Tuesday, April 30, 2013

No talks on key Mexico reforms until spat resolved- opposition

By Dave Graham and Ana Isabel Martinez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A multi-party alliance to modernize Mexico's economy will not discuss pending energy and tax reforms until an electoral spat between the opposition and the government is resolved, the head of the main leftist party said on Tuesday.

Jesus Zambrano, chairman of the opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said there could be no talks on these reforms until the government had taken clear steps to punish those responsible for a vote-buying scandal in the Gulf state of Veracruz that was exposed this month.

"There won't be (talks) about anything that is not to do with the political and legal ... structure that will enable us to get out of this impasse," he told Reuters in an interview.

President Enrique Pena Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has been forced on the defensive since the conservative National Action Party (PAN) put out recordings of PRI officials advocating the use of government funds to secure votes in Veracruz in elections due on July 7.

"I tell you, the main responsibility for whether the pact continues lies with the PRI and the government," said Zambrano.

The PAN and the PRD, who signed up to the three-way agreement with the PRI known as the "Pact for Mexico", have said heads must roll over Veracruz for the deal to stay alive.

Pena Nieto, the first PRI president in 12 years, forged the pact to create a platform for economic reform when he fell short of a congressional majority in last year's elections.

The PRI dominated Mexico during the past century, ruling for 71 straight years until the PAN defeated it in 2000 elections. By then, the PRI's name had become synonymous with vote-buying, corruption and a range of other underhanded political tricks.

The opposition has accused the PRI of using Social Development Ministry funds earmarked to fight extreme poverty to buy votes, and Zambrano urged Veracruz's PRI governor Javier Duarte and Social Development Minister Rosario Robles to resign.

But he stopped short of making their resignations a condition of the PRD continuing in the pact, saying the party would make its decision based on the government's response.

"The country needs the pact, that's why we called it 'for Mexico'. Pena Nieto needs the pact," Zambrano said.

Pena Nieto has said opening up state oil giant Pemex and improving Mexico's weak tax take are vital to spur stronger growth in Latin America's second biggest economy.

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Ana Isabel Martinez; Editing by Sandra Maler and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/no-talks-key-mexico-reforms-until-spat-resolved-210609673.html

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US-INDUSTRY Summary

Aereo targets 30 percent of U.S. broadcasters' market: Diller

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Barry Diller, the billionaire media mogul who is backing the startup Aereo TV service, said on Monday it expects to reach between 25 and 30 percent of the U.S. television audience with the wireless service that broadcasters say undermines the economics of their business. On April 1 a federal appeals court denied a motion by major media companies to shut down Aereo, which uses large numbers of TV antennas to capture broadcast signals for its subscribers, who do not want to pay cable and satellite operator's higher cable fees.

CBC's English-language chief leaving for Twitter job

TORONTO (Reuters) - The head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp's English-language service is leaving the public broadcaster to join micro-blogging company Twitter, the CBC said on Monday. Kirstine Stewart, the CBC's executive vice-president of English services, will leave immediately and a recruitment process for her replacement has been launched.

Former AOL's CFO Minson returns to Time Warner Cable

(Reuters) - Arthur Minson, a former senior officer at online media company AOL, has been named the new finance chief of No. 2 U.S. cable provider Time Warner Cable Inc. Minson, who had worked as a deputy chief financial officer at Time Warner Cable from 2007-09, will start his new post May 2, replacing Irene Esteves.

Macmillan to pay $26 million to settle antitrust class action

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Publishing house Macmillan moved on Friday to settle a raft of antitrust suits accusing it of conspiring with other publishers to raise e-book prices, hammering out a $26 million settlement with a group of states and individuals, court filings show. The agreement requires Macmillan to pay not only a $20 million fine, but legal fees and a small award as well to the individual plaintiffs for their participation.

Bertelsmann offers RTL shares at 55.50 euros each

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German media conglomerate Bertelsmann has set the placement price for part of its stake in RTL Group at 55.50 euros, bringing it gross proceeds of up to 1.42 billion euros ($1.86 billion), RTL said on Monday. Privately-owned Bertelsmann is looking for cash to fund growth as well as an overhaul of its business to catch up with rapidly-changing markets.

Iraq watchdog suspends 10 TV channels for inciting violence

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq has suspended the licenses of satellite news network Al Jazeera and nine other channels, accusing them of inciting violence through their coverage of recent sectarian clashes. The Communication and Media Commission (CMC) regulator criticized their reporting of violence triggered by a security forces raid on a Sunni Muslim protest camp in Hawija on Tuesday.

Time Warner Cable shifts away from "triple play"

(Reuters) - Time Warner Cable Inc, the second-largest U.S. cable provider, will no longer aggressively push "triple play" packages of Internet, video and voice on its customers, moving away from the long-held industry practice of bundling the services together. Time Warner Cable is the first cable company in the U.S. to acknowledge that customers would prefer to only pay for television and Internet, as demand for landline service has been declining steadily with many people only using cellphones, even at home.

NY Times to roll out new products in search of revenue

(Reuters) - New York Times Co reported a decline in quarterly revenue on weak advertising sales but said it would try to grow out of the slump by expanding its suite of digital products. The 11.2 percent drop in advertising revenue in the first quarter underscores the pressure that the New York Times faces to increase its subscription revenue, especially for its digital products, and find new veins of income.

Hyundai Motor suicide ad draws ire for South Korean company

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Co has been forced to apologize for an advertisement that sought to promote the zero carbon emissions of one of its cars by featuring a man failing to commit suicide using a hose attached to the exhaust. The ad debacle is the latest to hit the carmaker, the world's fifth largest by sales when combined with its Kia Motors affiliate, after it exaggerated fuel performance figures in the United States, and announced a large-scale vehicle recall this month.

Watchdogs to focus on new media in Nielsen/Arbitron deal: experts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. antitrust regulators are likely to scrutinize new forms of advertising as they mull the planned purchase by television rating giant Nielsen Holdings NV of Arbitron Inc, which dominates radio ratings, legal experts say. The Federal Trade Commission, in assessing the $1.26 billion merger to ensure it complies with antitrust law, will likely focus on the emerging frontier - cross-platform data designed to tell advertisers in a holistic way what customers watch on television, listen to on the radio, look at online and see on their mobile devices.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-industry-summary-172143637.html

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Monday, April 29, 2013

Italian policemen shot near new gov't swearing-in

ROME (AP) ? In the very moments Italy's new coalition government was being sworn in, ending months of political paralysis in a country hoping to revive a bleak economy, a middle-aged unemployed bricklayer opened fire Sunday in the square outside the premier's office, seriously wounding two policemen, authorities said.

The alleged gunman from Calabria, a southern region plagued by joblessness and organized crime, told investigators he wanted to shoot politicians. But finding none in the square, he instead shot at Carabinieri paramilitary police.

A bullet pierced one of the policemen in the neck, passing through his spinal column, doctors said, adding it wasn't yet known if the 50-year-old officer would have any paralysis. The other one was shot in the leg and suffered a fracture.

The newly sworn in interior minister, Angelino Alfano, said a preliminary investigation indicated the shooting, which also slightly injured a pregnant bystander, amounted to a "tragic criminal gesture of a 49-year-old unemployed" man.

But the shooting was also a violent expression of social tensions in Italy, where unemployment is soaring, an increasing number of businesses are shutting their doors permanently and new political corruption scandals make headlines nearly every day.

Politicians described the attack as a disturbing call to fix Italy's economy.

"From what we understand, it's mainly personal problems, work, personal debts" that fueled the gunman's attack, said Guglielmo Epifani, a top official in Premier Enrico Letta's center-left Democratic Party.

Epifani said in a state TV interview that while the financial crisis has caused some to commit suicide, "this is the first time someone shoots to kill" someone else "in a place filled with innocent people."

"The symbolism is there," he said. The political world "must highlight its responsibility during the crisis before the country," he said.

In brief comments to reporters after paying a hospital visit to the more seriously wounded policeman, Letta said, "it is a moment in which each must do one's own duty."

The 46-year-old Letta will speak to Parliament on Monday, laying out his strategy to reduce joblessness while still sticking to the austerity measures needed to keep the eurozone's No. 3 economy from descending into a sovereign debt crisis. He will then face confidence votes needed to confirm his government.

Prosecutors identified the gunman as Luigi Preiti. Jobless, with a broken marriage and reportedly burdened by gambling debts he couldn't pay, Preiti had recently returned from Italy's affluent north, where he could no longer find work. He moved into his parents' home in Rosarno, a bleak Calabrian farm town where unemployment was already endemic before the last years of stagnation and recession sent youth unemployment soaring to nearly 40 percent nationwide.

His intended target was politicians, but with none in the square, he shot at the Carabinieri paramilitary police, Rome Prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani told reporters, citing what he said Preiti told him when he questioned him.

Preiti, who was taken to the hospital for bruises, confessed to the shooting and didn't appear mentally unbalanced, Laviani said.

"He is a man full of problems, who lost his job, who lost everything," the prosecutor said. "He was desperate."

Mired in recession and suffering from soaring unemployment, Italy had been in political deadlock since an inconclusive February election. Social and political tensions have been running high among voters divided among a center-left bloc, conservative parties and an anti-establishment protest movement, which capitalized on public disgust with politicians to become Parliament's No. 3 force in its first national election bid.

The leader of the protest 5 Star Movement, comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, has been criticized for inflammatory statements in the past, including saying during a campaign rally that the Parliament building could be a bombing target. He incessantly derides mainstream politicians as the root of Italy's ills.

"Words thrown like stones can become bullets," Rome's right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, said after the shooting.

Grillo swiftly moved to distance what he describes as a grass-roots political movement from any calls to violence.

"The movement isn't at all violent," Grillo said.

Sunday was supposed to be a hopeful day with a new government, which, only a day earlier, was forged out of two bitter political enemies. Letta's forces, with strong roots in a former Communist party as well as centrist Christian Democrats, and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi's center-right bloc had agreed after days of negotiations to a kind of truce coalition intent on economic, political and electoral reform.

Then the sound of shots pierced the happy chatter in Piazza Colonna, near a busy shopping street shortly just as Letta and his new ministers were taking their oaths at the sumptuous hall of the Quirinal presidential palace, about a kilometer (half mile) away.

Sky TG24 TV and RAI state TV each showed a split screen, on one side, the chaos of panicked people fleeing the square; on the other side, smiling ministers taking the oath of office to work for the good of the nation.

"When I heard the first shot, I turned around and saw a man standing there, some 15 meters (50 feet) away from me. He held his arm out and I saw him fire another five, six shots," AP Television cameraman Fanuel Morelli, who was amazed at what appeared to be the man's deliberate calm, said. "He was firing at the second Carabiniere, who was about 4 meters (13 feet) in front of him."

The gunman was immediately wrestled to the ground by police outside Chigi Palace, which houses the premier's office. The new ministers arrived at the premier's office about 90 minutes later, for their first Cabinet meeting, some of them coming by foot as a way to reassure the public the area was safe.

The shooting panicked tourists and locals in the square on a rare sunny day at the end of a four-day holiday weekend.

A video surveillance camera on the Parliament building caught the attacker on film just before and during the shooting, Italian news reports said. In the film, the shooter is seen walking at a steady pace along a narrow street that leads from near Parliament's lower house to the edge of Colonna Square, where police officers appear to have stopped him to ask where he was going. Shortly after that, the man begins firing, the surveillance camera showed, according to the reports.

Alfano said Preiti wanted to kill himself after the shooting, but ran out of bullets. He said six shots were fired in all. Laviani said the assailant had obtained his weapons on the black market. Sky reported that Preiti had taken a train to Rome from Calabria on Saturday, and that police found his car parked at a southern train station.

The interior minister said security was immediately stepped up near key venues in the Italian capital, but added authorities were not worried about possible related attacks.

"Our initial investigation indicates the incident is due to an isolated gesture, although further investigations are being carried out," he said.

The ministers were kept briefly inside for security reasons until it was clear there was no immediate danger.

Preiti's uncle, interviewed by Sky, said the alleged gunman had moved back to his parents' home in Calabria because he could no longer find work as a bricklayer. "He was a great worker. He could build a house from top to bottom," the uncle, Domenco Preiti, said.

The shooting revived ugly memories of the 1970s and 1980s in Italy, when domestic terrorism plagued the country during a time of high political tension between right-wing and left-wing blocs.

President Barack Obama wished the new Italian government well. The White House press office said Obama was looking forward to working closely with Letta's government "to promote trade, jobs, and growth on both sides of the Atlantic and tackle today's complex security challenges."

There was no direct reference to the shooting in the White House statement.

Trying to renew Italy's largely discredited political class, Letta brought many political newcomers into his Cabinet, including an eye surgeon who is a Congo native, and now is Italy's first black minister, in charge of integration issues involving the growing immigrant population.

But the new premier also sought to reassure European central bankers and EU officials anxious that his government will stay the austerity course set by Mario Monti, who replaced Berlusconi in 2011 to save Italy from sliding deeper into the sovereign debt crisis. Letta picked the Italian central bank's director general, who formerly worked at the International Monetary Fund, to hold the crucial economy ministry.

While the coalition's bitter rival blocs might be enjoying a truce, relations could deteriorate. Berlusconi has insisted that the government's first act should be undoing a highly unpopular property tax Monti established to help the state's coffers.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italian-policemen-shot-near-govt-swearing-201756998.html

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In a first, black voter turnout rate passes whites

WASHINGTON (AP) ? America's blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.

Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.

Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year's heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the 2012 elections for the AP using census data on eligible voters and turnout, along with November's exit polling. He estimated total votes for Obama and Romney under a scenario where 2012 turnout rates for all racial groups matched those in 2004. Overall, 2012 voter turnout was roughly 58 percent, down from 62 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2004.

The analysis also used population projections to estimate the shares of eligible voters by race group through 2030. The numbers are supplemented with material from the Pew Research Center and George Mason University associate professor Michael McDonald, a leader in the field of voter turnout who separately reviewed aggregate turnout levels across states, as well as AP interviews with the Census Bureau and other experts. The bureau is scheduled to release data on voter turnout in May.

Overall, the findings represent a tipping point for blacks, who for much of America's history were disenfranchised and then effectively barred from voting until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

But the numbers also offer a cautionary note to both Democrats and Republicans after Obama won in November with a historically low percentage of white supporters. While Latinos are now the biggest driver of U.S. population growth, they still trail whites and blacks in turnout and electoral share, because many of the Hispanics in the country are children or noncitizens.

In recent weeks, Republican leaders have urged a "year-round effort" to engage black and other minority voters, describing a grim future if their party does not expand its core support beyond white males.

The 2012 data suggest Romney was a particularly weak GOP candidate, unable to motivate white voters let alone attract significant black or Latino support. Obama's personal appeal and the slowly improving economy helped overcome doubts and spur record levels of minority voters in a way that may not be easily replicated for Democrats soon.

Romney would have erased Obama's nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey's analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.

More significantly, the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same.

"The 2012 turnout is a milestone for blacks and a huge potential turning point," said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University who has written extensively on black politicians. "What it suggests is that there is an 'Obama effect' where people were motivated to support Barack Obama. But it also means that black turnout may not always be higher, if future races aren't as salient."

Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant who is advising GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a possible 2016 presidential contender, says the last election reaffirmed that the Republican Party needs "a new message, a new messenger and a new tone." Change within the party need not be "lock, stock and barrel," Ayres said, but policy shifts such as GOP support for broad immigration legislation will be important to woo minority voters over the longer term.

"It remains to be seen how successful Democrats are if you don't have Barack Obama at the top of the ticket," he said.

___

In Ohio, a battleground state where the share of eligible black voters is more than triple that of other minorities, 27-year-old Lauren Howie of Cleveland didn't start out thrilled with Obama in 2012. She felt he didn't deliver on promises to help students reduce college debt, promote women's rights and address climate change, she said. But she became determined to support Obama as she compared him with Romney.

"I got the feeling Mitt Romney couldn't care less about me and my fellow African-Americans," said Howie, an administrative assistant at Case Western Reserve University's medical school who is paying off college debt.

Howie said she saw some Romney comments as insensitive to the needs of the poor. "A white Mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees just doesn't quite fit my idea of a president," she said. "Bottom line, Romney was not someone I was willing to trust with my future."

The numbers show how population growth will translate into changes in who votes over the coming decade:

?The gap between non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black turnout in 2008 was the smallest on record, with voter turnout at 66.1 percent and 65.2 percent, respectively; turnout for Latinos and non-Hispanic Asians trailed at 50 percent and 47 percent. Rough calculations suggest that in 2012, 2 million to 5 million fewer whites voted compared with 2008, even though the pool of eligible white voters had increased.

?Unlike other minority groups, the rise in voting for the slow-growing black population is due to higher turnout. While blacks make up 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of total 2012 votes cast, according to exit polling. That was a repeat of 2008, when blacks "outperformed" their eligible voter share for the first time on record.

?Latinos now make up 17 percent of the population but 11 percent of eligible voters, due to a younger median age and lower rates of citizenship and voter registration. Because of lower turnout, they represented just 10 percent of total 2012 votes cast. Despite their fast growth, Latinos aren't projected to surpass the share of eligible black voters until 2024, when each group will be roughly 13 percent. By then, 1 in 3 eligible voters will be nonwhite.

?In 2026, the total Latino share of voters could jump to as high as 16 percent, if nearly 11 million immigrants here illegally become eligible for U.S. citizenship. Under a proposed bill in the Senate, those immigrants would have a 13-year path to citizenship. The share of eligible white voters could shrink to less than 64 percent in that scenario. An estimated 80 percent of immigrants here illegally, or 8.8 million, are Latino, although not all will meet the additional requirements to become citizens.

"The 2008 election was the first year when the minority vote was important to electing a U.S. president. By 2024, their vote will be essential to victory," Frey said. "Democrats will be looking at a landslide going into 2028 if the new Hispanic voters continue to favor Democrats."

___

Even with demographics seeming to favor Democrats in the long term, it's unclear whether Obama's coalition will hold if blacks or younger voters become less motivated to vote or decide to switch parties.

Minority turnout tends to drop in midterm congressional elections, contributing to larger GOP victories as happened in 2010, when House control flipped to Republicans.

The economy and policy matter. Exit polling shows that even with Obama's re-election, voter support for a government that does more to solve problems declined from 51 percent in 2008 to 43 percent last year, bolstering the view among Republicans that their core principles of reducing government are sound.

The party's "Growth and Opportunity Project" report released last month by national leaders suggests that Latinos and Asians could become more receptive to GOP policies once comprehensive immigration legislation is passed.

Whether the economy continues its slow recovery also will shape voter opinion, including among blacks, who have the highest rate of unemployment.

Since the election, optimism among nonwhites about the direction of the country and the economy has waned, although support for Obama has held steady. In an October AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of nonwhites said the nation was heading in the right direction; that's dropped to 52 percent in a new AP-GfK poll. Among non-Hispanic whites, however, the numbers are about the same as in October, at 28 percent.

Democrats in Congress merit far lower approval ratings among nonwhites than does the president, with 49 percent approving of congressional Democrats and 74 percent approving of Obama.

William Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, says that in previous elections where an enduring majority of voters came to support one party, the president winning re-election ? William McKinley in 1900, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 ? attracted a larger turnout over his original election and also received a higher vote total and a higher share of the popular vote. None of those occurred for Obama in 2012.

Only once in the last 60 years has a political party been successful in holding the presidency more than eight years ? Republicans from 1980-1992.

"This doesn't prove that Obama's presidency won't turn out to be the harbinger of a new political order," Galston says. "But it does warrant some analytical caution."

Early polling suggests that Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton could come close in 2016 to generating the level of support among nonwhites as Obama did in November, when he won 80 percent of their vote. In a Fox News poll in February, 75 percent of nonwhites said they thought Clinton would make a good president, outpacing the 58 percent who said that about Vice President Joe Biden.

Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP, predicts closely fought elections in the near term and worries that GOP-controlled state legislatures will step up efforts to pass voter ID and other restrictions to deter blacks and other minorities from voting. In 2012, African-Americans were able to turn out in large numbers only after a very determined get-out-the-vote effort by the Obama campaign and black groups, he said.

Jealous says the 2014 midterm election will be the real bellwether for black turnout. "Black turnout set records this year despite record attempts to suppress the black vote," he said.

___

AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ "America at the Tipping Point: The Changing Face of a Nation" is an occasional series examining the cultural mosaic of the U.S. and its historic shift to a majority-minority nation.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-black-voter-turnout-rate-passes-whites-115957314.html

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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Cyberattack suspect had 'bunker' in north Spain

MADRID (AP) ? A Dutch citizen arrested in northeast Spain on suspicion of launching what is described as the biggest cyberattack in Internet history operated from a bunker and had a van capable of hacking into networks anywhere in the country, officials said Sunday.

The suspect traveled in Spain using his van "as a mobile computing office, equipped with various antennas to scan frequencies," an Interior Ministry statement said.

Agents arrested him Thursday in the city of Granollers, 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Barcelona, complying with a European arrest warrant issued by Dutch authorities.

He is accused of attacking the Swiss-British anti-spam watchdog group Spamhaus whose main task is to halt ads for counterfeit Viagra and bogus weight-loss pills reaching the world's inboxes.

The statement said officers uncovered the computer hacker's bunker, "from where he even did interviews with different international media."

The 35-year-old, whose birthplace was given as the western Dutch city of Alkmaar, was identified only by his initials: S.K.

The statement said the suspect called himself a diplomat belonging to the "Telecommunications and Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Republic of Cyberbunker."

Spanish police were alerted in March by Dutch authorities of large denial-of-service attacks being launched from Spain that were affecting Internet servers in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the U.S. These attacks culminated with a major onslaught on Spamhaus.

The Netherlands National Prosecution Office described them as "unprecedentedly serious attacks on the nonprofit organization Spamhaus."

The largest assault clocked in at 300 billion bits per second, according to San Francisco-based CloudFlare Inc., which Spamhaus enlisted to help it weather the onslaught.

Denial-of-service attacks overwhelm a server with traffic, jamming it with incoming messages. Security experts measure the attacks in bits of data per second. Recent cyberattacks ? such as the ones that caused persistent outages at U.S. banking sites late last year ? have tended to peak at 100 billion bits per second, one third the size of that experienced by Spamhaus.

Netherlands, German, British and U.S. police forces took part in the investigation leading to the arrest, Spain said.

The suspect is expected to be extradited from Spain to face justice in the Netherlands.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cyberattack-suspect-had-bunker-north-spain-110421618.html

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Equestrian Team Makes It Look Easy | BU Today | Boston University

In the video above, watch members of the Boston University equestrian team as they practice and compete. Riding requires a combination of physical strength, smarts, and a "feel" for the horse. Photos by Kalman Zabarsky View closed captions on YouTube

Name the most physically and mentally challenging, adrenaline-rushing, and potentially dangerous sport at BU. Did you say equestrian? If not, perhaps you should think again.

?Riding is not like any other sport where you just play with a bunch of other kids,? says Lily Zarrella (CAS?13), captain of the BU equestrian team (BUET). ?Your teammate is this living, breathing animal that you can?t talk to and you have to figure out a way to communicate with. The relationship that you have with the horses is unique. They?re not pets; they?re athletes.?

Equestrian may not be a high-profile club sport, but it?s been thriving at the University for more than 20 years. Coach Phyllis Cervelli has led BUET all of that time out of her Holly Hill Show Stable, in Hanover, Mass. She?s taken at least three individuals and one team to the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association national championships. This year?s team placed 3rd out of 11 schools in the region, coming in behind Tufts and Stonehill College. Two riders, Meghan Kaupp (SMG?15) and Sarah Broadbent (CAS?16), will attend nationals in Harrisburg, Pa., the first week in May.

?We?re actually a really good team,? Kaupp says, ?and no one knows about us.?

No one at BU anyway. But at competitions the team gets plenty of respect. On a frigid morning in late March at Dry Water Farm, in Stoughton, Mass., the scents of hot chocolate, horse manure, and hay mingled in the open barn as BUET members prepared for their final competition of the season. They huddled in the observation area along with other teams and rugged spectators, many wrapped in blankets and hunkered into camping chairs for the long day ahead.

Before the competition began, officials from the host stable warmed up the horses in the ring?partly to accustom the one-ton beasts to the course and partly to allow riders to observe their new steeds. Horses and riders are matched at random so no one has an unfair advantage.

Boston University BU equestrian club BUET, Holly Hill Show Stable, Intercollegiate Horse Show Association national championships, Dry Water Farm

Lily Zarrella (CAS?13), captain of the BU equestrian team, with her horse at Holly Hill Show Stable in Hanover, Mass.

?The biggest thing for us is learning to do a skill set that we can transfer to other horses,? says Kaupp. ?We could get anything from a small pony to a huge draft horse? during a competition.

That places the onus on riders to figure out their horse, and fast. ?It?s all about feel,? says Zarrella, who was named Captain of the Year by the region?s coaches. ?You don?t know until you get on.?

Once they?ve been assigned horses, competitors review cheat sheets describing how their ?teammate? prefers to be ridden. At the Stoughton competition, for example, Fred appreciated that his rider ?carry a crop, but not use it.? And Tillie liked ?a soft ride? and ?hates tight reins.?

Riders in the fences competitions, who jump over low-slung hurdles on their mounts, memorize the course and then walk it to calculate how many strides their horse should take between each fence. ?We don?t really just steer over the jump and hope we make it,? says Carly Corbacho (SMG?15), an experienced rider who just missed qualifying for the nationals. ?We plan it out perfectly.? The whole point is ?to make each look exactly the same.?

Zarrella says riders are judged by position, control, and ?how pretty we can make it look? in their identical tan riding pants, dark navy jackets, polished black riding boots, and black helmets.

But here?s the clincher: riders have to do all that while looking like they haven?t moved a muscle.

Throughout the morning in Stoughton, riders and their horses jumped, trotted, cantered, came to full stops, and reversed directions in various events without giving an apparent visible or audible signal?although plenty of instruction was being exchanged. Making this fluid performance look effortless, of course, requires enormous effort, as well as physical strength (forged through hours at the gym and at the stables) and an instinctive ?feel? for a horse.

Boston University BU equestrian club BUET, Holly Hill Show Stable, Intercollegiate Horse Show Association national championships, Dry Water Farm, coach Phyllis Cervelli

Meghan Kaupp (SMG?15) (from left), coach Phyllis Cervelli, and Zarrella.

The instruction flows from rider to horse through such things as a gentle whisper or the pressure of riders? legs, hands, and seat. ?All the aids that the riders use are supposed to be very subtle,? says Cervelli. ?Any combination of your natural aids is what makes the horse do exactly what you want.?

Judges watch, hawk-like, as riders jump individually over fences or compete ?on the flat? by walking, trotting, or cantering in a group at advanced, intermediate, and novice levels.

?Each judge looks for something different,? Cervelli says. ?It?s more the general impression the rider makes, which can be different on certain days if you have a horse that you don?t get along with.?It?s the reason why nobody wins all the time.?

But, the riders say, there is a widespread belief that judges prefer a certain type of rider: male.

?Boys are loved in riding because it?s such a female-populated sport,? says Corbacho. Luckily for BUET, the team had at least one male rider in Stoughton?Daniel Herbick (COM?15), who competed in the novice flat event.

Scoring is complicated. As Cervelli explains it, each school gets a point card with eight levels?from open fences to walk trot. Coaches pick a team point rider in each level, and immediately after each event, judges announce the first through sixth place riders, who earn points by ranking. Those who aren?t riding for team points still tally individual points and play defense, meaning they try to win big points to keep other teams? point riders from grabbing them.

Broadbent took first place in her intermediate fences class at Stoughton and scored seven points for her team. She also counted those points toward her individual season tally. Riders who earn 36 points in a season automatically qualify for the regional competition, even if their team does not.

Boston University BU equestrian club BUET, Holly Hill Show Stable, Intercollegiate Horse Show Association national championships, Dry Water Farm, coach Phyllis Cervelli

Advanced riders like Kaupp learned to ride a horse before they were in elementary school.

BUET?s more experienced riders learned to ride before they entered elementary school. They share stories of concussions and broken ankles or collarbones from being tossed from a testy horse. And it can get worse. In June 2012, Time magazine reported that 12 professional riders died between 2007 and 2008. The sport?s death toll led officials to question whether equestrian should be included in last year?s London Olympics. (It was.)

During the warm-up at the Stoughton competition, an eerie silence fell over the crowd when one horse bucked and minutes later tossed its rider to the ground. She was fine, but the incident prompted officials to ask the crowd to keep their voices down.

Kaupp has had her share of injuries, but that doesn?t keep her from the animals she loves. ?There?s something about them that just makes your day better,? she says. ?I get really excited about training a horse. When you break through to somehow get this 2,000-pound animal to do what you want, it?s really rewarding.?

The BU equestrian team holds tryouts at the beginning of fall and spring semesters. All levels of riders, from beginners to advanced, are welcome. For more information, contact the club via Facebook.

Source: http://www.bu.edu/today/2013/equestrian-team-makes-it-look-easy/

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