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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Church Nativity scene with gay figures vandalized (AP)
CLAREMONT, Calif. ? Vandalism of a church's Nativity display that includes depictions of gay and lesbian couples was being investigated as a hate crime, police said.
The damage at Claremont United Methodist Church occurred late Saturday or Sunday morning.
The display's three panels feature silhouettes of three hand-holding couples ? two men, two women and a heterosexual pair. The vandal knocked over the depictions of the gay and lesbian couples but left the straight couple alone.
"It's a hate crime based on it being church property as well as the wooden box knocked over that depicted two males holding hands," Claremont police Sgt. Jason Walters told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
The display created by artist church member John Zachary includes the phrase "Christ is born" and a Star of Bethlehem but no traditional manger figures. For the past six years, Zachary has designed and built a scene on the church's front lawn. The scene has had controversial themes before, but this was the first about gay couples, the Daily Bulletin said.
Zachary said the artwork suffered at least $3,000 worth of damage. The exhibit had three panels that weighed 600 pounds each.
The Rev. Dan Lewis said he was saddened by the incident.
"We have members of our church who are gay and lesbian who it sends a very personal message to," said Lewis, who learned of the vandalism on Christmas Day. "I tried to say in worship on Sunday morning that we will not let it trouble us."
Ed Kania, 60, an openly gay member of the church, called the act of vandalism disappointing, especially because Claremont is a generally seen as a progressive college town.
"It's a reminder that although there are pockets of acceptance, not everybody is accepting," he told the Los Angeles Times. "We're all kind of disappointed, but we're using it as a rallying point."
___
Information from: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, http://www.dailybulletin.com
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Friday, December 30, 2011
Meat-eating panda caught on camera
BEIJING?? A camera at a Chinese nature reserve has spied a wild panda eating meat.
Pandas spend most of their days eating bamboo.
Staff at the Wanglong Nature Reserve in southwest Sichuan province set up the camera after noticing dead animals with chew marks.
In the footage taken on Nov. 9 by an infrared camera, the giant panda is seen eating a dead gnu. It was not known if the panda had killed the animals.
The Pingwu County forestry bureau says the panda appears to be healthy and strong.
Conservation group WWF says only about 1 percent of a panda's diet is meat or plants that aren't bamboo.
China is set to launch its once-a-decade panda census, state media reported, as it tries to determine how many of the endangered animals live in the wild amid efforts to boost numbers.
Associated Press and AFP/Getty contributed to this story.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45825843/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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UAW takes aim at foreign automakers
DETROIT/HAMBURG ?? The United Auto Workers union is staking its future on the kind of struggle it hasn't waged since the 1930s: a massive drive to organize hostile factories.
This time, the target is foreign car makers, whose workers have rebuffed the union repeatedly. Specifically, Reuters has learned, the union is going after U.S. plants owned by German manufacturers Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG, seen as easier nuts to crack than the Japanese and South Koreans.
It's a battle the UAW cannot afford to lose. By failing to organize factories run by foreign automakers, the union has been a spectator to the only growth in the U.S. auto industry in the last 30 years. That failure to win new members has compounded a crunch on the UAW's finances, forcing it to sell assets and dip into its strike fund to pay for its activities.
In dozens of interviews with union officials, organizers and car company executives, a picture has emerged of UAW President Bob King's strategy. By appealing to German unions for help and by calling on the companies to do the right thing, King hopes to get VW and Daimler to surrender without a fight and let the union make its case directly to workers.
Central to this effort is the belief that if car companies refrain from actively opposing a UAW organizing push, workers at German-American factories will gladly join the union.
Volkswagen tops the 10 best car ads of 2011But that belief may be off-base. Workers know that almost every job lost at U.S. car factories in the last 30 years has occurred at a unionized company, while almost every job gained has come at a non-union company. And most of the factories the UAW is targeting are in the South, which is historically hostile to unions.
"People have a different opinion in the South about unions," said Robert Plisko, a retired autoworker who helped UAW organizing efforts at German and Japanese plants in the 1970s and 1980s. "It's a lot harder now than it has ever been, and I don't see it getting any easier."
German auto executives declined to talk in detail about the UAW's push. Privately, they remain wary of the union and its confrontational past. "They view the UAW as a disaster," said a Wall Street banker who has worked extensively with the industry.
King dismisses skeptics of his plan, but on one point he agrees with his fiercest critics: If the UAW fails to crack the transplants, as it calls foreign car factories in the United States, the union has no future. "I have said that repeatedly, and I believe it," he said in one of several interviews.
US automakers revved up for the new yearThis do-or-die imperative helps explain why his offensive sometimes feels passive.
In early December, the UAW's executive board convened at its riverfront headquarters in Detroit in a room outfitted with Swedish midcentury furniture. King, 65, had set a goal of winning one of the organizing battles by year end, and auto executives expected him to ratchet up the pressure by naming a target. But by the end of the meeting King concluded that naming a target would be seen as a hostile act and could undo the progress made behind the scenes with VW and Daimler.
"It really is ultimately up to the companies," King told Reuters after the meeting.
Whatever the outcome, King's march through the South will be a milestone in U.S. labor history. Famous for winning hard-fought campaigns at General Motors, Chrysler and, eventually, Ford between 1937 and 1941, the UAW was once one of the mightiest unions - and political forces - in the country.
But its membership has fallen 75 percent in the past three decades, and last year it started dipping into its strike fund. If it fails to boost its ranks, the richest union in the United States will hit a cash crunch.
Winning over 'heathens'
A decade ago, King led a campaign to organize a union at a Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tennessee.
As part of the campaign, Nissan employee Chet Konkle recalls visiting hundreds of workers in their homes. He sat in their kitchens, shook their hands and asked for signatures on union cards.
"Sometimes I felt like I was a Baptist preacher trying to win over the heathens," he said of his efforts as a labor evangelist in a southern state.
In October 2001, Nissan workers rejected the union by a two-to-one vote, with hundreds defecting from the UAW cause. For Konkle, that was an epiphany. "The UAW in its current form is on its deathbed," he said.
Now 47, Konkle leads a team that cuts waste at the plant and which is credited with saving over $10 million for Nissan.
Tennessee is once again a union battleground. At the geographical midpoint of a band of foreign auto factories stretching from Texas (Toyota) to Ohio (Honda), the state has worked hard for its piece of the U.S. auto industry.
In 1979, Gov. Lamar Alexander flew to Tokyo to meet with Nissan executives, showing them a picture of the United States with the Eastern seaboard lit up. When they asked where Tennessee was, Alexander recalled pointing to a relatively dark spot "right in the middle of the lights." Tennessee looked like an industrial blank slate within a short ride of a big market. Nissan also liked the state's law preventing mandatory union membership, he said.
A quarter century later, when VW was looking for a place to build a new plant, Alexander again made the case for Tennessee, this time as a member of the U.S. Senate. As part of the charm offensive, the state's junior senator, Bob Corker, invited VW executives to his home, where Alexander serenaded them on the piano.
The offensive worked. In July 2008, VW announced that it would invest $1 billion to build a plant near Chattanooga, the city where Corker had been mayor until 2005.
That plant is now at the top of the UAW's list. King traveled to Chattanooga himself in late November to meet with workers sympathetic to the union.
"The German companies have a better history of recognizing workers' rights around the world," King said.
But in a state with 9 percent unemployment, the task is daunting. For 2,500 jobs paying $30,000 a year, VW turned away 83,000 hopefuls at Chattanooga, which started up this year. Statistically, an applicant to Harvard University had a better chance of admission.
On the site of an old munitions depot, the plant is gleaming new, and a natural creek flows through the property. There is no obvious sign of the stresses that can drive workers to organize.
Rodney Barrett, a 42-year-old production worker, said there was no need for a union. "Things would have to change drastically for me to change my mind," he said in an interview arranged by VW.
German connection
Even some UAW officials concede that, if it comes to a vote at an automaker that is hostile to the UAW, the union will lose. Instead, the goal is to convince the automakers to open their doors and let the union make its case at town hall meetings.
That approach helped the UAW organize parts supplier Dana Holding Corp in 2007, including a plant in Kentucky that had voted the union down four years earlier.
Key to winning that kind of cooperation is the backing of the German union IG Metall, union leaders say.
In recent months, King has traveled to Germany to meet with IG Metall. In August, a pair of German union officials visited a Mercedes SUV factory in Vance, Alabama, another plant the UAW is focusing on. In November, representatives of both unions met again at a summit of union leaders in India.
IG Metall, which wants to keep the United States from becoming a cheap-labor alternative to Germany, is also helping the United Steelworkers try to organize a ThyssenKrupp steel plant that opened in Alabama last year.
"We will support the UAW, but we will not do the UAW's work," said Peter Donath, an IG Metall official.
Back in 1978, IG Metall helped the UAW organize the first big foreign factory in the United States, VW's Westmoreland Assembly Plant in Pennsylvania.
In that instance, a former senior VW executive recalled, IG Metall told VW to look favorably on the UAW's efforts. The message was, "Help them organize, or else," said the former executive, who asked not to be identified.
King is eager to show IG Metall and the foreign automakers that a new UAW has emerged from the wreckage of Detroit and that the union can be a better partner with management. He points to new contracts with U.S. automakers as an example of the UAW's flexibility.
But the GM contract alone runs to over 1,800 pages. IG Metall has proposed that the UAW agree to work rules for up to 15 years with the German automakers, which would be a radical break from laborious plant-by-plant negotiations every four years.
In public, VW executives maintain their neutrality on whether the UAW should represent its workers. But they note that workers already take part in corporate decisions, under policies first enforced by British military officers in Germany after World War Two. "Volkswagen has proven good at this," VW Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn told Reuters in September.
VW managers also have more recent history in mind.
The company closed its Westmoreland plant in Pennsylvania in 1988, in part because of flagging demand for the VW Rabbit and its successor, the Golf. Unauthorized walkouts in the first two years and chants of "No money, no bunny" left a bitter taste.
If he had the chance again, the former VW executive said, he would have argued to build that plant somewhere in the South.
Daimler, too, maintains an impartial stance. "Our legal requirement is to remain neutral in these questions. That's what we are," Chairman Dieter Zetsche told Reuters.
But Daimler has its own history with the UAW. In 2006, Zetsche pleaded with the union for concessions at Chrysler, before giving up and selling the company the next year. The UAW already represents workers at Daimler's Freightliner truck plants in several states, including North Carolina. Its Mercedes installation in Alabama is Daimler's only other plant in the United States.
Won't be easy
Other companies are more overtly hostile. Hyundai, Honda and Nissan have not taken King up on his offer for talks, people close to the effort say.
Hyundai Vice Chairman Yoon Yeo-cheol was blunt when asked about the chances for the UAW at its plant in Montgomery, Alabama. "It will not be easy," he told reporters in Seoul. "Hyundai employees there don't like it."
The UAW knows it has a fight with Hyundai ahead. Late last month, the union sent pickets to more than 80 U.S. Hyundai dealers in a show of support for the automaker's South Korean union over a complaint by a woman who said she was harassed by her supervisor at a factory there.
In a conflict, foreign automakers can turn to an army of outside consultants to hammer home the message that the union needs members more than members need a union.
"When we spin this to employees, we say, 'What do you think they want? They want your dues money and they need it," said Walter Orechwa, chief executive of Projections Inc, a consulting firm that has worked with BMW and Toyota.
On one crucial front, the effort to keep wages at union plants above those at non-union plants, the UAW has already lost a lot of ground.
Newly hired workers earn $14.50 an hour at VW in Chattanooga. That is just below the $14.78 that a new hire would make at a unionized GM plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Adjusted for monthly dues at Spring Hill, the VW worker is behind by only about $15 per month.
King concedes the UAW's past mistakes contributed to Detroit's near-demise.
Since 2001, the Detroit Three have slashed over 200,000 jobs, eliminating more than 60 percent of their hourly work force. In the same period, Japanese, South Korean and German automakers have opened eight assembly plants in the United States, creating almost 20,000 factory jobs.
Even the UAW's friends recognize the union's past as a problem.
"Obviously, the union lives with the legacy of all that's happened," said Ron Bloom, a member of the Obama administration task force that oversaw the bailout of GM and Chrysler in 2009, saving thousands of union jobs. The UAW backed President Obama in the 2008 election, but the White House has said nothing on the UAW's organizing drive.
Myth of the south
Top union officials say it is a myth that the South cannot be organized. But the UAW has been overly confident before. Just before the vote at Smyrna, King's predecessor, Ron Gettelfinger, privately predicted a UAW victory.
Then workers were shown a message from Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn. "We'll be making decisions on where future growth will occur in the U.S. and in Mexico based on the efficiency of operations," Ghosn said in a video, shown to workers in groups. "Bringing a union into Smyrna could result in making Smyrna not competitive."
The message swayed "the middle 40 percent" of workers, said Konkle, the former UAW supporter, and the fight was lost by a vote of 3,103 to 1,486.
Now, Konkle's job is to find ways to save money for Nissan. Two years ago, he and others noticed Nissan had been using the same device to take a car off the line for inspection since 1992. In the intervening years, the cars had become heavier and harder to handle, and the device took up to five workers to operate.
So Konkle and his team devised a lift that could be operated by a single worker, at a cost of about $1,800. Konkle's supervisor handed over his credit card to make the needed purchases - an on-the-spot fix that would have been unimaginable in a unionized factory.
Thanks to such innovations, it took 18.6 hours to build a car at Smyrna in 2008, compared with 20.6 hours at GM's plant at Spring Hill, according to The Harbour Report.
As well as saving money, giving workers a say in how work gets done makes for a happier labor force.
"You've eliminated, for the most part, the reasons people organize," said John Hancock, a management-side labor attorney at Butzel Long in Detroit.
At Smyrna, Nissan is expanding. It is opening a battery plant and adding production of the all-electric Leaf.
Many of the new jobs are lower-wage temporary positions working for contractor Yates Services. Those workers wear brown uniforms to distinguish them from Nissan's regular hires in blue or gray. In some parts of the Smyrna complex, temporary workers now account for up to 60 percent of the jobs.
At a pair of hiring fairs this month, about 5,000 people applied for temporary jobs at the plant. About one in five applicants would get jobs that pay about $26,000 per year.
One of the new temporary workers is Konkle's 19-year-old daughter, who makes $12.50 per hour. Although he has no patience for the UAW, Konkle worries the lower wages are "generating renters, people who will never be able to buy their house."
Others had more immediate worries.
Ben Nurse, 42, stood in line on a cold Saturday morning to apply for a contract position. A father of two, he said he was three months behind on his mortgage payments and had been out of work for a year since he left the U.S. Army.
"A year without a job, you'll take anything," he said. "I don't have a problem not working with a union. A job is a job."
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45815126/ns/business-autos/
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Oak Harbor mayor-elect donating kidney to Canadian stranger
KING5.com
Posted on December 26, 2011 at 10:22 PM
Updated yesterday at 10:41 PM
OAK HARBOR, Wash. -- It's not the kind-of secret one would expect from a candidate.? Scott Dudley waited until after he was elected mayor of Oak Harbor to admit he was donating his kidney to a stranger.
"We were?not doing this for votes or any political reason," Dudley said.
His reasons were much more personal: his family has a history of polycystic kidney disease.? It claimed his grandmother's life when Dudley was an infant.? His aunt Myrna also died, despite receiving a kidney from another relative.? His uncle also had the disease and lived a longer life thanks to a donated kidney.?
"I've seen it firsthand," Dudley said.? "I've seen the impact it has had on others' lives."
While attending a Rotary meeting in Canada, he heard from Keesha Rosario, whose 37-year-old husband Philip was battling the same disease and needed of a kidney.
"I took her aside after the meeting and said, 'OK, how do we make this happen?'" Dudley said.
Dudley has made trips to Vancouver for tests to make sure he is a good match.? He has yet to meet Philip Rosario, but the two recently exchanged messages online.?
"He thinks I'm a hero," Dudley said.? "In this case?I'm just in the right place at the right time."
If all goes as planned, the transplant will take place?in Vancouver next?June.? Dudley will miss a?few weeks?at his new job but plans to?do as much work as possible on his laptop and phone.? ?
Source: http://www.king5.com/news/local/oak-harbor-mayor-donates-kidney-136240698.html
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Capsule review of new film release (AP)
"The Iron Lady" ? The same problems that plagued "La Vie en Rose," starring Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf, exist in this biopic of Margaret Thatcher, with Meryl Streep playing the former British prime minister. While both films feature strong performances from strong actresses playing strong, real-life women, the scripts are weakened by going strictly by the numbers. Sure, Streep reliably nails her impression of Thatcher ? the hair, the voice, the steely demeanor. The way she dresses down her deputy during a crowded cabinet meeting is just withering. But the film from Phyllida Lloyd (who directed Streep in the ABBA musical "Mamma Mia!"), from a script by Abi Morgan, reduces this high-profile life to a greatest-hits collection of historic moments. Here's Thatcher's first election to public office; there's her ascension to the prime minister's post, the first (and, so far, only) time a woman achieved that rank. Here's the Falkland Islands conflict, there's the Berlin Wall coming down. Through it all, her beloved husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent), stood by her side until ? and after ? his death. One of the more facile and predictable narrative devices in "The Iron Lady" features an aged, fragile Thatcher seemingly talking to herself when in reality she's speaking to her deceased husband, a symptom of the dementia that's gnawing at her once-formidable brain. This inevitably sets up a flashback to one of the aforementioned historical events. You just know that if Thatcher is by herself in her lonely, empty home, Broadbent will pop up to amuse and cajole her. It happens so often you can predict it, which erodes its emotional impact. PG-13 for some violent images and brief nudity. 105 min. Two stars out of four.
? Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Japan Azumi: Japan-India in final stages of deciding on dollar (Reuters)
TOKYO (Reuters) ? Japan and India are in the final stages of deciding on a dollar swap agreement and expect to reach agreement during Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's visit to India this week, Japan's finance minister said on Tuesday.
An earlier $3 billion arrangement came into force in 2008 but expired in June. The Nikkei business newspaper reported on Sunday that the new one would be set at $10 billion.
Further financial cooperation as well as Japanese support for infrastructure in India will be a key focus at talks between the leaders of the two countries, Finance Minister Jun Azumi told a news conference.
Azumi also said he expects Japan's exports will pick up early next year if the European economy stabilizes and currency levels reflect Japan's economic fundamentals.
(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5665919329
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Vivid Games Launches Ski Jumping 2012 for iPad and iPhone
Vivid Games has released a thrilling game, Ski Jumping 2012, for iPad and iPhone/iPod touch. Vivid Games sold over a million copies of Ski Jumping 2011, and now they've brought more winter sport goodness as Ski Jumping 2012 deliversg all the thrills, skills and danger of professional ski jumping. Here is more info on this new iPad and iPhone game:
Putting players right behind the courageous skier's goggles, Ski Jumping 2012 takes the terrifying sport into the third dimension with beautifully detailed visuals and high-speed downhill action. With more than 20 real- world ski jumping venues available for players to compete in quick jumps, world cups, custom events and tournaments, Ski Jumping 2012 offers a completely new and comprehensive winter sports experience.
The Ski Jumping 2012 application is available as two separate releases for iPhone and iPad, allowing it to take full advantage of HD Retina display graphics and incredible special effects enhancements on the new generation of A5-equipped devices.
Launched in perfect time for the 60th anniversary of the Four Hill Tournament (December 29th - January 06th) - one of the most celebrated and auspicious ski jumping events in the world - Ski Jumping 2012 is available now for iPhone and iPod touch ($0.99) and for iPad ($1.99) on the iTunes App Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ski-jumping-2012-hd/id485290745?mt=8
-----------------------------------------------------
Check out our iPhone and iPod touch Game and App Reviews at:
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/iPhone-game-reviews.htm
Check out our iPad Game, Book and App Reviews at:
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/iPad-game-reviews.htm
More News. . .
Source: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=8cc646ace83ab865a9c8fef9bdaea1a4
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
New Freedom mayor resigns to take district judge seat
Mayor Jeff Joy will replace District Judge Walter P. Reamer.
Jeff Joy (Submitted)
York, PA - New Freedom Mayor Jeff Joy has announced his resignation to take a position as a district judge.Joy, who was elected in November to replace District Judge Walter P. Reamer, will resign as of Tuesday. He served 10 years as New Freedom's mayor and two years on borough council. He will also resign as chairman of the Southern Police Commission.
Borough council members will appoint a replacement mayor, Joy said. That person will serve for one year, and a replacement for the second remaining year of his term will be selected in the next election, he said.
Also of interest
? York County, Pa., boroughs offer tasty slice of small-town life.
Source: http://www.ydr.com/rss/ci_19621439?source=rss
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All I Want for Christmas is Your Help Fighting Breast Cancer
I am hoping for just one Christmas gift this year, and it involves you.
You see, I am going to be walking with Team Affiliate Marketers Give Back for 39.3 miles around New York City next October for the 10th Anniversary of the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer.
The Avon Walk For Breast Cancer in New York City is taking place October 21-22, 2012. The path goes from Hudson River Park?s Pier 84 to Randall?s Island and back again.
But how you can help? Well, there are a few ways to fight breast cancer with us.
I?d love if you?d support me in the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer with a donation of any amount. I?m trying to raise $25,000 towards our team goal of $80,000.
The money I raise will be managed and disbursed by the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade to help provide access to care for those that most need it, fund educational programs, and accelerate research into new treatments and potential cures.
Also, we need affiliate marketers, as well as their friends and family, to join us out there on the walk or at our cheering station.
More details on joining or supporting the team: 2012 Affiliate Marketers Give Back Walk to #SaveTheBoobies is On!
And if you can?t make it to NYC or spare a donation, there is another opportunity to help just by exercising.
Affiliate Summit has created a dailymile Challenge where we will donate $1 in support of the Affiliate Marketers Give Back team for each mile cycled, run, swam, or walked (up to $5,000).
Source: http://blog.affiliatetip.com/archives/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-your-help-fighting-breast-cancer/
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Monday, December 26, 2011
Mike_Reisman: @shmeccaa I guess but the fact that almost everyone is like "omg chinese and movie on christmas i'm so jewish haha" is really annoying
@ I guess but the fact that almost everyone is like "omg chinese and movie on christmas i'm so jewish haha" is really annoying Source: http://twitter.com/Mike_Reisman/statuses/150965759563149313
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Nets' Lopez out 6-8 weeks after foot surgery (AP)
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. ? With the prospect of a trade for Dwight Howard fading and the season opener less than a week away, New Jersey Nets coach Avery Johnson was getting a feel for his team.
That all changed Thursday when center Brook Lopez broke his right foot, an injury that left Johnson shaking his head and considering his options.
Lopez, the Nets' leading scorer, had surgery Friday for a nondisplaced fracture. He was hurt in a preseason game against the Knicks on Wednesday and will be sidelined at least six weeks and probably more.
In the meantime, general manager Billy King acquired former All-Star center Mehmet Okur from Utah for a second-round draft pick, signed free agent guard DeShawn Stevenson and waived forward Ime Udoka.
With the additions of Okur and Stevenson, the Nets have hit the salary cap, so their revamped team is set.
It has one star, point guard Deron Williams, and a lot of new faces ? Okur, Stevenson, free agent forwards Shawne Williams and Sheldon Williams, rookies Marshon Brooks and forward Jordan Williams and holdovers Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, Damion James and Kris Humphries.
"Every day is a new day I tell our players," Johnson said Friday. "When you get up in the morning you think about being a difference maker. You think about positive energy. Everybody is undefeated now."
The Nets (24-58) probably aren't going to stay that way long. They open on Monday at Washington and play 10 of their first 14 games on the road. The home opener is Tuesday against Atlanta.
"There is no surrender in how we react as coaches, how we approach practice," Johnson said. "It's not necessarily the situation we diagrammed going in, so we adjust. So if plan A doesn't work, you have to go to plan B and C and that's what we are doing."
The big question is Okur, who is to practice with the team Saturday.
"We needed another guy to fill in, but he's just not filling in," Johnson said. "He's a veteran player. He's had a solid career so far. He knows how to play and how to pass. He's still shooting the ball pretty good."
Okur played in 13 games last season while recovering from Achilles and back injuries. The 32-year-old Turk has averaged 13.7 points and 7.1 rebounds in 617 career games with Detroit and Utah.
Deron Williams played with Okur in Utah, and the two spoke Thursday.
"He was shocked a little bit at first, probably my reaction, but he's warming up to it and excited coming over, excited to play with me again," Deron Williams said. "I'll try to make the transition as easy as possible."
Deron Williams said the Nets would not have to revamp their offense because Lopez played more on the outside than in the paint.
"It's our team," Deron Williams said. "Whether I am comfortable or not, it's our team. We've got good guys, guys who know how to play basketball and make plays. That's all we need as long as our defense is locked in. Guys can hit shots, hit big shots, and I think we do. I like we added DeShawne. He can hit shots but he also brings that toughness and can guard people."
Johnson also is comfortable with his team, for now.
"I know they will play hard," Johnson said. "When you have a team with Deron Williams as the point guard he will do a good job of quarterbacking the team."
King expects Lopez to play in a game in six to eight weeks.
Dr. Martin O'Malley, a foot specialist, and team orthopedist Dr. Riley Williams III inserted a screw into the fifth metatarsal of Lopez's foot at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. O'Malley said rehabilitation will start in two weeks.
Lopez averaged 20.4 points and 6.0 rebounds in 82 games last season.
"We go to him a lot late in games and stuff," Humphries said. "We won't have that. We'll probably have to play at a little different pace and be sharper with the shooting and be more up and down and precise in executing on the break. Depending on who plays his minutes, we'll be more of an up-tempo team."
Stevenson averaged 5.3 points and 1.2 assists in helping the Mavericks win their first title last season. He was used mostly in a defensive role and can score more if needed.
"It probably will be tough coming from the team where I came from, but at the same time it's a challenge," Stevenson said after his first practice with the Nets. "We were challenged to win a championship and this is a different type of challenge."
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
NYPD's spying programs produced mixed results
FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2009 file photo, Najibullah Zazi leaves his apartment in Aurora, Colo., for a meeting with his attorney. When New York undercover officers and informants were infiltrating a mosque in Queens in 2006, they failed to notice the increasingly radical sentiments of a young man who prayed there. Police also kept tabs on a Muslim student group at Queens College, but missed a member?s growing anti-Americanism. Those two men and friends _ Zazi at the mosque and Adis Medunjanin at the school _ would go on to be accused of plotting a subway bombing that officials have called the most serious terrorist threat to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2009 file photo, Najibullah Zazi leaves his apartment in Aurora, Colo., for a meeting with his attorney. When New York undercover officers and informants were infiltrating a mosque in Queens in 2006, they failed to notice the increasingly radical sentiments of a young man who prayed there. Police also kept tabs on a Muslim student group at Queens College, but missed a member?s growing anti-Americanism. Those two men and friends _ Zazi at the mosque and Adis Medunjanin at the school _ would go on to be accused of plotting a subway bombing that officials have called the most serious terrorist threat to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File)
In this Jan. 9, 2010, courtroom sketch, defense attorney Robert Gottlieb, left, is seated next to his client, defendant Adis Medunjanin, at the federal courthouse in New York City. When New York undercover officers and informants were infiltrating a mosque in Queens in 2006, they failed to notice the increasingly radical sentiments of a young man who prayed there. Police also kept tabs on a Muslim student group at Queens College, but missed a member?s growing anti-Americanism. Those two men and friends _ Najibullah Zazi at the mosque and Medunjanin at the school _ would go on to be accused of plotting a subway bombing that officials have called the most serious terrorist threat to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Williams)
NEW YORK (AP) ? When New York undercover officers and informants were infiltrating a mosque in Queens in 2006, they failed to notice the increasingly radical sentiments of a young man who prayed there. Police also kept tabs on a Muslim student group at Queens College, but missed a member's growing anti-Americanism.
Those two men, Najibullah Zazi at the mosque and Adis Medunjanin at the school, would go on to be accused of plotting a subway bombing that officials have called the most serious terrorist threat to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
Ever since The Associated Press began revealing New York Police Department spying programs on mosques, student groups, Muslim businesses and communities, those activities have been stoutly defended by police and supporters as having foiled a list of planned attacks.
Recently, for instance, when three members of Congress suggested an inquiry into those programs, Republican Rep. Peter King of New York rallied to the NYPD's defense.
"Under Commissioner Ray Kelly's leadership, at least 14 attacks by Islamic terrorists have been prevented by the NYPD," King said.
But a closer review of the cases reveals a more complicated story.
The list cited by King includes plans that may never have existed as well as plots the NYPD had little or no hand in disrupting. According to a review of public documents, materials obtained by the AP and interviews with dozens of city and federal officials, the most controversial NYPD spying programs produced mixed results. The officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly.
There indeed have been successes, such as the 2004 plot uncovered by the NYPD to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan.
And there have been failures, like Zazi and Medunjanin, who were exactly the kind of people police intended to spot when they developed the spying programs.
And there were other efforts that compiled data on innocent people but produced no meaningful results at all.
Kelly has spent hundreds of millions of dollars transforming the department into one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. In a city that still hurts from 9/11 and still sees a hole in the ground near where the World Trade Center stood, people have had little interest in questioning whether that effort has been effective. City lawmakers, for instance, learned about many of the department's secretive programs from the AP.
For New Yorkers, the result is that fear of another terrorist attack is used to justify spying on entire neighborhoods. And the absence of another attack is held up as evidence that it works.
___
Some of the NYPD intelligence programs were born out of fear and desperation. After 9/11, police reached for whatever might work.
One idea was to use informants to trawl local mosques and monitor imams to watch for signs of radicalization. Though the NYPD denies the term exists, several former officials said the informants were known as "mosque crawlers." They would listen in mosques and report back to their handlers.
It was the CIA that first developed that idea overseas and came up with the name. The NYPD program was a version of that effort, according to former CIA officials who were familiar with it. Like many interviewed about the NYPD, they insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence programs.
Former senior CIA officials said the mosque crawlers were ineffective.
In New York, however, the program persisted. With help from the mosque crawlers and secret NYPD squads, documents show, police intelligence analysts scrutinized every mosque in and around the city and infiltrated dozens. The monitoring of imams included even those who worked closely with police and preached against violence.
These days, however, fewer imams are under investigation, an official said.
The NYPD has pledged to do all it can to prevent terrorism. So when a new intelligence program is conceived, several current and former officials said, there is little discussion of its prospects for success.
NYPD intelligence chief David Cohen, a former top CIA official, was asked about that in September 2005 during a deposition in a lawsuit over the department's policy of randomly searching the bags of subway riders. Civil rights lawyers asked how police knew whether a program deterred terrorism.
"If it works against them, then it works for us," Cohen replied. "That is deterrent to one degree or other."
Cohen was asked, How do you know it works? Is there some police methodology?
"I never bothered to look," Cohen said. "It doesn't exist, as far as I could tell."
At times, police officials themselves have raised concerns about intelligence-gathering programs. In about 2008, for instance, police began monitoring everyone in the city who legally changed names. Anyone who might be a Muslim convert or appeared to be Americanizing his or her name was investigated and personal information was put into police databases.
Current and former officials say it produced no results. Police still receive the list of names of people who change their names, court officials said. But one official said the program is on hold while its effectiveness is evaluated.
Kelly has said the NYPD does not trawl neighborhoods and instead only pursues leads. But those leads can be ambiguous, officials say, and can be used to justify widespread surveillance programs.
For example, the NYPD began the "Moroccan Initiative," a secret program that chronicled Moroccan neighborhoods, after suicide bombings killed 45 people in the Moroccan city of Casablanca in 2003, and after Moroccan terrorists were linked to the 2005 train bombing in Madrid. New York police put people, including U.S. citizens, under surveillance and catalogued where they ate, worked and prayed.
"What we were doing is following leads," Kelly told City Council members during an October hearing when asked about that program. "The Moroccan issue that was mentioned had to do with a specific investigation."
But officials involved in the program said there was no specific threat to New York from Moroccans. The Moroccan Initiative thwarted no plots and led to no arrests, officials said.
___
Much of the information in the Moroccan Initiative was gathered by a secretive squad known as the Demographics Unit. Using plainclothes officers known as "rakers," the squad infiltrated local businesses and community organizations looking for trouble or "hot spots." Their daily reports helped create searchable databases of life in New York's Muslim neighborhoods.
One NYPD official said that unit identified a Brooklyn bookstore as a hot spot. That led police to open an investigation and send in an informant and undercover detective, ultimately leading to the arrests of two men in the Herald Square case.
The work of that secret unit, the official said, helped the NYPD arrest a Pakistani immigrant named Shahawar Matin Siraj and foiled an attack.
For years, police have said publicly that the Herald Square case began with a tip but have not elaborated. Siraj's lawyer, Martin Stolar, said prosecutors provided no documents related to the Demographics Unit at trial.
Siraj was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in 2007. But defense attorneys, and even some inside the NYPD intelligence unit, said police had coaxed the men into making incriminating statements and there was no proof Siraj ever obtained explosives.
The case is arguably the NYPD's greatest counterterrorism success. But there are others.
The NYPD played an important role in the case against Carlos Amonte and Mohammed Alessa, two New Jersey men who pleaded guilty to charges they tried to leave the country in 2010 to join the al-Qaida-linked terrorist group al-Shabaab. The FBI long had been aware of the two men but had been unable to win their trust with an informant or undercover agent, federal officials said. The NYPD, with its deep roster of Muslim officers, provided the undercover officer who ultimately succeeded in winning their confidence.
When the NYPD's effectiveness is questioned, the department's most ardent supporters frequently point to a long list of terrorist plots said to have targeted New York since 9/11. The list often is described as plots thwarted by the NYPD.
"One can't argue with results," said Peter Vallone, the New York city councilman who heads the Public Safety Committee. "The results of this gargantuan effort have been that at least 13 planned attacks on New York City have been prevented."
In reality, however, the NYPD played little or no role in preventing many of those attacks.
Some, like a cyanide plot against the subway system, were discovered among evidence obtained overseas but were never set into motion. Others, like the 2006 plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners using liquid explosives, were thwarted by U.S. and international authorities, and plans never got off the ground.
And some, like the 2008 subway plot, went unnoticed by the NYPD despite the money and manpower devoted to monitoring Muslim communities, according to the NYPD files obtained by the AP. The files along with interviews show the NYPD was monitoring Zazi's mosque, and also the Muslim student organization Medunjanin attended. Zazi and Medunjanin were friends and had been praying together regularly since 9th grade. As the years passed, Zazi grew increasingly upset about civilians killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan; Medunjanin was outraged by the way Muslims were treated at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and he promoted jihad at the mosque and after basketball games with friends, according to court documents. He said his friends didn't have the "balls" to do anything.
The plot was discovered after U.S. intelligence intercepted an email revealing that Zazi was trying to make a bomb.
Those programs, meanwhile, have widened the chasm between the police and the city's Muslims, a community the Obama administration says is a crucial partner in the effort to prevent another terrorist attack. Fed up with a decade of being under scrutiny, some Muslim groups now urge against going directly to police when someone hears radical, anti-American talk.
They reason that the person is probably a police informant.
___
Each morning at the NYPD, Cohen meets his senior officers to discuss the latest intelligence before he briefs Kelly. There is no bigger target for terrorists than New York, the nation's largest city and the heart of the financial and media world. Cohen repeatedly reminds his officers that, on any given day, they might be the only thing standing in the way of disaster. It's a mentality that officials say underscores the seriousness of the threat and the NYPD's commitment to the effort.
Several current and former officials point to that pressure to explain why programs rarely get scrapped, even when there are doubts about their effectiveness. Nobody wants to be the one to abandon a program, only to witness a successful attack that it might have prevented.
At the federal level, intelligence programs are reviewed by Congress, inspectors general and other watchdogs. The NYPD faces no such scrutiny from the City Council or city auditors. Federal officials, too, have been reluctant to question the effectiveness of the NYPD, despite spending more than $1.6 billion in federal money on the department since 9/11.
After House Democrats circulated a letter signed by 34 members of Congress recently asking for a federal review of the NYPD's intelligence programs, King, the New York Republican, accused them of smearing the police department.
The Justice Department under Eric Holder repeatedly has sidestepped questions about what it thinks about the NYPD programs revealed by the AP. Some Democrats in Congress have asked prosecutors to investigate. Since August, the department has said only that it is reviewing those requests.
During the Bush administration, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and senior Justice Department officials received a briefing in New York about the NYPD's capabilities, according to a former federal official who attended.
Gonzales left convinced, the official said, that the federal government could not replicate those programs. The NYPD had more manpower and operated under different rules than the federal government, the Justice Department concluded. And the mayor had accepted the political risk that came with the programs.
It was a policy briefing only, the former official said, meaning the federal government did not review the NYPD programs to determine whether they were lawful.
The NYPD's terrorist cases include ones the federal government has declined to prosecute. Last year, a grand jury declined to indict Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh on the most serious charge initially brought against them, a high-level terror conspiracy count that carried the potential for life in prison without parole. They were indicted on lesser state terrorism and hate crime charges, including one punishable by up to 32 years behind bars.
Last month, NYPD detectives arrested Jose Pimentel on terrorism-related charges. A state grand jury has yet to indict him on those charges. Federal and city law enforcement officials who reviewed the case told the AP there were concerns that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own. The NYPD informant's drug use in the case also created serious issues, the officials said.
FBI Director Robert Mueller has tried to mute criticisms of the NYPD. On a visit to the Newark, N.J., FBI office a few years ago, current and former officials recall, agents asked Mueller how the NYPD was allowed to operate undercover in the state, with no FBI coordination. Mueller replied that it was a reality the bureau would have to live with, the officials said.
There will always be some debate over the effectiveness of intelligence-gathering programs, particularly ones that butt up against civil liberties. Nearly a decade after the last terrorist suspect was waterboarded in a secret CIA prison in 2003, for instance, politicians and experts still debate whether the tactic gleaned valuable information and whether it could have been obtained without such harsh methods.
During the Bush administration, officials repeatedly pointed to the years without a successful terrorist attack to justify the most contentious programs from the war on terrorism. Vice President Dick Cheney used the years without an attack to defend the secret National Security Agency wiretapping program. Gonzales credited the USA Patriot Act and military actions abroad. And President George W. Bush said the years without an attack validated his polices.
"While there's room for honest and healthy debate about the decisions I've made ? and there's plenty of debate," Bush said in the final days of his presidency, "there can be no debate about the results in keeping America safe."
When questioned about its own programs, the NYPD has made the same arguments.
During the 2005 deposition over the subway searches, lawyers pressed Cohen to explain how the NYPD could be so sure its programs really worked.
"They haven't attacked us," he said.
___
Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org
Follow Apuzzo, Goldman and Sullivan at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.com/goldmandc and http://twitter.com/esullivanap
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Justice to require sale before NYSE merger (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The Justice Department announced Thursday that it will allow the creation of the world's largest stock exchange operator after the German conglomerate that wants to buy the New York Stock Exchange sells its stake in a third, smaller American stock exchange operator.
Justice Department lawyers filed papers in U.S. District Court in Washington that would allow the merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse AG after the German company orders one of its subsidiaries to sell its 31.5 percent stake in Direct Edge Holdings LLC, which is the United States' fourth largest stock exchange operator. In addition to the sale of Direct Edge, the proposed settlement between Justice and the two companies prohibits them from participating in the business or running of Direct Edge.
The German company, which operates the Frankfurt stock exchange, offered to buy NYSE Euronext for $10 billion in February. The transaction would create the world's largest exchange operator. NYSE Euronext owns exchanges in Paris, Lisbon, Brussels and Amsterdam, in addition to New York.
"Without the divestiture and other restrictions obtained by the Justice Department, a combined NYSE and Deutsche Borse entity could influence the actions of Direct Edge, and thereby lessen the zeal of an aggressive and innovative exchange competitor," said Sharis A. Pozen, acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. "The remedy ensures that participants in the markets for U.S. equities exchange products and services will continue to receive the full benefits of robust competition in the form of competitive prices and increased innovation."
Under the terms of the settlement, Deutsche Borse's subsidiary, ISE, will divest itself of its interest in Direct Edge within two years.
The Deutsche Boerse-NYSE Eurostar merger would not only control important stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic, but also have a potentially dominant position in the trading of derivatives. Derivatives are complex financial products that allow investors to bet on movements in areas such as interest rates, stock indexes or commodity prices.
The combination of the two exchanges has been harshly criticized by competitors like the London Stock Exchange and U.S.-based Nasdaq.
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Ben Heck delivers holiday cheer to gamer with modded macro controller
Continue reading Ben Heck delivers holiday cheer to gamer with modded macro controller
Ben Heck delivers holiday cheer to gamer with modded macro controller originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Small Business Wish List: More Sales
Small-business owners are getting in the holiday spirit, revealing their wish lists in a survey from TD Bank. According to the survey, which polled 300 business owners along the East Coast, 61 percent said that increased sales would rank highest on their list.
While thirteen percent of owners listed eliminating debt as a top priority, many are in the giving spirit, with 11 percent having hopes of giving raises or bonuses to their hardworking employees. Rounding out the list, 6 percent hoped for new equipment or software, 5 percent wanted more employees and 4 percent were looking to expand to a larger facility. Just 1 percent of business owners wished for a raise or bonus for themselves.
"With economic pressures likely to continue in 2012, it will be more important than ever for small businesses to find creative ways to grow sales," Fred Graziano, TD Bank's head of regional commercial banking, government banking and small business, said in a statement.
Looking forward, the survey also asked small business owners what their New Year's resolution would be for 2012. Accordingly, many of the "wishes" turned into "resolutions", with 26 percent of owners planning on spending more time developing marketing and sales strategies and 22 percent planning on eliminating company debt. Other resolutions included developing a better business plan and relying more on employees to handle daily operations.
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Breastfeeding saved babies in 19th century Montreal
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Breastfeeding increased infant survival rates in 19th -Century Montreal in two major ways, according to research from Concordia University and McGill University. Mother's milk protected vulnerable infants from food and water contaminated by fecal bacteria, while breastfeeding postponed the arrival of more siblings and that improved the health of mothers as well as their subsequent children.
Published in the journal Population Studies, using data gathered from Montreal's civil burial records and the 1881 Census, the study examined how poverty, poor sanitation, disease and various cultural factors affected death rates among newborns and children.
"Infant feeding practices, such as how long to breastfeed, at what age to introduce food supplements and in what season to wean, all influenced infant survival and all were subject to cultural tradition," says first author Patricia Thornton, a professor in the Concordia University Department of Geography, Planning and Environment.
Cultural groups that stopped breastfeeding earlier and especially before the summer when rising temperatures, dry weather and falling water table made contamination worst, were also more likely to have their next child more rapidly and less likely to limit their family size. This caused both the mother's and her next child's health to suffer.
"Poverty, high population density, room crowding and contagious diseases all affected death rates among children, yet these effects were nuanced by cultural identity," says co-author Sherry Olson, a professor in the McGill University Department of Geography.
The cultural factor
Studying 19th - Century health in Montreal was compelling for Thornton and Olson, since the city featured three well defined cultural groups: French Canadians, Irish Catholics and Protestants from Great Britain and Ireland. Each group had their own residential and occupational profile.
"Cultural factors eclipsed economic status as factors that influenced infant death rates," says Thornton. "Even though most French and Irish Catholics lived in similar working class conditions, the positive effects of later marriage and longer breastfeeding among Irish Catholics protected their infants and children, while French Canadians' infants were negatively impacted by early weaning."
According to the study, French Canadian women were weaning earlier, having more children and waiting less time between babies. What's more, French Canadian infants who survived their first year were more likely to suffer from bouts of intestinal diarrhea that could render them more vulnerable to common childhood illnesses.
Poverty and disease
Economic status, environmental conditions and neighbourhood characteristics all had an impact on newborns' and children's health and lifespan. High population density and crowded conditions helped the spread of contagious diseases and along with the presence of horses, and their impact on sanitation, all played a role in health, too.
"While French Canadian children bore a disproportionate share of urban deaths," says Thornton, "those who reached the age of 10 were as likely to survive as others and much more likely to survive than Irish Catholic men."
Why Montreal?
"The exceptional quality of records in Montreal provides a rare opportunity to study a North American metropolis in 1881, and to demonstrate the effects of poverty on infant and child mortality, as well as mortality over a lifetime," says Olson, noting, Montreal is one of few industrial cities where high-quality registration permits the examination of mortality with respect to a wide range of social and environmental factors.
"In the city of Montreal in 1881, the presence of three cultural communities from different economic backgrounds makes it possible to observe the way social settings affected survival over a lifetime," says Thornton.
###
Cited study: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2011.571385
Concordia University: http://www.concordia.ca
Thanks to Concordia University for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116184/Breastfeeding_saved_babies_in___th_century_Montreal
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
Thousands gather in snow to mourn Kim Jong Il
Pyongyang citizens grieve as they visit a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on display in the plaza of the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, FRANCE, HONG KONG, JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA
Pyongyang citizens grieve as they visit a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on display in the plaza of the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, FRANCE, HONG KONG, JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA
Mourners bow as they pay their respects to North Korea's late leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Zhang Li) NO SALES
Pyongyang citizens grieve as they visit a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on display in the plaza of the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. (AP Photo)
Voluntary medical workers support a woman who fainted while visiting a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. (AP Photo)
Pyongyang citizens pay respects in front of a portrait of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il at the Grand People's Study House in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea Wednesday Dec. 21, 2011. The portrait was hung in the spot where the portrait of late President Kim Il Sung usually hangs. (AP Photo)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? Tens of thousands of mourners packed Pyongyang's snowy main square Wednesday to pay respects to late leader Kim Jong Il as North Korea tightened security in cities and won loyalty pledges from top generals for Kim's son and anointed heir.
Women held handkerchiefs to their faces as they wept and filed past a huge portrait of a smiling Kim Jong Il hanging on the Grand People's Study House, in the spot where a photograph of Kim's father, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, usually hangs.
Kim Jong Il died of a massive heart attack Saturday, according to state media, which reported his death on Monday. They said he was 69 ? although some accounts put his age at 70.
A huge crowd of mourners converged on Kim Il Sung Square with traditional white mourning flowers in hand. The crowd grew throughout the day, even as heavy snow fell, and some mourners took off their jackets to shield mourning wreaths set up in Kim's honor, just below the spot where he stood last year waving to crowds at the massive military parade where he introduced his successor, Kim Jong Un.
Two medical workers rushed to carry away a woman who had fainted.
"We chose to come here to care for citizens who might faint because of sorrow and mental strain," Jon Gyong Song, 29, who works as a doctor in a Pyongyang medical center, told The Associated Press. "The flow of mourners hasn't stopped since Tuesday night."
South Korean intelligence reports, meanwhile, indicated Wednesday that North Korea was consolidating power behind Kim's untested son, believed to be in his late 20s.
Worries around Northeast Asia have risen sharply as Kim Jong Un rises to power in a country with a 1.2-million troop military, ballistic missiles and an advanced nuclear weapons development program.
South Korea has put its military on high alert. In another sign of border tension, Chinese boatmen along a river separating North Korea and China told the AP that North Korean police have ordered them to stop giving rides to tourists, saying they will fire on the boats if they see anyone with cameras.
Along the Koreas' border, the world's most heavily armed, South Korean activists and defectors launched giant balloons containing tens of thousands of propaganda leaflets, a move likely to infuriate the North. Some of the leaflets opposed a hereditary transfer of power in North Korea. Some showed graphic pictures of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's battered corpse and described his gruesome death.
Kim Jong Il ruled the country for 17 years after inheriting power from his father, national founder and eternal North Korean President Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994. Kim Jong Un only entered the public view last year and remains a mystery to most of the world.
Seoul's National Intelligence Service believes the North is now focused on consolidating Kim Jong Un's power and has placed its troops on alert, according to South Korean parliament member Kwon Young-se.
South Korean military officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of policies that restrict comment on intelligence matters, said North Korea has ordered its troops to be vigilant but that it didn't mean they were being moved.
Lawmaker Kwon said the NIS told the parliamentary intelligence committee that senior military officials have pledged allegiance to Kim Jong Un, and that more security officers have been deployed in major cities across the country. Intelligence officials declined to comment.
The NIS also gave its predictions on how the North's government will work during the transition of power to the younger Kim.
It told lawmakers that an ad hoc committee is expected to handle key state affairs before Kim Jong Un formally becomes the country's leader, according to lawmaker Hwang Jin-ha, who also attended the closed-door briefing. Intelligence officials didn't describe how they got the information, he said.
The NIS predicts that Kim Kyong Hui, a key Workers' Party official and Kim Jong Un's aunt, and Jang Song Thaek, her husband and a vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission, will play larger roles supporting the heir, the lawmaker said.
A South Korean Defense Ministry official handling North Korea affairs, however, said there is too little information to make a confident judgment about where North Korea's power transition is heading.
Initial indications out of North Korea suggest the power transition to the son has been moving forward, though it remains unclear when Kim Jong Un will formally take power.
In 1994, Kim Jong Il declared a three-year mourning period following his father's death, becoming the official leader of the nation in 1997.
Kim Jong Un led a procession of senior officials Tuesday in a viewing of Kim Jong Il's body, which is being displayed in a glass coffin near that of Kim Il Sung. Publicly presiding over the funeral proceedings was an important milestone for Kim's son, strengthening his image as the country's political face at home and abroad.
According to official media, more than 5 million North Koreans have gathered at monuments and memorials in the capital since the death of Kim Jong Il.
Hundreds of thousands visited monuments around the city within hours of the official announcement that Kim had died.
The North has declared an 11-day period of mourning that will culminate in his state funeral and a national memorial service on Dec. 28-29.
The leaflets sent into North Korea on Wednesday by South Korean activists are a sore point with the North, which sees them as propaganda warfare. North Korea has previously warned it would fire at South Korea in response to such actions. There were no immediate reports of retaliation, however. South Korean activists vowed to continue sending leaflets.
___
Reporting from Pyongyang by Associated Press Television News senior video journalist Rafael Wober and AP reporter Pak Won Il. AP writers Foster Klug, Hyung-jin Kim, Sam Kim and Eric Talmadge in Seoul, AP photographers Andy Wong in Dandong, China, and Lee Jin-man in Imjingak, South Korea, as well as Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee contributed to this story.
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Russian rig sinks, more than 50 feared dead
MOSCOW?? A drilling rig with 67 crew on board capsized and sank off Russia's far eastern island of Sakhalin on Sunday while being towed through a storm, leaving more than 50 dead or missing in the icy Sea of Okhotsk.
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Emergency officials said the crew of an icebreaker and tugboat rescued 14 workers alive from the jack-up rig, the 'Kolskaya', which was operated by a Russian offshore exploration firm. They recovered four bodies from the water.
Four of the survivors, suffering from hypothermia, were airlifted by helicopter to land and taken to hospital after the disaster struck at 12:45 p.m. (0145 GMT).
The rest of the crew were missing, 200 km (125 miles) off the coast of remote Sakhalin island. The water temperature was one degree Celsius (33.8 Fahrenheit), giving survivors around 30 minutes before death from freezing, according to maritime and rescue websites.
"The Kolskaya keeled to its side ... and sank within 20 minutes. The depth of the water at the site is 1,042 metres (0.65 miles)," Russia's federal water transport agency said in a statement on its website.
Several rescue crafts and helicopters had been sent to the site to scour the waters for survivors from the rig owned by Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka (AMNGR), a unit of state-owned Zarubezhneft.
"There is no ecological danger. The vessel was carrying the minimum amount of fuel as it was being tugged by two craft," said a spokesman for AMNGR.
But the incident will deal a blow to efforts by Russia, the world's largest energy producer, to step up offshore oil and gas exploration to stave off a long-term decline in onshore production.
The jack-up rig, which has three support legs that can be extended to the ocean floor while its hull floats on the surface, was heading from Kamchatka to Sakhalin when it overturned in stormy winter conditions with a swell of up to 6 metres (19.7 feet).
"(President) Dmitry Medvedev has ordered all necessary assistance be provided to the victims of the drilling platform accident and has ordered a probe into the circumstances of the loss of the platform," the Kremlin said. The Emergencies Ministry said it would work through Sunday night.
"The violation of safety rules during the towing of the drilling rig, as well as towing without consideration of the weather conditions ... are believed to be the cause of the (disaster)," investigators said in a statement on their website.
The 'Neftegaz-55' tugboat, also owned by AMNGR, had been towing the Kolskaya and took part in the search effort, but pulled out after suffering hull damage from the high waves.
The tug, carrying most of the crew rescued from the rig, was taking on water and trying to limp to port. An icebreaker, the 'Magadan', was still at the scene.
The rig, built in Finland in 1985, had been doing work on a minor gas production project in the Sea of Okhotsk for a unit of state-controlled gas export monopoly Gazprom, the company said.
Russia's prize offshore gas and oil fields lie to the northeast of Sakhalin. Two major offshore projects are already producing oil and gas off the island - Sakhalin-1, operated by Exxonmobil and Sakhalin-2, in which Gazprom has a controlling stake.
The disaster is unlikely to seriously affect oil or gas production. AMNGR said the vessel was no longer under contract when it sank.
Operating conditions in the region, explored by Soviet geologists in the 1960s and 1970s, are among the harshest for Russian energy companies.
Winter often lasts 220-240 days in the waters off Sakhalin, where the main companies operating are ExxonMobil, Gazprom, and Royal Dutch Shell. They produce oil and gas, sometimes in icebound conditions, for export largely to Asian markets.
Sakhalin-2, in which Shell and Mitsui also have stakes, produces 10 million tons per year of liquefied natural gas at Russia's only LNG plant in the port of Prigorodnoye for export to Asia, much of it to Japan.
Each tanker of crude oil produced by at the 160,000 barrels-per-day Sakhalin-1 project, operated by ExxonMobil, is escorted by two icebreakers when ice thickness reaches 60 cm (2 feet).
State-controlled Rosneft this year reached a major deal with Exxon to explore for oil and gas in the Kara Sea, to the north of the Russian mainland, a largely unexplored region estimated to hold over 100 billion barrels of oil.
A combination of poor infrastructure and chronic corner-cutting has dealt the country its share of sea disasters, notably the 2000 sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea in August 2000, killing all 118 aboard and prompting criticism of the sluggish response.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45714698/ns/world_news-europe/
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