News Update

Former ECB head: Eurozone part of 'global crisis'

2012-02-02T07:58:00.001-08:00

The former head of the European Central Bank says the eurozone's woes must not be taken in isolation, but viewed as part of a global crisis.

Former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet told CNN's Richard Quest at Davos that it would be "an immense mistake to take the present situation as the European crisis."

"It would be the same mistake to take Lehman Brothers as the American crisis only," he said. "The epicentre of the crisis is in Europe on the sovereign risk, but it's a global crisis."

He rejected the suggestion that European leaders had done nothing substantive to address the crisis since last year's World Economic Forum, saying political decisions had to occur at their own pace.

"A lot has been done," he said. "The time of the democracy is of course a little bit longer than the time of the market."

Still, he said, there was "no time for complacency."

Trichet, who left his role at the ECB in October after eight years in the position, endorsed the bank's handling of the crisis since his departure.

"I think the bank is really doing what it should, namely to have a sense of direction, to maintain and preserve stability and confidence in the medium term, which is essential in the crisis," he said.

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Report: Sudanese army frees at least 14 kidnapped Chinese workers

2012-02-02T05:03:00.001-08:00

The Sudanese army has freed at least 14 Chinese nationals who were kidnapped in the volatile South Kordofan state, the official Sudan News Agency said Monday.

The news agency quoted Ahmed Haroun, the state governor, as saying the workers were taken to neighboring North Kordofan and were in good condition.

The report did not mention the fate of the other 56 construction workers who militants had also captured when they attacked a construction site in a remote area Saturday.

At the time, Alsawarmi Khalid, spokesman for the Sudanese armed forces, blamed the attacks on the Sudan People's Liberation Movement -North, a rebel force in the border region with neighboring South Sudan. Khalid said a total of 70 workers were kidnapped in the incident -- a mix of local and foreign workers.

China's Xinhua news agency confirmed the release, but reported that 17 -- and not 14 -- Chinese workers were evacuated to "safe places" by Sudanese forces. That leaves 12 Chinese workers unaccounted for, the Chinese embassy in Sudan told Xinhua.

It was unclear why the two official accounts varied in the number of Chinese nationals freed.

South Sudan became the world's newest nation last year after decades of conflict with the north.

International concern has grown over the violence in South Kordofan and nearby Blue Nile states, which has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.

The region is a Sudan territory, but straddles Sudan and South Sudan's ethnic and political lines.

China is Sudan's largest trading partner, while Sudan is China's third-largest trading partner in Africa. According to the Chinese foreign ministry, trade between the two countries reached $8.63 billion in 2010, an increase of 35.1% compared to the previous year.

The close bilateral cooperation is mainly driven by oil exports from Sudan, which is among the top oil suppliers for China.

CNN

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Audio from 911 calls reveals chaotic scene at deadly Florida highway crash

2012-02-02T05:01:00.001-08:00

Calls from victims of a pileup on a Florida highway that killed 10 people describe the chaotic scene to dispatchers in 911 recordings released Monday.

A stretch of Interstate 75 near Gainesville had been closed due to low visibility caused by smoke and haze. Just fifteen minutes after reopening, at least a dozen cars, six tractor-trailers and a motorhome collided on the roadway.

One caller, who was on the smoke-filled scene as the cars began piling up, spoke to an operator about the crashes.

When the 911 operator asked how many crashes she had seen so far, the caller replied, "We cannot see. This is the third one now already."

The sound of cars colliding is audible in the background.

Another caller told a dispatcher that the fog and smoke was so thick they couldn't see.

"The smoke is very thick you can see obviously only your hand in front," the caller said. "I do hear an ambulance or police officer coming down the road."

When rescuers first arrived to the crashes, they could only listen for screams and moans because the poor visibility made it difficult to find victims in wreckage that was strewn for nearly a mile.

The Florida Highway Patrol said Monday that conditions were clear enough when they decided to reopen the interstate highway where 10 people later were killed in two deadly pileups amid thick smoke from a 62-acre brushfire and fog.

"We went through the area. We made an assessment. We came to the conclusion that the road was safe to travel and that is when we opened the road up," highway patrol spokesman Lt. Patrick Riordan said in a news conference.

Yet after the highway reopened early Sunday morning, visibility along that section of Interstate 75 near Gainesville quickly began to deteriorate, Riordan said. The crashes began shortly after.

"Factors changed quickly," Riordan said. "Drivers have to recognize that the environment changes. They have to be prepared to make good judgments."

At least a dozen cars and six tractor-trailers were involved, some vehicles burst into flames. Three bodies were so badly burned they haven't been identified yet, he said. No names of victims have been released pending notification of relatives, Riordan said.

When asked about why the highway was reopened with the brushfire still burning, Riordan said: "I'm not going to play a what-if situation."

About midnight Sunday, the highway patrol closed the section of I-75 for more than three hours after a pileup happened when the highway became impassable from fog and smoke from the nearby brushfire.

Troopers inspected the highway before a sergeant and lieutenant made the decision to reopen I-75 about 3:30 a.m., he said. Fifteen minutes later, the fatal pileups began on both the north and southbound sides of the highway.

Riordan declined to release the two troopers' names or provide details on their careers with the highway patrol. He said no troopers have been disciplined but the investigation into the crash continues. National Transportation Safety Board officials said Monday they are sending investigators to the scene. They also will assess whether the NTSB should formally join the probe, which is being led by the highway patrol.

Twisted, burned-out vehicles were scattered across the pavement, with smoke still rising from the wreckage. Cars appeared to have smashed into the big rigs and, in one case, a motor home. Some cars were crushed beneath the heavier trucks.

Reporters who were allowed to view the site saw bodies still inside a burned-out Grand Prix. One tractor-trailer was burned down to its skeleton, charred pages of books and magazines in its cargo area. And the tires of every vehicle had burned away, leaving only steel belts.

The Florida Forest Service said Monday it still had not determined if the fire was intentionally set or accidental, although lightning has been ruled out. Spokeswoman Ludie Bond said the fire is contained but was still burning. Firefighters are spraying water around its perimeter attempting to reduce the smoke.

Criminal defense attorneys said that if the fire was caused by arson, authorities likely will file charges of manslaughter and possibly felony murder, which is defined as a death that happens as result of participating in a felony.

"You can bet they will be," said Brian Tannebaum, a former president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

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Jury finds Afghan family guilty in 'honor' killings

2012-02-01T23:38:00.001-08:00

A jury on Sunday found an Afghan father, his wife and their son guilty of killing three teenage sisters and a co-wife in what the judge described as "cold-blooded, shameful murders" resulting from a "twisted concept of honor" in a case that shocked and riveted Canadians.

Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly killed the three teenage sisters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and using the Internet.

The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

After the verdict was read, the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Shafia's childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.

Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The prosecution alleged it was a case of premeditated murder, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. Prosecutors said the defendants drowned their victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and pushed it into the canal.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Robert Maranger said the evidence clearly supported the conviction.

"It is difficult to conceive of a more heinous, more despicable, more honorless crime," Maranger said. "The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honor ... that has absolutely no place in any civilized society."

In a statement following the verdict, Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson called honor killings a practice that is "barbaric and unacceptable in Canada."

Defense lawyers said the deaths were accidental. They said the Nissan car accidentally plunged into the canal after the eldest daughter, Zainab, took it for a joy ride with her sisters and her father's first wife. Hamed said he watched the accident, although he didn't call police from the scene.

After the jury returned the verdicts, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, "We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust."

His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, "I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother."

Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said, "I did not drown my sisters anywhere."

Hamed's lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, but said his client will appeal and he believes the other two defendants will as well.

But prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis welcomed the verdict.

"This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances," Laarhuis said outside court.

"This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy," he said to cheers of approval from onlookers.

The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children.

Shafia's first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.

The prosecution painted a picture of a household controlled by a domineering Shafia, with Hamed keeping his sisters in line and doling out discipline when his father was away on frequent business trips to Dubai.

The months leading up to the deaths were not happy ones in the Shafia household, according to evidence presented at trial. Zainab, the oldest daughter, was forbidden to attend school for a year because she had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend, and she fled to a shelter, terrified of her father, the court was told.

The prosecution said her parents found condoms in Sahar's room as well as photos of her wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, a relationship she had kept secret. Geeti was becoming almost impossible to control: skipping school, failing classes, being sent home for wearing revealing clothes and stealing, while declaring to authority figures that she wanted to be placed in foster care, according to the prosecution.

Shafia's first wife wrote in a diary that her husband beat her and "made life a torture," while his second wife called her a servant.

The prosecution presented wire taps and mobile phone records from the Shafia family in court to support their honor killing allegation. The wiretaps, which capture Shafia spewing vitriol about his dead daughters, calling them treacherous and whores and invoking the devil to defecate on their graves, were a focal point of the trial.

"There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this," Shafia said on one recording. "Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows ... nothing is more dear to me than my honor."

Defense lawyers argued that at no point in the intercepts do the accused say they drowned the victims.

Shafia's lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on the wiretaps may have weighed more heavily on the jury's minds than the physical evidence in the case.

"He wasn't convicted for what he did," Kemp said. "He was convicted for what he said."

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AU Summit Highlights Africa's Tilt Toward the East

2012-02-01T14:07:00.001-08:00

An African Union summit has opened with the selection of Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi as AU chairman for the coming year. The opening speeches reflected Africa's increasing shift toward the East.

China is the honored guest at this summit, and the opening session was filled expressions of gratitude for Beijing's gift of a new $200-million AU headquarters.

Speakers referred to China's rising influence in Africa, and to the continent's growing resentment at what is widely perceived as Western interference in African affairs.

AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping described 2011 as a year of trials and hardship, as Western institutions imposed solutions to crises in Libya and Ivory Coast, rejecting or ignoring African proposals.

"The events of 2011 have greatly strained some of our instruments and consequently our capacity to anticipate," he said."Sometimes they tested the strength of our unity and our ability to have our views prevail in some issues of vital interest to the continent."

The outgoing AU Chairman, Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema accused Western institutions such as the International Criminal Court of anti-African bias. Speaking in Spanish, and heard through an interpreter, Obiang said African leaders must not remain indifferent to what he called external interference.

"The African Union should study the creation of its own African criminal court to put an end to all of these unjust and discriminatory actions we have seen in the international justice," said Nguema. "Africa needs actions of great solidarity and coordination in order to avoid that others disempower us on their behalf and do whatever they wish to do regarding our countries."

The keynote speaker, China's top political strategist Jia Qinglin contrasted Beijing's foreign policy with that of the West. Speaking in Chinese through an interpreter, he said China had never attached strings to its offers of assistance.

"China will firmly support African countries in their efforts to uphold sovereignty and independence, and resolve African issues on their own," said Ginglin. "We maintain all countries big or small are equal, and we are opposed to the big, strong and rich bullying the weak, small and poor."

The opening session saw Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi elected to a one-year term as AU chairman. The post rotates according to region, and Boni Yayi was the choice of the West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS. He is an economist who has led the small West African nation for six years.

As chairman, Boni Yayi will preside over the fierce contest for the African Union Commission chairmanship. That battle between the incumbent Jean Ping of Gabon and the South African challenger Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is to be settled Monday in a secret ballot of heads of state.

The race is considered tight. One usually well-informed AU observer, when asked who he thought would win, replied, “If I were a betting man, I would not bet more than a penny”.

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Gunmen kill journalist in Somalia

2012-02-01T02:32:00.001-08:00

A leading Somalia journalist was shot outside him home in Mogadishu on Saturday and died on the way to the hospital, according to other journalists.

Hassan Osman Abdi, 29, was the director of Shabelle Media Network, according to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) and Reporters Without Borders. He had also previously done some freelance work for CNN.

Unknown gunmen opened fire as Abdi arrived at his home in Madina district, striking him in the head and chest, NUSOJ said.

"This is a terrible tragedy, both for Hassan Osman Abdi's family and for the Somali journalist community," said Omar Faruk Osman, secretary general of the NUSOJ.

According to local journalists, Abdi was likely killed because of his role in reporting on politics and corruption cases, NUSOJ reported.

Somalia is the deadliest country in Africa for media personnel, and Mogadishu ranked as one of the world's most-dangerous places for journalists in 2011, according to Reporters Without Borders.

He is the third Shabelle Media Network director to be murdered, following the 2007 death of Bashir Nur Gedi and the 2009 death of Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe, said the group, which called for a "serious and impartial investigation" into his murder.

Abdi, known as "Hassan Fantastic," was the father of three children, NUSOJ said.

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College presidents alarmed over Obama's cost-control plan

2012-01-31T20:43:00.001-08:00

Fuzzy math, Illinois State University's president called it. "Political theater of the worst sort," said the University of Washington's head.

President Obama's new plan to force colleges and universities to contain tuition or face losing federal dollars is raising alarm among education leaders who worry about the threat of government overreach. Particularly sharp words came from the presidents of public universities; they're already frustrated by increasing state budget cuts.

The reality, said Illinois State's Al Bowman, is that simple changes cannot easily overcome deficits at many public schools. He said he was happy to hear Obama, in a speech Friday at the University of Michigan, urge state-level support of public universities. But, Bowman said, given the decreases in state aid, tying federal support to tuition prices is a product of fuzzy math.

Illinois has lowered public support for higher education by about one-third over the past decade when adjusted for inflation. Illinois State, with 21,000 students, has raised tuition almost 47 percent since 2007, from $6,150 a year for an in-state undergraduate student to $9,030.

"Most people, including the president, assume if universities were simply more efficient they would be able to operate with much smaller state subsidies, and I believe there are certainly efficiency gains that can be realized," Bowman said. "But they pale in comparison to the loss in state support."

Bowman said the undergraduate experience can be made cheaper, but there are trade-offs.

"You could hire mostly part-time, adjunct faculty. You could teach in much larger lecture halls, but the things that would allow you achieve the greatest levels of efficiency would dilute the product and would make it something I wouldn't be willing to be part of," he said.

At Washington, President Mike Young said Obama showed he did not understand how the budgets of public universities work.

Young said the total cost to educate college students in his state, which is paid for by both tuition and state government dollars, has gone down because of efficiencies on campus. While universities are tightening costs, the state is cutting their subsidies and authorizing tuition increases to make up for the loss.

"They really should know better," Young said. "This really is political theater of the worst sort."
Obama's plan would need approval by Congress, a hard sell in an atmosphere of partisan gridlock.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Obama described meeting with university presidents who explained how some schools curtailed costs through technology and redesigning courses to help students finish more quickly. He said more schools need to take such steps.

Obama said at Michigan that higher education has become an imperative for success in America, but the cost has grown unrealistic for too many families and the debt burden unbearable. He said states should properly fund colleges and universities.

"We are putting colleges on notice," Obama told an arena packed with cheering students. "You can't assume that you'll just jack up tuition every single year. If you can't stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers each year will go down."

Obama is targeting only a small part of the financial aid picture: the $3 billion known as campus-based aid that flows through college administrators to students. He is proposing to increase that amount to $10 billion and change how it is distributed to reward schools that hold down costs and ensure that more poor students complete their education.

The bulk of the more than $140 billion in federal grants and loans goes directly to students and would not be affected.

The average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges this school year rose 8.3 percent and with room and board now exceed $17,000 a year, according to the College Board.

Rising tuition costs have been attributed to a variety of factors, among them a decline in state dollars and competition for the best facilities and professors. Critics say some higher education institutions are attempting to wait out the economic downturn and have been too reluctant to make large-scale changes that would cut costs such as offering three-year degree programs.

The federal government's leverage to take on the rising cost of college is limited because higher education is decentralized, with most student aid following the student.

The response to Obama's plan wasn't all negative. Many university presidents said they welcome a conversation about making college more affordable and efficient.

In Missouri, where Gov. Jay Nixon has proposed a 12.5 percent funding cut for higher education in the coming fiscal year, Obama's proposal could put even more pressure on public colleges and universities to limit tuition increases. By state law, schools must limit such increases to the annual inflation rate unless they receive permission for larger ones. Nixon has warned schools that he doesn't want to see a tuition increase of more than 3 percent, the latest Consumer Price Index increase.

"The president's message isn't inconsistent with the agenda that we've been pursuing here in Missouri," said Paul Wagner, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Higher Education.

"It's good to see him put the focus on the same things."

Obama also wants to create a "Race to the Top" competition in higher education similar to the one his administration used on lower grades. He wants to encourage states to make better use of higher education dollars in exchange for $1 billion in prize money.

Obama is also pushing for more tools to help students determine which colleges and universities have the best value.

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Wounded Syrians Treated at Secret Clinic in Lebanon

2012-01-31T20:17:00.001-08:00

Syrians injured in the crackdown on anti-government protests are crossing into Lebanon to seek treatment. They can’t get treatment in Syria because they say hospitals there are often raided by security forces looking for protesters. One secret clinic in the Lebanese city of Tripoli has patients of all ages with horrific injuries from the fighting.

Amran, 6, is one of the youngest patients in this hospital. He has difficulty walking. When he shows his leg, it’s easy to see why. A chunk is missing from his shin. The hole is surrounded by red scar tissue.

"I’m here because they shot me,” Amran said. He was fleeing Syria with his mother when security forces opened fire. His mother survived unscathed. Amran will be disabled for life.

There are many other injured Syrian children at this private Tripoli clinic. The doctors asked us not to identify its whereabouts.

Patients hide their faces. Many are wounded anti-government protesters. They say if they were identified, their families in Syria would be tortured and killed.

With his laptop permanently connected to Facebook, Skype and YouTube, one army defector is keeping up his fight from his hospital bed via the Internet - distributing videos from inside Syria.

He gave us footage of a protest and funeral in Homs. With pride, he says he is the man in white on the shoulders of a friend - in Arabic, the ‘Kashoosh,’ the one who leads the chanting.

“I’m lucky to have a strong voice, and I’m also musical,” he said. “I used to put all my heart into it, and I used to be the one who used to chant, ‘The people want to downfall of the regime, the people want the regime to go.’''

His luck ran out four months ago - he was shot at a protest. The man on the bed next to him saved his life and took him on the highly dangerous route to Lebanon.

“Yes, this is a dangerous thing to do,” he said. “When we joined these protests we said we would either survive or die, that was our motto. I was part of Assad’s army. I defected because of what it did. This army is cruel, they go into people’s homes, it doesn’t matter if it is a child or an old person, the army would kill them.”

In the neighboring room, more wounded protesters. One shows us the bone fragments removed from his leg after he was shot.

“This is not sectarian. It’s Assad himself who wants there to be a civil war. He would use that against us,” said the protester. “He’s used everything else - warplanes, artillery. He’s done horrific things. You should see Baba Amr in Homs where I come from, you would cry if you saw how people are surviving.”

The patients here say they can’t get treatment in Syria because security forces regularly raid hospitals to arrest protesters. They say they are lucky to get treatment in Lebanon.

For the children in this clinic, luck and fortune have been brutally stolen away, by a conflict that does not discriminate by age.

VOA News

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Karzai and Cameron pledge to work toward Afghan future

2012-01-31T15:37:00.001-08:00

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to work toward lasting stability in Afghanistan in talks Saturday in the United Kingdom.

The pair signed a long-term agreement on the future of Afghanistan, as they met at Cameron's official country residence, Chequers.

"The United Kingdom and Afghanistan have a strong relationship and the two countries have been working together to create a strong and stable Afghanistan," Cameron said.

Cameron said British combat forces would remain in Afghanistan well into 2014, when NATO's International Security and Assistance Force, or ISAF, is due to hand over security to Afghan forces and withdraw.

Britain has about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, making it the second-biggest contributor to ISAF after the United States, which has about 90,000 troops there.

Cameron said the NATO partners in Afghanistan would be working together to withdraw their troops in 2014 as planned.

"I don't want to see some cliff edge on our departure," he said.

Karzai said the British prime minister had long been a friend of Afghanistan, adding: "Based on that long-term relationship, we hope to provide a fundamentally strong, democratic state and a better, more secure region."

Karzai's U.K. visit comes a day after a British soldier was shot dead while on foot patrol in Afghanistan's Helmand province and follows stops in Italy and France.

After meeting with Karzai in Paris Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France would be pulling all of its combat troops out of Afghanistan in 2013, a year ahead of schedule.

His decision follows the death on January 20 of four French soldiers shot dead at their military base by a member of the Afghan National Army.

Sarkozy, who faces a re-election battle this spring, said then he was suspending French training operations and combat help as a result of the attack, which injured 15 others.

He paid tribute to the four soldiers at a memorial service Wednesday, speaking of the "immense loss" the country had suffered.

The attack in eastern Afghanistan followed a similar shooting in December by an Afghan soldier that killed two French soldiers serving in an engineers' regiment.

Speaking alongside Sarkozy in Paris, Karzai said: "It is right that Afghanistan has to provide for its own security and for the protection of its own people, and for the provision of law and order -- towards which France and other allied countries have helped Afghanistan considerably in the past 10 years.

"Afghanistan because of that help is now ready to take more and more responsibility."

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Friday that France's decision to withdraw its forces early "was not precipitous" and had been worked through with its ISAF partners and the Afghan authorities.

"This was a national decision of France. It was done in a managed way. We will all work with it. As the president has said with regard to our own presence, we are working on 2014. The alliance as a whole is working on 2014, but we are also going to work within this French decision," she told reporters.

France, which has been involved in Afghanistan since July 2003, has 3,935 troops there now, according to ISAF.

CNN

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Russia Clashes with Europeans, Arabs Over Syria UN Resolution

2012-01-31T03:18:00.001-08:00

European and Arab nations are calling on the U.N. Security Council to back a resolution supporting the Arab League’s plan to end the 10-month-old political crisis in Syria. But, Russia has expressed concerns about the new text.

Following a lengthy closed-door discussion Friday afternoon on a draft resolution proposed by council members Morocco, Britain and France, Russia’s Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters that the new text ignores what he called Moscow’s “red lines” where they could not go.

“The red lines included any indications of sanctions, the red lines included any sort of imposition of arms embargo - because we know how in real life arms embargo means you supply arms to illegal groups but you cannot supply weapons to the government - we cannot accept that," he said. "Unfortunately, the draft we saw today did not only ignore our red lines but also added some new elements which we find unacceptable as a matter of principle.”

The Russian envoy said the Arab League plan, which includes the transfer of power from President Bashar al-Assad to a deputy in preparation for multi-party elections, imposes a certain outcome of political dialogue before that dialogue even starts.

“We need to concentrate on establishing political dialogue," he said. "The Arab League may have its ideas about where that political dialogue should go, they are free to express those ideas, but certainly the Security Council cannot be a tool to impose specific solutions on countries, including in this particular situation, Syria.”

He said Moscow does not see the new draft text as one on which they could agree, but said they would be willing to engage in negotiations.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant rejected his colleague's objections, saying the proposed text does not include an arms embargo or sanctions, nor does it call for regime change. He noted that it also includes some language from an earlier Russian proposed draft resolution on the subject. Essentially, Lyall Grant said, the new resolution simply supports the Arab League’s efforts to end the crisis.

“Frankly, the time has come where we should be supporting the Arab League’s efforts," he said. "They took a very strong, binding decision on the Arab League members at the weekend. They have come with a credible plan that involves dialogue, a political transition, and we believe that we should support it.”

Lyall Grant said negotiations on the text would begin Monday and he hoped to have a vote on the measure next week, possibly as early as Wednesday.

On Tuesday afternoon the Arab League Secretary-General Nabil ElAraby and the Prime Minister of Qatar will brief the 15-member Security Council on the League’s month-long monitoring mission in Syria, which was plagued by difficulties.

Syria has rejected the Arab League’s plan of January 22nd, but has said the League’s observer mission may remain in the country for another month.

The United Nations estimates that more than 5,000 people have been killed during the 10-month-long crackdown on anti-government dissenters. On Friday, the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, said nearly 400 children have been killed during the crisis.

VOA News

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Biden claims Panetta was only Obama adviser urging a 'go' on bin Laden raid

2012-01-30T19:39:00.001-08:00

Vice President Biden claimed Friday that Leon Panetta was the only member of the inner circle who definitively urged President Obama to green-light the raid on Usama bin Laden's compound, as Biden discussed new details about the behind-the-scenes deliberations.

Biden, speaking to the House Democratic Issues Conference in Maryland, candidly admitted that he told the president not to go forward with the mission. Biden said at the time he thought the administration should do more to find out whether bin Laden was actually inside the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Describing the scene when Obama sought the advice of his top officials on whether to go ahead, Biden said most advisers -- aside from himself and Panetta, the defense secretary who was CIA chief at the time -- didn't offer a clear opinion.

"He went around the table with all the senior people. ... Every single person in that room hedged their bet except Leon Panetta. Leon said, 'go.' Everyone else said 49, 51 (percent in favor)," Biden said.

"It got to me. (Obama) said 'Joe -- what do you think?' I said, 'You know, I didn't know we had so many economists around the table.' I said we owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is don't go."

Biden recalled the scene to illustrate his point that Obama showed leadership and, in his words, has a "backbone like a ramrod."

Despite the uncertain and conflicting advice, Obama told his national security adviser the next day, "Go," Biden said.

"He knew what was at stake. Not just the lives of those brave warriors, but literally the presidency, and he pulled the trigger," Biden said. "This guy doesn't lead from behind -- he just leads."

Robert Gates, the defense secretary at the time of the raid, has already said publicly that he had reservations about the intelligence pertaining to the bin Laden compound.

It's not clear exactly what every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and key Cabinet members advised.

A defense official said Adm. Mike Mullen who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time, "certainly recognized the risk, but he did not hesitate in offering his advice that we should go."

One U.S. official told Fox News that Gen. James Cartwright, who was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time, was leaning against a raid and more toward an airstrike in that final meeting.

The official also said that Michael Leiter, then director of the National Counterterrorism Center, was pessimistic on the intelligence.

The official said many in the room were worried about losing their jobs should the mission go wrong. The official added that one of the reasons Panetta came down on the side of approving the raid was he had met with his intelligence team -- and even one of the most pessimistic analysts put a high percentage on the likelihood that bin Laden was indeed in that compound.

Fox News

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Demi Moore 911 call released: 'She smoked something' and is 'having convulsions'

2012-01-30T15:50:00.001-08:00

The 911 call placed on the night of Demi Moore’s hospitalization was released on Friday, and if her friend on the phone is to be trusted, it appears the actress’ adverse reaction came from smoking an unnamed substance.

“We need an ambulance here as soon as possible,” the female caller tells the ambulance dispatcher. “She smoked something, it’s not marijuana, but it’s similar to incense, and she seems to be having convulsions of some sort.”

The call begins with a great deal of confusion as to which department should be handling the call. The phone is passed between several people, all expressing concern and frustration as to why the ambulance was taking so much time.

The dispatcher also seems frustrated at times with the caller, telling her “ma'am, listen to what I’m asking you, pay attention, ok?”

The female caller, who is unaware of Moore’s age initially, describes her as “semi conscious” and “barely” awake. Moore’s breathing is initially described as “not so normal” and says Moore, 49, is “burning up.”

When the dispatcher asks what Moore took, the caller’s answer appears to have been redacted before the audiotape of the call was released.

Paramedics on the scene were told by Moore’s friends that she was doing whip-its, according to TMZ. A whip-it is a canister of nitrous oxide, or the nitrous oxide found in a can of whipped cream.

Moore has since been placed in a rehab facility for “exhaustion.” The caller also reveals that Moore has been having “issues” lately.

"She's been having some issues lately with some other stuff, the caller says. So I don't know what she's been taking or not."

When the operator asked the friend if this has happened before, she said, "I don't know. There's been some stuff recently that we're all just finding out."

By the end of the call, Moore seemed to have improved.

"She seems to have calmed down now. She's speaking," a male caller told the operator.

Moore announced in November she was ending her marriage to Ashton Kutcher following news of his alleged infidelity.

Moore and Kutcher, 33, were wed in September 2005.

Kutcher became a stepfather to Moore's three daughters -- Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle -- from her 13-year marriage to actor Bruce Willis. Moore and Willis divorced in 2000, but remain friendly. Moore and Kutcher were photographed socializing with Willis, and the couple attended Willis' wedding to model-actress Emma Heming in 2009.

Moore can be seen on screen in the recent films "Margin Call" and "Another Happy Day." Kutcher replaced Charlie Sheen on TV's "Two and a Half Men" as is part of the ensemble film "New Year's Eve."

Fox News

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South Africans most avid Twitter users in Africa

2012-01-30T05:48:00.001-08:00

The interesting report, ‘How Africa Tweets’, compiled by Portland Communications and media service, Tweetminster, found that South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, produced the most amount of tweets (more than five million) over a three month period.

The study analysed more than 11.5 million tweets from across the continent during the final three months of 2011.

Kenya came in second place, generating 2.48 million tweets – followed by Nigeria (1.67 million), Egypt (1.21 million) and Morocco (0.75 million).

The average age of an African tweeter ranges from 20 to 29 years old, which is significantly younger than the global average of 39.

The majority (57 per cent) of tweets across the continent are posted from mobile phones, rather than computers.

Twitter originated as an SMS tool and the format of text messaging inspired the founders to set the 140-character limit.

Africa is a big target for the American microblogging company, which is focused on making the site as easy to use as possible on feature phones.

Thousands of people in less digitally advanced countries, such as Cameroon and Sudan, are also now using the service to disseminate information.

Mark Flanagan, Portland's partner for digital communications, said: "One of the more surprising findings of this research is that more public figures have not joined Africa's burgeoning Twittersphere.

"With some notable exceptions, we found that business and political leaders were largely absent from the debates playing out on Twitter across the continent. As Twitter lifts off in Africa, governments, businesses and development agencies can really no longer afford to stay out of a new space where dialogue will increasingly be taking place."

The Telegraph

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Suspect in murder of Connecticut jeweler found hanged in Spanish jail cell

2012-01-30T02:16:00.001-08:00

An American man accused of killing a jewelry store owner in Connecticut and stealing $300,000 in diamonds before fleeing to Europe was found hanged in his prison cell in Spain, authorities said.

Andrew Robert Levene, 41, was found dead Thursday in the Modelo prison in Barcelona, where he was recently arrested after an international manhunt, the justice department of Catalonia said.

An investigation into the death was under way, but all signs indicated he committed suicide by hanging himself with a sheet, a spokeswoman said.

Levene, also known as Robert Thomas, had been charged with federal murder, robbery and firearm offenses in the Dec. 8 shooting of Yekutiel Zeevi, owner of the Y.Z. Manufacturers store in Westport, Conn. Extradition proceedings in Spain had not yet begun.

A justice department spokeswoman told the Associated Press that, as with all people admitted to prison, Levine had been interviewed by prison authorities and showed no signs that he might do himself harm. She spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with department regulations.

Nava Zeevi, the widow of the jewelry store owner, told FoxNews.com on Friday she thought her husband's alleged killer "got what he deserved." Authorities informed her of Levene's death on Thursday, she said.

"He did a cowardly act, I really don't care," Zeevi said. "I'm just happy he's not here anymore. Let him rot in hell."

Zeevi continued: "He would have gotten a lesser sentence in the trial, which would have taken a very long time. For me, it was a very happy day to learn about it, and for my family as well."

Calls seeking comment from Levene's relatives were not immediately returned on Friday.

A U.S. criminal complaint alleged Levene contacted Zeevi in early December, asking him for several diamonds that were valued between $45,000 and $75,000. Levene met with Zeevi again on Dec. 8 on the ruse that he would buy several large diamonds. Instead, Levene shot and killed Zeevi, authorities said.

Levene, who had military training in the use of weapons, then stole about six diamonds worth approximately $300,000.

Ronen Konfino, an executive at a New York diamond business, was also shot but survived.

Levene traveled to Amsterdam from Philadelphia on Dec. 11 after missing a flight to Madrid, law enforcement officials said. Police said in mid-December that Levene had been seen in Philadelphia, possibly casing stores.

It was not immediately known why he had traveled to Barcelona or when he had arrived there.

Jeff Gatlin, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, told FoxNews.com that embassy officials were notified that Levene had died early Thursday.

"Our consular officers contacted his next of kin and have been in continuous contact with the authorities," Gatlin wrote FoxNews.com in an email.

Fox News

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Car Bomb Targets Baghdad Shi'ite Neighborhood

2012-01-30T02:15:00.001-08:00

Iraqi officials say at least 31 people were killed Friday when a car bomb exploded near a funeral procession in a mainly Shi'ite neighborhood of the Iraqi capital.

Hospital workers say at least 60 people were wounded in the suicide bombing in the neighborhood of Zafaraniyah.

The blast went off near where mourners had gathered for the funeral of a real estate agent who was killed by gunmen a day earlier.

Witnesses said the massive blast shattered windows and engulfed nearby buildings in flames for hours.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility. But authorities blame Sunni insurgents for escalating violence since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in December.

More than 200 people have been killed in attacks in the past month. Most of the victims have been Shi'ites and members of Iraq's security forces.

The violence comes amid a month-long political crisis in the Shi'ite-led unity government. The main Sunni-backed faction, Iraqiya, accuses Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of monopolizing power in Shi'ite hands. Iraqiya has boycotted the Cabinet.

The political fighting and apparent sectarian violence has raised concerns that the country is sliding into civil war. The last U.S. soldiers left the country on December 18.

VOA News

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Campaign attacks follow Romney, Gingrich into last debate before Florida primary

2012-01-29T20:58:00.001-08:00

Mitt Romney, armed with a string of polished comebacks, aggressively sparred with Newt Gingrich on Thursday in the last debate before the Florida primary as he tried to puncture his opponent’s criticism on key issues – including Romney’s immigration stance and personal wealth.

Romney called Gingrich’s criticism over-the-top and “repulsive.”

The former House speaker mostly kept his cool on the debate stage in Jacksonville, as he was pressed repeatedly to engage Romney. Still, Gingrich stood by a claim that Romney is the most anti-immigrant candidate in the race. And, perhaps trying to reprise the blockbuster moment from last week’s debate, Gingrich at one point accused the moderator of focusing on “nonsense” issues.

Opinion polls indicate the race is close, with two other contenders, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, trailing far behind.

While the clashes between Gingrich and Romney dominated the debate, Santorum drew applause from the audience when he called on the two front-runners to stop attacking one another and "focus on the issues."

"Can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress ... and that Mitt Romney is a wealthy guy?" he said in a tone of exasperation.

Romney tore into Gingrich early over an ad his campaign pulled following objections from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. The ad called Romney the “most anti-immigrant candidate.”

Gingrich suggested he ran the ad because Romney had criticized his plan to let some illegal immigrants with deep ties to their community stay – he described it as a way to prevent the deportation of grandmothers and grandfathers. Asked if he still thinks Romney is most anti-immigrant, Gingrich said: “I think of the four of us, yes.”

Romney fired back, “That’s simply inexcusable. That’s inexcusable.”

“I’m not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife’s father was born in Wales,” he said. “The idea that I’m anti-immigrant is repulsive. Don’t use a term like that.”

He then said Gingrich should “apologize,” and that a difference of opinion “does not justify labeling people with highly charged epithets.” He clarified he doesn’t want to round up grandparents and deport them.

Gingrich then suggested Romney was coming around to his immigration plan after previously criticizing it.

Romney said: “Our problem is not 11 million grandmothers.”

Gingrich appeared to avoid a clash Thursday night over a string of articles and columns in the media that have questioned his relationship with the late President Reagan – a figure Gingrich repeatedly has invoked on the campaign trail.

“It’s increasingly interesting to watch the Romney attack machine coordinate things,” Gingrich said, referencing all the articles that have popped up. He argued he is “vastly closer” to Reagan than Romney and cited an endorsement from Reagan’s son Michael.

Romney, though, did not try to claim the Reagan mantle, and acknowledged he was “looking at politics from afar” while Reagan was president.

But a major clash of the night came over how each of the two candidates has made his money.

Gingrich initially brushed off an attempt by the CNN moderator to address whether Romney has been transparent about his financial records.

“This is a nonsense question,” he said. Though Gingrich had pressed the Romney campaign to release the candidate’s tax returns and this week said Romney lives in a world of “Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts,” Gingrich said he was happy to say those things in TV interviews – as opposed to national debates.

Romney chimed in. “Wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t make accusations somewhere else that they weren’t willing to defend here?” he said.

Gingrich acknowledged he thought it was “unusual” that Romney used to have money in a Swiss bank account, after which Romney suggested Gingrich was trying to imply there was something wrong with his success.

“You’ve indicated that somehow I don’t earn that money. I have earned the money that I have. I didn’t inherit it,” he said. “I’m proud of being successful.”

They also traded barbs over their income from mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Gingrich criticized Romney's investment in mutual funds that included the lenders, as well as Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. Gingrich said Romney is profiting from home foreclosures that plague Florida, and asked how much of Romney's personal fortune came from those foreclosures.

But Romney defended the investments, saying his blind trust handles his finances, and he criticized Gingrich for his paychecks as a consultant to the lender that some blame for the housing crisis.

“We should have had a whistleblower, and not a horn tooter,” Romney said.

And he said Gingrich himself owns mutual funds that also invest in the quasi-government lenders.

Gingrich responded that comparing their investments is “like comparing a tiny mouse with a giant elephant.”

Santorum later got in a heated debate with Romney over the former governor’s health care overhaul in Massachusetts which contained an individual requirement to purchase health insurance – like the federal health care overhaul Romney opposes.

And Ron Paul, who is 76, challenged the moderator when he was asked whether he’d release his medical records.

“There are laws against age discrimination, so if you push this too much, you’d better be careful,” Paul said – though he indicated a willingness to release the records.

Fox News

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Final Florida push begins after contentious debate

2012-01-28T16:52:00.001-08:00

Republican presidential hopefuls headed into the homestretch of the critical Florida primary campaign Friday after a riveting debate that analysts believe gave Mitt Romney a boost over fellow front-runner Newt Gingrich.

Florida voters will decide Tuesday who gets the biggest delegate haul so far of the GOP presidential race, and the CNN/Republican Party of Florida debate provided the four candidates with their final chance to face one another on the same stage in the increasingly vitriolic contest.

Romney and Gingrich entered Thursday's debate in a statistical dead-heat for the lead, according to recent polling, with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul trailing well back.

Paul, who concedes he has no chance of victory in Florida's winner-take-all primary, heads to more moderate Maine on Friday to campaign for the caucus that begins February 4, while Romney, Gingrich and Santorum all planned events in Florida to begin their final push for Tuesday's primary.

Needing a strong showing to try to blunt Gingrich's harsh attacks of recent days, Romney was forceful and had the former House speaker on his heels on some issues.

At the same time, Santorum had his strongest debate performance so far, coming across as a sincere and committed candidate who would best represent conservative principles.

"Romney won two ways tonight," said CNN contributor and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. "One, by having a good debate and two by having Santorum have his best debate yet."

Romney appeals to the more moderate wing of the Republican Party while Santorum and Gingrich are competing for the conservative vote. If Santorum can build support, it would hurt Gingrich as the primary process continues.

Paul also had a good night, repeatedly prompting laughter and applause with self-deprecating one-liners and clear messaging about his libertarian policies that excite young supporters.

The focus, though, was on the two leaders. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, provided his most forceful and unapologetic statement so far about his vast personal wealth, saying Republicans such as Gingrich shouldn't criticize him for being successful.

Romney released his tax returns this week under pressure from Gingrich and others, revealing he paid a rate of less than 15% on income in the millions, mostly from investments including some holdings in offshore accounts.

Gingrich had disparaged Romney's wealth on the campaign trail, saying he lived in a world of "Swiss bank and Cayman Island bank accounts" and did nothing for his money. Romney previously seemed uncomfortable discussing his finances, initially stalling on releasing his tax records, but he was ready Thursday.

"I think it's important for people to make sure we don't castigate individuals who have been successful and try to suggest there's something wrong with being successful and having investments and having a return on those," Romney said.

Addressing Gingrich directly, he said: "You indicated that somehow I didn't earn that money."

"I have earned the money that I have," Romney continued. "I didn't inherit it. Those investments lead to jobs being created in America. I'm proud of being successful. I'm proud of being in the free enterprise system. I'm not going to run away from that."

On the tax rate issue, Romney noted that combining taxes paid and charitable contributions equaled about 40% of his income, and added to applause: "Let's put behind this idea of attacking me because of my money and lets get Republicans to say, you know what, what you've accomplished in your life shouldn't be seen as a detriment but an asset to help America."

Other exchanges were just as compelling.

Asked to address the housing crisis, one of the major problems facing Florida voters, Gingrich began by claiming that Romney was knowingly and "unfairly" attacking him on his consulting record for mortgage giant Freddie Mac, sparking a fiery back-and-forth over which candidate has had a closer relationship with troubled lenders.

Gingrich claimed Romney had profited off of investments in both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In turn, Romney explained his holdings were in a blind trust and involved mutual funds that included bonds of the mortgage lenders.

Then he turned the tables on Gingrich, pointing out that Gingrich also had similar investments involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which prompted a crowd response.

CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen gave that round to Romney, saying Gingrich threw a punch and Romney "came back and caught him unexpected."

Trying to widen what was becoming a two-man debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Santorum and Paul if they believed any profits earned from investing in the government-backed entities should be returned.

"That subject doesn't really interest me," Paul replied to laughter, while Santorum sounded exasperated in calling for a halt to what he labeled "petty personal politics" that distracted from more important issues.

"Can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress and used the skills that he developed as a member of Congress to go out and advise companies -- and that's not the worst thing in the world -- and that Mitt Romney is a wealthy guy because he worked hard and he's going out and working hard?" Santorum said.

Later, though, Santorum launched the toughest attack of the night on Romney in an extended back-and-forth over the health care plan Romney got passed in Massachusetts that in some ways served as model for the federal health care reform under the Obama administration.

Positioning himself as the strongest opponent of the health care law, Santorum insisted both the Romney plan and the federal plan included a mandate to own health insurance or face a fine -- a concept detested by conservatives.

He repeatedly returned to that point when Romney tried to argue the difference between a state plan for Massachusetts and a federal plan for the entire country, saying at one point: "Your mandate is no different than Barack Obama's mandate."

Throughout the debate, the audience was more vocal than during the previous Florida debate on Monday, when attendees were asked to hold their applause. Gingrich complained after the Monday debate against denying spectators the right to express themselves.

Also in contrast to Monday was Romney's approach, standing casually with a hand in his pocket for most of the two hours while responding with force to Gingrich salvos.

Afterward, Romney pronounced himself delighted with the debate, saying he thought it would give him a boost.

"When I'm shot at I'll return fire," he said. "I'm no shrinking violet."

Early in the evening, Romney drew frequent applause when he pushed back attacks by Gingrich over immigration.

Gingrich called Romney the most anti-immigrant candidate on the debate stage, repeating a charge in a campaign ad Gingrich eventually pulled after a complaint it was unfair by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

Romney responded with outrage, accusing Gingrich of using "highly-charged epithets" irresponsibly and denying he wants to deport all of the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.

However, Gingrich and Santorum also agreed with Romney that at least some illegal immigrants would be likely to "self-deport" if the government were to crack down on employers who hired illegal immigrants. All three men advocated a system of identification for immigrants that would help employers verify an employee's legal status.

Before the debate, Gingrich told an audience on Florida's Space Coast, hit hard by the end of the space shuttle program, that he would build a colony on the moon by the end of his second term in office -- a plan that found little support among his rivals on stage.

Santorum said the nation's debt crisis was too severe to consider such proposals, while Romney called the idea deeply flawed.

Citing his business experience, Romney said that if an executive had come to him suggesting spending "billions" of dollars on a colony on the moon, "I'd say 'You're fired.'"

Earlier in the day, Gingrich lashed out at Romney, accusing him of engaging in sleazy negative politics and being part of a fragile establishment desperate to stop the former House speaker from winning the GOP nomination.

One of Romney's most prominent supporters, former GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole, released a statement through the Romney campaign that characterized Gingrich as erratic, unreliable and certain to lead the Republican Party to defeat in November.

When Gingrich was in Congress, he "was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway," said Dole, a former U.S. senator from Kansas. As speaker, Gingrich "had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. ... Democrats are spending millions of dollars running negative ads against Romney as they are hoping that Gingrich will be the nominee."

According to a CNN/Time/ORC International survey released Wednesday, 36% of people likely to vote in Tuesday's primary say they are backing Romney, with 34% supporting Gingrich. Romney's margin over Gingrich is well within the survey's sampling error. Santorum was at 11% and Paul at 9%, with 7% undecided.

Gingrich received a boost in the polls after his double-digit victory in Saturday's South Carolina primary, but Wednesday's CNN poll and another by the American Research Group indicate that his momentum might be waning.

CNN

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UN Tries to Revive Faltering Cyprus Peace Talks

2012-01-28T16:49:00.001-08:00

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged U.N. talks on Cyprus have ended with little tangible progress, but added he may call an international conference in late April or early May on a settlement to resolve the division of the island.

This latest trilateral summit between Ban Ki-moon and the leaders of divided Cyprus was supposed to have been the high point in the U.N. effort to push the long-bickering foes forward with their sluggish peace talks.

Negotiations between President Demetris Christofias, who heads the internationally recognized Greek-Cypriot government, and Turkish-Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu have effectively stalled, and are in jeopardy of collapse.

Commentators originally believed that the U.N. chief might succeed in Cyprus where others had faltered, but he acknowledges major issues, such as property abandoned by displaced Greek Cypriots then occupied by settlers from mainland Turkey, remain unresolved.

"Discussions over these two days were robust and intensive, although limited progress was achieved. I reminded the leaders that this process is Cypriot-owned and Cypriot-led," said the U.N. chief. "The United Nations is not here to impose solutions on the sides."

The Cyprus talks will continue in Nicosia, and Mr. Ban has said Special Adviser on Cyprus Alexander Downer will assess the situation in March.

If Downer's assessment is positive, the United Nations intends to call an international conference on the Cyprus issue, which could include Greece, Turkey and Britain.

Failure to agree on a deal could spell the end to future U.N.-sponsored dialogue and both community leaders have stressed that there is "no plan B."

Such is the pessimism surrounding this process, that the leading English language daily Cyprus Mail ran the headline “Partition step by step,” just prior to the talks, adding that “the two sides have made next to zero progress since the first Greentree meeting in October 2011.”

Attempts to reunite Cyprus have been ongoing for more than 30 years, with the latest round of talks launched in 2008.

For close to four decades, Cyprus has been one of the most troublesome problems faced by the United Nations. But U.N. peacekeeping force spokesperson Michel Bonnardeaux says he believes the differences between the two sides can be bridged.

"An agreement is certainly possible. This last round of talks has lasted a little over three years now, and it is certainly the U.N.’s point of view that an agreement is possible given sufficient political will,” Bonnardeaux said.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded the northern part of the island in response to a military coup that was backed by the Greek government. Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, and the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only recognized by Turkey.

VOA News

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South African AU Chair Nomination Raises Eyebrows

2012-01-28T02:13:00.001-08:00

South Africa has broken with African Union (AU) tradition and nominated Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as a candidate for chairperson of the AU Commission to replace incumbent Jean Ping. Analysts say the move could be divisive at this week's AU summit.

Jakkie Cilliers, executive director of the independent Institute for Security Studies, says the move is potentially divisive given that South Africa’s relations with some countries on the continent are strained.

“South African [policy] positions have created some tensions in the continent particularly around Cote d’Ivoire, and to a lesser extent around Libya, where the country has not acted in support of its traditional allies, and its most important partner and competitor is Nigeria,” said Cilliers.

The question many are asking is why South Africa has chosen this route now. Cilliers says South Africa feels Africa needs to position itself more strongly in the global arena and that Dlamini-Zuma has the qualities to do so.

“They feel that the current chair of the African Union, Commissioner Ping, who is generally perceived to have done very well, but he is seen as perhaps not taking strong enough positions globally, particularly around issues such as Cote d’Ivoire and Libya,” Cilliers added.

Dlamini-Zuma has been a national minister since 1994. Most recently she has been credited with turning around the Home Affairs Ministry, which had been noted for corruption and mismanagement, but recently achieved a clean audit for the first time in 16 years. But it was as foreign minister in the decade leading to 2009 that she made her mark internationally and Cilliers says that she is greatly respected in Africa and around the globe.

“She is a formidable opponent, she prepares well, she is strategic, and she is seen as a no-nonsense person who cannot and will not be pushed around,“ Cilliers said.

Even so, questions remain about Zuma’s decision to nominate her at this time. There has been speculation that she is a reluctant candidate for the AU and that in fact Mr. Zuma may be keen to see her out of the running for a senior post in the African National Congress (ANC) at the party’s elective conference in December.

The ANC is bitterly divided ahead of the conference and Dlamini-Zuma is the only senior ANC official who enjoys support across the various divides in the party. She already appears on a list of the ANC Youth League which is currently deeply opposed to Zuma.

AU incumbent Ping is likely to get support from central, west and north African countries which could give him the necessary two-thirds majority to remain in his position. Cilliers says the difficulty now facing African leaders is to find a compromise that will avoid embarrassing South Africa, which has the continent’s largest economy.

VOA News

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Suicide Bomber Attacks Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan

2012-01-27T23:16:00.001-08:00

Afghan officials say a suicide car bomber has killed four civilians in an attack on a NATO-affiliated provincial reconstruction team in southern Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the governor of Helmand province said Thursday's attack took place in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.

Officials say the bomber hit a convoy of armored vehicles passing near the education department building.

A child was among those killed in the attack. Officials says some 31 others were wounded, including three foreigners: two men and a woman.

At least 17 civilian cars were damaged, some bursting into flames.

NATO has declined to comment on the attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai blamed the "enemy" of the Afghan people.

Mr. Karzai, who is in Italy, condemned the attack as inhuman and un-Islamic.

NATO transferred security control of Lashkar Gah to Afghan forces last year.

The Afghan president and NATO also condemned Wednesday's rocket attack in the eastern Afghan province of Kapisa that killed a woman and a child.

Also Wednesday, the Danish army said an Afghan baby was accidentally killed and the parents wounded when troops destroyed a roadside bomb in Helmand.

The Danish army said soldiers normally establish a security zone around the blast site and it was unclear how three civilians were hit by shrapnel. The case is being investigated.

VOA News

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Libyan detainees died after torture, human rights group says

2012-01-27T19:46:00.001-08:00

Several detainees in Libya have died after being tortured in recent weeks, the human rights group Amnesty International said Thursday.

The humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders said it was halting its work in detention centers in Misrata because detainees are "tortured and denied urgent medical care."

The agency, known by its French acronym MSF, said it has treated 115 people with torture-related wounds from interrogation sessions.

Christopher Stokes, general director of MSF, told CNN that two detainees died -- one in October and another in November -- within 30 minutes of being interrogated. Autopsies were not carried out, so the cause of death is unknown, he said.

In a statement, Amnesty described "widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspected pro-Gadhafi fighters and loyalists," a reference to those who fought for the regime of leader Moammar Gadhafi until his ouster and death.

"Amnesty International delegates in Libya have met detainees being held in and around Tripoli, Misrata and Gharyan, who showed visible marks indicating torture inflicted in recent days and weeks. Their injuries included open wounds on the head, limbs, back and other parts of the body.

"The torture is being carried out by officially recognized military and security entities as well by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework," Amnesty said in a statement.

Libyan officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Interim Prime Minister Abderrahim el-Keib, in a televised addressed Wednesday evening about the state of affairs in Libya, said a plan was in progress to take over prisons partially.

Libya's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Shalgham, told the United Nations on Wednesday that Libya does not approve of any abuse of detainees and was working to stop any such practices.

Amnesty published what it said were quotes from tortured detainees in Misrata.

"Five men in plain clothes took turns beating and whipping me. ... They suspended me from the top of the door by my wrists for about an hour and kept beating me. They also kicked me," one said, according to the human rights group.

"Yesterday they beat me with electric cable while my hands were cuffed behind my back and my feet were bound together. They threatened to send me back to the militia who captured me, who would kill me," said another, according to Amnesty.

MSF said some of the patients its personnel have treated were tortured again after being returned to detention centers.

"Some officials have sought to exploit and obstruct MSF's medical work," said Stokes, the general director.

"Patients were brought to us for medical care between interrogation sessions, so that they would be fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions."

MSF officials told CNN the injuries included cigarette burns, fractures, and electroshocks, which are "definitely" due to torture. There were also clear signs of beatings, Stokes said.

The detainees with torture wounds includes former fighters in the conflict, "but also people who have been accused of theft," Stokes said.

MSF is continuing its work providing mental health services in Misrata schools and health centers, he said.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, voiced similar concerns about torture in Libya, sparking the response from Shalgham, Libya's U.N. envoy.

Pillay said the International Committee of the Red Cross had visited more than 8,500 detainees in about 60 places in Libya between March and December.

The majority of the detainees are accused of being Gadhafi loyalists, Pillay said Wednesday.

She said the issue is part of the difficulties Libya is having in law enforcement and security as the country transitions from Gadhafi's rule.

"The lack of oversight by the central authorities creates an environment conducive to torture and ill-treatment," Pillay said.

CNN

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Head of Papua New Guinea military freed after mutiny

2012-01-27T12:44:00.001-08:00

The head of the Papua New Guinea military has been freed from detention by rebel soldiers, the Australian government said Thursday, as an attempted mutiny appeared to unravel.

Yaura Sasa, a rebel commander, had earlier claimed that he had seized control of the Papua New Guinea Defense Force, confining its leader, Brig. Gen. Francis Agwi, and another senior officer to their residences.

The Australian government -- which has a significant presence in Papua New Guinea, a country it used to administer -- said that Agwi had subsequently been released. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement that it was important that "order is fully restored" in the Papua New Guinea armed forces.

The unrest in the military came amid controversy in Papua New Guinea over who the rightful prime minister is.

Sasa claimed he had taken control of the defense force in order "to restore the integrity and respect for the constitution and judiciary."

He called for the immediate implementation of "the supreme court decision relating to Sir Michael Somare's position as the prime minister of Papua New Guinea."

Somare has been a key figure in the Papua New Guinea political scene over the past four decades, helping to lead the country to independence in the 1970s. After being in and out of office over the years, he was elected prime minister in 2007. But he lost his position last year while recovering from heart surgery in Singapore.

He now apparently contests the legitimacy of the current prime minister, Peter O'Neill.

In a news briefing, O'Neill described the events at the military barracks as "completely unnecessary." He blamed Somare for the disturbances.

"We condemn the actions of particularly the Somare faction of our Parliament for creating such an environment where instability within the country and within the disciplined forces are being created," he said.

The Australian government said O'Neill had told Ian Kemish, the Australian high commissioner in the capital Port Moresby, that the authorities "were taking steps to manage the situation" in the military barracks.

CNN

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Gingrich attacks on Obama resurrect Saul Alinsky

2012-01-27T01:17:00.001-08:00

He died in 1972, at the age of sixty-three, a marginalized figure in his own obscure field and seldom mentioned outside of it.

But to close followers of the topsy-turvy GOP presidential primary, the late Saul Alinsky is suddenly becoming a household word. This is due, in large measure, to the mantra-like repetition of the name by Newt Gingrich, who invokes it every day on the campaign trail as part of his stump-speech indictment of President Obama.

“We need somebody who is a conservative and who can stand up to him and debate and who can clearly draw the contrast between the Declaration of Independence and the writings of Saul Alinsky,” Gingrich told a large crowd outside the Wings Plus restaurant in Coral Springs, Florida Wednesday.

“The centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinsky,” the former House Speaker crowed to his raucous supporters on the night he won the South Carolina primary. “President Obama believes in Saul Alinsky's radicalism,” he said in West Columbia, four days earlier, “[and] a lot of strange ideas he learned at Columbia and Harvard."

It all begs the question: Who was Saul Alinsky? And another: Why does Gingrich think it effective messaging for him to conjure a man who’s been dead forty years, and whose name is recognized, in all probability, by one in every 100,000 registered voters?

Born in Chicago in 1909, Alinsky was a trained archeologist and criminologist. In the early 1930s, he observed with fascination the rigid hierarchies and extraordinary social cohesion discernible in the Windy City’s large population of gangland mobsters. Intrigued by the way these poor and uneducated ethnics galvanized themselves into a formidable force, and managed to achieve their stated ends – however reprehensible – Alinsky wondered if somehow the techniques of organization used by La Cosa Nostra could be applied to the city’s ordinary disenfranchised dwellers.

His first triumph was the successful rallying of a mix of ethnic Catholics in the rundown neighborhood known as “Back of the Yards.” With the help of the Chicago archdiocese, Alinsky mobilized these Irish and Polish workers and tenants to demand – and win – concessions from local slumlords and city hall.

From that moment onward, Alinsky has been regarded as the godfather of that modern form of rabble-rousing known as “community organizing.” He would go on to work with steelworkers, native Indians in Canada, American blacks, and Chicanos. His work with that last group included his tutelage of a young Cesar Chavez, who in turn led the first organization of California migrant workers, and became one of the most celebrated activists of the twentieth century.

While the antiwar protesters and radicals of the late 1960s breathed new life into Alinsky’s name and career, he occasionally expressed dismay with their attitudes and tactics. One occasion was the aftermath of the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Alinsky’s hometown of Chicago. Television sets across America beamed violent and unnerving images of Chicago police officers swinging nightsticks against antiwar protesters, hippies, and students in Grant Park.

When the tear gas evaporated, students and radicals approached Alinsky and asked whether they shouldn’t now organize in more militant forms, “the system” having failed them.

“Do one of three things,” Alinsky advised them. “One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing – but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.”

As a young post-graduate in the 1980s and ‘90s, Barack Obama was schooled in – and taught others – the Alinsky techniques. To hear Alinsky’s disciples tell it, his model of grassroots mobilization involved three key elements: an unsentimental assessment of the bottom-line interests that could serve to unite ordinary, and often apathetic, citizens in meaningful forms of protest; a highly confrontational, take-no-prisoners approach to those holding the reins of power; and an unwavering faith that positive change can be effected by people previously uninvolved in politics.

These principles Alinsky set forth in three books, most notably Reveille for Radicals (1949) and Rules for Radicals (1971), which found a wide audience amid the countercultural protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“In this book,” Alinsky declared near the outset of Rules, “we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace…The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

“Alinsky's whole style was very in-your-face,” said Marshall Ganz, a professor of public policy at Harvard University who began working with Chavez and the United Farm Workers in 1965. “He thought that making change required creating tension, so that people could learn and look at things from a new perspective….What Alinsky meant by ‘radical’ was somebody who does something about it, doesn't just talk about it.”

“He liked to provoke a reaction,” agreed Michael Gecan, an executive with the Industrial Areas Foundation, an activist group founded by Alinsky. “When people talk about Saul Alinsky being ‘radical,’” Gecan told Fox News in an interview from Chicago, “the radicalism is really quite literal. It means ‘to the root,’ ‘on the ground.’ We go to the root, we go on the ground, and listen to people, and respect them.”

Asked this week about Gingrich’s frequent invocations of Alinsky, and his efforts to tie the author of Rules for Radicals to the incumbent president, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney only noted dryly that Mr. Obama has, indeed, worked in this area.

“The president's background as a community organizer is well documented in the president's own books, so his experience in that field obviously contributed to who he is today,” Carney said in Monday’s press briefing. “But his experience is a broad-based one that includes a lot of other areas in his life.”

When Gingrich attacked Bain Capital, the private equity firm that made Mitt Romney a wealthy man, the former speaker got a dose of his own rhetorical medicine from a fellow Republican. During an appearance on “Fox and Friends” on January 12, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was asked what he would say to Gingrich about the Bain Capital controversy. “What the hell are you doing, Newt?” the former mayor responded. “I expect this from Saul Alinsky!”

Alinsky's career was the subject of a senior thesis written by a Wellesley College student named Hillary Rodham. More recently, numerous Tea Party figures have expressed admiration for Rules for Radicals, as a primer on grassroots activism.

Fox News

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Lost Nantucket boat found years later near Spain

2012-01-26T22:20:00.001-08:00

A Massachusetts fishing boat lost at sea in rough waters in August 2008 was discovered thousands of miles away floating along the northern coast of Spain, according to a Nantucket newspaper.

The Inquirer and Mirror reported that Scott Douglas and his brother-in-law, Rich St. Pierre, were tossed from the 26-foot boat by a large wave and swam to shore, leaving the boat to drift away.

More than three years later, the Spanish coast guard has found the fishing boat about 20 miles off the coast of the small port town Llanes. The Massachusetts Environmental Police and U.S. Coast Guard confirmed to the paper that the vessel was in fact the same one lost by the two Massachusetts men.

The word “Nantucket” remains written on its side, and its outboard motors are still attached to the boat, named the Queen Bee. Spanish media reports said a first-aid kit was also found, along with fire extinguishers, a radio and maps of the East Coast.

"It's a good ending, and it's nice to have some closure, but I'd love to know what happened to it over three-and-a-half years," St. Pierre told the paper.

Fox News

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Iraqi outrage over U.S. Marine's plea deal in Haditha killings

2012-01-26T21:59:00.001-08:00

Iraqis reacted with outrage Wednesday to news of a plea deal for a U.S. Marine squad leader charged in connection with the deaths of 24 people, in which he received a rank reduction and pay cut but avoided jail time.

The November 2005 killings in Haditha, Iraq, constituted one of the worst attacks on civilians by U.S. troops during the Iraq war. The deaths enraged Iraqis, put a spotlight on the conduct of the U.S. military and was compared to Vietnam's My Lai massacre by one congressman.

On Tuesday, Staff Sgt. Frank G. Wuterich was sentenced to a maximum of 90 days in prison, but avoided any time in the brig because of a plea deal. The military judge was obligated to abide by the arrangement between prosecutors and defense attorneys, which amounts to a reduction in rank -- to private -- and a pay cut.

"This court is unjust and its decision was unfair for Iraqi people," Shaeed Fakhri, a lecturer at Babel University in Hilla, said Wednesday as he visited Baghdad. "This soldier should be executed. The verdict is unfair and unjust for the innocent people who were killed in this incident."

"This is very sad and very painful," said Hashim Khader, a store owner in Baghdad. "They were just civilian people who did not raise weapons against the occupiers and they were killed this way. This is a heinous crime and the soldiers should get the most severe punishment."

Wuterich, 31, of Meriden, Connecticut, originally faced 152 years in prison on nine counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and three counts of dereliction of duty in the Haditha incident.

He wound up pleading guilty to one count of negligent dereliction of duty. Charges against six other Marines charged in the case were dropped, and another was acquitted.

Wuterich's sentence was a "big disappointment," Taleb al-Essawi, political adviser to the governor of Iraq's Anbar province, said Tuesday. "I can't believe that the court decided to drop all the charges except one charge. ... This is a joke, because according to the Iraqi law, all those soldiers should be executed. We demand from the American administration to reconsider the court decision."

Al-Essawi also said the U.S. government should compensate the victims' families.

"Why is American blood so precious while the Iraqi blood is so cheap?" Hanaa Mohammed, an employee with Iraq's Ministry of Planning, said Wednesday. "This is unacceptable. ... The Iraqi government should take a strong position and protest the court's verdict right now."

"We have been following this case since 2006 and we were hoping that those soldiers, who killed 24 innocent people, will receive fair punishment," Khalid Salman, head of the Haditha local council, told CNN Tuesday.

"But now we are convinced that the judicial system in America is unjust," he said. "This is not the end, and we will continue pursuing those soldiers legally through the international courts."

"The Iraqi government should appoint lawyers and send them to the international courts because these courts have a fair and neutral judicial system, unlike the American judicial system," Khader said Wednesday.

An expert on U.S. military law said a public explanation is needed regarding the case's resolution.

"The trial counsel and convening authority has a duty to explain this pretrial agreement in order to safeguard public confidence in the administration of justice," said Eugene R. Fidell, senior research scholar and a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.

Under the military justice system, he said, the "convening authority," a unit commander, makes the central decision.

"The prosecution and staff judge advocate play an advisory role," he said. "At the end of the day, it's the commander's decision to accept or reject a proposed pretrial agreement."

About the investigation into the so-called Haditha massacre, Fidell said: "It does seem that a set of cases that began with some pretty terrible allegations has basically fizzled. The public ought to have confidence in the administration of justice."

The plea agreement was "unjust," according to Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman, as the Marines "committed mass killings in Haditha."

"We ask the human rights organizations and (nongovernmental organizations) in America and all over the world to strongly condemn this verdict. Iraqi blood isn't so cheap," Othman said in a Facebook posting Tuesday.

A Marine spokesman said a final adjudication will be made on the case by Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of Marine Corps Forces Central Command, but while he can reduce the sentence, he cannot increase it.

Facing the judge in a Marine base courtroom Tuesday, Wuterich, a divorced father of three young daughters, expressed no emotion. Earlier in the day, he told the judge: "For six years, I have had to accept that my name will always be associated with a massacre, being a cold-blooded baby killer, an 'out of control' monster, and a conspiring liar. There's nothing I can do about whoever believes these things."

According to previous testimony and court records, Wuterich, who was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, was the squad leader on November 19, 2005, when members of his patrol unit were moving a supply convoy through Haditha, an insurgent stronghold where armed resistance fighters hid among the civilian population. An improvised explosive device exploded under a vehicle, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, and injuring two other Marines.

During the more than two-week trial that ended with the plea deal, prosecutors argued Wuterich lost control after seeing the body of his friend blown apart by the bomb and led his men on a angry rampage, ordering his squad to "shoot first and ask questions later."

Wuterich's team stormed two nearby homes, blasting their way in with grenades and M-16 rifle fire. Among the dead was an elderly man in a wheelchair. When the 45-minute incident was over, 24 men, women and children were dead. Wuterich was accused of ordering his men to storm the homes, part of what his attorney has said was a search for those believed responsible for planting the bomb and, later, shooting at the men.

The prosecution contended the Marines were out for revenge.

The case didn't come to light until January 2006, when Time magazine broke the story. Two months later, the military launched an investigation.

Wuterich said Tuesday that he never fired his weapon at any women or children.

"When I told my team to shoot first and ask questions later, the intent wasn't that they would shoot civilians, it was that they would not hesitate in the face of the enemy," he said.

To the victims' families, he said, "Words cannot express my sorrow for the loss of your loved ones."

"Many of the Marines who were there that day, along with everyone who has stood by me and supported me, may be disappointed that I pled guilty," Wuterich said. "It might suggest that I believe we behaved badly or dishonorably. The truth is, I don't believe anyone in my squad, nor any member of Kilo Co., 3/1 behaved in any way that was dishonorable or contrary to the highest ideals that we all live by as Marines."

The incident provoked the condemnation of the late Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, who compared it to the 1968 My Lai massacre, and then-President George W. Bush, who vowed that if an investigation showed Marines killed unarmed civilians, "there will be a punishment."

CNN

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National DNA database needed for personalised medicine drive

2012-01-26T17:57:00.001-08:00

In the future everybody's details could be included on it, although he said such a scenario was a very long way off.

"Will people at birth get their genome sequenced? I have absolutely no doubt that at some point in the future that will happen, but not in the foreseeable future," he said.

The cost of mapping an individual's whole genome, known as sequencing, was coming down so fast that he said it would soon be cheaper to do that rather than test for specific genetic anomalies.

He believed predictions that it would soon cost just $1,000 (£650) adding that it could soon fall to "practically nothing".

However, even if that becomes the case, the cost of building what the strategy group termed a "central repository for storing genomic and genetic data" could be considerable.

The Government recently pulled the £12 billion National Programme for IT, at its heart a project to computerise everybody's medical records, after Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said it "wasted taxpayers' money".

Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, also a member of the group, said yesterday that it was likely the database would grow bit-by-bit, starting with the results of those who needed specific genetic tests.

The database idea is one a series recommendations made in the report, Building on our inheritance, Genomic technology in healthcare.

Mr Lansley welcomed the report, saying the promise of genomics was "immense". He also announced a new process for commissioning and funding genetic cancer tests, to ensure patients got the right drugs, to be in place by next April.

However, some experts believe the report hypes how the NHS is using genetic testing at the moment, and what can be achieved.

Dr Stuart Hogarth, a political economist at King's College London with a specialist interest in molecular diagnostics, said: "This report grossly exaggerates the current utility of testing for risk of common, complex diseases.

"For the most part, at the moment we can do no more than tell people that they are at slightly higher than average risk or slightly lower than average risk."

The Telegraph

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Next-gen Xbox promises six times the power

2012-01-26T17:46:00.001-08:00

The next generation Xbox will ship to retailers in 2013 with six times the processing power of the Xbox 360, sources close to the project have told IGN.

Following initial reports from tech blogs Fudzilla and SemiAccurate, IGN's sources have confirmed that mass production of the system's graphics processing unit (GPU) will indeed begin by the end of 2012 but will not, however, be based on Advanced Micro Devices' 7000 series Southern Islands GPU.

Instead, the processor will be derived from the 6000 series, which was introduced last year. More specifically, it will be akin to the Radeon HD 6670, which offers support for Microsoft's DirectX 11 interface, multi-display output, 3D and 1080p HD output. The chip currently has a market price of upwards of $79.99.

In real terms, the Xbox 720's raw graphics processing power is expected to be six times that of the Xbox 360 and will yield 20 percent greater performance than Nintendo's forthcoming console, the Wii U.

Developers are likely to receive development kits based on the system's final configuration in August and the new console will hit shelves in late October or early November of next year. Projected pricing for the system was not provided.

Fox News

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Gingrich dismisses Pelosi claim she knows 'something'

2012-01-26T17:43:00.001-08:00

Newt Gingrich challenged Nancy Pelosi to "bring it out" if she's got any damaging information about his past, after the House Democratic leader for the second time suggested she was sitting on information that could imperil his presidential candidacy.

"I think if she knows something, she ought to say it, and if she doesn't know something, she ought to quit saying it," Gingrich told Fox News on Wednesday. "But this is baloney."

Pelosi said earlier on CNN that Gingrich, who is surging in polls in Florida and nationally following his South Carolina primary win, will "never" be president.

"That's not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it -- it isn't going to happen," Pelosi said.

Asked why she's so sure, Pelosi answered: "There's something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him, that's their prerogative."

The remark was similar to one she made in early December. In an interview at the time, Pelosi said "we'll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich" one day, adding "I know a lot about him" and referring to her time on the investigative committee that probed Gingrich while he was speaker.

But Pelosi's office in both cases walked back any suggestion that Pelosi was planning to spill the beans on something untoward or previously undisclosed in Gingrich's past.

"The 'something' Leader Pelosi knows is that Newt Gingrich will not be president of the United States. She made that clear last night," spokesman Drew Hammill said in a statement Wednesday.

Hammill went on to say that her earlier remark was merely a reference to the "extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware."

Gingrich was ultimately fined $300,000 by the House in 1997 for ethics violations. The fine and reprimand revolved around claims that a course he taught was improperly soliciting tax-exempt contributions -- other ethics charges against Gingrich were dropped, and the IRS later cleared the group that was involved in soliciting the contributions.

While Gingrich says the probe is out in the open, and that he chose to settle the charges than continue an expensive fight to rebut them, GOP competitor Mitt Romney has called on Gingrich to release supporting documentation from the case.

Romney repeated that call following Pelosi's comment.

"If Nancy Pelosi knows those things right now, she will hand them to Barack Obama's campaign if Speaker Gingrich were our nominee," Romney told Fox News.

Gingrich, who last month said Pelosi's comments were indicative of how political the ethics process was, suggested Wednesday he's not concerned about Pelosi's claims.

"Frankly, I'd rather have her threaten me than endorse me, so I feel pretty good about it," Gingrich said. "If she has something, bring it out."

Gingrich, leading up to and following his South Carolina victory on Saturday, has soared in the polls. A new Gallup poll has him leading Romney nationally by 4 points, while other surveys show him leading or tied with Romney in Florida -- which holds its primary next week.

Fox News

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After three years, it's time to admit President Obama has failed

2012-01-26T09:48:00.001-08:00

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Obama hammered away on two resounding themes—fairness and the economy.

Both of them rang hollow from a president who has failed on the job.

He has not kept his promise to get the economy going again, and inequities in income and opportunities have hardened during his tenure. Scratch the surface of his largely reworked proposals, and too much political opportunism and hypocrisy emerges.

Once again, he promised to tax the wealthy and lambasted oil companies, and offered the vision of an economy where every American has a decent shot at success through education and hard work. Yet, too many of his tax proposals are intended to punish his opponents and protect his friends, and his education proposals simply won’t help the unemployed if the economy is creating too few new jobs each month.

The big fairness problem with taxes is that wage and salary incomes are taxed at much higher effective rates than capital gains and carried interest in partnerships—the latter include the income managing partners and employees receive for running private equity firms and hedge funds.

Mr. Obama’s minimum tax for millionaires would punish mom and pop businesses that create so many of the new jobs, as well as raise taxes on capital gains and carried interest.

For the former reason, such a tax simply won’t pass the Republican House.

Doing more to tax investment income would surely do more to upset lots of Democrats and Wall Street financiers, and consequently, the president won’t do much to surgically fix that problem.

Mr. Obama wants to take tax breaks away from oil companies, give those to high tech companies and leave carried interest giveaways in place for Wall Street.

Yet, it is not an accident that oil executives are usually Republicans, and high tech and financial executives provide the largest sums to Democratic campaign coffers and political action committees.

Sadly though, oil companies, in so many ways, have been blocked by President Obama from developing domestic oil, building pipelines, and creating lots of jobs in construction, steel and other building materials.

Meanwhile, Apple and high-tech companies are champion outsourcers, and Wall Street too much specializes these days in downsizing American factories and financing foreign investment.

The president played to the middle class with high words, while offering to punish his opponents and reward his friends—the economy be damned.

Once again, President Obama promised to beef up education—train 2 million workers at community colleges for high tech jobs even though the economy is not even creating 250,000 manufacturing jobs each year.

He wants to send more young people to college but a legion of new graduates during his three year tenure remain underemployed—unable to start meaningful careers because stimulus, regulation and industrial policies, championed by Mr. Obama have largely failed to fire up growth.

The problem with jobs is demand for workers not supply.

The trade deficits on oil and with China send consumer dollars and create employment abroad without returning to buy U.S. goods and create jobs for Americans.

President Obama says he’s been tough on China and will get tougher—but even he agrees China’s undervalued currency is the big problem. He promised to forcefully address it as a candidate in 2008, has warned Chinese leaders he can take action if they don’t, but he never acts.

On oil, he brags imports are down but that’s mostly because the economy is slow. Too many Americans don’t have a job to get to each morning, and too many can’t even afford to fill tanks for a Sunday drive.

After three years, it’s time to admit this president is a great orator and skilled politician but as a national leader, he has failed.

Mr. Obama was elected to turn the economy around but hasn’t, and it’s time for a change.

Fox News

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Militants target Pakistani troops

2012-01-26T06:01:00.001-08:00

Militants killed six Pakistani soldiers and wounded four others during an attack in the northwest tribal region Wednesday, a senior government official said -- part of a recent spike in attacks targeting security forces.

About 50 militants attacked security forces who were conducting a search operation, said Shahab Ali Shah, a senior government official in the area.

Shah said troops killed 10 militants in the clashes, which occurred in the area of Jogi in Kurram Agency, one of seven districts of Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The soldiers are among more than 50 Pakistani security forces killed in attacks throughout the country since January 1, according to a CNN tally. The increase in attacks comes after a relative lull late last year.

The number of soldiers killed so far this year is very high, but doesn't approach figures in 2009 and 2010, when up to 150 troops at a time were killed in one month at the height of military operations in Pakistan's tribal region, a senior Pakistani military official said.

More than 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have been in killed in the fight against Islamist militants over the past decade, the Pakistani Army says.

"These killings are demoralizing for any soldier," said the senior military official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Last month, officials from two Pakistani Taliban factions told CNN they were holding peace talks in two districts in the tribal region with representatives of the Pakistani government. Government officials have not verified that the talks are taking place, but have said they are continuing their policy of "dialogue, deterrence, and development."

But in some areas, militants are getting stronger, regrouping and banding together to take on security forces, the senior military official said.

Brutal tactics by Taliban militants targeting Pakistani troops aren't new, CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen said.

"Basically, any kind of Pakistani military activity that impinges on their own freedom of movement, they respond," he said. "They've been attacking frontier posts for seven years. They've been kidnapping soldiers in large numbers."

CNN

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Issa cries foul after key player in Fast and Furious scandal refuses to testify

2012-01-26T05:41:00.001-08:00

As Arizona state officials open their own probe into Operation Fast and Furious, the head of the House panel investigating the gunrunning scandal is crying foul over a key player's move Tuesday to assert his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions.

Patrick Cunningham, the chief of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney's office in Arizona, was excused from a deposition after refusing to give more than his name and title, Fox News has learned.

Cunningham informed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee through his attorney that he would use the Fifth Amendment protection after being subpoenaed last week to testify in front of congressional investigators regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa called the decision a "startling development" and in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder wrote that the refusal to testify implies that "Mr. Cunningham may have engaged in criminal conduct with respect to Fast and Furious is a major escalation of the department's culpability."

Issa said Justice Department officials claim Cunningham misinformed them about Fast and Furious as the department prepared its initial response to Congress' inquiry into the failed program. Cunningham's lawyer denies those allegations.

Cunningham was excused from the deposition, but may be called again later, according to the letter. The committee may also issue additional requests or subpoenas for Cunningham's associates in the U.S. Attorney's office.

The Justice Department declined to comment. The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said that while he is "disappointed" Cunningham would not testify before the committee, "I respect his constitutional rights. It is inappropriate for Chairman Issa to engage in wild and unsubstantiated speculation about why he did so."

Holder is expected to be questioned about this when he testifies in front of the panel next Thursday.

On Monday, two men, Jacob Wayne Chambers and Jacob Anthony Montelongo, each pleaded guilty in federal court to a conspiracy charge tied to the scandal. Montelongo also pleaded guilty to dealing guns without a license.

The pair admitted being part of a 20-person smuggling ring that is accused of running guns into Mexico for use by the Sinaloa cartel.

Two rifles bought by the ring were found at the scene of a December 2010 shoot-out near the Arizona-Mexico border that mortally wounded Terry. The two guns weren't purchased by Chambers and Montelongo but were bought by another alleged ring member.

Meanwhile, back in Arizona, lawmakers are beginning their own probe into Operation Fast and Furious.

A special committee was formed to find out if state gun dealers were coerced by federal officials into selling guns to buyers they knew were criminals.

"I know one thing, some of them will testify they were forced to do it under the threat of losing their license to sell firearms in this state. That's wrong and we're gonna investigate it," said Republic state Rep. David Burnell Smith.

State officials will also look into victims injured by Fast and Furious weapons. As of now, only two incidents tied to the guns are known about in the United States -- the murder of Terry and a non-fatal shooting of a state police officer.

State laws broken by federal officials could include misconduct involving weapons, conspiracy or aiding and abetting those involved in a crime.

"We have waited long enough," said Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin. " This thing is over a year old. It is time to move forward and see where we are going to be, to see what really happened."

The bipartisan committee's report is due March 1. Use of a grand jury, the state attorney general or a special prosecutor to issue subpoenas will be decided this week.

Fox News

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Arab League: Syria Observers Need More Time

2012-01-25T18:27:00.001-08:00

The Arab League says its observer mission to Syria will continue as long as Damascus agrees to it. But Gulf Arab states say they were pulling their observers out of the country.

Arab League official Ahmed Ben Helli told journalists the organization hopes to continue its observer mission to Syria, despite a decision Tuesday by Gulf Arab states to pull their observers. Damascus, however, must agree to extend the mission.

At least 110 Arab observers remain in Syria after 55 others from the Gulf states have withdrawn. Saudi Arabia first indicated it was withdrawing its observers at an Arab League meeting Sunday. The observer mission began on December 19.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, meanwhile, told a press conference in Damascus that Syria wants a “security solution” to the more than 10-month-old anti-government uprising, explaining that Damascus has a "duty" to take action against armed groups spreading chaos in the country.

Moallem appeared to shut the door to Arab League demands for a negotiated solution with the opposition, insisting that only a “Syrian solution” was on the table. He also repeated allegations that the opposition was being “manipulated” by outside forces.

Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo Sunday called on Damascus to form a “national unity government” under the auspices of its vice president, followed by parliamentary and presidential elections later on. Syria rejected that proposal.

Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, said that despite Moallem's call for a “security solution,” he doubts the government is capable of imposing one, adding that the Syrian government claims to have been wiping out terrorism as it cracks down on anti-government protests with military might. Whenever the government forces attack one locale, he said, trouble erupts in other places.

Opposition activists reported that government troops again laid siege to Syria's fourth largest city, Hama, on Tuesday, cutting communications. Shelling was also reported in the flashpoint cities of Daraa, Homs and Idlib.

The United Nations has reported that violence linked to the uprising has killed more than 5,400 people since it began early last year. Syrian authorities have said terrorists have killed about 2,000 security force members since the unrest began.

VOA

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Defiant Obama challenges Congress on sticky issues

2012-01-25T16:47:00.001-08:00

President Barack Obama launches a three-day swing through key election states Wednesday after declaring in what could be his final State of the Union address that the nation was strengthening but must confront the defining issue of preserving the American dream.

In the speech Tuesday night to a joint sitting of Congress, Obama offered both his administration's priorities for the coming year and his campaign messaging for his re-election bid in November.

He defended a long list of his trademark policies -- tax increases on the wealthy, Wall Street reform, health care reform, government stimulus spending -- to applause from fellow Democrats while also offering proposals of interest to Republicans, such as corporate tax breaks and expanded oil and gas development.

Declaring "the state of our union is getting stronger," Obama said America had come too far in its still sluggish recover from economic recession "to turn back now."

With unemployment still above 8% and economic uncertainty lingering, Obama framed the challenges facing the country as a choice between opportunity for some or giving everyone a chance to prosper.

"The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive," the president said. "No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

He continued by saying, "What's at stake aren't Democratic values or Republican values, but American values, and we have to reclaim them."

The Republican response chided Obama for not addressing the nation's $15 trillion debt more forcefully, presenting a stark contrast in policy proposals and outlook to the president's more optimistic assessment of what has been accomplished and what is needed.

"It was irresponsible for him not to recognize the dire circumstances our country is in because of our debt," conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina said. "He spent his speech making some more promises from government."

CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen described it as a "politically shrewd speech" likely to satisfy Obama's Democratic base while winning over some independents.

The annual evening of political pageantry, with senators and representatives joining Cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, military leaders and others in the packed House chamber, included a poignant touch with Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in attendance the night before she will resign due to her brain injury from last year's shooting attack in her native Arizona.

A champion of bipartisan politics, the still unsteady Giffords repeatedly was helped in rising to applaud Obama's speech by her Republican colleague from Arizona, Rep. Jeff Flake.

"It was the least I could do," Flake, a staunch conservative and frequent critic of the president, said. Asked if fellow Republicans thought he stood up so often to support what Obama was saying, Flake said in reference to Giffords: "I think most people would understand I support my colleague and friend."

Obama began and ended the 65-minute speech by praising U.S. troops for unity and teamwork that can serve as a model for facing the country's problems.

He called for lowering corporate taxes and providing incentives for U.S. manufacturers to bring overseas jobs back to America, while ending tax breaks for businesses that continue to outsource. At the same time, Obama said, every multinational company should pay a basic minimum tax, while giving American manufacturers a tax cut.

"It's time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America," Obama said, adding a challenge to Congress he repeated throughout the night to send him a bill that he pledged to sign "right away."

He also challenged Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reform, a major election-year issue for the important Hispanic-American vote. Short of a major overhaul, he called for legislation like the DREAM Act that provides children of illegal immigrants who go to college or serve in the military a path to possible citizenship.

In response to Republican criticism of his energy policy, Obama said to applause he was ordering his administration to open up 75% of potential offshore oil and gas resources. At the same time, he also said U.S. oil production was at the highest level in eight years, countering GOP claims he was stifling oil development.

On income taxes, Obama repeated his longstanding call for the wealth to pay more in taxes, including a specific proposal for millionaires to have a tax rate of 30%. Earlier Tuesday, millionaire Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney revealed his actual tax rate was lower than 15%.

Obama's presidency so far has been mostly defined by the ideological battle between Democrats and Republicans over the role of government in American society.

Bolstered by the conservative tea party movement that helped deliver the House majority in 2010, Republicans have pushed for shrinking government to ease mounting federal deficits and debt.

Obama and Democrats argue that deficit reduction must include both spending cuts and revenue increases in a balanced approach that maintains the essential role of government in American prosperity and opportunity.

The partisan divide has led to repeated congressional showdowns over budget and tax issues, with public dissatisfaction with Congress at historically low levels and the U.S. credit rating downgrade.

In his speech, Obama described the possibilities offered by what he called a "blueprint for an American economy that's built to last."

"Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people," Obama said. "An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded."

At the same time, he repeated his readiness to work with Republicans to build on economic recovery that has started but still struggles to take off.

"But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place," Obama said.

"Let's never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that does the same," he continued. "It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no cop-outs. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody."

In the official GOP response, conservative Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said that "it's not fair and it's not true for the president to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles."

"No feature of the Obama presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," Daniels said. "As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have."

In particular, Daniels called for "a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates" and "a pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is surging in Republican presidential polls after his primary victory Saturday in South Carolina, said at a campaign event in Sarasota, Florida, that if elected president, his first acts would be to sign executive orders undoing policies of the Obama administration.

"Our goal is, in the executive orders that we sign on the first day, that by the time President Obama lands in Chicago, we will have dismantled about 40% of his administration," Gingrich said to cheers.

Obama heads to Iowa, Arizona and Nevada on Wednesday to kick off a three-day tour of five states considered key for the November election. He will speak during the day at manufacturing plant in Iowa and an Intel campus in Arizona.

In his speech Tuesday night, Obama proposed now familiar steps as well as some new ones. The list included:

• A tax code in which the Bush tax cuts expire and the wealthy pay more;

• More refinancing for homeowners in trouble;

• More clean energy incentives;

• Enhanced education and job training initiatives, and,

• The creation of a China task force to monitor trade violations.

Obama and Democrats want to avoid the November election being a referendum on the president and his stewardship of the economy.

Instead, they seek a contrast campaign between a GOP they hope to define as allied with wealthy interests that brought near financial collapse in 2008 versus a president who will fight for working Americans.

Obama's address drew on themes from the Kansas speech he delivered in early December that focused on restoring equal opportunity for all, rather than an economy where the wealthy and reckless such as irresponsible Wall Street investors get ahead.

Democratic sources acknowledge that to succeed in November, Obama has to make the case that his policies have begun to make a difference, with the economy showing signs of improvement.

According to the administration, the economy has added nearly 3.2 million private-sector jobs over the last 22 months, and American manufacturing is creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. The American auto industry is coming back, adding 100,000 jobs in the last year, and U.S. oil production is at the highest level in eight years.

Republicans argue that Obama's policies have stymied growth by increasing regulations and delaying opportunities such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada in order to appease some of his liberal support base.

"Extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy," Daniels said. "It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills."

CNN

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Utah boy dies after accidentally shooting himself with replica cannon

2012-01-25T14:34:00.001-08:00

A 14-year-old boy from Utah died after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a small replica cannon, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Robby Ostberg is believed to have been playing with the 18th-century replica cannon in the living room of his home in Tremonton, Utah, when it went off Monday morning.

The teenager was left with massive head injuries and died in his home.

Cops investigating the incident initially thought the cannon, which has a 6-inch barrel, was decorative, but they discovered that it was designed to fire a .50-caliber round, Tremonton police chief David Nance said.

"It's something that can be used as a noisemaker or actually shoot a projectile," Nance told the newspaper. "We don't know exactly what was in it or if there was a projectile."

The victim's brother was in the room when the cannon went off but did not have many details about the incident.

Nance said investigators did not know what caused the incident but hoped an autopsy would discover what combustible material may have been used in the cannon and how it was ignited.

Danielle Kunsman, a friend of the family, said that Robby previously had demonstrated the replica firearm for others and described him as "very talented, mechanically."

Fox News

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Tokyo sees high quake probability, scientists warn

2012-01-25T01:54:00.001-08:00

Tokyo faces the possibility of being hit by a massive earthquake within the next four years, according to Japanese researchers.

The University of Tokyo's Earthquake Research Institute predicts there is a 70% probability that the capital's metropolitan area will experience a magnitude-7 quake within four years and a 98% probability within the next 30 years.

Nearly one year ago, a magnitude 9.0 quake struck off Japan's central Pacific coast, triggering a devastating tsunami and aftershocks that left more than 15,700 dead, according to a government report in December on Japan's recovery from the catastrophe. About 4,500 were listed as missing.

Nearly 700 aftershocks registering magnitude 5 or greater followed last year's quake, the government report said.

The March 11 earthquake -- dubbed "Tohoku" after the region in which it occurred -- also damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, where three reactors experienced full meltdowns, creating a nuclear crisis for a country already grappling with disaster.

The research institute cited for its findings the Gutenberg Richter Law, which states that an increase in small tremors will likely increase the number of larger earthquakes. According to another paper published in September, the institute concluded that the quake ruptured a fault area nearly 500 kilometers in length and 200 kilometers wide offshore.

The fourth strongest quake recorded in history, Tohoku caused abrupt stress changes in the upper plate and triggered widespread seismic activity throughout the Japanese island. The northern part of Ibaraki Prefecture, in particular, saw a significant increase of shallow seismicity after the quake compared with the extremely low rate eight years prior, the researchers said.

Should Tokyo's inhabitants be worried?

The research institute's findings carry great consequences for the 42 million people who live in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The Central Disaster Management Council has estimated that a large-scale earthquake in the next few decades could result in 11,000 deaths and an economic loss of 112 trillion yen (US$1 trillion). Its goal is to halve the estimated death toll and reduce the estimated economic loss.

How precise are seismic forecasts?

Gary Gibson, a seismologist at Australia's Seismology Research Centre, called the Earthquake Research Institute's findings "not at all unexpected," given the level of seismic activity and their model.

"Seismologists cannot predict with certainty when, where and how large the next big earthquake will be," he wrote in an e-mail to CNN. "However, it is possible to forecast the probability of an earthquake in a particular time range (e.g. the next four years), location area (e.g. the Tokyo region), and magnitude range (e.g. greater than magnitude 7.0).

"Long-term forecasts use average activity levels from all known past earthquakes, geological data from fault displacements, and data about plate movement and deformation from very precise GPS measurements and other methods to determine these probabilities."

What is the government saying?

The government's Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion had put a 70% probability of a magnitude-7 quake in Kanto region, which encompasses Tokyo and Yokohama, within 30 years, based on long-term seismicity and hazard studies.

Scientists have already dubbed as "Tokai" an expected 8.0 quake near Suruga Bay, where large quakes have historically struck every 100-150 years, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The last one, a magnitude-8.4 quake, occurred in 1854 -- nearly 160 years ago.

According to Gibson, the seismologist, the enhanced seismicity in the area affected by the Tohoku quake may fall towards normal levels and could affect the research institute's findings. Results for the six-month period after the quake would become available after this coming March 11, the quake's anniversary, he noted.

Why is Japan so prone to earthquakes?

The Japanese archipelago and neighboring areas rest on or around four tectonic plates -- the Pacific, Philippine Sea, North American and Eurasian plates -- whose movements account for one of the most seismically active places on earth.

Can Tokyo withstand a 7.0 quake?

Gibson said that while the area is a very active one seismically, building standards are high, therefore reducing the damage caused by earthquakes. Buildings in Tokyo held up well in the face of the "Tohoku" quake. Reinforced concrete and anti-seismic systems in buildings are among features that have helped absorb shocks when earthquakes occur.

"A magnitude 7.0 earthquake is very much smaller than the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake," he wrote. "It would need 1,000 magnitude-7.0 earthquakes to release as much strain energy as the magnitude 9.0. The fault rupture size is tens of kilometers, rather than hundreds of kilometers, and the fault displacement two to three meters rather than 20 to 30 meters."

Serious damage could be limited, if it occurs offshore, he added. And the shallower the quake, such as within 10 kilometers of the surface, the more localized the damage.

CNN

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EU to lift travel restrictions on Myanmar leaders

2012-01-25T00:56:00.001-08:00

European foreign ministers said Monday that they would loosen travel restrictions on senior members of the Myanmar government in recognition of the Southeast Asian country's recent efforts at political reform after decades of military rule.

Describing the Myanmar government's program of changes as "remarkable," the foreign ministers said they had decided to suspend a visa ban on the country's president, vice presidents, Cabinet members and speakers of Parliament. The European Union ministers met in Brussels to discuss Myanmar and other issues.

In recent weeks, the Myanmar regime has pardoned hundreds of political prisoners, approved the participation of the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party in April elections and pledged to pursue a peace deal with an ethnic rebel group.

Western governments have applauded the effort, with the United States announcing this month that it would exchange ambassadors with Myanmar for the first time since 1988. That came after a visit to the country last month by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the first top U.S. diplomat in the nation in more than five decades.

Top European officials have followed in Clinton's footsteps, including the foreign ministers of Britain and France. And on Tuesday, Pakistan said that President Asif Ali Zardari was leaving for a two-day visit to Myanmar, where he would meet government leaders and Suu Kyi.

Myanmar has been ruled by a military junta since 1962, but the generals are loosening their grip on the country after coming under criticism for their human rights record and as the economy suffered from economic sanctions.

Thein Sein, a former general, became president in March 2011 after elections that were criticized by democracy activists. But his rapid introduction of reforms has raised hopes of a lasting improvement in civil liberties within the country.

The EU ministers on Monday called the suspension of the visa ban on Sein and other officials "a first step" that could be followed by a "further easing" of restrictions in the coming months.

The lifting of more restrictive measures is dependent on the Myanmar government following through on its commitment to "continue and complete these reforms," the ministers said, "notably by the unconditional release of the remaining political prisoners within the next few months and by the free and fair conduct" of the parliamentary by-elections in April.

The ministers also drew attention to the commitment by Sein's government to address "the ethnic conflicts through an inclusive political process."

The government earlier this month reached a cease-fire with the Karen National Union. The largely Christian Karen have been fighting in the country's eastern jungles for greater rights since the nation's independence from Britain in 1948.

Karen leaders and activists said when the cease-fire was signed that it was too early to gauge whether peace would take hold.

Other ethnic minorities in Myanmar, such as the Shan, are also at odds with the country's government.

CNN

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Twitter is the most fun you can have with the telly on

2012-01-24T22:09:00.001-08:00

The other day, as I slumped in front of the telly, I felt the strangest sensation. I was getting twitchy, distracted, uncomfortable. Almost without my realising it, my arm started to reach towards my laptop.

Was I suffering from an undiagnosed case of ADHD? Not really – I simply wanted to see what Twitter thought. Rare is the programme, these days, that’s compelling enough to watch on its own. Instead, I find myself glancing down at my phone or computer – the “Twitter machines”, as Sir Tom Stoppard called them this week – to see what my friends, and their friends, are making of it.

When I mentioned this phenomenon to one of my colleagues, he was horrified. A year ago, I’d have been with him. But then I found myself at a friend’s while The X Factor was on. I said something not particularly funny about one of the glitter-strewn mediocrities on screen, and someone tweeted it. Offended, I whipped out my phone to reclaim authorship of the gag. Soon, the room resounded to the sound of clacking keys, as all of us took to the Twittersphere to share our bons mots, joining in the vast communal bitching session.

To those who haven’t signed up, or aren’t following the right people, it’s impossible to explain the fun of the experience. It’s as if every show is accompanied by an instant director’s commentary, produced by people much wittier than you – and much, much wittier than the people on screen.

It’s also changing our viewing habits, and not necessarily for the worse. True, it makes watching a foreign series such as Borgen a rather frenzied experience, as your eyes flicker desperately between the gags on the small screen and the subtitles on the big one. But it’s also drawn a new audience to Question Time, who use the boring stuff in the studio as a springboard for a far more interesting debate online. I’m not expecting everyone to understand the appeal. But if the country is becoming divided into the tweeters and the tweet-nots, I know who’s having more fun.

Mind you, there’s also plenty of proof that the internet – and modern life, in general – is sending society to hell in a handcart. Look at the Oxford dons quoted on our pages yesterday, moaning about the inadequacies of their students. In a tone of waspish despair, they observed that the efforts of these “tyro deconstructionists” leave a distinct sense of “undeveloped critical thought”, as well as “intellectual thinness”. Many are prone to “haphazard and random generalisations”. Among those studying Old English, “names were badly mangled… the tendency was, if in doubt, to call everyone Aelfric”.

It’s not just the best and brightest. On the TV quiz show Pointless (a minor addiction of mine), the answers are based on polling 100 members of the public. Routinely, the results reveal such staggering levels of ignorance as to make Jordan look like A S Byatt. For one survey – admittedly, taken before the recent unpleasantness – people were asked to name as many chancellors of Germany as they could. Eighty-five per cent drew a complete blank. Fifteen came up with Angela Merkel, and 10 with Helmut Kohl. Poor old Gerhard Schröder had lodged in the mind of only one of the 100. As for Brandt, Erhard, Schmidt et al? Fuhgeddaboudit. If Michael Gove can sort that out, good luck to him.

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Going slightly upmarket, the New Yorker recently reviewed a hip new joint in Greenwich Village called Whitehall, a high-end restaurant serving mushy peas, marmalade cocktails and London Pride. There’s just one problem: the head chef is Australian. The locals don’t seem to mind, but I can’t help feeling that if a Brit tried to lay claim to kangaroo carpaccio with shrimp and Vegemite purée, there’d be hell to pay.

The Telegraph

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RIM chiefs step down as BlackBerry attempts comeback

2012-01-24T22:05:00.001-08:00

Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will relinquish their positions immediately, in a move that sees little-known German executive Thorsten Heins take the helm at the troubled company.

Having made BlackBerry the indispensable device for business executives, lawyers and bankers who wanted to check their emails when not at their computers, the past five years have seen the Canadian company fail to fight back against competition from Apple and Google.

That, in turn, left Mr Balsillie and Mr Lazaridis under pressure from investors. RIM's shares fell 75pc last year.

"This marks the beginning of a new era for RIM," Mr Lazaridis told Bloomberg. "It was a bit of a bumpy ride. We've done it as best we could." The duo's departure comes a week before RIM's deadline for publishing a management review.

The challenges facing Mr Heins, who joined RIM four years ago from Germany manufacturer Siemens, are considerable.

RIM's share of the smartphone market in the US dwindled to 16.6pc in the three months to the end of November, according to research firm comScore.

That compares to just under 50pc for phones using Google's Android operating system and 28.7pc for Apple. RIM has lost just over $70bn (£45bn) of value since its market capitalisation peaked in 2008.

Mr Heins, who was previously RIM's chief operating officer, said he would focus on a consumer push and a smooth delivery of its products.

"We innovated while we were developing the product and that needs to stop," Mr Heins said. "We need to innovate, don't get me wrong, but ... when we say a product is defined and a product is a product, execution has to be really, really precise."

He said: "I don't think that there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving .... But this is not a seismic change."

Some main shareholders, who want a drastic improvement at a company that has lost market share and market value to Apple and Google, were unimpressed.

"If Thorsten really believes that there are no changes to be made, he will be gone within 15 to 18 months. He will be a transitional chief executive and this will be a transitional board," said Jaguar chief executive Vic Alboini, who leads an informal group of 16 RIM shareholders holding just under 10pc of the company's shares.

Mr Lazaridis, who founded RIM in 1984, will become vice chairman, while Mr Basillie will remain a board member.

Despite the public criticism from investors, the pair insisted their decision was not due to shareholder pressure.

The Telegraph

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China Starts Lunar New Year of the Dragon

2012-01-24T19:04:00.001-08:00

This week millions of Chinese travel back to their family homes to celebrate the New Year holiday. Although the time is traditionally celebrated as a time of happy homecomings, an official survey indicates most people are reluctant to go home.

Social workers coordinated by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs queried migrant workers in China's six biggest cities and found that 70 percent are hesitant to go home.

The issue is hotly debated online, where the week preceding Chunjie, as the New Year holiday is called, the term "afraid to go home" ranked third on the popular search engine baidu.com.

Part of the apprehension is about the journey, itself. Transportation authorities anticipate that more than three billion trips will be made during this year's holiday.

Internet user Lori Geixia posted a chronicle of her long journey home by train, bus and ferry. "The journey back is absolutely terrible for me," she wrote on her microblog account. But many young people also fear facing their families' judgment.

Newspapers have detailed the list of questions that young migrants would rather not be asked by relatives during their holiday break. Among them are inquires about one's romantic and financial situation.

A cartoon widely circulated online this week shows a gloomy looking man, sitting on a bench in front of a train station. Bubbles over his head describe the source of his anxiety: unsatisfactory job and low salary, unmarried status and limited money to buy gifts for relatives.

Internet user Misitelu posted a message on his microblog profile as he was waiting for the train back home. "My mood is colorless/dull right now," he wrote. "Because I am part of the group that is afraid to go home, I have all sorts of fears. I have been in Beijing for three years now and I don't have anything."

Although China's booming economy has enriched millions, many young Chinese graduates, mostly single children and often the first in their families to have finished high school, still struggle to live up to their parents' rising expectations.

An Internet user from Sichuan province complains against the rising burden of the hongbao, the traditional red envelopes filled with money that people hand out to relatives during the holidays. "From 20 Yuan, to 50, then to 200, 400, 500," he says, "at the same time my income is falling. I cannot afford this!"

Beijing University sociologist Zhou Xiaozheng argues against the traditional New Year emphasis on wealth and achievements in an widely cited article on the popular site Sohu.com.

"Instead of concentrating on the level of riches one has," he writes, "people should focus on the sense of happiness they get from celebrating chunjie as it should, with one's family," Zhou stated.

Chunjie is undoubtedly the country's most family-oriented holiday. Chinese traditional culture emphasizes that people maintain strong ties with their birthplace. Many folk songs recount the joys of homecoming, and the nostalgia for those who in such occasion cannot reunite with their family.

Despite the discussion about homecoming anxiety in the days before the New Year holiday, one day into the festivities, posts on Chinese Internet forums have changed in tone. In online forums, most Internet users are sending their wishes for a happy year of the dragon.

VOA News

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Facebook friends can't be relied on in a crisis

2012-01-24T17:07:00.001-08:00

The poll by Macmillan Cancer Support found that the average young adult has 237 Facebook friends, but only two they could turn to for real support.

The survey, of 1,000 people aged 18 to 35, found two-thirds of respondents said they had two or fewer really close friends.

It also found that one in eight (13 per cent) admitted they did not have even a single person they considered to be a good enough friend to rely on, if life got very hard.

Men (16 per cent) were more likely than women (12 per cent) to have no one to turn to.

Jeannie Wilkinson, a Relate counsellor who is funded by the cancer charity, said: "It is surprising and concerning that people confide in such a small number of friends and family – and more so that others may not confide in anyone."

She continued: "It is important that, when going through something tough, like a cancer diagnosis and treatment, you can speak openly about what you’re going through to ensure you get the right support you need.

"We meet a lot of patients and people caring for someone with cancer who feel like they need to be ‘strong’ and bottle up their emotions. This causes great strain on relationships."

The Telegraph

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Syria Rejects Arab League Call for Power Transfer

2012-01-24T07:07:00.001-08:00

Syria has rejected a new Arab League initiative for President Bashar al-Assad to step down and allow the formation of a national unity government.

The plan agreed to by Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo Sunday requires Mr. Assad to transfer power to a deputy and allow the formation of a unity government with the opposition within two months. The country's new leaders would be responsible for organizing parliamentary and presidential elections under Arab and international supervision.

Syrian state media denounced the plan Monday as a "flagrant" violation of Syrian sovereignty. Qatar said the Arab League will ask the United Nations Security Council to support the initiative.

European envoys at the United Nations swiftly hailed the plan. Germany's U.N. ambassador welcomed it as a potential "game changer."

The Security Council has been blocked for months over Syria, with Russia and China maintaining that any moves in the U.N. body against Mr. Assad would be the first steps toward regime change by force, as happened in Libya last year.

Also Monday, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels approved additional sanctions on Syria, imposing travel bans and asset freezes on another 22 people and eight companies linked to the Assad government.

The Syrian uprising against Mr. Assad's 11-year autocratic rule has become increasingly militarized in recent weeks. In the latest unrest Monday, Syrian rights activists say army defectors killed five pro-Assad troops in a battle in the central province of Homs. They say government security forces also killed at least 10 civilians in operations against centers of protest around Syria.

Activists also say at least 60,000 people gathered in the protest hub of Douma, near Damascus, for the funerals of 11 people killed by pro-Assad forces in recent days. It was not possible to independently verify details of the funeral procession or the casualties because Syria severely restricts independent media coverage in the country.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the top US diplomat for the Middle East would press Moscow on a reported $550 million deal to sell Syria 36 advanced Yak-130 light attack fighter jets. She said Jeffrey Feltman was in the Russian capital Monday and that Syria was "issue number one on his agenda."

The advanced training aircraft could be used for attacks on ground targets and to train pilots on Syria's more advanced fleet of Mig-29 fighters, which it ordered from Russia in 2007. Moscow is one of Mr. Assad's few remaining allies, and Syria is its top arms customer.

The respected Russian business daily Kommersant first reported the deal.

Meanwhile, the Arab League mission's Sudanese chief, General Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, said violence in Syria declined after league monitors began work on December 26. Speaking Monday to reporters in Cairo, al-Dabi said the observers' job is not to stop the unrest, but to monitor it.

The United Nations says violence linked to the uprising has killed more than 5,400 people. Syria says terrorists have killed about 2,000 security force members since the unrest began.

VOA News

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US Urges Burma to Ensure Free By-Elections

2012-01-24T04:18:00.001-08:00

A key U.S. senator says the United States is pleased with recent progress toward democratic reforms in Burma, but says the country's new, nominally civilian government must ensure "free and fair" by-elections in April.

John McCain, the senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spoke Sunday in Rangoon, after meeting with President Thein Sein and separately with opposition leader and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.

He said he told the president the government must also resolve Burma's long standing ethnic conflicts and strengthen the rule of law before Washington would consider lifting economic sanctions imposed on the military junta that stepped aside last year.

On Saturday, the U.S. delegation, which also includes Senator Joseph Lieberman, stepped up pressure on Vietnam to improve its human rights record if it wants to expand bilateral military ties with Washington.

McCain cited "backward movement" by the Hanoi government on human rights issues and warned that bilateral security ties will be "directly impacted" by Hanoi's failure to improve its rights record.

Lieberman cited Vietnam's interest in purchasing U.S. weapons systems, but said such sales are not going to happen unless Washington sees human rights advances in the country.

Vietnam has been seeking to expand military ties with the United States as it faces ongoing regional tensions, especially with China, over competing maritime claims in the South China Sea.

VOA News

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Christie sets ambitious agenda in New Jersey amid 2016 speculation

2012-01-23T19:58:00.001-08:00

After tackling pensions and health care benefits, Chris Christie is setting his sights on taxes and education reform -- all as the New Jersey governor signals interest in a 2016 presidential run despite sitting out this year's race.

Christie, who is getting a taste of presidential politics this season as a high-profile surrogate for Mitt Romney, used his State of the State address earlier this week to unveil his ambitious plans, as he heralded the arrival of the "New Jersey comeback."

Whether or not the state is experiencing a renaissance, the charismatic and YouTube-ready governor may still be poised to use New Jersey as a lab of sorts for some of his party's boldest ideas. Should his experiments succeed, there's little question the notches on his political belt will serve him well in a presidential run.

"It's hard to run for national office if you've had an unsuccessful governorship," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "(Christie is) moving toward accomplishing a great deal in the first term."

Asked whether Christie is likely to mount a presidential run in 2016, should President Obama win this fall, Sabato said: "Yes, yes and yes."

Christie, who turned down appeals to run in 2012, signaled in an interview with Oprah Winfrey last week that he's got his eye on the next cycle. Though it depends on how things turn out this fall, Christie said he'd be "much more ready four years from now."

Christie, in an interview on Fox News, downplayed the idea of him settling for vice president -- should Romney win the nomination and ask him to join the ticket.

"I don't think I have the personality to be vice president," Christie said. "Certain people are good at being number two and certain people are better at being number one."

On the question of a presidential run, he dismissed the idea that his time with Romney is schooling him on the ins and outs of the trail. "I don't think I have an idea of what it's like to run for president any more now than I did before," he said.

Christie said he expects to be governor after Election Day.

In that role, Christie is pushing for a host of new changes. Last year, he was able to push through legislation that raised the retirement age for future state workers, increased the amount workers pay for health insurance and made other changes to curb costs.

In his address Tuesday, Christie called for a 10 percent, across-the-board income tax cut. He also proposed restoring a tax credit for low-income residents, which he earlier had taken away.

But the most detailed proposal concerned tenure reform. He called for a new evaluation system, one which would allow schools to strip tenure for poor-performing teachers and grant it to those who do well. And he called for ending what's known as "last in, first out" -- a policy that in practice hits newly hired teachers with layoffs before more senior teachers.

But Christie still faces a Democrat-controlled legislature in Trenton, and powerful unions.

Skepticism was widespread over his Tuesday speech.

John Wisniewski, chairman of the state Democratic party, accused Christie of blocking his party's proposals to spur job creation -- the state's unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent, above the national rate. Wisniewski also pushed back on the governor's call for a sweeping income-tax cut, with the state's fiscal house hardly in order. The state's bond rating was downgraded by Fitch last summer.

"For all his rhetoric about responsible budgeting, he has set New Jersey on an unsustainable fiscal path," he said in a statement. "To suggest to the people of New Jersey that we may be able to afford tax cuts in light of our approaching fiscal crisis is the height of irresponsibility. ... At a time when New Jersey needs a leader, we have a showman."

The Star-Ledger wrote in an editorial that while Christie has curbed the growth of property taxes, the state still has the highest property taxes in the country. "A real 'comeback' would be property tax bills that actually got smaller," the paper wrote.

Still, Christie could simply blame political opponents if his tenure proposal and others don't work out. Sabato said the governor can at least claim he made progress. But he said Christie's gotten a taste of national politics, "and he likes it."

Fox News

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Bird Flu Researchers Postpone Work Amid Bioterrorism Concern

2012-01-23T15:41:00.001-08:00

Two separate teams of scientists trying to develop a vaccine for the H5N1 strain of bird flu have agreed to temporarily postpone their research because of growing concern that a highly-infectious version of the virus the researchers are working with could fall into the hands of terrorists or trigger a deadly pandemic.

The laboratory-altered strain the scientists are working with is a potent airborne variety of H5N1 that easily could spread among humans. The original H5N1 strain of avian influenza has killed 340 people worldwide since it was first detected in 2003.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin in the United States and at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands say they are voluntarily halting their work for 60 days. They say the two months will give governments, international organizations and the scientific community time to determine whether the research can be conducted safely.

Biosecurity officials and health experts say that if the potent altered virus reached the general public, it potentially could cause a devastating pandemic. Some fear a worldwide epidemic of airborne bird flu could rival the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak that killed between 20 million and 40 million people in less than two years.

The U.S.-based journal, Science and the British journal, Nature, both published the researchers’ announcement on Friday.

The original H5N1 strain of avian influenza is not transmitted through the air, and it does not spread easily among humans. H5N1 usually only infects people that come into direct contact diseased birds.

In December, the journals, Science and Nature, reluctantly agreed to a U.S. government request not to publish key details of the H5N1 experiments because terrorists could use the information to make a biological weapon. It is not clear if or when studies will be published. Washington is funding the H5N1 research.

Most H5N1 deaths have occurred in East and Southeast Asia, including China, Cambodia and Vietnam.

VOA News

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Analysts Say Partisan Bickering Could Be Good for US

2012-01-23T15:16:00.001-08:00

Poll after poll shows Americans disgusted by partisan paralysis. It is what is often referred to as "Washington gridlock". Yet some political scientists argue, as frustrating as congressional inaction may be, it shows that the system envisioned by America’s founding fathers in the 1700s is alive and well.

“Compromise is not a nasty word. It is how we get things done,” one person who stopped to answer VOA's questions said.

“I would rather see compromise to the better interest of people that are struggling,” another bystander added.

Americans demand bipartisanship, yet they are voting fewer moderates and more hardline ideologues into Congress, resulting in a more polarized legislature. While berating congressional inaction, voters often opt for divided government. The last president to enjoy a Congress of the same party for the duration of his tenure was Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.

For bills to become law, they must pass both houses of Congress. Senate passage usually requires three-fifths backing, giving the minority party a virtual veto.

Is all of this a problem? Not according to conservatives, who point out the framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted limited government. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says Americans should “learn to love the gridlock”.

“They talk about a dysfunctional government because there is disagreement. And the framers [of the Constitution] would have said, ‘Yes, that is exactly the way we set it up!’ We wanted this to be power contradicting power,” Scalia said.

Others argue there is a difference between limited government and paralyzed, ineffective governance.

“There are great dangers when people view their government as incapable of meeting the challenges of the time," noted historian Allan Lichtman. "The first danger is obviously that people lose faith in their government - that the best people will not want to go into government. Another consequence of having gridlock, of course, is you tend to skirt the most serious problems facing the country.”

The U.S. government was designed to block any one political force from exerting its will unchecked. So consensus and compromise are required to enact laws - precisely what most Americans demand. Are politicians listening? Maybe, says Frank Newport, with the polling firm Gallup.

“Now you have a lot of congressmen in Washington saying ‘You know, nobody likes us. We are less well-liked than car salesmen’. And, hopefully, they will ask themselves why, and they will read the data showing that Americans want compromise,” Newport said.

Members of Congress certainly speak of bipartisanship.

“It is time to continue to work together, find common ground, to do what the American people expect of us,” said House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner.

“Democrats, Republicans, independents - all have said one thing to us. They want us to work together,” noted former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Compromise, however, is often most challenging in an election year, like this one.

VOA News

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Man convicted of killing Georgia girl found dead in apparent suicide, prison official says

2012-01-21T23:12:00.001-08:00

A 20-year-old maintenance worker who this week pleaded guilty to molesting and killing a 7-year-old girl was found dead of an apparent suicide in his prison cell Thursday, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Ryan Brunn was found unresponsive at 4:15 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson, said spokeswoman Kristen Stancil. Brunn was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:37 p.m., Stancil said in an email to The Associated Press.

Brunn pleaded guilty on Tuesday to killing Jorelys Rivera on Dec. 2. Her body was found in a trash compactor at the Canton apartment complex where she lived and he worked. At the hearing, Brunn explained his actions in chilling detail before apologizing to

Rivera's family. A judge then sentenced him to life in prison without parole.

Earlier Thursday, Canton officials said the city's police chief had resigned after a scathing report found he took a "laid back" approach to the search for Rivera in the north Georgia town.

Chief Jeff Lance stepped down after the 17-page review revealed his department of about 50 officers violated several of its own policies and made many mistakes in the search for Rivera, said city manager Scott Wood.

Rivera was reported missing at her apartment complex about 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 2. Days later, Brunn was charged with her killing.

A call to Lance for comment was not immediately returned.

Fox News

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Canadian skier Sarah Burke dies from injuries sustained in superpipe accident

2012-01-21T22:22:00.001-08:00

Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke died Thursday, nine days after crashing at the bottom of the superpipe during a training run in Utah.

Burke, who lived near Whistler in British Columbia, was 29. She was injured Jan. 10 while training at a personal sponsor event at the Park City Mountain resort.

Tests revealed Burke sustained "irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest," according to a statement released by Burke's publicist.

A four-time Winter X Games champion, Burke crashed on the same halfpipe where snowboarder Kevin Pearce suffered a traumatic brain injury during a training accident on Dec. 31, 2009.

As a result of her fall, Burke tore her vertebral artery, which led to severe bleeding on the brain, causing her to go into cardiac arrest on the scene, where CPR was performed, according to the statement by publicist Nicole Wool.

Wool said Burke's organs and tissues were donated per her wishes.

"The family expresses their heartfelt gratitude for the international outpouring of support they have received from all the people Sarah touched," the statement said.

Burke was the best-known athlete in her sport and will be remembered for the legacy she left for women in freestyle skiing.

She set the standard for skiing in the superpipe, a sister sport to the more popular snowboarding brand that has turned Shaun White, Hannah Teter and others into stars.

Seeing what a big role the Olympics has played in pushing the Whites of the world from the fringes into the mainstream, Burke lobbied to add superpipe skiing to the Olympic program, using the argument that no new infrastructure would be needed -- the pipe was already built -- and the Olympics could get twice the bang for their buck.

She won over the Olympic bigwigs, and the discipline will debut at the Sochi Games in 2014.

Burke, who was favored to win a fifth X Games title later this month, would have been a favorite for the gold medal in Sochi, as well. Instead, sadly, the competitors will have to toast to her memory when they make their debut on what will be the sport's grandest stage.

"Sarah, in many ways, defines the sport," Peter Judge, the CEO of Canada's freestyle team, said before her death. "She's been involved since the very, very early days as one of the first people to bring skis into the pipe. She's also been very dedicated in trying to define her sport but not define herself by winning. For her, it's been about making herself the best she can be rather than comparing herself to other people."

Burke's death continues a sad string of stories involving some of the best-known athletes in the wintertime action-sports world. Pearce's injury -- he has since recovered and is back to riding on snow -- was a jarring reminder of the dangers posed to these athletes who often market themselves as devil-may-care thrillseekers but know they make their living in a far more serious, and dangerous, profession.

Burke's death also is sure to re-ignite the debate over safety on the halfpipe.

The sport's leaders defend the record, saying mandatory helmets, air bags used on the sides of pipes during practice and better pipe-building technology has made this a safer sport, even though the walls of the pipes have risen significantly over the past decade.

They now stand at 22 feet high.

Some of the movement to the halfpipe decades ago came because racing down the mountain, the way they do in snowboardcross and skicross, was considered even more dangerous -- the conditions more unpredictable and the athletes less concerned with each other's safety.

But there are few consistent, hard-and-fast guidelines when it comes to limiting the difficulty of the tricks in the halfpipe, and as the money and fame available in the sport grew bigger, so did the tricks. Snowboarding pioneer Jake Burton once told The Associated Press that much of this was self-policed by athletes who, because of the nature of a sport often considered less competitive and more communal, knew when to draw the line.

It's an opinion shared by many.

"There are inherent risks in everything," Judge said. "Certainly, freestyle skiing has one of the greatest safety records of almost any sport. Freestyle is a very safe sport in large part because we had to build a safe sport in order to get into the Olympics."

Burke's biggest accident before this came in 2009 when she broke a vertebrae in her back after landing awkwardly while competing in slopestyle at the X Games. It was her lobbying that helped get slopestyle -- where riders shoot down the mountain and over "features" including bumps and rails -- into the X Games after much back and forth.

It wasn't her best event, but she felt compelled to compete because of her advocacy of it. She came to terms with her injury quickly.

"I've been doing this for long time, 11 years," she said in a 2010 interview. "I've been very lucky with the injuries I've had. It's part of the game. Everybody gets hurt. Looking back on it, I'd probably do the exact same thing again."

She returned a year after that injury and kept going at the highest level, trying the toughest tricks and winning the biggest prizes.

The tragedy brings a much-too-early end to a life of fame the skiing star lived both inside and out of the halfpipe.

A native of Midland, Ontario, Burke won the ESPY in 2007 as female action sports athlete of the year.

In 2010, she married another freestyle skier, Rory Bushfield, and they were headliners in a documentary film project on the Ski Channel called "Winter."

In her interview two years ago, Burke reflected on the niche she'd carved out in the action-sports world.

"I think we're all doing this, first off, because we love it and want to be the best," she said. "But I also think it would've been a great opportunity, huge for myself and for skiing and for everyone, if we could've gotten into the (Vancouver) Olympics. It's sad. I mean, I'm super lucky to be where I am, but that would've been pretty awesome."

A little more than a year later, with Burke's prodding, her sport was voted in for 2014.

Fox News

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Statins 'could treat breast cancer' in future

2012-01-21T21:51:00.001-08:00

Scientists have found evidence that women with breast cancer who carry a particular gene mutation could benefit from statin therapy.

Although they emphasised the research was at much too early a stage to make any "definitive conclusions", they said it had "great implications".

The research centres on a gene called p53, which usually suppresses cancerous cells. However, very frequently the gene mutates, giving it new erroneous functions that promote cancer formation, resulting in disorganised, invasive growth of cells.

It is already known that more than half of all human cancers carry mutations of the p53 gene, according to the authors, writing in the journal Cell.

In a laboratory study, William Freed-Pastor and Carol Prives of Columbia University in the US, and colleagues, showed that treating breast cells carrying mutant p53 genes with statins reduced their invasive growth. In some cases the cells died.

Prives, professor of biology at Columbia, said: "The data raises the possibility that we might identify subsets of patients whose tumors may respond to statins.

"Of course we can't make any definitive conclusions until we know more," before adding: "There are great implications, but nothing clinical yet."

Clinical trials would be needed to confirm the suggestions raised by the laboratory study, she said.

Dr Caitlin Palframan, of the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “We’re excited that existing drugs, like statins, are showing potential in the fight against breast cancer.

"This research identifies a relatively large group of breast cancer patients who could be targeted with statins, though we will need to see the results of clinical trials to know whether this will work."

Seperate studies have indicated statins could help fight cancer. Last year, a study published in the journal Cancer indicated that men taking them might be 30 per cent less likely to see prostate cancer return after surgery.

Another review found a 12 per cent reduction in developing colon cancer, in those who took statins for at least five years.

However, these were observational studies that could not prove causality. Neither did they investigate a potential reason for the apparent reduction in cancer.

CNN

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Apple reinvents textbooks with new publishing platform

2012-01-21T08:38:00.001-08:00

Apple Inc. on Thursday launched its attempt to make the iPad a replacement for a satchel full of textbooks by starting to sell electronic versions of a handful of standard high-school books.

The electronic textbooks, which include "Biology" and "Environmental Science" from Pearson and "Algebra 1" and "Chemistry" from McGraw-Hill, contain videos and other interactive elements.

But it's far from clear that even a company with Apple's clout will be able to reform the primary and high-school textbook market. The printed books are bought by schools, not students, and are reused year after year, which isn't possible with the electronic versions. New books are subject to lengthy state approval processes.

Major textbook publishers have been making electronic versions of their products for years, but until recently, there hasn't been any hardware suitable to display them. PCs are too expensive and cumbersome to be good e-book machines for students. Dedicated e-book readers like the Kindle have small screens and can't display color. IPads and other tablet computers work well, but iPads cost at least $499. Apple didn't reveal any new program to defray the cost of getting the tablet computers into the hands of students.

All this means textbooks have lagged the general adoption of e-books, even when counting college-level works that students buy themselves. Forrester Research said e-books accounted for only 2.8 percent of the $8 billion U.S. textbook market in 2010.

Pearson PLC of Britain and The McGraw-Hill Cos. of New York are two of the three big textbook companies in the U.S. market. The third one, Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also plans to supply books to Apple's store, but none were immediately available.

The new textbooks are legible with a new version of the free iBooks application, which became available Thursday.

The textbooks will cost $15 or less, said Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing. He unveiled the books at an event at New York's Guggenheim Museum. Schools will be able to buy the books for its students and issue redemption codes to them, he said.

Albert Greco, a professor of marketing at Fordham University in New York and a former high-school principal, said schools would need to buy iPads for its students if it were to replace printed books.

It wouldn't work to let students who can afford to buy their own iPads use them in class with textbooks they buy themselves, alongside poorer students with printed books.

"The digital divide issue could be very embarrassing. Because if you don't have the iPad, you can't do the quiz, you don't get instant feedback ... that is an invitation for a lawsuit," Greco said. "I would be shocked if any principal or superintendent would let that system go forward."

Greco said hardback high-school textbooks cost an average of about $105, and a freshman might need five of them. However, they last for five years.

That means that even if an iPad were to last for five years in the hands of students, the e-books plus the iPad would cost more than the hardback textbooks.

Apple also released an app for iTunes U, which has been a channel for colleges to release video and audio from lectures, through iTunes. The app will open that channel to K-through-12 schools, and will let teachers present outlines, post notes and communicate with students in other ways.

Greco called the new app "a shot across the bow" of Blackboard Inc., a privately held company that provides similar electronic tools to teachers. It, too, has applications for cellphones and tablets.

Apple also revealed iBook Author, an application for Macs that lets people create electronic textbooks.

According to biographer Walter Isaacson, reforming the textbook market was a pet project of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, even in the last year of his life. At a dinner in early 2011, Jobs told News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch that the paper textbooks could be made obsolete by the iPad. Jobs wanted to circumvent the state certification process for textbook sales by having Apple release textbooks for free on the tablet computer.

Jobs died in October after a long battle with cancer.

FOX News

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Relieved users welcome Wikipedia's return after 24-hour blackout

2012-01-20T15:14:00.001-08:00

The lights have come back on at Wikipedia, following a 24-hour blackout that affected millions of users around the world.

At midnight Wednesday ET, Wikipedia's English language website was up and running again, accompanied by the message, "Thank you for protecting Wikipedia. (We're not done yet.)"

"More than 150 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down Congress' switchboards. You melted their servers. Your voice was loud and strong. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open internet," Wikipedia said in a statement.

The return of the online free information provider was welcomed by users who took to Twitter to express their relief the blackout was over.

"Welcome back, Wikipedia," Ernie Smith wrote, while Holly Fitzpatrick tweeted, "Never knew how much I relied on wikipedia until I procrastinated on my bio essays and had to scour for other links to tell me things..."

"In 50 years our grandchildren will ask us where we were the day Wikipedia went dark," Andrew Bee said on the microblogging site.

The shutdown -- which started at midnight Tuesday ET -- was protesting two bills aimed at cracking down on online piracy, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Senate version, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

Simply put, H.R. 3261 and S. 968 would require ISPs to block access to foreign websites that infringe on copyrights. Online piracy from China and elsewhere is a massive problem for the media industry, one that costs as much as $250 billion per year and costs the industry 750,000 jobs, according to a 2008 statement by Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. But how exactly the bills would counter piracy has many up in arms.

"There are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet," Google spokeswoman Samantha Smith told FoxNews.com on Tuesday.

The draft legislation has won the backing of Hollywood, the music industry, the Business Software Alliance, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But it has come under fire from digital rights and free speech organizations for allegedly paving the way for U.S. authorities to shut down websites accused of online piracy, including foreign sites, without due process and threatening the technical architecture of the Internet.

Fox News

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YouTube film festival to send amateur filmmakers to Venice

2012-01-20T04:16:00.001-08:00

The Google Inc.-owned video site announced Thursday that Your Film Festival will take submissions of short films up to 15 minutes in length between Feb. 2 and March 31. Fifty semi-finalists will be selected by Scott Free Productions, Ridley and Tony Scott's production company.

Those 50 films will form a channel on YouTube: www.YouTube.com/yourfilmfestival. There, users will be able to view the films and vote for their favorites.

The 10 finalists will be flown to the 69th annual Venice Film Festival, where their films will be screened in August. Ridley Scott will lead a jury in selecting a winner, who will receive a $500,000 grant from YouTube to produce a work with Scott Free.

"Through this program, YouTube will give filmmakers the opportunity to reach a vast audience, screen their work during the Venice Film Festival and potentially be rewarded in a career-changing way," Robert Kyncl, global head of content at YouTube, said in a statement.

Last year, YouTube released the film Life in a Day, which was co-produced by Scott. The feature-length documentary stitched together videos submitted by YouTube users.

Though anyone can submit a film, Your Film Festival is particularly hoping to reward young filmmakers and producers. YouTube said that it will be doing outreach at both the Sundance Film Festival and South By Southwest to spur filmmakers to participate in Your Film Festival and urge them to consider YouTube a pathway to industry attention.

"Short filmmaking is exactly where I started my career 50 years ago, so to be helping new filmmakers find an entry point like this into the industry is fantastic," said Scott.

YouTube has held film contests in the past, but the global Your Film Festival is on a much larger scale. International films will have subtitles added. The only restrictions beside length are that entrants must be at least 18 years old and that the work can't have been distributed prior to Jan. 1, 2010.

The Telegraph

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Pakistani PM: President is immune from charges anywhere

2012-01-20T03:50:00.001-08:00

Pakistan's prime minister was called before the country's Supreme Court Thursday in a battle over corruption cases facing the president and other officials.

"We have the height of respect for the judiciary, but there is full immunity for the president -- not only in Pakistan, but in the entire world, too," said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

It was the latest twist in a nearly decade-long battle.

The Pakistani Supreme Court had sent Gilani a contempt notice and ordered the hearing for him to explain why he refuses to reopen lingering cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and others.

Members of the cabinet and the leaders of allied political parties joined Gilani in court Thursday.

His attorney asked for more time to look through records pertaining to the case, and the court adjourned until February 1. Gilani will not have to appear at that hearing.

Gilani's appearance Thursday came after weeks of political turbulence in Pakistan that has strained relations between the country's civilian and military leaders and fueled speculation about the possibility of a military coup.

Military and civilian leaders held meetings over the weekend in an effort to defuse tensions. And the National Assembly passed a resolution Monday supporting the country's democratic system.

The corruption cases stem from money-laundering charges against Zardari and his late wife and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. A Swiss court convicted them in absentia in 2003 of laundering millions of dollars.

After a controversial amnesty was granted in 2007 by then-President Pervez Musharraf to Zardari, Bhutto and thousands of other politicians and bureaucrats, the Pakistani government asked Swiss authorities to drop the case.

In 2009, the Pakistani Supreme Court ruled the amnesty was unconstitutional and called on the government to take steps to have the cases reopened.

The government has not done so, and the court apparently lost patience.

Since Gilani is the head of the government, the court justices view him as responsible and want him to explain why the government has not followed the court's order.

Gilani's argument Thursday that Zardari is exempt from prosecution did not appear to satisfy the judges.

The outcome of the process remains unclear.

If Gilani apologizes and convinces the court that the government will follow its orders, the court could withdraw the contempt notice.

If the court is not satisfied with Gilani's answer, it will formulate contempt charges against him and present them at a later date.

"If the court concludes that he's in contempt, then they can take action against him," said Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, a former chief justice of Pakistan. "The maximum sentence is six months in prison."

Even if he went to prison, Gilani would not necessarily lose his premiership.

Pakistani law says that after a contempt of court conviction, the court sends a notice to the speaker of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament. The speaker has 30 days to forward the notice to the Election Board, which has 90 days to decide if Gilani is disqualified as a member of Parliament and therefore disqualified as prime minister.

Aitzaz Ahsan, Gilani's lawyer, has expressed confidence his client will be cleared.

"The prime minister will survive," Ahsan said Wednesday night on GEO-TV, a Pakistani news channel. "There will be no storm."

Ahsan is one of the most prominent and widely respected lawyers in Pakistan. He led the so-called "lawyer's movement," an uprising in 2008 that helped bring about the reinstatement of the current Pakistani chief justice, Iftikhar Muahmmad Chaudhry, and dozens of other judges who were sacked by Musharraf in 2007.

Analysts said they believe Ahsan carries considerable influence in the Supreme Court because of his efforts to restore Pakistan's judiciary.

Ahsan said Gilani would appeal if convicted.

CNN

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US Navy aids another Iranian fishing boat

2012-01-19T22:15:00.001-08:00

For the third time this month, the U.S. Navy has come to the rescue of distressed Iranian fishermen -- at the same time Iran has threatened to disrupt a key oil route off its coast.

Guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey rendered aid to the crew of a sinking Iranian fishing dhow in the central Arabian Sea, according to a Navy press release.

A helicopter from the Maritime Strike Squadron 71 spotted the fishing boat Wednesday morning reportedly with one person on board.

"Our first priority was to make sure that all of the crew (of the fishing vessel) was safe," Lt. Will Jourdan, pilot of the helicopter, said in the press release.

After the the vessel had been identified, it was reported back to the Dewey's crew, who then moved in to help the fisherman who had fled the boat and boarded another.

"Once we talked with their captain, it was clear that they needed food and water," Lt. J.G. Jason Dawson, the destroyer's visit, board, search and seizer team's leader, said in the press release.

The crew then provided food, water and medical and hygienic supplies to the fisherman for more than two hours.

Dewey was in the area conducting maritime security operations as part of a scheduled deployment with the John C. Stennis Strike Group. "I am extremely proud of our John C. Stennis Strike Group Sailors for demonstrating once again their readiness to render life-saving assistance at sea," Rear Adm. Craig Faller, said in the press release.

The rescues come despite Iranian threats warning the U.S. Navy to keep its distance from the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran threatens to block if provoked over its nuclear program.

On Jan. 10, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Monomy responded to flares fired from the Iranian cargo dhow, Ya-Hussayn, which was experiencing engine troubles.

On Jan. 5, the USS Stennis Strike Group rescued 13 Iranian fisherman held hostage by pirates in the North Arabian Sea.

Fox News

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IRS keeps mileage reimbursement rate at near-historic high

2012-01-19T11:21:00.001-08:00

Finally, an upside to high gas prices, though perhaps not for the government's coffers.

The IRS has announced that it will keep its mileage reimbursement rate at 55.5 cents a mile, at least for now, after initially approving the increase last summer.

The rate, which has been north of 50 cents a mile since 2008, was raised in June in response to the spike in gas prices. The result is a rate that continues to be worth far more than the actual cost of gasoline.

Take, for instance, the gas costs for a new Honda Accord. With its 27-miles-per-gallon fuel economy, it costs roughly 12.5 cents per mile to drive. Yet businesses that use the IRS rate, as many do, can reimburse their employees 55.5 cents per mile -- an expense that is tax deductible.

That represents a near-term windfall for the average driver. While the average gallon of gas costs $3.38, the IRS rate would allow the Accord driver to reap nearly $15 in return for every gallon.

What gives?

The IRS, which calculates the rate, isn't just factoring in fuel costs. Depreciation and other factors play a role in determining the reimbursement rate.

"While gasoline is a significant factor in the mileage figure, other items enter into the calculation of mileage rates, such as depreciation and insurance and other fixed and variable costs," IRS spokeswoman Sara Eguren said in an email.

The estimated depreciation cost in 2012 is 23 cents a mile, according to the group Small Business Taxes and Management. That still brings the cost of gas and depreciation to just over 35 cents a mile.

According to the latest government notice, federal workers who use their own cars are still operating under the older rate of 51 cents a mile. But for every gallon of gas those workers buy, they're still making a roughly $10 profit, courtesy of the government.

The IRS rate reached a high in late 2008, at 58.5 cents a mile.

Fox News

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Wikipedia Sopa blackout won't solve the problem

2012-01-19T07:10:00.001-08:00

Today Wikipedia has shut down for 24 hours as part of a now highly public protest against proposed internet piracy laws in the US.

The likes of Google and Craigslist then added their voices to the dissent with the search giant opting to blackout its logo on its US site and the popular online classifieds service suspending its American operation for a day.

Hundreds of other websites, including Reddit, WordPress and Flickr, have also joined the protest against two proposed pieces of legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

Sopa and Pipa are attempts to deal with the problem of online filesharing by granting authorities powers to close down websites that are making material, such as films, music and television programmes, available without the permission of the rights holder.

Following a complaint by a rights holder, these acts would allow website domains to be seized. If the website in question is not a US site or is not hosted in the US, then supporters of the bills want the power to force US search engines to remove links to the website and for US payment networks and advertisers to stop doing business with the site.

The protest is the result of a stand-off between the technology industry and the entertainment business.

On one side there is the likes of Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s co-founder, arguing the acts would “seriously damage the free and open internet” and breach America's First Amendment.

He defended the global blackout to The Telegraph, saying: “The general sentiment seemed to be that US law, as it impacts the internet, can affect everyone.

“I hope we send a broad global message that the internet as a whole will not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement.”

On the other hand there are senior figures in the entertainment industry, who are pushing for the legislation, dismissing the web strikes and defending Sopa. On Twitter earlier this week, News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch, an ardent supporter of Sopa, equated copying a film with publishing pornography and hate speech.

While Chris Dodd, the chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a statement about Wikipedia’s actions: "A so-called 'blackout' is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals."

Only extremists are defending those websites which only to provide illegal downloads of pirated material. However, critics of the bills feel that rights holders are not sufficiently concerned about protecting innocent people from having their websites blocked.

An article in the Stanford Law Review last month described the bills as "an unprecedented, legally sanctioned assault on the internet’s critical technical infrastructure".

The two sides will have to focus on creating a proper and fair process by which criminal websites are appropriately policed, while ensuring adequate protection for those who are wrongly or unfairly accused.

Sopa has been halted, at least temporarily, following opposition from the White House, while Pipa is still under consideration by the US Senate.

The issue is clearly not going away with neither side looking likely to back down. The global blackout of the digital world’s encyclopaedia, has drawn a bold line in the sand which technology executives now need to cross in order to meet entertainment chiefs back at the negotiating table.

The Telegraph

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Gunmen killed local Iraqi leader, his 3 sons

2012-01-19T06:41:00.001-08:00

Gunmen stormed a home in a small town south of Baghdad early Wednesday, killing a local leader and three of his sons, police said.

Sabbar Mohammed, the leader of Al-Boasaj, was fatally shot while he was sleeping, according to police.

The attackers wounded a fourth son, who is a member of the local Awakening Council.

Awakening Councils, also known as the Sons of Iraq, mainly comprise Sunni Arab fighters who turned against al Qaeda in late 2006. The U.S.-backed movement is credited as among the main factors that contributed to a drop in violence.

Council members have become targets for jihadists.

Over the past two weeks, hundreds of Iraqis have been killed and wounded in violence across the country, raising concerns about the ability of security forces to do their job.

Despite a decrease in overall violence in Iraq, it still touches Iraqis almost every day. Ordinary Iraqis say the violence is largely sectarian, with the once-dominant Sunni Muslims believing Shiites are responsible, and the majority Shiites blaming Sunni insurgents.

The violence comes as Iraq's Council of Ministers decided to ban members who are boycotting Cabinet meetings, a government spokesman said Tuesday night.

The banned ministers will not be allowed to manage their ministries, according to spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

Last month, the Sunni-backed Iraqiya party announced it would boycott Parliament and Cabinet meetings, saying Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, was cutting it out of the decision-making process.

Iraqiya spokeswoman Maysoun Damluji said the Iraqiya bloc is not surprised by the prime minister's move, calling it unconstitutional and illegal.

She said it has become obvious that al-Maliki is not interested in sharing power.

But Iraq's political crisis deepened last year when a warrant was issued for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is accused of organizing his security detail into a death squad that targeted government and military officials.

Al-Hashimi has denied the charges, saying the accusations are politically motivated amid the rivalry between his political bloc and al-Maliki's Shiite majority bloc.

Two weeks ago, Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, called for a "national conference" to address the political crisis, which many fear could lead to further violence.

CNN

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More accustomed to rain, Seattle braces for snow

2012-01-18T21:08:00.001-08:00

Seattle, a city more accustomed to rain than snow, prepared Tuesday for a potentially major snowstorm to hit as the city's mayor urged residents to stay off roads.

Many school districts in the western part of the state, including Seattle, canceled classes for Wednesday, when the area was expected to get several more inches of snow.

Snow has been falling steadily in parts of western Washington and Oregon since the weekend, but National Weather Service meteorologists said the biggest amounts could come on Wednesday. The new round of snow was expected to start falling just before the morning rush hour in the Seattle area, meteorologist Doug McDonnal said.

"Wednesday is going to be a good day to stay at home," said Brad Colman, another Weather Service meteorologist in Seattle. "The road is going to be treacherous."

The Seattle metropolitan area could get 3 to 5 inches of snow, with 3 to 6 inches in the Olympia area and 1 to 2 inches north of Seattle. The Cascade Mountains could see 1 to 3 feet of new snow through late Wednesday.

If the past is any hint, even several inches of snow has the potential to paralyze the city of Seattle. The city owns relatively few snowplows, and Seattle drivers are mostly inexperienced with driving in snow or ice.

Crews were salting and sanding streets, some local agencies prepared to open emergency shelters and commuters made plans to stay at home. Officials warned of high avalanche danger in the Cascades.

Bec Thomas, who lives Camano Island north of Seattle, was hunkering down. She stocked up on bottled water and food. While her children built snowmen, made snow angels and sledded in nearly a foot of fresh snow, she made food that could be reheated on her woodstove.

The last snowstorm knocked out her power for a week.

"We take it very seriously," said Thomas, a fine arts photographer. "We'll probably be snowed in until Thursday."

John Lee, a graphic designer who lives in Mill Creek north of Seattle, decided to work from home Tuesday when he looked out his window and saw several inches of snow on the ground and more falling.

"Snow is beautiful to look at but it's kind of a hindrance for us to work and commute," said Lee, 23, who works in Seattle. "This is the first snow we've seen all season, so it's a bit exciting in that way. I hope it doesn't escalate to something bigger."

The weather service issued a winter storm warning from Tuesday night to Wednesday night for much of Western Washington. A storm warning was also issued for much of eastern Washington from early Wednesday to Thursday night.

Snow from the new storm was expected to start falling first on the Washington coast, where conditions will also be windy.

Forecasters predicted that about 6 inches of snow could fall on Spokane by Wednesday with several more inches falling Thursday. The Pullman area could see as much as 12 inches of new snow by Wednesday night.

Washington state troopers advised motorists to plan ahead and be prepared.

"The No. 1 thing is to drive for the road conditions," Trooper Keith Leary said. "People need to slow down, take their time. If they're not prepared, don't get out on the roadways."

In Oregon, log trucks spun out on ice, school districts closed bus routes and colleges cancelled early classes. The amount of actual snowfall varied across the state, but traffic accidents and clogged roadways were the norm across a northern strip of the state that extended from the coast to the Cascades and included the northern lowlands in the Willamette Valley.

Snow has steadily been falling in Olympia since Sunday, and large snowflakes continued to fall Tuesday with several inches on the ground at the Capitol.

In Portland, the city was still stinging from the fallout of a 2008 winter snowstorm that caused major traffic backups and public transportation delays.

This year, the city's Bureau of Transportation spread a de-icing solution over major roadways. The solution, calcium magnesium acetate, is considered less toxic and non-corrosive.

Portland does not use rock salt to prevent ice.

"We're not expecting huge accumulations of snow," said Bureau of Transportation spokeswoman Cheryl Kuck. "But we're ready for anything."

Snow on Tuesday canceled or delayed classes in many school districts in the region. Seattle Public Schools, the state's largest school district, closed schools two hours early on Tuesday.

Fox News

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Syria's Religious Minorities Wary of Uprising

2012-01-18T18:36:00.001-08:00

As pressures mount on the Syrian government, those at the center of power are working hard to keep whatever allies they have close at hand. Those so far seem to include many of the nation's religious minorities.

Syrian religious leaders put on a show of solidarity for Arab League peace mission monitors, highlighting the country's long history of tolerance among disparate beliefs.

At a meeting in the capital Tuesday, the Mufti of Damascus, Abdel Bari Atwan, said Muslims, Christians and all other sects are "united 'as one hand.'" There is no bias, he added, since "we are all under the protection of the homeland."

The deputy of the Roman Catholic patriarchate, Bishop Louka el Khoury, agreed, saying the tolerance practiced in Syria takes a special place in the world.

When Muslims first came to Syria, el Khoury said Christians did not fight them, and the two have been living together as brothers every since.

Both men blamed the unrest on people not following the path of religion.

Arab League monitor Jafaar Kubaida, who noted the neutrality of the mission, said he has experienced first hand the divide religion can pose in his homeland, Sudan.

He added that Syria should thank God that it is not that way here.

But there are signs that a tradition of tolerance is under stress. Opposition forces include religious minorities, but in sheer numbers are dominated by Sunnis, who make up three-quarters of the population.

Many Sunnis are rebelling not only against the heavy hand of the state, but also the 40-year rule of the Alawite Assad family and the prominent positions given to members of the minority Shia offshoot.

The Alawites have long counted on Syria's other minorities for support, including Christian groups and Druze, in turn guaranteeing them religious freedom and protection as well as high-profile government jobs.

Support for the government can be heard on the streets of the Christian Bab Touma district of Old Damascus, and not necessarily because a government minder is present.

Outside the Mariamea church, Orthodox Catholic Bishop Tony Phillipos Yazji echoes the statements of other Christian leaders.

Yazji says the church always supports peaceful demonstrations and reform. But he condemns the violence as a destruction of the country carried out by paid agents.

Part of the support heard among some Christians and Druze may reflect not so much support of the government, but concern about what might replace the current regime.

They have seen the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists in post-revolution Tunisia and Egypt, and attacks on Coptic Christians in Cairo. There is also the specter of Iraq, where Christians fled persecution in the chaos following the U.S.-led invasion, many to Syria.

The government has played up the idea of its opponents as extremists. But reprisal attacks on Alawites in cities like Homs and Hama have added to the real fears of all minorities.

VOA News

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Italian Coast Guard: Captain Refused Orders to Return to Cruise Ship

2012-01-18T18:14:00.001-08:00

An audio recording of an angry exchange between the Italian Coast Guard and the captain of a capsized cruise ship reveals that the captain refused orders to get back on his stricken boat.

Coast Guard Captain Gregory De Falco demanded that Captain Francesco Schettino use a ladder to climb back onto the damaged Costa Concordia and report how many people were still on board.

But Schettino responded that he was not going anywhere, complaining that it was too dark on the boat. He said he was coordinating the rescue from a lifeboat. A furious Captain De Falco bellowed that he was now in charge and he ordered Schettino back on the boat - warning him that he was "going to pay" for his actions.

A judge released Schettino from jail Tuesday and placed him under house arrest. He faces charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship before all the passengers were rescued.

The Costa Concordia hit rocks and capsized off the coast of northern Italy late Friday. At least 11 people were killed and 24 are still missing. The ship's owners blame the accident on the captain's errors.

The owners say he steered too close to shore and made decisions during the emergency that did not follow company procedures, which are based on international standards.

Officials say that when the ship hit the rocks, passengers were ordered to put on life jackets and to board life rafts. However, passengers say the ship tilted so sharply and quickly that many lifeboats could not be lowered into the water.

VOA News

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Rare Mars rocks fell in Africa

2012-01-18T06:02:00.001-08:00

Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars: meteorite chunks from the red planet that fell in Morocco last July.

This is only the fifth time scientists have confirmed chemically Martian meteorites that people witnessed as they fell. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks were not discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December.

This is an important and unique opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars' potential for life. So far, no NASA or Russian spacecraft has returned bits of Mars, so the only Martian samples scientists can examine are those that come here in meteorite showers.

Scientists and collectors of meteorites are ecstatic, and already the rocks are fetching big money because they are among the rarest things on Earth, rarer even than gold.

A special committee of meteorite experts, including some NASA scientists, confirmed the test results Tuesday. They certified that 15 pounds (7 kilograms) of meteorite recently collected came from Mars. The biggest rock weighs more than 2 pounds (1 kilogram).

Astronomers think millions of years ago something big smashed into Mars and sent rocks hurtling through the solar system. After a long journey through space, one of those rocks plunged through Earth's atmosphere, splitting into smaller pieces.

Most other Martian meteorite samples sat around on Earth for millions of years, or at the very least for decades, before they were discovered, which makes them tainted with Earth materials and life. These new rocks, while still probably contaminated because they have been on Earth for months, are purer.

The last time a Martian meteorite fell and was found fresh was in 1962. All the known Martian rocks on Earth add up to less than 240 pounds (110 kilograms).

The new samples were scooped up by dealers from those who found them. Even before the official certification, scientists at NASA, museums and universities scrambled to buy or trade these meteorites.

"It's a free sample from Mars. That's what these are, except you have to pay the dealers for it," said University of Alberta meteorite expert Chris Herd, who heads the committee that certified the discovery.

He already has bought a chunk of meteorite and said he was thrilled just to hold it, calling the rock "really spectacular."

One of the crucial decisions the scientists made Tuesday was to connect these rocks officially to the fiery plunge witnessed by people and captured on video last summer. The announcement and the naming of these meteorites -- called Tissint -- came from the International Society for Meteoritics and Planetary Science, which is the official group of 950 scientists that confirms and names meteorites.

Meteorite dealer Darryl Pitt, who sold a chunk to Herd, said he charges $11,000 to $22,500 an ounce and has sold most of his supply already. At that price, the new Martian rock costs about 10 times more than gold.

"It's scientifically invaluable," Herd said. "These are really beautiful specimens. It's a rare type, so fresh and aesthetically pleasing."

Several of the world's top experts in meteorites, including those who work for NASA, told The Associated Press that they were sure this was a piece of Mars. Tony Irving of the University of Washington is the scientist who did the scientific analysis on the rocks and said there is no doubt that they are from the red planet.

Scientists can tell when meteorites are from Mars because they know what the Martian atmosphere is made of, thanks to numerous probes sent there. The chemical signature of the rocks and the Martian air match, Irving said. Another clue is that because planets like Mars are more geologically active, its rocks tend to be much younger -- millions of years old instead of hundreds of millions or more -- than those from the moon or asteroids.

Most of the Martian rocks on Earth have been around for centuries or longer and have been found in Antarctica or the desert. They look so similar to dark Earth rocks that if they fell in other places, such as Maryland, they would blend right in and never be discovered, Irving said.

Jeff Grossman, a NASA scientist who is the Meteoritical Society's database editor, said there is a higher probability of finding "something interesting" from Mars on these rocks because they fell so recently. However, six months is a long time for Earthly contamination to take root, he said.

Herd said the first thing he would do with the rocks would be to rinse them with solvents to try to get rid of earthly contamination and see what carbon-based compounds are left.

A Martian meteorite that was buried in Antarctica made news in 1996. NASA scientists theorized that the rock, found in 1984, showed signs of traces of life from Mars, fossils of what seemed to be lifelong forms. Even the White House made an announcement about it as the first sign of life outside of Earth. Years of study since then have led much of the astronomy world to conclude that there was not enough evidence to support the claim.

Because known Martian meteorite falls happen only once every 50 years or so -- 1815 in France, 1865 in India, 1911 in Egypt and 1962 in Nigeria -- this is a once-in-a-career or even one-in-a-lifetime event.

"It's incredibly fresh. It's highly valuable for that reason," said Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics and curator at the University of New Mexico. "For someone who knows their Martian, this is a beauty. It's gorgeous."

Fox News

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US Senators Support Philippines in S. China Sea Dispute

2012-01-18T05:58:00.001-08:00

Four U.S. senators visiting Manila have been discussing the South China Sea territorial dispute and touting their support for the Philippines.

Arizona Senator John McCain reiterated the U.S. stance that there is no need to have any sort of confrontation with China over issues related to the South China Sea. But he also said it is important to strengthen U.S. ties with Manila.

"We think that it's important for us and other ASEAN nations as well as the Philippines to emphasize that we will do whatever we need to do in order to protect the principle of freedom of navigation, particularly in the West Philippine Sea," McCain said.

McCain and the other senators used the preferred local name when referring to the disputed sea, which has some of the world's most heavily traveled sea lanes. The region is believed to have vast oil and gas reserves and also provides abundant fishing. China says it owns practically the entire sea based on a centuries-old map. But the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims to part or all of the sea.

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He says keeping peace and order means always being ready for war.

"China has made claims over the West Philippine Sea - the South China Sea - that I don't accept and I know the Philippine government doesn't accept," said Lieberman. "The question is how do we reconcile those differences? I think we have a better chance of reconciling them peacefully, as Senator McCain says, if we both strengthen the Philippine military and we continue, and I hope even expand, our presence here on the waters here."

Lieberman pointed to the installation in the Philippines in August of a used American Hamilton-class cutter that is now the country's largest military ship. The Philippines is expected to take possession of another one this year and two more in the future. The BRP Gregorio del Pilar patrols waters along a natural gas drilling project in the South China Sea.

China has expressed displeasure numerous times about U.S. input on the disputes in the South China Sea, such as vocal support for multilateral talks among claimant countries. China continues to emphasize one-on-one talks with each party.

Earlier this month, the Philippines protested what it calls intrusions in mid-December by Chinese vessels and a military ship into waters it says were well within the country's exclusive economic zone. The United Nations designates an exclusive economic zone as a 370 kilometer area beyond a country's coastline. China called the protest baseless.

Last year, the Philippines cited about nine instances of alleged Chinese intrusions into its waters. One allegation accused Chinese boats of harassing an oil exploration ship. China has repeatedly said there were no intrusions.

VOA News

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Stress divides the genders

2012-01-18T05:31:00.001-08:00

Stressed women know it, live it and spend time trying to do something about it. Stressed men, not so much.

That may well be the perception — that women are more aware of feelings than men — and in the wake of new survey results released this week, numbers support the stereotype.

The American Psychological Association's annual Stress in America survey finds that women historically have reported higher levels of stress than men and did so again in 2011. Over the past year, on a 1-10 scale of little-to-no stress to a great deal of stress, women report stress at a level of 5.4 and men at 4.8. But the gender divide is more pronounced when it comes to dealing with the stress or even wanting to own up to it.

"I honestly think women are more attuned to it," says Pat Chang, 66, of Indianapolis, who was among those surveyed. "I don't think they really feel it more, but men bottle things up more and are less likely to express their real feelings."

Stress happens when people perceive that the demands they face — work, school or relationships — exceed their ability to cope, say experts with the psychological association. At times, some stress can be beneficial because it produces a boost that can fuel the drive and energy to get through tough situations, such as exams or work deadlines.

But an extreme amount of stress can be harmful to health. In addition to the emotional toll, untreated chronic stress can result in anxiety, insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure and a weakened immune system. Research shows that stress can contribute to the development of major illnesses, such as heart disease, depression and obesity.

Men report being less concerned about managing stress and are more likely to say they are doing enough about it, while women think it's more important to manage stress and believe they aren't doing a good job of it, the survey finds.

"Men don't place as much value on stress management as women. They don't feel it impacts their health as much as women," says clinical psychologist Norman Anderson, the APA's chief executive officer. "Consequently, they're not doing the things to help them manage it as well."

"We know from many, many studies that social support is very, very beneficial for health, cardiovascular health and longevity," says Mara Mather, a professor of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who studies stress and health. "It could be that under stress, women engage in strategies that are more beneficial for health than men do."

Anderson says women have been found to be more comfortable reporting stress. But he also says it's possible that women just have more stress in their lives. "In terms of certain societal issues — gender discrimination, sexual abuse, traumas — women experience them to a greater degree," he says. "It may be true women are experiencing more stressful events and more of the things that lead to stress."

More women than men use stress-busting strategies such as reading, exercising or being with friends and family.

Exercise is a stress reducer, says John Bartholomew, a professor of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas-Austin. "The data are quite clear that almost any type of exercise will be sufficient to reduce feelings of anxiety and tension," he says. "Every form of physical activity has been demonstrated to produce a reduction in feelings of anxiety and negative moods."

What's new is that his research has found exercise also can reduce future stress. "The data suggest that people who exercise in the morning, for example, will have less of an increase in blood pressure and less of a feeling of stress if they are in a traffic jam on their way to work," Bartholomew says.

But to get what he calls an "inoculation effect" for later stress, the activity has to be either "high-intensity" or "long-duration," such as a hard run for 20 minutes or a 45-minute walk. That, he says, will have an effect for up to two hours.

His research also finds that "people who are dedicated exercisers exercise more under stress and those who are more infrequent exercisers exercise even less when they're experiencing stress."

Chang says she walks three times a week, does volunteer work and tries to focus on the positive. Her hobbies include photography, weaving and gardening. "I'm out in the yard even in the winter," she says.

Despite the gender differences in stress management, the survey found that both sexes report being generally satisfied with their lives and almost equal levels of life satisfaction. They also report similar concern over their financial outlook; only 45% of men and 44% of women say they're satisfied with their financial security.

Howard Hemsley, 73, who also took the survey, says he hasn't saved enough for retirement. "The reason I'm driving a cab is because I was unable to find employment after having been laid off almost three years ago."

Hemsley, a former legal word processor at a law firm, drives 12-hour shifts in Manhattan. He tries to think positively to cope with stress. "I listen to music and read," he says. "Before I started driving, I went to the gym two or three times a week, but I had to cancel the gym membership."

Despite the stress, Chang says, people just have to "keep going. Some things we can help, and some we can't."

USA Today

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Syrian official defects, says regime will fight at all costs

2012-01-18T00:57:00.001-08:00

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will fight at all costs to crush the revolt seeking his ouster, a member of the Syrian Parliament who defected to Egypt said Tuesday.

"There is an open budget allocated to the crackdown on the popular uprising and revolution," said Imad Ghalioun, who was a member of Parliament from the embattled city of Homs before he escaped to Egypt.

"There is no budget for the country but only money to serve the regime's security forces and its 'ghost hit men,'" he said, making a reference to snipers.

The uprising, which is seeking al-Assad's resignation, reforms and democratic elections, is in its tenth month. It has prompted a bloody government crackdown that has claimed at least 5,000 lives since in began in March, according to the United Nations. Opposition groups put the toll at more than 6,000.

At least 30 people were killed across Syria on Tuesday, including four soldiers who defected and two children, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees. The majority of the deaths were in the restive city of Homs, where 18 were killed, according to the group. Seven others were killed in Idlib. In addition, two people died near Damascus, and one person each in Khan Sheikhon, Daraa and Sahl Al-Ghab, the group said.

The ongoing violence has sparked calls by Qatar's ruler to send Arab troops into Syria, a move the al-Assad regime warned against Tuesday.

Citing an official source in the Foreign Ministry, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency said the government would "confront any attempt to undermine Syria's sovereignty."

Al-Assad, who has characterized the anti-government protesters as "armed gangs," has said his security forces are battling terrorists intent on targeting civilians and fomenting unrest.

But much of the international community holds al-Assad's regime responsible for killing dissidents.

"I say again to President Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said over the weekend. "The path of repression is a dead end."

On Tuesday, CNN went with a group of Arab League monitors to the restive town of Kisweh, where security was tight. Protesters besieged the group with complaints of government brutality.

One demonstrator sprayed the letters S.O.S. on the wall with paint.

Although a number of journalists have been allowed into the country in recent days to travel with Arab League monitors on a fact-finding mission, CNN cannot verify many accounts of what is happening in Syria because the government restricts the activities of journalists.

But Ghalioun, the highest-ranking Syrian official to defect, said the reports of bloodshed by pro-government forces are true. He said Homs is a "ghost town full of horror."

"The humanitarian situation is dangerous ... no basic services, food supplies, or equipped hospitals. Residents cannot move from (one) neighborhood to the other because of snipers that kill people."

Ghalioun said opposition forces need weapons and the enforcement of a no-fly zone by Western powers to take down al-Assad's regime.

"I tell them to go back to your humanitarian values," Ghalioun said. "Build on democracy. And I ask them to help us stop the killing and reach our own true democracy."

CNN

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Five million 'second tablets' to be bought in 2012

2012-01-17T18:55:00.001-08:00

According to the annual predictions for technology industry by Deloitte, more and more people are going to own more than one tablet device. Despite the first major successful tablet, Apple’s iPad, having only gone on sale in 2010, the trend for tablet-style computers is set to continue and grow.

Jolyon Barker, global lead for Deloitte's Technology, Media and Telecommunications department, said: “The tablet explosion has shown little sign of slowing down since hitting the market in 2010 and is set to take the mantle of the most rapid multiple market penetration in history.

“Around five million tablets will be sold to people who already own one in 2012, generating up to £1.3 billion in revenue for technology businesses. It is worth remembering that it took several decades after introduction for more than five percent of households to have more than one car, phone, radio or TV.”

Sony, Samsung and Asus are all releasing updates to their respective tablet models this year – in a bid to gain ground on Apple’s iPad, the current market leader.

The report also states that company tablet devices will need to have greater security features. The rise of the ‘multi-tablet household’ could present a challenge for content owners, network operators and retailers.

Deloitte’s media and technology team have also predicted that in 2012 the total number of apps available from all application stores will exceed two million. Last year, the size of the apps market more than doubled in 2011, reaching one million apps in December.

The Telegraph

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FBI seeks land owners' help finding Montana teacher's body, as details emerge on suspects

2012-01-17T18:24:00.001-08:00

Authorities renewed calls Monday for landowners near the northern North Dakota-Montana border to look for signs of a missing Montana teacher's buried body, while documents revealed one of the two suspects in her disappearance has spent time in prison.

At a news conference Monday, authorities asked that "landowners and landowners only" help look for the body of 43-year-old Sherry Arnold, a math teacher from Sidney, Mont., who has been missing since Jan. 7 and is presumed dead.

"We don't want the public out there running around in the countryside," Williston Police Chief Jim Lokken said. "The landowners know their land and their property. If they see anything that has been disturbed, we want them to check it out."

Authorities said little of the two men believed to be involved in Arnold's disappearance: 47-year-old Lester Vann Waters Jr. and 22-year-old Michael Keith Spell, both of Parachute, Colo.

Waters was arrested in Williston, and Spell was arrested in Rapid, City, S.D., The Billings Gazette reported.

The two are being held on aggravated kidnapping charges in the Williams County jail pending extradition to Montana, the newspaper reported.

Prison records in Florida show Waters has a criminal history in that state and has served prison time. Florida records show Waters has felony convictions for driving without a valid license and leaving the scene of an injury crash. He also served time for a weapons offense, and records show he has used numerous aliases.

Waters was released from a minimum-security corrections facility in August 2010, after serving about 18 months. He also was incarcerated between September 2002 and December 2003, and again between August 2007 and March 2008.

Court records show Spell was arrested in Colorado in May 2007 on state charges of drug possession, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and sexual contact without consent -- but the charges were dropped five months later. The records do not say why the charges were dismissed.

Spell also faced charges of careless driving and driving without a license in 2007, but that case also was dropped.

Investigators offered few new details on the investigation Monday, a day after the FBI issued a statement suggesting Arnold's body might be buried in a shelter belt, or line of trees that protects farmland from the region's strong winds.

The agency put out a call to property owners in far northeastern Montana and in the North Dakota counties of Williams, McKenzie, Mountrail and in southern Divide County. It asked that they check vacant farmsteads for signs of disturbed soil or matted grass, especially in areas with lines of mature or rotted trees that serve as windbreaks.

Landowners who discover something unusual should not disturb the area, but call authorities, the FBI said.

Williams County Sheriff Scott Busching said the two suspects have made court appearances or are in the process. However, the closure of court offices for the weekend and the holiday Monday have confounded efforts to track legal documents filed in their cases. Busching said it's up to prosecutors to determine whether charges will be filed at the state or federal level.

"A lot of this will come out of the prosecution phase," Busching said. "We want to get Mrs. Arnold back to her family. We are not going to put anything out there that will even remotely hinder those efforts."

The Williams County Correctional Facility is about 46 miles from Sidney, where officials say Arnold disappeared while on an early-morning run along a truck route on the edge of the oil boom town of more than 5,500 residents.

Sidney school officials posted a statement online Friday saying they learned of Arnold's death that day. The statement provided no details.

In the days after Arnold disappeared, hundreds of residents, police, firefighters and others combed the town and surrounding countryside without success. The only clue that has been publicly released was that one of Arnold's shoes was found along her running route.

Arnold and her husband, Gary Arnold, have five children combined from prior marriages. Two live at home and attend the same school system where Sherry Arnold worked for the past 18 years.

Fox News

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Markets Calm After European Credit Downgrades

2012-01-17T16:45:00.001-08:00

European markets reacted nonchalantly Monday after credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded nine countries, including France and Austria, late Friday. The widely followed agency also reduced the ratings of Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as Cyprus, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

Far from the sharp drop some had expected, Europe’s major market indexes stayed close to their Friday closing levels for much of the day, finally closing up slightly. The main stock price averages in Germany and Britain were both up - the German by more than one percent. Even in France, which suffered the small downgrade from its top credit rating Friday, the market was up nearly a full percentage point.

Economist Zsolt Darvas at the Bruegel Institute in Brussels said despite Friday’s big news from Standard & Poor’s, Monday’s market calm did not shock him.

“I think this is not that surprising. Basically, what happened is something that S&P initially has initially indicated, it has been decided. I think markets have anticipated,” said Darvas.

Darvas noted that bond markets also were relatively calm Monday, even though France and the other downgraded countries will have to pay higher interest rates on their bonds. France had no trouble selling 8.5 billion euros worth of short-term bonds. The French president noted his country still enjoys the highest rating from the two other major credit agencies.

Currency markets were somewhat more volatile, with the euro losing a quarter of a percentage point against the dollar. But Darvis is not concerned, saying the euro’s value has been unjustifiably high in recent months.

“What happened in the past few days and during last week is that the euro became less over-valued than it was before. So I think that nothing wrong has happened to the euro so far,” said Darvas.

Although the credit downgrades did not have a big impact on the markets Monday, they do provide further warning signs for the economic state of Europe.

The credit crisis is spreading beyond over-indebted countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland to more solid economies like France and Austria. Darvas said that means the situation European leaders were trying to avoid is now more likely.

“I think it is increasingly likely that the euro zone will face a recession this year. It will be very, very difficult to avoid it,” said Darvas.

Darvas and other experts say European leaders need to do more to support the troubled economies and promote economic growth - subjects that will be high on the agenda at the next European Union summit at the end of this month.

VOA News

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Pakistan Supreme Court orders PM to face contempt hearing

2012-01-17T16:20:00.001-08:00

Pakistan's Supreme Court has ordered Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to face a contempt of court hearing this week, officials said, setting up a potential showdown between the nation's judicial and political leaders.

The Pakistani leader responded Monday night by saying he has "always respected the courts, and I will present before the court." At the same time, he pushed back against the military and the judiciary branch in the name of "democracy."

"The army and the judiciary, they both have to protect democracy in Pakistan," Gilani said in a televised speech Monday night. "They can't remove democracy. They can't pack up the system."

The notice was issued for the government's failure to reopen thousands of corruption cases against politicians and bureaucrats, including President Asif Ali Zardari.

"Ultimately it's the prime minister who is responsible for carrying out the court's order and he has not. I think the court has lost its patience," said Ahmad Bilal Mehboob, the head of the Islamabad-based political think tank the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency.

The court has not found Gilani in contempt or convicted him of a crime. But if he is convicted, the court could disqualify Gilani as a member of Parliament, which would make him ineligible to be prime minister, Mehboob said.

The court ordered Gilani to appear in person before the court Thursday, where he will have an opportunity to defend himself.

Even before Gilani's speech, Pakistan's government said the prime minister would comply with the order.

"The history of our party is filled with sacrifices, and we are ready for it again. We have accepted all of the court's decisions," Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said.

It will likely "take a while" before the court rules, Mehboob said.

News of the notice of contempt came hours before Pakistani lawmakers voted Monday on a resolution supporting the country's democratic system after weeks of public speculation and political intrigue about the possibility of a coup in the volatile nation.

That resolution supporting "the democratic system" and parliament was passed, Gilani said in his speech Monday night.

At the same time, a panel appointed by the Supreme Court is holding a hearing on a scandal over an anonymous memo that has severely strained relations between military and civilian authorities.

The controversial, unsigned memo was allegedly drafted by the civilian leadership and asked the United States to help rein in the military.

The so-called "memogate" scandal has unleashed waves of political intrigue in recent weeks. Local media have described a government on a collision course with its own army.

Last month, Gilani spoke provocatively of plots to topple the government. Later, he accepted an army statement pledging support for the democratic process.

Last week, tensions spiked after he fired his defense secretary. The move came after Pakistan's military issued a statement warning of "grievous consequences" after a Gilani interview in The People's Daily Online of China. In it, the military said, Gilani accused the army's chief of staff and the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency of violating the constitution.

Leaders appeared to be making an effort to ease tensions over the weekend, with several high-profile meetings between civilian and military officials.

Government officials and members of Gilani's Pakistan Peoples Party defended the prime minister Monday.

"The prime minister is not in jeopardy," said Seyed Abid Ali Shah, a lawmaker representing the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Federal Law Minister Maula Bakhsh Chandio told reporters in Islamabad that Gilani would remain in his post.

"All the conspiracies against the government will fail and all the analysis will prove incorrect," he said.

CNN

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Hackers zap Zappos: Info from 24 million users stolen

2012-01-17T08:58:00.001-08:00

Popular online shoe retailer Zappos.com said late Sunday that hackers had accessed its network, stealing customer account information from as many as 24 million customers.

Credit card information was not stolen, company CEO Tony Hsieh said in a statement sent to users, but email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers, the last four digits from credit cards -- and more -- may have been compromised.

"We were recently the victim of a cyberattack by a criminal who gained access to parts of our internal network and systems through one of our servers in Kentucky," reads a statement posted on the company's blog. "We are cooperating with law enforcement to undergo an exhaustive investigation."

The company stressed that credit cards were not affected, and that it has already reset the passwords for existing customers to prevent abuse of the stolen data.

But users could still be at risk, security experts warn.

"This event offers a teachable moment for almost anyone does online transactions," said Ira Victor, a computer forensics and information analyst with Data Clone Labs.

"Many online shoppers use the same password for multiple sites. This means the Amazon or Facebook password maybe the same as the banking password, and the password for workplace email."

"Cybercriminals know that password reuse is very common," Victor said.

A special page on the Zappos website has been created to facilitate password changes for users: zappos.com/passwordchange.

The company is well regarded for its customer service; Hsieh expressed concerns that the security breach might affect the time spent burnishing the company's image.

"We've spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers. It's painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident," he wrote.

Fox News

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Huntsman to Drop Out of Republican Race for US President

2012-01-17T03:28:00.001-08:00

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is one step closer to securing the U.S. Republican Party nomination for president after news broke late Sunday that former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman plans to drop out of the race and endorse his rival.

The news came hours after the southern state of South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, endorsed Huntsman's candidacy.

Officials with Huntsman's campaign told media outlets the formal announcement will come late Monday morning. A campaign spokesman said Huntsman "did not want to stand in the way" of Romney - a fellow Mormon who is considered a moderate conservative - on his way to challenge the Democratic incumbent, President Barack Obama.

Huntsman had decided against competing in the first state to vote - Iowa in the Midwest - and instead focus most of his campaign resources on the second contest in the northeastern state of New Hampshire. However, he placed third in that primary, behind Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

It is now a five-way race among Romney, Paul, conservative Rick Santorum, former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry for the Republican nomination.

Romney heads into South Carolina's January 21 primary, not only with momentum from his two first-place finishes, but also with the endorsement of the state's Republican governor, Nikki Haley, a favorite of the conservative, grassroots Tea Party movement.

The candidates have a televised debate Monday night.

VOA News

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Source: Jon Huntsman to drop out of presidential race

2012-01-16T21:44:00.001-08:00

Republican candidate Jon Huntsman will drop out of the presidential race on Monday and endorse front-runner Mitt Romney, a senior official with the former Utah governor's campaign told CNN.

Huntsman finished third in last week's New Hampshire primary, a state in which he had staked his entire campaign, behind Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

"Governor Huntsman did not want to stand in the way of the candidate best prepared to beat Barack Obama and turn our economy around. That's Mitt Romney," the official said.

The former governor and U.S. ambassador to China made headlines when he decided to take his campaign to compete in the South Carolina primary, where he struggled to build support.

An American Research Group poll released Friday showed Huntsman with just 1% of likely GOP primary voters in the state.

"Jon Huntsman made a basic calculation here, let's be honest. If you look at the polling, he's doing miserable in South Carolina. He's not going to win the state next Saturday and so if he wants to run in 2016 ... this is a chance ... to try to get a little bit of goodwill in the party, a little bit of leverage," said CNN Chief National Correspondent John King.

Despite his low polling numbers, South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, endorsed Huntsman earlier on Sunday.

The paper's editorial board stated that while Romney is "more appealing" than the rest of the GOP field, Huntsman is "more principled, has a far more impressive resume and offers a significantly more important message."

The board praised what it called the "essential values that drive his candidacy: honor and old-fashioned decency and pragmatism."

R.C. Hammond, the spokesman for candidate Newt Gingrich, said that with Huntsman dropping out, "we are one step closer to a bold Reagan conservative winning the GOP nomination."

Huntsman, known as one of the moderate candidates, launched his presidential campaign on June 21.

Meanwhile, conservative GOP presidential hopefuls attacked Romney on Sunday to try to head off what two influential Republicans said could be a decisive third straight victory for the former Massachusetts governor.

In appearances on morning talk shows, Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all contrasted their conservative credentials with Romney's more moderate record in hopes that South Carolina voters will agree with their contention that Romney can't defeat Obama in November.

Debates on Monday in Myrtle Beach and Thursday in Charleston will almost certainly give voters their last chance to see all the remaining Republican candidates on one stage, as some are likely to drop out after Saturday's vote. CNN will broadcast the Charleston debate.

The Palmetto State has chosen the eventual Republican nominee every time since 1980, and Romney's victories this month in the first two contests of the nominating process -- in Iowa and New Hampshire -- were unprecedented by a non-incumbent GOP contender.

Two South Carolina Republican politicians, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Tim Scott, said Sunday that another Romney victory this week would likely sew up the nomination for him.

"If for some reason he's not derailed here and Mitt Romney wins South Carolina, no one's ever won all three, I think it should be over," Graham told NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "That would be quite a testament to his ability as a candidate and a campaigner."

On the same program, Scott said: "If Romney wins South Carolina, I think the game is over."

Perry, the Texas governor who lags behind after poor performances in earlier debates, kept up his criticism of Romney's experience as a venture capitalist -- an attack line shared by Gingrich but criticized by Santorum and other conservatives.

After previously describing Romney's former company, Bain Capital, as corporate "vultures" who looted North Carolina companies, Perry used less combative language Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" but reiterated his accusation that it "came in and basically shut down" a Georgetown steel mill, taking away "a lot of money in management fees."

President Obama's campaign will certainly raise the matter, if Romney gets the Republican nomination, Perry noted.

"The issue's not going away," he said. "Now's the time to talk about it, not in September and October."

Gingrich, the former House Speaker, expressed a similar view on NBC's "Meet the Press" and the CBS program "Face the Nation," comparing the primary process to the National Football League playoffs that eventually produce two hardened teams to compete in the Super Bowl.

"Our nominee had better be capable of standing up there, telling the truth, enduring the negative ads and winning the vote," Gingrich said, insisting he is the more accomplished debater and stronger candidate than Romney.

On NBC, Gingrich also said he would release his tax return on Thursday and reiterated his challenge for Romney to do the same, continuing a campaign to get Romney to disclose details of his personal wealth.

Romney has said he has complied with legal disclosure obligations, but added he might release his tax returns or further information in the future.

Gingrich said it would be better for Romney to release his tax return now instead of having the issue come to a head in the fall amid a one-on-one campaign against Obama.

"We're all going to do everything we can to defeat Barack Obama," Gingrich said, adding that Obama's re-election "would lead him to be so arrogant and so aggressive that it's hard to imagine what would come out of a second term."

Santorum, meanwhile, told "Fox News Sunday" that an endorsement on Saturday from Christian conservative leaders should help his campaign, as he seeks to regain the luster of a razor-thin second-place finish behind Romney in Iowa.

"I was told that individual members are going to go out and do things with, you know, either endorsements or contacting people here in the state and across the states to support us and to help our cause," said Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator who was virtually tied for fourth in New Hampshire with Gingrich.

The Christian conservative endorsement was intended to unite evangelical voters behind one candidate to avoid a split that would hand Romney a victory despite South Carolina's conservative pedigree.

"It would be helpful if everybody dropped out and I would win," Santorum said. "But, you know, the idea is, we're going to go through this process, people have the right to go out and make the case to the voters and then we'll see what happens."

Scott, who won election in 2010 with strong support from the tea party movement, told NBC that the impact of the evangelical vote -- a typically large bloc in South Carolina -- will be "huge" on Saturday.

"It's hard to find a single candidate that rallies all of the Christian voters in South Carolina and therefore that splintered approach will probably have a major impact in the state's primary," Scott said.

The American Research Group poll released last week finds Romney and Gingrich in a statistical dead heat in the state.

According to the poll, 29% of likely GOP primary voters say they will support Romney. Another 25% said they would support Gingrich, putting Romney's lead within the poll's sampling error.

The survey indicates Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has 20% of the vote, Perry has 9%, Santorum has 7%, with 7% undecided.

CNN

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Guinea-Bissau Mourns Late President, Looks to Future

2012-01-16T18:47:00.001-08:00

Sunday's funeral of President Malam Bacai Sanha in Guinea-Bissau could mark the beginning of a turbulent few months for the politically-troubled West African country.

All flags fly at half-staff in Guinea-Bissau’s capital as Guineans mourn the loss of their president.

Malam Bacai Sanha died on January 9 in a Paris hospital of a prolonged, unspecified illness. He was 64 years old.

Though in office just two years, Sanha was viewed as a head of state who brought relative stability to a country where democracy has proved elusive.

Now, some in the population are feeling unease about what could happen next.

Opposition parties are already protesting at the move by National Assembly leader Raimundo Pereira to step up as interim president. But most citizens support Pereira, who is calling for an election within 60 days.

"Allocating the post of president to the head of the assembly is the constitutional thing to do," said Joao Gomes, a businessman in Bissau. "We want him to make sure the elections are carried out correctly. We need a president who brings peace and makes the country work."

Guinea-Bissau has had a tumultuous political history, with a series of military coups and assassinations during the last three decades.

Mr. Sanha was elected president in July 2009 following the assassination of his predecessor Joao Bernardo Vieria. More recently, a group of soldiers tried to stage a coup in Bissau on December 26.

Richard Antwi, a 30-year-old pastor in Bissau, says people are used to the instability.

“The president before this one - there was an assassination," said Antwi. "They managed to solve the problem, a new one came, and now he’s dead. I mean, they are used to presidents who don’t finish their attempts, but they deal with it, so…”

Ansoumane Sanga, the justice adviser to Pereira, says even if violence breaks out, it would be controlled.

"Of course we have nagging little fears after what happened on the 26th here," he explained. "But even after such an event, the next day everything was normal; everything functioned normally. People understand that we have to carry on."

But Justino Pedro du Silva, a doorman in Bissau, says everyone fears the disruption that such political turmoil brings.

"It is a very difficult to live in the middle of political instability," he said. "When there is violence, people are afraid."

President Sanha had concentrated on trying to heal what had become known as a failed state.

Ansoumane Sanga describes the late president as “a unifier."

"In his two years as president, Sanha listened, understood and reacted," he said. "He always honored us and respected us and he always tried to improve Guinea-Bissau."

The feeling is shared by normal Guineans. Bineta Piero, a 32-year-old maid and student in Bissau, says everyone will be sad at the funeral.

"When we heard that the president had died, everyone was really sorry," she said. "We feel it deep in their hearts because he brought stability and peace to the country. We pray that the new president will be good for Guinea-Bissau."

That sentiment is shared by many who want Guinea-Bissau's political turmoil to be in the past.

VOA News

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Nigerian labor unions, government resume talks to end fuel strikes

2012-01-16T18:22:00.001-08:00

Nigerian labor unions resumed talks with the government Sunday in a bid to reach a deal to stop a national strike over soaring fuel prices, sources close to the negotiations said.

President Goodluck Jonathan participated directly in the discussions, they said. Late-night wrangling ended earlier in the day without a compromise.

Oil labor unions will not shut down production of crude as planned, according to union sources who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Last week, a major oil union, Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, threatened to halt production Sunday in solidarity with protesters if the two sides don't reach an agreement.

A move to halt production would reverberate on the global market -- Nigeria is the world's eighth-largest crude exporter.

Throngs of protesters have taken to the streets to demand government accountability and a return of fuel subsidies that ended on January 1, a move that doubled gas prices and sent the cost of other goods skyrocketing.

Scattered protests escalated into a national strike that started Monday, paralyzing the nation of more than 160 million people.

Union leaders called for a temporary suspension to the national strikes for the weekend to allow protesters to stock up on food and water, but said they would resume Monday if the subsidies are not reinstated.

"The whole labor movement will return to strike Monday but negotiations are continuing," said Elijah Okubu, president of NUPENG, another oil workers' union. "Negotiation is the hallmark of industrial relations."

Nigerians flocked to stores Sunday to buy basic necessities amid uncertainty on how long protests will last once they resume. Long lines snaked around gas stations, as crowds flooded markets to buy food.

Demonstrations started as an outcry against the removal of fuel subsidies and grew into anger against government corruption. Nigerians consider the subsidies one of the few benefits of living in an oil-producing nation that has little infrastructure, high unemployment and intermittent electricity.

The protests -- dubbed "Occupy Nigeria" -- have galvanized the continent's most populous nation.

Nigerians accuse their leaders of corruption and misusing oil revenues in a country where most citizens battle grinding poverty.

The government has said the removal will free up billions this year to boost the economy and improve the country's infrastructure.

But there is a widespread lack of trust in the government to provide the infrastructure; Nigeria is regularly ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world.

Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said Nigerians should not let the past determine the future. She said the goal now is to regain the citizens' trust and move forward.

"They cannot say because of mistakes in the past the country should not move forward," she said.

CNN

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Syria toll rises to 25; monitors cheered in besieged town

2012-01-16T08:54:00.001-08:00

Crowds in a Syrian town surrounded by government troops cheered Arab League monitors who visited Sunday as others fled the town on foot to escape the fighting inside.

Residents of Zabadani, about 50 km (30 miles) northwest of Damascus, lifted one of the monitors onto their shoulders and passed him around the crowd during Sunday's visit. They told CNN that their water and electricity had been cut off for the past three days, and they showed off wounds they said had been inflicted by pro-government forces.

The monitors got a different reception from Syrian soldiers, who berated them as the soldiers carried off the body of one of their comrades they said had been shot by opposition forces.

The visit came as another 32 people were killed by government troops trying to crush a 10-month-old uprising against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition umbrella group. The toll included 13 in Homs, the scene of some of the worst fighting to date; 10 in the city of Idlib; and three people, inlcuding a child, in Hama.

During a visit to neighboring Lebanon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivered a blunt message to al-Assad: "Stop killing your people." Meanwhile, al-Assad announced that he was granting amnesty to anti-government demonstrators for "all crimes committed" since the uprising began last March, Syrian state-run media reported.

In Zabadani, a CNN crew heading into the city with the Arab League monitors saw men, women and children trudging out of the city to get away from the fighting. When the monitors prepared to leave, many of the thousands who greeted the monitors in town urged them to stay, warning that attacks by government troops would resume once they left.

Some offered to show the monitors where Syrian tanks were hidden in the fields surrounding the city. Syria was required to pull heavy weaponry out of the cities under the agreement its signed with the Arab League in November, but Zabadani residents said the tanks pulled back only when the monitors were on their way.

Fares Mohammed, an LCC spokesman, said about 100 armored vehicles had surrounded the city for three days, and that power and water had been cut off as the city faced sub-freezing temperatures. A member of the Free Syria Army -- composed mostly of deserters who are siding with the opposition -- said there were about 70 lightly armed fighters in the city. The fighter asked not to be named for security reasons.

"The situation is very bad. The siege is choking us, and even air is running out," the fighter said, adding that fighters were setting up roadblocks to try to keep government forces out of residential areas.

On their way out of town, the monitors were held up at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Zabadani for about an hour and a half as occasional bullets whizzed by. During that time, Syrian troops carried off the body of a fellow soldier who had just been shot and turned their anger on the monitors.

"Is this what you want?" one asked. "Is this what the world wants? Is this a free Syria?"

More gunfire erupted as the monitors left town, and a soldier at another checkpoint rushed out to hammer at their vehicle.

More than 5,000 people have died since mid-March, the United Nations has said. Opposition groups put the toll at more than 6,000. Al-Assad, who has characterized the anti-government protesters as "armed gangs," says his security forces are battling terrorists intent on targeting civilians and fomenting unrest.

His latest amnesty decree follows the recent release of 5,000 prisoners by the Syrian government under its agreement with the Arab League. It grants grants general amnesty for crimes committed between March 15, 2011, and January 15, 2012, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

The decree applies to people who engaged in peaceful demonstrations, carried or possesses unlicensed weapons or ammunition and draft evaders, SANA said. Fugitives must hand themselves in by the end of the month to benefit from the amnesty, the agency reported.

It is the second time al-Assad has granted a general amnesty to protesters, who have been calling for an end to the regime. But reports of carnage mount every day, despite the presence of Arab League observers in the country and international calls for a halt to the crackdown.

"Today, I say again to President Assad of Syria: Stop the violence. Stop killing your people," Ban said at a conference on political reform and democracy in Beirut. "The path of repression is a dead end."

CNN cannot verify accounts of what is happening in Syria because the government restricts the activity of journalists. A number of journalists have been allowed in to the country in recent days, including a CNN correspondent, to travel with Arab League monitors.

The Arab League mission began December 26 and is expected to conclude on January 19. It has been mired in controversy from the start, from the choice to head the mission -- Lt. Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi, once the head of Sudan's military intelligence -- to reports that the Syrian government was limiting the group's access.

CNN

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Why you don't need solar panels

2012-01-16T01:59:00.001-08:00

When people learn that I am a green building consultant, almost without exception, they ask me if I do a lot of work with solar power, which I don’t. I don’t install many solar power systems, either photovoltaic (the kind that creates electricity) or thermal (the kind that creates hot water). I have been accused of being anti-solar because I often discourage people from focusing on PV on their homes, at least until they have done everything else to save energy, which they rarely bother to do.

PV makes a lot of sense in underdeveloped countries where there are unreliable or non-existent electrical power grids or for the rare person in a developed country who wants to live completely off the grid. In both cases, the key to taking advantage of solar power is to not use much energy in the first place. This also applies to anyone who wants to put panels on their home out of a desire to be “green.”

Reducing your need for electricity requires living in a small, extremely efficient home, reducing or disconnecting as many appliances and electronics as possible, using efficient lighting and equipment, and changing behavior to use less power.

Here's what you'll have to do to reduce your power use enough to benefit from solar panels:

Down-size your house: The average American home is about 2700 square feet, about twice what it was in the 1950’s. Bigger homes use more power to light, heat, and cool, so smaller is better when it comes to energy use.

Next comes the efficiency of the building itself: Simple things (OK, it's not so simple if your house has already been built, but it's simple if you're building a new house) like orienting the house to take advantage of the sun to heat it when needed and avoid heating it when not needed saves energy. In most homes, air sealing, insulation, sealing HVAC ducts (call a qualified HVAC contractor to do it), and other home performance improvements will save more energy than most solar systems will produce, and at a lower cost. Using windows to provide natural light also cuts down on the amount of electric lighting required.

Unplug your devices: In the 21st century, we have more electrical equipment in our houses than ever before, much of which is left on when not used, and even when turned off, still draws power to operate. Look around your house – all those digital displays, phone chargers, and TVs are drawing power even when their switches are “off.”

Finally, and probably most important, is the behavior of the occupants: No matter how small or efficient your house is, if you leave lights and electronics on, turn the heat up higher or air conditioning lower than you need it to be comfortable, and don’t turn them off and open windows when the weather is nice, then you are wasting a lot of energy that all the solar panels you can fit on your roof won’t replace.

So before you spend your hard earned money on solar panels, fix your house, unplug your electronic devices, turn things off, open the windows, air seal, and then insulate. You’ll be more comfortable and save more money than you could with lots of fancy solar panels decorating your roof.

Fox News

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Nigerian Unions, President Meet Over Fuel Subsidy Stalemate

2012-01-15T21:56:00.001-08:00

Nigerian union leaders are meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan for talks about the ending of consumer fuel subsidies.

The government's move to suspend the subsidies earlier this year has upset the nation, sparking a 5-day-long strike that helped paralyzed Africa's top oil exporting country. Tens of thousands of people have participated in street protests to express their anger over the removal of consumer fuel subsidies, which prompted a sharp rise in fuel prices.

Union leaders called a temporary halt to the strike in advance of Saturday's meeting with President Jonathan in Abuja, but have vowed to resume the strikes on Monday if the sides fail to make any progress.

Union leaders spoke before heading to the talks with the president and decided they would not back-off of their demands.

Already one of Nigeria's major unions has said it will stop oil production in Nigeria if the government does not restore fuel subsidies, a move that could have an impact on the country's economy and affect global oil prices.

In the meantime, many Nigerians have been rushing to stores and markets to stock up on food, but that many were confronted by food prices that had tripled in some cases.

Nigeria exports more than two million barrels of crude oil a day. Experts say it is not clear how much production would be affected by a strike, since much of the process is automated, but even a minor disruption

The government eliminated the subsidy January 1. Talk that the strikes could cause the county's oil industry to shut down have since caused world oil prices to climb.

President Goodluck Jonathan and his government eliminated the fuel subsidy on the grounds that Nigeria can no longer afford the $8 billion program. Mr. Jonathan has promised to use the money on infrastructure and social programs.

Most Nigerians live on less than $2 a day and the fuel subsidy was one of the few benefits they received from the country's oil wealth.

The United States said Thursday it was closely monitoring the situation. But State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said the United States supports the right of Nigerians to protest peacefully. She said it was "incumbent on the government to encourage an environment that remains peaceful."

Some economists have said the subsidy was wasteful, but protesters have alleged that government corruption and mismanagement are responsible for the oil-rich nation's sustained poverty.

VOA News

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Apple to allow monitoring of suppliers

2012-01-15T18:21:00.001-08:00

The company has joined the Fair Labour Association, which was set up in 1999 to monitor global workplace conditions. Apple is the first technology company to join the group.

Last week, Apple released its sixth annual supplier responsibility report, which details the results of its audits of factories throughout its supply chain. The company conducted more than 200 audits of suppliers last year.

Like most major technology companies, Apple's products are manufactured by large suppliers such as Taiwan's Foxconn. Foxconn, which employs more than a million people and operates enormous factories in China, has been under scrutiny in recent years.

At least 12 Foxconn workers have committed suicide and around 150 workers at a Foxconn factory in Wuhan spent two days on the roof, threatening mass suicide, in a protest over plans to move them to a new production line. Those workers were involved in producing Microsoft's Xbox but Foxconn also makes products for Amazon, Microsoft and HP, among others.

For the first time, Apple's supplier responsibility report lists the firm's major suppliers - more than 156 in all. Apple has typically been secretive about the companies that build its products.

Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal that his company wanted to be more transparent about standards in its supply chain. He said the company was "raising the bar" for the technology industry.

According to the report, Apple found that suppliers were in compliance with its policies preventing underage working 97 per cent of the time but complied only 38 per cent of the time with Apple's policy of restricting working time to 60 hours per week.

"Working hours is a complex issue," Mr Cook told the Wall Street Journal. But he said he was confident that the company could improve the situation.

The report also monitors the environmental impact, management systems, ethics and other areas of the suppliers' business. In cases where a company repeatedly breaches Apple's guidelines, the company says it terminates the relationship with the supplier.

Auret van Heerden, the president of the Fair Labour Association, said that standards set by suppliers could often do more than governments can. He said: “If you’re a 16-year-old girl in a developing country, your best chance of enjoying proper rights is if you get to work at a multinational. The power of their contract is more powerful than the power of law.”

The Telegraph

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Imam sentenced to life in prison in JFK airport terror plot

2012-01-15T17:55:00.001-08:00

An imam and leader of the Shiite Muslim community in Trinidad and Tobago was sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to attack a New York airport by exploding fuel tanks and fuel pipelines under the airport, the Justice Department said Friday.

Kareem Ibrahim and several other co-conspirators believed the 2007 planned attack would cause extensive damage to John F. Kennedy International Airport and to the New York economy, as well as kill many people, officials said.

Ibrahim, 65, was convicted in May by a federal jury on multiple terrorism offenses after a four-week trial.

The plot originated in 2006 when Russell Defreitas, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Guyana who used to work at JFK as a cargo handler, planned the attack and then recruited others, according to officials. In May 2007, Defreitas gave Ibrahim video surveillance and satellite imagery of the targets because Ibrahim had connections to militant leaders in Iran, the Justice Department said.

During cross-examination at trial, Ibrahim admitted he advised the plotters to present the attack plan to revolutionary leaders in Iran and to use operatives ready to engage in suicide attacks at the airport, according to the Justice Department. On one of the recorded conversations entered into evidence, Ibrahim told Defreitas the attackers must be ready to "fight it out, kill who you could kill and go back to Allah."

Ibrahim was arrested along with two others in Trinidad in June 2007 and later extradited to the United States. He was convicted of conspiracy to attack a public transportation system, conspiracy to destroy a building by fire or explosive, conspiracy to attack aircraft and aircraft materials, conspiracy to destroy international airport facilities, and conspiracy to attack a mass transportation facility, the Justice Department said.

Defreitas was arrested in New York and convicted of terrorism charges in 2010 and sentenced to life in prison.

CNN

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US Will Post Ambassador in Burma; Move Follows Prisoner Release

2012-01-15T17:53:00.001-08:00

The United States, for the first time in two decades, announced Friday that it will post an ambassador to Burma, which earlier in the day freed hundreds of political prisoners. A series of reforms in Burma has prompted Washington to change how it deals with the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama calls Burma's decision to release hundreds of political prisoners "a substantial step forward for democratic reform."

The Burmese government freed 651 prisoners on Friday. The release is in line with conditions for improving relations with Washington that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear during a visit last month.

Following the prisoner release, Clinton said on Friday that the U.S. will start the process of exchanging ambassadors with Burma.

"As I said last December, the United States will meet action with action. Based on the steps taken so far, we will now begin," she said.

But Obama and Clinton both said that more political reforms need to happen in Burma.

Clinton says Washington will continue to urge Burma’s government to take “bold steps” to build a free and prosperous nation.

Washington withdrew its ambassador more than 20 years ago, after the military council ruling Burma at the time ignored the results of the opposition’s overwhelming victory in the 1990 election.

The U.S. and many other governments, including the European Union, have long imposed economic and travel sanctions on Burma, considered one of the most repressive nations in the world.

An election in 2010 brought in a civilian government, although one backed by the military.

That new government has made several reforms, including easing media restrictions and allowing greater civil liberties.

Photo Gallery: Burma prisoner release

This week the government also signed a ceasefire with the ethnic minority Karen rebels.

In addition, Burma’s government is allowing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to run for parliament April 1. Aung San Suu Kyi, the head of the National League for Democracy, has spent most of the past 22 years jailed or under house arrest.

Burma hopes the prisoner release and the peace deal will help improve relations with the international community.

David Mathieson, with Human Rights Watch, says the release is important.

"You're talking about quite a comprehensive list of prominent political activists, journalists, labor activists, Buddhist monks and former members of the government," he said. "So this is really quite a significant release."

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the prisoner release and the cease-fire with the rebels. He said he hoped the freed political activists will be able to contribute to national reconciliation.

VOA News

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US, Iranian ships involved in incidents in Strait of Hormuz

2012-01-15T15:31:00.001-08:00

Iranian ships recently taunted two U.S. Navy vessels as part of escalating tensions in and around the Persian Gulf's Strait of Hormuz.

The incidents in the strait, one of the world's most important oil routes, occurred last week and involved the USS New Orleans, an amphibious transport dock, and the Coast Guard Cutter Adak, the military said Friday in releasing videos of the incidents.

Iranian speed boats are seen in one of the videos approaching the USS New Orleans within about 500 yards last Friday.

"The Iranian boats did not respond to whistle signal or voice queries from the New Orleans, disregarding standard maritime protocols," Central Command said in releasing the videos. In the incident involving the Adak, "communications were established with a larger Iranian ship operating in the area and the speed boats ceased their harassment."

One senior defense official told FoxNews.com that the Iranians "intended to be harassing" but it didn't go much beyond that. No shots were fired.

Iran, which recently held war games in the area, has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz if provoked, and it has warned U.S. Navy ships to steer clear.

The rising tensions coincide with increased pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, which the West fears is merely a front for Iran's clandestine work on developing nuclear weapons.

Diplomats said Thursday that a senior U.N. nuclear agency team will visit Tehran on Jan. 28, with Iran saying it is ready after years of refusal to discuss allegations that it was involved in secret nuclear weapons work.

Diplomats have previously said that International Atomic Energy Agency officials were discussing such a trip with their Iranian counterparts. But before the diplomats' comments Thursday, no date -- or indication that Iran was ready to talk about the allegations -- had been mentioned.

Any follow-through on the part of Iran on its reported pledge to discuss nuclear arms suspicions would be significant.

For more than three years, Tehran has blocked IAEA attempts to follow up on U.S. and other intelligence alleging covert Iranian work on nuclear arms, dismissing the charges as baseless and insisting all its nuclear activities were peaceful and under IAEA purview.

Faced with Iranian stonewalling, the IAEA summarized its body of information in November, in a 13-page document drawing on 1,000 pages of intelligence. It stated then for the first time that some of the alleged experiments can have no other purpose than developing nuclear weapons.
Iran continues to deny the charges and no change in its position is expected during the Tehran talks with IAEA officials. But even a decision to enter a discussion over the allegations would be a major departure from outright refusal to talk about them -- and create hopes of future progress in the investigation.

Two diplomats told The Associated Press that Iranian officials had suggested they were ready to talk about the issue during recent meetings with officials of the Vienna-based IAEA. They asked for anonymity because their information was confidential.

Iran denies it is trying to make nuclear weapons, saying its program is for peaceful purposes only and is geared toward generating electricity.

Those claims were called into question on Monday when the IAEA confirmed Iran had begun increasing its production of uranium enriched to 20 percent. That's a significantly higher concentration than the nation's main stockpile -- and can be turned into weapons-grade material more quickly than the lower enriched uranium.

Fox News

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Senators warn new EPA rules would raise gas prices

2012-01-15T15:29:00.001-08:00

Senators from both sides of the aisle are warning that looming EPA regulations on gasoline could impose billions of dollars in additional costs on the industry and end up adding up to 25 cents to every gallon of gas.

The senators, in a letter this week to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, urged the agency to back off the yet-to-be-released regulations. Though the EPA has not yet issued any proposal, they claimed the agency is planning to call for a new requirement to reduce the sulfur content in gasoline.

Citing the nearly $3.40-a-gallon average price of gas and the state of the economy, the senators said "now is not the time for new regulations that will raise the price of fuel even further."

They said it would be "expensive" for companies to meet the sulfur targets and cited a study that found it could add up to $17 billion in industry-wide, up-front expenses, in addition to another $13 billion in annual operating costs.

This could in turn add between 12 and 25 cents to an average gallon of gasoline "depending on the stringency of the proposed rule," they wrote.

"If the EPA does not proceed carefully with its regulations, the nationwide price of fuel could increase to the further detriment of consumers and businesses," the senators warned.

The lawmakers on the letter were: Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Mary Landrieu, D-La.; David Vitter, R-La.; and Mark Begich, D-Alaska.

The EPA did not comment on the senators' complaints.

Asked Friday for a response to the concerns, the EPA said: "EPA is still in the process of developing the proposal."

An EPA official said publicly in November that the agency was developing the so-called "Tier 3" standards proposal during a House subcommittee hearing.

Margo Oge, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, told lawmakers that the proposal would help the country meet its "clean air goals."

"Motor vehicles and their fuel are an important source of compounds that form air pollution," she said.

Oge said reducing sulfur in gasoline would make emission control technology more effective, and "the end result would be cleaner air."

If the EPA formally issues the proposal, it would probably take more than a year for the agency to review public comments and finalize any plan.

A Senate Republican aide said the authority to tighten the sulfur standards comes from the Clean Air Act but noted that EPA has the discretion to either impose the standards or not.

The current sulfur standard is 30 parts per million in gasoline -- that's down from a prior standard of 300 parts per million. The new proposal could bring the standard down to 10 parts per million, according to the senators who wrote to Jackson

The aide said there was a "bigger benefit" when the standard dropped from 300 to 30 parts per million. But squeezing that down to 10 parts per million, the aide said, might not offer as much bang for the buck.

"They're extraordinarily expensive relative to the last round of sulfur reductions," the aide told FoxNews.com.

Fox News

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'Piracy' student Richard O'Dwyer loses extradition case over TVShack website

2012-01-15T07:07:00.001-08:00

The website did not itself host unlawful downloads or video streams, but acted as a directory of links to others that did, Westminster Magistrates' Court heard.

American authorities allege that Mr O’Dwyer made more than $230,000 by selling advertising on TVShack in three years until December 2010.

District Judge Quentin Purdy rejected all three of the defence’s arguments against extradition, including claims Mr O’Dwyer would not get a fair trial in the United States and that if a crime was committed he should be prosecuted in Britain.

O'Dwyer's mother Julia said she was: "Very disappointed, in fact disgusted," with the verdict.

She also expressed disappointment towards the government: "for signing us up to this treaty which has opened the flood gates to America to come and seize British citizens without even having set foot outside of this country."

"That extradition law needs fixing fast," she added.

Mrs O’Dwyer added that her son intends to immediately lodge an appeal at the High Court. The extradition must first be approved by the Home Secretary, however.

Speaking outside court, Richard O'Dwyer said he had: "faith in the High Court in making the right decision," and didn't regret starting the website because it had "helped him no end" with his studies.

Richard O'Dwyer's case will pile more pressure on the government to change the rules to make it more difficult to extradite Britons to America. Last month MPs voted for “urgent reform”.

The Telegraph

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