World stocks fall ahead of EU summit (AP)

BANGKOK ? Asian stock markets fell Monday, with slower-than-expected growth in the U.S. and uncertainty about a tentative deal to resolve Greece's debt crisis weighing on investor sentiment.

Benchmark oil slipped to near $99 per barrel while the dollar rose against the euro but fell against the yen.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index shed 0.6 percent to 8,789.04. South Korea's Kospi was 1.3 percent lower at 1,939.90 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 0.5 percent to 20,401.32. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent at 4,272.70.

Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia, India and the Philippines also fell. Shares in mainland China were mixed after being closed for a week for Chinese New Year holidays. Taiwan and New Zealand rose.

European leaders were to meet later Monday in Brussels to discuss austerity and belt-tightening measures as well as a tentative deal reached Saturday between Greece and its private investors that could avert a disastrous Greek default on its debt.

If the deal holds and works, it will help prevent a potential shock to the world banking system. But it doesn't resolve the weakening economic conditions in Greece and other European nations as they rein in spending to get their debts under control.

Stan Shamu of IG Markets in Melbourne said that "the Greece debt issues will remain a source of uncertainty and might dampen the risk mood ahead of the EU summit today."

Under the agreement, investors holding 206 billion euros ($272 billion) in Greek bonds would exchange them for bonds with half the face value. The replacement bonds would have a longer maturity and pay a lower interest rate.

The deal would reduce Greece's annual interest expense from about 10 billion euros to about 4 billion euros. When the bonds mature, Greece would have to pay its bondholders only 103 billion euro.

Some analysts said stocks were taking a breather after post-New Year rallies in several markets that were spurred by signs of improvement in the U.S. economy and Europe's debt crisis stabilizing. Hong Kong's Hang Seng, for example, is up more than 11 percent since the beginning of the year. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 is 5.7 percent higher.

"Probably it's a case of the market getting a little bit tired. We've had quite a significant rally now, and that's been based on some news that was mildly encouraging out of Europe," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney.

"But we may have arrived at a level where the market will need a bit further concrete evidence and news to continue the rally," Spooner said.

Gold-related stocks rose after the precious metal posted a nearly 1 percent gain Friday, as disappointing U.S. economic growth boosted the metal's safe-haven appeal. Lao Feng Xiang Co. Ltd., a major gold retailer, rose 1.1 percent in Shanghai.

Shares of CNK International, a South Korean mineral development company, plunged 14.9 percent after company executives were implicated in a stock manipulation scheme, Yonhap News agency said.

Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corp. plummeted 13 percent after the Defense Ministry and the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center said they would not sign contracts with the electric machinery manufacturer, which acknowledged it had overcharged on defense and space-related projects, Kyodo News agency reported.

On Wall Street, stocks mostly fell Friday after the government said the U.S. economy grew more slowly than expected in the last three months of 2011.

The economy grew at an annual rate of 2.8 percent in the October-December quarter. That was the fastest of 2011 but lower than the 3 percent that economists were looking for.

Traders are awaiting more data this week for clues about which way the U.S. economy is headed. On Wednesday, the Institute for Supply Management will release its manufacturing index for January. The Labor Department will release monthly employment data Friday.

"Because the market has been expecting rather good economic data from the U.S. ... I am afraid if those figures disappoint the market, it may trigger further correction in the stock market," said Louis Wong, dealing director of Phillip Securities Ltd.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.6 percent to 12,660.46. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 0.2 percent to 1,316.33. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.4 percent to 2,816.55.

Benchmark oil for March delivery was down 50 cents to $99.06 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 14 cents to end at $99.56 per barrel on the Nymex on Friday.

In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3179 from $1.3208 late Friday in New York. The dollar fell to 76.67 yen from 76.72 yen.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

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The Benefit of Investing in Assets | ArticleGoes - Free Dofollow ...

If you have been looking for a way to cushion both you and your family from a dire financial situation then you should consider making investments.

If you have been looking for a way to cushion both you and your family from a dire financial situation then you should consider making investments. With the current economic state, several people are opting not to invest in company shares; well there is good news for such people and that is investing in assets. Investing in assets will guarantee you safe investments. Therefore you will be at peace knowing that your investment is fully secure. There are guidelines to follow in order to guarantee that your asset investment gives you good returns or profits in the long run.

When investing in assets, you should ensure that the asset you are investing in is an asset that is in high demand. It would be pointless to spend your money purchasing an item that nobody needs and that is why demand should be high, that way the asset will never lack a ready market. The higher the demand then the higher you can charge for it and once you feel you are ready to move on; you can sell the asset at a higher price than you bought it. All in all investing in assets is a productive path to go down on.

There are several benefits that come along with this venture one of them being a predictable investment return. Let us take for example shipping containers, the demand for them is quite high since there are several items being traded across seas each and every day and you can be sure that their demand will never run out. By closely looking at the market, you can be able to predict the average return you will get from shipping containers investment. This will give you the chance to clearly review all your options before making the investment.

Investing in assets is a good path to follow and more so when the assets are shipping containers. To begin with, the asset is not that hard to acquire; you can make your purchase directly via the manufactures or you can opt to make your purchase via a company that leases containers. The latter would be a better option because you can go back to the leasing company to provide you with hard asset management. This basically means that once you have your shipping containers, you can entrust them to lease it on your behalf at a cost.

This would be a good option because they have an endless supply of clients waiting to lease a shipping container. This will eliminate the burden of having to look for the clients yourself and that is in itself the beauty of hard asset management. The only thing left for you to do would be to go home and wait for your returns or benefits to come in. A payment system is formed depending on the number of shipping crates you own and your personal interest. If you have been looking for high yield investments then shipping containers investment is definitely worth your consideration. Try the venture today and you will never regret your decision.

Resources:

Pacific Tycoon is the author of this article on High Yield Investments.
Find more information on Predictable Investment Return here.

Source: http://articlegoes.com/the-benefit-of-investing-in-assets.html

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Rashad Evans earns title shot with UFC on Fox 2 decision

CHICAGO -- In a bout to decide the next light heavyweight title contender, Rashad Evans controlled Phil Davis on his way to a unanimous decision at the United Center on Saturday night. The judges saw it 50-45 on all three cards for Evans.

Davis landed a spinning leg kick, then ducked low into a takedown. Evans pushed him into the fence and fended off the takedown attempt. Every time Davis came in to try to get the takedown, Evans made him pay with a punch or two. Evans got a takedown at the 1:30 point of the first round, then moved to side control. From there, he put Davis into a crucifix hold and landed a bevy of short punches.

In the second round, Evans was aggressive, landing several punches early in the round. They clinched, but things slowed down considerably. They had a few striking exchanges, with Evans coming out on top. In the last 30 seconds, Evans took Davis down and again landed punches from side control.

[ Related: Evans earns his UFC title shot vs. Jones ]

Davis shot in for a takedown to start the third round. Davis drove him against the fence until he finally got the takedown. Evans reversed position and landed several lefts to Davis' face. They returned to their feet, and Davis got another takedown, and Evans returned to his feet while Davis held on for dear life.

Early in the fourth round, Davis landed a punishing rib kick, but Evans did not slow down. He continued to move forward, stalking Davis around the cage. When Davis shot in for a takedown, Evans fended him off before getting a takedown of his own.

Evans started the fifth round with a huge strike, and then held off Davis' attack. Evans caught a kick, then as he held the single leg, punched Davis until he went down. He stretched Davis into side control, and continued to land punches even as Davis worked to his feet. Evans controlled the rest of the round the way he controlled the whole fight.

With this win, Evans should punch his ticket for a fight with Jon Jones. The UFC announced Saturday that Jones' next bout will be in April in Atlanta. As long as Evans is healthy, the bout should be his.

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Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/rashad-evans-earns-title-shot-ufc-fox-2-031605165.html

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Karen Dalton-Beninato: Brad Pitt and the Business of Making it Right (PHOTOS)

"Blogger Karen Dalton-Beninato sent me this beautiful picture of the project Brad Pitt is working on..."

Five years ago, Arianna Huffington posted my husband's photo of pink tents in a planned green community in New Orleans. That was two years post Hurricane Katrina levee failures, and it often felt like New Orleans was stuck in neutral.

It was 2007 and the 9th Ward still looked like an overgrown prairie strewn with concrete slabs, all that was left of most houses near the Industrial Canal. Residents were coming back to FEMA trailers, if they could get one, and gutted out homes. In the years since then, Make It Right NOLA has assembled a living study in sustainable architecture for returning residents.

"After Hurricane Katrina, many people said the Lower 9th Ward could not be rebuilt, but the spirit of the Lower Ninth and its residents is vibrant and resilient," Brad Pitt recently said through his Foundation. "Today, the neighborhood is growing and alive with new homes, playgrounds, gardens and block parties. With the help of generous partners like Hyatt, Make It Right will fulfill our goal of building 150 sustainable homes for those in this community who lost everything in the storm." Pitt is hosting a March 10th MIR benefit at the newly reopened Hyatt Regency in New Orleans, and the Hyatt is underwriting the cost of the event so proceeds go to rebuilding. Pitt also took to Google + to announce the event.

Why the focus on New Orleans, and Pitt and Jolie's move to the French Quarter? Robert Kinney described it as well as anyone in his 1941 guidebook, The Bachelor in New Orleans: "New Orleans is the lotus land, to which all travelers return - once visited, it haunts you, calling your blood always."

"I'm from New Orleans, I love New Orleans and I love that Make It Right continues to help the people there rebuild their beautiful city," event co-chair Ellen DeGeneres said of the project. "Brad Pitt is amazing - not only for what he started, but also because, who else can make a hard hat look like a jaunty fall fashion accessory?"

DeGeneres will be joining my friend Mac Rebennack a/k/a Dr. John, and other NOLA natives Wendell Pierce, the Neville Brothers and Mayor Mitch Landrieu at the benefit. And they will be joined by Seal, Rihanna, Sheryl Crow, Randy Jackson, Josh Brolin, Chris Paul, Djimon Hounsou, Spike Lee, Blake Lively, Sean Penn, and Kevin Spacey, with dinner prepared by chefs John Besh, Giada DeLaurentiis and Emeril Lagasse. Aziz Ansari of Parks and Recreation is hosting the after-party. With all the celebrities expected, it would probably be shorter to list who's not coming.

The event will sprint the project to its final goal of 150 platinum LEED certified homes in its 16-block neighborhood, and eventually help Make it Right move into helping Pitt's home territory of Joplin, Missouri with what they've learned from rebuilding green in New Orleans.

Steve Ragan is MIR's Development Director, and he walked us through the neighborhood's homes. We started out at the one that was built to float, designed by Tom Mayne of Morphosis Architects. Modular construction was assembled at UCLA, shipped to New Orleans and reassembled as the first home in the United States permitted for a floating foundation. All the connections to utilities are flexible tubing and piping, and if the home did begin to float they would be safely cut leaving its two masts to support it, Ragan explained. "It's probably our most cutting edge design. If we opened our program up to young hipsters, it would have sold quickly." The home eventually sold to an older man who needed a smaller space than the multi-generational homes occupied by many of his neighborhood.

"The most important thing is the immediate good for people who live here," Ragan says. "Second most important is advancing construction of energy efficient homes. Third, if you can imagine, is having the final neighborhood of 150 homes designed by 21 of the greatest architects in the world. In 20 years the people who will be touring the homes hopefully won't be thinking of them as advanced technology any more, but because they're architecturally significant."

Landscaping is largely made up of indigenous plants that help soak up water. Make it Right has patented a permeable concrete with 100 percent drainage throughout the development, and Ragan pours his coffee onto the surface to show us how quickly it disappears. That drainage also helped along with gray water collected beneath the homes. One of MIR's contractor was at a funeral and thought of using concrete crypts under the residents' homes to collect gray water. It's the right size, half the cost of building a container and feels appropriate in a city where dancing at funerals is not out of the norm.

Homes are built at least 4 feet off the ground, but MIR encourages residents to go higher. Residents have skin in the game, typically paying $75,000 with the rest of the $150,000 subsidized with a forgivable mortgage. With solar panels, Energy Star appliances and every possible new green technology on hand, only two homes in the development regularly use more energy than they produce, and those are multi-generational.

"If we had not focused on one area, we would have been able to build faster but people would have been pioneers sitting on their own," Ragan said. He's seen the crawfish boils, family reunions and arrivals of other developers as the area came to life. The 9th Ward was at 80 percent home ownership before Katrina, families who had lived there before the Industrial Canal was built and passed their homes down through generations. Some former residents are now back home, with green rooftop decks offering a view across the river.

"Homeowners choose their home as long as it's something that through our assistance they can afford. They're treated with the same respect, able to make the same decisions about design as a private developer would," Ragan said. "You can see some differences between first of the homes and later. We've managed as we've gone along with every iteration of homes to increase energy efficiency and lower costs. It's great when you can get an academic architect to take pause and say, 'how did you do that?"

It's something to see, and the visitors are coming in ever-increasing numbers. "I counted tour buses one day, and we were at 48," Ragan said. That number will only grow, with the Hollywood of the South bringing even more tourists to New Orleans. The Pugh Scarpa home we walked through had far more natural light than you would expect from the exterior view. Window direction adds to passive heating and cooling technologies, much like early Creole homes in the French Quarter. In the morning, the home is flooded with light. But by afternoon, the side with fewer windows, all hurricane resistant, cools the home down. Wireless lighting systems save on wiring costs, and directed vents at the top of the wall where hot air rises help cool the house faster. The architects are clearly familiar with Louisiana summers. Floors are reclaimed pine, and all the paint in the home is VOC-free. "We haven't had hard data, but anecdotally children who suffer from asthma have fewer problems once they move in." Architects meet with stakeholders early on, and the project has focused on residents who had lived in the Lower 9th Ward. One of the main design alterations requested has been larger porch and terrace areas for neighborhood socializing.

"I just love to come out here on a Saturday," Ragan said. "You've got construction crews working, you've got homeowners socializing, this neighborhood has come back to life. Architects talk about how architecture engages people. Tourists come outside, and a homeowner will come out and start explaining the home to them. Then another will come out and say, let me tell you about mine."

Plantings and mulch are available to community members. And the Make it Right playground, made of recycled materials, has wi-fi installed so children can compete with children in a playground on the other side of the world with the same system installed. Bayou Bienvenue backs up to the development, but its original cypress trees were killed off years ago as canals brought saltwater intrusion from the Gulf to the city. An older man walks up and reminisces about the years when the bayou was fresh water and the cypress trees grew. He talks about trapping and walking through the bayou, pointing to the stumps that now exist.

We meet Robert Green, a Make it Right resident and its unofficial ambassador. "I've been fortunate enough to be here when most people come by," he said. Green asked for the Waiting for Godot sign from the 9th Ward production starring Pierce, so the front of his house greets visitors with words by Samuel Beckett. Green often takes people into his home to show them construction, which he's proud of. His was the second lot in the program, and he bought the adjacent lot through the city's Lot Next Door program. He's considered putting in a gazebo.

Green was sent back from the Superdome when they couldn't offer adequate help to his mother who had Parkinson's Disease. So the family returned home, and the next day the water started rising. Green saved two of his granddaughters, but he lost his mother and granddaughter in the floodwaters that came through the broken levee on August 29, 2005. A marker for each rests in front of his home, under his Waiting for Godot sign.

A country road. A tree. Evening.

Details on A Night to Make It Right are available at: nighttomakeitright.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-daltonbeninato/brad-pitt-and-the-busines_b_1239228.html

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Mitt Borrows Brokaw to Hit Newt (TIME)

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Obama Borrows from Republicans in State of Union Speech (ContributorNetwork)

Barack Obama ripped off key components of Jon Huntsman's stump speech during his State of the Union address. Obama also recycled Rick Perry's rhetoric and borrowed from Newt Gingrich.

Manufacturing Renewal

Huntsman "made increasing American manufacturing a central tenet of his economic platform" according to Shira Schoenberg of the Boston Globe. It was a centerpiece of his stump speech when he crisscrossed New Hampshire prior to the primary. Huntsman predicted that jobs that had been off-shored were going to be repatriated to the U.S. as foreign countries were losing their cost-competitiveness.

In Peterborough, Huntsman said, "That window is open and we need new policies to take advantage of it," according to the Bangor Daily News.

During his State of the Union address, Obama talked about his "blueprint for an economy that's built to last -- an economy built on American manufacturing," according to the White House transcript.

Obama also adopted Huntsman's "nation building here at home" theme. Huntsman had said the U.S. should not remain behind in Afghanistan for the purpose of nation building. Praising a "new greatest generation" of military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, Huntsman called for nation building here at home.

Talking about the military and his boosting of the Veterans Administration budget, Obama said, "it means enlisting our veterans in the work of rebuilding our nation."

Trust Deficit

Obama also borrowed the climax of Huntsman's stump speech, his "Trust Deficit" theme. Obama vowed to levy a fee on banks to aid mortgage holders whose homes are underwater as it "will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust."

Huntsman took a hard-line against big banks, denouncing the "too big to fail" ethos, according to the Bangor Daily News. Huntsman proposed taxing America's six largest banks to raise revenue to reduce taxes on non-financial corporations, according to Time Magazine.

Obama adopted the same policy, but named a different beneficiary.

Later, Obama said, "I've talked tonight about the deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad -- and it seems to get worse every year."

During the January 7 GOP presidential debate, Huntsman said, "...[W]e have a serious trust deficit in this nation. The American people now longer trust our institutions of power. And they no longer trust our elected officials," according to the Washington Post transcript.

Perry & Gingrich

When articulating his energy policy, Obama used Rick Perry's "all-of-the-above" phraseology.

In a May 2010 speech on educational financing, Perry said, "Texas has more nuclear power plants under development than any other state?as we continue to pursue our all-of-the-above strategy to meet our state's power needs," according to his official Web site. It's a phrase Perry used during his presidential campaign.

According to Time, Obama purloined the title of Newt Gingrich's book, "Winning the Future" when he told Congress "Don't let other countries win the race for the future."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120127/pl_ac/10890023_obama_borrows_from_republicans_in_state_of_union_speech

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Apple, Google, 5 Others To Be Denied Dismissal Of ?No Poach? Conspiracy Case

7 of the world's most powerful tech companies have been accused of forming an antitrust conspiracy to suppress the compensation of their employees by entering into "no poach" agreements. Today, a San Jose judge will heard a motion to dismiss a class action civil lawsuit in which former employees seek damages from defendants Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, and Lucasfilm. The damning evidence against the defendants from a 2010 Department of Justice investigation and the plaintiffs' statement indicate there is more than sufficient evidence for the case to proceed towards trial. If the defendants lose to or settle, tens of thousands of full-time employees of these companies could be compensated. [Update 4:30pm PST : The judge says "This case is going to survive the motion to dismiss", meaning she'll almost surely deny the defendants' motion to dismiss the case when she soon files her official ruling.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-i-g4KE_G5o/

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Liverpool v Manchester United: Gerrard Calls for Kop to Focus on Football

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard. REUTERS

Steven Gerrard has urged Liverpool supporters to be "responsible" ahead of Saturday's FA Cup fourth-round clash at Anfield.

The Liverpool captain's sober remarks are in stark contrast to Wednesday's jubilation at reaching the Carling Cup final and demonstrate the club's concern over the upcoming visit of fierce rivals Manchester United.

Saturday's lunchtime kick-off will be the first meeting of the two sides since the race row between Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez erupted in October. Suarez remains suspended after the Football Association upheld Evra's allegations. The Uruguayan will serve the seventh game of his eight-match suspension after being found guilty of racially abusing the Manchester United defender.

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Up to 6,000 Manchester United fans are expected at Anfield on Saturday and Gerrard has called on the home support make the occasion a day to remember, for the right reasons.

"We all have a responsibility on Saturday to ensure that this game is remembered for the football," Gerrard told the official Liverpool Web site.?

"Liverpool and Manchester United is a massive rivalry and of course there is going to be stuff in the papers and banter between fans, but it would be fantastic if after the weekend it is remembered for being a top game and obviously, from our point of view, a Liverpool win.

"We don't want any front page stories from this game or any stories besides a football match between two top sides."

Meanwhile, Stewart Downing insists he is starting to find his best form in a Liverpool shirt, after Dalglish singled the winger out for praise last weekend.

"It was very nice to hear. The manager has been really good to me from the first day I came," Downing said."He's given me lots of confidence - and it's the same with every other player.

"He's great to play for. That's all you want as a player - a manager who is honest with you, who gives you the confidence to go out and play.

"I started quite brightly, then was in and out, and now I'm starting to pick up form again.

"I want to play all the time but the only way I can do that is to play well. I've got to keep my head down and work hard, and the last couple of weeks I'm pleased with how it's gone personally."

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Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/288544/20120127/liverpool-v-manchester-united-gerrard-calls-kop.htm

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Video: Meet the glam-mas who are bringing ?sassy? back!

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Tim Cook unveils new Apple employee benefits at Town Hall staff meeting

Tim Cook has apparently unveiled some new Apple employee benefits at yesterdays Town Hall meeting. According to 9to5Mac, the meeting was all about giving something back to the

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LA mayor signs law requiring condoms in porn films (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Actors in adult movies filmed in Los Angeles will be required to use condoms under an ordinance signed into law by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and porn industry leaders say the regulation could lead them to abandon the nation's porn capital.

The law, signed Monday, will take effect 41 days after it is posted by the city clerk, something that could happen as early as this week.

Officials with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which lobbied for years for such a law, expressed jubilation Tuesday and said they would now turn their attention to getting a similar condom requirement adopted elsewhere.

"The city of Los Angeles has done the right thing. They've done the right thing for the performers," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which had pushed the measure for six years.

He said its adoption is crucial in protecting adult film actors from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Weinstein said his group's next move will be to get Los Angeles County to adopt a similar measure for its unincorporated areas.

The group is in the midst of a petition drive to put the issue on the ballot, but Weinstein said he hopes the county's Board of Supervisors will react as the Los Angeles City Council did and pass such an ordinance itself. The council gave its final approval last week.

Industry officials estimate as many as 90 percent of the porn films produced in the United States are made in Los Angeles. Most are filmed quietly in the city's suburban San Fernando Valley.

After the council's action, several of the industry's biggest filmmakers said they might consider moving just outside the county. That prompted Simi Valley Mayor Bob Huber to announce last week that he would ask the city attorney for his community, located just across the county line from the San Fernando Valley, to write a similar ordinance.

Weinstein said Tuesday his group would also be vigilant in keeping track of where porn producers might go.

Exactly how the law will be enforced is still to be determined.

It calls for makers of porn films to pay a fee, the amount still to be determined, that would be used to pay for spot checks at filming locations.

The City Council is creating a committee to determine the amount of the fee and who would make the spot checks.

Weinstein said he envisions enforcement would fall on nurses or other public health providers.

"It is not anticipated, based on what we desire or what has been discussed, that it would be uniformed police officers," he said.

Weinstein said he would be open to working with industry leaders to enforce the law.

He noted the ordinance does not require condoms when oral sex is involved because his group, which originally crafted it, agreed with the filmmakers that infection through oral sex was not as great as through other sex acts.

The industry already requires that actors be tested for HIV every 30 days, and filmmakers say they believe that is sufficient.

"It's not that I don't doubt the sincerity of their desire to protect the talent. And believe it or not, we have the same ambition," Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel Productions, said last week after the council's vote.

"We just don't believe their way is the best way," added Mann, who is also on the board of directors of the industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_en_ot/us_porn_condoms

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MediaFire CEO: Unlike Megaupload, our business model isn&#39;t built ...

As the strange case of file-sharing site Megaupload continues to unfold, many wonder if the federal government will begin to clamp down on similar sites that function like Megaupload, with easy sharing and hosting of copyrighted files.

Already, two well-known file-sharing services, Uploaded.to and Filesonic have disabled several features of their sites this weekend because of the Megaupload scandal. Others are sure to follow.

But Derek Labian, CEO of popular cloud-based file-hosting site MediaFire, told VentureBeat in an interview today that he isn?t too concerned about the government going after his company because, unlike Megaupload, MediaFire doesn?t incentivize piracy.

?We don?t have a business built on copyright infringement.? Labain said. ?Like many other cloud-based sharing services like Box.net and Dropbox, we?re a legitimate business targeting professionals.?

When it comes to Megaupload, Labian described Kim Dotcom and his organization as ?shady? and said the $175 million in revenues the company made should give people pause. He noted that Megaupload?s structure gave users monetary rewards for uploading pirated content. Users of the service could upload without a cap but users who want to download a large file (or download it faster) would have to pay for it. Those who uploaded the best files would be given free account upgrades or even cash.

?Megaupload was making a ridiculous amount of money with a ridiculously bad service,? Labian said. ?We frankly don?t see ourselves in the same space.?

A little more background on MediaFire: The privately funded company out of Woodlands, Tex. was founded in 2006 and has steadily offered better ways to host and share large files. Because it offers an incredibly easy to way to share 200MB files for free with other people, the company has attracted employees at 86 percent of the Fortune 500 for sending files that are too large for e-mail. It offers unlimited downloads and file storage, and if you want to upload larger files with long-term storage, you can pay $9 a month for a Pro account or $49 a month for a Business account.

But the company?s free file-sharing solution can also be used easily for sharing copyrighted files, especially music, with friends, relatives or anyone on the web. A Google search for a song name, an artist name and ?MediaFire,? for example, will likely bring you to a copy of that file that can easily be downloaded from a MediaFire page.

When asked about the Googling issue, Labian said that MediaFire is a ?private service? and the only reason Google indexes a MediaFire page is when it has been shared by a user on a third-party site. He said MediaFire isn?t at fault for this and said Google should look into the issue.

?We try to steer clear of things that would attract scrutiny,? Labian said. ?If people are pirating on our service, we don?t want those people to use it.?

Another reason Labian said he wasn?t worried about the government stepping in is because the company maintains a ?good relationship? with various government bodies, including ?Homeland Security, ICE, and the FBI.? Following DMCA protocols, whenever MediaFire is notified of a copyrighted file being shared inappropriately, the company immediately takes it down.

As for the future, MediaFire is optimistic about what?s to come. Labian said the company has been working for a year on its next set of products, which will emphasize collaboration and focus on business users. He teased what was coming by saying that cloud storage providers Box.net and Dropbox significantly disrupted the cloud storage space, but MediaFire would do it next.

?This is a tough market to be in, but we?re constantly looking to innovate,? Labian said. ?Sharing will always be important, but it?s not the only important aspect for our customers.?

Previous Story: Ex-con looking to fund over 15,000 inventions designed while?incarcerated

Tags: cybercrime, cybercriminals, file hosting, file sharing, piracy

Companies: Filesonic, MediaFire, megaupload, Uploaded.to

People: Kim Dotcom

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/22/mediafire-megaupload-business-model-piracy/

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Rogers Communications violates Canadian net neutrality rules over ...

The Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission recently ruled that Rogers Communications, one of the largest internet service providers in Canada, has violated federal net neutrality rules. Last year, I wrote a few Lawbringers about the subject, which discussed what Rogers had to actually do to escape violation of certain internet traffic throttling complaints. Basically, Rogers was making WoW players' internet access slower because WoW looked like peer-to-peer traffic on their network.

Rogers is finally going to have to answer for the throttling issues, even after all of the requests and demands to change their packet inspection protocols. The communications company has until Feb. 3 at noon to respond to the complaints about internet throttling or face a hearing with the CRTC board.

Hopefully, the same type of rules can make their way to America, where internet service is abysmally slow and throttled like crazy. Prior to the Cataclysm launch, Blizzard released the new WoW client, which used a peer-to-peer system to upload and download information, patches, data, and all that jazz. This data accidentally triggered internet service providers' bandwidth alerts for torrent traffic and was subsequently throttled to lower speeds. After realizing that many users were experiencing lag issues with the new launcher and their ISPs, Blizzard began its outreach to ISPs in order to work together to fix the problem. A year later, people are still having problems, and Rogers in Canada has admitted to throttling WoW bandwidth.

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Tags: bandwidth, canada, internet-service-provider, isp, isps, lag, lawbringer, net-neutrality, rogers, rogers-violation, throttling

Filed under: News items

Source: http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/01/24/rogers-communications-violates-canadian-net-neutrality-rules-ove/

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First post-Mubarak parliament holds session

An Egyptian couple passes a security checkpoint on the road leading to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

An Egyptian couple passes a security checkpoint on the road leading to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Egyptian police stand guard at a checkpoint on the road leading to the to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Egyptian protesters chant anti government slogans outside the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

An Egyptian woman passes a security checkpoint on the road leading to the People's Assembly building during the opening session in Cairo, Egypt Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

An Egyptian protester carries a banner that reads in Arabic, "freedom for the political prisoners," outside of the People's Assembly building during the opening session of parliament in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 23, 2012. The parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday, with Islamists dominating the 498-seat chamber that will oversee the drafting of a new constitution. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

CAIRO (AP) ? With Islamists comprising the overwhelming majority of its lawmakers, the parliament elected in Egypt's first legislative vote after Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly a year ago held its inaugural session on Monday.

The convening of the new parliament is a significant benchmark in the timetable provided by the generals who took over from Mubarak for the handover of power to a civilian administration.

It is also a step forward for Islamist groups on the road to becoming the strongest political force in the nations that experienced Arab Spring revolts. Islamists dominated elections first in Tunisia and then in Egypt, and Libya's Islamists are also expected to do well in parliamentary voting later this year.

The Egyptian chamber's top priority is to elect a 100-member panel to draft a new constitution, which will have to be put to a vote in a nationwide referendum.

The next major step in the transition will be presidential elections, scheduled to be held before the end of June, when the generals are due to step down.

"The era of political exclusion is over," said Saad el-Katatni, an Islamist lawmaker from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest and best organized political group. He was expected to win the position of speaker.

The Brotherhood has been banned for most of its 84-year history, legalized only after the 18-day popular uprising in early 2011 that ousted Mubarak.

Elections which started on Nov. 28 and ran into January were the freest in Egypt's modern history. Elections for parliament's upper chamber, a largely toothless body known as the Shura Council, will begin later this month.

The outcome of the elections reflect the strength of the Islamists in Egypt, a mainly Muslim nation of some 85 million people that has grown steadily more religiously conservative over the past 40 years.

The Brotherhood spearheaded the Islamist victory in Egypt, winning just under half of all the seats.

In second place to the Brotherhood came another Islamist group, the ultraconservative Salafis, with nearly a quarter of the seats.

The liberal and left-leaning groups that organized the anti-Mubarak uprising garnered less than 10 percent of the seats. Many of them were not as well prepared for the vote as the Islamists, particularly the Brotherhood, whose members have over years of underground work acquired a high degree of discipline and loyalty.

Several of these lawmakers wore yellow scarves saying, "No to military trials for civilians," a reference to the hauling of at least 12,000 civilians before military tribunals since the generals took over power in February last year.

The Islamists' dominance was obvious in Monday's session, where many lawmakers sported long beards, clerical turbans or flowing robes.

"We are here because the People's Assembly (parliament) is all Islamists," said Mina Samir, a protester in his early 20s who was among several thousand demonstrators near the parliament building calling for an end to military rule. "Now we have a military power supporting a conservative power. That's why I am here."

Some of the protesters wore masks made out of photographs of those killed or wounded by security forces during the anti-Mubarak uprising, or in subsequent protests against the generals. "Down, down with military rule!" they chanted, and, "No military and no Brotherhood."

What was supposed to be a quiet procedural session turned briefly chaotic when some lawmakers improvised additions to the text of the oath they were taking in turn, provoking angry protests from the interim speaker, Mahmoud El-Saqqah of the liberal Wafd party.

The oath ends with a pledge to respect the constitution and the law, but several Islamist lawmaker added "God's law" or "as long as there are no contradictions with God's law." Pro-reform lawmakers also improvised, with two of them pledging to "continue the revolution" and "be loyal to its martyrs."

The convening of parliament is a moment of triumph for the Brotherhood, whose members endured arrests and intimidation by Mubarak's feared security agencies.

The Brotherhood has contested parliamentary elections since the 1980s, circumventing the ban on the group by fielding candidates as independents. They won 20 percent of parliament's seats in 2005, but could not win a single seat in elections held in November and December 2010, thought to be the most fraudulent since army officers seized power in a 1952 coup that toppled the monarchy.

On Monday, Brotherhood volunteers escorted their lawmakers into the parliament building.

"I want to make sure that my representatives are safe. I want to celebrate and make sure that no one ruins this atmosphere. There are many who want to ruin it," said Fathy el-Sayed, a 35-year-old Brotherhood supporter outside parliament.

Others waited outside parliament with flowers they said they planned to give to their lawmakers. They chanted religious songs to the beat of drums.

"Democracy brought the people (who are) inside the building now. They were elected by the people," said Adel Musbah, a supporter of the Salafi el-Nour party.

He questioned planned protests by pro-democracy groups marking the first anniversary of the start of the uprising. "Why are they coming to object?" he said.

Security was tight in the area around the parliament building, scene of recent deadly clashes between troops and protesters demanding that the generals immediately step down. The building is also a short distance away from Tahrir Square, birthplace of the uprising that topped Mubarak's 29-year regime.

Monday's session was chaired by el-Saqqah because he was the oldest lawmaker.

He began the proceedings by ordering lawmakers to stand in silence for a minute in memory of the hundreds of protesters killed during the protests.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-23-ML-Egypt/id-bd6dee0bfd5c4c0cbec93f34c6b9b824

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Video: Is Newt Gingrich electable?

A Second Take on Meeting the Press: From an up-close look at Rachel Maddow's sneakers to an in-depth look at Jon Krakauer's latest book ? it's all fair game in our "Meet the Press: Take Two" web extra. Log on Sundays to see David Gregory's post-show conversations with leading newsmakers, authors and roundtable guests. Videos are available on-demand by 12 p.m. ET on Sundays.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/46090461#46090461

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T-rays technology could help develop Star Trek-style hand-held medical scanners

ScienceDaily (Jan. 20, 2012) ? Scientists have developed a new way to create Terahertz waves (T-rays) that may one day lead to biomedical detective devices similar to the 'tricorder' scanner used in Star Trek

Scientists have developed a new way to create electromagnetic Terahertz (THz) waves or T-rays -- the technology behind full-body security scanners. The researchers behind the study, published recently in the journal Nature Photonics, say their new stronger and more efficient continuous wave T-rays could be used to make better medical scanning gadgets and may one day lead to innovations similar to the 'tricorder' scanner used in Star Trek.

In the study, researchers from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore, and Imperial College London in the UK have made T-rays into a much stronger directional beam than was previously thought possible, and have done so at room-temperature conditions. This is a breakthrough that should allow future T-ray systems to be smaller, more portable, easier to operate, and much cheaper than current devices.

The scientists say that the T-ray scanner and detector could provide part of the functionality of a Star Trek-like medical 'tricorder' -- a portable sensing, computing and data communications device -- since the waves are capable of detecting biological phenomena such as increased blood flow around tumorous growths. Future scanners could also perform fast wireless data communication to transfer a high volume of information on the measurements it makes.

T-rays are waves in the far infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum that have a wavelength hundreds of times longer than those that make up visible light. Such waves are already in use in airport security scanners, prototype medical scanning devices and in spectroscopy systems for materials analysis. T-rays can sense molecules such as those present in cancerous tumours and living DNA, since every molecule has its unique signature in the THz range. They can also be used to detect explosives or drugs, for gas pollution monitoring or non-destructive testing of semiconductor integrated circuit chips.

Current T-ray imaging devices are very expensive and operate at only a low output power, since creating the waves consumes large amounts of energy and needs to take place at very low temperatures.

In the new technique, the researchers demonstrated that it is possible to produce a strong beam of T-rays by shining light of differing wavelengths on a pair of electrodes -- two pointed strips of metal separated by a 100 nanometre gap on top of a semiconductor wafer. The structure of the tip-to-tip nano-sized gap electrode greatly enhances the THz field and acts like a nano-antenna to amplify the wave generated. In this method, THz waves are produced by an interaction between the electromagnetic waves of the light pulses and a powerful current passing between the semiconductor electrodes. The scientists are able to tune the wavelength of the T-rays to create a beam that is useable in the scanning technology.

Lead author Dr Jing Hua Teng, from A*STAR's IMRE, said: "The secret behind the innovation lies in the new nano-antenna that we had developed and integrated into the semiconductor chip." Arrays of these nano-antennas create much stronger THz fields that generate a power output that is 100 times higher than the power output of commonly used THz sources that have conventional interdigitated antenna structures. A stronger T-ray source renders the T-ray imaging devices more power and higher resolution.

Research co-author Stefan Maier, a visiting scientist at A*STAR's IMRE and Professor in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London, said: "T-rays promise to revolutionise medical scanning to make it faster and more convenient, potentially relieving patients from the inconvenience of complicated diagnostic procedures and the stress of waiting for accurate results. Thanks to modern nanotechnology and nanofabrication, we have made a real breakthrough in the generation of T-rays that takes us a step closer to these new scanning devices. With the introduction of a gap of only 0.1 micrometers into the electrodes, we have been able to make amplified waves at the key wavelength of 1000 micrometers that can be used in such real world applications."

The research was led by scientists from A*STAR's IMRE and Imperial College London, and involved partners from A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) and the National University of Singapore. The research is funded under A*STAR's Metamaterials Programme and the THz Programme, as well as the Leverhume Trust and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in the UK.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Imperial College London.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. H. Tanoto, J. H. Teng, Q. Y. Wu, M. Sun, Z. N. Chen, S. A. Maier, B. Wang, C. C. Chum, G. Y. Si, A. J. Danner, S. J. Chua. Greatly enhanced continuous-wave terahertz emission by nano-electrodes in a photoconductive photomixer. Nature Photonics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2011.322

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/miKsGWIiFY4/120120183038.htm

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Video: The Goldfinger Mystery, Part 1

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Pamela Fayed, a mother of two, was stabbed to death in broad daylight in a busy parking garage on July 28, 2008. She and her husband, Jim, were in the middle of a bitter divorce. But security video proved he couldn't have stabbed his wife. Dateline NBC's Josh Mankiewicz reports.?(Dateline)

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032600/vp/46079270#46079270

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A Q&A on contested Internet anti-piracy bills (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Online piracy costs U.S. copyright owners and producers billions of dollars every year, but legislation in Congress to block foreign Internet thieves and swindlers has met strong resistance from high-tech companies, spotlighted by Wikipedia's protest blackout on Wednesday, warning of a threat to Internet freedom.

House and Senate bills that once seemed to be on a path toward approval now face a rockier future. House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday said it was "pretty clear to many of us that there is a lack of consensus at this point."

Amid the high-tech campaign against the bills, several lawmakers came out in opposition. At least four Senate Republicans who had previously cosponsored the Senate bill ? Orrin Hatch of Utah, Roy Blunt of Missouri, John Boozman of Arkansas and Charles Grassley of Iowa ? issued statements Wednesday saying they were withdrawing their support. Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland last week said that, after listening to constituent concerns, he could not vote for the Senate bill as it is currently written.

On the House side, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., issued a statement that he had heard from many of his constituents and come to the conclusion that the House and Senate bills "create unacceptable threats to free speech and free access to the Internet."

Here are some of the some of the questions being raised about the bills being considered:

Q. Why is legislation needed?

A. There's no argument that more needs to be done to protect artists, innovators and industries from copyright thieves and shield consumers from products sold on the Internet that are fake, faulty and unsafe. Creative America, a coalition of Hollywood studios, networks and unions, says content theft costs U.S. workers $5.5 billion a year. The pharmaceutical industry loses billions to Internet sellers of drugs that are falsely advertised and may be harmful.

Q. What is Congress trying to accomplish?

A. The two main bills are the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA, in the Senate, and the similar Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in the House. There are already laws on the books to combat domestic websites trafficking in counterfeit or pirated goods, but little to counter foreign violators.

The bills would allow the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of perpetrating or facilitating copyright infringement. While there is little the United States can do to take down those websites, the bills would bar online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as credit card companies and PayPal from doing business with an alleged violator. It also would forbid search engines from linking to such sites.

The original bills would have let copyright holders and Internet service providers block access to pirate websites. Critics and Internet engineers complained that would allow copyright holders to interfere in the behind-the-scenes system that seamlessly directs computer users to websites. They said that causing deliberate failures in the lookup system to prevent visits to pirate websites could more easily allow hackers to trick users into inadvertently visiting websites that could infect their computers. The White House also took issue with that approach, saying "We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet."

Responding to the critics, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said he is taking the blocking measure out of his bill. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., also is reworking his bill to address those cybersecurity issues.

Q. What are other concerns with the bills?

A. Critics say they would constrain free speech, curtail innovation and discourage new digital distribution methods. NetCoalition, a group of leading Internet and technology companies, says they could be forced to pre-screen all user comments, pictures and videos ? effectively killing social media. Search engines, Internet service providers and social networks could be forced shut down websites linked to any type of pirated content.

In addition, critics contend that young, developing businesses and smaller websites could be saddled with expensive litigation costs. And, they contend existing rights holders could impede new investment in the technology sector.

The White House said it would "not support any legislation that reduces freedom of expression ... or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

Leahy responded that there is nothing in the legislation that would require websites, Internet service providers, search engines, ad networks, payment processors or others to monitor their networks. He said his bill protects third parties from liability that may arise from actions to comply with a court order.

Michael O'Leary, a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America, a key supporter of the legislation, said his industry is built upon a vibrant First Amendment. "We would never support any legislation that would limit this fundamental American right," he said. Neither PIPA nor SOPA "implicate free expression but focus solely on illegal conduct, which is not free speech."

Q. Who else supports the bills?

A. The most visible supporters are entertainment-related groups such as the MPAA and the National Music Publishers' Association. But the bills also enjoy support from the pharmaceutical industry, which is trying to shut down illegal online drug operations, and electronic and auto industries concerned about people going online to buy counterfeit parts that may be substandard. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several law enforcement groups also back the legislation.

Q. Who are the opponents?

A. In addition to Wikipedia, many major Internet and technology companies, including Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com and eBay, are part of the NetCoalition group opposing the bills. Disparate political groups such as the liberal Democracy for America and the conservative Heritage Action have also voiced concerns about censorship.

Q. What is the status of the bills?

A. Momentum for the bills has slowed, giving the edge to Silicon Valley over Hollywood. The Senate, as its first major business when it returns to session next Tuesday, is to vote on whether to take up the bill. Sixty votes are needed to clear that legislative hurdle. It's unclear whether supporters have the votes.

Six Republicans on the Judiciary Committee last week wrote Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., saying that while the problem of intellectual property theft must be addressed, "the process at this point is moving too quickly" and a vote on moving to the bill "may be premature."

Reid replied that the vote will occur as scheduled, saying that while the bill was not perfect and he had urged Leahy to make changes, the issue was "too important to delay."

In the House, Judiciary Committee Chairman Smith said his panel would resume deliberations on SOPA in February. Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and an ally of the high-tech industry, said he had received assurances from GOP leaders that anti-piracy legislation would not move to the House floor this year unless there is a consensus on it.

Issa, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are pushing an alternative to SOPA and PIPA that would make the International Trade Commission, which already is in charge of patent infringements, responsible for taking steps to prevent money and advertising from going to rogue sites.

Issa formally introduced his bill Wednesday, saying the Internet blackout had "underscored the flawed approach taken by SOPA and PIPA" and his bill was "a smarter way to protect taxpayers' rights while protecting the Internet."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_go_co/us_internet_piracy_q_a

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Baby steps for Minnesota construction jobs in 2011 - Finance ...

Posted: 2:21 pm Thu, January 19, 2012
By Chris?Newmarker
Tags: David Semerad, economy, jobs, Mark Phillips, Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, Steve Hine, unemployment

More construction workers in Minnesota were employed in 2011 than in previous years, according to state data released Thursday. Workers put the finishing touches last month on a new skyway connecting the Accenture Tower with the Ameriprise Financial Center in downtown Minneapolis. (File photo: Bill Klotz)

State?s unemployment rate is 5.7 percent, lowest since 2008

Minnesota?s much beleaguered construction sector saw a slight uptick in jobs over the course of 2011, with specialty trades adding jobs over a 12-month period for the first time since 2006, according to figures out Thursday from the state Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The state?s overall unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell two-tenths of a percentage point, to 5.7 percent, in December, its lowest level since before the financial panic of 2008. The U.S. unemployment rate was 8.5 percent in December.

?The Minnesota unemployment rate continues to move in the right direction, reaching its lowest level since September 2008,? DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips said in a news release. ?The labor market is recovering at a slow but steady pace.?

Unlike in previous months, the state also gained jobs in December. Minnesota increased its jobs count by 7,900 for the month and 25,300 for the year. Construction lost 1,700 jobs for the month but was still up 200 for the year.

The unemployment rate and the jobs count are based on different surveys with different methodologies. Steve Hine, research director for DEED?s Labor Market Information Office, suspects a clearer jobs picture for 2011 will be available after the office?s annual review of data, which is due March 1.

Hine nevertheless says the December numbers demonstrate a ?building of continued momentum? in boosting employment. Since August, Minnesota?s unemployment rate has fallen 1.5 points ? the largest four-month drop in the state?s records, which go back to 1976.

Hine still cautioned that a host of factors ? from the European sovereign debt crisis to the fate of the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance in Congress ? could slow jobs growth later this year.

It also isn?t entirely clear why Minnesota?s unemployment rate fell that much. Some of the drop can be tied to the 13,850 unemployed people in Minnesota who stopped looking for jobs between August and December, reducing the state?s labor force participation rate from 72 to 71.5 percent. But Hine has counted many more people finding employment.

In the construction sector, 2011 appears to be the year when employment turned a corner. But recovering roughly 50,000 construction jobs lost in the recession could be daunting.

?It?s all good news when we start adding projects and jobs, but we have a long ways to go. A lot of people say we?ll never get to that point again, that we?ll never recover, but I don?t necessarily buy into that,? said David Semerad, chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors of Minnesota.

Jobs related to construction of buildings, including residential buildings, started showing 12-month gains in June, followed by the overall construction industry in October. Then in December, the number of Minnesota specialty trade contractors, at 50,988, was up 1.1 percent over the previous 12 months. It was the first 12-month jobs gain in the specialty trades since early 2006.

?The specialty contractors did better than the others,? Semerad said. ?There?s a lot of smaller work being done that doesn?t have to be done with a general contractor. Businesses are updating their heating and ventilating and electrical systems. They?re fixing what they have.?

Specialty contractors post-recession have found their own market niches to sustain cash flow, Semerad said.

Heavy and civil engineering has become a weak spot in Minnesota?s construction sector, with jobs down 25.2 percent, to 7,069, during the 12 months ending in December.

Much of the reduction is the result of government belt tightening, a situation that Semerad thinks could be remedied if the state Legislature passes a robust bonding bill this year. Semerad says the construction of a Minnesota Vikings stadium could be a ?game changer for Minnesota?s economy.?
Although legislators passed a $531 million bonding bill in July, the impact apparently has not shown up yet in employment numbers. Gov. Mark Dayton this week requested $775 million for projects throughout the state, but Republican majority leaders in the Legislature said they want roughly half that amount.

Minnesota employment growth

12 months ended Dec. 31, 2011

Total nonfarm employment:? +25,300

Logging and mining:? -100

Construction:? +200

Manufacturing:? +3,600

Trade, transportation and utilities:? +1,900

Information:? -1,100

Financial activities:? +1,900

Professional and business services:? +10,000

Education and health services:? +11,000

Leisure and hospitality:? +3,600

Other services:? +400

Government:? -6,100

Source: Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 19th, 2012 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Business & Economy, Construction & Development, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://finance-commerce.com/2012/01/minnesota-unemployment-rate-drops-to-5-7-percent/

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Obama re-election ad targets Koch brothers, touts ???green tech??? jobs (Daily Caller)

There are 10 months to go before election day, and the Obama re-election campaign has already begun running a self-congratulatory TV ad.

The 30-second ad, titled ?Unprecedented,? frames President Barack Obama as a leader who kept his 2008 campaign promises to subsidize the green-tech energy industry.

?President Obama has taken steps to make us energy independent and create an economy that?s built to last,? the Obama campaign said on the Web page where the ad is hosted. It is already running in several swing-states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The campaign website began promoting the new ad on the same day Obama announced he would continue to freeze plans to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the United States.

GOP leaders slammed Obama for that decision, saying he wiped out 20,000 construction jobs.

Watch the new Obama re-election ad:

Researchers at the Republican National Committee quickly countered Obama?s new ad, declaring in an email blast that ?Obama?s first campaign ad [is] a lot like his term so far ? a whole lot of talk to thwart attention from Obama?s failed record.?

The first Obama re-election ad came out in late November, and simply showed the president appealing for more campaign volunteers.

The new ad is partly intended to shield Obama from criticism about his energy policies, which have curbed opportunities for oil companies, nudged up gas prices and heavily subsidized risky green-tech companies, including the failed Solyndra solar-tech company.

That purpose is highlighted in the ad?s first few words, which claims ?secretive oil billionaires are attacking President Obama with ads fact-checkers say are not tethered to the facts.?

Those ?secretive oil billionaires,? according to the campaign?s website, are David and Charles Koch ? a pair of libertarian?brothers who run an huge oil-services company and openly declare their opposition to Obama?s energy policies.

On Jan. 18, as Obama?s ad was released, the brothers? main political arm, Americans For Prosperity, rolled out its own seven-day campaign.

The campaign is intended to highlight Obama?s ?worst offenses to the principles of limited government and free market enterprise? during the week prior to Obama?s 2012 State of the Union speech, according to a statement from the group.

?President Obama seems to have ?conveniently forgotten? that he has been president for the past three years, and refuses to take responsibility for the economic woes, regulatory burdens, and skyrocketing national debt we face as a nation,? said Americans For Prosperity president Tom Phillips.

Obama?s new TV ad suggests the president should get credit for 2.7 million ?green tech jobs? that the center-left Brookings Institute has?claimed exist in the United States.

Most of these jobs, however, existed prior to 2008, and many are only tangentially linked to low-pollution technology. Using the same study cited by Obama?s TV new ad, the Republicans??response showed that the total number of all green-tech jobs only grew 3.4 percent between 2007 and 2010.

The Obama ad also touts a reduction in the nation?s energy imports. ?For the first time in thirteen years,? it claims, ?our dependence on foreign oil is below fifty percent.?

But that decline was a natural outgrowth of the nation?s economic recession, which has curbed energy consumption.

The increased production was spurred by President George W. Bush, and by the private sector ? where natural gas companies have delivered increased volumes of gas from U.S. gas fields ? rather than by Obama?s policies, according to the GOP response.

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20120118/pl_dailycaller/obamareelectionadtargetskochbrotherstoutsgreentechjobs

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