Gold rallies on fiscal deal

SINGAPORE: Gold prices receive a boost as US lawmakers finally approved a bill to address the fiscal cliff.

The precious metal rose as much as US$29 an ounce from last week's close of US$1,655.70 a troy ounce on December 28.

The deal struck in the US Congress has helped arrest the threat of the world's largest economy falling into a deep recession.

But some analysts said it is just a knee-jerk reaction and the rally may not be sustainable.

Gold is often seen as a safe haven for investors and is commonly used as a hedge against inflation and a store of wealth especially in times of uncertainty.

Despite a bullish outlook on gold in 2012, the precious metal only managed a modest gain of seven per cent from the start of the year.

It also underperformed against equities which saw Asian stock markets gaining about 20 per cent. For instance the Hang Seng Index up 22.9 per cent , STI gained 20.6 per cent, Nikkei's up 23 per cent in 2012.

The latest move by the US Congress to pass a bill to end the fiscal cliff crisis has lifted sentiment on gold investing.

Some investors expect gold prices to propel higher since the deal may lead to a weakening of the US dollar and this means gold prices will rise as investors switch into the precious metal.

Yet, most experts are not too sanguine of its prospects and expect the impact on gold prices to be muted at best.

"We have the debt ceiling issue which we address somewhere in end February, early March and then we expect a gradual recovery in the US economy in the second half of this year," said Roy Wellington Teo, a foreign exchange and precious metals strategist at ABN Amro (Asia).

He added: "Therefore, we think a stronger US dollar towards the second half of this year could potentially lead to gold prices trend lower towards US$1,500 an ounce end of this year."

Swiss lender UBS expect gold prices to make a steady climb later this year when investors start to worry about inflation when economic growth returns.

During inflation, the value of key currencies like the US dollar and Japanese yen will weaken and this will prompt investors to switch into gold and boost prices.

US said it expects the precious metal to reach USD$1,950 a troy ounce by the first half of this year and is likely to show better performance in 2013.

Dominic Schnider, head of NTAC Research at UBS, said: "Overall the gold price will definitely lag equities but it is still going to be a good asset in your portfolio if you consider we still have a lot of risk factors out there including monetary debasement which is actually a big topic especially with the recent development in Japan."

Looking ahead, experts said gold prices will get a further boost if the US Federal Reserve extends its stimulus programme.

This is expected to inject more liquidity into the financial system.

Avtar Sandu, a business development senior manager at Phillip Futures, said: "We have low interest rate environment, we have all the QEs and we have all the central banks that are buying gold. All these will slowly drive the prices of gold forward."

Yet, some analysts warned that it may not be all glitter for gold this year.

They said that inflation may ease in 2013 and concerns over inflation may be misplaced.

- CNA/fa

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Direct cash transfer scheme a sham, says Mayawati

LUCKNOW: BSP chief Mayawati on Wednesday lashed out at the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's direct cash transfer scheme here, describing it as a ploy to hoodwink voters in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

"This is an old book with a new cover," the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo told reporters, pointing that scholarships for the scheduled castes (SC) and the scheduled tribes (ST) in the state initiated under her chief ministership was already in place where financial aid was transferred straight to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.

Accusing the Congress of yet again trying to "fool the voters," she said people should not be swayed by false promises of the Congress.

"This is an 'adh kacchi' (half-baked) scheme cooked up by the dhokebaaz (fraud) Congress and I warn the people of the country not to fall to the allurements," she said.

'Aapka paisa, aapke haath', the credo coined by the UPA government was nothing but a "sham and a political stunt aimed at fooling the electorate," she alleged.

Her remarks came a day after the central government began the New Year by rolling out the ambitious direct cash transfer of benefits covering seven welfare schemes in 20 districts across the country.

Mayawati asked people to keep the Congress away from power as it has never worked for the people, dalits and minorities.

The former chief minister condemned the December 16 Delhi gang-rape and called for evolving a political consensus for tougher laws to check crime against women. The victim died of her injuries Dec 29 in a Singapore hospital.

The union government should also seek opinion of legal luminaries, chief justices of all state high courts and judges of the Supreme Court on the issue, Mayawati said.

"In such horrifying times, a tough response and stern action is required," she said.

She said political parties should refrain from distributing tickets to people with criminal antecedents. She expressed concern over rising crime against women in Uttar Pradesh.

On the issue of demands of resignation of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav due to apex court directive to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe graft charges against him, she said the answer should come from the Samajwadi Party.

On the growing chorus of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi being a potential prime ministerial candidate, Mayawati said BSP would do everything possible to prevent it.

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

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Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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Senate Approves 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal, Sends to House

Two hours after a midnight deadline for action, the Senate passed legislation early New Year's Day to avert the so-called fiscal cliff with an overwhelming vote of 89-8.

Senate passage set the stage for a final showdown in the House, where a vote could come as early as today.

"While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay," President Obama said in a statement shortly after the vote.

"There's more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I'm willing to do it. But tonight's agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans."

The bill extends Bush-era tax cuts permanently for individuals making less than $400,000 per year and couples making less than $450,000 but allows the top marginal tax rate on incomes above those levels to rise to 39.6 percent.

Capital gains taxes would rise to 20 percent from 15 percent.

The measure would raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million, prevent the alternative minimum tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers and extend unemployment benefits for one year.

'Fiscal Cliff': Lawmakers Scramble for Last-Minute Deal Watch Video

Lawmakers also decided at the last minute to use the measure to prevent a $900 pay raise for each member of Congress due to take effect this spring.

The steep "sequester" budget cuts scheduled to go into effect with the New Year -- a $1.2 trillion hit to defense and domestic programs -- would be postponed for two months.

"I've said all along our most important priority is protecting middle-class Americans, this legislation does that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said early this morning prior to the vote.

The deal at hand does little to address the nation's long-term debt woes, however, and does not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff."

Indeed, the last-minute compromise -- far short from a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction -- could set up a new showdown on the same spending cuts in two months amplified by a brewing fight on how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.

Reid said he is "disappointed" they were unable to achieve a broader deal but that the compromise was necessary.

"We tried," he said. "If we did nothing, the threat of a recession is very real."

Speaking after Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the deal an "imperfect solution" and noted this should not be the model on how things get done in the Senate.

McConnell also thanked Vice President Joe Biden, who visited Capitol Hill late Monday night and brokered the deal with Senate Republicans.

The measure must now move to the Republican-led House.

Five Senate Republicans and three Democrats voted against the plan, but the large margin of passage was seen as boosting the bill's prospects in the House, even though fiscal conservatives were poised to vehemently oppose the deal when it comes to the floor for a vote.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said the House would not vote on any Senate-passed measure "until House members, and the American people, have been able to review" it.

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Syria starts 2013 with aerial strikes and clashes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrians woke on New Year's Day to countrywide aerial bombardment, while President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels fighting to topple him clashed on the outskirts of the capital.

Residents of Damascus entered the new year to the sound of artillery hitting southern and eastern districts that form a rebel-held crescent on the outskirts of the capital, the center of which is still firmly under government control.

In the center, soldiers manning checkpoints fired celebratory gunfire at midnight, causing alarm in a city where streets were largely deserted.

"How can they celebrate? There is no 'Happy New Year'," Moaz al-Shami, an opposition activists who lives in the capital's central Mezzeh district, said over Skype, his voice trembling with anger.

He said rebel fighters attacked one checkpoint in the district of Berzeh early on Tuesday. Opposition groups said mortar bombs hit the southwest suburb of Daraya, where the army launched a military offensive on Monday to retake the battered district.

Assad's air force pounded Damascus's eastern suburbs, as well as rebel-held areas in the second city Aleppo, and several rural towns and villages, opposition activists said.

An estimated 45,000 people have been killed in the revolt, which started in early 2011 with peaceful protests demanding democratic reforms but turned into an armed uprising after months of attacks on protesters by security forces.

A resident of the central city of Homs, who asked to remain anonymous, said shells had landed on the Old City early on Tuesday.

Homs lies on the strategic north-south highway and parts of the ancient city have been leveled during months of clashes. Government forces ousted rebels from the city early last year but militants have slowly crept back in.

"The Old City is under siege. There is shelling from all sides," he said.

The opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, reported 160 people killed on the final day of 2012, including at least 37 government troops. The group's reports cannot be verified.

BOMBARDMENT

The civil war in Syria has become the longest and deadliest of the conflicts that rose out of the uprisings that swept through the Arab world over the past two years.

Many Sunni Muslims, the majority in Syria, back the rebellion, while Assad, who hails from the Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect, is backed by some minorities who fear revenge if he falls. His family has ruled Syria harshly since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.

Assad's forces have lately relied more on aerial and artillery bombardment, rather than infantry. Residential areas where rebels base themselves have been targeted, killing civilians unable to flee. Schools and queues of people buying bread have been hit.

Rebels have taken swathes of the north and the east but have struggled to hold cities, complaining that they are defenseless against Assad's Soviet-built air force.

A year ago, many diplomats and analysts predicted Assad would leave power in 2012. But he has proved resilient and none of his inner circle have defected. He still largely retains control of his armed forces.

Diplomatic efforts to end the war have faltered, with the rebels refusing to negotiate unless Assad leaves power and him pledging to fight until death.

Most Western and Arab states have called for him to leave power. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.

In the final days of 2012, international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi called on countries to push the sides to talk, saying Syria faced a choice of "hell or the political process".

One Damascus resident, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said the usual new year's eve crowds were absent from the increasingly isolated capital.

"There was hardly anyone on the streets, no cars, no pedestrians. Most restaurants, cafes and bars were empty," she said. Some young people gathered at three bars in the old city.

"There was music but nobody was dancing. They just sat there with a drink in their hands and smoking. I don't think I saw one person smile," she said. The midnight gunfire caused alarm.

"It was very scary. No one knew what was going on. People got very nervous and started making phone calls. But then I discovered that at least on my street, the gunfire was celebratory."

(Editing by Peter Graff and Alison Williams)

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Sengkang West LRT loop now fully operational

SINGAPORE: Some commuters in Sengkang will find it easier to get around the estate on the LRT.

On Tuesday, the trains on the Sengkang West LRT ran in both directions throughout the day, instead of only during the morning and evening peak hours.

Cheng Lim LRT Station, which is on the Sengkang West LRT, also started operations on Tuesday.

Previously, trains on the Sengkang LRT ply either one of the two loops - the East Loop or the West Loop.

The trains were crowded, especially during the peak hours on weekdays and on weekends.

SBS Transit hopes the move will better meet the travel needs of commuters.

It added that an additional 1,033 trips will be added to the line each week.

- CNA/fa

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Pakistani judicial panel to arrive in India by end of January

NEW DELHI: The Pakistani judicial commission, which will cross examine four witnesses in 26/11 terror attack case, is expected to arrive here by the end of January after approval of the Bombay high court.

The agreement on the visit of the second Pakistani judicial commission to Mumbai was finalised on December 25 in Islamabad following several rounds of discussions on complex technical and legal issues between a four-member visiting Indian delegation and Pakistani officials.

The home ministry will approach the Bombay high court within a day or two to seek its approval for the visit of the Pakistani panel and cross examination of the four witnesses of the Mumbai terror attack case, official sources said.

The witnesses are Metropolitan Magistrate Rama Vijay Sawant-Waghule, who recorded the confessional statement of hanged terrorist Ajmal Kasab, chief investigating officer Ramesh Mahale and two doctors from the state-run Nair and JJ Hospitals who had conducted autopsies of nine terrorists.

The cross examination of the four witnesses is required to take the ongoing 26/11 case in a Rawalpindi court to its logical conclusion.

Seven terrorists, including Lashkar-e-Taiba operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, were charged with planning, financing and executing the attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008.

Once the approval of the high court is received, New Delhi will convey the same to Islamabad which in turn will inform the Lahore high court for intimation to the Rawalpindi court.

During its visit, the Indian team secured assurance from Pakistani authorities that the findings of the second judicial commission would not be summarily rejected by the anti- terrorism court that is conducting the trial of seven men.

The findings of the first Pakistani judicial commission that visited India in March 2012 were rejected by the anti-terrorism court as the panel's members were not allowed to cross-examine the Indian witnesses.

After the judicial panel visits India and cross examines the four witnesses, Islamabad will be expected to reciprocate by granting an Indian judicial commission access to Pakistani suspects when it visits the country at a later stage.

The trial of the Pakistani suspects has made little or no headway for months due to various technical and legal issues.

The Lahore high court has barred the anti-terrorism court from using Kasab's confession while defence lawyers have contended that existing Pakistani laws do not allow witnesses in another country to depose via video conferencing.

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.

Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.

Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.

The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.

In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.

Clinton's complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton's care.

The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.

This isn't the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

"Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a problem."

It isn't uncommon for presidential candidates' health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.

Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.

"Wouldn't that be exciting?" House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. "I hope she goes. Why wouldn't she?"

Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.

"Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl," Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. "The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level."

Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking "Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

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Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

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Deal or No Deal, 'Cliff' Debate Will Linger Into 2013

Dec 31, 2012 6:00am

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Analysis

The fiscal cliff is just the beginning.

Regardless of whether Democrats and Republicans reach some kind of last-minute bargain to avoid the worst effects of tax hikes and spending cuts, the disaster that has been the fiscal cliff negotiations has broad implications for the Washington agenda in 2013 and beyond.

The tone has been set for the new year, and possibly for the rest of President Obama’s time in office: Washington’s divisions are the only point that matters anymore. Call if dysfunction or call it just plain broken, just don’t call it capable of even small legislative moves that involve compromise.

Hopes of a grand bargain on fiscal policy, involving entitlement spending, tax rates, and the debt ceiling, disappeared weeks ago. All that’s left are fading possibilities involving the delaying portions of tax increases and restoring some planned cuts.

Those are moves that actually make the deficit outlook worse. More saliently, they should be the politically easy things to get done, yet Congress is paralyzed and the president appears powerless to do anything meaningful to prod action.

The other items Obama ticked through this weekend as part of his second-term agenda – immigration reform, energy and environmental policy, infrastructure investments, gun control – look like dreams in this environment.

The causes are manifold, and the blame doesn’t have to be equally distributed for the ramifications to be real. The fact is that Republicans – who will control at least one house of Congress for at least half of the president’s second term – do not now and may not ever see sufficient political benefit to offer the types of concessions Democrats are insisting on.

If an election couldn’t change that, there’s precious little left that can. Name the issue and it’s all too easy to see similar dynamics derailing meaningful reform.

Washington is now broken beyond the point where bold individual leadership can even fix it. The forces at play are bigger than the ability of the president, House Speaker John Boehner, or any other person or persons to turn them around without the certain promise of a revolt in the party ranks that would leave them out of effective power.

The cliff metaphor suggests a jump into a void, but at least one that has a bottom. Yet as the nation watches this slow-motion wreck, the depths of dysfunction have yet to be fully explored.

SHOWS: World News

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Assad's forces push to retake Damascus suburb

AMMAN (Reuters) - Heavy fighting raged on the outskirts of Damascus on Monday as elite troops backed by tanks tried to recapture a strategic suburb from rebels in one of the largest military operations in that district in months, opposition activists said.

Five people, including one child, died from army rocket fire that hit Daraya, the activists said. Daraya is one of a series of interconnected Sunni Muslim suburbs that ring Syria's capital and have been at the forefront of the 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

"This is the biggest attack on Daraya in two months. An armored column is trying to advance but it being held (back) by the Free Syrian Army," said Abu Kinan, an opposition activist in the area, referring to a rebel group.

He said that tens of thousands of civilians had fled Daraya during weeks of government assault but that 5,000 remained, along with hundreds of rebels. Daraya is located near the main southern highway leading to the Jordanian border 85 kms (50 miles) to the south.

Activists said the military is trying to push back rebels who have been slowly advancing from the outskirts of Damascus to within striking distance of central districts inhabited by Assad's Alawite minority sect.

Assad's forces have mostly relied on aerial and artillery bombardment, rather than infantry. Rebels have been able take several outlying towns and have clashed with government troops near Damascus International Airport, halting flights by foreign airlines.

Another activist in Damascus with connection to rebels, who did not want to be named, said Daraya has been a firing position for rebels using mortars and homemade rockets. From it, they have been able to hit a huge presidential complex located at a hilltop overlooking Damascus and target pro-Assad shabbiha militia in an Alawite enclave nearby known as Mezze 86.

"So far they have missed the palace but they are getting better. I think the regime has realized that it no longer can afford to have such a threat so close by, but it has failed to overrun Daraya before," he said.

(Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Oliver Holmes and Peter Graff)

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