Drive-by shooting causes 4 deaths in Dom Republic (AP)

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic ? Two men driving in the Dominican Republic's capital have been slain in a gun attack, and the driver lost control of his car and crashed into a small truck, killing an adult and a child.

Police in the Caribbean nation say the two men who were shot to death in a drive-by shooting Tuesday had criminal records and were in a government car that had been reported stolen.

No one has been arrested.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_dominican_republic_shooting

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GROWING AREAS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE JOBS

Customer service jobs?are the best option for people who do not wish to continue on to higher education and for individuals who really thrive in a social environment. Customer service jobs require some proficiency with computers or cash registers, patience, a pleasant disposition, and the ability to communicate effectively. For many people, customer service jobs can be a stepping stone to higher level positions after several years of experience.

?Here are several growing areas for customer service jobs where you?re likely to find ample opportunities:

Call Center Customer Care Representatives: You can make about $30,460 a year if you are proficient with computers and don?t mind a full day of talking on the phone. You?ll be responsible for handling customer complaints, billing issues, and may be involved in technological troubleshooting.

?Technical Support Representatives: You can make $26,000 to $75,000, depending on where you work and what your responsibilities are. You?ll be guiding customer through technical problems ? either remotely or out on the road doing house calls. Many people start in lower level call center positions and work their way up.

Customer Service Managers: Salaries range from $25,000 to $75,000 for these customer service jobs, depending on the industry. On the lower end of the spectrum are restaurants and retail, while Information Technology Services and food manufacturing account for some of the higher salaries. These managers oversee escalated customer disputes, train customer service reps and oversee day-to-day operations.

Source: http://www.forhirejobs.com/blog/growing-areas-for-customer-service-jobs/

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Green Holiday: Gifts For An Eco-Friendly Season

The Green Toys EcoSaucer

Green Dad's always been a sucker for flying discs and frisbees, and this particular Green Toys saucer comes in a very nifty shade of lime. At a price you can't beat ($6.99 with free shipping, a low by $3) from aSavings via Buy.com, and made from 100% recycled plastic grocery bags, this model soars above the rest for its love of Mother Earth. It weighs about 130 grams, and it sure beats trying to make your own disc out of those pesky grocery bags.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/26/eco-friendly-toys-green-holiday_n_1110657.html

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In unprecedented step, Arab League sanctions Syria (AP)

BEIRUT ? In an unprecedented move against an Arab nation, the Arab League on Sunday approved economic sanctions on Syria to pressure Damascus to end its deadly suppression of an 8-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

But even as world leaders abandon Assad, the regime has refused to ease a military assault on dissent that already has killed more than 3,500 people. On Sunday, Damascus slammed the sanctions as a betrayal of Arab solidarity and insisted a foreign conspiracy was behind the revolt, all but assuring more bloodshed will follow.

The sanctions are among the clearest signs yet of the isolation Syria is suffering because of the crackdown. Damascus has long boasted of being a powerhouse of Arab nationalism, but Assad has been abandoned by some of his closest allies and now his Arab neighbors. The growing movement against his regime could transform some of the most enduring alliances in the Middle East and beyond.

At a news conference in Cairo, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim said 19 of the League's 22 member nations approved a series of tough punishments that include cutting off transactions with the Syrian central bank, halting Arab government funding for projects in Syria and freezing government assets. Those sanctions are to take effect immediately.

Other steps, including halting flights and imposing travel bans on some, as-yet unnamed Syrian officials, will come later after a committee reviews them.

"The Syrian people are being killed but we don't want this. Every Syrian official should not accept killing even one person," bin Jassim said. "Power is worth nothing while you stand as an enemy to your people."

He added that the League aims to "to avoid any suffering for the Syrian people."

Iraq and Lebanon ? important trading partners for Syria ? abstained from the vote, which came after Damascus missed an Arab League deadline to agree to allow hundreds of observers into the country as part of a peace deal Syria agreed to early this month to end the crisis.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said the bloc will reconsider the sanctions if Syria carries out the Arab-brokered plan, which includes pulling tanks from the streets and ending violence against civilians.

The regime, however, has shown no signs of easing its crackdown, and activist groups said more than 30 people were killed Sunday. The death toll was impossible to confirm. Syria has banned most foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting inside the country.

The Local Coordinating Committees, a coalition of Syrian activist groups, praised the sanctions but called for a mechanism to ensure compliance.

"The sanctions leave open the opportunity for the regime to commit fraud and strip the sanctions of any substance, thereby prolonging the suffering of the Syrian people at the hands of an oppressive and brutal regime," the group said.

The Arab League move is the latest in a growing wave of international pressure pushing Damascus to end its crackdown. The European Union and the United States already have imposed sanctions, the League has suspended Syria's membership and world leaders increasingly are calling on Assad to go. But as the crisis drags on, the violence appears to be spiraling out of control as attacks by army defectors increase and some protesters take up arms to protect themselves.

Syria has seen the bloodiest crackdown against the Arab Spring's eruption of protests, and has descended into a deadly grind. Though internationally isolated, Assad appears to have a firm grip on power with the loyalty of most of the armed forces, which in the past months have moved from city to city to put down uprisings. In each place, however, protests have resumed.

The escalating bloodshed has raised fears of civil war ? a worst-case scenario in a country that is a geographical and political keystone in the heart of the Middle East.

Syria borders five countries with whom it shares religious and ethnic minorities and, in Israel's case, a fragile truce. Its web of allegiances extends to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy. Chaos in Syria could send unsettling ripples across the region.

For now, Assad still has a strong bulwark to prevent his meeting the same fate as the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia or Libya anytime soon. His key advantages are the support of Russia and China, fear among many Syrians about a future without Assad, and the near-certainty that foreign militaries will stay away.

But the unrest is eviscerating the economy, threatening the business community and prosperous merchant classes that are key to propping up the regime. An influential bloc, the business leaders have long traded political freedoms for economic privileges.

The opposition has tried to rally these largely silent, but hugely important, sectors of society. But Assad's opponents have failed so far to galvanize support in Damascus and Aleppo ? the two economic centers in Syria.

Sunday's sanctions, however, could chip away at their resolve.

Since the revolt began, the regime has blamed the bloodshed on terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to divide and undermine Syria. The bloodshed has laid bare Syria's long-simmering sectarian tensions, with disturbing reports of Iraq-style sectarian killings.

Syria is an overwhelmingly Sunni country of 22 million, but Assad and the ruling elite belong to the minority Alawite sect. Assad, and his father before him, stacked key military posts with Alawites to meld the fates of the army and the regime ? a tactic aimed at compelling the army to fight to the death to protect the Assad family dynasty.

Until recently, most of the bloodshed was caused by security forces firing on mainly peaceful protests. Lately, there have been growing reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting Assad's forces ? a development that some say plays into the regime's hands by giving government troops a pretext to crack down with overwhelming force.

___

Youssef reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Adam Schreck contributed from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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Occupy LA stands out for camp-city cooperation (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? When Occupy LA demonstrators recently proclaimed a downtown intersection "our street," police watched as annoyed drivers honked horns and tried to maneuver around gyrating protesters. Officers only moved in after the third intersection takeover ? telling protesters they had to quit or face arrest. The activists turned around and marched back to camp chanting slogans.

That hasn't happened in some other cities and may not have been possible in Los Angeles that long ago.

Occupy LA, a 485-tent camp surrounding City Hall, has marched to a different beat in its drum circle after protesters, police and city officials established a relationship based on dialogues instead of dictates.

As camps in other cities degenerated into unrest that led to mass arrests, Occupy LA has remained largely a peaceful commune. Police arrive on site only when called in to investigate petty crimes. Marches have resulted in only about five spontaneous arrests ? the other 70 or so involved protesters who deliberately got arrested to make a political statement.

City leaders are now hoping for a peaceful end to the 7-week-old camp, announcing Wednesday that protesters will be given a 72-hour deadline to leave sometime next week, a tactic that stands in stark contrast to middle-of-the-night police raids used in other cities.

"Los Angeles has had a real history of heavy-handed tactics with police," said Richard Weinblatt, a police procedures expert and former police chief. "They're taking a very good approach with this. It's a good political sign."

The hands-off strategy perhaps underscores the liberal leanings of a city that has often been known for counterculture movements. But it marks a departure for a police force still striving to emerge from the shadow of the 1991 beating of Rodney King, the Rampart corruption scandal of the late '90s, and more recently, the 2007 crackdown at an immigrants rights rally in which demonstrators and reporters were injured with batons and rubber bullets.

This time, even before the first tent was set up on the City Hall lawn, Jim Lafferty, a lawyer who has been representing Occupy LA, said Police Chief Charlie Beck assured him protesters would be left alone if they remained peaceful. Beck promised no surprise raids would be carried out, said Lafferty, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild's Los Angeles chapter.

Elected city leaders initially embraced the campers. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa handed out plastic ponchos one rainy day. The City Council passed a resolution to support Occupy LA. Officials found an alternate site for a farmers market that the camp displaced.

Protesters have done their part to cooperate. They've readily complied with health inspectors' demands for more portable toilets, trash pickup and food sanitation. They've also worked to tamp down anarchist inciters in the camp who want to provoke authorities, as well as activists with hot tempers.

On one march, when two protesters started an argument that appeared ready to flame into fisticuffs, marchers started yelling at the instigator to "focus" and "keep to the mission."

Organizers have implored riled crowds to keep within the peaceful guidelines of the group and to return to camp when threatened with arrest.

Occupiers say they realize violence is not going to win any points in their struggle for greater economic equality and could alienate many supporters.

"What is most important is that we win the hearts and minds of the people of this city," said organizer Mario Brito. "We're all going to have to remain non-violent."

Police, meanwhile, have held off making arrests while giving protesters ample time to make their statement through civil disobedience, such as lying on the sidewalk in front of a Bank of America branch.

They've negotiated with organizers, sometimes for hours, to end actions without arrest, and assigned veteran detectives, clad in riot helmets, to man front lines against protesters instead of younger officers who may be more prone to act rashly when baited with name-calling.

Police Cmdr. Andrew Smith said officers have set out to build trust.

"We really worked hard to establish a dialogue with people at the camp," he said. "We have a command-level officer assigned to it every day. I'm over there three, four times a day, sometimes just to address rumors."

While acknowledging that violence has been avoided in Los Angeles, some question the precedent set by official leniency.

"You have these people staying out weeks at a time, and police let them break the law. They're encouraged to go further," said John Hawkins, who has tracked the Occupy movement in his blog Right Wing News. "The government has to enforce the law."

Occupy LA has found a powerful ally that holds a lot of sway in City Hall: labor unions. The Service Employees International Union and others have turned out hundreds of people to several marches, giving the Occupy movement needed credibility and numbers. The unions even adopted tents as a protest symbol.

Union leaders have been instrumental in persuading Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer, to hold off on acting against the camp, said Peter Dreier, politics professor at Occidental College.

In conjunction with that, city leaders have had few vocal opponents against Occupy LA, which is located in an area of Los Angeles that comprises almost all government buildings, he noted. In some other cities, such as New York, complaining residents and businesses mounted pressure on officials to clear out the tents.

But as Occupy Los Angeles entered its seventh week with no end in sight, the dialogue started getting strained.

City Hall still made friendly overtures, trying to make a deal with the activists by offering them 10,000 square feet of office space and empty lots for a garden if they would pack up their tents. Fallout after the proposal was made public caused the deal to be rescinded.

On Wednesday, city leaders took a tougher stance: The camp must go the following week, but police said they would give protesters a 72-hour deadline to pack up or face arrest. Even then, remaining protesters will be given two opportunities to change their mind before they are placed in handcuffs.

"No one else has seen fit to do it like this around the country," Lafferty said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_us/us_occupy_la_the_camp

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US student says he was beaten after Cairo arrest

Derrik Sweeney, 19, of Jefferson City, Mo., smiles as he walks with his mother, Joy Sweeney, center, and sister Ashley Sweeney after arriving at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, in St. Louis. Derrik Sweeney and two other American students were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square in Cairo last Sunday, accused of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. On Thursday, a court ordered the three to be released. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Derrik Sweeney, 19, of Jefferson City, Mo., smiles as he walks with his mother, Joy Sweeney, center, and sister Ashley Sweeney after arriving at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, in St. Louis. Derrik Sweeney and two other American students were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square in Cairo last Sunday, accused of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. On Thursday, a court ordered the three to be released. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Derrik Sweeney, center, gets hugs from his father Kevin Sweeney, left, and sister Ashley, right, as arms from his mother, Joy Sweeney, wrap around from behind after Derrik arrived at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, in St. Louis. Sweeney and two other American students were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square in Cairo last Sunday, accused of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. On Thursday, a court ordered the three to be released. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Derrik Sweeney, center, gets hugs from his father Kevin Sweeney, left, and sister Ashley, right, after Derrik arrived at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, in St. Louis. Sweeney and two other American students were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square in Cairo last Sunday, accused of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. On Thursday, a court ordered the three to be released. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Derrik Sweeney, left, walks with, from left to right, his mother, Joy Sweeney, sister Ashley Sweeney and father Kevin Sweeney after arriving at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, in St. Louis. Sweeney and two other American students were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square in Cairo last Sunday, accused of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. On Thursday, a court ordered the three to be released. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Derrik Sweeney, center, gets hugs from his father Kevin Sweeney, left, and sister Ashley, right, as arms from his mother, Joy Sweeney, wrap around from behind after Derrik arrived at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, Nov. 26, 2011, in St. Louis. Sweeney and two other American students were arrested on the roof of a university building near Tahrir Square in Cairo last Sunday, accused of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters. On Thursday, a court ordered the three to be released. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Forced to lie still for hours in the dark, the American students held during protests in Egypt were told they would be shot if they moved or made any noise, one of them said Sunday on his first full day home.

"It was the most frightening experience of my life, I believe," Derrik Sweeney said.

Speaking to The Associated Press by Skype from Jefferson City, Mo., Sweeney said the evening of Nov. 20 started peacefully in Cairo, with Tahrir Square "abuzz with ideas of democracy and freedom."

The three wandered the streets and wound up in a large group of protesters outside the Interior Ministory, Sweeney said. The demonstrations escalated, with the protesters yelling and perhaps throwing stones, he said.

"Eventually the police shot back something, I'm not exactly sure what," he said. "We didn't wait to see. But as soon as we saw some sort of firing coming from the gun and heard it, the whole crowd stampeded out and we sprinted away."

He said they fled to an area that seemed calmer and were approached by four or five Egyptians in plain clothes.

The Egyptians offered to lead them to safety but instead took them into custody, Sweeney said.

They were threatened to be force-fed gasoline, beaten and forced to lie in a near-fetal position in the dark for six hours with their hands in cuffs behind their backs, Sweeney said. He said they were told: "If you move or make any noise, we will shoot you."

"They were hitting us in the face and in the back of the neck," he said. "Not to the point of bleeding or I can't say I have any lasting major scars at this point, but they were hitting us."

Sweeney is 19 and studies at Georgetown University. He was arrested along with Luke Gates, 21, who attends Indiana University and is from Bloomington, Ind., and Gregory Porter, 19, who studies at Drexel University and is from Glenside, Pa.

The students flew home Saturday after an Egyptian court ordered their release two days earlier. The three were studying abroad at American University in Cairo, which is near Tahrir Square.

A popular uprising earlier this year forced out Egypt's longtime autocratic leader, Hosni Mubarak. But the democratic age that Egyptians hoped for has not followed. The military is in control, and protesters want it to hand power to civilians.

At least 43 protesters have been killed since Nov. 19 and 2,000 wounded, most of them in Cairo. Landmark parliamentary elections will start Monday.

Egyptian officials said they arrested the three students on the roof of a university building and accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.

But Sweeney denies doing anything to harm anyone and said he and the other Americans weren't ever on the roof or handling or throwing explosives.

"I don't know where that rooftop idea actually came from," he said. "We were never on a rooftop, we never entered a building. The American University campus building on that street where we were arrested ? there were a lot of people that had broken in there, it was swarmed with protesters ? but we were not on there. We were on a street."

In an earlier telephone interview with the AP after he arrived at St. Louis' international airport, Sweeney said he and the other students' treatment improved dramatically after the first night. He spoke with a U.S. Embassy official, his mother and a lawyer. He said he denied the accusations during what he called proper questioning by Egyptian authorities.

"There was really marked treatment between the first night and the next three nights or however long it was," Sweeney said. "After that first night, we were treated in a just manner ... we were given food when we needed, and it was OK."

The students took separate flights out of Egypt, and Porter and Gates declined to recount details of their experience after arriving in Philadelphia and Indianapolis, respectively.

"I'm not going to take this as a negative experience. It's still a great country," Gates said.

Porter said only that he was thankful for the help he and the others received from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, administrators at the university they were attending, and attorneys in Egypt and the U.S.

"I'm just so thankful to be back, to be in Philadelphia right now," he said.

___

Associated Press photographers Jeff Roberson in St. Louis and Michael Conroy in Indianapolis contributed to this report. AP writers Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia, Bill Cormier in Atlanta and Andale Gross and Erin Gartner in Chicago also contributed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-27-Egypt-American%20Students/id-7ec94c30358f43f291cd66e974c787b4

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