A new Ohio State University custodial employee who received a bad job evaluation shot two co-workers in a campus maintenance building killing one of them and then fatally shot himself officials said Tuesday.
Nathaniel Brown who was hired in October arrived for work at the nation's largest university in dark clothing with two handguns in a backpack campus Police Chief Paul Denton said.
Chief Denton described the shooting as work-related and said Mister Brown recently had received a poor performance evaluation though he declined to say whether that was the motive.
No students were hurt and classes went on as scheduled.
The shooting first was reported at 3:30 AM Tuesday.
Mister Brown 51 was pronounced dead at the Ohio State University Medical Center several hours later Chief Denton said.
One of the victims building services manager Larry Wallington 48 died at the scene.
The other victim operations shift leader Henry Butler 60 was in stable condition at the medical center officials said.
More than a half-dozen employees were in the maintenance building when the shooting occurred and have been offered grief counseling Chief Denton said during a news conference.
This is a tragic event and our hearts go out to all of the families said Vernon Baisden a university assistant vice president of public safety.
Graduate student Kiernan Gordon 31 said he found out about the shooting from his wife who called him on his cell phone while he was driving to campus.
He said he didn't have any concerns about his own safety.
Ohio State is really a city unto itself and like any city it has problems unto itself Mister Gordon said.
More than 55000 students are enrolled at the university's main campus in Columbus.
The maintenance building where the shooting occurred is adjacent to a classroom building and a parking garage and is near Ohio Stadium where the school's football team plays.
Police in Ireland on Tuesday arrested seven people over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.
Irish police said four men and three women were detained in raids across the south of the country.
The force says the arrests were part of an investigation into a conspiracy to murder an individual in another jurisdiction.
The force offered the statement in response to a question about Lars Vilks whom Britain's Press Association news agency identified as the target.
Police said the suspects were aged from their mid-20s to their late 40s.
It did not identify their nationality.
Police say the investigation involved law enforcement agencies in the US and several European countries.
Al Qaeda in Iraq put a $100000 bounty on Vilks' head after a Swedish newspaper ran his picture of Muhammad's head on a dog's body in 2007.
He was put under police protection and moved to a secret location in Sweden.
Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet even favorable for fear it could lead to idolatry.
Vilks is not the first cartoonist to have received death threats for drawings of the prophet.
Kurt Westergaard a Danish cartoonist who in 2005 depicted Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban also received death threats.
In January a Somali man was arrested after breaking into his home in western Denmark armed with an ax.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist a Republican candidate for US Senate is distancing himself from President Obama after months of criticism for supporting the president's $862 billion jobs stimulus plan.
Mister Crist said Tuesday he disagrees with Mister Obama's decision to cancel a major NASA space-exploration program because it will cost Florida roughly 7000 high-tech high-paying jobs.
I'm disappointed frankly he told The Washington Times America's Morning News radio show.
NASA is important to Florida and all of America.
Mister Obama has made the cultivating of high-tech jobs a major part of his plan to help the United States recover from the recession that started in December 2007 and has resulted in the loss of 8.5 million jobs.
However his most recent budget did not include funding for the agency's Constellation program which includes the Ares rocket designed to extend the manned flights now in outdated space shuttles..
Mister Crist is trailing in polls to Marco Rubio a former Florida House speaker who has won the support of conservatives.
The state primary is August 24 and the general election is in November.
Mister Crist said he has asked state lawmakers to include $32000 in their next budget to help high-tech companies trying to work with NASA in Florida.
We're going to continue to fight for jobs for Florida he said.
Sexual abuse scandals in Germany the pope's homeland and other countries are cause for anguish but the Roman Catholic Church's response has been prompt and transparent the Vatican said Tuesday.
The Reverend Federico Lombardi a Vatican spokesman said any abuse in the church is especially deplorable given its educational and moral responsibilities.
He added though that the problem of child abuse is wider than cases that have surfaced within the church and that focusing on the church alone would not truly depict the problem.
Scandals over sexual abuse by Catholic clergy of minors and cover-ups by church hierarchy have exploded in recent months in countries including Ireland Germany and the Netherlands.
The US church is still dealing with the financial and emotional fallout from years of scandals.
The German abuse allegations are particularly sensitive because Germany is the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI and because the scandals involve a prestigious choir that was led by the pope's brother the Reverend Georg Ratzinger from 1964 till 1994.
Father Ratzinger repeatedly has said the sexual abuse allegations date from before his tenure as director of the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen literally Cathedral Sparrows boys choir.
Asked in an interview with the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper published Tuesday whether he knew of the allegations when he took over as head of the choir Father Ratzinger insisted he was not aware of the problem.
The pope's brother told the newspaper he did slap pupils across the face after he took over the choir.
He said he repeatedly administered a slap in the face to pupils but he said it was common then and he stopped after Germany banned corporal punishment in 1980.
Amid reports of beatings at primary schools that are considered feeder schools for the choir Father Ratzinger said boys had complained to him but he had no idea how serious the allegations were.
These things were never discussed Father Ratzinger told the newspaper.
The problem of sexual abuse that has now come to light was never spoken of.
I ask the victims for pardon he told the paper.
The Vatican statement did not cite the choir but did mention alleged abuses in Germany Austria Ireland and the Netherlands.
Father Lombardi defended the main ecclesiastical institutions involved saying they have taken up the matters promptly and decisively.
They have shown a desire for transparency in a way they have accelerated bringing the problem to light by inviting the victims to speak up even when the cases dated to a while back Father Lombardi told Vatican Radio.
He said the cases are pushing the church toward dealing with the problem.
While we can't deny the gravity of the anguish the church is going through we cannot give up doing everything possible so that in the end positive results can also be achieved Father Lombardi said citing as goals better child protection and the church's own purification.
In Austria the head of a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg admitted Tuesday to sexually abusing a child decades ago and offered to resign.
Archabbot Bruno Becker said he abused a 12-year-old boy more than 40 years ago when he had not been ordained the Austria Press agency reported.
He said he informed church authorities last year after his victim contacted him and Archabbot Becker apologized to him.
Church authorities accepted the 64-year-old's resignation immediately.
In the Netherlands Rotterdam Bishop Ad van Luyn has apologized to Dutch victims and called for an independent investigation into the sexual abuse of children by priests after 200 alleged victims contacted help services last week.
More than 170 students have claimed they were sexually abused at several Catholic high schools across Germany.
Last week the Regensburg Diocese said a former singer in the cathedral choir the one formerly led by the pope's brother had come forward with allegations of sexual abuse in the early 1960s.
There have also been reports of severe beatings by administrators at two primary feeder schools for the choir one in Etterzhausen and one in Peilenhofen.
One director identified as Johann M who headed the Etterzhausen school from 1953 to 1992 has been cited in several allegations as being particularly abusive.
Father Ratzinger said boys would open up to him about being mistreated in Etterzhausen.
But I did not have the feeling that I should do something about it.
Had I known with what exaggerated fierceness he was acting I would have said something he was quoted as saying by the German paper.
Of course today one condemns such actions Father Ratzinger said.
I do as well.
At the same time I ask the victims for pardon.
Abuse cases also have surfaced recently in at least one nonchurch school in Germany.
Associated Press writer Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.
NASA's space shuttle manager said Tuesday it wouldn't be hard to add more shuttle flights.
The real question is money.
Program manager John Shannon said it costs $200 million a month to keep the fleet flying.
Four more shuttle missions are planned before the aircraft are to be retired this fall.
Some in Congress though are pushing for additional flights.
Last month President Obama killed NASA's Constellation program which would have created a shuttle successor.
Mister Shannon said NASA already has a fuel tank and set of boosters for one additional flight.
He said getting other shuttle parts would not be a problem.
One of three terror suspects killed during raids Tuesday near Jakarta may include what authorities said was one of the masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings but police were still trying to confirm his identity.
The suspected mastermind an electronics specialist named Dulmatin was earlier thought to have fled to the Philippines and the US government has offered a reward of up to $10 million for his capture.
The Bali suicide bombings targeting nightclubs popular with foreigners killed 202 people and were Indonesia's worst terror attacks.
The first of the three suspects was killed after he shot at police during a raid on an Internet cafe southwest of the Indonesian capital on the country's main island of Java police spokesman Major General Edward Aritonang said.
The suspect fired a single shot from a revolver before he died Aritonang said.
Local media and two Indonesian authorities who did not want to be named said that the suspect was believed to be Dulmatin who like many Indonesians uses one name.
However Aritonang said authorities were still trying to determine the identity of the suspect through DNA tests.
We will announce who he is as soon as police identify him Aritonang said.
Police have mistakenly thought that Dulmatin was killed in the past and militant leader Noordin Mohammad Top also blamed for the Bali bombings was mistakenly reported killed in a shootout with police on Java a month before he died in a police raid in September.
The Internet cafe manager Rinda Riyani said the suspect had begun using an upstairs computer only five minutes before plainclothes police rushed in.
I heard gunshots and later saw the man was dead said Riyani who had been downstairs and did not see the shooting.
Two other customers a man and woman were taken by police for questioning he said.
Police later arrested two other suspects at a nearby house in Pamulang district and shot and killed two others as they tried to flee Aritonang said.
One of the slain suspects had fired a handgun he said.
An additional terror suspect was arrested in Jakarta earlier Tuesday bringing to 24 the number of suspects taken into custody on Java and the western province of Aceh since February 22 in a police crackdown on a suspected Aceh cell of the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah a regional offshoot of the al-Qaida terror group.
Aritonang said the raids on Tuesday were based on information gleaned from those already arrested.
The suspects captured in Aceh had provided police with information about Dulmatin's whereabouts a government official told The Associated Press speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Dulmatin had been seen in the southern Philippines as recently as three months ago the official said.
Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf said that the terror group members had come to his province from Java and that some of those members were from the Pamulang district that was raided by police on Tuesday.
They planned to send militants to Gaza to fight Israel Yusuf said.
Aceh authorities had watched the group recruiting in the province since last year but were unable to act until their paramilitary training camp was found and raided on February 22 Yusuf said.
The group was attracted to Aceh because it is the only Indonesian province where Islamic law or Shariah is state law and they thought they would find willing recruits to extremism among its large Muslim majority he said.
They want to make Aceh their Southeast Asian base but they're wrong Yusuf told reporters in Jakarta.
The Acehnese people don't support them.
Yusuf who has been briefed by police said some of the 50 militants still at large in Aceh had been trained in the southern Philippines the heartland of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group.
Associated Press writers Irwan Firdaus in Jakarta and Niniek Karmini in Aceh contributed to this report.
Legislation extending unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless faces a key test vote in the Senate its momentum helped by about 60 popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses that expired at the end of last year.
The measure also prevents doctors from absorbing a crippling cut in Medicare payments extends health insurance subsidies for the unemployed and gives cash-starved states help with Medicaid the federal-state program providing health care to the poor and disabled.
The unemployment insurance alone to provide weekly unemployment checks averaging above $300 to people whose core 26-week benefit package has run out will cost $66 billion through December.
In some states people are eligible to receive benefits for up to 99 weeks.
The bill as well as the test vote Tuesday demonstrates the difficulty Democrats face as they focus on jobs.
It doesn't include new ideas for boosting jobs but instead reprises elements of last year's $862 billion economic stimulus bill which is earning mixed reviews from voters.
Simply extending those provisions has produced a far more expensive measure than a separate so-called jobs bill that Democrats hope soon to send to President Obama.
That measure would boost highway spending and give tax breaks to companies that hire the unemployed and could clear the Senate for Mister Obama's desk this week.
At a gross cost of about $148 billion Tuesday's measure illustrates the extraordinary cost of the unemployment safety net as the economy inches out of the recession.
Democrats say the unemployment benefits inject demand into the economy and say renewing the tax cuts helps preserve existing jobs.
The measure closes $29 billion of tax loopholes to help defray its cost including one enjoyed by paper companies that get a credit from burning black liquor a pulp-making byproduct as if it were an alternative fuel.
All told the measure would add $107 billion to the deficit over the coming decade.
Democrats have labeled most of the bill an emergency measure exempting it from stricter budget rules enacted just last month.
Democrats need to muster at least one Republican vote Tuesday to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to limit debate and guarantee an up-or-down vote.
Senator Susan Collins Maine Republican provided crucial help last week to keep the measure out of another procedural tangle and Democrats sound confident they will prevail.
The bill includes about 60 popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses that expired at the end of 2009.
The bill would extend the tax breaks through 2010 at a cost of about $26 billion.
Congress routinely extends the tax breaks each year with large bipartisan majorities.
Businesses and tax planners would prefer a more permanent solution but lawmakers can't agree on how to pay for a longer extension.
The tax breaks include a property tax deduction for people who don't itemize lucrative credits that help businesses finance research and development and a sales tax deduction that mainly helps people in the nine states without income taxes: Alaska Florida Nevada New Hampshire South Dakota Texas Tennessee Washington and Wyoming.
There is a deduction for college tuition for couples making less than $160000 a year and one for teachers who use their own money to buy school supplies.
There is a tax credit for community development agencies that invest in low-income neighborhoods as well as a tax break for restaurant owners and retailers who remodel their stores.
The expiration of one tax break a $1 per gallon credit for the production of biodiesel already has caused a pretty substantial blow to the industry said Michael Frohlich a spokesman for the National Biodiesel Board.
The credit would cost $1 billion to extend for the rest of the year.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a hard-hit battle unit Tuesday that its heavy losses have helped the US begin to push back against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
Gates visited a small remote outpost 30 miles north of Kandahar where the Fort Lewis Washington-based Stryker unit has lost 22 men and suffered an additional 62 wounded since arriving here last summer.
The latest injuries came Monday night and the latest death three days ago.
You all have had a very tough time especially at the start of the tour Gates told members of the 800-soldier unit.
You came into an area totally controlled by the Taliban.
You fought for a critical battle space you bled for it and now you own it.
He told the troops that as the fight shifts toward securing Kandahar itself later this year they will again be at the tip of the spear.
Brigade commander Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Neumann explained one of its missions: securing a highway that locals use to bring crops to market in Kandahar.
If people can't move freely on the highway Neumann said they'll never feel connected to their government and like they are out from under the thumb of the Taliban.
Neumann said his troops also protect the local population from bandits and extortionists who try to waylay travelers and exact illegal tolls.
He said it can be hard to measure success when it means subtle changes of heart and intention among the locals instead of something dramatic like taking a city.
The metric that stares you in the face is our casualties Neumann said.
Gates later walked a dusty street in Now Zad where Marines pushed out the Taliban last year with help from some of the first reinforcements ordered by President Barack Obama last year.
The Pentagon chief stopped to speak to shopkeepers who are among about 2500 people who have returned to the city.
Now Zad once the second largest city in Helmand province sat empty for four years save for US NATO and Taliban fighters.
This place was a ghost town a no-go zone Gates said as he thanked Marines for an operation that served as a model for this year's battle in nearby Marjah.
Gates flew to Kandahar early Tuesday for meetings with US and British generals overseeing the military campaign in Marjah.
He presented Silver Stars for valor to two Army aviators before his visits with US forces at bases elsewhere in the south.
On Monday the Pentagon chief said the progress made in the Marjah offensive launched last month is encouraging but he stopped short of saying the war is at a turning point.
The Marjah campaign routed most Taliban fighters from a town they once controlled without a high casualty toll for US troops and the Afghan security forces fighting alongside them.
People still need to understand there is some very hard fighting very hard days ahead Gates told reporters.
Gates met Monday in Kabul with General Stanley McChrystal the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
McChrystal said preparations have begun for a crucial campaign to assert Afghan government control over Kandahar spiritual home of the Taliban.
Gates traveled to Afghanistan to check on the progress of the war's expansion directed late last year by Obama.
Most of the 30000 additional US forces Obama ordered will be in place by summer.
Without being specific McChrystal suggested that any heavy fighting in Kandahar will wait until more US and NATO troops are ready.
The United States will back those willing to take risks for peace Vice President Joseph R Biden Junior said Tuesday during the highest-level visit to Israel by an Obama administration official.
Mister Biden said he was pleased that Israelis and Palestinians had agreed this week to resume indirect peace negotiations with US mediation.
His two-day visit to Israel clearly seemed aimed at assuaging Israeli concerns that President Obama has been less friendly to Israel than his predecessors saying the relationship always has been a centerpiece of American policy and offering effusive praise.
Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel he said a day after the United States announced that Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to begin indirect peace talks breaking a 14-month deadlock.
The announcement of indirect talks which will be held through a US mediator marked Mister Obama's first diplomatic breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But the new peace push is sure to face enormous challenges including sharp divisions among the Palestinians and a hard-line Israeli government seen as unlikely to make wide-ranging concessions.
Mister Biden said he hoped the beginning of indirect talks would be a vehicle by which we can begin to allay that layer of mistrust that has built up in the last several years.
The United States will always stand with those who take risks for peace Mister Biden said standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He told the Israeli leader You're prepared to do that.
The appearance which included warm banter between the two men ended with Mister Netanyahu telling Mister Biden that trees had been planted outside Jerusalem in honor of the vice president's late mother.
My love for your country was watered by that Irish lady Mister Biden responded.
Polls show that Israelis have come to see Mister Obama as less sympathetic to Israel than previous presidents.
Mister Biden's comments appeared aimed at softening the administration's image among both Israelis and their American supporters whose backing is seen as crucial ahead of November's congressional elections.
The vice president also offered assurances that the United States remains committed to Israel's well-being speaking of the administration's total unvarnished commitment to Israel's security.
Iran appeared to loom large in Mister Biden's discussions with Mister Netanyahu.
We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons the vice president said.
Israel has been pushing for stricter international sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear program and has refused to rule out a military strike if sanctions fail.
Mister Obama began his term with a push for Mideast peace prodding Israel to freeze its construction of West Bank settlements that swallow up land the Palestinians want for a future state.
But that call came just as Mister Netanyahu took over in Israel and though the Israeli leader scaled back settlement construction he would not accept a full freeze.
Mister Obama's insistence on a total settlement freeze is seen by many in the region to have backfired by encouraging Palestinians to stake out a position that was politically untenable for Israel's hawkish government.
Mister Biden called Mister Netanyahu's partial freeze significant but the Palestinians still are saying they will not talk directly to Israel unless it freezes settlement building completely.
But hours after Mister Biden's arrival Monday the United States announced the sides would begin indirect peace negotiations.
The fact that the discussions will be held through a US mediator attests to the estrangement between the Israelis and Palestinians who have been speaking to each other directly on and off since the early 1990s.
The agreement to restart talks was marred the same day by an Israeli announcement of approval for 112 new housing units in a West Bank settlement drawing Palestinian condemnation.
To reach a peace agreement the sides will have to agree on the border between them including a division of Jerusalem.
They also will have to work out a compromise on the fate of Palestinians who lost their homes when Israel was founded in 1948 and agree on how to guarantee Israel's security after it leaves the high ground and strategic depth of the West Bank.
Despite numerous rounds of peace talks over nearly 20 years and heavy US involvement the sides have been unable to bridge the gaps on those tough issues.
With the Islamic militant Hamas openly committed to Israel's destruction and now in charge of the Gaza Strip and with Israel governed by a coalition suspicious of concessions to the Palestinians there are reasons to doubt whether an agreement will be possible this time.
On the other hand the fact that some Israeli hard-liners such as Mister Netanyahu himself have come to accept the idea of Palestinian independence and that the Palestinians in the West Bank are now ruled by moderates might offer some hope.
The first same-sex weddings in the District of Columbia will be performed Tuesday.
The city is now the sixth jurisdiction in the county in which such marriages can be performed joining Connecticut Iowa Massachusetts New Hampshire and Vermont.
More than 300 same-sex couples have applied for a license since the application process began Wednesday.
The 13-member DC Council voted in December in favor of the Marriage Equality Act.
Opponents of such marriages tried several ways to stop the legislation including an unsuccessful last-minute attempt to get the US Supreme Court to issue a temporary injunction.
They said DC residents should vote on the legislation not the council.
However Chief Justice John G Roberts Junior said voters will have the right to challenge the legislation in DC courts and pointed out that Congress declined to stop the law from taking effect.
The DC Court of Appeals in late February unanimously rejected the case.
Republicans in Congress have said they lacked the votes to oppose the legislation successfully.
More than 100 couples are expected to pick-up their licenses and marry Tuesday.
Among them will be Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend.
They were the first couple in line Wednesday to apply for a license and will marry at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters in downtown Washington.
Several nondenominational services are scheduled to be held there Tuesday.
DC churches are exempt from having to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies.
The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington does not support the marriages.
The group last week stopped adding employee spouses to its benefits plan.
Catholic Charities had asked the city for an exemption saying it would allow religious organizations to continue to serve without violating their faith.
 Archdiocese spokeswoman Susan Gibbs said Tuesday the change allows the agency to continue to serve the city's nearly 7000 needy residents to meet the new DC city requirements and to remain consistent with our Catholic teaching.
The DC Council vote was 11-2 with yes votes from the two openly gay members David A Catania at-large independent and Jim Graham Ward 1 Democrat.
Council members Marion Barry Ward 8 Democrat and Yvette Alexander Ward 7 Democrat voted no.
Mayor Adrian M Fenty a Democrat promptly signed the bill.
Same-sex marriage was approved last year in California but the law later was struck down by a voter referendum as was a similar measure in Maine.
It's a day of wedding bells for some gay couples in Washington.
Tuesday is the first day same-sex couples can pick up marriage licenses and tie the knot in the city.
Some couples planned quick ceremonies at a church or gay rights group's office while others said they'll wait and have more elaborate celebrations.
About 150 couples can pick up their marriage licenses after 8:30 AM Tuesday.
Those are the couples that applied on the first day the licenses were made available.
Many of them stood in line for four or more hours last Wednesday.
The District of Columbia is the sixth jurisdiction in the country permitting same-sex marriage.
Connecticut Iowa Massachusetts New Hampshire and Vermont also issue same-sex couples licenses.
Once couples pick up their license they have to have the person who performs their marriage sign it and then return it to the marriage bureau to be recorded.
Three morning weddings were planned at the office of the Human Rights Campaign which does advocacy work on lesbian gay bisexual and transgender issues.
In the afternoon a couple had a ceremony planned at All Souls Church the same place that Mayor Adrian M Fenty in December signed the bill legalizing the marriages.
Another couple DC residents Eva Townsend and Shana McDavis-Conway said they were planning a wedding by their plot in a community garden where they have grown carrots and potatoes.
Other couples said they already had ceremonies and would simply wed at the courthouse which has space for about 15 people in a ceremony room.
Most of those celebrations will take place during the weeks of March 22 and March 29 courthouse spokeswoman Leah Gurowitz.
Normally the courthouse has four to six weddings a day but over the next several weeks they are expecting 10 to 12 per day.
Some courtrooms and judge's chambers may be used for the ceremonies with the couple's OK.
The court's official marriage booklet has been updated so that the ceremony will end by pronouncing the couple legally married as opposed to husband and wife.
More than 300 people applied for marriage licenses from Wednesday to Friday almost all same-sex couples Gurowitz said.
Prospects are good for resolving a dispute over abortion that has led some House Democrats to threaten to withhold support of President Obama's health care overhaul a key Michigan Democrat said Monday.
Representative Bart Stupak said he expects to resume talks with House leaders this week in a quest for wording that would impose no new limits on abortion rights but also would not allow use of federal money for the procedure.
I'm more optimistic than I was a week ago Mister Stupak told the Associated Press between meetings with constituents in his northern Michigan district including a crowded town-hall gathering where opinions on health care and the abortion issue were plentiful and varied.
The president says he doesn't want to expand or restrict current law on abortion.
Neither do I Mister Stupak said.
That's never been our position.
So is there some language that we can agree on that hits both points we don't restrict we don't expand abortion rights? I think we can get there.
Mister Stupak has emerged as spokesman for about a dozen House Democrats who supported health legislation approved by the House in November but contend a $1 trillion version that passed the Senate the next month would authorize federal abortion subsidies.
They insist on restoring the stiffer restrictions Mister Stupak added to the House measure.
Mister Stupak said last week that nothing had changed and he didn't think the House leaders had the votes to pass the bill.
His hard-line stand has made him a lightning rod for abortion-rights supporters.
Some accuse the 18-year lawmaker a Roman Catholic of allowing religious beliefs and personal opposition to abortion to jeopardize health reform.
He denies it saying the pro-choice side raised the issue by making the health bill a vehicle to expand abortion rights.
Anti-abortion lawmakers last summer urged House leaders to keep abortion out of the health debate because it's too divisive Mister Stupak said.
So what did they do?
They injected it into the debate.
Everyone thinks I did.
I did not.
Clashing with his party's leadership on the issue is unlikely to endanger Mister Stupak's political standing in his rural blue-collar district which geographically is among the biggest in the eastern US It encompasses Michigan's entire Upper Peninsula and a sizable chunk of the northern Lower Peninsula roughly 600 miles from end to end.
Before Mister Stupak won his seat in 1992 its two previous occupants were Republicans.
His constituents tend to be socially conservative although sections of the Upper Peninsula lean Democratic because of organized labor's strong influence.
Residents offered mixed messages on health care Monday during several stops in small towns near the southern end of the district.
Donna Reminder 77 said she didn't like abortion but didn't want Mister Stupak to let the issue keep him from supporting a health bill.
I'd say go for it anyway.
We need it Reminder said during lunch at a senior center.
Not having good health care is killing a lot of people.
Ellen Smith administrator of a company that operates 10 medical clinics across the region said Mister Stupak should hold his ground.
I don't believe abortion should be paid for with tax money Ms.
Smith said in an interview.
Mister Stupak drew both praise and criticism from the audience of about 125 people who came to the high school library in the Lake Huron town of Tawas City for the evening town hall.
He defended his position on the abortion issue while insisting health care reform is necessary and described the House version as a right-to-life bill saying some 45000 Americans die annually for lack of good health care.
Jim McKimmy the Democratic chairman in a neighboring county urged Mister Stupak to accept a compromise on abortion if necessary to save the bill.
Please don't let it go down to defeat over a single issue he said.
But Gaylord resident Don Koeppen said backing down on abortion could cost Mister Stupak re-election.
To me it's a matter of sticking to his guns said Mister Koeppen who said he leans Republican but has voted for Mister Stupak in recent elections.
Many people would be extremely disappointed if he changed his position.
Seeking to close the deal on a health care overhaul President Obama is getting out of Washington leaving the city he loves to bash and giving himself a platform to portray himself as an outsider going up against big insurance companies and their Capitol Hill lobbyists.
Just about every time Mister Obama has faced a deadline or crunch on his marquee priority he has exchanged a White House podium for a campaign-style forum outside the Beltway in a bid to break through the political wrangling attack Republican detractors and reconnect with voters.
On Monday Mister Obama backed by a trio of American flags implored the audience at a suburban Philadelphia event to go door to door to drive up support for health care reform an issue that has divided the country.
When you're in Washington folks respond to every issue every decision every debate no matter how important it is with the same question
What does this mean for the next election?
What does it mean for your poll numbers?
Is this good for Democrats or Republicans?
Mister Obama mused before a largely student audience at Arcadia University in Glenside.
That's just how Washington is.
They can't help it.
They're obsessed with the sport of politics said Mister Obama who heads to Saint Louis on Wednesday.
It's not lost on Mister Obama that he and his allies have not fared well in that sport recently.
His national disapproval rating on health care hovers at 52 percent compared with an approval rating of 39 percent according to National Journal's Pollster.com average of national polls.
Though Democrats still claim that the American public is on their side Mister Obama has retooled his argument in recent weeks to stress that health care reform is the right thing to do regardless of political implications.
Presidential travel to plug a domestic priority is hardly novel.
Mister Obama's predecessor George W Bush availed himself of the tactic as he unsuccessfully tried to overhaul the Social Security system in 2005.
They're taking their case to the people said Stephen Hess a senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution who served in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations.
It shouldn't surprise anybody or be strange in any way.
It means that they expect the people in turn to influence their legislators which of course they do.
In some instances Mister Hess said it also allows administrations to distance themselves from the Washington press corps in favor of local news outlets where they are likely to benefit from longer staying power.
They get three days of news: They get the news that they're going to be there they get the news that they are there and they get the news that they were there he said.
But Washington is always watching and Republicans were quick to rebut the president.
House Minority Leader John A Boehner Ohio Republican mocked Mister Obama's sales pitch as heavy on snake oil and warned that reviving the stalled measure will lead to higher taxes reduced Medicare benefits and lost jobs.
The White House tried to downplay any political significance of Mister Obama's destinations saying the president is merely heading to places that are being hit the hardest by health care costs.
I mean if you look at where we're going it doesn't really have an impact on a particular member said Bill Burton deputy press secretary.
But Philadelphia is a place where they are seeing these rising costs really crush families and businesses and local government.
So that's really why the president is going to Pennsylvania and Missouri.
Health care road trips are nothing new for Mister Obama who touted Democrats' efforts in June at a town-hall meeting in Wisconsin and in a speech before the American Medical Association in Chicago.
As public opinion soured during the August recess he held additional health care events in New Hampshire and Colorado.
In January he returned to New Hampshire for a town-hall meeting to discuss the economy health care and other issues.
In Philadelphia Mister Obama rallied the crowd.
I need you to knock on doors talk to your neighbors pick up the phone.
When you hear an argument by the water cooler and somebody is saying this or that about it say 'No no no no hold on a second'  Mister Obama said to an enthusiastic audience.
We need you to make your voices heard all the way in Washington DC
Mister Obama last week unveiled a version of the Senate's health care bill that included some Republican ideas and called on Congress to push forward using a process known as reconciliation which would allow Democrats to avoid a Republican filibuster that would require 60 votes to overcome.
Under the complex parliamentary procedure House Democrats would pass the Senate bill and both chambers would then approve a package of fixes.
Senate Democrats would need only a simple majority 51 votes to pass the legislation.
House Democratic leaders are scrambling for votes because numerous rank-and-file Democrats have expressed concerns with the Senate bill.
Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan who voted for the House bill is leading a coalition of pro-life Democrats who oppose the upper chamber's language on federal funding of abortion.
Republicans have demanded that Democrats restart the health care reform process and pursue an incremental bipartisan approach.
They cite public opinion polls showing dim support for the comprehensive bill.
A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than two years ago and believe President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security according to a poll by two left-leaning groups.
The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin 51 percent to 41 percent Americans think the standing of the United States has dropped during the first 13 months of Mister Obama's presidency.
This is surprising given the global acclaim and Nobel peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took office the pollsters said.
The Democratic Party also plummeted on national security.
A May survey by the pollsters found that the public saw the Democratic and Republican parties as equally able to handle national security 41 percent trusted Democrats more and 43 percent trusted Republicans more.
On conducting the war on terrorism the two parties were tied at 41 percent.
But the latest poll shows a massive gap with Democrats trailing by 17 points 33 percent to 50 percent on which party likely voters think would do a better job on national security.
The erosion since May is especially strong among women and among independents who now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent margin the pollsters said in their findings.
More surprising was the huge gap on right-track wrong-track.
Just 31 percent of those polled feel the country is on the right track
A whopping 62 percent say the United States is on the wrong track.
We would not want the election to be held today with this poll said Democracy Corps' chief pollster Stan Greenberg.
If the election were held today this would be a 'change' election.
The Democrats' national security credentials are under assault on several fronts.
Keeping America safe Democrats now trail by 13 points 34 percent to 47 percent the gap was just five points in July 2008.
Ensuring a strong military Democrats trail by 31 points 27 percent to 58 percent.
Making America safer from nuclear threats Democrats trail by 11 points 34 percent to 45 percent despite the president's strong actions and speeches on steps to reduce nuclear dangers the pollsters said.
The Obama strategy of speaking loudly and carrying no stick has caught up with this White House and it is beginning to remind voters of Jimmy Carter all over again said Republican strategist Scott Reed.
Carter reinforced the caricature of weakness abroad and gave the GOP dominance in the national security arena for decades.
One Democratic strategist said general displeasure among Americans is likely driving down poll numbers.
Americans remain in an unhappy mood which is going to drive down a lot of numbers across the board for many different issues including international affairs said Democratic strategist Bud Jackson.
Add to that a need for the White House and national Democrats to more effectively communicate.
While Mister Obama received strong ratings in the poll on his handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the pollsters said in a memo that historical doubts about the Democratic Party on national security show signs of reviving and many voters worry the president and his administration are not dealing forcefully enough with terrorist suspects.
The poll of 851 likely voters conducted February 20-24 found that the administration's response to the Christmas Day terrorist attempt has contributed to the erosion of approval ratings on national security.
The Obama administration drew criticism from Republicans for treating the suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a normal criminal suspect instead of a wartime enemy.
While public polling showed that initial approval of Obama's response above 50 percent two months of Republican criticism have taken a toll - now a narrow 46 to 42 percent plurality of likely voters say they feel less confident about the administration's handling of national security because of how it responded to the incident the pollsters said.
In addition the detention of terrorist suspects and the Obama proposal to prosecute suspects in civilian courts in New York City including Sept.
11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - also have taken a toll on the president's approval ratings.
Whereas a majority of the public approves of the job President Obama is doing in most aspects of national security a 51 to 44 percent majority of likely voters disapproves of his efforts on the 'prosecution and interrogation of terrorism suspects'  the pollsters found.
Democracy Corps calls itself an independent non-profit organization dedicated to making the government of the United States more responsive to the American people.
It was founded in 1999 by former Clinton adviser James Carville and Stanley Greenberg a leading Democratic pollster.
Third Way calls itself the leading moderate think-tank of the progressive movement.
It's the trade war that wasn't.
Fears that the deep global recession would fuel protectionist measures have not been borne out a major survey found.
Commissioned by the Group of 20 leading industrial powers the study found that the United States and its major trading partners have cut back sharply on trade-killing restrictions since September despite strong political pressures at home.
Most G-20 members continue to manage successfully the political process of keeping domestic protectionist pressures under control despite a difficult environment for some of them where employment levels and new job opportunities are shrinking the report said.
The restrictions that were embraced tended to be concentrated in sectors that are already relatively highly protected such as minerals textiles and metal products.
As the global recession deepened in 2008 and 2009 many economists feared a modern trade war similar to the tit-for-tat tariff increases and import quotas that characterized the Great Depression of the 1930s when measures such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the United States sent world commerce plummeting by more than 50 percent.
This time nations operated with far more restraint.
The inclination toward protectionism subsided during the past six months as the economies of most nations began growing again after the longest deepest most widespread global recession since the Great Depression.
The survey could mean good news for a global economy that is gathering new steam with fewer new trade barriers and tariffs to dismantle as the major trading powers struggle to complete the stalled Doha trade round a global negotiation now in its ninth year.
The report was released Monday by the World Trade Organization WTO which coordinated with analysts from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations.
Since September 2009 recourse to new trade restrictions by G-20 members has been less pronounced than in the previous 12 months according to the report.
The G-20 includes the leading Western industrial democracies and major emerging-market and developing nations such as Brazil Russia China India and South Korea.
The WTO calculated that restrictive measures introduced since September 1 covered 0.7 percent of G-20 imports or 0.4 percent of total world imports.
By comparison trade restrictions adopted during the previous period affected twice that level of commerce 1.3 percent of G-20 imports or 0.8 percent of total world imports.
The Obama administration and the Democrat-led Congress have been criticized for a lack of enthusiasm for free-trade deals and for a greater willingness to curb imports in comparison with the policies of the George W Bush administration.
Free-trade pacts with South Korea Colombia and Panama have stalled in Congress since Mister Obama took office last year.
This delay in implementation hurts US credibility around the world not just economically but geopolitically as well Senator Charles E Grassley Iowa Republican told US Trade Representative Ron Kirk at a hearing last week.
On top of that it creates some confusion with respect to the administration's own trade initiatives Mister Grassley said.
Some congressional Democrats far more skeptical of previous free-trade pacts recently called for an end to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.
The WTO report cited the United States for restricting tires and coated paper imported from China conducting anti-dumping investigations involving steel fasteners and steel oil-drilling pipes imported from China complicating Canadian participation in government-procurement contracts and prolonging assistance to financial institutions through the $700 billion Wall Street bailout program.
But WTO analysts said no new major trade-reducing measures were adopted during the past six months in services although countries continued to intervene in the transportation and financial industries both of which received ongoing government support.
Global Trade Alert an independent monitoring organization issued a much more pessimistic review of protectionism last month.
Stabilization certainly hasn't ended protectionism said Simon Evenett a trade economist who serves as coordinator for the group.
Since the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2009 a substantial number 63 of beggar-thy-neighbor policies have been implemented.
If anything G-20 governments have been responsible for a higher share of protectionist measures since economic stabilization began he said.
However Mister Evenett was not predicting a trade war.
While the degree of protectionism remains a subject of debate the trend in world trade is not.
World trade volume surged by 4.8 percent in December after an increase of 1.1 percent in November according to a widely watched report by the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
December's jump was the biggest gain since monthly record-keeping began in 1991.
In 2009 trade plunged by 13.2 percent the Dutch bureau reported.
After December's gain world trade was still 8 percent below its April 2008 peak but 15 percent above its May 2009 low point.
Mister Obama will travel to Asia later this month to promote his most important trade initiative to date the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement.
Immigrant rights groups on Monday demanded that President Obama impose a full moratorium on deportations of illegal immigrants arguing that his policies have been worse for their cause than those of his Republican predecessor.
Saying they've been betrayed by and lost patience with Mister Obama the advocates suggested that the president could regain their support by leading a fight on Capitol Hill for a bill to legalize illegal immigrants.
Mister Obama took the first step toward legalization during a meeting Monday at the White House with two lawmakers working on a bill.
But a bill could take months to pass.
In the meantime the immigrant rights groups say Mister Obama must end deportations altogether.
We demand an immediate stop to all deportations because each one of these deportations each one of these numbers equals a life destroyed and a family devastated Angelica Sala executive director of the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said at a news conference in Washington.
The government reported 387790 deportations in fiscal 2009 which spanned the last few months of the George W Bush administration and more than eight months of the Obama administration.
That marked a small increase over fiscal 2008 when deportations totaled 369221.
The Obama administration insists that its enforcement policies target unscrupulous employers and stop abusive practices that target illegal immigrants.
This administration is focused on smart effective immigration enforcement that focuses first on those dangerous criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities not sweeps or raids to target undocumented immigrants indiscriminately said Homeland Security Department spokesman Matt Chandler.
Legalization versus enforcement has driven tense debate for years.
After his immigration proposal died in the Senate in 2007 Mister Bush stepped up enforcement and deportations.
He said Americans would not accept legalization because they did not trust the government to enforce the laws.
Last year Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said enforcement was sufficient and that the focus should turn back to legalization.
Immigrant rights advocates are planning a major march on Washington on March 21 to pressure Congress to pass a legalization bill.
It is showdown time said Emma Lozano executive director of Centro Sin Fronteras Center Without Borders a Chicago-based rights group.
Several participants said they are raising money to transport people to the march from across the country.
One woman said children from Chicago churches are performing in the streets to raise money for some of the thousands of buses that organizers there are planning.
It's unclear whether Congress is ready for another battle on the politically volatile immigration issue.
The 2007 effort failed when a majority of senators joined a filibuster to block a legalization bill.
Immigrant rights groups were furious when Mister Obama dedicated just a few seconds of his State of the Union address in late January to the issue.
The White House insists that it is taking action behind the scenes including Mister Obama's meeting Monday with Senators Charles E Schumer New York Democrat and Lindsey Graham South Carolina Republican who are working on a bipartisan immigration bill.
Ahead of the meeting White House spokesman Nick Shapiro reiterated Mister Obama's principles: He believes we must resolve the status of the 12 million people who are here illegally that they should have to register pay a penalty for breaking the law and meet other obligations of legal immigrants such as learning English and paying taxes or leave the country.
The news conference Monday highlighted a split on the issue of immigration enforcement.
The immigrant rights groups said they had thought Mister Obama would reduce not increase enforcement.
They warned Democrats that Hispanic and immigrant voters who supported Mister Obama and other Democrats by wide margins in the 2008 elections might search for new champions.
Many of the biggest immigration rights coalitions were absent from the news conference signaling that they are focusing their efforts on legislation rather than publicly criticizing the administration.
Napolitano told Congress in recent weeks that her department had racked up massive amounts of audits of businesses and that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE had set a record for deportations.
We have deported more criminal aliens this year than ever before.
We have removed more aliens from this country than ever before.
Our numbers at ICE are unbelievable she told a Senate hearing February 24.
Homeland Security officials say they have curtailed though not ended raids on businesses but have tried to force employers to let illegal immigrants go.
They also have restructured agreements that allow state and local police to enforce immigration laws.
Immigrant rights advocates said they knew Mister Obama would want to prove that he can enforce immigration laws before embarking on a major reform but expected a stronger push for an immigration bill in Congress.
The Obama administration intentionally set out to show he was tougher than Bush said Brent Wilkes executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Electromagnetic pulse guns genetically designed killer diseases and swarms of miniature self-guided missiles if these sound like the products of a mad scientist they should.
They are among the threats predicted during the US Army's 11th annual Mad Scientist Future Technology Seminar no really in Newport News Va.
The event held at the end of January brought together scientists science-fiction writers futurists academics students and US officials to brainstorm on ways science and technology might combine in unexpected fashion to challenge US military pre-eminence.
It is only a matter of time before there is a significant high-tech surprise awaiting US military forces according to a summary of the seminars conclusions supplied to The Washington Times.
We were basically trying to work out how people could use new and emerging technologies to do malicious things said Jim Bernheimer 40 a science-fiction and fantasy author who attended the event.
One focus of the discussions was the rapidly expanding capabilities of non-state actors such as terrorist groups he said.
Right now its only major nation states that are using drone technology to build unmanned aircraft Mister Bernheimer said giving one example.
But in 15 to 25 years even small groups will have those capabilities.
I personally find that alarming.
Tom Pappas director of intelligence analysis for the US Armys Training and Doctrine Command which organized the seminar said in an interview that this proliferation of information was empowering individuals and small groups not just well-known terrorist organizations.
Imagine a technologically enabled Ted Kaczynski said Mister Pappas referring to the lone eco-extremist terrorist better known as the Unabomber whose 17-year-long campaign with primitive parcel bombs killed three Americans and injured 24.
Mister Pappas said 105 people including five science-fiction authors seven futurists and 14 academics attended the three-day event.
The summary lists five significant findings of the seminar concluding that emerging biological technology especially in the hands of non-state actors has the greatest potential to catch the Army unprepared in the short term by allowing the creation and delivery of new diseases for which there is no cure.
The summary states that this capability likely will be available to US adversaries as early as 2015.
A realistic example would be to alter a naturally mutating flu virus it said.
Other specific technologies highlighted as future threats at the event included devices that produce an electromagnetic pulse EMP a huge surge of radiation like that produced by a nuclear explosion that destroys electrical circuits over wide areas.
EMP devices can render useless communications and other electronic systems like those used for high-tech weapons leaving military units that are attacked by them blind isolated and crippled.
The seminar concluded that EMP weapons will become available to potential adversaries in mortar and artillery rounds soon and that blending the technologies necessary to generate an EMP with advances in miniaturization could produce a hand-held EMP gun before 2020.
The seminar also highlighted the dangers posed by advances in robotics combined with those in nanotechnology the science of creating molecule-sized machinery and advanced computing and artificial intelligence.
One of the most significant impacts of this blending will be the flooding of the battlefield with swarms of miniature explosives that will have the capability to cause severe casualties the summary stated.
It calls these miniature flying bombs a more lethal descendant of todays IED or improvised explosive devices the homemade bombs that have proved so deadly against US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
George Smith a defense technology analyst and a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org said in an interview that he was skeptical about the value of such exercises.
It is always easy to find people who will pontificate about these matters and blow smoke in everyones ears he said.
Its a fancy idea lab but the ideas are not that good.
They have been predicting some of these things for 20 years Mister Smith said about some of the advanced threats discussed in the summary.
The seminar also addressed broader changes in human development that might prove problematic for the military over the next two decades.
Science and technology are driving potential enemies away from directly attacking the Army the summary said.
Instead adversaries are likely to try to bypass the military shifting toward a focus on disrupting transportation banking and government infrastructure within the United States by exploiting malicious use of the Internet and other computer networks generating greater stress in an increasingly vulnerable US homeland.
The idea of a front line an area of operations has fundamentally changed Mister Pappas said.
The US military he said now needs to protect and to operate in the whole space that goes from the homeland to where a particular operation is under way in a cave in Afghanistan.
One element of those changes said Mister Pappas' colleague Rick Goldblatt another of the event organizers was driven by the increasing ubiquity of social networking technologies Web sites such as Facebook and geo-location services for cell phones and other mobile devices such as Loopt.
These technologies present security problems for the military.
The Israeli Defense Forces recently called off an operation after a soldier posted advance details of it on his Facebook page.
But they also mean that a hostile actor could obtain information about an individual soldiers family back home and use it to target them said Mister Goldblatt.
The definition of a combatant has expanded he said pointing out that pilots who remotely fly the Predator and other unmanned aircraft over battlefields in Afghanistan do so from a base in Nevada.
Social networking also creates potential force multiplier effects for US adversaries especially terrorists Mister Bernheimer said.
For a terrorist group The more panic you can cause the better he said.
Its not necessarily about the event itself but the impact how it is perceived how it is spun.
Creatively malicious use of social networking could enable terrorists to make a small event seems a lot worse than it really was.
Russia's Kremlin-appointed regional governors have enjoyed more freedom since President Dmitry Medvedev took office in 2008 though they could flex even more muscle if they were better organized one of the governors said last week.
Valery Shantsev who has led the Nizhny Novgorod region for four years called during a visit to Washington for the formation of an organization similar to the US National Governors Association.
No one has proposed it yet but it would be very useful he said in an interview.
An association would serve many purposes.
For example newly elected governors could be trained to make sure they understand their responsibilities.
All governors are members of Russia's State Council an advisory body to the president.
However an association would enable them to cooperate and solve mutual problems without having to go through Moscow as well as to defend their interests Mister Shantsev said.
He said he has felt no significant political pressure from the Kremlin under Mister Medvedev who does not try to dictate to governors how to do their job.
Every one of us is a free agent.
No one coordinates or supervises us Mister Shantsev said.
The ruling style of Mister Medvedev's predecessor Vladimir Putin was widely criticized in the West as authoritarian and the George W Bush administration repeatedly accused him of backsliding on democracy.
One of the administration's complaints was that he did not give governors enough autonomy.
Mister Putin is still in the Kremlin as prime minister and many diplomats and observers say his influence is as strong as it was when he held the presidency.
So he could interfere if he wanted to but there are outside factors that would make that difficult analysts said.
Russia's dramatic economic decline in the wake of the global financial crisis places more constraints on Moscow's capacity to buy off political and economic influence in Russia's regions said Andrew C Kuchins director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Nizhny Novgorod is one of 83 regions and other areas known as federal subjects of Russia.
With its 3.5 million people and about 158 square miles it is by no means among the largest.
However it is politically important because of its proximity to Moscow.
In the early 1990s the governorship of Nizhny Novgorod launched the national career of one of Russia's youngest and most famous politicians Boris Nemtsov who later became deputy prime minister in Moscow under former President Boris Yeltsin.
Mister Nemtsov was just 32 when he became governor and won praise from former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Mister Shantsev said that even though he has good relations with the Kremlin his administration is not afraid to take on federal authorities if it disagrees with their actions in the region.
Our regional laws have the same status as federal laws and officials in Moscow are subject to our laws just like anybody else.
Such issues come up often and we sue them and we win in court he said.
For example at one point we worked on a project to provide free distribution of medicines and a certain company won the tender he said though he declined to name the Russian company.
At that point the federal anti-monopoly agency stepped in banned them from working and announced the tender was illegal.
We sued went all the way up to the highest court of appeals and won the case.
Direct elections for regional parliaments in Russia are held every five years.
The majority-winning party proposes three candidates for governor to the president and he makes his choice which then has to be approved formally by the legislature Mister Shantsev said.
The main purpose of his trip to the United States was to promote investment in his region and learn from the economic and business experience of US states.
He visited Annapolis last week and agreed to cooperate with Maryland in the future.
He said one of the main hurdles to attracting foreign investors to Nizhny Novgorod is the very poor condition of the only international airport in the region in the city with the same name.
Germany's Lufthansa is the only Western airline currently operating flights there.
Mister Shantsev said he plans to put a significant effort into modernizing the airport and predicted seven times more passengers in 2014 compared to last year's 300000.
Accusations by Spanish authorities that Venezuela aided an alliance between Basque and Colombian terror groups that plotted joint attacks in Colombia and Spain have revived a debate over Venezuela's possible role as a state sponsor of terrorism.
A February 24 indictment issued by Judge Eloy Velasco of Spain's anti-terrorism court specifically cites Venezuelan governmental cooperation with 12 members of the Basque separatist group ETA and guerrillas of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC.
The groups have been accused of training together to make sophisticated bombs and of plotting to assassinate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe with the support of Venezuelan officials.
ETA whose acronym stands for Basque Homeland and Liberty is considered responsible for the deaths of more than 800 people in its struggle for Basque independence from Spain waged since the 1960s.
FARC has similarly fought a half-century-old insurgency against the Colombian government.
Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez has reacted angrily to the latest charges.
I have nothing to explain to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero or anyone else on this planet he told reporters after the judge's indictment.
He called the court findings daring accusations without the slightest proof.
Mister Chavez did not deny however that indicted ETA militant Arturo Cubillas Fontan has been on the Venezuelan government payroll.
He said he would not be surprised if Spain was seeking his extradition and explained that Mister Fontan had been given asylum in Venezuela by a previous government.
In statements released last weekend the Venezuelan and Spanish governments said they had surpassed difference and vowed to cooperate against terrorism.
The statements followed calls from Spain's main opposition party to break relations with Venezuela.
Earlier in the week Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos had called Mister Chavez to assure him that his socialist government had nothing to do with the indictment.
Mister Chavez publicly called on Spain to keep a closer eye on its court system.
Mister Fontan has been employed as a deputy director for administration and services in Venezuela's Ministry for Land and Agriculture since 2005.
His Venezuelan wife Goizeder Odriozola also works for the government as director of institutional relations in the Ministry of Popular Power.
Spanish authorities describe Mister Fontan as a murder suspect who is responsible for the ETA collective in this zone of Latin America since 1999 in charge of coordinating relations with FARC.
The 26-page indictment presented by Judge Velasco is based on intercepted electronic messages between FARC commanders corroborated by police interrogations of FARC defectors and testimonies from captured members of ETA.
The report also draws on past intelligence reports about contacts between ETA and FARC representatives in Cuba.
Venezuela is accused of providing protection for joint training programs arranged by Mister Fontan.
The report describes a 20-day course on weapons and explosives handling given at a jungle hide-out inside Venezuela based on testimonies from FARC defectors who say they participated in the training at the time.
The Caribbean bloc of FARC arrived by land accompanied by a person wearing Venezuelan Military Intelligence Directorate insignia and a Venezuelan military escort vehicle organized by Mister Fontan the Spanish court document states.
Mister Fontan is not the first Venezuelan government official to be accused of belonging to a terrorist group.
In 2008 the US named Venezuelan diplomat Ghazi Nasr al-Din who held top embassy posts in Lebanon and Syria as a member of the Iranian-backed Islamic militant organization Hezbollah.
Another State Department report released in 2009 listed several Venezuelan security officials as collaborators in FARC narco trafficking activities including Ramon Rodriguez Chacin who was interior minister.
The US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere Frank O Mora said last week that we should not be surprised about Spain's latest findings on Venezuela's link with FARC.
This terrorist group does not only operate in Colombia but in other countries he said.
Nonconventional but highly complex threats like guerrillas require multinational responses.
Mister Chavez has repeatedly claimed that the accusations are part of a US campaign to discredit him.
Behind all this is the Yankee empire he said last week in Uruguay where he attended the inauguration of newly elected President Jose Mujica who was himself a member of the Tupamaro guerrilla movement in the 1970s.
Spain's police investigations were first reported by The Washington Times two years ago when chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza traveled to Colombia to review computer records recovered from FARC leader Raul Reyes who had been killed in a Colombian army raid on a rebel camp in neighboring Ecuador.
More than 100 e-mails exchanged between Mister Reyes and other guerrilla commanders provided dates locations and other details on joint operations with ETA.
Mister Chavez and his counterpart in Ecuador President Rafael Correa have claimed the intercepted computer records were US fabrications.
Purported e-mails from FARC commander Ruben Zamora who is believed to operate along the Colombian-Venezuelan border informed Reyes about arrangements with Mister Fontan to incorporate four members of ETA into a FARC training camp.
Weapons technology reportedly exchanged between the groups involved the manufacture of cylindrical mortars for standoff attacks against defended installations conversion of anti-tank rockets into anti-aircraft weapons and the preparation of remotely controlled car bombs using cell phone-activated detonators and C-4 plastic explosive charges.
ETA teams were rotated through several guerrilla courses between 2003 and 2008.
They included some of the Basque group's most dangerous fugitives including Jose Maria Zaldua who is wanted on multiple murder charges.
According to the Spanish indictment e-mails between FARC leaders also mentioned the possibility of using ETA to mount assassinations against Colombian officials living in Spain including former President Andres Pastrana and Colombian Ambassador Noemi Sanin.
The friends from ETA would not have much difficulty locating these two said a message from Reyes.
FARC's current secretary-general Alfonso Cano suggested offering a cash reward.
Other details revealed by Spanish and Colombian authorities suggest Venezuela may have aided previous FARC attempts to gain international expertise for urban guerrilla operations.
Colombian authorities have revealed immigration records showing that Irish Republican Army bomb experts arrested in Colombia in 2001 traveled between Venezuela and Colombia while they were training FARC.
Colombian defense officials have said that when the three IRA men escaped from their Colombian prison in 2005 they were smuggled across the border to a guerrilla camp in Venezuela.
There are also some unresolved cases involving Venezuelan-based Islamic militants.
Following the September 11 2001 attacks in the US the FBI arrested a Venezuelan-born Arab Hakim Mamad al-Diab Fattah who attended flight school with the al Qaeda cell that crashed an airliner into the Pentagon.
He was deported to Venezuela where the FBI requested that he be interrogated and kept under surveillance.
Although the FBI field office in Caracas informed the Venezuelan Interior Ministry of his travel itinerary and arrival time in Caracas Venezuelan officials claimed al-Diab Fattah never re-entered the country.
The Obama administration said Monday it will ease some sanctions on Iran Sudan and Cuba to allow US exports of social-media software to help those countries' citizens circumvent government censorship.
The Treasury Department's decision to grant licenses to Google Microsoft and other companies followed a request by the State Department which cited national-interest reasons in seeking waivers from existing laws.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton who has spearheaded the administration's efforts to promote Internet freedom around the world said Washington's move is aimed at making it possible for people to have other sources of information about what is going on inside their country.
We are going to continue to support those Iranians who wish to circumvent and be able to communicate without being blocked by their own government Clinton told reporters when asked specifically about the Islamic Republic of Iran.
We believe that Iran calls itself a democracy.
It should act like one and that means respecting the right to free expression and assembly of its own people she said.
And in the 21st century expression and assembly are carried out on the Internet as well as in person.
The sanctions waiver would allow downloads of software for Web browsing blogging e-mail instant messaging chatting social networking and photo and movie sharing the Treasury said.
Today's actions will enable Iranian Sudanese and Cuban citizens to exercise their most basic rights Deputy Treasury Secretary Neil S Wolin said in a statement.
It was not clear what the practical benefit of the decision will be for people in the affected countries given that their governments can easily ban or restrict access to the software at issue as do authorities in China for example.
Clinton did not answer that question but US officials said there are ways to go around official censorship which is why the secretary used the word circumvent.
Mark Dubowitz executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies called Monday's decision a very important interagency policy statement by the administration and the first time it has provided material support for the pro-democracy Green Movement in Iran the only thing that has so far rattled the regime.
Support for the Green Movement through the provision of critical communications technology combined with crippling energy sanctions may well be too little too late to throttle the regime's nuclear aspirations he said.
But we are fooling ourselves if we believe that what we've done so far will stop the Islamic republic's quest for the bomb.
For years Tehran's nuclear program has been a source of tensions with the West which fears that Iran is trying to build a weapon under the disguise of a civilian effort.
Mister Dubowitz said Iran was more willing to negotiate following the massive protests after the disputed presidential election in June.
Now is the time for President Obama to rally Americans and Europeans to the cause of Iranian democracy he said.
If the regime manages to crush the opposition we will have lost an enormous opportunity to bring some normality and hope to the Middle East.