Kids Outlets

LONDON (AFP) –
Climate change minister Ed Miliband Sunday blamed China for blocking an accord on legally-binding emissions targets and a 50 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2050 at the Copenhagen summit.

Miliband admitted the results of the Copenhagen conference were "disappointing" but insisted that important progress was made in the fight against global warming.

"We got a lot of commitments, not just from developed countries, but developing countries like China and India as well," he told Sky News.

"The eventual outcome was disappointing. The most important reason actually is not so much to do with the commitments -- because there are actually quite important and good commitments on emissions and finances -- but on the issue of it becoming legally binding."

Efforts to give legal backing to the commitments in the Copenhagen accord met with "impossible resistance from a small number of developing countries, including China, who didn't want a legal agreement," he said.

"If leading countries hold out against something like 'legally binding' or against the 2050 target of 50 percent reductions in carbon emissions -- which was held out against by countries like China -- you are not going to get the agreement you want."

When asked about accusations that the watered-down agreement reached at the UN conference failed to protect poor people in developing countries, Miliband said: "The alternatives were no agreement or the agreement we have.

"The fact is that we have got fast-start finance of 10 billion dollars a year flowing as a result of this agreement.

"We have got important cuts for rich and developing countries in their emissions. We won't know the precise shape of them until the beginning of February and we are going to have to push for them to be higher.

"But the idea that walking away from agreement would have been better for people facing climate change is frankly ridiculous."

He added: "Even though there were things we didn't achieve, the fact is we have got for the first time developing countries coming together and saying that they are going to reduce emissions and the finance is flowing."

WOLVERHAMPTON, England (AFP) –
Wolverhampton Wanderers climbed out of the Premier League relegation zone with a 2-0 win at home to Burnley on Sunday that helped manager Mick McCarthy justify his selection policy.

Goals from Nenad Milijas and Kevin Doyle helped guide Wolves to a fifth league win of the season as the Midlands club finished a controversial week in fine style by moving up six places in the table.

McCarthy had been widely criticised for his line-up during a 3-0 away defeat by champions Manchester United on Tuesday.

At Old Trafford, McCarthy changed all 10 outfield players from the side that beat Tottenham the previous weekend, with American goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann the only survivor.

It was a move that led to condemnation from rival managers such as Arsenal's Arsene Wenger, who effectively accused McCarthy of damaging the integrity of the league and the potential outcome of the title race.

Wolves fans were far from impressed either, chanting: "What a waste of money, Where is our first team" and "Forty quid to watch the reserves".

However, McCarthy said afterwards: "I can understand the supporters' reaction but at the end of the season I will be judged on whether Wolves have stayed in the Premier League or not."

Milijas put Wolves in front in the 15th minute at Molineux.

The hard-working Doyle dispossessed Clark Carlisle and he then set up Matt Jarvis, whose shot was parried by Burnley goalkeeper Brian Jensen.

But Milijas reacted quickest and sidefooted in on the follow-up.

Doyle, Wolves' record signing at 6.5 million pounds, doubled the hosts' lead in the 50th minute when, after Jody Craddock floated a long ball forward, he held off the challenge of Steven Caldwell and fired past Jensen.

Defeat meant Burnley had gone seven games without a win.

WASHINGTON – The White House is defending President Barack Obama's stand in support of health care legislation amid concern from liberals that Obama is giving up too much to get a deal done.
Senior presidential adviser David Axelrod said the legislation that Democrats in the Senate are poised to pass on Christmas Eve matches the goals that Obama has set.
He said those include affordable choices for people without health insurance and more protections for people who already have coverage. But the Senate bill does not include a government-run insurance option, and a proposed expansion of Medicare has also been scrapped.
Axelrod said no major law in the nation's history has been passed without compromise.
He spoke Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

CENTURION, South Africa (AFP) –
England lost two wickets before lunch as they battled to avoid defeat on the fifth and final day of the first Test against South Africa at SuperSport Park on Sunday.

England, set 364 to win, were 77 for three at lunch.

They scored only 66 runs for the loss of two wickets in 28 overs during the morning and it seemed clear that survival, rather than seeking an improbable win, was the objective.

Only Kevin Pietersen showed any aggressive intent. He was on 29 not out off 49 balls at lunch.

Pietersen and Jonathan Trott, who laboured to 18 not out off 75 balls, notched a half-century partnership for the fourth wicket in the last over before lunch.

England lost nightwatchman James Anderson in the third over of the day when he gloved Friedel de Wet down the legside to wicketkeeper Mark Boucher.

Alastair Cook defended resolutely for 79 minutes and 56 balls, scoring 12 runs, before he too was caught off a glove, when a ball from left-arm spinner Paul Harris went to Graeme Smith at leg gully off his glove and pad.

After an early four-over spell by De Wet, Harris and JP Duminy bowled from the West Lane end, while Smith rotated his three fast bowlers in short spells from the Hennops River end from which there had been unpredictable bounce for much of the match.

There was no undue assistance for the quicker men, however, and Smith brought on Harris for the last over before lunch from that end.

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
Beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as in the measurements between the eyes, mouth and ears of the woman being observed, US and Canadian researchers have found.

In four experiments aimed at finding "an ideal facial feature arrangement," US and Canadian researchers asked students to compare color photographs of the same woman's face, in which the vertical distance between the eyes and mouth, and horizontal distance between the eyes, had been doctored using Photoshop.

The features -- eyes, mouth, nose, contour and hair -- remained the same and a woman's face was only compared to her own, never to another's.

Students looked at different pictures of the same woman's face laid out side by side and selected the face they found more attractive.

In all four experiments, they chose the faces with specific proportions that the researchers have dubbed the "new golden ratio."

Two of the experiments tested for the ideal distance between the eyes and mouth as compared to total face length, measured from the hairline to the chin. Both came up with 36 percent as the golden ratio for "the maximally attractive face."

The other two experiments measured both the ideal length and width ratios.

They both confirmed 36 percent as the golden ratio for the length of the maximally attractive face, and 46 percent as the ideal width ratio -- where the distance between the eyes is 46 percent of total face width, measured between the inner edges of the ears.

Happily, the 36/46 percent ratios "correspond with those of an average face," the study said, meaning there's no pressing need to get out the measuring tape and calculator or to rush to the plastic surgeon.

In fact, there are easy, non-invasive ways to trick beholders into thinking a woman's face is "maximally attractive," says the study, published in Vision Research.

Changing the hairstyle, is one example.

"Our study... explains why sometimes an attractive person looks unattractive or vice versa after a haircut, because hairdos change the ratios," said Kang Lee, a professor at the University of Toronto and one of the lead authors of the study.

Lee also told AFP that the researchers studied the faces of a few celebrities.

"Angelina Jolie does not have golden length and width ratios," he said.

"Elizabeth Hurley gets the golden ratio for length but is different from the width golden ratio by one percent."

But Canadian country pop musician Shania Twain has "both the length and width ratios."

The study looked only at white women. More research is needed to determine if the golden ratios for men's faces, the faces of people of other races, and children's faces, are the same as for the women's faces in the study.

A look at economic developments and activity in major stock markets around the world Friday:
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LONDON — The British government's growing budget deficit blew out by an additional 20.3 billion pounds ($33 billion) in November, the largest monthly figure since records began in 1993.
The figure was not as bad as the 23 billion pounds feared by economists.
The Office for National Statistics said the shortfall was up from 15.5 billion pounds in the same month a year earlier, pushing national debt to 60.2 percent of economic output.
Brown and Treasury chief Alistair Darling have resisted calls for tougher steps such as deep spending cuts or tax increases to curb government borrowing. They say the need to support Britain's tentative economic recovery outweighs immediate desires to reduce the deficit.
Darling has instead pledged to halve the deficit — which has reached 83.2 million pounds so far this year — over the next four years.
In markets, European stocks reversed earlier gains as a number of investors began to shut up shop for the Christmas holiday by booking profits built up over the last nine months. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares closed down 0.4 percent, Germany's DAX fell 0.2 percent and the CAC-40 in France fell 1 percent.
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TOKYO — Japan's central bank said it was crucial for the country to beat deflation and it would not accept continued price declines.
Bank of Japan policy members also voted unanimously to hold its key interest rate unchanged at 0.1 percent, as widely expected, to support a recovery in the world's No. 2 economy.
The central bank's statement on deflation came after pressure from the government for a more proactive stance.
In Asian trading, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average fell 0.2 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.8 percent, South Korea's Kospi eased 0.1 percent, Australia's index dropped 0.4 percent and China's Shanghai market lost 2.1 percent.
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ATHENS, Greece — Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said the country's tax system will be overhauled by early March to broaden the tax base, boost revenues and fight tax evasion as part of efforts to pull Greece out of an economic crisis.
Athens is facing its worst debt crisis in decades and has come under intense European Union pressure to straighten out its finances and comply with deficit limits intended to support the shared euro currency.
The government announced a raft of measures this week to reduce Greece's mountain of public debt by 2012 and gradually bring the budget deficit — projected at 12.7 percent for 2009 — to below the European Union's euro-zone requirement of 3 percent of GDP by the end of 2013.
Papaconstantinou did not give any new details of the planned reforms and told a news conference that the government was aiming to introduce a new tax law in Parliament in early March.

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BERLIN — German business confidence rose for a ninth consecutive month in December as Europe's biggest economy continued to recover steadily from its worst recession in decades, a leading survey showed.

The Ifo business climate index rose to 94.7 points — its highest level since July 2008 — from 93.9 points in November. The increase was modestly higher than market expectations and stoked hopes that the recovery is on track.

The Ifo index is based around 7,000 monthly survey responses from firms in manufacturing, construction, wholesaling and retailing. Its long-run average stands at just below 96.

Overall, Ifo indicated that firms are more positive about their current situation.

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LONDON — The trade surplus with the rest of the world in the 16 countries that use the euro rose massively in October as imports fell and exports remained at recent high levels — despite the ongoing strength in the euro.

The figures provide further evidence that the eurozone is benefiting from recovering global demand as its leading export markets emerge from recession.

But the figures also show that the economies at home in Europe remain weak. The fall in imports suggest that consumers remain reluctant to spend.

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BRUSSELS — Income for farmers in the European Union fell 12.2 percent this year, largely in line with a drop in food prices.

The EU said Friday that income fell most in Hungary, by 35.6 percent — where the Hungarian forint has slid in value against neighboring nations — followed by Italy with 25.3 percent.

Among the major EU nations, income fell by 19.8 percent in France and by 21 percent in Germany, but rose 14.3 percent in Britain. The weakening of the British pound against the euro has made British products less expensive for buyers in Europe and Britain.

Farmers throughout the EU have protested this year a crash in food prices, demanding more subsidies and aid to make their exports more attractive.

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HELSINKI — Finland's economy will shrink 7.6 percent this year, its worst performance in more than 50 years, the government said.

The Finance Ministry had earlier predicted a 6 percent drop in GDP in the small Nordic economy severely hit by the recession because of its dependence on exports.

But the ministry said the worst is over.

WASHINGTON – The tip came from another country's law enforcement officials: Eight major banks in the U.S. were being targeted by cybercriminals operating there.
FBI agents fanned out that night to warn the branches that hackers were aiming to break into their computer systems. The banks were able to spot the attempted breaches, and block them, FBI officials said.
Concerned about the rise in this type of sophisticated computer attack from abroad, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service are beefing up their international cybercrime enforcement, sending agents who specialize in the threats overseas to specifically deal with digital perils.
Their growing coordination with other nations, however, faces legal and political challenges posed by conflicting laws and the lack of broadly accepted international guidelines for Internet oversight.
"With the increased connectivity in countries that heretofore didn't have that amount of access, and the technological advances made in corporate America that have put vulnerable financial information online, it's been the perfect storm," said Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division.
So far, Henry said, the FBI has set up new cybercrime offices in four countries, including Romania, Estonia and the Netherlands, and is hoping to add two or three more over the next year. Henry would not name the fourth country.
The cybercrime specialists operate in addition to the 61 legal attache offices the FBI has overseas.
"We've gotten so many requests (for help in overseas cases) that we actually have started to embed FBI personnel into the national police agencies of a number of countries," Henry said.
The U.S. Secret Service, meanwhile, is setting up an electronic crimes task force office in Rome, and adding a field office in Tallinn, Estonia, a country that suffered a major cyberattack in the spring of 2007.
While the Secret Service declined to discuss specific staffing, the agency now includes some computer training for all of its 3,400 agents. About a third of the total gets digital forensics and investigative training.
According to FBI data, the number of international cybercrime cases opened by the bureau leaped from a handful in the 2001 fiscal year to about 300 in the year ending Sept. 30, 2008. During the same period, the number of leads received by the FBI involving overseas cybercrime shot up from about 570 in 2001 to roughly 2,120 in 2008.
The cases involve an array of cyberthreats, intrusions and denial of Internet service attacks, but do not reflect the many other crimes that could involve the use of a computer, such as sending threats electronically or fraudulent wire transfers.
Jim Meehan, assistant to the special agent in charge of the Secret Service's cyber section, said the breadth and sophistication of the crimes is dramatically expanding.
He pointed to the case of Albert Gonzalez, the 28-year-old hacker who — along with two Russian co-conspirators — was indicted in connection with a scam to steal tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers by breaching the computer systems of TJX Cos., BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market and others.
Hackers in one country often attack a bank on another continent by routing their breach through armies of infected computers in various nations, linked together in what is called a botnet.
The owners of the infected computers often don't know their laptop is under someone else's control.
Law enforcement officials and analysts say many countries — particularly underdeveloped nations — don't yet have laws covering cybercrime. Others have laws against activities such as free speech, that the U.S. does not consider illegal.
As an example, legal charges against a Filipino student who unleashed the "Love Bug" computer virus back in 2000 were dismissed in part because there were no laws in the Philippines that applied to computer hacking. The virus crippled computer e-mail systems worldwide and caused billions of dollars in damages.

According to officials, countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and South America — including Nigeria, Brazil, Ukraine, and until recently Romania — have become burgeoning sanctuaries for hackers because of weak law enforcement.

Ulf Bergstrom, spokesman for the European Network and Information Security Agency, based on the Greek island of Crete, agreed that "we need at least to establish common privacy definitions and minimum standards so that you can effectively combat criminals."

So far, only 26 countries have ratified the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime, an agreement to define, enforce and prosecute computer crimes and cooperate with other nations, including in extradition.

Another 20 countries have signed the agreement, but not yet ratified it. And critics say a key problem is that the nations where cybercriminals operate freely are not among those participating in the agreement. In one key split, the U.S. refused to sign an addendum defining racist of xenophobic acts committed via the computer as crimes, arguing that it conflicted with free speech rights.

"Probably the most important challenge they're going to have to address is that there is not a common definition of what a crime is in cyberspace," said former White House cyber coordinator Melissa Hathaway, who directed the 60-day cybersecurity review ordered by President Barack Obama earlier this year.

Still, enforcement officials say they see signs that the expanding reach of U.S. law enforcement abroad is already having some impact.

"The underground knows that we're reaching across the ocean. They know that now, and that to me is equally important because that has a deterrent effect," said the FBI's Henry.

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Associated Press Writer Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

FBI Cyber Investigations: http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/cyberhome.htm

U.S. Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Forces: http://www.secretservice.gov/ectf.shtml

A business broker is a person or firm who/which acts as an intermediary between sellers and buyers of small businesses.

Agency relationships in business ownership transactions involve the representation by a business broker (on behalf of a brokerage company) of the selling principal, whether that person is a buyer or a seller. The principal broker (and his/her agents) then become the agent/s of the principal, who is the broker’s client. The other party in the transaction, who does not have an agency relationship with the broker, is the broker's customer.

Business Broker

WASHINGTON – A State Department employee was put on probation for a year for accessing more than 125 confidential passport applications of celebrities.
Kevin Young, of Temple Hills, Md., is the eighth current or former State Department employee or contractor to plead guilty in an ongoing criminal investigation of unlawfully accessing confidential passport files.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay also ordered the 42-year-old Young, who worked for the past eight years in the Passport Special Issuance Agency, to perform 100 hours of community service. Young pleaded guilty Aug. 17 to unauthorized computer access, a misdemeanor.

Men's chemises may be said to survive as the common T-shirt, which still serves as an undergarment. The chemise also morphed into the smock-frock, a garment worn by English laborers until the early 20th century. Its loose cut and wide sleeves were well adapted to heavy labor. The name smock is nowadays still used for military combat jackets in the UK, whereas in the Belgian army the term has been corrupted to smoke-vest.

The word corset came into general use in the English language in 1785. The word was used in "The Ladies Magazine" to describe a "quilted waistcoat" called un corset by the French. The word was used to differentiate the lighter corset from the heavier stays of the period.

BBW Lingerie

Disability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities." An individual may also qualify as disabled if he/she has had an impairment in the past or is seen as disabled based on a personal or group standard or norm. Such impairments may include physical, sensory, and cognitive or intellectual impairments. Mental disorders (also known as psychiatric or psychosocial disability) and various types of chronic disease may also be considered qualifying disabilities. A disability may occur during a person's lifetime or may be present from birth.

The disability rights movement, led by individuals with disabilities, began in the 1970s. This self-advocacy is often seen as largely responsible for the shift toward independent living and accessibility. The term "Independent Living" was taken from 1959 California legislation which enabled people who had acquired a disability due to polio to leave hospital wards and move back into the community with the help of cash benefits for the purchase of personal assistance with the activities of daily living. With its origins in the U.S. civil rights and consumer movements of the late 1960s, the movement and its philosophy have since spread to other continents influencing self-perception, organization and social policy.

Stair Lifts

Florida Life Insurance

* Expatriate insurance provides individuals and organizations operating outside of their home country with protection for automobiles, property, health, liability and business pursuits.

* Life insurance provides a monetary benefit to a decedent's family or other designated beneficiary, and may specifically provide for income to an insured person's family, burial, funeral and other final expenses. Life insurance policies often allow the option of having the proceeds paid to the beneficiary either in a lump sum cash payment or an annuity.
o Annuities provide a stream of payments and are generally classified as insurance because they are issued by insurance companies and regulated as insurance and require the same kinds of actuarial and investment management expertise that life insurance requires. Annuities and pensions that pay a benefit for life are sometimes regarded as insurance against the possibility that a retiree will outlive his or her financial resources. In that sense, they are the complement of life insurance and, from an underwriting perspective, are the mirror image of life insurance.

MANCHESTER, England (AFP) –
Michael Owen insists he is happy to let his goals do the talking as he waits to find out whether his first Champions League hat-trick in six years caught the eye of England coach Fabio Capello.

The Italian has made it clear Owen will not be going to the World Cup finals next year unless he is playing and scoring regularly for United.

The chances of that happening have increased in the wake of Owen's three goals in the 3-1 win over German champions Wolfsburg on Tuesday, but the striker was reluctant to speculate publicly on his chances of forcing his way into Capello's plans.

"I have never liked talking about myself too much, I always prefer to talk about the team," the 29-year-old said after following up a header and a far-post tap-in with one of his trademark dinked finishes at the end of a break from the half-way line.

"It is nice to score a hat-trick and the last one was probably the best but you can't do something like that without the team playing really well," Owen added.

"A big credit must go out to the other lads, especially in defence given we had so many injuries."

Owen has scored 40 goals in 89 appearances for England. But he has not been picked by Capello since the Italian's second game in charge, a 1-0 friendly defeat by France in Paris in March 2008.

With Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov ahead of him at United, he remains an outside bet to be one of the four strikers Capello plans to take to South Africa.

Rooney is an automatic choice and Capello has made it clear he regards Emile Heskey as the most effective partner for England's leading forward.

Provided they both remain fit and Heskey gets enough game time with Aston Villa, that leaves Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Darren Bent and possibly Owen and Gabriel Agbonlahor competing for the other two places.

Owen however is confident that he will get further chances to make his case to Capello.

"I am enjoying playing for Manchester United," he added. "There are only a few teams that you can play in and expect to get chances. This is one of them.

"Scoring them is a different matter. As everyone knows, scoring goals is probably the hardest thing to do in the game.

"But given the quality you are playing alongside and the amount of chances you do get, it is easier here than at most clubs."

Owen has now scored seven goals since his unexpected move to Old Trafford before the start of the season and United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was delighted with the most significant return yet on his decision to snap up the striker at the end of four injury-plagued years at Newcastle.

"Michael Owen is one of the best strikers in the last third of the field in terms of his movement, his positional play and also in terms of his finishing," Ferguson said.

Computer software is often regarded as anything but hardware, meaning that the "hard" are the parts that are tangible while the "soft" part is the intangible objects inside the computer. Software encompasses an extremely wide array of products and technologies developed using different techniques like programming languages, scripting languages or even microcode or a FPGA state. The types of software include web pages developed by technologies like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice, Microsoft Word developed by technologies like C, C++, Java, C#, etc. Software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as the Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software also includes video games and the logic systems of modern consumer devices such as automobiles, televisions, toasters, etc.

The term "software" was first used in this sense by John W. Tukey in 1958. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all computer programs. The theory that is the basis for most modern software was first proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.

http://www.csisoftwareusa.com/

MUMBAI (AFP) –
Ever since his arrest in Chicago in October, India has been gripped by the case of David Headley, a Pakistani-American man who is alleged to have helped plan last year's deadly attacks on Mumbai.

The plot, according to the media in India, reads like a movie thriller: a well-built fitness fanatic and white, Muslim convert befriends Bollywood stars, using an alias and visa business as cover as he scouts out possible targets.

He then reports back in coded emails to shadowy Pakistani agents directing operations, preparing for the high-profile strike that would kill 166 people, including 25 foreigners, sending shockwaves around the world.

With Headley now facing charges in the United States, Indian security analysts believe the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) could have found the vital missing link to the November 26 attacks on India's financial capital.

The question about whether the 10 heavily-armed gunmen had specialist help to land undetected by sea and strike their targets with such precision has been posed ever since the attacks.

"Just knowing the US system, it's profoundly unlikely that they would have charged him (Headley) without material evidence," terrorism analyst Praveen Swami told AFP.

"There's a mass of evidence that suggests he did go around Mumbai collecting information," added Swami, associate editor at The Hindu newspaper.

Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Institute of Conflict Management, agreed, suggesting Headley assumed "a very significant role" in the attacks.

The US Department of Justice said Headley made five trips to Mumbai from September 2006 to July 2008, "each time taking pictures and making videotapes of various targets, including those attacked in November 2008".

During those trips he reportedly befriended the gym instructor son of a Bollywood director, met a top actor and dated an actress, staying in an expat enclave in south Mumbai near the US Consulate so as not to arouse suspicion.

He is also said to have stayed at one of the targets -- the luxury Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel -- and posed as a Jew to get detailed plans of the inside of a Jewish cultural and religious centre that was also stormed.

Some reports suggested the Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat, who allegedly changed his name from Daood Gilani, also travelled to other cities and the resort state of Goa to set up sleeper cells.

Sahni said the charges against Headley -- plus a Pakistan-born Canadian and a retired Pakistan army major -- highlights not only the involvement of the banned Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) but its links to state actors.

"It's never been so clear," added Sahni, who is also editor of the South Asia Intelligence Review.

"If you put it in front of an American court and it stands up to scrutiny, then we have got something that we never had against Pakistan before.

"Everyone knows what Pakistan is doing. The whole game of deniability is no longer credible. This is something that will put more pressure on Pakistan than any other single development."

But both experts suggested the charges against Headley, who has told the FBI that he had been working with the LeT since before 2006, could raise questions about the supposed role played by two Indians on trial in Mumbai.

The two men, who are standing trial alongside the lone surviving gunman, are accused of also being key planners behind the attacks.

"Headley appears to be far more central to the conspiracy than any of these others," Sahni said.

WASHINGTON — With eight years of blood and treasure already spent and perhaps his presidency hanging in the balance, President Barack Obama will tell the world Tuesday how he'll escalate the war in Afghanistan — and how he hopes his risky decision will lead finally to a path home for U.S. forces.

The stakes of his decision — ordered into effect at 5 p.m. Sunday in the Oval Office — are enormous, and the challenges of making it work are daunting. He'll speak at 8 p.m. EST Tuesday from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Perhaps his toughest task will be balancing his plan to send 30,000 to 35,000 more American troops with talk of new benchmarks for success and the strong signal that U.S. troops will turn over Afghanistan's security to Afghan forces and get out.

His expected talk on the end of the war is meant to spark Afghans to take charge of their own country — and to soothe anti-war Democrats here. Yet it also could suggest to the enemies that all they have to do is wait out an impatient United States , and to Pakistan , Iran , India and others that the U.S. lacks the stomach for a protracted battle.

Beyond that, he has to explain how his new plan can root out the Taliban , deny al Qaida and its allies a sanctuary, straighten out a corrupt Afghan government so people have an alternative to the Taliban and get neighboring Pakistan to fight terrorists that have fled there.

He also has to do it all while making sure that the tinderbox region isn't further inflamed by a belligerent Iran defiantly ramping up nuclear plans, a resurgence of ethnic and religious violence in Iraq or a growing Islamist insurgency in nuclear-armed Pakistan .

"It's probably the most important decision in his career," said Karin Von Hippel , a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies , a center-right research center in Washington . "There are so many moving parts that need to be aligned. ...I think we can do it, but it's a huge challenge."

Obama on Sunday summoned the members of his top military and security team to the White House to give them the final go-ahead on his plan. As McClatchy first reported on Nov. 7 , it would bolster the current 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan with another 30,000 to 35,000, to be deployed starting early next year.

The first, officials told McClatchy , will be a brigade of Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C. , followed by Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. , and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y.

After meeting with top officials from the Pentagon and White House staff, Obama spoke with Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal later Sunday evening via teleconference from the White House Situation Room . It was McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan , who requested additional troops to institute a new counterinsurgency strategy that would fight the Taliban while shoring up the Afghan government and Afghan forces.

As part of that, Obama will announce a planned expansion of the Afghan army to 240,000 and the Afghan police to 160,000 by October 2013 .

Obama will acknowledge the added costs of escalating the war, telling the country there are "limits on our resources, both from a manpower perspective and a budgetary perspective," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday.

While calling for a larger army, Obama may leave out details of how he'd pay the financial cost of the escalation. Gibbs said the White House hadn't discussed a proposal from several liberal Democrats in Congress to impose an income tax surtax to pay for the escalation.

"I know the president will touch on costs. I don't expect to get overly detailed in the speech tomorrow," Gibbs said.

Obama also wants more help from NATO allies. He'll ask for another 7,000 to 10,000 NATO troops, which would come atop the 36,230 already there from U.S. allies, according to the NATO-International Security Assistance Force Web site.

He spoke Monday with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy , both NATO members.

Brown said Monday that his country would send an additional 500 troops, raising the British total to 9,500, according to the NATO-ISAF Web site. "The extra troops will deploy in early December to thicken the U.K. troop presence in central Helmand," Brown told Parliament.

Sarkozy said that France would keep its 3,095 troops in Afghanistan until the country was "pacified and sovereign." He didn't say whether France would send more troops.

Obama also met at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and spoke by phone with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev .

Despite the buildup, Obama will strive to assure a country that no longer supports the war that this is not another Vietnam , where President Lyndon Johnson kept escalating the war without success.

"You will hear the president discuss clearly that this is not open-ended," Gibbs said. "This is about what has to be done in order to ensure that the Afghans can assume the responsibility of securing their country."

Thus, Obama again will have benchmarks for success, for measuring how well the Afghan government is cleaning itself up and how well the fight against the Taliban is going. With the escalation of troops spread out — 5,000 additional troops per quarter, according to U.S. military officials _the president will have the option of maintaining that buildup or changing course.

Obama also will talk about Pakistan , and his hopes that better relations with the government will lead it to crack down on the Taliban and other terrorist groups within its borders. Many fled Afghanistan to hide out in Pakistan . Growing political tensions in Pakistan threaten the stability of the regime there.

"A good portion of the president's speech ... will discuss our relationship with Pakistan ," Gibbs said.

"This is all part of what has to be a partnership. ... Without partners that are willing to do stuff in both Afghanistan and Pakistan , no number of American troops can solve all of those problems unless or until those steps are taken inside both of those countries where we see a change in the security situation."

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee had a hand pardoning or commuting many more prisoners than his three immediate predecessors combined. Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in Sunday's slaying of four Seattle-area police officers, was among them.
For a politician considering another run for the White House, Clemmons could become Huckabee's Willie Horton.
"In a primary between a law-and-order Republican and him, I think it could definitely be a vulnerability," said Art English, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. "It is very damaging when you have someone like that whose sentence was commuted. That's pretty high profile and very devastating and very tragic."
English said it's hard to avoid comparing the case to Horton, a convicted killer who raped a woman and assaulted her fiance while on release as part of a prison furlough program supported by Michael Dukakis when he was governor of Massachusetts.
Allies of former President George H.W. Bush ran ads criticizing Dukakis for his support of the program, undermining the Democrat's presidential campaign.
As recently as Sunday, hours before the shooting suspect was linked to him, Huckabee said he was leaning against running again for president, telling "Fox News Sunday" he was "less likely rather than more likely" to run.
On Monday, Huckabee said he takes responsibility for making Clemmons eligible for parole in 2000, and called the case a failure of the justice systems in Arkansas and Washington. Huckabee cited the length of Clemmons' sentence — 108 years — and a state judge's recommendation that it be reduced as factors in his decision.
"If I could have known nine years ago that this guy was capable of something of this magnitude, obviously I would have never granted a commutation. It's sickening," Huckabee said on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor."
Clemmons was among 1,033 people who were pardoned or had their sentences reduced during Huckabee's 10 1/2 years as governor. Bill Clinton, Frank White and Jim Guy Tucker granted 507 clemencies in the 17 1/2 years they served. Beebe, Huckabee's Democratic successor, has issued 273 commutations and pardons since taking office in January 2007 — all but one of them were pardons after the completion of the inmates' prison terms.
Huckabee's role in gaining the release of a convicted rapist, Wayne DuMond, was the subject of an attack ad during his presidential run. While Huckabee's predecessor, Tucker, reduced DuMond's sentence making him eligible for parole, Huckabee took steps almost immediately after taking office to win DuMond's release.
Two members of the state parole board said Huckabee pressured them to show DuMond mercy, while Huckabee publicly questioned whether DuMond was guilty of the rape of a teenage girl. During the presidential primaries, a conservative group aired television commercials in South Carolina featuring the mother of Carol Sue Shields, whom DuMond killed in 2000 after his release.
Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley, whose office opposed Clemmons' parole in 2000 and 2004, said Huckabee created a flaw in the Arkansas justice system by freeing the number of prisoners he did.
"(Clemmons) should have stayed locked up like the jury wanted him and we wouldn't even be having this discussion," Jegley said.
"I just have been figuratively holding my breath and hoping something like this wouldn't happen," Jegley said. "I just think that a lot of the people that were subjects of clemency during that period of time were some very dangerous people who didn't need to be let out."
Clemmons also had the backing of Pulaski County Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey, who urged the board to grant clemency. Humphrey later presided over Clemmons' 2004 wedding in his court chambers.
Huckabee cited Humphrey's support Monday and noted local prosecutors didn't object to Clemmons' commutation. Jegley said his office doesn't have any record that the governor notified him of the intention to grant clemency.
Prosecutors have said Huckabee, a Southern Baptist preacher, was more inclined to release or reduce the sentences of prisoners if he had direct contact with them or was lobbied by those close to him. Clemmons' letter perhaps appealed to Huckabee's Christian faith.
In his application for clemency, Clemmons wrote that he prayed Huckabee would show him compassion and said at the time of his crimes he had just moved to Arkansas from Seattle. Clemmons also wrote that he had changed his life since "the angel of death has visited and taken away my dear sweet mother."

In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in Little Rock for aggravated robbery and other charges and sentenced to 108 years. Between 1989 and 1998, Clemmons broke prison rules more than two dozen times — sometimes violently, said state prison system spokeswoman Dina Tyler.

Clemmons didn't stay out long. He was convicted of robbery in Ouachita County in 2001, but was released again in 2004 by the parole board. Little Rock police say Clemmons also faced charges here in 2001 but prosecutors dropped the additional charges when Clemmons was released a second time.

Huckabee said Monday that Clemmons was allowed back on the street because prosecutors "failed to file the paperwork in a timely way." Jegley said the charges were dropped because the warrant wasn't served in a timely manner and because there was trouble locating witnesses to the 2001 robbery.

Jegley called Huckabee's comments "red herrings."

"My word to Mr. Huckabee is man up and own what you did," Jegley said Monday night.

Months after his 2004 release, Clemmons was named as a suspect in an aggravated robbery at a hotel in Little Rock but he was not charged.

Saline County Circuit Judge Robert Herzfeld, who as a prosecutor successfully sued Huckabee over clemency practices, said Huckabee's decision to give Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards a pardon for a 1975 traffic offense after meeting him at a concert showed how lightly the ex-governor approached the practice.

"That just said volumes about how he considered this serious ultimate power over freedom as a joke," Herzfeld said.

(This version CORRECTS Clemmons' 1989 sentence to 108 years, not 95 years.)

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