President Obama?s Weekly Video Address

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Thumbs Up Canada: Merry Christmas

It's that time of the year again!

It's Christmas time! ?:)

I wish each and everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope you are feeling loved and are with people that you care for and love - family, friends, partners, chosen families, etc. If you are spending it alone, I hope you are still able to find comfort and joy in being alone. Sometimes it's great to be alone!

Oh, by the way, I read this article on the DailyMail about elderly people spending Christmas time alone. Here's the link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078261/250-000-elderly-people-ll-spending-Christmas-alone.html

So, I will be in Mexico City for a couple of weeks. I will try to upload some pictures when I am there athough I really want to take the opportunity to spend it with people I love so I may not be able to post pictures until I am back. We'll see... Although I will be mostly with friends, I also want to spend some time with myself ?some alone time! :) A lot has happened to my life this year. I want to spend part of this holiday vacation to do some self-reflection and meditation.

Anyway, I wish each and everyone of us a 2012 full of happiness, success, love, and all things amazing and wonderful! :)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/dUXza/~3/gXnuse7m8sM/merry-christmas.html

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jmgall: Une pochette pour iPad flanqu?e du logo d?Aperture http://t.co/a0jc9usy Gizmodo.fr #gizmodobuzz #ipad2 #portal

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The Best Turn-By-Turn Navigation App for Android [Video]

Android users have the benefit of getting a phone that likely comes with turn-by-turn navigation right out of the box, usually in the form of Google Maps Navigation. Even though many Android users will never use anything but Google Navigation to get from point a to point b, we found that Waze is also free and a better option.

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• Provides voice-guided turn-by-turn driving directions, with multiple voice prompts before turns and merges
• Automatically recalculates route when you make wrong turns or change course
• Supports Android's built-in voice search, so you can speak destinations to search them quickly
• Offers live traffic and road condition reports from local traffic services as well as other users
• Crowdsources your commute by allowing other users to report accidents, construction, police activity, or other obstructions
• Alerts you in advance as you approach reported road issues and conditions
• Displays the positions of other Waze members and drivers on the road in real time, allows you to see their direction and speed
• Switches between day and night map view for easy reading
• Offers GPS driving "groups" of other drives that you can connect with
• Makes driving and commuting a social game with points, rewards for new routes, and points for submitting construction areas or road incidents

Like its iOS version, Waze doesn't disappoint, and its price can't be beat. It had an especially high bar to meet on Android because Android devices usually ship with Google Maps Navigation built-in, and while that would seem like a logical choice for the best turn-by-turn GPS app, Waze offers a wealth of features that Google Maps doesn't. First of all, Waze's turn-by-turn directions are solid, and the app always shows your overall drive time, distance, and ETA on-screen while you drive. The app lets you save destinations for quick access when you get in the car and open the app, so you don't have to type the same destinations over and over. If traffic conditions ahead change and the app thinks you'll be delayed, you'll see it right on the map, with a large note that the speed in a given area has reduced to a certain amount, and as you approach, your ETA will change. When you come to a stop at a light, Waze will rotate through traffic alerts and warnings in your area, so you can take a moment to see if any incidents are things you should worry about. The app's settings are rich, and offer a wealth of configuration options, from languages, male/female voice, route learning, and more.

When you start moving again, Waze knows, displays your speed on the map in real-time, and switches back to a vehicle-centered view. This is actually a huge benefit, because you or your passenger can tap areas on the map, explore your route, or look something up, and Waze will always automatically go back to a vehicle-centered view. With Google Navigation, even the slightest drag off of the vehicle-centered view means you're now looking at maps, and you have to tap the Nav icon to go back to the navigation view. Also, if the app crashes, retstarts, or force closes, the next time you open it, Waze auto-recovers your destination and re-plots your course. It's a huge benefit if something happens while you're driving and you have to re-open the app?you don't have to re-type your destination.

Waze's biggest benefits are clearly the real-time traffic and road information that users of the app provide. I live in a major metro area, so the information I encountered was, about eight times out of ten, accurate and up to date. When Waze warned me that I was about to approach visible police activity, sure enough someone was pulled over, or a police car with a speed camera mounted on the hood was ahead. When it warned me there was a stopped car on the side of the road, it really was there. The fact that you can then thank the driver who reported the issue or report the issue resolved if it's not there are also quick ways to get you to start contributing as well.

It's really difficult to understate the benefit of the social components that Waze offers. Like Adam Dachis mentioned when he recommended Waze for the iPhone, I also reviewed Waze a long time ago, when the app was just getting off the ground. At the time, I felt the social component was gimmicky and useless until the app had a community of commuters behind it who were sharing and reporting accidents, road closures, and other issues. It's come a long way since then, and has enough users that those features aren't just useful, they're the star of the show.

Waze isn't perfect however. I found the voice prompts a bit muddy sounding, and not nearly as clear and crisp as Google Nav's built-in voice. I also found Waze has a little trouble staying stable if you switch in or out of the app. For example, when I drive, I often plug my phone into my car stereo and stream Pandora in the background while GPS is in the foreground. Leaving Waze to start Pandora is easy enough, but more than once I returned to the app to find an error on-screen, and the app asked me to submit a bug report. If I left Pandora up, Waze worked properly in the background and stayed in the notifications pane, but switching back to it caused it to freak out a bit. It was annoying, but since Waze automatically re-plots your course and picks up where it left off if the app crashes, restarts, or is closed, it was no bother.

Also, Waze occassionally warned me to "exit left" when the exit was indeed to the right, only to quickly correct itself with the next prompt. The first time it happened, I figured it was a minor error, specific to that location, but when it happened again, I was a little worried. The map is correct, the data on-screen is correct, and both the prior and following voice prompts tell you the correct direction, but I could see that being a serious problem to someone depending on Waze's voice prompts more than the map. Speaking of voice prompts, I also found Waze more than a little chatty, often prompting me three to four times per exit or turn, at the 1-mile, half-mile, quarter-mile, and tenth-of-a-mile that a turn was coming up. You can tweak this though, so it's not a big deal.

FInally, Waze suffers a little bit from the "webapp as Android app" problem, where menus and options aren't native Android screens and menus, and are instead custom versions of the web interface that tie right back to your Waze profile. They're quick and responsive to be sure, they just look and feel a little kludgy at times. Oh - one more thing: a number of people complain about Waze's server stability. I never had those problems during my testing, but it's worth mentioning, since it's the most common complaint by Waze's detractors. Your mileage there may vary.

Google Maps Navigation (Free) is perhaps the most obvious competition here, and without doubt more widely used than Waze. Google Nav ships on most Android phones, offers a traffic layer so you can see where problem spots are on the road, and estimates your travel time based on speed limit and traffic ahead (although Google has had problems with this feature.) Where Waze is US and Canada only, Google Maps is global, and has Google's massive database of highways, side-streets, and surface roads to lean on to help you find the best possible route. Google Navigation has all of the same easy-search features and voice options that Waze does, and also allows you to search for locations along your route so you can make a side trip if necessary. Most Android users already use Google Nav, and while it's a great GPS app and definitely a killer feature of Android, you don't have to settle for it if you're looking for something more, and if Waze's bells and whistles turn you off and you just want driving directions, Google Navigation is always there for you.

Navigon for Android ($30 + $14 in-app purchase for live traffic) Navigon (by Garmin) is another great option, and while it's expensive and the app forces you to download your maps ahead of time (a process we suggest you do over Wi-Fi, as the files are pretty big) you do get the benefit of a "real" GPS app, where all of your maps are stored on your phone and you don't need a constant data connection to help you find your way. If your data connection drops?like mine did yesterday?Navigon keeps going like nothing happened. Plus, the app is snappy, the interface is well designed for in-car use, and the voice prompts are clear and loud. That said, it's really pricey by comparison, and you have to pay again in-app to get live traffic, when other apps offer it for free. Navigon has a long and storied history, and it's a great option if you need offline maps (although Google Nav also allows you to download map areas), but its really hard to get around the price.

Sygic ($26 for North American license, Price varies by location, Free trial available) is another great turn-by-turn navigation option. Sygic leverages TomTom's maps for driving directions, and has its signature big, bright, colorful GPS maps and on-screen UI. The screens are easy to understand, upcoming turns are shown clearly, and the full license comes with real-time traffic. The app allows you to add your own points-of-interest (POI), speaks street names and lane-change warnings, and even integrates Google search so you can search along your route. Sygic is packed with all of the features that make a GPS device useful, which means you don't have to leave the app to search for businesses on the way, find a place to eat, see traffic conditions, and so on. It's a great app, and many of its users are happy with it, but again, it's difficult to recommend paying $26 (19.99 EUR) for the North American maps when the free trial is over when other apps offer the same core features for free, even if many of the premium ones are missing.

Skobbler (Free, $1.99 for Maps) is for the OpenStreetMap fans. It doesn't really offer anything that the other apps don't already provide, including Google Navigation, but if you prefer your mapping platform open-source and not in the hands of a specific company or mapping service, Skobbler is the tool for you. You have to pay once for your "Forever Maps," but once you do, the app gives you access to OSM, which are as up to date as the community keeps them.

MapQuest Mobile (Free) really wants to be a bigger player in this space, but the app needs work. MapQuest itself has come a long way since the days when it was overshadowed by Google and Microsoft, and the mobile app shows a lot of the polish the web site has tried to introduce. The trouble is that it's turn-by-turn directions just aren't that great. I often found MapQuest trying to route me through communities and cul-de-sacs when I knew there was a faster route on a larger street just up ahead, and toggling to OSM (a nice feature), didn't seem to help. It did re-route me if I missed a turn, and it does offer some traffic conditions, updated every five minutes from public sources, but unless you're looking for some of the sponsored hotels and restaurants that pop up in the app's search results, finding locations can be tricky and you may have to leave the app first. Still, MapQuest Mobile for Android is new, and technically still in beta. With more work and more features, it could be a real contender?assuming MapQuest's map database is up to snuff, and while it's improved a lot, I'm not sure it's there yet.

Note: Despite our best efforts to get review copies, we were unable to test CoPilot Live USA. It should be noted that these apps were not considered in our evaluation because we couldn't test them.

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Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/bh1sZdHZ40Q/the-best-turn+by+turn-navigation-app-for-android

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Daily Tip: How to get your music artwork to show up on all tracks of an album when using iTunes Match

If you are like me and spent hours ensuring your album and track artwork is all in order in iTunes only to find that when you subscribed to iTunes Match it all went haywire, you are not alone. I signed up for iTunes Match last week when...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/AW956KKuMkw/story01.htm

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Use Your Snooze Alarm to Stay On Task in the Morning [Time Management]

While staying in bed and snoozing your alarm will certainly make you late for work, reader Mythimna shows us how you can use it to keep you moving quickly in the morning.

Instead of snoozing your alarm while staying in bed, snooze it as you run around the house getting ready to leave:

If you have trouble staying on task in the morning, don't turn off your alarm. Just hit snooze.

Each morning, every fifteen minutes or so, my alarm will go off. I'll hit snooze and know it's time to move on to the next task that has to happen before I leave the house.

You could, of course, just use another alarm...but your alarm clock is probably already on and faster to set than anything else. It's not necessarily life-changing, but for me, it's been the difference between making it to those 4AM appointments, and rescheduling them.

Photo by Tim Ebbs.

Keep Snoozing Your Alarm to Move Faster in the Morning | #tips

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/w-4zGYfsbV8/use-your-snooze-alarm-to-stay-on-task-in-the-morning

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iPhone Dev-Team Releases RedSn0w Update for UltraSn0w 1.2.5

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The iPhone Dev-Team has released a RedSn0w update fixing an issue for old bootrom iPhone 3GS owners looking to install UltraSn0w 1.2.5.

iPhone3GS owners in our comments section below noticed a problem with the untethered jailbreak available for the old-bootrom 3GS. We've corrected that problem in 0.9.9b9d. If you have an old-bootrom 3GS and have already used last night's redsn0w on it, you can re-run it again without losing anything. Just use this new version, go to Extras->IPSW and manually select the 5.0.1 IPSW, then go back and Jailbreak it again (but you can uncheck Cydia because it's already installed).

You can download the latest version of RedSn0w from here: Mac, Windows.

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PlayStation Vita won't support multiple PSN accounts (Digital Trends)

After saying the PlayStation Vita would indeed be able to manage multiple PlayStation Network accounts with minimal hassle, Sony has now back-tracked on their statement, revealing that owners will likely be limited to one account.

While the multi-account issue probably won?t be a concern for most Vita owners, those who do share a Vita with other users won?t be able to change accounts without wiping the entire system. Originally, Sony had claimed that switching accounts would be as simple as swapping memory cards.

?[The] PSN account is tied to the hardware and the memory card, not just the card,? a Sony representative told Wired, ?which means that if a second person is using your Vita, it?s not just a case of switching out memory cards, it?s clearing out all of your saved data on the Vita itself when you do the factory reset.?

?In other words, PlayStation Vita is intended to be played by only one user,? the representative added.

With the Vita hitting shelves in Japan this weekend and arriving in the U.S. on February 22, much has been made of the handheld console?s abilities and limitations. The PlayStation 3 recently received a major update that prepared it for the Vita?s release, and Sony has hinted that some of the Vita?s shortcomings could be addressed in future firmware updates.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111216/tc_digitaltrends/playstationvitawontsupportmultiplepsnaccounts

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Iraqi voices: For women, freedoms under fire

Editor's note: Photojournalist Kael Alford spent 10 months covering the invasion of Iraq and its immediate aftermath in 2003-2004. She returned this summer to see what has and hasn?t changed as the U.S. prepared to withdraw its troops.?

By Kael Alford

When I first met Yanar Mohammed in 2003, she was holding a megaphone and leading a women?s rally in Baghdad?s Firdos Square, standing in the shadow of a pedestal where a statue of Saddam Hussein had stood until U.S. tanks dragged it to the ground a few weeks earlier.? With a head of uncovered dark curls and a raised fist, she led chants demanding improved security and equal civil rights for women.

Eight years later, Mohammed is perhaps the most widely quoted activist on women?s rights in Iraq. A resident of both Iraq and Canada, she travels internationally, speaks at universities and conferences and has received prestigious awards for her service. And yet her message remains little known outside Iraq.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Yanar Mohammed rallies protestors in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, July 2011, calling for governmental reforms. She has been an activist since 2003 after the U.S. led invasion.

One of her main talking points is this: Iraq is a more dangerous place for women than it was before the U.S. invasion and it is getting worse. Reports by international human rights groups support her observations. According to the 2011 Iraq summary report by Human Rights Watch: ?The deterioration of security has promoted a rise in tribal customs and religiously-inflected political extremism, which have had a deleterious effect on women's rights, both inside and outside the home.?

Today, in a country where women have served in Parliament since the 1960s ? longer than in any other Middle Eastern country ? they are increasingly targeted by militant Islamic elements for participating in government, holding jobs or violating conservative Islamic traditions, such as appearing in public without head coverings. Even secular women now wear scarves in hopes of avoiding dangerous attention.

Iraq also has seen a rise in the tribal tradition of honor killings, where women who have a love affair outside of accepted cultural or religious boundaries are slain by members of their own family. Often these women, fleeing for their lives, seek out the Organization for Women?s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which Mohammed founded in the wake of the U.S. invasion.
?
When I tracked down Yanar this summer, she said the situation remains dire. She is the chief editor of the newspaper ?Al Mousawat,? or ?Equality,? that devotes a full page to reporting violent crimes against women, along with phone numbers for OWFI offering safety in underground shelters for women looking for an escape from violence. She also helps operate a radio station that uses? female university students as deejays.?

Mohammed is still leading protests over the lot of women in Iraq, but is now surrounded by a new group of mainly young women.

When I visited the OWFI compound, not far from Firdos Square, on a Friday in July, about two dozen people -- mostly women but a few young men -- were buzzing about preparing signs, making jokes and chatting about strategy for the morning?s protest.

There was nervous energy in the air before the group ventured out to Iraq?s version of the ?Arab Spring,? a weekly demonstration in Baghdad?s own Tahrir (?Freedom?) Square. Two weeks earlier state security officers who had been lurking on the fringes of the protests had moved in to teach the women a lesson.

?We heard them among themselves saying, ?These are the whores, let?s go and get them,?? recalled Mohammed. ??We were beaten, our bodies were groped, we were humiliated ? sexually harassed, and their message was to tell us that we are females who do not have the right to come in the arena of political struggle. We should feel ashamed and go back to our homes.?

Mohammed?s young prot?g?s fled the square for various safe houses around the city, many of them bloody, bruised and shaken. Human Rights Watch interviewed the women afterwards and issued a report about the incident.

Despite the obvious risks, the protesters were ready to return to the streets.

?They tried to make us escape in humiliation, but the women are quiet fierce,? Mohammed said. ?They gave them a good fight and today they?re back again.?

One of the younger women was 20-year-old Aya al Lamie, a thin, energetic woman in a long sleeved black T-shirt, jeans and oversized faux-diamond studded sunglasses. Head thrown back and long, dark, uncovered hair streaming down her back, she seemed to float on nervous energy as she led the women gathered in the antechamber of Mohammed?s office in anti-government chants. Mohammed stood back beneath large glossy color photographs of earlier protests, looking like a proud mother.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Women's-rights activist Aya Al Lami leads chants from the front of a bus headed to Tahrir square for a weekly Friday demonstration against Iraqi government policies, July 2011. The protestors, mostly women, were sexually harassed and groped by plain clothes security forces the previous week. Undaunted, most of the women are returning for another protest.

After a few minutes of singing and anxious strategizing, the 30 or so protestors piled out of the offices behind Lami and boarded the bus that would take them to the square. I climbed aboard too.

As we approached the square, the protestors grew quiet and began peering out the windows to assess the situation. The protest seemed smaller this week. Perhaps the rash of criticism from international observers would keep the security personnel at bay.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Protestors arrive in Tahrir Square in Baghdad on a minibus, July 2011. Protests in Iraq have been dealt with harshly by the Maliki government since February but protests have continued every Friday, with varying turnout.

The protestors entered the square, passing several Iraqi soldiers in uniform who checked their bags for weapons. The square was alive with several hundred people of all ages and types. An older women in a long black abaya posed solemnly for photographs, pictures of her missing relatives in hand.? Boisterous young men in western clothes would who fit seamlessly into the protests in Egypt, Tunisia or Libya, climbed onto a wall overlooking the square. People chanted and shouted, protesting corruption, judicial impunity, state torture and limitations on free speech.
Aside from a Human Rights Watch observer, I appeared to be the only American in the crowd.

Mohammed and her followers pulled out the megaphone and began stirring things up.? I was struck by how little has changed. Eight years ago, I made a photograph of her just like this, standing next to a red and white banner, megaphone in hand, fist in the air. It was like a flashback to an OWFI organization in 2003.

I recalled Janar?s words during our interview earlier that morning. ?(After the invasion) we had a lot of worries,? she said. ?There were abductions of women and we were protesting against them. ? Now we have a dictatorship again and this dictatorship is exercising to take us back to Saddam?s times.?

Lamie, her young prot?g?, the took the megaphone,? a wide smile on her face and pumping her hand rhythmically in the air.?

I didn?t want any run-in with state security, and Sami, my driver, had been circling the square in his battered Mercedes, begging me to get in.? It was my last day in Iraq and I had more appointments, so I left the women mid-protest, hoping all would go smoothly.? I later learned that their bus was stopped as they left -- not in the square where the lone Human Rights observer was watching,? but on a side street a few blocks away. The bus driver was questioned and some of the men were taken to an abandoned building for interrogation. One of the women on the bus called the Human Rights Watch observer, who soon arrived on the scene to ask why the women are being detained. Shortly after that, the bus and protesters were allowed to leave.

But that was not the end of it. In November, four months after my trip and one month before President Barack Obama?s promise to complete the withdrawal of U.S. troops before the Christmas holidays, I found this story about Lamie, Yanar's young protege, on the OWFI website:

20 Year old OWFI activist Aya Al Lamie Kidnapped from Tahrir Square and tortured
Although the numbers of demonstrators became much less in the Iraqi Tahrir square, Aya Al Lamie insisted to join [sic] the demonstrators every Friday of the last months. She insisted to put a woman's face on the Tahrir demonstrations and cooperated with all the organized groups in the square.

On Friday 30-9-2011 afternoon, towards the end of the demonstration, a group of security men dressed in civilian clothing surrounded her, carried and threw her into the trunk of a car which they parked next to the square, in what looked like sectarian mob kidnappings, under the eyes of the police and the army - which had become common practice in the last months in Tahrir.
20 year old Aya was taken to a security facility in Jadiriyah-Baghdad where she was beaten by a mob of torturers using sticks and whipping her back and arms by cables.

She was released at 5:00 pm after being told:" This was a first warning!"

A pattern is emerging in Iraq related to the treatment of demonstrators, journalists and social critics. This September, Hadi Al-Mahdi, a journalist well-known for his public criticism of the government on a popular radio show, was shot in the head in his apartment. Al-Mahdi had been helping to organize a large protest on the first Friday after Ramadan. He?d been abducted from a demonstration earlier this year, beaten and threatened with torture. It makes me fear for Aya and Yanar's bnd of brave, outspoken women.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Anti-American banners decorate Tahrir square in Baghdad during anti-government protests, July 2011. The abuses of the Iraqi government are often considered partly as a consequence of American intervention in Iraq.

?

More from the series:

Introduction: As U.S. withdraws last troops, the people speak
Suspicious minds in a squatters' camp
Colonel helped with the ?Surge,? then his past came calling
Patchwork electrical grid a symbol of country's disconnects
A new day for culture and consumer goods

Source: http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/14/9444042-iraqi-voices-for-women-freedoms-under-fire

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Paris to launch electric car sharing program

In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, a member of the media looks at a parking station for the Autolib' electric car-share scheme on a street in Paris. Paris, in its latest bid to be an innovator of the City of Tomorrow, is launching an electric car-sharing program to cut air and noise pollution on the city's medieval cobblestone streets and beyond. Autolib', a project built on the success of the city's bike-rental scheme, makes its debut Monday and officials want the self-service e-cars to be as much a part of Paris life as the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, a member of the media looks at a parking station for the Autolib' electric car-share scheme on a street in Paris. Paris, in its latest bid to be an innovator of the City of Tomorrow, is launching an electric car-sharing program to cut air and noise pollution on the city's medieval cobblestone streets and beyond. Autolib', a project built on the success of the city's bike-rental scheme, makes its debut Monday and officials want the self-service e-cars to be as much a part of Paris life as the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, a parking station for the Autolib' electric car-share scheme is seen on a street in Paris. Paris, in its latest bid to be an innovator of the City of Tomorrow, is launching an electric car-sharing program to cut air and noise pollution on the city's medieval cobblestone streets and beyond. Autolib', a project built on the success of the city's bike-rental scheme, makes its debut Monday and officials want the self-service e-cars to be as much a part of Paris life as the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

In this photo taken Friday, Dec. 2, 2011, a parking station for the Autolib' electric car-share scheme is seen on a street in Paris. Paris, in its latest bid to be an innovator of the City of Tomorrow, is launching an electric car-sharing program to cut air and noise pollution on the city's medieval cobblestone streets and beyond. Autolib', a project built on the success of the city's bike-rental scheme, makes its debut Monday and officials want the self-service e-cars to be as much a part of Paris life as the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

PARIS (AP) ? Paris, in its latest bid to be an innovator of the City of Tomorrow, is launching an electric car-sharing program to cut air and noise pollution on the city's medieval cobblestone streets and beyond.

Autolib', a project built on the success of the city's bike-rental scheme, makes its debut Monday and officials want the self-service e-cars to be as much a part of Paris life as the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral.

While many world cities have been developing greener alternatives to carbon-emitting vehicles, Paris says its program is the biggest of its kind: 250 vehicles hit the road on Monday, 2,000 are expected by next summer and 3,000 are planned within the next two years.

The four-seat compact Bluecar ? even though it's really gray ? is a collaboration of Italian car designer Pininfarina and French conglomerate Groupe Bollore, which hopes to showcase its Lithium Metal Polymer battery that powers the car.

Prospective users will need a valid ID, driver's license and credit card before signing up online or by a videoconference with an customer service representative at one of 40 special glassed-in shelters in Paris and dozens of suburban towns also taking part.

Standard subscriptions cost euro10 ($13.5) a day, euro15 ($20) a week, and euro144 ($195) a year. Beyond that, the hourly fees run from euro4 to euro9 based on the rental plan ? and users' cards can be charged in case of damage to the vehicles.

To get going, users swipe a magnetized card against a driver's-side window to open the door, and a key tethered to the steering column starts the car. It comes with bells and whistles, literally ? a button on the steering column lever produces a repetitive beep to alert Paris' many pedestrians that the silent car is on its way.

"The city's first interest is fighting air pollution, these cars not only don't emit carbon dioxide but localized exhaust fumes either ? and they don't make noise: (Studies show) the No. 1 nuisance in the city is noise," said Sylvain Marty, who heads the multi-city Autolib' partnership led by Paris and private-sector affiliates.

Autolib' also tackles what automotive analysts have long said is a big hurdle for the development of electric cars: a lack of infrastructure ? not enough charging stations. For euro180 a year, owners of electric cars can use the spots to juice up their own vehicles at the Autolib' charging stations.

For the last six months, crews with jackhammers have been outfitting sidewalks with some of the 1,200 charging stations and marking off parking spaces that will be reserved exclusively for Autolib' users.

Those promoting the vehicle say it can run for 250 kilometers (150 miles) on a single charge.

"I personally tried driving it more than four hours, in traffic, with the heat on full blast and I wasn't able to get it below 70 percent charge," said Marty. "For city use, that's more than enough."

Some 2,000 people have already registered for Autolib' accounts, and curious city officials from places like Guangzhou, China, or Rio de Janeiro have traveled to Paris to check it out, Marty said.

As is often France's wont, detractors and skeptics abound.

The country's main Green party movement says the electric cars will drain more energy from France's nuclear plants, which they oppose; will require battery disposal; and will ultimately encourage people to drive more.

City officials insist there's little risk to taxpayers, because the private sector companies have signed a 12-year commitment.

Groupe Bollore, which is headed by a friend of conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy, says at least 80,000 subscriber are needed for the program to be profitable ? not expected for seven years, officials say.

"We're banking on word of mouth from people who try it, like it, and tell themselves 'I've got to sign up!'" Marty said.

Other cities have similar projects, but much smaller in scale.

Berlin launched a pilot program last spring that combines a network of 40 electric cars and bicycles with the city's existing public transport system. Those cars, owned by German railway operator Deutsche Bahn, are part of a fleet of 65 electric vehicles also in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Saarbruecken.

Switzerland's biggest car-sharing organization, Mobility, has started offering electric cars at some of its hundreds of pickup points across the country.

Promoters know Autolib' is no panacea: Even at 3,000 vehicles, it won't be big enough to replace personal vehicles or public transport as the principal way of getting around a metro area of roughly 12 million people.

"Autolib' is all about complementing other means of transport ? this isn't about competing with public transportation or" the bike sharing program, said Marty.

___

http://www.autolib.eu/

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-04-EU-France-Car-Share-for-Paris/id-1161215b4ea6457e9e20045d391a9d3d

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American Society of Clinical Oncology issues annual report on progress against cancer

Public release date: 5-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Susie Tappouni
susie.tappouni@asco.org
571-483-1355
American Society of Clinical Oncology

Report highlights the year's most significant developments in cancer research, policy

ALEXANDRIA, Va. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today released Clinical Cancer Advances 2011: ASCO's Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer, an independent review of the advances in cancer research that have had the greatest impact on patient care this year. The report also identifies the most promising trends in oncology and provides insights from experts on where the future of cancer care is heading.

"We've made significant strides in clinical cancer research over the past year and this report adds renewed hope for patients," said Nicholas J. Vogelzang, MD, Co-Executive Editor of the report. "More personalized treatment approaches and advances in early detection are helping patients live longer, healthier lives. But we must improve the nation's clinical research system and expand access to quality cancer care to accelerate the pace of progress."

This year's top research advances demonstrate new therapies for reducing cancer recurrence, progress made against hard-to-treat cancers, and improvements in cancer prevention and screening. The report also highlights several new drug approvals that bring smarter, more effective therapies to specific genetic subgroups of patients with cancer. The top five advances selected by the editors are:

• A Phase III study finding that vemurafenib (Zelboraf), which targets a common mutation in melanoma in a gene called BRAF, improved overall survival in patients with advanced melanoma when compared to standard chemotherapy
• A large national screening trial of more than 50,000 current and former heavy smokers that found three annual low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans reduced the death rate from lung cancer by 20 percent compared to those who were screened with three annual chest X-rays
• FDA approvals on therapies for two hard-to-treat cancers:
  1. Crizotinib (Xalkori) was approved for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer who harbor a specific type of alteration in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene based on the results from two Phase II studies: one study demonstrated that 50 percent of patients experienced complete or partial tumor shrinkage for a median of 10 months and a second study found a 61 percent objective response rate lasting a median of 12 months
  2. Ipilimumab (Yervoy) an immune therapy that activates the immune system's T cells was approved for patients with previously untreated metastatic melanoma based on the results of a Phase III trial showing that the drug, combined with the standard chemotherapy drug dacarbazine, improved overall survival by two months
• The first conclusive evidence that an aromatase inhibitor reduced the risk of a first breast cancer, making exemestane (Aromasin) a preventative treatment option for postmenopausal women who are at high risk for the disease.

Selected by an 18-person editorial board of prominent oncologists, the report highlights a total of 54 advances in clinical oncology over the past year and covers the full scope of patient care, including cancer disparities, advanced cancer care and survivor care. Clinical Cancer Advances 2011 also features a "Year in Review" section, which describes key cancer policy developments and ASCO policy initiatives from the past year that are likely to influence cancer care over the coming years. Some of the important topics covered in this section include:

###

To request a full copy of the Clinical Cancer Advances 2011 report, please contact Susie Tappouni at susie.tappouni@asco.org

About the Report

Clinical Cancer Advances was developed under the guidance of an 18-person editorial board made up of leading oncologists, including specialty editors for each of the disease- and issue-specific sections. Editors reviewed studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals and the results of research presented at major scientific meetings from October 2010 through September 2011. Only studies that significantly altered the way a cancer is understood or had an important impact on patient care were selected for the report. The report and additional resources will be posted on ASCO's patient Website at www.cancer.net/cca and will be published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on December 5.

About ASCO

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is the world's leading professional organization representing physicians who care for people with cancer. With more than 30,000 members, ASCO is committed to improving cancer care through scientific meetings, educational programs and peer-reviewed journals. ASCO is supported by its affiliate organization, the Conquer Cancer Foundation, which funds ground-breaking research and programs that make a tangible difference in the lives of people with cancer. For ASCO information and resources, visit www.asco.org/presscenter. Patient-oriented cancer information is available at www.cancer.net

---

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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: 5-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Susie Tappouni
susie.tappouni@asco.org
571-483-1355
American Society of Clinical Oncology

Report highlights the year's most significant developments in cancer research, policy

ALEXANDRIA, Va. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today released Clinical Cancer Advances 2011: ASCO's Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer, an independent review of the advances in cancer research that have had the greatest impact on patient care this year. The report also identifies the most promising trends in oncology and provides insights from experts on where the future of cancer care is heading.

"We've made significant strides in clinical cancer research over the past year and this report adds renewed hope for patients," said Nicholas J. Vogelzang, MD, Co-Executive Editor of the report. "More personalized treatment approaches and advances in early detection are helping patients live longer, healthier lives. But we must improve the nation's clinical research system and expand access to quality cancer care to accelerate the pace of progress."

This year's top research advances demonstrate new therapies for reducing cancer recurrence, progress made against hard-to-treat cancers, and improvements in cancer prevention and screening. The report also highlights several new drug approvals that bring smarter, more effective therapies to specific genetic subgroups of patients with cancer. The top five advances selected by the editors are:

• A Phase III study finding that vemurafenib (Zelboraf), which targets a common mutation in melanoma in a gene called BRAF, improved overall survival in patients with advanced melanoma when compared to standard chemotherapy
• A large national screening trial of more than 50,000 current and former heavy smokers that found three annual low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans reduced the death rate from lung cancer by 20 percent compared to those who were screened with three annual chest X-rays
• FDA approvals on therapies for two hard-to-treat cancers:
  1. Crizotinib (Xalkori) was approved for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer who harbor a specific type of alteration in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene based on the results from two Phase II studies: one study demonstrated that 50 percent of patients experienced complete or partial tumor shrinkage for a median of 10 months and a second study found a 61 percent objective response rate lasting a median of 12 months
  2. Ipilimumab (Yervoy) an immune therapy that activates the immune system's T cells was approved for patients with previously untreated metastatic melanoma based on the results of a Phase III trial showing that the drug, combined with the standard chemotherapy drug dacarbazine, improved overall survival by two months
• The first conclusive evidence that an aromatase inhibitor reduced the risk of a first breast cancer, making exemestane (Aromasin) a preventative treatment option for postmenopausal women who are at high risk for the disease.

Selected by an 18-person editorial board of prominent oncologists, the report highlights a total of 54 advances in clinical oncology over the past year and covers the full scope of patient care, including cancer disparities, advanced cancer care and survivor care. Clinical Cancer Advances 2011 also features a "Year in Review" section, which describes key cancer policy developments and ASCO policy initiatives from the past year that are likely to influence cancer care over the coming years. Some of the important topics covered in this section include:

###

To request a full copy of the Clinical Cancer Advances 2011 report, please contact Susie Tappouni at susie.tappouni@asco.org

About the Report

Clinical Cancer Advances was developed under the guidance of an 18-person editorial board made up of leading oncologists, including specialty editors for each of the disease- and issue-specific sections. Editors reviewed studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals and the results of research presented at major scientific meetings from October 2010 through September 2011. Only studies that significantly altered the way a cancer is understood or had an important impact on patient care were selected for the report. The report and additional resources will be posted on ASCO's patient Website at www.cancer.net/cca and will be published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on December 5.

About ASCO

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is the world's leading professional organization representing physicians who care for people with cancer. With more than 30,000 members, ASCO is committed to improving cancer care through scientific meetings, educational programs and peer-reviewed journals. ASCO is supported by its affiliate organization, the Conquer Cancer Foundation, which funds ground-breaking research and programs that make a tangible difference in the lives of people with cancer. For ASCO information and resources, visit www.asco.org/presscenter. Patient-oriented cancer information is available at www.cancer.net

---

[ | 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/2011-12/asoc-aso120511.php

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Candy, cash _ al-Qaida implants itself in Africa

SOKOLO, Mali ?

The first time the members of al-Qaida emerged from the forest, they politely said hello. Then the men carrying automatic weapons asked the frightened villagers if they could please take water from the well.

Before leaving, they rolled down the windows of their pickup truck and called over the children to give them chocolate.

That was 18 months ago, and since then, the bearded men in tunics like those worn by Osama bin Laden have returned for water every week. Each time they go to lengths to exchange greetings, ask for permission and act neighborly, according to locals, in the first intimate look at how al-Qaida tries to win over a village.

Besides candy, the men hand out cash. If a child is born, they bring baby clothes. If someone is ill, they prescribe medicine. When a boy was hospitalized, they dropped off plates of food and picked up the tab.

With almost no resistance, al-Qaida has implanted itself in Africa's soft tissue, choosing as its host one of the poorest nations on earth. The terrorist group has create a refuge in this remote land through a strategy of winning hearts and minds, described in rare detail by seven locals in regular contact with the cell. The villagers agreed to speak for the first time to an Associated Press team in the "red zone," deemed by most embassies to be too dangerous for foreigners to visit.

While al-Qaida's central command is in disarray and its leaders on the run following bin Laden's death six months ago, security experts say, the group's 5-year-old branch in Africa is flourishing. From bases like the one in the forest just north of here, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is infiltrating local communities, recruiting fighters, running training camps and planning suicide attacks, according to diplomats and government officials.

Even as the mother franchise struggles financially, its African offshoot has raised an estimated $130 million in under a decade by kidnapping at least 50 Westerners in neighboring countries and holding them in camps in Mali for ransom. It has tripled in size from 100 combatants in 2006 to at least 300 today, say security experts. And its growing footprint, once limited to Algeria, now stretches from one end of the Sahara desert to the other, from Mauritania in the west to Mali in the east.

The group's stated aim is to become a player in global jihad, and suspected collaborators have been arrested throughout Europe, including in the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, England and France. In September, the general responsible for U.S. military operations in Africa, Army Gen. Carter Ham, said AQIM now also poses a "significant threat" to the United States.

The answer to why the group has thrived can be found in this speck of a town, where homes are made of mud mixed with straw and families eke out a living either in the fields of rice to the south or in the immense forest of short, stout trees to its north.

It's here, under a canopy stretching over an area three times larger than the city of New York, that Sokolo's herders take their cattle. They avoid overgrazing by organizing themselves into eight units linked to each of the eight wells, labeled N1 through N8, along the 50-mile-long perimeter of the Wagadou forest. They pay $5 per year per head of cattle, and $3 per head of sheep, for the right to water their animals.

When the al-Qaida fighters showed up about 1 1/2 years ago with four to five jerrycans and asked for water, they signaled that they did not intend to plunder resources. They stood out in their tunics stopping a little below the knees, small turbans and beards, a foreign style of dress associated with the Gulf states and bin Laden.

"From the moment you lay eyes on them, you know that they're not Malian," said 45-year-old herder Amadou Maiga.

They started to come every four or five days in Land Cruisers, with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. At first they stayed for no more than 15 to 20 minutes, said the villagers, including herders, a hunter and employees of the Malian Ministry of Husbandry who travel to the area to vaccinate animals and repair broken pumps. If on Monday they took water from one well, on Wednesday they would go to another, always varying their path.

Fousseyni Diakite, 51, a pump technician who travels twice a month to the forest to check the generators used to run the wells, first ran into the cell in May 2010, when he saw four men in Arab dress inside a Toyota Hilux truck, all with AK-47s at their feet.

He said the men come with medical supplies and try to find out if anyone is sick.

"There is one who is tall with a big chest - he's Arab, possibly Algerian. He's known for having an ambulatory pharmacy. He goes from place to place giving treatment for free," Diakite said.

They venture into the camps where the herders sleep at dusk and hand out cash to villagers who join them for prayers, he said - bills of 10,000 West African francs (about $20), equal to nearly half the average monthly salary in Mali.

Most of the herders sleep in lean-to's in camps at the forest's edge. Because these are temporary settlements, they do not have mosques, unlike most villages in this nation twice the size of France that is 90 percent Muslim.

In Boulker, a hamlet near the forest, the fighters left 100,000 francs (around $200), instructing locals to buy supplies and build an adobe mosque, Diakite said.

"They said that for every population center with at least 10 people, there should be a mosque," he said.

Along with its poverty, Mali has an enormous geography and a weak central government - not unlike Afghanistan, where bin Laden first used the charm offensive to secure the loyalty of the local people, said Noman Benotman, a former jihadist with links to al-Qaida, now an analyst at the London-based Quilliam Foundation.

"We used to teach our people about this. It's part of the military plan - how to treat locals. This is the environment that keeps them alive," said Benotman, who first met bin Laden in Sudan and who spent years fighting alongside al-Qaida in Afghanistan. He said bin Laden gave his fighters specific instructions on how to conduct themselves: Don't argue about the price, just make the locals happy. Become "like oxygen" to them.

AQIM is taking the lesson to heart. Soon after they began taking water, one of the bearded fighters approached a shepherd at the pump to buy a ram. The fighters were looking to slaughter it to feed themselves. The shepherd offered it to him for free - too afraid to ask for money, said Maiga, the man's friend.

But the stranger refused to take the ram without payment, and immediately handed over a generous sum.

"They seem to know all the prices ahead of time. They point to a ram and say, `I'll buy that one for 30,000 cfa ($60),'" said Maiga, quoting the highest sum a herder could expect to get for a ram in these parts. "They never bargain."

AQIM grew out of the groups fighting the Algerian government in the 1990s, after the military canceled elections to stave off victory for an Islamist party. Over the next decade, they left a trail of destruction in Algeria. Around 2003, they sent an emissary to Iraq to meet an al-Qaida intermediary, according to Benotman. Three years later, the insurgents joined the terror family, in what second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri called "a blessed union."

Since then, their attacks have taken on the hallmarks of al-Qaida. A pair of explosions this August killed 18 people as they tore through the mess hall of Algeria's military academy, with the second bomb timed to hit emergency responders.

Al-Qaida in turn appears to be learning from its affiliates, which have used kidnappings for ransom in Algeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. After bin Laden's death in May, investigators found files on his hard drive showing plans to turn to kidnapping to compensate for a decline in donations.

AQIM in particular has perfected what analysts call a "kidnap economy," drawing on its refuge in Mali, according to diplomats, hostage negotiators and government officials. In 2003, the group kidnapped and transported 32 mostly German tourists from southern Algeria to Mali, where, according to a member of Mali's parliament, they struck a deal with local authorities that is still in effect today.

"The agreement was, `You don't hurt us, we won't hurt you,'" said the parliament member, formerly involved in hostage negotiations, who asked not to be identified because of the danger involved.

The government of Mali denies these accusations, but officials cited in diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks make the same assertion. The president of neighboring Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, told his American counterparts in 2009 that Mali is "at peace with AQIM to avoid attacks on its territory." Whereas the al-Qaida cell has captured more than 50 foreigners in Algeria, Niger and Mauritania, hardly any of the violence has touched Mali.

The cell has also managed to recruit local fighters, including 60 to 80 Tuaregs, the olive-skinned nomads who live in the Sahara desert, according to a security expert. And villagers say they have seen black-skinned sub-Saharan Africans in the pickups speaking the languages of Mali, Guinea and Nigeria.

"The situation in Mali is they have become locals - they are not foreigners," said Benotman. "This is really, really very, very difficult to do, and it makes it very hard to get rid of them."

One thing still stands in al-Qaida's way: Its hardcore ideology does not gel with the moderate Islam practiced by Mali's nomads. Most of them said they were afraid, caught between need for the money al-Qaida offers and wariness of its extremist beliefs.

When bin Laden died, the members of the local cell went from well to well to ask people to pray for his soul, according to Amaye ag Ali Cisse, an employee of the Ministry of Husbandry who travels twice a month to the wells to oversee the vaccination of animals.

"Everyone is uncomfortable," he said. "This is a religion that doesn't belong to us."

The herders say the fighters have not tried to impose their ideology by force. Instead, they say that the AQIM members wait until they have seen a herder at least a few times before broaching the subject.

"It was the third time that I saw them that they started preaching to me," said Maiga. "They said that everything they do is in order to seek out God."

Herder Baba Ould Momo, 29, said he tries to come up with an excuse to leave when the pickup trucks arrive at the well, because he's afraid the terror cell will pull him in. He said they backed off when they noticed he wasn't interested.

"The first thing they try to do is invite people to join them in the forest. If they see that the person is wavering, it's then that they start preaching - saying everything is transitory," said Momo, who like most of the herders wears plastic flip-flops, with a robe of wrinkled cloth. "But if the person is categorical in saying `No,' they leave them alone."

In June, Mauritania and Mali led a rare joint attack on the al-Qaida cell in the Wagadou Forest. However, herders say that a week earlier, the al-Qaida fighters told them that an attack was imminent and that they had laid down land mines in the forest. Mauritania blames Malian officials for tipping off AQIM.

The herders said that for around two weeks, they didn't see the bearded fighters. Then they returned with a new fleet of Hilux pickup trucks, and with more men. Since then, the fighters' tracks have been all over the forest floor, in a map of constant movement, said 60-year-old hunter Cheickana Cisse. They no longer sleep in the same place.

Just as Cisse was taking a drink of water at the N7 pump on a recent evening, two pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft cannons and loaded with combatants drove up. The men had chains of ammunition strapped across their chests, and belts loaded with cartridges.

They laid their AK-47s in a circle on the ground to create a space to pray, like a symbolic mosque. One of them asked Cisse if he had heard of bin Laden.

"He said, `We're like this with bin Laden,'" Cisse explained, intertwining his right and left index fingers like a link in a chain. "He said, `We're al-Qaida.'"

The elderly hunter tried to slip away just as one of the fighters made the call to prayer.

"And they said, `You? Aren't you going to pray?' They told me to come into the circle. I could feel them watching me," he said.

The men kneeled inside the circle of weapons. Four others guarded them, including one who climbed on the roof of the truck. Cisse tiptoed inside and began going through the prayer. "I kept stealing glances to see if they were doing the same moves as me," he said. "I know the words, but I was scared."

When the group had finished, the four who had kept vigil took their turn inside the circle. Cisse quietly walked away.

They didn't try to stop him.

Source: http://feeds.seattletimes.com/click.phdo?i=7bdae50e424fd36c3e120525caf9ebef

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UK media inquiry a lesson in tabloid skullduggery (AP)

LONDON ? Hacking into celebrity phones was just the sleazy tip of the iceberg.

Britain's media ethics inquiry, set up in response to illegal eavesdropping by a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, has turned out to be a masterclass in skullduggery that has exposed the murky practices of the U.K.'s muckraking press.

This week, witnesses described how Murdoch's company had destroyed their lives and that of their families, with reporters targeting critics for spying and negative coverage, and sullying the name of an innocent man.

"We have a press that has just become frankly putrid in many of its elements," Alastair Campbell, former tabloid journalist and longtime communications aide to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, told the tribunal this week.

Few would disagree after listening to the nationally televised testimony describing the excesses of a callous, sometimes criminal, press.

The judge-led inquiry was set up after it emerged that Murdoch's News of the World had for years illegally eavesdropped on the voicemail messages of celebrities, public figures and crime victims. The scandal forced Murdoch to shut down the 168-year-old tabloid. A dozen Murdoch employees have been arrested in the case, which also cost the jobs of several of his top executives, two senior police officers and Prime Minister David Cameron's communications chief.

The inquiry has put Murdoch's empire on trial, as witnesses described their treatment at the hands of an organization they viewed as unassailably powerful, ruthless and feared.

Former child singing sensation Charlotte Church described how she was invited to perform at Murdoch's wedding on a yacht in New York when she was 13. She said she was offered a 100,000 pound (roughly $160,000) payment, but was told if she waived the fee that Murdoch's papers would look favorably on her.

Church, now 25, told the inquiry that she really wanted to take the money, but was told by her managers it would be worthwhile to give up the fee ? which would have been her highest payment ever then ? to cultivate Murdoch's support.

She said she was told "that he was a very, very powerful man" who could do her career a world of good ? if he wanted to.

But any tabloid goodwill she earned was short-lived. Church said media scrutiny increased to unbearable levels as she entered her teens. As she approached her 16th birthday, she said Murdoch's The Sun tabloid featured on its website a "countdown clock" timed to the day when she would be able to legally have sex ? an allegation the newspaper denies.

Later, a tabloid reported that Church was pregnant before she had even told her parents, news she felt had to come from reporters hacking into her phone. On another occasion the News of the World reported on her father's extramarital affair under the headline "Church's three in a bed cocaine shock." Church said her mother had attempted suicide partly as a result of this invasion of privacy.

Murdoch's News International has denied Church's version of events surrounding her performance at Murdoch's wedding, and her agent at the time, Jonathan Shalit, said she was not offered a choice between a fee and good press.

He said Church was not offered a fee and performed for free, as she had done for Prince Charles and President Bill Clinton. But he said publicity from these appearances helped launch her career in the United States, which was his plan.

"When you sing for these people you get added benefits for your career," he said.

Church was one of a slew of celebrities, including actor Hugh Grant, "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling and actress Sienna Miller, who have sat in the witness box at London's Royal Courts of Justice and described stakeouts and snatched photos, leaked medical details and midnight pursuits ? all justified, in the tabloids' eyes, because the people they were pursuing were famous.

Ian Hargreaves, professor of digital economy and former director of the journalism school at the University of Cardiff, said the hearings have had a profound impact on the public psyche ? and on Britain's political class ? by revealing so much about how part of British press works.

"It's been a process of revelation, based on firsthand testimony," he said. "A lot of journalists feel it has been one-sided, but processes that have been known about and talked about in private are suddenly being talked about on a big public stage."

Hearings continue into the new year, and justice Brian Leveson and his panel hope to issue a report by late 2012 that could recommend major changes to Britain's system of media self-regulation.

So far, the most strident defense of tabloids ? and the week's most jaw-dropping testimony ? came from unrepentant former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan. He described chasing celebrities' cars as "good fun," called phone hacking "a perfectly acceptable tool" of the trade and dismissed privacy as "the space bad people need to do bad things in."

He also said celebrities should stop complaining and be grateful for the attention of paparazzi.

The inquiry has also shown that it's not just celebrities who find themselves in the tabloids' sights. The parents of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was abducted and murdered in 2002, described how the News of the World's hacking of Milly's phone, and the deletion of voicemail messages, had given them false hope that their daughter was still alive.

This week Christopher Jefferies, a retired teacher arrested on suspicion of murder in a high-profile case a year ago, described how his life had been wrecked by "smears, innuendo and complete fiction" in articles that painted him as a voyeuristic eccentric, or worse.

Jefferies was released without charge, and another man has been convicted of the killing. Jefferies successfully sued eight newspapers ? including Murdoch's The Sun tabloid ? for libel, but said he would "never fully recover from the events of the last year."

"There will always be people who don't know me who will retain the impression that I'm some sort of weird character who is probably best avoided," he said.

The inquiry has also heard claims the Murdoch empire used negative articles and even espionage against its critics. Former TV host Anne Diamond recounted how she had asked Murdoch during a 1980s interview "how could he sleep at night" knowing his newspapers ruined people's lives.

She said after that "there were consistent negative stories about me in Mr. Murdoch's newspapers."

One glaring example was a story in The Sun headlined "Anne Diamond killed my father," about a fatal road accident she had been involved in years before. The same newspaper took pictures of Diamond carrying the coffin of her infant son at his funeral, despite her plea for the press to stay away out of respect for the family's grief.

Mark Lewis, a lawyer who has represented high-profile hacking victims, testified that he was put under surveillance by a private investigator working for Murdoch's News International. The surveillance, apparently in search of material to discredit him, included following and filming his 14-year-old daughter.

"That was truly horrific, that my daughter was videoed, was followed by a detective with a camera," Lewis said. "That shouldn't happen to anybody's child."

___

Associated Press writer Robert Barr contributed to this report.

Online: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk

Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_en_ot/eu_britain_phone_hacking

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As US-Myanmar ties warm, China stands conflicted (AP)

BEIJING ? China is a conflicted observer to Hillary Rodham Clinton's trip to Myanmar, caught between worries about U.S. encirclement in Asia and a desire to see its isolated, at times teetering neighbor become more stable.

The discord is evident in Beijing's public pronouncements about the U.S. secretary of state's visit. While the Foreign Ministry expressed support Thursday for Myanmar's outreach to the West, a top Chinese leader called for closer military relations when meeting Myanmar's armed forces commander this week. On state-run television, a commentary appended to footage of Clinton's arrival showed U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the Pacific.

"Beijing understands Myanmar's aspiration to diversify its international engagement and improve relations with the United States. However, Beijing doesn't wish to see those goals achieved at the expense of China," said Sun Yun, an expert on China's foreign relations at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Though estranged for decades when China armed anti-government ethnic groups and supported communist revolution in what was then called Burma, Beijing pivoted in the 1990s to lavish the benefits of trade on Myanmar, just as its military-backed government was sinking deeper into international isolation.

Now as Myanmar's largest economic partner, with $4.4 billion in trade last year and nearly $16 billion in total investment, China has unmatched reach. Its state companies are extracting minerals and timber and investing in dams and pipelines. Chinese food products, medicines and other goods flood Myanmar's markets.

As a result China is both ubiquitous and unpopular. The infrastructure projects have drawn protests from ethnic and environmental groups, which in part led to the new government's recent decision to suspend the $3.6 billion China-funded Myitsone dam. Myanmar companies complain they cannot compete with lower-cost Chinese goods, many of which are smuggled over the border and not taxed. One midsize maker of cakes and cookies has said it might have to shut down.

"The Chinese are surprised by the changes in Burma. They misunderstand our country, our people," said Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former Burmese Communist Party strategist who lives in the Chinese border city of Ruili. "They have good relations with the government, but not with the people of Burma. There's more and more anti-Chinese sentiment among the people and among the army."

Further unnerving to Beijing is that Myanmar's tentative rapprochement with Washington comes amid a push by the Obama administration to strengthen ties with other countries on China's periphery as a hedge against its rising power.

As Myanmar warms to Washington, some Chinese foreign policy experts want renewed backing for the ethnic groups to tweak the Myanmar government and bring it in line, said Sun, the Brookings expert. For decades Beijing ratcheted its support for the groups up and down as leverage with Myanmar.

Though that remains an option, Sun said there's no evidence China is doing so. In recent years, Chinese policy has generally been to cool temperatures on its border with Myanmar.

Beijing-approved peace talks between the government and ethnic rebels have foundered in part over renewed fighting that Myanmar watchers said have displaced thousands, sending them to relief centers along the border.

Such chaos raises the prospect for Beijing that Myanmar could become another North Korea ? a client state whose dysfunction could spill across the border and destabilize China. The remedy for that, many experts inside and outside the government argue, is for China to encourage Myanmar to welcome Clinton and improve relations with the West, bringing in trade and investment that will spur growth and stability.

"If it improves relations with the United States, then its international environment will be better, and it can concentrate on economic construction and improving the lives of its people," said Qu Jianwen of Yunnan University, in the Chinese province bordering Myanmar. "Myanmar's internal political difficulties and ethnic disturbances have for too long prevented it from focusing on economic development."

Though better relations with Washington may allow Myanmar to reduce its dependence on China and give it some bargaining power, ultimately, Myanmar experts say, any distancing is limited by geography and by the pools of ready Chinese investment.

On Thursday, China said it will host the headquarters for a multinational security detail with Myanmar, Laos and Thailand to better police shipping on the Mekong River along their borders.

"I think people get confused when they say the Burmese want to move away from China. No no no," said Maung Zarni, a longtime exiled activist who is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. "The Burmese cannot move away from China, because of geographic location, and the economic penetration as well as the demographic influence of China over Burma. What they want is the best of both worlds."

___

Associated Press writer Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_re_as/as_china_myanmar_us

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The Mobile Nations Podcast brings together the heads of state of Android Central, CrackBerry, PreCentral, TiPb and WPCentral.

More at MobileNations.com

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/AE6112V_vWA/story01.htm

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