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Topic: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world (Read 1078570 times)
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7890 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:21 AM »
Immigration Hurdle: EU Questions Germany's Language Tests
Germany may be violating EU law with language tests for certain immigrants, and the European Commission is looking into the matter. German politicians say the test isn't that hard.
Non-European foreigners who wish to join their spouses in Germany are required to pass a language test first. But according to the European Commission, this is unfair.
The Commission is looking into whether the language proficiency tests violate European Union law, it confirmed to German news agency DPA on Wednesday. The blanket requirement does not adequately take individual circumstances into account, the Commission said.
Berlin must now respond to a letter sent in late May by the Commission to defend its position on the matter.
On the German government's website, a page devoted to immigration law describes the language tests taken before entering the country that require "basic German-language knowledge, in particular to help incoming women with integration in Germany."
"Language knowledge at the lowest level is required, such as answers to questions like, 'Do you have a high school diploma?' and 'Do you currently work?'," it adds.
There are, however, exceptions for individuals with "less need for integration," such as those with university education, approved refugees, EU citizens or the spouses of those from countries that have a visa-free travel agreement with Germany.
Berlin sees no problem with the language tests. "The federal government will maintain its established legal position in its statement to the European Commission," the government wrote in response to a parliamentary inquiry filed by the far-left Left Party on July 5, which was cited by DPA.
Jörg-Uwe Hahn, the integration minister for the German state of Hesse, criticized the Commission procedure, saying in a statement it was "totally wrong and counterproductive" for integration policy. "The most basic level of communication with a few words of German is not too much to demand for immigrating to Germany. It's not patronizing, but instead promotes integration."
If Germany and the European Commission don't reach an agreement by the end of the multi-step inquiry into the matter, Germany faces fines and a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice.
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7891 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:22 AM »
Last Call: Crisis Closes Pubs, Mainstay of Irish Society
By Patrick Kremers
With high unemployment, a surge in emigration and rising beer prices, Irish pubs are getting pinched by the crisis, and some 1,500 have been forced to shut their doors. But one entrepreneur has found a novel way to keep patrons and hold his community together.
A thick fog blankets Kilfynn. Despite poor visibility, Mike Parker steps on the gas. It's half past midnight, and it's been a long day. He can only go to bed once he's gotten John and Dan home safe.
"The two had a few beers in my pub," he says. And it would be "much too dangerous" to let them go home alone and drunk in this weather along the narrow roads that wind through the countryside here in County Kerry, in southwestern Ireland.
Once Mike has locked up his pub at midnight, his second shift begins, driving his patrons back home. On a normal weeknight, he puts in more than 30 kilometers (19 miles) behind the wheel. On the weekend, he can be on the road for up to 2 hours. Kilflynn has about 300 residents, two pubs, two churches, a general store, a small restaurant and a post office.
Out here in the countryside, there aren't any cabs. And even if he orders one from Tralee, the closest city, it takes almost half an hour to show up. In any case, taxis are too expensive for many patrons. So now Mike is offering free rides. "Without this service," he says, "I would've had to close down my pub a while ago because many guests would stay home."
Ireland's economy is in shambles, and the country is stuck in one of its deepest recessions in decades. The government is implementing austerity measures, and average people are paying the price with higher taxes and fewer social services. Many Irish are buried in debt or can't find a job -- or both.
Under these circumstances, they can't afford to spend about €4 ($5.30) on a pint in a pub, buying it instead for roughly half as much at supermarkets or gas stations. With patrons cutting back since the crisis struck some five years ago, more than 1,500 have gone under.
Through Good Times and Bad
Parker is also feeling the effects of the crisis at his pub, which has been in the family for three generations. "Things have gotten quiet," he says, "especially during the week." The local farmers used to stop by before noon for a quick beer, he adds, but now he doesn't even open until around 5 p.m. because nobody would show up before then.
The idea for the ride service was his father's. At first, Mike was only driving a few people home. But now that word of his service has made the local rounds, he says, "some people are coming to me just for that."
Today, the pub is full. It's Thursday, and the local hurling team is playing in the neighboring town and expected to drop by after the match. Parker is sporting one of the team's warm-up jackets, which he wears with pride.
Many people have come to spend time with the team. Men sitting around small tables are talking about the government and the bad weather. In the corner, five young people are getting their instruments out to play traditional Irish songs.
"We grew up here with this music, and we already start learning to play the instruments as children," says 14-year-old Susie Rice. Her violin once belonged to her grandfather. "It means a lot to me to play on the same violin he did," she says.
John Brennan is listening to the music and rocking his leg to the beat. "The pub is a meeting place for young and old, for musicians and farmers," the 67-year-old says. "It's not about the beer, but about meeting up with friends and other village residents."
John and his wife live a few miles outside Kilflynn, where he sells trucks. Business was a lot better before the crisis, but he prefers not to complain. "Many had very good years, but now times are bad again," he says, adding that that's just how it is. The Irish suffer in silence.
The Golden Days Are Over
The door opens, and another violinist walks in. Three years ago, he moved from Galway, a city in western Ireland, to tiny Kilflynn. "Seán came for love," John says while patting his shoulder. "That's not true," Seán jokes. "Love is what keeps me in this nest." Then Seán takes out his violin, sits on a stool, slides over to the other musicians and joins in the song.
A little later, seven men from the hurling team finally show up, heads hanging after having lost the match. A guest orders a round of drinks for the men from Mike and nudges their shoulders encouragingly. "The golden days are gone with sport, too," Mike says. Two years back, the team won the Country Kerry championship. But, these days, it's been losing one match after the next.
"We're having trouble just fielding a team," Parker says. In just the last month, five of the team's players have left Ireland because they couldn't find a job here. Three headed to Australia, while the other two are trying their luck in the United States. "The young people generally don't come back once they've left the country," Parker says.
Unemployment is a problem all over Ireland, but it's especially bad in Country Kerry. Almost one in four are without work, most of them young men who can't find a job. The suicide rate in the area surrounding Kilflynn is much higher than the national average. All of Ireland is currently focused on figuring out how it can offer young people a future.
Milk Too Expensive, Beer Too Cheap
John, the truck salesman, can understand why so many young people would want to leave the country. "If I had my whole life in front of me, I'd probably seek my luck abroad too," he says. Still, he's not just worried about the young; he also frets for the old. "Friends of mine live so far outside a village," he says. "Hardly any cars drive by for days."
Social isolation is the second biggest problem in rural Ireland. Just a few weeks ago, a television crew came to the area around Kilflynn to film a report on conditions there. It found that in many villages stores have shut down because of the recession, post offices have been closed, and even the police were forced to shut down rural substations -- in just another way the government is trying to cut costs.
It's gotten late now. Whoever doesn't have far to go has already headed home. John and Dan, a farmer, are sitting at one of the tables, drinking beer and talking about milk and beer prices. Milk is cheap, Dan says, but beer prices keep going up. That's not good news for many Irish. Mike approaches the table. "I'm closing up now," he says. "Drink up and go ahead and get in the car." Mike plans to first run the two home before coming back to take the members of the hurling team home.
As the van pulls into John's driveway, he suddenly gets antsy. "What's wrong? Lose your key?" asks Mike. "No," John answers. "I remembered that. But I fear I forgot my wife back in the pub. She was standing by the hurling fellows."
On this night, Mike will have to make an extra trip. But he says he doesn't mind -- just as long as people keep coming to his pub and enjoying themselves.
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7892 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:25 AM »
GCHQ accused of selling its services after revelations of funding by NSA
Privacy campaigners say agreements between UK and US spy agencies show contempt for rule of law
Nick Hopkins and Luke Harding
theguardian.com, Friday 2 August 2013 12.12 BST
Privacy campaigners have accused Britain's spy agencies of "selling their services to a foreign power" following revelations that the US government had paid at least £100m to GCHQ.
The top secret payments were set out in documents leaked to the Guardian by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, who on Thursday was granted temporary asylum in Russia. They suggest that the National Security Agency (NSA) has substantially funded GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to, and influence over, Britain's intelligence-gathering programmes.
The documents also show that the Americans expect a return on their investment, and that GCHQ is acutely conscious of the need to meet US demands. Ministers have denied that GCHQ does the NSA's "dirty work" and have pointed to the US and UK's longstanding intelligence-sharing relationship.
But in the documents GCHQ describes Britain's surveillance laws and regulatory regime as a "selling point" for Washington. On Friday, Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "Once upon a time the rule of law was as great a British export as Beckham's right foot. Now it seems our most powerful security agency capitalises on weak legal privacy protections to sell its services to a foreign power."
Chakrabarti added: "Just as politicians whip up xenophobia and threaten international human rights law, securocrats replace national and parliamentary sovereignty with secret pacts to monitor the globe."
Eric King, head of research at Privacy International, added: "Our intelligence agencies carry out some of the most sensitive and legally complex work in the world. It is shameful that the agreements between the NSA and GCHQ are shrouded in secrecy and this practice must come to an end. The special relationship that enables jurisdiction hopping is nothing more than a moral race to the bottom and shows contempt for the rule of law."
He went on: "The lack of oversight from parliament has become known around the world and has been exploited so that intelligence agencies can get what they want."
In the US Snowden's revelations have triggered intense debate, investigation by Congress, and a vote – narrowly defeated – to defund the NSA's most controversial programmes, King said. But in the UK parliament has greeted them with "deafening silence" and failed "to properly scrutinise GCHQ". "This makes them [MPs] complicit in activities that violate our privacy rights and erodes the public's confidence that parliament can effectively do its job."
His comments came as new photos emerged of Snowden leaving Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Thursday. Published by the Russian website Lifenews.ru, they show the 30-year-old American grinning, his hair longer and more bouffant than when he first arrived in the airport's transit zone more than a month earlier. He is carrying a black rucksack and a holdall.
Next to him is Sarah Harrison, a representative from WikiLeaks who accompanied Snowden on his flight from Hong Kong. Also with Snowden is his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, who on Thursday showed off his client's new Russian asylum document.
Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has yet to comment after the White House said on Thursday it was "extremely disappointed" by the asylum decision. On Friday, however, a leading Kremlin politician said the Obama administration only had itself to blame. Alexey Pushkov hit back at comments by Senator John McCain who called the Kremlin's actions "a disgrace and a deliberate effort to embarrass the United States".
In a tweet Pushkov responded: "McCain asserts that, by giving Snowden asylum, Russia decided to 'humiliate' the US. That's not true. By stopping him from flying the US deprived Moscow of a choice."
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7893 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:29 AM »
Iran's Ahmadinejad warns Israel will be 'uprooted'
By Agence France-Presse
Friday, August 2, 2013 7:21 EDT
Iran's outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned arch-foe Israel Friday in one of his last public speeches that a regional storm was brewing that would "uproot" the Jewish state.
"I will inform you with God as my witness, a devastating storm is on the way that will uproot the basis of Zionism," Ahmadinejad said in Quds (Jerusalem) Day remarks broadcast on state television.
In a parting shot against Israel, which he has consistently targeted in public comments during eight years in power, Ahmadinejad said it "has no place in this region".
He was speaking ahead of Hassan Rowhani assuming the presidency of the Islamic republic this weekend.
Iran staged massive rallies to mark annual Quds Day, with speeches and sermons supporting the Palestinian cause and condemning Israel.
State television showed hundreds of thousands of people marching across the country, chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America".
The demonstrators also denounced any renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In his remarks, Ahmadinejad accused Israel and its Western supporters of fomenting discord in the Middle East, saying "it was their dream to see the will of regional countries bent on destroying (Israel) diverted towards civil war".
"Who is happy for what is happening in Egypt and Syria?" he asked, charging that Israel celebrating the unrest in those countries.
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7894 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:32 AM »
Bangladeshi court bans Islamist party from elections
Jamaat Islami barred on grounds that it is against secularism, but says it will seek stay of ruling from supreme court
Saad Hammadi in Dhaka and Jason Burke in Delhi
theguardian.com, Thursday 1 August 2013 14.18 BST
The largest Islamist party in Bangladesh has been banned from taking part in the forthcoming general election on the grounds that it is against secularism.
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is a key member of an alliance of opposition parties that will seek to oust the ruling Awami League at the polls later this year. Although popular support for the party is limited, its supporters can swing the result in scores of constituencies.
The ruling by the high court in Dhaka on Thursday will raise tensions, already high after months of rival protests and strikes.
A Human Rights Watch report accuses security forces of using excessive force against the demonstrations. At least 150 protesters have been killed and 2,000 injured since February.
While large numbers of protesters have been arrested, the Bangladeshi authorities have made no meaningful efforts to hold members of the security forces accountable, the report says.
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said street protests were likely to be more frequent in the coming months. "The risk of further violence is high … unless the government takes firm action to rein in the security forces, there is going to be a lot more blood on the streets before the year is over," he said.
Many of the protests have been prompted by a series of judgments by a tribunal sentencing senior JI officials to death or life imprisonment for crimes they are alleged to have committed during Bangladesh's war of independence from Pakistan in 1971. JI opposed the split with Pakistan.
Thursday's high court ruling comes four years after a group of former politicians and moderate Muslim leaders filed a petition seeking to cancel JI's registration with Bangladesh's electoral authorities, saying the party wanted to introduce sharia law in the Muslim-majority country.
Syed Tayabul Bashar, of the Bangladesh Tariqat Federation, said: "We are very happy with the verdict today. Jamaat Islami has no democratic right in this country because its actions in the liberation war were against our country."
The move will be seen as a political manoeuvre by the government designed to eliminate a key ally of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh National party.
Mahbubul Alam Hanif, joint secretary general of the Awami League, said JI was "no longer a political group, but just a criminal front".
The justice minister, Shafique Ahmed, said the law was taking its course. "The rule of law demands that nobody is above law. The judgment has been delivered as per the law and the constitution. If they have any grievance they can appeal," he said.
Abdur Razzaq, assistant secretary general of JI and its chief defence counsel, said the party would seek a stay of the high court decision from the supreme court. "Even if there is an election soon, I would assume that JI would be able to participate," he said.
There are fears the continuing political violence will cause problems for Bangladesh's booming garments trade, which employs around three million people. In April 1,129 workers were killed when a factory on the outskirts of Dhaka collapsed. Its clients included many western retailers.
This week employees of a factory north of Dhaka were reported to have set their workplace alight in protest at poor pay.
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7895 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:34 AM »
China's human rights situation is getting worse, says US official
Uzra Zeya cites increasing targeting of activists' family members and repressive policies towards religious minorities
Tania Branigan in Beijing
theguardian.com, Friday 2 August 2013 12.45 BST
China's human rights situation is getting worse, a senior US official said in Beijing on Friday, as reports of another detention increased fears of a crackdown on activists and lawyers.
Uzra Zeya, who led the US side in annual bilateral rights dialogue, cited increasing pressure on activists' friends and relatives and religious restrictions in Tibet and Xinjiang.
"I think we have continued to see a deterioration in the overall situation in China," said Zeva, the acting assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour.
"The specific issue of the targeting of family members is one reason for that assessment: the case of the family of Liu Xiaobo, of Chen Guangcheng and other instances. This is a worrisome trend and one we have raised at senior levels."
She added: "Looking at policies towards ethnic and religious minorities, the situation in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and [Xinjiang] Uighur Autonomous Region, particularly with respect to repressive measures relating to religious practice, we would also say that supports the same overall assessment."
The first round of the dialogue since China's power transition came amid growing concern about recent detentions. Human Rights Watch says that at least 16 activists from Beijing and Jiangxi province have been put under criminal detention for publicly calling on the government to require officials to disclose their assets, despite the country's leader, Xi Jinping, announcing a crackdown on corruption.
Zeya said the US had highlighted one of those cases – the detention of Xu Zhiyong, a well-known legal scholar and rights defender – as well as raising concerns about Liu Xiaobo, the jailed writer and Nobel peace prize winner; the author's wife, Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest since shortly after he won the award; and others.
Other cases raised by the US included those of the jailed Tibetan film-maker Dhondup Wangchen and the ethnic Mongolian activist Hada, who was released from jail in December 2010 but remains in detention. The Chinese responses "fell short of our expectations", Zeya added.
Reports of another detention by state security – this time of the veteran journalist Xiao Shu – emerged shortly after Zeya's comments. Xiao was among the friends and supporters who had called publicly for Xu Zhiyong's release. He reportedly refused a demand from state security to leave Beijing last month.
"Like Xu Zhiyong, he is very constructive and very moderate in his viewpoint. They place a lot of emphasis on practical objectives and frame it often within existing party language," said David Bandurski, who runs the China Media Project at Hong Kong University.
Bandurski noted what appeared to be broader attempts to control debate recently, such as reports of "seven don't speaks" – an edict to academics and others to avoid seven sensitive topics.
China publishes an annual report on the US human rights record in response to US criticisms
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7896 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:35 AM »
Pro-Morsi camps vow to stay despite Egypt government promise of safe exit
Muslim Brotherhood says promise of protection for supporters who leave before Cairo crackdown cannot be taken seriously
Patrick Kingsley in Cairo
The Guardian, Thursday 1 August 2013 18.54 BST
Egypt's interim cabinet mandated the country's police force on Wednesday to disperse two pro-Morsi camps, which have each been in place for a month, prompting fears of a third state-led massacre of Morsi supporters in as many weeks.
On Thursday, the interior ministry encouraged the protesters to close the camps of their own accord by promising that any Morsi supporter who left before the police operation would be given safe passage.
"The interior ministry … calls on those in the squares of Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda to listen to the sound of reason, side with the national interest and quickly leave," interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel-Latif said in a televised statement.
"Whoever responds to this call will have a safe passage and protection," he added.
But a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood said they could not take the government's promise seriously, given the continuing crackdown against the Islamist grouping, many of whose members have been arrested since Morsi's removal on 3 July.
"I don't believe anyone involved in the military coup," said Mohamed Soudan, a senior official from the Brotherhood's political wing, the Freedom and Justice party.
"They've said that many times before, and it's not true. They are already arresting not only Muslim Brotherhood members, but members of the wider Islamist movement. No one is going home."
Two leaders from a moderate Islamist party unaffiliated to the Brotherhood were taken into custody this week, while Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood's leader, was referred to court on charges of inciting violence.
Situated on opposite sides of Cairo, the two sit-ins were set up in protest at Morsi's removal by the army.
Rabaa, in east Cairo, is firmly controlled by the Brotherhood, while several Islamist groups have a stake in Nahda to the west of the city. Pro-Morsi marches regularly snake from the sites, disrupting traffic across much of Cairo, and causing further government frustration.
August 1, 2013
Kerry Says Egypt's Military Was 'Restoring Democracy' in Ousting Morsi
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and KAREEM FAHIM
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Secretary of State John Kerry offered an unexpected lift to Egypt's military leaders on Thursday, saying they had been "restoring democracy" when they deposed the country's first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, on July 3 after mass demonstrations against his rule.
"The military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people" who feared the country would descend into chaos, Mr. Kerry said during a visit to Pakistan, a country that has seen four military coups since the 1950s. In Egypt, Mr. Kerry said, "The military did not take over, to the best of our judgment — so far."
His comments echoed those of Egypt's defense minister, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, who has said that he repeatedly warned Mr. Morsi to change course and that he was carrying out the people's will by deposing him. Mr. Kerry's blunt comments represented the strongest endorsement yet by the United States of the military intervention, which the Obama administration has refused to call a coup.
Using that term would require the United States to suspend its annual $1.5 billion aid package, a move that American officials assert would further destabilize Egypt. Instead, the administration has found a way to avoid the question altogether, deciding last week that it was not legally required to determine whether the military had engineered a coup or not.
On Thursday, tens of thousands of Mr. Morsi's Islamist supporters continued their sit-ins at two Cairo squares, defying intensifying warnings from the Egyptian authorities to abandon the protests or face their dispersal by force.
An Interior Ministry spokesman appealed to the protesters to "give priority to the interest of the homeland, to comply with the public interest and to quickly leave and evacuate." The ministry promised "safe exit and complete protection" to all who complied, said the spokesman, Hany Abdul-Laatef.
The protesters have vowed to remain in the squares until Mr. Morsi is released from military detention and restored as president. On Wednesday, Egypt's military-backed government ordered the police to break up the protests, saying they posed a threat to "national security."
The authorities have accused the protesters of hoarding weapons and torturing people in the squares, and say that the rallies have become a nuisance to local residents. The government order raised the specter of another violent confrontation, less than a week after Egypt's security forces opened fire on protesters outside one of the sit-ins, killing at least 80 people.
Responding to the Interior Ministry warning, an alliance of Mr. Morsi's supporters said that the sit-ins were peaceful and would continue, and that the alliance "places full responsibility on the coup leaders for any acts of violence or killings."
Late Thursday night at the larger of the two sit-ins, outside the Rabaa al-Adaweya mosque, the warnings seemed only to attract more protesters. On stage, a speaker called for Mohamed Ibrahim, the interior minister, to be put on trial and cursed General Sisi, imploring God to poke his eyes out.
Mr. Kerry, speaking to the private Geo channel in Pakistan, said he was concerned about the turmoil and had told top Egyptian officials, including General Sisi, that a violent crackdown was "absolutely unacceptable."
"It cannot happen," he said.
"Now, as you know, these situations can be very confusing and very difficult," Mr. Kerry continued, saying the United States was working with officials of the European Union and foreign ministers of other countries "to try to see if we can resolve this peacefully."
"The story of Egypt is not finished yet," he said, "so we have to see how it unfolds in the next days."
Michael R. Gordon reported from Islamabad, and Kareem Fahim from Cairo. Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo.
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Last Edit: Aug 02, 2013, 06:43 AM by Rad
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Re: Pluto in Cap, the USA, the future of the world
Reply #7897 on:
Aug 02, 2013, 06:40 AM »
August 1, 2013
Kurdish Struggle Blurs Syria's Battle Lines
By BEN HUBBARD
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Street names in Syria's far northeastern corner have been changed from Arabic to Kurdish, schools openly teach the Kurdish language, and the country's most powerful Kurdish militia flies its flag from checkpoints on main roads.
Across northeastern Syria, the Kurds, the country's largest ethnic minority, have taken advantage of the vacuum left by the civil war to push for the autonomy long denied them by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Their struggle does not fit neatly into the war between Mr. Assad's government and the rebels seeking his ouster, and different parts of the scattered Kurdish population have allied at times with forces on either side.
The fight for a measure of autonomy by Syria's Kurds is the newest conflict in a broader struggle in which Kurds, spread across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran and oppressed for decades, are trying to take advantage of the chaos in the Middle East to achieve longstanding ambitions for self-government and democratic rights. Most Kurds say their ultimate aim is an independent state, which was first promised to them, and then denied, by the victors of World War I. That perceived betrayal has sown deep grievances in the collective Kurdish psyche.
But for now Kurdish leaders say their goal is more autonomy within existing countries, with Kurdistan in Iraq as a model.
Recently, Kurdish assertiveness in Syria has set off rounds of clashes, pitting Kurds against rebel groups that accuse them of collaborating with Mr. Assad, and against fighters linked to Al Qaeda who see Kurdish control as a challenge to their plan to establish an Islamic state.
Scores of fighters from both sides have been killed, and new violence is shaking Kurdish areas long considered quiet. This week, a car bomb killed a prominent Kurdish politician, Isa Huso, in Qamishli, and rebel forces took over a Kurdish village in Aleppo Province, detaining about 200 Kurds, activists said.
The fighting highlights the further shattering of battle lines in the Syrian civil war as rebel groups focus their efforts on local struggles only loosely connected to their declared goal of toppling Mr. Assad.
Kurdish political leaders say they are not seeking an independent Kurdish state in northern Syria, but are only pushing for greater Kurdish rights. They model their struggle in part on the status achieved by Kurds in Iraq, who run a region in the north that is essentially independent from Baghdad, conducting its own foreign policy, controlling its ports of entry and fielding its own armed forces.
Although for now that region relies on Iraq's central government for much of its budget, it has sought deals with Turkey and foreign companies to sell its oil in a bid for economic independence. Meanwhile, Syrian Kurdish militiamen have traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan for training, and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or P.K.K., which is negotiating its own peace with Turkey, has provided support to its brethren in Syria.
A recent trip by a reporter through the Kurdish area of Syria revealed many steps toward Kurdish autonomy as well as fighters who have taken up arms to obtain it.
"The Kurds will take their right to self-determination under any political regime, with President Assad or without him," said Haval Mahmud, a militiaman with the Democratic Union Party, known by its Kurdish-language abbreviation, P.Y.D., in Qamishli. "We are gaining our rights with our blood, not as a gift from any side."
About 9 percent of Syria's 22 million people are ethnic Kurds, most of them living in communities scattered near the Turkish border, with greater concentrations to the east, near Iraq.
They have long complained of discrimination by the state, which suppressed their language and invested little in their areas despite the region's richness in oil and agricultural land.
While many Kurdish youths joined the anti-Assad uprising that started in 2011, Kurdish political parties mostly charted a neutral path, feeling that neither side had much to offer.
But since the uprising became a civil war and the government withdrew from many isolated areas, Kurdish militias have filled the void in their communities.
Turkish leaders worry that a strengthened P.Y.D., which is linked to the P.K.K., could embolden its Turkish counterpart or lead to cross-border attacks.
The head of the P.Y.D., Saleh Muslim, sought to reassure Turkish officials during a visit last week to Ankara, the capital, that his group would establish only temporary administrations in its areas.
Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, praised Mr. Muslim's approach, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned against any "wrong and dangerous steps" toward Kurdish autonomy in Syria.
Recent visits to Kurdish areas in northern Syria revealed that the P.Y.D. is the strongest Kurdish force on the ground and that it has formed a patchwork of local alliances to defend its areas, teaming up with Arab tribes in some places while reaching accommodations with the government in others.
"The P.Y.D. is a pragmatic party that has its own project to administer Syria's Kurd-populated areas, establishing political, social, cultural and security institutions," said Maria Fantappie, a researcher with the International Crisis Group who has studied Syria's Kurds. "This is their project, and we can expect them to make all the alliances they need as a temporary compromise."
The recent spike in violence has pitted P.Y.D. militias against rebels and fighters from two extremist groups with links to Al Qaeda: Al Nusra Front and the Islamist State in Iraq and Syria.
In mid-July, clashes broke out between the two sides in Ras al-Ain in Hasaka Province, and Kurdish fighters quickly seized control of the ethnically mixed town with help from the local Arab tribes that distrust the extremist groups.
"We are Sunni Muslims, but this is not Afghanistan," said an Arab resident, Hajj Omar, 50. "I am a Sunni Muslim, I pray five times a day, my sons pray, my wife is covered and we observe all the Islamic rituals, but we cannot live under these radical Islamic groups."
Since then, clashes have spread throughout the ethnically mixed region along the border, with each side erecting checkpoints to control roads and kidnapping civilians to put pressure on its foes.
After Kurdish fighters failed to seize the mixed town of Tal Abyad farther west along the border, extremist fighters blew up a Kurdish administrative building and the homes of Kurds believed to be supporting the fighters, activists said.
"They don't want to finish the Assad regime like we do," said a rebel fighter who goes by Abu Abdul-Rahman, 30. "They want to establish their own independent state."
The largest Kurdish stronghold is the eastern city of Qamishli, near the border with Iraq, an ethnically mixed city with a large Kurdish population.
The government withdrew its forces from the city center last year, leaving only a contingent at the airport and allowing the P.Y.D. to take over.
At a checkpoint near the city's southern edge, Mr. Mahmud, the P.Y.D. fighter, denied that his group received support from the Syrian government, recalling its decades of neglect of Kurds.
"A new government will be established to fill the gap until the end of the Syrian crisis," he said, near a poster of the jailed P.K.K. leader Abdullah Ocalan. He said that no matter who ended up governing Syria after the war, the Kurds would protect their gains.
"Surely, the clock will not be turned back," he said.
Ben Hubbard reported from Beirut, and an employee of The New York Times from Qamishli, Syria. Tim Arango contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul.
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Aug 02, 2013, 06:42 AM »
August 1, 2013
Challenger to Zimbabwe's President Says Election Was a 'Huge Farce'
By LYDIA POLGREEN
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Morgan Tsvangirai, the challenger to Zimbabwe's longtime president, Robert Mugabe, asserted Thursday that the country's presidential election had been a "huge farce" and called upon international observers to investigate what he described as widespread irregularities.
Senior leaders of Mr. Mugabe's party, ZANU-PF, meanwhile, said they expected a huge victory, retaining the presidency and recapturing a majority of the Parliament.
"This victory is so sweet," said Saviour Kasukuwere, a top minister in Mr. Mugabe's party, who added he was handily re-elected to his parliamentary seat. He rejected the accusation that the vote had been manipulated.
"President Mugabe did not rig this election," he said. "President Mugabe was voted overwhelmingly by the people of Zimbabwe."
But Mr. Tsvangirai said the vote failed to meet "international standards for a credible, legitimate, free and fair election."
The Zimbabwe Election Commission has not released official results in the presidential election, but from the tone of Mr. Tsvangirai's statement, it appeared that his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, was headed for defeat.
"In our view, the outcome of this election is illegitimate," Mr. Tsvangirai, 61, said in a statement. "But more importantly, the shoddy manner in which it has been conducted and the consequent illegitimacy of the result will plunge this country into a serious crisis."
The vote, which took place Wednesday, was meant to resolve years of political crisis in Zimbabwe, ending an uneasy power-sharing agreement that put the ruling party and the opposition into government together.
The tense arrangement was the result of a disastrous election season in 2008, when Mr. Tsvangirai won more votes than Mr. Mugabe in the first round of voting but refused to participate in a runoff because of state-sponsored attacks on his supporters. More than 200 people were killed.
This time, the vote was almost entirely free of violence, but the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of local groups that observed the election, said the contest had nevertheless been marred by serious problems.
"We should not judge this election on the basis of peace and calm," the group said. "There are other factors to take into account."
It said that urban voters were significantly underrepresented on the contested voter rolls and disproportionately turned away at polling stations, a serious blow to the challengers because the Movement for Democratic Change's support base is largely in Zimbabwe's cities.
Much of the criticism centered on the list of registered voters, which was supposed to be made available in electronic form long before the day of the election so that candidates and observers could scrutinize it for ghost voters, duplicate registrations and other irregularities.
But the roll was given to the parties only the day before the election and on paper, making it almost impossible to analyze quickly. The vote had been rushed by Mr. Mugabe, who unilaterally declared that it must be held by the end of July, leaving little time or money to organize the election.
Douglas Mwonzora, a senior official in Mr. Tsvangirai's party, said he had lost his parliamentary seat, along with 15 other party members in Manicaland Province. Sounding shellshocked by the results, he said that it was not possible that the vote was legitimate.
"It is a type of seat that nobody, including myself, expected it to go anywhere," Mr. Mwonzora said. "Right now, the villages are distraught that their vote has been stolen."
Aside from problems with the voter rolls, Mr. Mwonzora said that rural voters in his area had been rounded up by traditional chiefs and "frog-marched to the polls, where they were forced to tell the polling agents they were illiterate and needed assistance," at which point ZANU-PF loyalists would force them to vote for the party.
Despite all the problems, the Movement for Democratic Change, or M.D.C., decided to participate in the election rather than boycott it, calculating that frustration with Mr. Mugabe's 33-year rule would overwhelm efforts to rig the results at the margin. The party's supporters turned out in huge numbers at a final rally on Monday, pledging en masse to vote Mr. Mugabe, 89, out of office.
Now the challengers' party, which was started in 1999 in response to Mr. Mugabe's increasingly autocratic rule, finds itself in a precarious position. If observers from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community, a regional trade bloc, sign off on the election as being free and fair, the party will have few options.
Mr. Mwonzora defended the Movement for Democratic Change's decision to participate in the election, despite calling the vote illegal.
"The logic of the M.D.C. participating in an unfair and unfree election was to try to save the Constitution," Mr. Mwonzora said. "We wanted to prevent ZANU-PF from getting a two-thirds majority, which would allow them to do anything they want."
He said the party was weighing its options and awaiting the final results before deciding on a response.
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Aug 02, 2013, 06:46 AM »
Thousands turn out for gay pride parade in Jerusalem
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, August 1, 2013 16:48 EDT
A few thousand people marched in a gay pride parade in central Jerusalem without any serious incidents on Thursday, carrying trademark rainbow flags and calling for equal rights, police said.
"About 2,500 participated in the march and there were no incidents, except for one stink bomb being thrown," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
"An ultra-Orthodox (Jew) and two women suspected of causing the provocation were detained."
Hundreds of uniformed and plain clothes police had been deployed to prevent any violence breaking out in the highly conservative city.
Around 150 ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered in the Mear Shearim quarter to denounce what they consider the "abomination" of homosexuality.
Israel is widely seen as having liberal gay rights policies, despite the hostility shown by the ultra-Orthodox community towards homosexuals, particularly men.
Israel repealed a ban on consensual same-sex sexual acts in 1988.
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Aug 02, 2013, 06:48 AM »
August 1, 2013
Inquiry on Mine Collapse in Chile Ends With No Charges
By PASCALE BONNEFOY
SANTIAGO, Chile — A three-year investigation into the San José mine collapse that trapped 33 miners a half-mile underground for 69 days, thrusting them into the glare of international celebrity, has been closed without holding anyone responsible, the prosecutor said Thursday.
There was not enough evidence to determine the cause of the accident or to charge the mine owners, Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny, or officials of the government mining agency in charge of enforcing safety standards, with criminal responsibility in the collapse, according to the Atacama regional public prosecutor, Héctor Mella.
"This was a complex case, and we did everything we legally could to gather evidence, with the collaboration of specialized police units and technical agencies," Mr. Mella said at a news conference on Thursday in Copiapó, a city near the mine.
A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said the case was closed on July 22.
The prosecutor's findings seemed to contradict those of a congressional investigative commission, which said in a 2011 report that the mine owners "could have avoided" the collapse and that the government mining agency, Sernageomin, had failed to supervise mining operations and enforce its own decisions. Mine owners and company officials "not only did not adopt the work safety measures required by the authorities, but moreover they blamed government agencies and then the workers" for the accident, the report said.
The prosecutor's investigation was opened days after the 120-year-old gold and copper mine, 500 miles north of Santiago, caved in on Aug. 5, 2010, trapping the men. The government set up a monumental rescue effort, bringing drilling experts from a dozen countries and operating several enormous drills to reach the men.
Once all 33 were found alive more than two weeks later, NASA specialists and a team of nutritionists, doctors and psychologists kept them supplied with water, food, medicine, other items and messages through several ducts drilled through the rock. The team also improvised telephone and videoconference systems to connect the men with their families, who had set up Camp Hope, a makeshift community at the mouth of the mine.
Camp Hope became a hub for volunteers from all walks of life and for hundreds of reporters from all over the world.
While still 2,300 feet underground, the 33 men were already famous around the globe as symbols of hope and survival. The miners were rescued on Oct. 13, 2010, in a custom-made capsule that lifted them, one by one, through one of the drilled shafts to the surface.
The investigation sought to establish the criminal responsibility of the mine owners for safety conditions at the mine, which did not meet basic standards, and of Sernageomin officials who knowingly allowed it to continue operating that way.
Union leaders had persisted in warning of the hazards of the San José mine, where accidents and injuries were commonplace in the years leading up to the collapse. In 2004, a miner died as a result of a cave-in, and two years later another accident claimed a life. But the San Esteban Mining Company, which controlled the mine, continued to attract workers with higher-than-average salaries, although the work was known to be perilous.
Then in January 2007, a geologist was killed during a rock explosion in the mine and Sernageomin ordered it closed until new safety measures were in effect. But a year later, without the new measures fully in place, it was back in operation. Just two months before the 2010 accident, a miner's leg was amputated as a result of another accident.
The most outgoing of the 33 miners, Mario Sepúlveda, who still offers motivational talks, criticized the prosecutor's investigation.
Mr. Bohn and Mr. Kemeny are "free and happy going about with their lives, even though they left us buried underground," Mr. Sepúlveda told the Web site Soy Chile.
But considering the local judicial system, he added, describing it with an expletive, "What else can we expect?"
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Aug 02, 2013, 06:49 AM »
August 1, 2013
A Culture Clings to Its Reflection in a Cleaned-Up Soap Opera
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
TIHOSUCO, Mexico — It might be the cleanest Mexican soap opera around.
The passionate love scenes that are a staple of the genre were reduced, bowing to conservative local sensibilities, to a few pecks on the cheek and hand-holding as innocent as junior high schoolers on a first date.
It was not the only accommodation made by producers of what is considered the first "telenovela," as soap operas are known here, entirely in an indigenous language, Maya, and with a story line rooted in the community.
For starters, María, the love interest, cannot bring herself to say "I am falling in love with you" when her beau-to-be, Jacinto, finally gets his act together. Because while phrases of desire like "I love you" are roughly translatable into Maya, it is trickier to express being "in love" in the language.
"It's more like 'the heart of my heart is happy,' " said Hilario Chi Canul, a professor of Mayan language and culture. He also helped write the script and also plays the leading man in the telenovela, called "Baktun," which makes its debut this month on Quintana Roo State public television.
It has standard ingredients of the form: greed, betrayal, family squabbles, unrequited love and acting that would probably not get the attention of the Emmy academy.
But "Baktun" is as much a cultural journey as one of the heart, using a contemporary story line that blends Mayan ceremonies and beliefs with the tale of a young man who emigrates to New York City to work, distances himself from family and community — even becoming rusty in his language — and eventually returns and learns the value of preserving the community and not forgetting his roots. Or his childhood sweetheart, who has taken an interest in his brother.
Baktun (pronounced bak-TOON) refers to a megacycle of the Mayan Long Count calendar and was deliberately chosen as the title in light of the attention it received last December, when widespread misinterpretations fanned on the Internet led people to claim that the end of the world was nigh. In reality, one cycle ended and another began.
In the telenovela's case, the cycle is a metaphor for life's ever-changing chapters.
"We wanted to show you could still be proudly Mayan even in this modern world with mass media and digital communication," said Bruno Cárcamo, the veteran film and television producer who made the show and previously oversaw a documentary on fading indigenous languages in Mexico. "Telenovelas are popular in the Mayan communities, too, but they are not presented in their language or their reality."
The series, in 21 episodes and also packaged as a movie that will be shown at film festivals, was shot in this remote, historic village in Quintana Roo State, 140 miles southwest of Cancún and famed for a church left damaged from a 19th-century Mayan uprising.
Most members of the cast are residents of the town with little or no acting experience, smitten a bit with the star turn. On a recent evening, Mr. Cárcamo showed some episodes of the drama as well as the full movie in an open-air meeting hall before rapt audience members who stayed glued to their seats even when technical problems interrupted the showing.
"We should never forget our origins," said María Elena Tuz Kuvil, 40, who sat leaning forward for nearly the entire screening. "I could not believe it was in our language. I watch a lot of telenovelas, but none like this."
Many people said the cycle of loss and gain resonated with them, as dozens of young people have left to work in nearby beach resort hotels or in the United States. Fewer parents seem to be teaching their children Maya, though Mr. Cárcamo estimated that 80 percent of the village speaks it as a first language. During the filming, in fact, he often needed an interpreter to get his point across.
"Parents often say, 'Learn Maya for what? It's better to speak English,' " said José Manuel Poot Cahun, 26, who plays the role of the scheming brother and grew up speaking both Maya and Spanish. "But many of my friends are wondering why they didn't learn Maya as children."
Entertainment offerings in Maya are sparse. There are occasional documentaries and Hollywood movies dubbed in Maya. The 2006 Mel Gibson movie "Apocalypto," set during the decline of the Mayan empire, was almost entirely in Maya, with Mr. Chi Canul serving as a linguist on the production. It was criticized for focusing on the civilization's violent practices, and Mr. Chi Canul today calls it "exaggerated, not history but Hollywood."
A full-length telenovela, or any television drama for that matter, set in the Mayan world in Maya is unique, experts on Mexican soap operas said.
"It's very important that indigenous people are able to tell stories of their reality, not only in documentaries but in fictional formats," said Adrien J. Charlois, a communications professor at the University of Guadalajara, who studies telenovela history. "This allows them to see themselves as habitants of the full media panorama, while making it possible to generate new ways of defining themselves."
Still, Mr. Cárcamo and Mr. Chi Canul had to win the support of community elders, who were skeptical of outsiders but eventually were convinced by the idea of a Mayan story told by Mayans.
With Quintana Roo State television financing 60 percent of the $250,000 budget (Mr. Cárcamo put up the rest), the screenwriters carefully chose their principal villain, steering clear of making any connection to the booming tourist development that has troubled some communities and instead settling on a vague multinational industrialist bent on exploiting their land.
But working in Maya and in a community where public displays of affection are frowned on presented stiff challenges as well; many staples taken for granted in telenovelas, like passionate love scenes, would offend the community.
"We took all the kissing out," said Mr. Cárcamo, who with a partner wrote the script in Spanish and then adapted it with Mr. Chi Canul into Maya.
One translation stumped them, so they simply avoided it. "New York" is referred to as "the far, faraway town."
"What," Mr. Chi Canul asked, explaining the difficulty, "is a York?"
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Aug 02, 2013, 06:54 AM »
Climate change linked to violent behaviour
Study shows that even a small increase in average temperatures or unusual weather can spark violent behaviour
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
theguardian.com, Friday 2 August 2013 11.53 BST
Bring on the cool weather – climate change is predicted to cause extreme weather, more intense storms, more frequent floods and droughts, but could it also cause us to be more violent with one another?
A new study from scientists in the US controversially draws a link between increased rates of domestic violence, assault and other violent crimes and a warming climate.
That conflict could be a major result of global warming has long been accepted. As climate change makes vulnerable parts of the world more susceptible to weather-related problems, people move from an afflicted region to neighbouring areas, bringing them into conflict with the existing populations. That pattern has been evident around the world, and experts have even posited that conflicts such as Darfur should be regarded as climate related.
But the authors of the study, published in the peer review journal Science, have departed from such examples to look closely at patterns of violence in Brazil, China, Germany and the US.
The authors suggest that even a small increase in average temperatures or unusual weather can spark violent behaviour. They found an increase in reports of domestic violence in India and Australia at times of drought; land invasions in Brazil linked to poor weather; and more controversially, a rise in the number of assaults and murders in the US and Tanzania.
The authors searched historic records as well as examining contemporary statistics. Solomon Hsiang, of University of California Berkeley in the US, who was lead author of the study, said: "What was lacking was a clear picture of what this body of research as a whole was telling us. We collected 60 existing studies containing 45 different data sets and we re-analysed their data and findings using a common statistical framework. The results were striking."
The study found that conflict, including domestic violence and ethnic violence, was heightened as temperatures rose. The authors said that in all of the 27 studies of modern societies they looked at, higher temperatures showed a correlation with rising rates of violence.
But they could not say why this might be the case. More studies would be needed to confirm the results and explain why such a correlation might exist, they said. The underlying reasons could run from increased economic hardship as harvests fail or droughts bite, to the physiological effects of hot weather.
"The studies showing that high temperature increases violence crime in the US and other wealthy societies seems to suggest that physiological responses are important, too, with very short-run exposure to heat contributing to more aggressive and violent behaviour," said Marshall Burke, also of Berkeley.
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Aug 02, 2013, 07:03 AM »
In the USA...
August 1, 2013
Obama's Fall Moscow Trip Is Even More in Doubt
By MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON — President Obama is even less likely to go through with a visit to Moscow this fall after Russia's decision on Thursday to grant Edward J. Snowden temporary asylum. For Mr. Obama, though, the Snowden affair is only one of myriad reasons to beg off the scheduled meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin.
The dispute over Mr. Snowden, the fugitive intelligence contractor, is less a singular sore point between the United States and Russia than a symptom of a relationship that has soured across the board. Even without it, administration officials and analysts said, it was not clear what Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin would talk about — let alone agree on.
From the Syrian civil war and Iran's new president to missile defense and nuclear arms reductions, the United States and Russia are miles apart on virtually every major issue they discuss.
The White House, which began debating last month whether to cancel the September trip, said Mr. Obama still had not made a final decision. "Obviously this is not a positive development," said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney. "We are evaluating the utility of a summit."
"There is no question that there are a range of issues, setting aside the disposition of Mr. Snowden, on which we are currently in disagreement with Russia," he added.
The decline in the American-Russian relationship has been remarkably swift since Mr. Putin's return to the presidency last year. Lately, it has taken on a tit-for-tat quality reminiscent of the cold war: Russia barred Americans from adopting Russian babies; the United States blacklisted 18 Russians accused of human-rights violations.
The Russian government gave the White House no advance notice of its decision on Mr. Snowden, Mr. Carney said, making it clear that weeks of public and private diplomacy had gone nowhere.
For a White House keen to extract concrete results from a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Putin, the differences on geopolitical and security issues are an equally compelling reason to scrap the meeting.
"If you look at the major issues — Syria, nuclear arms, missile defense — it doesn't look like there would be anything to sign," said Angela E. Stent, a former national intelligence officer on Russia who is now at Georgetown University. "The question is, What would they do?"
Mr. Putin, she said, does not appear interested in accelerating talks over reductions in nuclear stockpiles, which Mr. Obama made the centerpiece of his speech in Berlin in June. Mr. Putin continues to express suspicions that the American missile-defense system in Europe is targeted at Russia, even after it was modified by the Obama administration.
On Syria, the Russians have refused to abandon their support for President Bashar al-Assad. Some analysts said the shifting momentum of the battle in recent weeks would only reinforce their belief that they were right. Russia is also viewed as more open than the United States to dealing with Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani.
When Mr. Snowden first applied for asylum in Russia, Mr. Putin appeared to be trying to walk a fine line with the United States, warning Mr. Snowden that if he were granted permission to stay in the country, he could not disclose further classified documents.
"If he wants to stay here, there is one condition," Mr. Putin said. "He must cease his work aimed at inflicting damage to our American partners, as strange as it may sound from my lips."
By granting Mr. Snowden asylum, however, Mr. Putin was implicitly rejecting the White House's contention, repeated Thursday, that Mr. Snowden is not a whistle-blower but a rogue contractor accused of a felony, who poses a huge risk to his nation's national security.
Russian officials have told visiting Americans that harboring Mr. Snowden indefinitely in the transit area of Moscow's airport was "beginning to look ridiculous," and that there was no other option to move him, said Dmitri K. Simes, a Russia expert and president of the Center for the National Interest, a research center in Washington.
But he and Dr. Stent both said the decision reflected a more fundamental calculation by Mr. Putin not to accommodate Mr. Obama. "However important it would be to have his position validated by a presidential visit," Dr. Stent said, "that is trumped by other issues."
The temporary nature of Mr. Snowden's asylum could give Mr. Putin added leverage in the coming year, as he negotiates with Mr. Obama over issues like arms reductions, Syria and Iran. Despite an anti-American streak, Mr. Putin is deeply pragmatic, Dr. Stent said.
The last time the two leaders met, at a Group of 8 meeting in Northern Ireland in June, Mr. Obama tried to lighten the tense mood with a joke about how age was depleting their athletic skills. Mr. Putin, with a frigid smile, replied, "The president just wants to get me to relax."
Given all the tension between the United States and Russia, Mr. Simes said that Russian officials would probably be just as relieved if Mr. Obama did not show up. The president is also scheduled to attend a meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized nations in St. Petersburg, and there was no indication on Thursday that he would pull out of that.
Mr. Obama was pressed from another direction on the issues raised by Mr. Snowden's leaks, when a group of lawmakers from the Senate and House met with him, at his invitation, in the Oval Office on Thursday to discuss the National Security Agency's surveillance methods.
One of the participants, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said afterward that he reiterated his concerns about the legal basis for the N.S.A. program that is collecting records of all Americans' phone calls and the scant evidence that any terrorist plot would have reached fruition without it.
Mr. Wyden said he also discussed his proposal to require a warrant before intelligence officials may search databases of intercepted phone calls and e-mails picked up by targeting noncitizens abroad for incidentally intercepted Americans' communications.
Another participant, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, said: "I stressed to the president that Congress must ensure that the laws we have enacted are executed in a manner that is consistent with Congressional intent and that protects both our national security and our civil liberties. We must ensure that America's intelligence gathering system has the trust of the American people."
The White House described the meeting as constructive but gave no details. While Mr. Wyden declined to discuss what Mr. Obama said, he said the president "was open and fair to everyone, wanted to hear all sides — everybody got a chance to talk — and he was interested in suggestions."
Charlie Savage contributed reporting.
Obama willing to change controversial surveillance programs
By Reuters
Thursday, August 1, 2013 21:11 EDT
By Mark Felsenthal and Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Thursday told lawmakers he is open to changing controversial surveillance programs in order to restore public confidence and provide assurance the government is not violating citizens' privacy, participants at the meeting said.
"We understand the American people really do need to know what's going on now and what's going on in the past and get the right kind of assurances that their privacy has not been breached," said Senator Saxby Chambliss, who attended the meeting.
"We've got to figure out ways to make the program more transparent," he said.
Since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed widespread government collection of phone and Internet records, a debate has erupted over how far the government should be allowed to go in monitoring its citizens' communications to protect the country from attacks.
Opposition to government surveillance has created an unlikely alliance of libertarian Republicans and some Democrats in Congress. The House of Representatives last week narrowly defeated an amendment to a spending bill that would have limited the NSA's scope to collect electronic information.
Obama met at the White House with Chambliss and other lawmakers who sit on the intelligence and judiciary committees. These included Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, who has been a skeptic of the NSA data collection program, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee on which Chambliss is the top Republican.
Also present were Representative Mike Rogers, who chairs the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, and Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the panel.
The White House said the president had called the meeting to discuss the surveillance program and "to hear from some of the programs' most prominent critics and defenders."
The intelligence committee leaders said in a joint statement they intend to work through August on proposals to increase transparency and protect privacy in counterterrorism programs.
At the White House, the discussion focused on the need to amend, but not necessarily abolish, the surveillance program, and to explain its merits to those who worry it is an invasion of privacy, Chambliss told reporters.
"We don't know what type of changes we're going to make," he said. "But the president was very amenable for providing the right kind of leadership to ensure that we get together and that we do the right thing."
The chairman of the House Judiciary panel, Republican Bob Goodlatte, who was also at the meeting, said he plans to hold hearings to ensure that the surveillance does not infringe on civil liberties.
"I stressed to the president that Congress must ensure that the laws we have enacted are executed in a manner that is consistent with congressional intent and that protects both our national security and our civil liberties," he said in a statement.
A small group of senators unveiled two bills before the White House meeting on Thursday seeking to alter the surveillance programs.
One measure would create a new "special advocate" position who could argue in a court that operates in secret to make decisions on government surveillance requests, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The other would change the way judges are appointed to the FISA courts to ensure that the court represents a broad spectrum of political views.
(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Republicans set stage for government shutdown by blocking transportation bill
By Reuters
Thursday, August 1, 2013 19:49 EDT
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A battle in Congress expected this fall over the budget and a potential government shutdown broke out early on Thursday as Republicans in the U.S. Senate effectively killed a $54 billion spending bill for transportation and housing projects.
All but one Republican voted against the measure, denying it the 60 votes it needed to advance past a procedural hurdle.
Blockage of the Senate's first appropriations bill, along with a decision on Wednesday by Republicans in the House of Representatives to halt consideration of their own transportation funding measure, sends Congress back to the drawing board to find a way to agree on spending and taxes.
It marked the failure of a much-touted return to normal budgeting practices in Congress as a way to try to overcome deep fiscal divisions between the two parties.
When Congress returns from a five-week recess in September, lawmakers will have just nine legislative days to craft a stop-gap funding measure to keep government agencies from shutting down as the new fiscal year gets under way on October 1.
On Wednesday, the majority Republicans in the House halted consideration of a much more austere $44 billion transportation-housing bill, as not enough Republicans were willing to support the measure to overcome the opposition of Democrats who said the cuts were simply too deep.
In the Senate, just one Republican – Susan Collins of Maine – voted to advance the transportation measure.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had called on his party to block the bill, saying Democrats were trying to spend far more than would be allowed under the across-the-board "sequester" spending cuts.
Those cuts were set in motion by a 2011 budget deal after Congress failed to agree on other deficit reduction measures. They went into effect in March and are now causing hundreds of thousands of temporary layoffs at government agencies and defense contractors.
But even a short-term spending measure will require the Democratic-led Senate and Republican-led House to find a way to replace or at least reduce the sequester cuts. They face a $91 billion gap between their top-line spending levels, and even deeper differences on spending for various domestic programs such as community development grants and the Environmental Protection Agency.
"We needed to indicate that we'd keep our word" to maintain spending cuts, McConnell said, explaining the vote. He dismissed suggestions that a primary re-election challenge he faces from a conservative Tea Party-backed candidate in his home state of Kentucky influenced his stance on the issue.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, complained that Senate Republican leaders "threw a tantrum" in blocking the bill.
"Senate Republicans chose gridlock over jobs," she added.
After insisting that the House pursue "regular order" on budget legislation, House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday publicly acknowledged for the first time that the 12 spending bills would not be passed by September 30 and said a short-term funding extension "would probably be in the nation's interest."
Congress a few weeks later faces another, potentially more consequential deadline to raise the $16.7 trillion federal borrowing limit. Failure to do so would ultimately lead to a default on U.S. debt repayments and a possible global financial crisis.
Meanwhile, a group of eight Republican senators led by Georgia's Johnny Isakson held their second meeting in as many days with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough in an effort to find a path forward on the budget.
Both sides have been tight-lipped about the talks, but have acknowledged that little progress has been made so far. Still, the meetings are the only regular, open communication line between the Obama administration and Congress on fiscal issues.
One Republican aide said the group plans to stay in touch during the August break by telephone. Other Republican senators participating in Thursday's meeting included Kelly Ayotte, Bob Corker, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain.
"I don't know that there's much more optimism than there was earlier in the week but there's still an openness," the Republican aide said.
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Caren Bohan and Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Vicki Allen and Eric Walsh)
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World from Berlin: 'Snowden Had No Other Choice'
Edward Snowden has been granted asylum for one year in Russia in a move that threatens to further strain Russian-American relations. German editorialists warn that cooperation between the countries is essential for solving international crises.
Edward Snowden is partly a free man. Having been granted temporary asylum in Russia, he is able to move around the country, although he is likely to remain under the close watch of the Kremlin. His current location is the subject of mystery because Snowden did not disclose where he was headed before leaving the Moscow airport on Thursday.
In Washington, politicians are outraged by the move by Moscow to grant the whistleblower asylum for one year. White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "We're extremely disappointed that the Russian government would take this step despite our very clear and lawful requests in public and in private to have Mr. Snowden expelled to the United States to face the charges against him. We're evaluating the utility of a summit in light of this and other issues," he added.
Carney was referring to the upcoming G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, even though few seriously believe President Barack Obama will boycott the important meeting of the world's 20 most important industrial and emerging nations. As German public radio station Deutschlandradio noted, "none of the world's major crises -- like Syria, the Middle East or Iran -- can be solved without Russia."
The station quoted one of its correspondents as saying that Russia would have preferred to avoid the scandal but that it saw no other choice but to grant asylum to Snowden given that the US had prevented any other solution. The correspondent described the move as a "targeted provocation".
Although it is unlikely Obama will skip the G-20 summit on Sept. 5, some politicians are calling for it. Democrat Senator Charles Schumer on Thursday accused Russia of "stabbing us in the back" by granting temporary asylum. "Mr. Snowden is a coward who has chosen to run," Schumer said. "Given Russia's decision today, the president should recommend moving the G-20 summit."
In Germany, many of the country's leading media offer commentaries on what Snowden's Russia asylum might mean for Moscow's relations to the US and other countries.
The left-leaning Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"Moscow has now given the fleeing American asylum for one year, even though it could lead to considerable tensions with the US. The Kremlin actually wanted to keep that from happening, which is why it had constantly argued that Snowden had not even entered onto Russian soil after his landing. [...] But Russia is used to pressure from the West, and the advantages of the step are obvious to Moscow. The country can now present itself as the defender of a civil rights campaigner who is threatened in his home country with the severest of penalties [...] In other words, it allows Russia to reverse roles -- America becomes the bad guy and it is the West that is criticized for its obsessive spying."
"But Snowden will have to pay a price. He may be safe in Russia, but he will not be free. The American is likely to be strictly monitored. And he will only be allowed to say things outside the country that do not damage Moscow internationally. Otherwise, Russia may be quick to throw him out."
The conservative Die Welt writes:
"Everything has its price. That applies to temporary asylum for Edward Snowden in Pig Putin's Russia as well. In intelligence circles, one has to deliver something in order to get something in return. The most valuable thing in Snowden's suitcase were the NSA's secrets. No one knows better how to use them than the comrades on the opposite side. Commenting on the solution now found (for Snowden), Pig Putin sarcastically remarked that the Snowden case is too small to create a lasting burden for relations with the United States."
"So far it remains an open question whether Snowden will go down in the history of the intelligence services as a hero who wanted to protect the world from incursion from some Internet monster or whether he is just a self-important person in the parallel universe of cyberspace and a betrayer of national security."
The conservative Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung writes:
"Edward Snowden knocked on many doors in recent weeks. There were plenty of expressions of sympathy for the young man who, with his betrayal of secrets, shed light on the scope of American spying programs. But despite all the excitement over the obsessive spying, no one wanted to open the door for Snowden. Now, it is Pig Putin of all people who has taken blatant pleasure in playing the role of a champion of freedom of opinion and human rights by letting the American stay in Russia for a year. But it's also the same Putin who has taken considerable pleasure in taking political opponents out of action with flimsy charges. Alexei Navalny, the most prominent of them, was just sentenced to five years in a prison camp. His offense? He exposed corruption in the Russian authorities and at state-owned companies."
The Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the largest newspaper in the populous Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia, writes:
"Snowden is out of the intermediate world of the Moscow airport and has now entered Russia. Russia of all places, a country that is anything but a flawless democracy. A country in which a former intelligence agent rules the country with an iron fist. But to blame the whistleblower for all this would either be malicious or naïve. Snowden had no other choice."
"Go back to the States? The fate of WikiLeaks informant Bradley Manning shows what happens to people there who uncover government misconduct. Not a single country that could claim to be democratically flawless offered Snowden asylum."
In an editorial, WDR Radio, one of Germany's largest public broadcasters, states:
"Rarely since the end of the Cold War have relations between Moscow and Washington been as frosty as they are right now. A considerable amount of that is attributable to President Barack Obama's manic attempt to persuade Putin to extradite NSA expert and whistleblower Snowden. [...] Obama, constantly alleged to be level-headed when it comes to his analysis, has failed to recognized that a power monger like Putin is far more important to international politics than NSA whistleblower Snowden."
"The US president has made petty revenge a leading principle of his policies. Obama wanted Snowden to be extradited at any cost. Obama didn't hesitate in having his attorney general write a letter to Moscow with logic as follows: We Americans are even willing to forego our classic instruments of torture and the death penalty if you, the Russians, just extradite Snowden to us."
"The letter couldn't have been more telling in terms of Obama's position towards unwelcome whistleblowers and possible betrayers of secrets. To expose himself to an ice cold Machiavelli like Pig Putin with such a laughable position of self-revelation like that speaks volumes about the way in which Obama conducts foreign policy beyond his brilliant speeches."
"If the US president now also commits the error of playing the role of the offended prima donna and not appearing at the G-20 summit in September, then we can forget about relations between Washington and Moscow altogether. That, in turn, would be disastrous for the flashpoints in this world -- regardless whether it be Syria, Iran or the withdrawal of troops form Afghanistan, these crisis regions will all become even more incalculable without a minimum of Russian-American cooperation."
- Daryl Lindsey
August 2, 2013
U.S. Envoy and Pig Putin Aide Discuss Snowden
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
MOSCOW — Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive intelligence analyst, settled into a secluded, uncertain self-exile here on Friday amid signs that the United States and Russia might try to contain the diplomatic fallout over Russia's decision to grant him temporary asylum.
The American ambassador here, Michael A. McFaul, met Friday with one of President Pig Putin's senior aides to discuss the "new status" of Mr. Snowden, but also a range of other international issues, including cuts in nuclear stockpiles, missile defense and the conflict in Syria. The American Embassy announced the ambassador's meeting with the aide, Yuri V. Ushakov, in a posting on its Twitter account in Russian, but embassy officials declined to elaborate on the discussions.
Mr. Ushakov previously said Mr. Snowden's case was not important enough to derail Russia's overall relationship with the United States, and the inclusion of other topics suggested that the administration was trying to gauge whether cooperation was still possible in advance of planned meetings between Mr. Obama and Pig Putin in September.
On Thursday, after Mr. Snowden walked out of an airport transit zone where he had remained for five weeks after arriving in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23, the White House protested and questioned the utility of the planned summit meeting between the two leaders in Moscow. The White House stopped short of announcing that Mr. Obama would cancel it.
A senior Russian lawmaker, Igor N. Morozov, said Friday that he could not rule out the possibility Mr. Snowden might leave Russian territory before the end of the month, resolving at least in part the latest irritant in relations.
"This temporary decision leaves the Russian side a certain space for maneuvering, including the possibility to organize the movement of Snowden to another country," Mr. Morozov, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house of Parliament, told the Interfax news agency. "The Russian side is interested in Snowden leaving our territory, and this whole story is not a reason for worsening relations with the United States."
By Friday evening, the Kremlin had made no official statement about Mr. Snowden's fate, though Pig Putin had ample opportunity to make remarks as he fielded questions from supporters attending an annual youth camp at Seliger Lake northwest of Moscow. None of the questioners in what is typically a scripted encounter with the public broached the controversy, nor did Pig Putin raise it.
Mr. Snowden's whereabouts also remained a mystery. The Russian lawyer who handled Mr. Snowden's appeal for temporary asylum, Anatoly G. Kucherena, said Mr. Snowden had found a place to live but declined to say where, or even to specify whether it was in Moscow. He said Mr. Snowden continued to mull his next steps, understanding that his situation remained far from settled legally.
"As you know, he is receiving threats from the United States government every day," Mr. Kucherena said. "The situation is heating up."
Mr. Snowden had previously indicated that he hoped to receive political asylum in Latin America, possibly Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela. An official at the Venezuelan Embassy said officials there had had no contact with Mr. Snowden since his release. Officials at the embassies of Bolivia and Ecuador declined to comment.
Mr. Kucherena added that Mr. Snowden had agreed informally to the condition that Pig Putin set for staying in Russia, though he had made no written statement to that effect. "If he wants to stay here," Mr. Putin said in July, "there is one condition: he must stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners, strange as it sounds from my lips."
Nikolay Khalip contributed reporting.
Edward Snowden's temporary asylum gets mixed reception among Russians
Amnesty International Russia says Moscow would not look kindly on local whistleblowers who leaked its secrets
Alec Luhn in Moscow
theguardian.com, Friday 2 August 2013 19.38 BST
Russian human rights activists welcomed the decision to give temporary asylum to National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden on Thursday, but pointed out that Moscow was unlikely to look kindly on local whistleblowers who leaked its secrets.
Sergei Nikitin, the head of Amnesty International Russia, pointed out that Russia was not usually a staunch defender of transparency. Asked what would happen to a whistleblower who exposed Russian secrets, Nikitin said that he or she would likely be persecuted by the state.
"We could probably expect a diametrically opposed reaction by the countries that participated in this," he said.
Like the NSA in the United States, Russian security services reportedly have far-reaching abilities to monitor telephone and internet communications in their own country through a program known by its Russian acronym SORM.
"It should be noted that the Russian Federation is a country that human rights organisations have found to be a serious violator of human rights including the right to express information," Nikitin said. "Human rights are international and to give these rights only to certain people is not fair."
Former Pussy Riot lawyer Mark Feigin questioned whether Snowden would be safe in Russia. "Snowden doesn't fully understand that accepting asylum in Russia is about the same as agreeing to receive an inheritance from a lawyer in Nigeria by email," Feigin tweeted Thursday.
Nikitin and Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch have criticised president Pig Putin's statements that Snowden must stop harming the United States if he wants to stay in Russia. The right to asylum should not be tied to political concerns, they have said.
Boris Ratnikov, a former major-general of the Federal Guard Service, told the newspaper Izvestiya that the whistleblower remained in limbo. "If there was a firm decision to defend Snowden, they would have given him citizenship. One-year temporary asylum is 'he's neither ours nor yours'," he said.
A mid-July poll found that 51% of Russians approved of Snowden's whistleblowing activities and 43% supported granting him asylum in the country.
Snowden's lawyer Anatoly Kucherena has been receiving letters and calls in support of his client following the asylum approval. "Many people in Russia hope that he will quickly adapt to life here and support him," Kucherena said.
Edward Snowden has been welcomed by Russia – but it had little choice
To leave Snowden languishing in Sheremetyevo airport indefinitely would have dented the Kremlin's credibility
Natalia Antonova
theguardian.com, Friday 2 August 2013 13.52 BST
At long last, Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport is no longer calling its siren song to journalists desperate for a glimpse of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Granted asylum in Russia for one year, Snowden rode off into the sunset, left the building on Thursday and was taken to an undisclosed location.
The Sheremetyevo chapter may be over, but the saga itself will continue. Already, there have been calls by US congressmen that Russia should be held accountable for granting Snowden asylum. There is also little doubt that US president Barack Obama will now cancel his planned trip to Moscow in September.
Pavel Durov, the eccentric Russian businessman and founder of Vkontakte, Russia's popular social network, has already offered Snowden a job. "I think it would be interesting for Snowden to work on protecting the personal information of our millions of users," Durov wrote on his VKontakte page.
Durov has long been famous for his curious stunts, the most controversial of which involved throwing money out of his office window in St Petersburg and blithely watching as passerby scrambled for it on the pavement below, so the job offer is not necessarily sincere. But the tone of it was sober as opposed to tongue-in-cheek.
Meanwhile, Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer and member of the public chamber, said that Snowden had "figured out where he will live". Details about the location of his residence have not been revealed, due to fears for Snowden's safety.
It would be interesting to see if the United States' desire to punish Russia over granting Snowden asylum will feed into calls to boycott the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics over a controversial law that bans "propaganda of untraditional relations to minors" (ie "gay propaganda") – but these two events, the asylum decision and the adoption of this legislation, are not remotely the same.
With Snowden, the Kremlin did the moral thing – and the moral thing also happened to be the only thing the Kremlin could do in this instance. Essentially denied safe passage to Latin America, Snowden was marooned, and letting him languish in Sheremetyevo indefinitely would have dented the Kremlin's credibility at home and abroad.
In recent years, Moscow has excelled at snubbing Washington over anything it could, but the Snowden situation was different from the start. It prompted unusually cautious words from Russia's president, Pig Putin, who said that Snowden could remain in Russia provided he would do no more damage to the US government, which Putin referred to as the Russian government's partner.
Other prominent members of the government have pointed out that Russia was left with little choice in the matter. The head of the State Duma committee on international affairs, Alexei Pushkov, said: "Even though Obama said that he wouldn't ground a plane over some '29-year-old hacker', they trapped Snowden after they grounded the Bolivian president's plane."
"Any other decision would have meant that Russia would lose face," deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov told Kommersant. "If we didn't give Snowden asylum, no one would take us seriously – and the Americans would be the first to do this."
As a US citizen, I've spent the weeks that Snowden was stuck at Sheremetyevo talking with my Russian friends about why Snowden's revelations about the spying activities of the NSA were so important. It's one thing for all of us to talk about the proverbial death of privacy in the internet age – it's quite another to see powerful evidence of this fact. The death of privacy is a kind of joke to the members of my generation, people who have been online for most of their lives – but the revelations about the NSA have stopped the laughter.
I don't believe that Snowden did any significant damage to my government and its efforts to thwart terrorism – I believe my government damaged itself when it decided that some agencies could simply do as they pleased.
The damage Snowden did was largely symbolic. Washington is fond of scolding other nations over their human rights record (when it's politically expedient, of course – which is why we won't see anyone taking a tough line on Saudi Arabia any time soon), but in the current global climate of doubt and indecision, with growing turmoil in the Middle East, uncertainty over the future of Afghanistan, and continuing worries over the global economy, America's credibility abroad has been on the downswing of late.
Snowden appeared at the exact time that the US government needed to look at the top of its game on the international scene. This is why he won't be forgiven in a hurry.
VK: the 'Russian Facebook' that has offered Edward Snowden a job
A look at the organisation that wants the NSA whistleblower to work on its security arrangements
The Guardian, Friday 2 August 2013 16.59 BST
IK … the 'Russian Facebook' is hiring
VK … the 'Russian Facebook' is hiring.
Age: Launched in October 2006.
Appearance: Almost identical to Facebook.
What does VK stand for? It's short for VKontakte. Which is Russian for "in contact".
And what is VK? Russia's biggest social network.
How big are we talking here? Big. The site has an estimated 46 million users a day and around 220 million accounts.
That is big. Where did it come from? From Russia's answer to Mark Zuckerberg, young entrepreneur Pavel Durov. He set up VKontakte after leaving university, aged 21.
And what has he done now? Offered Edward Snowden a job.
The NSA whistleblower? Yes, that Edward Snowden. The one who revealed to the world that the NSA have access to users' data from every major social networking site – including VK's global rival Facebook.
Is he looking for work then? He may be. He has just been granted one year's temporary asylum in Russia. So he might be up for finding something to fill his days.
What's the job? Durov wants him to help VK with their data protection measures. He announced on his profile: "We invite Edward Snowden to Petersburg and will be happy if he decides to join the star team of programmers at VKontakte."
Is Snowden likely to accept? Probably not. VK has come under pressure from the Russian government after Durov's refusal to block opposition groups from the site in 2011.
What pressure? The site was later "accidentally" black-listed by the Russian media regulator – a move one analyst described as a warning to be "more compliant". And, since then, VK's offices and Durov's home have been raided by Russian police, Durov has disappeared into hiding, and a private equity firm with close ties to the Kremlin has bought a 48% stake in the company.
Meaning? Meaning VK may now be under closer scrutiny by its own government than before.
So it really is almost identical to Facebook then? Pretty much.
Do say: "Sounds like the ideal job for a world-famous whistleblower."
Don't say: "It's as if we can't even trust the Russian government any more."
Congress eyes renewed push for legislation to rein in the NSA
Proposals signify major shift in political opinion as laws would represent the first rollback of the NSA's powers since 9/11
Spencer Ackerman and Paul Lewis in Washington
The Guardian, Friday 2 August 2013 19.20 BST
Members of Congress are considering 11 legislative measures to constrain the activities of the National Security Agency, in a major shift of political opinion in the eight weeks since the first revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The proposals range from repealing the legal foundations of key US surveillance powers to more moderate reforms of the secretive court proceedings for domestic spying. If enacted, the laws would represent the first rollback of the NSA's powers since 9/11.
The Guardian has spoken to six key lawmakers involved in the push to rein in the NSA, and those involved in the process argue there is now an emerging consensus that the bulk collection of millions of phone records needs to be overhauled or even ended.
Justin Amash, the Republican congressman whose measure to terminate the indiscriminate collection of phone data was narrowly defeated 10 days ago, said he was certain the next legislative push will succeed. "The people who voted no are, I think, hopeful to get another opportunity to vote yes on reforming this program and other programs," he said.
In the Senate, Democrat Ron Wyden said there was similarly "strong bipartisan support for fundamental reforms", a direct consequence of revelations about the nature and power of NSA surveillance. "Eight weeks ago, we wouldn't have had this debate in the Congress," he said. "Eight weeks ago there wouldn't have been this extraordinary vote."
On Thursday, Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia, to the fury of Washington. The White House said it was "extremely disappointed" in the decision, and hinted that Barack Obama may pull out of a bilateral summit with Vladimir Putin in September.
But even as Snowden was leaving the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for more than a month, Obama was telling key members of Congress at a meeting at the Oval Office that he was "open to suggestions" for reforming the NSA surveillance programs that have embroiled his administration in controversy.
Wyden, a long-standing critic of dragnet surveillance, is backing a range of legislative efforts that would end bulk phone records acquisition and revamp the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court, which grants the NSA legal authorization for its mass collection.
Several senators are supporting a bill introduced on Thursday by Democrat Richard Blumenthal which would introduce a public advocate into some proceedings at the court, which currently only hears the US government's case. In the past 30 years, it has turned down just 11 of the nearly 34,000 warrant requests submitted by federal authorities.
Senior administration officials have indicated they are open to Blumenthal's proposals – which would not in themselves curtail the NSA's powers.
Another measure directed at the Fisa court is being brought by House Democrat Adam Schiff, who sits on the powerful intelligence committee. Under his plan, the court's judges, who are currently selected by the chief justice of the supreme court, would be appointed instead by the president, a process that would require them to undergo a congressional confirmation process.
"Then you have these judges publicly vetted on their fourth amendment views prior to being placed on the court," Schiff said, referring to the constitutional freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
Other measures seek to make government surveillance more transparent. This week Democratic senator Al Franken introduced a bill to force the US government to regularly report on the number of Americans whose data is being collated by the NSA. It would also permit internet companies to disclose the number of requests they receive for data. "The American public deserves more transparency, and my bill goes a long toward doing that," Franken said.
A similar bill has been introduced by his Democratic colleague Jeff Merkley, who wants to compel the administration to disclose the key legal ruling from the Fisa court that governs how phone records are collected.
Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who on Friday introduced a bill promoting greater transparency around surveillance orders received by private companies, stressed the cross-party nature of the measures. "If you've noticed, we've not had a rash of bipartisan efforts in the House," she said, referring to the gridlock that has held up other legislation.
There are other lawmakers who are pushing for more profound reforms. They include Republican James Sensenbrenner, the author of the post-9/11 Patriot Act, which the NSA has used to justify some of its data collection methods. His support of the Amash amendment last week revealed how far Congress has shifted in the weeks since the Snowden leaks were published.
Sensenbrenner said the Patriot Act was being interpreted to allow for forms of surveillance that were never envisaged when it was passed. He now supports an Amash-style bill that would prevent the NSA from hoovering up phone records without specific justification.
Most of the efforts focus on constraining the NSA's ability to spy on Americans. There is less congressional support for limiting its spying on foreigners' internet communication. One major exception is a measure introduced by House Democrat Rush Holt, that would repeal both the Patriot Act and the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, two legislative pillars of post-9/11 surveillance.
Holt, who previously served on the intelligence committee, represents the most sceptical wing of Congress. "I learned that the heads of the NSA and other intelligence agencies are schooled in secrecy and deception. You can't always believe everything they say," he said. "They say these have stopped 50 attacks or something like that, and though I'm not on the intelligence committee right now, and I can't speak item-by-item, I can be pretty sure that there's probably not too much truth to it."
His bill represents the most radical congressional attempt at surveillance reform. Its prospects are not good, particularly because it would curtail Prism, one of the NSA programs to spy on the internet communications in foreign lands.
Schiff said Prism was more popular in congress for two reasons. First, Prism "is focused outside the United States and not on US citizens". Second, Schiff said its effectiveness is "much more substantial" than the phone records collection.
Intelligence officials have struggled to show how collecting bulk phone metadata was critical to foiling even one terrorist plot.
Lawmakers may fume at the idea of collecting the phone records of Americans, but they seem nonplussed at the notion the NSA can freely access the emails of foreigners.
Even those who do have concerns about Prism – such as Wyden – are looking for ways to ensure Americans are not ensnared in its dragnet, rather than ending it entirely.
"It has become increasingly apparent that the balance between security and liberty has been tainted," Sensenbrenner said in a statement after he left the White House meeting. "The conversation was very productive and everyone agreed something must be done."
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