AFI announces finance options | News | Vertikal.net

January 24, 2012 | Comments (0)

UK based sales and rental company AFI-Uplift has launched its own finance range that includes hire purchase, finance and operating lease schemes to make it easier for companies buy aerial work platforms.

AFI says that it is offering the finance on the new and used equipment from its inventory without the requirement for a large deposit and with the benefit of fast delivery. Finance and operating lease options cover 36, 48 or 60 month terms.

AFI director David McNicholas said: ?At present many companies are finding it very challenging to raise finance to purchase machines and they are typically being asked to pay large deposits. We have decided to make the process affordable by funding the finance ourselves, offering new and used machines from stock with a quick turnaround.?

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Source: http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/14038/

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Witnesses: Security forces kill 2 in north Nigeria (AP)

KANO, Nigeria ? Nigerian security forces killed a man and a pregnant woman early Tuesday morning in an assault on a neighborhood in this northern city where at least 185 people died in a recent terror attack by a radical Islamist sect, witnesses said.

Assault rifle rounds left bullet holes in the cement walls of the home in the sprawling city of Kano. Its interior metal doors were peppered with holes as well. Inside a living room, blood pooled around beige sofas, with a single rifle cartridge left behind. A man in traditional robes sobbed as he stood in the puddle.

Witnesses said security forces surrounded the home early Tuesday morning and started a gun battle that lasted hours. Relative Musa Ibrahim Fatega said the dead man was a retired worker from the country's education ministry. A sedan inside the compound, also riddled with bullet holes, bore federal government license plates.

Fatega said the man, who he declined to name, was not a member of the sect known as Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the coordinated attack Friday in Kano that left so many dead. Security forces took the two dead bodies away, with family members still trying to figure out how to claim them for burial before sundown as is Islamic tradition.

"He didn't belong to any religious group. Is it because of his beard?" Fatega asked. "That means you cannot dress the way you are. Is it good? Is this how government is going to treat us?"

Kano state police spokesman Magaji Musa Majiya declined to immediately comment, saying the local commissioner of police would brief journalists later Tuesday. However, the scene around the house remained tense as locals pressed against the front gate Tuesday morning. A military attack helicopter circled overhead.

Friday's attack in Kano killed at least 150 civilians, 29 police officers, three secret police officers, two immigration officers and one customs official, police now say, bringing the toll to 185 dead. Medical workers and emergency officials say they still expect the death toll to rise.

Police also say they have discovered 10 unexploded car bombs in the city, as well as about 300 bombs made from aluminum cans and other explosives. That has raised fears that Boko Haram could strike again in this city of more than 9 million people that carries religious and political importance across Nigeria's Muslim north.

Friday's coordinated attack in Kano represents Boko Haram's deadliest assault since beginning a campaign of terror last year. Boko Haram has now killed 262 people in 2012, more than half of the 510 people the sect killed in all of 2011, according to an Associated Press count.

Nigeria's weak central government has been unable to stop the killings, and its heavy-handed military response has been criticized by civilians who live in fear of sect attacks and government reprisals.

Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law and avenge the deaths of Muslims in communal violence across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people split largely into a Christian south and Muslim north.

While the sect has begun targeting Christians in the north, the majority of those killed Friday appeared to be Muslim, officials said.

___

Associated Press writer Salisu Rabiu contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects name of Musa Ibrahim Fatega.)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence

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SC-2012 Primary: 40% Gingrich, 26% Romney, 18% Paul, 13% Santorum (ARG 1/19-20)

American Research Group
1/19-20/12; 600 likely Republican primary voters, 4% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
ARG release

South Carolina

2021 President: Republican Primary
40% Gingrich
26% Romney
18% Paul
13% Santorum
(chart)

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/sc-2012-primary-40-gingri_n_1220839.html

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Apartheid's black-on-black divide slower to heal

In this Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011 photo, a child rests on a car tire used as a toy at the Vingerkraal settlement near Bela Bela, South Africa. The settlement seems trapped in South Africa's apartheid past, with tin shacks like those erected in desperate haste by blacks forced to move from neighborhoods claimed by whites, and women and children are left on their own most of the year by men working in faraway big cities (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

In this Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011 photo, a child rests on a car tire used as a toy at the Vingerkraal settlement near Bela Bela, South Africa. The settlement seems trapped in South Africa's apartheid past, with tin shacks like those erected in desperate haste by blacks forced to move from neighborhoods claimed by whites, and women and children are left on their own most of the year by men working in faraway big cities (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

BELA BELA, South Africa (AP) ? The shantytown called Vingerkraal seems trapped in South Africa's apartheid past. Tin shacks resemble those hurriedly built by blacks evicted from white territory. Women and children are left on their own for most of the year by men working in faraway cities. Poverty lies tucked between game resorts.

But Vingerkraal's is a different story in the sinister saga of racially divided South Africa. It is the story of blacks who fought blacks in the service of apartheid.

In the two decades since apartheid crumbled, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission has brought about a measure of reconciliation between blacks and their former white rulers. The divisions among blacks, however, engineered or exacerbated by a system of divide-and-rule often have been slower to heal. Vingerkraal is a glaring example.

Its history begins in neighboring Namibia, once South African territory, where guerrillas were waging a war for independence. Other black Namibians were hired by white-run security forces in a unit called Koevoet, meaning crowbar, and its fighters were paid bonuses for what became known as "cash for corpses."

Koevoet's goal, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, was to "gather intelligence, track guerrillas and then kill them." It was, the commission said, "a race war," and apartheid South Africa lost.

In 1990, with Namibia independent, hundreds of black Koevoet veterans suddenly found themselves trapped in the midst of their adversaries. Many fled to South Africa, where their former officers helped them find jobs in security and get South African citizenship.

Four years later white rule ended, and the black Koevoet veterans were on the losing side again. Some of them retreated to Vingerkraal, near the town of Bela Bela in the north of the country. Some 6,000 people now live here, in the dry bush, chronically short of water and electricity, and still haunted by a 2010 tragedy that killed 11 of their children.

Sisingi Kamongo, 45, was among the founders of Vingerkraal. Asked about his past, he begins by saying he was just 18 and desperate for work when he joined Koevoet in 1984. Later, he talks about stories he heard of guerrillas kidnapping village children and forcing them to fight.

"We didn't do anything wrong," he says. "We were protecting the people."

Slowly, war stories emerge. Kamongo recalls interrogating villagers, being told they had not seen fighters for years, and then coming under attack.

"What do you expect us to do?" Kamango said. "Of course there's going to be trouble. We were heavy-handed. But ... it was for a reason."

Kamango, who has used a wheelchair since 2002 because of an old war injury, says he knows of a prisoner who was summarily executed, but insists white officers made the decision over their black subordinates' objections.

Namibia was not the only place where whites set blacks against blacks. The so-called bantustans also played a part, set up by the white government as black-ruled homelands to remove their populations from white areas.

Here, there has been reconciliation exemplified by Bantu Holomisa. In 1987 he seized power in the bantustan of Transkei, the homeland of Nelson Mandela, while the leader of the anti-apartheid struggle was in prison.

When apartheid ended and the bantustans were abolished, Mandela's African National Congress accepted Holomisa as a member. Later Holomisa had a falling out with the party, but he remains a member of Parliament.

John Kani, a leading actor and playwright, explores the personal effects of the divisions among blacks in "Nothing But the Truth," about two brothers, one of whom dies in exile, a hero of the liberation struggle, while the other stays in South Africa and away from politics.

The 2002 play explores the tensions that arise over who did more for the cause of black freedom.

It is a complicated history that Kani says needs to be understood better.

"I'm worried about this collective amnesia. We're afraid, even in our own house, to talk about dark times," he said in an interview. "Forgiving is OK. Forgetting, never."

Vingerkraal felt the pain of its marginalization in July, 2010, when a brush fire broke out. The shortage of water was compounded by the lack of good roads that slowed the arrival of rescue services, and 11 children died. The seven survivors, some horribly scarred, struggle to raise money to pay for transport to hospitals for treatment. It took more than a year for the maimed to get specialized care.

But the elders of the community see hope in their children. Their young people attend school with other South Africans, while many have followed their fathers into private security work, two are at the University of Pretoria, studying to be teachers.

Kamongo, the Koevoet veteran, wrote and published with the help of a South African army enthusiast a memoir of his fighting years. He said fellow veterans told him they found release reading his story, and now want him to help them tell theirs. He said it is a way of coming to terms with why they are seen as killers.

"It's our own, personal TRC," he said, referring to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-21-AF-South-Africa-Two-Timed-by-Apartheid/id-4b5d805aafa14e9381c610949e7e3395

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Legendary blues singer Etta James dies in Calif. (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Etta James' performance of the enduring classic "At Last" was the embodiment of refined soul: Angelic-sounding strings harkened the arrival of her passionate yet measured vocals as she sang tenderly about a love finally realized after a long and patient wait.

In real life, little about James was as genteel as that song. The platinum blonde's first hit was a saucy R&B number about sex, and she was known as a hell-raiser who had tempestuous relationships with her family, her men and the music industry. Then she spent years battling a drug addiction that she admitted sapped away at her great talents.

The 73-year-old died on Friday at Riverside Community Hospital from complications of leukemia, with her husband and sons at her side, her manager, Lupe De Leon said.

"It's a tremendous loss for her fans around the world," he said. "She'll be missed. A great American singer. Her music defied category."

James' spirit could not be contained ? perhaps that's what made her so magnetic in music; it is surely what made her so dynamic as one of R&B, blues and rock `n' roll's underrated legends.

"The bad girls ... had the look that I liked," she wrote in her 1995 autobiography, "Rage to Survive." `'I wanted to be rare, I wanted to be noticed, I wanted to be exotic as a Cotton Club chorus girl, and I wanted to be obvious as the most flamboyant hooker on the street. I just wanted to be."

"Etta James was a pioneer. Her ever-changing sound has influenced rock and roll, rhythm and blues, pop, soul and jazz artists, marking her place as one of the most important female artists of our time," said Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President and CEO Terry Stewart. "From Janis Joplin to Joss Stone, an incredible number of performers owe their debts to her. There is no mistaking the voice of Etta James, and it will live forever."

Despite the reputation she cultivated, she would always be remembered best for "At Last." The jazz-inflected rendition wasn't the original, but it would become the most famous and the song that would define her as a legendary singer. Over the decades, brides used it as their song down the aisle and car companies to hawk their wares, and it filtered from one generation to the next through its inclusion in movies like "American Pie." Perhaps most famously, President Obama and the first lady danced to a version at his inauguration ball.

The tender, sweet song belied the turmoil in her personal life. James ? born Jamesetta Hawkins ? was born in Los Angeles to a mother whom she described as a scam artist, a substance abuser and a fleeting presence during her youth. She never knew her father, although she was told and had believed, that he was the famous billiards player Minnesota Fats. He neither confirmed nor denied it: when they met, he simply told her: "I don't remember everything. I wish I did, but I don't."

She was raised by Lula and Jesse Rogers, who owned the rooming house where her mother once lived in. The pair brought up James in the Christian faith, and as a young girl, her voice stood out in the church choir. James landed the solos in the choir and became so well known, she said that Hollywood stars would come to see her perform.

But she wouldn't stay a gospel singer for long. Rhythm and blues lured her away from the church, and she found herself drawn to the grittiness of the music.

"My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy," she recalled in her book.

She was doing just that when bandleader Johnny Otis found her singing on San Francisco street corners with some girlfriends in the early 1950s. Otis, a legend in his own right, died on Tuesday.

"At the time, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters had a hit with `Work With Me, Annie,' and we decided to do an answer. We didn't think we would get in show business, we were just running around making up answers to songs," James told The Associated Press in 1987.

And so they replied with the song, "Roll With Me, Henry."

When Otis heard it, he told James to get her mother's permission to accompany him to Los Angeles to make a recording. Instead, the 15-year-old singer forged her mother's name on a note claiming she was 18.

"At that time, you weren't allowed to say `roll' because it was considered vulgar. So when Georgia Gibbs did her version, she renamed it `Dance With Me, Henry' and it went to No. 1 on the pop charts," the singer recalled. The Gibbs song was one of several in the early rock era when white singers got hits by covering songs by black artists, often with sanitized lyrics.

After her 1955 debut, James toured with Otis' revue, sometimes earning only $10 a night. In 1959, she signed with Chicago's legendary Chess label, began cranking out the hits and going on tours with performers such as Bobby Vinton, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Everly Brothers.

"We would travel on four buses to all the big auditoriums. And we had a lot of fun," she recalled in 1987.

James recorded a string of hits in the late 1950s and `60s including "Trust In Me," `'Something's Got a Hold On Me," `'Sunday Kind of Love," `'All I Could Do Was Cry," and of course, "At Last."

"(Chess Records founder) Leonard Chess was the most aware of anyone. He went up and down the halls of Chess announcing, `Etta's crossed over! Etta's crossed over!' I still didn't know exactly what that meant, except that maybe more white people were listening to me. The Chess brothers kept saying how I was their first soul singer, that I was taking their label out of the old Delta blues, out of rock and into the modern era. Soul was the new direction," she wrote in her autobiography. "But in my mind, I was singing old style, not new."

In 1967, she cut one of the most highly regarded soul albums of all time, "Tell Mama," an earthy fusion of rock and gospel music featuring blistering horn arrangements, funky rhythms and a churchy chorus. A song from the album, "Security," was a top 40 single in 1968.

Her professional success, however, was balanced against personal demons, namely a drug addiction.

"I was trying to be cool," she told the AP in 1995, explaining what had led her to try heroin.

"I hung out in Harlem and saw Miles Davis and all the jazz cats," she continued. "At one time, my heavy role models were all druggies. Billie Holiday sang so groovy. Is that because she's on drugs? It was in my mind as a young person. I probably thought I was a young Billie Holiday, doing whatever came with that."

She was addicted to the drug for years, beginning in 1960, and it led to a harrowing existence that included time behind bars. It sapped her singing abilities and her money, eventually, almost destroying her career.

It would take her at least two decades to beat her drug problem. Her husband, Artis Mills, even went to prison for years, taking full responsibility for drugs during an arrest even though James was culpable.

"My management was suffering. My career was in the toilet. People tried to help, but I was hell-bent on getting high," she wrote of her drug habit in 1980.

She finally quit the habit and managed herself for a while, calling up small clubs and asking them, "Have you ever heard of Etta James?" in order to get gigs. Eventually, she got regular bookings ? even drawing Elizabeth Taylor as an audience member. In 1984, she was tapped to sing the national anthem at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and her career got the resurgent boost it needed, though she fought addiction again when she got hooked on painkillers in the late 1980s.

Drug addiction wasn't her only problem. She struggled with her weight, and often performed from a wheelchair as she got older and heavier. In the early 2000s, she had weight-loss surgery and shed some 200 pounds.

James performed well into her senior years, and it was "At Last" that kept bringing her the biggest ovations. The song was a perennial that never aged, and on Jan. 20, 2009, as crowds celebrated that ? at last ? an African-American had become president of the United States, the song played as the first couple danced.

But it was superstar Beyonce who serenaded the Obamas, not the legendary singer. Beyonce had portrayed James in "Cadillac Records," a big-screen retelling of Chess Records' heyday, and had started to claim "At Last" as her own.

An audio clip surfaced of James at a concert shortly after the inauguration, saying she couldn't stand the younger singer and that Beyonce had "no business singing my song." But she told the New York Daily News later that she was joking, even though she had been hurt that she did not get the chance to participate in the inauguration.

Upon hearing of her death, Beyonce released a statement on her website that read: "This is a huge loss. Etta James was one of the greatest vocalists of our time. I am so fortunate to have met such a queen. Her musical contributions will last a lifetime. Playing Etta James taught me so much about myself, and singing her music inspired me to be a stronger artist. When she effortlessly opened her mouth, you could hear her pain and triumph. Her deeply emotional way of delivering a song told her story with no filter. She was fearless, and had guts. She will be missed."

James did get her accolades over the years. She was inducted into the Rock Hall in 1993, captured a Grammy in 2003 for best contemporary blues album for "Let's Roll," one in 2004 for best traditional blues album for "Blues to the Bone" and one for best jazz vocal performance for 1994's "Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday." She was also awarded a special Grammy in 2003 for lifetime achievement and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Her health went into decline, however, and by 2011, she was being cared for at home by a personal doctor.

She suffered from dementia, kidney problems and leukemia. Her husband and her two sons fought over control of her $1 million estate, though a deal was later struck keeping Mills as the conservator and capping the singer's expenses at $350,000. In December 2011, her physician announced that her leukemia was terminal, and asked for prayers for the singer.

In October 2011, it was announced that James was retiring from recording, and a final studio recording, "The Dreamer," was released, featuring the singer taking on classic songs, from Bobby "Blue" Bland's "Dreamer" to Guns N' Roses "Welcome To the Jungle" ? still rocking, and a fitting end to her storied career.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_en_mu/us_obit_etta_james

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Romney?s lowered expectations. (Americablog)

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Santorum says he's pressing on to Florida (AP)

CHARLESTON, S.C. ? Vowing to go forward, Republican Rick Santorum cast his disappointing third-place finish in this state's primary as a hiccup and pledged Saturday to continue campaigning in a race he called "wide open."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich claimed the top spot in this state's first-in-the-South primary and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney claimed second. Undeterred, Santorum did not acknowledge the deficits he faces ? chiefly money and momentum ? and insisted he would press forward with a campaign that increasingly looked to be on its last legs.

"Let me assure you we will go to Florida and we will go to Arizona," he said before supporters interrupted him with cheers of "We pick Rick."

"I ask you: it's a wide-open race. Join the fight," he urged them at an election night rally at the Citadel.

Santorum eked out a narrow win in lead-off Iowa but lost in a blow-out to Mitt Romney in New Hampshire. Santorum had cast South Carolina as a place where he could start a well-financed, traditional campaign, yet he came up well short to Gingrich.

"Three states. Three different winners. What a great country," Santorum said.

For months, Santorum has cast himself as the candidate who can best compare his record with President Barack Obama and pitched himself as the most consistent conservative in the race. The former Pennsylvania senator urged Republicans to stand up for social conservative values and promised to continue his campaign with that unapologetic and, at times, aggressive message.

"This campaign was not going to be about tearing everybody down. It was going to be about negative ads," he said. "It was not going to be about anything other than painting a bold vision for our country. One that believed in the working class values that my grandfather taught to me."

The disadvantages that plagued Santorum early on ? lack of money, shell operations, negligible advertising ? gave way to a more professional campaign here. He had the money to air ads, hire staff and cover as much ground as possible with a private airplane. Many of his senior advisers had deep roots to the state and in recent days he beamed confidently that South Carolina could give him his second win in an early state.

That win didn't come Saturday and his advisers were shuffling to reset the campaign yet again, this time in costly Florida. His aides planned for him to greet voters near Fort Lauderdale on Sunday and then prepare for two debates in the coming week.

But Florida is a costly state where the campaigns are fought on television ads, not diners and storefronts that were the center of Santorum's strategy to this point. The sheer size of Florida is a challenge for candidates to navigate, although Santorum's tentative plans call for him to focus on just one media market a day.

Santorum's outside allies seemed poised to bankroll supportive ads ? at least for now.

"The longer we can keep his candidacy going, the more people can see his qualities," said Foster Friess, a Wyoming businessman and a major contributor to the Red, White and Blue Fund, an outside "super" political committee supporting Santorum. "If you look at Republicans, they always run these old war horses. Santorum is different."

__

Associated Press writer Jack Gillum contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_el_pr/us_santorum

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Marianne Gingrich interview: Is it ethical for ABC to air it now?

Questions are already arising about whether ABC's 'Nightline' is justified in airing its 'bombshell' interview with Marianne Gingrich, an ex-wife of Newt Gingrich.?

As the Newt Gingrich campaign confronts uncomfortable revelations from the candidate's second wife, Marianne Gingrich, that he asked her for ?an open marriage? ? charges that will air Thursday night on ABC?s "Nightline" ? questions are also surfacing about about the network?s motivations for broadcasting it now.?

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Does ABC have it in for Mr. Gingrich? Is the show timed to hurt his prospects, which have been rising, in Saturday's South Carolina primary? Why dredge up now something that happened 10 years ago??

The full interview won?t run until after the CNN-sponsored GOP presidential debate Thursday evening, but clips of it have gone viral on the Internet, and reporter Brian Ross appeared on ABC?s ?The View? to discuss the potential effect of Mrs. Gingrich's interview. ?She spoke in measured tones,? he said, attempting to play down what co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck introduced as ?bombshell? allegations." He also noted that the final impact is ?for the voters to decide.?

Defending the network?s decision to broadcast the interview two days before the South Carolina primary, Mr. Ross noted that ABC has been scrutinizing all the candidates, pointing to its reports Wednesday night on Mitt Romney?s possible tax evasions. Beyond that, he said the interview took place on Friday. ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider says "Nightline" ?reached out to the Gingrich campaign? for a response. The candidate has declined to comment on the allegation.

?This is one of the toughest decisions news executives and producers face,? says former ABC News producer John Goodman, via e-mail. ?You have a story that can impact a political campaign. Do you go with it, or sit on it?? he says. ?The journalist in you says you have to air it. But you clearly understand that by doing so, you create a PR nightmare.?

The fact that most of Mrs. Gingrich's comments are ?old news,? and that the South Carolina primary is days away, feeds the ?suspicion by the average American that ABC has a liberal bias and can?t wait to air the story to destroy Gingrich?s presidential hopes,? Mr. Goodman says. In obtaining the interview, he adds, ABC must ask itself this question: Does she have a vendetta to destroy her ex-husband? ?There?s no clean-cut, no-brainer, right-or-wrong answer,? he says. "You just have to do what you feel is the right decision.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/TFGZoQV667I/Marianne-Gingrich-interview-Is-it-ethical-for-ABC-to-air-it-now

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Debate clip (Balloon Juice)

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APNewsBreak: Exxon reaches $1.6M spill settlement (AP)

BILLINGS, Mont. ? Exxon Mobil agreed Thursday to pay the state of Montana $1.6 million in penalties over water pollution caused by a pipeline break last summer that fouled dozens of miles of shoreline along the scenic Yellowstone River.

Montana Department of Environmental Quality director Richard Opper told The Associated Press that the penalty marks the largest in the agency's history.

The Texas oil company will pay $300,000 in cash and spend $1.3 million on future environmental projects, Opper said.

Also Thursday, Exxon increased its estimate of how much crude spilled into the river during the July 1 accident near Laurel to 1,509 barrels, or more than 63,000 gallons.

That's up from earlier estimates of 1,000 barrels spilled ? a number that Gov. Brian Schweitzer had disputed as too low.

Only about 10 barrels of crude were recovered by cleanup crews. That's less than 1 percent of the total spilled, federal officials have said.

Thursday's settlement over water pollution violations came after more than three months of negotiations between attorneys for Exxon and the state. It contains provisions to shield the company against any future lawsuits from state agencies, although it will not become final until after a 30-day comment period.

"It was a significant violation. There were hundreds and hundreds of acres of land affected and it was a major oil spill," Opper said. He added the penalties likely would have been "a lot higher" if Exxon had not cooperated on the cleanup.

"It doesn't mean they were perfect. They were responsible, but they really were committed to undoing the damage that was caused," he said.

The settlement requires continued monitoring of environmental damage by Exxon, and requires the company to clean up any more oil that is discovered. That includes any crude that might be stirred up when the Yellowstone rises again in the spring as mountain snow begins to melt.

Testing of river sediments near public water supply intakes also will be required.

Opper said company representatives were expected to sign the deal late Thursday.

As part of the settlement, Exxon also will reimburse more than $760,000 in emergency response costs racked up by state agencies.

In an emailed statement regarding the settlement, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers reiterated that the company "takes full responsibility for the cleanup."

"We are pleased to be able to resolve this environmental compliance issue with the State of Montana," Jeffers wrote.

Regarding the change in how much crude spilled, Jeffers said the company recalculated the volume after discovering the pipeline had been completely severed during the July 1 accident near Laurel. Jeffers says pipeline breaches typically involve a crack or fissure. That was the assumption used to craft the initial estimate.

Jeffers added that the higher estimate would not have changed the response to the spill, which at its peak involved more than 1,000 Exxon Mobil contractors working to clean up oil-soaked sandbars, log jams and vegetation.

"We had a lot of people and a lot of resources brought to bear in response to the spill," he said. "None of this would have made any difference."

Still pending against the company is a lawsuit from a group of riverfront property owners who are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages over allegations that the company failed to properly clean up after the spill.

Attorneys for Exxon have asked U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings to dismiss the case. A decision is pending.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_re_us/us_oil_spill_montana_settlement

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Britain urges tougher Syria sanctions (Reuters)

BEIRUT (Reuters) ? Britain called on Wednesday for harsher sanctions on Syria, where an Arab monitoring mission has failed to halt bloodshed in a 10-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria may let the monitors stay on after their mandate expires on Thursday, but Assad's foes say the Arab League peace effort has failed and the U.N. Security Council should step in.

Arab foreign ministers, due to consider their next step at the weekend, are split over how to handle Syria, as is the Security Council, which has failed to adopt any position.

U.S. President Barack Obama has again called for a change of government, saying the violence in Syria was unacceptable.

British Prime Minister David Cameron accused Iran and Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah movement of helping to prop up Assad, whom he described as "a wretched tyrant."

"Britain needs to lead the way in making sure we tighten the sanctions, the travel bans, the asset freezes, on Syria," Cameron told parliament in London.

European Union foreign ministers are expected to discuss extra EU sanctions at a meeting on Monday.

Hundreds of killings on both sides have been reported since the Arab League sent observers last month to see whether Damascus was respecting a peace plan it accepted on November 2.

An Arab League source said Damascus would accept a one-month extension of the monitoring mission, but no broadening of its mandate. Critics say the observers have only provided Assad with diplomatic cover and more time to crush his opponents.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed a civilian in a village in the northwestern province of Idlib on Wednesday and the body of a youth detained nearly two weeks ago turned up in Homs.

It said a soldier had been killed and five wounded in clashes between troops and army deserters in the Idlib village of Khaf Takharim. Three rebel soldiers were also wounded.

Syria's state news agency SANA said the strangled body of a veterinarian doctor was found in Homs bearing marks of torture four days after he was kidnapped by an "armed terrorist group."

The United Nations said on December 13 that Assad's security forces had killed more than 5,000 people since the unrest erupted in mid-March. Nine days later, the government said "armed terrorist groups" had killed 2,000 security personnel.

FEARS OF CIVIL WAR

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who has distanced himself from Damascus in recent months, said the Arab monitors had failed to staunch the bloodletting and that Syrians wanted freedom, like other Arabs who have revolted in the past year.

"I am more and more concerned about the possibility that Syria will plunge into more violence and ... maybe civil war," he told Reuters in an interview.

The Arab plan required Syria to halt the bloodshed, withdraw troops from cities, free detainees, provide access for the monitors and the media and open talks with opposition forces.

A tenuous truce was holding on Wednesday in Zabadani, near the Lebanese border, where troops had been fighting anti-Assad rebels, residents said. But heavy machinegun fire and explosions rocked the troubled city of Homs, an opposition group said.

"As of now there is no shelling and no gunfire. It is quiet. But the army is still surrounding the area," said one Zabadani resident who gave her name as Rita.

Syrian forces backed by tanks attacked the hill resort on Friday in the biggest military offensive against insurgents since the Arab monitors began work on December 26.

Michel Kilo, a dissident Syrian writer who spent six years in jail, said the struggle in Syria was at an impasse.

"The regime can't stop people protesting and the people can't bring the regime down," he told France's Le Figaro daily, adding that Assad wanted to "bring in Iran, Hezbollah, Iraq and to threaten Gulf countries with a long war."

Riad al-Asaad, a leader of the rebel Free Syrian Army, told Reuters on Tuesday the Arab League's efforts had failed.

"We call on them to turn the issue over to the U.N. Security Council and we ask that the international community intervene because they are more capable of protecting Syrians at this stage than our Arab brothers," the former army colonel said.

The Arab League source said China and Russia, which have blocked Security Council action so far, had urged President Assad to accept an extension of the monitoring mission to avert an escalation at the international level.

Qatar has proposed sending in Arab troops, an idea rejected by Syria and one likely to be resisted by its Arab allies.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir in Cairo, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Mariam Karouny and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Keith Weir in London)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120118/wl_nm/us_syria

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Talk of the Town - Whitley County: 'Midwest Automotive Loop ...

By Krystall Shull

Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce and Economic Development voted unanimously last week in favor of a resolution authored by senators Jim Banks, Jim Buck and Travis Holdman for the legislature to study the benefits of creating an industrial zone within the Midwest Automotive Loop.
?I commend Mayor Greg Goodnight and Mayor Wayne Seybold for their innovative idea and work in creating the Midwest Auto Loop,? Buck said. ?It?s my hope this study committee will help identify incentives that will bring about a great economic boom to our communities.?
Senate Resolution 3 urges the Legislative Council to assign an interim study committee to examine the possibility of creating an industrial zone within the Midwest Automotive Loop and to also look at possible tax credits and regulatory relief programs to entice new industries to the zone.
?With Indiana?s fiscal stability, we are in a great position to step-up investment opportunities,? Holdman said. ?The Midwest Automotive Loop will give us a new competitive edge, enabling these tried-and-true industrial communities to help each other.?
The Midwest Automotive Loop was established this past summer by Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight and Marion May Wayne Seybold. The loop, which includes Kokomo, Marion and surrounding areas, was created this past summer to capitalize on the area?s strengths to attract additional manufacturing technology investments to the region.
?The creation of the Midwest Automotive Loop highlights the region?s strengths and provides a huge economic tool to attract new jobs for our highly-trained Hoosier workforce,? Banks said. ?I am committed to working with my fellow lawmakers, to build on the success this region has enjoyed in the past and provide additional resources for our communities.?
SR 3 now heads to the full Senate for further action. Hoosiers can get a full, updated copy of the resolution online by clicking here.

Source: http://talkofthetownwc.com/blog/2012/01/midwest_automotive_loop_resolu.html

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Damaging citrus plant disease confirmed in Texas

AUSTIN, Texas -- State agriculture officials say a destructive citrus plant disease that has wiped out crops in Florida has been confirmed in Texas.

The Texas Department of Agriculture on Wednesday announced that a section of Hidalgo County has been placed under temporary quarantine. That came after the agency confirmed citrus greening on tree in a commercial grove in San Juan.

Texas is the nation's second-leading state in grapefruit production and ranks third in producing oranges.

Agriculture officials say citrus greening poses no threat to human health and only affects the tree, and not the fruit. The bacterial disease attacks a plant's vascular system and can cause a tree to die within a few years.

Agriculture officials say they're surveying the region to identify how far the disease may have spread.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/18/2595500/damaging-citrus-plant-disease.html

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Deep thinkers list 'most beautiful theories'

NEW YORK?? From Darwinian evolution to the idea that personality is largely shaped by chance, the favorite theories of the world's most eminent thinkers are as eclectic as science itself.

Every January, John Brockman, the impresario and literary agent who presides over the online salon Edge.org, asks his circle of scientists, digerati and humanities scholars to tackle one question.

In previous years, they have included "How is the Internet changing the way you think?" and "What is the most important invention in the last 2,000 years?"

This year, he posed the open-ended question "What is your favorite deep, elegant or beautiful explanation?"

The responses, released on Sunday, provide a crash course in science both well-known and far out-of-the-box, as admired by the likes of Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, physicist Freeman Dyson and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

Darwin's theory of evolution
Several of the nearly 200 scholars nominated what are arguably the two most powerful scientific theories ever developed. Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection "wins hands down," argues Dawkins, emeritus professor at Oxford University.

"Never in the field of human comprehension were so many facts explained by assuming so few," he says of the theory that encompasses everything about life, based on the idea of natural selection operating on genetic mutations.

Theory of relativity
General relativity, which Albert Einstein developed to explain gravity as an effect of the curvature of space, also gets a few nods.

As theoretical physicist Steve Giddings of the University of California at Santa Barbara writes, "This central idea has shaped our ideas of modern cosmology (and) given us the image of the expanding universe."

General relativity explains black holes, the bending of light and "even offers a possible explanation of the origin of our universe ? as quantum tunneling from 'nothing,'" he writes.

Many of the nominated ideas, however, won't be found in science courses taught in high school or even college.

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How the brain works
Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute, extols the discovery that the conscious, deliberative mind is not the author of important decisions such as what work people do and who they marry. Instead, he writes, those strings are pulled by "an ancient brain system called the basal ganglia, brain circuits that consciousness cannot access."

Running on the neurochemical dopamine, they predict how rewarding a choice will be ? for example, if I pick this apartment, how happy will I be? Then they "evaluate the current state of the entire cortex and inform the brain about the best course of action," explains Sejnowski.

Only later do people construct an explanation of their choices, convincing themselves incorrectly that volition and logic were responsible, he said in an interview.

Emergent phenomena
To neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University, the most beautiful idea is emergence, in which complex phenomena almost magically come into being from extremely simple components.

For instance, a human being arises from a few thousand genes. The intelligence of an ant colony ? labor specialization, intricate underground nests ? emerges from the seemingly senseless behavior of thousands of individual ants.

"Critically, there's no blueprint or central source of command," says Sapolsky. Each individual ant has a simple algorithm for interacting with the environment, "and out of this emerges a highly efficient colony."

Among other tricks, the colony has solved the notorious Traveling Salesman problem, or the challenge of stopping at a long list of destinations by the shortest route possible.

The placebo effect
Stephen Kosslyn, director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, is most impressed by Pavlovian conditioning, in which a neutral stimulus such as a sound comes to be associated with a reward, such as food, producing a response, such as salivation.

That much is familiar. Less well known is that Pavlovian conditioning might account for placebo effects. After people have used analgesics such as ibuprofen or aspirin many times, the drugs begin to have effects before their active ingredients kick in.

From previous experience, the mere act of taking the pill has become like Pavlov's bell was for his dogs, causing them to salivate: the "conditioned stimulus" of merely seeing the pill "triggers the pain-relieving processes invoked by the medicine itself," explains Kosslyn.

Science theories that explain puzzling human behavior or the inner workings of the universe were also particular favorites of the Edge contributors.

Out-of-sync mental systems
Psychologist Alison Gopnik of the University of California, Berkeley, is partial to one that accounts for why teenagers are so restless, reckless and emotional. Two brain systems, an emotional motivational system and a cognitive control system, have fallen out of sync, she explains.

The control system that inhibits impulses and allows you to delay gratification kicks in later than it did in past generations, but the motivational system is kicking in earlier and earlier.

The result: "A striking number of young adults who are enormously smart and knowledgeable but directionless, who are enthusiastic and exuberant but unable to commit to a particular work or a particular love until well into their twenties or thirties."

Personality shaped by chance?
Neurobiologist Sam Barondes of the University of California, San Francisco, nominates the idea that personality is largely shaped by chance. One serendipitous force is which parental genes happen to be in the egg and sperm that produced the child.

"But there is also chance in how neurodevelopmental processes unfold ? a little virus here, an intrauterine event there, and you have chance all over the place," he said in an interview. Another toss of the dice: how a parent will respond to a child's genetic disposition to be outgoing, neurotic, open to new experience and the like, either reinforcing the innate tendencies or countering them.

The role of chance in creating differences between people has moral consequences, says Barondes, "promoting understanding and compassion for the wide range of people with whom we share our lives."

Are we what we pretend to be?
Timothy Wilson nominates the idea that "people become what they do." While people's behavior arises from their character ? someone returns a lost wallet because she is honest ? "the reverse also holds," says the University of Virginia psychologist.

If we return a lost wallet, our assessment of how honest we are rises through what he calls "self-inference." One implication of this phenomenon: "We should all heed Kurt Vonnegut's advice," Wilson says: "'We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.'"

How groups amplify the individual
Psychologist David Myers of Hope College finds "group polarization" a beautiful idea, since it explains how interacting with others tends to amplify people's initial views. In particular, discussing issues with like-minded peers ? increasingly the norm in the United States, where red states attract conservatives and blue states attract liberals ? push people toward extremes.

"The surprising thing is that the group as a whole becomes more extreme than its pre-discussion average," he said in an interview.

Mind-bogglingly big cosmos
Martin Rees, professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, nominates the "astonishing concept" that what we consider the universe "could be hugely more extensive" than what astronomers observe.

If true, the known cosmos may instead "be a tiny part of the aftermath of 'our' big bang, which is itself just one bang among a perhaps-infinite ensemble," Rees writes. Even more intriguing is that different physics might prevail in these different universes, so that "some of what we call 'laws of nature' may ... be local bylaws."

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46005937/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Manta Rays Endangered by Sudden Demand from Chinese Medicine

Demand for the gills of manta and mobula rays has risen dramatically in the past 10 years for use in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), even though they were not historically used for this purpose, a team of researchers from the conservation organizations Shark Savers and WildAid has discovered.

?We first came across manta and mobula ray gills in Asian markets several years ago, and followed the trail to the dried seafood markets of southern China,? Manta Ray of Hope Project lead investigator Paul Hilton said in a prepared statement (pdf) released on January 14. Specifically, the market was for gill rakers, the thin filaments that manta and mobula rays use to filter food from the water, which are being sold for up to $500 per kilogram. TCM practitioners are marketing the rakers?known locally as peng yu sai?as an ingredient for soup that they claim boosts the immune system by reducing toxins and enhancing blood circulation. Other supposed medical benefits include curing cancer, chickenpox, throat and skin ailments, male kidney issues and, as we often see with TCM, fertility issues.

None of these purported medical claims are supported by science nor are they supported by traditional Chinese medicine texts. According to the report, ?One TCM practitioner interviewed reviewed all 6,400 remedies of the official TCM reference manual and found that peng yu sai was not listed. Practitioners interviewed admitted that gill rakers were not effective and many alternatives were available. In fact, many young TCM doctors are not even aware of this remedy, indicating that it is not included in current TCM curricula.?

Despite their non-traditional usage, the researchers estimate the market for gill rakers to be at least 61,000 kilograms a year, with an estimated value of $11.3 million. As much as 99 percent of the market for these rakers was in Guangzhou, the capital city of China?s Guangdong Province. The researchers found that some of the gill raker trade is conducted by the same networks responsible for the devastating trade in shark fins, which have turned to rays for additional profits as worldwide shark populations decline.

Interestingly, the researchers found that the fishermen catching the animals dramatically undervalue their product. The greatest economic value from manta and mobula rays, according to the report, comes not from consumption but from tourism, because divers and other ocean tour visitors love to see them in the wild. The researchers found that direct tour operator revenue at just seven sites totals $27 million a year, and estimated the global tourism value of rays at more than $100 million yearly.

Population estimates for manta and mobula rays do not exist, but it is known that the number of these animals caught by fishermen in some areas has declined 50 percent since the 1960s. Beyond that, information on these creatures is hard to come by. Of the 11 manta or mobula ray species listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, five are listed as ?data deficient.? Only one species?the giant devilray (Mobula mobular)?is listed as ?endangered.? Very little international protection exists for any of these species. Manta rays (Manta birostris, Red List status: ?vulnerable?) were added to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals in 2011, but this only protects them in international waters outside national borders.

The researchers recommend creating international trade moratoriums on the import and sale of gill rakers; educating consumers that TCM health claims are unverified and that the animals have more value in the water than out of it; establishing international protections under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); and protecting critical manta ray habitat.

?If action is not taken quickly, manta and mobula rays will likely face regional extinctions because of unregulated fisheries,? stated Michael Skoletsky, executive director of Shark Savers. ?Anyone who has gone diving with mantas knows them to be intelligent, graceful and engaging animals. It would be a tragedy to lose them.?

A 2009 IUCN study found that 32 percent of all pelagic (open-ocean) shark and ray species (collectively known as chondrichthyan fishes) are at risk of extinction.

Photos: Manta ray fishery, ? Manta Ray of Hope Project. Manta ray swimming by Forrest Samuels via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=a2c8c154ca5a86f4490e322ec9460105

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Two more bodies found on Italian cruise ship (Reuters)

GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? Divers found the bodies of two elderly men inside a capsized cruiseliner on Sunday, raising to five the death toll after the luxury vessel foundered and dramatically keeled over off Italy's coast.

Teams were painstakingly checking the interior spaces of the partly submerged Italian liner Costa Concordia for 15 people still unaccounted for after the huge ship, with 4,229 passengers and crew on board, was holed by a rock Friday night.

A day after the disaster, rescuers plucked a South Korean honeymoon couple and an injured crewmember alive from the wreck, lying on its side close to the beautiful island of Giglio off Italy's west coast.

The captain of the 114,500-tonne ship, Francesco Schettino, was arrested on charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship, Italian police said. Some 64 people were injured in the accident.

Investigators were working through evidence from the equivalent of the "black boxes" carried on aeroplanes, to try to establish the precise sequence of events behind the accident, which occurred in calm seas and shallow waters.

Searching the vast ship for survivors was like combing through a small town - but one tilted on its side, largely in darkness, partly underwater and full of floating debris.

In the early afternoon, scuba divers looking for survivors found the bodies of two men at an evacuation assembly point in the submerged part of the ship, coastguard officials said.

The bodies of two French tourists and a Peruvian crew member were found Saturday.

The discovery of the bodies Sunday dampened earlier euphoria when a helicopter lifted off injured chief purser Manrico Gianpetroni, hours after rescuers made voice contact with him deep inside the stricken, multi-storey vessel.

Gianpetroni, who had a broken leg, was winched up from the ship on a stretcher and taken to hospital.

"I never lost hope of being saved. It was a 36-hour nightmare," he told reporters.

TITANIC

Passengers compared the disaster to the sinking of the Titanic, and described people leaping into the sea and fighting over lifejackets in panic when the ship hit a rock and ran aground as they sat down for dinner Friday night.

The vast hulk of the 290-metre-long ship loomed over the little port of Giglio, a picturesque island in a maritime nature reserve off the Tuscan coast. There was large gash in its side and divers were able to swim into the wreck through the hole.

The specialist diving teams faced a complex task as they worked their way through the warren of cabins on the ship - a floating resort that boasted a huge spa, seven restaurants, bars, cinemas and discotheques.

"Getting inside the ship is really difficult and dangerous," said Majko Aldone, a one of the specialist team of divers who have been entering cabins through open portholes or by smashing through the glass.

"There are various obstacles, sheets, mattresses, nets which have broken free and are spread out all over the areas we're searching," he said.

Paolo Tronca, a local fire department official, said the search would go on "for 24 hours a day as long as we have to" and that rescue workers were using sniffer dogs in the section of the ship above water.

As the search continued, there were demands for explanations of why the vessel had come so close to the shore and bitter complaints about how long it took to evacuate the terrified passengers.

State prosecutor Francesco Verusio said investigations might go beyond the captain.

"We are investigating the possible responsibility of other people for such a dangerous maneuver," he told SkyTG24 television. "Command systems did not function as they should."

He said the ship had come within 150 metres (yards) of the coast, which he called "incredibly close."

Agnese Stella, a 72-year-old housewife who has lived on Giglio for 50 years told Reuters: "It came much too close (to shore), it never comes this close normally."

"UNMARKED" ROCK

Magistrates said Schettino abandoned the vessel not long after midnight, well before all the passengers were taken off.

The vessel's operator, Costa Crociere, a unit of Carnival Corp & Plc, the world's largest cruise company, said the Costa Concordia had been sailing on its regular course when it struck a submerged rock.

In a television interview, Schettino said the rock was not marked on any maritime charts of the area.

After an massive rescue operation throughout the weekend, involving helicopters, ships and lifeboats, many passengers had already left the area and returned home and attention began to turn to the cleanup.

Local officials expressed concern the ship's fuel, at full load as it had just begun the cruise, could spill into pristine waters off Giglio. So far there was no sign of pollution. Dutch maritime services company SMIT said it had been hired to pump fuel off the ship once the rescue was over.

The coast guard says the removal of the 2,380 tonnes of fuel cannot begin until the rescue is complete because the operation could cause the vessel to move or sink further into the water.

(Additional reporting by Silvia Ognibene, Edward Taylor and Joern Poltz; Writing by Philip Pullella and James Mackenzie; Editing by Barry Moody)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120115/wl_nm/us_italy_ship

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Officials: 29 people missing from Italian ship (AP)

ROME ? Italian coast guard officials say the number of people missing from the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner has risen to 29.

A top coast guard official, Marco Brusco, said on state TV that 25 passengers and four crew members are unaccounted for three days after the ship crashed into a reef off the Tuscan coast and capsized.

Earlier in the day that number stood at 16.

Brusco didn't immediately explain the rise.

But at least three Italian families have said that even though their loved ones have been listed among those safely evacuated, they hadn't heard any word from their relatives.

Brusco indicated about 10 Germans were among the 29 missing. He says he holds a "glimmer of hope" that some of the missing might have survived.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

ROME (AP) ? Italy's cruise liner tragedy turned into an environmental crisis Monday, as rough seas battering the stricken mega-ship raised fears that fuel might leak into pristine waters off Tuscany that are part of a protected sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.

The ship's jailed captain, meanwhile, lost the support of his Italian employer as he battled prosecutors' claims that he caused the deadly wreck and abandoned a sinking ship before its 4,200 passengers and crew had been evacuated.

Waters that had remained calm for the first three days of the rescue turned choppy Monday, shifting the wreckage of the Costa Concordia a few centimeters (inches) and suspending divers' searches for the 16 people still unaccounted for. At least six people were killed in the disaster.

Italy's environmental minister raised the alarm about a potential environmental catastrophe if any of the 500,000 gallons (2,300 tons) of fuel begins to leak into the pristine waters off Giglio, which are popular with scuba divers and form part of the protected Tuscan archipelago.

"At the moment there haven't been any fuel leaks, but we have to intervene quickly to avoid an environmental disaster," Corrado Clini told RAI state radio.

Even before the accident there had been mounting calls from environmentalists to restrict passage of large ships in the area.

The ship's operator, Costa Crociere SpA, has enlisted Smit of Rotterdam, Netherlands, one of the world's biggest salvagers, to handle the removal of the 290-meter (1,000 foot) cruise liner. A study could come as early as Tuesday on how to extract the fuel safely.

Smit has a long track record of dealing with wrecks and leaks, including refloating grounded bulk carriers and securing drilling platforms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A spokesman for Smit did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the Concordia salvage.

The Italian cruise operator said Capt. Francesco Schettino made an unauthorized deviation that caused the ship to crash late Friday into a reef off the tiny island of Giglio and capsize a few kilometers (miles) away near port.

The navigational "fly by" of Giglio was apparently made as a favor to the chief waiter who is from Giglio and whose parents live on the island, local media reported.

A judge on Tuesday is to decide whether Schettino should remain jailed.

"We are struck by the unscrupulousness of the reckless maneuver that the commander of the Costa Concordia made near the island of Giglio," prosecutor Francesco Verusio told reporters. "It was inexcusable."

The head of the U.N. agency on maritime safety, meanwhile, said lessons must be learned from the Concordia disaster 100 years after the Titanic rammed into an iceberg, leading to the first international convention on sea safety.

"We should seriously consider the lessons to be learnt and, if necessary, re-examine the regulations on the safety of large passenger ships in the light of the findings of the casualty investigation," said Koji Sekimizu, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization.

Costa owner Carnival Corp. estimated that preliminary losses from having the Concordia out of operation for at least through 2012 would be between $85 million and $95 million, though it said there would be other costs as well. The company's share price slumped more than 16 percent Monday.

According to Italian authorities, 16 people remain unaccounted for, though officials in other countries have provided higher tolls for their missing citizens. The discrepancy couldn't immediately be resolved.

Two of them are Americans, identified by their family as Jerry Heil, 69, and his wife Barbara, 70, from White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

Costa Crociere chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi said the company would provide Schettino with legal assistance, but he disassociated Costa from his behavior, saying it broke all rules and regulations.

"Capt. Schettino took an initiative of his own will which is contrary to our written rules of conduct," Foschi said in his first public comments since the grounding.

At a news conference in Genoa, the company's home base, Foschi said that Costa ships have their routes programmed, and alarms go off when they deviate. Those alarms are disabled if the ship's course is manually altered, he said.

"This route was put in correctly upon departure from Civitavecchia," Foschi said, referring to the port outside Rome. "The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa."

Foschi said only once before had the company approved a "fly by" of this sort off Giglio ? last year on the night of Aug. 9-10. In that case, the port and company had approved it.

Residents, however, said such displays have occurred several times in the past, though always in the summer when the island is full of tourists.

Foschi didn't respond directly to prosecutors' and passengers' accusations that Schettino abandoned ship before all passengers had been evacuated, but he suggested his conduct wasn't as bad in the hours of the evacuation as has been portrayed. He didn't elaborate.

The Italian coast guard says Schettino defied their entreaties for him to return to his ship as the chaotic evacuation of the 4,200 people aboard was in full progress. After the ship's tilt put many life rafts out of service, helicopters had to pluck to safety dozens of people remaining aboard, hours after Schettino was seen leaving the vessel.

The captain has insisted in an interview before his jailing that he stayed with the vessel to the end.

Foschi defended the conduct of the crew, while acknowledging that passengers had described a chaotic evacuation where crew members consistently downplayed the seriousness of the situation as the ship lurched to the side.

"All our crew members behaved like heroes. All of them," he said.

He noted that 4,200 people managed to evacuate a lilting ship at night within two hours. In addition, the ship's evacuation procedures had been reviewed last November by an outside firm and port authorities and no faults were found, he said.

Once on land, the survivors complained that Costa was stingy with assistance.

Blake Miller, on board to celebrate his partner's 50th birthday, said Costa representatives rebuffed his efforts to get some reimbursement so he could buy a change of clothing.

"The Costa representative at our hotel told me, 'you might want to get a lawyer when you get back to the States,'" to pursue reimbursement, Miller told The Associated Press from his hotel in Rome Sunday night, where he was staying at his own expense.

Only passengers who had paid for special insurance to cover lost belongings would receive compensation to buy replacements, he said they were told.

Costa Crociere didn't immediately respond to a phone message or an emailed request for a response.

Miller, from Austin, Texas, said survivors were taken to a hotel near Rome's airport and told Costa would pay for one night's stay and their plane fare home only "if we pack up and leave the country" on Sunday morning.

Miller, who is director of business travel for Intercontinental hotels, said Costa representatives spoke to passengers about potential refunds or free cruise vouchers. But besides what he paid for the cruise, he said he paid several hundred more euros (dollars) for excursions during port calls and drinks on board.

Foschi, the Costa CEO, said he was certain "we'll be able to find a material solution that will make them happy."

Class action suits are a rare novelty in Italy, but Italian consumer advocacy organization Codacons said more than 70 passengers had indicated that they wanted to join a class-action approach to winning compensation from Costa.

"Our aim is to make every passenger obtain an indemnity of at least euro10,000 (more than $12,500) for the material damage suffered and for moral damage, such as the terror suffered, ruined vacations and the grave risks that they ran," said Codacons president Carlo Rienzi.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120116/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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FX network's big risk with Sheen (omg!)

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) ? The head of the FX network said Sunday he still hasn't seen a script for Charlie Sheen's new sitcom "Anger Management," which is due to premiere in June.

That's a little late, conceded John Landgraf, FX president and general manager. It illustrates the grand gamble made by the cable network, one with a potentially big payoff.

FX usually produces its own series, and Landgraf said he's never ordered one without seeing a pilot episode, much less a script. "Anger Management," loosely based on the 2003 movie about a troubled therapist who disrupts his patients' lives, is produced by Debmar-Mercury, a subsidiary of the Lionsgate production company.

Landgraf said he has faith in Bruce Helford, former producer of "The Drew Carey Show" and the creative force behind the new series.

The executive said he's met with Sheen, and is confident the actor is trying to pull his life together following the drug-fueled meltdown that led to his firing from CBS' "Two and a Half Men."

"Charlie has 30 years of incredible professionalism under his belt," Landgraf said. "He was respected by the crew of 'Two and a Half Men.' Then he had probably the most epic meltdown in the history of television. But he really cares about the quality of his work."

Successful television executives need to bet successfully on the right people to go into business with, and also the right time to go into business with them, he said.

Sheen wants to do a show where he is navigating a complicated relationship with his daughter, much like he is doing in real life, Landgraf said. He said he wouldn't be interested in the show if Sheen did not exhibit some self-awareness of what he's gone through in life.

"I believe in redemption," he said.

FX has ordered 10 episodes of "Anger Management," and will pair it on the schedule with reruns of "Two and a Half Men." It expects a strong debut for curiosity reasons. If it does well after that, FX will consider ordering 90 more, which would put FX in the lucrative business of being able to sell repeats of the show in syndication to other networks.

It's all a bet, Landgraf said.

"Could I be spectacularly wrong about this bet?" he asked. "Yes."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_fx_networks_big_risk_sheen195159019/44187848/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/fx-networks-big-risk-sheen-195159019.html

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