NST Online Top Stories - Google News
NST Online Top Stories - Google News |
| Obama says Iran shouldn't misinterpret US response to Syria - Washington Post Posted: 15 Sep 2013 08:49 AM PDT President Obama declared that the United States is still prepared to act militarily to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons despite the decision to pursue a diplomatic deal and not strike Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons. He also acknowledged that his approach to the Syria crisis has been uneven, but defended it as producing the right results. Obama spoke in an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," taped Friday before the United States and Russia agreed on a plan to bring Syrian chemical weapons under international control in order to avoid military strikes. But Obama said Iran should not interpret the diplomatic response — coming after he threatened to use strikes — as suggesting that the United States wouldn't attack Iran to stop the development of nuclear weapons. "I think what the Iranians understand is that the nuclear issue is a far larger issue for us than the chemical weapons issue, that the threat . . . against Israel that a nuclear Iran poses is much closer to our core interests," Obama said. "My suspicion is that the Iranians recognize they shouldn't draw a lesson that we haven't struck [Syria] to think we won't strike Iran." Obama said, however, that what the Iranians should draw from this episode is that it is possible to resolve this type of disagreement diplomatically. "My view is that if you have both a credible threat of force, combined with a rigorous diplomatic effort, that, in fact you can . . . strike a deal," he said, confirming that he had communicated with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani by letter. Obama also defended his approach to the Syrian crisis, acknowledging that it has been turbulent, but insisting that it has achieved the right results. The comments come after a number of lawmakers and foreign policy experts on both sides of the aisle have criticized Obama for first making the case to go to war in Syria, then deciding to ask Congress for approval, and then making the case for strikes to a prime-time audience while also announcing that he would first give a Russian diplomatic proposal a chance to work. In response to those criticisms, Obama said he is less interested in style than results. "I think that folks here in Washington like to grade on style. And so had we rolled out something that was very smooth and disciplined and linear, they would have graded it well, even if it was a disastrous policy. We know that, because that's exactly how they graded the Iraq war," Obama said. He added, "I'm much more concerned about getting the policy right. . . . As a consequence of the steps that we've taken over the last two weeks to three weeks, we now have a situation in which Syria has acknowledged it has chemical weapons, has said it's willing to join the convention on chemical weapons, and Russia, its primary sponsor, has said that it will pressure Syria to reach that agreement. That's my goal. And if that goal is achieved, then it sounds to me like we did something right." Obama also played down differences with Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russia and the United States work together to resolve the Syria standoff. "Mr. Putin and I have strong disagreements on a whole range of issues," Obama said. "But I can talk to him. We have worked together on important issues. . . . This is not the Cold War. This is not a contest between the United States and Russia." Obama plans to pivot back to a focus on the economy this week ahead of major fiscal battles in Congress, and he said he could change the direction of the economy — including the upward path of inequality — if Congress would let him. Asked if a president just couldn't stop inequality, he responded, "I think the president can stop it. The problem is that there continues to be a major debate here in Washington." While he acknowledged that government can't overcome every trend in the market, policy that invests in the economy "pushes against these trends. And the problem that we've got right now is you've got a portion of Congress whose policies don't just want to you know, leave things alone; they actually want to accelerate these trends." |
| Weary but unbowed, neighbors pull together in flooded Colorado - Los Angeles Times Posted: 15 Sep 2013 08:08 AM PDT BOULDER, Colo. — When the rains began to fall last week, Coloradans exhaled. It had been a long, terrible summer of drought and deadly wildfires, and the afternoon downpours soaking parched soil felt a lot like salvation. But then, in this land known for dryness, the rain would not stop. The flooding that has ravaged — and continues to ravage — a 150-mile-long stretch of Colorado's Front Range has left at least four dead. More than 500 people are unaccounted for. Are they dead? Trapped? Or simply without power or phone service? No one is sure, reflecting the uncertainty that has descended on the state. On Saturday, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle talked of his sinking feeling upon learning of people trapped in remote areas and knowing that authorities could not reach them. Among those unaccounted for are 200 people from his county. Three hundred others are unaccounted for in Larimer County. A 60-year-old missing woman is expected to become the disaster's fifth fatality, although her death has not been confirmed, the Larimer County Sheriff's Department said Saturday. The National Guard reported evacuating more than 500 people from mountain communities by Saturday morning, and the work was continuing. Even Gov. John Hickenlooper got into the act. His helicopter crew stopped to rescue four stranded people, a dog and a cat while he was on his way to a news conference to brief reporters on the disaster. In the picturesque college town of Boulder, the impact of the floods could be felt everywhere. In other times, a mid-September Saturday in Boulder would be a day of children's soccer games, clogged hiking trails, shoppers along the Pearl Street Mall and noisy festivities that surround a University of Colorado football game. But on this Saturday, mud-covered streets were devoid of the usual traffic. Playgrounds were empty and Folsom Field silent as university officials postponed the game against Fresno State. Classes for 32,000 students at the university were canceled Thursday and Friday. It is not clear whether they will resume Monday. With authorities still in search-and-rescue mode, residents began helping one another. Along middle-class streets, windows and doors gaped open to air out flooded homes as the sun made a brief reappearance Saturday morning. Piles of soaked carpets, overflowing trash bags and ruined drywall that resembled Play-Doh lined street curbs. Megan Elphingstone, wearing rubber gloves and rain boots, was in her front yard, using bleach to scrub what was salvaged from her basement. Glancing at the pyramid of rotted carpet she and her husband pulled up when the water began to pour into their basement, she laughed a little. What else can you do? On Wednesday as they returned from Back to School Night, they noticed water was starting to come through basement windows. Then, like something out of a horror movie, it began to seep through the walls. Her sons, Luke, 10, and Jack, 5, armed with their plastic Halloween buckets, tried to help by bailing water and dumping it into a basement shower. "We tried to keep up with it as much as we could, but then we gave up," Elphingstone said, her voice a mixture of exhaustion and resolve to make the best of things. Their basement is now a musty shell with no carpet and large gaps in the walls where her husband cut out chunks of drywall to try to stave off mold. Three fans hummed in the background. They have no flood insurance. They are trying not to think too far ahead. "Could you use some help?" The question came from a man at their door, a member of a nearby church. "We're not as bad off as some," said Elphingstone's husband, David. Then he remembered the hefty, soaked couch still in the basement. "You got a saw?" he joked. In an instant, four other men appeared and hauled the couch up the stairs and deposited it on the curb. Then they were gone but soon replaced by Beth Gallovick, a neighbor, bearing muffins. By 10 a.m., Gallovick had given out three dozen muffins and one vat of chili to people working to clear their wrecked houses along South 45th Street. "Now, don't you worry about dinner tonight," she called out as she made her way down the street. But even as recovery was just starting in some parts of Boulder, new problems were starting elsewhere. "Jake! Get your hands out of that poopy water," Renee Williams scolded her 3-year-old son. The boy and his 1-year-old sister were splashing in the stream of water flowing in the front yard of their house — the house they moved into two weeks ago. But it wasn't floodwater. Backed-up sewage was coming out of the toilet. Still, people were trying to make the best of it, as they had all week. On Friday night, a group of about 20 neighbors gathered in the driveway of the house next door to the Elphingstones. They called it their PTSD Flood Party and grilled salmon outdoors and raised a glass to how lucky they were. They thought of those not far away in Lyons or Jamestown who were still trapped. In another Boulder neighborhood, the roads were closed Friday, but that did not stop about a dozen neighbors and strangers from arriving at Graham and Nili Feingold's door — on bicycles — with an offer of help. Before the couple could object, the crew took over, armed with towels and wet-dry vacuum cleaners. A 6-year-old knelt on the floor, picking up sticky carpet pad remnants. The kindness overwhelmed Nili Feingold. "I had held it together until they came to the door. Then I just lost it. I cried and cried," she said. Her husband was so grateful that he joined the band of helpers and moved on to their neighbor's house, paying it forward. By Saturday afternoon, the couple, like countless others across the city, kept an eye on the gathering clouds. More rain is forecast for Sunday. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Top Stories - Google News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
