Indo-Pak LoC tension puts Gujarat farmers in a soup

AHMEDABAD: The heat on the Indo-Pak border has squashed tomato prices in Gujarat. Farmers in Kadi, about 40 km north of here, say if trade with the neighbouring nation does not normalize, they will land up in a... what else, tomato soup!

Prices of tomatoes in the wholesale markets in Ahmedabad have plummeted from around Rs 300/20 kg on Saturday to Rs 80/20 kg on Thursday. The corresponding fall in the retail market is only from Rs 20/kg to Rs 15/kg so far, as traders are holding on to stocks or diverting them elsewhere. During the four winter months, farmers in and around Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar usually produce about 5,000 tonnes of tomatoes. Of this, around 600 tonnes go to Punjab and most of it crosses over to Pakistan. On an average, 40 trucks laden with tomatoes leave Kadi every day for Punjab. The outflow from Kadi, which produces 600 tonnes of tomatoes, has come down to just 10 trucks a day, since the border dispute erupted last week. Asif Darbar, a trader from Kadi, said, "Traders from Punjab come to Kadi frequently to purchase tomatoes due to superior quality, but they have stopped coming." Punjabis have also gone missing from the Jamalpur agri-market in Ahmedabad.

But while tomato farmers are left red-faced with war-mongering on both sides, there is good news for consumers. "Export quality tomatoes are grown over 2,000 hectares in Gujarat and the local variety is popular as it is big in size," said DM Vaghela, deputy director, horticulture, Ahmedabad.

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")

As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and other companies evacuated personnel from Algeria, it was not immediately clear how widely the peril would spread in the wake of the hostage-taking at the sprawling In Amenas gas complex near the Libyan border.

Map by National Geographic

Algeria, the fourth-largest crude oil producer on the continent and a major exporter of natural gas and refined fuels, may not have been viewed as the most hospitable climate for foreign energy companies, but that was due to unfavorable financial terms, bureaucracy, and corruption. The energy facilities themselves appeared to be safe, with multiple layers of security provided both by the companies and by government forces, several experts said. (See related photos: "Oil States: Are They Stable? Why It Matters.")

"It is particularly striking not only because it hasn't happened before, but because it happened in Algeria, one of the stronger states in the region," says Hanan Amin-Salem, a senior manager at the industry consulting firm PFC Energy, who specializes in country risk. She noted that in the long civil war that gripped the country throughout the 1990s, there had never been an attack on Algeria's energy complex. But now, hazard has spread from weak surrounding states, as the assault on In Amenas was carried out in an apparent retaliation for a move by French forces against the Islamists who had taken over Timbuktu and other towns in neighboring Mali. (See related story: "Timbuktu Falls.")

"What you're really seeing is an intensification of the fundamental problem of weak states, and empowerment of heavily armed groups that are really well motivated and want to pursue a set of aims," said Amin-Salem. In PFC Energy's view, she says, risk has increased in Mauritania, Chad, and Niger—indeed, throughout Sahel, the belt that bisects North Africa, separating the Sahara in the north from the tropical forests further south.

On Thursday, the London-based corporate consulting firm Exclusive Analysis, which was recently acquired by the global consultancy IHS, sent an alert to clients warning that oil and gas facilities near the Libyan and Mauritanian borders and in Mauritania's Hodh Ech Chargui province were at "high risk" of attack by jihadis.

"A Hot Place to Drill"

The attack at In Amenas comes at a time of unprecedented growth for the oil industry in Africa. (See related gallery: "Pictures: The Year's Most Overlooked Energy Stories.") Forecasters expect that oil output throughout Africa will double by 2025, says Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of the energy and sustainability program at the University of California, Davis, who has counted 20 rounds of bidding for new exploration at sites in Africa's six largest oil-producing states.

Oil and natural gas are a large part of the Algerian economy, accounting for 60 percent of government budget revenues, more than a third of GDP and more than 97 percent of its export earnings. But the nation's resources are seen as largely undeveloped, and Algeria has tried to attract new investment. Over the past year, the government has sought to reform the law to boost foreign companies' interests in their investments, although those efforts have foundered.

Technology has been one of the factors driving the opening up of Africa to deeper energy exploration. Offshore and deepwater drilling success in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil led to prospecting now under way offshore in Ghana, Mozambique, and elsewhere. (See related story: "New Oil—And a Huge Challenge—for Ghana.") Jaffe says the Houston-based company Anadarko Petroleum has sought to transfer its success in "subsalt seismic" exploration technology, surveying reserves hidden beneath the hard salt layer at the bottom of the sea, to the equally challenging seismic exploration beneath the sands of the Sahara in Algeria, where it now has three oil and gas operations.

Africa also is seen as one of the few remaining oil-rich regions of the world where foreign oil companies can obtain production-sharing agreements with governments, contracts that allow them a share of the revenue from the barrels they produce, instead of more limited service contracts for work performed.

"You now have the technology to tap the resources more effectively, and the fiscal terms are going to be more attractive than elsewhere—you put these things together and it's been a hot place to drill," says Jaffe, who doesn't see the energy industry's interest in Africa waning, despite the increased terrorism risk. "What I think will happen in some of these countries is that the companies are going to reveal new securities systems and procedures they have to keep workers safe," she says. "I don't think they will abandon these countries."

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

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Armstrong May Have Lied to Oprah: Investigators

Lance Armstrong may have lied to Oprah Winfrey during his so-called confession Thursday night about his doping during the Tour de France bicycle race, investigators told ABC News today.

Armstrong, 41, admitted for the first time that his decade-long dominance of cycling and seven wins in the Tour de France were owed, in part, to performance-enhancing drugs and oxygen-boosting blood transfusions. He told Winfrey that he was taking the opportunity to confess to everything he had done wrong, including angrily denying reports for years claiming that he had doped.

Investigators familiar with Armstrong's case, however, said today that Armstrong didn't completely come clean. They say he blatantly lied about when he stopped doping, saying the last time he used the drugs and transfusions was the 2005 race.

"That's the only thing in this whole report that upset me," Armstrong said during the interview. "The accusation and alleged proof that they said I doped [in 2009] is not true. The last time I crossed the line, that line was 2005."

"You did not do a blood transfusion in 2009?" Winfrey asked.

"No, 2009 and 2010 absolutely not," Armstrong said.

Investigators familiar with the case disagree. They said today that Armstrong's blood values at the 2009 race showed clear blood manipulation consistent with two transfusions. Armstrong's red blood cell count suddenly went up at these points, even though the number of baby red blood cells did not.

Investigators said this was proof that he received a transfusion of mature red blood cells.

If Armstrong lied about the 2009 race, it could be to protect himself criminally, investigators said.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012

Federal authorities looking to prosecute criminal cases will look back at the "last overt act" in which the crime was committed, they explained. If Armstrong doped in 2005 but not 2009, the statute of limitations may have expired on potential criminal activity.

Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: How Honest Was He? Watch Video

The sources noted that there is no evidence right now that a criminal investigation will be reopened. Armstrong is facing at least three civil suits.

The second half of Armstrong's interview is set to air tonight.

Shock and disenchantment were among the reactions from people most familiar with the famed cyclist's history after his on-air confession Thursday night.

"I could not believe that Lance apologized," Betsy Andreu, the wife of Armstrong's former teammate and close friend Frankie Andreu, said today on ABC's "Good Morning America".

"Lance doesn't say, 'I'm sorry.' Lance isn't used to telling the truth and so I think in the days to come, in the months to come, I'm hoping that we'll see the contrition. Actions speak louder than words so if the words aren't empty ...," Andreu said.

ABC News consultant and USA Today columnist Christine Brennan called Armstrong's admitting that he used performance-enhancing drugs "a major miscalculation."

"This is like Bernie Madoff coming back after three months or Richard Nixon coming back after three months. No one wants to hear from those people so soon," Brennan told George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America."

"It was a lose-lose going in. I think he did more harm than good to his reputation, and he just looked cold-blooded, and cutthroat, and ruthless," Brennan said.

Minutes after Armstrong's confession aired on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network, the Livestrong Foundation -- the Austin-Texas-based cancer charity that he founded -- released a statement expressing disappointment in their former leader.

"We at the LIVESTRONG Foundation are disappointed by the news that Lance Armstrong misled people during and after his cycling career, including us," the statement read. "Earlier this week, Lance apologized to our staff and we accepted his apology in order to move on and chart a strong, independent course.

"Our success has never been based on one person -- it's based on the patients and survivors we serve every day, who approach a cancer diagnosis with hope, courage and perseverance."

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Travis Tygart, head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, said in a statement, "Tonight, Lance Armstrong finally acknowledged that his cycling career was built on a powerful combination of doping and deceit. His admission that he doped throughout his career is a small step in the right direction. But if he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities."

The agency issued an October report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates described the system under which they and Armstrong received drugs with, they say, the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians. As a result of the organization's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

John Fahey, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency said, "He was wrong, he cheated and there was no excuse for what he did. If he was looking for redemption, he didn't succeed in getting that."

Such a reaction\ to the highly anticipated interview was only the tip of the iceberg as pundits, those close to Armstrong and even everyday people took to Twitter and other social media outlets to share their thoughts on what Armstrong said was "one big lie that I repeated a lot of times."

Cyclist and former Armstrong teammate Jonathan Vaughters tweeted, "A good first step. I need to sleep."

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House Republicans using retreat as chance for self-reflection

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — House Republicans are cloistered at a tony golf resort here for three days hoping to resurrect their battered political brand, as they prepare for what could be another damaging confrontation with President Obama over federal spending.

At their annual retreat, House members said there is general fretting about the damage done to the party’s image by the strident tone adopted by some candidates and officials.

“It’s a time for self-reflection,” said one member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the private discussions. “Our identity with the American people has really, really suffered, and this is a conversation about collectively restoring a values-driven identity.”

Although there was some urgency for a change, the consensus was that the change was about how to communicate, not about rethinking core policy positions.

“This is about tone. It’s about messaging and it’s about showing people what we’re for instead of what we’re against,” said Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R), describing his message to House Republicans at a lunch-time session Thursday.

“Rape is a four-letter word — don’t say it,” the group was advised by a Republican pollster in another session, said one person familiar with the discussion. That was a reference to controversies about rape and abortion that were partly to blame for the GOP losing two Senate seats — in Indiana and Missouri — in November.

Sessions this week included advice on turning around troubled organizations from the chief executive of Domino’s Pizza and a motivational address from the first blind man to summit Mount Everest. But much of the retreat was devoted to what amounted to open-mic sessions to let members strategize for the upcoming fiscal fight.

The nation has reached its $16.4 trillion credit limit and without congressional action, the Treasury Department has said the government will be unable to meet its spending obligations sometime in February or early March. Many Republicans want to use the moment to extract deep spending cuts from Obama, including in entitlement programs.

The president says that without increased borrowing authority, the nation will default on its debt obligations and send the world’s economy into a tailspin.

One possible course, aides said, would involve raising the debt ceiling for just a few months in exchange for several hundred billion dollars in budget cuts, probably culled from a bipartisan list developed in 2011 in talks led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Vice President Biden.

A longer-term debt-limit increase would be available thereafter, but only if the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate approved a framework to set tax and spending policies for the next decade.

That would avoid a federal default and move the negotiation to areas in which the president seems more amenable and have less impact on the broader economy: the automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs set to hit in early March and the expiration on March 27 of a funding bill to keep the government running.

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Campaigning in Punggol East intensifies as candidates make early start

SINGAPORE: Campaigning in the Punggol East by-election intensifies, with candidates making an early start to catch voters from all walks of life.

On Friday morning, Dr Koh Poh Koon of the People's Action Party (PAP) and Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam of the Reform Party (RP) were at Rumbia LRT Station, near Rivervale Mall, to catch the morning crowd.

They were distributing flyers.

Dr Koh told reporters that his secret during the gruelling campaign is to sleep enough and drink lots of water.

The PAP will hold its first rally in the constituency on Friday night.

-CNA/ac

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MHA inquiry finds PCR response could have swifter in Nirbhaya case

NEW DELHI: An inquiry by the home ministry into allegations made by Nirbhaya's friend about the "tardy" response of Delhi Police in reaching her to hospital has found that the response time could indeed have been better.

The inquiry report by Veena Kumari Meena, a joint secretary in the home ministry, also said Dinesh Yadav, operator of the bus on which the gang rape took place, had been blatantly flouting norms by plying not only the rogue bus despite repeated challans, but was also running several other buses in his fleet without valid permits.

Sources in the government told TOI that Meena noted that though the PCRs responded to the distress call made on Nirbhaya's behalf within "reasonable" time and, as per PCR logs, left the spot within 15 minutes, this time could have been cut further had the police "reacted better" to the emergency.

Though exact details of the report are still awaited, sources hinted that the inquiry faulted Delhi Police for failing to immediately rush the victims to hospital despite the first PCR having reached the spot at 10.27 pm, by the police's own account. According to the Delhi Police, the control room received a call about the incident at 10.21 pm on December 16. PCR van Z-54 was assigned the call but another PCR, E-74, reached the spot on its own at 10.27 pm. Z-54 was there at 10.29 pm.

Z-54 finally left the spot with Nirbhaya and her friend at 10.39 pm, after arranging bed-sheets from a nearby hotel to cover them.

Nirbhaya's friend had, in an interview to a news channel, alleged that the PCRs which reached the spot wasted crucial time in arguing over jurisdiction and that the police were reluctant to shift an injured Nirbhaya to the PCR.

However, joint commissioner of police Vivek Gogia denied this, saying, "There was no issue over jurisdiction as PCR vans do not operate under police stations."

The inquiry was set up on January 7 to assess the alacrity of Delhi Police as well as the response of Safdarjung Hospital staff to the December 16 rape. Meena was asked to identify lapses and fix responsibility.

The terms of reference also included examining how the rogue bus continued to ply on Delhi roads despite being challaned several times, and to study the responsiveness of Dial 100 helpline.

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.uk

And so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course of your career?

"Yes," came the reply. "Whenever it was necessary."

"And how often was that?" came the follow-up question.

"Almost all the time!"

This is not a leak of a transcript from Oprah Winfrey's much anticipated tell-all with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, but instead was lifted from a decades-old interview with Fausto Coppi, the great Italian road cycling champion of the 1940s and 1950s.

To this day, though, Coppi is lauded as one of the gods of cycling, an icon of a distant and mythical golden age in the sport.

So is five-time Tour winner Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-64) who famously remarked that it was impossible "to ride the Tour on mineral water."

"You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a professional cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants," Anquetil said.

And then there's British cycling champion Tommy Simpson, who died of heart failure while trying to race up Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour de France, a victim of heat, stress, and a heady cocktail of amphetamines.

All are heroes today. If their performance-enhancing peccadillos are not forgotten, they have at least been glossed over in the popular imagination.

As the latest chapter of the sorry Lance Armstrong saga unfolds, it is worth looking at the history of cheating in the Tour de France to get a sense of perspective. This is not an attempt at rationalisation or justification for what Lance did. Far from it.

But the simple, unpalatable fact is that cheating, drugs, and dirty tricks have been part and parcel of the Tour de France nearly from its inception in 1903.

Cheating was so rife in the 1904 event that Henri Desgrange, the founder and organiser of the Tour, declared he would never run the race again. Not only was the overall winner, Maurice Garin, disqualified for taking the train over significant stretches of the course, but so were next three cyclists who placed, along with the winner of every single stage of the course.

Of the 27 cyclists who actually finished the 1904 race, 12 were disqualified and given bans ranging from one year to life. The race's eventual official winner, 19-year-old Henri Cornet, was not determined until four months after the event.

And so it went. Desgrange relented on his threat to scrub the Tour de France and the great race survived and prospered-as did the antics. Trains were hopped, taxis taken, nails scattered along the roads, partisan supporters enlisted to beat up rivals on late-night lonely stretches of the course, signposts tampered with, bicycles sabotaged, itching powder sprinkled in competitors' jerseys and shorts, food doctored, and inkwells smashed so riders yet to arrive couldn't sign the control documents to prove they'd taken the correct route.

And then of course there were the stimulants-brandy, strychnine, ether, whatever-anything to get a rider through the nightmarishly tough days and nights of racing along stages that were often over 200 miles long. In a way the race was tailor-made to encourage this sort of thing. Desgrange once famously said that his idea of a perfect Tour de France would be one that was so tough that only one rider finished.

Add to this the big prizes at a time when money was hard to come by, a Tour largely comprising young riders from impoverished backgrounds for whom bicycle racing was their one big chance to get ahead, and the passionate following cycling enjoyed, and you had the perfect recipe for a desperate, high stakes, win-at-all-costs mentality, especially given the generally tolerant views on alcohol and drugs in those days.

After World War II came the amphetamines. Devised to keep soldiers awake and aggressive through long hours of battle they were equally handy for bicycle racers competing in the world's longest and toughest race.

So what makes the Lance Armstrong story any different, his road to redemption any rougher? For one thing, none of the aforementioned riders were ever the point man for what the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has described in a thousand-page report as the most sophisticated, cynical, and far-reaching doping program the world of sport has ever seen-one whose secrecy and efficiency was maintained by ruthlessness, bullying, fear, and intimidation.

Somewhere along the line, the casualness of cheating in the past evolved into an almost Frankenstein sort of science in which cyclists, aided by creepy doctors and trainers, were receiving blood transfusions in hotel rooms and tinkering around with their bodies at the molecular level many months before they ever lined up for a race.

To be sure, Armstrong didn't invent all of this, any more than he invented original sin-nor was he acting alone. But with his success, money, intelligence, influence, and cohort of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers-and the way he used all this to prop up the Lance brand and the Lance machine at any cost-he became the poster boy and lightning rod for all that went wrong with cycling, his high profile eclipsing even the heads of the Union Cycliste Internationale, the global cycling union, who richly deserve their share of the blame.

It is not his PED popping that is the hard-to-forgive part of the Lance story. Armstrong cheated better than his peers, that's all.

What I find troubling is the bullying and calculated destruction of anyone who got in his way, raised a question, or cast a doubt. By all accounts Armstrong was absolutely vicious, vindictive as hell. Former U.S. Postal team masseuse Emma O'Reilly found herself being described publicly as a "prostitute" and an "alcoholic," and had her life put through a legal grinder when she spoke out about Armstrong's use of PEDs.

Journalists were sued, intimidated, and blacklisted from events, press conferences, and interviews if they so much as questioned the Lance miracle or well-greased machine that kept winning Le Tour.

Armstrong left a lot of wreckage behind him.

If he is genuinely sorry, if he truly repents for his past "indiscretions," one would think his first act would be to try to find some way of not only seeking forgiveness from those whom he brutally put down, but to do something meaningful to repair the damage he did to their lives and livelihoods.

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Biden Confirms Support for Second Amendment

Jan 17, 2013 6:41pm

Alex Wong/Getty Images

One day after President Obama unveiled the administration’s plan to curb gun violence, Vice President Joe Biden today defended their intentions, answering critics who have spoken out against the plan for potentially infringing on the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

“The president and I support the Second Amendment,”  Biden said definitively.

Biden, who’s led the task force on gun violence since the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, noted that he owns guns.

“I have two shotguns, a 20-gauge and a 12-gauge shotgun,” he said. Later in the speech he said his son Beau was a better shot than he is but that is because Beau is in the Army.

Biden spoke today before the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors’ meeting in Washington, D.C. Not everyone in the audience, Biden noted today, agrees with recommendations the White House put forward yesterday. But he defended the administration’s move to push this issue, at one point addressing the roomful of mayors as if he were speaking to them individually, saying that “murder rates in both of our towns are …  well beyond … what’s remotely tolerable for a civilized circumstance.”

“We’re going to take this fight to the halls of Congress,” he said. “We’re going to take it beyond that. We’re going to take it to the American people. We’re going to go around the country making our case, and we’re going to let the voices, the voice, of the American people be heard. ”

Biden again noted that there will not be consensus across the nation, given cultural differences among the states. In many states, he added, hunting is  “big deal.”

But, he quipped, addressing the use of high-capacity magazines in hunting, “As one hunter told me, if you got 12 rounds — you got 12 rounds, it means you’ve already missed the deer 11 times. You should pack the sucker in at that point. You don’t deserve to have a gun, period, if you’re that bad.”

High-capacity ammunition magazines “leave victims with no chance,” Biden said.

He summed up saying, “Recognizing those differences doesn’t in any way negate the rational prospect of being able to come up with common-sense approaches how to deal with the myriad of problems that relate to gun ownership.”

Biden said the “time is now” to make these changes and scoffed at some alternative strategies, like the proposal from the NRA for an armed guard to be placed in every school.

“We don’t want rent-a-cops in schools armed,” he said. “We don’t want people in schools who aren’t trained like police officers.”

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GOP wants quick vote on bill to extend freeze on basic federal pay rates

It’s not surprising that House Republicans are continuing their assault on federal employee compensation. But Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s decision to quickly call for a vote on a new bill shows just how strong their determination is to hold down federal pay.

Apparently, even a tiny raise after a two-year-plus freeze is too much.

No sooner had Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and 28 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 273 on Wednesday, when Cantor (R-Va.) announced a vote for next week. The measure would extend the freeze on basic pay rates until the end of the year.

“At a time when we should be focused on helping families get on solid financial footing, members of Congress, the vice president, Cabinet secretaries and federal employees don’t need a raise,” Cantor said. “This across-the-board pay hike issued by President Obama through executive order will cost hardworking taxpayers $11 billion. . . . We simply can’t afford it.”

In December, Obama said federal employees would get a 0.5 percent pay raise after a temporary funding measure expires in March. But that order can be trumped by congressional action.

“We simply cannot afford this unnecessary and unilateral action by the President,” DeSantis said. The congressman also plans to co-sponsor “No Budget, No Pay” legislation, which his office said would prevent lawmakers from being paid if they don’t pass a budget.

“Just like American families, the federal government needs to tighten its belt,” his news release added.

With this as his first bill, DeSantis, a freshman, makes a name at the expense of federal workers. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, appointed DeSantis to a seat on the federal workforce subcommittee.

“My actions this week are just the first steps in bringing accountability, reduced spending and conservative change to Washington,” DeSantis said.

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, called his action “a continuation of the anti-federal-worker line of attack that became an all-too-familiar staple of the 112th Congress, particularly in the House. More than two dozen bills were introduced during that two-year period aimed at federal pay, benefits and rights.”

Fortunately for federal workers, the Senate is unlikely to approve the DeSantis bill, at least as standalone legislation. Yet if a measure extending the freeze, which began two years ago this month, were part of a deficit-reduction package that was otherwise acceptable to Democrats, it might be hard for them to reject it. But Democrats don’t like the idea.

“The hardworking men and women who make up the federal workforce have made a substantial sacrifice over the past two years to help bring down the deficit,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “Efforts by House Republicans to constantly use federal employees as a piggy bank — especially when the vast majority of their caucus refuses to ask millionaires to contribute more to reducing our deficit — are unconscionable. We cannot keep asking them to contribute more than their fair share as we work to put our fiscal house in order.”

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Sex, Internet, music on tap at Sundance film fest

LOS ANGELES: Sex, the Internet and good old fashioned rock-and-roll will dominate the 29th Sundance Film Festival, the top showcase of independent US cinema that opens Thursday in the snowy mountains of Utah.

Founded by Robert Redford, the annual festival in Park City aims to nurture independent filmmakers who might otherwise be eclipsed by output from the major studios -- while Hollywood uses it to scout new up-and-coming talent.

The January 17-27 event will present 119 feature films from 32 countries, including 51 first-timers and more than 100 world premieres.

Sex and desire, for teenagers and adults, are key themes that will be explored at Sundance in both fictional movies and documentaries, festival director John Cooper told AFP.

"It is undeniable that there are a lot of examinations of sexual relationships in this year's line-up," Cooper said.

"Filmmakers are dealing with sex as power, sex as basic human need and desire, sex from both the male and female point of view," he explained.

"I chalk this up to the fact that independent filmmakers have always been at the forefront as far as tackling fresh ideas and issues -- even taboo subjects."

Among the films sure to create buzz are "Lovelace", starring "Les Miserables" alum Amanda Seyfried in the title role as 1970s porn star Linda Lovelace of "Deep Throat" fame.

Also on the program are "The Lifeguard", about the dangerous relationship between a pool lifeguard and a teenager, and "Interior. Leather Bar", -- an X-rated art film directed by and starring James Franco.

Franco and co-director Travis Mathews have reimagined sexually explicit footage cut from William Friedkin's 1980 thrilled "Cruising", in which Al Pacino played a New York cop who goes undercover in the city's gay S&M scene.

Sundance will also feature several films looking at the world of high-tech and the Internet including "Google and the World Brain", a documentary about the web giant's plans to scan every book in the world.

Ashton Kutcher stars in "jOBS", a biopic about late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and director Alex Gibney will unveil "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks", about Julian Assange's whistleblowing website.

On the documentary front, one of the festival's strong points, about 40 films will be screened including "Manhunt", a look at the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden and a counterpoint to Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty".

Another hotly anticipated documentary is "After Tiller", which tells the story of the last four doctors in the United States who still perform third-trimester abortions, after the 2009 assassination of George Tiller.

Documentary filmmakers "approach problems facing our society from a very deep level that is unusual in mainstream media," Cooper said.

"They both expose problems and provide solutions."

The music world will have its moment in the Park City sun, with screenings of documentaries about The Eagles and Russia's Pussy Riot, as well as a film from Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl about the iconic Sound City recording studio in Los Angeles.

The festival's parallel out-of-competition Next section is dedicated to low-budget films, while Park City At Midnight will show a selection of horror and B-movie productions.

-AFP/fl

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