NC votes on constitutional ban on gay marriage - The Associated Press

NC votes on constitutional ban on gay marriageBy EMERY P. DALESIO, Associated Press – 25 minutes ago 

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The national debate over gay marriage focused Tuesday on North Carolina, as voters decided whether to make it the 29th state to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman.

In the final days before the vote, members of President Barack Obama's cabinet expressed support for gay marriage and former President Bill Clinton recorded phone messages urging voters to reject the amendment. Opponents also held marches, put up television ads and gave speeches, including one by Jay Bakker, son of late televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.

Meanwhile, supporters ran their own ad campaigns and church leaders urged Sunday congregations to vote for the amendment. The Rev. Billy Graham, who remains influential even though his last crusade was in 2005, was featured in full-page newspaper ads supporting the amendment.

Both sides spent a combined $3 million on their campaigns.

Experts expect the measure to pass, despite the state's long history of moderate politics.

North Carolina law already bans gay marriage, like nine other states, but an amendment would effectively slam the door shut on same-sex marriages.

Six states — all in the Northeast except Iowa — and the District of Columbia allow same sex marriages.

The North Carolina amendment was placed on the ballot after Republicans took over control of the state legislature after the 2010 elections, a role the GOP hadn't enjoyed for 140 years.

Joe Easterling, who described himself as a devout Christian, voted for the amendment at a polling place in Wake Forest.

"I know that some people may argue that the Bible may not necessarily be applicable, or it should not be applicable, on such policy matters. But even looking at nature itself, procreation is impossible without a man and a woman. And because of those things, I think it is important that the state of North Carolina's laws are compatible with the laws of nature but, more importantly, with the laws of God."

Linda Toanone, who voted against the amendment, said people are born gay and it is not their choice.

"We think everybody should have the same rights as everyone else. If you're gay, lesbian, straight — whatever," she said.

North Carolina is the latest presidential swing state to weigh in on gay marriage. Florida, Virginia and Ohio all have constitutional amendments against gay marriage, and Obama's election-year vagueness on gay marriage has come under fresh scrutiny.

Obama, who supports most gay rights, has stopped short of backing gay marriage. Without clarification, he's said for the past year and a half that his personal views on the matter are "evolving."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan broke ranks with the White House on Monday, stating his unequivocal support for same-sex marriage one day after Vice President Joe Biden said he is "absolutely comfortable" with same-sex married couples getting the same rights at heterosexual married couples.

One fault line that could determine the result is generational. Older voters, who tend to be more reliable voters, are expected to back the amendment.

State House Speaker Thom Tillis, a Republican from a Charlotte suburb, said even if the amendment is passed, it will be reversed as today's young adults age.

"It's a generational issue," Tillis told a student group at North Carolina State University in March about the amendment he supports. "If it passes, I think it will be repealed within 20 years."

The amendment also goes beyond state law by voiding other types of domestic unions from carrying legal status, which opponents warn could disrupt protection orders for unmarried couples.

"Also, that amendment is against women, I believe, because also underneath the amendment, other laws are saying that people who aren't married at all, they can't file for domestic abuse cases, if they're living with their significant other. Which is wrong," Toanone said.

In North Carolina, more than 500,000 voters had cast their ballot before Tuesday, which was more than the 2008 primary when Obama and Hillary Clinton were fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination. Both sides said that bodes well for them.

Associated Press writers Gary D. Robertson and Allen Breed contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Running blind: China activist's dramatic escape - The Associated Press

Running blind: China activist's dramatic escapeBy ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press – 5 minutes ago 

BEIJING (AP) — Chen Guangcheng's blindness was a help and a hindrance as he made his way past the security cordon ringing his farmhouse.

He knew the terrain — he had explored his village in rural China as a blind child and moved as easily in darkness as in daylight. He was alert for the sounds of people, cars and the river he would have to cross.

But he stumbled scores of times, arriving bloody at a meeting point with a fellow dissident — the first of an underground railroad of supporters who eventually escorted him to safety with U.S. diplomats.

A self-taught lawyer who angered authorities by exposing forced abortions, Chen is now presumed to be under U.S. protection, most likely in the fortress-like American Embassy in Beijing. Details of his improbable escape — making his way last week through fields and forest, then being chased by security agents in Beijing — are emerging in accounts from the activists who helped him.

Chen and his family had been harassed and kept under house arrest since the summer of 2005, except for a four-year period when Chen was jailed on charges of disrupting traffic and restrictions were eased on his wife and daughter. The couple's young son lives with his mother's sister.

After Chen's release in September 2010, the family was again placed under house arrest, their movements severely restricted, with even 6-year-old daughter Kesi subjected to searches when she came home from school. Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing, were beaten several times.

The 41-year-old activist hatched his escape plan months ago with a simple idea — he would just lie still, said Bob Fu, founder of the Texas-based rights group ChinaAid and one of a handful of people to speak to Chen since he fled his village.

For weeks on end, Chen stayed in bed, saying he was too feeble to rise.

In fact, Chen wasn't well; his stomach was bothering him as it had for years. But he exaggerated his condition to lull the guards into a sense of complacency.

The ruse worked. The guards didn't look in on him constantly, assuming he was still bedridden, and when he escaped under cover of darkness, it took three days for them to notice.

"He did a darn good job. ... He prepared for months, at least two months," Fu said. "He didn't really move much, just laying in bed and making the impression that he couldn't move."

The night was cool with just a sliver of crescent moon in the sky on April 22 when Chen slipped out of his farmhouse in eastern China's Shandong province. Blinded by fever as a child, Chen grew up exploring the nearby cornfields and dirt paths sightless, so he had his bearings.

It wasn't the first time he had run away from Dongshigu village and his bitter, nearly decade-long feud with local officials.

In 2005, Chen, his wife and a friend made a dash out of the village, running through a cornfield to evade guards. He and his friend got all the way to Beijing, where they met with diplomats and journalists, but his wife was captured. Days later, Chen was seized by security guards on the streets of the capital and returned to house arrest.

On that brief escape he had been helped by his sighted friend; this time Chen was alone.

He followed a path to a field and from there took a road he knew would lead him to a narrow river. After crossing it, he entered a wooded area that gave way to less familiar territory, ground that continually tripped him up. He fell at least 200 times, he would tell his supporters.

He walked for hours, trying to put as much distance between himself and his heavily guarded home as possible before daring to slip a battery into his mobile phone and call He Peirong, a Nanjing-based English teacher-turned-activist who had promised to help. She was waiting with a car.

When she finally found him, Chen was wet, covered in mud and blood, and had numerous cuts and bruises.

"He was in very unbelievable shape when he was picked up," said Fu, citing a conversation with He. Chen "was trembling, was physically weak. ... But he was determined to escape from that miserable condition."

Fu said Chen took a few days to recuperate before making a video appeal.

Uploaded to YouTube and Boxun.com five days after Chen's escape, it showed the blind activist wearing a Nike wind breaker and his trademark black sunglasses, looking relaxed and sounding strong. In it, he pleaded with Premier Wen Jiabao to punish the local authorities who had subjected Chen and his family to 20 months of house arrest, repeatedly beating them.

It was apparently taped in Beijing after He drove Chen north and handed him off to another activist, who brought him to the capital.

He herself was detained Friday by police. Hours before, she told The Associated Press she had been in contact with Chen's relatives, who told her that when the local village chief discovered Chen was gone, "he was furious."

They beat Chen's wife, his brother and his adult nephew, she said.

In Beijing, Chen was mainly aided by Guo Yushan, founder of a think tank set up in 2007 in the capital's university district.

He also met with prominent activists Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, posing for smiling snapshots with the couple — pictures they later posted to Twitter. They discussed Chen's plan, saying he wanted "justice and freedom," and insisted he had no intention of leaving China.

Zeng said he seemed thinner and his hair was grayer than she remembered it, but that he was full of conviction.

"He was very certain and very clear," Zeng said. "He wants justice for his case and his family and he doesn't want to go abroad, doesn't want exile."

Despite his desire to stay in China, Fu now says China and the U.S. are close to a deal that would see Chen and his family given asylum in the United States. It could be announced within days, he said Monday.

Several others besides Guo helped Chen in Beijing, but Zeng and Fu declined to name them for fear they would be rounded up by security agents.

He, the former school teacher, has not been heard from since her detention Friday; Guo was detained and released but did not respond to a request for an interview. Colleagues said it wasn't "convenient" for him to talk, suggesting he is under pressure from authorities to stay silent.

Zeng and her husband also were questioned, with Hu spending 24 hours in custody.

The only tidbit Fu dared to offer about Chen's experience in Beijing was that he was involved in a car chase by security officials while being driven by a fellow dissident. But the agents were after the driver and didn't even know Chen was in the car.

"If they had known Chen was there, they probably would have shut down all of Beijing's traffic," Fu said.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Sudan declares state of emergency in border areas - The Associated Press

Sudan declares state of emergency in border areasBy MOHAMMED SAEED, Associated Press – 1 hour ago 

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Sudan has declared a state of emergency in areas bordering South Sudan, giving authorities there wide powers of arrest and detention.

A decree carried by the state media on Sunday also included the creation of "special tribunals" to try suspects facing terror and customs offenses.

The move, together with the arrest on Saturday of three foreigners and a South Sudanese in a disputed border area, are signs of spiking tensions along the disputed border, where clashes have raged in recent weeks.

The violence has brought the two nations, already at odds over demarcating the border and dividing oil revenue, to the brink of war.

South Sudan won independence last year as part of a peace deal that ended a long, bloody civil war.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Sudan has claimed three foreigners arrested in a disputed area on the border with South Sudan had military hardware and an armored vehicle. But a representative for one of the three said Sunday that they were on a humanitarian mine-clearing mission.

A Briton, a Norwegian, a South African and a South Sudanese were captured by Sudanese troops Saturday in the oil-rich region of Heglig.

The arrests are the latest sign of spiking tensions along the disputed border, where clashes have raged in recent weeks. The violence has brought the two nations, already at odds over demarcating the border and dividing oil revenue, to the brink of war.

Sudanese army spokesman Col. Sawarmi Khalid Saad claimed on state television late Saturday that the four people arrested had military backgrounds. He alleged they were carrying out military activities in Heglig, but did not elaborate. He said the arrests supported claims by the Sudanese government in Khartoum that South Sudan used "foreigners" when it captured Heglig.

South Sudan seceded from the north last year after a referendum held as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than 20 years of civil war between the two sides. But unresolved issues, such as the sharing of oil revenues and demarcation of the border, have led to the new flare-up of violence.

South Sudan invaded Heglig earlier this month, saying it belonged to the south. Sudan later retook the town; Sudanese forces say they pushed out the South Sudanese while South Sudan says its troops pulled out to avoid an all-out war. Sudan elevated the tension even further by bombing South Sudan.

In Oslo, a Norwegian humanitarian organization said Sunday that one of its employees, 50-year-old John Soerboe, was detained while on a five-day mine-clearing mission in southern Sudan with the Briton and South African.

The group denied he was on a military mission and said he had been working for more than seven years to clear the region of mines.

The Norwegian People's Aid organization called Soerboe "one of our most experienced aid workers." Per Nergaard, the group's head of emergency preparedness, said Soerboe used to be in the Norwegian military years ago before turning to humanitarian work. He had been working in southern Sudan since 2005.

He said in a statement on the group's website that Soerboe was on a "routine" mission, with the representatives from South Sudan and U.N. anti-mine organizations, in a region that borders Sudan.

Nergaard did not know the names of the others arrested, or have details about the incident. They were taken by Sudanese authorities to Khartoum, he said.

"The circumstance surrounding their arrest and exact location at the time is yet unclear," he said.

"Our main priority now is to ensure that Soerboe and his colleagues are safe and to assure their rapid release. We are working closely with the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and our U.N. partners to assure this," Nergaard said.

The Norwegian organization has been working in the area since 1986, he added.

A spokesman for the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, Frode O. Andersen, said Oslo "had demanded access to the Norwegian citizen."

"We have asked for a clarification on why he was arrested, and we want to find out the charges against him," Andersen said.

Britain's Foreign Office confirmed a British national had been detained and said it was "urgently investigating" the details of the arrests. The ministry said it had requested immediate access to the Briton, but had no other details.

The South African Foreign Ministry said Sunday it is following up on reports of the arrest of a South African man in a mine clearing detail near the South Sudan border.

Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, David Stringer in London, and Angus Shaw in Harare, Zimbabwe contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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