WASHINGTON, May 20, 2013 (AFP) - President Barack Obama will hold his first summit with President Xi Jinping in California next month, with Sino-US relations rattled by alleged Chinese cyber spying and tensions in the Pacific.
Obama will welcome Xi to the plush Sunnylands estate resort in Palm Springs on June 7-8, as Washington seeks Chinese help to subdue North Korean belligerence and seeks a diplomatic breakthrough to end the slaughter in Syria.
The talks will be the first major move by Obama in the crucial but delicate relationship with Beijing since he won a second White House term, after a campaign in which China and its trade practices were often criticized.
“President Obama and President Xi will hold in depth discussions on a wide range of bilateral, regional and global issues,” the White House said in a statement.
“They will review progress and challenges in US-China relations over the past four years and discuss ways to enhance cooperation, while constructively managing our differences, in the years ahead.” The White House said that Obama's national security advisor Tom Donilon would travel to Beijing to prepare for the Obama-Xi meeting between May 26-28.
In Beijing, China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the summit was of “great significance. It is believed that this meeting is important to the long-term, sound and steady development of China-US relations as well as regional and international peace, stability and prosperity,” he said in a statement on the foreign ministry website.
Xi will visit Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Mexico beforehand, the spokesman added.
Previously, Obama and Xi had not been expected to meet until the G20 summit in Russia in September, but given the fact that both leaders are embarking on new terms of office, it appears both sides were keen for an earlier meeting.
The announcement that Xi and Obama would meet was made hours after Obama met Myanmar President Thein Sein, the first leader of his country to visit the White House in nearly half a century.
Many analysts have seen US diplomatic engagement on Myanmar as an attempt to peel it away from Chinese influence -- in the context of the wider US “rebalancing” of foreign policy towards Asia.
So the timing of the announcement that Obama and Xi would meet, sure to make big headlines in China and throughout Asia, may be seen as significant.
The news was also one of a flurry of announcements Monday, including confirmation that Obama would leave on an African tour in late June, that come with the White House battling a trio of domestic political scandals.
US presidents frequently look abroad to cement their legacies in the second terms as their domestic power wanes -- though there seems little low hanging diplomatic fruit ripe for Obama to pluck.
Washington has repeatedly called for Beijing to do more to rein in its nominal ally North Korea, during an alarming period of elevated tensions as the Stalinist state has flung warnings of nuclear war.
On a visit to Beijing last month, US Secretary of State John Kerry directly told Xi that China had unique sway over its troublesome neighbor.
North Asia has been engulfed by threats of nuclear war by Pyongyang in response to UN sanctions imposed over its recent rocket and nuclear tests.
Washington has also been frustrated with China's resistance, along with Russia to a tougher United Nations Security Council sanctions regime against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Recent warnings by the Pentagon and other independent analysts that China is engaged in a vast campaign of cyber espionage to extract the US government's foreign policy and military secrets have caused outrage in Washington.
In an interview with ABC News in March, Obama said that some, but not necessarily all, cyber attacks on US firms and infrastructure originating in China were “state sponsored.” But he also cautioned about the need to avoid “war rhetoric” when discussing cyber attacks, and called on Congress to act to strengthen cyber security while protecting civil liberties.
The White House says that US officials frequently raise the issue of cyber hacking at the highest levels with top Chinese leaders.
Washington and Beijing frequently swap accusations over trade disputes across their vast and interdependent economic relationship.
US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew visited Beijing in March on his first official overseas visit.
Washington, although acknowledging that there has been progress since China allowed its undervalued yuan to rise in June 2010, is still concerned about currency issues, which cause turbulence between Washington and Beijing.
China has also been irked by Obama's diplomatic “pivot” to Asia, which will see a rebalancing of US military forces in the region following the end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Beijing has also been angered by US support for calls by its Southeast Asian allies for maritime and territorial disputes in the Pacific to be solved through multilateral talks.

 KATHMANDU (AFP) — Saudi woman Raha Moharrak reached the summit of Nepal's Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, in a first for the conservative Muslim kingdom where women's sports are severely restricted, tourism officials said on Sunday.

The 25-year-old reached the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) summit early Saturday morning with a party of foreign mountaineers and Nepalese guides.

"She reached the peak with 12 other members of the expedition," Gyanendra Shrestha, an official with Nepal's tourism ministry, told AFP from Everest Base Camp.

"We have been able to contact her and she is very exhausted and now resting," Hassan Moharrak, the climber's father, told AFP, adding that the family was very happy with her achievement.

Moharrak's feat is backdropped by her country's gradual warming to the idea of women participating in sports.

In a historic first for the country, two female athletes participated in the 2012 London Olympic games.

Early this month, the government allowed some girls in private schools to participate in athletics but requested the schools ensure girls wear "a covering and decent outfit" for sport activities in "suitable areas".

According to international watchdog Human Rights Watch, Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that still effectively bars girls from taking part in sports in government schools.

"It's terrific a Saudi woman has been able to reach the summit of Everest," Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, told AFP.

"But it's worth remembering that meanwhile millions of women and girls in Saudi Arabia are still denied the right to climb in a gym or play any sports, including in state schools -- as a matter of government policy."

Moharrak's Everest expedition, dubbed "Arabs with Altitude", undertook the quest to raise money for education charities in Nepal.

Hundreds of climbers will attempt to reach the summit of the world's highest peak in the coming days as a fair weather window has opened.

This year, which marks the 60th anniversary of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's maiden Everest summit, has been marred by a brawl that broke out between European climbers and Nepalese Sherpas high on the mountain in April.

WASHINGTON, May 17, 2013 (AFP) - Left adrift in the wake of President Barack Obama's November election victory, the anti-tax Tea Party is predicting renewed popularity and relevance -- thanks to the scandal now rocking the IRS.
The federal tax agency admitted this week that it inappropriately screened conservative groups, in particular those with “Tea Party” or “Patriots” in their names, as they sought tax-exempt status.
“A government that's this intrusive is clearly excessive,” Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the movement's Tea Party Patriots umbrella group, said Thursday at an event coordinated by Congresswoman and one-time Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.
“Tea Party groups have been waiting for years for the IRS to treat us fairly and equally. Instead, they have singled us out for discrimination and persecution.”Many had their applications for non-profit status delayed for months or even years. Some faced onerous questioning, or demands for a group's entire catalog of postings on social network sites like Facebook and Twitter.
A member of the group American Patriots Against Government Excess was asked to write a book report for the Internal Revenue Service for every book her group had read, Martin said.
Such revelations touched off a firestorm in a city where Obama's Democrats thought they might have seen the last of the Tea Party influence that shook up American politics in the 2010 mid-term elections, when several people aligned with the movement were elected to Congress.
Tea Party caucuses were formed in the House and Senate, and Republican House Speaker John Boehner appeared unable to bring the ultra-conservative faction into a compromise with Democrats on major legislation like debt reduction.
But along with Obama's November victory, his Democrats gained seats in both the House and Senate, and some key Tea Party politicians like congressman Allen West of Florida were voted out.
Political observers in Washington began wondering whether the small-government, small-tax movement was past its prime.
Then came the IRS controversy, which suddenly pushed the Tea Party movement onto the front pages of every major American newspaper and had a galvanizing effect on Republicans in general.
“I think you're going to see new interest by the American public in the Tea Party movement,” Thomas Zawistowski, president of the Ohio Liberty Council, said at the Bachmann event.
“This is not just a vindication in this IRS case, but it's a kind of a vindication about this whole attack on the Tea Party. They tried to pin us as something we are not.”Despite Republican Mitt Romney losing the presidential election, many Tea Party lawmakers insist their movement is thriving.
“The Tea Party has not been fading. They have been busy trying to save America from this overreach of the federal government,” argued Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia.
“I think the American people are seeing more and more that government's too big, too intrusive, taking too much of our money,” said Broun, who is running for the Senate next year.
The grassroots movement took shape in 2009, emerging from the disaffection that anti-tax voters had with bloated government and the financial bailouts and stimulus plans of the Obama administration.
By 2010, hundreds of groups like the Texas Patriots Tea Party were applying for tax-exempt status through the IRS, and the agency bungled in formulating a way to scrutinize the applications.
The IRS acknowledged the mistakes and pledged to make changes. Obama ousted acting IRS chief Steven Miller, and another top official in the agency left as well.
But the damage was done, and seething mainstream Republicans stood shoulder to shoulder with Tea Party lawmakers and activists at Bachmann's event on the Capitol lawn, where top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell decried the IRS scandal as “runaway government at its worst.”

AMMAN, May 17, 2013 (AFP) - Unprecedented and sometimes deadly tribal violence at university campuses in Jordan threatens the country's ambitions to build a solid system of higher education, experts warn.
The latest unrest broke out in the restive southern city of Maan last month.
Maan has a bloody and rebellious past dating back to the turn of the last century, when it was the seat of the Great Arab Revolt that crushed Ottoman rule.
Armed clashes between students at the King Hussein bin Talal University in the city at the end of April killed four people and wounded more than 25, provoking a public outcry and royal fury.
“We cannot remain silent about all this violence and illegal actions. We cannot accept them,” King Abdullah II told MPs and government ministers at a meeting after the clashes.
“We need a strategy to tackle this problem which is affecting all Jordanians.
“The rule of law must be reinforced in a firm, courageous and transparent way, without any leniency or favouritism.” Military prosecutors on Thursday charged five men with rioting, possessing automatic weapons and “forming a gang” over the university violence.
“This problem has become a very dangerous issue,” Hussein Khazaai, a sociologist at the Balqa Applied University, told AFP.
“More than 10% of the country's 255,000 university students are involved in such violence, affecting the learning process of the remaining 90%.” Campus violence has been on the rise, with 80 violent brawls reported in universities in 2012, compared with 31 in 2010, Khazaai said.
“Some students keep guns in their cars, just in case there is a fight. Small things create problems, but later families and tribes get involved, creating a much bigger conflict.
“They are destroying the universities,” he added.
According to Elizabeth Buckner, a PhD candidate in international and comparative education at Stanford University, these problems “threaten Jordan's reputation as a regional higher education exporter and its larger goals of building a globally competitive university system. Jordanian violence is most directly attributable to tribal rivalries, which are exacerbated by tribal influence in national admissions policies and in university-based administrative decisions,” Buckner said in an article published on Sada, an online Carnegie Endowment for International Peace journal.
“That Jordan cannot control violence on its campuses also highlights a larger tension in the country's higher education between the universities' desire to be modern and egalitarian and susceptibility to tribal pressure, which occasionally allows individuals to evade bureaucratic rules.” Admissions policies are also widely recognised as a contributing factor, she said.
“They grant students from certain tribes or backgrounds admissions and scholarships through elaborate affirmative action policies... meaning that those with much lower academic preparation are often admitted to national universities.” Oraib Rintawi, head of the Al-Quds Centre for Political Studies, called the clashes “unprecedented. The state has failed to apply the rule of law to all. Important segments in society feel that they are above the law. This level of university clashes is unprecedented,” Rintawi told AFP.
“This has strengthened tribal identity at the expense of national identity. The state must restore its prestige and reconsider the educational system.”Rintawi echoed government concerns that campus violence could force thousands of international students to leave Jordanian universities.
Other experts agreed.
“The government is not doing enough prevent these growing problems, tackle their causes and punish perpetrators because it is in denial,” said Fakher Daass of the National Campaign for Defending Students' Rights.
Musa Shteiwi, head of the University of Jordan's Centre for Strategic Studies, urged reform.
“The students are frustrated at the economic and political situation. They feel there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The state needs to act fast and start by reforming the entire educational system,” Shteiwi told AFP.