HONG KONG (AP) ? A Hong Kong construction company said Friday that a plan to invest $220.5 million in a Hollywood-China movie production venture is on hold because of rocky financial markets.
Paul Y. Engineering Ltd. said it couldn't raise enough money from selling new shares to investors before a year-end deadline for the proposed ? and unlikely ? investment in Legendary East Ltd.
The construction company has said previously that the deal for a 50 percent stake in Legendary East Ltd., which aims to make big budget films for worldwide audiences, was aimed at diversifying its business. Executives believe China's increasingly lucrative film market has great potential.
Chairman James Chiu said although the share sale had a "positive and substantial response" from investors, it was not enough to complete the share placement.
"We anticipate that under the current difficult environment of the capital markets the placing will not be able to close before" the deadline of Dec. 31, 2011, Chiu said.
The company said it will try again in 2012 by working with the partners to modify the structure of the deal.
Under the originally proposed deal, Hollywood production house Legendary Entertainment would have been left with a 40 percent stake in Legendary East while China's Huayi Brothers Media Corp. would have the remaining 10 percent.
Legendary East, a Hong Kong-based venture that was announced in June, plans to make one or two big budget movies a year starting in 2013 for global audiences that are also commercially viable in China. The movies will be mainly in English and feature themes based on Chinese history, mythology or culture.
Legendary Entertainment has produced global blockbusters including "Inception" and the two "Hangover" movies. Huayi releases include the hit Feng Xiaogang disaster epic "Aftershock," the kung fu drama "Shaolin" and the Tsui Hark fantasy epic "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame."
Chinese box office takings surged 64 percent to $1.5 billion in 2010 and are expected to grow 30 percent this year to $2 billion.
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LOS ANGELES ? Oprah Winfrey earned the rare opportunity to convert her media charisma into a monogramed TV channel. Now she's the one tasked with rescuing OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, after a disappointing first year.
It's a high-stakes, potentially ego-shattering challenge that could make the strongest woman or man flinch. But win or lose, Winfrey says she relishes the fight to turn OWN's fortunes around.
"Yes, some mistakes were made. Who hasn't made mistakes? The real beauty is you can say, `I learned from that,'" Winfrey said. "I don't worry about failure. I worry about, `Did I do all I could do?'"
The cable channel, which marks its first year Jan. 1, is trying for a fresh start after executive turnover and missteps that proved OWN lacked a solid foundation on which to build, this despite a Discovery Communications investment of a reported $250 million and counting.
Viewers snubbed the lineup that skimped on programming and, surprisingly, what should have been OWN's unique weapon of choice: Winfrey herself, whose limited on-air presence will be boosted Sunday with a new weekly series, "Oprah's Next Chapter."
OWN has failed to improve on, or in some instances even match, the modest ratings and small audience earned by the low-profile Discovery Health channel it replaced.
"I would absolutely say it is and was not where I want it to be for year one," Winfrey said. "My focus up until (last) May was doing what I do best, which is `The Oprah Winfrey Show,' and giving that my full attention" until its conclusion.
But Winfrey, who said management team errors in planning and execution could serve as a cautionary tale ("I was never interested in writing a book. ... THIS could be a book"), rejects the idea that a single year's performance will determine OWN's ultimate fate. Or hers.
"Somebody was talking to me in that kind of saddened, `How are you?' tone, and I was thinking, `I'm fine,'" said Winfrey, 57, who ruled as the queen of daytime TV until she ended her talk show after 25 years and turned her attention to the channel.
"I realized the reason people have this tone is they're reading all the press (about OWN), so you see me and wonder if I can still walk. ... I am a determined and committed woman. I don't give up. I'm just getting started," she said in a recent interview.
One bonus of being Oprah: She has received pep talks from other media movers and shakers.
"Everybody has told me ? Ted Turner has told me, Barry Diller has told me, Lorne Michaels has told me, David Geffen has told me ? anybody who's ever worked with a channel, who's ever done anything, has said it takes three to five years," she said, adding, "You have to do the work. ... You do not have to pay attention to the criticism."
Year two for OWN will reflect executive changes made last July, when Winfrey expanded her role at the channel by adding the roles of chief executive and chief creative officer to her position as chairman. Discovery Communications COO Peter Liguori had filled in as interim head after OWN CEO Christina Norman was dismissed in the wake of poor ratings.
Although the channel's ownership is split evenly between Discovery and Winfrey's Chicago-based production company, Harpo Inc., it is Discovery's money that's on the line.
With more scheduling consistency, movies, original series with and without Winfrey, and "a lot more Oprah in general," Discovery is "a lot more confident that we're heading in the right direction," said company spokesman David Leavy.
Sheri Salata and Erik Logan, two veteran Harpo executives, were brought on board to share the title of OWN president, with Logan moving from Chicago to OWN's Los Angeles headquarters.
Logan said he clearly understands the hard work in establishing any cable channel, and this one in particular.
"One of the greatest gifts and challenges is to have her name on the door," Logan said of his top boss. "Everything you do garners a high level of scrutiny and attention. ... We don't run from that."
The initially slight programming lineup is being beefed up, most notably with "Oprah's Next Chapter." The weekly series debuts 9 p.m.-11 p.m. EST Sunday with Winfrey's visit to the New Hampshire home of Steven Tyler.
"Next Chapter" turns the once studio-bound Winfrey into a globe-trotting interviewer who drops into the home of a Hasidic Jewish family in New York, George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in California and cook Paula Deen's Georgia estate. There is also a trip with Sean Penn to Haiti, fire-walking with Tony Robbins and a planned India trip with Deepak Chopra.
The injection of Winfrey on-screen, not just in the executive suite, is sorely needed, suggested one industry analyst.
"The biggest mistake they made is, if it's the Oprah Winfrey Network, where's Oprah?" said Bill Carroll of media buying firm Katz Media.
He compared OWN's Winfrey vacuum to programming the Court TV channel without courtroom shows or the Major League Baseball channel without games: "After a while, viewers stop going," Carroll said.
OWN has averaged about 136,000 viewers a day, a drop of 8 percent from what Discovery Health drew in 2010, although it's up slightly in total viewers in prime time and has seen an 8 percent increase among women ages 25 to 54, part of the channel's hoped-for demographic.
Popular shows include "The Judds," which ran for six episodes in April and May; "Our America With Lisa Ling"; and the reality series "Welcome to Sweetie Pie's," which attracted a strong African-American audience (prompting media reports that OWN intended to skew toward black viewers, an assertion that Discovery and Winfrey deny. "It doesn't mean we're going to turn into the `Roots' channel," Winfrey said, wryly.)
Winfrey also is on-air with "Oprah's Lifeclass," which draws on her talk-show archives, and "Oprah's Master Class," a series of high-achiever biography specials. But, she said, she never "was supposed to carry the channel on my back, and it never was supposed to be about me being on the air as much as possible." Instead, O magazine, with Winfrey as monthly cover girl and articles reflecting her better-life philosophy, is the intended model.
She attributes the channel's rough start to a more basic error: The lack of a "library" of programming for the many hours of airtime not filled by original shows, compounded by overconfidence about her market value in general.
"I don't understand what anybody was thinking. You're going on the air, you've got four shows. What do you think you're going to do by Tuesday? Did they think people were going to turn on the channel just because it had my name on it?" she said, sounding almost eager to cast doubt on her drawing power.
"People didn't turn on `The Oprah Winfrey Show' because my name was on it. It was absolutely topic driven every day," she said.
Such modest expressions aside, Winfrey's involvement clearly is key to the channel's success. She's glad to make the commitment, she said. As her longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham told her, she'd be bored silly today if she'd taken any lengthy break after ending her daytime show.
Discovery is also in it for "the long term," said spokesman Leavy, citing the three to five years that other cable channels have needed to develop audience-grabbing hits and firmly establish themselves.
He declined to specify what Discovery has spent so far on the venture, calling media estimates high. But he pointed to long-term advertising contracts with major companies including Procter & Gamble, and hopes of new carriage fees from cable providers that have been airing the channel for free.
Viewership that has been lower than expected, however, has meant "make goods" in ad time for sponsors.
Winfrey, who describes herself as obsessed by ratings for the first time in her career, said she's giving OWN "everything I've got. I've spent more energy doing this than anything I've ever done in my whole life."
With good reason. "I walked in today (to OWN's offices) and felt uplifted to see my name on the door, Oprah Winfrey Network," she said. "Just to ... be able to sit in a room with a team of people presenting you with ideas ? what a gift that is."
It has also made OWN her ultimate responsibility.
"Every third week, someone new was in charge, and now she's in charge. From where I sit, this is going to be her success or her failure," said analyst Carroll.
Winfrey claims to have an unlikely sounding Plan B if the channel falls short.
"If this doesn't work out, I'm going to go into organic farming in Maui. And I'm not kidding."
___
Online:
http://www.oprah.com/own
___
EDITOR'S NOTE ? Lynn Elber is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. She can be reached at lelber(at)ap.org.
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Reuters1.? Packers (No. 1; 14-1):? A week after they were erased as the penciled-in NFC champions, it could be time to break out the tattoo needle.
2. Patriots (No. 2; 12-3):? The Dolphins? ability to build a 17-0 lead shows what a team like the Ravens or Steelers could do in the postseason at Gillette Stadium.
3.? Saints (No. 3; 12-3):? The win over the Falcons reconfirmed how great the Saints are at home ? and it underscores how differently the Saints play when they leave the Superdome, which they?ll have to do sooner rather than later in the playoffs.
4.? 49ers (No. 4; 12-3):? In this season of go-go offenses, the Niners are the defense-wins-championships exception to the rule.
5. Ravens (No. 5; 11-4):? If the Ravens are going to play down to the level of the competition again this weekend, at least they won?t have to drop very far.
6. Steelers (No. 6; 11-4):? Entering Week 17 as the No. 5 seed in the AFC, the Steelers still could climb as high as No. 1.
7. Lions (No. 8; 10-5):? With the Eagles eliminated, the Lions are officially the most dangerous team in the NFC playoff field.
8. Bengals (No. 12; 9-6):? Andy Dalton gets one more chance to show that he can beat a division rival other than the Browns.
9. Falcons (No. 7; 9-6):? The good news is that they don?t have to deal with the agony of another close loss to the Saints.
10. Giants (No. 17; 8-7):? Brandon Jacobs will get a chance to ?shut up? another ?fat boy? this weekend, when the Cowboys and their defensive coordinator come to town.
11. Eagles (No. 20; 7-8):? Well, at least the Dream Team will fulfill its goal of winning the last game it plays in the 2011 season.
12. Cowboys (No. 11; 8-7):? If the Cowboys finish 0-4 against the Eagles and Giants, how can significant changes not be made?
13. Texans (No. 9; 10-5):? The last two games without Wade Phillips were perhaps the best case he could make for another shot at a head-coaching job.
14. Broncos (No. 10; 8-7):? If Kyle Orton pulls the plug on Tebowmania, John Elway may have to leave Denver permanently.
15. Raiders (No. 19; 8-7):? So is it better to not make the playoffs at all, or to make it and be blown out in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, or New England?
16. Jets (No. 15; 8-7):? If this team somehow sneaks into the playoffs, they could likewise sneak into the Super Bowl.? Where they would lose by 34 points.
17. Chargers (No. 13; 7-8):? Will A.J. Smith at least smile when he learns he?ll be getting paid for three years to not work?
18. Chiefs (No. 14; 6-9):? At the end of Saturday?s version of Romeo and Hue-liet, only one of the main characters died.
19. Seahawks (No. 16; 7-8):? Apparently, ?beat the hell of ?em? means ?lose by only two points.?
20. Cardinals (No. 18; 7-8):? Early Doucet was just a little late to the end zone.
21. Panthers (No. 22; 6-9):? They?re the perfunctory non-playoff team who will be on everyone?s playoff prediction list for 2012.? Including mine.
22. Titans (No. 23; 8-7):? Imagine how good this team would have been if Kenny Britt hadn?t torn an ACL.
23. Dolphins (No. 21; 5-10):? Imagine how good this team would have been if Chad Henne hadn?t . . . never mind.
24. Bills (No. 25; 6-9):? The far bigger miracle than any Tebow-driven win was a Buffalo blowout of the Broncos.
25. Bears (No. 24; 7-8):? Kahlil Bell may have cost Matt Forte a lot of money.
26. Redskins (No. 26; 5-10):? Evan Royster may have cost, um, someone a lot of money.
27. Jaguars (No. 27; 4-11):? With a loss to the Colts ensuring that the Jags won?t have to deal with Andrew Luck for the next 15 years, the team could be tempted to start its worst quarterback.? Then again, the worst quarterback on the team arguably is already the starter.
28. Browns (No. 28; 4-11):? Six days after Santa?s workshop shut down for the year, the ?factory of sadness? will be mothballed for seven months.
29. Vikings (No. 30; 3-12):? Even after Saturday?s win, this franchise seems to be getting too accustomed to losing.
30. Colts (No. 32; 2-13):? A win is a loss, and a loss is a win.? Either way, they lose.
31. Buccaneers (No. 29; 4-11):? Barring dramatic changes, the Bucs will own the basement of the NFC South for years to come.
32. Rams (No. 31; 2-13):? Stan Kroenke suddenly may be interested in swapping franchises with Shad Khan.
Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/27/week-16-power-rankings-2/related/
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MEXICO CITY ? When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming.
The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon," or hawk.
The radio signal travels deep into the countryside, hours by foot from the nearest road. There the branches of the 8-foot-tall rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in the dirt draws power from a solar panel. A signal-boosting repeater relays the message along a network of powerful antennas and repeaters that stretch hundreds of miles across Mexico, a shadow communications system that lets the cartel coordinate drug deliveries, kidnapping, extortion and other crimes with the immediacy and precision of a military or law-enforcement agency.
The Mexican army and marines have begun attacking the system, seizing hundreds of pieces of communications equipment in at least three operations since September that offer a firsthand look at a far-ranging and sophisticated infrastructure.
Current and former U.S. law-enforcement officials say the equipment, ranging from professional-grade towers to handheld radios, was part of a network that extended until recently from the U.S. border down Mexico's Gulf coast and into Guatemala.
The network let Zetas operatives conduct encrypted conversations without depending on the official cellphone network, which is relatively easy for authorities to tap into, and in many cases does not reach far into the countryside.
The Mexican army said on Dec. 4 that it had seized at least 167 antennas, 155 repeaters, 166 power sources, 71 pieces of computer equipment and 1,446 radios. The equipment has been taken down in several cities in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and the northern states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas.
The network was built around 2006 by the Gulf cartel, a narcotics-trafficking gang that employed a group of enforcers known as the Zetas, who had defected from Mexican army special forces. The Zetas split from the Gulf cartel in 2010 and have since become one of the nation's most dominant drug cartels.
The network's mastermind was Jose Luis Del Toro Estrada, a communications expert known as Tecnico who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine in federal court in Houston, Texas, two years ago.
Using millions of dollars worth of legally available equipment, Del Toro established the system in most of Mexico's 31 states and parts of northern Guatemala under the orders of the top leaders in the Gulf cartel and the Zetas. The Gulf cartel boss in each drug-smuggling territory was responsible for buying towers and repeaters as well as equipping underlings with radios, according to Del Toro's plea agreement.
Del Toro employed specialists to run the system and research new technology, according to the agreement.
Mexican authorities, however, presented a different picture of the cartel radio infrastructure, saying it was less monolithic than the one described by U.S. authorities.
In recent years, reporters traveling with the Mexican military have heard cartels using radio equipment to broadcast threats on soldiers' frequencies. The military official told the AP the signals are now encrypted, but cartels still try to break in.
At least until recently, the cartel's system was controlled by computers that enabled complex control of the radio signals, allowing the cartel to direct its communications to specific radios while bypassing others, according to Grupo Savant, an intelligence and security consulting firm in Washington.
The radio system appears to be a "low-cost, highly extendable and maintainable network" that shows the Zetas' sophistication, said Gordon Housworth, managing director of Intellectual Capital Group, LLC, a risk- and technology-consulting firm that has studied the structure and operations of Mexican cartels and criminal groups.
Other Mexican criminal organizations maintain similar radio networks, including the Sinaloa cartel, based in the Pacific coast state of the same name, and the Barrios Azteca street gang, which operates in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, a U.S. law-enforcement official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, saidid the Zetas' system is the largest.
The cartel has had little difficulty in replacing radio gear and other equipment seized in smaller operations in recent years. Contacts among highest-ranking Zetas operatives tend to take place in highly encrypted communications over the Internet, according to Grupo Savant.
In the state of Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas, many antennas are concealed in the foliage of the rockrose, an invasive shrub that's spread across much of the state's open land. Even from a few feet away it's hard to see the towers or power cables.
In Nuevo Laredo, the Zetas' first stronghold, antennas sprout from rooftops and empty lots. One soldier told the AP that even when authorities took down an antenna there, it was swiftly replaced.
Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5666144762
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New York Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire, left, gets tangled up with Boston Celtics power forward Kevin Garnett (5) in the first half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
New York Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire, left, gets tangled up with Boston Celtics power forward Kevin Garnett (5) in the first half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
New York Knicks' Carmelo Anthony, left, fouls Boston Celtics' Rajon Rondo during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, at Madison Square Garden in New York. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)
Boston Celtics' Rajon Rondo, right, loses the ball as he is fouled by New York Knicks' Carmelo Anthony during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, at Madison Square Garden in New York. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)
Boston Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo, on floor, holds onto the ball as he slips in front of New York Knicks guard Toney Douglas (23) and Knicks center Tyson Chandler in the second quarter of their NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden in New York, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks know it will never be easy against the Celtics.
Not beating them in one game, and certainly not beating them for a division title.
But pulling out the kind of nail biter that's long gone Boston's way in this rivalry only reinforced the Knicks' belief that they can do it ? and even the Celtics see a difference.
Anthony scored 37 points, including a pair of free throws with the game tied and 16 seconds left, and New York survived a seesaw season opener Sunday to edge the Celtics 106-104.
"Most importantly for us, as a new team, we showed something," Anthony said. "We came together as a team. Even when we got down, there wasn't no frowns. Nobody was down. Mentally everybody was still up about it, and we willed our way to this win."
Amare Stoudemire added 21 points and Toney Douglas had 19 for the Knicks, who led by 17 in the first half, trailed by 10 in the fourth quarter, then pulled out a thrilling Christmas victory in the delayed opener to the 2011-12 season. Tyson Chandler blocked six shots in his Knicks debut.
Rajon Rondo had 31 points and 13 assists, nearly leading the Celtics back without an injured Paul Pierce. But Kevin Garnett missed a jumper just before the buzzer, the kind of shot Boston always seems to make against the Knicks.
"They seem to have a little swag and confidence behind them," Garnett said. "It's good for the city. It's good for the Knicks. I'm going to see how consistent they are with that, but for the most part Carmelo played really well."
Brandon Bass had 20 points and 11 rebounds in his Celtics debut, and Ray Allen added 20 points.
Garnett finished with 15 points. He and Allen had a sleepy Christmas start, with Rondo keeping the Celtics in the game until they got going in the second half.
"I thought we were as soft as you could be in the first quarter and then I thought we joined in to the 2011-12 season, and from that point on I was pretty happy with the way we played," Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. "I thought we competed well."
But it wasn't enough against the Knicks, who withstood a costly knee injury to first-round pick Iman Shumpert to beat the team that swept them out of the first round of last season's playoffs. Shumpert will miss two to four weeks with a sprained right knee ligament.
Pierce has a bruised right heel but hopes he can return Tuesday when the Celtics visit the Miami Heat.
Even without him, the Celtics fought back to tie it at 69 on Rondo's layup midway through the third quarter. They surged ahead by eight going into the final period after Bass scored the final six points, then extended it to 89-79 on Bass' jumper to open the fourth.
Anthony, who scored 20 in the second half, tied the game at 100 on a 3-pointer with 3:25 to play. It stayed tight until he was fouled on a drive with 16.3 seconds left, making both for a 106-104 lead. Rondo grabbed the rebound of Marquis Daniels' potential go-ahead 3-pointer to give the Celtics a final chance, but Garnett was off on his jumper, then appeared to shove the Knicks' Bill Walker away.
Coming off their first winning season in a decade, the Knicks added a defensive presence by signing Chandler away from the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks and have loftier expectations than they've seen in years. The original NBA schedule had them opening against Miami, but instead they got a chance to see if they've closed the gap against Boston.
"I think we wanted to come out and set the tone early," Stoudemire said. "It's a long year but this game was very important for us to get off to a great start."
Though the Celtics won all eight meetings last season, the Knicks have been listed some places as the favorites in the Atlantic Division, which the Celtics have ruled since their Big Three came together in 2007.
"Everybody knows how optimism kicks in before the season starts, but then once reality sets in after the first month of the season, we'll see," Pierce said before the game. "But it's definitely a possibility. I mean, they have the talent, but we have the talent, too."
But the Knicks will be without newcomer Baron Davis for a few weeks because of a herniated disc in his back, and now Shumpert is out, leaving little depth in the backcourt.
The Knicks led 49-32 with 7? minutes left in the first half before the Celtics cut it to 62-52 at halftime.
The first game since renovations began at Madison Square Garden included the usual cast of celebrities such as Alicia Keys, Chris Rock and John McEnroe, and some new confusion, as at least one Celtics player had to ask how to get to the court from the new visitors' locker room.
Notes: Rivers said Pierce may come off the bench when he does return, since he's had only one practice so far. ... The Knicks were without Mike Bibby, who dressed but didn't play because of a sore back. Reserve Jared Jeffries was lost during the game to a sore right calf and will miss a week or two. ... Stoudemire provided pregame breakfast to MSG staff in appreciation of the support in his first season with the team.
___
Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney
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The Obama administration promised to help Nigeria find the people responsible for a wave of Christmas Day bombings that killed dozens in the oil-rich African nation.
?We have been in contact with Nigerian officials about what appear to be terrorist acts and pledge to assist them in bringing those responsible to justice,? White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.
Boko Haram, a Muslim sect, reportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks ? two of which targeted churches. A year ago, the group said it was behind holiday bombings that killed more than 90.
The first explosion occurred as services were ending at St. Theresa?s Church near the capital, Abjua. Yemi Ajayi, a police spokesman, said at least 20 people were killed.
Another blast, at a church in the central city of Jos, capital of Plateau state, killed a policeman, said Pam Ayuba, a spokesman for the state government.
A suspected suicide-bomber rammed a car into the entrance of the State Security Service building in the northeastern city of Damaturu, killing four people and the bomber, Victor Ebhaleme, a spokesman for the military task force in charge of security in the region, said by phone from Maiduguri.
The Boko Haram, a group that draws inspiration from Afghanistan?s Taliban movement, claimed responsibility for the Abuja church attack, the Abuja-based Trust newspaper reported, citing a spokesman for the group, Abu Qaqa. The claim couldn?t be independently verified.
The Vatican denounced the attacks, saying the church bombings were a sign of ?cruelty and absurd blind hatred that shows no respect for human life.
Authorities in Africa?s top oil producer blame the Boko Haram for a surge of violence in the mainly Muslim north and Abuja in which hundreds of people have died this year. At least 72 people have been killed in fighting since Dec. 22 between Nigerian security forces and the militant group in the northeastern city of Damaturu, officials said.
Boko Haram, which translates to ?Western education is a sin,? claimed responsibility for a suicide car-bomb attack on the United Nations building in the capital on Aug. 26 that killed 24 people. It also claimed several Christmas Eve blasts last year in Jos that left 80 people dead and another blast on New Year?s Eve at an Abuja military barracks that killed at least 12 people.
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Stakes is 56, but he could pass for a decade younger. He's a fireplug of a guy-tough like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas but without the menace. He's always on the verge of exploding with excitement, as if his own ideas are building up pressure inside him. Engineering terms run together in bursts of explanation and promised performance. He's a full-throttle optimist, certain that there's no challenge he can't overcome. The name Waldo, somehow, fits.
"The Sonic Wind Land Speed Research Vehicle will be the premier land speed car and the most powerful car ever seen on the planet," Stakes claims in his video tour of the project. "Nothing being built in Australia or Great Britain or planned by any nation will be able to touch this car in its velocity. And its stability will be second to none."
Stakes is a general contractor, but his career has never been the priority. In his small office, which overflows with drawings and designs, he reaches for a wooden model about 4 feet long that looks more like a dart than a car. It's the Sonic Wind. Stakes has been dreaming of it nearly his entire life and, since about 2003, spending nearly every waking moment trying to make it a reality.
Stakes's obsession with speed emerged during his knockabout Chicago-area childhood. "When I was 12 years old in 1967, I was eating some Cracker Jack, and the prize was a weirdly shaped little car," he says. "It was John Cobb's Railton Mobil Special-a car that went 394 mph in 1947. I couldn't believe a car could go that fast. By the time I was 14, I was already building model land speed cars and reading everything on missiles and rockets and aerospace that I could."
His formal education ended when he dropped out of Elgin Community College in 1974, but Stakes's passion for speed persisted. "When you study something for 40 years-and I don't mean just think about it, but study something-you can get to be pretty good at it," he says. "I have literally a thousand books on engineering and aerodynamics. Just everything."
Moving his family to Southern California in 1984 to be closer to the aerospace industry, Stakes was soon scouring scrapyards for parts he could use to build a rocket car. His most impressive find is a set of XLR99 rocket engines designed for NASA's legendary X-15, the stub-winged experimental plane that grabbed the flight speed record of 4520 mph in 1967 and has never let go. "Back in the '80s this stuff was considered scrap metal, and everyone was melting it down to recover the silver and gold from the brazed tubing," Stakes says. "But these engines weren't built that way. They're made from Inconel-X [an exotic alloy] and virtually indestructible. I think they cost $1500 each for four. I have two left. One for the car and a spare."
When it was pushing X-15 pilots such as Neil Armstrong past the boundaries of Earth's atmosphere, the XLR99 delivered up to 57,000 pounds of thrust, burning liquid oxygen and anhydrous ammonia. It's a throttled rocket, capable of operating between 50 and 100 percent thrust. Stakes is contemplating running it on a mix of methanol and liquid oxygen to produce up to 61,000 pounds of thrust.
Stakes also owns and plans to use two fuel tanks from a Redstone rocket, like the one that carried Alan Shepard into space in 1961, and pressure vessels from the Apollo spacecraft's service module. "This stuff is all well-tested and essentially fail-proof," he says.
Through the years, Stakes has worked on other land speed projects, including a BMW-powered streamliner motorcycle that set several records in the late '80s and an 1160-hp 1988 Ford Thunderbird that captured numerous records for cars with normally aspirated internal combustion engines. But Stakes is enough of a realist to recognize that the bar for admittance into what is now a supersonic club is set exponentially higher. "You can't just toss an old surplus turbojet engine into a homemade chassis anymore and go for it," he notes on a Sonic Wind website managed by his son Tone.
As Craig Breedlove explained in Popular Mechanics while he was unsuccessfully chasing a 750-mph record back in 1965, shock waves, aerodynamic instability, transonic local airflows and other "fatal gremlins" can easily wreck a car at Mach 1 speeds (761.2 mph at sea level). More than 20 engineers are working on a British bid to smash the sound barrier and hit 1000 mph in the Bloodhound SuperSonic car, and even after years of research and $15 million, they're not sure what will happen to their vehicle above 800 mph. Stakes believes the Sonic Wind could easily reach these speeds and go well beyond, but he doesn't even have a computer in his cluttered office.
Nevertheless, he claims to know how to keep the Sonic Wind from wrecking or taking fatal flight at transonic and post-Mach 1 speeds. "The idea is to use all the forces acting on the car to keep it stable during runs," he says. "The Sonic Wind's body changes plane slightly in the nose area. This anchors shock waves over the front wheels to increase the negative lift. These shock waves, along with the shocks that will radiate downward from the rear bi-wedge tail fins, will also be used in roll control."
At least, that's the theory. It's a theory that could use a few years of testing and refinement in an advanced wind tunnel. It's a theory that a driver may not want to risk his life on.
At the moment, the Sonic Wind isn't much more than its parts laid out where they'd be positioned in what Stakes envisions as a seven-wheeled beast that's 47 feet 4 inches long and 7 feet wide. Stakes gets help from friends in the land speed community, as well as the occasional moonlighting rocket scientist, but he alone is responsible for the design, handcrafting the scale models and assembling the vehicle.
To any outside observer, Stakes's chances of completing his rocket car-much less breaking any records with it-might seem vanishingly small. It's tempting to remind him of the need for wind-tunnel testing, trained engineers-heck, even just a computer. But then, how many of history's breakthroughs sprang from the passions of similarly obsessed, deeply impractical men-the Wright brothers, Lindbergh, Cousteau... Listening to Stakes spin out his vision of speed, you want to talk some sense to him, make him concede that he's in over his head. But then you don't. Does every dreamer need to build the first plane or fly the Atlantic? Is it so wrong to chase a dream that might truly be beyond your grasp?
Not long after Popular Mechanics visited his tiny workshop, Stakes learned that his landlord was nearly doubling his rent. Undeterred, he simply packed up his parts, plans and prototypes to a small ranch he bought on the outskirts of Apple Valley, deeper in the Mojave Desert. He says he could have handled the rent but actually prefers his new location. It's isolated, with fewer distractions, and he can work outside. But he won't be able to walk across the street for lunch at Del Taco anymore. "The best thing about working alone," he says, "is that you don't have to ask anyone to make changes."
Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/vintage-speed/is-a-2000-mph-car-actually-possible?src=rss
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Hanukkah, President Obama, Judaica, White House , Michelle Obama, Joe Biden
Price: $6.99
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This all-over first day cover for the 2011 USA Hanukkah stamp shows the President, Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at a White House Hanukkah reception.?? Fewer than 20 covers were made like this by Jack Ginsburg (GreatFDCs).? The 2011 Forever USA Hanukkah stamp was canceled with the OFFICIAL First Day of Issue postmarked at New York, NY, Oct. 14, 2011.? This terrific cover is suitable for framing. The cover is unaddressed and has an ungummed back flap, so it will be a long-lasting collectible. The envelope is in excellent condition. Makes a GREAT gift.? See seller?s other listings for more Hanukkah FDCs. I combine shipping so you only pay the shipping charge once for multiple items shipped together.
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BEIJING ? Protesters gathered Saturday outside a town hall in southern China to appeal for the release of people detained during demonstrations over a planned power plant expansion, a witness said.
About 1,000 people took part in the appeal in Haimen, on China's southeastern coast, said the witness, who was contacted by phone and refused to give his name. He said they talked with local officials, who promised to convey the appeal to their superiors. He said the crowd started to disperse after about two hours.
"There was no violence," the man said.
The government's Xinhua News Agency says five people were detained during protests this week against plans to expand the power plant. Residents complain that the plant has contributed to a rise in the number of local cancer cases and polluted seas, threatening local fishing.
On Friday, police fired tear gas at protesters, who included elderly men and women.
China has seen an upsurge in such protests over pollution following three decades of explosive growth and lax environmental enforcement.
Protests in Haimen started Tuesday when thousands of people besieged a government office and blocked a highway. Police used tear gas in an attempt to disperse them, and demonstrators hurled rocks, water bottles and bricks in return. Clashes broke out, injuring an unknown number of protesters and police, residents say.
The government said Tuesday that the power plant project would be temporarily suspended, according to Xinhua. But protesters said they have not heard directly from authorities and want the release of several protesters in their teens or early 20s.
Local access to the highway reopened Saturday after protesters who blocked the road dispersed Friday evening, said an employee who answered the phone at an adjacent filling station.
"I saw no protests today. Traffic is normal," said the man, who refused to give his name.
In September, hundreds of villagers in an eastern Chinese city near Shanghai demonstrated against pollution they blamed on a solar panel factory.
In August, 12,000 residents in the northeastern port city of Dalian protested against a chemical plant after waves from a tropical storm broke a dike guarding the plant and raised fears that floodwaters could release toxic chemicals.
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Busta says new collabo with Breezy, 'Why Stop Now, ' was 'organic.'
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Matt Elias
Busta Rhymes
Photo: MTV News
Could Busta Rhymes and Chris Brown be developing a long-lasting chemistry? The pair, along with Lil Wayne and the Dungeon Dragon, ruled airwaves in 2011 with their collaborative hit, "Look at Me Now," and now they're hoping for similar results with Busta's new single "Why Stop Now."
Though the title may suggest that the two singles are somehow related, Busta insists that his latest song with Breezy wasn't as methodically put together as people may think.
"I wasn't actually trying to capture the energy of ['Look at Me Now'] and bring it into this project," the newly signed Cash Money MC told MTV News while on the song's video set. "I just think that for me, especially at this stage in my career, I only do records with people that I respect."
The Diplo and Afrojack-produced "Look at Me Now" peaked at #1 on Billboard's Hot R&B/ Hip-Hop Songs Chart and was voted #9 on MTV's Best Songs of 2011 list. The Colin Tilley-directed video remained among the year's best, receiving multiple nominations at the 2011 VMAs. Not a bad track to build a blueprint off of.
The bass-rattling "Why Stop Now," which was produced by Sham "Sak Pase" Joseph, is reminiscent of "Look at Me Now," mostly because it features the same type of speed-rapping by Bus. But rather than a retread of a tried-and-true formula, Busta says the new collaboration came about much more organically. "It was just fortunate that I had something that worked well for what we do to be able to have another collab with him," he said. "If I didn't have that record, then we wouldn't be doing this video and we wouldn't have had another song out together.
"I'm just about making sure that the music ultimately speaks in the most organic way possible," he continued. "It doesn't just seem like something that we threw together to try and capitalize off of a momentum that was there."
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1676406/busta-rhymes-chris-brown-why-stop-now.jhtml
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Millions of Americans are hitting the nation?s highways and airports to visit loved ones this holiday season. NBC?s Tom Costello has a holiday traffic report.
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ISTANBUL (Reuters) ? Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused France of genocide in Algeria in the 1940s and 50s, in his latest response to a French parliament vote to make it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey was genocide.
Erdogan also said President Nicolas Sarkozy's father might have direct knowledge about French "massacres" in Algeria.
"In Algeria from 1945, an estimated 15 percent of the population was massacred by the French. This is a genocide," Erdogan said on live television.
"If the French President Mr Sarkozy doesn't know about this genocide he should go and ask his father, Paul Sarkozy.
"His father served in the French Legion in Algeria in the 1940s. I am sure he would have lots to tell his son about the French massacres in Algeria," the Turkish premier said.
Parliamentarians in France's lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of a draft law outlawing genocide denial Thursday, which the Senate will debate next year.
If passed, the bill would make it illegal to deny the 1915 mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks amounted to genocide. The issue has caused outrage in Turkey, which argues killings took place on all sides during a fierce partisan conflict.
Erdogan condemned the bill shortly after the vote, recalled Ankara's ambassador to France for consultations and cancelled all joint economic, political and military meetings. Friday, he vowed to take more steps.
"We will take gradual measures as long as the current (French) attitude is maintained," he said, without elaborating.
"The vote in the French parliament has shown how dangerous racism, discrimination and Islamophobia have become in France and Europe."
Although nearly a century has passed since the killings in the middle of World War One, successive Turkish governments and the vast majority of Turks feel the charge of Armenian genocide is an insult to their nation.
(Reporting by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? In a bid to end a worsening standoff over extending a tax break for Americans, President Barack Obama urged Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday to pass a short-term extension and return to talks on a year-long deal in the New Year.
While Boehner showed no immediate signs of backing down on his demand that Congress tackle the long-term deal to extend a payroll tax cut before it expires at year's end, calls for compromise in his own party grew. With 2012 elections looming, some Republicans fear they will be blamed for letting the tax bill rise on January 1 for 160 million Americans.
Obama telephoned Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, to stress his willingness to work with Congress to get an agreement on the expiring payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Obama asked Boehner and House Republicans to drop their opposition to a short-term measure that the Senate passed overwhelmingly at the weekend and signaled an unwillingness to reopen negotiations now, as Republicans are demanding.
Obama and many economists say the payroll tax cut is crucial to the country's fragile economic recovery.
"The president reiterated the need and his commitment to work with Congress to extend the payroll tax cuts for the entire year," Carney said, adding that the two-month extension negotiated by the Senate was "the only option to ensure that middle class families are not hit with a tax hike in 10 days."
While Obama is not reopening talks, his gesture on Wednesday might be seen as a nod to Republican demands. It came just hours after Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called for the president to get directly involved to resolve the dispute.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have been coming under heavy fire from fellow Senate Republicans and conservatives over their refusal to consider the two-month deal eked out by the Senate leadership on Friday night. Senate negotiators had been unable to agree on how to pay for a longer-term extension.
'WHEN PAYCHECKS GET SMALLER'
"The smartest thing for (House Republicans) to do would be to pass this (bipartisan Senate bill), live to fight another day and then push for a full-year extension," a senior Senate Republican aide said.
"If and when paychecks get smaller, people are going to ask, 'Why?'" the aide said. "We (Republicans) get the blame, Washington gets the blame and it won't be great for Senate Democrats either," the aide said.
The standoff caps a tumultuous year in U.S. politics that has raised serious concerns among both voters and investors about Washington's ability to make sound economic policy and slow the growth of its trillion dollar-plus deficit.
In the final days of the payroll tax cut debate, Republicans
are in unfamiliar territory after a year of largely winning the battle on taxes and budgets. They are now struggling to live up to their reputation as the party of lower taxes, while hardball tactics that had served them well before might now backfire.
Boehner's control over his caucus, which includes many Tea Party movement-aligned fiscal conservatives, has also come under increased scrutiny after House members revolted against the Senate deal.
Senate Democrats, sensing they have a political advantage on an issue that has sharply divided Republicans in the Senate and the House, are refusing to reopen negotiations. Most have already left Washington for the holidays.
The showdown has the potential to deliver a political lift to Obama and his Democrats at the expense of Republicans who want to make 2012 a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy.
"Obama doesn't have to offer that much right now," said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Princeton University. The Republicans are the ones that have come out looking bad. Obama isn't putting much on the table beyond saying think twice about this and let's reach an agreement."
Obama seemed to agree. After the calls to Boehner and Reid, he went Christmas shopping with dog Bo while his wife and daughters waited for him to join them in Hawaii.
EMPTY CHAIRS
The day started off with mounting pressure on Boehner and House Republicans to end the standoff, from Reid to fellow Republicans to the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal.
As the war of messages escalated, Boehner called reporters, photographers and TV crews to a room on Capitol Hill where he sat at a high-glossed wooden table flanked by Cantor and eight House Republican negotiators.
"We are here ready to do our work," Boehner said. Across the table were the empty chairs reserved for the Democratic negotiators.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal, which has often disagreed vehemently with Obama's economic policies, gave Republicans a scathing critique of their handling of the payroll tax cut issue, saying they "achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter."
The editorial urged Republicans "to cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly."
The Wall Street Journal editorial page often gives insight into the thinking of leading conservatives in U.S. business and politics. Wednesday's editorial, headlined "The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco" suggests widespread anxiety among conservatives over the House Republican tactics.
A number of Republican senators have also blasted their House colleagues over their handling of the issue.
Republican Senator Scott Brown said: "House Republicans would rather continue playing politics than find solutions" and added that their actions would damage a fragile economy.
If the Congress cannot reach a deal by December 31, the payroll tax American workers pay to fund the Social Security federal retirement program will rise immediately to 6.2 percent, from 4.2 percent.
Many economists and the White House warn that U.S. economic growth will suffer in 2012 as most workers would be hit with an effective $1,000-a-year tax hike.
(Writing by Ross Colvin and Mary Milliken, additional reporting by Caren Bohan, Laura MacInnis, Kim Dixon and Paul Eckert; Editing by Vicki Allen)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/ts_nm/us_usa_taxes
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Saturday's games
Steelers 21, Rams 6: The Steelers could do a lot worse than facing the Rams on a short week with a banged up quarterback.
Chiefs 23, Raiders 20: The Chiefs really seem to enjoy playing for Romeo Crennel. Meanwhile, Oakland's tribute season for Al Davis is fizzling out.
Patriots 27, Dolphins 17: One fateful weekend put the Patriots back in the driver's seat for the AFC's top seed. Will they capitalize?
Titans 20, Jaguars 10: Chris Johnson against the Jags' middling run defense (allowing 110.4 yards per game) isn't a good combination for Jacksonville.
Panthers 24, Bucs 13: Wonder if Cam Newton watched film of Tampa Bay's 30th-ranked defense this week and figured the Panthers can do even better than the 38 points they hung on the Bucs three weeks ago?
Cardinals 24, Bengals 21: This is a hunch pick based mainly on the fact that the Cardinals just seem to be finding ways to win, and the fact that the Bengals have lost four of six.
Ravens 27, Browns 14: At this point Baltimore has to be able to smell the AFC North title and ought to be able to avoid another letdown game.
Broncos 26, Bills 14: Apparently someone forgot to tell Bills fans that this Tebow guy is pretty good, because not many of them bought tickets to today's game.
Jets 27, Giants 20: The real question is which of these two front-running quarterbacks will come up with the bigger performance in a must-win game.
Vikings 26, Redskins 13: Remember the 381-yard, three-TD game Christian Ponder had against Denver three weeks ago? An encore is possible today.
Chargers 31, Lions 28: Potentially today's most entertaining game, probably decided by whichever team makes a big defensive stop. There might not be many.
49ers 17, Seahawks 13: This could go the other way. I really think it could. But I'm giving San Francisco's defense the edge against the improving Seahawks.
Eagles 33, Cowboys 27: Can the Eagles complete a regular-season sweep against the Ryan brothers? Can the Cowboys find a creative new way to lose?
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Sunday's game
Packers 27, Bears 14: The Packers still have something to play for, which is not encouraging news for the Bears, and especially not for Bears relief QB Luke McCown.
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Monday's game
Saints 28, Falcons 24: Two hot division rivals in the last Monday night game of the season. This could be fun to watch. Let's hope so.
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JOHN DUDLEY can be reached at 870-1677 or by e-mail.
Source: http://www.goerie.com/article/20111222/FOOTBALL04/312219885/John-Dudley's-Week-16-NFL-picks
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