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8A Daily News – Thursday, January 19, 2012 WORLD BRIEFING Obama turns down oil pipeline WASHINGTON (AP) — Raising the stakes on a bitter election-year fight with Republicans, Presi- dent Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected a Canadian company's plan to build a U.S.-spanning, 1,700-mile pipeline to carry oil across six U.S. states to Texas refineries. Though the project promises thousands of temporary jobs for the recovering U.S. economy, Obama said a February deadline set by Congress would not allow for a proper review of potential harm from the $7 billion Keystone XL project. ''As the State Depart- ment made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline's impact, espe- cially the health and safe- ty of the American peo- ple, as well as our envi- ronment,'' Obama said. The plan proposed by Calgary-based Tran- sCanada would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. Republicans assailed Obama's decision as a job-killer and said the fight wasn't over. Italians tally 11 dead, 21 missing from cruise ship ROME (AP) — The first victim from the Costa Concordia disaster was identified Wednesday — a 38-year-old violinist from Hungary who had been working as an enter- tainer on the stricken cruise ship. Sandor Feher's body was found inside the wreck and identified by his mother, who had trav- eled to the Italian city of Grosseto, according to Hungary's foreign min- istry. The $450 million Costa Concordia cruise ship was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into a reef and flopped on its side Friday off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after the captain made an unauthorized detour on his route. Eleven people have been confirmed dead so far, but the number of missing dropped to 21 Wednesday after a Ger- man passenger who was listed as missing was found alive back in Ger- many, the Grosseto pre- fect's office reported. Ital- ian officials have only released 27 names so far, including 12 Germans, six Italians, four French, two Americans and one per- son each from Hungary, India and Peru. Jozsef Balog, a pianist who worked with Feher on the ship, told the Blikk newspaper that Feher was wearing a lifejacket when he decided to return to his cabin to pack his violin. Feher was last seen on deck en route to the area where he was supposed to board a lifeboat. Gingrich, Romney trade harsh attacks WINNSBORO, S.C. (AP) — Republican pres- idential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Rom- ney engaged in a harsh volley of attacks Wednes- day, with Gingrich pre- dicting an ''unendingly dirty and dishonest'' end to his rival's campaign and Romney mocking Gingrich's claim of help- ing to create millions of jobs. Romney said Gin- grich's boast was like ''Al Gore taking credit for the Internet.'' Gingrich said: ''I fully expect the Romney cam- paign to be unendingly dirty and dishonest for the next four days because they are desperate.'' The increasingly bitter and personal tone between the two candi- dates suggested that Rom- ney sees the former House speaker a rising threat to his front-runner's status in Seventh Day Adventist Church 720 South Jackson St., Red Bluff Showing Live Via Satellite at the Starting January 20th @ 7pm Please Join Us Saturday's South Carolina primary while Gingrich is scrambling to capitalize on his momentum after a fiery debate performance Monday night. Romney's strategy has been to leave his rivals to fight among themselves while he behaves like the nominee and focuses his rhetoric on Democratic President Barack Obama's record. Prosecutor says delivery of magazine to detainee showed flaws FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — A copy of a mag- azine published by an arm of al-Qaida made its way to a terror suspect at the Guantanamo Bay prison, leading to an inspection of cells and a contentious new policy requiring spe- cial review teams to examine correspondence between prisoners and attorneys, U.S. prosecu- tors said Wednesday. Navy Cmdr. Andrea Lockhart told a military judge during a pre-trial hearing that a copy of Inspire magazine got into a cell. She provided no details on who received the magazine or how. But she said the breach showed that prior rules at the base gov- erning mail review were not adequate. Yemen's al- Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula launched the online, English-language magazine in 2010. An early issue contained tips to would-be militants about how to kill U.S. citizens. Lockhart is part of the U.S. team prosecuting the case against Abd al- Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national charged with orchestrating the attack in 2000 on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. Al- Nashiri, 47, is considered one of the most senior al- Qaida leaders. He has been held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guan- tanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006 after spending sever- al years held by the CIA in a series of secret prisons. How mail between Guantanamo prisoners and their attorneys should be handled consumed sev- eral hours of the al- Nashiri's pre-trial session on Tuesday and Wednes- day. At issue is whether even a cursory examina- tion of the legal corre- spondence violates the attorney-client privilege. The dispute reflects the untested nature of this lat- est attempt to resume the military tribunals at Guantanamo. The prose- cution of al-Nashiri is already underway and the U.S. is preparing to prose- cute five other prisoners accused in the Sept. 11 attacks, yet defense campaign including tech heavyweights such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. has successfully por- trayed the bills as an attack on a free and open Internet. ''It has nothing to do with stolen songs or movies,'' said Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, which is participating in the blackout. Ruben says tougher legislation — even directed overseas — could make domestic cul- tural commentators more prone to legal attack. Panetta: No 'special' military steps lawyers and government prosecutors are still fight- ing to establish basic legal ground rules. Rhetoric in GOP race causing concern WASHINGTON (AP) — Hoping to win the hearts of Southern con- servatives, Newt Gin- grich leaned into his argument that President Barack Obama is a ''food stamp president'' and that poor people should want paychecks, not handouts — a pitch that earned him a stand- ing ovation in South Car- olina during a presiden- tial debate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. ''I believe every American of every back- ground has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that make liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn someday to own the job,'' Gingrich said. A day later, he turned the moment — complete with the cheering conser- vative crowd — into a TV ad as he works to claw his way to the top of the leader board in the closing days of the South Carolina campaign. Rhetoric like that from Gingrich and other candidates is stoking concerns among some blacks that the political discourse is rewinding to the days of ''Southern strategy'' campaigning that uses blacks as scape- goats to attract white votes. Yet, it's unclear whether this strategy — if that's what it is — will work on an electorate now accustomed to see- ing African Americans in high-ranking positions. ''I see it as a retreat to the sort of bread- and-butter rallying of those who we might call racist,'' said Charles P. Henry, chair of African American Studies at the Universi- ty of California, Berke- ley. ''I see it as a des- perate strategy to draw in those voters and South Carolina would be a better testing ground because of its sizable black popula- tion.'' While blacks are of 1.1 percent and 2.9 per- cent of the population, respectively, in New Hampshire and Iowa, they are almost one in three in South Caroli- na, where the Civil War began in 1861. That means scapegoating minorities stands to work better there than in either of those previ- ously contested states, Henry said. Web protest exposes rivalry LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a move that height- ens the growing tension between Silicon Valley and Hollywood, Wikipedia and other websites went dark Wednesday in protest of two congressional pro- posals intended to thwart the online piracy of copy- righted movies and TV programs. The web-based ency- clopedia is part of a loose coalition of dot-coms and large technology compa- nies that fear Congress is prepared to side with Hollywood and enact extreme measures — possibly including the blocking of entire web- sites— to stop the online sharing and unauthorized use of Hollywood pro- ductions. The fight will test which California-based industry has the most sway in Washington. For now, Silicon Val- NOW OVER 300,000 PAGE VIEWS PER MONTH! D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY www.redbluffdailynews.com Now! Print Daily News subscribers enjoy unlimited FREE website access 24/7! ley appears to have the upper hand. Supporters of the legislation — called the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellec- tual Property Act in the Senate — say the bills are aimed at protecting jobs in the movie and music industries. But a underway WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military is now ''fully prepared'' to deal with any Iranian effort to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital Persian Gulf avenue for interna- tional oil shipments, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday. At a Pentagon news conference, Panetta was asked whether, in light of Iran's threat to close the strait in retaliation for stronger international economic sanctions, Washington is adjusting U.S. forces in the region. ''We are not making any special steps at this point in order to deal with the situation,'' Panetta replied. ''Why? Because, frankly, we are fully pre- pared to deal with that sit- uation now.'' He noted that routine planning con- tinues as the U.S. and its allies consider a range of potential Iran-related problems. The Navy this month added a second aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East, portraying it as part of a normal rota- tion and not a deliberate buildup of force. The car- riers are the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham Lincoln, under the control of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain. The U.S. has kept a continuous naval presence in the Gulf region for decades, but international concerns about a potential confrontation have grown amid tensions over the advancement of Iran's nuclear program. Investigators find human hand in LA park where head found LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles investi- gators found a human hand Wednesday in the Hollywood wilderness park where a severed head in a plastic bag was discovered by dog walkers, and the search continued for other body parts. The hand was discov- ered in Bronson Canyon as dozens of police offi- cers, including homi- cide investigators, combed the brush along a winding trail a few miles below the Holly- wood sign. A coroner's cadaver dog found the hand about 50 yards from where the head was dis- covered on Tuesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/xWFSjT) reported. The remains are believed to come from the same man. Wild ani- mals in the park may have some other body parts, police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said. The head of a man in his 40s, 50s or 60s was found about a half-mile inside the gated canyon road, which is part of the vast Griffith Park.