Insight: UK court reveals fear and mistrust at TNK-BP

LONDON (Reuters) – A former TNK-BP employee may have confessed to fraud out of fear during a meeting in the office of German Khan, the head of the oil company and one of Russia’s most prominent businessmen, according to a British High Court judge.

In the first judicial account of encounters earlier this year between Khan and his former subordinate Igor Lazurenko, testimonies from the two men paint a picture of fear and mistrust at TNK-BP, one of the country’s largest private companies which is half-owned by Britain’s BP.

The actions and methods of Khan and other oligarchs who grew rich from the privatizations of the 1990s are a sensitive issue in Russia, where President Vladimir Putin is trying to increase state control and crack down on profiteering without scaring off investment. The case opens a window on a world where courts, police and imprisonment are seen by many Russians as tools of the wealthy.

Khan, BP and TNK-BP’s other shareholders are trying to fold their business into state oil company Rosneft. Closing the deal, one of the biggest energy takeovers in history, would net them billions of dollars in cash and could make them shareholders in the state company.

BP has secured government approval to acquire Rosneft shares from the state and expects to complete its part of the sale by mid-2013, but Khan’s side of the deal is only partly formed and has no approvals yet. The whole deal is worth $ 55 billion.

“Whilst it is clearly not possible at this stage to make any definitive findings… Mr. Khan’s own evidence provides some support for Mr. Lazurenko‘s evidence that he was coerced into making this confession,” said Andrew Sutcliffe QC, sitting as judge of London’s High Court, in a November 20 decision.

This week, TNK-BP decided not to appeal the judgment, and on Tuesday, Lazurenko’s lawyers were seeking a total of 1.6 million pounds ($ 2.6 million) in costs from the company.

In his 88-page ruling, Sutcliffe dismissed TNK-BP’s attempts to bring fraud charges against Lazurenko, a one-time Russian army officer who was in charge of organizing oil transport contracts. Sutcliffe called TNK-BP’s potential for a case “very weak”, described some claims as “false and misleading” and was critical about its lack of evidence against Lazurenko.

TNK-BP has also abandoned its attempts to stop Lazurenko from publishing certain documents in his possession. Lazurenko has said they provide evidence of high-level corporate and government corruption and implicate high ranking Russian officials. He has not published them.

The claimant in the November 20 ruling is OJSC TNK-BP Holding, the main holding company of TNK-BP. The defendants are Lazurenko, three other individuals, and a number of companies with which he is connected.

TNK-BP alleged that Lazurenko, who worked for the company from 2003 until he quit this year, took bribes and laundered the money through businesses operating in Montenegro. In August, TNK-BP obtained a UK court order that froze 39 million euros ($ 51 million) worth of the defendants’ assets.

The judge’s account in the November 20 ruling reveals a detailed picture of the encounters in Khan’s office.

In one of them, Lazurenko’s testimony says, Khan told him he stood accused of accepting $ 8 million in bribes for oil transport contracts and threatened “strong action” against him and his family if he did not admit to doing so. Lazurenko denied the allegations on that occasion.

As he arrived for a later meeting, Lazurenko says he saw a man sitting outside “who looked to me like he was from the Moscow police or Ministry of Internal Affairs. I find it hard to explain in the English court how and why I formed this impression,” he said, “but I think it would be very obvious to a Russian judge. It relates to the way this individual looked and was dressed.”

Inside, “Khan told me he had someone outside his office who would arrest me unless I admitted that I had received this money and agreed to repay it”.

He said Khan also told him to remember the fate of Viktor Paliy, a business associate of AAR, through which Khan holds his stake in TNK-BP, who ended up in prison.

“I was scared and knew that I could not continue to deny his allegations if I wanted to get out of his office and leave the building. Therefore I admitted the allegation, even though I knew it to be untrue,” the court document cited Lazurenko saying.

Khan, in his testimony, acknowledged that he referred to the implications for Lazurenko’s family, and that he mentioned the fate of Paliy. He said his intention was to persuade Lazurenko to admit to his crimes.

BETTER TO CONFESS

“I may well have said that if he did not make an admission it would cause serious problems for him. I did not say that he had to confess if he wanted to get out of my office freely and leave the building,” said Khan in his testimony.

Khan denied there had been a policeman outside the office, but said “there may have been someone from internal security service, many of whom are former law enforcement officers.”

He went on to say Lazurenko had “a reputation as a very cold, detached individual”, and that any suggestion he was frightened was “wholly ridiculous.”

However, Sutcliffe used more of Khan’s own testimony to back up his judicial view that Lazurenko might have been right to be scared.

“I told Mr. Lazurenko on at least one occasion that he should think about his family,” the judge quoted Khan as saying. “This was not a threat to harm either Mr. Lazurenko or any members of his family … It is a well-known fact that persons accused of economic crimes can spend years in prison even before being tried, and risk having their assets frozen by the state pending trial… I was offering Mr. Lazurenko a sensible alternative. Pay back the money he stole from TNK-BP and thus avoid the risk of prison.”

The judge also noted Khan’s response to Lazurenko’s description of him as “extremely ruthless”.

“As is well known,” Khan said, “Doing business in Russia is not for the faint hearted.”

Asked for a response to the judgment and the judge’s remarks, TNK-BP said in an emailed statement it was “confident in our position and will continue pursuing Mr. Lazurenko in all appropriate jurisdictions.”

It added: “Before fleeing Russia Mr. Lazurenko admitted his wrongdoing against the company… Mr. Lazurenko did not make any reports to the Russian or English police about any coercion.”

A spokesman for Lazurenko said: “The two damning judgments against TNK-BP… bring to an end a seven month campaign instigated by TNK-BP in an attempt to gag Mr Lazurenko and guarantee his silence.

“Despite its vast resources and lengthy investigations, TNK-BP has been unable to produce any evidence to support its allegations against Mr Lazurenko,” he said in an email.

BP and AAR, a consortium holding 50 percent of TNK-BP, both declined to comment on the contents of the court document.

GAGGING ORDER

The separate UK gagging order keeping Lazurenko’s documents secret was lifted on October 16. The judge who lifted it revealed that Transneft, the Russian pipelines monopoly, was named in the corruption allegations. Transneft has declined to comment on the subject. TNK-BP had plans to appeal against the lifting of the injunction, but has since dropped that action too.

The Khan-Lazurenko dispute dates back to March when Khan made Lazurenko the subject of an internal inquiry. In April, Lazurenko resigned and left Russia.

TNK-BP is a 50-50 venture between BP and AAR. AAR is a consortium owned by Khan and fellow tycoons Mikhail Fridman, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik.

BP has been at odds with the AAR shareholders on and off for years. Problems came to a head in 2010 when BP wanted to do business with increasingly powerful Rosneft, and the tycoons resisted. The sale to Rosneft is set to bring the saga to an end.

BP last month won Russian government approval to acquire Rosneft shares from the state holding company Rosneftegaz, a step on the way to securing $ 12.3 billion of cash and an 18.5 percent stake in Rosneft that will raise its holding to 19.75 percent. AAR’s side of the deal is less complete, but Rosneft has said it hopes to agree it in December.

After the acquisition, Rosneft, headed by Putin ally Igor Sechin, will be pumping 4.6 million barrels of oil equivalent, more than U.S.-based Exxon Mobil.

Lazurenko was represented by solicitors Mischon de Reya and TNK-BP by Bryan Cave.

(additional reporting by Doug Busvine in Moscow and Dmitry Zhdannikov in London; editing by Janet McBride)

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Official: Syria moving chemical weapons components

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days, a senior U.S. defense official said Monday, as the Obama administration strongly warned the Assad regime against using them.

A senior defense official said intelligence officials have detected activity around more than one of Syria‘s chemical weapons sites in the last week. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, reiterated President Barack Obama‘s declaration that Syrian action on chemical weapons was a “red line” for the United States that would prompt action.

“We have made our views very clear: This is a red line for the United States,” Clinton told reporters. “I’m not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”

Syria said Monday it would not use chemical weapons against its own people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Syria “would not use chemical weapons — if there are any — against its own people under any circumstances.”

Syria has been careful never to confirm that it has any chemical weapons.

The use of chemical weapons would be a major escalation in Assad’s crackdown on his foes and would draw international condemnation. In addition to causing mass deaths and horrific injuries to survivors, the regime’s willingness to use them would alarm much of the region, particularly neighboring states, including Israel.

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said, “We are concerned that in an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. And as the president has said, any use or proliferation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would cross a red line for the United States. “

Administration officials would not detail what that response might be.

Although Syria is one of only seven nations that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Treaty, it is a party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol that bans the use of chemical weapons in war. That treaty was signed in the aftermath of World War I, when the effects of the use of mustard gas and other chemical agents outraged much of the world.

Clinton didn’t address the issue of the fresh activity at Syrian chemical weapons depots, but insisted that Washington would address any threat that arises.

An administration official said the trigger for U.S. action of some kind is the use of chemical weapons or movement with the intent to use or provide them to a terrorist group like Hezbollah. The U.S. is trying to determine whether the recent movement detected in Syria falls into any of those categories, the official said. The administration official was speaking on condition of anonymity this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The senior defense official said the U.S. does not believe that any Syrian action beyond the movement of components is imminent.

An Israeli official said if there is real movement on chemical weapons, it would require a response. He didn’t say what that might be and spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal government response to the reports of the latest activities.

Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Syrian chemical weapons could slip into the hands of Hezbollah or other anti-Israel groups, or even be fired toward Israel in an act of desperation by Syria.

Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

Its arsenal is a particular threat to the American allies, Turkey and Israel, and Obama singled out the threat posed by the unconventional weapons earlier this year as a potential cause for deeper U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war. Up to now, the United States has opposed military intervention or providing arms support to Syria’s rebels for fear of further militarizing a conflict that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

Clinton said that while the actions of President Bashar Assad‘s government have been deplorable, chemical weapons would bring them to a new level.

“We once again issue a very strong warning to the Assad regime that their behavior is reprehensible, their actions against their own people have been tragic,” she said. “But there is no doubt that there’s a line between even the horrors that they’ve already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilizing their chemical weapons.”

Activity has been detected before at Syrian weapons sites, believed to number several dozen.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in late September the intelligence suggested the Syrian government had moved some of its chemical weapons in order to protect them. He said the U.S. believed that the main sites remained secure.

Asked Monday if they were still considered secure, Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to comment about any intelligence related to the weapons.

Senior lawmakers were notified last week that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected activity related to Syria’s chemical and biological weapons, said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings. All congressional committees with an interest in Syria, from the intelligence to the armed services committees, are now being kept informed.

“I can’t comment on these reports but I have been very concerned for some time now about Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons and its stocks of advanced conventional weapons like shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles,” said House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. “We are not doing enough to prepare for the collapse of the Assad regime, and the dangerous vacuum it will create. Use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be an extremely serious escalation that would demand decisive action from the rest of the world,” he added.

Syria is believed to have one of the world’s largest chemical weapons programs, and the Assad regime has said it might use the weapons against external threats, though not against Syrians. The U.S. and Jordan share the same concern about Syria’s chemical and biological weapons — that they could fall into the wrong hands should the regime in Syria collapse and lose control of them.

___

Klapper reported from Prague. Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Albert Aji in Damascus and Matthew Lee, Kimberly Dozier, and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

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Obama Is Taking Himself and #My2K to Twitter This Afternoon

What a day for Twitter! First the Pope, then the Royal Baby, and now President Obama will come online to answer questions about the fiscal cliff. A @WhiteHouse tweet with the distincitive “-bo” signature, announced not long ago that the big guy himself will be taking questions online, starting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Good to see lots of folks on twitter speaking out on extending middle class tax cuts. I’ll answer some Qs on that at 2ET. Ask w/ #My2k –bo

— The White House (@whitehouse) December 3, 2012

Unfortunately, he’s sticking with the troublesome #My2K hashtag that conservatives have already seized upon in a back-and-forth battle for messaging. Trying to mobilize your supporters through social media is all well and good, but the problem with any genuinely open town hall, is that anyone can invite themselves—even those who disagree with you and might be louder than your friends. (Plus, any reasonably popular hashtag moves much to fast for anyone to follow it or have an actual conversation on Twitter anyway.)

RELATED: Don’t Expect Too Much From Social Media Town Halls

But ask away! Maybe you’ll get luck and get RT’d by the President himself. And then find yourself becoming the next conservative meme as soon as the hashtag-averse pundits start making fun of your question. Should be a fun afternoon.

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A bachelorette no more: Ashley Herbert weds beau

NEW YORK (AP) — Ashley Hebert (AY’-behr) is no longer a “Bachelorette.”

The 28-year-old Maine native got hitched over the weekend in Pasadena, Calif., to 35-year-old J.P. Rosenbaum of Long Island, who proposed to her on the seventh season of the ABC dating reality show “The Bachelorette.” Hebert tweeted that “12/1/12 goes down in history as the best day of my life!!”

Natalia Desrosiers, spokeswoman for Warner Bros. Television, which produces the show, said the wedding will be aired on Dec. 16 on ABC.

Hebert, who also competed on the 15th season of “The Bachelor,” grew up in Madawaska, Maine, and is a dentist. The couple now resides in the New York City area.

Only one other couple that met on the TV show has married. Bachelorette Trista Rehn married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.

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Hormone disorder and the Pill tied to blood clots

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who have a hormone disorder called polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and who take the birth control pill have twice the risk of blood clots than do other women on the Pill, according to a new study.

“For many women with PCOS, (the risks) will be small,” said Dr. Christopher McCartney, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, who was not involved in the new work. “For some women, they might be high enough to say we really shouldn’t use the Pill, such as for women over 35 who smoke.”

The three to five percent of women in the U.S. with PCOS have a hormone imbalance, which can lead to irregular periods, extra hair growth and higher risks for being overweight and developing hypertension and diabetes.

They are often treated with oral contraceptives, many of whose labels already include warnings about blood clots. A blood clot, also called venous thromboembolism, can be deadly if it spreads to the lungs, although none of the cases of blood clots in the study were fatal.

Because women with PCOS already tend to have more heart disease risk factors, researchers wanted to see if the Pill adds any additional risk.

They used medical and pharmacy information from a large health insurance database, including 43,500 women with PCOS.

On average, over the course of a particular year, about 24 out of every 10,000 women with PCOS taking the Pill were diagnosed with a blood clot, compared to about 11 out of every 10,000 women without the disorder using the contraceptive.

“Am I particularly surprised by the findings? No,” said Dr. Shahla Nader-Eftekhari, a professor at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, who treats women with PCOS but was not involved in the current study.

OBESITY PLAYING A ROLE?

The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, could not say for sure why women with PCOS are more likely to have a blood clot.

McCartney said he suspects that obesity has something to do with it.

At the beginning of the study in 2001 the percent of women with and without PCOS who were obese was the same – about 13 percent – but by the end of the study in 2009, 33 percent of women with PCOS and 21 percent of women without the disorder were obese.

“I really think that could be something that’s contributing to the risk,” McCartney told Reuters Health.

“Weight not only contributes to the risks associated with the Pill, it also contributes to some of the symptoms of PCOS and some of the metabolic problems associated with PCOS,” he added.

McCartney pointed out that the risk of developing a blood clot, even among women with PCOS, is still considered small, and shouldn’t necessarily discourage women from taking the Pill.

Steven Bird, the lead author of the study and an epidemiologist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said that the importance of the findings is to raise awareness among women and their doctors that there is an increased risk for them if they take the Pill.

“Although the risk is small, prescribers should consider the increased risk for blood clots in women with PCOS who are prescribed contraceptive therapy,” Bird told Reuters Health by email.

McCartney agreed, and added that it’s also a good reminder for doctors of women with PCOS to discuss the importance of maintaining a healthy weight.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VgvaOa Canadian Medical Association Journal, online December 3, 2012.

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Weight Watchers’ Big Fat Marketing Dilemma

Jessica Simpson isn’t getting fat. She’s just pregnant again. (Of course, she hasn’t yet confirmed the happy news, but her statement to People—”I’m not going to comment on this speculation”—is, in celebrity baby talk, the equivalent of posting a sonogram on her Facebook (FB) page.)

Either way, it’s a potential problem for Weight Watchers (WTW), which signed up Simpson as a spokeswoman less than a year ago. The endorsement deal, worth an estimated $ 3 million, wasn’t supposed to pay out in full until Simpson reached her weight goal. This fall, she was noticeably slimmer, rocking a pair of Daisy Dukes for the paparazzi in L.A.

Now the company has a quandary. No company can control when its spokespeople eat, work out, or procreate, a fact that creates special pitfalls for Weight Watchers and other companies selling the promise of weight loss. Kirstie Alley, star of Fat Actress, starred in commercials for Jenny Craig, only to regain the pounds she’d shed. Even Jared, who slimmed down at Subway, was snapped looking chubby several years after he rose to skinny fame. Weight Watchers declined to comment for this story.

If signing on famous people to lose weight is so unreliable, why do diet companies do it? It certainly would be easier (and cheaper) for Weight Watchers to find a more predictable spokesperson—say, a cartoon character they could slim down at will—or to abandon the spokesperson model entirely.

Grant Johnson, chief executive of Brookfield (Wisc.) marketing agency Johnson Direct, says a company such as Weight Watchers benefits from a recognizable, believable, aspirational person. And Simpson’s $ 3 million deal was small relative to the $ 292 million the company says it spent on marketing in 2011.

Still, there’s maybe a better reason for diet companies to abandon stars: They may not be shining so brightly. Ask the average person to name a favorite Weight Watchers spokesperson—Jessica Simpson, Kirstie Alley, or Marie Osmond—and Johnson doubts any of them would know that Alley sold Jenny Craig, while Osmond repped NutriSystem (NTRI). “It just creates more confusion in the category,” says Johnson.

Even Weight Watchers spokesman Charles Barkley has expressed doubts about being a spokesperson. Earlier this year, the “round mound of rebound” got caught disparaging his endorsement deal on air during a Hawks-Heat basketball game when he thought the microphone was off. “I thought this was the greatest scam going—getting paid for watching sports—this Weight Watchers thing is a bigger scam,” he said. Still, Barkley, who ballooned to 350 pounds and reportedly has a target weight of 270 pounds, remains a spokesperson and had lost 50 pounds by April. And so far, no one has confused him with Marie Osmond.

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Egypt’s anti-Morsi rebellion of judges is complete

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt‘s rebellion of the judges against President Mohammed Morsi became complete on Sunday with the country’s highest court declaring an open-ended strike on the day it was supposed to rule on the legitimacy of two key assemblies controlled by allies of the Islamist leader.

The strike by the Supreme Constitutional Court and opposition plans to march on the presidential palace on Tuesday take the country’s latest political crisis to a level not seen in the nearly two years of turmoil since Hosni Mubarak‘s ouster in a popular uprising.

Judges from the country’s highest appeals court and its sister lower court were already on an indefinite strike, joining colleagues from other tribunals who suspended work last week to protest what they saw as Morsi‘s assault on the judiciary.

The last time Egypt had an all-out strike by the judiciary was in 1919, when judges joined an uprising against British colonial rule.

The standoff began when Morsi issued decrees on Nov. 22 giving him near-absolute powers that granted himself and the Islamist-dominated assembly drafting the new constitution immunity from the courts.

The constitutional panel then raced in a marathon session last week to vote on the charter’s 236 clauses without the participation of liberal and Christian members. The fast-track hearing pre-empted a decision from the Supreme Constitutional Court that was widely expected to dissolve the constituent assembly.

The judges on Sunday postponed their ruling on that case just before they went on strike.

Without a functioning justice system, Egypt will be plunged even deeper into turmoil. It has already seen a dramatic surge in crime after the uprising, while state authority is being challenged in many aspects of life and the courts are burdened by a massive backlog of cases.

“The country cannot function for long like this, something has to give,” said Negad Borai, a private law firm director and a rights activist. ‘We are in a country without courts of law and a president with all the powers in his hands. This is a clear-cut dictatorial climate,” he said.

Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, a rights lawyer, said the strike by the judges will impact everything from divorce and theft to financial disputes that, in some cases, could involve foreign investors.

“Ordinary citizens affected by the strike will become curious about the details of the current political crisis and could possibly make a choice to join the protests,” he said.

The Judges Club, a union with 9,500 members, said late Sunday that judges would not, as customary, oversee the national referendum Morsi called for Dec. 15 on the draft constitution hammered out and hurriedly voted on last week.

The absence of their oversight would raise more questions about the validity of the vote. If the draft is passed in the referendum, parliamentary elections are to follow two months later and they too may not have judicial supervision.

The judges say they will remain on strike until Morsi rescinds his decrees, which the Egyptian leader said were temporary and needed to protect the nation’s path to democratic rule.

For now, however, Morsi has to contend with the fury of the judiciary.

The constitutional court called Sunday “the Egyptian judiciary’s blackest day on record.”

It described the scene outside the Nile-side court complex, where thousands of Islamist demonstrators gathered since the early morning hours carrying banners denouncing the tribunal and some of its judges.

A statement by the court, which swore Morsi into office on June 30, said its judges approached the complex but turned back when they saw the protesters blocking entrances and climbing over its fences. They feared for their safety, it added.

“The judges of the Supreme Constitutional Court were left with no choice but to announce to the glorious people of Egypt that they cannot carry out their sacred mission in this charged atmosphere,” said the statement, which was carried by state news agency MENA.

Supporters of Morsi, who hails from the Islamic fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, claim that the court’s judges remain loyal to Mubarak, who appointed them, and accuse them of trying to derail Egypt’s transition to democratic rule.

In addition to the high court’s expected ruling Sunday on the legitimacy of the constitution-drafting panel, it was also expected to rule on another body dominated by Morsi supporters, parliament’s upper chamber.

Though Morsi’s Nov. 22 decrees provide immunity to both bodies against the courts, a ruling that declares the two illegitimate would have vast symbolic significance, casting doubt on the standing of both.

The Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, sought to justify the action of its supporters outside the court as a peaceful protest. It reiterated its charge that some members of the judiciary were part and parcel of Mubarak’s autocratic policies.

“The wrong practices by a minority of judges and their preoccupation with politics … will not take away the respect people have for the judiciary,” it said.

Its explanation, however, failed to calm the anger felt by many activists and politicians.

“President Morsi must take responsibility before the entire world for terrorizing the judiciary,” veteran rights campaigner and opposition leader Abdel-Halim Kandil wrote in his Twitter account about the events outside the constitutional court.

Liberal activist and former lawmaker Amr Hamzawy warned what is ahead may be worse.

“The president and his group (the Muslim Brotherhood) are leading Egypt into a period of darkness par excellence,” he said. “He made a dictatorial decision to hold a referendum on an illegal constitution that divides society, then a siege of the judiciary to terrorize it.”

Egypt has been rocked by several bouts of unrest, some violent, since Mubarak was forced to step down in the face of a popular uprising. But the current one is probably the worst.

Morsi’s decrees gave him powers that none of his four predecessors since the ouster of the monarchy 60 years ago ever had. Opposition leaders countered that he turned himself into a new “pharaoh” and a dictator even worse than his immediate predecessor Mubarak.

Then, following his order, the constituent assembly rushed a vote on the draft constitution in an all-night session.

The draft has a new article that seeks to define what the “principles” of Islamic law are by pointing to theological doctrines and their rules. Another new article states that Egypt’s most respected Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, must be consulted on any matters related to Shariah law, a measure critics fear could lead to oversight of legislation by clerics.

Rights groups have pointed out that virtually the only references to women relate to the home and family, that the new charter uses overly broad language with respect to the state protecting “ethics and morals” and fails to outlaw gender discrimination.

At times the process appeared slap-dash, with fixes to missing phrasing and even several entirely new articles proposed, written and voted on in the hours just before sunrise.

The decrees and the vote on the constitution draft galvanized the fractured, mostly secular opposition, with senior leaders setting aside differences and egos to form a united front in the face of Morsi, whose offer on Saturday for a national dialogue is yet to find takers.

The opposition brought out at least 200,000 protesters to Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Tuesday and a comparable number Friday to press demands that the decrees be rescinded. The Islamists responded Saturday with massive rallies in Cairo and across much of Egypt.

The opposition is raising the stakes with plans to march on Morsi’ palace on Tuesday, a move last seen on Feb. 11, 2011 when tens of thousands of protesters marched from Tahrir Square to Mubarak’s palace in the Heliopolis district to force him out. Mubarak stepped down that day, but Morsi is highly unlikely to follow suit on Tuesday.

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“Twilight” shines in third box office win over Bond

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The “Twilight” teen movie vampires sucked more money out of theaters over the weekend, leading James Bond, Brad Pitt and the rest of box office pack with $ 17.4 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales and scoring its third weekly win.

Pitt’s new movie, the small-budget gangster film “Killing Them Softly,” bombed with filmgoers who panned it with a rare “F” grade on average in polling by audience survey firm CinemaScore. The movie landed in seventh place with $ 7 million in ticket sales at domestic theaters.

The results were much brighter for “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” the fifth and final film in the “Twilight” vampire and werewolf saga, which has earned $ 254.6 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters since its smash debut on November 16.

The top rankings were similar to last week’s Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Bond movie “Skyfall” starring Daniel Craig as superspy 007 grabbed $ 17 million and held on to second place, according to studio estimates compiled by Reuters. Steven Spielberg‘s historical drama “Lincoln,” featuring a critically acclaimed performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th U.S. president, kept the No. 3 slot with $ 13.5 million.

A week ago, “Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ and “Skyfall” helped push the five-day Thanksgiving weekend to a box office record. The success of the two films, plus upcoming releases such as fantasy prequel “The Hobbit” and musical “Les Miserables,” are likely to power 2012 ticket sales to an all-time high, according to industry forecasts.

As of Sunday, year-to-date sales were running 5.9 percent ahead of the same point in 2011 at $ 9.9 billion, box office tracker Hollywood.com said.

Critics were kinder than audiences to Pitt’s “Killing Them Softly.” Seventy-nine percent of reviews collected on the Rotten Tomatoes website applauded the film, which blends a violent but comic gangster story with criticism of politicians’ failure to address the economic crisis.

In the movie, Pitt plays a hitman brought in by mafia bosses to eliminate a group of thieves who raid a high-stakes poker game. The film is set in an unspecified U.S. city marked by abandoned houses, closed shops and petty criminals and mobsters trying to get by.

The Weinstein Company distributed the movie, which was produced for less than $ 20 million by Annapurna Pictures, Inferno Entertainment, and Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment.

In the No. 4 slot, family movie “Rise of the Guardians” captured $ 13.5 million. The Dreamworks Animation film has taken in $ 48.9 million since its Thanksgiving weekend debut, one of the slowest starts for a movie from the studio behind “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda.”

“Guardians” features the voices of Chris Pine and Alec Baldwin as the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and other childhood favorites who save the world.

Rounding out the top five, survival story “Life of Pi” earned $ 12 million and fifth place. The critically praised film from director Ang Lee is based on a book about a boy stranded on a boat with an adult Bengal tiger. Its two-week domestic total reached $ 48.4 million.

The other nationwide release, horror thriller “The Collection,” took in $ 3.4 million and finished in tenth place. The movie, a sequel to 2009 movie “The Collector,” tells the story of a serial killer who kidnaps women.

“Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ was released by Summit Entertainment, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment. Sony Corp’s movie studio distributed “Skyfall.”

“Lincoln” was produced by Dreamworks and distributed by Walt Disney Co. Viacom Inc’s Paramount studio distributed “Rise of the Guardians.” News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio released “Life of Pi,” and LD Entertainment distributed “The Collection.”

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine and Christine Kearney; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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Geithner dice que republicanos aceptarán mayores impuestos en EEUU

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – El principal negociador fiscal del presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, presionó el domingo a los republicanos para que ofrezcan ideas específicas para reducir el déficit, y predijo que aceptarán un alza de impuesto a los ricos para obtener un acuerdo antes de fin de año que evite la catástrofe económica.

El secretario del Tesoro de Estados Unidos, Timothy Geithner, dijo que depende de los republicanos si Estados Unidos cae en el “abismo fiscal”, una combinación de recortes automáticos al gasto y alzas generalizadas de impuestos que podrían lanzar al país a una recesión.

“Esa es una decisión que está en las manos de los republicanos que ahora se oponen al aumento de tasas tributarias” para los estadounidenses más ricos, un importante punto pendiente en las negociaciones para lograr un acuerdo de reducción del déficit, dijo Geithner a “Fox News Sunday”.

Los sondeos muestran que la mayoría de los estadounidenses está a favor de un alza de impuestos para los ricos y han comenzado a aparecer grietas en la que había sido una sólida oposición republicana a tal medida, por lo que el Gobierno de Obama estima que tiene la ventaja.

Pero el presidente de la Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos, el republicano John Boehner, se mantuvo firme y reiteró su postura contra el aumento de impuestos.

“Este es el problema”, dijo Boehner en una aparición separada en Fox. “Cuando subes las tasas, haces más difícil que nuestra economía crezca”, agregó.

Además, dijo Boehner, si los republicanos acceden a dar a Obama un total estimado de 1,6 billones de dólares en nuevos ingresos por impuestos, “El va a gastarlos”, no va a reducir el déficit.

Boehner también reiteró la oposición de su partido a que el Congreso otorgue al presidente la autoridad de aumentar el límite de deuda de Estados Unidos, un poder que tanto demócratas como republicanos valoran.

“El Congreso nunca va a renunciar a ese poder”, dijo Boehner, explicando que brinda a los legisladores el poder necesario para negociar con la Casa Blanca.

Con el público y los mercados financieros preocupados sobre el “abismo fiscal”, Boehner aprovechó su aparición en televisión para intentar aliviar los temores.

“No quiero ninguna parte de caer en el abismo. Voy a hacer todo lo posible para evitar eso”, dijo Boehner. Pero sostuvo que ambas partes siguen distanciadas cuando queda menos de un mes pasa negociar, agregando “no estamos en ninguna parte”.

Nuevamente se rehusó a entregar detalles específicos de sus propuestas de reducción del déficit, más que repetir que una opción sería terminar con varias deducciones tributarias no especificadas.

“El presidente ha visto varios opciones de nuestra parte. Hay muchas de ellas sobre la mesa y espero que la conversación continúe”, dijo Boehner.

Se esperan más negociaciones esta semana, al menos a nivel de personal. Pero ambas partes han dicho que podría necesitarse otra semana aproximadamente para que las negociaciones se pongan serias.

Un posible escenario es una solución de corto plazo que pospondría el plazo del abismo fiscal en seis meses a un año.

La oferta inicial de Geithner la semana pasada era elevar los ingresos tributarios en 1,6 billones de dólares y al menos 50.000 millones de dólares en nuevos gastos de estímulo económico, además de otorgar efectivamente al presidente la capacidad de aumentar el límite de deuda.

Los republicanos rápidamente rechazaron la propuesta como inaceptable, incluso risible.

“Quedé simplemente atónito”, dijo Boehner.

¿QUE GASTOS SE RECORTAN PRIMERO?

La demócrata de mayor rango de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, reiteró su amenaza de obligar a una votación sobre un plan aprobado por el Senado para extender los beneficios tributarios a la clase media si Boehner no programa una inmediatamente.

“El reloj está avanzando y los puntos muertos son lujos que no nos podemos permitir”, dijo en un comunicado escrito después de que Boehner habló.

El senador republicano Lindsey Graham, en una aparición en el programa “Face the Nation” de CBS, repitió lo que muchos en su partido han predicho. “Vamos a caer en el abismo”.

Al igual que otros republicanos, Graham acusó al Gobierno de no negociar de buena fe al rehusarse a ofrecer recortes significativos al gasto.

El Gobierno insiste en que los republicanos ofrezcan sus recortes primeros, especialmente debido a que Obama ganó la reelección este mes prometiendo que elevaría los impuestos a los ricos.

“Es muy claro para mí que ellos han hecho un cálculo político”, dijo Graham.

“Esta oferta no lidia ni remotamente con la reforma a los programas sociales de manera de salvar a Medicare, Medicaid y la Seguridad Social de una inminente bancarrota”, sostuvo Graham.

En una serie de apariciones en televisión, Geithner insistió en que las tasas tributarias a los más ricos deben subir, y restó importancia a la conflictiva retórica de la semana pasada llamándola “teatro político”.

“La única cosa en el camino (de un acuerdo) sería una negativa de los republicanos a aceptar que las tasas deberán subir para los estadounidenses más ricos. Yo no los veo realmente haciendo eso”, dijo Geithner en “Meet the Press” de NBC.

Los comentarios corresponden a la más reciente ronda de maniobras que se concentran en la extensión de las exenciones tributarias temporales, creadas durante el gobierno del ex presidente George W. Bush, más allá de su vencimiento el 31 de diciembre.

Los republicanos quieren que los beneficios se prolonguen para todos los estadounidenses, mientras que el presidente Barack Obama y los demócratas quieren que las rebajas se apliquen sólo a quienes ganan menos de 250.000 dólares.

Los republicanos, que controlan la Cámara de representantes pero son minoría en el Senado, han expresado su voluntad de aumentar los ingresos mediante la adopción de medidas como limitar las deducciones tributarias, pero la mayoría se opone al aumento de tasas.

“No va a haber un acuerdo sin que las tasas suban”, dijo Geithner directamente en “State of the Union” de CNN.

El vencimiento previsto de los beneficios tributarios de la era de Bush y las reducciones automáticas al gasto del gobierno que deberían aplicarse a comienzos del próximo año restarían cerca de 600.000 millones de dólares de la economía.

(Reporte de Aruna Viswanatha y Thomas Ferraro; Reporte adicional de Anna Yukhananov; Editado en Español por Ricardo Figueroa)

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US budget talks ‘in stalemate’

2 December 2012 Last updated at 11:20 ET

US treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said there will be no deal to avert a “fiscal cliff” unless Republicans accept a tax hike for the wealthy.

But House Speaker John Boehner has dismissed a 10-year plan, which aims to raise $ 1.6tn (£1tn) through tax rises and spending cuts, as “silliness”.

The two men met on Thursday as time runs out to broker a deal.

Economists warn planned tax rises and spending cuts due to take effect on 1 January could trigger a recession.

Mr Geithner, negotiating for the White House, has drafted a plan that includes more spending to help for the unemployed and struggling homeowners, as well as cuts in Medicare and other benefits.

On Friday President Barack Obama warned of a “Scrooge Christmas” if soon-to-expire tax breaks for households earning below $ 250,000 were not renewed as part of the deal to avert the fiscal cliff.

But Mr Boehner, negotiating for the Republicans who control the House of Representatives, said talks with the administration had so far gone “almost nowhere”.

Talk show entrenchment

Mr Geithner and Mr Boehner’s appearances on a number of Sunday television talk shows showed how entrenched their positions were.

“There’s not going to be an agreement without rates going up. There’s not,” Mr Geithner told CNN’s State of the Union.

He called on Republicans to make a counter-offer to the Obama administration’s plan.

But Mr Boehner said he was “flabbergasted” by Mr Geithner’s proposals – which he said asked Congress to give up its power to set the nation’s debt limit.

Continue reading the main story

• Under a deal reached last year by the White House and the Republicans, existing stimulus measures – mostly tax cuts – will expire on 1 January 2013


• Cuts to defence, education and other spending will then automatically come into force – the “fiscal cliff” – unless Congress acts


• The economy does not have the momentum to absorb the shock from going over the fiscal cliff without going into recession

“What do you think would happen if we gave the president $ 1.6tn of new money?” Mr Boehner asked Fox News Sunday. “He’d spend it.”

Mr Boehner says asking the top 2% of US taxpayers to pay more would deal a “crippling blow” to a fragile economy, and has criticised criticised the Obama administration’s proposed spending cuts as inadequate.

The White House has suggested it would not support any deal that did not increase tax rates on the wealthiest.

The fiscal cliff would suck about $ 600bn (£347bn) out of the economy.

The measures were partly put in place within a 2011 deal to curb the yawning US budget deficit.

BBC News – Business

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