AP-GfK poll surprise: Italians want more migrants

People get on a streetcar in Rome, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Two-thirds of Italians consider legal immigration "good" for their country and many would welcome more migrants, an AP-GfK poll has found, surprising results given persistent sentiment in Italy linking foreigners to crime and other social ills. Many Italians, most prominently allies of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, have blamed the relatively new phenomenon of immigration for problems ranging from unemployment to drug trafficking, and from burglaries to violent crime. But in the poll conducted last week, 67 percent of 1,025 Italian adults surveyed across the country said legal immigration is a good thing. And 59 percent said they want to see even more immigrants admitted legally to Italy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

People get on a streetcar in Rome, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Two-thirds of Italians consider legal immigration "good" for their country and many would welcome more migrants, an AP-GfK poll has found, surprising results given persistent sentiment in Italy linking foreigners to crime and other social ills. Many Italians, most prominently allies of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, have blamed the relatively new phenomenon of immigration for problems ranging from unemployment to drug trafficking, and from burglaries to violent crime. But in the poll conducted last week, 67 percent of 1,025 Italian adults surveyed across the country said legal immigration is a good thing. And 59 percent said they want to see even more immigrants admitted legally to Italy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

People hang around in a street in Rome, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Two-thirds of Italians consider legal immigration "good" for their country and many would welcome more migrants, an AP-GfK poll has found, surprising results given persistent sentiment in Italy linking foreigners to crime and other social ills. Many Italians, most prominently allies of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, have blamed the relatively new phenomenon of immigration for problems ranging from unemployment to drug trafficking, and from burglaries to violent crime. But in the poll conducted last week, 67 percent of 1,025 Italian adults surveyed across the country said legal immigration is a good thing. And 59 percent said they want to see even more immigrants admitted legally to Italy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Women take a stroll in Rome, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Two-thirds of Italians consider legal immigration "good" for their country and many would welcome more migrants, an AP-GfK poll has found, surprising results given persistent sentiment in Italy linking foreigners to crime and other social ills. Many Italians, most prominently allies of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, have blamed the relatively new phenomenon of immigration for problems ranging from unemployment to drug trafficking, and from burglaries to violent crime. But in the poll conducted last week, 67 percent of 1,025 Italian adults surveyed across the country said legal immigration is a good thing. And 59 percent said they want to see even more immigrants admitted legally to Italy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

People wait at a bus stop in Rome, Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011. Two-thirds of Italians consider legal immigration "good" for their country and many would welcome more migrants, an AP-GfK poll has found, surprising results given persistent sentiment in Italy linking foreigners to crime and other social ills. Many Italians, most prominently allies of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, have blamed the relatively new phenomenon of immigration for problems ranging from unemployment to drug trafficking, and from burglaries to violent crime. But in the poll conducted last week, 67 percent of 1,025 Italian adults surveyed across the country said legal immigration is a good thing. And 59 percent said they want to see even more immigrants admitted legally to Italy. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

ROME (AP) ? Two-thirds of Italians consider legal immigration "good" for their country and many would welcome more migrants, an AP-GfK poll has found ? surprising results given persistent sentiment in Italy linking foreigners to crime and other social ills.

Many Italians ? most prominently allies of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi ? have blamed the relatively new phenomenon of immigration for problems ranging from unemployment to drug trafficking, and from burglaries to violent crime.

But in the poll conducted last week, 67 percent of 1,025 Italian adults surveyed across the country said legal immigration is a good thing. And 59 percent said they want to see even more immigrants admitted legally to Italy.

The findings highlight Italians' split view of immigration: While many have a knee-jerk hostile reaction to immigrants because of security fears, many also realize they are needed to do the jobs Italians won't do, to pay into Italy's overburdened pension system and to care for the country's aging population.

"There is a schizophrenic attitude, which acknowledges the necessity of immigrant labor but doesn't accompany this with a true openness to the human and social implications of migration," said Ferruccio Pastore, director of the International and European Research Forum on Immigration think tank.

On Tuesday, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano urged Parliament to grant automatic citizenship to Italian-born children of foreigners, days after stressing that the weight of Italy's debt would be even more difficult to sustain were it not for the contribution of immigrants to Italy's economy.

A chorus of protest rose up from right-wing politicians, with some leaders of the anti-immigrant Northern League vowing to "throw up barricades" around Parliament if the citizenship measure comes up for a vote.

Among those polled, people most in favor of increasing the number of new immigrant workers and people who consider legal immigration a very good thing came mainly from Italy's industrious north. Those in southern Italy, which suffers from high unemployment and has borne the burden of receiving thousands of illegal boat people, were less enthusiastic.

Demographer Antonio Golini suggested that opinions on immigration tend to be colored by personal experience: Someone whose elderly parents are lovingly cared for by an Eastern European woman sees immigration as a boon; someone whose Egyptian pizza maker quit his job on a busy Saturday night is less enthusiastic.

Still, the idea that immigrant workers are an integral part of Italian life is taking root, said Golini, professor emeritus at Rome's Sapienza University and a frequent collaborator with Italy's national statistics bureau.

"When they see that caretakers for the elderly are mainly immigrants, that factory workers, construction workers, are immigrants, they begin to feel the benefit of immigrants, so they are favorable to them," he said.

For centuries, Italy was a largely homogenized, predominantly Roman Catholic society. Two decades ago, foreign workers began arriving, introducing new ethnic groups and faiths to the nation. Each year, Italy's interior ministry sets the number of new residence permits to be issued, nationality by nationality. Immigrants now account for 6 percent of the population.

Italians depend on the immigrants for low-paying or backbreaking jobs they themselves shun, like bricklaying, crop-picking and flipping pizza dough in front of hot ovens.

But opposition primarily from Berlusconi's allies in the Northern League has led to more restrictive laws, including one that went into effect this year requiring immigrants to take a proficiency test in the Italian language before receiving permanent residency permits.

While the AP-GfK poll suggests Italians are accepting of such legal migrants, it also makes clear they have little tolerance for illegal ones. Illegal immigration was described by 54 percent of those surveyed as an "extremely serious" or "very serious" problem, with 25 percent describing it as "somewhat serious."

Far more respondents said they are deeply worried about unemployment, corruption, the national debt and organized crime.

Husband-and-wife shopkeepers Giovanni Esposito and Gilda Di Carli reflected the ambivalence of Italians toward immigrants.

Esposito, 77, works in a butcher stall in the bustling Piazza Vittorio covered market, in a blue-collar neighborhood that is home to many migrants. He followed the profession of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, but said Italian youths are too soft for the work, which requires rising at 4 a.m. and not hanging up one's apron until afternoon.

He said that's why Italy need immigrants.

"We need them because our own young people don't want to do this work," Esposito said.

But he was adamant about illegal migrants: "They should be sent back. If there is no work for us, there is no work for them."

Di Carli, 72, arranged produce in her store a few blocks away.

"There are good ones and bad ones, like Italians," she said. Asked whether the numbers of immigrants should be increased, she was emphatic. "Increased? No. Then there will be more of them than there are of us."

The AP-GfK poll of 1,025 Italian adults across the country was conducted Nov. 16-20 using landlines and cell phones by GfK Eurisko Italy under direction of the global GfK Group. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

___

AP Poll is at http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

___

Maria Grazia Murru and Paolo Santalucia contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-23-EU-Italy-Poll-Immigration/id-6e5399dd595347b9a1887c9483207694

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Antipsychotic drugs tied to diabetes risk in kids (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) ? The antipsychotic drugs that are increasingly being used to treat bipolar disorder, autism and other mental disorders in children may come with an increased risk of diabetes, a new study suggests.

Previous research has linked the so-called second-generation antipsychotics to an increased risk of diabetes in adults. And there's been some evidence that the drugs can cause weight gain in children.

The new findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, add to concerns that the medications may ultimately lead to diabetes in some kids.

Using records from three U.S. health plans, researchers found that children and teens who started on an antipsychotic had four times the risk of being diagnosed with diabetes, versus kids not using any psychiatric medication.

They developed diabetes at a rate of just over three cases per 1,000 children per year. That compared with just under 0.8 cases per 1,000 among medication-free kids.

Second-generation antipsychotics include drugs such as Risperdal, known generically as risperidone, Zyprexa (olanzapine), Seroquel (quetiapine) and Abilify (aripiprazole).

The drugs are used to treat conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and irritability and aggression in children with autism. They are also sometimes given to children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), even though there's no research evidence to support that.

And it's the growing use of the drugs in kids -- particularly for conditions in which the benefit is unclear -- that makes the potential diabetes risk concerning, according to Dr. Jonathan Mink, chief of child neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

"These medications can be very helpful in certain settings," said Mink, who is also part of a pediatric advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In September, the panel recommended that the agency keep monitoring the risks of weight gain and diabetes in children on antipsychotics.

The drugs are often effective, for example, in managing aggressive behavior in children with autism. In other cases -- like ADHD, Mink noted -- the effectiveness, if any, has not been established.

Exactly why antipsychotics would lead to diabetes in some children is not clear. It's known that they can spur weight gain, but Mink said that "it's hard to argue that it's just weight gain."

In this study, kids on antipsychotics who developed diabetes were diagnosed an average of 4.5 months after starting the drug. That's a short period of time, Mink noted. And it's not clear, he said, exactly how the drugs could lead to diabetes in that time frame.

"The take-home from this study, to me, is that this (risk) is real," Mink said. "It's something we should take seriously."

For the study, researchers led by Susan E. Andrade, of the University of Massachusetts in Worcester, combed through records for more than 74,000 five- to 18-year-olds enrolled in one of three health plans between 2001 and 2008.

Of those kids, 9,636 started on a second-generation antipsychotic during the study period. And out of the entire study group, 57 kids were diagnosed with diabetes.

Andrade's team found that children on antipsychotics were at relatively higher risk of diabetes than those not on any psychiatric medication. On the other hand, their risk was not statistically greater compared with kids on antidepressants.

With antidepressants, the diabetes rate was just under two cases per 1,000 kids per year.

Antidepressants can cause weight gain. And there's some evidence, Andrade's team notes, that the drugs are related to diabetes risk -- but studies have come to conflicting findings on that.

For now, Mink said that parents of children on antipsychotics should be sure their doctor regularly checks their child's weight and blood sugar, to detect any signs of trouble early.

And if your child's doctor recommends an antipsychotic, Mink said, don't hesitate to ask questions -- including whether there are any alternative treatments, and what the plan will be for monitoring your child for side effects.

U.S. researchers have found that children's use of antipsychotics increased by 65 percent from 2002 to 2009, primarily through prescriptions for teenagers.

From fall 2009 to spring of this year, 1.9 million prescriptions of Abilify alone were dispensed to patients under 18, including even 875 prescriptions for toddlers younger than two, according to FDA research.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/rqcgIy Pediatrics, online November 21, 2011.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111122/hl_nm/us_antipsychotic_drugs

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Army, police charge Egypt protesters who vow to stay (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Police backed by the army used batons and teargas on Sunday to charge protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square demanding Eygpt's ruling generals swiftly hand power to civilians, in some of the worst violence since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

With little more than a week to go before a parliamentary election that starts the process of transition, the state news agency reported three dead in a second day of violence on Sunday and 192 wounded. Medical sources said four died on Sunday.

The latest deaths take the overall toll to at least five with more than 1,000 injured.

"The people want the toppling of the regime," thousands of protesters chanted before and after the charge by police backed by military officers who had stayed on the sidelines till then.

The demonstrators accuse the army of seeking to retain power from behind scenes as it oversees the transition, which could see the military remain in control until presidential elections which may not happen until late 2012 or early 2013.

Generals deny any such intention and the cabinet reiterated on Sunday that violence would not delay the staggered parliamentary elections that start on November 28.

The security forces, who moved in as darkness fell, beat some protesters with batons. One group of demonstrators formed a line and bowed in the traditional Muslim prayer, television images showed. Most held their line as the police moved in.

"The army sent soldiers to Tahrir to help state security disperse the protesters. They are beating us hard," said Ragab Shemiekhy, who has been in Tahrir throughout the latest protest.

A Reuters witness saw the dead body of a 28-year-old man on Sunday evening in a makeshift clinic on the edge of Tahrir Square. It was not clear how he had died or if the death was one of those reported by medical sources.

Army police detained dozens of people, a witness said. After initially fleeing, protesters poured back into the square.

"The military council are shutting their ears, they're ignoring us, they don't give a damn about us, and we're going to stay occupying the streets and demanding our rights. Eventually justice will prevail," said Amal El Mohandes, 31.

Egypt's benchmark index tumbled about 2.5 percent on Sunday as investors worried about the outcome of the clashes.

ISLAMISTS DISTANCE THEMSELVES

The protest that began on Friday was led by Islamists. But it has since been largely driven by many of the same youthful activists who ended Mubarak's 30-year rule, putting national pride over religion. Some Islamists, including of the biggest group, the Muslim Brotherhood, have since withdrawn.

"Those in the square to do not belong to any party. This is a new scene," Ahmed Abo Barka of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party told Al Jazeera. "They want to block the route before the Egyptian people who want their election."

The Brotherhood, banned under Mubarak, had tended to take a softer line toward the military than some other groups, which analysts say is to ensure elections go ahead and prevent any return to the kind of repression is suffered in the past.

A row has erupted between political groups and the army-picked cabinet over ground rules for drafting the constitution that could leave the military free of civilian control. Parliament is to pick the assembly to draw up the constitution.

Many Egyptians are angry that nine months after ousting Mubarak, the army remains in charge and police are still using the same heavy-handed tactics against demonstrators.

"We are on the brink of danger. Those asking for the government to fall are asking for the state to fall," Egyptian army General Mohsen Fangary had told a television channel early on Sunday.

He said the election would go ahead on time and the army and Interior Ministry would maintain security. He also said the army, in line with a timetable previously announced, aimed to return to barracks by the end of 2012. Presidential elections could be held by then.

The army-backed cabinet had outraged many Egyptians by presenting proposals for the new constitution that would have shielded the army's budget from civilian oversight and given it a broad national security remit.

It had amended the proposals to give civilian powers more say but this was not enough to prevent Friday's protest.

After a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Silmi said: "We will not back down from the last proposed amendments to the constitutional document."

'TROUBLEMAKERS'

During streets battles on Saturday night and Sunday morning, police fired round after round of teargas at protesters near the Interior Ministry. Closer to Tahrir the demonstrators laid sheets of metal to block roads into the square.

A security official said police had not used live rounds and had used lawful methods to deal with "troublemakers."

Protests erupted in other cities. About 800 people gathered in front of the security directorate in Alexandria, chanting: "Interior Ministry officials are thugs."

About 1,000 gathered outside a police station in the eastern city of Suez, site of some of the worst violence in the uprising. They threw stones at it and tried to force their way in. Police fired teargas and shot in the air.

Liberal groups are dismayed by the military trials of thousands of civilians and the army's failure to scrap a hated emergency law. Islamists eyeing a strong showing in the next parliament suspect the army wants to curtail their influence.

Analysts say Islamists could win 40 percent of parliamentary seats, with a big portion going to the Muslim Brotherhood.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Patrick Werr, Marwa Awad, Abdel Rahman Youssef, Dina Zayed, Tom Pfeiffer and Yousri Mohamed; writing by Edmund Blair and Patrick Werr; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111120/wl_nm/us_egypt_protests

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No deal in sight on deficit plan as time runs out

Supercommittee members, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., left, Supercommittee Co-Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., are seen at a signing ceremony with President Barack Obama, Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Supercommittee members, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., left, Supercommittee Co-Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., are seen at a signing ceremony with President Barack Obama, Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Supercommittee member Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. gestures during TV interview about the deficit reducing panel's unfinished work Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Supercommittee member, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., fends off reporters as he arrives to meet in the Capitol Hill office of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., with other Supercommittee members as time for action by the deficit reduction panel grows short, Monday Nov. 21, 2011, of Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Supercommittee members, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Ariz., left, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., right, greet each other on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, as the deficit reduction panel's deadline approaches with little expectation for success. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Supercommittee Co-Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., right, talks with Supercommittee member, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Monday, Nov. 21, 2011, where President Barack Obama signed legislation that will provide tax credits to help put veterans back to work. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Congress' supercommittee stood at the brink of ignominious failure on Monday, impotent in the face of enduring political divisions over taxes and spending and powerless to rein in government debt that stands at a staggering $15 trillion and growing.

Stock prices plummeted at home and across debt-scarred Europe as the panel neared the end of a brief, secretive existence, and Republicans and Democrats maneuvered for political advantage in advance of 2012 elections less than a year away.

Under the law that established the committee last summer, failure by the six Republicans and six Democrats to reach a compromise would trigger about $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts in military and domestic government programs beginning in 2013. In reality, though, it is unclear if any of those reductions will ever take effect, since next year's presidential and congressional elections have the potential to alter the political landscape before cuts would take effect.

Several committee members met in the Capitol at mid-day, but there was no indication of progress toward an 11th-hour compromise. The panel faced an end-of-day deadline to produce an accord to cut $1.2 trillion from federal deficits across the next decade, and aides in both parties said they expected a written statement from the committee's co-chairs, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas., to mark the end of talks.

At the White House, President Barack Obama's press secretary still called for compromise.

"Instead of pointing fingers and playing the blame game, Congress should act," said Jay Carney. He said the automatic cuts that would fall on the Pentagon are "deeper than we think is wise," but he added the administration does not think Congress should undo them. Obama signed the legislation earlier in the year that mandates the cuts as a stopgap in case the committee failed to agree.

Some Republicans said Obama shared the blame for any failure. "It's amazing to what lengths he will go to avoid making tough decisions," said Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP White House hopeful.

Based on accounts provided by officials familiar with the talks, it appeared that weeks of private negotiations did nothing to alter a fundamental divide between the two political parties. Before and during the talks, Democrats said they would agree to significant savings from benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security only if Republicans would agree to a hefty dose of higher taxes, including cancellation of Bush-era cuts at upper-income brackets. In contrast, The GOP side said spending, not revenue, was the cause of the government's chronic budget deficits, and insisted that the tax cuts approved in the previous decade all be made permanent.

The Democrats' "idea was this was the opportunity to raise taxes,'" said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate's second-ranking Republican and a member of the supercommittee. "It didn't matter what we proposed; the price of that was going to be $1.3 trillion in new taxes," he added in a CNBC interview, although Democrats made at least two offers that called for smaller amounts of additional tax revenue.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said on MSNBC, "I have demonstrations outside my office. I've had rallies. I've had unbelievable amount of pushback because we were ready and prepared to put on the table some of those so-called sacred cows." Republicans, he said, refused to consider cancellation of the tax cuts for the wealthy.

The talks also were hampered by internal divisions within both parties.

Republicans offered a plan crafted by Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania about two weeks ago that included an additional $250 billion in tax revenue through an overhaul of the tax code that included reducing the top tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent. Some Republicans criticized it as a violation of the party's long-standing pledge not to raise taxes. Even some in the GOP leadership, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, declined to endorse it in public.

At the same time, Democrats ridiculed it as a tax cut for the rich in disguise ? even privately criticizing Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., when he said it could signal a breakthrough ? and it failed to generate any momentum toward compromise. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and others also accused Republicans of bowing to the wishes of Grover Norquist, an anti-tax activist whose organization has gathered signatures from GOP candidates on a petition pledging never to raise taxes.

And Democrats had problems of their own. An offer presented by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., to cut about $3 trillion from future deficits failed to win the backing of two of the six committee members of his own party. Officials said they objected because it would have curtailed future cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. Some Senate liberals spoke out against the provision in speeches, Baucus jettisoned it from a subsequent offer and Republicans cited that as an example of Democratic intransigence.

The panel's failure marked the end of an extraordinary yearlong effort by divided government to grapple with budget deficits that lawmakers of both parties and economists of all persuasions agreed were unsustainable.

Negotiations in the Capitol led by Vice President Joseph Biden were followed by an extraordinary round of White House talks in which Obama and House Speaker John Boehner sought a sweeping compromise to cut trillions from future deficits. They outlined a potential accord that would make far-reaching changes in Medicare and other programs, while generating up to $800 billion in higher revenue through an overhaul of the tax code. But in the end, they failed to agree.

By contrast, the supercommittee never came close, instead swapping increasingly small-bore offers that the other side swiftly rejected.

Within the past week, Democrats said they would accept a Republican framework for $400 billion in higher tax revenue and $800 billion or so in spending cuts, while rejecting numerous key proposals.

Late last week, Boehner floated an offer that included $543 billion in spending cuts, fees and other non-tax revenue, as well as $3 billion in tax revenue from closing a special tax break for corporate purchases of private jets. It also assumed $98 billion in reduced interest costs.

It was swiftly rejected.

_____

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Alan Fram and Laurie Kellman contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-21-Debt%20Supercommittee/id-901dc9c6ce364530befec68de87b5ee5

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Two killed, hundreds hurt in Egypt protest clashes (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Protesters demanding an end to army rule and angered by rough police tactics battled with police on Sunday, presenting Egypt's ruling generals with their biggest security challenge yet, a week before parliamentary elections.

Two people were killed and hundreds wounded in late night clashes reminiscent of some of the worst violence during the 18-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February.

Youths in Cairo chanted "The people want to topple the regime" as they rushed at police, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas. Protesters clashed with police in two other cities.

Egypt holds its first parliamentary election since Mubarak's ouster in a staggered vote that starts on November 28. Many Egyptians are worried that police will not be able to secure the polls, although the army insists it can.

Presidential powers remain with the army after the vote. A row has erupted between political groups and the army-picked cabinet over ground rules for drafting the constitution that could leave the military free of civilian control. Parliament is to pick the assembly to draw up the constitution.

There was sporadic violence on Sunday after the worst overnight clashes subsided. Thousands of demonstrators were still in Cairo's Tahrir Square, forming lines to defend it.

Brandishing spent shotgun cartridges in a Cairo street strewn with debris, one protester shouted: "This is the Interior Ministry who say they are using self-restraint!"

Demonstrators around him wore masks to protect against teargas and showed off spent gas canisters and bullet casings. Metal barricades had been set up on approach roads to Tahrir Square, where Egyptians gathered to bring down Mubarak.

Many Egyptians are angry that nine-months after ousting Mubarak, the army remains in charge and police are still using the same heavy-handed tactics against demonstrators.

'DO NOT LEAVE THE SQUARE'

"We are on the brink of danger. Those asking for the government to fall are asking for the state to fall," Egyptian army General Mohsen Fangary told a television channel.

He said the election would go ahead on time and the army and Interior Ministry would maintain security. He also said the army, in line with a timetable previously announced, aimed to return to barracks by the end of 2012. Presidential elections could be held by then.

Cabinet met on Sunday to discuss the violence.

As police fired round after round of tear gas at protesters near the Interior Ministry, closer to Tahrir the demonstrators laid sheets of metal to block roads into the square.

"I tell you do not leave the square. This square will lead the way from now on," presidential candidate Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a hardline Islamist, told a group of protesters early on Sunday. "Tomorrow the whole of Egypt will follow your lead."

During Saturday's clashes, protesters broke chunks of cement from pavements and hurled them at police.

"We don't expect anything from the military council, they will ignore us like what used to happen during Mubarak's days," said Abdallah Belal, a 21-year-old student in Tahrir.

The state news agency quoted the Health Ministry as saying 766 people had been wounded and two people were killed. It said a man, 23, was killed in Cairo by a gunshot to the chest and a man in the second city Alexandria had a gunshot to the head.

A security official said police had not use live rounds and had used lawful methods to deal with "troublemakers." The army stayed away from fighting.

The army won popular backing during Mubarak's overthrow for maintaining order and pledging to hand power to an elected government, but support has ebbed over its use of military trials for civilians and suspicion that it wants to continue to wield the levers of power after a new government is sworn in.

PROTEST AT POLICE

About 5,000 protesters had converged on Tahrir on Saturday afternoon when police tried to evict the remnants of a 50,000-strong demonstration a day earlier, mostly by Islamists demanding the departure of the military.

Police beat the protesters, most of them not Islamists, with batons and fired tear gas to regain control of the square, only to retreat after night fell.

Protests erupted in other cities. About 800 people gathered in front of the security directorate in Alexandria, chanting: "Interior Ministry officials are thugs."

About 1,000 gathered outside a police station in the eastern city of Suez, site of some of the worst violence in the uprising. They threw stones at it and tried to force their way in. Police fired tear gas and shot in the air.

Liberal groups are dismayed by the military trials of thousands of civilians and the army's failure to scrap a hated emergency law. Islamists eyeing a strong showing in the next parliament suspect the army wants to curtail their influence.

Analysts say Islamists could win 40 percent of parliamentary seats, with a big portion going to the Muslim Brotherhood.

"We are not political parties and we hate the Brotherhood who gave up on the revolution and the people," Medhat Fawzy said. "We are Egyptian youth," he said, flashing a victory sign.

The liberal April 6 Youth movement said the interior minister should quit for ordering the use of force against a peaceful protest.

Friday's rally appeared to be the biggest Islamist challenge to military rule since the largely secular uprising that toppled Mubarak. The demonstration mostly comprised of Brotherhood members and their harder line Salafi rivals.

Protesters expressed anger at a draft constitution that Deputy Prime Minister Ali al-Silmi showed to political groups earlier this month that would give the army exclusive authority over its internal affairs and budget.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Patrick Werr, Tamim Elyan, Abdel Rahman Youssef, Dina Zayed and Yousri Mohamed; Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Pfeiffer)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111120/wl_nm/us_egypt_protests

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Deficit deal failure would pose crummy choice

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, co-chair of the supercommittee, tells reporters outside his office that the deficit reduction panel would work over the weekend as the deadline for its work nears, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, co-chair of the supercommittee, tells reporters outside his office that the deficit reduction panel would work over the weekend as the deadline for its work nears, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Co-Chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often called the Supercommittee, speaks to reporters following a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., the Senate GOP whip, arrives for a meeting with bi-partisan members of the supercommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., member of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often called the Supercommittee, speaks to reporters following a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., arrives for a meeting with bi-partisan members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often called the Supercommittee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? If the deficit-cutting supercommittee fails, Congress will face a crummy choice. Lawmakers can allow payroll tax cuts and jobless aid for millions to expire or they extend them and increase the nation's $15 trillion debt by at least $160 billion.

President Barack Obama and Democrats on the deficit panel want to use the committee's product to carry their jobs agenda. That includes cutting in half the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax and extending jobless benefits for people who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Also caught up in what promises to be a chaotic legislative dash for the exits next month is the need to pass legislation to prevent an almost 30 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors. Several popular business tax breaks and relief from the alternative minimum tax also expire at year's end.

A debt plan from the supercommittee, it was hoped, would have served as a sturdy, filibuster-proof vehicle to tow all of these expiring provisions into law. But after months of negotiations, Republicans and Democrats were far apart on any possible compromise, and there was no indication of progress Saturday.

Failure by the committee would leave lawmakers little time to pick up the pieces. And there's no guarantee it all can get done, especially given the impact of those measures on the spiraling debt.

Instead of cutting the deficit with a tough, bipartisan budget deal, Congress could pivot to spending enormous sums on expiring big-ticket policies.

If lawmakers rebel against the cost, as is possible, they would bear responsibility for allowing policies such as the payroll tax cut, enacted a year ago to help prop up the economy, to lapse.

Last year's extensions of jobless benefits and first-ever cut in the payroll tax were accomplished with borrowed money.

The 2 percent payroll tax cut expiring in December gave 121 million families a tax cut averaging $934 last year at a total cost of about $120 billion, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Obama wants to cut the payroll tax by another percentage point for workers at a total cost of $179 billion and reduce the employer share of the tax in half as well for most companies, which carries a $69 billion price tag.

"The notion of imposing a new payroll tax on people after Jan. 1 in the midst of this recession on working families is totally counterproductive," said Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.

Letting extended jobless assistance expire would mean that more than 6 million people would lose benefits averaging $296 a week next year, with 1.8 million cut off within a month.

Economist say those jobless benefits ? up to 99 weeks of them in high unemployment states ? are among the most effective way to stimulate the economy because unemployed people generally spend the money right away.

"We will have to address those issues," Durbin said.

Extending benefits to the long-term unemployed would cost almost $50 billion under Obama's plan. Preventing the Medicare payment cuts to doctors for an additional 18 months to two years would in all likelihood cost $26 billion to $32 billion more.

Lawmakers also had hoped to renew some tax breaks for business and prevent the alternative minimum tax from sticking more than 30 million taxpayers with higher tax bills. Those items could be addressed retroactively next year, but only increase the uncertainty among already nervous consumers and investors.

This time, Obama wants them to be paid for. But a move by Democrats to try to finance jobs measures with hundreds of billions of dollars in savings from drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has gotten a cold shoulder from top Republicans.

"I've made it pretty clear that those savings that are coming to us as a result of the wind-down of the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan should be banked, should not be used to offset other spending," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. He did not address whether war savings could be used to extend expiring tax cuts.

Those savings are the natural result of national security strategies unrelated to the federal budget. Deficit hawks say tapping into them is simply an accounting gimmick.

"It's just the worst of all worlds if that were to happen," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

But without the war money at their disposal, lawmakers simply can't pay for the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits. Liberals such as Durbin are fine with employing deficit financing, especially if the alternative is playing Scrooge just before the holidays.

"Many people will hate to go home for Christmas saying to the American people, 'Merry Christmas, your payroll taxes go up 2 percent Jan. 1 and unemployment benefits are cut off.'"

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-11-19-Debt%20Supercommittee-What%20Next/id-2f022ff6dbac4bcda524c011da262844

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WADA: British doping issue could wind up with IOC

FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2008 file photo, Colin Moynihan, the chairman of the British Olympic Association, speaks at a news conference in Sydney, Australia. Moynihan said Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011 that the global fight against doping is entering a "dark age" because of a failure to keep deliberate drug cheats out of the games. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2008 file photo, Colin Moynihan, the chairman of the British Olympic Association, speaks at a news conference in Sydney, Australia. Moynihan said Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2011 that the global fight against doping is entering a "dark age" because of a failure to keep deliberate drug cheats out of the games. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)

LONDON (AP) ? The IOC could be forced to intervene with Britain's Olympic committee if its lifetime ban on drug cheats is found to be in violation of global anti-doping rules.

The World Anti-Doping Agency will consider this weekend whether the British Olympic Association is "noncompliant" with the global code, a potential embarrassment for the nation that will host next year's London Olympics.

The meeting in Montreal comes at the end of a week in which WADA and the BOA exchanged sharp barbs in an unusual public spat between two major sports organizations.

At the heart of the dispute is a BOA bylaw, enacted in 1992, that bars British athletes for life from the Olympics if they are found guilty of doping. Britain is the only country that currently has such a rule.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2011-11-18-OLY-WADA-Meetings/id-874e09397fde44d5b585879f90ed3ef8

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