FACTBOX-Jobs, health care top U.S. Congress agenda

With voter anxiety over the economy remaining high, Democrats hope to bring down the 10 percent unemployment rate before the November congressional election. The House of Representatives passed a $155 billion bill last month that aims to stimulate the job market through infrastructure projects and helping states pay the salaries of public employees.

In the Senate, Democrats Byron Dorgan and Dick Durbin have been paring back 121 job-related proposals into a package they are expected to unveil in coming weeks. Their proposal is likely to differ substantially from the House version, with provisions that boost small businesses and renewable energy efforts, aides said.



The Senate might not pass a jobs bill until March, which would have to be reconciled with the House version before President Barack Obama could sign it into law.



HEALTHCARE



Democrats are seeking to iron out differences between sweeping bills passed by the Senate and House to revamp the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system, Obama's top domestic priority. Polls show a public backlash against the plan. But Democrats say they expect polls to be more supportive once they strike a deal that Obama can sign into law.



FINANCIAL REGULATION



Financial regulation reform, another top Obama priority, will dominate debate in the Senate Banking Committee in coming weeks, with a bill likely to emerge as early as next month.



The House approved a measure in December that cracks down on big banks, hedge funds, executive pay and the derivatives market, while setting up new government bodies to deal with financial risks to economic stability.



Republicans and banking lobbyists want to block or weaken a bill, offered by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, that in some ways is tougher than the House bill.



Dodd's recent decision to retire at the end of the year has complicated the measure's outlook.



CLIMATE CHANGE



Senator John Kerry is trying to break a deadlock over climate-control legislation that he and his fellow Democrats want to put to a vote during the first half of the year. Obama says climate control is another of his priorities, and he led negotiations last month in Copenhagen at an international summit on the topic. But with the November election, it's unclear whether enough senators will be willing to vote for a bill that could end up raising energy and other consumer prices during hard economic times.



DEBT LIMIT AND DEFICIT CONTROL



Lawmakers raised the country's debt limit to $12.4 trillion in December, but they will have to hike it further when the Treasury Department reaches that limit in coming weeks.



Democratic leaders have said they want to raise the limit by at least $1.8 trillion so they won't have to revisit the issue before the election.



The Senate plans a vote to increase the debt limit on Wednesday and could lessen the pain by coupling it with action on two measures that backers say could bring spending under control.



One proposal would create a commission that would give lawmakers political cover to back spending cuts, tax hikes or other measures to reduce the deficit.



The other, known as "paygo," would require new spending to be offset with tax hikes or spending cuts elsewhere, although there could be a wide range of exceptions.



Both measures face substantial hurdles, but lawmakers are in talks with the White House to hammer out a compromise. One possible outcome: a tougher paygo law, combined with a budget commission set up by the White House.



AFGHANISTAN



Lawmakers are awaiting a request from Obama for money to pay for his decision to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The administration is expected to ask Congress for $33 billion for the troop increase announced by Obama in December.



Congress appears certain to approve funding, but it will be a tough vote for many. Democrats are divided over Obama's decision. Republicans largely back it and are expected to provide the needed votes to clear the funds.



IRAN



Democrats and Republicans are eager to give Obama more tools to sanction Iran for refusing to stop its nuclear work.



Before senators went home for the holidays, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he wanted to hold a vote after the break on a bill that directs the president to sanction companies that supply gasoline to Iran. A similar measure already has passed the House.



But it is unclear whether the Senate will go ahead with its vote because the administration has grown cool to broad-based sanctions. It is looking instead at focused sanctions against Iran's leadership

Source:reuters.com/a

U.S., U.K. Close Yemen Embassies; Brown Cites ‘Failing State’

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and U.K. closed their embassies in Yemen, citing threats of attacks, as officials voiced concern over al-Qaeda’s presence in what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a “failing state.”

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said intelligence indicated that al-Qaeda plans attacks in Sana’a, the capital, “possibly against our embassy, possibly against U.S. personnel.” Shutting the embassy “was the prudent thing to do,” Brennan said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” program.

The U.K. and U.S. are offering more security aid for Yemen, an impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation which is emerging as a base for al-Qaeda attacks as the terrorist group comes under pressure in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

U.K. Prime Minister Brown, who called Yemen a “failing state” in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. yesterday, will convene a Jan. 28 aid conference on Yemen in London at which the U.K. will seek to enlist support from oil- rich Gulf nations.

The Yemen branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Dec. 25 attack, in which Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight with 278 passengers.

The failed attack prompted the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to issue new rules yesterday calling for “enhanced screening” of U.S.-bound air travelers who have passed through “countries of interest,” as well as requiring random checks on other international flights.



Other Attacks Feared



Brennan, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, said there are “probably several hundred” al-Qaeda members in Yemen and the U.S. worries they may be training other operatives for attacks in the U.S. and elsewhere similar to the one attempted by Abdulmutallab.

“We’re not going to take any chances with the lives of our diplomats and others” at the American embassy, Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday,” one of four Sunday news shows on which he appeared.

Asked if American troops might be sent to Yemen, Brennan said: “We’re not talking about that at this point at all.”

“The Yemeni government has demonstrated their willingness to take the fight to al-Qaeda,” Brennan said. “They’re willing to accept our support. We’re providing them everything that they’ve asked for.”

The embassy closures came a day after the top U.S. general in the region, David Petraeus, paid an unannounced visit to Yemen and pledged more assistance in combating terrorism.



Doubling U.S. Aid



Petraeus, in talks Jan. 2 in Sana’a with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to support anti- terrorism efforts in Yemen, the Yemeni presidency said in a statement on its Web site. Petraeus told reporters in Baghdad on Jan. 1 that the U.S. in fiscal 2010 will almost double last year’s $70 million in security aid for Yemen.

“The Yemeni president and parliament take this threat very seriously,” Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East and Central Asia, said in Baghdad. “And that is of enormous significance, especially in a country facing such challenges.”

The London conference should concentrate on Yemen’s $11 billion development needs as well as anti-terrorism assistance, Deputy Minister for Planning and International Cooperation Hisham Sharaf said by phone from Sana’a yesterday.

A November 2006 donors’ conference in London led to pledges of $5.7 billion in aid for Yemen, almost half from Gulf nations, of which only $415 million has been received, Sharaf said.

“What is needed is a long-term aid strategy,” said Mustafa Alani, a regional security expert from the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “It would be wrong to focus only on security and counterterrorism.”



Other Challenges



Yemen is also struggling to subdue both an insurgency by northern Shiite Muslim rebels that has drawn in neighboring Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, and a secessionist movement in the south. It is the poorest Arab nation and the government expects oil reserves that fund 70 percent of the budget to run out over the next decade.

Obama and Brown agreed to fund a police unit in Yemen to target terrorism and will support coast guard operations in the Arabian Peninsula nation, according to an e-mailed statement from the two governments yesterday.

Yemen said Dec. 24 it had foiled an al-Qaeda attack on the U.K. embassy a week earlier modeled on a twin suicide car bombing on the U.S. embassy in September 2008 that killed 17 people, including seven security guards and seven attackers.



Al-Qaeda Base



Yemen has become an increasingly important base for al- Qaeda, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said on Dec. 29.

Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old, spent about three months in Yemen before leaving the country in early December. He told U.S. investigators that in Yemen he received training and the bomb- making materials he used in his attempt to blow up the airliner.

Brennan said U.S. intelligence agencies had “snippets” of information that were recognized “in hindsight” to be related to the failed attack. There was a “failure to integrate and piece together those bits of information,” he said.

The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond of Missouri, said the U.S. national security system failed.

“With all of the leads dangling out there, somebody screwed up by not reporting it,” said Bond. In addition, the airport screening “was a disaster,” he said.

The Intelligence Committee, one of several congressional panels planning investigations of the incident, will hold a hearing Jan. 21. Bond, appearing yesterday on Fox, said there are no grounds at this point to fire Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair or Leon Panetta, head of the Central Intelligence Agency.



Other Criticism



Other Republicans criticized the Democratic Obama administration’s anti-terrorism efforts.

“What we had in this case was a failure to act on a very credible report from the terrorist’s father that should, at the very least, have caused the State Department to revoke his visa,” Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said on “This Week.” Abdulmutallab’s father warned officials at the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that he was worried about his son’s extremist views, U.S. authorities said.

“Why wasn’t this individual’s visa revoked once we had such a credible report that he posed a threat?” Collins said.

She said it is “unacceptable” that there is no screening system in place to detect the explosive used in the Christmas Day incident, even eight years after would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid used “the exact same explosive.”



Enemy Combatant



Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, said the U.S. “probably lost valuable information” by not viewing the attempted airline bombing as an act of war and the suspect as an enemy combatant.

“If we had treated this Christmas Day bomber as a terrorist, he would have immediately been interrogated military- style, rather than given the rights of an American and lawyers,” DeMint said on CNN.

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, also appearing on CNN, said it is “unfair and, frankly, political to take pot shots at the president as we respond to this failure in our systems that we’ve got to get fixed.”




--With assistance from Khaled Abdullah in Sana’a, Clementine Fletcher and Scott Hamilton in London, and Todd Shields in Washington. Editors: Bill Schmick, Ann Hughey.

Source:businessweek.com/

UK-US working closely on Yemen and Somalia terrorist threat

Downing Street and the White House have agreed to continue working hand-in-glove to tackle the evolving threat of terrorism from Yemen and Somalia in the wake of recent events in the US.

Both the US and UK already provide support and funding to the Yemeni authorities to help in their efforts to combat the terrorist threat. Measures include support for a special counter-terrorist police unit and for the Yemeni coastguard operation.

The Prime Minister has said that UK support to Yemen is expected to exceed £100 million by 2011 - Britain is one of the leading donors to Yemen’s development.

Speaking on the BBC today, Gordon Brown said Britain has been working closely with the Americans to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation in Yemen.

“Yemen has been recognised, like Somalia, to be one of the areas we have got to not only keep an eye on, but we’ve got to do more. So it’s strengthening counter-terrorism cooperation, it’s working harder on intelligence efforts.”

The UK has also been pushing at the UN Security Council for an effective African peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM.

On Friday, Gordon Brown announced plans to invite key international partners to a high level meeting in London which will coincide with a major conference on Afghanistan.

“There is absolutely no doubt that the conference we will have in London in January, with a Yemen element to it, will be an important means by which we will help the Yemeni authorities who are fighting terrorism to develop the means and the will to do this even more.”

He has also asked that the evolving threat from Yemen and Somalia be placed on the agenda for the EU General Affairs Council in January, and he will discuss with counterparts at the next EU Council meeting. In addition Mr Brown intends to push for stronger action on Yemen from the Financial Action Task Force.

The PM has also called a special meeting of the National Security, International Relations and Development (NSID) Cabinet committee to discuss further the UK’s response to the attempted attack last week. The Committee oversees UK security issues and includes security and military chiefs. This week the PM will hold urgent discussions with Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Defence Secretary and senior advisers on intelligence and security, ahead of the NSID meeting.

This follows the urgent review of airport security ordered by the PM in the immediate aftermath of last week’s events in the US. He expects preliminary findings in days and has pledged to move quickly to improve security wherever necessary.

Source:.number10.gov.uk/

U.S. Intelligence Chief Warns Of More Attacks

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) - The dust on the weekly address from U.S. President Barack Obama had not yet settled down when came the scathing remarks from Michael E. Leiter, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) reminding the Americans "the insidious terrorist threats," faced by them.


Leiter punched his statement with an underlying threat of more attacks after referring to the failed bid of December 25 on the Detroit bound transatlantic flight originating in NIgeria.

The intelligence chief minced no words saying, "While this attempt ended in failure we know with absolute certainty that Al-Qa'ida and those who support its ideology continue to refine their methods to test our defenses and pursue an attack on the Homeland."

Obama in his speech earlier today had used stern criticism of the intelligence services for failing to prevent the December 25 attack, despite warning signs.

President Obama had expressed his disappointment with the intelligence services as he promised, "(to make sure) these communities-and the people in them-are coordinating effectively and are held accountable at every level. And as President, that is what I will do."

"Our most sacred responsibility is to be focused on our mission -- detecting and preventing terrorist attacks from happening on our soil and against U.S. interests," Leiter said. "The American people expect and deserve nothing less."

It is an ironic scenario of history repeating itself as the NCTC was created in 2004 to coordinate efforts between U.S. intelligence agencies, whose failure to share information was lambasted by the commission looking into the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Today, after the Dec 25 attack, again the fingers are pointed at the failure of the U.S. intelligence agencies to coordinate and share information despite the formation of the NCTC.

Source:allheadlinenews.com/