WASHINGTON – A military strike on al-Qaida's network in Yemen killed the deputy commander of the terrorist network's cell in Abyan province, the Yemeni government said.
Embassy spokesman Mohammed Albasha identified the dead man as Mohammed Al Kazimi, but said suspected al-Qaida leader Qasim al-Raymi, the intended target of this week's raid, escaped.
Al-Raymi is one of 23 militants who broke out of a prison in San'a in February 2006 and is at large. Yemeni authorities have said they believe he was involved in the July 2007 suicide bombing that killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis visiting a temple in central Yemen.
Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said al-Raymi is deputy commander of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and has managed to escape several previous attempts by authorities to get him.
The U.S. provided firepower and other aid to Yemen for the strike this week against suspected al-Qaida hide-outs and training sites within its borders, according to a New York Times report.
President Barack Obama approved the military and intelligence support, which came at the request of the Yemeni government. It was intended to help stem growing attacks against American and other foreign targets in Yemen, the newspaper said.
Albasha denied the U.S. launched missiles in the attack.
Officials said at least 34 militants were killed in the Yemeni strike on Thursday in what was an unusually heavy assault as the Obama administration presses the unstable country for tougher action against al-Qaida.
Witnesses put the number killed at over 60 and said the dead were mostly civilians, including women and children. They denied the target was an al-Qaida stronghold, and one provincial official said only 10 militant suspects died.
The United States has called on Yemen to take stronger action against al-Qaida, whose fighters have increasingly found refuge in the country in the past year. Worries over the growing presence are compounded by fears that Yemen could collapse into turmoil from its multiple conflicts and increasing poverty and become another Afghanistan, giving the militants even freer rein.
___
On the Net:
State Department background on Yemen: http://tinyurl.com/y8zcx29

Email Marketing Service

An electronic mail message consists of two components, the message header, and the message body, which is the email's content. The message header contains control information, including, minimally, an originator's email address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually additional information is added, such as a subject header field.

The foundation for today's global Internet e-mail service was created in the early ARPANET and standards for encoding of messages were proposed as early as 1973 (RFC 561). An e-mail sent in the early 1970s looked very similar to one sent on the Internet today. Conversion from the ARPANET to the Internet in the early 1980s produced the core of the current service.

Kites

During the 18th century tailless bowed kites were still unknown in Europe. Flying flat arch- or pear-shaped kites with tails had become a popular pastime, mostly among children. The first recorded scientific application of a kite took place in 1749 when Alexander Wilson of Scotland used a kite train (two or more kites flown from a common line) as a meteorologic device for measuring temperature variations at different altitudes.

Kites have been used for scientific purposes, such as Benjamin Franklin's famous experiment proving that lightning is electricity. Kites were the precursors to aircraft, and were instrumental in the development of early flying craft. Alexander Graham Bell experimented with very large man-lifting kites, as did the Wright brothers and Lawrence Hargrave. Kites had an historical role in lifting scientific instruments to measure atmospheric conditions for weather forecasting.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) –
The ruckus over MTV's "Jersey Shore" is getting as intense as the hot-headed dramatics on the show.

The controversial new reality series chronicling a spirited group of self-described "guidos" living in a New Jersey beach house has drawn protests of increasing volume. Now it appears that calls for a boycott are having an impact.

The Italian-American group UNICO (which also protested HBO's "The Sopranos") has asked members to complain to MTV's advertisers. In the past couple of days, two advertisers on the show -- Domino's Pizza and American Family Insurance -- have pulled out of the series.

In addition, one major media outlet reported that MTV New York offices were receiving death threats because of the show. The network has denied the report.

"('Jersey Shore' furthers) the popular TV notion that Italian-Americans are gel-haired, thuggish ignoramuses with fake tans, no manners, no diction, no taste, no education, no sexual discretion, no hairdressers (for sure), no real knowledge of Italian culture and no ambition beyond expanding steroid- and silicone-enhanced bodies," blasted New York Post critic Linda Stasi on Monday. "Would that programing ever have been allowed if the group were African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Jewish people?"

MTV president of programing Tony DiSanto, an Italian-American, has remained largely mum on the subject, though he told one group, "The cast takes pride in their ethnicity. In fact, it is a key driver of how they bond with each other and self-identify. They refer to themselves as 'guidos' in a positive manner."

Former "Hills" cast member Spencer Pratt defended the network on Twitter: "Linda Stasi you should change your name to Linda Boring if you can't be entertained by young Italian-Americans enjoying youth and partying!"

The initial round of criticism didn't seem to help "Jersey Shore," which debuted Thursday to a relatively modest 1.4 million viewers.

Adding to the drama is a clip from an MTV teaser for an upcoming episode of the show that's making the rounds online. It shows a man punching out one of the female housemates. But it's unclear if any of the conflict -- onscreen or off -- will improve the show's ratings.

President Barack Obama will meet with chief executives of major banks on Monday and is expected to urge them face-to-face to lend more money to help promote economic recovery, banking sources tell POLITICO.
A source familiar with the planning said invitations went out to CEOs last weekend for what will be a morning session at the White House.
The CEOs expect to hear from the president about why banks ought to be lending more, why they shouldn’t oppose his financial reform initiatives, and why they ought to hold the line on bonuses and compensation, the sources said.
The lending issue irks some in the industry. “The White House’s political people like [senior adviser David] Axelrod tell us to lend more,” said one banking official. “But the regulators are saying the exact opposite. They’re saying, ramp up your capital ratios, and if you see default risk on the horizon, cut back on lending.”
The White House’s Jen Psaki said: “The president is looking forward to meeting with members of the financial services industry on Monday to discuss our shared interest in economic recovery, the need to increase small business lending and the Administration’s plans for financial reform.”
Read More Stories from POLITICODoes world expect too much of Obama?Reid: Dems reach 'broad agreement'Exclusive: George gets 'GMA'Gay marriage's 'inevitability' in doubtCoakley easily takes Dem primary

WASHINGTON – Franklin Roosevelt, confronted with the worst economic crisis in the nation's history, wrote the book on government jobs programs. Since FDR, presidents have been less ambitious because the economic challenges they faced were less severe.
President Barack Obama, battling the worst downturn since FDR's time, has put together a grab-bag program that borrows a little from Roosevelt but much more closely resembles the approach taken by recent presidents of both parties, who have leaned heavily on tax cuts to spur job creation.
Obama's New Deal-lite approach represents a compromise between putting more resources into getting the country out of a recession and the limitations he faces with budget deficits that have already soared past the $1 trillion mark, raising concerns among the foreign investors who buy America's debt.
Given those soaring deficits, Obama is not trying to push jobs programs of the scale that FDR used to fight the 1930s Depression, when he created an alphabet-soup collection of government agencies to put people back to work, from the Civilian Conservation Corps to the Works Progress Administration.
Instead, Obama is emphasizing further increases in infrastructure spending beyond what is already in the pipeline from the $787 billion economic stimulus bill.
Taking a page from past Republican and Democratic administrations, Obama also is proposing tax credits targeted to small businesses to help them hire new workers and give them a tax break for buying new equipment to expand and modernize their operations.
He also is proposing extending a number of programs already included in his February stimulus measure, including extra support to state and local governments to keep them from having to lay off workers.
"Obama is trying an eclectic approach to jump-starting employment growth and that is not surprising given that the labor market today is the worst it has been since the Great Depression," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
Obama's efforts are sizable compared with the stimulus measures offered by recent administrations — also not surprising, given that the recession that began in December 2007 is the longest and deepest since the 1930s.
President George W. Bush offered immediate tax rebates when he was trying to get the country out of the brief and mild downturn that hit during his first year in office.
Like Obama, Ronald Reagan also faced unemployment above 10 percent during his first term, but his answer to the 1981-82 recession was to emphasize a major tax cut that reduced the top tax rates. Reagan's jobs program was a sizable military buildup that increased troop strength and bolstered employment among defense contractors.
Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford also battled serious recessions in the 1970s, but their government stimulus efforts had to take into account soaring inflation from a series of oil shocks that gave the country a new economic worry: stagflation, a toxic mix of inflation and economic stagnation.
Just as Obama sought to highlight his efforts to bolster the economy with a jobs summit last week, a number of presidents have held high-level economic gatherings at the White House to showcase their concerns about various economic maladies.
Not all of those sessions have ended well. The Ford administration was ridiculed for its WIN buttons, standing for "Whip Inflation Now," which proved as ineffective as Ford's other ideas for curbing inflation.
Obama's new proposals come with a price tag to be determined later. Obama said the government could afford the new efforts because the administration had just trimmed the ultimate cost of the unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program by $200 billion. But his effort to capture bank bailout funds for further economic stimulus is already running into stiff opposition from Republicans.
Obama is seeking to split the difference between his worries over how a weak economy will affect Democrats' chances in the 2010 elections and his concerns about soaring budget deficits. Republicans say all the TARP funds should go to reduce a budget deficit that soared to $1.42 trillion last year and is projected by the administration to remain above $1 trillion annually for the next two years.
Private economists said the program is likely to hit $200 billion or more after Democrats, who control Congress, get through massaging the plan. That would come on top of the $787 billion stimulus program passed in February.
Economists normally are skeptical of government jobs programs, arguing that by the time Congress manages to pass the program, the recession is usually over and the economy is generating jobs on its own. But as in the 1930s, the current downturn is viewed as severe enough to warrant government help.

In the Great Depression, unemployment hit 25 percent in 1933, the year that FDR took office. The unemployment rate this time around is expected to be nowhere near that level, but it could still surpass the post-World War II record of 10.8 percent set in 1982 before a sustained recovery takes hold next summer. The jobless rate is currently at 10 percent.

"Roosevelt's efforts in the Great Depression gave a sense of hope to people who had lost hope," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. "In the current situation, Obama's program is aimed at giving companies enough confidence to start hiring a little sooner than they otherwise would."

From splachnopleuric mesoderm tissue, the cardiogenic plate develops cranially and laterally to the neural plate. In the cardiogenic plate, two separate angiogenic cell clusters form on either side of the embryo. Each cell cluster coalesces to form an endocardial tube continuous with a dorsal aorta and a vitteloumbilical vein. As embryonic tissue continues to fold, the two endocardial tubes are pushed into the thoracic cavity and begin to fuse together and are completely fused at approximately 21 days.
At 21 days after conception, the human heart begins beating at 70 to 80 beats per minute and accelerates linearly for the first month of beating.

The apex is the blunt point situated in an inferior (pointing down and left) direction. A stethoscope can be placed directly over the apex so that the beats can be counted. It is located posterior to the 5th intercostal space just medial of the left mid-clavicular line. In normal adults, the mass of the heart is 250-350 g (9-12 oz), or about twice the size of a clenched fist (it is about the size of a clenched fist in children), but extremely diseased hearts can be up to 1000 g (2 lb) in mass due to hypertrophy. It consists of four chambers, the two upper atria and the two lower ventricles.

page

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) –
When U.S. retail chains report November sales this week, investors will learn whether they have gone far enough to protect profits against a weak start to the holiday shopping season.

Early data on weekend shopping from U.S. Thanksgiving Day on Thursday through Sunday showed a slight increase in retail sales, pressuring shares from Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) to J.C. Penney (JCP.N) and Saks Inc (SKS.N).

To get a clearer picture of how holiday sales are faring, analysts said they are waiting for retailers to release their own sales figures on Wednesday and Thursday.

"This November, (same-store) sales are going to be incredibly important to gauge the state of consumer spending, and thus fourth-quarter earnings and stock trajectory, and it's also an important statement about the economic recovery," said Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher.

Last November, same-stores sales fell 7.8 percent, the worst decline since Thomson Reuters began tracking such figures in 2000. Shoppers, panicked by a financial crisis that wiped out retirement accounts and credit limits, slammed shut their wallets. Retailers were forced to slash prices, undermining profits in the year-end fourth quarter.

This year, analysts got more bullish on prospects for November as customer traffic picked up closer to Thanksgiving Day on November 26, according to Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research for Thomson Reuters.

Ahead of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when retailers offer eye-popping deals, November same-store sales were expected to rise 1.8 percent. They are now expected to notch a 2.4 percent gain.

While many large retailers including Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O), Target Corp (TGT.N) and Kohl's Corp (KSS.N) will release sales figures on Thursday, the data will lack results from key holiday retailers -- including Wal-Mart, Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) and Amazon.com (AMZN.O).

SEEKING CLARITY ON THE TOP LINE

Data released over the weekend pointed to a muted sales start for the holidays. ShopperTrak said sales rose 0.5 percent on Black Friday. The National Retail Federation, the trade group for the retail industry, said customer traffic hit record levels, but consumers spent nearly 8 percent less on average on deals like $3 coffeemakers at Target or $10 toys at Walmart.

The traffic surge was welcomed by retailers.

"With November starting off slow, the month's sales results have grown increasingly dependent on Black Friday (and Saturday)," wrote Credit Suisse analyst Michael Exstein, in a note on Monday. "A recovery toward the end of the month is not an unlikely scenario given retailers' aggressive marketing campaigns."

He said November, which marks the start of the fiscal fourth quarter, is an especially important month for department stores. It accounts for the second largest monthly sales volume of the year behind December, he said.

Department stores are being aggressive to lure customers. J.C. Penney opened at 4 a.m. on Black Friday, while Macy's (M.N) said it would focus on taking market share by offering discounts during the holidays.

Department stores' November same-store sales are expected to fall 2.4 percent versus a 13.4 percent drop last year.

Discount retailers are expected to fare better. Their November same-store sales should rise 4.1 percent compared with last year's drop of 6.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Exstein said gas prices rose from $2.55 in October to $2.65 in November, which should benefit sales results at warehouse club operators like Costco, BJ's Wholesale Club Inc (BJ.N), and Wal-Mart's Sam's Club's that operate gasoline stations.

PROFITS INTACT?

Tom Stemberg, managing general partner at Highland Consumer Fund and the founder of Staples (SPLS.O) said most retailers lose money on their Black Friday specials. But he said many retailers protected profits this year by cutting inventory.

"You will not have the tremendous clearance activity that you had last year," he said.

But Brian Tunick, who covers specialty apparel retailers for J.P. Morgan, said some retailers, including Children's Place (PLCE.O) and Limited Brands Inc (LTD.N), may have sacrificed margins to drive traffic into their stores.

Eric Beder, who covers apparel retailers at Brean Murray, Carret & Co, said the Black Friday weekend might not have been strong enough to save the month.

He said November sales results and a fourth-quarter forecast from American Eagle Outfitters (AEO.N) could disappoint. But he expects Aeropostale (ARO.N) to give an upbeat forecast for the fourth-quarter when it posts third-quarter results on Wednesday.

"I think the profit picture (overall) is going to be much brighter than the sales picture," he said.

(Additional reporting by Bradley Dorfman in Chicago; editing by Carol Bishopric)

NEW YORK – Families of some of those killed in the Sept. 11 terror attacks welcome President Barack Obama's plan to deploy thousands more troops to Afghanistan as a long-overdue surge that could win the war.
"I think it's a long time coming," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
"My feeling is that the war in Afghanistan is an essential war," she said Monday. "This is where we must win. We cannot cede this territory back to al-Qaida."
Others were less hopeful about sending more Americans to fight a war that has gone on for so long that its connection to the terror attacks has become lost to some.
"We kind of abandoned the people in Vietnam," said Lee Ielpi, a Vietnam veteran whose firefighter son was killed on 9/11. "I'm not sure what we accomplished other than 58,000-plus people killed. I don't want to see the same thing happening in Afghanistan."
Ielpi said he hopes the administration heeds Vietnam's lessons, and has "a solid goal on where we're going, how we're going to help Afghanistan when we leave."
The president plans to announce his new Afghan war strategy, including deploying thousands more American forces to the region and laying out a path toward disengagement, in a national address Tuesday night from West Point, N.Y.
Many family members of those killed on Sept. 11 are infuriated that Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders remain at large after so many years.
"We need to continue to deny them sanctuary," said Tim Sumner, whose brother-in-law was a firefighter killed at the World Trade Center. "The same folks that conspired against us on 9/11 and continue to conspire against us are holed up in the northwest corner of Pakistan. We can't let up pressure from both sides of the border to eliminate this threat."
Hamilton Peterson, who lost his father, Donald, and stepmother, Jean Peterson, when the hijacked United Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field, said the planned surge is overdue.
"I don't see how the president could not do it. I'm a bit frustrated it's taken so long to do so," he said. "Sometimes the best decisions are the most difficult and unpopular."
Nancy Nee, whose firefighter brother, George Cain, was killed in New York, said she feels a strong bond with families of soldiers who risked their lives or were killed in overseas wars against terror.
"I hope the president fulfills the requests of the generals that are over there to finish the job," Nee said. "It would be a shame to just pull out now and have everything fall flat."
Sally Regenhard, whose son, Christian Regenhard, served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was a New York City firefighter who died in the attacks, had mixed feelings about sending thousands more soldiers.
"I don't want to see more young people killed," Regenhard said. "But I really feel that this president is in a no-win situation. I just hope and pray that this is the right move and that we can get out of this area."
Administration officials have said the president's goal is to train Afghan security forces to eventually take over from the U.S. and to disengage U.S. forces from the area. Some family members thought the timing of that strategy was tricky.
Charles Wolf, whose wife, Katherine, was killed at the trade center, said Obama should do a better job of selling the war to the American people, and that the plan should not include an exit date.
"I think it is a very dangerous thing to be telling our enemy how long we're going to be there, because they'll just play dead for a while," Wolf said.

"We should be going in there and telling them that yes, we are going to map out a strategy, and we are going to be there as long as it takes to get rid of you."

___

Associated Press writer Dan Nephin in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – Pollution typically declines during a recession. Not this time.
Despite a global economic slump, worldwide carbon dioxide pollution jumped 2 percent last year, most of the increase coming from China, according to a study published online Tuesday.
"The growth in emissions since 2000 is almost entirely driven by the growth in China," said study lead author Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia. "It's China and India and all the developing countries together."
Carbon dioxide emissions, the chief man-made greenhouse gas, come from the burning of coal, oil, natural gas, and also from the production of cement, which is a significant pollution factor in China. Worldwide emissions rose 671 million more tons from 2007 to 2008. Nearly three-quarters of that increase came from China.
The numbers are from the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
According to the study, the 2008 emissions increase was smaller than normal for this decade. Annual global pollution growth has averaged 3.6 percent. This year, scientists are forecasting a nearly 3 percent reduction, despite China because of the massive economic slowdown in most of the world and in the United States.
The U.S. is still the biggest per capita major producer of man-made greenhouse gases, spewing about 20 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year. The world average is 5.3 tons and China is at 5.8 tons
Last year, the U.S. emissions fell by 3 percent, a reduction of nearly 192 million tons of carbon dioxide. Overall European Union emissions dropped by 1 percent. The U.S. is still the No. 2 biggest carbon polluter overall, emitting more than the next four largest polluting countries combined: India, Russia, Japan and Germany. China has been No. 1, since pushing past the United States in 2006.
The world remains on a dangerous path, despite the recession, scientists said.
"There's a very clear gap between the path we are on and the path we should be on if the goal is to limit global warming to 2 degrees (1.3 degrees Celsius)," said Le Quere, who also works for the British Antarctic Survey.
The world has spewed 715.3 trillion tons of industrial carbon dioxide since 1982, which is the same amount civilization produced in all the previous years, said study co-author Gregg Marland of the Oak Ridge National Lab.
Outside scientists said the study was thorough and the results sobering.
"Basically these numbers are screaming out at decision makers that whatever they are doing now is not working," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn't involved in the study.
The report comes as countries from around the world prepare for a December U.N. conference on reducing carbon emissions. Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen of Denmark, who will host the conference in Copenhagen, said Tuesday that President Barack Obama supported his proposal for a sweeping political deal that would include commitments by industrial countries to reduce carbon emissions and to provide funds for less developed countries to fight the effects of global warming.
Obama, who was in China, said after a meeting with President Hu Jintao Tuesday that he wanted an all-encompassing agreement in Copenhagen, even if it falls short of a legal treaty. And he said he wants something "that has immediate operational effect."
Le Quere said the numbers point specifically to developing world as the cause for the most recent growth.
China is opening up new coal-fired power plants at a breakneck pace and carbon dioxide emissions in that country have doubled since 2001.
Not all the emission increases in China and other developing countries come from new power plants. About one-quarter of the emissions growth is because western countries, like the United States, buy more manufactured products from those countries, Le Quere and Marland said.

"We're shipping our emissions offshore," Marland said.

Other countries beside China to increase their carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5 million tons in 2008 were India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Iran, Poland, Mexico, Canada and the Netherlands.

The paper also raised concerns because it shows that the percentage of carbon dioxide emissions that hang in the air — compared to those sucked into the oceans and forests — is growing.

Fifty years ago, only 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions stayed in the air. Now in this decade it's up to 45 percent, Le Quere said.

That steady rise is alarming because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the warmer it gets, and the warmer it gets, the higher percentage of carbon dioxide stays in the air, Le Quere said.

It's a feedback loop that is not good news for global warming, she said.

___

On the Net:

Nature Geoscience: http://www.nature.com/ngeo

(HealthDayNews) -- Here are the latest clinical trials, courtesy
of ClinicalConnection.com:

COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)

The study is evaluating the safety and effectiveness of
an investigational medication to treat COPD. Qualified participants must
be at least 40, and be a current or former smoker.
The research site
is in DeLand, Fla.

More Information
Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/copd.aspx.

-----
H1N1 Flu Vaccine

This study for adults 18 and older is for an
experimental H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine.
The research site is in
Phoenix, Ariz.

More Information
Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/flu.aspx.

-----
Pediatric ADHD

This study will evaluate the safety and effectiveness
of an investigational non-stimulant ADHD medication, when used in
combination with a currently marketed stimulant medication.
The
research site is in Seattle, Wash.

More Information
Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/adhd.aspx.

-----

Copyright 2009 ClinicalConnection.com. All
rights reserved.

BEIJING – President Barack Obama played tourist Tuesday on his first visit ever to China, spending nearly an hour touring the Forbidden City and its maze of red buildings and cobblestone courtyards.
Built in the 1400s, the Forbidden City once was home to 24 Chinese emperors who ruled the country for nearly 500 years, between 1420 and 1911. The former imperial palace is now known as the Palace Museum, and is open to Beijing's visitors.
"It's a testament to the greatness of Chinese history," said Obama, who had changed from his suit and tie into a sweater and brown shearling jacket to head out into Beijing's frigid weather. Snow dotted roofs, and the courtyards had patches of ice. Obama kept his hands in his pockets to ward off the chill.
Obama said the Forbidden City was "a magnificent place to visit." He said he wanted to come back with his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, and their two girls, Malia and Sasha. Mrs. Obama did not accompany the president on the trip.
He said Shanghai, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall were must-see stops for him this time, but that next time he hoped to visit other parts of the vast country.
Shanghai was Obama's first stop in China. His sightseeing was to continue Wednesday with a tour of the Great Wall.
Before concluding his visit to the Forbidden City, Obama sat down and wrote at length in the VIP visitor's book. The White House did not immediately disclose what he wrote.
___
Obama's visit was meant to feature cooperation with President Hu Jintao. For Hu, that apparently meant this planet and beyond.
Both men used the same carefully chosen phrase — "positive, cooperative and comprehensive" — to describe the careful, vital, sometimes testy relationship between their nations.
And when Hu started naming all the areas in which the U.S. and China can work together, his list knew no boundaries.
The economy. Climate change. Energy. The environment. Counterterrorism. Law enforcement. Science. Technology. Outer space. Civil aviation. High-speed rail. Agriculture. Health. Military.
Outer space?
"The Chinese side is willing to work with the U.S. side to ensure the sustained, sound and steady growth of this relationship," Hu said.
There's plenty of ground to cover, apparently.
___
Orders to prevent sales of T-shirts showing Obama dressed like communist revolutionary Mao Zedong are in force during the president's visit — and Chinese officials mean it, as a CNN reporter found out.
Correspondent Emily Chang reported that she went searching for Oba-Mao souvenirs at Shanghai's Yatai Xinyang market. Finding none, she pulled out a T-shirt she bought before the ban was imposed to record a report in the market.

Security guards pounced, telling her she did not have permission to film there and trying to grab the shirt, according to a report on CNN's Web site.

Chang was detained for two hours before being let go, with the shirt, the report said.

A cottage industry in T-shirts and other Oba-Mao trinkets catering mainly to foreign tourists has thrived in recent months. Bans such as the one that commercial regulators ordered in recent weeks are usually temporary. When U.S. or European government officials come to Beijing for trade talks, local markets typically remove copies of brand-name designer clothes — until the foreign negotiators leave town.

___

Amid discussions of economic challenges the U.S. and China face came the noodle-making.

At a private dinner Monday night, Obama and Hu discussed history, the importance of education and the hurdles to nurturing prosperous economies, a White House statement said.

Between the heavy talk and elaborate courses of prawns and lamb chops came a demonstration of Chinese noodle-making, which, the statement said, "the American guests enjoyed."

MARRAKECH, Morocco – Trying to mute Arab criticism that the Obama administration had retreated from its tough stance on Israeli settlements, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday softened her praise for Israel's offer to restrain new housing in Palestinian areas.
While Israel was moving in the right direction in its offer to restrict but not stop the settlements, Clinton said, its offer "falls far short" of U.S. expectations.
Clinton said her earlier praise of Israel's offer, during a stop in Jerusalem, had been intended as "positive reinforcement." But her comment drew widespread criticism from Persian Gulf ministers who interpreted it as a U.S drawback on settlements, which have been the main obstacle to a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
In a sign of U.S. eagerness to calm Arab concerns, Clinton is extending her trip by one day to fly to Cairo to meet with President Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday, her staff announced. She had been scheduled to return to Washington on Tuesday.
Clinton's comments in Jerusalem on Saturday appeared to reflect a realization within the Obama administration that Netanyahu's government will not accept a full-on settlement freeze and that a partial halt may be the best lesser option. Her appeal on Saturday seemed designed to make the Israeli position more palatable to the Palestinians and Arab states.
Clinton had traveled to the region only reluctantly, concerned her visit might be seen as a failure, according to several U.S. officials. She agreed to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders after pressure from the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking.
During a photo-taking session Monday with her Moroccan counterpart, Clinton was asked by a reporter about the Arab reaction, and she responded by reading from a written statement that appeared designed to counter the skepticism about the Obama administration's views on settlements.
"Successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel's settlement policy," she said. "That is absolutely a fact, and the Obama administration's position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed. As the president has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements."
Clinton's tweaking of her earlier remarks appeared to satisfy at least some of the Morocco meeting attendees. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said Monday that "we have heard her say something completely different from that statement in line with previous statements, so we are happy that such a position was highlighted and brought back to the right line and right now we will see how things will go."
Malki added that "we completely appreciate the sincere efforts made by President Barack Obama and his team to take this issue as a top priority and to try to deal with it from day one."
In her recalibrated comments Monday, Clinton also called on the Israelis to do more to improve "movement and access" for Palestinians and on Israeli security arrangements.
She added, however, that Israel deserved praise for moving in the right direction.
"This offer falls far short of what we would characterize as our position or what our preference would be," she added. "But if it is acted upon, it will be an unprecedented restriction on settlements and would have a significant and meaningful effect on restraining their growth."
In her statement to reporters, Clinton also stressed that the Palestinian authorities deserved credit for what she called "unprecedented" steps to improve security in the West Bank and praised the Palestinians for progress in training their security forces.
On Monday evening, Clinton met with representatives of the Gulf Cooperation Council, plus officials from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Morocco. Clinton also flew Monday to the south-central city of Ouarzazate for an audience with King Mohammed VI, then returned to Marrakech for talks with foreign ministers of several Persian Gulf nations.
Clinton was expected to meet separately with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who has rejected U.S. appeals for improved Arab relations with Israel as a way to help restart Middle East peace talks.
After taking office in January, Obama buoyed Palestinian hopes for progress toward establishing a Palestinian state with his outreach to the Muslim world and an initially tough stance urging a full freeze to all settlement construction.
But after making little headway with the Israelis in recent months, Clinton urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in a face-to-face meeting in Abu Dhabi on Saturday to renew talks, which broke down late last year, without conditions. Abbas said no, insisting that Israel first halt all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — lands the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Then, at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late Saturday in Jerusalem, Clinton praised Netanyahu's offer to curb some settlement construction, saying it was an unprecedented gesture.

That statement provoked a chiding by Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib. Jordan and Egypt also issued statements Sunday critical of the latest U.S. approach.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

CHICAGO (AFP) –
Nearly a year after Barack Obama was elected the first black president of the United States, the euphoria that prompted pundits to proclaim a post racial society has been dampened by the reality of rising tensions.

Several prominent white preachers have urged followers to pray for Obama's death. Hate groups are growing. And a wave of anger-charged protests of Obama's domestic policies has set people on edge.

"It's quite scary out there," said Mark Potok, who investigates hate groups with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"There's a lot of anger. A lot of guns. A lot of hateful ideology in a kind of witch's brew that could well give rise to domestic terrorism."

There has been a sharp uptick in hate crimes in the wake of Obama's November 4 victory, Potok said, such as the man with a swastika carved into his forehead who shot three black immigrants the day after Obama was inaugurated.

"What is remarkable about this reaction is the real desperation it reflects," Potok said of the extremists and white supremacists who feel marginalized by Obama's election.

"The truth is these people have lost. Nothing they can do will turn history around. This country is going to become a genuinely multiracial democracy and there's nothing they can do."

The United States has made enormous progress since the 1960s when police turned dogs and water cannon on civil rights protesters and federal troops had to be called in to protect the first black children attending a white schools in southern states.

Interracial marriage -- once banned -- is now commonplace. Laws prevent rather than institutionalize discrimination. And Obama's victory comes long after African Americans broke into the ranks of billionaires, astronauts, police chiefs, governors, news anchors, and other previously unattainable posts.

Yet stark disparities remain, especially for those who live in neglected inner-city neighborhoods ravaged by gangs, drugs, violence and unemployment.

"This country has always been built on black exceptionalism but not black inclusion," said Robert Rooks, director of criminal justice programs for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"You have blacks that have done phenomenally well today... (then) you have the majority of the black community feeling totally marginalized."

Nearly one out of every four black families lives below the poverty line compared to just six percent of white families.

Nearly one in five blacks didn't graduate from high school: twice the rate for whites.

African American babies are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday than white babies. The homicide rate is six times higher.

And the justice department estimates that 32 percent of black males will go to prison at some point in their lives compared with just six percent of white males.

"The real, deep difficulties that exist, a year later they're the same because it takes time to change," said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, a leading civil rights organization.

Many of Obama's policy goals -- such as improving public education and extending health coverage to the uninsured -- will address some of these disparities.

He has also inspired a "sense of hope, a sense of inclusion and, with some, a sense of reconciliation," Morial said.

A CBS News survey found that 59 percents of African Americans said race relations were good in April compared with just 29 percent in a July 2008 survey.

The question is whether the increasingly ugly attacks -- such as a Republican senator who shouted "you lie!" during a September address to Congress by Obama or the people who carry guns and signs depicting the president as a witch doctor to protest health care reform -- will erode those gains.

"African Americans are very watchful and fearful about the far right," said Mark Sawyer, director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics.

While Obama has rejected racism as the main driver of the protests, it's hard not to see a racist undertone to the irrational rage and lack of respect for the office of the presidency, Sawyer said.

"It's socially very damaging to see this stuff, but in some ways Democrats have been gifted with the rage and incoherence of their opposition," he explained.

"There are legitimate conservative arguments to be made and real conservative policy options, but that's not what we're seeing coming out of this movement."

And Obama has already made significant inroads on tackling discrimination, such as when he got the equal opportunity office to stop pursing cases which aim to dismantle affirmative action programs and to begin aggressively pursing cases brought by women and minorities.

"Those kinds of things are the things that do make real differences in real people's lives," Sawyer said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday rejected as "not very dignified" former vice president Dick Cheney's charge that the White House was dangerously "dithering" on Afghanistan.

Cheney charged in a widely reported speech late Wednesday that President Barack Obama was endangering US troops by not deciding more quickly on whether to send more reinforcements to fight the eight-year-old war.

Asked about the former vice president's comments, Pelosi told reporters they were "not very dignified," and said Cheney and former president George W. Bush "made matters worse in Afghanistan with their neglect of this challenge."

Pelosi delivered the same message during her weekly press conference, charging that the Bush administration had "looked the other way" while things got worse after US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001.

"We routed the Taliban, we did not defeat them, and they have been coming back," said Pelosi, who reserved some of her harshest judgments for Bush's handling of allegedly widespread corruption in Afghanistan's government.

"There was no policy to say to the Afghan government: 'We will not tolerate a partner who is a partner in corruption,'" she said.

The United States "many missed opportunities over the years to make it clear to the Afghan government that, if we're going to be partners, they're going to have to clearn up their act, they're corruption act," she said.

Pelosi rejected warnings from Obama's Republican foes that he is making matters worse by waiting to make his eagerly awaited decision on sending more US troops to Afghanistan.

"We're seeing a comprehensive approach to what is going on there, and the president should not make a decision any sooner than he has the right information to do so," she said.

"I know that this is an area of constant attention for him. And I pray for his decision because matters are so much worse because of missed opportunities for seven and a half years. It's really tragic," she said.

Amid a pitched political brawl over US strategy in Afghanistan, Cheney told the Center for Security Policy, a conservative national security think tank, in a speech late Wednesday that Obama must "do what it takes to win."

"The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," Cheney said in widely reported remarks.