Boehner says Obama pushing U.S. toward "fiscal cliff"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican House Speaker John Boehner accused President Barack Obama of pushing the country toward the "fiscal cliff" on Friday and of wasting another week without making progress in talks.

With three weeks left before a combination of steep tax hikes and deep spending cuts kicks in unless Congress intervenes, Boehner said the administration had adopted a "my way or the highway" approach and was engaging in reckless talk about going over the cliff.

"This isn't a progress report because there is no progress to report," Boehner told reporters at the Capitol. "The president has adopted a deliberate strategy to slow-walk our economy right to the edge of the fiscal cliff."

The day's rhetoric did point the way to a possible compromise that has been discussed for weeks on the main sticking point, tax hikes for the wealthy.

While Obama wants tax rates raised to 39.6 percent from 35 percent, he has not ruled out a smaller increase, perhaps to 37 percent. On Friday, Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden indicated flexibility on the "37 percent solution."

Biden was most explicit, saying that raising the rate was "not a negotiable issue; theoretically we can negotiate how far up."

"There are a lot of things that are possible to put the revenue that the president seeks on the table," Boehner said when asked about the same thing.

Pelosi, questioned later about Boehner's remark, said, "It's not about the rate, it's about the money."

But the bleak report from Boehner prolonged the economic uncertainty surrounding the fiscal cliff, which has already riled markets, slowed down business decisions and disrupted the budgeting processes for government at all levels across the country.

Economists say going over the cliff could throw the economy back into a recession.

Obama has called for extending the tax cuts set to expire on December 31 for middle-class taxpayers, but letting them rise for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Boehner and Republicans oppose his plan, preferring to find new revenues by closing loopholes and reducing deductions.

Boehner characterized as "reckless talk" Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's comment this week that the administration was prepared to go over the cliff if tax rates for the wealthiest were not increased.

The downbeat assessment was in line with what Boehner has offered for weeks as the two sides hold their ground on Obama's call for raising tax rates and Republican calls for cuts in entitlements like the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs for seniors and the poor.

Congressional aides said there were no plans for meetings on the issue this weekend. Future talks will be limited to Boehner and Obama and their staffs as the deadline approached, aides said.

Boehner said his telephone conversation with Obama on Wednesday and renewed staff talks on Thursday had not made any progress.

'MORE OF THE SAME'

"The phone call was pleasant, but it was just more of the same. Even the conversations the staff had yesterday were just more of the same. It's time for the president, if he's serious, to come back to us with a counteroffer," Boehner said.

Boehner and the House of Representatives leadership submitted their terms for a deal to the White House on Monday, after Obama offered his opening proposal last week.

The plans from both sides would cut deficits by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years but differ on how to get there. Republicans want more drastic spending cuts in entitlement programs, while Obama wants to raise more revenue with tax increases and to boost some spending to spur the sluggish economy.

With polling showing most Americans would blame Republicans if the country goes off the cliff, more House Republicans have been urging Boehner to get an agreement quickly, even if it means tax hikes for the wealthiest.

But Boehner could have a challenge selling an eventual agreement to conservative Tea Party sympathizers in the House, some of whom are openly critical of the concessions the speaker has already made.

Boehner has been under fire from the right for proposing $800 billion in new revenue and for removing from House committees four conservative Republican lawmakers who were seen as bucking the leadership.

"When he couples this conservative purging with a negotiated tax increase of $800 billion, we are starting to see more and more signs that he's not dedicated to fiscally conservative beliefs," Andrew Roth of the influential anti-tax group Club for Growth told Fox News.

If the question of whether to raise tax rates is resolved, the two sides will then try to figure out a way to deal with the spending cuts, perhaps postponing or trimming them. They will also work toward a longer-term deficit-reduction package to be taken up after the new Congress is sworn in next month.

At a news conference on Friday, Pelosi threw her support behind a White House proposal to give Obama power to raise U.S. borrowing authority without legislation from Congress.

The debt ceiling issue, which provoked a 2011 showdown that led to a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, has become entwined in the fiscal cliff debate. The debt limit will need to be raised in the next few months.

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Charleston, like many cities, on edge of "fiscal cliff"

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - For 37 years straight, Joseph P. Riley Jr. has sat behind the mayor's desk here, shaping this city and its budget.

On a recent afternoon, Riley, 69, reached for a draft copy of next year's spending plan and wondered aloud about what might get cut should politicians in Washington fail to find an agreement this month, unleashing $600 billion worth of spending reductions and tax hikes next year.

Hiring new police officers for the city of 123,000 could be put on hold, Riley said. A new piece of equipment for the fire department would have to wait. Sanitation workers might be in trouble, too.

"The thought that they would allow the economic harm that would ensue if we went over the fiscal cliff is mind-boggling," said Riley, a Democrat who was elected to his 10th term last year.

Charleston, a beautiful city steeped in history and awash in tourist dollars, would seem at first glance a world apart from the harm that could be caused by the combination of spending cuts and higher taxes. Economists predict its arrival could send the United States hurtling back into a recession.

At its edges, however, Charleston harbors the people who are most vulnerable to Washington's intransigence, making the city an emblem of a country's worry and of the powerlessness people feel in the face of Washington's indecision.

The sting of automatic cuts would be felt acutely by those who work in the defense sector and the poor. They form two prominent groups in Charleston County who may share little but the knowledge that federal belt-tightening is less a nuisance than an existential threat.

In South Carolina, defense spending accounts for $15.7 billion in annual economic activity - more than one in 10 dollars spent in the state - and nearly 140,000 jobs.

The Charleston area alone, which includes a large Air Force base and a Navy facility, holds more than 66,000 defense jobs and nearly half of the state's military economic activity, according to a report released last month by the South Carolina Department of Commerce.

While Charleston, like the rest of the state, has seen a boom in military spending over the last decade, the area has the state's second-highest concentration of people living in poverty, according to 2010 U.S. census data. More than one in four children live in poverty in the surrounding county.

From the anticipated cuts to the military to the shrinking of the safety net, Charleston shows what's at stake should the United States fall off the fiscal cliff.

'DEVASTATION'

A fast-talking engineer originally from Detroit, Michigan, Rebecca Ufkes founded UEC Electronics with her husband in neighboring Hanahan 17 years ago. Walking past employees in blue lab coats assembling components for military vehicles and commercial products last week, Ufkes described the chilling effect the possibility of cuts have had on Charleston's defense industry.

In September, Ufkes traveled to Washington as a part of a lobbying effort organized by the Aerospace Industry Association, hoping to impress politicians with the dangers facing her 200-person company and its competitors should the anticipated $500 billion in defense cuts, over 10 years, come to pass.

She came away encouraged by her state's largely Republican representation in Washington but frustrated by other lawmakers.

"South Carolina is a very pro-business state," she said. "They are very keen on economics. It's just that we are only one of 50 states."

Ufkes, 48, said she worries not only about the uncertainty that has left defense contractors unsure where to invest but the impending tax increases, which she said will put her company, active in the commercial marketplace as well, at a disadvantage against foreign rivals.

"Probably the solution is not going to be perfect for UEC," she said, "but I don't want it to be devastating. Compromise and devastation are not the same thing."

With a mug declaring, "Failure is not an option," sitting on her desk, Ufkes predicted that her company would make it, no matter how devastating the cuts are.

"If we don't survive," she said. "I don't know who will."

NO 'GIFTS'

Five miles (eight km) from Ufkes' cutting-edge electronics manufacturer is the struggling North Charleston neighborhood of Chicora-Cherokee, where Bill Stanfield and his wife, Evelyn Oliveira, arrived fresh out of Princeton Theological Seminary 10 years ago.

They founded Metanoia, a development organization focusing on bettering the community by securing housing loans, planting a garden, and running after-school and summer programs.

Through government services like AmeriCorps, the national volunteer group, and funds from sources like the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Stanfield said his group received nearly a fifth of its funding from the federal government last year.

With politicians facing immense pressure over limiting cuts to entitlements like the Medicare health insurance program for seniors and the Social Security retirement program, advocates for the poor say they expect painful reductions in spending on education and housing.

"I don't know if our housing program would survive," Stanfield, 39, said.

Cuts to education will hit South Carolina hard, where the schools have bled money over the last five years.

According to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, South Carolina's cuts to education have been the fifth largest in the country, slicing 18 percent off of per-student spending during that period.

The Obama administration, which Republicans consider a profligate spender, has felt like lean times in neighborhoods like Chicora-Cherokee, Stanfield said.

"You know Mitt Romney said that people voted for Obama because of gifts?" Stanfield said. "There's this misconception that President Obama has been a gravy train of funding. There was more funding under President Bush of these organizations than under Obama."

'GAME OF CHICKEN'

Last month, Riley, the Charleston mayor, went to Washington with a group of fellow city leaders, Democrats and Republicans, to lobby the White House and Congress to save cities from drastic cuts.

Vice President Joseph Biden and Democratic leaders from the House of Representatives and Senate met with the mayors. House Speaker John Boehner and other Republican leaders in Congress declined their invitation, Riley said.

While Riley supports Obama's proposal to increase taxes on income earned over $250,000, a sticking point in the negotiations, he and other mayors cautioned that ending the tax-free status of municipal bonds would strangle cities' access to needed capital.

Riley returned to Charleston feeling like a deal, which could prevent the harshest blows from hitting his city, its residents and jobs, was in the offing. Now, he said, he is not so sure.

"It looks like it's a game of chicken," he said, "and there are signals that they are going to go through with it."

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Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.

Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a "sleeper issue" with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.

"Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, (companies will) be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it," said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.

Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.

The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.

Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.

The program "is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all," the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to "contributions" without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.

Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.

The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama's expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000. People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.

But the insurance fee had been overlooked as employers focused on other costs in the law, including fines for medium and large firms that don't provide coverage.

"This kind of came out of the blue and was a surprisingly large amount," said Gretchen Young, senior vice president for health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a group that represents large employers on benefits issues.

Word started getting out in the spring, said Young, but hard cost estimates surfaced only recently with the new regulation. It set the per capita rate at $5.25 per month, which works out to $63 a year.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the major industry trade group for health insurers, says the fund is an important program that will help stabilize the market and mitigate cost increases for consumers as the changes in Obama's law take effect.

But employers already offering coverage to their workers don't see why they have to pony up for the stabilization fund, which mainly helps the individual insurance market. The redistribution puts the biggest companies on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.

"It just adds on to everything else that is expected to increase health care costs," said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The fee will be assessed on all "major medical" insurance plans, including those provided by employers and those purchased individually by consumers. Large employers will owe the fee directly. That's because major companies usually pay upfront for most of the health care costs of their employees. It may not be apparent to workers, but the insurance company they deal with is basically an agent administering the plan for their employer.

The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.

It will phase out completely in 2017 — unless Congress, with lawmakers searching everywhere for revenue to reduce federal deficits — decides to extend it.

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Study: Talk Therapy May Help Depression when Medications Inadequate

A first-of-its-kind large scale research study concluded that the addition of talk therapy to a medication regimen helps to relieve the symptoms of depression, the leading cause of disability in the United States in those ages 15 years to 44 years, according to the National Institute of Mental Health .

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as an Adjunct to Medication Treatment

Only one-third of people with depression receive relief of symptoms from medication alone, so what can be done to help the millions of people who have the illness? Researchers from the universities of Glasgow, Bristol and Exeter in the United Kingdom determined to find out by recruiting more than 450 study participants, ages 18 to 79, each of whom were among the two-thirds of those diagnosed with depression that medication alone did not resolve their symptoms.

The randomized controlled trial measured results at both six months and 12 months, and based the scores on self-reporting of depression symptoms and relief of depression symptoms by the participants. At both intervals, 46 percent of those receiving cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, reported an abatement of at least 50 percent of their depression symptoms versus 22 percent of those receiving medication alone.

What Is the Impact of the Study Conclusions to Treatment for Depression?

Before this study, there was little measurable scientific evidence that CBT was a useful adjunct treatment for depression in people whose depressive symptoms did not respond to medication alone. Now, both mental health professionals and medical physicians alike can prescribe talk therapy for these individuals with reasonable certainty that nearly half of those who participate in such therapy will have some relief of symptoms.

But the study's conclusions also indicate that additional research is needed to provide relief of symptoms of depression in 54 percent of the people whose symptoms are resistant to both medication and talk therapy.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, is a widely used type of mental health counseling in which a mental health counselor provides a structured environment for aiding the individual to recognize inaccurate or negative thinking, explains MayoClinic.com .

Bottom Line

While it is reassuring to learn that many of the millions of individuals diagnosed with depression whose symptoms have not responded to antidepressant medications alone can find at least some relief of symptoms through CBT, the availability of such services in the United States is woefully lacking. Mental Health America , an advocacy group for mental health and substance abuse issues, reported that people with depression go, on average, 10 years before receiving treatment and fewer than one-third of those that do receive "minimally adequate care."

Mental health service availability varies from state to state; those with the least amount of services have the highest rates for suicide, the most significant negative outcome of depression.

The statistics represent only those people who are diagnosed with depression. There are likely many more people who have depression symptoms who are not reporting it, such as baby boomers and their seniors, according to the American Psychological Association , whose data is not represented, meaning even less service availability.

In a nation that prides itself on being the greatest on earth, we have far to go in mental health treatment.

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More Than Half of Hispanic Coloradans Lack Dental Insurance

The organization Colorado Trust reported on Monday that the results of a new Colorado Health Access Survey shows that more than half of Hispanics in the state do not have dental insurance. The overall number of people in the state without dental insurance grew 17 percent in in two years. Here are the details.

* The results of the 2011 Colorado Health Access Survey, released this month, show that 52.8 percent of Hispanic Coloradans lack dental insurance. This is higher than the rate of uninsured white Coloradans, at 39.1 percent, and black Coloradans, at 29.9 percent.

* The number of Hispanic Coloradans without dental care increased by 11 percent from 2008-09 to 2011, the survey showed.

* Among both kindergarten and third-grade children, the survey stated, more Hispanic children have at least one cavity than black or white children. The prevalence of untreated tooth decay is higher among Hispanic children in the state.

* According to Colorado Trust, having dental insurance is associated with seeking and receiving dental care. In 2011, 76.9 percent of the people who had dental insurance visited a dental professional. That number declined to 44.5 percent among those without insurance.

* Some factors affecting dental care besides insurance status include costs for services not covered by insurance and a lack of dental providers in rural areas of the state, Colorado Trust reported.

* The study found that Coloradans were more likely to forego dental care due to cost than any other type of care.

* Seniors 65 and older made up the age group most likely to not have dental insurance in Colorado, according to the study. Those living in rural areas were the least likely to visit a dental professional.

* Around 2.1 million people in the state did not have dental insurance in 2011, including 36.3 percent of the employed, working-age adults in the state. 18.6 percent of employed, working-age adults in Colorado lacked health insurance in 2011.

* Colorado Medicaid limits dental benefits to enrollees age 20 and younger, and traditional Medicare does not provide a dental benefit, the study stated.

* "Oral health care should not be considered optional or a luxury," said Ned Calonge, M.D., President and CEO of The Colorado Trust. "Going without basic dental care often leads to oral disease with unnecessary pain, more invasive care and higher costs, and can result in even bigger health problems."

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Moving Mali forward

Every year since 2001 the Festival au Desert has been held near Timbuktu, drawing musicians and listeners from around the world – until now. Next year’s event, according to its Website, is planned as a “Festival in Exile” held in stages in various other countries.

Mali, long considered an island of stability in a turbulent region, was turned upside down last spring as armed groups overran the north and a military coup toppled the democratically elected president.

Yet for some, crisis is also a wake-up call, unmasking Mali’s flaws while offering its people a chance to correct them.

“We need to recover the north,” says Moussa Mara, an accountant and district mayor in Bamako. “But what’s really at stake is how Mali might use this opportunity to move to greater democracy, civic values, justice, and prosperity.”

RELATED: A fabled city of the Sahara: How much do you know about Timbuktu?

AN EARLY SIGN

An attempt at overhauling Mali last occurred in 1991, when Army officers ousted the strongman president, Moussa Traoré, and started the country on a path toward democracy.

Free elections were instituted, and a decentralization plan meant to empower ordinary citizens subdivided regions into 703 small administrative “communes” with locally elected leaders.

International donors showered Mali with loans and development aid. Tourism grew, with desert jaunts and events such as the Festival au Desert among popular attractions.

From 2002, the United States poured around $60 million into training and equipping Mali’s Army to fight Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Islamist militants who have increasingly used the country’s northern hinterland as a base.

However, AQIM’s presence was also an early sign that, more generally, something was wrong in Mali.

'EVERYONE HAD SOMETHING'

Behind an image of democracy, endemic corruption and slapdash governance paved the way toward crisis, writes Yacouba Kone, Mali country manager for the British charity Christian Aid in a September report.

Malian democracy failed to serve ordinary people, Mr. Kone writes. “Rather, it was the entrenchment of a narrow elite that based its power more on patronage and less on popular support, in a bid to control the central government and the economy – both licit and illicit.”

According to Mr. Mara, the cozy relationship between power and personal interest was reflected in a quiescent political establishment.

“In ATT’s regime, everyone had something, so no one contested,” Mara says, using a common nickname for Amadou Toumani Touré, the former president first elected in 2002. “Political parties and civil society didn’t play their role.”

The result was a weak state that appeased rebellious Tuareg in Mali’s north by pulling back the Army, save in time of revolt, and allowed corruption and drug trafficking that in turn helped fund Islamic militancy.

“We had a feeling of impotence,” says Abdel Kader Sissoko, a former senior official in the northern regions of Kidal and Gao who retired last year. “The administration had neither the means nor the opportunity to combat drug trafficking.”

Last March, Army officers frustrated by the government’s inability to contain Tuareg rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) ousted Mr. Touré.

Overnight, Islamist militants who had partnered with the MNLA in a marriage of convenience sidelined it instead, and today control northern cities.

In Bamako, an interim government was named in August. But coup leader Capt. Amadou Sanogo still wields influence, says a Western diplomat who was not permitted to speak on-record.

Today, plans are firming up for potential military intervention to dislodge the Islamists: West African countries have pledged troops, and the US and European countries are offering logistical support.

While intervention could take place next year, Western leaders also hope that dialogue with militants might allow a peace deal instead.

'CHANGE'

Whatever happens, many Malians say their country must not revert to business-as-usual.

The first step, says Mara, is holding presidential elections that were derailed by the coup, which in turn should free up development aid frozen when the government fell.

For Mr. Sissoko, more development is crucial to security in the north.

“If people have enough income they won’t have to rely on those who pay them to do bad things,” he says. “The temptation has always been great.”

Elections would also offer voters a chance to shoot down mainstream political parties, says Mara. He plans to run, presenting himself as an alternative to Mali’s political establishment.

At 37, he is younger than most politicians, he says. Unlike many, he hails from the private sector and founded his own party, Yelema, which means “Change.”

That notion strikes a chord with young Malians like Halachi Maiga, a teacher from the Islamist-held city of Gao, who is also a member of the regional youth council. Last March he watched the city's local elected officials bolt as gunmen invaded.

Leading citizens and civil society members, including himself, assumed the responsibility of managing relations between ordinary people and the Islamists who now run Gao.

“We need to find a way to choose credible leaders,” Mr. Maiga says. “So as not to fall back into the old system of corruption and the corrupt.”

IN PICTURES: Africa's hot spots

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Izhar Gafni invents a cardboard bicycle that may revolutionize transportation

Izhar Gafni  smiles and shakes his head in wonder when asked about the whirlwind of events that have taken place since news of his revolutionary cardboard bicycle first made international headlines a few weeks ago.

"It's all happened so fast, and we did not expect it at all," exclaims Mr. Gafni, a heavyset man who displays all the qualities of an archetypal inventor – a rapid, if somewhat erratic thought process; a tendency to forget the point he is trying to make; and pure delight when describing his next challenge or idea.

Gafni, who has not had even a minute to consider how to properly market or promote his lightweight and extremely low-cost bicycle, has instead spent the best part of the past several weeks entertaining journalists and television crews, responding to throngs of cycling enthusiasts, and starting to develop potential business partners who have contacted him from around the globe.

IN PICTURES: The things we do with bikes!

Those who have visited Gafni's home and workshop in Moshav Ahituv, a settlement near Hadera on Israel's northern coast, and witnessed the colorful 20-pound bicycle in action agree that this two-wheel creation could revolutionize cycling in general and enhance methods of transportation in the developing world in particular.

"I know that on one side people are interested in having the fastest and latest technology, but I also think there is a real need and a craving for things like this that are simple and easy to use," says Gafni, likening his simplistic bicycle to a wristwatch.

"People don't really need watches anymore: They have clocks on their TVs, on their computers, and even on their phones, but everyone still wants one because it's useful and looks good," he quips.

We are sitting together in what could only be described as a typical inventor's backyard. Pieces of his previous creations are strewn across the grass, while a mismatch of various unsuspecting items make do as garden furniture – the driver's seat from an old, worn-out car; an oversized wooden spool that was most likely used to store wire; and a few wooden crates for the stream of visitors to sit on.

A few feet to the right of Gafni's modest house sits the run-down workshop where he spent numerous hours over the past year and a half trying to turn simple pieces of cardboard into a material strong enough and durable enough to be used for building a multipurpose bicycle.

Just a few yards from the small shed's crooked door stands the much-talked-about invention. There is no doubt that it is an attractive gadget. The large seat is spray-painted an inviting shade of cherry red, while the wheels and frame – a shiny pale blue – sparkle in the sun.

While it is clearly less high-tech than many of the bicycles on the market today, Gafni's design has most of the same practical features. In addition, he says, the bike will soon have an environmentally friendly brake system and a pedaling mechanism that he is currently developing using a variety of recyclable materials.

All will be revealed in the coming months, promises Gafni, who has created a company based on his unique designs called I.G. Cardboard Technologies.

Getting to this point in the development of his cardboard bicycle has been a labor of love.

As an amateur cycling enthusiast, Gafni was inspired to create a bicycle using common cardboard following a visit four years ago to a local cycling store, he says.

"We were all chatting in the store, and somehow started discussing how someone had built a canoe out of cardboard," he recalls. "It was this canoe that was sitting in the back of my head when it suddenly struck me: Why not make a bicycle out of cardboard, too?"

Even though friends and experts warned him that it could not be done, Gafni refused to give up, growing ever more determined to take on what appeared to be an impossible challenge.

"There is really no knowledge of how to work with cardboard except for using it to make packages," he explains, describing how he started to explore the material, which is essentially made from wood pulp, folding it in a variety of ways like origami and adding a mixture of glue and varnish to get it to the strength he desired.

When he finished building the first model, Gafni, who weighs about 250 pounds, and a friend of a similar weight, took turns riding the bike. "It was a really exciting moment, a real triumph that it withheld our weight and did not crumble or collapse," Gafni recalls.

At that moment he realized that creating a usable bicycle made of cardboard was not impossible after all.

The moment of glory passed fairly quickly, says Gafni, who quickly went back to work perfecting his design, which, despite the launch of his first model, is still only in the developmental stages.

"It is still a work in progress, and we are still looking at how to create a design that can be mass-produced," says Gafni, who together with his business partner, Nimrod Elmish, hopes to sell the bicycle to markets in Africa in the near future.

Mr. Elmish, who represents the Israeli high-tech incubation company ERB, says he is hoping to use various kinds of funding, including government grants and rebates for using green materials, to ultimately reduce much of the production cost and allow the bikes to be sold at retail for no more than $20.

"There is no doubt that cheap bikes at $20 a pop could really transform the lives of people living in poor countries who need to walk ... to get to a clinic for medical treatment or find work," says Karin Kloosterman, founder and editor of the Middle East's premier environmental news website, Green Prophet. She has closely monitored the development of Gafni's bike.

"Whether consumers from India to New York will buy it, I can't say," she says. But the bike's low retail price could also make it attractive to people in wealthier countries who often have their bikes stolen or lost and do not want to invest too much money in buying a new one, she points out.

"If the value is reduced to nothing more than a small, plastic shopping cart you find at grocery stores, then it will really take the stress out of protecting your bike," Ms. Kloosterman says.

The bicycle's design is representative of a "new trend by designers to push the limits of common, everyday materials," she adds. "What Izhar Gafni is doing with cardboard opens designers' and inventors' minds to undervalued materials, and new and more sustainable ways of creating useful objects."

"It's amazing that Gafni has taken something that everyone knows and everyone wants [a bicycle] and reinvented it so that everyone can actually have it," says Sharona Justman, cofounder and co-chair of The Israel Conference, a US-based initiative that showcases the brightest and best inventions from Israel. She plans to feature the bicycle at the group's annual conference early next year.

IN PICTURES: The things we do with bikes!

Ms. Justman, visiting Gafni's workshop, adds that the bicycle is not only an ecologically sound product – as most bikes are – but that it is also a very democratic product. "Because of its affordable price, everyone will be allowed the chance to purchase one," she says.

"It's also a beautiful design," she adds, stroking the red varnished seat.

Clearly proud of what Justman calls "the bicycle that everyone will want," Gafni says that he is now laying the groundwork for several other models, including a children's push bike, a version designed especially for women, and one designed for older children.

"As soon as things get quieter," he adds, he wants to start using his magic cardboard formula to design a lightweight and affordable wheelchair for the developing world.

• To learn more about Gafni's cardboard bicycle project, go to www.cardboardtech.com.

HELP INNOVATIVE PROJECTS

UniversalGiving helps people give to and volunteer for top-performing charitable organizations worldwide. Projects are vetted by Universal Giving; 100 percent of each donation goes directly to the listed cause.

Here are three innovative projects you may want to help, selected by UniversalGiving:

• Nepal Orphans Home Inc. aims to dramatically improve the health and livelihoods of villagers by introducing briquette stoves. Project: Help supply sustainable technologies in Nepal.

• The goal of Polder Inc. is to help educate the world’s poorest billion people by training teachers in their classrooms to use low-cost technology. Project: Provide support to train teachers in Mali with low-cost video technology.

• Kopernik accelerates sustainable development by fostering application of appropriate technology. Project: Volunteer as a Kopernik Fellow.

• Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

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Colombia: Peace talks resume, but local hope dampens

Negotiators for the government of Colombia and leftist rebels resumed talks in Havana, Cuba this week to try to end this country’s intractable war, but the hopes for peace for Colombians at home have been dampened.

An opinion poll published last week showed that support for the talks among Colombians had dropped from 77 percent in September just after President Juan Manuel Santos announced the negotiations, to 57 percent in late November. And 54 percent of respondents to the poll by Ipsos/Napoleón Franco said they were pessimistic about the outcome of the talks.

This, despite the fact that both sides of the negotiating table have said they are pleased with the way the talks are unfolding. Mr. Santos called the first round, which ended Nov. 29, “positive.”

But Bogotá restaurateur Orlando González says that because so little information is known in Colombia about what is being discussed behind closed doors, “there’s a feeling they’re making deals behind everyone’s back.”

RELATED: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz!

The government has stressed the need for discretion and has been cautious about giving statements, while rebel negotiators from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have taken advantage of the media attention. According to the poll, 56 percent of Colombians disagree with the government’s private handling of the talks.

Santos on Sunday called on Colombians to “have patience and not to demand immediate results” because negotiators were dealing with “some very complex issues.”

The negotiation agenda started off with discussion on land access and agrarian reform, often cited as one of the core issues in Colombia’s armed conflict, which has dragged on since 1964. The two sides called for a national forum on the land reform, which will be held in Bogotá Dec. 17-19.

Four other issues on the agenda are illegal drugs, political participation, disarmament, and reparations to victims. Although government officials previously said they expected talks to last around eight months, Santos said on Sunday that he hopes a final agreement will be reached by November 2013 at the latest.

Although the guerrillas declared a two-month unilateral cease-fire through Jan. 20, 2013, government troops have maintained military pressure on the FARC, killing at least 20 people in a series of air raids on rebel camps in southwestern Nariño Province on Saturday.

And while negotiators continue meeting in Havana, citizen organizations in Colombia have been busy drawing up their own proposals for peace.

“In those negotiations peace will not be achieved. What they can do is put an end to the armed conflict,” says Alirio Uribe, a leader of the Movement of Victims of the Conflict (MOVICE), at a meeting of civil society groups in Bogotá.

RELATED: Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz!

“Any agreements signed in Havana will serve to highlight the real conflict in this country which has to do with inequality and has to be resolved though democratic means,” says Mr. Uribe.

On Thursday, the congressional peace commissions sent documents with proposals formulated by citizen groups to negotiators in Havana, mostly dealing with agrarian reform, political participation, and suggestions on how to confront the issue of illegal crops in the country, which produces the bulk of the world’s cocaine.

“Peace will be more sustainable and lasting if the proposals [from these groups] are taken into account,” says Bruno Moro, head of the United Nation’s office in Colombia.

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With Hamas's confidence waxing, Khaled Meshaal arrives in Gaza

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal  is walking on Palestinian territory for the first time in 45 years. He's in town to celebrate his party’s 25th anniversary and the end of a week-long conflagration with Israel last month.

But his visit could also signal growing confidence within the Islamist party – which Israel, the United States, and the European Union consider a terrorist organization – over its position in the tumultuous Middle East.

Mr. Meshaal, who left the West Bank as a boy in 1967 and had not visited Gaza before today, has led Hamas for over 15 years, primarily from the party's offices in Damascus, Syria. But he was in Egypt late last month for negotiations of the cease-fire that ended the eight-day conflict with Israel. Some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed in the violence, the Telegraph reports, the worst fighting in four years. The New York Times reports that Hamas' negotiation of “a cease-fire with Israel through the agency of the Egyptians … may represent an important step toward becoming a more recognized international player and representative of at least a portion of the Palestinian people.”

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Meshaal has since spoken of the possibility of reaching out to other political factions within the Palestinian territory, including the Fatah party, which was pushed out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007. Al Jazeera reports Hamas invited Fatah officials to a celebration rally in Gaza tomorrow, part of Meshaal’s whirlwind trip.

"There is a new mood that allows us to achieve reconciliation," Meshaal told Al Jazeera.

According to the Times, “The Fatah movement controls the West Bank, which Israel still occupies, and the rivalry between the two groups is the defining principle of Palestinian politics, despite continuing efforts by Egypt to bring about a reconciliation.”

The most recent violence between Israel and Palestine started on Nov. 14 with an exchange of rockets and airstrikes. Since then, the Palestinian Authority gained United Nation’s recognition as a non-member observer state (something that Meshaal thanked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for, reports the BBC), and Israel announced the expansion of settlement construction on the West Bank.

Israel says its airstrikes did substantial damage to Hamas in November, killing Ahmed al-Jaabari, its military chief, and diminishing its supply of weapons, reports the Telegraph. But according to The Associated Press, Hamas leaders declared victory in Gaza after the truce was brokered in November. “While Israel said it inflicted heavy damage on the militants, Gaza's Hamas rulers claimed that Israel's decision not to send ground troops into the territory, as it had four years ago, was a sign of a new Hamas deterrent power.”

A spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry told Bloomberg today that “it doesn’t matter who they are, Hamas still stands for violence, bloodshed, extremism and racism.”

But the November Israeli-Palestinian face-off highlighted a change in the regional attitude toward Hamas, one that The Christian Science Monitor’s Egypt correspondent writes may be attributed to the aftermath of last year’s Arab uprisings. Political parties such as Hamas now have more support from Arab leaders, and the role Egypt’s Mohamed Morsi, the Turkish prime minister, Qatari emir, and Hamas’ exiled Meshaal played in brokering the cease-fire last month is one example of this.

…[I]n the post-“Arab spring” Middle East, the region looks much different, and Hamas has found a new swell of support as it faces Israel. Mr. Mubarak, ousted in a popular uprising in 2011, has been replaced by an elected president from the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead of a mostly sealed Gaza-Egypt border, it has become difficult to keep track of all the solidarity trips made to Gaza by Arab officials. ...

The uprisings that displaced pro-Western autocrats who toed the US line on Israel have brought to power Islamist governments more friendly to Hamas, as well as more sensitive to public opinion typically supportive of the Palestinian cause. This has reshaped the regional dynamics, leaving Israel increasingly isolated. These new governments, along with Turkey and Qatar, have formed a vocal block of opposition to Israel's assault on Gaza.

“This is a significant change in the Arab reaction,” says Khalil Al Anani, a scholar at Durham University in Britain. The new Arab nations ready to take a stronger stance against Israel could change Israel’s calculations in favor of more restraint.

“It shows that Gaza is not alone. This will put pressure on Israel, and they [Arab states] can move further if they want, by lobbying internationally and putting a spotlight on Israel and its lack of interest in peace," he says.

“The visit of Mashaal to Gaza is one of the fruits of the victory Hamas has achieved during the eight-day war on Gaza,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said, according to Bloomberg. “Gaza is freed now and will receive whoever visitors it wants.”

Hamas was founded Dec. 14, 1987, after the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. This weekend’s celebrations were moved up to coincide with the first intifada, or uprising, against Israel, reports the Times.

According to the BBC, “Under its charter, Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel. But the group has also offered a 10-year truce in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from territories it occupied in 1967.”

Meshaal, who reportedly kissed the ground upon entering Gaza from Egypt, is expected to speak at tomorrow’s rally. He also plans to visit the homes of fallen Hamas members including Mr. Jabari and Hamas’ spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

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Norwegian protesters say EU Nobel Peace Prize win devalues award

Since the decision this October to give the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union, many have questioned its worthiness, given the current social and economic turmoil there. Among the critics who will be booing loudest at the award this coming week will be the Norwegians themselves – including some in government.

The Norwegian Peace Council, which oversees several Norwegian peace organizations, plans a protest march against the prize on Dec. 9, the day before European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, and President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, accept the medal and diploma in Oslo City Hall.

The protest “Nobel Peace Prize Initiative for 2012” will include not only the Norwegian organization "No to EU," but also members of Norway’s ruling Center and Socialist Left parties, the national trade union LO Oslo, and Save the Children Youth. More than 50 organizations plan to march from the central Oslo square at Youngstorget that evening, bearing torches and the banner “Not a Peace Prize For Our Time.” Among the international participants, three former Peace Prize laureates plan to attend along with Dimitris Kostelas of the Greek opposition party Syriza, who will give the closing speech in front of Parliament.

Think you know about the Nobel Peace Prize? Take our quiz.

“We expect more than 1,000 people to march,” says Hedda Langemyr, the Norwegian Peace Council director. “[The EU] is not a worthy prize winner.”

Heming Olaussen, leader of No to EU, stresses the protest is not a protest against EU membership, even though 3 out of 4 Norwegians currently oppose joining. Rather, it marks the organization’s objection to the worthiness of the EU as a prize winner, citing the EU’s current armament profile, the social and economic unrest amidst the growing youth unemployment in Greece and Spain, its aggressive trade policy toward poor developing countries in Latin America, and efforts to prevent African refuges from coming into “rich Europe.”

“This is a provocation to the vast number of Norwegians,” Mr. Olaussen told a meeting of international journalists. “We got 500 new members in two days after the [Peace Prize] announcement.”

“I agree it would have been more logical at another point in time, but that does not preclude it from having it now,” replies Janós Herman, EU ambassador to Norway. He cited the EU’s record in gradually enlarging the “zone of peace,” the large amount of resources it has provided in humanitarian aid around the world, its fight against climate change, and peace-keeping operations among the reasons why the EU deserves the prize.

“We don’t think the economic crisis is the product of the EU,” he adds. “We don’t accept the copyright for that.”

NOBEL CONTROVERSIES

The award to the EU is not the first time the prize has attracted controversy, nor the first that has set the Nobel Committee at odds with the Norwegian government, from which it is independent.

The Norwegian Peace Council also organized a protest march in 2009, when several thousand marched in Oslo against the Nobel Peace Prize award to US President Obama because of the US engagement in two military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to Geir Lundestad, the Norwegian Nobel Committee secretary, one of the most notable peace prize dilemmas was in 1936, when German pacifist Carl Von Ossietzky's controversial nomination and win prompted Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvdan Koht to resign as leader of the Nobel Committee and Norwegian King Haakon to skip the prize ceremony on Mr. Koht's advice. Another case was the resignation of Christian Democrat Kåre Kristiansen from the Nobel Committee over the awarding of the 1994 prize to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin, and Shimon Peres.

POLITICAL AWARD?

This year’s award, however, poses a particular problem for the government Center Party, which helped sway Norwegians twice to vote down EU membership during the 1972 and 1994 referendums. The party’s key government ministers have signaled they would prioritize other appointments the day of the ceremony, although there is pressure now for them to show at Oslo City Hall to avoid the Peace Prize being seen as a political award.

Critics have pointed out how the Chinese government viewed the attendance of Norwegian officials at the 2010 award to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo as political support for the decision, souring Sino-Norwegian relations. (Read more about which countries refused to attend the award ceremony last year)

Despite the protests and absentees, the EU will have many well-wishers that day, many of them high-profiled. Among the hundreds expected to fill the seats of Oslo City Hall will include at least 18 top leaders, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande. Later that night, the European Movement in Norway will arrange the traditional torch-lit procession in honor of the laureates, who will wave from the balcony of the Grand Hotel. Christian Pollock Fjellstad, the European Movement political adviser, says it has ordered a thousand torches, but expects even more to attend.

Ambassador Herman will be among the well wishers that day. But he acknowledges that relations between Norway and the EU are mildly strained after the Norwegian government recently imposed a number of tolls against EU cheeses, such as Dutch Gouda. Herman contends that the protectionist measure goes against the intention of the EEA agreement to work toward market liberalization, and says the two sides are in dialogue in the hopes that the toll will be revoked.

“I won’t be saying cheese for the camera,” he quips.

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