Another shutdown battle looms in Congress
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- With the end of the fiscal year fast approaching, the U.S. Congress takes up a short-term spending measure to avert a government shutdown.
The Democratic-led Senate, which blocked a Republican House measure to fund the federal government through Nov. 18, will vote Monday on its version of the bill, The Washington Post reported.
The government would shut down if a stop-gap funding measure isn't passed and signed into law Friday, the end of the current fiscal year.
The Senate bill includes money for disaster relief without offsetting spending cuts that House Republicans demand.
A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday leaders have spoken, but other aides reported no progress toward a compromise during the weekend, the Post said.
Congressional members speaking Sunday on television talk shows showed little signs they'd back off their parties' positions concerning disaster relief and offsets.
Abbas: Settlement freeze, then peace talks
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, following his U.N. bid for a state of Palestine, ruled out peace talks until Israel agrees to a settlement freeze.
"There will be no negotiations without international legitimacy and a complete halt to settlements," Abbas, the authority's president, said to a hero's welcome at his presidential compound in Ramallah, West Bank, Sunday two days after seeking full membership for a state of Palestine in the United Nations.
Israel said it would consider economic measures if the Palestinian National Authority continued to pursue its U.N. application and if it put conditions on returning to the negotiating table.
Abbas' comments made no acknowledgment of a proposal for new peace talks offered by the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union -- known together as the Quartet -- shortly after he submitted the U.N. membership bid.
The proposal called for direct talks to begin within a month without preconditions and for a final deal to be reached before the end of 2012.
The joyous West Bank scenes for Abbas, of the Fatah political party, were contrasted by near-silence in the Gaza Strip, where the ruling Hamas movement opposed the U.N. bid and stymied celebration rallies, al-Jazeera reported.
Lebanon's U.N. ambassador said the Security Council would discuss Abbas' application at 3 p.m. EDT Monday.
Abbas said he expected the council would finish debating his application within weeks, not months, as earlier forecast.
Afghan employee blamed CIA shootings
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- An attack that killed an American and wounded another at the CIA station in Kabul, Afghanistan, was blamed on an Afghan employee, officials said Monday.
The gunman was killed, U.S. Embassy spokesman Gavin A. Sundwall said.
Sundwall said the the gunman attacked Sunday night inside the embassy annex compound, The Washington Post reported.
Afghan and Western security forces said the annex was used by the CIA, the report said.
A motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Sundwall said investigators believe the gunman acted alone.
Sundwall said the wounded American was being treated at a military hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening, the Post reported.
There was no additional information on the American who died. Embassy operations had resumed.
The Post quoted another official as saying the the American victims may have been "at the wrong place at the wrong time" and may not have been specifically targeted. He said the attack ended quickly and that embassy security personnel had cleared the rest of the compound.
Wall Street protesters morale 'high'
NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Protesters demanding changes to U.S. social and economic policies they say unfairly favor the rich vowed to make a park near Wall Street their Tahrir Square.
"Morale is as high as it can be," Guy Steward, 18, told the amNew York newspaper.
The Occupy Wall Street movement's ranks have grown, he said, despite what he called "mass police brutality" Saturday when about 80 people were arrested as they marched from a park in the financial district, where many had been encamped for more than a week, north toward about 3 miles to Union Square, a large public square off Broadway.
The National Lawyer's Guild, providing legal assistance to the protesters, said more than half of those arrested were released Sunday and the rest would likely be freed by Monday.
Witnesses told the New York Daily News they saw three stunned women collapse on the ground screaming after they were sprayed in the face with Mace, or pepper spray.
Videos posted on YouTube by USLaw.com and by people identifying themselves with the protest show uniformed police officers corralling the women using orange nets -- a tactic known as "kettling" -- then show two police supervisors making a beeline for the women, with at least one spraying the women before turning and quickly walking away.
After the spraying, two women can be seen dropping to the ground, screaming in apparent pain, a United Press International review of the videos indicated.
New York Police Department chief spokesman Paul Browne told The New York Times police had used the pepper spray appropriately."
