Delhi police say they will protect women on buses

Indian officials announced Friday a broad campaign to protect women in New Delhi following the gang rape and brutal beating of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in the capital.
Police arrested a boy Thursday night, the fifth person detained in connection with the crime, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar said. Authorities were hunting for the final assailant, he said. Those arrested were being charged with attempted murder in addition to kidnapping and rape.
The government is seeking life sentences for the assailants, Home Secretary R.K. Singh told reporters Friday.
"This is an incident which has shocked all of us," he said.
The attack sparked days of protests across the country from women demanding that authorities take tougher action to protect them against the daily threat of harassment and violence. The government said it is taking steps to address those concerns.
"There will not be any tolerance for crimes against women," Singh said.
Bus drivers in New Delhi will be required to display their identification prominently in the vehicles, buses are now required to remove tinting from their windows and plainclothes police are being placed on buses to protect female passengers, he said. In addition, chartered buses such as the one where the attack occurred will be impounded if they illegally ply for fares on the streets, he said.
Authorities are also cracking down on drunk driving and on loitering gangs of drunken youths, he said.
The victim and a companion were attacked after getting a ride on a chartered bus following a movie Sunday evening. Police said the men on the bus gang-raped her and beat her and her companion with iron rods as the bus drove through the city for hours, even passing through police checkpoints. The assailants eventually stripped the pair and dumped them on the side of a road.
Protesters marched Friday to the presidential mansion and toward Parliament, while theater troupes performed plays about women's safety in a park in central Delhi. A group blocked traffic near the hospital where the victim, who had severe internal injuries, was being treated.
Dr. B.D. Athani, the medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, told reporters the victim was "stable, alert and conscious," but remained on a ventilator.
"We are ready to send the victim to anywhere in the world for treatment," Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said. "I have given that assurance to the parents of the girl that we will give every kind of help, no matter what it costs."
Parliamentarian M. Venkaiah Naidu said a special legislative committee would meet next week to take action to protect women.
The government, Singh said, was proposing laws to make it easier for attacked women to come forward, to ensure rape cases are dealt with swiftly in the nation's notoriously slow court system and for increasing the punishment for the crime to a possible death sentence.
"(The) people of Delhi will feel safe moving through the streets of the city, at any point of time, day or night. That is our objective," Singh said.

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Russia's Gazprom to buy Kyrgyz state gas company

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Kyrgyzstan's state-owned natural gas company says it is to be sold to Russia's energy monopoly Gazprom, raising hopes of an end to debilitating energy shortages in the impoverished Central Asian nation.
Kyrgyzgaz general director Turgunbek Kulmurzayev said Friday that the sale of the company to the Russian gas giant would be completed by April 1.
Last week, gas and electricity supplies to thousands of Kyrgyz households were suspended.
The crisis was provoked by a shortage in natural gas deliveries from neighboring Kazakhstan, which had to hold onto its own reserves after failing to receive imports from Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous nation of 5 million on China's western border, also has substantial unpaid debts to Kazakhstan.
Residents in the capital, Bishkek, and nearby towns were hits by days of gas and power shortages just as temperatures dropped to around minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit). Failure in gas deliveries pushes people into using more electricity for heating, which in turn leads to blackouts.
The inability of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to fulfill basic energy needs led to his violent overthrow in 2010.
The sale of a major national asset to a company owned by a foreign government is likely to raise concerns. Russia has made similar efforts to gain control over important energy infrastructure in other former Soviet republic, such as Ukraine and Belarus.
Kyrgyzgaz's Kulmurzayev traveled to Moscow this week to hold a new round of talks with Gazprom, which offered to buy up the entire company. Kyrgyzgaz is currently 87 percent owned by the state. Another 4.5 percent is held by social investment funds, with the remainder belonging to private investors.
"The Russians now want to buy the entire stock, even from private shareholders," Kulmurzayev said in Bishkek.
Kulmurzayev gave no figure for the sale, but the sum is expected to be nominal due to the company's outstanding debts of around $31 million. He added that Gazprom officials said they plan to invest $650 million over five years on modernizing Kyrgyzstan's gas pipeline network.
"The price for fuel will be substantially cheaper than what is paid to Kazakhstan — $224 per thousand cubic meters — or Uzbekistan — $290 per thousand cubic meters," Kulmurzayev said. "We hope Gazprom will solve the fuel delivery problem in 2013."
Kyrgyzstan also expects Gazprom to begin exploration for new gas fields.

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Coalition soldier missing in Afghanistan

A search is under way in southern Afghanistan for a soldier from the NATO-led coalition, believed to be the first to have gone missing since a U.S. Army sergeant was captured by the Taliban more than three years ago, a military spokesman said Friday.
U.S. Army Maj. Martyn Crighton said the soldier was among the 1,560 troops from the former Soviet republic of Georgia serving in the country.
A statement from Georgia's Defense Ministry on Thursday said an intense "search and rescue" operation was being mounted in Helmand and Nimroz provinces, describing the soldier as a military officer who went missing on Wednesday.
The last known coalition soldier to go missing was U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 26, who was taken prisoner on June 30, 2009 in Paktika province in southeastern Afghanistan.
Bergdahl, who turned 26 in captivity on March 28, was the subject of a proposed prisoner swap in which the Obama administration was considering the transfer of five Taliban prisoners long held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Qatar.
That plan collapsed, but a new proposal would transfer some Taliban fighters or their affiliates out of full U.S. control. The prisoners would go to a detention facility adjacent to Bagram air field, the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan, officials of both governments have said.
Eighteen Georgian soldiers have been killed since the country joined the international military operations in Afghanistan in August 2009. Georgia is not a member of NATO but has significant presence in Afghanistan relative to its population of 4.5 million.
There are currently more than 102,000 coalition troops in the country, including 66,000 from the United States. Only a residual force is slated to remain past 2013.

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US budget negotiations setback drives stocks down

A failed attempt find a compromise in U.S. budget negotiations sent global stock markets plummeting Friday, as investors feared the world's largest economy could teeter into recession if no deal is found.
Without an agreement, the U.S. economy will fall off the so-called "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 1 when Bush-era tax cuts expire and spending cuts kick in automatically. The measures were designed to have a negative effect on the U.S. economy, in the hopes that the feared outcome would push lawmakers and President Barack Obama to find a deal.
"We've seen Europe's politicians repeatedly flirt lemming-like with cliff-diving in 2012, and now it's the turn of U.S. 'leaders,'" said Kit Juckes, an analyst with Societe Generale. "The nagging fear is always there that someone, on one side of the Atlantic or the other, will forget to let rational thought take over at the last second."
Amid the uncertainty, European shares fell. France's CAC dropped 0.15 percent to close at 3,661, while the DAX in Germany dropped 0.5 percent to end the day 7,636. The FTSE index of leading British shares retreated 0.3 percent to 5,939.
The euro also fell sharply, dropping 0.5 percent to $1.3159.
In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 index closed 1 percent lower at 9,940.06. Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.7 percent to 22,506.29. South Korea's Kospi shed 1 percent at 1,980.42. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.2 percent to 4,623.60. Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed.
U.S. stock futures tumbled after rank-and-file Republican lawmakers failed to support an alternative tax plan by House Speaker John Boehner late Thursday in Washington. That plan would have allowed tax rates to rise on households earning $1 million and up. Obama wants the level to be $400,000.
In midday trading trading in New York, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 1.25 percent to 13,147, while the broader Standard & Poor's index fell 1.3 percent at 1,424.
"The fiscal cliff is a real threat not just for U.S. growth next year but for the outlook for global growth," said Jane Foley, currency analyst with Rabobank.
When growth slows, energy demand does, too, and oil prices fell in anticipation.
Benchmark crude for February delivery fell $1.78 to $88.35 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Japan's next leader wants freer rein for military

Imagine that North Korea launched a missile at Japan. Tokyo could — and would certainly try to — shoot it down. But if the missile were flying overhead toward Hawaii or the continental United States, Japan would have to sit idly by.
Japan's military is kept on a very short leash under a war-renouncing constitution written by U.S. officials whose main concern was keeping Japan from rearming soon after World War II. But if Japan's soon-to-be prime minister Shinzo Abe has his way, the status quo may be in for some change.
Abe, set to take office for a second time after leading his conservative party to victory in elections last Sunday, has vowed a fundamental review of Japan's taboo-ridden postwar security policies and proposed ideas that range from changing the name of the military — now called the Japan Self-Defense Forces — to revising the constitution itself.
Most of all, he wants to open the door to what the Japanese call "collective defense," which would allow Japan's troops to fight alongside their allies — especially the U.S. troops who are obliged to defend Japan — if either comes under direct attack. The United States has about 50,000 troops in Japan, including its largest air base in Asia.
Right now, if Japan's current standoff with China over a group of disputed islands got physical, and U.S. Navy ships coming to Japan's assistance took enemy fire, Japan wouldn't be able to help them.
"With the U.S. defense budget facing big cuts, a collapse of the military balance of power in Asia could create instability," Abe said in the run-up to the election, promising to address the collective defense issue quickly. "We must foster an alliance with the United States that can hold up under these circumstances."
While welcome in Washington, which is looking to keep its own costs down while beefing up its Pacific alliances to counterbalance the rise of China, Abe's ideas are raising eyebrows in a region that vividly remembers Japan's brutal rampage across Asia 70 years ago.
"The issue of whether Japan can face up to and reflect upon its history of aggression is what every close neighbor in Asia and the global community at large are highly concerned about," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news conference in Beijing this week. She said any move to bolster the military "deserves full vigilance among the Asian countries and the global community."
Even so, many Japanese strategists believe the changes are long overdue.
Japan has one of the most sophisticated military forces in the world, with a quarter million troops, a well-equipped navy and an air force that will acquire dozens of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters over the next several years, in addition to its already formidable fleet of F-15s. Japan's annual defense budget is the world's sixth largest.
"We should stand tall in the international community," said Narushige Michishita, who has advised the government on defense issues and is the director of the security and international program at Tokyo's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
"These are good, well-trained conventional forces," he said. "We are second to none in Asia. So the idea is why don't we start using this. We don't have to start going to war. We can use it more effectively as a deterrent. If we get rid of legal, political and psychological restraints, we can do much more. We should start playing a larger and more responsible in international security affairs."
Outside of very constrained participation in U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping operations and other low-intensity missions, Japan's military is tightly restricted to national defense and humanitarian assistance. Although Japan did support the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its troops were kept well away from frontline combat.
Such restrictions, seen by conservatives as a postwar relic that has kept Japan from being a bigger player on the international stage, have long been one of Abe's pet peeves.
When he was first prime minister in 2006-2007, he was so disturbed by the kinds of crisis scenarios in which Tokyo's hands were tied that he commissioned a panel of experts to explore Japan's options. He left office before the report could be completed. His party was ousted from power two years later, and the issue was essentially dropped.
This time around, it's not clear how effectively or how soon Abe will be able to push the military issue, since stimulating the nation's economy will be his first task, and he faces strong opposition in parliament, where he has been slammed as a historical revisionist and a hawk.
But with the daily cat-and-mouse game between the Chinese and Japanese coast guards over the disputed islands not expected to end soon, polls indicate support for beefing up the military is stronger than ever.
"These are real issues, important issues," Michishita said. "And I think Abe will try to do something about it."

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Saudi website editor could face death for apostasy-rights group

RIYADH (Reuters) - The editor of a Saudi Arabian website could be sentenced to death after a judge cited him for apostasy and moved his case to a higher court, the monitoring group Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.
Raif Badawi, who started the Free Saudi Liberals website to discuss the role of religion in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in June, Human Rights Watch said.
Badawi had initially been charged with the less serious offence of insulting Islam through electronic channels, but at a December 17 hearing a judge referred him to a more senior court and recommended he be tried for apostasy, the monitoring group said.
Apostasy, the act of changing religious affiliation, carries an automatic death sentence in Saudi Arabia, along with crimes including blasphemy.
Badawi's website included articles that were critical of senior religious figures, the monitoring group said.
A spokesman for Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry was not available to comment.
The world's top oil exporter follows the strict Wahhabi school of Islam and applies Islamic law, or sharia.
Judges base their decisions on their own interpretation of religious law rather than on a written legal code or on precedent.
King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia's ruler, has pushed for reforms to the legal system, including improved training for judges and the introduction of precedent to standardize verdicts and make courts more transparent.
However, Saudi lawyers say that conservatives in the Justice Ministry and the judiciary have resisted implementing many of the changes that he announced in 2007.

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Iran a central issue for my next term: Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran's perceived nuclear threat against Israel will be the central issue concerning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government if he is re-elected in a month's time, the Israeli leader said on Saturday.
Netanyahu has set out a mid-2013 "red line" for tackling Iran's uranium enrichment project. The West says this programme is aimed at developing the means to build atomic bombs. Tehran denies this, saying it is enriching uranium for civilian energy.
"Preventing Iran becoming a nuclear (threat) is, I would say, the central aim in my next term if I earn the confidence of voters," Netanyahu told Israel's Channel 2 in a recorded interview.
Opinion polls have consistently shown Netanyahu's rightist Likud Beiteinu party as the clear front-runner for the January 22 elections, meaning he would be called upon to form a new coalition government.
Since announcing elections on October 9, Netanyahu discussed Iran nuclear programme in public less frequently than he had before setting the "red line" in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 27.
But he told interviewers that he was dealing with the issue on a daily basis.

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Obama seeks scaled-down 'fiscal cliff' agreement

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has scaled back his ambitions for a sweeping budget bargain with Republicans. Instead, he's calling for a limited measure sufficient to prevent the government from careening off the "fiscal cliff" in January by extending tax cuts for most taxpayers and forestalling a painful set of agency budget cuts.
In a White House appearance Friday, Obama also called on Congress to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed that would otherwise be cut off for 2 million people at the end of the year.
Obama's announcement was a recognition that chances for a larger agreement before year's end have probably collapsed. It also suggested that any chance for a smaller deal may rest in the Senate, particularly after the collapse of a plan by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to permit tax rates to rise on million-dollar-plus incomes.
"In the next few days, I've asked leaders of Congress to work toward a package that prevents a tax hike on middle-class Americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million Americans, and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction," Obama said. "That's an achievable goal. That can get done in 10 days."
Maybe, maybe not. The latest plan faces uncertainty at best in the sharply divided Senate. GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who wields great power even in the minority, called Friday for Senate action on a House bill from the summer extending the full menu of Bush-era tax cuts. He promised that it will take GOP votes for anything to clear the Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance most legislation. Democrats control 53 votes.
Boehner, giving the GOP weekly radio address, said, "Of course, hope springs eternal, and I know we have it in us to come together and do the right thing."
Earlier, Boehner said Obama needs to give more ground to reach an agreement and that both he and Obama had indicated in a Monday telephone call that their latest offers represented their bottom lines. "How we get there," he added, "God only knows."
Congress shut down for Christmas and Obama flew to Hawaii with his family for the holidays. But both men indicated they'd be back in Washington, working to beat the fast-approaching Jan. 1 deadline with an agreement between Christmas and New Year's.
Obama announced his plans after talking by phone with Boehner and meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who had previously pinned his hopes on an Obama-Boehner agreement and is wary of dealing with McConnell.
At the White House, Obama projected optimism despite of weeks of failed negotiations. "Call me a hopeless optimist, but I actually still think we can get it done," he said.
Boehner spoke in the morning, describing the increasingly tangled attempts to beat the Jan. 1 deadline and head off the perilous combination of across-the-board tax hikes and deep spending cuts.
"Because of the political divide in the country, because of the divide here in Washington, trying to bridge these differences has been difficult," Boehner said. "If it were easy, I guarantee you this would have been done decades before."
Obama said that in his negotiations with Boehner, he had offered to meet Republicans halfway when it came to taxes and "more than halfway" toward their target for spending cuts.
It's clear, however, that there's great resistance in GOP ranks to forging a bargain with Obama along the lines of a possible agreement that almost seemed at hand just a few days ago: tax hikes at or just over $1 trillion over 10 years, matched by comparable cuts to federal health care programs, Social Security benefits and across federal agency operating budgets.
Obama said he remains committed to working toward a goal of longer-term deficit reduction to reduce chronic trillion-dollar deficits while keeping tax rates in place for nearly everyone.
"Even though Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether those rates should go up for the wealthiest individuals, all of us — every single one of us — agrees that tax rates shouldn't go up for the other 98 percent of Americans," Obama said, citing statistics associated with his promise to protect household income under $250,000 from higher tax rates.
Neither the House nor the Senate is expected to meet again until after Christmas. Officials in both parties said there was still time to prevent the changes from kicking in with the new year.
The week began amid optimism that Obama and Boehner had finally begun to significantly narrow their differences. Both were offering a cut in taxes for most Americans, an increase for a relative few, and cuts of roughly $1 trillion in spending over a year. Also included was a provision to scale back future cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients — a concession by the president that inflamed many liberals..
GOP officials said some senior Republicans such as Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the most recent Republican vice presidential nominee, opposed the possible agreement. But No. 2 House Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia has joined arms with Boehner.
Boehner stepped back and announced what he called Plan B, legislation to let tax rates rise on incomes of $1 million or more while preventing increases for all other taxpayers.
Despite statements of confidence, he and his lieutenants decided late Thursday they were not going to be able to secure the votes needed to pass the measure in the face of opposition from conservatives unwilling to violate decades-old party orthodoxy never to raise tax rates.
The retreat came after it became clear that too many Republicans feared "the perception that somebody might accuse them of raising taxes," Boehner said.
Boehner also said that last Monday he had told Obama he had submitted his bottom-line proposal.
"The president told me that his numbers — the $1.3 trillion in new revenues, $850 billion in spending cuts — was his bottom line, that he couldn't go any further."
That contradicted remarks by White House press secretary Jay Carney, who said on Thursday that Obama has "never said either in private or in public that this was his final offer. He understands that to reach a deal it would require some further negotiation. There is not much further he could go.

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Yet another Senate race on the horizon in Mass.

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts voters weary from one of the nation's costliest and most divisive U.S. Senate races are all but certain to find themselves thrown back into another tumultuous election now that President Barack Obama has nominated Sen. John Kerry for secretary of state.
If confirmed by the Senate, as expected, Democrat Kerry would have to resign the seat he's held for nearly three decades, meaning a special election that will be the state's third Senate contest since 2010.
Jockeying already is well under way. The big question is whether Republican Sen. Scott Brown will go for the seat after losing his last month to Democratic Elizabeth Warren.
He kept the door wide open to another run during a farewell address on the Senate floor, declaring that both victory and defeat are "temporary" things. "Depending on what happens, and where we go, all of us, we may obviously meet again."
Perhaps as soon as next year.
Brown would be a formidable candidate. He has a statewide political organization and more than $400,000 left in his campaign account. He remains popular and demonstrated an ability to raise millions of dollars in campaign donations. But he would still have to contend with all the hurdles facing any Republican in Massachusetts.
Still, he'd probably have a clear path to the GOP nomination. "The candidacy is his for the asking," said Rep. Brad Jones, the Republican leader in the Massachusetts House. "If he runs, then get out of the way and put your oar in the water and row in the same direction."
Should Brown opt out, former Gov. William Weld, former gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker and Richard Tisei, who lost a narrow race to Democratic U.S. Rep. John Tierney, are among the Republicans waiting in the wings for a possible run.
Democrats don't have a clear front-runner, given that Gov. Deval Patrick doesn't plan to break his pledge to serve out the last two years of his term.
He still could play a pivotal role.
Patrick could use his sway in the party to clear what looks like a potentially crowded Democratic field. His backing of Warren was seen as giving her a critical edge by helping energize Democratic voters. On Friday, however, he said he'd probably not endorse anyone in a Democratic primary.
Attorney General Martha Coakley, who lost to Brown in the 2010 special election, pulled her name out of contention on Friday.
Several Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation have said they would seriously consider running, including Reps. Michael Capuano, Edward Markey, Stephen Lynch, and Niki Tsongas. Most of those House members would begin a campaign with a financial edge. Markey has one of the largest war chests with more than $3.1 million. Capuano has nearly half a million dollars in his account while Lynch has more than $740,000. Tsongas has about $166,000.
But all would have to work quickly to expand their appeal outside of their home districts.
Others mentioned by Democratic insiders as potential candidates are U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and Ted Kennedy Jr., a son of the late senator, an advocate for the disabled and co-founder of the New York-based Marwood Group, which describes itself as "a health care-focused strategic advisory and financial services firm."
The governor will be required to fill Kerry's seat temporarily with an interim appointment, while setting a day for the special election between 145 days and 160 days after Kerry's resignation. In the 2010 special election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, Patrick required his interim appointee, former Democratic Party Chairman Paul Kirk, not to run for a full term.
Patrick said he expects anyone he appoints on a temporary basis this time would also not run in the special election.
Former Gov. Michael Dukakis, retiring Rep. Barney Frank and Victoria Kennedy, widow of Sen. Kennedy, have been mentioned in Democratic circles as possible interim senators. This past week, Dukakis played down interest in the post while Kennedy declined comment.
Although Democrats are riding high off Warren's victory, several of the arguments they brought to bear in the 2012 campaign wouldn't apply in a special election. They can't say, as they did in the Warren campaign, that defeating Brown might tip the balance of power in the Senate. Or that electing him would strengthen the hand of a Republican president.
Still, the Democratic Party chairman, John Walsh, said the party has a wide pool of candidates and attributed Brown's loss to a rejection of his voting record.
"I don't think Scott Brown is any kind of prohibitive favorite," Walsh said. But he'd "certainly be a front-runner."
If there is a special election, whoever wins shouldn't get too comfortable. The senator will face re-election in 2014, when Massachusetts voters will endure yet another Senate election.

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'Fiscal cliff' leaves Boehner a wounded speaker

WASHINGTON (AP) — John Boehner is a bloodied House speaker following the startling setback that his own fractious Republican troops dealt him in their "fiscal cliff" struggle against President Barack Obama.
There's plenty of internal grumbling about the Ohio Republican, especially among conservatives, and lots of buzzing about whether his leadership post is in jeopardy. But it's uncertain whether any other House Republican has the broad appeal to seize the job from Boehner or whether his embarrassing inability to pass his own bill preventing tax increases on everyone but millionaires is enough to topple him.
"No one will be challenging John Boehner as speaker," predicted John Feehery, a consultant and former aide to House GOP leaders. "No one else can right now do the job of bringing everyone together" and unifying House Republicans.
The morning after he yanked the tax-cutting bill from the House floor to prevent certain defeat, Boehner told reporters he wasn't worried about losing his job when the new Congress convenes Jan. 3.
"They weren't taking that out on me," he said Friday of rank-and-file GOP lawmakers, who despite pleading from Boehner and his lieutenants were shy of providing the 217 votes needed for passage. "They were dealing with the perception that somebody might accuse them of raising taxes."
That "somebody" was a number of outside conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, which openly pressured lawmakers to reject Boehner's bill. Such organizations often oppose GOP lawmakers they consider too moderate and have been headaches for Boehner in the past.
This time, his retreat on the tax measure was an unmistakable blow to the clout of the 22-year House veteran known for an amiable style, a willingness to make deals and a perpetual tan.
Congressional leaders amass power partly by their ability to command votes, especially in showdowns. His failure to do so Thursday stands to weaken his muscle with Obama and among House Republicans.
"It's very hard for him to negotiate now," said Sarah Binder, a George Washington University political scientist, adding that it's premature to judge if Boehner's hold on the speakership is in peril. "No one can trust him because it's very hard for him to produce votes."
She said the loss weakens his ability to summon support in the future because "you know the last time he came to you like this, others didn't step in line."
Boehner, 63, faces unvarnished hostility from some conservatives.
"We clearly can't have a speaker operate well outside" what Republicans want to do, said freshman Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan.
Huelskamp is one of four GOP lawmakers who lost prized committee assignments following previous clashes with party leaders. That punishment was an anomaly for Boehner, who is known more for friendly persuasion than arm-twisting.
He said Boehner's job would depend on whether the speaker is "willing to sit and listen to Republicans first, or march off" and negotiate with Obama.
Conservative Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said one of the tea party's lasting impacts would be if Boehner struggled to retain his speakership due to the fight over the fiscal cliff, which is the combination of deep tax increases and spending cuts that start in early January without a bipartisan deal to avert them.
"If there's a major defeat delivered here, it could make it tough on him," King said. "He's in a tough spot."
Defenders say Boehner has been dealt a difficult hand. They say that in nearly two years as speaker, he's been field general over an unruly GOP majority confronting a Democratic president and Senate, steering them to the best outcomes possible.
House Republicans won some spending cuts early on. But they were faulted by the public for nearly causing a federal default in a 2011 fight over extending the government's debt limit, and lost a later battle over renewing a payroll tax cut.
This year, they've suffered in the polls for resisting the extension of wide-ranging tax cuts unless the wealthiest earners were included, which Obama opposes. They saw their House majority whittled by eight seats in last month's elections.
"He's doing a good job in a tough situation," said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a Boehner friend. He said the speaker's challenges include "independent individuals" among House Republicans and the increased willingness of outside conservatives to pressure GOP leaders, not defer to them.
Portman said he didn't know if Boehner's tax bill debacle would weaken him.
"It proved to the president what he's been saying, that there are limits to how far he can go" in making concessions in fiscal cliff bargaining, said Portman. "But a win would have improved chances for an agreement" by demonstrating that Boehner could deliver votes.
"His own Republican team let him down and that always hurts a leader," said veteran Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.
Republicans watching closely for overt or subtle moves by would-be challengers to Boehner said Friday they'd detected none, though such moves are notoriously secretive.
The entire House elects its speaker by majority vote on the first day of the new session. Because the 201 Democrats will probably all back Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for the job, a GOP effort to depose Boehner would have to occur internally and before the full House votes so Republicans — with 234 seats — elect one of their own as speaker.
Possible candidates to replace Boehner, according to GOP lawmakers and aides, include Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, third-ranking Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Rep. Tom Price of Georgia.
Cantor was at Boehner's side Friday as both men met with reporters. Cantor, McCarthy and Ryan lobbied colleagues for Boehner's tax-cut bill, giving Republicans angry over the measure little reason to turn to them as alternatives.
"I recognize why these questions are getting asked," conservative freshman Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., said about whether Boehner was in trouble. "I see nothing giving any evidence to that end. It was not a vote of no confidence on John Boehner. It was a legislative defeat, not a personal defeat."

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