French Airstrikes Push Back Islamist Rebels in Mali

ECPAD, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In a video still released by the French Army, French air force officers briefed at a military base in Chad before French military operations in Mali overnight.

PARIS — French airstrikes overnight in Mali pushed back Islamist rebels from a key village and destroyed a rebel command center, France said Saturday, as West African nations authorized what they said would be a fast deployment of troops to Mali in support of the weak government there.

France intervened Friday, dropping bombs and firing rockets from helicopter gunships and jet fighters after the Islamist rebels who already control the north of Mali pressed southward, overrunning the village of Konna. The French, who had earlier said they would not intervene militarily but only help African troops, took action in response to an appeal by the Malian president.

France, the United States and other Western nations have been increasingly anxious about the Islamists’ tightening grip on the north of the country, which they said was becoming a haven for militants, including those with links to Al Qaeda, who threaten not only their neighbors, but the West. On Saturday, Adm. Édouard Guillaud, the chief of staff of the French armed forces, said that French forces had no current plans to extend operations to northern areas controlled by the Islamists, but would expect to help African forces do the job when they arrive.

“The quicker the African mission is on the ground, the less we will need to help the Malian army,” Admiral Guillaud said. He said more military planes had been sent to Africa for possible use in Mali. “We are in the build-up phase of operations,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council had earlier agreed that troops from the 15-nation regional bloc known as Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States, and European Union trainers would help the fragile government in Bamako win back the north of the country, where the Islamists have set up harsh rule under Sharia law in the nine months since the army fled the area. But both groups had been slow to deploy.

With the fall of Konna and the movement of the Islamist fighters south, the Ecowas commission president, Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, said Saturday that the group had authorized an immediate deployment of troops “in light of the urgency of the situation,” according to news reports. But he did not specify how many troops would be sent to Mali or give a date for their deployment. Also on Saturday, the foreign minister of Mali’s neighbor, Niger, said that the country would send a battalion of 500 soldiers to fight alongside Ecowas troops.

In the fighting Friday, one French helicopter pilot, Lt. Damien Boiteux, died from small-arms fire, the French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said at a news conference. Mr. Le Drian said that French forces, led by helicopter gunships, had driven the Islamists back from Konna, but it remained unclear if Malian forces had established control. Konna is about 45 miles north of the major town of Mopti, a port city on the Niger River that the Mali government feels it cannot lose.

A spokesman for the Islamist group Ansar Dine told The Associated Press that he could not confirm if some of the group’s fighters were still in Konna. The spokesman, Sanda Ould Boumama, told Reuters that French intervention in Mali will have “consequences, not only for French hostages, but also for all French citizens wherever they find themselves in the Muslim world.”

Fear of those consequences, at least for several French hostages held in North Africa, may have been a motivation for a failed French rescue mission early on Saturday in Somalia, where French commandos tried to free a French intelligence agent held there since 2009.

Mr. Le Drian said that France needed to act in Mali to forestall the collapse of the government there and the establishment of another area controlled by radical Islamists with ties to terrorist groups. “The threat is the establishment of a terrorist state within range of Europe and of France,” he said. France is also acting because it has some 6,000 citizens in Mali, a former French colony. French troops have been moved into Bamako, the capital, to protect citizens there.

Read More..

Apple won't blindly pursue market share, Chinese paper reports

SAN FRANCISCO/BEIJING (Reuters) - In a revised version of an interview published Thursday in a Chinese newspaper, Apple Inc marketing chief Phil Schiller said the company would focus on making "the best products" for customers and "never blindly pursue market share".

On Thursday, the Shanghai Evening News had originally cited Schiller as saying that Apple would not develop a cheaper smartphone for the sake of expanding its market share.

That appeared to undermine other recent media reports indicating that Apple was working on a low-end smartphone, which would represent a significant shift in strategy for a company that has always focused on premium products.

But in a new version of the story published after the original, the Shanghai Evening News removed all references to cheaper smartphones, except for a mention of rumours of a "cheaper, low-end product".

It also amended its original headline from "Apple will not push a cheaper smartphone for the sake of market share", to "Apple wants to provide the best products, will not blindly pursue market share".

Apple confirmed the interview had taken place and that it had contacted the Chinese newspaper about amending its original article, but had no further comment and declined to provide a transcript of the interview.

A reporter at the Shanghai Evening News who identified himself as Huang Yinlong, whose byline appeared on the stories, said the paper had made some changes, as Schiller's remarks may not have been presented as clearly as possible.

As well as deleting references to cheap smartphones, paraphrased statements attributed to Schiller in the original version were replaced with direct quotations.

Asked if the paper had made the changes at Apple's request, Huang said that the paper had made the decision on its own.

"We deliberated about it, and wanted to reflect (Schiller's) meaning in the interview more accurately, so we made some adjustments", said Huang, adding the interview was conducted in Beijing on Tuesday.

The original story had quoted Schiller as saying that developing a cheaper smartphone to try and replace feature phones was not a direction in which the company wanted to head.

That comment was amended in the new version of the story, which now cites Schiller as saying that while some manufacturers are moving toward such cheaper smartphones, "Apple has always focused on providing the best products for its consumers, we've never blindly chased market share."

An operator at the Shanghai Evening News said the paper did not have a spokesperson. Queries for comment were referred to Editor-in-Chief Niu Yefang, whose phone went unanswered.

A spokeswoman for Apple in China could not be reached immediately.

Apple rarely addresses rumors about upcoming products, which often spur intense speculation. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources as saying Apple could release a cheaper iPhone as early as this year.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan and Wan Xu in San Francisco, and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jeremy Laurence)

Read More..

Obama won't support building 'Death Star'

WASHINGTON (AP) — A "Death Star" won't be a part of the U.S. military's arsenal any time soon.

More than 34,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the Obama administration to build the "Star Wars" inspired super-weapon to spur job growth and bolster national defense.

But in a posting Friday on the White House website, Paul Shawcross, an administration adviser on science and space, says a Death Star would cost too much to build — an estimated $850 quadrillion — at a time the White House is working to reduce the federal budget.

Besides, Shawcross says, the Obama administration "does not support blowing up planets."

The U.S., Shawcross points out, is already involved in several out-of-this-world projects, including the International Space Station, which is currently orbiting Earth with a half-dozen astronauts.

___

Online:

White House response to petition: http://tinyurl.com/asd565g

Read More..

Former Lab Technician Denies Faulty DNA Work in Rape Cases

A former New York City laboratory technician whose work on rape cases is now being scrutinized for serious mistakes said on Friday that she had been unaware there were problems in her work and, disputing an earlier report, denied she had resigned under pressure.

The former lab technician, Serrita Mitchell, said any problems must have been someone else’s.

“My work?” Ms. Mitchell said. “No, no, no, not my work.”

Earlier, the city medical examiner’s office, where Ms. Mitchell said she was employed from 2000 to 2011, said it was reviewing 843 rape cases handled by a lab technician who might have missed critical evidence.

So far, it has finished looking over about half the cases, and found 26 in which the technician had missed biological evidence and 19 in which evidence was commingled with evidence from other cases. In seven cases where evidence was missed, the medical examiner’s office was able to extract a DNA profile, raising the possibility that detectives could have caught some suspects sooner.

The office declined to identify the technician. Documents said she quit in November 2011 after the office moved to fire her, once supervisors had begun to discover deficiencies in her work. A city official who declined to be identified said Ms. Mitchell was the technician.

However, Ms. Mitchell, reached at her home in the Bronx on Friday, said she had never been told there were problems. “It couldn’t be me because your work gets checked,” she said. “You have supervisors.”

She also said that she had resigned because of a rotator cuff injury that impeded her movement. “I loved the job so much that I stayed a little longer,” she said, explaining that she had not expected to stay with the medical examiner’s office so long. “Then it was time to leave.”

Also on Friday, the Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal defense lawyers for most of the city’s poor defendants, said it was demanding that the city turn over information about the cases under review.

If needed, Legal Aid will sue the city to gain access to identifying information about the cases, its chief lawyer, Steven Banks, said, noting that New York was one of only 14 states that did not require routine disclosure of criminal evidence before trial.

Disclosure of the faulty examination of the evidence is prompting questions about outside review of the medical examiner’s office. The City Council on Friday announced plans for an emergency oversight committee, and its members spoke with outrage about the likelihood that missed semen stains and “false negatives” might have enabled rapists to go unpunished.

“The mishandling of rape cases is making double victims of women who have already suffered an indescribably horrific event,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.

A few more details emerged Friday about a 2001 case involving the rape of a minor in Brooklyn, in which the technician missed biological evidence, the review found. The victim accused an 18-year-old acquaintance of forcing himself on her, and he was questioned by the police but not charged, according to a law enforcement official.

Unrelated to the rape, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to third-degree robbery and served two years in prison. The DNA sample he gave in the robbery case was matched with the one belatedly developed from evidence the technician had overlooked in the 2001 rape, law enforcement officials said. He was recently indicted in the 2001 rape.

Especially alarming to defense lawyers was the possibility that DNA samples were cross-contaminated and led to false convictions, or could do so in the future.

“Up to this point,” Mr. Banks said, “they have not made information available to us, as the primary defender in New York City, to determine whether there’s an injustice that’s been done in past cases, pending cases, or allowing us to be on the lookout in future cases.” He added, “If it could happen with one analyst, how does anyone know that it stops there?”

The medical examiner’s office has said that the risk of cross-contamination was extremely low and that it does not appear that anyone was wrongly convicted in the cases that have been reviewed so far. And officials in at least two of the city’s district attorneys’ offices — for Brooklyn and Manhattan — said they had not found any erroneous convictions.

But Mr. Banks said the authorities needed to do more, and that their statements thus far were the equivalent of “trust us.”

“Given what’s happened,” he said, “that’s cold comfort.”

Read More..

Business Briefing | Retailing: Best Buy Shares Rally on Improved Holiday Sales

The Best Buy Company had better-than-expected holiday sales, setting off a gain of $2, or 16.4 percent, in its stock price, to $14.21 a share on Friday. The holiday quarter accounted for about a third of Best Buy’s revenue last year. The chain said that revenue at stores open at least a year fell 1.4 percent for the nine weeks ended Jan. 5. The company’s performance in the United States was flat. The chief executive, Hubert Joly, said in a statement that the result was better than the last several quarters. A Morningstar analyst, R. J. Hottovy, said the results showed that some of Best Buy’s initiatives, like more employee training and online price matching helped increase sales.

Read More..

Palestinians Set Up Camp in Israeli-Occupied West Bank Territory

JERUSALEM — Adopting a tactic more commonly employed by Jewish settlers who establish wildcat outposts in the West Bank, scores of Palestinian activists and international supporters erected tents on Friday in a hotly contested piece of Israeli-occupied West Bank territory known as E1, and said they intended to stay put.

The Palestinians claim E1, just east of Jerusalem, as part of a future state. The protest comes six weeks after Israel announced that it was moving forward with plans for thousands of settlement homes in E1, stirring international outrage.

Israeli military authorities arrived on Friday and handed the protesters notices warning them that they were illegally trespassing and that they had to leave, according to a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld. Mr. Rosenfeld said he expected some movement “at some point,” with the protesters either leaving voluntarily or being removed by Israeli security forces.

But the protesters said that they had anticipated such action and that their lawyers had already gone to court in Israel to argue for a delay in any evacuation until the state details the grounds for such a move. Protest leaders said the court had given the state six days to respond.

About 200 activists began pitching tents on a hill in the barren, stony territory on Friday morning, and issued a statement announcing the establishment of a village named Bab Al Shams (Arabic for “gate of the sun”), after the title of a novel by a Lebanese writer, Elias Khoury, that portrays Palestinian yearnings through a metaphorical story of love for the land.

Israeli plans to build in E1 have been vehemently opposed for years by international players, including the United States, which say construction there would partially separate the northern and southern West Bank, harming the prospects of a viable contiguous Palestinian state in that territory. Israel announced its intention as a countermeasure after the United Nations General Assembly voted in November to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to that of a nonmember observer state.

Israel wants to create contiguity between East Jerusalem, which it has annexed, and the large urban settlement of Maale Adumim that lies beyond E1, and says that the future of the West Bank has to be settled in negotiations. In the meantime, critics say, Israel continues to establish facts on the ground.

“We are here as a response to the settlers and to the Israeli policy of settlement expansion,” said Muhammad Khatib, a veteran member of the grass-roots Palestinian Popular Struggle Coordination Committee and a resident of Bilin. That West Bank village became a symbol of Palestinian defiance after it held weekly protests and won a ruling in the Israeli Supreme Court in 2007 forcing Israel to reroute its West Bank barrier so as to take in less of the village’s agricultural land.

“Now I am one of the people of Baba Al Shams,” said Mr. Khatib, speaking by telephone from the protest site. “We want to stay here forever.”

Mr. Khatib said that the police were stopping people and supplies from entering the site, but that the campers had come prepared. He added that if the Israeli security forces came to evict the protesters, “we will resist in our nonviolent way.”

Israel says that most of the E1 area is Israeli land. Protest leaders said they had set up their encampment on a parcel of land owned by a Palestinian family from A-Tur, a neighborhood of East Jerusalem. They added that the landowners had given their full permission for the encampment and had joined the activists at the site.

About 25 tents were set up Friday, including one serving as a clinic and one for the “village administration,” according to Abir Kopty, a spokeswoman for the coordination committee, who also spoke by telephone from the encampment.

“We call this a village, not an outpost,” Ms. Kopty said, “because there is a huge difference between Palestinians living on their own land and settlers building illegally on our occupied land.”

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said in a statement: “This initiative is a highly creative and legitimate nonviolent tool to protect our land from Israeli colonial plans. We have the right to live anywhere in our state, and we call upon the international community to support such initiatives.”

Read More..

U.S. warns on Java software as security concerns escalate

(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urged computer users to disable Oracle Corp's Java software, amplifying security experts' prior warnings to hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses that use it to surf the Web.

Hackers have figured out how to exploit Java to install malicious software enabling them to commit crimes ranging from identity theft to making an infected computer part of an ad-hoc network of computers that can be used to attack websites.

"We are currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem," the Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team said in a posting on its website late on Thursday.

"This and previous Java vulnerabilities have been widely targeted by attackers, and new Java vulnerabilities are likely to be discovered," the agency said. "To defend against this and future Java vulnerabilities, disable Java in Web browsers."

Oracle declined to comment on the warning on Friday.

Java is a computer language that enables programmers to write software utilizing just one set of code that will run on virtually any type of computer, including ones that use Microsoft Corp's Windows, Apple Inc's OS X and Linux, an operating system widely employed by corporations.

Computer users access Java programs through modules, or plug-ins, that run Java software on top of browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The U.S. government's warning on Java came after security experts warned earlier on Thursday of the newly discovered flaw.

It is relatively rare for government agencies to advise computer users to completely disable software due to a security bug, particularly in the case of widely used programs such as Java. They typically recommend taking steps to mitigate the risk of attack while manufacturers prepare an update, or hold off on publicizing the problem until an update is prepared.

In September, the German government advised the public to temporarily stop using Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to give it time to patch a security vulnerability that opened it to attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security said attackers could trick targets into visiting malicious websites that would infect their PCs with software capable of exploiting the bug in Java.

It said an attacker could also infect a legitimate website by uploading malicious software that would infect machines of computer users who trust that site because they have previously visited it without experiencing any problems.

They said developers of several popular tools, known as exploit kits, which criminal hackers use to attack PCs, have added software that allows hackers to exploit the newly discovered bug in Java to attack computers.

Security experts have been scrutinizing the safety of Java since a similar security scare in August, which prompted some of them to advise using the software only on an as-needed basis.

At the time they advised businesses to only allow their workers to use Java browser plug-ins when prompted for permission by trusted programs such as GoToMeeting, a Web-based collaboration tool from Citrix Systems Inc.

Adam Gowdiak, a researcher with Polish security firm Security Explorations, subsequently said he had found other security bugs in Java that continued to make computers vulnerable to attack.

Java suffered another setback in October when Apple began removing old versions of the software from Internet browsers of Mac computers when its customers installed new versions of its OS X operating system. Apple did not provide a reason for the change and both companies declined comment at the time.

(Editing by Scott Malone, Steve Orlofsky and Bernadette Baum)

Read More..

Seattle bankruptcy hearing to decide Tully's sale

SEATTLE (AP) — The auction for beleaguered coffee company Tully's will likely conclude Friday in federal bankruptcy court, with an ownership group led by actor Patrick Dempsey in position to take over the chain. But Starbucks isn't' out of the running.

Dempsey — dubbed "McDreamy" in the "Grey's Anatomy" hospital TV drama — claimed victory last week after an auction.

But a company that teamed up with Starbucks to bid for the Tully's chain filed an objection Wednesday. AgriNurture Inc. says it's still willing to proceed with its combined bid with Starbucks of about $10.6 million. The bid from Dempsey's company, Global Baristas LLC, was for $9.2 million.

Tully's has 47 shops in Washington and California with more than 500 employees. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October.

Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: Taking a Zen Approach to Caregiving

You try to help your elderly father. Irritated and defensive, he snaps at you instead of going along with your suggestion. And you think “this is so unfair” and feel a rising tide of anger.

How to handle situations like this, which arise often and create so much angst for caregivers?

Jennifer Block finds the answer in what she calls “contemplative caregiving” — the application of Buddhist principles to caregiving and the subject of a year-long course that starts at the San Francisco Zen Center in a few weeks.

This approach aims to cultivate compassion, both for older people and the people they depend on, said Ms. Block, 49, a Buddhist chaplain and the course’s lead instructor. She’s also the former director of education at the Zen Hospice project in San Francisco and founder of the Beyond Measure School for Contemplative Care, which is helping develop a new, Zen-inspired senior living community in the area.

I caught up with Ms. Block recently, and what follows is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Let’s start with your experience. Have you been a caregiver?

My experience in caregiving is as a professional providing spiritual care to individuals and families when they are facing and coping with aging and sickness and loss and dying, particularly in hospital and hospice settings.

What kinds of challenges have you witnessed?

People are for the most part unprepared for caregiving. They’re either untrained or unable to trust their own instincts. They lack confidence as well as knowledge. By confidence, I mean understanding and accepting that we don’t know all the answers – what to do, how to fix things.

This past weekend, I was on the phone with a woman who’d brought her mom to live near her in assisted living. The mom had been to the hospital the day before. My conversation with the daughter was about helping her see the truth that her mother needed more care and that was going to change the daughter’s responsibilities and her life. And also, her mother was frail, elderly, and coming nearer to death.

That’s hard, isn’t it?

Yes, because we live in a death-denying society. Also, we live in a fast-paced, demanding world that says don’t sit still — do something. But people receiving care often need most of all for us to spend time with them. When we do that, their mortality and our grief and our helplessness becomes closer to us and more apparent.

How can contemplative caregiving help?

We teach people to cultivate a relationship with aging, sickness and dying. To turn toward it rather than turning away, and to pay close attention. Most people don’t want to do this.

A person needs training to face what is difficult in oneself and in others. There are spiritual muscles we need to develop, just like we develop physical muscles in a gym. Also, the mind needs to be trained to be responsive instead of reactive.

What does that mean?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re trying to help your mother, and she says something off-putting to you like “you’ve always been terrible at keeping house. It’s no wonder you lost my pajamas.”

The first thing is to notice your experience. To become aware of that feeling, almost like being slapped emotionally. To notice your chest tightening.

Then I tell people to take a deep breath. And say something to themselves like “soften” to address that tightness. That’s how you can stay facing something uncomfortable rather than turning away.

If I were in this position, I might say something to myself like “hello unhappiness” or “hello suffering” or “hello aging” to tether myself.

The second step would be curiosity about that experience. Like, wow, where do I feel that anger that rose up in me, or that fear? Oh, it’s in my chest. I’m going to feel that, stay with it, investigate it.

Why is that important?

Because as we investigate something we come to understand it. And, paradoxically, when we pay attention to pain it changes. It softens. It moves. It lessens. It deepens. And we get to know it and learn not to be afraid of it or change it or fix it but just come alongside of it.

Over hours, days, months, years, the mind and heart come to know pain. And the response to pain is compassion — the wish for the alleviation of pain.

Let’s go back to what mother said about your housekeeping and the pajamas. Maybe you leave the room for five minutes so you can pay attention to your reaction and remember your training. Then, you can go back in and have a response rather than a reaction. Maybe something like “Mom, I think you’re right. I may not be the world’s best housekeeper. I’m sorry I lost your pajamas. It seems like you’re having a pretty strong response to that, and I’d like to know why it matters so much to you. What’s happening with you today?”

Are other skills important?

Another skill is to become aware of how much we receive as well as give in caregiving. Caregiving can be really gratifying. It’s an expression of our values and identity: the way we want the world to be. So, I try to teach people how this role benefits them. Such as learning what it’s like to be old. Or having a close, intimate relationship with an older parent for the first time in decades. It isn’t necessarily pleasant or easy. But the alternative is missing someone’s final chapter, and that can be a real loss.

What will you do in your course?

We’ll teach the principles of contemplative care and discuss them. We’ll have homework, such as ‘Bring me three examples of someone you were caring for who was caring toward you in return.’ That’s one way of practicing attention. And people will train in meditation.

We’ll also explore our own relationship to aging, sickness, dying and loss. We’ll tell our stories: this is the situation I was in, this is where I felt myself shut down, this was the edge of my comfort or knowledge. And we’ll teach principles from Buddhism. Equanimity. Compassion. Deep inner connectedness.

What can people do on their own?

Mindfulness training is offered in almost every city. That’s one of the core components of this approach.

I think every caregiver needs to have their own caregiver — a therapist or a colleague or a friend, someone who is there for them and with whom they can unburden themselves. I think of caregiving as drawing water from a well. We need to make sure that we have whatever nurtures us, whatever supplies that well. And often, that’s connecting with others.

Are other groups doing this kind of work?

In New York City, the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care educates the public and professionals about contemplative care. And in New Mexico, the Upaya Zen Center does similar work, much of it centered around death and dying.

People who want to read about this might want to look at a new book of essays, “The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work” (Wisdom Publications, 2012).

Read More..

DealBook: Client Redemptions Loom for SAC Capital

12:46 p.m. | Updated

The hedge fund giant SAC Capital Advisors is steeling itself for a possible wave of withdrawal requests from clients amid the government’s intensifying scrutiny of its trading practices.

Investors have about a month to decide whether to pull out money from SAC, the $14 billion fund owned by the billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen.

While posting one of the best investment track records on Wall Street across two decades, SAC has attracted billions of dollars from pension funds, wealthy families and other money management firms. But since late November, when federal prosecutors brought its latest criminal insider trading charge against a former SAC employee — a case that it calls the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever uncovered — those clients are weighing whether continuing their relationship with the fund is worth the reputational risk.

The fund has a standard quarterly redemption deadline, and the next one will fall on Feb. 15. Already, several of SAC’s clients, including Lyxor Asset Management and Titan Advisors, have notified the fund that they intend to withdraw their money. Others, like Skybridge Capital, have told SAC they will continue to invest with the fund.

Questions remain about the intentions of several of SAC’s well-known clients, including Blackstone Group, one of the world’s largest and most influential allocators to hedge funds. Blackstone has about $550 million invested in SAC, making it one of the fund’s largest outside investors. A Blackstone spokesman declined to comment.

The fund has told its employees that it could face at least $1 billion of withdrawals, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Friday. A spokesman for SAC said it was “far too early to speculate about redemptions, and we do not expect redemptions to have a significant impact on our funds.”

Any withdrawals from clients would come after a year of decent performance for SAC. In 2012 the firm returned about 13 percent net of fees, which while slightly underperforming the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock market index, is superior to the results of the average hedge fund.

While a spate of redemptions can have a crippling effect on a hedge fund by forcing it to sell its holdings at unfavorable prices, SAC is more insulated than most of its competitors from the ill effects of client withdrawals. That is because of the $14 billion that SAC manages, only about 40 percent of that comes from outside clients. The rest — a fortune of about $8 billion — belongs to Mr. Cohen and his employees.

Also, SAC has protected itself with a stringent redemption policy. The fund’s clients can redeem only 25 percent of their investment each quarter. So, for example, if a client has $200 million invested with SAC, and asks for its money back by the Feb. 15 deadline, SAC would return $50 million every three months beginning in March. That way, SAC is protected from having a forced liquidation of its investment portfolio.

Still, an investor exodus can have a crippling effect on a hedge fund, often causing it to shut down. Last month, Diamondback Capital Management, another hedge fund that became ensnared in the government’s insider trading investigation, closed after its investors sought to pull out roughly one-quarter of the fund’s assets.

Diamondback’s management decided that the most prudent course of action was to wind down rather than reorganize the firm to manage the reduced amount of money.

Like Diamondback, SAC has become embroiled in the government’s broad crackdown on insider trading at hedge funds. At least seven former SAC traders and analysts have been tied to illegal trading while at the fund. And the Securities and Exchange Commission has warned SAC that it might filed a civil action against the fund for failing to properly supervise its employees.

Mr. Cohen has told his employees that he believes he and his fund have at all times acted appropriately, and that the fund has fully cooperated with the government’s investigation.

In recent weeks, SAC has gone on a charm offensive in an attempt to hold on to clients. The fund has told its investors that they would not be responsible for any penalties incurred as a result of any of the government’s legal inquiry. Instead, SAC has told them, Mr. Cohen and his management company would pick up the costs.

There have also been changes at the fund. SAC last week told its staff that it was closing its office in Chicago, which is home to about a dozen employees. Such a move is not unusual, as the fund has closed offices before, such as San Francisco, where it saw limited opportunities.

A spokesman said it didn’t make sense to have an office in Chicago. SAC has more than 1,000 employees – portfolio managers, analysts, traders, and support staff – in five offices across the globe, with its headquarters in Stamford, Conn.

Though Mr. Cohen has told his friends and employees that he remains committed to managing money for outside clients, he could decide to follow in the footsteps of several fellow billionaire hedge fund managers.

A number of star investors, having already amassed billions in personal wealth, have decided to get out of the business of managing other people’s money. In recent years, for example, both George Soros and his onetime protégé, Stanley Druckenmiller, returned money to clients and set up so-called family offices to manage their own fortunes.

Read More..

Minister Pulls Out of Inauguration After Outcry

WASHINGTON – The Christian minister selected by President Obama to deliver the benediction at his inaugural this month has withdrawn from the program amid a storm of controversy over remarks he made about homosexuality in a sermon in the mid-1990s, according to a source close to the inaugural committee.

The minister, the Rev. Louie Giglio, founder of the Passion Conferences, an Atlanta organization that brings college students together in prayer and worship, withdrew Thursday morning, a day after the sermon came to light.

In it, Mr. Giglio called on fellow Christians to fight the “aggressive agenda” of the gay-rights movement, and advocated “the healing power of Jesus” as “the only way out of a homosexual lifestyle” – a comment some gay-rights advocates interpreted as an endorsement of reparative, or so-called gay-to-straight conversion, therapy, as a supposed cure for homosexuality

An official with Mr. Obama’s Presidential Inaugural Committee said the committee, which operates separately from the White House, vetted Mr. Giglio. People familiar with internal discussions between administration and committee officials said the White House viewed the selection as a problem for Mr. Obama, and told the panel on Wednesday night to quickly fix it. By Thursday morning, Mr. Giglio said he had withdrawn without disavowing the comments.

“We were not aware of Pastor Giglio’s past comments at the time of his selection and they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this inaugural,” said Addie Whisenant, the spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee. “Pastor Giglio was asked to deliver the benediction in large part for his leadership in combating human trafficking around the world. As we now work to select someone to deliver the benediction, we will ensure their beliefs reflect this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.”

The minister’s quick withdrawal highlights how sensitive the White House is to concerns over gay rights. It comes at a time when Mr. Obama’s candidate for defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, a former Nebraska senator, is under fire for comments he made about gay people in the 1990s; some activists said the administration could ill afford two controversies over gay rights at the same time.

“It was the right decision,” said Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based advocacy group. “Participants in the inaugural festivities should unite rather than divide. Choosing an affirming and fair-minded voice as his replacement would be in keeping with the tone the president wants to set for his inaugural.”

The Giglio controversy echoes a controversy over Mr. Obama’s 2009 inaugural, when he angered many gay people by selecting the Rev. Rick Warren, author of “The Purpose Driven Life" and an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, to deliver the benediction.

“I think this is actually a bigger deal than Rick Warren because this gentleman is in many ways much worse,” said Richard Socarides, who advised President Bill Clinton on gay issues. “Rick Warren was not a good choice but he is kind of in the mainstream of religious thinking, but this guy is really an outlier.”

Read More..

Lumia sales lift Nokia results, raise turnaround hopes

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia said strong sales of Lumia smartphones helped its mobile phone business achieve underlying profitability in the fourth quarter, raising hopes the struggling handset maker may be past the worst.

The Finnish company, which has been losing market share to Samsung and Apple, said the better-than-expected result was also helped by cost cuts, a stronger-than-expected performance from its Nokia Siemens Networks unit and 50 million euros ($65.2 million) in patent royalties.

The surprise announcement lifted the shares to nine-month highs and eased pressure on Chief Executive Stephen Elop, who has been trying to prove his February 2011 decision to switch to Microsoft Windows software was the right one.

Elop was seen to be running out of time after saying that the transition would take two years. Success of the high-end Lumia smartphones has been considered crucial for the company's survival, and investors had said Elop would need to quit or change strategy if sales did not pick up by early 2013.

"We're very pleased with the Lumia response," Elop told analysts, although he added that sales of the latest 920 models, which use the new Windows Phone 8 software, had been constrained by a shortage of supplies.

Nokia estimated fourth-quarter operating margin in its mobile phone business was between break-even to 2 percent. It previously forecast the margin to be around minus 6 percent.

Official results, including more details on its profit and cash position, are due on January 24.

Fourth-quarter net sales in devices and services were about 3.9 billion euros ($5.09 billion), Nokia said. It sold a total of 86.3 million devices. Smartphones accounted for 6.6 million units, of which 4.4 million were the Windows-based Lumia handsets.

Nokia shares rose 10.8 percent to 3.32 euros as some investors cheered the rare positive announcement from Nokia and traders scrambled to cover their short positions.

Nokia had 17 percent of shares out on loan, according to Markit data, making it one of the most "shorted" stocks in Europe.

STILL NEED EVIDENCE

The company said that conditions remained tough despite the stronger-than-expected fourth quarter, and forecast its margin to be around minus 2 percent in the first quarter of this year.

"We continue to operate in a competitive environment with limited visibility," Elop said.

Some analysts were skeptical about the success of the Lumia strategy. Nokia would not say how many of the Lumias it sold were the newest models rather than the heavily discounted ones launched earlier.

Many also noted Lumias sold in the fourth quarter still make up a small portion of global smartphone sales in the same period, estimated at over 200 million.

"4.4 million Lumias sold is not yet a promise of a turnaround," said Inderes analyst Mikael Rautanen, who had just downgraded the shares to "sell" on Tuesday.

Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu said he was still negative about the shares, rating them "underperform".

"Last year, in order to sustain Lumia volumes, Nokia had to cut prices very rapidly, driving gross margins close to zero. We believe this will repeat this year," he said.

Redeye analyst Greger Johansson said it was too early to call it a turnaround.

"They will have to prove a lot more until you can say that," he said. "I'm not still convinced that they are going to manage to succeed with those new smartphones. They have to sell a lot more in volumes until you can say that."

($1 = 0.7667 euros)

(Additional reporting by Terhi Kinnunen and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by David Goodman and Sophie Walker)

Read More..

'Lincoln' leads Oscars with 12 nominations

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Steven Spielberg has matched his personal best at the Academy Awards: 12 nominations for his Civil War saga "Lincoln," including best picture, director and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

That ties the 12 nominations for his 1993 drama "Schindler's List," which won seven Oscars, including best picture and director.

Also among the nine nominees for best picture Thursday: the old-age love story "Amour"; the Iran hostage thriller "Argo"; the independent hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the slave-revenge narrative "Django Unchained"; the musical "Les Miserables"; the shipwreck story "Life of Pi"; the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook"; and the Osama bin Laden manhunt chronicle "Zero Dark Thirty."

"Life of Pi" surprisingly ran second with 11 nominations, ahead of "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Les Miserables," which had been considered potential front-runners.

"I thought we'd get a few, so this is really great for us," said "Life of Pi" director Ang Lee. "Eleven really surprised me. But it's a good surprise. I'm very happily surprised."

More surprising were snubs in the directing category, where three favorites missed out: Ben Affleck for "Argo" and past Oscar winners Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty" and Tom Hooper for "Les Miserables." Bigelow was the first woman ever the win the directing Oscar for 2009's "The Hurt Locker," while Hooper won a year later for "The King's Speech."

The best-picture category also had surprising omissions. The acclaimed first-love tale "Moonrise Kingdom" was left out and only got one nomination, for original screenplay. Also snubbed for best-picture was "The Master," a critical favorite that did manage three acting nominations, for Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Two-time winner Spielberg earned his seventh directing nomination, and also in the mix are past winner Lee for "Life of Pi" and past nominee David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook." The other slots went to surprise picks who are first-time nominees: Michael Haneke for his French-language "Amour" and Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Oscar directing contenders often are identical or at least usually line up closely with those for the Directors Guild of America Awards. But only Spielberg and Lee made both lists this time. The Directors Guild also nominated Affleck, Bigelow and Hooper, but not Haneke, Russell or Zeitlin.

Haneke's "Amour" also was a best-picture surprise. The film, which won the top prize at last May's Cannes Film Festival, mainly had been considered a favorite in the foreign-language category, where it also was nominated. "Amour" had five nominations, including original screenplay and best-actress for Emmanuelle Riva.

"It is fulfilling to discover that a film has found the audience and critical acclaim that 'Amour' has garnered," Haneke said. "I have been very fortunate on both those fronts, but it is especially rewarding to discover that a film has found favor among one's industry peers who know, in particular, the effort that goes into getting a film — any film — made."

The year's second-biggest box-office hit, "The Dark Knight Rises," was shut out entirely, even for visual effects. The omission of its predecessor, "The Dark Knight," from best-picture consideration for 2008 was largely responsible for the expansion of the Oscar category from five nominees to 10 the following year. "The Dark Knight" had earned eight nominations and won two Oscars.

Chronicling Abraham Lincoln's final months as he engineers passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, "Lincoln" stars best-actor contender Day-Lewis in a monumental performance as the 16th president, supporting-actress nominee Field as the notoriously headstrong Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting-actor prospect Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

Joining Day-Lewis in the best-actor field are Bradley Cooper as a psychiatric patient trying to get his life back together in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Hugh Jackman as Victor Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables"; Phoenix as a Navy vet who falls in with a cult in "The Master"; and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in "Flight."

Cooper had been a bit of a longshot. John Hawkes, a potential best-actor favorite, missed out for his role as a man in an iron lung aiming to lose his virginity in "The Sessions."

Nominated for best actress are Jessica Chastain as a CIA operative hunting bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty"; Jennifer Lawrence as a troubled young widow struggling to heal in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Riva as an ailing woman tended by her husband in "Amour"; Quvenzhane Wallis as a spirited girl on the Louisiana delta in "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; and Naomi Watts as a mother caught up in a devastating tsunami in "The Impossible."

Best actress had a wild age range: Riva is the oldest nominee ever in the category at 85, while Wallis is the youngest ever at 9.

Along with Field, supporting-actress nominees are Adams as a cult leader's devoted wife in "The Master"; Anne Hathaway as an outcast mother reduced to prostitution in "Les Miserables"; Helen Hunt as a sex surrogate in "The Sessions"; and Jacki Weaver as an unstable man's doting mom in "Silver Linings Playbook."

Besides Jones, the supporting-actor contenders are Alan Arkin as a wily Hollywood producer in "Argo"; Robert De Niro as a football-obsessed patriarch in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Hoffman as a dynamic cult leader in "The Master"; and Christoph Waltz as a genteel bounty hunter in "Django Unchained."

"Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, who will host the Feb. 24 Oscars, joined Emma Stone to announce the Oscar lineup, and he scored a nomination himself. He's up for original song for "Everybody Needs a Best Friend," the tune he co-wrote for his big-screen directing debut "Ted."

"That's kind of cool I got nominated," MacFarlane deadpanned at the announcement. "I get to go to the Oscars."

Walt Disney predictably dominated the animated-feature category with three of the five nominees: "Brave," ''Frankenweenie" and "Wreck-It Ralph." Also nominated were "ParaNorman" and "The Pirates! Band of Misfits."

"I'm absolutely blown away," ''Wreck-It Ralph" director Rich Moore said. "It is weird at 5:30 in the morning to hear Emma Stone say your name. It's surreal."

"Lincoln" is Spielberg's best awards prospect since his critical peak in the 1990s, when he won best-picture and directing Oscars for "Schindler's List" and a second directing Oscar for "Saving Private Ryan."

Spielberg's latest film could vault him, Day-Lewis and Field to new heights among Hollywood's super-elite of multiple Oscar winners.

A best-picture win for "Lincoln" would be Spielberg's second, while another directing win would be his third, a feat achieved only by Frank Capra and William Wyler, who each earned three directing Oscars, and John Ford, who received four.

"Lincoln" also was the ninth best-picture nominee Spielberg has directed, moving him into a tie for second-place with Ford. Only Wyler directed more best-picture nominees, with 13.

Day-Lewis and Field both have two lead-acting Oscars already, he for "My Left Foot" and "There Will Be Blood" and she for "Norma Rae" and "Places in the Heart." A third Oscar for either would put them in rare company with previous triple winners Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn is the record-holder with four acting Oscars.

An Oscar for Jones would be his second supporting-actor prize; he previously won for "The Fugitive."

"Lincoln" composer John Williams — whose five Oscars include three for the music of three earlier Spielberg films, "Jaws," ''E.T. the Extra-terrestrial" and "Schindler's List" — earned his 43rd nomination for best score, extending his all-time record in the category.

The Oscars feature a best-picture field that ranges from five to 10 films depending on a complex formula of ballots from the 5,856 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Nominations in most categories are decided by ballots from members of specific academy branches — such as directors, writers or actors. All members are eligible to vote for best-picture nominees, and the entire academy can vote in every category for the actual Oscars, whose balloting begins Feb. 8.

Winners for the 85th Oscars will be announced Feb. 24 at a ceremony aired live on ABC from Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.

___

AP entertainment writers Christy Lemire, Sandy Cohen, Anthony McCartney and Derrik Lang in Los Angeles and AP writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

Read More..

F.D.A. Requires Cuts to Dosages of Ambien and Other Sleep Drugs

The Food and Drug Administration announced on Thursday that it was requiring manufacturers of popular sleeping pills like Ambien and Zolpimist to cut their recommended dosage in half for women, after laboratory studies showed that they can leave people still sleepy in the morning and at risk for accidents.

The agency issued the requirement for drugs containing the active ingredient zolpidem, by far the most widely used sleep aid. Using lower doses means less of the drug will remain in the blood in the morning hours, and leave people who take it less exposed to the risk of impairment while driving to work.

Women eliminate zolpidem from their bodies more slowly than men and the agency told manufacturers that the recommended dosage for women should be lowered to 5 milligrams from 10 milligrams for immediate-release products like Ambien, Edluar and Zolpimist. Dosages for extended-release products should be lowered to 6.25 milligrams from 12.5, the agency said. The agency also recommended lowering dosages for men.

An estimated 10 to 15 percent of women will have a level of zolpidem in their blood that impairs driving eight hours after taking the pill, while only about 3 percent of men do, said Dr. Robert Temple, deputy director for clinical science in the F.D.A.'s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Doctors will still be told that they can prescribe the higher dosage if the lower one does not work, Dr. Temple said.

“Most people thought that by the morning it is gone,” he said. “What we’re reminding people is that is sort of true, but that in some women who take a full 10 milligram dose, and in a lot of people who take the control release dose, it is not entirely true. Some people will be impaired in the morning.”

Read More..

Nokia Sees Results From New Smartphone Line

BERLIN — Nokia said Thursday that its struggling mobile phone business was showing signs of a rebound, turning a profit in the fourth quarter fueled by sales of its Lumia smartphones that use Microsoft software.

Stephen Elop, the Nokia chief executive, said sales of smartphones and more basic cellphones, as well as profitability at the Nokia Siemens network-equipment venture, all came in better than expected during the three months through December.

“While we definitely experienced some tough challenges in the first half of 2012, we are managing through these issues,” Mr. Elop said in a conference call with journalists.

Nokia has amassed nearly €5 billion, or $6.5 billion, in losses since Mr. Elop, a former Microsoft executive, announced plans to phase out Nokia phones that used its own Symbian operating system for the Lumia line, which uses the Windows Phone 8 software, in February 2011.

Sales of Lumia phones increased only modestly during the early part of 2012, raising concern that the company’s turnaround strategy, marked by cost cutting and the sale of subsidiary businesses, would not be enough to save the former market leader.

But in the fourth quarter, amid heavy television and print ad spending in Europe and North America, Nokia said it sold 4.4 million Lumia phones, up from 2.9 million in the third quarter.

The company said revenue from the sale of 86.3 million mobile phones of all kinds amounted to €3.9 billion in the quarter, without providing comparative figures.

The company’s shares surged as much as 16 percent in Helsinki on the news.

In a statement, Nokia said that it expected operating profit at its devices and services business, which makes up about half of its total sales, to break even or generate a profit of as much as 2 percent of sales in the fourth quarter. In October, Nokia had told investors that it expected the business to make an operating loss of as much as 10 percent of sales.

But sales of its Lumia smartphone and Asha feature phones rose more than expected. Also, Nokia Siemens, its network gear venture, will report an operating profit of 13 percent to 15 percent of sales in the fourth quarter, compared with an expected range of 4 percent to 12 percent.

Looking ahead, Nokia said it expected to return to an operating loss of 2 percent of sales in the first quarter amid the post-holiday buying lull and harsh competition. But the results for the coming three months could vary widely, Nokia warned, from an even bigger 6 percent operating loss to a 2 percent operating profit.

Pete Cunningham, an analyst at Canalys, a research firm in Reading, England, said Nokia’s improving financial position was a positive step. But the company, which ceded its market leadership to Samsung and Apple, is not out of the woods yet.

“On face value, this is a positive for Nokia,” Mr. Cunningham said. “But 2013 could still turn out to be another very difficult year for Nokia. It is way too premature to say that the company has made a turnaround.”

Mr. Cunningham said he used the Lumia 920, Nokia’s newest smartphone, during the Christmas holidays and liked the experience.

“But the more I used the phone, the more apparent it became to me that there are big gaps between Lumia and its competitors in terms of the functionality and usability of its apps,” Mr. Cunningham said. “I still think there is a lot of work to be done on Lumia.”

Mr. Elop said Nokia would continue to innovate to close the gap with competitors. The big issues that Nokia faces, he said, are “managing efficiently, building great products and changing the way we operate. We’re beginning to see that happen.”

Nokia’s shares closed up nearly 13 percent at €3.39 in Helsinki trading.

Read More..

Iranian Captives Freed in Major Prisoner Exchange in Syria

ISTANBUL — More than 2,000 prisoners incarcerated by the Syrian authorities were being released on Wednesday in return for 48 Iranians freed by rebels after five months in captivity in what appeared to be the biggest prisoner swap since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began almost two years ago.

The exchange, brokered by Turkey and Qatar, came days after Mr. Assad warned on Sunday that he would not abandon the fight against armed adversaries pressing on the approaches to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and brushed aside calls for him to quit.

Word of the exchange dominated news in Iran, the Syrian government’s only Middle East ally, leading the Web site of the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Iran state television showed a brief clip of the released hostages at the Sheraton Hotel in Damascus, grinning, flashing victory signs and holding flowers. In an interview on Iran state TV, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, thanked those involved in the swap for the hostages and expressed happiness that “we managed to get them released.”

Precise details of the exchange, including when the 48 Iranians would be repatriated, remained unclear. Mr. Mehmanparast also said two Iranian engineers who had been abducted earlier in Syria remained captive. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a regional power broker allied to the Western and Arab nations seeking Mr. Assad’s departure, said he hoped the exchange on Wednesday would lead to freedom for more prisoners in Syria.

“We wish many other innocent people, and people in need, to be released from Syrian jails without delay,” Mr. Erdogan said in a televised news conference in Niamey, Nigeria, where he arrived on an official visit.

“This process needs to be appreciated. We are not in a position to say anything more than, ‘May this produce some good.’ ”

The exchange emerged from months of behind-the-scenes negotiations involving a Turkish charitable foundation, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an Islamist-leaning aid organization based in Istanbul and widely known as I.H.H.

The aid group had set up an operation center in Damascus to unite 2,130 prisoners, including 73 women, at one base while another aid team remained in Douma, near the Syrian capital, to oversee the return of the 48 Iranians.

“Captivity is a hard thing,” said Bulent Yildirim, the foundation’s director, who coordinated the exchange in Damascus.

“I saw young women crying, many people lost a lot of weight, and there were also many sick people.”

The Syrian opposition has claimed that the Iranians are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, but Tehran has denied the assertion, saying the captives are Shiite civilian pilgrims. The Iranians were seized in August while traveling on a bus from Damascus International Airport to a Shiite shrine on the outskirts of the capital, Iran’s Press TV said.

Opposition fighters had threatened to kill the Iranians unless Mr. Assad’s forces halted military operations. But since then the fighting around Damascus has intensified.

Iran is Mr. Assad’s main ally in a region where most Arab states and neighboring Turkey have turned against him. The Iranian captives offered the rebels holding them a source of powerful pressure on the Syrian leader to release opposition prisoners in return.

“We expect the swap to be completed in the next hour,” Huseyin Oruc, a member of the aid group’s executive board said in a telephone interview around midday. He said the captives released by the Syrian authorities included four Turks and a Palestinian.

By midafternoon it was not clear whether the 2,130 prisoners had been freed.

“It is the first time that the ‘humanitarian diplomacy’ we initiated succeeded in releasing such a large group of people at once,” Mr. Oruc said. “There are many more held captive and our efforts to free them will continue without delay.”

The Turkish aid group gained international attention in 2010 for organizing a flotilla of boats heading to Gaza, ostensibly with relief supplies, that prompted a deadly Israeli commando raid in which eight Turks and an American of Turkish descent died. At the time of the raid, the group was reported to have extensive connections with Turkey’s political elite. The episode began an unraveling of Turkey’s once close ties with Israel.

In recent months, the organization has also been part of negotiations to free smaller numbers of prisoners, including two Turkish journalists held in Syria, Reuters reported. It has been active since the early 1990s in charitable works in the Middle East and Africa, focusing most recently on Gaza.

Since the start of the uprising against Mr. Assad, the organization has also cast itself as a leading private charitable organization in Syria, delivering food and other basic supplies and pursuing what it calls “humanitarian diplomacy” to help free captive civilians.

While the numbers involved in Wednesday’s exchange seemed dramatic, some rebel commanders said more modest prisoner exchanges had become a feature of the conflict.

The leader of a rebel fighting group in the central city of Hama, reached via Skype, said pro-government militia members had captured his uncle and two other relatives in a village in the northern Idlib province more than a month ago.

 “The  only  way to release them is capturing  hostages,” the commander said, adding that negotiations were under way to win the release of his relatives in return for 12 captives held by the rebels. Two months ago, the commander said, nine members of the pro-government militia, known as shabiha, were  exchanged for five captured rebels. Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 with peaceful demonstrations, but a harsh suppression broadened into civil war with an estimated 60,000 people killed, according to United Nations estimates.

Sebnem Arsu reported from Istanbul and Alan Cowell from London. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and Thomas Erdbrink from Tehran.

Read More..

Google drops key patent claims against Microsoft

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Google unit Motorola Mobility has asked a trade panel to drop two key patents from an infringement complaint that it filed against Microsoft, according to a filing at the International Trade Commission.

The ITC has been considering accusations by Motorola Mobility, which has since been purchased by Google, that Microsoft infringed on its patented technology to make its popular Xbox.

Google filed a motion with the ITC on Tuesday, asking that two patents be withdrawn from the case. One patent remains, according to the filing.

The withdrawal was required under an agreement that Google made with the Federal Trade Commission last week settling a pair of long-running antitrust investigations.

The FTC, U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office assert that companies should not request sales bans when filing patent infringement lawsuits based on patents that are essential to a standard in most cases. Standard essential patents ensure that devices are interoperable.

Microsoft identified the two patents withdrawn from the ITC case as standard essential patents.

"We're pleased that Google has finally withdrawn these claims for exclusion orders (sales bans) against Microsoft, and hope that it will now withdraw similar claims pending in other jurisdictions," David Howard, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, said in an emailed statement.

Google did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.

Microsoft said that standard essential patents had been asserted in cases in Wisconsin and Washington district courts, both of which have been stayed. Sales bans, or injunctions, were requested in both cases, Microsoft said.

The ITC is a popular venue for patent lawsuits because it can bar the importation of infringing products and because it issues decisions relatively quickly.

The International Trade Commission case is No. 337-752.

(Reporting By Diane Bartz; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Read More..

Oprah to interview Armstrong for Jan. 17 show

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lance Armstrong has agreed to an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he is to address allegations he used performance-enhancing drugs during a career in which he won seven Tour de France titles.

According to Winfrey's website on Tuesday, this will be a "no holds-barred interview." It will be the first with Armstrong since his cycling career crumbled under the weight of a massive report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The report detailed accusations of drug use by Armstrong and teammates on his U.S. Postal Service teams.

It's unclear if the interview at Armstrong's home in Austin, Texas, has already been taped. Nicole Nichols, a spokeswoman for Oprah Winfrey Network & Harpo Studios, declined comment.

The show will be broadcast Jan. 17 at 9 p.m. EST on OWN and Oprah.com.

Armstrong has strongly denied the doping charges that led to him being stripped of his Tour de France titles, but The New York Times reported Friday he has told associates he is considering acknowledging the use of performance enhancers.

The newspaper report cited anonymous sources, and Armstrong lawyer Tim Herman told The Associated Press that night he had no knowledge of Armstrong considering a confession.

Earlier Tuesday, "60 Minutes Sports" reported the head of USADA told the show a representative for Armstrong offered the agency a "donation" in excess of $150,000 several years before an investigation by the organization led to the loss of Armstrong's Tour de France titles.

In an interview for the premiere on Showtime on Wednesday night, USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said he was "stunned" when he received the offer in 2004.

"It was a clear conflict of interest for USADA," Tygart said. "We had no hesitation in rejecting that offer."

Herman denied such an offer was made.

"No truth to that story," Herman wrote Tuesday in an email to the AP. "First Lance heard of it was today. He never made any such contribution or suggestion."

Tygart was traveling and did not respond to requests from the AP for comment. USADA spokeswoman Annie Skinner said Tygart's comments from the interview were accurate. In it, he reiterates what he told the AP last fall: He was surprised when federal investigators abruptly closed their two-year investigation into Armstrong and his business dealings, then refused to share any evidence they gathered.

"You'll have to ask the feds why they shut down," Tygart told the AP. "They enforce federal criminal laws. We enforce sports anti-doping violations. They're totally separate. We've done our job."

Read More..

Economic Scene: Health Care and Pursuit of Profit Make a Poor Mix

Thirty years ago, Bonnie Svarstad and Chester Bond of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered an interesting pattern in the use of sedatives at nursing homes in the south of the state.

Patients entering church-affiliated nonprofit homes were prescribed drugs roughly as often as those entering profit-making “proprietary” institutions. But patients in proprietary homes received, on average, more than four times the dose of patients at nonprofits.

Writing about his colleagues’ research in his 1988 book “The Nonprofit Economy,” the economist Burton Weisbrod provided a straightforward explanation: “differences in the pursuit of profit.” Sedatives are cheap, Mr. Weisbrod noted. “Less expensive than, say, giving special attention to more active patients who need to be kept busy.”

This behavior was hardly surprising. Hospitals run for profit are also less likely than nonprofit and government-run institutions to offer services like home health care and psychiatric emergency care, which are not as profitable as open-heart surgery.

A shareholder might even applaud the creativity with which profit-seeking institutions go about seeking profit. But the consequences of this pursuit might not be so great for other stakeholders in the system — patients, for instance. One study found that patients’ mortality rates spiked when nonprofit hospitals switched to become profit-making, and their staff levels declined.

These profit-maximizing tactics point to a troubling conflict of interest that goes beyond the private delivery of health care. They raise a broader, more important question: How much should we rely on the private sector to satisfy broad social needs?

From health to pensions to education, the United States relies on private enterprise more than pretty much every other advanced, industrial nation to provide essential social services. The government pays Medicare Advantage plans to deliver health care to aging Americans. It provides a tax break to encourage employers to cover workers under 65.

Businesses devote almost 6 percent of the nation’s economic output to pay for health insurance for their employees. This amounts to nine times similar private spending on health benefits across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, on average. Private plans cover more than a third of pension benefits. The average for 30 countries in the O.E.C.D. is just over one-fifth.

We let the private sector handle tasks other countries would never dream of moving outside the government’s purview. Consider bail bondsmen and their rugged sidekicks, the bounty hunters.

American TV audiences may reminisce fondly about Lee Majors in “The Fall Guy” chasing bad guys in a souped-up GMC truck — a cheap way to get felons to court. People in most other nations see them as an undue commercial intrusion into the criminal justice system that discriminates against the poor.

Our reliance on private enterprise to provide the most essential services stems, in part, from a more narrow understanding of our collective responsibility to provide social goods. Private American health care has stood out for decades among industrial nations, where public universal coverage has long been considered a right of citizenship. But our faith in private solutions also draws on an ingrained belief that big government serves too many disparate objectives and must cater to too many conflicting interests to deliver services fairly and effectively.

Our trust appears undeserved, however. Our track record suggests that handing over responsibility for social goals to private enterprise is providing us with social goods of lower quality, distributed more inequitably and at a higher cost than if government delivered or paid for them directly.

The government’s most expensive housing support program — it will cost about $140 billion this year — is a tax break for individuals to buy homes on the private market.

According to the Tax Policy Center, this break will benefit only 20 percent of mostly well-to-do taxpayers, and most economists agree that it does nothing to further its purported goal of increasing homeownership. Tax breaks for private pensions also mostly benefit the wealthy. And 401(k) plans are riskier and costlier to administer than Social Security.

From the high administrative costs incurred by health insurers to screen out sick patients to the array of expensive treatments prescribed by doctors who earn more money for every treatment they provide, our private health care industry provides perhaps the clearest illustration of how the profit motive can send incentives astray.

By many objective measures, the mostly private American system delivers worse value for money than every other in the developed world. We spend nearly 18 percent of the nation’s economic output on health care and still manage to leave tens of millions of Americans without adequate access to care.

Britain gets universal coverage for 10 percent of gross domestic product. Germany and France for 12 percent. What’s more, our free market for health services produces no better health than the public health care systems in other advanced nations. On some measures — infant mortality, for instance — it does much worse.

In a way, private delivery of health care misleads Americans about the financial burdens they must bear to lead an adequate existence. If they were to consider the additional private spending on health care as a form of tax — an indispensable cost to live a healthy life — the nation’s tax bill would rise to about 31 percent from 25 percent of the nation’s G.D.P. — much closer to the 34 percent average across the O.E.C.D.

A quarter of a century ago, a belief swept across America that we could reduce the ballooning costs of the government’s health care entitlements just by handing over their management to the private sector. Private companies would have a strong incentive to identify and wipe out wasteful treatment. They could encourage healthy lifestyles among beneficiaries, lowering use of costly care. Competition for government contracts would keep the overall price down.

We now know this didn’t work as advertised. Competition wasn’t as robust as hoped. Health maintenance organizations didn’t keep costs in check, and they spent heavily on administration and screening to enroll only the healthiest, most profitable beneficiaries.

One study of Medicare spending found that the program saved no money by relying on H.M.O.’s. Another found that moving Medicaid recipients into H.M.O.’s increased the average cost per beneficiary by 12 percent with no improvement in the quality of care for the poor. Two years ago, President Obama’s health care law cut almost $150 billion from Medicare simply by reducing payments to private plans that provide similar care to plain vanilla Medicare at a higher cost.

Today, again, entitlements are at the center of the national debate. Our elected officials are consumed by slashing a budget deficit that is expected to balloon over coming decades. With both Democrats and Republicans unwilling to raise taxes on the middle class, the discussion is quickly boiling down to how deeply entitlements must be cut.

We may want to broaden the debate. The relevant question is how best we can serve our social needs at the lowest possible cost. One answer is that we have a lot of room to do better. Improving the delivery of social services like health care and pensions may be possible without increasing the burden on American families, simply by removing the profit motive from the equation.

E-mail: eporter@nytimes.com;

Twitter: @portereduardo

Read More..

Richard Ben Cramer Dies at 62; Chronicled Presidential Politics

Richard Ben Cramer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and the author of “What It Takes,” a prodigious account of the 1988 presidential election that has been widely hailed as among the finest books about American politics ever written, died on Monday night in Baltimore. He was 62.

His daughter, Ruby Cramer, said he died of complications of lung cancer at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center.

Mr. Cramer was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his coverage of the Middle East as a correspondent for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and he wrote a best-selling biography of Joe DiMaggio (“Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life,” 2000), but he was most known for “What It Takes: The Way to the White House,” published in 1992.

At 1,047 pages, the book uses exhaustive research and vigorous, detailed reporting to delve into the passions, idiosyncrasies and flaws of George Bush, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis, Joseph Biden and other candidates as they fought for the presidency in 1988.

As he reported for the book, Mr. Cramer spent time with the candidates’ relatives, college roommates and sometimes even their elementary-school teachers. He grew close to the candidates themselves and in some cases formed friendships that endured after the election. Mr. Biden later gave him tips on fixing up an old farmhouse that he purchased in Maryland, Mr. Cramer said.

“He made no bones about the fact that he became friendly with the people he reported on,” said Mr. Cramer’s longtime friend Stuart Seidel, an editor at NPR. “He liked Joe Biden and Bob Dole and both Bushes. He did not feel compromised by allowing himself to get close to them. He did not see himself in a confrontational reportorial role — he was telling a story.”

The book is a product of a bygone era, before campaigns tried to micromanage the press corps as they do now — granting interviews, for example, only on the condition that quotations for publication be subject to the campaigns’ approval. It was a time when minute-by-minute coverage of a presidential campaign was a technological impossibility.

“What It Takes” begins with Mr. Bush, then the vice president, throwing out the first pitch at a Houston Astros game in 1986.

“He’ll be cheered by 44,131 fans — and it’s not even a risky crowd, the kind that might get testy because oil isn’t worth a damn, Houston’s economy is down the crapper, and no one’s buying aluminum siding,” Mr. Cramer wrote. “This is a playoff crowd, a corporate-perks crowd, the kind of fellows who were transferred in a few years ago from Stamford, Conn. You know, for that new marketing thing (and were, frankly, delighted by the price of housing), a solid G.O.P. crowd, tax-conscious, white and polite.”

Mr. Cramer was born on June 12, 1950, in Rochester. He received a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University and later studied at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He worked at The Baltimore Sun before joining The Inquirer in the 1970s.

After “What It Is” was published, Mr. Cramer went on to write for Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone and Esquire, where in 1986 he wrote an article about Ted Williams that became a hallmark of sports journalism. The article, titled “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?,” demythologized one of the greatest hitters in baseball.

“It was often said Ted would rather play ball in a lab, where fans couldn’t see,” Mr. Cramer wrote. “But he never blamed fans for watching him. His hate was for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t feel with him, his effort, his exultation, pride, rage or sorrow.”

Mr. Cramer’s first marriage, to Carolyn White, ended in divorce. Besides his daughter, Ruby, from that marriage, Mr. Cramer is survived by his second wife, Joan Cramer. He lived in Chestertown, Md.

Disappointed with the sales of “What It Takes,” Mr. Cramer never again wrote as expansively about politics. He turned his Esquire article about Ted Williams into a book in 2002 and returned to write about the Middle East in “How Israel Lost: The Four Questions,” published in 2005. At his death he was working on a book about Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees.

But campaigns and the news media’s role in them remained an abiding interest. In a 2011 interview with The New York Times, he described political journalists in his day as wielding real power, in contrast to their heirs today, who often appear to be at the mercy of the campaigns they cover.

“Even if you had the wherewithal to embarrass a reporter, there was no mechanism to do it,” Mr. Cramer said. “And in most cases, you might as well save your breath because the reporter had no shame anyway.”

Jennifer M. Preston and Katharine Q. Seelye contributed reporting.

Read More..

Quarterback's girlfriend in spotlight after game

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama's routing of Notre Dame for its second straight national championship has been overshadowed in part by a new breakout star — Katherine Webb, girlfriend of quarterback AJ McCarron and Miss Alabama USA 2012.

Webb gained tens of thousands of Twitter followers during and after Monday night's game, when ESPN cameras visited and revisited Webb in the stands and announcer Brent Musburger piled on the compliments. As of noon Tuesday, she had topped 143,000 followers, trumping McCarron's 101,000. Before the game, Webb had only a few hundred.

"Wow, I'm telling you quarterbacks: You get all the good-looking women," Musburger said as the camera focused on Webb, sitting with McCarron's mother. "What a beautiful woman. Wow!"

Arizona Cardinals defensive end Darnell Dockett was among those who noticed Webb during the broadcast. He tweeted her his telephone number and suggested they meet after the game. He later tweeted that he meant to message her privately.

McCarron responded after the game, telling Docket on Twitter, "(hash)betterkeepdreaming like the rest of these dudes."

Webb, a 23-year-old model, told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer that she first encountered McCarron on Twitter, and they met in early December when he attended the Miss Alabama USA pageant in Montgomery. The two visited over the holidays and publicly confirmed their romance right before the New Year.

"(McCarron) has such an amazing heart. He realizes that family and friends and the people closest to you are most important," she told the paper.

Webb's pageant biography says she was born in Montgomery and grew up in Phenix City. Webb worked for Chick-fil-A as a training director in Columbus, Ga., before moving to Los Angeles to pursue modeling. She finished in the top 10 in the national pageant.

The biography also notes that Webb studied business at longtime Alabama rival Auburn University.

Before Monday's game, Webb tweeted a photo of herself wearing a jersey with McCarron's number, her arms wrapped around the quarterback.

Early Tuesday, Webb posted her first tweet to her new followers: "So extremely blessed... (at)10AJMcCarron. Congrats to Alabama and making history! (hash)BCSChamps."

Read More..

Health Spending Growth Stays Low for 3rd Straight Year

WASHINGTON — National health spending climbed to $2.7 trillion in 2011, or an average of $8,700 for every person in the country, but as a share of the economy, it remained stable for the third consecutive year, the Obama administration said Monday.

The rate of increase in health spending, 3.9 percent in 2011, was the same as in 2009 and 2010 — the lowest annual rates recorded in the 52 years the government has been collecting such data.

Federal officials could not say for sure whether the low growth in health spending represented the start of a trend or reflected the continuing effects of the recession, which crimped the economy from December 2007 to June 2009.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said that “the statistics show how the Affordable Care Act is already making a difference,” saving money for consumers. But a report issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in her department, said that the law had so far had “no discernible impact” on overall health spending.

Although some provisions of the law have taken effect, the report said, “their influence on overall health spending through 2011 was minimal.”

The recession increased unemployment, reduced the number of people with private health insurance, lowered household income and assets and therefore tended to slow health spending, said Micah B. Hartman, a statistician at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In the report, federal officials said that total national spending on prescription drugs and doctors’ services grew faster in 2011 than in the year before, but that spending on hospital care grew more slowly.

Medicaid spending likewise grew less quickly in 2011 than in the prior year, as states struggled with budget problems. But Medicare spending grew more rapidly, because of an increase in “the volume and intensity” of doctors’ services and a one-time increase in Medicare payments to skilled nursing homes, said the report, published in the journal Health Affairs.

National health spending grew at roughly the same pace as the overall economy, without adjusting for inflation, so its share of the economy stayed the same, at 17.9 percent in 2011, where it has been since 2009. By contrast, health spending accounted for just 13.8 percent of the economy in 2000.

Health spending grew more than 5 percent each year from 1961 to 2007. It rose at double-digit rates in some years, including every year from 1966 to 1984 and from 1988 to 1990.

The report did not forecast the effects of the new health care law on future spending. Some provisions of the law, including subsidized insurance for millions of Americans, could increase spending, officials said. But the law also trims Medicare payments to many health care providers and authorizes experiments to slow the growth of health spending.

“The jury is still out whether all the innovations we’re testing will have much impact,” said Richard S. Foster, who supervised the preparation of the report as chief actuary of the Medicare agency. “I am optimistic. There’s a lot of potential. More and more health care providers understand that the future cannot be like the past, in which health spending almost always grew faster than the gross domestic product.”

Evidence of the new emphasis can be seen in a series of articles published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, now known as JAMA Internal Medicine, under the title “Less Is More.” The series highlights cases in which “the overuse of medical care may result in harm and in which less care is likely to result in better health.”

Total spending for doctors’ services rose 3.6 percent in 2011, to $436 billion, while spending for hospital care increased 4.3 percent, to $850.6 billion.

Spending on prescription drugs at retail stores reached $263 billion in 2011, up 2.9 percent from 2010, when growth was just four-tenths of 1 percent. The latest increase was still well below the average increase of 7.8 percent a year from 2000 to 2010.

Federal officials said the increase in 2011 resulted partly from rapid growth in prices for brand-name drugs.

Prices for specialty drugs, typically prescribed by medical specialists for chronic conditions, have increased at double-digit rates in recent years, the government said. In addition, spending on new brand-name drugs — those brought to market in the previous two years — more than doubled from 2010 to 2011, driven by an increase in the number of new medicines.

“In 2011,” the report said, “spending for private health insurance premiums increased 3.8 percent, as did spending for benefits. Out-of-pocket spending by consumers increased 2.8 percent in 2011, accelerating from 2.1 percent in 2010 but still slower than the average annual growth rate of 4.7 percent” from 2002 to 2008.

Read More..