Switzerland freezes US$300m of Mubarak sons' assets: report

GENEVA: Swiss authorities have frozen US$300 million sitting in Credit Suisse accounts in Geneva held by the sons of deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the newspaper Le Matin Dimanche reported on Sunday.

The funds are held in accounts belonging to Alaa and Gamal Mubarak, sons of the ex-president who are currently being held in an Egyptian prison.

The brothers are accused of using their position as scions of Egypt's longtime ruler to help themselves to villas, luxury cars and stakes in the country's key companies.

According to the newspaper, the funds were deposited at the Credit Suisse in 2005, which was after Switzerland tightened rules governing transactions by politically exposed depositors.

A Credit Suisse spokesman refused comment, citing the bank's secrecy policy.

The paper said Egypt-linked funds have also been frozen at the Swiss office of French banking giant BNP Paribas.

Switzerland has opened a probe targeting 14 people close to the Mubarak regime who are suspected of embezzling public funds and wide scale corruption.

Earlier this month, Swiss authorities refused to provide their Egyptian counterparts with access to their findings so far, citing concerns for the "institutional situation" in Cairo.

- AFP/jc

Read More..

Foursquare to show users' full names, share more data

Foursquare has begun notifying users of privacy policy updates that will begin making more user information and data public next month.

Beginning January 28, 2013, users' "full names" will be displayed across the check-in service and venue owners will have increased access to users' check-in data, the company announced in an e-mail sent to users late last night. It also published a document called "Privacy 101" to explain the new changes.

The service currently sometimes shows full names but often displays just users' first name and last initial -- except when looking up friends on the service.

"In the original versions of Foursquare, these distinctions made sense," Foursquare explained in its e-mail. "But we get emails every day saying that it's now confusing."

After the privacy policy changes take effect, all users' full names will be displayed everywhere across the service. However, users will still have control of the name displayed by altering their "full name" in their settings.

The policy changes will also give venue owners access to more recent data about user check-ins at the venue. Businesses on Foursquare currently have access to information about customers who checked in during the previous three hours; after January they will see more recent check-ins, although Foursquare didn't indicate how much more

"This is great for helping store owners identify their customers and give them more personal service or offers," Foursquare noted. "But a lot of businesses only have time to log in at the end of the day to look at it."

As with the "full name" setting, users can opt out of letting venue owners see their check-in information.

Foursquare's careful explanation of the new policies comes in the wake of an Instagram user revolt over new privacy policies that appeared to grant the Facebook-owned service perpetual rights to sell users' photographs without notifying or compensating the photographer. Instagram quickly backpedaled, with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom apologizing for failing to clearly communicate the company's intentions.

Read More..

Pakistan terror incidents threaten peace talks

ISLAMABAD The killing of 41 people in two separate terrorist incidents in Pakistan appeared on Sunday to temporarily halt prospects for immediate peace talks between Pakistani authorities and Taliban militants, two senior Pakistani intelligence officers and a senior western diplomat in Islamabad warned.

Both intelligence officers said that the fallout of the killings may even harm U.S. plans to peacefully draw down troops from Afghanistan, with Pakistan's active backing.

In the first incident, 21 Pakistani paramilitary guards working in the northern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province who were kidnapped last week by the Taliban were confirmed dead on Saturday.

"All the 21 young men were brutally killed by their captors," said one Pakistani intelligence officer who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity because intelligence officers are not allowed to speak to journalists.

He said that the kidnapped men's killings may have been triggered in part by the Pakistani government's refusal to release some Taliban militants in custody.

After the men were kidnapped, a senior government official in the northern city of Peshawar, the provincial capital, told CBS News that the Taliban were demanding the release of some of their fellow militants in Pakistan's custody in exchange for the 21 men.

In the second incident on Sunday, at least 20 Pakistanis of the Shia Muslim faith were killed and more than 20 wounded when a car bomb targeted their convoy of buses being driven through the southwestern Baluchistan province to the Iranian border.

Pakistani officials said the dead were heading to Iran's northern holy city of Mashhad to attend an important Shiite commemoration in the coming week.

The second Pakistani intelligence officer who spoke to CBS News said that the killings in Baluchistan "seem to be linked to factions associated with the Taliban.

"These killings make it practically impossible for the government to have a peace dialogue with the Taliban," the officer said. "No one will speak to these people while we have a gun pointed to our heads."

In the past, representatives of Pakistan's Shia Muslims have claimed that the Taliban (who belong to a hardline version of the Sunni Muslim faith) have been involved in attacks on Shiites in Baluchistan.

The two terrorist incidents were preceded by reports of the Taliban sending messages to senior leaders of President Asif Ali Zardari's administration in Islamabad, seeking peace talks to end a decade-long conflict with the Pakistan army.

Senior government officials have reacted cautiously, with some suggesting that the offer should be carefully considered, while others have warned that the Taliban will not agree to end their attacks on Pakistani troops until a final settlement, on their terms, comes together.

"The two brutal terrorist incidents are a major cause of concern. They suggest there's no appetite among the Taliban for a peaceful end to the war," said a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad who also spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity.

He warned that in addition to Pakistan's own internal security conditions, more violence will make it harder for the country to cooperate with the U.S. in facilitating an orderly American troop drawdown from Afghanistan by end of 2014.

"Pakistan will be the main route for U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan. If there is no end to Taliban violence in Pakistan, the drawdown will face threats," added the diplomat.

Read More..

President Suggests Small 'Cliff' Deal Likely

With less than two days remaining for Congress to reach a budget agreement that would avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff,” President Obama today suggested that a small deal remains the best hope to avoid the perilous package of spending cuts and tax increases.

In an interview aired this morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press” the president said if Republicans agreed to raising taxes on top income earners it should be enough to avoid the triggers that would execute the $607 billion measure. Economists agree that going over the cliff would likely put the country back in recession.

“If we have raised some revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to turn off what’s called the sequester, these automatic spending cuts, and that also would have a better outcome for our economy long-term,” he said.

Saying the “pressure is on Congress to produce,” the president did not specify what income level his party would deem acceptable as the cutoff for those who would see their tax rates remain at current levels. The president has called for expiration of the “Bush-era” tax cuts to affect household earnings over $250,000 since the campaign, but has reportedly floated a $400,000 figure in past negotiations. Speaker John Boehner once offered a $1 million cut-off in his failed “Plan B” proposal, which failed to garner enough support among the House Republicans.

“It’s been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader McConnell  to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit as part of an overall deficit reduction package,” the president said.

Domestic programs would lose $55 billion in funding should sequestration pass, including $2 billion to Medicare and unemployment benefits. The Pentagon would take a $55 billion loss as well, or 9 percent of their budget.

Repeating remarks he made Friday after a meeting with congressional leaders, Obama said that should negotiations fail he has asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to introduce a stripped- down proposal to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote – if it isn’t blocked.

“If all else fails, if Republicans do in fact decide to block so that taxes on the middle class do in fact go up on January 1, then we’ll come back with a new Congress on January 4, and the first bill that will be introduced on the floor will be to cut taxes on middle-class families,” he said of the worst case scenario. “I don’t think the average person is going to say, ‘Gosh, you know, that’s a really partisan agenda.’”

The interview was taped Saturday while Reid and his GOP counterpart Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky scrambled to their offices for a solution behind closed doors. Press staking out Capitol Hill reported little public activity from the leaders or their surrogates. If negotiations are successful, the lawmakers could introduce a bill for vote this afternoon.

Republican leaders bit back at the president’s remarks. In a written statement Speaker Boehner said casting blame was “ironic, as a recurring theme of our negotiations was his unwillingness to agree to anything that would require him to stand up to his own party. ”

“In an effort to get the president to agree to cut spending – which is the problem – I put revenues on the table last year, and I put them on the table again last month,” he wrote. “Republicans made every effort to reach the ‘balanced’ deficit agreement that the president promised the American people, while the president has continued to insist on a package skewed dramatically in favor of higher taxes that would destroy jobs.”

Senator McConnell’s office issued this response to the NBC appearance:

“While the President was taping those discordant remarks yesterday, Sen. McConnell was in the office working to bring Republicans and Democrats together on a solution. Discussions continue today.”

Regardless of outcome, talk of a comprehensive budget deal is gone and any bill would likely set up a series of smaller partisan roadblocks in the weeks and months to come. For example, if any hypothetical legislation managed to dodge tax increases for the middle class it may still not address the looming debt ceiling, which Treasury can avoid using accounting tricks for approximately two months.

A small deal may also not address the estate tax, another central point of the brinkmanship. Currently standing at 35 percent, Republicans want to leave that rate as-is after exempting the first $5 million in estate value. Meanwhile Democrats have called for a 45 percent tax after a $3.5 million exemption. Should negotiations fail, it would climb to 55 percent after a $1 million exemption after the New Year.

ABC’s Sunlen Miller and the Associated Press contributed to this report, which has been updated.

Read More..

Syria opposition leader rejects Moscow invitation

ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's opposition leader has rejected an invitation from Russia for peace talks, dealing another blow to international hopes that diplomacy can be resurrected to end a 21-month civil war.

Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old National Coalition opposition group has been recognized by most Western and Arab states as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.

But in an interview on Al Jazeera television, Alkhatib said he had already ruled out such a trip and wanted an apology from Moscow for its support for Assad.

"We have clearly said we will not go to Moscow. We could meet in an Arab country if there was a clear agenda," he said.

"Now we also want an apology from (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov because all this time he said that the people will decide their destiny, without foreign intervention. Russia is intervening and meanwhile all these massacres of the Syrian people have happened, treated as if they were a picnic."

"If we don't represent the Syrian people, why do they invite us?" Alkhatib said. "And if we do represent the Syrian people why doesn't Russia respond and issue a clear condemnation of the barbarity of the regime and make a clear call for Assad to step down? This is the basic condition for any negotiations."

With the rebels advancing steadily over the second half of 2012, diplomats have been searching for months for signs that Moscow's willingness to protect Assad is faltering.

So far Russia has stuck to its position that rebels must negotiate with Assad's government, which has ruled since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.

"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," Lavrov said on Friday.

That was immediately dismissed by the opposition: "The coalition is ready for political talks with anyone ... but it will not negotiate with the Assad regime," spokesman Walid al-Bunni told Reuters. "Everything can happen after the Assad regime and all its foundations have gone. After that we can sit down with all Syrians to set out the future."

BRAHIMI TO MOSCOW

Russia says it is behind the efforts of U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, fresh from a five-day trip to Damascus where he met Assad. Brahimi, due in Moscow for talks on Saturday, is touting a months-old peace plan for a transitional government.

That U.N. plan was long seen as a dead letter, foundering from the outset over the question of whether the transitional body would include Assad or his allies. Brahimi's predecessor, Kofi Annan, quit in frustration shortly after negotiating it.

But with rebels having seized control of large sections of the country in recent months, Russia and the United States have been working with Brahimi to resurrect the plan as the only internationally recognized diplomatic negotiating track.

Russia's Middle East envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who announced the invitation to Alkhatib, said further talks were scheduled between the "three B's" - himself, Brahimi and U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.

Speaking in Damascus on Thursday, Brahimi called for a transitional government with "all the powers of the state", a phrase interpreted by the opposition as potentially signaling tolerance of Assad remaining in some ceremonial role.

But such a plan is anathema to the surging rebels, who now believe they can drive Assad out with a military victory, despite long being outgunned by his forces.

"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in Aleppo province, told reporters at his headquarters there.

Oqaidi said the rebels want Assad and his allies tried in Syria for crimes. Assad himself says he will stay on and fight to the death if necessary.

In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up cartoons showing Brahimi speaking to a news conference with toilet bowls in front of him, in place of microphones. Banners denounced the U.N. envoy with obscenities in English.

DIPLOMATS IMPOTENT

Diplomacy has largely been irrelevant to the conflict so far, with Western states ruling out military intervention like the NATO bombing that helped topple Libya's Muammar Gaddafi last year, and Russia and China blocking U.N. action against Assad.

Meanwhile, the fighting has grown fiercer and more sectarian, with rebels mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority battling Assad's government and allied militia dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Still, Western diplomats have repeatedly touted signs of a change in policy from Russia, which they hope could prove decisive, much as Moscow's withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall a decade ago.

Bogdanov said earlier this month that Assad's forces were losing ground and rebels might win the war, but Russia has since rowed back, with Lavrov last week reiterating Moscow's position that neither side could win through force.

Still, some Moscow-based analysts see the Kremlin coming to accept it must adapt to the possibility of rebel victory.

"As the situation changes on the battlefield, more incentives emerge for seeking a way to stop the military action and move to a phase of political regulation," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Meanwhile, on the ground the bloodshed that has killed some 44,000 people continues unabated. According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, 150 people were killed on Thursday, a typical toll as fighting has escalated in recent months.

Government war planes bombarded the town of Assal al-Ward in the Qalamoun district of Damascus province for the first time, killing one person and wounding dozens, the observatory said.

In Aleppo, Syria's northern commercial hub, clashes took place between rebel fighters and army forces around an air force intelligence building in the Zahra quarter, a neighborhood that has been surrounded by rebels for weeks.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Dominic Evans in Beirut and Steve Gutterman and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Read More..

US Navy sailors sue Japan's TEPCO over radiation

WASHINGTON: Eight US Navy sailors are suing Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) for hundreds of millions of dollars over allegations the Japanese firm lied to them about radiation dangers after a tsunami-triggered meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The sailors accuse TEPCO of deceiving their commanders about radiation levels as the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan took part in relief operations following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, according to a complaint filed in US federal court in southern California.

The devastating tsunami swamped cooling systems at the Fukushima plant, sending reactors into meltdown and spewing radiation over a large area.

TEPCO and the Japanese government "kept representing that there was no danger of radiation contamination to the USS Reagan and/or its crew, that 'everything is under control, all is OK, you can trust us,'" the sailors' lawyers wrote.

Japanese officials insisted there was "'no immediate danger' or threat to human life, all the while lying through their teeth about the reactor meltdowns" at Fukushima, it said.

The lawsuit charges TEPCO with reckless, negligent behavior and demands it be held liable for exposing the crew members of the aircraft carrier to radiation, as well as for designing a plant that was unsafe.

The suit alleges as the consequences of the nuclear disaster were kept from the crew, it rushed into an area too close to the plant and "the plaintiffs must now endure a lifetime of radiation poisoning and suffering which could have and should have been avoided," it said.

One of the carrier's crew, Kim Gieseking, was pregnant at the time of the disaster and her one-year-old baby daughter is listed among the plaintiffs in the suit.

The sailors are each seeking $10 million in damages, $30 million in punitive damages and the creation of a $100 million fund to cover the costs of medical monitoring and treatments.

In Tokyo, TEPCO said this was the first lawsuit in a foreign court that addresses its handling of the disaster at Fukushima, Kyodo News reported.

"We would like to withhold any comments since we have not received the lawsuit documents," the agency quoted the company as saying Friday.

In October, TEPCO admitted it had played down known tsunami risks for fear of the political, financial and reputational cost.

TEPCO said last month the cost of the clean-up and compensation after Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster may double to $125 billion.

The company said decontamination of irradiated areas and compensating those whose jobs or home lives have been affected will cost much more than the five trillion yen ($58.1 billion) it estimated in April.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

'Twas a very mobile Christmas (week in review)

Android and iOS devices were apparently popular gifts this Christmas -- more popular than ever before.

Device activations soared from their daily December average of 4 million to 17.4 million on Christmas Day, a 332 percent increase, according to analytics firm Flurry. That's more than double the 6.8 million devices activated on Christmas last year, the previous single-day record holder. And in a first, more
tablets were activated on Christmas this year than phones. Apple tablets dominated the category, but the
Kindle Fire HD 7-inch made its strongest showing ever.

iPhone and iPad app downloads jumped 87 percent on Christmas Day as compared with the average for the month, according to data from mobile analytics firm Distimo. Sales from all those downloads rose by 70 percent on December 25.
•  Tablets more popular than e-readers among e-book crowd

•  Windows Phone store doubles to 150K-plus apps

•  Google names best Android apps of 2012

•  Mobile: 10 predictions for 2013

More headlines

NSA targeting domestic computer systems in secret test

The National Security Agency's Perfect Citizen program hunts for vulnerabilities in "large-scale" utilities, including power grid and gas pipeline controllers, new documents from EPIC show.

•  Stuxnet attacks Iran again, reports say

Apple rumor watch: iOS timepiece on drawing board?

Never mind the Nano doing double duty. New scuttlebutt out of China suggests that Apple is teaming up with Intel to fashion a bona fide iOS-based watch.

•  Apple wins critical SIM connector patent

Netflix outage mars Christmas Eve

The company's video streaming service went down for an undetermined number of people across the Americas. The outage continued into Christmas morning for some customers.

•  Netflix to get 'social features' next year

Instagram loses millions of users

Photo-sharing service records a nearly 25 percent drop in the number of daily active users in the wake of a terms of service controversy.

•  Instagram hit with proposed class-action lawsuit

•  Randi Zuckerberg loses control on Facebook (and Twitter)

China tightens the screws on Internet users

The country will now require all citizens to use their real names when signing up for an Internet account and force Internet providers to delete posts deemed "illegal."

•  China to curtail trademark trolls

•  Apple ordered to pay Chinese writers in copyright dispute

HP confirms: Feds investigating the Autonomy acquisition

In its new annual report, Hewlett-Packard says the Department of Justice has opened an inquiry into the $11 billion 2011 deal, now allegedly marred by accounting impropriety.

•  Autonomy founder fires back at HP after news of DOJ inquiry

Also of note

•  Amazon again tops in e-tail customer satisfaction; Apple slips

•  Apple's Tim Cook sees his 2012 pay fall 99 percent

•  Wikipedia's most-viewed articles in 2012 were...

Read More..

East, Gulf Coast port strike averted, for now

Last Updated 12:15 p.m. ET

NEW YORK The union for longshoremen along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico has agreed to extend its contract for 30 days, averting a possible strike that could have crippled operations at ports that handle about 40 percent of all U.S. container cargo, a federal mediator announced Friday.

The extension came after the union and an alliance of port operators and shipping lines resolved one of the stickier points in their months-long contract negotiations, involving royalty payments made to union members for each container they unload.

Negotiations will continue until at least midnight on Jan. 28. Some important contract issues remain to be resolved, but the head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, George Cohen, said the agreement on royalties was "a major positive step forward."

"While some significant issues remain in contention, I am cautiously optimistic that they can be resolved in the upcoming 30-day extension period," he said.

The terms of the royalty agreement were not announced.

• Unionized dock workers threaten to strike at 15 ports
• Tentative deal reached to end costly Calif. ports strike

The master contract between the International Longshoremen's Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance, a group representing shipping lines, terminal operators and port associations, originally expired in September. The two sides agreed to extend it once before, for 90 days, but it had been set to expire again on 12:01 a.m. Sunday.

As recently as Dec. 19, the president of the longshoremen, Harold Daggett, had said a strike was expected.

A work stoppage would have idled shipments of a vast number of consumer products, from electronics to clothing, and kept U.S. manufacturers from getting pars and raw materials delivered easily.

Major ports that would have been frozen included the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Savannah, Ga., Houston and Hampton Roads, Va.

Other ports that would have been affected by a strike are Boston; Delaware River; Baltimore; Wilmington, N.C.; Charleston, S.C.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Port Everglades, Fla.; Miami; Tampa, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; and New Orleans.

The ports handle nearly 50 percent of all ocean-going container shipments to the United States, reports correspondent Anna Werner.

Some estimate a shutdown could cost a billion dollars a day in delayed shipments and lost work along the supply chain.

The Port of Houston - which handles 42 million tons of cargo every year - extended its hours this week to try and get shipments in and out before a strike could bring the port to a standstill.

Read More..

Did the Exodus of Moses Really Happen?

In the Bible, he is called Moses. In the Koran, he is the prophet Musa.

Religious scholars have long questioned whether of the story of a prophet leading God's chosen people in a great exodus out of Egypt and the freedom it brought them afterwards was real, but the similarities between a pharaoh's ancient hymn and a psalm of David might hold the link to his existence.

Tune in to Part 2 of Christiane Amanpour's ABC News special, "Back to the Beginning," which explores the history of the Bible from Genesis to Jesus, on Friday, Dec. 28 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

Christian scripture says Moses was content to grow old with his family in the vast deserted wilderness of Midian, and 40 years passed until the Bible says God spoke to him through the Burning Bush and told him to lead his people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. According to tradition, that miraculous bush can still be seen today enclosed within the ancient walls of St. Catherine's Monastery, located not far from Moses' hometown.

But there was another figure in the ancient world who gave up everything to answer the call from what he believed was the one and only true God.

Archaeologists discovered the remains of the ancient city of Amarna in the 1800s. Egyptologist Rawya Ismail, who has been studying the ruins for years, believes, as other archaeologists do, that Pharaoh Akhenaten built the city as a tribute to Aten, the sun.

Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

'Back to the Beginning': Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity Watch Video

Garden of Eden: What Do We Know About Adam and Eve? Watch Video

Abraham's Story: Foundation of Judaism, Islam and Christianity Watch Video

She said it was a bold and unusual step for the pharaoh to leave the luxurious trappings of palace life in Luxor for the inhospitable landscape of Amarna, but it might have been his only choice as the priests from the existing religious establishment gained power.

"The very powerful Amun-Ra priests that he couldn't stand against gained control of the whole country," Ismail said. "The idea was to find a place that had never been used by any other gods -- to be virgin is what he called it -- so he chose this place."

All over the walls inside the city's beautiful tombs are examples of Akhanaten's radical message of monotheism. There is the Hymn to the Aten, which translates, in part, to: "The earth comes into being by your hand, as you made it. When you dawn, they live. When you set, they die. You yourself are lifetime, one lives by you."

PHOTOS: Christiane Amanpour's Journey 'Back to the Beginning'

Some attribute the writing of the hymn to Akhanaten himself, but it bears a striking resemblance to a passage that can be found in the Hebrew Bible: Psalm 104.

"If you compare the hymns from A to Z, you'll find mirror images to it in many of the holy books," Ismail said. "And if you compare certain parts of it, you'll find it almost exactly -- a typical translation for some of the [psalms] of David."

Psalm 104, written a few hundred years later, references a Lord that ruled over Israel and a passage compares him to the sun.

"You hide your face, they are troubled," part of it reads. "You take away your breath, they die, And return to dust. You send forth your breath, they are created, And you renew the face of the earth."

Like the psalm, the Hymn to Aten extols the virtues of the one true God.

"A lot of people think that [the Hymn to Aten] was the source of the [psalms] of David," Ismail said. "Putting Egypt on the trade route, a lot of people traveled from Egypt and came back to Egypt, it wasn't like a country living in isolation."

Ismail believes it is possible that the message from the heretic pharaoh has some connection to the story of Moses and the Exodus, as outlined in the Hebrew Bible.

Read More..

Russia's Putin signals he will sign U.S. adoption ban

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signaled on Thursday he would sign a bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children into law and sought to forestall criticism of the move by promising measures to better care for his country's orphans.

In televised comments, Putin tried to appeal to people's patriotism by suggesting that strong and responsible countries should take care of their own and lent his support to a bill that has further strained U.S.-Russia relations.

"There are probably many places in the world where living standards are higher than ours. So what, are we going to send all our children there? Maybe we should move there ourselves?" he said, with sarcasm.

Parliament gave its final approval on Wednesday to the bill, which would also introduce other measures in retaliation for new U.S. legislation which is designed to punish Russians accused of human rights violations.

For it to become law Putin needs to sign it.

"So far I see no reason not to sign it, although I have to review the final text and weigh everything," Putin said at a meeting of senior federal and regional officials that was shown live on the state's 24-hour news channel.

"I intend to sign not only the law ... but also a presidential decree that will modify the support mechanisms for orphaned children ... especially those who are in a difficult situation, by that I mean in poor health," Putin said.

Critics of the bill say the Russian authorities are playing political games with the lives of children.

Children in Russia's crowded and troubled orphanage system - particularly those with serious illnesses or disabilities - will have less of a chance of finding homes, and of even surviving, if it becomes law, child rights advocates say.

They point to people like Jessica Long, who was given up shortly after birth by her parents in Siberia but was raised by adoptive parents in the United States and became a Paralympic swimming champion.

However, the Russian authorities point to the deaths of 19 Russian-born children adopted by American parents in the past decade, and lawmakers named the bill after a boy who died of heat stroke in Virginia after his adoptive father left him locked in a car for hours.

Putin reiterated Russian complaints that U.S. courts have been too lenient on parents in such cases, saying Russia has inadequate access to Russian-born children in the United States despite a bilateral agreement that entered into force on November 1.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

But Putin, who began a new six-year term in May and has searched for ways to unite the country during 13 years in power, suggested there were deeper motives for such a ban.

"For centuries, neither spiritual nor state leaders sent anyone abroad," he said, indicating he was not speaking specifically about Russia but about many societies.

"They always fight for their national identities - they gather themselves together in a fist, they fight for their language, culture," he said.

The bid to ban American adoptions plays on sensitivity in Russia about adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed as the social safety net unraveled with the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Families from the United States adopt more Russian children than those of any other country.

Putin had earlier described the Russian bill as an emotional but appropriate response to the Magnitsky Act, legislation signed by President Barack Obama this month as part of a law granting Russia "permanent normal trade relations" (PNTR) status.

The U.S. law imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in a Moscow jail of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-graft lawyer, in 2009.

The Russian bill would impose similar measures against Americans accused of violating the rights of Russian abroad and outlaw some U.S.-funded non-governmental groups.

(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Read More..