foregone dinner: February 2013

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Has Ted Cruz Hit The Tipping Point?

ABC's Michael Falcone reports:

The Ted Cruz headlines just won't stop.

"Sen. Ted Cruz says Obama wants immigration bill to fail to hurt GOP," wrote the Dallas Morning News last week. Another Texas paper, the Houston Chronicle, published a recent piece titled: "Ted Cruz: The next Reagan or the next Joe McCarthy?"

Politico carried this on their homepage: "Ted Cruz defends his blunt style." And Salon ominously foreshadowed, "The coming Rand Paul-Ted Cruz brawl."

In recent weeks the freshman senator from Texas has been the subject of a profile in The New York Times, which dubbed him "Washington's new bad boy," and in the New Yorker, which surfaced a speech he delivered in 2010 accusing a dozen members of the Harvard Law School faculty of being communists. (Cruz is a Harvard Law School graduate). Earlier this month, CNN's chief Congressional correspondent Dana Bash traveled to Texas to interview Cruz and so did the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody.

Without a doubt, Cruz has attracted more attention than any other freshman member of Congress from either party in the opening months of the 113th Congress. The Republican lawmaker made waves for his blunt questioning of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel during his confirmation hearings, and he has been embraced by conservative leaders seeking a new hero.

He has been hailed by the Tea Party Express as a politician who is "shaking up Washington, D.C. just like he promised" and by another political action committee, the Senate Conservatives Fund, as someone who is "showing Washington what courage looks like."

And that is almost exactly how Cruz sees it too.

"I made promises to the people of Texas that I would come to Washington to shake up the status quo," Cruz recently wrote to The New York Times and Politico in response to a list of e-mailed questions. (The Texas Republican declined to grant interviews to either publication).

"Ted's always been ambitious, he's always been arrogant," said one Republican strategist who has known Cruz since before coming to Washington. "I think the honest truth is, he's doing exactly what he's said he was going to do when he campaigned."

But keeping his promise has also earned him his share of criticism - and not just from those on the other side of the aisle - from prominent fellow Republicans too.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called some of the questions Cruz posed to Hagel "out of bounds" and Sen. John McCain of Arizona told The Times' Jonathan Weisman in an interview that "the appropriate way to treat Senator Hagel is to be as tough as you want to be, but don't be disrespectful or malign his character" (implying that Cruz had fallen short of that standard). Democrats piled on too.

In an interview on Tuesday with the Texas Tribune, Cruz defended his conduct at the Hagel hearings, saying he "focused on substance and, in particular, Mr. Hagel's policy record."

"It has not focused on personal issues, and, indeed, the character attacks that have been raised have been leveled at me for asking questions that I think every senator should be concerned to know the answer," he told the Tribune's Emily Ramshaw.

Cruz has won prominent advocates for his take-no-prisoners style.

"Most politicians know what to say to get elected but then arrive in Washington with no real spine - or in many cases, no intention of ever doing what they promised," former Sen. Jim DeMint, a conservative icon who now heads the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a Politico Op-Ed. "Not Cruz. He's proved himself an effective advocate for the founding principles that made our nation great: personal freedom and responsibility, local control and adherence to the law as it is written, not the way some politicians wish it was written."

And the junior senator from Texas has already achieved a certain iconic status himself. A Texas Republican who filed paperwork to mount a primary challenge to incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn told the Daily Caller that Cruz is an inspiration to him.

"If I'm trying to describe somebody who I would best mimic, it would be Sen. Cruz," the challenger, Erick Wyatt, told The Daily Caller's Alexis Levinson. (Regardless of Wyatt's compliment, reports have suggested a close political alliance between Cruz and Cornyn).

Those who know him say Cruz has been more than happy to take full advantage of his time in the spotlight, but the freshman lawmaker who previously served as solicitor general of Texas, emphasized in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody that he is taking all of the new-found attention in stride.

"I try to pay, pay very little attention to the media," he said. "It is, as you know, a fickle creature."

Notably, Cruz's approach represents a marked contrast to that of another prominent Republican, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who started out his career in the U.S. Senate quietly. In 2011, Rubio spent his first months in Washington mostly out of the public eye. Since then, of course, he has become a major player in the Republican Party, emerging as a key voice in the immigration reform debate and stoking speculation about a potential 2016 presidential run.

With Cruz and Rubio's stars rising fast, one Texas GOP insider predicted that the U.S. Senate may eventually not be big enough for the both of them: "At some point the fire hydrant is going to get crowded, and we'll see who marks it."

Trauma Can Up Risk of Mental Disorders in First Responders ...

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on February 27, 2013

Trauma Can Up Risk of Mental Disorders in First Responders A new study suggests repeated exposure to traumatic events increase the risk of developing a psychiatric disorder among protective service workers, especially for those early in their careers.

Overall, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that protective services workers do not appear to have a higher prevalence of mental health problems than workers in other occupations.

The critical factor appears to be exposure to trauma, as only those with repeated contact to violence or suffering have an increased likelihood of developing psychiatric problems. A hardening effect also appears to occur as contact with trauma among well-experienced protective services worker is less harmful.

?Our findings suggest that exposure to diverse types of traumatic events among protective services workers is a risk factor for new onset of psychopathology and alcohol use disorders,? said Christopher N. Kaufmann, M.H.S., lead author of the study.

?When we examined the relationship of exposure to common traumas with the development of mood, anxiety and alcohol use disorders among protective services workers, we found that these workers were at greater risk for developing a mood or alcohol use disorder.

?Interestingly, this relationship was not seen in those who had been in these jobs for a longer period, but was strong and statistically significant in workers who recently joined the profession. Developing curricula in coping skills and providing timely interventions for early career protective services workers may help reduce future psychiatric morbidity in these workers.?

Using data from the U.S National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions researchers compared the prevalence of mental disorders of protective services workers to that of adults in other occupations.

In addition, they examined the association of exposure to common traumatic experiences with the development of new mood, anxiety and alcohol use disorders among protective services workers who recently joined the workforce and those who had been in these jobs for a longer period.

Lifetime and recent trauma events most commonly reported by protective services workers included: seeing someone badly injured or killed; unexpectedly seeing a dead body; having someone close die unexpectedly and having someone close experience a serious or life-threatening illness, accident or injury.

?The association between the number of different traumatic event types and incident mood and alcohol-use disorders, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, was virtually confined to the group of early career protective services workers,? said Ramin Mojtabai, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., senior author of the study.

?Future research should examine the coping skills of protective services workers who have been in these jobs for many years, which might make them less likely to develop psychiatric complications in the face of various potentially traumatic experiences, ? said Mojtabai.

The authors note, ?Special support programs and services for these early career workers can potentially help to prevent development of chronic psychopathology and attrition from these critical jobs.?

Source: Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

APA Reference
Nauert PhD, R. (2013). Trauma Can Up Risk of Mental Disorders in First Responders. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 27, 2013, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/02/27/trauma-can-up-risk-of-mental-disorders-in-first-responders/51995.html

Source: http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/02/27/trauma-can-up-risk-of-mental-disorders-in-first-responders/51995.html

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ADB president nominated to head Japan central bank

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, acknowledges foreign delegations who are attending a plenary session at the lower house of parliament in Tokyo, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Abe vowed to push ahead with more aggressive monetary easing with the nomination Thursday of Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda to head Japan?s central bank. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)

Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso, left, has a light moment with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a plenary session at the lower house of parliament in Tokyo, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Abe vowed to push ahead with more aggressive monetary easing with the nomination Thursday of Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda to head Japan?s central bank. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivers his policy speech during a plenary session at the lower house of parliament in Tokyo, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Abe vowed to push ahead with more aggressive monetary easing with the nomination Thursday of Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda to head Japan?s central bank.(AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)

FILE - In this Feb. 8, 2013 file photo, Haruhiko Kuroda, president of Asia Development Bank (ADB), talks to journalists during a press conference in Yangon. The government has nominated Asian Development Bank President Kuroda to head Japan's central bank, counting on his support for more aggressive monetary policy to help the world's third-biggest economy escape recession and deflation. (AP Photo/File)

TOKYO (AP) ? Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe vowed to push ahead with more aggressive monetary easing as he Thursday nominated Haruhiko Kuroda to head the country's central bank.

The current Bank of Japan governor, Masaaki Shirakawa, will step down on March 19, three weeks before his term is due to end. The nomination of 68-year-old Kuroda, an Oxford-educated former vice minister of finance, was widely expected. He is currently president of the Asian Development Bank. A parliamentary vote on Kuroda's appointment is due next month.

Abe is counting on Kuroda's support to help Japan escape from a long, debilitating bout of deflation that he says is hindering consumer spending and corporate investment.

Bolder monetary easing is one of Abe's "three arrows" or main strategies, for helping salvage the ailing economy. The central bank under Shirakawa was reluctant to embrace Abe's monetary push and it emphasized that Japan's economy has deep seated problems that the central bank alone can't solve.

After months of lobbying by Abe that started even before his Liberal Democrat party took power following a landslide win in a Dec. 16 election, the Bank of Japan joined with the government in setting a 2 percent inflation target. So far, massive asset purchases by the central bank and years of near-zero interest rates have done little to boost investment or hiring by corporations put off by slack domestic demand.

In a speech to the parliament Thursday, Finance Minister Taro Aso pledged more drastic measures to help revive growth.

"Deflation is a deep-rooted problem that has undermined the Japanese economy" as it has "hampered investment toward the future," said Aso, noting that Japan is not the only country grappling with weak demand and an aging population.

"As a pioneer, Japan should achieve the end of deflationary recession and present a solution to the world," Aso said.

Kuroda has criticized central bank policies in the past. His perceived alignment with Abe's views on the economy has added to worries that the Bank of Japan's independence could be undermined. Central bank autonomy, which aims to ensure monetary policy decisions aren't captive to the short-term considerations of political leaders, is enshrined in law in many countries. However, the deep economic malaise that followed the 2008 financial crisis has resulted in many central banks, the U.S. Federal Reserve in particular, accommodating calls for unprecedented monetary easing.

Along with Kuroda, the government proposed that Kikuo Iwata, a professor at Tokyo's Gakushuin University, and Hiroshi Nakaso, an executive director at the BOJ, become the bank's top two deputy governors. The ADB said Kuroda had resigned effective March 18.

Kuroda is viewed as part of the global "currency mafia" in Japan. With his long experience and fluent English, he is accustomed to dealing with the world's major central banks and other financial leaders. During his years as Japan's top financial diplomat, he often decried the Japanese yen's rise against the U.S. dollar, saying it did not reflect the fundamentals of the economy.

Despite frequent central bank interventions in the currency markets, the yen has strengthened significantly over the past decade thanks to its status as a safe-haven, and low interest rates that encouraged an international "carry trade" of borrowing in yen and using the money to invest in the bonds of countries with higher interest rates. In 2002, a dollar bought 130 yen compared with 80 yen in November last year before Abe's election.

The prime minister's advocacy of a weaker yen to help support Japanese export manufacturers has lifted share prices and spurred a decline in the value of the Japanese currency, which has weakened by about 20 percent against the U.S. dollar since last fall.

The Nikkei 225 stock index Thursday jumped 2.7 percent to 11,559.36. The dollar was slightly higher at 92.37 yen.

Though Kuroda is seen as more likely to ease monetary policy more aggressively, his leeway to take bolder action on the monetary front is limited, said Julian Jessop, an economist with Capital Economics in London.

The most likely options of increasing government bond purchases, and giving them a longer maturity, would fall short of what the U.S. is doing, while more drastic moves, such as buying foreign bonds or setting a timetable for meeting the 2 percent inflation target, would be unlikely to win support, he said.

This is "setting up the markets for some major disappointment," Jessop said in a commentary.

Once it became clear that the government intended to move ahead with its plan to nominate Kuroda, attention in Japan turned to who will replace him as head of the Manila, Philippines-based ADB, which is a regional development lender. Local reports suggested that the current vice finance minister in charge of international affairs, Takehiko Nakao, be named to take his place. However Japan would need to win support from other ADB member countries for that choice.

Japan's economy is struggling with the aftermath of the 2011 natural and nuclear disasters, rapid aging of its population and the biggest public debt burden among leading industrial economies.

Data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry released Thursday showed a glimmer of progress, with industrial production up 1 percent in January from the month before. But that was down 5.1 percent from a year earlier and below economists' forecasts for a 1.5 percent month-on-month increase. Retail spending dropped 1.1 percent in January from a year earlier, despite higher spending on food and beverages, the ministry reported earlier.

The ministry cited rising shipments of vehicles, iron and steel and electronics equipment, and of semiconductors and auto parts as the main factors behind the increase from the previous month.

So far, the economy has shown only scant signs of recovery, and that thanks largely to stronger demand overseas as the global economy has gradually improved and the Japanese yen has weakened, helping make exports from Japan more price competitive in overseas markets.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-28-Japan-Central%20Bank/id-e1d88cb9d46e4588b2c21ef3d3a338b8

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Small steps forward sought in Iran nuclear talks

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) ? Seeking even a small step forward in a yearslong dispute, negotiators from Iran and six world powers mulled options Tuesday for preserving Tehran's nuclear program while still trying to keep it from becoming an atomic arsenal.

It was the latest meeting in excruciatingly technical diplomatic discussions. Iran spent the day studying a new offer from the West to curb some tough international sanctions that have ravaged its economy in exchange for limiting its uranium enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons.

Talks in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, were due to continue for a second day Wednesday, but diplomats at the negotiations warned that a major breakthrough was unlikely.

Western negotiators say they have brought small, if significant, proposals that should prove tempting to Tehran, although they have declined to divulge any details.

"The Iranians went away to consider our proposal during the course of the afternoon and the evening," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leading the negotiations. "There was a useful discussion on that proposal."

He said Iran is "in breach of their international obligations, therefore the onus is on them to begin the process of building confidence."

Mehdi Mohammadi, a member of the Iranian delegation, said Tehran will make an offer of its own to end the deadlock but is resisting some of the West's core demands.

The Obama administration is pushing for diplomacy to solve the impasse but has not ruled out the possibility of military intervention in Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

"Our proposal includes reciprocal measures that encourage Iran to make concrete steps," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Berlin. "My hope is Iran will make its choice to move down the path to a diplomatic solution."

Israel has threatened it will use all means to stop Iran from being able to build a bomb, potentially as soon as this summer, raising the specter of a possible Mideast war. In Jerusalem, former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Tuesday on the international community to take more "significant" steps to dislodge Iran from its nuclear program. Lieberman, who is acting head of the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in Israeli's parliament, did not elaborate, but Israeli officials often hint at a possible military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Sanctions alone will not be enough to rein in those same extremists from their goal to achieve nuclear capabilities and the time has come to move toward steps that are much more significant than the talks and sanctions that we've seen to date," said Lieberman.

Lieberman resigned from his post as foreign minister in December amid legal troubles but remains a top political ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Off-and-on talks between Iran and the world powers ? the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany ? began after the six offered Tehran a series of incentives in 2006 exchange for a commitment from Tehran to stop enrichment and other activities that could be used to make weapons.

A senior U.S. official at the talks said some sanctions relief would be part of the offer to Iran but refused to elaborate. The official acknowledged reports earlier this month that sanctions would be eased to allow Iran's gold trade to progress, but would neither confirm nor deny they are included in the new relief offer, and spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic talks more candidly.

Before the talks began Tuesday, the Interfax news agency cited Russia's envoy as saying the easing of sanctions was possible only if Iran can assure the world that its nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes. China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said diplomacy offered the only route to resolve the dispute and called for all sides to show flexibility, calling the Iranian nuclear issue "very complicated and sensitive."

Members of the Chinese and Iranian delegations met at a bilateral session before the main talks got under way.

Interfax cited an unidentified Iranian delegation member as saying Iran might also hold one-on-one talks with Russia, but ruled out direct negotiations with the United States in Almaty.

Officials from both sides have set low expectations for a breakthrough in Almaty ? the first time the high-level negotiators have met since last June's meeting in Moscow that threatened to derail the delicate efforts.

While Mann acknowledged the Almaty talks would unlikely lead to a firm outcome, he insisted that it remained an important stepping stone toward a definitive solution.

"We're not interested in talks just for talk's sake. We're not here to talk, we're here to make concrete progress," Mann said.

The first session of talks were held in private at a hotel in Almaty and were deemed so sensitive that reporters were not allowed on the premises Tuesday save for a handful of TV cameras and photographers allowed to watch Ashton greet Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Tehran maintains it is enriching uranium only to make reactor fuel and medical isotopes, and insists it has a right to do so under international law. It has signaled it does not intend to stop, and U.N. nuclear inspectors last week confirmed Iran has begun a major upgrade of its program at the country's main uranium enrichment site.

Over the last eight months, the international community has imposed heavy economic sanctions on Iran, hoping they would be so painful that the Islamic republic's clerical regime would slow its nuclear program out of a moral obligation to its public. Negotiators now hope that easing some sanctions will make Tehran more agreeable to halting production of 20 percent enriched uranium ? the highest grade of enrichment that Iran has acknowledged and one that experts say could be turned into warhead grade in a matter of months.

World powers also want Iran to suspend enrichment in its underground Fordo nuclear facility, and to ship its stockpile of high-grade uranium out of the country.

Mohammadi said shuttering Fordo was "out of the question" and that Iran first wants the U.N. Security Council to withdraw all of the sanctions it has heaped on the nation.

Iran has been unimpressed with earlier offers by the powers to provide it with medical isotopes and lift sanctions on spare parts for civilian airliners, and new bargaining chips that Tehran sees as minor are likely to be snubbed as well.

Iran insists, as a starting point, that world powers must recognize the republic's right to enrich uranium.

___

Associated Press writers Charles Hutzler in Beijing, Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem, George Jahn in Vienna and Matt Lee in Berlin contributed to this report.

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP and Peter Leonard at https://twitter.com/pete_leonard

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/small-steps-forward-sought-iran-nuclear-talks-171653913.html

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New Jersey Gets Online Gambling as Governor Signs Revised Bill

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Tuesday approved online gambling within the state's border, a move that he hopes can help boost state revenues and revive Atlantic City casinos.

The measure, announced the same day that Christie unveiled his new budget plan for fiscal 2014, will legalize Internet gaming to New Jersey's 9 million residents and also create opportunities for European companies with expertise in running online gaming operations.

New Jersey, the 11th most populous state, will become the largest so far and the third in the United States to allow online gambling after Delaware and Nevada, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Nevada, home to international gambling Mecca Las Vegas, last week became the first U.S. state to allow interstate online poker.

"We are offering a responsible yet exciting option that will make Atlantic City more competitive, while also bringing financial benefits to New Jersey as a whole," Christie said in a statement.

The Republican governor signed the legislation after Democratic lawmakers agreed to make several changes, including a provision to review the program after 10 years to gauge its impact on problem gambling.

By legalizing internet gaming, New Jersey could see a huge jump in state casino revenue, to an estimated $436 million in fiscal 2014 from $235 million this fiscal year, which ends June 30, according to budget documents.

Earlier this month, the prospect of a quick approval of online gambling in New Jersey spurred gains among gaming companies on both side of the Atlantic amid hopes it could unlock a market worth up to $1 billion.

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100500061

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AP Source: NCAA found $170K in Shapiro benefits

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) ? The NCAA is alleging that former Miami booster Nevin Shapiro was responsible for providing about $170,000 in impermissible benefits to Hurricanes athletes, recruits, coaches and others between 2002 and 2010.

Shapiro allegedly spent more than half that amount ? at least $90,000 ? in an effort to get NFL players Vince Wilfork and Antrel Rolle to sign with a sports agency he was involved with, said the person, who spoke to The Associated Press Wednesday on condition of anonymity because neither Miami nor the NCAA has publicly released the allegations.

Also included in the allegations: That Shapiro spent at least another $56,000 on "meals, entertainment, clothing, jewelry, travel, lodging and cash" on football players, recruits and others. The NCAA alleged that Shapiro spent that on 72 then-players, three recruits and 12 "friends and family members" of those either on the team or being recruited by the school.

Virtually all of the Hurricane players listed as receiving some sort of extra benefit from Shapiro left the program several years ago.

The figures that the NCAA's enforcement staff cited in the notice of allegations add up to a significantly lower total than what Shapiro told Yahoo Sports in 2011, when he estimated his extra-benefit spending spree as going into the "millions of dollars."

If true, the NCAA only listed a sliver of that in the allegations. The figures that were sent to Miami also were described as "approximate total values."

The NCAA said Shapiro also provided extra benefits in the forms of impermissible supplemental compensation to at least three former Miami assistant coaches, along with travel benefits and other items.

Miami received its notice of allegations, ones that included a lack of institutional control for failing to properly monitor Shapiro's activities as a booster, last week. It also includes charges that three former assistant coaches broke what's known as the NCAA's Rule 10.1 ? governing ethical conduct ? by misleading the investigation. Two of those former assistants have asked that their cases be thrown out because of problems the NCAA acknowledged with the way it conducted the probe.

The NCAA's Committee on Infractions wants to hear the case in June.

The Hurricanes have already self-imposed several sanctions, including sitting out two bowl games and a conference football championship game. Miami President Donna Shalala said on two occasions last week that she believes those punishments should be enough, and on Wednesday, the Hurricanes' athletic director echoed those sentiments.

"I would say I agree with everything that was in the two statements by President Shalala," Blake James, Miami's athletic director, told The AP. "I think she was right on in her comments and was very reflective of the general feel of our institution and those involved in this case."

Shapiro is serving a 20-year prison term for masterminding a $930 million Ponzi scheme.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-27-Miami-NCAA-Investigation/id-a26e1f8c765b4ee68df19e4b1131041b

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Kerry regales Berliners with tales of divided city

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at a ?Youth Connect: Berlin? event in Berlin on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first trip overseas as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with the children of U.S. Embassy staff at the Embassy in Berlin on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013. Berlin is the second stop in Kerry?s first trip overseas as secretary. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)

BERLIN (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told young Germans on Tuesday of his adventures as a 12-year-old son of an American diplomat in divided postwar Berlin, and urged them to be true to their ideals and values as Europe struggles to emerge from economic doldrums and deal with the threat of terrorism.

Speaking at a town hall meeting Tuesday, Kerry spoke a few sentences of passable German to the delight of a crowd in a packed Internet cafe before regaling the audience with tales of his boyhood in Berlin in 1954.

He recalled a clandestine bicycle ride into communist East Berlin. "I saw the difference between east and west. I saw the people wearing darker clothing. There were fewer cars. I didn't feel the energy or the movement."

When he returned home, Kerry said, his father "got very upset with me and said: 'You could have created an international incident. I could have lost my job.' So I lost my passport, and I was grounded and I never made another trip like that."

Today, Kerry said: "I never forgot and now it's vanished. Now, so many other countries have followed with this spirit of giving life to people's individual hopes and aspirations."

Kerry urged Germans to be tolerant of all points of view and noted that in America "you have a right to be stupid." He said tolerance of unpopular, offensive or otherwise objectionable views was a virtue and "something worth fighting for."

Kerry also took the opportunity to plug a New England clothing line after one audience member complimented him on his pink tie. A graduate of the noted St. Paul's School in New Hampshire and Yale University, Kerry extolled the sartorial virtues of Vineyard Vines, a Connecticut purveyor of ? in its own description ? "preppy" clothes that has a pink whale for a logo.

"I don't own any stock in the company," he said to laughter.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-26-EU-Kerry-Germany/id-e95390bbcd6d497899982fc11475f28b

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Two injured in shooting at Ohio temple

By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News

Two people are injured and a suspect is in custody following a shooting in the parking lot of a Mormon temple in Columbus, Ohio, Tuesday afternoon, NBC affiliate WCMH reported.

The shooting took place in the parking lot of the Columbus Ohio Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at about 4:45 p.m.

Columbus police told WCMH they have a male suspect in custody.

He and one of the victims were transported to Riverside Methodist Hospital in critical but stable condition, according to WCMH.

A second victim was taken to Mount Carmel Hospital West also in critical but stable condition.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/26/17105967-two-injured-in-shooting-at-ohio-temple?lite

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BT buys ESPN UK and Ireland, waves goodbye to ESPN Classic

BT's got far more important things to do than fill in the gaps in its fiber broadband coverage, like blowing around £10 million ($15 million) on buying ESPN's UK and Ireland channels from Disney. BT is trying to compete with Sky on sporting rights, and needs a channel to broadcast 38 Premier League games a year for the next three years -- which cost the phone company £738 million ($1.1 billion). At the same time, ESPN is shuttering ESPN Classic, the satellite channel dedicated to showing classic sporting events free of charge. Broadly speaking, BT just knows how to brighten our Mondays.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Video claims Nigeria sect holds 7 French hostages

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) ? A video posted online Monday apparently shows seven French hostages kidnapped from northern Cameroon, with a masked militant claiming the radical Islamic group Boko Haram from neighboring Nigeria holds them.

The video, posted to YouTube and mentioned on a jihadist website, shows one of two French men reading a statement, with a woman in between them. Four children sit on the ground near them, flanked by two masked militants wearing camouflage uniforms and holding rifles.

A masked militant in front says in the video that Boko Haram kidnapped the French hostages, a family of three adults and four children who were taken from outside a national park in Cameroon's Far North Region on Feb. 19. A black banner in the background, bearing the images of the Quran flanked by two Kalashnikov assault rifles, also resembles a symbol previously used by Boko Haram.

The man says the kidnappings came due to the French military intervention in northern Mali, where its troops have fought with Malian soldiers against Islamic extremists who took over the north in the months following a coup last year. The man also threatens the Nigerian and Cameroonian government, calling on them to release their imprisoned members.

"Let the French president know that he has launched war against Islam and we are fighting him everywhere," the man says in Arabic. "Let him know that we are spread everywhere to save our brothers."

The man threatens to kill the French hostages if the group's demands are not met.

The Associated Press could not immediately confirm the video's authenticity Monday, though it shares similarities with some Boko Haram propaganda videos published in the past.

However, in this video, the man speaks entirely in Arabic, while other Boko Haram videos have its leader Abubakar Shekau also speaking the Hausa language of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. Boko Haram has not published a video featuring hostages before. The video appears to have been filmed outside, as prayer mats hung in the background sway in a breeze.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement that "for us, these images are horribly shocking. They show cruelty without limits." He said France is fully mobilized to free the hostages but "verifications needed in these circumstances" are under way.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France told journalists his country's intelligence services are analyzing the video and "examining the nature of the demands."

The French gas group GDF Suez last week identified the captives as an employee working in Yaounde, the Cameroon capital, and his family. The group was vacationing in the north, a company statement said without elaborating. Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers continue to search for them in the arid, rural border region the two countries share in West Africa.

Waza Park, a natural wildlife reserve in Cameroon's Far North Region attracts mainly foreign tourists. But the area often suffers from raids by bandits lurking in Cameroon, Chad and neighboring Nigeria, who abduct locals for ransom. A local witness told the AP he saw gunmen on motorcycles abduct the tourists on Feb. 19.

Boko Haram ? which means "Western education is sacrilege" ? has launched a guerrilla campaign of bombings and shootings across Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. It is blamed for at least 792 killings last year alone, according to an AP count. It is known to have ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, an Algerian-based group that opened a front in Mali.

The sect, which typically speaks to journalists in telephone conference calls at times of its choosing, could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.

Boko Haram remains highly fragmented, without a clear command-and-control structure. One splinter organization launched from Boko Haram appears to be Ansaru, which has claimed the recent north Nigeria kidnappings of a British citizen, a Greek, an Italian, three Lebanese and one Filipino, all employees of a Lebanese construction company called Setraco. The group earlier claimed the kidnapping in December of a French national working on a renewal energy project in Nigeria's northern Katsina state.

However, the video claiming the kidnapping comes after supposed Boko Haram leaders denied this weekend that they took part in the kidnapping of the seven French citizens ? leading to more questions about who actually remains in control of the group. Shekau hasn't been seen in a video since late November.

A total of 15 French citizens are currently being held in western Africa. In addition to the seven kidnapped in Cameroon, there is one other in Nigeria and seven thought to be in northern Mali.

___

Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/video-claims-nigeria-sect-holds-7-french-hostages-163759996.html

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

?R to cut public finance deficit to below 3% this year | Prague Monitor

?TK |

25 February 2013

Prague, Feb 22 (CTK) - The Finance Ministry expects to keep public finance deficit below the planned 3 percent of GDP this year on condition the economic situation in Europe does not worsen dramatically, Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek said in reaction to estimates released by the European Commission Friday.

The EC said in its new forecast it expects the Czech public finance deficit to reach 3.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year. The Finance Ministry reckons with a 2.9 percent deficit.

For the year 2012, the EC expects a public finance deficit at 5.2 percent owing to a one-off operation involving the entry of the restitution of church property on budget accounts. The restitution claims contributed 1.5 percent to the deficit.

The EC also said Friday it expects the Czech economy to stagnate this year.

"This is a forecast. Unless the economic situation in Europe worsens markedly, we will maintain the deficit below 3 percent so as we can finish the excessive deficit procedure," Kalousek said.

Kalousek does not plan to introduce any extraordinary measures in the state budget if the deficit is higher,

"Two or three tenths of percent of GDP is a task that the government can cope with in operating expenses of its ministries," he said.

The EC opened the excessive deficit procedure for the Czech Republic in 2009 when the country's budget deficit was almost double the permitted limit. The EU demands that the Czech government should cut the deficit below 3 percent of GDP by 2013.

The procedure might lead to a suspension of European subsidy payments in an extreme case.

The public finance deficit is calculated as the difference of revenues and expenditures of ministries and other government institutions, municipalities, selected state-subsidised organisations, state and other off-budget funds (Land Fund, Support and Guarantee Agricultural and Forestry Fund, Wine Fund and others), Railway Infrastructure Administration, transformation institution Prisko, PPP Centre, public universities, public research institutes, health insurance companies, associations and unions of health insurance companies, and Centre of Interstate Settlements.

CR's macroeconomic indicators:

2012 2013 2014
GDP (change in pct against previous year) - 1.1 0.0 1.9
Unemployment (in pct, Eurostat methodology) 7.0 7.6 7.3
Inflation (HICP, in pct) 3.5 2.1 1.6
Budget deficit (as pct of GDP) - 5.2 - 3.1 3.0
Debt (as pct of GDP) 45.5 48.0 49.5

Source: European Commission

Copyright 2011 by the Czech News Agency (?TK). All rights reserved.
Copying, dissemination or other publication of this article or parts thereof without the prior written consent of ?TK is expressly forbidden. The Prague Daily Monitor and Monitor CE are not responsible for its content.

Source: http://praguemonitor.com/2013/02/25/%C4%8Dr-cut-public-finance-deficit-below-3-year

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Pope praying, packing ahead of move out of Vatican

ROME (Reuters) - Pope Benedict was praying and packing on Tuesday two days before his move out of the Vatican and into retirement where he will assume the title of "pope emeritus" and still be referred to as "your holiness".

The Vatican said Benedict was spending a quiet Tuesday in the apostolic palace with no audiences.

"Today is a day dedicated to prayer and preparation for the events of the next two days," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said at a daily news briefing.

Lombardi said the pope was sifting through documents to see which will remain in the Vatican and go into the archives of his papacy and deciding which "are of a personal nature and which he will take to his new residence".

Among the documents left for the next pope will be a confidential report by three cardinals into the "Vatileaks" affair last year when Benedict's former butler leaked private papers revealing corruption and in-fighting inside the Vatican.

The new pope will inherit a Church marked by Vatileaks and by child abuse scandals by priests in Europe and the United States, both of which may have weighed on Benedict's decision to decide he was too old and weak to continue the papacy.

The pope has two days left before he takes the historic step of becoming the first pontiff in some six centuries to step down instead of ruling for life.

Given the unique nature of the occasion, Vatican officials have had to find a title for the former pope, decide how he should be addressed and what he should wear.

After two weeks of consultations with aides, theologians and historians, the Vatican announced the status Benedict will assume after he is no longer leader of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church.

Benedict will be known as "pope emeritus Benedict XVI" or "Roman Pontiff emeritus Benedict XVI", be addresses as "Your Holiness," and be referred to as "His Holiness Benedict XVI".

This means that after the election of the new pope next month there will be two men with the title "holiness" in the Vatican at the same time.

MEXICAN SHOES

Benedict will lay aside the red "shoes of the fisherman" that have been part of his papal attire and wear brown loafers given to him by shoemakers during a trip to Leon, Mexico last year. He will wear a "simple white cassock", Lombardi said.

Benedict's lead seal and his ring of office, known as the "ring of the fisherman", will be destroyed according to Church rules, just as if he had died.

The Vatican released a detailed schedule of the pope's last two days on the "Throne of St. Peter".

On Wednesday he will hold his last general audience, a weekly event which would normally be held in a vast auditorium in winter, but has been moved outdoors to St. Peter's Square so more people can attend.

Some 50,000 people have asked for tickets, which are free, but many more are expected to attend and stand at the back of the square.

Benedict will then meet some foreign leaders.

On Thursday, he will greet cardinals in Rome, many of whom have come to take place in the conclave to elect his successor.

That afternoon at 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) he will fly by helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, a 15-minute journey south of Rome.

There, he will make an appearance from the window of the papal villa to greet residents and well-wishers expected to gather in the small square.

That will be Pope Benedict's last public appearance.

At 8 p.m. the Swiss Guards who stand as sentries at the residence will march off in a sign that the papacy is vacant.

Benedict will move into a convent in the Vatican in April, after it has been restored.

On Friday, cardinals in Rome will begin meetings known as "general congregations" to prepare for the secret conclave that will elect a new pope.

This week Benedict changed Church rules so that cardinals could begin the conclave earlier than the 15 days after the papacy becomes vacant, prescribed by the previous law.

The change means that the cardinals, in their pre-conclave meetings, can themselves decide when to start.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected by mid-March and installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

Cardinals have begun informal consultations by phone and email in the past two weeks since Benedict said he was quitting.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-keep-title-holiness-resignation-120221732.html

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Arkansas governor vetoes abortion bill

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) ? Democratic Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe on Tuesday vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have banned most abortions in the state at 20 weeks into a pregnancy.

The bill was based on the disputed belief that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks. It included exemptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.

Beebe had said previously that he had concerns about the bill's constitutionality and he cited those concerns in his statement announcing the veto. Opponents had said the ban ran afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion until the point where fetuses can survive outside the womb, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. Beebe also expressed concern about the potential cost to the state to defend the bill.

Lawmakers can override Beebe's veto with a simple majority.

The House approved the bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Andy Mayberry, on an 80-10 vote last week. It had been previously approved by the Senate.

While the bill made an exception for cases where the mother's life is in jeopardy, it did not have an exemption for cases in which the fetus has a fatal disease or disorder.

Beebe said he met with Mayberry before making his decision.

Mayberry's bill was one of two abortion measures under consideration by the Legislature, which has a Republican majority for the first time since Reconstruction.

The second bill bans abortion at the point in which a heartbeat can be detected using an abdominal ultrasound ? typically about 12 weeks into a pregnancy. That bill has already passed both chambers but is headed back to the Senate on Wednesday for lawmakers to vote on amendment that includes an exemption for fatal fetal disorders.

The House already approved the version with the amendment.

The original version of the "heartbeat" bill passed the Senate 26-8.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/arkansas-governor-vetoes-20-week-abortion-bill-203729791--politics.html

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Mambulasa elected Malawi Law Society president: Replaces ...

By Nyasa Times Reporter

February 25, 2013 ????? 17 Comments

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The members of the Malawi Law Society (MLS) have elected new president for the body. He is Mandala Mambulasa, who was voted in a democratic and transparent ballot.

The elections were held in Mangochi during the MLS annual general meeting.

Mambulasa replaces John Gift Mwakhwawa who has served as MLS president for three consecutive years of one year term each.

Emmanual Theu is the new Vice President; Felisah Kilembe is the Secretary, John Suzi Banda Treasurer.

Mambtulasa: New MLS president

Committee Members are Powell Mkhutabasa, Alfred Majamanda and Felister Jumbe.

Disciplinary committee members are Ezra Dzoole and Dalitso Kefere while representatives on the Council for Legal Education are George Mtchuka Mwale and Alick Msowoya.

Mwakhwawa said he was leaving his office a happy person having increased awareness of court processes among members of the general public.

In his acceptance speech, lawyer Mambulasa said he is determined to reunite the Law Society with other professional bodies for the betterment of the country.

Mambulasa is a managing partner in Mambulasa & Company. He is also a human rights lawyer and an advocate of media freedom and freedom of expression.

He has also assured that MLS will push for Access to Information Bill to be passed in the national assembly.

Source: http://www.nyasatimes.com/2013/02/25/mambulasa-elected-malawi-law-society-president-replaces-mwakhwawa/

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Create Your Own Bleach Gel Pen For Easy Cleaning Around The House

Bleach gel pens are great for erasing stains on white shirts or cleaning grout around your bathroom, but they're pretty pricey. Luckily, you can make your own with just three simple ingredients.

One Good Thing by Jillee has the unbelievably simple recipe. All you'll need is a little bleach, a few Tablespoons of cornstarch, and water. The resulting gel is just like what you'd get from the store, but for a tiny fraction of the price. Once you're done creating the gel, you can store it in a squeeze bottle for easy and precise application on your clothes or around the house.

How To Make Your Own Bleach Gel Pen | One Good Thing by Jillee

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/qDvOmPtdyds/create-your-own-bleach-gel-pen-for-easy-cleaning-around-the-house

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Top U.S. diplomat kicks off nine-nation "listening tour" (Reuters)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/287311124?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Benedict gets new title, new shoes for retirement

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? Pope Benedict XVI will be known as "emeritus pope" in his retirement and will continue to wear a white cassock, the Vatican announced Tuesday, again fueling concerns about potential conflicts arising from having both a reigning and a retired pope.

The pope's title and what he would wear have been a major source of speculation ever since Benedict stunned the world and announced he would resign on Thursday, the first pontiff to do so in 600 years.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Benedict himself had made the decision in consultation with others, settling on "Your Holiness Benedict XVI" and either emeritus pope or emeritus Roman pontiff.

Lombardi said he didn't know why Benedict had decided to drop his other main title: bishop of Rome.

In the two weeks since Benedict's resignation announcement, Vatican officials had suggested that Benedict would likely resume wearing the traditional black garb of a cleric and would use the title "emeritus bishop of Rome" so as to not create confusion with the future pope.

Benedict's decision to call himself emeritus pope and to keep wearing white is sure to fan concern voiced privately by some cardinals about the awkward reality of having two popes, both living within the Vatican walls.

Adding to the concern is that Benedict's trusted secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, will be serving both pontiffs ? living with Benedict at the monastery inside the Vatican and keeping his day job as prefect of the new pope's household.

Asked about the potential conflicts, Lombardi was defensive, saying the decisions had been clearly reasoned and were likely chosen for the sake of simplicity.

"I believe it was well thought out," he said.

Benedict himself has made clear he is retiring to a lifetime of prayer and meditation "hidden from the world." However, he still will be very present in the tiny Vatican city-state, where his new home is right next door to the Vatican Radio and has a lovely view of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

While he will no longer wear his trademark red shoes, Benedict has taken a liking to a pair of hand-crafted brown loafers made for him by artisans in Leon, Mexico, and given to him during his 2012 visit. He will wear those in retirement, Lombardi said.

Lombardi also elaborated on the College of Cardinals meetings that will take place after the papacy becomes vacant ? crucial gatherings in which cardinals will discuss the problems facing the church and set a date for the start of the conclave to elect Benedict's successor.

The first meeting isn't now expected until Monday, Lombardi said, since the official convocation to cardinals to come to Rome will only go out on Friday ? the first day of what's known as the "sede vacante," or the vacancy between papacies.

In all, 115 cardinals under the age of 80 are expected in Rome for the conclave to vote on who should become the next pope; two other eligible cardinals have already said they are not coming, one from Britain and another from Indonesia. Cardinals who are 80 and older can join the College meetings but won't participate in the conclave or vote.

Benedict on Monday gave the cardinals the go-ahead to move up the start date of the conclave ? tossing out the traditional 15-day waiting period. But the cardinals won't actually set a date for the conclave until they begin meeting officially Monday.

Lombardi also further described Benedict's final 48 hours as pope: On Tuesday, he was packing, arranging for documents to be sent to the various archives at the Vatican and separating out the personal papers he will take with him into retirement.

On Wednesday, Benedict will hold his final public general audience in St. Peter's Square ? an event that has already seen 50,000 ticket requests. He won't greet visiting prelates or VIPs as he normally does at the end but will greet some visiting leaders ? from Slovakia, San Marino, Andorra and his native Bavaria ? privately afterwards.

On Thursday, the pope meets with his cardinals in the morning and then flies by helicopter at 5 p.m. to Castel Gandolfo, the papal residence south of Rome. He will greet parishioners there from the palazzo's loggia (balcony) ? his final public act as pope.

And at 8 p.m., the exact time at which his retirement becomes official, the Swiss Guards standing outside the doors of the palazzo at Castel Gandolfo will go off duty, their service protecting the head of the Catholic Church now finished.

Benedict's personal security will be assured by Vatican police, Lombardi said.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-called-emeritus-pope-wear-white-120826349.html

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Nigerian militants threaten to kill French hostages

"Let the French president know that he has launched war against Islam and we are fighting him everywhere," the man says in Arabic. "Let him know that we are spread everywhere to save our brothers."

The man threatens to kill the French hostages if the group's demands are not met.

The Associated Press could not immediately confirm the video's authenticity Monday, though it shares similarities with some Boko Haram propaganda videos published in the past.

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France told journalists his country's intelligence services are analyzing the video and "examining the nature of the demands."

The sect, which typically speaks to journalists in telephone conference calls at times of its choosing, could not be immediately reached for comment Monday.

A total of 15 French citizens are currently being held in western Africa. In addition to the seven kidnapped in Cameroon, there is one other in Nigeria and seven thought to be in northern Mali.

___

Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo and Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/video-claims-nigeria-sect-holds-7-french-hostages-163759996.html

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Video: Discrepancies complicate Pistorius investigation

>>> overseas tonight, oscar pistorius was back in court in south africa with new questions about what just happened in his home in the early morning hours of slipt's day when his girlfriend was killed. no one disputes he pulled the trigger but his story is getting closer scrutiny. nbc's michelle kosinski is in pretoria, south africa for us again tonight.

>> reporter: oscar pistorius arriving in court today, inside no hiding from photographers. today the chief police investigator challenged pistorius ' account. he said he would have had to walk 23 feet from the bedroom, go inside the bathroom and fire tour times from five feet away. believing a dangerous intruder was inside. the investigator said pistorius would have been wearing his prosthetic legs, because the bullets were shot high into the door with a downward trajectory. but pistorius stated he was not wearing his prosthetics which is why he said he felt so vulnerable. police also say they have witnesses, a neighbor who said she heard what sounded like fighting for an hour from pistorius ' home and then gunfire. another neighbor says he heard shots, looked outside, saw lights on inside the home, heard a woman scream two or three times and then another few shots. pistorius ' uncle addressed the allegations.

>> they're just not true. this is it. he's not a violent person. he's a peacemaker.

>> reporter: but there are other questions. if pistorius was screaming, yelling to his girlfriend to call police about a burglar, as he claims, wouldn't she have responded from the bathroom? or when he fired the first shot. and police said they found steroids, testosterone and needles for injection in his bedroom. but he said he didn't know what the substance was and saw the label and made an assumption. his lawyer says it's an herbal remedy . it's being tested. last week he was brought to the hospital for tests. tomorrow, a likely ruling on whether the olympic great is released on bond or held in prison. michelle kosinski , nbc news, pretoria, south africa .

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50880193/

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Apple pushes iOS 6.1.2 with Exchange bug fix

Apple said it was working on a solution for the Exchange bug in iOS 6.1, and that's what it delivered: iOS 6.1.2 has appeared for all devices to address the calendar flaw. The release is targeted and doesn't appear to fix much if anything else, but we'll keep our ears to the ground for more. For now, check for an update in iTunes or on-device to cure at least some of your iOS gear's recent battery woes.

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio/Video, Tablets, Mobile, Apple

Comments

Source: Apple

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/19/apple-pushes-ios-6-1-2-with-exchange-bug-fix/

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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Dell Inc. and the PC industry's innovation crisis - Business ...

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It?s a sure sign a company is in desperate straits when journalists go searching for answers from a former pitchman. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Ben Curtis, the actor who played the ?Dell dude? in computer-maker Dell Inc.?s 2000-era commercials (in which he would inform strangers ?Dude, you?re getting a Dell?), suggested his troubled former employer could get a sorely needed boost if his character were resurrected. ?Since that campaign ended, Dell has lost their personality,? Curtis said, adding that he, too, now uses an Apple Inc.-made laptop.

Dell?s problems won?t be so easily fixed. In a bid to speed up a badly needed transition from hardware manufacturer to provider of high-margin software and services, founder and CEO Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners are proposing a massive $24.4-billion leveraged buyout of Round Rock, a Texas-based company that once held the title of the world?s largest maker of personal computers. It?s just another reminder of how fast the technology industry moves. One day a company is the most powerful in Silicon Valley, with a soaring stock price; the next it?s contemplating moving away from the very business that made it a household name. (In Dell?s case, its outstanding shares, once worth nearly $60, are being purchased by its founder and Silver Lake for $13.65 apiece.)

Although desktop and laptops remain ubiquitous in homes, offices and schools, sales of PCs have slumped in recent years as consumers increasingly use smartphones and tablets. Worldwide PC shipments totalled 90 million units during the last three months of 2012, according to Gartner Research, a 4.9 per cent decline from the same period a year earlier. In Canada, the fall was even steeper?down nearly 14 per cent. ?We?re approaching a saturation point in the market,? says Tim Brunt, an analyst at consulting firm IDC Canada. ?There are multiple PCs in every household. Everybody?s got one, so now it?s just about buying replacements.?

One-time industry titans such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft Corp. have been left racing to adapt to this new mobile environment. Yet despite their years of experience and vast war chests (Microsoft has some $68 billion in cash), all have failed so far to develop the sort of game-changing products and services that consumers now expect in an era of iPhones and iPads, as well devices running Google?s Android mobile software.

Instead, the PC industry seems to have settled for aping Apple?s products?usually with mediocre results. Is it an innovation crisis? Or have companies like Apple Inc. and Google Inc. raised expectations so high, it?s become impossible to measure up? Even Apple itself is now feeling the heat as investors begin to ask why it has failed to launch an iTV product or some other device that causes people to fundamentally rethink an existing product or service, or how they interact with it.

It may well be that true innovation comes along far less frequently in Silicon Valley than we?ve been led to believe.

Few companies have exemplified the ?me-too? approach in recent years better than Dell. It didn?t invent the personal computer, but it pioneered a low-cost manufacturing system and a direct-to-consumer sales model credited with helping to slash the price of the average PC from $2,000 in 1995 to just $700 by 2011. In the same way that Apple changed the way people buy music through iTunes, Dell changed the way they bought computers by steering customers away from stores and toward Dell?s website, where they could build their own machines by choosing components and devices such as speakers. With a little help from Curtis?s on-screen antics, the approach made Dell a $100-billion company.

But it also spawned a host of imitators?several who proved to be better equipped to take advantage of the business model Dell thought it had perfected. Dell relinquished the title of world?s biggest computer maker to HP in 2006 and has since fallen behind China?s Lenovo Group Ltd., which boasts much lower costs. Although Dell remains profitable, earning $475 million in its last quarter, its shipments of PCs are estimated to have fallen 20 per cent during the last three months of 2012, compared to a year earlier, according to data compiled by IDC. ?It is very difficult to stay innovative and stay on the top,? says Mikako Kitagawa, a California-based analyst at Gartner Inc. ?In the case of Dell, they were late to take action as the industry changed.?

Dell?s frantic efforts to play catch-up were chronicled in a recent post on the technology website, The Verge. As the popularity of Apple?s iPod skyrocketed in 2003, Dell responded with a clunky device called the Dell DJ, which resembled a garage door-opener with a digital screen. It was followed with the equally awkward-looking and unfortunately named DJ Ditty in 2005. Several years later came a few weird laptop designs, including one where the screen could be tilted independently of the case, and another that sat at an odd angle when resting on a table. ?If you squint, you can see the rough beginnings of today?s hybrid tablets,? said The Verge. ?But if you open your eyes all the way, what you really see is Dell trying so hard to out-design Apple that it went completely insane.?

Marc-David Seidel, a professor at the University of British Columbia?s Sauder School of Business, says Dell?s inability to get up to speed in a changing market is not unusual. He says most companies are ?imprinted? by particular market conditions and those outlooks are difficult to change. In Dell?s case, its business was operating a manufacturing and supply network like clockwork?until Apple came along and forced the industry to think about design, too. ?They weren?t built to do that,? Seidel says. The same thing happened to BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion Ltd.), which stuck to its text-focused devices, even as Apple proved consumers wanted big touchscreens.

Dell is now attempting to follow yet another company?s lead. IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo in 2004 to focus instead on software and services. Similarly, Dell has spent the past few years buying up companies in the software space, including Quest Software and cloud-computing company Wyse Technology?an acquisition spree that?s expected to continue if shareholders approve the privatization deal. ?We?ll have the flexibility to continue organic and inorganic investment and drive industry-leading innovation,? Dell said in a recent jargon-laden letter to customers.

If Dell?s path forward is unclear, so too is the rest of the PC industry?s. HP is mired in its own problems as sales of PCs and printers fall and it struggles to absorb several ill-advised acquisitions. They include IT services company EDS, which HP purchased for nearly $14 billion before embarking on a series of massive reorganizations and layoffs, and software firm Autonomy, which cost $11 billion and was later the subject of an $8.8-billion write-down after HP claimed to have discovered shady accounting practices. The company has also gone through six CEOs since 2005, the latest being Meg Whitman, and has seen its share price fall 60 per cent over the past five years to $17?about where it was a decade ago.

Microsoft may be the worst offender when it comes to failure to innovate. Its shares have flatlined over the past 10 years despite repeated attempts to diversify from PC software sales. But with the exception of products like the popular Xbox video-game console, most of Microsoft?s efforts have failed to produce the desired result. Its Zune music player was mocked; its Bing search engine mostly ignored; and its smartphone software remains a bit player in a market dominated by Google?s Android and Apple?s iOS.

That?s why so much is now riding on Windows 8. The latest update to Microsoft?s operating system, which runs on more than 80 per cent of the world?s computers, is meant to marry the world of laptops and desktops with touchscreen smartphones and tablets, giving Microsoft a new lease on life in the rapidly changing industry. (Microsoft also contributed $2 billion to Dell?s leveraged buyout in an apparent bid to help prop up a long-time hardware partner.) But early reviews of the OS have been mixed. Kitagawa calls Windows 8 a ?remarkable improvement,? but notes that many desktop Windows users have so far balked at the system?s unfamiliar interface. At the same time, Microsoft is trying to launch itself into the tablet market with the Surface tablet, but it?s not yet clear whether it will be a hit with consumers.

Why does it seem so difficult for these companies to use their massive cash reserves to churn out truly original new products? For one thing, experts say, innovation is difficult, expensive and often doesn?t pan out. That?s why most innovation comes from young start-ups. ?The people who are going to be creative are generally not going to be business types,? Seidel says. It?s also why most big tech companies can be traced to a single innovative idea: Google?s search engine, Microsoft?s software platform or Dell?s direct-sales model.

The exception has been Apple. It started out making computers in the late 1970s and, following the late Steve Jobs? return in 1997, shifted into high-end consumer electronics with the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Jobs accomplished the feat by having an exceptional feel for which way the technology winds were blowing and a willingness to take big gambles. At Jobs? request, the team that developed the iPhone was instructed to have no contact with anyone else at the company. Jobs wanted his designers and engineers to feel as though they were working at a start-up, and he didn?t want other employees raising concerns that the new device would cannibalize sales of the iPod, Apple?s existing meal ticket (which it did). Google, by contrast, tries to encourage innovation by allowing employees to spend 20 per cent of their time working on personal projects. It?s also famous for experimenting with zany new technologies, including Google Glass?an eyeglass-like device equipped with smartphone capabilities.

Dell may now be trying to pull off a similar coup. Few are holding their breath, but there?s some evidence to suggest a spark of innovation still exists in Round Rock. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Dell showed off a tiny device that looked like a chubby USB key. Dubbed ?Project Ophelia,? the device is built on technology Dell acquired through Wyse and is designed to be a virtual computer that can be plugged into any flat-screen monitor or TV set. It uses Android software for local tasks, WiFi to connect a keyboard and mouse, and delivers apps through the cloud. A long shot, to be sure, but if it works? Dude, that would truly be an innovative product.

Source: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/19/the-innovation-crisis-2/

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