Jupiter and Moon Have Close Encounter Tonight: See It Live Online

The planet Jupiter and Earth’s moon will star is a dazzling spectacle in the night sky tonight, weather permitting. But even if bad weather spoils your view, you can see celestial show live online in a free webcast.

Jupiter and the moon will appear just a finger-width apart tonight (Jan. 21) for stargazers across North America. In South America, some observers may even see Jupiter slip behind the moon in an amazing occultation. The extreme close encounter between the planet and moon is a must-see, even if clouds block your view.

The online skywatching website Slooh Space Camera will provide free telescope views of Jupiter’s encounter with the moon during a 30-minute webcast that begins at 9 p.m. EST (0200 GMT).  You can watch the webcast of Jupiter and the moon on SPACE.com here tonight.

Slooh president Patrick Paolucci, astronomer Bob Berman of Astronomy Magazine and astro-imager Matt Francis of the Prescott Observatory will present the live views of Jupiter and the moon.

“By good fortune, the Great Red Spot will be traveling across the middle of Jupiter’s disk during Slooh’s live broadcast,” Slooh officials said. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a colossal storm at least twice the size of Earth that has been observed on Jupiter since the 1600s.

Jupiter and the moon will appear at their closest at different times depending on your viewing location, according to Sky & Telescope magazine. In Eastern North America, it will occur at 11:30 p.m. EST while further inland it occurs at 10 p.m. CST. Moving westward, the peak viewing time will be at 8:30 p.m. MST for stargazers in the Mountain Time Zone, while West Coast observers should look up at 7 p.m. PST.

There is even a chance for stargazers to see Jupiter in daylight, magazine officials said.

“You’ll also get an opportunity to attempt an unusual feat: spotting Jupiter in the late afternoon, before the sun sets,” says Tony Flanders, associate editor at Sky & Telescope magazine and host of SkyWeek on PBS. “First locate the moon medium-high in the east; then look a few moon-widths left or lower left of the moon for Jupiter. It should be easy to spot with binoculars if the air is clear.”

More seasoned amateur astronomers with good telescopes may want to search for Jupiter’s moon Europa with their telescopes. The icy moon will cross in front of Jupiter as seen from Earth tonight between 8:13 p.m. to 10:37 p.m. EST (5:13 to 7:37 p.m. PST/ 0113 and 0337 GMT). Europa’s shadow on the moon will cross Jupiter a bit later, from 10:22 p.m. to 12:46 a.m. EST (7:22 to 9:46 p.m. PST/0322 to 0546 GMT), magazine officials said.

There is one more bright object to check out during tonight’s cosmic display: the bright star Aldebaran. The star will shin to the lower left of Jupiter throughout the evening. The star clusters Hyades and Pleiades also promise to dazzle, according to Sky & Telescope.

While Jupiter and the moon will appear extremely close to each other in the night sky, tonight’s event won’t be the last for the two objects. On March 17, Jupiter and the moon will have another change to appear to have a celestial encounter.

Editor’s note: If you snap an amazing photo of Jupiter and the moon, or any other night sky view, that you’d like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to managing editor Tariq Malik at [email protected]

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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How Obama made opportunity real

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• LZ Granderson: Specifics of Obama's first term may not be remembered


• He says his ability to win presidency twice is unforgettable


• Granderson: Obama, the first black president, makes opportunity real for many


• He says it makes presidency a possibility for people of all backgrounds

Editor's note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and is a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter: @locs_n_laughs.

(CNN) -- In his first term, President Barack Obama signed 654 bills into law, the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased by about 70% and the national debt by $5.8 trillion.

And in 10 years -- maybe less -- few outside of the Beltway will remember any of that. That's not to suggest those details are not important. But even if all of his actions are forgotten, Obama's legacy as the first black president will endure.

And even though this is his second term and fewer people are expected to travel to Washington this time to witness the inauguration, know that this moment is not any less important.

For had Obama not been re-elected, his barrier-breaking election in 2008 could have easily been characterized as a charismatic politician capturing lightning in a bottle. But by becoming the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win at least 51% of the vote twice, Obama proved his administration was successful.

And not by chance, but by change.

A change, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., that was not inevitable but a result of our collective and continuous struggle to be that shining city on a hill of which President Ronald Reagan spoke so often.

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For much of this country's history, being a white male was a legal prerequisite to being president. Then it was accepted as a cultural norm. Because of that, we could not be the country we set out to be.

But today, somewhere in the Midwest, there is a little Asian-American girl with the crazy idea she could be president one day, and because of Obama, she knows that idea is not very crazy at all.

That's power -- the kind of power that can fade urgent numbers and debates of the day into the background of history.

Gergen: Obama 2.0 version is smarter, tougher

Few remember the number of steps Neil Armstrong took when he landed on the moon, but they remember he was the first human being who stepped on the moon. Few can tell you how many hits Jackie Robinson had in his first Major League Baseball game, but they know he broke baseball's color barrier. Paying homage to a person being first at something significant does not diminish his or her other accomplishments. It adds texture to the arc of their story.

I understand the desire not to talk about race as a way of looking progressive.

But progress isn't pretending to be color blind, it's not being blinded by the person's color.

Or gender.

Or religion.

Or sexual orientation.

Somewhere in the South, there is an openly gay high schooler who loves student government and wants to be president someday. And because of Obama, he knows if he does run, he won't have to hide.

That does not represent a shift in demographics, but a shift in thought inspired by a new reality. A reality in which the president who follows Obama could be a white woman from Arkansas by way of Illinois; a Cuban-American from Florida; or a tough white guy from Jersey. Or someone from an entirely different background. We don't know. Four years is a long time away, and no one knows how any of this will play out -- which I think is a good thing.

For a long time, we've conceived of America as the land of opportunity. Eight years ago, when it came to the presidency, that notion was rhetoric. Four years ago, it became a once in a lifetime moment. Today, it is simply a fact of life.

Ten years from now, we may not remember what the unemployment rate was when Obama was sworn in a second time, but we'll never forget how he forever changed the limits of possibility for generations to come.

Somewhere out West, there is an 80-year-old black woman who never thought she'd see the day when a black man would be elected president. Somehow I doubt Obama's second inauguration is less important to her.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

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Union: Deal reached between Grayslake schools, teachers

A union spokesman announced this morning that a tentative deal had been reached. (Google maps / January 21, 2013)

Staff report

8:55 a.m. CST, January 21, 2013

School and union officials in north suburban Grayslake have reached a tentative agreement that will end the teacher's strike there, the union and school district announced Monday.

After negotiations failed to yield an agreement on a new contract, the teachers' union called for a strike that began last Wednesday.

Early this morning, officials from Community Consolidated School District 46 and the teachers' union issued a brief joint statement announcing a tentative deal, according to Dave Comerford, a spokesman for the teachers union. The school district said it would be a two-year contract.

Schools will reopen Tuesday, according to the statement shared by Comerford, but the agreement remains subject to union ratification and Board of Education approval.

The school district announced the tentative agreement on its web site, saying that classes at the district's schools will resume Tuesday after the already scheduled day off today for the Martin Luther King holiday.

On the website, the district said it would not share details of the contract until it is ratified by both the union and the school board.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Algeria finds dead Canadian militants as siege toll rises

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian forces have found the bodies of two Canadian Islamist fighters after a bloody siege at a desert gas plant, a security source said on Monday, as the death toll reached at least 80 after troops stormed the complex to end the hostage crisis.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal is expected to give details on Monday about the siege near the town of In Amenas, which left American, British, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Filipino and Romanian workers dead or missing.

Much remains unclear about events after the jihadists staged the attack last Wednesday. However, an Algerian newspaper said they had arrived in cars painted in the colors of state energy company Sonatrach but registered in neighboring Libya, a country awash with arms since Muammar Gaddafi's fall in 2011.

The Algerian security source told Reuters that documents found on the bodies of the two militants had identified them as Canadians, as special forces scoured the plant following Saturday's bloody end to the crisis.

Veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of al Qaeda, and an official Algerian source has said the militants included people from outside the African continent, as well as Arabs and Africans.

A security source said on Sunday that Algerian troops had found the bodies of 25 hostages, raising the number of hostages killed to 48 and the total number of deaths to at least 80. He said six militants were captured alive and troops were still searching for others.

A Japanese government source said the Algerian government had informed Tokyo that nine Japanese had been killed, the biggest toll so far among foreigners at the plant. Six Filipinos died and four were wounded, a government spokesman in Manila said.

The raid has exposed the vulnerability of multinational-run oil and gas installations in an important producing region and pushed the growing threat from Islamist militant groups in the Sahara to a prominent position in the West's security agenda.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ordered an investigation into how security forces failed to prevent the attack, the daily El Khabar said. The militants had used nine cars in Sonatrach colors and all with Libyan registration plates, it quoted unnamed security sources as saying.

Algerian Tahar Ben Cheneb - leader of a group called the Movement of Islamic Youth in the South who was killed on the first day of the assault - had been based in Libya where he married a local woman two months ago, it said.

ONE-EYED JIHADIST

Belmokhtar - a one-eyed jihadist who fought in Afghanistan and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s when the secular government fought Islamists - tied the desert attack to France's intervention across the Sahara against Islamist rebels in Mali.

"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," he said in a video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. About 40 attackers participated in the raid, he said, roughly matching the government's figures for fighters killed and captured.

Belmokhtar demanded an end to French air strikes against Islamist fighters in neighboring Mali. These began five days before the fighters swooped before dawn and seized a plant that produces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas exports.

U.S. and European officials doubt such a complex raid could have been organized quickly enough to have been conceived as a direct response to the French military intervention. However, the French action could have triggered an operation that had already been planned.

The group behind the raid, the Mulathameen Brigade, also threatened to carry out more such attacks if Western powers did not end what it called an assault on Muslims in Mali, according to the SITE service, which monitors militant statements.

In a statement published by the Mauritania-based Nouakchott News Agency, the hostage takers said they had offered talks about freeing the captives, but the Algerian authorities had been determined to use military force.

"We opened the door for negotiations with the Westerners and the Algerians, and granted them safety from the beginning of the operation, but one of the senior (Algerian) intelligence officials confirmed to us in a phone call that they will destroy the place with everyone in it," SITE quoted the statement as saying.

BLOODY SIEGE

The siege turned bloody on Thursday when the Algerian army opened fire, saying fighters were trying to escape with their prisoners. Survivors said Algerian forces blasted several trucks in a convoy carrying both hostages and their captors.

Nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreigners escaped, mainly on Thursday when the fighters were driven from the residential barracks. Some captors remained holed up in the industrial complex until Saturday when they were overrun.

The bloodshed has strained Algeria's relations with its Western allies, some of which have complained about being left in the dark while the decision to storm the compound was being taken.

Nevertheless, Britain and France both defended the military action by Algeria, the strongest military power in the Sahara and an ally the West needs in combating the militants.

Among other foreigners confirmed dead by their home countries were three Britons, one American and two Romanians. The missing include five Norwegians, three Britons and a British resident. An Algerian security source said at least one Frenchman was also among the dead.

The raid on the plant, which was home to expatriate workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm BGC Corp and others, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara.

However, Algeria is determined to press on with its energy industry. Oil Minister Youcef Yousfi visited the site and said physical damage was minor, state news service APSE reported. The plant would start up again in two days, he said.

Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, insisted from the start of the crisis there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism. France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to crush Islamist rebels in northern Mali.

(Additional reporting by Anton Slodkowski in Tokyo, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, William Maclean in Dubai, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris and Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.

The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.

Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.

Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.

"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.

Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.

Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.

Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.

Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP

Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.

The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.

"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."

Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.

Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.

The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.

The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.

Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.

The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.

"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.

"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Djokovic survives to advance at Australian Open

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic got a huge scare from 15th-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka before hanging on to win in the 22nd game of the fifth set to advance to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.

The top-seeded Djokovic needed 5 hours, 2 minutes for a 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 12-10 victory that ended early Monday morning.

Djokovic broke Wawrinka's serve in the final game to clinch the win on his third match point with a cross-court backhand.

Djokovic is the two-time defending champion and has an 18-match winning streak at Melbourne Park. He is trying to become the first man in the Open era to win the tournament three times in a row.

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Will Climate Change Get Cold Shoulder in Obama’s 2nd Term?

As President Barack Obama prepares to take the oath of office for the second time, he has promised that climate change will be a priority in his second term. The chances that significant climate action will actually happen, however, remain slim, policy experts say.

“I always have hope, but it is sometimes hard to see how real progress, substantial progress, is going to be made with the fact that the Congress is so polarized,” said Travis Franck, a policy analyst for nongovernmental organization Climate Interactive.

After his re-election, Obama told Time magazine that his daughters inspired him to think long term, particularly about issues of climate change. And in his first news conference after the election, the president told reporters that he planned to shape a climate change agenda, but gave no details on what that agenda might look like — though he did say that a tax on carbon emissions was likely a non-starter.

These statements took place before the massacre at Newtown, Conn., which pushed gun control to the forefront. And climate change will surely have to vie for attention with other divisive issues, such as an upcoming congressional battle over the nation’s debt ceiling. While Obama may be able to take some executive action to tighten environmental regulations in certain sectors, such as fuel-efficient vehicles or clean energy, experts say, a gridlocked Congress is unlikely to cooperate with the administration‘s global warming agenda. 

“From my point of view, being an observer from Europe, I think it’s more likely this sector-by-sector approach is implemented than a national climate policy,” said Niklas Höhne, the director of energy and climate policy at Ecofys, a renewable energy and climate policy consulting firm. [8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World]

An urgent call for action

Obama’s second term comes at a time when climate scientists are making increasingly urgent calls for action to mitigate the effects of a warming world. In November, University of Bern, Switzerland, climate researcher Thomas Stocker warned in the journal Science that every year of delay makes it harder to keep warming below levels that would severely disrupt the planet.

A cap of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of warming, the most conservative goal discussed by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, is already out of reach, Stocker wrote. After 2027, the world can no longer hope to keep warming below 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C), which is the number currently at the center of international climate negotiations.

The World Bank also issued a report in November, calling for global action on climate change. And in January, a study published in the journal Nature found that the biggest determiner of whether the world would successfully tackle climate change is not tech savvy or hoped-for green development, but the timing of political action.

Public opinion appears receptive to climate change as well. About 73 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of independents and 33 percent of Republicans say they are somewhat or very worried about climate change, according to a September 2012 survey of Americans by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.

Support for action was higher. Three-quarters of independents, 93 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans said global warming should be at least a medium priority for the president and Congress. Severe weather such as the summer’s wildfires out west may have shifted these opinions, as the same numbers in March 2012 (before the fires) were 9 points lower for Democrats and 7 points lower for independents. Republicans held steady between March and September.

Challenges in Congress

The party schisms seen in the polling data are more pronounced in Congress, where representatives routinely deny the scientific consensus that climate is changing and that greenhouse gas emissions by humans are the main driver.

“I’m not going to bet the U.S. economy or the Texas economy on a theory that is not proven,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) told the Dallas Morning News this month. “Climate has always been changing.” [Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted]

Attitudes like Barton’s are why climate policy specialists expect little in the way of climate legislation in the upcoming four years.

The administration can make some progress on its own, said Elizabeth Sawin, co-director of Climate Interactive. In Obama’s first term, for example, the administration ordered new fuel standards for lightweight vehicles and coal-fired power plants, and there was money included in the economic stimulus for public transportation and clean energy. Similar efforts in the second term could move the country toward lower carbon emissions, Sawin told LiveScience.

“Anything is better than nothing,” she said.

But a piecemeal approach is less likely than an overarching plan to succeed in slowing warming significantly, Franck, the policy analyst for Climate Interactive, said. Moreover, a failure to act nationally puts the administration in an awkward spot in international negotiations. The 2011 climate talks in Durbin, South Africa, set a plan for a new international climate treaty to be prepared by 2015.

“We’ve lost a lot of credibility in climate change negotiations, because we’ve been kind of paralyzed,” Franck told LiveScience. “If [international negotiators] bring home a treaty or agree to something, when does it get ratified by the Senate? Will we have domestic legislation already? Will the Senate pass it and then we’ll have to pass domestic legislation?”

If the Obama administration is stuck with instituting piecemeal regulations, it will be a “major challenge” to communicate this progress to the international community, Höhne told LiveScience.

“The international climate negotiations really depend on the U.S. bringing something forward,” he said. “If the U.S. doesn’t bring something forward that is considered by most players as something new and something ambitious, then the new international agreement in 2015 will not be ambitious.”

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Mali war turns musicians into military

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Until recently, Mali was better known for its music, mosques and manuscripts than for conflict


• Andy Morgan: Music and culture are Mali's shop-window to the world, its primary asset


• Conflict turns musicians, artists and writers into frontline soldiers, says Morgan


• Morgan: In Mali they're still singing, still writing, still fighting

Editor's note: Andy Morgan recently ended a seven-year stint as manager of Touareg rockers Tinariwen, leaving the music industry after 29 years to concentrate on writing. He has contributed features and reviews to The Independent, fRoots, Songlines, NME and Rolling Stone, and is currently working on books about the Sahara and West Africa.

(CNN) -- It's safe to assume that most people outside West Africa had never even heard of Mali until a few weeks ago. If they had, there's a good chance it was thanks to some beautifully flowing song or instrumental by one of the country's many world-renowned musicians: Salif Keita, Tinariwen, Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabate, Rokia Traore... the list is long.

If it wasn't music then it might have been Mali's priceless medieval manuscripts that drew their attention, or its majestic mud-built mosques, its filmmakers, poets, photographers and writers.

Like Jamaica or Ireland, Mali's music and culture are its primary asset, its shop-window to the world, its "gold and cotton" as one famous musician put it.

Andy Morgan is a world music journalist and former manager of Touareg band Tinariwen.

Certainly, very few people would have included the words "Mali" and "Islamism" in the same sentence before April last year, when Islamist militia took control of over two thirds of the country and started amputating the hands of thieves, stoning adulterers and whipping women who happened to venture out into the streets 'improperly' dressed.

With the arrival of French forces and the mass hostage seizure at the Algerian oil facility of In Amenas, Mali and Islamism are two words that now appear not only to be inextricably linked but on the front page.

Six reasons why Mali matters

Of course, the association goes back much further than April 2012.

Al Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) moved south from Algeria and into Mali's remote northern deserts over a decade ago. It proceeded to amass a fortune from kidnapping, smuggling and money laundering whilst undermining the local economy, disrupting social relations and destroying the local tourist industry.

It brought along a hardcore form of Islam inspired by Wahabism and a hatred of the West that was previously almost unheard of in Mali, a country which has long contented itself with gentler and more tolerant brands of Sufism richly tinted by local pre-Islamic beliefs.

AQIM also managed to hijack a rebellion against the central government in Bamako by the nomadic Touareg people of the north that had been grinding on and off for the best part of fifty years.

This conflict, which first erupted in 1963, was always about power, influence and the self-determination of a marginalized people. It was also about preserving the Touareg's unique Berber culture. It had never been about imposing hard line Islam on anyone. But from round 2006 onwards, Touareg nationalism and Islamic terrorism became inextricably confused with each other.

Why Africa backs French in Mali

Indeed, there's a widespread theory, confirmed by the word of just a few bit-players in the drama but lacking any more conclusive evidence, that certain parties who were utterly averse to the idea of an independent Touareg state -- the Malian government, Algeria and others -- either deliberately implanted AQIM in the region, or at the very least tolerated its presence there.

It was hoped that the strategy would attract military aid and doom the Touareg nationalist project to failure. The theory might seem strange given the damage that terrorism has wrought in both Mali and Algeria but most Touareg I know accept it as gospel. We'll probably never know the whole truth.

What's certain is that the Sahara is one of the hardest places on earth for an outsider to understand. Its interlocking cogs of power and influence -- geopolitical, regional, governmental, tribal, mineral, criminal, spiritual, clan and family -- are fiendishly complex.

No foreign intervention can hope to achieve any long-term benefits if it cannot get to grips with the underlying political and social mechanism of this vast region.

2011 brought the Arab Spring and the end of Muammar Gadhafi, who had long been a stabilizing force in the Sahel, and both a promoter and a hinderer of Touareg nationalist ambitious. His weapons arsenals were opened up to armed groups of every stripe and in January 2012, the Touareg used this opportunity to reignite their rebellion in northern Mali. But it was al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb who eventually took control, either directly or through a network of alliances.

Now Mali's hopes lie with the French, who intervened on Friday January 11, after months of diplomatic wrangling at the U.N. and elsewhere.

France 'not a pacifist nation'

So the world has a new front on the global war on terror and France has a new battle to fight in Africa.

Within northern Mali itself, however, and throughout the Muslim world, this is not seen as a war on terror but as a cultural conflict, one that pits a group of people who feel that the future of their society will be best served by rejecting Western liberal values and returning to the core tenets of Islam against another group who believe in religious tolerance, secularism, democracy and music.

This conflict turns musicians, artists and writers into frontline soldiers.

Saudi Arabia destroyed its mausoleums and silenced its musicians decades, even centuries, ago. In the Algerian civil war of the 1990s, many musicians, writers and cultural figures were killed, prompting others to flee overseas.

In Mali they're still singing, still writing, still fighting, for the time being at least.

In this new battleground in the cultural wars of the Muslim world, a distant mirror of the religious wars that shook Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, Malian musicians are taking a stand. That's why music matters. That's why Mali matters.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Andy Morgan.

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Man shot on 22nd floor of downtown hotel

A man was shot in the historic Palmer House Hotel downtown.

A 25-year-old man was shot in the leg early this morning during a party on the 22nd floor of a Loop hotel, police said.

The shooting, one of several overnight shooting incidents across the city that left at least six other people injured, happened about 2:15 a.m. at the Palmer House, 17 East Monroe St., Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro said.

The man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in good condition.

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Police said no suspects were in custody and that the man was not cooperating fully with detectives.

Everyone involved knew each other, according to police.

Hotel staff declined to comment and referred all questions to a company spokesman who was unavailable.

In other overnight shootings:

• A 28-year-old man walking on the street was hit in the hand by a shot fired by a male passenger in a silver, older-model Lexus driven by a female, police said. The incident happened about 4:55 a.m. in the 300 block of East 75^th Street in the Park Manor neighborhood on the South Side. The victim, who was transported to St. Bernard in good condition, ran from the scene as the attackers fled.

• A 28-year-old male sustained a gunshot wound to the hand about 4:55 a.m. at 11 E. 75^th Street in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side, said News Affairs Officer Laura Kubiak. He is in good condition at St. Bernard Hospital.

• A 22-year-old man riding inside a vehicle was shot in the arm about 4:18 a.m. at North Avenue and Kedvale Avenue in the Hermosa neighborhood on the Northwest Side, Kubiak said. He was driven to Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, where his condition had stabilized.

• A 19-year-old man was shot in the left hand and in the left side of his jaw while exiting a vehicle about 4:15 a.m. in the 3900 block of West 65th Place in the West Lawn neighborhood on the Southwest Side, according to Kubiak. He was taken to Holy Cross Hospital and was transferred to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where his condition had stabilized.

• About 10 p.m., a 20-year-old man was shot in the shin while walking down the sidewalk in the 5500 block of South Shields Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, Alfaro said. He was taken to Saint Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center, where his condition was stabilized.

• About 9:20 p.m., a 35-year-old man was shot in the leg near the intersection of West 85^th Street and South Loomis Boulevard in the Gresham neighborhood on the South Side, Alfaro said. The man was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was listed in good condition.

No arrests have been made in any of the shootings and police continue to investigate.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Algeria expects heavy hostage toll as West defends ally

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - Algeria said on Sunday it expected heavy hostage casualties after its troops ended a desert siege, but Western governments warned against criticizing tactics used by their vital ally in the struggle with Islamists across the Sahara.

An Algerian minister acknowledged the death toll would rise, and a private television station reported that 25 bodies had been found at the gas plant near the town of In Amenas after forces staged a final assault against the Islamist hostage-takers on Saturday.

Some Western governments had expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. But France, which is fighting Islamist rebels across the desert in Mali, joined Britain in playing down any suggestion the response from Algeria - the main military power in the Sahara region - had been over-hasty or heavy-handed.

"What everyone needs to know is that these terrorists who attacked this gas plant are killers who pillage, rape, plunder and kill. The situation was unbearable," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

"It's easy to say that this or that should have been done. The Algerian authorities took a decision and the toll is very high but I am a bit bothered ... when the impression is given that the Algerians are open to question. They had to deal with terrorists," he told Europe 1 radio in an interview.

The Islamists' pre-dawn attack on Wednesday has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.

Algeria, scarred by a civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, had insisted there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

Prime Minister David Cameron pointed out on Sunday its record in fighting Islamists. "Of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack," he said in a television statement.

"We should recognize all that the Algerians have done to work with us and to help and coordinate with us. I'd like to thank them for that. We should also recognize that the Algerians too have seen lives lost among their soldiers."

France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to have a chance of crushing Islamist rebels in northern Mali. Algiers has promised to shut its porous 1,000-km border with Mali to prevent al Qaeda-linked insurgents simply melting away into its empty desert expanses and rugged mountains.

Algeria's permission for France to use its airspace, confirmed by Fabius last week, also makes it much easier to establish direct supply lines for its troops which are trying to stop the Islamist rebels from taking the whole of Mali.

HIGHER DEATH TOLL

Algeria's Interior Ministry had reported on Saturday that 23 hostages and 32 militants were killed during the assaults launched by Algerian special forces to end the crisis, with 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages freed.

However, Minister of Communication Mohamed Said said this would rise when final numbers were issued in the next few hours. "I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up," Said was quoted as saying by the official APS news agency.

Details are only slowly emerging on what happened during the siege, which marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa.

Private Algerian television station Ennahar said on Sunday that 25 bodies had been discovered at the Tiguentourine plant, adding that the operation to clear the base would last 48 hours.

The bodies were believed to belong to hostages executed by the militants, said Ennahar TV, which is known to have good sources within Algerian security.

In London, Cameron said three British nationals had been confirmed killed, while a further three Britons plus a British resident were also believed to be dead.

One Briton had already was confirmed killed when the gunmen seized the hostages at the plant near the Libyan border, run by Norway's Statoil along with Britain's BP and Algeria's state oil company.

MULTINATIONAL HOSTAGE-TAKERS

Said reported that the militants had six different nationalities and the operation to clear the plant of mines laid by the hostage-takers was still under way.

Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaeda-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind of the raid.

One American has also been confirmed dead. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.

On Saturday President Barack Obama said the United States was seeking a "fuller understanding" from Algerian authorities of what had happened, but added that "the blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out".

BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.

The militant attack was one of the most audacious in recent years and almost certainly planned before French troops launched the operation in Mali this month to stem an advance by Islamist fighters.

Hundreds of hostages escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.

Before the Interior Ministry released its provisional death toll, an Algerian security source said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.

Mauritanian news agencies identified the field commander of the group that attacked the plant as Nigeri, a fighter from one of the Arab tribes in Niger who had joined the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in early-2005.

That group eventually joined up with al Qaeda to become Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It and allied groups are the targets of the French military operation in Mali.

The news agencies described him as "one of the closest people" to Belmokhtar, who fought in Afghanistan and then in Algeria's civil war of the 1990s. Nigeri was known as a man for "difficult missions", having carried out attacks in Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the country's outwardly tough security measures.

Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.

Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.

The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris, Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by Alison Williams)

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