Sunday, June 30, 2013

First week of testimony in Trayvon case wraps up

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? The first week of George Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial wrapped up with testimony from two neighbors and a police officer that seemed to bolster the defense's argument that he was pinned on his back by Trayvon Martin before shooting the teen.

Neighbor Jonathan Good testified Friday that it appeared the unarmed teen was straddling the neighborhood watch volunteer, while another neighbor, Jonathan Manalo, said Zimmerman seemed credible when he said just after the fight that he shot Martin in self-defense. Officer Tim Smith testified that Zimmerman's back side was covered in grass and wetter than his front side.

All three were called as witnesses for prosecutors who are trying to convict him of second-degree murder.

Good, who had perhaps the best view of any witness, said he did not see anyone's head being slammed into the concrete sidewalk, as Zimmerman claims Martin did to him. Good initially testified that it appeared "there were strikes being thrown, punches being thrown," but during detailed questioning he said he saw only "downward" arm movements being made.

Zimmerman has claimed that he fatally shot 17-year-old Martin in February 2012 in self-defense as the Miami-area teen was banging his head into the concrete sidewalk behind the townhomes in a gated community.

Under prosecution questioning, Good said he never saw anyone being attacked that way. Good said he heard a noise behind his townhome and he saw what looked like a tussle when he stepped out onto his patio. He said he yelled: "What's going on? Stop it."

Good testified he saw a person in black clothing on top of another person with "white or red" clothing. He said he couldn't see faces but it looked like the person on the bottom had lighter skin. Martin was black and was wearing a dark hoodie. Zimmerman identifies as Hispanic and was wearing a red jacket. Good was back inside calling 911 when he heard a gunshot.

"It looked like there were strikes being thrown, punches being thrown," Good said.

Later, under cross-examination, he said that it looked like the person on top was straddling the person on bottom in a mixed-martial arts move known as "ground and pound." When defense attorney Mark O'Mara asked him if the person on top was Martin, Good said, "Correct, that's what it looked like." Good also said the person on the bottom yelled for help.

Zimmerman, 29, could get life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder. Zimmerman followed Martin in his truck and called a police dispatch number before he and the teen got into a fight.

Zimmerman has denied the confrontation had anything to do with race, as Martin's family and their supporters have claimed.

Manalo, whose wife had testified earlier in the week, was the first neighbor to step outside and see what happened with his flashlight after he heard a gunshot. He took cellphone photos of a bloodied Zimmerman and Martin's body, and those photos were shown to jurors on Friday. Manalo also described Martin's hands as being under his body.

Manalo said Zimmerman didn't appear shocked and acted calmly. After police officers arrived and handcuffed Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer asked Manalo to call his wife and tell her what happened.

Manalo started to tell Zimmerman's wife that her husband had been involved in a shooting and was being questioned by police when "he cut me off and said, 'Just tell her I shot someone,'" Manalo said.

Under cross-examination, Manalo said when he asked Zimmerman what happened, the neighborhood watch volunteer told him, "I was defending myself and I shot him."

"From what you could tell at that moment, that seemed completely true?" asked defense attorney Don West.

"Yes," Manalo said.

Smith, the police officer, testified that when he saw Zimmerman after the shooting, the neighborhood watch volunteer's backside was covered in grass and wetter than his front side, bolstering defense attorneys' contention that Martin was on top of Zimmerman.

As he walked to the squad car after he had been handcuffed, Zimmerman told the officer that "he was yelling for help and nobody would come help him," Smith said.

"It was almost a defeated ... a confused look on his face," Smith said.

Smith said Zimmerman described himself as "lightheaded" during the drive to Sanford Police Station but declined an offer to take him to a hospital.

The physician's assistant who treated Zimmerman the next day said that Zimmerman complained of feeling nauseated upon reflecting what had happened. But Lindzee Folgate attributed that to psychological factors rather than any physical condition. She also said it appeared his nose was broken, but it was impossible to say for sure since no X-rays were taken. She recommended he see an ear-and-nose doctor and a psychologist.

When O'Mara asked if abrasions on his head were consistent with someone who had his had slammed into concrete, Folgate said, "it could be consistent, yes."

She also testified that Zimmerman had written on a form reciting his medical history that he was exercising three times a week by doing mixed martial arts, a statement that prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda asked her to repeat.

Paramedic Stacy Livingston, who responded to the shooting scene, testified Zimmerman had a swollen, bleeding nose and two cuts on the back of his head an inch long. When O'Mara asked if Zimmerman should have been concerned with his medical well-being because of his injuries, Livingston said, "Possibly."

When photos of Martin's body were shown on a courtroom projector during Livingston's testimony, Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, looked away and blinked back tears.

___

Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KHightower

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-week-testimony-trayvon-case-wraps-070628613.html

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What The Duck? (Balloon Juice)

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'Zero Dark Thirty' star Jennifer Ehle joins Kevin Costner in 'Black and White' (Exclusive)

By Jeff Sneider

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Zero Dark Thirty" star Jennifer Ehle is set to play Kevin Costner's late wife in writer-director Mike Binder's drama "Black and White," TheWrap has learned.

Costner's Treehouse Productions and Binder's Sunlight Productions are co-producing the project, which IM Global was selling to foreign buyers at Cannes. Executive producer Cassian Elwes is handling domestic rights.

Story follows a widowed attorney (Costner) and his bi-racial granddaughter (Jillian Estell) whose mother (the daughter of Costner's character) died while giving birth.

Octavia Spencer co-stars as the young girl's grandmother who wants her son (Andre Holland) to care for the child. When he's unable to due to a drug addiction, she and Costner's character spar over custody.

Ehle will play Costner's late wife who regularly appears in his booze-soaked dreams and hallucinations.

Binder, who previously worked with Costner on "The Upside of Anger," will begin shooting "Black and White" this summer in New Orleans.

In addition to a stirring turn in Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," Ehle's recent credits include "The King's Speech," "The Ides of March" and "Contagion." She'll soon be seen in Jose Padilha's remake of "RoboCop," which hits theaters February 7, 2014.

Ehle is represented by ICM Partners and Independent Talent Group.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/zero-dark-thirty-star-jennifer-ehle-joins-kevin-193934722.html

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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Silvio Berlusconi: Associate describes 'excess' at bunga bunga parties

Silvio Berlusconi: A close associate of the former Italian prime minister described his bunga bunga parties as 'excess, abuse of power and degradation.' On Monday, Burlusconi was sentenced to seven years in jail for paying for sex with a minor and abuse of office.

By Sara Rossi and James Mackenzie,?Reuters / June 29, 2013

Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi attends the presentation of a book in Rome in September 2012. Berlusconi suffered one of his most damaging setbacks yet as a court on Monday, sentenced him to seven years in prison and a lifetime ban from politics for paying an underage prostitute for sex and forcing public officials to cover it up.

Alessandra Tarantino/AP/File

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A close associate of?Silvio?Berlusconi?said on Friday he agreed with descriptions of "bunga bunga" parties at the former prime minister's palatial residence as "excess, abuse of power and degradation."

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Show-business agent Lele Mora, one of three people charged with aiding and abetting under-aged prostitution, told a court in?Milan?that he had taken young women to the parties and had received a loan from?Berlusconi.

In his declaration to the court, he denied that he had pushed the women into prostitution but delivered an unusually severe judgement on the evenings, which?Berlusconi?has repeatedly described as "elegant dinners."

"Yesterday I read three words in a newspaper that described what happened and what you are judging today: excess, abuse of power and degradation. It's true, that is how it was," he said.

A?Milan court?sentenced?Berlusconi?on Monday to seven years in jail and banned him from public office after convicting him of paying for sex with a minor and of abuse of office. He will remain free pending the outcome of his appeals, expected to take several years to resolve.

Prosecutors have presented evidence describing unbridled scenes involving young women stripping and performing raunchy dances at?Berlusconi's parties and being rewarded with envelopes stuffed with thousands of euros in cash.

The case, one of a series facing the 76-year-old centre-right leader and billionaire media tycoon, has compounded the tensions in Prime Minister?Enrico Letta's governing coalition, which depends on?Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party.

Speaking in?Brussels?on Friday, Letta, from the centre-left?Democratic Party?(PD), repeated that he was confident the PDL would continue to support his government.

Prosecutors say that Mora, a longstanding associate of?Berlusconi, helped recruit young women, including Karima El Maroug, the former teenaged nightclub dancer known as "Ruby the Heartstealer" who is at the centre of the case.

They are seeking a seven-year sentence for Mora and for his co-defendants?Emilio Fede, a former newscaster on one of?Berlusconi's television stations, and?Nicole Minetti, a former dental hygienist who later became a PDL regional councillor.

Mora's lawyers have denied that his involvement constituted an offence and have asked for him to be cleared of the charges.

Berlusconi?voiced outrage at the verdict in his own trial, which he said was politically motivated, and repeated that he was "absolutely innocent".?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/rCO3LuL3cu0/Silvio-Berlusconi-Associate-describes-excess-at-bunga-bunga-parties

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NYC's Met doing away with metal admission button

NEW YORK (AP) ? Tiny metal buttons in delicious-sounding colors like poupon, hubba bubba and piglet have served as The Metropolitan Museum of Art's admission ticket for 42 years. But starting Monday, the 1-inch disks will be replaced by a paper ticket with detachable sticker.

It's all about the money ? the buttons have become too expensive to produce.

"The cost has been increasing exponentially over the years," said Harold Holzer, the museum's spokesman. "It's gone up tens of thousands of dollars in the last five years."

When the museum first started using the buttons, it had about 1 million visitors annually. Today it has 6 million.

"It seems impractical to tie ourselves to an archaic, quaint ? even if it's well liked ? system," he added.

The buttons are making their exit on the same day that the Met is switching to a seven-day-a-week schedule. The museum ? which has a recommended admission of $25 for adults, meaning visitors may pay what they wish ? had been closed Mondays.

"The message is not changing, the medium is changing," Holzer said.

In 1997, a student at Parson School of Design created a dress with the buttons for a project using recycled objects. It features three of the 16 colors the buttons came in. The piece was donated to the museum and is in storage.

Like the buttons, the paper tickets will eventually come in an assortment of colors. The first will be el mar blue. They also will contain a date (something the buttons lacked) and be emblazoned with the same "M'' design used on the buttons, adapted from a 16th-century illustration based on a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing.

"With just a flip of a computer switch," the paper tickets will allow the museum to issue timed-entry tickets for such special shows as the wildly popular Alexander McQueen costume exhibition in 2011, Holzer said.

"It gives us a great deal of agility," he said. "Agility beats nostalgia every time."

Asked if the button might become an art object worthy of museum display, Holzer quipped: "It's been displayed about a hundred million times if you count all the visitors who've worn it. It's maybe time for a rest."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nycs-met-doing-away-metal-admission-button-143836805.html

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Matthew Morrison Engaged To Model Renee Puente (Photos)

Matthew Morrison Engaged To Model Renee Puente (Photos)

Matthew Morrison & Renee Puente pictures“Glee” star Matthew Morrison, 34, is engaged to his girlfriend of two years, model Renee Puente! Morrison and Puente’s engagement news was announced by Elton John and David Furnish at their annual White Tie And Tiara Ball in London on Thursday. Elton later serenaded Matthew and Renee when he performed a duet of “Your Song” ...

Matthew Morrison Engaged To Model Renee Puente (Photos) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2013/06/matthew-morrison-engaged-to-model-renee-puente-photos/

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Administration says it will press to provide marriage benefits in all states (Washington Post)

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Video: Cramer's Stocks to Watch: BlackBerry

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'Big givers' get punished for being nonconformists, Baylor study shows

'Big givers' get punished for being nonconformists, Baylor study shows [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Terry Goodrich
terry_goodrich@baylor.edu
254-710-3321
Baylor University

People punish generous group members by rejecting them socially even when the generosity benefits everyone because the "big givers" are nonconformists, according to a Baylor University study.

The study, published in Social Science Research journal, showed that besides socially rejecting especially generous givers, others even "paid" to punish them through a points system.

"This is puzzling behavior," said researcher Kyle Irwin, Ph.D., an assistant professor of sociology in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. "Why would you punish the people who are doing the most especially when it benefits the group? It doesn't seem to make sense on the surface, but it shows the power of norms. It may be that group members think it's more important to conform than for the group to do well."

"Free-riders" those who were stingy but benefited from others' larger contributions also were nonconformists and ostracized.

Irwin and co-researcher Christine Horne, Ph.D., a sociologist at Washington State University, conducted a "public goods" experiment with 310 participants. Each person was given 100 points (which translated into opportunities to win a gift card) and had to decide how many to give to the group and how many to keep. Contributions were doubled and divided equally regardless of how much people donated. Decisions were made via computers, and individuals did not know or communicate with other group members before making their decisions. (In the experiment, other group members actually were simulated, with pre-programmed behavior.)

Each participant was told that he or she would see the amounts of four others and be the fifth giver, with a sixth person ending the sequence. The final giver always was pre-programmed to be stingier or much more generous than the others.

Each group member had the opportunity to "pay" via the points system to punish those who contributed the most. The "punisher" would have to give up one point for every three points he or she deducted from the most generous member.

Each member also rated on a scale of 1 to 9 how much they wanted each of the others to remain in the group.

Group members' donations averaged 50 percent of their resources. The "stingiest" individual gave only 10 percent, while the most generous one gave 90 percent.

Irwin likened the punishments to shunning or poking fun at someone who had done the bulk of work in a group project for a class or even kicking the person out of the group.

"There could be a number of reasons why the others punish a generous member," he said. "It may be that the generous giver made them look or feel bad. Or they may feel jealous or like they're not doing enough."

Irwin suggested that at some point, if the contributions became very large, group members' wish to benefit might override their desire to punish.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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.


'Big givers' get punished for being nonconformists, Baylor study shows [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 27-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Terry Goodrich
terry_goodrich@baylor.edu
254-710-3321
Baylor University

People punish generous group members by rejecting them socially even when the generosity benefits everyone because the "big givers" are nonconformists, according to a Baylor University study.

The study, published in Social Science Research journal, showed that besides socially rejecting especially generous givers, others even "paid" to punish them through a points system.

"This is puzzling behavior," said researcher Kyle Irwin, Ph.D., an assistant professor of sociology in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences. "Why would you punish the people who are doing the most especially when it benefits the group? It doesn't seem to make sense on the surface, but it shows the power of norms. It may be that group members think it's more important to conform than for the group to do well."

"Free-riders" those who were stingy but benefited from others' larger contributions also were nonconformists and ostracized.

Irwin and co-researcher Christine Horne, Ph.D., a sociologist at Washington State University, conducted a "public goods" experiment with 310 participants. Each person was given 100 points (which translated into opportunities to win a gift card) and had to decide how many to give to the group and how many to keep. Contributions were doubled and divided equally regardless of how much people donated. Decisions were made via computers, and individuals did not know or communicate with other group members before making their decisions. (In the experiment, other group members actually were simulated, with pre-programmed behavior.)

Each participant was told that he or she would see the amounts of four others and be the fifth giver, with a sixth person ending the sequence. The final giver always was pre-programmed to be stingier or much more generous than the others.

Each group member had the opportunity to "pay" via the points system to punish those who contributed the most. The "punisher" would have to give up one point for every three points he or she deducted from the most generous member.

Each member also rated on a scale of 1 to 9 how much they wanted each of the others to remain in the group.

Group members' donations averaged 50 percent of their resources. The "stingiest" individual gave only 10 percent, while the most generous one gave 90 percent.

Irwin likened the punishments to shunning or poking fun at someone who had done the bulk of work in a group project for a class or even kicking the person out of the group.

"There could be a number of reasons why the others punish a generous member," he said. "It may be that the generous giver made them look or feel bad. Or they may feel jealous or like they're not doing enough."

Irwin suggested that at some point, if the contributions became very large, group members' wish to benefit might override their desire to punish.

###


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share 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/2013-06/bu-gg062713.php

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Twitter update for BlackBerry brings image cards to older phones

Twitter update for BlackBerry brings photo cards to older phones

Not all BlackBerry owners are ready for new phones just yet, but many of them still want to browse their Twitter feeds as efficiently as possible. A Twitter 4.2 update launching today should keep those users satisfied: the release brings image cards to BlackBerry OS 5 and up, letting those on older devices peek at photos in the timeline. The upgraded version also populates that timeline with more details about the tweets themselves, and it suggests people to follow when looking at profiles. If those additions are enough to fight off the urge for a hardware upgrade, the new Twitter app is available at the source link.

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Brazil protesters, police clash near match

BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil (AP) ? Brazilian protesters and police clashed Wednesday near a stadium hosting a Confederations Cup soccer match, as thousands of demonstrators trying to march on the site were met by tear gas and rubber bullets.

Brazil's senate voted to increase penalties for those found guilty of corruption, responding to a key demand made by protesters across the country.

Anti-government protesters in part angered by the billions spent in World Cup preparations picked up tear gas canisters and lobbed them back at police, along with a shower of rocks. A dense fog of the acrid gas enveloped the mass of protesters, who were about a mile (2 kilometers) away from the stadium where Brazil was playing Uruguay in a semifinal match of the warm-up tournament for next year's World Cup.

Police set up a 2-kilometer (1-mile) perimeter around the stadium, normal procedure for international tournaments. Mounted police and riot units maintained another security line about 1 kilometer (half-mile) from the stadium.

"The protesters started this when they tried to break through our outer barrier," said police Capt. Flavio Almeida. "We had no choice but to respond."

Two protesters were hurt, including a 21-year-old man who fell from an overpass and was in critical condition.

By the time the match ended in a 2-1 Brazil victory, most of the protesters had dispersed. In another area of Belo Horizonte, a group of masked young men shattered the windows of car showroom and set the shop on fire.

About 50,000 protesters had earlier massed in a central plaza in Belo Horizonte.

"We don't need the World Cup," said Leonardo Fabri, a 19-year-old protester. "We need education, we need better health services, a more humane police."

It's the latest protest to turn violent as Latin America's biggest country has been hit by nationwide protests since June 17.

Elsewhere in Brazil the situation was mostly calm, in part because Brazilian lawmakers were taking action to meet protesters' demands.

The senate on Wednesday approved legislation to ratchet up penalties for those found guilty of corruption and would take away the ability for a pardon, amnesty or bail for those convicted. The measure must be approved by the lower house before it's signed into law.

The lower house late Tuesday voted 403-9 to drop a measure that would have limited the investigative powers of federal prosecutors, a bill that many feared would make it harder to prosecute official corruption.

"This movement scored a big victory by the killing" of that legislation, said Leila Marques, a 19-year-old protester in Brasilia. "But it can't stop now. We have to do more to clean up corruption."

The wave of protests that hit Brazil began as opposition to transportation fare hikes, then expanded to a laundry list of causes including anger at high taxes, poor services and high World Cup spending, before coalescing around the issue of rampant government corruption.

It has become the largest eruption of public demonstrations Brazil has seen in two decades.

At many protests across Brazil in the past week, a sea of signs denounced the proposal to strip prosecutors of the ability to investigate, known as the "PEC 37" measure. Many demonstrators vowed to keep returning to the streets until it was knocked down.

"The PEC 37 only served to protect the corrupt," said Aline Campos, a 29-year-old publicist at a recent protest in Brasilia. "Society wants more effort to combat corruption, not less."

Federal prosecutors were behind the investigation into the so-called "mensalao" cash-for-votes scheme that came to light in 2005. It involved top aides of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva buying off members of congress to vote for their legislation.

Last year, the supreme court sentenced two dozen people in connection with the case, and it was hailed as a watershed moment in Brazil's fight against corruption. However, those sentenced have yet to be jailed because of appeals, a delay that has enraged Brazilians.

On Wednesday, the top court again flexed its anti-corruption muscles by ordering the immediate imprisonment of congressman Natan Donadon, who was found guilty on corruption charges in 2010 and who has now exhausted all appeals.

Before mass protests broke out on June 17, the PEC 37 legislation appeared heading to easy victory in the lower house of congress.

"It was on the streets that the blindness of the politicians was lifted," said Domingos Dutra, a congressman who has often butted heads with leaders of his ruling Workers Party.

Congress also approved a bill earmarking 75 percent of oil royalties to fund education and 25 percent to health services.

Earlier this week, President Dilma Rousseff announced investments of $23 billion in transportation and said her government would start projects aimed at five key areas where protesters have demanded improvements: fiscal responsibility and controlling inflation, political reform, health care, public transport and education.

Rousseff also said she would push for an assembly with the power to propose constitutional amendments that that would hear from the Brazilian public. Opposition lawmakers questioned that action, arguing that only congress has the right to call such an assembly.

After meeting with the chief justice of the supreme court on Tuesday, Rousseff's office said Wednesday she will continue to push for a plebiscite on political reform, but dropped the push for the constitutional assembly.

In Belo Horizonte, protester earlier Jose Barbosa Neto used a megaphone to try to talk to Brazil's football players outside the hotel where they were staying.

"I'm against all the money that was spent to build stadiums while our people are suffering across the country. I'm here protesting peacefully for a better country," he said. "I don't want to be watching these matches, I'd rather be protesting for a better country."

___

Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia and Bradley Brooks and Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brazil-protesters-police-clash-near-match-193251313.html

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Vulnerable South Africa's rand rebounds on corporate demand

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand bounced back in early trade on Wednesday as flows of offshore corporate earnings ahead of the end of the financial quarter offset strong demand for the dollar.

The rand was at 10.0551 against the dollar at 0651 GMT, 0.4 percent stronger than its New York close of 10.0975 overnight.

The local unit, which is slightly stronger so far this month, has been resilient in the past few days after slumping to a four-year low in early June but traders have said the recovery lacked solid fundamentals.

The main highlight of the day for traders will be a speech by Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus to a business seminar in Johannesburg at 1000 GMT.

With the end of the financial quarter looming, South African companies with operations overseas are continuing to support the rand as they switch their dollar-denominated earnings to the local currency.

"If one were looking for fundamental justification for the rand's vulnerability one need look no further than the massive imbalances that South Africa continues to generate and the over-reliance on foreign investors and inflows to keep these imbalances financed," Tradition Analytics said in a note.

Government bonds were little changed but remain vulnerable in the wake of the U.S. Federal Reserve's plan gradually to withdraw its stimulus programme as the world's biggest economy show signs of recovery.

The yield, which moves inversely to the price, on the benchmark bond due in 2026 was at 8.215 percent, while the paper due in 2015 was at 6.400 percent.

Emerging markets have been heavily sold after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week the U.S. central bank could soon start scaling down its monthly $85 billion in asset purchases, which have boosted appetite for risky assets such the rand and local bonds.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vulnerable-south-africas-rand-rebounds-corporate-demand-070326461.html

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Couple lets coffee drinkers choose baby name

(AP) ? A Connecticut couple has named its baby with help from customers at a Starbucks coffee shop.

Twenty-five-year-old Jennifer James and 24-year-old Mark Dixon of West Haven told the New Haven Register (http://bit.ly/1adT5d6 ) they had been struggling between two names for the boy they are expecting in September, so they decided to put it to a vote.

They placed signs at the Starbucks on the New Haven Green, where they are regulars, asking people to vote for either the name Jackson or Logan.

The couple said it got the idea for the voting based on a system used by that Starbucks location, where customers cast votes for the store's employee of the month.

"We saw that and thought we might as well see how it works," Dixon said.

They received about 1,800 votes in the coffee cup serving as a ballot box. The couple said voters did not limit themselves to the two choices they were given.

"We've gotten Obama, Jebediah, Lincoln. Someone put (a) write-in, Webster," James said.

James said that when she realized Dixon would sound similar to Jackson, she began pulling for the name Logan.

"I don't know why I didn't realize the 'Jackson Dixon' thing, but I think once I realized that, he was going to be Logan no matter what," she said.

The name Logan also was favored by the customers, but ultimately both names won.

The couple said it will name the baby Logan Jackson Dixon.

___

Information from: New Haven Register, http://www.nhregister.com

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Snowden mystery deepens: All eyes on airport

MOSCOW (AP) ? Moscow's main airport swarmed with journalists from around the globe Wednesday, but the man they were looking for ? National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden ? was nowhere to be seen. The mystery of his whereabouts only deepened a day after President Vladimir Putin said that Snowden was in the transit area of Sheremetyevo Airport.

An Associated Press reporter entered the area Wednesday by flying in from Kiev, Ukraine, and found ordinary scenes of duty free shopping, snoozing travelers and tourists sipping coffee, but no trace of America's most famous fugitive. If Putin's statement is true, it means that Snowden has effectively lived a life of airport limbo since his weekend flight from Hong Kong, especially with his American passport now revoked by U.S. authorities.

Adding to the uncertainty, Ecuador's foreign minister said Wednesday it could take months to decide whether to grant asylum to Snowden and that the Latin American nation would take into consideration its relations with the U.S. when doing so. Speaking during a visit to Malaysia's main city, Kuala Lumpur, Ricardo Patino compared Snowden's case to that of Julian Assange, the founder of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, who has been given asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

"It took us two months to make a decision in the case of Assange, so do not expect us to make a decision sooner this time," Patino told reporters.

Snowden, who is charged with violating American espionage laws, fled Hong Kong over the weekend and flew to Russia. He booked a seat on a Havana-bound flight Monday en route to Venezuela, but didn't board the plane. His ultimate destination was believed to be Ecuador.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa shot back at critics on Wednesday, taking special aim at a Washington Post editorial that described him as "the autocratic leader of tiny, impoverished Ecuador" and accused him of a double standard for considering asylum for Snowden while stifling critics at home.

"The shamelessness of the century: Washington Post accuses Ecuador of double standard," Correa said on his Twitter page.

As a contractor for the NSA, Snowden gained access to documents that he gave to the Post and the Guardian to expose what he contends are privacy violations by an authoritarian government.

Correa complained that the international press "has managed to focus attention on Snowden and on those 'wicked' countries that 'aid' him, making us forget the terrible things against the U.S. people and the whole world that he denounced."

The airport zone where Snowden is purportedly staying serves both connecting passengers traveling via Moscow to onward destinations and passengers departing from Moscow who have passed border and security checks.

The huge area unites three terminals: the modern, recently built D and E, and the older, less comfortable F, which dates to the Soviet era. The transit and departure area is essentially a long corridor, with boarding gates on one side and gleaming duty free shops, luxury clothing boutiques and souvenir stores selling Russian Matryoshka dolls on the other. About a dozen restaurants owned by local and foreign chains serve various tastes.

Hundreds of Russian and foreign tourists awaited flights here, some stretched out on rows of gray chairs, others sipping hot drinks at coffee shops or looking out through giant windows as silver-blue Aeroflot planes land and take off.

Business ran as usual at the terminals on Wednesday morning. An Asian girl, about 10 years old, slept peacefully on her father's lap. A middle-aged mother and her teenage daughter tried out perfume samples at a duty free store, while nearby a woman in a green dress picked out a pair of designer sunglasses. A pilot was buying lunch at Burger King.

Putin insisted Tuesday that Snowden has stayed in the transit zone without passing through Russian immigration and is free to travel wherever he likes. But the U.S. move to annul Snowden's passport may have severely complicated his travel plans. Exiting the transit area would either require boarding a plane or passing through border control. Both require a valid passport or other documentation.

Hordes of journalists armed with laptops and photo and video cameras have camped in and around the airport, looking for Snowden or anyone who may have seen or talked to him. But after talking to passengers, airport personnel, waiters and shop clerks, the press corps has discovered no sign of the leaker.

Russian news agencies, citing unidentified sources, reported that Snowden was staying at a hotel in the transit terminal, but he was not seen at the zone's only hotel, called Air Express. It offers several dozen capsule-style spaces that passengers can rent for a few hours to catch some sleep. Hotel staff refused to say whether Snowden was staying there or had stayed there in the past.

"We only saw lots of journalists, that's for sure," said Maxim, a waiter at the Shokoladnitsa diner not far from Air Express. He declined to give his last name because he wasn't allowed to talk to reporters.

The departure and transit area is huge and has dozens of small rooms, some labeled "authorized personnel only," where someone could potentially seek refuge with support from airport staff or security personnel. And security forces or police patrolling the area can easily whisk a person out of sight through back doors or corridors.

There are also a few VIP lounge areas, accessible to business-class passengers or people willing to pay some $20 per hour. Snowden was not seen in those areas.

Sheremetyevo's press service declined to comment on Snowden's whereabouts. A policeman at the airport laughed off a question from an AP reporter about where he might be. "Journalists have searched this place for three days and have found nothing. Was he ever here in the first place?" the policeman asked. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Hong Kong officials said they allowed Snowden to leave for Moscow because the U.S. government got his middle name wrong in documents it submitted seeking his arrest. Hong Kong immigration records listed Snowden's middle name as Joseph, but the U.S. government used the name James in some documents and referred to him only as Edward J. Snowden in others, Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen said. The U.S. also did not provide his passport number and did not respond to requests for clarification, Yuen said.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks gave a terse update on Snowden earlier on Wednesday, saying in a statement posted to Twitter that he was "well."

WikiLeaks says that one of its staffers, Sarah Harrison, was traveling with Snowden, but the statement gave no indication if the update came from her, from Snowden, or from some other source. WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson did not immediately return a call and a text seeking further comment.

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, Assange said he was limited in what he could say about Snowden due to security concerns. He denied reports that Snowden was spending his time at the airport being debriefed by Russian intelligence officers.

_____

Yoong reported from Kuala Lumpur. Lynn Berry in Moscow and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-mystery-deepens-eyes-airport-170621319.html

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Handibot Smart Tool hits Kickstarter, cuts in 3D with mobile controls (video)

Handibot smart power tool hits Kickstarter, carves in 3D with smartphone controls video

While CNC routers are part-digital by their nature, they haven't really kept up with the times: they're often fixed in place and don't easily adapt to unique tasks. ShopBot Tools hopes to modernize these machines by crowdfunding its Handibot Smart Tool. The device is portable and cuts 3D shapes out of many flat surfaces, but its specialty is the accessible, app-driven control that the fundraising will support. Builders can give the Handibot a wide range of instructions through apps on PCs or (eventually) mobile devices, whether they need a few simple holes or large, ornate patterns. Those pledging support will need to spend at least $1,995 to get a Handibot this September, assuming ShopBot reaches its $125,000 goal; still, it may be worth the cost for any workshop enthusiast who feels limited by existing tools.

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Supreme Court rules for couple over baby girl's adoption

By Tracy Jarrett, NBC News

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a lower court order requiring a South Carolina couple to turn over a young girl they had raised since birth to her biological father simply because he was an American Indian.?

By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled in favor of Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who had been caring for the girl they named Veronica until a family court ordered them to turn her over to her biological father Dusten Brown, a member of the Cherokee Nation.?

"We're thrilled," Mark Fiddler, a lawyer for the couple, said in an interview with Reuters. "Adoption professionals have been perplexed for years over how the ICWA [Indian Child Welfare Act] applies to voluntary adoption proceedings where the unwed father is Indian and the mother is not. The decision today clears up that confusion. It means my clients may proceed with efforts to adopt Veronica,? he said.

The Capobiancos released a statement Tuesday expressing their joy.

"We are very happy with the ruling that came down today. The Supreme Court did everything we asked it to do.? The decision of SCOTUS clearly establishes that our adoption should have been approved, and Veronica should never have been taken away from her home and family in the first place. We miss her very much and we are looking forward to the opportunity to see our daughter very soon."

Baby Veronica has not lived with her adoptive family since 2011.

According to Charles Rothfeld, the father?s attorney, Brown was not aware that his daughter had been put up for adoption. As soon as he learned that she was no longer in Oklahoma, where he resides, Brown immediately took action to get his daughter back, Rothfeld said.

Brown had argued that the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, intended to curb practices that caused many Native American children to be separated from their families, entitled him to custody of the girl, who was 3/256th Cherokee.?

Tuesday, conservative Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the Supreme Court majority, concluded that the law did not bar the termination of Brown's parental rights.?

"Under the State Supreme Court's reading," Alito wrote, "a biological Indian father could abandon his child in utero and refuse any support for the birth mother ... and then could play his ICWA trump card at the eleventh hour to override the mother's decision and the child's best interests.

"If this were possible, many prospective adoptive parents would surely pause before adopting any child who might possibly qualify as an Indian under the ICWA," he wrote.?

Rothfeld said that he and Brown were ?disappointed this hasn't come to an end.?

Although he said he wishes the decision was different, Rothfeld said he was originally concerned that the court would invalidate the ICWA -- which it did not.

?In that sense, we think we were not that unhappy with the decision. As written by the majority [the court?s decision] only applies to a small category of cases.?

The Supreme Court did not grant the couple an adoption, but threw out the South Carolina court decisions awarding custody to the father.?

The court returned the case to the South Carolina state courts for further proceedings.

Currently, Veronica lives with her biological father and stepmother, and has close relationships with her stepsiblings and cousins. ?She is happy and thriving,? Rothfeld said. Veronica will stay with the Browns until the case is settled in lower court.

?We are confident that ultimately the father will retain custody,? Rothfeld said.

The case is Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl et al, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-399.?

Reuters contributed to this report.?

Related story:

Adoptive mom: Like Baby Veronica case, we battled tribe for our baby

?

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Catching Fire: Coming to Comic-Con!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/catching-fire-coming-to-comic-con/

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Obama 'disappointed' over Voting Rights Act ruling

Holding signs with images of murdered civil rights workers, demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court??

President Barack Obama and his attorney general said they were "deeply disappointed" with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act, a cornerstone of the civil rights movement that helped dismantle decades of discriminatory voting restrictions in the South when it passed 60 years ago. The vote was split 5-4, with the court's liberal justices dissenting.

The decision drastically scales back the federal government's power to reject state laws it believes discriminate against minority voters, which include some efforts to tighten identification requirements and limit early voting hours at the ballot box. A wave of such laws swept 30 states over the past few years, and the Obama administration has aggressively fought them in court.

The president said he was "deeply disappointed" with the decision in a statement Tuesday. "While today?s decision is a setback, it doesn?t represent the end of our efforts to end voting discrimination," Obama said. "I am calling on Congress to pass legislation to ensure every American has equal access to the polls."

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act?reauthorized by Congress for an additional 25 years in 2006?gives the federal government the ability to pre-emptively reject changes to election law in states and counties that have a history of discriminating against minority voters. The law covers nine states and portions of seven more, most of them in the South. The formula used to decide which states are subject to this special scrutiny (set out in Section 4 of the law) is based on decades-old voter turnout and registration data, the justices ruled, which is unfair to the states covered under it. States that had a discriminatory poll test in the 1960s and low turnout among minority voters must seek special permission from the federal government to change their election laws, even though many of these states now have near-equal voter turnout rates between minorities and whites.

"The coverage formula that Congress reauthorized in 2006 ignores these developments, keeping the focus on decades-old data relevant to decades-old problems," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion. "Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."

The Justice Department used Section 5 of the law to block voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina last year, and it also struck down early voting restrictions in five counties in Florida. (Minority voters are more likely than white voters to vote early in person, and they are less likely than whites to have a government-issued photo ID.) Some Democrats argued that these laws were intentionally trying to suppress minority turnout in order to benefit Republicans.

The court has effectively now put the ball back in Congress' court, writing in its decision that it is up to Congress to write a new formula that is based on current data. States or counties that fit the new formula could still be subject to federal "preclearance" of changes to their elections procedures. It remains to be seen whether Congress, which is now more partisanly divided than in 2006, would tackle the challenge of creating a new rubric to find and eradicate racial discrimination at the polls. The president called on Congress to pass legislation addressing the ruling in a statement Tuesday.

In her dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes the "sad irony" of Roberts' decision is that it strikes down the key part of the Voting Rights Act because it has been so successful at preventing racial discrimination. "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet," she writes. Ginsburg also slams the court's majority for relying on turnout and registration rates "as if that were the whole story" and ignoring so-called second-generation laws and regulations designed to make it harder for minorities to vote. (One such Mississippi regulation sought to cancel a local election in 2001 because black candidates announced their intention to run.)

Civil rights groups warned that the decision will negatively affect minority voters who live in the covered jurisdictions. "This is a sad day for democracy," said Myrna Perez, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice advocacy center. "The Voting Rights Act is a needed and instrumental tool in our fight to eradicate racial discrimination, and the Supreme Court's decision today has made it much harder to utilize this tool effectively." Wade Henderson, the President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement that Congress should act to draft another coverage formula. "We urge Congress to act with urgency and on a bipartisan basis to protect voting rights for minorities," Henderson said. Brennan Center President Michael Waldman said Congress had a "duty" to update the formula. It's unclear what factors would go into a new formula, however, since voter registration and turnout data would not work.

"This decision represents a serious setback for voting rights?and has the potential to negatively affect millions of Americans across the country," Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday afternoon. "I am hopeful that new protections can and will pass in this session of Congress."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat from New York, said in a statement that "as long as Republicans have a majority in the House and Democrats don't have 60 votes in the Senate, there will be no preclearance."

Court watchers predicted the decision, given the conservative justices' comments on the law during oral arguments and in other cases. Justices in the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, including Roberts, expressed reservations that the nine Southern states covered by the law still required the same degree of federal oversight that they did 60 years ago. "Voter turnout and registration rates [between blacks and whites] now approach parity," Roberts wrote in a decision in 2009. "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels."

Another argument against Section 4's constitutionality was that it's unclear whether minority voters in Southern states are more likely to face discrimination at the polls than they are in other states. Voter ID laws, for example, have passed in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Because those states do not have a history of voter discrimination?and are not covered by the act?their voter ID laws did not have to first pass federal inspection. That said, Southern states covered under the act were much more likely to pass a voter ID law than other states. Seven of the nine states covered in full under the act adopted such a law, compared with 12 noncovered states.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/supreme-court-strikes-down-key-part-voting-rights-141205218.html

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Q&A: Probes of IRS treatment of tea party proceed

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The head of the Internal Revenue Service testifies to Congress this week after IRS documents showed that progressive and other groups seeking tax-exempt status were listed along with conservative organizations as meriting close examination by agency screeners.

With IRS chief Danny Werfel preparing to answer questions Thursday from the House Ways and Means Committee, here's where things stand with his beleaguered agency:

Q: Do the latest revelations mean the IRS subjected progressive groups pursuing tax-exempt designations to the same tough treatment that tea party organizations received?

A: In interviews, leaders of some liberal and other groups ? such as advocates of the medical use of marijuana ? say they faced detailed questions and long delays. So far it remains unclear whether the extent of the problems they faced was as widespread as the ones that dozens of conservative groups confronted. Werfel is likely to get questions on that from lawmakers, especially Democrats.

Q: Why were groups' applications examined so closely?

A: The IRS must determine who qualifies for tax-exempt status. One designation sought by many organizations ? called 501(c)(4) for its tax code section ? lets groups help candidates' election campaigns if it isn't their primary activity.

Thanks to vague laws and regulations, that means the IRS must painstakingly study the activities of all politically active groups that apply for that designation. What was different about this episode is that conservative groups ? and apparently others too ? were given close scrutiny because of their names or statements on their applications or websites.

Q: Did President Barack Obama or any top White House, administration or Obama campaign official start or direct the IRS targeting of conservatives?

A: Several Republicans have suggested the operation was directed by Obama allies and was purposely aimed at his conservative adversaries. There is no evidence yet that anyone from the Obama administration or his political organization was involved in the targeting of conservatives.

Q: Then who started it and why?

A: According to Treasury Department Inspector General J. Russell George and testimony to congressional committees, the screening started with a handful of IRS workers in the Cincinnati office who process around 5,000 applications for tax-exempt status every month.

In early 2010, one worker passed an application from a tea party organization to his boss because he thought their tax treatment could attract news media attention. The boss forwarded it to his superiors, including the IRS exempt organizations office in Washington, which oversaw the Cincinnati screeners and expressed interest.

After that, the boss back in Cincinnati ? who told congressional investigators that the IRS wants to treat high-profile cases consistently ? had his screeners look for similar applications. Eventually they and others set aside dozens of such cases.

Q: What did the IRS do with the conservative groups' applications that were set aside?

A: About 40 were shared with an IRS attorney in Washington, who provided technical advice.

That ended up causing a 13-month period ? from October 2010 to November 2011 ? during which no real work was done on tea party applications. According to testimony to Congress and George's report in May, Cincinnati IRS workers thought their Washington bosses were working on guidelines but Washington thought work in Cincinnati was proceeding. There is no evidence yet that Washington's involvement had any other impact on the cases.

Q: Where did the lists come from?

A: According to George, in May 2010 IRS officials began compiling spreadsheets listing characteristics that screeners were supposed to seek. That list contained the term "tea party" by August 2010 but kept evolving.

George has reported that by June 2011, the list also included "patriots" and "9/12," plus mentions of making America better and criticism of how the country was being run. He has said that after several changes, by May 2012 the spreadsheet was revised to shift its focus away from applicants' policy views and instead toward activities permitted by Treasury regulations.

Democrats from the House Ways and Means panel released 15 of the lists this week. They showed that various points the lists included terms like "Progressives" and "Healthcare legislation." As recently as April of this year they contained "Paying National Debt" and "Green Energy Organizations." Werfel, who was given his job in May by Obama, said this week that he ordered use of the lists completely halted earlier this month.

Q: How many groups were affected?

A: George's report singled out 298 organizations for close study because of potential political activity. Of those, 96 had "tea party," ''patriots" or "9/12" in their names. There is no precise breakdown of the political views of the remaining 202 groups, but they included groups from the right, left and center.

Despite the careful scrutiny they received, George found that as of December 2012 none of the 298 political cases' applications had been denied. Most remained undecided or were approved.

Q: What tough treatment did the groups receive?

A: Most tea party groups waited at least a year for decisions on their applications, with some waiting more than three years. In addition, the IRS sent lengthy questionnaires to many that included queries about their donors and plans, if any, by group leaders to seek public office.

Q: Who wrote these questionnaires?

A: That's unclear, as is why the delays in processing applications persisted so long. Also blurry is why top IRS officials who said they learned about the targeting in spring 2012 didn't tell Congress, even though lawmakers had asked them about it repeatedly because of complaints from tea party constituents.

Q: What's next?

A: Besides Ways and Means, the Senate Finance and House Oversight and Government Reform committees and the Justice Department are pursuing investigations likely to take months.

___

Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/q-probes-irs-treatment-tea-party-proceed-073022785.html

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Chrissy Teigen to Haters: F--k Off Already!

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Websites in 2 Koreas shut down on war anniversary

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? Major government and media websites in South and North Korea were shut down for hours Tuesday on the 63rd anniversary of the start of the Korean War. Seoul said its sites were hacked, while it was unclear what knocked out those north of the border.

Seoul said experts were investigating attacks on the websites of the South Korean presidential Blue House and prime minister's office, as well as some media servers. There were no initial reports Tuesday that sensitive military or other key infrastructure had been compromised.

The attacks in South Korea did not appear to be as serious as a March cyberattack that shut down tens of thousands of computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks. Seoul alerted people to take security measures against cyberattacks.

The North Korean websites that shut down Tuesday included those belonging to the national airline, Air Koryo, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the North's official Uriminzokkiri site and Naenara, the country's state-run Internet portal. All but Air Koryo were operational a few hours later.

South Korean National Intelligence Service officials said they were investigating what may have caused the shutdown of the North Korean websites. North Korea didn't make any immediate comment.

Operators of several Twitter accounts who purported to be part of a global hackers' collective known as Anonymous claimed that they attacked North Korean websites. The Associated Press received no answer to several requests to speak to the Twitter users. Shin Hong-soon, an official at South Korea's science ministry in charge of online security, said the government was not able to confirm whether these hackers were linked to Tuesday's attack on South Korean websites.

It wasn't immediately clear who was responsible. North and South Korea have traded accusations of cyberattacks in recent years.

South Korean officials blamed Pyongyang for a March 20 cyberattack that struck 48,000 computers and servers, hampering banks and broadcasters for several days, although television programming was not interrupted and officials have said that no bank records or personal data were compromised. Seoul officials said in April that an initial investigation pointed to a North Korean military-run spy agency as the culprit.

North Korea blamed South Korea and the United States for cyberattacks in March that temporarily disabled Internet access and websites in North Korea.

Experts believe North Korea trains large teams of cyber warriors and that the South and its allies should be prepared against possible attacks on key infrastructure and military systems. If the inter-Korean conflict were to move into cyberspace, South Korea's deeply wired society would have more to lose than North Korea's, which largely remains offline.

The shutdowns came on a war anniversary that both countries were marking with commemorations. They also are gearing up for the 60th anniversary of the end of the fighting July 27, a day North Koreans call "Victory Day" even though the Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans were gathering Tuesday to Pyongyang's main Kim Il Sung Square for the largest of many rallies around the nation denouncing the United States. On Monday evening, men lined up in the shadow of the capital's iconic Juche Tower to practice coordinating their steps as they hoisted signs reading "Sweep away the imperialist American aggressors," ''sworn enemies," and "U.S. troops out of South Korea" while a man with a megaphone barked out orders.

In South Korea, thousands of people, including Korean war veterans, gatherrf at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul for a commemoration. Two South Korean army units held military drills in Yeoncheon in Gyeonggi Province, near the demilitarized zone, defense officials said in Seoul.

North Korea in recent weeks has pushed for diplomatic talks with Washington. Tensions ran high on the Korean Peninsula in March and April, with North Korea delivering regular threats over U.N. sanctions and U.S.-South Korean military drills.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/websites-2-koreas-shut-down-war-anniversary-063134457.html

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