NEW YORK: Oil prices surged higher on Monday after US politicians signaled a last-minute compromise deal was in view to avert driving the economy over a fiscal cliff toward recession.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, gained $1.02 from Friday to close at $91.82 a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for February settled at $111.11 a barrel, up 49 cents.
Over the year, New York's West Texas Intermediate fell 7 percent from the last day of trade in 2011, while Brent rose 3 percent.
Oil prices earlier had been under pressure amid US political deadlock on a bipartisan deficit reduction deal that would avoid the cliff of automatic sharp tax hikes and spending cuts due to begin taking effect at midnight.
Oil prices surged after President Barack Obama, in a nationally televised statement from the White House, said an agreement to prevent the tax hike is "within sight."
"The market experienced significant volatility during Obama's comments on fiscal negotiations and ended up closing near today's highs," BMO Capital Markets analysts wrote in a market note.
"People are getting optimistic about the fiscal cliff," said Michael Lynch of Strategic Energy and Economic Research.
"They feel that if even it is not done tonight it will be done in the next day or so, so that there won't be any serious negative impact on the economy."
Lynch said that positive news in China, the world's biggest energy consumer and driver of global growth, also was making the oil market bullish.
China's manufacturing activity surged to a 19-month high in December, British bank HSBC said Monday, a further sign of stronger growth in the world's second-largest economy.
HSBC's purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 51.5, up from 50.5 in November, the first month of growth after a solid year of contraction.
Infiniti's teaser photo reveals some radically new styling for the G sedan replacement.
(Credit: Infiniti)
Infiniti says it will unveil a new sport sedan, called the Q50, at the upcoming Detroit auto show. The model introduces the brand's new naming strategy, and is billed as a replacement for the current G sedan.
Typical for pre-auto show teasers, all we get is an image of the new car's headlight. However, that shot reveals styling much different than seen on current Infiniti G and M models. Rather than the high lens of the current headlights, which mold into the pontoon-like front fenders, the teaser shows a hooded headlight topped by an LED strip.
The headlight design suggests the Q50 will resemble the LE concept we saw at the 2012 New York auto show. That concept sported a hood rising above the fenders, a radical change to current Infiniti styling. The spindle-shaped grille looked similar to that being introduced by Lexus.
Infiniti's new naming strategy uses Q for every model, followed by a double digit to indicate size. Models named QX will be crossovers. The Q50 replaces the G sedan, while a Q60 replaces the G coupe. A future Q70 takes the place of the current M56. Infiniti has not said where or how hybrid models will fit into this naming strategy.
One detail slipped into a message from Infiniti President Johan de Nysschen, alluded to a new engine for the Q70, a 550-plus horsepower forced induction V-6. Those specs match the engine in the Nissan GT-R, suggesting a large, high performance Infiniti sedan positioned as a BMW M5 fighter.
LAKE FOREST, Ill. The Chicago Bears fired coach Lovie Smith on Monday after the team missed the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons.
Smith was informed of the decision by general manager Phil Emery on the day after the Bears beat Detroit to finish 10-6 but still didn't make the playoffs.
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NFL coaches, GMs sacked in firing frenzy
Smith led the Bears to a Super Bowl, but also saw his team collapse in the second half of the past two seasons. Hired in 2004, Smith led the Bears to three division titles, two NFC title games and a 2007 Super Bowl appearance in his nine seasons. His record is 81-63, and he leaves with one year left on his contract.
The Bears scheduled a news conference Tuesday to discuss the move.
Even though Chicago closed with a win, the Bears needed a loss by Minnesota to get into the playoffs. The Vikings, though, beat Green Bay to clinch a postseason spot, leaving Chicago as the second team since the postseason expanded to 12 teams to miss out after a 7-1 start. The other was Washington in 1996.
CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported Sunday that Smith's tenuous hold on his job "would be further imperiled should his team fail to get into the postseason."
But Smith, who had one year remaining on his current deal, shouldn't have any trouble finding work. League sources told La Canfora that Smith should land head-coaching interviews with other NFL teams.
Smith's record ranks third on the Bears' all-time list, behind George Halas and Mike Ditka.
The highlight of his tenure was the run to the title game that ended with a loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It was the first time two black coaches met for the championship, with Smith going against his mentor Tony Dungy.
The Bears made the playoffs just three times and posted three postseason victories under Smith. The 2010 team beat Seattle after the Seahawks won their division with a 7-9 record, but the Bears lost to Green Bay in the NFC title game at Soldier Field.
There was speculation Smith would be let go following the 2011 team's collapse, but he got one more year while general manager Jerry Angelo was fired.
Ultimately, the struggles on offense did him in.
Known for solid defenses, Smith oversaw a unit that was consistently effective and at times ranked among the league's best with stars such as Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and later Julius Peppers. Smith emphasized taking the ball away from the opposition, and no team did it more than the Bears with 310 during his tenure.
But on the other side, it was a different story.
Smith went through four offensive coordinators in Terry Shea, Ron Turner, Mike Martz and Mike Tice. He never could find the right formula, even as the Bears acquired stars such as quarterback Jay Cutler and receiver Brandon Marshall over the years.
The offensive line has struggled in a big way over the past few seasons after age took its toll on a group that was a strength during the 2005 and 2006 playoff seasons. The Bears were never able to replenish, spending first-round picks on Chris Williams (2008) and Gabe Carimi (2011) that did not pan out.
Williams had his contract terminated in October, ending a disappointing run, and Carimi struggled this season after missing most of his rookie year with a knee injury.
While Angelo took the fall after last season, Smith was not without blame in the personnel issues over the years. He pushed to bring in former Rams offensive lineman Orlando Pace and safety Adam Archuleta, players who succeeded in St. Louis when Smith was the defensive coordinator there but were busts with the Bears.
He had no bigger supporter than team matriarch Virginia McCaskey, but the fans seemed split on him. To some, he was a picture of calm, a coach who never lost his composure and never criticized his players in public, the anti-Ditka if you will.
History suggests fans who are clamoring for a high-profile replacement such as Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden might be disappointed. The last time the Bears went with an experienced NFL head coach was when Halas returned to the sideline in 1958.
They might, however, go with an offensive-minded coach for the first time since Mike Ditka was fired after the 1992 season, given the issues in that area.
That the Bears would be in this spot seemed unthinkable after they ripped Tennessee 51-20 on Nov. 4. They were sailing along at 7-1 and eyeing a big playoff run after collapsing the previous season, with the defense taking the ball away and scoring at an eye-opening rate to compensate for a struggling offense, but the schedule took a tougher turn.
They dropped back-to-back games to Houston and San Francisco and five of six in all before closing out with wins at Arizona and Detroit. Injuries mounted along the way, and what looked like a playoff run slipped from their grasp, just as it did after a promising start in 2011.
That year, they won seven of their first 10 only to wind up at 8-8 after a monumental collapse sparked by a season-ending injury to Cutler.
While Angelo was fired, Smith got spared and Emery took the job with a mandate to keep the coach at least one more year.
He quickly went to work retooling the roster, landing Marshall in a blockbuster trade with Miami that reunited Cutler with his favorite target in Denver.
He also added depth in other areas, bringing in Jason Campbell as the backup quarterback after Caleb Hanie failed the previous season and teaming running back Michael Bush in the backfield with Matt Forte.
All those moves sent expectations soaring. The results were awfully familiar, though.
President Obama said an 11th-hour agreement to avert year-end tax hikes on 98 percent of Americans is "within sight" but not yet complete with just hours to go before the nation reaches the so-called fiscal cliff.
"There are still issues left to resolve but we're hopeful Congress can get it done," Obama said at a midday White House news conference. "But it's not done."
Congressional and White House negotiators have forged the contours of an agreement that would extend current tax rates for households making $450,000 or less; raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million; and prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers, sources said.
The deal would also extend for one year unemployment insurance benefits set to expire Tuesday, and avert a steep cut to Medicare payments for doctors.
"I can report that we've reached an agreement on the all the tax issues," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an afternoon speech on the Senate floor.
But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was among the less conciliatory Republicans. Rather than staging a "cheerleading rally," he said, the president should have been negotiating the finishing touches of the deal.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
'Fiscal Cliff': Lawmakers Scramble for Last-Minute Deal Watch Video
"What did the president of the United States just do? Well, he kind of made fun, he made a couple of jokes, laughed about how people are going to be here for New Year's, sent a message of confrontation to the Republicans," McCain said. "I guess I have to wonder, and I think the American people have to wonder whether the president really wants this issue resolved or is it to his short-term political benefit for us to go over the cliff?"
McCain said the president's speech today "clearly will antagonize members of the House," and "that's not the way presidents should lead."
Both sides remained at odds on what to do about the other significant piece of the "fiscal cliff" -- the more than $1 trillion of automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs set to begin tomorrow.
The White House has proposed a three-month delay of the cuts to allow more time to hash out details for deficit reduction, while many Senate Democrats want a flat one-year delay. Republicans insist that some spending cuts should be implemented now as part of any deal.
"In order to get the sequester moved, you're going to have to have real, concrete spending cuts," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said. "[Without that], I don't know how it passes the House."
Vice President Joe Biden and McConnell, R-Ky., have been locked in behind-the-scenes negotiations for much of the day, sources said, following several "good" conversations that stretched late into Sunday night.
"We are very, very close," McConnell said today. "We can do this. We must do this."
If a deal is reached between Biden and McConnell, members in both chambers would still need to review it and vote on it later today. Passage is far from guaranteed.
"This is one Democrat that doesn't agree with that at all," Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said of the tentative deal. "No deal is better than a bad deal, and this looks like a very bad deal the way this is shaping up."
"I don't see how you get something voted on today," Rogers said. "Even if they get a handshake deal today, you have to put the whole thing together and that's probably not going to happen before midnight. So it would make sense to roll into tomorrow to do that."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department made a "grievous mistake" in keeping the U.S. mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly alarming threat assessments in the weeks before a deadly attack by militants, a Senate committee said on Monday.
A report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the September 11 attacks on the U.S. mission and a nearby CIA annex, in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans died, faulted intelligence agencies for not focusing tightly enough on Libyan extremists.
It also faulted the State Department for waiting for specific warnings instead of improving security.
The committee's assessment, "Flashing Red: A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At Benghazi," follows a scathing report by an independent State Department accountability review board that resulted in a top security official resigning and three others at the department being relieved of their duties.
Joseph Lieberman, an independent senator who chairs the committee, said that in thousands of documents it reviewed, there was no indication that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had personally denied a request for extra funding or security for the Benghazi mission. He said key decisions were made by "midlevel managers" who have since been held accountable.
Republican Senator Susan Collins said it was likely that others needed to be held accountable, but that decision was best made by the Secretary of State, who has the best understanding "of how far up the chain of command the request for additional security went."
The attacks and the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens put diplomatic security practices at posts in risky areas under scrutiny and raised questions about whether intelligence on militant activity in the region was adequate.
The Senate report said the lack of specific intelligence of an imminent threat in Benghazi "may reflect a failure" by intelligence agencies to focus closely enough on militant groups with weak or no operational ties to al Qaeda and its affiliates.
"With Osama bin Laden dead and core al Qaeda weakened, a new collection of violent Islamist extremist organizations and cells have emerged in the last two to three years," the report said. That trend has been seen in the "Arab Spring" countries undergoing political transition or military conflict, it said.
NEED FOR BETTER INTELLIGENCE
The report recommended that U.S. intelligence agencies "broaden and deepen their focus in Libya and beyond, on nascent violent Islamist extremist groups in the region that lack strong operational ties to core al Qaeda or its main affiliate groups."
Neither the Senate report nor the unclassified accountability review board report pinned blame for the Benghazi attack on a specific militant group. The FBI is investigating who was behind the assaults.
President Barack Obama, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, said the United States had "very good leads" about who carried out the attacks. He did not provide details.
The Senate committee said the State Department should not have waited for specific warnings before acting on improving security in Benghazi.
It also said it was widely known that the post-revolution Libyan government was "incapable of performing its duty to protect U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel," but the State Department failed to fill the security gap.
"Despite the inability of the Libyan government to fulfill its duties to secure the facility, the increasingly dangerous threat assessments, and a particularly vulnerable facility, the Department of State officials did not conclude the facility in Benghazi should be closed or temporarily shut down," the report said. "That was a grievous mistake."
The Senate panel reviewed changing comments made by the Obama administration after the attack, which led to a political firestorm in the run-up to the November presidential election and resulted in U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Clinton, who is stepping down early next year.
Rice had said her initial comments that the attack grew out of a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam film were based on talking points provided by intelligence agencies.
Lieberman said it was not the job of intelligence agencies to formulate unclassified talking points and they should decline such requests in the future.
The report said the original talking points included a line saying "we know" that individuals associated with al Qaeda or its affiliates participated in the attacks. But the final version had been changed to say: "There are indications that extremists participated," and the reference to al Qaeda and its affiliates was deleted.
The report said that while James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, had offered to provide the committee with a detailed chronology of how the talking points were written and evolved, this had still not been delivered to Capitol Hill because the administration had spent weeks "debating internally" whether or not it should turn over information considered "deliberative" to Congress.
ROME: Nobel medicine laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, a neurologist and developmental biologist, died on Sunday at her home in Rome aged 103.
She was the oldest living Nobel laureate at the time of her death.
Levi-Montalcini shared the prize with colleague Stanley Cohen in 1986 for their ground-breaking discovery of growth factors.
The Nobel committee cited the pair for advancing "our knowledge from a stage when... growth factors were unknown, to a situation today when the role of growth factors in cell proliferation, organ differentiation, and tumour transformation is generally recognised."
Their work has helped understanding of such disorders as cancer, birth defects and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
Enjoying great affection and respect in Italy, Levi-Montalcini intervened to defend the teaching of evolution in schools when, in 2004, the then education minister, Letizia Moratti, wanted to remove it from the curriculum.
In 2001, Italy's then president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi named Levi-Montalcini a senator for life, an honour bestowed on former presidents and prominent figures in social, scientific, artistic or literary fields.
In this role, she was the grand old lady of the Senate, taking pains to turn up for crucial votes in support of the Italian centre-left, even late in life when she was deaf and nearly blind.
In 2007 she cut short a trip to Dubai to help then prime minister Romano Prodi survive a confidence vote.
Levi-Montalcini had vowed to continue exercising her "right and duty" to vote alongside elected senators despite her age and sniping from elements of the right.
The indefatigable scientist continued to work daily at her laboratory in Rome well into her declining years.
She was the first woman president of the Italian Encyclopaedia and a member of several prestigious scientific societies including the Italian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and London's Royal Society.
Born into a wealthy Jewish intellectual family in northern Turin in 1909, Montalcini was the daughter of an engineer and an artist whom she described in her Nobel autobiography as "an exquisite human being."
Her twin sister Paola died in 2000, and her brother Gino in 1974. The oldest, Anna,
Overcoming her father's resistance to the idea of a professional career for a woman, Levi-Montalcini entered medical school in Turin aged 20.
Levi-Montalcini shunned marriage and motherhood to devote herself to a medical career.
But in 1936, the same year she earned a summa cum laude degree in medicine and surgery, Mussolini decreed racial laws that barred Jews from pursuing academic and professional careers.
So instead of embarking on a specialisation in neurology and psychiatry, she set up a small laboratory in her bedroom, performing experiments on chick embryos.
The Allied bombing of Turin in 1941 forced the family to flee to the Piedmont countryside, where Levi-Montalcini rebuilt the lab. Two years later, with the German invasion, the family fled to Florence, where they lived underground until the end of the war.
She managed to work as a medical doctor for Allied forces, treating war refugees afflicted by deadly epidemics of infectious diseases such as typhus.
Finally, when the war in Italy ended in May 1945, Levi-Montalcini was able to resume her career.
Her work on chick embryos, published in Switzerland and Belgium, led to an invitation to a research position at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1947.
Although she initially planned to stay for a brief stint, she wound up staying 30 years. It was there that she and Cohen studied mouse tumours implanted in chick embryos.
She set up the interdisciplinary European Brain Research Institute in Rome in 2002.
She established the Levi-Montalcini Foundation to help African women, and as Food and Agriculture Organisation ambassador for many years and in many other public forums she advocated the alleviation of world hunger.
I worry that at the bottom of the fiscal cliff is another fiscal cliff.
I worry that my future wife who currently won't acknowledge me will only, in fact, acknowledge me when I have another future wife.
And I worry that social media experts have all the expertise of a Labrador offering a lecture series on the cat-mouse conflict.
It's not merely that "Saturday Night Live" and the Onion (embedded here) have offered bitingly believable critiques of these self-appointed gurus.
It's that I have before my eyes the results of a survey of social media experts conducted by SocialToaster, a company that insists all bread should be warmed up in pairs.
SocialToaster surveyed 3,000 of its SuperFans (yes, this company is really a social-marketing platform) and asked these "largely social media experts and professionals, many of whom work with some of the nation's leading brands" who were the most influential social media people of 2012.
These experts flexed their personal algorithms, consulted their cranial creativities and raised at least one wet finger to the skies.
Their conclusion was that Barack Obama was the most influential social media person of 2012.
Yes, he won. It must have been social media that made the difference. So he must have been the most influential.
You will be find yourself touching various parts of your anatomy and feeling nothing at all when I tell you that last in this fine survey came Mitt Romney. Yes, the man who lost.
What extraordinary insight these social media experts have. I wonder if, when it rains, their sure social media touch will declare that the majority of people are socially declaring that it's wet outside.
More Technically Incorrect
But we at Technically Incorrect like to dig deeper when it comes to surveys. There are always gems within.
Here, it's not that Madonna came second last in this survey, closely hounded by Sean Hannity. It's not that Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga were deemed the next most influential after the president.
It's that the very same survey concluded that, when it comes to social media, a post from a very close friend is likely to influence you most when you're pondering a deep and important issue.
The next most influential is a family member. Even well-known bloggers were said to hold considerable sway.
I know that, in your current fragile and contemplative state, you will never guess what groups of people were deemed the least influential. Why, it was a tie. Between athletes and, well, politicians.
Here are the conclusions from this very important survey: the most influential person in social media comes from the group of people deemed least influential in social media.
ISLAMABAD The killing of 41 people in two separate terrorist incidents in Pakistan appeared on Sunday to temporarily halt prospects for immediate peace talks between Pakistani authorities and Taliban militants, two senior Pakistani intelligence officers and a senior western diplomat in Islamabad warned.
Both intelligence officers said that the fallout of the killings may even harm U.S. plans to peacefully draw down troops from Afghanistan, with Pakistan's active backing.
In the first incident, 21 Pakistani paramilitary guards working in the northern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province who were kidnapped last week by the Taliban were confirmed dead on Saturday.
"All the 21 young men were brutally killed by their captors," said one Pakistani intelligence officer who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity because intelligence officers are not allowed to speak to journalists.
He said that the kidnapped men's killings may have been triggered in part by the Pakistani government's refusal to release some Taliban militants in custody.
After the men were kidnapped, a senior government official in the northern city of Peshawar, the provincial capital, told CBS News that the Taliban were demanding the release of some of their fellow militants in Pakistan's custody in exchange for the 21 men.
In the second incident on Sunday, at least 20 Pakistanis of the Shia Muslim faith were killed and more than 20 wounded when a car bomb targeted their convoy of buses being driven through the southwestern Baluchistan province to the Iranian border.
Pakistani officials said the dead were heading to Iran's northern holy city of Mashhad to attend an important Shiite commemoration in the coming week.
The second Pakistani intelligence officer who spoke to CBS News said that the killings in Baluchistan "seem to be linked to factions associated with the Taliban.
"These killings make it practically impossible for the government to have a peace dialogue with the Taliban," the officer said. "No one will speak to these people while we have a gun pointed to our heads."
In the past, representatives of Pakistan's Shia Muslims have claimed that the Taliban (who belong to a hardline version of the Sunni Muslim faith) have been involved in attacks on Shiites in Baluchistan.
The two terrorist incidents were preceded by reports of the Taliban sending messages to senior leaders of President Asif Ali Zardari's administration in Islamabad, seeking peace talks to end a decade-long conflict with the Pakistan army.
Senior government officials have reacted cautiously, with some suggesting that the offer should be carefully considered, while others have warned that the Taliban will not agree to end their attacks on Pakistani troops until a final settlement, on their terms, comes together.
"The two brutal terrorist incidents are a major cause of concern. They suggest there's no appetite among the Taliban for a peaceful end to the war," said a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad who also spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity.
He warned that in addition to Pakistan's own internal security conditions, more violence will make it harder for the country to cooperate with the U.S. in facilitating an orderly American troop drawdown from Afghanistan by end of 2014.
"Pakistan will be the main route for U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan. If there is no end to Taliban violence in Pakistan, the drawdown will face threats," added the diplomat.
With less than two days remaining for Congress to reach a budget agreement that would avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff," ABC News has learned that negotiations have reached a "major setback."
According to Democratic sources the row was sparked when the GOP offered a proposal that included a new method of calculating entitlement benefits with inflation. Called the "chained consumer price index," or Chained CPI, the strategy has been criticized by some Democrats because it would lower cost of living increases for Social Security recipients.
"We thought it was mutually understood that it was off the table for a scaled-back deal," an aide said. "It's basically a poison pill."
President Obama has floated chained CPI in the past as part of a grand bargain, despite opposition from the AARP and within his own party.
Also in the Republican plan brought today: An extension of the current estate tax and no increase in the debt ceiling. Higher income earners would see their taxes increase, but at levels "well above $250,000," the sources said.
That "major setback" in the talks was evident on the floor of the Senate this afternoon.
"I'm concerned about the lack of urgency here, I think we all know we are running out of time," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, "I want everyone to know I am willing to get this done, but I need a dance partner."
J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
Sens. Charles Schumer and Jon Kyl on 'This Week' Watch Video
Fiscal Cliff Negotiations: Could Economy Slip Back into Recession? Watch Video
McConnell said he submitted the Republican's latest offer to Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., at 7:10 pm last night and was willing to work through the night. Reid promised to get back to him at 10 this morning, but has yet to do so.
Why have the Democrats not come up with a counteroffer? Reid admitted it himself moments later.
"At this stage we're not able to make a counteroffer," Reid said noting that he's had numerous conversations with Obama, but the two parties are still far apart on some big issues, "I don't have a counteroffer to make. Perhaps as the day wears on I will be able to."
McConnell said he believes there is no major issue that is the sticking point but rather, "the sticking point appears to be a willingness, an interest, or frankly the courage to close the deal."
Reid said the fiscal cliff negotiations are getting "real close" to falling apart completely.
"At some point in the negotiating process, it appears that there are things that stop us from moving forward," he said. "I hope we're not there but we're getting real close and that's why I still hold out hope that we can get something done. But I'm not overly optimistic but I am cautiously optimistic that we can get something done."
Reid said there are serious difference between the two sides, starting with Social Security. He said Democrats are not willing to cut Social Security benefits as part of a smaller, short-term agreement, as was proposed in the latest Republican proposal.
"We're not going to have any Social Security cuts. At this stage it just doesn't seem appropriate," he said. "We're open to discussion about entitlement reforms, but we're going to have to take a different direction. The present status will not work."
Reid said that even 36 hours before the country could go over the cliff, he remains "hopeful" but "realistic," about the prospects of reaching an agreement.
"The other side is intentionally demanding concessions they know we are not willing to make," he said.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The body of a woman, whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India, arrived back in New Delhi on Sunday and was cremated at a private ceremony.
Scuffles broke out in central Delhi between police and protesters who say the government is doing too little to protect women. But the 2,000-strong rally was confined to a single area, unlike last week when protests raged up throughout the capital.
Riot police manned barricades along streets leading to India Gate war memorial - a focal point for demonstrators - and, at another gathering point - the centuries-old Jantar Mantar - protesters held banners reading "We want justice!" and "Capital punishment".
Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.
The unidentified 23-year-old victim of the December 16 gang rape died of her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.
The medical student had suffered brain injuries and massive internal injuries in the attack and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.
She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, police figures show. Reported rape cases rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to government data.
Six suspects were charged with murder after her death and face the death penalty if convicted.
In Kolkata, one of India's four biggest cities, police said a man reported that his mother had been gang-raped and killed by a group of six men in a small town near the city on Saturday.
She was killed on her way home with her husband, a senior official said, and the attackers had thrown acid at the husband, raped and killed her, and dumped her body in a roadside pond.
Police declined to give any further details. One officer told Reuters no criminal investigation had yet been launched.
"MISOGYNY"
The leader of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, was seen arriving at the airport when the plane carrying the woman's body from Singapore landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh's convoy was also there.
A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body from the airport to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.
Her body was then taken to a crematorium and cremated. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman's family, New Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.
The outcry over the attack caught the government off guard. It took a week for the prime minister to make a statement, infuriating many protesters. Last weekend they fought pitched battles with police.
Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse.
Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure", by some Indian media could change that, though it is too early to say whether the protesters can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon added his voice to those demanding change, calling for "further steps and reforms to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice".
Commentators and sociologists say the incident earlier this month has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.
Newspapers raised doubts about the commitment of both male politicians and the police to protecting women.
"Would the Indian political system and class have been so indifferent to the problem of sexual violence if half or even one-third of all legislators were women?" the Hindu newspaper asked.
The Indian Express said it was more complicated than realizing that the police force was understaffed and underpaid.
"It is geared towards dominating citizens rather than working for them, not to mention being open to influential interests," the newspaper said. "It reflects the misogyny around us, rather than actively fighting for the rights of citizens who happen to be female."
(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Diksha Madhokin New Delhi and Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata; Editing by Louise Ireland)
