Different challenges in Central African Rep., Mali

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Two land-locked, desperately poor African countries are gripped by rebellions in the north that have left huge chunks of both nations outside of government control. Neighboring countries are rushing troops into Central African Republic only a few weeks after rebels started taking towns but Mali's government is still awaiting foreign military help nearly one year after the situation there began unraveling. Here's a look at why there's been quick action in one country, and not in the other.
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THE INSURGENTS
The simple answer lies in the vastly different challenges faced by intervention forces. Northern Mali is home to al-Qaida-linked militants who are stocking weapons and possess stores of Russian-made arms from former Malian army bases as well as from the arsenal of toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The local and foreign jihadists there are digging in and training forces in preparation for jihad and to repel an invasion. Central African Republic, by contrast, is dealing with home-grown rebels who are far less organized and have less sophisticated weapons.
The numbers of troops being sent to Central African Republic are relatively small — Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Gabon are each sending about 120 soldiers. The rebels stopped their advances toward the capital on Dec. 29, perhaps at least in part because of the presence of the foreign troops who have threatened to counterattack if the rebels move closer to Bangui, the capital. In Mali, it will take far more than the 3,000 African troops initially proposed for a military operation to be successful in ousting the militants, analysts say.
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THE MISSION
The military objectives are also a stark contrast. In Central African Republic, neighboring nations have a mandate to help stabilize the region between rebel-held towns and the part of the country that is under government control. The intervention force will fire back if fired upon, but so far are not being asked to retake the towns already in rebel hands.
The mission in Mali that foreign forces are slowly gearing up for is far more ambitious. It involves trying to take back a piece of land larger than Texas or France where militants are imposing strict Islamic law, or Shariah. Making things even more complicated there: A military coup last year that created chaos and enabled the rebels to more easily take territory has left the country with a weak federal government and the country's military with a broken command-and-control structure, and with its leaders reluctant to give real power to the civilians.
"In Mali you have a very undefined mission. What does it mean to retake the country and give it back to government forces that were not able to hold it in the first place?" noted Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Central African Republic's situation "is a more limited, defined and frankly somewhat easier mission in the military sense," she said.
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THE TERRAIN
Northern Mali is a scorching desert that is unfamiliar to many of the troops who would be coming from the West African regional bloc of countries known as ECOWAS. By contrast, Central African Republic's neighbors already have been pulled into past rebellions in the country.
Chadian forces helped propel President Francois Bozize into power in 2003 and they have assisted him in putting down past rebellions here.
"These forces — particularly the Chadians — have been there before," Cooke said. "They know the players, they have an interlocutor in Bozize however fragile he is. This is familiar territory to them."
The Economic Community of Central African States, or ECCAS, also already had established a peacekeeping force in Central African Republic known as MICOPAX.
"From the beginning, they knew that they needed to have troops on the ground. MICOPAX was already there, had already been deployed there. There was already a structure in place," said Thierry Vircoulon, project director for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group.
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DIFFERING MOTIVATIONS
The rebels in Central African Republic are made up of four separate groups all known by their French acronyms — UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK. They are collectively known as Seleka, which means alliance in the local Sango language, but have previously fought one another. For instance, in September 2011 fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead and more than 700 homes destroyed. Insurgent leaders say a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army wasn't fully implemented and are demanding payments to former combatants among other things. Rebel groups also feel the government has neglected their home areas in the north and particularly the northeast, said Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service.
In northern Mali, the Islamist rebels are motivated in large part by religion. Al-Qaida fighters chant Quranic verses under the Sahara sun , displaying deep, ideological commitment. They consider north Mali as "Islamic territory" and say they will fight to the death to defend it. They also want to use the territory to expand the reach of al-Qaida-linked groups to other countries. This would seem to make other countries more motivated to intervene in Mali than in Central African Republic, but the challenges are so steep and convoluted that an intervention mission is still on the drawing board.

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EU says Iran not responded to nuclear talks proposal

 The European Union has proposed a time and place for further talks on Iran's nuclear program, but Iran has yet to respond, an EU spokesman said on Friday.
Iran said earlier on Friday it had agreed to resume talks in January with six major powers - represented by the EU - but the EU spokesman said Tehran had not yet replied to proposals made on December 31.
"We offered dates and a venue, but we are still waiting to hear back from Iran," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, who leads negotiations on behalf of the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China.
Mann declined to say which dates and venue the EU had proposed.
The countries involved in the talks - particularly in the West - want to rein in Iran's uranium enrichment work - which Tehran says is for peaceful purposes only but which produces material which, if processed further, can be used to make nuclear bombs.
There was no breakthrough in three rounds of talks since April 2012. But neither side has been willing to break off totally, partly because of concerns this could lead to war if Israel attacks Iran - something it has threatened to do if the Islamic Republic looks close to getting nuclear weapons

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Pakistani girl shot by Taliban leaves UK hospital

LONDON (AP) — Three months after she was shot in the head for daring to say girls should be able to get an education, a 15-year-old Pakistani hugged her nurses and smiled as she walked out of a Birmingham hospital.
Malala Yousufzai waved to a guard and smiled shyly as she cautiously strode down the hospital corridor talking to nurses in images released Friday by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.
"She is quite well and happy on returning home — as we all are," Malala's father, Ziauddin, told The Associated Press.
Malala, who was released Thursday, will live with her parents and two brothers in Britain while she continues to receive treatment. She will be admitted again in the next month for another round of surgery to rebuild her skull.
Experts have been optimistic that Malala, who was airlifted from Pakistan in October to receive specialized medical care, has a good chance of recovery because the brains of teenagers are still growing and can better adapt to trauma.
"Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery," said Dr. Dave Rosser, the medical director for University Hospitals Birmingham. "Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers."
The Taliban targeted Malala because of her relentless objection to the group's regressive interpretation of Islam that limits girls' access to education. She was shot while returning home from school in Pakistan's scenic Swat Valley on Oct. 9.
Her case won worldwide recognition, and the teen became a symbol for the struggle for women's rights in Pakistan. In an indication of her reach, she made the shortlist for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2012.
The militants have threatened to target Malala again because they say she promotes "Western thinking," but a security assessment in Britain concluded the risk was low in releasing her to her family. British police have provided security for her at the hospital, but West Midlands Police refused to comment on any security precautions for Malala or her family going forward.
Pakistani doctors removed a bullet that entered her head and traveled toward her spine before Malala's family decided to send her to Britain for specialized treatment. Pakistan is paying.
Pakistan also appointed Malala's father as its education attache in Birmingham for at least three years, meaning Malala is likely to remain in Britain for some time.
Hospital authorities say Malala can read and speak, but cited patient confidentiality when asked whether she is well enough to continue her education in Britain.
While little has been made public about Malala's medical condition, younger brains recover more fully from trauma because they are still growing. Dr. Anders Cohen, chief of neurosurgery at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, estimated she might recover up to 85 percent of the cognitive ability she had before — more than enough to be functional.
"She'd be able to move on with life, maybe even become an activist again," said Cohen, who is not involved in Malala's treatment.
In the Swat Valley, people reacted with joy at the news of her release. Family and friends handed out sweets to neighbors in Malala's hometown of Mingora.
"Obviously we all are jubilant over her rapid recovery, and we hope that she will soon fully recover and would return back to her home town at an appropriate time," said Mahmoodul Hasan, Malala's 35-year-old cousin. Like Malala's father, he runs a private school in Mingora.
But the Swat Valley remains a tense place. Only last month, several hundred students in Mingora protested plans to have their school named after Malala, saying it would make the institution a target for the Taliban.
Malala's father vowed to return to Pakistan with his family once Malala is fully recovered.
"I thank the whole of Pakistan and all other well-wishers for praying for her and our family," he said. "What I am doing here is all temporary, and God willing we all will return to our homeland.

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Why so much secrecy around Chávez's health? Venezuela's not alone.

The government of Hugo Chávez has, for the first time, characterized the Venezuelan leader’s health condition as “severe” following his Dec. 11 surgery in Cuba for a recurrence of cancer.
But the announcement Thursday night is unlikely to put an end to the rumor mill that has swirled in the past three weeks in the Andean country.
While everyone is worked up over President Chávez's health status, his administration is not necessarily an anomaly in keeping relatively mum. From dictators who are unable to envision their countries without them at the helm, to leaders of western democracies who attempt to pursue political projects despite medical setbacks, secrecy is often the norm.
“It is a long-standing pattern,” says Jerrold Post, who co-wrote "When Illness Strikes the Leader: The Dilemma of the Captive King" and is director of the political psychology program at George Washington University.
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'TELL US THE TRUTH'
Norm or not, the lack of news has kept people talking. Type in #DiganLaVerdadSobreChavez, or #TellUsTheTruthAboutChavez, and the trending Twitter topic reveals the state of speculation that has become the state of Venezuela since Chávez traveled to Havana for treatment last month.
No one has heard from him since.
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He’s fine. He’s dead. He’s in a coma. He’s on life support. He’s recovering. You name it – any scenario you wish to believe has been posited. And that’s largely because no one knows. Since Chávez first announced he was ill, in 2011, no medical report has detailed exactly what he faces or what his prognosis is. The government has said that it is keeping the public informed of his health status, as the president himself wishes, but in reality their reports have raised more questions than answers, even as they accuse the opposition of spreading rumors in a form of “psychological war.”
The opposition, for their part, is outraged, demanding more specificity, that the Venezuelan people be told the “whole truth” of the status of the country’s leader.
WHAT DOES SECRECY TELL US?
From former US presidents Ronald Reagan to Franklin Roosevelt, the states of health of leaders was carefully curated by administrations. In one oft-cited case, French President Francois Mitterrand hid his cancer diagnosis from the public for over a decade before being forced to step down. “Yet every year the doctor dutifully said he was in fine health,” says Dr. Post.
In some cases the secrecy reflects different historical social mores about privacy and the public's right to information. And in many cases it was also an effort not to minimize a leader’s mandate.
But in an age of social media, such secrecy is not tolerated – or even possible. The recent health statuses of other Latin American leaders facing illness, for example, including the presidents of Paraguay and Brazil, have been promptly released to the public.
In fact, Pedro Burelli, a former member of the executive board of Petróleos de Venezuela and today a political analyst in Washington who is critical of Chávez, says that the leader chose treatment in Cuba, where there is no free press, for the guarantee of secrecy.
“The natural tendency would have been for him to go to Brazil,” Mr. Burelli says, as it boasts among the best cancer treatment centers in Latin America. It’s also where other leaders in the region have been treated.
But in a democracy with a robust press, Burelli says, “Chávez feared that information [about his condition] would filter out.” Instead, he chose "sub-optimal care" in Cuba, in Burelli’s opinion, in order to keep his medical condition tightly concealed.
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IMAGINING THE FUTURE
In fact, Fidel Castro temporarily stepped down in 2006 and permanently in 2008, after his own health crisis was disclosed only as an intestinal problem and has been a “state secret” ever since. Over the years, Twitter has alighted with speculation of his health, especially after a long period out of the spotlight. Inevitably he has appeared again, either on television or with his name on a written column in the state-run Granma newspaper.
Mr. Pope says that in the case of leaders such as Castro or Chávez, the secrecy is linked to an inability to imagine their countries without them. “We are talking about [an individual], who has totally entwined his own identity with that of Venezuela,” Pope says.
It is possible that the newest announcement on Chávez’s health status by Venezuela’s Minister of Communication and Information, Ernesto Villegas, represents a move toward transparency on the part of the government. But now Venezuelans are speculating why he made the announcement. And he also failed to mention the scheduled Jan. 10 inauguration of Chávez, who won a fourth term in office in Oct. 7 elections.
Instead, Mr. Villegas condemned the "psychological war unleashed by transnational media about the health of the Head of State, with the ultimate goal of destabilizing the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” he said.
Twitter accounts are likely to stay as active, and as speculative, until the government gives more clarity.

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Israel tells underweight models to gain weight or get off the runway

“You’re a knockout! Did you gain a little weight?” Israeli fashion photographer and model agent Adi Barkan crows as he greets one of his top models, a towering brunette decked out in a chic black minidress surrounded by the exuberant chaos of the photo shoot in downtown Tel Aviv.
This is a celebratory week for Mr. Barkan, as a new law championed by the fashion giant took effect Jan. 1, banning the use of underweight models in local ads and on the catwalk. Its aim is to help curb a rise in eating disorders among those in the fashion industry and the general public.
“Beautiful is not underweight, beautiful is not anorexic,” says Knesset member Rachel Adato, who helped push the law through. “A revolution has begun against the perception of beauty in Israel, [and] this law shatters the anorexic ideal serving as an example for the country’s youth.”
Daria Keller, one of Barkan’s star models, came to the Simply-U agency from an agency where she says they tried to convince her that her “fullness” would stand in the way of her career. Barkan says she has the perfect measurements. Today, she smiles into the camera with natural confidence.
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“When I was 16, I ate only an apple for three full days, but now I want to stay as Daria,” says Ms. Keller, who has been modeling since that age.
The new law, known as the “photoshop law,” requires models to present their employers with a current doctor’s note confirming that they meet a minimum body mass index (BMI) – a calculation of weight to height proportion – of 18.5, which is considered the lowest threshold for a healthy weight. Advertisements featuring models who are “photoshopped” or otherwise digitally altered to make them appear thinner must be clearly marked as manipulated images.
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'WE ARE THE PROBLEM'
Barkan says that he has always seen the campaign to promote healthy body images as a matter of life and death.
When a 15-year-old girl named Katy came to him in 1997 for help in finding modeling jobs, he instead immediately brought her to the hospital, where he sat with her every night to make sure she ate. Shortly after Katy was released from the hospital, Barkan appeared as a guest on a morning television show. The host said to Barkan, "I want to show you something, a girl whose life you saved," and Katy appeared on stage to tell her story and express her gratitude, Barkan recalls.
After his television appearance, Barkan received 174 phone calls from women pleading “Help me, I’m going to die,” he recalls.
“I saw them all – children, women – everybody wanting to be good-looking. When I asked them, 'What does it mean?' they said, 'The girls that you shoot.' Then I understood that we are the problem,” Barkan says.
In 2007, when another client, a girl named Hila Elmalich who was diagnosed with anorexia, died in his arms at the hospital, he was spurred to greater action – campaigning for legislation that would help suppress the rising trend of underweight models.
“We went out on the balcony and she started to smoke a cigarette. She had a heart attack, and fell down upon me. Right then, I took an oath that I would not give up until I pass this law,” Barkan says.
REDEFINING BEAUTY
His campaign to raise awareness of anorexia, which he had initiated three years earlier with the coordination of Ms. Adato, the Knesset member, gained momentum, despite the fact that illness remained relatively unacknowledged in Israel. In March 2012 the law was finally pushed through the Knesset.
Adato, a former lawyer and gynecologist, says she hoped it would promote a healthy body image among Israeli women, and consequently lower the rates of anorexia and other eating disorders. As is the case in many other countries, eating disorders in Israel have risen with globalization and the subsequent import of American goods and culture, say experts here.
Some 3 percent of Israeli girls between the ages of 11 and 18 suffer from eating disorders, a rate similar to other industrialized Western countries, says Sigal Gooldin, a Hebrew University medical sociologist.
The law is a “symbolic achievement” in the battle to confront eating disorders, she says, but admits that it’s a “small step if girls are still consuming the same popular images and influenced by their surroundings."
A HARSH SPOTLIGHT
The concept of extreme thinness as the beauty ideal exploded with the rise of British supermodel Twiggy in the 1960s and Kate Moss in the 1990s. Critics say that the impossible standards promoted by designers and agencies have led to an epidemic in eating disorders, especially in young women.
The deaths of young models from complications of eating disorders in recent years have put the fashion industry in the hot seat, and put more pressure on governments to take action to change industry norms.
Italy and India banned underweight models from the catwalk in 2006. In the US and Britain, the fashion industry has internal guidelines because legislative restrictions on the industry are considered an infringement on commercial freedoms.
Despite potential roadblocks in implementation, including resistance from within the model community and the relevance of the law only to Israeli advertising companies, the law is a desperately needed response to a growing social crisis, says Dana Weinberg, director of the organization Women and their Bodies, which promotes healthy attitudes among Jewish and Arab women in Israel.
Like many other Western countries, Israel sees its model gliteratti as national treasures. Daily paparazzi shots and other snippets of their daily life regularly flood Israeli websites and social media. "The very fact that the law was passed sends a significant message against extreme thinness,” Ms. Weinberg says.
The flood of American cultural images, often cited as a key cause of eating disorders, may be a big factor in the rising rates of eating disorders, but US influence may also have spurred awareness of and openness to treating the problem.
In both the US and Israel, experts believe that these illnesses often go unreported because of social stigmas, but the estimated rate of eating disorders in both countries is somewhere between 2 and 3 percent. Barkan says that until Ms. Elmalich's death in 2007, there was little awareness of eating disorders in Israel, making his crusade against the fashion industry's warped beauty ideals a daunting task.
PUSHBACK
Some in the modeling community are skeptical that the law can have a real impact, and argue that legislation should focus on health rather than weight. Some models insist that genetics, not eating choices, determine their weight, and resent what they say is a punishment from the government. There is not yet a proposal for a way to evaluate the less quantifiable measure of health.
The Israeli model and television host Yael Goldman called the new law “absurd,” saying "models were always skinny and will always be, that’s the way it is.”
Daria Keller begs to differ.
"Today, models don’t have to be afraid, from themselves, also,” she says, referring to the growing social acceptance of average-sized models. “They can say, 'I can eat pizza, or a hamburger, because actually we’re too smart to ruin our lives for this.

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Stocks soar on budget deal, but problems lurk

The "fiscal cliff" compromise, even with all its chaos, controversy and unresolved questions, was enough to ignite the stock market on Wednesday, the first trading day of the new year.
The Dow Jones industrial average careened more than 300 points higher, its biggest gain since December 2011. It's now just 5 percent below its record high close reached in October 2007. The Russell 2000, an index that tracks smaller companies, shot up to 873.42, the highest close in its history.
The reverie multiplied across the globe, with stock indexes throughout Europe and Asia leaping higher. A leading British index, the FTSE 100, closed above 6,000 for the first time since July 2011, at 6,027.37.
In the U.S., the rally was extraordinarily broad. For every stock that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, roughly 10 rose. All 30 stocks that make up the Dow rose, as did 94 percent of the stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
U.S. government bond prices dipped sharply as investors pulled money out of safe-harbor investments. And the VIX, the "fear index" that measures investors' expectations of future market volatility, plunged more than 18 percent to 14.68, the lowest close since October.
The very last week of each year and the first two days of the new year usually average out to a gain for U.S. stocks. But the size of this year's gains made it stand out.
The Dow has risen on the first day of the trading year for each of the past four years, from 2009 to 2012. The average gain was 171 points — sizable, but still much smaller than Wednesday's leap of 308.41.
In the midst of the euphoria, many investors remained cautious. The deal that politicians hammered out merely postpones the country's budget reckoning, they said, rather than averting it.
"Washington negotiations remind me of the Beach Boys song, 'We'll have fun, fun, fun 'til her daddy takes the T-Bird away,'" Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of BMO Private Bank in Chicago, wrote in a note to clients.
"Nothing got solved," added T. Doug Dale, chief investment officer for Security Ballew Wealth Management in Jackson, Miss.
According to these and other market watchers, investors were celebrating Wednesday not because they love the budget deal that was cobbled together, but because they were grateful there was any deal at all.
"Most people think that no deal would have been worse than a bad deal," said Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities in San Francisco.
The House passed the budget bill late Tuesday night, a contentious exercise because many Republicans had wanted a deal that did more to cut government spending. The Senate had already approved the bill.
The late-night haggling was a product of lawmakers wanting to avert a sweeping set of government spending cuts and tax increases that kicked in Tuesday, the start of the new year, because there was no budget deal ready. The scenario came to be known as the fiscal cliff, because of the threat it posed to the fragile U.S. economic recovery.
The bill that passed Tuesday night ended the stalemate for now, but it leaves many questions unanswered.
The deal doesn't include any significant deficit-cutting agreement, meaning the country still doesn't have a long-term plan or even an agreement in principle on how to rein in spending. Big cuts to defense and domestic programs, which were slated to kick in with the new year, weren't worked out but instead were just delayed for two months. And the U.S. is still bumping up against its borrowing limit, or "debt ceiling."
"There's definitely another drama coming down the road," said Lehmann. "That's the March cliff."
The political bickering that's almost certain to persist could have another unwelcome effect: influencing ratings agencies to cut the U.S. government's credit score. That happened before, when Standard & Poor's cut its rating on U.S. government debt in August 2011, and the stock market plunged.
Even so, Wednesday's performance gave no hint of the dark clouds on the horizon.
The Dow enjoyed big gains throughout the day, up by more than 200 points within minutes of the opening bell. It swelled even bigger in the final half hour of trading, and closed up 2.4 percent to 13,412.55.
The Standard & Poor's 500 jumped 36.23, or 2.5 percent, to 1,462.42. The Nasdaq rose 92.75, or 3.1 percent, to 3,112.26.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose sharply, to 1.84 percent from 1.75 percent. Prices for oil and key metals were up. The price of copper, which can be a gauge of how investors feel about manufacturing, rose 2.3 percent. The Dow Jones transportation index rose to its highest point since July 2011.
The gains persisted despite small reminders that there are still serious problems punctuating the world economy, like middling growth in the U.S. and the still-unsolved European debt crisis. The government reported that U.S. builders spent less on construction projects in November, the first decline in eight months. And the president of debt-wracked Cyprus said he'd refuse to sell government-owned companies, a provision that the country's bailout deal says it must at least consider.
Among stocks making big moves, Zipcar shot up 48 percent, rising $3.94 to $12.18, after the company said it would sell itself to Avis. Avis rose 5 percent, up 95 cents to $20.77.
Marriott rose 4 percent, up $1.52 to $38.79, after SunTrust analysts upgraded the stock to "buy." Headphone maker Skullcandy dropped 13 percent, losing 99 cents to $6.80, after Jefferies analysts downgraded it to "underperform."

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Clothing retailer Gap to buy Intermix for $130 million - WSJ

 Gap Inc will buy women's fashion boutique Intermix Inc for $130 million (80 million pounds) to enter the luxury clothes market, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The casual-clothes retailer plans to double Intermix's store count and look for opportunities to expand the chain overseas, the Journal said, quoting Art Peck, president in charge of new brands at Gap.
Intermix, which does not produce its own clothes and has about 30 stores in the United States and Canada, has relationships with designers, including Herve Leger, Yves Saint Laurent and Rag & Bone, from which Gap could benefit.
"We are the incubator with emerging brands and we can help them out with collaborations," Intermix founder and chief executive, Khajak Keledjian told the Wall Street Journal. Keledjian will remain at the company as chief creative officer.
The deal is the latest by Gap since it paid $150 million in 2008 for women's active apparel retailer Athleta, an acquisition aimed at tapping demand for yoga and workout gear, the Journal said.
Officials with Gap could not be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.
Gap, which competes with Swedish retailer H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB , H&M and Inditex Group's Zara, is also closing about a fifth of its North American namesake stores, the Journal daily said.

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