British soldier killed in latest 'insider attack' in Afghanistan

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A man wearing an Afghan National Army uniform opened fire on on fellow Afghan troops and British coalition forces in Helmand Province yesterday, killing at least one British soldier in the first insider attack of 2013. The shooting shines the spotlight once again on concerns about the Afghan National Army's ability to assume responsibility for security as international troops begin their drawdown.
A slew of such incidents, as international coalition troops have started shifting responsibility to the Afghan Army, prompted NATO to step up its screening of applicants to the Army, but the attacks have continued – 45 incidents in 2012 alone, up from 21 in 2011, according to the Associated Press.
BBC reports that all six of the British soldiers who have been killed in the past six months died in "green-on-blue" insider incidents, which accounted for the deaths of more than 60 NATO personnel overall in 2012.
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The attack comes just as Afghan President Hamid Karzai has arrived in Washington to talk with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton about the future of Afghanistan.
Although the Taliban claimed to be behind the attack, Afghan officials are skeptical of the group's involvement, telling the BBC that the Taliban often falsely claim responsibility for such attacks.
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The Telegraph reports that the another Army soldier said that the attacker joined up a year ago and came from the eastern province of Laghman. The soldier said that the attacker acted as an "imam" for the Afghan troops, leading prayers for them. He was killed after opening fire.
Almost all the British forces have been concentrated in the southern province of Helmand, where the attack took place, according to the Associated Press, which dubs it the country's most violent.
The Monitor's Tom Peter reported in September that the insider attacks – and the "insurgent infiltration they represent" – threaten Afghanistan's longterm stability as international troops prepare for the 2014 withdrawal.
“The issue of green on blue attacks is not only a tragic issue for international forces and Afghan forces right now, but post-2014 this could change into the collapse of one or many of government institutions in various districts and provinces,” says Waliullah Rahmani, executive director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies. “There might be a risk of many elements of the Taliban and insurgency or people who are loyal to them who spy for these groups inside the Afghan government.”
Mr. Peter also reported earlier in the year, after an Afghan police officer killed nine of his colleagues while they were sleeping, that the rapid expansion of the Afghan security forces may be partly to blame, as proper vetting fell off in the rush to fill out the Army's ranks.
Waheed Mujhda, an independent analyst in Kabul, says that one of the main problems may stem from the eagerness of the international community and the Afghan government to rapidly expand the size of Afghan security forces, without properly vetting candidates.
“During this process they never pay attention to the background of everyone who comes to the Afghan forces,” he says.
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The Pentagon released a report to Congress last month that indicated only 1 in 23 Afghan Army brigades was ready to operate on its own without support from the US, according to the Washington Post.

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France's 'boys will be boys' mentality challenges gender equality

The flip side of feminism in France is a very flip attitude that being macho is an excuse that rightly covers many sins.
The French may duly proclaim and agree with gender equality and modern feminist notions. But in practice, those ideas run up against a powerful, culturally sanctioned "old-boy mentality" in Paris – an attitude, often held among power elites of both sexes, that "boys will be boys."
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When French politician and former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was arrested in 2011 on charges of raping a New York hotel maid, he immediately benefited from a powerful media defense in France, with leading intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Levy speaking out on his behalf.
And the defense of Mr. Strauss-Kahn echoed that which filmmaker Roman Polanski received in 2009. When Mr. Polanski, a French citizen, was detained in Switzerland for possible extradition to California on sexual misconduct charges dating from the 1970s, French elites – including the foreign minister and the minister of culture – took up for him.
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Such defenses weren't exactly rational. But they were a very French response: an excuse roughly on the grounds that these things will happen and it's best not to make too much of them. Feminism may be fine and admirable in theory, but it isn't how life and nature work in reality.
In Washington, if a White House cabinet member or a major media figure made apologies for rape, that would likely end a career. But in Paris, things are not so cut and dried.
A cultural attitude rising out of French history suggests that taking license with the ladies is a harmless part of the French tradition of gallantry. And there is an instinctive use of a whole arsenal of cultural put-downs and withering comments about those with the temerity to too loudly raise issues of sexual harassment. If someone takes "feminism" too seriously, then maybe there is something irritating about them and they should lighten up!
Sexual harassment laws are on the books. But they are rarely enforced or prosecuted. One rarely hears of hefty fines, and cases don't get attention.

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Do French women need feminism?

When ex-model and former French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy made comments in the December issue of Paris Vogue declaring, "My generation doesn't need feminism," Anne-Cécile Mailfert, one of many French women catching the news on her iPhone, was aghast.
"What? No way! We have to do something," she characterizes the collective response of the organization she serves as spokesperson for, Osez Le Féminisme or "Dare to be a Feminist." They launched a Twitter barrage with the hashtag "#DearCarlaBruni, we need feminism because…" leaving French women to fill in the "why" for themselves.
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"#DearCarlaBruni, we need feminism because people always assume I'm the secretary," was one common tweet. The campaign got so much attention that it finally prompted an apology from Ms. Bruni-Sarkozy – and handed a win to French feminists.
From afar, many think French women don't need such victories, at least when it comes to the child/work balance that so eludes American women. When Anne-Marie Slaughter published her polemic article in The Atlantic titled "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," which was devoured and debated by working mothers across the United States, not a few pointed out that French women often can have it all, thanks to social welfare policies that are virtually unmatched around the world. The subhead of a Slate article from November read, "Maybe working moms can have it all – in France."
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But that's only half the story – the other half having been brought to the fore after Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and aspirant to the French presidency, was accused of sexually assaulting a New York City hotel maid in May 2011. The case shocked many with its frank discussion of certain commonly held French attitudes toward women.
In fact the Gallic nation, which spawned such strong feminist figures as Simone de Beauvoir, struggles to surpass its European neighbors in terms of gender equality, even as Christine Lagarde now runs the IMF and French President François Hollande introduced gender parity in his cabinet. French women sit in the bottom half of Europe's rankings on a slew of measures from the most recent 2012 World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index – even taking last place on the group's perceived wage-equality survey indicator – while sexism and even sexual harassment have been overlooked or disregarded as the necessary evil of an otherwise lovely cultural relationship between men and women. Just recently all the government's ministers were sent to 45-minute anti-sexism classes.
SIDEBAR: France's 'boys will be boys' mentality challenges gender equality
Marilyn Baldeck, a young feminist and head of the European Association Against Violence Toward Women at Work, says that she butts heads with deeply held social mores.
"There is cheese, bullfighting, and the French way of seduction," she says. "We are being accused of wanting to sanitize the relationships between men and women.... [It] is claimed to be a puritanical feminism ... an American type of feminism."
PRO-CHILDBEARING, NOT-SO-PRO-EQUALITY
On the brisk Parisian streets of winter, mothers dressed in stylish boots and overcoats roll narrow strollers, all covered with rain and wind flaps, down the sidewalks, en route to day-care centers and schools, many of them sponsored by the state. Such programs are one of several policies that help French parents balance work and family. Day-care centers, called crèches, are subsidized by the state. If mothers can't find places in the state-run crèches, they share nannies and receive generous tax refunds that make having a nanny affordable. Preschools are free, and all day, for children as young as 3.
"Having children and working is highly valued in France," says Hélène Périvier, codirector of the gender program at the SciencesPo university in Paris and mother of three young children. In Germany, for example, women are frowned upon – stigmatized as "crows" – for wanting to work, she says. "It has a deep impact on society."
Generous state support for working mothers is widely endorsed by French women, but many argue that, having hailed from a historic pro-childbearing effort, French women haven't really promoted gender or social equality.
"Domestic labor remains women's domain, crèche places are more accessible to those in wealthy urban areas, and career compromise after parenthood remains largely a female sacrifice," says Simon Jackson, an English historian at SciencesPo.
Still, many wouldn't wish it away. Stephanie Lumbers has a toddler and is expecting another child this month. She returned to work in marketing when her first child was 5 months old and now shares a nanny with another family. "We have it better than most mothers," she says. Unlike many American women, who commonly say they struggle to balance home and work, she says no one in her circle of friends – though she concedes she is among a privileged circle – lists that balance as their major concern.
That isn't the only aspect of being a French woman that is worthy of envy. Stereotypes abound in movies and literature about the sense of style and beauty of French women. The bestseller "French Women Don't Get Fat" is a testament to that global fascination.
French professor Anne Deneys-Tunney, at New York University, says that she finds the US, where she has spent the last 20 years, to be a more egalitarian society for gender relations. American women have certain protections such as clear sexual harassment policies that are strictly enforced, yet it comes at a social cost, including a cultural tone that many French would find distasteful and too politically correct. The French want legal equality that doesn't come bound up in the inability to compliment women at work.
"Women are freer here, but on the other hand, it has destroyed a certain charm, an innocence and lightness of life," she says.
But that freedom can, at its worst, have a social cost. In July in the wake of the Strauss-Kahn case, for example, the country's female housing minister, Cécile Duflot, was subject to shouts and wolf whistles from the right-wing opposition as she prepared to address the national Parliament in a flowery but professional dress. The speaker of the chamber had to ask the male representatives to stop hooting at her.
Yet Ms. Duflot didn't shy away from responding. As she began her address to the chamber amid taunting from the opposition, she said, "Ladies and gentlemen representatives, but mostly gentlemen, apparently."
STRAUSS-KAHN AFFAIR A TURNING POINT
These scenarios are not unheard of. Women in France have less access to justice when it comes to sexual harassment. According to the French Ministry of Justice, about 1,000 complaints for sexual harassment are filed every year, but only a few dozen lead to sentencing.
And overall, the World Economic Forum's index puts France at 57 of 135 countries in terms of gender equality, falling in ranking from the year before. It sits well behind the Scandinavian countries, all in the Top 10, as well as behind Germany, Ireland, Spain, and the US.
SIDEBAR: France's 'boys will be boys' mentality challenges gender equality
Yet the fallout from the Strauss-Kahn case, while a nadir, has also been a turning point. In August, the country passed a new sexual harassment law that raises fines to €30,000 (nearly $40,000, double the previous fine) and expands the definition of what constitutes harassment. Before, it was limited to an act "with the goal of obtaining favors of sexual nature."
Today, harassment is defined as "imposing on somebody, in a repeated way, words or behaviors with a sexual connotation that either undermine one's dignity because of their degrading or humiliating nature, or create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive situation."
In one case that Ms. Baldeck's group represented, a female employee accused a male colleague of repeated sexual harassment, including an attempt to tuck a pencil between her buttocks. The judge in the case, in 2008, ruled against her. "Even if the words, actions, and gesture of [the defendant] could be judged as inadmissible, crude, rude, seen as obscene, they do not constitute moral or sexual harassment," the presiding judge wrote. Baldeck won on appeal, but says that she'd never have lost in the first place in today's environment. In fact, she says the number of cases they deal with in any given year – 400 – is up from the average of 300 before the Strauss-Kahn case forced sexual harassment into the public consciousness.
Mr. Hollande, in addition to introducing gender parity in his cabinet, has also reopened a women's rights ministry – after it was shuttered for almost 30 years – and by sending his ministers to sexism-education class, he has underlined his commitment to equality, his administration says.
"It is simply to take some time to think about inequalities between men and women, their origins, the reason that it is sometimes difficult to change mentalities and thus behaviors," writes Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the minister for women's rights, in an e-mail. "It is about giving them the keys, the tools, for politicians to integrate women's rights as an automatic extension of their political work."
'LA BARBE' STRIKES A FEMINIST BLOW WITH WIT
But feminist groups say there is far more to be done. One group called La Barbe – meaning "The Beard" in English but also a pun as an old French expression that means "bummer" – was founded in 2008 after a French female candidate from a mainstream party was fielded for the 2007 presidential election, leading to a barrage of public chauvinism. "We want to fight men's monopoly in power places," says Clémentine Pirlot, a gender studies student and active member of the group.
While La Barbe's intentions are very serious, it carries out its activism with a dose of humor and sarcasm. In November, Ms. Pirlot attended an economic conference with a group of women, where 14 speakers were scheduled to talk and all 14 were men. As is La Barbe's routine, about 20 minutes into the conference, Pirlot stood up and put on a homemade beard – "always with dignity," she says – and read out sarcastic remarks like, "Congratulations! There are no women here."
Pirlot carries a beard or two in her purse always. "You never know when you'll need it," she says. Often the bearded women are treated with respect, but at times their targets are hostile, even as they become a more common fixture on the Parisian landscape. One waiter at a cafe in downtown Paris sees Pirlot with her beard on and says, "Yeah, La Barbe!"
Baldeck says that these days in Paris one can attend a feminist event any day of the week and that the movement has been renewed by thousands of young women.
At Osez le Féminisme, the group has grown in three years to 1,500 members with 11 committees around the country, taking on everything from sex education to abortion to wage equality. Ms. Mailfert measures success in the reaction her job description generates.
"I think one of our main achievements," she says, "is that it is now not that taboo to say you are a feminist."

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Cricket-Sri Lanka not good enough in Australia, says Jayawardene

SYDNEY, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Mahela Jayawardene signed off his second stint as Sri Lanka captain in disappointment on Sunday after a 3-0 series sweep in Australia and said the bottom line was his team had just not played well enough.
After arriving in Australia confident they could finally win a first test Down Under, Sri Lanka fell to defeat by five wickets in Sydney following an innings and 201 humiliation in Melbourne and an 137-run reverse in Hobart.
"I think Hobart was a good fight, tough conditions, I thought we hung in pretty well there," Jayawardene told reporters. "Melbourne, we never showed any fight in that test match which was pretty disappointing.
"Here, I think we fought really well, but it wasn't good enough. The Australians played some really good cricket, they did give us a few chances but we weren't good enough to take control and push forward.
"When you are competing at this level, I think we need to be much better prepared and show more character to win test matches in these conditions."
The defeat in Sydney was particularly galling because Jayawardene finally got the scenario he wanted, prolific wicket-taking spinner Rangana Herath bowling at an Australian team chasing a victory target on a turning wicket.
"I think this would have the perfect script, bowling on the fourth day in Sydney," he said. "If we had kept them close to our score in the first innings things would have been different. But we let (them) get away from us, dropped a few catches.
"And even second innings we batted well, put some pressure on the Australians, maybe if we'd had another 60, 70 runs... but, we're not good enough to do that."
Injuries forced the Sri Lankans to blood some younger batsmen in Australia and the likes of Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Thirimanne and Dinesh Chandimal showed they had the potential to play at the top level.
Jayawardene, one of a quartet of Sri Lankan batting greats now in their mid-thirties who will be retiring over the next few of years, said they still had a lot of hard work ahead of them.
"I think the more opportunities they have to play in these conditions their game will improve but talent alone will not carry them forward," he said.
"It's much tougher. Thinking processes, you need to identify your weaknesses, you need to know your game better, you need to see what the opposition is doing and build innings and bat for longer.
"They all have talent and that's why they're here. As long as they willing to learn and work hard, they will get big scores and be the future of Sri Lankan cricket.
"But they need to work hard, they need to realise what they need to do and where they need to toughen up. It's not just technical, it's mental too."
Another of the quartet of experienced batsmen, Thilan Samaraweera, had a particularly poor series but Jayawardene was in no mood to start picking out scapegoats.
"Unfortunately he did have a bad series, but that happens. I think it's unfair to pick on individual players after a series defeat like this and say it was their fault," he said.

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Tennis-Kvitova thrashed in final Australian Open warmup

Jan 6 (Reuters) - World number eight Petra Kvitova's preparations for the Australian Open suffered another setback when she was thrashed by Dominika Cibulkova in the first round of the Sydney International on Sunday.
The fifth-seeded Czech, who had lost to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the second round of the Brisbane International last week, was thumped 6-1 6-1 by her Slovak opponent at the Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre.
"I played really badly and I wish I knew what I could say but I don't know," Kvitova, the 2011 Wimbledon champion and a semi-finalist at last year's Australian Open, told reporters.
"I'm not feeling very well right now in my confidence but I'm always looking forward to playing grand slams and I hope everything will be better there than here."
Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki got her preparations for the first grand slam of the season, which starts Jan. 14 in Melbourne, back on track with a confident 6-1 6-2 win over Poland's Urszula Radwanska.
After suffering a shock first-round loss to qualifier Ksenia Pervak in Brisbane, the Dane rediscovered her touch to record a first victory of 2013.
Wozniacki has spent 67 weeks at the top of the rankings in her career but the 22-year-old slipped to number 10 after a poor season in which she suffered first-round exits at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
With boyfriend and world number one golfer Rory McIlroy cheering her on from the stands, the Dane said she believed she could climb her way back to the top.
"Within myself, I believe I can get back there," Wozniacki said. "But it's a lot of hard work and there are a lot of great players so you never know what's going to happen.
"The most important thing is that you're healthy and I'm going to play as best I can and win as many tournaments as I can and the ranking will come if you play well.

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Kvitova thrashed in final Australian Open warmup

(Reuters) - World number eight Petra Kvitova's preparations for the Australian Open suffered another setback when she was thrashed by Dominika Cibulkova in the first round of the Sydney International on Sunday.
The fifth-seeded Czech, who had lost to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the second round of the Brisbane International last week, was thumped 6-1 6-1 by her Slovak opponent at the Sydney Olympic Park Tennis Centre.
"I played really badly and I wish I knew what I could say but I don't know," Kvitova, the 2011 Wimbledon champion and a semi-finalist at last year's Australian Open, told reporters.
"I'm not feeling very well right now in my confidence but I'm always looking forward to playing grand slams and I hope everything will be better there than here."
Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki got her preparations for the first grand slam of the season, which starts January 14 in Melbourne, back on track with a confident 6-1 6-2 win over Poland's Urszula Radwanska.
After suffering a shock first-round loss to qualifier Ksenia Pervak in Brisbane, the Dane rediscovered her touch to record a first victory of 2013.
Wozniacki has spent 67 weeks at the top of the rankings in her career but the 22-year-old slipped to number 10 after a poor season in which she suffered first-round exits at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
With boyfriend and world number one golfer Rory McIlroy cheering her on from the stands, the Dane said she believed she could climb her way back to the top.
"Within myself, I believe I can get back there," Wozniacki said. "But it's a lot of hard work and there are a lot of great players so you never know what's going to happen.
"The most important thing is that you're healthy and I'm going to play as best I can and win as many tournaments as I can and the ranking will come if you play well."
Australian Olivia Rogowska was overwhelmed in a 7-5 6-2 loss to Russian Maria Kirilenko in another first round match while home favorite Samantha Stosur will begin her campaign on Monday against China's world number 26 Zheng Jie.

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French panel overturns 75 percent tax on ultrarich

PARIS (AP) — Embattled French President Francois Hollande suffered a fresh setback Saturday when France's highest court threw out a plan to tax the ultrawealthy at a 75 percent rate, saying it was unfair.
In a stinging rebuke to one of Socialist Hollande's flagship campaign promises, the constitutional council ruled Saturday that the way the highly contentious tax was designed was unconstitutional. It was intended to hit incomes over €1 million ($1.32 million).
The largely symbolic measure would have only hit a tiny number of taxpayers and brought in an estimated €100 million to €300 million - an insignificant amount in the context of France's roughtly €85 billion deficit.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was quick to respond, saying in a statement following the decision the government would resubmit the measure to take the court's concerns into account. The court's ruling took issue not with the size of the tax, but with the way it discriminated between households depending on how incomes were distributed among its members. A household with two earners each making under €1 million would be exempt from the tax, while one with one earner making €1.2 million would have to pay.
The French government approved the tax in its most recent budget, amid criticism by some that it would do little to stem the country's mounting fiscal problems and would drive away the wealthiest citizens. Hollande's popularity, meanwhile, has been tanking as the country's unemployment continued its rise for the 19th straight month.
In recent weeks, Gerard Depardieu — France's most famous actor — announced his intention to turn in his French passport and move to a village in a tax-friendly Belgium.

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Berlusconi criticizes Monti's campaign about-face

ROME (AP) — Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi sharply criticized the decision by Mario Monti to run in Italy's general elections and vowed Saturday to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the 2011 fall of his government and appointment of Monti as Italy's premier.
Berlusconi spoke out after Monti ended weeks of hedging and announced Friday he would head a coalition of centrist forces, businessmen and pro-Vatican forces running for office in Feb. 24-25 elections.
Berlusconi said he never expected Monti would renege on his repeated assurances that he "wouldn't use the public prominence as head of a technical government for an ulterior presence in politics."
He said the decision represented a "loss of credibility" for Monti, a respected economist and former European Commissioner, and said if he is elected premier he would immediately launch a parliamentary inquiry into the fall of his government.
"There was a serious wound to democracy inflicted not just on us but on all Italians," Berlusconi said as he arrived at Milan's train station after a trip from Rome.
Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, beset by local corruption scandals and still tainted by Berlusconi's ill-fated last term, trails significantly in the polls behind the center-left Democratic Party. The Democrats, headed by Pier Luigi Bersani, are expected to win the election with about 30 percent of the vote.
Monti was named by Italy's president to lead a technical government after Berlusconi, hobbled by sex scandals, legal woes and defections from his party, was forced to resign in November 2011 amid Italy's slide into the eurozone's debt crisis.
Berlusconi's party, Parliament's largest, had initially supported Monti's government, backing tax hikes, raises in the retirement age and other unpopular reforms that were deemed necessary to restore Italy's financial credibility.
But earlier this month, Berlusconi yanked his party's support, accusing Monti's government of leading Italy into a "spiral of recession." Monti promptly resigned, forcing elections to be moved up by about two months.
Monti had long said he wouldn't run for office but would be available to serve the country if asked. European leaders, however, made clear they wanted Monti to gun for a second term, and he was wooed by centrist leaders and backed strongly by the Vatican, an important force in Italian politics.
As Monti weighed whether to enter the fray, Berlusconi initially offered an alliance, aware that he could use the votes that a Monti-headed centrist coalition might bring.
But Monti publicly spurned the offer last week and by Saturday Berlusconi was returning the favor. At best, the centrists with Monti leading them are expected to garner no more than about 15 percent of the vote.
Instead, Berlusconi reached out Saturday to his onetime ally, the Northern League, which split with the billionaire media mogul over his initial support for Monti's government. From the start, the euroskeptic League refused to back Monti.
Angelo Alfano, Berlusconi's hand-picked party leader, said the discussions with the League weren't going terribly well. "Discussions with League ongoing. Some important questions, but we're not convinced and they could lead us to separate our path," Alfano tweeted.
Berlusconi noted that the League has more to gain if it joins up with his party.
"I hope we can do it, but it's not necessary because we think we can win even if we go our separate ways," Berlusconi said.

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4 dead in Moscow airliner crash

MOSCOW (AP) — A passenger airliner careered off the runway at Russia's third-busiest airport and partly onto a highway while landing on Saturday, broke into pieces and caught fire, killing at least four people.
Officials said there were eight people aboard the Tu-204 belonging to Russian airline Red Wings that was flying back from the Czech Republic without passengers to its home at Vnukovo Airport.
Emergency officials said in a televised news conference that four people were killed and another four severely injured when the plane rolled off the runway into a snowy field and partly onto an adjacent highway, then disintegrated. No collisions with vehicles on the major, multilane highway were reported.
The plane's cockpit area was sheared off from the fuselage and a large chunk gashed out near the tail.
The crash occurred amid light snow and winds gusting up to 15 meters a second (30 mph), but other details were not immediately known. A spokesman for Russia's top investigative agency, Vladimir Markin, said initial indications were that pilot error was the cause.
The state news agency RIA Novosti cited an unidentified official at the Russian Aviation Agency as saying another Red Wings Tu-204 had gone off the runway at the international airport in Novosibirsk in Siberia on Dec. 20. The agency said that incident, in which no one was injured, was due to the failure of the plane's engines to go into reverse upon landing and that its brake system malfunctioned.
On Friday, the Aviation Agency sent a directive to the Tupolev company's president calling for it to take urgent preventive measures.
Vnukovo airport spokeswoman Yelena Krylova said it had enough personnel and equipment to keep the runway fully functional Saturday. The airport resumed receiving planes after a break of several hours.
Prior to Saturday's crash, there had been no fatal accidents reported for Tu-204s, which entered commercial service in 1995. The plane is a twin-engine midrange jet with a capacity of about 210 passengers.
Vnukovo, on the southern outskirts of Moscow, is one of the Russian capital's three international airports.

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Central Asian migrants change the face of Moscow

MOSCOW (AP) — Timur Bulgakov has a black belt in karate, two university degrees, a powerful SUV and a small yet thriving construction company. The 28-year-old's success is impressive for a Muslim migrant from Uzbekistan whose first job in Moscow 10 years ago was as a delivery boy.
But his story is no longer that unusual.
The old Moscow, populated largely by Slavs, is rapidly giving way to a multi-ethnic city where Muslims from Central Asia are the fastest growing sector of the population. And they are changing the face of Moscow as their numbers rise and they move up the career ladder, taking on more visible roles in society.
Muslim women wearing hijabs are a growing sight on the capital's shopping streets. Bearded men sport Muslim skullcaps and hang trinkets with Koranic verses in their cars. Many more are non-practicing Muslims who blend in with secular attire, although their darker skin, accented speech and foreign customs often provoke frowns from native Muscovites. Meanwhile, their children — some born and raised in the capital — throng kindergartens and schools.
Russia's Federal Migration Service estimates that about 9.1 million foreigners arrived in Russia to work in 2011. More than a third came from three impoverished Central Asian countries that were once part of the Soviet Union: About 2 million from Uzbekistan, 1 million from Tajikistan and more than 500,000 from Kyrgyzstan. Local experts say the number of Central Asian arrivals is at least twice as high. And hundreds of thousands of Central Asians have already acquired Russian passports and are off the migration services' radar.
The Central Asian migration has been the driving force in boosting Russia's Muslim population to more than 20 million, from some 14 million 10 years ago — a phenomenon experts call one of the most radical demographic makeovers Russia has ever seen.
"Today, we're standing on the verge of a powerful demographic explosion, a great migration period equal to the one that took place in the first centuries A.D.," said Vyacheslav Mikhailov, a former minister for ethnic issues and a presidential adviser on ethnic policies.
Muslims are expected to account for 19 percent of Russia's population by 2030, up from 14 percent of the current population of 142 million, according to the U.S. government's National Intelligence Council report on global trends published this month.
"Russia's greatest demographic challenge could well be integrating its rapidly growing ethnic Muslim population in the face of a shrinking ethnic Russian population," the report said. The changing ethnic mix "already appears to be a source of growing social tensions."
By the most conservative estimates, 2 million Muslims now live in Moscow, a city of nearly 12 million.
Polls show that nearly half of Russians dislike migrants from Central Asia and Russia's Caucasus — another source of Muslim migration. They have become the bogeymen of Russian nationalists, accused of stealing jobs, forming ethnic gangs and disrespecting Russian customs.
"If you build a mosque in downtown Moscow, slaughter sheep on your holiday and impose your traditions on us, no one will want you as a neighbor," said Dmitry Demushkin, a veteran Russian neo-Nazi skinhead who heads a nationalist party.
Central Asian labor migrants for years have filled the lowest paying jobs, working as janitors, street cleaners, construction workers, vendors at outdoor markets and unlicensed cab drivers whose run-down cars are popularly known as "jihad taxis." Many live in trailers on construction sites, in squalid basements and overcrowded flophouses or sleep inside their cars. The uncertain legal status of many of the migrant workers has left them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation from employers. They also have fallen victim to xenophobic attacks.
But in recent years, they are increasingly becoming more established members of the work force. And a significant minority, like Bulgakov, now run their own successful businesses.
The undisputed star among Russia's Central Asian business figures is ethnic Uzbek Alisher Usmanov: His interests in mining, telecoms and Internet startups have made him one of Russia's richest men, with a fortune estimated at $18.1 billion, and he is the co-owner of British soccer club Arsenal.
Filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, who was born in Kazakhstan and educated in Uzbekistan, has directed some of Russia's most top grossing movies. Recently he moved to Hollywood, directing this year's "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" and before that "Wanted," a 2008 action flick with Angelina Jolie.
Uzbek native Mirzakarim Norbekov has penned half a dozen bestsellers based on the medical teachings of Muslim medieval scholar Avicenna, who was born in what is now Uzbekistan. His medical training center in Moscow charges hundreds of dollars for short healing courses.
And while the Central Asian influx has caused frictions, there are also abundant signs of non-Muslim Muscovites embracing things seen as quintessentially Central Asian. Uzbek restaurants, fast-food joints and clay-oven bakeries that churn out round flat-cakes and meat pies have become ubiquitous; fashionistas sport oriental silk scarves and pashminas that resemble hijabs; and many ethnic Russian housewives buy halal meat believing it to be healthy and devoid of chemical preservatives.
The trend may have deep roots in Russian history: Unlike most West European capitals, Moscow has absorbed Muslims into its population for centuries.
The principality of Moscow emerged as a regional power some 700 years ago, when the Golden Horde, a state dominated by Mongols and Muslim Tatars, controlled parts of what is now southern Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. As Moscow took over the Horde's territories and invaded lands that once had been conquered by Arabs, Persians and Turks, Muslim nobles became part of the Russian elite and Muslims were free to practice their faith under the czars.
Novelist Vladimir Nabokov proudly wrote that his aristocratic family descended from Nabak, an illegitimate son of Genghis Khan. Composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and writer Mikhail Bulgakov were the offspring of Tatar nobles.
"Muslims are not newcomers here, and all the current problems are temporary," said Vladilen Bokov, a devout Muslim and member of the Public Chamber, which advises the Kremlin on social issues.
The Central Asians are far from a homogeneous group: Kyrgyz are proud of their militant nomadic heritage, while Uzbeks and Tajiks extol their cultures that produced poets and scholars who contributed to medieval Muslim civilization.
Czarist armies finished the conquest of Central Asia by early 20th century and Stalinist purges decimated their elites. The Soviet era reshaped their economies and agriculture and made "Russification" a key to success for several generations of their best and brightest. In the 1980s, Central Asian conscripts became a majority in the Soviet Army as birth rates among ethnic Russians plummeted.
Communist Moscow tried to win sympathies of Central Asians — and uproot their Muslim traditions — by building schools and universities. Their graduates are still qualified to work as bank clerks, computer engineers, artists and medical doctors in Russia. Employers often praise them for their hard work, career ambitions and indifference to alcohol — Russia's proverbial scourge.
The 1991 Soviet collapse was followed in their overpopulated republics by ineffective economic reforms, political unrest a resurgence of Islamic traditions and a gradual loss of Soviet mentality. But the number of Russian speakers remains high. They visit Russia visa-free and can stay here for up to three months, or longer if they get work or residence permits.
Construction company owner Bulgakov has faced his share of hardships.
Square-jawed and burly, he recalled over a cup of steaming tea how he stole some undercooked buckwheat from a dormitory kitchen several days after losing a job. He lost another job after beating up his supervisor for calling him a "churka," a pejorative term for Central Asians. Bulgakov said that during a hospital visit he heard a doctor reproaching his ethnic Russian wife for failing to "find a decent Russian man."
After several years of selling construction paint, Bulgakov started his own company.
Now his company renovates apartments of affluent Muscovites and works on occasional contracts with the Defense Ministry. He also has joined Kremlin's United Russia party and wants to run for office in the Moscow suburb of Ivanteevka where he lives with his wife and two children.
Bulgakov, who sports a white-gold ring with a sparkling diamond, has this advice for fellow Central Asians seeking a better life in Moscow.
"If you want to work, just work," he said, "If you don't, you'll find a thousand excuses — 'I am being oppressed, abused, beaten.'"

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Putin says he will sign anti-US adoptions bill

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he will sign a controversial bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children, while the Kremlin's children's rights advocate recommended extending the ban to the rest of the world.
The bill is part of the country's increasingly confrontational stance with the West and has angered some Russians who argue it victimizes children to make a political point.
The law would block dozens of Russian children now in the process of being adopted by American families from leaving the country and cut off a major route out of often-dismal orphanages. The U.S. is the biggest destination for adopted Russian children — more than 60,000 of them have been taken in by Americans over the past two decades.
"I still don't see any reasons why I should not sign it," Putin said at a televised meeting. He went on to say that he "intends" to do so.
UNICEF estimates that there are about 740,000 children not in parental custody in Russia, while only 18,000 Russians are now waiting to adopt a child. Russian officials say they want to encourage more Russians to adopt Russian orphans.
Children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov on Thursday petitioned the president to extend the ban to other countries.
"There is huge money and questionable people involved in the semi-legal schemes of exporting children," he tweeted.
Kremlin critics say Astakhov is trying to extend the ban only to get more publicity and win more favors with Putin. A graduate of the KGB law school and a celebrity lawyer, Astakhov was a pro-Putin activist before becoming children's rights ombudsman and is now seen as the Kremlin's voice on adoption issues.
"This is cynicism beyond limits," opposition leader Ilya Yashin tweeted. "The children rights ombudsman is depriving children of a future."
The bill is retaliation for an American law that calls for sanctions against Russian officials deemed to be human rights violators.
The U.S. law, called the Magnitsky Act, stems from the case of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in jail after being arrested by police officers whom he accused of a $230 million tax fraud. The law prohibits officials allegedly involved in his death from entering the U.S.
Kremlin critics say that means Russian officials who own property in the West and send their children to Western schools would lose access to their assets and families.
Putin said U.S. authorities routinely let Americans suspected of violence toward Russian adoptees go unpunished — a clear reference to Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler for whom the adoption bill is named. The child was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
The U.S. State Department says it regrets the Russian Parliament's decision to pass the bill, saying it would prevent many children from growing up in families.
Astakhov said Wednesday that 46 children who were about to be adopted in the U.S. would remain in Russia if the bill comes into effect.
The passage of the bill follows weeks of a hysterical media campaign on Kremlin-controlled television that lambasts American adoptive parents and adoption agencies that allegedly bribe their way into getting Russian children.
A few lawmakers claimed that some Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army. A spokesman with Russia's dominant Orthodox Church said that the children adopted by foreigners and raised outside the church will not "enter God's kingdom."
Critics of the bill have left dozens of stuffed toys and candles outside the parliament's lower and upper houses to express solidarity with Russian orphans.

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Malala asks Pakistan not to rename college for her

MINGORA, Pakistan (AP) — A 15-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for promoting girls' education has urged Pakistan to reverse a decision to rename a college in her honor to avert militant attacks on students, an official said Friday.
Malala Yousufzai, who became a symbol of youth resistance to the Taliban, made the request after students broke into the school, tore down Malala's pictures and boycotted classes in her home town of Mingora. They said renaming the college endangered their lives.
Senior government official Kamran Rehman said Malala called him from London, where she was being treated for critical wounds from the attack on Oct. 9. The Taliban said it targeted her for promoting education for secular girls.
Malala's case won worldwide recognition for the struggle for women's rights in Pakistan and Taliban have vowed to target her again.
Pakistani Taliban have a strong presence in the country's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.
A bomb ripped through the office of a local militant commander Maulvi Abbas in Wana, a main town in the South Waziristan tribal region in the northwest, killing him and three of his guards, two intelligence officials said Friday.
Abbas was an associate of Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militant group, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
It was unclear who had planted the bomb. The attack came weeks after a suicide bomber in the same town attacked Maulvi Nazir, a prominent militant commander who is believed to have a nonaggression pact with the army.
Nazir was wounded in the attack, and seven of his men were killed.
Since then there has been tension between followers of Nazir and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the region.

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AP PHOTOS: A photo journey through North Korea

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — My window on North Korea is sometimes, quite literally, a window — of a hotel room, the backseat of a car, a train. Fleeting moments of daily life present themselves suddenly, and they are opportunities to show a side of the country that is entirely at odds with the official portrait of marching troops and tightly coordinated pomp that the Pyongyang leadership presents to the world.
In April, I was part of a group of international journalists that traveled by train to the launch site for this year's first, failed rocket test. We traveled in a spotless train used by the Communist leadership, and I spent the five-hour journey inside my sleeper car looking out the large, clean window at a rural landscape seen by few foreign eyes. The tracks cut across fields where large groups of farmers were at work in clusters. Occasionally, there was a plow drawn by oxen or a brick-red tractor rolling along the gravel roads. On a rocky hilltop above the train tracks, a small boy sprinted and waved at the passing train. Every few hundred yards along the entire route, local officials in drab coats stood guard, their backs to the tracks, until its cargo of foreign reporters had safely passed.
I have made 17 trips into North Korea since 2000, including six since The Associated Press bureau in Pyongyang opened in January 2012. It is an endlessly fascinating and visually surreal place, but it is also one of the hardest countries I have ever photographed. As one of the few international photographers with regular access to the country, I consider it a huge responsibility to show life there as accurately as I can.
That can be a big challenge. Foreigners are almost always accompanied by a government guide — a "minder" in journalistic parlance — who helps facilitate our coverage requests but also monitors nearly everything we do. Despite the official oversight, we try to see and do as much as we can, push the limits, dig as deeply as possible, give an honest view of what we are able to see. Over time, there have been more and more opportunities to leave the showplace capital, Pyongyang, and mingle with the people. But they are usually wary of foreigners and aware that they too are being watched.
This has been a historic year for North Korea, with large-scale dramatic displays to mark important milestones, struggles with food shortages, crippling floods, drought and typhoons, as well as growing evidence that people's lives are changing in small but significant ways. But in a country that carefully choreographs what it shows to the outside world, separating what is real from what is part of the show is often very difficult.
Last spring, as North Korea was preparing for the 100th birthday of its late founder, Kim Il Sung, citizens practiced for weeks, even months, for the large-scale military parade and public folk dancing that was part of the celebration.
One morning, on our way through town, we saw small groups of performers walking home from an early rehearsal. They wore their brightly colored traditional clothing, but covered over with warm winter coats. In their hands were the red bunches of artificial flowers that they shake and wave in honor of country's leaders during mass rallies.
From the van window, I saw a woman standing alone, holding her bouquet as she waited for the bus. It was, to me, a more telling moment than the actual events we would cover a week later, a simple but provocative glimpse into one person's life.
For this project, I used a Hasselblad XPAN, a panoramic-view film camera that is no longer manufactured. Throughout the year, I wore it around my neck and shot several dozen rolls of color negative film in between my normal coverage of news and daily life with my AP-issued digital cameras.
The XPAN is quiet, discrete, manual and simple. Because it has a wide panoramic format, it literally gives me a different view of North Korea. The film also reflects how I feel when I'm in North Korea, wandering among the muted or gritty colors, and the fashions and styles that often seem to come from a past generation.
In my photography, I try to maintain a personal point of view, a critical eye, and shoot with a style that I think of as sometimes-whimsical and sometimes-melancholy. My aim is to open a window for the world on a place that is widely misunderstood and that would otherwise rarely be seen by outsiders.
I hope these images help people to develop their own understanding of the country, one that goes beyond the point-counterpoint presented by Pyongyang and Washington. And maybe they can help create some sort of bridge between the people of North Korea and the rest of the world.

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World stocks fall as US budget negotiations stall

BANGKOK (AP) — Heightened uncertainty about the outcome of budget negotiations in Washington among President Barack Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican lawmakers drove world stock markets lower Friday.
If a compromise is not in place by Jan. 1, the Bush-era tax cuts will expire and spending cuts will kick in automatically — a one-two punch to the economy that many experts fear will push the U.S. economy back into recession just as it begins to recover from the last one.
European stocks were lower in early trading. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.3 percent to 5,938.01. Germany's DAX lost 0.3 percent to 7,646.76. France's CAC-40 was 0.1 percent lower at 3,662.38.
In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 1 to close at 9,940.06. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.7 percent to 22,506.29. South Korea's Kospi shed 1 percent at 1,980.42. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.2 percent to 4,623.60. Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan also fell. Malaysia and the Philippines rose. Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed.
U.S. stock futures tumbled after rank-and-file Republican lawmakers failed to support an alternative tax plan by House Speaker John Boehner late Thursday in Washington. That plan would have allowed tax rates to rise on households earning $1 million and up. Obama wants the level to be $400,000.
"I think the Republicans will have to yield," said Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong. "Fighting for rich men does not endear you to voters. People earning more than $1 million are considered rich, so it doesn't do the Republican Party any good to really fight for the rights of rich people."
Ironically, the two leaders had significantly narrowed their differences toward a compromise. The latest setback, with Republicans bucking their leader, left precious little time for an agreement to be reached before the "fiscal cliff" of tax increases and spending cuts goes into effect.
Dow Jones industrial futures dropped 1.1 percent to 13,116 and S&P 500 futures lost 1.2 percent to 1,423.90. Analysts cautioned, however, that market swings would be exaggerated because of light trading volumes that typically accompany end-of-year holidays.
"Approaching the weekend and holiday, volumes will likely remain thin, with choppy trading sessions while the 'fiscal cliff' talks will stay in the spotlight," said Kintai Cheung of Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong in an email commentary.
Among individual stocks, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. fell 5.8 percent, days after Japan's Transport Ministry issued a warning to the carmaker over the handling of oil leaks in mini-vehicles. Australian surf wear maker Billabong International rose 3.1 percent a day after chief financial officer Craig White left the troubled retailer.
Among mainland Chinese shares, Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth, China's top rare earth producer, lost 2.2 percent.
Benchmark crude for February delivery fell 86 cents to $89.28 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 15 cents to finish at $90.13 per barrel on the Nymex on Thursday.
In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3209 from $1.3241 late Thursday in New York. The dollar fell to 84.03 yen from 84.42 yen.

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Delhi police say they will protect women on buses

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian officials announced Friday a broad campaign to protect women in New Delhi following the gang rape and brutal beating of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in the capital.
Police arrested a boy Thursday night, the fifth person detained in connection with the crime, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said. Authorities were hunting for the final assailant, he said. Those arrested were being charged with attempted murder in addition to kidnapping and rape.
The government is seeking life sentences for the assailants, Home Secretary R.K. Singh told reporters Friday.
"This is an incident which has shocked all of us," he said.
The attack sparked days of protests across the country from women demanding that authorities take tougher action to protect them against the daily threat of harassment and violence. The government said it is taking steps to address those concerns.
"There will not be any tolerance for crimes against women," Singh said.
Bus drivers in New Delhi will be required to display their identification prominently in the vehicles, buses are now required to remove tinting from their windows and plainclothes police are being placed on buses to protect female passengers, he said. In addition, chartered buses such as the one where the attack occurred will be impounded if they illegally ply for fares on the streets, he said.
Authorities are also cracking down on drunk driving and on loitering gangs of drunken youths, he said.
The victim and a companion were attacked after getting a ride on a chartered bus following a movie Sunday evening. Police said the men on the bus gang-raped her and beat her and her companion with iron rods as the bus drove through the city for hours, even passing through police checkpoints. The assailants eventually stripped the pair and dumped them on the side of a road.
Protesters marched Friday to the presidential mansion and toward Parliament, while theater troupes performed plays about women's safety in a park in central Delhi. A group blocked traffic near the hospital where the victim, who had severe internal injuries, was being treated.
Dr. B.D. Athani, the medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, told reporters the victim was "stable, alert and conscious," but remained on a ventilator.
"We are ready to send the victim to anywhere in the world for treatment," Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said. "I have given that assurance to the parents of the girl that we will give every kind of help, no matter what it costs."
Parliamentarian M. Venkaiah Naidu said a special legislative committee would meet next week to take action to protect women.
The government, Singh said, was proposing laws to make it easier for attacked women to come forward, to ensure rape cases are dealt with swiftly in the nation's notoriously slow court system and for increasing the punishment for the crime to a possible death sentence.
"(The) people of Delhi will feel safe moving through the streets of the city, at any point of time, day or night. That is our objective," Singh said.

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Russia's Gazprom to buy Kyrgyz state gas company

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Kyrgyzstan's state-owned natural gas company says it is to be sold to Russia's energy monopoly Gazprom, raising hopes of an end to debilitating energy shortages in the impoverished Central Asian nation.
Kyrgyzgaz general director Turgunbek Kulmurzayev said Friday that the sale of the company to the Russian gas giant would be completed by April 1.
Last week, gas and electricity supplies to thousands of Kyrgyz households were suspended.
The crisis was provoked by a shortage in natural gas deliveries from neighboring Kazakhstan, which had to hold onto its own reserves after failing to receive imports from Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous nation of 5 million on China's western border, also has substantial unpaid debts to Kazakhstan.
Residents in the capital, Bishkek, and nearby towns were hits by days of gas and power shortages just as temperatures dropped to around minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit). Failure in gas deliveries pushes people into using more electricity for heating, which in turn leads to blackouts.
The inability of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to fulfill basic energy needs led to his violent overthrow in 2010.
The sale of a major national asset to a company owned by a foreign government is likely to raise concerns. Russia has made similar efforts to gain control over important energy infrastructure in other former Soviet republic, such as Ukraine and Belarus.
Kyrgyzgaz's Kulmurzayev traveled to Moscow this week to hold a new round of talks with Gazprom, which offered to buy up the entire company. Kyrgyzgaz is currently 87 percent owned by the state. Another 4.5 percent is held by social investment funds, with the remainder belonging to private investors.
"The Russians now want to buy the entire stock, even from private shareholders," Kulmurzayev said in Bishkek.
Kulmurzayev gave no figure for the sale, but the sum is expected to be nominal due to the company's outstanding debts of around $31 million. He added that Gazprom officials said they plan to invest $650 million over five years on modernizing Kyrgyzstan's gas pipeline network.
"The price for fuel will be substantially cheaper than what is paid to Kazakhstan — $224 per thousand cubic meters — or Uzbekistan — $290 per thousand cubic meters," Kulmurzayev said. "We hope Gazprom will solve the fuel delivery problem in 2013."

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