Benedict XVI's Tenure as Pope Ends












VATICAN CITY -- Benedict XVI's eight-year tenure as pope ended today, after he bade farewell to the faithful and departed the Vatican as the first pope to resign in six centuries.


"Thank you for your love and support," the pope tweeted from his Pontifex account. "May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."


With church bells ringing across Rome, the pope was driven to the helipad on the Vatican grounds for the 15-minute flight to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence where he assumed the title "pope emeritus" after 8 p.m. local time.


When Benedict arrived at the residence just south of Rome, he was greeted by a crowd of supporters waving flags and banners.


READ MORE: Pope Benedict XVI Delivers Farewell Address


"I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth," he told them.






Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images











Pope Benedict XVI's Helicopter Ride to Castel Gandolfo Watch Video









Pope Benedict XVI Says Goodbye to Cardinals Watch Video







In his final remarks earlier in the day to colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict had promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his eventual successor. At a morning meeting at the Vatican, Benedict urged the cardinals to act "like an orchestra" to find "harmony" moving forward.


Benedict, 85, spent a quiet final day as pope, bidding farewell to his colleagues and moving on to a secluded life of prayer, far from the grueling demands of the papacy and the scandals that have recently plagued the church.


His first order of business was a morning meeting with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall, a room in the Apostolic Palace.


Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, thanked Benedict for his service to the church during the eight years he has spent as pontiff.


When Benedict's resignation took effect once and for all at 8 p.m. local time, the Swiss Guards left his side for the last time, their time protecting the pontiff completed.


For some U.S. Catholics in Rome for the historic occasion, Benedict's departure was bittersweet.


Christopher Kerzich, a Chicago resident studying at the Pontifical North American College of Rome, said Wednesday he is sad to see Benedict leave, but excited to see what comes next.


"Many Catholics have come to love this pontiff, this very humble man," Kerzich said. "He is a man who's really fought this and prayed this through and has peace in his heart. I take comfort in that and I think a lot of Catholics should take comfort in that."


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Iran upbeat on nuclear talks, West still wary


ALMATY (Reuters) - Iran was upbeat on Wednesday after talks with world powers about its nuclear work ended with an agreement to meet again, but Western officials said it had yet to take concrete steps to ease their fears about its atomic ambitions.


Rapid progress was unlikely with Iran's presidential election, due in June, raising domestic political tensions, diplomats and analysts had said ahead of the February 26-27 meeting in the Kazakh city of Almaty, the first in eight months.


The United States, China, France, Russia, Britain and Germany offered modest sanctions relief in return for Iran curbing its most sensitive nuclear work but made clear that they expected no immediate breakthrough.


In an attempt to make their proposals more palatable to Iran, the six powers appeared to have softened previous demands somewhat, for example regarding their requirement that the Islamic state ship out its stockpile of higher-grade uranium.


Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said the powers had tried to "get closer to our viewpoint", which he said was positive.


In Paris, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry commented that the talks had been "useful" and that a serious engagement by Iran could lead to a comprehensive deal in a decade-old dispute that has threatened to trigger a new Middle East war.


Iran's foreign minister said in Vienna he was "very confident" an agreement could be reached and Jalili, the chief negotiator, said he believed the Almaty meeting could be a "turning point".


However, one diplomat said Iranian officials at the negotiations appeared to be suggesting that they were opening new avenues, but it was not clear if this was really the case.


Iran expert Dina Esfandiary of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said: "Everyone is saying Iran was more positive and portrayed the talks as a win."


"I reckon the reason for that is that they are saving face internally while buying time with the West until after the elections," she said.


The two sides agreed to hold expert-level talks in Istanbul on March 18 to discuss the powers' proposals, and return to Almaty for political discussions on April 5-6, when Western diplomats made clear they wanted to see a substantive response from Iran.


"Iran knows what it needs to do, the president has made clear his determination to implement his policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon," Kerry said.


A senior U.S. official in Almaty said, "What we care about at the end is concrete results."


ISRAELI WARNING


Israel, assumed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed power, was watching the talks closely. It has strongly hinted it might attack Iran if diplomacy and sanctions fail to ensure that it cannot build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any such aim.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said economic sanctions were failing and urged the international community to threaten Iran with military action.


Western officials said the offer presented by the six powers included an easing of a ban on trade in gold and other precious metals, and a relaxation of an import embargo on Iranian petrochemical products. They gave no further details.


In exchange, a senior U.S. official said, Iran would among other things have to suspend uranium enrichment to a fissile concentration of 20 percent at its Fordow underground facility and "constrain the ability to quickly resume operations there".


The official did not describe what was being asked of Iran as a "shutdown" of the plant as Western diplomats had said in previous meetings with Iran last year.


Iran says it has a sovereign right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, and wants to fuel nuclear power plants so that it can export more oil.


But 20-percent purity is far higher than that needed for nuclear power, and rings alarm bells abroad because it is only a short technical step away from weapons-grade uranium. Iran says it produces higher-grade uranium to fuel a research reactor.


Iran's growing stockpile of 20-percent-enriched uranium is already more than half-way to a "red line" that Israel has made clear it would consider sufficient for a bomb.


In Vienna on Wednesday, a senior U.N. nuclear agency official told diplomats in a closed-door briefing that Iran was technically ready to sharply increase this higher-grade enrichment, two Western diplomats said.


"Iran can triple 20 percent production in the blink of an eye," one of the diplomats said.


The U.S. official in Almaty said the powers' latest proposal would "significantly restrict the accumulation of near-20-percent enriched uranium in Iran, while enabling the Iranians to produce sufficient fuel" for their Tehran medical reactor.


This appeared to be a softening of a previous demand that Iran ship out its stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium, which it says it needs to produce medical isotopes.


Iran has often indicated that 20-percent enrichment could be up for negotiation if it received the fuel from abroad instead.


Jalili suggested Iran could discuss the issue, although he appeared to rule out shutting down Fordow. He said the powers had not made that specific demand.


The Iranian rial, which has lost more than half its foreign exchange value in the last year as sanctions bite, rose some 2 percent on Wednesday, currency tracking websites reported.


(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Yeganeh Torbati in Almaty, Georgina Prodhan in Vienna, Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Marcus George in Dubai; Writing by Timothy Heritage and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Louise Ireland)



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US army forced to release WikiLeaks case documents






FORT MEADE, Maryland: The US Army published dozens of documents online Wednesday in the case of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning, after media outlets and other groups had criticized a lack of transparency.

The move came in response to multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the case against Manning, who stands accused of passing a trove of secret files to Julian Assange's anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website.

Among the organizations that demanded access to the pre-trial documents were The Washington Post, CNN and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which all said they had been prevented from informing the public about the case.

Such documents have been sealed based on requests either by the prosecution or defense lawyers in the case against Manning, which is being heard in a military court at Fort Meade, Maryland, north of the US capital Washington.

In federal civilian court, similar types of documents are nearly always made public.

Even in the military commissions at the Guantanamo detention facility, where pre-trial hearings in the case against the 9/11 plotters are being heard, military lawyers have made such documents available.

On Wednesday, 84 court orders and rulings were released in the Manning case, including a partial transcription of a deposition made by Manning.

The 25-year-old Army private faces a slew of charges, including "aiding the enemy," for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive US military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.

He was arrested in May 2010 while serving as an intelligence analyst near Baghdad and subsequently charged over the largest leak of restricted documents in American history. The trial is expected to begin in June.

"Due to the voluminous nature of these documents, it will take additional time to review, redact, and release all of the responsive documents," the Army said in a statement, adding that 500 documents have been released thus far.

During Wednesday's hearing at Fort Meade, Judge Denise Lind dealt the defense a blow when she rejected their claim that the documents allegedly leaked by Manning were incorrectly marked top-secret.

"Evidence of overclassification is not relevant," she said.

The proceedings at Fort Meade are shown to reporters via closed circuit television with a slight delay, so the transmission can be cut if sensitive matters are discussed.

Prosecutors had asked that hearings be closed when classified information is to be discussed.

Prosecutor Ashden Fein said that of 141 possible witnesses, "some form of classification" should be used for testimony from 73 of them, though "not necessarily all their testimony."

Manning is expected to offer a revised plea proposal Thursday.

The most serious of the 22 charges against him, "aiding the enemy," carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but Manning's team is trying to have that charge dropped.

-AFP/ac



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No difference in Cong, NDA regimes: Pawar

NEW DELHI: NCP chief and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said he did not find much difference in the policies of the Congress governments and the Vajpayee-led NDA regime, in what can set off speculation of political realignment.

Speaking at a book launch function on Wednesday, the NCP chief said while many governments had been formed by the opposition parties, most of them were supported by the Congress. Stating that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA regime was the truly non-Congress government, Pawar stressed that its policies in key areas, foreign or domestic, did not diverge from those followed by the Congress.

The comment is seen as significant since NCP is seen by many as potential swing players to be ready to side with the winner post-2014. Pawar had moved closer to the NDA during Vajpayee's prime ministership, and had come close to allying with BJP for 2004 polls. However, resistance from BJP's leaders from Maharashtra scuppered the move: something that Vajpayee would regret later.

Pawar's comment suggesting that the BJP was not radically different from the Congress can set off speculation of a political realignment before or after the next Lok Sabha polls, especially in view of the perception of a political tie between UPA and NDA.

Interestingly, the Maratha strongman refused to comment on Sonia Gandhi or Congress, saying he was an UPA ally and a comment on contemporary issues would only create mistrust in UPA. He said he wanted the government to serve its term.

Sharing the dais with home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Pawar said he was expelled from Congress for six years but he never felt like returning to the party.

The senior leader added there was no running away from coalition era and, Congress and BJP cannot think of coming to power on their own in the near future. For good effect, he said differences were bound to be there on issues like secularism but differences should not turn into political hatred.

Pawar left the Congress to launch NCP in 1999 following rebellion against Sonia Gandhi on "foreign origin" issue. The expulsion on the bitter note raised signs of a permanent divorce but strangely, the two soon came together to form the government in Maharashtra.

Ever since, the Congress and NCP have been together in Maharashtra while the coalition came alive at the Centre when Congress trounced BJP in 2004. Pawar has been a senior minister with agriculture portfolio in the UPA regimes led by Manmohan Singh.

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital


BOSTON (AP) — The 2007 chemical attack left the Vermont nurse unrecognizable to anyone who knew her.


But now Carmen Blandin Tarleton's face has changed again following a facial transplant this month.


Doctors at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston said Wednesday that the 44-year-old's surgery included transplanting a female donor's facial skin to Tarleton's neck, nose and lips, along with facial muscles, arteries and nerves.


"I know how truly blessed I am, and will have such a nice reflection in the mirror to remind myself what selfless really is," Tarleton wrote on her blog Wednesday.


The Thetford, Vt., woman suffered burns on more than 80 percent of her body and was blinded after her estranged husband attacked her with a baseball bat and doused her with lye in 2007.


Tarleton, who once worked as a transplant nurse, has undergone more than 50 surgeries since the attack, including work to restore some of her vision.


The latest surgery took 15 hours and included a team of more than 30 medical professionals. The lead surgeon, Bohdan Pomahac, called her injuries among the worst he's seen in his career.


"Carmen is a fighter," the doctor said Wednesday. "And fight she did."


Pomahac's team has performed five facial transplants at the hospital. He said the patient is recovering very well and is in great spirits as she works to get stronger.


He said she was very pleased when she saw her face for the first time, and that her appearance will not match that of the late donor's face.


"I think she looks amazing, but I'm biased," he said with a smile.


The donor's family wants to remain anonymous, but released a statement through a regional donor bank saying that her spirit would live on through Tarleton and three other organ recipients.


The estranged husband, Herbert Rodgers, pleaded guilty in 2009 in exchange for a prison sentence of at least 30 years.


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Bring on the Cuts: Some Want the Sequester












Mark Lucas wouldn't mind seeing America's defense budget cut by billions.


"There's quite a bit of waste within the military," Lucas, who serves as Iowa state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), told ABC News. "Being in there for 10 years, I've seen quite a bit of it."


With the budget sequester set to kick in on Friday, the former Army ranger is among a small chorus of conservatives saying bring on the cuts.


Read more: Bernanke on Sequester Cuts: Too Much, Too Soon


Lucas cited duplicative equipment purchases, military-run golf courses and lavish food on larger bases -- unlike the chow he endured at a combat operations post in Afghanistan with about 120 other soldiers.


"These guys would have very good food, and I'm talking almost like a buffet style, shrimp and steak once a week, ice cream, all this stuff," Lucas said. "They had Burger Kings and Pizza Huts and McDonald's. And I said to myself, 'Do we really need this?'"


Lucas and AFP would like to see the sequester modified, with federal agencies granted more authority to target the cuts and avoid the more dire consequences. But the group wants the cuts to happen.


"We're very supportive of the sequestration cuts but would prefer to see more targeted cuts at the same level," said the group's spokesman, Levi Russell.


As President Obama and his Cabinet members are sounding the sequester alarm bells, AFP's willingness shows that not everyone is running for the hills.






Charles Dharapak/Pool/AP Photo











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Obama traveled to Norfolk, Va., on Tuesday to speak at a shipyard about cuts and layoffs to defense contractors. In his most recent weekly radio address, he told Americans that the Navy has already kept an aircraft carrier home instead of deploying it to the Persian Gulf. And last week, he spoke before national TV cameras at the White House, warning that first responders would be laid off.


Homeland Security Secretary Jane Napolitano has warned that the sequester will "leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to attacks." Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has warned that air travel will back up after the Federal Aviation Administration furloughs air traffic controllers. And the heads of 18 other federal agencies told Congress that terrible things will happen unless the sequester is pushed off.


Some Republicans have accused the president of scaremongering to gin up popular support for tax hikes. Obama has warned of calamity and demanded compromise in the next breath, and a few Republicans have rejected this as a false choice.


Read more: Boehner Hopes Senate 'Gets Off Their Ass'


"I don't think the president's focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. "For 16 months, the president's been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill."


After Obama spoke to governors at the this week, Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told ABC News' Jonathan Karl outside the White House that the president is exaggerating the sequester's consequences.


"He's trying to scare the American people," Jindal said. "He's trying to distort the impact."






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Oscars host says "no way" doing it again






LOS ANGELES: Oscars host Seth MacFarlane said Tuesday there is "no way" he will do the show again, after his performance was widely criticized as offensive and dull.

The "Family Guy" creator insisted it was fun to have hosted the 85th Academy Awards on Sunday, despite media and online critics panning the show, notably for jokes about actresses' breasts and Jews in Hollywood.

The choice of MacFarlane as Oscars host was seen as the latest attempt to attract younger viewers by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the august industry body which organizes Tinseltown's biggest awards show.

Viewing figures suggested that may have worked -- the US domestic audience was up 11 percent, to just over 40 million, according to the Nielsen media analysis and polling company.

But MacFarlane posted a Twitter exchange with a fan saying he won't do it again. "RT @CrusePhoto: @SethMacFarlane Would you host the #Oscars again if asked? // No way. Lotta fun to have done it, though," he tweeted.

The comic, who also created foul-mouthed movie bear Ted, had said before the show that he would probably not do it again, telling an interviewer last week: "Even if it goes great, I just don't think that I could do this again.

"It's just too much with everything else that I have to do. I'm happy to be doing it and I will be thrilled to have done it, assuming I get out of there in one piece, but I really think this is a one-time thing for me."

Critics slammed MacFarlane's opening segment as over-long -- and in particular blasted a song called "We Saw Your Boobs," which listed the actresses who had appeared topless on-screen.

A sketch featuring Ted provoked some of the harshest attacks, notably for jokes about Jewish control of Hollywood. The Anti-Defamation League, an anti-Semitism watchdog, blasted them as "offensive and not remotely funny."

On his Twitter feed Tuesday, MacFarlane also posted a link to an "interesting press article about the press anger over the Boobs song," and in another tweet noted: "My cat said the show went well."

-AFP/ac



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PDP’s Mufti joins chorus of demand for Afzal body

SRINAGAR: Former Union minister and Jammu and Kashmir's main Opposition PDP's patriarch Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has expressed solidarity with the crowded corner that is asking for the dead body of Afzal Guru. The ruling National Conference, a coalition government between the NC and the Congress, has already pressed for the return of the mortal remains of Guru, hanged inside Tihar jail on February 9.

In a letter to PM Manmohan Singh, the former CM of J&K said, "I request you to take necessary measures to accommodate the wishes of the people of the state and a majority of them in the country to have Afzal Guru's remains returned to his family for the last rites and try to retrieve whatever little can be of the trust of the people in Kashmir."

Mufti added: "I am writing this letter after an agonising fortnight that, in my opinion, witnessed all the effort at rebuilding a relationship of trust between Kashmir and the rest of the country almost evaporate into thin air. The manner in which Mohammad Afzal Guru was executed in secrecy and very obvious unholy haste is not just another hugely negative reference point in our painful history, but it could have the potential to redefine the very nature of how the people here would view their status within the Union. And I am deeply anxious about its possible fallout on our younger generations who had been struggling to come out of a nightmarish experience of life marked by blood and tragedy."

"Never in a democracy of our size and quality is a convict culled out of a queue from serial number 28 and sent to the gallows. Never is a dying convict denied a last meeting with his family. Never is a condemned man denied what is now established as a last chance to seek judicial intervention after spending 12 years in jail. The people of Kashmir felt he was hanged because the noose fitted only the neck of a man of Afzal's description, and given the sad history of the state's association with the Union, they easily relate themselves with his fate," the letter said.

Agencies, meanwhile, reported that Guru had in a letter to the editor of a local Urdu weekly over four years ago written that there was no need to be ashamed of the December 13 attack on Parliament, but had stopped short of owning any responsibility for it. Guru had addressed Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and said "I request Salahuddin to not call the attack of December 13 as a conspiracy. It pains my heart. The attacks are related to the Kashmir issue. If the attack was a conspiracy, then the whole struggle is a conspiracy. We should not be ashamed of December 13."

Editor Shabnum Qayoom was quoted as saying: "I used to receive his (Guru's) letters and articles, so this was nothing new. The handwriting is the same as the previous letters. I do not care if people believe it to be authentic or not." Asked why he did not publish the letter for four years, he said he did not deem it appropriate. "I believe he was swept by emotions. He was not involved but he thought that as there was no way for escape, why not accept and achieve martyrdom. I did not think it was appropriate to publish the letter at that time as it might have been taken as evidence against him, but now that he is no more, I went ahead with it," he said.

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FDA halts Amgen study after teen patient death


WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health regulators say they have halted Amgen's studies of its thyroid drug Sensipar after the death of a 14-year-old patient in a company trial.


The Food and Drug Administration says it is gathering information about the death, but has shut down all studies of the drug in children.


Sensipar is approved for adults to treat over-activity of the parathyroid gland. Amgen Inc. had been studying the drug to see whether it works in children.


The FDA says in a statement it is unclear whether Amgen's drug had a role in the patient's death, but it is reminding doctors to prescribe it carefully.


The agency says doctors should monitor patients' calcium levels to make sure they don't fall to dangerous levels.


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Boehner Pressures Dems to Get 'Off Their...'


Feb 26, 2013 12:48pm


House Speaker John Boehner used some choice words to pressure Senate Democrats to avert the looming sequester — $85 billion of arbitrary across-the-board cuts — insisting that “the House has done its job” and the burden to offer an alternative before the cuts strike Friday is on the president’s party.


“We have moved the bill in the House twice,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something.”


House Republicans voted twice during the 112th Congress to narrowly pass legislation to offset sequestration with alternative savings, but those measures languished in the Senate and expired with the end of the session.


Read More About Sequestration


Boehner also criticized President Obama for taking a Virginia road trip “to use our military men and women as a prop in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes.”


ap john boehner gop leadership ll 130226 wblog Boehner Hopes Senate Gets Off Their Ass

J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo


“I don’t think the president’s focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester,” he said. “For 16 months, the president’s been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill.”


Considering Republicans have not acted in the current session of Congress on any legislation to replace the sequester, House Democrats question whether there is sufficient support to pass the old GOP proposal.


“I don’t think I need to give the Speaker a lesson in legislating or how government runs, but whatever was done last year that didn’t get signed into law has evaporated. It is gone. It does not exist,” California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said today. “This is a new year, a new session of Congress and it’s time for everyone to get to work.”


Boehner deflected a question whether he believes his weakened majority could pass the Republican bill again, and returned his attention to pushing for a vote in the Senate.


“It’s time for the Senate to act. It’s not about the House,” he responded. “We’ve acted.”


Related: Sequester Timeline – When Will Cuts Kick In?


“Where’s the president’s plan to avoid the sequester? Have you seen one? I haven’t seen one. All I’ve heard is that he wants to raise taxes again. Where’s the president’s plan? Where’s the Senate Democrat plan? I want to see it.”


Senate leaders are expected to introduce and vote on their respective plans later this week, perhaps by Thursday.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Congressional Republicans of being “part of the problem” in finding a solution to the upcoming cuts, pressing for new tax increases to help offset the sequester.


“We want to work with Republicans to come to a balanced responsible way to reduce this sequester, the impact of it.  My republican colleagues are standing in the way,” Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. “They only want cuts and more cuts.”


Related: States Prepare for Sequester


Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he is not interested in a last-minute deal, Boehner said “If the Senate acts, I’m sure the House will act quickly.”


The House is meeting for legislation business today, although no action to avert the sequester is expected. The House also meets Wednesday and Thursday, but is currently not expected to be in session on Friday.


ABC News’ Arlette Saenz contributed to this report


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