Occupy protesters block West Coast ports
PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Occupy movement protesters succeeded in disrupting some port operations up and down the U.S. West Coast Monday, authorities said.
About 200 protesters blocked an entrance at the port in Long Beach, Calif., for about a half hour before police took a couple of them into custody and shepherded the rest to a nearby parking lot, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Earlier, the protesters picketed in front of SSA Marine, a shipping company partially owned by investment bank Goldman Sachs, the newspaper said.
Port spokesman John Pope said the rally had minimal effect on operations.
At the port in Oakland, Calif., a union spokesman said a couple hundred protesters blocked intersections, forcing an end to the day's work for about 150 longshoremen, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Almost half the port's berths were shut down by the anti-Wall Street demonstrators, some of whom carried placards declaring, "Shutdown Wall St. on the Waterfront," the newspaper said.
"There have been disruptions, there have been distractions, but we are not shut down," port spokesman Isaac Kos-Read said.
The port blockage didn't sit well with some of the affected workers. One trucker blew his air horn and tried to drive through the crowd and another, Mark Hebert, 47, said the action "pisses me off."
"I am losing money. I don't get paid when I am just sitting here," Hebert told the Chronicle. "I've got a truck payment, and insurance payment just like everyone else. "
A 44-year-old longshoreman identified only as "Tim," acknowledged the protesters "have some legitimate points and what not, but we are part of the 99 percent and they are stopping us from coming to work."
"The 1 percent's cargo doesn't come in here. The caviar comes in from Russia first class, not on a slow boat from China," he said.
Occupy Portland protesters rallied at the Port of Portland in Oregon, looking to disrupt arriving and departing ships, a port spokesman said.
The protesters, however, had not won dockworker labor support, a union chief told The (Portland) Oregonian.
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union said it generally supports the Occupy movement but opposes the blockade because the movement appears to be trying to appropriate union issues.
"Support is one thing, organization from outside groups attempting to co-opt our struggle in order to advance a broader agenda is quite another," ILWU President Robert McEllrath wrote in a letter to local union branches.
ILWU locals in San Diego; Los Angeles; Oakland; Portland; Seattle; Tacoma, Wash.; Vancouver, British Columbia, and Anchorage, Alaska, said they would not support the protest.
But the ILWU leadership in Honolulu, Hilo and Maui, Hawaii, said late Sunday its union members would not cross Occupy picket lines, the westcoastportshutdown.org Web site said.
Under ILWU contract terms, West Coast longshoremen may not support the shutdown by walking off the job as a group, but individual union members may exercise their First Amendment rights and not show up to work.
Obama, Maliki differ on Syria
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama said Monday there are differences of opinion between the United States and Iraq over Syria but Baghdad isn't appeasing Iran.
At a joint news conference in Washington after Obama met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Obama said the two leaders had discussed Syria and "share the view that, when the Syrian people are being killed or are unable to express themselves, that's a problem."
Obama said while the United States wants Syrian President Bashar Assad out of power, he recognizes Iraq, which borders Syria, is "in a tough neighborhood."
"But we believe that international pressure, the approach we've taken along with partners around the world, to impose tough sanctions and to call on Assad to step down, a position that is increasingly mirrored by the Arab League states, is the right position to take," Obama said.
"Even if there are tactical disagreements between Iraq and the United States at this point in how to deal with Syria, I have absolutely no doubt that these decisions are being made based on what Prime Minister Maliki believes is best for Iraq, not based on considerations of what Iran would like to see."
Maliki said the people of the region "must get their freedom" and his administration supports them because "we have achieved that ourselves." However, while supporting the aspiration of the Syrian people "I cannot have ... the right to ask a president to abdicate."
"Iraq is a country that is bordering on Syria, and I'm concerned about the interest of Iraq and the interest of the security of the region," Maliki said. "And I wish that what is required by the Syrian people will be achieved without affecting the security of Iraq. And I know the two countries are related to each other and we must be very prudent in dealing with this matter."
Maliki said while Iraq supports the the Arab League's initiative, he does not "encourage a blockade because it exhausts the people and the government."
"I believe that all the parties realize the dangers of a sectarian war in Iraq and Syria and the region because it will be like a snowball that will expand and will be difficult to control it," he said. "If we can reach a solution, we'll avoid all the evils and the dangers."
Obama said Maliki has been explicit in his interest is "maintaining Iraqi sovereignty and preventing meddling by anybody inside of Iraq."
"And I believe him," the president said. "And he has shown himself to be willing to make very tough decisions in the interests of Iraqi nationalism, even if they cause problems with his neighbor.
China military blamed for U.S. cyberspying
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- The Chinese military is behind most of the hackers busy cyberspying on the United States, an official at a bipartisan Washington think tank says.
The National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have made progress in tying cyberattacks to China's People's Liberation Army and other specific sources, by combining cyberforensics with intelligence collection efforts, James Lewis, a cybersecurity specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. chief of counterintelligence issued a report last month accusing China of being the world's "most active and persistent" perpetrator of economic spying, the newspaper reported Monday.
U.S. officials are working on a strategy to confront Chinese officials more directly about Internet hacking activities originating in their country. They warned China two weeks ago about the diplomatic consequences of economic spying, an unidentified former official familiar with the meeting told the Journal.
Besides the Chinese army, the Journal said U.S. officials have pinpointed a half-dozen non-military groups connected to universities and other organizations they believe have been cyberspying.
"It's actually a small number of groups that do most of the PLA's dirty work," Lewis said. "NSA is pretty confident of their ability to attribute [cyberespionage] to this set of actors."
Federal deficit growing slower
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- The federal deficit for fiscal 2012 will be just under $1 trillion, the U.S. Treasury Department forecast Monday.
If it does come in at $996 billion as projected, it would be a first under the Obama administration, The Hill reported
The red ink flowed faster the past three fiscal years, reaching $1.3 trillion in 2011 and 2010, and $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009, the Washington publication noted.
Treasury officials said the budget deficit grew by $137 billion in November, down from $150 billion in November 2010. The federal government took in $152 billion in November but spent $289 billion.
The deficit was smaller in October -- $98 billion -- but that was because payments normally made in October were made in September, The Hill said.
