Luke Bryan cleans up at ACAs with 9 awards

Luke Bryan didn't want the American Country Awards to end.

He cleaned up during the fan-voted show, earning nine awards, including artist and album of the year. His smash hit "I Don't Want This Night To End" was named single and music video of the year.

Miranda Lambert took home the second most guitar trophies with three. Jason Aldean was named touring artist of the year. Carrie Underwood won female artist of the year, and a tearful Lauren Alaina won new artist of the year.

Bryan, Aldean, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum and Trace Adkins with Lynyrd Skynrd were among the high-energy performances.

The third annual ACAs were held at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas Monday night.

___

Online: http://www.theACAs.com

___

Follow http://www.twitter.com/AP_Country for the latest country music news from The Associated Press.

Read More..

Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.

The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.

The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them.

Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ”

Researchers say they are not sure what is behind the declines. They may be an early sign of a national shift that is visible only in cities that routinely measure the height and weight of schoolchildren. The decline in Los Angeles, for instance, was for fifth, seventh and ninth graders — the grades that are measured each year — between 2005 and 2010. Nor is it clear whether the drops have more to do with fewer obese children entering school or currently enrolled children losing weight. But researchers note that declines occurred in cities that have had obesity reduction policies in place for a number of years.

Though obesity is now part of the national conversation, with aggressive advertising campaigns in major cities and a push by Michelle Obama, many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually work. Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May.

Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.

Change has been slow. Schools made money on sugary drinks, and some set up rogue drink machines that had to be hunted down. Deep fat fryers, favored by school administrators who did not want to lose popular items like French fries, were unplugged only after Wayne T. Grasela, the head of food services for the school district, stopped buying oil to fill them.

But the message seems to be getting through, even if acting on it is daunting. Josh Monserrat, an eighth grader at John Welsh Elementary, uses words like “carbs,” and “portion size.” He is part of a student group that promotes healthy eating. He has even dressed as an orange to try to get other children to eat better. Still, he struggles with his own weight. He is 5-foot-3 but weighed nearly 200 pounds at his last doctor’s visit.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m obese for my age,’ ” said Josh, who is 13. “I set a goal for myself to lose 50 pounds.”

Nationally, about 17 percent of children under 20 are obese, or about 12.5 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines childhood obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. That rate, which has tripled since 1980, has leveled off in recent years but has remained at historical highs, and public health experts warn that it could bring long-term health risks.

Obese children are more likely to be obese as adults, creating a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Cancer Society says that being overweight or obese is the culprit in one of seven cancer deaths. Diabetes in children is up by a fifth since 2000, according to federal data.

“I’m deeply worried about it,” said Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who added that obesity is “almost certain to result in a serious downturn in longevity based on the risks people are taking on.”

Read More..

Study predicts rise of a global middle class

WASHINGTON — Majorities of people in most countries will achieve middle-class economic status by 2030, but the effects of climate change, an aging global population and anti-government movements in authoritarian nations such as China could cause upheaval in economic and political systems.

The predictions come from a forward-looking study by the National Intelligence Council, which every four years analyzes key trends and projects their implications 20 years into the future.

The United States is likely to remain "first among equals" among world powers because of the legacy of its leadership role and military power, according to the report.

No other global power or international order is likely to replace the United States' primacy, it said, even though in terms of overall power — economic output, population, military spending and investment — Asia will surpass North America and Europe over the next two decades.

"The context in which the U.S. global power will operate will change dramatically," stated the 166-page report, titled "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds."

In a dramatic shift from previous reports, it projects that the U.S. will become energy independent because of abundant shale gas deposits now accessible with hydraulic fracturing technology, known as fracking. That is likely to reduce America's dependence on energy sources from unstable regions of the world.

The report assesses that China will overtake the U.S. as the world's largest economy as measured by national output, but notes that the growing wealth there may spark a popular yearning for multi-party democracy. It warns that any challenge of China's communist leadership could lead to political turmoil, however, and upend the global economy.

In a best-case scenario, the study said China may undergo gradual political reform and work closely with the United States to usher in a period of global political stability and economic growth.

A worst-case projection has the United States turning inward and the European Union unraveling, while corruption and social unrest stall growth in the world's largest countries, China and India.

The study described the expected growth of the global middle class as a "tectonic shift" that will require sharply increased production of food, water and energy, and may lead to scarcities.

"For the first time, a majority of the world's population will not be impoverished, and the middle classes will be the most important social and economic sector in the vast majority of countries around the world," the report noted.

But increasing global temperatures and rising seas may disrupt rain patterns and agriculture, and many countries probably will face food and water shortages.

Aging nations such as Japan, with fewer workers supporting a growing number of retirees, will face an uphill battle to maintain living standards. It projects that Russia will see its population fall by as many as 10 million people, and will continue a slow decline in global influence.

With the rapid expansion of new technologies, individuals will be empowered as never before, the study said. But the same trends have the potential to aid terrorists and criminals, who will have access to new methods of attack.

Terrorists could use drone aircraft to deliver biological toxins, or launch major cyber attacks to disable infrastructure, the report warned. On the other hand, it projected that the war against Al Qaeda is likely to be over by 2030.

"The current Islamist phase of terrorism" probably will recede just as other terrorism movements have faded away, including anarchists in the late 19th century, post-World War II anti-colonial movements and violent New Left groups in the 1970s.

Some 15 countries are at high risk of "state failure" by 2030, the study said, including four where the Obama administration is targeting Al Qaeda militants — Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

The global trend reports tend to be broad enough to account for almost any outcome. None of the scenarios is inevitable, but they have occasionally proved prescient.

In 2000, a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, the report discussed the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks.

"Such asymmetric approaches — whether undertaken by states or non-state actors — will become the dominant characteristic of most threats to the U.S.," it warned.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

Read More..

Plenty of smoke clouds the future of legalized pot in Washington

SEATTLE — Customers have been drifting into Jay Fratt's alternative pipe and tobacco shop, Smokin J's, in the days since Washington state's marijuana law took effect, wondering when cannabis would take its place on the shelves next to the handblown glass pipes.

Hold on, he told them. Fratt is, before anything else, a businessman, and he quickly realized there was a lot of smoke in the details.

First of all, the law setting up the nation's first legal regulatory system for retail pot won't allow sales until next year. And the federal government still considers marijuana illegal.

Then there are the taxation provisions: Can legal retailers compete with the black market when they have to pay over 25% in taxes? What about the provision that says marijuana shops can't stock anything but pot and pot supplies? What would happen to the Vancouver, Wash., shopkeeper's tie-dye baby jumpsuits, his "Stoner" trivia games, his meditating Buddha tapestries?

The euphoria that accompanied the debut of the initiative making it legal in Washington for adults to possess an ounce or less of marijuana faded shortly after midnight Thursday, when about 150 people gathered at the base of the Space Needle in Seattle to toke up in celebration.

By Friday morning, the bureaucrats, the lawyers and the suits from Wall Street were pulling into town as state regulators began setting up what could become a $1-billion industry, built precariously on a product whose possession the federal government considers a felony.

State officials estimate that pot will soon be selling legally for about $12 a gram, with annual consumption of 85 million grams — a potential bonanza in state tax revenue of nearly $2 billion over the first five years.

"I'm telling my clients, if I had a collective and I knew that legalization was coming and I knew they were going to be licensing people and I was already in the business, I'd be one of the first people going to apply for a license," said Jay Berneburg, a Tacoma, Wash., lawyer who held a seminar recently about getting into the retail trade.

"You could make a million dollars in five days. There's going to be people lined up to buy marijuana, just because they can," he said.

Venture capitalists are moving in. Brendan Kennedy and Michael Blue, two Yale University MBA graduates with backgrounds in Silicon Valley, have raised $5 million through their private equity firm, Privateer Holdings, believed to be the first in the nation to focus strictly on marijuana-related companies.

"We realized this was and is the biggest opportunity we think we'll probably see in our lifetimes," Blue said.

Their first acquisition was Leafly.com, a website that rates strains of marijuana for their medicinal properties. Users can plug in their ZIP codes and find out which products available in their areas produce the effects they're looking for, from "giggly" to the ability to treat migraines.

Vaporizers are another product they're looking at — anything that doesn't directly involve buying or selling marijuana. Privateer is offering investors the chance to make money in an arena most venture capitalists can't touch under standard partnership agreements, which normally spell out that investments not in compliance with federal law are prohibited. That means, they figure, an opportunity for stunning profits with little competition from other investment firms — though one has to listen to a lot of Bob Marley at trade shows.

"I've studied a lot of industries. I've never seen one that had this unique set of circumstances," Kennedy said. "It's highly fragmented, it's very unstructured, there's no leaders, there's no standards. The entire topic is taboo, and there's no involvement by Wall Street ... which is a unique opportunity, right?"

The state Liquor Control Board is asking for a staff of 40 to help set up a network of possibly 300 or more state-licensed retail stores. The board must also figure out how to regulate growers and packagers.

That process will take much of the next year. Though it has been legal since Thursday for adults to use small amounts of marijuana away from public view, they can't buy it, sell it or grow it until regulations are in place. Exemptions remain for medical users under existing law.

"Nowhere in the nation, or in the world, have they set up a regulatory system for recreational marijuana use. I think that's where we're kind of charting new ground," said Pat Kohler, director of the board.

"There will have to be a set of regulations set up on how much they can grow, what kind of security they need to have, can they grow it indoors — all these things need to be discussed."

In part, Kohler said, Washington will be looking to Colorado — where voters approved a similar statute that goes into effect in January — which has in place regulations for medical marijuana more comprehensive than Washington's laissez-faire approach.

She said it would also be logical to model regulations on rules governing the liquor industry. Until this year, when alcohol sales were privatized, hard liquor in Washington was sold at state-licensed stores that, like those to be set up under the marijuana law, sold nothing but alcohol under tight regulation and taxation.

Read More..

In giant “garage sale”, Japan’s TV giants hawk $3 billion of assets

TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp, Japan‘s struggling maker of Viera brand TVs, owns more than 10 million square meters of office and factory space, dormitories for its workers and sports facilities for its rugby, baseball and women’s athletics teams.

As it battles for Christmas shoppers’ wallets in the year-end holiday season, the sprawling electronics conglomerate is also seeking buyers for some of those properties to trim its fixed costs and improve cashflow at a time of intense competition, particularly from South Korean rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co.

Japan’s other troubled TV makers, Sony Corp and Sharp Corp, are also selling buildings and businesses in a giant ‘garage sale’ that could raise a combined $ 3 billion.

Panasonic plans to raise $ 1.34 billion from offloading property and shares in other Japanese companies by end-March, the group’s chief financial officer Hideaki Kawai told Reuters.

“We have a lot of land and buildings in Japan and overseas,” he said in an interview at the company’s head office in Osaka, in western Japan. He declined to list which properties would go on the block, but said most are in Japan.

Included is a 24-storey central Tokyo block – built in 2003 with more than 47,300 square meters and housing 2,000 Panasonic workers – a source familiar with the plan told Reuters.

Kawai added that Panasonic would raise about a quarter of the sell-off funds by getting rid of shares it owns in other companies – a common practice of cross-shareholdings in Japan.

The proceeds would help bolster free cashflow to 200 billion yen ($ 2.43 billion) for the business year to March, Kawai said, and allow Panasonic to reduce its debt and maintain its crucial research and development effort as it revamps its business portfolio.

It will sell more assets in the year starting in April if cashflow dips below 200 billion yen, Kawai added. Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga has promised to shut or sell businesses operating at below a 5 percent margin. Those sales could start as soon as April.

Panasonic’s fixed assets of $ 21 billion are around 30 percent more than those of Apple Inc, and are almost double the company’s market value. The company, founded almost a century ago as a small electrical extension socket maker, trades at around half its book value – which includes intangible assets such as patents. Sony trades at 39 percent of book, Sharp at 30 percent.

The fixed assets – buildings, land and machinery – of the three companies that were not so long ago a byword for innovation in household gadgetry total around $ 42 billion, while their combined market value is $ 24 billion.

CASHFLOW IS KING

The three firms have been downgraded by credit ratings agencies, making it tougher to raise funding on capital markets, and making asset sales more urgent.

Selling assets “is good in terms of their credit ratings because, for all three, it will lower fixed costs and they can reduce their capex requirements. Eventually, this could improve operating margins and, more importantly, cashflow,” said Alvin Lim, an analyst at Fitch Ratings in Seoul.

Fitch, which makes its ratings without input from company management, last month cut Panasonic to BB and Sony to BB minus, the first time one of the major agencies has relegated either company to junk status. Sharp is ranked B minus, adding to its borrowing costs.

“We rate Panasonic as investment grade, and it should have various funding options. Selling assets it can do without, to avoid raising additional borrowing, can be an option,” said Osamu Kobayashi, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s.

While Korean rivals have also benefited from a weaker local currency, data from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association shows that Japanese production of consumer electronic equipment fell to just above $ 15 billion last year from more than $ 19 billion a decade ago. Output in September was just $ 980 million, half last year’s level.

“The gap with Korean makers seems to be widening. It’s going to be very difficult for them to regain their top-tier position,” said Fitch’s Lim.

As the three Japanese firms, all under new leadership, have sketched out restructuring plans, the cost of insuring their debt against defaulting in 5 years has dropped from spikes just a month ago. Credit default swaps for Sharp and Sony are down to levels last seen 3 months ago, while Panasonic’s have dropped 40 percent in the past month.

THREE PATHS

While Panasonic is looking to revamp its business around batteries, auto parts and household appliances, Sony is doubling down on smartphones, gaming and cameras. Sharp, meanwhile, is focusing on display screens and is forging alliances with the likes of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry and U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.

Sony may also take the real estate sale route to raise much-needed cash, with a possible sale of its 37-storey New York headquarters, dubbed by New Yorkers as the ‘Chippendale’ because of its design that is reminiscent of the period English furniture. Selling that jewel could raise $ 1 billion, media have reported.

The maker of Vaio laptops, PlayStation gaming consoles and Bravia TVs may also sell its battery business, which makes lithium ion power packs for tablets, PCs and mobile phones. The company has been approached by investment banks offering to sell the unit, which employs 2,700 people and has three factories in Japan and two overseas assembly plants. Sony values the business’s fixed assets at $ 636 million.

Potential buyers could include BYD Co Ltd, a Chinese carmaker backed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and Taiwan’s Hon Hai – which part owns Sharp’s advanced LCD panel plant in Sakai, western Japan, and is in talks to buy TV assembly plants in China, Malaysia and Mexico for $ 667 million, Japan’s Sankei newspaper has reported.

Sharp has mortgaged nearly all its properties to secure a $ 4.6 billion bailout from Japanese banks and so has few assets to offer in a grand garage sale.

Instead, it’s selling part of the garage.

Qualcomm has agreed to buy a 5 percent stake in Sharp, making it the largest shareholder. Hon Hai, which earlier this year agreed to invest in Sharp – before its stock slumped in the wake of record losses – has said it remains interested in taking a stake.

“Whatever they can get to get through this fiscal period by scaling down their operation is a critical step for them to remain afloat,” said Fitch’s Lim.

($ 1 = 82.4700 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Singer feared dead in Mexican plane crash

MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) — The wreckage of a small plane believed to be carrying Jenni Rivera, the U.S-born singer whose soulful voice and unfettered discussion of a series of personal travails made her a Mexican-American superstar, was found in northern Mexico on Sunday. Authorities said there were no survivors.

The singer's father, Pedro Rivera, said he thinks his daughter was on board the plane and that her brother will travel to Mexico on Monday to identify what they presumed were her remains.

Born in Long Beach, California, Jenni Rivera was at the peak of her career as perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated regional style influenced by the norteno, cumbia and ranchero styles.

A 43-year-old mother of five children and grandmother of two, the woman known as the "Diva de la Banda" was known for her frank talk about her struggles to give a good life to her children despite a series of setbacks.

She was recently divorced from her third husband, was once detained at a Mexico City airport with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, and she publicly apologized after her brother assaulted a drunken fan who verbally attacked her in 2011.

Her openness about her personal troubles endeared her to millions in the U.S. and Mexico.

"I am the same as the public, as my fans," she told The Associated Press in an interview last March.

Rivera sold 15 million records, and recently won two Billboard Mexican Music Awards: Female Artist of the Year and Banda Album of the Year for "Joyas prestadas: Banda." She was nominated for Latin Grammys in 2002, 2008 and 2011.

Transportation and Communications Minister Gerardo Ruiz Esparza said "everything points toward" the wreckage belonging to the plane carrying Rivera and six other people to Toluca, outside Mexico City, from Monterrey, where the singer had just given a concert.

"There is nothing recognizable, neither material nor human" in the wreckage found in the state of Nuevo Leon, Ruiz Esparza said. The impact was so powerful that the remains of the plane "are scattered over an area of 250 to 300 meters. It is almost unrecognizable."

Rivera's father told dozens of reporters gathered in front of his Los Angeles-area home that "I believe my daughter's body is unrecognizable."

"My son Lupillo told me that effectively it was Jenni's plane that crashed and that everyone on board died," Pedro Rivera said.

Rivera said his son would travel to Monterrey early Monday morning.

No cause was given for the plane's crash, but its wreckage was found near the town of Iturbide in Mexico's Sierra Madre Oriental, where the terrain is very rough.

The Learjet 25, number N345MC, took off from Monterrey at 3:30 a.m. local time and was reported missing about 10 minutes later. It was registered to Starwood Management of Las Vegas, Nevada, according to FAA records. It was built in 1969 and had a current registration through 2015.

Media and celebrities in Mexico sent condolences to Rivera's family even though authorities still had not confirmed that she was aboard the plane and said an investigation would be conducted.

"My friend! Why? There is no consolation. God, please help me!" said Mexican pop singer Paulina Rubio on her official Twitter account. Singer Miguel Bose, who appears on the Mexican show "The Mexican Voice" along with Rivera, wrote on his Twitter account: "My dear Jenni, you will always be in my heart. Forever. I love you."

Also believed aboard the plane were her publicist, Arturo Rivera, her lawyer, makeup artist and the flight crew.

Though drug trafficking was the theme of some of her songs, she was not considered a singer of "narco corridos," or ballads glorifying drug lords like other groups, such as Los Tigres del Norte. She was better known for singing about her troubles in love and disdain for men.

Her parents were Mexicans who had migrated to the United States. Two of her five brothers, Lupillo and Juan Rivera, are also well-known singers of grupero music.

She studied business administration and formally debuted on the music scene in 1995 with the release of her album "Chacalosa". Due to its success, she recorded two more independent albums, "We Are Rivera" and "Farewell to Selena," a tribute album to slain singer Selena that helped expand her following.

At the end of the 1990s, Rivera was signed by Sony Music and released two more albums. But widespread success came for her when she joined Fonovisa and released her 2005 album titled "Partier, Rebellious and Daring."

Besides being a singer, she is also a businesswoman and actress, appearing in the indie film Filly Brown, which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, as the incarcerated mother of Filly Brown.

She was filming the third season of "I love Jenni," which followed her as she shared special moments with her children and as she toured through Mexico and the United States. She also has the reality shows: "Jenni Rivera Presents: Chiquis and Raq-C" and her daughter's "Chiquis 'n Control."

In 2009, she was detained at the Mexico City airport when she declared $20,000 in cash but was really carrying $52,167. She was taken into custody. She said it was an innocent mistake and authorities gave her the benefit of the doubt and released her.

In 2011, her brother Juan assaulted a drunken fan at a popular fair in Guanajuato. In the face of heavy criticism among her fans and on social networks, Rivera publicly apologized for the incident during a concert in Mexico City, telling her fans: "Thank you for accepting me as I am, with my virtues and defects."

On Saturday night, Rivera had given a concert before thousands of fans in Monterrey. After the concert she gave a press conference during which she spoke of her emotional state following her recent divorce from former Major League Baseball pitcher Esteban Loaiza, who played for teams including the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers.

"I can't get caught up in the negative because that destroys you. Perhaps trying to move away from my problems and focus on the positive is the best I can do. I am a woman like any other and ugly things happen to me like any other woman," she said Saturday night. "The number of times I have fallen down is the number of times I have gotten up."

Rivera had announced in October that she was divorcing Loaiza after two years of marriage.

There have been several high-profile crashes involving Learjets, known as swift, longer-distance passenger aircraft popular with corporate executives, entertainers and government officials.

A Learjet carrying pro-golfer Payne Stewart and five others crashed in northeastern South Dakota in 1999. Investigators said the plane lost cabin pressure and all on board died after losing consciousness for lack of oxygen. The aircraft flew for several hours on autopilot before running out of fuel and crashing in a corn field.

Former Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker was severely injured in a 2008 Learjet crash in South Carolina that killed four people.

That same year, a Learjet slammed into rush-hour traffic in a posh Mexico City neighborhood, killing Mexico's No. 2 government official, Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, and eight others on the plane, plus five people on the ground.

___

Associated Press Writer Galia Garcia-Palafox and Olga R. Rodriguez contributed to this report from Mexico City.

Read More..

Italy Grapples With Polluting by Ilva, a Giant Steel Maker

Alessandro Penso for The New York Times

The Ilva steel plant, in Taranto, Italy, above, employs thousands of workers but is seen as a health threat by residents and courts.

TARANTO, Italy — Every morning, Graziella Lumino cleans the black soot from her kitchen window, which looks out on the hulking Ilva steel plant where her husband, Giuseppe Corisi, worked for 30 years.

After he died this year at the age of 64 from violent, sudden-onset lung cancer, his friends put a plaque on the wall of their apartment building: “Here lived the umpteenth death from lung cancer. Taranto, March 8, 2012.”

Today, Ilva, which is among the largest plants in Europe and produces more than 30 percent of Italy’s raw steel, is at the heart of a clash over the future of Italian industry, one that pits economic concerns against environmental ones and the power of the government against the judiciary amid Italy’s struggle to compete in a global economy.

After a court ordered sections of the plant closed and steel from it impounded last month, arguing that it had violated environmental laws and was raising serious health concerns in the area, the government passed an emergency decree that would allow it to continue operating while cleaning up its act, saving 20,000 jobs nationwide. Magistrates said that the new law, which must be approved by Parliament, violated the Constitution by allowing the executive branch to circumvent the judiciary.

In many ways, the Ilva plant is an emblem of the Italian economy that the technocratic government of Prime Minister Mario Monti inherited last year and has been trying to repair before elections expected early next year. It is the product of decades of physical and political neglect, an aging industrial giant that came of age in the economic boom of the late 20th century and is struggling to keep pace in the 21st.

For Italy, though, the plant is too big to fail. It produces about 8 percent of European steel — and the government estimates that stopping production would cost the Italian economy more than $10 billion a year.

But the environmental concerns are real. Dark plumes of smoke billow from stacks dominating the landscape, while dust from the plant stains the white tombstones in the local cemetery a rusty pink. An ordinance forbids children from playing in unpaved lots. In 2008, a local farmer was forced to slaughter 2,000 sheep after they were deemed contaminated with dioxin.

Some studies have found that cancer rates in Taranto, an ancient harbor in the heel of Italy’s boot, are over 30 percent higher than the national average, and far higher for certain cancers, particularly of the lungs, kidneys and liver, as well as melanomas.

Bruno Ferrante, the president of Ilva, said that the Riva Group, which owns the plant, has been spending from $325 million to $400 million a year to upgrade the plant since it bought it in 1995.

Mr. Ferrante added that cancer rates had been falling recently — government-approved studies bear that out — but acknowledged that there was more to be done. “The pink dust is certainly a problem, and we are aware of it,” he said.

Arguments about the plant’s economic importance fall on deaf ears here. “Health comes first,” Ms. Lumino said, sitting in her apartment with photos of her husband, including one on a chain that hung from her neck. He was one of many Ilva workers sent into early retirement in 1998 after the plant found evidence of asbestos contamination. “If you have money but not your health, what good is it?” she asked.

Ms. Lumino remembered a time before the plant was built. “There were farms, clean air, olive and almond trees,” she said. “We would picnic by the coast every Easter Monday.”

Even with the new decree, the conflict is far from over. The decree orders the Riva Group to invest $3.8 billion to reduce its emissions and bring the plant up to code before 2016, the deadline for other European countries to modernize.

If Riva fails to do so, the new law would give the government more powers to intervene. If Riva is unable to raise enough money to modernize, it could ask for European Union subsidies or sell the plant, which could jeopardize Italy’s European standing.

Brazilian companies are already eying Ilva, according to Italian news media reports. Mr. Ferrante said that Riva had no intention of selling and had a “pretty significant” ability to borrow more money and also draw on European Union cofinancing.

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

Read More..

AIG to sell majority stake in aircraft leasing firm

American International Group Inc. says it will sell as much as 90% of its International Lease Finance Corp. to an investor group led by Weng Xianding, chairman of New China Trust Co., for about $5.28 billion.

ILFC, which leases airplanes, will remain based in Los Angeles, according to a statement from AIG.

The investor group, which includes New China Trust, China Aviation Industrial Fund and P3 Investments Ltd., will acquire 80.1% of ILFC for approximately $4.23 billion, with an option for an additional 9.9% stake.

AIG will keep at least 10% of the company.

The agreement needs approval from U.S. and Chinese regulatory authorities.

AIG has been selling off subsidiaries to raise money to pay back the New York company's $182-billion bailout from the government during the financial crisis.

Read More..

Egypt's Morsi reverses most of decree that expanded his powers

CAIRO — In a political reversal to calm weeks of unrest, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi early Sunday rescinded much of last month’s decree that expanded his powers and exposed a dangerous divide between the nation’s Islamists and the mainly secular opposition.

The announcement reverses most of the declaration the Islamist president issued Nov. 22, including putting his office beyond judicial oversight. The peeling away of that power was a major demand of protesters. But Morsi continued to defy the opposition by refusing to cancel a Dec. 15 referendum on a proposed constitution drafted by an Islamist-dominated assembly.

The turnaround by Morsi, who in a national address Thursday had refused to budge on his decree, was a signal that he wanted to ease tension that has resulted in clashes between his supporters and opposition groups that have left at least six people dead and hundreds injured.

It was unlikely, however, that reversing the decree but sticking to the referendum vote would appease the tens of thousands of protesters who have marched on his palace in the capital and in cities across Egypt.

“This is not a compromise; the president got all that he wanted,” said Bassem Sabry, an activist and writer. “What the Muslim Brotherhood wants [is to] get the constitution rammed through in a quick referendum before anyone gets a chance to properly discuss it.”

Morsi’s concessions came as news reports indicated that he was preparing to reimpose emergency law to allow soldiers to arrest civilians in response to the latest unrest.

Throughout the crisis the military has been a quiet, if uncomfortable, ally. In recent months, the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Morsi was long associated, has assured the army that its power and billions of dollars of business interests would not be upset by the Islamist-led government.

The generals and the Brotherhood are the nation’s dominant forces, onetime adversaries who have reached, at least for now, a strategic understanding amid the turmoil. The military — its reputation damaged during its months of oppressive rule after last year’s overthrow of Hosni Mubarak — wants to avoid presiding over the nation’s turbulent political passions.

Only hours before Morsi announced his concessions, the military said it viewed the crisis with “sorrow and concern” and indicated that it was preparing to tighten security. The escalation of “clashes and conflict is something we must avoid,” the army said in a statement. It added that without political dialogue, “the nation will be led to dark and disastrous consequences, which we will not allow.”

But the military “has no interest in going back into politics,” said Talaat Mosallam, a retired major general and security analyst. “They had an uncomfortable experience ruling during the aftermath of the [2011] uprising. The country is in need of political direction, and nobody has the cure.”

Morsi’s reliance on the generals, though, sharply illustrates Egypt’s altered political landscape, where what was unimaginable two years ago has been recast by new calculations and power plays.

Morsi and thousands of other Muslim Brotherhood members were jailed by the Mubarak government under an emergency declaration similar to what Morsi now is said to be proposing. It is a startling testament to his predicament and the urgency the Brotherhood feels amid the country’s increasingly violent divide between Islamists and liberal and secularist movements.

The Brotherhood has long been suspicious of the police and Interior Ministry, which Islamists believe have networks of Mubarak loyalists aiming to disrupt Morsi’s government. The military — still the country’s most revered institution — was viewed as the better choice for instilling order and reassuring diplomats and foreign investors about Egypt’s stability and regional political stature.

The Brotherhood has placated the generals by preserving the military’s broad powers in the proposed constitution. Liberals and Christians boycotted the drafting of the charter, but the secular army approved the document, despite its references to Islamic law, known as sharia.

The coming days will tell whether Morsi’s Sunday concessions will be enough to reach a compromise with the opposition. The political unrest began more than two weeks ago when Morsi seized near-absolute power and protected the Islamist-led constitutional assembly from judicial review. Those actions resulted in a rushed proposed charter that the opposition says endangers civil rights and allows clerics to influence the nation’s laws.

Morsi called for a national dialogue with dissident groups Saturday, but no major opposition figure attended. With the opposition promising more protests and marches on the presidential palace, Morsi, who is trying to attract billions of dollars in foreign investment for his beleaguered economy, sought to show that Egypt would not devolve into chaos.

“There are agreements between the armed forces, the U.S. and the Brotherhood,” said Ammar Ali Hassan, a political analyst. “They've agreed to stability because the U.S. absolutely needs stability in Egypt.”

Morsi’s relationship with the military has had many twists. The Brotherhood was co-opted, persecuted and outlawed through six decades when secular military men, including Mubarak, ran the country.

When Mubarak fell in early 2011, opposition groups criticized the Brotherhood for not joining them in battling against the military takeover of the country. The army and the Brotherhood, however, had set parameters of mutual interest that allowed the Islamist group to rise to political power while the military remained the ultimate authority to counter what it regarded as a threat from an emerging political Islam.

That balance was uneasy from the beginning. Morsi moved against the military in August, forcing the resignations of top generals, including Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who had ruled the country for more than 16 months until Morsi came to power. The purge was made possible by two dynamics: The army wanted to exit politics to protect its reputation from further damage, and younger officers were eager to clean the top ranks of an old guard they saw as out of step with the country’s modern strategic demands.

The military, which receives $1.3 billion in annual U.S. aid, has many factions and could change course. But the country’s new defense minister, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, is a pious Muslim; and the armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Sedky Sobhy, appears more in tune with Brotherhood sentiments than Tantawi, who in 2008 threatened to call out the troops to prevent the group’s candidates from winning seats in local elections.

In a 2005 paper from his training at the National War College in Washington, Sobhy echoed a stance closer to the Brotherhood than to the Mubarak regime, which at the time was a close U.S. ally criticized for its perceived deference to Israel.

“The one-sided nature of the United States-Israel strategic relationship has not only caused actual harm to the cause of peace with numerous victims among Arab populations ... but it has inflamed Arab passions,” Sobhy wrote.

The military, however, is not easy to read and is vested in a business empire estimated to account for at least 10% of the country’s economy. The majority of Egyptians, those far from protests and political battles, believe the generals will protect the nation ahead of any party. Some analysts suggest that could once again make the generals Morsi’s strongest rivals.

“The circumstances that the country is undergoing can allow the military back into the scene,” said Hassan, the political analyst.

“Unlike the Brotherhood, which seeks to change the Egyptian identity, the military might prove to be another better option for Egyptians. Egyptians believe that the military will at least not threaten their cultural identity, unlike the Brotherhood.”

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

Abdellatif is a special correspondent.

Read More..

Synacor partners with Zynga to bring social games to pay TV

(Reuters) – Synacor Inc, partly owned by Intel Corp, said it partnered with Zynga Inc to allow pay TV and broadband providers offer social games to their customers.

Zynga shares rose about 3 percent to $ 2.30 in premarket trading, while Synacor shares were up about 5 percent at $ 6.60.

Synacor said certain pay-TV subscribers will get in-game currency each month as part of their subscription that can be redeemed for popular Zynga games such as Zynga Poker and FarmVille2.

The partnership comes days after Zynga revised its pact with Facebook Inc to lower its dependence on the social network.

Synacor, which debuted on the Nasdaq in February, offers authentication and management services to companies offering on-demand content, primarily cable and telecom service providers and consumer electronics brands.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..