World / Nation Briefs February 16, 2012
Payroll tax cut agreement announced
WASHINGTON - Calling quits to a bruising election-year fight, negotiators on Capitol Hill sealed an agreement late Wednesday on legislation to renew a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for millions more.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., announced the agreement, capping a long day of wrangling over final details of the measure, which is a top priority of President Barack Obama. The announcement paved the way for votes in both House and Senate this week.
The $150 billion measure represents a tactical retreat for Republicans, who were generally unenthusiastic about the legislation but eager to move beyond the issue. With the campaign season starting, they don't want Obama and Democrats in Congress to be able to claim that the GOP was standing in the way of a middle-class tax cut.
It represented a rare burst of bipartisanship in a bitterly divided Congress.
The legislation would continue a 2 percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax, renew jobless benefits averaging about $300 a week for people languishing for long periods on unemployment rolls and protect doctors from a huge cut in their Medicare reimbursements.
Washington visit boosts profile of Chinese leader
WASHINGTON - For Americans looking at the U.S. visit of China's likely future leader for a clue about where relations between the two nations might be headed, the signal has been clear: No change in substance, but perhaps a change in style.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping toed the line set by the man he is to succeed as Communist Party chief in the fall, Hu Jintao, who made a grand U.S. state visit a year ago.
Xi, who is expected to become president in 2013, made clear that China wants a deeper relationship with the United States and even welcomes its engagement in the Asia-Pacific, as long as it respects China's interests and concerns in its own neighborhood.
"It was a scripted trip without surprises," said Jeff Bader, East Asia policy director during the first two years of the Obama administration. "He obviously wasn't here to make policy, or make decisions or alter positions on issues. He is not the No. 1 yet and he doesn't want to prejudice his chances of being No. 1."
But while Xi, 58, has said little new - and did little to narrow the gaping differences that exist between the U.S. and China on issues such as human rights - he made a conscious effort to appear less remote than the stiff and aloof Hu.
At least 358 people killed in prison fire
COMAYAGUA, Honduras - A fire started by an inmate tore through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, burning and suffocating screaming men in their locked cells as rescuers desperately searched for keys. Officials confirmed 358 dead Wednesday, making it the world's deadliest prison fire in a century.
The local governor, who was once a prison employee, told reporters that an inmate called her moments before the blaze broke out and screamed: "I will set this place on fire and we are all going to die!"
Comayagua Gov. Paola Castro said she called the Red Cross and fire brigade immediately after receiving the call late Tuesday night. But firefighters said they were kept outside for half an hour by guards who fired their guns in the air, thinking they had a riot or a breakout on their hands.
Officials have long had little control over conditions inside many Honduran prisons, where inmates have largely unfettered access to cell phones and other contraband.
Survivors told investigators the unidentified inmate set fire to his bedding in the farm prison in the central town of Comayagua, 53 miles north of Tegucigalpa. The lockup housed people convicted of serious crimes such as homicide and armed robbery, but also those who had yet to be tried.
Republicans vow to oppose nuclear force cut
WASHINGTON - Congressional Republicans on Wednesday vowed to block the Obama administration from sharply cutting the U.S. nuclear force, calling potential reductions of as much as 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons "reckless lunacy."
Pointing to the growing number of trouble spots, from Iran to Syria to Egypt, members of the House Armed Services Committee said any significant cuts would undermine the U.S. ability to deter aggression. The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the administration is weighing several options for new reductions from the current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee that no decision has been made and maintaining the current level is one of the options. But that did little to assuage GOP lawmakers.
"I just want to go on record as saying that there are many of us that are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that this preposterous notion does not gain any real traction," said Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz.
The most modest option under discussion would return the United States to a level not seen in more than half a century, when the Soviet Union and the U.S. pushed ahead in a Cold War nuclear arms race. The administration is weighing at least three options for lower total numbers, cutting to around 1,000 to 1,100, 700 to 800, or 300 to 400.
Defiant Iran claims advances in nuclear fuel
TEHRAN, Iran - In defiant swipes at its foes, Iran said Wednesday it is dramatically closer to mastering the production of nuclear fuel even as the U.S. weighs tougher pressures and Tehran's suspected shadow war with Israel brings probes far beyond the Middle East.
Iran further struck back at the West by indicating it was on the verge of imposing a midwinter fuel squeeze to Europe in retaliation for a looming boycott of Iranian oil, but denied reports earlier in the day that six nations had already been cut off.
The uncompromising messages from Iran, however, came with a counterpoint. The official IRNA news agency said Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, told European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton that Iran is ready to return to talks with the U.S. and other world powers.
- The Associated Press