Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he doubts the U.S./Russian initiative can stop the fighting.

 The latest effort to end Syrian violence aims to bring together for the first time envoys from President Assad’s government and its opponents.

 Though Washington and Moscow back different sides in the conflict, Secretary of State Kerry said they are united in getting to a transitional government for Syria.

 ”Russia and the United States share a belief that it is extremely constructive and positive that we are working together, cooperatively, in an effort to try to implement a peaceful resolution,” said Kerry.

UN chief says time is short

 U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov must move quickly.

 ”We should not lose this momentum generated by Minister Lavrov and Secretary Kerry,” said Ban. “There is a high expectation that this meeting should be held as soon as possible.”

 But President Assad said there is confusion between a political solution and terrorism.

 ”We said from the beginning that we are prepared to talk with forces inside or outside of Syria,” said Bashar.  “We do not have a problem with that, but on condition that they do not carry weapons.  You cannot carry a weapon and enter into dialogue.”

 President Assad said his opponents are too fragmented to negotiate.  U.S. Institute of Peace analyst Steve Heydemann says Damascus is rejecting talks on issues central to the conflict.

 ”Even though they do not want to cause a rift between themselves and the Russians, they are doing everything they can to make sure that these negotiations either do not happen or that they are gamed in such a way that all of the government’s issues are defining the contents of the negotiations,” Heydemann said.

Assad refuses opposition demands

 President Assad says he will not resign.  But that remains a core demand of the main opposition group.

 ”That is not a demand that the U.S. supports” said Heydemann.  “It is not a demand that the European Union supports.  But if the coalition sticks to it, it is hard to see that this negotiation framework can ever really get off the ground.”

 Syria’s main opposition group is not meeting with Kerry on this trip to the region and has not committed to joining peace talks.

 ”We think that it is still too early to decide whether to attend because it is not clear what this conference is about,” said George Sabra, the opposition’s Syrian National Council Chairman. “Until now, there is no agenda or list of countries attending.”

 That is another problem as Russia says Iran should be included in the talks.  The United States has, in the past, opposed Iran’s involvement, but says invitations to these talks are still being worked out with the United Nations.

Source:  VOA News

 South Korea’s Defense Ministry said North Korea fired one missile on Monday morning and another in the afternoon into the East Sea - also called the Sea of Japan.

 The latest launches follow three on Saturday and one Sunday, despite calls for restraint from South Korea and other countries in the region, as well as the United Nations.

 Pyongyang on Monday rejected criticism of the missile exercises, saying that military training is the indisputable right of any sovereign nation.

 North Korea routinely test-fires short-range missiles into coastal waters. But the latest launches, which analysts say may have included rockets from a new multiple launcher, come at a time of heightened North-South tensions. Since March, Pyongyang has repeatedly threatened to attack South Korea and threatened the United States with nuclear strikes.

 The United States, Russia and the United Nations have all issued renewed calls for restraint from North Korea. A spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry called the latest weapons tests a “deplorable” provocation.

Source:  VOA News

 A large number of Republican members of Congress and Tea Party leaders from across the country gathered outside the U.S. Capitol Thursday to criticize the Internal Revenue Service and the Obama administration over allegations the tax agency targeted Tea Party groups for special scrutiny.  Conservative lawmakers called on Congress to dig deep to find out who made the decision to single out the groups seeking non-profit tax exempt status.  Republican House Speaker John Boehner said House committees would stop at nothing to get to the truth.

 ”We need to know where the facts are.  Somebody made a decision to do this.  And I doubt that it was some low level employees in the Cincinnati field office,” said Boehner.

 Democratic President Barack Obama sought to push back against the criticism during a week where he has been plagued by several scandals at once.  Obama said he did not know about the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups until last Friday, and condemned the IRS action.

 ”I am outraged by this in part, because, look, I am a public figure.  If a future administration is starting to use the tax laws to favor one party over another or one political view over another, obviously we are all vulnerable,” said President Obama.

 The president appointed Daniel Werfel as the acting commissioner of the tax agency.

 At the Capitol, Tea Party lawmakers and activists said the conduct by some IRS staff members amounts to harassment, and that there will be lawsuits against the agency.  Republican Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia said he has been warning about the dangers of big government for years.

 ”It is the strong arm of the government that is trying to affect elections, to try to stop the freedom of speech that we are guaranteed under the First Amendment [to the Constitution] and all Americans should just shudder and shiver at the prospects of a government out of control, too big, spending too much money,” said Broun.

 The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the IRS scandal Friday, and many more hearings are likely to follow in the Republican-led House of Representatives.

Source:  VOA News

 Analysts say the most serious threat to the president at the moment is the budding scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service, the government’s tax-collecting agency.

 The IRS has admitted officials targeted conservative Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status. Obama tried to keep ahead of the scandal by announcing the resignation of acting IRS chief Steven Miller.

“It is inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS,” said Obama.

IRS issue draws ire

 The revelations about the IRS have outraged Republicans in Congress and they are promising a full round of investigations.

 Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, said, “Now clearly, we have only started to scratch the surface of this scandal. The American people are looking for answers and I am determined to help them get to the bottom of this.”

The IRS scandal is one of three controversies that have enmeshed the Obama White House.

 The administration remains on the defensive over its handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last year that claimed the lives of four Americans.

 And the Justice Department is being pressed to justify the secret seizure of phone records from the Associated Press in connection with a leak investigation.

 It is the prospect that the IRS targeted Americans for their political views, however, that sparked a strong reaction from across the political spectrum, said analyst John Fortier.

“And so that I think that is what makes it just stick much more in the craw of the American people [upset them], both that it is not a very popular organization, but also it is one that people know that it has significant information that could redound upon them and they would not want to see it done to them,” said Fortier.

Remaining effective

 The scandals are a distraction for the president, said Fortier, but not necessarily crippling.

“The agenda that he has now is one that has to get the agreement of both parties, and I think the scandal might be somewhat broadly hurtful to him but is not going to damage him if both parties see some value in working together on some of these issues,” he said.

 Fortier adds that one of those issues that still may draw bipartisan support is immigration reform.

 Obama may be about to join a long line of predecessors, though, who ran into trouble in their second terms, said former Reagan White House chief of staff Ken Duberstein.

“Every presidency goes into a ditch, usually in the fifth or sixth year. And if you do not have the trusted relationships in the House and the Senate or with the American people, then you do not have any safety net to fall back on.”

Duberstein notes that all recent two-term presidents - Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush - experienced either scandals or political setbacks in their second terms.

Source:  VOA News

 Around Damascus the warplanes staged a series of raids in the early hours of Sunday including on President Bashar al-Assad’s air defenses, opposition and rebel sources said. But none had more devastating results than at Hameh, a high-walled site linked to his chemical and biological weapons program.

 ”Families ran to basements and stayed there,” said one witness of the attack on Hameh that lit up the night sky and shook the ground kilometers [miles] away. “We heard ambulances. There were very few workers at the compound at that time but an attack of this scale must have killed a lot of soldiers among the guards and patrols.”

 The raids have raised fears that Israel could be drawn into Syria’s civil war, in which the United Nations said 70,000 people have died since an uprising against Assad family rule began two years ago. Damascus has accused Israel of effectively helping what it calls al-Qaida Islamist terrorists.

 Western intelligence sources said the attacks were designed to prevent Syria sending Iranian-supplied missiles to the Shi’ite Hezbollah group in neighboring Lebanon for possible use against Israel. An Israeli general played down the consequences on Monday, saying: “There are no winds of war.”

 The witness said windows were blown out in workers’ flats several hundred meters [yards] from Hameh’s perimeter, even though the center of the blasts was further away on the huge site, which is surrounded by air defenses.

 Opposition sources said the warplanes also hit facilities manned by Assad’s Republican Guards on Mount Qasioun, which overlooks central Damascus, and the nearby Barada River basin.

 The area is believed to be a supply route to Hezbollah, according to residents, activists and opposition military sources. Their statements could not be verified due to restrictions on media operating in Syria.

Right on target

 One rebel commander said Assad’s forces have been fortifying their positions on Qasioun since the uprising began in March 2011. “The Israelis still managed to get to the weapons stores. The secondary explosions indicate that they were right on target,” he said, adding that Syrian air defenses, already weakened by the civil war “could not do anything”.

 Other opposition sources also said the targets included air defenses comprising Russian-made surface to air missiles and heavy anti-aircraft guns, deployed on Qasioun and overlooking the rebellious Damascus district of Barzeh.
 
 ”The destruction appeared to be massive. We have heard that the army has asked rank and file personnel based in Qasioun and those on leave to stay away. The military usually does this sort of thing when there is a big mess to sort out,” said one activist in Damascus, who did not want to be named.

 Assad’s forces have fired on rebels from Qasioun, which is largely a closed military zone apart from a strip of restaurants, flattening areas of Damascus below.

 However, it was unclear whether Israel was effectively helping the rebels by raiding the Qasioun sites, as Damascus has said, or attacked the air defenses purely to safeguard its own operations against Iranian-supplied missiles.

 The Syrian government has said that Israel raided three military sites. Several media published what they described as a photo supplied by the official Syrian news agency showing a huge pile of collapsed concrete at a flattened building in an unspecified site they said was targeted by the Israelis. Reuters could not verify the photo.

 Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a strong opponent of Assad, said on Tuesday the Israeli air strikes had given the Syrian government an opportunity to cover up its own killings.

 ”The air strike Israel carried out on Damascus is completely unacceptable. There is no rationale, no pretext that can excuse this operation,” Erdogan told parliament in Ankara.

 Opposition sources familiar with the Hameh site said a large section of the compound housing missile systems appeared to have been hit. Mobile missile launchers, part of a Russian-supplied SA-17 air defence system deployed elsewhere on Qasioun, also appear to have been destroyed, they said

 Western intelligence agencies suspect work on chemical weapons has been conducted at Hameh. Assad’s government and the rebels have accused each other of carrying out three chemical weapons attacks, one near Aleppo and another near Damascus in March, and another near Homs in December.

 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitoring group based in Britain, said at least 42 Syrian soldiers were killed and 100 others are missing.

 Other opposition sources put the death toll at 300 soldiers, mostly belonging to the Republican Guards, an elite unit that forms the last line of defense for Damascus and comprises mainly members of Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam that has controlled Syria since the 1960s.

 Although casualties among Assad’s troops appeared to be high, opposition sources said the raids were mainly targeted on storage facilities. “Whatever they hit, there is little chance that anything was left intact,” another source in Damascus said.

Source:  VOA News

 There was no confirmation of the settlement freeze from the office of Netanyahu, who was in Shanghai on Tuesday as part of an official visit to China. The Army Radio report said the Israeli prime minister ordered the freeze in a meeting with his housing minister before departing on his trip.

 Israel’s Housing Minister Uri Ariel declined to confirm the report.

 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who was in China this week on a separate visit, has long refused to restart negotiations with Israel until it stops all settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians claim those areas for their proposed independent state.

 If the settlement freeze is confirmed, it would coincide with a new effort by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by holding regular meetings with the leaders of both sides.

 The Israeli anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now said the government has not issued new tenders for West Bank housing for several months. It said previously-approved construction projects have continued.

 It is not clear if the apparent freeze also applies to Jewish districts of East Jerusalem, which Israel claims as part of its capital.

 As Netanyahu prepared to fly to Beijing Wednesday for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Palestinian President Abbas left the Chinese capital Tuesday, after meeting  Xi the previous day.

 The simultaneous visits to China by the Israeli and Palestinian leaders reflected Beijing’s desire for a more prominent role in Mideast peace efforts.

 China’s official Xinhua news agency said  Xi told Abbas that Israel and the Palestinians should “show mutual understanding and accommodation and meet each other half way.”

 It said the Chinese president believes negotiations should lead to an independent Palestinian state and full respect for what he called Israel’s legitimate security concerns and right to exist.

 Speaking Monday, Abbas reiterated that he is willing to meet Netanyahu provided the Israeli leader accepts a Palestinian state based on pre-war boundaries of 1967. Israel repeatedly has said it is ready to negotiate without such preconditions.

Source:  VOA News

 With sectarian bombings and shootings escalating, April was the deadliest month in Iraq in nearly five years.

 The United Nations says more than 700 people were killed.

 Abdullah Hassan witnessed one blast in Baghdad.

 '’What have those innocent people done to deserve this? So many people were either killed or injured,” Hassan said.

 This is the bloodiest confrontation between Iraq’s minority Sunni community and the predominantly Shi’ite government since the final withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011.

“The standoff between Iraqi security forces and various Sunni protestors, armed Sunni groups and offshoots of al-Qaida - that is very, very troubling,” said former U.S. ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey.

 The recent upsurge in violence began when government troops raided a Sunni protest site near Kirkuk last month.

 The clashes left dozens dead.

 Iraqi politics are deeply divided along sectarian lines and the government has been mired
 in crisis over how to share power between Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds.

 The political landscape is paralyzed, according to Sarhang Hamasaeed of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

“The parliament, the Council of Ministers, the Provincial Councils are so much now driven into sectarian and religious and political divisions it is not possible for them to engage in real dialog,” Hamasaeed said.

 Analysts say insurgents affiliated with al-Qaida are bombing mosques and other civilian targets in an effort to stoke sectarian conflict.

 In 2006-2007 tens of thousands of people died and now there are no U.S. troops to help quell the violence.

“The civil war in the past was related to problems that happened in the past, it was a kind of revenge.  But the war today will be for the future of Iraq,” said Sarmad al-Taie, an Iraqi political commentator.

 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has appealed for calm and dialogue.

“I can honestly say that if the sectarian sedition bursts there will not be a winner or a loser, all of us will be losers,” al-Maliki said.

 Analysts say Sunni Arab sheikhs who had been urging restraint are now calling for war and reports say some of their followers are preparing to fight.

Source:  VOA News

 After meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House Tuesday, Park said Seoul and Washington must not tolerate North Korea’s recent wave of threats.

 ”With regard to North Korea’s bad behavior and its provocations, the international community must speak with one voice,” she said, “and consistently send a firm message that they will not stand for it and that North Korea’s actions are in breach of international norms.”

 Obama said the U.S. is ready to engage diplomatically with the North if it decides to embrace a “peaceful path,” but stressed that Pyongyang’s bad behavior will not be rewarded.

 He said the days when North Korea could create a crisis and elicit concessions are “over,” calling the U.S. and South Korea “as united as ever” and North Korea “more isolated than ever.”

 ”If Pyongyang thought its recent threats would drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States, or somehow garner the North international respect, today is further evidence that North Korea has failed again,” he said.

 White House officials said the meeting between the two leaders was meant to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to the defense of South Korea.  Obama said he and Park also agreed to continue the implementation of the two nations’ historic trade agreement and clean energy partnerships.

 President Park is in the U.S. for a five-day visit, which she began Monday at the United Nations in New York. The South Korean leader, who is heading a delegation of more than 50 South Korean business leaders, will stop in Los Angeles Thursday to meet with Korean entrepreneurs.

 The trip is meant to send a strong message of unity to the North, which has gradually reduced the intensity of its war rhetoric, following weeks of threats of nuclear and conventional attacks against the U.S. and South Korea.

 Earlier this week, U.S. officials said they believe North Korea has removed two mid-range missiles from imminent-launch status, in an apparent further easing of tensions.

 Washington had for weeks warned North Korea could launch the untested Musudan missiles, which have a range of up to 3,500 kilometers and could reach several U.S. targets in the region.

 Pyongyang has been upset at United Nations sanctions that were expanded in response to its latest nuclear test. It also responded angrily to annual joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea.

Source:  VOA News

 Amid an intense national debate about gun control - which flared anew in the wake of a December shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 26 people dead - some 56 percent of Americans believe that gun crime is higher now than it was 20 years ago, the Pew Research Center said its poll showed.

 Only 12 percent of Americans realize that gun crimes have fallen, the center said in a statement. The Pew survey was based on a March 14-17 survey of 924 adults and had a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points.

 The drop in gun crime mirrors a general fall in U.S. violent crime. The Justice Department study found that for fatal and nonfatal firearm crimes, most of the decline occurred from 1993 to 2002.

 In 2011, about 70 percent of homicides and 8 percent of nonfatal violent crimes, such as rape, sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault, were committed with a firearm, mainly a handgun.

 From 2007 to 2011, about 1 percent of victims in nonfatal violent crimes reported using a firearm to defend themselves.
    
 The Justice Department findings were based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization Survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System.

Source:  VOA News

 Gregory Hicks, deputy chief of mission in Libya at the time of the attack, will be one of three witnesses at the hearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight & Government Reform.

 The other two witnesses are Mark Thompson, the acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism at the State Department, and Eric Nordstrom, a former regional security officer in Libya.

 Hicks has questioned why the U.S. military did not send a plane into Libyan airspace as a show of force and why four American special operations soldiers were not permitted to go  to Benghazi, U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the committee, said on CNN.

 Four Americans including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens were killed on Sept. 11, 2012, in the attack on a lightly defended U.S. diplomatic mission and a more fortified CIA compound in the eastern Libyan city.

 The assault was a headache for Obama as he campaigned for re-election. Many Republicans continue to assail the Democratic president over security lapses, as well as the administration’s early conflicting accounts of what happened in Benghazi.

 Democrats acknowledged the attacks reflected security problems, but said they were part of a history of such violence as well as the instability since the Arab Spring of popular revolutions began in 2011.

 Congressional committees already have held a series of hearings into what happened in Benghazi.

 In January, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended her handling of the attack before Senate and House committees and was angered at Republican accusations that the administration had misled the country over whether the attacks stemmed from a protest.

 Issa denied that Wednesday’s hearing is an effort by Republicans - who hold a majority in the House - to discredit the Democratic administration.

 ”Why aren’t the Democrats just as upset that we didn’t do all we could do to save American lives?'’ he asked on CNN.

 An official inquiry into the incident released in December concluded that “leadership and management failures'’ in two State Department bureaus led to a security posture “inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.'’

Source:  VOA News

 In an interview Saturday with the Spanish-language network Telemundo, Obama did not directly comment on reports of an Israeli airstrike against a Syrian missile shipment believed bound for Hezbollah.  He said he would let Israel “confirm or deny whatever strikes that they have taken.”

 Anonymous Israeli officials say Israel struck a missile shipment believed headed for the Lebanese-based militant group late Thursday.  The officials say chemical weapons were not the target.  The Israeli government has not confirmed the report.

 U.S. officials say the target appeared to be a warehouse.  There is no sign Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace.

 Hezbollah is allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  The militant group, supported by Iran, waged a brief war with Israel in 2006.  This would be the second time Israel has conducted airstrikes against Syria this year.  Israel said it attacked a weapons convoy in Syria believed headed for Hezbollah in January.

Source:  VOA News

Source:  VOA News

 Loud explosions rocked Damascus as Israeli warplanes struck targets deep inside Syria.  The Syrian news agency says Israeli missiles blasted a military research center near the capital.

 Foreign intelligence sources say Israel hit sophisticated Iranian-made missiles believed to be headed to the Islamic militant group Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.  These are said to be extremely accurate guided missiles, unlike anything Hezbollah has in its arsenal.

 Friday, according to intelligence sources, Israel warplanes struck long-range missiles also allegedly destined for Hezbollah. 

 There was no official comment from Israel on Sunday’s pre-dawn attack.  But Cabinet minister Uzi Landau dropped a strong hint.

 He said Israel’s policy is clear: It will not allow the transfer of sophisticated Syrian weapons to terrorist groups.

 Syria’s Deputy Information Minister Hilf al-Miftah accused Israel of raising regional tensions.

 Speaking on the U.S.-funded Arabic station Radio Sawa, he warned his country’s civil war could spread beyond the borders of Syria.

 Until now, Israel has mostly stayed out of the fighting in Syria, but the air strikes have raised fears the situation could escalate into a broader regional conflict.

Source:  VOA News

 Their message came in an audio message that announced the start of a monumental spring operation, one aimed at defeating those it described as “western invaders,” a reference to U.S.-led allied forces that are in the process of drawing down.

 U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, on a visit to Afghanistan in March, noted there are challenges ahead as U.S. forces hand over security responsibility to the Afghans.

 ”That transition has to be done right, it has to be done in partnership with the Afghans, with our allies,” said Hagel.

 For the first time, Afghan forces are in the lead this fighting season, with allied forces as backup. That means they are the prime targets for insurgents, who stepped up their attacks dramatically during the winter. 

 A report from the respected independent group, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, says the number of insurgent attacks has grown by 47 percent in the past year.  Seventy-four percent of those attacks were on Afghan national security forces and only four percent against international troops.

 Jonah Blank, an analyst with the Rand Corporation, said Taliban fighters have calculated that going after allied forces isn’t as effective as targeting Afghan troops.

“The Taliban [is] trying to assert its dominion or its power over the national security forces and to put some fear into them,” he said. “They don’t take on ISAF or U.S. troops as much because they get killed when they do that.  There isn’t any percentage in it for them now that we have made clear that we will be withdrawing and we will be leaving only a fairly small force when we leave.”

 The United States is due to pull out most of the 66,000 troops it has in Afghanistan by December 2014, and is still deciding how many it will leave behind.

 How Afghan forces do this fighting season may help answer that question.

Source:  VOA News

 The Syrian National Coalition alleged that forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad “were directly involved in the execution and burning of at least 150 people, including women and children” in the village of Bayda on Thursday.

 The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, says it has documented at least 50 deaths from the incident. But it warned the actual toll may be much higher, since many have disappeared.

 The predominantly Sunni village of Bayda is located just south of the region of Banias, which is home to many members of the Alawite minority sect to which Assad belongs. The two-year uprising has been led by Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority.

 In its statement Friday, the Syrian National Council called on the international community to intervene to stop Assad’s “grievous crimes,” which it said constitute war crimes and genocide.

 U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday the Obama administration is reconsidering arming the rebels, but said no final decisions had been reached.

 The announcement comes days after the White House said evidence suggests possible government use of chemical weapons during the fighting - something Obama has said would represent a “red line.”

 The U.S. has been providing non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, but has been hesitant to provide weapons out of fear they could eventually reach the hands of extremists who are also fighting the government.

 Rights groups have accused both government and rebel forces of committing war crimes during the conflict, which has killed at least 70,000 people.

 On Friday, Amnesty International said both sides have killed, arrested, and tortured dozens of journalists since the 2011 uprising began. The report, which was released on International Press Freedom Day, said both all sides are committing war crimes, but said the scale of abuse by government forces are much greater.

Source:  VOA News

 After their meeting, President Obama said he and Pena Nieto are working to further bolster an economic relationship that already produces a half-trillion dollars in trade each year.

“We are your largest customer, buying the vast majority of Mexican exports.  Mexico is the second-largest market for U.S. exports.  So every day, our companies and our workers, with their integrated supply chains, are building products together,” Obama said.

 The two presidents agreed to upgrade the infrastructure at the border, hold more frequent high-level discussions on trade, and enhance their economic outreach to Europe, Asia and the Pacific.

 Both leaders have emphasized their desire to shift the focus of U.S.-Mexican relations away from drugs and security to the economy.

 That move could strengthen the relationship, according to analyst Carl Meacham at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“This bodes well for the administration and it offers the administration an opportunity to put together different elements that could make this relationship new, contemporary, and make people excited about the United States and the region in a way that it hasn’t been done in the past,” Meacham said.

 Security was a main topic in the meeting, however.  President Pena Nieto has moved to limit the access that U.S. security agencies have had in Mexico to fight drug trafficking and organized crime.

 The Mexican leader downplayed that change, and said it would not diminish cooperation with the U.S. on cross-border security.

 Obama said Washington will “cooperate on the basis of mutual respect” to tackle the problem.

“We will interact with them in ways that are appropriate, respecting that ultimately, Mexico has to deal with its problems internally, and we have to deal with ours as well,” Obama said.

 Obama pledged to work to reduce the U.S. demand for illegal drugs and the number of illegal guns into Mexico.  Despite the recent failure of several gun control bills in the Senate, the president said he will persist on the issue.

 He said he is optimistic that immigration reform legislation will pass in Congress, and that the initiatives have support in both parties. Pena Nieto expressed his support for Obama’s efforts to get the bills passed.

 This is the president’s first visit to Latin America since his re-election, and his first meeting with Pena Nieto since the Mexican president took office.

 Obama speaks to an audience of Mexican students Friday, before moving on to Costa Rica to meet with Central American leaders.  Trade and security are expected to be high on the agenda there as well.

Source:  VOA News

For the past decade, many beekeepers around the world have been plagued by unexplained die-offs in their hives. It recently happened to Mark Emrich, who raises bees on his small farm near Olympia, Washington.
 
“I was doing great until about five weeks ago,” he said. “Then I came down and opened up the hives and I had five dead boxes of bees. That was a huge hit.”
 
 He lost one third of his production.
 
 ”It is very hard to deal with bee losses. They are kind of like your little livestock and you try to really manage them and take care of them the best you can. When they die off, you feel that you’ve failed.”
 
Warnings about pesticides in the garden
 
 Emrich sports a bushy beard and a ball cap with the logo of the Washington State Beekeepers Association. He’s the group’s president. Even before the die-off in his hives, he was writing letters to government officials, asking that some potentially risky and widely used pesticides be pulled from store shelves.
 
 While U.S. and Canadian environmental health agencies have both announced they will reevaluate the registration of pesticides in question, those processes are slated to take years. Emrich worries that mounting bee colony losses means he can’t wait that long, so he and his fellow beekeepers are petitioning county and state governments, calling for local rules to restrict home and garden use of common bug killers, rose and flower treatments, and grub controls.
 
 ”We have people who are using it who don’t understand all the implications, and the labeling is inadequate as far as what it actually will kill,” Emrich explained. “So basically, the idea is at least we’ll get it out of the hands of the general public.”
 
 The insecticides in question belong to a class called neonicotinoids. “Neonics,” for short, appear in more than a hundred different garden products sold under global brand names such as Bayer, Ortho and Scotts. While a range of studies have shown significant adverse effects on bees exposed to high doses in the lab, separate studies using more realistic field conditions show minimal harm or are inconclusive.
 
Threats from many directions
 
 Pesticide makers argue that banning neonics would not save a single hive. Barb Glenn, who oversees science and regulatory affairs for the industry association CropLife America, pointed out, “If we use these products according to the label, then we don’t see an effect on pollinators — or honey bees — that are contiguous to these fields where we’re using these products.”
 
 Glenn says it is in her industry’s best interest to safeguard bees because agriculture needs pollinators to thrive. In her view, many factors conspire against bee survival: diseases, parasites, the availability of habitat, the practices of the beekeeper, and their own nutrition.
 
“Pesticide use is also a part of that continuum,” she added.
 
 Glenn’s list looks almost the same as ones compiled by independent researchers with Britain’s Insect Pollinators Initiative, and by scientists at Oregon and Washington state Universities.
 
 WSU entomologist Steve Sheppard said a lot of new research is focusing on the pesticide angle.

 ”There’s not a consensus I think in the scientific community that the levels that are found in agricultural crops, for example, have been directly linked to colony losses,” he said. “But some countries — in Europe, for example — have taken a more prudent approach to not use those pesticides until they feel all of the data are in.”
 
 That’s also the gist of a petition for rulemaking before the Washington State Department of Agriculture. The department’s initial response was to ask all affected parties to send in their best science. The state plans to announce in early June whether it sees enough evidence to draft tighter rules for home and garden bug killers.
 
 Meanwhile, a coalition of national environmental groups has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to suspend registration of two neonic insecticides.

Source:  VOA News

 In 1955, Jones recorded “Why Baby Why,” his first hit for Starday Records.  Born in Saratoga, Texas, he began performing in local clubs at age 10.  In the late 1940s, he worked as a disc jockey at various radio stations in his home state, before entering the U.S. Marine Corps in 1950.  Three years later, Jones completed his military service and returned to the Texas nightclub circuit.  He was discovered by Starday’s founder, “Pappy” Dailey, who convinced Jones to record for his label.

 Jones says his first studio session proved a great learning experience.

“The first time I went in to do my first recording session, for about two hours I sang like Roy Acuff, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams,” he said. “Finally, the producer came in the studio — after he figured I’d had enough fun — and he wanted to know if I could sing like George Jones.  So I said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.  I thought I was supposed to sing like those people.’  They were selling records.  I didn’t know the difference, you know.”

After leaving Starday Records in 1957, Jones worked with several other labels.  In 1969, he joined Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, and the same year, married singer Tammy Wynette.  Their union lasted only six years, but during that time, they collaborated on numerous duets, including the Number One hits “We’re Gonna Hold On,” “Near You” and “Golden Ring.”

Through much of his life, George Jones battled an addiction to alcohol that nearly ruined his professional career.  He earned the nickname “No Show Jones” for missing numerous concert dates.  At one point, lawsuits against him by show promoters seeking compensation forced Jones to declare bankruptcy.  He credited his fourth wife Nancy, whom he married in 1983, for helping him overcome his dependency to alcohol and giving his life new meaning.

 Countless singers, including Garth Brooks, George Strait, Alan Jackson and Randy Travis name George Jones as a major influence.

 Bill Ivey, former director of the Country Music Foundation, once described the role Jones played in Country music. 
    
“He has a unique vocal style that really is so special that it hasn’t been much imitated,” he said. “I think people in contemporary Country music, who look back on George’s early work for inspiration, don’t try to sound like him.  They, I think, try to write like him and try to get that spirit into their interpretation.  What George Jones has is a constant presence of the real energy of Country music and I think it’s something that’s much admired.”

At age 62, Jones was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.  The surprise announcement was made during the 1992 Country Music Association Awards telecast.  The overwhelmed performer described his feelings in this acceptance speech.

“You know, I’ve won a lot of awards - I’m not bragging - a lot of awards over the period of years and each and every one of them was fantastic,” he said. “They made you feel great. They kept you going and made you try harder and work harder, but this has got to be the greatest one in the world.  Country music has been awful good to me throughout a whole bunch of years, and I’ll tell you what, I’d like to just thank all the fans in the whole, wide world.”

New pop-oriented trends have broadened Country music’s boundaries in recent years, but never lessened the popularity of George Jones’ traditional sound.  Several of his peers, including Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Clint Black, Travis Tritt and Pam Tillis, fulfilled a life-long dream, when they collaborated with Jones on the Grammy Award-winning single, “I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair.”

On many occasions, George Jones said that he played, sang and wrote Country songs out of his deep love for the music.  Equally gratifying was his relationship with his fans.

 Jones once revealed, “It’s not really that important to me, as far as glory, popularity and those things.  I just feel like I’m making people happy.  And they sure make me happy when I walk out on that stage.  That’s all that’s really important to me.”

In the early 1990s, Country music fans and musicians named Jones’ recording of “He Stopped Loving Her Today” as the greatest song of all time.  The single topped the chart in 1980 and earned Jones a Grammy and two Country Music Association awards.  His other industry honors included induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992.  Three years later, he teamed with his former wife Tammy Wynette to record the chart-topping album, “One.”

Jones autobiography, “I Lived To Tell It All,” was published in 1996, and an album of the same name followed.  MCA Records dropped him from its roster in 1998 and he later formed his own label, Bandit Records.
 
 In 1999, George Jones suffered life-threatening injuries when he lost control of his car and slammed into a bridge near his home.  After making a full recovery, he returned to recording and touring.  His last solo album, “Hits I Missed and One I Didn’t,” contains songs made famous by other artists, plus a newly recorded version of his signature tune, “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” 

Jones’ many accolades included a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor and a 2012 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. 

 In late 2012, he kicked off his farewell tour, scheduled to conclude on November 22 in Nashville.  Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers and many other Country stars were set to perform at the show.

 During the past year, Jones had been hospitalized several times, most recently on April 18 with fever and irregular blood pressure.

Source:  VOA News

Source:  VOA News

 U.S. Embassy officials say the team of investigators is working with the Russian government.

 One of the suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, made a six-month visit to Dagestan and Chechnya last year.  Investigators want to know if if the suspect had contact with any radicals during the trip.

 U.S. lawmakers discussed the same trip Tuesday as they raised concerns about the sharing of intelligence among federal law enforcement agencies.

 Senator Lindsey Graham said the FBI told him it was not aware of Tsarnaev’s travels at the time.

 Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano told the Senate Intelligence Committee that her agency did know about the trip, but that an FBI alert on Tsarnaev had expired by the time he returned.

 The FBI had interviewed Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of Russia, but found nothing to connect him to terrorism at that time.

 After a closed-door briefing by FBI officials Tuesday, Republican Senator Susan Collins said there are problems with sharing of “critical investigative information” within and among different agencies.

 Another Republican Senator, Saxby Chambliss, expressed similar concerns, saying there appear to be so-called “stovepipes” that keep information flowing within one group and not readily shared with others.

 Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a shootout with police late Thursday, while his younger brother Dzhokhar was captured a day later.

 The 19-year-old Dzhokhar has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. He is in federal custody in a Boston hospital.

 U.S. officials say Dzhokhar told them in preliminary interviews that he and his brother were partly motivated by the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that they were self-radicalized and not connected to any terrorist network.

 The brothers allegedly set off two bombs near the Boston Marathon finish line last week, killing three people and injuring 264. Some of the wounded lost their legs.

 The two suspects are Chechens who came to the United States as boys.

 Two victims from the attacks were laid to rest Tuesday.

 Eight-year-old Martin Richard was remembered at a private funeral service. He was killed in one of the bombings while waiting for his father to cross the marathon’s finish line. His mother and younger sister were seriously hurt.

 Also remembered Tuesday was Sean Collier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology security officer gunned down three days after the bombings while the suspects were on the run from police.

 Two others also were killed by the bombs - restaurant manager Krystle Campbell and Chinese-born student Lu Lingzi.

 Also Tuesday, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said a fund to help the bombing victims has received $20 million in donations in less than a week. Menino calls the outpouring from around the world tremendous, and more than he could ever imagine.

Source:  VOA News