Key U.S. missile interceptor test fails, Pentagon says

9 hours agoMilitaryPolitics

Conceptual Interceptor Receiving Facility (IRF) at Missile Assembly Building at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the United States is testing the missile defence shield. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A test of the only U.S. defense against long-range ballistic missiles failed on Friday, the third consecutive failure involving the interceptor system managed by Boeing Co, the Defense Department said.

"Program officials will conduct an extensive review to determine the cause or causes of any anomalies which may have prevented a successful intercept," it said in a statement.

The military has tested the so-called ground-based midcourse defense system 16 times. It has succeeded eight times, with the last intercept in December 2008.

The Pentagon said this week that the test would not affect its decision to bolster the U.S. missile defense system. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the move in March following threats by North Korea.

Under that plan, the Pentagon will add 14 new anti-missile interceptors at a total cost of nearly $1 billion.

The United States currently has 26 interceptors deployed at Fort Greely in Alaska and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

In Friday's test, a long-range ballistic missile target was launched from the U.S. Army's Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. The interceptor missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Explosions shut down Colombia's No. 2 oil pipeline

7 hours agoColombia

The explosions on Colombia's No. 2 pipeline, used by U.S. oil producer Occidental and owned by Ecopetrol, had no immediate impact on crude production or exports in Latin America's No. 4 oil producer, according to a media official at Ecopetrol.

No details on how much crude was spilt by the explosions or the environmental damage was immediately available, the Ecopetrol official said.

The explosions were likely carried out by a rebel group, a military source told Reuters, without attributing the attack specifically to the FARC, as the nation's biggest insurgent movement is known, or its smaller counterpart the ELN.

The guerrilla groups have attacked oil infrastructure with increasing frequency in the past year or so, even as peace talks in Cuba progress between the government and the FARC.

The Marxist FARC this week called on the government to also seek a negotiated end to its war with the ELN.

Pipelines are usually brought back on line within a matter of days after attacks, which in 2012 were as regular as one every two or three days, according to defense ministry data, almost twice as frequent as in 2011.

The first explosion on the 780-km (485 mile) pipeline happened on Thursday near El Tarra in Santander province and the second on Friday, near Saravena in Arauca province, Ecopetrol said.

The pipeline runs close to the border with Venezuela and carries crude from the Cano Limon fields to the port of Covenas on the Caribbean coast for export.

Latin America's longest-running insurgency is at its weakest in decades. But attacks on pipelines in remote areas have cut into production goals, and kept the government from reaching its target of 1 million barrels per day until late last year.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Peter Murphy; Editing by Helen Murphy and Paul Tait)

Child's pregnancy sets off Chile abortion debate

LUIS ANDRES HENAO 6 hours agoHealthChileLatin America

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — The case of a pregnant 11-year old girl who was raped in Chile by her mother's partner has set off a national debate about abortion in one of the most socially-conservative countries in Latin America.

Chileans were outraged on Friday after state TV reported that the girl is 14 weeks pregnant and was raped repeatedly over two years. Police in the remote southern city of Puerto Montt arrested her mother's partner, who confessed to abusing the fifth grader. The case was brought to their attention by the pregnant child's maternal grandmother.

Doctors say the girl's life and that of the fetus are at high risk. But in Chile, ending the pregnancy is not an option.

Chile allowed abortions for medical reasons until they were outlawed in 1973 by Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. The current government of conservative President Sebastian Pinera has opposed any loosening of the prohibition.

Many Chileans were venting outrage on social media Friday. Some started an online campaign to demand legalization of abortion in cases of rape or health risks for the mother.

"When I heard about this little girl my first reaction was to support abortion because I think it's the best option in this case," said Eduardo Hernandez, a 30-year-old web designer.

"It's the first online petition I've signed in my life, but I think this case really deserves it," Hernandez said. "We should have a law. I hope this case serves as precedent to have a serious discussion about abortion."

"We're faced with an 11-year-old girl whose childhood has been damaged and she's pregnant," Nicole Salvatierra, a 26-year-old-journalist, told The Associated Press in an email exchange after earlier speaking out about the case on Twitter. "The state is blocking a way to revert this situation. It's twice as bad for her. That's what's criminal, not interrupting the pregnancy in the context that justifies it."

But more conservative members of Chilean society oppose all abortions and the nation's Senate last year rejected three bills last year that would have eased the absolute ban.

"The Senate has voted in favor of life, of the unborn child, a policy the government has defended," Cristian Larroulet, a top presidential aide, said after one of the votes.

One of the bills would have permitted abortion if two doctors said it was needed because of risks to a mother's life or other medical reasons, such as a fetus with low chances of survival. Another one of the measures that was rejected would have allowed abortion in the event of rape.

Forty years after a brutal dictatorship, Chile remains firmly conservative in social matters. It legalized divorce in 2004, becoming one of the last nations in the world to grant married couples that right.

"Chile is a country that has modernized when it comes to its economy, but when it comes to its social and political culture, it has become stagnant and this is seen with the abortion issue," said Marta Lagos, head of the Santiago-based pollster Mori.

"It's a country that is adverse to change, that panics with any change, which is seen as a threat," Lagos said. "The weight of Catholicism is still a major issue and we also have a millenary indigenous culture that always lived alienated from the rest of world. We're part of that millenary culture of isolation."

The Roman Catholic Church retains a strong influence over society, although it has lost credibility since 2010, when four men alleged that they were abused by one of Chile's most revered priests when they were between 14 and 17 years old.

Pinera announced measures last year to combat child abuse, responding to a popular outcry over a spike in reports of these crimes. He toughened penalties on convicted pedophiles, increased the forensic institute's budget and created a children's ombudsman to protect their rights.

His center-right government also banned convicted pedophiles from working near children under a law that also requires those convicted of sexually abusing minors to be registered in a database. Reports of sexual abuse of children under the age of 14 rose by 22 percent in the first half of 2012.

But change comes slowly in Chile. An anti-discrimination law was stuck in Congress for seven years and only passed in 2012 after the killing of a gay man who was beaten by attackers who carved swastikas into his body.

"The Chilean elite is very conservative and this has had an influence in Congress," said Patricio Navia, a Chilean political scientist who teaches at New York University. "Laws, therefore, change at a much slower pace than the rest of Chilean society. Because society is much less conservative than it was 15 or 20 years ago."

Former president Michelle Bachelet, the frontrunner in the Nov. 17 presidential elections, favors legalizing abortion in cases of rape or risks to the health of the mother or the child. She spent the past several years heading the U.N. agency for women.

Her opponent, former Economy Minister Pablo Longueira, was close to Pinochet. He opposes abortion and the so-called day-after pill.

Daniel Alvarado, a prosecutor for the public ministry, told state TV that the case of the pregnant 11-year-old would be treated as a rape in any circumstance because at that age a person "doesn't have maturity to consent to a sexual relationship within law."

"It's not possible for any person at that age to have the capacity to understand the consequences on an act of that nature," Alvarado added.

In Latin America, only Cuba, Uruguay and some local governments make early abortions accessible to all women.

Uruguay recently passed a law authorizing elective abortions in the first three months of pregnancy in the most liberal law of its kind in Latin America. Passage of the law was widely seen as a landmark for a region in which many countries outlaw abortion in all circumstances.

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Simultaneous Disasters Batter Pacific Islands

• Published: July 5th, 2013

How the IRS Made All Kinds of Groups' Lives Miserable

Elspeth Reeve July 5, 2013Politics

How the IRS Made All Kinds of Groups' Lives Miserable

We know the IRS acted inappropriately in flagging conservative groups for review when they were seeking non-profit status. But now Congressional Democrats charge that the IRS acted inappropriately in reporting how it acted inappropriately. Liberal groups also got extra scrutiny from the IRS on its Be On the Look Out lists. So did seemingly apolitical groups focused on open-source software. The Chi Eta Phi Sorority — a black nurses group that says it works for "social change" — has answered 73 questions from the IRS since it applied for tax-exempt status two years ago, The New York Times' Jonathan Weisman reports. Its application is still pending. Minnesota Break the Bonds, a pro-Palestinian group, got all the same questions conservative groups got — and those led to top IRS officials getting fired.

RELATED: The Tea Party Gets an Apology from the IRS

Congressional Democrats are asking IRS inspector general J. Russell George to explain why his report made it seem like only conservative groups were targeted, The Washington Post's Josh Hicks reports. In congressional testimony in June, George was asked whether progressive groups were targeted, and said, "in many instances were neutral, in that you couldn’t necessarily attribute it to one particular affiliation or another." Virginia Rep. Gerald Connolly, a Democrat, sent a letter to George saying the testimony was "at best incomplete, if not misleading." Connolly wants George back in Congress for more questioning. Michigan Rep. Sander Levin wrote a letter to George on June 26 saying, "There is increasing evidence that the May 14, 2013 audit was fundamentally flawed and that your handling of it has failed to meet the necessary test of objectivity and forthrightness."

RELATED: Why the IRS Abruptly Apologized to the Tea Party

Tea Party groups and progressive groups were targeted on different parts of the BOLO list. Tea Partiers fell under the "emerging issues" category, while the progressive groups were listed elsewhere, with instructions like "Look for cases involving Medical Marijuana." The IRS says it's looking into whether the different placement on the list was significant, the Post reports. There was a clue George knew progressive groups might have had a hard time with the IRS during George's testimony in May. George was asked whether a group like MoveOn.org might have ended up on the BOLO list, and George said, "I'm not in a position to give you a definitive response on that at this time."