U.N. lifts Syria death toll to "truly shocking" 60,000


AMMAN/GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 60,000 people have died in Syria's uprising and civil war, the United Nations said on Wednesday, dramatically raising the death toll in a struggle that shows no sign of ending.


In the latest violence, dozens were killed in a rebellious Damascus suburb when a government air strike turned a petrol station into an inferno, incinerating drivers who had rushed there for a rare chance to fill their tanks, activists said.


"I counted at least 30 bodies. They were either burnt or dismembered," said Abu Saeed, an activist who arrived in the area an hour after the 1 p.m. (1100 GMT) raid in Muleiha, a suburb on the eastern edge of the capital.


U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in Geneva that researchers cross-referencing seven sources over five months of analysis had listed 59,648 people killed in Syria between March 15, 2011 and November 30, 2012.


"The number of casualties is much higher than we expected and is truly shocking," she said. "Given that there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013."


There was no breakdown by ethnicity or information about whether the dead were rebels, soldiers or civilians. There was also no estimate of an upper limit of the possible toll.


Previously, the opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group put the toll at around 45,000 confirmed dead but said the real number was likely to be higher.


FATAL RUSH FOR PETROL


Muleiha, the target of Wednesday's air strike, is a residential and industrial area in the eastern Ghouta region of Damascus that also houses a Syrian air defense base.


Video footage taken by activists showed the body of a man in a helmet still perched on a motorcycle amid flames engulfing the scene. Another man was shown carrying a dismembered body.


The video could not be verified. The government bars access to the Damascus area to most international media.


The activists said rockets were fired from the base at the petrol station and a nearby residential area after the air raid.


"Until the raid, Muleiha was quiet. We have been without petrol for four days and people from the town and the countryside rushed to the station when a state consignment came in," Abu Fouad, another activist at the scene, said by phone.


In Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad's forces fired artillery and mortars at the eastern districts of Douma, Harasta, Irbin and Zamlaka, where rebels are active, activists living there said.


Assad's forces control the centre of the capital, while rebels and their sympathizers hold a ring of southern and eastern suburbs that are often hit from the air.


The Observatory said a separate air strike killed 12 members of a family, most of them children, in Moadamiyeh, a southwestern district near the centre of Damascus where rebels have fought for a foothold.


The family of an American freelance journalist, James Foley, 39, said on Wednesday he had been missing in Syria since being kidnapped six weeks ago by gunmen. No group has publicly claimed responsibility for his abduction.


Syria was by far the most dangerous country for journalists in 2012, with 28 killed there.


The conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against four decades of Assad family rule and turned into an armed revolt after months of government repression.


Insurgents trying to topple Assad see his air power as their main threat. They hold swathes of eastern and northern provinces, as well as some outlying parts of Damascus, but have been unable to protect their territory from relentless attack by helicopters and jets.


In the north, rebels, some from Islamist units, attacked the Afis military airport near Taftanaz air base, firing machineguns and mortars at helicopters on the ground to try and make a dent in Assad's air might, the Observatory said.


The al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham Brigade and other units in northwestern Idlib province were attacking the base, which is near the main north-south highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, the Observatory said.


In recent months, rebel units have besieged military bases, especially along the highway, Syria's main artery.


The Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, said the attack was the latest of several attempts to capture the base. A satellite image of the airport shows more than 40 helicopter landing pads, a runway and aircraft hangars.


Syrian state media gave no immediate account of the Damascus air strikes or the fighting in the north.


"FOR GOD'S EYES"


Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities in the 21-month-old conflict, but the United Nations says the government and its allies have been more culpable.


In the latest evidence of atrocities, Internet video posted by Syrian rebels shows armed men, apparently fighters loyal to Assad, stabbing two men to death and stoning them with concrete blocks in a summary execution lasting several minutes.


Reuters could not verify the provenance of the footage or the identity of the perpetrators and their victims. The video was posted on Tuesday but it was not clear where or when it was filmed. However it does clearly show a summary execution and torture, apparently being carried out by government supporters.


At one point, one of the perpetrators says: "For God's eyes and your Lord, O Bashar," an Arabic incantation suggesting actions being carried out in the leader's name.


The video was posted on YouTube by the media office of the Damascus-based rebel First Brigade, which said it had been taken from a captured member of the shabbiha pro-government militia.


The perpetrators show off for the camera, smiling for close-up shots, slicing at the victims' backs, then stabbing them and bashing them with large slabs of masonry.


Syria's civil war is the longest and deadliest conflict to emerge from uprisings that began sweeping the Arab world in 2011 and has developed a significant sectarian element.


Rebels, mostly from the Sunni Muslim majority, confront Assad's army and security forces, dominated by his Shi'ite-derived Alawite sect, which, along with some other minorities, fears revenge if he falls.


(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alistair Lyon/Mark Heinrich)



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How to Sync All Your Calendars Onto One Smartphone






It’s a simple request: I just want my online calendars to sync with my smartphone… is that too much to ask? It took some initial research and finesse, but I’ve discovered the best ways to get your Yahoo and Google calendars to appear on either an Android or Apple IOS mobile device.


Google Calendar on Android Phone
When you first set up your Android phone, you had to create or enter your Google account info, so the phone already has the login info for your Google Calendar. Now you can go to your phone’s Settings, choose Accounts, click the Google account and then make sure “Sync Calendar” is checked. Then go to the Calendar App on your Android phone and it should be there.






For multiple calendars, hit the Settings button and then Calendars to customize which Google calendars you see.


Yahoo Calendar on Android Phone
Although it seems like it should be easy to add the Yahoo Calendar to your Android, I never got mine to sync. Theoretically, you would open the Android calendar on your phone, hit the Settings option, and Add Account. But depending on the flavor of Android I tried, I either couldn’t add a Yahoo account or when I did, it didn’t sync. It could just be me, but I found a lot of people online with the same issue. So I tried one of the most recommended apps to solve the problem – Smoothsync for Yahoo. It costs just under three dollars, and once you install it, you can sync all your Yahoo calendars into the native Android calendar. Ah, sweet relief.fbc19  uyl ep96 large How to Sync All Your Calendars Onto One Smartphone


[Related: New Tricks for New (and Old) Androids]


Yahoo Calendar on iPhone
On your IOS device, hit Settings. If you haven’t added your Yahoo Account yet, do so by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.” Once you’ve input your Yahoo login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure calendars is on. Hit the Home button, open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see all your calendars listed under Yahoo. If you only have one Yahoo calendar, make sure you check to have it show in your IOS Cal. Also, many people have multiple Yahoo calendars: a family calendar, a work calendar, a soccer team calendar for the kids, and a personal calendar. You can customize which of these Yahoo Calendars show up by checking or unchecking them in this screen.


Google Calendar on iPhone
It’s a little more complicated, but you can also put a Google or Gmail calendar on the iPhone. Here’s how:


If you only have your one personal Google calendar to sync, you do things the same way as with Yahoo: Go to Settings on your IOS device, add your Google account (if you haven’t done so yet) by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.”


Once you’ve input your Google login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure Calendars is on. Hit the Home button, then open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see your calendar listed under Google. You can track those Google dates in the IOS calendar and multiple Yahoo calendars at the same time.


But if you want multiple Google calendars, you need an app for that. Google does let you do this through their mobile site, but that’s basically just a website without the power of notifications and all the extras you like from your calendars. So I suggest getting the CalenMob app. It’s free with ads or $ 5 ad-free. It syncs all your Google calendars to the app (not the native IOS calendar) and adds in notification options, SMS functions and email alert options. It also syncs simultaneously to your Yahoo calendars.


[Related: True/False: Never Sell Your Old Phone]


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Scarlett Johannson Never Thinks About Marriage















01/02/2013 at 12:55 PM EST



Scarlett Johansson says she won't be walking down the aisle again anytime soon simply because, she says, she "never" thinks of marriage.

In an interview with ELLE UK magazine in its February issue, Johansson says she married young the first time to now-ex-husband Ryan Reynolds, and right now, she's enjoying a committed relationship … minus the ring.

"It's really not important to me," Johansson, who's currently starring on Broadway in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, told ELLE UK of marriage. "The only time I ever think about it is when people ask me, 'Would I get married again?' "

"I'm not having kids any time soon," she continued. "I'm in a nice relationship, I'm working a lot and, like I said, it's not important to me."

As for married life, the actress explained: "I got married when I was young and it was incredibly romantic and I liked being married, actually. But it is different. It's hard to put into words."

"To me," continued Johansson, "being in a functioning relationship doesn't mean you have to be married."

The actress, who stars in Hitchcock alongside Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Biel and Helen Mirren, is reportedly dating French journalist Romain Dauriac, 30. And apparently she enjoys the company of a man who is not in show business, calling relationships with actors "monotonous."

Johansson, however, says she likes her men on the artsy side.

"For me, most importantly, I look for a partner who is creative," she explains. "I like people that have a colorful way of looking at things, that are inspiring and like art, music and film."

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Wall Street starts 2013 with a rally on "cliff" agreement

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks soared on the first day of trading in 2013, after Washington lawmakers cut a last-minute deal to avoid automatic tax hikes that threatened to pinch economic growth.


The rally was broad-based, with 10 stocks rising for every one falling on the New York Stock Exchange. All 10 S&P 500 industry sector indexes rose at least 1 percent, led by the S&P information technology index <.gspt>, up 2.2 percent.


Among the strongest names in the sector was Hewlett-Packard , which rose 5.3 percent to $15 after a miserable 2012 when the stock fell nearly 45 percent.


Congress passed a bill to raise taxes on wealthy individuals and families, and preserve certain benefits, while averting immediate austerity measures. The combination of mandatory tax hikes and reduced federal spending, which had been set to go into effect on January 1, had been known as the "fiscal cliff."


"We had three choices: We were going to be off the cliff, we we're going to be on the cliff, or we were going to avoid the cliff, and we avoided it," said Brian Battle, director of trading at Performance Trust Capital Partners in Chicago.


"There's a relief rally, some progress because we raised revenue, but I think it's going to be short-lived because the relief rally today was created by politics, and the next cliff is going to be created by politics."


The vote avoided tax hikes for all U.S. households, but failed to resolve other political budget showdowns. Spending cuts of $109 billion in military and domestic programs were only delayed for two months, and another fight over the U.S. debt limit looms at that time as well.


U.S. stocks ended 2012 with the S&P 500 up 13.4 percent for the year, as investors largely shrugged off worries about the fiscal cliff.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> shot up 217.08 points, or 1.66 percent, to 13,321.22. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 23.60 points, or 1.65 percent, to 1,449.79. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 65.56 points, or 2.17 percent, to 3,085.07.


Bank shares rose following news that U.S. regulators are close to securing another multibillion-dollar settlement with the largest banks to resolve allegations that they unlawfully cut corners when foreclosing on delinquent borrowers.


Bank of America Corp rose 3.5 percent to $12 and Wells Fargo shares added 2 percent to $34.87. JPMorgan Chase & Co shares rose 1.4 percent to $44.28.


Shares of Apple rose 2.3 percent to $544.45, boosting technology stocks, following a report that the most valuable tech company has started testing a new iPhone and a new version of its iOS software.


Shares of Zipcar Inc jumped 48.5 percent to $12.24 after Avis Budget Group Inc said it would buy Zipcar for about $500 million in cash to compete with larger rivals Hertz and Enterprise Holdings Inc. Avis rose 4.9 percent to $20.80.


U.S. manufacturing expanded slightly in December after an unexpected November contraction, an Institute for Supply Management report showed on Wednesday.


A Commerce Department report showed U.S. construction spending fell in November for the first time in eight months, as an extended bout of weakness in the business sector outweighed modest growth in outlays on residential projects.


The stock market's reaction to both reports was muted.


(Editing by Jan Paschal)



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About 60 crushed to death in Ivory Coast stampede


ABIDJAN (Reuters) - About 60 people were crushed to death in a stampede outside a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan after a New Year's Eve fireworks display, the government said on Tuesday.


The incident took place near Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium where a crowd had gathered to watch fireworks, emergency officials said.


One of the injured, speaking to Reuters at a hospital, said security forces had arrived to break up the crowd, triggering a panic in which many people fell over and were trampled.


"The provisional death toll is 60 and there are 49 injured," Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko said in a statement broadcast on national television.


President Alassane Ouattara, visiting injured people at the hospital, called the incident a national tragedy and said an investigation was underway to determine what happened.


A Reuters correspondent said blood stains and abandoned shoes littered the scene outside the stadium on Tuesday morning.


"My two children came here yesterday. I told them not to come but they didn't listen. They came when I was sleeping. What will I do?" said Assetou Toure, a cleaner.


She did not know if her children had escaped unhurt.


The incident was the worst of its kind in Abidjan since 2010, when a stampede at a stadium during a football match killed 18 people.


Ivory Coast, once a stable economic hub for West Africa, is struggling to recover from a 2011 civil war in which more than 3,000 people were killed.


(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Alain Amontchi; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Angus MacSwan)



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No surprise: YouTube, Angry Birds, Instagram and Facebook among 2012′s top apps









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Kim Kardashian Steps Out for New Year's Party after Pregnancy Announcement















01/01/2013 at 10:20 AM EST







Kanye West and Kim Kardashian


Denise Truscello/WireImage


The year 2012 was good for Kim Kardashian. But, oh baby, is she ready for 2013! 

"It's been so exciting," she told PEOPLE of the whirlwind of emotions she's felt since finding out she was pregnant. "We're very, very happy." 

With just a hint of a baby bump showing under her form fitting black Julien Macdonald dress, the reality star rang in the new year in Las Vegas with the man she's spent 2012 with: Beau and baby daddy Kanye West.

"I wish I could share a drink with you all, but I can't for a little while," she told the crowd at Mirage's 1 OAK just before leading a countdown to 2013. 

With the crowd cheering and confetti flying as the clock struck midnight, Kardashian stood on an elevated banquet adjacent to the deejay booth and passionately kissed West. And for the next 25 minutes, the deejay played nothing but West's songs – much to the delight of his pregnant girlfriend, who smiled and sang along.

As the night continued, the duo rarely left each other's side, with Kardashian dancing behind West while her party sipped Grey Goose cocktails. Kardashian stuck to water as the Grammy award-winning rapper occasionally rubbed her belly.

Her VIP table littered with party hats, streamers and black and gold balloons, Kardashian appeared happy throughout the night, kissing West and chatting with friends and family in attendance, including mom Kris Jenner, longtime friend Brittny Gastineau and Lance Bass.

Now that the new year has begun, Kardashian is working on being healthy for her unborn child. 

"I've felt good. I've felt no morning sickness but it isn't the easiest," she said. "People always say pregnancy is so easy and fun. It's definitely an adjustment; It's learning about your body, but I've felt really good."

While the announcement of Kardashian's pregnancy came as a surprise to a lot of people, she doesn't want to be surprised when it comes the sex of the baby.

She said, "Of course I do want to know!"

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot


WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.


Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.


Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.


The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.


In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.


Clinton's complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton's care.


The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein said.


Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.


Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.


Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.


This isn't the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.


Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.


Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?


After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.


Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.


Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.


"Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a problem."


It isn't uncommon for presidential candidates' health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.


Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.


Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.


"Wouldn't that be exciting?" House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. "I hope she goes. Why wouldn't she?"


Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.


"Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl," Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. "The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level."


Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking "Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.


Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.


Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.


___


Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.


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Senate approves "fiscal cliff" deal, crisis eased


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington's last-minute scramble to step back from a recession-inducing "fiscal cliff" shifted to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday after the Senate approved a bipartisan deal to avoid steep tax hikes and spending cuts.


In a rare late-night show of unity, the Senate voted 89 to 8 to raise some taxes on the wealthy while keeping income taxes low on more moderate income voters.


The bill's prospects were less certain in the House, where a vote had not yet been scheduled. Many conservative Republicans have rejected tax increases on any Americans, no matter how wealthy. Some liberal Democrats were also upset with a complex deal that they thought gave away too much.


Lingering uncertainty over U.S. tax and spending policy has unnerved investors and depressed business activity for months, and lawmakers had hoped to reach a deal before Tuesday, when a broad range of automatic tax increases and spending cuts would begin to punch a $600 billion hole in the economy.


Financial markets have avoided a steep plunge on the assumption that Washington would ultimately avoid pushing the country off the fiscal cliff into a recession.


With financial markets closed for the New Year's Day holiday, lawmakers have one more day to close the deal.


"My district cannot afford to wait a few days and have the stock market go down 300 points tomorrow if we don't get together and do something," Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, said on the House floor.


The bill passed by the Senate at around 2 a.m. would raise income taxes on families earning more than $450,000 per year. Low temporary rates that have been in place for less affluent taxpayers for the past decade would be made permanent, along with a range of targeted tax breaks put in place by President Barack Obama in the depths of the 2009 recession.


However, workers would see up to $2,000 more taken out of their paychecks as a temporary payroll tax cut was set to expire.


The bill would also delay an across-the-board 8 percent spending cut to domestic and military programs for two months, and extend jobless benefits for 2 million people who otherwise would see them run out.


Obama in a statement on Monday urged the House to vote. "There's more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I'm willing to do it," he said.


Republicans had hoped to include significant spending cuts in the deal to narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits. Conservatives were already looking forward to the next battle over the debt ceiling, in late February, to extract deficit reduction measures from the Democratic president.


Vice President Joe Biden, who was instrumental in pushing through the Senate measure, was scheduled to address a closed-door meeting of House Democrats. Their support likely will be needed to pass the bill.


Republican members were to meet to discuss "a path forward," a senior aide said.


The meeting could help Republicans leaders decide when to begin consideration of the White House-backed measure. A vote could come later in the day, but was not yet scheduled.


The conservative Club for Growth urged a "no" vote on the Senate measure, saying it would be on its "congressional scorecard" used to challenge members of Congress.


Liberal groups also have urged Democrats to reject the deal.


Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO labor union, wrote on Twitter that the deal does not raise taxes enough on the wealthy and "sets the stage for more hostage taking" by Republicans in future budget confrontations.


Republican Representative Tom Cole said his House colleagues should pass the Senate bill rather than try to change it.


"We ought to take this deal right now, and we'll live to fight another day," Cole said on MSNBC. "Putting to bed this thing before the markets (open on Wednesday) is really a pretty important thing to do."


(Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Fred Barbash and Vicki Allen)



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Senate report faults State Department, intelligence on Benghazi


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department's decision to keep the U.S. mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly dangerous threat assessments before it was attacked in September was a "grievous mistake," a Senate report said on Monday.


The Senate Homeland Security Committee's report about the September 11 attacks on the U.S. mission and a nearby annex, which killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, faulted intelligence agencies for not having enough focus on Libyan extremists. It also faulted the State Department for waiting for specific warnings instead of acting on security.


The assessment follows a scathing report by an independent State Department accountability review board that resulted in a top security official and three others at the department stepping down.


The attack, in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens died, has put diplomatic security practices at posts in insecure areas under scrutiny and raised questions about whether intelligence on terrorism in the region was adequate.


The Senate report said the lack of specific intelligence of an imminent threat in Benghazi "may reflect a failure" in the intelligence community's focus on terrorist groups that have weak or no operational ties to al Qaeda and its affiliates.


"With Osama bin Laden dead and core al Qaeda weakened, a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organizations and cells have emerged in the last two to three years," the report said. That trend has been seen in the "Arab Spring" countries undergoing political transition or military conflict, it said.


The report recommended that U.S. intelligence agencies "broaden and deepen their focus in Libya and beyond, on nascent violent Islamist extremist groups in the region that lack strong operational ties to core al Qaeda or its main affiliate groups."


Neither the Senate report nor the unclassified accountability review board report pinned blame for the Benghazi attack on a specific group. The FBI is investigating who was behind the assaults.


President Barack Obama, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, said the United States had some "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks. He did not provide any details.


The Senate committee report said the State Department should not have waited for specific warnings before acting on improving security in Benghazi.


It also said that it was widely known that the post-revolution Libyan government was "incapable of performing its duty to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel," but the State Department failed to take adequate steps to fill the security gap.


"Despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly vulnerable facility, the Department of State officials did not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or temporarily shut down," the report said. "That was a grievous mistake."


(Editing by Warren Strobel and David Brunnstrom)



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