GWCSG Returns to Japan for Holidays - USS George Washington ...

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December 12, 2010 Page 10 US, South Korea Free Trade Deal a ‘Win-Win’ BBC Both the US and South Korea have hailed their long-awaited free trade agreement negotiated this weekend as a “win-win” deal. However, the final pact, which was originally signed in 2007 but never ratified, has been heavily criticised by South Korean opposition parties. They branded the compromises made by Seoul “humiliating and treacherous”. The deal needs parliamentary approval in both countries before it can be finally ratified. President Barack Obama said on Saturday the agreement “includes several important improvements and achieves what I believe trade deals must do. It’s a win-win for both our countries”. South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong- Hoon also described the deal as a “win-win”. Negotiations on the free trade deal broke down in the run-up to last month’s G20 meeting of leading economies in Seoul. Car tariffs A key sticking point to the 2007 deal were tariffs imposed by South Korea on US car imports. “We have been hit by the North with cannons and now we we’re being hit by the US with the economy” But a compromise was agreed - the US By Heidi Przybyla and Mike Dorning Bloomberg President Obama said the deal was “essential” in boosting US exports. will lift its 2.5% tariff on South Korean cars after four years, while South Korea will halve its 8% tariff with immediate effect, before lifting it in four years. South Korea also agreed to allow the US to export up to 25,000 cars a year that do not meet its more stringent safety requirements. In return, the US agreed that South Korea could extend its tariffs on US pork imports for another two years. The deal does not address US concerns about tariffs on its beef exports. ‘Cheated’ The deal has proved deeply unpopular among opposition politicians in South Korea. “We have been hit by the North with Lawmakers may embrace plans by President Barack Obama’s debt commission to curb the costs of Social Security and $1 trillion in tax breaks even as comprehensive deficit reduction hinges on whether both parties seek confrontation or accommodation. While the commission lacked the votes to send its proposal to Congress, bipartisan agreement on the panel will open a debate over the retirement system and the tax breaks, which include the home-mortgage deduction, several lawmakers and analysts said. Any significant effort confronts what commission co- chairman Erskine Bowles called “the threat pressed upon us by these ever-increasing deficits.” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a Democrat, wants Obama to convene a summit, and House Republicans Dave Camp, incoming Ways and Means Committee chairman, and Paul Ryan, who will head the Budget Committee in January, say they’ll use the plan as a basis for hearings on the deficit. “I put the likelihood at 15 percent that we would have any kind of deficit-reduction package in the next two years,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial Inc. in Chicago. “That’s not that high. But it’s higher than I would have put it two weeks ago.” Obama thanked the panel for highlighting “the magnitude of the challenge facing us” without embracing specific proposals. White House Budget Director Jack Lew has invited commission members to meet. “I would prefer to even go further in deficit reduction than this package,” Conrad, a commission member, said yesterday on “Fox News Sunday.” He called the proposal, backed by 11 of the panel’s 18 members, “a strong beginning,” with the “next logical step” a meeting between Obama and bipartisan Congress leaders. Pressures to extend Bush-era tax cuts and respond to 9.8 percent unemployment will hamper fiscal restraint for now, said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP LLC, cannons and now we we’re being hit by the US with the economy,” said Park Jie-Won of the Democratic Party, referring to North Korea’s recent shelling of a border island. The Liberty Forward Party said the public had been “cheated by the deal”. “The concession garnered in the livestock products was not significant, so it was a deal that failed to meet national interests,” said the party’s Kwon Sun-Taik. Boosting exports President Obama hailed the deal on Saturday as “essential” for boosting US exports. “The agreement will contribute significantly to achieving my goal of doubling US exports over the next five years. “In fact, it’s estimated that today’s deal will increase American economic output by more than our last nine trade agreements combined,” he said. Domestic consumption currently accounts for more than two-thirds of the US economy, and Mr Obama is keen to re-balance the economy by increasing exports. This is also a key strategy in securing a sustainable recovery from the downturn. The US recovery remains fragile, with disappointing unemployment figures released on Friday contributing to concerns that the world’s largest economy is struggling to shake off the recession. Lawmakers Accept Cuts to Social Security, Tax Breaks as Debt Plan Fails a unit of London-based ICAP Plc, the world’s largest broker of trades between banks. “It is difficult for the congressional leadership to drive two conflicting processes at once,” Crandall said. “Congress is probably going to have to take things one step at a time.” The federal budget deficit for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 was $1.3 trillion or 8.9 percent of gross domestic product, according to a calculation released by the Treasury Department in October. Voters consider the shortfall their second most pressing concern, according to a Bloomberg National Poll. The plan by Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and Republican co-chairman Alan Simpson, a former senator from Wyoming, would increase taxes by $1 trillion by 2020. It would scale back or eliminate hundreds of tax deductions, exclusions or credits such as those allowing homeowners to write off interest on their mortgage payments. It would also cut individual and corporate income tax rates.
December 12, 2010 On the Homefront Page 11 NORTHEAST For Autistic Boy, Opera Is Dream Come True CNN BOSTON — An opera superstar, tenor Andrea Bocelli, took center stage at the TD Garden Sunday night in a performance many in the audience will likely never forget. But it’s what happened backstage with a very special fan of the star that stole the show. The boy, a 10-year-old with autism, has always felt a special connection with Bocelli and for the Amherst New Hampshire native, and his dreams came true when he got to see the star in person. George Maroun III, a fourth-grader, has listened to Bocelli every day of his life. He is diagnosed as autistic, non-verbal, and he has never said a single word in his life, not even “mom” or “dad,” but Bocelli has helped him communicate and thrive. Sunday night, he suited up in a tuxedo and was allowed to stay up late on a school night to attend the Bocelli concert in Boston. His mother said Bocelli’s music has been magic in the child’s life. “One time when he was in the middle of a fit, infancy stage, and I was turning on the music and it was like a light switch. He just ... it calmed him down,” said George’s mother Kristin Maroun. The entire family was given tickets to the Bocelli concert thanks to George’s special education aide Jeff Small, who wrote a letter to Bocelli’s managers, telling them the tickets were too expensive for the family to attend, but it would be an invaluable experience if George could go. Bocelli’s organization immediately made it possible. “I know (George’s parents are) grateful. They’ve gone through a lot with him,” said Small. “I think I’m going to have a tough time keeping him from climbing up on stage,” Kristin said before the performance. Bocelli is blind and the Marouns see him as an inspiration -- a shining example of the possibilities for their son. SOUTH Hunters Discover Skeleton, Skull By Kontji Anthony WMC-TV MEMPHIS, TN — Two Shelby County men made a startling discovery on their way to hunt deer Saturday morning. An off-duty Shelby County Sheriff’s deputy and his friend found a skeleton, along with a human skull, scattered in a field at the edge of the woods near Stewart and Palomino Drives. “We have determined these are the remains of a human being,” said Shelby County Sheriff’s spokesman Chip Washington. “Upon further inspection, they found a few more scattered bones in the area, including a skull.” The area where the bones were found is surrounded by dry brush. Before investigators could get to the evidence, they had to clear the brush away. The scene is near a quiet community. Neighbor Mark Sharpe said the neighborhood has been down this road before. “We have had quite a few incidents in this part of the county with people disposing of dead bodies,” said Sharpe. “What’s sad is the fact is that represents a human life somewhere.” The scene is near the area where Austin Agee dumped the body of Bartlett model Lisa Davis in March of 2009. It is also in the vicinity where Thomas Pate of Bartlett confessed to dumping his wife’s body near the Loosahatchie River in May of 2009. Investigators could not say how long the remains have been there, or if the investigation has been deemed suspicious. “Hopefully they can find out who that person is,” said Sharpe. The Sheriff’s Office said it plans to turn over all evidence to the medical examiner. WEST Bakery Leader Sentenced to Life By Thomas Peele The Chauncey Bailey Project OAKLAND -- The first member of Your Black Muslim Bakery convicted of one of the gruesome crimes that helped destroy the organization more than three years ago was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon gave Richard Lewis, 26, a former high school football star in San Francisco, the stiffest possible sentence. A jury convicted Lewis in April of six felonies in the May 2007 kidnapping of a mother and daughter at gunpoint and the torture of the daughter in a failed attempt to learn where a drug dealer she knew kept money. Reardon called the Beys “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” but said the scheme behind the crime, including the use of a decommissioned police car to trick the women into stopping on the shoulder of I-580, showed sophistication. Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV thought the daughter would lead him to the drug dealer’s $500,000 so he could use it to save the bakery from being liquidated in a bankruptcy proceeding. “This was not just a crime of opportunity,” Reardon said. The emotional and physical sufferings inflicted on the victims involved a “high degree of cruelty, viciousness and callousness.” There is no doubt, he said, that Lewis, who has no prior criminal record, is a threat to society. A San Francisco jury acquitted Lewis of murder in 2007 in a case where a woman was shot during a drug deal. An incriminating statement on which most of the case against him hinged had been thrown out on a legal technicality. MIDWEST 10 Cars Plow Through Wet Concrete CNN OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — It was a messy delay for a major ramp after 10 vehicles drove on top of freshly-poured concrete at 69 Highway and 87th Street. Workers had just finished pouring about 1,400 feet of concrete Friday, when a driver bypassed barricades to drive up the ramp. Police at the scene that night said at least nine more cars followed them. “Some lady went off the road,” said Karlie Pflumm. “We knew it was closed, we thought, but these two cones were separated forw a car to get through. The lady went and we followed her.” Pflumm and her friend were second in line and one of two cars that had to be pulled out of the concrete. “We thought we were on gravel for a second, because I said, ‘Do you hear things coming up and hitting my car?’ We go on gravel a lot, and I thought maybe gravel, and when we saw that lady stopped, we hopped out and our feet started sinking and we’re like, okay we’re in wet cement.” The damage may mean a lot of the concrete will have to be torn out and replaced. Tire marks are clearly visible at the end of the ramp on 87th Street, when the cars’ tires sunk down into the concrete when the vehicles came to a stop.Crews from Clarkson Construction say about 700 feet of the ramp probably will have to be torn out and re-poured. “Anytime we get traffic that goes into fresh concrete, if we’re out there and working, we can fix it,” Robert Fry with Clarkson Construction said. “If it’s after hours, trying to get guys back to fix it, this time of year when it’s cold, it just really makes it difficult. It makes it almost impossible to fix.” Drivers who travel 69 Highway regularly say any reasonable person should have known the ramp was closed.
Page 1 and 2: December 12, 2010 Vol. 19 Issue 5 G
Page 3 and 4: December 12, 2010 Ship News Page 3
Page 5 and 6: December 12, 2010 Japan News Page 5
Page 7 and 8: December 12, 2010 Around the Fleet
Page 9: ical advantage control holds and OC
Page 13 and 14: December 12, 2010 Page 13 Tszyu Joi
Page 15 and 16: December 12, 2010 Games Page 15 The

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