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BEIJING – China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, lauded Sunday the outcome of a historic U.N. climate conference that ended with a nonbinding agreement that urges major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts — but does not require it.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the international climate talks that brought more than 110 leaders together in Copenhagen produced "significant and positive" results.
The Obama administration on Sunday also defended the agreement as a "great step forward" — despite widespread disappointment among environmentalists that the pact does not include mandatory targets that would draw sanctions.
"Nobody says that this is the end of the road. The end of the road would have been the complete collapse of those talks. This is a great step forward," White House adviser David Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" show.
Disputes between rich and poor countries and between the world's biggest carbon polluters — China and the United States — dominated the two-week conference. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand action to cool an overheating planet.
The meeting ended Saturday after a 31-hour negotiating marathon, with delegates accepting a U.S.-brokered compromise. The so-called Copenhagen Accord calls for reducing emissions to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) above preindustrial levels. It gives billions of dollars in climate aid to poor nations but does not require the world's major polluters to make deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's disappointing, that we didn't get binding reduction targets," said Danish ex-climate minister Connie Hedegaard, who led the negotiations in Copenhagen. "We've worked very hard to achieve that."
But Hedegaard said the conference was successful in the sense that developing countries are "acknowledging their responsibility for getting the world on track in the fight against climate change."
"Although we regrettably in Copenhagen did not manage to make commitments legally binding, that is a very important step forward, which will probably have far-reaching consequences in the years to come," she said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would work with member states to convert the commitments into a global, legally binding treaty as soon as possible in 2010.
But the international response Sunday was not all rosy.
Former Cuban president Fidel Castro said the agreement was "undemocratic" and called President Barack Obama's address to the conference as "misleading." In one of his regular essays published Sunday, Castro wrote that only industrialized nations could speak at the summit, while emerging and poor nations only had the right to listen.
Bolivian President Evo Morales urged the world to mobilize against the failure of the Copenhagen summit and said that he would organize an alternate climate conference.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, defended the outcome as a first step toward "a new world climate order."
The Bild am Sonntag newspaper quoted her as saying that "anyone who just badmouths Copenhagen now is engaging in the business of those who are applying the brakes rather than moving forward."
China's Yang said the outcome upheld the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" recognized by the Kyoto Protocol, and made a step forward in promoting binding emissions cuts for developed countries and voluntary mitigating actions by developing countries.
Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — that was rejected by the U.S. — 37 industrial nations were already modestly cutting back on their emissions of greenhouse gases. Under the new, nonbinding agreement, those richer nations, including the U.S., are to list their individual emissions targets, and developing countries must list what actions they will take to reduce the growth in their global warming pollution by specific amounts.
"Developing and developed countries are very different in their historical emissions responsibilities and current emissions levels, and in their basic national characteristics and development stages," Yang said in a statement. "Therefore, they should shoulder different responsibilities and obligations in fighting climate change."

"The Copenhagen conference is not a destination but a new beginning," Yang said.

China has said it will rein in its greenhouse gas output, pledging to reduce its carbon intensity — its use of fossil fuels per unit of economic output — by 40 to 45 percent. The European Union has committed to cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared with 1990 levels; Japan to 25 percent, if others take similar steps, and the U.S. provisionally to a weak 3 to 4 percent.

The Copenhagen Accord emerged principally from Obama's meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa. But the agreement was protested by several nations that demanded deeper emissions cuts by the industrialized world.

Its key elements, with no legal obligation, were that richer nations will finance a $10 billion-a-year, three-year program to fund poorer nations' projects to deal with drought and other impacts of climate change, and to develop clean energy.

A goal was also set to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 for the same adaptation and mitigation purposes.

In a U.S. concession to China and other developing nations, text was dropped from the declaration that would have set a goal of reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2050. Developing nations thought that would hamper efforts to raise their people from poverty.

Despite the lack of mandatory targets, Axelrod defended the agreement and credited Obama's leadership for winning the cooperation of other major economies.

"Now, China, India have set goals. We're going to be able to review what they're doing. We're going to be able to challenge them if they don't meet those goals. We're going to pursue this anyway, because the president understands that our future lies with a clean energy economy," he said.

LINCOLN, Neb. – Kelsey Griffin had 30 points and 14 rebounds in leading No. 20 Nebraska to a 77-63 win over No. 5 LSU and extend its school-record winning streak to 11 games.
The Cornhuskers (11-0) are off to their best start in school history after handing the Tigers (9-1) their first loss of the season Sunday.
LSU is the highest-ranked opponent Nebraska has beaten since a triple-overtime win over a second-ranked Baylor team in the 2004-05 season.
The Cornhuskers jumped to a 21-4 lead before the Tigers pulled to 41-36 early in the second half. But Nebraska went on a 12-2 run and led by double digits the rest of the game.
Cory Montgomery added 16 points and Dominique Kelley 13 for Nebraska. Allison Hightower had 15 points and Katherine Graham 12 for LSU.
LSU had beaten its first eight opponents by an average of 32 points and had allowed a total of 97 points in its last three games.
Griffin led a balanced offense and Nebraska's defense forced LSU into bad shots throughout the game. Griffin made 12 of 19 shots, doing most of her damage under the basket, often on second-chance shots.
LSU, which shot 39.3 percent, had trouble early dealing with Nebraska's full-court man-to-man defense, missing 12 of its first 14 shots.
Hightower scored nine points in an 18-6 run that got LSU back in the game. The Tigers were within five after Latear Eason stole the ball from Kelley and passed to Hightower, who drove the length of the court for a layup.
But the Huskers pulled away again, with Kelley putting back a Griffin miss and Yvonne Turner hitting a jumper to start the decisive run that put Nebraska ahead 53-38.
Kelley, assigned to cover Hightower, held the Tigers' star guard to 7-of-21 shooting.
Foul trouble also plagued the Tigers. LaSondra Barrett drew her fourth foul 2:55 into the second half. Eason was called for her fourth with 14:58 left and Katherine Graham her fourth with 11:28 left.
Tigers coach Van Chancellor's frustration showed early. He drew a technical less than eight minutes in for walking onto the court while yelling and pointing a finger at an official.
Kelley made the free throws and, after Lindsey Moore drew a charge by Eason, Montgomery hit a 3-pointer to give the Huskers their 21-4 lead.

PARIS (AFP) –
Global temperatures could rise substantially more because of increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study by US and Chinese scientists released Sunday.

The researchers used a long-term model for assessing climate change, confirming a similar British study released this month that said calculations for man-made global warming may be underestimated by between 30 and 50 percent.

The new study published online by Nature Geoscience focused on a period three to five million years ago -- the most recent episode of sustained global warming with geography similar to today's, a Yale University statement said.

This was in order to look at the Earth's long-term sensitivity to climate fluctuation, including in changes to continental icesheets and vegetation cover on land.

More common estimates for climate change are based on relatively rapid feedback to increases in carbon dioxide, such as changes to sea ice and atmospheric water vapour.

Using sediment drilled from the ocean floor, the scientists' reconstruction of carbon dioxide concentrations found that "a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago."

They also found that the global temperature was between two and three degrees Celsius (3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today even though carbon dioxide levels were similar to the current ones, the statement said.

"This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth's climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in political circles," said the paper's lead author, Yale's Mark Pagani.

"Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level," he said in the statement.

The study was published on the heels of a 12-day UN conference in Copenhagen that was aimed at providing a durable solution to the greenhouse-gas problem and its disastrous consequences but was labelled a failure by critics.

The meeting set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.

The British study released on December 6 had also researched the Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago.

WASHINGTON – The Senate cleared its year-end plate of some must-do work Saturday as it passed a critical budget bill that blends money for the Pentagon with additional help for the jobless.
The early morning 88-10 vote, taken as a blizzard buffeted the Capitol, permitted lawmakers to resume their acrimonious debate on health care, which Democrats now expect to finish by Christmas. The spending measure now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.
It wraps up work on perhaps Congress' most fundamental job: funding the annual budgets of Cabinet agencies and the rest of the government.
But the $626 billion defense bill measure also demonstrated the failings of a Congress unable to address many of its most pressing tasks, such as passing a highway bill and making sure doctors don't absorb a 21 percent hit in Medicare payments. In a boon for the wealthy, the estate tax temporarily will expire Jan. 1, even as people inheriting smaller amounts will face larger capital gains bills.
Having run out of time and patience, Democrats used the must-pass Pentagon measure to drag along several two-month extensions of expiring legislation. They include unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, health care subsidies for those out of work, highway and transit money and parts of the terrorism-fighting Patriot Act.
Resolving those issues in February would clutter next year's agenda as Obama's Democratic allies turn to trying to rein in the spiraling budget deficit and passing his upcoming request for additional troops in Afghanistan, which promises to be a very difficult task.
The impressive vote Saturday was evidence of the broad support for paying for troops fighting overseas and other elements of the Pentagon budget. The path to that point, however, was poisoned with partisanship as Republicans sought to derail the measure in an effort to stretch out action on health care past Christmas.
"Senate Republicans have made us jump through every procedural hurdle just to have this vote and threatened to block funding for our troops — all in order to delay us from debating health care reform," said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "It is incomprehensible that Republicans would even threaten to stop funding our troops and helping those who are struggling."
Just four Republicans joined with Democrats on an important test requiring 60 votes. Confident that Republicans such as Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi would vote with them, Democratic leaders gave the OK for Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent and Orthodox Jew who caucuses with Democrats, spend the eighth night of Hanukkah with his family.
Others strapped on their snow boots, grabbed their parkas and trooped to a Capitol that was engulfed in a whiteout by noon.
A Christmas eve vote looms on the health care bill. After that, the Senate also must deal with one other politically sensitive measure: raising the $12.1 trillion debt ceiling by $290 billion so the Treasury can continue to borrow to keep the government running and avoid a first-ever default on U.S. obligations.
The defense bill, which contains $128 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and a 3.4 percent pay raise for the military, enjoyed wide support. Just nine Republicans opposed pork barrel projects and some of the add-ons voted against the bill, as did anti-war Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.
To ensure there's enough time for the formal process of getting that bill to Obama, the Senate immediately approved a temporary measure to fund Pentagon operations through Dec. 23.
The bill caps a battle between Obama and Congress over weapons systems. Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates prevailed in their effort to kill the super-expensive F-22 fighter program and a much maligned and over-budget new presidential helicopter.
But proponents of an alternative engine for the next generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter outmaneuvered the administration, saving jobs in Ohio, Indiana and other states. The main F-35 engine is built in Connecticut by Pratt & Whitney, a division of United Technologies Corp.
In twin victories for the Boeing Co., the Senate measure includes $2.5 billion to fund 10 C-17 cargo planes assembled in Long Beach, Calif., which were not requested, and money for nine more F-18 Navy fighters than Obama requested. They would be assembled in St. Louis.
The president has yet to request funds for his recently announced troop increase in Afghanistan, and there is no money in the bill for that.
The measure also trims personnel and maintenance accounts from previous versions of the measure to pump up weapons procurement for Afghanistan and Iraq by almost $2 billion.

The defense measure would trim $900 million from the Pentagon's $7.5 billion budget to train Afghan security forces. It would use the money to buy about 1,400 additional mine-resistance vehicles suited for rugged conditions in Afghanistan. Lawmakers say the training program can't absorb that much money in the coming year, so they used it for other purposes.

The measure also caps an emotional debate over closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. While it omits Obama's $100 million request to close the facility, it permits Guantanamo detainees to be transferred to the U.S. to stand trial.

NEW ORLEANS – A perfect record would have been lagniappe, as they say in Louisiana — a little something extra.
The history-making achievement the Saints and their fans really covet is a first Super Bowl appearance, which is all that's left to accomplish now that Tony Romo and Dallas ended their December doldrums at New Orleans' expense.
Drew Brees and the Saints are marching toward an unbeaten season no more after their frenzied rally fell short in a 24-17 loss to the Cowboys on Saturday night.
"This is going to sting for a while but we've got to be able to put this behind us," Brees said, noting that the Saints remain in control to finish the No. 1 playoff seeding in the NFC. "It's all about the next game."
Romo threw for 312 yards, including a 49-yard touchdown to Miles Austin, and DeMarcus Ware punctuated his comeback from a neck injury with a game-sealing strip of Brees.
The loss by the Saints (13-1) left the Indianapolis Colts (14-0) as the NFL's only unbeaten team this season.
"We'll digest this," Saints coach Sean Payton said. "Nonetheless, it is what it is and we've got to get back to work next week. We have two important games in front of us and we'll take that approach."
The Saints' start had New Orleans hoping its team could go 19-0 and win the Super Bowl after so many years of losing and heartbreak. It was seen by some as a symbol of New Orleans' ability to come back better than before from the epic disaster that was Hurricane Katrina a little more than four years ago.
Brees had sensed all of that, and made no secret that he wanted the Saints to go for it.
"We feel like we deserved it and the whole city deserved it and we wanted to make it happen," Brees said. "That's probably the most disappointing thing about it."
Instead, the Cowboys (9-5) overcame failures of a more recent nature, ending a two-game skid and proving they were good enough to beat the top team in the NFC in front of a charged-up, hostile crowd. They came to New Orleans 3-8 in December games in their last three seasons under coach Wade Phillips, who was finding himself increasingly on the defensive about his club's ability to play well down the stretch.
Dallas dominated early, scoring on its first two possessions to take a 14-0 lead and went up 24-3 on Marion Barber's second short TD run of the game in the third quarter. Then the Cowboys held on despite Nick Folk's surprising missed 24-yard field goal shortly before the 2-minute warning.
"I said all along this team has a lot of heart, a lot of character and a lot of leaders," Phillips said. "I didn't think this team could get beat three times in a row."
The high-powered Saints nearly pulled off what would have been the latest of several improbable comebacks.
Mike Bell's 1-yard run made it 24-10 with 12:35 to go. Brees followed that by capping a seven-play, 70-yard drive with a 7-yard touchdown pass to Lance Moore with 8 minutes left, cutting New Orleans' deficit to 24-17.
That left it up to the Saints' defense to hold once more. Dallas faced a third-and-7 on its own 23 and the crowd was going so wild Romo had to call timeout a moment before the play clock expired.
The noise was still deafening when Romo returned to the line of scrimmage, but that didn't stop him from finding Austin on a short crossing route for a 32-yard gain.
"We did what we knew we had to do on that drive," Romo said. "We all know how good their offense is so we had to move the ball on them."

On the next play, Romo spun away from the rush and hit tight end John Phillips for a 23-yard gain to New Orleans' 22. From there, Dallas went conservative and set up what looked to be a game-sealing field goal from nearly the same distance as Shaun Suisham's miss two weeks ago, which allowed the Saints to come back and beat Washington in overtime.

When Folk's kick bounced off the upright, the crowd erupted, sensing the Saints were simply destined not to lose. And it looked that way after Brees converted a frantic fourth down on a pass over the middle to Marques Colston, who made a one-handed catch.

The Saints marched to midfield in the final minute, but the Cowboys held firm. Ware stripped Brees for the second time in the game and lineman Jay Ratliff recovered, silencing the packed Superdome while the Cowboys leapt in the air and embraced one another.

"That was a fun one," Romo said. "These are the ones you love to play."

Ware had to be taken to the hospital only a week earlier after what looked like a serious neck injury in Dallas' loss to San Diego. He didn't practice fully all week, but said he was feeling better and was cleared to play. He certainly looked rested and healed.

He sacked Brees twice, forcing fumbles that the Saints' lost both times. The first one set up a field goal that gave Dallas a 17-3 lead at halftime. Linebacker Anthony Spencer also had two sacks.

Very little went right for Brees, who was intercepted once, sacked four times and pressured all night. Even what looked like a certain 36-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter slipped through Devery Henderson's hands in the end zone. Brees was sacked by Spencer soon after and that drive ended with a punt.

NOTES: The Cowboys outgained the Saints, 439 yards to 336, holding the Saints 90 yards and nearly 19 points below their averages in those categories. The Saints, who came in converting nearly 48 percent of third downs this season, converted only one of seven. ... Miles caught seven passes for 139 yards, going over 1,000 yards for the first time in his four-year career. ... Reggie Bush pulled up lame in the second quarter, favoring his right leg, and did not return. The Saints did not provide an update on his condition.

CONCORD, Calif. – Oh Christmas tree, how puny are your branches.
That's the first reaction by many people to the lopsided brownish tree decorated by the city of Concord this year for the holiday.
"This thing looks like it's dead and it's leaning over," Concord resident Bill Gram-Reefer said Wednesday. "It just doesn't evoke a Christmas tree to me."
Adds resident Pat Breen: "It's kind of sad after all the nice trees that Concord has had."
Officials said budget woes forced them to forgo a freshly cut, full-bodied tree for one that was already growing in a city plaza.
"We had to cut $8 million out of our budget and had to lay people off, so we had to figure out a way to share the spirit of the season while still cutting expenses," explained Mayor Guy Bjerke.
He said the city would have ended up spending about $23,000 for a cut tree had they not opted to use the one growing in Todos Santos Plaza. The city chose the tree over other fuller trees in the plaza because of its location near an electrical outlet and away from the road.
While onlookers have described it as pathetic, scraggly and a sad reflection of the economy, it is getting a lot of attention and even finding supporters.
"It's unique! It's a unique tree, and no one else has anything like it," remarked resident Jo Ellen Keith.
It's also drawing comparisons to the puny tree that Peanuts' character Charlie Brown picks out in the classic animated TV special. City officials hope their tree reminds all who see it of the true spirit of the season, just as Charlie Brown's did for the Peanuts characters.
Concord resident Carol Mason has no problem with that message.
"It makes a statement, and I think it's good," she said. "It's good."

Scenes from White House Christmases past, as recounted in the book "Christmas at the White House," by Jennifer B. Pickens:
FIRST TREE
The first known Christmas tree at the White House was in the tenure of Benjamin Harrison, who helped trim one in the upstairs library with friends, family and staff. "We shall have an old-fashioned Christmas tree for the grandchildren upstairs and I shall be their Santa Claus myself," Harrison exclaimed.
TEDDY'S TREES
Conservationist Theodore Roosevelt resisted the idea of chopping down a Christmas tree as a waste of resources. His children sneaked one into the White House and decorated it anyway. Roosevelt eventually lifted his ban.
MAMIE'S TREES
Mamie Eisenhower was Roosevelt's opposite: She set a long-standing record of 26 Christmas trees in the White House — including one in the laundry room.
CHRISTMAS THEME
Jacqueline Kennedy began the tradition of a theme for White House Christmases when she chose to decorate a tree in the Blue Room with items evoking Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." There were 10 other trees on the main floor of the White House — all but two of them undecorated — and several more upstairs in the family quarters. The White House grounds superintendent thought it a "massive" number of trees compared to the one or two requested by most previous administrations.
MOURNING SEASON
After John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, a month of mourning was declared. On the evening of Dec. 22, new President Lyndon Johnson lit the National Christmas Tree behind the White House. The next morning, the black mourning crepe that had been draped over doorways and chandeliers in the White House was replaced with holly, wreaths and mistletoe. Lady Bird Johnson later wrote, "I walked the well-lit hall for the first time with the sense that life was going to go on, that we as a country were going to begin again."
WHAT EVERY GIRL WANTS
In 1977, a surprise gift arrived for 10-year-old Amy Carter — a red, white and blue chain saw. A young friend of Amy's had reported that the first daughter wanted a chain saw for Christmas because "she likes the way they work." A White House spokeswoman later clarified, "I think Amy might have said 'train set,' not 'chain saw.'" Nonetheless, more chain saws arrived.
AH-CHOO!
President Ronald Reagan caught Nancy Reagan under the "kissing ball" of mistletoe that hung in the Grand Foyer in 1981. But Reagan's allergies couldn't handle some of the other floral arrangements, and the plants had to be exiled to spots in the White House that the president rarely visited.
HEY, ISN'T THAT ...
... Barbara Bush? In 1991, a needlepoint club, White House staff and volunteers, made 1,370 needlepoint ornaments, some of which had a resemblance to the first lady. One six-inch angel, for example, was wearing a three-stranded pearl necklace. Mrs. Bush joked to reporters, "There are a lot of white-haired, fat, pearled ones."
HOUSE OF SOCKS

The 1993 White House gingerbread house was dubbed the "House of Socks," in honor of the Clintons' cat. Pastry chef Roland Mesnier outfitted the gingerbread house with 21 marzipan figures of Socks in various poses, including the cat hauling Santa's sleigh, ice-skating, playing a "Soxaphone," and posing as a Secret Service agent.

BARNEY CAM

With public access to the White House more restricted in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, first lady Laura Bush sent the family's terrier, Barney, out to prowl the building with a little camera attached to his collar in 2002. Barney Cam's 4.5-minute video tour of the mansion decorations got 24 million views in its first day on the White House Web site and his movies became an annual feature after that.

___

Source:

"Christmas at the White House," by Jennifer B. Pickens, published in 2009 by Fife & Drum Press.

KABUL – U.S. commanders in Afghanistan are reporting a sudden surge in Afghan army recruits this month, a much-needed boost after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his security forces may not be able to take over from U.S. troops for up to five more years.
The uptick followed an autumn slump in Afghan army recruitment, and U.S. military officials attributed the sudden jump to promised pay hikes rather than President Barack Obama's announcement that U.S. troops will start leaving in 18 months.
"If we continue recruiting like we did, we'll make it," Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, head of the Afghan training mission, told reporters on Wednesday.
The Obama administration had earlier this year outlined a goal of setting up a viable security force of 400,000 by 2013, and Caldwell was measuring his progress against that figure. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, however, has backed off the goal of 400,000 in recent weeks.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal told Congress on Tuesday that regular measures of the size of the insurgency and the capability of the Afghan forces will be more useful than the hard target, but he estimated the total could be near 300,000 by July 2011, when U.S. forces begin drawing down.
The latest recruiting figures were a small bright spot in the otherwise slow and troublesome effort to blunt the Taliban while building a capable Afghan security force.
Afghanistan's ability to independently defend itself against attacks from Taliban and al-Qaida fighters is the linchpin in Obama's exit strategy, which envisions that U.S. troops would start to leave in July 2011 following the deployment of 30,000 more U.S. troops this year.
Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told reporters during a visit by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Wednesday that the Taliban is already using the withdrawal date of 2011 in its propaganda to locals to suggest the U.S. is weak and losing the war. But the date also has placed a valuable sense of urgency on the Afghanistan government, he said.
The American timetable for a sustainable, trained Afghan security force is considerably more optimistic than the one laid out this week by Karzai. Standing beside Gates on Tuesday, Karzai said it will take five years before his forces will lead security operations and another 15 to 20 years before Afghanistan could pay for such a large force.
On Wednesday, Rodriguez and Caldwell said the sudden uptick of Afghan recruits in December was not believed to be the result of Obama's announcement. Rather, he said increased pay for police officers and extra money for soldiers engaged in heavy combat has helped breathe new life into the training effort.
Caldwell said 2,659 Afghan recruits signed up in the first seven days of December, compared to 831 in all of September.
Pay is a big hurdle.
For example, the Afghanistan government recently increased to $240, from about $180, the monthly pay given to a freshly recruited soldier deployed to the troubled Helmand province.
Taliban pay is reported to be anywhere from $250 to $350 a month.
"The real criteria is feeding their family," Rodriguez said.
Gates this week arrived in Afghanistan in the first Cabinet-level trip since Obama's Dec. 1 announcement. Gates carried the message to Karzai directly that the U.S. commitment was not open-ended, but also that the U.S. would not abandon Afghanistan's struggle.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong is headed to Louisville.
School spokesman Kenny Klein says the school is planning a press conference Wednesday afternoon to introduce Strong as its new head coach.
Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich flew to Gainesville, Fla., on Wednesday to meet with Strong and bring him back to Louisville, where the hire will be presented to the Athletic Association's board of directors for approval. A board meeting is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. EST.
Strong will replace Steve Kragthorpe, who was fired Nov. 28 following three disappointing seasons with the Cardinals.
Terms of Strong's contract were not yet completed. He has spent the last seven seasons at Florida helping mold the Gators into one of the top defensive teams in the country.

WASHNGTON — Days after his boss said that there was no new intelligence on the whereabouts of al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden , the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan told Congress Tuesday that killing or capturing bin Laden is critical to defeating the terrorist organization.

Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the top Afghanistan commander, said, however, that he could not promise that his new military strategy would lead to bin Laden's capture because when the al Qaida leader moves outside of Afghanistan , chasing after him "is outside my mandate."

McChrystal's comments underscored a key contradiction in President Barack Obama's new Afghanistan strategy: While it dedicates thousands of additional troops to combating the Taliban in Afghanistan , it adds few resources aimed at the policy's stated goal: "disrupting, dismantling and defeating" al Qaida .

"I believe he is an iconic figure at this point whose survival emboldens al Qaida as a franchise organization across the world," McChrystal told the Senate Armed Services committee . "I don't think we can defeat him until he is captured or killed."

In the last week top administration officials have offered conflicting statements about what the United States knows about bin Laden's whereabouts. While McChrystal suggested Tuesday that bin Laden is in neighboring Pakistan , retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones , Obama's national security advisor, said Sunday that bin Laden sometimes crosses the Afghan-Pakistan border.

And over the weekend, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told ABC's "This Week" that the United States had not had strong intelligence on bin Laden's whereabouts for years.

Bin Laden has eluded U.S. capture since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, most notably at the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001. The special operations task force assigned exclusively to find bin Laden was disbanded by 2005.

"If, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time," Gates told ABC .

McChrystal and Karl Eikenberry , the U.S. envoy in Afghanistan , appeared before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Tuesday to answer questions about the Obama administration's new Afghanistan strategy, which calls for the deployment of between 30,000-35,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan by next summer. Most of those troops are to be assigned to southern Afghanistan , where the Taliban controls large swaths of the county.

Besides improving security, those forces are expected to train Afghan security forces to take over. McChrystal said that he expects the Afghan security forces — police and army — to expand to 300,000 by July 2011 — when Obama said U.S. troops would begin to withdraw. The total currently is about 188,000, with 96,000 of those belonging to the army.

McChrystal said he had not recommended July 2011 as the date to start the withdrawal. But he said that that date provides the United States enough time to weaken the Taliban's hold and build up the Afghan security forces. He did not say what the United States would do if U.S. forces hadn't made that kind of progress by then.

Eikenberry, who had expressed doubts about the strategy during the administration's three-month deliberation, said Tuesday he supported the strategy.

Military officials believe a Taliban -controlled Afghanistan will provide safe haven to al Qaida and its leadership. McChrystal estimated that between 24,000-27,000 full-time Taliban fighters operate in Afghanistan .

In the past, officials have said that killing bin Laden is not critical to defeating al Qaida , saying that they believe al Qaida's leadership is decentralized and that stabilizing the countries where they operate is a more attainable goal.

On Tuesday, however, McChrystal said that the goals are interlinked. "Rolling back the Taliban is a prerequisite to the ultimate defeat of al Qaida ," he said.

There are currently 69,000 U.S. troops and 41,000 coalition troops in Afghanistan . The first of the surge troops are slated to arrive by Christmas.

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Follow Washington developments at McClatchy's Planet Washington .

The Nation --

Tonight President Obama will announce his new Afghanistan policy. By all accounts it will be one of military escalation. This is a tragic moment--both for the nation and his presidency--and it is one I had hoped the President would avoid by courageously leading us in a wiser direction, one that views 21st century challenges anew, in fresh and necessary ways.

It is true that Obama would have needed real political courage to extricate himself from his predecessor's war. He would have faced toxic blowback from a military and media establishment poised to attack. But in a war-weary nation, amidst great economic trouble, he could have used his great oratorical and political skills to marshal people of all kinds to his side.

Instead, with this escalation, we see the continuing grip of the National Security State--whose premises have been shared by the conservative and liberal hawks for close to 60 years, and which essentially remain unchallenged among the establishment and the mainstream media. Obama will now be held hostage to this mindset as a war bequeathed to him by a reckless and destructive administration becomes his own war.

This retro thinking and failure to explore real alternatives to military escalation reveal a deeper structural problem--the fact that there are too few countervailing voices or centers of power and authority to challenge the liberal hawks and interventionists, and very few if any are allowed to enter the halls of power. The political establishment works from its narrow consensus; meanwhile, the media fails to offer a full range of views.

Our challenge now as progressives is to begin to lay the groundwork so that the failed National Security States premises are exposed as ones no longer suited to addressing central challenges and threats of our time--from global pandemics and economic inequality and instability, to nuclear proliferation and, yes, decentralized networks of terrorists. We need structural reform if were to have a rich and deserved contest of ideas and views in our politics and society.

As James Carroll argues in a Boston Globe op-ed, "The time when new thinking is most needed is before war starts, and we must put in place the structures of new thought that will prevent its repetition."

How do we build pressure for structural reforms and the changes we believe in? How do we change the paradigm so that we expose the retro National Security State as the failure it is? The structural problem demands action on several fronts. We need a serious think/do tank on national security issues which is capable of contesting the underlying premises for specific interventions, and also challenging the prevailing assumptions underlying the National Security state. It also needs to work closely with progressive organizations with ties to the grassroots in order to build a broad-based movement for change.

If we dont look at the structural issues, we will always be fighting against the latest, newest, terrible, bad person/country that requires invading, occupying, or bombing with the latest weapon. We will also continue to lose reform-minded leaders to the powerful post-Cold War Military-Industrial-Terrorism complex. Its not hard to see how a Democratic candidate and now President like Obama--relatively unschooled in security issues--got caught up in establishment thinking. In choosing his foreign policy team, he looked to experienced advisors from the last Democratic presidency--a Clinton administration replete with establishment Democrats.

And then theres the example of Lyndon Johnson, a Southerner, a master of the Senate, who did not have political courage to face down his military and counterinsurgency best and the brightest. Listen to the tapes of his conversations with his friend and mentor, Senator Richard Russell, and you hear a man who would face down almost anyone but was terrified of his right-wing, terrified of being called "soft." So how do we change the meaning of "being tough" in the 21st century?

I believe we progressives/ethical realists/clear-minded people/citizens who believe in common sense--share some blame in not building a powerful alternative foreign policy bench to compete with these counterinsurgency experts populating DC think tanks and Congress. Structural reform must now be the work for thinkers and activists working with elected officials who are open to understanding the world and its future in new and not-ready-for-primetime ways--even as a President we had high expectations for is escalating a war that may well deplete this country of the resources needed to rebuild its promise, while doing little to nothing to make us or the region more secure or stable.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Dawn Kopecki is a reporter for Bloomberg in Washington

BEIJING (AFP) –
China called on Tuesday for rich nations to heed the developing world's position on climate change just days ahead of crunch talks in Copenhagen aimed at tackling global warming.

"Developed countries should pay attention to the concerns and interests of developing countries," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.

His comments came after representatives from China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Sudan, which currently chairs the Group of 77 developing countries, met in Beijing on Friday and Saturday to talk about climate change.

"Developing countries reached an important consensus in the meeting, which reflected their concerns and position on climate change -- this calls for the developed countries' attention," Qin said.

Developing nations, led by China, say rich countries should bear the pain of emissions cuts.

At the meeting, the emerging nations stood by the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only legally-binding emissions-curbing treaty, whose present round of commitments would cut rich nations' emissions by around five percent.

They also asked developed countries to assume responsibility for emissions reduction targets in the second commitment period from 2013, according to a statement posted on China's central government website.

The December 7-18 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen is tasked with framing a new deal for tackling global warming and its impacts beyond 2012.

But observers have warned slow progress in talks means the meeting is likely at best to yield a framework accord whose details will be hammered out next year.

China -- the world's largest source of greenhouse gases -- has proposed slowing the growth in its fast-rising emissions but argues that as a developing nation it should be exempt from cutting them outright.

Qin reiterated demands for industrialised countries to sign up to deep emissions targets.

"On the one hand, they should take concrete measures to work out a mid-term emissions reduction plan. On the other hand, they should provide financial support, technology transfer and aid... to developing countries," he said.

"Developing countries are also ready to work with developed countries to push for the success of the Copenhagen meeting."

MOSCOW – Astronauts from Canada and Belgium and a Russian cosmonaut landed safely on the Kazakhstan steppe on Tuesday, wrapping up a six-month stint on the International Space Station.
The Russian Soyuz TMA-15 capsule carrying Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and Belgium's Frank De Winne touched down without a hitch near the town of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan's barren north, Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.
Parachutes slowed the craft to a soft touchdown at 10:15 a.m. Moscow time (0715 GMT), as scheduled.
Russian medical teams arrived in all-terrain vehicles to help the crew out of the capsule, in a carefully choreographed recovery operation. The crew is to be flown to Moscow later in the day.
Russian Federal Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov said at a briefing that all three were in good condition.
The trio blasted off to the International Space Station on May 27. Their arrival marked the doubling of the station's permanent crew to six people.
The expedition was also a milestone for the Canadian space program, marking the first time a Canadian has taken part in a long-term mission.

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