Libya leaves African Cup happy after historic win

Associated Press Sports

updated 12:35 p.m. ET Jan. 30, 2012

BATA, Equatorial Guinea (AP) -In the end, Ihaab Boussefi's late volley wasn't enough to send Libya through to the African Cup of Nations quarterfinals.

Boussefi's second goal in Sunday night's game in Bata, however, did clinch a 2-1 win over Senegal for Libya's first victory at the tournament on foreign soil, ultimately sending the players home happy at the end of an inspiring adventure.

Libya was never expected to even reach the tournament with the civil war raging at home during its qualifying campaign. Some players even left the squad to fight for the rebels on the front line.

Somehow Libya made it, and at Estadio de Bata against Senegal the players celebrated an historic victory which was a just reward for the team's perseverance.

"For us, this result was so important because of the situation and the problems, the painful situation in Libya for the people," said Marcos Paqueta, Libya's Brazilian coach.

No one illustrated what it meant to Libya more than veteran goalkeeper and captain Samir Aboud, who sank to his knees at the final whistle with his arms held out in front of him to give thanks.

After more than a decade with the team, Aboud could celebrate a victory at the African Cup.

Libya's team made the final at home in 1982 but failed to win a game at its only other trip to the tournament in 2006.

To reach Gabon and Equatorial Guinea this year, the team had to play its home games in Mali and Egypt as chaos reigned back in Libya. Yet it came through qualifying unbeaten and, despite a loss in its opening game against co-host Equatorial Guinea at the tournament, lifted itself for a creditable draw against Zambia before the success against the Senegalese.

At Estadio de Bata, Libya also had to rally after Senegal equalized following Boussefi's fifth-minute opener. But striker Boussefi, one of 12 home-based players in the squad who had no club football in the buildup because of the suspension of Libya's league, popped up with a sweetly struck volley in the final minutes.

"The players did a great job," Paqueta said. "They provided a big effort and this crowned the achievements they have made since the beginning."

The coach also called for Libya's new leaders and its reformed football federation to support the team and help it develop, and not let its "crowning moment" go to waste.

Libya's joy contrasted with the despair of Senegal's highly rated players, who fell to a third straight loss at the Cup of Nations and an embarrassing end after being tipped as a possible contender for the title.

Even with one of the best forward lines at the tournament - which included Newcastle strikers Demba Ba and Papiss Demba Cisse, Lille's Moussa Sow and captain Mamadou Niang - Senegal badly underperformed.

The team slipped to 2-1 defeats in all three games to exit the tournament without a point for the first time in its history and put coach Amara Traore's future in serious doubt.

Traore remained defiant afterward, however.

"There is no question, I will not resign. That is clear," Traore said. "I will not resign. I can't be clearer than that. It's clear. I will not resign. I have a burning desire to continue. The only certainty I have is to continue."

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Arsenal recovers

Roundup: Arsenal kept its bid to end a seven-year trophy drought on track Sunday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46187713/ns/sports-soccer/

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Avoiding 'sentimental' decision

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It?s official.? In Saturday?s edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, ?reader representative? Ted Diadiun addressed at length the decision to remove long-time Browns writer Tony Grossi from the team?s beat.? Diadiun?s article is well-written, superficially persuasive, and apparently effective, given the number of emails we?ve received from folks who believe based on Diadiun?s article that the newspaper did the right thing.

But it doesn?t change our opinion that the Plain Dealer cowered to the Browns.? In fact, it strengthens it.

When scrutinizing an employment decision, inconsistencies in the reasons and rationalizations from the employer become extremely important.? The thinking is that, if the employer can?t tell a unified story in support of a supposedly legitimate decision, it?s possible that the employer is trying to conceal potentially illegitimate motives.? Circumstantial evidence also takes on a critical role, since the employer rarely will admit to ordering the Code Red.? Or, perhaps for these purposes, a Code Orange.

And that?s really the ultimate question.? Did the Browns order a Code Orange on Grossi?? Or, more accurately, did the Plain Dealer reassign Grossi because it believed the Browns wanted Grossi out?

Let?s consider the facts, the circumstances, and the inconsistencies.

First, the facts.? Grossi posted on his Twitter page a message that he had intended to keep private.? In the message, Grossi called Browns owner Randy Lerner a ?pathetic figure? and ?the most irrelevant billionaire in the world.?? (Of all the billionaires in the world, technically one of them must be the most irrelevant.)? Grossi immediately deleted the tweet once he realized his mistake.? By then, however, his words had been copied and repeated across the Internet, and it was impossible to unring the bell.

Grossi apologized publicly, the Plain Dealer apologized publicly, and Plain Dealer publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger sent a written apology to the Browns and to Lerner.

Though not addressed in Diadiun?s column, the Browns responded with silence.? Apart from declining to comment in response to inquiries from PFT, the Browns and Lerner refused to take calls from Grossi, and possibly from other officials of the Plain Dealer.? Indeed, Diadiun admits that ?[n]one of the editors involved talked with anyone connected with the team? before making the decision to reassign Grossi.

Diadiun omits reference to the key question of whether the Plain Dealer tried to have such discussions.

Second, the circumstances.? Most significantly, Diadiun admits that Egger personally met with Lerner and team president Mike Holmgren on Wednesday, after the decision was made to reassign Grossi.? The fact that a meeting occurred invites speculation that the Browns cared ? or at a minimum that the Plain Dealer believed the Browns cared ? about the manner in which this situation was handled.

Third, the inconsistencies.? On Thursday, Plain Dealer managing editor Thom Fladung told 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland that the ?determining factor? for the decision was the following standard:? ?Don?t do something that affects your value as a journalist or the value of your newspaper or affects the perception of your value and the perception of that newspaper?s value.?? Fladung also said that Grossi?s opinions would have been permissible if he had posted them not on his Twitter page, but in the pages of the Plain Dealer.? ?Let?s say Tony had written that Randy Lerner?s lack of involvement with the Browns and their resulting disappointing records over the years has made him irrelevant as an owner, that?s defensible,? Fladung said.? ?That?s absolutely defensible.?

But Diadiun?s item contains a contradictory quote from Plain Dealer editor Adam Simmons, who thinks that Grossi?s role as a beat writer precluded him from making the statements about Lerner in any context.? ?If it had been a columnist who wrote that, we might cringe, but that role is different,? Simmons said. ?They?re paid to offer up opinions, however prickly. But we?re not asking them to go out and cover a team in a fair and balanced and objective way, like we are with a reporter.?? (Presumably, Simmons also believes that a columnist could have offered those opinions on his Twitter page, since opinions are fair game for a columnist.)

Complicating matters is Diadiun?s attempt to reconcile the action against Grossi with his First Amendment rights.? Rather that relying on the simple ? and accurate ? notion that employees of a private, for-profit enterprise have no First Amendment rights, Diadiun draws a clumsy line between personal and professional social media.? ?Anyone who works at the paper has the right to say, write or Tweet anything they wish,? Diadiun writes.? ?But they do not have a corresponding right to say it in the newspaper or on the website or on their newspaper Twitter account.? If they do, the editors who are in charge of maintaining the credibility of the newspaper have the right to change their assignment.?

So Fladung says that Grossi could have said what he said in the paper, Simmons says that Grossi couldn?t have said what he said anywhere unless he was a columnist, and Diadiun says that Grossi could have said what he said on his own, personal Twitter page.? And no one says it?s impermissible for Grossi to secretly possess those views, even if those views (as Diadiun writes) undermine his credibility.? Under the newspaper?s view of journalistic ethics, it only becomes a problem when those views are disclosed ? which actually should make Grossi even more credible, since he has openly acknowledged his bias.

The end result is a stew of mixed messages, which invites speculation that the real reason for the move was to maintain a good relationship with the Browns.? Though there continues to be ? and likely never will be ? any evidence that the Browns told the Plain Dealer what the Browns wanted the Plain Dealer to do, some of the loudest and clearest messages can be sent through silence.

When Grossi or others from the Plain Dealer tried to call Lerner and/or Holmgren and they refused to speak, what should a reasonable person conclude?? Moreover, why would a meeting with Lerner and Holmgren even be needed if the Plain Dealer didn?t care about the team?s response to the situation?? If this decision was solely about journalistic standards and the integrity and credibility of Grossi?s coverage in the eyes of the audience given his personal views regarding Lerner, there was no reason to go to Berea and kiss rings and/or smooch butts.

That?s the fundamental disconnect.? The Plain Dealer wants us to believe it engaged in a textbook exercise in ethics while at the same time doing things like writing letters of apology to Lerner and publicly calling Grossi?s words about Lerner insulting and personally meeting with Lerner and Holmgren.

Though the Browns may not have intended to order a Code Orange, we believe that the Plain Dealer believed that it needed to remove Grossi from the beat in order to remain in the good graces of the Browns.? And we?d have far more (or, as the case may be, any) respect for this decision if the Plain Dealer would simply admit that which upon inspection of the facts, the circumstances, and the inconsistencies seems obvious.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/29/irsay-wants-to-avoid-sentimental-decision-this-isnt-fantasy-football/related/

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EU leaders struggle to reconcile austerity, growth

BRUSSELS?? European leaders struggled to reconcile austerity with growth on Monday at a summit due to approve a permanent rescue fund for the euro zone and put finishing touches to a German-driven pact for stricter budget discipline.

Officially, the half-day summit was meant to focus mainly on ways to revive growth and create jobs at a time when governments across Europe are having to cut public spending and raise taxes to tackle mountains of debt.

But disputes over the limits of austerity, and about Greece's unresolved debt restructuring negotiations with private bondholders, may sour efforts to send a more optimistic message that Europe is getting on top of its debt crisis.

The risk premium on southern European government bonds rose while the euro and stocks fell on concerns about a lack of tangible progress in the Greek debt talks and gloom about Europe's economic outlook.

Highlighting those fears, Spain's economy contracted in the last quarter of 2011 for the first time in two years and looks set to slip into a long recession.

And France halved its 2012 growth forecast to a mere 0.5 percent in another potentially ominous sign for President Nicolas Sarkozy's troubled bid for re-election in May. Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the cut would not entail further budget savings measures.

Conservative Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, attending his first EU summit, said Madrid was clearly not going to meet its target of 2.3 percent growth this year. That has raised big doubts about whether it can cut its budget deficit from around 8 percent of economic output in 2011 to 4.4 percent by the end of this year as promised.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hinted that Brussels may ease Spain's near-unattainable 2012 deficit target after it updates EU growth forecasts on February 23.

Italy, rushing through sweeping economic reforms under new Prime Minister Mario Monti, was rewarded with a significant fall in its borrowing costs at an auction of 10- and 5-year bonds, despite double-notch downgrades of its credit rating by Standard & Poor's and Fitch this month.

But Portugal's slide towards becoming the next Greece - needing a second bailout to avoid chaotic bankruptcy - gathered pace as banks raised the cost of insuring government bonds against default and insisted the money be paid up front instead of over several years.

The yield spread on 10-year Portuguese bonds over safe haven German Bunds topped 15 percentage points for the first time in the euro era. It cost a record 3.9 million euros ($5.12 million) to insure 10 million euros of Portuguese debt.

Outlawing Keynes?
With Britain standing aloof, most of the other 26 EU leaders were set to approve a fiscal pact to write balanced budget rules into their national law, despite economists' doubts about the wisdom of effectively outlawing deficit spending.

"To write into law a Germanic view of how one should run an economy and that essentially makes Keynesianism illegal is not something we would do," a British official said.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz told the leaders the new fiscal treaty was unnecessary and unbalanced, because it failed to combine budget rigor with necessary investment in public works to create jobs.

The 17th summit in two years as the EU battles to resolve its sovereign debt problems was called to shift the narrative away from politically unpopular austerity and towards growth.

Despite the rhetoric on growth, debate over strengthening the euro zone's financial defenses and lowering Greece's debt burden are likely to dominate the talks.

Negotiations between the Greek government and private bondholders over the restructuring of 200 billion euros of Greek debt made progress over the weekend, but were not concluded before the summit began.

A Greek official said Prime Minister Lucas Papademos would give the summit a brief report on the situation and meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the sidelines.

Until there is a deal between Greece and its private bondholders, EU leaders cannot move forward with a second, 130 billion euro rescue program for Athens, which they originally agreed to at a summit last October.

Germany caused outrage in Greece by proposing last week that a European commissar take control of Greek public finances to ensure it meets fiscal targets. Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said that to make his country choose between national dignity and financial assistance ignored the lessons of history.

The German idea won cautious backing from the Dutch and Swedish prime ministers.

"We need to have things in place for monitoring that they are really doing what they are promising," Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt told reporters on arrival.

But Merkel played down the idea of placing Greece under stewardship, saying: "We are having a debate that we shouldn't be having. This is about how Europe can be supportive so Greece can comply, so there are targets."

Permanent rescue fund
The leaders were to sign a treaty creating the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a 500-billion-euro permanent bailout fund that is due to become operational in July, a year earlier than first planned.

But there was a last-minute hitch over the terms of a 'fiscal compact treaty' tightening budget rules when four central European states demanded that countries planning to join the euro be allowed to attend all euro zone summits.

The prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia agreed to seek an amendment to the text as a condition for joining the pact, a Hungarian spokesman said.

The ESM was meant to replace the European Financial Stability Facility, a temporary fund that has been used to bail out Ireland and Portugal.

But pressure is mounting - including from Italy's Monti, IMF chief Christine Lagarde and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner - to combine the resources of the two funds to create a

super-firewall of 750 billion euros ($1 trillion).

The International Monetary Fund says if Europe puts up more of its own money, that will convince others to contribute more resources to the IMF, boosting its crisis-fighting abilities and improving market sentiment.

But Germany has so far resisted such a step.

Merkel has said she will not discuss the issue of the ESM/EFSF's ceiling until the next EU summit in March. Meanwhile, financial markets will continue to worry that there may not be sufficient rescue funds available to help the likes of Italy and Spain if they run into renewed debt funding problems.

"There are certainly signals that Germany is willing to consider it and it is rather geared towards March from the German side," a senior euro zone official said.

The sticking point is German public opinion which is tired of bailing out the euro zone's financially less prudent.

The summit was expected to announce that up to 20 billion euros of unspent funds from the EU's 2007-2013 budget will be recycled towards job creation, especially among the young, and will commit to freeing up bank lending to small- and medium-sized companies.

But with no new public money available for a stimulus, leaders focused mainly on promoting structural reforms such as loosening labor market regulation, cutting red tape for business and promoting innovation.

However, they were unlikely to resolve a decade-old battle over creating a single European patent which would reduce the high cost of registering inventions and protecting intellectual property. Firms currently have to register patents in each of the 27 member states. The streamlining has long been stymied by disputes over language and the location of an EU patent court.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46191196/ns/business-world_business/

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Report from Syria: The Brutal, Shadowy War for Hearts and Minds (Time.com)

On a cool winter day in the city of Deraa, a young man walking by me on a busy commercial street grazed me gently. In any large city outside of Syria, it would have gone unnoticed. But as I made eye contact with the young man, he gestured with his head to follow him in between two buildings. I quickly sensed the nudge was not accidental.

I had been standing on the busy street filming with my cameraman, part of a government-sanctioned tour of the restive city where Syria's uprising began. Shops were open, traffic flowing and people hurrying about their business. There was a sense of normalcy to the street until, that is, I followed the young man into the alleyway. "Nothing is what it seems," he said. "This is what they want you to see, so you think everything is normal." (PHOTOS: Protests in Syria.)

The young man began speaking at a dizzying pace, describing for me the horrors of what happened and is happening in this city, including daily raids of resident homes, ubiquitous security checkpoints and crackdowns on dissent. He lifted his shirt up to show me gunshot wounds he says he suffered during the crackdown on Deraa. "Come back after a few hours and see what happens in Deraa after it gets dark." As he pulled his shirt back down, he looked at me squarely and said, "The only gangs in these cities are the armed gangs that belong to Assad... Only the Free Syrian Army will protect us and will not stop until the regime falls."

As quickly as the conversation began, it ended. I was back on the street in the company of the government minders off to our next stop. Earlier in the day, a group of journalists were taken to meet the governor of Deraa, Mohammed Khaled el Hannous. Ironically, his message was very similar to what the young man on the street would tell me a few hours later. "The situation in Deraa and Syria is not what you see on TV," he added. "Three quarters of our problem come from Al Jazeera and satellite channels exaggerating what is happening. Today, you will go out and see for yourself what Deraa is like."

According to el Hannous, and by extension the Syrian government, what began as a legitimate protest against corruption and political stagnation back in March was addressed and resolved with "respectable residents." Today, those in the streets "are armed gangs and terrorists" and not the same as those who originally took to the streets. "They are bought with money and drugs." (PHOTOS: Bomb Blast In Damascus.)

Once again, the reality in the country was different depending on whom you asked. In Syria, there are concerns that the protracted conflict has become a battle over perception as much as it has become a battle for the future of the country.

Each side claims a monopoly on the truth, making it harder for everyone to really understand what is happening on the ground, especially journalists relying on unverifiable amateur footage from inside the country, government escorted minders on the other side, statements from exiled opposition and Syrian government officials who rarely grant journalists interviews.

On the streets of the capital Damascus, many supporters of President Bashir al-Assad know who to blame for the recent unrest. They blame Qatar and Arab Gulf countries, accusing them of inciting violence to weaken and divide Syria. At pro-government rallies, Syrians say Gulf Arab countries take orders from the United States and Israel to weaken the alliance of Iran, Syria and Hizballah.

Their argument goes that because Syria dares to stand up to the U.S. while supporting resistance to Israel's occupation of Arab lands, a conspiracy has been hatched with the support of foreign media to topple Assad's pan-Arab nationalist regime. Had Gulf Arab countries been genuine about reform and democracy, they would have been more vocal about countries like Bahrain where a reform movement was also crushed militarily.

It's a different story in parts of the country where anti-government sentiment runs high. Their struggle, they say, is for freedom from oppression and tyranny. Popular unrest is the same as it was in other Arab countries fighting to end one-family rule and dictatorships. Opposition forces inside Syria say the crackdown by pro-Assad forces and "gangs" is the work of foreign hands too. But the foreign hands are Iran and its Lebanese ally Hizballah who want to preserve their patron in Damascus.

In Zabadani, a Syrian town that is nestled along the Lebanese-Syrian border, members of the Free Syrian Army, a loose knit group of fighters made up of military defectors and their anti-government supporters, openly profess their disdain for Hizballah and Iran. When I visited the town with Arab League monitors, the city was swept up in a hysterical frenzy over rumors that Hizballah had amassed fighters on the Lebanese side of the border to coordinate a join attack with the Syrian military against Zabadani. Hizballah denied the charges.

Syrian activists inside the country have recently been circulating amateur footage of what they claim to be Iranian forces captured while operating inside Syria. A member of the Iranian parliament who chairs the Security and Foreign policy committee in the legislature, described 11 missing Iranian nationals as religious pilgrims, further sowing confusion over what is fact or fiction. The U.S. has also accused Iran of supporting the government in Damascus, saying high-ranking Iranian military officials have visited Syria in recent weeks. MAGAZINE: "The Real Threat in the Middle East." (Subscription)

Iran has reiterated its support for Assad's government. According to Iran's official news agency, Iranian officials say Assad still has the majority of support in his country and that Tehran stands by the President's reform plans against what it calls "terrorists attacking the central government." The Syrian government claims weapons are being smuggled in from Turkey and Jordan to arm rebel fighters attacking the state. Gulf Arab countries are financing the Free Syrian Army.

Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition has repeatedly criticized the Arab League and the West for not doing more to intervene to stop the bloodshed. They call on the United Nations Security Council powers to impose tougher sanctions on Syria and have openly called for military intervention including the imposition of no-fly zones or "safe-zones" and humanitarian corridors that would restrict the movement of the Syrian military inside the country.

Syria's main ally, Russia has also been involved in the media blame game. According to a pro-Assad satellite channel, Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has blamed members of the U.N. Security Council for fueling the divisions in Syria by not exerting more pressure on the opposition movement known as the Syrian National Council to enter direct negotiations with the Assad government to resolve the conflict.

The media in Syria has become a vital tool in the battle for the country. Pro-government channels dedicate considerable resources and airtime to scrutinize amateur cell phone footage used by protestors and circulated globally via the internet to undermine reports of atrocities and massacres spread by the opposition. They also dissect foreign news bulletins looking for errors and biases they say are evidence of a foreign conspiracy against them.

As the conflict drags on and becomes increasingly militarized, many people feel the wounds of a full-blown war between the government and armed insurgents would destroy Syria and that fear has paralyzed some into supporting the president -- for the time being. It is difficult to gauge how much support the President or his policies actually have. Syrians I spoke to have expressed support for the regime out of fear of the alternative. They don't know what a post-Assad Syria would look or function like. Many of those I spoke to blame the Syrian opposition for not doing a better job of communicating their vision for the day after.

For the time being, foreign journalists inside Syria are still under restrictions as to where they can go in the country, though more and more, they are pushing the limits -- at great personal risk -- by venturing out without the permission or the presence of government minders. The government says restricting the movement of journalists is for their safety. Critics say it's to control the message.

Unlike Arab revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya where critical masses quickly and overwhelmingly exposed the unpopularity of their regimes, the battle for the hearts and minds of Syrians and those watching the uprising from afar still rages, just like the 10-month conflict itself.

Mohyeldin is a foreign correspondent for NBC News based in Cairo.

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Air Force disciplines airmen over coffin photo (Reuters)

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) ? The U.S. Air Force will discipline but not criminally charge an unspecified number of airmen over a photograph that went viral showing them clowning around with a coffin used to transport American war dead.

"No criminal conduct occurred. However, members who were involved in the photo received administrative actions documenting that their conduct brought discredit to both the military and themselves," Colonel Gregory Reese, commander of the 37th Training Group at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, told reporters on Monday.

The photograph, posted on Facebook late last year, shows 16 members of the Lackland-based 345th Training Squadron around one of the metal coffins used to transport U.S. war casualties.

An airman posed inside a coffin in chains playing dead with a noose around his neck. He is surrounded by others, some with their arms crossed. A caption reads: "Da Dumpt, De Dumpt, Sucks to be U."

Reese called it a "graduation photograph" taken as the airmen celebrated the completion of their training, which involved unloading cargo planes and had nothing to do with transporting war dead.

The Air Force placed "discredit letters" in their records, making promotion or re-enlistment difficult for them.

Air Force spokesman Gerry Proctor declined to say how many people were disciplined, who took the picture or whether that person is in the Air Force.

The photo, taken in August, came to light shortly after a U.S. investigation revealed in November the military's main mortuary -- at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware -- lost track of body parts twice and wrongfully removed a limb of a Marine.

The investigation found those who took it intended to remind colleagues they could be killed if they failed to pay attention while loading and unloading aircraft, Reese said.

When the Air Force Times reported on the picture, relatives of service members killed in action reacted angrily.

"How dare you!" said a letter published in the Times in December from Deedy Salie, who described herself as a military widow. "My husband came home in one of those boxes, not on his own two feet like these disgraceful people will. Shame on you!"

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Daniel Trotta)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/us_nm/us_airforce_photo

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Fresh iPhone Apps for Jan. 30: Hamlet in Bits, Fanhattan update, Hank Hazard, RoboHero (Appolicious)

Start your week with a dose of Hamlet, thanks to our leading iPhone app, Hamlet in Bits. The app brings you all kinds of information that helps to understand Shakespeare?s play, including audio and animated performances and the text to go with it. We?ve also got a big update to Fanhattan, which can help you find new shows and movies to watch on Netflix, iTunes, Hulu and more. Hank Hazard, a physics-based puzzle game about a daredevil hamster, will keep your thumbs busy this week, as will turn-based strategy title RoboHero.

Got an English exam over Shakespeare?s Hamlet coming up, or just an interest in understanding one of the most studied plays in the English language? You?ll want to check out Hamlet in Bits, an education app that packs of wealth of resources about the play including a complete, unabridged original version that you can read right on your iPhone or iPad.

Hamlet in Bits also includes three hours of professional audio recordings of performances of Hamlet, as well as animations showing the play?s various scenes. You?ll be able to read along with the text as you watch or listen to the dialog being spoken, and Hamlet in Bits also includes character biographies to keep you up to speed with who?s who in Shakespeare?s tale of murderous intrigue. The app even includes a character relationship map, so you?ll never lose track of why characters are important or what?s going on in the twisting narrative.

Entertainment app Fanhattan is a portal for discovering new movies and TV shows across a variety of services including Hulu, Netflix, Lifetime, Crackle, iTunes and PBS. When you fire up the app, you?re greeted with a list of popular new content from the services you use. You can also find more by searching by directors, actors, titles and more; then, Fanhattan provides you other choices you might like based on the things you?re already into.

Fanhattan just got a big update that adds more news services to the app?s content choices. You can see what?s going in the latest entertainment news with the new Fan Feed feature, and from that news you can find new entertainment to enjoy, like TV shows or movies that are garnering a lot of attention (or just got nominated for Oscars). You can also favorite stories, directors, actors, shows and movies to find more content that includes them, making Fan Feed smarter and bringing you even more stuff you?ll enjoy.

Daredevil hamster Hank Hazard needs to show off his stuff, earn points and become the greatest daredevil (hamster) ever. So you?ll need to help him through level after physics-based level, popping bubbles and carefully maneuvering Hank through each puzzle in Hank Hazard, grabbing all stars in each stage before reaching a goal. It?s standard fare for physics-based puzzle titles, but Hank Hazard brings in its own feel and some solid level design to a crowded field.

Each stage in Hank Hazard requires you to meet a special requirement to get a bonus ?nut? that kicks up your score. In some levels, you?ll want to finish as quickly as you can to beat a timer. In others, it?ll be the number of ?moves? (like taps or actions where you manipulate the level) you need to keep to a minimum. This adds a little bit of variety to each of Hank Hazard?s levels, plus something to strive for to help you climb the game?s leaderboards, care of Game Center.

RoboHero (iPhone, iPad) Free (with $1.99 in-app purchase)

Turn-based strategy title RoboHero is all about planning. Each level has you attempting to navigate to reach a goal of some kind, moving your robot around a grid to avoid hazards, blast enemies and get where he?s going as quickly as possible. To move him around in each stage, you?ll tap the grid to give him commands, storing up to 15 in his memory banks at a time. Once you?ve planned out each round?s moves, you?ll hit the play button to put your robot into motion. Strong planning is the key to keeping him from getting turned into scrap.

RoboHero packs 30 levels and three gameplay modes, most of which his free (after the first 10 levels, you?ll need to purchase the full game through an in-app purchase of $1.99). It also includes an arena mode and a multiplayer mode that allows you to take on as many four other players, or six computer-controlled opponents.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/appolicious_rss/rss_appolicious_tc/http___www_appolicious_com_articles10901_fresh_iphone_apps_for_jan_30_hamlet_in_bits_fanhattan_update_hank_hazard_robohero/44352609/SIG=142b74gf7/*http%3A//www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/10901-fresh-iphone-apps-for-jan-30-hamlet-in-bits-fanhattan-update-hank-hazard-robohero

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How Google+ Can Win: Make Publishing Universal

Larry Page recently announced that he is quite thrilled with Google+?s explosive growth -- with 90 million registered accounts and 80% of the people engaging on a weekly basis across all Google properties. The problem, of course, is that very few of these 90M users are actively publishing on Google+. The Google+ strategy of fine-grained sharing of personal content using Circles has not been very effective. It takes a lot of effort to create and maintain circles, and Facebook has proven that most users seem to be comfortable sharing personal content such as family albums and baby pictures with their complete social graph.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/jzNTTj5JPeI/

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Good housing legislation could save the economy

Housing is the one area of policy with the greatest potential to actually move the needle on the economy

I don?t know if the President will say much about housing, but there are some important and potential helpful policy choices percolating in the background.

Skip to next paragraph Jared Bernstein

?

Before joining the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities as a senior fellow, Jared was chief economist to Vice President Joseph Biden and executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class. He is a contributor to MSNBC and CNBC and has written numerous books, including 'Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?'

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I?ve long held that of all the stuff on the White House?s ?we-can?t-wait? list?things they can do to help the economy and jobs without going through that legislative death trap formerly known as Congress?housing policy is the one with the greatest potential to actually move the needle.

And the most helpful policy in housing is the reduction of mortgage principal for underwater homeowners.?? Research has clearly revealed that owing more than the value on your home is the strongest predictor of foreclosure, and housing finance analysts widely agree that principal reduction is the best medicine to avoid this outcome.

But what does any of this have to do with stuff we could actually do right now?? Good question.? The answer is that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, could quickly reduce the principal on millions of home loans they own or insure, without going through Congress.

So, why haven?t they done so?? Another fine question.?? First, you need to recall that Fan and Fred are 80% owned by the US gov?t right now, and FHFA, as conservator, wants to protect the taxpayer.? That?s fine?we thank you, FHFA.?

But?and news accounts have been getting this quite wrong?FHFA believes that loan forgiveness (principal reduction) would only save the taxpayers $20 billion while loan forbearance would save $24 billion (the latter modifies the loan, it does not reduce it).??

In other words, the FHFA agrees that both types of loan adjustments would reduce defaults and thus reduce losses to taxpayers, with a slight advantage to forbearance, which, as I?ll argue in a moment, is very likely incorrect.? I think if you did the analysis right, forgiveness would trump forbearance by a long shot.? But given the fact that reduction would clean this mess up a whole lot faster and more reliably than just changing the terms of the loans, and that taxpayers save either way, the path ahead?toward forgiveness, not forbearance?should be clear.

Unfortunately, the FHFA is placing landmines in that path.? Based on a letter reviewing all this by FHFA acting director Ed DeMarco, news accounts like this or this are reporting that if Fan and Fred were to reduce the principal on a subset of the mortgages they own or insure, it would cost?taxpayers $100 billion.

This $100 billion (it?s actually $102bn), however, is a gross number?it is the losses to the agencies, and the taxpayers, from all the mortgage defaults that FHFA expects to occur if they neither forbear nor reduce principal.? The relevant numbers, however, are the difference between the losses under a forbearance program ($78 billion), or a reduction program ($82 billion) and the cost of doing nothing.

The punch line, then, is that by their estimates, forgiveness saves the taxpayer $20 billion; forbearance, $24 billion.

But for a number of reasons, FHFA?s methods make forbearance look better than it really is.? This is some weedy stuff, but it matters:

?they use a state level price index rather than a localized price level.? This approach averages across cities with huge price drops and those with normal price declines, and thus reduces the number of the deeply underwater borrowers.*?? That in turn understates the impact of the policy most helpful to those borrowers: principal reduction.

?they use FICO credit scores and debt-to-income ratios at the time of loan origination rather than where those measures are today.? Obviously, they?re worse today, so this makes the agencies? book look better than it really is, and again, understates the benefits to principal reduction.? In other words, the way they do it artificially lowers their expected default rate, and so the policy that?s most effective against defaults for those with lower FICOs and higher DTIs gets less credit than it should.

?they assume that all of their debt forgiven in their forbearance programs is repaid?100% of it.?? That?s not realistic and it significantly reduces the cost of this option. ? Simply building in a realistic default rate for debt that?s been pushed back to the end of the loan would raise the cost of forbearance relative to principal reduction.

Any one of these changes will sop up the $4 billion difference in an NY minute, showing forgiveness to dominate forbearance.? But even if the FHFA wants to stick with their numbers, reductions will go to work much more quickly and effectively to prevent defaults.?

If they keep coming up with reasons not to do the right thing, the White House should do the right thing and replace DeMarco?a perfect good guy who believes he?s doing the right thing here but isn?t?with someone who gets the urgency of the situation.

*Imagine a) that anyone with a home price decline of 30% is underwater and needs a loan mod, and b) a state has two homeowners in two different cities.? Homeowner A?s price went up 30%, homeowner B?s price went down 30%. Average them together across the state and no one needs a mod; use the local price index, and B should get one.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on jaredbernsteinblog.com.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/REkhgMN9CWg/Good-housing-legislation-could-save-the-economy

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Hands on with the Jot Touch, a pressure sensitive stylus by Adonit

The folks at Adonit have been working hard on their new product, the Jot Touch, a pressure sensitive stylus with a built-in antenna and a free SDK kit for drawing

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/wwTWPW0bwTA/story01.htm

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Critics Consensus: The Grey is Certified Fresh

Plus, Man on a Ledge is too contrived, and guess One For the Money's Tomatometer.

Also opening this week in limited release:

• Declaration of War, a based-on-true-events dramedy about a young couple whose child is suffering from brain cancer, is at 85 percent.
• How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?, a documentary about unconventional British architect Norman Foster, is at 47 percent.
• After Fall, Winter, a drama about a pair of damaged souls who find love in Paris, is at 20 percent.

And finally, mad props to RedTuna for coming the closest to guessing Underworld Awakening's 30 percent Tomatometer.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1924390/news/1924390/

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Explaining Modern Finance And Economics Using Booze And Broke ...

Courtesy of reszatonline, who brings us the following allegory by way of Tim Coldwell, we are happy to distill (no pun intended) all of modern economics and finance in a narrative that is 500 words long, and involved booze and broke alcoholics: in other words everyone should be able to understand the underlying message. And while the immediate application of this allegory is to explain events in Europe, it succeeds in capturing all the moving pieces of modern finance.

From reszatonline

Helga is the proprietor of a bar.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers? loans).

Word gets around about Helga?s ?drink now, pay later? marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga?s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Helga?s gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga?s borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!

At the bank?s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.These ?securities? then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don?t really understand that the securities being sold to them as ?AA? ?Secured Bonds? really are debts of unemployed alcoholics.

Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation?s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga?s bar.

He so informs Helga.

Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy.

The bar closes and Helga?s 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank?s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Helga?s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms? pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers. Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Helga?s bar.

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Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/explaining-modern-finance-and-economics-using-booze-and-broke-alcoholics

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France's Hollande raises election bar for Sarkozy (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? Socialist presidential challenger Francois Hollande has raised the bar with a weighty economic plan and nimble performance in a televised debate this week, and President Nicolas Sarkozy is preparing to fight back with a TV interview on Sunday.

With Sarkozy aiming to dazzle voters with crisis measures to stem rampant unemployment, Hollande laid out plans on Thursday to squeeze tax breaks on the wealthy and big companies to fund investment in small businesses, education and new jobs.

Keeping new tax revenues carefully higher than spending, the program re-established Hollande as a fiscally responsible centre-leftist, after his recent attack on the financial sector, even if some economists found it lacking in structural reform ideas.

It also catapulted him ahead of Sarkozy -- who, to the annoyance of some in his conservative UMP party, may not announce his re-election bid until early March -- in terms of laying out all the detail of his campaign pledges.

Hollande, who tops opinion polls but had been criticized for a lack of campaign direction, also ably fended off barbs in a primetime TV duel with Alain Juppe, Sarkozy's foreign minister and one of the most experienced politicians on his team.

"This is a key moment for (Sarkozy) because it comes after a week that has been a very good one for Hollande," said Brice Teinturier, deputy director at pollster Ipsos.

"Hollande has clearly retaken the offensive and above all he has disproved two of the UMP's criticisms of him: a lack of presidential character and weight, and having flabby proposals, because he's come up with 60 that are pretty precise."

Often seen as a weaker public speaker than the flamboyant and hot-blooded Sarkozy, the softer-spoken Hollande took the upper hand in a long and highly technical debate against Juppe, a former prime minister under President Jacques Chirac.

Hollande proved unflappable and eloquent -- and even looked like he was rather enjoying himself -- as Juppe sniped at his ideas and accused him of being arrogant and vague.

The long-time Socialist party boss managed to get in the last word on most exchanges.

ACHIEVABLE GOALS

Sarkozy is planning a last-minute campaign where he will admit that the global economic crisis derailed some of his initial promises and will try to show that he is the safest pair of hands to pull France out of the latest bout of turmoil.

Jolted by a cut to France's AAA credit rating by Standard and Poor's this month, Sarkozy has switched his focus to growth and will use Sunday's panel interview to flesh out a set of job-saving measures agreed in hurried talks with unions on January 18.

Party officials say his campaign will centre on the need to restore competitiveness, which has slid far below Germany's over the past few years as France raised wages and shortened the work week while Germany kept wages low and job contracts flexible.

Aides say Sunday's 1900 GMT interview will reflect that.

"He will promise things that are achievable," one of Sarkozy's long-term advisers told Reuters. "His obsession now is economic competitiveness. When you are trying for re-election you can't promise 50 measures: you have to say 'I am a better bet than the other guy' and be much more focused."

The economy and the euro zone crisis are the top concerns for voters ahead of the two-round April 22 and May 6 ballot.

Left-wingers have accused Sarkozy of overblowing the scale of the crisis to serve his political needs, while Sarkozy is playing up his experience in office and hoping the fact Hollande has never been a government minister will count against him.

Credibility on the economy will be key to winning over centrist voters, many of whom would have backed former finance minister and IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn for president, until his career was wrecked by a sex assault scandal in New York last May, and are still weighing Hollande's credentials.

A surge in support for centrist Francois Bayrou, who is scoring 14-15 percent in polls behind Hollande, Sarkozy and far-right leader Marine Le Pen, shows how key centre-ground votes will be in a runoff likely to pit Hollande against Sarkozy.

Bayrou has been critical of Hollande's ideas, and may find it hard to back him in a runoff after Hollande declared war on the world of finance in a speech last weekend. Hollande said on Thursday he did not see a job for Bayrou in his government.

(Additional reporting by Yann Le Guernigou; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_france_election

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Study offers new information for flu fight

Public release date: 27-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Ralph Tripp
ratripp@uga.edu
706-542-1557
University of Georgia

Athens, Ga. Influenza virus can rapidly evolve from one form to another, complicating the effectiveness of vaccines and anti-viral drugs used to treat it. By first understanding the complex host cell pathways that the flu uses for replication, University of Georgia researchers are finding new strategies for therapies and vaccines, according to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

The researchers studied RNA interference to determine the host genes influenza uses for virus replication.

All viruses act as parasites by latching onto healthy cells and hijacking the cells' components, essentially turning the cell into a factory that produces copies of the virus. This process begins when influenza binds to sugars found on the surface of host cells in the lung and respiratory tract. Once attached, the virus downloads its genetic information into the nucleus of the cell, and virus replication begins.

"Viruses contain very minimal genetic information and have evolved to parasitize host cell machinery to package and replicate virus cells. Because virus replication is dependent on host cell components, determining the genes needed for this process allows for the development of novel disease intervention strategies that include anti-virals and vaccines," said study co-author Ralph Tripp, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Chair of Animal Health Vaccine Development in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine.

"We have the technology today that allows us to target specific genes in human cells and silence those genes to inhibit the production of virus in the cells," he said.

RNA interference, which was first discovered as the mechanism that effects color change in petunia breeding, is now being applied to medical advancements. Using RNAi silencing technologies, Tripp's lab was able to identify key host cell pathways needed by influenza virus for replication.

"We have a very limited toolbox for treating influenza," Tripp said. "There are two medications currently used to treat flu infections, but virus resistance has developed to these drugs. Our studies have identified several novel host genes and associated cell pathways that can be targeted with existing drugs to silence virus replication."

Understanding which genes can be silenced to inhibit growth of viruses opens the medicine cabinet for the repurposing of existing drugs.

Existing anti-viral drugs slow influenza virus replication by preventing the virus from releasing itself from its host cell. These treatments target the virus, which is able to rapidly mutate to avoid drug sensitivity. In contrast, drugs that target host genes work more effectively because host genes rarely change or mutate.

"If we target a host gene, the virus can't adapt," Tripp said. The influenza virus "may look for other host genes in the same pathway to use, which may be many, but we have identified the majority of preferred genes and can target these genes for silencing."

The influenza A virus has eight single RNA strands that code for 11 proteins. Recent studies suggest it may need several dozen host genes to reproduce. Turning off the apex, or signaling, gene can cause the reproduction sequence to stall.

"Through this research we can repurpose previously approved drugs and apply those to influenza treatments, drastically reducing the time from the laboratory to human medicine," said Victoria Meliopoulos, a UGA graduate student and co-author of the study. "We can manipulate the cellular microenvironment to increase the viral yield during vaccine manufacturing."

Meliopoulos said these discoveries can be used to create new anti-viral drugs and develop better vaccines that can be used to treat patients with influenza. This technology also can be used to improve medications for other viruses like hepatitis and polio.

The technology allows the researchers "to establish a comprehensive roadmap of human genes modulated during influenza virus infection to better understand these disease mechanisms and to identify novel targets for anti-influenza therapy," said Lauren Andersen, a UGA graduate student and co-author of the study.

Influenza is the world's leading cause of morbidity and mortality; seasonal viruses affect up to 15 percent of the human population and cause severe illness in 5 million people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the U.S., financial losses caused by seasonal influenza are estimated to exceed $87 billion annually.

###

For a PDF of the study, see http://www.fasebj.org/content/early/2012/01/09/fj.11-193466.long.

Writer:
April Sorrow, 706-542-3773, aprilr@uga.edu

Contacts:
Ralph Tripp, 706-542-1557, ratripp@uga.edu
Victoria Meliopoulos, victoria.mel@gmail.com
Lauren Andersen, landerse07@gmail.com

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 27-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Ralph Tripp
ratripp@uga.edu
706-542-1557
University of Georgia

Athens, Ga. Influenza virus can rapidly evolve from one form to another, complicating the effectiveness of vaccines and anti-viral drugs used to treat it. By first understanding the complex host cell pathways that the flu uses for replication, University of Georgia researchers are finding new strategies for therapies and vaccines, according to a study published in the January issue of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

The researchers studied RNA interference to determine the host genes influenza uses for virus replication.

All viruses act as parasites by latching onto healthy cells and hijacking the cells' components, essentially turning the cell into a factory that produces copies of the virus. This process begins when influenza binds to sugars found on the surface of host cells in the lung and respiratory tract. Once attached, the virus downloads its genetic information into the nucleus of the cell, and virus replication begins.

"Viruses contain very minimal genetic information and have evolved to parasitize host cell machinery to package and replicate virus cells. Because virus replication is dependent on host cell components, determining the genes needed for this process allows for the development of novel disease intervention strategies that include anti-virals and vaccines," said study co-author Ralph Tripp, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Chair of Animal Health Vaccine Development in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine.

"We have the technology today that allows us to target specific genes in human cells and silence those genes to inhibit the production of virus in the cells," he said.

RNA interference, which was first discovered as the mechanism that effects color change in petunia breeding, is now being applied to medical advancements. Using RNAi silencing technologies, Tripp's lab was able to identify key host cell pathways needed by influenza virus for replication.

"We have a very limited toolbox for treating influenza," Tripp said. "There are two medications currently used to treat flu infections, but virus resistance has developed to these drugs. Our studies have identified several novel host genes and associated cell pathways that can be targeted with existing drugs to silence virus replication."

Understanding which genes can be silenced to inhibit growth of viruses opens the medicine cabinet for the repurposing of existing drugs.

Existing anti-viral drugs slow influenza virus replication by preventing the virus from releasing itself from its host cell. These treatments target the virus, which is able to rapidly mutate to avoid drug sensitivity. In contrast, drugs that target host genes work more effectively because host genes rarely change or mutate.

"If we target a host gene, the virus can't adapt," Tripp said. The influenza virus "may look for other host genes in the same pathway to use, which may be many, but we have identified the majority of preferred genes and can target these genes for silencing."

The influenza A virus has eight single RNA strands that code for 11 proteins. Recent studies suggest it may need several dozen host genes to reproduce. Turning off the apex, or signaling, gene can cause the reproduction sequence to stall.

"Through this research we can repurpose previously approved drugs and apply those to influenza treatments, drastically reducing the time from the laboratory to human medicine," said Victoria Meliopoulos, a UGA graduate student and co-author of the study. "We can manipulate the cellular microenvironment to increase the viral yield during vaccine manufacturing."

Meliopoulos said these discoveries can be used to create new anti-viral drugs and develop better vaccines that can be used to treat patients with influenza. This technology also can be used to improve medications for other viruses like hepatitis and polio.

The technology allows the researchers "to establish a comprehensive roadmap of human genes modulated during influenza virus infection to better understand these disease mechanisms and to identify novel targets for anti-influenza therapy," said Lauren Andersen, a UGA graduate student and co-author of the study.

Influenza is the world's leading cause of morbidity and mortality; seasonal viruses affect up to 15 percent of the human population and cause severe illness in 5 million people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the U.S., financial losses caused by seasonal influenza are estimated to exceed $87 billion annually.

###

For a PDF of the study, see http://www.fasebj.org/content/early/2012/01/09/fj.11-193466.long.

Writer:
April Sorrow, 706-542-3773, aprilr@uga.edu

Contacts:
Ralph Tripp, 706-542-1557, ratripp@uga.edu
Victoria Meliopoulos, victoria.mel@gmail.com
Lauren Andersen, landerse07@gmail.com

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uog-son012712.php

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North America boosts Ford in 4Q

FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2010 file photo, Ford vehicles are reflected in the bumper of a Ford F-350 truck, at Fremont Ford in Newark, Calif. Ford said Friday Jan. 27, 2012 it made $13.4 billion in the fourth quarter, largely due to an accounting change. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2010 file photo, Ford vehicles are reflected in the bumper of a Ford F-350 truck, at Fremont Ford in Newark, Calif. Ford said Friday Jan. 27, 2012 it made $13.4 billion in the fourth quarter, largely due to an accounting change. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) ? Ford has shown it can make money even with U.S. car sales at depressed levels. Now it needs to show it can manage a myriad of challenges outside its home region.

North America was the only region where Ford Motor Co. saw profits rise in the fourth quarter and in all of 2011. Everywhere else the automaker lost money or saw profits fall, hurt by nervous consumers in Europe, flooding in Asia and aging products in South America. Costs rose faster than expected, too.

Ford reported $13.62 billion in net income, but investors brushed off the result because most of that came from an accounting change. Excluding that change, earnings totaled $1.1 billion, or 20 cents a share, down 15 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010. Ford missed Wall Street's expectations by 5 cents.

The stock price took an early hit but recovered once the company promised better ? if still bumpy ? results in 2012. Shares fell 4 percent to close at $12.21.

Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said the Thai flooding and the rising cost of steel and other commodities hurt Ford more than analysts expected.

The November floods, which affected Thai parts suppliers, cost 34,000 units of production in Thailand and in South Africa, which relies on Thai-made parts. Ford also spent $2.3 billion more on commodities in 2011 than the prior year, or $100 million more than it forecast.

Bill Selesky, an auto analyst with Argus Research, said investors relaxed after Ford explained its accounting change and reassured them that it expects operating margin to increase this year.

Ford's operating margin ? a measure of how much the company earned after all the costs of doing business ? fell to 2.2 percent from 3 percent in 2010, largely because of commodity costs.

"The company said, 'Listen, we can manage through this, and North America is very, very strong,'" Selesky said.

North American operating profits rose 33 percent to $889 million in the fourth quarter. For the full year, North American profits rose 15 percent to $6.2 billion.

Ford's U.S. market share was up for the year, and the company got higher prices for new vehicles like the Ford Explorer and Ford Focus. U.S. buyers paid an average of $29,524 for Ford cars and trucks last year, up 6 percent from 2009, according to automotive pricing site TrueCar.com.

But in Europe, Ford's second-most important region by sales, fourth-quarter operating losses more than doubled to $190 million and sales fell 1 percent.

Booth said the company isn't sure how much impact the debt crisis will have on European sales this year. But CEO Alan Mulally said he's optimistic, since Ford has 10 new or revamped vehicles going on sale in the region. In the meantime, Ford is cutting European production by 36,000 vehicles in the first quarter.

Rival General Motors Co. is also expected to be hurt by weak results in Europe. It reports quarterly results Feb. 16. Chrysler Group, which has little international exposure, will be buoyed by its U.S. sales when it releases earnings Feb. 1.

In Asia, Ford's sales fell 7 percent in the fourth quarter, largely because sales in China have slowed. Ford's Asia Pacific region lost $83 million in the quarter after posting a profit in 2010.

Booth said things will be bumpy in Asia for the next several years as Ford embarks on a major expansion that includes the construction of seven plants. The company aims to triple the cars in its Chinese lineup to 15 over the next three years.

The South American market was another disappointment. Both sales and market share fell. Booth said South America is getting more competitive, and Ford's products there are older than other brands. Ford aims to turn that around when it introduces new products there next year.

For the full year, the Dearborn-based company reported net income of $20.2 billion, or $4.94 per share.

Ford's accounting change resulted in big gains on paper. The move dates to 2006, when Ford moved $15.7 billion worth of tax credits and other assets off its books because it wasn't making money so it couldn't take advantage of them. Now that it's profitable, the company moved most of those assets back onto its books.

The change will affect Ford's tax rates going forward. Ford's tax rate was 9 percent in 2010 because of the assets that were being held under the valuation allowance. Ford's new rate will be closer to 30 percent.

Booth called the change a "significant milestone" and said it's a strong indication that the company expects to stay profitable. Another is Ford's decision last month to reinstate a 5-cent quarterly dividend starting in March.

Without the big accounting gain, Ford earned $8.76 billion, or $1.51 per share, its highest operating profit since 1999. Revenue rose 13 percent to $136.3 billion. Analysts had forecast full-year earnings of $1.86 per share on revenue of $127.31 billion.

Based on its full-year North American results, Ford will make profit-sharing payments of around $6,200 each to its 41,600 U.S. hourly employees. Employees will get their checks in March.

Ford also said Friday that it plans to contribute $3.5 billion to its global pension funds this year. Underfunded pensions have been another area of concern for investors and for ratings agencies, which recently raised Ford's credit rating to one notch below investment grade. Ford has been below investment grade since 2005.

Standard and Poor's analyst Efraim Levy, who maintains a "buy" rating on Ford shares, said he wasn't concerned that Ford missed analysts' expectations.

"I don't think they have to fully meet their goals to be successful," he said. "Directionally, they are moving where they have to be."

But Levy said Ford will have to watch its back in the U.S., where Toyota and Honda are finally recovering from earthquake-related shortages and smaller players like Volkswagen and Kia are making inroads.

"I tend to give Ford the benefit of the doubt, but I do think the easy gains are over for them," he said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-27-Earns-Ford/id-195375fc03154b85a744541d338d6a4c

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It's a Snap: Travel photos from around the world

Submitted by Sher Williamson / UGC

Our readers have submitted some inspiring photos from around the world. This week's gallery features images from Hawaii, Scotland, Botswana and other stunning settings.

Scroll through this gorgeous set of images and vote for your favorite at the bottom.

Submitted by Harvey Barrison / UGC

Eilean Donan Island, Western Highlands of Scotland

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Davy Mountain, Warne, N.C.

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Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven, Scotland

Submitted by Kelly Wallace / UGC

Baby sea lion, Galapagos Islands

Submitted by Lynn Perry / UGC

Bison, Yellowstone National Park

Submitted by Jerry Pearson / UGC

Maroon Bells, near Aspen, Colo.

Submitted by Kaushal Modi / UGC

Mount Christoffel, Curacao

Submitted by Beth Weinstein / UGC

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Delaware River near Milford, Pa.

Submitted by David Jordan / UGC

Harbor Seals in Casco Bay, Portland, Maine

Submitted by Terry Guthrie / UGC

Autumn on the Tallulah River, Ga.

Submitted by Tom Gubala / UGC

Lilac-breasted Roller, Tanzania

Submitted by Ashley Davis / UGC

Submitted by Randy Clegg / UGC

The Old Mill at Berry College, Rome, Ga.

Submitted by Cagil Baykara / UGC

Submitted by Jessica Baskett / UGC

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{"contentId":"10243225","totalVotes":"1623"}

Which photo is your favorite?

The Old Mill at Berry College, Rome, Ga.	? 15.4% (250 votes)
Baby sea lion, Galapagos Islands	? 13.1% (213 votes)
Maroon Bells, near Aspen, Colo.	? 12.6% (204 votes)
Bison, Yellowstone National Park	? 12.3% (199 votes)
Lilac-breasted Roller, Tanzania	? 7.1% (115 votes)
Imperial Beach, Calif.	? 6.9% (112 votes)
Eilean Donan Island, Scotland	? 5.5% (90 votes)
Kona, Hawaii	? 4.9% (79 votes)
Elephant, Botswana	? 4.8% (78 votes)
Tallulah River, Ga.	? 3.3% (54 votes)
Dunnottar Castle, Scotland	? 2.6% (42 votes)
Harbor Seals in Casco Bay, Portland, Maine	? 2.1% (34 votes)
Mount Christoffel, Curacao	? 1.9% (31 votes)
Brussels, Belgium	? 1.5% (24 votes)
Davy Mountain, Warne, N.C.	? 1.3% (21 votes)
San Fransisco, Calif.	? 1.3% (21 votes)
Custer State Park, S.D.	? 1.2% (19 votes)
La Jolla Cove, Calif.	? 0.9% (15 votes)
Delaware River near Milford, Pa.	? 0.8% (13 votes)
Chameleon, Hawaii	? 0.6% (9 votes)

Source: http://todaytravel.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/26/10243225-its-a-snap-travel-photos-from-around-the-world

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