Report: South Sudan sues Khartoum over oil (AP)

KHARTOUM, Sudan ? South Sudan is suing Sudan for "looting" its oil and will no longer export crude through its northern neighbor's territory, a Sudanese daily reported Sunday, citing officials, in the latest spat between the two governments over the coveted resource in the newly independent southern nation.

South Sudan Information Minister Marial Benjamin said the lawsuit was filed in "specialized international tribunals against Sudan and some companies" that bought the crude, the Al-Sahafa daily said. Benjamin did not provide additional details on the venue or when the lawsuit was filed.

The case is the latest development in a long-simmering fight between the two governments over the oil they share. Most of it lies within the borders of South Sudan, which achieved independence last July.

On Jan. 17, South Sudan Minister of Petroleum and Mining Stephen Dhieu Dau said Sudan is diverting about 120,000 barrels of oil pumped from the south daily, a move the northern government said stemmed from the unpaid transit fees for the oil carried in pipelines from the south to export terminals in its territory. The two sides have been unable to resolve the dispute.

South Sudan's Cabinet Affairs minister, Deng Alor, said that his country has halted pumping crude through Sudan and would begin building a pipeline across east Africa that would allow it to export its oil through Kenya. The project would take about a year, he told Al-Sahafa.

"Our economy will not be affected by this step," he said, adding that South Sudan had enough in cash reserves to sustain it for five years. Even if the economy was affected, it would be preferable to the "looting" taking place by Sudan, he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The Khartoum government downplayed the potential impact of the move by the south. Sudanese State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Amin Hassan Omar said that the oil currently held in pipelines would cover a considerable portion of the debts owed by the south.

The suspension of oil production is a "tactical move that will not last long," he told Al-Sahafa.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_bi_ge/ml_sudan_south_sudan_oil

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2 dead in Ala. as storms pound South, Midwest

This NOAA satellite image taken Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 at 12:45 a.m. EST shows widespread cloud cover over the Eastern Valleys as a strong low pressure system move through the Mid-Mississippi Valley and the western Ohio Valley. Snow showers develop on the western edge of the low in Iowa and southern Minnesota, while a mix of freezing rain, rain, snow and thunderstorms form in Michigan. Additional bands of heavy rain and strong thunderstorms form ahead of the system from Indiana and Ohio through Mississippi. Strong thunderstorms from Mississippi through central Tennessee may have the potential to turn severe with hail, damaging wind, and tornadoes. (AP PHOTO/WEATHER UNDERGROUND)

This NOAA satellite image taken Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 at 12:45 a.m. EST shows widespread cloud cover over the Eastern Valleys as a strong low pressure system move through the Mid-Mississippi Valley and the western Ohio Valley. Snow showers develop on the western edge of the low in Iowa and southern Minnesota, while a mix of freezing rain, rain, snow and thunderstorms form in Michigan. Additional bands of heavy rain and strong thunderstorms form ahead of the system from Indiana and Ohio through Mississippi. Strong thunderstorms from Mississippi through central Tennessee may have the potential to turn severe with hail, damaging wind, and tornadoes. (AP PHOTO/WEATHER UNDERGROUND)

CLAY, Ala. (AP) ? Two people were killed in the Birmingham, Ala., area as storms pounded the South and Midwest, prompting tornado warnings in a handful of states early Monday.

Jefferson County sheriff's spokesman Randy Christian said a 16-year-old boy was killed in Clay and an 82-year-old man died in the community of Oak Grove.

A storm system produced a possible tornado that moved across northern Jefferson County around 3:30 a.m., causing damage in Oak Grove, Graysville, Fultondale, Centerpoint, Clay and Trussville, Christian said. He said several homes were destroyed and numerous injuries were reported.

"Some roads are impassable, there are a number of county roads where you have either debris down, trees down, damage from homes," said Yasamie Richardson, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. Jefferson County experienced "significant damage," she said.

As day broke, rescue crews used chainsaws to clear fallen trees off roads in Clay, northeast of Birmingham. Searchers went door-to-door calling out to residents, many of whom were trapped by trees that crisscrossed their driveways.

Stevie Sanders woke up around 3:30 a.m. and realized bad weather was on the way. She, her parents and sister hid in the laundry room of their brick home as the wind howled and trees started cracking outside.

"You could feel the walls shaking and you could hear a loud crash. After that it got quiet, and the tree had fallen through my sister's roof," said Sanders, 26.

The family was OK, and her father, Greg Sanders, spent the next hours raking his roof and pulling away pieces of broken lumber.

"It could have been so much worse," he said. "It's like they say, we were just blessed."

In Clanton, about 50 miles south of Birmingham, rescuers were responding to reports of a trailer turned over with people trapped, City Clerk Debbie Orange said.

In Arkansas, there were possible tornadoes in Arkansas, Dallas, Lonoke, Prairie and Cleveland counties Sunday night. The storms also brought hail and strong winds as they moved through parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois and Mississippi.

Tornado warnings were issued for parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.

The storm also caused officials to reschedule a planned Monday meeting in Montgomery to receive a study on Alabama's response to a system of killer storms that raked the state last April. That storm killed more than 240 people in the state. Among the hardest hit areas then was Tuscaloosa, where 50 were killed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-23-Severe%20Weather/id-10ae8c6ccab34c9e95f0010a1fa21133

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Kirk Hospitalized After Suffering Stroke (TIME)

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Romney Newtered

Mitt Romney, who has been married to his first and only wife for more than 40 years, got only 22 percent of the evangelical vote, half of Gingrich's share (though double his 2008 performance).
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Evangelical voters did not see Gingrich's personal shortcomings as an impediment. Neither did women, who also voted for him over Romney. South Carolina Republican strategists have scratched their heads a little at this. "These are people who judged Bill Clinton," said one Republican strategist about social values voters. But the consensus view among those in GOP politics here is that Republican voters had already discounted Gingrich's personal failings. One poll also suggested that Republicans did not believe the latest charges from Gingrich's ex-wife.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=dd58d3c1175bc84a0354d184983222a5

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Eugenides, Lethem among critics' awards nominees

NEW YORK (AP) ? Novelist Jeffrey Eugenides, science-technology writer James Gleick and the late historian Manning Marable were among the nominees announced for the National Book Critics Circle awards

Eugenides was cited for "The Marriage Plot," a novel in part about a subject close to reviewers ? the love of books. It's his first release since winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for "Middlesex." Other fiction finalists included short story writer Edith Pearlman, whose "Binocular Vision" was a National Book Award nominee last fall; Alan Hollinghurst's acclaimed "The Stranger"; Dana Spiotta's "Stone Arabia" and Teju Cole's debut novel "Open City."

Five finalists in each of six categories were selected this weekend by the critics circle, founded in 1974. Great reviews do not guarantee an NBCC nomination. Some of the year's best-received books were among the missing, including Chad Harbach's "The Art of Fielding," Karen Russell's "Swamplandia" and Christopher Hitchens' "Arguably."

Winners will be announced March 8. No cash prizes are given.

Gleick was a nominee in nonfiction for "The Information," a review of how information has been shared through the centuries and its singular importance in modern times. The other nonfiction finalists were Amanda Foreman's "A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War"; Adam Hochschild's "To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918"; Maya Jasanoff's "Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary War" and John Jeremiah Sullivan's "Pulphead: Essays."

In biography, Marable was cited for "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," which he worked on for more than a decade. He died last year just before the book's release. Also picked for biography were Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis' "George F. Kennan: An American Life"; Mary Gabriel's "Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of the Revolution"; Paul Hendrickson's "Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961," and Ezra F. Vogel's "Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China."

Marable and Gabriel were both National Book Award nominees.

Diane Ackerman's "One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing" was a finalist for autobiography, along with Mira Bartok's "The Memory Palace"; Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts' "Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America"; Luis J. Rodriguez's "It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing"; and Deb Olin Unferth's "Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War."

Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa was a poetry nominee for "The Chameleon Couch" and Pulitzer finalist Bruce Smith was chosen for "Devotions." Other poetry finalists were Forrest Gander's "Core Samples from the World"; Aracelis Girmay's "Kingdom Animalia" and Laura Kasischke's "Space, in Chains."

Jonathan Lethem, best known for his novel "Motherless Brooklyn," was a criticism pick for "The Ecstasy of Influence." The late music critic Ellen Willis was chosen for "Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music." Other criticism nominees: David Bellos' "Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything"; Geoff Dyer's "Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews," and Dubravka Ugresic's "Karaoke Culture."

The NBCC will also present two honorary awards. Robert Silvers, who nearly 50 years ago helped found The New York Review of Books, has won the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Kathryn Schulz, who has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone and many other publications, received the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-01-22-Books-Critics%20Awards/id-72e89fbe9b0f47bb88051c7e550bda65

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Haley takes hit with Romney loss (Politico)

COLUMBIA, S.C. ? Nikki Haley was supposed to give Mitt Romney strength going into the South Carolina primary. Instead, she exposed some of her own weaknesses.

Romney?s decisive defeat Saturday immediately got dropped in part at the feet of the South Carolina governor, who provided him a high-profile endorsement ? though a controversial one among the local tea party forces who propelled her into office in 2010. But in this first test both of translating her appeal and playing on the national stage, she flopped.

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Wesley Donehue, a South Carolina GOP strategist who had worked for Michele Bachmann, said the lesson is that Haley reached for too much too quickly.

?Nikki Haley has great potential but she?s not there yet,? Donehue said. ?She doesn?t have the stature to have a lot of pull. Right now she?s a brand-new governor that hasn?t proven herself yet. She needs to go be the most conservative governor in the United States of America, just like Jim DeMint is the most conservative senator. If she wants to be the conservative rock star, that?s what she has to do.?

She may have even hurt Romney?s case in the state ? there?s a sense that a handful of state legislators who would have backed Romney but refused to out of principle, simply because they hate Haley so much, and mock her for moves like requiring state employees to answer their telephones, ?It?s a great day in South Carolina!?

Romney?s state campaign chairman, State Treasurer Curtis Loftis ? a political rival of Haley, despite both backing the same presidential candidate ? couldn?t resist taking shots at Haley. Less than an hour before the state?s polls closed, Loftis couched his criticisms of Newt Gingrich in terms that sound surprisingly like the way other local operatives describe Haley.

?Since I?ve gone into government, I?ve seen that there?s almost no correlation between great speeches with lots of red meat and the ability of people to govern,? said Loftis, who, like Haley, was first elected to statewide office in 2010.

Asked if Haley helped or hurt Romney in South Carolina, Loftis replied: ?I made a promise to myself to stay out of that.?

He declined to elaborate.

Haley was working the hustings for Romney all week, but on the last day, not in the way he wanted. Introducing him at his Greenville campaign headquarters Saturday morning, she veered into talking about the sore point of releasing his tax returns.

And though it?s her job as a surrogate to express full-blast optimism, Haley appeared to demonstrate a fundamental misreading of her state?s voters as recently even as people were heading to the polls. While Romney?s campaign was trying to lower expectations all day, Haley responded by cranking them up.

?Tonight is going to be a great night. We?re going to celebrate,? she said Saturday morning, predicting, ?we are expecting today to be a great day. Everything is showing that it?s going to be what South Carolina primaries are, which is close. I love that.?

Pressed afterward, she insisted that the reports of South Carolina slipping away from Romney were wrong.

?No, no, no, don?t be fooled,? she said. ?I absolutely think we?re going to have a great night tonight.?

Results show a nearly 14-point spread between Gingrich and Romney.

Haley?s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday night.

But the verdict on Haley came in with the Romney results.

?It?s a little embarrassing, and it shows that endorsements don?t matter,? Donehue said. ?Her endorsement was a nothing burger.?

Still, Romney took time out from his concession speech to acknowledge ?your governor, Gov. Nikki Haley, I owe her so very much for her help.?

But Haley wasn?t there to be recognized. She wasn?t didn?t show for the speech, or the party.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories0112_71777_html/44262337/SIG=11m741nuc/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71777.html

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Obama's State of the Union: Jobs, re-election time

President Barack Obama sings before speaking at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama sings before speaking at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama pauses before shaking hands at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Vilified by the Republicans who want his job, President Barack Obama will stand before the nation Tuesday night determined to frame the election-year debate on his terms, using his State of the Union address to outline a lasting economic recovery that will "work for everyone, not just a wealthy few."

As his most powerful chance to make a case for a second term, the prime-time speech carries enormous political stakes for the Democratic incumbent who presides over a country divided about his performance and pessimistic about the nation's direction. He will try to offer a stark contrast with his opponents by offering a vision of fairness and opportunity for everyone.

In a preview Saturday, Obama said in a video to supporters that the speech will be an economic blueprint built around manufacturing, energy, education and American values.

He is expected to announce ideas to make college more affordable and to address the housing crisis still hampering the economy three years into his term, people familiar with the speech said. Obama will also propose fresh ideas to ensure that the wealthy pay more in taxes, reiterating what he considers a matter of basic fairness, the officials said.

His policy proposals will be less important than what Obama hopes they all add up to: a narrative of renewed American security with him at the center, leading the fight.

"We can go in two directions," Obama said in the campaign video. "One is toward less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few."

That line of argument is intended to tap directly into concerns of voters who think America has become a nation of income inequality, with rules rigged to help the rich. The degree to which Obama or his eventual Republican opponent can better connect with millions of hurting Americans is expected to determine November's presidential election.

Obama released his video hours ahead of the South Carolina primary, where Republican candidates fought in the latest fierce contest to become his general election rival.

The White House knows Obama is about to get his own stage to outline a re-election vision, but carefully. The speech is supposed to an American moment, not a campaign event.

Obama didn't mention national security or foreign policy in his preview, and he is not expected to break ground on either one in his speech.

He will focus on the economy and is expected to promote unfinished parts of his jobs plan, including the extension of a payroll tax cut that is soon to expire.

Whatever Obama proposes is likely to face long odds in a deeply divided Congress.

More people than not disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, and he is showing real vulnerability among the independent voters who could swing the election. Yet he will step into the moment just as the economy is showing life. The unemployment rate is still at a troubling 8.5 percent, but at its lowest rate in nearly three years. Consumer confidence is up.

By giving a sneak peek to millions of supporters on his email list, Obama played to his Democratic base and sought to generate an even larger audience for Tuesday's address. He is unlikely to getter a bigger stage all year.

More people watched last year's State of the Union than tuned in to see Obama accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Denver in 2008.

The foundation of Obama's speech is the one he gave in Kansas last month, when he declared that the middle class was at a make-or-break moment and he railed against "you're on your own" economics of the Republican Party. His theme then was about a government that ensures people get a fair shot to succeed.

The State of the Union will be the details to back that up.

But even so, the speech will still be a framework ? part governing, part inspiration.

The details will be rolled out in full over the next several weeks, as part of Obama's next budget proposal and during his travels, which will allow him more media coverage.

On national security, Obama will ask the nation to reflect with him on a momentous year of change, including the end of the war in Iraq, the killing of al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and the Arab Spring protests, with people clamoring for freedom. He is expected to note the troubles posed by Iran and Syria without offering new positions about them.

Despite low expectations for legislation this year, Obama will offer short-term ideas that would require action from Congress. For now, the main looming to-do item is an extension of a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, both due to expire by March.

His travel schedule following his speech, to politically important regions, offers clues to the policies he was expected to unveil.

Both Phoenix and Las Vegas have been hard hit by foreclosures. Denver is where Obama outlined ways of helping college students deal with school loan debt. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Detroit are home to a number of manufacturers. And Michigan was a major beneficiary of the president's decision to intervene to rescue the American auto industry.

Republican leaders in Congress say Obama has made the chances of cooperation even dimmer just over the last several days. He enraged Republicans by installing a consumer watchdog chief by going around the Senate, which had blocked him, and then rejected a major oil pipeline project the GOP has embraced.

Obama is likely, once again, to offer ways in which a broken Washington must work together. Yet that theme seems but a dream given the gridlock he has been unable to change.

The address remains an old-fashioned moment of national attention; 43 million people watched it on TV last year. The White House website will offer a live stream of the speech, promising extra wrinkles for people who watch it there, and then invite people to send in questions to administration officials through social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Obama's campaign is also organizing and promoting parties around the nation for people to watch the speech.

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AP deputy director of polling Jennifer Agiesta and Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

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Online:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

___

Follow Ben Feller at http://twitter.com/BenFellerDC

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-21-US-Obama-State-of-the-Union/id-9e76772ecfda4f1f98a4521a7392509a

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