Some U.S. allies may send troops to Syria with trainees: Army chief

(GNN) - Some U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria may be willing to send troops to accompany and support the Syrian opposition force the coalition is planning to train and send back to Syria, Army General Ray Odierno said on Wednesday.

Odierno, the U.S. Army chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee the military was aware the Syrian opposition force would need help and support once it returned home and was studying how best to provide that assistance.

Asked whether forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might immediately try to wipe out the coalition-trained opposition, Odierno said the allies would be cautious about where the troops were inserted and what operations they initially undertook.

"As we look at employing those forces once they're trained, I think we've got to be very careful about how we do that," Odierno said. "I think we would work with ... some of our allies that might be able to put some people in there with them."

"We'd be very careful in where we place them and what their initial missions would be as they continue to develop capability," he added. "I also believe there would be some enabler support that would be necessary in order to help them."

Odierno did not specify what type of enablers might be necessary. The word is often used to refer to troops who do intelligence or surveillance, medical evacuation, communications and other jobs that support combat operations.

The Army chief said that since the purpose of the opposition force was to confront Islamic State militants, the allies would make an effort initially to place it in a location where it was not likely to come under attack from Assad's military.

The U.S. military last month began vetting Syrian opposition members to identify candidates to receive military training at camps being set up in up to four countries across the region.

The allies have identified about 2,000 Syrian opposition candidates for the training so far, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

About 400 have progressed through the first stage of vetting, which involves compiling biographical data. The final stage is a full biometric screening, she said. The full vetting process takes about six weeks.

Coalition partners hope to train 5,000 to 5,500 Syrian opposition members per year, beginning small with about 200 to 300 trainees per group.

(Reuters)(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Ken Wills)

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U.S. rebukes Israel's victorious Netanyahu on Mideast policy

(GNN) - The White House on Wednesday scolded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following his re-election victory for abandoning his commitment to negotiate for a Palestinian state and for what it called "divisive" campaign rhetoric toward Israel’s minority Arab voters.

Even as President Barack Obama's administration congratulated Netanyahu for his party's decisive win, the White House signaled its deep disagreements – and thorny relationship - with Netanyahu will persist on issues ranging from Middle East peacemaking to Iran nuclear diplomacy.

In a hard-right shift in the final days of campaigning, Netanyahu backtracked on his support for eventual creation of a Palestinian state - the cornerstone of more than two decades of peace efforts - and promised to continue building Jewish settlements on occupied land.

Such policies could put him on a new collision course with the Obama administration. Some Obama aides had privately left little doubt during the Israeli election campaign of their preference for Netanyahu's center-left challenger, Isaac Herzog.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest reaffirmed Obama’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict and said that based on Netanyahu’s comments, "the United States will evaluate our approach to this situation moving forward."

Netanyahu’s insistence that there will be no Palestinian state while he holds office, seen as a maneuver to mobilize his right-wing base, angered the Palestinians and drew criticism from the United Nations and European governments. Chances for restarting long-stalled peace moves already had been low.

U.S. lawmakers were divided on Netanyahu's hardened stance.

"It was remarkable to back-track so significantly on a two-state solution," said Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, adding it could make Washington's effort to mediate more difficult.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he hoped the United States and Israel would see the election as "an opportunity to start over." But he said: "A two-state solution is impossible as long as Hamas exists and runs Gaza."

DEEP CONCERN

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Earnest said the administration would communicate its concern directly to the Israeli government over rhetoric used by Netanyahu's campaign.

Netanyahu charged on election day in Israel that left-wingers were trying to get Arab-Israeli voters out "in droves" to sway the election against him. "The United States and this administration is deeply concerned about rhetoric that seeks to marginalize Arab-Israeli citizens," Earnest said.

Arabs comprise about 20 percent of Israel's population of eight million and have long complained about discrimination. They emerged from Tuesday's vote as the third largest party.

Two weeks ago Netanyahu defied Obama with a politically divisive speech to Congress attacking U.S.-led nuclear talks with Iran. Earnest predicted that Netanyahu's re-election would have no "material impact" on the sensitive Iran negotiations.

Secretary of State John Kerry called Netanyahu on Wednesday to congratulate him. Obama will follow suit "in coming days," Earnest said. He said that after previous elections Obama had waited a similar amount of time, holding off until Netanyahu was formally given the go-ahead to form a coalition.

Although Netanyahu must still put together a coalition, his victory all but guarantees Israel's president will give him the first opportunity to form a government.

Administration officials had privately signaled their hopes for an election outcome more in sync with Obama’s agenda, especially with an end-of-March deadline looming for a framework nuclear deal in negotiations between Tehran and world powers.

But they, and lawmakers, said U.S.-Israeli ties were strong enough to transcend their leaders' differences.

"Who cares if they don't like each other?" asked U.S. Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

(Reuters)(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards and Jeff Mason in Washington; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Howard Goller, Toni Reinhold)

In China, Michelle Obama to stay firmly in 'mom in chief' mode

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama eats with school kids after they harvested vegetables from the summer crop from inside the White House Kitchen Garden on the South Lawn in Washington, May 28, 2013.

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama is expected to steer clear of controversial issues such as human rights when she visits China this week but her trip could help advance a top item on her husband's foreign policy agenda: deepening Washington's ties with Beijing.

The week-long trip marks only the third foreign solo trip for Obama, who has cultivated a self-described "mom in chief" image, putting her energy into raising her daughters Malia, 15, and Sasha, 12, and signature domestic policy issues such as combating childhood obesity.

She has joked that her motto during her husband's White House tenure has been to "do no harm."

In keeping with that cautious approach, the White House said Obama's message on the trip will focus on cultural ties between the two countries and "the power and importance of education" for young people in both countries.

But her trip, which will be front-page news in China and closely parsed by media, will carry important symbolic value.

"There's no better surrogate for a president overseas than their spouse," said Anita McBride, who was chief of staff to former first lady Laura Bush.

McBride said Obama's visit with Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan can send a powerful diplomatic message, even if what they discuss has little to do with pressing bilateral issues.

"Those are images that convey a relationship," she said.

Obama will also visit with students and schools, and take her daughters to see the famous Terracotta Warriors.

Since taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama has put a high priority on bolstering the U.S. relationship with China. That goal could take on even greater significance given the deep rift has opened up between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

Former first ladies Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton used their time in the international spotlight to forcefully elevate tough questions about human rights abroad.

In 1995, Hillary Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, criticized China's human rights record in a speech at a United Nations conference in Beijing.

But it is unlikely that Michelle Obama, a Harvard-educated lawyer, will follow in their path.

"She has chosen a more traditional, non-confrontational role as a first lady," said Laura van Assendelft, a political scientist at Mary Baldwin College. "Other first ladies have pushed those boundaries. Michelle Obama is not pushing any boundaries."

As first lady, Obama traveled to Mexico in 2010 and to Africa the following year. A private trip to Spain in 2010 with daughter Sasha backfired when she was criticized for spending taxpayer funds on security for what amounted to a holiday.

Now that her husband is in his second term, and does not have to worry about being reelected again, Michelle Obama may take more foreign trips to advance policy goals, McBride said.

"You begin thinking about what you want to leave behind," said McBride, now at American University in Washington.

Laura Bush traveled to 67 countries to talk about human rights and global health issues during the four years that McBride worked with her, including a notable visit to a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border to shine a spotlight on conditions there.

THREE GENERATIONS

Obama will deliver another strong, if unspoken, message by taking her daughters and her mother, Marian Robinson, with her to China, said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.

Robinson lives with the Obama family in the White House.

"The Chinese are very big on three generations under one roof. That is one of the cornerstones of their culture," Daly said. "That will play very well in the Chinese media."

Pictures of the three generations of four strong women will make a statement about women's equality and opportunity, and shatter a stereotype long held by Chinese about how Americans mistreat their elders, he added.

Obama's visit comes before her husband visits Asian allies Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines in late April, a trip where the maritime dispute with China is expected to loom large.

China and Japan each claim sovereignty over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and China is also fighting over territory in the South China Sea with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

Ahead of the president's trip, the White House will want "sweetness and light" from Michelle Obama's China visit, said Dan Blumenthal, an adviser on China issues in the former George W. Bush administration.

"She can just be who she is, and it's a win. She doesn't have to carry a tough message," said Blumenthal, now director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute think tank.(GNN INT)(Reuters)

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Caren Bohan and Marguerita Choy)

Official who oversaw building of Obamacare website retires

A busy screen is shown on the laptop of a Certified Application Counselor as he attempted to enroll an interested person for Affordable Care Act insurance, known as Obamacare, at the Borinquen Medical Center in Miami, Florida October 2, 2013.

U.S. health official Michelle Snyder, who oversaw the building of the troubled Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, is retiring from her job as chief operating officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

CMS chief Marilyn Tavenner announced Snyder's departure to senior staff last week in a statement viewed by Reuters on Monday. The statement said Snyder had originally planned to retire at the end of 2012, but stayed on at Tavenner's request to, "help me with the challenges facing CMS in 2013."

CMS is the agency responsible for implementing much of the new healthcare law, including the construction of the federal website, HealthCare.gov, that allows consumers in 36 states to buy insurance through an online marketplace. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia run their own online exchanges.

HealthCare.gov crashed soon after its launch on October 1, as millions of visitors entered the site, and remained balky for much of the ensuing weeks. The disastrous rollout disappointed those who hoped to use the site to enroll in subsidized health insurance, and damaged the credibility of the president and his signature domestic policy achievement.

Snyder, a career bureaucrat, was identified by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a hearing in October as the CMS official who decided to have the federal government fulfill the key role of system integrator for HealthCare.gov.

But Sebelius also told lawmakers: "Michelle Snyder is not responsible for the debacle. Hold me accountable for the debacle. I'm responsible."

Sebelius is still in her job.

Snyder has not taken a public role in defending the administration's work on HealthCare.gov or its efforts to fix the website.

Since the botched rollout turned into a major political debacle, CMS underwent a management shuffle, but it did not include high-profile departures. However, in early November, CMS quietly announced that its head of technology, Tony Trenkle, was leaving for the private sector.

Tavenner praised Snyder's "intelligence, experience and formidable work ethic" in her email announcing Snyder's departure, which did not explicitly mention the HealthCare.gov website.

In a December 1 report, Jeffrey Zients, the crisis manager brought in to salvage the website and make it operate smoothly for most visitors, blamed the crisis on poor management, slow decision-making and a lack of accountability among those responsible for HealthCare.gov.

While the consumer-facing part of the website has improved, Snyder's departure comes as officials race to finish critical "back end" features. Missing pieces include software that will enable the federal government to verify enrollment data with issuers and to pay plans billions of dollars in federal subsidies on behalf of lower income enrollees.

The Obama administration announced on December 17 that former Microsoft Corp executive Kurt DelBene will oversee the revamped HealthCare.gov website and expand on technology improvements achieved by Zients.(GNN)(Reuters)(GNN INT)

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Karey Van Hall, Chizu Nomiyama and Andre Grenon)

ANP, PPP Senators call for probe into NW military operation

ISLAMABAD: The Awami National Party and the Pakistan People’s Party has called for investigation into an alleged military operation in the North Waziristan tribal region.

Speaking in the Senate, ANP leader Afrasiab Khattak said that innocent people including women and children were being killed in Miran Shah and Mir Ali, adding that as to why those ‘fond of dharna’ were silent over the killings.

He called on President Mamnoon Hussain to use his constitutional powers to improve situation in the tribal areas. PPP stalwart Raza Rabbani also demanded of the president to play his constitutional role in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

China behavior in South China Sea ship encounter 'irresponsible': U.S.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel speaks to reporters at the Al Udeid Airbase, west of Doha December 10, 2013.

(GNN) - China/Washington: China's behavior in a narrowly averted naval collision in the South China Sea was both "unhelpful" and "irresponsible," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday, warning against incidents could escalate existing U.S.-Chinese tensions.

"That action by the Chinese, cutting their ship 100 yards out in front of the (USS) Cowpens, was not a responsible action. It was unhelpful; it was irresponsible," Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

China on Wednesday acknowledged an encounter in early December between a Chinese naval vessel and the U.S. warship in the South China Sea.

China said its ship was conducting "normal patrols" when it encountered the U.S. missile cruiser, and its official news agency accused the United States of deliberate provocative behavior. But U.S. officials depicted the event differently.

They said the U.S. ship was forced to take evasive action to avoid collision.

The incident comes after Beijing's declaration of an air defense identification zone further north in the East China Sea ratcheted up bilateral tensions and drew criticism from Washington, Tokyo and Seoul.

Experts have called the incident the most serious U.S.-Chinese maritime encounter in the disputed South China Sea since 2009.

Hagel said that such "incendiary" incidents had the potential to cause a "miscalculation."

"We need to work toward putting in place some kind of a mechanism in Asia-Pacific and with China ... to be able to defuse some of these issues as the occur," he said.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters there had been no changes to rules of engagement given to forces in that region in order to prevent run-ins with China.

"What we do constantly though is we remain alert for changes in the environment," Dempsey said. "There are times that are more sensitive than others and we're in a heightened period of sensitivity. And you can count on our mariners and airmen to be aware of that."(S-W)(Reuters)(GNN)

(Reporting By Phil Stewart, David Alexander and Missy Ryan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. orders some diplomats out of South Sudan because of unrest

The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it ordered its non-essential officials to leave South Sudan because of violence, warned U.S. citizens not to visit and urged those already there to leave immediately.

In a travel warning, the State Department also said that its embassy in the capital, Juba, was suspending "normal operations until further notice and cannot provide routine consular services to U.S. citizens in South Sudan."

Gunfire and explosions were heard throughout Juba on Tuesday, a day after South Sudan President Salva Kiir said security forces had put down a coup attempt by a faction within the army. Twenty-six people have been killed in fighting.

Kiir blamed the trouble on Riek Machar, a former vice president and long-time rival from an opposing ethnic group. Machar was being sought on Tuesday after 10 senior political figures were arrested as part of the attempted coup.

The State Department said it was suspending normal operations until further notice and would not be able to provide routine consular services to Americans in South Sudan.

"U.S. citizens who choose to stay in South Sudan despite this warning should review their personal security situation and seriously reconsider their plans to remain," the department said in its travel advisory.(S-W)(Reuters)(GNN)

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Writing by Bill Trott and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrew Hay)

Requisition for Sindh Assembly session submitted by opposition parties

KARACHI: Voicing their criticism of the recent ordinances amending the Sindh Local Government Act 2013, opposition parties submitted a requisition for the session of the provincial assembly. The requisition was submitted by the MQM, PML-F and PML-N.

Speaking to media after the requisition was submitted, PML-F leader Jam Madad Ali said ordinances amending the Sindh Local Government Act 2013 were not acceptable. PML-N leader Irfanullah Marwat called on the provincial government to summon a session immediately.

MQM leader Syed Sardar Ahmed said the PPP should terminate the ordinances while Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hasan from the MQM added that the PPP had enacted the ordinances to secure their victory.

MQM NA Walkout

Earlier on Tuesday, the MQM staged a walkout from the National Assembly over delimitation in Karachi. MQM leader Rasheed Godil said there was new delimitation being conducted in Karachi on a daily basis. He accused the PPP of conspiring with the commissioner over delimitation.

Analysis: U.S. budget deal could bring truce, minimize shutdown threats

A minimalist U.S. budget deal that congressional negotiators hope to reach in coming days will do almost nothing to tame rising federal debt, but it could usher in a nearly two-year fiscal truce, minimizing the risk of future funding crises and government shutdowns.

If the accord comes together, it would blunt some of the automatic "sequester" spending cuts and set funding levels at around $1 trillion for fiscal 2014 and 2015 for government agencies and programs from the military to national parks.

Such a deal would not address an increase in the federal borrowing limit, which is expected to come up again by the spring, leaving conservatives a pressure point to try to exploit.

However, it might restore some order to the federal budget process, which broke down years ago and has been replaced by stopgap funding measures, accompanied by brinkmanship and shut-down risks.

"If this holds together, it is a very good story," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Potomac Research Group, which advises institutional investors.

"The chances of another Washington budget crisis have diminished greatly, and I think it increases the chances that the economy surprises to the upside," he said.

Two U.S. senators on Sunday expressed optimism that a two-year budget deal could be reached soon. Republican Senator Rob Portman, who sits on the House and Senate negotiating panel, told the ABC program "This Week" that he was hopeful an agreement could be struck "by the end of this week."

Richard Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said the talks were "moving in the right direction."

Some argue that the deal, which would trade some of the sequester cuts - perhaps $30 billion to $40 billion a year - for a mix of fee-based revenues and other savings, would mark the death of ambitious efforts to reduce deficits.

"I don't really see a natural way for there to be a grand bargain during the rest of the Obama presidency," which ends in January 2017, said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that urges fiscal responsibility.

NEGOTIATIONS STILL UNDER WAY

The negotiations under way stem from the deal that ended the government shutdown in October, which set up a House-Senate conference committee led by Republican Representative Paul Ryan and Democratic Senator Patty Murray.

They are still struggling to pin down the final details of their modest compromise before the House ends its session for the year on December 13.

Among the proposals under discussion are a doubling of airport security fees levied on airlines to about $5 per ticket, and a plan to require federal workers to contribute a higher percentage of their income towards their pension plans, according to people familiar with the talks. Other items include funds raised by auctioning some government-held telecommunications airwaves or hiking corporate fees for the U.S. agency that protects workers' retirement funds.

Democrats have objected to the hike in federal employee's pension contributions, which they view as a benefit cut.

Republicans backed by the conservative Tea Party movement also are objecting to the idea that a Ryan-Murray deal could push spending levels above the $967 billion cap set by the sequester, sacrificing what they view as essential savings.

If no House Democrats vote for a Ryan-Murray deal, the Tea Party group is large enough to prevent its passage.

After the public relations disaster suffered by Republicans as a result of the October shutdown, few conservatives are showing any interest in a repeat performance.

"I don't think there's any use of government shutdown threats if we can get something out of the conference committee," Representative Blake Farenthold of Texas, a Tea Party supporter, told reporters on December 3. "I think we'll get bipartisan support on something a conference committee comes up with."

Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress also have warned that they want a one-year extension of federal unemployment benefits that are set to expire the end of this month. A Senate Democratic aide said on Saturday it was still unclear whether such an extension would be included in the deal.

While the savings would be small, the deal would bring some much-needed order to a chaotic budget process in Congress that has broken down over the past few years, leaving Congress lurching from one stopgap funding resolution to another.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, a Republican critic of the deep sequester cuts, said he is now willing to live with only modest relief, and is determined that Congress pass annual spending bills for the first time since 2009.

"We need to get the train back on the tracks," said Rogers, who is from Kentucky. "If we get a 2015 number, we can do that."(GNN)(Reuters)

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan and Aruna Viswanatha. Editing by Fred Barbash and Christopher Wilson)

Cash-strapped Iranian students in U.S. hope nuclear deal will ease tuition woes

When Mohammad Hamedi Rad arrived in the United States last year, he carried his Iranian passport, a hard-won student visa and a backpack containing $14,000 in hundred dollar bills, because there was no simpler way of getting money into the country.

"It was scary," Hamedi Rad, a chemical engineering graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said of his late-night arrival in Chicago, where he declared the funds to airport customs officials. "I've never carried that much money before. I was extremely nervous."

Hamedi Rad's experience is by no means unheard of among many of the thousands of high-achieving, mostly middle-class young Iranians who are coming to the United States to study in increasing numbers despite U.S. and international sanctions on their homeland.

After gaining admission, they must navigate a way around sanctions on Iranian banks that make direct legal wire transfers to the West a practical impossibility, impeding the students' ability to pay tuition or transfer money for living expenses. Obtaining a U.S. visa adds to the logistical hurdles and a depreciated Iranian rial means money can be tight.

The hardships facing Iranian students in the United States and elsewhere were spotlighted after a clause aimed at aiding them appeared in a landmark deal struck last month between Iran and world powers on curbing its nuclear program.

"Many students are suffering," said Tony Akhlaghi, who has served as faculty adviser to a Persian cultural club at Bellevue College, outside of Seattle. "They cannot get money from home, and the price of the dollar makes things very hard."

Under the November 24 interim agreement, Iran agreed to halt its most sensitive nuclear activity in return for a 6-month respite from some of the sanctions that have crippled its economy.

As part of the bargain, the United States and its partners agreed to open up a channel between Iranian and foreign banks to enable "direct tuition payments to universities and colleges for Iranian students studying abroad."

At the time of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, more than 51,000 Iranians were studying in the United States, far more students than from any other nation, according to figures provided by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

With relations between the countries in a deep freeze, that figure fell precipitously to a low of fewer than 1,700 by 1999. Since then, Iranian students have been steadily returning to the United States, the IIE reports.

This year, 8,744 Iranians are in the United States on student visas, more than at any time since the late 1980s. Most are graduate students, many focusing on math and science, who are more likely than undergraduates to receive stipends covering a portion of their tuition and living expenses.

FINANCIAL DURESS
But the return of Iranian students has not come without hiccups. Students must travel out of Iran to acquire a visa because Washington has no embassy in Tehran. In Hamedi Rad's case, it entailed traveling twice to Dubai, waiting 111 days and arriving at school a month late.

Additionally, the Iranian rial lost about two-thirds of its value against the U.S. dollar over the 18 months to late 2012, effectively wiping out years of Iranian family savings. It has since recovered some ground and stabilized.

Last month's nuclear deal offers the potential for tangible help for Iranian students, authorizing $400 million in state assets frozen abroad to be used for tuition payments to foreign colleges and universities over the six-month period, according to a White House fact sheet.

Precisely how, when and perhaps even whether that money will be spent will be the subject of discussions this week in Vienna, when Iran and major powers begin talking about how to implement the accord, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Iranian students are hopeful the deal will help ease their woes, although it was not immediately clear that it would help students already in the United States to transfer private funds to pay for their educations.

The Iranian Interests Section in the Pakistani embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to questions by Reuters.

Saghi Modjtabai, executive director of the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, said that in the middle of last year her group began hearing from financially strapped students who were late on tuition payments and struggling to pay for essentials like food and rent.

After surveying nearly 1,000 Iranian students in the United States, her group found over 90 percent were in financial difficulty. Her group and the IIE last spring raised over $100,000 and negotiated tuition and meal plan deals with schools across the country for 67 students on the cusp of attaining their degrees.

Among those given support was Ali Samadian, a petroleum engineering graduate student at Texas Tech University, who said in a thank-you letter that without the help he would have been forced to leave the country short of completing his master's degree.

"I was financially in trouble and I was so worried that it was also affecting my performance at school," he wrote. "But now that I have your generous support I feel relieved and I can focus on my education as effectively as possible."

Still, many more students were left without needed assistance, Modjtabai said. Some dropped out and returned home, while others may have found work beyond what the terms of their student visas allow.

"I continue to get email from students who are back in the same place in terms of their financial hardship," she said.(GNN)(Reuters)

(Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Laila Kearney in San Francisco and Dana Feldman in Los Angeles)

PTI sit-in blocking Nato supplies enters 13th day

PESHAWAR: The sit-in of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) and its allied parties to block NATO supplies in protest against US drone strikes continues for the thirteenth consecutive day on Friday.

In Peshawar‚ PTI and Jamaat-e-Islami workers have set-up protest camps at Ring Road near Hayatabad Toll Plaza and Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway Toll Plaza. They are checking the documents of the containers to block transportation of any container if it is found carrying NATO supplies.

PTI activist have stopped two trailers proceeding to Afghanistan and with this the total number of trailers blocked and forced to return back reached to 17 thus far.(GNN)(Geo)

Nelson Mandela was indeed a great leader: Altaf

LONDON: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Quaid, Altaf Hussain Friday, expressing his grief and sorrow over the demise of the founder of African National Congress, former president of South Africa and a great leader, Nelson Mandela, said that he was indeed a great leader.

In a statement issued here, Altaf Hussain paying rich tributes to the great leader said that Nelson Mandela was indeed a great leader, who struggled for long against racialism in Africa and for ensuring the basic human rights to the people of South Africa.

Altaf Hussain further said with the death of Nelson Mandela not only South Africa, but the entire world has also lost a great leader in him and added not only he was personally grieved, but the entire world is mourning his death.

Nelson Mandela’ life is the role model for all those struggling against all sorts of discriminations and for achieving the rights to live a respectable life, he said.(GNN)(Geo)

Analysis: Surprise or not, U.S. strikes can still hurt Assad

WASHINGTON: It would hardly be a surprise to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or his military if American missiles start hitting Syria soon. With weeks to prepare for an attack, Assad might benefit in some ways from the delay in any strike caused by President Barack Obama's decision to seek approval from a divided U.S. Congress.

U.S. officials and defense experts say Assad's forces cannot take enough targets out of reach to blunt the U.S. military mission, especially since it is billed as having very limited objectives.

Obama is calling for a limited military strike in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians blamed by the United States on Assad's forces.

Fixed targets, for example, cannot be protected no matter how much time elapses. "A building can't be moved, nor hid," one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Other fixed targets could include airfields, although not any storage facilities with chemical weapons in them.

Defense analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank said if successful, hitting fixed targets would eliminate key assets to Assad that "can't easily be replaced, like command and control facilities, major headquarters."

"These are lasting targets," Cordesman said.

It is still unclear when any U.S. attack on Syria will happen but Assad already has had ample time to try to get ready. U.S. officials have been openly discussing the possibility of hitting Syria since shortly after the August 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus.

Even if Congress approves military action, a final vote would be unlikely before the middle of next week.

A second U.S. official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the delay added "complexities" to the planning efforts.

"It may change target sets," the official said. "We'll continue to refine our targeting options to conditions on the ground."

Assad has already moved some military equipment and personnel to civilian areas and put soldiers whose loyalty to Assad is in doubt in military sites as human shields against any Western strikes, the Istanbul-based Syrian opposition has said.

It cited movement of rockets, Scud missiles and launches, as well as soldiers to locations including schools, university dormitories and government buildings inside cities.

That could complicate the ability of the United States to reach some targets.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged publicly to Congress that Obama has ordered the military to develop plans that keep a lid on collateral damage - civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure.

"Though they are in fact moving resources around - and in some cases placing prisoners and others in places that they believe we might target - at this point our intelligence is keeping up with that movement," Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, told lawmakers on Wednesday.

WAIT FOR MONTH?

The question of whether losing the element of surprise makes a difference militarily became a bone of contention in the debate over congressional backing for Obama's attack plan.

Senator John McCain, one of the Republicans who has pushed hardest for military action in Syria, said this week he was "astounded" when Obama said the military had advised him that an attack would still be effective in a month's time.

"When you tell the enemy you are going to attack, they are obviously going to disperse and make it harder," McCain said in Congress on Tuesday.

"It's ridiculous to think that it's not wise from a pure military standpoint not to warn the enemy that you're gonna attack," McCain said.

The Obama administration says the planned attack is designed to strike a particular balance - being strong enough to deter Assad from using chemical weapons in the future while also degrading his ability to do so.

But the Obama administration has said any attack would not be designed to topple Assad or necessarily shift the momentum in Syria's civil war to the detriment of government forces.

U.S. objectives include targets directly linked to the Syrian military's ability to use chemical weapons, as well as missiles and rockets that can deliver them, Dempsey said.

Air defenses that could be used to protect chemical weapons sites are also potential targets, Dempsey said.

"That target package is still being refined as I sit here with you," Dempsey told lawmakers.

Despite the stated objective of deterring Assad, the U.S. military cannot guarantee its strikes will prevent Assad from using chemical weapons in the future.

Even the objective to degrade - a military term that means "diminish" - his capabilities is vague. There has been no clear, public objective offered by the United States on how much it must damage Assad's capabilities.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Alistair Bell and Will Dunham) (Reuters)  (GNN)

Kerry portrait of Syria rebels at odds with intelligence reports

WASHINGTON : Secretary of State John Kerry's public assertions that moderate Syrian opposition groups are growing in influence appear to be at odds with estimates by U.S. and European intelligence sources and nongovernmental experts, who say Islamic extremists remain by far the fiercest and best-organized rebel elements.

 At congressional hearings this week, while making the case for President Barack Obama's plan for limited military action in Syria, Kerry asserted that the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "has increasingly become more defined by its moderation, more defined by the breadth of its membership, and more defined by its adherence to some, you know, democratic process and to an all-inclusive, minority-protecting constitution.

"And the opposition is getting stronger by the day," Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.

U.S. and allied intelligence sources and private experts on the Syrian conflict suggest that assessment is optimistic.

While the radical Islamists among the rebels may not be numerically superior to more moderate fighters, they say, Islamist groups like the al Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front are better organized, armed and trained.

Kerry's remarks represented a change in tone by the Obama administration, which for more than two years has been wary of sending U.S. arms to the rebels, citing fears they could fall into radical Islamists' hands.

As recently as late July, at a security conference in Aspen, Colorado, the deputy director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, David Shedd, estimated that there were at least 1,200 different Syrian rebel groups and that Islamic extremists, notably the Nusra Front, were well-placed to expand their influence.

"Left unchecked, I'm very concerned that the most radical elements will take over larger segments" of the opposition groups, Shedd said. He added that the conflict could drag on anywhere "from many, many months to multiple years" and that a prolonged stalemate could leave open parts of Syria to potential control by radical fighters.

U.S. and allied intelligence sources said that such assessments have not changed.

A spokeswoman at the State Department said Kerry's remarks reflect the department's position, adding that the opposition had "taken steps over the past months to coalesce, including electing leaders."

GREATER NUMBERS, LESS STRENGTH?

Experts agree that the Nusra Front, an offshoot of the group al Qaeda in Iraq, is among the most effective forces in Syria.

In a second hearing on Wednesday, Kerry was challenged by Representative Michael McCaul, Texas Republican.

"Who are the rebel forces? Who are they? I ask that in my briefings all the time," McCaul said. "And every time I get briefed on this it gets worse and worse, because the majority now of these rebel forces - and I say majority now - are radical Islamists pouring in from all over the world."

Kerry replied: "I just don't agree that a majority are al Qaeda and the bad guys. That's not true. There are about 70,000 to 100,000 oppositionists ... Maybe 15 percent to 25 percent might be in one group or another who are what we would deem to be bad guys.

"There is a real moderate opposition that exists. General Idriss is running the military arm of that," Kerry continued, referring to General Salim Idriss, head of the rebel Free Syrian Army. Increasingly, he said, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are funneling assistance through Idriss.

Kerry cited an article by Elizabeth O'Bagy, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War think tank, in which she wrote that Islamic extremist factions are not "spearheading the fight against the Syrian government," but rather that the struggle is being led by "moderate opposition forces."

Several leading lawmakers, including Senator John McCain, Arizona Republican, also have said there is a viable moderate opposition in Syria that Washington should support.

U.S. intelligence sources do not dispute that Islamic extremists are in the minority on the battlefield.

"Most of the groups battling against Assad are composed of Islamist fighters, but only a small minority could accurately be characterized as extremist," one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But a second official, who also asked not to be named, said moderate rebels may have lost strength rather than gained it in recent months. Due to their relative lack of weapons and organization, they are beginning to make alliances with better-armed Islamic radicals, whom they see pursuing more effective actions against Assad's forces, the official said.

Paul Pillar, who retired in 2005 as the U.S. intelligence community's top Middle East analyst, said he believed the Obama Administration was walking a fine line, trying to calculate how to punish Assad's government for allegedly using chemical weapons while not bolstering the strength of religious militant rebels.

"In a hard-fought civil war, especially one without a single well-organized opposition movement, success goes to the most ruthless and dedicated elements, which also tend to be the most extreme in their views. We are seeing such a process in Syria today," Pillar said.

An authorization to use military force approved on Wednesday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee states that U.S. policy in Syria includes "upgrading the lethal and non-lethal military capabilities of vetted elements of Syrian opposition forces."

'CHOOSING ONE AMONG MANY SIDES'

Top U.S. intelligence and military officials have recently offered bleak public evaluations of the relative strengths of moderate and religious extremist Syrian rebels.

In an August 19 letter to Representative Eliot Engel, obtained by Reuters, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, warned: "Syria is not about choosing between two sides but rather about choosing one among many sides.

"It is my belief that the side we choose must be ready to promote their interests and ours when the balance shifts in their favor," Dempsey wrote. "Today they are not."

A European security official with experience in the region said that extremist rebel factions were so strong and well-organized in the north and west of Syria that they were setting up their own public services and trying to create an Islamic ministate along the Iraqi border.

By contrast, the official said, more moderate rebel factions predominate in the east of Syria and along its southern border with Jordan but have largely devolved into "gangs" whose leaders are more interested in operating local rackets and enriching themselves than in forming a larger alliance that could more effectively oppose Assad's government.

"I've heard that there are moderate groups out there we could, in theory, support," said Joshua Foust, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who now writes about foreign policy.

"But I've heard from those same people and my own contacts within (U.S. intelligence) that the scary people are displacing more and more moderate groups. Basically, the jihadists are setting up governance and community councils while the moderates exhaust themselves doing the heavy fighting," Foust said.

As anecdotal evidence, Foust cited a recent report that on August 22, four out of five commanders of the moderate Supreme Military Council had threatened to resign and work "with all forces fighting in Syria."

A video on YouTube shows the rebel commander who made this announcement. He is seated in front of an Islamic extremist flag, next to a bearded cleric clad in the religious dress of a Salafist militant.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Prudence Crowther) (Reuters) (GNN)

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