Obama to Offer 17% Emissions-Cut Goal in Copenhagen 
Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will attendclimate-change talks in Copenhagen next month, offering anemissions-cut goal of about 17 percent by 2020 after legislationto reduce greenhouse gases stalled in Congress.
The president will travel to the Danish capital on Dec. 9during the first week of negotiations for a new treaty toreplace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, White Housespokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters today. Obama will thenaccept the Nobel Peace prize in nearby Oslo on Dec. 10.
Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to tackle climate change,has been under pressure to attend the meeting and offer for thefirst time a 2020 reduction target. The U.S. has faced criticismfor failing to enact legislation to limit heat-trappingpollution and create an emissions-trading market. The U.S. isthe biggest greenhouse-gas producer among developed nations.
Obama Announces 2020 Emissions Target, Dec. 9 Copenhagen Visit
President Obama today unveiled key details of the U.S. negotiation position headed into next month's global warming talks in Copenhagen, including a provisional greenhouse gas emissions target for 2020 "in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels" and a new itinerary that includes a personal appearance during the opening days of the U.N. conference.
The White House said Obama will put the 2020 target on the bargaining table "in the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions from China and the other emerging economies." Obama's emission goals closely parallel action on Capitol Hill, including the House-passed climate bill and a Senate measure that Democratic leaders hope can reach the floor with enough votes by next spring.
"This provisional target is in line with current legislation in both chambers of Congress and demonstrates a significant contribution to a problem that the U.S. has neglected for too long," the White House said in a press release, adding that Obama was "working closely with Congress to pass energy and climate legislation as soon as possible."
Pakistan Charges 7 Terrorism Suspects a Year After Attacks That Shocked Mumbai
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Seven Pakistanis accused of planning last year’s attacks in Mumbai, India, were formally charged Wednesday, the eve of the first anniversary of the assault. The attacks left 163 people dead and have become a major sticking point in relations between India and Pakistan.
Charges against the suspects had been expected since February, when Pakistan said it was holding several men and acknowledged for the first time that the attacks had been planned in Pakistan. But months of postponements and legal hearings followed, delaying the indictments until Wednesday.
The seven include the man suspected of being the operation’s organizer, Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the commander of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba; Hammad Amin Sadiq, who is accused of coordinating the financing; and Zarar Shah, described as a computer and networks expert. All pleaded not guilty, according to a defense lawyer.
Obama expects support for more Afghanistan troops
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama expects Americans to support more U.S. troops in Afghanistan once they understand the perils of losing, and he is preparing to make his case to the nation next week.
Eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Obama said it is still in America's vital national interest to "dismantle and destroy" al-Qaida terrorists and extremist allies. "I intend to finish the job," he said.
Obama said he would announce after Thanksgiving his decision on additional troops, and military, congressional and other sources said the occasion would be a Tuesday night televised speech laying out his plans for expanding the Afghan conflict — and then ultimately ending America's military role.
Six more bodies found at Philippine massacre site
AMPATUAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Philippine security forces found six more bodies on Wednesday at the site of an election-related massacre in the south of the country, taking the toll to 52 dead, officials said.
Not all have been identified, but 17 of them were believed to be journalists, making Monday's attack the most deadly ever on the media.
The government has clamped emergency rule on the province of Maguindanao, where the killings took place, and in adjoining Sultan Kudarat province and Cotabato City. Truckloads of troops were brought to the area on Wednesday and armored cars were parked along highways.
In his slow decision-making, Obama goes with head, not gut
President George W. Bush once boasted, "I'm not a textbook player, I'm a gut player." The new tenant of the Oval Office takes a strikingly different approach. President Obama is almost defiantly deliberative, methodical and measured, even when critics accuse him of dithering. When describing his executive style, he goes into Spock mode, saying, "You've got to make decisions based on information and not emotions."
Obama's handling of the Afghanistan conundrum has been a spectacle of deliberation unlike anything seen in the White House in recent memory. The strategic review began in September. Again and again, the war council convened in the Situation Room. The president mulled an array of unappealing options. Next week, finally, he will tell the American public the outcome of all this strategizing.
"He's establishing his decision-making process as being almost diametrically the opposite of the previous administration," says Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's chief of staff. Wilkerson, who teaches national security decision-making at George Washington University, says the Bush-Cheney style was "cowboy-like, typical Texas, typical Wyoming, and extremely secretive."
Obama says will "finish the job" in Afghanistan
(For more on Afghanistan, click on [nAFPAK])
* Obama promises to announce his decision "shortly"
* Television address expected next Tuesday evening
Philippines' deadliest massacre tests government
AMPATUAN, Philippines — A few miles off the main highway, on a remote hilltop covered with waist-high grass, bodies lay with twisted hands reaching in the air. They had been shot point-blank.
Nearby, bodies were being laid out under banana leaves Tuesday as police — their faces covered against the stench — unearthed a mass grave containing 22 victims from Monday's ambush on an election caravan. The discovery brought the death toll to 46 — an unprecedented act of violence at the outset of the country's election season.
As many as five people remained unaccounted for.
Philippines Declares Emergency After Killings
MANILA — The death toll in Monday’s election violence more than doubled to 46 on Tuesday, Philippine authorities said, as the government declared a state of emergency in two southern Philippine provinces in an effort to head off further bloodshed.
The discovery of 22 more bodies left only a few people unaccounted for among of the group of about 50 lawyers, journalists and relatives of local politicians who were abducted Monday by what witnesses said were more than 100 gunmen. At least 20 journalists were among those slain, the authorities said.
A state of emergency was declared in the contiguous provinces of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat and the city of Cotabato on the southern island of Mindanao, a region notorious for its long-running political and clan feuds, officials said.
Philippines imposes emergency; massacre toll reaches 46
AMPATUAN, Philippines (Reuters) - The Philippines placed two southern provinces and a city under emergency rule on Tuesday after gunmen killed 46 people in a brutal election-related massacre that has shocked the country.
Many of the victims in the killings in Maguindanao province were women from the powerful Mangudadatu clan. About a dozen journalists were also among the dead.
"There is an urgent need to prevent and suppress the occurrence of several other incidents of lawless violence," Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said while announcing the emergency.
