Obama hit by Snowden setbacks with China, Russia

WASHINGTON (AP) ? For President Barack Obama, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden's globe-trotting evasion of U.S. authorities has dealt a startling setback to efforts to strengthen ties with China and raised the prospect of worsening tensions with Russia.

Indeed, Russia's foreign minister on Tuesday called U.S. demands for Snowden's extradition "ungrounded and unacceptable."

Relations with both China and Russia have been at the forefront of Obama's foreign policy agenda this month, underscoring the intertwined interests among these uneasy partners. Obama met just last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland and held an unusual two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California earlier this month.

Obama has made no known phone calls to Xi since Snowden surfaced in Hong Kong earlier this month, nor has he talked to Putin since Snowden arrived in Russia.

Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said it wasn't clear that Obama's "charm offensive" with Xi and Putin would matter much on this issue. The U.S. has "very little leverage," she said, given the broad array of issues on which the Obama administration needs Chinese and Russian cooperation.

"This isn't happening in a vacuum, and obviously China and Russia know that," said Harman, who now runs the Woodrow Wilson International Center.

Both the U.S. and China had hailed the Obama-Xi summit as a fresh start to a complex relationship, with the leaders building personal bonds during an hour-long walk through the grounds of the Sunnylands estate. But any easing of tensions appeared to vanish Monday following China's apparent flouting of U.S. demands that Snowden be returned from semi-autonomous Hong Kong to face espionage charges.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, in unusually harsh language, said China had "unquestionably" damaged its relationship with Washington.

"The Chinese have emphasized the importance of building mutual trust," Carney said. "We think that they have dealt that effort a serious setback. If we cannot count on them to honor their legal extradition obligations, then there is a problem."

A similar problem may be looming with Russia, where Snowden arrived Sunday. He had been expected to leave Moscow for a third country, but the White House said Monday it believed the former government contractor was still in Russia.

While the U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, the White House publicly prodded the Kremlin to send Snowden back to the U.S., while officials privately negotiated with their Russian counterparts.

"We are expecting the Russians to examine the options available to them to expel Mr. Snowden for his return to the United States," Carney said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday bluntly rejected the U.S. request, saying Snowden hasn't crossed the Russian border. He angrily lashed out at the U.S. for warnings of negative consequences if Moscow fails to comply.

"We consider the attempts to accuse Russia of violation of U.S. laws and even some sort of conspiracy, which on top of all that are accompanied by threats, as absolutely ungrounded and unacceptable," Lavrov said.

The U.S. has deep economic ties with China and needs the Asian power's help in persuading North Korea to end its nuclear provocations. The Obama administration also needs Russia's cooperation in ending the bloodshed in Syria and reducing nuclear stockpiles held by the former Cold War foes.

Members of Congress so far have focused their anger on China and Russia, not on Obama's inability to get either country to abide by U.S. demands. However, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said in an interview with CNN on Monday that he was starting to wonder why the president hasn't been "more forceful in dealing with foreign leaders."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton echoed the White House's frustration with China. "That kind of action is not only detrimental to the U.S.-China relationship but it sets a bad precedent that could unravel the intricate international agreements about how countries respect the laws ? and particularly the extradition treaties," the possible 2016 presidential contender told an audience in Los Angeles.

Snowden fled to Hong Kong after seizing highly classified documents disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of U.S. phone and Internet records. He shared the information with The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers. He also told the South China Morning Post that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." SMS, or short messaging service, generally means text messaging.

Snowden still has perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said over the weekend.

Hong Kong, a former British colony with a degree of autonomy from mainland China, has an extradition treaty with the U.S. Officials in Hong Kong said a formal U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with its laws, a claim the Justice Department disputes.

The White House made clear it believes the final decision to let Snowden leave for Russia was made by Chinese officials in Beijing.

Russia's ultimate response to U.S. pressure remains unclear. Putin could still agree to return Snowden to the U.S. But he may also let him stay in Russia or head elsewhere, perhaps to Ecuador or Venezuela ? both options certain to earn the ire of the White House.

Fiona Hill, a Russia expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said she expected Putin to take advantage of a "golden opportunity" to publicly defy the White House.

"This is one of those opportunities to score points against the United States that I would be surprised if Russia passed up," Hill said.

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Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-hit-snowden-setbacks-china-russia-070516653.html

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South African stocks recover with global peers, retailers lead

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African stocks, led by blue-chip retail shares such as Truworths, rose on Tuesday in line with a global rebound after reports on manufacturing, business spending and housing added to signs of a pick-up in U.S. economic activity.

Snapping four straight sessions of decline, the benchmark Top-40 index added 1.17 percent to 34,187.43. The broader All-share index rose 1.07 percent to 38,484.19.

Retailers were among the biggest Top-40 gainers, with Truworths bounding 4.4 percent higher to 82.53 rand. Woolworths climbed 3.1 percent to 60.62 rand.

"Woolworths and Truworths have been hard hit not just in last week's pull back but in the last three months when foreigners sold every retail share they could find," said Abri du Plessis, chief investment officer at Gryphon Asset Management in Cape Town.

Both shares are also in a technical rebound from oversold territory, according to Reuters data. Truworths remains down about 24 percent in the year to data

The sector has been hard hit this year by a poor economic outlook for Africa's largest economy, reflected in poor retail sales data, and fading hopes for a domestic interest rate cut which could boost consumer spending.

South African gold and platinum producers extended losses as the bullion price eased in the face of a rising dollar and amid domestic nervousness over upcoming wage talks.

An exception was world No. 4 platinum producer Aquarius, which added 4.6 percent after it announced a one-year wage agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers which will see increases just above inflation - a rare deal in an industry rocked by labour unrest and huge pay demands.

The dollar and global shares recovered on the positive spate of U.S. data and markets also got a lift from Monday's remarks by two policymakers with the U.S. Federal Reserve who downplayed the notion of an imminent end to the central bank's money-printing.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-african-stocks-recover-global-peers-retailers-lead-155722383.html

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Russia, U.S. fail to agree plan for Syria peace talks

By Oliver Holmes and Tom Miles

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) - Talks between the United States and Russia to set up a Syrian peace conference produced no deal on Tuesday, with the powers on either side of the two-year civil war failing to agree when it should be held or who would be invited.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal accused the Syrian government of "genocide" and described the involvement in the conflict of foreign militias backed by Iran as "the most dangerous development".

Washington and Moscow announced plans for the peace conference last month, but their relations have since deteriorated rapidly, as momentum on the battlefield has swung in favor of President Bashar al-Assad.

Washington decided this month to provide military aid to the rebels fighting Assad, while Moscow refused to drop its support for the Syrian leader it has continued to arm.

After five hours of talks in Geneva sponsored by the United Nations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said there was still no agreement over whether Assad's ally Iran should be allowed to attend the conference, or who would represent the Syrian opposition.

The United States and Western European powers have joined Arab countries and Turkey in supporting the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels. Russia and Iran support Assad, who has made gains in recent weeks with the help of thousands of fighters from the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet next week, and further talks on the conference are expected to follow, a U.N. statement said.

In Damascus, Assad's forces fired mortars and shells at Zamalka and Irbin, just east of the government-held city centre, in an assault backed by air strikes, opposition activists said.

Rebels who grabbed footholds in Damascus nearly a year ago say they now face an advancing Syrian military buoyed by support from Hezbollah.

If the insurgents are driven from the capital's eastern suburbs, they would lose supply routes and suffer a heavy blow in their drive to end four decades of Assad family rule.

In Jeddah, Prince Saud repeated Saudi Arabia's call for the rebels to be armed. "Syria is facing a double-edged attack. It is facing genocide by the government and an invasion from outside the government," he told a news conference with Kerry. "(It) is facing a massive flow of weapons to aid and abet that invasion and that genocide. This must end."

The Saudi foreign minister attacked Iranian involvement. "The most dangerous development is the foreign participation, represented by Hezbollah and other militias supported by the forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," he said.

Saudi Arabia, a Sunni state which views Shi'ite Iran as its arch-rival, has increased aid to Syrian rebels in recent months, supplying anti-aircraft missiles among other weapons.

Security in Syria's neighbors Iraq and Lebanon, where the conflict has aggravated Sunni-Shi'ite tensions, has crumbled.

Suicide bombers killed eight people north of Baghdad on Tuesday, a day after 39 people died when 10 car bombs exploded in the capital. Violence has spiraled in Iraq since April.

"GETTING OUT OF HAND"

In Lebanon, clashes between the Lebanese army and gunmen led by an anti-Hezbollah Sunni cleric engulfed the southern port of Sidon on Sunday and Monday. At least 40 people were killed, including 18 soldiers, security sources said.

Sectarian hatred has even flared in Sunni-majority Egypt, where a crowd attacked and killed five Shi'ites on Sunday.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League mediator, urged the United States and Russia to help "contain this situation that is getting out of hand, not only in Syria but also in the region".

Speaking in Geneva before the talks with U.S. and Russian officials, Brahimi said he doubted that the Syria peace conference could take place next month, citing disarray among Assad's political opponents.

More than 93,000 people have been killed in Syria since peaceful protests erupted in March 2011. Assad's violent response helped to provoke what is now a civil war that has driven nearly 1.7 million refugees into neighbouring countries.

Outgunned rebels are looking to Western and Arab nations to help them to reverse Assad's gains. But although the United States announced unspecified military aid this month, it is unclear whether this can shift the balance against the Syrian leader and his allies.

Kerry wants to ensure aid to the rebels is properly coordinated, partly out of concern that weapons could end up in the hands of Islamist militants who are prominent in their ranks. "Our goal is very clear, we cannot let this be a wider war, we cannot let this contribute to more bloodshed and prolongation of the agony of the people of Syria," he said.

(Additional reporting by Mahmoud Habboush in Dubai and Lesley Wroughton in Jeddah; Writing by Alistair Lyon and Peter Graff, editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-military-battles-rebels-eastern-damascus-115452207.html

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The Restaurant of the Future Was Going to Revolve You

Today's restaurants love automation. Whether it's conveyor belt sushi, iPad ordering or drones that bring your food right to the table, restaurant owners are always looking for a gimmick that attracts customers and might just save them some money. But back in the 1920s, an inventor in Michigan had his own idea for automating the restaurant of the future ? instead of bringing the food to the customers, how about bringing the customers to the food?

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/oxu7HMsPPG4/the-restaurant-of-the-future-was-going-to-revolve-you-552797287

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Reaction to court decision on Voting Rights Act

Reactions to Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that halts use of a key provision in landmark Voting Rights Act:

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"I am deeply disappointed with the Supreme Court's decision today... Today's decision invalidating one of its core provisions upsets decades of well-established practices that help make sure voting is fair, especially in places where voting discrimination has been historically prevalent." ? President Barack Obama.

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"I've always felt that it was unconstitutional... I would've agreed in 1965 that something had to be done, but it should've been done to all 50 states. I just always felt that was wrong, that was a violation of the 10th Amendment to begin with, of states' rights." ? Rep. Bill Denny, R-Miss., and chairman of the House Elections Committee.

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"This decision weakens the cause of voting rights in our time, disregards the challenges of discrimination still facing our country, and undermines our nation's ongoing effort to protect the promise of equality in our laws." ? Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

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"We're free and clear to follow through with our law now without any restriction by the Justice Department... Last year I think we spent over a half a million dollars defending our pre-clearance cases. That cost will be eliminated in the future as a result of this opinion." ? Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner.

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"Today's Supreme Court's ruling invalidating the preclearance requirements contained within the Voting Rights Act is a win for fairness, South Carolina, and the rule of law... The court's ruling will hopefully end the practice of treating states differently and recognizes that we live in 2013, not the 1960's." ?Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.

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"Discrimination at the ballot box is a real problem and causes real harm to our democracy. This ruling is a major step backwards in the ongoing fight for a truly free and fair democracy and democratic system." ?Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

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"In striking down the coverage formula in the Voting Rights Act, the court has dramatically undercut Section 5's ability to protect American voters from racial discrimination in voting. The result is that many Americans who were protected by this law will now be vulnerable to discriminatory practices and will have much greater difficulty accessing the ballot box." ? Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

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This is a devastating blow to Americans, particularly African-Americans, who are now at the mercy of state governments. Given last year's attempts by states to change voting rules, it is absurd to say that we do not need these protections." ? Rev. Al Sharpton, president of National Action Network.

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"The court today declared racism dead in this country despite mountains of evidence to the contrary." ? J. Gerald Hebert, executive director and director of litigation at the Campaign Legal Center.

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"Today will be remembered as a step backwards in the march towards equal rights. We must ensure that this day is just a page in our nation's history, rather than the return to a dark chapter." ? Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reaction-court-decision-voting-rights-act-172312726.html

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Ten Tools For Creative Thinking - The Self Improvement Blog

Creative thinking is a skill we can learn and practice as we go through our daily routines. Every problem, stress, or conflict is an opportunity to experiment with a new approach or attitude. Here are some tips for tapping that internal resource:

1. Improv-It: Improvisation is the art of making things up on the spot, but making them up within the form of a game or specific instruction, such as ?tell us about your day as if you are the world?s most depressing newscaster.? Improv games stimulate creative energy by engaging the right-brain?s orientation to novelty within a set of rules that supply the left brain?s search for order and organization. Some ways to do this in daily life include: have a conversation with your kids in which each person?s sentence has to start with the next letter of the alphabet, e.g. ?All of us can play this game,? ?But what if I can?t think that fast?? ?Come on, just try,? etc. At the next work team meeting, have a conversation using only questions, or one where the next person has to use the last word of the person who just spoke.

2. Do the opposite. When Seinfeld?s iconic loser George Costanza attributes his misery to having followed his instincts and decides to do the opposite of his own best judgment, he meets previously unattainable women and lands a job with the New York Yankees. When we choose to approach a situation from a completely different direction than what is ingrained and habitual we experience a degree of uncertainty that triggers the right-brain to search for a new and previously untried response. While we may not realize sitcom-perfect reversals of fortune through use of this technique, we will be gaining a psychological strength that increases our ability to size up unfamiliar situations quickly and respond effectively.

3. Feel the love. Creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety. A 2006 study[i] showed that positive emotions literally expand our field of attention so that we perceive a greater range of choices and are less inhibited about trying them out, part of a growing body of knowledge about the ways that positive emotions promote a creative perspective on the problems of life.

4. Observe synchronicities. True story: In 1981 I spent several months in Australia, where for awhile I had no job, little money and few friends so spent a great deal of time reading and writing at the library (because it was free). The journals of New Zealand short story writer Katherine Mansfield became a source of strength at that time of great uncertainty, after I stumbled upon a quote attributed to her that spoke to my immediate situation: ?Risk! Risk anything!? she wrote. ?Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.? Fast forward to 2001. I write a one-woman show titled Whistling In The Dark about that experience of stepping into uncertainty, and while the show is running at a club in Manhattan I open the Sunday New York Times Book Review section and find a review of a Katherine Mansfield biography that had just come out. The article?s title? ?Whistling In The Dark.? Synchronicities are these kinds of events, co-occurring in ways that have meaning to us but are not causally related. They connect us to intuition, the internal GPS that guides to choose rightly even when the world around us does not approve or understand.

5. Go Within. Maintaining radio silence with the world around us for a period of time makes us more attuned to our inner world where insights, observations and ideas form. No texts, no twitters, no exceptions. Our field of awareness ? generally crowded with the pressures and stresses of getting things done ? needs a chance to disconnect from incoming messages and pressures so that the less structured, seemingly random inspirations and intuitions can bubble up. A busy schedule may take precedence over carving out a piece of quiet, but even a drive to pick up the kids at soccer can be an opportunity if we turn off the radio, breathe slowly at the red lights, and listen.

6. Act as if. Changing a role changes the frame through which we view a situation and opens up a range of new possible responses. New ways of acting follow new ways of thinking, but mental habits take time to change, and as the pace of life escalates we are likely to encounter situations in which we need to take action quickly. We can ?rehearse? for this very real possibility in the course of daiy life by choosing a different role than we usually take in a familiar situation. Talkative and outgoing in a group situation? Practice being the quiet listener or appreciative audience. If the kids? fighting tends to trigger a desire to referee or add to the tension with more yelling, view it through the lense of a sportscaster observing the action but detached from it.

7. Go With The Resistance. Some people complain about things they will do nothing whatsoever to change, and yet we give them our heartfelt attention and counsel. Some people constantly, often insistently, offer advice we neither asked for nor need. Add to those any other of the ingrained personality quirks, the kind that make us feel resentful and drained, and think about this: resistance is futile. We waste precious emotional energy and space in our head trying to change other peoples? behavior, energy we should instead dedicate to creating our lives and engaging with our passions. Give a superficial ?thanks, I?ll think about that? to the advice-giver, a surface empathy to the complainer, and get on with something real.

8. Daydream. When stressful problems need to be addressed, it may seem natural to force ourselves to concentrate and focus on them until we work them out. But new research shows that possible solutions to the more complex problems we are dealing with are more likely to emerge into consciousness when we let our minds wander. [ii]

9. Reframe negativity. Creativity is a kind of psychological ?muscle? that, like physical muscles, becomes more reliable and ready to take things on through training and repetition. We develop it by relating to adversity the way a body-builder relates to weights, as providing the resistance necessary to tone and strengthen a specific set of muscles, i.e., a dominant co-worker likely to grab credit for the team?s hard work can be viewed as a much-needed catalyst for growing our own self-assertion, a draining relationship the stimulus for locating and expressing stronger personal boundaries. By reframing our response to the negative people and situations that are beyond our control to change, we remove their power to control us and become more resilient to the harmful effects of stress.

10. Get Discontented. A common theme that comes up in my training seminars and networking workshops is the disconnect so many talented, successful people feel from their own passions, especially when their work life has no avenue for their expression. One way to re-discover our internal drives is to notice what news articles and stories elicit a strong emotional reaction within us, and follow those feelings. Ask ?what is it about this that gets me fired up? What part of me is activated by knowing this is going on?? Our abandoned passions and gifts are right next to our discontents, so follow the feelings until inertia is no longer an option.

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[i] G. Rowe, et al, ?Positive Affect Increases The Breadth of Attentional Selection? Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2007 104:383-388; published online before print December 20, 2006, doi:10.1073/pnas.0605198104

[ii] K. Christoff, et al ?Experience Sampling During fMRI Reveals Default Network Amd Executive System Contributions To Mind Wandering? Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, May 26, 2009 vol. 106 no. 21 8719-8724

By Jude Treder-Wolff, LCSW, RMT, CGP

Jude Treder-Wolff, author of Possible Futures: Creative Thinking For The Speed of Life, (Lifestage Publications, 2009, http://www.thespeedoflife.org) is a Licensed Certified Social Worker, Registered Music Therapist, and Certified Group Psychotherapist in full-time private practice providing individual and group psychotherapy and addiction treatment, and President of Lifestage, Inc. a consulting company providing training seminars for professional and personal growth, health education, and stress-resilience. As Director of Clinical Services at the YMCA Family Services, she supervised professional and support staff at an community-based agency providing addiction prevention and treatment services, and as a consultant has designed and implemented training seminars for mental health agencies ? including Pederson-Krag, Options for Community Living, YMCA Family Services, Suffolk County Dept. of Mental Health, among others ? and organizations such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Therapeutic Recreation Association, National Association of Social Workers, American Music Therapy Association, and American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, as well as courses for the State University at Buffalo Summer Institute Continuing Education Courses for addiction treatment professionals. She has been published in The International Journal of Arts and Psychotherapy Special Issue on Addiction and Special Issue on HIV/AIDS, Music Therapy Perspectives, Clinical Social Work, and Recovery Press and has been interviewed for articles about creativity and stress-resilience that appeared in New York Newsday, Woman?s Day, L.A. Times, and The Three Village Times. She served as editor of The Psychodrama Network News, the official newsletter of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama from 2001-2007, and currently writes an e-newsletter titled Lives In Progress which is archived online at http://www.lifestage.org

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jude_Treder-Wolff
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Source: http://theselfimprovementblog.com/self-improvement/self-improvement-tips/ten-tools-for-creative-thinking/

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Chamber of Commerce launches ?seven-figure? ad buy in support of immigration effort

By Nadia Damouni and Siddharth Cavale (Reuters) - Tensions started rising at Men's Wearhouse Inc over the past six months, as founder and executive chairman George Zimmer increasingly butted heads with his handpicked CEO over the clothing retailer's strategy. CEO Doug Ewert wanted to sell the company's K&G Fashion Superstore business, while Zimmer wanted to keep it, two sources familiar with the situation said. Zimmer also objected to rising compensation for top executives, including Ewert, while the board thought it was appropriate, the sources said. Zimmer, who is known to U.S. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/chamber-commerce-launches-seven-figure-ad-buy-support-161656853.html

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