Kathie Lee Gifford’s “Scandalous” musical to close after three weeks

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – So much for Kathie Lee Gifford‘s career as a playwright. The former “Live!” co-host’s Broadway musical “Scandalous: The Life and Times of Aimee Semple McPherson,” is shuttering a little after three weeks after it opened.

The musical, which opened November 15, will have its final performance December 9 at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York.

Gifford wrote the book and lyrics for “Scandalous,” which chronicled the life of evangelist and proto-celebrity Aimee Semple McPherson, who rose to prominence in the 1920s, only to fall from public grace amid scandalous love affairs and other controversies.

In all, “Scandalous” will have played 29 regular performances before it goes dark and 31 previews. The musical stars Carolee Carmello (left) and George Hearn, among others, and is directed by David Armstrong (“A Christmas Story the Musical,” “Catch Me if You Can”).

Though Gifford had ample opportunity to plug the production via her “Today” co-hosting duties – and she certainly took advantage of the opportunity – critics were generally unkind in their appraisal of the show.

“‘Scandalous’ isn’t so much scandalously bad as it is generic and dull,” wrote the New York Times’ Charles Isherwood.

Newsday’s Linda Winer took specific aim at Gifford’s “bombardment of nursery-rhyme lyrics.”

Talkin’ Broadway’s Matthew Murray, meanwhile, scoffed that the play “is not distinctive in one positive way.”

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White House preps Plan B if debt talks fail

White House press secretary Jay Carney (Charles Dharapak/AP)President Barack Obama's budget office is preparing for the possibility that "fiscal cliff" talks will fail, triggering painful automatic cuts to domestic and defense programs that he and his Republican foes officially want to avoid. White House press secretary Jay Carney described the planning as an abundance of caution, not pessimism about the seemingly stalled negotiations.

The White House's Office of Management and Budget this week "issued a request to federal agencies" for information needed to finalize calculations on the spending cuts required under what is technically known as "sequestration," Carney told reporters at his daily briefing. OMB is "acting responsibly," he added.

"The administration remains focused on reaching agreement, as we've been discussing, on a balanced deficit-reduction plan that avoids sequestration" he said. "This action should not be read … as a change in the administration's commitment to reach an agreement and avoid sequestration."Leaders of both parties have pledged to work together in the coming weeks, and we are confident, as I just said, that we can reach an agreement. However, with less than one month left before a potential sequestration order would have to be issued, the Office of Management and Budget must take certain steps to ensure the administration is ready to issue such an order should Congress fail to act."

Carney's comments came as talks on the fiscal cliff—a series of tax hikes and government spending cuts that could plunge the economy into a new recession—seemed to be making no headway. Obama and congressional Republicans have each put a proposal on the table but do not appear to be actively involved in negotiating a compromise.

"If our offer is not acceptable to the president, then he has an obligation to show leadership by presenting a credible plan of his own that can pass both houses of Congress," Republican House Speaker John Boehner said. Boehner accused Obama of snubbing spending cuts he accepted in the past (notably in failed 2011 negotiations) and failing to lay out "serious spending cuts."

"This is preventing us from reaching an agreement," Boehner continued. "With the American economy on the brink of the fiscal cliff, we don't have time for the president to continue shifting the goal posts. We need to solve this problem."

Obama, meanwhile, flatly dismissed the idea that Republicans might use next year's vote on raising the country's debt limit as leverage in current fiscal cliff negotiations, saying it won't be entertained by the White House.

While talks between Obama and Boehner appeared to be in a deep freeze, the president and congressional leaders met separately with top executives of the Business Roundtable association in Washington. A BRT official said the group met with Republican House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, then Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Republican Sen. John Thune, who sits on the Finance and Budget committees.

BRT Chairman Jim McNerney, president and CEO of Boeing, described the discussion with Obama as "candid and constructive" and the chat with congressional leaders as "constructive."

He noted that "we encourage both sides to work around the clock, if necessary, to avoid the severe repercussions that inaction would have on U.S. economic growth and job creation."

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Asthma symptoms may vary during menstrual cycle

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Some women may have more or fewer asthma symptoms, such as coughing and wheezing, depending on their time of the month, a new study suggests.

Researchers said spikes and dips in estrogen and other hormones likely affect the lungs and other physiological responses involved in breathing. However, it’s still unclear whether the findings could improve doctors’ treatment of women with asthma.

The menstrual cycle “is a very important cycle… with all the biological changes and physiological things that happen,” said Dr. Samar Farha from the Cleveland Clinic, who studies asthma and other respiratory diseases but wasn’t involved in the new research.

“(Some) asthmatics describe that just before their menses, they get a worsening of their symptoms,” she told Reuters Health – but more scientific assessments of what’s going on have come to conflicting conclusions.

For the new study, researchers surveyed close to 4,000 women in Northern Europe who had normal periods and weren’t taking birth control pills.

Along with other health and lifestyle questions, they asked women to report when their last period started, as well as whether they’d had any breathing-related problems in the past three days – such as wheezing or waking up with a coughing attack.

Just under eight percent of women in the study had been diagnosed with asthma. Between two and six percent reported recent wheezing, coughing and/or shortness of breath.

Dr. Ferenc Macsali of Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway, and colleagues found the number of women with of each of those symptoms changed depending on where they were in their menstrual cycle.

For example, wheezing spiked just before and just after mid-cycle (ovulation). The dip in between corresponds to peaks in estrogen, follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, the researchers write in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Complaints of shortness of breath and coughing both declined just after women got their periods, and shortness of breath was also more rare right before menses started.

Macsali’s team saw cyclical patterns in breathing symptoms in women with and without asthma.

What explains those patterns is still up for debate. Estrogen may affect the lungs directly, the researchers said. Insulin resistance and markers of general inflammation are known to vary during the menstrual cycle, which could also play a role in when breathing symptoms get better or worse.

“The observed patterns in our study are most likely a result of… complex hormonal processes,” the researchers wrote, “and it does not seem plausible that one sex hormone should explain the variation in respiratory symptoms during the menstrual cycle.”

Women with asthma should “be aware of a possibility that their symptoms are influenced by day in cycle,” Macsali told Reuters Health in an email.

Not all asthmatics will notice those changes, Farha pointed out.

For women whose symptoms do get a little worse at certain times of the month, it’s also unclear whether that ever puts them in serious danger, she added. But Farha said it may still be worth bringing up the issue with their doctor.

“It could lead to more personalized therapy, based on where their symptoms are getting worse, in which phases of their menstrual cycle,” Farha said. “You could change therapy and escalate therapy based on (those) phases.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/SGe7b0 American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, online November 29, 2012.

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Google updates Gmail for iOS to support multiple accounts, deliver autocomplete suggestions

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WestJet embraces tech to woo business travelers

TORONTO (Reuters) – WestJet Airlines Ltd will use technological innovation, including a new Internet ticket booking system, to help it transform from a no-frills carrier to a lower-cost full-service airline courting lucrative corporate travelers, its chief executive said on Monday.

Canada’s second-biggest airline plans to launch a series of technology systems, most notably the new online booking engine, which will sell three tiers of tickets, in the next two months.

“Companies evolve or they die,” Chief Executive Gregg Saretsky told Reuters in a phone interview from the company’s Calgary head office.

“We’re 16 and going on 17 years old and we can’t stay just as we were 17 years ago. The world has changed. And we are changing to be more relevant for a broader segment of guests.”

The new Internet booking system, which WestJet hopes to launch in late January, will sell economy, mid-tier and premium tickets. That is a major shift from its current system, which sells only the lowest-priced ticket available.

Economy tickets under the new system will continue to sell the lowest available fare, but the cancellation fee for them will jump to C$ 75 ($ 75.48) from C$ 50. Mid-tier tickets will have a C$ 50 cancellation fee.

Premium tickets, unavailable until late March when WestJet finishes reconfiguring its 100 Boeing 737 planes to allow more leg room, will include priority screening and boarding, free cancellations and flexibility on ticket changes.

Pricing for those tickets, which may include free meals and drinks and an extra baggage allowance, has not yet been determined. Fares will be well below half the price for business class at WestJet’s bigger competitor, Air Canada, Saretsky said.

“It’s time for us to be more serious with respect to going after business travelers because frankly, they’re the ones who are booking last-minute and are happy to pay for the conveniences,” Saretsky said.

WestJet will launch its premium economy service with 24 seats per plane, but will consider expansion if it proves “wildly successful,” he added.

POISED FOR CHANGE

WestJet, which has spent about C$ 40 million over the past two years on technology projects, is poised for major changes in 2013 as it readies to launch a new regional airline, Encore.

Saretsky hopes that WestJet’s switch in coming weeks to a new Internet phone system will allow ticket reservation agents to work from home and help make room for Encore staff.

Some 750 reservation agents work at WestJet’s Calgary offices, which house about 2,400 staff. Space will be needed for Encore employees over the next 18 months while their office, hangars and maintenance stores are constructed at the WestJet campus.

Encore will be launch in the second half of 2013, “probably closer to July than December,” Saretsky said, with seven Bombardier Q400 planes.

While WestJet won’t announce Encore’s schedule until Jan 21, the carrier will initially serve only “a handful” of new cities, with ticket prices up to 50 percent below Air Canada’s, he added.

Over the next two months, WestJet will also roll out a guest notification system that alerts travelers via email about their flights, allowing them to check in remotely.

Such self-service technology will be critical as WestJet faces increasing labor costs, Saretsky said.

Wage and benefit costs, which represent about a third of operating costs, have climbed 50 percent since WestJet was founded in 1996.

“You can see that creates a little bit of drag on earnings,” Saretsky said. “We’ve got to find ways of reducing our component costs.”

If WestJet can increase self service options for travelers, that could limit the need for new employees, Saretsky said. Management also wants to improve attendance management, so that fewer employees book off sick around long weekends, and more quickly clean and process planes between flights, he said.

(Reporting By Susan Taylor; Editing by Peter Galloway)

(This story was corrected to show that WestJet is replacing its Internet booking engine, not entire reservation system, in the first and second paragraphs)

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Disney, Netflix sign exclusive TV distribution deal

(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co agreed to give Netflix exclusive TV distribution rights to its movies, becoming the first major studio to stream its movies to TV viewers via Netflix instead of distributing them to HBO, Showtime or other premium TV channels.

The agreement begins in 2016, after Disney‘s current deal with Liberty Media’s pay-TV channel Starz expires.

The deal gives Netflix streaming rights to movies from Disney‘s live action and animation studios, including those from Pixar, Marvel, and the recently acquired Lucasfilms. Disney bought the famed studio founded by George Lucas and responsible for the “Star Wars” franchise for $ 4 billion on October 30.

Movies from Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks studios are not included in the deal, as that studio distributes its movies through CBS’s Showtime on TV. Disney recently signed a deal to distribute DreamWorks’ films theatrically after the studio’s deal with Viacom’s Paramount Pictures expired.

Under the deal’s terms, Netflix can stream Disney movies beginning seven to nine months after they appear in theaters, as Starz had done in Disney’s prior agreement. The deal does not cover DVD rentals of Disney movies.

The agreement follows similar deals Netflix has inked with smaller studios, including Relativity Media, The Weinstein company and DreamWorks Animation.

Netflix shares were up 12.9 percent to $ 85.83 in afternoon trading following news of the agreement.

(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Editing by Peter Lauria and Tim Dobbyn)

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Conservative Republicans booted from House budget panel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two of the most conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have been kicked off the House Budget Committee, a rare move that could make it easier for the panel to advance a deal with Democrats to cut fiscal deficits.

Representatives Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Justin Amash of Michigan - both favorites of the anti-tax Tea Party movement - are among those Republicans voting most often against House Speaker John Boehner.

Huelskamp and Amash, who both will begin second terms in the House next month, voted against last year's deal to raise the federal debt limit and staunchly oppose any tax increases. Boehner has now included new revenue in his latest offer to avert the "fiscal cliff" of year-end tax hikes and automatic spending cuts. Given their voting records, winning support from Huelskamp and Amash for such a compromise seemed an uphill battle.

Huelskamp released a statement saying the Republican leadership "might think they have silenced conservatives but removing me and others from key committees only confirms our conservative convictions.

"This is clearly a vindictive move and a sure sign that the GOP establishment cannot handle disagreement," he said.

Huelskamp and Amash had said that despite sweeping changes to the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs, committee chairman Paul Ryan's budget did not make deep enough cuts to entitlement programs and military spending.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to be specific on the reasons for their ouster by the House Republican Steering Committee, which occurred Monday in a closed-door meeting.

"The Steering Committee makes decisions based on a range of factors," Steel said.

Huelskamp said he was given "limited explanation" for his removal from the Budget Committee, a move he called "vindictive." A spokesman for Amash could not be immediately reached for comment.

Huelskamp and Amash cast the only House Budget Committee votes against Ryan's budget plan earlier this year.

While there is often wrangling over committee chairmanships just before a new Congress takes office, it is rare for rank-and-file committee members to be stripped of their assignments.

The 34-member Republican steering committee is headed by Boehner and includes members of House leadership, committee chairs and other lawmakers representing different regions of the country.

The same group last week recommended that Ryan, the conservative former Republican vice presidential candidate, be renewed as Budget Committee chairman.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

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Baxter to buy Sweden’s Gambro for $4 billion

(Reuters) – Baxter International Inc said on Tuesday that it would buy privately held Swedish kidney dialysis product company Gambro AB for about $ 4 billion, a tie up that would put it in the No. 2 position in the dialysis market.

Baxter, whose shares were down more than 1 percent in afternoon trading, will finance the acquisition with debt and cash. The deal, which is expected to close in the first half of next year, marks Baxter’s biggest acquisition since Chief Executive Robert Parkinson took the helm in 2004.

Baxter manufactures kidney dialysis equipment, drug infusion pumps and blood therapy products. The Gambro acquisition will round out Baxter’s renal business, which accounted for almost one-fifth of the company’s 2011 revenue of $ 13.89 billion.

Gambro is one of the largest makers of equipment for hemodialysis, which is generally performed in a hospital or clinic. The dialysis from Baxter’s machines is called peritoneal and can be performed at home.

Gambro’s sales have been flat to weaker in recent years, undermined partly by capacity constraints, but Baxter executives voiced confidence during a conference call with analysts that the business can be turned around.

“It is a big market and it is going to continue to grow for a long time. There are only so many kidney transplants available in the world,” Parkinson told analysts.

Hemodialysis is a method that is used to remove waste products from the blood when the kidneys fail. Another method is peritoneal dialysis, a treatment for severe chronic kidney disease that uses the patient’s own membrane inside the body as a filter to clear waste. The third treatment option is a kidney transplant.

“At the end of the day, this is an acquisition that is not dependent on any one pathway for value creation. It is not dependent on a major new product launch or technological advancement, and is not dependent on commercial assumptions that our overly optimistic. This is an acquisition that is dependent on execution,” he said. “This is something we know we can do and do well.”

He said the planned acquisition did not represent a change in the direction for the company, which has invested in stem cell research and a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Shares of Baxter were down 1 percent at $ 65.14 on Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.

TOO PRICEY?

Some analysts said they were concerned by the price tag and that the company will scale back its share buyback program in order to acquire Gambro.

“I think the deal makes sense. I think it does fit well with their existing renal business and I think there probably are synergies, but at the same time it is a lot of cash they are paying for this thing. They are taking on a significant amount of debt,” said Michael Matson, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA.

Moody’s, the credit rating agency, said it put Baxter’s A3 rating on review for downgrade following Gambro announcement.

Derrick Sung, an analyst with Bernstein Research, noted that Baxter will be paying 2.5 times sales, which is not “unreasonable” but appears to be on the high end of comparable deals.

The Gambro deal marks further consolidation in the kidney dialysis market, where Gambro and Baxter compete against companies including U.S.-based DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc and Germany’s Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co KGaA, the biggest player in the hemodialysis market.

“I think in the longer term, the ambition is to try to challenge Fresenius,” currently the market leader, analyst Kristofer Liljeberg of Sweden’s Carnegie investment bank said.

However, he said, Gambro, which is owned by Swedish investment holding company Investor AB and its partly owned private equity company, EQT, had been struggling in recent years with slow growth and price competition.

Liljeberg said the deal was a good one for family-owned Investor, which controls several of Sweden’s top companies. Since they bought Gambro, Investor and EQT have sold off its clinics and a blood component business.

“This is a good long-term home for Gambro,” Borje Ekholm, CEO of Investor, said. “These two companies have a lot of things in common. They share similar values to improve the lives of patients. They have a very complementary geographic fit.”

A GROWING MARKET

More than 2 million patients globally are on some form of dialysis, and that has been increasing more than 5 percent annually, in part because of the rising rates of diabetes and hypertension.

Excluding special items, Baxter expects the Gambro transaction to reduce earnings per diluted share by 10 to 15 cents in 2013 and be neutral or add modestly to them in 2014. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.

Excluding the impact of special items and estimated amortization of intangible assets, the company said the deal should not affect earnings in 2013 and add 20 to 25 cents a diluted share in 2014.

Baxter said it expected the deal to add to earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, after 2014.

The suburban Chicago company said it expected over five years to increase sales by 7 to 8 percent, excluding the impact of currency fluctuations, on a compound annual basis, with earnings per diluted share, excluding special items, rising by 8 to 10 percent.

“Companies like Baxter can unlock a fair amount of value when they find strategic use for their overseas cash,” said Piper Jaffray analyst Matt Miksic.

Indeed, Baxter said it planned to finance the deal with cash overseas. Multinational companies that have large international sales often have difficulties moving that cash back to the United States where they can put it to use.

J.P. Morgan was Baxter’s financial adviser for the deal.

(This story has been corrected to remove ticker EQT.N that is not associated with EQT, the private equity firm, in paragraph 17. Also corrects paragraph two to add dropped word “down”)

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore, Debra Sherman in Chicago, Caroline Humer in New York, and Patrick Lannin and Mia Shanley in Stockholm; editing by Joyjeet Das, Lisa Von Ahn, Matthew Lewis and Marguerita Choy)

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Ericsson seeks U.S. import ban on Samsung products

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish telecoms gear maker Ericsson has filed a request with the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban U.S. imports of products made by South Korean group Samsung,

The request from Ericsson, which said on Monday the products infringe on its patents, came after it sued Samsung for patent infringement in a U.S. court last week.

“The request for an import ban is a part of the process. An import ban is not our goal. Our goal is that they (Samsung) sign license agreements on reasonable terms,” spokesman Fredrik Hallstan said.

Ericsson said last week it was suing Samsung after talks failed to reach agreement on terms that were fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) over patents.

Samsung said it would defend itself against the lawsuit, adding that Ericsson had asked for “prohibitively higher royalty rates to renew the same patent portfolio”.

(Reporting by Sven Nordenstam; Editing by Dan Lalor)

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Official: Syria moving chemical weapons components

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days, a senior U.S. defense official said Monday, as the Obama administration strongly warned the Assad regime against using them.

A senior defense official said intelligence officials have detected activity around more than one of Syria‘s chemical weapons sites in the last week. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, reiterated President Barack Obama‘s declaration that Syrian action on chemical weapons was a “red line” for the United States that would prompt action.

“We have made our views very clear: This is a red line for the United States,” Clinton told reporters. “I’m not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”

Syria said Monday it would not use chemical weapons against its own people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Syria “would not use chemical weapons — if there are any — against its own people under any circumstances.”

Syria has been careful never to confirm that it has any chemical weapons.

The use of chemical weapons would be a major escalation in Assad’s crackdown on his foes and would draw international condemnation. In addition to causing mass deaths and horrific injuries to survivors, the regime’s willingness to use them would alarm much of the region, particularly neighboring states, including Israel.

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said, “We are concerned that in an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. And as the president has said, any use or proliferation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would cross a red line for the United States. “

Administration officials would not detail what that response might be.

Although Syria is one of only seven nations that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Treaty, it is a party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol that bans the use of chemical weapons in war. That treaty was signed in the aftermath of World War I, when the effects of the use of mustard gas and other chemical agents outraged much of the world.

Clinton didn’t address the issue of the fresh activity at Syrian chemical weapons depots, but insisted that Washington would address any threat that arises.

An administration official said the trigger for U.S. action of some kind is the use of chemical weapons or movement with the intent to use or provide them to a terrorist group like Hezbollah. The U.S. is trying to determine whether the recent movement detected in Syria falls into any of those categories, the official said. The administration official was speaking on condition of anonymity this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The senior defense official said the U.S. does not believe that any Syrian action beyond the movement of components is imminent.

An Israeli official said if there is real movement on chemical weapons, it would require a response. He didn’t say what that might be and spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal government response to the reports of the latest activities.

Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Syrian chemical weapons could slip into the hands of Hezbollah or other anti-Israel groups, or even be fired toward Israel in an act of desperation by Syria.

Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

Its arsenal is a particular threat to the American allies, Turkey and Israel, and Obama singled out the threat posed by the unconventional weapons earlier this year as a potential cause for deeper U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war. Up to now, the United States has opposed military intervention or providing arms support to Syria’s rebels for fear of further militarizing a conflict that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

Clinton said that while the actions of President Bashar Assad‘s government have been deplorable, chemical weapons would bring them to a new level.

“We once again issue a very strong warning to the Assad regime that their behavior is reprehensible, their actions against their own people have been tragic,” she said. “But there is no doubt that there’s a line between even the horrors that they’ve already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilizing their chemical weapons.”

Activity has been detected before at Syrian weapons sites, believed to number several dozen.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in late September the intelligence suggested the Syrian government had moved some of its chemical weapons in order to protect them. He said the U.S. believed that the main sites remained secure.

Asked Monday if they were still considered secure, Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to comment about any intelligence related to the weapons.

Senior lawmakers were notified last week that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected activity related to Syria’s chemical and biological weapons, said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings. All congressional committees with an interest in Syria, from the intelligence to the armed services committees, are now being kept informed.

“I can’t comment on these reports but I have been very concerned for some time now about Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons and its stocks of advanced conventional weapons like shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles,” said House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. “We are not doing enough to prepare for the collapse of the Assad regime, and the dangerous vacuum it will create. Use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be an extremely serious escalation that would demand decisive action from the rest of the world,” he added.

Syria is believed to have one of the world’s largest chemical weapons programs, and the Assad regime has said it might use the weapons against external threats, though not against Syrians. The U.S. and Jordan share the same concern about Syria’s chemical and biological weapons — that they could fall into the wrong hands should the regime in Syria collapse and lose control of them.

___

Klapper reported from Prague. Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Albert Aji in Damascus and Matthew Lee, Kimberly Dozier, and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

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