Cardinal George: Pope showing 'great courage' in stepping down

Cardinal Francis George said today that Pope Benedict XVI "placed the will of God for the good of the church before every other consideration" when he decided to step down.

"He has taught with clarity and charity what God has revealed to the world in Christ, he has handed on the apostolic faith, he has loved all of God’s people with all his heart," George said in a statement. "He has now shown great courage in deciding, after prayer and soul-searching, to resign his office at the end of this month.
 
"With the gratitude of sons and daughters in our hearts, we ask the Lord to bless him and give him strength, as we begin to pray now for the one who will succeed him as Bishop of Rome, Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ."

Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon said the pope's decision "is consistent with the humble disposition that I have come to recognize in him, both in my brief personal encounters with him and in his deportment generally as earthly shepherd of the church.

"He recognized that he no longer had the physical gifts necessary to carry out an office that becomes increasingly demanding," Conlon said. "He has been a steady and calm presence in the face of tumult in the world.  He has persevered in Blessed John Paul II’s determination to confront the scandal of child abuse in the church."

Pope Benedict shocked the world by saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to cope with his ministry, in an announcement that left his aides "incredulous" and will make him the first pontiff to step down since the Middle Ages.

The German-born pope, 85, admired as a hero by conservative Roman Catholics and viewed with suspicion by liberals, told cardinals in Latin that his strength had deteriorated recently. He will step down on Feb. 28 and the Vatican expects a new Pope to be chosen by the end of March.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope had not decided to resign because of "difficulties in the papacy" and the move had been a surprise, indicating that even his inner circle was unaware that he was about to quit.

A priest at St. Peter's Church in the Loop said the news is "surprising but not terrifying," saying it will allow the church to continue to renew itself.

“It’s a new beginning and a chance for new energy in the church,” said the Rev. Ed Shea. "This is good news.”

The selection of a new pope will offer the church the chance to continue its emergence into the “the modern light, the modern world,” Shea said. 

It will also provide a chance to choose a pope from Africa or South America, he said, to reflect the growth of the church on those continents.

“I was shocked, like everybody else,” Father Ed Shea said.  “It kind of surprised me that we didn’t know about it ahead of time.”

As worshipers left a morning mass at St. Peter’s this morning, several said the pope’s announcement had caught them completely by surprise.

“I hadn’t read anything leading up to it about that he was failing in health or anything like that,” said Michael Muldoon of La Grange. “I knew he was in his mid-80s, but I didn’t know that it was coming.”

Asked about the selection of Benedict’s successor, Muldoon said he’d like to see a more youthful pope, “someone a little more forward thinking, someone a little more accepting.”

At St. Alphonsus Church, which still offers a Sunday mass in German, parishioners said they were stunned by the resignation.

Errol Kunz, a 65-year-old retiree who lives by the church in Lakeview, said the Rev. Michael O'Connell mentioned the news at the beginning of the 8:30 a.m. Mass.

"I was shocked," Kunz said. "I couldn't believe it."

Others had heard about the resignation when they woke up.

When a news alert flashed on her phone around 7 a.m., Kathleen Falk said she was confused. "I always thought the popes don't retire," said Falk, a 27-year-old nurse who has been attending St. Alphonsus for five years.

"If you can't fulfill the duties to guide the church, then you can't argue with that," Falk added.

Ian McBride, a 29-year-old social worker who has been going to St. Alphonsus for a few years, called it a "measure of humility" that the pope could recognize his health issues and step down.

For the pope's legacy, "time will tell," McBride said. "In the American church, dealing with the abuse and all that — he took that personally. . .He seemed to be very genuine and ashamed of how things happened."

Contributing: Reuters

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Pope's sudden resignation sends shockwaves through Church

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict stunned the Roman Catholic Church, including his closest advisers on Monday when he announced he would stand down in the first papal abdication in 700 years, saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to run the Church through a period of major crisis.

Church officials tried to relay a climate of calm confidence in the running of a 2,000-year-old institution but the decision could lead to one of the most uncertain and unstable periods in centuries for a Church besieged by scandal and defections.

Several popes in the past, including Benedict's predecessor John Paul, refrained from stepping down even when severely ill, precisely because of the confusion and division that could be caused by having an "ex-pope" and a reigning pope living at the same time.

This could create a particularly difficult problem if the next pope is a progressive who influences such teachings as the ban on women priests and artificial birth control and its insistence on a celibate priesthood.

The Church has been rocked during Benedict's nearly eight-year papacy by child sexual abuse crises and Muslim anger after the pope compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier and there was scandal over the leaking of the pope's private papers by his personal butler.

In an announcement read to cardinals in Latin, the universal language of the Church, the 85-year-old said: "Well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St Peter ...

"As from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours (1900 GMT) the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is."

POPE DOESN'T FEAR SCHISM

At a news conference, chief Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope did not fear a possible "schism" in the Church, with Catholics owing allegiances to a past and present pope in case of differences on Church teachings.

The pope, known for his conservative doctrine, stepped up the Church's opposition to gay marriage, underscored the Church's resistance to a female priesthood and to embryonic stem cell research.

But Lombardi said Benedict, who is expected to go into isolation for at least a while after his resignation, did not intend to influence the decision of the cardinals who will enter a secret conclave to elect a successor.

A new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics could be elected as soon as Palm Sunday, on March 24, and be ready to take over by Easter a week later, Lombardi said.

He indicated the complex machinery of the process to elect a new pope would move quickly because the Vatican would not have to wait until after the elaborate funeral services for a pope.

The decision shocked many throughout the world, from ordinary believers, to politicians to world religious leaders.

"This is disconcerting, he is leaving his flock," said Alessandra Mussolini, a parliamentarian who is granddaughter of Italy's wartime dictator.

"The pope is not any man. He is the vicar of Christ. He should stay on to the end, go ahead and bear his cross to the end. This is a huge sign of world destabilization that will weaken the Church."

OWN BROTHER SURPRISED

The announcement even caught the pope's elder brother Georg Ratzinger, off guard, indicating just how well-kept a secret it was. Ratzinger told reporters in Germany that he had been "very surprised" and added: "He alone can evaluate his physical and emotional strength."

Lombardi said Benedict would first go to the papal summer residence south of Rome and then move into a cloistered convent inside the Vatican walls. It was not clear if Benedict would have a public life after he resigns.

The last pope to resign willingly was Celestine V in 1294 after reigning for only five months, his resignation was known as "the great refusal" and was condemned by the poet Dante in the "Divine Comedy". Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the papacy.

Lombardi said Benedict's stepping aside showed "great courage". He ruled out any specific illness or depression and said the decision was made in the last few months "without outside pressure".

Joseph Curran, professor of religious studies at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, said the modern medicine prolonging the life of people had posed difficulties for institutions whose leaders usually rule for life.

"His resignation is a tremendous act of humility and generosity," he said. "A man who lives up a position of authority because he can no longer adequately exercise that authority, and does so for the good of the Church, is setting a wonderful example," he said.

But Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, secretary to the late Pope John Paul, who suffered through bad health for the last decade of his life, had a thinly veiled criticism of Benedict. John Paul stayed to the end of his life as he believed "you cannot come down from the cross," Dziwisz told reporters in Poland.

NO HINT OF RESIGNATION

While the pope had slowed down recently - he started using a cane and a wheeled platform to take him up the long aisle in St Peter's Square - he had given no hint recently that he was mulling such a dramatic decision.

Elected in 2005 to succeed the enormously popular John Paul, Benedict never appeared to feel comfortable in a job he said he never wanted. He had wished to retire to his native Germany to pursue his theological writings, something which he will now do from a convent inside the Vatican.

The resignation means that cardinals from around the world will begin arriving in Rome in March and after preliminary meetings, lock themselves in a secret conclave and elect the new pope from among themselves in votes in the Sistine Chapel.

There has been growing pressure on the Church for the cardinals to shun European contenders and choose a pope from the developing world in order to better reflect parts of the globe where most Catholics live and where the Church is growing.

John Paul was only 58 when he was elected in 1978 - 20 years younger than Benedict when he was elected - and some commentators said the resignation would likely convince the cardinals to elect a younger man.

"MIND AND BODY"

In his announcement, the pope told the cardinals that in order to govern "... both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."

Before he was elected pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was known by such critical epithets as "God's rottweiler" because of his stern stand on theological issues.

After a few months, he showed his mild side but he never drew the kind of adulation that had marked the 27-year papacy of his predecessor John Paul.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican communion at odds with the Vatican over women priests, said he had learned of the pope's decision with a heavy heart but complete understanding.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the pope's decision must be respected if he feels he is too weak to carry out his duties. British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "He will be missed as a spiritual leader to millions."

Elected to the papacy on April 19, 2005, Benedict ruled over a slower-paced, more cerebral and less impulsive Vatican.

CHEERS AND SCANDAL

But while conservatives cheered him for trying to reaffirm traditional Catholic identity, his critics accused him of turning back the clock on reforms by nearly half a century and hurting dialogue with Muslims, Jews and other Christians.

After appearing uncomfortable in the limelight at the start, he began feeling at home with his new job and showed that he intended to be pope in his way.

Despite great reverence for his charismatic, globe-trotting predecessor -- whom he put on the fast track to sainthood and whom he beatified in 2011 -- aides said he was determined not to change his quiet manner to imitate John Paul's style.

A quiet, professorial type who relaxed by playing the piano, he showed the gentle side of a man who was the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer for nearly a quarter of a century.

The first German pope for some 1,000 years and the second non-Italian in a row, he traveled regularly, making about four foreign trips a year, but never managed to draw the oceanic crowds of his predecessor.

The child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy. He ordered an official inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops.

Scandal from a source much closer to home hit in 2012 when the pontiff's butler, responsible for dressing him and bringing him meals, was found to be the source of leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican's business dealings, causing an international furor.

Benedict confronted his own country's past when he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

Calling himself "a son of Germany", he prayed and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, most of them Jews, died there during World War Two.

Ratzinger served in the Hitler Youth during World War Two when membership was compulsory. He was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler's regime.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie, Barry Moody, Cristiano Corvino, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin, and Dagamara Leszkowixa in Poland; editing by Peter Millership, Ralph Boulton, Janet McBride)

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Analysis: Accounting risk clouds big U.S. business bets in China

NEW YORK/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tales of shady business practices abound in China - fake revenues, phony invoices, sham factories - but until recently, the problem seemed confined mostly to Chinese companies.

No longer.

Concern is growing about risks to U.S.-based multinationals in a country where American audit regulators are locked out by the Chinese government and bribery and fraud are routine.

Questions about transparency and integrity weigh heavily on China, the world's second-largest economy, as it assumes greater economic leadership and responsibility. These doubts test its ability to adhere to international standards.

Stories of business deception - confirmed by corporate sleuths, former business executives, court filings and experts on accounting in China - are commonplace.

There was the Chinese company that billed itself as a high-tech television screen manufacturer, but had a factory that turned out to be a man selling fireworks from a shack.

Or there was the Chinese biodiesel plant that sat idle for months, then sprang to life one day - when investors showed up for a tour - only to fall silent again.

Last month, there was the scandal at a Chinese unit of Caterpillar Inc , the world's largest construction equipment manufacturer, based in Peoria, Illinois.

On January 18, Caterpillar disclosed "deliberate, multi-year, coordinated accounting misconduct" at the Siwei unit of ERA Mining Machinery. Caterpillar said it would write off most of the $654 million it had paid to acquire ERA only months earlier.

Caterpillar's Siwei stumble was not the first for a U.S. multinational in China, but the scope of the problem stood out.

Caterpillar has provided few details, but it has disclosed inventory discrepancies, inflated profits and improperly recorded costs and revenue at Siwei.

Caterpillar declined further comment.

Part of Caterpillar's problem may have been inadequate due diligence work prior to the ERA acquisition. Companies often try to keep fees down for this type of work, but in China that may be asking for trouble, says Paul Gillis, an accounting professor at Peking University in Beijing.

Acquiring firms typically do some of their own due diligence while also relying on deal advisers, legal experts and auditors. Due to the risks in China, efforts should be beefed up to uncover fraud, Gillis said. "When you start cutting corners on audits ... you're enabling those who commit fraud."

GOING FOR GROWTH

Of course, it is not as if the United States has not had its own share of egregious accounting frauds over the years. In 2001-2002, a series of major scandals involving the likes of Enron, WorldCom and Tyco shook the U.S. economy.

Legislation followed that strengthened oversight of auditing and accountability of companies' top officers. That has not stopped U.S. accounting fraud, but it has made it easier to identify and deter some of the most egregious behavior.

In China, where large U.S. corporations are making some very big bets, a new frontier of accounting risk is opening up.

Lured by an economy growing much more quickly than the United States, U.S. companies have directly invested $54 billion in Chinese businesses, factories and property, most of it in the past decade, according to U.S. Department of Commerce data.

Despite a cooling off of China's growth last year, demand from its massive consumer class is still lifting revenues at companies that range from coffee seller Starbucks Corp to casino operator Wynn Resorts .

The Caterpillar experience and the growing catalog of smaller instances of deception and abuse have some experts wondering if U.S. companies' Chinese results can be trusted.

Though China is shifting to a market economy, much business is still done on a handshake, China experts say. State secret laws hinder investigations by outsiders. Audits done in China of U.S. corporate units there cannot be inspected by U.S. regulators because the Chinese government refuses to allow them.

A former executive at a large, U.S.-based multinational active in China recalled the firm's auditor being fired for trying to correct improper accounting at a joint venture in China. Managers there were trying to book sales early, sometimes for unassembled products, to avoid a coming tax increase, said the executive, who asked not to be named. He said he had the auditor reinstated and the accounting changed.

Dealings with a Chinese joint venture did not end well for California-based RAE Systems Inc, which makes chemical detection monitors. It had to pay nearly $3 million to the U.S. government to settle complaints in 2010 that it did too little to stop bribery at a Chinese joint venture.

'RED FERRARI' TEST

Despite well-known risks in China, auditors there often are not inquisitive enough or alert to possible fraud, some experts say.

Auditors in China may pore tirelessly over documents and yet "fail to spot the red Ferrari parked on the doorstep and fail to ask who it belongs to, how it was paid for," said Peter Humphrey, founder of ChinaWhys, a Shanghai-based anti-fraud consultancy that has investigated white-collar crime and fraud at scores of multinational firms in China.

China experts said it is difficult to do business there without encountering demands for gifts or kickbacks.

Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, surveyed business executives who said Chinese firms in 2011 were second only to Russian companies in being most likely to pay bribes abroad.

But six U.S. companies, including technology group IBM and drugmaker Pfizer Inc , were charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the past two years for improper payments or gifts in China.

Retailer Wal-Mart Stores has said it is investigating allegations of bribery in China, among other countries, and cosmetics group Avon Products Inc is dealing with probes of possible bribery in China.

There have been plenty of other red flags. For example, U.S. regulators have deregistered dozens of Chinese companies listed on U.S. exchanges after fraud probes, and some major U.S. investors have been caught flat-footed.

Billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson suffered big losses after a disastrous bet on Chinese forestry company Sino Forest. Sino Forest was rocked by allegations in 2011 that it falsified its timber assets and later filed for bankruptcy.

Chinese software company Longtop Financial Technologies was accused of seizing audit documents when its auditor, Shanghai-based Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, tried to double-check cash amounts at the company's bank. Longtop admitted cash had been faked. It was deregistered by the SEC.

The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which is responsible for regulating auditors of U.S.-listed companies, has been trying to get access to China to inspect audits there. But China has resisted because of sovereignty concerns.

Being unable to inspect in China "continues to create a gaping hole in investor protection," James Doty, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based PCAOB, said in a statement.

The PCAOB recently reached deals with France and Finland to inspect in those countries, adding to its growing list of cooperation agreements with 16 nations.

The SEC has hit a wall trying to get documents out of China to investigate fraud. In December the commission began legal proceedings against the Chinese affiliates of five of the world's biggest audit firms - Deloitte , Ernst & Young , KPMG BDO and PricewaterhouseCoopers - over their refusal to turn over audit papers for fear of violating state secrets laws.

Meanwhile, investment in China continues. Over the past five years, U.S. companies and investment groups have announced or completed about $25 billion of whole or partial acquisitions in China, according to Thomson Reuters data.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Ernest Scheyder in New York, Clare Baldwin in Hong Kong; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Dan Grebler)

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Paternos issue report, challenge Freeh's findings

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — A report commissioned by Joe Paterno's family says the late coach did nothing wrong in his handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal and portrays Paterno as the victim of a "rush to injustice" created by former FBI director Louis Freeh's investigation of the case for Penn State.

The family's critique, released Sunday, argues that the findings of the Freeh report published last July were unsupported by the facts.

Former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, one of the experts assembled by the family's lawyer to review Freeh's report last year to Penn State, called the document fundamentally flawed and incomplete.

Freeh's report reached "inaccurate and unfounded findings related to Mr. Paterno and its numerous process-oriented deficiencies was a rush to injustice and calls into question" the investigation's credibility, Thornburgh was quoted as saying.

In a statement released Sunday through a spokesman, Freeh defended his work.

"I stand by our conclusion that four of the most powerful people at Penn State failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade," he said.

Paterno's family released what it billed as an exhaustive response to Freeh's work, based on independent analyses, on the website paterno.com.

"We conclude that the observations as to Joe Paterno in the Freeh report are unfounded, and have done a disservice not only to Joe Paterno and the university community," the family's report said, "but also to the victims of Jerry Sandusky and the critical mission of educating the public on the dangers of child sexual victimization."

Freeh's findings also implicated former administrators in university president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and retired vice president Gary Schultz. Less than two weeks after the Freeh report was released in July, the NCAA acted with uncharacteristic speed in levying massive sanctions against the football program for the scandal.

"Taking into account the available witness statements and evidence, it is more reasonable to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University — Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley — repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse" from authorities, trustees and the university community, Freeh wrote in releasing the report.

The former administrators have vehemently denied the allegations. So, too, has Paterno's family, though it reserved more extensive comment until its own report was complete.

The counter-offensive began in earnest this weekend. The family's findings said that Paterno:

— Never asked or told anyone not to investigate an allegation made against Sandusky 12 years ago, Saturday, Feb. 9, 2001.

— Never asked or told former administrators not to report the 2001 allegation.

— And never asked or told anyone not to discuss or hide information reported by graduate assistant Mike McQueary about the 2001 allegation.

"Paterno reported the information to his superior(s) pursuant to his understanding of university protocol and relied upon them to investigate and report as appropriate," the family's analysis said.

Paterno's widow, Sue, broke her silence Friday in a letter to hundreds of former players informing them of the report's impending release. "The Freeh report failed and if it is not challenged and corrected, nothing worthwhile will have come from these tragic events," she wrote.

"I had expected to find Louis Freeh had done his usual thorough and professional job," Thornburgh said in a video posted on paterno.com. "I found the report to be inaccurate in some respects, speculative and unsupported to the record compiled ... in short, fundamentally flawed as to the determinations made to the role — if any — Mr. Paterno played in any of this."

Freeh was brought in to conduct an independent investigation of the school's response to allegations and find any shortcomings in governance and compliance to make sure failures don't happen again, Penn State said in a statement Sunday. Freeh made 119 recommendations to strengthen policies, and the majority have been implemented, according to the school.

University trustees and leaders have been criticized by some dissatisfied alumni, ex-players and community residents for their handling of Paterno's dismissal, the Freeh report and the sanctions.

"It is understandable and appreciated that people will draw their own conclusions and opinions from the facts uncovered in the Freeh report," the school said.

Freeh, in his report, said his team conducted 430 interviews and analyzed over 3.5 million emails and documents. The former federal judge said evidence showed Paterno was involved in an "active agreement to conceal" and his report cited email exchanges, which referenced Paterno, between administrators about allegations against Sandusky in 1998 and 2001.

According to Thornburgh's findings, Freeh's report relied on about 30 documents, including three notes authored by Paterno, and 17 emails. Four emails referenced Paterno — none sent by the octogenarian coach who notoriously shunned modern electronic technology.

Sandusky, 69, was sentenced to at least 30 years in prison in October after being convicted last summer of 45 criminal counts. Prosecutors said assaults occurred off and on campus, including the football building.

His arrest in November 2011 triggered the turmoil that led to Paterno's firing days later. Under pressure, Spanier left as president the same day. Curley was placed on administrative leave, while Schultz retired.

Spanier, Curley and Schultz are awaiting trial on obstruction and conspiracy, among other charges. They have maintained their innocence.

Critics have said that Freeh's team didn't speak with key figures including Curley, Schultz and Paterno, who died in January 2012 at age 85. The authors of the emails referenced in Freeh's report, which included Curley and Schultz, were not interviewed by Freeh, the family's analysis said.

Spanier spoke to Freeh six days before the report was released July 12.

"They missed so many key people. They didn't interview most of the key players, with the exception of President Spanier, who at the last minute we brought in and interviewed at a time when frankly the report ... was pretty well all prepared," Thornburgh said on the video.

Freeh said he respected the family's right to conduct a campaign to "shape the legacy of Joe Paterno," but called the critique self-serving. Paterno's attorney was contacted for an interview with the coach, he said, and Paterno spoke with a reporter and biographer before his death but not Freeh's team.

Curley and Schultz also declined numerous requests for interviews, Freeh said. They have been facing criminal charges since November 2011.

Freeh on Sunday cited grand jury testimony by Paterno in 2011 in which Paterno said a graduate assistant relayed to him the 2001 allegation against Sandusky of a "sexual nature" with a child.

He referred to a key point in the July report in which he said Spanier, Schultz and Curley drew up a plan that called for reporting Sandusky to the state Department of Public Welfare in 2001. But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind "after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe," according to Freeh's findings.

Said Freeh on Sunday: "These men exhibited a striking lack of empathy for Sandusky's victims by failing to inquire as to their safety and well-being, especially by not even attempting to determine the identity of the child" in the 2001 allegation.

The Paterno family report said Freeh chose not to "present alternative, more plausible, conclusions" about Paterno's actions. Their attorney, Wick Sollers, responded Sunday that Freeh didn't take the time to read the family's critique, or address accusations of procedural shortcomings.

"A failure to consider the facts carefully is exactly the problem our expert analysis highlights," Sollers said. "Everyone, including Mr. Freeh, should take the time to study this report."

Sue Paterno had directed Sollers, to review Freeh's report and her husband's actions. Sollers brought in Thornburgh, as well as former FBI profiler and special agent Jim Clemente, described as a child molestation and behavioral expert.

Also brought in was Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychologist from Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine whose profile lists him as the founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic.

The analysis included interviews, including of Paterno before his death, as well as a review of documents and testimony and "information from our access to the lawyers for other Penn State administrators."

The Paterno family's analysis said Freeh's report turned into a platform for scapegoating Paterno rather than seizing on an opportunity to educate about identifying child sex abuse victims, and ignored "decades of expert research and behavioral analysis regarding the appropriate way to understand and investigate a child victimization case."

It said expert analysis showed Sandusky "fooled qualified child welfare professionals and law enforcement, as well as laymen inexperienced and untrained in child sexual victimization like Joe Paterno." The coach respected Sandusky as an assistant, but knew little about Sandusky's personal life, the analysis said, though Freeh's report "missed that they disliked each other personally, had very little in common outside work, and did not interact much if at all socially."

Actions by entities outside of Penn State were not a focus for Freeh's review. "This was an internal investigation into Penn State's response ... and that is how the University has utilized the report," the school said.

Penn State removed a bronze statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium on July 22. The next day, the NCAA in levying sanctions said Freeh's report revealed "an unprecedented failure of institutional integrity leading to a culture in which a football program was held in higher esteem."

The NCAA improperly relied on that report and never identified a rules infraction "based on Sandusky's crimes, much less an infraction by Penn State that implicated the NCAA's jurisdiction and core mission of ensuring competitive balance," the Paterno family report said.

An NCAA spokeswoman said the organization stood by its previous statements and declined comment Sunday.

A four-year bowl ban and steep scholarship cuts were included among the sanctions, while 111 wins between 1998 and 2011 under Paterno were vacated. It meant Paterno no longer holds the record for most wins by a major college coach.

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Why real prizes come after a Grammy

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Bob Greene: Grammy nominated acts should remember the real prize comes later in life


• He says at a hotel he ran into a group of singing stars from an earlier era, in town for a show


• He says the world of post-fame touring less glamorous for acts, but meaningful


• Greene: Acts grow old, but their hits never will and to fans, the songs are time-machine

Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams"; "Late Edition: A Love Story"; and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen."

(CNN) -- Memo to Carly Rae Jepsen, Frank Ocean, Hunter Hayes, Mumford & Sons, Miguel, the Alabama Shakes and all the other young singers and bands who are nominated for Sunday night's Grammy Awards:

Your real prize -- the most valuable and sustaining award of all -- may not become evident to you until 30 or so years have passed.

You will be much older.

But -- if you are lucky -- you will still get to be out on the road making music.

Bob Greene

Many of Sunday's Grammy nominees are enjoying the first wave of big success. It is understandable if they take for granted the packed concert venues and eye-popping paychecks.

Those may go away -- the newness of fame, the sold-out houses, the big money.

But the joy of being allowed to do what they do will go on.

I've been doing some work while staying at a small hotel off a highway in southwestern Florida. One winter day I was reading out on the pool deck, and there were some other people sitting around talking.

They weren't young, by anyone's definition. They did not seem like conventional businessmen or businesswomen on the road, or like retirees. There was a sense of nascent energy and contented anticipation in their bearing, of something good waiting for them straight ahead. A look completely devoid of grimness or fretfulness, an afternoon look that said the best part of the day was still to come.

I would almost have bet what line of work they were in. I'd seen that look before, many times.

I could hear them talking.

Yep.

The Tokens ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a No. 1 hit in 1961).

Little Peggy March ("I Will Follow Him," a No. 1 hit in 1963).

Little Anthony and the Imperials ("Tears on My Pillow," a top 10 hit in 1958).

Major singing stars from an earlier era of popular music, in town for a multi-act show that evening.

It is the one sales job worth yearning for -- carrying that battered sample case of memorable music around the country, to unpack in front of a different appreciative audience every night.

It's quite a world. I was fortunate enough to learn its ins and outs during the 15 deliriously unlikely years I spent touring the United States singing backup with Jan and Dean ("Surf City," a No. 1 hit in 1963) and all the other great performers with whom we shared stages and dressing rooms and backstage buffets:

Chuck Berry, Martha and the Vandellas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, James Brown, Lesley Gore, Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, the Kingsmen, the Drifters, Fabian, the Coasters, Little Eva, the Ventures, Sam the Sham. ...

Jukebox names whose fame was once as fresh and electric as that now being savored by Sunday's young Grammy nominees.

Decades after that fame is new, the road may not be quite as glamorous, the crowds may not be quite as large. The hours of killing time before riding over to the hall, the putrid vending-machine meals on the run, the way-too-early-in-the-morning vans to the airport -- the dreary parts all become more than worth it when, for an hour or so, the singers can once again personally deliver a bit of happiness to the audiences who still adore their music.

Greene: Super Bowl ad revives iconic voice

As the years go by, the whole thing may grow complicated -- band members come and go, they fight and feud, some quit, some die. There are times when it seems you can't tell the players without a scorecard -- the Tokens at the highway hotel were, technically and contractually, Jay Siegel's Tokens (you don't want to know the details). One of their singers (not Jay Siegel -- Jay Traynor) was once Jay of Jay and the Americans, a group that itself is still out on the road in a different configuration with a different Jay (you don't want to know).

But overriding all of this is a splendid truism:

Sometimes, if you have one big hit, it can take care of you for the rest of your life. It can be your life.

Sunday's young Grammy nominees may not imagine, 30 years down the line, still being on tour. But they -- the fortunate ones -- will come to learn something:

They will grow old, but their hits never will -- once people first fall in love with those songs, the songs will mean something powerful and evocative to them for the rest of their lives.

And as long as there are fairground grandstands on summer nights, as long as there are small-town ballparks with stages where the pitcher's mound should be, the singers will get to keep delivering the goods.

That is the hopeful news waiting, off in the distance, for those who will win Grammys Sunday, and for those who won't be chosen.

On the morning after that pool-deck encounter in Florida I headed out for a walk, and in the parking lot of the hotel I saw one of the Tokens loading his stage clothes into his car.

His license plate read:

SHE CRYD

I said to him:

"You sing lead on 'She Cried,' right?"

"Every night," he said, and drove off toward the next show.

The next show.

That's the prize.

That's the trophy, right there.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.

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Woman killed when 2 cars collide on Tri-State

Photo: Scene of crash (February 10, 2013)

by Carlos Sadovi and Adam Sege




Tribune reporters

12:42 p.m. CST, February 10, 2013

Danielle M. Pisterzi hoped to graduate from Northern Illinois University this year with an accounting degree, but first she needed to complete an internship at a firm.

Her family believes Pisterzi, 21, was returning to her home on the Northwest Side late Saturday night from her job when she collided with an SUV near Willow Road on the Tri-State Tollway.

Pisterzi had been working long hours because the firm was busy with the tax season, her father Frank Pisterzi said. "She was my baby," he said.

Danielle Pisterzi was driving a 2004 Hyundai when she struck an Audi SUV carrying four people around 10:45 a.m., state police said. people inside, police said. Pisterzi was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 11:52 p.m.

Police told the woman's family that her car also struck a wall before the car flipped on its roof. No one else was taken to the hospital, police said.

After having spent semesters in Dekalb, Pisterzi was back home living with her family in the 5700 block of North Nina Avenue where she grew up, her father said.

Pisterzi said his daughter knew what she meant to her family. "I was pretty fortunate, I told her everyday that I loved her," her father said.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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French, Malian troops fight Islamist rebels inside Gao

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops fought running gun battles with Islamist rebel guerrillas in the north Mali town of Gao on Sunday, in clashes that showed up big gaps in security in a zone recently recaptured by a French-led military offensive.

Gunfire resounded through the sandy streets and mud-brick houses of the ancient town on the Niger River, hours after French and Malian forces reinforced a checkpoint that had been attacked for the second time in two days by a suicide bomber.

French helicopter gunships clattered overhead.

"Islamists who have infiltrated the town are trying to attack our positions, but we're fighting back," a Malian army officer told Reuters by phone. Another Malian soldier said one group of rebel infiltrators had come in on motorbikes.

Civilians crouched for cover behind walls lining narrow dusty alleys as French and Malian troops, backed by armored vehicles, fired on the al Qaeda-allied insurgents who had slipped into the area of the central market and police station.

A Reuters reporter saw one body crumpled over a motorcycle.

A fast-moving military intervention France launched last month in its former Sahel colony has driven al Qaeda-allied fighters from Mali's main northern towns, such as Gao and Timbuktu, into the northeast Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

But with Mali's weak army unable to secure recaptured zones, and the deployment of a larger African security force slowed by delays and kit shortages, there are fears the Islamist jihadists will hit back with more guerrilla raids and suicide bombings.

Abdoul Abdoulaye Sidibe, a Mali parliament deputy from Gao, said the rebel infiltrators were from the MUJWA group which had held the town until French forces liberated it late last month.

"There was a whole group of them who took up positions in front of the police station and started firing in all directions. But they're cornered by the troops now," he said, speaking from Bamako and citing reports from witnesses in Gao.

MUJWA is a splinter faction of al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM which, in loose alliance with home-grown Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, held Mali's main northern towns of Timbuktu and Gao for 10 months until the French offensive drove them out.

The Islamists posted black banners with inscriptions from the Koran in the occupied towns. In the Gao gunbattles on Sunday, a Reuters TV cameraman saw a figure in black robes and a black turban, apparently one of the rebels, running to avoid heavy the fire from the Malian soldiers.

Late on Saturday, an army checkpoint in Gao's northern outskirts came under attack by a group of Islamist rebels who fired from a road and bridge that lead north through the desert scrub by the Niger River to Bourem, 80 km (50 miles) away.

BEARDED SUICIDE BOMBER

"Our soldiers came under heavy gunfire from jihadists from the bridge ... At the same time, another one flanked round and jumped over the wall. He was able to set off his suicide belt," Malian Captain Sidiki Diarra told reporters.

The bomber died and one Malian soldier was lightly wounded, he added. In Friday's motorbike suicide bomber attack, a Malian soldier was also injured.

Diarra described Saturday's bomber as a bearded Arab.

Since Gao and the UNESCO World Heritage city of Timbuktu were retaken last month, several Malian soldiers have been killed in landmine explosions on a main road leading north.

French and Malian officers say pockets of rebels are still in the bush and desert between major towns and pose a threat of hit-and-run guerrilla raids and bombings.

"We are in a dangerous zone... we can't be everywhere," a French officer told reporters, asking not to be named.

One local resident reported seeing a group of 10 armed Islamist fighters at Batel, just 10 km (6 miles) from Gao.

OPERATIONS IN NORTHEAST

The French, who have around 4,000 troops in Mali, are now focusing their offensive operations several hundred kilometers (miles) north of Gao in a hunt for the Islamist insurgents.

On Friday, French special forces paratroopers seized the airstrip and town of Tessalit, near the Algerian border.

From here, the French, aided by around 1,000 Chadian troops in the northeast Kidal region, are expected to conduct combat patrols into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

In this rugged, sun-blasted range of rocky gullies and caves, the remaining Islamists are believed to have hideouts and supply depots and are also thought to be holding at least seven French hostages previously seized in the Sahel.

The U.S. and European governments back the French-led operation as a defense against Islamist jihadists threatening wider attacks, but rule out sending their own combat troops.

To accompany the military offensive, France and its allies are urging Mali authorities to open a national reconciliation dialogue that addresses the pro-autonomy grievances of northern communities like the Tuaregs, and to hold democratic elections.

Mali's interim President Dioncounda Traore, appointed after last year's military coup that plunged the West African state into chaos and led to the Islamist occupation of the north, has said he intends to hold elections by July 31.

But he faces splits within the divided Malian army, where rival units are still at loggerheads.

(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako; Writing by Joe Bavier and Pascal Fletcher; Edited by Richard Meares)

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Stocks end higher for sixth straight week, tech leads

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Nasdaq composite stock index closed at a 12-year high and the S&P 500 index at a five-year high, boosted by gains in technology shares and stronger overseas trade figures.

The S&P 500 also posted a sixth straight week of gains for the first time since August.

The technology sector led the day's gains, with the S&P 500 technology index <.splrct> up 1.0 percent. Gains in professional network platform LinkedIn Corp and AOL Inc after they reported quarterly results helped the sector.

Shares of LinkedIn jumped 21.3 percent to $150.48 after the social networking site announced strong quarterly profits and gave a bullish forecast for the year.

AOL Inc shares rose 7.4 percent to $33.72 after the online company reported higher quarterly profit, boosted by a 13 percent rise in advertising sales.

Data showed Chinese exports grew more than expected, a positive sign for the global economy. The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in December, suggesting the U.S. economy likely grew in the fourth quarter instead of contracting slightly as originally reported by the U.S. government.

"That may have sent a ray of optimism," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Trading volume on Friday was below average for the week as a blizzard swept into the northeastern United States.

The U.S. stock market has posted strong gains since the start of the year, with the S&P 500 up 6.4 percent since December 31. The advance has slowed in recent days, with fourth-quarter earnings winding down and few incentives to continue the rally on the horizon.

"I think we're in the middle of a trading range and I'd put plus or minus 5.0 percent around it. Fundamental factors are best described as neutral," Dickson said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> ended up 48.92 points, or 0.35 percent, at 13,992.97. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.54 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,517.93. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 28.74 points, or 0.91 percent, at 3,193.87, its highest closing level since November 2000.

For the week, the Dow was down 0.1 percent, the S&P 500 was up 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq up 0.5 percent.

Shares of Dell closed at $13.63, up 0.7 percent, after briefly trading above a buyout offering price of $13.65 during the session.

Dell's largest independent shareholder, Southeastern Asset Management, said it plans to oppose the buyout of the personal computer maker, setting up a battle for founder Michael Dell.

Signs of economic strength overseas buoyed sentiment on Wall Street. Chinese exports grew more than expected in January, while imports climbed 28.8 percent, highlighting robust domestic demand. German data showed a 2012 surplus that was the nation's second highest in more than 60 years, an indication of the underlying strength of Europe's biggest economy.

Separately, U.S. economic data showed the trade deficit shrank in December to $38.5 billion, its narrowest in nearly three years, indicating the economy did much better in the fourth quarter than initially estimated.

Earnings have mostly come in stronger than expected since the start of the reporting period. Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies now are estimated up 5.2 percent versus a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data. That contrasts with a 1.9 percent growth forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Molina Healthcare Inc surged 10.4 percent to $31.88 as the biggest boost to the index after posting fourth-quarter earnings.

The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, was down 3.6 percent at 13.02. The gauge, a key measure of market expectations of short-term volatility, generally moves inversely to the S&P 500.

"I'm watching the 14 level closely" on the CBOE Volatility index, said Bryan Sapp, senior trading analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The break below it at the beginning of the year signaled the sharp rally in January, and a rally back above it could be a sign to exercise some caution."

Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by almost 5 to 3.

(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski, Kenneth Barry and Andrew Hay)

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Northeast storm disrupts travel for sports teams

Several professional and college sports teams were forced to rearrange their travel plans as a massive storm swept through the Northeast, dumping a few feet of snow in some areas.

The NBA's New York Knicks were stuck in Minnesota after playing the Timberwolves on Friday night, hoping to try to fly home sometime Saturday. The San Antonio Spurs were also staying overnight in Detroit after seeing their 11-game winning streak fall to the Pistons, awaiting word on when they might be able to fly to New York for their game Sunday night at Brooklyn.

"We can't get there tonight — we know that," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "So we're going to stay here tonight and try to get there (Saturday). Hopefully, we will be able to get there, but at this point, we don't know."

Airlines canceled more than 5,300 flights through Saturday, and New York City's three major airports and Boston's Logan Airport closed.

The Brooklyn Nets planned to take a train home instead of flying from Washington D.C. after losing to the Wizards on Friday night.

Knicks coach Mike Woodson said before a 100-94 victory that his team initially planned to fly home after the game, but the flight had already been postponed. New York is scheduled to play the Los Angeles Clippers at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

The NHL's Boston Bruins pushed back the start of Saturday's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning by six hours because of the blizzard. The game originally slated for 1 p.m. was rescheduled for 7 p.m., but Boston was expected to be one of the cities hit hardest by the storm.

The storm had dumped more than 2 feet of snow on New England by early Saturday and knocked out power to 650,000 customers. The National Weather Service said up to 3 feet of snow is expected in Boston, threatening the city's 2003 record of 27.6 inches.

The Bruins and Lightning each already had road games scheduled for Sunday night.

The New Jersey Devils were still scheduled to host the Pittsburgh Penguins at 1 p.m., while the New York Islanders were slated to play at home against the Buffalo Sabres at 7 p.m.

Two Ivy League men's college basketball games that were scheduled for Saturday night were moved back to Sunday because of treacherous travel conditions.

Dartmouth will play at Cornell at noon on Sunday in Ithaca, N.Y., and Harvard will visit Columbia at 2 p.m. Sunday in New York. Dartmouth played at Columbia on Friday night, and Harvard played at Cornell. Two other Ivy League games were still scheduled to be played Saturday night, with Yale visiting Princeton and Brown playing at Pennsylvania.

Aqueduct also called off Saturday's card because of the storm. The track and Belmont Park were expected to remain open for wagering on out-of-town races, with racing scheduled to resume Sunday.

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How Obama can end Congo conflict

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• President Obama can help end the Congo conflict for good, says Vava Tampa


• Obama has asked Rwanda to end all support to armed groups in the Congo


• FDLR militia gang is a threat to stability and must leave Congo


• Obama must push for change in Congolese government, argues Tampa

Editor's note: Vava Tampa is the founder of Save the Congo, a London-based campaign to tackle "the impunity, insecurity, institutional failure and the international trade of minerals funding the wars in Democratic Republic of the Congo." Follow Vava Tampa on twitter: @VavaTampa

(CNN) -- Now that President Obama has taken a public stand on the warlords and militia gangs tyrannizing DR Congo, there is a sense that the next chapter in the human tragedy that has been raging there over the past decade and half is about to be written -- or so we can hope.

In the DRC -- Africa's largest sub-Saharan country -- invasions, proxy wars and humanitarian crises have senselessly shut down millions of lives, displaced millions more from their homes and left countless women and young girls brutally raped with the world barely raising an eyebrow.

The latest murderous attempt by the M23 militia gang to besiege Goma, the strategic regional capital of Congo's eastern province of North Kivu, seems to have backfired.

Vava Tampa

The United Nations says Rwanda has helped to create and militarily supported M23. Although Rwandan President Paul Kagame denies backing M23, the accusation has taken off some of the international gloss he had long enjoyed in the West, and precipitated cuts and suspension of aid money that goes directly to the Kagame regime by the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the European Union.

The United States, which gives no money directly to the Rwandan government, suspended its military aid. In a baffling expression of a refinement of the U.S. position, President Obama made a rare telephone call to Kagame to emphasize "the importance of permanently ending all support to armed groups in the DRC." That set a firm red line on the situation in that region, the first one by President Obama since becoming president in 2008.

Watch video: Kagame on Congo

This was certainly right and good. Kagame is no fool; the diplomatic but emphatic content of that telephone call, monitored by White House's National Security staff and published thereafter for public consumption, speaks volumes. He clearly understood the implicit threat. But it was not good enough.

Left unsaid is that withholding aid money that goes directly to the Kagame regime has not changed many realities on the ground -- a painful reminder of the limits of what previous half-hearted, ambivalent international attempts to halt the crisis in that country had achieved.

However, the situation is not hopeless. President Obama can help to halt the wars engulfing the Congo. It is both economically and politically affordable.

Here is my suggestion -- a three-point road map, if you like, for President Obama, should he choose to put the weight of the United States squarely on the side of the Congolese and engage much more robustly to help end the world's bloodiest war and human tragedy.

Read more: Why the world is ignoring Congo war

1. Changes in Kinshasa

If we are to be blunt with ourselves, Congo's major problem today -- the chief reason that country remains on its knees -- is its president Joseph Kabila. Paul Kagame is just a symptom, at least in theory.

The crisis of leadership in the capital Kinshasa, the disastrous blend of lack of political legitimacy and moral authority, mixed with poor governance and vision deficiency, then compounded with dilapidated state institutions, has become the common denominator to the ills and wrongs that continues to overwhelm the Congo.

In other words, peace will never be secured in Congo, if the moribund status quo is still strutting around Kinshasa.

Obama's minimum objective in regard to ending the wars and human tragedy engulfing the Congo should be to push for changes in Kinshasa. He must make this one of the "10 Commandments" of the Obama Doctrine.

Circumstances demand it to re-energize Congo's chance of success and to enable the renaissance of a "New Africa." And given the effects of Congo's mounting death toll and the speed at which HIV/AIDS is spreading because of the use of rape as a weapon of war, the sooner the better.

2. Keep Kagame in the naughty corner

The wars and human tragedy engulfing the Congo have many fathers and many layers. Rwanda, and to some extent Uganda -- run by Africa's two dearest autocratic but staunchly pro-American regimes -- are, as they have been many times in the past, despite their denials, continuing to provide support to warlords and militia gangs terrorizing the Congolese people.

This is not an apocryphal claim, it's an open secret in Kinshasa, Kampala and Kigali as much as it is in Washington or White Hall, and as real as Charles Taylor's role in Sierra Leone or Iran's support to Hezbollah.

If President Obama is remotely serious about saving lives in Congo, then fracturing Rwanda's ability to directly or indirectly harbor warlords ... is critical.
Vava Tampa, Save the Congo

Indeed, reporters across Congo and across the region would testify to this. Kigali has been, one can safely argue, the sole shareholder in the M23 militia gang -- and its elder sisters CNDP and RCD-Goma.

It cannot wash its hands in Pontius Pilate fashion of either the ICC-wanted M23 warlord Bosco Ntaganda, also known as The Terminator, or Laurent Nkunda, who is wanted by the Congolese government for war crimes and is under house arrest in Kigali.

Read more: Prosecutor seeks new Congo war crimes warrants

If President Obama is remotely serious about saving lives in Congo, then fracturing Rwanda's ability to directly or indirectly harbor warlords, support militia gangs, militarize or ethnicize the wars in Congo for control of Congo's easily appropriable but highly valuable natural resources is critical, however politically disgruntling it may be to some in the State Department.

It would reduce the scale, scope and intensity of the killing, raping and uprooting of the Congolese, it would crush Kinshasa's ability to use external support to warlords and militia gangs as an alibi for a lack of progress and, above all, decrease the growing unease of the Congolese towards Rwanda over the crimes of FDLR and the role played by their government in Congo.

3. FDLR

The continued existence in Congo of FDLR, a Rwandan militia gang made up largely of Hutus -- whose leadership took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsi -- remains one of the most persistent and serious threats to stability in Congo and the region.

Addressing this crisis is of significant importance from both a political and humanitarian viewpoint.

Though there are no definitive statistics on the exact numbers of FDLR fighters, the good news is that experts tell us that the vast majority of its rank and file are in their 20s and early 30s, which means they were too young to have taken part in the genocide in 1994.

The United States, together with the U.N., the EU and African Union, should appoint a special envoy for the African Great Lakes region to midwife a conducive political arrangement in Kigali that could see them returning home -- and see their leaders and fundraisers in Europe arrested.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Vava Tampa.

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