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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Obama rejects Canada-Texas oil pipeline _ for now

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, center, accompanied by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., right, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, to discuss President Barack Obama's decision to halt the Keystone XL pipeline. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney speaks during his daily briefing, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected a Canadian company's plan to build a U.S.-spanning, 1,700-mile (2,700 kilometer) pipeline to carry oil across six U.S. states to Texas refineries, raising the stakes on a bitter election year fight with Republicans.

Though the project promises thousands of temporary jobs for the recovering U.S. economy, Obama said a February deadline set by Congress would not allow for a proper review of potential harm from the $7 billion Keystone XL project.

"As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline's impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment," Obama, a Democrat, said.

The plan proposed by Calgary-based TransCanada would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to Texas.

Republicans assailed Obama's decision as a job-killer and said the fight was not over.

And the State Department said the decision was made "without prejudice," meaning TransCanada can submit a new application once a route through environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska is established.

Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer, said the company plans to do exactly that. If approved, the pipeline could begin operation as soon as 2014, Girling said.

Republicans were not assuaged.

Newt Gingrich, campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in South Carolina, called Obama's decision "stunningly stupid," adding: "What Obama has done is kill jobs, weaken American security and drive Canada into the arms of China out of just sheer stupidity."

Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican, has said of the Canadian crude oil: "It's going to go to China if we don't build it here."

But Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada Corp.'s president for energy and oil pipelines, said last week the company soon will have a new route through the state of Nebraska "that everyone agrees on."

For now, though, Mitt Romney, the Republican nomination front-runner, called Obama's decision "as shocking as it is revealing," adding that it "shows a president who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy."

The Republican leader of the House, Speaker John Boehner, said Obama was breaking his promise to create jobs.

"This is not the end of this fight," said Boehner. He called the pipeline good for the U.S. economy and a major job creator.

The pipeline proposal has forced the White House to make a politically risky choice between two important Democratic constituencies. Many labor unions back the project because of the prospects of new jobs in a fragile economy. Environmental groups fear the pipeline could lead to an oil spill disaster.

Some liberal donors threatened to cut off funds to Obama's re-election campaign to protest the project, which opponents say would transport "dirty oil" that requires huge amounts of energy to extract.

Obama said his decision was not based on the pipeline's merits but on what he called an arbitrary Feb. 21 deadline set by Republicans in Congress. They set the deadline as part of a tax bill that Obama signed into law in late December.

"I'm disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my administration's commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil," Obama said.

Under his administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down, Obama said.

"In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security," Obama said.

To underscore the point, Obama signaled that he would not oppose development of an oil pipeline from Oklahoma to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. TransCanada already operates a pipeline from Canada to Oklahoma.

Refineries in Houston and along the Texas Gulf Coast can handle heavy crude such as that extracted from Canadian tar sands ? the type of oil that would flow through the Keystone XL pipeline.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was profoundly disappointed that Obama turned down the pipeline.

Sen. Kent Conrad, a Democrat, said he doesn't believe the Keystone XL is a dead project. He said the Obama administration did not have enough time to review the project, given the Republican-imposed timeline.

"I don't believe this is the end of the story," Conrad told The Associated Press. "My personal view is that it should be constructed. It's clear Canada is going to develop this resource, and I believe it is better for our country to have it go here rather than Asian markets."

Bill McKibben, an environmental activist who led opposition to the pipeline, praised Obama's decision to stand up to what he called a "naked political threat from Big Oil." Jack Gerard, the oil industry's top lobbyist, had said last week that Obama faced "huge political consequences" if he rejected the pipeline.

"It's not only the right thing, it's a very brave thing to do," McKibben said. "That's the Barack Obama I think people thought they were electing back in 2008."

___

Associated Press writers Dina Cappiello, Ben Feller and Laurie Kellman in Washington, Shannon McCaffrey in Warrenville, South Carolina, and Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston contributed to this story.

Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: (at)MatthewDalyWDC

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-18-Oil%20Pipeline/id-a67e7ebe242445c28f4cbe7e2547638a

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Brady leads prolific Patriots to AFC title game

By HOWARD ULMAN

updated 2:31 p.m. ET Jan. 15, 2012

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - The New England Patriots are in the AFC championship game for the sixth time in 11 seasons thanks to a prolific offense.

Its dominance was on display Saturday night in a 45-10 rout of the Denver Broncos. Tom Brady tied an NFL postseason record with six touchdown passes. Tight end Rob Gronkowski caught three of them. And the other tight end, Aaron Hernandez, lined up in the backfield, took a handoff and ran 43 yards.

Brady has thrown 25 touchdowns and three interceptions during the Patriots current nine-game winning streak. And they've scored more than 40 points in three of the last four.

They'll be home next Sunday against Baltimore or Houston with a Super Bowl berth at stake.

More news

Ravens' defense delivers

The Baltimore Ravens' defense delivered when it mattered in Sunday's divisional playoff win against the Houston Texans, forcing four turnovers in a 20-13 win.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46005690/ns/sports-nfl/

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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Crash and burn time for Spain's crusading judge?

Citizens roll up a poster of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon after a protest in support of Garzon outside the Supreme Court in Madrid Friday Jan. 13, 2012. Garzon, once widely regarded as Spain's most prominent magistrate, goes on trial Monday Jan. 16 for allegedly ordering illegal wiretaps of conversations between jailed suspects and their lawyers in a corruption probe. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Citizens protest the upcoming trial of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon outside the Supreme Court in Madrid Friday Jan. 13, 2012. Garzon, once widely regarded as Spain's most prominent magistrate, goes on trial Monday Jan. 16 for allegedly ordering illegal wiretaps of conversations between jailed suspects and their lawyers in a corruption probe. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Police watch as citizens protest the upcoming trial of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon outside the Supreme Court in Madrid Friday Jan. 13, 2012. Garzon, once widely regarded as Spain's most prominent magistrate, goes on trial Monday Jan. 16 for allegedly ordering illegal wiretaps of conversations between jailed suspects and their lawyers in a corruption probe. (AP Photo/Paul White)

Citizens protest the upcoming trial of Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon outside the Supreme Court in Madrid Friday Jan. 13, 2012. Garzon, once widely regarded as Spain's most prominent magistrate, known for going after Augusto Pinochet and Osama bin Laden goes on trial Monday Jan. 16 for allegedly ordering illegal wiretaps of conversations between jailed suspects and their lawyers in a corruption probe. Garzon will also go on trial for allegedly overstepping his jurisdiction by probing Spanish civil war crimes, the culmination of a spectacular fall from grace for one of Spain's most prominent people. Banners read ' Solidarity with Garzon' and 'Against the impunity. Solidarity with the victims of Franco'. (AP Photo/Paul White)

MADRID (AP) ? He indicted late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on genocide charges and became an instant hero to many around the world. A decade later he launched a similar crimes-against-humanity probe over atrocities by the right-wing victors of Spain's Civil War.

Now Judge Baltasar Garzon is finding himself in the dock.

On Tuesday, Garzon goes on trial for allegedly ordering illegal jailhouse wiretaps in a domestic corruption probe. A week later he appears in court to face charges he overstepped his authority in the Civil War case.

Supporters say he's the victim of a witchhunt by courthouse colleagues jealous of his fame and of arch-conservatives angered by his attempt to revisit Spain's war-time past.

Whatever the motivations, Spain's once high-flying but now-suspended super sleuth may be about to crash and burn definitively.

Garzon doesn't face jail time if convicted in either trial. But he can be removed from the bench for up to 20 years, which at his age ? 56 ? would in effect end his career as an investigating magistrate at the National Court.

The judge ? who also charged Osama bin Laden and probed abuses at the United States' Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects ? is separately under investigation over his dealings with a big Spanish bank.

Garzon's lawyer says the precedent set by the trials, plus the probe which could lead to a third trial, will make it virtually impossible for Garzon to take up his post again even if he is acquitted in all three cases.

"Judge Garzon is facing the perfect storm," said the attorney, Gonzalo Martinez-Fresneda.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the fact that Garzon was even charged for probing killings and forced disappearances by supporters of Gen. Francisco Franco during and after the 1936-39 war is an outrage.

The group's spokesman, Reed Brody, said it is already discouraging judges in other countries from applying the principles of law he championed.

Both sides in the Spanish war ? the Republican side and Franco's rebel right-wing forces ? committed atrocities. But they were addressed by a post-Franco-era amnesty approved by Parliament. Republican atrocities against pro-Franco civilians had already been thoroughly documented by the regime.

The specific charge against Garzon is that he knowingly overstepped the bounds of his jurisdiction with his unprecedented albeit abortive probe of crimes committed by the Franco side.

Garzon, a workaholic from a modest background in Spain's olive-growing south, certainly never expected to find himself in court as a criminal suspect.

Rights advocates in Spain and abroad adore him for his pioneering cross-border justice cases, which apply the principle of universal jurisdiction ? the idea that some crimes are so heinous they can be prosecuted anywhere, not just in the country where they are alleged to have been committed.

Since Garzon had Pinochet arrested in London in 1998 in an ultimately failed bid to put him on trial in Madrid, Garzon and colleagues at the National Court have issued indictments and arrest warrants over crimes in such far-flung places as Tibet and Rwanda.

The effect here in Spain has been largely symbolic. There's been only one conviction ? that of an Argentine 'dirty war' suspect who came to Spain voluntarily to testify and ended up charged and convicted in 2005. And there has been one extradition.

But the arrest of Pinochet inspired victims of abuses, especially in Latin American countries like Argentina, Chile and Guatemala, to challenge and win the repeal of laws giving amnesty to perpetrators of atrocities committed by military juntas, said Brody.

"Garzon changed the world," he said.

Spain's decision to put Garzon on trial before the Supreme Court, he added, "leaves Spain open to the charge of double standards: they are willing to work for justice in so many other countries and yet at home they have problems with a judge who seeks justice."

The second trial begins Jan. 24 with a session due to focus on procedural issues. It picks up again a week later, with Garzon expected to testify just that day. His lawyer says the proceedings will probably take a month altogether, with a verdict possibly coming in late March or April.

Garzon is arguably Spain's most polarizing figure.

Even as he became the darling of human rights advocates, he's made many enemies at home. Conservatives deride him as a limelight addict more interested in fame and front-page photos than justice and doing things by the book. They say his attempt to probe the war atrocities was unnecessary digging at old wounds best left alone.

However, even many Spanish Socialists hold a grudge against Garzon over his indictment of government officials over state-financed death squads that targeted the Basque separatist group ETA in the 1980s.

Jose Antonio Martin Pallin, a judge emeritus at the Supreme Court, said there are many people in Spain who want a piece of Garzon ? and his indictment in 2010 over the Civil War probe opened up the floodgates.

Among other things, he said, that gush stems from envy among judges who are used to discretion and modest salaries and disliked Garzon's glitzy lifestyle of jetting around the world to give well-paid lectures on human rights and attracting gaggles of reporters wherever he went.

The first indictment of Garzon meant "hunting season is now open," Martin Pallin said. He described fellow judges' thinking as "this man is going to get it now, for all his enjoyment, for his speaking fees."

Before dropping the Civil War probe in a dispute over jurisdiction ? it began and ended in 2008 ? Garzon declared he had the right to probe what he estimated were 100,000 killings and forced disappearances of people at the hands of Franco supporters and the regime.

Garzon called this a systematic drive to crush opponents and thus a crime against a humanity. His resolutions essentially amounted to an indictment of the Franco regime itself.

After Franco died in 1975 and Spain moved toward democracy while trying to put behind it a ruinous chapter of the past, Parliament in 1977 passed an amnesty for Civil War crimes.

Garzon did not challenge that law. Rather, he said that under the body of international jurisprudence that has accumulated since then, forced disappearances cannot be covered by the 1977 legislation. He argued that since no bodies have been found in cases of missing persons, the crimes are still ongoing.

Martin Pallin agreed that even if acquitted, Garzon would be so tainted as to be finished at the National Court.

"He would probably have to make a sort of symbolic return. Return, and then leave again," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-15-EU-Spain-Judge-on-Trial/id-bcfa6617b6fc45128e718dccc467d2d7

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Broncos-Patriots one of four intriguing NFL playoff games this weekend

Tim Tebow takes his act to New England, Drew Brees takes on the 49ers, the Texans travel to Baltimore, and the Packers host the Giants during this NFL divisional playoff weekend.

The Tim Tebow effect aside, it's a weekend made for pro football fans and their Barcaloungers with two NFL playoff games each on Saturday and Sunday.

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Monday, January 16, 2012

Nigerian president and unions fail to strike deal (Reuters)

ABUJA (Reuters) ? President Goodluck Jonathan and labor unions failed in overnight talks to reach a compromise over the removal of fuel subsidies that has raised fears of a shutdown of Nigeria's oil industry, union and presidency sources said Monday.

Jonathan was expected to make a public address later on Monday and unions declined to comment until he had spoken.

Unions said Sunday that nationwide strikes and protests would resume Monday if no agreement was reached in Africa's second-largest economy and number one crude producer.

Oil unions have said they will shut oil output if talks reach deadlock - Nigeria accounts for 8 percent of U.S. oil imports and is also a key source for Europe and Asia.

But labor sources say that if another round is planned the unions are likely to keep oil flowing.

Global oil prices were boosted by Nigeria supply fears late last week and a serious production outage would push them sharply higher, according to traders and analysts.

Tens of thousands took to the streets for strikes over five successive days last week in protest against the sudden removal of a fuel subsidy on January 1 that more than doubled the pump price of petrol to 150 naira ($0.93) per liter from 65 naira.

Several people were killed in clashes with police last week and 600 were treated for wounds, according to the International Red Cross.

The government and unions had a first round of talks on January 12 and a second round two days later with both sides saying progress was being made but that more deliberations were needed.

Unions said they wanted the government to immediately bring the petrol price back down to 65 naira, at which point they would cancel strikes and protests and talks could continue.

PETROL PRICE

The government has been quiet on the details of negotiations, but slashing the pump price to 65 naira without any guarantee of subsidies being removed in the future would be a major climbdown.

Unions said the government appeared willing to reduce the petrol price but not to return it to old levels.

Workers had suspended strike action for the weekend because of talks and to allow protesters to rest.

Economists have said the subsidy needed to be removed because it was wasteful and open to corruption. Protesters have countered that argument by asking the government to work harder to tackle corruption and waste before removing public benefits.

Jonathan gave approval Sunday for an investigation.

Oil Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke said in a statement that she had written a letter to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission inviting the regulator to investigate the subsidy procedure.

The state oil company NNPC and fuel regulators have come under fire for a lack of transparency and mismanagement from independent reports, including one by KPMG. Alison-Madueke pledged to review these reports.

She also said she would meet legislators in the next week to push forward progress on passing the wide-ranging Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). The PIB has been locked in parliament for years, costing Nigeria billions of dollars in lost investment.

(Additional reporting and writing by Joe Brock)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120116/ts_nm/us_nigeria_strike

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Sunday, January 15, 2012

iPad 3 production already underway: March launch likely (Digital Trends)

More rumors are surfacing suggesting the iPad 3 will hit the shelves two months from now, in March.

Such a release date would pretty much fit with previous iPad releases?the original iPad model appeared early April 2010, while the iPad 2 came out last March.

According to a Bloomberg report, the next iteration of the popular tablet computer will incorporate a high-definition screen ?with pixels small enough to make the images look like printed material.?

It?ll also be fitted with a quad-core chip offering much faster performance and offer 4G LTE support.

?Apple is bringing LTE to the iPad before the iPhone because the tablet has a bigger battery and can better support the power requirements of the newer technology,? the report stated.

Bloomberg said it obtained the information from ?three people familiar with the product.?

The report also says that production of the new device has already started at Apple?s manufacturing partners in Asia, with Foxconn factories in China ?running 24 hours.?

The iPad has been a massive hit with consumers since its launch nearly two years ago, with more than 40 million units sold to date, generating more than $25 billion in sales.

Other companies have tried but failed to come up with an iPad killer, and the Cupertino will be hoping that the latest version of its device will further cement its position as the tablet of choice for consumers.

Whereas last year?s rumors concerning the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 failed in many cases to hit the target, rumors about the iPad 3 have been fairly consistent up to now?meaning they might actually be right this time.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends