C. African government, opposition head for talks with rebels

BANGUI, Central African Republic: Central African Republic government and opposition delegations left on Tuesday to join rebels for talks later in the week in the Gabonese capital Libreville to end the conflict in their volatile nation.

A delegation of the rebels who have seized key towns in the impoverished country arrived Monday, while government, opposition and civil society representatives left Bangui early Tuesday, a government official said.

Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who is serving as mediator, has said the peace talks could open later this week, while sources said some one-on-one meetings could take place earlier.

The head of the government delegation, Jean Willybero-Sako, voiced confidence that concessions that Central African President Francois Bozize has made so far -- he has proposed a national unity government and said he would not try to seek an unconstitutional third mandate -- would go a long way toward resolving the conflict.

The concessions "cleared a lot of obstacles," Willybero-Sako told AFP on Sunday, "That showed a certain willingness to go forward, to take into account everyone's concerns."

Minister of Territorial Administration Josue Binoua has said the government would also propose "army reform, an economic stimulus plan and the implementation of a new electoral code" at the talks.

Asked about a persistent rebel demand that Bozize step down, Willybero-Sako replied: "We have struggled -- rebels, opposition and government -- to provide our nation with a constitution that everyone now wants to see respected."

Bozize, a former army general, came to power in a coup in 2003 and has been voted back into office twice, in 2005 and 2011.

He has been suspected of wanting to modify the constitution to be allowed to seek a third term in 2016.

Bozize made a quick trip Monday to Brazzaville to meet with Sassou Nguesso.

At a joint press conference afterward, Sassou Nguesso stressed that a "military solution was not a good one and there must be negotiations."

Bozize, who will be present in Libreville but will not attend the talks, claimed the rebel movement was triggered by "elements coming from outside".

He added: "We consider them as mercenaries manipulated from outside, who attacked the peaceful Central African people."

The rebels have insisted that the departure of Bozize, who has been in power since 2003, should be up for discussion at the talks -- and Sassou Nguesso said the issue would be addressed.

"We cannot interpret, in our role as mediator, the statements of one or the other" side, he said, adding that "all parties have agreed to go to negotiations in Libreville and we will address all these questions among brothers."

Rebel chief Michel Djotodia, who made no statement on arrival in the Gabonese capital on Monday, told AFP earlier on a stopover in Chad: "One doesn't make war without also looking for peace."

The Seleka alliance of three rebel movements launched its assault on December 10 in the north of the Central African Republic, a mineral-rich country of five million that is notorious for coups and army mutinies.

Since then, it has moved steadily south, capturing a string of key towns with little or no resistance from the poorly equipped and poorly trained army.

They are now in striking distance of the capital Bangui, near Sibut, 160 kilometres (100 miles) to the north.

At first, the rebels were simply calling on the Bangui government to respect the terms of peace accords signed in 2007 and 2011. As their position strengthened, however, they began calling for Bozize to step down.

The Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC) will host the Libreville talks. But the regional bloc has also sent more troops to strengthen FOMAC, its multinational intervention force in the CAR.

They are deployed as a buffer force at Damara, 75 kilometres north of the capital Bangui.

-AFP/fl

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Track your steps, sleep with Fitbit Flex wristband

LAS VEGAS--Who doesn't need a little more exercise? Fitbit wants to push you to get more active with its Flex wristband, shown off at
CES 2013.

It's a colorful pedometer that monitors how far you walk every day, as well as your time spent sleeping or tossing and turning.

The Flex can track steps, distance, calories, and how many minutes you've been active. It also has a silent alarm to wake you up.

You can also set daily goals, which a reflected in flashing LEDs on the water-resistant wristband. As you progress toward your daily goal, more lights flash.

Known for its wireless clip-on activity tracker, Fitbit integrated wireless connectivity in the Flex, which can sync with PCs, Macs, or mobile devices via Bluetooth 4.0. Its lithium-polymer batteries run for five to seven days.

It has an MSRP of $99.95, and is slated to be released in spring 2013 in a variety of colors.

The related website and apps can track user weight goals, calories consumed, and friends' progress too.

Fortunately, it's easy to take off if you feel like slacking off.

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Pakistan: U.S. drones kill 8 suspected militants

Updated 1:10 a.m. EST

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan Several missiles fired from American drones slammed into a compound near the Afghan border in Pakistan early Tuesday, killing eight suspected militants, Pakistan officials said.

The two intelligence officials said the compound was located near the town of Mir Ali, in the North Waziristan tribal area.

One of the officials said an al Qaeda operative was believed to have been killed in the strike.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

North Waziristan, the area where the strike occurred, is considered a stronghold for insurgent groups operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is one of the few parts of the tribal areas that border Afghanistan in which the Pakistani military has not conducted a military operation to root out militants, despite repeated pushes to do so from the American government.

Tuesday's strike was the fourth since the new year began.

On Sunday, nine Pakistani Taliban fighters were killed when American missiles fired from several drones flying overhead slammed into three militant hideouts in another tribal area, South Waziristan.

The militant in charge of training suicide bombers for the Pakistani Taliban was believed by Pakistan intelligence officials to have died in Sunday's strike.

On Jan. 2, a drone strike killed a top Pakistani militant commander, Maulvi Nazir. He was accused of carrying out deadly attacks against American and other targets across the border in Afghanistan. But unlike most members of the Taliban in Pakistan, he negotiated a truce with the Pakistani military in 2009 and did not attack Pakistani troops or domestic targets.

The covert U.S. drone program is extremely controversial in Pakistan, where many in the country look at it as an infringement on their sovereignty. Many Pakistanis complain that innocent civilians have also been killed, something the U.S. rejects.

Islamabad officially opposes the use of U.S. drones on its territory, but is believed to have tacitly approved some strikes in past.

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Meet Obama's Defense Secretary Nominee

President Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. secretary of defense. To those who haven't followed the Senate closely in the past decade, he's probably not a household name.

Hagel is a former GOP senator from Nebraska and Purple-Heart-decorated Vietnam veteran, but he wouldn't necessarily be a popular pick with Republicans in Congress.

At age 21, Hagel and his brother Tom became the next in the family to serve in the United States Army. They joined the masses of Americans fighting an unfamiliar enemy in Vietnam.

In his book, he describes finding himself "pinned down by Viet Cong rifle fire, badly burned, with my wounded brother in my arms."

"Mr. President, I'm grateful for this opportunity to serve our country again," Hagel said after Obama announced his nomination Monday.

In 1971, Hagel took his first job in politics as chief of staff to Congressman John Y. McCollister, a position he held for six years. After that, he moved to Washington for the first time, where he went on to work for a tire company's government affairs office, the 1982 World's Fair and in 1981, as Ronald Reagan's Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration.

Obama Taps Sen. Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary Watch Video

Sen. Chuck Hagel's Defense Nomination Draws Criticism Watch Video

Obama's Defense Nominee Chuck Hagel Stirs Washington Lawmakers Watch Video

He worked in the private sector for most of the 80s and 90s before his first election to the Senate in 1997.
Since the turn of the century, Hagel has followed a curvy path of political alliances that puts his endorsements all over the map. Hagel's record of picking politically unpopular positions could be a large part of why Obama is naming him for the job, as Slate's Fred Kaplan surmises the next Defense secretary will be faced with tough choices.

In 2000, he was one of few Republican senators to back Sen. John McCain over then-presidential-candidate George W. Bush.

After that election, Hagel fiercely criticized Bush for adding 30,000 surge troops to Iraq, in place of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group's proposal of a draw-down and regional diplomacy, which Hagel preferred. When Bush instead announced that more troops would go to Iraq, Hagel co-sponsored a nonbinding resolution to oppose it, along with then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

"The president says, 'I don't care.' He's not accountable anymore," Hagel told Esquire in June 2007. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."

Hagel's fierce opposition to America's involvement in Iraq – he called it one of the five monumental blunders of history, on par with the Trojan War – will be of substantial importance as the Obama administration charts our course out of Afghanistan, deciding how to withdraw the last of the troops in 2014 and how much of a presence to leave behind.

Hagel's support for McCain, which was substantial in his competition against Bush, disappeared in the 2008 election. Hagel toured Iraq and Afghanistan with Obama during his first campaign for the presidency.

In October 2008, Hagel's wife, Lillibet, announced her support for the Obama team, after the Washington Post reported on her donations to his campaign. She donated again in 2012.

Before the 2008 election, Hagel wrote: "The next president of the United States will face one of the most difficult national security decisions of modern times: what to do about an Iran that may be at the threshold of acquiring nuclear weapons."

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Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by foes

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.

Although the speech was billed as the unveiling of a new peace plan, Assad offered no concessions and even appeared to harden many of his positions. He rallied Syrians for "a war to defend the nation" and disparaged the prospect of negotiations.

"We do not reject political dialogue ... but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don't believe in any language but killing and terrorism?" Assad asked supporters who packed Damascus Opera House for his first speech since June.

"Should we speak to gangs recruited abroad that follow the orders of foreigners? Should we have official dialogue with a puppet made by the West, which has scripted its lines?"

It was his first public speech to an audience in six months. Since the last, rebels have reached the capital's outskirts.

George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did "not even deserve to be called an initiative":

"We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he said.

"The appropriate response is to continue to resist this unacceptable regime and for the Free Syrian Army to continue its work in liberating Syria until every inch of land is free."

The speech was seen by many as a response to U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been meeting U.S. and Russian officials to try to narrow differences between Washington and Moscow over a peace plan. Brahimi also met Assad in Syria late last month.

"Lakhdar Brahimi must feel foolish after that Assad speech, where his diplomacy is dismissed as intolerable intervention," said Rana Kabbani, a Syrian analyst who supports the opposition.

The United States, European Union, Turkey and most Arab states have called on Assad to quit. Russia, which sells arms to and leases a naval base from Syria, says it backs a transition of power but that Assad's departure should not be a precondition for any talks.

REPETITIONS

Assad's foreign foes were scornful and dismissive of the speech. "His remarks are just repetitions of what he's said all along," said Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign minister of Syria's northern neighbor and former friend Turkey.

"It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."

The U.S. State Department said Assad's speech "is yet another attempt by the regime to cling to power and does nothing to advance the Syrian people's goal of a political transition".

"His initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people," said spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".

The 47-year-old Assad, tall and mustachioed, in a business suit and tie, spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, oh Bashar!"

At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling president waved and was escorted from the hall past a backdrop showing a Syrian flag made of pictures of people whom state television described as "martyrs" of the conflict so far.

"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."

Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.

Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could be intended as a show of strength by a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.

Critics saw irony in the venue: "Assad speech appropriately made in Opera House!" tweeted Rami Khouri, a commentator for Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. "It was operatic in its other-worldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building."

DEATHS

The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war, the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge in two years of revolts in Arab states.

Rebels now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey in the north.

But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.

Assad, an eye doctor, has ruled since 2000, succeeding his late father Hafez, who had seized power in a 1970 coup.

The rebels are drawn mainly from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls.

The conflict has heightened confrontation in the Middle East between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab rulers, particularly those in the Gulf who are allied with the West against Tehran.

The plan unveiled in Sunday's speech could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.

Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist radicals. Washington has also labeled one of the main rebel groups a terrorist organization and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with Moscow vetoing U.N. resolutions against Assad.

U.N. mediator Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss his own peace proposal, which does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.

National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni said Assad's speech appeared timed to prevent a breakthrough in those talks, by taking a position that could not be reconciled with diplomacy.

"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Kevin Liffey)

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Conservancy workers trained to help make estates safer

SINGAPORE: More conservancy workers have been trained to help make the estates safer.

About 270 workers in the the east went through a half-day training workshop, named "Workers-on-Watch".

They were taught how to look out for suspicious characters and activities.

The workshop was organised by Bedok Police Division, with support from the Singapore Civil Defence Force, Singapore Customs and National Crime Prevention Council.

The programme started in 2008, with 30 workers at East Coast Town Council and has been expanded to four more town councils - Tampines, Marine Parade, Pasir Ris-Punggol and Moulmein-Kallang.

- CNA/xq

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Roku surpasses 700 channels, adds Roku Ready TV partners

700 channels and counting

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

Roku has no new hardware here at CES 2013, but that's not stopping the company from building on its success: content, content, content. The company just crossed the 700-channel benchmark for its line of smart TV boxes, and it's got even more new services on deck for 2013.

Among the new channels that Roku is planning to add (in the territories indicated) in the first quarter of 2013:

• TWC TV: This app adds upwards of 300 live streaming TV channels for existing Time Warner Cable subscribers at no additional charge. (U.S. only)


• Fox Now: This is Fox's answer to Hulu -- full episodes of many Fox network TV shows. Sorry, cable cutters -- this is only available to customers who subscribe to a "participating TV provider." (U.S. only)


• PBS: According to Roku, this new channel will include "hundreds of full-length videos from local PBS stations, including episodes from new programs as well as the PBS archives, with new national and local content updated daily." (U.S. only)


• PBS Kids: The kid-friendly version of the above, with "more than 1,000 videos" including content such as Curious George and Sesame Street. (U.S. only)


• Blockbuster On Demand: Dish's pay-per-view movie service -- yet another alternative to Amazon, Vudu, and the like. (U.S. only)


• Dailymotion: The YouTube competitor comes to Roku. (U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland)


• iHeartRadio: The ClearChannel audio service will add to Roku's now-comprehensive audio roster. (U.S. only)


• Flingo: Roku says: "More than 70 new channels, including brands like TMZ, A&E, History Channel, Lifetime, Transworld, Warren Miller, Fitness Magazine, and CollegeHumor. Select channels are available
  now. New channels will launch every month." But it's unclear exactly what content will be available, and how Flingo plays a role.

Those new offerings will join Roku's already category-leading lineup, which includes Netflix, Amazon Instant, Vudu, Hulu Plus, Crackle, HBO Go, MLB TV, Pandora, Dish World (live international programming), as well as the recently added Amazon Cloud Player, Spotify, and Vevo channels.

Still notably, frustratingly, curiously absent: YouTube.

Aside from that and Apple's
iTunes, though, Roku has nearly every major video and audio service out there (including, for the record, our own CNET channel).

More Roku Ready hardware partners
Separately, Roku also announced that it's expanding the list of "Roku Ready" hardware partners -- those companies that ship TVs and other AV products that include or are designed to work with the Roku Streaming Stick. Add Coby, Harman Kardon, Hisense, TCL, Voxx (which sells under RCA and other brands), and Westinghouse to the Roku Ready roster. They join 3M -- maker of the cool Streaming Projector -- Element, Haier America, Hitachi, Insignia, Oppo, and Apex.

Of course, that list leaves out every top tier TV manufacturer -- Samsung, LG, Sony, Panasonic, Vizio and the like -- all of which prefer to build their own smart TV suites and platforms. The irony is that Roku offers a far more extensive content selection than all of them, and it tends to upgrade and expand its offerings more frequently than the mainstream manufacturers.

But competition is amping up -- streaming video is arguably the hot topic here at CES 2013. Expect a slew of announcements from the majors in next few days as they pronounce their plans to out-Roku Roku in 2013 and beyond.

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Google head Eric Schmidt on way to North Korea

Updated 3 a.m. EST Jan. 7, 2013

BEIJING The Google chairman wants a first-hand look at North Korea's economy and social media in his private visit Monday to the communist nation, his delegation said, despite misgivings in Washington over the timing of the trip.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of one of the world's biggest Internet companies, is the highest-profile U.S. executive to visit North Korea -- a country with notoriously restrictive online policies -- since young leader Kim Jong Un took power a year ago.

Schmidt departed Beijing on Monday aboard a flight to Pyongyang with a delegation led by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has traveled more than a half-dozen times to North Korea over the past 20 years. Richardson called the trip a private, humanitarian mission.

"This is not a Google trip, but I'm sure he's interested in some of the economic issues there, the social media aspect. So this is why we are teamed up on this," Richardson said without elaborating on what he meant by "the social media aspect."

"We'll meet with North Korean political leaders. We'll meet with North Korean economic leaders, military. We'll visit some universities. We don't control the visit. They will let us know what the schedule is when we get there," he said.

Richardson also said the delegation plans to inquire about a Korean-American U.S. citizen, Pae Jun Ho, detained in North Korea.

"We're going to try to inquire the status, see if we can see him, possibly lay the groundwork for him coming home," Richardson said. "I heard from his son, who lives in Washington state, who asked me to bring him back. I doubt we can do it on this trip."

The four-day trip, which is taking place just weeks after North Korea fired a satellite into space using a long-range rocket, has drawn criticism from U.S. officials. Washington condemned the Dec. 12 launch, which it considers a test of ballistic missile technology, as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions barring Pyongyang from developing its nuclear and missile programs. The Security Council is deliberating whether to take further action.

"We don't think the timing of the visit is helpful, and they are well aware of our views," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters last week.

The trip was planned well before North Korea announced its plans to send a satellite into space, two people with knowledge of the delegation's plans told The Associated Press. AP first reported the group's plans last Thursday. Schmidt, a staunch proponent of Internet connectivity and openness, is expected to make a donation during the visit, members of the delegation told AP. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to divulge details of the delegation's plans to the media.

The visit is the first by a Google executive to North Korea and comes just days after Kim, who took power following the Dec. 17, 2011, death of his father, Kim Jong Il, laid out a series of policy goals for North Korea in a lengthy New Year's speech. He cited expanding science and technology as a means to improving the country's economy as a key goal for 2013.

Computer and cell phone use is gaining ground in North Korea's larger cities.

However, most North Koreans only have access to a domestic Intranet system, not the World Wide Web. For North Koreans, Internet use is still strictly regulated and allowed only with approval.

Schmidt, who oversaw Google's expansion into a global giant, speaks frequently about the importance of providing people around the world with Internet access and technology.

Google now has offices in more than 40 countries, including all three of North Korea's neighbors: Russia, South Korea and China, another country criticized for systematic Internet censorship.

Accompanying Schmidt is Jared Cohen, a former U.S. State Department policy and planning adviser who heads Google's New York-based think tank. The two collaborated on a book about the Internet's role in shaping society, called "The New Digital Age," which comes out in April.

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Pastor Accused of Killing Wives Faces Trial

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday for Pastor Arthur Schirmer, who is accused of killing his second wife and then staging a car accident to hide it.

Schirmer, 64, also faces a second trial at a later date for the death of his first wife. He has said he is innocent of all charges.

In 2008, the pastor and his wife, Betty, were involved in what appeared at the time to be a car crash. Schirmer told police at the time that he had been driving 55 mph and swerved to miss a deer, causing him to drive off the road, according to a police affidavit obtained by ABC News.

Schirmer also said at the time that his wife's head had come forward and struck the windshield, according to the affidavit. Betty died a day later and her body was cremated at the request of Schirmer.

It wasn't until a grisly suicide in 2010 inside Schirmer's office that authorities decided to revisit the case of Betty Schirmer's death and arrest the pastor.

The man who broke in and shot himself at the desk in Schirmer's office at the Reeders United Methodist Church, Joseph Mustante, was the husband of the pastor's secretary, Cynthia Mustante, Poconos Township Police Detective James Wagner said.

Pocono Record, David Kidwell/AP Photo

Mustante's suicide was prompted by the discovery that his wife and the pastor had apparently been having an affair, Wagner said. He was alone at the time of his death.

Investigators looking into the suicide say that several church parishioners had concerns about the deaths of Schirmer's two wives.

"That suicide eventually exposed the affair publicly and subsequent to that, questions arose about the loss of [Schirmer's] wives and his character became questionable," Wagner said.

Relaunching the investigation into the two deaths, Wagner said he quickly suspected that "foul play existed, and the car crash was staged," allegedly, by Schirmer. Wagner said investigators also believed there was something "suspicious" about the first wife's death, a marriage that investigators had not known about prior to the suicide.

Investigators Look Into Deaths of Rev. Arthur Schirmer's Wives

Schirmer's first wife, Jewel, died in April 1999 from a traumatic brain injury after she purportedly fell down a flight of stairs in Lebanon, Pa., Wagner said.

Lebanon is about 100 miles southwest of Reeders, where Schrimer later moved with his second wife.

At the time of Jewel's death, Wagner said, a relative told police that he suspected Schirmer may have had a hand in his wife's death but that the investigation was "never completed."

On Dec. 11, 2012 -- more than 13 years after Jewel died, a Lebanon County judge ruled Schirmer would be tried for her murder.

When investigators looked at the death of Betty Schirmer, they saw inconsistencies, Wagner said.

"There was no airbag deployment and it simply looked like a car that had driven off the road at a very low speed," Wagner said. "It didn't match the injuries to [Betty's head].

"I know there are people out there who probably know him and feel like there is absolutely no way he would be capable of doing this," Wagner of Schirmer. "But they clearly don't know him."

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Venezuela lawmakers elect Chavez ally as Assembly chief

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan lawmakers re-elected a staunch ally of Hugo Chavez to head the National Assembly on Saturday, putting him in line to be caretaker president if the socialist leader does not recover from cancer surgery.

By choosing the incumbent, Diosdado Cabello, the "Chavista"-dominated legislature cemented the combative ex-soldier's position as the third most powerful figure in the government, after Chavez and Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

"As a patriot ... I swear to be supremely loyal in everything I do, to defend the fatherland, its institutions, and this beautiful revolution led by our Comandante Hugo Chavez," Cabello said as he took the oath, his hand on the constitution.

He had earlier warned opposition politicians against attempting to use the National Assembly to "conspire" against the people, saying they would be "destroyed" if they tried.

Thousands of the president's red-clad supporters gathered outside parliament hours before the vote, many chanting: "We are all Chavez! Our comandante will be well! He will return!"

If Chavez had to step down, or died, Cabello would take over the running of the country as Assembly president and a new election would be organized within 30 days. Chavez's heir apparent, Maduro, would be the ruling Socialist Party candidate.

Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area in mid-2011, has not been seen in public nor heard from in more than three weeks.

Officials say the 58-year-old is in delicate condition and has suffered multiple complications since the December 11 surgery, including unexpected bleeding and severe respiratory problems.

Late on Friday, Maduro gave the clearest indication yet that the government was preparing to delay Chavez's inauguration for a new six-year term, which is scheduled for Thursday.

'CHAVEZ IS PRESIDENT'

Maduro said the ceremony was a "formality" and that Chavez could be sworn in by the Supreme Court at a later date.

The opposition says Chavez's absence would be just the latest sign that he is no longer fit to govern, and that new elections should be held in the South American OPEC nation.

Brandishing a copy of the constitution after his win in the Assembly, Cabello slammed opposition leaders for writing a letter to foreign embassies in which they accused the government of employing a "twisted reading" of the charter.

"Get this into your heads: Hugo Chavez was elected president and he will continue to be president beyond January 10. No one should have any doubt ... this is the constitutional route," he said as fellow Socialist Party lawmakers cheered.

The opposition sat stony-faced. One of their legislators had earlier told the session that it was not just the head of state who was ill, "the republic is sick."

Last year, Chavez staged what appeared to be a remarkable comeback from the disease to win re-election in October, despite being weakened by radiation therapy. He returned to Cuba for more treatment within weeks of his victory.

Should the president have to step down after 14 years in office, a new vote would probably pit Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state.

Capriles lost to Chavez in October's presidential election.

"I don't think Maduro would last many rounds in a presidential race. He's not fit for the responsibility they have given him," Capriles said after the vice president's appearance on state television.

Chavez's condition is being watched closely by leftist allies around Latin American who have benefited from his oil-funded generosity, as well as investors attracted by Venezuela's lucrative and widely traded debt.

The country boasts the world's biggest crude reserves. Despite the huge political upheaval Chavez's exit would cause, the oil industry is not likely to be affected much in the short term, with an extension of "Chavismo" keeping projects on track, while a change in parties could usher in more foreign capital.

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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