Bob Dylan charged in France over Croat comments..

   

US legend Bob Dylan performs on stage during the 21st edition of the Vieilles Charrues music festival on July 22, 2012 in Carhaix-Plouguer, western France (AFP Photo/Fred Tanneau)

 

Paris (AFP) - Bob Dylan has been charged with insulting behaviour and incitement to hatred in France after a Croat group filed a complaint about an interview he gave to Rolling Stone magazine, a judicial source said Monday.

The American singer was questioned and charged in mid-November after the group complained about the interview, in which he allegedly compared the relationship between Jews and Nazis to that of Serbs and Croats.
The Council of Croats in France (CRICCF) had filed the complaint a year ago over an analogy he made in the 2012 interview while discussing race relations in the United States.
"This country is just too fucked up about colour.... People at each other's throats just because they are of a different colour," Dylan told Rolling Stone.
"Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery -- that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that.
"If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."
Last month, the 72-year-old music legend picked up France's Legion d'Honneur award, which can be granted to any foreigner seen as having served France's interests or upheld its values.
It was French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti who suggested that "the man (Barack) Obama himself calls the greatest American musician in history" should be decorated.
A representative of Dylan's label said he was not aware of the proceedings against the star, while the CRICCF refused to immediately comment.
Croatia and Serbia fought after the breakup of Yugoslavia in a 1991-1995 war that left around 20,000 people dead.
Croatians are very sensitive when mentioned in a Nazi-related context.
Their previous stab at statehood came during World War II with the so-called Independent State of Croatia. The Nazi-allied Ustasha regime killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians in their death camps.
The most notorious was Jasenovac, also known as Croatia's Auschwitz.
To this day, the number of people killed in Jasenovac -- mostly Serbs -- is contentious. Estimates vary from 80,000 according to the Croatian government to 700,000 according to Serbian figures.
Many Croatians fought in the partisan movement, whose leader was Croatian-born former Yugoslavian president Josip Broz Tito.
Since Croatia declared independence in 1991, some groups have attempted to rehabilitate aspects of the Ustasha regime. Its supporters are sometimes seen in football stadiums giving the Nazi salute.
Last month FIFA launched a probe against international defender Josip Simunic for appearing to lead fans into Ustasha-era chants after his team qualified for the World Cup.
Dylan, who played back-to-back concerts in Serbia and Croatia in 2010, rose to prominence in the 1960s partly for his support of the US civil rights movement.
Obama, the United States' first black president, last year awarded Dylan America's highest civilian honour -- the Presidential Medal of Freedom -- and said: "There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music."

Survivors recall Kindertransport flight from Nazis..

 

In this Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2013 photo, Oscar Findling, 91, who was brought to England by Kindertransport from Germany to escape Nazi persecution, sits at his home in London. The operation was called Kindertransport - Children’s Transport - and it was a passage from hell to freedom. Kristallnacht had just rocked Nazi Germany. The pogroms killed dozens of Jews, burned hundreds of synagogues and imprisoned tens of thousands in concentration camps. Many historians see them as the start of Hitler’s Final Solution. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

LONDON (AP) — The operation was called Kindertransport — Children's Transport — and it was a passage from hell to freedom.

Kristallnacht had just rocked Nazi Germany. The pogroms killed dozens of Jews, burned hundreds of synagogues and imprisoned tens of thousands in concentration camps. Many historians see them as the start of Hitler's Final Solution.
Amid the horror, Britain agreed to take in children threatened by the Nazi murder machine.
Seventy-five years ago this week, the first group of kids arrived without their parents at the English port of Harwich, and took a train to London's Liverpool Street Station.
Some 10,000 children, most but not all Jewish, would escape the Nazis in the months to come — until the outbreak of war in September 1939, when the borders were closed.
From London the children went to homes and hostels across Britain. But their parents — the few that eventually made it over — were placed in camps as "enemy aliens."
Many of the children settled in Britain, having found their families wiped out by the Nazis.
Monday is World Kindertransport Day, with events to mark the anniversary in many countries. These are the stories of five Kinder in their own words. The AP has removed some sentences for purposes of condensing their accounts.
OSCAR FINDLING, 91
My father was not a German citizen. On the night before Kristallnacht, he was arrested by the Gestapo.
That was the last I saw of my father.
As soon as we found out (about the Kindertransport), my mother went to where the committee was and put my name down. She wouldn't put my brother down because, she said, "I don't want to lose both my sons on one day."
I'll never forget the last words my mother said: "Will I ever see you again?"
Prophetic words.
I was two years in a hostel in Manchester. The committee got me a job in a fur shop. Once I was over 18 I was allowed to go to London. In 1944 I got papers from the Ministry of Labor that I had to go in the army.
It took me 30 years to get my parents' story together. Basically they were put in the ghetto in 1941 and in September 1942 ... they were all put on the cattle trains. They were sent to a place called Belzec, which was one of the well-known gas chambers near Treblinka.
And that was that.
___
Already 16 when he arrived in June 1939, Findling, who grew up in the eastern German city of Leipzig, is the oldest surviving Kind. After a career in garment manufacturing, he now lives with his second wife in London.
___
HERBERT LEVY, 84
My parents had tried to get out of Germany for many years but it was very difficult to get into anywhere until the British government allowed children to come on the Kindertransport. My parents applied, and by pure luck I was one of the chosen ones. I was not yet 10 years old.
My parents took me to the station. I said goodbye to my grandparents. My grandfather was to die a few weeks later. My grandmother was one of the 6 million people who died in the extermination camps, with her two sisters, many cousins, many nephews and nieces.
We finally arrived at the border. You can't imagine the relief of being in Holland, to have passed Nazi Germany.
It was fantastic to feel free at last.
___
Levy came from Berlin via the Netherlands in June 1939. Months later, his parents joined him. They were interned in a British camp for "enemy aliens." Levy recalls being greeted with chants of 'Bloody Germans!' ("This was quite amazing for me," he said, "because I had been shouted at as 'bloody Jew' until recently.") Levy went on to become an actor. His wife, Lillian, survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
___
THE REV. FRANCIS WAHLE, 84
Hitler marched into Austria in March 1938. Until that time I was just an ordinary Catholic. I then discovered that I was Jewish as far as Hitler was concerned, because all my four grandparents were Jewish. My parents tried to get us out. As we had relations in Italy the first attempt was to get us out to Italy, but they never got all the right papers. So we started learning English.
I was 9 ½ at the time. It was dreary that journey through Germany until we came to the Dutch border and then the ladies provided the kids with soft drinks and a bit of cake.
My sister and I were split up. I was very lucky. I was taken to a place in Sussex. A lady had let the committee have her very large place for the refugees.
I stayed there until 1940. At that time a new regulation came in that enemy aliens — and of course we were classed as enemy aliens — were not allowed to be within so many miles of the coast because we might be spies. And so we had to leave. I was taken on for free by the Jesuits in a boarding school.
Having escaped death really, and my parents having escaped death, it's made me immensely grateful to God, and I suppose the fact of becoming a priest is the result of that.
___
Wahle and his younger sister Anna left Vienna in January 1939. He was an accountant before studying for the priesthood. Although now retired from his parish, he still works as a priest. Wahle's parents fled their home as the Gestapo came to arrest them; they went underground, living without papers for three years. Wahle's father went on to become the most senior judge in Austria.
___
RUTH BARNETT, 78
I was only 4 when I came to England so I have snatches of memory. My dad was a judge in Berlin. He was summarily sacked when the Nazis came into power in 1933. He did get out and he went to Shanghai, which was awful because of the war between Japan and China.
Our mother came with us on the train because being a proper Aryan German she could get a visa. So I experienced it as a family outing. I remember saying, "Are we nearly there? Are we nearly there?"
My mother had to go back (to Germany). She would have been an enemy once war broke out. She brought us to our first foster family, which was a vicar and his wife in Kent. The vicar was a lovely man but his wife obviously didn't want refugees foisted on her. She was very cruel to us.
The second foster family ... had five children and they treated us exactly the same as their children. But where we were living there was in the path of the doodlebugs, and that absolutely fazed (my brother) Martin. So we had to be moved. Our third family was on a farm. I was in seventh heaven with the animals.
I had no nationality for the first 18 years of my life. The Nazis ... took away citizenship from all the Jews and Gypsies. I had to travel on a document that was a sheet of paper with "person of no nationality" written across the top. It had such a deep effect on me.
___
Barnett's father was Jewish but her mother was not. She arrived in February 1939 with her older brother Martin. Having worked as a psychotherapist, she speaks today in schools about the Holocaust and seeks to highlight the fate not only of Jews but also of the hundreds of thousands of Gypsies killed by Hitler.
___
EVE WILLMAN, 80
I was 5 when I came. My father was a doctor. My mother converted to Judaism when she married my father.
I came with another girl who was older than me. The only thing I remember about the journey is stopping at one point and people coming in and giving us a sweet drink. I don't remember saying goodbye to my parents.
I went to the first foster home — a Unitarian minister and his wife. They didn't have any children. I remember that she was very strict and precise.
After a year they couldn't keep me anymore and so I went to the next foster home ... to an extremely nice family. But one of my uncles who had been a rabbi was most concerned that I didn't have any Jewish instruction. And so I went to another family. It was not such a nice family.
My uncle and aunt were then established in West Hartlepool. I went there for a holiday. It was such a wonderful turning point in my life somehow. My aunt said, "when you come back, you will be with us forever." I was 11. I became one of their children. My cousins became my brother and sister.
My father survived the war. My mother was able to work and she worked in a factory, and the factory was bombed. She was killed just before the end of the war so I never saw her again.
It was really a wonderful thing that the government did to let 10,000 children in who probably would have lost their lives.
But it's happening again. It isn't happening to Jews, but look at the children in Syria.
___

Willman, an only child, arrived from Vienna in April 1939. She later obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry and worked as a researcher and biology teacher. She lives in London and has never married.

'Cyber Monday' sales set to hit record: analysts..

A worker gathers items for delivery from the warehouse floor at Amazon's distribution center in Phoenix, …By Dhanya Skariachan and Phil Wahba

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. online sales are expected to hit $2 billion on "Cyber Monday," for the first time since the data firm comScore has been tracking such information.
A 20 percent increase is expected to come even after many consumers shopped earlier when retailers started offering their "Cyber Monday" deals on Sunday.
As of 12 p.m. EST, online sales were up 21.4 percent on "Cyber Monday," according to IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.
The growth is not just a boon for online retailer Amazon.com Inc. Bricks-and- mortar chains that have successfully integrated their e-commerce and in-store businesses also stand to gain from the online growth.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Target Corp, Toys R Us, Macy's Inc, J.C. Penney Co Inc and Best Buy Co Inc were among the brick-and-mortar chains that started their online deals early.
"All of them are behind Amazon, but some are starting to catch up," said Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarbrough.
"Cyber Monday" is the busiest day of the year for online sales and follows the Thanksgiving weekend that kicks off the peak holiday shopping season.
To compete with each other and Amazon, many U.S. retailers began offering some of the season's best online deals, which were traditionally reserved for the Monday after Thanksgiving, several days ago.
That helped overall online sales from Thanksgiving through Sunday rise 14.5 percent in 2013 over the same period last year, data from IBM showed.
"The earlier offering of deals online may weigh on Cyber Monday and, interestingly, some retailers are offering a worse deal on Cyber Monday than they had over the earlier period," said Nomura analyst Simeon Siegel.
U.S. shoppers spent almost 3 percent less than they did a year earlier during the Thanksgiving weekend, according to the National Retail Federation data. But online sales rose 17.3 percent on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, outpacing sales growth at brick-and-mortar stores, data from comScore Inc showed.
The S&P Retail Index was down 0.4 percent Monday afternoon.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan and Phil Wahba; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

Karzai accuses U.S. of cutting Afghan military supplies...

        

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused his U.S. ally on Sunday of withholding military supplies to press him to sign a bilateral security deal that will shape the U.S. military presence after most foreign troops leave in 2014.
Washington, which swiftly denied the assertion, has said that unless the pact is signed promptly, it could pull out most of its troops, as it did in Iraq two years ago.
"The cutting of fuel supplies and support services to the Afghan army and police is being used as a means of pressure to ensure Afghanistan ... signs the Bilateral Security Agreement," a statement from Karzai's palace said.
Karzai said last week he might refuse to sign the deal until after Afghanistan's presidential election in April 2014.
U.S. officials said logistical problems in Pakistan might have given rise to the alleged delays in deliveries.
"There has been no stoppage in the delivery of requested fuel and we continue to process all orders as soon as they are received," the NATO-led force in Afghanistan said in a statement.
Karzai's relationship with the United States has worsened since he invited thousands of elders to vote on the security deal last week and then ignored their advice, which was to sign it promptly.
Even after the pact's terms were settled after about a year of wrangling, Karzai has since added conditions that include the release of all Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and an end to military operations involving Afghan homes.
On Thursday Karzai denounced his Western allies for bombing an Afghan home and killing a child, an accusation the NATO-led force has promised to investigate.
If the bilateral pact is not signed, Western aid running to billions of dollars will be in jeopardy and confidence in the fragile economy could collapse amid fears that Afghanistan will slip back into ethnic fighting or civil war.
Diplomats said Karzai may have overplayed his hand, raising the risk of a complete U.S. withdrawal from a country where Western troops have fought Taliban militants for the past 12 years. Karzai's domestic critics say he is playing a dangerous game with Afghanistan's future security.
The decade-long security deal would mandate the size and shape of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan once the NATO combat mission ends next year. Without it, the United States would be unable to keep troops in Afghanistan, and most other nations would be likely to withdraw theirs too.
Afghanistan faces a potent Taliban insurgency and is still training its own military.
(Writing by Jessica Donati and Dylan Welch; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Canadian police arrest Toronto man on suspicion of spying for China...

 

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By Janet Guttsman

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian police have arrested a Toronto man suspected of seeking to give China classified information about Canadian shipbuilding procurement policies, security officials said on Sunday.
Jennifer Strachan, a chief superintendent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told a news conference that Canadian citizen Qing Quentin Huang, 53, faced two charges of attempting to communicate with a foreign entity.
"On Thursday the RCMP was informed that the accused was taking steps to pass on information of a classified nature to China," she told a rare weekend news conference.
"In these types of cases, sharing of information may give a foreign entity a tactical, military or competitive advantage by knowing the specifications of vessels responsible for defending Canadian waters and Canadian sovereignty."
Strachan said Huang, who was arrested on Saturday, had worked for a subcontractor involved in ship design. She declined to say what information Huang had tried to provide to China, but said there was no threat to public safety.
Canada has had a complicated relationship with China, with official efforts to boost trade and improve business ties at times conflicting with deep concern about the role that Chinese state-owned entities should be allowed to have in Canada.
Canada last year allowed state-owned energy company CNOOC Ltd to buy up domestic energy producer Nexen Inc, but made clear that it would not allow further purchases of domestic oil sands companies by state-owned enterprises.
Huang was arrested just days after Canada's official spending watchdog said the government has underestimated the costs of a multibillion-dollar naval shipbuilding plan and will either have to build fewer ships or settle for vessels with fewer capabilities than it initially planned.
The new ships will play an important role as Canada asserts sovereignty claims in the Arctic, a disputed region that is rich in energy and mineral resources.
The news conference announcing Huang's arrest involved officials from many Canadian security agencies, including several police forces, border services and the secretive spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
The Toronto resident, who police said appeared to have been acting alone, will appear in court for a bail hearing on Wednesday. The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)

Teargas flies in Cairo as constitution takes shape...

                   

By Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces fired teargas in Cairo's Tahrir Square to disperse anti-government protesters on Sunday, as a new constitution that reinforces the military's political power edged closer to approval.
The draft constitution reflects how the balance of power has shifted in Egypt since secular-minded generals deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July after mass protests against him. It contains language that could ban Islamist parties outright.
A major milestone in Egypt's political roadmap, the constitution must be approved in a referendum before new elections, which Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, driven underground by security measures and a legal ban, is unlikely to contest.
"The people want to topple the regime," chanted several hundred protesters who descended on Tahrir Square, epicenter of the 2011 uprising against autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.
Though it only lasted about half an hour before security forces acted, it appeared to be the biggest protest by Brotherhood sympathizers in Tahrir since Mursi's fall. "With our blood and souls we sacrifice for you, Islam," chanted some.

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Leading member of the Islamic Jama'a Assem Abdel Maged (L) gestures with other leaders during a prot …

One scaled a lamp post where he hung a picture of Mursi. Others flashed the four-finger hand sign denoting sympathy with the hundreds of Mursi supporters shot dead by the security forces when they broke up their Cairo sit-ins on August 14.
Some of the protesters said they were not from the Brotherhood. "I want Sisi out and a real end to army rule," said Ramez Ibrahim, 32, a professor of political science, referring to armed forces chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Army vehicles moved in to drive the demonstrators away and later sealed off the square completely. Some passersby shouted abuse at the protesters, others waved in support. Earlier, protesters set a police truck ablaze near Cairo University.
The government says it is determined to implement a law passed last week that heavily restricts protests. Criticized by the United States, the law has hardened fears of pro-democracy campaigners about the future of political freedoms in Egypt.
One of two leading secular activists detained for calling protests in defiance of the law was released on Sunday.

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Egyptians cut a Qatari flag during a protest against what they say is Qatar's backing of ousted Egyp …

The 2011 Tahrir Square uprising awoke hopes of a new era of freedom in the most populous Arab nation. But three years of turmoil have made many Egyptians yearn for stability.
Sisi is seen as an army strongman and a front-runner for the presidency, though he has yet to declare his candidacy.
ASSEMBLY VOTES ON CONSTITUTION
Mursi's fall set off the bloodiest bout of internal strife in Egypt's modern history, with hundreds of his partisans killed and armed attacks on the security forces becoming commonplace.
Some 200 policemen and soldiers have been killed in what the military-backed government casts as a war on terrorism. The Brotherhood says it is peacefully resisting the army takeover.

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An Egyptian woman gestures during a protest against what they say is Qatar's backing of ousted Egypt …

A few hundred meters (yards) from Tahrir Square, the 50-member constituent assembly was voting on the draft constitution whose provisions include a ban on parties formed on a religious basis. Islamists have won all post-Mubarak national votes.
The assembly, chaired by former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, voted against five of the document's 247 articles, including one requiring parliamentary polls to be held before a presidential vote.
Some assembly members had called for presidential elections to be held before parliamentary ones, citing the weakness of secular political parties. The assembly, which is working to a December 3 deadline, was to redraft the provision later on Sunday.
The draft constitution widens the already broad privileges enjoyed by the army by requiring the approval of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces for the choice of a defense minister to serve for eight years from when the document is ratified.
It does not indicate how the minister of defense could be sacked or who has the authority to fire him.

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Egyptian women shout slogans during a protest against what they say is Qatar's backing of ousted Egy …

The new constitution will replace one drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly and signed into law by Mursi last year after it was approved in a referendum. The new text strips out Islamist-inspired additions introduced last year.
The Nour Party, an ultra-conservative Islamist party that backed Mursi's ouster, has described the draft as "satisfying".
"CONSTITUTION OF MINORITIES"
But one Mursi ally, Gamaa Islamiya leader Assem Abdel Maged, said it was a "constitution of minorities", and that the army had driven Egypt to the "edge of a precipice".
Speaking from exile in Qatar, the hardline Islamist said the army had sided with religious and social minorities, a reference to Christians and secular-minded Egyptians.

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Constituent Assembly spokesman Mohamed Salmawy speaks at a news conference at the Shura Council in C …

Abdel Maged fled to Doha after Mursi fell and is the first-high profile Islamist exiled since then to speak publicly. He is wanted on charges of inciting the killing of protesters.
"The army must review its position quickly because the country is on the edge of a precipice," Abdel Maged told Al Jazeera TV late on Saturday. He predicted things would get worse in Egypt and said protests would "break this coup".
Abdel Maged, who once shared a prison cell with al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, was jailed for 25 years until 2006 for his role in the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and other crimes. After his Al Jazeera interview, Egypt's public prosecutor formally asked Interpol to arrest Abdel Maged.
Egyptian security officials said Abdel Maged had fled to Qatar by sea or via the border with Libya. Qatar is one of the few Arab states that was sympathetic to the Islamists during Mursi's year in power, supplying Egypt with billions of dollars in aid. Now relations between Qatar and Egypt are strained.
Abdel Maged, whose group fought an insurgency that was crushed by Mubarak in the 1990s, is still reviled as a terrorist by his foes. Gamaa Islamiya renounced violence a decade ago.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Asma Alsharif and Sayyed Shaesha; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Thai protesters step up action, PM forced to leave building...

 

Anti-government protesters take cover behind a barricade as Riot Policemen use water cannon during clashes …

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre

BANGKOK (Reuters) - About 30,000 protesters launched a "people's coup" on Thailand's government on Sunday, swarming state agencies in violent clashes, taking control of a state broadcaster and forcing the prime minister to flee a police compound.
But after a day of skirmishes between protesters hurling stones and petrol bombs against riot police firing back with teargas, the demonstrators failed to breach heavily barricaded Government House, office of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
"They haven't seized a single place," National Security Council Chief Paradorn Pattanathabutr told Reuters. "They go to different places and they go back out."
The protesters sowed chaos in one of Southeast Asia's biggest cities, breaching a police line, seizing seven police trucks, and forcing Yingluck to move to an undisclosed location from a building where she had planned to give media interviews.
Small fires burned from petrol bombs that landed by police trucks. Protesters pulled at barbed-wire barricades as others washed teargas from their eyes with bottled water.
It is the latest dramatic turn in a conflict pitting Bangkok's urban middle class and royalist elite against the mostly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her billionaire brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military coup.
The deep detonation of stun grenades, followed by the jeers of protesters, echoed across the historic government quarter, not far from the Khao San Road tourist area, after a chaotic night of gun and knife battles in east Bangkok in which three people were killed and at least 58 wounded.
Hospitals reported 46 people injured on Sunday.
Police spokesman Piya Utayo said troops would forcibly dislodge protesters who have occupied a government complex since Thursday and the Finance Ministry since Monday.
The government urged people in Bangkok, a metropolis of 10 million, to stay indoors from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

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An anti-government protester throws back a tear gas canister fired by riot police in Bangkok, Sunday …

"We ask people to not leave their homes for their safety so they will not become a victim of provocateurs," Deputy Prime Minister Pracha Promnok said in a televised address.
Earlier, Reuters journalists waiting to interview Yingluck in the police Narcotics Suppression Bureau were told by an aide she had left after protesters made it inside the outer compound of the Police Sports Club, where the bureau is located.
"Because of safety reasons we cannot disclose her location," Noppadom Pattama, Thaksin's lawyer, later told Reuters. Thaksin had urged the government to show restraint, he added. "The government must be the bigger person in this scenario."
Protesters massed in front of a police barricade outside Wat Benjamabhopit, also known as the Marble Temple. Police fired teargas as some tried to heave aside concrete barriers.
"I just want the people named Shinawatra to get on a plane and go somewhere - and please, don't come back," said Chatuporn Tirawongkusol, 33, whose family runs a Bangkok restaurant.
PETROL BOMBS
Outside the Metropolitan Police Bureau, about 3,000 protesters rallied, accusing riot-clad police of being manipulated by Thaksin, a former policeman who rose to become a telecommunications magnate before entering politics and winning back-to-back elections in 2001 and 2005.
The area around Government House was a scene of nearly non-stop skirmishes, as police fired teargas into a stone-throwing crowd chanting "Slaves! Slaves!" A Reuters photographer saw protesters hurl at least a dozen petrol bombs into police positions from Rajamangala University of Technology Phra Nakhorn across a canal from Government House.
There was a mixture of anger and anxiety among protesters occupying the university. Some wheeled garbage bins full of stones to hurl at police, while others worried about a late-night operation to clear the campus by force.
"It's not safe here," said Sumittra, 40, a government official who didn't want her full name used. "We don't know when they will attack us."
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban urged government workers to go on strike on Monday and called on television stations to stop broadcasting state news.
"We invite all Thais to join us and defend democracy," he said in a speech televised live on all almost every station, including state-owned Thai PBS which agreed to broadcast the speech after protesters surged into its compound.
Capping a week-long bid to topple Yingluck and end her family's more than decade-long influence over Thai politics, Suthep had urged supporters to seize government offices, television stations, police headquarters and the prime minister's offices in a "people's coup".
Suthep, a deputy prime minister in the previous Democrat-led government that Yingluck's party beat in a 2011 election, told supporters they had occupied 12 state agencies and brought a million people on the streets. Police said about 30,000 people joined the protest on Sunday, compared with 100,000 a week ago.
Yingluck, who become Thailand's first female prime minister, has called for talks with the protesters, saying the economy was at risk after demonstrators occupied the Finance Ministry on Monday. Suthep has ignored her.
The Democrats, Thailand's oldest political party, have not won an election in more than two decades and have lost every national vote for the past 13 years to Thaksin or his allies.
Thailand faces its worst political crisis since unrest in 2010, which ended with a military crackdown. In all, 91 people were killed then, mostly Thaksin's supporters trying to oust the then-Democrat government. Suthep faces murder charges for his alleged role in the ordering crackdown.
Thaksin, who won over poor rural and urban voters with populist policies, was convicted of graft in 2008. He dismisses the charges as politically motivated and remains in close touch with the government from his self-imposed exile, sometimes holding meetings with Yingluck's cabinet by webcam.
(Additional reporting by Martin Petty, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Damir Sagolj, Andrew R.C. Marshall and Viparat Jantrapap; Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Alan Raybould and Robert Birsel)

U.S. online sales fuel retail gains over Thanksgiving weekend...

A shopper looks at items on sale inside of a JC Penney store during Black Friday sales in New York, November …

 

(Reuters) - ComScore Inc, an analytics firm whose data is closely watched by Wall Street, said U.S. online sales rose a total of 17.3 percent on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, the unofficial kick-off to the holiday spending season.
The National Retail Federation estimated on Sunday that retail sales over the full Thanksgiving weekend will reach $57.4 billion, with the average shopper spending $407.02, down from $423.55, because of lower prices.
(Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)

Anti-gov't mass rally in Ukraine turns violent..

 

                           

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A protest by about 300,000 Ukrainians angered by their government's decision to freeze integration with the West turned violent Sunday, when a group of demonstrators besieged the president's office and police drove them back with truncheons, tear gas and flash grenades. Dozens of people were injured.

The mass rally in central Kiev defied a government ban on protests on Independence Square, in the biggest show of anger over President Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign a political and economic agreement with the European Union.
The protesters also were infuriated by the violent dispersal of a small, opposition rally two nights before.
While opposition leaders called for a nationwide strike and prolonged peaceful street protests to demand that the government resign, several thousand people broke away and marched to Yanukovych's nearby office.
A few hundred of them, wearing masks, threw rocks and other objects at police and attempted to break through the police lines with a front loader. After several hours of clashes, riot police used force to push them back. Dozens of people with what appeared to be head injuries were taken away by ambulance.
Opposition leaders denounced the clashes as a provocation aimed at discrediting the peaceful demonstration and charged that the people who incited the storming of the presidential office were government-hired thugs.

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Demonstrators gather during a rally in downtown Kiev, Ukraine, on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013. As many as 1 …

Several opposition leaders, including world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, walked over to Yanukovych's office to urge protesters to return to Independence Square. Order appeared to have been restored by Sunday night, with rows of riot police standing guard behind metal fences.
Some protesters then headed to Yanukovych's residence outside Kiev, but their cars were stopped by police.
Speaking before the vast crowds on Independence Square from the roof of a bus, the opposition leaders demanded that Yanukovych and his government resign.
"Our plan is clear: It's not a demonstration, it's not a reaction. It's a revolution," said Yuriy Lutsenko, a former interior minister who is now an opposition leader.
Chants of "revolution" resounded across a sea of yellow and blue Ukrainian and EU flags on the square, where the government had prohibited rallies starting Sunday. Thousands of protesters remained late into the evening and some were preparing to spend the night on the square.

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Protesters clash with police guarding the presidential administration building in downtown Kiev, Ukr …

The demonstration was by far the largest since the protests began more than a week ago and it carried echoes of the 2004 Orange Revolution, when tens of thousands came to the square nightly for weeks and set up a tent camp along the main street leading to the square.
The opposition leaders urged Ukrainians from all over the country to join the protests in the capital.
"Our future is being decided here in Kiev," Klitschko said.
Ukrainian lawmakers meet Monday for consultations and planned to hold a parliament session Tuesday. The opposition is hoping to muster enough votes to oust Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's Cabinet after several lawmakers quit Yanukovych's Party of Regions in protest.
The U.S. Embassy issued a joint statement from U.S. and EU ambassadors encouraging Ukrainians to resolve their differences peacefully and urging "all stakeholders in the political process to establish immediate dialogue to facilitate a mutually acceptable resolution to the current discord."

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Protesters clash with police guarding the presidential administration building in downtown Kiev, Ukr …

Protests have been held daily in Kiev since Yanukovych backed away from an agreement that would have established free trade and deepened political cooperation between Ukraine and the EU. He justified the decision by saying that Ukraine couldn't afford to break trade ties with Russia.
The EU agreement was to have been signed Friday and since then the protests have gained strength.
"We are furious," said 62-year-old retired businessman Mykola Sapronov, who was among the protesters Sunday. "The leaders must resign. We want Europe and freedom."
As the demonstrators approached Independence Square and swept away metal barriers from around a large Christmas tree set up in the center, all police left the square. About a dozen people then climbed the tree to hang EU and Ukrainian flags from its branches.
Several hundred demonstrators never made it to the square. Along the way they burst into the Kiev city administration building and occupied it, in defiance of police, who tried unsuccessfully to drive them away by using tear gas.

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Demonstrators march next to a giant Ukrainian flag as they gather during a rally in downtown Kiev, U …

The EU agreement had been eagerly anticipated by Ukrainians who want their country of 45 million people to break out of Moscow's orbit. Opinion surveys in recent months showed about 45 percent of Ukrainians supporting closer integration with the EU and a third or less favoring closer ties with Russia.
Moscow tried to block the deal with the EU by banning some Ukrainian imports and threatening more trade sanctions. A 2009 dispute between Kiev and Moscow on gas prices resulted in a three-week cutoff of gas to Ukraine.
Yanukovych was traveling to China for a state visit this week. Afterward, the president planned to visit Russia and reach agreement on normalizing trade relations, Azarov said Sunday.
For Yanukovych, memories of the Orange Revolution are still raw.
Those protests forced the annulment of a fraud-tainted presidential election in which he was shown to have won the most votes. A rerun of the election was ordered, and he lost to Western-leaning reformist Viktor Yushchenko.
Yanukovych was elected president five years later, narrowly defeating then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the leading figure of the Orange Revolution.
Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 2011 for abuse of office, a case that the West has widely criticized as political revenge. The EU had set Tymoshenko's release, or at least her freedom to go to Germany for treatment of a severe back problem, as a key criterion for signing the association pact with Ukraine.
The prospect of freeing his archenemy was deeply unattractive to Yanukovych, who comes up for re-election in early 2015.

Living in fear, Central African Republic awaits foreign intervention...

                           

By Joe Penney

BOSSANGOA, Central African Republic (Reuters) - Mathieu Marco hid in his shower as the Muslim militia commander who came to kill him screamed at his young son, demanding to know where he was. Frustrated at his failure to find the man he took for a Christian fighter, he seized a 13-year-old neighbor on the street and shot him in front of the house.
"He killed him in cold blood, just like that. Pow, Pow!" said Marco, a portrait photographer living now in the remote town of Bossangoa among 40,000 Christians displaced by sectarian violence now gripping the Central African Republic.
Like others with tales of arbitrary violence to tell he sees salvation in foreign intervention.
"French soldiers or Americans or Asians ... We just want peace," he said, anxiously listening to his radio at the entrance to the church grounds where the refugees have settled.
Central African Republic, a nation of 4.6 million people at the heart of Africa, has been gripped by violence since mainly Muslim Seleka rebels, many of them fighters from neighboring Sudan and Chad, seized power in the majority Christian country in March.
"Seleka are just professional bandits," said Marco. "They have come here to plunder our nation. They must be chased away, that's all."
With the landlocked country sliding deeper into chaos, former colonial power France plans to boost its force there to around 1,000 troops to restore law and order until a larger African Union contingent fully deploys.
Some 460,000 people, a tenth of the population, have fled the sectarian violence since the Seleka rebel coalition, a loose alliance of warlords, seized power.
Fearing that tit-for-tat killings could escalate into full-blown war between religious communities and destabilize the entire region, world powers are scrambling into action.
France, which has repeatedly intervened in Central African Republic since independence in 1960, stood by as the rebels marched south to topple President Francois Bozize, overruning a contingent of South African peacekeepers. France's 400 troops have protected the international airport and French assets.

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Khadidja-Aladji-Adbou, 30, sits for a portrait in the Central African Republic on Oct. 31, 2013. Adb …

With a 2,500-strong regional African force unable to contain violence, France has been forced into action. However, details remain sketchy of how Paris hopes with 1,000 soldiers to impose order in a nation roughly the size of France.
But news of French reinforcements, due to be approved by the U.N. Security Council as early as next week, has already spawned hope among many in the southern, riverside capital Bangui, which French soldiers will seek to stabilize first.
"It has calmed people. We feel safe with the arrival of the French. It reassures us," said 30-year-old resident Mauricia, who stuck a French flag to a window of her car.
"LIBERATE US"
Outside Bangui, Seleka abuses have given rise to Christian militias known as "anti-balaka" - or anti-machete - and an endless cycle of attacks and reprisal killings.
Danue Erephin, a 33-year-old farmer, was working in his field when he and his neighbors were seized by a group of 10 Seleka fighters, all of them Chadian he said.
"They beat us, searched our homes and found money, and they yelled 'You are anti-balaka!' which we denied," he said.
That night, they were thrown off a bridge with their wrists and ankles bound. Three of the seven survived.
While Seleka's fighters have borne the bulk of the blame for the chaos, Muslim civilians, who represent just 15 percent of the population, say Seleka are their only protection from Christian militia that have formed in response the anti-balaka.
"They've killed all the Muslims who were in the bush. If there was no Seleka, we would no longer exist," said Achille Sakairou, a 22-year-old driver from Bossangoa.
Highlighting the cycles of violence, some 75 km south of the town, a group of two dozen men, armed with rusty rifles and adorned with mystical gris-gris talismans, stood guard.
"If they try to enter our fields, we retaliate. This is legitimate self-defense," said Marto Simplice, head of the anti-balaka in Mbakate village.
Although rich in diamonds, gold and uranium, Central African Republic has seen little but conflict and instability in five decades. Violence often spills over from neighbors' wars. But the scale of the current conflict is unprecedented.
Seleka was formally disbanded in September by its leader Michel Djotodia, now interim president, in an effort to stem the widespread looting and killings they were accused of.
However, they still dominate the streets of Bangui, bristling with machineguns and rocket launchers as they speed past patrolling French and African peacekeepers. In recent weeks, they are accused of killing two judges.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this month ordered his officials to start preparing for the likely deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission. But African leaders want to give the AU force time to try to stabilize the situation.
French officials, meanwhile, have repeatedly played down comparisons with operations in Mali, another former colony where Paris has committed to keep troops after a massive military campaign to beat back al Qaeda-linked Islamists.
Meanwhile, fear prevails. Even before an overnight curfew imposed last week, few in Bangui dared to venture onto the streets after sunset.
"The people are in total despair. We hope this force will come to finally liberate us," said a businessman who gave his name as Gaspard.

(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Braun; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by David Lewis and Ralph Boulton)

Officials: Worst tech bugs over for Healthcare.gov...

                 

This photo of part of the HealthCare.gov website is photographed in Washington, on Nov. 29, 2013. The beleaguered health insurance website has had periods of down times as as the government tries to fix the problems. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The worst of the online glitches, crashes and delays may be over for the problem-plagued government health care website, the Department of Health and Human Services said Sunday.

But that doesn't mean HealthCare.gov is ready for a clean bill of health.
Officials acknowledged more work remains on the website that included hundreds of software bugs, inadequate equipment and inefficient management for its national debut two months ago. Federal workers and private contractors have undertaken an intense reworking of the system, but the White House's chief troubleshooter cautioned some users could still encounter trouble.
"The bottom line — HealthCare.gov on Dec. 1 is night and day from where it was on Oct. 1," Jeff Zients told reporters.
More than 50,000 people can log on to the website at one time and more than 800,000 people will be able to shop for insurance coverage each day, the government estimated in a report released Sunday. If true, it's a dramatic improvement from the system's first weeks, when frustrated buyers watched their computer screen freeze, the website crash and error messages multiply.
The figures — which could not be independently verified — suggest millions of Americans could turn to their laptops to shop for and buy insurance policies by the Dec. 23 deadline.
"There's not really any way to verify from the outside that the vast majority of people who want to enroll can now do so, but we'll find out at least anecdotally over the coming days if the system can handle the traffic and provide a smooth experience for people trying to sign up," said Larry Levitt, a senior adviser at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
But, he added, HealthCare.gov is clearly working better than when it first went online. Its challenge now is to convince users who were frustrated during their first visit to give it another chance.
Politically, a fixed website could also offer a fresh start for President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats after a wave of bad publicity surrounding the president's chief domestic achievement.
"This website is technology. It's going to get better. It's already better today," said Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who is a co-chairman of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus. "And we're only going to be working out more kinks as we go forward."
HealthCare.gov was envisioned as the principal place for people in 36 states to buy insurance under Obama's health care law. But its first few weeks were an embarrassment for the administration and its allies.
Obama set Saturday as the deadline to fix several significant problems and the administration organized a conference call with reporters Sunday morning to boast that 400 technical problems had been resolved. Officials, however, declined to say how many items remain on the to-do list.
Even with the repairs in place, the site still won't be able to do everything the administration wants, and companion sites for small businesses and Spanish speakers have been delayed. Questions remain about the stability of the site and the quality of the data it delivers to insurers.
"The security of this site and the private information does not meet even the minimal standards of the private sector, and that concerns me," said Rep. Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican who leads the House intelligence panel. "I don't care if you're for it or against it, Republican or Democrat, we should not tolerate the sheer level of incompetence securing this site."
Obama promised a few weeks ago that HealthCare.gov "will work much better on Nov. 30, Dec. 1, than it worked certainly on Oct. 1." But, in trying to lower expectations, he said he could not guarantee that "100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time going on this website will have a perfectly seamless, smooth experience."
Obama rightly predicted errors would remain. The department reported the website was up and running 95 percent of the time last week — meaning a 1-in-20 chance remains of encountering a broken website. The government also estimated that pages crashed at a rate less than once every 100 clicks.
"Yes, there are problems," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. "There's no denying that. Let's work to fix them."
The nation's largest health insurer trade group said significant problems remain and could be a barrier for consumers signing up for coverage effective Jan. 1.
"HealthCare.gov and the overall enrollment process continue to improve, but there are significant issues that still need to be addressed," said Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans.
Republicans, betting frustration about the health care law is their best bet to make gains in 2014's congressional and gubernatorial elections, continued their criticism of the system.
"I don't know how you fix it, I'll be honest," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. "I don't know how you fix a program that was put together in this manner with only one side of the aisle, and taking the shortcuts we're taking to put it in place."
Democrats, sensing their potential vulnerability, sought to blame Republicans for not offering ideas on how to improve the website.
"Yes, we have to fix it. We should be working together to fix it," said Van Hollen, a former chairman of the committee tasked to elect more Democrats to the U.S. House.
The first big test of the repaired website probably won't come for a few more weeks, when an enrollment surge is expected as consumers rush to meet a Dec. 23 deadline so their coverage can kick in on the first of the year.
Avoiding a break in coverage is particularly important for millions of people whose current individual policies were canceled because they don't meet the standards of the health care law, as well as for a group of about 100,000 in an expiring federal program for high-risk patients.
Ellison spoke to ABC's "This Week." Rogers and Van Hollen were interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press." Corker joined CBS' "Face the Nation."

Metro North train derails in NYC; 4 dead, 63 injured...

ÌEmergency personnel respond to the scene of a Metro-North passenger train derailment in the Bronx borough of New York Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013. The train derailed on a curved section of track in the Bronx on Sunday morning, coming to rest just inches from the water and causing multiple fatalities and dozens of injuries, authorities said. Metropolitan Transportation Authority police say the train derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

A Metro North train bound for New York City derailed along the Hudson River early Sunday, killing four people and injuring 63, officials said.

The train was en route to New York's Grand Central Station from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., when it derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx.
It's unclear how many passengers were on board the train when it derailed. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the train's operator was among those injured.
"It's obviously a very tragic situation," Cuomo said. "The first order of business is to care for the people on the train."
Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said that the derailment occurred at approximately 7:20 a.m. Five of the train's seven cars derailed, he said, but none went into the water.
Three of the four people who died were found outside the train, the FDNY said. Scuba divers were dispatched to search the river near the derailed train.
"If this was a workday, it was fully occupied, it would've been a tremendous disaster," Fire Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano told reporters.
According to the MTA, the train left Poughkeepsie at approximately 5:54 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive at Grand Central at 7:43 a.m. Service has been suspended indefinitely on the Hudson Line between Grand Central and Croton Harmon.
President Barack Obama was briefed on the accident Sunday, the White House said.
Joel Zaritsky, a passenger who was on board the train, said he was asleep when the train derailed.
"I was asleep and I woke up when the car started rolling several times," Zaritsky told the AP. "Then I saw the gravel coming at me, and I heard people screaming. There was smoke everywhere and debris. People were thrown to the other side of the train."
Jack Babcock, another passenger, had a similar experience. "When I woke up, we were just flipping over," Babcock told Newsday. "Glass broke, and there were trees and dirt coming through the windows."
Aerial photos taken above the scene showed several train cars laying on their sides, and one near the water along a bank of the Bronx River.

China's 1st Moon Rover Launches On Lunar Journey..

                    

                           

China's first-ever mission to land a rover on the moon has begun its journey to the lunar frontier.

Riding atop a modified Long March 3B rocket, China's Chang'e 3 moon lander and its rover Yutu  toward the moon at 1:30 a.m. Monday (Dec. 2) local time from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the country's Sichuan province. It was 12:30 p.m. EST (1730 GMT) on Dec. 1 at launch time.
If the probe continues on track, Chang'e 3 will land on the lunar surface by mid-December, becoming the first spacecraft to touch down on the moon in more than 37 years. The moon landing mission was the former Soviet Union's robotic Luna 24 sample return mission in 1976. [Photos: China's Chang'e 3 Mission Blasts Off]
Shortly after the Chang'e 3 spacecraft separated from its rocket, launch officials declared the liftoff a success.
"The Chang'e probe on its way to the moon, of course, is a symbol of China's national prowess," Zhang Zhenzhoung, director of China's Xichang Satellite Launch Center, according to a translation by the state-run CCTV news broadcast. "Let's all work together ... to make more efforts in space exploration and realize the Chinese dream."
Chang'e 3 is expected to touch down by Dec. 14 or 15 to begin conducting scientific surveys on the moon. The mission is China's first-ever landing on the surface of an extraterrestrial body and signals a shift into the second stage of China's lunar exploration program. That program consists of three major steps: orbit the moon, land on the moon, and return moon rock samples to Earth by 2020.
China's first two unmanned moon missions, the Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 lunar orbiter flights, launched in 2007 and 2010, respectively.

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A Chinese Long March 3B rocket launches China's first moon rover Yutu (Jade Rabbit) on the Chang'e 3 …

Meet Yutu: China's first moon rover
The Chang'e 3 spacecraft is part lander, part rover, and is loaded with scientific gear.
The lander is expected to touch down in the Sinus Iridum region of the moon, also known as the Bay of Rainbows. Once on the lunar surface, the lander will deploy the Yutu rover — a six-wheel robot that weighs nearly 310 lbs. (140 kilograms).
Yutu, meaning "Jade Rabbit," is the white pet rabbit of the moon goddess Chang'e. The name was selected by the public using Internet websites. Participants around the world cast nearly 3.5 million votes, with Yutu receiving the most votes over a 10 day period. [20 Most Amazing Moon Missions Ever]
Yutu is to patrol the moon for at least three months under control by scientists on Earth. Radar gear attached to the bottom of Yutu is to study the structure and layers of the moon down several hundred feet below topside as the machine crosses the lunar terrain.

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China's Chang'e 3 spacecraft carrying the country's Yutu (Jade Rabbit) moon rover separates from its …

Moon landing's tricky business
Getting the Chang'e 3 lander and rover on the moon is tricky business. The spacecraft's powered descent phase in the lunar soft-landing process will not be a long period of time, roughly 700 seconds.
The lander is equipped with high-precision, fast-response sensors to analyze its motion and surroundings. A variable thrust engine is employed to slow the spacecraft down as it drops toward the moon. The landing depends on the successful use of devices to track the probe's distance to the moon and descent velocity, as well as terrain recognition and obstacle avoidance sensors.
The Chang'e 3 lander is outfitted with an extreme ultraviolet camera that can monitor the Earth to study the formation of the planet's plasmasphere, or inner magnetosphere, and its density change, according to Chinese space scientists. The lander also carries optical telescope gear for astronomical surveys.
Tough test for China
In a CCTV.com interview, Ouyang Ziyuan, a senior advisor of China's lunar probe project, said the lander will hover above the moon at about 330 feet (100 meters).

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A model of China's Chang'e 3 moon rover Yutu launching in December 2013.

"Then using special cameras it will look for a flat place to land on. Then when it's about 4 meters above ground, its engine will stop," Ouyang said. "The lander's four legs are shockproof and will ensure a soft landing."
Chang'e 3 deployed its landing legs shortly after separating from its Long March 3B rocket.
The lander will start work immediately after landing on the moon by observing space using an optical telescope, Ouyang said.
One tough test the Chang'e 3 mission must pass is withstanding the extreme cold conditions on the moon. To do so, both the lander and the rover will go into the lunar-night sleep mode. By using radioisotope heater units (RHU) and specially designed fluid loops, Chinese space engineers expect the moon hardware to survive the plunging temperature.
Tracking China's moonshot
The Chang'e 3 launch marked the 25th launch of the Long March 3B rocket — currently the most powerful launch vehicle in China's Long March rocket fleet — occurred in a narrow launch window just four minutes long.
Shortly after liftoff, the European Space Agency's ground station in Kourou, French Guiana, started receiving signals from the mission and uploading commands on behalf of the Chinese Chang'e 3 control center. The effort is being run from the Estrack Control Center in ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.
"We picked up signals from Chang'e 3 from our Kourou station at 18:34 UT, a bit earlier than planned," said ESA's Gerhard Billig, systems engineer at ESOC. "We'll have communication passes again starting on Dec. 4 daily until arrival at the moon, expected on Dec. 6."
The ESA tracking assist will run daily throughout Chang'e 3's five-day cruise to the moon. ESA deep-space ground stations are to help out during descent and after landing, pinpointing the probe's path and touchdown locale.
"We had no problem receiving their signals, as we're both following internationally agreed technical standards" Billings told SPACE.com. "This really makes all the difference for the cooperative support we provide to not only the Chinese but also to our Japanese, Russian and U.S. partners."
The landing and rover operations on the moon will be commanded via two Chinese tracking stations at Kashi, in the far west of China, and at Jiamusi, in the northeast.
Visit SPACE.com for the latest news on China's space missions and the Chang'e 3 moon landing.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's new book "Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.