Finance: No Easy Solution as Russia's Budgetary Troubles Mount

The oil price collapse and Ukraine sanctions have punched a hole in Russia's finances, but the government is fudging its response so far because the solutions could hurt President Vladimir Putin's popularity.
In the absence of a clear way out of this bind, Putin's government can only bicker about how best to respond, and play for time.
Divisions within the government have been highlighted in recent days by public disagreements over proposals to raise taxes on oil companies, part of the departmental battles over the national budget that must be finalized in the coming month.
A year ago, Russia based its budget plans on the oil price remaining at $100 per barrel for the coming three years. With the price now below $50, and not expected to recover much in the years ahead, Russia faces an annual tax shortfall of around $50 billion compared with previous plans.
At a meeting to discuss the budget last week, Putin said the economic situation "was difficult, but not critical."
He ordered that the deficit should not exceed 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016, a figure that sounds manageable by Western standards but which is hard to finance in Russia without tapping diminishing fiscal reserves.
What is especially awkward for Putin is that on current trends Russia will run out of money in around two to three years — coinciding with the next presidential elections in 2018.
Although Putin's popularity remains high, he has shown little appetite for spending cuts that might dent it.
"This year they were promising a significant fiscal squeeze. So far we're not seeing what was promised," said Liza Yermolenko, emerging market economist at consultancy Capital Economics.

Half-measures and short-term fixes may enable Russia to muddle through beyond the 2018 election — after which the hard choices cannot be put off any longer.
"They are going to do the minimum necessary," said Christopher Granville, managing director of emerging markets consultancy Trusted Sources in London, "but not enough to have a fully sustainable trajectory of the public finances."

Pensions Deadline

At least some tough decisions will need to be made by Oct. 25, when the government has to submit the 2016 budget to parliament.
Pensions are central to the debate because they account for over a quarter of the federal budget — not helped by a relatively low retirement age of 60 for men and 55 for women.
Their burden has been exacerbated by Putin's decisions to double pensions during the last economic crisis in 2009, to rule out increasing the retirement age for the next few years, and to index pensions in line with inflation this year.
Pensioners currently make up about 30 percent of an aging population and are more likely to vote than younger Russians.
"The only way to achieve spending cuts that will move the needle will be to attack these favored areas of spending — which is pensions first and foremost," said Granville.
Next year, the Finance Ministry wants to limit the increase in pensions to just 4 percent — well below inflation seen at 12-13 percent this year.
That would be an unlikely about-face. Last week Putin again ordered that social obligations be a priority.
A compromise seems likely, raising pensions by more than the Finance Ministry wants but below inflation.
The ministry is therefore also now training its sights on big corporate taxpayers — notwithstanding repeated government promises.
It wants to squeeze an extra 600 billion rubles ($9.15 billion) out of oil companies next year by changing the formula used to calculate an extraction tax.
Putin appears attracted to the idea of targeting big companies rather than ordinary voters. "The government needs to work out the question of directing to the budget additional incomes, received by our exporters as a result of the ruble's devaluation," he said.
But Russia's oil sector has already been damaged by falling prices and Western sanctions, and the tax plan is already under fire from several senior officials and businesses.
Russia may keep ducking decisions for now because reserves still allow it to spend beyond its means.
The deficit is being financed largely by running down a $70 billion fiscal Reserve Fund. If Russia carries on tapping this at the present rate of 200 billion rubles a month, it will run out in two years.
Russia may also be able to put off the crunch for another year by using what will be left in a second sovereign fund, the $70 billion National Wealth Fund, although this is already facing heavy demands to fund off-budget support to cash-starved companies and banks.
"My prediction would be that both the funds would be fully drawn down between now and the 2018 election — leaving Russia at the mercy [after that] of the markets," said Granville.
"That will require another round of yet more painful decisions. But they will face those over the hump of the political cycle, with no more elections."

Rival air campaigns rage as Russia strikes Syria

Russia begins Syria air strikes in its biggest Mideast intervention in decades

 Russia launched air strikes in Syria on Wednesday in its biggest Middle East intervention in decades, plunging the four-year-old civil war into a volatile new phase as President Vladimir Putin moved forcefully to stake out influence in the unstable region.Moscow's assertion that it had hit Islamic State militants was immediately disputed by the United States and rebels on the ground. The attacks also raised the dangerous specter of Washington and Moscow running air strikes concurrently and in the same region, but without coordination.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks at the United Nations that they agreed their countries should meet very soon on the Syrian situation.
"We agreed on the imperative of as soon as possible, perhaps even as soon as tomorrow, but as soon as possible, having a military-to-military deconfliction discussion," Kerry said.
To "deconflict", in military parlance, is to ensure that, in this case, Russian aircraft do not accidentally clash in any way with Western warplanes.
A U.S. defense official confirmed that talks between the U.S. and Russian militaries could take place within the next day, possibly via secure video-conference or in person. The Pentagon aimed to involve both civilian and uniformed defense officials in the talks.
The U.S. State Department said a Russian diplomat in Baghdad notified the United States of the intended air strikes an hour in advance and warned that American aircraft that have been pressing a daily bombing campaign against Islamic State positions should avoid Syrian airspace.
Kerry said the Russian warning was ignored and U.S. air strikes continued on Wednesday.
Putin said he was striking against Islamic State and helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, long Russia's closest ally in the region, in this aim.
But Washington is concerned that Moscow is more interested in propping up Assad, who the United States has long held should leave office, than in beating Islamic State. Assad's opponents in the brutal civil war include rebel groups that oppose both him and Islamic State and that are supported by the United States and other Western countries.
The Russian defense ministry said it carried out about 20 flights over Syria, hitting eight Islamic State targets and destroying an Islamic State command post and an operations center in a mountainous area, Russian agencies reported.
Syrians living in rebel-held areas of Homs province said the Russian air force unleashed a whole new level of devastation on their towns. Jets flying at higher altitudes than the Syrian air force emitted no noise to alert the people below to raids that were reported to have killed at least 33 civilians, including children.
Moscow's intervention means the conflict in Syria has been transformed in a few months from a proxy war, in which outside powers were arming and training mostly Syrians to fight each other, to an international conflict in which the world’s main military powers except China are directly involved in fighting.

Russia joined the United States and its Arab allies, Turkey, France, Iran and Israel in direct intervention, with Britain expected to join soon, if it gets parliamentary approval.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said of the strikes: "It does appear that they were in areas where there probably were not ISIL forces, and that is precisely one of the problems with this whole approach." ISIL is one of the acronyms for Islamic State, which has seized control of large areas of Syria and Iraq over the past year.
Western-backed Syrian opposition chief Khaled Khoja said the Russian strikes had killed 36 civilians and no rebel fighters, and accused Russia of seeking only to keep Assad in power.
DANGER IN THE SKIES
Moscow's move meant that warplanes from both the United States and Russia will be sharing the skies above Syria.
"I'm especially concerned because there has been no real effort by the Russian side to deconflict the Russian air strikes in Syria with the ongoing U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIL," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said during a visit to the United States.

Reflecting growing tension between the big powers, Kerry phoned his Russian counterpart Lavrov early on Wednesday to tell him the United States regarded the strikes as dangerous, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Russia was moving to "ramp up" support for Assad, adding: "They've made a significant military investment now in further propping him up."
Earnest called it "an indication of how concerned they are about losing influence in the one client state that they have in the Middle East."
At least 200,000 people have been killed and millions driven from their homes since the civil war began in 2011 when Assad's forces moved to crush peaceful protests against his family's four-decade rule.
In Moscow, Putin said the air strikes would be limited in scope and that he hoped Assad was ready for political reform and a compromise for the sake of his country and people.
"I know that President Assad understands that and is ready for such a process. We hope that he will be active and flexible and ready to compromise in the name of his country and his people," Putin told reporters.

Kerry said Washington would have "grave concerns" if Russia hit Syrian targets where Islamic State fighters were not present. Speaking at the U.N. Security Council, Kerry also reiterated Washington's view that the militant group "cannot be defeated as long as Bashar al-Assad remains president of Syria."
Areas of Homs province struck by the Russians are controlled by an array of rebel groups including several operating under the banner of the "Free Syrian Army," activists, locals and rebels said.
The Homs area is crucial to Assad's control of western Syria. Insurgent control of that area would bisect the Assad-held west, separating Damascus from the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartous, where Russia operates a naval facility.
'CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION'
The Russian air strikes came two days after Putin met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations and the two agreed their armed forces should hold talks to avoid coming into conflict in Syria.
Russian jets went into action after the upper house of the Russian parliament gave Putin unanimous backing for strikes following a request for military assistance from Assad.
The last time the Russian parliament granted Putin the right to use military force abroad, a technical requirement under Russian law, Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine last year.
Putin said Russia's military involvement in the Middle East would involve only its air force and would be temporary. One of the reasons for getting involved was the need to stop Russian citizens who had joined the ranks of Islamic State from later returning home to cause trouble, he said.
Russia has been steadily dispatching military aircraft to a base in Latakia, regarded as an Assad stronghold, after the Syrian government suffered a series of battlefield reverses.
Russia's involvement in Syria will be a further challenge for Moscow, which is already intervening in Ukraine at a time when its own economy is suffering from low oil prices and Western sanctions.

Germany prints its constitution in Arabic for refugees

Germany has translated the first 20 articles of its constitution into Arabic and printed 10,000 copies for distribution at registration centers, a move meant to help speed up the integration of about 500,000 asylum seekers into German society, politicians said.
Germany is expected to take in about 800,000 refugees this year — a number much higher than its neighbors, who have been more reluctant to resettle people fleeing poverty and violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Syria and elsehwere.
Now, politicians are worrying about how to best integrate refugees with little or no knowledge of the German language or culture, Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said Wednesday.
While no one would be forced to give up her religion or “change her private life,” Gabriel told German newspaper Bild, newcomers would be expected to respect democratic values, including, Gabriel said, the separation of church and state, gender equality, gay rights and freedom of expression. Anti-Semitism would not be tolerated, he added.
“There is a culture of freedom and responsibility, of rights and duties, which we don’t want to give up,” Gabriel told the newspaper. "People who come here must not only learn the German language, but also the rules of the game of living together,” he added.
The decision to translate parts of the document follows German newspaper Bild’s move in August to print four pages of instructions in Arabic to help people enroll their children in school, apply for government assistance and find shelter. It also included a map of Berlin pointing out registration centers, the central station and other important locations.
The government has also organized free language and culture classes, and employers have called for easier ratification processes of skills obtained abroad to ease refugees' entry in the workforce.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had warned in August against a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment hitting German cities and towns if refugees aren’t integrated quickly. And experts fear xenophobic attacks targeting refugees will increase with time, Reuters said.
"Very quickly you could have a situation like we had in the early 1990s, where shelters full of refugees [fleeing war in the Balkans] are being attacked," one senior official in Berlin told Reuters who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "Something like this can quickly get out of the control of the politicians."
Despite the government’s efforts, evidence of growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Germany appears to be multiplying. In August, police launched an investigation into a series of almost daily arson attacks against refugee shelters, many in eastern Germany, where competition for jobs is fiercer than in the more affluent western part of the country.

"Forbes 400" list reveals America's wealthiest

Forbes Magazine unveiled its 34th annual "Forbes 400" list, ranking America's billionaires who have a combined net worth of $2.34 trillion.
This year the list had a requirement of a record $1.7 billion, and 145 American billionaires did not make the cut.
Revealed first on "CBS This Morning," here are the top five wealthiest:

5. The Koch brothers - $41 billion each

Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

Executive Vice President David Koch (above) and his brother CEO Charles Koch (below) of Koch Industries tied for the number five spot.

Patrick T. Fallon, The Washington Post/Getty Images

4. Jeff Bezos - $47 billion

David Ryder/Getty Images

The Amazon CEO and founder was this year's biggest gainer, jumping $16.5 billion.

3. Larry Ellison - $47.5 billion

James Martin/CNET

Despite stepping down as CEO, the founder of Oracle is still very much involved with the database-software giant.

2. Warren Buffett - $62 billion

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway sealed his biggest deal ever in August, paying a record $37 billion for Precision Castparts, a maker of aerospace and industrial parts.

1. Bill Gates - $76 billion

Ramin Talaie, Getty Images

Although he stepped down as chairman of Microsoft last year, Gates took the number one spot for the 22nd consecutive year. Gates is now focusing on humanitarian work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
But it wasn't any of the wealthiest five who made the cover of Forbes Magazine. With Donald Trump constantly in the limelight, Luisa Kroll, the magazine's assistant managing editor of wealth, said they "couldn't resist" giving him the honorary spot.
Still, Kroll noted that the GOP candidate is actually worth less than what he claims--a net worth of $4.5 billion compared to his claim of over $10 billion.
This year's "Forbes 400" list also confirms that America's rich continue to get richer. Most on the list--more than 200--jumped in net worth.
Gains were especially visible among the startup tech sector, debuting new faces such Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snapchat, who is also the youngest to make the list at just 25 years old.

Facebook is going to $100

The information technology sector dragged on the S&P 500 on Tuesday as stocks struggled to hold onto gains. Within the group, Facebook was one of the worst performers, tumbling about 3 percent.
However, one options trader thinks the social media company could rally 15 percent in just one month.
"I'm making a stance, right here today on Sept. 29th, 2015, that Facebook will hit $100 by Nov. 1st," Andrew Keene of KeeneOnTheMarket.com said Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."

"The market is very weak, Facebook's been weak over the last couple of days," Keene acknowledged. But, "If the market can turn around, Facebook can move higher. If it reports strong earnings, Facebook can move higher," he said.
The company is expected to report third-quarter earnings at the end of October, which Keene said could give its stock price a boost. Facebook shares have seen substantial gains this year, but have fallen more than 6 percent in the last week.
Looking at the weekly chart, Keene said Facebook's upward trend is still intact.

He is buying a November 95/100 bull call spread for $1.25, which represents a bet that Facebook will reach $100 by November options expiration.
Read More No, Facebook is not going to charge users a privacy fee

As the broader market has sold off, Keene said, Facebook had managed to make higher highs and higher lows. It's only recently that the social media giant started to dip, he said.

Who mishandled Clinton’s emails?

Forget the classified information. Hillary Clinton has already admitted to criminal violations of federal law.
There has been a great deal of speculation recently regarding Mrs. Clinton’s mishandling of classified information. But whether that mishandling amounts to a violation of the law turns on one of those questions regarding what did she know and when did she know it that might never be completely resolved.

Classified material is only part of her problem, though. As everyone knows by now, Mrs. Clinton kept all of her official — and unofficial — emails on a private server exclusively under her control. About two years after she left the State Department, she went through all of her emails and separated out the ones she claimed were personal. Before wiping the server and destroying the originals, she forwarded copies of the rest to the State Department. Or did she?
U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2071(b) doesn’t come up much in casual conversation. It’s in a section of Title 18 that also penalizes publishing false weather reports. (It calls for 90 days in jail, in case you were wondering.) Nonetheless, it’s an important statute that protects the integrity of the records and data that keep the government functioning. Section 2071(b) makes it a crime for the custodian of a public record to “willfully and unlawfully conceal mutilate falsify or destroy the same.”
There is no question that her work-related emails as secretary of state qualify as official records and, since she kept them on a server in her basement under her sole control, there is no question that Mrs. Clinton was their custodian. But did she do any of the things forbidden by the statute and, if the server was wiped clean, how would we ever know? The answers are “yes” and “Sidney Blumenthal.”
Back in June, in response to a subpoena issued by the House committee investigating the Benghazi attack, Mr. Blumenthal provided copies of dozens of emails he sent to Mrs. Clinton on the situation in Libya. Nine of these emails did not appear at all in the records that Mrs. Clinton had turned over to the State Department. So we know that when she wiped her server, she destroyed at least nine records covered by U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2071(b).
Maybe this was an accident. When you are turning over 30,000 emails, it’s not surprising that a few might get overlooked. Do we really know that Mrs. Clinton did this “willfully and unlawfully,” and if so, how do we know? Once again, the answers are “yes” and “Sidney Blumenthal.”
Six of the emails that Mr. Blumenthal turned over to Congress were in the email dump that Mrs. Clinton turned over to State. Sort of. Because six of the emails that Mr. Blumenthal sent to Mrs. Clinton were edited before she turned them over. In one case, for example, a warning that a new Libyan government would probably be “founded on Shariah” was removed from an email sent by Mr. Blumenthal before Mrs. Clinton provided that email to the State Department. Mrs. Clinton also deleted Mr. Blumenthal’s concerns that democracy might never take hold in Libya — even after holding elections and “fulfilling a list of proper democratic milestones.”
Why would Mrs. Clinton do something like this? While motive is not an element of the crime, she certainly had one. In 2011, Mrs. Clinton was keen to “take ownership” of Libya, going so far as to visit Tripoli to meet rebel leaders and later quipping, “We came. We saw. He died,” when she heard the news of Moammar Gadhafi’s death.
But today, Libya is a failed state and U.S. intervention there cannot be counted as one of Mrs. Clinton’s great foreign policy successes. By editing these emails and deleting others, Mrs. Clinton was attempting to destroy evidence that she was expressly warned her Libyan adventure could result in a disaster and become a new haven for Islamic militants. This is not the kind of ammo you want to provide to your opponent in a close presidential election.
In other words, this wasn’t an accident. These emails were carefully screened and edited to remove material that might be unflattering or politically damaging. By the way, falsifying or mutilating a record like this is also a violation of U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2071(b).
OK, fine. The law was violated by someone. But how do we know it was Mrs. Clinton? Maybe it was her lawyer or some intern. We know it was Mrs. Clinton because she told us so at a press conference in August. When asked how she determined which emails were “personal” — and therefore destroyed — and which emails were work-related, she said, “I made those decisions.”
So the law was violated and Mrs. Clinton was the one who violated it. What’s the penalty? Violating Section 2071(b) is pretty serious — a fine and up to three years imprisonment. There’s also another, somewhat unusual penalty: disqualification “from holding any office under the United States.”

Russian parliamentary gives Putin the right to deploy troops in Syria

Putin wins parliamentary backing for air strikes in Syria

 

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday secured parliament's unanimous backing to launch air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria, paving the way for imminent Russian military intervention in its closest Middle East ally.Russia has already sent military experts to a recently established center in Baghdad that is coordinating air strikes and ground troops in Syria, a Russian official told Reuters on Wednesday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the center is used to share information on possible air strikes in Syria.
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declined to say when Russian air strikes would begin or whether they had already occurred. But Russia has been steadily building up its forces in Syria and U.S. officials say such strikes could start any time.
A U.S.-led coalition has already been bombing Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. France announced at the weekend that it had launched its first air strikes in Syria.
Sergei Ivanov, the Kremlin's chief-of-staff, said parliament had backed military action by 162 votes to zero after President Bashar al-Assad asked for Russian military assistance to help fight Islamic State and other rebel groups.
"We're talking specifically about Syria and we are not talking about achieving foreign policy goals or about satisfying our ambitions ... but exclusively about the national interests of the Russian Federation," said Ivanov.

MILITARY ACTION:
Russian military action would not be open-ended, he added.
"The operations of the Russian air force can not of course go on indefinitely and will be subject to clearly prescribed time frames."
He declined to say which aircraft would be used and when.
Approval to use force from the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, did not mean Russian ground forces would be engaged in conflict, he said.
"As our president has already said, the use of ground troops has been ruled out. The military aim of our operations will be exclusively to provide air support to Syrian government forces in their struggle against ISIS (Islamic State)." 

Putin's spokesman, Peskov, said the decision meant Russia would be practically the only country in Syria to be conducting operations "on a legitimate basis" and at the request of "the legitimate president of Syria".
The last time the Russian parliament granted Putin the right to deploy troops abroad, a technical requirement under Russian law, Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine last year.
Analysts said Putin needed to get parliament's backing to ensure that any military operation was legal under the terms of the Russian constitution.
"If there will be a united coalition which I doubt, or in the end two coalitions -- one American and one Russian -- they will have to coordinate their actions," Ivan Konovalov, a military expert, told Reuters.
"For Russian forces to operate there legitimately ... a law was needed."

Tom Brady probably won't vote for Donald Trump

Will Tom Brady vote for Donald Trump? Many are wondering after photos surfaced of a “Make America Great Again” hat in Brady’s locker. But, as it turns out, Brady himself may not even know the answer to that question.
In an interview with WEEI, Brady explained that he was given the hat with Trump’s slogan on it by Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Questions about the connection between Brady and Trump popped up after “deflategate.” Not so surprisingly, Trump inserted himself into the situation. Brady had been suspended for four games as a result of his role in deflating footballs during a game in January. Soon after the suspension was vacated by a judge, Trump tweeted out his congratulations and referred to Brady as his “friend” and a “total winner.”

After being paid one of the highest compliments from Trump, Brady confirmed that the two were friends. He mentioned that Trump “always gives me a call and different types of motivational speeches at different times.”
When asked if he would vote for Trump, Brady talked an awful lot about how they’ve played golf together.

I don’t know. Am I going to vote for him? That’s a very good question. Honestly, he’s a good friend and we’ve had a lot of time on the golf course together over the years, probably not much recently, but when I was in my younger days I would have more time that I could spend doing those types of things before there were kids. We spent a lot of time golfing together.
It’s pretty amazing what he’s been able to accomplish as an entrepreneur and then as a television star and now running for political office. People who can do those types of things and transition into different arenas and still have that type of appeal and carry over — he’s obviously appealing to a lot of different people. He’s a helluva lot of fun to play golf with.

If he can’t commit to voting for him, it’s worth wondering how great a friend Brady considers Trump. Time will tell if this story develops and provides more insight. With talk of a Trump/Sheen ticket, there are certainly more strange pairings than Trump and Brady.

Republicans, Planned Parenthood square off in Congress

U.S. congressional Republicans on Tuesday challenged Planned Parenthood's eligibility for federal funds, while the health organization's president said defunding it would restrict women's access to care and disproportionately hurt low-income patients.
A series of videos that purport to show that Planned Parenthood improperly sells fetal tissue to researchers for profit has reignited anti-abortion voters' fervor during a turbulent Republican presidential primary campaign.
At a five-hour House committee hearing, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards appeared alone to respond to hostile questioning from Republicans, some of whom have vowed to shut down the U.S. government if federal support for the organization is not cut off.
"As far as I can tell ... this is an organization that doesn't need federal subsidy," House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said at the start.
Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, said Planned Parenthood's $127 million in profit last year showed the organization could survive without federal funds. He accused the group of lavishly spending on travel, hosting "blowout parties" and paying "exorbitant salaries."
Planned Parenthood gets about $500 million annually in federal funds, largely in Medicaid reimbursements.
"We don’t make any profit off federal money," Richards responded, adding that "outrageous allegations" against Planned Parenthood were "offensive and categorically untrue."
She said Planned Parenthood did not use federal funds for abortions, which comprise 3 percent of its services, or for fetal tissue donations, which are done by 1 percent of the clinics. Planned Parenthood clinic services include cancer screenings, family planning, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
Republicans favor shifting Planned Parenthood's federal funds to community clinics, and they grilled Richards on why doing so would restrict access to care.

"You can't say that Planned Parenthood is like the only place" for low-income families to go, said Representative Mia Love, a Utah Republican.
"But it's obviously a place that 2.7 million patients choose to come to every year," Richards responded, adding that the move would particularly hurt low-income, uninsured and rural patients.
Planned Parenthood has been under fire for months over videos that an anti-abortion group produced and posted online.
Democrats had asked that David Daleiden, the anti-abortion activist behind the videos, attend the hearing as well, but Republican leaders did not invite him.
On the panel, Democrats defended the group and questioned Republicans' motives.
"What is Congress doing here?" asked Democrat Peter Welch of Vermont. "We're having an argument that's never going to end about abortion, but we're proposing to proceed in a way that will have collateral consequences that compromises ... women's health."

could there be life on mars? Water flows on Mars, raising possibility that planet could support life – scientists

Briny water flows during the summer months on Mars, raising the possibility that the planet long thought to be arid could support life today, scientists analyzing data from a NASA spacecraft said on Monday.
Although the source and the chemistry of the water is unknown, the discovery will change scientists' thinking about whether the planet that is most like Earth in the solar system hosts microbial life beneath its radiation-blasted crust.
"It suggests that it would be possible for life to be on Mars today," John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, told reporters, discussing the study published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
"Mars is not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past. Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars," said Jim Green, the agency's director of planetary science.
But NASA will not be rushing out to search the newly discovered saltwater residue for life just yet.
"If I were a microbe on Mars, I would probably not live near one of these (sites). I would want to live further north or south, quite far under the surface and where there's more of a freshwater glacier. We only suspect those places exist and we have some scientific evidence that they do," Grunsfeld said.
The discovery of the water flows was made when scientists developed a new technique to analyze chemical maps of the surface of Mars obtained by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.
They found telltale fingerprints of salts that form only in the presence of water in narrow channels cut into cliff walls throughout the planet's equatorial region.
The slopes, first reported in 2011, appear during the warm summer months on Mars, then vanish when the temperatures drop. The chemical fingerprints of hydrated minerals did likewise, the new study showed.

Scientists suspected the streaks, known as recurring slope lineae, or RSL, were cut by flowing water, but previously had been unable to make the measurements.
"I thought there was no hope," Lujendra Ojha, a graduate student at Georgia Institute of Technology and lead author of the scientific paper, told Reuters.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter makes its measurements during the hottest part of the Martian day, so scientists believed any traces of water, or fingerprints from hydrated minerals, would have evaporated.
Also, the chemical-sensing instrument on the orbiting spacecraft cannot home in on details as small as the narrow streaks, which typically are less than 16 feet (5 meters) wide.
But Ojha and colleagues created a computer program that could scrutinize individual pixels. That data was then correlated with high-resolution images of the streaks. Scientists concentrated on the widest streaks and came up with a 100 percent match between their locations and detections of hydrated salts.

The discovery "confirms that water is playing a role in these features," said planetary scientist Alfred McEwen, with the University of Arizona.
FROM WATER TO SUPPORTING LIFE?
Still unknown is whether minerals are absorbing water vapor directly from Mars' thin atmosphere, or if there is a source of melting ice beneath the surface.
Whatever the water's source, the prospect of liquid water, even seasonally, raises the intriguing prospect that Mars, which is presumed to be a cold and dead planet, could support life today.
However, McEwen said much more information about the water's chemistry would be needed before scientists could make that assessment.
"It's not necessarily habitable just because it's water – at least to terrestrial organisms," he said.
The prospect of water, even extremely briny and chemically laced-water, also has implications for future human missions to Mars. NASA’s goal is to land U.S. astronauts on Mars in the mid-2030s.
"Mars has resources that are useful to future travelers," Grunsfeld said. "The water is really crucial because we need water to drink, oxygen to breathe."
Water also can be split into its component hydrogen and oxygen molecules to produce rocket fuel, needed to fly crews back to Earth.
The evidence that there was water on the planet as recently as last summer and during several previous seasons was the key finding in the study released on Monday. NASA's ongoing Mars rover Curiosity has already found evidence that Mars had all the ingredients and suitable habitats for microbial life to exist at some point in its past.
Scientists have been trying to figure out how Mars transformed from a warm, wet and likely Earth-like planet early in its history into the cold, dry desert that exists today.
Billions of years ago, Mars, which lacks a protective, global magnetic field, lost much of its atmosphere. Several initiatives are underway to determine how much of the planet’s water was stripped away and how much remains locked in ice in underground reservoirs.

Facebook Goes Down for the Second Time in a Week

Facebook Inc (FB.O) restored access to its social media website for most users on Monday afternoon, after its second outage in less than a week.
According to Currentlydown.com, Facebook was down for about 42 minutes between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET. (bit.ly/1LhwMao)
“We are currently restoring Facebook services that people had trouble accessing earlier today due to a configuration," Facebook spokesman Jay Nancarrow said.
"We are working to bring things back to normal for everyone," he added.

Facebook's map on Downdetector.com, which monitors disruptions, showed major outages over parts of North America. (bit.ly/1aIqOPd)
The social network's mobile app was also back in service, while its Messenger services was working during the outage.
Facebook suffered a similar outage on Thursday when it was down in North America, Europe, Australia and India.
The company's shares closed down nearly 4 percent at $89.21.

Russia and US to take part in Syria peace talks

Putin to hold first official meeting with Obama as Russia announces international contact group for meeting in October.

 

Russia and the US are expected to take part in Syria peace talks in October, along with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt, according to Russia's deputy foreign minister.

A meeting of an international contact group of the "most influential outside players" will "be pushed forward to October after the UN General Assembly", Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency on Monday as saying.

"We have named the participants: Russia, the US, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent troops and aircraft to Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government.

Putin is calling for a new coalition to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group that would include Russian forces and Assad's government.

He is set to make a major speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday, before holding his first official meeting with US President Barack Obama in over two years.
Bogdanov said others could also be invited to the October meeting, adding that Russia wants the talks to happen "as quickly as possible".
He said the make-up of the contact group had not yet been decided but could include the countries' foreign ministers.

"The level hasn't been decided yet. I think it will be working at multiple levels: experts, deputy ministers and ministers if necessary," Bogdanov said.

He said the group would meet after the formation of four working groups on Syria in Geneva and would work together with the UN's envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura.

"Naturally, here it is very important to work in conjunction with the United Nations, with de Mistura," Bogdanov said.

De Mistura has said he hoped the working groups, which will involve Syrians, could lay the ground for the country's warring factions to find a political solution to the conflict.
Western powers say Assad's military is responsible for the vast majority of the 240,000 deaths in the war.

But with their response to ISIL in disarray, they have let Assad's backers present him as the only option.