Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/116987
Friday, March 22, 2013 – Daily News 3B WORLD BRIEFING Obama eases demands on Israeli settlements JERUSALEM (AP) — Insisting ''peace is possible,'' President Barack Obama on Thursday prodded both Israelis and Palestinians to return to longstalled negotiations with few, if any, pre-conditions, softening his earlier demands that Israel stop building settlements in disputed territory. The president made his appeal just hours after rockets fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza landed in a southern Israeli border town, a fresh reminder of the severe security risks and tensions that have stymied peace efforts for decades. Obama, on his second day in the Middle East, shuttled between Jerusalem and Ramallah, reaching out to the public as well as political leaders. He offered no new policies or plans for reopening peace talks but urged both sides to ''think anew'' about the intractable conflict and break out of the ''formulas and habits that have blocked progress for so long.'' ''Peace is possible,'' Obama declared during an impassioned speech to young people in Jerusalem. ''I'm not saying it's guaranteed. I can't even say that it is more likely than not. But it is possible.'' The deep disputes dividing the Israelis and Palestinians have remained much the same over the years, and include deciding the status of Jerusalem, defining borders and resolving refugee issues. Palestinians have been particularly incensed over Israeli settlements in disputed territories, and the Israelis' continued construction has also drawn the core partisans in the warring parties that are gridlocked over persistent budget deficits. Obama is exploring the chances of forging a middle path that blends new taxes and modest curbs to government benefit programs. condemnation of the United States and other nations. Gun control Syrian suicide advocates press Dems bombing in mosque kills on expanding preacher and background checks 41 others WASHINGTON (AP) BEIRUT (AP) — A suicide bombing tore through a mosque in the Syrian capital Thursday, killing a top Sunni Muslim preacher and longtime supporter of President Bashar Assad along with at least 41 other people. The assassination of Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti removes one of the few remaining pillars of support for the Alawite leader among the majority sect that has risen up against him. The powerful explosion struck as al-Buti, an 84year-old cleric and religious scholar who appeared often on TV, was giving a religious lesson in the Eman Mosque in the central Mazraa district of Damascus, according to state TV. Suicide bombings blamed on Islamic extremists fighting with the rebels have become common in Syria's 2-year-old civil war. But Thursday's explosion marked the first time a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a mosque. Syrian TV said 84 people were wounded in the explosion and showed footage of wounded people and bodies with severed limbs on the bloodstained floor and later, bodies covered in white body bags lined up in rows. Sirens wailed through the capital as ambulances rushed to the scene of the explosion, which was sealed off by the military. — Gun control advocates are pressing Democrats to make expanded federal background checks for firearms buyers a cornerstone of the gun control legislation the Senate plans to debate next month, calling it the best way for lawmakers to salvage a meaningful response to December's elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is widely expected to include a broadening of the background system in the overall gun legislation, say Senate aides and lobbyists who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal Democratic deliberations. They caution he has yet to make a final decision as he waits to see if senators can strike a bipartisan deal on the proposal. If they don't, he will have to calculate whether to introduce a more modest overall gun bill without background checks or dare Republicans to scuttle a bolder one that includes the expanded system. Background checks are designed to keep guns from criminals, people with serious mental problems and others. The checks are currently required only for sales involving federally licensed gun dealers, not for private transactions at gun shows or online. President Barack Obama and other supporters say the system helps keep dangerous people from getting Half the states work intensely on health care rollout guns and should be expanded to virtually all firearms transactions. The National Rifle Association and other opponents say the checks are easily avoided by criminals who get their weapons illegally, and say expanding them would be a step toward a government registry of firearms owners — which is forbidden by federal law. GOP House passes budget plan promising slashing cuts WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House passed a tea party-flavored budget plan Thursday that promises sharp cuts in safety-net programs for the poor and a clampdown on domestic agencies, in sharp contrast to less austere plans favored by President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies. The measure, similar to previous plans offered by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., demonstrates that it's possible, at least mathematically, to balance the budget within a decade without raising taxes. But its deep cuts to programs for the poor like Medicaid and food stamps and its promise to abolish so-called ''Obamacare'' are nonstarters with the president, who won re-election while campaigning against Ryan's prior budgets. It passed on a mostly partyline 221-207 vote. The House measure advanced as the Democratic Senate debated its first budget since the 2009 plan that helped Obama pass his health care law. The dueling House and Senate budget plans are anchored on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum in Washington, appealing to WASHINGTON (AP) — Three years, two elections, and one Supreme Court decision after President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, its promise of health care for the uninsured may be delayed or undercut in much of the country because of entrenched opposition from many Republican state leaders. In half the states, mainly led by Democrats, officials are racing deadlines to connect uninsured residents to coverage now only months away. In others it's as if ''Obamacare'' had never passed. Make no mistake, the federal government will step in and create new insurance markets in the 26 mostly red states declining to run their own. Just like the state-run markets in mostly Democratic-led states, the feds will start signing up customers Oct. 1 for coverage effective Jan. 1. But they need a broad cross-section of people, or else the pool will be stuck with what the government calls the ''sick and worried'' — the costliest patients. Insurance markets, or exchanges, are one prong of Obama's law, providing subsidized private coverage for middle-class households who currently can't get their own.