Miller won't contest Murkowski certification; pursues federal suit - CNN International

Murkowski won as a write-in candidate after losing GOP primaryMiller argues that Alaska law does not allow the counting of misspelled names on write-in ballotsMurkowski holds a 2,200-vote lead even when challenged votes are discountedMiller had until Monday to file an appeal

(CNN) -- Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller said late Sunday he is dropping his opposition to incumbent Lisa Murkowski being certified as winner in the Alaska Senate race, but will continue with a federal lawsuit.

"After careful consideration and seeking the counsel of people whose opinion I respect and trust, I have decided that the federal case must go forward. The integrity of the election is vital and ultimately the rule of law must be our standard," Miller said in a statement. "Nevertheless, I have also decided to withdraw our opposition to the certification of the election, ensuring that Alaska will have its full delegation seated when the 112th Congress convenes next month."

Last week, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled against Miller in his appeal, denying his claim that state law was not followed on counting write-in votes.

In the ruling, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the superior court, saying, "There are no remaining issues raised by Miller that prevent this election from being certified." At the time, a spokesman for Miller's campaign said they were "disappointed" with the decision.

"We are disappointed the Alaska Supreme Court has ignored the plain text of Alaska law and allowed the Division of Elections to effectively amend the state election code without even giving the public an opportunity for notice and comment," Miller spokesman Randy DeSoto said in a statement Wednesday.

The Alaska Division of Elections had already said that the state would move forward to ask the judge to lift the injunction on certifying the election unless the Miller campaign filed an appeal by Monday -- which it will now not do.

The Murkowski campaign anticipated further appeals by Miller.

"We ... anticipate that Joe (Miller) will continue to pursue his baseless claims in federal court until his money runs out," Murkowski spokesman Kevin Sweeney said in a statement last week.

After the election in November, Miller filed a challenge against the Division of Elections to ensure the state law, which calls for write-in votes to match the name of the candidate, was followed. He has argued that Alaska law does not allow the counting of misspelled names on write-in ballots.

However, the Division of Elections set guidelines before counting began that allowed for a voter's intent to be considered when determining whether to count a ballot for a write-in candidate.

Murkowski launched a write-in bid following her loss to Miller, a Tea Party favorite, in the state's August 24 Republican primary.

In the original superior court decisions, a judge ruled that Miller did not provide proof of election official fraud, or that "there would be a sufficient change to the election results if these claims were true."

The Associated Press called the race for Murkowski last month when she had a 10,328-vote lead over Miller, a figure that includes the 8,159 ballots contested by Miller observers. Not including those ballots, she has a 2,169-vote lead.

CNN's Steve Brusk contributed to this report

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Nine men in court charged with terror offences - The Guardian

Counter-terrorism police from forces in London, Cardiff, Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham carried out last week's raids. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

Nine men are due to appear in court in London today charged with conspiracy to cause explosions and other terrorism offences.

They are among 12 men arrested a week ago in raids by counter-terrorism police from forces in London, Cardiff, Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham. Two men from Cardiff and one from London have since been released without charge, West Midlands police said.

The remaining nine will appear at City of Westminster magistrates court this morning. They are charged with conspiring to cause an explosion or explosions in the UK "of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property" between 1 October and 20 November this year. They are also accused of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism between 1 October and 20 December, including downloading and researching materials and methods, carrying out reconnaissance and agreeing potential targets, and igniting and testing incendiary material.

Those charged from Cardiff are Gurukanth Desai, 28, Omar Sharif Latif, 26, and Abdul Malik Miah, 24.

London residents Mohammed Moksudur Rahman Chowdhury, 20, and Shah Mohammed Lutfar Rahman, 28, are charged.

Also charged are Stoke-on-Trent residents Nazam Hussain, 25, Usman Khan, 19, Mohibur Rahman, 26, and Abul Bosher Mohammed Shahjahan, 26.

Sue Hemming, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) counter-terrorism division, said: "Lawyers from the CPS counter-terrorism division have been working with the police on this case from an early stage and were on hand to give advice while the men were interviewed.

"I have reviewed the evidence provided to me by the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit and I am satisfied there is sufficient for a realistic prospect of conviction, and it is in the public interest that these men should be charged with these offences."

Last week's raids came after several months of surveillance and monitoring by police and MI5 officers.

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Snowstorm coats East, frustrating holiday travel - BusinessWeek

By SARA KUGLER FRAZIER

NEW YORK

A powerful winter storm lay a snow blanket from the South to the Northeast on Sunday, turning roads slick, stranding thousands of airline, train and bus passengers and putting a chill in retailers' day-after-Christmas sales.

Up to 20 inches of snow were expected in some areas, including Philadelphia, where the Eagles-Vikings NFL game was canceled, and Boston, where an aquarium had to protect -- of all things -- penguin ice sculptures from the elements.

Snow started falling around New York City late Sunday morning, by which time nearly 1,000 flights out of the region's three major airports had already been canceled in anticipation of the storm. More cancellations were expected.

"We left the day after Christmas to avoid the Christmas craze. I guess that didn't work out so well," said Colleen James of Montclair, N.J. She, her husband, their two young children and their dachshund were at Newark Airport trying to reach family in Iowa, but their connecting flight to Chicago was delayed more than two and a half hours.

Her husband, Graham James, was resigning himself to postponing their trip a month. "Now we're worried about just driving home because of the crazy snow," Graham James said.

Some flights out of Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore and the Carolinas also were canceled. Amtrak canceled train service from New York to Maine on Sunday evening, after doing the same earlier for several trains in Virginia.

Bus companies also canceled routes up and down the East Coast, affecting thousands of travelers.

Kate Lindquist, on her way home from New Hampshire to New York City, was greeted with a handwritten sign at a Boston bus station: "Sorry, we are closed today."

"To have this happen on a Sunday during a holiday weekend is incredibly frustrating," she told the AP in an e-mail.

The Northeast is getting the brunt of the storm. Forecasters issued a blizzard warning for New York City for Sunday and Monday, with a forecast of 11 to 16 inches of snow and strong winds that will reduce visibility to near zero at times. A blizzard warning was also in effect for Rhode Island and most of eastern Massachusetts including Boston, with forecasters predicting 15 to 20 inches of snow. A blizzard warning is issued when snow is accompanied by sustained winds or gusts over 35 mph.

As much as 18 inches could fall on the New Jersey shore with wind gusts over 40 mph.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter declared a snow emergency as of 2 p.m. Sunday, and he urged residents to stay off the roads.

The NFL moved the Philadelphia Eagles' game against the Minnesota Vikings from Sunday night to Tuesday because of the blizzard. It's the third time this season snow has forced a change of plans for the Vikings. Two of their games this month needed to be relocated because the roof of their stadium collapsed.

In Boston, Mayor Thomas Menino declared a snow emergency that bans parking on all major streets, and the New England Aquarium bubble-wrapped its four 5-foot-tall penguin ice sculptures to protect them from the wind and snow.

More than 2,400 sanitation workers were working in 12-hour shifts to clear New York City's 6,000 miles of streets. Not that Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted people to use them.

"I understand that a lot of families need to get home after a weekend away, but please don't get on the roads unless you absolutely have to," Bloomberg said.

In Rhode Island, emergency officials encouraged businesses to let employees report to work late Monday, saying road conditions for the early morning commute Monday would be treacherous.

The snow was easier to enjoy for people with no place to go. As the wind swirled snow through the doors of a Brooklyn supermarket, New Yorkers hurried to pick up a few staples before heading back home to hunker down.

"I'm seeing it as a great excuse to stay in and relax and drink tea," said Toni Gifford, who works in academics and has the week off.

"Love snowy days when I don't have to go anywhere. Staying in -- just me and my cozy new socks," author Neesha Meminger wrote on Twitter from her home in the Bronx.

She told the AP she's able to savor the moment because her children, ages 6 and 9, are on holiday break: "If this was during the school week, I would be cursing."

The weather deterred some people from hitting day-after-Christmas sales, but that appeared to be a relatively light blow for retailers coming off a strong shopping season.

"People will just wait a day to do exchanges and use their gift cards. It's no big deal," said Greg Maloney, CEO of the retail practice of Jones Lang LaSalle, which manages malls across the country.

The monster storm is the result of a low pressure system off the North Carolina coast and was strengthening as it moved northeast, according to the National Weather Service.

Travel misery began a day earlier in parts of the South, which was hit with a white Christmas for the record books. Columbia, S.C., had its first significant Christmas snow since weather records were first kept in 1887. Atlanta had just over an inch of snow -- the first measurable accumulation on Christmas Day since the 1880s.

The North Carolina Highway Patrol said late Saturday that most of the roads in and around Asheville were either covered or partially covered with snow and ice.

"We're busy," Ryan Dean of Dean's Wrecker Service in Raleigh, N.C., said Sunday. "We've been out since 3 in the morning pulling people out of the ditch."

The National Weather Service said 8.5 inches of snow fell in Franklinton, N.C., about 30 miles north of Raleigh, from Saturday through Sunday.

Diane Smith, 55, said her power was out for about four hours there Sunday morning, but she and her husband have a generator. Relatives, including two grandchildren, who live nearby came over for breakfast and to get warm before going home after power was restored.

"It's beautiful," Smith said. "As long as I have power, I love it."

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Page Ivey in Columbia; Karen Hawkins in Chicago; Warren Levinson and Verena Dobnik in New York City; David Goodman in Detroit; Jacquelyn Martin and Norm Gomlak in Washington; Michelle Price in Phoenix; Dylan Lovan in Louisville; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore, Eric Tucker in Providence, R.I., and Mark Pratt in Boston.

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Cancún climate change conference: Russia will not renew Kyoto protocol - The Guardian

Chimneys billow smoke over St Petersburg. At the Cuncún climate change summit Russia said it would not renew its commitment to the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012. Photograph: Sergey Kulikov/AFP/Getty Images

The UN climate change conference in Cancún – and the future of the Kyoto protocol – was cast into doubt today after Russia said it would not renew its commitment to the treaty that has governed climate negotiations for more than a decade.

In a late-night plenary session, Russia's climate change envoy, Alexander Berditsky, said his country opposed a renewal of Kyoto beyond its 2012 end date.

"Russia will not participate in the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol," he said in a prepared statement.

The announcement, delivered in what were supposed to be the final 24 hours of the summit, makes it even more unlikely negotiators will be able to produce a strong outcome at Cancún, environmental groups said.

After last year's failure at Copenhagen, a weak result – or outright collapse – of talks at Cancún would damage the credibility of the entire UN negotiating process, the energy secretary Chris Huhne warned.

"Next year people will say, well, we're not going to make any progress and we end up with a zombie conference where there won't be anybody at a senior enough level to take any serious decisions at all."

Negotiators were planning to meet through the night to try to resolve the difference. But Russia's announcement further cements the divide between rich and poor countries over the future of the agreement following a statement from Japan at the start of the talks that it too would not sign an extension of Kyoto.

Japan reiterated its opposition on Thursday night, with negotiator Akira Yamada saying a renewal of Kyoto was "not an appropriate way or an effective way or a fair way to tackle climate change".

Canada is also believed to oppose extending the Kyoto agreement.

Russia's statement had been much anticipated. As Berditsky noted: "Russia has repeatedly stated, including at the highest political level, that the adoption of commitments for the second commitment period under the Kyoto protocol as it stands now would be neither scientifically, economically or politically effective."

But the announcement so late in the talks risks overwhelming progress made elsewhere at Cancún on agreements to preserve tropical rainforests and on climate finance.

Instead, ministers spent much of Thursday trying to devise a strategy for overcoming the divide over the future of Kyoto.

Developing countries say Kyoto is essential as the only international agreement requiring industrialised countries to reduce their emissions. "A second commitment period is a must in the outcome," said Brazil's climate change negotiator, Luiz Figueiredo.

But some developing countries have also admitted they were open to a fudge – deferring the question of Kyoto's future to next year's climate summit in South Africa.

In addition, the EU climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, has also been circulating a proposal – backed by small island states – that would circumvent the issue of Kyoto.

Even without the fight over Kyoto, the UN summit is facing all-night negotiating tonight to try to produce even modest areas of agreement.

There were divisions over the ambition and governance of a green fund to help developing countries buy the technology they need to reduce their emissions and protect their people from rising seas and drought.

There was also a stand-off between China and America on the sensitive issue of monitoring and verifying emissions reductions.

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WikiLeaks cables, day 4: summary of today's key points - The Guardian

The US embassy in London. Photograph: Rex Feature


The Guardian
• Russia is a "virtual mafia state" with rampant corruption and scant separation between the activities of the government and organised crime. Vladimir Putin is accused of amassing "illicit proceeds" from his time in office, which various sources allege are hidden overseas. And he was likely to have known about the operation in London to murder the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, Washington's top diplomat in Europe alleged.
• British and US officials colluded to manoeuvre around a proposed ban on cluster bombs, allowing the US to keep the munitions on British territory, regardless of whether a treaty forbidding their use was implemented. Parliament was kept in the dark about the secret agreement, approved by then-foreign secretary David Miliband.
• US diplomats believed that the Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, bore responsibility for a massacre last year that is the subject of a UN war crimes inquiry.
• Russia armed Georgian separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and carried out a wave of "covert actions" to undermine Georgia in the runup to the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, according to US diplomats.
• President Dmitry Medvedev was described by US diplomats as a junior figure, who "plays Robin to Putin's Batman".
• Gas supplies to Ukranian and EU states are linked to the Russian mafia, according to the US ambassador in Kiev.
• Moscow's veteran mayor Yuri Luzhkov was accused by the US ambassador of sitting on top of a "pyramid of corruption" involving the Kremlin, Russia's police force, its security service, political parties and crime groups by the US ambassador.
• Miliband's campaign to champion aid and human rights during the Sri Lankan humanitarian crisis last year was largely motivated by a desire to win favour with Tamil voters in the UK, according to a Foreign Office official.
Der Spiegel
• The US is sceptical that Russian President Medvedev has much of a future, believing Putin to be "in the driver's seat".
• Having helped to build up Georgia's military capabilities, the US made last-ditch diplomatic attempts to try to prevent it going to war with Russia in 2008. Washington's envoy to the Caucasus warned Georgia that war would "cost it valuable support in Washington and European capitals", while publicly George W Bush and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, continued to give their unqualified support to Georgia.
• The US has long been trying to loosen Russia's grip on Ukraine, according to diplomatic cables. On the inauguration of the new Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, they sought to make him a US partner thereby striking a diplomatic blow against the Kremlin.
Le Monde
• The US embassy in Moscow criticised the IMF, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for offering huge loans to Russia it felt were not justified.
El País
• One of the biggest objectives at the US embassy in Madrid over the past seven years has been trying to get the criminal case dropped against three US soldiers accused of the killing of a Spanish television cameraman in Baghdad. Telecinco cameraman José Couso was killed on 8 April 2003 during a tank shelling of the Hotel Palestine where he and other journalists were staying while they were covering the Iraq war. US diplomats held a host of meetings about the case with high-ranking members of the Spanish government.
New York Times
• The Russian prime minister, Putin, often did not show up at his office, according to rumours cited in a document titled Questioning Putin's Work Ethic.
• US diplomats warned of increasing distrust of the United States in Canada. They described "negative popular stereotyping" of Americans on Canadian TV. They also said Canadians "always carry a chip on their shoulder" in part because of a feeling that their country "is condemned to always play 'Robin' to the US 'Batman'".
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