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• CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday night that President Barack Obama has jeopardized U.S. national security by nominating substandard candidates for key cabinet posts and by degrading the U.S. military.
• "The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal," Cheney said in comments to about 300 members of the Wyoming Republican Party.
• Cheney, a Wyoming native, said it was vital to the nation's national security that "good folks" hold the positions of secretary of state, CIA director and secretary of defense.
• "Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people," he said.
• John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has been confirmed as secretary of state. CIA designate John Brennan and defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel are still awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation.
• ___

• MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- After years of fighting the government from hidden jungle bases in the southern Philippines, an Al-Qaida-linked militant group is facing a new adversary: fellow Muslim insurgents who can match their guerrilla battle tactics and are eager to regain their lost stature by fighting the widely condemned terrorist group.
• The emerging enmity between the Abu Sayyaf militants and the Moro rebels could bolster a decade-long campaign by the Philippines and Western countries to isolate the al-Qaida offshoot Abu Sayyaf, which remains one of the most dangerous groups in Southeast Asia.
• In their first known major clash, Abu Sayyaf gunmen battled rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front in fighting early this week, leaving at least 22 combatants dead in the mountainous jungles on southern Jolo Island. A Moro rebel was beheaded -- Abu Sayyaf's signature act.
• Bonded by blood ties and war, the two armed groups had co-existed for years on Jolo in a predominantly Muslim region, where abject poverty, guns and weak law

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