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Indonesia Plans Sukuk Backed by Roads, Rail: Islamic Finance.

Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia plans to increase
the type of assets that can be used to pay returns
on Islamic bonds to road and rail projects in a bid
to support its $140 billion development program.
The government is seeking approval from the
country ’s Shariah board to use future fees from
transport facilities to be constructed over the next
three years as the underlying asset for sukuk,
Rahmat Waluyanto, director general of the
finance ministry ’s Debt Management Office, said
in an interview in Jakarta on Jan. 11. The cash
flows that back Islamic bonds are currently
restricted to state-owned property and land, he
said.
Islamic banking assets in the nation with the
world ’s largest Muslim population were 9 percent
of Malaysia’s in 2010, according to central bank
data. The government also plans to offer tax cuts
on Shariah-compliant investment accounts, while
Bank Indonesia is streamlining the approval
process for new products to expand the industry.
“Once they allow infrastructure projects to be
used to issue the debt, investors will have more
choice and that will improve liquidity, ” Akbar
Syarief, a Jakarta-based fund manager at PT
Bhakti Asset Management, who helps oversee
700 billion rupiah ($77 million), said in an
interview yesterday. “Right now, we can’t find
new options, so we can’t trade the papers we
hold.”
Ijarah Structure
Sukuk backed by finances from construction of
highways are often based on Istisna, a purchase
order for an underlying asset that will be
delivered at a future date. Investors can also be
co-owners through an agreement known as
musyarakah, where buyers of the debt and the
government contribute funds in cash or in kind.
Islamic debt with real estate as the underlying
asset is known as Ijarah sukuk, or a sale and
lease agreement.
Indonesia’s government can issue up to 30 trillion
rupiah of Ijarah debt this year and total offerings
of Islamic bonds may climb more next year once
legislation is approved to sell Istisna sukuk, said
Waluyanto.
“The government is preparing regulations to
enable projects as the underlying asset and we’ve
made some progress, but we also need to get
approval from the Shariah board and get the legal
framework in place, ” he said.
Indonesia, home to 209 million Muslims
according to Central Intelligence Agency
estimates, had 86 trillion rupiah of Islamic
banking assets as of October 2010, or about 3
percent of the total, central bank data show. The
amount compares with 337.6 billion ringgit ($110
billion) in Malaysia, or 20 percent of banking
assets, according to the Finance Ministry.
Indonesia Sukuk
Sales of sukuk, which pay asset returns to
comply with the religion ’s ban on interest, rose
56 percent in Indonesia to 26.2 trillion rupiah in
2010, according to Bloomberg data. The
government has sold 42 trillion rupiah of the debt
since 2008. In Malaysia, issuance dropped 11
percent to 28.5 billion ringgit, while global sales
declined 15 percent to $17.1 billion.
Shariah-compliant bonds returned 12.8 percent
last year, the HSBC/NASDAQ Dubai US Dollar
Sukuk Index shows, compared with 19.8 percent
the previous year. Debt in emerging markets
gained 12.2 percent, from 29.8 percent in 2009,
according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. ’s EMBI Global
Diversified Index.
The difference between the average yield for
sukuk in developing nations and the London
interbank offered rate narrowed seven basis
points to 282 since Dec. 31, according to the
HSBC/NASDAQ Dubai US Dollar Sukuk Index. The
spread narrowed 178 basis points, or 1.78
percentage points, last year.
Project Failure
The yield on Malaysia’s 3.928 percent sukuk
maturing in June 2015 rose one basis point to
2.84 percent today, according to prices from
Royal Bank of Scotland Group. The extra yield
investors demand to hold Dubai ’s government
sukuk rather than Malaysia’s narrowed two basis
points to 322, Bloomberg data show.
Investors in Indonesia are “comfortable” with the
existing Ijarah sukuk because they know there’s a
physical asset and they will get their money back,
said Marciano Herman, president director at PT
Danareksa Sekuritas, in an interview in Jakarta
yesterday.
“If the laws can ensure that investors will be
protected should the project be uncompleted,
then people will buy such sukuk, ” said Herman.
“It will take some time before investors get used
to such structures because what happens if the
project fails ?”
Savings Account
Indonesia plans to sell 200.6 trillion rupiah of local
and foreign-currency debt in 2011, including
sukuk, to fund a budget deficit estimated to reach
124.7 trillion rupiah, or 1.8 percent of gross
domestic product, said Waluyanto.
The government may issue dollar-denominated
Islamic and non-Islamic bonds in the first half and
also plans to sell sukuk to individual investors
next month, he said. Indonesia sold 8.033 trillion
rupiah of so-called retail notes in February last
year, more than the 3 trillion rupiah it targeted.
The yield on Indonesia’s 8.8 percent dollar sukuk
maturing in April 2014 was little changed today at
3.26 percent, according to RBS prices. The debt
returned 9 percent last year.
“The government is probably pushing to sell debt
early before any possible interest-rate increase,”
said Syarief at PT Bhakti Asset. “Yields for the
retail sukuk have to be more than the average 7
percent that depositors get if they leave their
money in a savings account. ”

Source: Http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-13/indonesia-plans-sukuk-backed-by-roads-rail-islamic-finance.html

Indonesia May Sell Dollar Debt Aimed at Local Market to Curb Price Swings.

Indonesia may offer dollar- denominated
conventional and Islamic bonds targeted at local
investors this year, seeking to curb price swings
caused by capital outflows.
“In the next issuance of global bonds, we might
want to increase the allocation for domestic
investors, or we might issue entirely in the
domestic market, ” Rahmat Waluyanto, director-
general of the Finance Ministry’s debt
management department, said in an interview in
Jakarta yesterday. “We need to be vigilant as this
can cause some potential risks, especially if there
is any trigger to market volatility. ”
Dollar debt of Southeast Asia’s largest economy
has handed investors a gain of 13.8 percent in
2010, tying with the Philippines as third-best in
the region after Thailand and Pakistan, indexes
compiled by HSBC Holdings Plc show. Indonesia
plans to sell 200.6 trillion rupiah ($22.1 billion) of
local and foreign debt in 2011 to fund a budget
deficit estimated to reach 124.7 trillion rupiah, 1.8
percent of gross domestic product.
The government may not offer rupiah bonds to
global markets, unlike neighboring Philippines
which has already sold peso bonds twice
overseas in the past four months, said
Waluyanto. The increase in foreign ownership of
rupiah government bonds to 30.8 percent as of
Jan. 10 from 0.5 percent in 2003 is a
consideration, he said.
Unfriendly Policy
The foreign-currency bonds to be offered this
year will include dollar conventional and Islamic
bonds, which may be issued within the first half,
and samurai securities in the second half, he said.
Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, comply with
Shariah law by using asset returns to pay
investors instead of interest.
The country raised nearly $3 billion of global
securities last year, including $2 billion of dollar
bonds and 60 billion yen ($721 million) of samurai
notes denominated in Japan ’s currency. The
amount sold was lower than the $4 billion in
2009. The government usually sets aside 5
percent of the overseas bonds for local investors
to buy, Waluyanto said.
“We can’t prohibit foreign investors from buying
our bonds,” Waluyanto said. “This is unfriendly
market policy. Instead, we need to
counterbalance by developing our own domestic
investor base by diversifying instruments. ”
Indonesia’s rupiah debt returned 21 percent last
year, the top gainer among 10 Asian government
debt markets compiled by HSBC. The currency
rose 4.6 percent.
Dollar Liquidity
Foreign ownership in the government’s domestic
debt increased 87.76 trillion rupiah last year to
195.76 trillion rupiah, according to the finance
ministry.
“The spirit is to give more opportunities to
domestic investors given that the liquidity in the
U.S. dollar is quite big because of the heavy
capital inflows,” Waluyanto said.
Standard & Poor’s raised the country’s rating in
March to BB, while Moody’s Investors Service on
Dec. 1 placed its Ba2 ranking on review for a
possible upgrade, citing an improving economy
and state finances. Both rank Indonesia two levels
below investment grade. Fitch Ratings assessed
Indonesia at BB+, the highest non-investment
ranking.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in his
annual state-of-the-nation address on Aug. 16
that he is seeking to expand the Indonesian
economy by as much as 7.7 percent and create
10.7 million jobs by the end of his second term in
2014.

Source: Http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-12/indonesia-may-sell-dollar-debt-aimed-at-local-market-to-curb-price-swings.html

Indonesia plans to issue 3-yr retail sukuk on Feb 23.

JAKARTA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Indonesia's finance
ministry plans to issue retail Islamic bonds or
sukuk with a three-year tenor on Feb. 23, debt
office chief Rahmat Waluyanto said on
Wednesday.
"The available underlying assets are 10.8 trillion
rupiah and the size of issuance won't exceed the
underlying assets," he said, adding that the retail
sukuk yield would be more attractive compared
to bank time deposits.
Retail sukuk are aimed at individual investors.
(Reporting by Rieka Rahadiana; Writing by Aditya
Suharmoko; Editing by Neil Chatterjee)

Source: Http://us.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSJKB00420920110112?ca=rdt

With Strong Words, Clinton Assails Arab Leaders.

DOHA, Qatar — Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton delivered a scalding critique of
Arab leaders here on Thursday, saying they
badly needed reforms to jump-start their
economies and overcome dwindling natural
resources, or risk having extremists take root in
their societies.
Speaking at a conference in this gleaming Persian
Gulf state, Mrs. Clinton said, “In too many places,
in too many ways, the region’s foundations are
sinking into the sand. The new and dynamic
Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground
if it is to take root and grow everywhere. ”
Mrs. Clinton ticked off a familiar litany of criticism:
corruption, repressive political systems, and a
lack of rights for women and religious minorities.
But her remarks were notable for their
vehemence, especially before an audience of Arab
diplomats, business people, and human right
groups.
They also came at the end of a four-day swing
through the Persian Gulf that took Mrs. Clinton
from the autocratic capital of Yemen to the more
open sultanate of Oman. Along the way, she
stopped in the wealthy emirates of Abu Dhabi
and Dubai, before ending up in Qatar, which is
still exulting in its selection as host of the World
Cup soccer tournament in 2022.
While Mrs. Clinton praised signs of progress here
and elsewhere, it was Yemen, with its crippled
economy and flowering problem of Islamic
terrorism, which seemed foremost in her mind.
“If leaders don’t offer a positive vision and give
young people meaningful ways to contribute,
others will fill the vacuum, ” she said. “Extremist
elements, terrorist groups and others who would
prey on desperation and poverty are already out
there appealing for allegiance and competing for
influence. ”
Mrs. Clinton was most scathing about the
pervasive corruption that she said was hobbling
Arab economies. She singled out the elite political
and business classes, saying she did not
understand how they enriched themselves
without recognizing the corrosive effect of
corruption on their people.
“It is a costly, frustrating process to open and run
a business in many countries,” she said. “Trying
to get a permit, you have to pass money through
so many different hands. Trying to open up, you
have to pay people off. Trying to stay open, you
have to pay people off. Trying to export your
goods, you have to pay people off. So by the
time you pay everybody off, it ’s not a very
profitable venture.”
For the most part, her Arab audience listened
quietly, though the foreign minister of Bahrain,
Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, defended his
country ’s performance. Bahrain, he said, was
more open than a decade ago, with rapid growth
in the number of rights groups and labor unions.
Even when Mrs. Clinton was asked about Israel’s
continuing building of Jewish settlements in the
West Bank — an issue that rankles people
throughout the Arab world — Mrs. Clinton
pushed back.
The United States, she said, failed to get a lot of
countries to do what it wanted, despite speaking
out, as it has in the case of Israel. It also bears a
disproportionate burden for settling the world ’s
conflicts, she said.
Mrs. Clinton noted that the United States was the
largest financial donor to the Palestinian Authority
— an implicit rebuke of Arab states, which
champion the Palestinian cause, but in the view of
critics, do too little to support its efforts to build
institutions on the West Bank.

Source: Http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/world/middleeast/14diplo.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Obama issues a call for national soul searching.

'We may not be able to stop all evil,' but 'how we treat one
another is entirely up to us'
TUCSON, Ariz. - In an appeal for national unity and soul-searching
after the Tucson shootings, President Barack Obama on
Wednesday night urged Americans to "expand our moral
imaginations" and "sharpen our instincts for empathy" — even
with those who are political adversaries.
"What we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to
turn on each other," he declared in a speech that was frequently
interrupted by applause and cheers from the audience.
He spoke at at a memorial service for those killed in a weekend
massacre that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., gravely
wounded. The shooting also killed six people and wounded 13.
In an electrifying moment, Obama revealed that Giffords, who
was shot in the head, had opened her eyes for the first time.
Obama and first lady Michelle Obama had visited the wounded
lawmaker in her room, and he said that shortly after they left:
"Gabby opened her eyes, so I can tell you: She knows we are
here, she knows we love her, and she knows that we are rooting
for her ...."
Mark Kelly, Giffords' husband, sat beside the Obamas during the
ceremony.
Using the shootings to address the nation's spiritual state, the
president decried the small-minded nature of political debate. "If
this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let's make
sure it's worthy of those we have lost. Let's make sure it's not on
the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that
drifts away in the next news cycle."
At a time when "we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that
ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently
than we do," Obama said, the killings should make Americans ask
themselves "Have we shown enough kindness and generosity
and compassion to people in our lives?"
He referred to the peopl e killed on Saturday as members of "an
American family, 300 million strong." And he added, "Let ’s make
sure it's worthy of those we have lost," he said.
'They help me believe'
"Those who died here, those who saved lives here — they help
me believe," Obama told the crowd. "We may not be able to stop
all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is
entirely up to us."
"As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good
dose of humility," the president said. "Rather than pointing fingers
or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral
imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully... and remind
ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound
together...."
In contrast with his speech at a memorial service after Nidal
Hasan's killing spree at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009, Obama did not
mention seeing that the suspect in this case, Jared Lee Loughner,
met justice. "For what he has done, we know that the killer will be
met with justice — in this world, and the next," Obama said in his
Fort Hood speech.
He did refer to the Tucson gunman by saying, "None of us can
know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of can know
with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from
being fired or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a
violent man's mind."
Video: Obama: Gifford opened her eyes for the first
time
Police say Loughner shot Giffords and many in the line of people
waiting to talk with her during a constituent event outside a
Safeway story on Saturday. The attack ended when bystanders
tackled the gunman. Loughner is in jail facing federal charges.
In her remarks earlier in the memorial service, Arizona Gov. Jan
Brewer thanked Obama for coming to Arizona. “Your words have
been a source of comfort and strength to every Arizonan. Your
presence today serves as a reminder that we are not alone in our
sorrow. ”
“This state, bound together by prayer and action and hope and
faith, will not be shredded by one madman’s act of darkness,” she
said.
She quoted St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, saying that the people
of Arizona would remain “rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation.”
Obama eulogizes each person killed
Obama's speech, by turns somber and hopeful, at times took on
the tone of an exuberant pep rally as he heralded the men who
wrestled the gunman to the ground, the woman who grabbed
the shooter's ammunition, the doctors and nurses who treated
the injured, the intern who rushed to Giffords' aid. The crowd
erupted in multiple standing ovations as each was singled out for
praise. The president ended up speaking for more than half an
hour, doubling the expected length of his comments.
He eulogized each of the people who were killed: federal Judge
John Roll; Dorothy Morris, whose husband, George, was
wounded; Phyllis Schneck; Dorwan Stoddard, who died shielding
his wife, Mavy, from the gunfire; Gabe Zimmerman, Gifford's
outreach director; and, finally, 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green.
Video: Obama calls for unity in Tucson
Obama said that Christina "showed an appreciation for life
uncommon for a girl her age, and would remind her mother,
"We are so blessed. We have the best life." And she'd pay those
blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children
who were less fortunate."
Christina had just been elected to the student council at her
elementary school and had an emerging interest in public service.
"I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to
be as good as she imagined it," Obama said. The little girl was
born on Sept. 11, 2001, and had been featured in a book about 50
babies born that day. The inscriptions near her photo spoke of
wishes for a happy child's life, including splashing in puddles.
Said Obama: "If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is
jumping in them today."
Video: Obama: 'What we can't do is use this tragedy as
one more occasion to turn on each other.'
An estimated 13,000 people crowded into the basketball arena at
the McKale Memorial Center for the ceremony, hugging and
consoling each other before it began. People cheered when
survivors or families of the victims arrived. Another 13,000 who
could not be accommodated inside instead watched the service
on television at Arizona Stadium.
Among the people attending the ceremony were Sens. John
McCain and Jon Kyl of Arizona, Supreme Court Justice Anthony
Kennedy, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and other local
and national figures.
Daniel Hernandez, a 20-year-old intern on Giffords' staff, was
honored as a hero for his actions after the attack credited with
possibly saving Giffords' life. Hernandez rejected the hero tag,
instead recognizing emergency workers who rushed to help
victims.
Afterward, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, former
governor of Arizona, and Attorney General Eric Holder read from
the Bible.
A bipartisan delegation of lawmakers, including Rep. Ben Quayle,
R-Ariz., accompanied Obama on Air Force One in a sign of
solidarity. Quayle had called Obama the "worst president in
history."
Upon his arrival in Arizona, Obama headed straight to Rep.
Giffords' bedside.
Video: Pal: Mug shot shows ‘monster,’ not Loughner
Inside the intensive care unit at the hospital, Obama spent about
10 minutes with Giffords and her husband. He also met with four
other victims wounded in the shooting, including two of Giffords'
staff members. The president and the first lady also met with
members of the trauma resuscitation team who were the first
people to treat the victims.
Dr. Peter Rhee, chief of the trauma unit, led the Obamas' 45-
minute visit to the hospital.
On Capitol Hill earlier in the day, Giffords' House colleagues praised
her and the other shooting victims and insisted that violence
would not silence democracy.
"We will have the last word," declared new House Speaker John
Boehner, fighting back tears as he described Giffords' battle to
recover.

Source: Http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41043078/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Australia floods: Queensland's 'worst ever disaster'.

Brisbane residents have taken to their flooded
streets in canoes.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says the
state is reeling from the worst natural
disaster in its history, after floods left
swathes of it under water.
Ms Bligh said that rebuilding would be a task of
"post-war proportions".
Powerful flood waters have surged through the
state capital, Brisbane, leaving thousands of
homes submerged.
The floods peaked at a lower level than expected
but 30 suburbs are under water.
Huge amounts of debris - cars, boats and jetties -
have been floating downstream, some smashing
into bridges.
One man died when he was sucked into a storm
drain and two more deaths elsewhere were
reported by Australian broadcaster ABC, bringing
the toll from this week's flooding to 15, with
dozens more missing.
The Brisbane River was expected to continue to
fall to around 3.2m by early on Friday.
It peaked at 4.46m (14.6ft) just before 0530
(1930GMT Wednesday), short of the 5.4m (17.7ft)
in the 1974 floods.
West of Brisbane, the small town of Goondiwindi
is on high alert, with fears the flooding Macintyre
River could swamp the town.
Police are continuing to search areas of the
Lockyer Valley for those missing after a torrent of
water swept through the area on Monday.
'Devastation'
"Queensland is reeling this morning from the
worst natural disaster in our history and possibly
in the history of our nation," Ms Bligh told
reporters.
"We've seen three-quarters of our state having
experienced the devastation of raging floodwaters
and we now face a reconstruction task of post-
war proportions."
In Brisbane, the worst-hit suburbs included
Brisbane City, St Lucia, West End, Rocklea and
Graceville.
"There will be some people that will go into their
homes that will find them to be never habitable
again," Ms Bligh said.
Brisbane Mayor Campbell Newman said 11,900
homes and 2,500 businesses had been
completely flooded, with 14,700 houses and
2,500 businesses partially submerged.
Milton resident Brenton Ward reached his home
in the suburbs by rowing boat.
"We have water to the waist in the living room.
We have to check the amount of damage -
probably (the) electricity has to be all rebuilt," he
said.
Many supermarkets in the city have been stripped
of supplies, while a number of rubbish collections
and bus services have halted. More than 100,000
properties had their power cut.
Where waters had receded in the city centre,
sticky mud remained. Officials said the clean-up
could take months.
Brisbane airport survived the swell and remains
open, with almost all flights unaffected. However,
passengers are advised to check before travel.
Public transport to the airport is severely limited.
Extra police have been brought in to patrol the
city.
The man who died was a 24-year-old who had
gone to check on his father's property and was
sucked into a storm drain.
The bodies of two victims of floods earlier this
week were also found, one in the Lockyer Valley
and the other in Dalby, ABC said

Source: Http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12179213

In 2 words, Palin's effort to address furor stokes it.

The presidential-quality
stagecraft was there: an
American flag over Sarah
Palin's left shoulder and
another over her heart. So
was the rhetorical polish, with
its invocations of the Founding
Fathers and the Constitution,
God and Ronald Reagan.
And after four days of near-
silence from Palin, the timing
guaranteed that she would be
written into the story line of
President Obama's visit to
comfort grief-stricken Tucson
after a massacre there.
But if the statement that Palin
put out Wednesday was
designed to tamp down the
criticism of her incendiary
style of politics, it turned out
to have the opposite effect.
Within minutes of the video
and its accompanying
Facebook post going viral on
the Internet, all of that was
subsumed by a new furor over
Palin's choice of two words to
describe her critics in the
media: "blood libel."
Her choice of that provocative
phrase underscored the
challenge and the
contradiction that confront
the Republican former Alaska
governor as she undertakes a
new strategy to retool her
image and elevate her stature
in preparation for a possible
presidential run in 2012.
A presidential campaign would
pit Palin's ambition against her
impulses and test her ability
to expand her reach beyond
the narrow slice of the
population that rallies behind
her.
Palin has often invited
controversy and helped to
shape the national debate by
using words as blunt
instruments - such as her
memorable accusation that
Obama has made a practice of
"palling around with
terrorists" and her contention
that his health-care law would
include "death panels. " It has
been a hallmark of her rise
and source of her political
star power.
Her statement Wednesday
brought yet another visceral
response, though this time, it
was one Palin did not
necessarily intend or expect.
"Journalists and pundits should
not manufacture a blood libel
that serves only to incite the
very hatred and violence they
purport to condemn," Palin
said in the video. "That is
reprehensible."
Blood libel - a phrase that
other conservatives have also
used in recent days - was her
way of decrying liberal critics
who had tried to draw a
connection between Palin's
campaign rhetoric and the
Tucson shootings.
But it also has a specific, ugly
historical context. Blood libel
is the centuries-old anti-
Semitic myth that Jews use the
blood of Christian children for
rituals such as baking
unleavened bread during
Passover. It was used to justify
persecution of Jews.
Her choice of words
immediately overshadowed
the point she was trying to
make.

Source: Http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/12/AR2011011206633.html

Google's dropping H.264 from Chrome a step backward for openness.

The promise of HTML5's

Glock: America's Gun.

How Austria's Glock became
the weapon of choice for U.S.
cops, Second Amendment
enthusiasts, and mass killers
like the alleged Tucson
gunman Jared Loughner
For all the anguish and outcry in the days after a
community college dropout named Jared
Loughner allegedly sprayed a Tucson crowd with
33 bullets from a semiautomatic pistol, one
response was notably absent: any sense that
America's latest shooting spree, which killed six
people and wounded 14, including Representative
Gabrielle Giffords, would bring new restrictions
on the right to own or carry large-capacity, rapid-
fire weapons.
The gun control debate has vanished from
American politics, but it wasn't always so
invisible. Twenty years ago, when another
apparently deranged man fired a semiautomatic
pistol into a crowd, killing 23 people in Killeen,
Tex., politicians rushed the microphones to
denounce the weapon itself as "a death machine,"
as Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan
Democrat, put it on the floor of the House. A so-
called assault weapons ban became law three
years later. That law has now expired. Since
Loughner's attack, liberal pundits, gun control
advocates, and congressional backbenchers have
been talking about instituting new controls. The
voices that count, however, including President
Barack Obama and the congressional leaders in
both parties, have had nothing to say on the
subject.
Their silence is just one measure of how
thoroughly Gaston Glock —a former curtain-rod
maker from Austria whose company
manufactured the pistols used in Tucson and
Killeen —has managed to dominate not just the
American handgun market, but America's gun
consciousness. Before Glock arrived on the scene
in the mid-1980s, the U.S. was a revolver culture,
a place where most handguns fired five or six
shots at a measured pace, then needed to be
reloaded one bullet at a time. With its large
ammunition capacity, quick reloading, light
trigger pull, and utter reliability, the Glock was
hugely innovative —and an instant hit with police
and civilians alike. Headquartered in Deutsch-
Wagram, Austria, the company says it now
commands 65 percent of the American law
enforcement market, including the FBI and Drug
Enforcement Administration. It also controls a
healthy share of the overall $1 billion U.S.
handgun market, according to analysis of
production and excise tax data. (Precise figures
aren't available because Glock and several large
rivals, including Beretta and Sig Sauer, are
privately held.)
With all those customers and that visibility, it's no
surprise that the Glock has also been the gun of
choice for some prolific psychopaths. Byran
Uyesugi used a Glock 17 to kill seven people at a
Xerox ( XRX) office in Honolulu in 1999. Seung-Hui
Cho, who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in 2007
before killing himself, used the same Glock 19
model that Loughner is accused of firing in
Tucson. Steven Kazmierczak packed a Glock 17
when he shot 21 people, killing five, at Northern
Illinois University in 2008.
The smooth-firing Glock did not cause these
massacres any more than it holds up
convenience stores. But when outfitted with an
extra-large magazine, it can raise the body count.
The shooters in Arizona, Illinois, Virginia, Hawaii,
and Texas could not have inflicted so many
casualties so quickly had they been armed with
old-fashioned revolvers. In its 2010 catalog, the
manufacturer boasts that while the Glock 19 is
"comparable in size and weight to the small .38
revolvers it has replaced," the pistol "is
significantly more powerful with greater
firepower and is much easier to shoot fast and
true."
The Tucson gunman demonstrated those
qualities all too vividly. Loughner is said to have
emptied his 33-round clip in a minute or two, a
feat requiring no special skill. (Glock does not sell
magazines of that size to civilians, but some of its
guns can accommodate them. The model 19
comes with a standard 15-round clip.) Loughner
was wrestled to the ground by onlookers only
when he paused to insert a fresh magazine. If he
had been forced to reload sooner, the odds are
good there would be fewer victims. Glock
executives did not respond to multiple requests
for comment.

Source: Http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_04/b4212052185280.htm

Haiti mourns dead, looks ahead.

Haitians commemorated the
first anniversary of the
devastating quake with
memorials, prayer vigils and
questions about their future.
It was a rare quiet time -- 35 seconds -- for this
boisterous city normally filled with the sounds of
the almost one million people who live on the
street.
Some marked this painful anniversary in bed, the
hurt of memories of the 7.0 earthquake that killed
so many a year ago too much to bear. Others
visited cemeteries and mass graves where tiny
wooden crosses mark the barren land where
200,000 of the estimated 300,000 people who
died now lay.
From New York, Washington and Miami to Port-
au-Prince, Haitians set Jan. 12 aside to grieve, to
pray and celebrate life. But among the prayer
vigils, memorials and beating of drums, Haitians
also looked ahead, envisioning a future that
includes more hospitals and schools, clean water
and homes. Many mourners questioned why it
was taking so long for Haiti to rise up from its
ashes.
``One year later, we're still asking: Where is the
road map for development?'' said Marleine
Bastien, director of Haitian Women of Miami, who
attended a memorial at Miami-Dade county hall.
As throngs of Haitians gathered in downtown
Port-au-Prince in prayer and song, former U.S.
President Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister
Jean-Max Bellerive -- the nation's reconstruction
czars -- met with reporters to offer a guardedly
optimistic view of the country's future.
``We still have a lot to do,'' Bellerive said. ``We
want to concentrate on building a new Haiti, not
just what existed before.''
It's easy to see what hasn't been done, they said:
810,000 homeless people are living under tarps,
and piles of rubble that the United Nations says
could fill 8,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools
still dot the urban landscape.
The results of November's presidential election
are still in dispute.
SOME PROGRESS
But some 50,000 families now have access to
potable water, 106 million cubic feet of debris
have been removed, and children have returned
to school, the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission
co-chairs said.
Bellerive stressed the need for jobs, saying that
Haiti does not have the means to provide every
quake victim with a free house. ``Before you can
talk about housing, you have to talk about a job,''
Bellerive said.
A year ago Wednesday, a 7.0 earthquake killed a
city's worth of people. The quake took United
Nations peace keepers, college students and at
least 130 American citizens. It took so many
Haitian adults and children that their names have
not been logged, and some are still under debris.
Haitians declared Wednesday a national holiday
and took time to remember, mourn and give
thanks.
``Everything can stand strong again,'' said Alceu
Petit, 69, who lost three children, a cousin and
uncle to the quake. ``Everybody here is
persevering.''
Hundreds of white-clad mourners -- many
weeping, some shrieking with grief -- gathered
for a special Mass on Wednesday morning at the
base of the battered Notre Dame Cathedral. On
the Champs de Mars public plaza where
thousands of families now live, tens of thousands
of Protestants gathered as pastor after pastor told
the crowd to celebrate life.
``God saved my life and that of most of my
family,'' said Bernard Valcin, 40, who dropped by
the Champs de Mars before heading home to the
tent where he lives with his wife and three
children. ``I want to thank him for what he's
done for me.''
But he still can't afford the $1,250 annually it costs
for a one-room shack, and he wonders what
happened to the aid Haiti was promised.

Source: Http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/12/2013687/haiti-mourns-dead-looks-ahead.html

Haiti mourns dead, looks ahead.

Illinois's Record Income-Tax Increase Divides Businesses and Investors.

The biggest tax increase in Illinois history, a last-
minute bid to resolve the state’s worst fiscal
crisis, drew applause from investors, gloating
from neighbors and scorn from taxpayers and
businesses.
Within hours of Senate approval yesterday for
the 67 percent income-tax increase aimed at
closing a $13 billion budget deficit, an eruption of
protests put Governor Pat Quinn on the
defensive.
“We had to take decisive action,” the Democratic
governor said at a news conference in
Springfield, the capital. The tax boost was needed
to protect a state that was “careening toward
bankruptcy and fiscal insolvency,” he said.
The personal income-tax rate increase to 5
percent from 3 percent, which took effect
immediately, was the cornerstone of a budget-
balancing package supported only by Democrats
that moved through the General Assembly in the
final hours of a session that began two years
earlier.
The plan boosted the corporate income tax by 46
percent, to a rate of 7 percent, from 4.8 percent.
“It’s the worst time in the world to be raising
taxes on the citizens and businesses of this state,”
said W. James Farrell, former chief executive
officer of Illinois Tool Works Inc. and chairman of
the Commercial Club of Chicago, echoing the
view of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker issued a
statement urging Illinois companies to switch
states.
“Years ago, Wisconsin had a tourism advertising
campaign targeted to Illinois with the motto,
‘ Escape to Wisconsin,’” Walker said. “Today we
renew that call to Illinois businesses. ‘Escape to
Wisconsin.’ You are welcome here.”
The comment came a day after Indiana Governor
Mitch Daniels, in an interview on WLS radio in
Chicago, compared being Illinois’s neighbor with
“living next door to ‘The Simpsons,’ you know
the dysfunctional family down the block?”
‘Illinois -- Hooray’
The criticism wasn’t shared by investors, who
have looked with concern at the state’s
accumulation of $6 billion in unpaid bills and
almost $4 billion in missed payments to
underfunded state pensions.
“There are some actions being taken,” Bill Gross,
who runs the world’s biggest bond fund at Pacific
Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach,
California, said in a Bloomberg Television
interview with Margaret Brennan yesterday.
“Illinois -- hooray!”
The Legislature’s action is “a serious and
successful effort to address this problem in a way
that ’s material and has an immediate influence,”
Chris Mier, chief municipal strategist with Loop
Capital Markets LLC in Chicago, said in a telephone
interview. “Right from the start you have
improved cash flow.”
‘A Big Difference’
He said the measure “is significant and will make
a big difference in the fiscal health of the state.”
Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings said they’d
examine the budget package and its potential
impact on the state ’s credit grades. S&P rates
Illinois A+, its fifth-highest investment level, two
steps above California, which gets the lowest
rating for any state ’s general-obligation debt.
Illinois’s “willingness to implement difficult and
politically unpopular measures to restore budget
balance has been questionable over the past two
years, ” New York-based S&P said in a statement.
Quinn, who was elected in November by a
margin of 20,000 votes, out of more than 3.6
million cast, had said he would support only a
one-percentage-point increase in the income tax.
His budget director, David Vaught, told
Bloomberg News in a July interview that the state
would push for a two-percentage-point increase
after the election.
Illinois and other U.S. states confront deficits
totaling $140 billion in the next fiscal year,
according to a Dec. 16 report from the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington
research group.
At the Bottom
Illinois and Arizona were ranked the weakest in a
Dec. 30 financial-strength report from BMO
Capital Markets analysts led by Justin
Hoogendoorn in Chicago.
An Illinois general-obligation bond maturing in
January 2018 yielded 4.6 percent in trading
yesterday, according to Municipal Securities
Rulemaking Board data. A basis point is 0.01
percentage point.
Quinn said the state’s budget crisis had been
decades in the making, and resolving it will “take
another decade or so,” he said.
The fiscal package includes what Senate President
John Cullerton called “an unprecedented spending
cap.” The first year will limit spending to a 10
percent increase that will include an estimated
$4.5 billion payment into the state ’s retirement
systems. The state has been borrowing money
to make payments.
Spending Limited
Spending in the next three years will be limited to
an annual increase of 2 percent, Cullerton said.
Some expressed doubts about the state’s
commitment to holding the line on spending.
“Illinois continues to send the impression that we
are anti-business,” said Doug Whitley, president
and chief executive officer of the Illinois Chamber
of Commerce, in an interview. “I don’t think the
tax increase is going to cause immediate,
wholesale loss of jobs, but the message
continues to be that Illinois politicians are
insensitive to fundamental business questions
such as the cost of doing business. ”
In Chicago, some residents expressed resignation
at the actions of lawmakers.
“I don’t want to say it’s a necessary evil, but what
are the alternatives?” asked Genelle Lutsch, 31, a
senior business analyst in Deloitte Touche
Tohmatsu ’s Chicago office.
“Do we want to pay our firemen or police force,
improve our infrastructure, our roads -- that all
comes from tax money, ” she said.

Source: Http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-12/illinois-governor-quinn-calls-67-increase-in-income-tax-crucial-to-state.html

Obama urges Americans to debate 'in a way that heals'.

President Obama, facing the challenge of
consoling Arizona and uniting the nation, urged
Americans on Wednesday not to point fingers of
blame but to "expand our moral imaginations"
and to "sharpen our instincts for empathy."
Speaking at a memorial for victims of the Tucson
shooting rampage that left six people dead and 13
wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-
Ariz.), the president said the gunman's motives
were shrouded in mystery.
"The truth is that none of us can know exactly
what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can
know with any certainty what might have
stopped these shots from being fired, or what
thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent
man's mind," Obama told a boisterous overflow
crowd at the service, held at the University of
Arizona's McKale Memorial Center.
"Yes, we have to examine all the facts behind this
tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the
face of such violence.... But what we can't do is
use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on
each other."
As soon as he arrived in Tucson, Obama and his
wife, Michelle, traveled to University Medical
Center to visit victims of the attack. They met
privately for about 10 minutes with Giffords and
her husband, astronaut Mark E. Kelly, the White
House said.
At the memorial, Obama departed from his
prepared text to announce — with Kelly's
permission, the president said — that Giffords
had opened her eyes for the first time shortly
before the service.
"She knows we are here and she knows we love
her," Obama said. The crowd erupted.
Kelly, who was in the audience, received a hug
from Michelle Obama.
More than 13,000 people packed into the
auditorium, the university said, for a service that
was at turns somber and sorrowful, defiant and
triumphant. Another 13,000 who couldn't fit
inside watched from a nearby football stadium.
The crowd — students, retirees, parents and
children, Obama supporters, Obama opponents,
people who knew the shooting victims and many
more who did not — had waited more than 12
hours to get inside. Lines snaked for miles.
Joe Watkins, 50, a trial lawyer who attended with
his wife and a co-worker, said he was "sick to
death of the negativity that's been thrown around
the past few campaigns."
"Now everybody on both sides of the aisle has
stepped back and said, 'We have to think.' But will
it last?" he asked.
As the ceremony began, an elderly woman
unfurled a homemade sign that read: "We will
heal."
The event came four days after a gunman,
whom police identified as 22-year-old Jared Lee
Loughner, fired 31 shots outside a Tucson
Safeway. The dead included Arizona's chief
federal judge, John M. Roll.
Authorities said Loughner's primary goal
appeared to have been to assassinate Giffords.
She had been hosting a Congress on Your Corner
event, which the president called a
"quintessentially American scene" — a
congressional representative listening to
constituents.
The shooting plunged much of Arizona and
Washington into sadness, but also brought a
renewed focus on incivility and violent imagery in
politics.
Obama confronted that issue, saying that
although debates over gun control or mental
healthcare were important and proper,
Americans should debate "in a way that heals,
not [in] a way that wounds."
Incivility did not cause the attack, he said, but
added that our debates should be "worthy of
those we have lost" — not conducted "on the
usual plane of politics and point-scoring and
pettiness that drifts away with the next news
cycle."
Obama seemed to meld his customary austerity
with an emotional accounting of the attack's toll.
One by one, he told the stories of those killed — a
snowbird who often knitted under a tree; a
woman married to her high school sweetheart
for 50 years; a retired construction worker who
died while shielding his wife with his body; a
federal judge on his way home from Mass; a
Giffords aide who helped constituents.

Source: Http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obama-memorial-20110113,0,4798008.story

U.S. agencies believe Iran's nuclear efforts have slowed.

(Reuters) - U.S. intelligence
agencies believe Iranian
leaders have not yet decided
to build a nuclear bomb, and
some officials say recent
problems affecting Tehran's
nuclear equipment and
personnel have set back Iran's
nuclear program by two years
or more.
The latest assessments, based at least in part on
Israeli intelligence, appear to have eased political
pressures on Israeli and American leaders for a
military strike against Iran's nuclear infrastructure,
according to current and former officials familiar
with the intelligence.
These developments have also given the
administration of President Barack Obama
breathing room to pursue a two-pronged
strategy of seeking greater diplomatic
engagement with Tehran while also threatening
increased economic sanctions, they said.
Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists and a
computer virus which allegedly infected control
systems for Iran's uranium enrichment
equipment have likely slowed Iran's nuclear
progress, Israeli intelligence sources have said.
That evaluation is shared by some, but not all,
U.S. nuclear and intelligence experts.
"We've got more time than we thought," said
Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the
Central Intelligence Agency.
Hayden said he now believes the "key decision
point" for possible military action against Iran has
been postponed until the "next (U.S.) presidential
term" which would be after the 2012 election.
At the same time, current and former U.S.
national security and intelligence officials believe
Iran is actively trying to assemble the
infrastructure and know-how for atomic bomb
production if and when political leaders decide to
build one.
A current U.S. official who is following the issue
closely told Reuters: "The intelligence folks think
that the Iranians aren't necessarily moving full
steam ahead with the development of a nuclear
weapon, but that there's fairly robust debate
inside the Iranian regime on whether to go
forward."
"This is a momentous decision for an isolated
government, and people are watching very
closely to see what they do."
The official added that, "Even if (the Iranians)
choose to do the wrong thing and proceed
toward nuclear weapons, it's unclear that they
could do so quickly. While they've got a lot of
knowledge, putting it into practice is a whole
different ball game."
Six major powers -- the United States, Britain,
Russia, Germany, France, and China -- are
meeting with Iran next week in Istanbul to seek
assurances that it is not trying to develop nuclear
weapons. Tehran says its nuclear work is for
production of electricity.
"BREAKOUT CAPABILITY" SOUGHT
For years, a key point of debate among analysts
has been estimating how quickly Iranian scientists
and engineers could build a bomb once political
leaders gave the word.
The most recent -- and controversial --
consensus of U.S. spy agencies issued in 2007
reported that Iran had "halted its nuclear weapons
program" in the autumn of 2003, although
Tehran was "keeping open the option to develop
nuclear weapons."
The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate suggested
it was conceivable Iran might be able to produce
enough bomb-grade uranium to build a weapon
at the earliest in 2010. But U.S. agencies believed
the Iranians' ability to achieve this was more likely
after 2015.Some Israeli intelligence experts strongly
disagreed, suggesting publicly following the
report's release that Iran might be able to build a
bomb within months rather than years.
The 2007 assessment took the steam out of
efforts by some hard-liners in the administration
of President George W. Bush to seek harsher
sanctions, or even military action against Iran.
Despite criticism from conservatives, U.S.
intelligence agencies stuck by the 2007
assessment until the revelation in 2009 of Iran's
secret underground enrichment facility near the
holy city of Qom.
That discovery and other classified intelligence
alarmed the intelligence community and forced a
re-evaluation of when Iran could reach a
"breakout capability" threshold, making it capable
of assembling a nuclear weapon.
A consensus began to develop among U.S.
government experts that Iran may well have
resumed the kind of nuclear related research and
development activities that could hasten the
timeline toward building a bomb.
MAJOR ISRAELI SHIFT
In the last few days, however, the assessment in
the United States and Israel seems to be shifting
back toward the 2007 intelligence evaluation of
slower Iranian nuclear progress.
Israelis, who had claimed Iran's bomb-making
was advanced enough to produce a device within
a matter of months, appeared to significantly
revise their outlook.
Meir Dagan, outgoing director of Israel's principal
intelligence agency, Mossad, said Tehran would
not be able to build a bomb for at least four years
"because of measures that have been deployed
against them."
Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its
existence. It bombed an Iraqi reactor in 1981 and
a suspected Syrian nuclear site in 2007 to disrupt
nuclear programs in those two Arab states.
Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East's
only atomic arsenal, but many analysts say its air
force is too small to take on Iran's nuclear sites on
its own.
Following the Israeli statements, word began to
circulate among U.S. intelligence officials about a
new push to complete the long-awaited updated
National Intelligence Estimate on the Iranian
nuclear program.
An official with the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence would not comment, citing a
long-standing policy not to discuss these reports
or even acknowledge their existence.
Some American experts question whether the
revised Israeli view of Iran's nuclear glitches could
be too optimistic and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu also seemed to question the
Israeli intelligence view.
A few days after Dagan's assessment, Netanyahu
insisted the Iranians were still intent on getting a
nuclear weapon and that only a combination of
sanctions and a credible threat of military action
would be effective deterrents.
David Albright, a former United Nations weapons
inspector who heads the Institute for Science and
International Security, a Washington think tank,
told Reuters that his own analysis still indicated
Iran's nuclear research could reach a breakout
point for bomb building in a year or two.
Albright said he did not understand why Israelis
like Dagan were so confident Iran will remain
incapable of putting together a bomb any earlier
than 2015.

Source: Http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70B79P20110112?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

Investigator: Loughner's law enforcement contacts weren't alarming.

Tucson, Arizona (CNN) -- The suspect in
Saturday's shooting at an Arizona supermarket
has had some contacts with law enforcement,
the Pima County Sheriff's Department's lead
investigator said Wednesday, but none so
alarming that authorities were concerned about
what he might do.
Pima County Sheriff's Bureau Chief Richard
Kastigar said that speculation law enforcement
had enough information about Jared Loughner to
stop the shooting is "completely untrue."
"I couldn't underscore that more," Kastigar told
CNN's "John King USA."
"The events that led up to what happened
Saturday as they relate to law enforcement
contact really do not add up in their totality to
anything that would cause a police officer to say.
'This guy is going to go out there and shoot 20
people.' There's nothing there," Kastigar said.
The law enforcement contacts
included episodes of underaged
drinking and possessing drug
paraphernalia, which Kastigar
described as "very minor
occurrences or interactions with
law enforcement." Kastigar also
said investigators had found no
evidence Loughner followed up on
suggestions from Pima College
officials that he seek mental health
help for behavioral problems.
Six people were killed in the
shooting on Saturday and 13 others
-- including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
-- were wounded. Giffords, whom
police said was the target of the
shooting, remains in critical
condition but her doctors have
been pleased with her progress.
Loughner, 22, appeared in a
Phoenix federal courtroom Monday
to formally hear the charges
against him -- including two counts
of murder, two counts of
attempted murder and one count
of attempting to kill a member of
Congress. He is now in federal
custody.
And on Wednesday, the Ninth
Circuit Courts designated a district
judge in California to hear
Loughner's federal case. Judge
Larry Burns is a 2003 Bush
appointee serving in the U.S.
District Court for Southern
California, based in San Diego. The next scheduled
federal hearing in the case is January 24 in
Phoenix.
All federal judges in Arizona have recused
themselves from hearing the case. The chief
federal judge in Arizona -- Judge John Roll of
Tucson -- was among those killed in the Saturday
shooting.
Kastigar said that investigators are looking for a
black bag Loughner was carrying early Saturday
morning when he had a brief discussion with his
father, Randy Loughner, in the Loughners' front
yard, Kastigar said.
"The father asked him questions similar to 'What
are you doing? What is that?' and Jared mumbled
something back to his dad, and his dad said he
didn't understand what was said," Kastigar said.
"It was unintelligible, and then Jared left."
The elder Loughner got in his vehicle and tried to
follow his son, but could not find him, Kastigar
said.
Kastigar said that investigators
found "a locked box of some kind
and within that box was an
envelope and a piece of paper and
hand-scrawled on those pieces of
paper were a few phrases."
"Die cop," "die bitch" and
"assassination plans have been
made" were among the phrases,
he said. One of the pieces of paper
found in the box was a letter from
Giffords thanking Loughner for
attending a 2007 event, he said.
Mark Hart, spokesman for the
Arizona Game and Fish
Department, said Loughner was
stopped by an officer for running a
red light at 7:30 a.m. on the day of
the shooting. He was given a
verbal warning and released.
Kastigar added that investigators
are now certain that Loughner
acted alone. A "person of interest"
they had been seeking identified
himself to police. He turned out to
be a taxi driver who dropped off
the suspect at the shopping center,
Kastigar said.
Loughner's parents said Tuesday
they do not know why the
shooting occurred and that they
were "very sorry" for the loss felt
by victims' families.
"There are no words that can
possibly express how we feel. We wish that there
were, so we could make you feel better. We
don't understand why this happened," the family
said in its statement. "It may not make any
difference, but we wish that we could change the
heinous events of Saturday. We care very deeply
about the victims and their families. We are so
very sorry for their loss."
After the shooting, attendees at the Giffords event
tackled Loughner and held him down until law
enforcement arrived. The Pima County Sheriff's
Department said Loughner used a Glock 19 with a
magazine that held 31 rounds -- all of which were
recovered at the scene.

Source: Http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/12/arizona.shooting/?hpt=T1

Facebook joins hunt for missing kids with Amber Alerts.

Computerworld - In an effort to find missing
children faster, Facebook will deliver Amber Alerts
to its users.
Facebook users in all 50 U.S. states, Washington
D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands can
now sign up to receive Amber Alerts for their
state as part of their news feed.
With the new service, which went into effect on
Wednesday, users will also be able to share the
alerts with their Facebook friends.
"Everyone at Facebook feels a responsibility to
help protect children and, as a former federal
prosecutor and a father of two, I am particularly
proud that we are now part of the Amber Alert
program," said Chris Sonderby, Lead Security
and Investigations Counsel at Facebook.
"We are hopeful that today's announcement
offers these dedicated officials another useful tool
to find and safely recover abducted children,"
Sonderby said.
The announcement came on Wednesday during
a joint press conference with Facebook, the U.S.
Department of Justice and the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children.
The news also came out the day before the 15th
anniversary of the abduction and murder of 9-
year-old Amber Hagerman, who became the
namesake of the national Amber Alert Program.
By teaming up with Facebook, which surpassed
Google as the most visited Web site in the U.S. in
2010, the Amber Alert program has the potential
to reach a very large audience. Last July,
Facebook announced that it had a worldwide user
base of half a billion people.
"That's a nice thing FaceBook is doing," said Ezra
Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business
Research. "It has some potential. It's probably not
that great on short-term emergencies, but a lot of
people spend a lot of time with Facebook --
certainly more than looked at the back of milk
cartons, back in the day."

Source: Http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9204841/Facebook_joins_hunt_for_missing_kids_with_Amber_Alerts

Lebanese Government Collapses As Hezbollah Exits.

Lebanon's unity government collapsed
Wednesday after Hezbollah ministers and their
allies resigned.
Wednesday's walkout ushers in another political
crisis for a country with a long history of
volatility and violence. The resignations were
announced at a news conference by Energy
Minister Jibran Bassil, a member of the Free
Patriotic Movement - the key Christian ally of
Hezbollah.
In order to pave the way for a new
government according to the constitution that
will be able to take responsibility for the security
and interests of the people, he said, and also by
securing the real justice, the ministers are
submitting their resignations from this
government hoping that the president will
accelerate the formation of a new government.
Analysts say their departure could also force the
resignation of Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri and
end Lebanese involvement in the U.N.-backed
court investigating the 2005 assassination of
former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, the father of
Sa’ad Hariri.
Mr. Hariri's assassination stunned and polarized
Lebanon, where Shi'ites, Sunnis and Christians
make up a third of the population.
Mr. Hariri was well liked and backed by many
Christians who sympathized with his efforts to
try to reduce Syrian influence in the country.
Political analyst Judith Palmer Harik said the
ministers resigned in order to force the
formation of a new government- one that
would end Lebanese support for the
international court's investigation into Mr. Hariri's
death.
The investigation by the court is likely to name
members of Hezbollah in upcoming
indictments, which many fear could re-ignite
sectarian violence.
But, Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri refused to halt
the investigation and vowed to continue to
cooperate.
A diplomatic push by Syria and Saudi Arabia to
ease political tensions in Lebanon failed.
Labor Minister Butros Harb expressed concern:
The situation puts us into administrative crisis,
he said, and also in a new political crisis which
increases complications in the country and does
not contribute towards solving any of the
problems.
Prime Minister Hariri formed the current national
unity government in November 2009, but it has
struggled to function amid deep divisions.
Mr. Hariri met in Washington Wednesday with
President Barack Obama to discuss the crisis in
Lebanon.
After the meeting, the Mr. Obama reportedly
vowed to pursue stability in Lebanon. Later in
the day, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
said Hezbollah was attempting to "subvert
justice" and undermine stability. She said it
"won't work."
Lebanese political analyst Hilal Khashan says
Hezbollah is not likely to use its military might
to take over Lebanon. In 2008, Hezbollah took
over West Beirut in a matter of days. A move
like that, he says, will not happen again because
Syria will not allow it.
For the Lebanese people, Khashan says the
collapse of the government will not result in
immediate change because the government has
done virtually nothing in months. Government
paralysis, he says, is now simply formalized.

Source: Http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Hezbollah-Could-Quit-Lebanese-Government-113349394.html

Ted Williams: A bit of tarnish on his golden rise from homelessness.

The celebrated rise of Ted Williams, the
man with the golden voice, hits a stumbling
block, and he may be heading to rehab. His
story illustrates the many hazards that can
lead to homelessness.

Los Angeles
Homelessness is back in the news. But in contrast
with this past week ’s feel-good story about the
formerly homeless Ted Williams being lifted from
a life on the streets into a home, job, and instant
fame, this week ’s narratives pull back that media
curtain on a darker side.
Mr. Williams was taken to a Los Angeles police
station for questioning after a Hollywood hotel
altercation with his daughter that reportedly was
so loud that an employee phoned the police.
There were also allegations of substance abuse.
On the other coast, the Washington-based
Alliance to End Homelessness released a report
showing a three-percent rise in homelessness
nationwide. Says Alliance president Nan Roman,
both events are sobering reminders of the deeper
problems driving people to live on the streets.
Top 6 most triumphant stories of 2010
“When someone is lifted from a life on the streets
like Mr. Williams, we all cheer and are happy for
him, ” says Ms. Roman. But, she adds, “all that
attention and celebrity is almost always focused
on the anecdote, not the real solutions to the
problem of people being homeless. ”
According to a press release issued Wednesday
by the “Dr. Phil Show,” Williams has agreed to
enter a rehab facility “for his alcohol and drug
dependency.” A one-on-one interview with Dr.
Phil will air Thursday. The press release says the
decision was taken “with his family’s support.”
His ex-wife and five family members will also
appear on the show to discuss what they say are
his ongoing substance abuse problems.
The media rise and fall of Ted Williams is an all-
too-familiar story to Andrew Bales, CEO of Union
Rescue Mission in Los Angeles. While he
appreciates the fact that Williams puts a face on
homelessness, he says that having gifts is not the
man’s problem.
“My first reaction was that we have at least 4 men
with that very amazing radio voice, others with
tremendous singing talent, a brilliant comedian,
and others with incredible gifts, but as Ted said, a
drinking problem has been his downfall, ” he
says. That is why the mission focuses instead on
what Mr. Bales calls “Life Transformation,
including a 12-step program. When lives are
transformed, gifts will shine. ”
Instead of the celebrity frenzy that enveloped
Williams after his YouTube video – captured on a
Columbus, Ohio street corner – went viral, Bales
says the recovering alcoholic would be much
better served with a low-profile transition that
included a team to help him handle both the
money and new opportunities and “maybe even
a chaplain on his side.”
That’s because, as he points out, the issues that
brought him to the street in the first place are not
going to magically disappear when the national
media spotlight turns on. In fact, he suggests,
that glare has most certainly not helped Williams
adjust to his new circumstances. People caught
in the celebrity crush have little understanding of
how fleeting that embrace can be, he says.
Bales says the “Today Show” was quick to rush
Williams on the air when the story first broke, but
Bales feels the host, Matt Lauer, was equally quick
to distance himself when the new allegations
broke, calling Williams “that formerly homeless
man with the golden voice.”
Instant fame can be every bit as addictive as a
drug, points out sociologist BJ Gallagher, author
of “It's Never Too Late to Be What You Might
Have Been.”
Even folks without a history of substance abuse
can wilt under the pressure of such attention, she
says. Look no further than that other viral video
sensation, Scottish singer Susan Boyle, who
ended up in the hospital for mental exhaustion
after her rush to fame.
Like many who held their breath as the Ted
Williams saga unfolded last week, Ms. Gallagher
says, “I didn’t think it would last, at least not so
perfectly, but I didn’t think it would come down
so quickly.”
Genuine solutions to homelessness must include
tackling the issues that drove a person out of a
stable home, says Ms. Gallagher. But those are so
much harder to wrap into a neat narrative, she
points out, because real life is so much messier
than the fairy tale. “We are a very optimistic
people and we like our happy endings,” she says.

Source: Http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0112/Ted-Williams-A-bit-of-tarnish-on-his-golden-rise-from-homelessness

Private weather network will monitor greenhouse gases.

Power plants that burn fossil fuels, like this coal-
fired plant, churn out carbon dioxide along with
electricity.

A map of greenhouse gas instrument locations
across the USA to be installed by Earth Networks.

A private company announced Wednesday that
it's launching its own greenhouse gas measuring
network to supplement governmental and
academic efforts that have tracked greenhouse
emissions for decades.
Carbon dioxide — the greenhouse gas deemed
most responsible for global warming — has been
continuously measured in the Earth's atmosphere
since 1958. The measurements have been
overseen by the federal government's National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography.
The new sensor network will be overseen in a
joint venture between Washington, D.C.-based
Earth Networks, formerly AWS Convergence
Technologies, and Scripps. Earth Networks is
parent company of the popular WeatherBug
weather network and computer application used
by consumers, schools, government agencies
and TV stations.
"We have the largest network of weather sensors
in the world," says Robert Marshall, CEO and
founder of Earth Networks. Marshall says the new
sensors will piggyback on some of the
company's existing 8,000 weather sensors.
The greenhouse gas sensors will be networked
directly into the weather sensor network, Earth
Networks says. Because the EarthNetworks
infrastructure is already deployed, the
greenhouse sensors can be deployed quickly.
Marshall says the network will be devoted to
measuring carbon dioxide, methane and other
greenhouse gases. Over the next two years, it
will consist of 100 sensors worldwide: 50 in the
USA, 25 in western Europe and 25 in the rest of
the world.
The company will invest $25 million over the next
five years to deploy and operate the network.
Earth Networks, in Germantown, Md., is working
closely with scientists from Scripps, since Scripps
deployed the first carbon dioxide sensor more
than a half century ago — in 1958, at the Mauna
Loa volcano in Hawaii. That remains the longest
continuous record of atmospheric concentrations
of carbon dioxide in the world.
The announcement was made Wednesday at
Scripps in La Jolla, Calif., where the first new
sensor was deployed. A second will be deployed
soon in Washington D.C.
According to Earth Networks, most companies
and countries base emissions calculations on the
raw materials that go into a factory or power
plant, rather than on the actual gases emitted as a
result of manufacturing or energy generation.
These measurements will help paint a far more
accurate picture of what's occurring in the
atmosphere, Earth Networks says.
The new sensors will be another possible
contributor to NOAA's greenhouse gas sensor
network, says Jim Butler, director of global
monitoring at NOAA's Earth System Research
Laboratory in Boulder, Colo. "We will be looking
at their data and analyzing it," he says.
Butler says NOAA houses and maintains the
world's main laboratory for measuring carbon
dioxide and other gases, is responsible for all the
global carbon measurements, and has been
doing so for more than 40 years. They have 70
to 80 stations around the world.
"It takes a lot of attention to accuracy, precision
and continuity," says Butler. He says "if their data
isn't good, we won't use it."
Scripps scientist Ray Weiss says the new
network is not intended to replace NOAA. "We
want to further the science," he says. "This data
will be open and transparent not just to scientists
but also to consumers around the world."
Carbon dioxide alone is responsible for 63% of the
warming attributable to all greenhouse gases,
according to NOAA's Earth System Research Lab.

Source: Http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/environment/2011-01-12-greenhouse-gas-monitors_N.htm

Obama visiting Giffords, victims at Ariz. hospital.

TUCSON, Ariz. — President Barack Obama flew to Arizona
Wednesday and headed straight to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords'
bedside to pay his respects to the wounded lawmaker as he
sought to unify a mourning nation.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, were visiting privately at University
Medical Center with Giffords and other victims of the weekend
shootings that killed six people and wounded 13. He was then
meeting with family members of those killed before speaking at a
nighttime memorial service in Tucson.
"The president wanted to begin this solemn trip by stopping first
at the hospital where Congresswoman Giffords and others
continue to recuperate," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs
told reporters traveling with the president. Giffords was the target
of the first assassination attempt on a member of Congress in
decades.
Searching for the right tone in the evening service, Obama aimed
to console the country, not dissect its politics.
Video: Giffords’ family ‘elated’ with her recovery
A bipartisan delegation of lawmakers, including Rep. Ben Quayle,
R-Ariz., accompanied him on Air Force One in a sign of solidarity.
Quayle had called Obama the "worst president in history."
Back on Capitol Hill, Giffords' House colleagues praised her and
the other shooting victims and insisted that violence would not
silence democracy.
"We will have the last word," declared new House Speaker John
Boehner. He fought back tears as he described Giffords' battle to
recover from Saturday's gunshot wound to her head.
Obama was again playing the role of national consoler that
comes to all presidents and, in rare times, helps define them.
He drew on his own somber experience, following the shooting
rampage by one of the military's own members at the Fort Hood
army post in 2009. Then, as expected now, Obama focused his
comments on how the victims led their lives.
The president fine-tuned his speech as he flew across the
country. He was to be the last speaker at the event at the
University of Arizona's basketball arena. His speech was to last up
to 18 minutes, NBC News reported.
"The president will devote a significant portion of his remarks to
the memory of the victims," Gibbs told NBC News. "He'll also
reflect on how all of us might best honor their memory in our
own lives."
His main mission was to give a warm and honorable portrait of
the six people who were killed at Giffords' community outreach
gathering last Saturday. Their stories have already taken hold in a
country consumed by this sad story; among those who died
were a 9-year-old-girl, a prominent judge and an aide to Giffords
who was engaged to be married.
Obama was expected to speak about the courage of those who
intervened to tackle the gunman and help the wounded. He was
also assuring grieving families that the country was behind them.
And to those grasping for answers, Obama was likely explore
how "we can come together as a stronger nation" in the
aftermath of the tragedy, as he put it earlier this week.
In times of calamity, the country has long turned to its presidents
for the right words of assurance. It is test of leadership that
comes with the job.
Video: Pal: Mug shot shows ‘monster,’ not Loughner
Recent history recalls George W. Bush with a bullhorn amid the
rubble of Sept. 11, 2001, Bill Clinton's leadership after the
Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and Ronald Reagan's response
to the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, when he
spoke about being "pained to the core."
For Obama, the most instructive lesson may be one from his
own presidency.
He led the memorial at Fort Hood, trying to help a shaken nation
cope with a mass shooting that left 13 people dead and more
than two dozen wounded. He spent the first part of that speech
naming the people who had been killed and describing how they
spent their lives; he used the second half to remind everyone of
American endurance and justice.
The shootings, apparently a brazen attempt to kill a member of
Congress, shattered a Saturday event Giffords had organized
outside a grocery as a way for her constituents to chat with her.
Story: Arizona shooting victims
Threats against lawmakers are not uncommon, but violence is
rare. The last killing of a serving member of Congress was in
November 1978, when Rep. Leo Ryan, a California Democrat,
was murdered in the South American jungle of Guyana while
investigating the Jonestown cult.
The Arizona episode has sparked a broader debate, unfolding in
the media for days, about whether the vitriol of today's politics
played a role. Obama has long called for the importance of more
civil political discourse, but he has made no comments on that in
connection to this shooting, and he was not expected to choose
Wednesday night's event as the forum to do so.
Police say the man accused of the shootings, 22-year-old Jared
Lee Loughner, shot Giffords as well as many in the line of people
waiting to talk with her. The attack ended when bystanders
tackled the man. He is in jail on federal charges as police continue
to investigate.
Four days after the shootings, Giffords was making small
movements on her own. The three-term Democrat was
expected to live. Obama was joined on Air Force One by
Republican members of Arizona's congressional delegation,
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland
Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
By mid-afternoon, the university said 17,000 people were in line
for the event, exceeding the arena's intended capacity. Overflow
seating was set up at the school's football stadium, with a video
of the proceedings to be played on the scoreboard screen.

Source: Http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41043078/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

20,000 Brisbane Homes Face Flood Damage as River Reaches Peak.

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – As the Brisbane River's
water level reaches its peak, 70,000 residents of
Australia's third-largest city are without power,
and conditions won't improve anytime soon, an
official said.
The waters poured into Brisbane, topping traffic
lights on some streets, after marching across
Queensland state for weeks. Roads shut
throughout the city, and people moved about in
kayaks, rowboats and even on surfboards. Boats
torn from their moorings floated down an
engorged river.
Residents of the city's low-lying areas headed in
the thousands for higher ground, while others
chose to ride it out.
In a statement from the Queensland state police,
"the Brisbane River has now reached its peak" as
the flood depth from an official weather bureau
water gauge in the center of the city measured
close to 15 feet, according to Reuters.
Some neighbors in East Brisbane fired up a
barbecue, put some beer on ice and starting
grilling sausages while watching the water spill
from a picturesque creek and creep up the gentle
slope toward their homes.
"We're having a bit of a barbecue because we've
got no electricity," said Bob Vilgan, an 80-
something dressed like most of the neighbors in
shorts, a T-shirt and sandals. "The idea is to get
everyone fed who is in with our crowd, have a
few tiny tipples and get back home."
The flooding, which has killed 22 people since late
November, has submerged dozens of towns --
some three times -- and left an area the size of
Germany and France combined under water.
Highways and rail lines have been washed away
in the disaster, which is shaping up to Australia's
costliest ever.
With at least 43 people missing, the death toll is
expected to rise. Many of those unaccounted for
disappeared from around Toowoomba, a city
west of Brisbane that saw massive flash floods
sweep away cars, road signs and people. Twelve
died in that flood alone.
The toll has shocked Australians, no strangers to
deadly natural disasters like the wildfires that killed
173 in a single day two years ago.
One tale has particularly transfixed the country: a
13-year-old boy caught in the flood who told
strangers to save his 10-year-old brother first and
died as a result.
Jordan and Blake Rice were in the car with their
mother, Donna, when a wall of water pummeled
Toowoomba on Monday. After the torrent of
water knocked one rescuer over, another man
managed to reach the car, The Australian
newspaper reported. At Jordan's insistence, he
pulled Blake out first, according to a third brother,
Kyle.
"Courage kicked in, and he would rather his little
brother would live," the 16-year-old told the
newspaper. Jordan and his mother were washed
away before the men were able to get back to
them. By Wednesday, Jordan's name was
among the top 10 most used terms on Twitter,
as a wave of tweets hailed him as a "true hero" of
the Queensland floods.
In contrast to the wall of water that swallowed
Toowoomba, Brisbane's crisis has been marked
by the waters' slow but steady progress.
"I was quite panicked after seeing Toowoomba,"
said Ali Cook, one of the neighbors at the East
Brisbane barbecue. "But it's been such a slow
rise. It's still rising quite a lot."
On Wednesday, emergency sirens blared across
Brisbane as the floodwaters entered an empty
downtown and began swamping
neighborhoods.
The surging, muddy waters reached the tops of
traffic lights in some parts of Brisbane, and Mayor
Campbell Newman said at least 20,000 homes
would likely be damaged. Brisbane's office
buildings stood empty Wednesday with the
normally bustling central business district
transformed into a watery ghost town.
Police went door-to-door in some
neighborhoods advising people to leave. Five
evacuation centers were open with room for
16,000 people.
The Brisbane River is expected to reach its height
on Thursday, at a depth slightly lower the that of
1974 floods that swept the city. Bligh said the
news was welcome, but of little comfort.
"This is still a major event, the city is much
bigger, much more populated and has many
parts under flood that didn't even exist in 1974,"
she said. "We are still looking at an event which
will cripple parts of our city."
The waters have overwhelmed a dam built to
protect the city after the 1974 deluge. Officials
have opened the floodgates of the dam to
prevent a greater disaster, contributing to the
flooding downtown.
Though the full extent of the damage won't be
known until the water is gone, even before
Brisbane was threatened, Queensland Premier
Anna Bligh estimated a cleanup and rebuilding to
total around $5 billion.
Add to that, the damage to economy:
Queensland's coal industry has virtually shut
down, costing millions in deferred exports and
sending global prices higher. Vegetables, fruit and
sugarcane crops in the rich agricultural region
have been wiped out, and prices are due to
skyrocket as a result.
Water levels were expected to stay at peak levels
until at least Saturday, but many people won't be
able to access their homes for several days
beyond that, Bligh said.
Energex, Brisbane's main power company,
started switching off electricity to some parts of
the city as a precaution against electrocution.
Almost 70,000 homes were without power
across Queensland by Wednesday afternoon,
Bligh said.
Residents who had spent two days preparing
took cover on higher ground while others
scrambled to move their prized possessions to
the top floors of their homes. Some stacked
furniture on their roofs. Supermarkets, which had
experienced a run on bottled water, food and
other goods in the previous days, stayed closed
on Wednesday.
Darren Marchant spent all day moving furniture
and other household goods to the top floor of his
home, near the river in the low-lying Brisbane
suburb of Yeronga. He and two neighbors
watched in awe as dozens of expensive boats
and pontoons drifted past.
"We were watching all kinds of debris floating
down the river -- one of the (neighbor's)
pontoons just floated off," he said Wednesday. "It
was amazing."
West of Brisbane, the city of Ipswich, home to
about 15,000 people, 3,000 properties were
swamped by the waters heading Brisbane's way,
and 1,100 people had fled to evacuation centers,
Mayor Paul Pisasale said. The floods also reached
further into New South Wales, causing about
3,000 people to leave their homes there.
In Ipswich, video showed horses swimming
through the brown waters, pausing to rest their
heads on the roof of a house -- the only dry spot
they could reach.

Source: Http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/11/floods-hit-brisbane-australias-rd-largest-city/?test=latestnews

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