Argentina says Prince Williams deployment to the Falklands is provocative. Britain says his deployment is routine for a search and rescue pilot. The timing Williams?s deployment is sensitive because it is has been thirty years since British forces liberated the Falkland Islands from Argentina. ITN?s Bill Neely reports.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46193594/
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BEIRUT ? In dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, Syrian troops stormed rebellious areas near the capital Sunday, shelling neighborhoods that have fallen under the control of army dissidents and clashing with fighters. At least 62 people were killed in violence nationwide, activists and residents said.
The widescale offensive near the capital suggested the regime is worried that military defectors could close in on Damascus, which has remained relatively quiet while most other Syrian cities descended into chaos after the uprising began in March.
The rising bloodshed added urgency to Arab and Western diplomatic efforts to end the 10-month conflict.
The violence has gradually approached the capital. In the past two weeks, army dissidents have become more visible, seizing several suburbs on the eastern edge of Damascus and setting up checkpoints where masked men wearing military attire and wielding assault rifles stop motorists and protect anti-regime protests.
Their presence so close to the capital is astonishing in tightly controlled Syria and suggests the Assad regime may either be losing control or setting up a trap for the fighters before going on the offensive.
Residents of Damascus reported hearing clashes in the nearby suburbs, particularly at night, shattering the city's calm.
"The current battles taking place in and around Damascus may not yet lead to the unraveling of the regime, but the illusion of normalcy that the Assads have sought hard to maintain in the capital since the beginning of the revolution has surely unraveled," said Ammar Abdulhamid, a U.S.-based Syrian dissident.
"Once illusions unravel, reality soon follows," he wrote in his blog Sunday.
Soldiers riding some 50 tanks and dozens of armored vehicles stormed a belt of suburbs and villages on the eastern outskirts of Damascus known as al-Ghouta Sunday, a predominantly Sunni Muslim agricultural area where large anti-regime protests have been held.
Some of the fighting on Sunday was less than three miles (four kilometers) from Damascus, in Ein Tarma, making it the closest yet to the capital.
"There are heavy clashes going on in all of the Damascus suburbs," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, who relies on a network of activists on the ground. "Troops were able to enter some areas but are still facing stiff resistance in others."
The fighting using mortars and machine guns sent entire families fleeing, some of them on foot carrying bags of belongings, to the capital.
"The shelling and bullets have not stopped since yesterday," said a man who left his home in Ein Tarma with his family Sunday. "It's terrifying, there's no electricity or water, it's a real war," he said by telephone on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals.
The uprising against Assad, which began with largely peaceful demonstrations, has grown increasingly militarized recently as more frustrated protesters and army defectors have taken up arms.
In a bid to stamp out resistance in the capital's outskirts, the military has responded with a withering assault on a string of suburbs, leading to a spike in violence that has killed at least 150 people since Thursday.
The United Nations says at least 5,400 people have been killed in the 10 months of violence.
The U.N. is holding talks on a new resolution on Syria and next week will discuss an Arab League peace plan aimed at ending the crisis. But the initiatives face two major obstacles: Damascus' rejection of an Arab plan that it says impinges on its sovereignty, and Russia's willingness to use its U.N. Security Council veto to protect Syria from sanctions.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told reporters Sunday in Egypt that contacts were under way with China and Russia.
"I hope that their stand will be adjusted in line with the final drafting of the draft resolution," he told reporters before leaving for New York with Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim.
The two will seek U.N. support for the latest Arab plan to end Syria's crisis. The plan calls for a two-month transition to a unity government, with Assad giving his vice president full powers to work with the proposed government.
Because of the escalating violence, the Arab League on Saturday halted the work of its observer mission in Syria at least until the League's council can meet. Arab foreign ministers were to meet Sunday in Cairo to discuss the Syrian crisis in light of the suspension of the observers' work and Damascus' refusal to agree to the transition timetable, the League said.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said he was "concerned" about the League's decision to suspend its monitoring mission and called on Assad to "immediately stop the bloodshed." He spoke Sunday at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa.
While the international community scrambles to find a resolution to the crisis, the violence on the ground in Syria has continued unabated.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 civilians were killed Sunday in Syria, most of them in fighting in the Damascus suburbs and in the central city of Homs, a hotbed of anti-regime protests. Twenty-six soldiers and nine defectors were also killed, it said. The soldiers were killed in ambushes that targeted military vehicles near the capital and in the northern province of Idlib.
The Local Coordination Committees' activist network said 50 people were killed Sunday, including 13 who were killed in the suburbs of the capital and two defectors. That count excluded soldiers killed Sunday.
The differing counts could not be reconciled, and the reports could not be independently confirmed. Syrian authorities keep tight control on the media and have banned many foreign journalists from entering the country.
Syria's state-run news agency said "terrorists" detonated a roadside bomb by remote control near a bus carrying soldiers in the Damascus suburb of Sahnaya, killing six soldiers and wounding six others. Among those killed in the attack some 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of the capital were two first lieutenants, SANA said.
In Irbil, a Kurdish city in northern Iraq, about 200 members of Syria's Kurdish parties were holding two days of meetings to explore ways of supporting efforts to topple Assad.
Abdul-Baqi Youssef, a member of the Syrian Kurdish Union Party, said representatives of 11 Kurdish parties formed the Syrian Kurdish National Council that will coordinate anti-government activities with Syria's opposition.
Kurds make up 15 percent of Syria's 23 million people and have long complained of discrimination.
___
Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo; Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq; and Luc van Kemenade in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.
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MIAMI ? Mitt Romney strode into the final 48 hours of the pivotal Florida Republican primary campaign with the confidence of a resurgent front-runner, predicting he'll win in Tuesday's voting while looking ahead to future contests.
His main rival Newt Gingrich hustled around the state, trying to rekindle the energy that lifted him to victory in the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21. He acknowledged the possibility he could lose here but vowed to fight Romney to the party's national convention this summer.
Outspent 3-1 on television advertising in Florida during the campaign's closing week, Gingrich was working the free media by chatting up reporters on Saturday and scheduling appearances on two nationally televised Sunday talk shows.
Gingrich has been under heavy attack from Romney and allies of the former Massachusetts governor. Romney had spent the past several days, including during two Florida debates, sharply criticizing Gingrich's discipline, temperament and ethics during and after his time as the House speaker in the 1990s.
Romney changed his line of attack on Saturday to refocus his criticism on President Barack Obama.
"He's detached from reality," Romney said. He criticized Obama's plan to cut the size of the military and what he described as the administration's weak foreign policy.
Gingrich's South Carolina momentum has largely evaporated amid the pounding he has sustained from Romney's campaign and the pro-Romney group called Restore Our Future. They have spent some $6.8 million in ads criticizing Gingrich in the Florida campaign's final week. Polls show Romney solidly ahead.
Gingrich planned to campaign Sunday in central Florida.
Romney had a series of rallies planned for south Florida. He was also looking ahead to the next-up Nevada caucuses and was airing ads in that state ahead of the Feb. 4 contest.
Gingrich sought to regain momentum with the endorsement of Herman Cain, a tea party favorite and former presidential hopeful whose White House effort foundered amid sexual harassment allegations.
Gingrich has been put on the defensive under Romney's withering attack. Gingrich responded by describing the former Massachusetts governor as "dishonest" and questioning his GOP bona fides.
His pledge to stay in the race suggests Republicans could be in for a long winter and spring if money continues to flow into Gingrich's campaign.
A third GOP contestant, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, has made an effort to campaign in the Sunshine State but trails Romney and Gingrich by a wide margin. He cancelled his Sunday events after his 3-year-old daughter Bella was hospitalized. She suffers from a serious genetic condition.
Texas congressman Ron Paul has invested little in the Florida race and is looking ahead to Nevada.
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? One of the nation's largest consumer debt buyers will pay a $2.5 million civil fine to settle deception allegations.
The Federal Trade Commission said Monday that Michigan-based Asset Acceptance agreed to the penalty and to changes in the way it collects debt. The company buys unpaid debts from credit card companies, utilities, health clubs and others.
The FTC alleged that Asset tried to collect debt in some cases that wasn't even owed.
In other cases, the FTC says the company told consumers they owed a debt that may have been too old to collect because it was past the statute of limitations. Making a payment could then re-start the clock on the debt and allow collectors to take legal action.
Because of the volume of accounts Asset handles, in the tens of millions, the FTC said it was hard to estimate how many consumers were impacted by the practices the agency said the company used.
"Most consumers do not know their legal rights with respect to collection of old debts past the statute of limitations," said David Vladeck, director of the agency's bureau of consumer protection. "This FTC settlement signals that, even with old debt, the prohibitions against deceptive and unfair collection methods apply."
As part of the proposed settlement, Asset Acceptance, based in Warren, Mich., will have to tell consumers that their debt may be too old to be legally enforceable and that it won't sue to collect on that debt.
The company also will be barred from noting debt on a consumer's credit report without informing the consumer about the negative report.
Parent-company Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. said the agreement ends an FTC investigation begun in February 2006 "without any admission by Asset Acceptance of the FTC's claims." It added that the company "does not expect the operational requirements of the consent decree to have a material adverse effect on its business."
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When your laptop goes missing, your first reaction may be blind, unreasoning panic. If the laptop has Notebak Anti-Theft ($29.95/year direct) installed, though, you can relax a bit. That is, as long as you've configured the product correctly for maximum security. Notebak offers a wide variety of features to help you protect and recover your laptop and the data that it holds.
During installation you define a password for connecting with the Notebak Web portal, along with a separate secret key which can't be the same as the password. To make remote requests of the client installed on the laptop you'll need to enter this secret key.
To open the local Notebak client on the laptop itself you can either double-click its icon or press Shift+Ctrl+V. If desired you can set Notebak for stealth mode, hiding the icon. In that case, the special keystroke becomes the only way to open Notebak.
Lock and Alarm
Any time you have to leave your laptop unattended, you really should lock Windows, so nobody can even look at what you've been doing. Notebak can't do that for you, since it can't tell that you've walked away. However, it can lock automatically if a thief closes the lid or unplugs the power in preparation for running off with the laptop.
From the local client you can choose several alarm and lock options. Just setting it to sound the alarm if the laptop is unplugged or the lid closed won't help you much, since the thief can just click a big on-screen button to turn Notebak off. Instead, set it to sound the alarm and lock the computer. You can choose from a dozen alarm sounds.
As with Laptop Superhero ($29.99/year direct, 2.5 stars) and LaptopSentry 3.1 ($9.99 direct, 2.5 stars), Notebak's alarm could be silenced by plugging headphones (or even a simple audio jack) into the headphone socket. The startled thief probably won't think of this ploy.
Serious Lockdown
The DigitaLabel feature goes way beyond merely invoking Windows's computer lock. When active, it displays a big notice on the laptop screen before Windows ever boots, saying "REWARD FOR RETURN." The notice contains a unique identifier along with Notebak's Web address. An honest user can report the find using the unique ID, without ever receiving your personal connection information. As the owner, you can bypass that screen by typing in a four-digit code that you'll find by logging in to the Notebak Web portal.
Naturally I tried to break through this protection, to somehow gain access without entering the four-digit code. I couldn't do it. The product includes advice to foil a thief who wants to reformat the drive, though of course there's no hope if the thief physically extracts the drive and installs it in another computer.
When a good Samaritan reports finding a lost laptop, the recovery process is flexible. If you want to pay a reward, Notebak will negotiate with the finder. They can set up a meeting or have the finder ship them the laptop (at your expense). You (and the finder) can remain anonymous. The point is to give you the best a chance at recovery.
For maximum security, you can set DigitaLabel so it's always active. That means each time you restart or unlock the computer for your own use, you'll need to enter that four-digit code. You can also set it to activate any time the laptop's location is outside a user-defined geofence (more about geofencing shortly).
At a minimum, the company recommends you set DigiaLabel to turn on automatically if the laptop hasn't connected to the Internet for a full day. Like the offline lock feature in Laptop Superhero, this helps ensure that a thief can't totally foil Notebak by isolating it from your remote commands.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/NnEnW6uOuJA/0,2817,2399391,00.asp
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FILE - This is a Tuesday, May 25, 2010 file photo of actress Cynthia Nixon attending the Designing Women Awards in New York. Gay rights activists say actress Cynthia Nixon's insistence she chose to be a lesbian gives fodder to those who argue gays don't deserve marriage rights. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)
FILE - This is a Tuesday, May 25, 2010 file photo of actress Cynthia Nixon attending the Designing Women Awards in New York. Gay rights activists say actress Cynthia Nixon's insistence she chose to be a lesbian gives fodder to those who argue gays don't deserve marriage rights. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Cynthia Nixon learned the hard way this week that when it comes to gay civil rights, the personal is always political. Very political.
The actress best known for portraying fiery lawyer Miranda Hobbes on "Sex and the City" is up to her perfectly arched eyebrows in controversy since The New York Times Magazine published a profile in which she was quoted as saying that for her, being gay was a conscious choice. Nixon is engaged to a woman with whom she has been in a relationship for eight years. Before that, she spent 15 years and had two children with a man.
"I understand that for many people it's not, but for me it's a choice, and you don't get to define my gayness for me," Nixon said while recounting some of the flak gay rights activists previously had given her for treading in similar territory. "A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it's a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn't matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not."
To say that a certain segment of the gay community "is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice" is an understatement. Gay rights activists have worked hard to combat the idea that people decide to be physically attracted to same-sex partners any more than they choose to be attracted to opposite-sex ones because the question, so far unanswered by science, is often used by religious conservatives, including GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum and former candidate Michelle Bachman, to argue that homosexuality is immoral behavior, not an inherent trait.
Among the activists most horrified by Nixon's comments was Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen, whose organization monitors and tries to debunk programs that claim to cure people of same-sex attractions with therapy. Besen said he found the actress' analysis irresponsible and flippant, despite her ample caveats.
"Cynthia did not put adequate thought into the ramifications of her words, and it is going to be used when some kid comes out and their parents force them into some ex-gay camp while she's off drinking cocktails at fancy parties," Besen said. "When people say it's a choice, they are green-lighting an enormous amount of abuse because if it's a choice, people will try to influence and guide young people to what they perceive as the right choice."
Nixon's publicist did not respond to an e-mail asking if the actress wished to comment on the criticism.
While the broader gay rights movement recognizes that human sexuality exists on a spectrum, and has found common cause with transgender and bisexual people, Nixon may have unwittingly given aid and comfort to those who want to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, adopt children and secure equal spousal benefits, said Jennifer Pizer, legal director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and the Law, a pro-gay think tank based at the University of California, Los Angeles.
One of the factors courts consider in determining if a law is unconstitutional is whether members of the minority group it targets share an unchangeable or "immutable" trait, Pizer noted. Although the definition of how fixed a characteristic has to be to qualify as immutable still is evolving ? religious affiliation, for example, is recognized as grounds for equal protection ? the U.S. Supreme Court still has not included sexual orientation among the traits "so integral to personhood it's not something the government should require people to change," she said.
"If gay people in this country had more confidence that their individual freedom was going to be respected, then the temperature would lower a bit on the immutability question because the idea of it being a choice wouldn't seem to stack the deck against their rights," Pizer said.
Nixon stirred the identity politics pot further when she explained in a follow-up interview with The Daily Beast this week that she purposefully rejected identifying herself as bisexual even though her history suggested it was an accurate term.
"I don't pull out the "bisexual" word because nobody likes the bisexuals. Everybody likes to dump on the bisexuals," she said. "But I do completely feel that when I was in relationships with men, I was in love and in lust with those men. And then I met (her fianc?) Christine and I fell in love and lust with her. I am completely the same person and I was not walking around in some kind of fog. I just responded to the people in front of me the way I truly felt."
Although science has not identified either a purely biological or sociological basis for sexual orientation, University of California, Davis psychologist Gregory Herek, an expert on anti-gay prejudice, said Nixon's experience is consistent with research showing that women have an easier time moving between opposite and same-sex partners.
A survey Herek conducted of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals of both genders bore this out. Sixteen percent of the lesbians surveyed reported they felt they had had a fair amount of choice in their sexual orientations, while only five percent of the gay men did. Among bisexuals, the figures were 40 percent for men and 45 percent for women.
What remains to be teased out, Herek said, is how a representative national sample of heterosexuals would answer the same question, and what people mean when their sexual orientation was a choice or not. Are they talking about their sexual desires? Acting on those desires? Or simply the identity they choose to show to the world?
"The nature vs. nurture debate really is pass?," he said. "The debate is not really an either/or debate in the vast majority of cases, but how much of each. We don't know how big a role biology plays and how big a role culture plays. A possibility not often discussed is it's not the same for everybody."
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LOS ANGELES, Jan 26 (TheWrap.com) - "The Grey," starring Liam Neeson -- Open Road Film's second release ever -- is poised to debut as the No. 1 movie at the domestic box office this weekend.
The film is expected to easily beat this weekend's other new releases, Lionsgate's "One for the Money" and Summit's "Man on a Ledge."
It's an unusual weekend at the box office. None of the three new movies come from major studios but all three come from high-profile producers. Joe Carnahan, Ridley Scott and Tony Scott produced "The Grey," Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian produced "Man on a Ledge" and Katherine Heigl and Sidney Kimmel produced "One for the Money."
Another quirk of the weekend: Lionsgate is competing against itself. The company bought Summit Entertainment earlier this month. By the time the deal was done, much of the advertising for "Man on a Ledge" had been locked in.
But while both "Man on a Ledge" and "One For the Money" are rated PG-13, they target different audiences. "Ledge" is a thriller and "Money" is an action-comedy.
In limited release this weekend is Roadside Attractions' "Albert Nobbs," which won Glenn Close an Academy Award nomination. It will be at 246 locations. Other Oscar nominees expanding this weekend are "The Descendants," which will increase from 560 to 1,997 locations and "The Artist," which is going fro 662 locations to 900.
While Open Road, which launched last March, would be happy to break double-digits, less conservative box-office watchers outside Open Road believe the R-rated action drama will gross about $14.5 million.
It's not exactly a feel-good film: "The Grey" is about an oil drilling team that finds itself hunted by a pack of wolves after their airplane crashes, stranding them in the wilds of Alaska.
The movie, which Carnahan directed, is tracking well, according to the research firm NRG. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed by NRG reported some awareness of the movie and 38 percent reported "definite" interest in seeing it. Of all the movies opening this weekend, more people -- 7 percent of everyone, 11 percent of men younger than 25 and 12 percent of men 25 and older -- said "The Grey" was their "first choice."
Women, not surprisingly, were less enthusiastic about the film: 31 percent of all women said they were "definitely" interested in seeing it, but 5 percent of those younger than 25 and 3 percent of those 25 and older said it was their first choice.
Critics generally like the film, which opens at 3,185 locations. The website Metacritic.com, which measures critical response to movies, gave it a strong Metascore of 63.
Open Road, financed by exhibitors AMC Entertainment and Regal Entertainment Group, released its first movie, "Killer Elite," in 2011.
That R-rated action thriller was a flop, grossing $53 million worldwide on a $70 million budget.
(Editing By Zorianna Kit)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? A simple two-word message flashed this week on the electronic signboard outside Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center.
"Thanks JoePa."
On Thursday, a capacity crowd of more than 12,000 is expected to pack the arena for one more tribute to Joe Paterno, the Hall of Fame football coach who died Sunday from lung cancer.
His death at age 85 came less than three months after his stunning ouster as head coach in the wake of child sex-abuse charges against a retired assistant. But this week, thousands of alumni, fans, students and former players in Happy Valley are remembering Paterno for his record-setting career, his love for the school and his generosity.
Small clusters of mourners continued to visit Paterno's statue outside the school's football stadium hours before the memorial.
Sharon Winter, a 1963 graduate and long-time season ticket holder from Wernersville, dabbed tears from her eyes as she looked at the hundreds of items that well-wishers since Paterno's death.
"If you haven't lived it, you can't explain it," said Winter, who, with her husband Carl, keeps an apartment in State College. "We never knew the place without Joe. He's always been a part of our lives and who we are."
Many Penn Staters found themselves reflecting on Paterno's impact and the road ahead.
"What's Joe's legacy? The answer, is his legacy is us," former NFL and Nittany Lions receiver Jimmy Cefalo said Wednesday before Paterno's funeral. Cefalo is scheduled to be one of the speakers at the tribute called "A Memorial for Joe" at the arena across the street from Beaver Stadium ? the place Paterno helped turned into a college football landmark.
Paterno's son, former Nittany Lions quarterback coach Jay Paterno, also is expected to speak at the memorial, which will cap three days of public mourning for Paterno. Viewings were held Tuesday and Wednesday morning, before the funeral and burial service for Paterno on Wednesday afternoon at the campus interfaith center where family members attended church services.
Cefalo, who played for Penn State in the `70s, said it will be the most difficult speech of his life. But he offered a hint of what he might say.
"Generations of these young people from coal mines and steel towns who he gave a foundation to," Cefalo said. "It's not (the Division I record) 409 wins, it's not two national championships, and it's not five-time coach of the year (awards). It's us."
The memorial Thursday is expected to feature a speaker for each decade of Paterno's coaching career, according to Charles V. Pittman, a former player who said he will represent the 1960s.
Pittman said he was in Paterno's first class and was the coach's first All-America running back. Pittman's son later played for the Nittany Lions as well, making them the first father-son pair to play for Paterno, Pittman said. They wrote a book about their experiences called "Playing for Paterno."
Pittman said he spoke with Paterno two or three times a year. In 2002, the coach chided Pittman for moving to South Bend, Ind. ? home of rival Notre Dame ? to take a job as a newspaper executive.
"He called me a traitor," said Pittman, senior vice president for publishing at Schurz Communications Inc., an Indiana-based company that owns television and radio stations and newspapers, and a member of the Board of Directors of The Associated Press.
Pittman attended Wednesday's funeral, which also drew other notable guests including former NFL players Franco Harris and Matt Millen; and former defensive coordinator Tom Bradley. Nike founder Phil Knight and actor William Baldwin were there, too.
A procession wound through the Penn State campus and the surrounding State College community. Quiet mourners lined the route, watching with grief and reverence as the electric-blue hearse carrying Paterno's casket slowly drove by.
Some took pictures with their cellphones, or waved to his widow. Others craned their necks hoping for a better glimpse through the crowd sometimes four or more deep.
A family spokesman, Dan McGinn, said Paterno's grandchildren escorted the casket down the aisle during the opening procession, and again at the end of the service. Jay Paterno and his brother, Scott, were among the pallbearers.
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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Photo courtesy Enfinity America
Encouraging news regarding private sector financing for renewable energy continues to flow. That?s especially good news given a Congress hopelessly divided on key energy and environmental policy goals and legislation, among other critical issues, and the uncertainty surrounding renewal of key clean energy incentives.On Jan. 25, Wells Fargo and Enfinity America launched a joint $100 million solar photovoltaic (PV) investment program. As per the agreement, Wells Fargo will supply the capital Atlanta-based Enfinity America requires to do what it specializes in: developing solar PV projects around the US.
In another expression of confidence in the viability of US clean energy markets and industry, MidAmerican Energy Holdings, a subsidiary of Warren Buffet?s Berkshire Hathaway, on Jan. 24 announced it?s establishing a new business that will oversee its growing portfolio of wind, geothermal, solar and hydro projects.
MidAmerican?s Growing Clean Energy Presence
Based in Des Moines, Iowa, the MidAmerican Renewables will provide centralized oversight and top-level management of MidAmerican Wind LLC, MIdAmerican Geothermal LLC, MidAmerican Solar LLC and MidAmerican Hydro LLC, as well as project development and commercial management.
?MidAmerican Renewables is open for business. We look forward to expanding our wind, geothermal, solar and hydro portfolio, so we can offer energy in the renewables market. We believe the need for renewable energy will continue to grow, and we are excited to be a leader in this area,? MidAmerican Energy Holdings president and CEO Greg Abel stated.
MidAmerican?s been stepping up the pace of its clean energy investments of late. On Jan. 20, it acquired the 81 MW Bishop Hill II wind energy project from Invenergy Wind LLC. On Jan. 18, it completed the acquisition of a 49% equity interest in NRG Energy?s 290 MW Agua Caliente solar project in Yuma, Arizona.
Wells Fargo Backs Enfinity Clean Energy Project Development Activities
Wells Fargo has invested $2.7 billion across more than 300 renewable energy projects in 27 states since 2006. Enfinity America is a subsidiary of the Netherlands? Enfinity NV, a multinational solar PV project development company that?s installed 200 MW of solar energy capacity spanning projects in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region.
One particularly interesting project that came on-line in 2011 was the first-of-its-kind ?Solar Tunnel? project, where 16,000 solar panels were installed atop the roof of a high-speed rail tunnel in Antwerp, Belgium to provide electrical power for the trains, as well as the station.
?The solar industry landscape is fast-changing; solar developers can no longer rely on incentives like Treasury?s cash grant program to make their projects viable,? Enfinity America Corporation?s CEO, Rafael Dobrzynski, stated in a press release.
?Enfinity has always been able to call upon its highly effective network of financing relationships ? and this latest partnership with Wells Fargo will enable us to apply secure, robust financing to the many commercial, industrial and municipal solar energy opportunities in the United States.?
Providing ?technology agnostic? turnkey solar solutions for commercial, municipal and utility customers, the North American subsidiary is has or is developing projects ranging from a 33 MW PV solar farm in Ontario, a range of distributed generation projects in California, and the acquisition of a 9.8 MW PV installation at a ?blue-chip manufacturing facility? in Ohio.
Source: http://feeds.importantmedia.org/~r/IM-cleantechnica/~3/yhONksyEK24/
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It's been nearly four months since Amanda Knox returned to the U.S. after spending four years in an Italian jail. Now she may be going back to the country.
Why return to a place where she was jailed for so long?
Not to see the sights, although her lawyer says she still loves the country and would even consider returning as a tourist one day. But in the more immediate future, Amanda may testify on behalf of her parents, who face criminal charges of slander.
Curt Knox and Edda Mellas, who are divorced, are charged with slandering the Perugia police based on statements they made to London's Sunday Times.
In the interview, they repeated Amanda Knox's claims that she had been physically abused and verbally threatened by police during an interrogation.
How living at home in Washington State, Amanda Knox, 24, is expected to be called as a defense witness at their trial, which is set to begin on March 30.
Knox's murder conviction was overturned last October, but she also faces slander charges for statements regarding police conduct she made during her trial.
[Photo: Pacific Coast News]
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/amanda-knox-parents-face-slander-charges-in-italy/
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Early in his state of the union speech, President Obama renewed his call of last year for investments in clean energy. Unbowed by the troubles with Solyndra, Obama said he would direct the defense department to throw its buying power behind clean energy supplies for the U.S. military.
The U.S. military constitutes a huge market for alternative fuels. The Air Force alone burns 2.4 billion gallons of jet fuel a year. ?The Department of Defense burns $18 billion worth of oil a year, four fifths of the federal governments? energy tab.
In truth, a shift within the U.S. military to green fuels has been under way for more than a year. The U.S. Navy has been purchasing jet fuel derived from camelina?a derivative of canola?and a diesel like fuel derived from algae for its ships. The U.S. Air Force in 2010 began testing camelina oil in place of petroleum in its fuels as part of a program to? derive as much as half of its?fuel from alternative sources by 2016.
Whether Obama will be able to use clean energy to boost jobs may be tougher.?A Google.org study released last summer projected that breakthroughs in clean energy technologies would add $150 billion in additional economic output and 1.1 million new jobs by 2030. (The study, ?The Impact of Clean Energy Innovation,? is based on McKinsey & Co.?s Low Carbon Economics computer modeling.
For more on clean energy, see our in-depth report. http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=new-solutions-for-clean-energy
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I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy,? Obama said during his State of the Union address. ? I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That?s long enough. It?s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that?s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that?s never been more promising.?
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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=3e41b7d46da42f90f0ad63164f38b7a3
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(Reuters) ? Media conglomerate Time Warner Inc is leading a $12 million round of funding into a start-up company that analyzes tweets and Facebook posts as people watch their favorite TV programs.
Social TV analytics company Bluefin Labs is also backed in its second round of funding by another new investor, SoftBank Capital, as well as existing backers Redpoint Ventures and Lerer Ventures.
Time Warner, whose networks include Turner, CNN and HBO, has previously backed GetGlue, a social entertainment company that allows U.S. TV viewers to "check-in" when they are watching their favorite shows.
Time Warner investments executive Rachel Lam said the latest investment in Bluefin showed that the company sees engaging and understanding TV viewers as important to its future as more viewers share their opinions and experiences about TV through social media.
"For Time Warner it's pretty important to understand where the social data might take us and how it impacts television programming as well as the advertising," said Lam, who will join Bluefin's board.
Boston-based Bluefin launched its flagship analytics service Bluefin Signals last July for clients to analyze and organize social media conversations about U.S. national television.
The company said clients use the social data about TV shows and commercials to help make buying and selling decisions. Bluefin's clients include TV networks, marketers and agencies including CBS Corp, Discovery Communications Turner Networks, Starcom MediaVest, MediaCom and MTV.
To date it has collected data from more than 11,000 shows and analyzes more than 5 billion pieces of social media commentary every month.
Bluefin Chief Executive Deb Roy said his company will focus on expanding its sales efforts to get the service to more clients who want to better understand the viewers as consumers of programming as well as advertising.
"You can use understanding of social media to better optimize your advertising to consumers," Roy said.
(Reporting By Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)
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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? Venezuela has formally begun its withdrawal from a World Bank-affiliated arbitration body, the government announced Wednesday, in a decision made by President Hugo Chavez as cases have accumulated against the country's seizures of companies and their assets.
Chavez and his allies say that disagreements with foreign companies operating in Venezuela should be settled with local authorities and within its judicial system.
The Foreign Ministry announced Venezuela's withdrawal from the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, known by its initials as ICSID, in a statement, calling the government's decision "irreversible." It suggested the arbitration center unfairly favors foreign companies.
The Centre's website lists 17 pending cases against Venezuela, including claims by the Houston-based oil company ConocoPhillips Co., U.S. glass manufacturer Owens-Illinois Inc. and Canadian mining company Crystallex International Corp.
Diego Moya-Ocampos, an analyst with the IHS Global Insight consulting firm in London, said Venezuela's withdrawal from the center would not affect pending cases.
But he said the move could scare off foreign investors, particularly oil companies with potential interest in forming joint ventures with the state-run oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela in the Orinoco Oil Belt, which holds vast deposits of extra-heavy crude.
Studies confirming those deposits in a swath flanking the Orinoco River have allowed Venezuela to surpass Saudi Arabia as the nation with the world's biggest proven reserves, according to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
But Venezuela urgently needs cash to develop its industry in the Belt.
Leaving the ICSID "could seriously affect foreign investment, especially in the Orinoco region," Moya-Ocampos said in a telephone interview. "It could also affect Venezuela's credibility in international market and increase the cost of borrowing."
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COMMENTARY | What a day for South Carolina. Every four years presidential hopefuls try their hardest to win the first in the South primary because every Republican candidate that has gone on to win the White House has won the South Carolina primary initially. If you find yourself in South Carolina during this time you will hear one phrase repeatedly: South Carolina picks presidents.
Armed with an array of television ads, various endorsements and thousands of miles traveled, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul fought for the endorsement and delegates of the Palmetto State. While the candidates strategy included a few jabs at each other, they were unified in the belief that President Barack Obama needed to lose his job and that push would be reaffirmed in a state suffering from a 9.9 percent unemployment rate. In a complete rebuttal of the Republican establishment, Gingrich won the Palmetto State, according to the New York Times.
While pundits and media hosts responded to his win as a surprise, voters contributed Gingrich's win to his debate performance, winability and being the conservative alternative to Romney. What is remarkable is Gingrich won the counties where he was projected to come in second and third -- mainly on the coast. He carried the powerful Evangelical, military and Catholic vote.
Romney's loss is contributed to voters' concerns about Romneycare and his moderate-leaning record. Rick Santorum came in third and Ron Paul at a distant fourth. For Santorum and Paul, their respective placing is not as big of a blow as it is to the Romney camp.
South Carolina's primary has added a new dimension to the candidates campaign. This primary shows there is no clear Republican nominee and that we are in for a long primary season.
In Romney's own words, "This debate is getting even more interesting." Gingrich's win is a forthright message to the GOP establishment. Conservatives aren't happy and the GOP needs to stop bending to the whims of the fringe elite concerning social issues, immigration and fiscal policy.
The Republicans have work to do, but the Obama campaign will now have to work even harder. Instead of having time to prepare for one front-runner candidate, President Barack Obama will have to prepare for two polar opposite candidates. I close with my favorite quote of the night. After the primary Santorum said, "Three states, three winners, what a great country."
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COLUMBUS, Ohio ? A self-styled chaplain and a teenage boy he apparently mentored will be tried in a deadly Craigslist robbery scheme in their home county, about 100 miles from where prosecutors say three of the four crimes happened.
Although two men were killed in Noble County in rural eastern Ohio and a third was shot and wounded there, neither the victims nor the two suspects were from there.
The boy, 16-year-old Brogan Rafferty, was in Summit County Juvenile Court on Monday for a preliminary hearing at which he pleaded not guilty to several juvenile counts brought against him late Friday. Rafferty was a student at Stow-Munroe Falls High School in suburban Akron when he was arrested in the fall.
Rafferty was charged with three counts of aggravated murder, one count of attempted murder, four counts of aggravated robbery and four counts of kidnapping, Summit County prosecutor's spokeswoman April Wiesner said.
Those counts replace charges that Rafferty faced in Noble County before his case was transferred to Summit County.
Rafferty's attorney, John Alexander, said before Monday's hearing that it would involve the review of charges and allow for bond to be discussed.
The other suspect, 52-year-old Akron resident Richard Beasley, who took Rafferty under his wing and sometimes took him to church, was indicted Friday in Summit County on several charges that carry the possibility of the death sentence if he is convicted. He has denied involvement in the Craigslist plot.
Beasley was a Texas parolee when he returned to Ohio in 2004 after serving several years in prison on a burglary conviction. He was released from jail in July after a judge mistakenly allowed him to post bond on a drug-trafficking charge.
In a four-page handwritten letter to the Akron Beacon Journal newspaper, Beasley said he was miscast as a con man when he really helped feed, house and counsel scores of needy families, alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill and crime suspects for years.
"To call me a con man when I sacrificed for others is wrong," wrote Beasley, who didn't mention the Craigslist investigation. "To turn their back on me is not following Christ's example."
Two men were shot and killed and a third was shot but survived and escaped after hiding in woods in Noble County, authorities said. Those shootings happened between Aug. 9 and Nov. 6. A fourth man was killed Nov. 13, and his body was found in Akron.
One of the victims was from Norfolk, Va. The man who escaped was from South Carolina.
The victims had answered Craigslist ads for work on a nonexistent cattle farm in the rural county. The scheme targeted older, single, out-of-work men with backgrounds that made it unlikely their disappearances would be noted right away.
Attorney General Mike DeWine has called the crimes "serial killings" and said last week that authorities can't say for certain whether there are more bodies.
The Associated Press generally does not identify juvenile crime suspects, but Rafferty's name has been widely reported by local and national media outlets.
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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached at http://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
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WARSAW, Poland ? Polish officials vowed Monday to stick to plans to sign an international copyright treaty that has outraged Internet activists and prompted an attack on government websites.
A government minister, Michal Boni, defended the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. He said that signing the international treaty would not hamper Internet usage and that Poland will sign it on Thursday, as planned.
"The ACTA agreement in no way changes Polish laws or the rights of Internet users and Internet usage," Boni, the minister of administration and digitization, said after a meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski.
Internet opponents of ACTA fear it could lead to censorship online.
Monday's developments came after a Twitter account using the name "AnonymousWiki" announced plans on the weekend to attack government websites to protest the government's support for ACTA. Within hours on Sunday, the websites of the prime minister, parliament and other government offices were unreachable or sluggish, the hallmarks of a denial-of-service attack.
The technique works by directing streams of bogus traffic at a website, jamming it in the same way that a telephone line can be overwhelmed by hundreds of prank calls.
In an initial response Sunday, government spokesman Pawel Gras suggested there hadn't been an attack at all on the sites. "This isn't an attack by hackers, but just the result of huge interest in the sites" of the government offices, he said, a comment that quickly became a source of ridicule on Facebook and other Internet sites.
By Monday, with the sites still paralyzed, the prime minister held a meeting to reconsider their stance on the treaty.
"It was a velvet attack by hackers, but still it was an attack. Pawel Gras was wrong," said Slawomir Neumann, a lawmaker with the government Civic Platform party. Neumann said the situation showed that the Polish government is poorly prepared to handle such attacks.
Boni acknowledged in a radio interview Monday morning that the government had failed to hold enough consultations with the public on the matter.
An opposition party, the Democratic Left Alliance, also called on the government to not sign the treaty in a gesture of solidarity with those who warn it could hurt Internet freedom.
Anonymous, the group suspected of involvement in the attacks, made a number of threats before and during the Internet disruptions.
"Dear Polish government, we will continue to disrupt and interfere with your government official websites until the 26th. Do not pass ACTA," one tweet by AnonymousWiki said.
It also threatened more trouble should Poland sign ACTA.
"We have dox files and leaked documentations on many Poland officials, if ACTA is passed, we will release these documents," AnonymousWiki said in a separate tweet.
Although its scope is broader, ACTA shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act, which was shelved by U.S. lawmakers last week after Wikipedia and Google blacked out or partially obscured their websites for a day as part of a protest against Web censorship.
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>> next up for the presidential candidates , florida , where early voting is under way right now in the critical state . the primary is not until i should say january 3 1st. but mitt romney and the super pac supporting him have spent $73 million on ads. in fact, this ad where romney is praising his family and work ethic has already run in iowa and new hampshire. joining me now live is florida congressman. congressman, thank you for your time.
>> it's good to be with you.
>> so you are supporting mitt romney . let me talk to you about south carolina and how it may or may not set the stage for you state if he doesn't pull out a victory. you see the polls showing newt gingrich closing the gap or ahead of romney .
>> well, i think we're getting to the end of the nomination process. thank goodness. i think people have probably heard enough. but last week i made a decision to for for governor romney . if you look at all the the people with all the political rhetoric , what it boils down to is we want someone that can get our economy out of the ditch and provide some opportunity for our children and for the future, and somebody who has had elected executive experience. and when you go through them all, we have great candidates. south carolina and floridians and the rest of the nation will settle on mitt romney .
>> i'm intrigue that had you think it's wrapping up. iowa went to rick santorum . new hampshire went to governor romney . and today south carolina could go to newt gingrich . that would be the first time that all three -- the caucus and the two primaries went to a different candidate. why does that make you feel this is wrapping up? many people see that as being quite the opposite. rick santorum says win or lose, which it appears he probably won't eke out a victory. he says he's still in it.
>> some people have left the race. i've served with them. they have wonderful people. we all share a very similar political philosophy . but when this boils down to who are we going to get to give our children and the future of america back you want somebody who has had some business experience. i think you just look at the romney experience. he's a self made man. he has the experience, not only as far as business -- i mean, again if you're going to get unique experience, he has it taking businesses that were going down the tubes and making them work. you can't make everyone work in a free market society , but he did it. and then, again, and again, i love to hear the rhetoric and the debate and all the cliches. we need an elected executive.
>> i think people will debate whether or not he's self made, but i'll move onto that and ask you this, does mitt romney need to release his tax returns , and how soon? he wants to wait until april. chris christie says he needs to do it now. what do you say?
>> well, i think that's a nonissue.
>> really? why?
>> because, we know he has substantial income. we know he's made money.
>> so why not release it?
>> he can release them, i think, any time he feels it's appropriate. if he becomes the nominee, he should release them. he said he would in april. and i feel pretty confident he'll be the nominee by then and he'll do that. but the issues i hear when i'm home. we had president obama come to florida this week, and he's desperate in florida trying to make it look like he's doing something, we have 10% unemployment in florida . people aren't interested in tax returns , they want the opportunity --
>> yeah, those people unemployed -- we're almost out of time. on the last point, you say people aren't interested. they are --
>> not one person are talking about tax returns .
>> if they believe that the nominee is for the so called 1% who would greatly benefit from a 15% tax rate , that is a part of the narrative. it is a part of the have and the have not, and what kind of people would the president if it is mitt romney , who would he look out for? would he look out for the corporations that he refers to as people or would he look out for the people of south carolina who make an average income of $30,000 and many of the people i have spoken with and spent time with in your state of florida , desperately trying to find work. they did not lose their jobs under the obama administration. they were out of work under the prior administration, which was president bush .
>> you know, everything starts pretty close to home here. i look at newt gingrich , we have some fine people and they talk good political games. but again you start with the family and then you look at how people conduct themselves, then you look at business. and you look at have they run a business? have they gotten a business out of the ditch?
>> congressman --
>> the other thing, do you have elected executive experience to get this country moving.
>> i get your point. we'll see what they get. thank you so much, congressman. this monday, by the way, don't miss the nbc news presidential debate moderated by brian williams live from the university of
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/46083265/
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WASHINGTON ? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Sunday that he will release his 2010 tax returns and 2011 estimates on Tuesday, acknowledging it was a mistake for his campaign not to have done so earlier.
Stung by a loss to Newt Gingrich in Saturday's South Carolina primary, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist said it was "not a good week for me" and he cited all the time he had spent talking about his tax returns as his rivals pressed him to make them public.
After months of resistance, Romney had said last week that he would release tax information for 2011, but not until April, close to the tax filing deadline. That also was seen as a time, before the South Carolina race rattled his front-runner status, when the GOP nomination might have been decided.
"I think we just made a mistake in holding off as long as we did. It just was a distraction. We want to get back to the real issues of the campaign: leadership, character, a vision for America, how to get jobs again in America and how to rein in the excessive scale of the federal government," Romney told "Fox News Sunday."
Romney disclosed on Tuesday that, despite his wealth of hundreds of millions of dollars, he has been paying in the neighborhood of 15 percent, far below the top maximum income tax rate of 35 percent, because his income "comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past."
"Given all the attention that's been focused on tax returns, given the distraction that I think they became in these last couple of weeks," Romney said in the broadcast interview that he would release his 2010 returns and estimates for his 2011 returns at the same time "so there's not a second release down the road."
"We'll be putting our returns on the Internet, people can look through them," Romney said. "It will provide, I think, plenty of information for people to understand that the sources of my income are exactly as described in the financial disclosure statements we put out a couple of months ago.
During 2010 and the first nine months of 2011, the Romney family had at least $9.6 million in income, according to a financial disclosure form submitted in August.
Further focusing attention on his wealth was Romney's offhand remark to reporters that his income from paid speeches amounted to "not very much" money. In the August disclosure statement, he reported being paid $373,327.62 for such appearances for the 12 months ending last February. That sum alone would him in the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers.
In addition, Romney owns investments worth between $7 million and $32 million in offshore-based holdings, which are often used legitimately by private equity firms to attract foreign investors. Such offshore accounts also can enable wealthy investors to defer paying U.S. taxes on some assets, according to tax experts.
An Associated Press examination of Romney's financial records identified at least six funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a small Caribbean island chain that has long been used as a base for international investments because of low tax rates and financial secrecy. Romney has acknowledged that some of his investments are based in the Caymans, but he has not identified all of the specific accounts and the amounts based there. There is no indication Romney uses the accounts to dodge any U.S. tax obligations.
"Cayman Islands account so-to-speak is apparently an investment that was made in an entity that invests in the United States, the taxes paid on that are full U.S. taxes," Romney said.
The Caymans have often been associated with individuals and corporations seeking to avoid paying U.S. taxes. It is legal for U.S. residents to own investment accounts that are set up there, if they file the proper forms with the Internal Revenue Service and pay the appropriate taxes.
"I know people will try and find something," Romney said, adding, "We pay full, fair taxes, and you'll see it's a pretty substantial amount."
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As the superhero franchise boom shows no signs of slowing down, 20th Century Fox is looking to get moving on their Fantastic Four reboot. We knew the reboot was coming, as Fox is in danger of losing the property if they don?t produce a Fantastic Four film every few years. Now the studio has apparently honed in on their choice for the film?s director: Josh Trank. The director is set to make his feature debut with the found footage superhero movie Chronicle, which has been generating a good deal of buzz ever since the first trailer debuted online. The studio won?t make a final decision on Trank until after seeing how Chronicle fares once it hits theaters, but Variety says insiders at Fox are very keen on the young director. Hit the jump for more.
Michael Green (Green Lantern) penned the script for the reboot, and Akiva Goldsman (Batman and Robin) was previously onboard to produce but Variety?s report states that he?s since left the project. Tim Story directed the first two Fantastic Four movies, which were pretty damn terrible. There?s no word on what direction this reboot would take, but given the nature of most superhero properties currently in development I wouldn?t be surprised if they say they?re going the ?darker? or ?more realistic? route.
Personally, I think moving as far always as possible from Story?s films is a great place to start. Obviously I haven?t seen Chronicle yet so I can?t really judge whether or not Trank is the best man for the job, but Fox seems to be really high on the guy so they must think they?ve got something special with the found footage flick. If the internet buzz is any indication Chronicle is in for a pretty successful run at the box office, so it?s a pretty safe bet that Trank will land the job. Obviously we?ll know more after the film?s opening weekend. Chronicle hits theaters February 3rd.
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1924326/news/1924326/
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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ? Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani appeared in the Supreme Court on Thursday for what could be a fight for his political survival and adding to growing pressure on the unpopular civilian government.
The court has threatened the premier with contempt for failing to pursue corruption cases against the president and other officials.
It is the latest blow for the civilian administration which also faces pressure from the military over a mysterious memo seeking U.S. help to avert an alleged coup last year.
Some question whether the government that is seen as corrupt and inept can survive and which is already widely accused of failing to deal with the basic issues of poverty, crippling power cuts, dilapidated infrastructure and a struggling economy.
The tensions could bring down Gilani, who until recently had smooth ties with all of Pakistan's power centers.
Downfall of the government could plunge the strategic U.S. ally into a full blown-political crisis and further hamper badly-needed economic and political progress.
Pakistanis got a taste of what may come -- more delays in everything from economic reforms to investment in the troubled power sector -- even before the session started.
Traffic crawled to a halt after police blocked off parts of the city to impose tighter security in the South Asian country facing homegrown Taliban militants blamed for many of the suicide bombings that have kept foreign investors away.
Hundreds of policemen were stationed outside the Supreme Court as every car was checked. Gilani's security men, in dark suits, combed the premises.
While Gilani is the one facing a contempt hearing, most observers say the court's real target is Zardari.
During the 1990s, Zardari had multiple cases of corruption and even murder lodged against him, all of which he says are false and politically motivated.
An amnesty deal that protected him from prosecution was nullified in 2009 and the court has been pushing for the government to re-open and investigate the corruption cases against Zardari.
The government refuses to do so, saying Zardari enjoys immunity as the head of state.
While Gilani is not considered to be in immediate danger and the case is expected to be drawn out, he could have to step down eventually if he were to be held in contempt of court.
Gilani won a unanimous vote of confidence in parliament when he became prime minister nearly four years ago, and has been known as a peacemaker even among the ruling Pakistan People's Party's most bitter enemies. Unlike Zardari, he was seen as having smooth ties with the military before the latest turmoil.
But his diplomatic skills may not be enough to fend off both the Supreme Court and Pakistan's generals, who have ruled the country for more than half of its 64 years history through coups, and from behind the scenes.
"The fact is that it's not just the anger of the judges against the PM, it's the anger of the army against the PM as well," said Ayesha Siddiqa, a prominent defense analyst.
(Additional reporting by Serena Chaudhry in ISLAMABAD; Writing by Michael Georgy)
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