 |  | 
December 23, 2011 | | EXCLUSIVE Vice President Joe Biden has been taking heat this week for a controversial Newsweek interview, in which he said “The Taliban per se is not our enemy.” But one group welcoming the Veep’s comments? The Taliban themselves. Reached by The Daily Beast in Afghanistan, several senior Taliban leaders say they saw the comment as a positive sign. “Biden’s statement shows that the U.S. is finally seeing us after 10 years of war with a cool head, not with emotion and cries for revenge that drove the U.S. after 9/11,” says Khazi Habibullah Fauzi, who served as the Taliban’s charge d’affaires in Saudi Arabia before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
AGREEMENT President Obama signed the payroll-tax cut deal Friday after both Houses of Congress apprved it in the morning. The two-month extension will keep the $20 a week savings for the average worker making $50,000 a month while Congress negoitates a longer-term solution. Apparently there was no Braveheart rallying speech for "This is good news just in the nick of time," President Obama said before departing Washington for Hawaii. House Speaker John Boehner on Thursday night when he told fellow Republicans that the game was up and they'd have to pass the two-month payroll-tax cut extension. In a conference call, he demanded his members pass the extension and permitted no comments. “Speaker’s decision,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling when introducing Boehner on the call. HEALTH Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Prince Philip, has checked into a hospital for “precautionary tests” after suffering from chest pains, British officials said Wednesday. Buckingham Palace said the 90-year-old Duke of Edinburgh was taken from Sandringham, the queen’s estate in Norfolk, where the royal family spends the holidays, to Papworth Hospital in Cambridge. REVOLUTION Thousands of Egyptians rallied in Cairo and other cities Friday to demand the military rulers hand over power. Seventeen people have been killed during Egypt’s riots in suspected incidents of police brutality, and the image of one woman being beaten and dragged through the streets has caused fury throughout the country—as well as worldwide outrage. “Anyone who saw her and saw her pain would come to Tahrir,” said Omar Adele, 27, a protester in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Some protesters are demanding the Army bring forward a presidential vote as early as Jan. 25—the one-year anniversary of the uprisings that ousted former president Hosni Mubarak. Others have said Egypt has remained in chaos 10 months after Mubarak’s ouster, and even the Muslim Brotherhood did not join in Friday’s protest. The Army has said it regrets the violence and offered an apology over the woman who was beaten. SCARY Police used pepper spray on Friday to gain control of a crowd who were waiting in line to buy the new Air Jordan Concord XI sneakers in a suburb of Seattle. One person was also arrested. Police at Tukwila, Washington’s Westfield Southcenter mall were so overwhelmed by the crowd that they called for backup. One police officer said, “We used pepper spray on some of the fights to disrupt the crowds. This was not a pro-police crowd. The crowd was less than cooperative with instructions from police to quit fighting and to quit cutting.” Police were also called to other locations around the country to control crowds waiting to buy the same shoe. | | 
GET The Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of news and must-reads from across the Web. You'll love the featured original stories on politics, entertainment, and more from The Daily Beast's diverse group of contributors.  GET The Yes List Weekly cultural recommendations from The Daily Beast.
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment