Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/191616766?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Man pleads not guilty in NJ synagogue firebombings (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? A 19-year-old man accused of attempted murder in the firebombing of two New Jersey synagogues including one that housed a rabbi who was burned when fire ignited a blanket on his bed pleaded not guilty on Wednesday.
Anthony Graziano was arrested after the Bergen County prosecutor released a store surveillance video which it said showed him buying supplies used to make the Molotov cocktails used in the January 11 attack on the Congregation Beth El in Rutherford, New Jersey.
Prosecutors investigating the arsons as hate crimes have charged Graziano with nine counts of attempted murder in the first degree, along with charges of bias intimidation and aggravated arson in connection with the pair of attacks.
In the Rutherford case, petrol bombs thrown at a building that serves as both a synagogue and a rabbi's family home ignited a blanket on the rabbi's bed and he awoke to the flames, his wife told reporters at the time.
The rabbi, Nosson Schuman, put out the blaze with a fire extinguisher and suffered minor burns, police said. The house was minimally damaged. The rabbi, his wife, their five children, ages 5 to 17, and the rabbi's elderly parents evacuated the home, police said.
The charges against Graziano, who was in custody with bail set at $5 million, also included a separate firebomb attack on the Temple K'Hal Adath Jeshrun in Paramus, New Jersey, earlier in January, prosecutors said.
Police said they also retrieved evidence from Graziano's home in Lodi, New Jersey. The public defender representing Graziano could not be reached for comment.
Two instances of anti-Semitic graffiti being daubed on the walls of two other New Jersey synagogues in December were no longer thought to be connected to the arson attacks, investigators said.
(Reporting By Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)
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First post-Mubarak parliament holds session
An Egyptian couple passes a security checkpoint on the road leading to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
An Egyptian couple passes a security checkpoint on the road leading to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Egyptian police stand guard at a checkpoint on the road leading to the to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Egyptian protesters chant anti government slogans outside the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
An Egyptian woman passes a security checkpoint on the road leading to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
An Egyptian protester carries a banner that reads in Arabic, "freedom for the political prisoners," outside of the People's Assembly building during the opening session of parliament in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
CAIRO (AP) ? With Islamists comprising the overwhelming majority of its lawmakers, the parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday.
The convening of the new parliament is a significant benchmark in the timetable provided by the generals who took over from Mubarak for the handover of power to a civilian administration.
It is also a step forward for Islamist groups on the road to becoming the strongest political force in the nations that experienced Arab Spring revolts. Islamists dominated elections first in Tunisia and then in Egypt, and Libya's Islamists are also expected to do well in parliamentary voting later this year.
The Egyptian chamber's top priority is to elect a 100-member panel to draft a new constitution, which will have to be put to a vote in a nationwide referendum.
The next major step in the transition will be presidential elections, scheduled to be held before the end of June, when the generals are due to step down.
"The era of political exclusion is over," said Saad el-Katatni, an Islamist lawmaker from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best organized political group. He was expected to win the position of speaker.
The Brotherhood has been banned for most of its 84-year history, legalized only after the 18-day popular uprising in early 2011 that ousted Mubarak.
Elections which started on Nov. 28 and ran into January were the freest in Egypt's modern history. Elections for parliament's upper chamber, a largely toothless body known as the Shura Council, will begin later this month.
The outcome of the elections reflect the strength of the Islamists in Egypt, a mainly Muslim nation of some 85 million people that has grown steadily more religiously conservative over the past 40 years.
The Brotherhood spearheaded the Islamist victory in Egypt, winning just under half of all the seats.
In second place to the Brotherhood came another Islamist group, the ultraconservative Salafis, with nearly a quarter of the seats.
The liberal and left-leaning groups that organized the anti-Mubarak uprising garnered less than 10 percent of the seats. Many of them were not as well prepared for the vote as the Islamists, particularly the Brotherhood, whose members have over years of underground work acquired a high degree of discipline and loyalty.
Several of these lawmakers wore yellow scarves saying, "No to military trials for civilians," a reference to the hauling of at least 12,000 civilians before military tribunals since the generals took over power in February last year.
The Islamists' dominance was obvious in Monday's session, where many lawmakers sported long beards, clerical turbans or flowing robes.
"We are here because the People's Assembly (parliament) is all Islamists," said Mina Samir, a protester in his early 20s who was among several thousand demonstrators near the parliament building calling for an end to military rule. "Now we have a military power supporting a conservative power. That's why I am here."
Some of the protesters wore masks made out of photographs of those killed or wounded by security forces during the anti-Mubarak uprising, or in subsequent protests against the generals. "Down, down with military rule!" they chanted, and, "No military and no Brotherhood."
What was supposed to be a quiet procedural session turned briefly chaotic when some lawmakers improvised additions to the text of the oath they were taking in turn, provoking angry protests from the interim speaker, Mahmoud El-Saqqah of the liberal Wafd party.
The oath ends with a pledge to respect the constitution and the law, but several Islamist lawmaker added "God's law" or "as long as there are no contradictions with God's law." Pro-reform lawmakers also improvised, with two of them pledging to "continue the revolution" and "be loyal to its martyrs."
The convening of parliament is a moment of triumph for the Brotherhood, whose members endured arrests and intimidation by Mubarak's feared security agencies.
The Brotherhood has contested parliamentary elections since the 1980s, circumventing the ban on the group by fielding candidates as independents. They won 20 percent of parliament's seats in 2005, but could not win a single seat in elections held in November and December 2010, thought to be the most fraudulent since army officers seized power in a 1952 coup that toppled the monarchy.
On Monday, Brotherhood volunteers escorted their lawmakers into the parliament building.
"I want to make sure that my representatives are safe. I want to celebrate and make sure that no one ruins this atmosphere. There are many who want to ruin it," said Fathy el-Sayed, a 35-year-old Brotherhood supporter outside parliament.
Others waited outside parliament with flowers they said they planned to give to their lawmakers. They chanted religious songs to the beat of drums.
"Democracy brought the people (who are) inside the building now. They were elected by the people," said Adel Musbah, a supporter of the Salafi el-Nour party.
He questioned planned protests by pro-democracy groups marking the first anniversary of the start of the uprising. "Why are they coming to object?" he said.
Security was tight in the area around the parliament building, scene of recent deadly clashes between troops and protesters demanding that the generals immediately step down. The building is also a short distance away from Tahrir Square, birthplace of the uprising that topped Mubarak's 29-year regime.
Monday's session was chaired by el-Saqqah because he was the oldest lawmaker.
He began the proceedings by ordering lawmakers to stand in silence for a minute in memory of the hundreds of protesters killed during the protests.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
DLD 2012 ? @Jack Dorsey: ?Twitter Has A Business Model That Works?
Earlier this fine Sunday afternoon, Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey took the stage at the DLD Conference, the annual pre-Davos meeting of minds held in Munich, Germany. In an interview with not one but two journalists (Holger Schmidt from FOCUS Magazine and Techonomy's David Kirkpatrick), Dorsey talked a great deal about Twitter and a little bit about Square. Dorsey didn't reveal anything spectacular about either company, emphasizing once more how Twitter is not your traditional social network (here's my counterpoint) and that its business model works, thanks very much for asking.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/pYE9xXNmC7E/
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Monday, January 23, 2012
U.S. lawyer for Megaupload.com withdraws (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Content-sharing Internet service Megaupload.com has lost the help of one of the best-known U.S. defense lawyers as it begins to fight charges of copyright infringement, a person familiar with the matter said.
Robert Bennett was required to withdraw from the case because of a conflict involving at least one other client of his law firm, Hogan Lovells, this person told Reuters. The other client or clients were not identified.
Bennett initially advised Megaupload.com. The company and seven of its executives were charged in a 5-count, 72-page indictment unsealed on Thursday accusing them of engaging in a wide-ranging and lucrative scheme to offer material online without compensating the copyright holders.
Bennett's long career includes past representation of President Bill Clinton. He was Clinton's personal attorney in a sexual-harassment case brought by Paula Jones. He has represented a wide array of other prominent Washington officials and U.S. corporations, including former energy giant Enron Corp.
Under the ethics rules for U.S. lawyers, a firm generally does not represent two clients whose interests are at odds. Conflicts are especially likely to arise at law firms as large as Hogan Lovells, one of the biggest in the world, because of the number and variety of clients they represent.
Bennett was working for Megaupload before the website's executives were indicted, said Ira Rothken, one of Megaupload's lawyers. Rothken said Bennett was handling matters other then criminal defense.
After the U.S. Justice Department announced the indictments, Bennett provided initial guidance to the company, Rothken said. Rothken said he was not yet prepared to comment on the makeup of the U.S. legal team.
"Who is or isn't on the criminal defense team is still being decided," Rothken said.
U.S. investigators allege that Megaupload made more than $175 million by distributing copyrighted content without the required authorization.
The company has promised a vigorous legal defense, responding to the indictments by saying it offered only online storage.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Howard Goller)
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2 dead in Ala. as storms pound South, Midwest (AP)
CLAY, Ala. ? Two people were killed in the Birmingham, Ala., area as storms pounded the South and Midwest, prompting tornado warnings in a handful of states early Monday.
At least one of the areas affected by the storms, which were part of a system that stretched from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf of Mexico, was also hit by a line of killer storms that slammed the Southeast last April.
Jefferson County sheriff's spokesman Randy Christian said a 16-year-old boy was killed in Clay and an 82-year-old man died in the community of Oak Grove.
The storm produced a possible tornado that moved across northern Jefferson County around 3:30 a.m., causing damage in Oak Grove, Graysville, Fultondale, Center Point, Clay and Trussville, Christian said. He said several homes were destroyed and numerous injuries were reported.
"Some roads are impassable, there are a number of county roads where you have either debris down, trees down, damage from homes," said Yasamie Richardson, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. Jefferson County experienced "significant damage," she said.
Oak Grove was also hit during last April's tornadoes, but none of homes hit in April were hit again this time, said Allen Kniphfer of Jefferson County's Emergency Management Agency.
As day broke, rescue crews used chainsaws to clear fallen trees off roads in Clay, northeast of Birmingham. Searchers went door-to-door calling out to residents, many of whom were trapped by trees that crisscrossed their driveways.
Stevie Sanders woke up around 3:30 a.m. and realized bad weather was on the way. She, her parents and sister hid in the laundry room of their brick home as the wind howled and trees started cracking outside.
"You could feel the walls shaking and you could hear a loud crash. After that it got quiet, and the tree had fallen through my sister's roof," said Sanders, 26.
The family was OK, and her father, Greg Sanders, spent the next hours raking his roof and pulling away pieces of broken lumber.
"It could have been so much worse," he said. "It's like they say, we were just blessed."
In Clanton, about 50 miles south of Birmingham, rescuers were responding to reports of a trailer turned over with people trapped, City Clerk Debbie Orange said.
Also south of Birmingham, Maplesville town clerk Sheila Haigler said high winds damaged many buildings and knocked down several trees. One tree fell on a storm shelter, but no one was injured, Haigler said. One person was trapped in a heavily damaged home, but was rescued safely. Haigler said police had not been able to search some areas because trees and power lines were blocking roads.
In Arkansas, there were possible tornadoes in Arkansas, Dallas, Lonoke, Prairie and Cleveland counties Sunday night. The storms also brought hail and strong winds as they moved through parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois and Mississippi.
Tornado warnings were issued for parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.
The storm also caused officials to reschedule a planned Monday meeting in Montgomery to receive a study on Alabama's response to a system of storms that raked the state last April. That storm killed more than 240 people in the state. Among the hardest hit areas then was Tuscaloosa, where 50 were killed.
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Witnesses: 7 dead in sect attacks in north Nigeria
KANO, Nigeria (AP) ? A coordinated series of bombings and gun attacks Friday claimed by a radical Islamist sect killed at least seven people in the largest city in Nigeria's Muslim north, witnesses said, threatening to engulf the whole region in violence.
Gunfire echoed through the city late into the night, as security forces turned away emergency officials from sites of the attacks. The scope of the assault suggested that the death toll would rise, as it also represent the first major attack by members of the sect known as Boko Haram on Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that holds the many dominant political and religious leaders for Muslims in Nigeria.
The attacks began at 5 p.m. Friday, following afternoon prayers as workers began to leave their offices in the sprawling, dusty city.
A massive blast at a regional police headquarters shook cars miles (kilometers) away, an Associated Press reporter said. The blast came from a suicide car bomber who drove into the regional headquarters compound and detonated his explosives, deputy superintendent of police Aminu Ringim said. The explosion tore away the headquarters' roof and blew out the building's windows.
Three blasts struck other police stations around the city, said Abubakar Jibril, an official with Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency. Gunfire also echoed through the streets.
A separate blast also struck the local headquarters of the State Security Service, Nigeria's secret police, witnesses and state-run television said. Secret police spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar declined to comment.
Inmates at the regional police headquarters fled amid gunfire, witnesses said. Witness Garba Danazumi Lere said he saw the dead bodies of at least three police officers and a local journalist there.
At a nearby passport office, at least three immigration officers and an unknown number of civilians also were killed, local Nigeria Immigration Service spokesman Mohammed Kanoma said.
Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency, simply described the attack as "scary."
"Rescue workers evacuating victims to hospitals," Shuaib wrote in a text message. "No official casualty figures for now."
A spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross said his organization likely would not have information until Saturday morning.
State authorities declared a 24-hour curfew as residents hide inside their homes amid the fighting.
A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists. He said the attack came as the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.
The assault comes as Nigeria's weak central government faces a rising threat from the group. The sect has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an Associated Press count. So far this year, the group has been blamed for at least 76 killings, according to an AP count.
Boko Haram's targets have included both Muslims and Christians. However, the group has begun specifically targeting Christians after promising it will kill any Christians living in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. That has further inflamed religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria, which has seen ethnic violence kill thousands in recent years.
Friday's attacks also could cause more unrest, as violence in Kano has set off attacks throughout the north in the past, including postelection violence in April that saw 800 people killed. Kano, an ancient city, remains important in the history of Islam in Nigeria and has important religious figures there even today.
Authorities previously believed they destroyed Boko Haram in 2009, after a riot and ensuing security crackdown in Nigeria's northeast killed 700 people, including its then-leader Mohammed Yusuf. The group began to re-emerge in 2010, as authorities blamed motorcycle-riding gunmen from the sect for targeted assassinations.
However, the sect's attacks have grown more complex and deadly over time. Boko Haram claimed responsibility for an August suicide car bombing that targeted the U.N. headquarters in the capital, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100. The sect killed at least 42 people during a series of attacks Christmas Day in Nigeria that included the bombing of a Catholic church outside the country's capital Abuja.
In a video released last week, Imam Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram's current leader, said the government could not handle attacks by the group.
Although President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, has declared emergency rule in some regions, the sect is blamed for almost daily attacks. Jonathan also has said he believes the sect has infiltrated security agencies and government offices in the country, though he has offered no evidence to back up the claim.
The attacks also serve as another embarrassment for Nigeria's federal police force. Earlier this week, police officials acknowledged the mastermind of the Catholic church bombing at Christmas had escaped custody.
___
Jon Gambrell and Yinka Ibukun contributed to this report from Lagos.
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
Senate Leader Harry Reid Postpones PIPA Vote (UPDATED: RIAA Speaks) [Piracy]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/wHcGBgVyIxg/senate-leader-harry-reid-postpones-pipa-vote
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US sees new interest from Taliban in peace talks (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The Obama administration is moving ahead with plans for negotiating with the Taliban, confident that talks offer the best chance to end the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan. But the military worries things are moving too fast, and intelligence agencies offered a gloomy prognosis in their latest Afghanistan report.
Several current and former U.S. officials said the most substantive give-and-take to date between U.S. and Taliban negotiators could happen in the next week, with the goal of establishing what the U.S. calls confidence-building measures ? specific steps that the U.S. and the insurgents agree to take ahead of formal talks. Those talks, if they ever take place, would include the United States, the Taliban and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai, a senior U.S. official said.
Like others interviewed, the official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomacy. Elements of the U.S. outreach to the Taliban are also classified.
The diplomatic, military and intelligence branches of the U.S. government differ over the value of talks with the Taliban or whether now is the right time to so publicly shift focus away from the ongoing military campaign that primarily targets Taliban insurgents. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and some uniformed military leaders have recently sounded some of the strongest notes of caution, especially on when to grant Taliban requests for the transfer of several of its prisoners from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military and other U.S. officials said.
The latest Afghan National Intelligence Estimate warns that the Taliban will grow stronger, using the talks to gain credibility and run out the clock until U.S. troops depart Afghanistan, while continuing to fight for more territory, say U.S. officials who have read the classified document. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the roughly 100-page review, an amalgam of intelligence community's predictions of possible scenarios for the Afghan war through the planned end to U.S. combat in 2014.
It says the Afghan government has largely failed to prove itself to its people and will likely continue to weaken and find influence only in the cities. It predicts that the Taliban and warlords will largely control the countryside.
Meanwhile, Karzai is still uneasy with the pace and direction of talks. He resents the selection of Qatar as the site of a Taliban political office, although he has reluctantly agreed to that U.S.-backed plan. And he worries that the United States will strike a deal with the Taliban and force that deal on his government, two Afghan officials told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions. Karzai wanted the office located in Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Afghanistan.
U.S. officials close to the negotiations say that despite these warnings the Taliban high command is more ready for talks than in the past, at least with the United States if not the elected Afghan government it opposes.
One sign was the surprising public endorsement by the Taliban of the plan to open a negotiating office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. But U.S. officials also cite more subtle indications of a shift toward peace negotiations, including the recent participation in preliminary talks of more senior and influential Taliban representatives.
The senior U.S. official said negotiators are now confident they are talking to credible intermediaries for the main Taliban command based in Pakistan.
The administration's top negotiator, Marc Grossman, was building support for talks among regional allies such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia this week, to be followed by discussions with Taliban representatives, U.S. and other government officials said. Ahead of those sessions, officials described them as the most substantive and highest-level to date, with plans to cover specifics of the new office and the sequence of further good faith efforts on both sides that would set the stage for real talks.
One topic was expected to be a U.S. offer to release two or three Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo to custody in Qatar, although two officials said that effort is moving more slowly than plans for the office. A waiting period would follow that transfer before any other Taliban transfers would be considered. U.S. officials said Congress would be consulted throughout.
The Taliban had sought both the office and the prisoner release as preconditions for real talks.
The senior U.S. official said the U.S. has set clear conditions for opening the office, including that the Taliban must agree not to use it for fundraising or propaganda, or to run insurgent operations. Larger conditions include assurances that the insurgents are truly interested in a political settlement and not using negotiations as a way to run out the clock until U.S. forces leave.
The central political office confers instant, though controversial, legitimacy on the diffuse insurgency as a political movement and provides a site for formal talks. The idea is to give the Taliban room to negotiate in a location with less direct pressure from Pakistan, which has ties to some militant groups and houses parts of the Taliban leadership.
The U.S. intelligence assessment looks past the near horizon for talks.
It predicts the likely outcome of two strategies: moderate engagement, in which the U.S. continues special operations raids against key Taliban leaders, and village outreach to strengthen local government, while conventional forces train Afghanistan's army and police force, and limited engagement, in which the U.S. would continue economic and political support, and some Afghan security training, but most troops would withdraw.
Both strategies can weaken the Taliban, the analysts say, but ultimately, neither course of action is likely to stop the continued weakening of the Afghan state, the officials said. The NIE did suggest eliminating top Taliban leaders in the next two years and continuing to build Afghan government could help offset that.
In that way, the NIE's bleak predictions also give the White House reason to hasten the reconciliation process, in order to pull U.S. troops out what some analysts termed a hopeless stalemate.
Arsala Rahmani a former Taliban official turned Afghan peace negotiator, said that in the past year the Taliban leadership had expressed to the United States a new willingness to negotiate.
"Something happened," said Rahmani, a member of the Afghanistan peace council. "The leadership of the Taliban saw a green light from the Obama administration and after that, the Taliban leadership appointed people to get involved in the negotiation process."
Although U.S. and Taliban representatives have met secretly several times over the past year in Europe and the Persian Gulf, the Taliban endorsement of the office plan on Jan. 3 was the first time it has publicly expressed willingness for substantive negotiations.
U.S. and other officials also said they are encouraged by the insurgents' apparent plans to staff the new headquarters office with senior figures with ties to top Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The U.S. considers full peace negotiations on the model of Northern Ireland or the former Yugoslavia to be a long shot now, several officials said. But the administration is trying to build a framework for political discussions between the Taliban and the Karzai government that could span the next two years when U.S. combat forces will withdraw.
The Taliban sought direct talks with the U.S., whom it considers the true power broker in Afghanistan, as an alternative to talks with the Karzai government. The United States had shunned such contacts for years, saying talks must be led by Afghans and that military gains must be consolidated before talks would be productive.
The Obama administration shifted course last year and opened the direct channel in secret. The U.S. acknowledged the previously clandestine contacts only after they were revealed publicly, apparently by allies of Karzai who felt undermined by the separate channel.
There were multiple avenues of communication between the U.S. and the Taliban over the last year, some public and others through back channels. The senior U.S. official said none was judged to be an authentic direct message from Omar.
The United States considers Omar a terrorist who could be killed by U.S. forces in the same manner as Osama bin Laden. But the U.S. also recognizes that Omar is the linchpin to a deal that could finally end the war that began with the 2001 U.S. invasion and ouster of the ruling Taliban government. The Taliban has sought a return to political and territorial influence ever since, primarily through guerrilla tactics.
U.S. and Afghan officials think Omar is interested.
A personal emissary of Omar, Tayyab Agha, conducted the initial, tentative contacts with the U.S. last year and remains a lead negotiator.
Rahmani said other Taliban negotiators include Shahabuddin Dilawar, former Taliban ambassador to Saudi Arabia; and Mohammed Sher Abbas Stanikzai., former deputy health minister during the Taliban regime. Without approval from Omar, these people would not have been appointed, he said.
___
Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann contributed to this report from Kabul and Kathy Gannon contributed from Islamabad.
AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan can be followed on Twitter (at)agearan, and AP Intelligence Writer Dozier can be followed (at)kimberlydozier.
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Former trailblazer Kodak files for Chapter 11
An unidentified person enters Kodak Headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Eastman Kodak Co. said early Thursday Jan. 19, 2012 it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as it seeks to boost its cash position and stay in business. (AP Photo/David Duprey)
An unidentified person enters Kodak Headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Eastman Kodak Co. said early Thursday Jan. 19, 2012 it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as it seeks to boost its cash position and stay in business. (AP Photo/David Duprey)
ROCHESTER, New York (AP) ? Is Kodak's moment past?
The glory days when Eastman Kodak Co. ruled the world of film photography lasted for over a century. Then came a stunning reversal of fortune: cutthroat competition from Japanese firms in the 1980s and a seismic shift to the digital technology it pioneered but couldn't capitalize on. Now comes a wistful worry that this icon of American business is edging toward extinction.
Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, raising the specter that the 132-year-old trailblazer could become the most storied casualty of a digital age that has whipped up a maelstrom of economic, social and technological change.
Already a shadow of its former self, cash-poor Kodak will now reorganize in bankruptcy court as it seeks to boost its cash position and stay in business. The Rochester, New York-based company is pinning its hopes on peddling a trove of photo patents and morphing into a new-look powerhouse built around printers and ink. Even if it succeeds, it seems unlikely to ever again resemble what its red-on-yellow K logo long stood for ? a signature brand synonymous in every corner of the planet with capturing, collecting and sharing images.
"Kodak played a role in pretty much everyone's life in the 20th century because it was the company we entrusted our most treasured possession to ? our memories," said Robert Burley, a photography professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Its yellow boxes of film, point-and-shoot Brownie and Instamatic cameras, and those hand-sized prints that made it possible for countless millions to freeze-frame their world "were the products used to remember ? and really define ? what that entire century looked like," Burley said.
"One of the interesting parts of this bankruptcy story is everyone's saddened by it," he continued. "There's a kind of emotional connection to Kodak for many people. You could find that name inside every American household and, in the last five years, it's disappeared. At the very least, digital technology will transform Kodak from a very big company to a smaller one. I think we all hope it won't mean the end of Kodak because it still has a lot to offer."
Kodak has notched just one profitable year since 2004. At the end of a four-year digital makeover during which it dynamited aged factories, chopped and changed businesses and eliminated tens of thousands more jobs, it closed 2007 on a high note with net income of $676 million (?527 million).
It soon ran smack into the recession ? and its momentum slipped into reverse.
Years of investor alarm over whether Kodak might seek protection from its creditors crescendoed in September when it hired major restructuring law firm Jones Day as an adviser. Its stock, which topped $94 in 1997, skidded below $1 a share for the first time and, by Jan. 6, hit an all-time closing low of 37 cents. Multiple board members recently resigned, and last week the company announced that it realigned and simplified its business structure in an effort to cut costs, create shareholder value and accelerate its long-drawn-out digital transformation.
The human toll reaches back to the 1980s when Tokyo-based Fuji, an emerging archrival, began to eat into Kodak's fat profits with novel offerings like single-use film cameras. Beset by excessive caution and strategic stumbles, Kodak was finally forced to cut costs. Its long slide had begun.
Mass layoffs came every few years, unraveling a cozy relationship of company and community that was perhaps unequaled in the annals of American business. Kodak has sliced its global payroll to 18,800 from a peak of 145,300 in 1988, and its hometown rolls to 7,100 from 60,400 in 1982.
Veteran employees who dodged the well-worn ax are not alone in fearing what comes next. Some 25,000 Kodak retirees in this medium-sized city on Lake Ontario's southern shore worry that their diminished health coverage could be clawed back further, if not disappear, in bankruptcy court.
It's a long cry from George Eastman's paternalistic heyday.
Founded by Eastman in 1880, Kodak marketed the world's first flexible roll film in 1888 and turned photography into an overnight craze with a $1 Brownie camera in 1900. Innovation and mass production were about to put the world into cars and airplanes, the American Century was unfolding, and Kodak was ready to record it.
"It's one of the few companies that wiggled its way into the fabric of American life and the American family," said Bob Volpe, 69, a 32-year employee who retired in 1998. "As someone at Kodak once said, 'We put chemicals in one end so our customers can get memories out the other.'"
Intent on keeping his work force happy ? they never organized a union ? Eastman helped pioneer profit-sharing and, in 1912, began dispensing a generous wage dividend. Going to work for Kodak ? "taking the life sentence," as it was called ? became a bountiful rite of passage for generations.
"Most of the people who worked at Kodak had a middle-class life without a college education," Volpe said. "Those jobs paid so well, they could buy a boat, two cars, a summer place, and send their kids to college."
Propelled by Eastman's marketing genius, the "Great Yellow Father" held a virtual monopoly of the U.S. photographic industry by 1927. But long after Eastman was stricken with a degenerative spinal disorder and took his own life in 1932, Kodak retained its mighty perch with a succession of magical innovations.
Foremost was Kodachrome, a slide and motion-picture film extolled for 74 years until its demise in 2009 for its sharpness, archival durability and vibrant hues. In the 1960s, easy-load Instamatic 126 became one of the most popular cameras ever, practically replacing old box cameras. In 1975, engineer Steven Sasson created the first digital camera, a toaster-size prototype capturing black-and-white images at a resolution of 0.1 megapixels.
Through the 1990s, Kodak splurged $4 billion on developing the photo technology inside most cellphones and digital devices. But a reluctance to ease its heavy reliance on film allowed rivals like Canon Inc. and Sony Corp. to rush largely unhindered into the fast-emerging digital arena. The immensely lucrative analog business Kodak worried about undermining too soon was virtually erased in a decade by the filmless photography it invented.
"If you're not willing to cannibalize yourself, others will do it for you," said Mark Zupan, dean of the University of Rochester's business school. "Technology is changing ever more rapidly, the world's becoming more globalized, so to stay at the top of your game is getting increasingly harder."
In November, Kodak warned it could run out of cash in a year if it didn't sell 1,100 digital-imaging patents it's been shopping around since July. Analysts estimate they could fetch at least $2 billion (?1.55 billion).
In the meantime, Kodak has focused its future on new lines of inkjet printers that it says are on the verge of turning a profit. It expects printers, software and packaging to produce more than twice as much revenue by 2013 and account by then for 25 percent of the company's total revenue, or nearly $2 billion (?1.54 billion).
CEO Antonio Perez said in a statement Thursday that the bankruptcy filing is "a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak." The company has secured $950 million in financing from Citigroup Inc., and expects to be able to operate its business during bankruptcy reorganization and pay employees.
On its website, Kodak assured customers that the nearly $1 billion (?770 million) in debtor-in-possession financing would be sufficient to pay vendors, suppliers and other business partners in full for goods and services going forward. The bankruptcy filing in the Southern District of New York does not involve Kodak's international operations.
"To be able to hop from stone to stone across the stream takes great agility and foresight and passion for excellence, and Kodak is capable of that. They have some killer stuff in inkjet printing. It's becoming a profitable product line but what they need is the runway to allow it to take off," Zupan said. "As the saying goes, 'the best way to anticipate the future is to invent it.'"
The company and its board are being advised by Lazard, FTI Consulting Inc. and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Dominic DiNapoli, vice chairman of FTI Consulting, will serve as chief restructuring officer. Kodak expects to complete its U.S.-based restructuring during 2013.
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This Week?s Most Popular Posts: January 14-20 [Highlights]
All About PIPA and SOPA, the Bills That Want to Censor Your Internet
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) are two bills that sound like they have a mildly positive aim but, in reality, have serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. More ?
Top 10 Tricks for Getting Better Sleep
For something we spend half our life doing, a lot of us are pretty awful at sleeping. Here are our top 10 tips for falling asleep faster, getting quality rest, and waking up easier in the morning. More ?
Five Best Wallpaper Sites
Personalizing your desktop starts with customizing your wallpaper. Finding good wallpapers for your desktop however, isn't difficult, but everyone has an opinion about which sites are the best to visit for the best selection of wallpapers for high-resolution displays, multiple screens, or the best... More ?
You're Holding It Wrong: Here's How to Hold Your Touch Screen Gadgets Correctly
We've talked about how to ergonomically optimize your desk, but if you're rocking a smartphone or tablet, you may find that it's hard to follow the same rules. More ?
10 Things You Do to Save Money That End Up Costing You More
Money's tight these days, and as a result, you make an effort to save it. Make sure you don't waste that effort on strategies that hurt more than they help. More ?
What Are Magnet Links, and How Do I Use Them to Download Torrents?
Soon, popular torrent site The Pirate Bay will no longer host torrent files. Instead, it will only offer magnet links. Magnet what now? You may have seen the term "magnet link" before, but if you haven't used one, here's the lowdown on what this change means for you as a BitTorrent user. More ?
Sign Into Your Google Account on Public Computers Without Typing Anything [Update: Disabled]
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Five Great Alternatives to MegaUpload
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Use This Infographic to Pick a Good, Strong Password
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35 MacGyver Tips, Clever Uses, and Other Life Hacks in One Infographic
You know how much we like infographics here, and this one gathers quite a few of our favorite tips and tricks we've spotted and shared with you over the years, from everyday household hacks to nabbing free stuff. More ?
Take Your Desktop for a Swim with These Water-Friendly Wallpapers
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Work! Jon Jones does his thing on the runway
UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones has found his next opponent. Though the names Dan Henderson and Rashad Evans have been thrown around, he will face off with Derek Zoolander in a walk-off.
While in Brazil to take in UFC 142 last week, Jones walked in the Auslander fashion show. Skip to the 1:25 mark to see him.
He's a little too fast, but he did have the dead-eyed look that models work hard to achieve. But don't leave MMA for modeling, Jon. There's more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good-looking.
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/jon-jones-does-thing-runway-131024539.html
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Automated calls flood SC ahead of GOP primary (AP)
COLUMBIA, S.C. ? First, the TV ads. Then, the mailers. And now, in the final days before South Carolina's primary, the pitches are coming ever more frequently by phone: Vote for me over the other guys ? and here's why.
To a seemingly far greater degree than in Iowa and New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidates and their allies are peppering voters in South Carolina with pre-recorded phone messages, called robocalls in shorthand.
"If you're a Republican in the broadest sense, there is only one place to go right now and that's Mitt Romney," says a Romney message using rival Rick Santorum's 2008 endorsement to plug the former Massachusetts governor and GOP front-runner.
In another, a woman from Massachusetts vouches for Romney's credentials opposing abortion, saying: "I've seen him facing down hostile lawmakers every time they tried to fight their pro-choice agenda. ... He worked hard for our cause in Massachusetts and he deserves pro-life support."
Romney also talks up Santorum's earmarks, the special federal spending that brings taxpayer dollars back to politicians' districts. And top Romney surrogates like Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are calling on his behalf, urging voters to turn out for campaign events and at the polls.
It's not just Romney.
There's also the Leesville pastor who twangs through a script noting that Rep. Ron Paul, an obstetrician before he became a congressman, delivered a lot of babies and will keep federal judges out of abortion issues. There's the one where Paul drops a big name: tea party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican who is publicly neutral in this year's presidential race, saying the Texas congressman is right about limiting federal government and an unaccountable Federal Reserve. "And more and more we can see that what he's been talking about is true," DeMint says.
Newt Gingrich has been assailing Romney via voice message. Santorum, meanwhile, has tried to take the high road, condemning "these kind of smear campaigns and these smarmy robocalls."
Federal law prohibits commercial automated calls but makes exceptions for politics and marketing. In the political realm, there are requirements ? seldom enforced ? that prevent campaigns from spoofing or faking the caller ID information. Campaigns also must disclose who is paying for the call.
In South Carolina, an attorney general's opinion says the recorded automated calls can't be made to a live human being; but it is OK for the recorded message to be left on voice mail. So that explains why in many cases, people who pick up their phones often are greeted with hang-ups.
In some cases, the level of calls is so heavy that some South Carolina Republicans have reported getting several a day in the run-up to Saturday's primary.
There's a risk to the calls: Voters may find them annoying and be turned off by the flood of messages filling voice mail boxes.
"All the evidence shows they don't work at all," said Shaun Dakin, founder of the National Political Do Not Contact Registry. He says some people refuse to vote for candidates who use automated telephone pitches and says he's been hearing plenty of complaints about Romney, in particular, burning up phone lines.
"Romney, I think, is getting four or five a day out and these people are saying, `I'm not going to vote for him,'" Dakin said.
For all the complaints about such calls, campaigns find them an effective tool.
"They are the cheapest and quickest way to deliver a message to a targeted audience," said Wesley Donehue, a Columbia political consultant who estimated that hundreds of thousands of calls can go out in minutes for less than a nickel each. Conversely, he said, a piece of mail bashing a candidate may cost 60 cents each and take days to reach its audience.
In a world where mud flies, "that's dirt cheap," Donehue said.
They're also a way to precisely target a message to a voter with a specific set of attributes.
"We know who that person is on the other end of the line," including age, gender, where they live and voting history, said Walter Whetsell, a Columbia political consultant who advises Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
And they're a tool campaigns use to attack their opponents under the radar, far beyond the scope of the media.
___
Online:
National Political Do Not Contact Registry: http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org
___
Follow Jim Davenport on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jimdavenport_ap
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Taiwan and China to grow closer with Ma's reelection
The reelection of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou heralds closer ties with China, leaving one less trouble spot in East Asia for the US.
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou?s smooth reelection over the weekend is likely to lead to closer ties with China, which is already on the island?s good side, and allow Washington to relax as it seeks friendly relations with both.
Skip to next paragraphMr. Ma won another four years on Saturday with about 51 percent of the vote. China-leery opposition candidate Tsai Ing-wen came in second with 46 percent. Voters also gave Mr. Ma?s Nationalist Party a 57 percent majority in the Taiwanese parliament.
The presidential outcome, which analysts say shows voters played safe by choosing the incumbent over an opponent whose China and economic policies were murkier, augers a deepening of China-Taiwan ties plus a reduced threat of war.
US officials will turn to more pressing foreign policy issues as long as the two sides keep peace but don?t reunify, political analysts say.
?In a general sense, Washington and Beijing both feel relieved with this election result,? says Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. ?I think from China?s side, Taiwan?s election was a kind of indirect referendum to examine whether their China policy worked. For Washington, it?s a bigger picture. The Taiwan Strait is now proven to be a stable region compared to Korean peninsula and South China Sea.?
In a rainy nighttime victory speech, Ma pledged to step up links with China, which have buoyed Taiwan?s $425 billion export-dependent economy as a massive market and low-cost manufacturing base.
?The people have approved of my setting aside disputes [with China] to strive for peace, turning danger into business opportunities,? he said. ?In the next four years, relations will become more harmonious and more interdependent.?
China is likely to work that pledge to the limit, seeking political concessions from Taiwan after the 16 tourism, trade, and transit deals signed since Ma took office in 2008. Those deals benefit primarily Taiwan, but Beijing eagerly signed them in hopes they would advance its goal of political unification.
Beijing has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when the Nationalist Party fled to the island. China has not ruled out the use of force, with its much larger military, to bring Taiwan into the fold, though it prefers peaceful means. The Nationalists today back Ma?s presidency.
Ms. Tsai?s camp, which advocates Taiwan?s formal independence from China, wants more distance from Beijing to ensure China doesn?t swallow the island without public approval. Ma, meanwhile, has less of a popular mandate this time around.
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The Samsung Galaxy Note vs. the iPhone (And the iPad) (ContributorNetwork)
The Samsung Galaxy Note is officially headed to AT&T, as revealed at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. And Daryl Deino of The Examiner reports it might show up on Sprint and Verizon as well, possibly as the Samsung Galaxy Journal.
At any rate, the Galaxy Note is somewhere between a smartphone and a tablet, with a design inspired by a traditional paper notebook (or Palm Pilot). Deino describes it as "a high-powered mini-tablet that uses a stylus", and which "can also be used as a phone."
So how does it compare to the world's most popular tablet and smartphone?
The first difference: Size
Tablets like the Nook Color and Amazon's Kindle Fire, with 7-inch screens, are roughly half the size of Apple's iPad. Meanwhile, the iPhone is towards the smaller end of smartphone screen sizes at 3.5 inches across, and Android "superphones" tend to be 4 inches across or larger.
The Galaxy Note, with its 5.3-inch screen, is somewhere in between a superphone and a 7-inch tablet. According to Samsung, it's designed to fill both niches, and to replace every gadget that you'd usually carry with you: Smartphone, tablet, game console, and paper notebook. (That last part is because of the Nintendo DS-esque stylus that comes with it.)
Whether or not it actually can will depend partly on how comfortable you are talking into a mini-tablet like a smartphone and partly on whether you consider it the best or the worst of all worlds.
The second difference: Operating systems
That's the software that powers the tablet or smartphone. In Apple devices' case, that's iOS. Most people consider it to be extremely well-designed, and its App Store to have the best selection of pay-for apps. And the latest version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S, also has Siri, a "personal assistant" that you can ask in plain English to do things like set alarms or look things up on the Web.
The Galaxy Note is powered by Android, Google's open-source operating system that's found on most other smartphones and tablets. Currently, it uses the Gingerbread version of Android, but it will be upgraded to the Ice Cream Sandwich version -- which introduces a number of major improvements and a significantly more polished design -- in the first quarter of 2012.
The Galaxy Note's screen may be too small to run tablet versions of apps even after the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade. There are very few tablet apps available for Android to begin with, though, compared to the tens of thousands for Apple's iPad. Smartphone apps should run properly, although some buttons may appear small compared to the screen size.
The third difference: Hardware
Apple doesn't reveal too much about what goes into the iPad and iPhone. The biggest hardware features the Note has that they don't are its vibrant Super AMOLED display, its 4G LTE wireless radio, and its stylus. The iPhone, meanwhile, has a Retina Display, with pixels too small to be seen by the unaided eye.
Stylus accessories are available for the iPhone and iPad as well, but do not incorporate the Galaxy Note's pressure sensitivity. There are few, if any, third-party Android apps that make use of it, however.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Melting buildings could help solve the energy crisis (Yahoo! News)
No, really ? a special gel added to the walls of buildings may soon keep us all cool
As a measure to?save energy, the new?Molecular Engineering and Sciences building at the?University of Washington melts in the heat of day. Seriously.
The outer structure of the?futuristic building is, of course, structurally sound. But to save energy in cooling costs, scientists have developed a special all-natural phase-changing gel that they've encapsulated inside the walls of the building. As the temperature rises, the gel in the walls will melt, helping to keep the building cool.
The brilliance of the vegetable-oil-based gel is that it takes advantage of a basic thermodynamic principle: As a substance changes phases from solid to a liquid, it absorbs energy without changing in temperature.?During the day when temperatures are high, the gel in the building's walls will melt, absorbing energy without changing in temperature. At night, the gel in the building's wall will solidify due to the colder air, readying the walls to absorb more energy the next day. The net result: Less air conditioning will be needed, reducing the building's energy needs.
The phase changing material is just one of many?innovative cooling techniques currently being tried by scientists to?reduce energy usage. And though these gels are not widely used today, researchers believe that over the next decade, phase change materials manufacturing will grow into a multi-million dollar industry.
[Image credit:?garryknight]
(Source)
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
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Surface 2.0 now shipping, packing PixelSense and Gorilla Glass
Continue reading Surface 2.0 now shipping, packing PixelSense and Gorilla Glass
Surface 2.0 now shipping, packing PixelSense and Gorilla Glass originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/16/surface-2-0-now-shipping-packing-pixelsense-and-gorilla-glass/
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Monday, January 16, 2012
Santorum faces double-barreled challenge in SC (AP)
COLUMBIA, S.C. ? Rick Santorum faces a double-barreled challenge in South Carolina: stand up a strong campaign organization while effectively answering an expected onslaught of attacks on his fiscal record.
And do it in a matter of 10 days.
"Please pray for us," Santorum recently told an audience in Greenville. "It's a tough battle every day out there. And we need that hedge of protection."
The former Pennsylvania senator engineered a surprisingly close second-place finish in Iowa and then faded badly in New Hampshire.
Now, on what should be more favorable terrain, he is fighting to consolidate a fractured conservative GOP base in hopes of emerging as the single biggest threat to GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney ? and notching his first victory in a state where Republicans for decades have voted in the primary for the party's eventual nominee.
It won't be easy. And not just because Santorum is fighting with Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for the support of evangelical voters.
Santorum, popular with social conservatives who fill this state, had focused nearly all of his attention in recent months on Iowa. That means he enters the South Carolina campaign with a weaker organization here than some of his rivals and, certainly, Romney.
So Santorum's team has spent the past week working to fortify a grass-roots network statewide, built upon inroads he made over the past year during regular trips to the state's right-leaning upstate region, where he's banking on a big turnout.
He has a smaller staff here than most of his rivals, but is making an earnest effort at turning out voters statewide. He's visited the state 26 times, has volunteer organizations in 42 of 46 counties and has campaign offices in five cities, including one each in conservative Greenville and Spartanburg in the evangelical-heavy north.
His South Carolina campaign is tied largely to the state's influential evangelical conservative base, much like it was in Iowa. And advisers are trying to ensure the backing of influential Christian pastors, particularly those along the I-85 industrial corridor between Greenville and Spartanburg.
Both Santorum and his allies started running heavy loads of advertising this week to get his message out ? and get ahead of criticism of his past political stances.
Parts of the former senator's record make some fiscal conservatives cringe: He voted for federal spending on home-state projects known as earmarks, to raise the debt ceiling and against legislation to limit organized labor's influence. The votes could hurt Santorum in the state's eastern coastal regions where fiscal and economic issues trump cultural ones.
So Santorum has started wielding a pre-emptive answer to attacks on his conservative credentials.
"I'm proud of my record. It's not perfect. Anyone here perfect?" Santorum told South Carolina Republicans during a quick weekend visit to the state, casting himself as the most reliable conservative in the race. "It's not perfect, but it's solid."
In a sign of what's to come, the former Pennsylvania senator was the target of twin attacks Monday.
Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman, let loose a 30-second TV ad calling Santorum a "fraud" and labeling Santorum's time in Congress as "a record of betrayal." The ad also describes Santorum as "another serial hypocrite who can't be trusted."
Texas Gov. Rick Perry was first to attack Santorum on earmarks in the week before the Iowa caucuses, but with little effect.
And while Perry's South Carolina effort is a last-ditch one to try to save his candidacy, he is using it to bloody Santorum wherever he goes.
"He is not a fiscal conservative," Perry said this week, calling earmarks "the gateway drug to the addiction of spending in Washington, D.C." Also this week, Perry said flatly: "Rick Santorum is the king of earmarks."
Santorum has defended his votes for such projects, saying the money added up to a fraction of federal spending.
"We are focused on a little bit and we're ignoring the elephant in the room," he said Thursday in Hilton Head. He argued for nominating a candidate who can draw a clear contrast with President Barack Obama.
Romney isn't the one, Santorum said.
"We need contrasts, not just a paler shade of what we have," he said
The former senator's vote against a bill to ban compulsory union membership nationally may also cause him trouble as the issue is particularly touchy in South Carolina.
State unemployment has dropped to just below 10 percent due to manufacturers such as BMW, Fuji and Michelin expanding in the state because the law blocks mandatory union membership. The law is at the heart of the National Labor Relations Board's challenge to Boeing's decision to build a new airplane plant in South Carolina.
"Standing on the opposite side of right-to-work is a costly proposition in this state," said Adam Temple, a Republican operative who worked on 2008 presidential candidate John McCain's South Carolina campaign.
Santorum signed a pledge to support national right-to-work legislation as president. He also has defended his vote by arguing in part that unions, powerful in his home state of Pennsylvania, also are forces of good in the community.
Santorum's backers hope that if he takes a hit with fiscal conservatives he'll make up for it with big support among social conservatives, given his rock-solid opposition to abortion and gay rights.
That's what attracted Violet Stephens to Santorum.
"He has the message that relates to the issues I feel strongly about," said the retired preschool teacher from Greenville. "He's a good Christian man."
Joe Mack, a Santorum supporter and former public policy director for the state's Southern Baptist Conference, predicted that attacks on Santorum's votes in Congress likely won't work in South Carolina, especially among voters who put cultural issues first. Mack said momentum for Santorum will build if he can get his message across to evangelicals.
"The next several days will be critical for him," Mack said.
___
Associated Press writers Brian Bakst and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.
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