How DR Congo rebels make their money

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Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2012/06/29/How_DR_Congo_rebels_make_their_money/

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South Korea Postpones Signing Military Data Pact With Japan

SEOUL, South Korea ? Faced with mounting political pressure at home, the South Korean government on Friday abruptly postponed the signing of its first military cooperation pact with Japan since World War II.

Now the fate of the agreement in an election year has become uncertain.

The government and opposition parties agreed on Friday to convene Parliament on Monday and the Foreign Ministry said the session would give it a chance to explain and seek parliamentary support for signing the pact.

The opposition and other government critics bitterly accused the government of trying to rush the agreement through without adequate public debate.

?We have decided to push for the signing after consultations with the National Assembly,? the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The deal had been hailed as a significant step by the two governments. Both countries have been struggling to overcome the lingering historical bitterness between their peoples and cooperate more closely over mutual security concerns in the region. The pact provides a legal framework for South Korea and Japan to share and protect classified military data so they can deal more effectively with the threats posed by North Korea?s nuclear and missile programs and China?s growing military influence.

Washington has urged Tokyo and Seoul to increase cooperation.

But the pact triggered an uproar in South Korea, where resentment of Japan?s early 20th-century colonization remains raw and the public regard any sign of Japan?s growing military role with deep suspicion. The opposition accused President Lee Myung-bak of succumbing to American pressure and called him ?pro-Japanese,? the worst accusation a South Korean politician or political party could face, especially in an election year like this.

Friday?s postponement provided Washington with yet another reminder of how sensitive and unpredictable the relations between its two main Asian allies can be and how difficult it is to persuade them to cooperate more closely within what the United States envisions as a trilateral alliance.

Earlier Friday, despite the outcry, the South Korean Foreign Ministry had issued a news release reconfirming that the deal would be signed later in the day as soon as the Japanese cabinet approved it.

The Japanese cabinet did, and Japan?s foreign minister called the agreement an ?historic event.?

But Seoul requested a postponement at the last minute.

Only hours before, Lee Hahn-koo ? the floor leader of the governing New Frontier Party and close ally of Park Geun-hye, the party?s leading contender for the presidential nomination ? called Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan to demand a postponement. Jin Young, the chief policy maker of the party, said the deal ?contradicted the people?s sentiments.?

Ms. Park, the front-runner in the December election, is the daughter of the late military strongman Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea from 1961 to 1979. Her father once served as an officer in the Japanese Imperial Army. The opposition?s allegation that the late president was a ?pro-Japanese collaborator? is a key hurdle she must overcome.

South Korea is scheduled to hold an election in December to choose President Lee?s successor.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=5c32e191dd581e8bafb803fa6bbd1940

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An answer to grannies' cries for help

• It's estimated that 1.2 million children in Uganda have lost a parent to AIDS-related illnesses
• Jackson Kaguri opened a school in his former village to help many of these children
• Kaguri is also supporting area grandmothers who have been raising them
• Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2012 CNN Heroes

Nyakagyezi, Uganda (CNN) -- Visiting his former village in rural Uganda, Jackson Kaguri was the epitome of a success story.

He had escaped poverty, earned a college degree and moved to America, where he studied at an Ivy League school and planned to put a down payment on a house in Indiana. He'd often come back to Uganda, passing out school supplies to children.

But on one particular trip home in 2001, he realized he had to do more.

"We woke up in the morning, and grandmothers had lined up all around the house, stretching way back. ... The whole village had gathered," Kaguri said. "All these women walked miles and miles. It was huge."

UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children in Uganda have lost one or both parents to AIDS-related illnesses, and Kaguri said it's often grandmothers who have to pick up the slack.

"You see the grandmothers over and over whose own children have died and left them," he said. "Some of them have up to 14 (grandchildren) to raise in their homes. Sometimes the child has HIV/AIDS, they need medication. The grandmother needs food. They need a house. And nothing is there."

The grandmothers who gathered in Kaguri's childhood village begged Kaguri to help them. And he felt an obligation to give more than just pens, pencils and paper.

Grandmothers in Jackson Kaguri's former village urged him to do more to help. He didn't want to let them down.

"These are women who had seen me grow up in the village," he said. "They carried me when I was hurt, they prayed for me when I was away studying. What was I supposed to do?"

Knowing that education had been so key to his success, Kaguri and his wife decided to use their life savings to start a free school in the village. They purchased two acres of land and built the Nyaka School, brick by brick, with the help of local volunteers. When the school officially launched on January 2, 2003, 56 AIDS orphans were the first students.

"We provide them uniforms. We provide them pencils. We give them shoes," said Kaguri, 41. "Everything we give ... is to try and eliminate as many obstacles as possible, so children can be successful and focus on education."

Early on, it was noticed that many children in the school were falling asleep because of hunger and malnutrition. So the school began providing students two meals a day. There is also a medical clinic on site.

Meanwhile, Kaguri continued to raise money for the project while he worked full time in the United States. When he learned that a child had walked more than 30 miles to attend the school, he started a second school, the Kutamba School, in the village of Nyakishenyi.

Today, between the two schools, there are 587 students -- kindergarten through 12th grade -- receiving a free education and health care. Nearly all of them have lost either one or both parents to AIDS-related illnesses.

The issue hits especially close to home for Kaguri, who has lost his brother, one of his sisters and a 3-year-old nephew to the disease.

Kaguri says he felt fortunate to have the financial means to help his brother's children financially, but in many similar cases, children end up homeless.

Kaguri, 41, runs his organization out of Michigan, but he travels to Uganda about three times a year.

"Many of them are on the streets in Kampala eating from the dust bins," Kaguri said. "You see all these street children because they have no one to help them."

It's these children Kaguri says he thinks about as he raises funds and awareness for his schools.

"(We) take care of nearly 600 children in school," he said. "That leaves all these children who are walking around without an opportunity to get an education, to get health care, to get a meal to eat or even to get somebody to say, 'I love you.' "

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2012 CNN Heroes

Of the students at his schools, Kaguri estimates that 65% of them are being raised by their grandmothers, many of whom are often without adequate health care, finances or basic housing. So in 2008, he started a program that offers support and education to the nearly 7,000 area grandmothers who are raising their grandchildren.

The program teaches the women practical life skills, offering advice on parenting, grief management, basic medical care, gardening and business development.

Kaguri says that by giving grandmothers access to microfunds, allowing them to start small businesses and make money, more children have access to an education. And by giving seeds to the grandmothers to grow, more children have access to food.

Grandmothers "are the pillars in the society, holding the society together," he said. "They are unsung heroes that people don't recognize."

Every grandmother in the program, Kaguri said, has received some form of training or household equipment to improve their life. And his organization has also opened a library, started a gardening program and installed a clean-water system to benefit the entire village.

Kaguri, whose organization is based in Michigan and is funded by individual donations and private foundations, spends much of his time fundraising, speaking and raising awareness. He travels to Uganda about three times a year.

He hopes this younger generation will lift the country out of poverty and create a better future for their families and communities. He says he dreams about building a school in every district in Uganda.

"I want to be an uncle for many so we can create other children who would be successful and do great things," he said. "It's giving them a hand up, just holding somebody's hand, trying to get (them) out of the pigeonhole they are in. ...

"I feel humbled looking in the faces of the children smiling, focused on what their dreams are going to be."

Want to get involved? Check out the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project website at www.nyakaschool.org and see how to help.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_world/~3/s8absXdjysM/index.html

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Supreme Court Health Care Ruling: The Mandate Can Stay

In a landmark ruling with wide-ranging implications, the Supreme Court today upheld the so-called individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, the key part of President Obama's signature health care law.

The court ruled that the mandate is unconstitutional under the Constitution's commerce clause, but it can stay as part of Congress's power under a taxing clause. The court said that the government will be allowed to tax people for not having health insurance.

"The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the ruling.

The high court kept the country in suspense for days, announcing at the beginning of the week that it would hand down its decision today. The ruling is a victory for the Obama administration and a defeat for Republicans, who had anticipated that at least some of the law would be struck down.

The court's ruling upholding the main part of Obama's law means that people must buy health insurance or pay a tax up to several thousand dollars a year. It also means that other popular provisions of the law will stay, including:

-- If you are under 26, you can get health insurance from the plan your parents use. -- If you're on Medicare, you can get free mammograms. -- If you have what's called a pre-existing condition, you can get health insurance. -- Insurance companies can't deny you coverage even if you get sick or make a mistake on your health insurance application.

David Goldman/AP Photo

Tea Party supporter William Temple of... View Full Size

The vote from the high court was five to four. Roberts, who was appointed by George W. Bush, joined the more liberal four justices in upholding the mandate. Justice Anthony Kennedy was thought to be the swing vote, but he sided with the conservative bloc.

"Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in section 5000 A under the taxing power and that section 5000 a need not be read to do more than impose a tax," Roberts wrote.

Read the court's full decision.

Reading the dissent from the bench, Kennedy said the Affordable Care Act is invalid in its entirety."

"It is true that if an individual does not purchase insurance, he or she affects the insurance market to a degree," he said. "But the Government's theory would make one's mere existence the basis for federal regulation. There would be no structural limit on the power of Congress. As a result, the Government's theory would change the relation between the citizens and the Federal Government in a fundamental way."

The ruling has immediate effects on the presidential race. Obama has called his health care law "the right thing to do," even as polling has determined that the law is unpopular. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, had vowed to repeal "ObamaCare" as soon as he became president, despite championing remarkably similar legislation as the governor of Massachusetts.

Even Karl Rove, the GOP uber-strategist who founded an outside spending group to defeat Obama in 2012, said the ruling helps Obama.

"If this is actually the decision, it's a boost for the president, but it doesn't make the controversy go away," Rove said on Fox News. "In fact, it probably enhances the controversy."

The official line from the GOP is that the ruling means the only way to get rid of the law is to elect Romney.

"On Election Day, we must elect Mitt Romney and put America on the path toward a brighter economic future and successful health care reform," Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.

Obama was expected to make a statement within the hour.

While just 36 percent of people in the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll had a favorable opinion of the health law, a similarly low number of people — 39 percent — had a favorable opinion of the health care system as it stands now. And while the GOP has trumpeted polling that shows Americans unsatisfied with the law as a whole, the White House has boasted of surveys that show that people are warmer to individual parts of the law, like letting young adults stay on their parents' plans until they're 26 and barring insurers from denying coverage to people with so-called pre-existing conditions.

Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=c0a4c5defed8bf35b42c4d3f1e3eebbc

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Egyptians pack Tahrir on eve of Mursi inauguration

A boy stands near t-shirts with images of elected president Mohamed Mursi and words that read ''Congratulations to Egypt'' that are sold during a sit-in against the military council and the decision to dissolve parliament, at Tahrir Square in Cairo June 28, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

By Shaimaa Fayed

CAIRO | Fri Jun 29, 2012 6:49am EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Muslim Brotherhood supporters flocked to Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to hear Mohamed Mursi speak on the eve of his inauguration as Egypt's first Islamist, civilian president.

The rally's slogan, "Powers of the president", heralds what may prove a prolonged struggle between the Islamists and army generals who have imposed stark curbs on presidential powers before they formally hand over executive authority.

Crowds in Tahrir, the hub of last year's revolt against ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, chanted "Mursi is president of the republic" and waved Egyptian flags with his picture inset.

"A full revolution or nothing. Down, down with military rule!" they shouted. "We, the people, are the red line!"

The military council that pushed Mubarak aside on February 11, 2011 has supervised a chaotic stop-go transition since then, holding parliamentary and presidential elections, but then effectively negating their outcome to preserve its own power.

Mursi, who attended weekly Muslim prayers at the al-Azhar mosque, was expected to address the nation from Tahrir at about 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). He will swear his oath of office at 11 a.m. on Saturday before the Supreme Constitutional Court in Cairo.

The usual venue is parliament, but the same court dissolved the Islamist-led lower house this month in a ruling backed, if not orchestrated, by the army, apparently unwilling to let Islamists control the legislature as well as the presidency.

"Do we accept that parliament is dissolved?" cheerleaders from the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party asked the throng in Tahrir. "No!" the party faithful thundered back.

Mursi was declared president last Sunday, a nerve-racking week after a run-off vote in which he narrowly beat ex-air force chief Ahmed Shafik, who was Mubarak's last prime minister.

After being sworn in as the first freely elected civilian president of the most populous Arab state, Mursi will give a speech at Cairo University, a presidency statement said.

MILITARY CONTROL

Hundreds of protesters have been camped out in Tahrir for weeks to press the army to transfer power to civilians. The military council has long promised to hand over power to the next president by July 1, but army sources said the ceremony had been postponed, without giving a reason or a new date.

The generals have seized new powers this month, giving themselves veto rights over the drafting of a new constitution, naming a National Defence Council to run defence and foreign policies and decreeing their control of all military affairs.

They may have won the skirmish over the venue for Mursi's oath-taking, but the Brotherhood is likely to wage a protracted campaign to roll back military control over the new Egypt.

Scenes at the presidential palace occupied by Mubarak for three decades encapsulated the rise of an 84-year-old Islamist movement he had banned, constrained and often persecuted.

Bearded men, some in white robes, others in suits, milled around the palace while Mursi held talks on Thursday with the Muslim Brotherhood's supreme guide Mohamed Badie and consulted clerics from the al-Azhar seat of Islamic learning, hardline Salafis and independent evangelical Muslim preachers.

Many seemed dazzled by the grandeur of their surroundings or intrigued to be walking halls of power once forbidden to them.

Security guards, still there from the Mubarak era, shook their heads in frank amazement at the bearded conclave.

After the Brotherhood's Badie walked past the gates, one remarked: "Good God, these men were in prison before and wouldn't have dared walk past the compound. Look at them now."

Many Egyptians swarmed around outside, hoping to meet the homespun president-elect with grievances and petitions. Security men complained it was hard to impose order because Mursi had given instructions that people should not be turned away.

After the talks, Mursi's Islamist visitors at the palace in Cairo's Heliopolis district broke a daylong fast with hundreds of takeout meals in cardboard boxes lugged in by palace guards from an army-owned local restaurant - one of the many commercial interests developed by the military over the decades.

The military, the source of all the previous presidents in the Arab republic's 60-year history, runs business enterprises accounting for an estimated one third of the economy.

It does not intend to jeopardize the $1.3 billion a year it receives in military aid from the United States to back Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel, widely criticized by Islamists.

Mursi has said he will respect Egypt's international obligations and does not want to take the country back to war.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/worldNews/~3/BF2eEezEZu4/us-egypt-politics-idUSBRE85S0JP20120629

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UK police demand Assange leave Ecuador embassy

Miguel Medina / AFP - Getty Images, file

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange arrives for a hearing at the Supreme Court in London on February 2.

By msnbc.com and news services

LONDON - British police summoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to a London police station on Thursday as part of his extradition process, demanding he leave Ecuador's embassy where he has been holed up seeking political asylum.

Assange, 40, is wanted for questioning in Sweden over sex crime allegations and took refuge in Ecuador's London embassy in a surprise move last week.

---

He now risks being arrested the moment he steps outside the red-brick building after breaching bail terms, keeping both his supporters and police puzzled as to what he might do next.

On Thursday, police said it had formally "served a surrender notice upon a 40-year-old man that requires him to attend a police station at date and time of our choosing."

WikiLeaks' Assange says Ecuador 'quite supportive'

It added: "He remains in breach of his bail conditions, failing to surrender would be a further breach of conditions and he is liable to arrest."

The statement, in line with UK police policy, did not name him but local media quoted sources identifying him as Assange.

The BBC reported the extradition unit delivered a note to both Assange and the Ecuador embassy. The embassy declined to�comment. Other media reported that he was due to present himself to a police station on Friday.

Assange enraged Washington in 2010 when his WikiLeaks website published secret U.S. diplomatic cables.

He denies any wrongdoing in Sweden and says he fears that if extradited there he could be sent on to the United States, where he could face criminal charges punishable by death.

After losing his appeal against extradition to Sweden to face allegations against rape and sexual assault, The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, says he is considering his next step, which could be an appeal to Britain's Supreme Court. ITN's Sejal Karia reports.

Assange, known for his unpredictable behavior, caused a media storm in Britain with his asylum bid. Ecuador's ambassador has in the meantime flown home to discuss whether to grant him asylum but the decision has yet to be made.

By diplomatic convention, police cannot enter the embassy without authorization from Ecuador. But even if Quito granted him asylum, he has no way of travelling to Ecuador without passing through London and exposing himself to arrest.

WikiLeaks' Assange seeks asylum in Ecuador�

On Tuesday, a group of celebrities and activists published an open letter to Ecuador published in The Guardian newspaper asking that Assange be given�asylum�in that country because he faced the death penalty if eventually sent to the United States.�

"We believe Mr Assange has good reason to fear extradition to Sweden, as there is a strong likelihood that once in Sweden, he would be imprisoned, and then likely extradited to the United States," reads the letter signed by�the leaker of the Pentagon Papers Daniel Ellsberg,�film-maker�Michael Moore, actor and director Danny Glover, director Oliver Stone, comedian Bill Maher and author Naomi Wolf, among others.

Reuters contributed to this report.�

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Family moves from the Bronx to Jerusalem, but US remains land of 'liberty and freedom'
• Turkey sends military convoys toward Syrian border
• Palestinian: US supports 'an apartheid system that is suffocating us'
• Anti-terror police arrest two men in east London
• Greek bank worker plunges to death from Acropolis
• Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic acquitted of one genocide count
• German court bans male circumcision, sparks outrage among Jews, Muslims

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/26/appeal-

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Source: http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/28/12460608-uk-police-demand-assange-leave-ecuador-embassy?lite

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Stockton, Calif., files for Chapter 9

Updated 9:48 PM ET

(AP) SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Stockton has filed for Chapter 9 protection, making it the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy.

City Manager Bob Deis said officials sought the status Thursday in federal bankruptcy court in Sacramento, as expected.

The filing comes after officials were unable to reach a deal with the city's creditors to restructure hundreds of millions of dollars of debt under a new state law designed to help municipalities avoid bankruptcy.

Stockton bankruptcy to become a trend?
Stockton residents angered by bankruptcy move

Stockton, a river port of 290,000 in Central California, was one of less than half dozen larger governments to seek Chapter 9 protection in U.S. history, according to James Spiotto, a Chicago bankruptcy attorney who tracks municipal bankruptcies.

It's the first California city to file for bankruptcy since Vallejo, which sought protection in 2008.

Chapter 9 has been used sparingly and mostly by small government entities such as water utilities and other special districts, Spiotto said, because it halts a city's ability to develop.

The City Council on Tuesday approved a bankruptcy budget to plug next year's anticipated $26 million deficit.

"Cities and counties fear that their ability to fund capital improvements and build infrastructure will be denied or costs will go up if they file" Spiotto said. "Chapter 9 provides short term gains, but also long term pain."

In the past, large municipalities have received assistance from states or have internally refinanced their obligations, he said.

Since Congress added Chapter 9 to the bankruptcy code in 1937 to allow municipalities to seek protection, some 640 government entities have filed.

Stockton is the largest city by population to seek Chapter 9 protection, Spiotto said. Other large ones were Bridgeport, Conn. in 1991 (its filing was dismissed by a judge), Orange County in 1994, Vallejo and Jefferson County, Alabama in 2011.

By comparison, roughly 1.5 million Americans file for personal bankruptcy each year, while some 50,000 companies file for business bankruptcy.

"People will be watching," Spiotto said. "Is Stockton just another aberration, or is it a growing trend?"

In Stockton on Tuesday, the City Council approved a budget-in-bankruptcy that plugs next year's anticipated $26 million shortfall out of the city's half billion spending plan.

The special budget suspends debt payments, reduces payments for retiree medical benefits and increases revenue through code enforcement and parking citations, among other measures.

City officials declined to provide the city's total debt, or a list of all its creditors. The 18 largest creditors who participated in mediation included Wells Fargo & Co., retiree groups and labor organizations.

Under bankruptcy protection, Stockton officials will retain power over day-to-day city operations and staffing, but a judge will take over all decisions concerning the city's debts, said Robert Benedetti, professor of political science at the University of the Pacific in Stockton.

The judge will decide which creditors should be paid, how much and in what order. But he will also make allowances for expenditures needed by the city to function, and it will be up to city officials to decide how to spend that money.

"One of reasons a city might want to go the bankruptcy route is that they don't want a situation where they have to pay out debts and have to close the police or fire department," Benedetti said.

Thousands of new homes mushroomed in Stockton during construction bubble, and the city in California's agricultural heartland became beset by foreclosures with the second highest rate in the nation. Stockton's property taxes and other revenues sharply declined, while expensive investments and generous retiree benefits drained city coffers.

Stockton was the first California city to test a new state mediation law, Assembly Bill 506, which is less than six months old.

Under the law, municipalities considering bankruptcy must first negotiate behind closed doors with creditors for up to three months, with the goal of settling debts without filing for Chapter 9 protection.

Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsMain/~3/eITPAUv_z5I/

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