Belize prime minister says McAfee “bonkers,” should help in murder case

BELIZE CITY (Reuters) – Belize‘s prime minister on Wednesday urged anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee to help the country’s police with a murder inquiry, calling McAfee “bonkers” for recent media statements.

“I don’t want to be unkind, but he seems to be extremely paranoid – I would go so far as to say bonkers,” Prime Minister Dean Barrow said in Belize City. “He ought to man up and respect our laws and go in and talk to the police.”

Belizean police want to question McAfee, 67, about the murder of his neighbor and fellow U.S. citizen, Gregory Viant Faull, 52, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

Police have been unable to track down McAfee since finding Faull dead on Sunday in his house on Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast. In an interview on Tuesday, McAfee said he had gone into hiding because he believed Belizean authorities were trying to frame him for Faull’s murder.

“You can say I’m paranoid about it, but they will kill me, there is no question. They’ve been trying to get me for months,” Wired magazine’s website quoted McAfee as saying. “I am not well liked by the prime minister.

According to the magazine, which has published details of several interviews with the entrepreneur, McAfee says he has been riding in boats, hunkering down on the floorboards of taxis, and sleeping in a bed that he said was infested with lice.

Since he went into hiding, McAfee has repeatedly told Wired he had nothing to do with Faull’s death. Explaining his actions, McAfee said he does not want to give himself up because he is afraid the authorities will torture or kill him.

But McAfee said they would track him down in the end. On Wednesday, the magazine said that McAfee claimed to have dyed his hair, eyebrows, beard, and mustache jet black.

“I’ll probably look like a murderer, unfortunately,” it quoted him as saying.

PUBLIC SPOTLIGHT

Barrow called McAfee’s statements “nonsense,” noting he had “never met the man” and that the media attention McAfee had attracted was offering him “the best possible safeguard.”

“It’s not as if the police have said he is a suspect and certainly there is no question at this point of charges pending,” Barrow said. “The fact that this is smeared across international headlines means the police would have to act extremely cautiously in the full glare of the public spotlight.”

McAfee, who invented the anti-virus software that bears his name, has homes and businesses in Belize, and is believed to have settled around 2010 in the tiny Central American nation bordered by Mexico and Guatemala.

There is already a case pending in Belize against McAfee for possession of illegal firearms, and police previously suspected him of running a lab to make the synthetic drug crystal meth.

On Wednesday, Belizean police said they had charged McAfee’s British bodyguard William Mulligan, 29, and Mulligan’s wife, Stefanie, 22, for having unlicensed weapons and ammunition.

Barrow rejected statements made by McAfee and an associate that the software pioneer was being targeted for refusing to donate to Belize’s ruling United Democratic Party (UDP) to help fund its successful re-election bid in March.

“I know of no individual in the UDP who has spoken to McAfee about contributions,” Barrow said.

McAfee was one of Silicon Valley’s first entrepreneurs to build an Internet fortune. The ex-Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in 1989. He now has no relationship with the company, which was sold to Intel Corp.

(Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Dave Graham and Eric Walsh)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Snooki's Nights Out Now: Drinking Wine and Talking Politics

TV Watch

By Dahvi Shira

11/15/2012 at 02:30 PM EST

Snooki and Lorenzo

Courtesy of Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi

With her fist-pumping days behind her, newly mature mom Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi no longer spends her conversations trying to figure out what happened the night before.

"I am having a glass of wine talking about politics," the recently reformed party girl, 24, says on an episode of Anderson Live, airing Thursday. "It's way different. Like, so, 'Who are you voting for?' I mean me and my friends are like, 'What are we saying?' We are getting so old."

Adds Polizzi, who gave birth to son Lorenzo in August, "Having a kid changes your life. Before, I was like, 'I want to go out. Let's go to Vegas.' After having a kid, it's just like, 'Oh my god, there's so much more to life than just going out and having a good time.' "

But the Jersey Shore star hasn't given up a social life completely.

"Once a month, I go out with my girlfriends because if you don't go out when you're a new mom, you're just going to freak out," she explains. "You need time for yourself. It's always so busy with the baby. Sometimes you get stressed or frustrated, so you just need your own time."

One thing Lorenzo's mommy surprisingly doesn't seem to need a break from is changing diapers.

"I actually love [it]," Polizzi says. "Even when they are like poopy and gross, it's fun. He pooped on my hand once and that was awesome. ... I have fun doing everything with him."

But the reality starlet, who says wants "to be a MILF," admits the whole experience wouldn't be as manageable without the aid of her other half, Jionni LaValle.

"Jionni's such a good help," Polizzi says of her fiancé. "He's like another mother to Lorenzo. He's hands-on. [He] changes diapers. He's just awesome. He helps me so I can do my hair and my makeup still."

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Ireland probes death of ill abortion-seeker

DUBLIN (AP) — The debate over legalizing abortion in Ireland flared Wednesday after the government confirmed that a woman in the midst of a miscarriage was refused an abortion and died in an Irish hospital after suffering from blood poisoning.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he was awaiting findings from three investigations into the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian woman who was 17 weeks pregnant. Her case highlighted the legal limbo in which pregnant women facing severe health problems can find themselves in predominantly Catholic Ireland.

Ireland's constitution officially bans abortion, but a 1992 Supreme Court ruling found the procedure should be legalized for situations when the woman's life is at risk from continuing the pregnancy. Five governments since have refused to pass a law resolving the confusion, leaving Irish hospitals reluctant to terminate pregnancies except in the most obviously life-threatening circumstances.

The vast bulk of Irish women wanting abortions, an estimated 4,000 per year, simply travel next door to England, where abortion has been legal on demand since 1967. But that option is difficult, if not impossible, for women in failing health.

Halappanavar's husband, Praveen, said doctors at University Hospital Galway in western Ireland determined she was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization for severe pain on Sunday, Oct. 21. He said over the next three days, doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her surging pain and fading health.

The hospital declined to say whether doctors believed Halappanavar's blood poisoning could have been reversed had she received an abortion rather than waiting for the fetus to die on its own. In a statement, it described its own investigation into the death, and a parallel probe by the government's Health Service Executive, as "standard practice" whenever a pregnant woman dies in a hospital. The Galway coroner also planned a public inquest.

"Savita was really in agony. She was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby," he told The Irish Times in a telephone interview from Belgaum, southwest India. "When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning, Savita asked if they could not save the baby, could they induce to end the pregnancy? The consultant said: 'As long as there is a fetal heartbeat, we can't do anything.'

"Again on Tuesday morning ... the consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita said: 'I am neither Irish nor Catholic' but they said there was nothing they could do," Praveen Halappanavar said.

He said his wife vomited repeatedly and collapsed in a restroom that night, but doctors wouldn't terminate the fetus because its heart was still beating.

The fetus died the following day and its remains were surgically removed. Within hours, Savita was placed under sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning and he was never able to speak with her again, her husband said. By Saturday, her heart, kidneys and liver had stopped working. She was pronounced dead early Sunday, Oct. 28.

The couple had settled in 2008 in Galway, where Praveen Halappanavar works as an engineer at the medical devices manufacturer Boston Scientific. His wife was qualified as a dentist but had taken time off for her pregnancy. Her parents in India had just visited them in Galway and left the day before her hospitalization.

Praveen Halappanavar said he took his wife's remains back to India for a Hindu funeral and cremation Nov. 3. News of the circumstances that led to her death emerged Tuesday in Galway after the Indian community canceled the city's annual Diwali festival. Savita Halappanavar had been one of the festival's main organizers.

Opposition politicians appealed Wednesday for Kenny's government to introduce legislation immediately to make the 1992 Supreme Court judgment part of statutory law. Barring any such bill, the only legislation defining the illegality of abortion in Ireland dates to 1861, when the entire island was part of the United Kingdom. That British law, still valid here due to Irish inaction on the matter, states it is a crime punishable by life imprisonment to "procure a miscarriage."

In the 1992 case, a 14-year-old girl identified in court only as "X'' successfully sued the government for the right to have an abortion in England. She had been raped by a neighbor. When her parents reported the crime to police, the attorney general ordered her not to travel abroad for an abortion, arguing this would violate Ireland's constitution.

The Supreme Court ruled she should be permitted an abortion in Ireland, never mind England, because she was making credible threats to commit suicide if refused one. During the case, the girl reportedly suffered a miscarriage.

Since then, Irish governments twice have sought public approval to legalize abortion in life-threatening circumstances — but excluding a suicide threat as acceptable grounds. Both times voters rejected the proposed amendments.

Legal and political analysts broadly agree that no Irish government since 1992 has needed public approval to pass a law that backs the Supreme Court ruling. They say governments have been reluctant to be seen legalizing even limited access to abortion in a country that is more than 80 percent Catholic.

An abortions right group, Choice Ireland, said Halappanavar might not have died had any previous government legislated in line with the X judgment. Earlier this year, the government rejected an opposition bill to do this.

"Today, some 20 years after the X case, we find ourselves asking the same question: If a woman is pregnant, her life in jeopardy, can she even establish whether she has a right to a termination here in Ireland?" said Choice Ireland spokeswoman Stephanie Lord.

Coincidentally, the government said it received a long-awaited expert report Tuesday proposing possible changes to Irish abortion law shortly before news of Savita Halappanavar's death broke. The government commissioned the report two years ago after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ireland's inadequate access to abortions for life-threatening pregnancies violated European Union law.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, identifies Ireland as an unusually safe place to be pregnant. Its most recent report on global maternal death rates found that only three out of every 100,000 women die in childbirth in Ireland, compared with an average of 14 in Europe and North America, 190 in Asia and 590 in Africa.

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Wall Street briefly cuts losses on Obama briefing

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks briefly trimmed losses on Wednesday as President Barack Obama pushed for his proposal to have the wealthy pay more in taxes as a way to tame the federal deficit.

Taking a hard line in his opening bid before he begins fiscal talks with U.S. lawmakers later in the week, the president also said he was encouraged that some Republicans have agreed to raising new revenues.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 77.75 points, or 0.61 percent, at 12,678.43. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 6.90 points, or 0.50 percent, at 1,367.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 10.48 points, or 0.36 percent, at 2,873.41.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Israelis Launch Major Assault on Gaza, Killing Hamas Commander

Reuters

Palestinians extinguished a fire after an Israeli airstrike on a car carrying Ahmed al-Jabari, who ran Hamas's military wing, on Wednesday in Gaza City.

GAZA — Israel on Wednesday launched one of the most ferocious assaults on Gaza since its invasion four years ago, hitting at least 20 targets in aerial attacks that killed the top military commander of Hamas, drew strong condemnation from Egypt and escalated the risks of a new war in the Middle East.

The Israelis coupled the intensity of the airstrikes with warnings to all Hamas leaders in Gaza to stay out of sight or risk the same fate as the Hamas military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, who was killed in a pinpoint airstrike as he was traveling by car down a Gaza street. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a Twitter message.

The ferocity of the airstrikes, in response to what Israel called repeated rocket attacks by Gaza-based Palestinian militants, provoked rage in Gaza, where Hamas said the airstrikes amounted to war and promised a harsh response. Civil-defense authorities in Israel raised alert levels and told residents to take precautions for rocket retaliation from Gaza.

The abrupt escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the militant organization regarded by Israel as a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction, came amid rising tensions between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors. Israel has faced growing lawlessness on its border with the Sinai, including cross-border terror attacks. It recently fired twice into Syria, which is caught in a civil war, after munitions fell in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and it has absorbed rocket fire from Gaza, which has damaged homes and frightened the population.

Israeli officials had promised a robust response to the rocket fire, but for the moment, at least, opted against a ground invasion and instead chose airstrikes and targeted killings.

The Israeli attacks especially threatened to further complicate Israel’s fragile relations with Egypt, where the Islamist-led government of President Mohamed Morsi, reversing a policy of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak, had established closer ties with Hamas and had been acting as a mediator to restore calm between Israel and Gaza-based militant groups.

In a sign of rising anti-Israel hostility in Egypt, Mr. Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, issued a statement saying: “The wanton aggression against Gaza proves that Israel has yet to realize that Egypt has changed and that the Egyptian people who revolted against oppression/ injustice will not accept assaulting Gaza.”

A spokesman for Hamas, Fawzi Barhoum, said the Israelis had “committed a dangerous crime and broke all redlines,” and that “the Israeli occupation will regret and pay a high price.”

Military officials in Israel, which announced responsibility for the death of Mr. Jabari, later said in a statement that their forces had carried out additional airstrikes in Gaza targeting what they described as “a significant number of long-range rocket sites” owned by Hamas that had stored rockets capable of reaching 25 miles into Israel. The statement said the airstrikes had dealt a “significant blow to the terror organization’s underground rocket-launching capabilities.”

Yisrael Katz, a minister from Israel’s governing Likud Party, issued a statement saying that the operation had sent a message to the Hamas political leaders in Gaza “that the head of the snake must be smashed. Israel will continue to kill and target anyone who is involved in the rocket attacks.”Hamas and medical officials in Gaza said both Mr. Jabari and a companion were killed by the airstrike on his car in Gaza City. Israeli news media said the companion was Mr. Jabari’s son, but there was no immediate confirmation.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that Mr. Jabari had been targeted because he “served in the upper echelon of the Hamas command and was directly responsible for executing terror attacks against the state of Israel in the past number of years.”

The statement said the purpose of the attack was to “severely impair the command and control chain of the Hamas leadership as well as its terrorist infrastructure.”

The statement did not specify how the Israelis knew Mr. Jabari was in the car but said the operation had been “implemented on the basis of concrete intelligence and using advanced capabilities.”

A video released by the Israeli Defense Forces and posted on YouTube showed an aerial view of the attack on what it identified as Mr. Jabari’s car on a Gaza street as it was targeted and instantly blown up in a pinpoint bombing. News photographs of the aftermath showed the car’s blackened hulk surrounded by a large crowd.

Fares Akram reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York, and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

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Facebook jumps on biggest lock-up expiration day

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook‘s stock is up more than 7 percent despite expectations that it would fall because more than 850 million additional shares in the company are being freed up for sale.

Shares of Facebook Inc. are up $ 1.48, or 7.5 percent, at $ 21.34. Facebook went public in May at $ 38 in a much-hyped initial public offering of stock that turned out to be a letdown for investors. Its stock price hasn’t hit $ 38 since.

Wednesday marked the expiration of Facebook’s biggest lock-up period, which is a time following an IPO that prevents insiders from selling stock. In all, 773 million shares became eligible for sale, along with 31 million restricted stock units. And about 48 million shares held by former Facebook employees also became eligible for sale, bringing the total to 852 million. These shares would be on top of what’s already been available for trading, increasing the supply and potentially lowering the overall price.

Lock-ups are common after initial public stock offerings and are designed to prevent a stock from experiencing the kind of volatility that might occur if too many shareholders decide to sell all at once.

The previous lock-up expired on Oct. 29, when U.S. stock markets were closed because of Superstorm Sandy. Facebook’s stock fell nearly 4 percent two days later, when the stock market reopened.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Youssef Squali believes a potential increase in the capital gains tax on Jan. 1, when Bush-era tax cuts would expire unless Congress acts, could pressure Facebook’s stock. That said, he called the Menlo Park, Calif.-based social media company a “long-term winner.”

Facebook’s stock saw its biggest one-day gain on Oct. 24, the day after the company reported stronger-than-expected third-quarter results and detailed for the first time how much money it made from mobile ads. The stock, which added 19 percent that day, closed at $ 23.23. Even with Wednesday’s gain, it is still 8 percent below that price.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Zac Efron Smooches Rebel Wilson at Lakers Game

By Julia Haskins

11/14/2012 at 02:20 PM EST

Does Zac Efron have a new crush?

The sexy young star Tweeted a picture of a smooch he gave hilarious Bridesmaids actress Rebel Wilson at Tuesday's Los Angeles Lakers game.

"She's a Laker fan too??? I think I'm in love," Efron wrote in the picture post.

And it sounded like the pals, who were also joined courtside by Wilson's Pitch Perfect costar Skylar Astin, had a blast.

"Half time at Lakers hanging with main man @ZacEfron, freestyle rapping etc," Wilson Tweeted.

Astin also posted goofy pictures throughout the game.

Wilson seemed delighted by her handsome company, and was not too worried about the game's outcome. (The Lakers lost to the San Antonio Spurs 84-82.)

"I had two hot dogs at half time! @SkylarAstin @ZacEfron," she Tweeted with a picture of her fellow fans.

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British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

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Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

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Dow, S&P edge up, but off highs; retail stocks lead

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White House Supports Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan

President Obama has “faith” in Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, the White House spokesman said on Tuesday, after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with the woman whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the scandal involving David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair.

“The president thinks very highly of General Allen,” the spokesman, Jay Carney, said at a White House news briefing. “He has faith in General Allen,” and believes that he has done “an excellent job” as commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Carney added. General Allen’s recent nomination to become the supreme allied commander in Europe, Mr. Carney said, is delayed at the request of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta pending the investigation’s outcome.

Mr. Panetta and other officials disclosed overnight the investigation into General Allen’s e-mails with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s lover, as a rival for his attentions.

Mr. Petraeus’s affair led to his resignation as head of the C.I.A. on Friday, and the F.B.I.’s investigations into e-mails in the matter apparently led in turn to General Allen’s correspondence.

In a statement released to reporters on his plane en route to Australia early Tuesday, Mr. Panetta said the F.B.I. on Sunday had referred “a matter involving” General Allen to the Pentagon.

Mr. Panetta turned the matter over to the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct an investigation into what a defense official said were thousands of pages of documents, many of them e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley.

A senior law enforcement official in Washington said on Tuesday that F.B.I. investigators, looking into Ms. Kelley’s complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received, examined all of her e-mails as a routine step.

“When you get involved in a cybercase like this, you have to look at everything,” the official said, suggesting that Ms. Kelley may not have considered that possibility when she filed the complaint. “The real question is why someone decided to open this can of worms.”

The official would not describe the content of the e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley or say specifically why F.B.I. officials had decided to pass them on to the Defense Department. “Generally, the nature of the e-mails warranted providing them to D.O.D.,” he said.

Under military law, adultery can be a crime.

The defense official on Mr. Panetta’s plane said that General Allen, who is also married, told Pentagon officials that he had done nothing wrong. Neither he nor Ms. Kelley, who is also married with children, could be reached for comment early Tuesday. Mr. Panetta’s statement praised General Allen for his leadership in Afghanistan and said, “He is entitled to due process in this matter.”

A senior Defense Department official said General Allen had denied having an extramarital affair with Ms. Kelley. But the official said the content of some of the e-mails “was of a flirtatious nature.”

“Some were of an affectionate nature,” the official said, adding that it was unclear whether the flirtatiousness expressed was from General Allen to Ms. Kelley, from Ms. Kelley to General Allen, or mutual.

“That is what makes the e-mails potentially inappropriate,” he said.

The official said that he had not read the e-mails, but had been briefed on the content, and that they did not contain anything inappropriate regarding operations or security.

But there were conflicting assessments of the content of the e-mails. Associates of General Allen said that the e-mails were of an innocuous nature. Some of the e-mails, these associates said, used terms of endearment, but not in a flirtatious way.

Pentagon officials cautioned against making too much of the number of documents, since some might be from e-mail chains, or brief messages printed out on a whole page.

The Pentagon inspector general’s investigation opens up what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Mr. Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military and became director of the C.I.A., only to resign on Friday because of the affair, and General Allen, who also served in Iraq and now commands 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

Although General Allen will remain the commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Panetta said that he had asked President Obama to delay the general’s nomination to be the commander of American forces in Europe and the supreme allied commander of NATO, two positions he was to move into after what was expected to be easy confirmation by the Senate. Mr. Panetta said in his statement that Mr. Obama agreed with his request.

Scott Shane and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 13, 2012

One reference in an earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the former director of the C.I.A. It is Gen. David H. Petraeus, not Petreaus.

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