce Willis, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Channing Tatum. The action movie is scheduled for release in the summer.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45420762/ns/today-entertainment/

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Singapore Press Holdings sues Yahoo over copyright (Reuters)

SINGAPORE (Reuters) ? Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), which has a near monopoly of newspaper publishing in the city-state, said on Wednesday it filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Yahoo Inc, alleging the internet giant reproduced news from its newspapers without permission.

Singapore is the headquarters for Yahoo's operations in Southeast Asia, a key market for the company where strong growth in mobile communications over the past decade has fueled internet connectivity in a region with around 500 million people.

"In our statement of claim, we cited as examples 23 articles from our newspapers which Yahoo! had reproduced over a 12-month period without our license or authorization," SPH spokeswoman Chin Soo Fang said in an email to Reuters.

SPH filed the writ of summons and statement of claim to the Singapore High Court on Friday and served them to Yahoo Southeast Asia on Monday.

Yahoo officials were not immediately available for comment.

Lawyers from Bird & Bird LLP represent Yahoo according to a Straits Times article, while SPH said Wong Partnership represents Singapore Press.

(Reporting by Harry Suhartono; Editing by Matt Driskill)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/wr_nm/us_yahoo_singaporepress

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U.S. urges Bahrain to tackle abuses, sees path forward (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The United States urged its ally Bahrain, home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, to quickly address abuses laid out in a report on Wednesday that alleged that Bahraini security forces used torture to obtain confessions.

A Bahraini government-commissioned panel charged with investigating abuses found that Bahrain's security forces used excessive force to suppress pro-democracy protests this year, saying five people were tortured to death.

The United States, which has been faulted by rights activists for not criticizing the island kingdom more sharply for the crackdown, appeared to carefully balance its demand for the abuses to be addressed with praise for its Gulf ally.

"We are deeply concerned about the abuses identified in the report and urge the Government and all elements of Bahraini society to address them in a prompt and systematic manner," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

"We believe the ... report offers a historic opportunity for all Bahrainis to participate in a healing process that will address long-standing grievances and move the nation onto a path of genuine, sustained reform," Clinton added.

Neither Clinton's statement, nor one from the White House, hinted at any distance between the Obama administration and the royal family that rules Bahrain, although Washington has said it will weigh human rights in decisions about military sales.

Clinton made a point of stressing the "strategic interests" that the two countries share, a likely reference to containing Bahrain's neighbor Iran, which the United States suspects of pursuing nuclear weapons and accuses of supporting terrorism.

Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons.

U.S. CONUNDRUM

The events in Bahrain have posed a conundrum for the United States, which has sought to maintain good relations with a country that is a cornerstone of its strategy to preserve the flow of oil from the Middle East while remaining true to its support for freedom of speech and peaceful protests.

The government-commissioned report, designed to help heal sectarian divisions between the island kingdom's Sunni rulers and majority Shi'ites, acknowledged five people had been tortured to death but said abuses were isolated incidents.

However the inquiry panel, led by Egyptian-American international law expert Cherif Bassiouni, dismissed Bahrain's allegation of Iranian interference in fomenting unrest, saying that was not supported by any evidence.

"In many cases security agencies in the government of Bahrain resorted to excessive and unnecessary force," Bassiouni said at the king's palace, adding that some detainees suffered electric shocks, and beatings with rubber hoses and wires.

Bahrain's Shi'ite-led opposition reacted coolly to the report, some saying it did not go far enough while others argued that those responsible for abuses remained in office.

White House press secretary Jay Carney urged Bahrain's authorities to hold those responsible to account while praising its ruler, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, for what he described as a "courageous" decision to commission the report.

"The report identifies a number of disturbing human rights abuses ... and it is now incumbent upon the government of Bahrain to hold accountable those responsible for human rights violations and put in place institutional changes to ensure that such abuses do not happen again," Carney said.

Bahrain's finance minister, Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Khalifa, gave interviews in Washington to make the case that the government genuinely wanted reform and reconciliation.

"Listening to that report is not easy but the fact that we are doing it, in an Arab country, shows our interest to put the truth on the table in front of the whole world," he told Reuters. "He (King Hamad) is sincerely interested in making sure that we deal with the issues and move ahead."

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert and Jeff Mason; editing by Anthony Boadle and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111124/wl_nm/us_bahrain_violence

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Must See HDTV (November 21st - 27th)

Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series
Both halves of the most recent edition of Doctor Who come to Blu-ray this week. Throw in the 2010 Christmas Special, a Doctor Who Confidential inside look for each episode, plus a few more exclusives and extras and it's generally a better option than buying the two parts individually. We're still not sure exactly where to rank the River Song story arc in the Doctor Who canon, but after long, long teases about what was going on the storyline finally wrapped up in a satisfying way at the end.
(November 22nd, $59.99 on Amazon)

The Walking Dead
Whoa, did something actually happen on this show last week? We're still rooting for Lori to be eaten by zombies (slowly) and if Daryl ever gets killed off we'll stop watching forever but this show has definitely raised our hopes as it comes to a midseason finale this week. Throw in the much more interesting evil Shane and a Glenn-centric storyline and we actually have reasons to watch beyond just gore-of-the-week trickery. Now, if we could just say the same for Hell on Wheels...
(November 27th, AMC, 9PM)

Punkin Chunkin 2011
Once you're stuffed full after a Thanksgiving feast, if you're not watching the brother vs. brother 49ers/Ravens NFL standoff, flip over to Discovery and witness the Punkin Chunkin 2011 competition, where "man meets machine meets mayhem", all hosted by the guys from Mythbusters. Taking place for the 26th year, this annual competition brings teams to a Delaware cornfield to see whose homemade contraption can throw a pumpkin the furthest. Admit it, you're intrigued.
(November 24th, Discovery, 8PM)

Continue reading Must See HDTV (November 21st - 27th)

Must See HDTV (November 21st - 27th) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Egypt stock market plunges on political crisis (AP)

CAIRO ? Egypt's benchmark index plunged on Tuesday, with a temporary suspension of trading failing to cool a frenzy of selling by investors panicked by escalating violence and protests in the capital that have thrust the nation into its worst political crisis since former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster.

The EGX30 index closed 4.78 percent lower, or at 3,676 points, continuing its slide after trading was suspended for nearly an hour on the Egyptian Exchange after the broader EGX100 index fell by over 5.4 percent. Underscoring market unease with the political situation, the country's five-year credit default swaps ? the cost of insuring Egypt's sovereign debt against default ? widened by 25 basis points to 563 basis points, according to Markit.

State television reported that the day's losses on the exchange amounted to 12 billion pounds ($2 billion).

The slide Tuesday was the market's third consecutive day of declines and reflected the worries about the country's political future as thousands gathered in central Cairo protesting against the country's military rulers. The escalating tension came just days before the scheduled Nov. 28 parliamentary elections ? the first since Mubarak left office in mid-February.

Traders put the support point for the benchmark index at 3,800 points, but the market blew past that level with little difficulty early in the day, building on Monday's 4 percent slide and dragging its year-to-date decline down to more than 48 percent.

"We passed the support point, so the only thing that will stop further declines in the market is fixing the political situation in the country," said Khaled Naga, a senior broker with Mega Investments. "We have to wait and see what happens."

The suspension of trade was a safety measure set up by market authorities in the weeks after the uprising against Mubarak. The measures were intended to guard against what many, at the time, feared would be the market's collapse after its reopening more than two months after the start of the Jan. 25 uprising.

The violence and continuing demonstrations prompted the civilian Cabinet to offer its resignation late Monday. But the move failed to appease the activists who see the civilian government as little more than subservient to the military rulers.

While far from presenting a united front, the activists massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square ? the epicenter of the uprising that toppled Mubarak ? are demanding that the military rulers either immediately hand over power to a civilian administration or set a fixed date for a transition to civilian rule.

Firmly entrenched in Tahrir Square, the activists issued a call for a million-man rally on Tuesday ? a move that had thousands streaming into downtown Cairo and raising the specter of further clashes and violence, even as officials called for restraint from all sides.

The threat of continued trouble only builds on already growing political uncertainty that has battered the country's economy and placed tremendous pressure on the country's currency. The Egyptian pound was trading at about 5.996 to the U.S. dollar by early afternoon local time, according to currency Web site, XE.com.

The government has struggled to keep the pound from breaking the six pounds to the dollar level for months, with economists attributing at least a portion of the net international reserves that have been spent going to support the currency. Egypt's net international reserves fell from $36 billion in December to about $22 billion by the end of October, according to Central Bank of Egypt figures.

Naga said the stock market has lost about 180 billion pounds ($30.25 billion) since the start of the year ? with most of that linked to the unrest in the country versus the overall global financial concerns linked to the Eurozone debt crisis and broader fears of recession. He said Monday's losses were about 7 billion pounds.

The Tuesday losses marked the 10th consecutive trading session in which the market ? one of the worst performing emerging market indices in the world ? suffered a slide as a result of Egypt's tenuous political situation.

Rami Sidani, the Dubai-based head of Middle East and North Africa investments for British asset management firm Schroders, said there is a "very negative sentiment" over Egyptian stocks at the moment. The uncertainties surrounding the country's political future have triggered a panicked sell-off on the Egyptian exchange, he said.

"There is no discrimination between one company or another," said Sidani. "Investors are just selling across the board without taking into consideration the value of the underlying assets."

The declines came as several markets elsewhere in the region extended slumps of their own following Monday's rout on Wall Street.

The Dubai Financial Market dropped 0.3 percent to close at 1,351 points Tuesday, its lowest level in more than seven years. Saudi Arabia's main index was trading down 0.8 percent at 6,103 points by mid-afternoon.

___

AP Business Writer Adam Schreck in Dubai contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111122/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_egypt_economy

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Pakistani Taliban, government hold initial talks (AP)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan ? Government intermediaries have held talks with the Pakistani Taliban in recent months, exploring ways to jump-start peace negotiations, intelligence officials and a senior militant commander said.

As reports of the talks emerged, officials said Monday that gunmen ambushed a paramilitary convoy in southwestern Baluchistan province, killing 14 soldiers. Baluchi nationalists have waged a decades-long insurgency against the government, demanding greater independence and a larger share of the province's natural resource wealth.

The Pakistani Taliban have waged a separate war against the government. A peace deal between authorities and the group could represent the best hope of ending years of fighting that has killed thousands of security personnel and civilians.

But it is unclear whether the preliminary talks will gain traction or if the Pakistani Taliban are unified enough to actually strike a deal. It is also uncertain whether a deal could last.

The government has cut peace deals with the Pakistani Taliban in the past, but they have largely fallen apart. The agreements have been criticized for allowing the militants to regroup and rebuild their strength to resume fighting the government and foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Talk of a new peace deal could be troubling to the United States if it is seen as providing militants with greater space to carry out operations in neighboring Afghanistan. However, Washington's push for a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban could make it difficult to oppose an agreement in Pakistan.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are allies but have primarily focused their attacks on opposite sides of the border. The Pakistani Taliban also trained the Pakistani-American who carried out a failed car bombing in New York's Times Square in 2010.

The government delegations that held preliminary talks with the Pakistani Taliban over roughly the past six months have included former civilian and military officials and tribal elders, the intelligence officials and a senior militant commander said in recent interviews with The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

As a confidence building measure, the Pakistani Taliban released five officials from the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency who were kidnapped in Baluchistan province, the officials and the commander said in the interviews.

The Pakistani Taliban's top demand is that the army pull out of the South Waziristan tribal area, which served as the group's main sanctuary before a large military offensive in 2009, said the commander, who is close to Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

The army could be replaced by the paramilitary Frontier Corps, but the militants have demanded that only local police conduct patrols. They also want the government to pay compensation for damages incurred during the South Waziristan operation, free Pakistani Taliban prisoners and allow the group's leaders to move freely throughout the country.

According to the intelligence officials and the militants, the Pakistani Taliban's leadership council held a meeting in mid-September in which they came up with these demands. They also authorized the group's deputy leader, Maulana Waliur Rehman, to hold talks with the government regarding South Waziristan and other tribal areas.

On Saturday, a Pakistani Taliban spokesman told the AP the group has added another demand ? that the government cut ties with the United States if it wants to make peace with the militants.

"Do it and we are brothers, but if not, our war against the government will go on," said spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Some analysts have argued that the Pakistani Taliban has splintered into so many different groups that it might be difficult for the leadership in South Waziristan to agree to a comprehensive peace deal.

The government held a meeting of all major political parties at the end of September in which they agreed that the government must attempt to start peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban. But it is unclear what conditions the government and, more importantly, the powerful military would agree to.

The military has conducted a series of offensives against the Pakistani Taliban in the country's semiautonomous tribal region along the Afghan border over the past few years.

For their part, military officials have said they have not held any recent peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban.

The attack on the paramilitary Frontier Corps convoy in Baluchistan occurred Sunday night about 90 miles (150 kilometers) northeast of the provincial capital, Quetta, said Frontier Corps spokesman Murtaza Baig. Ten soldiers were also wounded.

The Baluchistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the group's spokesman, Azad Baluch, who alleged the group's fighters killed 40 paramilitary soldiers.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, militants attacked army forces in the Orakzai tribal area, killing two officers and wounding 10 soldiers, said Salim Khan, a local government administrator. The army retaliated, killing 35 militants, he said.

____

Associated Press writers Abdul Sattar in Quetta and Hussain Afzal in Parachinar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111121/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

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BC-US--Rethinking Abuse,1st Ld-Writethru, US

BC-US--Rethinking Abuse, 1st Ld-Writethru ,852Penn State sex case rivets public, fuels reformsEds: Adds details, quotes.By MARYCLAIRE DALEAssociated Press

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Jerry Sandusky's brief call to a TV sportscaster may have done more to raise concern over child-sex crimes than three decades of church-abuse cases.

Sandusky, 67, quickly denied being a pedophile when Bob Costas asked him.

But Penn State's retired defensive coordinator paused, and rambled, when asked whether he's sexually attracted to children.

"He doesn't want to label himself what he is," said former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, who once led a grand jury investigation into the Philadelphia archdiocese and is working with the charity Sandusky founded to conduct an internal investigation. "This is a pattern of conduct that is so classic in its context: the grooming, the young boys, the gifts, the flattery, the meals, the trips, the jock thing, the touching."

The allegations against Sandusky have toppled iconic coach Joe Paterno and the university's president and riveted the public in the two weeks since his arrest. People are poring over the grand jury report and asking why it took years for witness accounts and police investigations to surface.

Sandusky was charged with abusing eight boys over 15 years, sometimes on campus. He vows to fight the 40-count indictment.

"There are far more numbers (of victims and abusers) in the priest-abuse scandal, and one might even think larger violations of trust," said Frank Cervone, executive director of the Support Center for Child Advocates in Philadelphia. "Ironically, more people are upset (now)."

The 2002 case of one abusive priest in the Archdiocese of Boston led to years of revelations that bishops across the U.S. had for decades moved accused priests among churches without alerting parents or police.

The Penn State case may give more political muscle to those trying to get victims more time to file criminal complaints or lawsuits against the church. Sandusky assaulted some of his boys more than a decade ago, the grand jury said. More accusers have contacted police or lawyers this month, after learning about the report or Sandusky's denials.

"This drives home the point; this is not a Catholic issue. It never has been. It's a kids' issue," said John Salveson, president of the Pennsylvania-based Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse, which supports laws to extend legal time limits. "Whether Penn State, whether the Boy Scouts, whether it's the Catholic church, it's not about those institutions. I think people are starting to see the difference."

Historically, the Catholic church has fought such legislation in Pennsylvania, Colorado and other states, as the hierarchy struggled with abuse claims that have bankrupt some dioceses.

Philadelphia's new archbishop, Charles Chaput, arrived this fall from Denver, where he had publicly apologized to victims and tried to quickly settle litigation. The Denver archdiocese settled 43 claims for a total of $8.3 million from 2005 to 2008 under his watch.

Chaput arrived in Philadelphia in the midst of an unprecedented criminal priest--abuse case. Three priests are charged with raping boys while a former high-ranking diocesan official faces child endangerment charges stemming from accusations that he transferred predators to new parishes.

But because of the statute of limitations in Pennsylvania, the archdiocese has not spent millions of dollars on civil suits. Abraham's grand jury concluded in 2005 that 63 priests had been credibly accused, but the cases were all too old to prosecute or pursue through lawsuits.

Lawmakers that year extended the age limit to file civil suits to age 30, from age 20, but the change was not retroactive. Advocates now want to extend the limit to age 50, and give victims a two-year window to file civil suits after reporting abuse.

The archdiocese said Friday it would need to carefully review such legislation.

"Any legislation needs to be carefully considered, and we believe immediate reporting of alleged child abuse, and clarity on how a report is to be made and by whom, is critical," it said in a statement.

The church vowed to support "legislation that is fair and just for all involved ... as private and public institutions in this state work together to protect children."

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, along with Chaput's predecessors in Philadelphia, vigorously fought time extensions in the past.

"The worst thing he can do is continue the policies of the previous administration," Abraham said.

Now in private practice, she has been retained by The Second Mile, the charity Sandusky founded for disadvantaged youth, to conduct an internal investigation of who knew what. Sandusky met the boys he's accused of molesting through the group, which runs camps, trips and other activities for children in several counties.

Even in her new role, she continues to support the time extensions for filing civil suits.

"To convince witnesses to come forward, and tell these horrible secrets, it's very difficult," Abraham said.

At a news conference Tuesday in support of the victim bills, 78-year-old state lawmaker Louise Williams Bishop stunned colleagues as she painfully revealed that she had been raped as a child.

"People are beginning to understand why it's so hard to disclose, that if you've been victimized, sometimes the embarrassment, the shame keeps you quiet," Cervone said. "(There's) the fear that disclosure will be worse than the crime."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-21-Rethinking%20Abuse/id-0434a05dcb09438d8104751cd7bccdfd

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A rally could happen in week ahead but some big "ifs" (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Wall Street is in for a volatile week as escalating problems in Europe's debt crisis continue to keep investors on their toes.

With light trading volume expected next week due to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, intraday swings are likely to be wide and frequent as traders instantly react to headlines out of Europe.

In addition, a 12-member "super committee" in Congress has until midnight on Wednesday to strike a deal involving tax increases and spending cuts to rein in federal spending. Investors are concerned that failure to reach a deal would result in automatic reductions that would harm the fragile recovery.

But with Wall Street poised for a technical rebound after finishing the worst week in two months, some say there are a lot of variables that could spark a rally.

If the super committee can come up with a workable deficit-reduction plan and if progress can be made in Europe, "the stage could be set for a fourth-quarter rally that might surprise even the most bullish traders," said Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives for Schwab in Austin, Texas.

"Of course, those are some mighty big 'ifs.'"

GERMAN BUNDS

European debt yields, an important risk barometer for investors these days, have shown exceptionally high correlation to equities. For the past several weeks, stocks have quickly reacted to moves in Italian, Spanish and French yields.

Now, there could be a new worry in German Bunds.

"We do have a new uncertainty that has gotten a bit of attention over the past few days and that is the selloff in the German Bund market. There has been heavy selling by Asian real money investors in Bunds the last few days," said Chuck Retzky, director of the futures division of Mizuho Securities USA in Chicago.

"The Bund market is considered to be one of the safe havens for investors' money in the world and if that should show a significant crack and the selling pressure continues, then people will worry if U.S. Treasuries will see a similar selloff in the future," he said.

On Friday, the Dow and S&P erased losses as the yield on Spanish 10-year bonds eased.

Spanish elections set for Sunday could help support a rise in the euro against the dollar in the very near term because the opposition party, which is seen as favoring austerity measures, is expected to win.

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

The S&P 500 (.SPX) fell 3.8 percent on the week, ending its worst week in two months, but the index closed above its 50-day moving average near 1,200, showing signs of strength to move up higher.

"Our expectation is that the recent market selloff is not the beginning of a whole scale, multimonth downside collapse, but rather is likely the latter stages of a pause following a surge in October, and another upside rally attempt will develop shortly," said Robert Sluymer, analyst at RBC Capital Markets in New York.

"The overall technical set-up has not materially changed in the past few weeks."

For the week, the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) fell 2.9 percent and the Nasdaq (.IXIC) lost 4 percent.

Next week's economic data includes existing home sales for October on Monday and third-quarter preliminary GDP report on Tuesday. On Wednesday, durable goods orders, personal income and outlays and weekly jobless claims are due. The markets will be closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Doris Frankel in Chicago; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111119/bs_nm/us_usa_stocks_weekahead

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In NYPD spying, a Yippie legal battle echoes again (Providence Journal)

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US authorities find major drug tunnel in San Diego (AP)

SAN DIEGO ? U.S. authorities estimate 17 tons of marijuana were seized in the discovery of a major cross-border drug tunnel linking warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico.

Authorities said Wednesday that about nine tons were found on the U.S. side, either inside a truck that was seen leaving the warehouse or at the warehouse. Mexican authorities seized eight tons.

Two people were arrested on a California highway and charged with drug crimes. Cesar Beltran and Ruben Gomez were allegedly inside the truck that was pulled over Tuesday afternoon in La Mesa.

Authorities spoke at a news conference in front of bundles of pot marked with drawings of Captain America or Bud Light and Sprite labels. The markings designate the owner of the drugs.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

An estimated 14 tons of marijuana were seized after the discovery of a cross-border tunnel that authorities said Wednesday was one of the most significant secret drug smuggling passages ever found on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The tunnel discovered Tuesday stretched about 400 yards and linked warehouses in San Diego and Tijuana, authorities said.

U.S. authorities seized an estimated nine to 10 tons of marijuana inside a truck and at the warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa area, said Derek Benner, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's special agent in charge of investigations in San Diego. Mexican authorities recovered about five tons south of the border.

Photos taken by Mexican authorities show an entry blocked by bundles that were likely stuffed with marijuana, Paul Beeson, chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector, told The Associated Press. Tunnel walls were lined with wood supports, and power cords led toward the Mexican entrance, suggesting lighting and ventilation systems.

The depth and width of the tunnel were unknown. Several arrests were made. Benner declined to elaborate in an interview.

Cross-border tunnels have proliferated in recent years, but the latest find is one of the more significant, based on the amount of drugs seized.

Raids last November on two tunnels linking San Diego and Tijuana netted a combined 50 tons of marijuana on both sides of the border, two of the largest pot busts in U.S. history. Those secret passages were lined with rail tracks, lighting and ventilation.

As U.S. authorities tighten their noose on land, tunnels have emerged as a major tack to smuggle marijuana. Smugglers also use single-engine wooden boats to ferry bales of marijuana up the Pacific Coast and pilot low-flying aircraft that look like motorized hang gliders to make lightning-quick drops across the border.

More than 70 tunnels have been found on the border since October 2008, surpassing the number of discoveries in the previous six years. Many are clustered around San Diego, California's Imperial Valley and Nogales, Ariz.

California is popular because its clay-like soil is easy to dig with shovels. In Nogales, smugglers tap into vast underground drainage canals.

San Diego's Otay Mesa area has the added draw that there are plenty of warehouses on both sides of the border to conceal trucks getting loaded with drugs. Its streets hum with semitrailers by day and fall silent on nights and weekends.

After last November's twin finds, U.S. authorities launched a campaign to alert Otay Mesa warehouse landlords to warning signs. Landlords were told to look for construction equipment, piles of dirt, sounds of jackhammers and the scent of unburned marijuana.

U.S. authorities linked the November finds to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, headed by that country's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Benner said the sophistication of the latest tunnel suggests that a major Mexican drug cartel was involved, but no link has been established.

"This is where the work, in earnest, begins," said Benner. "We need to find them and shut them down."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111117/ap_on_re_us/us_drug_tunnel

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US bid to extradite fugitive blocked

LISBON, Portugal?? A Portuguese court on Thursday denied a U.S. request for the extradition of captured American fugitive George Wright, who spent 41 years on the lam in a journey that took him across three continents.

The U.S. wants Wright returned to serve the rest of his 15- to 30-year jail sentence for a 1962 killing in New Jersey.

Wright, 68, was captured in Portugal in September after a fingerprint provided by U.S. authorities was matched to his in a national database the country maintains for all citizens and legal residents.

Wright's lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, told The Associated Press that the judge accepted his arguments that Wright is now Portuguese and that the statute of limitations on the killing had expired. He declined to provide further details, saying he would hold a news conference later.

U.S. officials were "extremely disappointed" with the denial for extradition and "will review the decision and consult with Portuguese authorities to determine a path forward that results in Mr. Wright's return to the United States," according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon. The case could be appealed to a higher Portuguese court.

A Portuguese court official confirmed the extradition request was refused, but provided no details. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorized to discuss the case.

Portuguese court proceedings for extraditions and many other type of cases are conducted in secrecy with no public access to the proceedings, filings or decisions.

Wright spent seven years in a U.S. prison for the New Jersey murder before escaping in 1970, and was on the run for 41 years until his arrest.

Authorities say Wright and three associates had already committed multiple armed robberies on Nov. 23, 1962, when Walter Patterson, a decorated World War II veteran and father of two, was shot dead in his gas station in Wall, New Jersey.

Patterson's daughter, Ann, said in an email she hopes U.S. officials will appeal the case and insisted that the extradition attempt "has not all been done for nothing."

"The entire world now knows what this man did," she said.

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Wright was captured in the seaside village where he has lived since 1993 less than an hour's drive from Lisbon, and was jailed for about two weeks. But a judge released him about a month ago under house arrest.

Ferreira previously told The AP he would argue Wright is now a Portuguese citizen and should be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence in Portugal, where his wife and two grown children live. Sweeney has repeatedly declined to discuss the legal arguments for extradition presented by the U.S.

Wright got Portuguese citizenship through his 1991 marriage to a Portuguese woman and after the tiny West African nation Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, gave him the new name of "Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos" complete with fake names for parents and made him a citizen.

The identity from Guinea-Bissau was granted after the country gave Wright political asylum in the 1980s, and that was accepted by Portugal when it granted him citizenship, according to his lawyer.

Wright broke out of Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, New Jersey, on Aug. 19, 1970.

He made his way to Detroit and became a militant in the Black Liberation Army. In 1972, Wright dressed as a priest and used an alias to hijack a Delta flight from Detroit to Miami along four others, police say.

After releasing the plane's 86 passengers for $1 million, the hijackers forced the plane to fly to Boston, then to Algeria, where the hijackers sought asylum.

Algeria gave the money and plane back to the U.S., and Wright and his comrades went underground in Europe. The other four were captured and convicted of hijacking in Paris, but Wright managed to avoid the dragnet and slipped away.

He met his future wife, Maria do Rosario Valente, in Lisbon in 1978. The couple moved in the early 1980s to Guinea-Bissau where Wright lived openly using his real name and socialized with U.S. diplomats and embassy personnel who told The AP they were unaware of his past.

His wife also did translation work for years for the U.S. Embassy in Bissau. They lived there until they moved back to Portugal in 1993 to a whitewashed house with terra-cotta roof tiles in the tiny town of Almocageme, 28 miles from Lisbon and close to broad Atlantic beaches.

Story: For decades, NJ fugitive enjoyed idyllic life in Portugal

Valente said last month that her husband is a changed man who "regrets the choices he has made. If he could, he probably would have made different choices."

Valente said her husband has become a more peaceful man since his days as a militant. She showed the AP photographs of paintings by Wright and art work at local buildings ? a skill which has allowed him to earn money in Portugal among other odd jobs he's done over the years.

Fluent in Portuguese, Wright worked a series of jobs in Portugal as decorative painter, nightclub bouncer and barbecue chicken restaurant manager.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45339133/ns/world_news-europe/

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LA protesters march in financial district (Providence Journal)

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Obama insists US does not fear China (AP)

CANBERRA, Australia ? President Barack Obama insisted Wednesday that the United States does not fear China, even as he announced a new security agreement with Australia that is widely viewed as a response to China's growing aggressiveness.

China responded swiftly, warning that an expanded U.S. military footprint in Australia may not be appropriate and deserved greater scrutiny.

The agreement, announced during a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, will expand the U.S. military presence in Australia, positioning more U.S. personnel and equipment there, and increasing American access to bases. About 250 U.S. Marines will begin a rotation in northern Australia starting next year, with a full force of 2,500 military personnel staffing up over the next several years.

Obama called the deployment "significant," and said it would build capacity and cooperation between the U.S. and Australia. U.S. officials were careful to emphasize that the pact was not an attempt to create a permanent American military presence in Australia.

"It also allows us to meet the demands of a lot of partners in the region that want to feel that they're getting the training, they're getting the exercises, and that we have the presence that's necessary to maintain the security architecture in the region," Obama said.

The president spoke shortly after arriving in the Australian capital, his second stop on a nine-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. After a 10-hour flight from Honolulu, where he hosted an economic summit, Obama headed straight into meetings with Gillard.

On Thursday, Obama will address the Australian Parliament, then fly to the northern city of Darwin, where some of the Marines deploying to Australia next year will be based.

During his news conference with Gillard, the president sidestepped questions about whether the security agreement was aimed at containing China. But he said the U.S. would keep sending a clear message that China needs to accept the responsibilities that come with being a world power.

"It's important for them to play by the rules of the road," he said.

And he insisted that the U.S is not fearful of China's rise.

"I think the notion that we fear China is mistaken. The notion that we're looking to exclude China is mistaken," he said.

China was immediately leery of the prospect of an expanded U.S. military presence in Australia. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Wednesday that it was worth discussing whether the plan was in line with the common interests of the international community.

Obama national security aide Ben Rhodes said the agreement was not only appropriate, but also a response to the demand from nations in the region that have signaled they want the U.S. to be present.

The U.S. and smaller Asian nations have grown increasingly concerned about China claiming dominion over vast areas of the Pacific that the U.S. considers international waters, and reigniting old territorial disputes, including confrontations over the South China Sea. China's defense spending has increased threefold since the 1990s to about $160 billion last year, and its military has recently tested a new stealth jet fighter and launched its first aircraft carrier.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that the goal of the new security pact is to signal that the U.S. and Australia will stick together in face of any threats.

In addition to the expanded Marine presence in Australia, more U.S. aircrafts will rotate through Australia as part of an agreement between each nation's air force. Obama and Gillard said the increased air presence would allow the U.S. and Australia to more effectively respond to respond to natural disasters and humanitarian crises in the region.

Rhodes said the U.S. military boost would amount to a "sustained U.S. presence." He distinguished that from a permanent presence in the sense that the U.S. forces will use Australian facilities, as opposed to the United States to building its own bases, as it has in such regional places as South Korea. The U.S. has not signaled any interest in that in Australia.

The only American base currently in Australia is the secretive joint Australia-U.S. intelligence and communications complex at Pine Gap in central Australia. But there are hundreds of U.S. service personnel in Australia on exchange.

Air combat units also use the expansive live bombing ranges in Australia's sparsely populated north in training rotations of a few months and occasionally naval units train off the coast. But training exercises involving ground forces are unusual.

During Wednesday's brief news conference, Obama and Gillard also fielded questions on a range of other issues, from U.S. efforts to address climate change to the debt crisis in Europe.

Obama reiterated his call for urgent action by European leaders to back the euro and develop a financial firewall to keep the threat of default facing Greece and Italy from spreading across the Eurozone.

"The problem right now is one of political will, it's not a technical problem," Obama said. "At this point, the larger European community has to stand behind the European project."

Asked whether the U.S. would be able to lower carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system as Australia is undertaking, Obama conceded the U.S. has been unable to pass such a plan through Congress, but noted U.S. efforts to increase vehicle fuel efficiency and to explore clear energy options. He said emerging economies such as India and China must also assume responsibility for addressing climate change.

For Obama and Australia, the third time's the charm. He canceled two earlier visits, once to stay in Washington to lobby for passage of his health care bill, and again in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"I was determined to come for a simple reason: The United States of America has no stronger ally than Australia," he said.

Obama's arrival in Australia followed a 10-hour flight from Hawaii that took him across the international dateline. The travel appeared to being taking a slight toll on the president, who admitted he was having trouble keeping up with the time change.

"I'm trying to figure out what time zone I'm in here," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Rod McGuirk in Canberra contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111116/ap_on_re_as/as_obama

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