Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on his nomination to be the Director of the CIA, on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 7, 2013.

WASHINGTON | Fri Feb 15, 2013 6:59pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pick for CIA director, John Brennan, promised senators who will vote on his nomination more openness about U.S. counter-terrorism programs, saying the closely guarded number of civilian casualties from drone strikes should be made public, according to his written responses to questions released on Friday.

Brennan was questioned sharply by Democrats and Republicans alike during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on his nomination last week.

Along with harsh interrogation techniques, Brennan was questioned about drone strikes against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere. These strikes have increased under Obama and included the killing in Yemen of a U.S.-born cleric suspected of ties to al Qaeda and his U.S.-born son.

The U.S. government, without releasing numbers, has sought to portray civilian deaths from these strikes as minimal. But other organizations which collect data on these attacks put the number of civilians killed in the hundreds.

"I believe that, to the extent that U.S. national security interests can be protected, the U.S. government should make public the overall numbers of civilian deaths resulting from U.S. strikes targeting al Qaeda," Brennan wrote in response to a question from Senator Dianne Feinstein, the committee chairwoman.

"In those rare instances in which civilians have been killed" reviews are conducted and, if appropriate, condolence payments are provided to the families, he wrote.

Such casualties from drone strikes have created profound anger among civilian populations overseas and severe tension between the United States and Pakistan and Afghanistan.

During last week's hearing, Feinstein said she had been trying to speak publicly about the "very low number of civilian casualties" and to verify that number each year has "typically been in the single digits." However, she said she was told she could not divulge the actual numbers because they were classified.

The New America Foundation said the number of civilians killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan was 261-305 from 2004 to 2013. (here).

A former intelligence official said the reason for the discrepancy between the U.S. government's apparently lower figures on civilian deaths and those collected by other organizations may be due to what is counted as a civilian death.

The government assumes "military-aged" males in the proximity of a drone strike are combatants unless it finds out otherwise, the former official said.

Asked whether the government could carry out drone strikes inside the United States, Brennan replied: "This administration has not carried out drone strikes inside the United States and has no intention of doing so."

U.S. legal authorities have not limited the geographic scope to a war zone for using force against al Qaeda and its affiliates, he noted, adding: "This does not mean, however, that we use military force whenever or wherever we want."

YEMEN LEAK PROBE

On another topic, Brennan said he had been advised by the Justice Department that he is a witness in, and not a target of, a criminal investigation into media leaks last year about the disruption of an underwear bomb plot by al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen. He said he had spoken to investigators, but been advised they have no plans to speak with him again.

Brennan said the Justice Department had provided his lawyer with a transcript of a conference call about the plot which he held last May 7 with former counter-terrorism officials who serve as TV news analysts.

At his confirmation hearing, Brennan confirmed the accuracy of a report by Reuters that during the conference call, he told the pundits that the alleged plot was never a real threat because the U.S. had "inside control" over it. But he vigorously disputed that he had leaked classified information.

Within hours, one of the analysts on the call appeared on TV saying that the U.S. government was implying that it had "somebody on the inside" of the alleged plot "who wasn't going to let it happen." News reports then proliferated saying the U.S. or its allies had succeeded in planting an informant inside al Qaeda's Yemen branch.

Brennan said in his written responses that he had given a transcript of his conference call with the pundits to the committee. Congressional officials said the Obama administration had requested that it be kept confidential, even though Brennan testified that nothing he told the pundits was classified.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for a copy of the transcript.

The committee's vote on Brennan's nomination has been delayed until after a congressional recess next week.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball. Editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)

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1 of 5. Giant Panda cub Xiao Liwi is shown for the first time on public display after the section of the exhibit frequented by the five-month old bear was opened to the public at the San Diego Zoo in San Diego, California, January 10, 2013. The bear was born on July 29, 2012 from mother Bai Yun.

SAN DIEGO | Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:14pm EST

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Xiao Liwu, the newest surviving giant panda born in captivity in the United States, made his public debut on Thursday at the San Diego Zoo by shunning the media but shining for the public.

During an hour-long, pre-opening introduction to the media and zoo volunteers, the 6-month-old, 16-pound male cub rolled in mud and hay, ignoring visitors, then climbed into a moat at the edge of the enclosure and fell asleep on his face.

He woke up once the public arrived and poured on the charm, climbing a tree and posing for photos.

Giant pandas are endangered, and experts estimate there are fewer than 1,600 in the wild, all in the mountain forests of central China.

Xiao Liwu (pronounced zhai lee-woo), which means little gift, was born on July 29 to Bai Yun, the zoo's 21-year-old, 223-pound adult female panda. He is her sixth cub, one of five with mate Gao Gao. Her first cub resulted from artificial insemination.

"He's shy and very loving," said Kay Ferguson, the zoo's panda narrator. "He's inquisitive and he likes to play with balls. He's very different from Bai Yun's other five cubs."

Despite stormy weather and cool temperatures, hundreds of panda fans lined up for the two-hour viewing. Previous glimpses of the cub and its mother were restricted to observations through the zoo's PandaCam.

Bai Yun is one of only two captive pandas worldwide to give birth at age 20, relatively old for pandas. Fewer than a dozen pandas have been born at U.S. zoos, including a female cub that died at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., in September, making Bai Yun the most prolific breeder in captivity outside China.

Bai Yun mostly ignored the baby during the public display. She chomped on bamboo, taking a break only to get a drink of water while the cub played in a nearby tree.

"With the first cub or two, she was very attentive, but the last, she doesn't worry about them at all," said Vivian Kiss, a panda fan. "You just want to pick him up and hold him."

The cub, roughly the size of a stick of butter when first born, is still nursing and does not yet eat solid food, Ferguson said. "She'll nurse him until he's 18 months old, until she gets so grouchy she kicks him out," Ferguson said.

(Reporting by Marty Graham; Editing by Steve Gorman)

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WASHINGTON | Thu Aug 9, 2012 3:46pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - State retirement systems continued to rebound in 2011, with cash and investment holdings rising 14.6 percent to $2.5 trillion, the U.S. Census reported on Thursday.

"The 2011 earnings reached pre-market downturn levels, showing a 2.1 percent increase from 2007," the Census found, noting it was the second consecutive year of gains.

The increase from 2010, however, is likely not enough to substantially narrow states' yawning pension gaps. According to the Census, total pension obligations increased 3.7 percent in 2011 to $3.4 trillion.

Earlier this summer, the Pew Center on the States estimated pension systems were short $757 billion to pay for future benefits, based on data for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010.

"To close the pension gap, the rate of growth in assets needs to exceed the rate of growth in liabilities," said Keith Brainard, research director the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. "And really for the last 11 years, due to crummy investment markets, the liabilities, or the obligations, have been growing faster than assets."

Taxpayers worry that states, which for the most part are bound by law to make good on retirement promises to employees, will have to pull money from essential services to cover pension benefits. Employees, meanwhile, are alarmed that they will see greatly diminished retirement payments, which is especially troubling to those in states where public workers do not receive Social Security benefits.

"States have been digging themselves into this pension hole for some time," Kil Huh, Pew's research director, said in a presentation to the National Conference of State Legislatures on Wednesday.

The fight over the underfunding of public pensions has engulfed most of the country. Over the last three years almost all states have reformed their pension systems while members of the U.S. Congress have floated different ideas for reshaping the plans' financial structures.

Historically, many states made contributions to their retirement systems that were far less than what actuaries recommended. When the 2007-09 economic recession hit revenue hard, states pulled back pension funding even further. Meanwhile, the financial crisis blew a hole in the funds' investment earnings, with those investments losing $511.5 billion in 2009.

According to the Census, the 2011 growth in assets was fueled by investment gains, in the United States and abroad.

Pension revenue increased by almost a third over the year, to $516.5 billion, with earnings on investments rising $410.6 billion in 2011, the Census reported. Investments provide the lion's share of public pension revenue -- representing 79.5 percent of total revenue in 2011.

The Census found that corporate stock investments, which made up 34.3 percent of the funds' total holdings in 2011, increased 13.8 percent to $873.2 billion, while foreign securities, representing 17.5 percent of holdings, were up 24.1 percent to $446 billion. U.S. government securities, 8.1 percent of holdings, were up 7.4 percent to $206.6 billion.

Only corporate bonds decreased, dropping 2.1 percent to $349.7 billion.

Still, government contributions to pensions, essentially the taxpayers' portion, also rose, by 10.7 percent to $71.7 billion in 2011. Employee contributions were up 3 percent to $34.2 billion.

Many states have recently asked employees to put more money into retirement systems, but those amounts are "being offset by lower employment, which is fewer people paying in," said Brainard. "And those who are paying in, their salaries are not growing in any meaningful way."

State and local payrolls have shrunk by about 3.5 percent over the last four years, while the salaries used to determine pension contribution amounts are growing around 1 percent a year, according to Brainard. Before the recession, employee pension contributions grew closer to 5 percent or 6 percent a year.

No one can say for certain that pension assets have continued to rise in 2012. Recent Census and private reports show that their investments are struggling, with Wilshire Associates on Monday reporting public pension investments had a median loss of 1.73 percent in the second quarter.

Ultimately, pension reforms have required employees to take less in benefits or pay more into the systems, or on some occasions, do both. The effects of the reforms could take years to show up in funds' balance sheets, especially because many only apply to new employees.

BENEFIT PAYMENTS INCREASE

The Census found that benefit payments increased 8.2 percent to $176.8 billion in 2011. The number of those receiving benefits also rose, by 4.4 percent to 7.33 million people.

"For every beneficiary receiving periodic benefit payments there were almost twice as many contributors paying into pension systems in 2011," the Census reported, although in Nebraska and Texas there were around three workers putting money into the retirement systems for every beneficiary.

The average annual benefit payment for state-administered pensions across the country was $24,137. Connecticut had the highest average annual benefit, $37,954, and five other states -- Colorado, Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island and Nevada -- had annual payments of more than $30,000.

Twenty states had average annual benefit payments of less $20,000, with North Dakota the lowest at an average of $14,311.

(Additional reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Leslie Adler and Steve Orlofsky)

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1 of 10. A man carries belongings from his shop destroyed by shelling from forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in downtown Aleppo August 1, 2012.

ALEPPO, Syria | Thu Aug 2, 2012 1:12am EDT

ALEPPO, Syria (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad told his troops on Wednesday that their battle against rebels would decide Syria's fate, but his written message gave no clues to his whereabouts two weeks after a bomb attack on his inner circle.

In Aleppo, rebel fighters seized three police stations while fighting the army for control of a strategically important district. Explosions could be heard and helicopter gunships cruised the skies as troops tried to push the rebels out of the northern city and preserve one of Assad's main centers of power.

Assad has not spoken in public since the bombing in Damascus on July 18 killed four of his close security aides, although he has appeared in recorded clips on television. His latest remarks appeared in the military's magazine to mark armed forces day.

"The fate of our people and our nation, past, present and future, depends on this battle," said Assad, whose low public profile suggests acute concern about his safety since the bombing in which his brother-in-law died.

In confronting "terrorist criminal gangs" - the government's usual term for the rebels - the army had proved it had "the steely resolve and conscience and that you are the trustees of the people's values", the 46-year-old president declared.

Earlier, at least 10 volleys of shells lit up the sky over Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, and drowned out the Islamic call to prayer. Carloads of rebels shouting "God is great" sped off towards the fighting. Helicopters could be seen firing over the city.

The World Food Programme said it was sending emergency food supplies to Aleppo to tackle a worsening humanitarian situation.

Syria's civil war has intensified since the July 18 bombing, with fighting engulfing Damascus and Aleppo for the first time in the 17-month-old uprising against Assad family rule.

The two cities are crucial prizes for both sides in an increasingly brutal struggle that has eluded all attempts at a diplomatic solution and risks igniting a wider conflagration.

Internet video footage and witness accounts indicate that rebels have carried out summary executions in and around Aleppo in much the same way as Assad's forces have been accused of acting in Damascus, where the army has largely regained control.

One video shows four men identified as members of the pro-Assad Shabbiha militia being led down a flight of stairs, lined up against a wall and shot in a hail of rifle fire as onlookers shouted "Allahu akbar (God is greatest)".

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said the killings, which he called a massacre, "confirms human rights violations are taking place on both sides".

In another video, a cameraman filmed the bodies of about 15 men at a police station. One rebel fired at the corpse of the station commander, blowing his head off. In both cases, the content of the footage could not immediately be verified.

In the town of Azaz, north of Aleppo, a rebel told how his men had executed a captured sniper, shooting him dead after an impromptu "trial" conducted at an already prepared graveside.

"We took him right to his grave and, after hearing the witnesses' statements, we shot him dead," the fighter said.

STREET FIGHTING MEN

Sporadic fighting sputtered on in the bitterly contested Salaheddine district in the southwest of Aleppo, part of a rebel-held arc stretching to the northeast of the city.

Neither side was in full control, despite an army statement at the weekend that it had driven insurgents from the district, now a ghost town with closed shops and empty streets.

On Al-Sharqeya Street, residents and shop owners looked in awe at the damage. Some rifled through what was left of their buildings. Huge piles of concrete, and twisted reinforced metal intertwined in the dust.

"I saw death before my eyes," said Abu Ahmed who was leaving his home. "I was hiding in the alleyway of my building when I heard the whizz of the artillery. Look at my street now."

They said the damage was caused by helicopter fire targeting a rebel brigade based in a school. It missed the school and hit the residential buildings instead.

"This dog Assad and his men are so blind they can't even target a brigade properly," said Abu Ahmed, waving a plastic bag with his belongings inside.

Syrian state television said on Wednesday the army was pursuing remaining "terrorists" in one Aleppo district and had killed several, including foreign Arab fighters.

Some foreign fighters, including militant Islamists, have joined the battle against Assad, who often accuses outside powers of financing and arming the insurgents.

An NBC News report said the rebels have acquired nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles delivered via neighboring Turkey. The missiles could erode the military's air supremacy if rebels are able to hit its helicopters and warplanes.

The rebels are also continuing to strike effectively against Assad's ground forces. In the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus, residents said rebel fighters managed to seize two tanks from the army during fierce afternoon clashes.

Assad's forces have retaken most Damascus districts from the rebels, but fighting has continued intermittently in the south and residents report army shelling from Qassioun mountains overlooking the center of the city.

FOOD, FUEL SHORT

Aleppo, a commercial hub with a historic Old City, had long stayed aloof from the uprising, but many of its 2.5 million residents are now caught up in battle zones, facing shortages of food, fuel, water and cooking gas. Thousands have fled.

"The humanitarian situation is deteriorating in Aleppo and food needs are growing rapidly," the World Food Programme said.

The U.N. agency said it had sent food aid for 28,000 people to the city, where hospitals and makeshift clinics can barely cope with casualties after more than a week of combat.

Lightly armed insurgents are battling a well-equipped army that has overwhelming superiority on paper, but rebels have nonetheless managed to capture some tanks and heavy weapons, the United Nations observer mission in Syria has confirmed.

The rebels, however, are united mostly by loathing of Assad, and have failed to come together despite pressure from the West, Turkey and Sunni-ruled Arab states who back their cause.

Another fissure in the opposition opened up on Tuesday when exiled Syrian activists announced a new alliance with plans to form a transitional government, challenging the Syrian National Council, an opposition umbrella group set up last year.

The head of the rebel Free Syrian Army criticized the new political coalition, calling its leaders opportunists seeking to divide the opposition and benefit from the rebels' gains.

Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, is strongly supported by Iran and to a degree by Iraq's Shi'ite-led government. China and Russia have protected him in the U.N. Security Council from measures that could lead to sanctions.

The U.N. General Assembly said on Tuesday it would discuss Syria this week and diplomats say it is likely to vote on a Saudi-drafted resolution that condemns the Security Council for failing to take action against Damascus.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, visiting Jerusalem, said he hoped Assad would step down and "we can begin the transition to a democratic process there for the Syrian people".

(Additional reporting by Hadeel Al Shalchi in Aleppo, Yara Bayoumy in Beirut, Yasmine Saleh in Cairo, Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria in Washington and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Alistair Lyon and David Stamp)

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