French Unemployment Hits 12-Year High (It's Going to Get Much Worse); Sarkozy Outlines Jobs Plan (Mathematically It Can't Work); Olli Rehn to Give Keynote Speech at Eurobond Seminar

The EU Observer reports France to hold jobs summit as unemployment hits 12-year high

A sharp rise in France's unemployment figures is putting pressure on President Nicolas Sarkozy to deliver, with over half the French population wanting the candidates for the spring presidential election to focus their energies on maintaining jobs.

Figures released by the labour ministry this week show that the number of those unemployed hit 2.85 million in November, a 12-year high and the seventh consecutive monthly increase.

The numbers have sparked a debate in France about the nature and future of employment with Sarkozy convening a jobs summit on 18 January.

Unemployment as an issue is a number-one priority on French voters' minds. According to a poll in La Croix newspaper, 52 percent of French people want the candidates for the April presidential elections to focus on responses that "maintain employment."

Of the main candidates in the running, socialist contender Francois Hollande is seen as proposing the best solutions to the daily problems of French citizens by 24 percent of those polled. Sarkozy comes in second with 20 percent and far-right politician Marine Le Pen in third place (16%).

While all candidates will focus on combatting unemployment and there are set to be many proposals for economic growth, their hands will be tied by France's commitment to reduce its high budget deficit, as part of an overall plan to contain the eurozone debt crisis.

Sarkozy Outlines Jobs Plan Based on German Program (Mathematically It Can't Work)

The Wall Street Journal Reports Sarkozy Outlines Jobs Plan

Largely inspired by measures Germany relied on to navigate the 2009 economic recession, [Sarkozy's] draft plan calls for companies to retain all staff even if they are faced with a slump in orders, and for workers to accept lower pay. As an incentive and to help pay for the move, the government would kick in for some of the lost wages and social-security contributions, according to officials at the French Labor Ministry and union leaders who were briefed on the proposed pact.

Mr. Sarkozy intends to discuss both the job-saving scheme, and the flexibility idea at a meeting with labor and employer unions on Jan. 18. By then, the government must answer a key question: how to finance measures that officials say could cost more than ?1 billion ($1.3 billion) next year.

Five months ahead of presidential elections, Mr. Sarkozy is already fighting on multiple fronts to reduce the budget deficit, preserve the country's triple-A debt rating and find a comprehensive solution to the protracted euro-zone debt crisis.

The unemployment rate?which rose to 9.7% of the active population in the third quarter?is the latest bad news on France's economic dashboard. The country's trade deficit is projected to widen to an all-time high of ?75 billion this year, and the national statistics office, Insee, has forecast that the economy will likely contract in the current quarter and the first quarter of next year.

In France, the measure is likely to gather support from trade unions as long as the government commits to compensate pay cuts. "We're on board as long as the government puts some money on the table," said Jean-Claude Mailly, the head of Force Ouvri?re, France's third-largest union.

The French government's idea to increase work-time and pay flexibility is likely to meet much more resistance.

"All labor unions will say 'No,' because that would amount to making workers pay for the economic downturn," said Mourad Rabhi, a leader at CGT, France's second-largest union. "And in France there isn't the same climate of mutual confidence between workers and companies, as in Germany."

Mathematically It Can't Work

The unions will agree to pay cuts as long as there are no pay cuts (government kicks in the rest). Moreover the unions will not agree to increase work-time and pay flexibility because "that would amount to making workers pay for the economic downturn"

Heaven forbid. Meanwhile, Sarkozy needs to trim the deficit, not increase it, and his proposal does the opposite.

Note that Hollande is widely predicted to beat Sarkozy in an election runoff, and Hollande is running on a platform to make changes to the agreement reached between Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Expect European Unemployment to Get Much Worse

Europe is already in a nasty recession. Austerity measures coupled with tax hikes in numerous countries but especially Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, and Greece will make matters much worse.

"United States of Europe" Author Hosts Eurobonds Seminar

The galling arrogance of Eurocrats is rather stunning. While reading the EU Observer article at the top, this Ad for a Eurobonds Seminar on January 10, 2011 popped up.

Olli Rehn is Vice President of the European Commission. Guy Verhofstadt MEP is the Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and author of the book United States of Europe (2006), the New Age of Empires (2008) and How Europe can Save the World (2009).

Tireless, Dangerous Demagogues

Rehn and Verhofstadt are tireless, socialist fools as well as dangerous demagogues dedicated to the destruction of sovereign rights of every nation in the EMU. They ought to scare the bejeebies out of any sane person who is not in favor of a European Nanny-Zone.

Their brainwashing event, marketed as a seminar on eurobonds is already filled up.

The primary thing stopping these socialists and their nanny-zone ideal is the German supreme court.

This past Wednesday, German Constitutional Court Judge Udo Di Fabio said in a Spiegel interview "It's a Mistake To Pursue a United States of Europe".

Please note that Di Fabio sees Euro-bonds as illegal.

However, the judge proved his naivet? with his statement "no politician really intends to transfer their power of disposition over the substance of the national budget at an EU level".

On the contrary, the European Parliament is loaded with nanny-zone proponents who are conducting seminars on how to do just that.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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U.S. mulls transfer of Taliban prisoner in perilous peace bid (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Obama administration is considering transferring to Afghan custody a senior Taliban official suspected of major human rights abuses as part of a long-shot bid to improve the prospects of a peace deal in Afghanistan, Reuters has learned.

The potential hand-over of Mohammed Fazl, a 'high-risk detainee' held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison since early 2002, has set off alarms on Capitol Hill and among some U.S. intelligence officials.

As a senior commander of the Taliban army, Fazl is alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghanistan's minority Shi'ite Muslims between 1998 and 2001.

According to U.S. military documents made public by WikiLeaks, he was also on the scene of a November 2001 prison riot that killed CIA operative Johnny Micheal Spann, the first American who died in combat in the Afghan war. There is no evidence, however, that Fazl played any direct role in Spann's death.

Senior U.S. officials have said their 10-month-long effort to set up substantive negotiations between the weak government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban has reached a make-or-break moment. Reuters reported earlier this month that they are proposing an exchange of "confidence-building measures," including the transfer of five detainees from Guantanamo and the establishment of a Taliban office outside of Afghanistan.

Now Reuters has learned from U.S. government sources the identity of one of the five detainees in question.

The detainees, the officials emphasized, would not be set free, but remain in some sort of further custody. It is unclear precisely what conditions they would be held under.

In response to inquiries by Reuters, a senior administration official said that the release of Fazl and four other Taliban members had been requested by the Afghan government and Taliban representatives as far back as 2005.

The debate surrounding the White House's consideration of high-profile prisoners such as Fazl illustrates the delicate course it must tread both at home and abroad as it seeks to move the nascent peace process ahead.

One U.S. intelligence official said there had been intense bipartisan opposition in Congress to the proposed transfer.

"I can tell you that the hair on the back of my neck went up when they walked in with this a month ago, and there's been very, very strong letters fired off to the administration," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The senior administration official confirmed that the White House has received letters from lawmakers on the issue. "We will not characterize classified Congressional correspondence, but what is clear is the President's order to us to continue to discuss these important matters with Congress," the official said.

Even supporters of a controversial deal with the Taliban - a fundamentalist group that refers to Americans as infidels and which is still killing U.S., NATO and Afghan soldiers on the battlefield - say the odds of striking an accord are slim.

Critics of Obama's peace initiative remain deeply skeptical of the Taliban's willingness to negotiate, given that the West's intent to pull out most troops after 2014 could give insurgents a chance to reclaim lost territory or push the weak Kabul government toward collapse.

The politically charged nature of the initiative was on display this month when the Karzai government angrily recalled its ambassador from Doha and complained Kabul was being cut out of U.S.-led efforts to establish a Taliban office in Qatar.

U.S. officials appear to have smoothed things over with Karzai since then. Karzai's High Peace Council is signaling it would accept a liaison office for the Taliban office in Qatar - but also warning foreign powers that they cannot keep the Afghan government on the margins.

The detainee transfer may be even more politically explosive for the White House. In discussing the proposal, U.S. officials have stressed the move would be a 'national decision' made in consultation with the U.S. Congress.

Obama is expected to soon sign into law a defense authorization bill whose provisions would broaden the military's power over terrorist detainees and require the Pentagon to certify in most cases that certain security conditions will be met before Guantanamo prisoners can be sent home.

The mere idea of such a transfer is already raising hackles on Capitol Hill, where one key senator last week cautioned the administration against negotiating with "terrorists."

Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said such detainees would "likely continue to pose a threat to the United States" even once they were transferred.

POTENTIAL MAELSTROM

In February, the Afghan High Peace Council named a half-dozen it wanted released as a goodwill gesture. The list included Fazl; senior Taliban military commander Noorullah Noori; former deputy intelligence minister Abdul Haq Wasiq; and Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former interior minister.

All but Khairkhwa were sent to Guantanamo on January 11, 2002, according to the military documents, meaning they were among the first prisoners sent there.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and White House official, said Fazl was alleged to have been involved in 'very ugly' violence against Shi'ites, including members of the Hazara ethnic minority, beginning in the late 1990s, and the deaths of Iranian diplomats and journalists at the Iranian consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998.

Michael Semple, a former UN official with more than two decades of experience in Afghanistan, said Fazl commanded thousands of Taliban soldiers at a time when its army carried out massacres of Shi'ites. "If you're head of an army that carries out a massacre, even if you're not actually there, you are implicated by virtue of command and control responsibility," he said.

He added: "However it does not serve the interests of justice selectively to hold Taliban to account, while so many other figures accused of past crimes are happily reintegrated in Kabul."

Some U.S. military documents - select documents have been released, others were leaked - indicate that Fazl denied being a senior Taliban official and says he only commanded 50 or 60 men. But the overall picture of his role is unclear from the documents which have become public.

Richard Kammen is an Indiana lawyer who has nominally represented Fazl; the detainee did not want an attorney.

"Based upon the public information with which I'm familiar, it would appear his role in things back in 2001 has been significantly exaggerated by the government," Kammen said.

According to the documents, Fazl and Noori surrendered to Abdul Rashid Dostum, now Afghanistan's army chief of staff but at the time a powerful warlord battling against the Taliban, in northern Afghanistan in November 2001.

While the men were being held at the historic Qala-i-Jani fortress in Mazar-i-Sharif, Taliban prisoners revolted against their captors from the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban coalition.

"Dostum brought (Fazl and Noori) to the bunker to ask the prisoners to surrender; detainee and (Noori) refused," the detainee assessment from a 2008 document read.

Spann, a one-time Marine captain who was sent to Afghanistan as a CIA operative in the fall of 2001, was trying to locate al Qaeda operatives at the Mazar fortress among a large group of Taliban soldiers who had surrendered, according to the CIA and media reports at the time. When the Taliban prisoners began to riot - many of them were apparently armed - Spann was surrounded and killed. After a bloody, multi-day battle his body was later found booby-trapped.

Even a loose association between Fazl and Spann's death - despite the fact there is nothing to suggest he was directly involved - is likely to increase the temperature of the debate in Washington.

What could be problematic for some Afghans is Fazl's identification with the killing of civilians in central and northern Afghanistan.

"The composition and timing of any release has got to pay attention to Northern Alliance concerns," Semple said.

Buy-in from supporters of that alliance - and from those wary of a resurgent Taliban - will be key in making a peace deal stick, if one can be had.

Despite the congressional concerns that released Taliban will return to the battlefield, Semple said it was unlikely even prisoners like Fazl - who truly was a significant military figure for the Taliban - would alter that equation.

"These people are not going to make a real contribution to the Taliban war effort even if they are able to go over to Quetta and rejoin the fight. It's not risky in battlefield terms; it's only risky in U.S. political terms."

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria, Patrick Worsnip and Jane Sutton; editing by Claudia Parsons)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111229/wl_nm/us_usa_afghanistan_detainees

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GadgetTrak launches CameraTrace: Photo thieves beware (Digital Trends)

You may remember hearing about photographer John Heller?s ordeal recovering his $9,000 worth of camera gear this summer. The thieves unwittingly uploaded photos taken with the stolen equipment, including a Nikon D3, to sites popular photo sharing platforms?which is just what GadgetTrak wanted.

The site was then testing a beta application that would scan photo-sharing sites like Flickr and 500px for images uploaded from potentially stolen equipment. The meta-data on these images reveals camera serial numbers, so owners missing their gear can easily identify if it?s theirs or not.

It was a dream come true for Heller, and now GadgetTrak is releasing the technology to consumers. Called CameraTrace, the service basically creates an identity for your camera so that in the cause it?s taken it can easily search the worldwide Web for any image taken with the device. Users pay a one-time $10 fee per camera, which comes with a lost-and-found tag that good Samaritans can use to trace back to owners who have merely misplaced their cameras.

In the case your device has been stolen, however, you will use the system to file a police report. GadgetTrak will even take up your case and speak with local enforcement if you choose. Basically you?ll have a helping hand through the painstaking process of getting your equipment back.

According to GadgetTrak, the CPUsage platform behind CameraTrace is able to thoroughly asses where your device has gone via uploaded images. It?s also allegedly able to identify more than 300 different ?high-end camera models? from various brand names.

Serious photographers will get an added benefit from using CameraTrace. The site also protects your copyrighted photos via its image monitoring service, which scans social sites to see if anyone out there is using your work without permissions?and pointing you in their direction.

Compared to how much photographers are willing to shell out on their gear, $10 is chump change. And given the popularity of the photo-sharing sites, this could be a very effective form of insurance.?

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Kodak sells its sensor business ? what now?

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Concept cameras: Digital photography?s craziest pipe dreams

Pixable adds Twitter, videos to its photo-curator application

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111227/tc_digitaltrends/gadgettraklaunchescameratracephotothievesbeware

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Coach Hay secretive about starting goalie for Canada vs Finland

Donna Spencer The Canadian Press

EDMONTON?It would be more comforting for Canada?s fans if it was obvious who their starting goaltender is for the first game of the 2012 world junior hockey championship.

But it isn?t obvious.

Since a 5-3 pre-tournament loss to Sweden on Friday, there?s been a question mark hanging over the host country?s goaltending situation. Canada opens the tournament Monday against Finland.

Head coach Don Hay said prior to the team?s practice Sunday he?d made his choice, but he didn?t reveal it to reporters.

Mark Visentin and Scott Wedgewood practised without knowing, although Hay planned to inform his goalies after a team meeting later which one would get the coveted start in the tournament opener.

?I feel good about which guy I?m going to pick,? Hay declared. ?I know right now who it?s going to be and I?ll let them know later.?

Hay has maintained since selection camp earlier this month that Visentin is his No. 1 goalie because of Visentin?s experience playing in the 2011 tournament in Buffalo, N.Y.

But after Visentin gave up four goals on 17 shots and Wedgewood stopped all 10 shots he faced before the Swedes scored an empty-net goal, questions arose over which goalie was the most ready for the tournament.

Hay did say he plans to play both goalies in the tournament. That?s not unusual.

The backup often gets a game in the preliminary round against the weaker country promoted from the second-tier world championship, which would be Thursday?s game against Denmark.

?Both goalies feel, at least I feel that way right now, is that both goalies feel there?s confidence coming from me to them,? Hay said. ?No matter who we play, no matter what time of the game it is, or against whoever, I think the goalies should have a lot of confidence.?

The U.S. meets Denmark in the later Pool A game in Edmonton. Latvia and Sweden open Pool B games in Calgary on Monday afternoon, followed by defending champion Russia versus Switzerland at night.

The top team in each pool earns byes to the semifinals. The second and third seeds cross over to meet in the quarter-finals.

Canada has won a medal in this tournament 13 straight years, including five gold from 2005 to 2009, and has played in the final every year for the last decade. Canada took silver the last two years.

Securing the bye to the semifinals provides rest and an extra day of preparation to the countries who earn them, but in recent tournaments, the bye hasn?t been that much of an advantage.

Three of the last four winners have come through a quarter-final ? Canada in 2008, the U.S. in 2010 and Russia in 2011.

Canada opens against the Finns after beating them 3-1 in an exhibition game Dec. 19. Finland played hard in that game despite having just recently arrived in Canada.

?We were in that game,? Finnish coach Raimo Helminen said. ?I don?t know if we can be better but I hope so (that) we can compete against the big favourite.?

Helminen, too, was secretive on the subject of his starting goalie. Chris Gibson, who plays for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League?s Chicoutimi Sagueneens, was outstanding his two periods of the exhibition game against Canada.

Sam Aittokallio played the last period and the Colorado Avalanche prospect has the experience of playing one game in the tournament in Buffalo.

The Finns last won this tournament in 1998 and are looking for a bounce-back year after finishing sixth in Buffalo. They have six returning players, as well as a player who is considered the best one outside the NHL this season in Mikael Granlund.

The first-round pick (ninth overall) of the Minnesota Wild is a player Canada must pay attention to, says Hay.

?The Granlund line is a very talented line,? Hay said. ?They?re very explosive and they?re the key I feel to their team and we have to make sure we limit their offensive opportunities.?

Canada went 2-1 in pre-tournament play. Visentin of the Niagara IceDogs made 22 saves in the exhibition games versus the Finns. The first-round pick of the Phoenix Coyotes is more conservative in his movements in net than the acrobatic Wedgewood.

Visentin was handed the starting job for the medal round in Buffalo and backstopped Canada to wins in the quarter-final and semifinal. Canada was leading 3-0 heading into the third period of the gold-medal game, but Russia scored five unanswered goals on Visentin to take the title.

He?s never shirked from addressing his role in the collapse. The maturity and experience he gained through that experience is considered valuable to Canada?s chances in this tournament.

?My mentality is the same as the team?s,? Visentin said Sunday. ?We want to get better each and every day and once the tournament starts we need to bring our ?A? game every day so that?s what I?m going to do.?

Wedgwood, who plays for the Plymouth Whalers, stopped 24 of 25 shots in Canada?s 7-1 victory over Switzerland on Thursday. The third-round pick of the New Jersey Devils was a standout in selection camp.

?The coaches are going to make a decision they feel comfortable with and as a goalie you?ve got to deal with it,? Wedgewood said. ?When you get your opportunity, take it.?

The Canadian team spent Christmas Eve at the home of Edmonton Oilers president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe and then received Christmas gifts from Hockey Canada back at their hotel.

?The last week has been fun, we worked on a lot, I think we got a lot better and we became closer as a team, but the tournament is finally here and the atmosphere is going to be great,? Canadian captain Jaden Schwartz said. ?Finland is going to be a first tough contest for us so we?re real excited.?

Source: http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/juniorhockey/article/1106981--coach-hay-secretive-about-starting-goalie-for-canada-vs-finland

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Australia's Gloucester, China's Yanzhou in tie-up

Australia's Gloucester Coal Friday agreed to a merger with China's Yanzhou in a deal valued at some Aus$2.2 billion (US$2.3 billion), a tie-up which will create a major Australia listed coal firm.

China is Australia's largest two-way trade partner and the proposal comes as rapidly industrialising Asia is seeking to shore up a steady and reliably-priced supply of coal, a material vital for steelmaking.

"Gloucester Coal has entered into a merger proposal deed with Yanzhou Coal Mining Company Limited and its wholly owned Australian subsidiary, Yancoal Australia Limited, following an approach from Yanzhou," Gloucester Coal said.

Yanzhou Coal Mining, China's third-largest listed coal miner by output, said the merger reflected the company's ambition to grow its Australian business.

"This merger will increase the capacity and productivity of the company, enlarge the operation scale, improve profit margins and achieve potential synergies of the combined assets," the Chinese firm said in a statement.

Under the proposal, Gloucester's assets, including coal mines in Queensland and New South Wales, will be combined with Yancoal's Australian assets, which also include coal mines and an interest in an export terminal.

Any deal, which comes amid consolidation in Australia's mid-tier coal sector, will require approval by shareholders, Australia's Foreign Investment Review board (FIRB) and is subject to due diligence by both parties.

State-owned Yanzhou had approached Gloucester, which has a market capitalisation of some Aus$1.44 billion, after taking over Australian coal miner Felix Resources in 2009 in a deal worth US$3.2 billion.

Yanzhou had also reportedly been interested in Whitehaven Coal before that company announced a merger with fellow Australian miner Aston Resources, to form an independent coal company worth Aus$5.10 billion.

Under the Gloucester deal, Yanzhou proposes owning 77 percent of the merged company, with the remaining 23 percent held by Gloucester shareholders.

Gloucester shareholders will receive Aus$700 million in cash in a special dividend equal to about Aus$3.20 for each share, meaning the total deal is valued at about Aus$2.2 billion, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

The merger proposal is conditional on the merged company obtaining a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) but already has the approval of Gloucester's major shareholder Noble Group, Gloucester said.

Gloucester said Noble intends to vote its 64.5 percent stake in favour of the merger proposal, subject to the deal's approval by Noble's board of directors and in the absence of a better proposal.

If successful, the reverse takeover will help Yanzhou fulfil a commitment it made to Australian regulators when it acquired Felix Resources in 2009 to float at least 30 percent of its Australian assets by December 2012.

Australia's coal industry is dominated by major global players BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata, but smaller firms are being targeted as competition for resources is stoked by rapid industrialisation in China and India.

US-based Peabody Energy, the world's largest private coal miner, snapped up Australia's Macarthur Coal in November in a deal worth almost Aus$5 billion.

Coal is among Australia's top three exports, contributing Aus$43.9 billion to the mining-driven economy last financial year.

Gloucester shares, which last traded at Aus$7.03 before being placed in a trading halt, rose on the news and closed Friday at Aus$8.55.

Source: http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Australias_Gloucester_Chinas_Yanzhou_in_tie-up_999.html

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ubermoe: Twitter Question: if you are going to follow a website's news, would subscribe by E-mail, RSS Feed (ex: Google Reader) or just bookmark it?

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Kidd-Gilchrist back in Kentucky after visiting mom (AP)

LEXINGTON, Ky. ? Kentucky forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has returned to the team after going home to New Jersey during the holiday break to visit his hospitalized mother.

Cindy Richardson, who was admitted last week for an undisclosed illness, has been released.

Kidd-Gilchrist played in Kentucky's 87-63 win last Wednesday against Loyola (Md.) after he learned Richardson had been hospitalized. He finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

After the game, he received a police escort to the airport to make his flight home.

The No. 3 Wildcats (11-1) play Lamar on Wednesday in their final game before hosting No. 4 Louisville on Saturday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111227/ap_on_sp_co_ne/bkc_kentucky_kidd_gilchrist

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Ethiopia jails two Swedish journalists for aiding (Reuters)

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) ? An Ethiopian court sentenced two Swedish journalists on Tuesday to 11 years in prison for helping and promoting the outlawed Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebel group and entering the country illegally, a judge said.

Reporter Martin Schibbye and photographer Johan Persson were arrested in July after they entered Ethiopia's Ogaden province from Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region with a team of ONLF fighters.

"The court has sentenced both defendants to 11 years. We have heard both cases ... and we believe this is an appropriate sentence," Judge Shemsu Sirgaga told the court.

Both journalists looked at the judge without expression as the sentence was being read out and then translated by their defense lawyer, a witness said. No family members were present.

The sentencing is likely to cause outcry in Sweden, where last week's guilty verdicts provoked anger in Swedish media amid accusations the case had taken on a political dimension.

The journalists' lawyer said his clients were weighing the option of an appeal, but that for now there was no talk of pleading for clemency.

"We are only talking about the possibility of appealing for the time being, which follows judicial procedure," defense lawyer Sileshi Ketsela told Reuters.

(Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Yara Bayoumy)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111227/wl_nm/us_ethiopia_sweden_journalists

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[OOC] vulgarian news

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Robert De Niro, wife welcome baby girl (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Robert De Niro is a father again.

Stan Rosenfield, the 68-year-old actor's spokesman, says De Niro and his 56-year-old wife, Grace Hightower, welcomed a healthy 7-pound, 2-ounce baby girl named Helen Grace Hightower through a surrogate mother.

She is the couple's second child. Their son, Elliot, is 13. No other details were provided.

The "New Year's Eve" and "Limitless" star has four other children from previous relationships.

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University police chief commits suicide

University police chief commits suicide

YPSILANTI ? The police chief at Eastern Michigan University has died in a suicide. The Washtenaw County sheriff's office told AnnArbor.com Greg O'Dell was found dead Friday just west of Ann Arbor. He

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Source: http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20111223/NEWS01/111223015/1002/rss

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Art Brodsky: Yes, Virginia, Consumers Won A Couple in Washington

Treasure this past week in Washington. It's not often -- no, it never happens -- that that consumers get a multitude of good tidings from Washington. Is it too much to hope that this is the start of a trend? Of course. The FCC then approved AT&T's purchase of Qualcomm spectrum without strong interoperability (and poor media ownership rules, to boot.)

Still, think of it. In one week, AT&T dropped its ill-fated takeover of T-Mobile after spending dozens of millions of dollars. The U.S. Department of Justice, which provided the leadership in scuttling AT&T's anti-consumer strategy, also said it would look at Verizon's new spectrum/marketing deal with leading cable companies, including Comcast. And on a smaller scale, an administrative law judge at the FCC smacked Comcast for anti-competitive behavior through its banishment of the Tennis Channel to a higher, pricier tier while favoring Comcast's home-owned channels.

Does one see a common thread here? Or a more unlikely series of events?

The AT&T takeover was certainly most audacious of the three events. It was nothing less than a direct assault on the concept of antitrust -- the second largest wireless carrier buying out the fourth largest. The result would have totally altered the wireless landscape. AT&T did what it always does, and usually does successfully. It marshalled all the economic resources it could buy. It marshalled all of the political resources it had bought in Congress and in state houses around the country. It put its captive union in harness to make sure recalcitrant and/or uninformed Democrats went along. And, for good measure, it started a massive TV advertising campaign full of hopeful notes for a better tomorrow, rural deployment and, in the face of all logic, lots of new jobs . Of course Wall Street, which sees only deals and profits (and competition is bad for profits) assumed it was a done deal, adding to the chorus of inevitability.

And on the other side? A bunch of public-interest and consumer groups, many of them utraged consumers (many of them T-Mobile customers) and one company -- Sprint. In the currency of Washington, it's the companies that count. Based on past history, no one had any faith that the institutions of government which are supposed to prevent deals like thi,s, the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the Federal Communications Commission, would actually do their jobs.

And yet they did. Whether it was Occupy Wall Street (and other places) or election-year populism, or the public outcry or just the plain facts of this deal, DoJ sued to stop the takeover. The FCC conducted an intense staff inquiry and then released that scathing document when AT&T tried to use a procedural trick to squash it. Then a Federal judge indicated she wasn't pleased with the whole matter.

Even AT&T reaches its limits, although not often and not so quickly. The $4 billion break-up fee should help T-Mobile, as should access to more spectrum.

Now that the DoJ has flexed its muscles, it's time for the next challenge -- Verizon. That company played it cooler than AT&T, trying to sneak under the radar by buying $3.6 billion worth of spectrum from Comcast and other cable companies, and planning joint marketing agreements.The revitalized Antitrust Division and the FCC will take a look at this deal, although it may be harder to block outright than AT&T's. The harms would be just as serious -- the quashing of broadband competition that has already been already squeezed to near nothing by deregulation. It would be acceptable if the spectrum deal went through but the joint marketing was stopped. Verizon and the cable companies are, in some areas, competitors as broadband providers, particularly in those privileged places where Verizon has built out its fiber optic FiOS network. In other areas, there is ostensible competition, although the basic DSL offering really isn't as good as cable's broadband network. Cable and telephone should be competitors for consumer dollars. DoJ and the FCC should check very closely the details of the joint marketing plans, and shouldn't approve anything without them. If there are to be those hard-to-enforce "conditions" then the conditions should ban some practices and make resolution of complaints easy to accomplish. Usually, complaints on conditions take a long time and a lot of money to resolve.

If either agency needs more inspiration, it should look no farther than the FCC's administrative law judge, Richard Sippel, who wrote a scathing opinion giving Tennis Channel a significant boost over Comcast. Tennis Channel had complained it was banished to the outer courts of Comcast's lineup when Golf and Versus, channels owned by Comcast providing similar content to similar audiences, were given favored placement on the show courts of the lineup.

In a hearing of the type which are rarely held, evidence is introduced and testimony taken. Sippel's opinion is a great example of what the "paper hearings" composed of comments and replies are missing. When he cited testimony by Michael Egan, Comcast's programming expert as "just not credible" when the Comcast exec tried to say the channels were different, Sippel set the tone for a type of opinion that should have been issued long ago in the cable industry. He cited evidence showing Comcast gives better distribution to programming networks it owns, noting, for example, that Comcast had planned to give a Major League Baseball network a spot on the paid sports tier, until it got a piece of the action. Then it got a better spot in the lineup. Comcast Cable "has taken an active role in ensuring that its affiliated networks obtain favorable channel placement," Sippel found.

The fine he proposed, $375,000, is far too modest, although he limited by law. It's smaller than the $500,000 fine the DoJ wants to impose on Comcast Chmn./CEO Brian Roberts for not reporting stock purchases. More significantly, it strikes a first blow for independent programmers trying to get distribution on dominant distribution networks, a model that has hampered new programming for decades.

If a new day is dawning, there's lots of work to be done. The FCC could approve Sippel's order quickly. It could make sure Verizon and Comcast actually compete. It could make certain that wireless operators AT&T and Verizon don't section off parts of the spectrum for their own use, while eliminating the interoperable features that were supposed to take place.

It's a lot to contemplate. But it's easier to do now rather than a few months back.

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Follow Art Brodsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/artbrodsky

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-brodsky/yes-virginia-consumers-wo_b_1166883.html

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Shell oil spill off Nigeria likely worst in decade (AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria ? The head of Nigeria's oil spill management agency says an offshore oil spill from a Royal Dutch Shell PLC field is likely the worst in a decade.

Peter Idabor of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency told The Associated Press on Thursday that oil from the spill in Shell's Bonga field has spread to roughly 100 nautical miles. Idabor said he expects oil to begin washing ashore on Nigeria's southern coast later Thursday.

Shell announced Wednesday it had closed its Bonga field after a leak of less than 40,000 barrels of oil. That's about the amount of a 1998 Mobil spill that saw oil slicks extend down Nigeria's coast to Lagos.

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Use Siri on Your Mac (Sort Of) [IPhone Apps]

Air Dictate is a clever little app that ports the power of Siri over to the Mac. Kind of. It doesn't have any of the bells and whistles of Siri (don't go starting conversations!) but rather, uses the extremely accurate speech recognition engine in Siri to dictate text to your Mac. More »

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2 Ohio men plead guilty in huge mortgage fraud (Providence Journal)

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Vicki Larson: Can Loving a Robot Lead to Divorce? (Huffington post)

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JewishJournal: The Israel Factor: Romney tops Gingrich who tops Obama #constantcontact http://t.co/LMRJyz31

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Top Picks: The life of Charles and Ray Eames, the best travel destinations for 2012, and more

'The Help' is a worthy adaptation of a powerful book, NPR's hilarious 'Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!' looks back at the year's top stories, 'Christmas at St. Olaf' on PBS celebrates the 100th anniversary of a beautiful musical tribute, and more top picks.

A good story, well told

Skip to next paragraph

Based on the big 2009 bestseller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help winds a tale of black maids and their white mistresses in the starkly racist South of the 1960s. The intense emotional connection between white children and the maids who raised them, and these same children's later disdain, is played out against the backdrop of a burgeoning civil rights movement. There are terrific performances from Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, whose presence Monitor critic Peter Rainer describes as "ennobling without falsifying that nobility with sentimentality."

Footprints in the snow

Christmas in Yellowstone, on PBS Christmas Day, celebrates the season in our nation's most iconic national park. Part of the "Nature" series, this is a reprise of one of the show's most elegant and visually rich documentaries.

Rejoice!

Christmas at St. Olaf, on PBS Dec. 20, presents the five college choirs of this Northfield, Minn., college in a soaring musical celebration of the Christ story. The hundreds of voices joined together to mark the 100th anniversary of this annual tradition give the event immense power and joy.

Trip into 2012

Planning a vacation for next year but stumped as to where to go? National Geographic has compiled a list of the best destinations for 2012 (travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/best-trips-2012/). Some options you may have thought of (London, Greece), but other lesser-known options stretch the imagination ? Istria, Croatia, and the Virunga Volcanoes in Central Africa. The photos accompanying the Best of the World 2012 will make you want to book that plane ticket sooner rather than later.

Overdue debut

Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! ? the hilarious, witty, and occasionally even educational Peabody Award-winning NPR radio show ? arrives on BBC America Dec. 23 at 8 p.m. This special will look back at the year's top stories from both a British and US perspective, and also includes contests and celebrity guests from both sides of the pond. The show was taped live on Dec. 2 in Chicago.

Designing duo

"American Masters" features an intense look at married couple Charles and Ray Eames (Charles & Ray Eames: The Architect and the Painter) ? a pair who put joy back into the world by helping to shape American design in the 20th century. The show airs on PBS Dec. 19 at 10 p.m.

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Russia sells new batch of fighter jets to India (AP)

MOSCOW ? Russia signed a deal Friday to provide India with 42 fighter jets, but the two nations have failed to strike a deal on a controversial nuclear power plant.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that New Delhi will fit the Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jets with additional locally produced electronics. The jets will be assembled in India.

India had earlier signed several contracts for the delivery of 230 Su-30MKIs, most of which are being assembled locally. The long-range jets are custom-designed for the Indian Air Force.

India has been a leading customer for Russian weapons since the Soviet times, buying combat jets, missiles, navy ships and other weapons worth billions of dollars. Russian weapons still acount for the bulk of the Indian military arsenals.

Indian and Russian officials, however, failed to sign a deal to complete the Koodankulam nuclear plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Russia had pledged to build two of the four reactors at the $3 billion plant, but the construction has been delayed due to protests by local residents concerned about the plant's safety.

As part of his two-day visit to Russia, Singh met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Both leaders pledged to strengthen the decades-old bilateral ties.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_russia_india

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The Road to Monticello

We set out the next morning in a rental car with Christopher, somewhat unsurely I thought, at the wheel. For the next few hours we rode along talking about everything under the sun, except Iraq. At lunchtime, Christopher pulled off the highway and, true to form, managed to find perhaps the best restaurant in Culpeper, Va.

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Death or victory at the Grand Prix (The Week)

New York ? With one race left, says Michael Cannell, American Phil Hill had a shot to be the Grand Prix champion of 1961

THEY BEGAN ARRIVING a day in advance. The loyal Ferrari following ? the tifosi ? rolled up in caravans of Fiats and battered motorbikes to camp among the chestnut groves that spread more than 600 acres around the boomerang-shaped racetrack in Monza, Italy. By the glow of evening campfires they raised cups of grappa to the great drivers, the piloti who once thundered around the terrible banked turns of the Autodromo Nazionale. Most of them were gone now. Between 1957 and 1961, 20 Grand Prix drivers had died. Many more suffered terrible injuries. In the days before seat belts and roll bars, they were crushed, burned, and beheaded with unnerving regularity.

Inside the Autodromo, half a dozen teams and 32 drivers warmed up for the 267-mile Italian Grand Prix, the climactic race of the 1961 season. The spotlight was focused squarely on Ferrari teammates, drivers Phil Hill and Count Wolfgang von Trips. The next afternoon, on Sunday, Sept. 10, they would settle their long fight for the Grand Prix title, racing's highest laurel.

SEE MORE: Albert Pujols' quarter-billion-dollar deal: 'Disaster' for the Angels?

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Von Trips held a four-point edge ? points are awarded for first- through sixth-place finishes ? and he had earned the advantageous pole position with the fastest practice laps. Tall, blond, and blue-eyed, Von Trips was descended from German nobility, and he cut a glamorous figure even in Grand Prix circles. He had the comportment of a champion, though he had crashed so many times he was plagued with the nickname Count von Crash. Hill, a California mechanic and hot-rodder, was a solitary man, given to apprehension and self-doubts about racing. He had won at Monza a year earlier, and he had set several lap records. If Von Trips was the erratic star, Hill was his rock-steady complement. Like any great sports story, it was a pairing of opposites.

The two men had traded checkered flags all summer as the Grand Prix made its way through six European countries. Neither one was Italian, which suited Enzo Ferrari, the reclusive white-haired padrone of the Ferrari empire. Every time an Italian driver died, the government launched a meddlesome investigation and the Vatican made thunderous condemnations.

SEE MORE: Mike Krzyzewski: Greatest basketball coach ever?

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The location only heightened the suspense. The Italians called Monza the death circuit, in part because the banked turns catapulted errant cars like cannonballs. The sloped surface was coarse and pockmarked, and it exerted a centrifugal pull that the fragile Formula 1 cars were not designed to handle. More dangerous still, the long straights allowed drivers to touch 180 mph, and to slipstream inches apart. A series of tight curves, known as chicanes, had been installed to slow the cars, but it was still a track to be driven flat out.

ON A MILD and clear mid-September morning, the drivers went through their prerace routine wearing polo shirts and sunglasses. Hill asked a mechanic to splash a bucket of water on the back of his coveralls to keep him cool. Von Trips was as relaxed as ever, napping on a bench in the corner of the pits. He roused himself and ate a pear as the crew rolled his car into the pole position ? the inside slot on the front row ? marked with a white line on the gray asphalt. It was the only time that Von Trips had earned the top spot. "We may be teammates," he said of Hill as he adjusted his silver helmet, "but one has to fight. I love fighting."

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Everything but the fight faded in the closing moments before the start. Mechanics darted about, shouting at one another in four languages. A heaving crowd of 50,000 packed the grandstands and bleachers, pressed against wire fences at the edge of the 6.2-mile course. It was their moment to see a Ferrari renaissance, to defeat the hated Brits and their Lotus cars. The drivers emerged from the pits in Dunlop coveralls and lowered themselves one by one into their cars.

Five, four, three, two, one. The Italian flag swung down and the cars leaped. Hill's car had "a stumble to it," he said, "but when the flag dropped I was gone."

SEE MORE: The couple who got married while running the New York City Marathon

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Von Trips had a history of early faltering. It often took him a lap or so to shed his jitters and find his rhythm. True to form, he missed a few beats at the start and mired himself in a pack of six cars following Hill in tight formation, moving inches apart through the broad Curva Grande and the two sharp rights at the Curva di Lesmo. Von Trips was in fourth as the group charged down the long backstretch and around the big south curve to finish the first lap.

With Hill pulling away, Von Trips surely felt an urgency to maneuver his way up through the tightly bunched field. It was still early, but if he got trapped in traffic he might forfeit his chance for a top finish, and with it his edge over Hill. With teeth bared he passed the defending world champion Jack Brabham and Lotus's Jim Clark in two powerful blasts of acceleration.

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On the second lap, Von Trips sped through a bend in the backstretch with Clark trailing behind and slightly to his left. The bend slowed them only slightly as they rolled into the fastest stretch, a straight where drivers could press the accelerator for nearly 30 full seconds. Moving at 150 mph, Von Trips watched for his chance to pass.

Four hundred feet before the next turn the German swerved left to make his move. In his haste to catch Hill, he was unaware that Clark had stayed close. He may have assumed that Clark was slipstreaming directly behind him. In any case, Von Trips "shifted sideways," Clark later said, "so that my front wheels collided with his back wheels. It was the fatal moment."

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VON TRIPS COMMITTED a tiny miscalculation, a miscue of no more than an inch, but at 150 mph it was enough to sling him onto a grassy shoulder to the left. His wheels plowed the soft earth, as the car rode up a 5-foot slope where spectators stood two deep behind a chest-high chicken-wire fence. In an instant of explosive violence, the Ferrari slashed along the fence for about 10 feet, shredding spectators like a big red razor, then bounced end-over-end back onto the track. The mauled car came to rest right side up with its wheels collapsed inward.

Five spectators standing along the fence died instantly, their skulls crushed by the threshing car. The survivors screamed in reaction to the death all around them. Bodies lay in scattered clumps. Ten more would die later. More than 50 were injured.

SEE MORE: The New York City Marathon: By the numbers

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Meanwhile, Clark's Lotus spun and struck the embankment several times before coming to a rest in the grassy stretch beside the road. The car was crushed, but Clark squirmed out unscathed.

The man who was supposed to be the Grand Prix champion lay facedown on the track in bloodied coveralls, alone and motionless. His car had rolled on top of him, then, on the next bounce, flung him like a rag doll. His distinctive silver helmet had not saved him, nor had the flimsy roll bar.

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Clark jumped from his car and helped a race marshal drag Von Trips's car to the shoulder. He glanced at Von Trips, but could not bring himself to check on him. "I didn't really want to go over to where he lay," Clark said. With his helmet tucked under his arm, Clark went back to the pits, where he all but collapsed.

Von Trips had died of skull fractures by the time an ambulance arrived. In a few savage seconds, no more than a few heartbeats, all his charm and promise, all the hope he offered to his troubled homeland, came to a violent end.

SEE MORE: The 100-year-old marathoner snubbed by Guinness World Records

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A paramedic spread a sheet over the body. A bloodied forearm dangled from the shroud as Von Trips was carried to the ambulance on a stretcher. It was the public's last glimpse of him. All over Germany people froze over their coffee or pilsner, as the radio sportscaster waited for a messenger from the Ferrari pit to explain why the count had not come around on the last lap.

Meanwhile, the race flowed on with Hill leading Moss by 18 seconds. Drivers wove through the smoke and debris, slowed by a marshal waving a flag of caution while the bloodied bodies were laid out on the roadside covered in tent canvas and newspapers. No announcement was made to the crowd.

SEE MORE: The NBA lockout ends: Winners and losers

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Hill passed the scene 41 more times that afternoon. On each lap he glimpsed the crumpled remains of the car, but he was uncertain whose it was until he saw Von Trips's name removed from the scoreboard.

After Von Trips crashed, three other Ferraris dropped out. Watching on television in Modena, Enzo Ferrari said, 'Abbiamo perduto.' We have lost. It was a curious reaction given that Hill was driving a nearly perfect race, a masterpiece of precision and pacing. Less than two hours after Von Trips crashed, Hill whipped by the checkered flag in first place, the only one of five Ferraris to finish.

The win gave Hill nine points, clinching the championship. He had overcome waves of obstacles ? Ferrari's partisanship, a late-summer deficit in points, an 11th-hour engine failure ? to become the first American to win racing's greatest prize. Among other things, the win resolved the tug-of-war between anguish and ambition that had gripped him for more than a decade. It affirmed a pursuit that he had so often doubted.

Hill had arrived at the triumphant moment that had drawn him since childhood like a distant light. The realization that he had prevailed ? the wondrous reality of it ? came over him that day as "a warming relief, a soaring feeling."

Hill walked to the victory podium in a throng of pushing, swaying well-wishers. Sweat matted his hair and goggles dangled from his neck. He sipped from a bottle of mineral water and asked about Von Trips. "I suspected the worst, but it was not until after champagne and congratulations on the victory stand that I was told," he said later.
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Sports Illustrated reported that Hill sobbed and dashed away as the flashbulbs popped. But he was too inured for that. Hill may have sagged. He may have paled beneath his sooty cheeks. But his face betrayed nothing but stony acceptance. "At the risk of seeming to be callous I can only say that my emotional defenses are pretty strong," he later wrote.

Von Trips claimed all the morning headlines. The newspapers buried Hill's triumph, if they mentioned it at all. The insinuation was that Von Trips was the rightful winner. Hill was merely an understudy, despite two first-place finishes, two seconds, and two thirds. The New York Times printed an account of Von Trips' death on its front page. Mention of the new champion waited until after the story jumped to page 33. "He knows that his victory has been so submerged in the press under the death toll," the reporter wrote, "that few people even realize he is champion."

---

?2011 by Michael Cannell, reprinted courtesy of Twelve. Excerpted from The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit.

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