Top Canada court upholds anti-terrorism law in unanimous ruling






OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada‘s Supreme Court on Friday upheld an anti-terrorism law enacted after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, ruling unanimously that those who choose to engage in terrorism must “pay a very heavy price.”


The law’s constitutionality was challenged by Mohammad Momin Khawaja, convicted in Canada of terrorism for involvement with a British group that had plotted unsuccessfully to set off bombs in London.






It was also challenged by two men accused of terrorism by the United States for trying to buy missiles or weapons technology for the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers.


The court rejected arguments that the law’s definition of terrorism was overly broad. It upheld Khawaja’s life sentence and confirmed the orders to extradite the other two to the United States.


Khawaja, a Canadian of Pakistani descent, was the first to be convicted under the law. He was sentenced in 2008 to 10-1/2 years in prison, and his sentence was then extended to life after appeal by the government.


The trial judge noted that Khawaja referred to Osama Bin Laden as “the most beloved person to me in the … whole world, after Allah.” He was found to have participated in a terrorism training camp in Pakistan and to have designed a device dubbed the “hi fi digimonster” for detonating bombs.


“The appellant was a willing participant in a terrorist group,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the 7-0 decision, adding that he was “apparently remorseless.”


“He was committed to bringing death on all those opposed to his extremist ideology and took many steps to provide support to the group. The bomb detonators he attempted to build would have killed many civilians had his plans succeeded.”


The law applies to any act committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose with the intention of intimidating the public by causing death or serious bodily harm, or substantial property damage, or causing serious interference with an essential service.


The court also ruled that Canada can proceed to extradite two men the United States has accused of involvement with the Tamil Tigers, which waged a bloody war for independence in Sri Lanka and is considered a terrorist organization by Washington and Ottawa.


The Canadian government declined to comment on when they would be extradited.


Piratheepan Nadarajah was alleged to have tried to purchase surface-to-air missiles and AK-47 assault rifles for the Tamil Tigers from an undercover officer posing as a black-market arms dealer on Long Island, New York.


The other man, Suresh Sriskandarajah, was alleged to have helped Tamil Tigers get electronic equipment, submarine and warship design software and communications equipment.


They surrendered to the government ahead of the court decision, their lawyers said.


BEYOND ‘LEGITIMATE EXPRESSION’


The court disagreed that the federal law’s terrorism provisions had put a chilling effect on Canadians’ freedom of expression and was disproportionately broad.


“Only individuals who go well beyond the legitimate expression of a political, religious or ideological thought, belief or opinion, and instead engage in one of the serious forms of violence – or threaten one of the serious forms of violence – listed (in the law) need fear liability under the terrorism provisions of the Criminal Code,” McLachlin wrote.


She quoted with approval the appeals court decision in the Khawaja case that faulted the Ottawa trial judge’s sentence for failing to send a “clear and unmistakable message that terrorism is reprehensible and those who choose to engage in it will pay a very heavy price.”


The original sentence of 10-1/2 years does “not approach an adequate sentence for such acts,” she concluded.


Khawaja’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said it was a “terrible day” for his client and said too often people were investigated or prosecuted for their religious or political beliefs.


“It’s a … very unfortunate ruling for minorities in this country, and we’re extremely disappointed with the result,” he told reporters in the foyer of the Supreme Court.


Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the decision was important as Canada was not immune to the threat of terrorism. “The court sent a strong message that terrorism will not be treated leniently in Canada,” he said.


The cases are Mohammad Momin Khawaja v. Her Majesty the Queen. (Ont) (34103); Suresh Sriskandarajah v. United States of America, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (34009), Piratheepan Nadarajah v. United States of America, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (34013).


(Additional reporting by Louise Egan; Editing by Jackie Frank and Xavier Briand)


Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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5 YouTube Videos to Help Winterize Your Home






1. Caulk Talk



Westlake Ace Hardware gives a few basic steps, including caulking windows before the cold hits.






Click here to view this gallery.


[More from Mashable: Origami Self-Closing Stroller Is a Slick Gift for Techie Moms]


If you’re lucky, you’ll only feel a slight draft through a window crack. Maybe a gust of wind under the door. Either way, that Father Winter is one mean S.O.B.


Thankfully, there are easy steps you can take to make sure your home is ready for the winter season. Check out the gallery above to watch five YouTube videos with the most practical and cheapest tips for winterizing your house.


[More from Mashable: 12 Holiday Gift Ideas for Your Girlfriend]


Of course, those of you in warmer climates can ignore this advice. But for the folks gearing up for a snowy, wind-chilled couple of months ahead, we’ve got your back. And so does YouTube.


Any big tips we missed? Let us know below.


Image courtesy of Flickr, Jason Persse


This story originally published on Mashable here.


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Venezuela furious at Obama’s comments on ailing Chavez






CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela‘s government reacted with fury on Friday to U.S. President Barack Obama‘s criticism of ailing Hugo Chavez‘s “authoritarian” government at a time of national anxiety over his battle to recover from cancer surgery.


In an interview with U.S. network Univision, Obama declined to speculate on the 58-year-old socialist president’s health in Cuba, where he is in a delicate state after his fourth operation since mid-2011 for cancer in his pelvic region.






But he did say U.S. policy was aimed at ensuring “freedom” in Venezuela. “The most important thing is to remember that the future of Venezuela should be in the hands of the Venezuelan people. We’ve seen from Chavez in the past authoritarian policies, suppression of dissent,” Obama said.


Those remarks went down badly with officials in Caracas where emotions are running high over the future of Chavez and his self-styled revolution in the South American OPEC nation.


In power since 1999, Chavez is due to start a new six-year term on January 10 after winning re-election just weeks before Obama did. His health crisis has thrown that into doubt, and Chavez has named a successor in case he is incapacitated.


“With these despicable comments at such a delicate moment for Venezuela, the U.S. president is responsible for a major deterioration in bilateral relations, proving the continuity of his policy of aggression and disrespect towards our country,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.


‘SLOW’ RECOVERY, BUT SPEAKING


During his tumultuous rule, Chavez has gleefully assumed former Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s mantle as Washington’s main irritant in the region – though oil has continued to flow freely north to the benefit of both nations’ economies.


Adored by poor supporters for his charismatic style and channeling of oil revenue into a wide array of welfare projects, Chavez is regarded as a dictator by opponents who point to his often harsh treatment of political foes.


Officials said doctors had to use “corrective measures” on Chavez to stop unexpected bleeding caused during Tuesday’s six-hour operation, but that his condition had since improved.


“The patient is fulfilling his post-operation protocol satisfactorily, given the complexity of the surgery,” the latest Venezuelan government statement on his condition said. “Recovery has been slow but progressive,” it added, saying Chavez had communicated with relatives and sent greetings to Venezuelans.


Amid rumors Chavez had been unconscious since his operation, presidential press officer Teresa Maniglia indicated he had spoken for the first time on Friday. “‘How are my people?’ was the first thing Chavez said today when he spoke with his family for the first time,” she said via Twitter.


Chavez’s situation is being closely tracked around the region, especially among fellow leftist-run nations from Cuba to Bolivia which depend on his generous oil subsidies and other aid for their fragile economies.


“The president is battling hard – this time for his life, before it was for the Latin American fatherland,” said President Evo Morales of Bolivia, a Chavez friend and ally who announced he was flying to Havana overnight for an “emergency” visit.


“This is very painful for us.”


SPECULATION


Venezuela’s leader has not divulged details of the cancer that was first diagnosed in June 2011, sparking endless speculation among the country’s 29 million people and criticism from opposition leaders for lack of transparency.


“They’re hiding something, I think,” said 57-year-old housewife Alicia Marquina. “I’m not convinced by the announcements they’re making. I’m not a ‘chavista’, but neither am I cruel. I hope he does not suffer much and finds peace.”


If Chavez has to leave office, new elections must be held within 30 days. Chavez has named his vice president, Nicolas Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, as his heir apparent.


Opposition flagbearer Henrique Capriles, who lost the presidential race against Chavez in October, is the favorite to face Maduro should a new vote be held, though first the governor of Miranda state must retain his post in local elections on Sunday.


“The regime change is already occurring,” Jefferies’ & Co. managing director Siobhan Morden said in one of numerous Wall Street analyses of events in Venezuela. “The question is whether the alternative is Chavista-light or the opposition.”


Even if he dies, Chavez is likely to cast a long shadow over Venezuela’s political landscape for years – not unlike Argentine leader Juan Peron, whose 1950s populism is still the ideological foundation of the country’s dominant political party.


There are parallels with the situation in Cuba too, where Chavez’s close friend and mentor, Fidel Castro, suffered a health downturn, underwent various operations in secret, then eventually handed over power to his brother Raul Castro.


(Additional reporting by Mario Naranjo and Eyanir Chinea in Caracas, Carlos Quiroga in La Paz; Editing by Paul Simao)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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After Connecticut: Guns, Gun Control, and Gun Culture






Bucolic Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 26 people, 20 of them children between ages 5 and 10, is also the headquarters of the American firearm industry. A short distance from Sandy Hook Elementary School, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the country’s premier gun trade association, has its offices in a dignified white building on a gentle hill.


Like its better-known sister, the National Rifle Association, which represents gun owners, the NSSF promotes the arming of America—for hunting, shooting sports, self-defense, and the cultural significance that many Americans invest in firearms. The Sandy Hook massacre is the worst in the United States since the April 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech, which took place not too far from the NRA’s headquarters in Fairfax, Va.






Painful geographic juxtaposition of pointless slaughter and a marketing association doesn’t suggest anything profound. These are awful coincidences.


Or maybe there is something significant in the proximity.


The NSSF happens to be in Connecticut because that state, along with Massachusetts, has a gun-making tradition going back to the 18th century. In modern times, though, the unremarkable headquarters of the gun industry, or the gun owners’ lobby, could be in any pleasant exurban town: Aurora, Colo., for example, site of July’s movie theater bloodshed, or the community near Milwaukee where a gunman took six innocent lives at a Sikh temple in August.


The horror in Newtown is just the latest reminder that America is a gun culture. Firearms are both ordinary and, in many parts of the country, hallowed. They permeate our society. Private citizens own some 300 million pistols, revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. And the manufacturers and distributors that pay dues to the NSSF and make contributions to the NRA are selling more every day. This will not change.


If recent history serves as a guide, in fact, gun sales will rise in coming days. Fear of new gun control laws will send tens of thousands of consumers to Main Street shops and firearm websites. It happened after the January 2011 shopping mall massacre in Tucson, Ariz., in which former Rep. Gabby Giffords was maimed, and after most of the other recent mass public shootings.


Then Democrats in Congress will probably propose a piece of legislation or two that would tinker with the rules for legally acquiring firearms. These potential adjustments may make sense (e.g., restricting obscenely large ammunition magazines) or they may be utterly pointless (banning “assault weapons” that in terms of lethality are no different from grandpa’s wooden-stock deer hunting rifle). Either way, enacting such laws—which remains unlikely, given Republican control of the House of Representatives—would do little or nothing to stop mass shootings or common street crime.


Why? Because no politician, not President Barack Obama, not House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi—no one in mainstream Washington—is going to propose confiscating any of the millions of firearms or magazines already in private hands. Imagine being the police chief or sheriff given the task of forcibly collecting people’s guns or mags. It ain’t happening. We are too far down the road.


So prohibit 50-round drum magazines, if you like. In my view, that would not endanger the Second Amendment. Neither would it stop the next determined whack job from packing two 30-round magazines, or three 15-round magazines. The hardware is out there. Fiddling with the rules governing how new guns or mags are sold won’t stop the mass murders.


What, then, is to be done? First, we should acknowledge that some humans are sick and evil. In a heavily armed society, the existence of sick, evil people will, from time to time, lead to disaster.


If I were running a school or a movie theater or a house of worship, I would hire the highest-quality licensed, armed security available. No Second Amendment issue there. If there had been an armed guard at the Newtown school, it’s at least possible he would have brought down the killer and saved a lot of lives. Security guards are not a panacea. Yet we have them at sports stadiums and airports. In Israel, a guy with a gun on his hip stands in front of every elementary school.


Another thought on the gun massacre front: We must seriously rethink how we deal with extreme mental illness. Current laws make it almost impossible to get dangerously ill individuals involuntarily committed until they have their fingers on the triggers. More imaginative, flexible rules in this regard would allow us to medicate more dangerous people and separate them from firearms. (As a side benefit, this approach might also keep hundreds of thousands of mentally ill individuals from violating criminal laws and landing behind bars. More aggressive civil commitment offers a humane alternative to our current de facto policy of housing the mentally ill in prison.)


In terms of more ordinary street crime, we ought to study the factors that have made cities like New York much safer over the past 20 years. Gun control laws did not accomplish that improvement. Gun control laws in New York have remained the same, while homicide rates have plummeted. Why have bad guys in New York, and many other big cities, been leaving their guns at home, rather than bringing them with them on their rounds? How can we replicate that achievement?


While we mourn the dead in Newtown, those are questions worth exploring.


Businessweek.com — Top News


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School shooting postpones Cruise premiere in Pa.






NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. premiere of the Tom Cruise action movieJack Reacher” is being postponed following the deadly Connecticut school shooting.


Paramount Pictures says “out of honor and respect for the families of the victims” the premiere won’t take place Saturday in Pittsburgh, where “Jack Reacher” was filmed.






The premiere would’ve been Cruise’s first U.S. media appearance since his split from Katie Holmes over the summer. It was to be more contained with select outlets covering and a location away from Hollywood or New York.


A proclamation ceremony for Cruise had been planned with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.


No new date for the premiere has been set. The movie opens Dec. 21.


Friday’s massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school killed 20 children and several adults.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Look How Much of the World Doesn’t Use Social Media (or the Internet)






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China, S.Africa suspend Brazil beef over BSE doubt






BRASILIA (Reuters) – China and South Africa informed Brazil on Thursday that they were suspending imports of beef from the world’s biggest exporter of the meat following a case of atypical BSE that was confirmed last week, Brazilian agriculture ministry officials said.


Including Japan, which suspended imports on Monday, three countries have now restricted purchases of beef from Brazil while seeking details about the death of an elderly cow in 2010 which never actually developed the disease.






None of these countries are significant buyers of Brazilian beef. Brazil’s top customer, Russia, has so far imposed no such restrictions, though it said on Thursday that it was weighing its options.


Brazil has launched a diplomatic offensive to clarify the details of the case of suspected atypical BSE, which it has been at pains to differentiate from regular BSE – known as mad cow disease – which is usually caused by contaminated feed.


Atypical BSE can arise in elderly cattle due to a spontaneous genetic mutation that causes it to begin producing distorted proteins known as prions. The proteins can trigger BSE, which eventually destroys the animal’s nervous system, and it is believed humans ingesting beef from a stricken animal can contract a fatal form of the disease.


The 13-year-old cow in southern Brazil tested positive for prions, a result confirmed by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) last week. But it died of other causes in 2010 and never actually developed the disease.


The animal was buried on the farm where it had been used for breeding purposes and never entered the food chain.


Outbreaks of mad cow disease in Europe, North America and Japan in the past decade, following an epidemic in Great Britain in the late 1980s, prompted some importers to embargo shipments and roiled the industry on several occasions.


In April, the United States reported a case of atypical BSE in an animal which never entered the food chain, but the country escaped a backlash from importers.


The Brazilian agriculture ministry’s secretary for animal and plant health, Enio Pereira, told Reuters this week that much of the two-year delay between the cow’s death and confirmation of prions in its tissue was caused by a logistical anomaly at the laboratory.


Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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HMRC warns 300,000 late filers







About 300,000 people who have failed to send in their tax returns for 2010-11 could soon see their goods seized.






The taxman is sending warning letters to those who have now run up late-filing penalties of £1,300 for that year, under self-assessment.


They can still pay, or ask for the penalty to be taken off their income in 2013-14 if they are in the PAYE system.


The letters are part of a continuing campaign against a persistent minority of non-filers.


A spokesman for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said the defaulters could still pay their fines, and submit the late tax returns.


“These non-filers have ignored numerous communications from HMRC, dating back to April 2011, including flyers, reminder letters, penalty notices and warning letters,” he said.


“A customer can still phone us if they think they should not be in self-assessment, and will be taken through a number of questions to indicate if they should be in self-assessment or not.


“If they shouldn’t have been in it for 2010-11, penalties will then be waived,” he added.


About 7,000 higher-rate taxpayers who had missed tax returns from earlier years were sent similar warning letters in October.


BBC News – Business


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Adele’s “21″ is top-selling U.S. iTunes album of 2012






LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – British singer Adele notched another accolade on Thursday as iTunes announced that her Grammy-winning album “21″ was the top-selling record of 2012 in its U.S. store, extending the disc’s successful run almost two years after it was released.


Adele, 24, who last year became the first artist to secure three iTunes milestones with top-selling album, single and artist of the year, came in ahead of country-pop star Taylor Swift‘s “Red” and British folk band Mumford & Sons‘ “Babel.”






ITunes did not reveal its sales or download figures.


British boy band One Direction’s debut album “Up All Night” and current Grammy nominees fun.’s debut “Some Nights” rounded out the five top-selling albums on iTunes in the United States.


“21,” released in February 2011, has performed strongly in the U.S. music charts this year following the singer’s Grammy-sweeping win in six categories in February 2012.


Adele also landed Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations for her sultry James Bond theme song “Skyfall” this week, becoming a strong contender in the best song category for Hollywood’s awards season.


“Thank you so much for the honor of being included in something as brilliant as the Golden Globes! Never in a million years did I ever think I’d come close to such a thing! Truly wonderful … thank you to the Bond family for giving me the opportunity,” the singer said in a statement on Thursday.


ITunes U.S. compiled their Best of 2012 list by looking at the most downloaded items from the Apple iTunes store.


Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen had the top-selling track for her infectious breakthrough summer single “Call Me Maybe.”


Post-apocalyptic action film “The Hunger Games” was the best-selling movie while the second season of British aristocratic period drama “Downton Abbey,” another Hollywood awards favorite, was iTunes’ top-selling television series.


The iTunes Best of 2012 lists can be seen at www.itunes.com/AppStoreBestof2012


(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Mohammad Zargham)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Aides: Chavez in tough fight, may miss swearing-in






CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Somber confidants of President Hugo Chavez say he is going through a difficult recovery after cancer surgery in Cuba, and one close ally is warning Venezuelans that their leader may not make it back for his swearing-in next month.


Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday night that Chavez was in “stable condition” and was with close relatives in Havana. Reading a statement, he said the government invites people to “accompany President Chavez in this new test with their prayers.”






Villegas expressed hope about the president returning home for his Jan. 10 swearing-in for a new six-year term, but said in a written message on a government website that if Chavez doesn’t make it, “our people should be prepared to understand it.”


Villegas said it would be irresponsible to hide news about the “delicateness of the current moment and the days to come.” He asked Venezuelans to see Chavez’s condition as “when we have a sick father, in a delicate situation after four surgeries in a year and a half.”


Moving to prepare the public for the possibility of more bad news, Vice President Nicolas Maduro looked grim when he acknowledged that Chavez faced a “complex and hard” process after his latest surgery.


At the same time, officials sought to show a united front amid the growing worries about Chavez’s health and Venezuela’s future. Key leaders of Chavez’s party and military officers appeared together on television as Maduro gave updates on Chavez’s condition.


“We’re more united than ever,” said Maduro, who was flanked by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, both key members of Chavez’s inner circle. “We’re united in loyalty to Chavez.”


Analysts say Maduro could eventually face challenges in trying to hold together the president’s diverse “Chavismo” movement, which includes groups from radical leftists to moderates, as well as military factions.


Tapped by the 58-year-old president over the weekend as his chosen political heir, Maduro is considered to be a member of radical left wing of Chavez’s movement that is closely aligned with Cuba’s communist government.


Cabello, a former military officer who also wields power within Chavez’s movement, shared the spotlight with Maduro by speaking at a Mass for Chavez’s health at a military base.


Just returned from being with Chavez for the operation, Cabello called the president “invincible” but said “that man who is in Havana … is fighting a battle for his life.”


After Chavez’s six-hour operation Tuesday, Venezuelan television broadcast religious services where people prayed for Chavez, interspersed with campaign rallies for upcoming gubernatorial elections.


On the streets of Caracas, people on both sides of the country’s deep political divide voiced concerns about Chavez’s condition and what might happen if he died.


At campaign rallies ahead of Sunday’s gubernatorial elections, Chavez’s candidates urged Venezuelans to vote for pro-government candidates while they also called for the president to get well.


“Onward, Commander!” gubernatorial candidate Elias Jaua shouted to a crowd of supporters at a rally Wednesday. Many observers said it was likely Chavez’s candidates could get a boost from their supporters’ outpouring of sympathy for Chavez.


Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election and is running against Jaua, complained Wednesday that Chavez’s allies are taking advantage of the president’s health problems to try to rally support. He took issue with Jaua’s statement to supporters that “we have to vote so that the president recovers.”


Maduro looked sad as he spoke on television, his voice hoarse and cracked at times after meeting in the pre-dawn hours with Cabello and Ramirez. The pair returned to Venezuela about 3 a.m. after accompanying Chavez to Cuba for his surgery.


“It was a complex, difficult, delicate operation,” Maduro said. “The post-operative process is also going to be a complex and hard process.”


Without giving details, Maduro reiterated Chavez’s recent remarks that the surgery presented risks and that people should be prepared for any “difficult scenarios.”


The constitution says presidents should be sworn in before the National Assembly, and if that’s not possible then before the Supreme Court.


Former Supreme Court magistrate Roman Duque Corredor said a president cannot delegate the swearing-in to anyone else and cannot take the oath of office outside Venezuela. A president could still be sworn in even if temporarily incapacitated, but would need to be conscious and in Venezuela, Duque told The Associated Press.


If a president-elect is declared incapacitated by lawmakers and is unable to be sworn in, the National Assembly president would temporarily take charge of the government and a new presidential vote must be held within 30 days, Duque said.


Chavez said Saturday that if an election had to be held, Maduro should be elected president.


The dramatic events of this week, with Chavez suddenly taking a turn for the worse, had some Venezuelans wondering whether they were being told the truth because just a few months ago the president was running for his fourth presidential term and had said he was free of cancer.


Lawyer Maria Alicia Altuve, who was out in bustling crowds in a shopping district of downtown Caracas, said it seemed odd how Maduro wept at a political rally while talking about Chavez.


“He cries on television to set up a drama, so that people go vote for poor Chavez,” Altuve said. “So we don’t know if this illness is for that, or if it’s that this man is truly sick.”


Some Chavez supporters said they found it hard to think about losing the president and worried about the future. His admirers held prayer vigils in Caracas and other cities this week, holding pictures and singing hymns.


Chavez has undergone four cancer-related surgeries since June 2011. He has also undergone months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Throughout his treatments, Chavez has kept secret some details of his illness, including the exact location and type of the tumors.


Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa wished his close ally the best, while also acknowledging the possibility that cancer might end his presidency. “Chavez is very important for Latin America, but if he can’t continue at the head of Venezuela, the processes of change have to continue,” Correa said at a news conference in Quito.


___


Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Google Maps makes its way back to the iPhone






(Reuters) – Google‘s navigation tool has returned to the iPhone, months after Apple‘s home-grown mapping service flopped, prompting user complaints, the firing of an executive and a public apology from Apple’s CEO.


The Google Maps app will be compatible with any iPhone or iPod Touch that runs iOS 5.1 or higher, the company said in a blog post. (http://link.reuters.com/jek64t)






Apple launched its own service in early September, and dropped Google Maps, when it launched the iPhone 5 and rolled out iOS 6, an upgrade to its mobile software platform.


Users complained that Apple’s new map service, based on Dutch navigation equipment and digital map maker TomTom’s data, contained errors and lacked features that made Google Maps popular.


In October, Scott Forstall, a long-time lieutenant of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, was asked to leave the company partly because of his refusal to take responsibility for the mishandling of the mapping software.


While Apple Maps offered soaring ‘flyover’ views of major cities, it had no public transit directions, limited traffic information, and obvious mistakes such as putting one city in the middle of the ocean.


This led to Apple chief executive Tim Cook apologizing to customers frustrated with the service and, in an unusual move for the U.S. consumer group, directed them to rival services such as Google’s Maps instead.


(Reporting by Tej Sapru and Ankur Banerjee in Bangalore; Editing by Chris Gallagher and Dan Lalor)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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AstraZeneca arthritis drug worse than Humira in study






LONDON (Reuters) – An experimental rheumatoid arthritis drug from AstraZeneca proved inferior to Abbott LaboratoriesHumira in a clinical study, knocking hopes for one of the few late-stage products in the company’s pipeline.


The Phase IIb monotherapy study of fostamatinib – which is given as a pill rather than injected, as is the case with Humira – showed it was not as good as Abbott’s market-leading product in controlling arthritis symptoms, AstraZeneca said on Thursday.






The Phase IIb is not the definitive test for fostamatinib, which AstraZeneca hopes could have an important role to play as a more convenient alternative to injectable medicines.


A more comprehensive assessment of fostamatinib used in combination with other drugs is being carried out in pivotal Phase III studies that will report results in the first half of 2013, and would form the basis of any regulatory submissions.


AstraZeneca licensed fostamatinib from Rigel Pharmaceuticals.


(Reporting by Ben Hirschler)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Europe deepens union with ECB as chief bank watchdog






BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe clinched a deal on Thursday to give the European Central Bank new powers to supervise euro zone banks from 2014, embarking on the first step in a new phase of closer integration to help underpin the euro.


After more than 14 hours of talks and following months of tortuous negotiations, finance ministers from the European Union‘s 27 countries agreed to hand the ECB the authority to directly police at least 150 of the euro zone’s biggest banks and intervene in smaller banks at the first sign of trouble.






“This is a big first step for banking union,” EU Commissioner Michel Barnier told a news conference. “The ECB will play the pivotal role, there’s no ambiguity about that.”


The euro rose to a session high in Tokyo of 1.3080 against the U.S. dollar on news of the deal.


After three years of piecemeal crisis-fighting measures, agreeing on a banking union lays a cornerstone of wider economic union and marks the first concerted attempt to integrate the bloc’s response to problem banks.


The new system of supervision should be up and running by March 1, 2014, following talks with the European Parliament, although ministers agreed that could be delayed if the ECB needed longer to prepare itself.


The plan sets in motion one of the biggest overhauls of any European banking system since the financial crisis began in mid-2007 with the near collapse of German lender IKB.


The onus is now on EU leaders, who meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, to give it their full political backing.


In an about-turn, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dropped earlier objections that had led him to clash openly with his French counterpart, Pierre Moscovici, last week over the ECB’s role in banking supervision.


With time running out to meet a year-end deadline, both sides managed to settle their differences and Germany won concessions to temper the authority of the ECB’s Governing Council over the new supervisor.


Agreement on bank surveillance is a crucial first step towards a broader banking union, or common euro zone approach to dealing with failing banks that in recent years dragged down countries such as Ireland and Spain.


The next pillar of a banking union would be the creation of a central system to close troubled banks.


The decision also sends a strong signal to investors that the euro zone’s 17 members, from powerful Germany to stricken Greece, can pull together to tackle the bloc’s problems.


‘STEP BY STEP’


Other difficult issues remain.


At a summit in June, EU leaders pledged that once a common bank supervisor was in place, the bloc’s rescue mechanism would have the power to directly recapitalize struggling banks.


Countries like France, Italy and Spain are keen for those powers to be in place as soon as possible. But Germany, worried it could be forced to foot the bill for struggling banks across the bloc, is not in a rush.


“We have reached the main points to establish a European banking supervisor that should take on its work in 2014,” Schaeuble told reporters. “We stand by what we agreed, to bring Europe forward step by step.”


In the longer term, there is also disagreement over how the burden of winding down failed banks should be shared.


The deal foresees banks with assets of 30 billion euros, or larger than one-fifth of their country’s economic output, being supervised by the ECB rather than national supervisors.


France’s Moscovici said that would put more than 150 banks under the ECB’s watch.


Critically, it also gives the ECB authority to widen its authority to smaller banks if problems arise.


That will satisfy Germany, which wanted to maintain primary oversight of its savings and cooperative banks, nearly all of which will not fall under direct surveillance from Frankfurt unless they run into problems.


CONCESSIONS


Talks ran into the early hours of Thursday because ministers needed to resolve a potential conflict of interest between the ECB’s roles as supervisor and as guardian of monetary policy.


Such a conflict could arise if, for example, the ECB were to keep interest rates low to prop up banks.


They agreed to introduce a mediation panel to resolve disputes with national supervisors, a move Germany was satisfied would act as a counterbalance to the authority of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council.


A steering committee will guide the work of the supervisory body, which in turn is answerable to the ECB’s Governing Council. That leaves the final say with the ECB.


Reaching a deal also required granting concessions to Britain, a member of the European Union that does not use the euro, which worried that the ECB would undermine its autonomy in policing the City of London, Europe’s top financial centre.


London had asked for changes to the system of voting when regulators from across the European Union meet to flesh out EU law, such as defining the capital reserves that banks can use as buffers.


Those regulators meet under the umbrella of the European Banking Authority, but London had been concerned that countries in the euro zone would force through rules in their favor.


EU ministers agreed that a double vote would now take place – one for those in the banking union and another for non-euro countries outside – before decisions on EU regulation are taken.


(Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski, Luke Baker, Noah Barkin and Leigh Thomas; Editing by Peter Cooney)


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Margo Martindale joins FX’s “The Americans”






NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Margo Martindale, who won an Emmy for her role on FX’s “Justified,” is returning to the network on the new spy series “The Americans.”


The show, which stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell as an undercover KGB couple in Reagan-era America, premieres January 30. Martindale has signed on to appear in at least eight episodes as “Claudia,” a KGB illegal who delivers assignments to the couple.






The casting reunites Martindale with “Justified” creator Graham Yost, an executive producer of “The Americans.” Martindale won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as Mags Bennett on “Justified.”


Since her exit from the show, Yost has talked about how much he misses working with the actress.


“What I do regret is just not having Margo on the show, in that she’s such a tremendous actress and such a great person,” he told TheWrap. “That was the hard part.”


Since leaving “Justified,” Martindale has appeared on CBS’s now-canceled “A Gifted Man” and has signed on for Showtime’s “Masters of Sex.”


“The Americans” was created by former CIA agent Joe Weisberg, who also executive produces. Besides Yost, it is also executive produced by Joel Fields and Amblin Television heads Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank. The series is produced by Fox Television Studios and FX Productions.


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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North Korea’s new leader burnishes credentials with rocket






SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.


The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States.






“The satellite has entered the planned orbit,” a North Korean television news-reader clad in traditional Korean garb triumphantly announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics “Chosun (Korea) does what it says”.


The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. Korea time (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.


The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it “deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit”, the first time an independent body has verified North Korean claims.


North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the United Nations Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North’s first nuclear test.


The state is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state’s “military first” programs put into place by his deceased father Kim Jong-il.


North Korea lauded Wednesday’s launch as celebrating the prowess of all three Kims to rule since it was founded in 1948.


“At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung,” its KCNA news agency said.


Washington condemned Wednesday’s launch as a “provocative action” and breach of U.N. rules, while Japan’s U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely to be agreed at the body as China, the North’s only major ally, will oppose them.


“The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences,” the White House said in a statement.


Japan’s likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on December 16 and who is known as a North Korea hawk, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution “strongly criticizing” Pyongyang.


BEIJING BLOCK


China had expressed “deep concern” prior to the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Xinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.


On Wednesday its tone was measured, regretting the launch but calling for restraint on possible counter-measures, in line with previous policy when it has effectively vetoed tougher sanctions.


“China believes the Security Council’s response should be cautious and moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation of the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists.


Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, told a conference call: “China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we’ll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors.”


A senior adviser to South Korea’s president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the U.N. and that Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.


Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took power when his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe the launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of the death.


The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of its current ruler.


Wednesday’s success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.


“This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un,” said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.


There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of the population is malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.


North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its people working on labor projects overseas.


The 22 million population often needs handouts from defectors who have escaped to South Korea in order to afford basic medicines.


Given the puny size of its economy – per capita income is less than $ 2,000 a year – one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.


Pyongyang wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.


It is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for around half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.


The North has also been enriching uranium, which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on vast natural uranium reserves.


“A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile,” said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.


“But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry.”


Pyongyang says that its development is part of a civil nuclear program, but has also boasted of it being a “nuclear weapons power”.


(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)


World News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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This Kid Dances Better Than a Cheerleader






We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:


RELATED: The Badass Bug Shotgun You Never Knew You Needed






So we were ready to toss this video aside after the first few seconds. Our thinking: we have seen way more “Gangnam Style” videos than we ever wanted to … but, we’re glad we stayed for the whole thing. 


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In the coming weeks nerds will proclaim that you will need to see The Hobbit despite its terrible reviews. When they do, and they will, just show them this trailer and its really solid Sean Bean theorem: 


RELATED: Movie and Television Characters Need a Lesson in Talking Trash


RELATED: This Is What Happens When David Beckham Meets Mere Mortals


So this is Frank Ocean singing Radiohead (quite well). And this is also the video which you should have handy the next time your boss catches you YouTubing that terrible (but really great) Ke$ ha song. 


Old dogs, new tricks? 


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Getting Control Of Neglected Tropical Diseases






The diseases have impossibly tongue-twisting, unfamiliar, or even disgusting names: cutaneous leishmaniasis, helminthiases, schistosomiasis, yaws, Guinea worm disease. These are just a few of numerous ailments now known as “neglected tropical diseases.”


And while these diseases may technically be “neglected,” every low-income country is affected by five or more neglected tropical diseases at once, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). These diseases cause misery and suffering—and they kill more than 500,000 people worldwide every year.






Now, governmental and advocacy groups, including the World Health Organization (WHO), are stepping up efforts to control and banish these killers.


RELATED: Germ Airways, You’re Cleared for Takeoff: The U.S. Airports Most Likely to Spread Pandemics


“There is a growing number of organizations, including a host of non-governmental organizations, that are spending money for raising awareness, advocacy, operational research, and implementation of control measures,” Dr. Juerg Utzinger, professor of epidemiology at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, affiliated with the University of Basel, tells TakePart. His update of the management of neglected tropical diseases was published in November in Swiss Medical Weekly.


Neglected tropical diseases weren’t even ”branded” until 2005, Utzinger says; since then, the initial list of 13 has grown to more than 40. Tracking the diseases has given WHO a road map to overcoming these killers, which are caused by viruses, fungi, parasites, and bacateria. In a report, WHO says it has “produced overwhelming evidence to show that the burden caused by many of the 17 diseases [mentioned in the report] that affect more than 1 billion people worldwide can be effectively controlled and, in many cases, eliminated or even eradicated.”


The goals of controlling, and eventually eradicating, 17 of these diseases are ambitious, but WHO and other experts contend they are possible, pointing to the encouraging example of a WHO campaign against yaws, a bacterial infection that affects skin, bones, and cartilage and is spread by contact with open skin sores, and for which there is no vaccine.


The campaign, which calls for global eradication of yaws by 2020, was made far easier thanks to the recent discovery that a single dose of the oral antibiotic azithromycin can cure the disease. That works as well, experts now know, as penicillin injections. Even more encouraging, treatment for most mass drug programs to eradicate these diseases is about 50 cents (U.S.) per person per year, says the CDC.


Success in lowering rates of yaws isn’t the only sign of progress: Cases of Guinea worm disease fell from nearly 900,000 in 12 countries to just about 3,000 in four counties over two decades—a decrease of 99 percent. And in 2007, the People’s Republic of China became the first endemic country to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF) as a public health problem; also known as elephantiasis, the parasitic infection can cause severe disfigurement. Ten West African countries have also eliminated onchocerciasis, a parasitic infection that can cause blindness.


If you’re traveling internationally, it’s good to be aware of these diseases, but there’s no need for grave concern, says Utzinger. “The risk…of becoming infected by any of the neglected tropical diseases is very small,” he says. To learn more and find out how you can help, visit WHO or the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative. 


More on Pandemics:


Swine Flu Survivors May Hold Key to “Universal” Flu Vaccine


Awareness of HIV Risk Has Dropped Among Gay Men Even As Infection Rates Rise


Can We Build an Early Warning System for Pandemics?



Kathleen Doheny is a Los Angeles journalist who writes about health. She doesn’t believe in miracle cures, but continues to hope someone will discover a way for joggers to maintain their pace.


Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Indonesians Still Love Their BlackBerrys






For Sanuri, a customer service technician at a Jakarta electronics chain, buying a phone is a big decision. The 28-year-old father of one (who like many Indonesians has only one name) makes about $ 160 a month, minimum wage in the Indonesian capital. But like many Jakarta residents, he’s willing to spend more for an impressive-looking phone. Last year he decided to get rid of his old Nokia (NOK) in favor of a $ 440 BlackBerry Torch. To finance it, he had to get a loan from his employer.


The phone was worth the expense, says Sanuri, who relies on the free BlackBerry Messenger service to keep in touch with colleagues and schedule client visits. “Everyone knows what the others are doing,” he says. Even though Indonesian retailers are offering more alternatives to BlackBerry, Sanuri isn’t switching. “There are more benefits I can get from BlackBerry,” he says.






While smartphone users around the world are tossing their BlackBerrys and buying Google’s (GOOG) Android-powered phones and Apple’s (AAPL) iPhones, Indonesia remains a rare bright spot for Research In Motion (RIMM). The global market share for the Waterloo (Ont.)-based company’s smartphones fell to just 4.3 percent in the third quarter of this year, down from 9.5 percent in the same quarter of 2011, according to market research firm IDC. Yet in Indonesia, the BlackBerry operating system accounts for 37 percent of the market. RIM is still losing ground there, just not as quickly as elsewhere (in 2011, BlackBerrys accounted for 43 percent of the market). Android is now the top operating system, but BlackBerry remains ahead of the 2.5 percent share for No. 3 Apple iOS, thanks largely to the dominance of BBM. Indonesians also like RIM’s low-cost BlackBerry Internet Service plans such as BIS Social and BIS Lite that offer access to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook (FB) for as little as $ 4.69 a month.


9c192  tech blackberry50  01  405inline Indonesians Still Love Their BlackBerrys


“Any retailer has to have BlackBerry,” says Ryota Inaba, chief executive officer of Rakuten Belanja Online, an e-commerce joint venture of Japanese online retailer Rakuten and Global Mediacom (BMTR), Indonesia’s biggest media company. Indonesia “is the market for RIM.” Inaba is a BlackBerry user himself, albeit a reluctant one. “I don’t like using BlackBerry, to be honest,” he says. But few of Inaba’s 40 staff members have high-end smartphones and a lot of them don’t even use e-mail, preferring instead to chat over BBM. “BlackBerry is the fastest way to communicate,” says Inaba, who sends about 20 instant messages a day via the BBM service.


Indonesia isn’t as coveted a market as China or India, but it does have the world’s fourth-largest population (some 242 million people), and its economy is expected to increase more than 6 percent this year. RIM clearly views it as a market worth protecting. Singapore-based spokesman Benjamin Chelliah says RIM is “currently investigating” launching a new money transfer system for its Indonesian BBM platform. RIM is also trying to foster Indonesia’s growing app developer community. In October, RIM opened a BlackBerry Innovation Center at the Bandung Institute of Technology to provide scholarships and other financial support to young engineers working on BlackBerry mobile apps; the same month, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins traveled to Jakarta to promote the brand.


In late November, RIM hosted a two-day conference for app developers in Bangkok, part of a campaign to build interest ahead of the January launch of its new operating system, BlackBerry 10. Regional managing director Urpo Karjalainen told attendees that RIM is “absolutely committed” to Asian markets, and that its “unique BlackBerry service has been the foundation of our success here.”


Fending off competition and slowing its market share slide won’t be easy. Google’s Android operating system has been making significant inroads into Southeast Asia. Samsung has been the main beneficiary, with its smartphone market share doubling from a year ago to 40 percent. RIM’s share across the region is now 14 percent, down from 18 percent in 2011. Nokia is taking aim at Indonesia too, announcing on Dec. 4 the launch of two Lumia smartphones using Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 8 operating system.


In response, RIM and retailers are offering cheaper BlackBerrys priced around $ 100. “There’s going to be a little bit of an OS war,” says Sudev Bangah, country manager in Jakarta for IDC. As that fight heats up, aggressive pricing and new BBM services will allow “RIM to reinvent itself in a market it cannot afford to lose.”


The new operating system will probably have limited impact on Indonesians in rural areas, who prefer cheaper phones. But for the upscale market, a pricey new BlackBerry might draw interest in Jakarta, where people “are willing to spend a little bit more,” says Bangah, who expects the new OS to boost BlackBerry shipments next year. In Indonesia, at least, RIM’s not finished yet.


The bottom line: Even in Indonesia, where they’re still popular, BlackBerrys are losing ground, going from 43 percent of the market last year to 37 percent.


With Harry Suhartono


Businessweek.com — Top News


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‘Evita’ to close in January when Big 3 leave






NEW YORK (AP) — The Broadway revival of “Evita” — faced with trying to replace Ricky Martin, Elena Roger and Michael Cerveris — will instead close when the Big Three leave early next year.


Producers of the Tony Award-nominated revival of Tim Rice‘s and Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s landmark musical said Tuesday night they have decided against plans for an open-ended run after Martin, Roger and Cerveris leave after the Jan. 26 performance.






“Our extensive search for a new cast presented the significant challenges of not only replacing a high-caliber trio of stars but also synchronizing the schedules of potential replacements with that of the production,” producer Hal Luftig said in a statement. “Despite going down the road with a variety of artists, the planets have simply not aligned for us to engage the right talent at the right time.”


When it closes, the musical will have played 26 previews and 337 performances, far less than the original’s more than 1,580 shows played between 1979 and 1983.


A national tour will launch in September 2013 at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Providence, R.I., and a cast album has been released, including the songs “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and “High Flying Adored.” The cast for the tour has not been announced.


The revival opened March 12 at the Marquis Theatre, directed by Michael Grandage and choreographed by Rob Ashford. It has broken the theater’s box office record seven times, though has seen the box office slump at times.


Last week, it pulled in $ 920,994, or a little more than half its $ 1,666,936 potential. The average ticket price was $ 111.73 and the top premium went for $ 275.


The musical tells the story of Argentina’s Eva Peron, who rose from the slums to the presidential mansion. Roger plays Eva, Cerveris her husband and Martin is Che.


___


Online: http://evitaonbroadway.com


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Australian prank call radio to donate profits to nurse’s family






CANBERRA (Reuters) – The Australian radio station behind a prank call to a British hospital will donate its advertising revenue until the end of the year to a fund for the family of the nurse who apparently took her own life after the stunt, the company said on Tuesday.


Southern Cross Austereo, parent company of Sydney radio station 2Day FM, said it would donate all advertising revenue, with a minimum contribution of A$ 500,000 ($ 525,000), to a memorial fund for the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, who answered the telephone at the hospital treating Prince William’s pregnant wife, Kate.






The company has suspended the Sydney-based announcers, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, scrapped their “Hot 30″ programme and suspended advertising on the station in the wake of the Saldanha’s death. Southern Cross said it would resume advertising on its station from Thursday.


“It is a terrible tragedy and our thoughts continue to be with the family,” Southern Cross Chief Executive Officer Rhys Holleran said in a statement.


“We hope that by contributing to a memorial fund we can help to provide the Saldanha family with the support they need at this very difficult time.”


(Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by Robert Birsel)


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More Than Half of Hispanic Coloradans Lack Dental Insurance






The organization Colorado Trust reported on Monday that the results of a new Colorado Health Access Survey shows that more than half of Hispanics in the state do not have dental insurance. The overall number of people in the state without dental insurance grew 17 percent in in two years. Here are the details.


* The results of the 2011 Colorado Health Access Survey, released this month, show that 52.8 percent of Hispanic Coloradans lack dental insurance. This is higher than the rate of uninsured white Coloradans, at 39.1 percent, and black Coloradans, at 29.9 percent.






* The number of Hispanic Coloradans without dental care increased by 11 percent from 2008-09 to 2011, the survey showed.


* Among both kindergarten and third-grade children, the survey stated, more Hispanic children have at least one cavity than black or white children. The prevalence of untreated tooth decay is higher among Hispanic children in the state.


* According to Colorado Trust, having dental insurance is associated with seeking and receiving dental care. In 2011, 76.9 percent of the people who had dental insurance visited a dental professional. That number declined to 44.5 percent among those without insurance.


* Some factors affecting dental care besides insurance status include costs for services not covered by insurance and a lack of dental providers in rural areas of the state, Colorado Trust reported.


* The study found that Coloradans were more likely to forego dental care due to cost than any other type of care.


* Seniors 65 and older made up the age group most likely to not have dental insurance in Colorado, according to the study. Those living in rural areas were the least likely to visit a dental professional.


* Around 2.1 million people in the state did not have dental insurance in 2011, including 36.3 percent of the employed, working-age adults in the state. 18.6 percent of employed, working-age adults in Colorado lacked health insurance in 2011.


* Colorado Medicaid limits dental benefits to enrollees age 20 and younger, and traditional Medicare does not provide a dental benefit, the study stated.


* “Oral health care should not be considered optional or a luxury,” said Ned Calonge, M.D., President and CEO of The Colorado Trust. “Going without basic dental care often leads to oral disease with unnecessary pain, more invasive care and higher costs, and can result in even bigger health problems.”


* The 2011 Colorado Health Access Survey was conducted through random telephone interviews with members of 10,352 households across the state.


Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Oil edges up ahead of US central bank meeting






BANGKOK (AP) — Oil prices edged up Tuesday despite growing uncertainty about the strength of China‘s economic recovery as investors looked to the Federal Reserve to implement new measures to help the U.S. economy.


Benchmark crude for January delivery was up 23 cents to $ 85.80 per barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 37 cents to close at $ 85.56 per barrel on the Nymex on Monday.






Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, was up 33 cents per barrel to $ 107.66 on the ICE Futures exchange in London.


The Fed, which begins a two-day policy meeting later Tuesday, is widely expected to say it will start buying more long-term Treasurys to replace a program that expires at year’s end.


Under the expiring “Operation Twist” program, the Fed has sold short-term Treasurys and used the proceeds to buy $ 45 billion a month in long-term Treasurys, which is a way of “twisting” long-term rates lower, relative to short-term rates.


Meanwhile, an abrupt fall in China’s export growth and slowing import growth suggests that the recovery in the world’s No. 2 economy is faltering, analysts at Capital Economics said in a report.


The data “have added to our doubts about the strength and sustainability of China’s rebound,” the report said. “The weekend’s figures on investment, retail sales and industrial production were more encouraging but they underlined that recent strength has been driven by infrastructure spending rather than a broad-based pick-up across the economy.”


Markets are also awaiting this week’s meeting in Vienna of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces about a third of the world’s oil supply.


In other energy futures trading on Nymex:


— Heating oil rose 1.5 cents at $ 2.912 a gallon.


— Natural gas fell 1.6 cents to $ 3.444 per 1,000 cubic feet.


— Wholesale gasoline rose 0.7 cents to $ 2.605 a gallon.


___


Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson


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“The Colbert Report” mames new co-executive producer, head writer






LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “The Colbert Report” has promoted former supervising producer and head writer Barry Julien to co-executive producer, series host, writer and executive producer Stephen Colbert said Monday. In addition to Jullien’s promotion, Opus Moreschi, previously a writer for the series, has been moved up to head writer on the Comedy Central news-show spoof.


Julien joined “The Colbert Report” as a writer in 2007, moving to head writer in 2009 and picking up the supervising producer title last year. Moreschi came aboard the show in 2008.






“Barry Julien and Opus Moreschi are tireless, visionary producers and incredibly talented writers,” Colbert said of the promotions. “For instance they wrote this sentence.”


Both Julien and Moreschi have won Writers Guild Awards and Emmy Awards during their “Colbert Report” stints.


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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McAfee wants to return to US, ‘normal life’






BACALAR, Mexico (AP) — Software company founder John McAfee said Sunday he wants to return to the United States and “settle down to whatever normal life” he can.


In a live-stream Internet broadcast from the Guatemalan detention center where he is fighting a government order that he be returned to Belize, the 67-year-old said “I simply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy my declining years.”






Police in neighboring Belize want to question McAfee in the fatal shooting of a U.S. expatriate who lived near his home on a Belizean island in November.


The creator of the McAfee antivirus program again denied involvement in the killing during the Sunday Internet video hook-up, during which he answered what he said were reporters’ questions.


His comments were sometimes contradictory. McAfee is an acknowledged practical joker who has dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and the production of herbal medications.


The British-born McAfee first said that returning to the United States “is my only hope now.” But he later added, “I would be happy to go to England, I have dual citizenship.”


He was emphatic that “I cannot ever return to Belize …. there is no hope for my life if I am ever returned to Belize.”


“If I am returned,” he said, “bad things will clearly happen to me.”


He descibed the health problems that had him briefly hospitalized earlier this week after Guatemalan authorities detained him for entering the country illegally. He apparently snuck in across a rural, unguarded spot along the border.


“I did not eat for two days, I drank very little liquids, and for the first time in many years I’ve been smoking almost non-stop,” he said. “I stood up, passed out hit my head on the wall, came to,” though he now said he was feeling better.


McAfee praised the role his 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend, Samantha Vanegas, played in his escape from Belize, where he claims he is being persecuted by corrupt politicians. Authorities in Belize deny that they are persecuting him and have questioned his mental state.


“Sam saved the day many times” during their escape, he said, and suggested he would take her with him to the United States if he is allowed to go there.


He confirmed that journalists from Vice magazine who accompanied him on his escape after weeks of hiding in Belize had unwittingly posted photos with embedded data that revealed his exact location.


“It was an error anyone could make,” he said, noting they were under a lot of pressure at the time.


McAfee has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the anti-virus software company named after him in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.


He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $ 4 million of his $ 100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, a story on the Gizmodo website quoted him as describing that claim as “not very accurate at all.”


McAfee’s Guatemalan attorney, Telesforo Guerra, says that he has filed three separate legal appeals in the hope that his client can stay in Guatemala, where his political asylum request was rejected.


Guerra said he filed an appeal for a judge to make sure McAfee’s physical integrity is protected, an appeal against the asylum denial and a petition with immigration officials to allow his client to stay in this Central American country indefinitely.


The appeals could take several days to resolve, Guerra said. He added that he could still use several other legal resources but wouldn’t give any other details.


Fredy Viana, a spokesman for the Immigration Department, said that before the agency looks into the request to allow McAfee to stay in Guatemala, a judge must first deal with the appeal asking that authorities make sure McAfee’s physical integrity is protected.


“We won’t look into (allowing him to stay) until the other appeal is resolved,” Viana said. “The law gives me 30 days to resolve the issue.”


McAfee went on the run last month after Belizean officials tried to question him about the killing of Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death in early November.


McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them, but denies killing Faull. Faull’s home was a couple of houses down from McAfee’s compound in Ambergris Caye, off Belize’s Caribbean coast.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Vodafone and GSK link on African vaccines programme






LONDON (Reuters) – British mobile phone group Vodafone and drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline are joining forces on a novel project to increase childhood vaccination rates in Mozambique using text messaging.


At the same time Vodafone has formed a strategic partnership with the non-profit GAVI Alliance to study how health ministries across sub-Saharan Africa can use mobile technology to improve their immunisation programmes.






The move is the latest example of mobile phones being used to improve healthcare in Africa. Now widespread across the continent, mobile phones are already deployed in other schemes, including ones to check that people are taking HIV/AIDS drugs properly.


The one-year pilot project in Mozambique, supported by the Save the Children charity, will register mothers on a ministry of health database, alert them to the availability of vaccinations and allow them to schedule appointments by text.


The aim is to increase the proportion of children covered by vaccination by an additional 5 to 10 percent, Vodafone and GSK said on Monday.


The partnership with GAVI, which funds bulk-buy vaccinations for poorer countries, will last three years and is being supported by the British government. Britain will match Vodafone’s contribution of technology and services with a $ 1.5 million cash contribution to GAVI.


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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The Mannequin is Watching You






Store mannequins are meant to catch your eye. Soon, you may catch theirs. Italian mannequin maker Almax is rolling out the EyeSee, a mannequin equipped with technology typically used to identify criminals at airports. The dummies allow retailers to glean demographic data and shopping patterns from customers as they move through stores, much as online merchants do.


Although retailers are loath to discuss the mannequins’ use, Almax Chief Executive Officer Max Catanese says five companies are using a total of “a few dozen” of them in three European countries and the U.S.—and he has outstanding orders for at least that many more. Already, he says, information collected by the €4,000 ($ 5,130) device has spurred shops to adjust window displays, store layouts, and promotions to keep consumers spending. “It’s spooky,” says Luca Solca, head of luxury goods research at Exane BNP Paribas (BNP) in London. “You wouldn’t expect a mannequin to be observing you.”






The EyeSee looks ordinary enough on the outside, with its slender polystyrene frame, blank face, and improbable poses. But inside, it’s no dummy. A camera in one eye feeds data into demographic-profiling software to determine the age, gender, and race of passersby.


The year-old device is designed for merchants who increasingly use technology to help personalize their offerings. “Any software that can help profile people while keeping their identities anonymous is fantastic,” says Uché Okonkwo, executive director of Paris-based consultant Luxe. It “could really enhance the shopping experience, the product assortment, and help brands better understand their customers.”


While some stores deploy similar technology to watch shoppers from overhead security cameras, Almax contends the EyeSee provides better data because it stands at eye level and invites customer attention. The mannequin led one store to tweak its window displays after revealing that men who shopped in the first two days of a sale spent more than women, according to Almax. Another store found that a third of visitors using one of its doors after 4 p.m. were Asian, prompting it to place Chinese-speaking staff by that entrance. Catanese declined to name clients, citing confidentiality agreements at the 40-year-old mannequin maker.


Seattle-based Nordstrom (JWN) is not a customer for the EyeSee, and its merchants think profiling software may go a step too far. “It’s a changing landscape, but we’re always going to be sensitive about respecting the customer’s boundaries,” says spokesman Colin Johnson.


U.S. and European Union regulations permit the use of cameras for security purposes, though retailers need to put up signs in their stores warning customers they may be filmed. Watching people solely for commercial gain, on the other hand, could be considered gathering personal data without consent, says Christopher Mesnooh, a partner at law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse in Paris. “If you go on Facebook (FB), before you start the registration process, you can see exactly what information they are going to collect and what they’re going to do with it,” says Mesnooh. “If you’re walking into a store, where’s the choice?”


CEO Catanese says that since the EyeSee doesn’t store any images, retailers can use it as long as they have a closed-circuit television license. “The retail community is starting to get wise to the opportunity around personalization,” says Lorna Hall, senior editor for retail and events at fashion forecaster WGSN. “The golden ticket is getting to the point where they’ve got my details, they know what I bought last time I came in.”


To give the EyeSee ears as well as eyes, Almax is testing technology that recognizes words to allow retailers to eavesdrop on what shoppers say about the mannequins’ attire. Catanese says the company also plans to add screens next to the dummies to prompt customers to consider products relevant to their profile, much as cookies and pop-up ads do on the Web.


Too much sophistication could backfire, says Hall, because there’s a fine line between technology that helps and technology that irks. A promotional prompt or a reminder about where to find women’s shoes “could become a digital version of a very pushy sales assistant,” she says. “And we all know how we feel about those.”


The bottom line: Almax’s $ 5,130 mannequins watch shoppers, using demographic-profiling software to collect data on customers for merchants.


Businessweek.com — Top News


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Half a century on, Rolling Stones rock Brooklyn






NEW YORK (Reuters) – Fifty years since their first London jam sessions, the Rolling Stones kicked off the U.S. leg of a brief anniversary tour with a vibrant show in New York on Saturday that belied their years – wrinkles and nostalgia aside.


Drummers wearing gorilla masks warmed up the crowd packed into Brooklyn’s Barclays Center as black-clad women swung their long tresses in rhythm.






Mick Jagger pranced, shimmied and howled his way through the 2-1/2 hour show, pausing to reminisce about the band’s history and its first New York concert at Carnegie Hall in 1964.


For a group whose early years were punctuated by quarrels and occasional brushes with the law, the biggest controversy ahead of Saturday’s show was the price of seats – up to $ 800, and as much as 10 times that amount on websites offering last-minute tickets.


In those days, milk was cheaper and “tickets to the Rolling Stones was – well, I’m not going to go there,” Jagger acknowledged.


The band’s last major tour was in 2007 and the latest reunion almost didn’t happen, owing in part to a spat between Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards over comments Richards made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.


Richards joked in a recent interview: “We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids.”


A tribute video opened Saturday’s proceedings featuring celebrities heaping praise on the band.


“They’re great songs to do bad things to,” said actor Johnny Depp. “Just how skinny they all are… It really, really pisses me off,” said actress Cate Blanchett.


The Stones – average age 68 – ripped through 20 hits that began with “Get Off of My Cloud” and closed with “Sympathy for the Devil” and an encore of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, “Jumping Jack Flash” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”.


Women in the crowd opened their arms wide as Jagger, wearing a silver sequined jacket, strutted along the horseshoe-shaped stage for “I Wanna Be Your Man”, a Beatles tune. The band was then joined by R&B singer Mary J. Blige for “Gimme Shelter”.


“People say ‘why do you keep doing this?’” Jagger told the crowd. He thanked fans for buying records and “generally being amazing for the last 50 years.”


The Stones started their brief diamond jubilee tour in London and are due to play twice in Newark, New Jersey.


Fans said it could be the last chance for New Yorkers to see the band live.


“It’s the only concert I wanted to see before I die,” said Lucy Webley, 33.


(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Peru’s capital highly vulnerable to major quake












LIMA, Peru (AP) — The earthquake all but flattened colonial Lima, the shaking so violent that people tossed to the ground couldn’t get back up. Minutes later, a 50-foot (15-meter) wall of Pacific Ocean crashed into the adjacent port of Callao, killing all but 200 of its 5,000 inhabitants. Bodies washed ashore for weeks.


Plenty of earthquakes have shaken Peru‘s capital in the 266 years since that fateful night of Oct. 28, 1746, though none with anything near the violence.












The relatively long “seismic silence” means that Lima, set astride one of the most volatile ruptures in the Earth’s crust, is increasingly at risk of being hammered by a one-two, quake-tsunami punch as calamitous as what devastated Japan last year and traumatized Santiago, Chile, and its nearby coast a year earlier, seismologists say.


Yet this city of 9 million people is sorely unprepared. Its acute vulnerability, from densely clustered, unstable housing to a dearth of first-responders, is unmatched regionally. Peru’s National Civil Defense Institute forecasts up to 50,000 dead, 686,000 injured and 200,000 homes destroyed if Lima is hit by a magnitude-8.0 quake.


“In South America, it is the most at risk,” said architect Jose Sato, director of the Center for Disaster Study and Prevention, or PREDES, a non-governmental group financed by the charity Oxfam that is working on reducing Lima’s quake vulnerability.


Lima is home to a third of Peru’s population, 70 percent of its industry, 85 percent of its financial sector, its entire central government and the bulk of international commerce.


“A quake similar to what happened in Santiago would break the country economically,” said Gabriel Prado, Lima’s top official for quake preparedness. That quake had a magnitude of 8.8.


Quakes are frequent in Peru, with about 170 felt by people annually, said Hernando Tavera, director of seismology at the country’s Geophysical Institute. A big one is due, and the chances of it striking increase daily, he said. The same collision of tectonic plates responsible for the most powerful quake ever recorded, a magnitude-9.5 quake that hit Chile in 1960, occurs just off Lima’s coast, where about 3 inches of oceanic crust slides annually beneath the continent.


A 7.5-magnitude quake in 1974 a day’s drive from Lima in the Cordillera Blanca range killed about 70,000 people as landslides buried villages. Seventy-eight people died in the capital. In 2007, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck even closer, killing 596 people in the south-central coastal city of Pisco.


A shallow, direct hit is the big danger.


More than two in five Lima residents live either in rickety structures on unstable, sandy soil and wetlands that amplify a quake’s destructive power or in hillside settlements that sprang up over a generation as people fled conflict and poverty in Peru’s interior. Thousands are built of colonial-era adobe.


Most quake-prone countries have rigorous building codes to resist seismic events. In Chile, if engineers and builders don’t adhere to them they can face prison. Not so in Peru.


“People are building with adobe just as they did in the 17th century,” said Carlos Zavala, director of Lima’s Japanese-Peruvian Center for Seismic Investigation and Disaster Mitigation.


Environmental and human-made perils compound the danger.


Situated in a coastal desert, Lima gets its water from a single river, the Rimac, which a landslide could easily block. That risk is compounded by a containment pond full of toxic heavy metals from an old mine that could rupture and contaminate the Rimac, said Agustin Gonzalez, a PREDES official advising Lima’s government.


Most of Lima’s food supply arrives via a two-lane highway that parallels the river, another potential chokepoint.


Lima’s airport and seaport, the key entry points for international aid, are also vulnerable. Both are in Callao, which seismologists expect to be scoured by a 20-foot (6-meter) tsunami if a big quake is centered offshore, the most likely scenario.


Mayor Susana Villaran’s administration is Lima’s first to organize a quake-response and disaster mitigation plan. A February 2011 law obliged Peru’s municipalities to do so. Yet Lima’s remains incipient.


“How are the injured going to be attended to? What is the ability of hospitals to respond? Of basic services? Water, energy, food reserves? I don’t think this is being addressed with enough responsibility,” said Tavera of the Geophysical Institute.


By necessity, most injured will be treated where they fall, but Peru’s police have no comprehensive first-aid training. Only Lima’s 4,000 firefighters, all volunteers, have such training, as does a 1,000-officer police emergency squadron.


But because the firefighters are volunteers, a quake’s timing could influence rescue efforts.


“If you go to a fire station at 10 in the morning there’s hardly anyone there,” said Gonzalez, who advocates a full-time professional force.


In the next two months, Lima will spend nearly $ 2 million on the three fire companies that cover downtown Lima, its first direct investment in firefighters in 25 years, Prado said. The national government is spending $ 18 million citywide for 50 new fire trucks and ambulances.


But where would the ambulances go?


A 1997 study by the Pan American Health Organization found that three of Lima’s principal public hospitals would likely collapse in a major quake, but nothing has been done to reinforce them.


And there are no free beds. One public hospital, Maria Auxiliadora, serves more than 1.2 million people in Lima’s south but has just 400 beds, and they are always full.


Contingency plans call for setting up mobile hospitals in tents in city parks. But Gonzalez said only about 10,000 injured could be treated.


Water is also a worry. The fire threat to Lima is severe — from refineries to densely-backed neighborhoods honeycombed with colonial-era wood and adobe. Lima’s firefighters often can’t get enough water pressure to douse a blaze.


“We should have places where we can store water not just to put out fires but also to distribute water to the population,” said Sato, former head of the disaster mitigation department at Peru’s National Engineering University.


The city’s lone water-and-sewer utility can barely provide water to one-tenth of Lima in the best of times.


Another big concern: Lima has no emergency operations center and the radio networks of the police, firefighters and the Health Ministry, which runs city hospitals, use different frequencies, hindering effective communication.


Nearly half of the city’s schools require a detailed evaluation to determine how to reinforce them against collapse, Sato said.


A recent media blitz, along with three nationwide quake-tsunami drills this year, helped raise consciousness. The city has spent more than $ 77 million for retention walls and concrete stairs to aid evacuation in hillside neighborhoods, Prado said, but much more is needed.


At the biggest risk, apart from tsunami-vulnerable Callao, are places like Nueva Rinconada.


A treeless moonscape in the southern hills, it is a haven for economic refugees who arrive daily from Peru’s countryside and cobble together precarious homes on lots they scored into steep hillsides with pickaxes.


Engineers who have surveyed Nueva Rinconada call its upper reaches a death trap. Most residents understand this but say they have nowhere else to go.


Water arrives in tanker trucks at $ 1 per 200 liters (52 gallons) but is unsafe to drink unless boiled. There is no sanitation; people dig their own latrines. There are no streetlamps, and visibility is erased at night as Lima’s bone-chilling fog settles into the hills.


Homes of wood, adobe and straw matting rest on piled-rock foundations that engineers say will crumble and rain down on people below in a major quake.


A recently built concrete retaining wall at the valley’s head lies a block beneath the thin-walled wood home of Hilarion Lopez, a 55-year-old janitor and community leader. It might keep his house from sliding downhill, but boulders resting on uphill slopes could shake loose and crush him and his neighbors.


“We’ve made holes and poured concrete around some of the more unstable boulders,” he says, squinting uphill in a strong late morning sun.


He’s not so worried if a quake strikes during daylight.


“But if I get caught at night? How do I see a rock?”


___


Associated Press writer Franklin Briceno contributed to this report.


___


Frank Bajak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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