Gunman 'Tentatively' Identified in Oregon Shooting













A masked gunman who opened fire in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two individuals and seriously injuring a third before killing himself, has been "tentatively" identified by police, though they have not yet released his name.


The shooter, wearing a white hockey mask, black clothing, and a bullet proof vest, tore through the mall around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, entering through a Macy's store and proceeding to the food court and public areas spraying bullets, according to witness reports.


Police have not released the names of the deceased. Clackamas County Sheriff's Department Lt. James Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families.


The injured victim has been transported to a local hospital, according to Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.


PHOTOS: Oregon Mall Shooting


Nadia Telguz, who said she was a friend of the injured victim, told ABC News affiliate KATU-TV in Portland that the woman was expected to recover.


"My friend's sister got shot," Teleguz told KATU. "She's on her way to (Oregon Health and Science University hospital). They're saying she got shot in her side and so it's not life-threatening, so she'll be OK."


Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man who appeared to be a teenager ran through the upper level of Macy's to the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after the other, with what is believed to be a black, semi-automatic rifle.






Christopher Onstott/Pamplen Media Group/Portland Tribune















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More than 10,000 shoppers were at the mall during the day, police said. Roberts said that officers responded to the scene of the shooting within minutes, and four SWAT teams swept the 1.4 million-square-foot building searching for the shooter. He was eventually found dead, an apparent suicide.


"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," Rhodes said. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."


Roberts said more than 100 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, and at least four local agencies were working on the investigation, including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is working to trace the shooter's weapon.


READ: Guns in America: A Statistical Look


"For all of us, the mall is supposed to be a place where we can take our families, especially during the holiday season," Roberts said. "Things like this are not supposed to happen."


Roberts also said that shoppers, including two emergency room nurses and one physician who happened to be at the mall, provided medical assistance to victims who had been shot. Other shoppers helped escort individuals out of the mall and out of harm's way, he said.


"There were a huge amount of people running in different directions, and it was chaos for a lot of citizens, but true heroes were stepping up in this time of high stress," Roberts said. "E.R. nurses on the scene were providing medical care to those injured, a physician on the scene was helping provide care to the wounded."


Mall shopper Daniel Martinez told KATU that he had just sat down at a Jamba Juice inside the mall when he heard rapid gunfire. He turned and saw the masked gunman, dressed in all black, about 10 feet away from him.


"I just saw him (the gunman) and thought, 'I need to go somewhere,'" Martinez said. "It was so fast, and at that time, everyone was moving around."


Martinez said he ran to the nearest clothing store. As he ran, he motioned for another woman to follow; several others ran to the store as well, hiding in a fitting room. They stayed there for an hour and a half until SWAT teams told them it was safe to leave the mall.






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Football: Platini stands firm against goal-line technology






KUALA LUMPUR: UEFA president Michel Platini stood firm against the use of goal-line technology in Europe despite FIFA tests of Hawk-Eye and GoalRef at the ongoing Club World Cup in Japan.

The Frenchman said goal-line referees, used in various UEFA competitions since 2009, were a cheaper way of determining whether the ball had crossed the line and warned against allowing technology to encroach on the game.

He said it would cost 50 million euros ($65 million) to introduce goal-line technology to UEFA's international and club competitions over five years.

"I prefer to give 50 million (euros) to grassroots than goal-line technology for perhaps one or two goals a year," he said at a press conference in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

"If the goal-line referee is one metre from the line and he has good glasses, he can see whether the ball is inside or not."

While fans have called for years for football to embrace goal-line technology to eliminate human error, Platini has repeatedly warned it will lead to technology encroaching into other areas of the game.

The debate came to the fore again at Euro 2012 -- where goal-line referees patrolled the sidelines -- when Ukraine were denied a goal against England, leading FIFA president Sepp Blatter to call for the new technology.

But Platini pointed to an offside infringement in the build-up and questioned where the line on introducing such technology would be drawn.

Asian Football Confederation acting president Zhang Jilong told the press conference the AFC would study the use of the technology at the Club World Cup before making a decision.

"This is something new. After the tests during the World Club Championships in Tokyo, we will see whether it can be adopted by all the competitions or not," he said.

The Club World Cup, involving the winners of continental club competitions, is running both Hawk-Eye and GoalRef at a cost of $1 million over the eight-game competition.

The Hawk-Eye system uses between six and eight cameras while GoalRef uses magnetic fields to determine whether a ball has crossed the line. Both systems transmit their findings to devices that can be worn on officials' wrists.

European champions Chelsea are the main draw at the competition in Tokyo and play Monterrey of Mexico on Thursday for a place in the final.

Platini also rejected any chance of Euro 2020 matches being played outside Europe after criticism over UEFA's green light to hold tournament matches across the continent.

"I have received requests from many national associations in Europe (to host Euro 2020). And if I say, 'No, we don't play in our continent but we play in some other continent,' they will kill me," he said.

Platini has argued that a cross-continental competition would relieve pressures on a single or joint host nation given the current financial climate, but fans have complained the spread of games will ruin the atmosphere.

The host cities bidding process begins in March, with decisions on venues set to be made in early 2014. The next European championships in 2016 are to be held in France, with an increase in the number of teams from the current 16 to 24.

- AFP/ir



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Anti-nuclear Kudankulam dissenters plan novel New Year's protest

NEW DELHI: Comparing air fares between Goa and Bangkok and drawing up the wine list may be part of many New Year plans. But at Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu, the hotspot for protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, a band of activists plan to usher in 2013 with a different kind of festivity.

From December 30 to January 1, Indinthakarai village will see professionals from the fields of theatre, music and other performing arts come out in support of their demands and celebrate the New Year with them. The villagers have been protesting against the construction of the nuclear plant since August last year. So far, theatre professionals, poets and dancers have confirmed attendance from states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka and Jharkhand.

Nityanand Jayaraman of the Chennai Solidarity Group for Kudankulam Struggle says that with over 150,000 arrests between September 2011 and June 2012, and more since, there is an atmosphere of fear that prevails in the village. "People are afraid to go out for fear of arrest. Media access is restricted, though there is no clear statement on the same. The children are the most affected by this, and it is reflected in their performance at school. We feel that at least on the New Year's day, the government should ease up and let the people celebrate the day with whomever they want to," says Jayaraman, adding that it is a means of expressing solidarity with the people of Idinthakarai.

Of the recent arrests in Kudankulam, Jayaraman says that 9,000 have been charged with sedition and "waging war against the state". The 150,000 arrests, between September 2011 and June 2012, were based on 200 odd FIRs, with most people unnamed, says Jayaraman. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has also been involved in formulating a standard operating procedure for minors in confrontation with law in Idinthakarai.

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U.K. Dash for Shale Gas a Test for Global Fracking

Thomas K. Grose in London


The starting gun has sounded for the United Kingdom's "dash for gas," as the media here have dubbed it.

As early as this week, a moratorium on shale gas production is expected to be lifted. And plans to streamline and speed the regulatory process through a new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil were unveiled last week in the annual autumn budget statement by the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne.

In the U.K., where all underground mineral rights concerning fossil fuels belong to the crown, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could unlock a new stream of government revenue as well as fuel. But it also means that there is no natural constituency of fracking supporters as there is in the United States, birthplace of the technology. In the U.S., concerns over land and water impact have held back fracking in some places, like New York, but production has advanced rapidly in shale basins from Texas to Pennsylvania, with support of private landowners who earn royalties from leasing to gas companies. (Related: "Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania")

A taste of the fight ahead in the U.K. came ahead of Osborne's speech last weekend, when several hundred protesters gathered outside of Parliament with a mock 23-foot (7-meter) drilling rig. In a letter they delivered to Prime Minister David Cameron, they called fracking "an unpredictable, unregulatable process" that was potentially toxic to the environment.

Giving shale gas a green light "would be a costly mistake," said Andy Atkins, executive director of the U.K.'s Friends of the Earth, in a statement. "People up and down the U.K. will be rightly alarmed about being guinea pigs in Osborne's fracking experiment. It's unnecessary, unwanted and unsafe."

The government has countered that natural gas-fired power plants would produce half the carbon dioxide emissions of the coal plants that still provide about 30 percent of the U.K.'s electricity. London Mayor Boris Johnson, viewed as a potential future prime minister, weighed in Monday with a blistering cry for Britain to "get fracking" to boost cleaner, cheaper energy and jobs. "In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news," he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas")

Energy Secretary Edward Davey, who is expected this week to lift the U.K.'s year-and-a-half-old moratorium on shale gas exploration, said gas "will ensure we can keep the lights on as increasing amounts of wind and nuclear come online through the 2020s."

A Big Role for Gas

If the fracking plan advances, it will not be the first "dash for gas" in the U.K. In the 1980s, while Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher battled with mining unions, she undercut their clout by moving the nation toward generating a greater share of its electricity from natural gas and less from coal. So natural gas already is the largest electricity fuel in Britain, providing 40 percent of electricity. (Related Interactive: "World Electricity Mix")

The United Kingdom gets about 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and has plans to expand its role. But Davey has stressed the usefulness of gas-fired plants long-term as a flexible backup source to the intermittent electricity generated from wind and solar power. Johnson, on the other hand, offered an acerbic critique of renewables, including the "satanic white mills" he said were popping up on Britain's landscape. "Wave power, solar power, biomass—their collective oomph wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding," he wrote.

As recently as 2000, Great Britain was self-sufficient in natural gas because of conventional gas production in the North Sea. But that source is quickly drying up. North Sea production peaked in 2000 at 1,260 terawatt-hours (TWH); last year it totaled just 526 TWh.

Because of the North Sea, the U.K. is still one of the world's top 20 producers of gas, accounting for 1.5 percent of total global production. But Britain has been a net importer of gas since 2004. Last year, gas imports—mainly from Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands—accounted for more than 40 percent of domestic demand.

The government hopes to revive domestic natural gas production with the technology that has transformed the energy picture in the United States—horizontal drilling into deep underground shale, and high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals to create fissures in the rock to release the gas. (Related Interactive: "Breaking Fuel From the Rock")

A Tougher Road

But for a number of reasons, the political landscape is far different in the United Kingdom. Britain made a foray into shale gas early last year, with a will drilled near Blackpool in northwest England. The operator, Cuadrilla, said that that area alone could contain 200 trillion cubic feet of gas, which is more than the known reserves of Iraq. But the project was halted after drilling, by the company's own admission, caused two small earthquakes. (Related: "Tracing Links Between Fracking and Earthquakes" and "Report Links Energy Activities To Higher Quake Risk") The April 2011 incident triggered the moratorium that government now appears to be ready to lift. Cuadrilla has argued that modifications to its procedures would mitigate the seismic risk, including lower injection rates and lesser fluid and sand volumes. The company said it will abandon the U.K. unless the moratorium is soon lifted.

A few days ahead of Osborne's speech, the Independent newspaper reported that maps created for Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showed that 32,000 square miles, or 64 percent of the U.K. countryside, could hold shale gas reserves and thus be open for exploration. But a DECC spokeswoman said "things are not quite what it [the Independent story] suggests." Theoretically, she said, those gas deposits do exist, but "it is too soon to predict the scale of exploration here." She said many other issues, ranging from local planning permission to environmental impact, would mean that some tracts would be off limits, no matter how much reserve they held. DECC has commissioned the British Geological Survey to map the extent of Britain's reserves.

Professor Paul Stevens, a fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said the U.K. is clearly interested in trying to replicate America's shale gas revolution. "That's an important part of the story," he said, but trying to use the American playbook won't be easy. "It's a totally different ballgame." In addition to the fact that mineral rights belong to the crown, large expanses of private land that are commonplace in America don't exist in England. Just as important, there is no oil- and gas-service industry in place in Britain to quickly begin shale gas operations here. "We don't have the infrastructure set up," said Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University, adding that it would take years to build it.

Shale gas production would also likely ignite bigger and louder protests in the U.K. and Europe. "It's much more of a big deal in Europe," Stevens said. "There are more green [nongovernmental organizations] opposed to it, and a lot more local opposition."

In any case, the U.K. government plans to move ahead. Osborne said he'll soon begin consultations on possible tax breaks for the shale gas industry. He also announced that Britain would build up to 30 new natural gas-fired power plants with 26 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. The new gas plants would largely replace decommissioned coal and nuclear power plants, though they would ultimately add 5GW of additional power to the U.K. grid. The coalition government's plan, however, leaves open the possibility of increasing the amount of gas-generated electricity to 37GW, or around half of total U.K. demand.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Europe may have as much as 600 trillion cubic feet of shale gas that could be recovered. But Stevens said no European country is ready to emulate the United States in producing massive amounts of unconventional gas. They all lack the necessary service industry, he said, and geological differences will require different technologies. And governments aren't funding the research and development needed to develop them.

Globally, the track record for efforts to produce shale gas is mixed:

  • In France, the EIA's estimate is that shale gas reserves total 5 trillion cubic meters, or enough to fuel the country for 90 years. But in September, President Francois Hollande pledged to continue a ban on fracking imposed last year by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.
  • Poland was also thought to have rich shale gas resources, but initial explorations have determined that original estimates of the country's reserves were overstated by 80 percent to 90 percent. After drilling two exploratory wells there, Exxon Mobil stopped operations. But because of its dependence on Russian gas, Poland is still keen to begin shale gas production.
  • South Africa removed a ban on fracking earlier this year. Developers are eyeing large shale gas reserves believed to underlie the semidesert Karoo between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
  • Canada's Quebec Province has had a moratorium on shale gas exploration and production, but a U.S. drilling company last month filed a notice of intent to sue to overturn the ban as a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
  • Germany's Environment Ministry has backed a call to ban fracking near drinking water reservoirs.
  • China drilled its initial shale gas wells this year; by 2020, the nation's goal is for shale gas to provide 6 percent of its massive energy needs. The U.S. government's preliminary assessment is that China has the world's largest "technically recoverable" shale resources, about 50 percent larger than stores in the United States. (Related: "China Drills Into Shale Gas, Targeting Huge Reserves")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.


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SEAL Killed in Rescue Mission Identified













The Pentagon has identified Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas Checque as the Navy SEAL who died of injuries sustained in the successful rescue of an American doctor from the Taliban over the weekend.


Checque, who hailed from Monroeville, Pa., died of "combat related injuries," according to a Pentagon release. Though the release only said Checque was assigned to "an East Coast-based Naval Special Warfare unit," ABC News previously reported the fallen servicemember was a part of the Navy's elite SEAL Team 6, the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden.


Checque, 28, sustained his mortal injuries while on a nighttime mission Saturday to free Dr. Dilip Joseph, an American doctor who worked for an non-governmental organization based in Kabul. Joseph was kidnapped by the Taliban earlier this month and American officials believed he was in imminent danger.








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Joseph's family released a statement thanking the U.S. government and military for the operation and offering their condolences to Checque's family.


"We could not be more grateful for that soldier's heroism and for the bravery of all involved in the mission to bring Dilip home," the statement said.


Before Checque was identified publicly, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday he was "deeply saddened" to learn one of the servicemen had died.


"The special operators who conducted this raid knew they were putting their lives on the line to free a fellow American from the enemy's grip. They put the safety of another American ahead of their own, as so many of our brave warriors do every day and every night. In this fallen hero, and all of our special operators, Americans see the highest ideals of citizenship, sacrifice and service upheld. The torch of freedom burns brighter because of them," Panetta said.


President Obama also praised the Special Operations force for their bravery.


"Yesterday, our special operators in Afghanistan rescued an American citizen in a mission that was characteristic of the extraordinary courage, skill and patriotism that our troops show every day," he said Sunday.



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The right to petition the White House prompts grievances, gags online



Several thousand Americans, for example, are calling on President Obama to nationalize the troubled Twinkies industry to prevent the loss of the snack cake’s “sweet creamy center.”

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ASEAN chair urges NKorea to call off rocket launch






PHNOM PENH: Cambodian Prime Minister and ASEAN chairman Hun Sen urged North Korea Monday to scrap a planned rocket launch, saying it would bring "fear and tension" to the region.

Pyongyang on Monday pushed back the window for the controversial planned launch by a week to December 29, but stressed it was pressing ahead with the mission in the face of international condemnation.

"In the name of the ASEAN chair, I appeal to North Korea to postpone the launch forever," Hun Sen said in a speech on national radio. "The launch will bring no benefits but only fear in the region and tension."

The premier said he had "the right to speak out" after foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations failed over the past week to reach agreement on a draft statement about the launch.

Hun Sen said his Foreign Minister Hor Namhong had been in talks with ASEAN counterparts but they could not reach "a consensus" on Cambodia's draft. He did not elaborate.

Pyongyang extended the December 10-22 window for the launch by a week due to a "technical deficiency", the Korean Committee of Space Technology said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea says the rocket launch is a peaceful mission aimed at putting a satellite in orbit.

The United States and its allies view it as a disguised ballistic missile test banned under UN resolutions prompted by the North's nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

- AFP/jc



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BJP stalled Rajya Sabha to stop quota Bill: Mayawati

NEW DELHI, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Monday accused the BJP of stalling the Rajya Sabha because it did not want a bill for reservations in job promotions to be passed.

Mayawati asked why the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had not raised the issue of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Lok Sabha.

She was addressing reporters after the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day over reports of Wal-Mart's lobbying in the US to open way for foreign equity in retail in India.

The Samajwadi Party (SP) too staged noisy protests against the quota Bill.

"Today this Bill (for promotion quota) was to come. But it's sad that to stop this Bill, the BJP and company raised the issue of FDI lobbying issue," Mayawati said.

The Bill, which will amend the constitution to allow reservation in promotion for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribals, was listed in the Rajya Sabha and was to be taken up on Monday.

"They allowed the Lok Sabha to function, they did not remember the issue of FDI and lobbying there? It proves the BJP and others of their mentality don't want this legislation to be passed," she said.

Mayawati also accused SP of acting at the BJP's behest.

The BSP chief added that it was the government's responsibility to get the Bill through.

"I also want to tell UPA, running the House is their responsibility. So it's now UPA government's responsibility to get this bill debated in the house and get it passed," she said.

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity


When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.

Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")

Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.

"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)

The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.

Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.

Root Growth

Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.

"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.

Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.

"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.

The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.

"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")

The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.


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Fiscal Cliff Talks: Boehner, Obama Meet Face-to-Face













For the first time in more than three weeks, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met face-to-face today at the White House to talk about avoiding the fiscal cliff.


White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest would offer no details saying only, "The lines of communication remain open."


Erskine Bowles, the co-creator of a debt reducing plan, who was pessimistic a couple weeks ago, said he likes what he's hearing.


"Any time you have two guys in there tangoing, you have a chance to get it done," Bowles said on CBS's "Face the Nation."


The White House afternoon talks, conducted without cameras or any announcement until they were over, came as some Republicans were showing more flexibility about approving higher tax rates for the wealthy, one of the president's demands to keep the country from the so-called fiscal cliff -- a mixture of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that many economists say would send the country back into recession.






Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo















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"Let's face it. He does have the upper hand on taxes. You have to pass something to keep it from happening," Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee said on "FOX News Sunday."


This comes after the White House moderated one of its demands about tax rate increases for the wealthy.


The administration was demanding the rate return to its former level of 39.6 percent on income above $250,000. The so-called Bush tax cut set that rate at 35 percent. But Friday, Vice President Joe Biden signaled that rate could be negotiable, somewhere between the two.


"So will I accept a tax increase as a part of a deal to actually solve our problems? Yes," said Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn on ABC's "This Week."


The problems the senator was referring to are the country's entitlement programs. And there was some progress on that front, too.


A leading Democrat said means testing for Medicare recipients could be a way to cut costs to the government health insurance program. Those who make more money would be required to pay more for Medicare.


"I do believe there should be means testing, and those of us with higher income and retirement should pay more. That could be part of the solution," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said on NBC's "Meet the Press."


But Durbin said he would not favor raising the eligibility age from 65 years old to 67 years old, as many Republicans have suggested.


The White House and the speaker's office released the exact same statement about the negotiating session. Some will see that as a sign of progress, that neither side is talking about what was said behind closed doors.



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