Fwd: Overseas Press Summary + Alex Cartoon

[arthur ndowora]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Zfn (Zimbabwe)" <z...@yoafrica.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013 08:32:39 +0200
Subject: Overseas Press Summary + Alex Cartoon
To: "Zfn (Zimbabwe)" <z...@yoafrica.com>

Zfn
Realtime financial intelligence
__________________________________________________________________________________




Headlines
Financial & Global Economy
*Wall Street starts new year with a bang after "cliff" deal - Reuters

*FTSE 100 breaks 6000 barrier - AFP

*Gold trades near two-week high as stimulus set to be sustained - Bloomberg

*Oil market starts 2013 on upbeat note - AFP

*Bigger fights loom after "fiscal cliff" deal - Reuters

*Basel becomes Babel as conflicting rules undermine safety - Bloomberg

*The Ubuntu smartphone (which no one will use) is a glimpse of the
future - CNNMoney

*Al Jazeera buys Al Gore's Current TV – BBC News

*SunPower inks $2.5 billion deal with Buffett utility - Reuters

*Goldman Sachs sped up $65 million in stock awards - Bloomberg

*U.S. credit ratings test is yet to come - CNNMoney



International
*Clinton discharged from hospital, doctors expect full recovery - Reuters

*Lawyers boycott defense of India rape suspects – CNN News

*Switzerland gunman kills three in Daillon – BBC News

*Patti Page: Tennessee waltz singer dies aged 85 – Sky News

*Sandy Hook kids prepare for 1st school day since attack - Reuters

*Spain to extradite Serb PM’s killer - AFP

*Alcohol calories 'too often ignored' – BBC News

*Malala's father gets job in Pakistan's UK consulate near her – CNN News

*'Weight is healthy' study criticised – BBC News

*QPR stun Chelsea, Liverpool win – Super Sport



News from the Axis
*Venezuela's opposition demands "whole truth" about Chavez health - Reuters

*Myanmar admits to airstrikes against rebels - AFP

*U.N. lifts Syria death toll to "truly shocking" 60,000 - Reuters

*Iran says captures 2 US-made drones - AP



Political and General
*Road death toll hits 180 – New Zimbabwe

*TelOne appoints Chipo Mtasa new Managing Director – Tech Zim

*Makandiwa predicts gold rush, disease and death – New Zimbabwe

*Govt urged to ‘wake up’ after resignation of human rights chief – SW
Radio Africa



Regional
*New cholera outbreak in Zambia - AFP

*Mandela's recovery "on track" at home: South African government - Reuters

*Mozambique immigration officials process over 36,000 festive season
tourists - APA

*Angola stampede toll rises to 16 - AFP

*Mauritania bans plastic bag use – BBC News

*Gambian leader says to build herbal AIDS-cure hospital - Reuters





Financial & Global Economy

Wall Street starts new year with a bang after "cliff" deal

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



New York-Stocks kicked off the new year with their best day in over a
year on Wednesday, sparked by relief over a last-minute deal in
Washington to avert the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts
that threatened to derail the economy's growth.

In 2013's first trading session, the S&P 500 achieved its
biggest one-day gain since December 20, 2011, pushing the benchmark
index to its highest close since September 14.

Concerns over Washington's ability to sidestep the cliff had driven
the S&P 500 down for five straight sessions, before signs that a
resolution was near sent the benchmark index higher on the final
trading session of 2012.

The CBOE Volatility Index or the VIX .VIX, Wall Street's
favorite gauge of investor anxiety, dropped 18.5 percent to 14.68 at
the close. The VIX has fallen 35.4 percent over the past two sessions,
the biggest 2-day percentage drop in the history of the index.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI jumped 308.41 points, or 2.35
percent, to 13,412.55 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index
.SPX gained 36.23 points, or 2.54 percent, to finish at 1,462.42. The
Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC climbed 92.75 points, or 3.07 percent, to
end at 3,112.26.

U.S. markets were closed on Tuesday for New Year's Day.

Market breadth reflected the strong rally, with 10 stocks rising for
every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. All 10 of the S&P
500 industry sector indexes gained at least 1 percent. The S&P
financial index .GSPF shot up 2.9 percent.

The S&P Information Technology index .GSPT gained 3.2
percent, including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ.N), which climbed 5.4 percent
to $15.02.

HP's gain followed a miserable 2012 when the stock fell nearly 45
percent as one of the S&P 500's worst performers for 2012.

On Tuesday, Congress passed a bill to prevent huge tax hikes and delay
spending cuts that would have pushed the world's largest economy off a
"fiscal cliff" and possibly into recession.

The vote avoided steep income-tax increases for a majority
of Americans, but failed to resolve a major showdown over cutting the
budget deficit, leaving investors and businesses with only limited
clarity about the outlook for the economy. Spending cuts of $109
billion in military and domestic programs were temporarily delayed,
and another fight over raising the U.S. debt limit also looms.

"We got through the fiscal cliff. The next big thing, and probably
more contentious thing, is negotiating the debt ceiling and possibly
entitlement reform in early 2013," said Jim Russell, senior equity
strategist for U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Cincinnati.

Hard choices about budget cuts and the critical need to
raise the debt ceiling will confront Congress about the same time in
two months "so the fur will be flying," Russell said.

U.S. stocks ended 2012 with the S&P 500 up 13.4 percent for the year,
as investors largely shrugged off worries about the fiscal cliff. For
the year, the Dow gained 7.3 percent and the Nasdaq jumped 15.9
percent.

Bank shares rose following news that U.S. regulators are
close to securing another multibillion-dollar settlement with the
largest banks to resolve allegations that they unlawfully cut corners
when foreclosing on delinquent borrowers.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) rose 3.7 percent to $12.03 and Citigroup
Inc (C.N) gained 4.3 percent to $41.25.

The KBW bank index .BKX rose 3.2 percent.

Shares of Zipcar Inc (ZIP.O) surged 47.8 percent to $12.18
after Avis Budget Group Inc (CAR.O) said it would buy Zipcar for about
$500 million in cash to compete with larger rivals Hertz and
Enterprise Holdings Inc. Avis advanced 4.8 percent to $20.77.

Shares of Apple (AAPL.O) rose 3.2 percent to $549.03, helping to lift
the S&P information technology index .GSPT up 3.2 percent following a
report that the most valuable tech company has started testing a new
iPhone and a new version of its iOS software.

Economic data from the Institute for Supply Management
showed U.S. manufacturing ended 2012 on an upswing despite fears about
the fiscal cliff, but the Commerce Department reported that
construction spending fell in November for the first time in eight
months.

Volume was heavy, with about 7.8 billion shares traded on the New York
Stock Exchange, the NYSE MKT and the Nasdaq, well above the 2012 daily
average of 6.42 billion.



FTSE 100 breaks 6000 barrier

AFP

Wednesday January 2



London-Britain's top share index smashed through the 6000 barrier on
Wednesday as investors celebrated a U.S. budget deal averting tax
hikes and spending cuts that risked pushing the world's largest
economy into recession.

By 1143 GMT London's blue chip index rose 127.32 points,
or 2.1 percent to 6,025.13, breaking above the 6000 level for the
first time since July 2011, driven by big gains in miners and banks.

The gains echoed the New Year's Eve rally on Wall St, which was the
biggest final-day gain in the S&P 500 since 1974.

The catalyst for Wednesday's rise was the approval by the
U.S. House of Representatives of a bill raising taxes on top U.S.
earners, fulfilling President Barack Obama's re-election promise and
avoiding, at least in the short-term, the $600 billion “fiscal cliff”.

“It is good to start the new year off with a bang but there is still a
lot of stuff to digest ... It will be interesting to see if these
gains can be sustained,” Gerry Celaya, chief strategist at Red Tower
Research, said.

Miners were the main outperformers on Wednesday. The
sector was a major laggard in 2012, ending the year flat compared with
a 5.8 percent rise for the wider FTSE 100.

Mining stocks were helped by positive PMI data out of China, the
world's largest consumer of raw materials, which allayed fears of a
slowdown in demand, while the UK manufacturing PMI also showed an
unexpected rebound in factory activity.

Anglo American, which lost more than 20 percent in 2012,
was one of the top early gainers, up 5 percent as some analysts tipped
the firm for a turnaround in fortunes this year.

Wednesday's rally meant the FTSE 100 is up nearly 15 percent since
June 2012 lows.

Investors have been imbued with confidence as central banks across the
globe have taken action to support the financial system and attempt to
boost growth.

U.S. funds invested in European shares raked in a net $5
billion in 2012, reversing sharp outflows since the start of the euro
zone debt crisis, as the European Central Bank's bold moves to defend
the single currency reassured investors.

But while the U.S. fiscal deal boosted markets and averted immediate
threats to the economy including tax hikes for almost all American
households, it did nothing to resolve other political showdowns on the
budget that loom in coming months.

“The U.S. economy is doing OK, the UK economy is holding
up and the euro zone has not collapsed, therefore stock markets should
go up a lot more.

The problem is stock markets anticipate all this kind of stuff so we
think the last six months of stock market exuberance has already
priced in a lot of the good news,” Red Tower's Celaya said.

Analysts warned that while markets continue to show strength and
indicate further upside, traders should be aware of the support levels
which will need to be respected if the bulls are going to remain in
control.

“The FTSE 100 will need to maintain the 6000 key level to
then reach for 6150 where we may then see a significant barrier that
could push the index back lower,” Sandy Jadeja, Chief Technical
Analyst, City Index said in a note.

There were only three fallers on the FTSE 100 approaching midday,
among them supermarkets WM Morrison and Sainsbury which lost 1.1 and
1.5 percent respectively on concerns about festive trading and the
sector's defensive make-up.

“November and December saw poor sales growth. Kantar and
various other sources suggest that trade through the festive season
was difficult, with total industry sales growth negligible,” analysts
at Oriel Securities write in a note.

Oriel cut its target price for Sainsbury to 300 pence as it thinks
trading has become much tougher for the company since it posted
interim results, while Jefferies cuts its target price for WM Morrison
to 310 pence.



Gold trades near two-week high as stimulus set to be sustained

Bloomberg

Thursday January 3



Singapore-Gold traded near a two-week high as expectations that policy
makers around the world will continue to support their economies
increased demand for a store of value.

Spot gold was at $1,686.55 an ounce at 11:42 a.m. in
Singapore after swinging between gains and losses. The metal reached
$1,694.81 yesterday, the most expensive since Dec. 18, rallying with
stocks, copper and oil after U.S. lawmakers passed a bill averting
automatic spending cuts and tax rises, heading off the so-called
fiscal cliff that had threatened the recovery.

Gold traded near a two-week high as expectations that policy makers
around the world will continue to support economies increased demand.

Bullion ended 7.1 percent higher in 2012, rising for a
12th year, as central banks from the U.S. to China took steps to
stimulate their economies. Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kiyohiko
Nishimura speaks tomorrow amid speculation of more asset purchases to
end deflation in the third-largest economy.

“With traditional liquidity injections by central banks buoying gold
prices since 2008, the prevention of the fiscal cliff benefited the
precious-metal space,” said Barnabas Gan, an economist at
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. “In the coming year, we continue to
expect a sustained bull run.”

Gold for February delivery was little changed at $1,686.80
an ounce on the Comex in New York, after yesterday climbing to
$1,695.40, also the highest price since Dec. 18. Gold may reach $1,900
as “central bankers everywhere continue to debase their currencies and
the financial markets prove treacherous,” Byron Wien, chairman of
Blackstone Group LP’s advisory services unit, said in his annual “10
Surprises” list published since 1986.

Cash silver was little changed at $31.0281 an ounce after rallying to
$31.495 yesterday, the highest since Dec. 19.

Assets in exchange-traded products backed by the metal
stood at an all- time high of 18,956.034 metric tons on Jan. 2.

Spot platinum rose 0.2 percent to $1,569.25 an ounce, while palladium
was little changed at $706.25 an ounce after climbing to the highest
level since March yesterday.



Oil market starts 2013 on upbeat note

AFP

Wednesday January 2



New York-World oil prices advanced on Wednesday as traders welcomed
the passing of a US deal to avoid a “fiscal cliff” of tax rises and
huge spending cuts, analysts said.

Brent North Sea crude for February gained 91 cents to
$112.02 a barrel in midday trade in London.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February,
jumped $1.23 to $93.05 per barrel.

“Crude oil prices started the year on the positive side,
posting strong gains following news that the US Congress managed to
finalise a deal about the US fiscal cliff, avoiding a fiscal
disaster,” said Sucden analyst Myrto Sokou.

“The US lawmakers approved a deal in order to prevent huge tax
increases and spending cuts worth $600 billion that could have
possibly driven the US economy into a recession. The US dollar
weakened and provided strong support to most commodity prices.”

The struggling greenback makes dollar-priced crude cheaper
for buyers using stronger currencies. That tends to stimulate oil
demand and support higher price levels.

After bitter New Year brinksmanship, the US Congress finally backed a
deal late Tuesday to avert a “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and massive
spending cuts that had threatened to unleash economic calamity.

The House of Representatives passed a deal between the
White House and Republicans to raise taxes on the rich and put off
automatic $109 billion budget cuts for two months, lifting the clouds
of immediate crisis.

But more hard haggling is due in two months' time over further
specific budget measures.

The deal's fate had hung in the balance for hours as House
conservatives sought to add spending reductions to a version passed by
the Senate in the early hours of 2013 that would likely have killed
the compromise.

Crude futures also won support from positive data in Asian powerhouse
China, which is the world's biggest energy consuming nation.

Official data showed that Chinese manufacturing activity
expanded in December for a third straight month, in further evidence
the world's number two economy was picking up after a slowdown.

The official purchasing managers' index (PMI) stood at 50.6 in
December, unchanged from the previous month.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion while anything
below points to contraction.

“Strong Chinese PMI data improved market sentiment and brought further
support to the oil market amid signs of improvement in the Chinese
economy,” added Sokou.



Bigger fights loom after "fiscal cliff" deal

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



Washington-President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans face
even bigger budget battles in the next two months after a hard-fought
"fiscal cliff" deal narrowly averted devastating tax hikes and
spending cuts.

The agreement, approved late on Tuesday by the
Republican-led House of Representatives, was a victory for Obama, who
had won re-election in November on a promise to address budget woes,
partly by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

But it set up potentially bruising showdowns over the next two months
on spending cuts and an increase in the nation's limit on borrowing.
Republicans, angry the fiscal cliff deal did little to curb the
federal deficit, promised to use the debt-ceiling debate to win deep
spending cuts next time.

Republicans believe they will have greater leverage over
Democrat Obama when they must consider raising the borrowing limit in
February because failure to close a deal could mean a default on U.S.
debt or another downgrade in the U.S. credit rating. A similar
showdown in 2011 led to a credit downgrade.

"Our opportunity here is on the debt ceiling," Republican Senator Pat
Toomey of Pennsylvania said on MSNBC. "We Republicans need to be
willing to tolerate a temporary, partial government shutdown, which is
what that could mean."

But Obama and congressional Democrats may be emboldened by
winning the first round of fiscal fights when dozens of House
Republicans buckled and voted for major tax hikes for the first time
in two decades.

"We believe that passing this legislation greatly strengthens the
president's hand in negotiations that come next," House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi told NBC in an interview to air on Thursday.

Deteriorating relations between leaders in the two parties
do not bode well for the more difficult fights ahead. Vice President
Joe Biden and Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell had to step in
to work out the final deal as the relationship between House Speaker
John Boehner and Obama unraveled.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also drew the ire of Boehner, who
told Reid in the White House to "Go fuck yourself" after a tense
meeting last week, aides said. His remark came after the Democrat
accused Boehner of running a "dictatorship" in the House.

Bemoaning the intensity of the fiscal cliff fight, Obama
urged "a little less drama" when the Congress and White House next
address budget issues like the government's rapidly mounting $16
trillion debt load. He vowed to avoid another divisive debt-ceiling
fight before the late-February deadline for raising the limit.

"While I will negotiate over many things, I will not have another
debate with this Congress about whether or not they should pay the
bills they have already racked up," Obama said before he headed to
Hawaii to resume an interrupted vacation.

NOT TIME TO CELEBRATE

Analysts warned that might not be so easy. "While the
markets and most taxpayers may breathe a sigh of relief for a few
days, excuse us for not celebrating," said Greg Valliere, chief
political strategist at Potomac Research Group.

"We have consistently warned that the next brawl represents a far
greater threat to the markets - talk of default will grow by February,
accompanied by concerns over a credit rating downgrade," he said.

Rating agencies Moody's Investors Service and Standard &
Poor's said the "fiscal cliff" measure did not put the budget on a
more sustainable path. The International Monetary Fund said raising
the debt ceiling would be a critical move.

"More remains to be done to put U.S. public finances back on a
sustainable path without harming the still fragile recovery," said
Gerry Rice, a spokesman for the IMF.

Financial markets that had been worried about the fiscal
cliff showdown welcomed the deal, with U.S. stocks recording their
best day in more than a year.

The S&P 500 achieved its biggest one-day gain since December 20, 2011,
pushing the benchmark index to its highest close since September 14.

The debate over "entitlement" programs is also bound to be
difficult.

Republicans will be pushing for significant cuts in government
healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid for retirees and the
poor, which are the biggest drivers of federal debt. Democrats have
opposed cuts in those popular programs.

"This is going to be much uglier to me than the tax issue
... this is going to be about entitlement reform," Republican Senator
Bob Corker of Tennessee said on CNBC.

"Now that we have this other piece behind us - hopefully - we'll deal
in a real way with the kinds of things our nation needs to face," he
said.

The fiscal cliff crisis ended when dozens of Republicans
in the House relented and backed a bill passed by the
Democratic-controlled Senate that hiked taxes on household income
above $450,000 a year. Spending cuts of $109 billion in military and
domestic programs were delayed for two months.

Economists had warned that the fiscal cliff of across-the-board tax
hikes and spending cuts would have punched a $600 billion hole in the
economy this year and threatened to send the country back into
recession.

Dozens of House Republicans reluctantly approved the
Senate bill, which passed by a bipartisan vote of 257-167 and sent it
to Obama to sign into law.

Peter Huntsman, chief executive of chemical producer Huntsman Corp,
said the vote did little to reduce the U.S. budget deficit and would
hinder growth.

"We haven't even begun to address the basic issues behind
this," Huntsman told Reuters.

"We haven't fixed anything.

All we've done is addressed the short-term pain.

The vote underlined the precarious position of Boehner, who will ask
his Republicans to re-elect him as speaker on Thursday when a new
Congress is sworn in. Boehner backed the bill, but most House
Republicans, including his top lieutenants, voted against it.

The Ohio congressman also drew criticism on Wednesday from his
fellow Republicans for failing to schedule a House vote on a bill
passed by the Senate that would provide federal aid to Northeastern
states hit by the storm Sandy.



Basel becomes Babel as conflicting rules undermine safety

Bloomberg

Thursday January 3



New York-The first Basel agreement on global banking regulation,
adopted in 1988, was 30 pages long and relied on simple arithmetic.
The latest update, known as Basel III, runs to 509 pages and includes
78 calculus equations.

The complexity is emblematic of what happened over the
past four years as governments that injected $600 billion to rescue
failing banks during the worst financial crisis since the Great
Depression devised ways to make the global banking system safer. Those
efforts have been stymied by conflicting laws, divergent accounting
standards and clashing rules adopted by nations to protect their
interests, all of which have created new risks.

Former chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Sheila
Bair said, “We’ve accomplished a lot since the crisis, such as rules
separating risky activities from simple banking or resolution
mechanisms for the biggest firms. But many of the old problems remain,
like Basel letting banks model their own risk. And it’s all gotten
much more complicated.” Photographer: Peter Foley/Bloomberg

“They’re like a bunch of bumper cars,” Karen Shaw Petrou,
managing partner of Washington-based research firm Federal Financial
Analytics Inc., said of revamped banking regulations. “On their own,
each might do some good things, but they bump into each other over and
over. That could render them useless, or worse perhaps harmful.”

While higher capital requirements, curbs on banks trading with their
own money and other rules have reduced risk, they have magnified the
complexity of supervision, according to two dozen regulators, bankers
and analysts interviewed by Bloomberg News. Even if the new
regulations can be enforced, they don’t go far enough to ensure
safety, said Robert Jenkins, a member of the Bank of England’s
financial policy committee.

‘Catastrophic Mishaps’

“Imagine that until 2007, the rules of the road permitted
heavily laden fuel trucks to barrel through urban streets at 100 miles
per hour,” Jenkins said in an interview. “After a number of
catastrophic mishaps, the establishment decides to reduce the speed
limit to 75 mph in school zones. Have we tightened the rules? Yes.
Have we tightened them enough? No.”

One reason the trucks have slowed is that the 27 nations represented
on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision agreed in 2010 to
require banks to hold more capital, or shareholders’ money, to absorb
losses. Dozens of countries including the U.S. have issued other
regulations or passed laws to curtail risk, and lenders on both
continents have boosted capital and improved its quality since the
crisis.

Trading of most derivatives, an opaque $639 trillion
market, is being forced onto central clearinghouses, where
transactions are backed by collateral. The Volcker rule, part of the
2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the U.K.’s proposed Vickers rule and a European
Union version named for Bank of Finland Governor Erkki Liikanen seek
to separate riskier trading from other businesses. Seven nations have
created resolution mechanisms for an orderly shutdown of their biggest
lenders if they fail, according to the Basel, Switzerland-based
Financial Stability Board.

System Vulnerable

Still, the global financial system remains vulnerable.
Only 11 of the more than 100 nations that vowed to adopt the latest
Basel rules met a Jan. 1 deadline to start implementation. The U.S.
and the EU, each of which drafted 700-page proposals, are still
debating them.

The new capital rules are based on the same principal as the old ones:
allowing the largest lenders to use their own mathematical models to
determine how much capital they need. The calculations, which assume
the banks can predict what’s risky, can involve millions of variables,
making them difficult for examiners to review, according to an August
report by the Bank of England.

Volcker, Vickers

Moving derivatives trading to clearinghouses may
concentrate risk and make those marketplaces too big to fail,
requiring government rescues. Rules named after former Federal Reserve
Chairman Paul A. Volcker and former Bank of England Chief Economist
John Vickers may not succeed in curbing risk. U.S. regulators are
still debating where to draw the hard-to-see line between trading and
making markets for clients as required by the Volcker rule. Volcker
himself has questioned the effectiveness of Vickers’s proposal to
insulate trading units.

A cross-border mechanism for winding down failed banks with operations
in multiple countries remains elusive, as does the universal adoption
of a liquidity requirement that would force the companies to have
enough easy-to-sell assets on hand if panic hits and funds flee.

Meanwhile, banks considered too big to fail have gotten
even bigger since the financial crisis, increasing the cost to
taxpayers if they need to be bailed out. The 22 largest lenders in the
U.S. and Europe have increased assets by 26 percent since 2007,
according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“We’ve accomplished a lot since the crisis, such as rules separating
risky activities from simple banking or resolution mechanisms for the
biggest firms,” Sheila Bair, a former chairman of the U.S. Federal
Deposit Insurance Corp., said in an interview. “But many of the old
problems remain, like Basel letting banks model their own risk. And
it’s all gotten much more complicated.”

It’s ‘Ridiculous’

Banks agree that the complexity has been compounded.

“It has gotten ridiculous, far too complicated,” said Wayne Abernathy,
executive vice president of the American Bankers Association, the
largest industry lobbying group. “The costs and efforts of complying
with all these rules no longer are worth the safety and soundness
dividend they provide.”

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association,
another lobbying group, estimates that regulators will end up writing
29,000 pages of directives once Dodd-Frank is completely in place.

Basel III was the culmination of an effort among nations to overhaul
the global financial system after the 2008 crisis. Now, while leaders
of the Group of 20 nations continue to talk about cooperation,
governments from the U.S. to Switzerland are acting unilaterally to
protect their taxpayers from future bank losses.

Fed Rules

The Fed last month proposed that foreign lenders organize
their U.S. units as subsidiaries and hold capital independently from
their parent firms to make it easier for U.S. regulators to seize
local assets in a crisis.

Switzerland, where the banking system is five times the size of the
nation’s economy, moved in 2010 to give priority to the resolution of
the domestic units of its two largest banks, UBS AG (UBSN) and Credit
Suisse Group AG (CSGN), in the event of a failure. That means the
Swiss operations could be propped up with government support, while
international businesses are left to fend for themselves. Regulators
in Switzerland also imposed tougher capital standards on the two firms
than Basel requires.

The U.K. has taken similar steps to protect its interests.
When the country rushed ahead of other nations in 2009 to impose
liquidity requirements on its lenders, foreign banks operating there
were forced to comply regardless of their legal structure. The U.K.
also has tried to insulate itself from the losses of its financial
firms overseas by requiring the British units of those companies to
abide by separate capital rules.

Watering Down

Bickering among nations during 2010 negotiations led to a
watering down of proposed Basel III standards. While the ratio of
capital to assets weighted by risk doubled from the previous
requirement to 7 percent, it fell short of the 10 percent initially
sought by the U.S. and Switzerland. Germany and France led the
opposition, seeking to protect the interests of their biggest lenders,
which would have needed to raise more capital than foreign
competitors.

Even as the definition of what counts as capital was narrowed, U.S.
banks were allowed to continue counting some mortgage-linked assets as
equity, those in Europe their minority stakes in other financial firms
and Japanese lenders their deferred tax benefits. The last crisis
showed that such assets failed to provide a buffer against losses.

‘Window Dressing’

Countries made further changes as they translated the non-
binding Basel rules into regulations and laws. The European Commission
has sought to soften the definition of capital even more, allowing
banks to count as capital some hybrid securities Basel had eliminated.
The commission, the 27-nation EU’s executive arm, also omitted from
its rules a simpler version of the leverage limit agreed to in Basel.
That constraint ignores the risk-weightings used in calculating
capital and is based instead on total assets, a tougher standard.

The U.S. rewrote sections to satisfy Dodd-Frank, which barred the use
of credit ratings in determining risk.

While previous Basel rounds led to local variations, this
time they’re greater, according to Barbara Matthews, managing director
of BCM International Regulatory Analytics LLC, a Washington-based
consulting firm.

“Number and types of divergences are growing by the day,” said
Matthews, a former bank lobbyist and policy maker. “We’ve seen over
and over that Basel doesn’t prevent the financial system from blowing
up anyway. But do we give up? No. It’s somewhat for window dressing.”

‘A Disgrace’

Matthews points to the lack of a global agreement on
cross- border resolution of failed lenders as the reason why countries
with the biggest financial systems have decided to go it alone. Karel
Lannoo, chief executive officer of the Centre for European Policy
Studies in Brussels, blames Europe.

“If you water down Basel III too much, this is what you get,” Lannoo
said. “We need to have simple and direct rules, not rules that allow
banks and regulators to hide. The current Byzantine Basel III rules
and loopholes in the European plan to implement them are a disgrace.”

When rules diverge, lenders can take advantage of what
they call regulatory arbitrage -- shifting operations to countries
with the loosest rules. That historically has been the case among more
developed nations, according to a paper published in the October issue
of the Journal of Finance by Joel Houston, a professor of finance at
the University of Florida in Gainesville, and two colleagues.

Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) are telling
foreign customers they can avoid new U.S. derivatives rules by routing
orders through the banks’ overseas units, Reuters reported Dec. 3,
citing company presentations and unidentified sources. The New
York-based firms declined to comment.

National Interests

“Banks will always find loopholes to get around these
rules, especially if they’re so complicated,” said Mark Adelson, chief
strategy officer at BondFactor Co., a municipal bond-insurance firm,
and a former Standard & Poor’s chief credit officer. “With all those
formulas, they’re like physics books. How can anyone monitor
compliance with such complexity?”

The three-decade effort to create global capital standards, while
heralded as a triumph of international cooperation, has been driven by
national considerations from the start.

Basel I came about because the U.S. and Europe were
alarmed by the expansion of Japan’s financial firms, Fed Governor
Daniel Tarullo wrote in his 2008 book, “Banking on Basel.” When the
rules were adopted a quarter century ago, nine of the 10 largest banks
in the world were Japanese. Three years later a real- estate crash led
to an economic collapse in Japan, eliminating the perceived threat.

Risk Calculations

Basel II, approved in 2004, was pushed by U.S. lenders
that had taken the lead from Japan and wanted to expand further
without having to worry about capital restrictions, according to
bankers, lawyers, lobbyists and regulators involved in the
discussions. They persuaded the Fed that their own risk- management
systems had become so sophisticated they could better determine
themselves how much capital was needed.

The U.S. never fully implemented the rules because thousands of
community banks lobbied Congress to block them, saying they would be
at a disadvantage because they couldn’t afford in-house modeling.
Still, the biggest lenders began deploying proprietary formulas to
come up with risk-weightings for their loans, securities and
derivatives -- calculations that underestimated the risk of products
tied to mortgages before the 2008 crisis.

Accounting Differences

Today, those formulas allow JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM),
the biggest U.S. bank, to say that only half of its balance sheet is
risky, regulatory filings show. Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Germany’s
largest lender, calculates its risk to be 17 percent of assets.

Conflicting accounting standards further complicate risk- weightings.
Basel’s treatment of derivatives is based on Generally Accepted
Accounting Principles, known as GAAP, which are used in the U.S. and
are more generous in their netting of positions than international
standards.

Netting allows firms to offset contracts that appear to go
in opposite directions, reducing the risk of loss to zero. In the
U.S., it also cancels out winning and losing positions of any kind
with the same counterparty. Under GAAP rules, JPMorgan’s $72 trillion
derivatives book is whittled down to $80 billion of assets. European
banks, which aren’t allowed to net as much of the value of derivatives
in financial statements, use the same netting as U.S. firms when
calculating risk for Basel capital requirements.

London Whale

That netting doesn’t always work in real life, as
demonstrated by JPMorgan’s loss last year of at least $6.2 billion on
wrong-way bets on corporate debt made by a trader known as the London
Whale. Derivatives that were supposed to offset certain trades ended
up going in the same direction as those they were supposed to hedge,
increasing losses for the New York-based firm.

Disagreements over how much netting to allow is one reason accounting
standards remain far apart after six years of meetings by U.S. and
European officials.

“Having such differences makes comparison between banks’
balance sheets in Europe and the U.S. impossible,” said Esther Mills,
president of Accounting Policy Plus, a New York-based consulting firm.

If international standards were applied on both sides of the Atlantic,
the six biggest U.S. lenders by assets would look almost twice as big
on paper as they do now, according to estimates on the FDIC website.
That would reduce their simplest capital ratio -- a measure of risk
looking at tangible equity as a percent of tangible assets -- to 3.3
percent from 6.3 percent, still better than European banks, which
average 2.9 percent.

Former FDIC Chairman Bair has said that ratio should be 8
percent. Thomas Hoenig, the agency’s current vice chairman, has called
for 10 percent.

‘Still Dangerous’

More capital can never make the system safe because it
doesn’t prevent banks from taking risk, according to BCM’s Matthews.
Having a cross-border mechanism for shuttering failed global banks in
a way that doesn’t jeopardize other firms is the only way to safety,
she said. Such a plan will work only if the countries with the biggest
financial markets pledge to share costs of a blowup, not just pay lip
service to cooperation.

Others, such as U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, say the
biggest banks should be broken up and subjected to size limits to
reduce their risk to the system and taxpayers. While his proposal
hasn’t garnered enough support to become law, four years after the
crisis it’s hard to find anyone who believes the financial system is
truly safe.

“Banks are still leveraged too much, and the regulatory system is
still too easy for them to game,” said Anat Admati, a finance
professor at Stanford University and co-author of “The Bankers’ New
Clothes,” which will be published next month. “The global financial
system is still dangerous, and the banks can still bring down the
global economy.”



The Ubuntu smartphone (which no one will use) is a glimpse of the future

CNNMoney

Wednesday January 2



New York-Ubuntu has long been a favorite Linux desktop operating
system for open-source fanatics and those who like to tinker with
their technology. Now it's stepping out into a new frontier: mobile.

Ubuntu developer Canonical unveiled a new interface on
Monday reimagined for touch devices, with a design that borrows cues
from Android and Windows 8. The hard sell here isn't simply that
Ubuntu now works on mobile devices. Canonical hopes that future
devices (read: arriving sometime in 2014) will not only run the new
mobile OS, but will also boot the desktop variant of Ubuntu when
docked to a keyboard, mouse and monitor.

That would let you literally use your phone to power your PC.

This concept isn't entirely new, as Canonical revealed
similar plans last year to attach its desktop software to devices
running Android. Before that, Motorola tried to turn Android phones
into laptops with its Atrix line of phones and docks. And let's not
forget the hybrid operating system experiment that is Windows 8.

But no one -- not even Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) -- has attempted
to serve up its own phone OS and desktop OS in a single package.
Despite its desktop-like features, Android considers itself a phone
and tablet system, while Microsoft still has Windows Phone 8 operating
autonomously from the tablet and desktop-centric Windows 8.

Is Ubuntu's new creation good enough to make even the
tiniest inroads against the likes of Android, Apple's iOS and Windows
Phone?

Video footage previewing the new software shows off an attractive user
interface and some clever ideas for navigation, but there's no
indication that the wheel has been reinvented.

You'll be able to swipe from the edges of the phone to
switch apps and access menus. You can log in to your favorite online
services, and Ubuntu will assimilate that data into its own framework.
In general, the emphasis seems to be on getting you the info you need
in a quick and easy-to-digest way. From the looks of things, the
desktop build will have its own interface tailored to mouse and
keyboard, but Canonical envisions a single installer app having both
desktop and mobile builds.

This would all be great if the only challenge for a mobile operating
system was offering up a solid product.

It's not.

Carving out a niche in the seemingly unshakable mobile space -- ruled
by the Android-and-Apple duopoly -- still requires a critical mass of
users and a lively ecosystem of app developers.

Realistically speaking, the chances of this even upstaging
Windows Phone or BlackBerry 10 are slim.

At best, Ubuntu seems like a sandbox for the most enthusiastic early
adopters and a cheap enterprise solution for companies on a tight
budget.

Still, pushing aside the concerns about market viability,
this could be a very real glimpse of how we compute in the future.

The central brain for all our computing needs might eventually live in
our smartphones, and we'd simply attach them to whatever form factor
the situation calls for.

That differs from some current experiments, like Microsoft's
vision for the Surface tablet: a single piece of hardware that can be
used in multiple ways. It seems just as valid a solution, though, for
the inevitable convergence of mobile and desktop computers.



Al Jazeera buys Al Gore's Current TV

BBC News

Thursday January 3



Washington-Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera has acquired Current TV,
the cable television network founded by former US Vice President Al
Gore. Mr Gore and co-founder Joel Hyatt announced the sale in a
statement, without giving any financial details.

Launched in the US in 2005, Current TV is at present
available in about 60 million US homes.

The purchase could give Al Jazeera broader reach in the US, something
it has been struggling to achieve.

"Current Media was built based on a few key goals: To give
voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power;
to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the
stories that no one else is telling," Mr Gore and Mr Hyatt said in the
statement.

"Al Jazeera, like Current, believes that facts and truth lead to a
better understanding of the world around us."

Al Jazeera, which is funded by the government of Qatar,
first gained popularity after it aired videos of Osama bin Laden
following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The English language version of the channel can be viewed online in
the US, and on TV in select cities.

Al Jazeera said in a statement on Wednesday that it plans
to launch its own US-based news channel which will be available on
Current TV's distribution network this year.

The news channel will be head-quartered in New York City and will
provide both domestic and international news for American audiences,
the broadcaster said.

Al Jazeera said its English language channel has proved
popular in the US with 40% of all online viewing coming from there.

However, Al Jazeera's attempt to gain more viewership in the US
suffered an early setback after Time Warner Cable said it would stop
carrying Current TV following the ownership change.

Time Warner, the second biggest cable company in the US, said it
had already been looking to remove channels with low ratings, and this
acquisition gave it the ability to cancel its contract.



SunPower inks $2.5 billion deal with Buffett utility

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



California-SunPower Corp (SPWR.O) said it sold two solar projects in
California to a company controlled by Warren Buffett's Berkshire
Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N), and would receive up to $2.5 billion in
proceeds and related contracts.

Berkshire utility MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co will pay
SunPower between $2.0 billion and $2.5 billion for the 579-megawatt
(MW) Antelope Valley solar projects and for designing, installing and
constructing them, the company said in a regulatory filing on
Wednesday. (link.reuters.com/bag94t)

Construction of the projects, which the companies called the world's
largest photovoltaic power development, will begin this quarter and is
expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

The stamp of approval from a Buffett utility, combined
with expected cashflow from the projects, will make SunPower more
bankable and more creditworthy, its Chief Executive Tom Werner told
Reuters.

"If you are a bank you are looking at us a lot differently today than
you did last week," he said.

SunPower shares ended up 9 percent at $6.13 on Wednesday
on the Nasdaq, their highest closing in about eight months.

Raymond James analyst Marshall Adkins said the monetization of the
projects "does not alter the fact that SunPower retains a markedly
high-cost structure and razor-thin margins in the context of a
massively oversupplied market."

The projects, based in Kern and Los Angeles counties, will
add to MidAmerican Energy's growing investments in clean energy.

It bought a 49 percent stake in a 290 MW solar power plant in Arizona
from NRG Energy Inc (NRG.N) and acquired First Solar Inc's (FSLR.O)
550 MW Topaz Solar Farm power plant in California in late-2011.

The SunPower projects will sell power to California
utility Southern California Edison under two long-term contracts.

California plans to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse
gases to 1990 levels by 2020, and by an additional 80 percent by 2050.



Goldman Sachs sped up $65 million in stock awards

Bloomberg

Thursday January 3



New York-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) accelerated delivery of $65
million in stock awards to 10 executives, including Chief Executive
Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein, helping them avoid higher tax rates that
take effect this year.

The awards are restricted stock granted for years prior to
2012, according to 10 separate filings made public at about 8 p.m. New
York time on Dec. 31. Each executive surrendered 45 percent to 50
percent of their awards in order to pay taxes, according to the
filings. The firm’s stock climbed 41 percent in 2012, its first annual
gain since 2009.

Goldman Sachs, the fifth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, typically
delivers executives’ restricted stock during January. The decision to
speed up the delivery came as the U.S. Congress debated and ultimately
passed a bill that would increase tax rates on capital gains and on
individuals who make taxable income of $400,000 or more.

“The December delivery of shares went to a wider group of
employees than the named executive officers” who were included in the
filings, said Michael DuVally, a spokesman for the New York-based
firm. He declined to comment on the reason for the accelerated
delivery or on which other employees received stock early.

Blankfein, 58, has said he would be willing to pay higher taxes if
they were part of a fiscal compromise to reduce the budget deficit.
Today he praised the bill that passed the House of Representatives
yesterday.

‘Step Forward’

“This agreement is a step forward to injecting growth and
investor confidence into the U.S. economy,” he said in an e- mailed
statement. “While more progress clearly will be needed, particularly
in regards to restraining the growth in government spending, this
measure lays the foundation for more economic growth.”

Blankfein received 66,065 shares of restricted stock on Dec. 31, worth
$8.43 million at the closing share price that day, according to a
company filing. The filing shows that he sold 33,245 shares for
$126.24 apiece, although a footnote explains that those shares were in
fact retained by the company “to satisfy withholding obligations.”

Changing Landscape

One of Goldman Sachs’s Wall Street rivals took a different
approach to the changing tax landscape. Jefferies Group Inc. (JEF),
the investment bank that agreed in November to sell itself to its
biggest owner, Leucadia National Corp. (LUK), accelerated the delivery
of dividends to all shareholders, including executives, on Dec. 31,
according to company filings.

“We expedited the regular dividend payment for all Jefferies
shareholders in anticipation of increased rates,” the New York-based
firm said in a statement. “Our top executives were treated identically
to every other shareholder.”

Some of the executives’ dividends were awarded as deferred
stock, according to the filings. Those shares “will be taxed at the
higher rates when they ultimately vest,” the company said. Jefferies
CEO Richard Handler, 51, received 36,872 deferred shares at $18.57
each, worth $684,713. Brian Friedman, 57, chairman of Jefferies’s
executive committee, got 9,321 shares at that price, valued at
$173,091.

Gary D. Cohn, 52, Goldman Sachs’s president and chief operating
officer, and David A. Viniar, 57, the firm’s chief financial officer,
received the same number of shares as Blankfein and had the same
amount withheld, according to filings.

Surrendered Shares

The other executives who received and surrendered shares
for withholding purposes were Vice Chairmen John S. Weinberg, 55, and
J. Michael Evans, 55; Edith Cooper, the 51-year-old head of human
capital management; John F.W. Rogers, the firm’s 56- year-old chief of
staff; General Counsel Gregory K. Palm, 64; Global Head of Compliance
Alan M. Cohen, 62; and Chief Accounting Officer Sarah Smith.

Goldman Sachs is required to file disclosures of changes in stock
ownership by its 12 executive officers. The firm made no disclosures
of stock activity on Dec. 31 by Vice Chairman Michael S. Sherwood, a
47-year-old British citizen based in London, or by Mark Schwartz, the
Hong Kong-based head of the firm’s Asian business. Schwartz, a
58-year-old U.S. citizen, rejoined the firm in June after 11 years
away.

Below is a table of stock delivered to each of the Goldman
Sachs executives and the amount surrendered for withholding purposes,
according to company filings.

*T Executive Stock Delivered Stock Surrendered

for Withholding

Lloyd C. Blankfein 66,065 33,245 Gary D. Cohn 66,065 33,245 David
A. Viniar 66,065 33,245 John S. Weinberg 66,065 30,438 J. Michael
Evans 66,065 29,896 Edith W. Cooper 45,126 20,791 John F.W. Rogers
41,876 19,294 Gregory K. Palm 36,860 18,549 Alan M. Cohen 30,085
15,141 Sarah G. Smith 23,832 11,994



U.S. credit ratings test is yet to come

CNNMoney

Wednesday January 2



London-Credit rating agencies are likely to hold off passing judgment
on the U.S. credit rating until they have a clearer picture about the
fate of the debt ceiling and longer term plans to reduce borrowing.

The New Year fiscal cliff agreement between the White
House and Congress raised taxes on the richest Americans but postponed
much of the toughest political wrangling on automatic spending cuts
for another two months.

Also, the bill does not address the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling, which
was hit on Monday. Instead, the Treasury Department will deploy
"extraordinary measures" to allow additional borrowing of about $200
billion, in effect buying the United States about two months to raise
the official limit.

The last time Congress negotiated the debt ceiling it
prompted Standard & Poor's to strip the country of its coveted AAA
credit rating. The agency criticized ineffective decision-making in
Washington and the lack of a plan to stabilize the country's debt in
the medium term.

S&P said in late December it still held that view, and repeated a
warning that the United States could face another downgrade by 2014,
or sooner, if Congress doesn't come up with a plan to reduce the
national debt.

Fitch and Moody's both kept their top AAA ratings in place
after the S&P downgrade but have warned of the risk of downgrades.

Moody's said Monday it would be watching how Washington handles the
nearly simultaneous issues of the debt ceiling and spending cuts. It
reiterated what it said in September -- that a downgrade was likely if
lawmakers were unable to agree on a long-term debt reduction plan.

"Failure to reach even a temporary arrangement to prevent
the full range of tax increases and spending cuts implied by the
fiscal cliff and a repeat of the August 2011 debt ceiling episode
would indicate that the general election had not resolved the
political gridlock in Washington and would probably result in a
sovereign rating downgrade," Fitch said last month.

With a temporary agreement now in place, and the debt ceiling debate
deferred, an imminent downgrade seems unlikely.

But the threat hasn't gone away.

"Failure to reach agreement on raising the debt ceiling in
a timely manner -- weeks in advance rather than just a single day
before the funding capacity of the federal government is exhausted as
happened in August 2011 -- would raise questions about US governance
on fiscal matters and undermine confidence in the United States as a
reliable borrower and prompt a formal review of the U.S. rating,"
Fitch said in its global sovereign outlook.

The impact any further downgrades would have, however, remains
unclear. U.S. borrowing costs fell following S&P's 2011 move, and a
similar pattern has been seen when other AAA-sovereigns have suffered
the same fate. Yields on French government bonds have declined since
it lost its AAA rating from Moody's in November.



International

Clinton discharged from hospital, doctors expect full recovery

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



Washington-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was discharged from a
New York hospital on Wednesday after being treated for a blood clot
near her brain and her doctors expect her to make a full recovery, the
State Department said.

Clinton, who has not been seen in public since December 7,
was at New York-Presbyterian Hospital under treatment for a blood clot
behind her right ear that stemmed from a concussion she suffered in
mid-December, the department said on Sunday.

The concussion was the result of an earlier illness, described by the
State Department as a stomach virus she had picked up during a trip to
Europe that led to dehydration and a fainting spell after she returned
to the United States.

"Secretary Clinton was discharged from the hospital this
evening. Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress
on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery,"
Philippe Reines, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said in a
statement.

Reines said Clinton was "eager to get back to the office."

Earlier, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told
reporters at her daily briefing Clinton had been talking with her
staff by telephone and receiving memos.

Clinton also spoke to two foreign officials - the U.N. envoy on Syria
and the prime minister of Qatar - on Saturday, the day before the
State Department disclosed the blood clot and her stay at the
hospital.

In a statement released by the State Department on Monday,
Clinton's doctors said she was being treated with blood thinners and
would be released from the hospital once the correct dosage had been
determined.



Lawyers boycott defense of India rape suspects

CNN News

Thursday January 3



New Delhi-Top lawyers in the India district where a woman was
gang-raped are saying that they will not represent the six men accused
in the attack, which led to her death.

The 11 lawyers who make up the executive board of the
Saket Bar Association on Wednesday vowed not to represent any of the
accused assailants because of the nature of the crime. The brutal
attack galvanized the nation and has led to protests by outraged
citizens.

In addition, the bar association has appealed to its 7,000 members to
also refrain from representing the accused, said the association's
president, Rajpal Kasana.

"We are not taking this case on the grounds of humanity," he said.

The boycott by the bar association does not mean the accused will not
have lawyers. Attorneys from other districts or ones appointed by the
court will likely fill that role.

"We want it to be clear that we will not obstruct or stand
in the way of any lawyer who is court-appointed or who represents
these assailants -- we do realize that they will be defended by
someone, most possibly legal aid," Kasana said.

The call for local lawyers to avoid defending the accused is
unprecedented, but justified because "everyone is emotionally attached
to this case," he said.

The 23-year-old woman, whose name has not been released,
died last week in a Singapore hospital, where she received treatment
after being airlifted from New Delhi.

Attackers assaulted the woman and her male companion on a bus December
16, robbing them of their belongings before dumping them at the side
of a road, police said.

The male companion was eventually discharged from a hospital.

Singapore doctors said the woman died "peacefully" early Saturday,
surrounded by her family and Indian Embassy officials. She had been in
"extremely critical condition" since her arrival.

The brutal attack and the woman's death have sparked
widespread debate over the way the country handles sexual assaults,
and the treatment of women in Indian society.

Lawmakers are weighing a proposal to toughen the country's anti-rape
law. Some have suggested a new law should be named after the woman,
while others have said it's illegal to reveal her identity.

The victim's father told CNN affiliate IBN that he
supported naming a new law after his daughter.

"All I ask is that the law is the toughest it can be," he said. "The
death penalty is compulsory for a crime so grave the assailants must
be hanged. The courts must give these men the death penalty."

India's Supreme Court on Thursday will hear a petition
asking it to suspend all lawmakers who face charges for crimes against
women.

The petition was filed in the aftermath of the brutal gang-rape,
which sent thousands of outraged protesters to the streets for days.

"This unfortunate episode has galvanized the nation," said Jagdeep S.
Chhokar, an official with the Association for Democratic Reforms,
which tracks political candidate's criminal records.

Chhokar said six Indian state lawmakers are facing rape
charges in unrelated cases, and two people in the federal parliament
are also facing charges of crimes against women that fall short of
charges of rape.

The group says that in the past five years, political parties across
India have nominated 260 candidates facing charges of crimes against
women such as assault and outraging the modesty of a woman.



Switzerland gunman kills three in Daillon

BBC News

Thursday January 3



Daillon-A gunman has opened fire in a village in Switzerland, killing
three people and wounding two others, Swiss police say.

The attack late on Wednesday happened in the southern
village of Daillon in Valais canton, around 100km (60 miles) east of
Geneva.

Several people were reportedly lying in the street after shots were fired.

Swiss broadcaster RTS said police later arrested a suspect
who was shot and wounded after he had threatened them.

"Three victims died at the scene," said Valais police. "Two other
people were wounded and hospitalised."

Police did not name the arrested man, whom witnesses
identified to local media as a 30-year-old Daillon resident.

The gunman was armed with an assault rifle and was thought to have
been drinking heavily, Swiss website 20minutes.ch reported.



Patti Page: Tennessee waltz singer dies aged 85

Sky News

Thursday January 3



California-Patti Page, the top-selling female singer of the 1950s who
became famous for her version of Tennessee Waltz, has died aged 85.

Her publicist Schatzi Hageman said she died on New Year's
Day in Encinitas, California.

Page created a distinctive sound for the music industry in 1947 by
overdubbing her own voice when she didn't have enough money to hire
backup singers for the single, Confess.

She went on to receive 15 gold records and three gold
albums with 24 songs in the top 10, including four that reached number
one.

She was due to attend a special ceremony on February 9 in Los Angeles
where she was to receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award from The
Recording Academy.

Page was popular in pop music and country and became the
first singer to have television programmes on all three major US
networks, including The Patti Page Show on ABC.

"I was a kid from Oklahoma who never wanted to be a singer, but was
told I could sing," she said in a 1999 interview. "And things
snowballed."

She was signed to Mercury Records and went on to sell more
than 100 million records.

In 1999, after 51 years of performing, Page won her first Grammy for
traditional pop vocal performance for Live at Carnegie Hall - The 50th
Anniversary Concert.

Tennessee Waltz, her biggest selling record, was a fluke.

Because Christmas was approaching, Mercury wanted Page to record
Boogie Woogie Santa Claus in 1950.

Tennessee Waltz was put on the B-side of the Christmas song.

"Mercury wanted to concentrate on a Christmas song and they didn't
want anything with much merit on the flip side," Page said. "They
didn't want any disc jockeys to turn the Christmas record over. The
title of that great Christmas song was Boogie Woogie Santa Claus, and
no one ever heard of it."

Tennessee Waltz became the first pop tune that crossed
over into a big country hit.

The waltz was in the charts for 30 weeks, 12 of them in the top 10,
and eventually sold more than 10 million copies, behind only White
Christmas by Bing Crosby at the time.

Page's other hits included (How Much Is That) Doggie In
The Window and Mockin' Bird Hill.

Page is survived by her son, Daniel O'Curran, daughter Kathleen Ginn
and sister Peggy Layton.



Sandy Hook kids prepare for 1st school day since attack

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



Connecticut-Many of the children who escaped last month's massacre at
a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school got their first glimpse of
their new school on Wednesday afternoon, welcomed to a building that
has been decked out as a "Winter Wonderland" with the help of
thousands of kids from around the world.

More than 400 Sandy Hook Elementary School students in
kindergarten through grade 4 will return to classes on Thursday for
the first time since the December 14 attack. On Wednesday afternoon
those children and parents who hadn't yet visited the school were
invited to walk through their new location, in neighboring Monroe.

The former Chalk Hill Middle School has been renamed Sandy Hook
Elementary School and has been transformed into a "cheerful,
nurturing" environment, Newtown School Superintendent Janet Robinson
said at a press conference held by Newtown and Monroe officials at a
town park near the school.

Officials have gone to great lengths to help the returning
students recover from the nightmarish memory of the attack by Adam
Lanza, which left 20 of their schoolmates, all first graders, and six
staff members dead in the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S.
history.

"This does not look like the other elementary school," Robinson said
emphatically.

When the students return, they will find all of the
belongings they left behind when teachers and police evacuated them
from Sandy Hook nearly three weeks ago. They will also find the
classrooms and hallways decorated with paper snowflakes made by other
students from across the globe.

"There are snowflakes from around the world there. There are many
snowflakes, and they are beautiful," Robinson said.

So many, in fact, that organizers have asked that no more
be submitted.

"At this time, we have enough beautiful snowflakes to blanket the
community of Newtown," the Connecticut PTSA said in a message to
prospective decoration contributors.

ATTACK MOTIVE STILL UNKNOWN

Meanwhile, no new details have emerged in recent days to
explain why the 20-year-old Lanza, armed with a semi-automatic assault
rifle, two other firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition,
targeted the grade schoolers and their teachers.

Described by family friends as having Asperger's syndrome, a form of
autism, Lanza shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their home
about five miles from the school before driving to Sandy Hook and
embarking on the massacre, police said. He then took his own life as
police were arriving at the school, which had an enrollment of 456
students ages 5 to 10 before the attack.

Police have offered no firm motive for the attack, and
state police investigators have said it could be months before they
are in a position to offer a report on it.

The massacre in Newtown, a rural New England town of 27,000 residents
about 70 miles northeast of New York City, stunned the nation,
prompting President Barack Obama to call it the worst day of his
presidency and reigniting an extensive debate on gun control. In
response to the attack, the National Rifle Association called for
armed guards to patrol every public school in the country.

Armed officers from the Monroe Police Department will be
on hand when the pupils arrive on Thursday morning around 9 a.m. at
their new school, about 7 miles south of Sandy Hook, which remains an
active crime scene and is closed to anyone but police.

The new Sandy Hook school has also been equipped with a new security
system, although officials declined to offer details.

"I think right now we have to make this the safest school
in America," Monroe Police Lieutenant Keith White said.

A comparable system will also be installed in each of Newtown's other
schools shortly, Robinson said in an email to district parents.

"As we enter 2013, we begin the year knowing that we are
forever changed," Robinson wrote. "We have an altered sense of
security and will continue to grieve for the senseless loss of such
precious little ones and their teachers, but we will join together in
a new appreciation of what we have and will make something positive
emerge from this."

Students will also be introduced to a new principal, Donna Page,
because Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung was among the six adults
killed in Lanza's attack. Page is a former administrator in Newtown
schools who has agreed to serve as interim principal while a permanent
successor is sought.



Spain to extradite Serb PM’s killer

AFP

Wednesday January 2



Madrid-Spain's National Court on Wednesday approved the extradition to
Serbia of Vladimir Milisavljevic, one of the convicted killers of then
Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003, a court official said.

Milisavljevic, known in Serbia as Budala (“The Bastard”), was
sentenced in absentia in 2007 to 35 years in prison for his role,
along with other members of the Zemun clan, in the shooting of
Djindjic in Belgrade.



Alcohol calories 'too often ignored'

BBC News

Wednesday January 2



London-People watching their weight should pay closer attention to how
much alcohol they drink since it is second only to fat in terms of
calorie content, say experts.

According to the World Cancer Research Fund, alcohol makes
up nearly 10% of total calorie intake among drinkers.

Having a large glass of wine will cost you the same 178 calories as
eating two chocolate digestive biscuits.

And it will take you more than a half hour's brisk walk to burn off.

Empty calories

Eating or drinking too many calories on a regular basis
can lead to weight gain.

But unlike food, alcoholic drinks have very little or no nutritional
value. The 'empty calories' in drinks are often forgotten or ignored
by dieters, says the WCRF.

Kate Mendoza, head of health information at WCRF, said:
"Recent reports have shown that people are unaware of calories in
drinks and don't include them when calculating their daily
consumption."

Containing 7kcal/g, alcohol is only slightly less calorific than fat,
which contains 9kcal/g.

Protein and carbohydrates contain 4kcal/g and fibre 2kcal/g.

Men need around 2,500 calories a day, and women around 2,000.

"Cutting down on drinking can have a big effect on weight
loss or maintaining a healthy weight," said Ms Mendoza.

It can also reduce your risk of cancer, she said.

Alcohol has been linked with breast, bowel, mouth and liver cancer.

If you don't want to abstain entirely, there are ways that can help
you cut down, including opting for smaller glass sizes, diluting
alcohol with soda water or a low-calorie soft drink, alternating
between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and keeping a few nights
each week booze-free.

WCRF has produced an Alcohol Calorie Calculator for
different drinks that shows approximately how much exercise you would
need to do to burn off the alcohol calories you consume.

Government guidelines recommend men should not regularly drink more
than 3-4 units of alcohol a day, and women should limit themselves to
2-3 units a day.

A standard 175ml glass of wine contains about two units
and a large 250ml glass contains about three units.

If you have had a heavy drinking session, you should avoid alcohol for
at least 48 hours, experts advise.



Malala's father gets job in Pakistan's UK consulate near her

CNN News

Thursday January 3



Birmingham-The father of Malala Yousafzai, the teenager whom the
Taliban tried to kill, has been given a job in a Pakistan consulate in
Birmingham, England, where she is recovering from gunshot wounds to
her head and neck, Pakistani officials said Wednesday.

Ziauddin Yousafzai has been appointed education attache
and will function as head of the consulate's education section for
three years, the Pakistani government said. His job could be extended
two additional years.

At the time of his daughter's shooting, Ziauddin Yousafzai ran a
school in Pakistan's conservative Swat Valley that kept its doors open
to girls -- in defiance of the Taliban.

The Taliban forbid girls in the classroom and have
threatened to kill anyone who defies them.

Malala was shot by gunmen last fall for her crusade about girls going
to school. She had blogged fearlessly about girls' education and
accused the Taliban of thriving on ignorance.

Her father's employment fulfills a pledge by Pakistan
President Asif Ali Zardari, who visited Malala in December and assured
her father that the government would meet "all expenses of Malala's
treatment and all the needs of the family while in UK," a government
statement said Wednesday.

"In light of that, the present appointment has been made," the statement said.

Malala thanks supporters

On October 9, Malala was on a school van in Swat Valley
when Taliban gunmen stopped the vehicle and demanded that other girls
tell them who was Malala. They identified her. Malala was then shot,
as were two other girls who survived the attack.

"We do not tolerate people like Malala speaking against us," a Taliban
spokesman said after the shooting. He vowed to come after her if she
managed to live. Islamic militants also threatened to kill journalists
covering her story.

Since her shooting, Malala has become an international
figure. She was selected as runner-up for Time magazine's Person of
the Year for 2012. CNN and Time are owned by Time Warner Inc.

Malala arrived at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham on October 16. A
bullet that hit her left brow didn't penetrate the skull but traveled
the side of her head under the skin and into her neck, the hospital
said. The shock wave shattered the thinnest bone of her skull, and
fragments entered her brain, the hospital said.

The teen had been in critical condition, but doctors
removed the bullet and she has no major brain or nerve damage.
Physicians said she will need reconstructive surgery.

Malala is walking, writing and reading again.

The Islamic militants behind the Taliban continue to
repress women in northwest Pakistan. Last month, Malala asked a
graduate school not to name its institution after her.

Girls were afraid that attending the Malala Yousafzai Post Graduate
College for Women in the Taliban-dominated Swat Valley would attract
the attention of fighters such as the ones who shot Malala and the two
other girls, said Kamran Rehman Khan, a top official in the Swat
Valley.

The Saidu Sharif Post Graduate School briefly changed its
name to recognize Malala's brave campaign for girls' education in
Pakistan.

Several students told Khan that they respect Malala but were concerned
about their safety, he said.

Khan told CNN that Malala called him last month from her
hospital room in England and asked the school to remove her name. But
she wished for people to continue to fight for girls to go to school,
he said.

"I was so impressed that despite having threats against her life, she
was talking about girls' education in the region and against
militants," Khan said.



'Weight is healthy' study criticised

BBC News

Wednesday January 2



London-A study which suggests being overweight can lead to a longer
life has caused controversy among obesity experts. One labelled the
findings a "pile of rubbish" while another said it was a "horrific
message" to put out.

The research, in the Journal of the American Medical
Association, suggested the overweight were less likely to die
prematurely than people with a "healthy" weight.

Being underweight or severely obese did cut life expectancy.

The researchers at the US National Centre for Health
Statistics looked at 97 studies involving nearly 2.9 million people to
compare death rates with Body Mass Index (BMI) - a way of measuring
obesity using a person's weight and height.

A healthy BMI is considered to be above 18.5 and below 25. However,
overweight people (with a BMI between 25 and 30) were 6% less likely
to die early than those considered to have a healthy weight, the study
reports.

Mildly obese people (BMI between 30 and 35) were no more
likely to die prematurely than people with a healthy BMI.

The study said being "overweight was associated with significantly
lower all-cause mortality".

Possible explanations included overweight people getting
medical treatment, such as to control blood pressure, more quickly or
the extra weight helping people survive being severely ill in
hospital.

However, the researchers point out they looked only at deaths and not
years spent free of ill-health.

Unconvinced

On Tuesday, the Royal College of Physicians called for the
UK to rethink the way it tackles obesity.

Prof John Wass, vice-president of the college, said: "Have you ever
seen a 100-year-old human being who is overweight? The answer is you
probably haven't."

He said the largest people will have died years before and
pointed to health problems and higher levels of Type 2 diabetes.

"Huge pieces of evidence go against this, countless other studies
point in the other direction."

Other experts criticised the research methods.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people
tend to die sooner," according to Donald Berry, from the University of
Texas

Dr Walter Willett, from the Harvard School of Public
Health said: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than a study
conducted by the same group in 2005.

Tam Fry, from the National Obesity Forum in the UK, said: "It's a
horrific message to put out at this particular time.

"We shouldn't take it for granted that we can cancel the gym, that
we can eat ourselves to death with black forest gateaux."



QPR stun Chelsea, Liverpool win

Super Sport

Wednesday January 2



London-Shaun Wright-Phillips helped Queens Park Rangers to only their
second Premier League victory of season when his second-half strike
stunned his former club Chelsea 1-0 on Wednesday.

Wright-Phillips smashed home a low strike after 78 minutes
to deny Chelsea third spot and help the west Londoners draw level with
Reading at the bottom of the table on 13 points and give the
strugglers hope of a possible survival from relegation.

Chelsea, with a game in hand on leaders Manchester United and
third-placed Tottenham Hotspur, have 38 points from 20 matches and
trail the table-toppers by 14 points and Spurs by one.

Visitors QPR took advantage of a weaker Chelsea side,
interim manager Rafael Benitez opting to rest Juan Mata and Eden
Hazard, as they won their first away game of the season to delight
their supporters at the final whistle.

Chelsea dominated possession and nearly broke the deadlock midway
through the second half when Frank Lampard had a goal disallowed for
being offside as he fired in a low shot.

Branislav Ivanovic grazed the crossbar with a header after
halftime as Chelsea pushed for an opener, but QPR were well organised
and defended doggedly and took their chance when it came.

Adel Taarabt always looked lively and it was a well-controlled lay off
from the Moroccan with 12 minutes remaining which set up
Wright-Phillips on the edge of the box to drive a fierce low effort
beyond Ross Turnbull into the bottom left corner.

A Luis Suarez double for Liverpool helped the Uruguayan
move one goal behind Premier League top scorer Robin van Persie in the
scoring charts as Liverpool swept Sunderland aside 3-0 at home.

Young talent Raheem Sterling's second top-flight goal also helped lift
Liverpool to eighth on 31 points from 21 games.

Sterling opened Liverpool's account with a deft lob after
19 minutes and Suarez bagged another shortly after before adding his
15th league goal of the campaign seven minutes into the second half to
complete the easy win.

Liverpool threatened more goals but had two chalked off late on, both
for offside.

In the late match Everton climbed above Arsenal into fifth place
on 36 points from 21 games with a 2-1 comeback win at Newcastle
United, who sit two points above the relegation places.



News From The Axis

Venezuela's opposition demands "whole truth" about Chavez health

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



Caracas-Venezuela's opposition on Wednesday demanded the government
tell "the whole truth" about the health of cancer-stricken President
Hugo Chavez, who has not been heard from in three weeks after
undergoing a grueling operation in Cuba.

Officials have acknowledged the usually garrulous former
soldier's health is delicate after his fourth cancer surgery in 18
months, but they have offered scant details on his condition.

He has not spoken in public in more than three weeks.

Ramon Aveledo, head of the opposition Democratic Unity
coalition, slammed the government for not keeping its word about
keeping Venezuelans informed.

"The official version (of Chavez's health) hides more information than
it gives," Aveledo said at a press conference.

"The vice president himself has promised to tell the
truth, whatever it is. Fine, he should tell it. He should tell the
whole truth," said Aveledo.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, whom Chavez last month designated as
his heir apparent, on Tuesday said in an interview from Havana that
Chavez had recognized the complexity of his post-operative condition.

Maduro said he was returning to Venezuela after several
days visiting with Chavez and his relatives, which may quell rumors
his trip to Cuba signaled the president was in his final days.

The president's son-in-law and Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, who is
in Havana, said via his Twitter account on Wednesday that the medical
team told him Chavez's condition "remains stable" but that his health
is still delicate.

"Commander Chavez is fighting hard and he sends his love
to the people. Dedication and patience!!!" he tweeted.

Chavez's abrupt exit from the political scene would be a shock for
Venezuela, where his oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the
poor majority but a nemesis to critics who call him a dictator.

He is still set to be sworn in on January 10, as laid out
in the constitution. If he dies or steps aside, new elections would be
held within 30 days, with Maduro running as the Socialist Party
candidate.

DELICATE HEALTH

Chavez suffered unexpected bleeding and a respiratory
infection after a six-hour operation on December 11. Terse official
statements have said nothing about when he might be expected back or
whether his life is in danger.

The government has provided none of the signature videos or pictures
released after Chavez was diagnosed with cancer in June 2011 and his
relapse in 2012. And allies have refused to discuss the possibility
that he could hand over power or resign.

Chavez last year staged what appeared to be remarkable
comeback from the disease to win reelection to a third six-year term
in October despite being weakened by radiation therapy. He returned to
Cuba for new treatment within weeks of his win.

Officials from the ruling Socialist Party are now suggesting his
inauguration could be postponed indefinitely to accommodate his
health.

Aveledo insisted the government should stick to the
January 10 timeline called for in the constitution.

"Trying to make the country believe that the president is governing is
absurd to the point of being irresponsible," he said. "January 10
marks the end of one presidential term and the start of another. As
such, there is no continuation of the current government."

Aveledo said if Chavez cannot make it back in time, he
should hand power over to the president of Congress - who would
temporarily run the country while elections are called.

Congress, controlled by Chavez allies, on Saturday elects a new
president. Current Congress chief Diosdado Cabello, a close Chavez
ally who could be reelected to head the legislature, has at times been
considered a rival of Maduro. The two have taken great pains in recent
weeks to publicly deny this.

While the constitution cites January 10 as the start of
the new term, it does not explicitly state what happens if the
president does not take office on that date.

Chavez's condition is being watched closely by Latin American
countries that have benefited from his generous assistance, as well as
Wall Street investors who are drawn to Venezuela's lucrative and
heavily traded bonds.



Myanmar admits to airstrikes against rebels

AFP

Wednesday January 2



Yangon-Myanmar's military has acknowledged carrying out airstrikes
against ethnic Kachin rebels in the country's north, and said it has
captured a hilltop post from where the insurgents launched attacks on
government supply convoys.

The statement broadcast on state television on Wednesday
contradicted government claims two days earlier that the military was
not carrying out offensive air attacks on the Kachin, raising
questions about how much control the elected government of reformist
President Thein Sein has over the army.

The AFP news agency earlier reported that strikes were carried out as
the military, known as the "Tatmadaw", battled to regain one of its
bases taken over by the armed wing of the Kachin Independence
Organisation (KIO).

A military owned news website stated that a key base had
been seized from the rebels “with the help of air strikes in the
region".

According to James Lum Dau, deputy chief of foreign affairs of KIO,
the fighting in Kachin had become “more serious” since last week.

“Before they (attacked) with helicopters, now they are
using jets with rocks and bombs,” he added.

AFP, however, could not independently verify whether jets had been
used to fire on the rebels.

'Intensify the conflict'

The US said on Wednesday the use of air power in Kachin
State was "extremely troubling."

In Washington, state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland urged the
government and the Kachin rebel group to cease their conflict and
begin a real dialogue for peace.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Myanmar's
authorities "to desist from any action that could endanger the lives
of civilians living in the area or further intensify the conflict in
the region,'' UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said. Ban called on the
government and rebels to work toward political reconciliation.

Myanmar's new government has reached tentative ceasefires with most of
the other ethnic rebel groups in the country, but have failed to make
progress in rounds of talks aimed at resolving the conflict in the
country's north.

Zaw Htay, a government spokesperson has said that the
government has not received a response from the Kachin rebels after
they invited the rebels for talks.

The rebels are calling for greater political rights and an end to
alleged human rights abuses by the army.

The conflict between the two groups has displaced tens of
thousands of people since June 2011, when a 17-year ceasefire between
the government and KIO rebels broke down.



U.N. lifts Syria death toll to "truly shocking" 60,000

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



Amman/Geneva-More than 60,000 people have died in Syria's uprising and
civil war, the United Nations said on Wednesday, dramatically raising
the death toll in a struggle that shows no sign of ending.

In the latest violence, dozens were killed in a rebellious
Damascus suburb when a government air strike turned a petrol station
into an inferno, incinerating drivers who had rushed there for a rare
chance to fill their tanks, activists said.

"I counted at least 30 bodies. They were either burnt or dismembered,"
said Abu Saeed, an activist who arrived in the area an hour after the
1 p.m. (1100 GMT) raid in Muleiha, a suburb on the eastern edge of the
capital.

In the north, rebels launched a major attack to take a
military airport, and said they had succeeded in destroying a fighter
plane and a helicopter on the ground.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said in Geneva that
researchers cross-referencing seven sources over five months of
analysis had listed 59,648 people killed in Syria between March 15,
2011 and November 30, 2012.

"The number of casualties is much higher than we expected
and is truly shocking," she said. "Given that there has been no let-up
in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more
than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013."

There was no breakdown by ethnicity or information about whether the
dead were rebels, soldiers or civilians. There was also no estimate of
an upper limit of the possible toll.

Previously, the opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights monitoring group had put the toll at around 45,000
confirmed dead but said the real number was likely to be higher.

FATAL RUSH FOR PETROL

Video footage taken by activists at the scene of the air
strike on the petrol station showed the body of a man in a helmet
still perched on a motorcycle amid flames engulfing the scene. Another
man was shown carrying a dismembered body.

The video could not be verified. The government bars access to the
Damascus area to most international media.

The activists said rockets were fired from a nearby
government air base at the petrol station and a residential area after
the air raid.

"Until the raid, Muleiha was quiet. We have been without petrol for
four days and people from the town and the countryside rushed to the
station when a state consignment came in," Abu Fouad, another activist
at the scene, said by phone.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces also fired artillery
and mortars at the capital's rebellious districts of Douma, Irbin and
Zamlaka, activists living there said.

After nightfall there was shelling in the Jobar and Assali districts,
and fighting occurred in the northern suburb of Harasta, on the
highway leading north, Syria's main artery.

Assad's forces control the centre of the capital, while
rebels and their sympathizers hold a ring of southern and eastern
suburbs that are often hit from the air.

The Observatory said a separate air strike killed 12 members of a
family, most of them children, in Moadamiyeh, a southwestern district
near the centre of Damascus where rebels have fought for a foothold.

The rebels hold wide swathes of the north and east of the
country, but have been unable to protect the areas they control from
Assad's air power. Their main targets in recent months have been air
bases, with a goal of preventing the government from using its jets
and helicopters.

The rebels launched a major attack on Wednesday on Taftanaz, a
northern air base which they hope to seize. A statement by the
northern rebel Idlib Coordination Committee said they had battled
their way to the airport's main command building but were not yet in
control of the site.

The statement said the rebels had detonated a car bomb
inside the Taftanaz airport grounds and destroyed a helicopter.

A rebel speaking from near the airport told Reuters the base's main
sections were still in loyalist hands but rebels had destroyed a
fighter jet as well as the helicopter.

The family of an American freelance journalist, James
Foley, 39, said on Wednesday he had been missing in Syria since being
kidnapped six weeks ago by gunmen. No group has publicly claimed
responsibility for his abduction.

Syria was by far the most dangerous country for journalists in 2012,
with 28 killed there.

The conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful protests
against four decades of Assad family rule and turned into an armed
revolt after months of government repression.

"FOR GOD'S EYES"

Both sides have been accused of committing atrocities in
the 21-month-old conflict, but the United Nations says the government
and its allies have been more culpable.

In the latest evidence of atrocities, Internet video posted by Syrian
rebels shows armed men, apparently fighters loyal to Assad, stabbing
two men to death and stoning them with concrete blocks in a summary
execution lasting several minutes.

Reuters could not verify the provenance of the footage or
the identity of the perpetrators and their victims. The video was
posted on Tuesday but it was not clear where or when it was filmed.
However it does clearly show a summary execution and torture,
apparently being carried out by government supporters.

At one point, one of the assailants says: "For God's eyes and your
Lord, O Bashar," an Arabic incantation suggesting actions being
carried out in the leader's name.

The video was posted on YouTube by the media office of the
Damascus-based rebel First Brigade, which said it had been taken from
a captured member of the shabbiha pro-government militia.

The perpetrators show off for the camera, smiling for close-up shots,
slicing at the victims' backs, then stabbing them and bashing them
with large slabs of masonry.

Syria's civil war is the longest and deadliest conflict to
emerge from uprisings that began sweeping the Arab world in 2011 and
has developed a significant sectarian element.

Rebels, mostly from the Sunni Muslim majority, confront Assad's army
and security forces, dominated by his Shi'ite-derived Alawite sect,
which, along with some other minorities, fears revenge if he falls.



Iran says captures 2 US-made drones

AP

Wednesday January 2



Dubai-Iran has captured two miniature U.S.-made surveillance drones
over the past 17 months, Iranian media reported on Wednesday.

Several drone incidents over the past year have
highlighted tension in the Gulf as Iran and the United States flex
their military capabilities in the vital oil exporting region in a
standoff over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

The lightweight RQ11 Raven drones were brought down by Iranian air
defence units in separate incidents in August 2011 and November 2012,
Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari told Fars news agency.

“Much of the data of these drones has been decoded by the
Army's jihad and research centre,” he said, without elaborating.

Manufactured by AeroVironment, the RQ11 Raven has a wingspan of 1.36
metres (4.5 feet) and a range of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) and is used
by the U.S. military for low-altitude surveillance.

Iran said on Dec. 4 that it had captured a U.S.
intelligence ScanEagle drone in its air space over the Gulf in the
previous few days, but the United States said there was no evidence to
support the assertion.

The U.S. Navy said had not lost any unmanned aircraft in the area.

The four-foot (1.25 metre) ScanEagle surveillance drones
built by Boeing Co are deployed in the region by the United States
military and also by other countries.

In November, the United States said Iranian warplanes shot at a U.S
drone flying in international air space.

Iran said the aircraft had entered its air space to spy on Iranian
oil platforms and said it would respond “decisively” to any
incursions.



Political and General

Road death toll hits 180

New Zimbabwe

Wednesday January 2



Harare-THE national death toll on the roads has surged to 180 in a
little over two weeks, compared to just 147 recorded during the entire
festive season last year.

Police spokesman Andrew Phiri says 901 people were injured
from 1, 128 smashes since December 15.

“Of the 1, 128 accidents recorded, 102 of them were fatal,” Phiri told
the Herald newspaper.

Some 1, 392 defective vehicles have since been impounded,
while 13, 278 drivers have been slapped with tickets for varying
traffic violations.

Soccer legend Adam Ndlovu is one of the people who were killed in the
road accidents.

The deadliest accident so far occured near the city of
Mutare after a haulage truck crammed with 63 people veered off the
road and flipped over, killing 18 passengers.

Traffic safety blame a number of factors for the upsurge in crashes,
including the poor state of the roads, the increase in the volume of
traffic and human error.

Police have also been accused of contributing to the
carnage by taking bribes from traffic offenders and looking the other
way.

The corruption charges forced traffic authorities last week to issue a
statement urging motorists to ignore roadblocks staffed by less than
three officers who they say would not have been authorized to mount
any such check points.

“When you see two officers at check points or a police
officer trying to enforce traffic regulations in a private vehicle,
disobey their instructions and report them to their commanding
officer,” said traffic deputy chief Kenny Mthombeni.

The increasing number of crash casualties has since forced government
to deploy more police officers on the highways to enforce traffic
regulations.

Authorities are also running a public campaign to promote
road safety under the theme “Drive Safe, Arrive Alive.”

The awareness started December 15 - the official beginning of the
festive holiday - and runs through January 15.



TelOne appoints Chipo Mtasa new Managing Director

Tech Zim

Wednesday January 2



Harare-Information reaching us suggests that TelOne is about to
announce the appointment of Chipo Mtasa as new managing director of
the company. Mtasa will take over from acting MD, Hampton Mhlanga who,
according to our sources, will resume his substantive post of
Technical Director of the fixed line operator and internet provider.

A chartered accountant, Mtasa is former Rainbow Tourism
Group (RTG) Chief Executive Officer, a position she held for about 8
years before resigning last year in March. According to reports, Mtasa
was forced to resign from a company that was now saddled with debt and
in a loss making position.

Mtasa is taking over the top job at a company that is saddled with
even heavier debt, doubtful debts of up to US $300m, a declining fixed
line subscriber base, an ADSL service expansion that’s being held down
by limited and aged infrastructure, deep government-style customer
service problems, and a skills shortage amoung other problems.

TelOne plays a crucial role however in the provision of
international bandwidth to Zimbabwe.

Through its fibre link to the undersea EASSy cable via Mozambique, the
company has the single largest capacity international fibre link into
the country at 2.48 Gbps.

TelOne’s ADSL service provides the lowest priced fixed
broadband service in Zimbabwe.

Competitors have however complained that the government operator has
an unfair advantage as other providers have so far been denied
providing internet services via TelOne’s telephone infrastructure.



Makandiwa predicts gold rush, disease and death

New Zimbabwe

Wednesday January 2



Harare-MYSTERIOUS gold will fall from the heavens this year, setting
off a rush that will see many poor Zimbabweans getting rich, at least
if you believe in Emmanuel Makandiwa’s prophecies.

The United Family International Church leader, who was
recently branded a “cheat” by Pastor Godwin Chitside, says massive
deposits of the prized mineral will appear on the bare surface all
over the country.

Makandiwa told more than 30,000 people who graced his sermon on New
Year’s Eve that God had shown him a gust of “wind blowing and I saw
gold coming to the surface. People are going to be picking up gold
without any drilling.”

“The Lord told me, ‘Tell Zimbabweans to change their
focus.’ Everyone is saying diamonds, diamonds but I see another
precious mineral for Zimbabwe,” he said. Gold will be picked up from
the ground. Mysteriously gold will be appearing everywhere.”

“Those people who have been looked down upon will be picking up gold
like they are picking up stones. The Lord told me ‘This is for my
people’,” Makandiwa said.

The charismatic preacher prophesied that due to the
prosperity ahead, car imports will increase leading to traffic
congestion especially in the capital, Harare.

“You think you have seen congestion. No you have not! Keep your eyes
open and see what will be happening. Because of the grace coming upon
the people, driving shall be difficult in Harare,” he added.

Makandiwa told the congregants that he also saw the rise
of a new capital city that will relegate Harare to ordinary city
status. This, of course is not news.

Local Government Minister Ignatias Chombo confirmed in November that a
new Zimbabwean capital will be built in Mt Hampden, Zvimba, 40
kilometers west of Harare.

Chombo said a site had already been identified for
construction of parliament and other key government departments. A
leaked plan of the new capital was even published on social media.

Apparently referencing the already known maneuvers, Makandiwa said:
“Harare will expire, with another new and beautiful capital city
coming up. It’s like a garden. As I was praying I even saw the papers
and the plan.”

But if you believe him, Makandiwa is not only a bearer of
good news. Like the biblical prophets of doom Amos and Hosea, he
delivered bleak predictions characterised by disease and death.

Makandiwa said a leading Zimbabwean business will be hospitalized for
a serious ailment that might claim his life.

“Is he able to come out of hospital this year? That is if
we pray. If we don’t pray it’s not just the death of a person but this
is hope going. So we need to pray.”

He also prophesied the passing of a prominent African soccer coach who
he said will be shot dead by one of his players after an international
tournament.

On Sunday Makandiwa found himself in the crosshairs of
Spoken World Ministries leader Pastor Chitside who accused him and
Nigerian guru Temitope Balogun (TB) Joshua, as well as Uebert Angel
Mudzanire of cheating their docile followers.

Angel was recently reported to have shocked worshippers in Botswana
with a prayer that filled their pockets and bank accounts with cash.

But Chitside dismissed it all as hocus-pocus.

“It is very unfortunate that when you look at people like Angel, they
use trickery to detect people’s phone numbers. These are Nigerian
games,” he told NewsDay.

“There is no God who operates like that because these are
old Nigerian tactics to rob people of their cash. That was a
stage-managed act just like TB Joshua’s. The only difference is that
TB Joshua is more sophisticated and smarter: If God wants to bless
you, He uses people.

“There needs to be an investigation to establish where the money that
people received came from. From which accounts did the money come?
This is nonsense, rubbish,” Chitside said.

President Robert Mugabe also jumped into the growing debate about
so-called Mega Church prophets in December saying most of them were
"false prophets."



Govt urged to ‘wake up’ after resignation of human rights chief

SW Radio Africa

Wednesday January 2



Harare-The resignation of the head of Zimbabwe’s Human Rights
Commission is being described as a serious ‘wake up call’ for the
government, which is being urged to strengthen its human rights
commitments.

Professor Reginald Austin stepped down as head of the
Commission last month, citing ‘inhibiting laws’ and a lack of
resources.

“The critical reason for my resignation is the legal framework …
within which the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission is expected now and
in the future, to carry out its mandate,” Austin was quoted as saying
in a statement.

He added: “As a national human rights institution the
commission must be independent and properly capacitated.” Austin cited
sections of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission Act and electoral
laws that he said impinged on the Commission’s work.

The Commission was set up in 2009 after the formation of the unity
government, as part of a number of reforms needed for free and fair
elections. \

But years later, the Commission remains hobbled with no support
from the government in terms of either resources or respect.

The Human Rights Commission Bill was only sworn in late
last year, among a number of other bills that appeared to be rushed
through parliament ahead of elections. The Bill actively prevents the
Commission from dealing with any political violence before 2008. A
clause in the Bill allows Human Rights Commissioners only to look at
rights abuses after they were sworn into office on 13th February 2009.

Irene Petras, the head of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
group, told SW Radio Africa that she is disappointed by the
resignation, but not surprised.

“I can understand the reasons for the resignation because
there are some serious problems in terms of the Commission doing the
work that needs to be done. However, somebody who points out the
challenges is to be commended, at least so we can address these
issues,” Petras said.

She explained that the move must be viewed as a wake-up call, “because
we have been seeing a real lack of will by government to make sure
these institution are properly resourced and can function
independently.”

“I just hope the government won’t ignore these warnings
again,” Petras said, adding that the pressure must continue to grow on
the government to strengthen its commitments to the protection of
human rights.

In a statement the ZLHR also added that Austin’s decision to step down
is a threat to the protection of human rights.

“This resignation is an unequivocal statement of the
condemnation of the current operating framework particularly the
excessive powers of the executive,” it said.

It added: “Lack of effective powers and independence of the commission
to investigate and take strong action where human rights violations
have been brought to its attention and its inability to independently
investigate and take strong action in relation to electoral-related
violations.”



Regional

New cholera outbreak in Zambia

AFP

Wednesday January 2



Lusaka-Cholera has broken out in northern Zambia this week, with at
least 30 cases recorded in the past three days, a health official said
Wednesday.

“We have so far 30 suspected cases of cholera admitted at
Mambilima Mission hospital,” regional medical officer Lackson Ndhlovu
told public radio station Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation
(ZNBC).

The outbreak was reported in Mwense district, about 700 kilometres
(435 miles) from the capital Lusaka.

The waterborne disease comes with each rainy season in Zambia.



Mandela's recovery "on track" at home: South African government

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



Johannesburg-Former South African President Nelson Mandela's recovery
is 'on track' at his home in Johannesburg, the government said on
Wednesday in its first statement since the anti-apartheid hero was
released from hospital a week ago.

Mandela, 94, who has been in frail health for several
years, spent nearly three weeks in a Pretoria hospital in December for
treatment of a lung infection and surgery to remove gallstones, his
longest stay for medical care since his release from prison in 1990.

"Madiba's recovery continues on track," presidency spokesman Mac
Maharaj said referring to Mandela by his clan name.

"We are now in the phase where if we do not hear from his
doctors, we assume he is all right," he said, without giving details
on Mandela's condition.

Mandela has been receiving what the government calls "home-based high
care" at his residence in an upscale Johannesburg neighborhood.

Mandela became South Africa's first black president after
the first all-race elections in 1994, serving a five-year term.

He has been mostly absent from the political scene for the past
several years due to poor health, while questions have been raised as
to whether his ruling African National Congress (ANC) has lost the
moral compass he left behind.

Under such leaders as Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver
Tambo, the ANC gained a stellar global reputation. Once the yoke of
apartheid was thrown off, it began ruling South Africa in a blaze of
goodwill from world leaders who viewed it as a beacon for a troubled
continent and world.

Close to two decades later, this image has dimmed as critics inside
and outside the country, and in the movement itself, accuse ANC
leaders of indulging in the spoils of office, squandering mineral
resources and engaging in power struggles.

Mandela's "Rainbow Nation" of reconciliation has come
under strain under President Jacob Zuma, a Zulu traditionalist with a
history of racially charged comments, including a statement in
December where he reportedly said dog ownership was for whites and not
part of African culture.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mandela has a history of lung problems
dating back to when he contracted tuberculosis as a political
prisoner.

He spent 27 years in prison, including 18 years on the windswept
Robben Island off Cape Town.

Mandela was also admitted to hospital in February because
of abdominal pain but released the following day after a keyhole
examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with him.

He has spent most of his time since then in another home in Qunu, his
ancestral village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province.

His poor health has prevented him from making public appearances in
the past two years, although he has continued to receive high-profile
visitors, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton.



Mozambique immigration officials process over 36,000 festive season tourists

APA

Wednesday January 2



Maputo-The immigration department had anticipated a massive influx of
tourists amounting to over 400, 000 as witnessed on Christmas Eve, An
official told APA.

“We had deployed a backup staff as our response to the
anticipated influx of holiday makers passing through and we set up
mobile branches along the highway to reduce traffic jam and waiting
time,” head of the Ressano Garcia boarder post Lazaro Mariano said in
an exclusive interview.

Mariano said they had tripled the number of agents on duty as part of
a strategic bid to fast track the clearest processing assuming that
some African football fans may decide to arrive in South Africa early
for the continent’s most prestigious soccer extravaganza, the Africa
Cup of Nations finals due to commence in a fortnight.

“We are happy with our performance, people had little
stoppage time here and the joint inter-sectoral force is in full swing
to make life for the travelling family convoys whom we assume are
tired after extensively exploring our tourism wonderland”, Mariano
said.

The joint inter-sectoral force consisted of the police, immigration,
customs and border guards and was operating under the code name
OPERACAO KARIBO.

The Ressno Garcia border post is situated some 92kms south-west
of the capital Maputo.

It is the key surface link between Mozambique and South Africa and is
the second largest border post in Southern Africa after Beitbridge
which connects South Africa and Zimbabwe.



Angola stampede toll rises to 16

AFP

Wednesday January 2



Lisbon-The death toll from a New Year's Eve stampede during a
religious vigil at an overcrowded stadium in the Angolan capital
Luanda has risen to 16, state-owned daily newspaper Jornal de Angola
said on Wednesday.

State news agency Angop said on Tuesday that 10 people had
been crushed to death and 120 injured at the gates of the Cidadela
Desportiva stadium, where the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God
(IURD) organised a Pentecostal Christian vigil.

The death toll has now risen to 16, including three small children, an
emergency services spokeswoman told the newspaper.

Angop cited Paulo de Almeida, the deputy leader of the
Angolan police, as saying appropriate security measures for the vigil
had been put in place but attendance exceeded estimates.

He said that around 150 000 people tried to attend the event at a
stadium that has capacity for 50 000.

A IURD official earlier told Angop the church had expected
an attendance of around 70 000.

IURD was created in 1977 in Brazil, where it has over 8 million
followers, according to its website. IURD says it is present in most
countries of the world.



Mauritania bans plastic bag use

BBC News

Wednesday January 2



Nouakchott-Mauritania has banned the use of plastic bags to protect
the environment and the lives of animals and fish.

More than 70% of cattle and sheep who die in the capital,
Nouakchott, are killed by eating plastic bags, environment ministry
official Mohamed Yahya told BBC Afrique.

Plastic bag manufacturers could be jailed for up to a year.

Plastic makes up a quarter of 56,000 tonnes of waste
produced annually in Nouakchott, official statistics show.

Mauritania's Organization of Consumer Protection head Moctar Ould Tauf
said he welcomed the ban, Efe news agency reports.

It was of "particular importance" given the negative
impact of plastic bags on the environment, animals and marine species,
he said.

Environment Minister Amedi Camara said that nearly all of the plastic
package waste is not "collected and is found in the natural
environment - land and sea - where they are sometimes ingested by
marine species and livestock, causing their death".

The government, local non-governmental organisations and
the UN Programme for Development (UNDP) have been promoting the use of
new biodegradable bags, the Mauritanian Information Agency reports.

Anyone using, manufacturing or importing plastic bags could be fined
or sentenced to a year in prison, Mr Camara said.

Several African countries, including Rwanda, have already banned
the use of plastic bags.



Gambian leader says to build herbal AIDS-cure hospital

Reuters

Wednesday January 2



Banjul-AIDS patients would be offered an herbal cure at a 1,111-bed
hospital in Gambia that the president said on Tuesday he plans to
build despite medical concerns the treatment is dangerous.

President Yahya Jammeh said in 2007 he had found a remedy
of boiled herbs to cure AIDS, stirring anger among Western medical
experts who claimed he was giving false hope to the sick.

"With this project coming to fruition, we intend to treat 10,000
HIV/AIDS patients every six months through natural medicine," Jammeh
said in his New Year's address, adding that he expected the 1,111-bed
hospital to open in 2015.

The World Health Organisation and the United Nations have
said Jammeh's HIV/AIDS treatment is alarming mainly because patients
are required to cease their anti-retroviral drugs, making them more
prone to infection.

Jammeh said in October that 68 HIV/AIDS patients undergoing his herbal
remedy had been cured and discharged, the seventh batch since the
treatments began five years ago.

Other African leaders have drawn criticism for extolling
the power of natural remedies to combat AIDS.

The administration of former South African President Thabo Mbeki was
ridiculed for denying there was a link between HIV and AIDS while
prescribing meaningless treatments such as beet root instead of
internationally proven medicines.

The HIV rate in Gambia is relatively low compared to other
African states, with 2 percent of the country's roughly 1.8 million
people infected, according to the United Nations.

Jammeh came to power in Gambia, a sliver of land on Africa's west
coast that is popular with sun-seeking European tourists, in a
bloodless military coup in 1994.

He is accused by activists of human rights abuses during his
rule, and most recently drew international criticism for executing
nine death-row inmates by firing squad.



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