Drivers face high gas prices despite US oil boom

US oil production is booming and gasoline demand is low, but prices at pump remain high

Associated Press -

FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, file photo, Costco members fill up with discounted gasoline at a Costco gas station in Van Nuys, Calif. U.S. oil output rose 14 percent to 6.5 million barrels per day in 2012, a record increase, but you'd never know it from the price at the pump. The national average price of gasoline is $3.69 per gallon and it is forecast to creep higher and could approach $4 by May. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Reid To Introduce Gun Control Legislation With Background Checks

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will move forward with Senate Democrats' gun control legislation, a move designed to set the Senate up to start working on the controversial legislation when they return from recess on April 8.

The bill will include a proposal for universal background checks, a controversial measure that faces an uphill climb in the Senate.

Democratic leadership aides say Reid is still leaving the door open to replace the language on background checks, as passed this month out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with a compromise package, should one emerge over the next few weeks.

"I hope negotiations will continue over the upcoming break to reach a bipartisan compromise on background checks, and I am hopeful that they will succeed," Reid said in a statement Thursday. "If a compromise is reached, I am open to including it in the base bill. But I want to be clear: in order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks."

Also included in the bill will be straw purchasing and trafficking provisions, aides say.

The base bill will not include the controversial ban on assault weapons, as decided this week by Senate Majoirty Leader Harry Reid.

But the assault weapons ban will get its vote, Reid promises - as President Obama did, as an amendment to the bill. "Once debate begins, I will ensure that a ban on assault weapons, limits to high-capacity magazines, and mental health provisions receive votes, along with other amendments. In his State of the Union address, President Obama called for all of these provisions to receive votes, and I will ensure that they do," Reid said in a statement.

Biden, Bloomberg and Newtown Parents Press for Strict Gun Control

Just two days after Senate Democrats in Washington, D.C., dropped the assault weapons ban from gun legislation to be introduced in April, Vice President Joseph Biden was in New York City, joining Mayor Michael Bloomberg and three Newtown families to urge lawmakers to think about Sandy Hook Elementary.

"For all those who say we shouldn't or couldn't ban high-capacity magazines, I just ask the one question. Think about Newtown," said the vice president. "Think about how many of these children or teachers may be alive today had [Adam Lanza] had to reload three times as many times as he did."

As Biden spoke at New York's City Hall, he gestured to the Newtown families gathered behind him.

"We've actually become good acquaintances and friends. We've met many times," he said.

The discussion on federal gun laws is part of a campaign the vice president has been leading to gain support for stricter gun laws following the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Biden partnered with Bloomberg for the discussion; the mayor is another strong advocate for gun controlwho co-chairs the group "Mayors Against Illegal Guns," a coalition of more than 900 mayors.

Chris and Lynn McDonnell, who lost their 7-year-old daughter Grace, stood next to Neil Heslin, whose son Jesse Lewis also died at Sandy Hook. The family of teacher Lauren Rousseau, also killed that day, joined the parents of the two children.

"When you think about Grace and Jesse and these two beautiful little babies, that's what they were," said Biden. "And Lauren, who was not really a teacher, this is a woman who if this happened on the battlefield … she would get a commendation for her bravery in trying to protect her comrades. In this case, trying to protect these little angels."

A few of the family members spoke, including Lynn McDonnell, who indirectly referred to Ohio Senator Rob Portman's decision to support gay marriage.

"We see that on a completely unrelated issue, a prominent senator has changed his view because he gained a new perspective, formed by his own personal connection to that issue," said McDonnell. "For those of you for whatever reason are inclined to do something very little in support of gun control, we ask you to try to gain your new perspective by thinking about the unthinkable, which is unfortunately our reality."

At the discussion, Bloomberg acknowledged that some progress on gun control has already been made.

"Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of a number of reforms, including a measure to expand background checks to private gun sales, which is how some 40 percent of gun purchases in the nation are made," he said.

The mayor and the vice president, turning to the Newtown parents, ended the discussion by saying that they can't bring back their loved ones, but they can do something in their memory, like passing stricter gun laws, to ensure that a shooting like Sandy Hook Elementary doesn't happen again.

Syrian rebels capture areas near Golan Heights

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels captured one village and parts of others on the edge of the Golan Heights Thursday as fighting closed in on the strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria in 1967 and later annexed, activists and officials said.

If the rebels take over the region, it will bring radical Islamic militants to a front-line with Israeli troops and give them a potential staging ground for attack on the Jewish state. One of the rebel groups involved in the fighting, the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, is an Islamic militant group.

One of the worst-case scenarios for Syria's 2-year-old civil war is that it could draw in neighboring countries such as Israel or Lebanon. Israel has said its policy is not to get involved in the Syrian civil war, but it has retaliated for sporadic Syrian fire that spilled into Israeli communities on the Golan Heights.

There have also been clashes with Turkey, Syria's neighbor to the north. And Israel recently bombed targets inside Syria said to include a weapons convoy headed for Hezbollah in Lebanon, a key ally of the regime in Damascus and an arch foe of Israel.

The battles near the town of Quneitra in southwest Syria sent many residents fleeing, including dozens who crossed into neighboring Lebanon. The fighting in the sensitive area began Wednesday near the cease-fire line between Syrian and Israeli troops.

Syrian rebels are made of dozens of groups including the powerful, al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, which the Obama administration labels a terrorist organization. Syrian TV said Thursday that Syrian forces "restored peace" to Khan Arnabeh and the Tilal al-Ahmar villages in Quneitra province "after eradicating large numbers of Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists," the term used by the regime to refer to the rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad.

The Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said earlier that rebels had seized control of Khan Arnabeh and parts of villages a few kilometers (miles) from the cease-fire line with Israel after fierce fighting with regime forces.

It reported that Syrian warplanes and artillery bombarded the villages of Tseel, Shajara, Jamlah and Nafea. Jamlah is where rebels captured earlier this month 21 U.N. peacekeepers and held them for four days before setting them free.

The Local Coordination Committees, another anti-regime activist group, reported heavy fighting in the nearby village of Sahm al-Golan and said rebels are attacking an army post.

The Observatory said seven people, including three children, were killed Wednesday by government shelling of villages in the area.

An estimated 70,000 people have been killed in the past two years of conflict in Syria, according to the United Nations.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the fighting around the town of Arnabeh intensified Thursday, a day after rebels captured it. He added that the rebels captured two nearby army posts.

In Lebanon, security officials said 150 people, mostly women and children, walked for six hours in rugged mountains covered with snow to reach safety in the Lebanese border town of Chebaa.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the Syrians fled from the town of Beit Jan, near the Golan Heights.

The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, a Islamic militant rebel group active in southern Syria, said in a statement on its Facebook page that its fighters stormed an army post between the villages of Sahm al-Golan and Shajara.

Activists on Facebook pages affiliated with rebels in Quneitra announced the start of the operation to "break the siege on Quneitra and Damascus' western suburbs."

The Golan front has been mostly quiet since 1974, a year after Syria and Israel fought a war during which Damascus tried to retake the plateau, and briefly captured Quneitra, which borders the Israeli-occupied section of the Golan.

The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, known as UNDOF, was established in May 1974 by a U.N. Security Council resolution following the agreed disengagement of the Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.

Since then, UNDOF has remained in the area that the Israelis later pulled out from, which includes Quneitra. The U.N. forces maintain the cease-fire between the Israelis and Syrians and supervise the implementation of the disengagement agreement.

In the past months, Syrian shells exploded inside the Israel-occupied Golan several times damaging apple orchards, sparking fires and spreading panic but causing no injuries.

In early November, three Syrian tanks entered the Golan demilitarized zone, and in a separate incident an Israeli patrol vehicle was peppered with bullets fired from Syria. No one was hurt in the incident and the Israeli military deemed it accidental.

The fighting moved closer to Israel as President Barack Obama was visiting the country for the first time since taking office more than four years ago.

In a new sign of distress for Syria's war-battered economy, the currency hit a record low of 118 pounds to the dollar compared to 47 before the crisis began.

In the capital of Damascus, exchange shops were paying 108 pounds to the dollar on Thursday, compared to 118 on Wednesday.

The fall of the pound came after members of the opposition Syrian National Coalition elected Ghassan Hitto on Tuesday to head an interim administration they hope will provide an alternative to Assad's regime and help coordinate the fight against his forces.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi assured the Syrian people that the government has a strategic reserve of foreign currency.

He did not give a figure, but the government is believed to have spent much of its $17 billion in foreign currency reserves it held when the crisis began to prevent the pound from crashing.

The central bank governor was quoted by state media as saying that the bank will resume the sale of foreign currency to importers as of next week. He said the funding of non-commercial operations is ongoing including providing the needs of citizens who want to travel.

He blamed the fall of the pound on speculators.

Also Thursday, state-run TV in Damascus said authorities have handed over to Beirut a Lebanese fighter captured inside Syria in an ambush by government troops.

Hassane Serour had been in held in Syria since Nov. 30, when a group of Lebanese fighters were ambushed by Syrian troops shortly after crossing the border to join the rebels.

Lebanese officials said at the time that 17 gunmen were killed in the ambush.

Lebanon is sharply split along sectarian lines, and Syria's civil war has exacerbated those divisions among supporters and opponents of Assad.

The divisions are a legacy of the nearly three decades when Damascus all but ruled Lebanon until withdrawing troops in 2005.

Iran will destroy Israeli cities if attacked: Khamenei

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during the 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran, August 30, 2012. REUTERS/Hamid Forootan/ISNA

By Marcus George and Zahra Hosseinian

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Thursday that the Islamic Republic would destroy the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa if its nuclear infrastructure came under attack from the Jewish state.

Israel puts little stock in big power negotiations aimed at curbingIran's uranium enrichment - which Western nations suspect is a conduit to nuclear weapons capability - and has repeatedly hinted at pre-emptive war against its arch-enemy.

During a visit to Israel on Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obamaacknowledged its security concerns, saying, "America will do what we must to prevent a nuclear Iran." But he also said big powers believed there was still time for a diplomatic solution.

Russia said Iran and six global powers made headway in expert-level talks this week to ease the 10-year-long standoff overTehran's nuclear ambitions, but the risk of backsliding towards confrontation remained.

Higher-level political talks between the powers and Iran are to resume in the Kazakh city of Almaty early next month, part of a concerted effort to avert another Middle East war that could balloon oil prices and wreak havoc on the global economy.

Khamenei, in a televised speech marking the Iranian new year, said: "At times the officials of the Zionist regime (Israel) threaten to launch a military invasion but they themselves know that if they make the slightest mistake the Islamic Republic will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground."

But the top Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Iran's most powerful figure, dismissed any threat from Israel, describing it as "not big enough to stand out among the Iranian nation's enemies".

The standoff now turns on Iran's enrichment of uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent, which the West sees as a big step towards processing the material for use in nuclear bombs. Tehran says 20 percent enrichment will yield solely fuel for a medical research reactor, and that its nuclear quest is wholly peaceful.

"We have told you numerous times that we are not after nuclear weapons," Khamenei said, addressing Washington in front of thousands of adoring faithful who had come to the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad to hear him speak.

COOL TO DIRECT U.S.-IRANIAN CONTACT

He responded coolly to recent U.S. suggestions of direct talks between the two countries, which have had no diplomatic relations since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and the ensuing hostage crisis involving American diplomats in Tehran.

"I am not optimistic about these talks. Why? Because our past experiences show that talks for the American officials do not mean for us to sit down and reach a logical solution ... What they mean by talks is that we sit down and talk until Iran accepts their viewpoint," the top Shi'ite Muslim cleric said.

"I am not optimistic about their comments but I am not opposed either," he said adding that the solution to the issue was "close-by and easy" if only the United States genuinely wanted to reach an agreement.

Touching on a central Iranian demand, Khamenei called for Iran's "natural right" to enrich uranium for nuclear energy to be recognized by the world. Western powers have refused on the grounds that Iran has hidden nuclear work from U.N. inspectors in the past and not opened up to their investigations.

At technical-level talks in Istanbul on Monday, the six powers gave Iran more details of proposals made in Almaty where they offered Tehran modest sanctions relief if it curbed its most sensitive nuclear activity.

"This progress is real but it is not sufficient to speak of a definitive shift," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow's chief negotiator, told reporters.

"We cannot say this progress is irreversible. This alarms us a little, but from round to round, we have a more and more businesslike discussion of all the issues."

LIMITED CONCESSIONS ON OFFER

Western officials have said the offer entailed an easing of a ban on trade in gold and other precious metals as well as an import embargo on Iranian petrochemical products.

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

Iran has been wary, suggesting that the powers are asking for concessions more significant than they have offered Tehran.

Obama, in a speech to Israeli university students, said "strong and principled diplomacy" remained the best way to ensure that Iran eschewed nuclear weapons.

"We know that there remains time to pursue a diplomatic resolution ...with the sense of urgency that is required. But Iran must know this time is not unlimited," he said.

"Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. This is not a danger that can be contained. I have said to the world that all options are on the table for achieving our objectives," Obama added, alluding to last-resort military action.

Israeli cabinet minister Silvan Shalom, asked whether Israeli and U.S. timelines for action on Iran were converging, told Israel Radio: "He (Obama) also knows that there is a target date for the matter of attacking Iran to deny it nuclear weapons. He knows it, and we know it."

KHAMENEI: IRAN WON'T BUCKLE TO PRESSURE

Khamenei said Iran's struggles over the past year against international sanctions imposed over its contested nuclear program resembled a battle and that its enemies had confessed to trying to "cripple the Iranian nation".

"What happened last year, we need to learn a lesson," he said, alluding to what he described as Iran's significant scientific and military advances. "This vibrant nation will never be brought to its knees."

But he acknowledged that Iran had work to do to ensure it could meet the challenge of economic warfare waged against it. He said Iran needed to shake off dependence on oil exports and the government needed to adopt astute economic policies.

The last 12 months have inflicted a heavy financial burden on Iran's population as sanctions, combined with what critics say is government mismanagement, have torn the economy.

With inflation and unemployment soaring and the value of the Iranian currency halved since a year ago, the vast majority of Iranians have tightened their belts to celebrate Iran's new year - or Nowruz, the nation's most important holiday.

Traditional foods and purchasing new clothes - central Nowruz traditions - have become a great deal more expensive.

The government has set up subsidized local markets to try to restrain food prices and warned Of heavy fines for those caught profiteering, but that has not prevented an inflationary spiral.

A kilo of pistachios has more than doubled in recent months, forcing many Iranians to stop buying a traditional Nowruz food.

"How are ordinary people suppose to afford that? What would be next? Probably next year, we can't even afford simple fruits," said 48-year-old Shahrokh, who works in a taxi agency.

(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna, Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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