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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Syrian rebel official backs interim government

Khalid Saleh, the spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Coalition, speaks to reporters in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, March 18, 2013. The coalition began a push Monday to form an interim government to administer rebel-held parts of Syria. (AP Photo/Ben Hubbard)

Head of the new Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces Mouaz al-Khatib, rear-left, speaks during a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, March 2013. Syria's main opposition coalition began a push Monday to form an interim government to provide services to people living in parts of the country now controlled by rebel forces. Arabic writing at centre reads, General Assembly Meeting.(AP Photo)

U.N.-Arab League international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi speaks during a press conference with Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby, left, at the Arab league headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, March 18, 2013. The fighting in the Syrian civil war has settled into a bloody stalemate and shows no signs of stopping, despite several tentative proposals from both sides to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby, right, meets with U.N.-Arab League international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi at the Arab league headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, March 18, 2013. The fighting in Syria has settled into a bloody stalemate and shows no signs of stopping, despite several tentative proposals from both sides to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

ISTANBUL (AP) ? The leader of the main Syrian rebel force on Monday threw his weight behind the formation of an interim government to administer rebel-held areas as heavy fighting broke out in the Syrian capital and several suburbs.

At least three mortar shells struck central Damascus, the seat of President Bashar Assad's power. The pro-government's Al-Ikhbariya TV said one of the shells fell in Muhajireen district near Tishreen Palace, one of three palaces that Assad uses in the capital.

Activists also reported that mortar shells struck near state security agencies in al-Barakmeh district and close to the Higher Education Ministry in Mazzeh district.

At least 26 people died in the fighting in Damascus and its suburbs, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Also on Monday, Assad's fighter jets struck targets near the town of Arsal, Lebanon, according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency. The two countries share a porous border and it was unclear if the shelling occurred inside Lebanon.

The strikes came just days after Damascus warned Beirut to stop militants from crossing the border to fight alongside the rebels.

Lebanon has been on edge since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011. Gunmen on opposing sides of Syrian civil war have frequently clashed in Lebanon, raising concerns of a spillover.

Syria's conflict began with political protests in mid-March, 2011, and has since become a civil war, with hundreds of rebel groups fighting Assad's forces. The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed and millions have been pushed from their homes by the violence.

In Istanbul, Gen. Salim Idris told reporters that fighters affiliated with his Free Syrian Army, the main rebel group, will work under the umbrella of an interim government and protect its members.

"We recognize the coalition as our political umbrella and we hope this government can be formed unanimously and that this government will exercise its powers in all of Syria," said Idris, the chief of staff of the FSA. "We consider it the only legal government in the country."

Idris' comments sought to boost efforts by the opposition's Syrian National Coalition to choose a prime minister who will form an interim government. The coalition has failed to take such a step twice before, but members say there now appears to be more agreement that such a step is necessary.

The coalition's 73 members meeting in Istanbul are expected to elect an interim prime minister from 12 candidates. The vote is expected by Tuesday.

Idris' comments also sought to portray his group as the most powerful and organized rebel formation in Syria. It remains unclear, however, how many of the hundreds of rebel brigades fighting Assad's forces follow Idris' commands or are linked to his group.

Some of the most effective rebel groups are Islamic extremists who have developed their own support networks. One of them, Jabhat al-Nusra, has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and is said to be linked to al-Qaida.

Idris said his group has no relationship with Jabhat al-Nusra.

He renewed his call for world powers to arm rebel fighters, saying his group would insure that the weapons don't fall into the wrong hands ? a prime concern of the U.S. and other powers, especially given Syria's southern frontier with Israel.

"We have the power and the organizational capacity to control the movement of these weapons and keep them in safe, trusted hands," he said.

Last week, Britain and France urged the European Union to lift a ban on arming Syrian rebels, but with other EU members opposed, no decision was reached.

The U.S. is reluctant to send weapons, fearing they might end up with extremists, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the Obama administration won't hold anyone back from doing so.

"The United States does not stand in the way of other countries that made a decision to provide arms, whether it's France, or Britain or others," Kerry said in Washington.

The longer Syria's violence goes on, the greater the danger of its institutions collapsing and extremists obtaining chemical weapons, Kerry said.

Idris, meanwhile, suggested other types of possible military aid, saying his group would welcome Lebanese or international forces along Syria's border with Lebanon. He also called for rebel units to be trained to seize Syria's chemical weapons.

"The chemical weapons in Syria are not secured," he said, warning that they could be used against rebels or given to "rogue groups, like the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah."

"We ask the international community to help us train special forces that can secure these weapons and keep them from falling into the hands of extremists," he said.

___

Associated Press Writer Barbara Surk, Zeina Karam and Karin Laub in Beirut, Lebanon, and Bradley S. Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-03-18-Syria/id-d04713eeb9ab45cfa49e144c74fc6d86

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Colleges track former students to boost degrees

In this March 30, 2012 photo Allison Mitchell draws blood from Dwight Beeson at Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital in Columbia, Mo. Mitchell is one of nearly 300 Columbia College students who earned two-year associate degrees after the school tracked them down once they had left campus. The degree-completion program, known as Project Win-Win, began as a pilot project but has since expanded to more than 60 schools in nine states. (AP Photo/Columbia Daily Tribune, Ryan Henriksen)

ST. LOUIS (AP) ? Carmen Ricotta knows being a college graduate could mean higher pay and better job opportunities, and it's not like St. Louis Community College hasn't been practically begging her to wrap up her two-year degree.

The school has been calling and emailing the 28-year-old electrician's apprentice to get her to return and complete her final assignment: an exit exam. But life has gotten in the way and Ricotta has been too busy to make the 30-minute trip from her suburban home near Fenton to the downtown St. Louis campus.

St. Louis Community College is among 60-plus schools in six states taking what seems like an obvious but little-used step to boost college graduation rates: scouring campus databases to track down former students who unknowingly qualify for degrees.

That effort, known as Project Win-Win, has helped community colleges and four-year schools in Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin find hundreds of ex-students who have either earned enough credits to receive associate degrees or are just a few classes shy of getting them.

Backed by financial support from the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation for Education, the pilot project began several years ago with 35 colleges in six states. As it winds down, some participating schools plan to continue the effort on their own.

Ricotta said at this point, she's not sure if getting her two-year degree is all that necessary.

"It's a pain," she said. "I don't feel like going down to the college to take a test I don't need. Yeah, I don't have the degree, but I still took all the classes."

Her seeming indifference to retroactively obtaining her degree points to just one of the challenges facing two-year schools in particular as they strive to fulfill President Barack Obama's challenge of raising college completion rates to 60 percent by 2020: convincing not just the public, but even some of their students, of the value of an associate's degree.

At central Missouri's Columbia College, the hunt for students on the verge of graduating worked so well that the school plans to broaden its efforts to find bachelor's degree candidates who are just one class shy of donning the cap and gown. The private liberal arts college has already awarded nearly 300 retroactive degrees, including one given posthumously to the mother of a deceased former student. Another two dozen students returned to campus to finish up after hearing from the school.

"If this was being done nationwide, it could make a difference," said Tery Donelson, Columbia College's assistant vice president for enrollment management.

Like his counterparts in St. Louis, Donelson and his team of transcript detectives also encountered skepticism, if not outright disbelief, from some of the prospective degree awardees.

"If you received a letter saying, 'Congratulations, you've earned a degree,' what would you be thinking?" he said. "That this is a scam. We had to get beyond them.

"We told them they earned a degree, and all they had to do was acknowledge it," Donelson continued. "We didn't want to send a degree to anybody who didn't want it."

Participating schools pared down their initial lists by eliminating students who received degrees elsewhere or were currently enrolled. Expired addresses or disconnected phone numbers eliminated many more.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy, which oversaw the project, initially estimated a potential increase of 25,000 new degrees if its efforts took hold nationwide. But most schools found the exercise more difficult than expected, said Cliff Adelman, a senior associate with the Washington-based policy group.

"It ain't as easy as you think," he said. "You can't use a magic wand and have this kind of thing happen."

In Oregon, a review of more than 6,000 students' academic records at the state's 17 community colleges found 109 degree-eligible students and another 905 who might qualify. Virginia's Tidewater Community College awarded 34 degrees and convinced 15 more students to return to campus from its initial pool of 651 prospects.

Four-year schools could follow the lead of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, which used the program to connect with dropouts who might still be interested in a two-year diploma. Or they could link up with neighboring community colleges in what are known as "reverse transfer" agreements.

Those agreements allow students to receive their associate's degrees if they earned enough credits toward them but didn't actually obtain them before heading to a four-year school. The two-year schools, in turn, can boost their completion rates ? a critical measure for accrediting agencies and lawmakers looking for results.

One student happy to hear about what amounts to a free degree is Corey Manuel, 34, an Air Force veteran who expects to receive a bachelor's degree in management information systems from Columbia College. He took his classes at a Denver-area branch campus.

Manuel said his educational journey includes nearly 200 credits from five different schools, including a one-year stint straight out of high school playing basketball at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Mo., and a pair of stops at Louisiana State University's community college in Eunice.

Now an information technology manager at defense contractor Raytheon, Manuel nonetheless still craves the credential he was too busy to pick up along the way.

"I wanted to make sure I had that box checked," he said.

___

Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-17-US-Here's-Your-Degree/id-edd6ee44c42a4d8489ed34af1e45eca4

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Monday, March 18, 2013

Obama to nominate Tom Perez as next Secretary of Labor

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday will nominate Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, as his next labor secretary, a White House official said.

Perez, a Harvard-educated civil rights attorney whose nomination was championed by Hispanic groups, would replace Hilda Solis, who resigned in January.

Obama has been criticized for a lack of diversity in his Cabinet choices so far, particularly by Latinos, who are an influential voting bloc and have pushed for more representation in government.

If confirmed by the Senate, Perez, the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republican, will take on a prominent role in the Cabinet as Obama seeks to raise the minimum wage and advance immigration reform, two key pledges he made at the beginning of his second term.

The White House described Perez as a pragmatist who led the Justice Department in settling three major cases on behalf of families targeted by unfair mortgage lending practices, and who stepped up enforcement of human trafficking laws.

But Perez is expected to face tough scrutiny from Republicans. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has already voiced concerns.

An internal government investigation released last week found the Justice Department office that enforces voting laws - part of the civil rights division overseen by Perez - has been beset by political infighting.

The report, by the Justice Department's Inspector General, was critical of Perez for what it called an incomplete statement he gave in 2010 about a case of alleged voter intimidation.

Perez began his career as a civil rights prosecutor at the Justice Department, and later was head of the civil rights office at the Department of Health and Human Services.

He spent time working as a special counsel to the late Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy on civil rights issues.

Perez served in local government in the Washington suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland. Later, he was labor secretary in Maryland's state government, where he worked on reforms for state lending and foreclosure rules.

His wife, Ann Marie Staudenmaier, is a lawyer with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-nominate-tom-perez-next-secretary-labor-030210358--sector.html

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Indian police arrest 5 over Swiss tourist's rape

NEW DELHI (AP) ? Police said they arrested five men Sunday in connection with the gang rape of a Swiss woman who was attacked in central India while on a cycling vacation with her husband.

All five men admitted to the attack, which occurred Friday night as the woman and her husband camped out in a forest in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh state, said D. K. Arya, a senior police officer.

Arya said the men, who are from nearby villages, were arrested in Datia. Police were searching for two other men believed to have been involved in the attack, he said.

The couple told police that the woman had been raped by seven or eight men, but that it was dark and they could not be sure of the exact number, Arya said. They said the husband also was attacked by the men.

The woman, 39, was treated Saturday at a hospital in the nearby city of Gwalior and was released later that day, police said.

The couple were planning to travel later Sunday from Datia to the Indian capital of New Delhi, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) to the north, Arya said.

The attack came three months after the fatal gang rape of a woman aboard a New Delhi bus outraged Indians, and was front-page news in Indian newspapers on Saturday.

Prior to the attack, the couple, who were on a three-month vacation in India, had visited the temple town of Orchha and were planning to cycle to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal, nearly 210 kilometers (130 miles) away.

They set out from Orchha on Friday and pitched their tent in a forest near Jatia village when they were attacked by a group of men armed with wooden sticks, police said.

The men beat up the husband, tied him to a tree and then raped the woman, police said. They also stole the couple's cellphone, laptop computer and 10,000 rupees ($185). Police said they recovered the laptop and phone from one of the men who was arrested.

The Swiss ambassador in India, Linus von Castelmur, said he spoke with the couple and assured them of the Swiss government's help and support.

"Their health and treatment is the priority of the moment," the Swiss Embassy said in a statement.

The embassy said it was in touch with authorities in Madhya Pradesh and has urged a "swift investigation and for justice to be done."

Figures from India's National Crime Records Bureau show that a woman is raped every 20 minutes in India. However, many incidents of rape and other sexual crimes go unreported due to the stigma attached to such crimes in the conservative country. India's conviction rate for rapes and other crimes against women is among the lowest in the world.

Last month, the Swiss government issued a travel notice for India that included a warning about "increasing numbers of rapes and other sexual offenses" in the South Asian nation, and the latest incident could prompt other countries to issue similar warnings.

Travel industry representatives in India said the incident, coming so soon after the December gang rape in New Delhi, would affect tourism.

"Such incidents will definitely have a negative impact on tourism. It is very unfortunate," said Subhash Goyal, head of the Indian Association of Tour Operators.

According to government statistics, around 6.5 million foreign tourists visited India in 2011, generating about $120 billion for the nation's travel and hospitality sector.

The gang rape in December of a 23-year-old student aboard a moving bus in New Delhi set off nationwide protests, sparking a debate about the treatment of women in India and highlighting the inability of law enforcement agencies to protect them.

One of six suspects in the December attack was found dead in a New Delhi jail last week. Authorities said he hanged himself, but his family and lawyer insisted foul play was involved, and a magistrate is investigating. Four other men and a juvenile remain on trial for the attack.

The incident prompted the government to pass a law increasing prison terms for rape from the existing seven to 10 years to a maximum of 20 years. The law provides for the death penalty in extreme cases of rape that result in death or leave the victim in a coma. It has also made voyeurism, stalking, acid attacks and the trafficking of women punishable under criminal law.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/indian-police-arrest-5-over-swiss-tourists-rape-135622986.html

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Ford employees volunteer to help area nonprofits

DEARBORN ?? Hundreds of Ford employees have stepped away from their desks to work side by side with nonprofit partners who have created more than three dozen projects to address urgent needs in their communities.

Model Teams of Ford volunteers are painting shelters, renovating homes and family centers, and building storage facilities.?

Many of the participating organizations will share more than $53,000 in Ford grants to buy the tools, supplies and materials needed to complete their projects.

?Investing in children and families is investing in the future of our communities,? said Jim Vella, president, Ford Motor Co. Fund and Community Services. ?Ford?s contribution of time and resources delivers comfort today and hope for tomorrow, laying the foundation for a brighter future for everyone.?

Nonprofit partners in southeastern Michigan receiving up to $5,000 in grants for the projects include:

? Advanced Technology Academy, Dearborn ? Help students build set for school play

? Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries, Detroit ? Tile floors, construct food storage units

? First Step, Wayne ? Create indoor play and counseling areas

? Habitat Huron Valley, Ypsilanti ? Renovate kitchen in home

? HAVEN, Pontiac ? Assemble personal home safety kits for shelter residents Continued...

? Junior Achievement, Detroit ? Assist students with personal budget project

? Legal Aid & Defender, Detroit ? Ford attorneys will qualify the underserved for food stamps

? Matrix Human Services, Detroit ? package baby shower baskets for program for new mothers

? Penrickton Center, Taylor ? Build and adapt toys for blind children

? Salvation Army, Denby Center, Detroit ? Paint family residential cottages

? Science Fair of Metro Detroit, Detroit ? Set up or judge entries

? St. Leo?s Soup Kitchen, Detroit ? Prepare and serve food, distribute clothing

? Starfish Family Services, Inkster ? Play games, make music and crafts with children

? Vista Maria, Dearborn Heights ? Paint interior of residence for girls?

Ford?s agency partners also report a critical need for diapers and baby formula among low-income families.? Continued...