Egypt police clash with protesters ahead of vote

Protesters help a wounded man during clashes with Egyptian riot police in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. Thousands of police clashed with protesters for control of downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday after security forces tried to stop activists from staging a long-term sit-in there. The violence took place just nine days before Egypt's first elections since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Protesters help a wounded man during clashes with Egyptian riot police in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. Thousands of police clashed with protesters for control of downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday after security forces tried to stop activists from staging a long-term sit-in there. The violence took place just nine days before Egypt's first elections since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

A protester sits in a police truck destroyed during clashes in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. Thousands of police clashed with protesters for control of downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday after security forces tried to stop activists from staging a long-term sit-in there. The violence took place just nine days before Egypt's first elections since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Protesters throw stones at Egyptian riot police during clashes in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. Thousands of police clashed with protesters for control of downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday after security forces tried to stop activists from staging a long-term sit-in there. The violence took place just nine days before Egypt's first elections since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Tear gas surrounds Egyptian riot police as they stand guard during clashes in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. Thousands of police clashed with protesters for control of downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday after security forces tried to stop activists from staging a long-term sit-in there. The violence took place just nine days before Egypt's first elections since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Protesters gather around a police truck damaged during clashes in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011. Thousands of police clashed with protesters for control of downtown Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday after security forces tried to stop activists from staging a long-term sit-in there. The violence took place just nine days before Egypt's first elections since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

CAIRO (AP) ? Egyptian riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets stormed into Cairo's Tahrir Square Saturday to dismantle a protest tent camp, setting off clashes that injured at least 507 people and raising tensions days before the first elections since Hosni Mubarak's ouster.

The scenes of protesters fighting with black-clad police forces were reminiscent of the 18-day uprising that forced an end to Mubarak's rule in February. Hundreds of protesters fought back, hurling stones and setting an armored police vehicle ablaze.

The violence raised fears of new unrest surrounding the parliamentary elections that are due to begin in nine days' time. Public anger has risen over the slow pace of reforms and apparent attempts by Egypt's ruling generals to retain power over a future civilian government.

Witnesses said the clashes began when riot police dismantled a small tent camp set up to commemorate the hundreds of protesters killed in the uprising and attacked around 200 peaceful demonstrators who had camped in the square overnight in an attempt to restart a long-term sit-in there.

"Violence breeds violence," said Sahar Abdel-Mohsen, an engineer who joined in the protest after a call went out on Twitter urging people to come to Tahrir to defend against the police attacks. "We are tired of this and we are not leaving the square."

Police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and beat protesters with batons, clearing the square at one point and pushing the fighting into surrounding side streets of downtown Cairo. State TV, quoting the Health Ministry, reported that 507 people were injured, including 19 policemen.

Abdel-Mohsen said a friend was wounded by a rubber bullet that struck his head and that she saw another protester wounded by a pellet in his neck.

Crowds swarmed an armored police truck, rocking it back and forth and setting it ablaze. Black smoke rose over the crowd.

After nightfall, protesters swarmed back into the square in the thousands, setting tires ablaze in the street and filling the area with an acrid, black smoke screen. Police appeared to retreat to surrounding areas, leaving protesters free to retake and barricade themselves inside the square. The air was still thick with stinging tear gas.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf urged the protesters to clear the square.

Saturday's confrontation was one of the few since the uprising to involve police forces, which have largely stayed in the background while the military takes charge of security. There was no military presence in and around the square on Saturday.

The black-clad police were a hated symbol of Mubarak's regime.

"The people want to topple the regime," shouted enraged crowds, reviving the chant from the early days of the uprising. Crowds also screamed: "Riot police are thugs and thieves" and "Down with the Marshal," referring to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Egypt's military ruler.

Some of the wounded had blood streaming down their faces and many had to be carried out of the square by fellow protesters to waiting ambulances.

Human rights activists accused police of using excessive force.

One prominent activist, Malek Mostafa, lost his right eye from a rubber bullet, said Ghada Shahbender, a member of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.

At least four protesters were injured in the eyes as a result of what Shahbender said were orders to target protesters' heads.

"It is a crime," she said. "They were shooting rubber bullets directly at the heads. ... I heard an officer ordering his soldiers to aim for the head."

Police arrested 18 people, state TV reported, describing the protesters as rioters.

A day earlier, tens of thousands of Islamists and young activists had massed in Tahrir Square to protest Egypt's ruling military council, which took control of the country after Mubarak's ouster and has been harshly criticized for its oversight of the bumpy transition period.

Friday's crowd, the largest in months, was mobilized by the Muslim Brotherhood and focused its anger on a document drafted by the military that spells out guiding principles for a new constitution.

Under those guidelines, the military and its budget would be shielded from civilian oversight. An early version of it also said the military would appoint 80 members of the 100-person constitutional committee ? a move that would vastly diminish the new parliament's role.

Groups across the political spectrum rejected the document, calling it an attempt by the military to perpetuate its rule past the post-Mubarak transition. Back in February, the military had promised it would return to the country to civilian rule within six months. Now, there is deep uncertainty over the timeline, and presidential elections might not be held until 2013.

Friday's demonstration dispersed peacefully, but several hundred people remained in the square overnight in an attempt to re-establish a semi-permanent presence in the square to pressure the military council.

Violence began Saturday morning, as police moved in to clear them.

The number of protesters swelled to several thousand as news of the fighting spread in the city, and thousands more riot police streamed into Tahrir Square, blocking entrances and clashing with protesters before disappearing after nightfall.

The Interior Ministry, which runs the country's police forces, accused people of trying to escalate tensions ahead of the parliamentary elections, which begin on Nov. 28 and will be held in stages continuing through March.

Activists say they just want to guard the outcome of their revolution.

Unemployed graduate student Nasser Ezzat said he traveled from southern Egypt to Tahrir because he wanted to help finish the revolution that people died for. He came to the square on Friday, leaving behind his a pregnant wife in the city of Sohag.

"I dream of a fairer Egypt for my unborn daughter, one without police harassment and corruption," he said on Saturday.

Crowds also directed their anger at the police, which were the muscle behind Mubarak's heavy handed rule.

"This violence is the same as the old regime," activist Mona Seif said. "Police are telling us they are carrying out orders to beat us until we leave."

Seif is the sister of prominent blogger and activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who is in jail after refusing to answer questions over his alleged role in sectarian clashes. He leads a campaign to end the trials of civilians in military courts.

Rights groups estimate that up to 12,000 people have been tried in military courts since Mubarak was ousted.

___

Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of activist's last name in paragraphs 15 and 16).)

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-11-19-ML-Egypt/id-0b22fe6c122845fc9a2dd2c034819a45

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Research firm: Amazon sells $199 tablet at a loss (AP)

NEW YORK ? Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire tablet, which started shipping this week, costs $201.70 to make, a research firm said Friday. That's $2.70 more than Amazon charges for it.

The analysis by IHS indicates that Amazon is, at least initially, selling the tablet at a loss that it hopes to cover through sales of books and movies for the device. The manufacturing cost of a new gadget usually comes down over time as chips become cheaper.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told The Associated Press in September that the company's goal was to make a small profit from the hardware, but as a retail company, Amazon was willing to live with a smaller margin than most electronics companies would.

"We want the hardware device to be profitable and the content to be profitable. We really don't want to subsidize one with the other," Bezos said.

IHS's estimate includes the cost of components and assembly, but not the costs of development, marketing or packaging. The most expensive part of the Kindle Fire is the 7-inch color touch screen, which costs $87.

Amazon kept the cost of the tablet low compared to Apple Inc.'s iPad and similar tablets by making it smaller ? the screen is half the size of that for the iPad ? keeping the amount of memory low and excluding a camera and microphone.

But the difference in manufacturing cost is much smaller than the difference in retail price: IHS puts the cost of the basic iPad 2 model at just under $300, while Apple sells it for $499.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111118/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_amazon_kindle_fire

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In Canada, hockey for everyone

For West Bank Palestinians whose family member names are on the list of prisoners to be exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, it is a joyful moment. For those not on the list or slotted for deportation, it is bittersweet.

? A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.

Skip to next paragraph

A hockey player who has been diagnosed as legally blind is rollerblading from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Toronto to raise money to teach blind Canadians how to play hockey. Mark DeMontis, who has limited vision, is in-line skating through Canada with two friends who take turns being his guide. He is raising funds through an organization he started called Courage Canada, and is expected to arrive in Toronto on Oct. 15 ? two months after setting off from Halifax.

Mr. DeMontis says he was inspired by Chris Delaney, a blind Canadian who rode a tandem bike across Canada to raise funds for research.

Blind hockey is a sport that so far exists only in Canada. It involves a puck that is much larger, slower, and noisier than a normal puck ? which makes it easier to spot for visually impaired players, according to Fran?ois Beauregard, a captain of a Montreal-based blind hockey team called Les Hiboux de Montreal, or The Montreal Owls. Canada started having national blind hockey tournaments two years ago, but organizers would like to turn it into an international sport. They?ve received e-mails and phone calls from the United States and Sweden expressing interest.

In addition to hockey, there are also bicycling, snow-shoeing, and cross-country skiing events for blind people in Canada.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/kdlxaqol_fk/In-Canada-hockey-for-everyone

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Exclusive: Orbital solar power plants touted for energy needs (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The sun's abundant energy, if harvested in space, could provide a cost-effective way to meet global power needs in as little as 30 years with seed money from governments, according to a study by an international scientific group.

Orbiting power plants capable of collecting solar energy and beaming it to Earth appear "technically feasible" within a decade or two based on technologies now in the laboratory, a study group of the Paris-headquartered International Academy of Astronautics said.

Such a project may be able to achieve economic viability in 30 years or less, it said, without laying out a road map or proposing a specific architecture.

"It is clear that solar power delivered from space could play a tremendously important role in meeting the global need for energy during the 21st century," according to the study led by John Mankins, a 25-year NASA veteran and the U.S. space agency's former head of concepts.

The academy is headed by Madhavan Nair, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization. The study was billed as the first broadly based international assessment of potential paths to collecting solar energy in space and delivering it to markets on Earth via wireless power transmission.

The study said government pump-priming likely would be needed to get the concept, known as space solar power, to market. Private-sector funding is unlikely to proceed alone because of the "economic uncertainties" of the development and demonstration phases and the time lags, the study said.

Both governments and the private sector should fund research to pin down the economic viability of the concept, the study said, amid concerns about humankind's continuing reliance on finite fossil fuels that contribute to global pollution.

The study did not estimate a potential overall price tag for completing the project.

Space solar power is a potential long-term energy solution for Earth with "essentially zero" terrestrial environmental impact, according to the National Space Society, an advocacy group set to hold a news conference in Washington on Monday to publicize the academy's 248-page final report.

A copy of the study was obtained by Reuters ahead of its release.

TURN SUNLIGHT INTO ELECTRICITY

The idea is to put first one, then a few, and later scores of solar-powered satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the equator. Each as wide as several kilometers across (one kilometer equals 0.6 miles), the spacecraft would collect sunlight up to 24 hours a day, compared with half that, at most, for surface panels now used to turn sunlight into electricity.

The power would be converted to electricity on-board and sent to wherever it is needed on Earth by a large microwave-transmitting antenna or by lasers, then fed into a power grid.

Skeptics deem the concept a nonstarter, at least until the cost of putting a commercial power plant into orbit drops by a factor of 10 or more. Other hurdles include space debris, a lack of focused market studies and high development costs.

The study, conducted from 2008 to 2010 then subjected to peer review, found that the commercial case had substantially improved during the past decade, partly as a result of government incentives for nonpolluting "green" energy systems.

A pilot project to demonstrate the technology even as big as the 400-tonne International Space Station could go ahead using low-cost expendable launch vehicles being developed for other space markets, Mankins said in a telephone interview.

A moderate-scale demonstration would cost tens of billions of dollars less than previously projected as a result of not needing costly, reusable launch vehicles early on, said Mankins, president of Artemis Innovation Management Solutions LLC, a California consultancy.

"This was a really important finding," Mankins said, referring to a relatively modestly priced pilot project.

'IT'S A START'

His company has been awarded a NASA contract of a little less than $100,000 to pursue space-based solar power options -- small "but at least it's a start," Mankins said.

Ultimately, tens of billions of dollars would be needed to develop and deploy a sufficiently low-cost fleet of reusable, earth-to-orbit vehicles to launch full-scale commercial solar power satellites, the study group estimated.

The group said the necessary research and development work should be undertaken by countries and organizations in concert, including space agencies, companies, universities and nongovernmental organizations.

International interest in the concept has grown during the past decade, spurred in part by fears that in coming decades global production of petroleum and possibly other fossil fuels will peak and start to decline.

Adding to a quest for new energy sources are projected jumps in worldwide per capita demand for energy to fuel economic development and concern over the accumulation in Earth's atmosphere of fossil fuel-derived greenhouse gases.

The idea of harnessing solar power in space has been studied off and on for 40 years, including by the U.S. Energy Department and NASA.

U.S. and Indian business, policy and national security analysts in September called for a joint U.S.-Indian feasibility study on a cooperative program to develop space-based solar power with a goal of fielding a commercially viable capability within two decades.

The study group, co-sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank and Aspen Institute India, included former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and Naresh Chandra, a former Indian ambassador to the United States.

Colonel Michael Smith, the U.S. Air Force's chief futurist as director of the Center for Strategy and Technology at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, said the idea has the potential to send safe, clean electrical energy worldwide "if we can make it work."

"Isn't that what government and industry should be working to do?" he said in a telephone interview.

Jeff Peacock, who heads satellite-builder Boeing Co's ground-based solar cell product line, said in theory it could double the amount of solar power collected, compared with the Earth-bound technology equivalent.

(Editing by Will Dunham)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111113/sc_nm/us_space_energy_solar

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Kelly Clarkson to kick off North American tour in January (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Kelly Clarkson will kick off a 40-city-plus North American tour in January, her record label said on Monday.

Clarkson's Stronger Tour 2012, coming on the heels of the October release of her fifth studio album, "Stronger," opens at the MGM Grand Theater in Mashantucket, Connecticut on January 13, with three months of dates through San Diego's Valley View Casino Center announced so far.

Folk-rock singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson will join the Grammy-winning singer at several stops on the tour.

"Stronger" debuted at number-two on the Billboard Top 200 and the digital albums charts, and the first single, "Mr. Know It All," made it to fourth on the iTunes Singles chart, marking Clarkson's ninth top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Clarkson, who last week won a Country Music Association award for Musical Event of the Year with Jason Aldean for their hit single, "Don't You Wanna Stay," burst onto the music scene in 2002 at age 20, when she was the first winner of "American Idol."

Unlike many other winners who failed to rise to the heights of superstardom, Clarkson has enjoyed chart-topping success with pop rock singles such as "Miss Independent" and the smash hit, "Since U Been Gone."

She has also won two Grammys, two American Music Awards, two MTV Awards, in addition to last week's CMA honor.

Tickets for the tour go on sale on November 18.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; editing by Jill Serjeant)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111114/people_nm/us_kellyclarkson

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China: ConocoPhillips oil spills due to negligence (AP)

BEIJING ? Chinese authorities said Friday that negligence by a ConocoPhillips subsidiary caused recent oil spills in Bohai Bay that have drawn intense criticism from marine authorities and environmentalists.

The State Oceanic Administration said in a statement on its website that an investigation found there were shortcomings in ConocoPhillips China's systems and management and that the company failed to take necessary preventive measures after signs of a problem emerged. The oil spills began in June in Penglai 19-3, China's largest oil field.

These factors led "to a major oceanic oil spill pollution accident occurring due to negligence," the statement said.

ConocoPhillips China operates the Penglai 19-3 oil field with state-owned partner China National Offshore Oil Corp.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips said Friday that it is making improvements to its procedures to improve the safety of its operations and prevent recurrences.

"ConocoPhillips sincerely regrets these unfortunate incidents," said John McLemore, a ConocoPhillips spokesman, in an email to The Associated Press. "We have fully cooperated throughout the extensive and thorough investigation and have learned very important lessons."

ConocoPhillips had also said in September that it would set up two funds to pay compensation and address environmental problems resulting from the spills.

The government has already ordered the company to stop all production pending a full cleanup and review to ensure no more oil seeps into the sea.

The administration said Friday that the oil spill covered 2,400 square miles (6200 sq. kilometers) of water surface. It said that the company violated requirements that had been laid out in an environmental impact assessment report reducing the ability to respond to emergencies, causing oil spill from one side.

It was not immediately clear what measures the government would take, or the response it expected from ConocoPhillips, but the Oceanic Administration has said it plans to pursue legal action over the spills, including losses to regional fisheries.

China's maritime authorities contend that ConocoPhillips failed to meet an Aug. 31 deadline for permanently staunching and cleaning up the spills. The company says it met the deadline and has contended that any oil still seeping from the wells, which have been sealed, is residual from the earlier spills, which released about 700 barrels of oil and 2,500 barrels of mineral oil-based drilling mud ? used as a lubricant for drilling.

Environmental experts say measures to cut back on effluent from factories and mining and to expand sewage treatment have failed to keep pace with the fast expansion of industries and oil drilling in the Bohai Bay, leading to the decimation of seafood and fish stocks and frequent red tides.

___

Gillian Wong can be reached at http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_oil_spill

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Consumer sentiment at a five-month high

By Reuters

U.S. consumer sentiment rose to its highest level in five months in early November as Americans felt better about the economic outlook, a survey released Friday showed.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's preliminary reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment rose to 64.2 from 60.9 the month before, topping the median forecast of 61.5 among economists polled by Reuters.

The survey's gauge of consumer expectations climbed to 56.2 from 51.8. While respondents were no more positive about the current state of the economy, they were less likely to expect it to worsen in the year ahead, the survey said.

The survey's barometer of current economic conditions nudged up to 76.6 from 75.1.

All three main indexes were at their highest level since June.

The view on the labor market was less pessimistic with 27 percent expecting unemployment to rise, down from 43 percent three months ago.

Consumers remained gloomy about their own finances with more respondents reporting their finances had worsened than improved. Just one in five consumers expected improvement in the year ahead.

"Overall, it is still likely that real consumer expenditures will not be strong enough during the year ahead to enable the higher rates of economic growth needed to offset the negative grip of income and job stagnation on consumer spending," survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.

"Although improved, a renewed downturn in the economy still has an uncomfortably high probability of occurring."

The survey's one-year inflation expectation held steady at 3.2 percent, while the survey's five-to-10-year inflation outlook eased to 2.6 percent from 2.7 percent, its lowest since March 2009.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/11/8754113-us-consumer-sentiment-at-a-five-month-high

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Another GOP Clown Car Parade Tonight (Balloon Juice)

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Plenty of video games promise universes compelling enough to let you live in them, but how many actually deliver? Since its inception in 1994, the Elder Scrolls series has consistently been on the front lines of immersion, giving you ever bigger and more elaborate realms to explore on the continent of Tamriel, and more ways to experience life in those places than you can brandish a quarterstaff at. The quantum strides made in Morrowind (2002) and Oblivion (2006) continue in the newest installment, Skyrim ($59.99 for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360), which provides the most delicious perspective to date on this fascinating world over which you have almost complete control.

Unmatched Realism
Essentially, everything that was true about the previous games' eye-popping open-endedness remains true here. You may pigeonhole yourself into traditional CRPG categories if you like: It's no challenge to set yourself up as a warrior, a wizard, or a pickpocketing miscreant, of either gender, of any of ten species, and with just the physical and facial characteristics you desire.

But there's nothing to stop you from pursuing any other course that strikes your fancy, either. Buy a house in town and hold down the electronic equivalent of a nine-to-five job. Engross yourself in researching the intricacies of spellcraft, alchemy, or cooking. Meet and fall in love with almost anyone you want, of any gender, of any species. Wile away your days hunting deer or wolves in the forests, then strolling into the nearest town and peddling your spoils. There are functionally no boundaries: The game becomes whatever you want it to be, for as long as you want it to be that. (There's also an official plot, which we'll get to presently.) Yet the game is well enough designed that the plethora of choices available to you never becomes overwhelming or exhausting. You're never forced into anything, so you may complete quests or fulfill your own goals at a pace as leisurely or as frenzied as you like.

Skyrim's devotion to detail hardly stops there. As you wander the land, you'll completely lose yourself in the trees, the rivers and waterfalls, and especially the mountains: Bethesda Game Studios has outdone even its superlative work in Oblivion to create a hyper-realistic gaming environment where nature itself becomes magical. You honestly never know what lies beyond that bend in the road up ahead, or what you'll see when you reach the crest of that hill you're climbing?assuming you can see anything through the blinding rain and snow you can also encounter. At one point during playing, I encountered an honest-to-goodness whiteout, with the tundra-like land I was traversing and the frenzied snowfall around me making it all but impossible to distinguish the ground from the air.

Even in such situations, getting lost is not a concern, however. An advanced mapping system tracks where you've been, and you can ?fast travel? to any previously visited place by clicking its icon on the map. This means you might have some lengthy treks between townships or landmarks the first time you're going somewhere, but I never found these unmanageable.

Nor did they ever feel gratuitous or inconsistent, which is one of the stronger aspects of the game's design. The entire country of Skyrim, located in the far north of Tamriel, is carved from a generalized Scandinavian milieu that ties together all the characters you meet, and all the towns you visit, within a solid but believable thematic framework. Changes in design scheme and social differentiation happen as gradually as the changes in the weather, so by the time you've completed your journey from Whiterun to Winterhold, for example, you understand exactly what makes the action-oriented people in the former different from the scholarly inhabitants of the latter. Yet they're clearly still neighbors: different but the same. World building doesn't get much richer or more rewarding than this.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ybI0a8uvbbQ/0,2817,2396056,00.asp

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Ahmadinejad: Iran won't retreat from nuclear path (AP)

TEHRAN, Iran ? Iran won't retreat "one iota" from its nuclear program, but the world is being misled by claims that it seeks atomic weapons, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday in his first reaction since a U.N. watchdog report that Tehran is on the brink of developing a nuclear warhead.

The comments ? broadcast live on state TV ? contrasted sharply with Western warnings that Iran appears to be engaged in a dangerous defiance of international demands to control the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions.

In Paris, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France would support boosting sanctions against Tehran to an "unprecedented scale" if Iran stonewalls investigations, even as Israel and others say that military options are still possible. Meanwhile, Iran's chief allies, China and Russia, have issued cautious statements calling for diplomacy and dialogue.

"This nation won't retreat one iota from the path it is going," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in Shahr-e-Kord in central Iran. "Why are you ruining the prestige of the (U.N. nuclear) agency for absurd U.S. claims?"

Ahmadinejad also strongly chided the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, saying it is discrediting itself by siding with "absurd" U.S. accusations.

The 13-page annex to the IAEA's report released Tuesday included claims that while some of Iran's activities have civilian as well as military applications, others are "specific to nuclear weapons."

Among these were indications that Iran has conducted high explosives testing and detonator development to set off a nuclear charge, as well as computer modeling of a core of a nuclear warhead. The report also cited preparatory work for a nuclear weapons test, and development of a nuclear payload for Iran's Shahab 3 intermediate-range missile ? a weapon that can reach Israel.

Ahmadinejad repeated Iran's claims that it doesn't make sense to build nuclear weapons in a world already awash with atomic arms.

"The Iranian nation is wise. It won't build two bombs against 20,000 (nuclear) bombs you have," he said in comments apparently directed at the West and others. "But it builds something you can't respond to: Ethics, decency, monotheism and justice."

The U.S. and allies claim a nuclear-armed Iran could touch off a nuclear arms race among rival states, including Saudi Arabia, and directly threaten Israel. The West is seeking to use the report as leverage to possible tougher sanctions on Iran, but Israel and others have said military options have not been ruled out.

The bulk of the information in the IAEA report was a compilation of alleged findings that have already been partially revealed by the agency. But some of the information was new ? including evidence of a large metal chamber at a military site for nuclear-related explosives testing. Iran has dismissed that, saying they were merely metal toilet stalls.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted lawmaker Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash as saying the report shows that IAEA "has no powers and moves in the direction" of the U.S. and allies. Another parliament member, Parviz Sorouri, accused IAEA chief Yukiya Amano of tarnishing the agency.

"The report was drawn up by Americans and read by Amano," the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.

The U.N. Security Council has passed four sets of damaging sanctions on Iran, but veto-wielding members China and Russia oppose further measures and are unlikely to change their minds despite the report's findings.

China has not isn't publicly commented yet on a U.N. assessment of Iran's nuclear programs in a likely sign that it will wait for Washington and Moscow to signal their intentions. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Wednesday that Beijing was studying the report and repeated calls for dialogue and cooperation.

In Paris, Juppe said France would support tougher sanctions if Iran refuses to answer new questions about its nuclear program.

"We cannot accept this situation (of a nuclear-armed Iran), which would be a threat to stability and peace of the region and beyond," he said on France's RFI radio.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said late Tuesday it would not comment on the report until it had time to study it.

"It is important to figure out whether there really are new, and indeed trustworthy, facts that confirm the suspicions that there are military components in the Iranian nuclear program, or whether we're talking about the intentional and counterproductive exacerbation of emotions," said the Russian statement.

___

Associated Press writers Angela Charlton in Paris and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111109/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear

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Rick Perry, You want the EPA Gone? (Video)

Rick Perry, You want the EPA Gone? (Video)

For those of you who missed the Republican debate tonight on CNBC, you missed out on politicians at their best. Who knew the Republican debate [...]

Rick Perry, You want the EPA Gone? (Video) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stupidcelebrities/~3/D7HrwMZRgBA/

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University of Saskatchewan, Royal Ontario Museum researchers track half-billion year old predator

Public release date: 8-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Michael Robin
michael.robin@usask.ca
306-966-1425
University of Saskatchewan

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have followed fossilized footprints to a multi-legged predator that ruled the seas of the Cambrian period about half a billion years ago.

"Short of finding an animal at the end of its trackway, it's really very rare to be able to identify the producer so confidently," said Nicholas Minter, lead author of the article on the study, which appears in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Minter is a postdoctoral research fellow in the U of S department of geological sciences.

The research team worked with samples gathered from the Burgess Shale, famed for its exquisitely detailed fossils from the Cambrian Explosion, a time when life underwent a dramatic change with the appearance of all the modern groups of organisms and some bizarre creatures. Located near the village of Field in Canada's Yoho National Park in British Columbia, the Burgess Shale is an international treasure, providing an unparalleled window into the distant past.

Fossils from the Burgess Shale record not only the animals themselves exceedingly rare because most of them had soft bodies but also the trackways they left behind while hunting on the sea floor.

"Most researchers have focused on the body fossils of the Burgess Shale," said study co-author Gabriela Mngano, who co-leads the ichnology research group in the U of S geological sciences department with colleague Luis Buatois. "By studying its trackways, trails and burrows, we may dramatically impact our understanding of these ancient ecosystems."

Key to the research were trackways collected during a field expedition in 2008 led by ROM curator Jean-Bernard Caron.

"I spotted a portion of the largest trackway, which is over three metres in length, in 2000," he said. "At that time we left most of it behind us. We could not carry the pieces safely down slope from this remote site without helicopter support."

The 2008 expedition included this support, so fragments of the trackway were collected by carefully separating them from the associated rock layers. These delicate pieces were then packed, air lifted from the mountain, and shipped to the ROM.

Fossil trackways and other fossilized evidence of animal activities such as burrows, bite marks and feces are known as trace fossils. These provide evidence of where animals were living and what they were doing, but the full identity of the producers is rarely known.

In this case, size of the tracks and the number of legs needed to make them left only one suspect: Tegopelte gigas. This caterpillar-like animal sported a smooth, soft shell on its back and 33 pairs of legs beneath. One of the largest arthropods of its time, it could reach up to 30 cm in length.

By analyzing both the fossilized remains of Tegopelte and the trackways, the researchers were able to reconstruct how this animal would have moved. The creature was capable of skimming rapidly across the seafloor, with legs touching the sediment only briefly, supporting the view that Tegopelte was a large and active top carnivore. Such lifestyles would have been important in shaping early marine communities and evolution during the Cambrian explosion.

The trackways were collected under Parks Canada Research and Collecting permits and are now located at the ROM. Managed by Parks Canada, the Burgess Shale was recognized in 1981 as one of Canada's first UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Now protected under the larger Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Burgess Shale attracts visitors to Yoho each year for guided hikes to the restricted fossil beds from July to September.

###

The full article, "Skimming the surface with Burgess Shale arthropod locomotion," is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Photos and illustrations related to the article are available from the authors. Funding for this research was provided through grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship Program, the U of S and ROM.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

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

Public release date: 8-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Michael Robin
michael.robin@usask.ca
306-966-1425
University of Saskatchewan

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan and Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) have followed fossilized footprints to a multi-legged predator that ruled the seas of the Cambrian period about half a billion years ago.

"Short of finding an animal at the end of its trackway, it's really very rare to be able to identify the producer so confidently," said Nicholas Minter, lead author of the article on the study, which appears in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Minter is a postdoctoral research fellow in the U of S department of geological sciences.

The research team worked with samples gathered from the Burgess Shale, famed for its exquisitely detailed fossils from the Cambrian Explosion, a time when life underwent a dramatic change with the appearance of all the modern groups of organisms and some bizarre creatures. Located near the village of Field in Canada's Yoho National Park in British Columbia, the Burgess Shale is an international treasure, providing an unparalleled window into the distant past.

Fossils from the Burgess Shale record not only the animals themselves exceedingly rare because most of them had soft bodies but also the trackways they left behind while hunting on the sea floor.

"Most researchers have focused on the body fossils of the Burgess Shale," said study co-author Gabriela Mngano, who co-leads the ichnology research group in the U of S geological sciences department with colleague Luis Buatois. "By studying its trackways, trails and burrows, we may dramatically impact our understanding of these ancient ecosystems."

Key to the research were trackways collected during a field expedition in 2008 led by ROM curator Jean-Bernard Caron.

"I spotted a portion of the largest trackway, which is over three metres in length, in 2000," he said. "At that time we left most of it behind us. We could not carry the pieces safely down slope from this remote site without helicopter support."

The 2008 expedition included this support, so fragments of the trackway were collected by carefully separating them from the associated rock layers. These delicate pieces were then packed, air lifted from the mountain, and shipped to the ROM.

Fossil trackways and other fossilized evidence of animal activities such as burrows, bite marks and feces are known as trace fossils. These provide evidence of where animals were living and what they were doing, but the full identity of the producers is rarely known.

In this case, size of the tracks and the number of legs needed to make them left only one suspect: Tegopelte gigas. This caterpillar-like animal sported a smooth, soft shell on its back and 33 pairs of legs beneath. One of the largest arthropods of its time, it could reach up to 30 cm in length.

By analyzing both the fossilized remains of Tegopelte and the trackways, the researchers were able to reconstruct how this animal would have moved. The creature was capable of skimming rapidly across the seafloor, with legs touching the sediment only briefly, supporting the view that Tegopelte was a large and active top carnivore. Such lifestyles would have been important in shaping early marine communities and evolution during the Cambrian explosion.

The trackways were collected under Parks Canada Research and Collecting permits and are now located at the ROM. Managed by Parks Canada, the Burgess Shale was recognized in 1981 as one of Canada's first UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Now protected under the larger Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Burgess Shale attracts visitors to Yoho each year for guided hikes to the restricted fossil beds from July to September.

###

The full article, "Skimming the surface with Burgess Shale arthropod locomotion," is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Photos and illustrations related to the article are available from the authors. Funding for this research was provided through grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship Program, the U of S and ROM.

---

[ | 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/2011-11/uos-uos110811.php

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AL: Jobs, economy remain Gov. Bentley's main focus

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Gov. Robert Bentley said the economy and job growth remain his top priorities and economic development projects on the horizon along with those already announced could give the state a total of 10,000 new or future jobs this year.

Bentley spoke at the annual Birmingham Business Alliance luncheon today where he touched on a number of hot-button issues along with the less polarizing need to improve the economy and create jobs.

"Creating jobs is the No. 1 issue we need to face every day," Bentley said.

Bentley pointed to his creation of the Alabama Economic Development Alliance as one key in that process. The Alliance joins the forces of the Alabama Development Office, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, local economic developers, the state's research universities, the two-year college system and worker training program and certain major corporations. They are developing a statewide economic development plan they will begin implementing in early 2012.

In Birmingham, the key will be UAB, he said, as its research and science?become commercialized and?are turned into?companies that create jobs. It will also help attract new professionals and industry to the area, he said.

Brian Hilson, chief executive of the BBA, said Bentley has become an ally in the recruitment and expansion of industry.

"Creating jobs for Alabamians is his top priority and that fits in precisely with what we do at BBA," he said. "His remarks connect very well with an audience of business leaders who are equally concerned about this topic."

Hilson said Bentley and his staff have taken an active role in helping BBA with a number of ongoing recruitment projects considering the metro area for new projects.

"He's already developed a reputation as being what many of us would label an 'economic development governor,'" Hilson said, because of the emphasis he has given business recruitment, expansion and job creation.

The 679 in attendance was a record for a sit-down luncheon the BBA has hosted with a sitting governor. The event was held at The Club.

Bentley said he is considering a constitutional amendment that would allow companies that create new jobs in the state through new operations or expansions to keep a portion of the state income taxes for each new job as a way of recovering the amount of its investment.

Source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-EconomyBusiness/~3/iyYtvQpyI0Y/jobs_economy_remain_gov_bentle.html

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Eric Schmidt: Microsoft Pushes Patent Deals Out Of Fear Of Android

Microsoft may be preparing for a big Mango push here in the States, but the Wall Street Journal reports that Google chairman Eric Schmidt recently took them to task at a press conference for claiming that Android devices infringe Microsoft-owned patents. "Microsoft is not telling the truth on this issue, and they are using tactics to scare people because they are scared of the success of Android," Schmidt said.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/byOP8gJKPN0/

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Russia: TV's Chechen Broadcast Evaded Censors, Briefly (Time.com)

On Sunday night, the Russian news show Central Television aired its typical reel of fluff and propaganda. A village boy recited a poem in praise of a policeman. Officials from Siberia were shown rehearsing for a play. And Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, dressed in a bomber jacket, took the wheel of a combine and harvested six tons of corn. "Imagine how much popcorn you can make!" rejoiced the anchor of the show. But then something strange happened. The program showed a piece about torture and police brutality in the region of Chechnya. It was an aberration. Had the censors fallen asleep? Had the journalists gone mad?

If so, then not for very long. The expos? about Chechen rights abuses, one of the most taboo subjects in the state-controlled media, only aired in half the country. Rolling westward across Russia's nine time zones, the original broadcast reached audiences in the Far East and Siberia, got to the Ural Mountains and was then abruptly stripped of the Chechnya story before it reached the country's heartland. In its place, most of Russia's citizens were shown a piece about ballet. (See pictures of Chechnya today.)

But the rest of the country got a stark dose of reality. A young Chechen man named Islam Umarpashaev, his mangled nose still bleeding into a bandage, told the viewers how he had been kidnapped from his home by men in uniform after he criticized the Chechen police online. He said he was held for four months, chained to a radiator in a basement, beaten, pistol whipped in the temple and repeatedly electrocuted. When he refused to confess to terrorism charges, he said the police began readying him for a staged counterterrorism operation, a practice he said they called "preparing results."

That meant, as a Russian journalist explained in the voice-over, his captors allowed his wounds to heal, fed him and allowed him to wash. Only he was not allowed to shave, so that his beard would make him look like the stereotype of an Islamic radical. As the voice-over went on to allege, Chechen police regularly stage shoot-outs with these dummy terrorists, whose bodies are left strewn about a building in Chechnya. The officers then tally the dead and file them as the latest success in Russia's war on terrorism. "The head of the [police] unit told me straight out," Umarpashaev said in the report, which was later posted on YouTube, "'We'll grow your hair and beard out a little more and put you in a trench.'" (See photos of Putin, the action figure.)

Although rights advocates have been reporting such abuses for years, nothing like this has been shown on state television since at least the early 2000s, when Putin asserted control over Russia's leading broadcasters. NTV, the channel that ran the Chechnya report on Sunday, was one of the last to be reined in. It was bought out by a state-run firm in 2001, and within a few years all of its critical journalists were fired.

Chechnya was meanwhile fading from the television screens and the public discourse. After two separatist wars between 1994 and 2000, billions of dollars were spent on the region's reconstruction. Putin also installed a loyal clan, led by the Kadyrov family, to control the region's militants. Every few months, claims of torture and extrajudicial killings in Chechnya would break through the region's media blackout, but the journalists and rights activists who reported them were often abducted, beaten or murdered. Most recently, in 2009, the activist Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped in Chechnya and dumped on the side of a road hours later with bullets in her head and chest.

The Russian Committee Against Torture, one of the only rights groups to remain in Chechnya after that murder, was still able to pressure police to release Umarpashaev when his parents contacted them with his story. The activists then gave him and his family refuge in a safe house, where the NTV journalists filmed. "[The reporters] told us they were taking a big risk," says Alexander Nemov, one of the group's activists. "They said there wasn't much chance of the program airing in Moscow. They just wanted to try it." (See Vladimir Putin as TIME's 2007 Person of the Year.)

But why now? And why did they back down? In statements to the press, NTV said it had pulled the story "for improvements" and has declined to comment further. The past year, however, has seen a noticeable loosening of the taboos that bind what is shown on Russian television. In May, an interview with imprisoned oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Putin's oldest enemies, was allowed on state television for the first time in years. The report even mentioned the view of Amnesty International that he is a "prisoner of conscience."

But this is not because Russian journalists have gotten more brave or independent, says a senior producer at Channel One, the government's leading network. "The Kremlin simply realized that its grip is too tight, that nobody can breathe anymore," he told TIME in an interview Tuesday, asking to remain anonymous for fear of being fired. "It was starting to make us look bad in front of the West, and the difference between what is said on TV and what is discussed online was getting absurd, like the two are discussing different worlds."

President Dmitri Medvedev admitted as much last December, when he told the heads of the three leading channels that "news coverage is miserable ... as if there is no freedom of speech." He went on to insist that online news should not be "dramatically different" from television coverage. But like most of Medvedev's reformist ideas, this one stalled upon implementation.

"When the topic is politically sensitive, the Kremlin still calls and the story gets yanked," says the Channel One producer. So Sunday's expos? will do little more than reaffirm the gag order on coverage of Chechnya. By next March, when Putin is set to return to the presidency, such flukes will likely become a thing of the past. Across all of Russia's time zones, prime time will show pictures of him operating heavy machinery or performing other mindless tricks. And there is no use changing the channel.

See TIME's 100 best nonfiction books.

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View this article on Time.com

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20111107/wl_time/08599209841000

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Big quake follows increase in Oklahoma rumblings

Jess Burrow, left, and James Patterson, look over the damage caused outside the home of Joe and Mary Reneau when their chimney was toppled by Saturday's earthquake, in Sparks, Okla., Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Jess Burrow, left, and James Patterson, look over the damage caused outside the home of Joe and Mary Reneau when their chimney was toppled by Saturday's earthquake, in Sparks, Okla., Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Joe Reneau displays the damage his home received in two earthquakes in less than 24 hours in Sparks, Okla., Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011. Reneau said the trash can at center had been filled with items damaged in an early morning quake on Saturday. The items on the floor and countertops spilled out of the cabinets during a quake on Saturday night. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Contents of the kitchen cabinets in the home of Joe and Mary Reneau lie in disarray Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011, in Sparks, Okla., after having spilled out onto the countertops and floor following an earthquake. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

A cookie jar lies in pieces on the kitchen counter as Jesse Richards describes what the earthquake felt like in Sparks, Okla., Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011. Oklahoma residents more accustomed to tornadoes than earthquakes have been shaken by weekend temblors that cracked buildings, buckled a highway and rattled nerves. One quake late Saturday was the state's strongest ever and jolted a college football stadium 50 miles away. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Chad Devereaux works to clear up bricks that fell from three sides of his in-laws' home in Sparks, Okla., Sunday, Nov. 6, 2011, after two earthquakes hit the area in less than 24 hours. The weekend earthquakes were among the strongest yet in a state that has seen a dramatic, unexplained increase in seismic activity. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

SPARKS, Okla. (AP) ? Clouds of dust belched from the corners of almost every room in Joe Reneau's house as the biggest earthquake in Oklahoma history rocked the two-story building.

A roar that sounded like a jumbo jet filled the air, and Reneau's red-brick chimney collapsed and fell into the roof above the living room. By the time the shaking stopped, a pantry worth of food had been strewn across the kitchen and shards of glass and pottery covered the floor.

"It was like WHAM!" said Reneau, 75, gesturing with swipes of his arms. "I thought in my mind the house would stand, but then again, maybe not."

The magnitude 5.6 earthquake and its aftershocks still had residents rattled Sunday.

Two minor injuries were reported from Saturday's quakes by the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, which said neither person was hospitalized. And, aside from a buckled highway and the collapse of a tower on the St. Gregory's University administration building in Shawnee, no major damage was reported.

But the weekend earthquakes were among the strongest yet in a state that has seen a dramatic, unexplained increase in seismic activity.

Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year until 2009. Then the number spiked, and 1,047 quakes shook the state last year, prompting researchers to install seismographs in the area. Still, most of the earthquakes have been small.

Saturday night's big one jolted Oklahoma State University's stadium shortly after the No. 3 Cowboys defeated No. 17 Kansas State. Fans were still leaving the game.

"That shook up the place, had a lot of people nervous," Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon said.

The temblor sent Jesse Richards' wife running outside because she thought their home was going to collapse. The earthquake centered near their home in Sparks, 44 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, could be felt throughout the state and in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, northern Texas and some parts of Illinois and Wisconsin.

Richards estimated it lasted for as much as a minute. One of his wife's cookie jars fell on the floor and shattered, and pictures hanging in their living room were knocked askew.

"We've been here 18 years, and it's getting to be a regular occurrence," said Richards, 50. But, he added, "I hope I never get used to them."

Geologists now believe a magnitude 4.7 earthquake Saturday morning was a foreshock to the bigger one that followed that night. They recorded at least 10 aftershocks by midmorning Sunday and expected more. Two of the aftershocks, at 4 a.m. and 9 a.m., were big, magnitude 4.0.

"We will definitely continue to see aftershocks, as we've already seen aftershocks from this one," said Paul Earle, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. "We will see aftershocks in the days and weeks to come, possibly even months."

Brad Collins, the spokesman for St. Gregory's University in Shawnee, said one of the four towers on its "castle-looking" administration building collapsed in the big earthquake and the other three towers were damaged. He estimated the towers were about 25 feet tall.

"We definitely felt it," Collins said. "I was at home, getting ready for bed and it felt like the house was going to collapse. I tried to get back to my kids' room and it was tough to keep my balance, I could hardly walk."

Scientists are puzzled by the recent seismic activity. It appeared the latest quake occurred on the Wilzetta fault, but researchers may never know for sure. Earthquakes that hit east of the Rocky Mountains are harder to pinpoint because the fault systems are not as well studied as major faults like the San Andreas in California.

Arkansas also has seen a big increase in earthquake activity, which residents have blamed on injection wells. Natural gas companies engaged in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, use fluid to break apart shale and rock to release natural gas. Injection wells then dispose of the fluid by injecting it back into the ground.

There are 181 injection wells in the Oklahoma county where most of the weekend earthquakes happened, said Matt Skinner, spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which oversees oil and gas production in the state and intrastate transportation pipelines.

But natural gas companies claim there is no proof of a connection between injection wells and earthquakes, and a study released earlier this year by an Oklahoma Geological Survey seismologist seems to back that up. It found most of the state's seismic activity didn't appear to be tied to the wells, although more investigation was needed.

"It's a real mystery," seismologist Austin Holland of the Oklahoma Geological Survey said of the recent shaking.

"At this point, there's no reason to think that the earthquakes would be caused by anything other than natural" shifts in the Earth's crust, Holland said.

Earle said he couldn't comment on the relationship between fracking, injection wells and earthquakes.

Most Oklahoma residents still see earthquakes as anomalies in a state more often damaged by tornadoes. Roger Baker, 52, laughed at the idea of buying earthquake insurance, although the weekend quakes left a 6-foot-long crack several inches deep his yard in Sparks.

"It's just a part of life," he said.

Prague resident Mark Treat, 52, was at the Dollar General store Sunday, buying paper towels in bulk, garbage bins and a broom and mop to begin cleaning up his home. He said the quake hit hard enough to knock dishes, lamps and a TV to the ground and overturn a chest of drawers.

"It busted up a lot of stuff," Treat said. "I can't believe is only was a 5.6."

___

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City and AP science writer Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-06-Earthquake-Oklahoma/id-79eee09248214a8895202a4cf887ebeb

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Nigeria: Radical Muslim sect grows more dangerous

In this Monday, Sept. 26, 2011 photo, people walk past a mosque under construction in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The radical sect Boko Haram, which in August 2011 bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria, is the gravest security threat to Africa's most populous nation and is gaining prominence. A security agency crackdown, which human rights activists say has left innocent civilians dead, could be winning the insurgency even more supporters. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

In this Monday, Sept. 26, 2011 photo, people walk past a mosque under construction in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The radical sect Boko Haram, which in August 2011 bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria, is the gravest security threat to Africa's most populous nation and is gaining prominence. A security agency crackdown, which human rights activists say has left innocent civilians dead, could be winning the insurgency even more supporters. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

In this Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 photo, a police officer armed with an AK-47 rifle walks past pedestrians as he patrols a major road in Maiduguri, Nigeria. The radical sect Boko Haram, which in August 2011 bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria, is the gravest security threat to Africa's most populous nation and is gaining prominence. A security agency crackdown, which human rights activists say has left innocent civilians dead, could be winning the insurgency even more supporters. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) ? The imam's insistent, lecturing voice comes right to the point over the scratchy audio recording: Holy war is the only way to bring change for Muslims in Nigeria.

Abubakar Shekau urges followers of his feared Boko Haram sect to carry out more assassinations and bombings. The group's violent campaign already has left more than 240 people dead this year. On Friday, a suicide bomber hit a military base while explosives detonated around Maiduguri ? attacks that bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram.

"Whomever we kill, we kill because Allah says we should kill and we kill for a reason," Shekau says in a recording of a sermon obtained by The Associated Press.

Boko Haram, which in August bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria, is the gravest security threat to Africa's most populous nation and is gaining prominence despite efforts by the military and police to stamp it out. A security agency crackdown, which human rights activists say has left innocent civilians dead, could be winning the insurgency even more supporters.

Complicating efforts to negotiate peace, the group apparently has split into three factions, the AP has learned. One remains moderate and welcomes an end to the violence, another wants a peace agreement with rewards similar to those offered to a different militant group in 2009. The third faction refuses to negotiate and wants to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of more than 160 million which has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north.

The split in Boko Haram appears to be so serious that one representative of its moderate faction was killed after negotiating with former Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo in September.

Nigerian officials and diplomats fear the sect will launch bolder assaults on foreign interests and the country's weak central government.

Security agencies thought they had destroyed the group following a July 2009 riot and military crackdown that left 700 people dead and leader Mohammed Yusuf killed in police custody in Maiduguri, Boko Haram's spiritual home.

But the group re-emerged about a year ago, beginning a campaign of assassinations by motorcycle-riding gunmen carrying Kalashnikov rifles hidden under their traditional robes. Today, motorcycles are banned from the streets, but attacks continue in and around the city of about 3 million. An AP count of casualties this year alone shows Boko Haram killed at least 247 people.

A mosque destroyed in the 2009 violence still sits in ruins. Yusuf's family still lives at the site, in bungalows built to house railway workers at the nearby Maiduguri station.

It was there that the former president had come unannounced on Sept. 15 to speak with members of Yusuf's family about the continuing spree of killings carried out by the sect. Assassins from the group routinely kill government officials, police officers, soldiers in the region and clerics who speak out against the group.

After the talk, Yusuf's in-law Babakura Fugu said the family offered a list of demands and was upbeat about the chances for peace. Within 48 hours, Fugu was dead, killed by a Kalashnikov-carrying gunman on a sunny afternoon. A claim of responsibility for the killing by one spokesman for Boko Haram would be angrily denied by another.

"This has created division lines among them which has further kept members of the sect apart," said Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed, a military spokesman in the area.

The most radical and "ideologically enhanced" faction is in contact with al-Qaida's North Africa branch and likely Somalia-based terror group al-Shabab, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity per embassy orders.

It appears Shekau, once Yusuf's second-in-commnand, now leads that faction, and exercises some control over the other ones. Authorities thought they'd killed Shekau in 2009 ? until he began issuing audio and video messages.

Shekau and other top Boko Haram commanders likely stay outside Nigeria, in neighboring Cameroon, Chad or Niger.

The group's stepped-up violence suggests outsiders like al-Shabab and al-Qaida's north Africa branch are helping the group, the diplomat said. The suicide car-bombing of the U.N.'s Nigeria headquarters in the distant capital, Abuja, on Aug. 26 killed 24 people and wounded 116.

"Before, it was just armed thugs with AK-47s on motorcycles," the diplomat said. "Now, (they are) coming up with these much more elaborate and much more devastating and complex car bombs."

In Maiduguri, security has been increased. Soldiers peer from behind machine guns in sandbagged bunkers built along major roads. Members of the country's secret police, sweating in ill-fitting dark suits under the desert sun, guard government buildings.

For Khalifa Dikwa, a professor at the University of Maiduguri, the endemically poor region is ripe for recruitment by the insurgency.

While the well-connected and powerful who are accused of wrongdoing can get good lawyers and soon be free, "somebody who was incarcerated for stealing just a chicken will be behind bars for six years without trial," Dikwa said. "Again, it boils down to injustice, alienation, arm-twisting of the law, corrupting the entire system."

Unemployment may run as high as 70 percent and opportunities remain few for youths who lack access to formal education. Boko Haram offers inclusion and a livelihood in a nation where corrupt politicians collude with religious leaders, Dikwa said.

"Anybody who feels cheated is Boko Haram," he said.

The name Boko Haram, which locals attached to the group years ago, means "Western education is sacrilege" in Hausa. It doesn't just imply formal learning, but rather Western ideals like Nigeria's U.S.-styled democracy that followers believe have destroyed the country, the professor said.

Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima said in an interview that Boko Haram wants to gain notoriety in the global terror network.

Shettima believes direct development projects are the way to win his state support from locals and make them turn away from the sect. Rows of gleaming yellow tricycle taxis sit outside his office, a project he said will provide employment for those without jobs.

A series of bank robberies that began this summer appears to provide Boko Haram most of its funding for its attacks, the diplomat and Nigerian officials say. The government is sending more officers, soldiers and shiny new pickup trucks to the region, but Boko Haram's attacks continue.

The security officials complain that they cannot distinguish friend from foe in the markets of Maiduguri and neighborhoods where burned-out buildings from bombings and the 2009 crackdown still stand. Some selling cheap goods serve as lookouts for the sect, officials say.

Frustrated and enraged soldiers have beaten, whipped and shot innocent bystanders after attacks on the military, local residents say. Some people detained by the police have disappeared while in their custody.

This makes many locals resentful of authority. The diplomat acknowledged that the backlash by authorities has "gotten out of hand" at times.

The fear in Maiduguri ? even at the manicured governor's compound ? is palpable. As a reporter waited to interview the governor, an electrical transformer exploded near the tricycle taxis. Soldiers on guard duty jumped, rifles at ready as sparks fell to the ground.

___

Jon Gambrell, AP's chief correspondent in Lagos, recently traveled to Maiduguri for this story. He can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-04-AF-Nigeria-Islamist-Sect/id-73bbd2522b114f788e226e6190f417f1

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