Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Norway convicts 2 over Muhammad cartoon bomb plot

Two men accused of plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad were found guilty Monday of terror charges in Norway, the first convictions under the country's anti-terror laws.

The Oslo district court sentenced alleged ringleader Mikael Davud to seven years in prison and co-defendant Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak to three and a half years.

Judge Oddmund Svarteberg said the court found that Davud "planned the attack together with al-Qaida."

A third defendant, David Jakobsen, was cleared of terror charges but convicted of helping the others acquire explosives. Jakobsen, who assisted police in the investigation, was sentenced to four months.

Investigators say the plot was linked to the same al-Qaida planners behind thwarted attacks against the New York subway system and a British shopping mall in 2009.

The case was Norway's most high-profile terror investigation until last July, when a right-wing extremist killed 77 people in a bomb and shooting massacre.

The three men, who were arrested in July 2010, made some admissions but pleaded innocent to terror conspiracy charges and rejected any links to al-Qaida.

During the trial Davud denied he was taking orders from al-Qaida, saying he was planning a solo raid against the Chinese Embassy in Oslo. He said he wanted revenge for Beijing's oppression of Uighurs, a Muslim minority in western China.

Davud, a Norwegian citizen, also said his co-defendants helped him acquire bomb-making ingredients but didn't know he was planning an attack.

Cartoons of Prophet Muhammad
Prosecutors said the Norwegian cell first wanted to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, whose 12 cartoons of Muhammad sparked furious protests in Muslim countries in 2006, and then changed plans to seek to murder one of the cartoonists instead.

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Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd, said the paper and the cartoonist were indeed the targets, but described the plans as "just talk."

Prosecutors had to prove the defendants worked together in a conspiracy, because a single individual plotting an attack is not covered under Norway's anti-terror laws.

During the trial, prosecutors presented testimony obtained in the U.S. in April from three American al-Qaida recruits turned government witnesses.

Jakobsen, an Uzbek national who changed his name after moving to Norway, provided some of the chemicals for the bomb, but claims he did not know they were meant for explosives. Jakobsen contacted police and served as an informant, but still faced charges for his involvement before that.

The men had been under surveillance for more than a year when authorities moved to arrest them in July 2010. Norwegian investigators, who worked with their U.S. counterparts, said the defendants were building a bomb in a basement laboratory in Oslo.

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

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46188310/ns/world_news-europe/

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Ferroelectric switching discovered for first time in soft biological tissue

Ferroelectric switching discovered for first time in soft biological tissue [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Hannah Hickey
hickeyh@uw.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington

The heart's inner workings are mysterious, perhaps even more so with a new finding. Engineers at the University of Washington have discovered an electrical property in arteries not seen before in mammalian tissues.

The researchers found that the wall of the aorta, the largest blood vessel carrying blood from the heart, exhibits ferroelectricity, a response to an electric field known to exist in inorganic and synthetic materials. The findings are being published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

"The result is exciting for scientific reasons," said lead author Jiangyu Li, a UW associate professor of mechanical engineering. "But it could also have biomedical implications."

A ferroelectric material is an electrically polar molecule with one side positively charged and the other negatively charged, whose polarity can be reversed by applying an electrical field.

Ferroelectricity is common in synthetic materials and used for displays, memory storage, and sensors. (Related research by Li and colleagues seeks to exploit ferroelectric materials for tiny low-power, high-capacity computer memory chips.)

In the new study, Li collaborated with co-author Katherine Zhang at Boston University to explore the phenomenon in biological tissues. The only previous evidence of ferroelectricity in living tissue was reported last year in seashells. Others had looked in mammal tissue, mainly in bones, but found no signs of the property.

The new study shows clear evidence of ferroelectricity in a sample of a pig aorta. Researchers believe the findings would also apply to human tissue.

In subsequent work, yet to be published, they divided the sample into fibrous collagen and springy elastin and studied each one on its own. Pinpointing the source of the ferroelectricity may answer questions about how or whether it plays a role in the body.

"The elastin network is what gives the artery the mechanical property of elasticity, which of course is a very important function," Li said.

Ferroelectricity may therefore play a role in how the body responds to sugar or fat.

Diabetes is a risk factor for hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. The team is investigating the interactions between ferroelectricity and charged glucose molecules, in hopes of better understanding sugar's effect on the mechanical properties of the aortic walls.

Another possible application is to treat a condition in which cholesterol molecules stick to the inside of the channel, eventually closing it off.

"We can imagine if we could manipulate the polarity of the artery wall, if we could switch it one way or the other, then we might, for example, better understand the deposition of cholesterol which leads to the thickening and hardening of the artery wall," Li said.

He cautions that medical applications are still speculations, and require more research.

"A lot of questions remain to be answered, that's an exciting aspect of the result," Li said.

###

Co-authors are Yuanming Liu and Qian Nataly Chen at the UW, and Yanhang Zhang and Ming-Jay Chow at Boston University.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Office, the UW's Center for Nanotechnology and a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.

For more information, contact Li at 206-543-6226 or jjli@uw.edu.

See also an American Institute of Physics article about the finding.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Ferroelectric switching discovered for first time in soft biological tissue [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Hannah Hickey
hickeyh@uw.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington

The heart's inner workings are mysterious, perhaps even more so with a new finding. Engineers at the University of Washington have discovered an electrical property in arteries not seen before in mammalian tissues.

The researchers found that the wall of the aorta, the largest blood vessel carrying blood from the heart, exhibits ferroelectricity, a response to an electric field known to exist in inorganic and synthetic materials. The findings are being published in an upcoming issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

"The result is exciting for scientific reasons," said lead author Jiangyu Li, a UW associate professor of mechanical engineering. "But it could also have biomedical implications."

A ferroelectric material is an electrically polar molecule with one side positively charged and the other negatively charged, whose polarity can be reversed by applying an electrical field.

Ferroelectricity is common in synthetic materials and used for displays, memory storage, and sensors. (Related research by Li and colleagues seeks to exploit ferroelectric materials for tiny low-power, high-capacity computer memory chips.)

In the new study, Li collaborated with co-author Katherine Zhang at Boston University to explore the phenomenon in biological tissues. The only previous evidence of ferroelectricity in living tissue was reported last year in seashells. Others had looked in mammal tissue, mainly in bones, but found no signs of the property.

The new study shows clear evidence of ferroelectricity in a sample of a pig aorta. Researchers believe the findings would also apply to human tissue.

In subsequent work, yet to be published, they divided the sample into fibrous collagen and springy elastin and studied each one on its own. Pinpointing the source of the ferroelectricity may answer questions about how or whether it plays a role in the body.

"The elastin network is what gives the artery the mechanical property of elasticity, which of course is a very important function," Li said.

Ferroelectricity may therefore play a role in how the body responds to sugar or fat.

Diabetes is a risk factor for hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attack or stroke. The team is investigating the interactions between ferroelectricity and charged glucose molecules, in hopes of better understanding sugar's effect on the mechanical properties of the aortic walls.

Another possible application is to treat a condition in which cholesterol molecules stick to the inside of the channel, eventually closing it off.

"We can imagine if we could manipulate the polarity of the artery wall, if we could switch it one way or the other, then we might, for example, better understand the deposition of cholesterol which leads to the thickening and hardening of the artery wall," Li said.

He cautions that medical applications are still speculations, and require more research.

"A lot of questions remain to be answered, that's an exciting aspect of the result," Li said.

###

Co-authors are Yuanming Liu and Qian Nataly Chen at the UW, and Yanhang Zhang and Ming-Jay Chow at Boston University.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Office, the UW's Center for Nanotechnology and a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship.

For more information, contact Li at 206-543-6226 or jjli@uw.edu.

See also an American Institute of Physics article about the finding.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uow-fsd013012.php

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Syrian troops storm areas near capital of Damascus (AP)

BEIRUT ? In dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, Syrian troops stormed rebellious areas near the capital Sunday, shelling neighborhoods that have fallen under the control of army dissidents and clashing with fighters. At least 62 people were killed in violence nationwide, activists and residents said.

The widescale offensive near the capital suggested the regime is worried that military defectors could close in on Damascus, which has remained relatively quiet while most other Syrian cities descended into chaos after the uprising began in March.

The rising bloodshed added urgency to Arab and Western diplomatic efforts to end the 10-month conflict.

The violence has gradually approached the capital. In the past two weeks, army dissidents have become more visible, seizing several suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus and setting up checkpoints where masked men wearing military attire and wielding assault rifles stop motorists and protect anti-regime protests.

Their presence so close to the capital is astonishing in tightly controlled Syria and suggests the Assad regime may either be losing control or setting up a trap for the fighters before going on the offensive.

Residents of Damascus reported hearing clashes in the nearby suburbs, particularly at night, shattering the city's calm.

"The current battles taking place in and around Damascus may not yet lead to the unraveling of the regime, but the illusion of normalcy that the Assads have sought hard to maintain in the capital since the beginning of the revolution has surely unraveled," said Ammar Abdulhamid, a U.S.-based Syrian dissident.

"Once illusions unravel, reality soon follows," he wrote in his blog Sunday.

Soldiers riding some 50 tanks and dozens of armored vehicles stormed a belt of suburbs and villages on the eastern outskirts of Damascus known as al-Ghouta Sunday, a predominantly Sunni Muslim agricultural area where large anti-regime protests have been held.

Some of the fighting on Sunday was less than three miles (four kilometers) from Damascus, in Ein Tarma, making it the closest yet to the capital.

"There are heavy clashes going on in all of the Damascus suburbs," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, who relies on a network of activists on the ground. "Troops were able to enter some areas but are still facing stiff resistance in others."

The fighting using mortars and machine guns sent entire families fleeing, some of them on foot carrying bags of belongings, to the capital.

"The shelling and bullets have not stopped since yesterday," said a man who left his home in Ein Tarma with his family Sunday. "It's terrifying, there's no electricity or water, it's a real war," he said by telephone on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals.

The uprising against Assad, which began with largely peaceful demonstrations, has grown increasingly militarized recently as more frustrated protesters and army defectors have taken up arms.

In a bid to stamp out resistance in the capital's outskirts, the military has responded with a withering assault on a string of suburbs, leading to a spike in violence that has killed at least 150 people since Thursday.

The United Nations says at least 5,400 people have been killed in the 10 months of violence.

The U.N. is holding talks on a new resolution on Syria and next week will discuss an Arab League peace plan aimed at ending the crisis. But the initiatives face two major obstacles: Damascus' rejection of an Arab plan that it says impinges on its sovereignty, and Russia's willingness to use its U.N. Security Council veto to protect Syria from sanctions.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told reporters Sunday in Egypt that contacts were under way with China and Russia.

"I hope that their stand will be adjusted in line with the final drafting of the draft resolution," he told reporters before leaving for New York with Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim.

The two will seek U.N. support for the latest Arab plan to end Syria's crisis. The plan calls for a two-month transition to a unity government, with Assad giving his vice president full powers to work with the proposed government.

Because of the escalating violence, the Arab League on Saturday halted the work of its observer mission in Syria at least until the League's council can meet. Arab foreign ministers were to meet Sunday in Cairo to discuss the Syrian crisis in light of the suspension of the observers' work and Damascus' refusal to agree to the transition timetable, the League said.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said he was "concerned" about the League's decision to suspend its monitoring mission and called on Assad to "immediately stop the bloodshed." He spoke Sunday at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.

While the international community scrambles to find a resolution to the crisis, the violence on the ground in Syria has continued unabated.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 civilians were killed Sunday in Syria, most of them in fighting in the Damascus suburbs and in the central city of Homs, a hotbed of anti-regime protests. Twenty-six soldiers and nine defectors were also killed, it said. The soldiers were killed in ambushes that targeted military vehicles near the capital and in the northern province of Idlib.

The Local Coordination Committees' activist network said 50 people were killed Sunday, including 13 who were killed in the suburbs of the capital and two defectors. That count excluded soldiers killed Sunday.

The differing counts could not be reconciled, and the reports could not be independently confirmed. Syrian authorities keep tight control on the media and have banned many foreign journalists from entering the country.

Syria's state-run news agency said "terrorists" detonated a roadside bomb by remote control near a bus carrying soldiers in the Damascus suburb of Sahnaya, killing six soldiers and wounding six others. Among those killed in the attack some 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of the capital were two first lieutenants, SANA said.

In Irbil, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq, about 200 members of Syria's Kurdish parties were holding two days of meetings to explore ways of supporting efforts to topple Assad.

Abdul-Baqi Youssef, a member of the Syrian Kurdish Union Party, said representatives of 11 Kurdish parties formed the Syrian Kurdish National Council that will coordinate anti-government activities with Syria's opposition.

Kurds make up 15 percent of Syria's 23 million people and have long complained of discrimination.

___

Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo; Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq; and Luc van Kemenade in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Man arrested in slayings of SC officer, Ga. woman (AP)

AIKEN, S.C. ? A 26-year-old man was arrested Saturday after police say he killed his girlfriend in Georgia, and then fatally shot a South Carolina police officer responding to a report of suspicious activity, authorities said.

Police in South Carolina said Joshua Tremaine Jones faces charges of murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime in the death of Aiken police Master Cpl. Sandra Rogers.

The South Carolina law Enforcement Division said officers were responding Saturday morning to a report of suspicious activity involving two cars, and that Rogers was shot after stopping one of the vehicles.

Jones was arrested hours later at a residence in Batesburg.

Saturday evening, a visibly moved Aiken Public Safety director Charles Barranco told reporters that Rogers had died at an area hospital. The Aiken native had spent a nearly 28-year career with the department; she was 49.

In neighboring Georgia, The Augusta Chronicle reported that Jones also faces murder charges in the death of his girlfriend, 21-year-old Cayce Vice. Police found her body in her apartment Saturday morning after she didn't show up for work at a Five Guys restaurant and coworkers became concerned; she had been shot in the head.

Richmond County sheriff's Capt. Scott Peebles told the newspaper ( http://bit.ly/yO5JS7) that the agency had obtained warrants for Jones for murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Peebles confirmed that Vice had sworn out a complaint against Jones for assault earlier this month.

A phone message left late Saturday for the Richmond County Sheriff's Office was not immediately returned.

James Jones, the suspect's father, told reporters that his son had past run-ins with the law and "was going through some mental problems." Jones said his son had run away from home and moved in with Vice. He said his son is from North Augusta and briefly lived in Atlanta.

Jones said that when he returned from work Friday, his son had taken his blue BMW without permission and left. Jones said he and his other son drove around searching but couldn't locate him.

Jones said his heart goes out to the victim' families, and that he's devastated as a father.

"I just went straight to God and said, `I cannot believe this.' After all that I have taught him, I just never thought that my family would have to deal with something like this," Jones said.

The Aiken public safety department issued a statement Saturday evening praising Rogers as "an invaluable street cop who exemplified the model of a Public Safety Officer," according to WLTX-TV in Columbia, S.C.

"Master Corporal Rogers was a highly skilled investigator and senior patrol officer on her shift," the statement said. "Please keep the Rogers family and Aiken Public Safety in your prayers as once again we deal with this tragic loss."

Last month, hundreds of people gathered to mourn another Aiken police officer killed in the line of duty. Officer Scotty Richardson, 33, died in the early hours of Dec. 21 after being shot in the head during a traffic stop at an apartment complex the night before. Aiken is a city of 30,000 that's located about 20 miles northwest of Augusta.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_re_us/us_multi_state_slayings

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Golden Triangle: Who killed 13 sailors?

A thin line divides tourism, trade and terror in the Golden Triangle, where the lawless borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet.

In Myanmar, where the jungly banks of the Mekong River vanish into the mist, lies an anarchic realm of drug smugglers, militiamen and pirates on speedboats. "I'm scared to go any further," says Kan, a 46-year-old boatman, cutting his engine as he drifts just inside Myanmar waters from Thailand. "It's too dangerous."

It was here, according to the Thai military, that 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were murdered in early October. It was the deadliest assault on Chinese nationals overseas in modern times. But a Reuters investigation casts serious doubts on the official account of the attack.

The Thai military says the victims were killed upriver before their ships floated downstream into Thailand. But evidence gleaned from Thai officials and unpublished police and military reports suggests that some, if not all, of the sailors were still alive when their boats crossed into Thailand, and that they were executed and tossed overboard inside Thai territory.

Their assailants remain unknown. Initially, the prime suspect was a heavily armed Mekong pirate who terrorizes shipping in Myanmar. But then the investigation turned to nine members of an elite anti-narcotics taskforce of the Thai military.

New patrols by Chinese gunboats were supposed to restore peace to the region. But a visit to the Golden Triangle also found that attacks on Mekong shipping continue.

Incongruously, just across the river from where the ill-fated ships were found moored, on the Laos side of the triangle, Reuters also discovered a vast casino complex catering to Chinese tourists. Its Chinese owner regards it as a "second homeland"; others worry it could morph into a strategic Chinese outpost.

China's Mekong ambitions
The geopolitical murder mystery is unfolding at a time when Myanmar is in the international spotlight. The country's decision last year to end a half-century of isolation by freeing political prisoners and reaching out to the West has the potential of to reshape this promising but impoverished nation and the entire region.

But the killings also underscore the backdrop of lawlessness, rebellion and international power politics bedeviling Myanmar.

The geopolitical murder mystery is set against the backdrop of Southeast Asia's famed Mekong River, which flows from the Himalayas through China, where it is called the Lancang, and into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Around 60 million people depend on the river and its tributaries for food, transport and many other aspects of their daily lives. Beijing has invested heavily in the Mekong as part of a strategy to expand its economic and diplomatic influence in Southeast Asia, dynamiting some sections to allow bigger ships to pass, streamlining import and export procedures, and improving shipping support facilities.

The Mekong is an increasingly lucrative trade route. Cargo volumes between Thailand's Chiang Saen and ports in China's Yunnan province have tripled since 2004, with about 300,000 tones of mainly agricultural goods now transported along the Mekong every year, Mekong River Commission statistics show.

All Chinese shipping on the Mekong was suspended after the October massacre, which sparked popular outrage in China, with photos of the sailors' bodies circulating widely on the Internet. Shipping resumed five weeks later, with the departure of 10 cargo boats from the Mekong port of Guanlei -- protected by heavily armed Chinese border guards on speedboats.

The patrols, ostensibly conducted with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, are a major expansion in Beijing's role in regional security, extending its law enforcement beyond its borders, down a highly strategic waterway and into Southeast Asia. They come as the U.S. re-engages with Asia, where Thailand is one of its oldest military allies.

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"This tough new China policy toward any obstacles to their Mekong commerce could in future be met with charges of gunboat diplomacy," said Paul Chambers, an American academic who co-authored "Cashing In Across The Golden Triangle" with Myanmar economist Thein Swe. "In the future, some Mekong states may increasingly turn to the U.S. to offset China's influence."

Meth madness
But as Chinese influence grows, it is encroaching on a region dominated for decades by a much more profitable trade: narcotics. The mountainous Golden Triangle is probably named after the gold once used to barter for opium. Today, Myanmar is the world's second-biggest opium producer after Afghanistan. Methamphetamine production here is soaring as well.

Even a show of strength by China hasn't tamed this wilderness. Three Myanmar soldiers were reportedly killed in December when their joint patrol with Laos clashed with armed bandits about 20 km (12 miles) upriver from the Thai border town of Sop Ruak, near the Mekong pirate Naw Kham's haunt of Sam Puu Island.

It was here that the two Chinese vessels were supposedly attacked.

On the morning of October 5, the two cargo ships, Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8, drifted down the Mekong into Thailand. The Hua Ping was carrying fuel oil; the Yu Xing 8 had apples and garlic. Sometime after they crossed the border, the ships were boarded by an elite Thai military unit called the Pha Muang Taskforce, named after an ancient Thai warrior king. On the Yu Xing 8's blood-splattered bridge, slumped over an AK-47 assault rifle, was a dead man later identified as its captain, Yang Deyi, the taskforce said. The Hua Ping was deserted.

Aboard the two ships were 920,000 methamphetamine pills with an estimated Thai street value of $6 million.

The corpses of the 12 other crew members were soon plucked from the Mekong's swirling waters. Their horrific injuries were recorded in a Thai police report. Most victims had been gagged and blindfolded with duct tape and cloth, with their hands bound or handcuffed behind their backs. Some had massive head wounds suggesting execution-style killings; others had evidently been sprayed with bullets.

Li Yan, 28, one of two female cooks among the victims, also had a broken neck.

Thai involvement?
As a furious Beijing dispatched senior officials to Thailand to demand answers, a suspect for the massacre emerged: Naw Kham, the fugitive "freshwater pirate" of the Mekong, a member of Myanmar's ethnic Shan minority whose hill tribe militia is accused of drug trafficking, robbery, kidnapping and murder.

Naw Kham is not the only suspect. On October 28, nine members of the Pha Muang Taskforce appeared before police in the northern city of Chiang Rai to answer allegations of murder and tampering with evidence. During a visit to Bangkok in late October, China's vice minister of public security, Zhang Xinfeng, described this as "important progress" and concluded: "The case has been basically cracked."

In reality, the case is far from solved.

Thai police have interviewed more than 100 witnesses and are still investigating. Despite reports to the contrary in Chinese and Thai media, the nine soldiers -- who include a major and a lieutenant -- have not been charged with any crime and remain on active military duty.

The Pha Muang Taskforce says its members boarded the Chinese ships after they had moored near the Thai port of Chiang Saen. But a prominent Thai parliamentary committee, which is also investigating the massacre, not only undermined this assertion but alleged official complicity.

"Circumstantial evidence suggests that Thai officials were involved in the sailors' deaths," the House Foreign Affairs Standing Committee said on January 12 in an apparent reference to the military task force. "However, their motive, and whether it is connected to the drugs found on the ships, remains inconclusive," it said in preliminary findings seen by Reuters.

Early the next morning after that report, unknown assailants on the Myanmar riverbank lobbed two M-79 grenades at four Chinese cargo ships and a Myanmar patrol boat. Both missed. Ten days after that, yet another Chinese ship was fired upon from the Laos bank. Again, nobody was hurt - and nobody identified for the attack.

'Opium king'
Naw Kham has become a near-legendary figure. So many shipping attacks are attributed to this 46-year-old ethnic Shan that it seems as if the Mekong ambitions of the Asian superpower are being foiled by a medieval-style drug lord with a few dozen hill tribe gunmen.

Naw Kham started out as a lowly administrative officer in the now-defunct Mong Tai Army (MTA), said Khuensai Jaiyen, a Shan journalist who also once served in the same Shan rebel group. The MTA's leader was Khun Sa, the so-called "opium king" of the Golden Triangle, who had a $2 million reward on his head from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration until his death in Yangon in 2007.

But while Khun Sa was a flamboyant figure who courted media attention, Naw Kham is so publicity shy only two photos purporting to be him exist. Both are blurred, and show a faintly smiling man with protruding ears, thick eyebrows and a mop of black hair.

One of the photos is attached to an Interpol red notice seeking the arrest of a fugitive Myanmar national of the same name. The notice lists the man's birthplace as Mongyai, a remote area of Myanmar's war-ravaged Shan State.

A second big difference between Khun Sa and Naw Kham: the drugs that allegedly enriched them.

Opium and heroin are no longer the Golden Triangle's only products. Since the late 1990s, secret factories in Shan State have churned out vast quantities of methamphetamine. This highly addictive drug is known across Asia in pill form by the Thai name yaba ("crazy medicine") and in its purer crystalline form as ice or shabu.

It is now the top drug in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Brunei, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime reported in 2011. Naw Kham's rise coincided with this explosion of meth use, which transformed the ill-policed Mekong between Myanmar and Laos -- Naw Kham's patch -- into one of Southeast Asia's busiest drug conduits.

Every year hundreds of millions of Myanmar-made methamphetamine pills are spirited across the river into Laos or down into Thailand. The trade is worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- enough to corrupt poorly paid law enforcement officials across the region.

Narcotics are not the Mekong's only contraband.

Other lucrative goods include: endangered wildlife such as tigers and pangolins; weapons, stolen vehicles and illegal timber; and, in the run-up to this month's Tet celebrations, thousands of dogs in filthy cages bound for restaurants in Vietnam.

There is human contraband too. Illegal migrants from Myanmar and Laos are bound for Thailand's booming construction or sex industries, while a constant stream of North Koreans journey across southern China and through Laos to surrender to the Thai authorities, who obligingly deport them to South Korea.

'Made-up character'
Naw Kham gets a cut of "anything that makes money and passes through his territory," said Kheunsai Jaiyen, who runs the Shan Herald Agency for News, a leading source of news from largely inaccessible Shan State, based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He believed the most recent attack on a Chinese ship happened because the crew, thinking the new patrols would protect them, didn't pay the usual protection money to Naw Kham.

Naw Kham proved impossible to reach for comment: Thai boats dared not sail to Sam Puu Island. Kheunsai Jaiyen said he was in hiding.

The freshwater pirate has capitalized on growing resentment towards China's presence along the Mekong. Cheap, high-volume Chinese goods are squeezing Thai and Myanmar farmers and small traders, and threatening to turn Laos into what Paul Chambers called "a mere way-station".

So when the crew of the Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8 were fished from the Mekong, Naw Kham seemed the obvious culprit. Yet both Kheunsai Jaiyen and Thai MP Sunai Chulpongsatorn, who chairs the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, remained unconvinced. Sunai believed that a Naw Kham legend had been created by attributing attacks by other Mekong bandits to him.

"There are many Naw Khams, not just one," he said. "It's like in a drama. He's a made-up character. He exists, but it seems he has been given a lot of extra importance."

Lost in China's outrage over the massacre was the possibility that the Chinese sailors were themselves involved in the drug trade. One theory holds that Naw Kham suspected that the Chinese vessels contained large shipments of narcotics, and dispatched men to seize the illicit cargo and brutally murder the crew to deter others from running drugs through his territory.

Where was ship attacked?
The Pha Muang Taskforce, based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, insists that Naw Kham, and not its nine soldiers, is responsible for murdering the Chinese sailors. The taskforce declined to be interviewed for this story, citing the ongoing investigation.

But Reuters has obtained the taskforce's report of the incident to the foreign affairs committee in November. It stated that on October 5 the Pha Muang force boarded the two cargo ships in Chiang Saen after learning they had been attacked near Sam Puu Island. They reported finding the dead captain on the Yu Xing 8's bridge and, in its hold, a cardboard box with 400,000 methamphetamine pills. Another 520,000 pills were hidden in three sacks aboard the Hua Ping.

Both ships were peppered with bullet-holes. There were 14 bullets or bullet casings on the Hua Ping's decks, said Thai police, and two blood trails apparently indicating where bodies had been dragged and tossed overboard.

For Pha Muang, it was just another incident in its self-declared 11-year-old mission "to help secure the well-being of civilians residing along the three-nation border." But the taskforce's account has crucial gaps, said MP Sunai, the parliamentary committee chairman investigating the murders.

Pha Muang said the ships had already docked near Chiang Saen when its soldiers boarded them. But if one ship had only a dead captain aboard, and the other no crew at all, how did they drift down the fast-flowing Mekong without running aground, then safely moor near Chiang Saen?

"It's a 200-tonne ship," said Sunai. "With nobody steering, it would have lost control long before it reached the riverbank."

The same point is made by a senior Thai official in Chiang Rai province who is close to the investigation and spoke on condition his name and exact profession were not identified. The boats could not have docked without both a captain and engineer on board, and they would probably need to read Chinese to understand the controls, he insisted.

He was also convinced that some, if not all, of the Chinese sailors were alive when their ships reached Thailand. According to witnesses, he said, four smaller boats had escorted the two ships through Thai waters to the sound of gunfire.

When the ships moored, about seven men jumped from them onto the smaller boats, the Thai official said, which then sped upriver again. The Thai official couldn't say who these men were, but believed that the military, who had sealed off the area, watched them go.

Gambling empire
On the Laotian bank of the Mekong, clearly visible from where the ill-fated Chinese ships stopped, an enormous crown rises above the tree line. It belongs to a casino, part of a burgeoning gambling empire hacked from the Laotian jungle by a Chinese company called Kings Romans in English and, in Chinese, Jin Mu Mian ("golden kapok"), after the kapok trees that carpet the area with flame-red flowers.

Kings Romans controls a 102-sq-km (39-sq-mile) special economic zone (SEZ) which occupies seven km (four miles) of prime Mekong riverbank overlooking Myanmar and Thailand. The company's chairman is also the SEZ's president: Zhao Wei, a casino tycoon who hails from a poor peasant family in China's northeastern Heilongjang province.

Zhao was unable to talk to Reuters because he was preparing to welcome Laotian president Choummaly Sayasone to a Chinese New Year festival, said Li Linjun, Kings Romans tourism manager. Li offered a tour of a Special Economic Zone into which he said the company had so far sunk $800 million.

Fountains and golden statues flank the main road from the pier to the casino. Across the road is a banner in Chinese exhorting people to "join hands to beat drugs."

Two gargantuan lion statues guard the entrance to the casino. Inside, beyond the security gates, a marble staircase lit by a giant chandelier sweeps up to a golden statue of a nameless, bare-chested Roman emperor. The ceilings are decorated with reproductions of Renaissance frescoes.

Under construction nearby is a karaoke and massage complex, fashioned after a Chinese temple. The resort also offers a shooting range, complete with AK47 and M16 assault rifles, and a petting zoo.

An average of about 1,000 people visit the casino every day, said Li. (Gambling is illegal in both Laos and China.) But Zhao Wei didn't intend to create a "little Macau", mimicking China's casino-stuffed enclave on the Pearl River estuary. Li notes that Kings Romans controls an area "bigger than Macau" - three times bigger, in fact - and plans to build an industrial park and ecotourism facilities.

New airport
Next month, said Li, construction begins on what will be the second-largest airport in Laos after Wattay International Airport in the capital Vientiane.

Perhaps aware of anti-Chinese resentment, Li hailed Kings Romans as a model of responsible investment. About 40 percent of the complex's 3,000 workers were Chinese, he said, but the rest came from Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. He then showed off a compound with scores of modest concrete houses which he said were given free to local Laotians who had once lived in wooden shacks. "These might be the happiest people in Laos," he said.

Li called Laos "our second homeland." The SEZ certainly felt a lot like China. Most croupiers are Chinese. Most gamblers pay in Chinese yuan or Thai baht. The mobile phone signal is provided by a Chinese company. Street signs are in Chinese and English.

The passports of visitors are processed by Chinese and Laotian immigration officers. The area is protected by the Lao People's Army, said Li, but when Reuters visited, the only car patrolling the streets belonged to the Chinese police.

When asked about the 13 Chinese sailors, Li's eyes brim with tears. "I feel so sorry for my compatriots," he said. Yet he believed their deaths would have no impact on business because "people know that we are not connected to this case."

Yet Kings Romans has brushed against both the drug trade and Naw Kham. Last April, a casino boat was seized by the freshwater pirate's men near Sam Puu Island and 19 crewmen held for a 22-million-baht ($733,000) ransom, which Zhao Wei paid, the Shan Herald Agency for News reported.

Then, in September, an operation by Laotian and Chinese officials found 20 sacks of yaba pills worth $1.6 million in the casino grounds, according to Thai media reports.

Li denied all knowledge of the yaba bust or that the kidnapping had even taken place, stressing that Zhao Wei came to the Golden Triangle to build an economic alternative to the narcotics trade. He said he had never heard of Naw Kham. "Maybe it's gossip. That's why they call this place the mysterious Golden Triangle."

Distant outpost of China
Equally mysterious was the special economic zone's future ambitions. The area it occupied was so large and strategically located that it might one day be used as a Chinese military base, the Thai official in Chiang Rai said.

That might be far-fetched. But the Golden Triangle SEZ and similar schemes elsewhere in Laos and Myanmar "signify that China is prepared to remain entrenched in the Greater Mekong Subregion," said Chambers. "They provide an exit for southwestern China to entrepots in Myanmar and Thailand, and then to markets abroad. Such schemes in fact need security to protect them."

If the Golden Triangle SEZ is a distant outpost of China, a "second homeland," then it is poignant that 13 Chinese men and women -- blindfolded, gagged, terrified -- could have sailed past it in the final moments of their lives.

The Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8 are still moored at Chiang Saen, across the river from the casino, their rusting flanks cordoned off with police crime-scene tape. Nearby, workers are loading dried goods and soft drinks onto another Chinese ship, the Hong Li, bound for the Myanmar port of Sop Lui.

"Of course we're worried about security, but we're encouraged by the presence of Chinese patrols," said a crew member, who only identified himself by the family name Deng. Asked about his 13 dead compatriots, he echoed what is now a common misperception in China: nine Thai soldiers have admitted their guilt and will be held responsible for the killings.

"We want the truth. That's the most important thing," said Deng, before the Hong Li sailed up the Mekong and into the void.

Reporting By Andrew R.C. Marshall, editing by Jason Szep, Bill Tarrant and Mike Williams

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46164812/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/

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American economy not healthy yet, but it's healing (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The American economy may not be truly healthy yet, but it's healing.

The 2.8 percent annual growth rate reported Friday for the fourth quarter was the fastest since spring 2010 and was the third straight quarter that growth has accelerated.

Experts cautioned, however, that the pace was unlikely to last and that it's not enough to sharply drive down the unemployment rate.

Unemployment stands at 8.5 percent ? its lowest level in nearly three years after a sixth straight month of solid hiring. And Friday's Commerce Department report suggests more hiring gains ahead.

For the final three months of 2011, Americans spent more on vehicles, and companies restocked their supplies at a robust pace.

Still, overall growth last quarter ? and for all of last year ? was slowed by the sharpest cuts in annual government spending in four decades. And many people are reluctant to spend more or buy homes, and many employers remain hesitant to hire, even though job growth has strengthened.

The outlook for 2012 is slightly better. The Federal Reserve has estimated economic growth of roughly 2.5 percent for the year, despite abundant risk factors: federal spending cuts, weak pay increases, cautious consumers and the risk of a European recession.

Economists noted that most of the growth in the October-December quarter was due to companies restocking their supplies at the fastest rate in nearly two years. That pace is expected to slow.

"The pickup in growth doesn't look half as good when you realize that most of it was due to inventory accumulation," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.

Ashworth expects annualized growth to slip below 2 percent in the current January-March quarter. Other economists have similar estimates.

Stocks opened lower after the government reported the growth figures. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down about 74 points. Broader indexes were mixed.

In a normal economy, roughly 3 percent growth is a healthy figure. It's enough to keep unemployment down ? but not so much growth as to ignite inflation.

But coming out of a recession, much stronger growth is needed. By some estimates, the economy would have to expand at least 5 percent for a full year to drive down the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point.

In many ways, the economy did end 2011 on a strong note. Companies invested more in equipment and machinery in December.

People are buying more cars, and consumer confidence has risen. Even the depressed housing market has shown enough incremental gains to lead some economists to detect the start of a turnaround.

In the final three months of 2011, consumer spending grew at a 2 percent annual rate. That was up modestly from the July-September quarter. Consumer spending is critical because it fuels about 70 percent of the economy.

Much of the growth was powered by a 15 percent surge in sales of autos and other long-lasting manufactured goods.

Incomes, which have been weak because of still-high unemployment, grew ever so slightly, at a tepid 0.8 percent annual rate, following two straight quarterly declines. Unless pay picks up, consumers who have dipped into savings in recent months may pull back.

"Consumers don't have much income growth, and to even achieve a 2 percent growth rate in spending in the fourth quarter, they had to run down their saving rate," said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS Global Insight.

And government spending at all levels fell at an annual rate of 4.6 percent in the fourth quarter and 2.1 percent for the year ? the sharpest drop since 1971. Defense cuts at the start and end of the year were a key factor. With Congress aiming to shrink budget deficits, the likelihood of further federal spending cuts could weigh on the economy.

Economic growth is measured by the change in the gross domestic product, or GDP. The GDP reflects the value of all goods and services ? from machinery to manicures to hotel bookings to jet fighters ? produced in the United States.

Friday's estimate of GDP growth was the first of three for the October-December quarter. The figure will be revised twice, in February and then in March.

Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics, is among the more optimistic analysts. He said he thought business investment in capital goods would be stronger and consumer spending higher this year.

Many fear that a likely recession in Europe could cool demand for U.S. manufactured goods. Growth would slow. Without many more jobs and better pay, consumer spending could weaken.

The Fed signaled this week that a full economic recovery could take at least three more years.

Although things may not be good, they're getting better.

Gault predicts the economy will create an average of 150,000 jobs a month in 2012 based on his expectation that the year will be slightly stronger than 2011. Last year, the economy created an average 133,000 jobs a month.

"We are starting to see improvements in the housing market, and consumers are working down their debt levels," Gault said. "That is all good and will help us this year."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_us/us_economy

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Personal Finance Software - Which One is Optimal? | Free Videos ...

People who start using personal finance software are often surprised at how easy to use it is, and how it helps them keep track of their household budget. However, there are some programs that are better than other ones so be careful as you choose the one that does everything you need it to do. You can track an investment portfolio, download a financial software from the web or even use one that is entirely web based if you are comfortable enough to do this, the choice is yours. In this article we?ll be taking a look at some personal finance software programs and ways to choose the best one for you.

It doesn?t matter what you are explicit financial aims are, it is evident you desire personal finance software that will make your life easier. On the other hand, if you use it in the approved manner, it can do more than just automate duties that you?d otherwise have to figure out on your own. It can benefit you in enhancing your financial circumstances by letting you see up close what is happening. You can have on the spot access to all the pertinent numbers, for example your expenses, income, bills, bank accounts and investments. So if you buy a personal finance program, make sure you make full use of it so you can enjoy the real advantages it offers.

The Mvelopes Personal Budgeting System is designed for users who wish to be able to access their software on the Internet This personal finance system helps you reduce your expenses by aiding in you in setting up and sticking to a budget. Mvelopes is designed to analyze and identify your different financial transactions and thereby helps you save money. This web based tool is recommended if you mainly want software that helps you manage your budget. For those who wish to also track investments though, a better investment for you would be Quicken or Microsoft Money

If you are looking for a robust budgeting and money marketing software then a simple choice is Quicken Starter Edition 2011. If you are looking to gain control over your personal finances then this software, designed by Quicken one of the best known names in financial software, then this is the edition for you. Track you bank accounts and credit cards easily along with maintaining your household budget. Never have a late fee again, with the convenient bill reminder. It?s even set up to work with Turbo Tax, so you can just export your data to this service to file your taxes. Quicken Starter Edition 2011 was created to be simple to use, and there?s a guided setup feature to get you started quickly. Quicken Deluxe is available, though for those who need something more advanced Personal finance software are available in a plethora of forms, from software you download, to online services to phone apps. Bunches of these programs are rather authoritative and valuable if you spend the time acquiring knowledge of all their elements. The programs we?ve talked about in this article are the ones you might discover are valuable, although you should check out many of them to discover which one has everything you require. Personal finance software can help you understand your finances better, and this can put you at ease.

There is more content available on repair your credit there?s plenty of points not covered in this article, take a look at Author?s web blog to uncover supplementary details.

Source: http://www.freevideosinfos.com/2012/01/personal-finance-software-which-one-is-optimal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=personal-finance-software-which-one-is-optimal

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Daycraft ? Alternatives to Moleskine and Rhodia Notebooks

Who among us is a notebook / stationary junky? Let’s see a show of hands please… Me too. That’s why I was grinning from ear to ear when the mailman dropped off a box of samples from a company that I’d not heard of before: Daycraft. I suppose the reason why I’ve not heard of [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/01/27/daycraft-alternatives-to-moleskine-and-rhodia-notebooks/

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Local Representatives respond to State of the Union

President Barack Obama emphasized the need to come together to preserve the American Dream, create jobs, and fix inequalities in the nation's tax structure during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday night.

Local Republican Representatives Mike Kelly (R-3) and Glenn Thompson (R-5) are skeptical.

In statements released shortly after the address on Tuesday night, each expressed a willingness to work with the president, and reach out across the aisle, but also expressed concern about whether the policies and proposals outlined by the president will come to fruition.

"While the president gave a good speech tonight, and there were elements of the speech I agreed with, the reality is that, in the past, the president's rhetoric has simply failed to match his record," Kelly said.

Thompson noted that "the president had the opportunity to chart a new path on a set of priorities that the American people have called for and both political parties can agree on, and we heard some productive talk... But with almost two million more Americans out of work and having racked up the three largest annual deficits in the country's history since the President took office, the American people are looking for more than just talk."

Kelly blasted Obama's handling of the economy, pointing out that in a speech in 2009, "the president promised to cut the defect in half. Under President Obama's watch, the United States' credit was downgraded" and the defect has increased at epic rates.

"The economy we are facing now is Obama's economy, and he needs to take ownership of it," Kelly argued.

Noting that "America has experienced the longest period of sustained unemployment since the Great Depression," Thompson said that "the president has led us in the wrong direction over the past three years, but there's time to right the ship and put aside the failed policies of the past."

One proposal that Thompson claims "has the potential to create thousands of jobs," recently rejected by the White House, is the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Highly critical of the administration's decision, Thompson said that "the president tonight pledged his commitment to energy security, yet his administration's actions run contrary to the rhetoric." Rejecting the pipeline "is the latest example of this White House's failure to understand our nation's basic energy needs and potential," Thompson's statement said.

Amidst the problems that the nation faces, both Thompson and Kelly recognize a way forward that includes working with the Democratic Senate and White House.

"In the House, we've delivered for the American people by advancing bills to reduce spending, restore fiscal solvency, and encourage new job creation," Thompson said. "In fact we've acted on more than 30 bipartisan jobs bills, almost all of which have been denied consideration by the Senate. With any hope, the president will meet his commitment to 'fight obstruction with action' by calling the Senate to work with the House on these important initiatives."

Kelly explained that "I heard some good proposals tonight, including his plan to remove the regulatory barriers that prevent our nation from rebuilding our nation's infrastructure. I also agree with the president's assessment of the potential that natural gas holds for our nation, including the fact that the natural gas industry could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade."

He added that "I agree with President Obama that we need to preserve the American Dream for this and future generations. The only way we can do that is by working together, in a bipartisan fashion, to put in place policies that will spur job creation and get Americans working again....If we work together to promote these common sense solutions, I am confident that the state of our union will be better tomorrow than we find it today."

Source: http://www.timesobserver.com/page/content.detail/id/555315.html

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Pentagon budget: top 3 winners and losers

As the Pentagon rolled out its budget preview Thursday, it stressed the tough work involved in cutting $487 billion over the next decade.?But in Pentagon parlance, the word ?cut? is a relative term. While the Defense Department?s base budget initially decreases from $553 billion this year to $525 billion in fiscal year 2013 ? more than its $480 billion base budget in 2008, when US troops were in the midst of two wars.?The budget will then rebound steadily to $567 billion in fiscal year 2017.?

With this in mind, here are the top three winners and losers:

- Anna Mulrine,?Staff writer

The Pentagon has made no secret of its plan to shift its attention toward the Pacific (read China) in the years to come. This is a boon for the US Navy, whose aircraft carriers and submarines will be key in any US military maneuvering that involves China, senior military officials stress. It is a change of fortune for a service branch that often felt marginalized amid the decade?s two large counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Indeed, despite some robust calls to reduce just one of the 11 aircraft carriers in the Navy?s fleet, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced Thursday that this would not be happening. He cited the need for a Navy ?that maintains forward presence and is able to penetrate enemy defenses.?

What?s more, the Pentagon will be putting money into developing, for example, ?a new afloat forward staging base? and ?a design that will allow new Virginia-class submarines to be modified to carry more cruise missiles.?

The Pentagon is also currently working to develop an ?undersea conventional prompt global strike option? ? essentially arming submarine-based missiles with conventional warheads ? despite a Bush administration decision to scrap it amid concerns that they would be mistaken for nuclear missile strikes.

?Modernizing our submarine fleet will be critical to our efforts to maintain maritime access in these vital regions of the world,? Mr. Panetta said. One senior military official pointed to the Navy?s ?particularly useful role? in the seas around China, ?for the things we want to do in the future.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cl3MMHOInKQ/Pentagon-budget-top-3-winners-and-losers

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Lee Brenner: Adorable CSI: Miami Parody

Because everyone starts somewhere...

CSI Miami Caruso Horatio Early Years

Before he was a pun-heavy, quick-triggered forensic analyst and homicide detective in the Miami-Dade Police Department, the sunglasses-clutching, one-liner-spewing Horatio Caine got his start solving whatever mysteries he could find in his own backyard. This is the story of "Horatio: The Early Years."

The latest two episodes of the series are now live -- check all four of them out here:

Episode I: Ring Around the Rosie

Episode II: The Cooties Shot

Episode III: Happy Meal

Episode IV: Stepping In It

If you like it, please share it with friends, family and online acquaintances on Facebook, Twitter and wherever you see fit!

Subscribe to HyperVocal's YouTube channel to be the first to know.

Follow @YoungHoratio and @hypervocal on Twitter for updates and more.

And if you need to see the real thing, here's a "Best of Horatio Caine":


Written by: Slade Sohmer, Dan De Lorenzo & Ben Stumpf Directed by: Ben Stumpf Produced by: Dan De Lorenzo Exec. Producer: Slade Sohmer & HyperVocal

Starring: Blake Sohmer as Young Horatio and Hailey Shapiro as his partner.
Also starring: Spencer Penn, Lea Sorkin, Chloe Morris, and Olivia Ryan.



Please don't forget to pass it around if you want more episodes of the series...

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Follow Lee Brenner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hypervocal

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-brenner/csi-miami-parody_b_1231615.html

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Why Online Reputation Matters to Small Business

You?re a small business owner. Most of your customers are the people who live within 25 miles of your storefront. Why does it even matter what the Internet has to say about your brand? That has no impact on your bottom line.
Right?

No. Dangerously wrong.

Weber Shandwick recently released a new report called The Company Behind The Brand: In Reputation We Trust [PDF] that breaks down exactly why business owners should be concerned with the online footprint they?re leaving (or not leaving) behind. One of the most interesting parts of the report for me was the finding that any disconnect between corporate and brand reputation triggers a sharp consumer reaction. That means even if your product or service is excellent?if the image of your brand is less than stellar, it will still hurt you.

According to the report, when a consumer learns that a product they like is made by a company they have a negative relationship with (54 percent of consumers responded they?ve experienced this), 96 percent of consumers took some kind of action.

What kind of action?

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The most frequent response was that consumers stopped purchasing the product (40 percent). In fact, surprised consumers were twice as likely to STOP buying the product as they were to continue to buy it. And this is a product they originally admitted to liking! That was pretty startling to me. Just as noteworthy ? consumers who didn?t immediately stop buying the product went online to try and learn more about the company.

Both of these statements speak to the importance of creating a positive Web presence.

  1. Consumers are using social word of mouth, online reviews, and other online content to form a judgment about your company. The judgment they form is then strongly tied to whether or not they decide to purchase your product.
  2. When consumers are conflicted, they go to the Internet to answer the ?should I trust you? question. They?re then using the information they find about your brand to help them make that decision.

It doesn?t matter if you?re not trying to target a national audience. Local consumers are using the Web to find information about local businesses. It?s up to you to make sure they?re finding the right kind of information.

What should every small business be doing to help build their Web presence?

  1. Create a Web site: Your brand Facebook profile or Google+ business page is great. But your business still needs a Web site. Some place where you can talk about your product/services, establish credibility, introduce your team, offer resources, and be found for hyper-local keywords.
  2. Blog: There are few better ways to build industry authority than with an active blog. Producing content on a regular basis also ensures there?s always something you can promote and be found for.
  3. Get involved in social media: Maybe that means getting active on Twitter or Facebook. Or maybe it means developing a presence on a Q&A site like Quora or participating in a small business networking site like BizSugar. Either way, find out where your audience is engaging online, and set up a satellite community there. Talk to your audience and let them get to know you on a more human level. Just don?t get too human.
  4. Get involved in your community: Whether it?s sponsoring your town?s little league team, speaking at local events, or putting together an industry-related group at the local high school, by getting involved in the community that you live in you help to build a positive reputation offline, which can then carry online when people write about your efforts, link to sponsors, etc.
  5. Guest blog on relevant sites: Guest blogging is a great way to build goodwill, establish industry credibility, and introduce your company to people in other networks.
  6. Solicit & manage online reviews: This is a biggie and it?s only becoming more important. We?re going to sites like Yelp, Google Place Pages, TripAdvisor, etc, to learn how the experiences others had with your brand. Make sure you?re not only doing what you can to encourage customers to leave reviews, but positively responding to any negative or neutral comments that may be there. You not only help save that relationship, but you show everyone else who may find that review in the search results that you?re listening, you care, and that you hear them.

Online reputation management is important for businesses of any size. It?s about creating a positive Web presence to make your brand one that people trust and want to engage with. Because, as the report mentioned above shows, it doesn?t matter how great your product is ? if people don?t trust you, they won?t be interested in it.

About the Author

Lisa Barone Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an SEO consulting firm that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services.

Connect with Lisa Barone:

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/01/why-online-reputation-matters-to-small-business.html

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Kristin Chenoweth Heads to Hot in Cleveland (omg!)

Cleveland is about to get even hotter.

Kristin Chenoweth has been tapped to guest-star in an upcoming episode of Hot in Cleveland, TVGuide.com has confirmed. Series executive producer Sean Hayes took to Twitter Monday morning to announce Chenoweth's appearance, which is slated to air in May.

Hot In Cleveland gets a fourth season and a spin-off

The 43-year-old actress, who occasionally appears on Glee and will next star in ABC's GCB, will portray a friend of the girls from L.A. who comes to stay with them after breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, a Beverly Hills dermatologist to the stars. The ladies must put the two back together or face the possibility of never getting another appointment with the exclusive doctor again. ?

Hot in Cleveland airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on TVLand.

Related Articles on TVGuide.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_kristin_chenoweth_heads_hot_cleveland234500710/44279135/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/kristin-chenoweth-heads-hot-cleveland-234500710.html

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Romney campaign touts his tax return transparency (AP)

TAMPA, Fla. ? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid about $3 million in federal income taxes in 2010, having earned more than seven times that from his investments. Those earnings, $21.7 million, put him among the wealthiest of American taxpayers. Romney's campaign said Tuesday he followed all tax laws.

At the same time, Romney gave nearly $3 million to charity ? about half of that amount to the Mormon Church ? which helped lower his effective tax rate to a modest 14 percent, according to records his campaign released early Tuesday.

Romney campaign advisers said Tuesday that the release of more than 500 pages of returns, schedules and worksheets was in "full compliance" with U.S. tax laws and was an effort to provide maximum transparency to the American public.

Romney had refused until recently to disclose any federal tax returns then hinted he would only offer a single year's return in April. But mounting criticism from his rivals and a hard loss in last week's South Carolina primary forced his hand.

For 2011, Romney will pay about $3.2 million with an effective tax rate of about 15.4 percent, the campaign said. Those returns haven't yet been filed yet with the Internal Revenue Service. In total, he would pay more than $6.2 million in taxes over the past two years, his campaign said.

"Gov. Romney has paid 100 percent of what he owes," said Benjamin Ginsberg, a legal adviser to the Romney campaign. Ginsberg and other advisers insisted Romney did not use any aggressive tax strategies to help reduce or defer his tax income.

The advisers acknowledged that Romney continues to earn money from investments from Bain Capital, the Boston-based private equity firm the candidate founded and managed between 1984 and early 1999. Under an agreement with the firm when he left, Romney continued to earn "carried interest" on new Bain investments as a former partner in the firm even though he no longer ran the operation.

Romney earned $7.5 million in Bain earnings in 2010 and expects to make $5.5 million in 2010, Ginsberg said.

The former Massachusetts governor had been cast by his GOP opponents as a wealthy businessman who earned lucrative payouts from his investments while Bain slashed jobs in the private sector. Rival Newt Gingrich made public his 2010 returns on last Thursday, showing he paid almost $1 million in income taxes ? a tax rate of about 31 percent.

Romney's advisers acknowledged Tuesday that Romney and his wife, Ann, had a bank account in Switzerland as part of her trust. The account was worth $3 million and was held in the United Bank of Switzerland, said R. Bradford Malt, a Boston lawyer who makes investments for the Romneys and oversees their blind trust, which was set up to avoid any conflicts of interest in investments during his run for the presidency.

In 2009, UBS admitted assisting U.S. citizens in evading taxes, and agreed to pay a $780 billion penalty as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Justice Department.

Malt said the account was closed for "diversification" in early 2010. He said he made the decision to close the Swiss account because it "just wasn't worth it." Malt sidestepped a question about whether he closed the account because it could be a political liability, saying it "might or might not be inconsistent with Gov. Romney's political views." Malt has sold off other accounts in recent years ? including investments in firms that did business with Iran and China ? because of possible political inconsistency or embarrassment with Romney's political positions.

Malt also confirmed that some of Romney's investments are routed through affiliate funds set up in the Cayman Islands. But he insisted there were no actual offshore accounts, and added that Romney paid the same amount of U.S. taxes using the Cayman affiliates as he would have if the investment funds were set up in the U.S.

Romney's campaign confirmed the details of his tax information after several news organizations saw a preview of the documents. He had said he planned to release his returns in full Tuesday morning, and campaign officials would be prepared to discuss them in detail with reporters.

"You'll see my income, how much taxes I've paid, how much I've paid to charity," Romney said during Monday night's debate in Tampa. "I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don't think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes."

Romney's 2010 returns show the candidate is among the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The returns showed about $4.5 million in itemized deductions, including $1.5 million to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Before the tax records were released, Romney's old investments in two government-backed housing lenders stirred up new questions at the same time his campaign targeted Gingrich for his work for Freddie Mac.

Gingrich earned $1.6 million in consulting fees from Freddie Mac. Romney has as much as $500,000 invested in the U.S.-backed lender and its sister entity, Fannie Mae.

The fight over releasing the tax information highlighted an argument that Democrats are already starting to use against Romney ? that he is out-of-touch with normal Americans. And it probably hurt him in the South Carolina primary, where he lost by 12 percentage points to Gingrich after spending several days resisting calls to release the returns.

In Monday's debate, Romney would not answer questions from moderator Brian Williams of NBC about just what pieces of his tax returns could cause political headaches. But they will shine the spotlight on a fortune estimated at between $190 million and $250 million, and could raise questions about where he keeps his money and how he earns it.

But it's clear that Romney's campaign is bracing for an onslaught of criticism of his personal fortune. His wife, Ann, has started talking about the returns during campaign appearances. She told supporters at a Florida rally Sunday: "I want to remind you where we know our riches are. Our riches are with our families."

Most of Romney's vast fortune is held in a blind trust that he doesn't control. A portion is held in a retirement account.

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Braun and Associated Press writers Jack Gillum and Stephen Ohlemacher reported from Washington.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_el_pr/us_romney_taxes

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