U.S. to give Syrian rebels medical, food aid, not arms

ROME (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it will for the first time give non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels and more than double its aid to Syria's civilian opposition, disappointing opponents of President Bashar al-Assad clamoring for Western weapons.

The United States cast the aid as a way to bolster the rebels' popular support. It will include medical supplies, food for rebel fighters and $60 million to help the civil opposition provide basic services like security, education and sanitation.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the new steps after a meeting of 11 mostly European and Arab nations within the "Friends of Syria" group.

The aid did not appear to entirely satisfy the Syrian National Council opposition, a fractious Cairo-based group that has struggled to gain traction inside Syria, especially among disparate rebel forces.

"Many sides ... focus (more) on the length of the rebel fighter's beard than they do on the blood of the children being killed," Syrian National Coalition President Moaz Alkhatib said at an appearance with Kerry and Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi.

TALKS ON PRIME MINISTER POSTPONED

In what analysts described as a sign of disappointment, Syria's political opposition has postponed talks to choose the leader of a provisional government, two opposition sources told Reuters in Beirut.

Opposition leaders hoped a Saturday meeting in Istanbul would elect a prime minister to operate in rebel-controlled areas of Syria, threatened by a slide into chaos as the conflict between Assad's forces and insurgents nears its second anniversary.

While one source said the meeting might happen later in the week, a second source said it had been put off because the three most likely candidates for prime minister had reservations about taking the role without more concrete international support.

"The opposition has been increasingly signaling that it is tired of waiting and no one serious will agree to be head of a government without real political and logistical support," said Syrian political commentator Hassan Bali, who lives in Germany.

Bali said the United States and other members of the core "Friends of Syria" nations appeared intent "on raising the ante against Assad but are not sure how."

A final communiqué said participants would "coordinate their efforts closely so as to best empower the Syrian people and support the Supreme Military Command of the (rebel) Free Syrian Army in its efforts to help them exercise self-defense".

More than 70,000 Syrians have been killed in a fierce conflict that began with peaceful anti-Assad protests nearly two years ago. Some 860,000 have fled abroad and several million are displaced within the country or need humanitarian assistance.

The United States has given $385 million in humanitarian aid but U.S. President Barack Obama has so far refused to give arms, arguing it is difficult to prevent them from falling into the hands of militants who could use them on Western targets.

On Thursday, however, Kerry said the United States would for the first time provide assistance - in the form of medical supplies and the standard U.S. military ration known as Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs - to the fighters.

A U.S. official told reporters it would give the aid only to carefully vetted fighters, adding the United States was worried that "extremists" opposed to democracy, human rights and tolerance were gaining ground in the country.

"Those members of the opposition who support our shared values ... need to set an example of a Syria where daily life is governed neither by the brutality of the Assad regime nor by the agenda of al Qaeda affiliated extremists," the official said.

If sending non-lethal assistance goes smoothly, it could conceivably offer a model for providing weaponry should Obama ultimately decide to do so.

The continued U.S. refusal to send weapons may compound the frustration that prompted the coalition to say last week it would shun the Rome talks. It attended only under U.S. pressure.

Many in the coalition say Western reluctance to arm rebels only plays into the hands of Islamist militants now widely seen as the most effective forces in the struggle to topple Assad.

With fighting raging on largely sectarian lines, French President Francois Hollande said at a Moscow summit that new partners were needed to broker talks on ending the crisis, winning guarded support from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We think that this dialogue must find a new form so that it speaks to all parties," said Hollande, giving few details of his proposal.

Putin said Russia - one of Assad's staunchest allies - would look at Hollande's proposal, "which I think we could consider with all our partners and try to carry out."

REBELS WANT ANTI-TANK, ANTI-AIRCRAFT ARMS

Russia has said Assad's departure must not be a precondition for talks and a political solution, while the West has sided with Syria's opposition in demanding his removal from power.

Kerry's offer of medical aid and food rations fell far short of rebel demands for sophisticated anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to help turn the tables against Assad's mostly Russian-supplied forces.

It also stopped short of providing other forms of non-lethal assistance such as bullet-proof vests, armored personnel vehicles and military training to the insurgents.

Last week the European Union opened the way for direct aid to Syrian rebels, but did not lift an arms embargo on Syria.

Kerry said the U.S. role should not be judged in isolation but in the context of what other nations will do.

"What we are doing ... is part of a whole," he said. "I am absolutely confident ... that the totality of this effort is going to have an impact of the ability of the Syrian opposition to accomplish its goals."

(This story is corrected by deleting erroneous reference to talks next Monday on military support)

(Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Roger Atwood)

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Mars Missions: A Time Line of Success and Failure

Humans have been thinking about visiting Mars—or being visited by Martians—for more than a century. On Wednesday, a group funded by businessman Dennis Tito announced its intention to launch a manned flyby mission to Mars in 2018.

Our awareness of Mars dates back millennia, while our modern picture of the red planet emerged in the 1870s, when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to see networks of channels (canali) through his telescope. The Italian word, mistranslated into English as "canals," helped inspire American astronomer Percival Lowell to observe Mars for decades and create detailed maps of a Martian canal system.

Lowell's work popularized the idea of Mars as a dry and dying world with canals constructed by an advanced civilization carrying life-giving water from the polar ice caps. (Related: The Psychology of Deep Space Travel.)

This romantic vision helped spur novels like War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. But in the 20th century, Wells's fantastic sci-fi world of heat-ray-wielding Martian invaders gave way to scientific research on how humans might actually visit the red planet.

German rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun was the first to develop a practical plan for a Martian journey. In the early 1950s, while working for the U.S. government, he proposed a massive expedition involving ten 4000-ton spaceships and 70 crew members.

The envisioned Mars trip reflected von Braun's grand dream of winged shuttle rocket fleets, a giant orbiting space station, and a moon base. Beginning in 1952, Collier's magazine published eight articles on this futuristic goal, hiring artists to bring von Braun's plans to life. ("Meet One of Mars Rover Curiosity's Earthbound Twins.")

Working with von Braun, Walt Disney produced a series of television specials dramatizing human trips to orbit, the moon, and finally Mars. Cereal manufacturers introduced toy models of this proposed Martian space fleet.

More than half a century on, the dream that compelled so many Americans still seems, to many, to be just that: a dream.

So why hasn't Martian travel happened yet?

Technology and cost have been the two big sticking points.

Von Braun's plan, for its part, overlooked many barriers—prolonged effects of weightlessness, radiation from solar flares—and was grounded in a poor understanding of Mars, whose thin atmosphere makes it a far more hostile place than he knew.

The costs involved to solve such problems are immense, helping prevent Mars travel so far. But Von Braun's proposals have given rise to more than a thousand schemes from governments, companies, and private groups to reach the red planet. The NASA publication Humans to Mars, written by David S.F. Portree, chronicles these efforts. Here are highlights:

1962: Project EMPIRE. A series of studies by NASA and outside aerospace contractors, Project EMPIRE proposed a Mars flyby using the same 500-day orbit as the planned 2018 Inspiration Mars trip. The flyby was designed to allow astronauts to gain more information about the planet and return to Earth. Later plans envisioned an enormous rocket called Nova—larger than the Saturn V moon rocket—to boost five 450-foot-long (137-meter-long) ships to orbit, carrying a total of 15 crew members to Mars for an extended stay. This and other early plans assumed large manned ships would slow down by skimming off the surface of a thick Martian atmosphere, saving huge amounts of fuel.

1964: Mariner 4. This unmanned probe, the first to reach Mars, revealed a planet with a far thinner atmosphere and higher radiation levels than expected. Lowell's canals and an ancient Martian civilization were missing. Mariner revealed that human travel to Mars would be hazardous and that automated probes might perform many observations more cheaply.

1966: JAG. This plan for a 1976 mission proposed using a nuclear-powered rocket carrying four humans on a flyby around Mars. On approach, an automated probe would descend to the planet's surface, collect soil samples, then quickly rocket up to a manned ship zooming overhead. The crew would return to Earth after a 667-day voyage. Soaring Vietnam War costs killed the project, although the automated lander eventually developed into the unmanned Viking missions that successfully touched down on Mars in 1976.

1969: Post-Apollo. Hoping to exploit the first moon landing, NASA proposed an ambitious follow-on program, pitched in part by Wernher von Braun and echoing his original vision: a winged shuttle, a space station, and a large human expedition to Mars. Faced with Vietnam War costs and waning public interest in space following the moon landing, the plan was rejected, though then President Richard Nixon approved development of the space shuttle. In the following decades, unmanned craft successfully visited Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

1989: Space Exploration Initiative. Developed during the first Bush Administration, the plan provided a framework to complete the space station, set up a lunar outpost, and mount a Mars expedition around 2010. Cost estimates soared to over $500 billion, dooming the effort.

2004: Vision for Space Exploration. This plan, hatched during the second Bush Administration, called for using technology developed for the Apollo and shuttle programs to construct a new crew vehicle, booster rocket, and heavy-lift rocket to return to the moon as early as 2015. New technologies and approaches tested on the moon, the thinking went, would lead to human trips to Mars around 2030. Most of the program was canceled for cost reasons.

2012: Red Dragon. Developed by Elon Musk's Space Exploration company, this plan proposes to send an automated "Dragon" vehicle to land on Mars in 2018, paving the way for an eventual human landing.

2013: Inspiration Mars. Proposed by Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, the idea is to seize on an unusual 2018 planetary alignment to send a male and female astronaut on a 500-day flyby around Mars. The National Geographic Society is exploring the idea of partnering with Tito's group.

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Benedict Departs Vatican for the Last Time as Pope

VATICAN CITY -- Benedict XVI's eight-year tenure as pope ended today, after he bade farewell to the faithful and departed the Vatican as the first pope to resign in six centuries.

"Thank you for your love and support," the pope tweeted from his Pontifex account. "May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."

With church bells ringing across Rome, the pope was driven to the helipad on the Vatican grounds for the 15-minute flight to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence where he assumed the title "pope emeritus" after 8 p.m. local time.

When Benedict arrived at the residence just south of Rome, he was greeted by a crowd of supporters waving flags and banners.

READ MORE: Pope Benedict XVI Delivers Farewell Address

"I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth," he told them.

Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI's Helicopter Ride to Castel Gandolfo Watch Video

Pope Benedict XVI Says Goodbye to Cardinals Watch Video

In his final remarks earlier in the day to colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict had promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his eventual successor. At a morning meeting at the Vatican, Benedict urged the cardinals to act "like an orchestra" to find "harmony" moving forward.

Benedict, 85, spent a quiet final day as pope, bidding farewell to his colleagues and moving on to a secluded life of prayer, far from the grueling demands of the papacy and the scandals that have recently plagued the church.

His first order of business was a morning meeting with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall, a room in the Apostolic Palace.

Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, thanked Benedict for his service to the church during the eight years he has spent as pontiff.

When Benedict's resignation took effect once and for all at 8 p.m. local time, the Swiss Guards left his side for the last time, their time protecting the pontiff completed.

For some U.S. Catholics in Rome for the historic occasion, Benedict's departure was bittersweet.

Christopher Kerzich, a Chicago resident studying at the Pontifical North American College of Rome, said Wednesday he is sad to see Benedict leave, but excited to see what comes next.

"Many Catholics have come to love this pontiff, this very humble man," Kerzich said. "He is a man who's really fought this and prayed this through and has peace in his heart. I take comfort in that and I think a lot of Catholics should take comfort in that."

9 Men Who Could Replace Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict's Last Sunday Prayer Service

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WikiLeaks: Manning says he wanted "public debate" on war

WASHINGTON: US Army private Bradley Manning told a military tribunal on Thursday that he leaked incident logs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks in order to start a "public debate."

"For me they represent the underground realities of the conflicts of Iraq and Afghanistan," Manning told the court, after his lawyer said he plans to plead guilty to some of the charges leveled against him over the leaks.

The 25-year-old, who is being held in military custody pending trial, said he would plead guilty to ten of the less serious of the 22 charges against him, but would deny aiding America's enemies, a crime which carries a life term.

Even if the court agrees to pursue only the lesser allegations, Manning still faces 20 years in military custody for leaking classified material to Australian activist Julian Assange's WikiLeaks whistle-blower website.

Reading a statement to the tribunal, Manning said he had initially attempted to contact traditional media outlets -- the Washington Post, the New York Times and Politico -- before deciding to pass the documents to WikiLeaks.

He sent the organization, which campaigns against government secrecy and publishes leaked information on a secure website, two military logs of daily incidents during the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"At the time I believed, and I still believe, these are two of the most significant documents of our time," he said, adding that he wanted to "spark a domestic public debate about our foreign policy and the war in general."

He also provided a vast trove of US diplomatic cables and cockpit video from a US helicopter gunship involved in an incident in which Iraqi civilians died.

Manning explained that he had chosen to work with WikiLeaks as it seemed to him, from what he had read, that the group "exposed illegal activities and corruption" and was "almost academic in nature."

Manning's plea offer was presented to a military tribunal at Fort Meade in Maryland by his lawyer David Coombs, and the young soldier confirmed to the court that he understood the implications of his offer.

He intends to plead guilty to "unauthorized possession and willful transmission" of the video and of documents recounting civilian deaths during US operations Iraq and Afghanistan.

He will also admit "knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily" providing WikiLeaks with the classified diplomatic cables.

Judge Denise Lind asked Manning whether he understood the implications of his plea offer: "Do you understand this? Do you have questions about this? Do you still want to go forward with this?"

"Yes, your honor," he replied, before reading out a 35-page statement of his own attempting to outline his motivation in leaking the material.

-AFP/ac

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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West still wary

ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran was upbeat on Wednesday after talks with world powers about its nuclear work ended with an agreement to meet again, but Western officials said it had yet to take concrete steps to ease their fears of a secret weapons program.

The United States, China, France, Russia, Britain and Germany offered to ease sanctions slightly in return for Iran curbing its most sensitive work, but had made clear they expected no breakthrough in the talks in Kazakhstan, the first in eight months.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the talks had been "useful" and that a serious engagement by Iran could lead to a comprehensive deal in a decade-old dispute that has threatened to trigger a new Middle East war.

Iran's foreign minister said in Vienna he was "very confident" a deal could be reached and its chief negotiator said he believed the Almaty meeting could be a "turning point".

The two sides agreed to hold expert-level talks in Istanbul on March 18 to discuss the offer, and return to Almaty for political discussions on April 5-6, when Western diplomats made clear they wanted to see substantive movement by Iran.

"Iran knows what it needs to do, the president has made clear his determination to implement his policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon," Kerry said in Paris.

A senior U.S. official in Almaty added: "What we care about at the end is concrete results."

ISRAELI WARNING

Israel, assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, was watching the talks closely. It has strongly hinted it might attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to ensure that it cannot build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any such aim.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said economic sanctions were failing and urged the international community to threaten Iran with military action.

Western officials said the offer presented by the six powers included an easing of a ban on trade in gold and other precious metals, and a relaxation of an import embargo on Iranian petrochemical products. They gave no further details.

In exchange, a senior U.S. official said, Iran would among other things have to suspend uranium enrichment to a fissile concentration of 20 percent at its Fordow underground facility and "constrain the ability to quickly resume operations there".

This appeared to be a softening of a previous demand that Iran ship out its entire stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium, which it says it needs to produce medical isotopes.

Iran says it has a sovereign right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and wants to fuel nuclear power plants so that it can export more oil.

But 20-percent purity is far higher than that needed for nuclear power, and rings alarm bells abroad because it is only a short technical step away from weapons-grade.

Iran's growing stockpile of 20-percent-enriched uranium is already more than half-way to a "red line" that Israel has made clear it would consider sufficient for a bomb.

ELECTION LOOMING

The U.S. official said the latest proposal would "significantly restrict the accumulation of near-20-percent enriched uranium in Iran, while enabling the Iranians to produce sufficient fuel" for their Tehran medical reactor.

Iran had previously indicated that 20-percent enrichment was up for negotiation if it received the fuel from abroad instead.

Chief negotiator Saeed Jalili suggested Iran could discuss the issue, although he appeared to rule out shutting down Fordow. He said the powers had not made that specific demand.

Western officials were aware that the closeness of Iran's presidential election in June is raising political tensions in Tehran and made rapid progress unlikely.

One diplomat in Almaty said the Iranians appeared to be suggesting at the negotiations that they were opening new avenues, but that it was not clear if this was really the case.

"Everyone is saying Iran was more positive and portrayed the talks as a win," said Iran expert Dina Esfandiary of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "I reckon the reason for that is that they are saving face internally while buying time with the West until after the elections."

The Iranian rial, which has lost more than half its foreign exchange value in the last year as sanctions bite, rose some 2 percent on Wednesday, currency tracking web sites reported.

(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Almaty, Georgina Prodhan in Vienna, Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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A History of Balloon Crashes

A hot-air balloon exploded in Egypt yesterday as it carried 19 people over ancient ruins near Luxor. The cause is believed to be a torn gas hose. In Egypt as in many other countries, balloon rides are a popular way to sightsee. (Read about unmanned flight in National Geographic magazine.)

The sport of hot-air ballooning dates to 1783, when a French balloon took to the skies with a sheep, a rooster, and a duck. Apparently, they landed safely. But throughout the history of the sport, there have been tragedies like the one in Egypt. (See pictures of personal-flight technology.)

1785: Pioneering balloonist Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier and pilot Pierre Romain died when their balloon caught fire, possibly from a stray spark, and crashed during an attempt to cross the English Channel. They were the first to die in a balloon crash.

1923: Five balloonists participating in the Gordon Bennett Cup, a multi-day race that dates to 1906, were killed when lightning struck their balloons.

1924: Meteorologist C. LeRoy Meisinger and U.S. Army balloonist James T. Neely died after a lightning strike. They had set off from Scott Field in Illinois during a storm to study air pressure. Popular Mechanics dubbed them "martyrs of science."

1995: Tragedy strikes the Gordon Bennett Cup again. Belarusian forces shot down one of three balloons that drifted into their airspace from Poland. The two Americans on board died. The other balloonists were detained and fined for entering Belarus without a visa. (Read about modern explorers who take to the skies.)

1989: Two hot air balloons collided during a sightseeing trip near Alice Springs, Australia. One balloon crashed to the ground killing all 13 people on board. The pilot of the other balloon was sentenced to a two-year prison term for "committing a dangerous act." Until today, this was considered the most deadly balloon accident.

2012: A balloon hit a power line and caught fire in New Zealand, killing all 11 on board. Investigators later determined that the pilot was not licensed to fly and had not taken  proper safety measures during the crash, like triggering the balloon's parachute and deflation system.

2012: A sightseeing balloon carrying 32 people crashed and caught fire during a thunderstorm in the Ljubljana Marshes in Slovenia. Six died; many other passengers were injured.

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Bring on the Cuts: Some Want the Sequester

Mark Lucas wouldn't mind seeing America's defense budget cut by billions.

"There's quite a bit of waste within the military," Lucas, who serves as Iowa state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), told ABC News. "Being in there for 10 years, I've seen quite a bit of it."

With the budget sequester set to kick in on Friday, the former Army ranger is among a small chorus of conservatives saying bring on the cuts.

Read more: Bernanke on Sequester Cuts: Too Much, Too Soon

Lucas cited duplicative equipment purchases, military-run golf courses and lavish food on larger bases -- unlike the chow he endured at a combat operations post in Afghanistan with about 120 other soldiers.

"These guys would have very good food, and I'm talking almost like a buffet style, shrimp and steak once a week, ice cream, all this stuff," Lucas said. "They had Burger Kings and Pizza Huts and McDonald's. And I said to myself, 'Do we really need this?'"

Lucas and AFP would like to see the sequester modified, with federal agencies granted more authority to target the cuts and avoid the more dire consequences. But the group wants the cuts to happen.

"We're very supportive of the sequestration cuts but would prefer to see more targeted cuts at the same level," said the group's spokesman, Levi Russell.

As President Obama and his Cabinet members are sounding the sequester alarm bells, AFP's willingness shows that not everyone is running for the hills.

Charles Dharapak/Pool/AP Photo

Speaker Boehner Hopes Senate 'Gets Off Their Ass' Watch Video

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Read more: 57 Terrible Consequences of the Sequester

Obama traveled to Norfolk, Va., on Tuesday to speak at a shipyard about cuts and layoffs to defense contractors. In his most recent weekly radio address, he told Americans that the Navy has already kept an aircraft carrier home instead of deploying it to the Persian Gulf. And last week, he spoke before national TV cameras at the White House, warning that first responders would be laid off.

Homeland Security Secretary Jane Napolitano has warned that the sequester will "leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to attacks." Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has warned that air travel will back up after the Federal Aviation Administration furloughs air traffic controllers. And the heads of 18 other federal agencies told Congress that terrible things will happen unless the sequester is pushed off.

Some Republicans have accused the president of scaremongering to gin up popular support for tax hikes. Obama has warned of calamity and demanded compromise in the next breath, and a few Republicans have rejected this as a false choice.

Read more: Boehner Hopes Senate 'Gets Off Their Ass'

"I don't think the president's focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. "For 16 months, the president's been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill."

After Obama spoke to governors at the this week, Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told ABC News' Jonathan Karl outside the White House that the president is exaggerating the sequester's consequences.

"He's trying to scare the American people," Jindal said. "He's trying to distort the impact."

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US Supreme Court takes up voting rights law

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court Wednesday took up the US voting rights law, a cornerstone of efforts to guard against a resurgence of racial discrimination in American states with a segregationist past.

At issue is the 1965 law's Section 5, which requires nine mainly southern states and local governments in seven other states to obtain Justice Department approval for any changes in their electoral codes.

The nearly half-century-old law, which bars all racial discrimination at the polls, is opposed by some states as outmoded, but a number of civil rights organizations argue it is still needed.

"Though there have been improvements, this past election has shown that the law is not outdated and sadly continues to be extremely necessary," said Caroline Fredrickson, head of the American Constitution Society.

Texas, for one, has faced repeated Justice Department challenges to its election redistricting laws as well as a state law requiring voters to present photo identification.

In both instances, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the provisions were "discriminatory," and now Texas is waiting to argue its position before the Supreme Court.

Several states are challenging the law's Section 5, but the Supreme Court is considering just one complaint brought by Shelby county in Alabama.

It comes immediately after the re-election of the United States' first black president, Barack Obama -- something critics point to as evidence that the law is unnecessary.

"The violence, intimidation, and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains," Shelby County's brief says.

The county points out that 83 percent of its 200,000 inhabitants are white, a demographic mix that it contends puts it above suspicion of racial discrimination.

It maintains that Section 5 should be simply thrown out, complaining that the Obama administration is enforcing it with greater zealousness than in the past.

More than 20 religious, civic and human rights organizations have joined in calling on the top court to confirm Section 5's constitutionality as "the heart of the voting rights act," as the NAACP, the country's most prominent black civil rights organization, put it.

The law "has played a key role in protecting our democracy and ensuring the vitality of the right of minorities to vote and fully participate in the political process", said NAACP president Sherrilyn Ifill.

Defenders of the law rested their arguments on the Constitution's 15th amendment, which bans racial discrimination at the polls.

The nine-member court, which has a conservative majority, left the law alone the last time they reviewed it in 2009, but strongly urged the Congress to reform it on grounds that "things have changed in the South."

It also expressed concern that it puts states' rights at the mercy of the federal government, despite protections afforded by the 10th amendment to the constitution.

The federal government for its part calls on the justices to consider that the Congress in 2006 extended the law for another 30 years.

This time, however, the top court could prove deaf to those appeals because the Congress failed to heed its warning.

-AFP/ac

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Italy parties seek way out of election stalemate

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's stunned political parties looked for a way forward on Tuesday after an election that gave none of them a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and European financial crisis.

The results, notably by the dramatic surge of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo, left the center-left bloc with a majority in the lower house but without the numbers to control the powerful upper chamber, the Senate.

Financial markets fell sharply at the prospect of a stalemate that reawakened memories of the crisis that pushed Italy's borrowing costs toward unsustainably high levels and brought the euro zone to the brink of collapse in 2011.

"The winner is: Ingovernability," ran the headline in Rome newspaper Il Messaggero, reflecting the deadlock the country will have to confront in the next few weeks as sworn enemies are forced to work together to form a government.

Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), has the difficult task of trying to agree a "grand coalition" with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the man he blames for ruining Italy, or striking a deal with Grillo, a completely unknown quantity in conventional politics.

The alternative is new elections either immediately or within a few months, although both Berlusconi and Bersani have indicated that they want to avoid a return to the polls if possible: "Italy cannot be ungoverned and we have to reflect," Berlusconi said in an interview on his own television station.

For his part, Grillo, whose "non-party" movement won the most votes of any single party, has indicated that he believes the next government will last no more than six months.

"They won't be able to govern," he told reporters on Tuesday. "Whether I'm there or not, they won't be able govern."

He said he would work with anyone who supported his policy proposals, which range from anti-corruption measures to green-tinted energy measures but rejected suggestions of entering a formal coalition: "It's not time to talk of alliances... the system has already fallen," he said.

The election, a massive rejection of the austerity policies applied by Prime Minister Mario Monti with the backing of international leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, caused consternation across Europe.

"This is a jump to nowhere that does not bode well either for Italy or Europe," said Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.

In a sign of worry at the top over what effect the elections could have on the economy, Monti, whose austerity policies were repudiated by voters who shunned his centrist bloc, met the governor of the central bank, the economy minister and the European affairs minister to discuss the situation on Tuesday.

The former EU commissioner and his team of technocrats, who were brought in to govern when Berlusconi was consumed by crisis and scandal, will stay on until a new administration is formed.

UNTHINKABLE WITHOUT GRILLO

Projections for the Senate by the Italian Centre for Electoral Studies indicated that the center-left would have 121 seats, against 117 for the center-right alliance of Berlusconi's PDL and the regionalist Northern League. Grillo would take 54.

That leaves no party with the majority in a chamber which a government must control to pass legislation and opened up the prospect of previously inconceivable partnerships that will test the sometimes fragile internal unity of the main parties.

"The idea of a majority without Grillo is unthinkable. I don't know if anyone in the PD is considering it but I'm against it," said Matteo Orfini, a member of Bersani's PD secretariat.

"The idea of a PD-PDL government, even if it's backed by Monti, doesn't make any sense," he said.

Berlusconi, a media magnate whose campaigning all but wiped out Bersani's once commanding opinion poll lead, hinted in a telephone call to a morning television show that he would be open to a deal with the center-left - but not with Monti, the economics professor who replaced him 15 months ago.

"Italy must be governed," Berlusconi said, adding that he "must reflect" on a possible deal with the center-left. "Everyone must be prepared to make sacrifices," he said of the groups which now have a share of the legislature.

The Milan bourse was down almost 4 percent and the premium Italy pays over Germany to borrow on 10-year widened to a yield spread of 338 basis points, the highest since December 10 and more than 80 points above the level seen earlier on Monday.

At an auction of six-month Treasury bills, Italy's borrowing costs jumped by more than two thirds with the yield reaching 1.237 percent, the highest since October and compared to just 0.730 percent in a similar sale a month ago.

The euro dropped to an almost seven-week low against the dollar in Asia on fears of a revival of the euro zone crisis. It fell as far as $1.3042, its lowest since January 10.

"What is crucial now is that a stable functioning government can be built as swiftly as possible," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "This is not only in the interests of Italy but in the interests of all Europe."

However the view from some voters, weary of the mainstream parties, was unrepentant: "It's good," said Roger Manica, 28, a security guard in Rome, who voted for the center-left PD.

"Next time I'll vote 5-Star. I like that they are changing things, even if it means uncertainty. Uncertainty doesn't matter to me, for me what's important is a good person who gets things done," he said. "Look how well they've done."

A long recession and growing disillusionment with mainstream parties and tax-raising austerity fed the bitter public mood and contributed to the massive rejection of Monti, whose centrist coalition was relegated to the sidelines.

Berlusconi's campaign, mixing sweeping tax cut pledges with relentless attacks on Monti and Merkel, echoed many of the themes pushed by Grillo and underlined the increasingly angry mood of the Italian electorate.

But even if the next government turns away from the tax hikes and spending cuts brought in by Monti, it will struggle to revive an economy that has scarcely grown in two decades.

Monti was widely credited with tightening Italy's public finances and restoring its international credibility after the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, who is currently on trial for having sex with an under-age prostitute.

However he struggled to pass the kind of structural reforms needed to improve competitiveness and lay the foundations for a return to economic growth. A weak center-left government may not find it any easier.

For Italian business, with an illustrious history of export success, the election result brought dismay that there would be no quick change to what they see as a regulatory sclerosis that has kept the economy virtually stagnant for a decade.

"This is probably the worst possible scenario," said Francesco Divella, whose family began selling pasta under its eponymous brand in 1890 in the southern region of Puglia.

"We are very concerned about the uncertainty and apparent ungovernability," said Silvio Pietro Angori, chief executive of Pininfarina, which has designed Ferrari sportscars since 1950. "A company competing on the global markets like Pininfarina needs the support of a stable government that inspires trust."

One of the country's leading bankers summed up his personal reaction: "I'm in shock," he told Reuters. "What a mess!"

(Additional reporting by Barry Moody, Gavin Jones, Lisa Jucca, Steven Jewkes, Steve Scherer Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Sharks Warn Off Predators By Wielding Light Sabers

Diminutive deep-sea sharks illuminate spines on their backs like light sabers to warn potential predators that they could get a sharp mouthful, a new study suggests.

Paradoxically, the sharks seem to produce light both to hide and to be conspicuous—a first in the world of glowing sharks. (See photos of other sea creatures that glow.)

"Three years ago we showed that velvet belly lanternsharks [(Etmopterus spinax)] are using counter-illumination," said lead study author Julien Claes, a biologist from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain, by email.

In counter-illumination, the lanternsharks, like many deep-sea animals, light up their undersides in order to disguise their silhouette when seen from below. Brighter bellies blend in with the light filtering down from the surface. (Related: "Glowing Pygmy Shark Lights Up to Fade Away.")

Fishing the 2-foot-long (60-centimeter-long) lanternsharks up from Norwegian fjords and placing them in darkened aquarium tanks, the researchers noticed that not only do the sharks' bellies glow, but they also had glowing regions on their backs.

The sharks have two rows of light-emitting cells, called photophores, on either side of a fearsome spine on the front edges of their two dorsal fins.

Study co-author Jérôme Mallefet explained how handling the sharks and encountering their aggressive behavior hinted at the role these radiant spines play.

"Sometimes they flip around and try to hit you with their spines," said Mallefet, also from Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain. "So we thought maybe they are showing their weapon in the dark depths."

To investigate this idea, the authors analyzed the structure of the lanternshark spines and found that they were more translucent than other shark spines.

This allowed the spines to transmit around 10 percent of the light from the glowing photophores, the study said.

For Predators' Eyes Only

Based on the eyesight of various deep-sea animals, the researchers estimated that the sharks' glowing spines were visible from several meters away to predators that include harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena), and blackmouth catsharks (Galeus melastomus).

"The spine-associated bioluminescence has all the characteristics to play the right role as a warning sign," said Mallefet.

"It's a magnificent way to say 'hello, here I am, but beware I have spines,'" he added.

But these luminous warning signals wouldn't impede the sharks' pursuit of their favorite prey, Mueller's bristle-mouth fish (Maurolicus muelleri), the study suggested. These fish have poorer vision than the sharks' predators and may only spot the sharks' dorsal illuminations at much closer range.

For now, it remains a mystery how the sharks create and control the lights on their backs. The glowing dorsal fins could respond to the same hormones that control the belly lights, suggested Mallefet, but other factors may also be involved.

"MacGyver" of Bioluminescence

Several other species use bioluminescence as a warning signal, including marine snails (Hinea brasiliana), glowworms (Lampyris noctiluca), and millipedes (Motyxia spp.).

Edith Widder, a marinebiologist from the Ocean Research and Conservation Association who was not involved in the current study, previously discovered a jellyfish whose bioluminescence rubs off on attackers that get too close.

"It's like paint packages in money bags at banks," she explained.

"Any animal that was foolish enough to go after it," she added "gets smeared all over with glowing particles that make it easy prey for its predators."

Widder also points out that glowing deep-sea animals often put their abilities to diverse uses. (Watch: "Why Deep-Sea Creatures Glow.")

"There are many examples of animals using bioluminescence for a whole range of different functions," she said.

Mallefet agrees, joking that these sharks are the "MacGyver of bioluminescence."

"Just give light to this shark species and it will use it in any possible way."

And while Widder doesn't discount the warning signal theory, "another possibility would be that it could be to attract a mate."

Lead author Julien Claes added by email, "I also discovered during my PhD thesis that velvet belly lanternsharks have glowing organs on their sexual parts."

And that, he admits, "makes it very easy, even for a human, to distinguish male and female of this species in the dark!"

The glowing shark study appeared online in the February 21 edition of Scientific Reports.

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Boehner Pressures Dems to Get 'Off Their...'

Feb 26, 2013 12:48pm

House Speaker John Boehner used some choice words to pressure Senate Democrats to avert the looming sequester — $85 billion of arbitrary across-the-board cuts — insisting that “the House has done its job” and the burden to offer an alternative before the cuts strike Friday is on the president’s party.

“We have moved the bill in the House twice,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something.”

House Republicans voted twice during the 112^th Congress to narrowly pass legislation to offset sequestration with alternative savings, but those measures languished in the Senate and expired with the end of the session.

Read More About Sequestration

Boehner also criticized President Obama for taking a Virginia road trip “to use our military men and women as a prop in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes.”

“I don’t think the president’s focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester,” he said. “For 16 months, the president’s been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill.”

Considering Republicans have not acted in the current session of Congress on any legislation to replace the sequester, House Democrats question whether there is sufficient support to pass the old GOP proposal.

“I don’t think I need to give the Speaker a lesson in legislating or how government runs, but whatever was done last year that didn’t get signed into law has evaporated. It is gone. It does not exist,” California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said today. “This is a new year, a new session of Congress and it’s time for everyone to get to work.”

Boehner deflected a question whether he believes his weakened majority could pass the Republican bill again, and returned his attention to pushing for a vote in the Senate.

“It’s time for the Senate to act. It’s not about the House,” he responded. “We’ve acted.”

Related: Sequester Timeline – When Will Cuts Kick In?

“Where’s the president’s plan to avoid the sequester? Have you seen one? I haven’t seen one. All I’ve heard is that he wants to raise taxes again. Where’s the president’s plan? Where’s the Senate Democrat plan? I want to see it.”

Senate leaders are expected to introduce and vote on their respective plans later this week, perhaps by Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Congressional Republicans of being “part of the problem” in finding a solution to the upcoming cuts, pressing for new tax increases to help offset the sequester.

“We want to work with Republicans to come to a balanced responsible way to reduce this sequester, the impact of it.  My republican colleagues are standing in the way,” Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. “They only want cuts and more cuts.”

Related: States Prepare for Sequester

Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he is not interested in a last-minute deal, Boehner said “If the Senate acts, I’m sure the House will act quickly.”

The House is meeting for legislation business today, although no action to avert the sequester is expected. The House also meets Wednesday and Thursday, but is currently not expected to be in session on Friday.

ABC News’ Arlette Saenz contributed to this report

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Egypt opposition to skip polls over transparency fears

CAIRO: Egypt's main opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front, said Tuesday it will boycott upcoming parliamentary elections due to a lack of guarantees of a transparent process.

"The decision of the Front, unanimously, is to boycott the elections," NSF member Sameh Ashour told a news conference in Cairo after a meeting of the alliance grouping mainly liberals and leftists.

Ashour said the decision had come after its demands, including the formation of a new government "to save the country", had been ignored.

"There can be no elections without a law that guarantees the transparency of the electoral process... without a real independence of the judiciary," Ashour said as opposition activists broke out into chants against President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood.

Officials in the opposition alliance had been locked in heated debate in recent weeks over whether or not to take part in the staggered elections, members said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent member of the Front and former head of the UN atomic agency, had issued his own boycott call on Saturday.

"Called for parliamentary election boycott in 2010 to expose sham democracy. Today I repeat my call, will not be part of an act of deception," the Nobel Peace laureate wrote on Twitter.

The NSF also shunned a national dialogue called for by President Morsi aimed at putting in place "guarantees for the transparency and fairness of the elections."

"Of what guarantees can we speak today, while we have been refused an impartial government able to apply these guarantees," said Ashour.

He accused the Muslim Brotherhood of wanting to "politically kidnap Egypt, to monopolise its institutions and dominate all the state organs."

The Brotherhood and its Islamist allies had clinched an overwhelming majority in the legislative polls in the winter of 2011 and 2012, but the parliament was later dissolved when a court found irregularities in the voting system.

The NSF organised massive protests against Morsi in November and December after he adopted now-repealed powers that shielded his decisions from judicial review.

But anti-Morsi protests have slowed since he pushed through an Islamist-drafted constitution in a December referendum, with the mass rallies giving way to smaller, and often violent, protests.

The opposition, less organised than the Muslim Brotherhood, has insisted the president appoint a new government before the election while the presidency says the new parliament should have the right to appoint the cabinet.

-AFP/ac

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Picture Archive: Dorothy Lamour and Jiggs, Circa 1938

Dorothy Lamour, most famous for her Road to ... series of movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, never won an Oscar. In her 50-plus-year career as an actress, she never even got nominated.

Neither did Jiggs the chimpanzee, pictured here with Lamour on the set of Her Jungle Love in a photo published in the 1938 National Geographic story "Monkey Folk."

No animal has ever been nominated for an Oscar. According to Academy Award rules, only actors and actresses are eligible.

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier from last year's best picture winner, The Artist, didn't rate a nod. The equines that portrayed Seabiscuit and War Horse, movies that were best picture contenders in their respective years, were also snubbed.

Even the seven piglets that played Babe, the eponymous star of the best picture nominee in 1998, didn't rate. And the outlook seems to be worsening for the animal kingdom's odds of ever getting its paws on that golden statuette.

This year, two movies nominated in the best picture category had creatures that were storyline drivers with significant on-screen time. Neither Beasts of the Southern Wild (which featured extinct aurochs) or Life of Pi (which featured a CGI Bengal tiger named Richard Parker) used real animals.

An Oscar's not the only way for animals to get ahead, though. Two years after this photo was published, the American Humane Association's Los Angeles Film & TV Unit was established to monitor and protect animals working on show business sets. The group's creation was spurred by the death of a horse during the filming of 1939's Jessie James.

Today, it's still the only organization that stamps "No Animals Were Harmed" onto a movie's closing credits.

Editor's note: This is part of a series of pieces that looks at the news through the lens of the National Geographic photo archives.

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Secret Vatican Dossier for 'Pope's Eyes Only'

Feb 25, 2013 9:05am

ROME – Pope Benedict XVI decided to keep secret the contents of an investigative report on the “Vatileaks” scandal, ruling that the only person who will get to see it will be the next pope.

The top secret dossier details the findings of an internal investigation the pope launch last April into the so-called Vatileaks affair, in which Benedict’s former butler leaked confidential documents stolen from the papal chambers.

Italian newspapers have claimed — without attribution — that the investigation revealed a sex and blackmail scandal inside the curia.

The Vatican spokesman today underscored that the contents of the dossier are known only to the pope and his investigators, three elderly prelates whom the Italian papers have nicknamed “the 007 cardinals.”

Pope Benedict met today with Cardinals Julian Herranz of Spain, Jozef Tomko of Slovakia, and Salvatore De Giorgi of Sicily in a private audience.

According to the Vatican, the pope thanked them for their work and expressed satisfaction with their investigation.

“Their work made it possible to detect, given the limitations and imperfections of the human factor of every institution, the generosity and dedication of those who work with uprightness and generosity in the Holy See,” read a Vatican statement.

The Vatican statement pointedly added: “The Holy Father has decided that the acts of this investigation, known only to himself, remain solely at the disposition of the new pope.”

Many here had expected the investigating cardinals, who are too old to participate in the conclave, would brief the voting cardinals about their findings.

Today Vatican officials clarified the investigating cardinals will be free to discuss their investigation with the other cardinals, as the voting members of the conclave seek to understand the challenges the next pope will face.

But the dossier itself will remain “For the Pope’s Eyes Only.”

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Tennis: Federer survives scare against popular Jaziri

DUBAI: Roger Federer seemed to have talked his way into a scare before beginning an up-and-down defence of his Dubai Open title with a recovery against an opponent even more popular than himself on Monday.

The Grand Slam record-holder had said before the match that often took him a while to suss out players he had never previously played - and sure enough he ran into trouble against the best player in the Arab world, Malek Jaziri, dropping the first set to loud cheers.

When Federer found a couple of extra gears, taking the next two sets in less than three-quarters of an hour, a 5-7, 6-0, 6-2 win brought him prolonged applause as well.

But the outcome brought a definite sense of premonition with it.

"People might think, okay he's a wild card, so it's an easy draw," Federer had said."

I think it's tricky, because I don't know exactly his pattern, his favourite shots, all those things.

"It's always a big match here in the Middle East playing someone like him. And first rounds always create pressure as I'm the defending champion and I want to start well. So it's not a simple match for me."

Neverthless some of this was dramatically improbable.

The unfamiliar one had not played a match for more than three months because of a knee injury, and was ranked outside the top 100, only getting into the tournament with a wild card.

But Jaziri has talent and attitude. The Tunisian blitzed his first serve at 135 mph, and played with the dangerous freedom of an underdog pleased just to get a bite or two into the big man's trouser-leg.

There were also other pressures on Federer, which he described with a mixture of honesty and a nicely bizarre sense of humour.

"I also think that it played on my mind, you know, that he has this huge knee brace, and a tape, not having played this year," he said, with a crazy chortle. "Gott win - right?"

Federer finished with some great serving statistics, several searing forehands, and a few nimble sideways scrambles which belied his status as the oldest player in the top ten.

Earlier he even half-admitted that he is past his prime, having stated that this would be between the ages of 23 and 27 for most players. When he was then asked if he was past his prime, his immediate reaction was laughter.

"It depends," he said, buying time to think.

"I think I'm playing excellent tennis. But if you look back historically I think that's usually when you're supposed to be playing your best.

"But then of course there are exceptions. There are guys who win Grand Slams at 16 and some win them at 34. So it depends on how you see things.

"Right now even the over-30 guys are consistent on tour. It's nice to see them hanging in there."

In fact Andre Agassi at the age of 32 is the oldest player of the modern era to have won a Grand Slam title, although more than 40 years ago, at the start of the open era, Ken Rosewall won a Grand Slam title at 37.

However both by words and deeds Federer managed to convince that he is nowhere near ready for retirement. He next plays the winner of an all-Spanish tussle between Marcel Granollers and Albert Montanes, ranked 34 and 89 respectively.

His main rival, Novak Djokovic, the world number one who is attempting to win the title back from him, begins Tuesday against Viktor Troicki, a long-time close friend since the days when they were brought up together in Belgrade.

-AFP/ac

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Gloomy Italians vote in election crucial for euro zone

ROME (Reuters) - Italy voted on Sunday in one of the most unpredictable elections in years, with many voters expressing rage against a discredited elite and doubt that a government will emerge strong enough to combat a severe economic crisis.

"I am pessimistic. Nothing will change," said Luciana Li Mandri, 37, as she cast a ballot in the Sicilian capital Palermo on the first of two days of voting that continues on Monday.

"The usual thieves will be in government."

Her gloom reflected the mood across Italy, where many voters said they thought the new administration would not last long, just the opposite of what Italy needs to combat the longest slump in 20 years, mounting unemployment and a huge public debt.

The election is being closely watched by investors whose memories are fresh of a debt crisis which forced out scandal-plagued conservative premier Silvio Berlusconi 15 months ago and saw him replaced by economics professor Mario Monti.

"I'm not confident that the government that emerges from the election will be able to solve any of our problems," said Attilio Bianchetti, a 55-year-old building tradesman in Milan.

Underlining his disilluion with the established parties, he voted for the 5-Star Movement of comic Beppe Grillo.

An iconclastic, 64-year-old Genoese, Grillo has screamed himself hoarse with obscenity-laced attacks on politicians that have channeled the anger of Italians, especially a frustrated young generation hit by record unemployment.

"He's the only real new element in a political landscape where we've been seeing the same faces for too long," said Vincenzo Cannizzaro, 48, in Palermo.

Opinion polls give the centre-left coalition of Pier Luigi Bersani a narrow lead but the result has been thrown open by the prospect of a huge protest vote against Monti's painful austerity measures and rage at a wave of corruption scandals.

A weak government could usher in new instability in the euro zone's third largest economy and cause another crisis of confidence in the European Union's single currency.

Television tycoon Berlusconi, showing off unrivalled media skills and displaying extraordinary energy for a man of 76, has increased uncertainty over the past couple of months by halving the gap between his centre-right and Bersani.

"I am pessimistic. There is such political fragmentation that we will again have the problem of ungovernability" said Marta, a lawyer voting in Rome who did not want to give her family name. "I fear the new government won't last long."

Another Roman voter, lab technician Manila Luce, 34, said: "I am voting Grillo and I hope a lot of people do. Because it's the only way to show how sick to the back teeth we are with the old parties."

Voting continues until 10 p.m. (4 p.m. EST) and resumes on Monday at 7 a.m. Exit polls will be published shortly after polls close at 3 p.m. on Monday. Full official results are expected by early Tuesday.

Snow in the north was expected to last into Monday and could discourage some of the 47 million eligible voters. Authorities said they were prepared for the weather and in the central city of Bologna roads were cleared of snow before voting started.

TOPLESS FEMINISTS

Several bare-breasted women protested against Berlusconi when he voted in Milan. They were bundled away by police.

The four-time premier, known for off-color jokes and a constant target of feminists, is on trial for having sex with an underage prostitute during "bunga bunga" parties at his villa.

Most experts expect a coalition between Bersani and Monti to form the next administration, but whatever government emerges will have to try to reverse years of failure to revitalize one of the most sluggish economies in the developed world.

The widespread despair over the state of the country, where a series of corruption scandals has highlighted the stark divide between a privileged political elite and millions of ordinary Italians struggling to make ends meet, has left deep scars.

"It's our fault, Italian citizens. It's our closed mentality. We're just not Europeans," said voter Li Mandri in Palermo.

"We're all about getting favors when we study, getting a protected job when we work," she said. "That's the way we are and we can only be represented by people like that as well."

ECONOMIC AGENDA

Even if Bersani wins as expected, Analysts are divided over whether he will be able to form a stable majority that can force through sweeping economic reforms.

His centre-left is expected to have firm control of the lower house, thanks to rules that give a strong majority to whichever party wins the most votes nationally.

But a much closer battle will be fought for the Senate which is elected on a regional basis and which has equal law making powers to the chamber.

Berlusconi has clawed back support by promising to repeal Monti's hated new housing tax, the IMU, and to refund the money. He relentlessly attacked what he called the "Germano-centric" policies of the former European Union commissioner.

Think-tank consultant Mario, 60, said on his way to vote in Bologna that Bersani's Democratic Party was the only group serious enough to repair the economy: "They're not perfect," he said. "But they've got the organization and the union backing that will help them push through structural reforms."

Despite Berlusconi's success, Grillo has tapped into the same public frustration as the conservative tycoon and pollsters say his 5-Star Movement of political novices could overtake the centre-right to take second place in the vote.

Rivals have branded Grillo a threat to democracy - a vivid image in a country ruled by fascists for two decades until World War Two. Several voters who spoke to Reuters said Grillo was not the answer because of his lack of concrete policies and the inexperience of those who will sit in parliament for 5-Star.

"Grillo is a populist and populism doesn't work in a democracy," said retired notary Pasquale Lebanon, 76, as he voted for Bersani's Democratic Party in Milan.

"I'm very worried. There seems to be no way out from a political point of view, or for being able to govern," said Calogero Giallanza, a 45-year-old musician in Rome as he also voted for Bersani.

"There's bound to be a mess in the Senate because, as far as I can see the 5-Star Movement is unstoppable."

(Additional reporting by Cristiano Corvino, Lisa Jucca, Jennifer Clark, Matthias Baehr, Jennifer Clark and Sara Rossi in Milan, Stephen Jewkes in Bologna, Wladimir Pantaleone in Palermo, Stefano Bernabei and Massimiliano Di Giorgio in Rome; Writing by James Mackenzie and Barry Moody; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Read More..

Picture Archive: Dorothy Lamour and Jiggs, Circa 1938

Dorothy Lamour, most famous for her Road to ... series of movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, never won an Oscar. In her 50-plus-year career as an actress, she never even got nominated.

Neither did Jiggs the chimpanzee, pictured here with Lamour on the set of Her Jungle Love in a photo published in the 1938 National Geographic story "Monkey Folk."

No animal has ever been nominated for an Oscar. According to Academy Award rules, only actors and actresses are eligible.

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier from last year's best picture winner, The Artist, didn't rate a nod. The equines that portrayed Seabiscuit and War Horse, movies that were best picture contenders in their respective years, were also snubbed.

Even the seven piglets that played Babe, the eponymous star of the best picture nominee in 1998, didn't rate. And the outlook seems to be worsening for the animal kingdom's odds of ever getting its paws on that golden statuette.

This year, two movies nominated in the best picture category had creatures that were storyline drivers with significant on-screen time. Neither Beasts of the Southern Wild (which featured extinct aurochs) or Life of Pi (which featured a CGI Bengal tiger named Richard Parker) used real animals.

An Oscar's not the only way for animals to get ahead, though. Two years after this photo was published, the American Humane Association's Los Angeles Film & TV Unit was established to monitor and protect animals working on show business sets. The group's creation was spurred by the death of a horse during the filming of 1939's Jessie James.

Today, it's still the only organization that stamps "No Animals Were Harmed" onto a movie's closing credits.

Editor's note: This is part of a series of pieces that looks at the news through the lens of the National Geographic photo archives.

Read More..

Pistorius' Brother Facing Own Homicide Trial

The attorney for Oscar Pistorius' family said today that the Olympian's brother is facing a culpable homicide charge relating to a 2008 road accident in which a motorcyclist was killed.

Carl Pistorius, who sat behind his younger brother, Oscar, every day at his bail hearing, will now face his own homicide trial for the accident five years ago, which his attorney, Kenny Oldwage, said he "deeply regrets."

Carl Pistorius is charged with culpable homicide, which refers to the unlawful negligent killing of another person. The charges were initially dropped, but were later reinstated, Oldwage said in a statement.

Full Coverage: Oscar Pistorius Case

Pistorius quietly appeared in court on Thursday, one day before his Paralympic gold-medalist brother was released on bail, Oldwage said. His next appearance is scheduled for the end of March.

Liza van Deventer/Foto24/Gallo Images/Getty Images

'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Oscar Pistorius Out on Bail Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case Watch Video

It was the latest twist in a case that has drawn international attention, after 26-year-old Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who ran in both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games, was charged with the premeditated murder of his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

On Saturday, Carl Pistorius' Twitter handle was hacked, according to a family spokeswoman, prompting the Pistorius family to cancel their social media accounts.

Steenkamp's parents speak about the Valentine's Day shooting that ended their daughter's life in a sit-down interview on South African television tonight.

On Saturday, the model's father, Barry Steenkamp, told the Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper that Pistorius will have to "live with his conscience" and will "suffer" if his story that he shot Steenkamp because he believed she was an intruder is false.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Key Elements to the Murder Investigation

After a four-day long bail hearing, Pistorius was granted bail Friday by a South African magistrate.

The court set bail at about $113,000 (1 million rand) and June 4 as the date for Pistorius' next court appearance.

Pistoriuis is believed to be staying at his uncle's house as he awaits trial. As part of his bail conditions, Pistorius must give up all his guns, he cannot drink alcohol or return to the home where the shooting occurred, and he must check in with a police department twice a week.

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Austerity-weary Italy votes in crucial eurozone election

ROME: Italians fed up with austerity voted on Sunday in the country's most important election in a generation, as Europe watched for signs of fresh instability in the eurozone's third economy.

Millions turned out to vote for the first time since billionaire tycoon Silvio Berlusconi was ousted in 2011 in a wave of financial market panic to be replaced by former Eurocrat Mario Monti.

"This is a chance to change Italy," said Ida, 48, a computer company employee, casting her ballot at a polling station in a school in Rome where entire families came out to vote, forming long queues.

There was a commotion as Berlusconi went to vote in Milan when three topless feminists from the Ukrainian women's power group Femen braved a light snow to hurl themselves towards him with "Basta Silvio" ("Enough With Silvio") scrawled on their backs.

For all the attention on Berlusconi though, centre-left Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani is the most likely winner, but analysts say he may fall short of a majority and need to assemble a coalition that could prove unsteady.

"We want to turn the page" after Berlusconi, the cigar-chomping Bersani said in an interview with the left-wing daily L'Unita published on Sunday.

"Our success will strengthen the battle in Europe for growth and equity," said the former communist, adding that markets "need someone who can put the country back on a safe course".

Bersani has promised to stick to Monti's budget discipline but says he will do more for growth and jobs as Italy endures its longest recession in 20 years and unemployment hits record highs.

"I am voting for the Democratic Party. I don't want us to end up like Greece," said Alessandro, a 63-year-old manager, as he cast his ballot in Milan.

The scandal-tainted Berlusconi, a three-time prime minister who is also a defendant in two trials for tax fraud and having sex with an underage prostitute, is expected to come a close second.

"There's a lot of confusion in these elections. I'm voting Berlusconi. I know he has his defects, but he's the best," said Maria Teresa Gottardi, 65.

But many Italians disagree, like voter Sara Di Gregori, a 30-year-old lawyer in Rome, who warned: "If Berlusconi returns, it would be a disaster."

The wild card in third place, according to the polls, could be a new protest party led by former comedian Beppe Grillo who has channelled growing social discontent and anger against politicians.

The "Grillini" -- as Grillo's followers are known -- could be a disruptive force in parliament and Grillo has called for Italy's debts to be cancelled and a referendum on whether to stay in the eurozone.

Grillo built up the suspense, with journalists still waiting for him late Sunday at his local polling station in a posh district in the port city of Genoa, far outnumbering actual voters.

An average of the last opinion polls made public gave Bersani 34 per cent, Berlusconi 30 per cent, Grillo 17 per cent and Monti around 11 per cent.

Polling stations close at 2100 GMT on Sunday and open again for a second day of voting at 0600 GMT on Monday, closing at 1400 GMT.

Exit polls are expected immediately after the close, and preliminary official results will begin trickling in later on Monday.

Officials have called on Italians to vote amid fears that general disenchantment with politics could depress turnout.

As of 1100 GMT, turnout was 14.94 per cent, lower than the 16.54 per cent who had voted by the same time in 2008 elections, the interior ministry said.

Forty-seven million Italians are eligible to vote.

Caterina, a 19-year-old in Milan, said she was glad to be voting after 18 months of a technocratic, unelected government that was installed by parliament after the fall of Berlusconi.

"Voting is very important. The Democratic Party are the only ones who can solve our problems," she said.

The elections are being seen as the most important since 1994 when Berlusconi won his first victory after a series of massive corruption scandals wiped out Italy's entire post-war political system dominated by the Christian Democrats.

"Italians are called on to make a choice that is in many ways historic," political analyst Roberto D'Alimonte said.

"In 1994, the consequences were only about us. That is not the case anymore; now they are about Europe and its future," he said.

Berlusconi has risen sharply in the polls with a promise to reimburse an unpopular property tax and will likely win votes with his slogans blaming Italy's crisis on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The flamboyant media tycoon was forced out in November 2011 following a parliamentary revolt, a myriad of sex scandals and talk of impending bankruptcy for Italy.

The sober Monti, a former economics professor, has brought the markets to heel and restored Italy's image as a key player in the eurozone debate.

Italy is the euro area's third largest economy after Germany and France and a major exporter.

While its debt is sky-high -- second only to Greece's -- Italy's public deficit is under control.

As Berlusconi and Monti have multiplied austerity measures in recent years, many Italians have been driven into dire straits financially.

"I'm voting Grillo, it's a protest vote. The whole political system is rotten," said Daniele, 47, a taxi driver and father of two in Milan.

"It will be a wake-up call," he said.

- AFP/jc

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Egypt parliament election start moved to April 22

Feb 23 (Reuters) - Bologna's Serie A derby with local rivals Fiorentina has been postponed to Tuesday from Sunday because of heavy snow. The league said in a statement on Saturday that the safety of spectators could not be guaranteed. A 1900 GMT kickoff time has been set for Tuesday. Fiorentina are sixth in Serie A, two points off the third and final Champions League qualifying spot, while Bologna lie five points above the drop zone in 16th. (Writing by Mark Meadows; Editing by Ken Ferris)

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Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival

Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."

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Pistorius Family: 'Law Must Run Its Course'

South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius is spending time his family today after the athlete was freed on $113,000 bail Friday.

"We realise that the law must run its course, and we would not have it any other way," the Olympian's uncle, Arnold Pistorius said in a statement on Saturday.

The Pistorius family expressed their gratitude that the former Olympian was allowed out of jail before the trial.

"This constitutes a moment of relief under these otherwise very grave circumstances" said Arnold Pistorius."We are extremely thankful that Oscar is now home."

Pistorius, 26, is charged with premeditated murder in the Valentine's Day shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

While the prosecution argued that the world-renowned athlete was a flight risk and had a history of violence, South African Magistrate Desmond Nair, who presided over the case, disagreed.

FULL COVERAGE: Oscar Pistorius

"He regards South Africa as his permanent place of abode, he has no intention to relocate to any other country" Nair said during his two hour ruling, before concluding with, "the accused has made the case to be released on bail."

'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Oscar Pistorius Out on Bail Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case Watch Video

Pistoriuis will have to adhere to strict conditions to stay out of jail before the trial. He must give up all his guns, he cannot drink alcohol or return to the home where the shooting occurred, and he must check in with a police department twice a week.

Oscar Pistorius is believed to be staying at an uncle's house as he awaits trial.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Key Elements to the Murder Investigation

During the hearing, the prosecution argued that Pistorius shot Steenkamp after an argument, while the defense laid out an alternate version of events saying Pistorius mistook his girlfriend for an intruder.

Nair took issue with the head detective originally in charge of the case, who he said "blundered" in gathering evidence and was removed from the case after it was revealed he is facing attempted murder charges.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Lead Det. Hilton Botha to Be Booted From Investigation Team

After the magistrate's decision, cheers erupted in the courtroom from the Pistorius camp. Pistorius' trial is expected to start in six to eight months, with his next pre-trial court date in June.

Reeva Steenkamp Family Reaction

Steenkamp's father, Barry Steenkamp told the South African Beeld newspaper that the 26-year-old athlete will "suffer" if he is lying about accidentally shooting 29-year-old model.

PHOTOS: Oscar Pistorius Charged with Murder

Barry Steenkamp went on to say that the Pistorius will have to "live with his conscience" if he intentionally shot Reeva.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Football: Bayern's six-goal Bremen rout opens 18-point lead

BERLIN: Bayern Munich rested half a dozen stars but still romped to a 6-1 win at home against 10-man Werder Bremen on Saturday to go 18 points clear at the top of the Bundesliga.

Bayern boss Jupp Heynckes celebrated his 1000th Bundesliga game as a player and coach by making six changes from the team which won 3-1 at Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday.

But they still extended their unbeaten run to 20 matches since their last defeat at home to Bayer Leverkusen at the end of October while resting their top players for Wednesday's German Cup quarter-final at home to Dortmund.

"After making those six changes, we needed 20 minutes to find our rhythm," said Heynckes, with only ex-Greece coach Otto Rehhagel having been involved in more Bundesliga matches with 1,037.

"We saw some nice goals out there, but we didn't reckon with conceding one, that was annoying," added Heynckes, whose team last conceded a league goal on December 14 in a 1-1 draw against Moenchengladbach.

"Those players who came in justified my confidence in them. The game on Wednesday will be a real cup battle."

Amongst the key changes, Germany striker Mario Gomez, who scored twice, came in for Mario Mandzukic, Dutch wing Arjen Robben, who opened the scoring, started for Thomas Mueller while Swiss midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri took Toni Kroos' place.

Munich were ahead after 25 minutes when Robben won the race with Franck Ribery to convert Philipp Lahm's cross for the opener.

The next goal came just four minutes later when Robben's free-kick was headed home by Javi Martinez.

To make matters worse for Bremen, centre-back Sebastian Proedl was shown a straight red card for bringing down Gomez, who was through on goal, a minute before the break.

Things did not improve in the second half when Bremen's left-back Theodor Gebre Selassie turned the ball into his own net on 49 minutes, then Gomez grabbed his first and Bayern's fourth just two minutes later.

Belgium midfielder Kevin de Bruyne, on loan at Bremen from Chelsea, pulled a goal back for Werder approaching the hour mark, but Bremen's defence capitulated late on as Ribery, then Gomez, added goals in the last five minutes.

The two teams closest to Bayern, Borussia Dortmund, who are at Moenchengladbach, and Bayer Leverkusen, at bottom side Greuther Fuerth, need to pick up wins on Sunday to cut Bayern's huge lead.

South Korean striker Ji Dong-Won scored his first goal in six appearances for strugglers Augsburg since joining from Sunderland in January in his team's 2-1 win at home to Hoffenheim.

Striker Sascha Moelders added a second on 79 minutes to seal only Augsburg's third win of the season and they move up to 16th in the league, nine points from safety, while Hoffenheim drop to 17th and deeper in the relegation mire.

Hanover bounced back from their midweek Europa League exit at the hands of Russia's Anzhi Makhachkala with a 5-1 win over guests Hamburg to move up to seventh.

Ivory Coast's Didier Ya Konan, playing on the right wing, scored twice including a superb volley from 20 metres out just before the break.

Wolfsburg earned a 1-1 draw at Mainz 05 despite playing with 10 men for 60 minutes after centre-back Alexander Madlung was shown an early red card for pulling back Mainz's Nicolai Muelle.

Nuremberg earned a 1-1 draw at Stuttgart to stay 14th and just above the relegation place, while on Saturday night, Schalke 04, fresh from Wednesday's 1-1 Champions League draw at Galatasaray, host Fortuna Duesseldorf.

- AFP/jc

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