NTP failing to update

Are there any ntpd messages in /var/log/messages? As I was dealing with my EC2 NTP issues I noticed that NTP didn't like being too far out of sync and wanted a manual update. Perhaps you're too far out for it to decide it will update for you.

The "operation not permitted" errors make me wonder if NTP is trying to talk from or open its privileged port (123) but is not running as root.

Can you confirm that either NTP is running as root, or is running a version with the appropriate permissions to open port 123?

My experience with this issue happens when one of my hosts has an IP address change. NTP tends to open sockets specific to an interface. Try restarting NTP and see if it behaves.