Singapore Conversation turns to animal welfare






SINGAPORE: A more inclusive society for animals or tougher rules for buying a pet were some suggestions animal lovers brought up at a dialogue on Saturday.

It was also the first time the Singapore Conversation - an initiative to get Singaporeans to come to a consensus on the kind of future they want - focused on animal welfare.

Saturday's event was jointly organised by the Agency for Animal Welfare, the Our SG Conversation Committee and the Singapore Kindness Movement.

Two working dogs - Esme and Joel - were present at the dialogue.

They were there to receive an inaugural Great Pet award given out by the Agency for Animal Welfare to pets which have served their owners in extraordinary ways.

Esme works as a guide dog for her visually impaired master, while Joel is a health service dog who can alert family members during a medical emergency at home.

Awareness of working dogs in Singapore remains low.

Hence animal lovers at the dialogue urged more shops and restaurants to welcome these dogs and their owners.

Their vision is an inclusive Singapore, for animals, too.

But pet owners need to do their part.

A keyword heard throughout the dialogue was "responsibility" - the responsibility of pet owners.

Abandonment cases in Singapore are unfortunately common. Hence some said the process of buying and owning a pet should be made tougher.

One of them is business owner Jill Hum, who said: "It's just far too easy for someone to buy a pet. It's not just buying candy or a teddy bear from the toy store. It's a live animal, you need to know how to take care of the pet. You need to know it's a lifelong commitment."

Others like Melanie Lee want an outright ban on live animals in pet stores.

"If pet shops can be legislated such that they can't have any live pets for sale, that would really help, because we have so many dogs out there - strays dogs, dogs up for adoption that do not have a home right now."

MP for Nee Soon GRC Associate Professor Faishal Ibrahim said the issue will require consultation with relevant stakeholders.

But the dialogue must go on.

"What we need to do is continue to develop and deepen this journey, so that ten years down the road, we will have a more gracious society," said the MP.

One way that can happen, participants said, is to inject the importance of animal welfare into the education system.

- CNA/ir



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Did riots not take place during Congress rule? Rajnath Singh asks Muslims

NEW DELHI: With the BJP being constantly targeted over Gujarat riots, party president Rajnath Singh on Saturday alleged it was being defamed and maligned continuously under a "planned conspiracy".

He said BJP did not believe in politics of divide and creating differences among people, and appealed the Muslim community to help removing the "widespread confusion".

"BJP is defamed and maligned continuously under a planned conspiracy. You all have seen our government in the Centre when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. Who can say that we did politics by creating differences between humans?," he told a group of Muslim leaders who met him at the party office here.

"Our opposition parties allege that BJP is the party which creates enmity (nafrat) between Hindus and Muslims...I want to make an appeal to you people. If anyone can remove this widespread confusion, only you people can do this and this beginning should be made from Delhi," he said.

Stressing that BJP's ideology did not believe in dividing people, he said, "Our ideology and our political thought wants to give only this message that we don't want to create enmity between humans and we don't want to make our government by creating divide."

"If we want to make a government, then we want to base it on the politics of humanity and justice," Singh said.

He also alleged that many more riots have taken place in the country during the Congress regimes.

"Did riots not take place during Congress rule? I can say with confidence that during Congress rule, many more riots took place...We have our government in several of the states...if a riot takes place anywhere, then it should not be assumed that BJP instigated the riot," Singh said.

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools


WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.


For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.


Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.


The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.


Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.


"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.


Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.


The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.


The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.


Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.


"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.


Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.


The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.


Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.


Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.


"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.


The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.


A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.


___


Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick


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Gov's Handling of Sandusky Case Under Investigation













The newly-elected attorney general of Pennsylvania is going after the state's governor, Tom Corbett, who was attorney general when child sex allegations against Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky were first brought forward.


Kathleen Kane, a Democrat who was sworn in as attorney general on Jan. 15, said that she will name a special prosecutor in the coming days to investigate Corbett's handling of the Sandusky case. Corbett is a Republican.


The investigation will look specifically at why it took the attorney general's office three years to bring criminal charges against Sandusky while he continued to have access to children.


"Attorney General Kane will appoint a special prosecutor to lead the office's internal investigation into how the Sandusky child abuse investigation was handled by the Office of the Attorney General," Kane's office said in a statement released today.


Corbett's attorney general's office was first notified of the allegations against Sandusky in 2008 when a high school student told his mother and school that Sandusky had molested him. The local district attorney passed the allegation on to the attorney general, then Corbett. Corbett convened a grand jury.






Mario Tama; Patrick Smith/Getty Images











Jerry Sandusky Insists Innocence Before Sentencing Watch Video









Jerry Sandusky Sentencing: Why Did He Release Statement? Watch Video









Jerry Sandusky Claims Innocence in Audio Statement Watch Video





It wasn't until 2011 that sex abuse charges were filed against Sandusky while Corbett had since become governor. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sex abuse in June 2012.


The charges sent shockwaves throughout Pennsylvania, as Penn State's president, two top officials, and legendary coach Joe Paterno all lost their jobs over the scandal.


"Why did it take 33 months to get Sandusky off the streets? Was the use of a grand jury the right decision? Why were there so few resources dedicated to the investigation? Were the best practices implemented?" the statement from Kane's office read.


"At the end of this investigation, we will know the answers to these questions and be able to tell the people of Pennsylvania the facts and give them answers that they deserve," the statement said.


Describing an interview Kane gave the New York Times, the Times said Kane suggested that Corbett did not want to upset voters or donors in the Penn State community before his gubernatorial run in 2009.


Corbett has denied those suggestions. His office did not immediately return calls for comment.


Kane's office preemptively fought back against the idea that the investigation is politically motivated. Kane, a Democrat, defeated the incumbent attorney general, Linda Kelly, a Republican in November 2011. Corbett is a Republican.


"The speculation that this is about politics is insane," a staff member in Kane's office told ABC News today. "You go anywhere in Pennsylvania and anywhere across the country and you'll find individuals asking, 'why did it take three years? Why was there a grand jury? Why make these kids talk to 30 different people about what happened?"



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Mexico rescue workers search for survivors after Pemex blast kills 25


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Emergency services worked into the early hours of Friday to find people trapped in rubble under state oil company Pemex's headquarters in Mexico City after an explosion that killed at least 25 people and injured more than 100.


Scenes of confusion and chaos at the downtown tower dealt yet another blow to Pemex's image as Mexico's new president courts outside investment for the 75-year-old monopoly.


Search and rescue workers picked through debris, and investigators sifted through shattered glass and concrete at the bottom of the building to try to find what caused the blast. It was not clear how many might still be trapped inside.


Pemex, a symbol of Mexican self-sufficiency as well as a byword in Mexico for security glitches, oil theft and frequent accidents, has been hamstrung by inefficiency, union corruption and a series of safety failures costing hundreds of lives.


Thursday's blast at the more than 50-storey skyscraper that houses administrative offices followed a September fire at a Pemex gas facility near the northern city of Reynosa which killed 30 people. More than 300 were killed when a Pemex natural gas plant on the outskirts of Mexico City blew up in 1984.


Eight years later, about 200 people were killed and 1,500 injured after a series of underground gas explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city. An official investigation found Pemex was partly to blame.


Pemex initially flagged Thursday's incident as a problem with its electricity supply and then said there had been an explosion. But it did not give a cause for the blast.


A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a preliminary line of inquiry suggested a gas boiler had blown up in a Pemex building just to the side of the main tower. However, he stressed nothing had been determined for sure.


Others at the scene said gas may have caused the blast.


Not long after the blast, President Enrique Pena Nieto was at the scene, vowing to discover how it happened.


"We will work exhaustively to investigate exactly what took place, and if there are people responsible, to apply the force of the law on them," he told reporters before going to visit survivors in hospital.


Shortly after midnight, at least 46 victims were still being treated in hospital, the company said.


Pemex said the blast would not affect operations, but concern in the government was evident as top military officials, the attorney general and the energy minister joined Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong for a late news conference.


"I have issued instructions to the relevant authorities to convene national and international experts to help in the investigations," Osorio Chong said. He later noted that the number of casualties could still climb.


Whatever caused it, the deaths and destruction will put the spotlight back on safety at Pemex, which only a couple of hours before the explosion had issued a statement on Twitter saying the company had managed to improve its record on accidents.


Nieto has said he is giving top priority to reforming the company this year, though he has yet to reveal details of the plan, which already faces opposition from the left.


Both Pena Nieto and his finance minister were this week at pains to stress the company will not be privatized.


(Editing by Louise Ireland)



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Indonesia's January inflation rises to 4.57%






JAKARTA: Indonesian inflation hit a four-year high on a monthly basis in January as food prices soared following severe flooding across the country, an official said on Friday.

The monsoonal downpour pushed inflation to 1.03 per cent last month from 0.54 per cent in December, while it also accelerated to 4.57 per cent year on year, from 4.3 per cent, Central Statistics Bureau chief Suryamin said.

"Bad weather in January caused some food prices to increase, including chillies and chicken. Food was the biggest driver of inflation last month," Suryamin told reporters.

However, core inflation, which excludes volatile food prices, eased to 4.32 per cent from 4.4 per cent the previous month.

The country's central bank, Bank Indonesia, has left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low of 5.75 per cent since February, having kept inflation within the target range of 4.5-5.5 per cent.

- AFP/fa



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McDonald's to pay Rs 15,000 for delivering wrong burger

NEW DELHI: Fast food giant McDonald's has been directed by a consumer forum here to pay Rs 15,000 as compensation to one of its customers for delivering a non-veg burger instead of the vegetarian one she had ordered.

The South West District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum said, "By delivering her a non-vegetarian burger instead of the vegetarian burger ordered by her is a gross negligence on the part of the delivery-crew-member, whose conduct is tantamount to deficiency-in-service.

"Allowing the complaint, we direct the opposite party (McDonald's) to pay to the complainant Rs 10,000 as compensation and Rs 5,000 as cost of litigation," the bench presided by Narendra Kumar said.

The order came on the plea of Delhi resident Vimal Chaudhary who had alleged that she had ordered for two vegetarian burgers, but she was delivered one non-vegetarian and one vegetarian burgers.

She had said that she realised it was a non-veg burger only after eating half of it and thereafter, she had started vomiting.

The woman had also alleged that being an Arya Samaj follower and a Hindu, eating the non-vegetarian food has hurt her emotionally and she also suffered religiously.

In its defence, the McDonald's had contended that the woman had wilfully accepted the non-veg burger instead of the vegetarian one ordered by her.

The forum, however, rejected the contention, saying had she wanted a non-veg burger she would have ordered one.

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella


NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.


In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.


The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.


Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.


Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.


In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.


Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.


Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.


The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.


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Online:


CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr


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Columbia Shuttle Crew Remembered 10 Years Later













Iain Clark is a teenager now. He was eight years old when his mother, Dr Laurel Clark, and six other astronauts died when the space shuttle Columbia fell apart in the skies over Texas 10 years ago today.


Iain's father, Dr. Jonathon Clark, told ABC News recently that he and Iain will never really recover.


"There will always be a sense of loss and pain and hurt," said Clark. "I've lost a lot, but I've gained a lot, too. I have a perspective and reverence for life. I have my son, and seeing him through this has been very rewarding -- though it has been difficult, as well."


Feb. 1, the anniversary of the Columbia accident, is the day NASA chooses to remember all the astronauts who have died during missions.


Spaceflight is a risky business. Some of the accidents are well known. Others, not really. But they all illustrate just how dangerous it is to leave our planet and venture into orbit.


Three accidents, in particular, are seared in our memories because NASA's missions have been so dramatic, and so public.


First, there was the fire on Jan. 27, 1967, which killed Apollo 1's crew of Command Pilot "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger Chaffee. At the time, NASA was racing to beat the Soviet Union to the moon.


Second was the space shuttle Challenger's accident on Jan. 28, 1986, which was seen live by children across the country because its crew included the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe.








Finally, Columbia's accident, on a clear, sunny Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003, as it re-entered from space after a seemingly routine science mission, stunned the country. It also meant the end of NASA's space shuttle program.


This morning at 9:16 a.m. ET, the time Columbia would have landed at the Kennedy Space Center in 2003, there will be a minute of silence. A bell will toll seven times at the Johnson Space Center for the seven astronauts who died on Columbia's final mission, STS 107: Commander Rick Husband, Pilot Willie McCool, Mission Specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla and Ilan Ramon.


It took months for the commission investigating the accident to determine the cause: foam. A piece the size of a briefcase broke off one of the shuttle's external fuel tanks, punching a hole in the orbiter's left wing.


The crew of seven knew something was wrong very late during re-entry, but there wasn't anything they or mission control could do to save them or Columbia. It took managers at the Johnson Space Center months to accept that something so simple as a piece of foam could do so much damage.


Wayne Hale, who guided NASA's space shuttle program back from the accident, was the only NASA employee who publicly accepted responsibility for Columbia's accident.


Hale now works in the private sector, but recently wrote in a blog about the internal discussion at mission control while engineers discussed what they thought might be a problem -- but weren't sure.


"After one of the MMTs [mission management teams] when possible damage to the orbiter was discussed," Hale wrote, "[Flight Director Jon Harpold] gave me his opinion: 'You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the TPS [thermal protection system]. If it has been damaged it's probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don't you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?'






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Syrian rebels make slow headway in south


AMMAN (Reuters) - The revolt against President Bashar al-Assad first flared in Deraa, but the southern border city now epitomizes the bloody stalemate gripping Syria after 22 months of violence and 60,000 dead.


Jordan next door has little sympathy with Assad, but is wary of spillover from the upheaval in its bigger neighbor. It has tightened control of its 370-km (230-mile) border with Syria, partly to stop Islamist fighters or weapons from crossing.


That makes things tough for Assad's enemies in the Hawran plain, traditionally one of Syria's most heavily militarized regions, where the army has long been deployed to defend the southern approaches to Damascus from any Israeli threat.


The mostly Sunni Muslim rebels, loosely grouped in tribal and local "brigades", are united by a hatred of Assad and range from secular-minded fighters to al Qaeda-aligned Islamists.


"Nothing comes from Jordan," complained Moaz al-Zubi, an officer in the rebel Free Syrian Army, contacted via Skype from the Jordanian capital Amman. "If every village had weapons, we would not be afraid, but the lack of them is sapping morale."


Insurgents in Syria say weapons occasionally do seep through from Jordan but that they rely more on arsenals they seize from Assad's troops and arms that reach them from distant Turkey.


This month a Syrian pro-government television channel showed footage of what it said was an intercepted shipment of anti-tank weapons in Deraa, without specifying where it had come from.


Assad's troops man dozens of checkpoints in Deraa, a Sunni city that was home to 180,000 people before the uprising there in March 2011. They have imposed a stranglehold which insurgents rarely penetrate, apart from sporadic suicide bombings by Islamist militants, say residents and dissidents.


Rebel activity is minimal west of Deraa, where military bases proliferate near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.


Insurgents have captured some towns and villages in a 25-km (17-mile) wedge of territory east of Deraa, but intensifying army shelling and air strikes have reduced many of these to ruin, forcing their residents to join a rapidly expanding refugee exodus to Jordan, which now hosts 320,000 Syrians.


However, despite more than a month of fighting, Assad's forces have failed to winkle rebels out of strongholds in the rugged volcanic terrain that stretches from Busra al-Harir, 37 km (23 miles) northeast of Deraa, to the outskirts of Damascus.


Further east lies Sweida, home to minority Druze who have mostly sat out the Sunni-led revolt against security forces dominated by Assad's minority, Shi'ite-rooted Alawite sect.


"KEY TO DAMASCUS"


As long as Assad's forces control southwestern Syria, with its fertile, rain-fed Hawran plain, his foes will find it hard to make a concerted assault on Damascus, the capital and seat of his power, from suburbs where they already have footholds.


"If this area is liberated, the supply routes from the south to Damascus would be cut," said Abu Hamza, a commander in the rebel Ababeel Hawran Brigade. "Deraa is the key to the capital."


Fighters in the north, where Turkey provides a rear base and at least some supply lines, have fared somewhat better than their counterparts in the south, grabbing control of swathes of territory and seizing half of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city.


They have also captured some towns in the east, across the border from Iraq's Sunni heartland of Anbar province, and in central Syria near the mostly Sunni cities of Homs and Hama.


But even where they gain ground, Assad's mostly Russian-supplied army and air force can still pound rebels from afar, prompting a Saudi prince to call for outsiders to "level the playing field" by providing anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.


"What is needed are sophisticated, high-level weapons that can bring down planes, can take out tanks at a distance," Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former intelligence chief and brother of the Saudi foreign minister, said last week at a meeting in Davos.


Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf state Qatar have long backed Assad's opponents and advocate arming them, but for now the rebels are still far outgunned by the Syrian military.


"They are not heavily armed, properly trained or equipped," said Ali Shukri, a retired Jordanian general, who argued also that rebels would need extensive training to use Western anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons effectively even if they had them.


He said two powerful armored divisions were among Syrian forces in the south, where the rebels are "not that strong".


It is easier for insurgents elsewhere in Syria to get support via Turkey or Lebanon than in the south where the only borders are with Israel and Jordan, Shukri said.


Jordan, which has urged Assad to go, but seeks a political solution to the crisis, is unlikely to ramp up support for the rebels, even if its cautious policy risks irritating Saudi Arabia and Qatar, financial donors to the cash-strapped kingdom.


ISLAMIST STRENGTH


"I'm confident the opposition would like to be sourcing arms regularly from the Jordanian border, not least because I guess it would be easier for the Saudis to get stuff up there on the scale you'd be talking about," said a Western diplomat in Amman.


A scarcity of arms and ammunition is the main complaint of the armed opposition, a disparate array of local factions in which Islamist militants, especially the al Qaeda-endorsed Nusra Front, have come to play an increasing role in recent months.


The Nusra Front, better armed than many groups, emerged months after the anti-Assad revolt began in Deraa with peaceful protests that drew a violent response from the security forces.


It has flourished as the conflict has turned ever more bitterly sectarian, pitting majority Sunnis against Alawites.


Since October, the Front, deemed a terrorist group by the United States, has carried out at least three high-profile suicide bombings in Deraa, attacking the officers' club, the governor's residence and an army checkpoint in the city centre.


Such exploits have won prestige for the Islamist group, which has gained a reputation for military prowess, piety and respect for local communities, in contrast to some other rebel outfits tainted by looting and other unpopular behavior.


"So far no misdeeds have come from the Nusra Front to make us fear them," said Daya al-Deen al-Hawrani, a fighter from the rebel al-Omari Brigade. "Their goal and our goal is one."


Abu Ibrahim, a non-Islamist rebel commander operating near Deraa, said the Nusra Front fought better and behaved better than units active under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.


"Their influence has grown," he acknowledged, describing them as dedicated and disciplined. Nor were their fighters imposing their austere Islamic ideology on others, at least for now. "I sit with them and smoke and they don't mind," he said.


The Nusra Front may be trying to avoid the mistakes made by a kindred group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, which fought U.S. troops and the rise of Shi'ite factions empowered by the 2003 invasion.


The Iraqi group's suicide attacks on civilians, hostage beheadings and attempts to enforce a harsh version of Islamic law eventually alienated fellow Sunni tribesmen who switched sides and joined U.S. forces in combating the militants.


Despite the Nusra Front's growing prominence and its occasional spectacular suicide bombings in Deraa, there are few signs that its fighters or other rebels are on the verge of dislodging the Syrian military from its southern bastions.


Abu Hamza, the commander in the Ababeel Hawran Brigade, was among many rebels and opposition figures to lament the toughness of the task facing Assad's enemies in the south: "What is killing us is that all of Hawran is a military area," he said.


"And every village has five army compounds around it."


(Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



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