Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Apple taps European exec to run retail unit

Apple Inc hired John Browett, chief executive of Europe's second biggest electronics retailer Dixons Retail, to head its retail store business as it expands into new markets like China.

The iPad and the iPhone maker is trying to tap into Browett's international retail experience to fill in the vacuum left by the departure of Ron Johnson, who led the launch of Apple's retail stores in 2001.

Browett was earlier the CEO of Tesco.com, a division of World No.3 retailer Tesco Plc.

Beginning in April, Browett will be responsible for Apple's retail strategy and the continued expansion of Apple retail stores around the world, the most valuable technology company said in a statement.

China, one of the fastest growing markets, has been a particular challenge for Apple. Earlier this month, Apple halted sales of the iPhone 4S in the country. Angry shoppers, who were told that sales of the iPhone would be postponed, pelted stores with eggs.

Dixon Retail's shares fell as much as 13 percent earlier in the day. The stock were trading down 5 percent at 14.5 pence at 1205 GMT on Tuesday on the London Stock Exchange.

Johnson became the CEO of J.C. Penney Co Inc in June last year.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46201555/ns/business-retail/

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Insight: From darkest India, an enlightened leader (Reuters)

PATNA, India (Reuters) ? There's an apocryphal story about Bihar, a sprawling state on the Gangetic plains of eastern India that for decades held the dubious honor of being the most violent, poverty-stricken and corrupt in the land.

A Japanese minister visiting in the 1990s, shocked at the decrepit buildings, the darkness at night even in the centre of town and the crumbling roads, declared that it was all solvable.

"Give me three years," he told a state leader, "and I can turn Bihar into Japan."

"That's nothing," came the laconic reply from his host. "Give me three days and I will turn Japan into Bihar."

Bihar is no longer the butt of jokes, however, not since Nitish Kumar took charge of the ruined state in 2005 and began to turn it around -- winning such respect that he stands a decent chance of one day becoming prime minister of India.

"My first priority was governance, my second priority was governance and my third priority was governance," Chief Minister Kumar told Reuters at his office in the state capital, Patna, a dusty city where property prices have soared to levels paid in far away New Delhi, even as its streets teem with the desperately poor.

"Bihar suffered not because of bad governance but because of a lack of governance."

When India launched reforms to open up its state-stifled economy 20 years ago, many states surged ahead, leaving behind the 3.5 percent "Hindu rate of growth" that had plagued the decades after the country's independence from Britain in 1947, and with it Bihar.

Bihar is still India's most impoverished state: landlocked, not blessed with resources and prone to catastrophic flooding, its annual per-capita income of about $400 is just a third of the national average. Its 104 million overwhelmingly farm-dependent people have India's worst literacy rate and the lowest proportion of households with electricity, and the state scores miserably on the U.N.'s Human Development Index.

It's hard to imagine that in ancient times Bihar was the centre of the flourishing Magadha empires and the region where the Buddha lived and attained enlightenment.

And yet the state's dismally low income level has grown 250 percent since Kumar took the helm, more than double the national average. The growth of its economy has surged into double figures to become India's second-fastest growing state, driven by hefty public spending on roads and buildings and rapid expansion in services such as hotels and restaurants.

RESTORING FAITH

Kumar has done much more than bring growth. Working until midnight most days for the past six years, he has declared war on crime and corruption, introduced an act that gives citizens the right to efficient public services, launched a frenzy of road-building, empowered women and promoted education, offering a free bicycle to every girl that registers in a Grade 9 class.

"Everything had gone to the dogs," said Prakash Jha, one of Bihar's favorite sons, a Bollywood film-maker who has chronicled many of the state's ills, including the once-thriving industry of kidnapping businessmen.

"What Nitish Kumar has been able to do is restore faith in the society of Bihar. We had almost given up, but now you feel you can do things in Bihar," said Jha, who has put his money where his mouth is, spending $12 million on a shopping mall and cinema multiplex in Patna, the state's first.

Kumar is not without detractors: critics say he is poor at delegating, causes bottlenecks by amassing all decision-making in his office and accomplishes far less than he claims.

"This is a government of denting, painting and decorating," said state opposition leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui. "It's all on the surface. Nitish Kumar will hold a ceremony to inaugurate the ditch and then another for the bridge built over it."

Still, the contrast between the hyper-active chief minister of Bihar and the central government in New Delhi could hardly be more stark after months of drift and policy paralysis under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that have contributed to a slowdown in the country's stellar economic growth.

AN IDEOLOGY OF HUMANISM

A vegetable garden borders the path that leads to the simple Patna bungalow where the chief minister has his office. On a shelf inside his sparsely furnished room, there are several trophies awarded by media groups for "Indian of the Year." There is just one picture on the wall, an image of Mahatma Gandhi, father of independent India.

Kumar's father was a freedom-fighter during British rule, but the son has always been implacably opposed to the Congress party that led the struggle for independence and its Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of leaders, defining himself more by his vision of social justice than any political group.

"His is not an ideology of a political party, it's an ideology of humanism," said M.J. Akbar, one of India's best-known newspaper editors and a former member of parliament for a Bihar constituency.

Meticulously turned out in a creaseless cream tunic, sleeveless Nehru jacket and a grey scarf, 60-year-old Kumar smiles gently as he explains his style of governance: "pro-poor and pro-people."

An engineering graduate, Kumar first got a toehold in state politics and then in New Delhi, where he was a member of parliament and the country's railways minister in a coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He won elections in Bihar for his Janata Dal (United) party six years ago and, in a ringing endorsement of his policies, he was voted back to power in 2010.

Kumar's party is still aligned with the BJP, and popular wisdom has is that if their coalition wins the general election in 2014 he could be a strong contender to become prime minister.

Does he dream of leading the country one day?

"Not really," he says diffidently. "Serving my own people gives me satisfaction. I don't have any ambition. I don't have that kind of desire."

Not content to sit in Patna for long, Kumar gets around Bihar's 38 districts, talking to people on streets and in village squares to find out what they want fixed. These audiences are followed by meetings with district officials at which he prods the state's bureaucracy to respond.

"Why is there darkness around the lamp?" he asked at one such meeting in Patna recently, when he was informed that a scheme to provide free meals for schoolchildren was least effective in and around the city. "This is the capital, you all live here, we have to improve this."

Later, when told of plans to hire more land records staff, he instructed officials to make sure there were desks and offices ready for them. "We don't want them loitering in the corridors," he said, his voice restrained but still dominating the room filled with more than 100 bureaucrats.

This direct and no-nonsense delivery belies his apparent bonhomie.

"He is a very confident person who disguises his confidence with a great amount of modesty," said Akbar.

VOTES ARE 'CASTE'

It is sometimes said that in Bihar people "don't cast their votes, they vote for their caste."

That is because, besides being blighted by poverty, its people have long been sharply divided by Hinduism's social hierarchy. In the fairly recent past, upper and lower caste groups kept private armies, and pitched battles between them or massacres by one side or another were common.

Fanning the caste-based politics of Bihar in the 1990s was Lalu Prasad Yadav, now a lawmaker in New Delhi. A charismatic leader from a "backward" caste whose trademark humor can make a budget speech sound like a stand-up routine, Yadav's reign was dubbed the "Jungle Raj" as the rule of law broke down.

Kumar also belongs to a minority "backward" caste and was aligned with Yadav for years before they parted ways. One factor behind his rise has been his resolve to woo voters not by social blocs but on the basis of his government's performance.

"Caste is the reality in the Indian system, but I have proved that caste does not decide the outcome of an election," he said.

Corruption is still endemic despite Kumar's crackdown. He has confiscated the houses of two corrupt officials to turn them into schools, and many others face the same fate, but critics say he is actually too tolerant of the graft around him.

Law and order remains a serious problem, too. In 2010, Bihar ranked second among the country's states for the number of people killed in violent crimes, and police seize tens of thousands of illegal firearms every year.

Still, many feel that Bihar is a safer place since Kumar launched an anti-crime drive. Residents now feel less frightened to drive at night in rural areas, where roadside hold-ups and kidnappings were once routine.

"Five years ago, if we had to travel from Gaya to Patna, we would leave by 3 in the afternoon so we could get to the city before dark," said Navendu Kumar Thakur, who runs a construction company in the state. Gaya is about 100 km (60 miles) south of the state capital. "Now, it doesn't matter if we leave at 9 at night, there's no problem on the road."

Kumar says restoring faith in the police and judiciary was a top priority.

"A reign of terror used to prevail in the society, Bihar used to be in the news for all the wrong reasons," he said. "My first task was to ensure rule of law and trust in the system."

WEAK ECONOMIC BASE

With the improvement in law and order, there has been tentative interest in setting up industries in Bihar, which is 90 percent dependent on agriculture after the mineral-rich region of Jharkhand was hived off into a separate state in 2000.

New industries in Bihar can receive up to 300 percent of capital invested in VAT refunds over 10 years, in addition to a host of other incentives.

"He (Kumar) has shown that grass can grow in a desert," said Prem Kumar Agrawal, part-owner of a biscuit-making plant in the Hajipur industrial park near Patna, where half a dozen factories have opened in the past six months. With 300 workers, his enterprise produces 70-75 tonnes of biscuits per day.

"I give Nitish 9 out of 10 in terms of industrial policy," Agrawal said. "Bihar is now on the map."

But the new factories are only part of the story: abandoned buildings litter the rest of the industrial park, the metal fences on road dividers are rusty and the link to the nearby highway is a potholed and narrow road.

Manufacturing has in fact contributed very little to the surge in the economy's growth: with power cuts common, highways often jammed and graft still thriving, few investors are willing to brave Bihar yet. No surprise, then, that Bihar was ranked bottom last year in a state-by-state survey of economic freedom.

Official figures show that even agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, has contracted for the past six years, suggesting that the Bihar boom has been far from inclusive. Much of the growth has instead been generated by hefty public spending on construction, which means the Bihar boom may not have a solid enough base to be sustainable.

Indeed, Bihar is Exhibit A for the case that India is a two-track economy, with industry-friendly seaboard states rushing ahead as others grow from extremely low bases.

Shaibal Gupta, secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute in Patna, reckons that even if Bihar's growth continues at its current double-digit clip it would take 18 years to catch up with the present-day wealth of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital, Mumbai.

"We can't call it a miracle," Gupta said. "It's some change at an initial level that should have happened 60 years ago."

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120131/wl_nm/us_india_bihar

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Mary Tyler Moore honored for lifetime achievement (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Mary Tyler Moore made it after all.

The 75-year-old actress, who as Mary Richards "turned the world on with her smile" in her groundbreaking 1970s sitcom "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," received the lifetime achievement award at Sunday night's 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

"MTM. There's probably not a person in the civilized world who doesn't know what that means," said Dick Van Dyke, her former co-star in the equally appealing 1960s sit-com "The Dick Van Dyke show," as he introduced her.

He noted Moore's achievements as an Oscar-nominated actress, a dancer and a Hollywood executive whose MTM Enterprises has produced several other hit TV shows.

As she accepted her award, Moore revealed how the civilized world almost never did hear of MTM, who was told in the opening theme song of her show each week, "You're gonna make it after all."

When she entered show business at age 18 in 1955, Moore said, there were already six others Mary Moores in the Screen Actors Guild.

Told to change her name, she quickly added Tyler, the middle name of both her and her father, George.

"I was Mary Tyler Moore. I spoke it out loud. Mary Tyler Moore. It sounded right so I wrote it down on the form, and it looked right," she said. "It was right. SAG was happy, my father was happy, and tonight, after having the privilege of working in this business among the most creative and talented people imaginable, I too am happy, after all."

Before the awards show Van Dyke had stopped on the red carpet to remember working with Moore on his show.

"She was 23 and had never done comedy. I never saw somebody pick it up so fast. I still have a crush on her," he said.

The show's audience, including Moore's former co-star Betty White, showered both her and Van Dyke with standing ovations, leading Van Dyke to remind them, "I'm just a presenter."

Van Dyke and Moore were so believable as husband and wife Rob and Laura Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" that many viewers thought they were married in real life.

As Laura Petrie, Moore also turned Capri pants into a fashion trend during the show's run.

Van Dyke noted they fit her so well, which created such a concern during that more conservative era, that she was limited to wearing them in only one scene per show.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_en_ce/us_sag_awards_mary_tyler_moore

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Ahead in Florida, Romney turns focus back to Obama (AP)

MIAMI ? Mitt Romney is striding into the homestretch of the pivotal GOP Florida presidential primary with the confidence of a resurgent front-runner.

His main rival, Newt Gingrich, is hustling around the state as he tries to rekindle the energy that lifted him to victory in the South Carolina primary. He says he could lose Tuesday in Florida but promises to soldier on.

Gingrich picked up the endorsement Saturday of Herman Cain, a Georgia businessman, tea party favorite and former presidential hopeful. Cain's bid for the White House was derailed by allegations he sexually harassed several women.

Rick Santorum cancelled his Sunday campaign events after his young daughter was hospitalized. She suffers from a serious genetic disorder.

Ron Paul has invested little time and effort in the Florida contest.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Celebrity pot busts put tiny Texas county on map (AP)

SIERRA BLANCA, Texas ? Nestled among the few remaining businesses that dot a rundown highway in this dusty West Texas town stands what's become a surprise destination for marijuana-toting celebrities: the Hudspeth County Jail.

Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg and actor Armie Hammer have been among the thousands of people busted for possession at a Border Patrol checkpoint outside town in recent years, bringing a bit of notoriety to one of Texas' most sparsely populated counties.

"Once I was in Arizona, and when I said where I was from, they said, `That's where Willie Nelson was busted,'" said Louise Barantley, manager at the Coyote Sunset souvenir shop in Sierra Blanca.

Hudspeth County cameos aren't only for outlaws: Action movie star Steven Seagal, who's already deputized in Louisiana and Arizona for his reality show "Steven Seagal Lawman" on A&E, has signed on to become a county officer.

Locals already have found ways to rub shoulders with their celebrity guests.

Deputies posed for pictures with Snoop Dogg after authorities said they found several joints on his bus earlier this month. When Nelson was busted here in 2010, the county's lead prosecutor suggested the singer settle his marijuana charges by performing "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" for the court. Nelson paid a fine instead, but not before county commissioner Wayne West played one of his own songs for the country music legend.

West acknowledged he's a big fan of Nelson and wanted to capitalize on a golden chance to perform for such a noted "captive audience."

"Willie loved the song, he is a real outgoing individual" he added.

The once-thriving town of Sierra Blanca began to shrink to its current 1,000-person population after the construction of nearby Interstate 10 ? a main artery linking cities from California to Florida ? offered an easy way to bypass the community.

Now the highway is sending thousands of drug bust cases Sierra Blanca's way, courtesy of a Border Patrol checkpoint just outside of town where drug-sniffing dogs inspect more than 17,000 trucks, travelers ? and tour buses ? daily for whiffs of contraband that may have made its wait inland from the border.

Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, younger brother of the musically inclined commissioner, said his office handled about 2,000 cases last year, most of them having to do with drugs seized at the checkpoint.

Border Patrol agents say people busted with small amounts of pot often say they have medical marijuana licenses from California, Arizona or New Mexico ? three states along I-10 that, unlike Texas, allow for medicinal pot prescriptions ? and claim to believe the licenses were valid nationwide.

Nelson's publicists declined to comment about the specifics of the singer's case. Representatives for Snoop Dogg, who will pay a fine and court costs after being cited for possession of marijuana paraphernalia, did not return several messages seeking comment.

County authorities have not yet decided whether to prosecute or issue a citation for Hammer, who starred in the 2010 film "The Social Network" and more recently played FBI's number two man in "Edgar J." He was arrested in November after authorities said they found marijuana-laced brownies and cookies on his way to his wife's bakery in San Antonio. His attorney Kent Schaffer has called the case a "total non-issue."

Local officials say they're not on a celebrity witch hunt, but some residents are enjoying the publicity from the high-profile arrests. They say the once forgotten town of Sierra Blanca should take pride in not pandering to famous people caught breaking the law.

"We get attention because something is being done right," resident Adolfo Gonzalez said while shopping at a local convenience store. "It'd be worse if we'd let them go because they are celebrities."

That's not expected to change when Segal comes to town. Sheriff West insists the "Under Siege" star hasn't indicated any plans to film his show here ? but the sheriff isn't ruling it out.

"If he wants to, we can do it but that's not what he said this was about," West said.

West's spokesman, Rusty Flemming, said Seagal will patrol the area and train colleagues in martial arts and weapons techniques. The actor is expected to arrive in Hudspeth County within months, once he's done filming a new movie in Canada.

Segal's management agency did not return calls and emails seeking comment about his plans in Texas.

Commissioner West, meanwhile, is keeping his musical skills sharp ? just in case another performer pays a surprise visit to the county jail. The lead guitarist and vocalist of a local band, West said he regrets not having a chance to sing for Snoop Dogg, but wasn't sure if the rapper would have enjoyed the performance anyway.

"Our stuff is laid back," he said. "Mas o menos (more or less) country."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_en_ot/us_celebrity_checkpoint

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Wagner wins 1st title in night of flawed skating

(AP) ? Ashley Wagner has won her first title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, salvaging what was an otherwise dismal night of skating with a signature performance.

Third after the short program, Wagner needed a dazzling show and some help from others. She did her part, scoring 187.02 points, and then watched as two-time champ Alissa Czisny and Agnes Zawadzki melted down after her. When Wagner saw the final results, tears filled her eyes and she rested a hand on the shoulder of coach John Nicks.

Czisny managed to stay second, finishing seven points behind Wagner. Zawadzki was third.

Earlier Saturday, Meryl Davis and Charlie White won their fourth straight dance title.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-28-US%20Championships/id-aa9d753245f44670b0da98b67f2b2e71

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Demi Moore's 911 Call: "She Smoked Something"

The 911 call that was made on Monday night before Demi Moore was rushed to an L.A. hospital was released today, revealing that the 49-year-old had "smoked something." This new information will likely dispel the previous rumor that Moore collapsed after having seizure-like symptoms from inhaling a dangerous amount of nitrous oxide.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/demi-moores-911-call-she-smoked-something/1-a-422781?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Ademi-moores-911-call-she-smoked-something-422781

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Tomorrow's Spies Will Drop F-BOMBS All Over the Place [Spying]

Fuck. It's a word that commands attention. These F-BOMB computers, however, are designed to do just the opposite—quietly and inconspicuously gather sensitive information from within secure areas. And if the F-Bomb is discovered or destroyed, fuck it! It only cost $50 to build in the first place. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Ejx6ye4w12Y/tomorrows-spies-will-drop-f+bombs-all-over-the-place

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Friday, January 27, 2012

UN Security Council to discuss Syrian crisis (AP)

UNITED NATIONS ? The U.N. Security Council will discuss the crisis in Syria during an unexpected meeting Friday afternoon, French and other diplomats said.

The French mission to the U.N. said in a Twitter posting late Thursday that the council will meet at 3 p.m. "to discuss steps to take on the situation in Syria." The meeting was later confirmed by other diplomats and listed on an updated U.N. media schedule.

The U.N. says at least 5,400 have been killed in a monthslong Syrian government crackdown on civilian protests.

European diplomats have been meeting this week with diplomats from Arab countries, including Morocco and Qatar, on a resolution that would strongly back an Arab League bid to end the crisis.

"There is now a chance that the Security Council will finally take a clear stand on Syria. That is long overdue," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Friday at the General Affairs Council in Brussels. The comments were provided by the German mission to the U.N.

Diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be quoted by the media said a vote was not expected until at least next week.

On Tuesday, the Arab League secretary-general and Qatar's prime minister will brief the Security Council on the situation in Syria.

Permanent council members Russia and China used their veto powers last fall to block an earlier European resolution on Syria. On Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying Moscow will oppose a new draft U.N. resolution on Syria because it fails to take Kremlin's concerns into account.

The Arab-European draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, expresses support of the Arab League's Jan. 22 decision "to facilitate a political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system."

The draft does not mention sanctions, but calls for the adoption of unspecified "further measures, in consultation with the League of Arab States," if Syria does not comply within 15 days.

The draft also condemns the "continued widespread and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities" and demands that the Syrian government immediately stop all human rights violations.

The Arab League has sent observers to Syria, but the mission has been widely criticized for failing to stop the violence. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pulled out of the mission Tuesday, asking the Security Council to intervene because the Syrian government has not halted its crackdown.

The head of Arab League observers in Syria said in a statement that violence in the country has spiked over the past few days. Sudanese Gen. Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi said the cities of Homs, Hama and Idlib have all witnessed a "very high escalation" in violence since Tuesday.

___

Associated Press writer Zeina Karam in Beirut contributed to this report.

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

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Communications Equipment Retailing in China: Market Snapshot to ...

Written by admin | January 27, 2012 |

Communications Equipment Retailing in China: Market Snapshot to 2015?

China?Communications Equipment Market?

Synopsis
ICD Research?s, Communications Equipment Retailing in China: Market Snapshot to 2015 contains headline figures for retailing of communications equipment category in China

Summary
ICD Research?s Communications Equipment Retailing in China: Market Snapshot to 2015 is the easiest way to find the headline figures for the category. The report contains historical and forecast sales value as well as the category?s share of the overall market in which it is classified.

This report is aimed at those who want just data and figures without analysis. It does not contain the analysis which can be found in our more comprehensive Databook or Market Intelligence reports.

Scope
Provides a category overview.
Features historical key figures on retail market values segmented at category level.
Forecasts statistics to 2015

Browse:?China Market

ReasonsToBuy
Provides you with headline figures of specific retail categories within a particular geography.
Allows you to analyze market as the report offers a snapshot highlighting key figures of category group sales value and category analysis, sales.
Forecast figures for the category can help you plan future decisions based on this data.
Enhance your knowledge of industry and segmentation at category level.
Identify market growth/decline rates in specific category which will help you make well-informed business decisions.

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Source: http://www.wpt9.com/communications-equipment-retailing-in-china-market-snapshot-to-2015/

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Mexico: 5 slain police tried to extort suspects (AP)

TOLUCA, Mexico ? Mexican authorities say five police officers fatally shot near Mexico City after stopping a car were trying to extort money when they were attacked.

Mexico State prosecutor Alfredo Castillo says the officers from the town of Ixtapaluca (Itz-tah-pah-lu-ca) asked the four La Familia Michoacana cartel members in the vehicle for 6,000 pesos (about $460) to let them go.

Castillo quotes one of the four as saying they told the officers they had only 2,000 pesos and would have to get the rest from friends. He says the suspects then sent a text message asking to be rescued. Several gunmen arrived and opened fire.

Castillo said Wednesday that one of the men in the car was killed and another is hospitalized with a head wound.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_police_killed

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Netflix sees DVD business withering, gives up on video games ...

Qwikster

Netflix has given up all hope that there's a future in DVDs.

Just last summer, the subscription video company was touting the potential of its DVD business as it established a separate unit to focus on it. "In Q4, we'll also return to marketing our DVD-by-mail service, something we haven't done for many quarters," Chief Executive Reed Hastings and Chief Financial Officer David Wells said in a July letter to shareholders. "Our goal is to keep DVD as healthy as possible for as many years as possible."

But since the Qwikster debacle, when Netflix announced a separately branded business for DVD rentals and then abandoned it in the face of public outcry, the company appears to have given up on that goal.

On an earnings conference call with analysts Wednesday, Hastings said Netflix now has no plans to spend any marketing dollars on its DVD-by-mail service, which lost 2.76 million subscribers during the last three months of 2011.

"We expect DVD subscribers to decline each quarter forever," he said.

When the Qwikster plans were announced, Netflix also said it would add video games to its DVD-by-mail business. But Hastings said the company has given up on that plan as well.

RELATED:

Netflix expects heightened competition from Amazon.com

Netflix growing again, barely beats fourth quarter expectations

Redbox, Warner Bros. headed to war over new DVD rentals

-- Ben Fritz

Photo: Netflix aborted Qwikster.com website. Credit: Netflix

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/01/netflix-dvd-video-games.html

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Mitt Romney to release his taxes: beyond the obvious ($$), six things we can learn

Mitt Romney is releasing his 2010 tax returns and estimated 2011 taxes on Tuesday, providing information on his income, deductions, and how the wealthiest Americans navigate the system.

When Mitt Romney releases his tax returns for 2010 and his estimated taxes for 2011 Tuesday, tax experts expect it will be a relatively complicated return with schedules and forms that most Americans will never have to fill-out.

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As William Gale, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, sees it, Romney?s tax return will provide an ?opportunity to understand how high-income people navigate the tax system.?

In a statement, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul says the release, which is expected in the morning, will show that ?Governor Romney pays millions in taxes each year, that he gives millions in charitable contributions, and that his investments are reported and taxed in full compliance with US tax law. Governor Romney has paid 100 percent of what he has owed.?

Here are six key things to watch for:

One simple way to measure this would be to look at Mr. Romney?s tax liability divided by his adjusted gross income. At a recent press conference, Romney said he thought his tax rate would be about 15 percent.

However, some tax experts think it might be even lower. ?His tax rate is likely to be substantially below 15 percent,? says Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan group that looks at tax policy, in Washington. ?It could be as low as 13 percent,? he says.

On Monday, Warren Buffet, speaking to Bloomberg Television, said he did not fault the Republican presidential candidate. ?He will not pay more than the law requires,? said Mr. Buffet.

According to Romney?s comments in the recent past, his cash income would come from his speaking fees which he estimated at $370,000, plus some royalties on books.

But, the largest amount will come from long-term capital gains and dividends, taxed at 15 percent, from his time at Bain Capital, which he headed up from 1984 to 1999. On Tuesday, Romney will reveal how much that amounted to in the past two tax years.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/1LpG1JpauX0/Mitt-Romney-to-release-his-taxes-beyond-the-obvious-six-things-we-can-learn

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Steady Diet of Mental Stimulation Might Reduce Alzheimer's Risk (HealthDay)

MONDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) -- People who engage in activities such as reading and playing games throughout their lives may be lowering levels of a protein in their brains that is linked to Alzheimer's disease, a new study suggests.

Although whether the buildup of the protein, beta amyloid, causes Alzheimer's disease is debatable, it is a hallmark of the condition, the researchers noted.

"Staying cognitively active over the lifetime may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's by preventing the accumulation of Alzheimer's-related pathology," said study author Susan Landau, a research scientist at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Some of the literature has hypothesized this finding, but this is the first study to report that lifetime cognitive activity is directly linked to amyloid deposition in the brain," she said. "We think that cognitive activity is probably one of a variety of lifestyle practices -- occupational, recreational and social activities -- that may be important."

The report was published in the Jan. 23 online edition of the Archives of Neurology.

In the United States, more than 5 million people have Alzheimer's disease, and it is now the sixth-leading killer in the country, according to the researchers. No cure exists for the neurodegenerative condition, but a draft of the first-ever National Alzheimer's Plan released last week laid out plans by the federal government to have effective treatment by 2025.

For the study, Landau's team used a special imaging technique called positron emission tomography, which is able to see beta amyloid plaque in the brain, plus neuropsychological tests to see what effect cognitive stimulation might have on Alzheimer's risk.

The tests were done on 65 healthy people, average age of about 76. In addition, they tested 10 patients with Alzheimer's disease whose average was nearly 75 and 11 young people who were an average of about 25 years old.

"We interviewed them about their lifetime participation in cognitively stimulating activities," said lead researcher Dr. William Jagust, a professor of neuroscience also at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.

The researchers found that people who engaged in brain-stimulating activities, particularly when they were young and middle-aged, had the least amount of beta amyloid.

Those older adults who reported the most activity had amyloid levels similar to those young individuals, while those who engaged in the least such activities had amyloid levels similar to the Alzheimer's patients.

"This study suggests that not only does it reduce your risk of Alzheimer's disease, but it may affect the pathological process itself," Jagust said.

Why this kind of mind stimulation reduces the amount of beta amyloid isn't known, he added.

"The environment may affect the amount of amyloid that's deposited," he said. "This kind of lifetime cognitive activity may make people's brains more efficient. And if your brain is functioning better, it's possible that would result in producing less of this amyloid," he explained.

"Cognitive activity seems to have powerful effects on the brain," Jagust said. "Lifestyle can have a profound effect on the basic biology of Alzheimer's disease."

The size of the effect isn't known nor is the size of the reduction in risk for Alzheimer's disease, he noted.

Greg M. Cole, associate director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that "a number of studies have suggested that increased education or cognitive activity associates with reduced risk for Alzheimer's."

"So if you have more wits to begin with, you can afford to lose more before you become impaired," he said.

However, this new study reports something different, namely that higher cognitive activity in young and middle-aged adults is associated with lower levels of Alzheimer's pathology, Cole said.

"There may be a plausible theory for this because increased brain use increases fitness and reduces the amount of brain activity required to execute a task, and production of the beta amyloid toxin is associated with brain activity. This is an interesting new finding that may have serious implications," he said.

Another expert, Dr. Sam Gandy, the Mount Sinai Professor of Alzheimer's Disease Research at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, added that "this new study jibes well with other existing epidemiological studies in which social engagement has been linked to successful cognitive aging on purely clinical grounds."

"There is also a link between physical activity and reduced risk for Alzheimer's, and one would guess that physical exercise might well delay onset of Alzheimer's if exercise were begun years before cognitive decline developed, but this is yet to be established," Gandy said.

More information

For more information on Alzheimer's disease, visit the Alzheimer's Association.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/seniors/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120123/hl_hsn/steadydietofmentalstimulationmightreducealzheimersrisk

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EU formally adopts Iran oil embargo (AP)

BRUSSELS ? European Union nations have formally adopted an oil embargo against Iran as part of sanctions over its nuclear program.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday called the measure part of "an unprecedented set of sanctions."

He says, "I think this shows the resolve of the European Union on this issue."

Diplomats say the measures, adopted by the EU's 27 foreign ministers, include an immediate embargo on new contracts for crude oil and petroleum products while existing ones are allowed to run until July.

Iran says its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes. But many international officials fear the country is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BRUSSELS (AP) ? European Union nations agreed Monday on an oil embargo against Iran as part of sanctions meant to pressure the country to resume talks on its nuclear program.

Diplomats said the EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels would officially adopt the measures later Monday, now that the details had been hashed out by the 27 ambassadors to the EU. The measures include an immediate ban on new contracts for Iranian crude oil and petroleum products, while existing contracts will be allowed to run until July.

"I am confident that the EU will give a resolute answer today to Iran's refusal to fulfill its international obligations on the nuclear program," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said, in anticipation of the official adoption by the foreign ministers.

Iran says its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, but many international officials fear the country is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

The EU will also likely freeze the assets of the Iranian central bank.

"The pressure of sanctions is designed to try and make sure that Iran takes seriously our request to come to the table," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

In October, Ashton sent a letter to Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, saying her goal was a negotiated solution that "restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."

She says she has not yet received a reply.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the goal of the sanctions would be to "increase the peaceful, legitimate pressure" on Iran to return to negotiations.

Negotiators have worked hard to try to ensure that the embargo punishes only Iran ? and not EU member Greece, which is in dire financial trouble and relies heavily on low-priced Iranian oil.

EU negotiators have agreed to a review of the effects of the sanctions, to be completed by May 1, a diplomat said. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject of ongoing talks.

"It is important to know what will happen to individual countries as a consequence of the sanctions," Ashton said.

Westerwelle said it was critical that action be taken.

"This is not a question of security in the region," he said. "It is a question of security in the world."

____

Raf Casert contributed to this report

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_re_eu/eu_eu_iran

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Bingham Ray Dies At Sundance

October Films co-founder and San Francisco Film Society executive director died near the Sundance Film Festival.
By Josh Wigler


Bingham Ray
Photo: Arun Nevader/WireImage

PARK CITY, Utah — Bingham Ray, a champion of independent filmmaking, died on Monday (January 23) near Park City, Utah, the Sundance Institute has announced.

Ray, 57, was the co-founder of October Films and the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society. He suffered a stroke during the Sundance Film Festival last week and was initially hospitalized in Park City. Following a second stroke, Ray was transferred to Provo, where he later died.

"It is with great sadness that the Sundance Institute acknowledges the passing of Bingham Ray, cherished independent film executive and most recently Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Society," reads a statement posted on Deadline. "On behalf of the independent film community in Park City for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and elsewhere, we offer our support and condolences to his family. Bingham's many contributions to this community and business are indelible, and his legacy will not be soon forgotten."

"The board of directors and staff of the Film Society are stunned and deeply saddened by the untimely death of our executive director Bingham Ray," said Pat McBaine, board president of the San Francisco Film Society. "We at the Film Society and the entire film community have lost far too early an energetic and visionary impact player who has helped shape the independent film industry for decades in so many important and valuable ways."

Ray is perhaps best known as the co-founder of October Films, the 1990s-era independent film production company and distributor responsible for movies such as "Secrets and Lies," "Lost Highway" and "Cherry Falls." October was later acquired by Universal Pictures and renamed USA Films, which itself became the basis of Focus Features, Universal's art house arm that counts "In Bruges" and "Milk" among its many credits.

The San Francisco Film Society named Ray as executive director in November 2011 after the death of the SFFS' director Graham Leggat this past August.

Share your condolences with Bingham Ray's friends and family in the comments below.

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1677753/bingham-ray-dead.jhtml

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Colts owner tweets: Coach to be picked next week

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Colts owner Jim Irsay says the Indianapolis team expects to decide on a new head coach next week.

Irsay made the announcement on his Twitter account Saturday.

Irsay's tweet read: "The (hash)1 pick debate will rage on,what a great year to have it..the HC search is wide ranging n thorough,decision by mid 2 late next week."

The Colts fired coach Jim Caldwell on Tuesday after three seasons. The team went to the Super Bowl during Caldwell's first year, but finished a dismal 2-14 this season.

The day after they locked up the No. 1 overall draft pick, Irsay fired team vice chairman Bill Polian and his son, general manager Chris.

The Colts played the season without Peyton Manning, who had his third neck surgery in September.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-21-Colts%20Coach-Irsay/id-ad2d5871df9747d48cb038cb12c76885

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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Libya had undeclared chemical weapon stockpile (AP)

AMSTERDAM ? International inspectors have confirmed that late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had an undeclared stockpile of chemical weapons, the organization that oversees a global ban on such armaments announced Friday.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said inspectors who visited Libya this week found sulfur mustard and artillery shells "which they determined are chemical munitions," meaning the shells were not filled with chemicals, but were designed specifically to be loaded with chemical weapons.

"They are not ready to use, because they are not loaded with agents," OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan said.

He would not divulge the amounts of chemicals in the previously unknown stockpile, except to call it "a fraction" of what Gadhafi disclosed in the past.

Libya's new rulers told the Hague-based organization about the chemicals last year after toppling Gadhafi from power. The longtime Libyan strongman was killed in October after being captured by rebel fighters.

The newly confirmed chemical armaments are stored at the Ruwagha depot in southeastern Libya together with chemical weapons that Gadhafi had declared to international authorities in 2004 as he tried to shake off his image as an international pariah and rebuild relations with the West.

He declared his regime had 25 metric tons (27.6 tons) of sulfur mustard and 1,400 metric tons (1,543 tons) of precursor chemicals used to make chemical weapons. His regime also declared more than 3,500 unfilled aerial bombs designed for use with chemical warfare agents such as sulfur mustard, and three chemical weapons production facilities.

Those stockpiles were being destroyed until a technical problem halted destruction last year at the same time as the popular uprising began that led to Gadhafi's ouster and death.

Libya was to have completed destruction of its chemical weapons by April 29 of this year, but can no longer meet the deadline after the turmoil that roiled the country last year. The country's new government now has until that date to file a plan and proposed completion date for destroying its entire chemical weapon stockpile.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_re_eu/eu_libya_chemical_weapons

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'American Idol' Ratings Down, Season 11 Debut Dips

"American Idol" continued to dip in the ratings Thursday night, with 17.7 million viewers and a 5.7 in the coveted 18-49 demo. For the first half-hour, CBS' "The Big Bang Theory," which celebrated it's 100th episode Thursday night, topped "Idol" in the demo, but "Idol" surged to a 6.1 rating from 8:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

While "Idol" -- and Fox -- came out on top for the night, the numbers were still down 19 percent from the Wednesday night Season 11 premiere ratings, and down 27 percent from the first Thursday episode of last season.

Could this be the beginning of the end for the "American Idol" franchise? Well, not quite. "American Idol" does tend to dip from its first night to its second, which means that the reality show's Thursday night drop was proportional to its premiere ratings. Although "Idol" faces tougher competition on Thursday nights, its ratings tie with CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" may mean future trouble for the reality show.

However, the real question is whether "Idol" will retain its audience or whether it will continue to drop during the audition stages.

"American Idol" airs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 p.m. EST on Fox.

Related on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/american-idol-ratings-down_n_1219243.html

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Nadal, Federer take similar Australian Open paths (AP)

MELBOURNE, Australia ? In the same half of a Grand Slam singles draw for the first time since 2005, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are taking similar paths to a potential semifinal matchup at the Australian Open.

A rematch of the women's 2011 final is already in place, with defending champion Kim Clijsters and China's Li Na both winning Friday night to set up a meeting in the fourth round.

Neither the four-time Australian champion Federer nor 2009 titleholder Nadal have dropped a set, although Federer's path has been made easier by a walkover win in the second round.

The longtime rivals played back-to-back matches at Rod Laver Arena on Friday. Nadal, his right knee still taped from a recent injury, showed no problems while moving briskly around the court in a 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 win over qualifier Lukas Lacko.

Federer followed in the marquee matinee program by beating Ivo Karlovic 7-6 (6), 7-5, 6-3, saving a set point in the tiebreaker with a scrambling lob over the 6-foot-10 Croatian. Federer will play Australian teenager Bernard Tomic on Sunday in the fourth round.

"He gave me a second serve and gave me a slight chance," Federer said. "Might have had a little bit of a lucky volley. ..."

Karlovic agreed.

"It was unlucky ... one in a 100 that I'm going to lose that point," Karlovic said. "I didn't really expect him to do that. I was there, I just miscalculated how much I was jumping. If I would have won that, everything would be different, but that's life."

Nadal had few dramas in his match against Lacko, which is just the way he wanted it. He felt a sharp pain in his knee while sitting in his chair in his hotel on the weekend, an innocent enough movement he initially feared would cause him to withdraw from the tournament.

Three matches later, Nadal says "the knee is fine ... being in the fourth round without losing a set, it's fantastic news."

Nadal will next meet fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, who beat No. 16 John Isner 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-7 (0), 6-1 to put the last U.S. man out of the draw.

It is the first time since the start of the Open Era in 1968 that no American men have reached the fourth round at the Australian Open, although no Americans entered the tournament in 1972 and 1973. The last American to win the Australian Open was Andre Agassi in 2003, his third win in four years at Melbourne Park.

"It's very ugly, to be honest, to have no one in the round of 16 ... very disappointing, not a good effort from the Americans," Isner said. "We've got to try to rectify that next time the big tournaments roll around."

No. 7 Tomas Berdych beat No. 30 Kevin Anderson of South Africa 7-6 (5), 7-6 (1), 6-1 and will next play No. 10 Nicolas Almagro of Spain, who beat 21st-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland 7-6 (2), 6-2, 6-4.

Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber defeated Alejandro Falla of Colombia 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (3), 11th-seeded Juan Martin del Potro beat Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan 6-2, 6-3, 6-0 and Tomic defeated 13th-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine 4-6, 7-6 (0), 7-6 (6), 2-6, 6-3. Del Potro plays Kohlschreiber in the fourth round.

Defending champion and top-seeded Novak Djokovic and fourth-seeded Andy Murray, who has lost in the final at Melbourne Park the last two years, play their third-round matches Saturday, with a Djokovic-Murray replay only possible in the semis.

On the women's side, top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki also has not dropped a set in advancing to the fourth round as she continues her quest for a first Grand Slam title. She beat Monica Niculescu of Romania 6-2, 6-2 Friday, and third-seeded Victoria Azarenka defeated Mona Barthel 6-2, 6-4.

It's the toughest half of the women's draw, Wozniacki could face Clijsters in the quarterfinals. But before Clijsters gets that far, she will have to beat French Open winner Li.

Li advanced to the fourth round late Friday when her opponent, Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain, had to retire in the first set after badly twisting her right ankle attempting a shot. Li won the first three games and was up 0-30 on Medina Garrigues' serve when the Spaniard went to the net to retire a game and a half after she had sustained the injury.

Clijsters advanced with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Daniela Hantuchova earlier at Hisense Arena.

"I won, so that's the most important thing," Clijsters said. "I definitely wasn't playing my best tennis."

Clijsters' only loss to Hantuchova in 11 matches was at Brisbane two weeks ago when she withdrew with a hip injury in the second set of their semifinal.

On Saturday, the two biggest threats in the other half of the women's draw, five-time champion Serena Williams and 2011 Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova, play for a spot in the last 16.

Wozniacki, who needs to reach the quarterfinals to have any chance of retaining the No. 1 ranking, wasted one match point and was broken when she was serving for the match. But she broke back immediately to ensure she moved into a final 16 encounter against former No. 1-ranked Jelena Jankovic, who beat American Christina McHale 6-2, 6-0.

Azarenka, who beat Li to win the Sydney International last week, has only lost eight games at Melbourne Park and remains one of three women who can overhaul Wozniacki for the top ranking at the Australian Open.

The 22-year-old from Belarus will next meet Czech player Iveta Benesova, who beat Russian qualifier Nina Bratchikova 6-1, 6-3.

Azarenka was annoyed with herself for needing five match points to finish off Barthel, who was on a 10-match winning run in Australia after capturing her first title at the Hobart International last week as a qualifier.

"I've been playing in the end not brave enough to finish the match. ... I had to get a little," angry, Azarenka said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_sp_te_ga_su/ten_australian_open

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Oprah Winfrey's guards scuffle with Indian media (AP)

NEW DELHI ? Indian police briefly detained three of Oprah Winfrey's bodyguards after they scuffled with local TV journalists Thursday, a news agency reported.

The American talk-show host had been traveling with both American and Indian bodyguards while visiting the Hindu pilgrimage town of Mathura, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Delhi.

Press Trust of India said police detained three of the guards after local journalists said their video equipment had been damaged in a brawl. No one was reported hurt, and there was no indication that the American bodyguards were involved.

The three guards were released after apologizing in a letter to the journalists, PTI said.

It is Winfrey's first trip to India, where she has been filming her new show "Oprah's Next Chapter."

Earlier this week, she delighted Mumbai locals by wearing a bright orange sari while meeting with Bollywood stars including Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai at a private party.

She also visited the Taj Mahal on Thursday, and she is due to attend the Jaipur Literature Festival that begins Friday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_en_tv/as_india_oprah_winfrey

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Friday, January 20, 2012

Apple closes in on Android: Nielsen

Nielsen

By Athima Chansanchai

Good news for Apple: even as the giant Android persists in its quest for world dominance, those who prefer buying iPhones still figure prominently, with nearly half of smartphone buyers choosing an iPhone in the past three months.

Results from a recent Nielsen?survey show that amongst buyers who purchased a new device within the last three months, 44.5 said they bought an iPhone. In October, that number was 25.1 percent.?

That probably has something to do with the availability of a certain Siri-driven iPhone 4S, which arrived in October to some deflated enthusiasm, but picked up steam as people laid down hard earned cash (or credit) for the 4S anyway. Of those who said they chose an iPhone,?57 percent said they picked the 4S specifically.

Android still has the edge overall in U.S smartphone users, with 46.3 percent Android mobile phone owners surveyed in the fourth quarter of 2011, with 30 percent claiming to be iPhone owners. But in the past three months, that number has risen to 37 percent. Android's numbers have also risen recently to 51.7 percent of recent acquisitions.?

It's in the area of recent acquirers where it looks like iOS has the momentum over Android, almost doubling its share in the operating system war from 25.1 percent to 44.5 percent from October through December. At the same time, Android made a dramatic drop to 46.9 percent, from 61.6 percent.?

Nielsen

Apple may have drawn blood in this battle, but other industry trackers report that the gulf is still formidable. At the end of November, according to comScore,?Android made up nearly 47 percent of the U.S. smartphone market share with iOS behind it at nearly 29 percent.

Live Poll

Did you buy a new smartphone between Oct. and Dec.?

  • 173711

    YES. I'm the proud new owner of an iPhone.

    47%

  • 173712

    YES. I'm the proud new owner of an Android phone.

    38%

  • 173713

    YES. I'm the proud new owner of a Windows Phone.

    4%

  • 173714

    YES, believe it or not I, got a BlackBerry.

    0%

  • 173715

    NO. I've got a dumb phone, and I'm sticking with it!

    8%

  • 173716

    NO. I opted for a new dumb phone! I'm simple. All I want to do is text and talk.

    2%

VoteTotal Votes: 209

Smartphones, in general, are also eclipsing feature phones. Yes, you may know a few people who still have a flip or candy bar phone, but all they really do on it is talk or text. Amongst most of your friends and family, we're guessing, there's probably at least one smartphone. By Nielsen's surveys, 46 percent of U.S. mobile consumers were smartphone owners by the end of 2011. And 60 percent of those who bought a new device in that last quarter chose a smartphone. (This is consistent with what we've been telling you, as recently as mid-December.)

Take our poll and tell us what you bought (or received) this holiday season.

More stories:

Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/18/10181413-apple-closes-in-on-android-nielsen?chromedomain=gadgetbox

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Waltrip headlines NASCAR's 3rd Hall of Fame class

FILE - In this July 19, 2011 file photo, former NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip sits in his Franklin, Tenn., office. Waltrip has made a living from running his mouth, with a trash-talking style that helped him become a NASCAR superstar and led to a second career as a television analyst. Now the three-time champion is headed into NASCAR's Hall of Fame. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

FILE - In this July 19, 2011 file photo, former NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip sits in his Franklin, Tenn., office. Waltrip has made a living from running his mouth, with a trash-talking style that helped him become a NASCAR superstar and led to a second career as a television analyst. Now the three-time champion is headed into NASCAR's Hall of Fame. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) ? Darrell Waltrip was nicknamed "Jaws" as a driver for his outrageous trash-talking. His loquaciousness launched his second career, as one of NASCAR's most recognized ? and outspoken ? television analysts.

But on the eve on his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, 'ol DW has no idea what he's going to say in Friday night's ceremony.

"I've written 10 speeches and after the 10th one, I threw it away, and said 'I can't write a speech,'" Waltrip said. "I'm pretty spontaneous, so I'm just going to get up and say what I think and hope it's the right thing."

Waltrip hasn't always said the right thing in a career that dates back to his 1972 debut in NASCAR's top series. He angered his rivals as a driver, and his strong opinions as an analyst for both Fox Sports and Speed have made him one of the more polarizing commentators in NASCAR.

Some might even think it cost him a shot in last year's voting, when despite three championships and 84 victories, Waltrip was shut out of the second Hall of Fame class. Waltrip had signed on with Speed as an analyst for voting day, and from his perch on the stage at the back of the Great Hall, his face couldn't hide his heartbreak over not making the second class.

He tried not to get his hopes up this time around, but everybody knew how badly Waltrip wanted to be included in the third class. Brian France called his name last June, Waltrip rushed onto the podium and kissed the NASCAR chairman.

Waltrip goes into the Hall of Fame with three-time champion Cale Yarborough, NASCAR modified great Richie Evans, innovative crew chief Dale Inman and Glen Wood, one of NASCAR's original team owners.

The show will belong to Waltrip, though, who knew as a child he wanted to be an entertainer and found a way to incorporate his desire to perform into his NASCAR career. He was brash and bold and loved being in front of the cameras.

His style, his showmanship, was like nothing NASCAR had ever seen before and paved the way for more personality from the drivers.

"I always thought it would be fun to be an actor, or a comedian, but I guess race car driving suited me," he said. "I like to make people laugh, which is better than making them cry, right? Some people take the path of least of resistance, but I take the path I couldn't resist. I looked at everything I did, what if I did everything that everybody else is doing as they go down that path.

I figured there's a lot more room going in this other direction then there is in that direction with all the other guys who chewed Skoal and wore belt buckles and cowboy hats. I'm not making fun of them, I just chose not to go down that route, to be more upscale, in a class by myself. I was a Penske guy living in an Earnhardt world."

He will be again on Friday night when his larger-than-life personality is sure to outshine Yarborough, Inman and Wood. Evans, winner of nine NASCAR national modified championships over a 13-year span, was killed in a 1985 accident at Martinsville Speedway. He was 44.

Yarborough from 1976-78 became the first driver in NASCAR history to win three consecutive championships, a record that stood until Jimmie Johnson's run of five-straight titles. He finished second in the standings another three times, and ended his career with 83 victories ? sixth on the all-time list.

Yarborough was a four-time Daytona 500 winner, but decided in 1980 to run only partial schedules for the final nine years of his career.

"I realized I had three daughters growing up and I was away from them all the time," he said. "Even though racing was very important in my life, I felt like they were a little more important so I was going to spend some more time with them and be with them in their growing-up years. There's no telling how many wins I left on the table, but I definitely made the right decision."

Inman led his cousin, Hall of Famer Richard Petty, to a record seven championships. The crew chief won an eighth title with Terry Labonte. From 1958 to 1992, he led drivers to 193 wins and 129 poles.

His standout year was 1967 when he guided Petty to a NASCAR-record, 27 races ? including 10-straight ? in a single car built a year earlier.

"Dale was a racing benchmark," Petty said. "He was the sport's first official crew chief and people modeled themselves after him. He knew what, when and where ? and when he made a mistake he wasn't afraid to admit it. Everyone respected him for that. Nobody even comes close to the number of wins that Dale has recorded."

Wood, at 86 the oldest member of this incoming class, formed a race team that still competes today in Stuart, Va., with his four brothers. Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 last year for the Wood Brothers, giving the team its 98th victory spanning seven different decades. Bayne's win was the team's fifth Daytona 500 victory, and the Wood Brothers also won the 1965 Indianapolis 500 with Jim Clark.

Wood's brother, Leonard, choreographer of the modern pit stop, is a NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee.

"It's such a long trip from 1950 to now. It's sort of hard to believe," Wood said. "It's one of the biggest honors you could have. I didn't come here alone; I had a lot of help. There's five of us brothers. All of those helped at one time or another."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-19-CAR-NASCAR-Hall-of-Fame/id-518b717bcacb40f88c441c8d249826d3

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Elusive particles could help to stem climate change

The particles are called Criegee intermediates, or Criegee biradicals, and are short-lived molecules that form in the Earth?s atmosphere when ozone reacts with alkenes.

Elusive molecules in the Earth?s atmosphere may be helping to cool the planet more efficiently than scientists previously thought, a new study suggests.

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They are called Criegee intermediates, or Criegee biradicals (named after the German chemist Rudolf Criegee), and are short-lived molecules that form in the Earth?s atmosphere when?ozone?reacts with alkenes (a family of organic compounds). While scientists have known about the intermediates for decades, they haven't been able to directly measure how the molecules react with other atmospheric compounds, such as the pollutants nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, until now.

Researchers used a new method to create Criegee intermediates in the lab, and then reacted them with several atmospheric compounds. They found that the reactions with the pollutants could produce aerosols, tiny particles that reflect solar radiation back into space, much more quickly than previously assumed.

Given that 90 percent of the alkenes in the atmosphere that produce these intermediates come from Earth's ecosystems, the results suggest that "the ecosystem is negating climate change more efficiently than we thought it was," said study co-author Carl Percival, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. "The most important message here is that we need to protect the ecosystems we have left." [Gallery: Earth's Unique Ecosystems]

Percival noted that scientists aren't close to being ready to use the intermediates in?geoengineering?to generate more aerosols and proactively cool Earth's climate. The main point, he said, is that we need to preserve the ecosystem so that it can naturally produce more Criegee intermediates.

Measuring the biradicals

In 1949, the chemist Criegee proposed that biradicals ? reactive molecules missing two chemical bonds ??could form when ozone reacts with hydrocarbons like alkenes. These biradicals would presumably play a substantial role in both removing pollutants from the lower atmosphere (a process called oxidation) and producing secondary organic aerosols (primary aerosols come from such sources as sea spray and wind-blown dust, whereas secondary aerosols form from the reactions of atmospheric gases).

Though numerous theoretical studies and indirect measurements have supported the importance of the biradicals, scientists have had much difficulty taking direct measurements of biradicals reacting with key atmospheric compounds.

"The reactions are so extremely rapid that they disappear quite quickly," before scientists can take crucial measurements, Percival told LiveScience.

To get around this issue, Percival and his colleagues determined a new method to create the simplest Criegee intermediate, formaldehyde oxide, in the lab. They shined an intense laser light on the compound diiodomethane, breaking off two bonds and creating a biradical. They then reacted the biradical with?molecular oxygen?to form formaldehyde oxide.

With the Criegee intermediate in hand, the researchers added in some?atmospheric pollutants? nitric dioxide, sulfuric dioxide, water or nitric oxide ? and then measured the reactions with sophisticated instruments. They found that the intermediates reacted with nitric dioxide and sulfuric dioxide unexpectedly fast, showing that the intermediates are better at removing the pollutants from the atmosphere than previous studies suggested.

In the atmosphere, the resulting compounds would react further with molecules to accelerate the formation of radiation-reflecting aerosols, Percival said.

Just the beginning

George Marston, a chemist at the University of Reading in the U.K. who was not involved with the research, was surprised by the speed of the reactions. "The values aren't necessarily what you might expect," Marston told LiveScience. "But the fact is that these [intermediates] haven't been studied before, so it's difficult to know what you would really expect."

Marston, who wrote a perspective piece accompanying the study published in the Jan. 13 issue of the journal Science, said that it?s important that scientists are finally getting a handle on the reactions of the Criegee intermediates, and that the study could have profound implications for understanding atmospheric oxidation, a process that can?remove pollutants?from our atmosphere and could impact?Earth's climate.

But, he said, scientists still have a lot of work to do. "This is very much the beginning of a much more extensive systematic study," he said.

Percival said that future studies would need to look at other Criegee intermediates and measure reactions with other atmospheric compounds at different temperatures. "This was all done at room temperature, but the atmosphere has a huge temperature variation and gets quite cold," he explained.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/OVDqdoWf-5Y/Elusive-particles-could-help-to-stem-climate-change

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