EU probes Samsung, Germany blocks its tablets

FILE - In this Aug. 25, 2011 file photo a lawyer holds an Apple iPad and a Samsung Tablet-PC at a court in Duesseldorf, Germany. The Duesseldorf state court ruled Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, that neither the South Korean company's Galaxy Tab 10.1 nor the Galaxy Tab 8.9 could be sold in Germany because they were in violation of unfair competition laws. (AP Photo/dapd, Sascha Schuermann, file)

FILE - In this Aug. 25, 2011 file photo a lawyer holds an Apple iPad and a Samsung Tablet-PC at a court in Duesseldorf, Germany. The Duesseldorf state court ruled Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, that neither the South Korean company's Galaxy Tab 10.1 nor the Galaxy Tab 8.9 could be sold in Germany because they were in violation of unfair competition laws. (AP Photo/dapd, Sascha Schuermann, file)

BRUSSELS (AP) ? Samsung took a double-hit in its battle against archrival Apple on Tuesday, when the European Union announced it would investigate whether it was illegally trying to hinder competitors and Germany blocked sales of some of its tablet computers.

Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. are engaged in a strategic war over patents in many countries across the world as they try to draw market share away from each other.

The EU's antitrust watchdog thinks the South Korean company may be overstepping the bounds and launched a formal investigation into whether Samsung is using law suits over key patents on 3G wireless technology to hinder competitors ? including Apple.

The European Commission, which is acting as the EU's antitrust enforcer, said it suspected Samsung of not giving other companies fair access to patents it holds on standardized 3G technology for mobile devices ? despite committing to do so in 1998.

A spokeswoman for the Commission said the probe also affected tablets such as Apple's newest iPad, which uses standardized wireless 3G technology.

The Commission said that Samsung last year sought legal injunctions against other device makers in several EU states, alleging patent infringement.

Under EU patent rules, a company that hold patents for standardized products are required to license them out indiscriminately at a fair price.

If Samsung is found guilty of unfairly restraining competition, it can be fined up to 10 percent of annual revenue related to the investigation.

"Samsung now has to think carefully about how it wants to deal with (the probe)," said Florian Mueller, a patent analyst who has been closely following the battle between Samsung and Apple.

In the EU, Samsung has sued Apple in Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., the Netherlands and Spain. It also has legal proceedings against its competitor in the U.S., South Korea, Japan and Australia, Mueller said. However, Mueller said, Samsung may now be inclined to withdraw its lawsuits against Apple following news of the European investigation.

The battle between the two companies began in April, when Cupertino, California-based Apple sued Samsung in the United States, alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of Samsung's Galaxy devices "slavishly copy" the iPhone and iPad.

Samsung ? the global No. 1 in TVs and No. 2 in smartphones by sales ? responded by filing its own lawsuits that accused Apple of patent infringement of its wireless telecommunications technology.

A spokesman said the European Commission launched its probe after its own investigation of the market, rather than reacting to complaints from Samsung's competitors. However, the Commission last year sent antitrust questionnaires to both Apple and Samsung.

The spokesman added that similar probes could also be launched against other companies strategically using patent suits to stop competitors from selling similar devices.

Nam Ki-yung, a spokesman at Samsung Electronics in South Korea, said his company was looking at details of the news on the probe but had no immediate comments.

EU antitrust probes don't have a deadline and the Commission stressed that its investigation does not mean Samsung did indeed breach the bloc's competition rules. Samsung now gets the chance to respond to the Commission's concerns, as will other market participants.

Also Tuesday, in a separate case, an appeals court in Germany ruled in favor of Apple, saying Samsung could not sell its Galaxy Tab 10.1 nor the Galaxy Tab 8.9 in the country because they too closely resembled the iPad2, in violation of unfair competition laws.

"Samsung wrongly used the enormous reputation and prestige of the iPad," Duesseldorf state court Presiding Judge Wilhelm Berneke wrote in his ruling.

Samsung's successor tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 N, was not affected by the ruling, and the company said that while the decision was disappointing, it was largely irrelevant.

"Today's ruling is of little factual relevance due to the new model Galaxy Tab 10.1 N, and ... the decision therefore is of no indicative value with respect to other legal proceedings involving the Galaxy Tab 10.1 N," Samsung said in an email to The Associated Press.

"Samsung will continue to take all appropriate measures, including legal action, to ensure continued consumer access to our innovative products."

Mueller said the German court ruling won't have a commercial impact on the South Korean company, since it has already been selling a new model of the Galaxy tablet since November.

"The defeat in Germany is more of a symbolical nature," said Mueller, whose clients include Apple competitor Microsoft.

The probe and victory in the German court for Apple come after the California company has met with several setbacks recently in its fight with Samsung.

Most recently, a Dutch court ruled on Jan. 24 that Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet was not a copy of Apple's iPad, and that it could continue to be sold in the Netherlands. That came on the heels of a December decision in Sydney, where the High Court dismissed Apple's appeal and said Samsung was free to sell its Galaxy tablet computers in Australia.

___

Rising reported from Berlin; Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this story from Seoul.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-01-31-EU-Germany-Samsung-Apple/id-9e2a7c6e5c1c477a9b249153c9137d52

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Dalai Lama and West "distorting protests" to tarnish China (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? The Tibetan government-in-exile has colluded with Western governments to distort a recent string of police shootings in Tibetan areas of China in a bid to discredit the government, an official Chinese newspaper said Monday.

Protests by ethnic Tibetans, who accuse Chinese authorities of stifling their traditions and religious freedoms, have gathered pace in the mountainous frontiers of southwestern Sichuan province that border on Tibet proper since last Monday.

Tibetan advocacy groups say as many as seven Tibetans have been shot dead and more than 60 wounded when protests in the region were quelled by police and security forces, but China's official Xinhua news agency reported that police fired in self-defense on "mobs" that stormed police stations.

An editorial in China's official English-language China Daily said exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing brands a "splittist," was eager to stir up trouble to garner Western support.

"In today's world, a handful of extremists have the ability to cause havoc to a region or even a country," the China Daily said, adding that the Dalai Lama "is financed and supported by some Western governments and media with their own agenda against China."

"As usual, Western government officials and the self-proclaimed Tibetan government-in-exile spared no effort in taking the opportunity to criticize the Chinese central government," the paper said.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He says he advocates a peaceful resolution of the Tibet dispute and wants authentic autonomy for Tibet, not independence.

Independent verification of what happened in the protests and the shootings is impossible, with government travel restrictions on the region and security checkpoints along roads barring journalists and others from reaching the area.

U.S. Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Maria Otero said in a statement after the first two shootings last week that the United States was "gravely concerned" about the reports of violence.

The editorial underscored the potential international ructions that could follow from continued unrest in Tibetan areas, where protests and riots in 2008 triggered international criticism of Beijing, which was then met by vehement nationalist condemnation by many Han Chinese.

The Dalai Lama's efforts to kidnap the broader interests of Tibetans for selfish political motives are "doomed to failure," the editorial said.

Over the past year, there have been at least 16 incidents of Tibetans setting themselves on fire in response to Beijing's grip over Tibetan affairs.

China has ruled what it calls the Tibet Autonomous Region since Communist troops marched in in 1950. It rejects criticism that it is eroding Tibetan culture and faith, saying its rule has ended serfdom and brought development to a backward region.

The Tibetan government-in-exile has its headquarters in Dharamsala in northern India, and says it speaks for the authentic aspirations of the Tibetan people.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Ken Wills)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/wl_nm/us_china_tibet

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After the wreck, cruise ship crew hanker for the sea (Reuters)

ROME (Reuters) ? Hours after the Costa Concordia's captain had abandoned ship, and after helping dozens of passengers to safety, Carlos Garrone stripped off his clothes and plunged into the freezing waters off Giglio island and rescued a drowning fellow crew member.

As the operation to salvage the massive cruise liner moves forward, its pace governed by the vagaries of the winter weather, passengers are lining up to claim to compensation. But like several of his shipmates, and despite the trauma of the midnight wreck, Garrone has no plans to leave his job.

"Maybe some people won't want to sail again after living through such a traumatic experience," said Garrone, an engineer who lives in Valencia, Spain.

"I risked my life to jump into the water and save a drowning man. To know I saved a man makes me feel good about myself. For me it was a positive experience," he said.

As divers search for the missing, and salvage crews prepare to recover fuel from the carcass of the Costa Concordia, other crew members interviewed by Reuters also said they had no intention of giving up a life at sea.

It is of course their job, but many of the more than 1,000-strong crew come from places where jobs are in short supply and they have shown no sign of wanting to criticize their employer during a general economic downturn even if they may have entertained some doubts about returning to work at sea.

After the accident, Costa Cruises told the crew it would pay them until the end of their current contract and that their jobs were assured. But some crew members were worried.

"The company said I could decide when I wanted to go back to work, and that I could take all the time I needed," Ciro Iosso, 33, an electrician for more than a decade with Costa, told Reuters. Because of his wife and five-year-old son, Iosso said he had some doubts about going back to sea.

Iosso commandeered a lifeboat that had already been put in the water with other crew members and said he personally evacuated at least 300 off the ship.

"LEFT A SCAR"

"I'm not absolutely sure I'll go back on a ship. The accident left a scar that won't ever go away," Iosso said. "I hope this feeling passes soon and I won't be afraid to go back on a ship, because it's what I do best."

In a shrinking economy, demand for ship's officers slightly outpaced supply in 2010, according to the International Shipping Federation in London, and the cruise industry has been the fastest growing leisure travel market for decades, with a passenger growth rate of 7.4 percent since 1980.

The accident that killed 17 and left 15 missing has so far had a limited impact on cruise bookings, Frederic Martinez, chief executive of the French unit of Royal Caribbean - a Costa Cruises competitor - told Reuters.

In the two weeks since the accident, "we didn't notice a very strong slowdown, or a wave of cancellations, we received very few worried phone calls. We were positively surprised," Martinez said.

But passengers would have booked in advance, and in many cases before the Costa Concordia hit the rocks.

Two weeks after the shipwreck, however, questions are still being raised about how the disaster was handled and whether there are shortcomings in crew training and hiring practices.

A crew member, Gary Lobaton, was the first to file a lawsuit against Costa's parent company Carnival in a U.S. district court. More are expected. Lobaton's lawyers said in his court filing that he was not aware of the "dangerous conditions" of the cruise ship until it was too late to abandon it safely.

Italy's top-ranking Coast Guard official, Marco Brusco, said last week that the ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, lost "a precious hour," which made evacuating the ship more difficult.

Had the order been given earlier, "the lifeboats could have been launched calmly, people could have been reassured," Brusco said in testimony to a committee in the Italian Senate.

Passengers have complained the evacuation was chaotic, with some left waiting in lifeboats for two hours before being able to leave the ship. Several bodies were found by divers in submerged evacuation assembly points, wearing life vests.

"Some crew panicked because they didn't have adequate training," said Ignacio Benigno, 34, a supervisor chef in one of the ship's restaurants. "It was really difficult to prepare the lifeboats in that situation."

Benigno, who is Filipino, was hired by an agency that provides crews to cruise companies like Costa. Both the agency, Magsaysay Maritime Corp, and Benigno said that he had received the proper training.

Unlike Garrone, whose father retired as a Costa mechanic and whose uncle is a retired Costa captain, Benigno started out working in hotels in Manila. Like Garrone, Benigno plans to go back to sea with Costa.

"I promised to go back to Costa," Benigno said. "Many of us are returning to Costa Cruises because we're like one big family."

COMPANY DEFENDS CREW

The company has defended the actions of the crew, which it credits for having saved the lives of more than 4,000 people on board, and said they had proper training.

"I must say with pride that the emergency evacuation of the ship was conducted exclusively by personnel on the Costa Concordia, from the officers to the regular crew members of all types and ranks," Costa Chief Executive Pier Luigi Foschi told Italy's Senate on Wednesday.

Foschi, who took over at Costa after 23 years in the elevator industry working for Otis Elevator, had no previous maritime or cruise industry experience.

In the aftermath of the wreck, however, outside experts have said the cruise industry has a generally good safety record and Costa is no exception.

"Costa is generally considered a responsible company, which follows good practice in training and hiring," said Sam Dawson, a spokesman for the International Transport Workers' Federation, a union umbrella body.

But the wreck of the Costa Concordia suggests problems may lie elsewhere. While crews are all meant to speak English, the same rule does not apply to passengers.

"On large passenger ships it is not unusual to have several dozen nationalities amongst the passengers and amongst the crew, and the experience of many accidents and in an emergency is people tend to revert to their own language," said Andrew Linington with the seafarers' union Nautilus International.

"Conveying some kind of complex announcement and instruction in a highly stressful situation is inherently difficult when (many) nationalities are involved," he said.

The industry is of course anxious to stress its safety credentials. Cruise ships have "the best safety record in the travel industry," according to the European Cruise Council.

"After an airplane crashes, people keep flying," said Marco Guida, 25, who was a second officer of the engine room on the Concordia. Guida, who is from a small town just down the road from Captain Schettino's home town, comes from a family of sailors, including his brother and his father.

"We can't just give up. Being a seaman is a passion, and it's not the kind of thing that you turn your back on."

(Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz, Manny Mogato and Jonathan Saul; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/wl_nm/us_italy_ship

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How to take a screen recording on your iPhone or iPad [Jailbreak app for that]

How do you record the screen of your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad? That’s the question several of our readers have asked this week. Sure, you can use a fancy

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Streep's Thatcher, Williams' Monroe star at SAG (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? What a cast the Screen Actors Guild Awards have lined up: Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier, Margaret Thatcher and J. Edgar Hoover.

Actors playing illustrious real-life figures factor into the 18th annual honors given by Hollywood's main acting union Sunday.

The best-actress category features Meryl Streep as Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" and Michelle Williams as Monroe in "My Week with Marilyn." Leonardo DiCaprio is up for best actor as FBI boss in "J. Edgar," while "My Week with Marilyn" co-stars supporting-actor nominee Kenneth Branagh as Olivier.

Streep won a Golden Globe for "The Iron Lady" and is considered a favorite for the SAG prize and for her third win at the Academy Awards, which are set for Feb. 26.

The front-runners for the other SAG awards are actors in fictional roles, though, among them George Clooney as a dad in crisis in "The Descendants" and Jean Dujardin as a silent-film star fallen on hard times in "The Artist." Both are up for best actor, and both won Globes ? Clooney as dramatic actor, Dujardin as musical or comedy actor.

Octavia Spencer as a brassy Mississippi maid in "The Help" and Christopher Plummer as an elderly dad who comes out as gay in "Beginners" won Globes for supporting performances and have strong prospects for the same honors at the SAG Awards.

The winners at the SAG ceremony typically go on to earn Oscars. All four acting recipients at SAG last year later took home Oscars ? Colin Firth for "The King's Speech," Natalie Portman for "Black Swan" and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for "The Fighter."

The same generally holds true for the weekend's other big Hollywood honors, the Directors Guild of America Awards, where Michel Hazanavicius won the feature-film prize Saturday for "The Artist." The Directors Guild winner has gone on to earn the best-director Oscar 57 times in the 63-year history of the union's awards show.

SAG also presents an award for overall cast performance, a prize that's loosely considered the ceremony's equivalent of a best-picture honor. However, the cast award has a spotty record at predicting what will win best picture at the Oscars.

While "The King's Speech" won both honors a year ago, the SAG cast recipient has gone on to claim the top Oscar only eight times in the 16 years since the guild added the category.

The SAG ceremony also includes an award for stunt ensemble, whose nominees include such hits as "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" and "X-Men: First Class."

Airing live on TNT and TBS, the show features nine television categories, as well.

Receiving the guild's life-achievement award is Mary Tyler Moore. The prize will be presented by Dick Van Dyke, her co-star on the 1960s sit-com "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

___

Online:

http://www.sagawards.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_en_tv/us_sag_awards

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Magnitude 6.3 earthquake shakes Peru (AP)

LIMA, Peru ? The U.S. Geological Survey says an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 has struck on the coast of central Peru.

The quake was recorded at 11 minutes after midnight (local and EST; 0511 GMT), nine miles (15 kilometers) from the city of Ica, which was badly damaged by a major 8.0 earthquake in August 2007 and also suffered damage in a quake last October.

Monday's quake was at a depth of 24.4 miles (39.2 kilometers). USGS maps showed the epicenter exactly on the Pacific Ocean coastline.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. No tsunami warning was issued.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_peru_earthquake

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Nineteen pets killed in Spotsylvania fire - The News Desk

Nineteen pets died in a Saturday morning fire that destroyed a home in the Lake Wilderness I subdivision of Spotsylvania County.

Spotsylvania Deputy Fire Chief Monty Willaford said 12 cats and seven dogs perished inside the single-family home in the 12900 block of Dubin Drive. Another three cats were rescued, and four more were missing.

The residents of the house were not there when the fire occurred.

A 911 call about the fire came in at 11:16 a.m., Willaford said, and the first firefighters arrived about 10 minutes later. The 1,800-square-foot house was engulfed in flames when crews got there, and the roof soon collapsed. There were no injuries to any humans.

About 30 firefighters and rescuers assisted in the effort, but the fire resulted in a total loss of the house, which was valued at about $200,000, Willaford said. Heat from the blaze caused about $10,000 in damage to the next-door house, mostly to its vinyl siding.

Fire officials investigated the cause of the Saturday blaze throughout the day. Willaford said it is too early to tell if the fire was accidental, or what caused it.

-Bill Freehling

Source: http://blogs.fredericksburg.com/newsdesk/2012/01/28/nineteen-pets-killed-in-spotsylvania-fire/

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Obama uses tax proposals for his political message

FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2011, file photo, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, speaks to reporters as Republican Senators emerge from a closed-door negotiation on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures, at the Capitol in Washington. Aiming tax increases at millionaires and companies that ship jobs abroad may help frame the fairness theme of President Barack Obama?s re-election campaign, but it?s a plan that stands virtually no chance of passing Congress. "He?s got to know that none of those things he proposed really have much of a chance of going through both houses of Congress," said Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2011, file photo, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, speaks to reporters as Republican Senators emerge from a closed-door negotiation on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures, at the Capitol in Washington. Aiming tax increases at millionaires and companies that ship jobs abroad may help frame the fairness theme of President Barack Obama?s re-election campaign, but it?s a plan that stands virtually no chance of passing Congress. "He?s got to know that none of those things he proposed really have much of a chance of going through both houses of Congress," said Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Aiming tax increases at millionaires and companies that ship jobs abroad may help frame the fairness theme of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, but it's a plan that stands virtually no chance of passing Congress.

Republicans have enough votes in the GOP-run House, and almost certainly in the Democratic-controlled Senate, to kill Obama's proposals. They say his ideas would discourage investment and job creation and further hurt an already ailing economy.

"He's got to know that none of those things he proposed really have much of a chance of going through both houses of Congress," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

"I don't think he's intending on passing any laws this year," said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "He's in a campaign. That was his re-election speech."

The GOP's dismissiveness hardly matters to Obama and his Democratic allies.

After last year's hyper-partisanship bogged down routine business like financing the government and paying its debts, few expect much to move through Congress before November's election anyway ? especially not tax hikes that Republicans solidly reject.

"Even if there is little prospect of getting Republicans to agree with these proposals, they're important reference points for the public in identifying Obama as someone who's on their side," said Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin.

Obama offered his plans, with scant detail, in Tuesday's State of the Union address. He used the word "fair" seven times to describe tax increases aimed at groups the Occupy movement has branded as the "one percent" of Americans who are doing extremely well while the rest of society struggles.

The president proposed ending tax breaks for U.S. companies moving jobs or profits to foreign countries and creating a minimum tax on their overseas profits. He also suggested new tax breaks for businesses that move jobs back to the U.S., for domestic manufacturing and for companies that invest in towns that have suffered major job losses.

Getting most attention was his plan to tax incomes above $1 million annually at a rate of at least 30 percent. That's a sharp and convenient contrast with the 15 percent tax rate enjoyed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, who earned about $21 million each of the past two years.

The proposals quickly became fodder for the GOP presidential contenders. Romney said the next day on CNBC's "Kudlow Report" that Obama's plan was "designed to come at me if I'm the nominee," and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said during last Thursday's presidential debate, "His proposal on taxes would make the economy worse."

Democrats immediately made clear that there will be Senate votes this year on the subject.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, part of the Senate Democratic leadership, said he was relishing a push on "some kind of Romney rule, I mean Buffett rule." Obama has embraced a Buffett rule, named for billionaire Warren Buffett, who has cited the inequity of laws that let him pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Such proposals, along with any efforts to deny tax breaks to U.S. companies that outsource jobs and profits, would never get the 60 votes they would need to prevail in the Senate this year, let alone win approval from the GOP-run House.

"If the president has proposals that will help create jobs, we'll take a look," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "But tax hikes on small businesses will make it even harder for them to invest and grow."

Republicans say boosting taxes on millionaires would hurt many of the people who run small businesses and create jobs, a claim Democrats call exaggerated. The GOP and business groups also marshal their own fairness argument, calling it unjust and impractical to raise taxes on companies that set up operations overseas.

"They locate their facilities to be close to the customer," said Dorothy Coleman, vice president for tax policy for the National Association of Manufacturers. "That's a big concern for us, targeting multinational companies as if there is something wrong with doing business overseas."

Democrats challenge that argument as well, saying many pharmaceutical and high technology companies that set up shop abroad are drawn by lower labor costs and taxes and still sell the bulk of their products in the U.S.

Those disputes underscore a political climate so difficult that neither the House nor Senate seem likely to even try advancing pre-election legislation that each party calls their top tax priority: overhauling and simplifying the tax code.

Even so, Obama's tax proposals can also be read as an opening gambit in what looms as a titanic partisan struggle to be waged after the November elections, perhaps in a lame duck session of Congress in December.

Next January, broad tax cuts will expire that were enacted under President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 and were temporarily renewed by Obama and Congress in 2010. At the same time, $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts will kick in unless lawmakers vote otherwise.

Congress will also need to renew the government's authority to borrow money. And action will be needed on a package of expiring smaller tax cuts, mostly for businesses, and on preventing the alternative minimum tax, originally aimed at the wealthy, from trapping middle- and upper-middle-income families as well.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-30-Congress-Taxes/id-1f3612a7d1c74cbd934c3f0aaa3ef7e2

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Former Italian President Scalfaro dies at 93 (Reuters)

ROME (Reuters) ? Former Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who was head of state during the "Bribesville" corruption affair that overturned Italy's old political order in the 1990s, has died, officials said on Sunday. He was 93.

Scalfaro, a former interior minister and speaker of the lower house of parliament, was appointed president in 1992 as the bribery and political funding scandal swept aside a party system which had run Italy since World War Two.

Politicians from the main parties paid tribute to Scalfaro's integrity and sense of responsibility in protecting the constitution which he had helped shape as a young lawyer after the war.

Mario Monti said he spoke to Scalfaro just after becoming prime minister last year. "I expressed to him personally my feelings of gratitude to him for the example he gave of public service," he said in a statement.

Although the head of state holds no executive power, his role in Italy's often turbulent political life can be extremely important as a guarantor of stability and in overseeing the timing of elections and the transition between governments.

Last year's transition between the scandal-plagued government of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Monti's technocrat administration, overseen by the current president, Giorgio Napolitano, underlined the importance of the position.

Scalfaro's own period in office began as the Bribesville scandal was creating a corrosive mistrust in the political system that overshadowed Italy's preparations to join the embryonic single European currency.

"As President of the Republic, he faced some of the most difficult periods of our history firmly and steadfastly," Napolitano said in a statement.

Both Scalfaro's own conservative Christian Democrat party and the centre-left Socialists were shown to have been involved in a vast web of bribery and illegal funding which reached deep into public life and destroyed Italians' faith in government.

His appointment also came shortly after the murder of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, an event which profoundly shocked Italy and heightened popular disgust with a political class that had failed to protect its own public servants.

Scalfaro, a deeply religious man who attended mass every morning, was one of the founding fathers of the Italian republic in 1946 and became well known in parliament for frequent references to his conversations with the Virgin Mary.

Despite his widely hailed sense of rectitude, he faced accusations in 1993 that he had been implicated in a murky scandal over the alleged theft of millions of dollars in funds for covert secret service operations.

He strongly denied the accusations and in a special televised address, "denounced what he called "an attempt at a slow destruction of the state," suggesting that the affair had been created to undermine confidence in Italy's institutions.

(Reporting By James Mackenzie, editing by Ben Harding)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120129/wl_nm/us_italy_expresident

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Video: Economic Worries Linger

Stocks sold off on news of a light GDP on Friday. Are there recession risks ahead? Don Luskin, Trend Macro; Jim Lacamp, MacroPortfolio Advisors; and Lee Munson, Portfolio, discuss.

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Deal of the Day ? 42? LG 42LW5300 Class 3D LED 1080p 120Hz HDTV with 3D Blu-ray Player and 4 Pairs of 3D Glasses

Today’s LogicBUY Deal is $600 off the 42″ LG 42LW5300 Class 3D LED 1080p 120Hz HDTV bundled with a 3D Blu-ray disc player and 4 pairs of 3D glasses for $799.99.? Features:? LED Plus display 2D technology, LG Cinema 3D technology, 2D to 3D conversion, 42″ 1920×1080 display, 4,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 3 HDMI inputs, more. [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/01/28/deal-of-the-day-42-lg-42lw5300-class-3d-led-1080p-120hz-hdtv-with-3d-blu-ray-player-and-4-pairs-of-3d-glasses/

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Austrian priest publishes names of ex-Catholics (AP)

VIENNA ? The Vienna archdiocese has apologized for the publication of a list of people who have formally left the Roman Catholic church.

A statement says those affected have been asked "for forgiveness," noting making the names public "is not allowed by state or church rules."

The statement was issued Thursday after a priest in a village north of Vienna listed local church-leavers in the diocese newspaper. The archdiocese says the priest has since "apologized in the form of a Mass and has written those affected a letter" of apology.

The rash of sex abuse scandals hitting the Catholic church has led to an increased number of people formally renouncing their affiliation. That also frees them from paying a mandatory church tax.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_eu/eu_austria_catholics

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Attacks by suspected insurgents kill 17 in Iraq (AP)

BAGHDAD ? Insurgents stepped up attacks around Iraq on Thursday, killing 17 people around the country, including 10 in a bombing attack on a house of two policemen and their families in central Iraq, police and hospital officials said.

At least 190 people have been killed in a wave of attacks by since the beginning of the year, raising concerns that the surge in violence and an escalating political crisis might deteriorate into a civil war, just weeks after the U.S. military withdrawal. Most of the dead in the wave of attacks have been Shiite pilgrims and members of the Iraqi security forces.

Two bombs planted at an entrance to a popular cafe in predominantly Sunni district of Sadiyah in southwestern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 17 others, police officials said. A police officer was shot dead in the same neighborhood.

In Yarmouk, a mostly Sunni district in western Baghdad, gunmen killed a real estate agent and two clients, police said. They did not know the motive for the attack.

Earlier Thursday, insurgents blew up a house where two policemen brothers lived with their families in Hamia area, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Baghdad, a police officer said. The house was leveled when insurgents detonated bombs they had planted around it at 1:00 a.m.

Both policemen, two infants and four women were among the dead, he said. A doctor at a nearby hospital confirmed the casualties.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Also Thursday, a motorcycle bomb missed a passing police patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing two civilians and wounding five others, police commander Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir said.

Since the U.S. completed its pullout last month, militant groups ? mainly al-Qaida in Iraq ? have stepped up attacks on the country's majority Shiites and government institutions. Although there were no claims of responsibility for Thursday's attacks, the bombings in Baghdad's Sunni districts suggest suspected Shiite militants could be retaliating.

___

Associated Press writers Mazin Yahya in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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OMG! Alaska Airlines discontinues controversial prayer cards

A collection of Alaska Airlines prayer cards, which will be discontinued on Feb. 1, 2012.

By Harriet Baskas, msnbc.com contributor

In a memo sent to its frequent fliers Wednesday, Alaska Airlines announced that the prayer cards it has been providing to passengers on meal trays for the past 30 years will be discontinued as of Feb. 1.

?A former marketing executive borrowed the idea from another airline and introduced the cards to our passengers in the late 1970s to differentiate our service,? the memo written by the company's chairman and president explained.

But airline spokesperson Bobbie Egan told msnbc.com that over the years the airline has received letters and e-mails from customers for and against the card. Last fall the company decided to stop distributing the cards because, Egan said, ?We believe it's the right thing to do in order to respect the diverse religious beliefs and cultural attitudes of all our customers and employees.?

Meal tray service in the coach class ended six years ago, so the prayer cards have been provided only to passengers in the first class cabin. MVP Gold flier Roz Schatman gets the cards on her meal tray quite often. ?In the spirit of diversity, I find them offensive,? she said.

Live Poll

Would you be offended by a prayer card?

The Alaska Airline statement said that while some passengers enjoyed the cards, reactions like Schatman?s were not unusual.

??[W]e've heard from many of you who believe religion is inappropriate on an airplane, and some are offended when we hand out the cards. Religious beliefs are deeply personal and sharing them with others is an individual choice.?

?It always seemed odd to me,? said George Hobica of the consumer travel website Airfarewatchdog.com. ?Flying on a wing and prayer? I don?t think those two go together.?

More stories:

Find more by Harriet Baskas on StuckatTheAirport.com and follow her on Twitter.

Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10236415-omg-alaska-airlines-discontinues-controversial-prayer-cards

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India's 'untouchable' queen faces election test

LUCKNOW, India?? After driving through a red-carpeted tunnel of plaster elephant tusks in an Ambassador, India's retro-looking national car, the chief minister of India's largest state swept past a coterie of her party's workers, who bowed and touched her feet.

Diamonds adorned the diminutive figure of "the Dalit Queen," encrusting her necklace, a bracelet, her earrings, a nose-ring and her watch, as she accepted a few bouquets of flowers and marched about briskly in the marigold-draped party headquarters.

But the huge crowds of gaping admirers were missing this year; there was no garland of banknotes, no upper-caste Brahmin on hand to symbolically pop a morsel of birthday cake into the mouth of an "untouchable" who has risen from the bottom of India's social pile to become one of the most powerful women in the world.

That's because election campaign rules are now in effect for staggered polls to be held in February and March in Uttar Pradesh.

Mayawati, who uses one name, is far from a sure bet to win another term as chief minister of the northern state whose population of 200 million would rank as the fifth-most populous in the world if it were a country.

Rainbow of castes
If she doesn't, it would be a blow to her undisguised ambition to one day become prime minister of India, a goal that looked reasonable back in 2007 when she won a huge mandate from the state's voters by appealing to a rainbow of castes, which still define the socio-economic status for many of India's 1.2 billion people.

Launching the seventh, gilt-edged volume of an autobiography that runs to thousands of pages and is printed in Hindi and English, Mayawati bemoaned Election Commission rules that obliged her to row back on her usual birthday beneficence.

"Normally, my birthday is an occasion to give away thousands of crores (a crore is 10 million rupees or $188,000) in welfare schemes for Dalits and other backward castes, but because of the election code of conduct we could not do that this year," she said.

Mayawati's nemesis in the election is Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled the country for most of its six decades of independence.

A relative greenhorn in the hurly-burly of Indian politics, Gandhi has staked his future on the performance of the venerable but troubled Congress party in Uttar Pradesh.

Although she presides over one of the most poverty-plagued states of India ? its per-capita income is just above 50 percent of the national average ? Mayawati's extraordinary personal extravagance preserves a tradition set over the centuries by a succession of rulers in the plains of the river Ganges.

Pink marble monuments
In the five years since she took office, she has blanketed hundreds of acres of prime real estate in the state capital Lucknow and elsewhere in pink marble and sandstone monuments.

Statues of marble elephants and icons of the lower castes, including a dozen of herself, occupy memorial parks created on a scale not seen in India since the British built New Delhi in the fading days of their empire.

A federal government report found that Uttar Pradesh lavished more than $400 million on such projects between 2007 and 2009 alone ? and the building continues.

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"She's taken it straight out of the pages of the Mughals and the first British Viceroys who built huge statues. These are abiding icons that the Dalits always hankered after but never had themselves," Ajoy Bose, author of a biography of Mayawati, said.

Like the Nawabs, descendents of Persian courtiers who governed the region in the 18th century, Mayawati likes to flaunt her wealth.

On paper, she is India's richest chief minister, with declared assets of $16 million that include a shopping mall in New Delhi and $169,000 in jewelry.

But unlike many of her peers in other states, she is open about her income and pays taxes on it.

A U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks last year recounted how she once sent a private jet to fetch a pair of sandals from Mumbai, 620 miles away.

According to the cable, one minister was forced to do sit-ups in front of Mayawati as a punishment for a minor offence; those wanting to become election candidates for her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege.

US cable: 'First-rate egomaniac'
But, unlike her aristocratic Mughal, Nawab and British predecessors, she hails from India's "Dalit" castes, who were marginalized for centuries on the bottom rungs of Hinduism's social ladder. Still today, the idea that a Dalit could become prime minister is as outlandish for many Indians as the thought of a black president once was in the United States.

One of nine children of a poor government clerk, Mayawati grew up in a Delhi slum and became a school teacher before launching into politics. Aides say she's a news junkie, who obsessively watches the many all-news channels now available in India.

She is often ridiculed by urban middle classes for her monumental personality cult ? the U.S. cable described her as a "first-rate egomaniac" ? and yet Mayawati still has many supporters in Uttar Pradesh, where economic growth has picked up and law and order have improved on her watch.

Mayawati's aides point out that she has spent far more on building roads and joining villages to the electrical grid than she has on the icons to herself and the Dalit people.

"Once you get the infrastructure on the ground, Uttar Pradesh will grow on its own," said a senior official in her inner circle, who asked not to be identified.

Sympathetic analysts even liken her park-building spree to that of the Nawab of Lucknow, Asaf-Ud-Dowlah, who employed 20,000 people to build a shrine during a harsh 1784 famine, a project some historians call an example of pre-Keynesian economics.

Economic growth
That might be a stretch, but electrification and rural welfare projects have undoubtedly contributed to economic growth, which at seven percent annually in her first four years of office, was the state's fastest-ever rate.

A report by the central government's economic Planning Commission last year said Mayawati's pro-Dalit policies had begun to improve the dire nutrition situation in the state, where 42 percent of children under five are underweight.

Even critics admit crime has fallen noticeably since she took over as chief minister in 2007 from Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former wrestler many remember for presiding over a surge in gang violence, with gun-wielding goons threatening shopkeepers.

In the mainly Dalit village of Bhaddi Kheda, an hour's drive from Lucknow, families have been given grants to build modest new houses to replace mud-walled hovels. New toilets improve sanitation, and muddy lanes have been paved.

Most importantly, said villager Saptruhan Das, Dalits who for generations were terrorized by higher castes now feel protected because the police are on their side.

"Yadav people would come and misbehave with the women," Das said, referring to former Chief Minister Yadav's caste. "In some places, they'd give us work but beat us. Now with Mayawati in power, nobody dares."

According to an opinion poll conducted in Uttar Pradesh for India Today magazine last November, 69 percent said that Mayawati had fulfilled the expectations of Dalits.

Ability matters more than caste
But nearly 9 out of 10 voters said competence mattered more than the chief minister's caste, two-thirds wanted a change of guard, and the poll showed that Yadav was more favored than Mayawati as the best person to lead the state.

Indeed, Yadav's Samajwadi Party could well emerge from the election with more seats in the 403-member state assembly than Mayawati, though probably not enough for a majority, forcing him to ally with Gandhi's Congress for a return to power.

It is too soon to write off the wily Mayawati. She has outwitted every opponent who has crossed her path since the 1990s, first forming several short-lived coalition governments and then storming home with a single-party majority in 2007.

She still pulls in crowds of easily 100,000 at election rallies, far more than her opponents, including Gandhi. And she has a knack for turning adversity into advantage.

Take the flap over the life-sized elephant statues Mayawati had erected in a sprawling Lucknow park, which she opened in 2008 and named after the untouchable leader who wrote India's constitution, Dr. B.R Ambedkar.

The Election Commission this month ordered all statues of Mayawati and of elephants ? her party's electoral symbol ? to be covered during the campaign. So now, dozens of hulking elephant statues are clad in yellow plastic sheeting, and plyboard boxes have been built around bronze Mayawati statues.

"I thank the Election Commission for this order," she said. "It is going to benefit the party and has given us free publicity."

Despite her bravado, Mayawati is likely to lose the votes of millions who believe that corruption has gone from bad to worse and the fruits of economic growth have been unevenly spread both across the sprawling state and its castes.

System of bribes
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one businessman in the state described a well-organized system of bribe-paying to bureaucrats and constant harassment of companies for pay-offs.

"You have to be really desperate to do business in Uttar Pradesh. You have to pay for virtually everything," he said. "Since you have to pay out even if you follow the law ? why follow the law?"

Apart from a couple of companies seen as close to her administration including Jaypee Group, which built the track used for India's first Formula One race last year, Uttar Pradesh has missed out on India's industrial growth of the past decade.

Construction, particularly state-funded building of roads, has been the main driver of the state's economy, along with agriculture. Manufacturing has stagnated, hobbled by regular power cuts, high taxes and corruption.

Dalit villager Chote Lal, 28, says life has improved for his caste under Mayawati, but he still does not have enough food to feed his seven children properly.

"There are no jobs, no factories ? she should have brought in industry," he said.

This may be Mayawati's undoing: not the statues and the personal extravagance, but the sense she has not done enough to lift living standards evenly across so vast a population.

"Overall, her performance is a mixed bag," said Bose, her biographer. "She has clearly been disappointing. She had a great chance to do more."

This is especially felt among higher castes and Muslims, whose votes helped propel Mayawati to power with a majority in 2007 but who now feel her pro-Dalit policies have not taken them into account.

"We want a government that works for development, not one that works for one particular caste or religion," said Mohammed Ahmed Khan, a Muslim farmer in the village of Dharai Mafi.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46146380/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

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Site sells baubles of the broken-hearted

Never Liked It Anyway

By Suzanne Choney

Wow, never mind the glitzy baubles that are available on a new website, Never Liked It Anyway. The stories that come with them are just as gripping (and they're free).

The site is for the spurned and broken-hearted who are not so devastated that they can't see their way to making a buck (or in some cases, much, much more) from their former lovers' gifts, with "real-world" prices given alongside "break-up" prices. But the best part is that sellers can vent their feelings about their exes in describing why the items are for sale.

Never Liked It Anyway

Here you can find a 1.74 carat "princess cut solitaire engagement ring," listed as having a "real world price" of $10,250, but offered for a "break-up price" of $6,800. Writes the seller:

Absolutely loved wearing this ring during my engagement. Unfortunately my ex-fiance and I never made it down the aisle. Months before the big day we purchased a new vehicle in my name for my soon to be husband, his vehicle, his payment. Needless to say when we broke things off, he decided to quit his job and give me the vehicle instead of getting it put in his name, leaving me with the payment. Not to mention we had rolled over negative equity from his previous vehicle to the new one, so in order to get rid of it when I sold it, I had to pay $9,000 in negative equity. So basically at this point I am trying to pay off the Credit Cards I had to max out to do so. Still fixing his mess months after the breakup ...

There's also more modest jewelry, like a "silver double love heart necklace with little cubic zirconias around the edge of larger heart." Real-world price: $150. Break-up price: $80. And a simple explanation that goes with it: "My ex is history and I want the jewelery he gave me to be as well," says the seller.

Then there's the 2-carat wedding ring, real-world price, $6,400; break-up price, $3,000:

Was married 23 years and didn't ever have a wedding ring ... marriage was on the rocks ...He was trying to buy me to keep me... so this ring hasn't been worn more than 2 years. Divorced 2 years later... No longer needed and need the money.

There are also wedding dresses never worn.

A Maggie Sottero gown, for example, originally $1,500, is offered at $1,300 (with the seller willing to bargain):

After our wedding turned into everything HE wanted, I realized that the path I was heading into wasn't where i wanted to be," she writes. "So i called off the wedding 2 months before so that I could be happy again. I absolutely love this dress and really hate parting with it but I feel like it is the final step to ending that relationship. I hope a gorgeous bride will walk down the isle with it one day!

The site was started by an Australian woman, Annabel Acton, who "decided to set up a kind of eBay for bitter brides and disgruntled grooms and other brokenhearted," notes The New York Post. Acton, the newspaper said, "was inspired by her own miserable breakup with her boyfriend five days before Christmas."

"All this pathetic ?Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? was sappy," Acton told the Post. "I wanted something spunky."

Spunky it is. Never Liked It Anyway isn't all about the dollars; it's also about healing. The site includes a "Moving on Manual," a crowd-sourced grab bag of "tips and tricks to help you move on fast, as written by you."

Many of those tips are helpful, and many are just cathartic: "Get the Fat App and distort a photo of them. Instant relief and instant comedy!" wrote "MissB."

Wrote "PeteRepeat": "Watch jersey shore and remember, it could always be worse... you could be The Situation."

And there's this, from "kmobayeni":?"Ban all Celine Dion songs (you should do this anyway)."

Related stories:

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on?Facebook,?and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

?

?

Source: http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10236563-site-sells-baubles-of-the-broken-hearted

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Colgate hikes prices at home; 1st attempt in years (AP)

NEW YORK ? Colgate-Palmolive is navigating a delicate tightrope, as it raises prices in North America for the first time in more than two years.

The company, best known for its toothpaste and dish soap, said Thursday it had raised prices in North America by an average of 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter, after cutting prices every quarter since the summer of 2009. The news emerged as the company reported a 5 percent decline in net income that it blamed on higher costs for raw materials.

Raising prices can be a risky move, because cash-strapped customers can drop even their favorite brands to save a few cents. Paychecks are already stretched thin and the government's most recent data on jobs, also released Thursday, show that the number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose last week. There are signs that the economy is healing, but raising prices in North America had been something that Colgate, until recently, had been unwilling to try.

Many of Colgate's rivals raised prices last year, as well as many restaurants, clothing stores and other industries. But Colgate had taken a different strategy, raising prices in fast-growing Latin America, where customers seemed willing to stomach the higher costs, but lowering prices in North America through discounts and other promotions.

In a call with analysts, CEO Ian Cook said customers were still willing to pay for premium products, like toothpaste for sensitive teeth, if they provided a benefit that customers want. Colgate is also aware that budget-conscious customers are generally more likely to trade down in other household products before swapping out their favorite toothpaste for store brands.

Overall, Colgate raised prices 3 percent in the quarter and 1 percent for the year, and Cook said price changes for the coming year would be "on the same order of magnitude."

The higher prices would come even though costs for many materials appear to be declining: Cook said he thought commodities costs would rise 2 to 3 percent this year, a far smaller burden than 2011's increase of 12 to 13 percent. As Colgate paid more for raw materials, its profit margin fell 1.7 percentage points.

But Colgate, like other U.S. companies, probably won't enjoy the same benefit that it got in 2011 from the weak dollar, which caused revenue raised overseas to translate into more dollars at home. Cook noted that other U.S. companies face the same challenge. "That is a global factor," he said, "not a Colgate factor."

Javier Escalante, an analyst at Consumer Edge Research, asked whether the higher prices would hurt Colgate's sales. Cook replied that the volume of sales had continued to grow in the quarter despite higher prices. "We believe we can continue that in 2012, balancing the volume between the rollover of the pricing that we have already," he said.

Colgate has consistently cut North American prices since the third quarter of 2009, by an average of 1.5 percent to 4.5 percent each quarter. To be sure, its 0.5 percent increase in the fourth quarter was far less than the 8.5 percent price increase in Latin America. But it did represent a snapped trend. In Europe, a region the company described as "volatile," Colgate dropped prices by an average of 3 percent.

The higher North American prices may be because the company thinks it can, or that it must, or perhaps a little bit of both. At the same time, Colgate is aggressively seeking to protect market share, even if it has to spend to do so. Cook said the company would continue to invest in creating and advertising new products.

The pricing strategy also reinforces Colgate's decision to lean on emerging markets for growth as U.S. customers get tapped out. Of Colgate's four main geographic regions, North America accounts for the smallest portion and it is where revenue grew the slowest. Latin America grew the fastest, and made up the biggest portion of revenue

For the quarter, the higher prices helped fuel a 5 percent rise in revenue to $4.17 billion, up from $3.98 billion. It was dwarfed by the 9 percent increase in what the company had to pay to make and transport its products.

Colgate earned $590 million, or $1.21 per share. That was down from $624 million, or $1.24 per share. Excluding one-time expenses like putting cost-saving plans into place and other charges, Colgate earned $1.30 per share. That beat the $1.29 that Wall Street expected, according to a poll by FactSet.

Barclays Capital analyst Lauren Lieberman described fourth-quarter results as "more or less in line with our lackluster estimates."

Colgate's decision to try to recoup its margins comes during a fragile time for the U.S. economy.

The jobs data released Thursday show more people sought unemployment benefits. However, the overall trends point to a recovering job market. At least 100,000 jobs have been added for six straight months and the unemployment rate has declined to 8.5 percent, its lowest in almost three years.

But it's not a healthy number yet and the government also released data Thursday showing that fewer people bought new homes in December, sealing 2011 as the worst year for new home sales on record.

For the year, Colgate's revenue rose 7.5 percent, to $16.7 billion, and net income rose 10 percent to $2.4 billion.

Shares of Colgate-Palmolive Co. rose $1.75, or 2 percent, to $91.19 in afternoon trading.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_colgate

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Japan logs first trade deficit since 1980 (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) ? Japan logged its first annual trade deficit in more than 30 years in 2011, calling into question how much longer the country can fund its huge public debt without relying on fickle foreign investors.

The aftermath of the March earthquake raised fuel import costs while slowing global growth and the yen's strength hit exports, data released on Wednesday showed, pushing the trade balance into negative territory.

Few analysts expect Japan to immediately run a deficit in the current account, which includes trade and returns on the country's huge portfolio of investments abroad. A steady inflow of profits and capital gains from overseas still outweighs the trade deficit.

But the trade figures underscore a broader trend of Japan's declining global competitive edge and a rapidly ageing population, compounding the immediate problem of increased reliance on fuel imports due to the loss of nuclear power.

Only four of the country's 54 nuclear power reactors are running due to public safety fears following the March disaster.

"What it means is that the time when Japan runs out of savings -- 'Sayonara net creditor country' -- that point is coming closer," said Jesper Koll, head of equities research at JPMorgan in Japan.

"It means Japan becomes dependent on global savings to fund its deficit and either the currency weakens or interest rates rise."

That prospect could give added impetus to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's push to double Japan's 5 percent sales tax in two stages by October 2015 to fund the bulging social security costs of a fast-ageing society.

The biggest opposition party, although agreeing with the need for a higher levy, is threatening to block legislation in parliament's upper house in hopes of forcing a general election.

Japan logged a trade deficit of 2.49 trillion yen ($32 billion) for 2011, Ministry of Finance data showed, the first annual deficit since 1980, after the economy was hit by the shock of rising oil prices.

"HOLLOWING OUT", AGEING POPULATION

Total exports shrank 2.7 percent last year while imports surged 12.0 percent, reflecting reduced earnings from goods and services and higher spending on crude and fuel oil, pushing annual imports of liquefied natural gas to a record amount.

In a sign of the continuing pain from slowing global growth, exports fell 8.0 percent in December from a year earlier, roughly matching a median market forecast for a 7.9 percent drop, due partly to weak shipments of electronics parts.

Imports rose 8.1 percent in December from a year earlier, in line with a 8.0 percent annual gain expected, bringing the trade balance to a deficit of 205.1 billion yen, against 139.7 billion yen expected. It marked the third straight month of deficits.

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Tuesday he did not expect trade deficits to become a pattern, and did not foresee the country's current account balance tipping into the red in the near future.

But Japan's days of logging huge trade surpluses may be over as it relies more on fuel imports and manufacturers move production offshore to cope with rising costs and a strong yen, a trend that may weaken the Japanese currency longer term.

A fast-ageing population also means a growing number of elderly Japanese will be running down their savings.

Running a current account deficit would spell trouble for Japan as it means it cannot pay the cost of financing its huge public debt -- already twice the size of its $5 trillion economy -- without overseas funds.

"It is likely that we won't be able to rely too much on the sustainability of income surplus because the IS (investment-savings) balance of the Japanese economy is likely to deteriorate. So the current account is likely to diminish around 2016-17," said Junko Nishioka, chief economist at RBS Securities in Tokyo.

"Now 96 percent of JGB (Japanese government bond) issuance is digested by domestic investors, but if the current account goes to negative territory, theoretically this means that JGBs are unlikely to be sustainably funded by domestic investors."

(Additional writing by Leika Kihara; Editing by Linda Sieg and Emily Kaiser)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120125/bs_nm/us_japan_economy

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Lottery sets deadline in mysterious jackpot case

IOWA CITY, Iowa?? Iowa Lottery officials have warned they will deny payment of a multimillion-dollar jackpot unless the New York attorney who turned in the winning ticket under mysterious circumstances gives them key details by Friday.

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The lottery sent Crawford Shaw of Bedford, N.Y., a letter, saying investigators need the identities and contact information of the person who bought the ticket at a Des Moines gas station in December 2010 and anyone else who possessed it between then and its Dec. 29 arrival at agency headquarters.

Rather than claiming the prize in person, as has always been done, Shaw signed the ticket on behalf of a trust and shipped it by FedEx to a Des Moines law firm he retained on Dec. 29. After going unclaimed for a year, his lawyers stunned lottery officials when they produced the ticket less than two hours before it expired.

Shaw signed the ticket on behalf of Hexham Investments Trust, but lottery officials said Monday that he misspelled the name of the trust by leaving out the second "h." During a meeting last week with lottery investigators, Shaw refused to answer their questions about the ticket's chain of custody.

Story: Lottery winner in need of a kidney nearly didn't claim $14.3 million

Without that information by 3 p.m. Friday, Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich said he would deny payment of the jackpot ? worth either $7.5 million cash or $10.3 million spread over 25 years after taxes ? even though the ticket is the winner.

"This is a classic example of what a prohibited player may do to go about claiming a prize," Rich said at a news conference in Des Moines, referring to an apparent attempt to hide the identity of the winner or winners. "We're saying, 'show us the story and we'll show you the money.' "

Shaw's attorney, Julie Johnson McLean, said she forwarded the lottery's letter to Shaw but wasn't sure whether he would meet Friday's deadline. She said Shaw, 76, has no financial interest in the ticket and was only representing the trust.

"I believe it's a valid claim," McLean said. "Given the media inquiries, I think it seems natural that someone may be hesitant to seek all the publicity that seems to be generated."

Iowa law says prohibited players include employees and contractors of the lottery, their relatives and anyone under 21. Rich said the pool could also include anyone who illegally possessed the ticket. He noted the Lottery has received several claims the ticket was stolen.

Rich said he is not sure of the legal significance of the misspelling of Hexham, but that could be addressed if Shaw goes to court to try to collect the prize. McLean called that an inadvertent error that should have no effect.

Lottery officials earlier Monday briefed representatives of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Iowa attorney general's office as new details emerged about Shaw's past business dealings. Rich said both agencies were assisting the lottery.

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Rich said Shaw's history, which includes lawsuits alleging fraud in Delaware and Texas, could be unrelated to the Iowa lottery ticket, but investigators were looking into it.

Records show Shaw played at least a minor role in the collapse of Industrial Enterprises of America, a chemical company that was looted and bankrupted in 2009 by a stock manipulation scheme. Shaw helped found the company after taking control of a Houston-based shell corporation, serving as its CEO from 2004 to 2005.

Shaw told investors the company's stock was "grossly undervalued" in 2005 and promised revenue was skyrocketing, corporate filings show. But he abruptly stepped down in October 2005, and was replaced by the company's chief financial officer, John Mazzuto.

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Mazzuto pleaded guilty last year to grand larceny and other charges for plundering the company. Prosecutors say he and another company executive, James Margulies, issued millions of shares of a type of stock that can legally be given only to employees as part of a benefit plan, and funneled the stock to themselves, relatives and associates. The stock was sold, and the money was channeled back to Mazzuto and Margulies. They improperly recorded it as revenue, which boosted the company's books, inflated its stock price and lured investors.

A lawsuit filed in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware alleges Shaw was compensated with $2.3 million worth of the improper shares and is seeking to recoup that money. Investors, which included an Ohio teachers' pension fund and the Methodist Church, lost more than $100 million when the company collapsed.

In 2009, Texas doctor Howard Nunn filed a lawsuit saying Shaw refused to issue him $25,000 worth of shares of Industrial Enterprises he bought in 2005. Shaw eventually agreed to refund his money but only paid back $5,000, the lawsuit claimed.

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Shaw agreed to pay Nunn $25,000 last March to avoid trial, but records show he has since refused to satisfy the judgment or respond to questions about his financial assets after claiming he doesn't have enough to pay. A judge in September sanctioned him $750.

"He has made some representations to my client that he intends to pay the judgment. It's premised on something happening ? we don't know what ? and him suddenly having money to pay," said Nunn's lawyer, Ty Chapman. "I believe he told my client it didn't have anything to do with the Iowa Lottery deal."

Chapman said he tried to serve Shaw numerous times with court orders at the Bedford, N.Y., address where relatives say he lives and has been unsuccessful. Shaw gave Lottery investigators a Texas driver's license when he met with them last week, and Rich said the agency didn't know his whereabouts.

The questions about Shaw are no surprise to Florida interior designer Elizabeth Calomiris, Mazzuto's ex-wife. She said she knew Shaw when she was married to Mazzuto. After Shaw left Industrial Enterprises, she said Shaw begged her to give him damaging personal and business information she had on her ex-husband and came to her home to get it.

She said Shaw used the information as leverage to obtain a settlement in which he was paid the $2.3 million in company shares, and she now regrets helping him.

"Crawford Shaw, he's just as crooked as can be. I wouldn't trust anything that he's said," Calomiris said. "He lied to me a lot. He'll say anything to get what he wants."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46117849/ns/today-today_people/

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