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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The EU Is Investigating Samsung Over Unfair Patent Lawsuits [Samsung]
GOP race's approaching lull will test Gingrich
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at Pioneer Park in Dunedin, Fla., Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at Pioneer Park in Dunedin, Fla., Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich arrives for a campaign stop, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The rapid-fire GOP presidential primary is about to ease into a slower pace and a more spread-out map. The shift will pose new challenges for Newt Gingrich.
February's only televised debate is three weeks away. Some primaries or caucuses will be in states with significant Mormon presences. Also voting in February is Michigan. Mitt Romney's father was governor there.
Campaigning in several states is costly.
All these factors would seem to play to Romney's advantage.
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Monday, January 30, 2012
Samsung Galaxy S Advance gets official: 1GHz dual-core CPU, Super AMOLED and Gingerbread
Samsung added a new star to its Galaxy universe today, with the release of the Galaxy Advance S. Powered by a 1GHz dual-core CPU, this handset boasts a four-inch, 480 x 800 Super AMOLED display, and packs up to 16GB of memory, along with 768MB of RAM. The device also supports HSPA connections at speeds of up to 14.4Mbps, and boasts a five megapixel rear-facing camera, along with a 1.3 megapixel shooter, up front. As far as software goes, the Advance S will ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread, plus a full suite of Samsung's apps, available via its Hubs and ChatON services. No word yet on pricing, but the Korean manufacturer plans to roll out its latest smartphone on a gradual basis, beginning with Russia next month, followed by Europe, Africa, Middle East, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Latin America and China. Notably absent from that list, of course, is the US. Find more details in the full press release after the break, as well as the gallery of press shots, below.
Samsung Galaxy S Advance gets official: 1GHz dual-core CPU, Super AMOLED and Gingerbread originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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SAG Awards menu is months in the making (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? When your dinner party guests include Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Kate Winslet and Glenn Close, and the whole affair is televised live, it can take months to plan the menu. That's why the team behind the Screen Actors Guild Awards began putting together the plate for Sunday's ceremony months ago.
It was still summer when show producer Kathy Connell and director Jeff Margolis first sat down with chef Suzanne Goins of Los Angeles eatery Lucques with a tall order: Create a meal that is delicious at room temperature, looks beautiful on TV, is easy to eat and appeals to Hollywood tastes. Oh, and no poppyseeds, soups, spicy dishes, or piles of onions or garlic.
"It can't drip, stick in their teeth or be too heavy," Connell said. "We have to appease all palates."
The chef put together a plate of possibilities: Slow-roasted salmon with yellow beets, lamb with cous cous and spiced cauliflower and roasted root vegetables with quinoa. There was also a chopped chicken salad and another chicken dish with black beans.
To ensure the dishes are both tasty and TV-ready, Connell and Margolis, along with the show's florist and art director, dined together at this summertime lunch on tables set to replicate those that will be in the Shrine Exposition Center during the ceremony. The pewter, crushed-silk tablecloths and white lilies you'll see on TV Sunday were also chosen months ago.
The diners discussed the look of the plate, the size of the portions and the vegetarian possibilities.
"We'd like the portions a little larger," Connell told the chef.
"And a little more sauce on the salmon," Margolis added.
Come Sunday, it's up to Goins to prepare 1,200 of the long-planned meals for the A-list audience.
___
Online:
www.sagawards.org
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Drug Approved for Advanced Kidney Cancer (HealthDay)
FRIDAY, Jan. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Inlyta (axitinib) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat advanced renal cell carcinoma in people who haven't responded to another drug.
Renal cell carcinoma is a form of kidney cancer that begins in tissue that lines the kidney's small tubes. Inlyta blocks proteins that help fuel tumor growth in this area, the FDA said in a news release.
Six medications had been sanctioned previously for advanced kidney cancer, the agency said.
In a study of 723 people with the advanced form of kidney cancer, the most common side effects of Inlyta included diarrhea, high blood pressure, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, loss of voice, weight loss, weakness and constipation.
Among some patients, Inlyta also caused significant bleeding, which in some cases proved fatal. The FDA also warned that people with high blood pressure should make sure the problem is well controlled before taking the twice-daily drug.
People with untreated brain tumors or gastrointestinal bleeding should not take Inlyta, the FDA said.
The drug is marketed by Pfizer.
More information
Medline Plus has more about renal cell carcinoma.
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
NBC asks Romney to remove news material from ad (AP)
WASHINGTON ? NBC asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Saturday to pull a campaign advertisement made up almost entirely of a 1997 "Nightly News" report on Newt Gingrich's ethics committee reprimand.
The "History Lesson" ad started running in Florida on the weekend, when it is harder for stations to switch ad traffic even if they want to. Broadcast days before Tuesday's primary, the ad shows former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw saying that some of Gingrich's House colleagues had raised questions about the then-speaker's "future effectiveness."
Under Brokaw's image is a line that reads ? "Paid for by Romney for President, Approved by Mitt Romney."
The footage was used without permission and the extensive use of the broadcast "inaccurately suggests that NBC News and Mr. Brokaw have consented to the use of this material and agree with the political position espoused by the videos," NBC's vice president of media law, David N. Sternlicht, wrote Romney's campaign manager, Matt Rhoades.
"Aside from the obvious copyright issues, this use of the voice of Mr. Brokaw and the NBC News name exploits him and the journalistic credibility of NBC News," the letter said. The network asked for the campaign to stop running the ad immediately and revise any other videos or commercials to remove at NBC material.
"As a news organization, NBC News objects to any use of NBC News journalists and our copyrighted material that suggests to the public that we or our journalists are taking sides with any individual or organization involved in a political campaign or dispute, and we request that your organization respect that concern," the letter said.
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said the campaign isn't likely to stop running the ad.
"We just received the letter. We are reviewing it, but we believe it falls within fair use," he said. "We didn't take the entire broadcast; we just took the first 30 seconds."
NBC spokeswoman Lauren Kapp said a similar request went to other campaigns that "have inappropriately" used material from "Nightly News," "Meet the Press," "Today" and MSNBC. Kapp said she was not aware of such uses by other campaigns.
Brokaw said in a statement released by NBC that he was "extremely uncomfortable with the extended use of my personal image in this political ad. I do not want my role as a journalist compromised for political gain by any campaign."
Brokaw stepped down in 2004 after 21 years as anchor and managing editor of "Nightly News," but continues to report for the network, including on the 2012 presidential campaign.
Asked about Brokaw's concern, Fehrnstrom said only, "We respect him as a newsman who has a lot of credibility, but we believe this falls within fair use standards."
The House ethics panel investigated Gingrich's use of tax-exempt organizations. The case ended in January 1997 with a reprimand by the House and a $300,000 penalty against Gingrich for misleading the committee and prolonging its investigation.
Romney has sought the release of all records from the probe. The committee did make public its final report as well as exhibits ? which amounted to a comprehensive account of its findings. The head of the ethics committee during the Gingrich investigation, former Republican Rep. Nancy Johnson, said the committee traditionally does not publicly release investigative documents.
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Some G20 countries soften stance on Europe: sources (Reuters)
MILAN/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) ? Some of the world's biggest economies want to move quickly on a cash injection for the International Monetary Fund to help rescue the euro zone, but hardliners may still scupper an early deal to boost the fund's war chest, G20 sources said on Friday.
Officials from the Group of 20 leading economies are engaged in what one called a 'chicken and egg' game as they work toward a possible deal on boosting the IMF's firepower at a meeting of the bloc's finance ministers and central bank governors in Mexico City in one month's time.
Emerging market powers Brazil and China are among the countries keen to pursue the two-track plan pushed by the current G20 president Mexico to work on additional IMF funding simultaneously with extra steps from Europe, one G20 official told Reuters, rather than insisting on European action upfront.
"There was a much more cooperative sentiment between G20 countries than in recent meetings," said the official, referring last week's discussions between G20 deputies in Mexico City.
"Some emerging countries are more open to consider contributions to increase IMF resources in parallel with euro zone efforts, so they are open to make commitments to increase IMF resources in the next few weeks," the source added.
Mexican central bank governor Agustin Carstens said a consensus was building on boosting IMF resources to help European countries and others that need aid.
But the February 25-26 meeting deadline may prove ambitious, given the United States' insistence that Europe boost its own crisis shield further before any pledges to the IMF - which estimates it needs $600 billion more to limit the fallout.
"Our view is that the only way Europe is going to be successful in holding this together is for them to bring a stronger firewall," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"If Europe is able and willing to do that, we believe the IMF is ready to play a constructive role."
Canada is also taking a tough public stance, although a G20 official from another country said Ottawa was becoming more conciliatory, along with Japan.
"Canada and Japan are more flexible than in the past," the second official said. "It could be a bit more difficult with the USA, although they too have softened their position, but it's still early in the game."
STANDOFF FEARS
Europe, for its part, supports the two-track approach, but officials are concerned that Germany's reluctance so far to back increased funding for the euro zone's own rescue fund may fuel a standoff at the G20.
Germany has insisted that the safety net should not exceed 500 billion euros, but officials close to the G20 talks estimate that a further 230 billion to 250 billion euros is needed.
"It is important that we should not let this be locked between the Americans and the Germans, or the IMF and the Germans, so that nobody would get any pretext or excuse to not do their part," one senior euro zone official said.
A G20 official from a large emerging market economy said Europe accepted the need to put in more resources but "won't say it for fear of" Germany.
"They will get to that point because they know not one cent of this IMF money will be made available unless they come up with their side ... the majority view is that we move in parallel we have things ready, but we don't have to deploy it until the Europeans have gotten their act together."
European Union leaders will discuss increasing the bloc's permanent rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), on March 1-2, just days after the February meeting in Mexico, with the timing creating extra difficulty for policymakers.
"If the parallel approach wins inside the G20, a deal on increasing IMF resources could be clinched by the G20 meeting in February," the initial G20 source said. "Otherwise, the G20 will work on reaching a deal by next April in Washington, after an increase of ESM firepower is signed in March among euro zone countries."
G20 finance ministers are due to meet in Washington on April 19-20 ahead of a leaders summit in Mexico's Los Cabos on June 18-19.
Countries keen on the parallel approach are Brazil, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, China, Indonesia and South Korea, the source said.
A senior Brazilian government official confirmed Brazil was keen to push the two aims simultaneously, but said a commitment to a bigger ESM would definitely smooth the way.
"If the Europeans increase (funding to) the ESM then they increase the chances of additional resources to the IMF in support," he said.
The extra funding may come in the form of bilateral loans between individual countries and the IMF or an increase in countries' quotas, which could also give emerging economies more say in how the fund is managed.
(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington, Alonso Soto in Brasilia, Paul Carrel in Davos and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels; Writing by Krista Hughes; Editing by Andrea Evans, Gary Crosse)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120128/bs_nm/us_imf_g20
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Friday, January 27, 2012
theGrio: Atlanta school under fire for slavery recess game
A suburban school district near Atlanta is reeling under accusations of racism, as students at Camp Creek Elementary School in Lilburn, Ga. allege their teacher led them in a slavery-themed recess game. Third graders at the Gwinnett County academy told Atlanta's Channel 2 Action News that their teacher organized a tag-like game in which some youngsters played slave catchers while other played slave fugitives. School leaders confirm that the game took place last week, but contend it was instigated by the students and that the teacher was not involved.
Students painted a different portrait of the incident to Channel 2. Three of the four students who participated in the game strongly affirmed the teacher's presence to the television news outlet, insisting that she played the "safe house guard" in this role-playing teaching exercise.
Ericka Lasley, the mother of an eight-year-old girl who joined the game, was outraged when she learned of the episode when her daughter came home from school. Lasley's daughter insisted that the teacher proposed the game based on a class lesson.
The daughter told Channel 2 that during the incident the teacher, "would sit on the bench, and the slave catchers would come up to the door and ask 'did she have any slaves?'"
Charvia Rivers, mother of two other children who played, said they recounted a similar story. Her son Kaya Toney said the teacher specifically described the scenario, "as a game where slave catchers catch slaves." Daughter Raven Tony stated that in the role of safe house guard, the teacher told her and the other students playing slaves when to run.
Rivers said she "was shocked" upon hearing the news, and called the game, "demeaning, dehumanizing and hurtful." Both mothers told Channel 2 they found the slavery-themed game "inappropriate and insensitive."
The teacher's involvement was disputed in a statement released by the school district, which maintains that she was not involved. Gwinnett County education authorities assert that, "the activity was student initiated and that allegations regarding the teacher's involvement were unfounded."
The name of the teacher has been withheld.
A spokesman has said school leadership is willing to meet with parents to explain the incident. Diversity training has also been planned for Camp Creek Elementary School staff in response to parents' outrage.
Earlier this month, another Atlanta area school inspired community ire by using slavery as a theme in math lessons for third grade students in Norcross. The teacher who wrote the questions resigned after public protests.
A similar controversy occurred a few days later near Detroit when "sixth grade students at Strong Middle School [were asked] to pretend that they were slaves as apart of a black history lesson," according to a Grio report.
Follow Alexis Garrett Stodghill on Twitter at @lexisb
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Lohan sued by pedestrian allegedly struck by star (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? Lindsay Lohan's bad luck with cars continues after a woman who claims she was struck by the actress' sports car sued over her injuries Wednesday. Nubia Del Carmen Preza claims she was struck by Lohan's Maserati while walking through a West Hollywood intersection in September 2010.
Preza's lawsuit states she has suffered "disabling and serious personal injuries, pain, suffering and anguish" and that she is seeking damages for all her medical expenses and lost time at work. A call to her attorney, Gregory Picco, seeking additional details was not immediately returned.
It is the second lawsuit filed against Lohan this month involving an automobile mishap. A paparazzo sued Lohan Jan. 10, claiming that he was struck in January 2010 by a vehicle in which Lohan was riding. Grigor Balyan claims he was trying to shoot pictures of the actress in Hollywowhen he was hit.
Preza's lawsuit states Lohan was driving when she was hit on the afternoon of Sept. 1, 2010, at an intersection just south of the Sunset Strip. At the time, Lohan lived near the intersection.
Lohan's spokesman Steve Honig said neither Lohan nor her attorneys had been served with the lawsuit and could not comment on it.
The model and actress remains on probation for a 2007 drunken driving case filed after she was arrested twice that year on suspicion of driving while impaired.
One of the incidents sparked two civil lawsuits after Lohan chased a vehicle she thought was carrying her former assistant on Pacific Coast Highway. One of the cases has settled. The other, filed by three men who were in the SUV Lohan was driving, may go to trial in March.
Lohan's attorney in that case, Ed McPherson, has said the men had plenty of chances to get out of the vehicle and called the case "absurd."
The "Mean Girls" star has received two positive probation reports since a judge ordered her to perform weekly morgue cleanup duties in November. the actress may be off supervised probation by the end of March.
___
Follow Anthony McCartney at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
HP to pay $425,000 over late notebook battery recall (Digital Trends)
Technology giant Hewlett-Packard has reached a settlement (PDF) with the Consumer Product Safety Commission that has the company paying a civil penalty of $425,000 for failing to notify the CPSC over reported problems with lithium-ion batteries in some of the company?s notebook computers.
The recalled lithium-ion battery packs could overheat, posing a risk of burning or fire. At least two of the incidents where the batteries malfunctioned injured consumers, with one consumer reportedly going to the hospital.
A full list of notebook models with impacted battery packs is available from HP?s Web site. Note that recalled battery packs spanned numerous HP Pavilion, HP Compaq, HP, and Compaq Presario lines.
Although Hewlett-Packard eventually issued a recall for some 70,000 notebook computer batteries, that didn?t happen until mid-2009. According to the CPSC, Hewlett-Packard was studying the battery packs for potential problems with the battery packs as early as March 2007, and HP knew about 22 incidents involving the lithium-ion battery packs by September 2007. However, the company didn?t get around to telling the commission about any problems until July of 2008?by which time HP knew about ?at least? 31 incidents.
The $425,000 civil penalty resolves the CPSC?s allegations that Hewlett-Packard knowingly failed to report problems with the battery packs. Under federal law, companies have just 24 hours to contact the CPSC once they have information that reasonably indicates a product may be defective. Although Hewlett-Packard is agreeing to the settlement, the company denies any wrongdoing or that it violated any reporting requirements. It also denies CPSC allegations that the battery packs posed any unreasonable risk.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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Common explains feud with Drake (AP)
PARK CITY, Utah ? The Sundance Film Festival became the unlikely center of hip-hop's latest feud when actor-turned-rapper Drake and rapper-turned-actor Common came to town.
Common was promoting his role in upcoming family drama "LUV," while Drake was performing at one of the many late-night parties.
The two have traded insults recently via their raps, but Common said he didn't want to say anything else about Drake not in rhyme form.
"I feel like I said everything I really needed to say on the record. I just looked at it as like `Hey, it's just a hip-hop battle,'" he explained in an interview this week.
"The time to talk is on record as far as I'm concerned. If we in the ring, then we just handle our business in the ring."
Common had the most recent entry into the battle, by adding his verse to a Rick Ross song and naming Drake directly ? a move that the Chicago native said he felt obligated to make.
"Ice Cube, when he was going at N.W.A., once he left N.W.A., you knew who it was. Jay-Z and Nas ? Jay-Z said, `Smarten up, Nas.' And you just knew. Cats would say names," he continued.
"So that's just the way that I feel like you've got to do it. I don't want to like leave anything _I don't want anybody else to think I'm talking about them. I want you to know, `Hey this is who I'm talking to.'"
Common, known more lately for his acting than his rapping, started the battle with a song called "Sweet" on his new album, "The Dreamer/The Believer."
"He (Drake) felt offended by it. And the song is really discussing how hip-hop has a softer side," said Common.
"And I made it clear that I'm not talking about anyone specifically. For me it was no different than when Jay-Z addressed with `DOA,' he was talking about Auto-Tune. I was talking about, `Hey, you know hip-hop is starting to become more just saturated with softer songs,'" he said. "And I don't see anything the matter actually with the love songs. I do love songs. So I don't see anything the matter with it, but when the music becomes saturated with it, I mean, I speak up. I love hip-hop music."
The festival continues through Sunday.
___
Online:
http://www.thinkcommon.com/
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Demi Moore seeking treatment for exhaustion
By Access Hollywood
Jason Kempin / Getty Images
Demi Moore is seeking treatment for her health and exhaustion issues, her rep said in a statement to Access Hollywood on Tuesday.
?Because of the stresses in her life right now, Demi has chosen to seek professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health,? the rep?s statement read. ?She looks forward to getting well and is grateful for the support of her family and friends.?
PHOTOS from AH: Hollywood?s Favorite Leading Ladies: Then & Now
TMZ reported Moore was taken to the hospital on Monday night, after paramedics went to her home, following a 911 call at 10:45 p.m.
Paramedics reportedly treated the actress for around 30 minutes after which they took her to a hospital, law enforcement sources told TMZ.
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When speaking with Access Hollywood on Tuesday, Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman Matt Spence confirmed the department responded to a 911 call on Monday night at around 10:49?p.m. to an address in Beverly Hills.
He could not confirm it was Moore?s address.
The spokesman told Access the call was for an ?unknown illness.?
PHOTOS from AH: Sexy Screen Star Demi Moore
One ambulance and one fire engine arrived at the scene and one individual, who the spokesperson did not name, was transported to a local hospital.
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Some Chinese aggrieved find inspiration in rebel village (Reuters)
WANGGANG, China (Reuters) ? As China gears up for a leadership transition, a small fishing village that stood up to official corruption and rural land grabs has become a touchstone for other communities striving to fight back against grassroots abuses.
Since the uprising late last year in Wukan, a coastal village of 15,000 in southern China's Guangdong province that challenged and won key concessions from provincial officials, other rural communities have taken note, and in some isolated cases, sprung to action.
About 1,000 residents of Wanggang, a gritty suburb of leather factories and shabby tenement blocks, recently massed outside the gates of the Guangdong provincial capital Guangzhou, holding a rare large-scale protest against a major Chinese city government.
For some of them, Wukan has become a new rallying cry for their own battle against public graft.
"If China doesn't change and help ... vulnerable residents in villages, every village might develop into a Wukan," said a stocky 33-year-old surnamed Li, who took part in the rally against Wanggang's Communist Party village chief, Li Zhihang, whom they accuse of plundering land and widespread fraud.
While few expect Wukan to be a catalyst for any broader tumult across China, it is emerging as a new benchmark of rural activism in some communities, a symbol of hope for residents suffering longstanding abuses of power from corrupt local officials often in collusion with businessmen.
Guangdong province has seen its share of unrest, from strikes to riots in Zengcheng over oppressive behavior against migrant workers. The province's prominent party boss, Wang Yang, must avoid serious policy mistakes damaging his prospects for promotion in a watershed leadership transition late this year.
By invoking the name of Wukan, Wanggang villagers believe they won a swifter response from edgy officials.
"They are forcing us to take this road," Li said, giving an interview in a Wanggang hotel room for fear of putting his family at risk of reprisals.
After the villagers threatened to turn Wanggang into a "second Wukan," a Guangzhou vice mayor, Xie Xiaodan, met them and swiftly promised a probe into alleged abuses.
"He said he'd give a clear and comprehensive account to us by February 19th," said another villager, also with the family name Li, speaking in the same hotel.
Despite their bravado, Wanggang is no Wukan.
Wukan's residents were in open revolt, expelling officials and police and barricading themselves in for 10 days until provincial government intervention brought an end to the siege.
Wangang appears less united, its residents split among numerous clans. Most are city dwellers holding urban jobs, less desperate to reclaim farmland for subsistence than those in Wukan.
"WUKAN CASE UNIQUE"
An aura of suspicion and fear also pervaded Wanggang's wet markets and alleys, a marked contrast from the intense solidarity in Wukan, where villagers ransacked government offices and police stations, detained party officials and barricaded the village against riot police.
For Wukan, Wang Yang chose conciliation instead of brute force, sending a key deputy to intervene and offer concessions on seized land. In a remarkable twist, the rebel village leader Lin Zuluan, 65, was later named party secretary of Wukan.
"In terms of society, the public's awareness of democracy, equality and rights is constantly strengthening, and their corresponding demands are growing," Zhu told officials recently during a meeting about preserving social stability, the official Guangzhou Daily newspaper reported.
Despite the softer approach, some experts say Wukan will not change China's iron-fisted approach to dissent, deeply embedded in the Communist Party's control-obsessed psyche.
"The fact that Wang Yang decided to use more conciliatory methods regarding Wukan doesn't mean a change of policy on the part of Beijing, nor does it mean that leaders in other provinces will follow," said Willy Lam, an academic and veteran China watcher in Hong Kong.
"So far, it's been restricted to Guangdong ... The Wukan case is quite unique. The leaders of other provinces cannot afford to allow the Wukan case to become a sort of a model because this will damage the authority of the party, this will encourage more people to be bolder and this is something they cannot afford to allow to happen."
INTIMIDATION, STRUGGLE
China's economic transformation has brought growing income disparity and a heightened risk of unrest and underlying rural strains show little sign of easing. Villagers often harbor scant faith in the courts, and barely disguise scorn towards the ability of the police to uphold justice.
Chinese experts put the number of "mass incidents," a euphemism for protests, at about 90,000 a year in recent years. Premier Wen Jiabao has repeatedly stressed the need for better farmer's land rights protection and collective income distribution.
On the outskirts of Wanggang, villagers showed how once verdant farmland, bursting with rice and crops, had become a giant dumpsite for construction waste.
To the north, beyond a stinking stream, a sprawling train repair depot had been built on village land, serving Guangzhou's underground mass transit railway.
Much of their ire is directed at Li Zhihang, a former soldier in his mid-thirties who became village chief in 2009. Five villagers interviewed by Reuters said he had misused his powers to lease off collective land for commercial and dumping use, siphoning off millions of yuan of proceeds.
"He allowed all these trucks to come and dump this earth that has covered our farmland. We couldn't stop him," spat an elderly farmer harvesting celery from a small lot surrounded by four-meter (12-foot) high mounds of earth and rubble.
Wanggang residents said they sued and petitioned provincial officials to intervene in vain. They said Li had a strong patronage network and a band of hired thugs from northern China, which have cast a pall of fear and intimidation over the area.
"Don't talk to me, I don't want to be beaten," said an elderly shopkeeper squinting into a television in a corner store on a road lined with small factories making shoes and handbags.
Attempts to contact Li for a comment were unsuccessful, while sources said he had not recently been seen in the village.
It remains to be seen if the Wukan siege will have lasting resonance beyond an isolated village incident. But soon after the truce was brokered in December, protesters in Haimen, a town
down the coast, invoked Wukan as a model of defiance as they clashed with riot police over a proposed new power plant.
The legacy of Wukan still echoes quietly in other villages around Wanggang. A man surnamed Huang in Luogang village complained about officials bragging about their new cars, as he dug up taro roots and spring onions in a rubbish-strewn field.
"We want to be like Wukan, all the villagers here do," said the elderly man, dressed in a black sports jacket and rolled up trousers as he squelched through the muck barefoot.
"It's very encouraging, we hope everywhere can fight back and beat the corrupt officials."
($1 = 6.3167 Chinese yuan)
(Editing by Brian Rhoads and Ron Popeski)
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Richard Gere Talks Sundance Film 'Arbitrage,' Julia Roberts (omg!)
Richard Gere has one of the most buzzed about movies at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival with "Arbitrage," and he hopes the project will have an impact with a wider audience.
"It's going to resonate with [the Bernie] Madoff [scandal] and a lot of other problems we've had with the morality of our money system," Richard told Access Hollywood correspondent Tim Vincent.
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The film takes its name from a type of trading, the actor said.
"It's actually, it's a way to make money," Richard said, when Tim asked about the title. "You buy small and you sell heavy and it's a very computerized thing. It has to be done in milliseconds to make money. This is a story about a guy who's made a lot of money from that game."
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Richard famously played corporation trader Edward Lewis in "Pretty Woman," but he said the only thing Edward and his "Arbitrage" character, Robert Miller, have in common is being in the world of business.
"He was a corporate raider. This guy's not a corporate raider. It's more conceptual what this guy does. Money itself, isn't an object, it's in the digital world. There's nothing you can hold on to any more, it's always moving," he said.
Like his "Pretty Woman," character, Robert Miller is popular with the ladies, even the ones he doesn't hire, and when talk turned to women, Tim asked if Richard would like to reunite with Julia Roberts on the big screen.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Big Screen Gentlemen: Hollywood?s Leading Men
"Of course," Richard said.
"She's a lot older than me, so I don't know if it's gonna work," he joked.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Everyone?s Favorite ?Pretty Woman? Julia Roberts!
Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Monday, January 23, 2012
A win under belt, Gingrich lands in firing line (AP)
TAMPA, Fla. ? Fresh off his big South Carolina win, Republican Newt Gingrich found himself on the defensive Monday as the volatile GOP presidential contest shifted to Florida.
Chief rival Mitt Romney sharpened his attacks on the former House speaker, calling him "erratic" and pressing for disclosure of clients, contracts, records and other work he was paid to do after leaving Congress. Atop Romney's list are Gingrich's consulting arrangements with mortgage giant Freddie Mac and details of ethics investigations in the 1990s.
Romney also charged that Gingrich had engaged in "potentially wrongful activity" when he worked with former colleagues in Congress to create a prescription drug benefit for Medicare.
"We could see an October surprise a day from Newt Gingrich," Romney said after a round-table session with people struggling with home foreclosure problems.
Gingrich, who earlier had appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," mocked Romney as "somebody who has released none of his business records, who has decided to make a stand on transparency without being transparent." After initially balking, Romney is set to release personal tax records on Tuesday.
The sniping between the two contenders opened a Florida fight that is shaping up as pivotal to determining which one of them will become the GOP's presidential nominee. The four candidates ? Gingrich, Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul ? were to meet Monday night in Tampa for the first of two debates heading into Florida's primary on Jan. 31.
Gingrich, who planned a pre-debate campaign appearance on Monday afternoon in Tampa, basked in his come-from-behind triumph in South Carolina two days earlier. The win made for three different winners in the first three states to hold contests, with Santorum winning Iowa and Romney taking New Hampshire.
Gingrich's campaign said it had raked in $1 million in the first 24 hours since South Carolina's primary Saturday.
Frequently the aggressor in the race, Gingrich is now the one taking fire from all sides.
Santorum described Gingrich as too "high risk" to be the Republican standard-bearer. Romney has been calling Gingrich a lobbyist. Gingrich flatly denied lobbying on behalf of Freddie Mac or other clients.
"It's not true. He knows it's not true. He's deliberately saying things he knows are false," Gingrich said. "I just think that's what the next week will be like."
Gingrich told ABC he has campaign lawyers working to make the Freddie Mac records public. He said the decision rests with the Center for Health Transformation, which he founded but no longer owns. Two former Gingrich companies earned $1.6 million over eight years from Freddie Mac. Gingrich has said he only earned about $35,000 a year himself.
Gingrich's work for Freddie Mac has come under scrutiny because of its role in the housing meltdown.
After the housing forum Monday, Romney told reporters that Gingrich should consider giving back any money he earned from the troubled mortgage company.
Gingrich said he was braced for more criticism from his remaining opponents and their allies. On Sunday, some Republican leaders voiced worry about Gingrich's combative style.
He also seemed to be enjoying the attention.
"I think you're going to see the establishment go crazy in the next week or two," Gingrich said.
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Dennis Santiago: FDIC Resumes Bank Closings
The FDIC closed it's first banks of 2012 today. A total of three insitutions were shuttered by the regulator. Central Florida State Bank of Belleview, Florida, The First State Bank of Stockbridge, Georgia and American Eagle Savings Bank of Boothwyn, Pennsylvannia each received the dreaded visit by FDIC teams to begin their weekend absorption into a purchasing institution. All three found buyers. American Eagle was acquired by Capital Bank N.A. The First State Bank was purchased by Hamiton State Bank. Cental Florida State Bank is being integrated into CenterState Bank of Florida N.A. All banks had troubled histories prior to their closures as seen in these forensic pages released by Institutional Risk Analytics following the press releases.
Central Florida State Bank - Belleview, FL 1/20/2012
The First State Bank - Stockbridge, GA 1/20/2012
American Eagle Savings Bank - Boothwyn, PA 1/20/2012
IRA donates a free tool to the "Move Your Money" education campaign that enables consumers to locate healthier community banks close to their zip codes. This zip code finder tool can be found at http://us1.irabankratings.com/MoveYourMoney/index.asp.
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Follow Dennis Santiago on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DennisSantiago
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-santiago/fdic-resumes-bank-closing_b_1220336.html
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
Sri Lanka donates eyes to the world (AP)
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka ? At 10:25 a.m., a dark brown eye was removed from a man whose lids had closed for the last time. Five hours later, the orb was staring up at the ceiling from a stainless steel tray in an operating room with two blind patients ? both waiting to give it a second life.
S.P.D. Siriwardana, 63, remained still under a white sheet as the surgeon delicately replaced the cornea that had gone bad in his right eye following a cataract surgery. Across the room, patient A.K. Premathilake, 32, waited for the sclera, the white of the eye, to provide precious stem cells and restore some vision after acid scalded his sight away on the job.
"The eye from this dead person was transplanted to my son," said A.K. Admon Singho, who guided Premathilake through the hall after the surgery. "He's dead, but he's still alive. His eye can still see the world."
This gift of sight is so common here, it's become an unwritten symbol of pride and culture for Sri Lanka, an island of about 20 million people located off the southern coast of India. Despite recently emerging from a quarter century of civil war, the country is among the world's largest cornea providers.
It donates about 3,000 corneas a year and has provided tissue to 57 countries over nearly a half century, with Pakistan receiving the biggest share, according to the nonprofit Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society. The organization began promoting eye donation decades ago, but has since faced allegations of mismanagement and poor quality standards.
The supply of corneas is so great in Sri Lanka that a new, state-of-the-art government eye bank opened last year, funded by Singapore donors. It has started collecting tissue from patients at one of the country's largest hospitals, hoping to add an additional 2,000 corneas to those already shipped abroad annually. Nearly 900,000 people have also signed up to give their eyes in death through the Eye Donation Society's longstanding eye bank.
"People ask me, 'Can we donate our eyes while we are living? Because we have two eyes, can we donate one?'" said Dr. Sisira Liyanage, director of Sri Lanka's National Eye Hospital in the capital, Colombo, where the new eye bank is based. "They are giving just because of the willingness to help others. They are not accepting anything."
The desire to help transcends social and economic barriers. Prime ministers pass on their corneas here along with the poorest tea farmers. Many Sri Lankans, about 67 percent of whom are Buddhist, believe that surrendering their eyes at death completes an act of "dana," or giving, which helps them be reincarnated into a better life.
It's a concept that was first promoted a half century ago by the late Dr. Hudson Silva, who was frustrated by the massive shortage of corneas in his native Sri Lanka. Most eyes back then were harvested from the handful of prisoners hanged each year, leaving little hope for blind patients in need of transplants.
Silva wrote a newspaper piece in the late 1950s pledging to donate his own corneas and appealing to readers to also give "Life to a Dead Eye." The response was overwhelming.
With no lab facilities or high-tech equipment, he and wife Irangani de Silva began harvesting eyes and storing them in their home refrigerator. They started the Eye Donation Society, and in 1964, the first cornea sent abroad was hand-carried in an ice-packed tea thermos aboard a flight to Singapore. Since then, 60,000 corneas have been donated.
While the Society's eye bank was a pioneer, questions about quality emerged as international eye banking standards improved over the next 20 to 30 years. Concerns have recently been raised about less advanced screening for HIV and other diseases, and the eye bank has also faced allegations of mismanagement.
Many of its corneas are harvested from the homes of the dead in rural areas across the country, making auditing and quality assurance levels harder to maintain, said Dr. Donald Tan, medical director of Singapore National Eye Center, who helped set up the new eye bank. Once, he said, a blade of grass was found packaged with tissue requested for research.
Eye Donation Society manager Janath Matara Arachchi says the organization sends "only the good and healthy eyes" and has not received a complaint in 20 years. Arachchi said the organization checks for HIV, hepatitis and other sexually transmitted diseases by dipping a strip into blood samples and waiting to see if it changes color for a positive result. Sri Lanka's Health Ministry also said it has received no complaints about the eye bank from other countries.
Medical director Dr. M.H.S. Cassim denied that anyone from the organization is making money off donations sent abroad. He said they charge up to $450 per cornea to cover operational costs and the high price of preservatives needed to store the tissue.
The cornea is the dome-shaped transparent part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil. It helps to focus entering light, but can become cloudy from disease or other damage. Corneas must be carefully extracted from donors to avoid damaging the thin layer of cells on the back that pump water away to keep it clear. They must be harvested within eight hours of death, and can today be preserved and stored in refrigeration for up to 14 days.
Sri Lanka has no official organ donation registry, as is provided in some countries when driver's licenses are issued. Instead, the idea is passed down from generation to generation. Eye donation campaigns are organized at temples by Buddhist monks, but people of other faiths also give, including Hindus and Christians.
Future donors simply mail in the bottom half of a consent form distributed by Silva's Eye Donation Society. The top portion, which looks like an award certificate with a fancy scroll lacing around it, is also filled out and often proudly displayed on the wall ? serving as proof to the living that the pledge comes from a generous spirit.
"Just think if we had that level of organ donation and commitment and belief system in the United States, where we have these long lists of people waiting for hearts, livers and kidneys," said Dr. Alfred Sommer of Johns Hopkins University, who spent more than 40 years fighting blindness in the developing world. "If we had that level of cultural investment, there would be no lists for organ transplants."
The U.S. is the world's biggest cornea provider, sending more than 16,000 corneas to other countries in 2010, according to the Eye Bank Association of America. But Sri Lanka, which is 15 times smaller, actually donates about triple that number of corneas per capita each year.
There is no waiting list for eye tissue in Sri Lanka, and its people get first access to free corneas. About 40,000 have been transplanted locally since the beginning, but that still leaves a surplus each year.
Pakistan, an Islamic country where followers are typically required to be buried with all parts intact, has received some 20,000 corneas since overseas donations began, Cassim said. Egypt and Japan are two other major recipients, receiving 8,000 and 6,000 corneas respectively to date, he said.
But Sri Lanka cannot meet global demand on its own. An estimated 10 million people ? 9 out of 10 in poor countries ? suffer worldwide from corneal blindness that could be helped by a transplant if tissue and trained surgeons were available, according to U.S.-based SightLife, an eye bank that partners with developing countries. It has been working with Sri Lanka's new government facility.
"Sri Lanka has long been known to be a country with an incredible heart for eye donation and a willingness to share surplus corneas to restore sight around the world," said SightLife president Monty Montoya. "While efforts have been made to share information with other countries, I am not aware of any one location being able to replicate Sri Lanka's success."
Where possible, eye tissue should be transplanted within hours of death. That was done in the Colombo operating room where patients Siriwardana and Premathilake were stitched up with what looked like tiny fishing hooks, then bandaged and helped outside.
For Premathilake ? whose sight was lost when an open can of acid spilled onto his face while working at a rubber factory ? this is his last hope. His right eye still blinks, but there is nothing but an empty pink cavity inside. The stem cells attached to his left eye should help create a new window of sight that he hopes will allow him to go back to work, or at least carry out daily tasks without depending on his parents.
"I am extremely happy," he said. "I didn't know the man who died in his previous life, but I'm always going to say blessings for him during his next births."
____
Associated Press writer Bharatha Mallawarachi contributed to this report from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
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Newt Gingrich's 'Romney tax' not a bad idea
Newt Gingrich has suggested a flat tax rate of 15 percent, which he now proposes to call the ?Romney Tax.? But Newt Gingrich's proposal won't happen because a complex tax code provides cover in which to hide special favors and privileges for the rich.
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Skip to next paragraph Bill BonnerBill has written two New York Times best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt. With political journalist Lila Rajiva, he wrote his third New York Times best-selling book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, which offers concrete advice on how to avoid the public spectacle of modern finance. Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning (dailyreckoning.com).
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Mitt Romney has revealed his effective tax rate. ?About 15%,? he says.
That seems like more than enough to us. But it?s not enough to satisfy the zombies. Romney has made a lot of money. They want more of it.
It turns out that 15% is lower than average. The AP reports:
At 15 percent, Romney?s federal income tax rate would still be higher than the rate paid by many Americans.
On average, households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay a federal income tax rate of 5.7 percent this year, according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
However, when Social Security and other taxes are included, that same household would pay an average federal tax rate of 16.6 percent.
Overall, the average American household will pay 9.3 percent in federal income taxes ? and 19.7 percent in all federal taxes.
Romney?s wealth ? he is worth between $190 million and $250 million ? puts him among the richest Americans. But if most of his income is from investments, it could help him to significantly lower his federal tax bill compared to people who make money in other ways.
While the top federal tax rate for investment income ? qualified dividends and long-term capital gains ? is 15 percent, the top tax rate for wages is 35 percent on taxable income above $388,350. Wages are also subject to Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, while investment earnings are not.
Newt?Gingrich has suggested a flat tax rate of 15%, which he now proposes to call the ?Romney Tax.?
But the zombies not only want a higher rate (so they can squeeze the producers a bit harder) they also don?t want a flat tax. They prefer a confusing, complex, and ever-changing tax code, with 10,000 rules and 20,000 exceptions. Why? Three reasons:
First, complexity provides rich cover in which to hide special favors and privileges.
Second, the more special favors available, the more campaign contributions, donations, job offers and speaking fees Congress can count on.
Third, and don?t forget the lawyers and accountants ? the corrupt insiders ? who make money by helping lay the mines?and then helping taxpayers get through the minefields without blowing up. Sure, you could replace the government?s revenue with a much simpler tax system?but you?d inconvenience the zombies.
In short, the tax system is completely corrupt. It is a drag on the whole economy?but it serves the zombies well.
Regards,
Bill Bonner,
?for The Daily Reckoning
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on dailyreckoning.com.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/2tgvdAD-LdY/Newt-Gingrich-s-Romney-tax-not-a-bad-idea
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Sleep preserves and enhances unpleasant emotional memories
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
A recent study by sleep researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the first to suggest that a person's emotional response after witnessing an unsettling picture or traumatic event is greatly reduced if the person stays awake afterward, and that sleep strongly "protects" the negative emotional response. Further, if the unsettling picture is viewed again or a flashback memory occurs, it will be just as upsetting as the first time for those who have slept after viewing compared to those who have not.
UMass Amherst neuroscientists Rebecca Spencer, Bengi Baran and colleagues say this response could make sense from an evolutionary point of view, because it would provide survival value to our ancestors by preserving very negative emotions and memories of life-threatening situations and a strong to incentive to avoid similar occasions in the future.
"Today, our findings have significance for people with post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, or those asked to give eye-witness testimony in court cases," Spencer says.
"We found that if you see something disturbing, let's say an accident scene, and then you have a flashback or you're asked to look at a picture of the same scene later, your emotional response is greatly reduced, that is you'll find the scene far less upsetting, if you stayed awake after the original event than if you slept. It's interesting to note that it is common to be sleep-deprived after witnessing a traumatic scene, almost as if your brain doesn't want to sleep on it." The study is reported in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
In their experiments involving 68 healthy female and 38 male (total 106) young adults between 18 and 30 years old, Spencer and colleagues set out to explore, among other ideas, an assumption that the well-known enhancement of memory that occurs during sleep is tied to a change in emotional response to the memory.
Further, in a subset of subjects the neuroscientists used a polysomnograph with electrodes attached to subjects' scalps as they slept, to investigate whether dreaming or other brain processes that occur during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep periods may play a role in the processing of emotions.
In the two-phase experiment, participants were shown pictures on a computer screen and asked to rate each one as sad or happy as well as their own response as calm or excited to each, on a scale of 1-9. The researchers counted sad-happy ratings and calm-excited of 1-3 as negative images and 4-6 as neutral, so each participant's overall "emotional value" score was unique.
Twelve hours later, participants were shown a mix of new and already viewed pictures and asked whether they had ever seen the picture before and to rate each again on the two scales. They all kept a sleep diary and took a sleep quality index test, as well.
Session timing was arranged so that 82 subjects were assigned either to a Sleep group who saw the first set of pictures late in the day and the second group of pictures after they had slept overnight or to a Wake group, who saw the first set of pictures in the morning and the second set later the same day. To rule out a possible circadian effect on attention, 24 different subjects followed the same routine but with only a 45-minute break between the two phases. Polysomnography data were collected from 25 participants in the Sleep group in their own homes overnight.
Spencer and colleagues found that sleep had significant effects on participants' memories and feelings. Recognition memory for the pictures was better following sleep compared with wake.
Importantly, the researchers found that contrary to previous assumptions that sleep might soften negative emotional effects of a disturbing event, a period of sleep was associated with participants' maintaining the strength of their initial negative feelings compared to a period of wakefulness. This suggests that sleep's effect on memory and emotion are independent, the authors state.
The researchers found no significant relationship between REM sleep time and participants' accuracy in recalling whether they had seen a picture in both the first and second phases of the study. As such, how sleep protects the emotional response and the emotional memory are unanswered questions. "Sleep may, in fact, be protective of the emotional salience of a stimulus just as sleep protects the emotional memory," the authors point out.
###
University of Massachusetts at Amherst: http://www.umass.edu
Thanks to University of Massachusetts at Amherst for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116808/Sleep_preserves_and_enhances_unpleasant_emotional_memories_
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EBay cautious in short run as Europe weighs (Reuters)
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? EBay Inc gave a conservative quarterly sales forecast despite unveiling better-than-expected results, warning that a weak European economy may take the gloss off rip-roaring growth in online commerce.
But CEO John Donahoe -- who is overseeing a turnaround in its core "marketplaces" division and pitting a company once synonymous with auctions against Amazon.com Inc -- remained confident about the longer-term outlook, citing robust e-commerce growth and strength in its PayPal online-payments arm.
Shares of the company gained 2.4 percent to $31.07 in after-hours trading following the earnings report.
In early 2012, a weakening euro may also dent eBay's bottom line. The recent decline of the currency against the U.S. dollar reduces the value of sales in euro zone countries when converted to greenbacks. Currency volatility also restrains cross-border transactions, a profitable source of growth for PayPal.
"They're exemplifying the bearish outlook for the currency by telling people how much the weak euro will affect their earnings in the next quarter. They want to under-promise and over-deliver," said Bill Smead of Smead Capital Management, which owns eBay shares.
"But earnings are going to grow 15 to 20 percent a year for years, and all these little wiggles in the short run are just noise."
In the long run, EBay is riding a growth wave as more shoppers buy online and via smartphones and tablet. It benefits from this trend because Marketplaces charge fees on transactions and other activity. PayPal also takes a cut of a rising volume of electronic payments processed on its network.
The company forecast first-quarter profit of 50 cents or 51 cents a share and revenue of $3.05 billion to $3.15 billion. Analysts were expecting first-quarter earnings of 54 cents a share and revenue of $3.16 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
HEADWINDS FORECAST
The company's main marketplaces business, however, is growing roughly in line with e-commerce.
Donahoe said e-commerce has evolved into a fixed-price business and away from the online auctions that eBay pioneered in the 1990s.
EBay's fixed-price business, which accounts for about 65 percent of volume, grew 15 percent in the fourth quarter in the U.S. and bigger, top-rated sellers grew 19 percent, Donahoe noted during an interview with Reuters.
Meanwhile, auctions grew 2 percent in the fourth quarter.
"This part of the business is unique and profitable and adds to our selection," Donahoe said. "We'll do our best to have this market grow."
Gross Merchandise Volume, or GMV, on eBay's online marketplaces in the United States rose 10 percent in the quarter from a year earlier, excluding auto-related sales.
Its international GMV grew 9 percent.
Colin Sebastian, an analyst at RW Baird, said that growth was slightly weaker than expected. That was partly driven by a decline in the price of gold, which is frequently bought and sold on eBay's online marketplaces, he said.
Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan said growth in Germany, a big market for eBay, continued to be "sluggish," during a conference call with analysts.
EBay generates about 30 to 40 percent of its revenue in Europe, where many economies have been dented by the debt crisis.
"We remain anxious about the European economy and the impact of weaker European currency on our cross-border transactions, Swan told analysts.
Still, eBay raised the midpoint of its 2013 revenue forecast by about $550 million and lifted its estimate for PayPal's profit growth, CFO Swan noted.
EBay shares should trade at a higher multiple to earnings but are unlikely to match richer valuations of faster-growing rivals, Smead said.
EBay reported fourth-quarter net income of $2 billion, or $1.51 a share, compared with $559 million, or 42 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 35 percent to $3.38 billion.
It recognized a big gain from the sale of its remaining stake in Skype during the fourth quarter. Excluding that and other items such as stock-based compensation expenses, profit was $788.6 million, or 60 cents a share, the company said.
Analysts, on average, expected eBay to earn 57 cents a share on revenue of $3.32 billion.
(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Andre Grenon, Bernard Orr, Steve Orlofsky, Gary Hill)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120119/bs_nm/us_ebay
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Friday, January 20, 2012
Wisconsin judge agrees to hear challenge to voter ID law (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? A Wisconsin judge agreed on Thursday to hear a challenge to the state's new voter ID law, passed last year by lawmakers concerned about ballot-box fraud but which critics say suppresses voting by the elderly and poor.
The decision clears the way for arguments to be heard on March 9 in the suit, which attempts to overturn the law on the grounds it violates the state constitution.
Dane County Judge Richard Neiss said he believed constitutional concerns raised by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, which filed the suit, deserved to be heard.
But Neiss also agreed to hear an objection raised by the state Department of Justice, which is defending the law and contends the League lacks standing to bring the action.
The Republican-controlled legislature passed the voter ID law last year, requiring voters to present identification such as a driver's license, state ID or passport at polling places when they vote.
The voter ID measure was part of a raft of legislation backed by Republican Governor Scott Walker that set off mass protests in Madison last winter and triggered a fierce political backlash from Democrats and union supporters last summer. Walker now faces a campaign to recall him from office.
Supporters of the law, which would be in full effect in time for November's presidential vote, say it is necessary to ensure the integrity of elections.
Scott Fitzgerald, the majority leader in the state Senate, has repeatedly defended the measure as a "common sense reform" that assures people their vote "isn't getting cancelled out by someone else's fraud."
Critics say it discriminates against the elderly and the poor, who may not have a valid ID.
In its brief, the League of Women Voters contends the legislature overstepped its bounds when it passed the measure last year and says arguments that identification is required for other everyday transactions are off the mark.
"When people say you need an ID to board an airplane or cash a check, they are talking about a privilege, not a constitutionally protected right," said Melanie Ramey, president of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin.
Thirty states require voters to show some form of ID before voting, according to the National Council of State Legislatures website.
In 14 of those, including Wisconsin, the ID must include a photo of the voter.
(Editing by Daniel Trotta)
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World Bank tells poorer nations to brace for slowdown (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
The World Bank warned on Tuesday that developing countries should brace for a growth slowdown stemming partly from Europe's debt woes, as it sharply scaled back its estimates for expansion.
"Europe appears to have entered recession, and growth in several major developing countries (Brazil, India and to a lesser extent Russia, South Africa and Turkey) has slowed," the bank said as it updated forecasts made last June.
It predicted the global economy will expand by 2.5 percent in 2012 and by 3.1 percent in 2013, well behind the 3.6 percent growth for each year that the bank had projected in June.
Developing countries' economies will continue to outpace those of richer, developed countries but the World Bank also lowered its forecasts for growth in these countries to 5.4 percent in 2012 and 6 percent in 2013.
That was down from previous estimates of 6.2 percent and 6.3 percent respectively for growth in developing countries.
As well, the World Bank foresees rising threats to growth.
"The downturn in Europe and weaker growth in developing countries raises the risk that the two developments reinforce one another, resulting in an even weaker outcome," it said.
It also cited failure so far to resolve high debts and deficits in Japan and the United States and slow growth in other high-income countries, and cautioned those could trigger sudden shocks.
On top of that, political tensions in the Middle East and North Africa could disrupt oil supplies and add another blow to global prospects, the World Bank said in a sobering assessment of the challenges facing the economy. It said that while Europe was moving toward a long-term solution to its debt problems, markets remain skittish.
"While contained for the moment, the risk of a much broader freezing up of capital markets and a global crisis similar in magnitude to the Lehman crisis remains," the World Bank said, referring to the U.S. investment bank that went bankrupt in 2008 and helped intensify a global financial crisis.
On balance, the World Bank said global economic conditions were "fragile and there remains great uncertainty as to how markets will evolve over the medium term."
Against that backdrop, it said developing countries were even more vulnerable than they were in 2008 because they could find themselves facing reduced capital flows and softer trade. In addition, many developing countries have weaker finances and wouldn't be able to respond to a new crisis as vigorously.
The World Bank pointed out that since last August risk aversion to Europe has shot up and "changed the game" for developing countries that have seen their borrowing costs escalate sharply and the flow of capital to them decrease.
"No country and no region will escape the consequences of a serious downturn," the World Bank said, adding that now was the time for developing countries to plan how to soften the impact of a potential deep crisis.
High-income countries have prime responsibility for preventing a crisis, the World Bank said, but "developing countries have an obligation to support that process both through the G20 (Group of 20 rich and developing countries) and other international fora."
Among other things, developing countries "could help by avoiding entering into trade disputes and by allowing market prices to move freely."
It also said developing-country government should start contingency planning to identify spending priorities and to try to shore up safety net programs. Those contingencies should take into account possible drops in commodity prices and a fall in capital inflows, the World Bank said.
(Reporting By Glenn Somerville; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
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