New 'grand bargain' plus ceiling deal eyed
WASHINGTON, July 18 (UPI) -- Highly powerful Democrats and Republicans are mapping a new, ambitious U.S. deficit-cutting plan similar to the $4 trillion one they abandoned, officials say.
The lawmakers seek to create a new "grand bargain" similar to the one President Barack Obama proposed -- even as Obama and congressional leaders craft a fallback plan to raise the nation's debt ceiling, the officials told The Washington Post.
The new version, being put together by an emerging committee of especially powerful lawmakers, might be ready by the end of the year, the Post said.
The Standard & Poor's credit rating agency says Washington must agree to reduce the federal debt by $4 trillion over 10 years for the United States to avoid an unprecedented credit downgrade.
Still in doubt among the top lawmakers is whether Tea Party-aligned conservatives in Congress would vote for a major deal.
The entire national debt was roughly $5 trillion in 1997. It is now $14.3 trillion, with the prospect of default 15 days away.
Senate officials worked through the weekend to iron out details of the backup plan by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., representatives of each lawmaker said.
The senators intend by mid-week to introduce a bill giving Obama new powers to raise the debt limit $2.5 trillion in three increments over the next year.
The bill would postpone resolving the long-term fiscal challenges by creating a special bipartisan House-Senate committee to draft a plan to reduce the federal budget deficit by next year or certainly by the 2012 elections, aides familiar with the bill told The Wall Street Journal.
The House is expected to vote on a balanced-budget amendment Tuesday. The vote would require a supermajority to pass the Senate.
2nd top London cop quits in phone scandal
LONDON, July 18 (UPI) -- A second top Scotland Yard commander resigned Monday in Britain's spreading phone-hacking scandal.
John Yates, assistant commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, quit one day after his boss, Paul Stephenson, resigned amid speculation about ties with Neil Wallis, arrested on suspicion of involvement in the scandal, The Guardian reported.
Yates resigned just after a disciplinary committee suspended him and a House of Commons panel summoned him to testify Tuesday on police links with widespread spying by the defunct News of the World tabloid.
Yates was criticized for deciding not to reopen the force's hacking inquiry after reviewing new evidence in 2009.
Parliament, which was to begin a six-week recess Tuesday, probably will be asked to extend its session to discuss the affair, Prime Minister David Cameron said.
Labor Party officials demanded an extra day so lawmakers could debate testimony given by News Corp. leader Rupert Murdoch and Stephenson, the BBC reported Monday.
Syrian forces surround border town
ALBOKAMAL, Syria, July 18 (UPI) -- Syrian security forces were poised to begin a major military operation to quash dissent in an eastern town where dozens of soldiers defected, residents said.
At least 1,000 troops, some backed by tanks, surrounded Albokamal, near the Iraqi border Monday in an "explosive" situation, the pro-government private daily newspaper al-Watan reported.
The army was "preparing to intervene," the newspaper said, but Syrian authorities feared fierce resistance among insurgents who could "easily find logistical and political support."
Until now, the military largely stayed out of Albokamal and Deir el-Zour, a city of more than 500,000 on the Euphrates River, also near Iraq, out of fear its presence could ignite tribal anger against the government, The New York Times reported.
The tribes wield great influence and have relations with tribes in Iraq, the Times said.
"I expect the regime to send more troops to seize the city and punish those soldiers who defected," an Albokamal resident who arrived in Damascus Sunday told the U.S. newspaper. "It will be a big mistake to let the army enter our city."
Ex-officer acquitted of WWII crimes
BUDAPEST, Hungary, July 18 (UPI) -- A court in Budapest acquitted a 97-year-old former Hungarian officer of war crimes in occupied Serbia during World War II, officials said.
Sandor Kepiro was accused of taking part in the Novi Sad Raid, in which 1,200 Serbs, Jews and Roma were rounded up and executed over a three-day period in 1942, Tanjug reported.
Kepiro was also suspected of participating in the deportation of Novi Sad Jews to the Auschwitz death camp in 1944. He was on Jerusalem's Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted war criminals.
The former officer said at his trial he neither received nor followed orders to take part in the massacre.
4 killed in western China clashes
HOTAN, China, July 18 (UPI) -- Clashes between police and crowds in northwestern China's Xinjiang region claimed at least four lives Monday, authorities said.
Security forces in the city of Hotan open fired on a mob that attacked a police station, set it afire and took hostages in an account of the government's New China News Agency reported by the Los Angeles Times.
A police official, a security guard and two hostages were killed.
Xinjiang is split by conflict between the native Muslim Uighur people and Han Chinese who have been migrating into the region. Riots involving the groups in the capital, Urumqi, killed almost 200 people in 2009.
Amnesty International has accused Chinese police of torture and secret mass arrests to repress the Uighurs.
