tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90451044488902791722024-03-14T07:38:20.796+00:00NewsbiteAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14411304968256554695noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-39009491439930011762011-10-13T08:20:00.003+01:002011-10-13T08:20:39.210+01:00Arrests Made In Hollywood Hacking Probe<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The FBI has arrested and charged a Florida man in a probe of email hacking that targeted Hollywood celebrities, US law enforcement officials say.</span></div>
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Christopher Chaney, 35, of Jacksonville, was arrested on Wednesday on charges stemming from a year-long probe known as Operation Hackerazzi.</div>
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He is accused of hacking into more than 50 email accounts.</div>
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According to an FBI statement, Mr Chaney offered up photos from the accounts to celebrity blog sites.</div>
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He is also alleged to have stolen financial information and film scripts through hacking email accounts.</div>
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"Unfortunately, Mr Chaney was able to access nude photos of some of the celebrities and some of them were uploaded on the internet," US Attorney Andre Birotte Jr said.</div>
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Mr Birotte confirmed that a recently circulated nude photo of film star Scarlett Johansson is part of the investigation.</div>
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Mr Chaney is charged with hacking Google, Apple and Yahoo email accounts.</div>
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He set up each account to forward a copy of every email received to himself, according <a href="http://documents.latimes.com/hackerazzi-indictment/?aslkjslkdajd" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">to the charge sheet issues by a Los Angeles grand jury</a>.</div>
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He faces up to 121 years in prison if convicted on all 26 charges, including accessing and damaging computers, wire tapping and identity theft.</div>
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The Florida man allegedly used several online aliases, including "anonygrrl" and "jaxjaguars911".</div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-26884343156831496372011-10-13T08:08:00.001+01:002011-10-13T08:08:09.282+01:00Eight Killed In California Shooting<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Eight people have been shot dead at a hair salon in the Los Angeles area, authorities say.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The shooting took place in the city of Seal Beach, California, in a retail area off the Pacific Coast Highway.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Six people were initially confirmed dead, while two others died later of their injuries and one remains in a critical condition, police said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Police say they have a suspect in custody after arresting a man nearby. Multiple weapons were seized.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The shooting occurred at about 13:30 (21:30 GMT) at a hair salon called Salon Meritage.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Sgt Bowles said a man had been arrested as he was leaving the scene in a vehicle.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><br />"He appeared co-operative, and did not resist our officers when he was detained," Sgt Bowles said, adding: "We do feel confident at this point that we do have the single and only suspect in custody."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><div style="clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
He could not confirm media reports that the gunman was wearing body armour, but appeared confident the man arrested was the suspect.</div>
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He said the salon was busy at the time, with every stylist's station in use. Bodies were scattered around the premises.</div>
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The motive for the shooting was still unclear. US media reported the suspect was the ex-husband of one of the stylists.</div>
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Police from nearby towns were assisting with the investigation.</div>
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"A crime of this magnitude is not something Seal Beach is familiar with," Sgt Bowles told reporters.</div>
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Seal Beach is a beach front city of approximately 25,000 residents, located about 30 miles (48km)south-east of Los Angeles.</div>
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It is home to a gated senior citizen community of 9,000 people, as well as the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station military complex and a national wildlife refuge.</div>
</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-90085913955353794772011-10-13T08:07:00.000+01:002011-10-13T08:07:14.690+01:00Confusion Over Gaddafi Son's Fate<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There are conflicting reports in Libya about the fate of one of ousted leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's sons.</span></div>
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Some figures from the National Transitional Council told news agencies Mutassim Gaddafi had been seized in the family's embattled hometown of Sirte.</div>
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However, officials in the NTC stronghold of Benghazi could not confirm the claims, which have sparked celebratory gunfire in several cities.</div>
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NTC forces say they now control most of Sirte, following fierce fighting.</div>
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There have been false reports of the capture of senior Gaddafi figures in the past, including another son, Saif al-Islam, and Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.</div>
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But if confirmed, Mutassim Gaddafi's capture would be a major breakthrough for the NTC, says the BBC's Caroline Hawley in Tripoli.</div>
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He is a senior officer in Col Gaddafi's army and was a national security advisor to his father.</div>
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The NTC would want to question him as to the whereabouts of his father and other family members such as Saif and another son Khamis - both in Col Gaddafi's inner circle - analysts say.</div>
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Col Gaddafi is believed to be somewhere in Libya's southern deserts. His supporters are also holding out in the town of Bani Walid.</div>
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Reuters news agency quotes NTC officials as saying Mutassim was captured as he tried to escape Sirte in a car with a family. The officials said he had been taken to Benghazi and was being held in a military camp.</div>
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Col Abdullah Naker told Reuters that he had been seized on Wednesday.</div>
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NTC advisor Abdelkarim Bizama told AFP news agency that Mutassim "was captured at Sirte and was transferred to Benghazi" on Wednesday.</div>
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Mutassim Gaddafi's presence in the city, and that of several other senior figures in the former regime, is believed to be responsible for the fierce resistance the anti-Gaddafi fighters have encountered.</div>
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On Wednesday the head of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdul Jalil, said he was optimistic they would soon declare total victory.</div>
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"I hope that liberation will be declared in less than a week, after we free Sirte," he said at a news conference with Tunisian Prime Minister Caid Essebsi in Benghazi.</div>
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"And within less than a month we will form a transitional government and the youth and women will have a role in that."</div>
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The NTC said taking Sirte would be a major step in being able to govern the whole of Libya, giving them full control of the country's ports and harbours.</div>
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Thousands of civilians have fled the city in recent weeks but an unknown number are thought to have stayed behind, facing shortages of food, medicine and drinking water.</div>
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Cars leaving Sirte are being stopped and searched at checkpoints to prevent escaping pro-Gaddafi fighters passing themselves off as civilians.</div>
</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-61131539778278655512011-09-22T22:42:00.003+01:002011-09-22T22:42:42.029+01:00Speed Of Light Expiriment Baffles Scientists<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Puzzling results from Cern, home of the LHC, have confounded physicists - because it appears subatomic particles have exceeded the speed of light.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Neutrinos sent through the ground from Cern toward the Gran Sasso laboratory 732km away seemed to show up a tiny fraction of a second early.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The result - which threatens to upend a century of physics - will be put online for scrutiny by other scientists.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the meantime, the group says it is being very cautious about its claims.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"We tried to find all possible explanations for this," said report author Antonio Ereditato of <a href="http://operaweb.lngs.infn.it/" style="line-height: 16px; text-decoration: underline;">the Opera collaboration</a>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"We wanted to find a mistake - trivial mistakes, more complicated mistakes, or nasty effects - and we didn't," he told BBC News.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"When you don't find anything, then you say 'Well, now I'm forced to go out and ask the community to scrutinise this.'"</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; line-height: 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Caught speeding?</span><div style="line-height: 24px; padding-bottom: 24px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
The speed of light is the Universe's ultimate speed limit, and much of modern physics - as laid out in part by Albert Einstein in his special theory of relativity - depends on the idea that nothing can exceed it.</div>
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Thousands of experiments have been undertaken to measure it ever more precisely, and no result has ever spotted a particle breaking the limit.</div>
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But Dr Ereditato and his colleagues have been carrying out an experiment for the last three years that seems to suggest neutrinos have done just that.</div>
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Neutrinos come in a number of types, and have recently been seen to switch spontaneously from one type to another.</div>
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The team prepares a beam of just one type, muon neutrinos, sending them from Cern to an underground laboratory at Gran Sasso in Italy to see how many show up as a different type, tau neutrinos.</div>
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In the course of doing the experiments, the researchers noticed that the particles showed up a few billionths of a second sooner than light would over the same distance.</div>
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The team measured the travel times of neutrino bunches some 15,000 times, and have reached a level of statistical significance that in scientific circles would count as a formal discovery.</div>
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But the group understands that what are known as "systematic errors" could easily make an erroneous result look like a breaking of the ultimate speed limit, and that has motivated them to publish their measurements.</div>
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"My dream would be that another, independent experiment finds the same thing - then I would be relieved," Dr Ereditato said.</div>
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But for now, he explained, "we are not claiming things, we want just to be helped by the community in understanding our crazy result - because it is crazy".</div>
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"And of course the consequences can be very serious."</div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-84147724610203190822011-09-22T22:39:00.003+01:002011-09-22T22:39:55.806+01:00NASA Refines Satellite Crash Time<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The US space agency (Nasa) says that its out-of-control climate satellite is expected to crash to Earth sometime on Friday evening (GMT).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There is still much uncertainty over when and where the satellite will re-enter the atmosphere.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Experts say they will get a more precise idea in the last 12 hours before the satellite is due to return.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The US space agency says the risk to life from the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/uars/index.html" style="line-height: 16px; text-decoration: underline;">Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite</a> (UARS) is 1 in 3,200.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Satellite and space expert Dr Stuart Eves stressed the large uncertainties involved in tracking the "decay" of satellite orbits (their slow fall back into the Earth's atmosphere).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Using the most recent determination of UARS' orbit - taken in the early hours of this morning - Dr Eves and a colleague have come up with their own projections of the satellite's final descent. But he explained that a spacecraft's orbit lifetime could only be estimated to about 10% accuracy.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This translates to a six-hour window either side of the expected decay which is based on a range of probabilities. Calculations using the data available on Thursday afternoon suggested a splash down in the Southern Ocean. But this is likely to change as tracking specialists get a better fix closer to Friday evening.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Given the 10% accuracy figure, and the fact that UARS takes about one-and-a-half hours to complete an orbit of Earth, the satellite could come down during one of four possible orbits of Earth on Friday evening/Saturday morning.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">And a number of different estimates could be produced depending what software is used to model the satellite's decay, explained Dr Eves, who is lead mission concept engineer at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Satellite decays can be affected by a number of different factors, such as the shape of the spacecraft and its unpredictable tumbling, as well as heating of the Earth's atmosphere by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This can make the atmosphere expand, causing UARS to fall to Earth faster than expected.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But other conditions could see the satellite stay in space for longer than anticipated.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Nasa says that debris could fall across an area 400-500km (250-310 miles) long.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In its latest update, the space agency said only that the spacecraft would "not be passing over North America" when it is expected to be pulled through the atmosphere to Earth.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The spacecraft could pass over Britain during its final passes over the planet.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Given that some 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water, a splash-down for the debris seems most likely. But there remains a real possibility that some debris could fall on land.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">UARS could land anywhere between 57 degrees north and 57 degrees south of the equator - most of the populated world.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The 1 in 3,200 risk to public safety is higher than the 1 in 10,000 limit that Nasa aims for.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But agency officials stress that nobody has ever been hurt by objects re-entering from space. And Dr Eves points out that meteorites are falling to Earth all the time.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The UARS satellite was deployed in 1991 from the space shuttle Discovery on a mission to study the make-up of Earth's atmosphere, particularly its protective ozone layer.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Nasa has warned members of the public not to touch any pieces of the spacecraft which may survive the re-entry, urging them to contact local law enforcement authorities.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-15464969369045583802011-09-22T12:08:00.002+01:002011-09-22T12:08:36.708+01:00R.I.P To R.E.M<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55509000/jpg/_55509461_000674994-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="REM in concert on 15 September 2004" border="0" height="112" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55509000/jpg/_55509461_000674994-1.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; position: relative;" width="200" /></a></div>
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Members of legendary US rock band REM have announced they are splitting up after 31 years.</div>
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"We have decided to call it a day as a band," the band said. "To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening."</div>
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The group found fame with a string of albums, notably 90s hits Out of Time and Automatic for the People.</div>
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The <a href="http://remhq.com/" style="color: #1f4f82; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">band's website</a> was briefly unavailable on Wednesday afternoon after the announcement was made.</div>
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Four of REM's albums in the 1990s went platinum in the UK, peaking with Automatic For The People, which sold more than 1.8m copies.</div>
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In the States, three of the band's albums were certified quadruple platinum - representing sales of 4m - according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).</div>
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The group was originally made up of singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry, who left the band in 1997.</div>
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"I hope our fans realise this wasn't an easy decision; but all things must end, and we wanted to do it right, to do it our way," Stipe said as he announced the split.</div>
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Asked in a BBC 6 Music interview earlier this year whether every album felt like the band's last, Stipe had said: "I put so much into the work we do that, when I'm done, I feel like I'd never be able to do it again."</div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">In the same interview he said the band had started off without any goals.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><div style="clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
"The fact that we were making records and touring felt like this amazing adventure to us. We didn't necessarily want to conquer the world - but then we ended up doing exactly that in some small corner of the universe that belonged to pop music and us."</div>
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REM have often used their music and power as a band to carry a message.</div>
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Everybody Hurts from album Automatic for the People, started out as a song to comfort "younger people". Its "don't give up" message has most often been associated with suicide prevention but the song has also been used to mark the Dunblane massacre, Princess Diana's death and more recently the earthquake in Haiti.</div>
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In 2009, REM was one of a number of bands to form the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, referring to the US prison in Cuba.</div>
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Many of the artists who joined the campaign were angry that their music had reportedly been used as an interrogation tool in the jail.</div>
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In a statement, REM said: "We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice. To now learn that some of our friends' music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge, is horrific. It's anti-American, period."</div>
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<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55517000/jpg/_55517293_000106820-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="REM at Glastonbury, June 1999" border="0" height="282" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55517000/jpg/_55517293_000106820-1.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; position: relative;" width="226" /></a></div>
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<strong style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px;">Tributes</strong></div>
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Over the years, REM influenced and nurtured many other bands - giving exposure to alternative rock acts like Radiohead, Wilco and 10,000 Maniacs through support slots on their tours.</div>
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Among those mourning their demise were The Strokes and The Futureheads, both of whom simply posted the message "RIP REM" on Twitter.</div>
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US rock group One Republic paid tribute to "one of the best, most enduring bands of our lifetime", adding "you guys will be missed. Your music will keep on keepin' on".</div>
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BBC Radio 1's Zane Lowe said the group had been "an integral part of the modern story of rock'n'roll".</div>
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"REM never dumbed down. Look at the bands they influenced... The Smiths, Radiohead, Nirvana and so on.</div>
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"And they end with dignity. Most won't."</div>
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REM won three Grammy awards in 1992, and the best international group trophy at the Brit awards in 1993 and 1995.</div>
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The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.</div>
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Their fifteenth and final album, Collapse into Now, was released in March 2011. Record label Warner Bros is due to issue a career retrospective in November.</div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-23831165911737583502011-09-22T12:06:00.003+01:002011-09-22T12:07:01.218+01:00Troy Davis Executed After Delays<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Death row inmate Troy Davis has been executed in the US state of Georgia for the fatal shooting of policeman Mark MacPhail in 1989.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Davis' death was delayed for hours while the US Supreme Court considered an 11th-hour appeal for clemency.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The 42-year-old's case was heavily disputed after most of the witnesses recanted or changed their testimony.</span></div>
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Outside the jail in Jackson, Georgia, there was a heavy police presence earlier as his supporters demonstrated.</div>
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Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing MacPhail, an off-duty police officer, but maintained he was innocent.</div>
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The US Supreme Court judges took more than four hours to issue their rejection of the final appeal, an unusually long time for such a ruling.</div>
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"The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice [Clarence] Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied," it read.</div>
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Davis continued to protest his innocence in the death chamber.</div>
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"I did not have a gun," he said, "For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls. May God bless your souls."</div>
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Davis was pronounced dead at 23:08 (03:08 GMT Thursday), 15 minutes after the lethal injection began.</div>
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MacPhail was shot dead in July 1989 as he tried to help a homeless man who was being attacked in a Burger King car park.</div>
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Prosecutors said Davis was beating the man with a gun after demanding a beer from him.</div>
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No gun was found and no DNA evidence conclusively linked Davis to the murder.</div>
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On Wednesday morning, Davis' lawyers appealed to the county court responsible for Georgia's death row, but that was also rejected.</div>
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The legal team had argued that ballistic testing from the case was flawed.</div>
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The pardons board also dismissed an appeal to reconsider their decision on Monday to deny Davis clemency.</div>
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Prosecutors said they had no doubts as to his guilt.</div>
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"He had all the chances in the world," Anneliese MacPhail, the mother of the murdered policeman, said earlier in a phone interview with the Associated Press news agency.</div>
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"It has got to come to an end."</div>
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Davis counted among his supporters Pope Benedict XVI and former US President Jimmy Carter, as well as US conservative figures like representative Bob Barr and former FBI director William Sessions.</div>
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Outside the prison, hundreds of people gathered chanting: "They say, death row; we say, hell no".</div>
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Around 10 counter-demonstrators were also present, voicing support for the death penalty and for the family of MacPhail.</div>
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There was a heavy police presence, including large numbers of riot police, but no disturbances were reported.</div>
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Davis' execution date had already been halted three times.</div>
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Protests had taken on an international dimension since Monday's decision to deny clemency by the Georgia pardons board.</div>
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The Council of Europe had also called for Davis' sentence to be commuted.</div>
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Amnesty International and other groups organised protests at the US embassy in Paris, where 150 people gathered in Place de la Concorde, holding signs bearing Davis' image.</div>
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"We strongly deplore that the numerous appeals for clemency were not heeded," the French foreign ministry said after the execution.</div>
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In Washington DC dozens gathered outside the White House, in the hope that President Barack Obama might intervene at the last-minute.</div>
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But White House press secretary Jay Carney said it would not be appropriate for the president to interfere in specific cases of state prosecution, such as this one.</div>
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Reports suggested around a dozen people were arrested for refusing to co-operate with police.</div>
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Meanwhile in the US state of Texas another death row inmate, Lawrence Russell Brewer, was executed on Wednesday evening - in a very different case.</div>
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In 1998, white supremacist gang member Brewer, 44, dragged a black man chained to the back of a pick-up truck along a road until he died.</div>
</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-33176338413532082812011-09-22T12:05:00.000+01:002011-09-22T12:05:19.836+01:00Shares Slide On Federal Reserve Warning<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Global shares have fallen sharply after the Federal Reserve gave a stark warning about the state of the US economy and announced limited measures designed to boost growth.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Fed warned of "significant downside risks" as it announced a bond swap programme designed to keep long-term interest rates low.</span></div>
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Major European markets all dropped in morning trading, with the FTSE down 4%, and the Cac-40 down 4.32%.</div>
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On Wednesday, the Dow Jones fell 2.5%.</div>
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Following a two-day meeting, the Fed warned: "Recent indicators point to continuing weakness in overall labor market conditions, and the unemployment rate remains elevated.</div>
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"There are significant downside risks to the economic outlook, including strains in global financial markets."</div>
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It also unveiled a stimulus plan - dubbed Operation Twist - designed to help stimulate the flagging US economy.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Fed will sell about $400bn (£260bn) of short-term bonds and buy longer-term debt. Buying bonds pushes the price up and lowers the interest rate, or yield.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Fed hopes the move will help to keep long-term interest rates low, thereby boosting mortgage lending and loans to businesses.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The policy, the first of its kind since the early 1960s, does not inject any new money into the economy.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A number of analysts, some of whom were expecting the Fed to expand on its two previous rounds of quantitative easing (QE), under which it created money to buy assets to try and boost demand, expressed scepticism at the Fed's latest move.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"It seems the market doesn't believe Operation Twist is enough to kick start the spluttering economy," said Ben Potter, market strategist at IG Markets.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"This, [together with] a very downbeat outlook... seems to have unsettled markets even further."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The move by the Fed comes amid deepening gloom about the global economy, with the International Monetary Fund cutting growth estimates for the US, Europe, and Japan.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It comes as new figures show the eurozone's private sector contracted in September for the first time in two years.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Markit's purchasing managers' index (PMI) of activity dropped to 49.1, from 51.5 last month. A reading below 50 indicates contraction.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">On Wednesday, the Bank of England said members of its Monetary Policy Committee had considered a new round of quantitative easing to pump money into the economy.</span></div>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-69062169220249072862011-09-20T08:25:00.003+01:002011-09-20T08:25:28.037+01:00Gaga Leads MTV EMA Nods<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54148000/jpg/_54148719_gagastern220.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54148000/jpg/_54148719_gagastern220.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Lady Gaga leads the way in the nominations for this year's MTV Europe Music Awards.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The New York singer has picked up nominations in six categories including best live, best pop and best female.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">She's followed by Katy Perry and Bruno Mars who have both picked up four nominations, Adele, Justin Bieber and Thirty Seconds To Mars also have nods.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">This year's ceremony is to be held at Belfast's Odyssey Arena on 6 November.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Adele, the biggest selling artist of 2011 so far, is up for three prizes including best song for Rolling In The Deep, best video for the same song and best female.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Justin Bieber will compete in three categories - best pop, best male and biggest fans.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Last year's EMAs were held in Madrid and were watched by 22.2 million people.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Lady Gaga walked away with the gongs for best pop, female and song - she accepted her prizes via satellite whilst on tour.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Rihanna, Kanye West, Plan B, Kings Of Leon and Katy Perry were amongst the performers on the evening.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-53962561573173451532011-09-20T08:24:00.001+01:002011-09-20T08:24:30.832+01:00Netflix Split's Services<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55463000/jpg/_55463238_screengrabofqwiksterhomepage,bbc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55463000/jpg/_55463238_screengrabofqwiksterhomepage,bbc.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"></span></span><br />
<div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="clear: left; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Netflix has decided to split its DVD-by-post business from its movie streaming service.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The streaming service will keep the name Netflix but the postal DVD rental business will be renamed Qwikster.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The announcement comes two months after US firm Netflix bumped up the price of the combined renting and streaming service by 60%.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The price hike is thought to be behind the sharp drop in subscriber numbers Netflix has seen.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In July, Netflix reported that it had about 25 million subscribers. In an earnings report last week it said it now expected subscribers to number 24 million at the end of September.</span></div>
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The news caused shares in the firm to drop 19% which brought the total decline in its share price to almost 50% following the July price rise.</div>
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<a href="http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html" style="font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none;">Netflix boss Reed Hastings took to the company's blog in a bid to calm the ongoing furore</a> by explaining its reasoning behind the changes.</div>
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He said problems had arisen as Netflix evolved from the DVD rental business that spurred its initial growth to a company in which most of its customers were streaming movies via the web.</div>
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"...streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently," Mr Hastings wrote.</div>
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This was the reason it split DVD rental and streaming into separate businesses and charged for both, he said.</div>
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After the split, customers will be charged for each service they use and their bank and credit card statements will show separate payments. In addition, any feedback they give on good or bad movies via one service will not be mirrored on the other.</div>
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"Arrogance" based on past success meant the company neglected to keep its customers informed, he said.</div>
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"I messed up," he wrote. "I owe everyone an explanation."</div>
</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-38580346680873841162011-09-20T08:23:00.001+01:002011-09-20T08:23:13.288+01:00Don't Ask Don't Tell Ban Lifted<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
<div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="clear: left; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55468000/jpg/_55468307_peopleinarmy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55468000/jpg/_55468307_peopleinarmy.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A policy banning open homosexuality in the US military has been repealed after nearly two decades.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The dropping of "don't ask, don't tell" means service members can now reveal they are gay without fear of investigation or discharge.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Repeal Day" parties have been organised across the country to mark the victory for gay rights.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The US Congress voted last year to repeal the law, which was introduced in 1993 under the Clinton administration.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Under the policy, gays were permitted to serve as long as they did not openly acknowledge their sexual orientation, while commanders were not allowed to ask.</span></div>
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Pentagon press secretary George Little told reporters on Monday that the Department of Defense was fully prepared for repeal, and that 97% of military personnel had received training on the new law.</div>
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">The armed forces have been accepting applications from openly gay recruits for a number of weeks and will begin processing them now that the new law has taken effect.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">The military has also published a revised set of regulations, without references to any ban against homosexual service members.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><div style="clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
Pending investigations, discharges and other administrative proceedings have now been dropped under the new law.</div>
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Those who have been discharged under the don't ask, don't tell rule are entitled to re-enlist.</div>
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But existing standards of personal conduct, such as those pertaining to public displays of affection, will not change.</div>
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Nor will there be any change to the eligibility standards for military benefits.</div>
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Under current rules, service members are allowed to choose a partner as care-giver under the Wounded Warrior programme, or as a life insurance beneficiary.</div>
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"Our nation will finally close the door on a fundamental unfairness for gays and lesbians, and indeed affirm equality for all Americans," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat and leading advocate of the repeal.</div>
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Some in Congress remain opposed to repeal, arguing it could undermine efficiency and discipline in the military.</div>
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After the Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act was passed by Congress last December, President Barack Obama, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen certified that allowing openly gay service members would not undermine the military.</div>
</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-33368696932966447662011-09-16T09:42:00.003+01:002011-09-16T09:42:49.947+01:00Coalminers Trapped In Wales<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://images.smh.com.au/2011/09/16/2628753/lead_miners-420x0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Police direct emergency vehicles at a cordon as rescue workers try to rescue four Welsh miners." border="0" src="http://images.smh.com.au/2011/09/16/2628753/lead_miners-420x0.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px;"><b>British rescue workers are pumping water from a flooded coalmine in South Wales in an attempt to reach four trapped miners</b>.</span></div>
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Rescuers say they have not been able to contact the men, trapped 90 metres underground at the Gleision Colliery near Swansea, and it is not immediately clear what condition they are in nor what caused the mine to flood.</div>
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"Unfortunately we have had no communication with the miners," Mines Rescue Service official Mark Tibbott said.</div>
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"You do get air pockets and hopefully the men are in an air pocket," he told Sky News.</div>
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Mr Tibbott said four pumps were taking water out of the mine, and "the good news is water levels are receding slowly".</div>
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The mine shaft was not blocked by fallen rock, but water was preventing emergency workers from reaching the men, South Wales Police Superintendent Phil Davies said.</div>
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Police said three other miners got out of the mine after the accident on Thursday morning. The head of the Wales regional government, First Minister Carwyn Jones, said one miner was taken to hospital in a critical condition.</div>
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"As someone with very strong family links with both the Swansea Valley and the mining industry, my thoughts and prayers - and those of the people of Wales - are with the trapped men and their families at this difficult time," he said.</div>
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The British government's Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillan, said she was "praying for the safe rescue of all involved".</div>
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"My thoughts are with the miners, their families and the emergency services working to free them," she said.</div>
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The small mine, burrowed into a steep and isolated hillside, is one of the few remainders of Britain's once-mighty coal mining industry, which for decades dominated the economy of South Wales.</div>
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The worst mining accident in British history was in 1913, when 439 miners were killed in a gas explosion at the Senghenydd colliery in South Wales.</div>
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Seven people have been killed in mining accidents in Britain since 2006, according to Health and Safety Executive statistics.</div>
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<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><br />Read more: <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/four-coalminers-trapped-in-south-wales-20110916-1kccw.html#ixzz1Y6S5WgNh" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">http://www.smh.com.au/world/four-coalminers-trapped-in-south-wales-20110916-1kccw.html#ixzz1Y6S5WgNh</a></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-5064729815656239392011-09-16T09:40:00.002+01:002011-09-16T09:40:23.302+01:00"Star Wars" Like Planet Found By NASA<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"></span></span><br />
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<b>From double sunrise to double sunset the show goes on, always changing.</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">Sometimes the orange sun rises first. Sometimes it is the red one, although they are never far apart in the sky and you can see them moving around each other, casting double shadows across the firmament and periodically crossing right in front of each other.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ebf1f5; font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;"><div class="articleBody" style="margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em;">
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Such is life, if it were possible, on the latest addition to the pantheon of weird planets now known to exist outside the bounds of our own solar system. It is the first planet, astronomers say, that has been definitely shown to be orbiting two stars at once, circling the pair — which themselves orbit each other tightly — at a distance of some 65 million miles.</div>
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A team of astronomers using <a class="meta-org" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_aeronautics_and_space_administration/index.html?inline=nyt-org" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="More articles about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.">NASA</a>’s <a class="meta-classifier" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/k/kepler_space_telescope/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="More articles about the Kepler space telescope.">Kepler</a> planet-hunting spacecraft <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6049/1602.abstract" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="Study abstract.">announced the discovery on Thursday</a> in a paper published online in the journal Science, in a talk at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and in a news conference at NASA’s Ames Research Laboratory in Mountain View, Calif., Kepler’s headquarters.</div>
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The official name of the new planet is Kepler 16b, but astronomers are already referring to it informally as Tatooine, after the home planet of Luke and Anakin Skywalker in the George Lucas “Star Wars” movies, which also had two suns.</div>
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“Reality has finally caught up with science fiction,” said Alan P. Boss of the Carnegie Institution, a member of the research team.</div>
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Indeed, John Knoll, who is a visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic, which is part of Lucasfilm, and who worked on several of the “Star Wars” movies, joined the Ames news conference and showed a clip from the original movie.</div>
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“Again and again we see that the science is stranger and weirder than fiction,” Mr. Knoll said. “The very existence of this discovery gives us cause to dream bigger.”</div>
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While some double-star systems, of which there are billions in the galaxy, have been suspected to harbor planets, those smaller bodies have never been seen.</div>
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“This is a direct detection; it removes all doubt,” said Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led the discovery team.</div>
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Beyond the wow factor, astronomers said the discovery — as so many discoveries of so-called exoplanets have done — had thrown a wrench into another well-received theory of how planets can and cannot form. “In other words,” said Sara Seager, a planetary expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not part of the discovery team, “people don’t really know how to form this planet.”</div>
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It was long thought, Dr. Seager said, that for its orbit to be stable, a planet belonging to two stars at once would have to be at least seven times as far from the stars as the stars were from each other. According to that, Kepler 16b would have to be twice as far out as it is to survive.</div>
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“This planet broke the rule,” she said.</div>
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Moreover, by timing all the eclipses and transits of the planet and stars in the system, the astronomers have been able to measure the sizes and masses of the stars and the planet to unusually high precision, calibrating models of stellar and planetary properties.</div>
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“I believe this is the best-measured planet outside the solar system,” Dr. Doyle said.</div>
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Technically, Tatooine is probably a ball of rock and gas about the size and density of Saturn living in a system about 200 light-years away, in the constellation Cygnus.</div>
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If you go, pack to wear layers. Because those suns move back and forth all the time, temperatures on the planet can change by 50 degrees or more over the course of a few<a class="meta-classifier" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/earth_planet/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="More articles about Earth (Planet).">Earth</a> days, from minus 100 to minus 150 Fahrenheit. So the weather is like “a nippy day in Antarctica at best,” as Dr. Doyle put it.</div>
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Kepler, launched in 2009, is on <a href="http://kepler.nasa.gov/" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="The mission’s home page.">a mission</a> to determine the fraction of stars in the galaxy that have Earth-like planets. It scrutinizes a patch of some 155,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra looking for dips in starlight when planets cross in front of their home stars.</div>
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In the case of the Kepler 16 system — home to Tatooine — there turned out to be a lot of dips. The two stars are about 20 million miles apart and produce two eclipses every 41 days as they take turns going in front of each other. One star is about two-thirds the mass of the <a class="meta-classifier" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/sun/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="More articles about the Sun.">Sun</a>, the other about a fifth of the Sun.</div>
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In addition, there are smaller dips when the planet, which is about 65 million miles from the center of the system — about the distance of Venus from the Sun — passes in front of each of the stars in the course of its 229-day orbit.</div>
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The degree of dimming during the planetary transits — those times that a planet crosses the path of something else — usually allows Kepler astronomers to measure the size of a planet relative to the stars. As a result, uncertainties in the properties of stars propagate into uncertainties of as much as 25 percent in the mass of a planet — enough to blur the line between a rocky planet and a gaseous one.</div>
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But in the Kepler 16 system, by comparing slight variations in the timing of the transits with calculations of the positions of the stars and the gravitational nudges the bodies give one another, Dr. Doyle’s team could deduce the absolute masses and sizes of the stars and planets in the system. That is a tool, they say, that is becoming increasingly valuable for determining the masses of small planets in multiple-planet systems.</div>
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As a result, said Dr. Doyle, “it’s a laboratory for all sorts of physics and stellar evolution.”</div>
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The Tatooine laboratory will be available to a wide audience for at least a while longer. Dr. Doyle noted that amateur astronomers in northern Asia, equipped with as little as an eight-inch telescope and an off-the-shelf C.C.D. detector (an electronic device that cameras use to capture images), would be able to record the passage of the Tatooine planet across the brighter star in its system on June 28 next year.</div>
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But enjoy it while you can. Because of variations in the planet’s orbital plane, as seen from Earth, the planet will stop crossing one of the stars as soon as 2014 and cease transiting the other, brighter one in 2018. It will be around 2042 before the show starts up again for Earthlings.</div>
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</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-44881525555103142362011-09-16T09:37:00.000+01:002011-09-16T09:37:59.224+01:00Colourful Dinosaur Feathers Found In Canada<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>The Mesozoic world of dinosaurs and birds was not black-and-white at all, it seems. Canadian researcher Ryan McKellar discovered samples of colorful feathers that possibly belonged to an unknown dinosaur species of the late Cretaceous period.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The report was published on Thursday in the journal Science.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">For more than two decades, paleontologists have been searching for dinosaur fossils with feathers, which would help explain the evolution of dinosaur descendants and of the early birds.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The newly discovered colorful feathers are small in number, but will "provide novel insights regarding feather formation," said McKellar. The preserved filaments "display a wide range of pigmentation from nearly transparent to dark," but "no larger-scale patterns are apparent."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">After exploring 4,000 specimens preserved in tree resin that later became amber, McKellar considered only 11 samples, which the journal Science described as "the richest amber feather find from the late Cretaceous period," which was about 80 million years ago and came after the Jurassic period.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The samples of feathers range from black to brown. All 11 samples show the presence of a wide diversity of feather types at that time. One type of proto-feathers had a single bristle-like filament and simple clusters, while others samples are complex in structure with hook-like barbules that act like velcro; in modern birds, this keeps feathers in place during dives.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The feathers had been preserved in amber dating back to 70 million years ago. In the study, parallels were drawn between the structures of the feathers and those of the earliest non-flying dinosaurs, however, the feathers could have still been of flying dinosaurs. "The feathers display pigmentation and adaptations for flight and diving," researchers reported.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Although scientists are unable to decide which feathers of the 11 specimens belonged to birds or dinosaurs, the filament structures are similar to other non-avian dinosaur fossils found before.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">One researcher said that feathers had been found on much older fossils, but the new samples suggest that feathers continued to develop into a modern form, even after the extinction of dinosaurs.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There were no fossils or dinosaurs found in the area near Grassy Lake in southwestern Alberta where the feathers were discovered, but what was found showcases "four evolutionary stages for feathers," said the study, suggesting that a range of dinosaurs and birds once nested, flew and swam there.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Only now are we beginning to understand just how diverse feather types were in the Mesozoic, roughly the age of dinosaurs from 250 million to 65 million years ago," said Mark A. Norell, a dinosaur paleontologist, at the American Museum of Natural History in <span class="tpk" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/topics/detail/456/new-york/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline;">New York</a></span>.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile, a team at the University of Manchester in England is testing a new study, <span class="tpk" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/topics/detail/421/the-new-york-times/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline;">The <span class="tpk" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span></a><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/topics/detail/456/new-york/" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline;">New York</a></span>Times reported. They are using an advanced X-ray method to detect geochemical traces that are biomarkers in feathered fossils.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"This is an exciting technique, a powerful technique," Dr. Norell said in an interview, "but it is in a very preliminary state and needs to be refined a bit."</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-21543372331476855392011-09-16T09:32:00.001+01:002011-09-16T09:32:41.136+01:00International Space Trio Land Safely<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="focusParagraph"></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110916&t=2&i=502086769&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=460&pl=300&r=2011-09-16T053730Z_01_BTRE78F0FMK00_RTROPTP_0_KAZAKHSTAN" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.reuters.com/resources/r/?m=02&d=20110916&t=2&i=502086769&w=&fh=&fw=&ll=460&pl=300&r=2011-09-16T053730Z_01_BTRE78F0FMK00_RTROPTP_0_KAZAKHSTAN" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>A Russian Soyuz space capsule with three astronauts on board landed safely in Kazakhstan on Friday, leaving a single three-man crew aboard the International Space Station.</b></span></div>
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U.S. astronaut Ron Garan and Russian cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev, who had manned the station since April, appeared in good health after landing on the Kazakh steppe at 0959 local time (0359 GMT).</div>
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"We now can confirm that Soyuz TMA-21 has landed," an announcer on NASA television said. He later described a "bullseye landing."</div>
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The Soyuz capsule landed on its side, whipping up plumes of dust as it settled on the steppe 92 miles southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan.</div>
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Samokutyaev was first to emerge, appearing in good spirits as a doctor performed initial medical checks, live pictures broadcast by NASA television showed.</div>
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Garan was second to be extracted from the capsule, followed by former station commander Borisenko, who flashed a thumbs-up signal before he and his colleagues were carried on their chairs to a makeshift inflatable hospital for further checks.</div>
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Rescue personnel attached a portrait of Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolyov and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, to the capsule. This year marked the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's first manned space flight.</div>
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The returning crew had spent 164 days in space, NASA said. Their replacements -- NASA flight engineer Dan Burbank and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin -- were scheduled to arrive on September 24 at the International Space Station, a $100 billion project involving 16 nations.</div>
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But their flight was delayed following an August 24 launch accident involving an unmanned Russian cargo ship bound for the station.</div>
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The upper-stage motor that failed on the Russian Progress rocket, causing it to burn up in the atmosphere and shower debris across part of Siberia, is virtually identical to one used to fly crew to the station on Soyuz rockets.</div>
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The new crew is now scheduled to fly on November 14, NASA said, arriving at the station two days later. In the meantime, one crew -- comprising station commander Mike Fossum, Japanese flight engineer Satoshi Furukawa and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov -- will remain.</div>
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They will have little time to prepare the new crew to take over the station before heading home themselves around November 22.</div>
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With the retirement of the U.S. space shuttles this summer, crews can reach the station only aboard Russian rockets. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/china" style="cursor: pointer; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;" title="Full coverage of China">China</a>, the only other country able to fly people into orbit, is not a partner in the space station.</div>
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The Progress launch failure is believed to have been caused by a blockage in a kerosene fuel line. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/places/russia" style="cursor: pointer; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; text-decoration: none;" title="Full coverage of Russia">Russia</a> plans to fly another cargo ship on October 30 before launching the next station crew.</div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-19617117170565269212011-09-16T02:23:00.000+01:002011-09-16T02:23:10.108+01:00Customers Desert Netflix over Revamped Pricing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://techgenie.com/wp-content/uploads/Netflix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="http://techgenie.com/wp-content/uploads/Netflix.jpg" width="320" /></a><b>Some of <a class="meta-org" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/netflix-inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: underline;" title="More information about Netflix Inc">Netflix</a>’s popularity lies in its simplicity — in its ability to serve up films and TV shows and renew subscriptions automatically, without any thinking on the part of the customer.</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Until now, that is.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A new pricing scheme is forcing Netflix’s 25 million customers to think about which service they want — access to online streams, access to DVDs by mail or both — and some have decided to rethink the monthly splurge entirely.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">On Thursday, the company said that customers were canceling their subscriptions in greater numbers than it expected, about a million in total, causing a projected quarterly loss in customers for only the second time in its history. The company did not signal a shift in direction or a change its financial guidance for the quarter; still, its stock dropped almost 19 percent in heavy trading on Thursday, closing at $169.25 and worsening a season-long selling streak. In July, the stock peaked at $304.79.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The downward revision reflects the negative reaction to Netflix’s decision, announced in July and adopted this month, to separate its DVD-by-mail service from its faster-growing Internet streaming service. Before, DVD-by-mail was a $2 add-on for some streaming subscribers; now, each service now costs $8.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Like many customers, Steve LoGiudice, a health care analyst from Wooster, Ohio, re-evaluated his Netflix spending this summer when the change was announced. His 6- and 9-year-old children watch TV episodes through Netflix, so he kept the streaming service, but he stopped paying for DVDs by mail.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“If they didn’t radically change their cost structure,” Mr. LoGiudice said of Netflix, “we probably would have just kept paying the old rate without much thought or review.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Netflix’s subscriber base had been on a reliably upward trajectory since its founding more than a decade ago, with one slight exception in 2007. The company — widely praised for making it easy to stream films and some TV shows via the Internet — had 24.6 million customers at the end of the second quarter of the year, when it last reported figures to investors. Back then, it expected that it would end the third quarter with 25 million, three million of whom would opt only for the DVD service.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But early Thursday morning it lowered its subscriber estimates for the third quarter, which ends in two weeks, to an expected total of 24 million, a quarterly decline of 600,000.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The decline is due in large part to customers who were unhappy about the price changes. Netflix now expects that 2.2 million customers will opt for DVDs by mail only.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Investors and the Internet video-consuming public have been paying close attention to Netflix as a leader in the growing over-the-top video industry, a reference to the fact that Netflix piggybacks on other companies’ Internet connections.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Netflix has proved that many people will pay for a premium selection of films and shows online, helping to create a new revenue stream for media companies and sparking competition from Hulu, Amazon and other competitors. But Netflix also has shown that customers can reject what they perceive as an unfair deal.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Netflix knew that some customers would drop out when the changes were instituted. It had previously cautioned investors that the change would benefit the company, but not until the fourth quarter. “Despite the guidance revision, we remain convinced that the splitting of our services was the right long-term strategic choice,” the company wrote in a letter to shareholders on Thursday.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The splitting of the services, the company said in July and again Thursday, will give it more money to spend on content for its streaming service, which is widely recognized as the future of the company.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Some analysts backed Netflix. While noting the short-term uncertainty, Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital said in an analysts’ note Thursday that Netflix “remains among the best user experiences for watching video online” and credited it for remaining “disciplined on costs” and pursuing international opportunities.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Earlier this month, Netflix started new streaming services in Brazil, Mexico and many other Latin America countries. Previously the service was available only in the United States and Canada.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Netflix faces the same hurdle in every country it opens up shop: a need for compelling content. That fact was reaffirmed in the United States earlier this month when the premium cable channel Starz, which supplies Sony and Disney films to Netflix, said it would stop doing so in February when its contract expires.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The films from Starz helped to jump-start Netflix’s streaming service several years ago, but according to Starz, the two companies could not come to terms on a new contract. Netflix said it would acquire content from other sources, essentially spending its subscribers’ money elsewhere<br />.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-40801512126891154522011-09-16T01:09:00.001+01:002011-09-16T01:09:31.439+01:00Sheryl Crow's Mercedes Brings Money for Joplin Schools<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>An Anonymous couple whose $130,000 bid won singer Sheryl Crow's 1959 Mercedes convertible in an auction for Tornado-damaged Schools in Joplin, Missouri, has donated a further $130,000 to the cause.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The couple bought the white Mercedes 190SL convertible at an August 22 auction in California along with one of Crow's Gibson guitars, two concert tickets and a photo opportunity with the star.</span></span></div>
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Their winning bid exceeded the car's estimated value of $50,000 to $80,000, and the couple decided to match it with a donation, according to the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri, which is raising money for Joplin schools.</div>
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"I am so touched by the donor making this very generous contribution on my behalf to Joplin schools," Crow, a former teacher and a Missouri native, said in a statement released by the foundation.</div>
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The couple has chosen to remain anonymous.</div>
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"Donations such as this demonstrate the long-term commitment to individuals and organizations from across the country to get us back on our feet," Joplin schools Superintendent C.J. Huff said in a statement.</div>
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The tornado that struck on May 22 has taken 162 lives. It destroyed Joplin High School and two other schools while damaging seven other buildings. Losses totaled more than $150 million, officials said. School reopened on August 17, but thousands of students are in temporary facilities.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Source - Reuters)</i></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-1092940096974630682011-09-15T08:35:00.000+01:002011-09-16T01:03:35.063+01:00The Danes Go To The Polls<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Opinion polls suggest Danish voters will end a decade of far-right influence on Thursday and hand power to the centre-left opposition and the country's first woman prime minister.</span></b></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Current Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen is struggling to get his minority centre-right coalition government elected for a fourth straight term: pre-vote polls have consistently indicated the odds are against him.</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">If the government, made up of Rasmussen's Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, loses Thursday's election, it will also end the powerful influence wielded by the populist, anti-immigration Danish People's Party (DPP).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">For 10 years, the DPP has pressured the centre-right coalition to adopt some of Europe's most draconian immigration and integration regulations, in exchange for its support on other issues in parliament.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the 44-year-old head of the Social Democrats who seems likely to become Denmark's first female leader, has repeatedly insisted a break with the DPP-coloured past is needed.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Basically this election has been about change," she said this week, maintaining the current government is "stuck in political paralysis (due to) the monopoly of the Danish People's Party in terms of making decisions".</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A slew of polls published on Wednesday handed the left-leaning opposition, made up of the Social Democrats, Social Liberals, Socialist People's Party and Red Greens, a comfortable lead over the government and its parliamentary supporters, the DPP, the Christian Democrats and the Liberal Alliance.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">While showing slightly varying distances between the blocs, none showed the current government leading the pack, and that has been the case since Rasmussen called elections late last month.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">They indicated that the centre-left would win between 91 and 94 seats in Denmark's 179-seat parliament, against between 81 and 84 seats for the centre-right. Denmark's autonomous territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands hold two seats each.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">In the two previous elections, in 2005 and 2007, the Danish economy was booming and so not much of an issue. This time around, however, the campaign has focused on how to get the country out of the slump caused by the global financial crisis.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The centre-right advocates austerity measures, including an end to the country's early retirement system. Rasmussen has insisted such measures are needed to ensure healthy finances that in turn will secure the future of its generous welfare state.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Polls open at 0900 (1700 AEST) and close at 2000 (0400 AEST), with official results expected to begin trickling in shortly after.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Voter turnout is traditionally high in Denmark. In 2007, more than 86.5 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Source - BBC)</i></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-84653010364402326822011-09-15T08:30:00.002+01:002011-09-16T01:03:49.040+01:00Spilling The Blame on BP 18months on.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 10px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-size: small; line-height: 22px;">A 16-month federal investigation has concluded that BP’s efforts to limit costs on its mile-deep Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico contributed to the blowout last year that killed 11 workers, sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and created the largest oil spill in U.S. history.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><a name='more'></a></span></h1>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 24px;">The <a href="http://www.boemre.gov/pdfs/maps/DWHFINAL.pdf">long-awaited report</a> by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement catalogues dozens of mistakes, misapprehensions, risky decisions and failures of communication that led to the blowout and the 87-day spill that spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the gulf.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">The report also found fault among BP’s contractors, including Transocean, which owned the doomed rig, and Halliburton, which handled the cement job that failed to seal the bottom of the well before the blowout. But it says BP was “ultimately responsible” for safe operations at the Macondo well.</span></span></div>
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One of the key questions since the disaster has been whether BP engineers or managers traded away their safety margin to save on drilling costs. The investigators found that BP management rewarded employees for cost-saving steps and did not reward them in the same way for increasing safety. The inquiry found five examples of decisions by BP that cut costs, reduced drilling time and increased risk.</div>
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“BP’s cost or time saving decisions without considering contingencies and mitigation were contributing causes of the Macondo blowout,” the report declared.</div>
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Communication failures were rampant. Engineers in Houston did not know everything that was happening on the rig, and rig workers weren’t informed of all the concerns about the well in Houston. The report criticized “BP’s failure to inform the parties operating on its behalf of all known risks associated with Macondo well operations.”</div>
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The bureau conducted its inquiry in joint sessions with the Coast Guard, which released <a href="http://www.deepwaterinvestigation.com/external/content/document/3043/1071415/1/DWH%20ROI%20-%20USCG%20-%20April%2022,%202011.pdf">its report </a>on April 22, the anniversary of the sinking of the immolated rig. The Coast Guard focused primarily on Transocean and found that the company had “serious safety management system failures and a poor safety culture,” a conclusion that Transocean disputed.</div>
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Although the report by the bureau does not change the established narrative of what happened on April 20, 2010 — the well design was risky, the cement job failed, gas infiltrated the well, a crucial test of the well’s integrity was misinterpreted and then the well blew out — it represents perhaps the most detailed cataloguing of all that went wrong on the rig and in Houston.</div>
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The investigators documented a well design that didn’t include enough barriers to oil and gas coming up the central pipe, iffy last-minute changes to the plan, a cement job that didn’t use very much cement, confusion about lines of authority and an “overall complacency” aboard the floating rig that may have kept workers from detecting that Macondo was about to erupt.</div>
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In a <a href="http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7070986">brief statement Wednesday</a>, BP did not challenge the report’s conclusions and noted that it shared the blame with its contractors.</div>
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“BP agrees with the report’s core conclusion — consistent with every other official investigation — that the Deepwater Horizon accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple parties, including Transocean and Halliburton,” the statement said.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 10px;">Jackie Savitz, a marine scientist for Oceana, an ocean conservation organization that opposes offshore drilling, said the report shows that BP “put profits before precautions. They let dollar signs drive a culture of risk-taking that led to this unacceptable outcome.”</span></span></div>
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Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a frequent critic of BP, said the report shows that “BP was more concerned about their bottom line than they were about what was happening to this well at the bottom of the ocean.”</div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px;">The Macondo well had been problematic from the start as the crew drilled into brittle rock that caused losses of thousands of barrels of the drilling fluid, or “mud,” that is crucial to any such operation.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px;">“With the known losses experienced in the well, BP’s failure to take additional precautions, such as establishing additional barriers during cementing, was a contributing cause of the blowout,” the report said.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The rig crew should have detected the unfolding disaster and taken different steps once the mud began shooting out of the well onto the rig, followed by gas, the report said. The entire operation should have been shut down long before the gas emerged and exploded, it concluded.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">“The failure of the rig crew to stop work on the Deepwater Horizon after encountering multiple hazards and warnings was a contributing cause of the Macondo blowout,” the report said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">When things began to go catastrophically wrong that evening on the rig, the crew either waited too long to respond or took the wrong steps to cope with the surge of gas from the high-pressure hydrocarbon reservoir, the report said. For example, the report said, the decision to disconnect from the well and seal the pipe came too late, after an explosion had already disabled the cables and lines leading to the blowout preventer on the sea floor.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Transocean spokesman Brian Kennedy responded Wednesday, “We take strong exception to criticism of the Horizon drill crew, nine of whom perished fighting to save their fellow crew members and the rig, for the actions they took in the face of such an unprecedented emergency.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Although the bureau did not call into question the safety of deep-water drilling in general, it recommended a number of changes in drilling practices and suggested that water depth matters when it comes to detecting and responding to a gas “kick,” which can lead to a blowout.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Source - Washington Post)</i></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-21904496384989178692011-09-15T08:30:00.001+01:002011-09-15T08:30:01.836+01:00Groupon Back On Track For Its IPO<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 13px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/09/business/dbpix-andrew-mason-groupon3/dbpix-andrew-mason-groupon3-tmagSF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/09/business/dbpix-andrew-mason-groupon3/dbpix-andrew-mason-groupon3-tmagSF.jpg" width="320" /></a><b>Groupon is planning to put its initial public offering back on track even as markets remain rocky.</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>After postponing presentations to potential investors early this month, the online coupon giant is now aiming to go public in late October or early November, according to people briefed on the matter. That would mean that Groupon could embark on its investor roadshow by the middle of next month, these people said.</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The restart on the I.P.O. process is being driven in part by a resolution between the company and the <a class="tickerized" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/securities_and_exchange_commission/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission.">Securities and Exchange Commission</a> over a memo from Groupon’s chief executive to employees that promoted the company’s business performance, the people said. The <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/in-a-quiet-period-groupon-feels-the-noise/">memo soon became public</a>, raising concerns that the company had violated S.E.C. rules restricting corporate information before an offering to its prospectus.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But the biggest reason for the changes in Groupon’s timing has been the volatility in stocks in recent weeks. While the company now appears to feel more confident about going forward with an offering, another round of market gyrations could again delay its roadshow and stock sale, said the people briefed on the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 13px;"><br /></span><br />
Already a number of companies have chosen to delay their offerings given the current market, including the International Automotive Components Group, a car parts maker controlled by the billionaire investor <a class="tickerized" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/wilbur_l_jr_ross/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Wilbur L. Jr. Ross.">Wilbur L. Ross</a>.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 13px;">Other companies’ plans remain in flux. Facebook, the social networking giant, whose potential for a public offering is the stuff of breathless speculation, has yet to nail down a plan. The company is still planning to go public in the first half of next year, people close to the matter said on Wednesday, even as The Financial Times reported that the offering will most likely be pushed to late 2012.<br />
Swings in the market endanger the stable pricing that companies and their bankers look for to reap the highest proceeds from their stock sales. Coupled with a broader slump in the market — the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has fallen 7.7 percent over the past three months — the landscape has become much tougher for equity offerings.<br />
Already this year, companies that began their newly public lives buoyed by investor interest have since seen their stock gains fade. Shares of Renren, a Chinese social networking company, have fallen 52 percent below their $14 offer price. And shares of Demand Media, a big online content producer, have slipped 55 percent below their $17 offer price.<br />
Of the 97 companies that have gone public in the United States this year, 64 percent of them now trade below their offer price, according to data from <a class="tickerized" href="http://dealbook.on.nytimes.com/public/overview?symbol=TRI&inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Thomson Reuters Corporation">Thomson Reuters</a>.<br />
Still, Groupon has overcome one potential hurdle to its I.P.O. The leaked memo from its chief executive, Andrew Mason, had threatened to complicate the company’s discussions with the S.E.C. over its prospectus.<br />
The questions about the leaked internal memo arose during the S.E.C.’s review of the Groupon prospectus. The agency regularly oversees the filings of companies seeking to go public, seeking to prevent improper stock promoting. The S.E.C. had previously expressed concerns about a pro forma accounting measure Groupon had presented in an earlier version of its prospectus. After questions about whether the metric misleadingly showed Groupon to be profitable, the company removed references to it in a revised securities filing.<br />
The incident over the leaked memo was somewhat similar to one in 2004 involving<a class="tickerized" href="http://dealbook.on.nytimes.com/public/overview?symbol=GOOG&inline=nyt-org" title="More information about Google Inc">Google</a>, which appeared to violate S.E.C. quiet-period rules before its I.P.O. when its founders, <a class="tickerized" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/larry_page/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Larry Page.">Larry Page</a> and <a class="tickerized" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/sergey_brin/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Sergey Brin.">Sergey Brin</a>, gave an interview to Playboy magazine. And the possible solution may be similar as well: Groupon could file another revision to its prospectus, which would include at least parts of Mr. Mason’s memo and additional details that support its assertions. Those could include some August performance figures. (Google was required to amend its prospectus to include the magazine interview.)<br />
Less than three years old, Groupon has become one of the darlings of the new generation of Internet companies, and its initial offering is almost as eagerly awaited as that of Facebook. The company, which signs up local merchants to offer daily deals, has reported eye-popping growth in its revenue and subscriber rolls.<br />
That has pushed its valuation ever higher, with some people close to the company estimating that it could fetch $25 billion to $30 billion in the I.P.O.<br />
At the same time, the company has come under fire from some retailers and analysts who are skeptical about its ability to sustain its growth rate. Groupon’s growth has slowed in recent months as the company has gotten bigger,<br />
But Groupon still reported enviable results in its second quarter, including a 36 percent gain in net revenue, to $878 million.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Source - New York Times)</i></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-14336262747025291822011-09-15T08:30:00.000+01:002011-09-15T08:30:02.433+01:00Libya After Gaddafi: Who's In Charge?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Abdel Hakim Belhaj in Tripoli, 1 September 2011" height="171" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55342000/jpg/_55342608_55342607.jpg" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; position: relative;" width="304" /></span><span style="display: block; line-height: 16px; width: 304px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">With remnants of the Gaddafi regime restricted to a few last outposts, Libya's transitional authorities now face the challenge of running a country emerging from war.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The National Transitional Council (NTC), formed in the eastern city of Benghazi to lead the uprising, is gradually establishing itself in the capital, Tripoli, with ambitious plans.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It wants to form a new interim government by the end of September, and hold elections for a 200-strong national congress within eight months. The congress will then draft a constitution, paving the way for multi-party polls.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But power structures within Libya remain fractured, creating the potential for conflict as a wide range of groups, interests and allegiances jostle for position.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Competing for credit</span><div style="clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
The NTC will have to secure the co-operation of these groups to achieve its goals.</div>
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"They have a lot of challenges to overcome before they can get the wheels of government running smoothly," says Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for the UN special adviser for Libya, Ian Martin.</div>
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"They are conscious of the fact that they need to be seen to be running the country from the capital, and we haven't seen that yet."</div>
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Most immediately, this may be a question of asserting authority over those who accumulated power on the ground during six months of conflict.</div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">An uprising within Tripoli was carefully planned to coincide with the assault led by seasoned Berber fighters from the Nafousa mountains and Misrata, but brigades from different regions have begun competing for credit for liberating the capital.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil and acting prime minister Mahmoud Jibril have now arrived in Tripoli but the brigades who conducted the military campaign were there weeks before.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It is not clear when the brigades will disband, and some weapons have already gone missing.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The brigades are meant to answer to a Supreme Security Committee (SSC), a sprawling new body led by interim oil and finance minister Ali Tarhouni that also includes the police, the interior and defence ministries, and neighbourhood committees.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">But the security structure is fragmented - cities have been running their own military affairs, volunteers soldiers are said to be reluctant to obey the national liberation army, and in some neighbourhoods, competing committees have sprung up.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Factions may also be divided. There were reports on Sunday that at least 12 people had been killed when two groups of anti-Gaddafi fighters clashed in the west in a dispute over the ownership of heavy weapons.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Fighters from Misrata, which suffered a brutal and lengthy siege by pro-Gaddafi forces, have begun to challenge NTC authority, reportedly refusing to turn over abandoned tanks.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Regional rivalries</span><div style="clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
The Misratans will be seeking recognition for their recent ordeal, while those in the far east and west will be seeking recognition for more long-running discrimination at the hands of the Gaddafi regime.</div>
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This could contribute to regional rivalries in the longer term, particularly once Libya's oil economy recovers and billions of dollars in revenue start to flow.</div>
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The uprising began in the east, and easterners have so far been over-represented in the NTC. Benghazi has nine members to Tripoli's five, and residents of the eastern city dominate the council's executive committee.</div>
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<a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14901175#story_continues_3" style="font-weight: bold; left: -5000px; line-height: 16px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: -5000px;">Continue reading the main story</a><h2 class="quote" style="background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/2_0_2/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.png); background-position: 0px -188px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; clear: both; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 6px; position: relative; text-indent: -500px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">
“<span style="display: block; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: -5000px;">Start Quote</span></h2>
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The top echelon is being asked to stay at home - those who were responsible for gross violations of human rights have either disappeared or been killed ”</div>
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<span class="quote-credit" style="clear: both; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Ahmad Fawzi</span><span class="quote-credit-title" style="clear: both; display: block; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">UN spokesman</span></div>
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They have been criticised for being slow to come to Tripoli, though this was at least partly due to security concerns.</div>
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Mr Jibril has promised that east, west "and even the cities still under siege, will be part of a new government", and the NTC says it could double in size to nearly 100 members once national liberation is achieved.</div>
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But even redressing the balance could cause tensions. In recent days there have been protests in Benghazi by people who say they are worried too much power will go to the capital.</div>
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Competition between regions is expected to eclipse any tribal, ethnic or cultural splits.</div>
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Tribal identities were at times played up by Col Gaddafi, but while they can be socially important, many analysts and transitional officials say they are unlikely to impact politically.</div>
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A transitional "covenant" published in August promises in its first article to protect the language rights and culture of the "Amazigh, Toubou and Touareg and other constituents of Libyan society".</div>
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But another potential source of tension is the division between "insiders" who remained in Libya during the Gaddafi era and the conflict, and "outsiders" who have come back from abroad.</div>
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"If there's going to be large proportion of outsiders I can see that could create a lot of resentment - the outsiders tend to be relatively rich," says Mohamed El-Doufani, an analyst at BBC Monitoring.</div>
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The close involvement of the West in the military campaign could reinforce this resentment, he adds.</div>
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"There will be suspicions as to whether they're talking on behalf of another country, or whether they are for the national interest."</div>
<span class="cross-head" style="display: block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Islamists and secularists</span><div style="clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
There could also be an ideological dimension, with growing talk of a divide between secular technocrats who studied and worked overseas, and Islamists who opposed Col Gaddafi's rule from within Libya.</div>
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Most prominent among the secularists is Mr Jibril, who has studied and taught in the US and spent much of the conflict abroad, lobbying for the NTC.</div>
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Most prominent among the Islamists is Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who was elected as head of Tripoli's military council against Benghazi's wishes.</div>
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Mr Jibril has denied any rift between him and Mr Belhaj, while Mr Belhaj has pledged to work for "a civil state that respects the law and rights", and to lay down his arms.</div>
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Yet despite all the possible faultlines, observers note a relative lack of infrastructural damage, an abundance of goodwill and the potential for Libyans to guide the transition themselves.</div>
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The UN's Ahmad Fawzi said he was "cautiously optimistic" after a five-day trip to Tripoli and Benghazi, and did not expect the kind of violent retribution seen in Iraq.</div>
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"The top echelon is being asked to stay at home," he said, while "those who were responsible for gross violations of human rights have either disappeared or been killed".</div>
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But others will be allowed to stay in place and work for the NTC's goals of elections, security and justice.</div>
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"It's a very mature approach to revolution," said Mr Fawzi.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Source - BBC)</i></span></div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-1580407950905646422011-09-14T01:30:00.001+01:002011-09-15T08:09:28.422+01:00American Poverty Hits Record High<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55349000/jpg/_55349038_012708884-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55349000/jpg/_55349038_012708884-1.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"></span><br />
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The number of Americans living in poverty rose to 46.2 million last year, nearly one in six people, according to the US Census Bureau's annual report.</div>
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The 2010 data shows the poverty rate at 15.1%, from 14.3% in 2009. The number of Americans without health insurance also rose slightly to 49.9 million.</div>
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The poverty rate was the highest since 1983, and tied with the level in 1993.</div>
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The number of Americans living below the poverty line has now risen for four years in a row.</div>
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The US definition of poverty is an annual income of $22,314 (£14,129), or less for a family of four, and $11,139 for a single person.</div>
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The Census Bureau data also showed that poverty among black and Hispanic people was much higher than for the overall US population last year - at 27.4% and 26.6% respectively.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Outside of the poverty line, the average annual US household income fell 2.3% in 2010 to $49,445 (£31,228).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Even younger Americans were also strongly affected. Twenty-two percent of those under 18 were living under the poverty line - up from from 20.7% in 2009.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Reacting to the data, the Children's Leadership Council, an advocacy group, said: "The rising numbers of children living in poverty is a direct result of the choices made by political leaders who put billionaires before kids. America's children should be our top priority."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">Among regions, the South had the highest poverty rate at 16.9% and the highest percentage without health insurance, 19.1%.</span></div>
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Mississippi had the highest share of poor people, at 22.7%, followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Georgia, New Mexico and Arizona.</div>
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At the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest share, at 6.6%.</div>
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The slight rise in the number of people without health insurance - up by nearly one million - was mostly down to losses of employer-provided medical cover in the weakened economy.</div>
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Congress passed a health overhaul last year to deal with rising numbers of the uninsured, but the main provisions do not take effect until 2014.</div>
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The figures compound a stagnant US jobs report in August, when the unemployment rate was at 9.1% for the second straight month.</div>
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In Fort Washington, Maryland, mother-of-five Nekisha Brooks told of her struggle to find work since being laid off from her job at telecommunications firm AT&T several months ago.</div>
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Ms Brooks told the Associated Press news agency: "I've been putting in job applications every day and calling around, from housekeeping to customer service to admin or waitresses, but nobody seems to be hiring right now."</div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-65146568173278810682011-09-14T01:28:00.001+01:002011-09-14T01:28:33.552+01:00Troops Close In On Kabul Insurgents<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Afghan and international forces are closing in on the last insurgents who attacked the US embassy, Nato HQ and police buildings in Kabul.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">BBC correspondents in Kabul say gunfire can still be heard from a multi-storey building where gunmen are holed up.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Afghan officials say at least four policemen and two civilians were killed, as well as six insurgents.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The attack comes as US and other foreign troops begin to withdraw from Afghanistan.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Nato and the US embassy said none of their staff were among the casualties.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The Taliban said it was behind the attack, although Afghan officials blamed the Haqqani network, an insurgent group linked to the Taliban but which operates independently.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">As night fell, Afghan forces were working their way through the multi-storey building which overlooks the heavily fortified diplomatic quarter, exchanging fire with the remaining militants.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A spokesman said they had killed two insurgents but at least two others remained on the top floors late into the night.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">US Army helicopters flew over the building and an Afghan army MI-35 attack helicopter has also opened fire on it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Afghan intelligence officials are already going through the lower floors, gathering evidence about the way the assault was planned and carried out.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The attack began at about 13:30 local time (09:00 GMT) on Tuesday when a car packed with insurgents was stopped at a checkpoint at Abdul Haq Square about 300 metres from the US embassy.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Witnesses said there were several large explosions and the insurgents entered a nearby nine-storey building under construction.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">From there, up to five militants opened fire on the embassy complex with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and possibly a mortar.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">There was a simultaneous barrage of explosions around the nearby Wazir Akbar Khan area, witnesses said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">At the same time in the west of the city, two suicide attackers detonated explosives outside a police station.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A third was killed as he tried to make it into the airport. A jail run by the intelligence service was also a target.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A Taliban spokesman said the group was carrying out "a massive suicide attack on local and foreign intelligence facilities".</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Haroun Mir, director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, said it was the first time that four groups of militants had attacked in four different places.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"This is new as previously we had one or maximum two attacks. The Haqqani network has the full support of al-Qaeda and has the capacity to execute sophisticated attacks. It is the only group with this capacity."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, saying they would not deter Afghan forces from taking full responsibility for security by the time international combat troops withdraw.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"By carrying out such attacks terrorists cannot stop the transition of security from international to Afghan forces," he said in a statement.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Earlier this year, Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) handed over responsibility for security in seven areas of Afghanistan, including two provinces.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img alt="Map" height="270" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55337000/gif/_55337092_kabul_explosion_464.gif" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; position: relative;" width="464" /></span></div>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-7996319714118260422011-09-14T01:26:00.001+01:002011-09-14T01:26:37.031+01:00UN Warns Yemen Civil War Risk<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55342000/jpg/_55342425_012892343-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55342000/jpg/_55342425_012892343-1.jpg" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">A United Nations report says Yemen risks sliding into civil war unless political unrest is resolved swiftly.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The UN Human Rights Council says hundreds of Yemenis have been killed and thousands injured.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">It said security forces had responded with excessive and lethal force against peaceful demonstrations opposing the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">The UN report also called for an independent inquiry into human rights violations.</span></div>
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Inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, anti-government protests began in January, calling for the end to President Saleh's 30-year rule.</div>
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In the most violent incident, police snipers opened fire on a pro-democracy demonstration in the capital, Sanaa, killing more than 50 people.</div>
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Following months of unrest, the UN Human Rights Council sent a team of three investigators to Yemen in July.</div>
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It found a wide range of human rights violations and abuses had taken place throughout the country.</div>
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The report said that children were among those subjected to killings, injury, torture and arbitrary detention.</div>
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It called on Yemen's government to take immediate action to end attacks against civilians by security forces, including the use of live ammunition on crowds.</div>
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But it also blamed armed opposition tribesmen and Islamists for abusing the civilian population in the increasingly violent power struggle.</div>
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"Clearly the country is teetering on the brink of civil war," the team leader, Hanny Megally said.</div>
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"Frustrations are growing and people don't see the light at the end of the tunnel because nobody is willing to take a step forward."</div>
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President Saleh remains in Saudi Arabia, where he is convalescing after being injured in a rocket attack.</div>
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But he has vowed to return to Yemen, in spite of opposition from both his hosts and the United States.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Source - BBC)</i></span></div>
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They are concerned renewed conflict will bolster the power of the Yemen-based wing of al-Qaeda</div>
</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9045104448890279172.post-36484637190235975112011-09-14T01:20:00.001+01:002011-09-14T01:20:14.958+01:00Menem Cleared Of Arms Smuggling<a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55354000/jpg/_55354949_52182699.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/55354000/jpg/_55354949_52182699.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Former Argentine President Carlos Menem has been cleared of involvement in arms trafficking in the 1990s.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Mr Menem, who was president from 1989 to 1999 and is now a senator, had been charged with illegally selling weapons to Croatia and Ecuador.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Seventeen other senior figures charged with him were also acquitted.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Mr Menem, 81, admitted signing the export papers but said he had no idea the arms would end up in Ecuador and Croatia.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Both countries were under international arms embargoes at the time.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"Carlos Saul Menem has been acquitted," said the judge in the courtroom at Comodoro Py, Buenos Aires.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Those also cleared included former government ministers, retired military personnel and arms makers.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Prosecutor Mariano Borinsky said he would appeal against Tuesday's ruling.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Mr Menem maintained that the shipments of rifles, anti-tank rockets and ammunition were bound for Panama and Venezuela when Mr Menem authorised them.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"My acts as president were limited to signing the decrees to export the arms to Venezuela and Panama," he said during the trial.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">"From then on, all the documents escaped the (control of the) president. I couldn't go to the customs service to see what the destination of the arms was."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Evidence about the true destinations first came to light in 1995. Mr Menem was formally charged in October 2008.</span></div>
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The weapons that ended up in Croatia were sent in seven shipments between 1991 and 1995 when much of the Balkans was under a UN arms embargo.</div>
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Weapons arrived in Ecuador aboard three flights in February 1995 at a time when Ecuador was engaged in a border war with Peru.</div>
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Argentina - as one of the guarantors of a peace agreement between the two nations - was banned for selling arms to either side.</div>
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Mr Menem had faced up to eight years in prison if found guilty. As a senator he would have been immune to imprisonment but could have been jailed after his mandate ended in 2014.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Source - BBC)</i></span></div>
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0