Bring drones out of the shadows

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• John Brennan's confirmation hearing is a chance to ask about drone program, author says


• Sarah Holewinski: Brennan is one of a few officials who knows full story on drones


• She says senators need to ask about damage drone program does to civilians, U.S. reputation


• Holewinski: CIA should hand over drone program to Defense Department

Editor's note: Sarah Holewinski is executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, which advocates protections for civilians affected by armed conflict. She was a member of the White House AIDS policy team in President Bill Clinton's second term.

(CNN) -- The president's pick for CIA director -- John Brennan -- is one of a handful of U.S. officials who understands America's covert drone campaign inside and out.

Nearly everyone else is in the dark about the whos, wheres and whys of the program, including most members of Congress. But Brennan is also one of the few U.S. officials who's stood in front of a public audience and tried to explain the targeting of terrorists outside recognized battlefields. And while overseeing a massive use of lethal force, Brennan is also known inside the administration as a moderating voice in the fight against terrorism.

Sarah Holewinski

The fact is, Brennan's personal views are as opaque as the drone campaign itself. He may assume leadership of the CIA and decide a clandestine agency should not conduct what is an obvious military operation (a stance I and many others would fully support); after all, a veteran of the CIA may believe the agency should get back to gritty intelligence gathering.

Or, maybe Brennan believes that when it comes to the fight against al Qaeda, the public and its Congress should trust the executive office to protect the American people by whatever means it sees fit.

One way or the other, this week's Senate confirmation hearings should be an opportunity to bring Brennan's views out of the shadows, along with the basic attributes and justifications of the covert drone campaign. The man, the machine and the policy are inextricably linked.

Bergen: John Brennan, America's drone warrior

U.S. officials have consistently claimed that offering too many details about the covert drone program could threaten national security. Fair enough; some classification for national security is understandable. But the secrecy surrounding covert drone use is unduly excessive and not in keeping with the transparent government President Barack Obama promised.

Since the bulk of Brennan's hearing will be behind closed doors, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has no reason to shy away from asking tough questions about the drone program. It matters that Congress is there to represent the American people. On their behalf, Congress has a duty to ensure the use of lethal force beyond our borders is being considered and carried out responsibly, with due consideration for the harm it may inflict on civilian populations.

Talk Back: Should U.S. be able to kill American terrorist suspects without trial?

Senators might ask a very basic question to Brennan, one that is seldom clearly answered by the administration: "What impact is the drone campaign against al Qaeda and its associates having?"

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's choice for CIA director, has been deeply involved in the U.S. drone program.

This is a fundamental question of accountability any U.S. official involved in setting or carrying out counterterrorism policy should be able to answer. That answer may describe a dwindling kill list, but it must also put forward facts about what impact drones are having on civilians living under them.

U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq learned that the positive or negative impacts of an operation on the local population are an important metric of mission effectiveness. Commanders worked hard to reverse anti-American sentiment caused by a seemingly callous U.S. attitude toward civilian deaths and injuries. In the case of counterterrorism operations, palpable anger toward America would be antithetical to the goal of decreasing the number of terrorists and those who support their cause.

As it stands, it's unclear whether anyone, including Brennan, knows what negative consequences are emerging on the ground because of remote drones.

Rather, claims of low civilian casualties and drone precision capabilities paint a picture of extreme effectiveness in taking out terrorists while sparing civilians. It's true that a drone is precise, meaning it will hit what it is aimed at -- a building, a bunker or a person. But there are valid concerns about whether the target hit is the right one.

Opinion: When are drone killings illegal?

Remote drones likely rely on sources that may be questionable such as video and cell phone intercepts to identify a target. Civilians may be mistakenly targeted as combatants and counted as such because there are no ground troops to conduct a battle damage assessment, interview witnesses or properly identify bodies.

Civilians may also get caught up in so-called "signature strikes" in which operators target individuals based on behavior, not on known identity. This is legally questionable but also has real ramifications for civilians living under drones.

If a civilian in Pakistan doesn't know what behavior makes him a target for U.S. drones, he cannot fully protect himself and his family. If a drone harms his family, even mistakenly, our research shows they won't receive an apology, explanation or any help from the United States. Certainly there will be no love lost for America.

Any deaths and injuries are compounded by psychological trauma, displacement and fear and suspicion among neighbors. One Pakistani told us, "We fear that the drones will strike us again. ... My aged parents are often in a state of fear. We are depressed, anxious and constantly remembering our deceased family members."

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of international forces in Afghanistan, recently noted, "What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world. ... (T)he resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes ... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one."

The drone program needs to come out of the shadows, with explanations about who is a civilian, who is a target, and how drone operators distinguish between the two.

The CIA should get out of the drone operation business, handing it over to the Defense Department, which has a culture of learning lessons, accountability to Congress and a new openness about civilian protection after 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Drone operators should be trained in civilian protection best practices, and any civilian harmed should receive recognition and help for their losses, in accordance with the values American policymakers have espoused about humanity even during times of war.

The Senate may confirm Brennan as head of the CIA. It should also confirm where he stands on government accountability for lethal force and the CIA's role in the remote drone program.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Sarah Holewinski.

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Postal unions angry, customers unfazed about Saturday cut

Chicago Tribune reporter Rob Manker gathers some reactions to the recent news that the U.S. Postal Service plans to drop Saturday delivery of first-class mail by August. (Posted on: Feb. 6, 2013.)

The U.S. Postal Service's plan to end Saturday first-class delivery in August angered unions that stand to lose jobs and faces an uncertain fate in Congress.

But the decision, which the Postal Service says will save $2 billion a year, barely fazed a number of people interviewed at Chicago-area post offices.

"No one really sends letters anymore," said David Braunschweig, 63, who was at the Arlington Heights post office to mail a gift. "Putting away mail (both Saturday and Sunday), it won't kill anyone."

Hammered by competition that includes the Internet, the Postal Service lost nearly $16 billion last year and said doing away with first-class mail on Saturdays is essential to its recovery plan.

"It's an important part of our return to profitability and financial stability," Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Donahoe said at a news conference Wednesday in Washington. "Our financial condition is urgent."

The agency will continue delivering packages and filling post office boxes six days a week, and all offices that already were operating on Saturdays will continue to do so. Package volume is one bright spot for the Postal Service. It's up 14 percent since 2010, which officials attribute to the growth of online commerce.

The end of Saturday delivery would be the biggest change to mail service since the end of twice-daily delivery in the 1950s. Overall mail volume dropped by more than 25 percent from 2006 to 2011, which could explain the shrugs from several Chicago-area postal customers.

"I was accustomed to getting mail on Saturdays, but we will get accustomed to not getting it as well," Rich Klimczak, 74, said outside the Tinley Park post office. "The only thing I would not like to see is (postal workers) losing their jobs."

The move, which would take effect Aug. 5, aims to reduce the postal workforce by at least 20,000 more employees through reassignment and attrition. It would also significantly reduce overtime payments.

Local union officials estimated that 10,000 postal workers will have their workweek reduced because of the move. On Wednesday afternoon, the Chicago branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers called for Donahoe's resignation.

"USPS executives cannot save the Postal Service by tearing it apart," Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said in a statement. "These across-the-board cutbacks will weaken the nation's mail system and put it on a path to privatization."

The National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, which has about 1,500 members in the Chicago suburbs, said the elimination of Saturday service puts the Postal Service in a "death spiral."

Although the Postal Service no longer receives taxpayer money, it remains subject to oversight by Congress, which since 1983 has repeatedly passed measures requiring six-day delivery. Donahoe's announcement appeared to be an effort to force action in Congress after comprehensive postal reform legislation stalled last year.

While many members of Congress insist they would have to approve the cutback, Donahoe told reporters that the agency believes it can move forward unilaterally. The current mandate for six-day delivery is part of a government funding measure that expires in late March.

"There's plenty of time in there so if there is some disagreement" with lawmakers, "we can get that resolved," he said.

The divide among lawmakers on the issue does not break cleanly along party lines. Lawmakers who represent rural areas, who tend to be Republicans, generally have opposed service cutbacks. So have those with strong backing from postal labor unions, mostly Democrats.

Last year, the Senate approved a bill that would have allowed the Postal Service to end Saturday delivery after a two-year period to evaluate the potential effects. Similar legislation in the House never came up for a vote.

The Obama administration had included a proposal for five-day mail delivery in its 2013 budget plan. White House officials, however, had said they supported that change only in concert with other reforms. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that officials had not yet studied the latest plan.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the new chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, expressed concern that the Postal Service's unilateral announcement could complicate his plans for overall reform.

However, he added, "It's hard to condemn the postmaster general for moving aggressively to do what he believes he can and must do to keep the lights on."

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Tunisian government dissolved after critic's killing causes fury

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's ruling Islamists dissolved the government and promised rapid elections in a bid to restore calm after the killing of an opposition leader sparked the biggest street protests since the revolution two years ago.

The prime minister's announcement late on Wednesday that an interim cabinet of technocrats would replace his Islamist-led coalition came at the end of a day which had begun with the gunning down of Chokri Belaid, a left-wing lawyer with a modest political following but who spoke for many who fear religious radicals are stifling freedoms won in the first of the Arab Spring uprisings.

During the day, protesters battled police in the streets of the capital and other cities, including Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the Jasmine Revolution that toppled Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

In Tunis, the crowd set fire to the headquarters of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party which won the most seats in an legislative election 16 months ago.

Calls for a general strike on Thursday could bring more trouble though Belaid's family said his funeral, another possible flashpoint, might not be held until Friday.

Prime Minister Hamdi Jebali of Ennahda spoke on television on Wednesday evening to declare that weeks of talks among the various political parties on reshaping the government had failed and that he would replace his entire cabinet with non-partisan technocrats until elections could be held as soon as possible.

It followed weeks of deadlock in the three-party coalition. The small, secular Congress for the Republic, whose leader Moncef Marzouki has served as Tunisia's president, threatened to withdraw unless Ennahda replaced some of its ministers.

Wednesday's events, in which the Interior Ministry said one police officer was killed, appeared to have moved Jebali, who will stay on as premier, to take action.

"After the failure of negotiations between parties on a cabinet reshuffle, I have decided to form a small technocrat government," he said.

"The murder of Belaid is a political assassination and the assassination of the Tunisian revolution," he said earlier.

It was not clear whom he might appoint but the move seemed to be widely welcomed and streets were mostly calm after dark.

A leader in the secular Republican Party gave Jebali's move a cautious welcome.

"The prime minister's decision is a response to the opposition's aspirations," Mouldi Fahem told Reuters. "We welcome it principle. We are waiting for details."

Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of the secular party Nida Touns, who was premier after the uprising, told Reuters: "The decision to form a small cabinet is a belated move but an important one."

DIVISIONS

The widespread protests following Belaid's assassination showed the depth of division between Islamists and secular movements fearful that freedoms of expression, cultural liberty and women's rights were under threat just two years after the popular uprising ended decades of Western-backed dictatorship.

"This is a black day in the history of modern Tunisia. Today we say to the Islamists, 'get out', enough is enough," said Souad, a 40-year-old schoolteacher outside the ministry.

"Tunisia will sink in blood if you stay in power."

Ennahda, like its fellow Islamists in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, benefited from a solid organization that survived repression by the old regime.

And as in Egypt, the Islamists have faced criticism from secular leaders that they are trying to entrench religious ideas in the new state. A constitution is still due to be agreed before a parliamentary election which had been expected by June.

Belaid, 48, was shot at close range as he left for work by a gunmen who fled on the back of a motorcycle. Within hours, crowds were battling police, hurling rocks amid volleys of tear gas in scenes reminiscent of clashes in Egypt last month.

World powers, increasingly alarmed at the extent of radical Islamist influence and the bitterness of the political stalemate, urged Tunisians to reject violence and see through the move to democracy they began two years ago, when their revolution ended decades of dictatorship and inspired fellow Arabs in Egypt and across North Africa and the Middle East.

As in Egypt, the rise to power of political Islam through the ballot box has prompted a backlash among less organized, more secular political movements in Tunisia. Belaid, who made a name for himself by criticizing Ben Ali, led a party with little electoral support but his vocal opinions had a wide audience.

The day before his death he was publicly lambasting a "climate of systematic violence". He had blamed tolerance shown by Ennahda and its two, smaller secularist allies in the coalition government toward hardline Salafists for allowing the spread of groups hostile to modern culture and liberal ideas.

On Wednesday, thousands demonstrated in cities including Mahdia, Sousse, Monastir and Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the revolution, where police fired tear gas and warning shots at protesters who set cars and a police station on fire.

While Belaid's nine-party Popular Front bloc has only three seats in the constituent assembly, the opposition jointly agreed to pull its 90 or so members out of the body, which is acting as parliament and writing the new post-revolution charter. Ennahda and its fellow ruling parties have some 120 seats.

Since the uprising, Tunisia's new leaders have faced many protests over economic hardship and political ideas; many have complained that hardline Salafists may hijack the revolution.

Last year, Salafist groups prevented several concerts and plays from taking place in Tunisian cities, saying they violated Islamic principles. Salafists also ransacked the U.S. Embassy in September, during international protests over an Internet video.

The embassy issued a statement condemning Belaid's killing and urging justice for his killers: "There is no justification for this heinous and cowardly act," it said. "Political violence has no place in the democratic transition in Tunisia."

ECONOMIC TROUBLES

Declining trade with the crisis-hit euro zone has left the 11 million Tunisians struggling to achieve the better living standards many had hoped for following Ben Ali's departure.

Its compact size, relatively skilled workforce and close ties with former colonial power France and other European neighbors across the Mediterranean has raised hopes that Tunisia can set an example of economic progress for the region.

Lacking the huge oil and gas resources of North African neighbors Libya and Algeria, Tunisia counts tourism as a major currency earner and further unrest could scare off visitors vital to an industry only just recovering from the revolution.

Jobless graduate Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010 in the city, 300 km (180 miles) southwest of Tunis, after police confiscated his unlicensed fruit cart, triggering the uprising that forced Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia less than a month later, on January 14, 2011.

President Moncef Marzouki, who last month warned the tension between secularists and Islamists might lead to "civil war", cancelled a visit to Egypt scheduled for Thursday and cut short a trip to France, where he addressed the European Parliament.

"There are political forces inside Tunisia that don't want this transition to succeed," Marzouki said in Strasbourg. "When one has a revolution, the counter revolution immediately sets in because those who lose power - it's not only Ben Ali and his family - are the hundreds of thousands of people with many interests who see themselves threatened by this revolution."

Belaid, who died in hospital, said this week dozens of people close to the government had attacked a Popular Front group meeting in Kef, northern Tunisia, on Sunday. He had been a constant critic of the government, accusing it of being a puppet of the rulers of wealthy Gulf emirate Qatar.

DENIES INVOLVEMENT

Human Rights Watch called his murder "the gravest incident yet in a climate of mounting violence".

Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi denied any involvement by his party in the killing.

"Is it possible that the ruling party could carry out this assassination when it would disrupt investment and tourism?" Ghannouchi told Reuters.

He blamed those seeking to derail Tunisia's democratic transition: "Tunisia today is in the biggest political stalemate since the revolution. We should be quiet and not fall into a spiral of violence. We need unity more than ever," he said.

He accused opponents of stirring up sentiment against his party following Belaid's death. "The result is burning and attacking the headquarters of our party in many areas," he said.

Witnesses said crowds had also attacked Ennahda offices in Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia and Sfax.

French President Francois Hollande said he was concerned by the rise of violence in Paris's former dominion, where the government says al Qaeda-linked militants linked to those in neighboring countries have been accumulating weapons with the aim of creating an Islamic state across North Africa.

"This murder deprives Tunisia of one of its most courageous and free voices," Hollande's office said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Alison Williams and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Yen hit near three-year low as new BOJ governor eyed

LONDON (Reuters) - The yen fell close to a three-year low on Wednesday on expectations that a new Bank of Japan governor could ease policy, while the euro was steady and European shares edged up ahead of a central bank meeting.

BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa has said he will step down on March 19, opening the way for a successor supporting the kind of expansionary policies the government favours.

The dollar touched 94.075 yen to its highest since May 2010 before profit taking saw it drop back to 93.76 yen, while the euro also rose as high as 127.71 yen, its strongest since April 2010, before it also eased.

Against the dollar, the euro dipped to $1.3546 but was within this week's range of $1.3450 - $1.3710.

New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's support for aggressive easing does not seem to caused an outcry from other countries although there have been sporadic complaints from Germany and South Korea.

This makes yen selling comfortable, said Minori Uchida, chief currency strategist at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

"The G20 finance ministers meeting next week is unlikely to discuss currencies much. The market is likely to test further downside on the yen in the near future," Uchida said.

European shares edged up and the euro was steady ahead of Thursday's European Central Bank policy meeting after recovering from falls on Monday due to a flare up of political uncertainty in Spain and Italy. The ECB is expected to keep interest rates on hold.

London's FTSE 100 <.ftse> was up 0.5 percent, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> was up 0.3 percent and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> was 0.2 percent higher at 0900 GMT, leaving the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <.fteu3> up 0.5 percent at 1160.05.

Asian shares and industrial commodities and oil, now above $116 a barrel, consolidated recent gains that came on signs of global economic recovery.

The slide in the yen bolstered Japanese equities to their highest since October 2008 while expectations of more monetary easing pushed two-year Japanese government bond yields down to a nine-year low of 0.045 percent.

In the European bond market, benchmark German Bund futures edged up before a sale of five-year German debt that is expected to find strong demand due to a recent rise in yields and political uncertainty in Spain and Italy.

Corruption allegations in Spain have put Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy under pressure and a scandal at one of its oldest banks has led to an increasingly uncertain outcome in Italian elections later in February.

"There are fairly ominous signs (in the periphery). I know they (Italian and Spanish bonds) had a good day yesterday, but there's Spanish supply coming up," one trader said.

(Editing by Anna Willard)

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Braun says he used Fla clinic owner as consultant

NEW YORK (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun said the person who ran the Florida clinic being investigated by Major League Baseball was used only as a consultant on his drug suspension appeal last year.

"I have nothing to hide," Braun said in a statement released by his representatives on Tuesday night.

Earlier in the day, Yahoo Sports reported the 2011 NL MVP's name showed up three times in records of the Biogenesis of America LLC clinic. Yahoo said no specific performance-enhancing drugs were listed next to his name.

The Miami New Times recently released clinic documents that purportedly linked Alex Rodriguez, Gio Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera and other players to purchases of banned drugs from the now-closed anti-aging center.

Rodriguez and Cabrera were on the list with Braun that also included New York Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli and Baltimore Orioles infielder Danny Valencia.

Braun said his name was in the Biogenesis records because of an issue over payment to Anthony Bosch, who ran the clinic near Miami.

"There was a dispute over compensation for Bosch's work, which is why my lawyer and I are listed under 'moneys owed' and not on any other list," Braun said.

"I have nothing to hide and have never had any other relationship with Bosch," he said. "I will fully cooperate with any inquiry into this matter."

On Tuesday, MLB officials asked the Miami New Times for the records the alternative newspaper obtained for its story.

Asked specifically about Braun's name in the documents before the five-time All-Star released his statement, MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said: "Aware of report and are in the midst of an active investigation in South Florida."

Braun tested positive during the 2011 postseason for elevated testosterone levels. He maintained his innocence and his 50-game suspension was overturned during spring training last year when arbitrator Shyam Das ruled in favor of Braun due to chain of custody issues involving the sample.

With that, Braun became the first major leaguer to have a drug suspension overturned.

"During the course of preparing for my successful appeal last year, my attorneys, who were previously familiar with Tony Bosch, used him as a consultant. More specifically, he answered questions about T/E ratio and possibilities of tampering with samples," Braun said.

The T/E ratio is a comparison of the levels of testosterone to epitestosterone.

Braun led the NL in homers (41), runs (108) and slugging percentage (.595) last season while batting .319 with 112 RBIs and 30 stolen bases. He finished second to San Francisco catcher Buster Posey in MVP balloting."

Cervelli, who spent nearly all of last season in Triple-A, posted a statement on Twitter later Tuesday night.

"Following my foot injury in March 2011, I consulted with a number of experts, including BioGenesis Clinic, for (cont)," Cervelli posted, "(cont)legal ways to aid my rehab and recovery. I purchased supplements that I am certain were not prohibited by Major League Baseball."

An email sent to Valencia's agent was not returned.

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What follows N. Korea's nuclear test?

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Lopez: Uranium-based blast would pose new challenge to U.N. Security Council


• Indicates Pyongyang has advanced centrifuge technologies and related systems


• North Korea's young leader appears to care little about what U.N. or China think


• Product-based sanctions may stifle the North's ability to continue nuclear program

Editor's note: George A. Lopez holds the Hesburgh Chair in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute, University of Notre Dame. He is a former member, U.N. Panel of Experts on North Korea, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Indiana, U.S. (CNN) -- North Korea will soon test its third nuclear device. Earlier tests in 2006 and 2009 drew worldwide condemnation, Security Council sanctions and led Pyongyang to withdraw from the six-party talks.

In resolution 2087, passed on January 22, the Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea for its December 12 space missile launch and made clear that new violations would be dealt with harshly.

READ: N.Korea: Close to nuclear missile?

In response, North Korea rejected Council legitimacy, asserted their right to nuclear weapons and deterrence and proclaimed it would soon conduct a new nuclear test.

In addition the North engaged in some strong saber-rattling aimed at South Korea.

READ: For South Koreans, a familiar tone from Pyongyang

Because some analysts believe this will be a uranium explosion, it is a game-changer for the region and poses new and unfavorable challenges to the Security Council. A successful uranium test indicates that Pyongyang has advanced centrifuge technologies and related support systems. It means that North Korea, if left unchecked, can both produce and export such material, raising new concerns that Pyongyang and Iran cooperate in such developments.

Politically the test will reveal that the new regime of Kim Jong-Un exceeds the defiance to U.N. dictates of his predecessors in pursuing his nation's nuclear goals. Neither the prospect of stronger sanctions, nor the growing discontent of Russia and China with his behavior, appears to deter North Korea's young leader.

OPINION: Rescind North Korea's license to provoke

These dilemmas confront the permanent five members of the Council with a harsh reality check regarding their unity of action and what message to convey to the north via what particular sanctions. If the Council follows the logic of resolution 2087, it will impose more extensive and punishing sanctions than ever before. Such sanctions will blacklist companies, government agencies and individuals long known for their role in illicit technology procurement and sanctions evasion. They will expand financial sanctions into areas of banking that would require substantial transnational enforcement to bite, and they may call upon countries in the region to inspect almost all North Korean trade. The economic squeeze and further isolation of the DPRK will increase substantially.

READ: Why sticks don't work with North Korea

These sanctions would require China to play an enforcement role against North Korean economic actors it has hitherto resisted. Seizing prohibited goods that pass through Dalian harbor and other trans-shipment points, as well as shutting down various border activities, would also fall to China. These extensive sanctions as punishment operate from the assumption that at some point the north will forego its nuclear program in order to survive as an authoritarian state.

But there may be an alternative to the punishment approach that could bring Beijing on board with effective Council action. China might well accept specialized trade sanctions aimed to degrade the DPRK's ability to sustain the nuclear program for lack of material and due to prohibitive costs of sanctions busting, as a way of conveying to Pyongyang that it must return to the negotiating table.

The logic of extensive new product-focused sanctions is that DPRK can make -- or jerry-rig -- only a small fraction of the advanced technologies and specialty materials that sustain an ongoing uranium enrichment program. To choke off these materials -- and the illicit means of financing them -- provides the Council with a possibility to make it technically impossible for DPRK to have a functioning uranium-based bomb program.

Precise lists of dozens of the materials used in centrifuge operation that should be sanctioned are already recorded for the Council in the reports of their Panel of Experts for the DPRK. Lists of related materials have also been developed by the Nuclear Supplies Group. To date the permanent five have sanctioned only a very few of the materials on either list. The Council also needs member states to strengthen export, customs and financial controls on dual-use items that are "below grade" of those newly sanctioned items. This will stifle the North's ability to upgrade or jerry-rig these hitherto unsanctioned items as a way of maintaining their program.

READ: Five things to know about North Korea's planned nuclear test

Also critical to the success of this choking of supplies would be stricter controls of the illicit financing that supports such trade. Putting strong enforcement behind the 2087 resolution's concern about DPRK cash flows, especially through its embassies, is also in order.

Another, somewhat unprecedented, sanctions option would be a Council-issued travel ban on North Korea placed on all scientists, engineers and others with specialized expertise in centrifuge technologies and uranium enrichment.

Political agreement on these measures will not be easy to attain among the permanent five nations of the Security Council. But a product-focused sanctions approach -- especially leveraged to aim for more direct diplomatic engagement with the DPRK while denying them material to grow their illicit programs -- has the best chance of gaining Council consensus.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of George A. Lopez.

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3 dead in West Side crash

Officials examine a Jeep Cherokee that crashed and left three critically injured near 31st Street and Western Avenue. (Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune / February 5, 2013)

By Ellen Jean Hirst and Liam Ford




Tribune reporters

12:58 a.m. CST, February 6, 2013

A man and two women died in a crash on the city's West Side, authorities said.

Firefighters were called to the accident near 31st Street and Western Avenue about 8:30 p.m., according to the department's media office.

Fire officials cut three people out of a red Jeep after the car lost control and somehow ended up on it's top just west of Western Avenue on 31st Street, police  said.

Three people had been riding in the SUV and all were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and pronounced dead there, police said. They were the only occupants in the SUV.

Just before 10 p.m., the radio in the SUV -- which was flipped on its top -- could still be heard faintly from a distance.

The SUV was eastbound on 31st Street when it hit a curb, then a light pole, and ended up on its roof, Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said.

"Some of the damage is from the fire department," police said of the doors, which had been cut to free the car's occupants. "But they flipped the car themselves.

Investigators from the department's Major Accidents Investigations Unit arrived at the scene Thursday night to investigate what had happened.

Three people were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, one in "extremely critical" condition, two in critical condtion, according to the fire department. A spokesman at the Cook County medical examiner's office confirmed the deaths.

Video from the scene showed a red Jeep flipped over, with its roof crushed, and a person wrapped in black on a stretcher being taken into an ambulance.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Stabbing at Ecuador campaign rally not politically motivated: Correa

QUITO (Reuters) - A knife attack in Ecuador that killed two government supporters was perpetrated by a man under the influence of drugs and alcohol and was not politically motivated, President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday.

The man killed two Correa supporters and injured five more at a campaign rally on Monday, about two weeks before a presidential election that the leftist leader is expected to win comfortably.

"There is no indication that this attack may have been politically motivated. It was a person who was temporarily insane and stabbed the people that he found in his way," Correa said at a press conference in Quito. "This person was under the influence of drugs and alcohol."

A 40-year-old man with a criminal record who had spent time at a drug rehab center was detained shortly after the attack and is in police custody.

Correa said that five people were injured, one more than the number previously given by authorities.

Such incidents are exceedingly rare in Ecuadorean political campaigns despite historically volatile politics in which presidents have been toppled during street protests.

It was the first significant act of violence in a presidential race that officially started on January 4.

In a chilling video broadcast on local TV networks, a man could be seen breaking through a rally of a few hundred Correa sympathizers and attacking them with a large knife. Dozens ran for their lives while some men tried to stop the attacker.

Correa said police at the event were caught off guard. He said the attack lasted less than 20 seconds.

The incident occurred ahead of a campaign rally in Quininde, a town in the western Esmeraldas province. The event was canceled following the attack and Correa suspended his campaign on Tuesday in solidarity with the victims.

Correa, an ally of socialist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, is expected to win the February 17 vote. Polls give him between 50 percent and 60 percent of votes, at least 30 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival, Guillermo Lasso, a former banker.

The president is very popular in urban shanty towns and rural areas, where millions have seen their livelihoods improved thanks to record spending in roads, hospitals and schools.

(Writing By Eduardo Garcia; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Euro, oil slide on European worries, shares flat

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro and oil fell on Tuesday while European shares were largely flat as renewed worries over political risks in the euro zone trimmed demand for riskier assets for a second day.

A rise in political uncertainty in Spain, where the prime minister is facing calls to resign, and in Italy, which holds a general election later this month, provoked a big sell off on Monday, ending a solid new year rally.

The euro, which has taken the brunt of the selling, had risen 2.3 percent against the U.S. dollar this year to a high of just over $1.37 on Friday, before the selloff began and was down 0.4 percent at $1.3460 in early European trade.

The broad FTSE Eurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares dropped 1.5 percent to its lowest level of the year on Monday, steadied to open up 0.1 percent up. Across Europe London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were all recovering from the previous days sharp falls.

Most analysts see this week's selloff as a correction to a rally linked to signs of growing euro zone economic stability and an improving global outlook, which has been underpinned by the easier monetary policies of major central banks.

"What we are looking at, at the moment, is a correction, a consolidation or even a 'baby risk off', " said Philippe Gijsels, head of research at BNP Paribas Fortis Global Markets in Brussels.

"Nevertheless our working hypothesis remains that after the correction the trends in place before will continue as the two main drivers are still there; namely central banks continuing to inject liquidity and more and more proof of an economic recovery," he said.

Bond markets have also stabilized after a sharp rise in yields on Spanish and Italian debt and growing demand for safe-haven German government bonds. This followed a narrowing of spreads this year between peripheral and core government debt.

"We had a very strong rally in peripheral markets, strong spread compression in January which was probably faster than fundamentals were favoring, so we are in a correction. It's not a new trend, it's just a correction," Patrick Jacq, European rate strategist at BNP Paribas said.

(Additional reporting by Ana Nicolaci da Costa and Atul Prakash.)

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Superdome officials worried about a power outage

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The cause of a 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl remains under investigation, but public records released Monday show that Superdome officials were worried about a power outage several months before the big game.

An Oct. 15 memo released by the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District, which oversees the Superdome, says tests on the dome's electrical feeders showed they had "some decay and a chance of failure."

Entergy New Orleans, the company that supplies the stadium with power, and the structure's engineering staff "had concerns regarding the reliability of the Dome service from Entergy's connection point to the Dome," the memo says. Those concerns were due in part to "circumstances that have previously occurred with the electrical service regarding transient spikes and loads."

The memo also cites 2011 blackouts that struck Candlestick Park, where the San Francisco 49ers were playing a nationally televised Monday night football game, as a reason for ordering the tests.

The board later authorized spending nearly $1 million on Superdome improvements, including more than $600,000 for upgrading the dome's electrical feeder cable system.

"As discussed in previous board meetings, this enhancement is necessary to maintain both the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena as top tier facilities, and to ensure that we do not experience any electrical issues during the Super Bowl," says a LSED document dated Dec. 19.

An attorney for the state board that oversees the Superdome said the blackout did not appear to be related to the replacement in December of electrical equipment connecting the stadium to Entergy. Officials with the utility and the Superdome noted that an NFL game, the Sugar Bowl and another bowl game were played there in recent weeks with no apparent problems.

The exact cause of Sunday night's blackout — and who's to blame — remained unclear late Monday, though a couple of potential culprits had been ruled out.

It wasn't Beyonce's electrifying halftime performance, according to Doug Thornton, manager of the state-owned Superdome, since the singer had her own generator. And it apparently wasn't a case of too much demand for power. Meters showed the 76,000-seat stadium was drawing no more electricity than it does during a typical New Orleans Saints game, Thornton said.

The lights-out game Sunday proved an embarrassment for the Big Easy just when it was hoping to show the rest of the world how far it has come since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But many fans and residents were forgiving, and officials expressed confidence that the episode wouldn't hurt the city's hopes of hosting the championship again.

To New Orleans' great relief, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the city did a "terrific" job hosting its first pro football championship in the post-Hurricane Katrina era, and added: "I fully expect that we will be back here for Super Bowls."

Fans watching from their living rooms weren't deterred, either. An estimated 108.4 million television viewers saw the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31, making it the third most-viewed program in television history. Both the 2010 and 2011 games hit the 111 million mark.

The problem that caused the outage was believed to have happened around the spot where a line that feeds current from Entergy New Orleans connects with the Superdome's electrical system, officials said. But whether the fault lay with the utility or with the Superdome was not clear.

Determining the cause will probably take days, according to Dennis Dawsey, a vice president for distribution and transmission for Entergy. He said the makers of some of the switching gear have been brought in to help figure out what happened.

The blackout came after a nearly flawless week of activity for football fans in New Orleans leading up to the big game.

"I hope that's not what they'll remember about this Super Bowl," French Quarter artist Gloria Wallis said. "I hope that what they'll remember is they had a great time here and that they were welcomed here."

Ravens fan Antonio Prezioso, a Baltimore native who went to the game with his 11-year-old son, said the outage just extended the experience.

"The more time we could spend at the game was a good thing, as long as it ended the way it did," he said, laughing.

The city last hosted the Super Bowl in 2002, and officials were hoping this would serve as the ultimate showcase for the city's recovery since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm tore holes in the roof of the Superdome and caused water damage to its electrical systems, and more than $330 million was spent repairing and upgrading the stadium.

Sunday's Super Bowl was New Orleans' 10th as host, and officials plan to make a bid for an 11th in 2018.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu told WWL-AM on Monday that the outage won't hurt the city's chances, and he joked that the game got better after the blackout: "People were leaving and the game was getting boring, so we had to do a little something to spice it up."

The chairwoman of the New Orleans City Council's Utility Committee has called an emergency meeting for Friday to discuss the power outage.

Jarvis DeBerry, a columnist for nola.com and The Times-Picayune, wrote that the power outage gave the media "an opportunity to laugh at the apparent ineptitude or suggest that the ghosts of Hurricane Katrina were haunting the Superdome."

"That's not the kind of attention the city was looking for, obviously," he wrote, "but it's certainly too soon to say if people will remember the power shortage over San Francisco's furious comeback attempt against Baltimore or if this will harm the city's future opportunities to host the Super Bowl."

Bjorn Hanson, dean of New York University's Center for Hospitality and Sports Management, said the episode shouldn't hurt the city's reputation as a big convention destination. "I think people view it for what it was: an unusual event with a near-record power draw," he said. "It was the equivalent of a circuit breaker flipping."

___

Associated Press writers Beth Harpaz, Brett Martel, Stacey Plaisance and Barry Wilner contributed to this report.

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Richard III still the criminal king

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

Richard III on stage and screen

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Dan Jones: Richard III's remains found; some see chance to redeem his bad reputation


• Jones says the bones reveal and confirm his appearance, how he died and his injuries


• Nothing changes his rep as a usurper of the Crown who likely had nephews killed, Jones says


• Jones: Richard good or bad? Truth likely somewhere in between

Editor's note: Dan Jones is a historian and newspaper columnist based in London. His new book, "The Plantagenets" (Viking) is published in the US this Spring. Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) -- Richard III is the king we British just can't seem to make our minds up about.

The monarch who reigned from 1483 to 1485 became, a century later, the blackest villain of Shakespeare's history plays. The three most commonly known facts of his life are that he stole the Crown, murdered his nephews and died wailing for a horse at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. His death ushered in the Tudor dynasty, so Richard often suffers the dual ignominy of being named the last "medieval" king of England -- in which medieval is not held to be a good thing.

Like any black legend, much of it is slander.

Richard did indeed usurp the Crown and lose at Bosworth. He probably had his nephews killed too -- it is unknowable but overwhelmingly likely. Yet as his many supporters have been busy telling us since it was announced Monday that Richard's lost skeleton was found in a car park in Leicester, he wasn't all bad. In fact, he was for most of his life loyal and conscientious.

Dan Jones

To fill you in, a news conference held at the University of Leicester Monday confirmed what archaeologists working there have suspected for months: that a skeleton removed from under a parking lot in the city center last fall was indeed the long-lost remains of Richard III.

His official burial place -- under the floor of a church belonging to the monastic order of the Greyfriars -- had been lost during the dissolution of the monasteries that was carried out in the 1530s under Henry VIII. A legend grew up that the bones had been thrown in a river. Today, we know they were not.

What do the bones tell us?

Well, they show that Richard -- identified by mitochondrial DNA tests against a Canadian descendant of his sister, Anne of York -- was about 5-foot-8, suffered curvature of the spine and had delicate limbs. He had been buried roughly and unceremoniously in a shallow grave too small for him, beneath the choir of the church.

He had died from a slicing blow to the back of the head sustained during battle and had suffered many other "humiliation injuries" after his death, including having a knife or dagger plunged into his hind parts. His hands may have been tied at his burial. A TV show aired Monday night in the UK was expected to show a facial reconstruction from the skull.

Opinion: What will the finding of Richard III mean?

In other words, we have quite a lot of either new or confirmed biographical information about Richard.

He was not a hunchback, but he was spindly and warped. He died unhorsed. He was buried where it was said he was buried. He very likely was, as one source had said, carried roughly across a horse's back from the battlefield where he died to Leicester, stripped naked and abused all the way.

All this is known today thanks to a superb piece of historical teamwork.

The interdisciplinary team at Leicester that worked toward Monday's revelations deserves huge plaudits. From the desk-based research that pinpointed the spot to dig, to the digging itself, to the bone analysis, the DNA work and the genealogy that identified Richard's descendants, all of it is worthy of the highest praise. Hat-tips, too, to the Richard III Society, as well as Leicester's City Council, which pulled together to make the project happen and also to publicize the society and city so effectively.

However, should anyone today tell you that Richard's skeleton somehow vindicates his historical reputation, you may tell them they are talking horsefeathers.

Richard III got a rep for a reason. He usurped the Crown from a 12-year old boy, who later died.

This was his great crime, and there is no point denying it. It is true that before this crime, Richard was a conspicuously loyal lieutenant to the boy's father, his own brother, King Edward IV. It is also true that once he was king, Richard made a great effort to promote justice to the poor and needy, stabilize royal finances and contain public disorder.

But this does not mitigate that he stole the Crown, justifying it after the fact with the claim that his nephews were illegitimate. Likewise, it remains indisputably true that his usurpation threw English politics, painstakingly restored to some order in the 12 years before his crime, into a turmoil from which it did not fully recover for another two decades.

So the discovery of Richard's bones is exciting. But it does not tell us anything to justify changing the current historical view of Richard: that the Tudor historians and propagandists, culminating with Shakespeare, may have exaggerated his physical deformities and the horrors of Richard's character, but he remains a criminal king whose actions wrought havoc on his realm.

Unfortunately, we don't all want to hear that. Richard remains the only king with a society devoted to rehabilitating his name, and it is a trait of some "Ricardians" to refuse to acknowledge any criticism of their hero whatever. So despite today's discovery, we Brits are likely to remain split on Richard down the old lines: murdering, crook-backed, dissembling Shakespearean monster versus misunderstood, loyal, enlightened, slandered hero. Which is the truth?

Somewhere in between. That's a classic historian's answer, isn't it? But it's also the truth.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Jones.

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Chicago, your commute will likely take far longer than you think

You can predict with a high degree of confidence that the time it takes to drive from Point A to B on any given day is unpredictable.

And it's not just snowy or rainy days. It can be any day.

If there is a bright side, it's that Chicago was not the worst.

Residents of the Chicago area are accommodating that increasing uncertainty by setting aside more time each day — just in case — for the commute, new research shows.

For the most important trips, such as going to work, medical appointments, the airport or making a 5:30 p.m. pickup at the child care center to avoid late fees, drivers in northeastern Illinois and northwest Indiana should count on allotting four times as much time as it would take to travel in free-flowing traffic, according to the "Urban Mobility Report" to be released Tuesday by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. The analysis is based on 2011 data, which are the most recent available.

It is the first time that travel reliability was measured in the 30-year history of the annual report. The researchers created a Planning Time Index geared toward helping commuters reach their destinations on time in more than 95 percent of the trips. A second index, requiring less padding of travel time, would get an employee to work on time four out of five days a week.

"If you plan only for average traffic conditions on your trip in the Chicago area, you are going to be late at least half the time," said Bill Eisele, a senior research engineer at the Transportation Institute who co-authored the study.

The constant unreliability that hovers over commuting is stealing precious time from other activities, crimping lifestyles, causing mounting frustration for drivers and slapping extra costs on businesses that rely on just-in-time shipments to manage inventory efficiently, researchers found.

The Chicago region ranked No. 7 among very large urban areas and 13th among 498 U.S. cities on a scale of the most unreliable highway travel times. The Washington area was the worst. A driver using the freeway system in the nation's capital and surrounding suburbs should budget almost three hours to complete a high-priority trip that would take only 30 minutes in light traffic, the study said.

The Washington area was followed on the list by the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, New York-Newark, Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Seattle.

Rounding out the top 10, the Chicago metro area was trailed by San Francisco-Oakland, Atlanta, and Houston.

Truck driver Frank Denk said he usually adds an hour or two to his trip through the Chicago area. Sometimes, it's not enough, other times traffic isn't a problem, he said. The one constant, Denk said Monday afternoon while taking a break at the O'Hare Oasis on the Tri-State Tollway, is that it is almost impossible to anticipate correctly.

"Job-wise, it can be very detrimental to truckers," said Denk, who is based in Green Bay, Wis. "All of a sudden, you're not able to make your delivery."

But quadrupling the time to travel back and forth each day? That's excessive, said Mike Hennigan, a 64-year-old accountant who regularly commutes from his Evanston home to his office near the junction of the Kennedy and Edens expressways. He recommends doubling the anticipated travel time.

"I can predict when it's going to be bad," Hennigan said, although he is less optimistic about his travel times when he heads toward downtown.

"Coming into the Loop can be deadly, especially later in the week," Hennigan said.

Overall, traffic congestion in the Chicago region is getting worse as the economy improves, although it's not as severe as the grip that gridlock has taken recently on some other very large metropolitan areas in the U.S., according to the report. The Washington area again topped the list, followed by Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, New York-Newark, Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Seattle.

No longer being ranked at the very top of the congestion heap provides little consolation for Chicago-area drivers.

What should be a 20-minute jaunt across town in Chicago or the suburbs if highway capacity were sufficient to permit vehicles to travel the speed limit now becomes about an 80-minute ordeal, according to the Texas A&M study. Scheduling 80 minutes for the trip would ensure an on-time arrival 19 out of 20 times, the study concluded.

But that would be similar to treating every day of the year as if it were like Monday, when a moderate snowfall blanketing the Chicago region smacked traffic into slow motion during the morning rush.

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Mexico says gas leak caused deadly Pemex blast

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican government said on Monday that a gas leak caused a blast that killed at least 37 people at the offices of state oil monopoly Pemex in Mexico City, raising fresh questions about the firm's safety record.

Attorney General Jesus Murillo said no trace of explosives was found at the site of the explosion, the latest in a string of disasters to hit the lumbering oil giant.

New President Enrique Pena Nieto is seeking to overhaul Pemex as part of raft of economic reforms aimed at boosting growth in Latin America's No. 2 economy.

"We have been able to determine that the explosion was caused by an accumulation of gas in the basement of the building," Murillo told a news conference in Mexico City. He said the gas was believed to be methane.

Murillo said the gas may have leaked from containers in a storage facility connected to where the explosion took place by a tunnel. Or it could have leaked from an aging pipeline that passed through the building.

Another possibility is that it emanated from sewage in the ground under the building, he said.

Mexico City is built on a dried-out lake bed, and the stench of sewage often hangs over parts of the city downtown.

Murillo said contractors working on supports under the building needed electricity and used an extension cord, which could have caused a spark that ignited the gas.

Thursday afternoon's blast at a building at the Pemex headquarters complex in downtown Mexico City prompted speculation the incident could have been an act of sabotage.

That raised fears that drug war violence that has killed an estimated 70,000 people in the past six years could have entered a new, more sinister phase, and rattled investors.

REFORM OUTLOOK

The explosion next to Pemex's flagship tower block prompted renewed criticism of the oil giant's safety record.

For years a source of national pride, Pemex has proven stubbornly resistant to change. The company has become a touchstone for Mexico's capacity for economic reform since oil output began to fall behind the performance of other major producers.

A symbol of Mexican self-sufficiency since president Lazaro Cardenas expropriated U.S. and British oil companies in 1938 and nationalized the oil industry, Pemex has also become a byword for inefficiency and graft.

Pena Nieto, who took office in December, has made passing an energy reform to boost crude production a priority this year.

Geoffrey Pazzanese, who co-manages Federated Investors' $523 million Federated InterContinental Fund, said an accident would help the government push its energy reform.

"It's probably going to be positive for the reform, it underlines the need for Pemex to invest in its own capital spending," he said before Murillo spoke. "You have a big explosion in a building that's right in the middle of the city.

"Conspiracy theories aside, people are probably outraged about the situation and that tends to spur action," he added.

Mexico is the world's No. 7 oil producer and a top exporter to the United States. But output has slumped from a peak of 3.4 million barrels per day in 2004 to less than 2.6 million bpd now.

While the company had said it improved safety prior to the blast, fires, explosions and other safety breaches are regular occurrences.

Mexico loses hundreds of millions of dollars a year to theft of oil carried out by drug gangs, petty criminals and corrupt workers. The Mexican government relies on oil revenues to fund nearly a third of the federal budget.

The heavy tax burden has limited Pemex's ability to fund new projects and lift crude output. The government has warned that Mexico could become a net oil importer as early as 2018 if major new oil finds cannot be developed.

The company had pinned its long-term hopes of boosting production on the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, where the government estimates there are significant oilfields.

The last conservative administration had helped Pemex by drawing more outside investment into mature oilfields via the auction of private contracts.

(With reporting by David Alire Garcia, Krista Hughes, Ana Isabel Martinez and Anahi Rama; Writing by Simon Gardner and Dave Graham; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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Spanish worries tarnish growth outlook

London (Reuters) - European shares edged up but the euro fell and German bonds trimmed their losses on Monday as a resurgence of worries about Europe undermined positive sentiment stemming from stronger U.S. and Chinese economic data.

However, the rising confidence in the global economic recovery underpinned oil and copper, although prices moved in narrow ranges at the start of a week which sees policy meeting by several major central banks and a summit of European leaders.

"We are now seeing a consistent story of moderate growth in the U.S. and China," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney.

The economic outlook brightened considerably last week after data showed U.S. factory activity quickened in January and hiring increased, and after a survey of euro zone business activity suggested the worst of the region's downturn may be over.

On Sunday China's official purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the increasingly important services sector posted a fourth-straight monthly rise in January, although its slim gain added to evidence that the global recovery is a modest one.

But Spain dampened the mood in Europe by reporting that its unemployment problems are worsening as a corruption scandal threatens to engulf Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, with the opposition calling for his resignation.

"If Rajoy were really forced to resign, if we were to have new elections in Spain, that would not help the improvement we've seen in financial markets," Tobias Blattner, European economist at Daiwa Capital Markets said.

Ten-year Spanish government bond yields rose 11 basis points to 5.32 percent in early Monday trade.

The equivalent Italian yields also rose on concerns that a scandal involving a major domestic bank could boost support for the centre-right party led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as election day approaches.

The German Bund future which had opened 53 ticks lower at 141.48, trimmed its losses to be only down 13 ticks.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> held near a 23-month high after a solid rally since the start of the year to be up 0.15 percent. London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were flat to slightly lower.

Meanwhile the euro fell 0.3 percent to a day's low of $1.3602 after the Spanish jobs data was released, with bids cited at $1.3580 and $1.3600.

(Reporting by Richard Hubbard. Editing by David Stamp)

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Ravens edge 49ers 34-31 in electric Super Bowl

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — For a Super Bowl with so many story lines, this game came up with quite a twist.

Try a blackout that turned a blowout into a shootout — capped by a brilliant defensive stand.

The Baltimore Ravens survived a frenzied comeback by the San Francisco 49ers following a 34-minute delay in the third quarter for a power outage Sunday night, winning their second championship 34-31. Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco threw three first-half touchdown passes, Jacoby Jones ran back the second-half kickoff a record 108 yards for a score, and star linebacker Ray Lewis' last play fittingly was part of a defensive effort that saved the victory.

"To me, that was one of the most amazing goal-line stands I've ever been a part of in my career," said Lewis, who announced a month ago he would retire when the Ravens were done playing.

They are done now, with another Vince Lombardi Trophy headed for the display case.

"What better way to do it," Lewis said, "than on the Super Bowl stage?"

That stage already was loaded with plots:

—The coaching Harbaughs sibling rivalry, won by older brother John, who said the postgame greeting with Jim was "painful."

—Flacco's emergence as a top-level quarterback, and his impending free agency.

—Colin Kaepernick's rapid rise in the last two months as 49ers QB.

—The big game's return to the Big Easy for the first time in 11 years, and the first time since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005.

—Lewis' self-proclaimed "last ride."

But when the Superdome lost power, well, that wasn't in anyone's scenario.

Flacco and the Ravens (14-6) were turning the game into a rout, leading 28-6 when, without even a flicker of warning, several banks of lights and the scoreboards went dark. Players from both sides stretched and chatted with each other in as bizarre a scene as any Super Bowl has witnessed.

"The bad part was we started talking about it," said safety Ed Reed, who had the game's only interception. "That was mentioned. It was like they were trying to kill our momentum."

After power was restored, the 49ers began playing lights out.

San Francisco (13-5-1), in search of its sixth Lombardi Trophy in as many tries, got back in the game almost immediately.

Michael Crabtree's 31-yard touchdown reception, on which he broke two tackles, made it 28-13. A few minutes later, Frank Gore's 6-yard run followed a 32-yard punt return by Ted Ginn Jr., and the 49ers were within eight.

Ray Rice's fumble at his 24 led to David Akers' 34-yard field goal, but Baltimore woke up for a long drive leading to rookie Justin Tucker's 19-yard field goal.

San Francisco wasn't done challenging, though, and Kaepernick's 15-yard TD run, the longest for a quarterback in a Super Bowl, made it 31-29. A 2-point conversion pass failed when the Ravens blitzed.

Tucker added a 38-yarder with 4:19 remaining, setting up the frantic finish.

Kaepernick couldn't get the 49ers into the end zone on the final three plays. The last was a pass into the right corner of the end zone to Crabtree that involved some incidental bumping. Jim Harbaugh insisted a flag should have been thrown.

"There's no question in my mind that there was a pass interference and then a hold," Jim Harbaugh said.

Ravens punter Sam Koch took a safety for the final score with 4 seconds left. Koch's free kick was returned by Ginn to midfield as time ran out.

"How could it be any other way? It's never pretty. It's never perfect. But it's us," John Harbaugh said of his Ravens. "It was us today."

Barely.

"Yeah, I think that last drive when we got the ball and had time to go down and score a touchdown," Kaepernick said, "we thought it was our game."

But the championship is Baltimore's.

As for the foul-up at America's biggest sporting event, officials revealed that an "abnormality" in the power system triggered an automatic shutdown, forcing backup systems to kick in. But no one was sure what caused the initial problem.

Everything changed after that until Lewis and Co. shut it down. But there were plenty of white-knuckle moments and the Ravens had to make four stops inside their 7 at the end.

"I think it speaks to our resolve, speaks to our determination, speaks to our mental toughness," John Harbaugh said. "That is what wins and loses games."

At 4 hours, 14 minutes, it was the longest Super Bowl ever.

Flacco's arrival as a championship quarterback — he had 11 postseason TD passes, tying a league mark, and no interceptions — coincides with Lewis' retirement. The win capped a sensational four games since Lewis announced he was leaving the game after 17 Hall of Fame-caliber years.

The Ravens will become Flacco's team now, provided he reaches agreement on a new contract.

Flacco's three TD passes in the opening half tied a Super Bowl record. They covered 13 yards to Anquan Boldin, 1 to Dennis Pitta and 56 to Jones.

That start boosted him to the MVP award.

"They have to give it to one guy and I'm not going to complain that I got it," Flacco said.

John Harbaugh had no complaints about getting that other trophy named after that Green Bay coach. But he struggled to balance it with the disappointment his brother was feeling.

"The meeting with Jim in the middle (of the field for the postgame handshake) was probably the most difficult thing I have ever been associated with in my life," the Ravens coach said.

The wild scoring made this the second championship in the NFL's 80-year title game history in which both teams scored at least 30 points. Pittsburgh's 35-31 win over Dallas in 1979 was the other.

The Ravens stumbled into the playoffs with four defeats in its last five regular-season games as Lewis recovered from a torn right triceps and Flacco struggled. Harbaugh even fired his offensive coordinator in December, a stunning move with the postseason so close.

But that — and every other move Harbaugh, Flacco and the Ravens made since — were right on target.

New Orleans native Jones, one of the stars in a double-overtime playoff win at Denver, seemed to put the game away with his record 108-yard sprint with the second-half kickoff.

Soon after, the lights went out — and when they came back on, the Ravens were almost powerless to slow the 49ers.

Until the final moments.

"The final series of Ray Lewis' career was a goal-line stand," Harbaugh said.

Lewis was sprawled on all fours, face-down on the turf, after the end zone incompletion.

"It's no greater way, as a champ, to go out on your last ride with the men that I went out with, with my teammates," Lewis said. "And you looked around this stadium and Baltimore! Baltimore! We coming home, baby! We did it!"

Jim Harbaugh, the coach who turned around the Niners in the last two years and brought them to their first Super Bowl in 18 years, had seen his team make a similarly stunning comeback in the NFC championship at Atlanta, but couldn't finish it off against Baltimore.

"Our guys battled back to get back in," the 49ers coach said. "I thought we battled right to the brink of winning."

The 49ers couldn't have been sloppier in the first half, damaging their chances with penalties — including one on their first play that negated a 20-yard gain — poor tackling and turnovers. Rookie LaMichael James fumbled at the Baltimore 25 to ruin an impressive drive, and the Ravens converted that with Flacco's 1-yard pass to Pitta for a 14-3 lead.

On San Francisco's next offensive play, Kaepernick threw behind Randy Moss and always dependable Reed picked it off. A huge scuffle followed that brought both Harbaughs onto the field and saw both sides penalized 15 yards for unnecessary roughness.

Reed, also a New Orleans native, tied the NFL record for postseason picks with his ninth.

Baltimore didn't pounce on that mistake for points. Instead, Tucker's fake field goal run on fourth-and-9 came up a yard short when Chris Culliver slammed him out of bounds.

The Ravens simply shrugged, forced a three-and-out, and then unleashed Jones deep. Just as he did to Denver, he flashed past the secondary and caught Flacco's fling. He had to wait for the ball, fell to the ground to grab it, but was untouched by a Niner. Up he sprang, cutting left and using his speed to outrun two defenders to the end zone.

Desperate for some points, the 49ers completed four passes and got a 15-yard roughing penalty against Haloti Ngata, who later left with a knee injury. But again they couldn't cross the goal line, Paul Kruger got his second sack of the half on third down, forcing a second field goal by Akers, from 27 yards.

When Jones began the second half by sprinting up the middle virtually untouched — he is the second player with two TDs of 50 yards or more in a Super Bowl, tying Washington's Ricky Sanders in 1988 — the rout was on.

Then it wasn't.

"Everybody had their hand on this game," 49ers All-Pro linebacker Patrick Willis said. "We point the fingers at nobody. We win together and we lose together, and today we lost it."

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Beer will help power Alaska brewery

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaskan Brewing Co. is going green, but instead of looking to solar and wind energy, it has turned to a very familiar source: beer.

The Juneau-based beer maker has installed a unique boiler system in order to cut its fuel costs. It purchased a $ 1.8 million furnace that burns the company’s spent grain — the waste accumulated from the brewing process — into steam which powers the majority of the brewery’s operations.

Company officials now joke they are now serving “beer-powered beer.”

What to do with spent grain was seemingly solved decades ago by breweries operating in the Lower 48. Most send the used grain, a good source of protein, to nearby farms and ranches to be used as animal feed.

But there are only 37 farms in southeast Alaska and 680 in the entire state as of 2011, and the problem of what to do with the excess spent grain — made up of the residual malt and barley — became more problematic after the brewery expanded in 1995.

The Alaskan Brewing Co. had to resort to shipping its spent grain to buyers in the Lower 48. Shipping costs for Juneau businesses are especially high because there are no roads leading in or out of the city; everything has to be flown or shipped in. However, the grain is a relatively wet byproduct of the brewing process, so it needs to be dried before it is shipped — another heat intensive and expensive process.

“We had to be a little more innovative just so that we could do what we love to do, but do it where we’re located,” Alaskan Brewing co-founder Geoff Larson said.

But the company was barely turning a profit by selling its spent grain. Alaskan Brewery gets $ 60 for every ton of it sent to farms in the Lower 48, but it costs them $ 30 to ship each ton.

So four years ago, officials at the Alaskan Brewing Co. started looking at whether it could use spent grain as an in-house, renewable energy source and reduce costs at the same time.

While breweries around the world use spent grain as a co-fuel in energy recovery systems, “nobody was burning spent grain as a sole fuel source for an energy recovery system, for a steam boiler,” says Brandon Smith, the company’s brewing operations and engineering manager.

It contracted with a North Dakota company to build the special boiler system after the project was awarded nearly $ 500,000 in a grant from the federal Rural Energy for America Program.

The craft brewery is expecting big savings once the system is fully operational in about a month’s time. Smith estimates that the spent grain steam boiler will offset the company’s yearly energy costs by 70 percent, which amounts to about $ 450,000 a year.

Alaskan Brewing Co. makes about 150,000 barrels of beer a year. The beer is distributed in 14 states after recent entries into the Texas, Wisconsin and Minnesota markets. It brews several varieties of beer, but is best-known for its Alaskan Amber, an alt-style beer. The company is also known for its distinctive beer labels, including featuring a polar bear on its Alaskan White Belgian-style ale.

When asked which beer’s spent grain burns the best Smith joked “we’re still trying to figure that out. We have our suspicions.”

Smith said he hasn’t been contacted by other breweries regarding implementing the project, but “absolutely” believes the system could be applied at other, bigger breweries that dry their spent grain.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, has been repurposing its spent grain for the past century, selling it to local farmers.

Mike Beck, director of utilities support at Anheuser-Busch InBev, told The Associated Press in an email that spent grains are not currently a viable energy source for its breweries. However, Beck noted that the company regularly investigates new technologies to see if they could be applicable to its operations.

Anheuser-Busch InBev does employ bio-energy recovery systems, which turn wastewater into biogas, in most of its U.S. breweries. This provides up to 9 percent of the fuel needed in its boilers, he said.

Green News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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