Obama wants more certainty on Syrian chemical weapons

WASHINGTON (AP) ― President Barack Obama said he wants more information about chemical weapons use in the Syrian civil war before he decides on escalating U.S. military or diplomatic responses, despite earlier assertions that use of such weapons would be a "game-changer."

With the U.S. disengaging from the unpopular war in Afghanistan and still smarting from the difficult conflict in Iraq, Obama has been reluctant to unleash American military power in the Syrian fighting, a civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people. The president said at a Tuesday news conference that the conflict is a "blemish on the international community generally."

Obama said the evidence available does not yet merit the quick use of American military power. He has called for the United Nations to investigate.

"What we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them. We don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened. And when I am making decisions about America's national security and the potential for taking additional action in response to chemical weapon use, I've got to make sure I've got the facts. That's what the American people would expect.

The president said, however, that if it is determined that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons "we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us."

In the White House news conference marking the 100th day of his second term, the president said he had a full range of such "options on the shelf."

Beyond providing weapons and ammunition to the rebels, several government agencies are also drafting plans for establishing a protective "no-fly zone" over Syria and for targeted missile strikes, according to officials familiar with the planning. However, the officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations, stressed that Obama had not yet decided to proceed on any of the plans.

The problem facing the U.S. is that Syrian air defenses are far stronger than NATO allies faced when they intervened with air power in Libya, and many of the rebel forces are now identified as Islamic radicals, many of them associated with al-Qaida and determined to establish a government based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Noting American humanitarian aid that has flowed into victims of the conflict, Obama said the civil war has been "a slowly unfolding disaster for the Syrian people. And this is not a situation in which we've been simply bystanders to what's been happening."

Obama has resisted calls to expand U.S. assistance beyond the nonlethal aid the government is providing the rebels. That has frustrated some allies as well as some U.S. lawmakers, who say the deaths of 70,000 Syrians should warrant a more robust American response.

Polling suggests war-weary Americans are reluctant to see the U.S. get involved in another conflict in the Middle East. A CBS News/New York Times poll out Tuesday shows 62 percent of Americans say the country does not have a responsibility to intervene in the fighting in Syria, while 24 percent say the government does have that responsibility.

Obama also said he would "re-engage with Congress" on the future of the prison for detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba. As a candidate for the White House in 2007 and 2008, Obama called for closing the base, which was set up as part of President George W. Bush's response to the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Lawmakers objected and the facility remains open.

Questioned about a hunger strike by some detainees, he said, "I don't want these individuals to die," and he said the Pentagon was doing what it could to manage the situation.

Obama also noted that several suspected terrorists have been tried and found guilty in U.S. federal courts, an answer to his congressional critics who maintain that detainees must be tried in special courts if the United States is to maximize its ability to prevent future attacks.

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Amanda Knox mulls return to Italy as book launched

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― Amanda Knox may return to Italy to be re-tried for murder, she said Tuesday as she launched a memoir about her case, including frank details about sex, drugs and her harrowing time behind bars.

In interviews to promote the book, which recounts how she considered suicide in jail, she said she hoped her slain former roommate Meredith Kercher's family would read it, although she has not had any contact with them.

"It matters to me what Meredith's family thinks ... I really hope that the Kerchers read my book. And they don't have to believe me. I have no right to demand anything of anyone. But I hope they try," she told USA Today.

Knox, 25, was ordered to stand trial again by Italian authorities last month in the latest twist of the legal saga which had seen her acquitted on appeal in 2011 following her earlier conviction.

The American student and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito had originally been sentenced to 26 years and 25 years in prison for the killing of Kercher six years ago, allegedly in a drug-fuelled sex attack.

Although legal analysts expect Knox to be tried again in absentia following the decision in March to order a new trial, the former student told USA Today in an interview she was "considering" returning to Italy.

"My lawyers have said that I don't have to and that I don't need to. I'm still considering it, to be honest," she was quoted as saying when asked if she planned to return to Italy.

"It's scary, the thought. But it's also important for me to say, 'This is not just happening far away from and doesn't matter to me.'

"So, somehow, I feel it's important for me to convey that. And if my presence is what is necessary to convey that, then I'll go."

Knox is currently launching a publicity blitz in the United States to promote her autobiography "Waiting to be Heard" for which she was reportedly paid a $3.8 million advance.

In the 480-page book, she describes her early life in Seattle and her decision to take a year out to live in the small Italian city of Perugia to learn Italian language and culture.

She is open about her attitude to sex, and how it was changing as she headed overseas. She had had sex with four men before her departure.

"I left for Italy having decided I needed to change that. For me, sex was emotional, and I didn't want it to be anymore.

"I hated feeling dependent on anyone else. I wanted sex to be about empowerment and pleasure, not about 'Does this person like me? Will he still like me tomorrow?'," she said.

She moved in with two Italian girls and Kercher, who was also a foreign student, and led an easy-going life with a group of boys who lived downstairs in the same house.

"Around our house, marijuana was as common as pasta," she wrote, while describing in detail a number of sexual encounters before she met Sollecito, a week before the murder.

She also recounted the day Kercher's body was found, how police rapidly became suspicious. In one early interrogation she reported being slapped around the head while being told "Stop lying!"

Knox was eventually charged, tried and sent to jail ― where she described repeated sexual harassment and detailed thoughts of suicide, for example in the shower, where "steam would fog up the guard's viewing window."

"I imagined cutting both my wrists and sinking into oblivion in a calm, quiet, hot mist," she writes.

In excerpts of an interview with ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer released ahead of broadcast Tuesday, Knox said she wanted to clear her name, in terms of her public reputation as well as legally.

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Tests link ricin poison to Obama letter suspect

Ricin was found in the former martial arts studio of the man suspected of sending poison letters to President Barack Obama and other officials, and it was discovered on a dust mask and other items he threw in the trash, federal prosecutors said in a court document made public Tuesday.

The affidavit says an FBI surveillance team saw James Everett Dutschke remove several items from the studio in Mississippi on April 22 and dump them in a trash bin down the street. The items included a dust mask that later tested positive for ricin, the affidavit said.

Traces of ricin also were found in the studio, and Dutschke used the Internet to buy castor beans, from which the poison is derived, the affidavit said.

Dutschke, 41, was arrested Saturday as part of the investigation into poison-tainted letters sent to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and Judge Sadie Holland in Mississippi. He is being held without bond pending a hearing Thursday. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The FBI has not yet revealed details about how lethal the ricin was. A Senate official has said the ricin was not weaponized, meaning it wasn't in a form that could easily enter the body. If inhaled, ricin can cause respiratory failure, among other symptoms. No antidote exists.

Dutschke told The Associated Press last week that he didn't send the letters. His lawyer, George Lucas, had no comment Tuesday.

Attention turned to Dutschke after prosecutors dropped charges against an Elvis impersonator who says he had feuded with Dutschke in the past.

The affidavit said that on evening of Dec. 31, 2012, someone using Dutschke's computer "downloaded a publication, Standard Operating Procedure for Ricin, which describes safe handling and storage methods for ricin, and approximately two hours later, Immunochromotography Detection of Ricin in Environmental and Biological Samples, which describes a method for detecting ricin."

The affidavit also said numerous documents found in Dutschke's home had "trashmarks" that were similar to ones on the letters sent to the officials. "Trashmarks are flaws or marks that come from dirt, scratches, or other marks on the printer. They are transferred to each piece of paper that is run through the printer," it said.

A witness, who is not named in the document, told investigators that Dutschke once said years ago that he knows how to make poison that could be sent to elected officials and "whoever opened these envelopes containing the poison would die."

Holland dismissed a civil suit that Dutschke filed in 2006 against the witness, who accused him of making sexual advances toward the witness' daughter, the affidavit said. In April, Dutschke pleaded not guilty in state court to two child molestation charges involving three girls younger than 16. He also was appealing a conviction on a different charge of indecent exposure. He told AP that his lawyer told him not to comment on those cases.

Dutschke's MySpace page has several pictures with him and Wicker. Republicans in Mississippi say Dutschke used to frequently show up at events and mingle with people, usually finding a way to get a photo of himself with the headliner.

The first suspect accused by the FBI, Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was arrested on April 17, but the charges were dropped six days later. After his arrest, Curtis said he was framed and gave investigators Dutschke's name as someone who could have sent the letters, the affidavit said.

Curtis has said he knows Dutschke and they feuded over the years. (AP)

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Russia, Japan vow new push to end island dispute

MOSCOW (AFP) ― Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Monday to renew efforts to find a solution to a decades-long territorial row that has prevented the two sides from signing a World War II peace treaty.

After two hours of talks in the Kremlin, they agreed to order their foreign ministers to reopen talks on finding options for a solution that could be presented to the leaders.

Abe, making the first high-level official visit by a Japanese prime minister to Moscow in a decade, hailed the outcome as a "great result" and said he had succeeded in building a strong bond with the Russian leader.

A joint declaration by the two leaders agreed it was "abnormal" their countries had not signed a peace treaty 67 years after the end of World War II.

They expressed determination to overcome "the existing differences" on the islands dispute through talks although there was no concrete suggestion of what solution could end the years of deadlock.

The dispute surrounds the southernmost four of the Kuril islands ― known in Japan as the Northern Territories ― which have been controlled by Moscow since the end of World War II but are still claimed by Tokyo.

During lunch, Abe gave Putin a ski suit and a set of new skis, according to Japanese officials. Putin gave Abe a bottle of 1855 vintage wine, the year when the first Japanese-Russian friendship treaty was signed.

Analysts say economic cooperation between Russia and Japan has been stymied by their failure since the 1950s to agree a peace treaty.

But since returning to power in December, Abe has made improving relations with Russia a priority and given rise to cautious hope by backing the resumption of stalled talks on a solution.

The last such top-level official visit to Russia was by then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in January 2003. Former Prime Ministers Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso visited in 2008 and 2009 for shorter, lower-level trips.

Japan is particularly interested in increasing its import of Russian energy resources as it seeks to diversify supplies in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

Russia's trade with Japan reached $32 billion last year.

But Russia, despite its size and proximity, was only Japan's 15th most important trading partner, in a sign of the unrealized potential of relations.

Yet there remains little hope of an immediate breakthrough, with Tokyo insisting the four islands currently inhabited by around 16,500 Russians are its territory and Moscow showing no hint of a compromise.

"It does not mean that we will solve everything tomorrow if the problem has not been solved for the past 67 years," Putin said. "We did not create this problem ― we inherited it from the past.

"But at least, we will continue work on this complex issue, but one that is so important for both sides."

Abe said: "I feel that we have established personal, trusting relations."

"We managed to agree that we will renew these talks and we will speed up this process. I consider this a great result of this meeting."

During a briefing later Monday, Japanese officials stressed the talks were successful, even though the leaders did not address the precise modalities of a solution like the number of islands.

"It should give a new thrust to Japan-Russia relations," Yukata Yokoi, a spokesman for the Japanese foreign ministry, told reporters.

One solution mooted in the past could involve Russia ceding control of the two smallest islands of Shikotan and Khabomai and keeping the much larger Kunashir and Iturup (known as Kunishiri and Etorofu in Japan).

But even this would require massive concessions from both sides that would be unpalatable for nationalists.

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Obama tells Putin concerned by Syria’s chemical weapons

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― President Barack Obama stepped up pressure on Russia over Syria on Monday, telling President Vladimir Putin of his concern about the reported use of chemical weapons by the Damascus regime.

Obama also thanked Putin in the telephone call for his help after the Boston marathon bombings, and expressed condolences over a fire that killed 36 patients in a Russian psychiatric facility on Friday, the White House said.

The call came with Obama facing increasing political heat himself, after the White House said last week that it believed there was growing evidence that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons in the civil war.

"President Obama and President Putin reviewed the situation in Syria, with President Obama underscoring concern over Syrian chemical weapons," a White House statement said.

Obama is under pressure because last year he said that the use or movement of chemical weapons by President Bashar al-Assad's embattled forces would cross a U.S. "red line."

Key political players in Washington are now warning that his credibility is on the line, though the White House is seeking more detailed intelligence into exactly how and when such weapons may have been used.

Obama and Putin agreed to stay in touch on Syria and tasked Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with working together on the issue.

Washington has been deeply frustrated that Russia has blocked tougher action in the U.N. Security Council, including new sanctions, against its long-time ally Syria.

The United States is also now calling on Assad to allow a United Nations team into the country to assess reports that chemical weapons have been used.

The U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi was in Washington Monday and met both Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, officials said.

The talks focused on his efforts to broker an elusive political solution to the civil war in Syria, humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees and the military capabilities of the Syrian opposition.

Obama also used the call with Putin to thank Russia for its assistance in the probe into the Boston bombings two weeks ago, blamed on two brothers of Chechen origin, one of whom had raised flags with Moscow's intelligence services.

"The two leaders discussed cooperation on counterterrorism and security issues going forward, including with respect to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi," the White House statement said.

One of the brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings had links with two figures in the Islamist anti-Kremlin insurgency in the Northern Caucasus, a Russian security source said on Monday.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a police shootout, had been in touch with a Dagestan militant named Makhmud Nidal and a militant of Canadian origin named William Plotnikov, the source in the Northern Caucasus said.

Putin's foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the leaders agreed to ramp up counter-terrorism efforts in the wake of the Boston bombings.

The leaders are due to meet on the sidelines of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June and before the G20 summit in Saint Petersburg in September.

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S&P 500 reaches new high, led by tech

Technology companies led the Standard & Poor's 500 index to an all-time closing high Monday.

The stock market has recovered all the ground it lost over the previous two weeks, when worries over slower economic growth, falling commodity prices and disappointing quarterly earnings battered financial markets.

The S&P 500 index rose 11.37 points to close at 1,593.61. The 0.7 percent increase nudged the index above its previous closing high of 1,593.36, reached on April 11.

"The market has had a terrific run," said Philip Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors, noting that the S&P 500 is up 12 percent since the start of 2013. "At the beginning of the year, I thought we were going to 1,660 (for the whole year). We're only about 5 percent from that."

A pair of better economic reports gave investors some encouragement. Wages and spending rose in the U.S. last month, and pending home sales hit their highest level in three years.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 106.20 points to 14,818.75, up 0.7 percent. Microsoft and IBM were among the Dow's best performers, rising more than 2 percent each.

IBM, which rose $4.84 to $199.15, accounted for a third of the Dow's increase. The index is just 46 points below its own record high of 14,865 reached on April 11.

Tech's popularity Monday was a change from earlier this month, when it lagged the rest of the market. Concerns about weak business spending and slower overseas sales have cast a shadow over big tech firms, said Marty Leclerc, the managing partner of Barrack Yard Advisors, an investment firm in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Revenue misses from IBM and other big tech companies have highlighted the industry's vulnerability to the world economy. But Leclerc thinks tech companies with steady revenue and plenty of cash look appealing over the long term.

Information technology stocks rose the most of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 on Monday, up 1.6 percent. It's the only group that remains lower over the past year, down 2 percent, versus the S&P 500's gain of 14 percent.

Federated's Orlando thinks tech stocks could continue to rally as investors shift money from companies that pay big dividends and have rallied recently -- utilities, healthcare and consumer staples. "They've been buying these companies, but four months into this year they've gotten expensive," Orlando said.

The Nasdaq composite rose 27.76 points to 3,307.02, an increase of 0.9 percent. Apple, the biggest stock in the index, surged 3 percent, or $12.92, to $430.12.

The Nasdaq remains far below its record closing high of 5,048.62, hit March 10, 2000, before the dot-com bubble popped.

The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes reached the highest level since April 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors. Back then, a tax credit for buying houses had lifted sales. In a separate report, the government said Americans' spending and income both edged up last month.

A handful of companies reported earnings on Monday. Eaton Corp.'s quarterly net income beat Wall Street's estimates, helped by its acquisition of Cooper Industries, an electrical equipment supplier. But the manufacturer's revenue fell short. Its stock climbed 3 percent, or $1.63, to $60.28.

Eaton's results followed a larger pattern this earnings season. Of the 274 companies that have turned in results, seven of 10 have beaten analysts' estimates for earnings, according to S&P Capital IQ. But when it comes to revenue, six of 10 have missed estimates. That suggests companies are squeezing more profits out of cost cutting, instead of higher sales.

The stocks of Moody's and McGraw-Hill, which owns Standard & Poor's, surged following news that the ratings agencies settled lawsuits dating back to the financial crisis that accused them of concealing risky investments. McGraw-Hill gained 3 percent, or $1.45, to $53.45, while Moody's jumped 8 percent, or $4.57, to $59.69, the biggest gain in the S&P 500.

In the market for government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped from 1.67 late Friday to 1.66 percent, close to its low for the year. (AP)

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Russia, Japan vow hold talks to solve islands dispute

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday expressed determination to hold talks on solving a territorial dispute over Pacific islands that has prevented the two countries from signing a World War II peace treaty.

The two leaders agreed it was "abnormal" the countries had not signed a peace treaty 67 years after the end of World War II and expressed determination to overcome "the existing differences" on the islands dispute through talks, said a joint declaration adopted in the Kremlin. (AFP)

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