Karzai to Forbid His Forces to Request Foreign Airstrikes

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that he would issue a decree forbidding his military forces from turning to NATO or American forces to conduct airstrikes, and he condemned the use of torture on detainees by his security forces.

He made his comments in a speech at the Afghan National Military Academy in Kabul. It was the first time he had dwelt at such length and with such passion on human rights.

His proposed ban on Afghan troops from calling in airstrikes came after a joint Afghan-NATO attack last week in Kunar Province, in eastern Afghanistan, that killed four women, one man and five children, all of them civilians, according to local officials.

Mr. Karzai said Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the commander of the international coalition forces fighting the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan, told him that the airstrike had been requested by the National Directorate of Security, the country’s intelligence service. The attack took place in the Shigal district, an area where two known Taliban commanders were visiting family members, Afghan officials have said.

“Our N.D.S. in their own country calls foreigners to assist them and bombard four or five Al Qaeda or Taliban,” Mr. Karzai said.

“It is very regrettable to hear this,” he added. “You are representing Afghan pride. How do you call for an airstrike from foreigners on your people?”

Civilian casualties in the war on the Taliban has long vexed Mr. Karzai and has been a major point of contention with American and NATO troops. New rules instituted by commanders from the International Security Assistance Force have minimized the loss of life, and the coalition has all but stopped air attacks on populated areas and on homes. The result has been a dramatic drop in civilian casualties caused by foreign forces.

Nevertheless, Afghan troops, who lack their own air support, still turn to foreign forces for help during pitched battles with the Taliban and other insurgents. It was not clear whether there would be exceptions to Mr. Karzai’s decree, but he was clearly dismayed that his own forces would be employing the very techniques he had worked so hard to persuade the West to abandon.

In an unusual move, the Afghan president also publicly acknowledged that torture was a problem in Afghan detention centers and pledged to halt it. In the past, the government has largely deflected charges of torture raised by human rights organizations, contending that any abuse was the work of a few bad actors.

But after a United Nations report released in January detailed abuses or torture at a number of detention sites around the country, Mr. Karzai took a closer and more independent look at the complaints.

He appointed a delegation to investigate the report’s validity, and when the inquiry confirmed many of the allegations, he ordered the security ministries to implement the team’s recommendations. He reiterated that order on Saturday. The recommendations include prosecuting perpetrators of torture, giving detainees access to defense lawyers, providing medical treatment for detainees who are ill or have been beaten, and videotaping all interrogations.

“Not only have foreigners tormented and punished Afghans, but our people have been terrorized and punished by our own sons too,” Mr. Karzai said. “The U.N. report showed that even after 10 years, our people are tortured and mistreated in prisons.”

The United Nations’ human rights office here emphasized the importance of Mr. Karzai’s attention to the issue.

“It is encouraging that the president appears to be personally taking the issue of human rights of all Afghans seriously,” said Georgette Gagnon, the office’s director of human rights. She added that the government should act immediately on the delegation’s recommendations. “We urge them to do so without delay,” she said.

Read More..

Make Sheila G. Main's Truffles

02/16/2013 at 06:30 PM EST

Andrew Purcell; Inset: Courtesy Sheila G. Main

Oscar night is just around the corner so start prepping your viewing party menu now! Take inspiration from any of the films nominated or replicate what Sheila G. Main, the creator of the Original Brownie Brittle snack, will serve at studio head Harvey Weinstein's Oscar party!

Brownie Truffles

Makes 22 to 24 truffles

• 6 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 8 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into quarters
• 3 large eggs
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• ½ tsp. salt
• 1 cup flour
• 2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1–2 tbsp. Grand Marnier
• 1 oz. (2 tbsp.) champagne

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Grease an 8x8-in. baking pan. In a bowl, melt chocolates and butter in microwave on high for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth. Let cool.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt. Stir in the chocolate mixture. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and cocoa powder. Stir it into the chocolate mixture. Do not over mix. Pour batter into pre-pared pan. Bake for 25 minutes. (Brownies will be slightly underbaked.) Let cool.

3. Cut brownies into pieces and mix in food processor, along with Grand Marnier and champagne until creamy. Chill for at least 1 hour. Use an ice cream scoop to make truffles. Roll into balls, then roll in sanding sugar or a coating of your choice.

Read More..

UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

Read More..

G20 steps back from currency brink, heat off Japan

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations declared on Saturday there would be no currency war and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets, underlining broad concern about the fragile state of the world economy.

Japan's expansive policies, which have driven down the yen, escaped direct criticism in a statement thrashed out in Moscow by policymakers from the G20, which spans developed and emerging markets and accounts for 90 percent of the world economy.

Analysts said the yen, which has dropped 20 percent as a result of aggressive monetary and fiscal policies to reflate the Japanese economy, may now continue to fall.

"The market will take the G20 statement as an approval for what it has been doing -- selling of the yen," said Neil Mellor, currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon in London. "No censure of Japan means they will be off to the money printing presses."

After late-night talks, finance ministers and central bankers agreed on wording closer than expected to a joint statement issued last Tuesday by the Group of Seven rich nations backing market-determined exchange rates.

A draft communiqué on Friday had steered clear of the G7's call for economic policy not to be targeted at exchange rates. But the final version included a G20 commitment to refrain from competitive devaluations and stated monetary policy would be directed only at price stability and growth.

"The mood quite clearly early on was that we needed desperately to avoid protectionist measures ... that mood permeated quite quickly," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters, adding that the wording of the G20 statement had been hardened up by the ministers.

As a result, it reflected a substantial, but not complete, endorsement of Tuesday's proclamation by the G7 nations - the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

As with the G7 intervention, Tokyo said it gave it a green light to pursue its policies unchecked.

"I have explained that (Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe's administration is doing its utmost to escape from deflation and we have gained a certain understanding," Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters.

"We're confident that if Japan revives its own economy that would certainly affect the world economy as well. We gained understanding on this point."

Flaherty admitted it would be difficult to gauge if domestic policies were aimed at weakening currencies or not.

NO FISCAL TARGETS

The G20 also made a commitment to a credible medium-term fiscal strategy, but stopped short of setting specific goals as most delegations felt any economic recovery was too fragile.

The communiqué said risks to the world economy had receded but growth remained too weak and unemployment too high.

"A sustained effort is required to continue building a stronger economic and monetary union in the euro area and to resolve uncertainties related to the fiscal situation in the United States and Japan, as well as to boost domestic sources of growth in surplus economies," it said.

A debt-cutting pact struck in Toronto in 2010 will expire this year if leaders fail to agree to extend it at a G20 summit of leaders in St Petersburg in September.

The United States says it is on track to meet its Toronto pledge but argues that the pace of future fiscal consolidation must not snuff out demand. Germany and others are pressing for another round of binding debt targets.

"We had a broad consensus in the G20 that we will stick to the commitment to fulfill the Toronto goals," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said. "We do not have any interest in U.S.-bashing ... In St. Petersburg follow-up-goals will be decided."

The G20 put together a huge financial backstop to halt a market meltdown in 2009 but has failed to reach those heights since. At successive meetings, Germany has pressed the United States and others to do more to tackle their debts. Washington in turn has urged Berlin to do more to increase demand.

Backing in the communiqué for the use of domestic monetary policy to support economic recovery reflected the U.S. Federal Reserve's commitment to monetary stimulus through quantitative easing, or QE, to promote recovery and jobs.

QE entails large-scale bond buying -- $85 billion a month in the Fed's case -- that helps economic growth but has also unleashed destabilising capital flows into emerging markets.

A commitment to minimize such "negative spillovers" was an offsetting point in the text that China, fearful of asset bubbles and lost export competitiveness, highlighted.

"Major developed nations (should) pay attention to their monetary policy spillover," Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao was quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying in Moscow.

Russia, this year's chair of the G20, admitted the group had failed to reach agreement on medium-term budget deficit levels and expressed concern about ultra-loose policies that it and other emerging economies say could store up trouble for later.

On currencies, the G20 text reiterated its commitment last November, "to move more rapidly toward mores market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying fundamentals, and avoid persistent exchange rate misalignments".

It said disorderly exchange rate movements and excess volatility in financial flows could harm economic and financial stability.

(Additional reporting by Gernot Heller, Lesley Wroughton, Maya Dyakina, Tetsushi Kajimoto, Jan Strupczewski, Lidia Kelly, Katya Golubkova, Jason Bush, Anirban Nag and Michael Martina. Writing by Douglas Busvine. Editing by Timothy Heritage/Mike Peacock)

Read More..

Meteor Fragments Rain Down on Siberia; Hundreds of Injuries Reported

MOSCOW — Gym class came to a halt inside the Chelyabinsk Railway Institute, and students gathered around the window, gazing at the fat white contrail that arced its way across the morning sky. A missile? A comet? A few quiet moments passed. And then, with incredible force, the windows blew in.

The scenes from Chelyabinsk, rocked by an intense shock wave when a meteor hit the Earth’s atmosphere Friday morning, offer a glimpse of an apocalyptic scenario that many have walked through mentally, and Hollywood has popularized, but scientists say has never before injured so many people.

Students at the institute crammed through a staircase thickly blanketed with glass and from there out to the street, where hundreds of people were standing in awe, looking at the sky. The flash had come in blinding white, so bright that the vivid shadows of buildings slid swiftly and sickeningly across the ground. The light burst yellow, then orange. And then there was the sound of frightened, confused people.

Around 1,200 people, 200 of them children, were injured, mostly by glass that exploded into schools and workplaces, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry. Others suffered skull trauma and broken bones. No deaths were reported. A city administrator in Chelyabinsk said that more than a million square feet of glass had been shattered by the shock wave, leaving many buildings exposed to icy cold.

And as scientists tried to piece together the chain of events that led to Friday’s disaster — on the very day a small asteroid passed close to Earth — residents of Chelyabinsk were left to grapple with memories that seemed to belong in science fiction.

“I opened the window from surprise — there was such heat coming in, as if it were summer in the yard, and then I watched as the flash flew by and turned into a dot somewhere over the forest,” wrote Darya Frenn, a blogger. “And in several seconds there was an explosion of such force that the window flew in along with its frame, the monitor fell, and everything that was on the desk.”

“God forbid you should ever have to experience anything like this,” she wrote.

At 9 a.m., the sun had just risen on the Ural Mountains, which form a ridge between European Russia and the vast stretch of Siberia to the east. The area around Chelyabinsk is a constellation of defense-manufacturing cities, including some devoted to developing and producing nuclear weapons. The factory towns are separated by great expanses of uninhabited forest.

As residents of Chelyabinsk began their day on Friday, a 10-ton meteor around 10 feet in diameter was hurtling toward the earth at a speed of about 10 to 12 miles per second, experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences reported in a statement released Friday. Scientists believe the meteor exploded upon hitting the lower atmosphere and disintegrated at an altitude of about 20 to 30 miles above the Earth’s surface — not an especially unusual event, the statement said.

This meteor was unusual because its material was so hard — it may have been made of iron, the statement said — which allowed some small fragments, or meteorites, perhaps 5 percent of the meteor’s mass, to reach the Earth’s surface. Nothing similar has been recorded in Russian territory since 2002, the statement said.

Estimates of the meteor’s size varied considerably. Peter Brown, director of the Center for Planetary Science and Exploration at Canada’s Western University, said it was closer to 50 feet in diameter and probably weighed around 7,000 tons. He said the energy released by the explosion was equivalent to 300 kilotons of TNT, making it the largest recorded since the 1908 Tunguska explosion in Siberia, which is believed to have been caused by an asteroid.

Meteors typically cause sonic booms when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and the one that occurred over Chelyabinsk was forceful enough to shatter dishes and televisions in people’s homes. Car alarms were triggered for miles around, and the roof of a zinc factory partially collapsed. Video clips, uploaded by the hundreds starting early Friday morning, showed ordinary mornings interrupted by a blinding flash and the sound of shattering glass.

Maria Polyakova, 25, head of reception at the Park-City Hotel in Chelyabinsk, said it was the light that caught her eye.

“I saw a flash in the window, turned toward it and saw a burning cloud, which was surrounded by smoke and was going downward — it reminded me of what you see after an explosion,” she said. The blast that followed was forceful enough to shatter the heavy automatic glass doors on the hotel’s first floor, as well as many windows on the floor above, she said.

Valentina Nikolayeva, a teacher in Chelyabinsk, described it as “an unreal light” that filled all the classrooms on one side of School No. 15.

“It was a light which never happens in life, it happens probably only in the end of the world,” she said in a clip posted on a news portal, LifeNews.ru. She said she saw a vapor trail, like one that appears after an airplane, only dozens of times bigger. “The light was coming from there. Then the light went out and the trail began to change. The changes were taking place within it, like in the clouds, because of the wind. It began to shrink and then, a minute later, an explosion.”

“A shock wave,” she said. “It was not clear what it was but we were deafened at that moment. The window glass flew.”

The strange light had drawn many to the windows, the single most dangerous place to be. Tyoma Chebalkin, a student at Southern Urals State University, said that the shock wave traveled from the western side the city, and that anyone standing close to windows — security guards at their posts, for instance — was caught in a hail of broken glass.

He spoke to Vozhd.info, an online news portal, four hours after the explosion, when cellphones, which had been knocked out, were still out of order. He said that traffic was at a standstill in the city center, and that everyone he could see was trying to place calls. He said he saw no signs of panic.

In those strange hours, Ms. Frenn, the blogger, wrote down the thoughts that had raced through her mind — radiation, a plane crash, the beginning of a war — and noted that her extremities went numb while she was waiting to hear that the members of her family were unhurt.

When emergency officials announced that what had occurred was a meteor, what occurred to her was: It could happen again.

“I am at home, whole and alive,” she wrote. “I have gathered together my documents and clothes. And a carrier for the cats. Just in case.”

Viktor Klimenko contributed reporting from Moscow, Alan Cowell from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.

Read More..

Alec Baldwin Is Ready to Tackle Full Time Daddy Duty

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/15/2013 at 09:00 AM ET

Mark Davis/WireImage

Dad-to-be Alec Baldwin certainly sympathizes with his expectant wife Hilaria — he’s experiencing all the aches and pregnancy pains too!

“My boobs hurt. My boobs are killing me, so sore,” the actor, 54, jokes with Extra. “My jeans don’t fit. My pants, I can’t buckle them.”

But, according to Alec, it’s Hilaria — due with the couple’s first child together late this summer — who has the crazy cravings.

“She was eating troughs of pineapple. I mean like tanker containers of pineapple,” he shares.

Quips Hilaria, “I didn’t eat pineapple before. It was bizarre. I really wanted pineapple.”

With the recent series finale of his award-winning show 30 Rock, Alec is excited to dive into daddy duty full time. “My dream is to be home with the baby, standing in the doorway, saying goodbye to Mommy,” he explains. “‘Mommy is going to work now. Bye Mommy … don’t work too hard!’”

While the newlyweds are still unsure of whether they’ll be welcoming a son or daughter, either way it looks like Alec, already dad to daughter Ireland, will eventually be juggling more than one baby.

“I want to have at least one of each, so whatever this is going to be, I want to have the next one [be the opposite sex],” says Hilaria.

– Anya Leon

Read More..

States' choices set up national health experiment

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is unfolding as a national experiment with American consumers as the guinea pigs: Who will do a better job getting uninsured people covered, the states or the feds?

The nation is about evenly split between states that decided by Friday's deadline they want a say in running new insurance markets and states that are defaulting to federal control because they don't want to participate in "Obamacare." That choice was left to state governments under the law: Establish the market or Washington will.

With some exceptions, states led by Democrats opted to set up their own markets, called exchanges, and Republican-led states declined.

Only months from the official launch, exchanges are supposed to make the mind-boggling task of buying health insurance more like shopping on Amazon.com or Travelocity. Millions of people who don't have employer coverage will flock to the new markets. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy private insurance, with government help to pay the premiums in most cases. Low-income people will be steered to safety net programs like Medicaid.

"It's an experiment between the feds and the states, and among the states themselves," said Robert Krughoff, president of Consumers' Checkbook, a nonprofit ratings group that has devised an online tool used by many federal workers to pick their health plans. Krughoff is skeptical that either the feds or the states have solved the technological challenge of making the purchase of health insurance as easy as selecting a travel-and-hotel package.

Whether or not the bugs get worked out, consumers will be able to start signing up Oct. 1 for coverage that takes effect Jan. 1. That's also when two other major provisions of the law kick in: the mandate that almost all Americans carry health insurance, and the rule that says insurers can no longer turn away people in poor health.

Barring last-minute switches that may not be revealed until next week, 23 states plus Washington, D.C., have opted to run their own markets or partner with the Obama administration to do so.

Twenty-six states are defaulting to the feds. But in several of those, Republican governors are trying to carve out some kind of role by negotiating with federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Utah's status is unclear. It received initial federal approval to run its own market, but appears to be reconsidering.

"It's healthy for the states to have various choices," said Ben Nelson, CEO of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. "And there's no barrier to taking somebody else's ideas and making them work in your situation." A former U.S. senator from Nebraska, Nelson was one of several conservative Democrats who provided crucial votes to pass the overhaul.

States setting up their own exchanges are already taking different paths. Some will operate their markets much like major employers run their health plans, as "active purchasers" offering a limited choice of insurance carriers to drive better bargains. Others will open their markets to all insurers that meet basic standards, and let consumers decide.

Obama's Affordable Care Act remains politically divisive, but state insurance exchanges enjoy broad public support. Setting up a new market was central to former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's health care overhaul as governor of Massachusetts. There, it's known as the Health Connector.

A recent AP poll found that Americans prefer to have states run the new markets by 63 percent to 32 percent. Among conservatives the margin was nearly 4-1 in favor of state control. But with some exceptions, including Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico, Republican-led states are maintaining a hands-off posture, meaning the federal government will step in.

"There is a sense of irony that it's the more conservative states" yielding to federal control, said Sandy Praeger, the Republican insurance commissioner in Kansas, a state declining to run its own exchange. First, she said, the law's opponents "put their money on the Supreme Court, then on the election. Now that it's a reality, we may see some movement."

They're not budging in Austin. "Texas is not interested in being a subcontractor to Obamacare," said Lucy Nashed, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, who remains opposed to mandates in the law.

In Kansas, Praeger supported a state-run exchange, but lost the political struggle to Gov. Sam Brownback. She says Kansans will be closely watching what happens in neighboring Colorado, where the state will run the market. She doubts that consumers in her state would relish dealing with a call center on the other side of the country. The federal exchange may have some local window-dressing but it's expected to function as a national program.

Christine Ferguson, director of the Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange, says she expects to see a big shift to state control in the next few years. "Many of the states have just run out of time for a variety of reasons," said Ferguson. "I'd be surprised if in the longer run every state didn't want to have its own approach."

In some ways, the federal government has a head start on the states. It already operates the Medicare Plan Finder for health insurance and prescription plans that serve seniors, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Both have many of the features of the new insurance markets.

Administration officials are keeping mum about what the new federal exchange will look like, except that it will open on time and people in all 50 states will have the coverage they're entitled to by law.

Joel Ario, who oversaw planning for the health exchanges in the Obama administration, says "there's a rich dialogue going on" as to what the online shopping experience should look like. "To create a website like Amazon is a very complicated exercise," said Ario, now a consultant with Manatt Health Solutions.

He thinks consumers should be able to get one dollar figure for each plan that totals up all their expected costs for the year, including premiums, deductibles and copayments. Otherwise, scrolling through pages of insurance jargon online will be a sure turn-off.

Read More..

After decent rally, perhaps time for a pause

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance.

Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> by 6.6 percent since the start of the year.

The S&P 500 ended up 0.1 percent for the week, recovering from a late sell-off on Friday after a Bloomberg report about slow February sales at Wal-Mart triggered a slide in the retailer's shares. It was the index's seventh week of gains.

Odds of a pullback are increasing, with the market in slightly overbought territory, said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.

"I do suspect the closing of the earnings season will lead to at least a pause and possibly a pullback," Zaro said. The S&P 500 could shave 3 to 5 percent between now and early April, he said.

Fourth-quarter earnings have mostly beaten expectations. Year-over-year profit growth for S&P 500 companies is now estimated at 5.6 percent, up from a January 1 forecast for 2.9 percent growth, and 70 percent of companies are exceeding analyst profit expectations, above the 62 percent long-term average, according to Thomson Reuters data.

On Thursday, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is due to report results, unofficially closing out the earnings period. Investors will be keen to see its quarterly numbers, especially after the Friday's news report that rattled investors.

The S&P 500 has gained 4.3 percent since Alcoa kicked off the earnings season on January 8.

The approaching March 1 deadline for across-the-board federal budget cuts unless Congress reaches a compromise adds another reason for caution, especially with recent economic data indicating the recovery remains bumpy.

Manufacturing output fell 0.4 percent last month, the Federal Reserve said on Friday, but production in November and December was much stronger than previously thought.

TESTING RESISTANCE

The S&P 500 has been trading near five-year highs, and it notched its highest level since November 2007 this week. But the gains have pushed the benchmark index almost as far as it is likely to go in the near term, with strong resistance hovering around 1,525 and 1,540, one analyst said.

As a result, the index is set to move sideways, said Dave Chojnacki, market technician at Street One Financial in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania. "We just don't have the volume or the catalyst right now" to go above those levels, he said.

At the same time, other analysts say, the market has not shown significant signs of slowing, including a break below 15- and 30-day moving averages.

Such moves would be needed to show that momentum is slowing or that the market is at risk of a correction, said Todd Salamone, director of research for Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio. The S&P 500's 14-day moving average is at 1,511 while the 30-day is at 1,494. The index closed Friday at 1,519.

Recent M&A activity, including news this week of a merger between American Airlines and US Airways Group , helped provide some strength for the market this week and optimism that more deals may be on the way.

In the coming days, the market will focus on minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting, due to be released on Wednesday, which could provide support if they suggest the Fed will remain on its current course of aggressive monetary easing.

The Fed minutes released in January spooked markets a bit when they revealed that some Fed officials thought it would be appropriate to consider ending asset purchases later in 2013. U.S. Treasury yields rose on that news, though market worries about a near-term end to quantitative easing have since faded.

Among other companies expected to report earnings next week are Nordstrom , Hewlett-Packard and Marriott International

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Read More..

Benedict Says He Will Be ‘Hidden to the World’ in Retirement

VATICAN CITY — Saying he would soon be “hidden to the world,” Pope Benedict XVI took his leave of parish priests and clergy of the Diocese of Rome on Thursday as he offered personal, and incisive, recollections of the Second Vatican Council, the gathering of bishops 50 years ago that set the Roman Catholic Church’s course for the future.

Benedict, who announced his resignation on Monday in a move that stunned the Roman Catholic world, also indicated that he would not hold a public role once his resignation becomes official on Feb. 28. He is the first pope to step down in nearly 600 years.

“Though I am now retiring to a life of prayer, I will always be close to all of you and I am sure all of you will be close to me, even though I remain hidden to the world,” Benedict, 85 and increasingly frail, told the assembly of hundreds of priests, who had greeted him with a long standing ovation and some tears.

Priests in attendance said they felt they had witnessed a powerful moment in church history, one that also humanized a pope who has often seemed remote. “It moved me to see the pope smile,” said Don Mario Filippa, a priest in Rome. “He has found peace within himself.”

“It was a part of history,” said Father Martin Astudillo, 37, an Argentine priest who is studying in Rome. “This is a man of God who at the end of his public role transmits his vision of the church and relationship with the church,” he added. “We saw in a few words a real synthesis of his vision of the church and what he expects from whomever takes over.”

During the reflection — or “chat” in his words — on the Second Vatican Council, Benedict recalled the “incredible” expectations of the bishops going into the gathering.

“We were full of hope, enthusiasm and also of good will,” he said.

But while the council made landmark decisions that would propel the church into the future, much got lost in the media’s interpretation of what transpired, he said, which led to the “calamities” that have marred recent church history.

The media reduced the proceedings “into a political power struggle between different currents of the church,” and they chose sides that suited their individual vision of the world, the pope said.

These messages, not that of the council, entered into the public sphere and that led in the years to “so many calamities, so many problems, seminaries closed, convents that closed, the liturgy trivialized,” the pope said.

Benedict spoke of how the council had explored ideas of “continuity” between the Old and New Testaments, and of the relationship between the Catholic and Jewish faiths, an issue that was thorny during his tenure.

“Even if it’s clear that the church isn’t responsible for the Shoah, it’s for the most part Christians who did this crime,” Benedict said of the Holocaust, adding that this called for a need to “deepen and renovate the Christian conscience,” even if it’s true that “real believers only fought against” Nazi barbarism.

At a news briefing on Thursday, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, confirmed a report in the Turin newspaper La Stampa that the pope had accidentally hit his head during a trip to Mexico last March. The press corps traveling with the pope was not informed of the accident.

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has reported that the pope had decided to retire after returning from that trip. But Father Lombardi rejected La Stampa’s suggestion that the episode might have prompted the decision.

La Stampa reported that Benedict had gotten up in the middle of the night but could not find the light switch in the unfamiliar environment, and accidentally hit his head on a bathroom sink.

An unidentified prelate on the same trip said the pope came down to breakfast the next morning with blood in his hair, the paper said. There was also blood on the pillow, “and a few drops on the carpet,” the prelate told La Stampa. “But it was not a deep cut, nor was it worrisome,” and it was covered by the pope’s thick hair, the prelate said. The pope did not complain during the day’s events.

Later that night, the prelate said, he heard that the pope’s doctor had reacted by expressing concerns about so much travel, and that Benedict had responded that he too had concerns about traveling.

Father Lombardi said: “I don’t deny that this episode happened, but it didn’t impact on the rest of his trip, nor on his decision to resign. That isn’t linked to one single episode.”

Since Benedict announced the decision, saying he felt he did not have the strength to continue in his ministry, there has been much closer public scrutiny of his health.

On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed for the first time that the pope had had a pacemaker since his time as a cardinal and had its batteries changed three months ago.

Once retired, Benedict will live in a convent inside Vatican City, and will be tended to by the nuns who currently look after him. Father Lombardi said Benedict’s longtime personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, who was also named prefect of the papal household two months ago, would continue to work for him.

Father Lombardi said he saw no conflict of interest if Archbishop Gänswein served the current pope and his successor.

The prefect is responsible for logistical duties, and “in this sense it is not a profound problem, I think,” Father Lombardi said.

Rachel Donadio contributed reporting.

Read More..

It's a Girl for Bryan Adams

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/14/2013 at 06:00 PM ET

Courtesy Bryan Adams

Bryan Adams is in heaven — again!

“Bryan Adams and Alicia Grimaldi welcomed their second baby girl in London earlier this week,” Adam’s rep tells PEOPLE exclusively.

The rocker and Grimaldi, who cofounded his charitable foundation, named their new bundle of joy Lula Rosylea. She joins big sister Bunny, 22 months.

“Lula Rosylea decided to arrive at tea time,” Adams tells PEOPLE. “Rosylea is cockney rhyming slang in London for ‘cup of tea’ and the name Lula comes from Gene Vincent‘s song ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula.’”

The two-time dad’s latest project is his photography book, Exposed.

– Marisa Laudadio

Read More..

Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.

It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.

The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.

"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.

Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.

"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality ... means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."

Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.

They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.

The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.

The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.

The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.

The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.

"Our first thought is, this is like a person diagnosed with ADHD," said Jonsson, referring to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. "They become asocial and more active than they should be."

Tomas Brodin, another member of the research team, called the drug's environmental impact a global problem. "We find these concentrations or close to them all over the world, and it's quite possible or even probable that these behavioral effects are taking place as we speak," he said Thursday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Most previous research on trace drugs and marine life has focused on biological changes, such as male fish that take on female characteristics. However, a 2009 study found that tiny concentrations of antidepressants made fathead minnows more vulnerable to predators.

It is not clear exactly how long-term drug exposure, beyond the seven days in this study, would affect real fish in real rivers and streams. The Swedish researchers argue that the drug-induced changes could jeopardize populations of this sport and commercial fish, which lives in both fresh and brackish water.

Water toxins specialist Anne McElroy of Stony Brook University in New York agreed: "These lower chronic exposures that may alter things like animals' mating behavior or its ability to catch food or its ability to avoid being eaten — over time, that could really affect a population."

Another possibility, the researchers said, is that more aggressive feeding by the perch on zooplankton could reduce the numbers of these tiny creatures. Since zooplankton feed on algae, a drop in their numbers could allow algae to grow unchecked. That, in turn, could choke other marine life.

The Swedish team said it is highly unlikely people would be harmed by eating such drug-exposed fish. Jonsson said a person would have to eat 4 tons of perch to consume the equivalent of a single pill.

Researchers said more work is needed to develop better ways of removing drugs from water at treatment plants. They also said unused drugs should be brought to take-back programs where they exist, instead of being flushed down the toilet. And they called on pharmaceutical companies to work on "greener" drugs that degrade more easily.

Sandoz, one of three companies approved to sell oxazepam in the U.S., "shares society's desire to protect the environment and takes steps to minimize the environmental impact of its products over their life cycle," spokeswoman Julie Masow said in an emailed statement. She provided no details.

___

Online:

Overview of the drug: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682050.html

Read More..

Wall Street ends slightly higher, helped by acquisitions

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 eked out a small gain for a third straight session on Thursday, helped by a flurry of merger activity, though investors see no catalysts to lift the market further with major averages near multi-year highs.

The market's slowed advance took the S&P 500 to its highest intraday level since November 2007 on Wednesday. While the index notched its third straight day of gains, none was more than 0.2 percent.

Shares of H.J. Heinz Co jumped 20 percent to $72.50 after it said Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital will buy the food company for $72.50 a share, or $28 billion including debt. Berkshire's class B shares rose 1.3 percent to $99.21.

Also supporting the market was data showing the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected in the latest week. The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> fell 2.4 percent, dropping to 12.67.

"While I'm not bearish, I don't see many upside motivations at these levels," said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York, who cited the low level of the VIX as a sign the market was overbought.

Equities have struggled to break above current levels where they have been hovering for almost two weeks. The S&P 500 is up more than 6 percent so far this year.

"We need to digest some of our gains to go higher, but people are so eager to buy on the dips that we're not even seeing dips anymore. People are just chasing the market higher," said Selkin, who helps oversee about $3 billion in assets.

Stocks fell earlier after a report the euro zone's gross domestic product contracted by the steepest amount since the first quarter of 2009. In addition, Japan's GDP shrank 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, crushing expectations of a modest return to growth.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 9.52 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,973.39. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.05 points, or 0.07 percent, at 1,521.38. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 1.78 points, or 0.06 percent, at 3,198.66.

Constellation Brands soared 37 percent to $43.75 after AB InBev's deal to take over Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo was revised to grant Constellation perpetual rights to distribute Corona and other Modelo brands in the United States. U.S. shares of AB InBev gained 5.1 percent to $92.77.

American Airlines and US Airways Group said they plan to merge in a deal that will form the world's biggest air carrier, with an equity valuation of about $11 billion. US Airways shares fell 4.6 percent to $13.99.

Weakness in Europe contributed to a 5 percent drop in revenue from the region for Cisco Systems , which nonetheless beat estimates as it reported its results late Wednesday. The company's shares dipped 0.7 percent to $20.99.

General Motors Co reported a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter profit, also citing bigger losses in Europe alongside lower prices in its core North American market. The stock was off 3.3 percent to $27.73.

Only five more stocks rose than fell on the New York Stock Exchange, while 51 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed higher.

Volume was light, with about 6.36 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

IHT Special: Tunisia Sinks Back Into Turmoil

TUNIS — Following the murder of a leading opposition politician, Tunisians are asking whether the Arab Spring, which began in their country, has accomplished much of anything. They are disenchanted with the fits and starts of the transition from dictatorship to something else.

“Nobody likes the situation and this government has to change,” said Rabbeh Souly, 28, who sped up her steps on the pavement in central Tunis after witnessing a mugging. “They need to fix the things that concern people like unemployment and poverty. Before, at least things were calm and safe. I regret Ben Ali is gone.”

She was speaking of the longtime dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted two years ago. His departure ushered in a transition coalition government led by the Islamists.

Now Tunisia is at a crossroads. Violence has been escalating for months and the general political atmosphere has been deteriorating. This was underscored by the murder of leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was shot in front of his house by unidentified assailants last week. The killing came as a shock to both ordinary people and to the political establishment.

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets after Mr. Belaid’s death, vowing revenge in scenes reminiscent of the protests in 2011.

“With our souls, with our blood, we will avenge you Belaid,” they chanted in the rain on a march to the cemetery.

In the halls of government buildings, another drama played out. The prime minister, Hamadi Jebali, called for the government to resign in favor of a technocratic leadership. But his own Ennahda party disavowed his call.

Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party, has been the strongest political group following the departure of Mr. Ben Ali, winning elections in October 2011 handily because it was viewed as very different from the strongman and his cronies.

But after the assassination of Mr. Belaid, the party has been forced into retreat, while the secular leftist opposition has been given new momentum and unity.

“The country entered a new political cycle: It was in a difficult political transition that was marked by phases of instability and now we are seeing a radicalization of political actors,” said Vincent Geisser, a researcher at the French Institute for the Near East who is based in Beirut, speaking of Islamists and secularists. “There is a serious need for dialogue before there is another assassination.”

The challenges are real: The country is dealing with a weak economy that contracted by 1.8 percent in 2011 and grew by an estimated 2.7 percent last year — not enough to reduce unemployment, which is running at about 17 percent, up from 13 percent at the end of the old regime.

Political instability is also frightening away tourists. Tourism was a key source of jobs and income in the past.

The turmoil is hurting just about everyone.

“Political parties are fighting and the Tunisian people are paying for it,” said Mohamed Ben Amor, sweeping in front of a bodega after a protest on Avenue Bourguiba. “The country is deeply affected by the problems that are happening, so business has been really bad.”

Tunisians lay the blame at Ennahda’s door for failing to address the roots of popular discontent and maintain order in the country, while creating an atmosphere in which religious radicals get away with making violent threats against the secular opposition.

Violence has been escalating in Tunisia over the past two years. Extremists have attacked tombs they consider sacrilegious and a TV station they believe has violated their conservative religious beliefs. In Sidi Bouzid, a city in central Tunisia, the extremist Salafis vandalized a bar in September.

Rachid Ghannouchi, a founder and leader of the Islamist party, who was recently called an “assassin” by demonstrators, strongly denies that the party has promoted violence.

“Ennahda never resorted to violence, it’s not part of our ideology,” he said during an interview in one of the party’s offices in Tunis.

“We are in power, but we feel like we are in the opposition. We don’t have any political party that stands by our party,” he added.

Even so, many blame Ennahda for the political turmoil and worry about a takeover by the military.

“Most Tunisians are held hostage by this kind of radicalization of the political spectrum,” Mr. Geisser said. “This stubbornness to not listen to each other could lead to a takeover by the security apparatus.”

Fares Mabrouk, a co-founder of the Arabic Policy Institute, a research concern in Tunis, believes that the shorter the transition period, the more chances the country has to get back to a more stable political climate. The current government is only supposed to remain until a constitution is in place and new elections are held.

“There is today an opportunity to create a historical compromise that will be unique to Tunisia, and unique in the Arab world,” he said. “The murder of Chokri Belaid and the unification of the left will balance the forces.”

The constitution is not finished and there is no date set yet for elections. This fight over political legitimacy is hurting the country.

“We have two equal forces and it can lead to civil war,” Mr. Mabrouk said. “The first one has electoral legitimacy and the other has now a martyr that is giving them legitimacy. With the political future so unclear, no Tunisian or foreign businesses will invest.”

But for many Tunisians, the murder of Mr. Belaid was a call to even greater political activism.

“I am in a state of shock, but actually there are thousands of Chokri Belaids,” said Mounji Ayari, 43, who wept as he held a sign with a picture of Mr. Belaid that read “martyr” at the funeral. “He is someone who taught us rebellion. He may be dead but he will forever stay with us and we will make sure his ideals live on.”

Read More..

Jada Pinkett Smith Reveals Her 'Craziest' Diet Ever

By Janine Rayford

02/13/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Jada Pinkett Smith

Ouzounova/Splash News Online

Jada Pinkett Smith knows a thing or two about diet and exercise.

The 41-year-old mom to Jaden, 14, and Willow, 12, who recently showed off an extremely toned beach body, says the craziest diet she's ever done actually involved a whole lot of eating.

"My craziest diet was for The Matrix," Smith told PEOPLE at the Vera Wang Fall 2013 Collection fashion show at Mercedes Benz New York Fashion Week on Tuesday. Seated front row next to model Chrissy Teigen, Pinkett Smith enjoyed some girl time away from husband Will Smith, who recently vacationed with pals – and parents-to-be – Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in Brazil.

To look the part of her butt-kicking character Niobe, the actress was "lifting 170 lbs. chest weight, and a lot of weight on my legs," she said.

While Matthew McConaughey's recent role required the actor to lose 30 lbs., Pinkett Smith says her role called for the opposite.

"I actually had to eat tons and tons and tons of food," Pinkett Smith said. "It was all about building muscle."

These days, the vegetarian eats a lot less, though she admits she still craves "McDonald's French fries."

But don't let her petite frame fool you.

"I love dressing like a tall woman," she said, wearing an on-trend peach dress and sky-high Christian Louboutin heels, "I like a lot of drama in my clothes."

Read More..

Clues to why most survived China melamine scandal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists wondering why some children and not others survived one of China's worst food safety scandals have uncovered a suspect: germs that live in the gut.

In 2008, at least six babies died and 300,000 became sick after being fed infant formula that had been deliberately and illegally tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. There were some lingering puzzles: How did it cause kidney failure, and why wasn't everyone equally at risk?

A team of researchers from the U.S. and China re-examined those questions in a series of studies in rats. In findings released Wednesday, they reported that certain intestinal bacteria play a crucial role in how the body handles melamine.

The intestines of all mammals teem with different species of bacteria that perform different jobs. To see if one of those activities involves processing melamine, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Shanghai Jiao Tong University gave lab rats antibiotics to kill off some of the germs — and then fed them melamine.

The antibiotic-treated rats excreted twice as much of the melamine as rats that didn't get antibiotics, and they experienced fewer kidney stones and other damage.

A closer look identified why: A particular intestinal germ — named Klebsiella terrigena — was metabolizing melamine to create a more toxic byproduct, the team reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Previous studies have estimated that fewer than 1 percent of healthy people harbor that bacteria species. A similar fraction of melamine-exposed children in China got sick, the researchers wrote. But proving that link would require studying stool samples preserved from affected children, they cautioned.

Still, the research is pretty strong, said microbiologist Jack Gilbert of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, who wasn't involved in the new study.

More importantly, "this paper adds to a growing body of evidence which suggests that microbes in the body play a significant role in our response to toxicity and in our health in general," Gilbert said.

Read More..

Wall Street pauses after rally to five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks drifted in light volume on Wednesday, ending little changed, as investors remained cautious after the S&P 500 index briefly hit its highest intraday level since November 2007.

The S&P 500 was buoyed by General Electric after cable company Comcast Corp said it will buy from GE the the part of NBCUniversal it didn't already own for $16.7 billion.

Comcast's stock hit the highest since 1999 before closing up 3 percent at $40.13 and GE gained 3.6 percent to $23.39.

The S&P 500 is up 6.6 percent so far this year, partly due to stronger-than-expected corporate earnings and a better economic outlook. The Dow industrials is about 1 percent away from an all-time intraday high, reached in October 2007.

Volume has been weak in recent days with the S&P moving sideways around 1,520. The index is about 3 percent away from closing at a record high.

A scarcity of sellers after a consistent string of gains is a positive sign and shows the uptrend is intact, King Lip, chief investment officer at Baker Avenue Asset Management in San Francisco, said.

"Last year we had double-digit returns in the first quarter. It's fairly possible we can move higher from here," he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 35.79 points or 0.26 percent, to 13,982.91, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 0.9 point or 0.06 percent, to 1,520.33 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 10.38 points or 0.33 percent, to 3,196.88.

The S&P gained 12 percent in the first three months of 2012.

Deere & Co , the world's largest farm equipment maker, forecast a modest increase in sales this year despite the prospect of the biggest corn crop in U.S. history. The forecast fell short of analysts' expectations, sending shares of Deere down 3.5 percent to $90.68.

In extended trading, shares of technology bellwether Cisco Systems fell 2 percent after it posted results.

Dr Pepper Snapple fell 5.8 percent to $42.69 after it forecast profit for the current year below analysts' estimates.

Cliffs Natural Resources lost a fifth of its market value a day after the miner reported a quarterly loss and slashed its dividend by 76 percent. Its shares fell 20 percent to 429.29.

According to the latest Thomson Reuters data, of the 364 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 70.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

About 5.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average in February last year of 6.94 billion.

On the NYSE, roughly seven issues rose for every five that fell and on Nasdaq more than six rose for every five decliners.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Bernadette Baum)

Read More..

The Lede: Latest Updates on the Pope’s Resignation

The Lede is providing updates on Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement on Monday that he intends to resign on Feb. 28, less than eight years after he took office, the first pope to do so in six centuries. (Turn off auto-refresh to watch videos.)

4:17 P.M. |Subtitled Video of Pope’s Resignation Statement

The Telegraph has added English subtitles to video of the pope’s resignation statement, made in Latin to cardinals at the Vatican on Monday.

Video of Pope Benedict XVI announcing his intention to resign.

Later in the day, the photojournalist Alessandro Di Meo captured a striking image of St. Peter’s Basilica during a thunderstorm that drenched the Vatican.

Lightening strikes St Peter’s on day #Pope Benedict announces resignation from Vatican (pic ANSA) http://t.co/09KGgZNl
— Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) 11 Feb 13

— Robert Mackey

3:24 P.M. |The Vatican’s Electoral College

As the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reports, the Catholic News Service has published a complete list of the cardinals, “from oldest to youngest, eligible to vote for a pope in a conclave.” The oldest, Cardinal Walter Kasper, will be 80 years old on March 5, so “depending on the date of the conclave, he might be over 80, and thus too old to vote.”

Full list of potential cardinal-electors for a papal conclave: http://t.co/qzl9NFTY
— L’Osservatore Romano (@LOsservatoreUSA) 11 Feb 13

The youngest elector, 53-year-old Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church from India, was appointed less than three months ago by Pope Benedict XVI.

A video report on Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church.

— Robert Mackey

2:11 P.M. |Pope Decided to Step Down ‘Months Ago’

As our colleague Rachel Donadio reports, the editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said that the pope made his decision to step down nearly a year ago after a trip to Mexico and Cuba. The pope made up his mind “after his trip to Mexico and Cuba, and having repeatedly examined his conscience before God, due to his advancing age,” the editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said.

Vatican newspaper says Benedict made his decision to resign “many months ago” after his trip to Mexico & Cuba March 2012. He was tired then.
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

Vatican newspaper frontpage: “Benedict XVI leaves the pontificate” http://t.co/PS3bwOR7
— Catholic News Svc (@CatholicNewsSvc) 11 Feb 13

The German newspaper Die Welt reports that the pope’s brother, Father Georg Ratzinger, who is also a Catholic priest, said that he had known of the impending announcement for many months.

A German television interview with the pope’s older brother, Father Georg Ratzinger, on Monday.

As the Catholic News Service reports, the pope had previously hinted that resignation was a possibility for him:

The German author and journalist Peter Seewald asked Pope Benedict in the summer of 2010 whether he was considering resigning then, a time when new reports of clerical sexual abuse were being published in several European countries.

“When the danger is great, one must not run away. For that reason, now is certainly not the time to resign,” he told Seewald, who published the remarks in the book, “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times.”

The pope did tell him, though, “one can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it.”

In another section of the book, the pope told Seewald: “If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.”

— Robert Mackey

1:43 P.M. |Obama and Other World Leaders Praise the Pope

The White House released the following statement on Monday in response to the pope’s resignation:

On behalf of Americans everywhere, Michelle and I wish to extend our appreciation and prayers to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Michelle and I warmly remember our meeting with the Holy Father in 2009, and I have appreciated our work together over these last four years. The Church plays a critical role in the United States and the world, and I wish the best to those who will soon gather to choose His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s successor.

President Obama joined many world leaders in paying tribute to the pope on Monday. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, called the pope, “deeply educated, with a sense for history’s great correlations and a lively interest in the processes of European unification.” She added: “”In an era in which people are living ever longer, many people can understand how the pope is having to deal with the burdens of aging.”

A less somber note was struck by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a catholic, who joked at a news conference that he would not be running for the papacy.

Reporter yells about the pope retiring. ”Oh,” says Biden. ” No, I’m not running.” #bidenguns
— Tara Murtha (@taramurtha) 11 Feb 13

Ireland’s prime minister, Enda Kenny, who was caught on video checking his phone during a papal address last year, said: “On behalf of the Government and people of Ireland, I would like to extend best wishes to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI following his declaration today that he intends to step down from his office. This is clearly a decision which the Holy Father has taken following careful consideration and deep prayer and reflection. It reflects his profound sense of duty to the Church, and also his deep appreciation of the unique pressures of spiritual leadership in the modern world.”

Two years ago, Mr. Kenny also attacked the Vatican after a report found that officials there had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sex abuse to the police.” In a speech to the Irish Parliament after the release of the Cloyne Report in 2011, which detailed abuse and cover-ups by church officials, Mr. Kenny said:

for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic … as little as three years ago, not three decades ago. And in doing so, the Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism — the narcissism — that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.

— Robert Mackey

12:55 P.M. |The Pope’s Decision as ‘the Eruption of Modernity’

Reflecting on Monday’s news, Ezio Mauro, the executive editor of La Repubblica, suggested in a video interview published on the Italian newspaper’s Web site, that the pope’s decision to resign marked “the eruption of modernity” into the papacy.

Mr. Mauro also discussed the possible difficulties the resignation, unprecedented in modern times, could have for the next pope, who will have to deal with not just the memory of his predecessor, but the also the fact of the living man. He added that, although a Vatican spokesman insisted that the pope “was absolutely not depressed,” the scenario unfolding in real life reminded him somewhat of the plot of the Italian director Nanni Moretti’s 2012 comedy “Habemus Papam,” about a reluctant new pope who tries psychoanalysis before ducking out of the Vatican to wander the streets of Rome.

The trailer for the 2012 Italian comedy “Habemus Papam,” about a reluctant pope.

— Robert Mackey

11:59 A.M. |Cardinal Dolan Says He Admires Pope for Decision

Associated Press video of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, speaking to reporters on Monday about the pope’s resignation.

Speaking after the pope announced his resignation plans on Monday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, told reporters, “I just always admired him as a scholar, as a priest, as a holy man — and now my admiration for him is even higher because of his humility.” The American cardinal also said in a statement:

The Holy Father brought the tender heart of a pastor, the incisive mind of a scholar and the confidence of a soul united with His God in all he did. His resignation is but another sign of his great care for the Church. We are sad that he will be resigning but grateful for his eight years of selfless leadership as successor of St. Peter.

Though 78 when he elected pope in 2005, he set out to meet his people – and they were of all faiths – all over the world. He visited the religiously threatened – Jews, Muslims and Christians in the war-torn Middle East, the desperately poor in Africa, and the world’s youth gathered to meet him in Australia, Germany and Spain.

He delighted our beloved United States of America when he visited Washington and New York in 2008. As a favored statesman he greeted notables at the White House. As a spiritual leader he led the Catholic community in prayer at Nationals Park, Yankee Stadium and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. As a pastor feeling pain in a stirring, private meeting at the Vatican nunciature in Washington, he brought a listening heart to victims of sexual abuse by clerics.

— Robert Mackey

11:45 A.M. |Speculation Online About Who Comes Next

A video report from the news agency Rome Reports on what happens after the pope’s resignation.

Within hours of the announcement that the pope had resigned, Twitter was filled with speculation as to who would come next, with some hoping it would be an opportunity for a younger, more reform-minded pope, or one drawn from the new Catholic strongholds in the developing world, where more than half the world’s Catholics now reside.

An interesting profile of Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, the most likely African papal candidate. http://t.co/0LLkUh2T #pope
— Lydia Polgreen (@lpolgreen) 11 Feb 13

Name to keep in mind in talk of papal succession: #Brazil’s Cardinal João Braz de Aviz http://t.co/XgNUwGkq & http://t.co/rk25wEz0
— Simon Romero (@viaSimonRomero) 11 Feb 13

I wish the Pope well. Probably next choice won’t be 78 y.o. #conclave
— qestout (@qestout) 11 Feb 13

I believe Cardinal Arinze will be the next Pope. See my booklet of eschatology: The Future and the Popes http://t.co/pdj2nBNa #conclave
— Ronald L. Conte Jr. (@RonConte) 11 Feb 13

Hoping for a Pope from outside Europe or North America . . . #conclave #churchhistorygeek
— Tim Dalton (@timdalton74) 11 Feb 13

Hmm… Gonna be interesting to see what the #Conclave decides. Hopefully a #Pope who is somewhat #liberal. #Popeguy
— Jeanette Widén (@JeanetteWiden) 11 Feb 13

Church insiders speculate that Dolan will not be next #pope because he is from a “superpower”.
— Greg O’Brien (@RealGOBstoppah) 11 Feb 13

As our colleagues Elisabetta Povoledo and Alan Cowell report:

Vatican lore has it that cardinals seen as front-runners in advance of the vote rarely triumph, and Vatican-watchers say there is no clear favorite among several potential contenders: Cardinal Angelo Scola, the archbishop of Milan; Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna; and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops.

As the Vatican explains on its Web site, popes are elected by a conclave of cardinals.

#Vatican spokesman Lombardi says the #conclave will be held in March before Easter #pope #benedict #papalresignation
— Novus Ordo Watch (@NovusOrdoWatch) 11 Feb 13

There are currently 118 Cardinal-electors that can participate in next #Conclave. A two thirds majority is required to elect the new #Pope
— Óscar SánchezBenítez (@osanchezbenitez) 11 Feb 13

The BBC describes the process:

During this period all the cardinals – retirees included – will begin to discuss in strict secrecy the merits of likely candidates. The cardinals do not have to choose one of their own number – theoretically any baptised male Catholic can be elected pope – but tradition says that they will almost certainly give the job to a cardinal….

The only clue about what is going on inside the Sistine Chapel is the smoke that emerges twice a day from burning the ballot papers. Black signals failure. The traditional white smoke means a new pope has been chosen…

After the election of the new pope has been signaled by white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel chimney, there will be a short delay before his identity is finally revealed to the world.

Among those who called for the church to embrace change and diversity with its selection was the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, who drew a distinction in Catholic service between the papal activities in the Vatican and those who work in some of the poorest places on earth.

Some of the people I most admire are nuns I’ve met doing heroic work in dangerous places. I nominate them for Pope.
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) 11 Feb 13

As Mr. Kristof observed from southern Sudan in 2010:

As I’ve noted before, there seem to be two Catholic Churches, the old boys’ club of the Vatican and the grass-roots network of humble priests, nuns and laity in places like Sudan. The Vatican certainly supports many charitable efforts, and some bishops and cardinals are exemplary, but overwhelmingly it’s at the grass roots that I find the great soul of the Catholic Church.

— Christine Hauser

11:26 A.M. |Reaction From Germany, Ireland and the U.S.

Television news crews around the world have been sampling street reaction on the pope’s decision to step down.

In Germany, the pope’s native country, there was surprise at the announcement which caught even the German government off-guard, Deutsche Well reports.

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle sampled reaction in Germany to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation.

In Ireland, a traditionally Catholic country where the church has been rocked by sexual abuse scandals, The Irish Times found less surprise, and some words of welcome for the idea of a younger pope.

One Catholic in Washington told The Associated Press that his first reaction was to pray and ask for support even from members of other faiths.

Associated Press video on the reaction of American Catholics to the pope’s resignation.

— Robert Mackey

10:20 A.M. |Betting Begins on Next Pope

While many people remain in shock over the pope’s surprise resignation on Monday, bets are already being placed on who will succeed him in one of the world’s most Catholic countries, Ireland.

Next #pope? Bookmakers favouring an African. I’m sceptical. Marc Ouellet of #Canada more likely. And Scola certainly in the running. #news
— John Hooper (@john_hooper) 11 Feb 13

As the Guardian correspondent John Hooper notes, the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power quickly issued odds on the cardinals considered most likely to succeed Benedict — with Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Canadian head of the Vatican’s office for bishops, Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian who was converted from animism by Irish missionaries, Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson of Ghana and Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, among the early favorites.

Next Pope betting: 5/2 Cardinal Ouellet, 3/1 Cardinal Arinze, 4/1 Cardinal Turkson Web: http://t.co/X3IhCpxO Mobile: http://t.co/WrItgPIK
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) 11 Feb 13

The longest odds offered by the bookie are 1,000 to 1 on the Irish singer Bono, who is not Catholic, and the Irish television star Father Dougal Maguire, who is not real.

In 2005, Cardinal Ouellet, who was then the archbishop of Quebec and primate of Canada’s Catholic Church, warned that legalizing gay marriage “threatens to unleash nothing less than cultural upheaval whose negative consequences are still impossible to predict.”

During the 2004 presidential campaign in the United States, Cardinal Arinze was asked about Senator John Kerry’s support for abortion rights, and replied that a Roman Catholic politician who supports abortion “is not fit” to receive communion.

As my colleague Ian Fisher reported in 2005, Cardinal Scola — who was considered a top Italian candidate to become pope during the previous election — started an Arabic-language magazine, Oasis, that was devoted to improving contacts and dialogue between Christians and Muslims.

Last year, Reuters reported, Cardinal Turkson “caused an uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe,” to an an international gathering of bishops. The viral YouTube video, “Muslim Demographics,” relies on quotes from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and wildly inaccurate population projections from anti-Islam authors to make alarmist claims about the future growth of the Muslim population of Europe and the United States.

— Robert Mackey

9:42 A.M. |Not the First Pope Benedict to Resign

Although, as close observers of social media quickly noted, the pope’s new Pontifex Twitter feed has been mute on his resignation so far, the Vatican press office has been busy online, issuing a string of updates on the Vatican news feed with links to a timeline of Benedict XVI’s papacy, a report on Facebook reaction to the announcement — “Hacked?” — interviews with a papal historian and an expert on canon law on the Vatican Radio’s site.

Virtually unprecedented: papal resignation throughout history
§RV http://t.co/xXccYs7g
— Vatican – news (@news_va_en) 11 Feb 13

In one of those interviews, Donald Prudlo, an associate professor of history who studies “hagiography and saint’s lives, medieval miracle stories, Church History, and the development of canonization” at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, explained that the last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down almost 600 years ago, “so that the council of Constance could assume his power and appoint a new pope, and in so doing bring an end Great Western Schism.”

Mr. Prudlo added that the pope’s resignation does not have to be accepted by anyone:

At the end of the 13th century, a very holy hermit named Peter was elected as Pope Celestine V in order to break a deadlock in the conclave that had lasted nearly three years. He was elected because of his personal holiness, sort of a unity candidate. And once he got there, being a hermit, not used to the ways of the Roman Curia, he found himself somewhat unsuited to the task, that it wasn’t just holiness but also some shrewdness and prudence that was also required. So within six months he knew that he was really unequal to the task, and so he gathered the cardinals together in a consistory, just as was recently done, a couple hours ago, and he announced to the cardinals his intention to resign. Because of the Pope’s position as the supreme authority in the Church, Celestine declared that the pope could freely resign, that it was permissible, and that, because, as supreme authority, it did not have to be accepted by anyone.

The professor also noted that one of the few previous popes to step down, also named Benedict, apparently had second thoughts about his decision:

Celestine V and his advisers were aware that this was an unusual process. And so what they did is they went back through history, they looked at the Liber Pontificalis, and they could go all the way back to Pope St. Pontian, in 235, one of the first bishops of Rome, who was arrested and sent to the salt mines, and in order for a successor to be able to be elected in Rome, he resigned his office. And so as early as 235 we have evidence of the possibility of Popes resigning for the good of the church. Several others, they tried to force them to resign. The Byzantines attempted to force Pope Silverius to resign, but he refused to. But that also demonstrates the possibility of resignation. And then, at a rather low point in the Church’s history, Pope Benedict IX, in the 1040s, resigned and attempted to re-acquire the papacy several times. But according to good reports, he too died in penance at the monastery of Grottaferrata outside of Rome.

— Robert Mackey

9:02 A.M. |Video of Vatican News Conference

Video of a Vatican news conference on the pope’s resignation, posted online by The Telegraph.

As our Rome bureau chief Rachel Donadio reports, Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, told reporters at a news conference on Monday, “The pope took us by surprise.” Among other questions, reporters asked Father Lombardi what the pope will be called after is resignation and what he will wear.

Vaticanisti asking how pope will dress & how he will be called after resignation! #BenedettoXVI
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

The spokesman said he had no answers to those questions.

Father Lombardi also explained that the pope would continue to carry out his duties until Feb. 28 and a successor could be elected by Easter, at the end of March.

Video from the news conference was posted online by The Telegraph.

— Robert Mackey

8:51 A.M. |Text and Video of Pope’s Resignation Announcement

Video of Pope Benedict XVI announcing his resignation in a Latin statement on Monday at the Vatican.

As my colleague Rachel Donadio reports from Rome, Pope Benedict XVI announced on Monday that he would resign in a statement in Latin that he read to a meeting of cardinals who had gathered at the Vatican on other church business.

the @ansa journo who broke news on #pope resignation heard #benedictxvi read news to cardinals in LATIN & understood what he said. brava!
— Rachel Donadio — NYT (@RachelDonadio) 11 Feb 13

Video of the pope reading the announcement in Latin was posted on YouTube by Rome Reports, a news agency that covers the Vatican. This English translation of the complete statement was posted on the official Vatican Radio Web site:

Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

— Robert Mackey

Read More..