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NEW YORK (AP) ? Police say seven people have been shot at a party in Brooklyn, including a woman taken to a hospital in critical condition.
Authorities say shots rang out at a party at a residence at approximately 1 a.m. Sunday. They say the woman and six other people who sustained non-life-threatening injuries have been transported to Kings County Hospital.
Police say there is no immediate word on the extent of the injuries or the identities of those who were hurt.
Police say no arrests have been made.
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By Bernard Vaughan, Reuters
NEW YORK -- A former Mexican state governor was sentenced to 11 years in prison in the United States on Friday after pleading guilty to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in bribes from a notorious drug cartel.
With credit for time served and good behavior, Mario Villanueva, 64, could be released from U.S. custody in two to three years, his lawyer, Richard Lind, said after the hearing. He faces another 23 years in prison in Mexico stemming from similar charges, Lind said.
Mexico's drug war is also part of a drug culture with roots in music, movies and even religion
From 1993 to 1999, Villanueva was governor of Quintana Roo, a state on the Yucatan Peninsula that is home to the popular tourist destination Cancun.
While in office he conspired to launder millions of dollars in bribery payments from the Juarez drug cartel through accounts and shell corporations in the United States and elsewhere, prosecutors said.
He was extradited to the United States in 2010 after serving a six-year sentence in Mexico for money laundering.
"This defendant violated the public trust to enrich himself," Assistant U.S. Attorney Glen Kopp told U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York on Friday.
In a plea agreement last year, Villanueva pleaded guilty to one charge of money laundering conspiracy; he faced a maximum of 20 years in prison.
"I ask for your compassion and your clemency," Villanueva told Marrero, as several of his family members, including his wife and son, looked on.
The Juarez cartel transported more than 200 tons of cocaine into the United States in the 1990s, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan.
Prosecutors said Villanueva reached an agreement with the cartel soon after it established operations in Quintana Roo in 1994. He received payments of between $400,000 and $500,000 for each cocaine shipment that went through the state in exchange for ensuring law enforcement would not interfere.
By late 1995, he began transferring the money to bank and brokerage accounts in the United States, Switzerland and elsewhere in an effort to hide the funds, prosecutors said.
Consuelo Marquez, a Lehman Brothers investment broker, helped set up several offshore corporations for Villanueva to shelter the bribe proceeds, according to the indictment against Villanueva. She also established brokerage accounts for him and conducted a series of wire transfers at his direction, according to the indictment.
Marquez was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $10,000 in 2006 after pleading guilty to money laundering charges.
Villanueva, while under investigation in Mexico, disappeared in March 1999, just before his term as governor expired. He was discovered by Mexican authorities in 2001.
While a fugitive, Villanueva tried to transfer funds in the Lehman accounts to third-party accounts with Marquez's help, according to the indictment.
With his sentence, Villanueva "completes his descent from elected government official to corrupted official to incarcerated felon," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The case is USA v. Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 01-cr-021.
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's newly elected president says his election was a vote for change and vows to remain committed to his campaign promises of moderation and constructive interaction with the outside world.
Hasan Rouhani says moderation in foreign policy does not mean surrender or conflict but rather effective and constructive contact with the world. He made the comments in an address to a conference in Tehran Saturday. His remarks were broadcast live on state TV.
Rouhani has already promised greater openness over Iran's nuclear program but at the same time has sided with the hard-line Islamic establishment that refuses to stop enriching uranium.
He believes it's possible to strike a deal that would allow the Islamic Republic to keep enriching uranium while assuring the West it will not produce a nuclear weapon.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/irans-president-elect-nation-voted-change-083803196.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The last thing President Barack Obama wants to do is turn Edward Snowden into a grand enemy of the state or a Daniel Ellsberg-type hero who speaks truth to power.
In the shifting narrative of the Obama administration, the man whose leaks of top-secret material about government surveillance programs have tied the national security apparatus in knots and brought charges under the Espionage Act has now been demoted to a common fugitive unworthy of international intrigue or extraordinary pursuit by the U.S. government.
A "29-year-old hacker," in the words of Obama; fodder for a made-for-TV movie, perhaps, but not much more.
"This is not exceptional from a legal perspective," the president said Thursday of Snowden's efforts to avoid capture by hopscotching from Hawaii to Hong Kong to Russia.
"I'm not going to have one case of a suspect who we're trying to extradite suddenly being elevated to the point where I've got to start doing wheeling and dealing and trading on a whole host of other issues simply to get a guy extradited," the president told reporters in Senegal.
It was the second time in a week that the administration had toned down its rhetoric as Snowden remained out of reach and first China and then Russia refused to send him back.
Just Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry was talking tough against China and calling Snowden a traitor whose actions are "despicable and beyond description." By Tuesday, Kerry was calling for "calm and reasonableness" on the matter, and adding, "We're not looking for a confrontation. We are not ordering anybody."
There are plenty of reasons for Obama to pull back, beyond his professed desire to avoid international horse-trading for the leaker.
The president, in his own words, has "a whole lot of business to do with China and Russia." Why increase tensions in an already uneasy relationship when Obama is looking for Russia's cooperation in finding a path to peace in Syria, for example?
In addition, less-heated dialogue could make it easier to broker Snowden's return because, despite the latest shrugs, U.S. officials very much want him.
"There's a lot of signaling going on," said Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "If the White House were issuing ultimatums, then Russia might feel obliged not to cooperate. But if it's merely one request among many others, that might make it easier to advance to a resolution."
The president also may have a U.S. audience in mind for his comments.
Obama's Democratic base includes plenty of defenders of civil liberties who are sympathetic to Snowden's professed goal of making government more transparent.
Benjamin Pauker, managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine, said the president was loath to elevate Snowden to a state enemy or "an Ellsberg-type truth-teller," referring to the 1971 leaker of the Pentagon Papers, which showed the U.S. government had misled the public about the war in Vietnam.
Ellsberg himself recently called Snowden's revelations the most significant disclosures in the nation's history.
The administration, though, would rather marginalize Snowden, a former National Security Agency systems analyst who is thought to have custody of more classified documents.
"Calling him a hacker, as opposed to a government contractor or an NSA employee, brings him down a notch to someone who's an irritant, as opposed to someone who has access to integral intelligence files," Pauker said. "To externalize him and brand him with a black-hat hacker tag distances him from the government."
The disdainful talk isn't just coming from the White House.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, called Snowden "a high school dropout who had a whole series of both academic troubles and employment troubles" after a recent closed hearing on the leaks. The committee's top Democrat, C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger from Maryland, called Snowden "a legend in his own mind" for claiming to be able to use NSA systems to access any email or phone call anywhere ? something the NSA's director has said can't be done.
There may also be face-saving benefits for Obama in cutting down Snowden, who turned 30 last week. An unsuccessful full-court press for Snowden's return would only show the limitations of Obama's international influence.
It's not the first time a president has tried to reset expectations by first elevating and then playing down the importance of an international fugitive who eluded capture, at least for a time.
President George W. Bush went from putting out a "dead-or-alive" ultimatum for 9-11 terror mastermind Osama bin Laden to dismissing him as "a person who's now been marginalized."
"I just don't spend that much time on him," Bush said in March 2002.
Candidate Barack Obama pledged during the 2008 presidential campaign: "We will kill bin Laden, we will crush al-Qaida. That has to be our biggest national security priority."
By January 2009, just days before his inauguration, Obama was saying: "My preference, obviously would be to capture or kill him. But if we have so tightened the noose that he's in a cave somewhere and can't even communicate with his operatives, then we would meet our goal of protecting America."
As it turned out, he got him.
___
AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.
___
Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-recasts-chase-snowden-unexceptional-073112725.html
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Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi fill a public square outside the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, during a rally in Cairo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Tens of thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo)
Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi fill a public square outside the Rabia el-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, not far from the presidential palace, during a rally in Cairo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Tens of thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo)
Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans as fire rages at the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Alexandria, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo/Heba Khamis)
Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi chant slogans as fire rages at the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Alexandria, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal.(AP Photo/Heba Khamis)
Supporters of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi hold a rally in Cairo, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies in the capital Friday and new clashes erupted between the two sides in the country's second largest city, Alexandria, in a prelude to massive nationwide protests planned by the opposition this weekend demanding Mohammed Morsi's removal. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
Opponents of Egypt's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi wane national flags as they demonstrate in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, June 28, 2013. Thousands of supporters of Egypt's embattled president are rallying in the nation's capital in a show of support ahead of what are expected to be massive opposition-led protests on June 30 to demand Mohammed Morsi's ouster.(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
CAIRO (AP) ? The health department says one person has died and at least 85 others were injured in clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.
Thousands of anti-Morsi protesters marched toward the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters Friday, where up to a 1,000 supporters of the president's political group were deployed. Fighting erupted when someone on the Islamist side fired birdshots on the marchers, according to an Associated Press cameraman at the scene. Later, opposition protesters broke into the headquarters and torched it.
The health department reported one death in the fighting, without elaborating. It was not immediately known which side the victim belonged to.
Backers and opponents of Egypt's Islamist president held competing rallies Friday ahead of massive protests planned Sunday demanding Morsi's removal.
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FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) ? Police say they're seeking another man in connection with the killing of one of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez's friends.
They've issued an alert and wanted poster for Ernest Wallace, who's considered armed and dangerous. They say he's wanted for accessory after the fact of the murder of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd last week in North Attleborough, Mass., near Hernandez's home.
State police say they're also looking for a silver or gray 2012 Chrysler 300 with Rhode Island license plates Wallace was seen driving.
Hernandez has been charged with murder for what prosecutors say was Lloyd's execution-style killing. He was denied bail Thursday. His lawyer says he wants to clear his name.
Another man was arrested Wednesday in Hernandez's hometown of Bristol, Conn., as part of the investigation. The Patriots cut Hernandez that day.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/man-sought-death-ex-patriot-hernandezs-pal-021247736.html
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AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? Secretary of State John Kerry plunged back into the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Thursday, using Jordan as a base for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
In is fifth visit to the region to try to restart peace talks, Kerry held a four-hour dinner meeting with Netanyahu that stretched into Friday morning. He was to have lunch with Abbas on Friday in Amman, and more meetings could be in the offing.
Kerry left Amman on Thursday evening in a convoy of nearly a dozen vehicles for the roughly 90-minute drive to Jerusalem. A Jordanian military helicopter flew over his convoy during the trip, according to a reporter who was allowed to make the trip with Kerry and his delegation.
Netanyahu was about an hour late, apparently telling Kerry that he was delayed because he had been attending a graduation ceremony for Israeli military pilots. They started talking around 9:30 p.m. local time in a suite at a hotel in Jerusalem and ended their discussion around 1:30 a.m. Friday.
There were no immediate readouts of the discussion from Israeli or U.S. officials.
U.S. State department officials say that while there are no scheduled plans for any three-way discussion during Kerry's trip, they are confident that both sides are open to negotiations, or at least sitting down together at the same table to restart talks that broke down in 2008.
Kerry, they say, will continue to try to find common ground between the two sides that would lead to a re-launching of peace talks. On this trip, Kerry is trying to pin down precisely what conditions Abbas and Netanyahu have for restarting talks and perhaps discuss confidence-building measures.
Beyond that, Kerry wants to talk about the positive outcomes, such as enhanced economic growth, of a two-state solution. But at the same time, the secretary, who has long-time relationships with officials from both sides, will remind them of what's at stake if the conflict is left unresolved, they said.
Earlier this month, in a speech to the American Jewish Committee Global Forum in Washington, Kerry warned of serious consequences if no deal is reached.
"Think about what could happen next door," he told the Jewish audience. " The Palestinian Authority has committed itself to a policy of nonviolence. ... Up until recently, not one Israeli died from anything that happened from the West Bank until there was a settler killed about a month ago.
"But if that experiment is allowed to fail, ask yourselves: What will replace it? What will happen if the Palestinian economy implodes, if the Palestinian Security Forces dissolve, if the Palestinian Authority fails? ... The failure of the moderate Palestinian leadership could very well invite the rise of the very thing that we want to avoid: the same extremism in the West Bank that we have seen in Gaza or from southern Lebanon."
So far, there have been no public signals that the two sides are narrowing their differences.
Abbas has said he won't negotiate unless Israel stops building settlements on war-won lands or accepts its 1967 lines ? before the capture of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in a Mideast war that year ? as a starting point for border talks. The Palestinians claim all three areas for their future state.
Netanyahu has rejected the Palestinian demands, saying there should be no pre-conditions ? though his predecessor conducted talks on the basis of the pre-1967 lines, and the international community views the settlements as illegal or illegitimate.
Earlier on Thursday, Kerry talked about the crisis in Syria and the Mideast peace process over lunch with Jordan's King Abdullah II.
In a statement, the Royal Palace said Abdullah told Kerry that he will continue trying to bridge the gaps in the viewpoints of Palestinians and Israelis. But he warned that Israel's "unilateral actions, which include continuous Israeli trespassing on Christian and Muslim holy sites, undermine chances for peace."
On Wednesday, an Israeli planning committee gave the final approval for construction of dozens of new homes in a settlement in east Jerusalem. The announcement, which was made the day before Kerry's visit, appeared to be an Israeli snub at the secretary of state's latest round of Mideast diplomacy.
Officials traveling with Kerry sought to minimize the significance of the announcement, saying the U.S. has repeatedly said that continued construction of settlements were unhelpful to efforts to restart the talks. The settlements are part of the Har Homa area of east Jerusalem. The Obama administration said it was "deeply concerned" back in 2011 when an Israeli planning commission approved 930 new housing units in the Har Homa neighborhood.
The Palestinian side condemned the announcement.
"Such behavior proves that the Israeli government is determined to undermine Secretary Kerry's efforts at every level," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
___
Associated Press writer Jamal Halaby in Amman contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-plunges-back-mideast-peace-diplomacy-154841578.html
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The fungus responsible for the meningitis outbreak of last year travels an unusual route through the human body ? moving upward through the spinal fluid to reach the brain, then later invading the blood vessels, according to new research.
In efforts to unravel the outbreak of fungal infections due to steroid injections into the spine, which were contaminated by a fungus that rarely infects humans, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined tissue samples from 40 patients, including 16 fatal cases.
They found that the fungus, called Exserohilum rostratum, travels through the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) upward along the spine, to reach the base of the brain where it causes meningitis. CSF is a bodily fluid that fills the space in the spine where the contaminated drug was injected.
Exserohilum rostratum is a black mold commonly found in soil, but little is known about how it develops infections in human, as there had been very few cases reported before the outbreak of 2012.
In most infections, pathogens enter the blood immediately, and travel from one organ to the other. To the surprise of the CDC researchers, Exserohilum seemed to do this in reverse ? infecting the brain first, then entering the blood.
?Because of the site of injection, the fungi entered the CSF and settled down in the base of the brain, where it started invading the vessels,? said study researcher Dr. Sherif Zaki, chief of the Infectious Disease Pathology Branch at the CDC. At the stage where the fungus has reached the blood vessels, it doesn?t have a chance to travel farther, because the disease is fatal, he said.
Another unusual aspect of the infections the researchers found was that Exserohilum didn?t invade the neural tissue of the brain.
?It was more confined to the meninges around the brain, whereas in a lot of fungal invasions, the fungi rapidly invade the brain tissue,? said Dr. Jana Ritter, another researcher in the study. The meninges are the membrane layers that cover the brain.
In conducting autopsies on people who had died from the fungal infection, the researchers saw extensive bleeding and tissue decay around the base of the brain, as well as inflammation and clots in the surrounding blood vessels, according to the report published today (June 26) in The American Journal of Pathology.
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The CDC investigation follows the nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis in 2012, in which 745 people were sickened, and 58 died. More than 13,000 people received injections of potentially contaminated steroid drugs made in a compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts. The injections were made to treat back or joint pain. ?[5 Meningitis Facts You Need to Know]
In the months following the outbreak health officials traced the contamination to more than 17,000 vials from three contaminated lots of a steroid drug prepared in a single compounding pharmacy, New England Compounding Center. The drug contained the fungus Exserohilum, which was also identified in the majority of patients.
Although all lots of contaminated vials were recalled, new patients are still being reported. The researchers are investigating how some people who received an injection last year may develop the infection months later.
?Looks like that the fungus can be injected and sit there at the injection site for up to several months. We don?t know yet how it manages to do that,? Ritter said.
Other mysteries also remain. The researchers saw a lack of immune response in some tissue that contained the fungus, which raised the question of ?why, in some particular tissues, the fungus seems to be just sitting there, without having inflammatory cells around it,? Ritter said.
The steroid shots putatively work to alleviate pain by suppressing the immune system, so it is tempting, the researchers said, to attribute this lack of immune response to the effects of steroids. However, studies of other fungal infections in patients whose immune system was compromised by other diseases would contradict this idea.
The new findings give more insights about how the fungus develops the infection, and may help clinicians to better decide which medications to use, and for how long. However, the CDC?s investigation continues, and future studies are needed to better understand human factors that contribute to infection and disease, as well as properties of Exserohilum, the researchers said.
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Email Bahar Gholipouror follow her @alterwired. Follow?LiveScience?@livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fungal-meningitis-infection-traveled-surprising-route-134535953.html
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In a surprise move, Russia has pulled all its military and nondiplomatic civilian personnel out of Syria. That includes a complete evacuation of the naval supply station in the Mediterranean port of Tartus, which is often discussed as one of Russia's key reasons for its long and stubborn support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
"We have neither servicemen nor civilians in Syria anymore. Or Russian military instructors assigned to units of the Syrian regular Army, for that matter," a Russian defense ministry spokesperson is quoted as telling the Moscow business daily Vedomosti yesterday.
The Tartus naval supply station, Russia's only military base outside the former USSR, has been effectively closed, Russian deputy foreign minister and special Middle East envoy Mikhail Bogdanov confirmed in an interview with a Turkish newspaper. He insisted that the base, which housed about 70 fulltime military technicians to service visiting Russian warships, was of no strategic importance to Russia.
RECOMMENDED: What is Russia thinking on Syria? A brief guide
"It's just a technical facility for maintaining ships sailing in the Mediterranean," he said.
That answer seems a trifle inadequate. The obvious question is: Why abandon Tartus now, given that the Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean has never been so large?
Earlier this month Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia will maintain a permanent naval flotilla in the region for the first time since the collapse of the USSR more than 20 years ago. "This is a strategically important region and we have tasks to carry out there to provide for the national security of the Russian Federation," he said.
The Russian Navy has been holding almost nonstop maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean for more than a year, and currently has a 16-warship task force in the area.
"The first and likeliest reason for the closure is that Russia doesn't want to risk the lives of 70 military personnel stationed at Tartus," says Vladimir Sotnikov, expert with the official Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow.
"Now that the battlefield initiative in Syria's civil war is in the hands of the Assad regime, Russia might fear some [rebel] provocations against our people. Another possible reason may be to help promote the Geneva-2 talks. We have information that Russia, the United Nations and the US have agreed to a format for the talks. So, perhaps Russia wants to dispel impression that its position is based on some desire to hold on to this station," Mr. Sotnikov says.
"In any case, Russian ships have the opportunity to go to Cyprus for supplies and maintenance, and it's safer for them to do so right now," he adds.
Russia has also been steadily evacuating the estimated 30,000 Russian citizens living in Syria since early this year, and yesterday the Ministry of Emergency Services reported that it had extracted another 130 Russians from Latakia in northwest Syria and flown them back to Russia.
Other Russian analysts agree that, whatever the reasons for Russia's personnel pullout, it probably doesn't signal any change of the hard, pro-Assad position that Mr. Putin most recently reiterated at last week's G8 summit in Northern Ireland.
"Russia's position hasn't changed. In fact it's getting tougher," says Sergei Strokan, a foreign affairs columnist with the pro-business Moscow daily Kommersant.
"The reasons behind this evacuation probably come down to security. That base's importance has been greatly overrated in Western reporting. It just isn't that big a deal. So, I guess the thinking is, why risk some major incident that the rebels might stage by attacking Russians at this sensitive moment when all the hopes are pinned on a new Geneva peace conference?"
RECOMMENDED: What is Russia thinking on Syria? A brief guide
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/why-russia-evacuated-naval-syria-162410006.html
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The psyllid, discovered eight years ago in Florida citrus groves, has been problematic for researchers and farmers alike.
University of California, Davis/AP University of California, Davis/APWith its pleasant climate, Florida has become home to more exotic and invasive species of plants and animals than any other state in the continental U.S. Some invasive species have been brought in deliberately, such as the Burmese python or the Cuban brown snail. But the majority of species are imported inadvertently as cargo.
Amanda Hodges, who heads the biosecurity research lab at the University of Florida, says that until recently, scientists saw about a dozen new bugs arrive in Florida each year.
"But we've seen in the last few years, we've actually seen an increase in the number of new introductions," Hodges says. "We've seen more like 24 new arthropods."
These new bugs are being studied inside the biosecurity lab. After signing in and putting on a lab coat ? measures designed to make sure the invasive pests being studied don't escape ? you would find graduate student Ashley Poplin. She's studying one of the newest threats to American agriculture: the brown marmorated stink bug.
"These are the little guys. They kind of have an orange abdomen and black markings," she says. "It almost looks like a black spider, but of course this has six legs instead of eight."
The bug was first discovered in Allentown, Pa., but has now spread nationwide. In Florida, it threatens vegetable crops and the state's ornamental plant industry. With time, researchers are confident they'll identify natural predators and parasites that will help them control the stink bug. It's a strategy that takes time and work, but almost always pays off.
There's one pest in Florida, however, that so far has defied the best efforts of scientists and the agriculture industry. It's a tiny bug called a psyllid, and it poses a huge threat to Florida's $9 billion a year citrus industry. The bug was only discovered eight years ago in Florida's citrus groves, says Marjorie Hoy, an entomology professor at the University of Florida. Since the discovery of the psyllid, Hoy says, Florida lost a good portion of its crops.
"It's been a disaster since then," she says. "From 860,000 acres, I think we're down to roughly 600,000 acres or less."
For decades, Hoy and other researchers used parasites and predators to successfully combat a series of invasions by bugs that preyed on citrus trees. But with this latest invasion, entomologists may have met their match. The psyllid, combined with bacteria it carries, causes citrus greening, a disease that kills orange trees and makes the fruit unusable.
To combat it, citrus growers have turned away from biological controls and are using pesticides and nutrient sprays. For Hoy, it's been disheartening.
"It's a very sad situation because Florida citrus was one of those premier examples of how to grow citrus with the least number of pesticides," Hoy says. "It's just heartbreaking."
The citrus industry is reeling from greening, not just in Florida, but also in California and Brazil. Meanwhile, researchers are scrambling to develop better traps, stronger trees and possibly even transgenic solutions. Scientists are studying ways to alter the genome of citrus to make it more resistant to greening.
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DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar's new emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, said on Wednesday the Gulf state would not "take direction" in foreign affairs, supported the sovereignty and integrity of all Arab lands and would seek to diversify the gas-based economy at home.
In his first speech as head of state, Sheikh Tamim, handed power on Tuesday when his father abdicated after 18 years in power, added he would follow in the "path" of his father, architect of an assertive foreign policy.
But his 15-minute address focused on domestic issues and was broad in nature. There was no mention of a cabinet reshuffle which is widely expected by Qataris following the departure from office of his father Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
"We don't take direction and this independent behavior is one of the established facts," Sheikh Tamim, 33, said in the speech broadcast on Qatari state television.
The emir said Qatar was committed to the Palestinians in their struggle with Israel and to other Arab causes, and would respect "the sovereignty and integrity of all Arab lands".
But he made no mention of the conflict in Syria, where Qatar, which has vigorously supported Arab Spring uprisings, is a backer of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
But emir added that his country, long seen as an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood, should not be identified with any particular political trend and respected all religious sects.
"We are a coherent state, not a political party, and therefore we seek to keep relationships with all governments and states," he said.
"We respect all the influential and active political trends in the region, but we are not affiliated with one trend against the other. We are Muslims and Arabs who respect diversity of sects and respect all religions in our countries and outside of them."
(Reporting by Mahmoud Habboush, Sami Aboudi, Yara Bayoumy and Amena Bakr, Writing by William Maclean)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/qatar-emir-says-not-direction-foreign-affairs-153855866.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? For President Barack Obama, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's globe-trotting evasion of U.S. authorities has dealt a startling setback to efforts to strengthen ties with China and raised the prospect of worsening tensions with Russia.
Indeed, Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday called U.S. demands for Snowden's extradition "ungrounded and unacceptable."
Relations with both China and Russia have been at the forefront of Obama's foreign policy agenda this month, underscoring the intertwined interests among these uneasy partners. Obama met just last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland and held an unusual two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California earlier this month.
Obama has made no known phone calls to Xi since Snowden surfaced in Hong Kong earlier this month, nor has he talked to Putin since Snowden arrived in Russia.
Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said it wasn't clear that Obama's "charm offensive" with Xi and Putin would matter much on this issue. The U.S. has "very little leverage," she said, given the broad array of issues on which the Obama administration needs Chinese and Russian cooperation.
"This isn't happening in a vacuum, and obviously China and Russia know that," said Harman, who now runs the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
Both the U.S. and China had hailed the Obama-Xi summit as a fresh start to a complex relationship, with the leaders building personal bonds during an hour-long walk through the grounds of the Sunnylands estate. But any easing of tensions appeared to vanish Monday following China's apparent flouting of U.S. demands that Snowden be returned from semi-autonomous Hong Kong to face espionage charges.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, in unusually harsh language, said China had "unquestionably" damaged its relationship with Washington.
"The Chinese have emphasized the importance of building mutual trust," Carney said. "We think that they have dealt that effort a serious setback. If we cannot count on them to honor their legal extradition obligations, then there is a problem."
A similar problem may be looming with Russia, where Snowden arrived Sunday. He had been expected to leave Moscow for a third country, but the White House said Monday it believed the former government contractor was still in Russia.
While the U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, the White House publicly prodded the Kremlin to send Snowden back to the U.S., while officials privately negotiated with their Russian counterparts.
"We are expecting the Russians to examine the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden for his return to the United States," Carney said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday bluntly rejected the U.S. request, saying Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border. He angrily lashed out at the U.S. for warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply.
"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said.
During a stop in Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State John Kerry responded by saying the United States is not looking for a confrontation with Russia.
Speaking at a news conference in Jiddah, Kerry said that while it's true the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, Moscow should comply with common law practices between countries concerning fugitives. "I would simply appeal for calm and reasonableness," Kerry said. "We would hope that Russia would not side with someone who is 'a fugitive' from justice.' "
The U.S. has deep economic ties with China and needs the Asian power's help in persuading North Korea to end its nuclear provocations. The Obama administration also needs Russia's cooperation in ending the bloodshed in Syria and reducing nuclear stockpiles held by the former Cold War foes.
Members of Congress so far have focused their anger on China and Russia, not on Obama's inability to get either country to abide by U.S. demands. However, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said in an interview with CNN on Monday that he was starting to wonder why the president hasn't been "more forceful in dealing with foreign leaders."
Sen. John McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election, echoed that concern on Tuesday, telling CNN that "we've got to start dealing with Vladimir Putin for what he is."
The Arizona Republican called Putin "an old KGB colonel apparatchik" who disdains democracy and said that Putin "continues to stick his thumb in our eye."
"When you show the world you're leading from behind, these are the consequences," McCain said.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton echoed the White House's frustration with China. "That kind of action is not only detrimental to the U.S.-China relationship but it sets a bad precedent that could unravel the intricate international agreements about how countries respect the laws ? and particularly the extradition treaties," the possible 2016 presidential contender told an audience in Los Angeles.
Snowden fled to Hong Kong after seizing highly classified documents disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of U.S. phone and Internet records. He shared the information with The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers. He also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." SMS, or short messaging service, generally means text messaging.
Snowden still has perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend.
Hong Kong, a former British colony with a degree of autonomy from mainland China, has an extradition treaty with the U.S. Officials in Hong Kong said a formal U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with its laws, a claim the Justice Department disputes.
The White House made clear it believes the final decision to let Snowden leave for Russia was made by Chinese officials in Beijing.
Russia's ultimate response to U.S. pressure remains unclear. Putin could still agree to return Snowden to the U.S. But he may also let him stay in Russia or head elsewhere, perhaps to Ecuador or Venezuela ? both options certain to earn the ire of the White House.
Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said she expected Putin to take advantage of a "golden opportunity" to publicly defy the White House.
"This is one of those opportunities to score points against the United States that I would be surprised if Russia passed up," Hill said.
___
Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-hit-snowden-setbacks-china-russia-070516653.html
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-says-expects-russian-government-look-options-042146050.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Admitted leaker Edward Snowden took flight Sunday in evasion of U.S. authorities, seeking asylum in Ecuador and leaving the Obama administration scrambling to determine its next step in what became a game of diplomatic cat-and-mouse.
The former National Security Agency contractor and CIA technician fled Hong Kong and arrived at the Moscow airport, where he planned to spend the night before boarding an Aeroflot flight to Cuba. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government received an asylum request from Snowden, and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said it would help him.
"He goes to the very countries that have, at best, very tense relationships with the United States," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., adding that she feared Snowden would trade more U.S. secrets for asylum. "This is not going to play out well for the national security interests of the United States."
The move left the U.S. with limited options as Snowden's itinerary took him on a tour of what many see as anti-American capitals. Ecuador in particular has rejected the United States' previous efforts at cooperation, and has been helping WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, avoid prosecution by allowing him to stay at its embassy in London.
Snowden helped The Guardian and The Washington Post disclose U.S. surveillance programs that collects vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, but often sweeping up information on American citizens. Officials have the ability to collect phone and Internet information broadly but need a warrant to examine specific cases where they believe terrorism is involved.
Snowden has been in hiding for several weeks in Hong Kong, a former British colony with a high degree of autonomy from mainland China. The United States formally sought Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong but was rebuffed; Hong Kong officials said the U.S. request did not fully comply with their laws.
The Justice Department rejected that claim, saying its request met all of the requirements of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Hong Kong.
During conversations last week, including a phone call Wednesday between Attorney General Eric Holder and Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen, Hong Kong officials never raised any issues regarding sufficiency of the U.S. request, a Justice spokesperson said.
A State Department official said the United States was in touch through diplomatic and law enforcement channels with countries that Snowden could travel through or to, reminding them that Snowden is wanted on criminal charges and reiterating Washington's position that Snowden should only be permitted to travel back to the U.S.
The Justice Department said it would "pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."
The White House would only say that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the developments by his national security advisers.
Russia's state ITAR-Tass news agency and Interfax cited an unnamed Aeroflot airline official as saying Snowden was on the plane that landed Sunday afternoon in Moscow.
Upon his arrival, Snowden did not leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. One explanation could be that he wasn't allowed; a U.S. official said Snowden's passport had been revoked, and special permission from Russian authorities would have been needed.
"It's almost hopeless unless we find some ways to lean on them," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.
The Russian media report said Snowden intended to fly to Cuba on Monday and then on to Caracas, Venezuela.
U.S. lawmakers scoffed. "The freedom trail is not exactly China-Russia-Cuba-Venezuela, so I hope we'll chase him to the ends of the earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there'll be consequences if they harbor this guy," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
With each suspected flight, efforts to secure Snowden's return to the United States appeared more complicated if not impossible. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, but does with Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even with an extradition agreement though, any country could give Snowden a political exemption.
The likelihood that any of these countries would stop Snowden from traveling on to Ecuador seemed unlikely. While diplomatic tensions have thawed in recent years, Cuba and the United States are hardly allies after a half century of distrust.
Venezuela, too, could prove difficult. Former President Hugo Chavez was a sworn enemy of the United States and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, earlier this year called Obama "grand chief of devils." The two countries do not exchange ambassadors.
U.S. pressure on Caracas also might be problematic given its energy exports. The U.S. Energy Information Agency reports Venezuela sent the United States 900,000 barrels of crude oil each day in 2012, making it the fourth-largest foreign source of U.S. oil.
"I think 10 percent of Snowden's issues are now legal, and 90 percent political," said Douglas McNabb, an expert in international extradition and a senior principal at international criminal defense firm McNabb Associates.
Assange's lawyer, Michael Ratner, said Snowden's options aren't numerous.
"You have to have a country that's going to stand up to the United States," Ratner said. "You're not talking about a huge range of countries here."
That is perhaps why Snowden first stopped in Russia, a nation with complicated relations with Washington.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is "aiding and abetting Snowden's escape," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
"Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States," Schumer said. "That's not how allies should treat one another, and I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship."
It also wasn't clear Snowden was finished with disclosing highly classified information.
"I am very worried about what else he has," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she had been told Snowden had perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents.
Ros-Lehtinen and King spoke with CNN. Graham spoke to "Fox News Sunday." Schumer was on CNN's "State of the Union." Sanchez appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Feinstein was on CBS' "Face the Nation."
___
Associated Press White House Correspondent Julie Pace and Associated Press writers Matthew V. Lee and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, Lynn Berry in Moscow, Kevin Chan in Hong Kong and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.
___
Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wikileaks-snowden-going-ecuador-seek-asylum-170935684.html
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