Egyptians vote on Islamist-inspired constitution

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians voted on Saturday in the second round of a referendum expected to approve an Islamist-drafted constitution that lays foundations for transition to democracy but is criticized as divisive by the opposition.

Counting began after voting, extended by four hours as queues formed at polling stations, closed at 11 p.m. (2100 GMT). Last week's first round, which an opposition leader said was marred by "serious violations", returned 57 percent in favor of the constitution, according to unofficial figures.

Analysts expect another "yes" because the second stage includes rural areas with more Islamist sympathizers. Egyptians exhausted by two years of upheaval may also vote in favor.

Islamist backers of President Mohamed Mursi say the constitution is vital to move to democracy, nearly two years after an Arab Spring revolt overthrew authoritarian ruler Hosni Mubarak. It will provide stability for a weak economy, they say.

But the opposition accuses Mursi of pushing through a text that favors Islamists and ignores the rights of Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, as well as women.

"I'm voting 'no' because Egypt can't be ruled by one faction," said Karim Nahas, 35, a stockbroker, heading to a polling station in Giza, a province included in the second, decisive round of voting which included parts of greater Cairo.

At another polling station, some voters said they were more interested in ending Egypt's long period of political instability than in the Islamist aspects of the charter.

"We have to extend our hands to Mursi to help fix the country," said Hisham Kamal, an accountant.

Hours before polls closed, Vice President Mahmoud Mekky announced his resignation. He said he wanted to quit last month but stayed on to help Mursi tackle a crisis that blew up when the Islamist leader assumed wide powers.

Mekky, a prominent judge who said he was uncomfortable in politics, disclosed earlier he had not been informed of Mursi's power grab. The timing of his resignation appeared linked to the lack of a vice-presidential post under the draft constitution.

The referendum committee may not declare a result for the two rounds until Monday, after hearing appeals, although unofficial results may come sooner.

CHEATING ALLEGED

As polling opened on Saturday, a coalition of Egyptian rights groups reported a number of alleged irregularities.

They said some polling stations opened late, that Islamists illegally campaigned at some of them, and complained of voter registration irregularities, including listing of a dead person.

The new basic law sets a limit of two four-year presidential terms. It says sharia law principles remain the main source of legislation but adds an article to explain this further. It also says Islamic authorities will be consulted on sharia - a source of concern to Christians and other non-Muslims.

If the constitution passes, there will be parliamentary elections in about two months. If not, an assembly will have to be set up to draft a new one.

After the first round of voting, the opposition said alleged abuses meant the first stage of the referendum should be re-run.

But the committee overseeing the two-stage vote said its investigations showed no major irregularities in voting on December 15, which covered about half of Egypt's 51 million voters.

MORE UNREST

If the charter is approved, the opposition says it is a recipe for trouble since it will not have received sufficiently broad backing and that it will not have been a fair vote.

"I see more unrest," said Ahmed Said, head of the liberal Free Egyptians Party and a member of the National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition formed after Mursi expanded his powers on November 22 and then pushed the constitution to a vote.

Protesters accused the president of acting like a pharaoh, and he was forced to issue a second decree two weeks ago that amended a provision putting his decisions above legal challenge.

Said cited "serious violations" on the first day of voting, and said anger against Mursi was growing. "People are not going to accept the way they are dealing with the situation."

At least eight people were killed in protests outside the presidential palace in Cairo this month. Islamists and rivals hurled stones at each other on Friday in Alexandria, the second-biggest city. Two buses were torched.

The head of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mursi's power base, said Egypt could move on after the vote.

"After the constitution is settled by the people, the wheels in all areas will turn, even if there are differences here and there," the Brotherhood's supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, said as he went to vote in Beni Suef, south of Cairo.

"After choosing a constitution, all Egyptians will be moving in the same direction," he said.

The vote was split over two days after many judges refused to supervise the ballot.

Islamists, who have won successive ballots since Mubarak's overthrow, albeit by narrowing margins, dismiss charges they are exploiting religion and say the constitution reflects the will of a majority in the country where most people are Muslim.

In a resignation letter, Mekky said "the nature of political work did not suit my professional background as a judge".

A cabinet spokesman denied a state television report that the central bank governor, Farouk El-Okdah, had resigned.

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan; Writing by Edmund Blair and Giles Elgood; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Jason Webb)

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Iran fighting 'smart economic war': Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN: Iran is engaged in a "smart economic war" with Western powers whose sanctions against its nuclear programme are hurting some Iranians, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.

"Targeted sanctions, which the enemies say are supposed to be crippling, have led to a drop in our oil" sales, Ahmadinejad said in a live interview on state television, referring to an oil embargo imposed by the European Union.

"They do not even let us transfer the oil money," he said. "They thought Iran's economy would break down, but it did not."

"Iran is engaged in a smart economic war with the enemy," he said.

The EU measure, which came into effect in July, ended European purchases of Iranian crude, and has since decreased Tehran's oil exports to its Asian customers from between 10 to 30 per cent.

According to the International Energy Agency, Iranian exports in November were estimated at 1.3 million barrels per day, down from nearly 2.3 million last year.

Ahmadinejad said his government had "so far managed to control" the effects of sanctions on the economy but admitted that "heavy pressure had been exerted on some Iranians because of sanctions."

He did not elaborate on how Iran was fighting off sanctions for fear the methods would be found by Western powers trying to goad Iran back to the negotiating table over its nuclear ambitions.

"I cannot say what heavy pressure the enemy has imposed, and how we are dealing with them."

"We have so far managed to control this blow, and it hasn't turned out the way they predicted," he said.

Ahmadinejad has faced increasingly scrutiny at home for economic woes, including the collapse of the national currency, which lost more than two-thirds of its value in a 20-day span starting in late September.

Iran's economy is struggling to cope with the gradual tightening of sanctions by the United States and the European Union over the past two years.

The sanctions have also targeted Iran's access to the global banking system, slowing its economy, accelerating inflation and boosting the ranks of the jobless.

Ahmadinejad was speaking to report on his government's implementation two years ago of a controversial plan to cut subsidies on food and energy and redistribute it in form of social assistance.

The plan to generate tens of billions of dollars in additional revenues for his government has been criticised by his opponents, who blame it partially for Iran's runaway inflation.

Ahmadinejad said his government had devised schemes to diffuse the effects of Western sanctions in the "long-term."

"We have prepared long-term plans to decrease dependency on the oil-generated money. We will not allow them to use economic measures as a tool for putting pressure on us anymore," he said.

He said without elaborating that Iran was to "increase its non-oil exports."

His remarks came as Western powers engaging Iran to resolve a years-long dispute over its nuclear programme are pressuring Tehran to return to the negotiating table.

Iran has yet to respond to offers of renewed negotiations with the so-called P5+1 group, consisting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

Iran insists its programme of uranium enrichment is for purely peaceful purposes, and denies Western and Israeli allegations that it wants to manufacture nuclear weapons.

In addition to US and EU measures, Iran is also under four rounds of Security Council sanctions.

- AFP/jc

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Here comes Microsoft Surface Pro, 64 bits and all

Surface with Windows 8 Pro starts at an ultrabook-like $899.

(Credit:
Microsoft)

Microsoft's
Windows 8 Pro version of the Surface will arrive soon, giving consumers probably one the highest performing
tablets to date.

Microsoft is already dropping not-so-subtle hints that the device is coming "early in 2013." And now it appears to have made its debut at the FCC.

Let's look at what else Microsoft is saying about the 2-pound tablet that sets it apart from the current Surface RT tablet.

• 64-bit computing in a tablet: Surface with Windows 8 Pro is "a 64-bit tablet PC." That's not a trivial point. You get all of the goodness of 64-bit computing via Intel's power-efficient Core i5 Ivy Bridge processors. Surface RT, on the other hand, is 32-bit only.
  
• Security: Support for the same level of security you can expect with any corporate Windows laptop. And Microsoft includes sBitLocker, which encrypts your hard drive's data.
  
• Pen: It includes a pen. That's really a holdover from the
  Windows 7 slates but something that some business customers still want.
  
• Mini DisplayPort: This allows connection to large high-resolution displays (e.g., Apple Cinema Display). That said, the Surface Pro's 10.6-inch (16:9) 1,920x1,080-pixel display is already the same resolution of some desktop displays.
  

And we may already be getting a sneak preview of the Surface Pro courtesy of CNET's review of the Acer Iconia W700 tablet.

Like the Surface Pro, the W700 is a 2-pound Windows 8 tablet that packs a Core i5 processor and a 1,920x1,080 display.

Here's what CNET said: "In our benchmark tests, the Iconia W700 performed similarly to other Core i5-3317U Windows 8 laptops and convertibles, or a little behind. It's well-suited for everyday use, from HD video streaming to social media, to working on office tasks."

And battery life? One has to wonder whether Microsoft will be able to achieve the stellar battery of the W700. "The system ran for a very impressive 7 hours and 19 minutes," according to CNET. Yeah, that is impressive. In fact, Acer is beginning to brush up against the staying power you'd find in a high-end tablet with a power-efficient ARM chip.

But that may be too optimistic. Microsoft, in effect, pre-announced the Surface Pro's battery life the other day. Let's just hope that it trends closer to an ultrabook with a tolerable run-down time. This is a tablet, after all.

Let's close on a high note, though. Early this year, I had a chance to use the Intel Core i5-based Samsung tablet with Windows 8 Developer Preview (the same unit handed out to Microsoft Build conference attendees in 2011). I was immediately wowed by its speed. At the time, I felt it was much quicker than the iPad 2 I had been using every day.

If the Surface Pro can replicate that experience, it will attract power users looking for a snappy Windows 8 tablet.

And, remember, the Surface Pro will run all of those Windows 7 applications, too. That, alone, will make it attractive to business users.

With the recent release of the Iconia W700 tablet, Acer may be giving us a taste of the Surface Pro.

(Credit:
CNET)

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Critics Slam NRA's Call for Armed School Guards

Gun control advocates slammed the National Rifle Association today for its proposal to create a force of armed security guards at schools across the country as a response to the Connecticut school shooting.

"It is beyond belief that following the Newtown tragedy, the National Rifle Association's leaders want to fill our communities with guns and arm more Americans," Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said.

Criticism mounted after the NRA addressed for the first time last week's school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which Adam Lanza, 20, used a semiautomatic weapon to open fire on students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 26 at the school.

NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre this morning dismissed the notion that the pro-gun group of about 4 million members would support any kind of gun-control laws, instead saying that "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who represents the district encompassing Newtown, reacted angrily to the comments after attending the funeral of another victim from last Friday's massacre.

"Walking out of another funeral and was handed the NRA transcript. The most revolting, tone deaf statement I've ever seen," @ChrisMurphyCT tweeted.

LaPierre argued that the answer to gun violence in schools is an armed security force that can protect students, made up of trained volunteers stationed at every school across the country.

"It's not just our duty to protect [our children], it's our right to protect them," LaPierre said at a news conference. "The NRA knows there are millions of qualified active and reserved police, active and reserve military, security professionals, rescue personnel, an extraordinary corps of qualified trained citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every single school."

He was interrupted twice by protestors who stood in front of LaPierre's podium holding signs and shouting that the NRA "has blood on its hands" and that the NRA is "killing our kids."

The protestors were eventually escorted out of the room.

Lautenberg, who has introduced legislation that would ban large-capacity ammunition magazines, called the NRA "irresponsible."

"The NRA points the finger of blame everywhere and anywhere it can, but they cannot escape the devastating effects of their reckless comments and irresponsible lobbying tactics," Lautenberg said.

Mark Kelly, a former NASA astronaut and husband of former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in Arizona, said, "The NRA could have chosen to be a voice for the vast majority of its own members who want common sense, reasonable safeguards on deadly firearms, but instead it chose to defend extreme pro-gun positions that aren't even popular among the law-abiding gun owners it represents."

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

National Rifle Association Calls for Armed Security at Schools Watch Video

President Obama Launches Gun-Violence Task Force Watch Video

President Obama on Gun Control: Ready to Act? Watch Video

The Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy organization, said the NRA's idea of arming security guards at schools would not stop school violence.

"The NRA plan, which cynically allows for the continued sale of the assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines marketed by its gun industry corporate donors, has already been tried, and it did not work," the group said in a statement released today.

It pointed to the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, in which two armed police officers were at the school when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire. The officers exchanged gunfire with the killers, but were unable to stop them from their rampage.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi conceded that the issue is "complicated, but she said the NRA's call for an escalation "is not a positive force" in the renewed gun-control debate.

"For the NRA and others to sort of shield themselves by saying it's the mentally ill or something, and therefore we have to have more armed cops in the schools or more guns in the school -- what are they -- are they going to have [a gun] on the teacher's desk?" Pelosi wondered.

"'Wait a minute, man with a gun; I have it locked up someplace. Wait until I go get it.' I mean, this ... just doesn't make sense; we've got to reduce violence."

LaPierre had dismissed the notion that banning so-called assault weapons or enacting gun-control laws would stop school violence. He instead cast blame for gun violence in schools on violent entertainment, including video games, and the media.

"How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame from a national media machine that rewards them with a wall of attention they crave while provoking others to make their mark?" he asked.

LaPierre announced that former U.S. congressman Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas would lead the NRA's effort to advocate for school security forces. Hutchinson specified that the NRA, with about 4 million members, is calling for volunteers to act as the armed guards, rather than requiring funding from local or federal authorities.

"Whether they're retired police, retired military or rescue personnel, I think there are people in every community in this country who would be happy to serve if only someone asked them and gave them the training and certifications to do so," Hutchinson said.

NRA leaders have held off on interviews this week after refusing to appear on Sunday morning public affairs shows. They said they would grant interviews beginning next week to discuss their position.

NRA News anchor Ginny Simone said Thursday that in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, membership surged "with an average of 8,000 new members a day."

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said the NRA is partially to blame for the tragedy.

"We're not trying to take away your right to advance the interests of gun owners, hunters, people who want to protect themselves," Bloomberg told "Nightline" anchor Cynthia McFadden in an interview Thursday. "But that's not an absolute right to encourage behavior which causes things like Connecticut. In fact, Connecticut is because of some of their actions."

The guns used in the attack were legally purchased and owned by the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza, whom Adam Lanza shot to death before his assault on the school.

In the aftermath of the shooting, many, including Bloomberg, have called for stricter regulations on the type of weapons used in this and other instances of mass gun violence this year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said she intends to introduce a bill banning assault weapons on the first day of next year's Congress -- a step the president said he supports.

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Italy PM Monti resigns, elections likely in February

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti tendered his resignation to the president on Friday after 13 months in office, opening the way to a highly uncertain national election in February.

The former European commissioner, appointed to lead an unelected government to save Italy from financial crisis a year ago, has kept his own political plans a closely guarded secret but he has faced growing pressure to seek a second term.

President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to dissolve parliament in the next few days and has already indicated that the most likely date for the election is February 24.

In an unexpected move, Napolitano said he would hold consultations with political leaders from all the main parties on Saturday to discuss the next steps. In the meantime Monti will continue in a caretaker capacity.

European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have called for Monti's economic reform agenda to continue but Italy's two main parties have said he should stay out of the race.

Monti, who handed in his resignation during a brief meeting at the presidential palace shortly after parliament approved his government's 2013 budget, will hold a news conference on Sunday at which he is expected clarify his intentions.

Ordinary Italians are weary of repeated tax hikes and spending cuts and opinion polls offer little evidence that they are ready to give Monti a second term. A survey this week showed 61 percent saying he should not stand.

Whether he runs or not, his legacy will loom over an election which will be fought out over the painful measures he has introduced to try to rein in Italy's huge public debt and revive its stagnant economy.

His resignation came a couple of months before the end of his term, after his technocrat government lost the support of Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party in parliament earlier this month.

Speculation is swirling over Monti's next moves. These could include outlining policy recommendations, endorsing a centrist alliance committed to his reform agenda or even standing as a candidate in the election himself.

The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has held a strong lead in the polls for months but a centrist alliance led by Monti could gain enough support in the Senate to force the PD to seek a coalition deal which could help shape the economic agenda.

BERLUSCONI IN WINGS

Senior figures from the alliance, including both the UDC party, which is close to the Roman Catholic Church, and a new group founded by Ferrari sports car chairman Luca di Montezemolo, have been hoping to gain Monti's backing.

He has not said clearly whether he intends to run, but he has dropped heavy hints he will continue to push a reform agenda that has the backing of both Italy's business community and its European partners.

The PD has promised to stick to the deficit reduction targets Monti has agreed with the European Union and says it will maintain the broad course he has set while putting more emphasis on reviving growth.

Berlusconi's return to the political arena has added to the already considerable uncertainty about the centre-right's intentions and increased the likelihood of a messy and potentially bitter election campaign.

The billionaire media tycoon has fluctuated between attacking the government's "Germano-centric" austerity policies and promising to stand aside if Monti agrees to lead the centre right, but now appears to have settled on an anti-Monti line.

He has pledged to cut taxes and scrap a hated housing tax which Monti imposed. He has also sounded a stridently anti-German line which has at times echoed the tone of the populist 5-Star Movement headed by maverick comic Beppe Grillo.

The PD and the PDL, both of which supported Monti's technocrat government in parliament, have made it clear they would not be happy if he ran against them and there have been foretastes of the kind of attacks he can expect.

Former centre-left prime minister Massimo D'Alema said in an interview last week that it would be "morally questionable" for Monti to run against the PD, which backed all of his reforms and which has pledged to maintain his pledges to European partners.

Berlusconi who has mounted an intensive media campaign in the past few days, echoed that criticism this week, saying Monti risked losing the credibility he has won over the past year and becoming a "little political figure".

(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones, Massimiliano Di Giorgio and Paolo Biondi; Writing by Gavin Jones and James Mackenzie; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Deadly winter storm snarls US holiday travel

CHICAGO: A deadly winter storm blanketed a huge swath of the United States Friday, grounding flights, turning highways into ice rinks and knocking out power to tens of thousands preparing for the Christmas holiday.

At least eight people in five states were killed by the dangerous road conditions since the storm formed near the Rocky Mountains and moved slowly eastward.

The powerful system dumped as much as 60 centimetres of snow in some areas and knocked down trees and power lines with winds gusting as high as 100 kilometres per hour.

Emergency shelters were opened to help those who lost power stay warm as utility crews struggled to reach downed lines on icy and snow-covered roads. Schools and government offices were closed, as were scores of businesses.

After pounding Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois and Missouri on Thursday, the storm was centred over the Great Lakes and Appalachians on Friday morning and was expected to reach New England on Saturday.

"Strong winds will cause blowing and drifting, causing near blizzard conditions and very dangerous driving conditions," the National Weather service warned.

"Only travel in an emergency."

Smaller systems also snarled travel in California, Nevada and Oregon while high winds grounded and delayed flights in New York.

Thankfully, on Friday, the busiest travel day of the year, skies were clear in Chicago -- where an estimated 266,000 people will pass through the major aviation hub.

More than 600 flights were cancelled Thursday at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports as the storm dumped freezing rain and a dusting of snow on runways and whipped up dangerously strong winds.

Hundreds more were cancelled at smaller airports like Detroit, Minneapolis, and Kansas City, according to tracking service FlightAware.

Nearly 500 flights had been cancelled by early afternoon Friday, primarily due to high winds in New York and San Francisco.

"This storm is not as large as some winter storms we've seen in the past that can result in thousands of cancelations in a day, but the impact is significant due to the number of holiday travellers," FlightAware chief Daniel Baker said.

More than 30,000 people remained without power in Wisconsin, where the governor declared a state of emergency and called up the National Guard to help rescue people stranded on snow-covered roads.

Two people were killed when their car slid into the path of a semi-trailer on a highway in Wisconsin's rural Rock County on Thursday, Channel 3000 news reported.

And an ambulance transporting a woman in labour got stuck on a Wisconsin highway at about 12:30 am local time Friday, the state's emergency management centre said. A second ambulance sent to help also got stuck, so a snowplough was sent to drive in front of a third ambulance and get her safely to hospital.

In Iowa, two more people were killed and seven injured in a 25-vehicle pileup after conditions got so bad on a major highway Thursday that people couldn't see the cars and big trucks that had slowed down or stopped ahead of them, the State Patrol there said.

Dozens of people were also trapped in their cars, many for hours. One pileup was so bad emergency crews brought food and water to the stranded motorists while they waited for snow blowers and tow trucks to arrive.

Further west in Utah, one woman died of exposure after her car got stuck on an isolated road on Tuesday and she tried to walk out for help, KSL news reported. A man who was with her in the car was able to walk farther and reach shelter, but by the time rescue crews on snowmobiles found the woman she was dead.

And in Nebraska, two people were killed in separate crashes, KETV news reported. One man died after his car was struck by a big rig when blizzard conditions smothered a Kansas highway, the Dodge City Daily Globe reported.

- AFP/jc

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Apple tweaks Lightning spec following Kickstarter project gone awry

Apple's Lightning cable, up close.

(Credit:
Apple)

Apple is changing course on a technical specification that recently put a third-party charging accessory out of luck.

The company today said it's now allowing its newer Lightning adapter specification to coexist with the older, yet still quite popular 30-pin adapter in the same accessory.

"Our technical specifications provide clear guidelines for developing accessories and they are available to MFi licensees for free," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told CNET. "We support accessories that integrate USB and Lightning connectors, but there were technical issues that prevented accessories from integrating 30-pin and Lightning connectors so our guidelines did not allow this."

The company added that the guidelines have since been updated to allow accessories to work with both types of connectors to charge devices.

The change comes on the heels of controversy involving a Kickstarter project called POP, an accessory designed to charge multiple devices -- including ones that used both of Apple's charging specifications. Despite getting $139,170 in funding to go ahead with the project, its creator ran into an issue once it came time to build the device because of Apple's MFi license, which would not allow both charging specifications to be included without added hardware expense. That resulted in POP creator Jamie Siminoff announcing plans to refund money to the project's backers, at a considerable expense.

CNET has contacted Siminoff about the change, and will update this post when we know more.

Lightning is Apple's new plug technology, which replaces the 30-pin adapters that date back to early iPods. Its key benefit is the smaller iPhone connector, which is 80 percent smaller than the previous connector. Users can also plug it in with either side up. The technology was first introduced in
Apple's iPhone 5 and new iPods, and has since spread out to the iPad and
iPad Mini.

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House GOP: We have the votes for "Plan B"

Play Video

Cantor: "We're going to have the votes" to pass "Plan B"

Updated 1:45 p.m. ET

As the House readies for an expected vote on an alternate plan, dubbed "Plan B," to avoid massive tax hikes on all income earners, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said he is confident he will have enough support to pass their plan.

"We're going to have the votes," Cantor told reporters this morning.

"Plan B," a scaled-back measure that extends tax rates for everyone except those making $1 million, comes to the House floor at the unilateral direction of Republican leadership just days after it seemed talks between House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and President Obama were progressing to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff." Both sides offered major concessions to move toward compromise, but aides tell CBS News White House correspondent Major Garrett that Boehner didn't have enough support in his party to pass his proposal that included $1 trillion worth of revenue increases.

While "Plan B" would raise taxes on millionaires, which is something Democrats support, it does not go far enough for Democrats who want higher tax rates for more income earners. The president's latest "fiscal cliff" offer would raise the marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent on those making more than $400,000, a concession from his previous demand that taxes go up for households making more than $250,000.

Play Video

Boehner: Dems' "Plan B" is "slow walk" over "fiscal cliff"

Boehner said he is doing his part by offering "Plan B"  to ensure taxes don't increase on millions of Americans in the New Year. "It will be up to Senate Democrats and the White House to act," he told reporters today.

While Cantor says they have the votes to pass the alternative, some Republicans expressed reservations because it would raise taxes on about 400,000 families, or about 0.2 percent of Americans.

Boehner's proposal doesn't abide by "clear conservative, clear Republican principles," Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan, told CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

Perhaps offering Republicans an out, in an about-face, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist said Boehner's proposal does not raise taxes. Other outside conservative groups, however, including the Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks, are urging Republicans to vote against "Plan B", saying it does raise taxes.

Play Video

Reid: "Boehner's plans are nonstarters in the Senate"

Generally opposed to raising any taxes at all, Republicans are also reluctant to vote for a plan that has already been declared dead in the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., if it passes the House. "Speaker Boehner's plans are non-starters in the Senate," Reid reiterated today. 

Even if it somehow cleared both houses of Congress, the White House announced Wednesday that it would veto "Plan B."

Another reason some Republicans also objected to Boehner's "Plan B" because it doesn't include spending cuts. Republican leadership addressed that concern Thursday morning, however, by offering a second piece of legislation that cuts $200 billion from the federal budget.

House Republicans "are taking concrete actions" to avert the "fiscal cliff" and reduce spending, Cantor said. "Absent a balanced offer from the president, this is our nation's best option."

During a news conference Wednesday, the president said Republicans "keep on finding ways to say no as opposed to finding ways to say yes" on agreeing to a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff."

He added that it's time for the Republicans to step up and compromise because its' "what the country needs."

The president pointed out their proposals are only "a few hundred billion dollars" apart. "The idea that we would put our economy at risk because you can't bridge that cap doesn't make a lot of sense," he said.

The president's latest proposal includes about $1.2 trillion dollars of revenue increases and $800 billion in spending cuts. Boehner said it's not balanced. His latest offer is, which is not what the House is voting on today, includes about $1 trillion in spending cuts and $1 trillion in tax increases.

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Manhunt Heats Up for Two Escaped Bank Robbers

The manhunt for two bank robbers who escaped from a downtown Chicago prison this week intensified overnight, with police chasing multiple leads as new footage shows the men getting into a taxi minutes after their brazen escape.

Investigators say surveillance cameras captured Joseph "Jose" Banks, 37, and Kenneth Conley, 38,
getting into a taxi minutes after their early Tuesday escape. They entered the taxi at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Congress Street, just blocks away from the jail.

The FBI considers them "armed and dangerous."

The men then showed up five hours later at the home of Sandy Conley, Kenneth Conley's mother, in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, Ill.

"He was in the house for two minutes," Sandy Conley said. "I can't tell you if he was armed. I made him get out."

Thomas Trautmann of the Chicago FBI said the clock is ticking on finding the men.

"[As] each hour goes by, our chances get longer and longer," he said. "However, we do have several viable leads that we are running down."

He did not specify the information.

PHOTOS: Mug shots of Famed Criminals and Celebrities

Prison Break: Convicts Escape from Jail on Bed Sheets Watch Video

Banks and Conley were last seen Monday at 10 p.m. during a prison head count at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago's Loop district. The two borrowed a move from the film "Escape From Alcatraz" by stuffing their beds with clothes in the shape of bodies.

They men then broke the window of their cell at the federal prison, shimmying out a hole only inches wide, and scaled down the side of the building 17 stories, all the while holding onto a rope of sheets and towels taken from the prison. The rope was strong enough to support the two, one weighing 165 pounds the other 185 pounds.

At 7 a.m. the next morning, as employees arrived at work, they noticed the sheets left dangling from the building and at jailers discovered that Conley and Banks were missing.

While the men have had plenty of time to leave the area, there's no indication that they have, ABC 7 TV's public-safety expert Jody Weis said.

"There's a likelihood that they're going to stay here," Weis, a former Chicago police superintendent, said. "They'll have people they can trust. They can have people they can work with. There are going to be people that might be able to hide them out."

Banks, nicknamed "the second-hand bandit" because of the used clothing disguises he wore in several robberies, was convicted of armed robbery last week. His parting words to his judge, Rebecca Pallmeyer, were, "I'll be seeking retribution as well as damages ... you'll hear from me."

Conley had been in jail for several years.

Pallmeyer and others who presided over the men's cases have reportedly been offered protection.

"If they're willing to go down a sheet 17 floors, they're willing to take a chance," Weis said. "And I think you can draw your own conclusion as to what that might mean."

The FBI and U.S. Marshals are offering a combined reward of $60,000 to find the inmates and bring them back into custody.

Escape Has Similarities to 1985 Prison Break

Banks and Conley's disappearance has some striking similarities to the daring escape made by two convicted murders who also broke out of the downtown jail 27 years ago.

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Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said.

The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect has dominated leadership of the Sunni Muslim majority - rumbles on.

Opposition sources said rebels had won some territory in the strategic southern town of Morek and were surrounding the Alawite town of al-Tleisia.

They were also planning to take the town of Maan, arguing that the army was present there and in al-Tleisia and was hindering their advance on nearby Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground in the conflict.

"The rockets are being fired from there, they are being fired from Maan and al-Tleisia, we have taken two checkpoints in the southern town of Morek. If we want to control it then we need to take Maan," said a rebel captain in Hama rural area, who asked not to be named.

Activists said heavy army shelling had targeted the town of Halfaya, captured by rebels two days earlier. Seven people were killed, 30 were wounded, and dozens of homes were destroyed, said activist Safi al-Hamawi.

Hama is home to dozens of Alawite and Christian villages among Sunni towns, and activists said it may be necessary to lay siege to many minority areas to seize Morek. Rebels want to capture Morek to cut off army supply lines into northern Idlib, a province on the northern border with Turkey where rebels hold swathes of territory.

From an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, Alawites have largely stood behind Assad, many out of fear of revenge attacks. Christians and some other minorities have claimed neutrality, with a few joining the rebels and a more sizeable portion of them supporting the government out of fear of hardline Islamism that has taken root in some rebel groups.

Activists in Hama said rebels were also surrounding the Christian town of al-Suqeilabiya and might enter the city to take out army positions as well as those of "shabbiha" - pro-Assad militias, the bulk of whom are usually Alawite but can also include Christians and even Sunnis.

"We have been in touch with Christian opposition activists in al-Suqeilabiya and we have told them to stay downstairs or on the lowest floor of their building as possible, and not to go outside. The rebels have promised not to hurt anyone who stays at home," said activist Mousab al-Hamdee, speaking by Skype.

He said he was optimistic that potential sectarian tensions with Christians could be resolved but that Sunni-Alawite strife may be harder to suppress.

SECTARIAN FEARS

U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.

"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of the U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.

Deeper sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.

Some activists privately voiced concerns of sectarian violence, but the rebel commander in Hama said fighters had been told "violations" would not be tolerated and argued that the move to attack the towns was purely strategic.

"If we are fired at from a Sunni village that is loyal to the regime we go in and we liberate it and clean it," he said. "So should we not do the same when it comes to an Alawite village just because there is a fear of an all-out sectarian war? We respond to the source of fire."

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.

The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.

Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.

A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.

Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.

Rebels said on Thursday they had negotiated to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.

Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.

A resident in Damascus said dozens of families were returning to the camp but that the army had erected checkpoints. Many families were still hesitant to return.

LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN

Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.

The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.

They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.

Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.

Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.

Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.

The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors from the government as well as from the army, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.

The conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces on Thursday arrested an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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