Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Afghan woman killed, apparently for bearing girl

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 file photo, an Afghan woman, center, peeks inside a hospital while she and others wait for an employee to let them enter, on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. An Afghan woman has been strangled to death, apparently by her husband, who was upset that she gave birth to a second daughter rather than the son he wanted, police said Monday. It was the latest in a series of grisly examples of subjugation of women that have made headlines in Afghanistan in the past few months including a 15-year-old tortured and forced into prostitution by in-laws and a female rape victim who was imprisoned for adultery. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 file photo, an Afghan woman, center, peeks inside a hospital while she and others wait for an employee to let them enter, on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. An Afghan woman has been strangled to death, apparently by her husband, who was upset that she gave birth to a second daughter rather than the son he wanted, police said Monday. It was the latest in a series of grisly examples of subjugation of women that have made headlines in Afghanistan in the past few months including a 15-year-old tortured and forced into prostitution by in-laws and a female rape victim who was imprisoned for adultery. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File)

FILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011 file photo, an Afghan woman carries her sick child to the emergency room at Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan. An Afghan woman has been strangled to death, apparently by her husband, who was upset that she gave birth to a second daughter rather than the son he wanted, police said Monday. It was the latest in a series of grisly examples of subjugation of women that have made headlines in Afghanistan in the past few months including a 15-year-old tortured and forced into prostitution by in-laws and a female rape victim who was imprisoned for adultery. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File)

FILE - In this Thursday, March 8, 2007 file photo, Afghan women look at photographs on display during a fair organized by United Nation Assistance Mission in Afghanistan to mark Women's Day at a women's park in Kabul, Afghanistan. An Afghan woman has been strangled to death, apparently by her husband, who was upset that she gave birth to a second daughter rather than the son he wanted, police said Monday. It was the latest in a series of grisly examples of subjugation of women that have made headlines in Afghanistan in the past few months including a 15-year-old tortured and forced into prostitution by in-laws and a female rape victim who was imprisoned for adultery. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)

(AP) ? An Afghan woman has been strangled to death, apparently by her husband, who was upset that she gave birth to a second daughter rather than the son he wanted, police said Monday.

It was the latest in a series of grisly examples of subjugation of women that have made headlines in Afghanistan in the past few months ? including a 15-year-old tortured and forced into prostitution by in-laws and a female rape victim who was imprisoned for adultery.

The episodes have raised the question of what will happen to the push for women's rights in Afghanistan as the international presence here shrinks along with the military drawdown. NATO forces are scheduled to pull out by the end of 2014.

In the 10 years since the ouster of the Taliban, great strides have been made for women in Afghanistan, with many attending school, working in offices and even sometimes marching in protests. But abuse and repression of women are still common, particularly in rural areas where women are still unlikely to set foot outside of the house without a burqa robe that covers them from head to toe.

The man in the latest case, Sher Mohammad, fled the Khanabad district in Kunduz province last week, about the time a neighbor found his 22-year-old wife dead in their house, said District Police Chief Sufi Habibullah. Medical examiners whom police brought to check the body said she had been strangled, Habibullah said.

The woman, named Estorai, had warned family members that her husband had repeatedly reproached her for giving birth to a daughter rather than a son and had threatened to kill her if it happened again, said Provincial women's affairs chief Nadira Ghya, who traveled to Khanabad to deal with the case. Estorai gave birth to her second daughter between two and three months ago, Ghya said. Officials did not have a family name for either Sher Mohammad or Estorai.

Police took the man's mother into custody because she appears to have collaborated in a plot to kill her daughter-in-law, Habibullah said. Ghya, who visited the man's mother in jail, said that she swears that Estorai committed suicide by hanging. Police said they found no rope and no evidence of hanging from the woman's wounds.

Boy babies are traditionally prized much more highly than girls in Afghanistan, where a son means a breadwinner and a daughter is seen as a drain on the family until she is married off. Even so, a murder over the gender of a baby would be rare and shocking if proved true.

The U.S. Embassy issued a statement Monday praising the Afghan government for recent declarations supporting women's rights in the wake of the latest abuse cases that have garnered media attention.

"The rights of women cannot be relegated to the margins of international affairs, as this issue is at the core of our national security and the security of people everywhere," the statement said. It did not address the killing of the young woman in Kunduz.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-30-AS-Afghanistan/id-9ed9aa939f88461c869074e74cfc937d

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Investing Strategy: Covered Call ? Information You Must Know ...

Many experts believed that it is important to invest you extra cash properly and securely. Let your hard earned dollars work for you to be able to enjoy life to the fullest. But when individuals get the chance to invest, many people turn this offer down since they are not fully aware if all their time and efforts will be worth it. Not everyone knows how powerful investments are and how to run and keep their money well. Experts also believed that investing and trying different kinds of investment is important and worth all the risk. Covered call is one of the many investment that you can get into.

Hearing covered call for the very first time really lets you?re thinking that of direct calls to and from the US or other countries. Well, this is not your ordinary telephones or all about making phone calls. Covered calls are one of the investment strategies that experts do. You won?t have the opportunity to make big quick cash in just a quick period of time. This investment has an income oriented approach that ensures your money will rise and increase slowly.

Things you may need when talking about writing covered calls?

The very first thing that you need is to have a brokerage account. The next thing which are required to have is a permission so that you can writing covered calls. There are accounts that automatically permits you to write and sell calls while there are some accounts that requires you to fill out forms first for formality purposes. You also have to own more than 100 stock shares or enough money to buy 100 shares. The last thing that you need is to have portfolio monitoring service and a great quality of trade selection as well.

You also need to get acquainted with terms like short and long prior to start investing. Long in this kind of investment means that you bought a specific share and you are entitled to receive some profit if the worth rises. Short in the other hand is to sell some shares that you didn?t own. Investors would short a share if they predict that the share will decrease and depreciate in value. The investors will then buy that particular share back for a lesser price. This is where investors make it big in this kind of investment.

For a covered calls investing, you get two options which are calls and puts. Call option is when the owner of the share decides to sell it and the buyer has the right to request the price which is called a strike price before the share will expire. This type of investment is just as risky as with any other investment there is. Before you go into this kind of investment, one must always know the risk and to know everything.

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Source: http://www.aashenyangcongress.com/uncategorized/investing-strategy-covered-call-information-you-must-know

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Real Numbers (TIME)

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'Beasts of the Southern Wild' wins at Sundance

Director Benh Zeitlin, left, holds up actress Quvenzhane Wallis as they accept the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic award for the film "Beasts of the Southern Wild" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony in Park City, Utah on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Director Benh Zeitlin, left, holds up actress Quvenzhane Wallis as they accept the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic award for the film "Beasts of the Southern Wild" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony in Park City, Utah on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Director Benh Zeitlin, left, and actress Quvenzhane Wallis, right, pose with the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic award for the film "Beasts of the Southern Wild" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony in Park City, Utah on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Director Eugene Jarecki, right, puts his hand on the pregnant belly of producer Melinda Shopsin, left, as they accept the Grand Jury Prize U.S. Documentary during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony in Park City, Utah on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Actress Quvenzhane Wallis poses with the Grand Jury Prize U.S. Dramatic award for the film "Beasts of the Southern Wild" during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony in Park City, Utah on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

Actress Quvenzhane Wallis poses for a photo after the film that she stars in, "Beasts of the Southern Wild," won the Grand Jury Prize U.S. Dramatic during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony in Park City, Utah on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

(AP) ? A mythical film starring an 8-year-old girl and a documentary about the war on drugs took top honors at the Sundance Film Festival.

"Beasts of the Southern Wild" won the grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic competition, and "The House I Live In" won the same honor in the U.S. documentary category Saturday at the independent film festival's awards ceremony.

Directed and co-written by 29-year-old first-time filmmaker Benh Zeitlin, "Beasts of the Southern Wild" follows a girl named Hushpuppy who lives with her father in the southern Delta. The film also won the cinematography prize.

Zeitlin said he was grateful to the Sundance Institute and labs, where he worked on the film for more than three years.

"This project was such a runt, this sort of messy-hair, dirty, wild child, and we just have been taken care of and just eased along until we were ready to stand up on our own," he said in an interview after the ceremony. "It's just great that it happened here. This is the right place for the world to meet the film."

Zeitlin described his spunky young star, Quvenzhane Wallis, as "the biggest person I know." She said she is ready to be a movie star, but first will be going back to third grade.

Fox Searchlight acquired the film earlier this week.

Eugene Jarecki's documentary "The House I Live In" examines the social, human and financial costs of the war on drugs. The filmmaker won the same award in 2005 for his documentary "Why We Fight."

As he accepted his award, Jarecki called the war on drugs "tragically immoral, heartbreakingly wrong and misguided."

"If we're going to reform things in this country, putting people in jail for nonviolent crime, in many cases for life without parole, for possession of a drug, for sentences longer than is now given for murder in this country, must end," he said.

Kirby Dick's documentary about rape in the military, "The Invisible War," won the audience award, as did Ben Lewin's heartfelt drama "The Surrogate," which stars John Hawkes as a paralyzed 38-year-old man who hires a sex surrogate, played by Helen Hunt, to help him lose his virginity. Fox Searchlight acquired that film, too.

"I don't think most people have ever seen this sort of story before," Lewin said after the ceremony. "I think it was very new and unexpected... From the experiences I've had seeing it with an audience, it seems to be a real emotional ride."

"The Surrogate" also won a special jury prize for its ensemble cast.

World cinema jury prizes went to the documentary "The Law in These Parts," about Israel's legal system in occupied Palestinian territories, and the drama "Violeta Went to Heaven," about Chilean musician Violeta Parra.

The audience favorites in world cinema were the documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," which also won a special jury award, and the drama "Valley of the Saints," which also claimed the Alfred P. Sloan film prize. A second winner of the Sloan Award, which recognizes films with science as a theme or a scientist as a major character, was "Robot and Frank." The film, which premiered at Sundance, stars Frank Langella as a retired jewel thief who befriends the caretaker robot his children have given him, eventually bringing the robot along on his illegal outings.

Other winners:

? U.S. drama directing award: Ava DuVernay, "Middle of Nowhere."

? U.S. documentary directing award: Lauren Greenfield, "The Queen of Versailles."

? World cinema drama directing award: Mads Matthiesen, "Teddy Bear."

? World cinema documentary directing award: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, "5 Broken Cameras."

? U.S. drama screenwriting award: Derek Connolly, "Safety Not Guaranteed."

? World cinema screenwriting award: Marialy Rivas, Camila Gutierrez, Pedro Peirano, Sebastian Sepulveda, "Young & Wild."

? U.S. documentary editing award: Enat Sidi, "Detropia."

? World cinema editing award: Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky, "Indie Game: The Movie."

? U.S. documentary cinematography award: Jeff Orlowski, "Chasing Ice."

? World cinema drama cinematography award: David Raedeker, "My Brother the Devil."

? World cinema documentary cinematography award: Lars Skree, "Putin's Kiss."

? U.S. drama special jury prize for producing: Andrea Sperling and Jonathan Schwartz, "Smashed" and "Nobody Walks."

? U.S. documentary special jury prizes: "Love Free or Die," ''Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry."

? World cinema drama special jury prize: "Can."

? Short film audience award: "The Debutante Hunters."

? Best of NEXT audience award: "Sleepwalk With Me."

___

Follow Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen at www.twitter.com/APSandy .

___

Online:

http://www.sundance.org/festival/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-29-Film-Sundance-Awards/id-4c73ff1ecd994f7a8c4869785c919c71

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Sunday, January 29, 2012

Romney and Gingrich stay focused on Florida (AP)

The two leading candidates in Florida's Republican primary, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, are staying focused on voters with events around the state this weekend.

On Saturday, Romney has events planned in Pensacola and Panama City. Gingrich will be in Stuart, Port St. Lucie, Brooksville, Orlando, Winter Park and West Palm Beach.

Far away from Florida, Ron Paul is hosting a town hall Saturday morning at the University of Southern Maine, in Gorham, and similar events later in the day in the Maine towns of Freeport and Alfred.

Rick Santorum left Florida for a quick trip to Pennsylvania and plans to host a fundraiser Saturday night in Washington, D.C.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Will Reporters Be This Craven? (talking-points-memo)

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Video: Viewers face off in pot-pie challenge

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World stocks slide as US growth data disappoint (AP)

LONDON ? World stocks turned lower on Friday after official data showed the U.S. economic recovery was not as fast as many had hoped.

The Commerce Department said that the U.S. economy, the world's largest, grew at a modest 2.8 percent in the final three months of last year. While that is the fastest growth in 2011, economists had expected growth of 3 percent.

A cut in government spending was offset partly by a rise in inventories, which are expected to slow back down in the early months of 2012, hurting growth. After that, "growth will pick up again by late spring," said Harm Bandholz, chief U.S. economist at UniCredit Bank.

With the data suggesting the U.S. recovery would continue to be a slow process, investors sold off stocks to cash in on gains made so far this month.

Britain's FTSE 100 was down 1.0 percent to 5,735.64 while Germany's DAX fell 0.5 percent at 6,508.98 and France's CAC-40 lost 1.2 percent to 3,322.46. The euro was up 0.3 percent at $1.3142.

Wall Street edged lower on the open ? the Dow Jones industrial average fell 44 points to 12,691 and the S&P 500 3 points to 1,315.

Other economic and corporate news released Friday contributed to sour market sentiment.

Consumer products maker Procter & Gamble Co. cut its earnings outlook and Ford Motor Co. fell short of Wall Street expectations, while Japanese games and electronics companies Nintendo and NEC issued profit warnings.

In Europe, traders digested grim statistics from Spain showing more than 5 million people without jobs. The National Statistics Institute said the jobless rate shot up from 21.5 percent ? already the highest in the eurozone ? to 22.8 percent in the fourth quarter.

Attention was also focused on the resumption of talks to reach a deal on how Greece can avoid a catastrophic default on its debt. Greece and its bailout rescuers ? other countries that use the euro and the International Monetary Fund ? are asking private creditors to swap their Greek bonds for new ones with a lower value, interest rate and much longer maturity.

The two sides have so far disagreed over what interest rate the new bonds should take. Some negotiators have said they hope to have a deal this weekend, in time for a European leaders' meeting on Monday.

While investors appear to expect a deal at some point ? the euro was up and eurozone borrowing rates were down, suggesting a steady increase in confidence ? some worried that the crisis was far from over.

Portugal's markets have worsened in recent days on fears that its austerity efforts will not be enough to achieve its deficit-reduction targets and that it may end up like Greece, needing a second bailout effort and possibly a debt writedown.

Getting economies like Portugal to grow is fast becoming a priority and is expected to be one of the main topics of discussion at the European leaders' summit in Brussels on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Asian markets showed little momentum ahead of the weekend.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 0.1 percent to close at 8,841.22 while South Korea's Kospi rose 0.4 percent to 1,964.83. Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.3 percent to 20,501.67 and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.4 percent to 4,288.40.

Japanese exporters continued to be hit by a strong yen, which reduces the value of repatriated profits. The dollar fell to 76.81 yen from 77.49 yen.

Nintendo Corp., the Japanese gaming giant behind the Super Mario and Pokemon games, plummeted 4.1 percent, a day after it lowered its annual earnings forecast to a 65 billion yen ($844 million) loss. The company blamed the strong yen for much of the loss.

Japanese electronics company NEC Corp. plummeted 7.1 percent after announcing Thursday that it was slashing 10,000 jobs worldwide and would slide into the red for the full year.

Benchmark oil for March delivery was down 20 cents at $99.50 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 30 cents to finish at $99.70 per barrel on the Nymex on Thursday.

___

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

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Friday, January 27, 2012

Ex-psychologist pleads no contest to rape hoax (AP)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. ? A former California prison psychologist accused of staging a home invasion and sexual assault pleaded no contest to a felony conspiracy charge.

Prosecutors say Laurie Ann Martinez, 36, of Sacramento committed the elaborate hoax to convince her husband that they need to move to a better neighborhood.

In Sacramento County Superior Court on Wednesday, Martinez was sentenced to five years of probation and 180 days of electronic monitoring. She was also ordered to pay more than $4,000 in restitution for the police investigation.

Martinez made a frantic 911 call last April after she created a scene in her Sacramento home that appeared as if someone ransacked the place and attacked her. She split her own lip and had a friend, 33-year-old Nicole Snyder, wear boxing gloves to punch her in the face, police said.

According to the criminal complaint, Martinez rubbed sandpaper on her knuckles, ripped her blouse off to expose her top, dropped her pants to the ankles and "urinated on herself to make officers believe she had lost consciousness," The Sacramento Bee ( http://bit.ly/wI84Lg) reported.

The two women also removed two laptop computers, credit cards, a video game console, purse and camera from Martinez's home and hid them at Snyder's place, according to the complaint.

Snyder, who cooperated with the investigation, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation. She was also ordered to do community service and pay the same restitution fee.

Prosecutors called Martinez's behavior outrageous, saying it undermined the interests of true sexual assault victims.

"Law enforcement is not a toy to be casually utilized by people to further their own personal agenda," said Deputy District Attorney Chris Carlson.

Martinez's attorney, Michelle Spaulding, said her client is "glad this is over and she would like to get her life back together."

Martinez has since lost her psychologist license and was fired from the Sacramento state prison in December.

Online court records show her husband filed for divorce a month after she filed the false report, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_us/us_fake_rape

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Insight: How Allen Stanford kept the SEC at bay (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? In 2009, federal investigators finally arrested Houston financier R. Allen Stanford. For twenty years, Stanford allegedly had run a $7 billion Ponzi scheme from his offshore bank on the Caribbean island of Antigua. U.S. authorities had been nosing around Stanford's empire for longer than a decade but hesitated to open a full-blown probe.

As Stanford's trial began this week, one question left unanswered was: How did he keep authorities at bay for so long? A Reuters examination of his case finds that the answer lay in part in the legal advice he obtained from former SEC officials and other ex-regulators and law-enforcement officials.

Among those Stanford sought help from was famed securities lawyer Thomas Sjoblom. Then a partner at the international law firm of Proskauer Rose and chair of its securities practice, Sjoblom also was a former 20-year veteran of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division.

What Sjoblom allegedly did next for Stanford has drawn the scrutiny of federal prosecutors. The Justice Department has been investigating Sjoblom for possible obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and conspiracy related to his efforts to persuade the SEC to stand down from its investigation of Stanford, according to people familiar with the probe.

Sjoblom is one of the most senior attorneys ever to be investigated for allegedly crossing the line from legal advocacy on behalf of a client to violating the law. He hasn't been charged, however, and it is possible he never will be.

Stanford went on trial on Monday in federal court in Houston on charges that he defrauded more than 30,000 investors from more than 113 countries, and also obstructed the SEC's investigation of him. Only Bernard Madoff is alleged to have stolen more. Stanford has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors are likely, in making the obstruction portion of their case against Stanford, to detail Sjoblom's alleged role in assisting Stanford in that effort. Attorneys began their opening arguments on Tuesday.

IMMUNITY SOUGHT, AND REJECTED

People with first-hand knowledge of the matter say that Sjoblom had offered the Justice Department his testimony against Stanford in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution for himself - an offer rejected by the Justice Department. Prosecutors demanded a formal acknowledgment by Sjoblom of his own alleged criminal participation in an attempt by Stanford to derail investigations by the SEC, according to people involved in the discussions.

Sjoblom declined to answer questions when reached by telephone as well as inquiries submitted to him by email.

Ordinarily, attorneys are precluded from being witnesses against former clients because of the attorney-client privilege.

But under a legal doctrine known as the crime-fraud exception, an attorney can tell what he knows if his client has sought advice that would abet the commission of that fraud or some other criminal act - or in rare instances, if the attorney himself aided a crime. The crime or fraud disclosed or discussed must also then occur for the attorney to be able to testify. If Sjoblom had testified against Stanford, he would have been one of the most prominent attorneys to turn against such a client.

THE STANFORD EIGHT

The trials could cast light on the broader mystery of how the alleged Stanford fraud could have gone on so long even though federal regulators were examining the Texas financier for years. The case has put the SEC and other federal agencies in an embarrassing light, creating fresh fodder for critics of the revolving door between government and the private sector.

Stanford, Reuters has found, paid at least eight former senior U.S. and foreign regulators and law-enforcement officials for legal advice or investigative services.

Among the former government figures who worked for Stanford is Spencer C. Barasch, who headed the enforcement division of the SEC's office in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Barasch agreed this month to pay a $50,000 fine for allegedly violating federal ethics laws by representing Stanford after overseeing regulation of Stanford's U.S. brokerage businesses. It is illegal for many former federal regulators, including those at the SEC, to represent private clients if they have "personally and substantially" participated in any matters related to those clients during the course of their government employment.

Examiners at the SEC had suspected as early as 1997 that Stanford was engaged in a Ponzi scheme and felt the SEC should investigate. But year after year, until 2005, their warnings and calls for investigation were ignored by higher-ups.

A FRIEND IN FT. WORTH

In January 2009, the SEC was seeking the sworn testimony of both Stanford and James Davis, the chief financial officer for Stanford International Bank. Davis, Stanford's top deputy, has since pled guilty to securities-fraud and mail-fraud charges and has become a government witness against Stanford and others.

Stanford sought to delay and wear down regulators and investigators, Davis and other witnesses told the government, according to a 2009 plea agreement between Davis and federal prosecutors filed in federal court in Houston.

In 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004, and 2005, according to internal agency records seen by Reuters, examiners for the SEC recommended that the agency investigate Stanford. In three of those instances, Barasch, at the time an SEC official in Ft. Worth, personally overruled the examiners' recommendations, according to those records. Those decisions helped the Ponzi scheme to continue unabated for several additional years, costing investors additional billions of dollars, according to a report by the SEC's Inspector General.

Barasch told the SEC Inspector General that he made those decisions because he was not sure the SEC had the statutory authority or jurisdiction to investigate. He blamed his superiors and a broader culture within the SEC for pressuring the staff not to pursue complex and difficult cases, according to the Inspector General report.

In his final days at the SEC in 2005, Barasch overruled examiners one last time on a request to investigate Stanford, according to the Inspector General report and interviews with SEC officials. The SEC's formal investigation of Stanford began exactly one day after Barasch left the agency.

Barasch referred questions to his lawyer; his attorney didn't respond to requests for comment.

'I HATED BEING ON THE SIDELINES'

Barasch was told at the time by an SEC ethics officer that he was legally precluded from representing Stanford. Barasch went to work for Stanford anyway. In a later investigation of the failure to catch Stanford earlier, the SEC Inspector General asked Barasch why he did so. His reply, according to the Inspector General's report: "Every lawyer in Texas and beyond is going to get rich over this case. Okay? And I hated being on the sidelines."

FBI agents and prosecutors also uncovered evidence that on at least two occasions Barasch sought confidential information regarding the SEC's probe of Stanford during his brief representation of the banker, Justice Department officials said in court records and a press release.

In agreeing to pay the fine, Barasch denied any misconduct, settling the matter "to avoid the expense and uncertainty of protracted litigation," his attorney, Paul Coggins said.

In a related action, the commissioners of the SEC rejected a settlement negotiated between Barasch and SEC staff under which Barasch would have agreed to an order barring him from practicing before the agency for six months. The commissioners rejected the proposed settlement as too lenient, to send a message that its former staff should abide by its rules and federal laws regarding the revolving door.

'REVOLVING DOOR'

"This misconduct highlights the dangers of a 'revolving door' environment between the SEC and the private securities law bar," outgoing SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz said in statement about the Barasch case.

The Justice Department's agreement with Barasch was reported by Reuters earlier this month. The SEC, which has the authority to bar professionals from practicing before the agency, has not announced any disciplinary action.

The SEC is also preparing a separate civil case against another former regulator, Bernerd Young, who worked as a compliance officer for Stanford's bank, said a person familiar with the matter. Before he worked for Stanford, from 1999 to 2003, Young was a district director of the Dallas office of the National Association of Securities Dealers, which was then the brokerage industry's self-regulator. Regulation of the industry has since been taken on by a successor agency, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Young was notified by the SEC staff last June that they were preparing a civil complaint against him for securities-law and other violations and seeking a lifetime ban on his employment in the securities industry, according to a person who reviewed the SEC's notification to Young. Young hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing.

In November 2007, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority charged that Stanford had used "misleading, unfair and unbalanced information" and fined him $10,000, but with no admission of guilt. Young was central to decisions by the NASD not to take tougher action against Stanford, according to government officials involved in the matter.

Randle Henderson, an attorney for Young, said Young had "done absolutely nothing wrong" and that he and Young had been cooperating with SEC investigators. If an enforcement action was brought, Henderson said, he and his client would engaged in a "full and complete and aggressive defense" of the allegations.

THE AIRCRAFT HANGAR SESSION

Sjoblom began work for Stanford as early as 2005, as the SEC began a formal investigation. Barasch began representing Stanford in September 2006.

Barasch's successor at the SEC had reversed course and given a green light for the SEC to investigate. Stanford believed that hiring former SEC officials was the best course to thwart the agency, according to emails written by Stanford to subordinates and later cited by the SEC's Inspector General.

Barasch worked on the case until December 2006, dropping out after SEC ethics officers warned him that any further involvement would violate a federal law.

On January 21, 2009, Stanford, his deputy Davis and other senior executives of the Stanford International Bank met Sjoblom in an aircraft hangar in Miami, Florida, to devise a strategy for fending off the SEC, according to the Davis plea agreement entered in Houston federal court.

Stanford, a bulky man with a thick mustache, paced nervously in the aircraft hangar, according to an account one of the attendees gave to federal investigators. In contrast, Sjoblom appeared calm and collected as they discussed their next move, the attendee told federal investigators.

The group allegedly agreed on a strategy: Sjoblom would go to the SEC and tell officials that both Stanford and Davis knew very little about the business they ran. Instead, he would tell them, two other, lower-ranking executives of the Stanford International Bank understood much better how the bank invested customers' money. He would then propose that they testify in place of Stanford and Davis, according to the plea filed in federal court in Houston.

SJOBLOM'S STRATEGY

Sjoblom knew that these assertions were false, and was also by then aware that Stanford had engaged in a massive financial fraud, according to the Davis plea. Still, Sjoblom moved forward with the effort to obstruct the SEC investigation, the Justice Department alleged in the Davis plea.

Early the next morning, on Jan 22, 2009, Sjoblom met in Houston with attorneys for the SEC, according to the Davis plea. There, Sjoblom told the SEC staff that Stanford and Davis did not "micro-manage" clients' portfolios. Taking Sjoblom's word, the SEC agreed to delay the testimony of Stanford and Davis, according to the plea filed in Houston federal court.

The Justice Department has since alleged that Sjoblom's actions constituted an obstruction of their investigation. Based in part on information given them by Davis, federal prosecutors alleged that Sjoblom continued trying to prevent the SEC from learning the truth even after Sjoblom learned about Stanford's massive fraud.

After convincing the SEC to forego Stanford's and Davis's testimony, Sjoblom allegedly helped prepare Laura Pendergest-Holt, Stanford International's chief investment officer, to testify in their absence, according to the Davis plea and an indictment against Pendergest-Holt in federal court in Houston.

Prosecutors allege that in reality, Stanford and Davis were the only two Stanford executives intimately familiar with the finances of the company. Pendergest-Holt only learned the full extent of the fraud around the same time that Sjoblom did, when the two were preparing her to testify before the SEC, federal prosecutors assert. Pendergest-Holt and Sjoblom learned then that the firm was insolvent and most of its financial claims fictional, prosecutors allege in the Pendergest-Holt indictment and the Davis plea.

On February 5, Stanford admitted to Davis and Sjoblom that his bank's "assets and financial health had been misrepresented to investors, and were overstated," according to Davis's plea agreement with prosecutors.

$4 MILLION MORE?

Instead of dropping Stanford as a client and setting the record straight with the SEC, Sjoblom went back to Davis and Stanford with an offer, Davis told the FBI, according to a person familiar with the case. Sjoblom told the pair that they both faced serious criminal jeopardy and asked each to pay him a retainer of $2 million to represent them personally, for a total of $4 million, this person said. That money would have been in addition to what Stanford's firm had already paid Sjoblom's firm. It is not clear whether the additional money was paid.

On February 10, Pendergest-Holt gave testimony to SEC officials. That morning, Davis admitted in his guilty plea, he phoned Pendergest-Holt and encouraged her to lie to "continue to obstruct the SEC investigation," according to the Davis plea agreement.

During her testimony, Pendergest-Holt said she knew little about the assets the SEC wanted to know about. All during her testimony, Sjoblom sat at her side, as five attorneys from the SEC's enforcement division fired away questions.

A federal grand jury later indicted her on obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges related to her allegedly false testimony. She is currently awaiting trial. Her lawyer declined to comment.

The indictment of Pendergest-Holt also implicated Sjoblom. "Holt, Attorney A and others would make false and misleading statements to the SEC staff attorneys in order to persuade them to delay" Stanford's testimony while Pendergest-Holt would "provide false testimony," the indictment alleged.

Days after Pendergest-Holt's testimony, on February 14, Sjoblom resigned as a lawyer for Stanford and wrote to the SEC: "I disaffirm all prior oral and written representations made by me and my associates to the SEC staff."

Federal prosecutors are looking to Pendergest-Holt to see if she corroborates Davis' testimony regarding Sjoblom, and will then decide whether to charge Sjoblom, according to sources close to the case. (editing by Martin Howell and Michael Williams)

(Reporting By Murray Waas)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/bs_nm/us_sec_stanford

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Benefits of a Prepaid Wireless Plan (ContributorNetwork)

Today's prepaid wireless carriers like Virgin Mobile and MetroPCS don't offer the iPhone. But they do sell fully-capable Android smartphones, along with an array of traditional featurephones. And they don't just offer pay-as-you-go minutes; they offer a la carte data and messaging plans, and some even offer unlimited plans.

What is a prepaid plan?

With most smartphone (and featurephone) plans, you sign a two-year contract with a major wireless carrier, like Sprint or T-Mobile. That includes a monthly fee which gives you a certain number of minutes and things, extra fees if you go over, and an Early Termination Fee if you decide that you want to switch before the end of your contract.

In exchange, you get to use your phone on one of the bigger nationwide networks for less than you would on a traditional contracted plan.

With prepaid, you pay the full cost of your smartphone up front and it's yours, no questions asked. After that, you pay the cost of your chosen plan each month, and if you don't like it you can just stop service without paying any extra fees. You aren't locked in.

What are the cost advantages if you have to pay up front?

It's true that you pay a bit more for your smartphone up front, on a prepaid plan. The LG Optimus S that I got was selling for $199, which is the subsidized cost of an iPhone 4S. This phone was more like a generic-brand iPhone 3GS, the model from 2009.

The thing is, this can save you money in the long run. Some prepaid carriers offer unlimited everything for much less than the major networks, as long as you're within their areas of coverage (which tend to include all big cities). Others, like AT&T GoPhone, let you choose how much you want to pay. I personally got burned by underestimating my own usage, but in the end the amount that I needed was still a lot more affordable than a normal AT&T plan would've been.

Who are prepaid plans not a good choice for?

Let's put it this way. If your heart skipped a beat at the sight of an "unlimited everything for $79" commercial, you probably don't want a prepaid wireless plan. Or, if you're one of the lucky few who was grandfathered in on one of AT&T or Verizon's old unlimited plans, there's no way it's in your financial best interests to switch.

Who are prepaid plans the right choice for?

People who can live without the latest smartphones, who are able to cover the cost of a smartphone up front, who live in a prepaid network's coverage area (some actually use Sprint's nationwide network), and who know how many minutes and megabytes they use on average per month are the ideal consumers for prepaid plans.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120125/tc_ac/10876293_benefits_of_a_prepaid_wireless_plan

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A Step Forward and a Step Back for Same Sex Marriage (ABC News)

Share With Friends: Share on FacebookTweet ThisPost to Google-BuzzSend on GmailPost to Linked-InSubscribe to This Feed | Rss To Twitter | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/191469101?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Jay Leno Sued Over Religious Joke (omg!)

Jay Leno Sued Over Religious Joke

ET has learned that Jay Leno is being sued by an upset Sikh follower due to a joke the late night host made.

According to court documents, Dr. Randeep Dhillon filed a libel lawsuit against The Tonight Show host for his comedic portrayal of India's Golden Temple of Amritsar as Mitt Romney's summer home. In the papers, Dr. Dhillon said Leno's joke falsely portrayed the holiest place in the Sikh religion as a vacation resort owned by a non-Sikh, which resulted in loss to his reputation, shame, mortification and hurt feelings.

Dhillon is suing for general and punitive damages over the broadcast that he feels was "published with oppression, fraud and malice."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_jay_leno_sued_over_religious_joke031000543/44294634/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/jay-leno-sued-over-religious-joke-031000543.html

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Should the West just let Iran enrich uranium? (The Week)

New York ? The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allows countries to enrich uranium if they agree to rigorous monitoring. Should that standard apply to Iran, too?

Tensions are rising over Iran's uranium enrichment program, which the U.S. and Europe insist is part of a surreptitious bid to build nuclear weapons. Iran's Islamist leaders, who maintain that they're only interested in nuclear energy, refuse to back down. In response to a potentially devastating new European?ban on importing Iranian oil, Tehran is escalating its rhetoric, renewing threats to disrupt all tanker traffic out of the Persian Gulf. Is it time for the West to accept Iran's nuclear program?

Yes. Let Iran enrich all the uranium it wants: "The West is all but isolated in insisting that Iran must not enrich," says Peter Jenkins at Britain's Telegraph. Most other nations think Iran should be treated like every other Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty nation, and be "allowed to enrich uranium in return for intrusive monitoring" by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors. Iran won't seem as threatening with tough safeguards in place to make sure it's not building a bomb. And if we allow Iran to enrich uranium, and Tehran pursues nukes anyway, "the world will be united in condemning such a betrayal of trust."
"The deal the West could strike with Iran"

Are you kidding? Waiting is foolhardy: There may be no smoking-gun proof that Iran is trying to put together a nuclear weapon, say David Albright, Paul Brannan, Andrea Stricker and Andrew Ortendahl at the Institute for Science and International Security. But "it has pursued a strategy of nuclear hedging" and is building centrifuges under "great secrecy." Why should we trust Iran? Every day we let Iran's nuclear program continue unchecked only shortens the time it would take the country to build a bomb once it decides to do it.
"Reality check: Shorter and shorter timeframe if Iran decides to make nuclear weapons"

Iran's uranium isn't the real issue: There's "nothing illegal" about Iran's stockpiling of low-enriched uranium, says Yousaf Butt at Foreign Policy. Brazil, Argentina, and Japan ? none of which have nuclear weapons ? all have plenty of uranium-producing capabilities. Let's be honest: Judging from the "impossible conditions" Western sanctions impose, it's pretty clear the the U.S. and Europe aren't after Iran's nuclear program ? they're out to "dismantle the current regime" entirely.?
"Stop the madness"

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20120125/cm_theweek/223643

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Giffords Resigns -- Reflections of a Tucson Democrat (ContributorNetwork)

FIRST PERSON | I got the news when I opened my e-mail Sunday morning.

I received the news from several sources -- the Giffords for Congress committee, Arizona's List, the Arizona Democratic Party and one from Giffords' office that included a note from her husband, Mark Kelly.

I have been watching Gabrielle Giffords' progress during the past year, and could see in her resignation video how far she has come, and also how her speech is still not quite natural. But I remember when she was in a coma and how we wondered whether she would live, and I marvel. Republicans and Democrats have been inspired by the strength and will she has shown.

I also think that making this decision shows how she is recovering. Being able to make such a decision, to weigh her options, consider her constituents' best interests as well as her own -- this shows progress. It was not too long ago that her husband had not told her about the deaths of Jan. 8, 2011, because she would not have had the language to process and express her feelings.

There will be a special election, complete with primaries, since it is more than six months until the next regular election, which is the time set by Arizona law. The election probably will not take place until June. Gov. Jan Brewer will set the dates soon.

As a resident of the northernmost part of Giffords' district, I do not yet know whether I will be voting in the special election. Northern Pima County will become part of a different congressional district that includes most of northeastern Arizona. We are not sure whether the special election will use the old or the new district lines.

Before Giffords was shot, I always felt I was well represented. I might not have agreed with her on every issue, but I knew that my concerns were heard and taken into account. I worked in a phone bank during the last two elections, and got to speak to many others in the district who felt the same way. I had met her on several occasions, including a Congress on the Corner meeting at the same Safeway store a year or two before the January 8 shooting. She was always gracious.

I have been very aware all year of not being represented in the House of Representatives. I am politically active and receive many e-mails and alerts about different legislation, with encouragement to contact my member of Congress. Shortly after the shooting, I received an apology from one organization saying it would no longer contact supporters in Giffords' district. But lots of mail come with contacts for senators and representatives, and it is still jarring to receive confirmation from Giffords' office, under her signature, that they have received my message.

I think this is one of the reasons for Giffords' decision. She could have waited until May to resign, which would have made a special election unnecessary. I would guess that once she had made her decision she would not have wanted her district to go without representation for one day longer than is absolutely necessary.

I will miss having Gabrielle Giffords as my congresswoman, and I sincerely wish her a speedy and full recovery.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/democrats/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120123/pl_ac/10869919_giffords_resigns__reflections_of_a_tucson_democrat

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Oscar Nominations 2012: JC Chandor On Original Screenplay Nomination For 'Margin Call'

JC Chandor earned his first Oscar nomination on Tuesday, getting a Best Original Screenplay nod for his star-studded, independent financial meltdown thriller, "Margin Call." The film stars Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Demi Moore, Simon Baker and Paul Bettany as the employees of a hedge firm about to bust, making dramatic decisions that will ripple through the world economy.

Chandor joins a field that includes an all-time great, Woody Allen ("Midnight in Paris"), and the star of a smash hit comedy, Kristen Wiig ("Bridesmaids"), but as a first-time filmmaker, just being there is a thrill for him. Speaking to The Huffington Post on Tuesday, he discussed his excitement about the nomination, his film's timely message, and what his nomination means for the future of video on demand and independent filmmaking.

What does this mean to you, as a first-time filmmaker getting nominated?
From where this project started for us, for me personally, to have had it ended up here and frankly, we weren't the most touchy feely, feel good movie of the year, it takes a little bit for people to sit down and actually watch this movie. But the good news is, when people actually do watch it, it's usually a lot better than they thought it was going to be. So in this case, it's just so exciting for me, to actually realize that 350 or whatever it is people at the Academy, who are writers and my heroes, they sat down and thought this movie was worthy, it's pretty darn exciting.

It wasn't a big studio project; take me through the process of it being an idea to being an indie film to going to Oscar nomination.
Yeah! A little over three years ago, I sat down to write it and wrote it to originally shoot it for under a million bucks, because I wanted to direct it. It was written to be shot, it wasn't written to be a script. It was written to be a movie -- a little movie but a movie -- and it's been, after sitting around for 15 years, struggling, trying to do whatever the heck I can, to have had this project, it's been a bit of under a favored cloud, it's gotten kind of carried along. I think in a neat way, I hope this nomination reflects back on the performances, because this was an actors' driven piece from the minute I sat down to write it, I knew that's what I wanted to write.

I saw a number of For Your Consideration ads for the film, and this was your first go around in an Oscar campaign. What was that experience like?
It was a really interesting process. I think the cool thing for me, all of those ads and everything else, we certainly weren't going to have the money that a lot of those films that we're competing against did. As far as sort of independent, small distributors, we're even on the small end of that. So we knew that was never going to carry the day, so really all you're hoping for is for people to see the movie. I'm now a member of the Writers Guild, so I get a lot of those screeners that come in.

You now realize that studios aren't trying to buy the votes -- well I don't know, maybe some of them are -- they're trying to put the DVD into the player. Because you've got 50 films you've got to watch. So, I think just learning that this is about kind of drawing attention to the film and trying to get people to watch the film was pretty exhilarating, to then realize that it wasn't just some popularity contest, it was actually kind of meaningful. And when I look at our little category, the scripts that got nominated, those seem very well thought out and it's been reaffirming for me.

Do you think the timeliness of the film's message helped?
I don't know -- I think it could hurt it, too. Sometimes people, when something like that is going on in their world, don't want to go sit in a movie for it. The neat thing in our film is that it's entertaining enough so that word of mouth on is fairly good. But the other thing is I actually think there's a meaningful dialogue going on, with the way the Occupy movement sort of happened, where no one was throwing molotov cocktails, no one was being crazy, people were actively trying to engage in something that happened in their lives and they wanted to speak out about it. So for the film to come along at a time when that was going on, if someone had started throwing rocks through windows, people probably would have been like, I don't want to engage in this topic. But the fact that it was a fairly mature response, it was sort of Gandhi at his best, non-violent protest, the film got to be a part of that dialogue, which is pretty awesome.

It's really the only film that deals with it in this year's Oscars. Do you feel like you're representing the Occupy movement or people upset with the financial crisis?
A lot of Occupy people don't think I was critical enough. Some people in that movement think the film let these people off the hook a little bit. But I'm a big, big believer than dramatic performances and dramatic writing and fictional writing can shed a light and shed a truth on what's going on in our world. I'm a huge fan of the films of the '70s and even into the '80s, Sidney Lumet, all those films that used what was going on in people's lives as drama. And not only are you entertained, but hopefully have a greater understanding of your world coming out of it. That was clearly inspiration for me, not only in my life but as a filmmaker. Obviously this film is very unapologetic about the fact that it's about right now.

You're the first real Oscar contender to have had his or her film be seen mostly through video on demand, so you're also leading a charge in that way.
Obviously, for the majority of all of us, unless you're 22 years old and just directed a film, for most people that are making films, either as actors or filmmakers, going straight to video was a bad thing. Your film had not reached where it needed to be and was being dumped. And I think with the fact that there is this tremendous opportunity to access people on their couches, so that they're not watching the 50th version of some police drama that they've seen, but can actually sit there and watch an art film and pay $8 for it or something, it's a market place for us, and to say it doesn't exist and just put our heads in the sand is ridiculous.

So what was really interesting about our film is that it made $5.5 million in the theaters, only going out on 199 screens, and it made probably $5-6 million in first run VOD, not including DVD or anything else. And the theater owners would not allow us to go over 199 screens, they basically capped it because the film was over-performing and they don't want a film to show that that can be done, but if you talk to our distributors, their argument is there are two audiences and there always will be.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/oscar-nominations-2012-jc-chandor-margin-call_n_1228434.html

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Analysis: Megaupload shutdown unlikely to deter piracy (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? The crackdown on file-sharing site Megaupload is expected to do little to reduce overall piracy of music, software and Hollywood movies, while potentially stifling emerging means of distributing content online.

In the wake of last week's surprising indictment of the digital storage company and seven executives, other companies have begun changing their policies even as Megaupload officers maintained their innocence in a first court appearance in New Zealand.

Filesonic.com stopped allowing people to download files that they had not uploaded themselves, while Uploaded.to blocked access from Internet locations in the United States.

However, just 3 percent of U.S. Internet users relied on digital lockers like Megaupload in the third quarter, according to NPD market research, compared with 9 percent who used peer-to-peer networks, which allow sharing of files among consumers' computers with little or no central organization.

Peer-to-peer systems, including BitTorrent and PirateBay, might gain more activity after the Megaupload charges, analysts said, while users may be afraid to upload content to lockers for fear they will lose access in a similar shutdown.

"I don't think you'll see more file sharers per se, but the amount downloaded over the torrents might rise," said NPD's Russ Crupnick.

But the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America said at least some users would balk at the higher complexity of peer-to-peer sites.

Lockers are "more user friendly. I doubt there will be a wholesale shift" to torrents, said MPAA Senior Vice President Kevin Suh.

PirateBay appeared to ignore the demise of Megaupload in its communications with users on Monday. In its blog, writers posted about how PirateBay saw the future of copying - evolving beyond digital format to physical objects it dubbed "physibles" - and

about what artists it might promote in coming months.

In a press release issued last week about proposed anti-piracy legislation in the U.S., PirateBay compared its role to the founding fathers of the U.S. and took the position that it fights for freedom of speech and the equality of all people.

SKIP HOLLYWOOD MIDDLEMEN

Though Megaupload has been around since 2005, lockers have only gone mainstream in the past year. Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc and Google Inc all adopted some version of the technology that permits digital content to be uploaded for the purpose of backing up user data or making content available to multiple devices or outsiders.

For some content producers, the new avenues are a way to skip the middlemen in Hollywood and reach their fans directly.

Last month, the comedian Louis C.K., complaining of a lack of royalties from conventional DVD sales, offered downloads of a one-man show for $5 from his own website and sold more than $1 million worth.

Megaupload supporters in the past have included major recording artists, such as Macy Gray and Sean "Diddy" Combs, who lent their voices to a popular video touting Megaupload by name.

Rapper Busta Rhymes signaled his support on Twitter even after the arrests last week, tweeting that Megaupload "could create the most powerful way 4 artist 2 get 90% off of every dollar despite the music being downloaded 4 free."

Until the middle of last year, Megaupload offered "rewards" for those who uploaded the most popular content. The indictment said this induced piracy, because the most popular content was likely to infringe copyrights.

But Jennifer Granick, a longtime Internet attorney who is now general counsel for a site devoted to hip-hop, said the idea that only infringing material would be popular was "ridiculous".

"This is a way for artists of all kinds to get out of these record-label deals that can be really limited. These can be a really important way to try to make money and get their stuff out there."

Julie Samuels, an attorney for the civil liberties nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said it was unusual for the Justice Department to bring a criminal case for an alleged conspiracy over copyright violations, which are usually handled in civil court.

The EFF filed an amicus brief defending another locker service, MP3Tunes, against a record label that sued over a related issue, the "de-duplicating" that saves resources by preserving only one copy of a file that is uploaded by many.

The court ruled that MP3Tunes was in the clear as long as it abided by Digital Millennium Copyright Act requirements for responding to takedown requests, blocking repeat infringers and the like.

Samuels said she was not surprised that other file-storage services were dropping reward programs and in some cases limiting downloads to users' own files.

But she said that was bad for innovation and bad for users.

"The worst part here is that if the lockers are legally unstable then users will be hesitant," she said. "What's really been troubling is that the third parties who are using Megaupload for legitimate reasons no longer have access to their own content. In this case it's the government, but often it's traditional industries that are squelching innovation in what may be an expansion of ways for artists to get paid."

(Reporting by Joseph Menn and Sara McBride in San Francisco, Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington and Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Tiffany Wu, Bernard Orr)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/tc_nm/us_megaupload_impact

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Giffords' meeting with fellow survivors in Tucson

FILE - This Jan. 8, 2012 file photo shows Rep. Gabrielle Giffords waving at the start of a memorial vigil remembering the victims and survivors one year after the Arizona congresswoman was wounded in a shooting that killed six in Tucson, Ariz. Giffords announced, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 she will resign from Congress this week. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, file)

FILE - This Jan. 8, 2012 file photo shows Rep. Gabrielle Giffords waving at the start of a memorial vigil remembering the victims and survivors one year after the Arizona congresswoman was wounded in a shooting that killed six in Tucson, Ariz. Giffords announced, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 she will resign from Congress this week. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, file)

This video image provided by the Office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shows Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, walking. Giffords announced Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 she intends to resign from Congress this week to concentrate on recovering from wounds suffered in an assassination attempt a little more than a year ago. (AP Photo/Office of Gabrielle Giffords)

FILE - In this Jan. 2, 2012, file photo Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, left, accompanied by her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, reacts after leading the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of a memorial vigil remembering the victims and survivors one year after the Arizona congresswoman was wounded in a shooting that killed six othersin Tucson, Ariz. Giffords said Sunday Jan, 22, 2012, that she will resign from Congress this week. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

This video image provided by the office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shows Giffords announcing her plans to resign, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Office of Gabrielle Giffords)

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) ? In one of her last acts in office, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords met Monday with other survivors and supporters more than a year after gunfire interrupted a spontaneous meet-and-greet with constituents outside a Tucson grocery store.

As part of a bittersweet day, Giffords finished the meeting she had started on the morning of Jan. 8, 2011, by spending time at her office with others who had been at the scene of the rampage that killed six people and injured 13 others, including Giffords.

She also planned to visit a food bank that was set up after she was shot.

Giffords announced Sunday that she intends to resign from Congress this week to concentrate on recovering from the assassination attempt that shook the country.

Gifford was upbeat in a message sent on Twitter.

"I will return & we will work together for Arizona & this great country," she wrote.

Among those who met Monday with Giffords was Pat Maisch, who was hailed as a hero for wrestling a gun magazine from the shooter.

"I thanked her for her service, wished her well, and she just looked beautiful," Maisch said.

Maisch, who was not injured herself, said it was touching that Giffords finished the meeting that had been interrupted by the attack.

"I've always said I would love for her to continue to be my congresswoman, but I want her to do what's best for her," Maisch said. "She's got to take care of herself."

The three-term Democrat's Facebook and Twitter feeds showed images of her meeting with survivors and others.

In one picture, Giffords held the hand of Suzi Hileman, who brought 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green to meet the congresswoman outside the supermarket. Green was killed in the shooting, and Hileman was shot three times.

In another picture, Giffords, wearing an olive green jacket and bright teal scarf, embraced her former intern, Daniel Hernandez, who helped save her life by trying to stop her bleeding until first responders arrived at the shooting scene.

"I don't remember much from that horrible day, but I will never forget the trust you placed in me to be your voice," she said on a video announcing her decision to resign.

The video showed a close-up of Giffords gazing directly at the camera and speaking in a voice that is both firm and halting.

"I have more work to do on my recovery," the congresswoman said at the end of the two-minute-long "A Message from Gabby," appearing to strain to communicate. "So to do what's best for Arizona, I will step down this week."

Giffords was shot in the head as she was meeting with constituents. Her progress had seemed remarkable, to the point that she was able to walk into the House chamber last August to cast a vote.

Giffords' resignation set up a free-for-all in a competitive district.

She could have stayed in office for another year even without seeking re-election, but her decision to resign scrambles the political landscape. Arizona must hold a special primary and general election to find someone to finish out her term, as well as hold the regular primary and general election later this year.

Giffords would have been heavily favored to win re-election, since she gained immense public support as she recovered from the shooting. She was elected to her third term just two months before she was shot, winning by only about 1 percent over a tea party Republican.

Several Republicans and Democrats have been mentioned as possible candidates for her seat, with some in the GOP already forming official exploratory committees. Republicans who have expressed interest include state Sen. Frank Antenori and sports broadcaster Dave Sitton, among others.

Democratic state lawmakers have been mentioned as possible candidates, as has the name of Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, although he has publically quashed such speculation.

"That's the great 'mentioner' out there, and there are going to be a lot of people mentioned," said Arizona Democratic Party chairman Andrei Cherny. "I think the best rule in situations like this is, 'The folks who are talking don't know, and the folks who know aren't talking.'"

Gov. Jan Brewer will likely call the special primary election for the 8th Congressional District in April, followed by a general election in June. Before the cycle begins for the regular election, the district will be remapped and renumbered as the 2nd Congressional District.

The regular primary for the new district, which will cover most of the current district's territory, was scheduled for August.

The Republican governor acknowledged that the twin election cycles were going to create a mess, especially for potential candidates.

"I think that it's putting a lot of pressure on a lot of people awfully quick, given the fact that they're going to be filling that continuing seat that expires this year, and then we have elections coming (along) new congressional lines," Brewer said.

Giffords planned to attend President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday in Washington. And her political career may not be over, said a state Democratic party official who was among a group that met with her Sunday.

Jim Woodbrey, a senior vice chairman of the state party, said at the meeting, Giffords strongly implied she would run again for office someday. He said the decision to resign came after much thought.

"It was Gabby's individual decision, and she was not in any condition to make that decision five months ago," he said. "So I think waiting so that she could make an informed decision on her own was the right thing to do."

___

Associated Press writers Bob Christie and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix and David Espo in Washington contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-23-Giffords/id-f7381d000a2e42d2af5ccc069432de5b

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