Ohio GOP Rep. Steve Austria will not seek reelection in 2012, a GOP source familiar with his plans confirms: Source: http://twitter.com/politico/statuses/152832264311541761
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BERLIN (Reuters) ? Hackers who have shut down websites by overwhelming them with Web traffic could use the same approach to shut down the computers that control train switching systems, a security expert said at a hacking conference in Berlin.
Stefan Katzenbeisser, professor at Technische Universit?t Darmstadt in Germany, said switching systems were at risk of "denial of service" attacks, which could cause long disruptions to rail services.
"Trains could not crash, but service could be disrupted for quite some time," Katzenbeisser told Reuters on the sidelines of the convention.
"Denial of service" campaigns are one of the simplest forms of cyber attack: hackers recruit large numbers of computers to overwhelm the targeted system with Internet traffic.
Hackers have used the approach to attack sites of government agencies around the world and sites of businesses.
Train switching systems, which enable trains to be guided from one track to another at a railway junction, have historically been separate from the online world, but communication between trains and switches is handled increasingly using wireless technology.
Katzenbeisser said GSM-R, a mobile technology used for trains, is more secure than the usual GSM, used in phones, against which security experts showed a new attack at the convention.
"Probably we will be safe on that side in coming years. The main problem I see is a process of changing ... keys. This will be a big issue in the future, how to manage these keys safely," Katzenbeisser said.
The software encryption 'keys', which are needed for securing the communication between trains and switching systems, are downloaded to physical media like USB sticks and then sent around for installing -- raising the risk of them ending up in the wrong hands.
(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Holmes)
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - The state Supreme Court has revived a legal challenge by a death row inmate.
The court reinstated a habeas corpus petition by Timothy Allen of Bloomfield, who was convicted of murder, kidnapping and attempted rape of a 17-year-old girl.
The killing occurred near Flora Vista in 1994. In a ruling earlier this month, the justices said a district court wrongly dismissed Allen's legal challenge as a sanction for refusing to answer deposition questions.
Allen seeks to overturn his convictions and death sentence.
He says his lawyers failed to do an adequate pre-trial investigation of his mental health background.
He contends he was abused as a child and suffers from psychiatric disorders.
The Supreme Court upheld Allen's convictions and sentence in 1999.
Robert Fry of Farmington also is on death row.
(Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
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By Christin Nance Lazerus cnance@post-trib.com December 23, 2011 5:20PM
East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland
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Updated: December 24, 2011 2:01AM
East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland was threatened by a gunman on his Thursday night walk.
The incident occurred at 10 p.m. next to Johnny?s Meat Market, 3940 Main St., near Copeland?s home.
?I usually go out for a nightly two-mile walk,? Copeland said. ?I used to do it during the day. I was coming back home, when about a block and half from my house, a guy came out of the alley and tried to rob me.?
Copeland said he didn?t break stride as he took cover behind a truck parked on the street. The gunman never broke the cover of the alley, Copeland said.
?I yelled at the top my lungs, ?Are you going to shoot me or what are you going to do?,? ? Copeland said.
The man never responded and instead fled back down the alley.
Copeland called police, and they searched for the man to no avail. The suspect was described as a black male in his 30s, wearing black jeans, a black jacket, a black hooded sweatshirt and a black knit hat. Copeland hurt his shoulder as he took cover behind the truck.
A background in self-defense may have helped Copeland avoid serious injury. Copeland taught self-defense classes for 15 years, and one of the techniques has stayed with him in the years since.
?When I walk and come to alley or any kind of entryway, I always instinctively veer away from it by about five or six feet, in case a car or dog comes out,? Copeland said. ?If I had stayed alongside the building, he would have pointed it at my head or body.?
Copeland said he doesn?t think the man knew who he was. ?It was just a thing of chance and opportunity,? Copeland said.
The situation did leave Copeland a bit shaken, but he?s determined not to change his routine.
?What am I going to be ? a hermit inside my home?? Copeland said. ?It alters you. Will I think twice about taking the route again? Yes. Will I be paralyzed in fear? No.
?Only a foolish person would think it couldn?t happen to them. Any person, any time, any place ? that person could take your life from you. I know that I?m overwhelmed with blessings.?
Source: http://posttrib.suntimes.com/9623998-418/ec-mayor-copeland-threatened-by-gunman-while-on-walk.html
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JERUSALEM ? The U.N.'s cultural agency said Friday it is pulling funding for a Palestinian youth magazine that published an article suggesting admiration for Hitler.
The magazine, Zayzafouna, published an article in February written by a teenage girl who presented four role models: a medieval Persian mathematician, a modern Egyptian novelist, the Muslim warrior Saladin, and the Nazi leader.
UNESCO said in a statement it "strongly deplores and condemns" the "unacceptable" material and would cease funding the magazine. UNESCO also said it funded three different issues later in 2011, and not the one in question.
The magazine also receives funding from the Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank.
In the article, the author has Hitler telling her in a dream that he killed Jews "so you would all know that they are a nation which spreads destruction all over the world." He advises her to be "resilient and patient concerning the suffering that Palestine is experiencing at their hands."
"Thanks for the advice," the narrator replies.
A translation was made public by Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli organization that tracks incitement in Palestinian media.
The magazine's director, Shareef Samhan, did not dispute the translation, though he said the girl was "accusing" Hitler and not praising him. He said he had not been aware of the text and noted that UNESCO was not a central backer of the magazine.
He defended the publication. "We depend in the content of our magazine on the participation of school students, and it's not our job to prohibit the freedom of speech," he said.
The publication sparked a written protest by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S.-based Jewish group, to UNESCO, and that protest appears to have triggered the U.N. agency's decision and public statement.
"UNESCO strongly deplores and condemns the reproduction of such inflammatory statements in a magazine associated with UNESCO's name and mission and will not provide any further support to the publication in question," read the statement issued from the agency's Paris headquarters.
The statement also said UNESCO "is deeply committed to the development and promotion of education about the Holocaust."
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, Ghassan Khatib, said the article was "not acceptable."
"We educate young people in our textbooks about the Holocaust and the massacres of Hitler against Jews and against others, and we refer to these massacres as crimes against humanity," Khatib said. "This instance is exceptional, and the editor will try to be more careful in the future."
A U.S. group, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, released a statement praising UNESCO's decision.
"As victims of the horrors of Nazi brutality, we learned with deep shock that a Palestinian children's magazine could approvingly speak of Hitler's extermination of Jews as an example to be emulated. This was monstrous and grotesque," the group said.
________
Follow Matti Friedman on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mattifriedman
________
Jenny Barchfield contributed to this story from Paris, and Dalia Nammari from Jerusalem.
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Your friend isn't entirely crazy. There's dozens of questions on the site like How can I reproduce the camera-internal postprocessing?, because it's completely true that the RAW processor in-camera is different software from desktop RAW software, and without intimate knowledge of both, it can be hard to reproduce the camera software's "look" with other software. So, if your friend really likes what the camera does, that's understandable. (See also Can in-camera JPEG have image quality advantages over (third party software) converted RAW?).
That said, the advantages of RAW are particularly high in this sort of situation, where you can't get a "do over" if you had the processing settings wrong. See Good examples of RAW's advantages over JPEG? and Why can I adjust the white balance of a RAW file but not a JPEG file?. (Also What are the pros and cons when shooting in raw vs JPEG?, but that's a kind of early question on the site, and as of this writing doesn't necessarily shine with great answers.) In short, if you take a perfect picture of the bride's expression but the white balance is off, you'll be glad to have RAW files. Or even if the exposure is really wrong, RAW will give you a better chance to try and salvage the image.
So, if your camera can shoot RAW without becoming unresponsive due to dealing with the larger files, and you have enough memory cards (bring extra!), you probably should go that way.
Some cameras (including, I believe, yours) have the ability to save in RAW+JPEG. This gives you the best of both worlds: you get the instant, in-camera results, and you also get the opportunity to change your mind. That takes even more space but is probably worth it.
Additionally (or alternately), some cameras let you post-process RAW in camera after the fact, which lets you use that engine to get the same colors and processing the camera would normally produce in JPEG, but with the chance to do it over. The downside is that you have to work on a tiny screen and the options will be far restricted, but many people underestimate the power of this. I use this 90% of the time now, and then I also have the RAW files if I really want to do something more sophisticated later.
Source: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/18398/should-i-use-raw-or-jpeg-for-wedding-photography
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(Reuters) ? Oracle Corp's dismal quarterly results sent shock waves across the technology sector as investors feared they may have overestimated the resilience of corporate tech spending in a deteriorating global economy.
The first earnings miss in a decade from Oracle, whose fiscal second quarter ended on November 30, drove its shares down more than 11 percent on Wednesday, destroying about $20 billion of market value. The shortfall from the No. 3 software maker also hit shares of many other technology companies, with VMware Inc, NetSuite Inc, and SAP among those suffering the biggest losses.
"Is this a preliminary example of what we could expect in January from Microsoft and other players? It raises an eyebrow that things may not be as hunky dory as we've been led to believe in terms of IT spending," said Daniel Morgan, a portfolio manager at Synovus Securities in Atlanta.
The troubles at Oracle follow ominous reports from big tech names including Hewlett-Packard Co, Intel Corp and Texas Instruments Inc.
The disconcerting news on Tuesday was not limited to Silicon Valley, with U.S. industrial conglomerate Emerson Electric Co reporting a drop in orders for equipment used in big data centers. Emerson shares fell 5.4 percent to $46.97.
"Overall, we have seen in the last 60 days ... a significant weakness in this whole electronics space," said Emerson Chief Executive David Farr. "I don't see that changing for the time being."
The fourth quarter is the crucial period of the year for many technology companies because corporations tend to spend most heavily on information technology during that time in what is known as a year-end "budget flush."
Oracle's disappointing results could signal that companies won't spend all the money that they still have budgeted for 2011 technology projects, said Howard Anderson, a lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Business, who regularly talks to CEOs of top-tier corporations.
"Confidence is not there," he said. "We have a kind of rolling recession."
Oracle's quarter ended in November, but investors worried that the decline in business confidence could signal more troubles for peers whose quarters end in December. That includes arch rival SAP AG.
"The majority of deals in the fourth quarter are traditionally closed in the last two weeks of the quarter, so the delay of Oracle's deals is a negative cross read for SAP," said Silvia Quandt analyst Michael Busse.
SAP CEO Bill McDermott declined to comment on his business, saying the company was in a quiet period.
A slowing in tech spending would be troubling for the U.S. economy, which has had few bright spots in recent years.
"Since the technical end of the recession (in June 2009) we've been seeing double-digit growth in investment in technology. If Oracle is the canary in the coalmine, that would be something to worry about," said Michael Goodman, director of economic and public policy research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.
"There's a lot of concern about what the immediate future holds, so this may just be customers putting off investments they want to make until they feel like they have a better handle on what the future looks like," Goodman said.
MIXED SIGNALS
U.S. companies have been sending mixed signals about their spending plans for 2012. A survey released last week by the Business Roundtable found that 16 percent of CEOs of large U.S. companies planned to cut their capital spending over the next six months, up from 13 percent who had planned cuts in the third quarter.
But other data released on Wednesday by the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association showed U.S. businesses signed up for $6.2 billion in loans, leases and lines of credit to fund capital expenditures in November, a 38 percent increase from the month a year ago.
Oracle's stock fell $3.40 to $25.77, its lowest close since August, making it the biggest loser in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. It was the biggest one-day percentage drop in the stock since March 4, 2002, when Oracle last surprised investors with an earnings warning.
CEO and co-founder Larry Ellison, the company's biggest shareholder, lost more than $3.8 billion on Wednesday as the stock plunged, based on his holdings published in Oracle's annual proxy filing.
The declines accounted for about 16 points of the 27.6 point drop in the S&P 1500 Software index, which suffered a 4.5 percent drop in market cap to about $511 billion. The drop in Oracle shares represents 68 percent of the decline in total market cap for the index.
(Reporting by Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore, Maria Sheahan, Christoph Steitz and Marilyn Gerlach in Frankfurt and Nicola Leske, David Gaffen, Ryan Vlastelica and Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/software/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/bs_nm/us_oracle
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From Robert Marus:
Mayor Vincent C. Gray today welcomed new figures from the federal Department of Labor showing a significant drop in the District?s unemployment rate last month. The rate stood at 10.6 percent in November ? a drop of nearly half a percentage point over October?s 11.0-percent rate.
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?Although we have a long way to go, I am encouraged by this significant drop in the unemployment rate,??Mayor Gray said.??This is a validation of our work to grow the economy and create jobs ? but I will not stop until every District resident who wants a job has a job.?
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The federal statistics show the District gained 3,200 jobs in October, for a total of 719,000. The private sector added 4,000 jobs, while the public sector payrolls were reduced by 800 jobs.? The numbers are drawn from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) through its monthly survey of D.C. employers.?
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Since January, the total number of private-sector jobs in the District has increased by 3.7 percent, or 17,100 jobs.?
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BOSTON ? A man who had his "dream job" working in the Red Sox clubhouse as a teenager says that ended abruptly when the clubhouse manager sexually assaulted him.
Charles Crawford is one of two Massachusetts men accusing Donald Fitzpatrick of abusing them in the early 1990s.
Crawford said at a news conference Monday that Fitzpatrick assaulted him twice in the clubhouse at Fenway Park.
The statute of limitations has expired for filing a lawsuit or seeking criminal charges against Fitzpatrick, who died in 2005. Both men are asking for $5 million settlements.
In 2002, Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty in Florida to attempted sexual battery on a child under 12. The following year, the team settled a lawsuit with seven Florida men who said Fitzpatrick molested them during spring training beginning in the 1970s.
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ROME (Reuters) ? Prime Minister Mario Monti met unions on Sunday to build support before the cabinet approves a 20-billion-euro package of austerity measures aimed at shoring up Italy's strained finances and stemming a crisis that threatens to overwhelm the euro zone.
Ministers are scheduled to sign off on the package of tax increases and spending cuts on Monday, though sources in the prime minister's office said the cabinet meeting may be brought forward to Sunday afternoon.
Expected measures include an increase in the retirement age for many workers, liberalization of professional services, a hike in income tax for higher income brackets and new taxes on private assets and housing.
The measures come at the start of one of the most crucial weeks since the creation of the single currency more than a decade ago with European leaders due to meet on Thursday in Brussels to try to agree a broader rescue plan for the bloc.
Italy, with a public debt of around 120 percent of gross domestic product, has been at the centre of Europe's debt crisis since yields on its 10-year bonds shot up to around 7 percent, similar to levels seen when countries such as Greece and Ireland were forced to seek a bailout.
Adoption of the package is seen as vital for re-establishing Italy's shattered credibility with financial markets after a series of unfulfilled promises by the previous centre-right government of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Unions said the cuts will hit poorer workers and pensioners hard but there was broad political support for Monti's plan, which is expected to be approved in parliament before Christmas.
"The choice isn't between a light package and a tough package, it's between a tough package today and the risk of bankruptcy for the country tomorrow," Angelino Alfano, secretary of the centre-right PDL party told SkyTG24 television.
With Italy, the euro zone's third-largest economy, close to a debt emergency that would destroy Europe's financial defenses, EU leaders will meet in Brussels this week hoping to agree steps to bind the bloc more closely with tougher fiscal rules.
SEVERE
Sources present at discussions on the new fiscal measures said they would total around 20 billion euros ($27 billion).
An extra 4 billion euros would come from automatic cuts to tax breaks and welfare measures outlined but not clearly identified in the austerity package presented by the previous government.
Monti will have to balance the competing needs of showing budget rigor while not choking off growth, without which it will be impossible to reduce a 1.8-trillion-euro debt mountain.
About half of the overall package will be used to cut the budget deficit and help balance the budget by 2013 despite the economic downturn and rising borrowing costs.
The other half will free up resources to try to regenerate Italy's chronically stagnant economy, which is widely expected to go into recession next year.
Changes to pensions will be key in the new reform plan, with eligibility requirements toughened up for so-called seniority pensions which are based on a combination of workers' age and the years for which they have paid contributions.
Programmed cuts to the national health service budget are expected to be accelerated by one year, to reduce spending by 2.5 billion euros in 2012 and 5 billion euros from 2013, a local government source said.
A local housing tax (ICI) may also be reintroduced, bringing in estimated revenue of at least 3.5 billion euros per year, although this total could increase depending on possible adjustments to the assessment basis on which the tax is raised.
Other expected measures include further increases in value added tax rates and a ban on cash transactions above 500 euros in an effort to tackle tax evasion.
But the package will contain no reform of job contracts which hinder companies from laying off workers, a measure seen as key to overhauling the labor market but which is bitterly opposed by unions.
($1 = 0.7446 euros)
(Writing By Catherine Hornby and James Mackenzie; Editing by Sophie Hares)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111204/bs_nm/us_italy
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MOSCOW?? Russians from the Pacific coast to the Baltic passed their verdict on Vladimir Putin's ruling party on Sunday in parliamentary polls seen as a test of his personal popularity ahead of a planned return to the presidency early next year.
Putin remains by far the most popular politician in the country, but there are some signs Russians may be wearying of his cultivated strong man image.
The 59-year-old ex-spy looked stern and said only that he hoped for good results for his United Russia party as he walked past supporters to vote in Moscow.
Some voters expressed disgust with a poll they thought likely to be rigged.
A number of pro-democracy protesters were arrested at an unsanctioned rally held by the Left Front opposition group in downtown Moscow Sunday. One man held up a banner reading "I didn't vote."
Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister when Putin was president, said he and other opposition activists who voted Sunday were under no illusion that their votes will be counted fairly.
"It is absolutely clear there will be no real count," he said. "The authorities created an imitation of a very important institution whose name is free election, that is not free and is not elections."
Others said they backed the party of Putin, who has continued to exert influence as Prime Minister since yielding the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev in 2008 under a constitution forbidding more than two consecutive terms.
"I will vote for Putin. Everything he gets involved in, he manages well," Father Vasily, 61, a bespectacled and white-bearded monk from a nearby monastery said.
"It's too early for a new generation. They will be in charge another 20 years. We are Russians, we are Asians, we need a strong leadership," he added.
Time for a change?
Some said they would vote for Just Russia, which calls itself "new socialist," or the Communists, who retain support largely among poorer citizens two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the advent of a free market system.
Only on msnbc.com
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, voting at a cultural center decked with Soviet-style hammer and sickle flags, said there were election violations in several of Russia's 93 regions spanning 5,600 miles.
Polls show Putin's party is likely to win a majority but less than the 315 seats it currently has in the 450-seat lower house of parliament, known as the Duma.
"It is time for something to change so I am going to vote for the (nationalist party) LDPR. So far this seems the only party that can resist United Russia," 24-year-old event manager Yekaterina Makarova said in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
If Putin's party gets less than two-thirds of seats, it would be stripped of its so called constitutional majority which allows it to change the constitution and even approve the impeachment of the president.
Supporters say Putin saved Russia during his 2000-2008 presidency, restoring Kremlin control over sprawling regions and reviving an economy mired in post-Soviet chaos.
His use of military force to crush a rebellion in the southern Muslim region of Chechnya also won him broad support.
Hackers attack radio station
Opposition parties say the election is unfair because the authorities support United Russia with cash and television air time. The independent Ekho Moskvy radio station said its website had been shut down by hackers early on Sunday morning.
"It is obvious that the election day attack on the site is part of an attempt to prevent publishing information about violations," the station's editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov wrote on the radio's Twitter account.
Independent election watchdog Golos said it was excluded from several polling booths in the Siberian Tomsk region, according to Interfax news agency. Moscow prosecutors launched an investigation last week into Golos' activities after lawmakers objected to its Western financing.
Russian customs officers held the director of an independent election watchdog for 12 hours at a Moscow airport on Saturday. The United States said it was concerned by "a pattern of harassment" against the watchdog.
The group has compiled some 5,300 complaints of election-law violations ahead of the vote. Most are linked to United Russia. Roughly a third of the complainants ? mostly government employees and students ? say employers and professors are pressuring them to vote for the party.
Putin has no serious personal rivals as Russia's leader. He remains the ultimate arbiter between the clans which control the world's biggest energy producer.
'Swindlers and thieves'
But his party has had to fight against opponents who have branded it a collection of "swindlers and thieves" and combat a growing sense of unease among voters at Putin's grip on power.
"I shall not vote. I shall cross out all the parties on the list and write: 'Down with the party of swindlers and thieves,'" said Nikolai Markovtsev, an independent deputy in the Vladivostok city legislature on the Pacific seaboard.
"These are not elections: This is sacrilege," he said, adding that the biggest liberal opposition bloc had been barred from the vote by the authorities.
Opponents say Putin has crafted a brittle political system which excludes independent voices and that Russians are growing tired of Putin's swaggering image.
Sports fans booed and whistled at Putin at a recent Moscow martial arts fight ? an exceptional event in a country inclined to show respect and restraint towards leaders.
Putin is almost certain to win the March 4 presidential election but signs of disenchantment are extremely worrying for the Kremlin's political managers.
In an attempt to reinvigorate his party, which President Medvedev is leading into the election as part of a job swap announced in September, Putin has sent his closest allies to lead United Russia in some of Russia's 83 regions.
Russians in the Far East region braved temperatures as low as minus 41 degrees Celsius (minus 42 Fahrenheit) to vote eight hours before polls opened in Moscow.
Chukchi reindeer herders living across the Bering Sea from Alaska voted in late November as did some oil workers on rigs pumping the lifeblood of Russia's $1.9 trillion economy, with their ballots taken out by helicopter to be counted.
? 2011 msnbc.com
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45541182/ns/world_news-europe/
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Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is seen during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011. Iraq's prime minister says a bombing in the Green Zone earlier this week was an assassination attempt against him. During an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, Nouri al-Maliki said the parliament building or speaker also could have been targets but preliminary information suggests the bombers were trying to get him. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Weeks before the U.S. pullout, Iraq's prime minister confidently predicted Saturday that his country will achieve stability and remain independent of its giant neighbor Iran even without an American troop presence.
Nouri al-Maliki also warned of civil war in Iran's ally Syria if Bashar Assad falls ? a view that puts him closer to Tehran's position and at odds with Washington. The foreign policy pronouncement indicates that Iraq is emerging from the shadows of U.S. influence in a way unforeseen when U.S.-led forces invaded eight years ago to topple Saddam Hussein.
"The situation in Syria is dangerous," al-Maliki told The Associated Press during an interview at his office in a former Saddam-era palace in Baghdad's Green Zone. "Things should be dealt with appropriately so that the spring in Syria does not turn into a winter."
The Obama administration has been outspoken in its criticism of Assad's bloody crackdown on protests that the U.N. says has killed more than 4,000 people so far, the bloodiest in a wave of uprisings that have been dubbed the Arab Spring.
Iraq has been much more circumspect and abstained from key Arab League votes suspending Syria's membership and imposing sanctions on the country. That has raised concern that Baghdad is succumbing to Iranian pressure to protect Assad's regime. Tehran is Syria's main backer.
Al-Maliki insisted that Iraq will chart its own policies in the future according to national interests, not the dictates of Iran or any other country.
Some U.S. officials have suggested that Iranian influence in Iraq would inevitably grow once American troops depart.
Both countries have Shiite majorities and are dominated by Shiite political groups. Many Iraqi politicians spent time in exile in Iran under Saddam's repressive regime, and one of al-Maliki's main allies ? anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ? is believed to spend most of his time in Iran.
"Iraq is not a follower of any country," al-Maliki said. He pointed out several areas in which Iraq had acted against Iran's desires, including the signing of the security agreement in 2008 that required all U.S. forces to leave Iraq by the end of this year. Iran had been pushing for all American troops to be out of the country even sooner.
"Through our policies, Iraq was not and will not be a follower of another country's policies," he said.
But he also took pains to emphasize that Iraq did want to maintain good relations with Iran as the two countries share extensive cultural, economical and religious ties.
"Clearly, we are no enemy to Iran and we do not accept that some who have problems with Iran would use us as a battlefield. Some want to fight Iran with Iraqi resources as has happened in the past. We do not allow Iran to use us against others that Iran has problems with, and we do not allow others to use us against Iran," he said.
The prime minister defended his country's stance when it comes to how to address the instability roiling neighboring Syria right now.
The U.N.'s top human rights official said this week that Syria is in a state of civil war and that more than 4,000 people have been killed since March.
Al-Maliki said Iraq believes the Syrian people's rights should be protected and that his government has told the Syrian regime that the age of one party and one sect running the country is over. Syria is ruled by a minority Alawite regime, an offshoot of Shiism, that rules over a Sunni Muslim majority.
The Iraqi prime minister even said that members of the Syrian opposition had recently asked to come to Iraq, and that his government would meet with them. But he distanced himself from calls for Assad's ouster, warning that could plunge the country into civil war.
"The killing or removal of President Bashar in any way will explode into an internal struggle between two groups and this will have an impact on the region," al-Maliki said.
"My opinion ? I also lived in Syria for more than 16 years ? is that it will end with civil war and this civil war will lead to alliances in the region. Because we are a country that suffered from the civil war of a sectarian background, we fear for the future of Syria and the whole region," he said.
Al-Maliki also insisted his forces were ready to take over security during a wide-ranging discussion on where his country stands ahead of the Dec. 31 departure of all American troops.
"Nothing has changed with the withdrawal of the American forces from Iraq on the security level because basically it has been in our hands," he said.
The U.S. withdrawal has occurred in stages, with the American military pulling out of the cities in 2008, leaving the soldiers largely confined to bases as Iraqi security forces took the lead. About 13,000 U.S. troops are still in the country, down from a one-time high of about 170,000.
Al-Maliki said he was grateful to the United States for overthrowing Saddam.
"We appreciate that, no doubt," the prime minister said, adding he was not worried about a resumption of the type of sectarian warfare that pushed his own country to the brink of civil war in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
On the contrary, he said violence would decline because the Americans' departure would remove one of the main reasons for attacks.
"What was taking place during the presence of the American forces will decrease in the period after the withdrawal," he said. "Some people find a pretext in the presence of the American forces to justify their acts, but now what justification will they come up with?"
___
Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
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Investing in Home Depot (NYSE: HD)
If You Can?t Buy or Sell It: Fix It
by Jason Jenkins, Investment U Research
Friday, December 02, 2011
Tuesday on CNBC?s ?Closing Bell?, Maria Bartiromo had a little Q&A with Senior Equity Research Analyst Alan Rifkin of Barclays Capital and Homebuilder Analyst Buck Horne of Raymond James called ?Taking Stock in Housing.?
As you can expect, it wasn?t the cheeriest of conversations?
There was the usual talk of too many foreclosures in the pipeline, a glut of vacant homes on the market, Baby Boomers downsizing and the inability of younger generations to come up with the means in order to buy a home in this new housing/mortgage environment due to strict credit and capital guidelines.
But as a good moderator should, Bartiromo pressed the issue for hidden gems ? or whether there was anything in the sector that deserved our investment attention. On the homebuilder front, there?s a phenomenon called the ?Hope Trade,? where annually from the middle of November to Super Bowl Sunday there?s an uptick with major homebuilders.
However, those industry fundamentals are absolutely horrible after the NFL football season and in the foreseeable future.
A Gem in a Rough Market
What was more interesting is the current trend to fix what you got because you can?t trade up. And this is where Home Depot (NYSE: HD) comes in. We need to look at how they boosted profitability in a bad housing market.
According to an interview with Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Carol Tome, consumers continue to spend money to maintain their homes, lifting same-store sales of transactions over $900 by 3.6 percent, including increases in more discretionary categories such as kitchen cabinets.
?We see the core repair projects remain strong,? Tome said. ?We do see some movement in big-ticket items.?
A Strong Third Quarter
Two weeks ago, when the Atlanta-based company announced its third-quarter numbers, it raised its full-year earnings outlook to $2.38 a share from $2.34 a share and increased its dividend by 16 percent to $0.29 a share. Dividend increases are good right now.
Last quarter?s net income rose to $934 million, or $0.60 a share, from $834 million, or 51 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose 4.4 percent to $17.3 billion. Comparable-store sales rose 4.2 percent, including a 3.8-percent increase in the United States.
Analysts, on average, had estimated Home Depot would earn $0.59 cents a share on sales of $17.1 billion, according to FactSet. Same-store sales topped the 2.9 percent gain analysts surveyed by Retail Metrics expected.
Tome went on to say later in that same interview, ?We are gaining share,? adding that there are still pockets of ?extraordinary housing weakness? in the west. ?Our growth is tied to the general economic growth. We grew faster than GDP. A lot of it is because we are taking share.?
Going forward, why like Home Depot?
Here are two major reasons:
A three-percent dividend yield doesn?t hurt, either. It may be smart to keep an eye on ?The Depot.?
Good Investing,
Jason Jenkins
Any investment contains risk. Please see our disclaimerSource: http://www.investmentu.com/2011/December/investing-in-home-depot-nyse-hd.html
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. speaks to reporters about extending the payroll tax cut, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. speaks to reporters about extending the payroll tax cut, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
House Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Senate on Thursday sidetracked rival plans to extend a Social Security payroll tax cut, in dueling votes that pave the way for negotiations on a compromise on a core component of President Barack Obama's jobs program.
First, Republicans defeated Obama's plan to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of next year while also making it more generous for workers.
Minutes later, in a vote that exposed rare divisions among Senate Republicans, more than two dozen of the GOP's 47 lawmakers also voted to kill an alternative plan backed by their powerful leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, to renew an existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut.
Many Republicans and even some Democrats say the payroll tax cut hasn't worked to boost jobs and is too costly with the federal deficit requiring the government to borrow 36 cents of every dollar it spends.
The defeat of the competing plans came as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said for the first time that renewing the payroll tax cut would boost the lagging economy, a view many in his party don't share. Boehner also promised compromise on a renewal of long-term jobless benefits through the end of 2012.
The payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits are at the center of a costly, politically-charged year-end agenda in which Democrats seem poised to prevail in renewing a tax cut that many Republicans back only reluctantly. But Republicans are insisting ? in a switch from last year ? that the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits be paid for by cutting spending.
Both parties are seeking the political high ground as next year's elections loom, with Democrats accusing Republicans of siding with the rich, and Republicans countering that Democrats were taxing small business owners who create jobs.
The first payroll tax plan to fall was a Democratic measure that was the centerpiece of Obama's jobs package announced in September. It would cut the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent next year and also extend the cut to employers, with its hefty $265 billion cost paid for by slapping a 3.25 percent surtax on income exceeding $1 million.
Republicans and a handful of Democrats combined to kill the measure on a 51-49 tally that fell well short of the 60 required under Senate rules. For the first time, a Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, voted to support the millionaires' surcharge.
The White House issued a statement by Obama that accused Republicans of voting to raise taxes on 160 million people because they "refused to ask a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share." The statement didn't mention the GOP alternative.
In a surprising result, Democrats and more than two dozen Republicans voted 78-20 to kill the $120 billion GOP alternative that would have simply extended the existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut, financed by freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 and reducing the government bureaucracy.
"Wouldn't we be better off using the proceeds of these reductions in spending to reduce the debt and deficit," said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Republican opponents "insist on helping the very wealthy while turning their back on the middle class," while another member of the leadership, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Republicans were in full-blown retreat just days after Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said on "Fox News Sunday" that "the payroll tax holiday has not stimulated job creation. We don't think that is a good way to do it."
On Thursday, however, Boehner disagreed.
"I don't think there's any question that the payroll tax relief, in fact, helps the economy," Boehner said. "You're allowing more Americans, frankly, every working American, to keep more of their money in their pocket. Frankly, that's a good thing."
Meanwhile, House Republicans readied legislation of their own that aides said likely would include the tax cut extension as well as renewed benefits for long-term victims of the worst recession in decades and a painfully slow recovery.
Boehner made clear that all costs must be paid for, and said higher taxes were a non-starter.
Thursday's votes indicated there was lots of reluctance among Republicans to renew the costly payroll tax cut, which even some Democrats said hasn't much helped the economy.
"I can't find many people who even know that they're getting it, okay?" said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who opposed both plans. "So with that being said, we're going to double down on something that we thought should have worked that didn't work."
With unemployment hovering around 9 percent nationally, Obama urged Congress in September to renew and expand the Social Security payroll tax cut for workers that he signed a year ago, and called as well for an extension of benefits that can cover up to 99 weeks for the long-term jobless.
State unemployment insurance programs guarantees coverage for six months, but as in previous downturns, Congress approved additional benefits in 2008. Expiration of those payments would mean an average loss of $296 in weekly income for 1.8 million households in January, and a total of 6 million throughout 2012.
On the tax cut extension, Republicans prefer a simple one-year continuation of the existing law, jettisoning Obama's call to deepen the cut to 3.1 percentage points on workers' first $106,800 in earnings, while expanding it to cut in half employers' Social Security contributions for their $5 million in payroll.
To pay for the measure, Senate Republicans proposed freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 ? extending a two-year-freeze recommended by Obama ? and reducing the bureaucracy by 200,000 jobs through attrition.
The Democratic plan would give a worker earning $50,000 a more than $1,500 tax cut; the GOP plan would provide a $1,000 tax cut for such an earner. A two-income family making $200,000 would reap a $6,000 tax cut under the Democratic plan and a $4,000 tax cut under the GOP version.
___
Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.
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CAIRO, Egypt ? Egypt's benchmark stock index is extending its gains for the third consecutive day, after landmark parliamentary elections eased investor sentiment about the country's political instability.
The Egyptian Exchange's EGX30 index was up about 1.25 percent by 1:15 p.m. local time on Thursday, climbing to 4,070 points. The index posted gains slightly under 1 percent on Wednesday and surged almost 5.5 percent on Tuesday, the second of two days of voting.
The rally following the first phase of the vote for the lower house of parliament offers a rare bit of good news for the Arab world's most populous nation, whose economy has endured a heavy hammering in the nearly 10 months since the popular uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak.
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INDIANAPOLIS -- Peyton Manning will increase the intensity of his workouts though he has not yet been cleared to practice.
In a statement released by the Colts on Thursday night, Dr. Robert Watkins says the fusion performed on Manning's neck has achieved "firm fixation."
When Manning last spoke to reporters about his health, a month ago, he was still waiting for that to take place.
"I am encouraged with what Doc had to say," Manning said. "I am happy that I can increase my rehabilitation program as outlined by him ... and the Colts' medical staff. I am hopeful for continued progress in this next phase of my rehab."
Manning's latest neck surgery on Sept. 8 was his third in 19 months and the most complex. He has not been able to practice since, but the Colts (0-11) have kept him on the active roster in hopes he could start throwing passes later this month.
Watkins says it's believed Manning will continue to heal.
"X-ray and CT examination of the surgical area shows that the fusion performed in September has achieved firm fixation," Watkins said. "Peyton will now be allowed to increase the intensity and breadth of his workouts as tolerated. There remains every indication that his recovery will continue.
"There still is no timetable for Peyton's return to practice, which is one of many steps in his expected return to game action. He is working hard on a rehabilitation program. ... His response to this plan in the future will dictate his return date."
The Colts have fallen apart without Manning, who had never missed a game since being drafted No. 1 overall in 1998. His streak of 227 consecutive starts, including playoffs, ended when he missed the season opener at Houston.
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