C. African Republic president seeks foreign help

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The president of Central African Republic on Thursday urgently called on France and other foreign powers to help his government fend off rebels who are quickly seizing territory and approaching the capital, but French officials declined to offer any military assistance.

The developments suggest Central African Republic could be on the brink of another violent change in government, something not new in the history of this resource-rich, yet deeply impoverished country. The current president, Francois Bozize, himself came to power nearly a decade ago in the wake of a rebellion.

Speaking to crowds in Bangui, a city of some 600,000, Bozize pleaded with foreign powers to do what they could. He pointed in particular to France, Central African Republic’s former colonial ruler.

About 200 French soldiers are already in the country, providing technical support and helping to train the local army, according to the French defense ministry.

“France has the means to stop (the rebels) but unfortunately they have done nothing for us until now,” Bozize said.

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France wants to protect its interests in Central African Republic and not Bozize’s government. The comments came a day after dozens of protesters, angry about a lack of help against rebel forces, threw rocks at the French Embassy in Bangui and stole a French flag.

Paris is encouraging peace talks between the government and the rebels, with the French Foreign Ministry noting in a statement that negotiations are due to “begin shortly in Libreville (Gabon).” But it was not immediately clear what, if any, dates have been set for those talks.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, meanwhile, spoke via phone with Bozize, asking the president to take responsibility for the safety of French nationals and diplomatic missions in Central African Republic.

U.S. officials said Thursday the State Department would close its embassy in the country and ordered its diplomatic team to leave. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the evacuation publicly.

The United Nations Security Council issued a press statement late Thursday reiterating its concern about the situation in the country and condemned the attacks.

“The members of the Security Council reiterate their demand that the armed groups immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from captured cities and cease any further advance towards the city of Bangui,” the statement reads.

Bozize’s government earlier reached out to longtime ally Chad, which pledged to send 2,000 troops to bolster Central African Republic’s own forces. But it was unclear if the Chadian troops had all arrived, and even then, it is far from certain if the combined government forces could withstand rebel attacks.

At least four different rebel groups are involved, though their overall numbers could not immediately be confirmed.

Central African Republic, a landlocked nation of some 4.4 million people, is roughly the size of France. It has suffered decades of army revolts, coups and rebellions since gaining independence in 1960 and remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

The rebels behind the most recent instability signed a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army, but insurgent leaders say the deal wasn’t fully implemented.

Already, the rebel forces have seized at least 10 towns across the sparsely populated north of the country, and residents in the capital now fear the insurgents could attack at any time, despite assurances by rebel leaders that they are willing to engage in dialogue instead of attacking Bangui.

The rebels have claimed that their actions are justified in light of the “thirst for justice, for peace, for security and for economic development of the people of Central African Republic.”

Despite Central African Republic’s wealth of gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the government remains perpetually cash-strapped. Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service, said rebel groups are unhappy because they feel the government doesn’t invest in their areas.

“The main thing they say is that the north of the country, and especially in their case the northeast, has always been neglected by the central government in all ways,” he said.

But the rebels also are demanding that the government make payments to ex-combatants, suggesting that their motives may also be for personal financial gain.

Bozize, a former military commander, came to power in a 2003 rebel war that ousted his predecessor, Ange-Felix Patasse. In his address Thursday, Bozize said he remained open to dialogue with the rebels, but he also accused them and their allies of financial greed.

Those allies, he implied, are outside Central African Republic.

“For me, there are individuals who are being manipulated by an outside hand, dreaming of exploiting the rich Central African Republic soil,” he said. “They want only to stop us from benefiting from our oil, our diamonds, our uranium and our gold.”

___

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.

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Make-or-break moment for fiscal cliff talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama was preparing to present a limited fiscal proposal to congressional leaders at a White House meeting Friday, a make-or-break moment for negotiations to avoid across-the-board tax increases and deep spending cuts at the first of the year.

Lawmakers and White House officials held out a slim hope for a deal before the new year, but it remained unclear whether congressional passage of legislation palatable to both sides was even possible.

The Friday afternoon meeting among congressional leaders and the president — their first since Nov. 16 — was likely to center on which income thresholds would face higher tax rates, extending unemployment insurance, and preventing a cut in Medicare payments to doctors, among other issues.

For Obama, the eleventh-hour scramble represented a test of how he would balance strength derived from his re-election against an avowed commitment to compromise in the face of divided government. Despite early talk of a grand bargain between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner that would reduce deficits by more than $2 trillion, the expectations were now far less ambitious.

Although there were no guarantees of a deal, Republicans and Democrats said privately that any agreement would likely include an extension of middle-class tax cuts with increased rates at upper incomes, an Obama priority that was central to his re-election campaign.

A key question was whether Obama would agree to abandon his insistence during the campaign on raising taxes on households earning more than $250,000 a year and instead accept a $400,000 threshold like the one he offered in negotiations with Boehner. Another was whether Republicans would seek a higher income threshold.

The deal would also likely put off the scheduled spending cuts. Such a year-end bill could also include an extension of expiring unemployment benefits, a reprieve for doctors who face a cut in Medicare payments and possibly a short-term measure to prevent dairy prices from soaring, officials said.

If a deal was not possible, it would become evident at Friday's White House meeting, and Obama and the leaders would leave a resolution for the next Congress to address in January.

Such a delay could unnerve the stock market, which edged lower for a fifth day Friday amid worries that lawmakers would fail to reach a budget deal. Economists say that if the tax increases are allowed to hit most Americans and if the spending cuts aren't scaled back, the recovering but fragile economy could sustain a traumatizing shock.

Obama called for the meeting as top lawmakers on Thursday alternately cast blame on each other while portraying themselves as open to a reasonable last-minute bargain.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid all but conceded that any effort at this late date was a long shot. "I don't know timewise how it can happen now," he said.

The No. 2 Senate GOP leader, Jon Kyl of Arizona, said it is "pretty unlikely" that Senate Republicans would agree to legislation averting the fiscal cliff if it wouldn't pass muster in the House.

"If you know the House isn't going to do something, why go through the charade?" he told reporters. "That becomes political gamesmanship."

Obama and Reid, D-Nev., would have to propose a package that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell would agree not to block with procedural steps that require 60 votes to overcome.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said he still thinks a deal could be struck.

The Democrat told NBC's "Today" show Friday that he believes the "odds are better than people think."

Schumer said he based his optimism on indications that McConnell has gotten "actively engaged" in the talks.

Appearing on the same show, Republican Sen. John Thune noted the meeting scheduled later Friday at the White House, saying "it's encouraging that people are talking."

But Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., predicted that "the worst-case scenario" could emerge from Friday's talks.

"We will kick the can down the road," he said on "CBS This Morning."

"We'll do some small deal and we'll create another fiscal cliff to deal with the fiscal cliff," he said. Corker complained that there has been "a total lack of courage, lack of leadership," in Washington.

If a deal were to pass the Senate, Boehner would have to agree to take it to the floor in the Republican-controlled House.

Boehner discussed the fiscal cliff with Republican members in a conference call Thursday and advised them that the House would convene Sunday evening. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., an ally of the speaker, said Boehner told the lawmakers that "he didn't really intend to put on the floor something that would pass with all the Democratic votes and few of the Republican votes."

But Cole did not rule out Republican support for some increase in tax rates, noting that Boehner had amassed about 200 Republican votes for a plan last week to raise rates on Americans earning $1 million or more. Boehner ultimately did not put the plan to a House floor vote in the face of opposition from Republican conservatives and a unified Democratic caucus.

"The ultimate question is whether the Republican leaders in the House and Senate are going to push us over the cliff by blocking plans to extend tax cuts for the middle class," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said. "Ironically, in order to protect tax breaks for millionaires, they will be responsible for the largest tax increase in history."

Boehner, McConnell, Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi are all scheduled to attend Friday's White House meeting with Obama. Vice President Joe Biden will also participate in the meeting, the White House said.

___

Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Charles Babington and David Espo contributed to this report.

___

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Apple still said to account for 87% of North American tablet traffic as Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 gain

Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.

[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]

Using a sample of tens of millions of impressions served to tablets between December 8th and December 14th this year, Chitika determined that various iPad models collectively accounted for 87% of tablet traffic in North America. That figure is down a point from the prior month but still represents a commanding lead in the space.

[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]

The next closest device line, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire tablet family, had a 4.25% share of tablet traffic during that period, up from 3.57% in November. Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy tablets made up 2.65% of traffic, up from 2.36%, and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets combined to account for 1.06% of tablet traffic in early December.

“Despite these gains by some of the bigger players in the tablet marketplace, there has been a negligible impact to Apple’s dominant usage share,” Chitika wrote in a post on its blog.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Kenya Hospital Imprisons New Moms Who Can’t Pay

The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he’s accused of: detaining mothers who can’t pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it’s the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn’t let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn’t afford were $ 60 and $ 160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women’s behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

“We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient,” Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. “The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers.”

“They stay there until they pay. They must pay,” he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. “If you don’t pay the hospital will collapse.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi’s poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi’s slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $ 12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn’t pay the $ 60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

“We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four,” she said. “They abuse you, they call you names,” she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor’s 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family’s 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $ 18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi’s mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $ 160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

“I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me,” said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $ 5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn’t have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

———

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Christmas box-office haul paces Hollywood for record year

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A strong Christmas-day box office performance by musical “Les Miserables” and western “Django Unchained” put Hollywood on pace to set an all-time box office record with $ 10.8 billion in annual revenue, box-office tracker Hollywood.com said on Wednesday.

Universal Pictures‘ star-studded “Les Miserables” took in a weekday Christmas record of $ 18.2 million in the United States and Canada when it opened on Tuesday, according to studio estimates of weekday ticket sales.

Quentin Tarantino‘s spaghetti western “Django Unchained,” starring Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio, hauled nearly $ 15 million for The Weinstein Co.

Studios “are definitely on the road to a record year with $ 10.8 billion expected (up 6 percent over last year and beating the previous record of $ 10.6 billion in 2009),” Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Reuters in an email, adding that the number of tickets sold should climb 6 percent from 2011 to 1.36 billion.

Dergarabedian credits a successful marketing year for studios as a chief reason for the projected box-office record, as well as spring and summer smashes “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers” helping boost revenue.

“It was not just the fact that most of the movies delivered, it was the timing of their release dates and the marketing was obviously effective as well with social media continuing to provide an outlet for the movie-going peer group to talk about their favorite flicks,” Dergarabedian said.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” based on the J.R.R. Tolkein classic fantasy novel, brought in $ 11.4 million on Christmas day after ruling the box office with nearly $ 37 million in sales over the weekend.

Billy Crystal family film “Parental Guidance” debuted in fourth place with about $ 6.4 million in Christmas sales while Tom Cruise’s “Jack Reacher,” which featured author Lee Child’s character in an investigation into a sniper shooting, was fifth with some $ 5.3 million.

“The Hobbit” was distributed by Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros. Studio. News Corp’s 20th Century Fox released “Parental Guidance” and Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom, released “Jack Reacher.” Universal Pictures is owned by Comcast Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Edited by Ronald Grover and Andrew Hay)

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Reid: U.S. is poised to go off fiscal cliff

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R) (D-NV) hugs Speaker of the House John Boehner as Senate Minority Leader Mitch …With a deal to avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" nowhere in sight, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday predicted a compromise would not be reached in time to avert the tax increases and automatic spending cuts set to be triggered on January 1. Reid also criticized Republican House Speaker John Boehner in unusually personal terms, accusing him of running the House as a “dictatorship” and blasting him for letting lawmakers out for vacation.

Boehner will be to blame “if we go over the cliff, and it looks like that’s where we’re headed,” Reid insisted as the Senate returned to work for a post-Christmas session focused on disaster relief for Sandy victims and renewing key government surveillance powers.

Reid's speech on the Senate floor came shortly before President Barack Obama returned to Washington from Hawaii to resume discussions of how to avoid the fiscal cliff. White House Spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said Obama had spoken to Reid, Boehner, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell Wednesday evening.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat, repeatedly pressed Boehner to have the House take up a Senate-passed bill extending income tax cuts on income under $250,000, calling that measure the only “viable escape route.” House Republicans have thus far balked at raising taxes at all.

“The Speaker just has a few days left to change his mind,” Reid said. “But I have to be very honest…I don’t know, time-wise, how it can happen now.”

"Speaker Boehner should call members of the House back today," Reid said, adding that the Ohio Republican "seems to care more about keeping his speakership" than pushing his party to accept a deal that would avert a tax increase for all but the highest income taxpayers. Democrats have repeatedly leveled that charge at Boehner, whose reelection on January 3 is not seriously in doubt despite ever-louder conservative grumbling.

Reid also accused Boehner of operating a "dictatorship" that had shut out House Democrats and all but the most conservative voices in the GOP, saying that the Senate-passed bill would pass with mostly Democratic votes but some Republican support as well.

“Nothing can move forward in regards to our budget crisis unless Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell are willing to participate in coming up with a bipartisan plan,” Reid warned. “Speaker Boehner is unwilling to negotiate, we’ve not heard a word from Leader McConnell, nothing is happening. Democrat’s can’t put together a plan on their own,” he said.

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Police using Twitter to offer virtual ridealongs

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Riding side by side as a police officer answers a call for help or investigates a brutal crime during a ridealong gives citizens an up close look at the gritty and sometimes dangerous situations officers can experience on the job.

But a new approach to informing the public about what officers do is taking hold at police departments across the United States and Canada 7/8— one that is far less dangerous for citizens but, police say, just as informative.

With virtual ridealongs on Twitter, or tweetalongs, curious citizens just need a computer or smartphone for a glimpse into law enforcement officers‘ daily routines.

Tweetalongs typically are scheduled for a set number of hours, with an officer — or a designated tweeter like the department’s public information officer— posting regular updates to Twitter about what they are seeing as they perform their normal on-duty routine. The tweets, which also include photos and links to videos of the officers, can encompass an array of activities — everything from an officer responding to a homicide to a noise complaint.

Police departments say virtual ridealongs reach a wider range of people at once and help add transparency to the job.

“People spend hard-earned money on taxes to allow the government to provide services. That’s police, fire, water, streets, the whole works, and there should be a way for those government agencies to let the public know what they’re getting for their money,” said Steve Allender, chief of the Rapid City Police Department in South Dakota, which started offering tweetalongs several months ago after watching departments like those in Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas do so.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Tarah Heupel, the public information officer for the Rapid City Police Department, rode alongside Street Crimes Officer Ron Terviel as he patrolled Rapid City. Heupel posted regular updates every few minutes about what Terviel was doing, including the officer citing a woman for public intoxication, responding to a call of three teenagers attempting to steal cough syrup and body spray from a store and locating a man who ran from the scene of an accident. Photos were included in some of the tweets.

Michael Taddesse, a 34-year-old university career specialist in Arlington, Texas, has done several ridealongs with police and regularly follows multiple departments that conduct tweetalongs.

“I think the only way to effectively combat crime is to have a community that is engaged and understands what’s going on,” he said.

Ridealongs where “you’re out in the elements” are very different than sitting behind a computer during a tweetalong and the level of danger is “dramatically decreased,” he said. But in both instances, the passenger gains new information about the call, what laws may or may not have been broken and what transpires, he added.

For police departments, tweetalongs are just one more way to connect directly with a community through social media.

More than 92 percent of police departments use social media, according to a survey of 600 agencies in 48 states conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Social Media. And Nancy Kolb, senior program manager for IACP, called tweetalongs a “growing trend” among departments of all sizes.

There is no set protocol and departments are free to conduct the tweetalong how they see fit, she said.

In Ontario, Canada, the Niagara Regional Police Service conducted their first virtual ridealong in August over a busy eight-hour Friday night shift. The police department‘s followers were able to see a tweet whenever the police unit was dispatched to one of the more than 140,000 calls received that night.

Richard Gadreau, the social media officer for the police department, said officers routinely take people out on real ridealongs, but there is a waiting list and preference is given to people interested in becoming an officer.

With tweetalongs, many calls also mean many tweets. Kolb said departments are cognizant of cluttering peoples’ Twitter feeds.

That’s why the Rapid City Police Department decided to create a separate account for the tweetalong, Allender said.

Kolb also said officers are careful not to tweet personal or sensitive information. Officers typically do not tweet child abuse or domestic abuse cases, and they usually only tweet about a call after they leave the scene to protect officers and callers.

But Allender, the chief of police in Rapid City, said tweetalongs also show some of the more outrageous calls police deal with on a regular basis — like the kid who breaks out the window of a police car while the officer is standing on the sidewalk.

“Real life is funnier than any comedy show out there and not to make fun of people, embarrass them or humiliate them, but people do funny things,” Allender said. “… I mean, that guy deserves a little bit of ridicule, and everyone who would be watching would agree. That’s just good clean fun to me.”

___

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Obama, Congress set for late push on “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON/HONOLULU (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is due back in Washington early Thursday for a final effort to negotiate a deal with Congress to avert or at least postpone the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and government spending cuts set to begin next week.

No specific bill dealing with the cliff was on the schedule of either the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives, which are expected to return on Thursday after the holiday break. In Congress, the corridors were almost empty and the doors to members’ rooms were locked.

Investors are closely watching the talks, concerned that going over the cliff could throw the economy into recession. U.S. stocks slipped on Wednesday after retailers reported disappointing holiday sales as shoppers tightened belts possibly due to fiscal cliff worries.

Aides and members of Congress have said that a modest, last-minute measure to avoid the spending cuts and most of the tax hikes could pass the Democratic-controlled Senate if Republicans agree not use a procedural roadblock known as a filibuster, a commitment that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has so far not made.

The legislative focus continues to shift from deficit reduction to averting the immediate shock of the December 31 cliff dive.

“This is the ‘Break Glass’ scenario that we have long believed would rise in probability the closer we go to December 31, which essentially calls for extending all the rates for those individuals making under $ 200K and households under $ 250K and does not address the debt ceiling or the deficit,” analyst Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Securities wrote in a research note.

But to win approval in the Republican-controlled House of any bill that raises taxes on anyone, a rare bipartisan vote would be required. All 191 Democrats would have to team with up with at least 26 Republicans to get a majority if the bill included tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans, as Obama is demanding.

Some of those votes could conceivably come from among the 34 Republican members who are either retiring or were defeated in the November elections and no longer have to worry about the political fallout.

JANUARY SCRAMBLE?

In the alternative, Congress could let income taxes go up on everyone as now scheduled and then during the first week of January, scramble and get a quick deal to cut them back except for the highest brackets, along with a measure putting off the $ 109 billion in automatic spending cuts that most lawmakers want to avoid.

Once the clock ticks past midnight on December 31, no member of Congress would have to vote for a tax increase on anyone – taxes would have risen automatically – and the only votes would be to decrease tax rates for most Americans back to their 2012 levels.

Americans’ optimism that Obama and congressional leaders will reach a budget agreement before January 1 has waned in recent days, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday. Fifty percent believe a deal will be reached – a drop of 7 percentage points from the previous week – and 48 percent are doubtful. The poll was taken just after talks ran into trouble last week.

Obama and congressional lawmakers left Washington on Friday for the Christmas holiday with negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff in limbo.

The president will cut short his vacation in Hawaii and leave for Washington later on Wednesday, arriving in the capital early on Thursday.

Obama is expected to turn to a trusted Democratic ally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to help craft a quick deal.

White House aides began discussing details of the year-end budget measure with Senate Democratic counterparts early this week.

Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz is urging workers in the company’s roughly 120 Washington-area coffee shops to write “come together” on customers’ cups on Thursday and Friday to send a message to sharply divided politicians.

“We’re paying attention, we’re greatly disappointed in what’s going on and we deserve better,” Schultz told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan in Washington and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Britain’s royal family attends Christmas services

LONDON (AP) — Britain‘s royal family is attending Christmas Day church services — with a few notable absences.

Wearing a turquoise coat and matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II arrived at St. Mary Magdelene Church on her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. She was accompanied in a Bentley by granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

Her husband, Prince Philip, walked from the house to the church with other members of the royal family.

Three familiar faces were missing from the family outing. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury. Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.

Later Tuesday, the queen will deliver her traditional, pre-recorded Christmas message, which for the first time will be broadcast in 3D.

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VP says Chavez up, walking; doubts persist

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Vice President Nicolas Maduro surprised Venezuelans with a Christmas Eve announcement that President Hugo Chavez is up and walking two weeks after cancer surgery in Cuba, but the news did little to ease uncertainty surrounding the leader’s condition.

Sounding giddy, Maduro told state television Venezolana de Television that he had spoken by phone with Chavez for 20 minutes Monday night. It was the first time a top Venezuelan government official had confirmed talking personally with Chavez since the Dec. 11 operation, his fourth cancer surgery since 2011.

“He was in a good mood,” Maduro said. “He was walking, he was exercising.”

Chavez supporters reacted with relief, but the statement inspired more questions, given the sparse information the Venezuelan government has provided so far about the president’s cancer. Chavez has kept secret various details about his illness, including the precise location of the tumors and the type of cancer. His long-term prognosis remains a mystery.

Dr. Michael Pishvaian, an oncologist at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington, said it was an encouraging sign that Chavez was walking, and it indicated he would be able to return to Venezuela relatively soon. But he said the long term outlook remained poor.

“It’s definitely good news. It means that he is on the road to recover fully from the surgery,” Pishvaian said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “The overall prognosis is still pretty poor. He likely has a terminal diagnosis with his cancer that has come back.”

Pishvaian and other outside doctors have said that given the details Chavez has provided about his cancer, it is most likely a soft-tissue sarcoma.

Chavez first underwent surgery for an unspecified type of pelvic cancer in Cuba in June 2011 and went back this month after tests had found a return of malignant cells in the same area where tumors were previously removed.

Venezuelan officials said that, following the six-hour surgery two weeks ago, Chavez suffered internal bleeding that was stanched and a respiratory infection that was being treated.

Maduro’s announcement came just hours after Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read a statement saying Chavez was showing “a slight improvement with a progressive trend.”

Dr. Carlos Castro, director of the Colombian League against Cancer, an association that promotes cancer prevention, treatment and education, said Maduro’s announcement was too vague to paint a clear picture of Chavez’s condition.

“It’s possible (that he is walking) because everything is possible,” Castro told AP. “They probably had him sit in up in bed and take two steps.”

“It’s unclear what they mean by exercise. Was it four little steps?” he added. “I think he is still in critical condition.”

Maduro’s near-midnight announcement came just as Venezuelan families were gathering for traditional late Christmas Eve dinners and setting off the usual deafening fireworks that accompany the festivities. There was still little outward reaction on a quiet Christmas morning.

Danny Moreno, a software technician watching her 2-year-old son try out his new tricycle, was among the few people at a Caracas plaza who said she had heard Maduro’s announcement. She said she saw a government Twitter message saying an announcement was coming and her mother rushed to turn on the TV.

“We all said, thank God, he’s okay,” she said, smiling.

Dr. Gustavo Medrano, a lung specialist at the Centro Medico hospital in Caracas, said if Chavez is talking, it suggests he is breathing on his own despite the respiratory infection and is not in intensive care. But Medrano said he remained skeptical about Maduro’s comments and could deduce little from them about Chavez’s prognosis for recovery.

“I have no idea because if it was such a serious, urgent, important operation, and that was 14 days ago, I don’t think he could be walking and exercising after a surgery like that,” Medrano said.

Over the weekend, Chavez’s ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, made a lightning visit to Cuba that only added to the uncertainty.

Journalists had been summoned to cover his arrival and departure in Havana, but hours later that invitation was canceled. No explanation was given, though it could have been due to confusion over Morales’ itinerary as he apparently arrived later than initially scheduled.

Cuban state media published photos of President Raul Castro receiving Morales at the airport and said he came “to express his support” for Chavez, his close ally, but did not give further details. He left Sunday without making any public comments.

For the second day in a row Tuesday, Morales made no mention of his trip to Cuba during public events in Bolivia.

Yet more questions surround Chavez’s political future, with the surgery coming two months after he won re-election to a six-year term.

If he is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution calls for new elections to be held. Chavez has asked his followers to back Maduro, his hand-picked successor, in that event.

Venezuelan officials have said Chavez might not return in time for his Jan. 10 inauguration.

Opposition leaders have argued that the constitution does not allow the president’s swearing-in to be postponed, and say new elections should be called if Chavez is unable to take the oath on time.

But government officials have said the constitution lets the Supreme Court administer the oath of office at any time if the National Assembly is unable to do it Jan. 10 as scheduled.

___

Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana, Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Camilo Hernandez in Bogota, Colombia, and Paola Flores in La Paz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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