Lance Armstrong apologises in person to Livestrong staff

AUSTIN: Fallen cycling hero Lance Armstrong personally apologised Monday to staff members of the Livestrong cancer charity ahead of his much anticipated interview with talk show diva Oprah Winfrey.

"Lance came to the Livestrong Foundation's headquarters today for a private conversation with our staff and offered a sincere and heartfelt apology for the stress they've endured because of him," Livestrong spokeswoman Rae Bazzarre told AFP.

She added that Armstrong -- a cancer survivor who founded the charity in 1997 -- urged Livestrong staffers "to keep up their great work fighting for people affected by cancer."

Journalists staked out Armstrong's home in Austin earlier Monday ahead of his interview with Winfrey, during which the disgraced cyclist is reportedly planning to admit to doping.

For years he has repeatedly denied taking performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France and other big cycling events.

Reporters, photographers and TV crews took up positions Monday across the street from Armstrong's opulent Austin home, which is surrounded by a 2.4-metre stone wall.

The interview with Winfrey is scheduled to be taped at Armstrong's home on Monday and is to air on her OWN cable network on Thursday.

The announcement that Armstrong had agreed to an interview has sparked widespread speculation that he might finally confess to being a drug cheat after years of strenuous denials.

According to USA Today, Armstrong plans to confess in the interview to doping throughout his career, but will not go into great detail about specific cases and events.

It will be Armstrong's first interview since he was stripped in October of his seven Tour de France titles after the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said he helped orchestrate the most sophisticated doping program in sports history.

Any confession by Armstrong could have legal or financial ramifications, particularly among big-name corporate sponsors such as Nike that had loyally stood by him even as doping allegations grew.

Since the International Cycling Union effectively erased him from the record books, Britain's The Sunday Times has sued Armstrong for more than £1 million over a libel payment made to him in 2006.

It had paid Armstrong £300,000 to settle a libel case after publishing a story suggesting he may have cheated, and now wants that money plus interest and legal costs repaid.

On Sunday, the Sunday Times took out an ad in the Chicago Tribune newspaper setting out 10 questions that Winfrey, whose OWN media network is based in the Midwestern metropolis, should ask Armstrong.

"Is it your intention to return the prize money you earned from Sept. 1998 to July 2010?" read one question. "Did you sue the Sunday Times to shut us up?" went another.

A Texas insurance company has also threatened legal action to recoup millions of dollars in bonuses it paid him for multiple Tour victories.

Armstrong's years of dominance in the sport's greatest race raised cycling's profile in the United States to new heights.

It also gave the Texan -- diagnosed in 1996 with late-stage testicular cancer that had spread to his brain and lungs -- a unique platform to promote cancer awareness and research.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation has raised almost US$500 million since its creation in 1997.

In the wake of the allegations, several top sponsors dumped Armstrong and on November 14 the Livestrong Foundation dropped his name from the non-profit organisation he founded.

- AFP/jc

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Archos announces $119 Android tablet

The Archos 70 Titanium is a 7-inch Android tablet priced at just $119. It goes on sale next month.

(Credit:
Archos)

For the last couple months, rumors have been flying that Acer and/or Google would introduce a $99 tablet.

Will it happen? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, Archos just fired the first shot in the
tablet pricing wars: the Archos 70 Titanium. It goes on sale in February for $119.

Although Archos has yet to post a product page (which is why there's no link), I saw the 70 Titanium at
CES, and just received a preliminary spec sheet from a company rep. I'd say its main competition is the original
Kindle Fire, which Amazon currently sells for $159.

For $40 less, the 70 Titanium offers a 1,024x600-pixel IPS display (same as the Fire), 8GB of storage (ditto), a microSD slot (something the Fire lacks), and a front camera (ditto again). It runs on a 1.6GHz dual-core processor with quad-core graphics and 1GB of RAM. There's an HDMI output and Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) behind the scenes. Alas, no Bluetooth.

The Archos tablet measures 0.34 inch thick and weighs 0.62 pound, so it's both thinner and lighter than the Kindle Fire. Plus, it has a chrome back and white front, which may appeal to those who don't like the Fire's fingerprint-attracting all-black facade.

Needless to say, it's hard to judge a tablet based on specs alone, and the unit on display at CES wasn't functional, so I couldn't really gauge things like screen brightness or overall performance. But the other models in the lineup (see below) looked impressive, if a little plain, especially for the price.

Archos also plans to ship the 80 Titanium, an iPad Mini competitor with an 8-inch screen and $169 price tag, along with the 10.1-inch Archos 101 Titanium ($199) and 9.7-inch Archos 97 Titanium HD ($249). The latter features a 2,048x1,536-pixel display resolution, same as the current iPad but for half the price.

I'm hoping to get some hands-on time with these models in the near future. Until then, what do you think about a $119 Android tablet running Jelly Bean? Is it just the deal you've been waiting for, or will you hold out for something with a two-digit price tag?

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AP: Armstrong gives tearful apology to Livestrong

AUSTIN, Texas Lance Armstrong apologized to the staff at his Livestrong cancer foundation before heading to an interview with Oprah Winfrey, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private.

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Lance Armstrong to "speak candidly" to Oprah Winfrey

38 Photos

Lance Armstrong

Stripped last year of his seven Tour de France titles because of doping charges, Armstrong addressed the staff Monday and said, "I'm sorry." The person said the disgraced cyclist choked up and several employees cried during the session.

The person also said Armstrong apologized for letting the staff down and putting Livestrong at risk but he did not make a direct confession to the group about using banned drugs. He said he would try to restore the foundation's reputation, and urged the group to continue fighting for the charity's mission of helping cancer patients and their families.

After the meeting, Armstrong, his legal team and close advisers gathered at a downtown Austin hotel for the interview.

The cyclist will make a limited confession to Winfrey about his role as the head of a long-running scheme to dominate the Tour with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs, a person with knowledge of the situation has told the AP.

Winfrey and her crew had earlier said they would film the interview, to be broadcast Thursday, at his home but the location apparently changed to a hotel. Local and international news crews staked out positions in front of the cyclist's Spanish-style villa before dawn, hoping to catch a glimpse of Winfrey or Armstrong.

Armstrong still managed to slip away for a run Monday morning despite the crowds gathering outside his house. He returned home by cutting through a neighbor's yard and hopping a fence.

During a jog on Sunday, Armstrong talked to the AP for a few minutes saying, "I'm calm, I'm at ease and ready to speak candidly." He declined to go into specifics.

Armstrong lost all seven Tour titles following a voluminous U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that portrayed him as a ruthless competitor, willing to go to any lengths to win the prestigious race. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart labeled the doping regimen allegedly carried out by the U.S. Postal Service team that Armstrong once led, "The most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

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Anti-doping chief: Armstrong bullied witnesses

In a recent "60 Minutes Sports" interview, Tygart described Armstrong and his team of doctors, coaches and riders as similar to a "Mafia" that kept their secret for years and intimidated riders into silently following their illegal methods.

Yet Armstrong looked like just another runner getting in his roadwork when he talked to the AP, wearing a red jersey and black shorts, sunglasses and a white baseball cap pulled down to his eyes. Leaning into a reporter's car on the shoulder of a busy Austin road, he seemed unfazed by the attention and the news crews that made stops at his home. He cracked a few jokes about all the reporters vying for his attention, then added, "but now I want to finish my run," and took off down the road.

The interview with Winfrey will be Armstrong's first public response to the USADA report. Armstrong is not expected to provide a detailed account about his involvement, nor address in depth many of the specific allegations in the more than 1,000-page USADA report.

In a text to the AP on Saturday, Armstrong said: "I told her (Winfrey) to go wherever she wants and I'll answer the questions directly, honestly and candidly. That's all I can say."

After a federal investigation of the cyclist was dropped without charges being brought last year, USADA stepped in with an investigation of its own. The agency deposed 11 former teammates and accused Armstrong of masterminding a complex and brazen drug program that included steroids, blood boosters and a range of other performance-enhancers.

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Lance Armstrong offered donation to USADA during investigation

Once all the information was out and his reputation shattered, Armstrong defiantly tweeted a picture of himself on a couch at home with all seven of the yellow leader's jerseys on display in frames behind him. But the preponderance of evidence in the USADA report and pending legal challenges on several fronts apparently forced him to change tactics after more a decade of denials.

He still faces legal problems.

Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that accused Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether it will join the suit as a plaintiff.

The London-based Sunday Times also is suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel lawsuit. On Sunday, the newspaper took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune, offering Winfrey suggestions for what questions to ask Armstrong. Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny Armstrong a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring yet another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million an arbitration panel awarded the cyclist in that dispute.

The lawsuit most likely to be influenced by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from Armstrong's sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during the federal investigation that was closed last year.

Many of his sponsors dropped Armstrong after the damning USADA report — at the cost of tens of millions of dollars — and soon after, he left the board of Livestrong, which he founded in 1997. Armstrong is still said to be worth about $100 million.

Livestrong might be one reason Armstrong has decided to come forward with an apology and limited confession. The charity supports cancer patients and still faces an image problem because of its association with Armstrong. He also may be hoping a confession would allow him to return to competition in the elite triathlon or running events he participated in after his cycling career.

World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation.

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Lance Armstrong Apologizes to Livestrong Staff

Lance Armstrong apologized today to the Livestrong staff ahead of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, a foundation official said.

The disgraced cyclist gathered with about 100 Livestrong Foundation staffers at their Austin, Texas, headquarters for a meeting that included social workers who deal directly with patients as part of the group's mission to support cancer victims.

Armstrong's "sincere and heartfelt apology" generated lots of tears, spokeswoman Katherine McLane said, adding that he "took responsibility" for the trouble he has caused the foundation.

McLane declined to say whether Armstrong's comments included an admission of doping, just that the cyclist wanted the staff to hear from him in person rather than rely on second-hand accounts.

Armstrong then took questions from the staff.

Armstrong's story has never changed. In front of cameras, microphones, fans, sponsors, cancer survivors -- even under oath -- Lance Armstrong hasn't just denied ever using performance enhancing drugs, he has done so in an indignant, even threatening way.

Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images|Ray Tamarra/Getty Images

Lance Armstrong Doping Charges: Secret Tapes Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Winfrey Interview: Expected to Admit to Doping Watch Video

Today, sources tell ABC News, will be different. Today Armstrong is expected to rewrite his own, now infamous story, to Winfrey. So what should she ask? There are enough questions to fill a book, but here's our shot at five, for starters, all based on the belief that his first words will be an admission. Feel free to comment and add your own.

1) Witnesses have told the U.S. Anti Doping Agency that after recovering from cancer, you increased your use of performance enhancing drugs, but swore off one of them—Human Growth Hormone—specifically noting your cancer as a reason to avoid it. Do you believe your cancer may have been caused by performance enhancing drug use?

2) Some people seem able to forgive or rationalize the use of performance enhancing drugs, but what troubles them is the vicious cover-up. Why did you feel it necessary to go beyond denials, to attack and even threaten and file legal claims against those who accused you of drug use, even to the point of causing serious harm to people's lives and reputations?

3) In 1996, while recovering from cancer, your former close friend Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy say they were in the hospital room when you told doctors you'd used several different performance enhancing drugs during your career. They testified under oath about this, but you always denied it and vilified them. This caused the Andreus great harm. Did it happen?

4) What do you tell your kids?

5) Up until today, everything you've said and done—even that picture on twitter of you and your yellow jerseys—has said to the world that you're not sorry, and that you're the real winner of seven Tours. Aren't you just coming forward now to help yourself, rather than to come clean or set the record straight?

Whatever the answers, a small army of lawyers and even criminal investigators will be listening closely. Will Armstrong's interview be the start of his redemption or the beginning of even bigger problems?

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Mali Islamists counter attack, promise France long war

BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels launched a counteroffensive in Mali on Monday after four days of French air strikes on their northern strongholds, seizing the central town of Diabaly and promising to drag France into a brutal Afghanistan-style war.

France, which has poured hundreds of troops into the capital Bamako in recent days, carried out more air strikes on Monday in the vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance grouping al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM alongside Mali's home-grown MUJWA and Ansar Dine militant groups.

"France has opened the gates of hell for all the French," said Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for MUJWA, which has imposed strict sharia, Islamic law, in its northern fiefdom of Gao. "She has fallen into a trap which is much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia," he told Europe 1 radio.

Paris is determined to shatter Islamist domination of the north of its former colony, an area many fear could become a launchpad for terrorism attacks on the West and a base for coordination with al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

The French defense ministry said it aimed to deploy 2,500 soldiers in the West African state to bolster the Malian army and work with a force of 3,300 West African troops from the immediate region foreseen in a U.N.-backed intervention plan.

The United States, which has operated a counter-terrorism training program in the region, said it was sharing information with French forces and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.

"We have a responsibility to go after al Qaeda wherever they are," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters heading with him on a week-long tour of European capitals.

As French aircraft bombarded mobile columns of Islamist fighters, other fighters launched a counter-attack to the southwest of recent clashes, dislodging government forces from the town of Diabaly, just 350 km (220 miles) northeast of Bamako. French and Malian troops attempting to retake the town were battling Islamists shouting 'Allahu akbar', residents said.

The rebels infiltrated the town overnight from the porous border region with Mauritania, home to AQIM camps housing well-equipped and trained foreign fighters. A spokesman for Ansar Dine said its fighters took Diabaly, working with AQIM members.

Dozens of Islamist fighters died on Sunday when French rockets hit a fuel depot and a customs house being used as a headquarters. The U.N. said an estimated 30,000 people had fled the fighting, joining more than 200,000 already displaced.

France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, convened a U.N. Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss the Mali crisis.

The European Union announced it would hold an extraordinary meeting of its foreign ministers in Brussels this week to discuss speeding up a EU training mission to help the Malian army and other direct support for the Bamako government.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France would do everything to ensure that regional African troops were deployed quickly to follow up on the French military action, which was launched to block a push southwards by the Islamist rebels.

"ORGANISED AND FANATICAL"

"We knew that there would be a counter-attack in the west because that is where the most determined, the most organized and fanatical elements are," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France's BFM TV.

France has said its sudden intervention on Friday, responding to an urgent appeal from Mali's president, stopped the Islamists from seizing the dusty capital of Bamako.

President Francois Hollande says Operation Serval - named after an African wildcat - is solely aimed at supporting the 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS which received U.N. backing in December for a military intervention to dislodge the rebels.

Hollande's robust intervention has won plaudits from Western leaders and has also shot down domestic criticism which portrayed him as spineless and indecisive.

Under pressure from Paris, regional states have said they hope to send in their forces this week. Military chiefs from ECOWAS nations will meet in Bamako on Tuesday but regional powerhouse Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has cautioned that training and deploying troops will take time.

Two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bastion of democracy in turbulent West Africa but that image unraveled after a military coup in March left a power vacuum for MNLA Tuareg rebels to seize the desert north.

MUJWA, an AQIM splinter group drawing support from Arabs and other ethnic groups, took control of Gao, the main city of the north, from the Tuaregs in June, shocking Mali's liberal Muslim majority with amputation of hands for theft under sharia.

Malian Foreign Minister Tyeman Coulibaly said the situation had become "untenable" in the north. "Every day, we were hearing about feet and hands being cut off, girls being raped, cultural patrimony being looted," he told the French weekly Paris Match.

ISLAMISTS DESTROY TIMBUKTU SHRINES

Last week's drive toward Bamako appeared to have been led by Ansar Dine, founded by renegade Tuareg separatist commander Iyad ag Ghali in his northern fiefdom of Kidal.

The group has said that the famed shrines of ancient desert trading town Timbuktu - a UNESCO world heritage site - were un-Islamic and idolatrous. Much of the area's religious heritage has now been destroyed, sparking international outrage.

France's intervention raises the threat for eight French hostages held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara and for 30,000 French expatriates living in neighboring, mostly Muslim states.

Concerned about reprisals at home, France has tightened security at public buildings and on public transport.

However, top anti-terrorist judge, Marc Trevidic, played down the imminence of the risk, telling French media: "They're not very organized right now ... It could be a counter attack later on after the defeat on the ground. It's often like that."

Military analysts warn that if French action was not followed up by a robust deployment of ECOWAS forces, with logistical and financial support from NATO, then the whole U.N.-mandated Mali mission was unlikely to succeed.

"The French action was an ad-hoc measure. It's going to be a mess for a while, it depends on how quickly everyone can come on board," said Hussein Solomon, a professor at the University of the Free State, South Africa.

(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, Brian Love and Catherine Bremer in Paris, Justyna Pawlak and Adrian Croft in Busssels and Louis Charbonneau in New York; writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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Urgent CO2 cuts may spare millions hardship: report

PARIS: Tens of millions of people may be spared droughts and floods by 2050 if Earth-warming carbon emissions peak in 2016 rather than 2030, scientists said on Sunday.

Climate researchers in Britain and Germany said emission cuts now would delay some crippling impacts by decades and prevent some altogether.

By 2050, an Earth heading for warming of 2-2.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 could have two very different faces, depending on the route taken to get there, said their study published in the journal Nature Climate Change

Policies that cap Earth-warming carbon emissions in 2016 and then reduce them by five per cent per year could see between 39 and 68 million people spared exposure to a higher risk of water shortages by 2050, Nigel Arnell of the University of Reading told AFP.

This is the best-case scenario, though.

In contrast, if emissions peak in 2030 and fall by five per cent annually, the number of people who escape this risk drops to between 17 and 48 million.

Similarly, about 100-161 million people would avoid a higher risk of river flooding on the 2016-peak scenario.

This compares to 52-120 million people if emissions peak 14 years later, said Arnell, director of the university's Walker Institute on climate change.

"Basically in 2050, the 2030-peaking policy has about half to two-thirds of the benefit than the best (2016) policy," even though both lead to a similar temperature peak of about 2-2.5 deg C by 2100, he said.

"You may hit the same (temperature) point at the end of the century but... the mayhem that's been caused on the way to that point is different under the different pathways."

Under a scenario without any emissions curbs, temperatures could rise as much as 4-5.5 deg C, said the new paper which claimed to be the broadest assessment yet of the benefits of avoiding climate change impacts.

Global average warming of 4 degrees Celsius would see almost a billion people have less water in 2100 than they have now, and 330 million will be at greater risk of river flooding, Arnell told a pre-release press conference.

A peak in 2016 seems unlikely, with the world's nations aiming to adopt a new global climate pact by 2015 for entry into force only five years later.

The latest round of UN climate talks that concluded in Doha, Qatar in December failed to set pre-2020 emissions cuts for countries that have not signed up to the Kyoto Protocol that seeks to curb warming, even as scientists warned the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere continues to rise.

Three of the world's four biggest polluters -- China, the United States and India -- are among those with no binding emission limits, which cover countries responsible for only about 15 per cent of the world's carbon pollution.

Many scientists believe that Earth is set for warming that will be far above the United Nations' 2 degrees Celsius target on pre-industrial levels.

"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions won't avoid the impacts of climate change altogether of course, but our research shows it will buy time to make things like buildings, transport systems and agriculture more resilient to climate change," said Arnell.

- AFP/jc

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Amateur filmmakers remake 'Toy Story' as live-action movie

Woody and Buzz

The original "Toy Story" took years and $30 million to produce, but a pair of enterprising filmmakers have created a live-action tribute to the Pixar classic with a few toys picked up at the local toy store.

Filmmakers Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta began working on their remake of the 1995 animated children's movie in 2010 and posted the fruit of two and a half years of work yesterday on YouTube. In less than 24 hours, the 80-minute-long movie, titled simply "Live Action Toy Story," has become an Internet sensation, attracting more than a quarter million views.

While Pixar used ground-breaking animation techniques to produce realistic toys, people, and landscapes, the remake's directors employed real people, toys licensed by Pixar, and a video camera to create their tribute film. The film also borrows the soundtrack from the original movie, as well as the voice-overs from actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, who voiced the roles of Woody and Buzz Lightyear, respectively.

The pair reportedly won approval from Pixar before posting their version online.

Their video:

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McChrystal: I regret not finishing the job in Afghanistan

(CBS News) Amid news that the White House is pushing for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal said today on "Face the Nation" he regrets that he didn't get to finish the job there.

"I have regrets that some of the things I was responsible for, I didn't finish," he said, referring to his forced resignation in 2010 over a Rolling Stone article that quoted members of his team making disparaging remarks about President Obama. "I didn't finish the job in Afghanistan. I let down a lot of people that worked for me, 150,000 troops worked for me, the Afghan people, many of them believed deeply in me."

McChrystal said he doesn't believe the Rolling Stone piece "was particularly accurate in the way it represented my team but, you know, I was in command. And the simple elegance of command is, you assume responsibility." In his new book, "My Share of the Task," he said he chose not to devote time pointing fingers over the incident because "I'm not sure Washington needs another book like that."

Though he wouldn't comment on how many U.S. troops - if any - should remain in Afghanistan, McChrystal said while Afghan forces are "improving," they've "got a long way to go."

"When I got [to Afghanistan] in 2002, the country was physically devastated, and morally and mentally traumatized. The society was in tatters," he said. "There's been an awful lot of... progress, but Afghanistan is hard. It's always hard. If you study their history, it's complex and difficult. [Now] there are females in school, there are opportunities, there are places that are secure that were not secure just a few years ago.

"...My question on the future is what do we want in the region; this is not just a case of, al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, and now they largely are not," McChyrstal continued. "I believe Afghanistan can be stable. I think they must take responsibility for their security, the vast lion's share, but I think the strategic partnership that President Obama offered to President Karzai is critical. Not just physically. It's not how many troops and how much money, it's the idea in the minds of Afghans that they have a reliable partner."

As for former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who will face immediate decisions about troop levels in the region if he is confirmed as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's replacement, McChyrstal said while he's only met him once, "I certainly have no problem with him."

Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran, "certainly has a great record, not just as a soldier, but as a senator," he said.

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Thousands Protest in Moscow Against Adoption Ban

Jan 13, 2013 10:37am

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

MOSCOW — Thousands of Russians took to the streets on Sunday to protest Russia’s new ban on adoptions to the United States.

In what organizers called the “March Against Scoundrels” they paraded down a tree-lined boulevard in central Moscow chanting “Hands off our children” and “Russia will be free.” They also carried signs with the faces of Russian politicians who approved the ban and the word “Shame” written on them.

“I am not an apologist for the U.S. I am a patriot of this country. But this monstrous law must be canceled,” leftist protest leader Sergei Udaltsov told the crowd before the march began, according to the Interfax news agency.

As usual, organizers and police disagreed on the size of the crowd. Organizers estimated between 20,000 and 50,000 people turned out. Police put the figure much lower at about 7,000, but overhead photos of the protest appear to show a crowd larger than that.

Significantly smaller protests, some consisting of just a few dozen people, took place in other cities around the country, according to Interfax. A nationwide poll taken in December by the Public Opinion Foundation found 56 percent support for the ban.

But participants in Sunday’s protests accused the ban’s proponents of playing politics with the lives of children.

The adoption ban was a late amendment to a bill retaliating for a set of human rights sanctions that President Obama signed into law in December. It cut off adoptions to the United States, one of the most popular destinations for international adoptions from Russia, starting Jan. 1.

More than 60,000 Russian orphans have been adopted by Americans since the end of the Soviet Union, according to the State Department. Many of them are sick or suffer from disabilities.

READ: Unclear Russian Adoption Ban Frustrates US Families

But Russian officials have pointed to the cases of 19 children who died after being adopted by Americans. They also noted cases in which American parents accused of abusing their adopted children received, in their view, lenient sentences.

Since the law went into effect, Russian officials have struggled to explain whether the ban would cancel 52 adoption cases that had already received court approval and were within weeks of completion. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Thursday that at least some of those adoptions which had cleared the courts would be allowed to proceed, but did to say how many.

The ban was controversial even before it became law. Even though it received nearly unanimous approval from Russia’s rubber stamp parliament, prominent cabinet officials, including Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, came out against the ban. Even President Vladimir Putin himself evaded questions about it when asked during an end of year press conference.

READ: Russians Rally to Help US Adoption Mom Fighting for Child

Since the ban was approved, top Russian officials have pledged to devote more resources to reforming the country’s dilapidated orphanages and to encourage more Russians to adopt.

Sunday’s protest was organized by some of the same opposition leaders who organized last year’s anti-Putin rallies. The last such protest, held without city approval and under heavy police presence, drew relatively few people in December, suggesting the protest movement had fizzled. Protest leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexy Navalny, however, told Interfax today that he hopes the adoption ban could rally more Russians to continue protesting.

SHOWS: World News

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France bombs Islamist stronghold in north Mali

BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - French fighter jets pounded an Islamist rebel stronghold deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's north.

The attack on Gao, the largest city in the desert region controlled by the Islamist alliance, marked a decisive intensification on the third day of French air raids, striking at the heart of the vast territory seized by rebels in April.

France is determined to end Islamist domination of north Mali, which many fear could act as a base for attacks on the West and for links with al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

France's Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French intervention on Friday had prevented the advancing rebels from seizing Bamako. He vowed that air strikes would continue.

"The president is totally determined that we must eradicate these terrorists who threaten the security of Mali, our own country and Europe," he told French television.

In Gao, a dusty town on the banks of the Niger river where Islamists have imposed an extreme form of sharia law, residents said French jets pounded the airport and rebel positions. A huge cloud of black smoke rose from the militants' camp in the city's north, and pick-up trucks ferried dead and wounded to hospital.

"The planes are so fast you can only hear their sound in the sky," resident Soumaila Maiga said by telephone. "We are happy, even though it is frightening. Soon we will be delivered."

Paris said four state-of-the-art Rafale jets flew from France to strike rebel training camps, logistics depots and infrastructure in Gao with the aim of weakening the rebels and preventing them from returning southward.

A spokesman for Ansar Dine, one of the main Islamist factions, said the French had also bombed targets in the towns of Lere and Douentza. Residents said rebel fighters had fled from Douentza aboard pick-up trucks.

France has deployed about 550 soldiers to Mali under "Operation Serval" - named after an African wildcat - split between Bamako and the town of Mopti, 500 km (300 miles) north.

In Bamako, a Reuters cameraman saw more than 100 French troops disembark on Sunday from a military cargo plane at the international airport, on the outskirts of the capital.

The city itself was calm, with the sun streaking through the dust enveloping the city as the seasonal Harmattan wind blew from the Sahara. Some cars drove around with French flags draped from the windows to celebrate Paris's intervention.

AFRICAN TROOPS EXPECTED

More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy, but that image unraveled in a matter of weeks after a military coup in March which left a power vacuum for the Islamist rebellion.

French President Francois Hollande's intervention in Mali has won plaudits from leaders in Europe, Africa and the United States but it is not without risks.

It raised the threat level for eight French hostages held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara and for the 30,000 French expatriates living in neighboring, mostly Muslim states.

Concerned about reprisals, France has tightened security at public buildings and on public transport. It advised its 6,000 citizens to leave Mali as spokesmen for Ansar Dine and al Qaeda's north Africa wing AQIM promised to exact revenge.

In its first casualty of the campaign, Paris said a French pilot was killed on Friday when rebels shot down his helicopter.

Hours earlier, a French intelligence officer held hostage in Somalia by al Shabaab extremists linked to al Qaeda was killed in a failed commando raid to free him.

President Hollande says France's aim is simply to support a mission by West African bloc ECOWAS to retake the north, as mandated by a U.N. Security Council resolution in December.

With Paris pressing West African nations to send their troops quickly, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who holds the rotating ECOWAS chairmanship, kick-started the operation to deploy 3,300 African soldiers.

Ouattara, installed in power with French military backing in 2011, convened a summit of the 15-nation bloc for Saturday in Ivory Coast to discuss the mission.

"The troops will start arriving in Bamako today and tomorrow," said Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast's African Integration Minister. "They will be convoyed to the front."

The United States is considering sending a small number of unarmed surveillance drones to Mali as well as providing logistics support, a U.S. official told Reuters. Britain and Canada have also promised logistical support.

Former French colonies Senegal, Niger and Burkina Faso have all pledged to deploy 500 troops within days. In contrast, regional powerhouse Nigeria, due to lead the ECOWAS force, has suggested it would take time to train and equip the troops.

HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCHES

France, however, appeared to have assumed control of the operation on the ground. Its airstrikes allowed Malian troops to drive the Islamists out of the strategic town of Konna, which they had briefly seized this week in their southward advance.

Analysts expressed doubt, however, that African nations would be able to mount a swift operation to retake north Mali - a harsh, sparsely populated terrain the size of France - as neither the equipment nor ground troops were prepared.

"My first impression is that this is an emergency patch in a very dangerous situation," said Gregory Mann, associate professor of history at Columbia University, who specializes in francophone Africa and Mali in particular.

While France and its allies may be able to drive rebel fighters from large towns, they could struggle to prise them from mountain redoubts in the region of Kidal, 300 km (200 miles) northeast of Gao, where April's uprising began.

Calm returned to Konna on Sunday after three nights of combat as the Malian army mopped up any rebel fighters. A senior Malian army official said more than 100 rebels had been killed.

"Soldiers are patrolling the streets and have encircled the town," one resident, Madame Coulibaly, told Reuters by phone. "They are searching houses for arms or hidden Islamists."

Human Rights Watch said at least 11 civilians, including three children, had been killed in the fighting.

A spokesman for Doctors Without Borders in neighboring Mauritania said about 200 Malian refugees had fled across the border to a camp at Fassala and more were on their way.

In Bamako, civilians tried to contribute to the war effort.

"We are very proud and relieved that the army was able to drive the jihadists out of Konna. We hope it will not end there, that is why I'm helping in my own way," said civil servant Ibrahima Kalossi, 32, one of over 40 people who queued to donate blood for wounded soldiers.

(Additional reporting by Adama Diarra, Tiemoko Diallo and Rainer Schwenzfeier in Bamako, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, Leila Aboud in Paris and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Will Waterman)

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