Paternos Issue Report, Challenge Freeh's Findings

A new report commissioned by Joe Paterno's family challenges the conclusion by former FBI director Louis Freeh that the late Penn State coach conspired to hide child sex abuse allegations against former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

The Paterno family's critique, released Sunday, argues that the findings of the Freeh report published last July were unsupported by the facts.

Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, one of the experts assembled by the family's lawyer to review Freeh's report last year to Penn State, said the document was fundamentally flawed and incomplete.

Freeh's report reached "inaccurate and unfounded findings related to Mr. Paterno and its numerous process-oriented deficiencies was a rush to injustice and calls into question" the investigation's credibility, Thornburgh was quoted as saying.

In a statement released Sunday through a spokesman, Freeh defended his work.

"I stand by our conclusion that four of the most powerful people at Penn State failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade," he said.

Paterno's family released what it billed as an exhaustive response to Freeh's work, based on independent analyses, on the website paterno.com.

Patrick Smith/Getty Images|Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo

Jerry Sandusky Insists Innocence Before Sentencing Watch Video

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Jerry Sandusky Claims Innocence in Audio Statement Watch Video

"We conclude that the observations as to Joe Paterno in the Freeh report are unfounded, and have done a disservice not only to Joe Paterno and the university community," the family's report said, "but also to the victims of Jerry Sandusky and the critical mission of educating the public on the dangers of child sexual victimization."

Freeh's findings also implicated former administrators including university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and retired vice president Gary Schultz. Less than two weeks after the Freeh report was released in July, the NCAA acted with uncharacteristic speed in levying massive sanctions against the football program for the scandal.

"Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University — Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley — repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse" from authorities, trustees and the university community, Freeh wrote in releasing the report.

The former administrators have vehemently denied the allegations. So, too, has Paterno's family, though it reserved more extensive comment until its own report was complete.

The counter-offensive began in earnest this weekend. The family's findings said that Paterno:

— Never asked or told anyone not to investigate an allegation against Sandusky 12 years ago, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2001.

— Never asked or told former administrators not to report the 2001 allegation.

— And never asked or told anyone not to discuss or hide information reported by graduate assistant Mike McQueary about the 2001 allegation.

"Paterno reported the information to his superior(s) pursuant to his understanding of university protocol and relied upon them to investigate and report as appropriate," the family's analysis said.

Paterno's widow, Sue, broke her silence Friday in a letter to hundreds of former players informing them of the report's impending release. "The Freeh report failed and if it is not challenged and corrected, nothing worthwhile will have come from these tragic events," she wrote.

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Obama pays tribute to Leon Panetta at the Pentagon chief’s farewell ceremony

President Obama paid tribute Friday to outgoing Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, hailing him for presiding over victories against terrorists and the expansion of opportunity in the U.S. armed forces.

In a speech at Fort Myer, Va., for the “Armed Forces Farewell Tribute” to Panetta, the president called the Pentagon chief “a man who hasn’t simply lived up to the American dream but has helped to protect it for all of us.”

He told Panetta, who served as CIA director before taking the helm at the Pentagon, “Your leadership of the CIA will forever be remembered for the b lows that we struck against al-Qaeda” and for “delivering justice to Osama bin Laden.”

Obama added: “Because we believe in opportunity for all Americans, the tenure of Secretary Panetta” as defense chief “will be remembered for historic progress in welcoming more of our fellow citizens to military service.” He referred to the 2011 repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that barred openly gay people from serving in the military, and to the lifting last month of a ban on women in combat positions.

Obama spoke after a ceremony featuring military bands and honor guards, including the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps clad in red coats and tricornered hats.

“I’ve witnessed a new generation of Americans ask themselves what they could do for their country,” Panetta said after being introduced by Obama.

“We’ve kept pressure on al-Qaeda, and we’re going after extremists wherever they may hide,” he said. “We have shown the world — we have shown the world — that nobody attacks the United States of America and gets away with it.”

Panetta formally announced his retirement early last month, and Obama nominated Chuck Hagel, a Republican former senator from Nebraska, to replace him. Hagel’s nomination has run into stiff opposition from Senate Republicans, who accused him of being insufficiently supportive of Israel and soft on Iran during an eight-hour confirmation hearing last week.

“It’s pretty obvious that the political knives were out for Chuck Hagel,” Panetta said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

In one of his final acts as defense secretary, Panetta testified Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee about attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans in September. Responding to questions, he and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they favored supplying weapons to Syrian rebels, a position that put them at odds with the White House.

Panetta also warned that the United States risks becoming a “second-rate power” if automatic spending cuts known as the “sequester” take effect as currently scheduled March 1 in the absence of a deficit-reduction deal to avert them, the Associated Press reported.

If that happens, he said, the U.S. military would face its worst readiness crisis in more than a decade. A forced budget cut of $42.7 billion from March through September, on top of $487 billion in defense reductions already mandated over the next 10 years, would leave the armed forces “hollow,” Panetta said.

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Horsemeat 'contamination' could date back to August: Findus

LONDON: French frozen food supplier Comigel told the Findus brand that "the contamination" of processed beef products with horsemeat could date back to August 2012, Findus said in a statement Saturday.

"Findus want to be absolutely explicit that they were not aware of any issue of contamination with horsemeat last year," it said in a statement.

"They were only made aware of a possible August 2012 date through a letter dated 2 February 2013 from the supplier Comigel.

"By then Findus was already conducting a full supply chain traceability review and had pro-actively initiated DNA testing."

The opposition Labour lawmaker Tom Watson earlier claimed he had been shown by a retailer a copy of a letter that Findus sent to them on Monday.

He published an extract on his website.

"Investigations have led one of our suppliers based in France to inform us in writing on 2nd February 2013 that the raw materials delivered since 1st August 2012 are likely to be non-conform and consequently the labelling on finished products is incorrect," it said.

Britain's Food Standards Agency regulator announced Thursday that 11 of 18 samples of Findus beef lasagne were found to contain between 60 and 100 per cent horsemeat.

Asked by AFP to comment on Britain's food minister fearing a criminal conspiracy, a Findus spokesman said: "That's part of our investigations. We need to understand how the meat got into the supply chain. That's something we are working on with Comigel, as the supplier."

He did not know how long the investigation would take.

The spokesman said it was "still uncertain... where the meat exactly came from".

"The supplier has asked us to withdraw the raw material batches."

Findus said it was not taking part in the emergency food industry meeting taking place Saturday at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

"Findus did not receive an invitation to this summit. However they are aware that the Food and Drink Federation, of which they are a member, will be attending."

Sweden-based Findus has withdrawn various frozen meals from the market in France and Sweden.

- AFP/ck

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CPI(ML) liberation, AFDR condemns Afzal Guru hanging

BARNALA: The hanging of Afzal Guru though is being welcomed, ultra left party CPI(ML)Liberation and leftist organization association for democratic rights (AFDR) has highly denounced the act. Both the organizations have termed the hanging as travesty of justice and democracy.

CPI(ML)Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said the way how in an extremely secretive manner without even informing his family Afzal was hanged is questionable and it will be recognised by every justice-loving person as a case of justice being hanged to appease the communal fascist forces".

He said it is well known fact that Afzal was a surrendered Kashmiri militant who had given himself up to the BSF in 1993 and had since been working in the shadow of the special task force of the Kashmir police, and was implicated in the December 13, 2001 Parliament attack case. He had no lawyer to represent him when the trial court convicted him without any direct evidence and yet the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in the name of satisfying 'the collective conscience of the society' even as the High Court and the Supreme Court passed adverse remarks on the shoddy nature of investigation and dubious quality of evidence produced by the police.

He said nobody has been hanged for the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, for all the anti-Muslim violence including the horrific Mumbai and Surat riots of 1992 and the 2002 Gujarat genocide, or for the massacres of dalits, adivasis and other oppressed sections by private armies or the state and the the hanging of Afzal Guru only exposes the double standards of justice.

AFDR state president Prof. Ajmer Aulakh and general secretary Prof. Jagmohan Singh has termed the hanging of Afzal Guru as gross failure of justice system. They said "death sentence is no solution to social problems and there is no place for death sentence in any form in a civilized society.110 countries world over has written off death sentence in their book of law and many other has stopped hanging, terming it as cruel medieval method".

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Space Pictures This Week: Sun Dragon, Celestial Seagull

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  Solar Dragon

  Image courtesy SDO/NASA

  Resembling a dragon's tail, remnants of a solar filament strain to escape the sun's gravity in an image released this week by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

  Most of the electrically charged gas, imaged in extreme ultraviolet light, was unsuccessful in its escape attempt and fell back into the sun.

  Filaments form when magnetic field lines push out of the sun in loops, holding dense gas above the surface of the sun. (Read about a huge solar filament that erupted in August 2012.)

  —Jane J. Lee and Christine Dell'Amore

  Published February 8, 2013

  
  











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  Aurora On The Road

  Photograph by Marcel Mivelaz, My Shot

  Northern lights writhe behind a thin cloud layer above a road on Ringvassoya Island, Norway, in this picture submitted to National Geographic's My Shot photography community on January 31.

  Born of violent eruptions of plasma from the sun's surface, auroras occur when the ejected gas slams into the protective bubble of Earth's magnetic field. (Watch a video about the birth of auroras.)

  Published February 8, 2013

  
  











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  Celestial Seagull

  Image courtesy ESO

  Like a parrot perched on a pirate's arm, the Seagull Nebula resides in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way.

  This new image, released by the European Southern Observatory on February 6, shows a closeup of one of the "wings" of the Seagull Nebula. Red clouds of hydrogen gas glow from the intense ultraviolet radiation given off with the birth of stars.

  The entire nebula is actually comprised of three large gas clouds arranged in the shape of a bird. (See pictures of other nebulae.)

  Published February 8, 2013

  
  











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  Saturn's North Pole

  Image courtesy Caltech/SSI/NASA

  Saturn's hexagon-shaped north pole is lit by the sun now that spring has come to the planet's northern hemisphere, as seen in a NASA picture released this week.

  The 15,000-mile-wide (25,000-kilometer-wide) cloud formation, captured by the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera in November, was initially spied during the Voyager missions in the 1980s. (See another Cassini picture of the hexagon.)

  Published February 8, 2013

  
  











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  Martian Avalanches

  Image courtesy U. Arizona/NASA

  A 2011 frost avalanche kicks up dust on Mars in a picture released this week by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera team.

  Frost avalanches usually occur at the onset of the Martian spring, when layers of carbon dioxide frost warm, causing ice and dust to cascade off of cliffs.

  "While HiRISE has captured other frost avalanches before, they never cease to amaze, since it demonstrates that there are indeed active processes on the red planet," according to the HiRISE website. (Related: "First Mars Avalanches Seen In Action.")

  Published February 8, 2013

  
  











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  Luminous London

  Photograph courtesy NASA

  London gleams in a nighttime picture taken from the International Space Station on February 2.

  Expedition 34 Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield captured the English city while flying about 240 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.

  Published February 8, 2013

  
  











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  Illustration courtesy Foster and Partners/ESA

  Published February 8, 2013

  
  

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Great Energy Challenge Blog

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Storm Drops More Than 2 Feet of Snow on Northeast

A fierce winter storm brought blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds as the anticipated snowstorm descended across much of the Northeast overnight.

By early Saturday morning, 650,000 homes and businesses were without power and at least five deaths were being blamed on the storm, three in Canada, one in New York and one in Connecticut, The Associated Press reported.

The storm stretched from New Jersey to Maine, affecting more than 25 million people, with more than two feet of snow falling in areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

FULL COVERAGE: Blizzard of 2013

In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy declared a state of emergency and closed all roads in the state. Overnight, snow fell at a rate of up to five to six inches per hour in parts of Connecticut.

In Milford, Conn. more than 38 inches of snow had fallen by Saturday morning.

"If you're not an emergency personnel that's required to be somewhere. Stay home," said Malloy.

In Fairfield, Conn. firefighters and police officers on the day shift were unable to make it to work, so the overnight shift remained on duty.

PHOTOS: Blizzard Hits Northeast

The wind and snow started affecting the region during the Friday night commute.

Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Blizzard Shuts Down Parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts Watch Video

Blizzard 2013: Power Outages for Hundreds of Thousands of People Watch Video

Blizzard 2013: Northeast Transportation Network Shut Down Watch Video

In Cumberland, Maine, the conditions led to a 19-car pile-up and in New York, hundreds of commuters were stranded on the snowy Long Island Expressway. Police were still working to free motorists early Saturday morning.

"The biggest problem that we're having is that people are not staying on the main portion or the middle section of the roadway and veering to the shoulders, which are not plowed," said Lieutenant Daniel Meyer from the Suffolk County Police Highway Patrol."The snow, I'm being told is already over two feet deep."

Bob Griffith of Syosset, N.Y. tried leave early to escape the storm, but instead ended up stuck in the snow by the side of the road.

"I tried to play it smart in that I started early in the day, when it was raining," said Griffith. "But the weather beat us to the punch."

Suffok County Executive Steven Bellone said the snow had wreaked havoc on the roadways.

"I saw state plows stuck on the side of the road. I've never seen anything like this before," Bellone said.

However, some New York residents, who survived the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, were rattled by having to face another large and potentially dangerous storm system with hurricane force winds and flooding.

"How many storms of the century can you have in six months?" said Larry Racioppo, a resident of the hard hit Rockaway neighborhood in Queens, New York.

READ: Weather NYC: Blizzard Threatens Rockaways, Ravaged by Sandy

Snowfall Totals

In Boston, over two feet of snow had fallen by Saturday morning and the National Weather Service anticipated up to three feet of snow could fall by the end of the storm. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick enacted the first statewide driving ban since the 1978 blizzard, which left 27 inches of snow and killed dozens. The archdiocese told parishioners that according to church law the responsibility to attend mass "does not apply where there is grave difficulty in fulfilling obligation."

In New York, a little more than 11 inches fell in the city.

By Saturday morning, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said nearly all of the primary roads had been plowed and the department of sanitation anticipated that all roads would be plowed by the end of the day.

"It looks like we dodged a bullet, but keep in mind winter is not over," said Bloomberg.

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K Street alert! Bangladesh wants you

Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa (R) and his Bangladeshi counterpart Dipu Moni in Tehran in August.
(Behrouz Mehri - AFP/Getty Images)
How does a foreign country get trade preferences from Washington? It hires a lobbyist, of course.

That’s what Bangladesh officials concluded after meeting with a congressional delegation last month.

Bangladesh foreign minister Dipu Moni, briefing reporters after a visit by a delegation led by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), said the group told her that Bangladesh should get duty and quota-free access to U.S. markets, the Financial Express newspaper said.

She said the delegation advised her that countries that have lobbyists get better results.

That proposition may or may not be true, but that’s not exactly what the delegation said, Kingston spokesman Chris Crawford said after checking with Kingston.

“The L word was never mentioned,” Crawford told us, “and “certainly no particular firm was mentioned.”

The point the delegation was making, Crawford said, was that most Americans “don’t know about this country,” even though “Bangladesh is the eighth largest country in the world” in terms of population and the fourth largest Muslim country.

There “was a discussion of the need for Bangladesh to present its case,” Crawford said, much as India and Israel (other stops on the trip) do, using its embassy and expats living in United States.

Others on the delegation, which arrived in Dhaka on Jan. 26, included GOP Reps. Ed Whitfield (Ky.), Scott Tipton (Colo.) and Adam Schiff (Calif.).

But the foreign minister told reporters after the meeting that “we must consider appointing a lobbyist firm as many countries have such firms in the U.S. to look after the overall business interests.”

Score one for Gucci Gulch.

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Millions of Chinese migrant workers head home for Lunar New Year

SHANGHAI : In China this year, more than 700 million people are making their way home for the Lunar New Year.

That makes it the biggest human migration in the world.

And according to researchers, it will take another generation before the immense scale of the Lunar New Year exodus will begin to ease.

The majority of those travelling across China to go home for Lunar New Year are the country's migrant workers who have moved to cities like Shanghai to work.

For most of them, the Spring Festival is the only time of the year when they can actually take leave from work to return to their hometowns and families.

It is a consequence of the country's uneven economic development where for many, leaving home is the only way they can earn a better living.

One migrant worker said: "We don't have that many companies at home. The salaries in Shanghai are much higher."

Another noted: "I have no choice. The pay at home is just too low."

To accommodate the annual surge, the central government is spending billions on new railways.

China's new premier Li Keqiang has also made urbanisation a priority policy in an attempt to rein in the annual exodus.

Billions have already been spent to build subsidised apartments to house the new urbanites.

But that calls for new policies to allow migrant workers to convert their residence of birth or hukou to enjoy privileges currently enjoyed by city residents.

This will, in turn, require more measures to provide healthcare for elderly parents of migrant workers, make it easier for migrant children to attend public schools in cities, and compensate farmers for their land.

All this requires more resources and funding.

Hu Shuyun, from the Urban and Population Studies at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Companies hiring migrant workers were paying a lower premium for social security.

"Now the policy requires them to pay them the same amount as they would a city resident, increasing the firms' expenses a few times. Of course, this will cause companies to make adjustments. Low-cost labour-intensive companies like some we see here in Shanghai may then choose to move away."

Already, some local governments are claiming they are facing difficulties raising funds to build the targeted six million units of affordable housing this year.

Researchers have said that despite the challenges, there has been some progress. Policies in education and social security have been changed in some cities to accommodate migrant workers and their families. But there are still millions of other migrant workers who do not fit the criteria spelt out in current policies, they will continue to be part of this annual human migration for years to come.

- CNA/ms

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Pak minister not to visit India as SAARC meet cancelled

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan commerce minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim has called off a visit to India later this month as a SAARC business meet he was scheduled to attend in New Delhi has been cancelled.

"The commerce minister's visit to India had been approved by the Prime Minister and all arrangements had been completed for the trip."

"However, the 'SAARC Business Leaders Conclave' from February 21-24, which he was scheduled to attend, has been cancelled," an aide to Fahim told PTI.

The aide made it clear that the decision was not linked in any way to recent tensions in bilateral relations.

He was invited to the meet by his Indian counterpart Anand Sharma.

Fahim was also expected to hold talks with Sharma on the sidelines of the regional meet.

Last month, Fahim had called off a scheduled visit to India to attend a partnership summit in Agra in the wake of growing tensions between the neighbours over ceasefire violations along the line of control.

Fahim told reporters he had decided against travelling to India as the business meet would clash with a meeting between a government team and cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri, who recently led a protest to push for electoral reforms.

However, official sources said Fahim's decision was linked to the spike in tensions between India and Pakistan over a string of clashes along the LoC that left two Indian and three Pakistani soldiers dead.

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Asteroid to Make Closest Flyby in History

Talk about too close for comfort. In a rare cosmic encounter, an asteroid will barnstorm Earth next week, missing our planet by a mere 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers).

Designated 2012 DA14, the space rock is approximately 150 feet (45 meters) across, and astronomers are certain it will zip harmlessly past our planet on February 15—but not before making history. It will pass within the orbits of many communications satellites, making it the closest flyby on record. (Read about one of the largest asteroids to fly by Earth.)

"This is indeed a remarkably close approach for an asteroid this size," said Paul Chodas, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near Earth Object (NEO) program office in Pasadena, California.

"We estimate that an asteroid of this size passes this close to the Earth only once every few decades."

The giant rock—half a football field wide—was first spotted by observers at the La Sagra Observatory in southern Spain a year ago, soon after it had just finished making a much more distant pass of the Earth at 2.6 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) away.

This time around however, on February15 at 2:24 pm EST, the asteroid will be passing uncomfortably close—ten times closer than the orbit of the moon—flying over the eastern Indian Ocean near Sumatra (map). (Watch: "Moon 101.")

Future Impact?

Chodas and his team have been keeping a close eye on the cosmic intruder, and orbital calculations of its trajectory show that there is no chance for impact.

But the researchers have not yet ruled out future chances of a collision. This is because asteroids of this size are too faint to be detected until they come quite close to the Earth, said Chodas.

"There is still a tiny chance that it might hit us on some future passage by the Earth; for example there is [a] 1-in-200,000 chance that it could hit us in the year 2080," he said.

"But even that tiny chance will probably go away within the week, as the asteroid's orbit gets tracked with greater and greater accuracy and we can eliminate that possibility."

Earth collision with an object of this size is expected to occur every 1,200 years on average, said Donald Yeomans, NEO program manager, at a NASA news conference this week.

DA14 has been getting closer and closer to Earth for quite a while—but this is the asteroid's closest approach in the past hundred years. And it probably won't get this close again for at least another century, added Yeomans.

While no Earth impact is possible next week, DA14 will pass 5,000 miles inside the ring of orbiting geosynchronous weather and communications satellites; so all eyes are watching the space rock's exact trajectory. (Learn about the history of satellites.)

"It's highly unlikely they will be threatened, but NASA is working with satellite providers, making them aware of the asteroid's pass," said Yeomans.

Packing a Punch

Experts say an impact from an object this size would have the explosive power of a few megatons of TNT, causing localized destruction—similar to what occurred in Siberia in 1908.

In what's known as the "Tunguska event," an asteroid is thought to have created an airburst explosion which flattened about 750 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of a remote forested region in what is now northern Russia (map).

In comparison, an impact from an asteroid with a diameter of about half a mile (one kilometer) could temporarily change global climate and kill millions of people if it hit a populated area.

Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at Cambridge, Massachusetts, said that while small objects like DA14 could hit Earth once a millennia or so, the largest and most destructive impacts have already been catalogued.

"Objects of the size that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs have all been discovered," said Spahr. (Learn about what really happened to the dinosaurs.)

A survey of nearly 9,500 near-Earth objects half a mile (one kilometer) in diameter is nearly complete. Asteroid hunters expect to complete nearly half of a survey of asteroids several hundred feet in diameter in the coming years.

"With the existing assets we have, discovering asteroids rapidly and routinely, I continue to expect the world to be safe from impacts in the future," added Spahr.

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