Xi takes China's helm with many tough challenges

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BEIJING (AP) — Long-anointed successor Xi Jinping assumed the leadership of China on Thursday as the ruling Communist Party confronts slower economic growth, a public clamor to end corruption and demands for change that threaten its hold on power.

The country's political elite named Xi to the top party post and unexpectedly put him in charge of the military too, after a weeklong party congress and months of divisive bargaining.

The appointments give him broad authority, but not the luxury of time. After decades of juggernaut growth, China sits on the cusp of global pre-eminence as the second largest economy and newest power, but it also has urgent domestic troubles that could frustrate its rise.

Problems that have long festered — from the sputtering economy to friction with the U.S. and territorial spats with Japan and other neighbors — have worsened in recent months as the leadership focused on the power transfer. Impatience has grown among entrepreneurs, others in the new middle class and migrant workers — all wired by social media and conditioned by two decades of rising living standards to expect better government, if not democracy.

All along, police have continued to harass and jail a lengthening list of political foes, dissidents, civil rights lawyers and labor activists. A 14-year-old Tibetan set himself on fire in western China on Thursday, in the latest of more than 70 self-immolations Tibetans have staged over the past 20 months in desperate protests against Chinese rule.

In his first address to the nation, Xi, a 59-year-old son of a revolutionary hero, acknowledged the lengthy agenda for what should be the first of two five-year terms in office. He promised to deliver better social services while making sure China stands tall in the world and the party continues to rule.

"Our responsibility now is to rally and lead the entire party and the people of all ethnic groups in China in taking over the historic baton and in making continued efforts to achieve the great renewal of the Chinese nation," a confident Xi said in nationally televised remarks in the Great Hall of the People.

He later said "we are not complacent, and we will never rest on our laurels" in confronting challenges — corruption chief among them.

By his side stood the six other newly appointed members of the Politburo Standing Committee: Li Keqiang, the presumptive premier and chief economic official; Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang; Shanghai party secretary Yu Zhengsheng; propaganda chief Liu Yunshan; Tianjin party secretary Zhang Gaoli; and Vice Premier Wang Qishan, once the leadership's top troubleshooter who will head the party's internal watchdog panel.

Xi gave no hint of new thinking to address the problems. The lack of specifics and the new leadership heavy with conservative technocrats deflated expectations for change in some quarters.

"We should be expecting more of the same, not some fundamental break from the past," said Dali Yang of the University of Chicago.

Fundamental for the leadership is to maintain the party's rule, he said. "They are not interested in introducing China's Gorbachev" — the Soviet leader whose reforms hastened the end of the Soviet Union — Yang said.

Many of the challenges Xi confronts are legacies of his predecessor, Hu Jintao. In addition to relinquishing his role as party chief, having reached the two-term maximum, Hu also stepped down from the party commission that oversees the military. The move is a break from the past in which exiting party leaders kept hold of the military portfolio for several years.

During Hu's 10 years in office, policies to open up China to trade and foreign investment begun by his predecessors gathered momentum, turning China into a manufacturing powerhouse and drawing tens of millions of rural migrants into cities. Easy credit fueled a building boom, the Beijing Olympics and the world's longest high-speed rail network. At the same time, Hu relied on an ever-larger security apparatus to suppress protests, even as demonstrations continued to rise.

"More and more citizens are beginning to awaken to their rights and they are constantly asking for political reform," said rights activist Hu Jia, who has previously been jailed for campaigning for AIDS patients and orphans. "The Communist Party does not have legitimacy. It is a party of dictatorship that uses violence to obtain political power. What we need now is for this country's people to have the right to choose who they are governed by."

Chief among the problems Xi and his team will have to tackle is the economy. Though Hu pledged more balanced development, inequality has risen and housing costs have soared. Over the past year, the economy has flagged, dragged down by anemic demand in Europe and the U.S. for Chinese products and an overhang from excessive lending for factories and infrastructure.

With state banks preferring to lend to state-run companies or not at all, private entrepreneurs have had to turn to unofficial money-lenders.

"The bank just asked me to wait," said Deng Mingxin, who runs a zipper factory with 10 employees in Jiangsu province. "Maybe it's because I didn't offer enough 'red envelopes'" — a reference to bribes.

The World Bank warns that without quick action, growth that fell to a three-year low of 7.4 percent in the latest quarter may fall to 5 percent by 2015 — a low rate for generating the employment and funding the social programs Beijing holds as key to keeping a lid on unrest. Analysts and Beijing's own advisers have said it needs to overhaul its strategy and nurture consumer spending and services to meet its pledge of doubling incomes by 2020.

"China will need a very different economy in the next decade," said Citigroup economist Minggao Shen.

In foreign policy, the U.S. and other partners are looking for reassurance that China's policy remains one of peaceful integration into the world community. Tensions have flared in recent months between China, Japan and the Philippines over contested islets in the East and South China Seas. Mistrust has also grown with the U.S. as it diverts more military and diplomatic resources to Asia in what Chinese leaders see as containment.

Fresh in office, Xi can ill-afford to bow to foreigners, crossing a nationalistic public and a military that may still be uncertain about his leadership.

"The leaders can't look like they are being soft on the U.S. or foreign policy because they will lose power in terms of people," said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a business consultant and author of the book "How China's Leaders Think." Kuhn expects more tough rhetoric than action in the months ahead, but expects Xi's leadership to develop a more nuanced foreign policy as it consolidates its authority at home.

Of all the knotty long-term challenges, few threaten to derail China's march to a more prosperous society more than its rapidly aging society. Baby boomers whose labor manned the factories and construction sites are starting to retire. Meanwhile fewer Chinese are entering the workforce after a generation of family planning limits and higher incomes led to smaller families.

If left unchecked, the trend will further stress already pressed social security funds.

Scrapping the rule that limits many families to one child would help in the long run, and is being urged by experts. But the leadership for years has delayed change, in part because it sees smaller families and fewer births as having helped raise incomes overall.

"China has wasted some time and opportunities partly because its growth over the last 10 years was so spectacular," said Wang Feng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy and an expert on China's demographics. "Now it no longer has that luxury."

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Associated Press writers Didi Tang, Gillian Wong, Alexa Olesen, Joe McDonald and Louise Watt and researchers Flora Ji and Zhao Liang contributed to this report.

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Springsteen, McCartney, Kanye set for Sandy show

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NEW YORK (AP) — Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and Kanye West will hit the stage at a Superstorm Sandy benefit concert next month at Madison Square Garden.

MSG announced Thursday that Billy Joel, The Who, Alicia Keys and Jon Bon Jovi will also perform at the Dec. 12 show, dubbed "12-12-12." More performers will be announced at a later date.

Proceeds from the concert will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund to benefit those affected by Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Sandy's assault more than two weeks ago created widespread damage and power outages throughout the area.

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Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

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NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's diabetes problem is getting worse, and health officials say the biggest changes have been in Oklahoma and a number of Southern states.

The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled over 15 years, and also boomed in Southern states like Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.

Most cases are the kind of diabetes linked to obesity. Health officials believe extra weight explains the increases in the South and Southwest. They also say the rates overall are up because people with diabetes are living longer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the state report Thursday.

The diabetes rate more than doubled in several Northern states, too, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Maine.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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A father's anguish in Gaza

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Jihad Misharawi carries his son’s body at a Gaza hospital. (AP)


Jihad Misharawi, a BBC Arabic correspondent who lives in Gaza, tragically became part of the story he's been covering on Wednesday, when an Israeli airstrike killed his 11-month-old son.


A chilling photo showing Misharawi carrying his son's body through al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City was published by the Associated Press and printed on the front page of Thursday's Washington Post.


According to Paul Danahar, the BBC's Middle East bureau chief, Misharawi's sister-in-law was also killed in the the airstrike that hit his home in Gaza. Misharawi's brother was also seriously wounded, Danahar said.


"This is a particularly difficult moment for the whole bureau in Gaza," BBC World editor Jon Williams wrote in a memo to colleagues. "We're fortunate to have such a committed and courageous team there. It's a sobering reminder of the challenges facing many of our colleagues."


At least 10 Palestinians, including Hamas military chief Ahmed al-Jabari, were killed during the Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday, Palestinians officials said.


Israel launched the operation in response to successive days of rocket fire coming out of Gaza. Hamas, meanwhile, warned Jabari's assassination "had opened the gates of hell."


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Report: Sri Lankan war was grave failure for UN

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A draft United Nations report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday said inadequate efforts by the world body to protect civilians during the bloody final months of Sri Lanka's civil war marked a "grave failure" that led to suffering for hundreds of thousands of people.

The report accused U.N. staff in Colombo of not perceiving that preventing civilian deaths was their responsibility and accused their bosses at U.N. headquarters of not telling them otherwise. A separate U.N. report released last year said up to 40,000 ethnic minority Tamil civilians may have been killed in the war's final months.

"This report is a benchmark moment for the U.N. in the same way that Rwanda was," said Gordon Weiss, a former U.N. spokesman in Sri Lanka.

It accused U.N. officials and member states of being reluctant to interfere and leaving the conflict in a "vacuum of inaction." It also said the political conditions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. made countries less likely to stop a government fighting against a group — the Tamil Tiger rebels — that many had branded a terrorist organization.

The official report was being released Wednesday at the United Nations in New York.

"The report concludes that the United Nations system failed to meet its responsibilities, highlighting in particular the roles played by the Secretariat, the agencies and programs of the U.N. country team and the members of the Security Council and the Human Rights Council," said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, Martin Nesirky, on Wednesday.

The draft report was compiled by a committee headed by former U.N. official Charles Petrie. It investigated U.N. actions as the quarter-century war between the government, dominated by the ethnic Sinhalese majority, and minority Tamil rebels ended in 2009 in a wave of violence.

The BBC first reported on the draft report Tuesday.

The draft report painted a picture of a U.N. operation reluctant to criticize the government or accuse it of killing civilians with artillery bombardments, out of concern the government would respond by limiting U.N. humanitarian access — even through U.N. aid workers were barred from the northern war zone in late 2008.

Top U.N. officials in the country repeatedly worked to soften statements to remove casualty figures and accusations of possible war crimes against the government, the report said. When death tolls its staff was compiling were released, top officials dismissed them as unverified despite the rigorous methodology being used, the report said.

When U.N. satellite images confirmed heavy artillery shelling in the war zone and showed far more civilians there than the government claimed, the top U.N. official in Sri Lanka downplayed the evidence in a letter to the government, the report said. At the same time, member states did not hold a single formal meeting on the conflict in its final months in the Security Council, Human Rights Council or the General Assembly.

"The UN set itself up for failure, in Sri Lanka," the report said.

The report also accused the government of working to intimidate U.N. staff, of withholding visas of those critical of the government and of planting false allegations against them in the media.

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Nessman reported from New Delhi.

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When Facebook insiders, employees can sell stock

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On Wednesday, additional Facebook stock became eligible for sale for the first time. It follows the expiration of similar lock-up periods in August and October. Other shares will become eligible for sale in the coming months.


Up to 1.56 billion more shares could flood the stock market — nearly four times the 421 million shares that had been trading since Facebook’s initial public offering in May. The 1.56 billion figure includes shares released from lock-up already.













On Aug. 16, a lock-up period expired for 271 million shares held by early investors and directors who had participated in the IPO, though CEO Mark Zuckerberg was excluded for unspecified reasons.


On Oct. 29, the lock-up ended for 234 million shares and stock options held by employees as of Oct. 15, excluding Zuckerberg. Oct. 31 was the first trading day since then because of stock market closures resulting from Superstorm Sandy.


On Wednesday, another 852 million shares and stock options became eligible. Zuckerberg had been eligible to sell his shares at this date, but Facebook has changed that given that the CEO had no plans to do so until at least next September.


Here’s the schedule for remaining lock-up expirations, as reported by Facebook Inc. in regulatory filings:


— Dec. 14: 156 million shares held by early investors and others who participated in IPO, except Zuckerberg.


— May 18, 2013: 47 million shares held by the Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group and DST Global, both of which made early investments in Facebook.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Bon Jovi daughter recovering after heroin OD in NY

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HAMILTON, N.Y. (AP) — Authorities say Jon Bon Jovi's 19-year-old daughter is hospitalized after overdosing on heroin in a dorm at her upstate New York college.

Town of Kirkland police say an ambulance was sent to Hamilton College early Wednesday morning after a report that a female had apparently overdosed on heroin.

Investigator Peter Cania (KAYN'-yah) says Stephanie Bongiovi, of Red Bank, N.J., is recovering at a hospital he declined to name.

Police say Bongiovi and 21-year-old Ian Grant, also of Red Bank, were charged with drug possession. Both were issued tickets and ordered to appear in court at a later date. Police didn't know if they have lawyers.

The musician's representative isn't commenting.

Bon Jovi is scheduled to perform at a benefit concert for Hamilton in Times Square on Dec. 5.

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Ireland probes death of ill abortion-seeker

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

Prime Minister Enda Kenny said he was awaiting findings from three investigations into the death of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian who was 17 weeks pregnant. Her case highlights the bizarre 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 continued 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.

In practice 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.

University Hospital Galway in western Ireland declined to say whether doctors believed Halappanavar's blood poisoning could have been reversed had she received an abortion rather than wait 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 national 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 Halappanavar's husband, Praveen, said doctors determined she was miscarrying within hours of her hospitalization for severe pain on Sunday, Oct. 21. He said that over the next three days doctors refused their requests for an abortion to combat her surging pain and fading health.

"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, Praveen Halappanavar said, his wife was placed under sedation in intensive care with blood poisoning and he was never able to speak with her again. By Saturday her heart, kidneys and liver had stopped working and 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 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 required 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.

Coincidentally, the government said it received a long-awaited expert report Tuesday night 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.

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.

Yet the World Health Organization 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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FBI finds classified docs in Petraeus' lover's house

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Paula Broadwell, the author who allegedly had an affair with former CIA
Director David Petraeus, is suspected of storing significant amounts of
military documents, including classified material, at her home,
potentially in violation of federal law.



A source familiar with case told ABC News that Broadwell admitted to the
FBI she took the documents from secure government buildings. The
government demanded that they all be given back, and when federal agents
descended on her North Carolina home on Monday night it was a
pre-arranged meeting.



Prosecutors are now determining whether to charge Broadwell with a
crime, and this morning the FBI and military are poring over the
material. The 40-year-old author, who wrote the biography on Gen.
Petraeus "All In," is cooperating and the case, which is complicated by
the fact that as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Military Reserve
she had security clearance to review the documents.



FULL COVERAGE: David Petraeus Scandal



The FBI found classified material on a computer voluntarily handed over
by Broadwell earlier in the investigation. Prosecutors will now have to
determine how important the classified material is before making a final
decision. Authorities could decide to seek disciplinary action against
her rather than pursue charges.



Senior FBI officials are expected to brief the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees today on their handling of the Petraeus
investigation. The officials are expected to lay out how the case was
developed and argue that there were no politics involved.



The case is so critical that FBI Director Robert Mueller may attend to
defend the bureau, ABC News has learned. Members of Congress have been
angry that they were not informed about the case before the story was
reported by the media, but FBI officials maintain that their guidelines
forbid them from discussing ongoing criminal cases.



This summer, Florida socialite and "honorary ambassador" to the military Jill Kelley
received anonymous emails accusing her of flaunting a friendly
relationship with military brass in Tampa. Kelley then called the FBI,
which traced those emails back to Broadwell's computer. Investigators
are said to have then found emails in Broadwell's inbox that pointed to
an intimate affair with Petraeus, who on Friday admitted to the affair
and announced his resignation as CIA director.



See the timeline of the Petraeus/Broadwell affair HERE.



The FBI has now uncovered "potentially inappropriate" emails between
Gen. John Allen, the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, and
Kelley, according to a senior U.S. defense official who is traveling with
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The department is reviewing between
20,000 and 30,000 documents connected to this matter, the official said.
The email exchanges between Kelley and Allen took place from 2010 to
2012.




The U.S. official said the emails were "innocuous" and mostly about
upcoming dinner parties and seeing him on TV. Allen denies he was
involved in an affair, a Pentagon official said. An intermediary for
Allen told ABC News that Allen and his wife are friends with Kelley and
her husband and most of the emails were sent from Kelley to Allen's
wife.

A U.S. official said Allen may have triggered the investigation when he
got an anonymous email a few months ago that was traced to Broadwell.
The email had a "Kelley Patrol" return address or subject line and
painted Kelley as a seductress, which Allen found alarming and mentioned
to Kelley in a subsequent email, the official said.



The official described Kelley as a "nice, bored rich socialite who drops
the honorary from her title... and tells people she is an ambassador.
She gets herself in anything related to Centcom and all the senior
people and has been for years."

MORE: Jill Kelley and Twin Closely Tied to Top Brass






Leon Panetta: 'No One Should Leap to Any Conclusions' Regarding Gen. Allen



Panetta cautioned that "no one should leap to any conclusions" about allegations against Allen over the investigation.



Panetta said he supports Allen, who has been in command in Kabul since
July 2011. He took over that summer for Petraeus, who retired from the
Army to take over as the head of the CIA.



"He certainly has my continued confidence to lead our forces and to
continue the fight," Panetta said at a news conference in Perth,
Australia, Wednesday.



Panetta declined to explain the nature of Allen's correspondence with
Kelley, connected to the scandal that led to Petraeus' resignation last
week as director of the CIA.



Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who appeared with Panetta,
declined to comment on the Allen case, but insured the scandal has not
harmed the war effort.



"There has been a lot of conversation, as you might expect, but no
concern whatsoever being expressed to us because the mission has been
set forth and it's being carried out," Clinton said.



Allen had been nominated as the next commander of U.S. European Command
and the commander of NATO forces in Europe, and despite President
Obama's backing, the nomination has been put on hold. The change of
command at NATO is currently slated to not take place until March at the
earliest.



Allen was supposed to appear before a Senate confirmation hearing this
Thursday alongside his designated replacement, Marine Gen. Joseph
Dunford. Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by
the Defense Department IG, Allen will remain in his post as commander of
the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul.

Also Read
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A look at US generals in Afghan war

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A look at what went wrong for the four U.S. generals who have led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan since 2008:

Gen. David McKiernan, June 2008 to June 2009

-Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked for McKiernan's resignation a year before his term as commander was set to end. The firing was seen as a rejection by newly elected President Barack Obama of McKiernan's conventional warfare approach in favor of the more targeted "counterinsurgency" strategy of working to undermine insurgents' pull on the population.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, June 2009 to June 2010

-McChrystal, who had a background in special operations, came in with a mandate to remake the war effort with the help of "surge" troops ordered by Obama. A year into that push, an article in Rolling Stone magazine quoted members of McChrystal's team making disparaging comments about their commander in chief and other senior administration officials. Obama called McChrystal back to Washington to explain and forced him to resign.

Gen. David Petraeus, July 2010 to July 2011

-Petraeus took over the Afghan command to fill the void left by McChrystal's abrupt departure and agreed to serve for one year. He completed that term and then retired from the military to become CIA director in September 2011. Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Nov. 9 after he had an extramarital affair with his biographer. The affair came out as part of an FBI investigation into suspicious emails between the biographer and another woman.

Gen. John Allen, July 2011 to present

-Allen was appointed by Obama to oversee the drawdown of U.S. and international forces ahead of the planned transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government in 2014. Pentagon officials said early Tuesday that Allen is under investigation for thousands of alleged "inappropriate communications" with the second woman involved in the Petraeus case, a Florida socialite. Allen's nomination to become the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has now been put on hold.

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