Iran foreign minister says hopes U.S. "hikers" will be freed

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said on Saturday he hoped two Americans jailed for more than two years on spying charges would be freed, the most positive signal yet that their ordeal may soon end.

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal are awaiting a verdict from what was supposed to have been the last day of their trial last Sunday. They pleaded not guilty to spying charges after they were arrested on July 31, 2009 near Iran's border with Iraq.

"The judicial case of these American nationals is following its course. We hope their trial will advance in a way that would lead to their freedom," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference in Tehran, according to the students' news agency ISNA.

"We thank the judiciary for treating the issue with justice and fairness. The people at the judiciary will communicate about this issue at the appropriate time."

Along with a third American, Sarah Shourd, who was released on bail in September and returned to the United States, Bauer and Fattal say they were hiking in the mountains of Iraq and if they crossed the unmarked border into Iran it was by mistake.

Their lawyer, Masoud Shafiee, said he expected a verdict within a week of the hearing.

Spying can be punishable by death in Iran but Shafiee has said there is no evidence against his clients and even if found guilty of illegally entering Iran they should be freed due to time already served.

In an interview on the website freethehikers.org, Shourd says she believes the case has become a "tug of war" between Iran and the United States, which have been enemies since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed shah.

(Reporting by Mitra Amiri; Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

(This story corrects the reference to “more than two years” in lede paragraph)

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2011 Spring Summer Anime News Episode 1

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NATO helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, killing 38

KABUL (Reuters) - A NATO helicopter crashed during a battle with the Taliban in Afghanistan, killing 30 U.S. soldiers, an interpreter and seven Afghans, the Afghan president said on Saturday, the deadliest single incident for foreign troops in 10 years of war.

The Taliban quickly claimed to have shot down the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, although the Islamist militant group often exaggerates incidents involving foreign troops or Afghan government targets. They also said eight insurgents were killed in fierce fighting.

In Washington, a U.S. official said the helicopter was thought to have been shot down. The Pentagon has said the cause of the crash is being investigated.

A U.S. official said some of the dead Americans were members of the Navy's special forces SEAL Team 6 -- the unit that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May in Pakistan, but that none of the dead were part of the bin Laden raid.

Officials initially said 31 Americans were killed but the Pentagon revised the toll to 30 Americans, seven Afghans and an interpreter, whose nationality was not immediately known.

A brief statement from Afghanistan's presidential palace said the troop-carrying Chinook helicopter had crashed in Syedabad in central Maidan Wardak province, just west of the capital, Kabul.

U.S. and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) officials in Kabul confirmed a helicopter had crashed on Friday night but gave no details.

"ISAF is still assessing the circumstances that resulted in these deaths and recovery operations are currently underway," the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement.

U.S. TO STAY THE COURSE

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement the United States would "stay the course" to complete the mission in Afghanistan, a sentiment echoed by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

"The incident is under investigation right now as this helicopter belongs to international forces," Afghanistan's Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy told Reuters television. "Obviously they will provide details of the crash and the reason."

He said the Afghans killed also were from a commando unit.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai "shared his deep sorrow and sadness" with his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, and the families of the victims, the palace statement said.

The deaths come two weeks after the start of a gradual security handover from foreign forces to Afghan troops and police, and at a time of growing unease about the increasingly unpopular and costly war.

The helicopter crash likely will raise more questions about the transition process and how much longer troops should stay. All foreign combat troops are due to leave by the end of 2014 but some U.S. lawmakers question whether that is fast enough.

The crash was the deadliest incident of the war for foreign troops. In April 2005, another CH-47 Chinook crashed, killing 15 U.S. servicemen and three civilian contractors. Another Chinook crash in June of the same year killed 17 U.S. troops.

U.S. and other NATO commanders have claimed success in reversing a growing insurgency in the Taliban's southern heartland, although insurgents have demonstrated an ability to adapt their tactics and mount attacks in other areas.

375 FOREIGN SOLDIERS KILLED THIS YEAR

Any gains against the Taliban have come at a high price, with 711 foreign troops killed in Afghanistan in 2010, the deadliest year of the war since the Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed foreign troops in late 2001.

The crash in Maidan Wardak, where the majority of foreign troops are American, means at least 375 foreign troops have been killed so far in 2011. More than two-thirds were American, according to independent monitor www.icasualties.com and figures kept by Reuters.

Another three ISAF soldiers were killed in the south over the previous 24 hours, the coalition said.

Earlier on Saturday, Afghan police said a NATO air strike killed eight civilians in the Nad Ali district of southern Helmand province on Friday.

Nad Ali district police chief Shidi Khan said the air strike was called in after insurgents attacked ISAF troops in the area. Those killed in the strike were members of a family that had fled fighting in neighboring Uruzgan province, police said.

ISAF confirmed there had been an air strike in the district and said it was investigating whether civilians had been present at the time. It said it had received reports civilians were being held hostage by insurgents.

Civilian casualties caused by foreign troops hunting Taliban fighters and other insurgents have long been a major source of friction between Kabul and its Western backers.

CIVILIANS BEAR THE BRUNT

Despite the growing military toll, Afghan civilians have continued to bear the brunt of the war, with casualties hitting record levels in the first half of this year.

A U.N. report last month said 1,462 civilians were killed in conflict-related incidents in the first six months of 2011, up 15 percent on the first half of 2010. It blamed insurgents for 80 percent of those deaths.

Helmand province, where the Taliban still dominate several districts, has been the scene of some of the most vicious fighting of the war and far more foreign troops have died there than in any other province. Its capital Lashkar Gah was the most contentious of the first seven areas to be handed over.

In the past month, insurgents have carried out a string of assassinations of high-profile southern leaders, including Karzai's half brother, and several large attacks which have killed police and civilians.

(Additional reporting by Mustafa Andalib in Ghazni Mirwais Harooni and Haseeb Sadat in Kabul, Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels and David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Paul Tait, Bill Trott and Sophie Hares)

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45K Verizon workers strike over new labor contract

NEW YORK (AP) — Forty-five thousand unionized Verizon Communications Inc. workers from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., went on strike Sunday after negotiations with the telecommunications company over a new labor contract fizzled.

The Communications Workers of America said negotiations in Philadelphia and New York stalled Saturday night after Verizon continued to demand more than 100 concessions from workers regarding health care, pensions and work rules.

Mark C. Reed, Verizon's executive vice president of human resources, called the outcome of the unions' actions "regrettable" for customers and employees.

"We will continue to do our part to reach a new contract that reflects today's economic realities in our wireline business and addresses the needs of all parties," he said in a statement.

The contract that expired midnight Saturday covers 45,000 workers, including 10,000 represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, who serve as telephone and repair technicians, customer service representatives, operators and more. Contract negotiations began June 22.

"Even at the 11th hour, as contracts were set to expire, Verizon continued to seek to strip away 50 years of collective bargaining gains for middle class workers and their families," CWA said in a statement Sunday.

New York-based Verizon, the nation's largest wireless carrier, has 196,000 workers; 135,000 are non-union.

The CWA said the concessions are unjustified and harsh, given that Verizon is highly profitable — the company's revenue rose 2.8 percent to $27.5 billion in the second quarter. Its growth was largely attributed to its wireless business.

But Verizon said its wireline business has been in decline for more than a decade, and that it is asking for changes in the contract to strengthen the unit. The company said union employees contribute nothing to their health care premiums.

Verizon activated a contingency plan to ensure customers experienced "limited disruption in service" for the length of the strike.

"Tens of thousands of Verizon managers and other personnel have been trained to step in and perform emergency work assignments," Verizon spokesman Rich Young said.

A customer satisfaction survey released in May showed Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. ranked highest among the Big 4 wireless carriers. The survey polled 8,000 households in the first quarter of this year.

Verizon added 1.26 million wireless subscribers under contract in the April to June period this year, a result that flies in the face of the slowdown in new subscribers across the industry in the last two years. A year ago, Verizon added just 665,000 subscribers under contract.

Verizon ended the last quarter with 106.3 million devices connected to its wireless network. No. 2 and chief rival AT&T is trying to leapfrog Verizon in size by buying No. 4 T-Mobile USA for $39 billion.

Lowell McAdam, the former head of Verizon Wireless, became CEO of Verizon Communications Inc. on Aug. 1, replacing Ivan Seidenberg. Seidenberg, the longtime CEO, remains chairman of the company.

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Mewati film Mohabbat part 4 Meo News Tv

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Shooting Triggers Rioting in London (6-Aug-11)(NWO SOCIETY series - Civil Unrest)

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Funny moments from Asianet News Hour in between the news

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Copter shot down, killing 30 US troops, 8 Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite Navy SEALs unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as seven Afghan commandos, U.S. officials said. It was the deadliest single loss for American forces in the decade-old war.

The downing Saturday was a stinging blow to the lauded, tight-knit SEAL Team 6, months after its crowning achievement, and was also a heavy setback for the U.S.-led coalition as it begins to draw down thousands of combat troops fighting what has become an increasingly costly and unpopular war.

None of the 22 SEAL personnel killed in the crash were part of the team that killed bin Laden in a May raid in Pakistan, but they belonged to the same unit. Their deployment in the raid in which the helicopter crashed would suggest that the target was a high-ranking insurgent figure.

Special operations forces, including the SEALs and others, have been at the forefront in the stepped up strategy of taking out key insurgent leaders in targeted raids, and they will be relied on even more as regular troops pull out.

The strike is also likely to boost the morale of the Taliban in a key province that controls a strategic approach to the capital Kabul. The overnight raid took place in the Tangi Joy Zarin area of Wardak province's Sayd Abad district, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Kabul. Forested peaks in the region give the insurgency good cover and the Taliban have continued to use it as a base despite repeated NATO assaults.

The Taliban claimed they downed the helicopter with a rocket while it was taking part in a raid on a house where insurgents were gathered in Wardak overnight. Wreckage of the craft was strewn across the crash site, a Taliban spokesman said.

A senior U.S. administration official in Washington said it appeared the craft had been shot down. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the crash is still being investigated.

"Their deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families, including all who have served in Afghanistan," President Barack Obama said in a statement, adding that his thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who perished.

The U.S.-led coalition said 30 American service members, a civilian Afghan interpreter and seven Afghan commandos were killed when their CH-47 Chinook crashed in the early hours Saturday. A current U.S. official and a former U.S. official said the Americans included 22 SEALs, three Air Force combat controllers and a dog handler and his dog. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because military officials were still notifying the families of the dead.

Geneva Vaughn of Union City, Tennessee, told The Associated Press on Saturday that her grandson Aaron Carson Vaughn, a Tennessee native, was one of the SEALs who was killed.

Jon Tumilson of Rockford, Iowa, was also among the SEALs killed in the attack, his father George Tumilson told The Des Moines Register.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced the number of people killed in the crash and the presence of special operations troops before any other public figure. He also offered his condolences to the American and Afghan troops killed in the crash.

The deaths bring to 365 the number of coalition troops killed this year in Afghanistan and 42 this month.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that the helicopter was involved in an assault on a house where insurgent fighters were gathering. During the battle, the fighters shot down the helicopter with a rocket, he said.

The casualties are believed to be largest loss of life in the history of SEAL Team Six, officially called the Navy Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. The team is considered the best of the best among the already elite SEALs, which numbers 3,000 personnel.

The death toll surpasses the previous worst single day loss of life for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001 — the June 28, 2005 downing of a military helicopter in eastern Kunar province.

In that incident, 16 Navy SEALs and Army special operations troops were killed when their craft was shot down while on a mission to rescue four SEALs under attack by the Taliban. Three of the SEALs being rescued were also killed and the fourth wounded.

Afghanistan has more U.S. special operations troops, about 10,000, than any other theater of war. The forces, often joined by Afghan troops, carry out as many as a dozen raids a night and have become one of the most effective weapons in the coalition's arsenal, also conducting surveillance and infiltration.

From April to July this year, special operations raids captured 2,941 insurgents and killed 834, twice as many as those killed or captured in the same three-month period of 2010, according to NATO.

The coalition plans to increase its reliance on special operations missions as it reduces the overall number of combat troops.

Night raids have drawn criticism from human rights activists and infuriated Karzai, who says they anger and alienate the Afghan population. But NATO commanders have said the raids are safer for civilians than relatively imprecise airstrikes.

The loss of so many SEALs at once will have a temporary impact on the tempo of missions they can carry out, but with an ongoing drawdown of special operations forces from Iraq, there will be more in reserve for Afghan missions.

The site of the crash, Tangi, is a particularly dangerous area, the site where many of the attacks that take place in the province are planned, said Wardak's Deputy Gov. Ali Ahmad Khashai. "Even with all of the operations conducted there, the opposition is still active."

The U.S. army had intended to hand over its Combat Outpost Tangi to Afghan National Security Forces in April, but the Afghans never established a permanent base there. "We deemed it not to be stategic and closed it," said coalition spokesman U.S. Army Maj. Jason Waggoner. "The Taliban went in and occupied it because it was vacant."

Western military commanders have been debating moving forces from other areas in Afghanistan to reinforce troops around the capital and in the east, where the Taliban is often aided by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. Earlier this year, the U.S. military closed smaller outposts in at least two eastern provinces and consolidated its troops onto larger bases because of increased insurgent attacks and infiltration from the Pakistan border.There have been at least 17 coalition and Afghan aircraft crashes in Afghanistan this year.

Most of the crashes were attributed to pilot errors, weather conditions or mechanical failures. However, the coalition has confirmed that at least one CH-47F Chinook helicopter was hit by a rocket propelled grenade on July 25. Two coalition crew members were injured in that attack.

___

Associated Press writers Anne Gearan and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, and Rahim Faiez and Patrick Quinn in Kabul contributed to this report.

(This version DELETES incorrect reference to NPR being among the first to report that the troops killed were believed to be SEALs..?)

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Global policymakers discuss debt crisis, market turmoil

TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - Global policymakers held an emergency conference call on Sunday to discuss the twin debt crises in Europe and the United States that are causing market turmoil and stoking fears of the rich world sliding back into recession.

After a week that saw $2.5 trillion wiped off global stock markets, political leaders are under mounting pressure to reassure investors that Western governments have both the will and ability to reduce their huge and growing public debt loads.

South Korea said finance deputies from the Group of 20 major economies discussed the European debt crisis and U.S. sovereign rating downgrade on Sunday morning in Asian time zones.

A Japanese government source said finance leaders from the Group of Seven big developed economies would also discuss the crisis and may issue a statement afterwards, although the timing of such a call was unclear.

The European Central Bank was scheduled to hold a rare Sunday afternoon conference call. Investors are anxiously looking for the central bank to start buying Italian and Spanish debt on Monday to stabilize prices, a move that has split the ECB governing council.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chairs the G7/G20 group of leading economies, conferred with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday.

"They discussed the euro area and the U.S. debt downgrade. Both agreed the importance of working together, monitoring the situation closely and keeping in contact over the coming days," a spokesman for Cameron said.

In Washington, a White House economic advisor castigated ratings agency Standard and Poor's for downgrading the United States' credit rating to AA-plus from AAA, a move that over time could ripple through markets by pushing up borrowing costs and making it more difficult to secure a lasting recovery.

Washington's Asian allies rallied round the battered superpower, with Japan and South Korea both saying their trust in U.S. Treasuries remained unshaken.

"I expressed our country's position on the (G20 conference) call that there will be no sudden change in our reserve management policy," South Korean Deputy Finance Minister Choi Jong-ku told Reuters by telephone, referring to Seoul's heavy ownership of U.S. bonds out of more than $300 billion in foreign reserves.

"There's no alternative that provides such stability and liquidity," added Choi, who declined to elaborate further on the G20 discussion.

There was no confirmation of the timing of a G7 call for finance ministers and central bankers, but a second Japanese government source said it "would be normal" for it to take place before Asian markets opened. Tokyo's stock market, the biggest in Asia, starts trading at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT) on Monday.

EURO ZONE CRISIS

The most immediate concern for financial markets was the debt crisis in the euro zone, where yields on Italian and Spanish debt have soared to 14-year highs on political wrangling and doubts over the vigor of budget cuts.

Investors saw the ECB's failure to include Italy and Spain in a relaunch of its bond purchases late last week as a sign of the depth of political divisions over the role of the euro zone currency.

German officials want to see stiffer austerity programs in place before the ECB would shoulder more Italian and Spanish debt.

The danger is that further pressure on Italian and Spanish bonds could undermine an already damaged European banking system and lock Italy, the world's eighth largest economy, out of the market.

Indeed, doubts are growing in the German government that Italy could be rescued by the European emergency fund, even if the fund were tripled in size, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel.

The financial needs of the country are so huge that it would overwhelm resources, according to government experts, Der Spiegel said in its online edition. Italy's public debt is about 1.8 trillion euros, or 120 percent of its national output.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his government weakened by infighting, ruled out early elections to stem market panic. "This has never been an option," Berlusconi said.

Instead he has pledged to bring forward austerity measures and balance the budget by 2013, a year ahead of schedule -- steps the ECB will consider to gauge whether to buy its bonds.

Germany has consistently said troubled euro-zone governments should focus on spending cuts and internal reforms, not bailouts. The European Financial Stability Fund currently has 440 billion euros and was designed to help small to medium-sized countries, although the spreading of the debt crisis to Italy and Spain has led to calls for its expansion.

ACRIMONY OVER S&P

Defending its downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, S&P cited the acrimonious debate in Washington on raising the debt ceiling and near political paralysis over the best way to reduce the country's $14.3 trillion debt, which on the current trajectory could climb above 100 percent of national output this decade.

The U.S. Treasury said the rating agency's debt calculations were wrong by some $2 trillion. [ID:nN1E774236]

S&P has confirmed it changed its economic assumptions after discussion with the Treasury Department but said that did not affect its decision to downgrade, a decision slammed by President Barack Obama's National Economic Council head Gene Sperling.

"It smacked of an institution starting with a conclusion and shaping any argument to fit," Sperling said in a statement.[ID:nN1E77508R]

Obama called on lawmakers once again on Saturday to set aside partisan politics and work together and to put the nation's fiscal house in order and stimulate the stagnant economy. [ID:nN1E77503Z]

S&P's one-notch downgrade of the U.S. sovereign credit, while not totally unexpected, adds another level of uncertainty.

Loss of gold-plated status for the world's benchmark interest rate risks pushing up borrowing costs on everything from car loans, mortgages and corporate debt to government bonds worldwide.

"However justified, S&P couldn't have picked a worse time to downgrade the U.S.," said Rabobank in a note to clients.

Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets group, predicted further volatility in markets, and said emerging market currencies and stocks could become safe havens.

"During the sub-prime crisis safety was in U.S. dollars and U.S. Treasuries. Now that anchor to the global community is deteriorating," said Mobius, whose unit oversees $50 billion in emerging market assets, in an email to Reuters.

DEBT ADDICTION

China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, took the world's economic superpower to task for allowing its fiscal house to get into such disarray.

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary that scorned America for its "debt addiction."

On Sunday, a commentary in the People's Daily, the main newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, said Asian exporters, who depend on demand from the United States, could be among the biggest victims of the mounting U.S. economic woes.

"The lowering of the United States' long-term sovereign credit rating has sounded a warning bell for the international currency system dominated by the U.S. dollar," said economist Sun Lijian, writing in the paper.

China and Japan have called for coordinated action to avert a new worldwide financial crisis.

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Paris, Laura McInnis in Washington and Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Stella Dawson and Alex Richardson; Editing by Dean Yates)

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Somali government declares Islamist rebellion defeated

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said on Saturday his military had defeated Islamist rebels battling to overthrow his Western-backed government after the al Shabaab group began withdrawing fighters from the capital Mogadishu.

Rejecting Ahmed's claim to have quashed al Shabaab's four-year insurgency, the militants' spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, said their retreat was tactical only and they were holding their positions elsewhere in the anarchic country.

A 9,000-strong African peacekeeping force and Somali government forces had been steadily wresting control of rubble-strewn Mogadishu from the militants this year. Al Shabaab's pullout followed a string of fierce gun battles late on Friday.

Somalia has been without effective central government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre 20 years ago.

Al Shabaab's retreat from the Somali capital Mogadishu signals an acceptance it cannot militarily defeat a government propped up by foreign muscle and firepower, but raises the specter of an escalation in al Qaeda-inspired raids.

Winning Mogadishu might expand the government's prison capital a little, but it is unlikely to bring any tangible peace to the rest of the Horn of Africa country.

"It was not the strength of al Shabaab that kept them in Mogadishu for so long, it was the incompetence and weakness of the (Somali government)," said Afyare Elmi, a professor at Qatar University's International Affairs department.

"I'm worried the (government) may not be able to step into the vacated areas and other clan militia step in. The challenge ... is to expand into these areas and install law and order."

President Ahmed urged those who had fled their homes not to rush back to the city neighborhoods now empty of militants until they had been cleared of explosives. The government said the rebels had retreated as far as 100 km (62 miles) from the capital.

"The Somali government welcomes the success attained by the Somali government forces backed by AMISOM who defeated the enemy of al Shabaab," Ahmed told a news conference at his residence.

Al Shabaab has never previously entirely left Mogadishu, raising questions over whether deep rifts among the al Qaeda-affiliated group's senior commanders had finally led to a split.

One faction prefers a more nationalist Somali agenda and wants to impose a harsh Islamic programme on the nation. Another more international wing aims to promote Jihad (holy war) and is bent on overthrowing a government they see as a Western stooge as well as forging closer ties with regional al Qaeda cells.

This faction had gained clout with the influx of foreign fighters. Those divisions became sharper as a series of military offensives in Mogadishu exacted a heavy toll on the rebels.

One rebel told Reuters the divisions had seen each side retreat from Mogadishu separately over the past few days, culminating in a massive exit by the rebels on Friday night.

THE FIGHT CONTINUES

"We understand there is disagreement among their top leaders," Farhan Ali, who lives in what was an al Shabaab controlled neighborhood, told Reuters. "They were not displaced by force."

Similar sentiments were expressed by Somalis with links to al Shabaab in other parts of the country, including in the southern port city of Kismayu, the nerve center of al Shabaab's operations in the south of the country.

"We have abandoned Mogadishu but we remain in other towns," Rage said on the al Shabaab-run Andalus radio station.

"We aren't leaving you, but we have changed our tactics. Everyone of you will feel the change in every corner and every street in Mogadishu. We will defend you and continue the fighting," Rage said.

Witnesses said convoys of al Shabaab "technicals" -- open-top 4x4s mounted with machine guns -- headed south from Mogadishu toward the al Shabaab-controlled town of Baidoa, 250 km southwest of the capital.

"I saw 50 armed al Shabaab vehicles heading toward Baidoa shortly after morning prayers," Aweys Sharif said by telephone from the town of Afgoye, 30 km south of Mogadishu.

Residents in Mogadishu's northern districts watched from the streets as the rebel fighters, many covering their faces with masks, left with the families.

"Today is a different day. We never dared watch them and their families like this. But still we are afraid to enter their bases. We cannot dance or rejoice yet," said Ali.

(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by James Macharia and Sophie Hares)

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Leading 100 News Stories (07/08/2011)

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FIFA 12 news (covers)

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Movie Mirchi - Tollywood Film News - Latest Movies Trailers - 01

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Aaj Tak SpeakAsia News Aug6

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Police officer hospitalized, 7 injured in UK riot

KABUL (Reuters) - Foreign forces in Afghanistan were investigating on Sunday the crash of a helicopter believed to have been shot down, killing 30 U.S. soldiers, seven Afghans and an interpreter in the deadliest single incident for foreign troops in a decade of war.

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nata2011_08_06 national rupawahini - news 8.07pm.mpg

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Videira News Belgica 24-07-2011

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Dollar to drop on S&P move; safe-haven demand seen

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar may weaken and Treasury yields rise when Asian markets reopen on Monday, though any selling in response to ratings agency S&P's downgrade of the United States is likely to be tempered by the escalating crisis in the euro zone.

The S&P cut in the U.S. long-term credit rating by a notch to AA-plus is an unprecedented blow and results from concerns about the nation's budget deficits and climbing debt burden. It called the outlook "negative," signaling another downgrade is possible in the next 12 to 18 months.

"The initial reaction will be a high degree of uncertainty and thus volatility since investors will not know where to turn for safety," said Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets group, in an email to Reuters.

"During the sub-prime crisis safety was in U.S. Dollars and U.S. Treasuries. Now that anchor to the global community is deteriorating," added Mobius, whose unit oversees $50 billion in emerging market assets.

Fears of a slide back into recession for the world's biggest economy prompted a global sell-off that wiped $2.5 trillion off company values over the past week, with consumer discretionary shares of firms dependent on external demand likely to be singled out for more punishment.

The fall in global share prices, as measured by the MSCI All-country World Index, was the biggest weekly decline since early October 2008, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.

Market players warned the U.S. downgrade was likely to exacerbate a sharp contraction in risk appetite, and could see investors shift to the low-yielding Japanese yen and the Swiss Franc, despite market interventions from their respective authorities to weaken the currencies last week.

But they said fears that Europe's debt crisis could engulf core economies Spain and Italy, where sovereign debt yields have soared to 14-year highs, meant investors may still seek a safe-haven in the dollar, despite the U.S. woes.

Goldman Sachs strategists said there was a one-in-three probability of a U.S. recession due to the worsening European crisis, the possible failure to extend payroll tax cuts and elevated levels of joblessness, despite a slight dip in the U.S. unemployment rate in July.

"Simply put, market sentiment appears acutely vulnerable given the build-up of concern on a sharper U.S. slowdown and speculation on the appropriate policy response and lingering fears stemming from the sovereign debt crisis in Europe," Citigroup strategists said in a note.

The benchmark MSCI all-country world stocks index fell to its lowest level since September 2010 last week, and has slumped more than 12 percent since late July.

The benchmark MSCI index of Asia Pacific ex-Japan stocks fell 8.7 percent last week.

Meanwhile, global leaders scrambled to discuss the U.S. sovereign rating downgrade and Europe's debt woes, and may issue a statement after a conference call, a Japanese government source said on Sunday.

Yields on benchmark U.S. ten-year treasury notes rebounded smartly to 2.56 percent on Friday but were not far away from a record low of near two percent hit during the throes of the global financial crisis.

In a sign of how nervous investors have become, data from Lipper showed investors pulled nearly $66 billion from money market funds in the week ended August 3, the second-largest weekly net outflow on record. The record outflow was seen during the week ended September 17, 2008.

(This story corrects the reference to payroll tax cuts in paragraph 9)

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Expert: Rural US websites easy target for hackers

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The digital trove of credit card numbers and emails stolen by the group known as Anonymous came from towns across rural America — places like Gassville, Ark. and Tishomingo County, Miss., where officers don't usually have to worry about international hackers.

That may have made them an easy score.

The loosely-knit hacking collective said Saturday that it attacked 70 mostly rural law enforcement websites in the United States in retaliation for the arrests of its sympathizers. Some county sheriffs said they were told about the hacking, but others appeared to learn of the scope of what had happened only when contacted by The Associated Press.

Web security experts said the cyberattack shows that no website is too small to avoid hacking, especially as more law enforcement agencies upload sensitive information about investigations, inmates and officers to their sites.

"It seems to me to be low-hanging fruit," said Dick Mackey, vice president of consulting at Sudbury, Mass.-based SystemExperts. "The smaller the organization, the more likely that they don't think of themselves as potential targets. They're not going to have the protections in place that a larger organization will have."

Many of the sheriff's offices outsourced their websites to the same Mountain Home, Ark.-based media hosting company, Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing. If Brooks-Jeffrey's defenses were breached, that would give hackers access to every website the company hosted, said Kevin Mitnick, a security consultant and former hacker.

Brooks-Jeffrey declined to comment.

Most of the sheriffs' department sites, if not all, were either unavailable for most of Saturday or had been wiped clean of content. Some had started to reappear online Saturday evening.

The emails were mainly from sheriffs' offices in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Mississippi. Many of the leaked emails appeared to be benign, but some of the stolen material seen by the AP carried sensitive information, including tips about suspected crimes, profiles of gang members and security training. At least one email had material — including pictures of teenage girls in their swimsuits — that Tim Mayfield, the police chief in Gassville, Ark., said was sent to him as part of an ongoing investigation. Mayfield declined to provide more details.

In another email that Anonymous posted, a police tipster wrote that his uncle was a convicted sexual offender who was homeless and hanging around an area Walmart and other places where children were. Another tipster wrote to police that she and her neighbors could smell drugs coming from a house.

The leaked information also included five credit card numbers Anonymous said were used to make "involuntary donations." At least four of the names and other personal details appeared to be genuine. One person confirmed to the AP that his credit card had been used improperly.

In a statement, Anonymous said it leaked "a massive amount of confidential information that is sure to (embarrass), discredit and incriminate police officers across the US." The group said it hopes its disclosures would "demonstrate the inherently corrupt nature of law enforcement using their own words" and "disrupt and sabotage their ability to communicate and terrorize communities."

The group did not say specifically why these sheriffs' departments were targeted, but Anonymous members have increasingly been pursued by law enforcement in the United States and elsewhere following a string of high-profile data thefts and denial of service attacks — operations that block websites by flooding them with traffic. FBI spokesman Steve Frazier did not return several messages Saturday seeking comment on the latest cyberattack.

The group celebrated its success in several messages posted Saturday to Twitter and hinted that more attacks were to come. In one tweet, it poked fun at local sheriffs: "Time to wake up, boys."

Small agencies often need to do more to protect themselves, even if they don't have as much staff or money as larger cities, Mackey said. One major step is demanding better security from the companies that host their sites.

"I think it behooves anyone who stores sensitive information to basically put the pressure on the vendors who create their websites to do a good job of protecting those sites," Mackey said.

Many sheriffs said they weren't using their sites to store Social Security numbers or other highly sensitive data. John Montgomery, sheriff of Baxter County in northern Arkansas, where Brooks-Jeffrey is located, said his department's website has been used in the past to help track down suspects and get information to the public.

"We are going to continue using the Web," said Montgomery, whose website was taken down. "Are we going to have to be smarter in how we use the Web as far as security? Sure. We'll have to look closely at the security measures that go into place."

Montgomery said the department would also check its internal servers for any weaknesses, and he encouraged other county sheriffs to do the same.

___

Merchant reported from Little Rock, Ark; Satter reported from London. Associated Press writers Maria Fisher in Kansas City, Mo.; M.L. Johnson in Chicago; Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta; and Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans contributed to this report.

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Federal probes of mortgage lenders fizzle: report

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Federal criminal investigations into failed mortgage lenders IndyMac Bancorp and New Century Financial Corp have stalled, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

A third probe, into Washington Mutual Inc (WaMu), has ended with no charges being filed, the Department of Justice said.

Both the IndyMac and Century Financial investigations were essentially dormant, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the situation. Both probes could still gain new momentum if fresh evidence surfaced, the newspaper said.

The three investigations were among the first to weigh criminal charges against the companies and executives at the heart of the housing crisis, which was in part caused by offering so-called sub-prime loans to people who may not have otherwise qualified for credit.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles, which initiated the IndyMac and New Century probes, could not be reached for comment.

The Justice Department, in a statement dated on Friday, said its investigation closed after hundreds of interviews and review of millions of documents related to WaMu's operations and subsequent failure. The evidence did not meet the standards for criminal charges, the statement said.

The three lenders were overwhelmed by bad loans during the housing crisis. IndyMac and WaMu were seized by federal regulators in 2008 and New Century collapsed into bankruptcy in 2007.

Investigators have struggled to prove intentional wrongdoing, which is required to secure a conviction, particularly in relation to decisions signed off by in-house lawyers, the newspaper said, citing its sources.

(Reporting by Brad Dorfman; Editing by Paul Simao)

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ទៅកំសាន្តនៅ TURKU Final Part (Khmer Finland)

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Perry to evangelicals: I'm one of you

HOUSTON (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry sent a strong message to the nation's evangelicals Saturday: he is a member of the important constituency for Republicans that he soon may call upon to help him secure the GOP presidential nomination.

The state's longest serving governor hosted what he called a national day of prayer, an event at Reliant Arena that drew roughly 30,000 people and that was broadcast on cable Christian channels and the Internet nationwide, including in at least 1,000 churches.

"Father, our heart breaks for America," Perry said in 12 minutes of remarks that included prayer and Bible passages — but no direct mention of politics or his presidential plans. "We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government and, as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us."

He asked Christians to turn to God for answers to the nation's troubles, and asked the audience to pray for President Barack Obama — though he did not use the Democratic incumbent's name — as well as for the American troops killed in the weekend attack on a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan.

The moment gave Perry a national spotlight before a pivotal voting group in the GOP nomination fight — in the early voting states of Iowa and South Carolina in particular — as he nears a decision on whether to run for president. His entrance into the field could shake up the contest because Perry could attract both social and economic conservatives at a time when the GOP electorate is unsettled with the current slate of candidates. Many have been campaigning for months and are trying to break out of the pack.

As Perry held court in Houston, for instance, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann were holding multiple campaign events each day in Iowa ahead of next weekend's test vote, a straw poll that is a barometer for a campaign's organizational strength five months before the state's leadoff caucuses. Both have a lot riding on the outcome.

Perry has been talking with potential donors, GOP operatives and party leaders about a possible run. But he has been tightlipped about just when he would announce a decision, though he plans to visit at least one early-voting state — South Carolina — over the next week.

He plans to keep what aides say is a long-held commitment to headline a conservative conference in Charleston, S.C., on Aug. 13, as well as meet with activists in the state scheduled to host the South's first primary. The trip will put Perry in touch with voters and activists who would be influential to a Republican primary campaign, much like the Houston event Saturday did.

Ministers long have been a valuable constituency in the early nominating campaign, especially in Iowa, where they formed an influential network for 2008 candidate Mike Huckabee's caucus victory, and this year's candidates are trying to make inroads. Bachmann, for one, announced the endorsement of her by 100 Iowa clergy Friday; the tea party favorite meets regularly with pastors when she campaigns in Iowa.

Perry's audience Saturday was filled with people who sang with arms outstretched in prayer — and wept — as Christian groups played music on stage. And Perry, himself, huddled on the stage in a prayer circle with several ministers who helped lead the event. It was Perry's idea and was financed by the American Family Association, a Tupelo, Miss.-based group that opposes abortion and gay rights and believes that the First Amendment freedom of religion applies only to Christians.

"We feel that God moved on him to do this. It will be read by the enemy, the political enemy, as a tool to win votes," said Gwen Courkamp of Houston, who plans to vote for Perry if he runs for president.

The governor also earned high marks from attendee Justine Schaefer, who said: "He'd get my vote ... Today really impressed me. He showed that he's sensitive to the Lord's leading to have this."

Critics argued the event — called The Response — inappropriately blended politics and religion.

Perry insisted that the event had no political motivation, though he did say during his remarks: "We pray for our nation's leaders, Lord, for parents, for pastors, for the generals, for governors, that you would inspire them in these difficult times."

The other speakers focused primarily on prayer and redemption, though politics seeped in at times, tied to social issue policy. Dozens of people throughout the daylong event decried legalized abortion, while some also condemned gay marriage, although far fewer.

Protesters gathered outside the arena to condemn the event.

"The brand of Christianity being offered today is one of fear, and we want to let people know that God loves everyone, not to be afraid," said Dan DeLeon, a pastor from the United Church of Christ in College Station, who wore his robe in near-100-degree heat.

Rodney Hinds, who drove to Houston from Amarillo, waved a sign at traffic demanding "Pastor Perry Must Resign" and said: "He abused the power of his office by calling this event from his office as governor."

Whether that's true or not, this much is clear: Perry may have laid down a marker on Saturday with social conservatives that would allow him to enter the race as a candidate focused on jobs, but with credibility with values voters.

"He has the best record in the field on jobs, and doesn't have to get off message beefing up bona fides on social issues, since they are firmly established," said Mary Matalin, a former adviser during both Bush presidencies.

Given Texas' recent uptick in jobs, that combination could make Perry a potentially strong challenger to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who leads in national polls, has business credentials but leaves cultural conservatives questioning his sincerity on their issues.

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News Video- Doni Holloway Show 8/7/11

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Path to debt deal was too divisive: White House

By Yochi J. Dreazen National Journal The deadly crash of a U.S. helicopter in eastern Afghanistan earlier today will fuel the growing questions about the Obama administration's handling of the long war—and the public's nagging sense, evident in recent polls, … Continue reading →

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G7 finance leaders agree to talk on Monday: report

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Group of Seven leading economies agreed to hold an emergency phone meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors on Monday, Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday.

At the meeting, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda is expected to pledge that Japan will continue to buy U.S. Treasuries, Kyodo said without citing any sources.

The ministers will likely discuss measures to prevent turmoil in financial markets amid U.S. and European debt problems, it said.

Japanese government sources have said the G7 finance leaders will likely hold an emergency phone meeting, probably before Asian markets open on Monday, to discuss the twin debt crises in Europe and the United States, and may issue a statement after the meeting.

(Reporting by Leika Kihara, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)

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WBHS News Intro (December 09, 2009)

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Syrian troops storm parts of eastern city

KABUL (Reuters) - Foreign forces in Afghanistan were investigating on Sunday the crash of a helicopter believed to have been shot down, killing 30 U.S. soldiers, seven Afghans and an interpreter in the deadliest single incident for foreign troops in a decade of war.

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Fox News Calls Obama's Birthday Party a 'Hip-Hop BBQ

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GOVT POLYTECHNIC KASHIPUR AMIR SAIFI

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G7 major powers to confer on markets crisis: source

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Group of Seven leading economies agreed to hold an emergency phone meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors on Monday, Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday.

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Police Brutality Protest Turns Violent In London (6-Aug-11)(NWO SOCIETY series - Civil Unrest)

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US downgrade raises anxiety, if not interest rates

WASHINGTON (AP) — The real danger from the downgrade of U.S. government debt by Standard & Poor's isn't higher interest rates. It's the hit to the nation's fragile economic psyche and rattled financial markets.

S&P's decision to strip the U.S. of its sterling AAA credit rating for the first time and move it down one notch, to AA+, deals a blow to the confidence of consumers and businesses at a dangerous time, economists say.

The agency is "striking at the heart of what makes the global economy tick," says Chris Rupkey, chief financial economists for the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. "It isn't just dollars and cents."

One economist, Paul Dales of Capital Economics, worried Saturday that the downgrade could even trigger another financial crisis that sends Western economies back into a recession.

The timing could hardly be worse for the U.S. The economy added 117,000 jobs in July, more than expected. But other economic indicators, including manufacturing, consumer spending and overall growth, are getting weaker.

And the markets just came through their most harrowing two weeks since the financial crisis of 2008. The Dow lost about 10 percent of its value on fears of a new recession and Europe's spiraling financial problems.

In normal times, in another country, a downgrade in a country's sovereign debt rating probably would force its government to pay higher interest rates to convince investors to keep buying its debt.

If that happened, it would drive up the rates that consumers pay on mortgages and auto loans, which are often tied to the government's interest rate.

But the United States is a special case. Treasury debt is considered the safest investment in the world — even after the downgrade. Investors don't doubt the U.S. government's ability to repay the $9.8 trillion it owes.

They also know they can easily buy and sell Treasury bills, notes and bonds. Rupkey calls Treasurys the "strongest, deepest, most liquid" market in the world.

"Anytime there's a problem anywhere on the planet, investors come to the safety of the U.S., and they don't go anywhere else," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

Despite worries about the U.S. government's huge debts and rumors of an impending downgrade from S&P, the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds was still a low 2.56 percent Friday.

That's because investors, worried about the weak U.S. economy and debt troubles in Europe, saw American bonds as a safer place to put their cash than, say, stocks.

"Where else are you going to put your money?" says Joe Libin, a Salt Lake City mortgage banker. "We're growing anemically. We've got a debt problem. But at least we're bobbing along. We're best-looking of the ugly kids at the prom."

U.S. banking regulators also moved quickly to reinforce the security of Treasury debt after S&P announced the downgrade Friday night. Regulators said they would continue to view Treasurys as a zero-risk investment and would not force banks to hold more capital against their Treasury investments.

There had been fears that some financial institutions with obligations to hold only top-rated investments might suddenly sell U.S. government debt on the open market — forcing the price down and the yield up, and leading to higher interest rates.

The vote of confidence by the bank regulators lessens the risk. In addition, the other top rating agencies — Moody's and Fitch Ratings — have maintained top ratings on U.S. government debt.

The S&P downgrade also doesn't apply to short-term U.S. securities — Treasury bills that mature in a year or less. It applies to government debt that matures in more than a year — Treasury notes and bonds. That means the downgrade shouldn't rattle money market funds that invest in short-term Treasuries.

Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities, agrees that the S&P downgrade is unlikely to drive up interest rates right away. But he says that's partly because the economy is so weak that borrowers aren't competing for money and driving rates higher.

In three-to-five years, he says, loan demand will be higher. When that happens, a U.S. Treasury with a dinged credit rating will be vying with private borrowers for loans and investments, and rates will likely rise.

"The greater consequences are going to be in the intermediate and long-term," he says. "If it didn't mean anything, S&P wouldn't have downgraded us."

The Obama administration made its displeasure known quickly after the downgrade was announced. The Treasury Department said S&P had acted on an analysis that had a $2 trillion error.

On Saturday, the administration appeared to soften its tone. White House press secretary Jay Carney, without referring directly to the downgrade, said President Barack Obama believes Washington "must do better" tackling the federal budget deficits.

Already, there were signs that the downgrade itself would become a volatile political issue.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the S&P decision showed that Democrats' preferred solution to long-term debt, a mix of tax increases on the wealthy and budget cuts, was the right answer.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he hoped Democrats would learn they can't "tinker around the edges" of the U.S. debt problem. And Republican presidential candidates for 2012 laid blame on Obama.

S&P had called for $4 trillion in U.S. deficit reduction. The deal cut by Congress early last week called for only about $2 trillion over the next decade. S&P said it wasn't enough to address America's debt problem.

The rating agency also said the decision reflected its loss of confidence in the U.S. political system. Republicans and Democrats didn't reach a deal on debt reduction until hours before the federal government's borrowing limit was to expire, which would have triggered a U.S. default on its debt or massive, immediate government cuts.

Economists say the downgrade, the first since the U.S. received the top rating from S&P in 1941, will rattle consumers and businesses already worried about the weak economy and the U.S. political system's inability to handle the country's problems.

Some fear the Dow Jones industrial average, which fell 512 points on Thursday alone because of fears about the economy and Europe, will plummet Monday when investors get to vent their anxiety.

An early sign of what's to come may emerge Sunday evening in the United States when Asian markets open.

America's reputation has already taken a hit abroad. China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, on Saturday demanded that the United States tighten its belt and overcome its "addiction to debt" in the wake of the S&P downgrade. China's central bank holds an estimated $1.16 trillion in U.S. debt.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency declared: "The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone."

"It's going to be tougher for the U.S. to attract capital," Vitner says. "If you're a business and you're deciding where to invest your earnings and investors' capital, you're looking around the world. The U.S. suddenly looks riskier."

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NATO investigates deadly Afghan helicopter crash

KABUL (Reuters) - Foreign forces in Afghanistan were investigating on Sunday the crash of a helicopter believed to have been shot down, killing 30 U.S. soldiers, seven Afghans and an interpreter in the deadliest single incident for foreign troops in a decade of war.

The Taliban quickly claimed to have shot down the troop-carrying helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, although the Islamist militant group often exaggerates incidents involving foreign troops or Afghan government targets.

In Washington, a U.S. official said the helicopter was believed to have been shot down. The Pentagon and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan said overnight the cause of the crash was being investigated.

The crash and its high death toll occurred two weeks after foreign forces started a security handover to Afghan troops and police -- to be completed by the end of 2014 -- and at a time of growing unease about the increasingly unpopular and costly war.

The Chinook crashed in central Maidan Wardak province, just west of the country's capital Kabul, on Friday night.

"No words describe the sorrow we feel in the wake of this tragic loss," General John Allen, who took over from General David Petraeus three weeks ago as ISAF commander, said in a statement released overnight.

"All of those killed in this operation were true heroes who had already given so much in the defense of freedom."

A U.S. official said some of the dead Americans were members of the Navy's special forces SEAL Team 6 -- the unit that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May in Pakistan, but that none of the dead had been part of the bin Laden raid.

The crash was the deadliest single incident for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, ISAF said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement on Saturday that the United States would "stay the course" to complete the mission in Afghanistan, a sentiment echoed by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

The crash will likely raise more questions about the security transition and how much longer troops should stay. All foreign combat troops are due to leave by the end of 2014, but some U.S. lawmakers question whether that is fast enough.

U.S. and other NATO commanders have claimed success in reversing a growing insurgency in the Taliban's southern heartland, although insurgents have demonstrated an ability to adapt their tactics and mount attacks in other areas.

But violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths, and record civilian casualties during the first six months of 2011.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai "shared his deep sorrow and sadness" with his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, and the families of the victims, his palace said on Saturday.

Last year was the deadliest of the war for foreign troops in Afghanistan with 711 killed. The crash in Maidan Wardak means at least 375 foreign troops have been killed so far in 2011. More than two-thirds were American, according to independent monitor www.icasualties.com and figures kept by Reuters.

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

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United States loses prized AAA credit rating from S&P

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States lost its top-tier AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday in an unprecedented blow to the world's largest economy in the wake of a political battle that took the country to the brink of default.

S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about the government's budget deficit and rising debt burden. The action is likely to eventually raise borrowing costs for the American government, companies and consumers.

"The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics," S&P said in a statement.

The outlook on the new U.S. credit rating is "negative," S&P said in a statement, indicating another downgrade was possible in the next 12 to 18 months.

The move reflects the deterioration in the global economic standing of the United States, which has had a AAA credit rating from S&P since 1941, and it could have implications for the U.S. dollar's reserve currency status.

"The global system must now adjust to the many implications and uncertainties of the once-unthinkable loss of America's AAA," said Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co which oversees $1.2 trillion in assets.

The decision follows a fierce political battle in Congress over cutting spending and raising taxes to reduce the government's debt burden and allow its statutory borrowing limit to be raised.

On August 2, President Barack Obama signed legislation designed to reduce the fiscal deficit by $2.1 trillion over 10 years. But that was well short of the $4 trillion in savings S&P had called for as a good "down payment" on fixing America's finances.

The political gridlock in Washington over addressing the long-term fiscal problems facing the United States came against the backdrop of slowing U.S. economic growth and led to the worst week in the U.S. stock market in two years.

The S&P 500 stock index fell 10.8 percent in the past 10 trading days on concerns that the U.S. economy may be heading into another recession and because the European debt crisis has worsened.

Treasury bonds, once indisputably seen as the safest security in the world, are now rated lower than bonds issued by countries such as Britain, Germany, France or Canada.

U.S. TREASURY QUESTIONS CALCULATION

Obama was briefed earlier in the day regarding S&P's intentions, but discussions only took place with Treasury officials and did not include the White House, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters.

Late on Friday, the Treasury said the rating agency's debt calculations were wrong by some $2 trillion.

S&P confirmed it changed its economic assumptions after discussion with the Treasury Department but said it did not affect its decision to downgrade.

"We take our responsibilities very seriously, and if at the end of our analysis the committee concludes that a rating isn't where we believe it should be, it's our duty to make that call," David Beers, head of sovereign ratings at S&P, told Reuters.

The theme running throughout S&P's analysis is the breakdown in the ability of the Democratic and Republican parties to govern effectively.

The agency said that policymaking and political institutions had weakened in the past few months "to a degree more than we envisioned." This has major implications for the nation's budget and debt problems.

For example, S&P now assumes that tax cuts brought in under President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 would not, as planned, expire by 2012 because of staunch Republican opposition to any measure that would raise revenues.

The compromise reached by Republicans and Democrats this week calls for creation of a bipartisan congressional committee to find $1.5 trillion of deficit cuts by late November, beyond the $917 billion already identified.

'DAUNTING' IMPLICATIONS

While the downgrade is a blow to U.S. prestige, it was largely expected and may not have a big impact on trading of U.S. Treasuries and other assets when markets reopen in Asia on Monday.

In fact, Treasuries have rallied this week, driving the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 2.34 percent, its lowest level in about 10 months. This reflects a belief among investors that U.S. government debt is still a safe bet at a time when prices of stocks and commodities are falling on concern about slowing global economic growth.

"To some extent, I would expect when Tokyo opens on Sunday, that we will see an initial knee-jerk sell-off (in Treasuries) followed by a rally," said Ian Lyngen, senior government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Connecticut.

But the downgrade has implications for the country's financial sector, ranging from insurance companies to government-related firms such as housing financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"At least initially, the impact on the market will be negative because there will some forced liquidation of U.S. assets," said Boris Schlossberg, GFT director of currency research.

The downgrade could add up to 0.7 of a percentage point to Treasuries' yields over time, increasing funding costs for public debt by some $100 billion, according to SIFMA, a U.S. securities industry trade group.

The Federal Reserve and other bank regulators moved on Friday to reassure global markets that the downgrade would not mean that additional capital would be needed by banks and other institutions holding Treasury securities.

The Fed also said the cut would not impact the operation of its emergency lending window for banks, nor its buying and selling of Treasury securities to conduct monetary policy.

The impact of S&P's move was tempered by Moody's Investors Service's decision earlier this week confirming, for now, the U.S. Aaa rating. Fitch Ratings said it was still reviewing its AAA rating and would issue its opinion by the end of the month.

S&P's move is also likely to concern foreign creditors especially China, which holds more than $1 trillion of U.S. debt. Beijing has repeatedly urged Washington to protect its U.S. dollar investments by addressing its budget problems.

"China will be forced to consider other investments for its reserves. U.S. Treasuries aren't as safe anymore," said Li Jie, a director at the reserves research institute at the Central University of Finance and Economics.

One currency strategist, however, did not think there would be wholesale selling by foreigners.

"One of the reasons we don't really think foreign investors will start selling U.S. Treasuries aggressively is because there are still few alternatives to the Treasury market in terms of depth and liquidity," said Vassili Serebriakov, currency strategist at Wells Fargo in New York.

He said there was likely to be weakness in the U.S. dollar but a sharp sell-off was unlikely.

S&P had already placed the U.S. credit rating on review for a possible downgrade on July 14 on concerns that Congress was not adequately addressing the fiscal deficit of about $1.4 trillion this year, about 9.0 percent of gross domestic product, one of the highest since World War II.

But Obama administration officials grew increasingly frustrated with the rating agency during the debt limit debate and accused S&P of moving the goal posts in its downgrade warnings, sources familiar with talks between the administration and the agency have said.

The downgrade was immediately pounced on by candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination. Mitt Romney said the move was "a deeply troubling indicator of our country's decline under President Obama," while Jon Huntsman said it was due to spreading of a "cancerous debt afflicting our nation."

The downgrade, 15 months before the next presidential election, and debt will be top campaign issues..

(Reporting by Walter Brandimarte and Daniel Bases; additional reporting by Burton Frierson, Chris Reese, Alexandra Alper, Jennifer Ablan, Wanfeng Zhou in New York; Matt Spetalnick, Steve Holland, Mark Felsenthal in Washington; Koh Gui Qing and Wang Lan in Beijing; Editing by Jan Paschal and Clive McKeef)

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World leaders confer on debt crises this weekend

PARIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Global leaders on Saturday arranged a round of emergency calls to discuss the twin debt crises in Europe and the United States that are causing turmoil in financial markets.

After a week that saw $2.5 trillion wiped off global stock markets, they are under pressure to show political leadership and reassure markets that Western governments have both the will and ability to reduce their huge and growing public debt loads.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chairs the G7/G20 group of leading economies, conferred with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of a call planned for this weekend by G7 finance ministers and central bankers.

"They discussed the euro area and the U.S. debt downgrade. Both agreed the importance of working together, monitoring the situation closely and keeping in contact over the coming days," a spokesman for Cameron said.

Standard and Poor's deepened the urgency for action late on Friday by stripping the United States of its top-tier AAA credit rating, a move that over time could ripple through markets worldwide by pushing up borrowing costs and making it more difficult to secure a lasting recovery.

It cited the acrimonious debate in Washington on raising the debt ceiling and near political paralysis over the best way to reduce the its $14.3 trillion debt, which on the current trajectory could climb above 100 percent of U.S. national output this decade.

President Barack Obama called on lawmakers once again on Saturday to set aside partisan politics and work together and to put the nation's fiscal house in order and stimulate the stagnant economy.

But the most immediate concern for financial markets was the debt crisis in the euro zone, where yields on Italian and Spanish debt have soared to 14-year highs on political wrangling and doubts over the vigor of budget cuts.

The European Central Bank was scheduled to hold a rare Sunday conference call. Markets are anxiously looking for the central bank to start buying Italian and Spanish debt on Monday to stabilize prices, a move that has split the ECB governing council.

Investors saw the ECB's failure to include Italy and Spain in a relaunch of its bond purchases late last week as a sign of the depth of political divisions over the role of the euro zone currency. German officials want to see stiffer austerity programs in place before the ECB would shoulder more Italian and Spanish debt. The danger is that further pressure on Italian and Spanish bonds could undermine an already damaged European banking system and lock Italy, the world's eighth largest economy, out of the market.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his government weakened by infighting, ruled out early elections to stem market panic. "This has never been an option," Berlusconi said. Instead he has pledged to bring forward austerity measures and balance the budget by 2013, a year ahead of schedule -- steps the ECB will consider to gauge whether to buy its bonds.

S&P's one-notch downgrade of the U.S. sovereign credit rating to AA-plus, while not totally unexpected, adds another level of uncertainty. Loss of gold-plated status for the world's benchmark interest rate risks pushing up borrowing costs on everything from car loans, mortgages and corporate debt to government bonds worldwide.

"However justified, S&P couldn't have picked a worse time to downgrade the U.S.," said Rabobank in a note to clients.

A senior European diplomatic source said the U.S. downgrade, coupled with Europe's problems, raised the need for international policy coordination. G7 finance ministers and central bankers of the major industrialized nations were to hold talks by telephone on either Saturday or Sunday, the source said. Their deputies from the broader G20 were due to hold a call on Saturday evening, a Brazilian finance ministry source said.

A U.K. official said "senior officials" also would talk late on Saturday. There was no indication of whether a statement would be issued by G7 or G20 policymakers, the usual method by which they lay out policy steps designed to soothe markets or provide them with direction.

DEBT ADDICTION

China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, took the world's economic superpower to task for allowing its fiscal house to get into such disarray. It also revived its calls for a new stable global reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar, gaining a sympathetic ear in the United Kingdom.

"The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.

Xinhua scorned the United States for a "debt addiction" and "short sighted" political wrangling. China, it said, "has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets."

China and Japan have called for coordinated action to avert a new worldwide financial crisis. India's Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters: "There is no need to unnecessarily press the panic button."

Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said: "I am in constant contact with colleagues in other countries and am following the development of the financial markets closely."

Recrimination flew thick and fast among U.S. politicians over its debt downgrade, with each side seeking to blame the other for the impasse over how to solve the fiscal crisis.

Senator Jim Demint, a Republican, said Obama should demand the resignation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

In contrast, French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said France had faith in the United States to get out of this "difficult period." Friday's U.S. unemployment numbers were better than expected and so things were heading in the right direction, he said.

"One should not dramatize, one needs to remain cool-headed, one should look at the fundamentals," he told France's iTele.

"There is no need for panic," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. "We will see in August, and maybe more intensively in September what the effects for the world economy will be."

(Additional reporting by Isabel Versiani and Brian Winter in Brasilia, Laura MacInnis in Washington, and other Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Angus MacSwan and Stella Dawson; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Israeli officials vow to cut cost of living

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Sunday formed a panel of government ministers and some of the country's leading economic experts to draw up a plan to reduce the soaring cost of living, marking new efforts to defuse demonstrations over prices that drew over a quarter-million people onto the streets the night before.

The announcement comes after three weeks of mushrooming protests sparked by complaints over housing costs. Since then, the protests have gained new momentum as Israelis grow increasingly frustrated with their struggle to make ends meet despite economic growth in the country that is outpacing that of other developed nations. Saturday's turnout of over 250,000 people in public squares presented Israel's most stable government in years with a chorus of discontent it could not afford to ignore.

The special committee would present its recommendations within a month, Gidi Schmerling, a spokesman for Prime Minister Netanyahu, told Army Radio.

Netanyahu "has defined a goal — to correct social wrongs — and he will work towards that goal in a genuine and intensive manner," Schmerling said.

The protest organizers — a loosely organized group of young Israelis stunned by the mass response to their complaints — have called for a million-person march in 50 cities across the country on Sept. 3. While they have sought to steer clear from appearing political in their calls for reform, the mass rallies have given voice to the growing wealth disparity in the country and what critics contend is an inequitable distribution of government resources.

After weeks of vague calls for change, the protest leaders published a list of specific demands late last week, including the construction of affordable housing and a reduction of the 16 percent sales tax. It is not clear how they would pay for the array of services they are demanding.

With the size of the movement clearly indicating that it would not fizzle any time soon, Israeli officials have been forced to take notice.

"This is an impressive phenomenon and we must be attentive to it," Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said of the protests shaking this country of 7.7 million. Israel's cost of living, he added, is "unjustifiable and unreasonable."

He woved swift action to help working class Israelis struggling to cope with the cost of living.

Stav Shafir, a leader of the protest movement, said protesters would not back down.

"We must continue to ask for solutions, not for ones that will come in September," Shafir said. "We must demand them now."

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Saleh to leave hospital, fighting flares in Sanaa

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's president Ali Abdullah Saleh will leave hospital soon, a government source said on Saturday, as clashes between his loyalists and opponents flared in the capital he left when protests against his rule turned into open warfare.

The fate of Saleh, forced to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia for injuries suffered in a bomb attack in his palace in June, has thrown the Arab world's poorest country into a political crisis threatening to tip into civil war.

Political deadlock born of six months of protests against Saleh and renewed conflicts with Islamists and separatists have raised fears in neighboring Saudi Arabia and Washington that chaos in Yemen could embolden the country's Al Qaeda wing.

Saleh will leave hospital in the coming days, a Yemeni government source told Reuters. But the wounded leader, who has vowed to return to Yemen, will stay on in Riyadh in Saudi government housing for the time being, the source said.

His prime minister, Ali Mohamed Megawar, injured in the same attack, left hospital and moved into official Saudi accommodation earlier on Saturday, the source said.

The announcement came as forces loyal to Saleh skirmished with those of the Ahmar family, a power within Yemen's Hashed tribal confederation, in the capital, witnesses said.

They said the two sides traded fire in the Hassaba district of the capital, where prominent members of the Ahmar family reside. The exchange marked a second day of confrontation in the area, though there were no reports of casualties.

Separately, one protester was killed and three injured in the southern city of Taiz when forces loyal to Saleh opened fire to scatter an anti-Saleh demonstration, witnesses said.

Weeks of fighting between Saleh's forces and those of the Ahmar family left parts of Sanaa in ruins, giving way to an uneasy ceasefire after the bombing in Saleh's compound that forced him from the country in June.

That attack came after Saleh rejected for the third time a deal crafted by the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of Yemen's resource-rich Gulf neighbors, to ease him from office.

The collapse of diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis over Saleh's fate has coincided with a surge of fighting in the south of the country with Islamists, whom Saleh's government has linked to the country's Al Qaeda branch.

Islamist fighters seized Zinjibar, capital of the southern Abyan province, in late May, a development Saleh's opponents accused him of orchestrating to underline his threat that only his rule would keep parts of the country from falling to Al Qaeda.

The ensuing fighting in Abyan has displaced as many as 90,000 of the province's residents.

Washington, which has made Saleh's Yemen a cornerstone of its counter-terrorism strategy, has urged him to accept the deal to ease him from power, while maintaining ties with potential successors.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Sudam; Writing by Joseph Logan; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Dubstep Dancing Grape Lady (Falling Remix)

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G20 deputies to hold crisis call Saturday: Brazil

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Deputy finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading economic powers will hold a conference call on Saturday to discuss the crises in Europe and the United States, a Brazilian finance ministry official said.

The official told Reuters the call was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. EDT.

"It will be an exchange of information and opinions," the official said by e-mail without providing further details.

Investors are eager to see signs of a coordinated policy response among major economies, which might prevent the crises from spreading or getting worse.

Deputies routinely prepare the ground ahead of meetings by top officials. A European source said G7 finance ministers and central bankers from the largest developed economies would confer by telephone later on Saturday or on Sunday.

Fears of a global recession have increased in the wake of this week's sell-off in financial markets and Standard & Poor's decision to cut the U.S. long-term credit rating for the first time.

(Reporting by Isabel Versiani)

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Sanders, Sharpe, Faulk, Dent enter Hall of Fame

CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Prime Time has come to Canton — with an extra touch of gold. And a black do-rag.

Deion Sanders strutted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday night sporting a pair of gold shoes to go with the gold jacket emblematic of the special company he has become a part of.

At the end of his riveting acceptance speech, he placed his ubiquitous do-rag on his hall bust.

Neon Deion indeed.

"This game," Sanders repeated dozens of times, "this game taught me how to be a man. This game taught me if I get knocked down, I got to get my butt back up.

"I always had a rule in life that I would never love anything that couldn't love me back. It taught me how to be a man, how to get up, how to live in pain. Taught me so much about people, timing, focus, dedication, submitting oneself, sacrificing.

"If your dream ain't bigger than you, there's a problem with your dream."

Sanders joined Marshall Faulk in entering the hall in their first year of eligibility. Shannon Sharpe, Richard Dent, Chris Hanburger, Les Richter and Ed Sabol also were enshrined before an enthusiastic crowd of 13,300 — much lower than the usual turnout. With Sunday's Hall of Fame game a victim of the 4?-month NFL lockout, Fawcett Stadium was half full.

Not that Sanders needs a big audience.

The dynamic cornerback and kick returner ran off a list of people who influenced him as smoothly as he ran past opponents, whether running back kicks or interceptions — or even catching passes when he appeared as a wide receiver, or dashing around the bases in the major leagues, including one World Series appearance.

He spoke of promising his mother she could stop working in a hospital when he became a success, and of how he created the Prime Time image at Florida State — then turned it into a persona.

A Hall of Fame persona.

"What separates us is that we expect to be great," he said. "I expect to be great, I expect to do what had to be done. I expect to make change."

Just as Sharpe expected to change his life as a kid who went to college with two brown grocery bags filled with his belongings.

When Sharpe headed to Savannah State, all he heard was how he was destined to fail.

"When people told me I'd never make it, I listened to the one person who said I could: me," Sharpe said.

Failure? Sharpe went from a seventh-round draft pick to the most prolific tight end of his time. He won two Super Bowls with Denver and one with Baltimore, and at the time of his retirement in 2003, his 815 career receptions, 10,060 yards and 62 TDs were all NFL records for a tight end. Three times he went over 1,000 yards receiving in a season — almost unheard of for that position. In a 1993 playoff game, Sharpe had 13 catches against Oakland, tying a record.

Sharpe patted his bust on the head Saturday before saying, "All these years later, it makes me proud when people call me a self-made man."

In a captivating acceptance speech, Sharpe passionately made a pitch to get his brother, Sterling, who played seven years with the Packers, considered for election to the shrine. Sterling, who introduced his younger brother for induction, wept as Shannon praised him.

"I am the only player who has been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and am the second-best player in my family," Sharpe said.

"I am so honored. You don't know what this means for me. This is the fraternity of all fraternities."

Faulk was the running back of running backs for much of his 12-season career.

As versatile and dangerous a backfield threat as the NFL has seen, Faulk was voted the NFL's top offensive player in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and was the NFL's MVP in 2000. He was the league's scoring leader in 2000 and '01, made seven Pro Bowls, and was the first player to gain 2,000 yards from scrimmage in four consecutive years.

The second overall draft pick in 1994, when Faulk was offensive rookie of the year, he played five seasons in Indianapolis, then his final seven for St. Louis, helping the Rams to their only Super Bowl victory in 1999.

Through tears, Faulk said, "Boy this is pretty special. ... I am glad to be a part of it. This is football heaven.

"I am a football fan just like all of you," Faulk told the crowd. "I have always, always been a fan and had an abiding passion and love and respect for this game of football, even when I was a kid selling popcorn in the Superdome because I couldn't afford a ticket.

"It's tough going from the projects to the penthouse."

Dent was a dynamic pass rusher on one of the NFL's greatest defenses, the 1985 NFL champions. He was the MVP of that Super Bowl and finished with 137? career sacks, third all-time when he left the sport.

He epitomized the Monsters of the Midway: fast, fierce and intimidating.

"Richard was like a guided missile," Joe Gilliam, Dent's college coach, said during his introduction.

"You must dream and you must be dedicated to something in your life," added Dent, who asked everyone in the audience to rise in applause for Gilliam, then thanked dozens of people, including many from the '85 Bears who also were in the stadium. He saved his highest praise for the late Walter Payton.

"When you have dreams, it is very tough to say you can do everything by yourself," Dent said. "It's all about other people."

Sabol made a life out of telling other people's stories.

An aspiring filmmaker, Sabol approached Commissioner Pete Rozelle offering to double the rights fee for filming the 1962 NFL championship game between the Packers and Giants. Rozelle accepted the $3,000 and a wildly successful marriage was formed.

Seated in a wheelchair, the 94-year-old Sabol said he "dreamt the impossible dream, and I'm living it right at this minute."

"This honor tonight really goes to NFL Films, I just happen to be accepting all the accolades," Sabol added.

Sabol's son, Steve, who replaced him as president of the company, introduced his father, about whom he said, "My sisters used to say my dad was two stooges short of a good routine. He loved to entertain."

Hanburger called his induction "one of the greatest moments in my life and I mean that from my heart. I am just overwhelmed by this."

Hanburger never let his job with the Redskins overwhelm him. He was the signal-caller for George Allen's intricate defenses in Washington, which included dozens of formations.

He also was a physical player. Nicknamed "The Hangman," Hanburger stood out for one violent move he practically patented in 14 seasons with the Redskins: the clothesline tackle, which eventually was outlawed.

A senior committee nominee, Hanburger made nine Pro Bowls in his 14 seasons, although he never won a championship. The linebacker's knack for finding the ball helped him to 19 interceptions and three fumble returns for TDs, a league mark when he retired after the 1978 season.

Hanburger stared into the face of his bust before saying induction is "something that I never gave a thought to."

Richter, who died last year, also was a senior nominee. He played nine seasons for the Los Angeles Rams, who acquired him in 1954 for 11 players after he was the second overall draft pick.

Richter served two years in the military, then became one of the most rugged defenders in the NFL. He made eight straight Pro Bowls while also seeing time at center and as a placekicker for part of his career. He retired in 1962 and went on to a successful career in motor sports.

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Police shooting sparks London riots (6-Aug-11)(NWO SOCIETY series - Civil Unrest)

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Somali government declares Islamist rebellion defeated

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said on Saturday his military had defeated Islamist rebels battling to overthrow his Western-backed government after the al Shabaab group began withdrawing fighters from the capital Mogadishu.

Rejecting Ahmed's claim to have quashed al Shabaab's four-year insurgency, the militants' spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, said their retreat was tactical only and they were holding their positions elsewhere in the anarchic country.

A 9,000-strong African peacekeeping force and Somali government forces had been steadily wresting control of rubble-strewn Mogadishu from the militants this year. Al Shabaab's pullout followed a string of fierce gun battles late on Friday.

Somalia has been without effective central government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre 20 years ago.

Al Shabaab's retreat from the Somali capital Mogadishu signals an acceptance it cannot militarily defeat a government propped up by foreign muscle and firepower, but raises the specter of an escalation in al Qaeda-inspired raids.

Winning Mogadishu might expand the government's prison capital a little, but it is unlikely to bring any tangible peace to the rest of the Horn of Africa country.

"It was not the strength of al Shabaab that kept them in Mogadishu for so long, it was the incompetence and weakness of the (Somali government)," said Afyare Elmi, a professor at Qatar University's International Affairs department.

"I'm worried the (government) may not be able to step into the vacated areas and other clan militia step in. The challenge ... is to expand into these areas and install law and order."

President Ahmed urged those who had fled their homes not to rush back to the city neighborhoods now empty of militants until they had been cleared of explosives. The government said the rebels had retreated as far as 100 km (62 miles) from the capital.

"The Somali government welcomes the success attained by the Somali government forces backed by AMISOM who defeated the enemy of al Shabaab," Ahmed told a news conference at his residence.

Al Shabaab has never previously entirely left Mogadishu, raising questions over whether deep rifts among the al Qaeda-affiliated group's senior commanders had finally led to a split.

One faction prefers a more nationalist Somali agenda and wants to impose a harsh Islamic programme on the nation. Another more international wing aims to promote Jihad (holy war) and is bent on overthrowing a government they see as a Western stooge as well as forging closer ties with regional al Qaeda cells.

This faction had gained clout with the influx of foreign fighters. Those divisions became sharper as a series of military offensives in Mogadishu exacted a heavy toll on the rebels.

One rebel told Reuters the divisions had seen each side retreat from Mogadishu separately over the past few days, culminating in a massive exit by the rebels on Friday night.

THE FIGHT CONTINUES

"We understand there is disagreement among their top leaders," Farhan Ali, who lives in what was an al Shabaab controlled neighborhood, told Reuters. "They were not displaced by force."

Similar sentiments were expressed by Somalis with links to al Shabaab in other parts of the country, including in the southern port city of Kismayu, the nerve center of al Shabaab's operations in the south of the country.

"We have abandoned Mogadishu but we remain in other towns," Rage said on the al Shabaab-run Andalus radio station.

"We aren't leaving you, but we have changed our tactics. Everyone of you will feel the change in every corner and every street in Mogadishu. We will defend you and continue the fighting," Rage said.

Witnesses said convoys of al Shabaab "technicals" -- open-top 4x4s mounted with machine guns -- headed south from Mogadishu toward the al Shabaab-controlled town of Baidoa, 250 km southwest of the capital.

"I saw 50 armed al Shabaab vehicles heading toward Baidoa shortly after morning prayers," Aweys Sharif said by telephone from the town of Afgoye, 30 km south of Mogadishu.

Residents in Mogadishu's northern districts watched from the streets as the rebel fighters, many covering their faces with masks, left with the families.

"Today is a different day. We never dared watch them and their families like this. But still we are afraid to enter their bases. We cannot dance or rejoice yet," said Ali.

(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by James Macharia and Sophie Hares)

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