Saturday, 31 December 2011

Who is Torrie Wilson?

Tabloids are buzzing amid speculation that former WWE Diva Torrie Wilson is now the squeeze of New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. The $275 million man was spotted in Wilson?s hometown of Boise, Idaho over the holiday weekend and the pair has been seen biking around Miami, the site of WrestleMania XXVIII on April 1, 2012, according to USA Today. The paper also reported that the two vacationed in Mexico recently with George Clooney and another former WWE Diva, Stacy Kiebler. While A-Rod (not to be confused with Alex ?A-Ry? Riley) no doubt knows of Torrie?s exploits in the squared circle, the sports world at large may not be familiar with the blonde bombshell?s in-ring career. (PHOTOS OF TORRIE WILSON)

After a successful career in fitness modeling that included a Miss Galaxy championship, Wilson entered the squared circle with World Championship Wrestling. At first, she managed David Flair, the son of 16-time World Champion and WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair. Wilson guided the younger Flair to the prestigious United States Championship in July 1999.

During her time in WCW, Wilson managed such Superstars as the late WWE Hall of Famer Eddie Guerrero. She used her stunning looks to distract their opponents and guide them to victory.

When WWE purchased WCW, Wilson came along for the ride.? There, she began to focus more on her in-ring career, doing battle with top Divas including Lita and Trish Stratus and often joining forces with fellow WCW alumni Stacy Kiebler. Still, other Superstars were entranced by her beauty. The blonde bombshell joined forces with several up-and-coming Superstars.

Torrie wrapped up her in-ring career in early 2008 after suffering a back injury. However, the beauty stepped out of retirement in 2009 to take part in a 25-Diva Battle Royal at WrestleMania XXV.

Wilson still has a competitive edge. She was willingly stranded in the jungle as part of the reality show ?I?m a Celebrity? Get Me Out of Here!? Week after week, the former Diva outlasted nearly all other contestants, finishing as runner-up behind film and TV star Lou Diamond Phillips.

A-Rod?s list of exes reads like a who?s-who of Hollywood and includes actresses Cameron Diaz and Kate Hudson. They better think twice before trying to get back in the good graces of the three-time MVP and 14-time All-Star, or else they may catch a dropkick from one of WWE?s most dangerous Divas.

(MORE TORRIE WILSON PHOTOS)

Source: http://www.wwe.com/inside/overtheropes/who-is-torrie-wilson

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Top Ten Free Apps for Your iPhone 4S

Looking to fill up your new Apple iPhone with great apps but don't have the money for it? Here are some great free apps for iPhone or iPad that will help you personalize your Apple device. Best of all they're all free to download from the App Store.

CNN. One of the best news apps for the iPhone available out there. This app offers videos and articles of the latest breaking news.

LogMeIn. If you want to access your computer from your iPhone or iPad this is the app for you. This app once cost $30 but you can now get remote access to your computer at no cost. The basic app will let you access spreadsheets, applications and other files. For more advanced features like photo management, video and audio streaming, printing and file managing, you can upgrade the app for $39.99.

?Flow. This handy little app will let you get instant reviews about books, DVDs, video games or just about anything with a UPC barcode. Just point your iPhone at the item you want to learn more about, take a picture and you get reviews, pricing and even clips. It's a great app for shopping and making lists of items you really want to have.

Like us on Facebook

Facebook.? Stay connected with your friends on the biggest social network on the planet. The Facebook iOS app will let you share with friends on the go. Keep up with status updates, tag friends' pictures and upload photos from your iPhone.

Instagram. The most popular photo software for the iOS, Instagram lets you add several filtered effects to your photos. You can now have sepia colored pics for an old-time feel and then share it with your friends and family on Facebook or Twitter. A must-have app for any shutterbug.

Kindle.? Amazon's Kindle app will let you access Amazon's huge e-book market which is better than anything you can find from Apple. Better yet the app also lets you sync the page your reading with your other iOS devices and hardware Kindles.

Evernote. One of the best note-taking apps around, Evernote will let you jot down notes, ideas, snapshots and recordings. You can even instantly sync your notes to your other iOS devices or Windows desktop.

Flipboard. Flipboard was named Apple's iPad App of the year and one of Time Magazine's Top 50 Innovations and for good reason. Flipboard creates a personalized magazine from content pulled from sources you choose including major news sources, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. ?Flipboard is now available for the iPhone.

Fast Contacts. Fast Contacts is now available for free download on a limited time. This "contact app on steroids" features alarms for birthdays and anniversaries, the ability to sort contacts and an interface that lets you flip through your contacts using cover flow technology.

Battery Go! This app will let you keep track of your battery and how much time you have to use your phone, play games, browse the web or listen to music. It's one handy time management tool.

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/273895/20111229/top-ten-free-apps-iphone-4s.htm

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Friday, 30 December 2011

Pop artist James Rizzi dies at 61

AAA??Dec. 28, 2011?6:34 AM ET
Pop artist James Rizzi dies at 61
AP

FILE - In this May 20, 2010 file picture US Pop Art artist James Rizzi stands in front of his work "In the Spirit of Peace", painted on a fragment of the Berlin Wall, during the opening of his exhibition "Rizzi's World - 60 Years of James Rizzi" in Bremen, northern Germany. James Rizzi, a New York-born and based pop artist best known for his playful and childlike three-dimensional sculptures, has died. He was 61. Rizzi's managers, Art 28 GmbH & Co. KG, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said in a statement on its website that the artist died peacefully at his studio in New York's SoHo district on Monday Dec. 26, 2011. They gave no cause of death. (AP Photo/dapd/Focke Strangmann,File)

FILE - In this May 20, 2010 file picture US Pop Art artist James Rizzi stands in front of his work "In the Spirit of Peace", painted on a fragment of the Berlin Wall, during the opening of his exhibition "Rizzi's World - 60 Years of James Rizzi" in Bremen, northern Germany. James Rizzi, a New York-born and based pop artist best known for his playful and childlike three-dimensional sculptures, has died. He was 61. Rizzi's managers, Art 28 GmbH & Co. KG, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said in a statement on its website that the artist died peacefully at his studio in New York's SoHo district on Monday Dec. 26, 2011. They gave no cause of death. (AP Photo/dapd/Focke Strangmann,File)

FILE - In this May 20, 2010 file picture US artist James Rizzi poses at an exhibition in Bremen, Germany. James Rizzi, a New York-born and based pop artist best known for his playful and childlike three-dimensional sculptures, has died. He was 61. Rizzi's managers, Art 28 GmbH & Co. KG, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said in a statement on its website that the artist died peacefully at his studio in New York's SoHo district on Monday Dec. 26, 2011. They gave no cause of death. (AP Photo/dapd/ David Hecker,File)

FILE - In this May 15, 2008 file picture US artist James Rizzi poses in Mainz, Germany, in front of a bus he has colourful painted. James Rizzi, a New York-born and based pop artist best known for his playful and childlike three-dimensional sculptures, has died. He was 61. Rizzi's managers, Art 28 GmbH & Co. KG, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said in a statement on its website that the artist died peacefully at his studio in New York's SoHo district on Monday Dec. 26, 2011. They gave no cause of death. (AP Photo/dapd/ Thomas Lohnes,File)

FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2001 file picture children pass the Rizzi-House, designed by U.S. pop artist James Rizzi, in Braunschweig, northern Germany.James Rizzi, a New York-born and based pop artist best known for his playful and childlike three-dimensional sculptures, has died. He was 61. Rizzi's managers, Art 28 GmbH & Co. KG, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said in a statement on its website that the artist died peacefully at his studio in New York's SoHo district on Monday Dec. 26, 2011. They gave no cause of death. (AP Photo/Fabian Bimmer,File)

BERLIN (AP) ? James Rizzi, a New York-born and based pop artist best known for his playful and childlike three-dimensional sculptures, has died. He was 61.

Rizzi's managers, Art 28 GmbH & Co. KG, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said in a statement on its website that the artist died peacefully at his studio in New York's SoHo district on Monday. They gave no cause of death.

Rizzi was born in Brooklyn and studied art at the University of Florida. He returned to New York in 1974 and first made his name as a street artist.

He became known for his bright, cartoon-like drawings and 3-D constructions. In 1996 Lufthansa commissioned him to decorate a jet with pastel stars, birds and travelers.

Rizzi developed a large international following, especially in Germany. Last year a school in Duisburg was named for him.

___

Online: www.james-rizzi.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-12-28-EU-Germany-Obit-Rizzi/id-e65cff4b41b84a0bacb623b4280050cb

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Kindle Accessory Maker Files Suit Against Amazon

M-EdgeM-Edge, a small Maryland-based company responsible for many popular Kindle cases, last week filed suit against Amazon. According to the Wall Street Journal, M-Edge claims that Amazon has repeatedly tried to change the terms of a contract put into place all the way back in 2009, and has bullied the accessory maker each time it fights back. In the original contract, Amazon was to receive a 15 percent commission on all sales that go through Amazon's Kindle store front. Apparently this wasn't enough for Amazon, who later requested an increase in commission to 32 percent and threatened to remove M-Edge cases from the store if the Maryland-based company didn't concede.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/sBPTB77nPc8/

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Thursday, 29 December 2011

African football drama to begin in Swiss boardroom

Published: 29 Dec 2011 - 10:16:51

The first African football drama of 2012 will unfold in a Swiss boardroom as Namibia continue a battle to get Burkina Faso kicked out of the upcoming Cup of Nations.

Namibia claim Cameroon-born Herve Zengue was ineligible to play against them in qualifiers for the 2012 African showcase and want to replace Burkina Faso at the January 21-February 12 tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.

Having had two appeals rejected by African football governing body CAF, the Namibians have turned to the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to reverse what official Barry Rukoro calls a "travesty of justice".

CAS will meet early January and hear the case against Chechnya-based Zengue, who is married to a Burkinabe but does not fulfil any of the FIFA criteria to play for the country of his wife.

Although Burkina Faso coach Paulo Duarte has been dismissive of the Namibian appeals, he did not include the left-back in his provisional squad for Group B fixtures against Angola, Ivory Coast and Sudan.

Ivory Coast and Ghana are favourites for the Cup of Nations in the absence of defending champions Egypt and other regular participants like Algeria, Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa.

New CAF Footballer of the Year Yaya Toure heads a galaxy of stars seeking a second title for Ivory Coast while third-place Andre Ayew, a son of legend Abedi 'Pele' Ayew, is a potential match-winner for four-time champions Ghana.

Senegal are blessed with an abundance of consistent scorers like Moussa Sow and Demba Ba as they chase a first crown and Gabon, Guinea, Morocco and Tunisia could go far.

Botswana and Niger appear for the first time along with Equatorial Guinea, who owe their place to being co-hosts of a tournament which switches to uneven-number years from 2013 to avoid clashing with the World Cup.

With two Cup of Nations tournaments in as many years, the 2013 qualifiers kick off early January before the 2012 tournament starts and the 15 teams to join hosts South Africa will be decided over three knockout rounds.

Nigeria will not relish a February visit to Rwanda, who have been revitalised by new Serb coach Milutin Sredojevic, and record seven-time African champions Egypt face a potentially tough task at improving Central African Republic.

Unless the Pharaohs play sooner, the February 29 Bangui fixture could offer 178-cap midfielder Ahmed Hassan the chance to overtake retired Saudi Arabia goalkeeper Mohammed Al Deayea and become the most capped footballer.

Fixture congestion means these second round fixtures are scheduled for the last day of February while the return games will be staged only in mid-June after two weekends of 2014 World Cup qualifying action.

Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia are seeded to win the 10 four-team World Cup groups and reach the final qualifying phase.

But the Ivorians must get past Morocco, Ghana have to contend with Zambia and Sudan and Guinea threaten Egypt, whose American coach Bob Bradley will be acutely aware that African successes have not been matched in the World Cup.

Cameroon, another team under new management with Frenchman Denis Lavagne replacing Spaniard Javier Clemente, must face Demcratic Republic of Congo and Libya without suspended star striker and captain Samuel Eto'o.

The record four-time CAF Footballer of the Year did not appeal against a 15-match ban after instigating a cash-related players' strike that forced the cancellation last month of a friendly against Algeria.

Esperance of Tunisia defend the CAF Champions League title with the biggest threats to the 'Blood and Gold' possibly coming from former winners Al-Ahly of Egypt and TP Mazembe of DR Congo.

Surprise CAF Confederation Cup winners Moghreb Fes of Morocco, are among the Champions League hopefuls next year and runners-up Club Africain of Tunisia look set to mount another strong title challenge in the second-tier competition.


AFP

Related Namibia News

Source: http://www.football.co.uk/namibia/african_football_drama_to_begin_in_swiss_boardroom_rss2007125.shtml

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Washington Capitals at Buffalo Sabres

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Source: http://events.wgrz.com/Washington_Capitals_at_Buffalo_Sabres/224949087.html

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China tests 500 km/h super high-speed train

BEIJING | Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:45am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China launched a super-rapid test train over the weekend which is capable of travelling 500 kilometers per hour, state media said on Monday, as the country moves ahead with its railway ambitions despite serious problems on its high-speed network.

The train, made by a subsidiary of CSR Corp Ltd, China's largest train maker, is designed to resemble an ancient Chinese sword, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

It "will provide useful reference for current high-speed railway operations," it quoted train expert Shen Zhiyun as saying.

But future Chinese trains will not necessarily run at such high speeds, CSR chairman Zhao Xiaogang told the Beijing Morning News.

"We aims to ensure the safety of trains operation," he said.

China's railway industry has had a tough year, highlighted by a collision between two high-speed trains in July which killed at least 40 people. Construction of new high-speed trains in China has since been a near halt.

In February, the railways minister, Liu Zhijun, a key figure behind the boom in the sector, was dismissed over corruption charges that have not yet been tried in court.

(Reporting by Sabrina Mao and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Yoko Nishikawa)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/scienceNews/~3/chhDBnz4eqQ/us-china-train-idUSTRE7BP04N20111226

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Wednesday, 28 December 2011

Video: First Read Minute

With one week to go before the Iowa caucuses, NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro on the changing front runner, new ads, ?and President Obama?s approval ratings.

Related Links:

http://twitter.com/nbcnightlynews

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/45796692/

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Thursday, 22 December 2011

Prosecution rests case against Manning (AP)

FORT MEADE, Md. ? Interested in the biggest leak of U.S. secrets in the nation's history, but don't know a firewall log from a server file?

Then you would have been up jargon creek without a clue during the first five days of testimony at a military installation outside of Washington, where Pfc. Bradley Manning is fighting efforts to have him court-martialed.

The 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst is a computer whiz who worked as a civilian software developer. He was his unit's go-to guy for plotting data points and creating Excel spreadsheets in Baghdad, an intelligence officer testified.

But he may have met his match: a former hacker who turned him in, and in two info-tech gumshoes who bored deep into several computer hard drives in search of incriminating evidence.

Army Special Agent David Shaver and civilian contractor Mark Johnson are products of military or intelligence agencies with extensive government-funded training in their fields.

They said they found evidence Manning downloaded and e-mailed nearly half a million sensitive battlefield reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables, and a video of a deadly 2007 Army helicopter attack that WikiLeaks shared with the world and dubbed "Collateral Murder."

Adrian Lamo, a onetime hacker convicted in 2004 of computer fraud, said his Internet chats with Manning in May 2010 produced "an admission of acts so egregious" that he felt compelled to alert authorities. The "depth of the unsurpassed leakage" made Lamo also concerned that he could get in trouble for remaining quiet.

"I'm a journalist and a minister," Lamo wrote to Manning in one chat, egging him on to elaborate on his confession. "You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection."

The government, which rested its case against Manning on Tuesday afternoon, wants Manning court-martialed for aiding the enemy and 21 other charges.

But Manning's lawyers argue that others had access to the Oklahoma native's workplace computers. They maintain he was a troubled young man who shouldn't have had access to classified material; that military computer security was lax; and that the material WikiLeaks published did little or no harm to national security.

The digital forensic examiners littered their testimonies with the terms of their trade. Text files. Zip files. Hash values. Allocated and unallocated disk space.

They frequently mentioned Wget ? pronounced "double-you-get" ? a computer program for finding and downloading large amounts of data. They talked about Base64, a program that compresses digital documents for speedy transmission by removing all the spaces and punctuation marks.

"It may look like gibberish," Shaver conceded.

One defense lawyer, Capt. Paul Bouchard, sometimes seemed baffled by the technical terms. On Monday, Shaver politely corrected him after Bouchard repeatedly referred to server files as logs during a cross-examination. Lead defense attorney David Coombs looked displeased.

An exchange between Bouchard and Johnson drew chuckles from the gallery. The defense lawyer, seeking indications that supervisors ignored signs of emotional distress, asked Johnson if his forensic probe of files and electronic data had turned up any evidence of Manning's odd behavior.

"Odd behavior?" Johnson replied matter-of-factly. "No sir, it's a computer drive."

Throughout the hearing, Manning has sat quietly at the defense table, waiting to learn his fate while presumably understanding the high-tech lingo. Closing arguments in the hearing could come as early as Wednesday. Then, a military officer will weigh whether to recommend that the young private be court-martialed, which could result in life in prison.

The technical testimony followed proceedings rife with the arcane acronyms of military life, all before courtroom spectators spanning the social strata.

A half-dozen, buttoned-down young men and women favoring charcoal gray suits have come and gone behind the prosecutor's table ? apparently representatives of the Justice Department, CIA or other governments agencies.

Across the room are Manning's supporters, including a long-haired young man representing Occupy Wall Street and a pony-tailed, military veteran wearing a "Free Bradley Manning" T-shirt.

Attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange observed, as well as a representative of Amnesty International. A half-dozen journalists were present, alongside people in camouflage uniforms. They included the presiding officer, all three prosecutors, two of the defense lawyers and military police stationed along the back and side walls.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111220/ap_on_go_ot/us_manning_wikileaks

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Monday, 31 October 2011

Activists slam US studio for filming in China city (AP)

BEIJING ? Rights activists have criticized a Hollywood studio for filming a buddy comedy in an eastern Chinese city where a blind, self-taught activist lawyer is being held under house arrest and reportedly beaten.

Relativity Media is shooting part of the comedy "21 and Over" in Linyi, a city in Shandong province where the activist Chen Guangcheng's village is located. Authorities have turned Chen's village of Dongshigu into a hostile, no-go zone and activists, foreign diplomats and reporters have been turned back, threatened and had stones thrown at them by men patrolling the village.

The news that Relativity Media had chosen Linyi, a city of 10 million, as a location for its film and was touting its close government connections comes at a time when activists have renewed their attention on Chen. A campaign to visit the lawyer to draw attention to his plight has caught on and intensified over recent weeks, though none have succeeded and many visitors have been met with violence.

On China's popular Twitter-like microblog, Sina Weibo, some bloggers circulated email addresses for Relativity staff, urging users to write to the company in protest. A few called for a boycott of the film.

Relativity declined comment but said in a press release that filming in Linyi began last Wednesday. In the release, Linyi's top Communist Party official Zhang Shajun is quoted as calling Relativity's chief executive Ryan Kavanaugh a "good friend" while Relativity's Co-President Tucker Tooley describes Linyi as an "amazing" place.

"I hope Relativity Media will learn more about the real Linyi, about Chen Guangcheng, and see that what is currently happening in Dongshigu village is what is really 'amazing'," said Nanjing-based activist He Peirong in an interview.

"Especially at this time, when every day there are people trying to visit Chen Guangcheng, people who have been robbed and beaten, I express deep regret to see such remarks whitewashing the city of Linyi," she said.

In the past several weeks, dozens of activists and Chen's supporters have risked being violently assaulted to attempt visits to his home in a bid to draw attention to his plight. The latest group was made up of 37 petitioners who traveled there by bus from Beijing on Sunday and fled after being attacked by about 50 unidentified thugs as they approached Chen's village, said one petitioner, Peng Zhonglin, from Jiangxi province. Linyi police refused to comment when reached by phone.

Human Rights Watch senior Asia researcher Nicholas Bequelin said it was puzzling that Relativity appeared comfortable cozying up with the city's political leadership.

"They seem to be eager to assume this role of being a prop in Linyi's propaganda campaign to cast itself as a civilized municipality that promotes culture when the reality is that it is not only holding one of China's most prominent human rights defenders, but going to extraordinary lengths to persecute him," Bequelin said.

Relativity describes "21 and Over" as a comedy about two childhood friends who drag their friend out to celebrate his 21st birthday the night before a medical school interview in an evening that turns into "a wild epic misadventure of debauchery and mayhem." It stars "Footloose" star Miles Teller and Justin Chon who was in "The Twilight Saga."

Shooting in Linyi began on Wednesday and it was unclear how long they were scheduled to film there. Previous footage had been shot in Seattle, the company said. Relativity has produced or co-financed more than 200 movies including "Cowboys & Aliens," "Bridesmaids," and "Limitless."

Blinded by a fever in infancy and self-taught as a lawyer, Chen became an inspiring figure among rights activists for his dogged pursuit of justice. He documented forced late-term abortions and sterilizations in his rural community, angering authorities. He was eventually imprisoned for four years.

___

Relativity Media's press release: http://bit.ly/vyQ9iH

___

Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter at http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111030/ap_en_mo/as_china_blind_lawyer

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Sunday, 30 October 2011

GTX GPS Shoes Can Protect Alzheimers Patients

Every few weeks, I’ll see a Silver Alert news story about an Alzheimers patient or otherwise vulnerable adult who has wandered away. ?That’s just in my area, so imagine how many of these at-risk people there are in the country and how many of them could be missing at any given time. ?GTX has developed [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/10/29/gtx-gps-shoes-can-protect-alzheimers-patients/

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Saturday, 29 October 2011

Behind the numbers: Samsung passes Apple in phones (AP)

NEW YORK ? For the first time, Samsung Electronics Co. shipped more smartphones in the latest quarter than tech industry darling Apple Inc. On the surface, this may look like a big upset in a world that affords the iPhone maker adulation and outsized expectations. The real reason, however, has more to do with timing and Samsung's variety of offerings and prices.

Apple sold 17.1 million iPhones in the third quarter, 3 million fewer than expected. Samsung, meanwhile, shipped more than 27 million, according to analyst estimates.

So what happened? For one, Apple's latest iPhone, the 4S, didn't come out until the quarter ended, so its sales are not included in the figure. People held back on buying older models in anticipation of the new iPhone, which came out Oct. 14. Apple said it sold more than 4 million units in its first weekend on sale, and that should be reflected in the tally for the current, holiday quarter.

"People were waiting," said Francis Sideco, analyst with the research firm IHS. "We don't see this as a signal that Apple is all of a sudden losing its edge. It's their normal thing. But while they are doing this normal thing, Samsung is (going strong) and they happen to have a really good quarter."

Samsung's quarter was helped by strong sales of its Galaxy phones, though Sideco said the numbers shouldn't lead to the conclusion that the Samsung Galaxy beat the Apple iPhone.

"What beat it is Samsung's lines," Sideco said.

Besides the Galaxy line, Samsung's phones include Conquer, Replenish, Focus and Indulge. IHS estimates that Samsung sold about 40 different models during the third quarter. By comparison, Apple had just two ? the 4 and the 3GS.

Samsung, which is based in Seoul, South Korea, does not disclose the number of phones it ships. IHS, formerly known as iSuppli, estimates that Samsung shipped 27.3 million smartphones in the latest quarter. Jae Lee from Daiwa Securities puts the figure at about 28 million.

Analysts cautioned against reading too much into the numbers, but such comparisons are tempting given the pedestal that Apple is held on and the fact that the rivalry between the two companies has heated up and extended into the courtroom. Apple says the product design, user interface and packaging of Samsung's Galaxy devices "slavishly copy" the iPhone and Apple's iPad tablet computer. Samsung fought back with lawsuits of its own, accusing Apple of patent infringement of its wireless telecommunications technology.

Even as Samsung sold more phones, Apple seems to be making more money on each. That's one of the reasons Apple is now the most valuable tech company in the world, with a market value about three times that of Samsung.

Apple competes on ? and dominates ? the high-end smartphone market. By contrast, Samsung has both cheap and expensive phones available. That means Samsung can appeal to a broader range of customers, but the company has to settle for a lower profit margin on lower-end smartphones.

Sideco called both strategies good. Good, but different.

Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., limits the market it addresses because it is safeguarding its profit margin on the iPhone, said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. More expensive phones mean higher margins for the company, which so far hasn't focused on the market for lower-end phones.

"It's part of their plan," Milanesi said. "If they wanted to capture a wider segment of the market, they would go with a lower-end device."

That could come soon. The price cut earlier this month for the iPhone 4 to $99 (down from $199) and the decision to offer now-ancient 3GS for free ? with a two-year service contract ? could mean that Apple is testing the waters in the cheaper market.

"The sales of the $99 iPhone 4 will definitely help widen the addressable market," Milanesi said.

When it comes to the overall mobile phone market, though neither Apple nor Samsung are on top. That honor goes to Nokia Corp. The Finnish company is still the world's No. 1 cellphone maker even though it has fallen behind rivals in the smartphone market. Nokia shipped 16.8 million smartphones during the third quarter, a close third to Apple, according to IHS.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111028/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_samsung_vs_apple

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Friday, 28 October 2011

Killer Asia floods swallow children who can't swim

FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2011 file photo, a Thai girl reacts as she crosses a flooded street with two adults at Don Muang District, in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Children make up around a quarter of the nearly 800 deaths the United Nations has tallied since July across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, which have been ravaged by some of the worst flooding in decades. Drownings are a huge unreported epidemic in Southeast Asia, killing an estimated 240,000 children up to 17 years old each year _ mostly because the majority of kids in the region simply never learn to swim. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2011 file photo, a Thai girl reacts as she crosses a flooded street with two adults at Don Muang District, in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Children make up around a quarter of the nearly 800 deaths the United Nations has tallied since July across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, which have been ravaged by some of the worst flooding in decades. Drownings are a huge unreported epidemic in Southeast Asia, killing an estimated 240,000 children up to 17 years old each year _ mostly because the majority of kids in the region simply never learn to swim. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2011 file photo, children walk along with their family as floods sufferers make their way on a platform from a relief center to a waiting bus during a relocation operation at Thammasart University on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand. Children make up around a quarter of the nearly 800 deaths the United Nations has tallied since July across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, which have been ravaged by some of the worst flooding in decades. Drownings are a huge unreported epidemic in Southeast Asia, killing an estimated 240,000 children up to 17 years old each year _ mostly because the majority of kids in the region simply never learn to swim. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong, File)

FILE - In this Oct. 21, 2011 file photo, a Thai child carries a gas tank through floods in Rangsit district on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand. Children make up around a quarter of the nearly 800 deaths the United Nations has tallied since July across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, which have been ravaged by some of the worst flooding in decades. Drownings are a huge unreported epidemic in Southeast Asia, killing an estimated 240,000 children up to 17 years old each year _ mostly because the majority of kids in the region simply never learn to swim. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) ? It took only a second for the murky floodwaters swamping parts of Asia to swallow Nguyen Phuoc Hien's baby. His 3-year-old daughter had been playing happily while her aunt studied, but somehow, the girl slipped quietly outside the family home deep in Vietnam's southern Mekong Delta.

When Hien's wife returned to the shack from feeding the pigs and realized her youngest child was missing, "she was in a panic looking around," he recalled. "Our neighbors helped us look for her. Her body was found an hour later in the canal near the house."

Children make up around a quarter of the nearly 800 deaths reported since July across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, according to the United Nations. The region has been ravaged by some of the worst flooding in decades, but drownings are a huge unreported epidemic in Asia. Every year, an estimated 240,000 children up to 17 years old die ? mostly because the majority of kids simply never learn to swim.

That annual number is roughly equal to the total deaths from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but day-to-day water deaths rarely get attention.

"Those (in the tsunami) were counted because they drowned in a space of six to eight hours in the region, and everyone was just stunned because the number was enormous," said Michael Linnan, technical director of the U.S.-based Alliance for Safe Children in Bangkok, who has studied child drowning. "But the reality is that in that the 364 days before that, an equal number of mothers and children had drowned as well. But they drown one at a time and not in a disaster setting, so they weren't counted."

During excessive flooding, it's easy for children to accidentally get in over their heads while playing or wading in filthy water where it's impossible to see what dangers lurk beneath each step. Some fall into fast-moving canals or streams in their yards or villages, while others lose their footing on porches or windows, falling into waters surrounding their houses ? sometimes at night. Often their disappearance goes unnoticed because parents are busy trying to salvage livestock, crops or meager belongings vital to the family's survival.

"You have very little dry land and you have massive population movements," Linnan said. "It doesn't take very long for a child to slip away from an already harried mother or older sibling who are trying to schlep all the belongings. It takes only two or three minutes for a child to drown."

Monster seasonal monsoon rains have overwhelmed swollen rivers, dams and canals in the region, and back-to-back typhoons and tropical storms have hammered the Philippines, China and Vietnam. Some 4 million acres of Thailand have been inundated in the country's worst flooding in a half century, and the waters are creeping deeper into Bangkok, an anxious capital city of 9 million barricaded behind walls of sandbags.

In Vietnam's Mekong Delta, 49 of the 57 deaths since August have been children, according to the national flood and storms control department. In neighboring Cambodia, at least 80 children have died in severe flooding there, while more than 50 have been killed in Thailand, all mostly from drowning, according to the United Nations. Myanmar also has suffered bad flooding, but no clear estimates on child deaths are available.

"It's painful to see that many kids drown," said disaster official Le Van Hung of Vietnam's worst-hit Dong Thap province. "All of them came from poor families where their parents had to struggle to make ends meet and did not properly watch over their children in their flooded homes."

Linnan said about three-quarters of children across Asia never learn to swim, despite living in a tropical region crisscrossed by rivers and canals. But even though drowning is the top injury-related cause of death among kids, it typically does not receive much attention or aid because only about 15 percent to 25 percent of water deaths ever get reported to health systems. Death certificates are often not required, and children who drown are simply buried. Because they aren't taken to hospitals or clinics first, their cause of death is never counted. That, in turn, means childhood drowning deaths are grossly underestimated regionally.

"Sometimes there's more water than land" where children grow up, said Justin Scarr, drowning prevention commissioner of the Belgium-based International Life Saving Federation, who says fear of water is linked to culture in many areas where his organization is now teaching swimming skills. "Generations have associated water with drowning and so they've avoided basic things like learning to swim."

Community education is also key to reducing deaths, since half of all drowning deaths occur in children younger than 5 who are too small to swim. Research has shown that setting up village day care centers while parents are busy or working can reduce those deaths by more than 80 percent.

For the Nguyen family in Vietnam, it's too late. The loss they experienced during one minute of carelessness during this year's floods will forever haunt them.

"We did not expect our daughter would drown one day," said Hien, 31, who earns the equivalent of just US$100 a month fishing and doing odd jobs. "We are devastated by her loss."

___

Associated Press writer Tran Van Minh contributed to this report from Hanoi, Vietnam.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-26-AS-Asia-Floods-Child-Killer/id-941013854ece4d50bdeb838d54b97d72

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Thursday, 27 October 2011

Police arrest 15 in Dortmund violence

Associated Press Sports

updated 9:11 a.m. ET Oct. 26, 2011

DORTMUND, Germany (AP) -Police say 15 people were arrested and several injured in clashes between officers and Dynamo Dresden supporters at a German Cup match at Borussia Dortmund.

Dortmund won Tuesday's match 2-0 and advanced to the third round. Dresden's supporters clashed with police before, during and after the match. Two officers were among the injured.

The match was briefly interrupted several times when Dresden fans threw firecrackers and flares onto the field.

Dortmund's chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke said the troublemakers from Dresden caused damage estimated at ?150,000 ($208,905). The visitors destroyed about 200 seats, damaged kiosks and set toilets on fire, Watzke said.

The clashes came on the same day that German police reported the number of people injured in violence at games in the two top divisions reached a 12-year high last season.

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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I'm no saint, but I'm no racist

Barcelona's Cesc Fabregas says he is no saint but he did not direct any racist abuse toward Sevilla's Frederic Kanoute during a heated encounter on Saturday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45029769/ns/sports-soccer/

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"Joe the Plumber" announces run for Congress (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, the Ohio man who as "Joe the Plumber" famously pressed then-presidential candidate Barack Obama on tax policy in 2008, said on Tuesday he was running for Congress.

Wurzelbacher said he would run as a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in Ohio's 9th Congressional District, which includes the city of Toledo.

"If I'm coming off as angry, it's because I am," he said in the video of his official announcement posted on the website of FoxToledo.com.

"I just can't stand it when people do bad work. And we've been voting, the last 40 or 50 years, (for) bad people to do bad things to us. Why have we been doing it? Because we don't take our civic responsibility seriously enough," he said.

The district is currently represented by Democratic Representative Marcy Kaptur, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. Due to redistricting, she will face longtime Democratic lawmaker Dennis Kucinich in a primary.

In 2008, Wurzelbacher asked a few questions of Obama as the candidate campaigned door-to-door in an Ohio neighborhood, making him a focus of media reports.

The exchange was amplified in a debate shortly before the November 2008 election when Republican nominee John McCain cited Wurzelbacher as someone who would be hurt by Obama's tax plans and both candidates went on to refer to him more than two dozen times in the debate.

Wurzelbacher quickly became a political celebrity, particularly among Republicans who saw him as a working class everyman. But his reputation suffered when it was revealed the tradesman was not in fact a licensed plumber.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111026/pl_nm/us_usa_politics_plumber

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Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Cain video ad blows smoke in unorthodox campaign (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? A campaign video showing Republican presidential front-runner Herman Cain's chief of staff blowing smoke from a cigarette at the camera drew heavy play on the Internet on Tuesday.

The video, which logged more than 100,000 views on Cain's YouTube website, kept up the former pizza executive's unpredictable playbook in a campaign for the presidential nomination that has soared in the last month.

In the video, his chief of staff Mark Block makes generic statements touting Cain's candidacy and then sucks on a cigarette and blows a little smoke into the camera.

"We've run a campaign like nobody's ever seen, but then America's never seen a candidate like Herman Cain," Block says.

As he inhales, a female vocalist sings: "I am America."

Cain, a former lobbyist, conservative radio talk show host and Baptist preacher who has never held public office, has jumped to the top of polls among Republican candidates vying for the nomination to try to unseat President Barack Obama, a Democrat, next year.

Supporters bill him as a blunt-speaking political outsider and alternative to fellow Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

"It got watched, so it worked," said Mark McKinnon, a former communications strategist for George W. Bush, said of the Cain video. "The message: We are different and don't play by the rules," he said.

The video, which was posted days ago but gained Internet traction on Tuesday, was called "bizarre" and "strange" in some media reports. It also features a serious-looking Cain breaking into a grin in the last 10 seconds.

Cain, who is scrambling to assemble a team with just 10 weeks before the first crucial nominating contests in January, has said he would bring a sense of humor to the White House if elected president in 2012.

However, one former Cain activist in Iowa, who declined to be named, said: "Maybe he hasn't noticed, but smoking isn't the in vogue thing to do these days."

Block, who joined the campaign in January, stood by the advertisement, which he said was straightforward.

"You walk into a veterans' bar in Iowa and they're sitting around smoking, and yeah, we are resonating with them. I'm not the only one that smokes in America, for God's sake. It's a choice that I made, and was at the end of the ad," Block told Fox News.

(Reporting by Eric Johnson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Peter Bohan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111026/pl_nm/us_usa_campaign_cain

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Brightcove?s New Players Aim To Improve HTML5 Video Compatibility

bcheaderViewing web video content on three different devices is likely to yield three different outcomes. Even if it's possible to get the whole video to play properly, often there are inconsistencies in how the player reports itself, how the video is requested and cached, and how it is filtered or displayed. It's bad enough for a user, but for advertising it could be fatal. If you can't guarantee the content, how can you guarantee the ad? Brightcove is taking this problem head-on with a new set of HTML5-compatible "smart players" and an ecosystem that tries to recognize and account for the discrepancies between Webkit renderers, OSes, and so on.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/kEyChYUB4Zo/

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Tuesday, 25 October 2011

Mortgage insurer subsidiary seized by regulators (AP)

PHOENIX ? Insurance regulators in Arizona have seized the main subsidiary of private mortgage insurer PMI Group Inc., which will begin paying claims at just 50 percent.

The seizure follows heavy losses at PMI since the housing market bubble burst. Two months ago, state regulators ordered the Arizona-based subsidiary, PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., to stop selling new policies after it came under scrutiny because it didn't have enough money on hand to meet the requirements of regulations in that state.

A statement on PMI's website says a court order, signed by an Arizona Superior Court judge on Thursday, gives Arizona's Department of Insurance full possession and control of the subsidiary. Beginning Monday, PMI says claims will be paid at just 50 percent, in lieu of a moratorium on claim payments. Meanwhile, PMI said it will "continue to support our customers' ongoing policy servicing needs, and loss mitigation programs."

Private mortgage insurance protects lenders from losses if a homeowner defaults and the lender doesn't recoup costs through foreclosure. The insurance costs the borrower a monthly fee, typically a set percentage of the total mortgage loan. Like other mortgage insurers, PMI has been able to sell profitable policies in recent years, but the gains from those sales hasn't outpaced losses from policies sold before the housing market collapsed. As flagging home prices have strapped borrowers, the company has had to pay more claims.

The company's shares have traded below $1 apiece since late July, closing on Friday at 31 cents apiece. PMI shares topped $50 in 2007. Since then, the Walnut Creek, Calif. company has posted more than $3.5 billion in losses due to claims paid out on foreclosed homes. That includes a loss of nearly $135 million for the second quarter. PMI hasn't yet reported third-quarter results.

PMI's CEO, L. Stephen Smith, told analysts in early August that that company has seen a sharp rise in the number of previously denied claims that banks appealed and were able to get reinstated by producing better documents to back up them up.

Smith said then that his company was working with a financial adviser to search for ways to raise capital.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111022/ap_on_bi_ge/us_mortgage_insurer_seized

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Monday, 24 October 2011

Conservative Romney alternatives vie for Iowa edge (AP)

DES MOINES, Iowa ? Evangelical activists, Iowa's most potent conservative voting bloc, are sharply divided barely 10 weeks away from the state's leadoff presidential caucuses, and are weighing a number of GOP hopefuls competing hard to emerge as the more conservative alternative to early front-runner Mitt Romney.

A half-dozen GOP contenders sought Saturday to sharpen their Christian conservative credentials, and at times allay doubts, in an effort to gain any edge with this influential group before the state's Jan. 3 caucuses.

Businessman Herman Cain sought to clarify his position on abortion to about 1,000 of Iowa's most devout social conservatives, after suggesting this week the issue was a matter of choice.

"I believe abortion should be clearly stated as illegal across this country," Cain said during the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition's presidential forum.

Cain has risen sharply in the polls recently, stirring the interest of tea party activists and Republicans drawn to the former Godfather's Pizza CEO's business background and outsider status.

But he has also drawn new scrutiny, and came under attack by some of his fellow Republican candidates after comments in a CNN interview this week.

"What I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make," Cain told CNN host Piers Morgan.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry first took a veiled jab at Romney, who had supported abortion rights but declared his opposition during his term as Massachusetts governor as he was weighing a presidential bid.

"Pro-life is not a matter of campaign convenience," said Perry, who has stepped up his attacks on Romney's conservative profile.

But Perry also noted "It is a liberal canard to say I am personally pro-life but government should stay out of that decision," an indirect shot at Cain.

Cain said Perry's comments were aimed at falsely painting him as an abortion-rights supporter.

"That is just an attempt to try to discredit me," Cain said later. "I am pro-life from conception. No abortions, no exceptions."

Evangelical conservatives have yet to rally around any single candidate aggressively courting them, seeking the kind of lift that carried former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to victory in the leadoff caucuses in 2008.

"I don't see anyone galvanizing people like they did for Mike Huckabee," said Steve Scheffler, president of the event's sponsor and a leading social conservative activist in Iowa. "And I'd be lying if I told you that can change in one event."

Activists attending the coalition's forum at the Iowa State Fairgrounds weighed pitches from three candidates who have made the most aggressive appeals so far ? including former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Perry as well as Cain, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Bachmann, who won the Iowa GOP straw poll in August with help from Iowa's politically active network of evangelical pastors, proclaimed her support for a constitutional amendment making abortion illegal.

"I believe that the government must intervene and I stand for a federal constitutional amendment to protect life from conception until natural death," Bachmann told the audience, prompting cheers.

Santorum, who had been a leading abortion opponent in Congress, criticized Cain in a press release after his CNN interview, but did not attack him directly Saturday.

"I hear a lot of theory up here," Santorum said referring to his rivals' records compared to his own in Congress. "That's practice."

Candidates campaigned across Iowa Saturday, convening in Des Moines for the event, which was seen as a chance to leave a mark on this constituency.

But the forum didn't draw Romney, who has led national GOP polls all year and was in New Hampshire on Saturday. Despite an aggressive effort by the event's planners, he declined an invitation, in part because he is well-known in Iowa from his 2008 White House run and is skipping multicandidate gatherings in the state.

Romney has had a touchy relationship with evangelical conservatives, many of whom are leery of Romney's Mormon faith and his changed positions on social issues such as gay and abortion rights.

He has attended national meetings of conservatives, including the Values Voter Summit in Washington this month, but is emphasizing economic, rather than social issues.

That left the stage Saturday to candidates targeting voters who made up roughly half of GOP caucusgoers in 2008, according to exit polls.

However, influential pastors say their network of politically active clergy is divided. Likewise, Christian home-school activists, a well-networked group that worked behind the scenes for Huckabee, apparently have no preferred candidate.

Perry gained attention for a national day of prayer he hosted in Houston in August. But some of his luster with evangelical voters has faded in light of his 2007 executive order requiring school-age girls be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cancer.

Santorum, an anti-abortion leader while in the Senate, has impressed social conservative leaders in Iowa, but trails Perry and Bachmann in fundraising.

___

Online:

Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition: http://ffciowa.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111023/ap_on_el_ge/us_conservatives_iowa

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APNewsBreak: Banks nowhere near deal on Greece

CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS SURNAME FROM JUNCKER TO TRICHET - Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, left, speaks with ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet during a meeting of EU finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Eurozone finance ministers said Saturday they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

CAPTION CORRECTION, CORRECTS SURNAME FROM JUNCKER TO TRICHET - Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, left, speaks with ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet during a meeting of EU finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Eurozone finance ministers said Saturday they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, left, speaks with ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet during a meeting of EU finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Eurozone finance ministers said Saturday they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, left, speaks with ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet during a meeting of EU finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Eurozone finance ministers said Saturday they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado, left, speaks with German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble during a meeting of EU finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Eurozone finance ministers said Saturday they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet looks at his watch during a meeting of EU finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Eurozone finance ministers said Saturday they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

BRUSSELS (AP) ? The head of an international banking lobby that has been leading negotiations on giving Greece easier terms on its debt says the private sector and the eurozone are far from reaching a deal to cut Greece's debt load.

Charles Dallara, the head of the Institute of International Finance, says Saturday "we're nowhere near a deal."

Banks in July agreed to accept 21 percent losses on their Greek bonds. But a report Friday by Greece's international debt inspectors said its debt might have to be cut up to 60 percent for the country to recover.

Dallara told The Associated Press plans to slash Greece debt would still leave it as "a ward of Europe" for years.

He says "we would be open to an approach that involves additional efforts from everyone."

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

BRUSSELS (AP) ? EU finance ministers neared agreement Saturday on forcing banks to raise just over euro100 billion ($140 billion) to ensure they have enough cushion to weather further losses on their Greek bonds as well as market turmoil, a European official said.

In order to help Athens dig out of its debts ? and hopefully keep a cap on the amount of money they have to loan Greece ? the 17 countries that use the euro agreed Friday to ask banks to take bigger writedowns on Greek bonds. A new report suggests the value of Greek bonds might need to be slashed as much as 60 percent.

Taming Greece's debts is an important part of the euro debt crisis puzzle, but it could make banks across the continent ? not just in the eurozone ? more vulnerable at a time when they're already facing declining stock prices and finding it difficult to get regular loans for their day-to-day operations.

So when the eurozone finance ministers decided to reopen negotiations on Greek debt with the banks, the EU had to force its banks to reinforce their rainy-day funds.

Strengthening banks and slashing Greece's debts are critical to solving Europe's crisis, which is now threatening to engulf larger economies like Italy and Spain and is blamed for dampening growth across Europe and even the world.

"The crisis in the eurozone is doing real damage to many of the European economies, including Britain," George Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, said as he headed into Saturday's meeting. "We have had enough of short-term measures, sticking plasters that get us through the next few weeks."

The European official said EU leaders meeting Sunday should sign off on forcing the continent's biggest banks to raise just over euro100 billion in capital. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions between ministers were still ongoing.

The figure is likely to disappoint some analysts. A report by the International Monetary Fund has called for up to euro200 billion ($280 billion) to be poured into banks.

The new rules would force systemically important banks to raise their core capital ratios to 9 percent, compared with just 5 percent to 6 percent they needed to pass EU stress tests this summer. The ratio measures the amount of capital banks hold compared to their risky assets.

Greece, of course, has it far worse: The country is struggling through a third year of recession and record unemployment, which reached 16.5 percent in July. Deep anger is building against the Socialist government's repeated rounds of new austerity measures. A two-day general strike against the new cuts and taxes shut down much of the country this week and led to violent protests on the streets of Athens.

Pressure to contain the Greek crisis ramped up Friday after a new report from the country's debt inspectors ? the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF ? showed that its economic situation had deteriorated dramatically even since the summer.

If banks don't take bigger losses, the report said, Greece's debt would peak at a massive 186 percent of economic output in 2013 and only decline to 152 percent by the end of 2020.

That would prevent Greece from raising money on the markets until 2021 and require the eurozone and the IMF to fund an extra euro252 billion ($350 billion) in new loans to Greece through 2020, according to the report, which was marked confidential but was seen by The Associated Press.

Those funds would be in addition to Greece's first bailout of euro110 billion ($152 billion), which has been keeping the country afloat since May of last year, and another euro109 billion ($150 billion) rescue agreed to in July.

The report said that Greece's debts would have to be cut by 60 percent if the eurozone wants to avoid lending it more money. It did not make policy recommendations, and the European Central Bank opposes cutting Greece's debts further.

But finance ministers are clearly paying close attention to the experts' document. Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter told journalists Saturday that the eurozone's chief negotiator, Vittorio Grilli, had been asked to restart negotiations with banks.

That means the July deal, under which banks would have taken writedowns on their Greek bond holdings of about 21 percent, is definitively off the table.

Despite that significant progress, agreement on arguably the most important measure has remained elusive to eurozone leaders: boosting the firepower of the currency union's euro440 billion ($600 billion) bailout fund to keep the crisis from spreading.

Increasing the effectiveness of the fund ? called the European Financial Stability Facility ? is meant to help prevent larger economies like Italy and Spain from being unable to afford to borrow money from markets. That's exactly what happened to Greece, Portugal and Ireland and why those three EU countries needed bailouts.

Germany and France still disagree over how to do that and failed to make much progress on that front Friday night. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are meeting Saturday evening in the hopes of moving toward a deal.

The Greek crisis and its threat of contagion have led to calls for more robust intervention when it becomes clear that an EU country is in financial trouble.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Saturday that the EU along with the IMF should be able to directly intervene in the budgets of member states if they are receiving financial aid but failing to meet fiscal targets.

But not all EU nations share his view. The foreign ministers of Luxembourg and Finland cautioned that changing the EU treaty is too big a task to tackle now and the bloc should try instead to strengthen budget rules through existing channels.

Significant changes to the EU treaty would require national referendums in some countries, and winning approval for the current treaty from 27 nations took 10 years.

___

Elena Becatoros contributed to this report from Brussels.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-22-EU-Europe-Financial-Crisis/id-4bcee75409ee4766879bab1e884c4234

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