Happy New Year 2012

Announcing: Snapdragon Stadium

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Snapdragon by Qualcomm for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
For approximately 11 days this holiday season starting December 18th, Qualcomm Stadium will be renamed Snapdragon Stadium! That's right, the San Diego wireless chip giant, which has held the naming rights on the Mission Valley stadium since 1997, is temporarily changing the name from Qualcomm Stadium to Snapdragon Stadium.
Snapdragon is the brand name for the company’s family of application processors that power smartphones. Snapdragon processors by Qualcomm are the digital brains inside mobile devices made by top manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Nokia, and HTC.

During this time the venue will play host to a Chargers Sunday night game against Baltimore along with two college bowl games: the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl (Dec. 21) and the Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl (Dec. 28).
Snapdragon technology can remain found in smart phones, computer tables, and additional computers or devices. Taking a signal afterward Intel, the company purposes to make Snapdragon a household name akin to "Intel inside" - a catchy phrase known to belong to the otherwise quiet Intel.
"Exposure is essential" said George Belch, chairman of the marketing department at San Diego State University. "You must a couple of high profile bowls that are going to have a comparatively big audience in the target demographic they're after."
The cost for changing the name of the stadium is said to be less than a 30-second commercial at the upcoming Chargers-Ravens game.
Snapdragon processors by Qualcomm are the digital brains inside mobile devices made

Vigil honors victims of Texas Christmas shooting

Six victims of a Christmas Day shooting rampage near Dallas were honored by more than 100 friends on Wednesday who wept and clung to each other as they shared their memories at a candlelit vigil.
The group gathered early in the evening at a park in this quiet suburb about a mile from the apartment complex where police said Aziz Yazdanpanah, 58, opened fire on Sunday morning and killed his estranged wife Fatemeh Rahmati, 56, and two children Nona, 19, and Ali, 14.
Toting two pistols and dressed as Santa, the gunman also shot and killed his wife's sister, Zohreh Rahmaty, 58, her husband,
Mohamad Hossein Zarei, 59, and their daughter, Sahra Zarei, 22, before turning a gun on himself.
"Nona would not want harsh words said, only good things," said Allison Baum, Nona's best friend and the organizer of the event to remember the family of Iranian immigrants who had settled in the Dallas-Fort Worth area decades ago.
"This is a night of closure and a way to pay our respects," she added.
The family was beloved by the Iranian community in the Dallas area, according to long-time family friend Fran Hosseiny, who said she received a call from relatives of the victims in Iran on Wednesday morning.
"They were worried that no one was here to remember them," she said. "I told them they had so many friends and were so loved that no one will forget them."
Sahra's boyfriend, Jonathan Garcia, was among those who paid tribute at Wednesday's vigil. He was the last person to have contact with any of the victims through a text message sent by Sahra on Sunday morning.
"We were very close and had lots of plans," Garcia said of Sahra, who he said hoped to go to medical school after graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington in the spring.
"I do know she left us happy, and I have no doubt about that."
Karim Ghoghaie, who said he had known the family for more than 30 years, told Reuters that relatives from London and Los Angeles arrived on Wednesday to claim the bodies, which will be buried at a private funeral in the Dallas area on Thursday.
The massacre rocked the usually festive Dallas suburb dubbed the "Christmas Capital of Texas" and known more for its tourism, Christmas season events, festivals and vineyards than for violence.
As friends prepared to remember the victims on Wednesday, new details from the ongoing police investigation emerged.
Search warrants released in the day identified two guns recovered from the scene as a Smith & Wesson 915 model 9 mm pistol and a Glock 23 .40-caliber pistol.
Police said they found one pistol in the hand of Yazdanpanah, who shot himself in the head, and another in the hand of his brother-in-law.
"We believe Yazdanpanah put the gun in Zarei's hand to make it look like he had shot them," said Grapevine Lt. Todd Dearing. "But we know that Mohamad was a victim just like the others."

Washington's big dig aims to clean up "nation's river"

Washington is starting to dig deep in a $2.6 billion underground solution aimed at helping clean up the polluted Potomac River and the ailing Chesapeake Bay, the biggest U.S. estuary.
In the U.S. capital's biggest public works project in more than 40 years, work started this fall to cut about 16 miles of tunnels to keep overflow sewage and stormwater from running into the Potomac.
The project, designed to be finished in 2025, is seen by environmentalists as part of resolving the next great water pollution challenge facing the United States -- keeping fouled runoff out of lakes, streams and rivers.

The vast dig "is a dramatic piece of the puzzle to improve the water quality in the Potomac," said Carlton Ray, head of the District of Columbia's Clean Water Project.
For the 15 million tourists who visit Washington each year, the broad Potomac serves as a dramatic backdrop to the city's gleaming monuments and public buildings, like the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial.
But the smoothly flowing waters of what admirers call "the nation's river" hide deep problems.
The Potomac carries so much sex-changing pollutants that male bass have been found carrying eggs. Swimming is banned after heavy rains because of polluted runoff.
Locals are warned about eating the Potomac's fish because of contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls, a likely carcinogen in humans.
The river and its almost 15,000-square-mile basin is the top source of sediments dumped into the Chesapeake Bay, a leading U.S. crab fishery and itself struggling to revive from decades of overfishing and pollution.
REPORT CARD: D
In its report card this year, the Potomac Conservancy, an environmental group, graded the Potomac at "D." It cited poor land use practices, new contaminants and continuing fights to control pollution.
"If we can't figure out how to clean up and be able to swim in a river and eat the fish you catch, if you can't do that in the nation's capital, what hope do we have?" asked Hedrick Belin, the Potomac Conservancy's president.
Washington's sewers project, which will use a tunneling machine the length of a football field, is aimed at eliminating 96 percent of one of the biggest sources of Potomac pollution -- stormwater from the District of Columbia.
About one-third of Washington, including the White House and the Capitol, is hooked up to a 19th century sewer system that carries both sewage and stormwater into the Potomac and its District of Columbia tributaries, the Anacostia River and Rock Creek.
About 2.5 billion gallons of raw sewage mixed with rainwater is swept into the river each year when Washington's sewers back up from heavy rain, fouling the river.
"Basically, anytime it rains we have overflow events," said Ray, the project's chief.
The new project, set up under a 2005 federal consent decree, is designed to hold millions of gallons of runoff until it can be pumped out and treated.
Part of the cost of the dig, Washington's biggest public works project since the building of its subway, will be defrayed by the District's impervious surfaces tax. The levy taxes surfaces that feed runoff and was doubled in October.
The passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act helped shut off much of U.S. pollution from single sources, like factories. The biggest culprit now is water sheeting off roads, farms, houses and urban areas that sweeps waste into lakes, rivers and streams, environmentalists said.
FOUL RUNOFF
"Most of the pollution is not coming out of a big pipe, a big plant. It is coming from water flowing off surfaces," said the Potomac Conservancy's Belin.
Tim Guilfoile, deputy director of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels program, estimated about 60 percent of U.S. water pollution comes from runoff mixed with manure, pet waste, fertilizers, oil, chemicals and trash.
The problem is especially acute in areas like Washington and its sprawling suburbs, where development has stripped land cover and replaced it with surfaces like houses, parking lots and roads that feed runoff.
For example, Prince George's County, which borders the District of Columbia, lost half its forest cover from 1993 to 2007, the Potomac Conservancy said.
One inch of rain can produce from 1,000 to 1,500 gallons of runoff from a 1,500-square-foot roof, Guilfoile said.
"The only way we can have an impact (in controlling pollution) is to change how we handle stormwater," he said.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required the District of Columbia in October to take a raft of steps to cut runoff further. They include roof gardens, planting trees, refitting drainage and that 1.2 inches of rain be retained on a development's site in a 24-hour storm.
Ray, the tunnel project's director, said the District of Columbia was in talks with the EPA about building swales, or marshy troughs filled with vegetation, and other green structures to hold runoff, and cut the dig's price tag.
"If we can show it's successful, we can spend millions and millions of dollars on green infrastructure and reduce the gray infrastructure" of the concrete tunnels, he said.

Family of Marine jet crash victims awarded $17.8 million

The surviving relatives of four family members killed when a Marine fighter jet crashed into their San Diego home in 2008 were awarded $17.8 million by a federal judge on Wednesday.
Don Yoon, who lost his wife, his mother-in-law and two of his children when an F/A-18D Hornet fighter jet crashed into and incinerated their home, was awarded $9.6 million by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller, court documents show.
Yoon's father-in-law, Sanghyun Lee, 67, was awarded $3.7 million in the decision, according to the court papers. Yoon's three surviving children were awarded $1.5 million each.
Yoon was at work on December 8, 2008 when the fighter, which was approaching the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar after taking off from an aircraft carrier during a training exercise, smashed into his home.

The crash killed his wife 36-year-old wife, Youngmi Lee Yoon, his daughters Grace Yoon, 15 months, and Rachel Yoon, 7 weeks, and his mother-in-law Seokim Kim-Lee, 59, who was visiting from South Korea to help take care of the children.
The pilot ejected from the plane before the crash and survived.
The United States admitted sole liability for the crash, fire, and deaths of those who perished, according to the court decision.
Yoon's older brother testified during a three-day trial in U.S. District Court in San Diego that his brother used to be funny, cracking jokes and playing with children. Now, he said, Yoon visits the graves of his family every day, and no longer smiles or sees people.
Yoon told the court that reuniting with his wife and daughters in death is "all I have to look forward to," according to court documents.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, who sought $56 million in damages, could not immediately be reached for comment.
A U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the government in the case did not immediately respond to request for comment.

New York unions sue over retiree health-care change

Seven New York state unions filed federal lawsuits on Wednesday seeking to prevent Governor Andrew Cuomo from increasing the amount that retired workers pay for health care.
The increases enacted this year were unconstitutional because the state has no authority to unilaterally raise retirees' health-care costs, the unions said. Each union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Albany, they said.
"What the Cuomo administration is trying to do is pull the rug out from under state retirees, many of whom planned their retirements based on when they felt they could afford to retire," Kenneth Brynien, president of the Public Employees Federation, said in a statement.

"These decisions were based on a promise and expectation of what their health insurance costs would be," he said.
But Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto said in a statement that the state had done nothing illegal.
"The law clearly allows the administration to apply the terms of a new contract to retirees and it has been well-known standard practice to do so," Vlasto said.
One of the seven lawsuits was quickly made public on the Albany court's website, and the unions provided copies of two additional lawsuits. The remaining lawsuits were not immediately available.
Earlier this year, Cuomo negotiated new contracts with some of the state's largest public employee unions, including PEF and the Civil Service Employees Association.
The austere state budget passed in March forced the unions to concede $450 million in savings in wages and benefits or face up to 9,800 layoffs.
The insurance increases for retirees were not part of the collective bargaining agreements that came out of this year's negotiations. Instead, the Cuomo administration unilaterally increased health-care contributions to 12 percent from 10 percent for individual coverage and to 27 percent from 25 percent for family coverage.
New York law has "consistently recognized retirement health insurance benefits at a contribution level that is fixed and vested at the time of retirement to be of contractual status and a continuing obligation of the state," PEF's statement said.
Without that guarantee, retirees could theoretically lose all of their retirement benefits at the state's whim, the complaint said.
CSEA spokesman Stephen Madarasz said several unions filed separate, similar suits, but he expects the court to consolidate them.

Most U.S. Latinos oppose Obama's deportation policy: study

U.S. Hispanics disapprove of President Barack Obama's stepped up deportation program by a two-to-one margin, although support for the Democrat over top Republican rivals remains strong, according to a new study.
The Obama administration deported a record 396,000 unauthorized immigrants last year, up about 7 percent on 2008, the last year Republican George W. Bush was in office.
More than half those deported were convicted criminals, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
The study by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center released Wednesday found 59 percent of Latinos surveyed disapproved of the way the Obama administration handles deportations.

Twenty-seven percent of the nationwide sample of 1,220 adult Latinos -- including 557 who said they were registered voters -- said they favored the policy, while 13 percent did not know or declined to answer.
Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority in the United States, totaling 50.5 million in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
They are an increasingly powerful bloc who supported Obama for president in 2008 by a two-to-one margin over Republican rival John McCain.
Despite rejection of his deportation program, support for Obama and the Democratic Party remains strong among Latino registered voters as he runs for reelection in 2012, the survey found.
In a hypothetical match-up against former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Obama wins 68 percent to 23 percent among Latino registered voters.
And in a match-up against Texas Governor Rick Perry, Obama wins the Latino vote 69 percent to 23 percent, it found.
"We found that among Latino registered voters ... there's still strong support for the president and still strong party affiliation to the Democrats among Hispanic registered voters," Mark Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center and the lead author of the study, told Reuters.
The Pew Hispanic study found two-thirds -- 67 percent -- of Hispanic registered voters say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 20 percent said the same about the Republican Party.
When asked which party has more concern for Hispanics, 45 percent said it is the Democratic Party, while 12 percent said it is the Republican Party. The share that identifies the Republican Party as the better party for Hispanics is up six percentage points.
The study has an overall margin of error of 3.6 percentage points, with a margin of error of 5.2 percentage points in the sample of those registered to vote.

U.S. seeks $670,000 in taxes from Yankees owner

The U.S. government has sued New York Yankees co-owner Hal Steinbrenner and his wife seeking more than $670,00 in taxes, saying that amount was erroneously refunded to the baseball team based on a late refund claim for the 2001 tax year.
The suit filed by the Internal Revenue Service in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday stems from a time when the Yankees and the New Jersey Nets professional basketball team formed a joint venture called YankeeNets.
Hal Steinbrenner is listed as a general partner of the Yankees along with his siblings, who inherited the team when their father and longtime owner George Steinbrenner died in 2010. Hal Steinbrenner's wife Christina Steinbrenner is not listed among the team's executives.

In August of 2009, the defendants filed an amended tax return for the 2001 tax year, resulting in a refund of $670,493.78, the suit said. But the return was filed more than six months after the deadline, resulting in an erroneous refund, the suit said.
"Hal Steinbrenner's representatives had no knowledge of the lawsuit and had received no prior notices regarding this matter from the IRS or any other governmental agency. We are reviewing and have no comment," Alice McGillion, a spokeswoman for the Yankees, said in a statement.

Youth to lead drop in U.S. voter turnout in 2012: study

Voter turnout will likely drop substantially in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, due in part to decreased interest among young people who flocked to the polls in 2008 to help elect President Barack Obama.
A report this week by the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University predicted that the drop in turnout among young people will likely contribute to a decline in overall voter turnout in the November election after near record numbers in the last two presidential elections.
"The election is likely to offer a minimum of hope and a maximum of televised invective - likely between the perception of a failed
president and a party of failed ideas magnified by an unprecedented level of scurrilous and vitriolic and often ad hominem television advertising," wrote Curtis Gans, director of the center.
"Against this backdrop, it is hard to envision anything other than a substantial decline in turnout."
Gans said the 2008 election had the highest turnout since 1960 due in part to a sharp increase in voting by college-educated youth and record numbers of African-Americans going to the polls.
But he said the 2012 election would be different amid reduced enthusiasm for all of the candidates.
"(B)ecause Obama the president did not fulfill the hope invested in Obama the candidate, there has been an enormous sense of disappointment among those young who had been previously politically active and the current crop of college-resident young do not have the same compelling motivation to engage as those who preceded them," wrote Gans.
"For these and other deeper systemic reasons, it is virtually certain that there will be a substantial drop-off in the level of youth participation and voting in 2012," he said.

Alibaba hires U.S. lobbying firm as it eyes Yahoo

Alibaba Group has hired a Washington lobbying firm in a sign that the Chinese e-commerce company would be willing to make a bid for all of Yahoo Inc in the event that talks to unwind their Asian partnership fail.
Japan's Softbank Corp, which owns a 30 percent stake in Alibaba and is a partner in Yahoo Japan, is also listed as an Alibaba affiliate in the disclosure by the lobbying firm, Duberstein Group Inc.
Alibaba Group's founder, Jack Ma, said in September he was keen to buy all of Yahoo if the opportunity presented itself.

Hiring a Washington lobbying firm could help Alibaba address any U.S. political opposition to a complete takeover of Yahoo by a company from a country that controls and censors the Internet.
Chinese companies, such as telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Co, have run into opposition when they have tried to buy U.S. assets over the years.
"The national security concern is sometimes just an excuse for commercial concerns for any country, but certainly for the United States," said Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing-based consultancy Marbridge Consulting. "I don't think there should be a big concern (for Alibaba buying Yahoo). Users may share or keep as much data as they like.
"If they subscribe to Yahoo and (they know) Yahoo is owned by a Chinese company, they are going to have to make the decision themselves," Natkin added.
Alibaba, Softbank and Yahoo have been looking to unwind their complex web of relationships. Alibaba retained Duberstein in the fall when it was discussing a proposal with private equity firms to carve up Yahoo, a source familiar with the situation said.
While they would jointly make a bid for the whole company, the idea was for the buyout firms to take over Yahoo's U.S. operations and for Alibaba and Softbank to get the Asian assets.
But a buyout of Yahoo has now been put on the backburner as the U.S. Internet company is considering a proposal to address just the Asian assets that Alibaba and Softbank want. That plan, valued at roughly $17 billion, would reduce Yahoo's 40 percent stake in Alibaba and get Yahoo out of Yahoo Japan, sources told Reuters last week.
Yahoo is exploring proposals to revamp its business in the face of competition from Internet heavyweights such as Google Inc and Facebook.
Investors have long said Yahoo's investment in Alibaba, along with its 35 percent slice of Yahoo Japan, are far and away the U.S. company's most prized assets. Yahoo has a market value of around $20 billion.
Earlier in December, Thomson Reuters publication Basis Point reported that a handful of lenders are considering committing to a $4 billion loan for Alibaba that will help it buy back part of the 40 percent stake that Yahoo owns in the company.
LOBBYING FIRM
The filing marks the first time Alibaba has registered to lobby the U.S. government, according to a search of congressional records.
The Duberstein Group is headed by Kenneth Duberstein, a former White House chief of staff under U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Its other clients include BP America Inc, Goldman Sachs & Co and Pfizer Inc.
The lobbying registration lists the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which specializes in mergers and acquisitions, as an intermediary between Alibaba and the company's lobbying team.
The registration was received by a U.S. Senate office on Dec 23 and then posted online, but the lobbying work likely began earlier.
Under U.S. law, a lobbying firm is required to file a public disclosure within 45 days of crossing certain thresholds such as making contact with a public official. The filing for Alibaba says it is effective as of December 1.
Messages left with the Duberstein Group and Wachtell were not immediately returned on Wednesday.

Italy seeks bigger euro fund after tough debt sale

Italy's PM called for significantly more firepower for the euro zone's bailout fund after a bond auction did little to ease concerns over how the country would finance public spending in the next few months.
Italy's borrowing costs fell from record highs at a bond auction on Thursday but cautious investors still demanded a near 7 percent yield to buy 10-year debt.
Such high costs keep intense pressure on euro zone's third-largest economy as it heads towards a refinancing hump early next year, and traders said the European Central Bank stepped into the open market after the auction to buy Italy's bonds in a bid to hold down yields.

An unprecedented ECB injection of nearly half a trillion euros of cheap funding for banks and a new Italian budget package this month eased pressure at a short-term debt auction on Wednesday, but longer-dated bonds still pose a challenge.
"Auctions held yesterday and today went rather well, but the financial turbulence absolutely isn't over," Prime Minister Mario Monti said during a traditional end-year press conference. To calm markets further, "most of the work needs to be done in Europe," he said.
He said the European Financial Stability Facility needs "significantly greater" resources but refused to quantify how much more the fund needed.
Italy sold 7 billion euros ($9 billion) of bonds on Thursday in thin holiday markets, just above the mid-point of its target range.
It managed to sell the top planned amount of its 10-year benchmark bond but the yield was 6.98 percent, not far from a euro lifetime record of 7.56 percent a month ago.
"Buying 10-year Italian bonds is a leap of faith which investors are prepared to take only at very high interest rates," said Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategy. "There are simply too many risks and uncertainties surrounding Italy."
Italy's 10-year yields remained locked above 7 percent on the secondary market on Thursday, a closely watched threshold that has pushed other euro zone countries to seek bailouts.
Its 3-year bonds sold more easily and their yield fell more than two percentage points at auction to 5.62 percent -- far below the euro era record of 7.89 percent that Italy paid to sell the same bond at the end of November. Reflecting acute market anxiety about lending to Italy, that was more than it cost to sell 10-year paper at the same auction.
CHALLENGING TARGET
Since then the ECB has let banks borrow all they sought at its first-ever tender of three-year funds, helping demand for short-term debt.
Italian six-month borrowing costs halved at an auction on Wednesday, following a similarly dramatic drop in Spanish short-term yields on the eve of the ECB's tender.
But there is little evidence that the ECB money has found its way to longer-term bonds of troubled debtors such as Italy.
"The genuine pressure on Italy is still tremendous, despite bold ECB actions that have given (short-term debt) a big boost," said David Schnautz, a rate strategist at Commerzbank in London.
Italy raised nearly 18 billion euros this week. The sales will settle in January and help towards the Treasury's challenging gross funding target of around 450 billion euros has for next year.
In a push to keep investors buying Italian debt, a new technocrat government in Rome outlined on Thursday plans to tackle Italy's chronic low-growth problems through long-delayed liberalisations.
Prime Minister Mario Monti said he would present the new measures to its European Union partners at the end of January and made clear he expected more efforts at the EU level towards solving the bloc's debt crisis.
Markets look with concern at some 91 billion euros of Italian bonds coming due between January and April.
While Italy can count on strong domestic support such as from retail investors at its short-term debt sales, its longer-dated bonds are more reliant on foreign buyers, giving a clearer picture of the market attitude towards the country's debt.

Syrian forces kill 11 protesters, monitors reach 2 cities

Syrian security forces fired on anti-government protests and killed 11 people on Thursday, as Arab League peace monitors arrived in two more cities to check on compliance with a plan to end bloodshed.
Killings were reported at rallies in towns across Syria, including four in Hama shortly after a monitoring team arrived. Two more people were shot in Idlib, another monitors' destination, as they passed a security checkpoint.

The cities to be visited on Thursday - Deraa, Hama and Idlib - lie along a 450-km (280-mile) arc of revolt from the south to the north of Syria. At its midpoint is Homs, where the monitors' second day had a controversial start when its Sudanese chief reported seeing "nothing frightening" in an initial tour.
The Arab mission is the first notable international involvement in Syria's conflict, in which thousands have been killed in a military crackdown on the uprising against 41 years of rule by the family of President Bashar al-Assad.
But questions have arisen about the monitors' credibility as their movements appear to be restricted.
Syrian state television reported that monitors had arrived in Hama and Deraa.
Shortly before, anti-Assad activists said they had seen no sign of monitors on the streets by mid-afternoon and they were unable to contact them by telephone. Extra security forces were deployed around restive areas expecting monitors, they said.
"Where are they? We worked very hard for this visit, we got witnesses and documented deaths and sites of shelling. People wanted to march but the monitors are missing. The security presence is really strong - it looks like they have been preparing as much as we have," said activist Odei in Idlib.
In Hama, activists said protesters went down into the streets in Hama to await the Arab League delegation, amid heavy security with snipers pointing guns out of top floor windows.
"People really hope to reach (the monitors). We do not have much access to the team. The people stopped believing anything or anyone now. Only God can help us now," said Abu Hisham, an opposition activist in Hama.
Hama has a haunting resonance to Syrians opposed to Assad because up to 30,000 people were massacred there in 1982 when his father, president at the time, had armed forces raze part of the city to the ground to crush an Islamist uprising.
Residents in the Harasta suburb of the capital Damascus said they had spotted cars with an Arab League logo. If the monitors were indeed there, it would be their first surprise visit.
A source in the Arab League mission's operations centre in Cairo said earlier on Thursday there had been a problem with communications but the monitors' schedule was holding up.
"We have contacted our teams ... Today's plan will not be changed and the only problem we faced today was the bad phone network, which made our communication with the monitors harder. It took more time to reach them and determine their locations."
"WHERE WERE THEY?"
Unless it can establish its credibility by proving it has unobstructed access to all areas and is able to hear uncensored accounts, the Arab League mission may not be able to satisfy all sides that it can make an objective assessment of the crisis.
The United Nations estimates that at least 5,000 people, mostly civilian protesters, have been killed in nine months of unrest that Assad has sought to stamp out with tanks and troops storming into restive cities and towns.
Fifteen people died on the monitors' first day and activists, fearing the Arab League team will be ineffective, say they expect the bloodshed to continue until observers leave.
Assad says he is combating Islamist militants steered from abroad. He says over 2,000 security force men have been killed.
Syria's upheaval continues a series of popular Arab uprisings that have toppled three dictators this year.
In Homs, Syria's third largest city and epicenter of anti-Assad ferment, protesters said they were already fed up with the monitors who they said seemed unsympathetic and were hard to find even when touring their neighborhoods.
"This mission is a big lie. They say they were in Khalidiya neighborhood. I haven't seen them," said Tamir, shouting by telephone over protester chants of "down with the regime."
"We've been here at the protest. Where were they?"
The head of the main opposition group in exile, The Syrian National Council, met with Arab League officials in Cairo to discuss the monitoring mission.
"The delegation should have been bigger because the points of confrontation and violence are much greater than the number of the monitors, and they should have better logistical means to enable them to move quicker," Burhan Ghalioun told reporters.
Some 150 monitors in all are expected to enter Syria by the end of the week. But activists say Syrian government or security officials escorting monitors can intimidate residents in protest hotbed areas and that there are not enough monitors to see the full scope of unrest in a large country of 23 million people.
Burhan Ghalioun blamed Assad's government for the monitors' restrictive conditions: "Until now the Syrian regime has not changed its style of lies and tricks," he said.
The mission chief himself, Sudanese General Mustafa al-Dabi, raised international concern for the team's credibility when he said he had seen "nothing frightening" on a very brief initial trip to Homs on Tuesday.
"This was only the first day and it will need investigation. We have 20 people who will be there for a long time," he said.
BUDDING INSURRECTION
Relentless military attacks on protests have also bred armed insurgency and thousands of rebels and army defectors have formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to attack military and police convoys, bases and checkpoints.
A gritty video shot by rebels in Deraa showed the ambush of a security forces convoy on Wednesday by nine gunmen who opened fire from a rootfop. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said four soldiers were killed in the attack by the FSA.
Syria resisted outside involvement for months but yielded to unprecedented pressure from fellow members of the 22-state Arab League last month, agreeing to let the monitors in to witness withdrawals of forces from turbulent cities.
If the mission cannot credibly certify to the world that Assad is reining in his forces with a genuine will to negotiate reform with his opponents, the U.S. State Department has said "other means" of international action will be pursued.

North Korea hails nuclear, military feats of Kim Jong-il

North Korea lauded the military might built up by deceased leader Kim Jong-il on Thursday, likely tying his young successor to the same policies that have set Northeast Asia on edge as the impoverished state inches closer to nuclear weapons capability.
A gathering of 100,000, soldiers in uniform and bare-headed civilians, gathered in silence in wintry sunlight in the capital Pyongyang to mourn the passing of the man who had led the country for 17 years until his death on December 17.
Kim Jong-un, a jowly man in his late 20s who will become the third of his line to lead North Korea, took center stage overlooking the central square named after his grandfather to listen to tributes to the "great revolutionary."

"Great Leader Kim Jong-il ... laid the foundation for our people to live on as autonomous people of a world-class military power and a proud nuclear state," parliament chief Kim Yong-nam said in the eulogy.
The North has conducted two nuclear tests.
Larry Niksch, who has tracked North Korea for the non-partisan U.S. Congressional Research Service for 43 years, believes it could take as little as one to two years to have a working nuclear missile once it produced enough highly-enriched uranium for the warhead's core fuel.
That could threaten regional security and give the North a powerful bargaining tool in extracting aid for its economy.
North Korea's state television footage showed the young Kim flanked to his right by the country's top military general Ri Yong-ho on the balcony of the Granc People's Study House. Also nearby him were Defense Minister Kim Yong-chun, and his uncle and the key power-broker in the transition, Jang Song-thaek.
Jang, 65, is believed to be the regent heading a select group of caretakers, as the brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il who survived purges to become his closest confidant who oversaw the power succession before his death of a heart attack.
He stood behind the younger Kim in Wednesday's mass funeral parade, escorting the hearse carrying the coffin.
Solemn and grimacing, the younger Kim, believed to be born in early 1984, stood motionless throughout the ceremony. He only came to the forefront of the North's dynastic succession last year by taking on key military and ruling party posts.
"Comrade Kim Jong-un is the highest leader of the party and people who takes on Great Leader Kim Jong-il's philosophy and leadership, personality and morals, courage and audacity," Kim Yong-nam said.
CRUEL AND CUNNING ENOUGH TO SUCCEED?
Mourners, their heads bowed as the ceremony concluded, spilled over to both sides of the Taedong River as temperatures stood at about minus 10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit). Boats moored on the river and trains in their yards blew their whistles for three minutes to mourn Kim Jong-il's passing.
The eulogies were short on boasts about economic achievements from a strongman who used his Songun, or "military first," policy to divert resources to build a conventional and weapons of mass destruction program.
The North's economic output is now smaller than in the 1990s under the rule of his father Kim Il-sung, who founded the state in 1948, and it has been squeezed harder under international sanctions for its missile and nuclear tests.
Gyorgy Toloraya, a Russian expert who is Director of Korean Programs at the Institute of Economy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, who met Kim Jong-il for the first time in 2000 described him as "fast and witty and having "a remarkable memory" on any subject.
"...one exclusion might be modern economics, in which he, it seemed, was not so very interested, regarding it just as a tool for rich Westerners to extract profits from their fellow compatriots and poor countries," Tolaraya wrote on 38North, a website published by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Most Korea-watchers do not expect the North to stage a repeat of the attacks it undertook in 2010 when it killed South Korean civilians with an artillery barrage and, according to most observers, sank a South Korean naval vessel. It denied sinking the vessel and says it was provoked into the barrage.
It may take Kim Jong-un some months to assume the full panoply of official titles held by his father.
"The real question is whether the new Kim has the cruelty and cunning, qualities that his father and grandfather Kim Il-sung possessed in plenty, to preserve in the long run the essential engine of the destitute dynasty he inherits," wrote Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts University, a leading North Korea watcher.

Retail sales resilient in final holiday stretch

Retail sales look poised for a solid finish to the holiday season as warm weather and deep discounts encouraged shoppers to hit stores or go online to snap up last-minute gifts, according to data released on Wednesday.
Sales in the week ending December 24 soared 14.8 percent from a year ago to about $44 billion, helped by Christmas Eve falling on a Saturday, according to ShopperTrak, which monitors traffic at shopping malls. Good weather also helped as snowstorms had blanketed some areas at the same time last year.
Sales on December 26, a public holiday this year, soared 25.5 percent to $7.1 billion, ShopperTrak said.

Steep discounts were prevalent throughout the season and drove the sales growth, but could crimp retailers' profits.
"The real issue is, what margins were those sales generated at because it was a very heavily promotional season," said Al Ferrara, director of BDO USA's national retail practice. "The retailers, to capture market share, were obviously marking down very heavily."
Amid concerns about profit margins, the latest data had little impact on retail stocks with the S&P Retail index ending down 1.05 percent, only slightly better than the 1.25 percent drop in the broader S&P 500 index.
Sales at stores in the week ending December 24 soared 37.8 percent from sales in the week ending December 17, ShopperTrak said, suggesting procrastinators were drawn in by offers.
"Consumers are willing to get up and go out there if they feel like they're going to get some value for their dollars," ShopperTrak Founder Bill Martin told Reuters.
Besides ShopperTrak, two other sets of data indicated solid sales last week. The ICSC/Goldman Sachs weekly chain store sales index rose 4.5 percent during the week ending December 24, versus a holiday-shortened pre-Christmas Day week in 2010. Redbook Research put the year-over-year gain at 4.3 percent.
Adjusted for the calendar mismatch, the ICSC/Goldman index rose 0.9 percent for the week ending December 24, compared with the prior week.
"The finish is solid and the season itself was good," said ICSC Chief Economist Michael Niemira. "November was on the soft side but December will be better."
December sales so far are up 4.7 percent, while November sales rose 4.1 percent, ShopperTrak's Martin said.
ShopperTrak predicted in mid-December that sales for the two months combined would rise 3.7 percent, while the National Retail Federation expects a rise of 3.8 percent and the International Council of Shopping Centers is looking for a 3.5 percent increase.
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Graphic: U.S. chain store retail sales: http://link.reuters.com/beq75s
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Analysts previously said they expect Macy's and Wal-Mart Stores Inc to be among the big winners this holiday season as they had the right level of promotions for their shoppers, while Gap Inc and Abercrombie & Fitch Co may have missed the mark.
Visits to stores rose 6.5 percent in the week ending December 26, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm. The conversion rate, which measures the proportion of shoppers making a purchase, was 67.9 percent. That was down slightly from the previous week, but ahead of the first part of December, NPD data show.
"Major players, such as Macy's, are fine," Niemira added. "Specialty stores are likely to be more uneven. Specialty apparel seems to have been hit by abnormally warm weather. Sales were on the slow side and there has been more discounting consequently."
The biggest shopping malls and regional malls saw the strongest customer traffic since the first week of 2011. Factory outlets remained busy, but less so than the prior week, he said.
THE RISE OF ECONOMY AND E-COMMERCE
Wednesday's retail data points underscore recent economic data that show the U.S. economy is in recovery mode, albeit slowly. U.S. consumer confidence rose more than expected in December, hitting an eight-month high, as Americans grew more upbeat about the labor market and their financial situation, the Conference Board said on Tuesday.
That followed a report early in December showing U.S. unemployment at the lowest level since March 2009.
However, U.S. house prices are still falling, tempering economic optimism, and some retailers, such as Sears Holdings Corp, are suffering.
Part of the problem for chains such as Sears and the now-shuttered Borders Group may be competition with online retailers, who saw faster sales growth this holiday season, suggesting e-commerce took market share from brick-and-mortar stores.
Online sales, still a small component of overall sales, continued to grow at a faster clip than sales in stores, according to comScore data on Wednesday.
Online spending in the United States reached a record $35.27 billion from November 1 through December 26, up 15 percent versus the corresponding period last year, comScore reported.
For the week ending December 25, consumers spent $2.83 billion online, up 16 percent from the corresponding period in 2010, comScore also said.
"E-commerce is going to be awesome this holiday and retail will be mediocre," said Michael Rubin, head of Kynetic, which owns online retail businesses Fanatics, Rue La La and ShopRunner.

Turkey strike kills 35, Kurds decry "massacre"

Turkish warplanes launched air strikes against suspected Kurdish militants in northern Iraq near the Turkish border overnight, the military said on Thursday, but local officials said the attack killed 35 smugglers who were mistaken for guerrillas.
The Turkish military confirmed it had launched the strikes after unmanned drones spotted suspected rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but said there were no civilians in the area and it was investigating the incident.
The attack, which Turkey's largest pro-Kurdish party called a "crime against humanity," sparked clashes between hundreds of stone-throwing protesters and police in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey's restive mainly Kurdish southeast.

Police responded by firing water cannon and tear gas at the demonstrators. Seven people were detained. One police officer was hurt after being hit by a stone, witnesses said.
"We have 30 corpses, all of them are burned. The state knew that these people were smuggling in the region. This kind of incident is unacceptable. They were hit from the air," said Fehmi Yaman, mayor of Uludere in Sirnak province.
The Sirnak governor's office said 35 people had been killed and one wounded during an operation near the border with Uludere district.
The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) said party leaders were heading for the area and that it would hold demonstrations in Istanbul and elsewhere to protest the deaths.
"This is a massacre," BDP Deputy Chairwoman Gultan Kisanak told a news conference in Diyarbakir.
"This country's warplanes bombed a group of 50 of its citizens to destroy them. This is a war crime and a crime against humanity," she said.
The Turkish military said it had learnt the PKK had sent many militants to the Sinat-Haftanin area, where the strikes occurred in northern Iraq, to retaliate after recent militant losses in clashes.
"It was established from unmanned aerial vehicle images that a group was within Iraq heading towards our border," it said.
"Given that the area in which the group was spotted is often used by terrorists and that it was moving towards our border at night, it was deemed necessary for our air force planes to attack and they struck the target at 2137-2224 (1937-2024 GMT)," it said.
"The place where the incident occurred is the Sinat-Haftanin area in northern Iraq where there is no civilian settlement and where the main camps of the separatist terrorist group are located," it said.
An investigation was in progress, it added, without referring to any deaths in the strikes.
The Turkish government, which has been battling the PKK since the group took up arms in 1984 to fight for an ethnic Kurdish homeland, was not immediately available for comment.
The incident threatens to spoil efforts to forge Turkish-Kurdish consensus for a planned new constitution that is expected to address the issue of Kurdish rights.
CORPSES LOADED ONTO DONKEYS
Smuggling is an important source of income for locals in provinces along the Iraqi border, with many villagers involved in bringing fuel, cigarettes and other goods from Iraqi villages on the other side of the border.
PKK militants also cross the border in these areas.
"There were rumors that the PKK would cross through this region. Images were recorded of a crowd crossing last night, hence an operation was carried out," a Turkish security official said.
"We could not have known whether these people were (PKK) group members or smugglers," he said.
Television images showed a line of corpses covered by blankets on a barren hillside, with a crowd of people gathered around, some with their head in their hands and crying.
Donkeys carried corpses down the hillside to be loaded into vehicles and taken to hospital.
Security sources said those killed were carrying canisters of diesel on mules and their bodies were found on the Iraqi side of the border.
They said the dead were from Uludere on the Turkish side of the border on what was a regular smuggling route.
The Firat news agency, which has close ties to the PKK, said that 17 people were still believed to be missing. It said those killed were aged around 17-20.
In northern Iraq, PKK spokesman Ahmet Deniz condemned the strike and said F-16 jets had bombed a group of around 50 people taking goods across the border and that 19 people were missing.
The PKK, regarded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, launches attacks on Turkish forces in southeastern Turkey from hideouts inside the remote Iraqi mountains.
Turkish leaders vowed revenge in October with air and ground strikes after the PKK killed 24 Turkish soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks since the PKK took up arms in 1984 in a conflict in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

Iowa's moderate Republicans: an edge for Romney?

Iowa's moderate Republicans are a small and dispirited bunch, but they could provide a vital boost for Mitt Romney in the state's tight kickoff presidential contest.
While the Republican White House contenders battle for the state's big but badly split bloc of religious conservatives, Iowa's moderates are a forgotten minority who have coalesced around the candidate they consider their only choice: Romney.
But it is uncertain whether they will turn out for him at the caucus votes on January 3, when the state kicks off the Republican nominating fight. After years of retreat and neglect, Iowa's Republican moderates are unreliable caucus-goers.

"We're a dwindling group, an endangered species. A lot of moderates don't go to the caucuses anymore," said Joy Corning, a former Iowa lieutenant governor and state senator who heads a state group of moderate Republicans.
"But the moderates who I know will be there supporting Romney. They see him as more moderate than the other Bible-thumping conservatives, and he could actually win a general election," she said.
A CNN/Time poll on Wednesday showed Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, slightly ahead of rival Ron Paul, a libertarian congressman from Texas.
Conservatives are likely to split their support between Paul, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum in the caucuses vote, handing an advantage to Romney.
Romney is distrusted by many social conservatives who remember his past support for abortion rights and for a Massachusetts healthcare law that was a precursor to President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul.
But moderates are drawn by Romney's background in business, his willingness to work with Democrats in Massachusetts and polls that show he would be the party's strongest challenger to Obama.
"He's got the experience, and he's the only one who is electable and can beat President Obama," said Quinn Novak, 63, an unemployed machinist from Cedar Rapids who said he was also backing Romney because he understood what it would take to turn around the economy.
ONE IN FIVE ARE MODERATES
A recent survey of likely Iowa caucus-goers found more than seven of every 10 identified themselves as conservative and 19 percent as moderates, making them a heavily outnumbered but still substantial voting bloc.
"We definitely exist," said Des Moines City Councilwoman Christine Hensley, a self-described Republican moderate who will back Romney. "But sometimes you feel like you're kind of the step-sister."
But the less active nature of the party's moderate wing makes it harder to target them to turn out for caucuses that are often dominated by the candidates with the most enthusiastic and organized supporters.
"If centrists show up at the caucuses, Romney could win," said Maggie Tinsman, an 18-year state senator who lost a Republican primary to a more conservative challenger in 2006. "But they haven't been as engaged in recent years."
Social and religious conservatives turned out in droves to propel Baptist minister and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to a win over Romney in the 2008 caucuses.
Six of every 10 Republican participants in Iowa that year said they were born-again or evangelical Christians
Those religious conservatives have largely taken over the state party machinery in Iowa, and led a voter drive in 2010 that removed three Supreme Court justices from the bench in a fight over gay marriage.
"Are they so disenchanted that they have decided they won't go to the caucus?" Mary Kramer, a former president of the Iowa state Senate who is backing Romney, said of moderates. "That is what worries me."
A Romney campaign official said his staff was identifying supporters in Iowa, making sure they knew where to go for the caucuses in districts throughout the state and would turn out a team of volunteers to help them get there.
SIGNS OF CHANGE
Iowa's ideological shift is similar to a decades-long turn to the right by national Republicans which has thinned the ranks of socially moderate Republicans in Congress.
But Iowa moderates see signs of change. Governor Terry Branstad, a conservative who did not campaign on social or religious themes, beat Christian leader Bob Vander Plaats in the 2010 Republican primary in what some analysts said was a sign evangelicals might be losing some of their political clout.
This year's unrelenting campaign focus on the economy and jobs might also minimize the impact of social issues. Romney has made the economy the main plank of his campaign and his standard stump speech is an attack on Obama's economic stewardship.
Finding a cure for the ailing economy tops the list of concerns for Iowans as it does nationally, and social issues slide well down the list of importance in most Iowa polls.
"Issues about reducing government spending, creating jobs - these are the things that really best reflect the mood of caucus-goers this season," said pollster Ann Selzer.
Former Iowa Governor Robert Ray, a fixture of the state's moderate Republican establishment during his time in office from 1969 to 1983, endorsed Romney earlier this month and said he hoped his nomination could unite the party's competing wings.
The inability of Iowa's religious conservatives to rally around a single candidate could depress their caucus attendance.
"Turnout among social conservatives will be much lower than 2008, and that could increase the impact of moderates who will almost certainly be Romney people," said Doug Gross, Romney's state chairman in 2008, who is unaffiliated in this cycle.

Iran warns U.S. over Strait of Hormuz

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Thursday that the United States was not in a position to tell Tehran "what to do in the Strait of Hormuz," state television reported.
Tehran's threat to block crude shipments through the crucial passage for Middle Eastern suppliers followed the European Union's decision to tighten sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, as well as accompanying moves by the United States to tighten unilateral sanctions.
Iran's English-language Press TV quoted Hossein Salami as saying: "Any threat will be responded by threat ... We will not relinquish our strategic moves if Iran's vital interests are undermined by any means."

Separately, Salami was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency: "Americans are not in a position whether to allow Iran to close off the Strait of Hormuz."
The U.S. Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday it would not allow any disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a strip of water separating Oman and Iran.
At loggerheads with the West over its nuclear program, Iran said earlier it would stop the flow of oil through the strait in the Gulf if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports.
Analysts say that Iran could potentially cause havoc in the Strait of Hormuz which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. At its narrowest point, it is 21 miles across.
But its navy would be no match for the firepower of the Fifth Fleet which consists of 20-plus ships supported by combat aircraft, with 15,000 people afloat and another 1,000 ashore.

US warns Iran against closing key oil passage

The U.S. strongly warned Iran on Wednesday against closing a vital Persian Gulf waterway that carries one-sixth of the world's oil supply, after Iran threatened to choke off traffic through the Strait of Hormuz if Washington imposes sanctions targeting the country's crude exports.
The increasingly heated exchange raises new tensions in a standoff that has the potential to spark military reprisals and spike oil prices to levels that could batter an already fragile global economy.

Iran's navy chief said Wednesday that it would be "very easy" for his country's forces to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passage at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which about 15 million barrels of oil pass daily. It was the second such warning by Iran in two days, reflecting Tehran's concern that the West is about to impose new sanctions that could hit the country's biggest source of revenue, oil.
"Iran has comprehensive control over the strategic waterway," Adm. Habibollah Sayyari told state-run Press TV, as the country was in the midst of a 10-day military drill near the strategic waterway.
The comments drew a quick response from the U.S.
"This is not just an important issue for security and stability in the region, but is an economic lifeline for countries in the Gulf, to include Iran," Pentagon press secretary George Little said. "Interference with the transit or passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz will not be tolerated."
Separately, Bahrain-based U.S. Navy 5th Fleet spokeswoman Lt. Rebecca Rebarich said the Navy is "always ready to counter malevolent actions to ensure freedom of navigation."
Rebarich declined to say whether the U.S. force had adjusted its presence or readiness in the Gulf in response to Iran's comments, but said the Navy "maintains a robust presence in the region to deter or counter destabilizing activities, while safeguarding the region's vital links to the international community."
Iran's threat to seal off the Gulf, surrounded by oil-rich Gulf states, reflect its concerns over the prospect that the Obama administration will impose sanctions over its nuclear program that would severely hit its biggest revenue source. Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil producer, pumping about 4 million barrels a day.
Gulf Arab nations appeared ready to at least ease market tensions. A senior Saudi Arabian oil official told The Associated Press that Gulf Arab nations are ready to step in to offset any potential loss of exports from Iran. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.
Saudi Arabia, which has been producing about 10 million barrels per day, has an overall production capacity of over 12 million barrels per day and is widely seen as the only OPEC member with sufficient spare capacity to offset major shortages.
What remains unclear is what routes the Gulf nations could take to move the oil to markets if Iran goes through with its threat.
About 15 million barrels per day pass through the Hormuz Strait, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
There are some pipelines that could be tapped, but Gulf oil leaders, who met in Cairo on Dec. 24, declined to say whether they had discussed alternate routes or what they may be.
The Saudi official's comment, however, appeared to allay some concerns. The U.S. benchmark crude futures contract fell $1.98 by the close of trading Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but still hovered just below $100 per barrel.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner played down the Iranian threats as "rhetoric," saying, "we've seen these kinds of comments before."
While many analysts believe that Iran's warnings are little more than posturing, they still highlight both the delicate nature of the oil market, which moves as much on rhetoric as supply and demand fundamentals.
Iran relies on crude sales for about 80 percent of its public revenues, and sanctions or even a pre-emptive measure by Tehran to withhold its crude from the market would already batter its flailing economy.
IHS Global Insight analyst Richard Cochrane said in a report Wednesday that markets are "jittery over the possibility" of Iran's blockading the strait. But "such action would also damage Iran's economy, and risk retaliation from the U.S. and allies that could further escalate instability in the region."
"Accordingly, it is not likely to be a decision that the Iranian leadership will take lightly," he said.
Earlier sanctions targeting the oil and financial sector added new pressures to the country's already struggling economy. Government cuts in subsidies on key goods like food and energy have angered Iranians, stoking inflation while the country's currency steadily depreciates.
The impetus behind the subsidies cut plan, pushed through parliament by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was to reduce budget costs and would pass money directly to the poor. But critics have pointed to it as another in a series of bad policy moves by the hardline president.
So far, Western nations have been unable to agree on sanctions targeting oil exports, even as they argue that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Tehran maintains its nuclear program — already the subject of several rounds of sanctions — is purely peaceful.
The U.S. Congress has passed a bill that penalizes foreign firms that do business with the Iran Central Bank, a move that would heavily hurt Iran's ability to export crude. European and Asian nations use the bank for transactions to import Iranian oil.
President Barack Obama has said he will sign the bill despite his misgivings. China and Russia have opposed such measures.
Sanctions specifically targeting Iran's oil exports would likely temporarily spike oil prices to levels that could weigh heavily on the world economy.
Closing the Strait of Hormuz would hit even harder. Energy consultant and trader The Schork Group estimated crude would jump to above $140 per barrel. Conservatives in Iran claim global oil prices will jump to $250 a barrel should the waterway be closed.
By closing the strait, Iran may aim to send the message that its pain from sanctions will also be felt by others. But it has equally compelling reasons not to try.
The move would put the country's hardline regime straight in the cross-hairs of the world, including nations that have so far been relative allies. Much of Iran's crude goes to Europe and to Asia.
"Shutting down the strait ... is the last bullet that Iran has and therefore we have to express some doubt that they would do this and at the same time lose their support from China and Russia," said analyst Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix in Switzerland.
Iran has adopted an aggressive military posture in recent months in response to increasing threats from the U.S. and Israel of possible military action to stop Iran's nuclear program.
The Iranian navy's exercises, which began on Saturday, involve submarines, missile drills, torpedoes and drones. A senior Iranian commander said Wednesday that the country's navy is also planning to test advanced missiles and "smart" torpedoes during the maneuvers.
The war games cover a 1,250-mile (2,000-kilometer) stretch off the Strait of Hormuz, northern parts of the Indian Ocean and into the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea and could bring Iranian ships into proximity with U.S. Navy vessels in the area.
The moderate news website, irdiplomacy.ir, says the show of strength is intended to send a message to the West that Iran is capable of sealing off the waterway.
"The war games ... are a warning to the West that should oil and central bank sanctions be stepped up, (Iran) is able to cut the lifeblood of the West and Arabs," it said, adding that the West "should regard the maneuvers as a direct message."

Japan scientists hope slime holds intelligence key

A brainless, primeval organism able to navigate a maze might help Japanese scientists devise the ideal transport network design. Not bad for a mono-cellular being that lives on rotting leaves.
Amoeboid yellow slime mold has been on Earth for thousands of years, living a distinctly un-hi-tech life, but, say scientists, it could provide the key to designing bio-computers capable of solving complex problems.
Toshiyuki Nakagaki, a professor at Future University Hakodate says the organism, which he cultivates in petri dishes, "organises" its cells to create the most direct root through a maze to a source of food.

He says the cells appear to have a kind of information-processing ability that allows them to "optimise" the route along which the mold grows to reach food while avoiding stresses -- like light -- that may damage them.
"Humans are not the only living things with information-processing abilities," said Nakagaki in his laboratory in Hakodate on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido.
"Simple creatures can solve certain kinds of difficult puzzles," Nakagaki said. "If you want to spotlight the essence of life or intelligence, it's easier to use these simple creatures."
And it doesn't get much simpler than slime mold, an organism that inhabits decaying leaves and logs and eats bacteria.
Physarum polycephalum, or grape-cluster slime, grows large enough to be seen without a microscope and has the appearance of mayonnaise.
Nakagaki's work with this slime has been recognised with "Ig Nobel" awards in 2008 and 2010.
An irreverent take on the Nobel prizes, Ig Nobel prizes are given to scientists who can "first make people laugh, and then make them think."
And, say his contemporaries, slime may sound like an odd place to go looking for the key to intelligence, but it is exactly the right place to start.
Atsushi Tero at Kyushu University in western Japan, said slime mold studies are not a "funny but quite orthodox approach" to figuring out the mechanism of human intelligence.
He says slime molds can create much more effective networks than even the most advanced technology that currently exists.
"Computers are not so good at analysing the best routes that connect many base points because the volume of calculations becomes too large for them," Tero explained.
"But slime molds, without calculating all the possible options, can flow over areas in an impromptu manner and gradually find the best routes.
"Slime molds that have survived for hundreds of millions of years can flexibly adjust themselves to a change of the environment," he said. "They can even create networks that are resistant to unexpected stimulus."
Research has shown slime molds become inactive when subjected to stress such as temperature or humidity changes. They even appear to "remember" the stresses and protectively become inactive when they might expect to experience them.
Tero and his research team have successfully had slime molds form the pattern of a railway system quite similar to the railroad networks of the Kanto region centering Tokyo -- which were designed by hard-thinking people.
He hopes these slime mold networks will be used in future designs of new transport systems or electric transmission lines that need to incorporate detours to get around power outages.
Masashi Aono, a researcher at Riken, a natural science research institute based in Saitama, says his project aims to examine the mechanism of the human brain and eventually duplicate it with slime molds.
"I'm convinced that studying the information-processing capabilities of lower organisms may lead to an understanding of the human brain system," Aono said. "That's my motivation and ambition as a researcher."
Aono says that among applications of so-called "slime mold neuro-computing" is the creation of new algorithm or software for computers modelled after the methods slime molds use when they form networks.
"Ultimately, I'm interested in creating a bio-computer by using actual slime molds, whose information-processing system will be quite close to that of the human brain," Aono said.
"Slime molds do not have a central nervous system, but they can act as if they have intelligence by using the dynamism of their fluxion, which is quite amazing," Aono said. "To me, slime molds are the window on a small universe."

Facebook unwelcome in Vietnam, but Zuckerberg OK

Vietnam may block its citizens from using Facebook, but that didn't stop website founder Mark Zuckerberg from vacationing in the communist country.
Zuckerberg spent Christmas Eve in the popular tourist destination Ha Long Bay, local official Trinh Dang Thanh says.
State-run media say Zuckerberg arrived in Vietnam on Dec. 22.
Zuckerberg spent Christmas Day at an ecolodge in the northern mountain town of Sapa and rode a buffalo, said Le Phuc Thien, deputy manager at Topas Ecolodge.
Zuckerberg, Facebook's 27-year-old CEO, founded the social networking site in 2004.
Vietnam's aggressive Internet censors block access to Facebook and other websites, but young Vietnamese easily bypass the restrictions.

Anonymous says it breached SpecialForces.com

Members of Anonymous say they gathered thousands ofpasswords and credit card records from SpecialForces.com months ago...but onlymention it now to celebrate the holidays.

Members of the hacktivist collective Anonymous claim to havebreached SpecialForces.com—a site offering military and law enforcementgear—and gathered more than 14,000 passwords and some 8,000 credit cardnumbers. Anonymous says they breached the site several months ago but are onlynow getting around to publicizing the breach as part of “LulzXmas,” the groups’current hacking campaign. A Twitter account associated with Anonymous posted a

screenshot of a message SpecialForces sent to its customers warning of thebreach and informing them their passwords had been reset. According to thatmessage, SpecialForces believes only encrypted credit card data may have beencompromised.

Anonymous claimed to have targeted SpecialForces.com becausetheir customers are mainly “military and law enforcement.”

The claim of responsibility for breaching SpecialForces.comcomes in the wake of attackers associated with Anonymous breaching StrategicForecasting (Stratfor) and obtaining more than 50,000 client email addresses,personal information, and credit card numbers, along with millions of emailmessages. The collateral damage from that attack has escalated, withmillionaire Australian MP Malcom Turnbull and billionaire business magnateDavid Smorgon (also Australian) having their credit card information publishedon the Internet—members of Anonymous have also posted images claiming to showreceipts for donations made to charities using credit card informationbelonging to Stratfor clients, including the U.S. Department of HomelandSecurity and Department of Defense.