Hong Kong leader survives impeachment bid






HONG KONG: Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers failed in an unprecedented bid on Wednesday to impeach the city's embattled Beijing-backed leader, after they accused him of breaking housing laws and urged him to quit.

The city's first impeachment motion, which accused Leung Chun-ying of lying, dereliction of duty and serious breaches of the law in a row stemming from illegal structures at his luxury home, was denied after eight hours of debate.

The 27 pro-democracy lawmakers who signed the joint motion -- which they said was a symbolic move -- voted in favour, while 37 voted against in the 70-seat legislature which is dominated by pro-Beijing members.

Wednesday's vote followed a protest on New Year's Day in which tens of thousands took to the streets to urge Leung to quit and to press for greater democracy, 15 years after the city returned to Chinese rule.

The former British colony maintains a semi-autonomous status, with its own legal and judicial system, but cannot choose its leader through the popular vote.

Leung took office in July after he was picked by a 1,200-strong election committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites, amid rising anger over what many perceive to be China's meddling in local affairs.

China has said the chief executive could be directly elected in 2017 at the earliest, with the legislature following by 2020.

Unauthorised structures are a politically sensitive issue in the space-starved city of seven million and demonstrators have used the scandal to press for universal suffrage in choosing Hong Kong's leader.

Leung secured the chief executive role after criticising his rival Henry Tang over illegal structures at Tang's home.

But he has since acknowledged and apologised for structures at his own home which were built without planning permission.

Maverick lawmaker "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, wearing a T-shirt reading "We topple a tyrant", accused the new leader of lying about his own structures during campaigning when he presented the impeachment motion earlier on Wednesday.

"He has used dishonest ways to win the election," he said.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, second in command in Leung's administration, said the motion was unnecessary and urged lawmakers to work together on policy and livelihood issues.

But Democratic Party chairwoman Emily Lau said the motion was a symbolic gesture to show the deepening public mistrust toward Leung, claiming the leader had "cheated his way to power".

"This is the first time we have a motion in the legislature to impeach a cheating chief executive," she said.

If the motion had been passed, the city's highest court would have had to initiate an investigation. At least two-thirds of the legislature would need to endorse a guilty finding before Leung could be removed from office.

Earlier, rival protesters traded barbs outside the legislature and security personnel had to step in at one point when an angry pro-government supporter charged towards the rival group, TV footage showed.

Leung's popularity ratings have fallen since the controversy, with discontent over issues including sky-high property prices and anti-Beijing sentiment remaining high.

- AFP/xq



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Syria deal: 2,100 captives for 48 Iranians














































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STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • NEW: 80 women and children are among the freed detainees, a rebel spokesman says

  • The 2,130 prisoners held by the Syrian government include Turks and Syrians

  • Iran confirms the release of 48 Iranians who were held by Syrian opposition members

  • Opposition leader: "The big prize for the regime is the Iranians, keeping them happy"




Istanbul (CNN) -- A prisoner exchange involving thousands of Syrian and Turkish captives and at least 48 Iranians was under way Wednesday in Damascus, Syria, according to a Turkish charity organization that has been involved in previous prisoner swaps in Syria.


"They are being handed over right now. We have teams on the ground in Damascus. They are at various police stations handling the exchange," said Huseyin Oruc, deputy president of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an organization widely known by its Turkish acronym IHH.


Read more: What's next for Syria in 2013?


"We also have a team handling the handover of the 48 Iranians from the opposition. There are Turks and Syrians being released," Oruc told CNN in a phone interview.


The Syrian government was releasing 2,130 civilians, including 73 women, in exchange for the release of 48 Iranian prisoners held by rebels, IHH President Bulent Yildirim said, according to the semiofficial Turkish Anatolian Agency.










A Syrian rebel spokesman said this may be the biggest prisoner exchange the rebels have conducted with their government adversaries since the start of the Syrian conflict almost two years ago.


Read more: Snowstorms thrash Middle East


"I myself went to two exchange negotiations," said Louai Miqdad, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army. "This is bigger."


The freed Syrian and Turkish captives include about 80 women and children, he said.


Among them are four women civilians known as the "bride activists," Miqdad said. The women, Rima al Dali, Kinda Azzaour, Lubna Azzaour and Roua Azzaffar, were arrested two months ago as they protested, wearing wedding dresses, against the bloodshed.


Some of the Syrian and Turkish prisoners were held in the main prison in Damascus, and others in a prison run by the intelligence branch, Miqdad said.


Read more: Report describes brutal torture in Syria


He said the Iranian prisoners being released were members of a group abducted by rebels in Damascus last August.


The Iranian government denied rebel claims that the 48 captives were members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Tehran says the 48 Iranians were Shiite pilgrims visiting a holy site in the Syrian capital.


Opposition leaders accused the Syrian government of placing the freedom of several dozen captives from its ally Iran above the release of thousands of Syrian loyalist soldiers believed to be in rebel custody.


"One Iranian person means more to him (Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) than a thousand soldiers," Miqdad said. "The command came direct from Tehran."


Read more: Local diplomacy wins in tense Syria prisoner exchange


"The big prize for the regime is the Iranians, keeping them happy," said George Sabra, vice president of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. "The regime never cared about the lives of the civilian population or even his own armed forces."


Miqdad characterized the prisoner exchange deal as a major win for the rebels.


"What we do today is a big victory for the Free Syrian Army," he said. "It shows the whole world that Bashar al-Assad only understands the language of force. Today, we released them by our hand."


Iranian state-run media reported that "foreign-backed militants in Syria have released 48 Iranian pilgrims." Like Syria, Iran refers to Syrian rebels as foreign-backed militants or terrorists.


Syrian state-run media has not yet reported on the prisoner exchange.


Read more: Scavenging for food, Syrian children witness war


CNN's Saad Abedine contributed to this report.






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N.Y.'s Cuomo pushing for much tougher gun law

A deal that would give New York one of the toughest gun control laws in the nation was being sought by Gov. Andrew Cuomo who, sources told CBS New York station WCBS-TV, was hoping to announce the plan Wednesday during his State of the State address.

The sources said Cuomo was negotiating furiously with legislative leaders in an attempt to reach a deal before the address.

The measures would be a response to gun violence in the U.S., including the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 26 children and adults were killed.

Sources said the package was expected to include new restrictions on assault weapons, stiffer penalties for using a gun to commit a crime, and new limits on the number of bullets in a gun magazine.

Cuomo's move comes as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Gun Violence released a new commercial to push for federal action.

It features Roxanna Green, the mother of Christina Taylor-Green, who was killed two years ago Tuesday in the Tucson, Ariz., massacre in which former Rep. Gabby Giffords was wounded.

"How many more children must die before Washington does something to end our gun violence problem?" Roxanna Green asks in the ad.

It would be quite a coup for Cuomo, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, to show progress on gun control as Washington stays divided on the controversial topic.

Late Tuesday night, a Cuomo spokesman said the sides still had not reached an agreement, but sources said there was talk of keeping the legislature in session the rest of the week to make sure a deal gets done.

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Iran faces oil revenue problem









By John Defterios, CNN


January 8, 2013 -- Updated 1535 GMT (2335 HKT)







With elections in June, it remains unclear how energy policy will evolve after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's era




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • The IEA has suggested Iraq surpassed Iran in output for the first time in over 20 years

  • The Iranian people are faced with spiralling inflation and job layoffs within the state sector

  • Iranian oil revenues in the country plummeted 40 percent, while gas export revenues fell by 45%




Editor's note: John Defterios is CNN's Emerging Markets Editor and anchor of Global Exchange, CNN's prime time business show focused on the emerging and BRIC markets. You can watch it on CNN International at 1600 GMT, Sunday to Thursday.


Abu Dhabi (CNN) -- All indications are that sanctions against Iran are really starting to bite and this time it is coming from the oil ministry in Tehran, which for months has denied that oil production was suffering due to international pressure.


In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA), Gholam Reza Kateb a member of the national planning and budget committee in Parliament referenced a report from Iran's oil minister Rostam Qasemi. In that report, the minister suggested that oil revenues in the country plummeted 40 percent, while gas and gas products' export revenues fell by 45% compared to the same period last year.


Read more: Official: Iran, nuclear watchdog group deal close


This is a hot button issue in Iran, where the currency due to sanctions has dropped 80 percent from its peak in 2011. The Iranian people are faced with spiralling inflation and job layoffs within the state sector.


I spoke with a source in Iran's representative office to OPEC who declined to comment and referred all matters to the Oil Ministry. A spokesman at the state oil company Iran Petroleum would only say "in this political climate it is difficult to confirm these statements."


Read more: Iran steps up uranium enrichment, U.N. report says


Hours later, a spokesman from the Ministry told another Iranian news agency, Mehr, that the numbers quoted about revenue and production drops are not true, although he offered no specific numbers.


Until this report to the Iranian Parliament, Minister Qasemi has maintained that Iran's production was hovering around four million barrels a day, where it was two years ago.


Read more: Opinion: Time to defuse Iranian nuclear issue




Back at the OPEC Seminar in June 2012, the minister told me that sanctions would not have any influence on plans to expand production and investment, shrugging off questions that suggested otherwise. This despite analysis to the contrary from the Paris based International Energy Agency and Vienna based OPEC of which Iran is a member.




The IEA back in July suggested that Iraq surpassed Iran in production for the first time in over two decades and production in Iran dipped to 2.9 million barrels a day. OPEC in its October 2012 survey said it slipped to 2.72 million at the time Minister Qasemi said output remained at 4 million barrels.




Minister Qasemi was recently quoted at a conference in Tehran that Iran needs to invest $400 billion over the next five years to maintain production targets and to play catch up after years of under investment.


Iran is a land full of potential. According to the annual BP Statistical Review, Iran sits on nearly 10 percent of the world's proven reserves at 137 billion barrels. The South Pars field which it shares with Qatar is one of the largest natural gas fields in the world -- but Iran, due to sanctions, cannot expand development.


This is a highly charged period. With elections in mid-June, it remains unclear how energy policy will evolve after the era of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad passes. It has been eight years of his tough line against Washington, Brussels and other governments that put forth sanctions against Iran. It is not clear if a new President will usher in a new nuclear development policy to ease the pressure on Iran's energy sector and the country's people.












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India says two soldiers killed in clash with Pakistan troops






SRINAGAR, India: Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers on Tuesday near the tense disputed border between the nuclear-armed neighbours in Kashmir and one of the bodies was badly mutilated, the Indian army said.

The firefight broke out at about noon on Tuesday (0630 GMT) after an Indian patrol discovered Pakistani troops about half a kilometre (1,600 feet) inside Indian territory, an army spokesman told AFP.

A ceasefire has been in place along the Line of Control that divides the countries since 2003, but it is periodically violated by both sides and Pakistan said Indian troops killed a Pakistani soldier on Sunday.

Relations had been slowly improving over the last few years following a rupture in their slow-moving peace process after the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which were blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants.

"There was a firefight with Pakistani troops," army spokesman Rajesh Kalia told AFP from the mountainous Himalayan region.

"We lost two soldiers and one of them has been badly mutilated," he added, declining to give more details on the injuries.

"The intruders were regular (Pakistani) soldiers and they were 400-500 metres (1,300-1,600 feet) inside our territory," he said of the clash in Mendhar sector, 173 kilometres (107 miles) west by road from the city of Jammu.

In Islamabad, a Pakistan military spokesman denied what he called an "Indian allegation of unprovoked firing". He declined to elaborate.

On Sunday, Pakistan said Indian troops had crossed the Line of Control and stormed a military post. It said one Pakistani soldier was killed and another injured.

It lodged a formal protest with India on Monday over what it called an unprovoked attack.

India denied crossing the line, saying it had retaliated with small arms fire after Pakistani mortars hit a village home.

A foreign ministry spokesman said Indian troops had undertaken "controlled retaliation" on Sunday after "unprovoked firing" which damaged a civilian home.

The deaths are set to undermine recent efforts to improve relations, such as opening up trade and offering more lenient visa regimes which have been a feature of talks between senior political leaders from both sides.

Muslim-majority Kashmir is a Himalayan region which India and Pakistan both claim in full but rule in part. It was the cause of two of three wars between the neighbours since independence from Britain in 1947.

- AFP/fa



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Cyanide linked to $1 million lottery winner's death





Urooj Khan, 46, won $1 million before taxes on an Illinois lottery scratch ticket in June.





STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Urooj Khan, 46, won $1 million before taxes on an Illinois lottery scratch ticket

  • He died suddenly weeks later; authorities first ruled his death "natural"

  • Revisiting the case, they found he died of "cyanide toxicity," a medical examiner says

  • Chicago police are investigating, but haven't made any arrests




(CNN) -- One day, Urooj Khan literally jumped for joy after scoring a $1 million winner on an Illinois lottery scratch ticket.


The next month, he was dead.


The Cook County medical examiner's office initially ruled Khan's manner of death natural. But after being prompted by a relative, the office revisited the case and eventually determined there was a lethal amount of cyanide in Khan's system.


"That ... led us to issue an amended death certificate that (established) cyanide toxicity as the cause of death, and the manner of death as homicide," Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Steve Cina said Monday.


Why did Khan, an Indian immigrant who was described as a well-liked, hardworking and successful businessman, die? And who is responsible?


Finding that out is now up to the Chicago police. No arrests have been made.


"We are investigating it as a murder, and we're working closely with the medical examiner's office," Chicago police spokeswoman Melissa Stratton said Monday.


On June 26, Khan was all smiles at a 7-Eleven in the Rogers Park section of Chicago. Surrounded by his wife, daughter and friends, he held an oversized $1 million check and recalled his joy upon playing the "$3 million Cash Jackpot!" game, where tickets sell for $30 apiece.


"I scratched the ticket, then I kept saying, 'I hit a million!' over and over again," the 46-year-old Khan said, according to a press release from the Illinois Lottery.


"I jumped two feet in the air, then ran back into the store and tipped the clerk $100."


The plan, he explained, was to use the money for his mortgage, paying off bills, a donation to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and investing more in his dry cleaning businesses.


Related: The problems with winning the lottery


"Winning the lottery means everything to me," Khan said.


He would have to wait a few weeks to collect his actual winnings, which amounted after taxes to about $425,000. According to CNN affiliate WGN, that check was issued July 19, but Khan never got to spend it.


The next night, Khan came home, ate dinner and went to bed, according to an internal police department document obtained by the Chicago Tribune. His family later heard him screaming and took him to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, the paper reported, citing the document.


That's where the Cook County medical examiner's office came in, investigating Khan's death because it was "sudden and unexpected," Cina said.


At the time, there were no allegations of foul play or evidence of trauma. So, following the office's policy, Khan's body underwent what Cina described as an "external examination (and) basic toxicology testing," neither of which turned up anything abnormal.


So the medical examiner ruled Khan had died of arterial sclerotic cardiovascular disease -- which encompasses incidents like heart attacks, strokes and aortic ruptures -- and that his manner of death was natural, according to Cina.


A few days later, a family member approached the doctor who had examined the body "and said they felt uncomfortable that it was being ruled a natural and they suggested that we look into it further," the chief medical examiner said.


"So we did that," he added. "Forensics is not a static field. If new evidence comes to light, we'll revisit cases."


That meant more in-depth toxicology tests. In early September, new screening results came back indicating cyanide in Khan's blood. With that, the official manner of death was changed from natural to pending, Cina said, and Chicago police got involved.


In late November, a more detailed blood analysis came back showing "a lethal level of cyanide" and Khan's death became a murder case.


Chicago police haven't offered details, including a possible motive, about what they call an "ongoing investigation." Talking briefly with CNN affiliate WBBM and the Tribune, Khan's widow described her husband as kind and exemplary.


Jimmy Goreel, who runs the 7-Eleven where the winning lottery ticket was sold, offered similarly glowing comments about Khan.


"I would never think that anybody ... would hurt him," Goreel told WGN. "(He was a) nice person, very hopeful and gentle (and) very hardworking."


Related: Woman pleads not guilty in death of lottery winner







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Pakistan: U.S. drones kill 8 suspected militants

Updated 1:10 a.m. EST

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan Several missiles fired from American drones slammed into a compound near the Afghan border in Pakistan early Tuesday, killing eight suspected militants, Pakistan officials said.

The two intelligence officials said the compound was located near the town of Mir Ali, in the North Waziristan tribal area.

One of the officials said an al Qaeda operative was believed to have been killed in the strike.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

North Waziristan, the area where the strike occurred, is considered a stronghold for insurgent groups operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is one of the few parts of the tribal areas that border Afghanistan in which the Pakistani military has not conducted a military operation to root out militants, despite repeated pushes to do so from the American government.

Tuesday's strike was the fourth since the new year began.

On Sunday, nine Pakistani Taliban fighters were killed when American missiles fired from several drones flying overhead slammed into three militant hideouts in another tribal area, South Waziristan.

The militant in charge of training suicide bombers for the Pakistani Taliban was believed by Pakistan intelligence officials to have died in Sunday's strike.

On Jan. 2, a drone strike killed a top Pakistani militant commander, Maulvi Nazir. He was accused of carrying out deadly attacks against American and other targets across the border in Afghanistan. But unlike most members of the Taliban in Pakistan, he negotiated a truce with the Pakistani military in 2009 and did not attack Pakistani troops or domestic targets.

The covert U.S. drone program is extremely controversial in Pakistan, where many in the country look at it as an infringement on their sovereignty. Many Pakistanis complain that innocent civilians have also been killed, something the U.S. rejects.

Islamabad officially opposes the use of U.S. drones on its territory, but is believed to have tacitly approved some strikes in past.

Read More..

Meet Obama's Defense Secretary Nominee













President Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. secretary of defense. To those who haven't followed the Senate closely in the past decade, he's probably not a household name.


Hagel is a former GOP senator from Nebraska and Purple-Heart-decorated Vietnam veteran, but he wouldn't necessarily be a popular pick with Republicans in Congress.


At age 21, Hagel and his brother Tom became the next in the family to serve in the United States Army. They joined the masses of Americans fighting an unfamiliar enemy in Vietnam.


In his book, he describes finding himself "pinned down by Viet Cong rifle fire, badly burned, with my wounded brother in my arms."


"Mr. President, I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve our country again," Hagel said after Obama announced his nomination Monday.


In 1971, Hagel took his first job in politics as chief of staff to Congressman John Y. McCollister, a position he held for six years. After that, he moved to Washington for the first time, where he went on to work for a tire company's government affairs office, the 1982 World's Fair and in 1981, as Ronald Reagan's Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration.








Obama Taps Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary Watch Video









Sen. Chuck Hagel's Defense Nomination Draws Criticism Watch Video









Obama's Defense Nominee Chuck Hagel Stirs Washington Lawmakers Watch Video





He worked in the private sector for most of the 80s and 90s before his first election to the Senate in 1997.
Since the turn of the century, Hagel has followed a curvy path of political alliances that puts his endorsements all over the map. Hagel's record of picking politically unpopular positions could be a large part of why Obama is naming him for the job, as Slate's Fred Kaplan surmises the next Defense secretary will be faced with tough choices.


In 2000, he was one of few Republican senators to back Sen. John McCain over then-presidential-candidate George W. Bush.


After that election, Hagel fiercely criticized Bush for adding 30,000 surge troops to Iraq, in place of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's proposal of a draw-down and regional diplomacy, which Hagel preferred. When Bush instead announced that more troops would go to Iraq, Hagel co-sponsored a nonbinding resolution to oppose it, along with then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.


"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel told Esquire in June 2007. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."


Hagel's fierce opposition to America's involvement in Iraq – he called it one of the five monumental blunders of history, on par with the Trojan War – will be of substantial importance as the Obama administration charts our course out of Afghanistan, deciding how to withdraw the last of the troops in 2014 and how much of a presence to leave behind.


Hagel's support for McCain, which was substantial in his competition against Bush, disappeared in the 2008 election. Hagel toured Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama during his first campaign for the presidency.


In October 2008, Hagel's wife, Lillibet, announced her support for the Obama team, after the Washington Post reported on her donations to his campaign. She donated again in 2012.


Before the 2008 election, Hagel wrote: "The next president of the United States will face one of the most difficult national security decisions of modern times: what to do about an Iran that may be at the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons."






Read More..

Why Al Jazeera deal doesn't seem right






STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Al Gore sold Current to al Jazeera and could net an estimated $70 million

  • Howard Kurtz: Gore's Current network failed to gain an identity or viewers

  • He says it's odd that the former vice president is selling to an oil-rich potentate

  • Kurtz: Al Jazeera may have a tough time getting traction with U.S. viewers




Editor's note: Howard Kurtz is the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and is Newsweek's Washington bureau chief. He is also a contributor to the website Daily Download.


(CNN) -- So Al Gore starts a liberal cable network, which turns into a complete and utter flop, then sells it to a Middle East potentate in a deal that will bring him an estimated $70 million.


Is America a great country or what?


There is something highly unusual -- OK, just plain weird -- about a former vice president of the United States doing this deal with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.



Howard Kurtz

Howard Kurtz



Al Jazeera, owned by said emir's government, is trying to buy its way into the American television market by purchasing Current TV for a half billion dollars. The only thing stranger would be if Gore had sold Current to Glenn Beck -- oh wait, Beck did try to buy it and was told no way within 15 minutes.


So the sale was in part about ideology, which opens the door to examining why Gore believes Al Jazeera gives "voice to those who are not typically heard" and speaks "truth to power."


Bill O'Reilly, on Fox News, calls the network "anti-American." Fox pundit Dick Morris says Gore has sold to a fount of "anti-Israel propaganda." Such labels are rooted in the network's role during the height of the war on terror, when it aired smuggled videos of Osama bin Laden and was denounced by Bush administration officials.


Watch: How Lance Armstrong lied to me about doping



But Al Jazeera English, the spinoff channel launched in 2006, doesn't have the same reputation. In fact, no less a figure than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has praised it as "real news," and the channel has won journalism awards for its reporting on the Arab Spring and other global events.


To be sure, the main Al Jazeera network gives a platform to such figures as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He's the Muslim cleric in Egypt who, The Washington Post gas reported, frequently appears on air to castigate Jews and America and has praised suicide bombings. But when I went to the home page of Al Jazeera English the other day, there was video of David Frost, the acclaimed British journalist who now works for the main network, interviewing Israeli President Shimon Peres.




That's not to say Al Jazeera America, the working name for the new channel, won't have its own biases. Al Jazeera English is sometimes determined to paint the U.S. in a negative light.


During a report on President Barack Obama signing a renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which entails a legitimate controversy over civil liberties, the reporter said flatly that the law "violate(s) U.S. constitutional rights in the name of national security."


Watch: Can Al Jazeera make it in the American market?


Dave Marash, the ABC News veteran who once worked for Al Jazeera English, told me the network has a "post-colonial" view of America and its stories can be infused with that attitude.


And there are real questions about how independent these channels are from the Qatar government that helps bankroll them. The director-general of Al Jazeera, Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim al-Thani, is a member of the country's royal family and has no background in journalism.


Such details add to the odd spectacle of the ex-veep, who would have been running Mideast policy had he won a few more votes in Florida, selling -- and some say selling out -- to the emir. Not to mention that the crusader against climate change is taking petrodollars from an empire built on oil, the bete noire of environmentalists.


Watch: Hey Fox, Hillary Clinton was sick after all


But what is Al Jazeera buying? The network is going to have a tough time cracking the American market.


Its earlier reputation makes the company highly controversial, and other cable carriers might follow the lead of Time Warner Cable (which is no longer owned by CNN's parent company, Time Warner) in refusing to carry it. These carriers agreed to air Current TV, after all, and contracts generally require them to approve a major change in programming.


Global politics aside, it may just be bad business. There's a reason Al Jazeera English, which will supply 40% of the content to the new channel, has barely gotten a foothold in the United States. Most Americans aren't lusting for a steady diet of international news.


Watch: Did Nancy Pelosi go too far in photoshopping picture of congresswomen?


There's no denying that Gore, a onetime newspaper reporter who had testy relations with the press during his 2000 campaign, presided over a lousy cable channel. No one quite knew what Current was during the years when it aired mostly low-rent entertainment fare and was famous mainly for North Korea taking two of its correspondents, including Lisa Ling's sister Laura, into custody.


Then Gore tried to relaunch it as a talking head channel to the left of MSNBC, hiring Keith Olbermann -- a relationship that ended with his firing and mutual lawsuits -- along with the likes of Eliot Spitzer and Jennifer Granholm, former Michigan governor. Gore himself offered commentary during major political events.


It was the utter failure of that incarnation of Current that prompted Gore and co-founder Joel Hyatt to put the thing up for sale.


Some detractors have slammed Gore for hypocrisy because, while he has advocated higher taxes on the rich, he tried to get the Al Jazeera deal done by December 31 to avoid the Obama tax hike. (The sale didn't close until January 2.) I don't see a problem trying to legally take advantage of changes in the tax code, no matter what your political stance.


Nor do I want to prejudge Al Jazeera America. The marketplace will decide its fate.


But there is something unsettling about Gore making off with such a big payday from a government-subsidized channel after making such bad television. Nice work if you can get it.


Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter


Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz.






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Indonesia police investigate baby-for-sale online ad






JAKARTA: Indonesian police on Monday said they are investigating an advertisement offering two babies for sale at US$1,000 each after it was spotted on the popular auction and shopping website Tokobagus.com.

"We are still investigating the existence of the online advertisement," Jakarta police spokesman Rikwanto told reporters.

"We have asked Tokobagus how the advertisement came to be posted, for how long, and whether any transaction was made," he added.

The National Commission for Child Protection lodged a police report last week after spotting the posting, its chairman Arist Merdeka Sirait told AFP.

"There was a photo of a baby and a telephone number. We called the advertiser and he said he wanted to sell two 18-month-olds, a boy and a girl, for Rp 10 million (US$1,000) each," Sirait said.

"We were negotiating, talking about birth certificates when he suddenly hung up. We tried contacting him again but failed," he added.

"This seems to be a new modus operandi by baby-selling syndicates. We are very concerned and must stop this crime against humanity," Sirait said, adding that human-traffickers could be jailed from 15 to 20 years.

Tokobagus posted an apology on Twitter, saying the advertisement was a result of "pure human error and was unintentional" and had been removed.

Indonesians have been using local auction and shopping sites to sell anything from cars and jewellery to body organs such as kidneys, exploiting a loophole in local laws.

Hundreds of advertisements have appeared on Indonesian personal advertising websites offering kidneys for as little as 50 million rupiah each.

- AFP/xq



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