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China snubs SE Asia push for South China Sea deal

Written By Bersemangat on Senin, 29 Oktober 2012 | 23.15

PATTAYA, Thailand (Reuters) - China is stonewalling attempts to start talks on a multilateral "code of conduct" governing the strategically located South China Sea and an agreement could still be years away, Southeast Asian officials said on Monday.

Beijing's assertion of sovereignty over the vast stretch of the water has set it directly against Vietnam and the Philippines, while Brunei, Taiwan and Malaysia also lay claim to other parts of the region, making it Asia's biggest potential military troublespot.

Speaking on the sidelines of a regional meeting in the Thai resort of Pattaya, Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Pham Quang Vinh said there was no end in sight to the maritime dispute involving one of the world's main shipping routes and an area potentially rich in oil and gas.

"ASEAN thinks it is time to start talks to achieve a code of conduct as soon possible," said Pham, referring to the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc, but added the grouping is meeting stoic resistance from China.

China has resisted proposals for a multilateral code of conduct for the South China Sea, preferring to try to negotiate disputes with each of the far less powerful individual claimants.

Sihasak Phuangketkeow, a Thai foreign ministry official, told reporters at the ASEAN-China meeting in Pattaya it might take another two years to agree a formal code of conduct.

Carl Thayer of Australia's University of New South Wales said China was unlikely to make any decision on the code of conduct until its once-a-decade leadership change is fully complete next year.

"I suspect because of changes in personnel likely to occur nobody in China is willing to commit themselves to something of this magnitude. There can be no compromise at the moment, coming from China. Leaders would be seen to be weak," said Thayer.

China has stepped up activity in the region, including establishing a military garrison on one of the disputed islands, and accused Washington of seeking to stir up trouble far from home.

The stakes have risen in the area as the U.S. military shifts its attention and resources back to Asia, emboldening its long-time ally the Philippines and former foe Vietnam to take a tougher stance against Beijing.

Unprecedented arguments over the sea prevented an ASEAN summit in July from issuing a joint communiqué, the first time this had happened in the bloc's 45-year history.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)


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Mexican city battered by drug gangs feels lure of truce

TORREON, Mexico (Reuters) - In a five-year struggle with Mexico's most notorious drug cartel, the city of Torreon has suffered a 16-fold increase in murders, fired its police department and lost control of its main prison to the gang.

The Zetas cartel arrived in Torreon in mid-2007, and this center of manufacturing, mining and farming once seen as a model for progress has become one of Mexico's most dangerous cities.

Massacres at drug rehab clinics, bags of severed heads and gunfights at the soccer stadium have charted the decline of a city that a decade ago stood at the forefront of Mexico's industrial advances after the nation joined the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada.

Once enticing U.S. firms like Caterpillar and John Deere and Japanese auto parts maker Takata to open plants, Torreon has not attracted any other big names since the Zetas swept in.

"It's a powder keg," said a former mayor, Guillermo Anaya, who ran the city from 2003 to 2005 and is now a federal lawmaker.

Many people in the arid metropolis about 275 miles from the U.S. border believe if Torreon cannot defeat the Zetas soon it may need to reach some kind of agreement with their arch rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel, and let them do the job.

Widely seen as the most brutal Mexican drug gang, the Zetas have so terrorized Torreon and the surrounding state of Coahuila that some officials make a clear distinction between them and the Sinaloa Cartel, for years the dominant outfit in the city.

"They (the Zetas) act without any kind of principles," Torreon's police chief, Adelaido Flores, told Reuters. "The ones from Sinaloa don't mess ... with the population."

Local politicians tacitly admit that deals with cartels, often unspoken, helped keep the peace in the past, before a surge in violence prompted President Felipe Calderon to mount a military-led crackdown against organized crime six years ago.

Calderon's forces have captured or killed many top capos around Mexico, but the campaign triggered fresh turf wars and a sharp increase in bloodshed, spearheaded by a new generation of criminals like the Zetas. Over 60,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence during Calderon's presidency.

In Torreon, the Zetas took control of the local police, and in March 2010 they invaded city hall to demand that Mayor Eduardo Olmos sack the army general he had hired to clean up the force.

"You can't say that the police was infiltrated by organized crime - the police was organized crime," Olmos said.

Subsequently, all but one of the 1,000-strong force were fired or deserted, and for a week Villa and his bodyguards were the only police. At first, the city behaved "marvelously," said Olmos. Then the shootings, armed robberies and kidnappings took off as the gangs turned Torreon into a killing factory.

According to local newspaper El Siglo de Torreon, there were 830 homicides in the first nine months of 2012 in the city's metropolitan area, home to just over 1 million people.

HIGHER MURDER RATE

Greater Torreon had 990 killings in 2011, up from 62 in 2006. It now has a higher homicide rate than Ciudad Juarez, long Mexico's murder capital. Only Acapulco's is worse.

Flores insists that better days lie ahead, saying the Zetas have been weakened by security forces and by the Sinaloa Cartel, run by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

More than 90 percent of the hundreds of suspected gang members killed or arrested in Torreon this year have been Zetas, according to estimates by city authorities.

"They're nearly being finished off here," said the soft-spoken Police Chief Flores, standing on a hill above the city and gesturing at its impoverished western fringes.

Towering above him, a 72-foot (22-meter) statue of Jesus Christ with outstretched arms gazes across the urban sprawl that is now the bloodiest battleground in the Zetas-Sinaloa conflict.

Despite the setbacks this year, the Zetas still control Torreon's prison, police and the mayor's office say.

Lying at the crossroads between Mexico's Pacific states and Ciudad Juarez and Monterrey, and linking the south to the U.S. border, Torreon has long been a strategic hub for drug runners.

Locals say traffickers co-existed peacefully with legitimate businesses when Guzman's gang dominated here. At the very least, senior politicians in Coahuila have looked the other way, while some actively colluded with gangs, local leaders say.

"They're up to their necks in it, from the top down," one local business executive said of the politicians. "But don't put my name down or they'll be sending flowers to my grave."

When Calderon took office in 2006, voters like 53-year-old Torreon housewife Rosaura Gomez supported his conservative National Action Party (PAN) for taking on drug traffickers.

But as the violence intensified and got closer to home, she lost faith. In this year's presidential election, Gomez backed the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled for most of the 20th century, in the hope that it can restore order. The party won the election and will return to power in December.

"Before, there was a pact, and things were calm. The drugs went to the United States and these groups didn't mess with the people. This is what we want so we can live in peace," she said.

SUFFERING ECONOMY

Today, the economy is suffering. Garbage blows down the streets of Torreon's old town, passing shuttered businesses. The construction industry estimates about half the building firms are out of work in a city that had near full employment in 2000.

Private-sector investment is on track to drop by nearly a third from 2011. New job creation is heading for a 40-percent fall to about 4,800 - in a city growing by 12,000 people a year.

Big foreign firms are tight-lipped about the violence. A Caterpillar official said the company's security costs had risen, but that its business had not been affected.

One top business executive, who asked to remain anonymous, says many acquaintances have left to escape the violence.

Wearing a pained expression, he tells how a kidnapped friend had to give the names of other suitable victims to his captors as part of the ransom. His name was among the five given.

Despite that, the businessman argues that the crackdown on drug trafficking has been disastrous for his city, forcing gangs to resort to ever-more violent forms of money making.

He and many other locals look back to the days when a "Don't ask, don't tell" attitude prevailed and business was good.

President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, who takes office on December 1, has rejected negotiating with the gangs, mindful of the PRI's past reputation for cutting deals. But he stresses his priority is reducing the violence, then taking on the drug traffickers.

In private, some officials here say it may be impossible to avoid tacit deals with the cartels in certain areas unless the violence is curbed quickly. That means hammering the Zetas.

DEALS WITH THE GANGS

"I think the whole country wants the Zetas exterminated," said Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). "And if he's successful, Pena Nieto will have the support to do what he wants with his drug war."

Polls show a large majority of Mexicans reject deals with the gangs, but a 2011 survey in the hard-hit state of Chihuahua next to Coahuila showed nearly 50 percent favored a pact.

The survey did not include Coahuila, where the Zetas' blend of co-option and coercion has become a serious embarrassment.

Several former state officials are under investigation by federal prosecutors on suspicion of working for the drug gang. On October 7, marines killed Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano in the state. Then his body was stolen from a funeral home by armed men.

When Torreon's Mayor Olmos began to root out the Zetas, the police went on strike. Calling a meeting in his office, he soon realized the officers who arrived were working for the enemy.

He described how a policeman slouched in a chair and wearing sunglasses held up a phone so that the Zetas at the other end could hear every word the mayor said. When Olmos refused to sack the police chief, General Bibiano Villa, masked Zetas surrounded his office, lining the stairs and the streets outside.

With the help of the media, Olmos broke the strike and forced all the police to take "loyalty tests." Only one, a woman, passed. He then rebuilt the force with recruits from outside Coahuila and the army, and bumped up pay by 50 percent or more. But infiltration is a "permanent problem," he says.

Olmos, whose father was kidnapped by a gang in 1996, says the cartels are "equally bad" and opposes making deals. But he admits there is growing public pressure to end the violence.

Even some politicians from Calderon's PAN wonder whether a review of the drugs policy is needed to pacify hard-hit areas.

"I think a lot of people think negotiating with certain groups may resolve this problem," said Rodolfo Walss, a PAN city councilor in Torreon. "Frankly, I don't know."

Back on the Cerro de las Noas hill, where the huge concrete statue of Christ looms above the city, the attitude of salesman Jose Angel Aguirre sums up the conundrum facing Torreon.

Saying "I would rather bury my son today than discover he was out there killing" for a drug cartel, Aguirre conceded he would accept the presence of one gang if it improved security.

"It would be better if one of the two sides won," the 58-year-old said. "Then there would be peace."

(Editing by Kieran Murray and Philip Barbara)


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Iran has pictures of restricted Israeli areas: Iran MP

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran holds pictures of Israeli bases and other restricted areas obtained from a drone launched into Israeli airspace earlier this month, an Iranian lawmaker was quoted as saying on Monday.

Earlier this month, Israel shot down a drone after it flew 25 miles into the Jewish state. Lebanese militant group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the aircraft, saying its parts had been manufactured in Iran and assembled in Lebanon.

The drone transmitted pictures of Israel's "sensitive bases" before it was shot down, said Esmail Kowsari, chair of parliament's defense committee, according to Iran's Mehr news agency. He was speaking to Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam, Mehr reported on Monday.

"These aircraft transmit their pictures online, and right now we possess pictures of restricted areas," Kowsari was quoted as saying.

In Tel Aviv, a senior Israeli military officer, asked whether the drone had been equipped with a camera capable of transmitting photos, said: "To the best of our knowledge, no."

The military recovered wreckage of the aircraft after it was shot down over a forest near the occupied West Bank.

Israeli air space is closely monitored by the military and, except for commercial air corridors, is restricted, with special attention paid to numerous military and security installations.

Israeli threats to bomb Iranian nuclear sites if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop Tehran's nuclear program are a flashpoint for tensions in the Middle East. The West suspects the program is designed to develop a nuclear weapons capability, something Tehran steadfastly denies.

Iran's military regularly announces defense and engineering developments, though some analysts are skeptical of the reliability of such reports.

On Sunday Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the downed drone did not represent Iran's latest know-how in drone technology, according to Mehr.

In April, Iran announced it had started to build a copy of a U.S. surveillance drone, the RQ-170 Sentinel, captured last year after it came down near the Afghan border.

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Tel Aviv; Editing by William Maclean)


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Opposition Labor increases pressure on Cameron before EU talks

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's opposition Labor party piled pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday by pushing for an even tougher line on the European Union budget than that proposed by his ruling Conservative Party.

Cameron is promising to take a tough line at what are shaping up to be fraught talks next month to agree the EU's next seven-year budget in the face of growing anti-EU sentiment in Britain.

Last week he reiterated a threat to veto any budget deal seen as detrimental to British taxpayers, and demanded a real-terms freeze in EU spending given the financial constraints and budget cuts faced by many European governments.

Now left-leaning Labor has raised the stakes by demanding a cut in real terms.

Many Britons regard the EU as an ineffectual and spendthrift source of bureaucracy and Britain's ties with the 27-member bloc are likely to be a key theme in a national election set for 2015.

The centre-right Conservative vote is already under threat from the UK Independence Party, which has surged in popularity in recent months on a pledge to withdraw Britain from the EU.

"Labor will argue against the proposed increase in EU spending and instead support a real-terms cut in the budget," Labor finance spokesman Ed Balls and foreign affairs spokesman Douglas Alexander said in a joint opinion piece in the right-leaning Times newspaper.

Labor has moved clear of the Conservatives in opinion polls since Cameron's party came to power at the head of a coalition government in 2010.

David Lidington, a Conservative and the government's minister for Europe, said Labor had "zero credibility on standing up for Britain in Europe".

"They waved through above inflation increases for both of the multi-year budgets they approved ... We won't take any lessons from them about budget negotiation," Lidington said in a statement.

Cameron wants to remain within the EU given that it accounts for about half of British trade. But he has pledged to negotiate a new settlement with Brussels then seek the public's "fresh consent" for the deal, giving no timeline.

Making negotiations more difficult for Cameron are signs of growing irritation in Europe over what some EU leaders regard as British isolationism and opportunist demands at a time when governments are trying to fix the euro zone debt crisis.

In December, Cameron vetoed a European economic and fiscal pact to help the EU's euro zone countries recover from sovereign debt crises that had cast doubt on the 17-member single currency.

"As a result of David Cameron's behavior, those we used to call friends now ridicule the prime minister in meetings, shut him out of negotiations and bad-mouth him to the press," the Labor spokesmen said in their article.

Prominent Conservative commentator and activist Tim Montgomerie wrote on his ConservativeHome website that Labor's move was "clever politics" because it created a "headache" for Cameron by appealing to eurosceptic newspapers and voters.

(Additional reporting by Matt Falloon; editing by Robert Woodward)


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Air strikes in Damascus wreck last day of Syria "truce"

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian jets bombed parts of Damascus on Monday in what residents said were the capital's fiercest air raids yet, underlining the collapse of a truce proposed by peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

"More than 100 buildings have been destroyed, some leveled to the ground," said opposition activist Moaz al-Shami, who said he had witnessed three air raids in the northeastern suburb of Harasta alone. "Whole neighborhoods are deserted."

Syrian state television said a "terrorist car bomb" had killed 10 people, including women and children, near a bakery in Jaramana - a southeastern district of Damascus controlled by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Each side blamed the other for breaking the four-day truce for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which swiftly broke down.

"I am deeply disappointed that the parties failed to respect the call to suspend fighting," U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said in South Korea, where he received the Seoul Peace Prize.

"This crisis cannot be solved with more weapons and bloodshed ... the guns must fall silent," Ban said.

Brahimi, after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, voiced regret at the fate of the ceasefire, but said it would not deter him from pursuing peace efforts.

Although the Syrian military and several rebel groups accepted the plan to stop shooting over Eid al-Adha, which ends on Monday, it failed to stem the bloodshed in a 19-month-old conflict that has already cost at least 32,000 lives.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition watchdog, 420 people have been killed since Friday.

SCENES OF DEVASTATION

Damascus residents reported air raids on the suburbs of Qaboun, Zamalka and Irbin overnight and on Monday which they said were the heaviest since jets and helicopters first bombarded pro-opposition parts of the Syrian capital in August.

"Even electricity poles have been hit and they are lying among pools of water from burst pipes. There is no food, water, electricity or telephones," said Shami, the activist in Harasta.

"Army snipers surround Harasta National Hospital and no one can move from one street to another without risking being shot."

Shami said Free Syrian Army rebels still held most of the area, but their anti-aircraft guns could not hit the warplanes.

State media said insurgents never respected the truce.

"For the fourth consecutive day, the armed terrorist groups in Deir al-Zor continued violating the declaration on suspending military operations which the armed forces have committed to," state news said, later adding that rebels had also attacked government forces in Aleppo and the central city of Homs.

The Damascus air raids followed what residents said were failed attempts by troops to storm eastern parts of the city.

"Tanks are deployed around Harat al-Shwam (district) but they haven't been able to go in. They tried a week ago," said an activist who lives near the area and who asked not to be named.

Brahimi, who will visit Beijing after Moscow, said the renewed violence in Syria would not discourage him.

"We think this civil war must end ... and the new Syria has to be built by all its sons," he said. "The support of Russia and other members of the Security Council is indispensable."

Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad's government for the violence.

Beijing, keen to show it does not take sides in Syria, has urged Damascus to talk to the opposition and meet demands for political change. It has advocated a transitional government.

Big-power rifts have paralyzed United Nations action over Syria, but Assad's political and armed opponents are also deeply divided, a problem which their Western allies say has complicated efforts to provide greater support.

Syrian opposition figures, including Free Syrian Army commanders, started three days of talks in Istanbul on Monday in the latest attempt to unite the disparate groups.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut, Thomas Grove in Moscow and Michael Martina in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)


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Bulgaria nationalists rally in support of Muslims' trial

PAZARDZHIK, Bulgaria (Reuters) - Hundreds of nationalists rallied in a southern Bulgarian town on Monday in support of the prosecution of 13 religious leaders accused of spreading radical Islam in a case causing communal strains in the Balkan country.

The trial, just months after a suicide bomber killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver at the Black Sea port of Burgas, has tested a delicate ethnic balance between the country's minority Muslims and its Orthodox Christian majority.

Prosecutors in the southern town of Pazardzhik have charged 12 Bulgarian citizens, most of them Muslim prayer leaders, and one woman for preaching radical Islam between 2008 and 2010. Three of them are also charged with inciting religious hatred.

Protesters, led by far-right parties Attack and VMRO, waved banners reading "Our religion is Bulgaria" and "Tough sentences for fanatics", and said the march aimed to counter gatherings of Muslims in front of the courthouse in support of the accused.

The suspects, who deny any wrongdoing, face up to five years in prison if convicted.

They are accused of working with an unregistered branch of Al Waqf-Al Islami, an Islamic foundation set up in the Netherlands and funded mainly by "Salafi circles" from Saudi Arabia, the court said, referring to an ultra-conservative brand of Islam.

About 100 Muslims also rallied near the court under heavy police protection in support of the accused, saying the 13 had preached only traditional Islam. Bulgaria's Mufti Office has also declared its support for the accused.

The trial has the potential to threaten a culture of tolerance in Bulgaria, where Muslims make up about 12 percent of the 7.3 million population, analysts said.

Bulgaria is the only European Union (EU) country where Muslims are not recent immigrants but a centuries-old local community, mostly ethnic Turkish descendants of Ottoman rule that ended in 1878.

"Trials like this could dramatically raise tension in the places where Bulgarian Muslims live," said Antonina Zhelyazkova, head of the Sofia-based International Center for Minority Studies.

The trial has revived memories of the 1980s when hundreds of Muslims were forced to change their names to Bulgarian ones and over 300,000 left the country as a result of a campaign by late communist dictator Todor Zhivkov to revive mainstream Bulgarian culture.

Nationalist parties are also trying to use the trial to gain popularity before a general election next year, analysts said.

Israel has accused Iran and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah of being behind the Burgas attack. Iran has denied the charge and accused Israel of carrying it out.

(Editing by William Maclean)


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Residents blocked from returning to captured Libyan town

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Thousands of Libyans who fled fighting in the former Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid will not be allowed to return home for several more days until work was complete to make the town safe and restore services, officials said on Monday.

Militias aligned with the defense ministry took control of Bani Walid - one of the last towns to fall to rebels in last year's war - on Wednesday after fighting that has underlined the weakness of central authority a year after dictator Muammar Gaddafi was deposed.

The violence sent thousands fleeing from the hilltop town of 70,000 people in scenes reminiscent of last year's war.

Uncertain of the damage their homes may have sustained, some have tried to go back - however the town remains closed off as security forces and officials say they are working on making it safe and restoring water, electricity and communications.

"We want to make sure there isn't anything left over from the military operation. Services were destroyed," army spokesman Ali al-Sheikhi said. "We expect that in about three days (residents) will be able to go back to Bani Walid."

Fleeing residents spoke of no water or power and little food and medicine in town. The scale of destruction remains unclear.

"After what happened in Bani Walid you can say almost all of the population fled," said Mohammed al-Swai of the Libyan Relief agency. "We will try to get them back to their homes with the help of the authorities."

Local Governance Minister Mohammed al-Hrari said the lack of services was one of the main obstacles: "How can people go back if there is no water or power."

Aid workers said they had heard of a small number of the displaced trying to return through smaller roads.

At a road block made up of large stones a few kilometers from Bani Walid on Sunday, three army pickup trucks mounted with weapons stood guard, closing off the north entrance to the town. A few dozen civilian cars were parked in lines in front.

"Each day when I ask if I can check on my house, they say 'Tomorrow'," resident Abdelmanam, 20, said as he waited to see whether he could go through. He was refused entry.

Foreign reporters who arrived at the road block, in the area of Wadi Dinar, were also not allowed through to Bani Walid.

"There is graffiti on the walls inside, it may incite strife," army official Ahmed Salem said, without elaborating.

Hours after taking control of the town, militias - many from the rival town of Misrata - fired ferociously at empty public buildings, crying "Bani Walid is free!" in chaotic scenes.

"Some of the first fighters who went in were a little young ... We are erasing this graffiti because it might cause an adverse reaction," Sheikhi said, adding there would also be an investigation into reports of houses being burnt down.

The fighting erupted over a government demand Bani Walid hand over those who had kidnapped and tortured Omar Shaaban, the rebel who caught Gaddafi hiding in a drain in Sirte last year.

Shaaban, from Misrata, a city that underwent a harsh siege by Gaddafi's forces, died in a Paris hospital last month from injuries inflicted during two months of captivity in Bani Walid.

Bani Walid residents baulked at turning over the wanted men to unruly groups while the justice system remains in disarray.

The violence shows the government's inability to reconcile groups with long-running grievances and failure to bring many of the militias that deposed Gaddafi fully under its control.

(Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Ghaith Shennib; Editing by Jon Hemming)


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Greek editor stands trial over Swiss accounts list

ATHENS (Reuters) - A prominent Greek journalist who published the names of more than 2,000 wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts appeared in court on Monday to stand trial on charges of violating data privacy laws.

Costas Vaxevanis, editor of the "Hot Doc" weekly magazine, was arrested at the weekend for publishing the "Lagarde List" which French authorities gave to Athens in 2010 so that the account holders could be investigated for possible tax evasion.

The list - and the accompanying saga of how it was passed from one senior official to the next and misplaced at one point without anyone apparently taking action - has riveted Greeks who are angry at a political class seen as unwilling to crack down on the wealthy elite.

Vaxevanis's trial was adjourned soon after starting until Thursday. He could face up to two years in prison if convicted.

"I was doing my job in the name of the public interest," Vaxevanis told a crowd of supporters outside court. "Journalism is revealing the truth when everyone else is trying to hide it."

The list of 2,059 Greek account holders at HSBC in Switzerland features dozens of prominent business figures including a handful of shipping tycoons, companies and two politicians. It also includes a painter, an actress and many listed as architects, doctors, lawyers, and housewives.

The centre-left Ta Nea newspaper reprinted the list on Monday, devoting 10 pages to the accounts which were said to hold about 2 billion euros until 2007. However, the daily said it was not leaping to any conclusions about the list's "content nor the connotations it evokes in a large part of the public".

It did not say why it had decided to reprint the list and stressed there was no evidence linking anyone on the list to tax evasion.

"Ta Nea is publishing the list today. Will they be prosecuted?" Vaxevanis wrote on his Twitter account. "Today, it's not Hot Doc that's on trial but press freedom in Greece, and truth."

Vaxevanis criticized Greek media - which apart from Ta Nea have avoided any mention of those on the list - for failing to cover his magazine's revelations extensively.

The list has been named after Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund who was the French finance minister when it was handed over.

Hot Doc said the list was sent to it anonymously and authorities have not confirmed its authenticity.

MUZZLING THE MEDIA

The controversy has highlighted divisions in a near-bankrupt country now in its fifth year of recession, where austerity measures have taken a heavy toll on poorer sections of society. Greece's international lenders - with whom Athens hopes to strike a deal on an austerity package in a few days - have long demanded the country do more to fight evasion.

Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras and at least one lawmaker in the Greek coalition has called for charges against Vaxevanis to be dropped and ridiculed prosecutors for going after the journalist rather than those on the list.

"It is unacceptable that in Greece, which has been on its knees in recent years, tax evaders are left undisturbed and those who conceal possible evasion are not prosecuted but those who make revelations are," Tsipras said.

Greek authorities say there is no evidence that those included in the list have broken the law, but former ministers have been criticized for failing to make any checks on them.

In testimony before a parliamentary committee last week, George Papaconstantinou, who was finance minister when the list was first handed to Athens, said he gave about 20 names from the list to the financial crimes squad for checks.

He also said he gave a CD containing the list to one of his aides when he stepped down from the post, but that it then appeared to have been misplaced.

Evangelos Venizelos, leader of the PASOK Socialists and also a former finance minister, said the financial crime squad chief gave him a USB flash drive containing a list a year ago, but he was not sure if this was the original.

Earlier this month, Venizelos said he had handed the drive to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras when he realized no other copy of it existed.

The Samaras government has not commented publicly on the list. A government official said that looking into the list was the job of the justice system since the flash drive had been turned over to investigators.

"This is for the Greek justice system to investigate and we must have answers," the official said. "The Greek government does not interfere with the justice system."

(Writing by Deepa Babington; editing by David Stamp)


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Dutch Liberal and Labor parties agree to coalition deal

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberal Party and the Labor Party said they had reached a coalition deal on Monday, paving the way for a pro-austerity, pro-European government to be sworn in as early as next week.

Rutte, whose Liberals won the most seats in the September 12 election, will remain as prime minister, while Labor Party member of parliament Jeroen Dijsselbloem is widely tipped to replace Jan Kees de Jager as the new finance minister.

Under Rutte and De Jager, a Christian Democrat whose party lost heavily in the election, the Netherlands has been at the forefront of calls for tight fiscal policies across the euro zone to tackle the region's debt crisis.

The parliamentary election was held against the backdrop of the euro zone crisis, rising unemployment, lower housing prices and a stagnant economy.

Rutte and Labor leader Diederik Samsom reached a deal far quicker than expected, underlining the urgency given the European crisis and the fragile state of the Dutch economy.

Economists say the Netherlands must address structural reforms in areas such as housing, the Labor market, and welfare benefits.

Already, the two party leaders have agreed to cut state spending by a further 16 billion euros ($21 billion) in the next four years, aiming to all but eliminate the budget deficit by 2017, newspapers reported last week.

"This is a balanced package, a package that will make the Netherlands emerge from the crisis stronger," Rutte told reporters after talking to his party about the coalition deal.

The biggest spending cuts will be in healthcare, at 5 billion euros, social security, at 3 billion euros, and government overheads, at 2.5 billion euros, Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad reported, citing sources in The Hague.

People with higher incomes will be hit harder by the budget cuts, because they will have to pay more in healthcare, while purchasing power will improve slightly for the lowest income group, the paper said.

The Netherlands, one of a handful of remaining AAA-rated economies in the euro zone, is already implementing a 12-billion-euro austerity program agreed in April.

But with the deterioration in the economic environment, further cuts are now needed.

"We are in a crisis and we need to take measures to get out of it but it won't be easy," said Edith Schippers, a member of Rutte's party.

"It is a very tough package and it will be difficult for lots of Dutch people."

In June, government forecaster and think tank CPB projected a deficit of 2.6 percent of economic output for 2017.

In his budget presented to parliament last month, Finance Minister De Jager said the economy was on target to grow 0.75 percent next year with a budget deficit projected at 2.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), below the 3 percent EU limit.

Labor needs support from its members at a party conference set for November 3 for the deal to be finalized.

(Additional reporting by Gilbert Kreijger in Amsterdam; Writing by Sara Webb; Editing by Jon Hemming)


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Italy PM Monti says intends to serve until 2013 election

MADRID (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti dismissed fears on Monday that his government could fall, after former premier Silvio Berlusconi said at the weekend that the center right could withdraw its support before elections next year.

Speaking at a news conference in Madrid with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Monti said he did not consider Berlusconi's comments to be a threat to him and the unelected ministers in his technocrat government.

He said he and his colleagues had not sought office and were only serving a limited term. He indicated he intended to continue until elections expected in April.

"I think that the best thing for us to do is continue to work with a time horizon of spring 2013 as has always been our intention," he said.

(Reporting By James Mackenzie; editing by Barry Moody)


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NFL checking report Chargers used sticky substance vs. Broncos

Written By Bersemangat on Senin, 22 Oktober 2012 | 23.15

SAN DIEGO—The NFL is investigating whether the San Diego Chargers used a banned sticky substance during Monday night's loss to the Denver Broncos.

If the league determines the Chargers used the substance, they could be fined or lose a draft pick.

Fox Sports first reported the investigation on Sunday.

"We have been looking into it," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.

The Chargers issued a statement Sunday that said they are "aware of the inquiry and are cooperating fully with the League."

During Monday night's game, an equipment manager came onto the field with an illegal substance on hand towels, Fox Sports reported. Line judge Jeff Bergman saw the towels and tried to confiscate the substance. When the equipment manager wouldn't give it up, the officials made him empty his pockets and found a skin colored or clear type of tape, Fox Sports reported.

The Chargers blew a 24-0 halftime lead and lost 35-24, their second straight loss in which they blew a double-digit second-half lead.

It wasn't clear whether the Chargers were on offense or defense when the substance was confiscated.

In 1981, the NFL banned the product Stickum and other sticky substances. Raiders cornerback Lester Hayes was renowned for using the substance before it was banned.

News of the investigation capped one of the most tumultuous weeks in club history. Three days after the embarrassing loss dropped the team to 3-3, club spokesman Bill Johnston infuriated many fans when he posted a column on the team's web site that began by saying, "What's up with you people?" and told fans that it was "Time to take a chill pill."

Fans have been unhappy with coach Norv Turner and general manager A.J. Smith, who were brought back in January despite the Chargers missing the playoffs for the second straight season. San Diego has just one playoff win in four seasons.

———

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP—NFL

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Colfax Corridor Connection meets with residents for study

Denver is looking for ways to improve travel through the East Colfax Avenue corridor — which runs through Denver and Aurora — for cars, buses, bicycles and pedestrians.

The city and county commissioned a $3 million, year-long study on the issue.

Two-thirds of the cost is being funded by a federal transit grant and one-third by the city.

The study will "provide a road map for us to begin improving mobility and accessibility for transit users," said Crissy Fanganello, director of policy planning for the city and county of Denver.

The study — led by Denver Public Works, the Regional Transportation District and consultant GBSM Inc.— will gauge community opinion for research in updating and simplifying the transit system on East Colfax.

The East Colfax corridor is roughly defined as Interstate 25 to the west, Interstate 225 to the east, 12th Avenue to the south and 20th Avenue to the north.

At meetings Oct. 1 and Oct. 4 in Aurora and Denver — the first of four sets of meetings — Public Works and GBSM project managers asked residents what they felt were the most significant problems posed by current Denver transit services.

Denver Public Works spokeswoman Emily Williams said the common themes included a need for transit stations and buses that are safe, clean, comfortable and easy to access.

Residents were also concerned about environmental issues, such as air quality and tree preservation.

People at the meetings agreed that the East Colfax corridor is increasingly congested, Williams said.

RTD planners are concerned about the congestion. The 15L and 15 transit lines that run along East Colfax are at capacity.

"This corridor and these two routes are our most heavily traveled in the entire RTD district," said RTD spokeswoman Daria Serna. "We actually see about 25,000 (travelers) on any given weekday on these two routes."

The Colfax Corridor Connection study began in July; its expected completion is November 2013.

The results, along with those of related studies, such as the Colfax Streetcar Feasibility Study and RTD's Colfax Transit Priority Project, will be considered in the Denver Strategic Transportation Plan, which looks at long-term development of transit systems and cityscape in Denver over the next 25 years.

As of now, there are only questions.

In early 2013, meetings will start to look at some of the alternatives that have been analyzed and present the ones that will be most viable for improving the corridor, said GBSM spokesman Miles Graham.

As Denver and its population grow, the city must begin sustainable adjustments. This study is just the start of that, Graham said.

Megan Mitchell: 303-954-1223, mmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/megs_report

Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.
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106 counties likely to determine who wins the presidency

LEESBURG, Va. — How Virginia goes in the presidential election may come down to voters who live amid the small wineries, affluent subdivisions and Civil War battlegrounds of Loudoun County.

Voters in the tony Hamilton County suburbs around the humming riverside economic engine of Cincinnati may tip the balance in Ohio.

To win Florida, either President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney probably will have carried Hillsborough County, where the urban seaport town of Tampa bleeds into communities of Spanish-speaking voters and retired Midwesterners.

Those areas are vastly different, yet each is full of fickle voters and bound by a proclivity to swing between Republican and Democrat every four years. All are main targets as the president and his Republican challenger look for enough victories in enough states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House.

The race may come down to an even narrower slice of the electorate than the nine most contested states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. The outcome probably will depend on what happens in the 106 counties that Republican George W. Bush won in 2004 and that voted for Democrat Obama in 2008, according to an Associated Press analysis.

AP reviewed the vote returns in those nine states during the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections to identify the counties that have swung between the parties and were most likely to do it again Nov. 6.

These counties are home to people such as Matt Blunt, a 42-year-old information-technology manager from Sterling, Va., in Loudoun County, outside Washington. Blunt voted for Obama in 2008, hoping he could change Washington's bitter tone, but now backs Romney.

"What I see in Romney is the stronger potential for leadership than we've seen in the past four years," Blunt said, adding that Obama "hasn't lived up to the promise."

Constant polling

In these counties more than anywhere else, voters' phones ring every night with automated telephone surveys. Every day, glossy mailers hit their mailboxes. Televisions crackle day and night with campaign ads.

In fact, voters in the Cincinnati, Tampa and northern Virginia TV markets have been subjected to presidential campaign advertising totaling $127 million, almost one-fifth of the total spent nationwide this year.

"There's more — and more concentrated — contact with voters in these counties that swung back and forth in these states than anybody," said Charlie Black, a veteran Republican presidential campaign strategist and informal Romney adviser.

In a race where any bit of an advantage could make the difference, the campaigns go to all this trouble to sway a tiny fraction of the electorate. In 2008, there were 6.2 million votes from those 106 counties; that was not even 5 percent of the roughly 137 million who voted for president.

There is no single reason to explain why these counties seem to shift with the political wind. Their voters are far from monolithic, having little in common other than their voting patterns.

In most of these places, there are few truly undecided voters, forcing Obama and Romney to subdivide the electorate in their attempt for any edge.

In northern Virginia, for example, Obama is reaching out to newcomers and younger veterans. Romney's pitch is stronger toward retired military members, sportsmen and social conservatives.

In counties in the West, Obama is courting educated women and Latinos. Romney is attempting to make inroads with both but is more focused on businesswomen and small-business owners.

As a whole, voters in these counties are less racially diverse than the nation, with a smaller percentage having a college education.

One such area is working-class Sandusky County, Ohio, where the automotive industry's rebound has pushed the county's unemployment below the state average. The list also includes parts of southern Virginia, with a substantial African-American population, and North Carolina's Research Triangle.

If there's one area where these counties are linked, it may be that many have a wide segment of working-class white voters, an important group for Romney and one that Obama has struggled with.

Starting with an edge

In the hunt for 270, Obama starts with more states and electoral votes in his column. Romney must take back from the incumbent some states that Obama carried four years ago, including North Carolina and Virginia, which had been reliably Republican until 2008.

In Virginia, public and private polls show Obama narrowly ahead. Internal Republican polls have shown Romney leading in Loudoun and Prince William counties. Over time, these once-reliably Republican counties have become more politically diverse, as younger, well-educated, racially and ethnically diverse voters have flocked to Washington's suburbs. Obama won four years ago by aggressively going after them and the state's robust African-American electorate.

Romney can win Virginia by taking Loud-oun County away from the Democrats, holding down Obama's likely edge in other Washington suburbs and running up big numbers in rural southern Virginia and the conservative Tidewater area.

In Ohio, Romney needs Hamilton County, especially the Cincinnati suburbs, to offset Obama's edge in Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton. Obama needs to trim Romney's advantages in the suburbs and southeastern Ohio's coal country.

The dynamic is similar in Nevada's Washoe County. It's home to Reno, a gambling mecca at the foot of the Sierra Nevada that is a diverse mix of people, including retired and active-duty military from the nearby Naval air base, Latinos and transplants from northern California.

If Romney stands a chance of carrying Nevada, he needs to cut into Obama's edge in Las Vegas and run up big margins in the vast ranching and mining country elsewhere. But he stands little chance of beating Obama in Nevada without Washoe County, which accounts for 15 percent to 20 percent of the state's vote.

While Obama has concentrated his Nevada efforts on Las Vegas, Romney has focused aggressively on Washoe County's veterans, and for good reason.

"Washoe is a county where Republicans need to win to have a chance in Nevada," Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said.

But some swing-voting counties don't look like they may be swinging back any time soon.

The best example is Osceola County, a bedroom community to Orlando, Fla., that has experienced an influx in the past decade of Puerto Ricans, Latinos who are U.S. citizens.

The shift of these typically Democratic-leaning voters, as well as other Spanish-speaking voters in Colorado and Nevada, is part of a longer-term trend going in the Democrats' favor and spreading into other neighboring states over the coming generation.

While it bodes well for Democrats in the future, there are no guarantees for Obama this year.


A list of 106 swing-voting counties

The Associated Press has identified 106 swing-voting communities in the nine states where President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are competing hardest. Voters in these counties, and cities in the case of Virginia, picked President George W. Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2008, and these places could again be pivotal this year.

Colorado:

Alamosa

Arapahoe

Huerfano

Jefferson

Larimer

Ouray

Florida:

Flagler

Hillsborough

Osceola

Pinellas

Iowa:

Adams

Allamakee

Audubon

Bremer

Carroll

Cedar

Crawford

Delaware

Emmett

Franklin

Greene

Hamilton

Hardin

Iowa

Kossuth

Louisa

Marshall

Palo Alto

Union

Warren

Winnebago

Nevada:

Washoe

Carson City

New Hampshire:

Belknap

Carroll

Hillsborough

Rockingham

North Carolina:

Bladen

Buncombe

Caswell

Cumberland

Forsyth

Granville

Hyde

Jackson

Martin

Pitt

Wake

Watauga

Wilson

Ohio:

Hamilton

Lake

Ottawa

Sandusky

Tuscarawas

Wood

Virginia:

Buckingham

Caroline

Essex

Henrico

King and Queen

Loudoun

Montgomery

Prince William

Westmoreland

(Cities)

Chesapeake

Harrisonburg

Hopewell

Manassas

Manassas Park

Radford

Staunton

Suffolk

Winchester

Wisconsin:

Barron

Brown

Burnett

Calumet

Chippewa

Clark

Columbia

Door

Forest

Jefferson

Juneau

Kewaunee

Langlade

Lincoln

Manitowoc

Marathon

Marinette

Marquette

Monroe

Oconto

Oneida

Outagamie

Racine

Richland

Rusk

Sawyer

Shawano

Washburn

Waupaca

Waushara

Winnebago

Wood

Source: The Associated Press

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Cycling body agrees to strip Lance Armstrong of his 7 Tour titles

GENEVA—Forget the seven Tour de France victories. Forget the yellow jersey celebrations on the Champs Elysees. Forget the name that dominated the sport of cycling for so many years.

As far as cycling's governing body is concerned, Lance Armstrong is out of the record books.

Once considered the greatest rider in Tour history, the American was cast out Monday by his sport, formally stripped of his seven titles and banned for life for his involvement in what U.S. sports authorities describe as a massive doping program that tainted all of his greatest triumphs.

"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," said Pat McQuaid, the president said of the International Cycling Union.

"This is a landmark day for cycling."

McQuaid announced that his group, known as UCI, accepted sanctions imposed by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and would not appeal them to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. McQuaid said he was "sickened" by some of the evidence detailed by USADA in its 200-page report and hundreds of pages of supporting testimony and documents.

The condemnation by cycling's most senior official confirmed Armstrong's pariah status, after the UCI had backed Armstrong at times in trying to seize of the doping investigation from USADA. McQuaid said the UCI endorsed a life ban for Armstrong after almost two weeks studying the American agency's evidence, and will meet Friday to discuss going after his 2000 Olympic bronze medal.

Tour director Christian Prudhomme said he no longer considers Armstrong to be a champion from 1999-2005 and wants him to pay back his prize money.

"We wish that there is no winner for this period," he said in Paris. "For us, very clearly, the titles should remain blank. Effectively, we wish for these years to remain without winners."

Armstrong's representatives had no immediate comment, but the rider was defiant in August as he chose not to fight USADA in one

of the agency's arbitration hearings. He argued the process was rigged against him.

"I know who won those seven Tours, my teammates know who won those seven Tours, and everyone I competed against knows who won those seven Tours," Armstrong said then. "The toughest event in the world where the strongest man wins. Nobody can ever change that."

USADA said Armstrong should be banned and stripped of his Tour titles for "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen" within his U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel teams. He will lose all his race results since August 1998.

The agency welcomed the decision by UCI, following months of sparring between the two organizations.

"Today, the UCI made the right decision in the Lance Armstrong case," USADA CEO Travis Tygart said in a statement, which called on cycling to continue to fight doping. "There are many more details of doping that are hidden, many more doping doctors, and corrupt team directors and the omerta has not yet been fully broken."

The USADA report said Armstrong and his teams used steroids, the blood booster EPO and blood transfusions. The report included statements from 11 former teammates who testified against Armstrong, including that he pressured them to take banned drugs.

"I was sickened by what I read in the USADA report," McQuaid said, singling out the testimony of former teammate David Zabriskie. "The story he told of how he was coerced and to some extent forced into doping is just mind boggling."

Armstrong denies doping, saying he passed hundreds of drug tests—he has claimed as many as 500. UCI conducted 218 tests and there were another 51 by USADA, although they are not the only drug-testing bodies. USADA's report, released earlier this month, was aimed at showing why the agency ordered the sanctions against him.

"At the moment Lance Armstrong hasn't admitted to anything, yet all the evidence is there in this report that he doped," McQuaid said.

On Sunday, Armstrong greeted about 4,300 cyclists at his Livestrong charity's fundraiser bike ride in Texas, telling the crowd he's faced a "very difficult" few weeks.

"I've been better, but I've also been worse," Armstrong, a cancer survivor, told the crowd.

While drug use allegations have followed the 41-year-old Armstrong throughout much of his career, the USADA report has badly damaged his reputation. Longtime sponsors Nike, Trek Bicycles and Anheuser-Busch dropped him last week, and Armstrong also stepped down last week as chairman of Livestrong, the cancer awareness charity he founded 15 years ago after surviving testicular cancer which spread to his lungs and brain.

After the UCI decision Monday, another longtime Armstrong sponsor, Oakley sunglasses, cut ties with the rider.

Armstrong's astonishing return from life-threatening illness to the summit of cycling offered an inspirational story that transcended the sport. However, his downfall has ended "one of the most sordid chapters in sports history," USADA said in its report published two weeks ago.

The decision to create a seven-year hole in the record books marks a shift from how organizers treated similar cases in the past.

When Alberto Contador was stripped of his 2010 Tour victory for a doping violation, organizers awarded the title to Andy Schleck. In 2006, Oscar Pereiro was awarded the victory after the doping disqualification of American rider Floyd Landis.

USADA also thinks the Tour titles should not be given to other riders who finished on the podium, such was the level of doping during Armstrong's era.

The agency said 20 of the 21 riders on the podium in the Tour from 1999 through 2005 have been "directly tied to likely doping through admissions, sanctions, public investigations" or other means. It added that of the 45 riders on the podium between 1996 and 2010, 36 were by cyclists "similarly tainted by doping."

The world's most famous cyclist could still face further sports sanctions and legal challenges. Armstrong could lose that 2000 Olympic time-trial bronze medal and may be targeted with civil lawsuits from ex-sponsors or even the U.S. government.

McQuaid said the UCI's board will meet Friday to discuss the Olympic issue and whether to update other race results due to Armstrong's disqualifications.

The IOC said in a statement it would study the UCI's response and wait to receive their full decision.

"It is good to see that all parties involved in this case are working together to tackle this issue," the IOC said.

A so-called "Truth and Reconciliation" commission, which could offer a limited amnesty to riders and officials who confessed to doping practices, will also be discussed, UCI legal adviser Philippe Verbiest said.

In total, 26 people—including 15 riders—testified to USADA that Armstrong and his teams used and trafficked banned substances and routinely used blood transfusions. Among the witnesses were loyal sidekick George Hincapie and admitted dopers Tyler Hamilton and Landis.

USADA's case also implicated Italian sports doctor Michele Ferrari, depicted as the architect of doping programs, and longtime coach and team manager Johan Bruyneel. Ferrari—who has been targeted in an Italian prosecutor's probe—and another medical official, Dr. Luis Garcia del Moral, received lifetime bans.

Bruyneel, team doctor Pedro Celaya and trainer Jose "Pepe" Marti opted to take their cases to arbitration with USADA. The agency could call Armstrong as a witness at those hearings.

Bruyneel, a Belgian former Tour de France rider, lost his job last week as manager of the RadioShack-Nissan Trek team which Armstrong helped found to ride for in the 2010 season.

——

AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Mandarin Chinese becoming first choice as second language

Ivie Hunt was barely 6 last spring and had just finished kindergarten when she shocked the hostess at a Denver Asian restaurant by chatting comfortably in Mandarin Chinese.

"Here was this little blond, white girl having a full conversation with the hostess in Mandarin," said her mother, Ann Hunt, who admitted to being a bit stunned herself.

That kind of surprise may wear off as Mandarin Chinese becomes the first choice of a growing number of second-language learners.

More language students are saying adios to the recent stampede to learn Spanish and huan ying — or welcome — to mastering a Chinese dialect now spoken by an estimated 100 million non-Chinese.

In Colorado, there are many Ivies — ages 3 to 99 — twisting their tongues and brains around the foreign concepts of Mandarin grammar, tones and characters.

More than 60 schools around the state — ranging from primary-level immersion schools to universities to private language enterprises — are teaching this most widely spoken language in the world. More online classes are popping up. Chinese-language clubs are taking over tables in coffee shops. Chinese tutors are becoming a hot commodity.

The popularity of Mandarin has been driven by several factors: China's ascendancy in the global economy means anyone doing business on an international basis is likely to encounter Mandarin speakers. The spotlight on the 2008 Beijing Olympics increased tourism to China and heightened interest in Mandarin. Also, more Americans are traveling to China to adopt Chinese babies and want to be conversant with their children.

Speaking Mandarin has become a hot ticket on college applications as well as a starred addition to executive résumés.

"If you are going to get around in the world, you are going to need to speak Chinese. It's a language everyone is going to be speaking," said aviation consultant Mike Boyd, who

studies Mandarin for one intense hour a week at the Colorado Chinese Language School in Denver.

That message may be catching the attention of the younger set — and their parents — the most.

It is no longer so unusual for preschoolers to be signed up for Mandarin instruction. At least one school district has dropped Spanish classes and added K-12 Chinese. Some charter schools are offering total immersion in Mandarin beginning in kindergarten. That's how Ivie could chatter in Chinese after one year at the Denver Language School without ever being anywhere near the Great Wall or the Ming Tombs.

And that's why Trinity Jones, 12, thinks nothing of having conversations in Mandarin while socializing with her classmates at the Denver Center for International Studies.

Trinity had the option of immersing herself in French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese or Lakota, but she was fixed on learning the language spoken by more than a billion people in the world.

"I knew it would help me in the future," said Trinity, who already has her sights set on being a government translator or working for a company such as Apple in China.

Mandarin has become such an important language around the state that the University of Colorado at Boulder has added a program called Teaching East Asia. It is geared toward training more Chinese instructors and furthering learning about China for more students. It is also aimed at getting a handle this year on just how many

Chinese-language schools and learners are out there.

The program uses funding from an initiative called STARTALK that was developed under President George W. Bush to promote teaching and understanding of "strategically important" languages.

Jon Zeljo with the Teaching East Asia program said one focus of the summer institutes held for teachers and students the past three years has been to make Mandarin classes sustainable by giving Chinese teachers more resources and to expose more students to Mandarin at a young age.

The Chinese government is assisting in this endeavor by funding half the salaries of Chinese teachers through Chinese Language Council International programs called Confucius Institutes or through a Chinese Ministry of Education program called Hanban.

Kuo Li teaches Mandarin and Chinese culture to 144 students at Battle Mountain High School in Edwards with Chinese government help and said his students are learning much more than how to pronounce Chinese tones correctly.

"Chinese gives these students a larger horizon in their future lives," he said.

Amanda Sauer is principal at Erie Elementary in the St. Vrain Valley School District, which has embraced the teaching of Mandarin more than any other district in the state. Four Chinese-language teachers are half funded by Hanban.

Sauer echoes Li's statement.

"Our district looked at how to prepare kids for 21st-century jobs — to help them have a global view," she said.

Students in kindergarten through second grade in Erie start out with sessions every other week that focus more on Chinese culture than on learning grammar. Students move on to weekly classes focused on writing characters and language-building in third grade. They can then choose whether to continue learning Chinese in middle and high school.

Ann Hunt is pretty sure Ivie will continue her Chinese studies. She and her husband, Dr. James Hunt, have already decided their 2-year-old son will also have the chance to learn Mandarin. They have mused over what it will be like to eventually have two teenage children in the house who are fluent in a language that is a mystery to them and to the two older children in the family.

Already, they struggle with not being able to help Ivie with her Mandarin homework.

"Overwhelming is how I would describe it," she said. "Overwhelming but amazing."

Or, as her daughter might tell her, in Mandarin it is jingren — amazing.

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm

Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.
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Police get tuft of hair from park near where Jessica Ridgeway found

A Denver TV station reported Sunday night that investigators in the Jessica Ridgeway abduction and murder had received new evidence.

Investigator Trevor Materasso of the Westminster Police Department said that "60 percent" of what Fox 31 reported Sunday night was "erroneous and bad information."

He said someone walking near the park reported finding some items, including a tuft of what appeared to be blonde hair, and called police.

Materasso said there is no indication yet whether the hair are connected to the case. "We don't even know if this is dog hair yet," he said.

"Like everything else, every tip we've gotten, it was taken and we'll take a look at it to see if it's connected," he said.

Jessica was

abducted after she left home walking to school Oct. 5. Her remains were found in garbage bags 11 miles away in an open field in Arvada's Pattridge Park five days after her disappearance.

Police have received more than 4,000 tips. They urge anyone with information to call a special tips hotline at 303-658-4336.

Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.
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Layoffs, failures test Colorado's "new energy economy"

The resilience of Colorado's vaunted "new energy economy" is being tested after a series of job cuts, financial setbacks and political firestorms.

The latest loss was Phillips 66's announcement last week that it is pulling the plug on a major alternative-fuels research-and-development center that was planned on the former StorageTek site in Louisville.

That followed the recent news that Vestas Wind Systems was making its biggest round of Colorado layoffs, bringing the job-cut tally to about 500.

The Weld County district attorney's office is investigating the failure of Colorado solar-panel manufacturer Abound Solar, and congressional Republicans are asking tough questions about Abound's federal loan guarantees.

Also in the loss column is General Electric's recent decision to suspend development of the proposed $300 million PrimeStar Solar plant in Aurora that would have employed 355 workers.

At the least, the setbacks are a speed bump in Colorado's effort to maintain a leadership status in renewable energy. At worst, they could significantly impair growth of the industry.

The combined layoffs, plant closure and mothballed projects in Colorado represent the loss of more than 1,000 existing and projected jobs, plus millions of dollars of tax revenue and spinoff economic activity.

Hard times for the green industries stem from a combination of technical challenges, low-cost foreign competition and an uncertain outlook for government support of alternative energy.

"It's not just Colorado," said William Yeatman, an energy analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based free-market think tank.

"Renewable-energy manufacturing is taking a beating across the country, primarily due to the fact that federal subsidies have run their course," he said. "The 2009 stimulus has been spent, and the wind production-tax credit is set to expire in December. Without taxpayer handouts, these green industries simply cannot compete."

Volatility expected

Advocates for renewable energy say tax credits and loan guarantees are necessary tools for the wind and solar industries to survive and grow until they reach scales to compete with other power sources.

Former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, who coined the term "new energy economy" during his 2006 gubernatorial campaign, said he remains convinced that Colorado will be a center for renewable-energy commerce and research despite the recent spate of layoffs and bankruptcies.

"People still see Colorado as a state that moved forward with an aggressive agenda," said Ritter, a Democrat who now serves as director of the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University.

"There is going to be some volatility within this industry," he said. "But what I would argue is that we will not go backwards. The public demand for clean energy is very strong. And our R&D corridor is as strong as any place in the nation."

Ritter blamed layoffs at manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems on "congressional inaction" to extend the expiring wind-energy production-tax credit, or PTC.

"If the PTC comes back for three years, Vestas would be at full-tilt boogie," he said.

Failure to extend the PTC would devastate the wind-energy industry, according to a report by Navigant Consulting, commissioned by the American Wind Energy Association.

Wind-supported jobs in the U.S. would drop nearly in half, from 78,000 in 2012 to 41,000 in 2013, the report said. Installations of wind generation would decline from 12 gigawatts this year to 2 gigawatts next year. Investment in wind energy would fall from $15.6 billion in 2012 to $5.5 billion next year.

While solar energy is not affected by the production-tax credit — solar has its own investment-tax credit through 2016 — the industry is not immune from problems.

The Chapter 7 bankruptcy and subsequent closure of solar-panel manufacturer Abound Solar this year has become a hot issue in political and government circles.

While Abound officials blamed the shutdown on crippling competition from low-cost Chinese manufacturers, others — chiefly Republicans in Congress — say Abound was selling faulty equipment. They are investigating to determine if the U.S. Department of Energy was aware of Abound's technical problems before it authorized a $400 million loan guarantee in 2010.

Abound drew about $70 million in guaranteed loans. The DOE has estimated that U.S. taxpayers will be on the hook for about $40 million to $60 million following Abound's liquidation.

The Weld County district attorney's office is saying little about its investigation of Abound, reported this month by 7News.

"I can confirm that there is an investigation into Abound Solar from our office," said spokesman Heath Montgomery. "As it pertains to the nature of that investigation, I can't comment on that."

House investigation

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican whose district includes Abound's former office and manufacturing sites, serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the Abound loans.

"Did the DOE rush to issue a loan guarantee on a product that wasn't ready for prime time?" Gardner said. "We need to know what the DOE knew and when they knew it."

He said the investigation seeks to address the issue of the government "picking winners and losers" through the issuance of loan guarantees to a handful of companies.

Gardner said he supports a short-term extension of the wind-production tax credit because, unlike selective solar loan guarantees, any company producing wind power can claim the tax credit.

DOE spokesman Damien LaVera declined to comment specifically on the House investigation. He noted that Abound, since its founding in 2007 under the name AVA Solar, had Republican and Democratic backing as it requested government incentives for operations in Colorado and Indiana.

"Abound had strong bipartisan support — first in the form of a grant from DOE under the Bush administration, and later in the form of letters and public statements from members of Congress from Colorado and Indiana and the governor of Indiana," LaVera said.

Namaste Solar of Boulder, one of Colorado's largest solar-system installers, has used Abound panels for two projects. On one of the installations, using an early version of Abound panels, the equipment malfunctioned and needed to be replaced. The second project using a later version operated normally.

Blake Jones, president of Namaste, said he was intrigued with the idea of using a Colorado-based supplier. But Abound was "late to the game" compared to more established panel manufacturers, Jones said, and had difficulty scaling up its production enough to be cost-competitive.

Jones said the failure of Abound is not representative of the solar manufacturing sector, nor should it be used as a reason to curtail financial incentives to the industry.

"Oil and gas is subsidized; nuclear is subsidized," he said. "The playing field needs to be leveled in order to support the solar industry during its maturation phase. I do believe we'll reach a point where unsubsidized solar can compete with other technologies."

Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948, sraabe@denverpost.com or twitter.com/steveraabedp

Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.
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Denver firm signs $2 billion plus deal with Chinese company

 Denver-based Prospect Global Resources and Sichuan Chemical Industry Holding announced Monday a more than $2 billion agreement, over a 10-year period, under which Sichuan will purchase at least 500,000 metric tons of potash annually, or 25 percent of the projected output of Prospect Global's American West Potash Field in Holbrook, Az.

The conservative deal valuation reflects current market prices of about $475 per metric ton for a total of 5 million metric tons.

The contract is take-or-pay, backed by a letter of credit.

The agreement also provides an option for American West to sell and Sichuan Chemical to purchase an additional mount of potash.

Prospect Global said it is believed to be the largest-ever purchase and sale contract - in price and volume - for a potash mine under development in the United States. It added that the deal is also believed to be one of the largest export contracts in United States history.

"Prospect Global believes this bankable offtake agreement enhances the attractiveness of the project to lenders," the company said in a statement.

The current timetable calls for the American West site to be in production by late 2015 or early 2016.

Pat Avery, executive officer of Prospect Global said the agreement is "a major vote of confidence both in the long-term potential of our American West Potash site as a mineral resource and in Prospect Global's ability to create a state of the art mining operation to capitalize on that potential."

Prospect Global said that from the perspective of Sichuan Chemical, a state-owned enterprise that is one of China's largest fertilizer manufacturers and its third-largest chemical company, the accord provides a large - and independent - source of a commodity that is critical to meeting the challenge of feeding the world's largest nation.

Prospect Global said that this year's record drought in North America and Europe has cut grain harvests, squeezing global food reserves and raising prices. In that context, obtaining dependable supplies of potash, which raises agricultural productivity without depleting soil nutrient, is vital to China's food security, said the Denver company.

Kiaojun Chen, chairman of Sichuan Chemical said the agreement with Prospect Global "has important benefit for Sichuan Chemical and "also will make a significant contribution to the economic development of Sichuan Province and the Chinese potash industry."

Chen said Sichuan Chemical is "honored to work with Prospect Global" and looks forward "to a prosperous future."

Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939, hpankratz@denverpost.com or twitter.com/howardpankratz

Copyright 2012 The Denver Post. All rights reserved.
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