The Jim Bakker Show

Iran says has options if nuclear deal fails

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Iran wants all parties to stick to an international nuclear deal but has options if that does not happen, its foreign minister said on Thursday after the U.S. election victory of Donald Trump, who has vowed to pull out of the pact.

“Of course Iran’s options are not limited but our hope and our desire and our preference is for the full implementation of the nuclear agreement, which is not bilateral for one side to be able to scrap,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.

President Barack Obama’s outgoing administration touted the July 2015 deal reached between Iran and six world powers as a way to pre-empt Tehran’s suspected drive to develop atomic weapons by curbing its enrichment of uranium. In return Obama, a Democrat, agreed to a lifting of sanctions on Iran.

The Republican Trump called the nuclear pact a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated” during his election campaign and said it could lead to a “nuclear holocaust”.

The accord removed sanctions in return for Iran reducing the number of its uranium-enrichment centrifuges by two-thirds, capping its level of uranium enrichment well below the level needed for bomb-grade material, reducing its enriched uranium stockpile, and accepting U.N. inspections to verify compliance.

“Our strong preference as a party that has remained fully committed and implemented its side of the bargain (…) is for every member and participant and for international community to continue to remain committed to the agreement,” Zarif a news conference in Bratislava after meeting his Slovak counterpart Miroslav Lajcak.

“But it doesn’t mean we don’t have other options if the USA unwisely decides to move away from its obligations under the agreement,” he said when asked whether Tehran would start enrichment again if the Trump administration ditched the deal.

When asked whether he hoped for a similarly good working relationship with Trump’s future secretary of state as he had with the outgoing John Kerry, Zarif said it would not be necessary.

“We had a long nuclear negotiation between Iran and the United States. I do not expect another negotiation, certainly not on the nuclear issue, but nor on any other subjects so that I would need to establish a same type of contact with the new secretary of state, whoever that may be,” he said.

Former U.S. House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich – who has said he would renegotiate the nuclear deal with Iran, has been floated as a potential secretary of state under Trump, political sources said.

(Reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Turkey detains co-mayors of mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities on Tuesday detained the co-mayors of the mainly Kurdish southeast’s biggest city on charges they aided militants, part of a government crackdown after more than a year of violence in the region.

Gultan Kisanak, a former member of parliament before her election as mayor in Diyarbakir, and Firat Anli, her co-mayor, were taken into custody as part of an investigation into terrorism links, the local prosecutor said in a statement.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said the removal of elected officials and civil servants who are accused of links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, is a key part of the fight against the armed group.

The two are accused of making speeches in support of the PKK and of greater political autonomy for Turkey’s estimated 16 million Kurds, the Diyarbakir prosecutor’s statement said.

They are also accused of using municipal vehicles to transport the bodies of dead militants and of inciting violent protests, it said.

Turkey appointed new administrators in two dozen Kurdish-run municipalities in September after removing their elected mayors over suspected links to militants. Those arrests triggered protests across the region.

Authorities were also searching the mayor’s office, security sources said. An aide to Kisanak said the mayor’s home was being searched by police but was unable to provide further details.

Police formed a security cordon around city hall in case the latest detentions stirred unrest, witnesses said.

Kisanak, 55, is a well-known Kurdish political figure and became Diyarbakir’s first female mayor in 2014. Earlier on Tuesday, she testified upon the invitation of lawmakers at a parliamentary commission in Ankara looking into a failed military coup on July 15.

It was not immediately clear whether her testimony was related to the detention order. Kisinak was detained upon her return to Diyarbakir at the airport, while Anli was detained at his home, sources said.

Erdogan accuses their opposition party, the Democratic Regions Party and its larger, sister party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, which is the third-biggest grouping in parliament, of links with the PKK, which both parties deny.

The autonomy-seeking PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, and more than 40,000 people have died in the war.

The PKK abandoned a two-year ceasefire in July 2015 after peace talks had ground to a halt, and violence has escalated sharply since. Hundreds of soldiers and police officers, thousands of militants and about 400 civilians have been killed.

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Ayla Jean Yackley; Editing by Alison Williams and James Dalgleish)

Dakota Access pipeline opponents occupy land, citing 1851 treaty

(Reuters) – Native American protesters on Monday occupied privately owned land in North Dakota in the path of the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, claiming they were the land’s rightful owners under an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government.

The move is significant because the company building the 1,100-mile (1,886-km) oil pipeline, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, has bought tracts of land and relied on eminent domain to clear a route for the line across four states from North Dakota to Illinois.

Video posted on social media showed police officers using pepper spray to try to disperse dozens of protesters, who chanted, beat drums and set up a makeshift camp near the town of Cannon Ball in southern North Dakota, where the $3.8 billion pipeline would be buried underneath the Missouri River.

The area is near the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. It was not immediately known who owns the occupied land.

In September, the U.S. government halted construction on part of the line. The Standing Rock Sioux and environmental activists have said further construction would damage historical tribal sacred sites and spills would foul drinking water.

Since then, opponents have pressured the government to reroute construction. The current route runs within half a mile of the reservation.

Protesters on Monday said the land in question was theirs under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, which was signed by eight tribes and the U.S. government. Over the last century, tribes have challenged this treaty and others like it in court for not being honored or for taking their land.

“We have never ceded this land. If Dakota Access Pipeline can go through and claim eminent domain on landowners and Native peoples on their own land, then we as sovereign nations can then declare eminent domain on our own aboriginal homeland,” Joye Braun of the Indigenous Environmental Network said in a prepared statement.

Energy Transfer could not be reached for comment.

Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. said the proposed route should be changed.

“The best way to resolve this is to reroute this pipeline and for the (Obama) administration to not give an easement to build it near our sacred land,” Archambault said in an interview.

In filings with federal regulators, the company said at one point it considered running the line far north of the reservation and close to Bismarck, the state capital.

(Reporting By Terry Wade and Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Judge sides with Planned Parenthood over Mississippi abortion law

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday sided with women’s health provider Planned Parenthood in a lawsuit aiming to block a Mississippi law that barred medical providers that perform abortions from participating in the state’s Medicaid program.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan III is the latest in a string of rulings striking down similar laws elsewhere in the country against the women’s health provider.

Jordan’s two page order noted a ruling from the 5th U.S. District Court of Appeals that rejected a similar law in Louisiana, saying “essentially every court to consider similar laws has found that they violate” federal law.

Medicaid is a health insurance program for the poor run jointly by the federal government and individual states.

Planned Parenthood said in its complaint that the law, which went into effect in July, unconstitutionally limited patients’ rights to choose the healthcare provider of their choice and would have stopped it from serving low-income patients.

“Yet another court has said it is unacceptable for politicians to dictate where women can go for their health care,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood will fight for our patients at every turn.”

Mississippi’s Republican Governor, Phil Bryant, expressed disappointment with the ruling, saying in a statement on Facebook: “I believe the law was the right thing to do and I will continue to stand with the legislature and people of Mississippi who do not want their hard-earned money going to the largest abortion provider in the nation.”

Mississippi was among many states adopting new abortion laws as conservatives have sought to chip away at the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

In August, a federal judge prevented Ohio from cutting federal taxpayer funding from 28 Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, setting back the governor’s hopes of stopping the women’s health services group from providing abortions.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Far from Aleppo, Syria army advance brings despair to besieged Damascus suburb

residents fleeing an air strike in Damascus, Syria

By Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dozens of children line up for bread on the side of a road in Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held area near Damascus. In scenes described by a witness, their belongings are piled up on the gravel — blankets, old mattresses, sandbags stuffed with clothes — until the families can figure out their next destination.

They are some of the thousands of people who have fled their homes in recent months, as government forces have steadily encroached on the biggest rebel stronghold near Syria’s capital.

Since a ceasefire collapsed last month, international attention has been focused on a major attack by President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces and his allies on the northern city of Aleppo.

But hundreds of miles south, the government’s gradual, less-publicized advance around Damascus may be of equal importance to course of a war in its sixth year, and is also causing hardship for civilians under siege.

Government troops, backed by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, have been snuffing out pockets of rebellion near the capital, notably taking the suburb Daraya after forcing surrender on besieged rebels.

The densely-populated rural area east of Damascus known as the Eastern Ghouta has been besieged since 2013 and is much larger and harder to conquer than Daraya.

Government advances are forcing people to flee deeper into its increasingly overcrowded towns, and the loss of farmland is piling pressure on scarce food supplies.

Several hundred thousand people are believed to be trapped inside the besieged area, similar in scale to the 250,000 civilians under siege in Aleppo.

“People were on top of each other in the trucks and cars,” said Maamoun Abu Yasser, 29, recalling how people fled the al-Marj area where he lived earlier this year, as the army captured swathes of farmland.

Abu Yasser said he and a few friends tried to hold out for as long as possible, but the air strikes became unbearable.

“The town was almost empty. I was scared that if we got bombed, there would be nobody to help us,” he told Reuters by phone. “We couldn’t sleep much at night. We were afraid we’d fall into the regime’s hands. It would probably be better to die in the bombardment.”

SEEKING SHELTER

Since the start of the year, Syrian government forces and their allies, including Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, have moved into Eastern Ghouta from the south, the southwest, and the east, helped by infighting among rebel groups that control the area.

The advances have forced more than 25,000 people to seek shelter in central towns away from approaching frontlines, residents said. Some have set up makeshift homes in the skeletons of unfinished or damaged buildings, aid workers said. Others live in shops and warehouses, or haphazardly erected tents.

The army has made its most significant gains in the area in recent months, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war. Rebels are still putting up resistance, “but the regime and Hezbollah’s continuous advances are a big indicator that they’ve decided to press on till the end”, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said.

Eastern Ghouta was targeted with poison gas in 2013, nearly leading to U.S. air strikes to bring down Assad, who denied blame. President Barack Obama called off military action after Russia brokered an agreement for Assad to give up chemical arms.

The district has regularly been pounded by government air strikes. Insurgents have meanwhile used it as a base to shell Damascus.

Staples such as bread and medicine are unavailable or prohibitively expensive, several residents said.

Once self-sufficient farmers who were forced to abandon their land have become dependent on food from local charities, which Syrian aid workers say are often funded by organizations in Gulf states that support the opposition to Assad.

“Many families ate from their own land … and they made a living from it,” Abu Yasser said. “They were traders … and now they have to stand in line to get one meal.”

The sprawling agricultural area was historically a main food source for much of the capital’s eastern countryside. The territory taken by the army in the past six months was full of crops, until fierce battles and air strikes set it ablaze, aid worker Osama Abu Zaid told Reuters from the area.

“Now, compared to the sectors we lost, there are few planted fields left,” he said.

Opponents of Assad accuse his government and its Russian allies of relentlessly bombing Eastern Ghouta before ground troops swept in. The Syrian government and Russia say they only target militants.

“It’s the scorched earth policy. People were hysterical,” Abu Zaid said. “Even if you dug a hole in the ground and sat in it, the chances of surviving would be very, very slim.”

Residents have protested over the internecine war among the rebel groups which they blame for the army’s gains. Hundreds of people were killed in fighting between the Jaish al-Islam and Failaq al-Rahman factions.

Abu Zaid said the government had been failing for more than a year to capture southern parts of the Ghouta, until the internal fighting allowed for a quick advance.

NOT ENOUGH FOOD AND SHELTER

The waves of displacement mean schools and homes are full in central towns and cities still held by rebels.

“There was a big shock, a huge mass of people migrating at the same time, without any warning, without any capacity to take them in,” Malik Shami, an aid worker, said.

“Residents are already unable to get food at such high prices,” he said. International aid is insufficient and severely restricted by the Syrian government. “So they rely on local groups… but we can only do basic things, to keep us on our feet,” he said. “There will be a big crisis in the winter.”

A United Nations report said around 10 aid trucks had entered towns in the area this year.

Amid ongoing battles, the army has escalated its bombing of Eastern Ghouta, and dozens have been killed this month, the Observatory reported. It said the army advanced in the northeast of the area, edging closer to the city of Douma.

“The bombing and the fires, it’s like in the movies,” Shami said. “At night, there’s intense panic.”

Residents believe the government aims to force them into an eventual surrender through siege and bombardment, the tactic used in Daraya, where a local agreement guaranteed fighters safe passage to other rebel-held parts of the country.

“There are many theories” about what could come next, said Mahmoud al-Sheikh, a health worker. “But in general, there’s a lot of mystery about the future, a fear of the unknown.”

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva; editing by Tom Perry and Peter Graff)

Aleppo rebels outgunned but confident as siege bites

By Tom Perry and Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A senior rebel commander said on Friday that Syrian government forces would never be able to capture Aleppo’s opposition-held east, more than three weeks into a ferocious offensive, but a military source said the operation was going as planned.

Russian air strikes were proving of little help to government ground forces in urban warfare, the deputy commander of the Fastaqim rebel group in Aleppo said. While air strikes have pounded much of the city, they have avoided frontlines where the sides are fighting in close proximity, apparently out of fear they could hit the wrong side, he said.

The rebels were well prepared for a siege imposed this summer, and preparations for a counter attack were under way, Melhem Akidi told Reuters.

“Militarily there is no danger to the city of Aleppo,” he said, adding: “The more dangerous thing is the daily massacres by the regime that are targeting not just the people but the foundations of life in Aleppo.”

However, the Syrian military source and a second pro-government military source in the field said the campaign was on course, reiterating denials that civilians were being targeted.

“The accomplishments so far are moving according to the plan, and we are working according to gradual steps,” said the second source, a non-Syrian and part of a regional alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

The assessments, on the eve of a meeting between U.S. and Russian foreign ministers in Switzerland to try to resume their failed efforts to find a diplomatic solution, point to a protracted battle for Aleppo.

Syria’s biggest city before the war has been divided into areas controlled by the government and rebels for several years. The rebel-held east is the last major urban stronghold of the nationalist rebels fighting Assad, and recapturing it would be a major strategic prize.

The Syrian army, supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power, announced a major offensive to capture the rebel-held part of the city on Sept. 22, unleashing firepower not previously seen in the 5-1/2-year long war.

The onslaught has killed several hundred people and flattened many buildings. Hospitals have also been hit, leading the United States and France to accuse Russia and the Syrian government of war crimes.

Moscow and Damascus say they are only targeting militants.

ONSLAUGHT THREATENS BREAD SUPPLY

A member of Aleppo’s opposition city council told Reuters fuel reserves used to operate bakeries could run out in a month if the siege persists. A mill was bombed on Wednesday, another threat to the city’s bread supply, he said.

The air strikes have been accompanied by ground assaults by government forces, including Shi’ite militias from Iraq and Lebanon. Their clearest advance so far is the capture of ground to the north of Aleppo, including the Handarat camp.

The army has also reported gains in the city center itself. The rebels have consistently said these have been repelled. A Syrian military source said the army had gained control over several industrial facilities and an agricultural college located in northeastern Aleppo on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group monitoring the war, said the government advances so far did not match the intensity of the firepower unleashed.

The bombardment was expected to bring “much greater results”, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said.

Syria’s civil war has killed 300,000 people and left millions homeless while dragging in regional and global powers and allowing for the expansion of jihadist groups including Islamic State, which controls wide areas of the east.

While Assad is backed by Russia, Iran and an array of Shi’ite militias from Arab neighbors, the Sunni rebels seeking to oust him are backed by Turkey, the United States and Gulf monarchies.

LITTLE HOPE FOR PEACE TALKS

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Saturday, possibly joined by ministers from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

American officials have voiced little hope for success, however, and Lavrov said on Friday he had “no special expectations” for the talks.

Kerry broke off talks with Lavrov last week over the Aleppo offensive. The resumption of negotiations, despite the fighting, was a sign of the lack of options facing Western nations over the Syria conflict, where they worry increased arms supplies for the rebels could end up in the hands of jihadist groups.

The Syrian government and its allies have been steadily encircling the rebel-held east of Aleppo this year, first cutting the shortest route to nearby Turkey, before fully blockading the city this summer.

Assad said this week capturing Aleppo would be a springboard for pushing militants to neighboring Turkey, a major sponsor of the rebellion.

He has offered the Aleppo rebels an amnesty if they lay down their arms, though they have dismissed it as a trick.

ALEPPO “STEADFAST”, FUEL RUNNING OUT

Akidi, speaking from Aleppo, said he was “certain that nobody would be able to storm” the east, which he said could not be compared to other less populous and less well-armed areas that have been captured from rebels by the government.

“Everyone who stayed in Aleppo, which was under threat of siege for a long time, has prepared for steadfastness,” he said.

He also noted the proximity of nearby insurgent strongholds west of Aleppo and in Idlib province, and what he described as the government’s “fragile” hold over an important access point on the city’s southern periphery. “I do not rule out that the revolutionaries will be able to break the siege soon,” he said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report on Thursday that 406 people had been reported killed and 1,384 wounded in eastern Aleppo from Sept. 23 until Oct. 8. In government-held western Aleppo, which is frequently targeted by rebel shelling, 91 people including 18 children were killed over a similar period.

Muhammad Sandeh, of the opposition city council, said a fuel reserve controlled by the council could dry up in eastern Aleppo in a month or less if the siege persists.

“There are enough bakeries, but there isn’t enough flour or fuel,” Sandeh told Reuters from Aleppo. “The families get half of their bread needs,” he said. The air strike on a mill on Wednesday had severely reduced bread supply, he said.

Water supplies have also been affected by the violence.

OCHA said the situation had improved slightly after the parties reached an Oct. 10 agreement to protect water stations from the conflict.

Ibrahim Abu al-Laith of the Civil Defence rescue service that operates in rebel-held areas said that even after pumping stations were repaired and the water returned, it couldn’t reach residents due to a lack of fuel.

Fuel is the lifeline of the eastern districts, he said.

“Ours is running out.”

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Pravin Char)

Dozens of U.S. lawmakers request briefing on Yahoo email scanning

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of 48 lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday asked the Obama administration to brief Congress “as soon as possible” about a 2015 Yahoo <YHOO.O> program to scan all of its users’ incoming email at the behest of the government.

The request comes amid scrutiny by privacy advocates and civil liberties groups about the legal authority and technical nature of the surveillance program, first revealed by Reuters last week. Custom software was installed to search messages to hundreds of millions of accounts under an order issued by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

“As legislators, it is our responsibility to have accurate information about the intelligence activities conducted by the federal government,” according to the letter, organized by Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan and Democratic Representative Ted Lieu of California.

“Accordingly, we request information and a briefing as soon as possible for all members of Congress to resolve the issues raised by these reports.”

Investigators searched for messages that contained a single piece of digital content linked to a foreign state sponsor of terrorism, sources have told Reuters, though the nature of the content remains unclear.

Intelligence officials said Yahoo modified existing systems used to stop child pornography and filter spam messages on its email service.

But three former Yahoo employees told Reuters the court-ordered search was done by a module buried deep near the core of the company’s email server operation system, far below where mail sorting was handled.

The Senate and House intelligence committees were given a copy of the order when it was issued last year, sources said, but other members of Congress have express concern at the scope of the email scanning.

Some legal experts have questioned the breadth of the court order and whether it runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

Half of registered U.S. voters believe the Yahoo program violated the privacy of customers, according to a poll of 1,989 people conducted last week by Morning Consult, a polling and media company.

Twenty-five percent were supportive of the program because of its potential to stop criminal acts, the survey found, while another quarter did not know or had no opinion.

The congressional letter is addressed to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball and Joseph Menn; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Venezuelans revel in pots-and-pans protests after Maduro humiliation

By Alexandra Ulmer

MARACAIBO, Venezuela (Reuters) – For over a decade, Venezuelan opposition supporters would clang pots and pans on balconies of middle-class apartments to protest late leader Hugo Chavez’s self-styled “21st century socialism.”

While sometimes deafening, the protests never seemed to get under the skin of the charismatic leftist, whose supporters often countered with fireworks from shanty towns, and many in the opposition ended up deeming them futile.

But the ‘cacerolazo’, as such protests are known round South America, returned with a bang a few days ago when a pot-wielding crowd ran after Chavez’s unpopular successor Nicolas Maduro in a previously pro-government working class neighborhood of Margarita island.

Amazed and amused by the sight of the normally hyper-protected Maduro humiliated in public, opposition supporters are now flaunting their kitchenware nationwide to taunt the man they blame for a dire economic crisis that has many families skipping meals.

“Now it feels completely different because there’s no food, there’s hunger, and this thug we have as president is scared of ‘cacerolazos’!” said protester Migdalia Ortega, 59, beside a handful of women banging pots along a main avenue in Maracaibo, an oil city full of shuttered stores and littered with garbage.

“We had stopped using the pots and pans in marches but now we’re going to bring them every time,” she added, as a few hundred protesters prepared to march under the sizzling tropical sun to demand a recall referendum against Maduro.

The former bus driver and union leader has not spoken publicly about the incident in Margarita, which sparked a frenzy of jokes and cartoons. One showed him overtaking Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt to avoid pots being thrown his way.

Government officials say the grainy videos of Maduro surrounded by jeering protesters were “manipulated” by pro-opposition media and maintain he was actually cheered by supporters after inspecting state housing projects.

Still, authorities briefly rounded up more than 30 people for heckling him. A prominent journalist is in jail – and charged with money laundering – after publicizing the protest.

Recalling protests against government members at restaurants, houses and even funeral parlors, Socialist Party lawmaker Elias Jaua said pots-and-pans protests should be considered a punishable offense if they promote “intolerance.”

During Chavez’s 14-year rule, their use reached a crescendo around a failed 36-hour coup attempt in 2002 and a strike that crippled the oil industry from late that year into 2003.

‘REBELLION’

“The ‘cacerolazo’ is even more relevant today because it is a symbol of rebellion,” said artist Cecilia Leonardi, 54, who said she has cut back on meat and legumes because they are unavailable or too expensive, while banging a pot in Maracaibo.

‘Cacerolazos’ came to the fore under Chile’s late socialist President Salvador Allende in the early 1970s, when middle- and upper-class women would bang on pots to protest shortages.

They transcend political lines: ‘cacerolazos’ have taken place this year against both Argentina’s center-right president Mauricio Macri and Brazil’s now-ousted leftist leader Dilma Rousseff.

In Venezuela, ‘cacerolazos’ have been a defining symbol of anti-socialist opponents, many of whom come from the middle and upper classes. Chavez, who died from cancer in 2013, used to mock them as a “parasitic bourgeoisie” intent on getting its hands back on the OPEC country’s oil reserves.

One government-employed ‘Chavista’ in western Zulia state said she was becoming disillusioned with Maduro but still did not have faith in his opponents.

“The ‘cacerolazos’ are useless: why doesn’t the opposition give us (policy) proposals instead?” she said, asking to remain anonymous because she feared for her job at a state university.

“If they put forward a coherent proposal, even I would join them. But for now I’ll stick to the devil I know.”

Some former government supporters, however, are now joining the pots-and-pans protests.

Suffering a third year of recession and triple-digit inflation, many poor Venezuelans say they are skipping meals and forgoing protein-rich meats and beans as they often emerge empty-handed from shops despite hours in line.

“Sometimes we only eat once a day,” said Marjorie Rodriguez, an angry former Chavez supporter and mother-of-three, who described putting on a shirt and hat in the colors of the national flag earlier this week to bang pots in her poor

Ciudad Ojeda neighborhood, next to oil-rich Maracaibo Lake.

“We have to get rid of this president so that products start arriving again,” said Rodriguez, stood in a hot line under the midday sun with dozens of others hoping to buy pasta.

(Reporting by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Kieran Murray)

Sept. 11 drama on Air Force One unfolds in Bush aide’s handwritten notes

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The notes are handwritten on a legal pad and provide a verbatim account of the shock, pain and grim determination aboard Air Force One on Sept. 11, 2001.

They were scribbled by Ari Fleischer, press secretary for President George W. Bush, and he is releasing them to mark the 15th anniversary on Sunday of the worst attack on American soil since Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.

There are six pages in all, the only original verbatim text of what Bush said on Air Force One as he and his senior aides absorbed the news.

“We’re at war,” Bush told Vice President Dick Cheney. Hanging up and turning to his aides, he added: “When we find out who did this, they’re not going to like me as president. Somebody’s going to pay.”

Fleischer adopted the role of presidential note taker as Air Force One lifted off from Florida after the twin towers in New York and the Pentagon were attacked by hijacked passenger jets.

“I always took notes. It’s how you do your job,” Fleischer told Reuters. “But on Sept. 11 it was instantly clear how much more important it was to have a record of what the president did and said. I basically glued myself to his side almost the entire day and remained in his cabin on Air Force One to listen and take notes.”

Much of the material has been part of the public record. Fleischer has used them for annual tweets about Sept. 11 and in speeches and made them available to the commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks. But he has not previously released them in full to the public.

The story that unfolds in Fleischer’s penmanship begins with the raw emotions Bush and his aides experienced, the president already itching to retaliate.

“I can’t wait to find out who did it,” Bush said. “It’s going to take a while and we’re not going to have a little slap on the wrist crap.”

There is a dramatic period in which Bush tries to overcome opposition from the Secret Service to letting him return to Washington. The plane first took him to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, then Offutt air base in Nebraska. He got back to Washington that night.

“I want to get home as soon as possible,” Bush said. “I don’t want whoever this is holding me outside Washington.”

An aide responded: “Our people are saying it’s too unsteady still.”

Bush said that was the message he was hearing from Cheney as well.

Bush chief of staff Andy Card said, “The right thing is to let the dust settle.”

Fleischer’s notes include an eerie reference to a communication heard on the plane from the ground that “Angel is next.” Because Air Force One’s codename at the time was “angel,” there was worry onboard that the plane was a target.

He said an armed guard was stationed outside the door leading to the Air Force One cockpit, just in case someone was a threat on the plane itself.

A month later, Bush and his team were told the reference to “angel” was a miscommunication from the ground. One offshoot of the 9/11 attacks was a major renovation of Air Force One’s communications abilities.

The president, only in office for eight months, had another priority in mind as well: making sure his family was safe. Bush’s wife, Laura, and their two daughters were whisked to secure locations.

“Barney?” Bush said, inquiring about his beloved Scottish terrier.

“He’s nipping at the heels of Osama bin Laden now,” said Card.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Leslie Adler)

White House names retired Air Force general as first cyber security chief

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Thursday named a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general as the government’s first federal cyber security chief, a position announced eight months ago that is intended to improve defenses against hackers.

Gregory Touhill’s job will be to protect government networks and critical infrastructure from cyber threats as federal chief information security officer, according to a statement.

The administration of President Barack Obama has made bolstering federal cyber security a top priority in his last year in office. The issue has gained more attention because of high-profile breaches in recent years of government and private sector computers.

U.S. intelligence officials suspect Russia was responsible for breaches of Democratic political organizations and state election systems to exert influence on the Nov. 8 presidential election. Russia has dismissed the allegations as absurd.

Obama announced the new position in February alongside a budget proposal to Congress asking for $19 billion for cyber security across the U.S. government. The job is a political appointment, meaning Obama’s successor can choose to replace Touhill after being sworn in next January.

Touhill is currently a deputy assistant secretary for cyber security and communications at the Department of Homeland Security.

He will begin his new role later this month, a source familiar with the matter said. Touhill’s responsibilities will include creating and implementing policy for best security practices across federal agencies and conducting periodic audits to test for weaknesses, according to the announcement.

Grant Schneider, who is the director of cyber security policy at the White House’s National Security Council, will be acting deputy to Touhill, according to the announcement.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; editing by Cynthia Osterman and Grant McCool)

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