Basque separatist group ETA talks of disarmament (AP)

MADRID ? The Basque separatist group ETA, which renounced violence last month after spending more than 40 years trying to shoot and bomb its way into achieving an independent state, now says surrendering weapons is on its agenda, a newspaper reported Friday.

The Basque newspaper Gara, often seen as an ETA mouthpiece, quoted two members as saying that the group ? severely weakened by years of arrests ? is prepared for the first time to negotiate over its arsenal.

"The issue of weapons is included on the negotiating agenda between ETA and the State and we are willing to talk about it and to undertake compromises in line with resolving all the consequences of the conflict," they said in a long interview with the paper.

No such 'negotiating agenda' is known to exist and the word 'consequences' is often interpreted as referring to the 700-odd ETA prisoners held in Spanish and French prisons.

The members asserted that ETA has not renounced its goal of an independent Basque state. Neither was named, because ETA is classified as a terrorist organization in Spain and naming them would presumably have led to their immediate arrest.

In a much awaited statement on Oct. 20, ETA declared a halt to its campaign of violence. It said it now backs only peaceful means for achieving its goal.

The group has killed 829 people since the late 1960s and is considered a terrorist organization by Spain, the EU and the U.S.

In the interview, the ETA members said negotiations it envisions with the Spanish and French governments as part of its Oct. 20 statement should center on three issues: returning ETA prisoners and "Basque political exiles" to the Basque country ? they seem to suggest this be done through an outright amnesty ? disarming ETA and removing Spanish National Police from the region. The Basque region has its own police force. France is mentioned because the independent homeland ETA wants includes parts of southwest France.

General elections are scheduled for Nov. 20 in Spain, and many saw the interview as a way to plug a pro-Basque independence coalition, Amaiur, that is fielding candidates.

Ramon Jauregui, outgoing Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's chief of staff, said disarming would be a "definitive verification" that ETA has renounced violence, but said the interview was clearly aimed at reaping an "electoral premium" for Amaiur.

The conservative Popular Party, expected to win the elections, has ruled out any negotiations with ETA. It had no immediate comment on the interview.

The ETA members reiterated in the interview that the people of the Basque region have the right to decide between independence and remaining part of Spain. It is now up to pro-independence parties to pick up where ETA left off, they said. The Spanish constitution has no clause, however, that would allow the Basque country to break away and form a sovereign country.

As was the case in the Oct. 20 statement, the two did not apologize to ETA's victims ? a highly sensitive issue in Spain. They, instead, said both sides in the conflict have suffered.

"The armed confrontation of the last few decades has caused much suffering, without a doubt. So have ETA's actions. We are not insensitive."

The two members referred to assertions that ETA had ended violence because it had been defeated by police action as "propaganda" to weaken the pro-independence cause.

ETA's decades of attacks have made "a major contribution" to where the pro-independence movement is now at, they added.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_re_eu/eu_spain_basques

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EU warns of possible recession in eurozone (AP)

BRUSSELS ? The European Union has warned that the 17-country eurozone could slip back into recession next year as the debt crisis shows alarming signs of spinning out of control.

The EU's economic watchdog, the European Commission, said Thursday its central forecast is that the eurozone will grow by only a paltry 0.5 percent in 2012. That's way down on the 1.8 percent prediction it made in the spring.

"This forecast is in fact the last wake-up call," the EU's Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn warned. "Growth has stalled in Europe, and there is a risk of a new recession."

The sharp cut in the forecast comes as the eurozone's debt crisis has spread alarmingly to Italy, the single currency bloc's third-largest economy. The interest rate on Italy's 10-year bonds has reached the same levels that forced Greece, Portugal and Ireland to request multibillion euro bailouts.

Speculation Premier Silvio Berlusconi will be replaced by leading economist and former Commissioner Mario Monti once he officially resigns has helped calm the market mood somewhat Thursday, but interest rates remain much higher than a week ago.

Greece, meanwhile, was stuck in political chaos as party leaders have failed for several days to appoint an interim governments, putting the country in serious danger of defaulting on its massive debts before the end of the year.

EU unemployment will be stuck at 9.5 percent for the foreseeable future, the Commission warned.

"While jobs are increasing in some member states, no real improvement is forecast in the unemployment situation in the EU as a whole," Rehn warned.

The report also contained some worrying figures for some individual member states.

Italy is unlikely to fulfill its promise of balancing its budget by 2013 if recently promised austerity and reform measures aren't implemented. According to the forecast, which does not take into account the most recent promises, Italy will still run a deficit of 1.2 percent, with debt close to 119 percent of economic output. And growth is set to slow to 0.1 percent next year, down from 1.3 percent forecast this spring.

Berlusconi has come under so much pressure that he promised to resign as soon as the new budget has been passed. The Commission this weeks started a verification mission in Rome to check on Italy's efforts, with the International Monetary Fund to follow soon.

Rehn said Italy's most important task was to restore political credibility and effective decision making.

He added that because of the relatively long average maturities of Italy's debt, the country could sustain the recent jump in borrowing costs for a short time, although not for very long.

Several other states that have so far not been caught up in the debt storm will soon risk sanctions under new EU spending rules if they don't implement additional measures to get their budgets control, Rehn warned.

"What we need now is unwavering implementation," Rehn said. "On my part, I will start using the new rules of economic governance from day one."

The countries that may face sanctions first are the eurozone nations of Belgium, Cyprus, and Malta, as well as Hungary and Poland, which do not use the euro.

Under the new rules, set to come into force in mid-December, sanctions for countries that break the caps on budget deficits and debt levels become more automatic, in an effort to prevent a worsening of the debt crisis.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111110/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_europe_financial_crisis

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NJ school bus driver accused of DUI (AP)

WESTAMPTON, N.J. ? Children on a school bus in New Jersey called their parents to say the driver was swerving and falling asleep behind the wheel.

The parents called Westampton Middle School, which alerted police.

Officers found Carole Crockett at Holly Hills School trying to pick up more students.

The Courier-Post of Cherry Hill (http://on.cpsj.com/s56aiv ) reports Crockett's breath test showed she had a blood-alcohol level of .25 percent. The state's legal limit is .08.

The 46-year-old faces 25 counts of driving under the influence with a minor and child endangerment.

___

Information from: Courier-Post, http://www.courierpostonline.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/education/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111110/ap_on_re_us/us_school_bus_dui

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Incumbents winning in big-city mayoral races (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Incumbent mayors in Houston, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Baltimore, and Charlotte, North Carolina, appeared to defeat challengers on Tuesday as voters favored the familiar in a time of diminishing local budgets and a weak national economy.

The elections were among the biggest of hundreds of mayoral contests across the country that for the most part featured lackluster races and low voter turnout.

In Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States, Mayor Annise Parker, a Democrat and the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city, defeated five challengers in an officially nonpartisan race. She avoided a runoff by snagging 51 percent of the vote.

Parker, who has dealt with citywide layoffs and cuts to services because of budget reductions in her first two years in office, faced relatively unknown challengers as she sought a second term.

"I still love going to work every day," Parker told Reuters on Tuesday evening. "We've had many challenges these last two years, but we've accomplished a lot. I look forward to another two years serving the city I love."

In Philadelphia, the country's fifth-largest city, Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter was re-elected in the country's fifth-largest city, where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans.

He was challenged by Republican Karen Brown, a retired teacher, and Independent Diop Olugbala, a community activist also known as Wali Rahman. Nutter had 75 percent of the vote, with 96 percent of precincts tallied, according to the city's official election site.

In Indianapolis, incumbent Greg Ballard, a Republican, claimed victory over Democratic opponent Melina Kennedy.

"We did it again," Ballard told an excited crowd of supporters in downtown Indianapolis. Ballard was a political novice when he upset Democrat Bart Peterson four years ago.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a Democrat, easily overcame Republican challenger Alfred V. Griffin. Rawlings-Blake, who became mayor in 2010 after her predecessor Sheila Dixon resigned after pleading guilty to corruption charges, was seeking her first full term.

In Charlotte, site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, incumbent Democrat Anthony Foxx held off a challenge by Republican Scott Stone, an engineering executive.

Races were also held in San Francisco, where interim mayor Ed Lee was vying to win re-election, and in Phoenix, where attorney and former councilman Greg Stanton, a Democrat, claimed victory over Republican Wes Gullett in an officially non-partisan race to replace term-limited Mayor Phil Gordon.

ECONOMIC WOES

San Francisco's Lee, appointed interim mayor last fall when then-Mayor Gavin Newsom was elected lieutenant governor, led a field of 16 candidates in early mail-in ballots.

If successful in San Francisco's non-partisan race, he would be the first elected mayor of Chinese descent in a city where Chinese-Americans account for a quarter of the electorate.

Under the city's unusual ranked-choice voting system, if no candidate gets over 50 percent of the vote, the second and third choices cast by voters would come into play for an instant runoff.

Mesa, Arizona Mayor Scott Smith, a vice president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said it was an exciting, challenging and frustrating time to be a mayor, and that those who chose to take on the task were either "challenge junkies" or "a glutton for punishment."

"You get a common sense of frustration among mayors born out of what we view as a disconnect between political rhetoric and reality," said Smith, who was not up for re-election on Tuesday. "The challenge mayors have is that the problems can't get kicked down the road."

Cities have felt the pinch of economic woes trickling down from national and state levels. Local economies faced with declining revenues, struggling housing markets, slow consumer spending and high levels of unemployment, have cut personnel, infrastructure and services in cities around the country, a study by the National League of Cities showed in September.

"It seems very likely that cities will confront further revenue declines and cuts in city spending in 2012," the report said, citing "a national economic recovery that has been weak or stalled".

The anti-incumbent sentiment that resonates strongly on the national level does not necessarily trickle down to mayoral elections, said Richard Murray, a political scientist at the University of Houston.

He said city elections do not necessarily reflect how voters respond to statewide and national elections, and how a mayor performs in office is what helps on election day, not just factors such as party affiliation.

Murray said Houston saw a light at the end of the tunnel because its economy was bouncing back and doing better than the national trend. But mayors all around the country were sure to face hurdles as they begin their next term in office.

"The city is a big enterprise; a major economic player," he said. "When revenues flattened out and the person put in charge of running the city is struggling, it's a challenging job in these conditions."

(Reporting by Erin Mulvaney in Beaumont, Texas, Susan Guyett in Indianapolis, David Schwartz in Phoenix, Karin Matz and James Kelleher in Chicago, Jason Tomassini in Baltimore, Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Dave Warner in Philadelphia; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111109/us_nm/us_election_mayors

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CBS, Chris Columbus bringing "Rifleman" back to TV (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? CBS is taking aim at a television classic.

The network is rebooting the Chuck Connors series "The Rifleman," the late-1950s ABC Western about Civil War vet and widower Lucas McCain, who takes his son and his hot-rodded Winchester rifle and settles in the New Mexico territory of North Fork, an individual familiar with the project confirms to TheWrap.

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" director Chris Columbus will be directing the project, with "Shutter Island" scribe Laeta Kalogridis and "Drive Angry" writer Patrick Lussier on board to write.

CBS Television Studios and Carol Mendelsohn Productions will produce.

The original series ran on ABC from 1958 to 1963, and was unique in that it was one of the first primetime series to portray a widowed parent raise a child.

Deadline Hollywood first reported the news.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111109/tv_nm/us_therifleman

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Android Central has arrived on Google Pages

Android Central on Google+

With Google+ Pages now available we've gone ahead and set up our very own Android Central page for you all. Actually, Lloyd did it for us so make you drop by our page and give us a follow and don't be shy to hit that +1 button as you're checking things out!

Follow Android Central on Google+


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/Z3sAHReoJIA/story01.htm

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Agent charged in killing was in Hawaii for APEC (AP)

HONOLULU ? A federal agent charged with killing a man inside a McDonald's restaurant in Waikiki was in Hawaii to help with security at this week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, officials said Monday.

State Department special agent Christopher Deedy, 27, is charged with second-degree murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

Deedy, who was released Monday after posting $250,000 bail, is accused of fatally shooting 23-year-old Kollin Elderts of Kailua during a confrontation early Saturday at a McDonald's in the famous tourist district.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that Deedy was in Honolulu to beef up security ahead of the APEC conference, which begins Tuesday. The agent has been put on paid administrative leave.

"This was a tragic incident in Hawaii over the weekend," Nuland told reporters. She said she couldn't comment on the ongoing investigation, but said the State Department was cooperating fully with law enforcement.

Deedy was assigned to "support protection of dignitaries" at the meeting, Nuland said.

President Barack Obama and leaders of 21-member economies from the Asia-Pacific region are scheduled to attend the summit, which is being hosted by the U.S. for the first time since 1993.

Honolulu police are still investigating what led to the shooting, but a few details began to emerge Monday.

Michael Green, an attorney for Elderts' family, said Elderts and Deedy didn't know each other and that Elderts was unarmed.

Green said Elderts was at a Waikiki club before ending up at the McDonald's on Kuhio Avenue.

"I'm told there was a confrontation in the club," Green said. "He (Elderts) left and went to the McDonald's and this guy followed him."

Police spokeswoman Carolyn Sluyter said Elderts, Deedy and two other men were involved in an argument at the restaurant when the shooting occurred. Elderts suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Deedy was arrested at the scene, Sluyter said. She did not identify the other two men.

It wasn't immediately known who Deedy's attorney is. Nuland said the State Department has been in contact with the agent. She declined to speak about his previous assignments.

A manager at the McDonald's said the restaurant was cooperating with the investigation and declined further comment.

Authorities said Deedy was released from police custody at 5:15 a.m. Monday. His first court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 17.

Elderts' family wants answers.

"I'm angry and my heart is hurting so bad," said Victoria Elderts, Kollin's aunt, told KHON-TV. "He was loved by all. I know he didn't do anything for that man to shoot him. I know he didn't. I know him."

Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said his thoughts and prayers were with Elderts' family.

"I am confident that the Honolulu Police Department will handle this matter properly to ensure that justice is served, and that our community will be respectful and considerate of both the Elderts family and the national and international spotlight which is upon our beloved Hawaii this week," Inouye said in a statement.

APEC is hosted by a different member nation or economy each year. Last year, it was in Yokohama, Japan.

The White House has said Obama chose his birthplace of Honolulu for the meeting to highlight America's position as a Pacific nation. The last time the summit was in the U.S. was when President Bill Clinton was in office. That gathering took place on Blake Island near Seattle.

___

Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper in Washington and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jaymes Song at http://twitter.com/jaymessong

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111108/ap_on_re_us/us_hawaii_restaurant_shooting

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The PG.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens discuss the good and bad of ...

Prompted by some rather alarming stats on the subject from Mobile Pie's Will Luton, this week we asked the Mavens:

How big a problem is games piracy on mobile, and does press coverage make it worse?

The most striking thing about the Mavens's responses was that they all had specific statistics on how many people were pirating their games.

For example, Andreas Vasen of Machineworks revealed that "for each copy we sell, three to five copies are used by pirates."

MillsTM of ustwo was a little more fortunate "We've had 80,000 downloads of Whale Trail?in the last 12 days and 45,000 pirates on top of that. THANKS PIRATES."

This from the man who said he'd never use analytics...

Adam Telfer of XMG Studio was perturbed that its games were more successful amongst pirates than the paying consumer.

?Little Metal Ball was the #1 pirated game for awhile, but not the #1 paid game... weird. We should stop marketing to pirates I guess."

Piracy was so huge on the game, in fact,?XMG decided to make it free.

Rowan Corben of Bravo said that ten times more people were playing his games than downloaded them and pointed out it was worse for the "higher-priced, hardcore games. Most casual gamers wouldn?t even know how to pirate."

Football fodder

As is often the case, it was a veteran of game development who provided the long view:?Jon Hare of Tower Studios.

"It was the same back in the Amiga days when we did Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder; 10 pirate copies for every one sold - I am sure some of you are guilty. Nothing has changed."

Paul Chen of Papaya pointed out that pirate developers often steal games for overseas markets to unscrupulous app stores.

"Pirated games are usually not of the same quality and performance as the original, hence the branding of the game and developer are compromised,"?he stated.?

"This is especially true in China as downloads of pirated games continue to grow on the hundreds of app stores available there. The best way we've got around this is to plan out the title?s launch, not only in your key markets but also in markets where piracy occurs. The sooner you upload to these markets, the easier it is to fend off the pirated versions.?

Kevin Dent of Tiswaz had seen the ratio as a high as 40 pirated games for every one bought, as evinced by Vincent Dondaine of BulkyPix.

"On Hysteria Project, released in 2009, we were at 25,000 paid apps after two weeks," he summarised, "and at the same time 110,000 downloaded on Cydia."

Cydia, for the unschooled, being one of a number of portals that enable users to install apps for free on jailbroken iOS devices.

Media muddle

The fact that I, in the course of my duties as a journalist, just told you about one of the major routes to pirating iOS software, raised the second part of the question: does press reportage encourage piracy by informing customers about it?

HandyGames?s Christopher Kassulke didn?t think the role of the media was particularly relevant.

"The press can make it worse if they tell consumers how to get it illegally but, as we are talking about a mass market, no consumer wants to download a virus or trojan," he argued.

"It's up to the developer to show consumers the advantage of downloading content from a trusted source."

Most of the Mavens, though outraged at the scale of the piracy, felt that pirates weren't the types to buy your games anyway.

As YoYo Games' Sandy Duncan said "Talking about 'lost revenues' is naive. I thought most people accepted these days that folks who borrow your game rather than pay for it would never have paid for it anyway!"

Jared Steffes
of Tap.Me agreed; "Piracy exists, so the best thing to do is embrace it."

Jail-broken system

Revolution Software's Charles Cecil resented piracy but "my opinion is that people will feel justified in pirating any digital product if they consider that: they are being charged an unfair price; severe DRM makes it easier to pirate than to obtain legally; and they feel a disconnect with the seller."

For him, the press do a key job in creating that connection between the developer and the consumer.

Cecil also thought that iTunes app delivery was so seamless that a developer with good customer support, fair pricing and good customer loyalty had a good chance of persuading potential customers to buy rather than pirate.

Yet despite Cecil's faith and despite Dondaine's praise for Apple's recent restrictions on jail-breaking, once a device is jail-broken, it's often easier to pirate an app than not.

Wen Chen of Coconut Island followed the old adage that no news is bad news.

"Press coverage is definitely good for marketing a game. And high piracy is just a by-product of becoming famous. You can just not refuse fame in consideration of the badness of its by-product, can you? So we love press coverage, the more the better!"

Bigging the upside

Are there any benefits from piracy for game developers? Mills thought that pirates might be the friends of new IP and premium games, by spreading good word of mouth; "When people aren?t pirating your game, then you need to worry."

Duncan agreed; "We'd LIKE them to pay, we ASK them to pay, but they?re still an asset for us even if they don't. They're just part of the cost of marketing my game? and with zero distribution costs, they're not exactly expensive."

He thought the virility generated from free users was extremely valuable.

"If the average Facebook user has 200 friends, then 100 unpaid copies can reach out to 20,000 people. In turn, if piracy is at 90 percent that means you've touched 2,000 new potential paying customers and 18,000 more advocates."

There was some disagreement over whether freemium developers benefited from the greater distribution of pirated games with their IAP mechanisms intact.

Duncan talked about a Chinese Android games portal multiplying its income tenfold by moving to freemium, but Mobile Pie's Will Luton related some bad experiences with IAP piracy.

Firstly, hackers had hacked his My Star game to credit currency to their accounts on an IAP - he'd solved this by moving item values server-side. Secondly, he noted that a particular program was capable of spoofing Apple's IAPs and provided a (huge) list of titles that it worked with. We've chosen not to name the program here.

Luton commented, "I think it's important that the press have freedom in reporting this, even if it makes the situation worse for developers as the public pick up the technique. Devs also need to be savvy. Nobody on our team knew of these exploits until we saw anomalies in data."

Counting the cost

He recommended taking some time in development to close loopholes.

"We've costed in time for our next game to be hack-tested. It will cost us about a man week which is over ?2,000, so possibly that's the real cost."

Luton isn't trying to stop the hackers for revenue reasons though - he doesn't think they'd pay - but to prevent them screwing up the in-game leaderboards.

Similar Adam Telfer, having suffered similar problems, recommended that developers encrypt their users' on-device data, to prevent easy hacking.

"There's not much you can do for pirated downloads," he said, "Unless Apple actually opens up its receipting structure and as a developer we can check its server for the receipt of your game. Then at least we could prevent users from going online unless they paid for the game."

But while few of the Mavens painted the issue as an entirely black or white one, Dent's take on the impact piracy can have on studios was far simpler.

Simpler, and typically?a touch extreme.

"Anyone that says that there are any positives whatsoever in terms piracy is a lunatic that should be mocked publicly and 'accidentally' peed on at conference bathrooms," he concluded.

"Piracy as a branding exercise is idiotic and anyone that says it has any positive aspects lacks the sense God gave goats. If I were religious, I would actually pray for them."

Source: http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/PG.biz+Mobile+Gaming+Mavens/feature.asp?c=35051

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US Cellular Said No to iPhone 4S and Giant Buckets of Money [IPhone]

Carriers have been falling all over themselves to get the iPhone on their network. T-Mobile is still bummed to be left out of the iPhone money train. Which makes the revelation that US Cellular passed on iPhone 4S all the more, uh, WTF. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/JovA9gufsj8/us-cellular-says-no-to-iphone-and-giant-buckets-of-money

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