Cain says he's suspending his presidential bid

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, right, bows and his wife Gloria applauds as Cain arrives on stage for a scheduled announcement Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Atlanta. "I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distractions and the continued hurt caused on me and my family," Cain told several hundred supporters gathered at what was to have been the opening of his national campaign headquarters. (AP Photo/David Tulis)

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, right, bows and his wife Gloria applauds as Cain arrives on stage for a scheduled announcement Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Atlanta. "I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distractions and the continued hurt caused on me and my family," Cain told several hundred supporters gathered at what was to have been the opening of his national campaign headquarters. (AP Photo/David Tulis)

El aspirante presidencial republicano Herman Cain baja de un estrado acompa?ado de su esposa Gloria tras anunciar su retiro de la competencia interna del partido, el s?bado 3 de diciembre de 2011, en Atlanta. (Foto AP/David Tulis)

Supporters from left, Marianne Sanderson, Lisa Shiflett, and Michelle McDonald, react to the announcement by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain that he is suspending his campaign at an event Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain announces he is suspending his campaign as his wife Gloria, left, looks on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011, in Atlanta. "I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distractions and the continued hurt caused on me and my family," Cain told several hundred supporters gathered at what was to have been the opening of his national campaign headquarters. (AP Photo/David Tulis)

(AP) ? Businessman Herman Cain suspended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Saturday following a steady drumbeat of sexual misconduct allegations he said were harming his family and drowning out his ability to deliver his message.

With just one month to go until the lead-off Iowa caucuses, Cain's announcement is tantamount to a concession. Still, he told supporters, he planned to continue his efforts to influence Washington and announced "Plan B" ? what he called a grassroots effort to return government to the people.

It was a remarkable turnabout for a man who just weeks ago vaulted out of nowhere to the top of the Republican presidential field, fueled by a populist, outsider appeal and his catchy 9-9-9 tax overhaul plan which called for a 9 percent tax on income, a 9 percent business tax and a 9 percent national sales tax.

Cain, the former Godfather's Pizza chief executive, has never held elected office, but the black Georgia businessman rose to become an unexpected front-runner in the volatile Republican race just weeks ago as other candidates such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann stumbled. Cain enjoyed strong support from conservatives looking for an alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose policy shifts on abortion, gay rights and health care reform were viewed warily by a large segment of core Republican voters.

Polls show that the main beneficiary of Cain's withdrawal is likely to be former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, who has risen steadily in surveys nationally and in early voting states. Gingrich has now emerged as the main challenger to fellow front-runner Romney in the Republican race to take on President Barack Obama next year.

Cain's announcement came five days after an Atlanta-area woman claimed she and Cain had an affair for more than a decade, a claim that followed several allegations of sexual harassment against him.

"Now, I have made many mistakes in life. Everybody has. I've made mistakes professionally, personally, as a candidate, in terms of how I run my campaign. And I take responsibility for the mistakes I've made, and I have been the very first to own up to any mistakes I've made," he said.

But Cain intoned: "I am at peace with my God. I am at peace with my wife. And she is at peace with me."

Cain denounced the accusations of impropriety against him as "false and unproven" but said that they had been hurtful to his family, particularly his wife, Gloria.

"So as of today, with a lot of prayer and soul-searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign. I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distractions and the continued hurt caused on me and my family," a tired-looking Cain told about 400 supporters.

Saturday's event was a bizarre piece of political theater even for a campaign that has seemed to thrive on defying convention.

Cain marked the end of his bid at what was supposed to be the grand opening of his new campaign headquarters in Atlanta. The space was rented when Cain was surprisingly leading the Republican pack.

Minutes before he took the stage to pull the plug on his campaign with his wife at his side, aides and supporters took to the podium to urge attendees to vote for Cain and travel to early voting states to rev up support for his bid.

"Join the Cain train," David McCleary, Cain's Georgia director, urged the audience.

Cain said he would offer an endorsement in the near future and he predicted a scramble among Republicans in the field to win the backing of his conservative, tea party base supporting limited government, spending cuts and no tax increases.

Former Republican rivals quickly issued statements Saturday praising Cain's conservative credentials and appeal.

Cain vaulted to the top of the Republican presidential field in October. But he then fumbled policy questions on issues from Libya to abortion, leaving some to wonder whether he was ready for the presidency. Then it was revealed at the end of October that the National Restaurant Association had paid settlements to two women who claimed Cain sexually harassed them while he was president of the organization.

A third woman told The Associated Press that Cain made inappropriate sexual advances but that she didn't file a complaint. A fourth woman also stepped forward to accuse Cain of groping her in a car in 1997.

Cain has denied wrongdoing in all cases, and continued to do so Saturday.

Polls suggest his popularity has suffered. A Des Moines Register poll released Friday showed Cain's support plunging, with backing from 8 percent of Republican caucusgoers in Iowa, compared with 23 percent a month ago. The Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 kick off the state-by-state contests to choose delegates to the party's national nominating convention.

But Cain said Saturday he would not go away and would continue trying to influence Washington from the outside,

He announced the formation of CainSolutions.com, which he said was a grassroots effort to bring government back to the people.

"I am not going to be silenced, and I am not going away. And therefore, as of today, Plan B. Plan B," he said.

____

Associated Press writers Shannon McCaffrey in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-12-03-Presidential%20Race/id-ff44528d70384ec0b0d000b02a7b4cbe

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Quantum Entanglement Links Two Diamonds

News | More Science

Usually a finicky phenomenon limited to tiny, ultracold objects, entanglement has now been achieved for macroscopic diamonds at room temperature


Diamond wafer used in entanglement experimentNOT SO SMALL: One of the diamond wafers used in the entanglement experiment, with a coin for scale. Image: CQT

Diamonds have long been available in pairs?say, mounted in a nice set of earrings. But physicists have now taken that pairing to a new level, linking two diamonds on the quantum level.

A group of researchers report in the December 2 issue of Science that they managed to entangle the quantum states of two diamonds separated by 15 centimeters. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon by which two or more objects share an unseen link bridging the space between them?a hypothetical pair of entangled dice, for instance, would always land on matching numbers, even if they were rolled in different places simultaneously.

But that link is fragile, and it can be disrupted by any number of outside influences. For that reason entanglement experiments on physical systems usually take place in highly controlled laboratory setups?entangling, say, a pair of isolated atoms cooled to nearly absolute zero.

In the new study, researchers from the University of Oxford, the National Research Council of Canada and the National University of Singapore (NUS) showed that entanglement can also be achieved in macroscopic objects at room temperature. "What we have done is demonstrate that it's possible with more standard, everyday objects?if diamond can be considered an everyday object," says study co-author Ian Walmsley, an experimental physicist at Oxford. "It's possible to put them into these quantum states that you often associate with these engineered objects, if you like?these closely managed objects."

To entangle relatively large objects, Walmsley and his colleagues harnessed a collective property of diamonds: the vibrational state of their crystal lattices. By targeting a diamond with an optical pulse, the researchers can induce a vibration in the diamond, creating an excitation called a phonon?a quantum of vibrational energy. Researchers can tell when a diamond contains a phonon by checking the light of the pulse as it exits. Because the pulse has deposited a tiny bit of its energy in the crystal, one of the outbound photons is of lower energy, and hence longer wavelength, than the photons of the incoming pulse.

Walmsley and his colleagues set up an experiment that would attempt to entangle two different diamonds using phonons. They used two squares of synthetically produced diamond, each three millimeters across. A laser pulse, bisected by a beam splitter, passes through the diamonds; any photons that scatter off of the diamond to generate a phonon are funneled into a photon detector. One such photon reaching the detector signals the presence of a phonon in the diamonds.

But because of the experimental design, there is no way of knowing which diamond is vibrating. "We know that somewhere in that apparatus, there is one phonon," Walmsley says. "But we cannot tell, even in principle, whether that came from the left-hand diamond or the right-hand diamond." In quantum-mechanical terms, in fact, the phonon is not confined to either diamond. Instead the two diamonds enter an entangled state in which they share one phonon between them.

To verify the presence of entanglement, the researchers carried out a test to check that the diamonds were not acting independently. In the absence of entanglement, after all, half the laser pulses could set the left-hand diamond vibrating and the other half could act on the right-hand diamond, with no quantum correlation between the two objects. If that were the case, then the phonon would be fully confined to one diamond.

If, on the other hand, the phonon were indeed shared by the two entangled diamonds, then any detectable effect of the phonon could bear the imprint of both objects. So the researchers fired a second optical pulse into the diamonds, with the intent of de-exciting the vibration and producing a signal photon that indicates that the phonon has been removed from the system. The phonon's vibrational energy gives the optical pulse a boost, producing a photon with higher energy, or shorter wavelength, than the incoming photons and eliminating the phonon in the process.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2d0d65d86e97e9e7c8827368633fbba8

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Review: Apps to make holiday shopping easier (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO ? Even if you love to shop, it can be a pain this time of year. Stores are crowded, gift options seem endless and it's hard to determine if you're getting the best prices.

If you have a smartphone, though, there's a simple solution: Apps. There are tons of mobile apps to help you save time and cash this holiday season. Most of them are cheap or free.

I tried several apps meant to ease holiday shopping frustrations and found a bunch that make the task easier ? and a few that make it more fun.

Price Check by Amazon and RedLaser (free, available for iPhone and Android) ? With these two apps on my phone, I felt like a low-price-finding machine. Both let you search for items by typing in the name or by scanning a barcode. With Price Check, you can also search for items with your voice or by taking a photo of things like books and DVDs.

RedLaser, owned by eBay Inc., is great for finding items online and in nearby bricks-and-mortar stores. I found myself checking prices on everything from watches to collapsible water bottles, sometimes just for the heck of it. I used it at a local Sur La Table cookware store to compare prices on a set of water glasses before buying them, and was pleased to see the $19.99 price was lower than at some online retailers and a nearby Bloomingdales department store.

RedLaser also includes a handy feature for making simple shopping lists, and a history feature that records all the items you've looked up, so you can go back and find things later on.

Price Check's layout is slightly more attractive than RedLaser's, though it's limited to the Web since it gives online-only results from Amazon.com and companies that sell through Amazon.com Inc.

I really like the way Price Check displays search results, with the product at the top of the screen and three tabs that let you quickly scroll through prices, a description and user reviews. And if I found an item's price was lower online than in the store, it would be simple to buy it through the app.

The best part about Price Check is the abundance of product reviews (the same ones you see when you go on Amazon.com or use the Amazon Mobile app). They're indispensable for looking up potential gifts and helping me think twice before making purchases.

Gift Plan ($2.99, available for iPhone) ? If you have a hard time organizing your gift list, or tend to misplace it after writing it out, you'll like Gift Plan.

The app lets you make elaborate gift lists for family and friends. You can set up lists of potential presents, jot down people's likes and dislikes and ? even more helpful for those of us who never remember such things ? their clothing sizes. The app's "Occasions" tab shows you upcoming holidays or birthdays, and a "Shopping" tab helps you track gifts you plan to buy.

Gift Plan denotes each gift-giving occasion with a different color, which makes it easy to spot them on the app's built-in calendar, and you can choose when and how often you want to be notified about upcoming events.

Another cool feature: You can set up a passcode to keep sneaky loved ones from snooping at your list.

Shopkick (free, available for iPhone, Android) ? Shopkick essentially turns shopping into a game, where you get real-world rewards for going to local stores. If you hate shopping, this can make a painful activity more fun. If you adore shopping, the app may be harmful to your wallet.

The app shows a list of nearby stores, each of which you get a certain number of "kicks," or points, for visiting. Click on a listed store and you can see available deals and opportunities to pick up more kicks (if I stopped at a local Best Buy, for example, I could get 75 kicks for scanning photos of three different GPS devices). You can also link your Visa debit or credit card to your shopkick account so you'll automatically get points for certain purchases. Collect enough "kicks" and you can get rewards such as gift certificates to Target or Best Buy.

I quickly got sucked into visiting as many nearby stores as possible, including some I rarely enter, simply so I could rack up more points. Somehow, I also ended up buying several items for myself ? fleece pajama pants at Old Navy, a white sake bottle and matching cups at Crate & Barrel ? even though I was supposed to be buying gifts for others.

Lemon (free, available for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone) ? As you spend, receipts pile up. For me, this means a wad of disorganized paper slips in my wallet and digital receipts lost in the bowels of my email inbox. Lemon offers a sweet solution.

Once you download the app and sign up with its corresponding website, Lemon.com, you can scan your receipts with your phone's camera and the service will automatically identify the name and location of the store along with the amount you spent and the purchase date (if you want to see the whole receipt image, that's saved, too). Lemon is good for online shopping, too: If you buy anything on the Web, you can have online retailers send the receipt to your lemon.com address so they'll be easier to keep track of. And if you want to back up some old e-receipts with the service, just forward them there yourself.

You can use preset labels like "personal" and "credit card" to add details to your receipts, or add your own. I made a "gift" label to identify holiday items and was happy to see I could also view them by category.

The holidays can be stressful, but with a couple of these apps on your smartphone you'll likely find gift-giving less so. Your wallet might even thank you for it, too.

___

Rachel Metz can be found on Twitter at http://twitter.com/rachelmetz

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_digital_life_tech_test_shopping_apps

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World's central banks act to ease market strains (AP)

FRANKFURT, Germany ? The central banks of the wealthiest countries, trying to prevent a debt crisis in Europe from exploding into a global panic, swept in Wednesday to shore up the world financial system by making it easier for banks to borrow American dollars.

Stock markets around the world roared their approval. The Dow Jones industrial average shot up more than 400 points. The stock market rose more than 5 percent in Germany and more than 4 percent in France.

The action represented the most extraordinary coordinated effort by the central banks since they cut interest rates together in October 2008, at the depths of the financial crisis.

While it should ease borrowing for banks, it does little to solve the underlying problem of mountains of government debt in Europe, leaving markets still waiting for a permanent fix. European leaders gather next week for a summit on the debt crisis.

The European Central Bank, which has been reluctant to intervene to stop the growing crisis on its own continent, was joined in the decision by the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the central banks of Canada, Japan and Switzerland.

"The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and so help foster economic activity," the central banks said in a joint statement.

And China, which has the largest economy in the world after the European Union and the United States, reduced the amount of money its banks are required to hold in reserve, another attempt to free up cash for lending.

The display of worldwide coordination was meant to restore confidence in the global financial system and to demonstrate that central banks will do what they can to prevent a repeat of 2008.

That fall, fear settled in after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a storied American investment house. That caused banks around the world to severely restrict lending to each other. The credit freeze triggered panic among investors, which resulted in a meltdown of stock markets.

On Oct. 8, 2008, the ECB and central banks in the United States, England, China, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland cut interest rates together after a series of high-stakes phone calls.

The Dow fell that day, during the worst of the financial meltdown. But that action, like Wednesday's, was a signal from the central banks to the financial markets that they would be players, not spectators.

Three years later, investors have been nervously watching Europe to see whether they should take the same approach and dump stocks. World stock markets have been unusually volatile since last summer.

The European crisis, which six months ago seemed focused on the relatively small economy of Greece, has since metastasized. It now threatens the existence of the euro, the common currency used by 17 countries in Europe.

But beyond that, the crisis has the potential to wreak worldwide economic havoc. Fear in financial markets could cause lending to dry up, both from banks to businesses and consumers and from banks to each other.

There have been early signs, particularly in Europe, that it is becoming more difficult to borrow money ? especially as U.S. money market funds scale back their lending to banks in the euro nations because of perceived risk from the debt crisis.

European banks cut business loans by 16 percent in the third quarter. And no one knows how much European banks will lose on their massive holdings of bonds of heavily indebted countries. Until the damage is clear, banks are reluctant to lend.

Banks are also being pressed by European govermments to increase their buffers against possible losses. That helps stabilize the banking system but reduces the amount of money available to lend to businesses.

"European banks are having trouble borrowing in general, including in dollars," said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed ofifcial and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "The Fed did the Europeans a favor."

The joint effort will make it less expensive for banks around the world to borrow dollars if they need them. Loans made in U.S. dollars are important because dollars are the No. 1 currency for international trade.

Under the agreement, the central banks are reducing by half a percentage point ? to about 0.6 percent ? the rate they charge banks for short-term dollar loans. The lower rate is designed to get credit flowing again.

In May 2010, as the European debt crisis started to bite, the Federal Reserve agreed to swap dollars for foreign currencies held by other leading central banks. The foreign central banks could then lend dollars to their banks.

The Fed had run a similar program from December 2007, when world financial markets were weakening because of fear about subprime mortgages, until February 2010. It had run other programs before, but much smaller.

This time, the agreement was supposed to expire Aug. 1, 2012. Wednesday's announcement extends it six months, until Feb. 1, 2013.

"It shows that policymakers are on the case," said Roberto Perli, managing director at the International Strategy & Investment Group, an investment firm. He said it has symbolic value even if it does not have a big impact on credit markets.

If it works, the rates on dollar loans will drop, and stock and bond markets will calm down. The banks' action is not a direct fix for the debt crisis in Europe, but it shows that the banks are able to take coordinated action to ease credit.

The decision to cut the interest charged on the dollar swaps was taken by the Federal Reserve following a video conference meeting held by Fed officials on Monday morning.

The Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's policy-setting panel, approved the decision on a 9-1 vote. The president of the Fed's regional bank in Richmond, Va., voted no.

In New York, the stock market jumped at the opening bell and added to its gains throughout the morning.

The Dow was up 438 points at its highest, or more than 3 percent. Holding those gains would give the Dow its best day since Aug. 11. Wednesday's advance also swung the Dow from a loss for the year to a gain.

The high for the day also put the Dow within six points of 12,000. It has not closed at that level since Nov. 15.

Stocks closed 5 percent higher in Germany, 4.2 percent in France and 3.2 percent in Britain. European stocks had posted big gains earlier this week because investors saw hope that countries would settle on an attempted fix for the European debt crisis.

Stock markets in Asia finished lower for the day. They closed before the Fed and other central banks announced their joint action. The statement came out at 8 a.m., in the middle of the European trading day and hour and a half before the market opened in New York.

Borrowing costs for countries across Europe fell, an encouraging sign. The yield on benchmark 10-year national bonds fell 0.25 percentage points in Belgium, 0.2 points in Spain, 0.13 points in France and 0.06 points in Germany.

The yield on 10-year Italian bonds fell 0.06 points to 7.03 percent. The 7 percent level is significant because it is considered the point at which a country's borrowing costs become unsustainable. Yields above 7 percent forced Ireland, Portugal and Greece to seek bailouts.

In the U.S., the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 2.09 percent from 2 percent late Tuesday. That is a sign that investors are willing to take money out of assets considered super-safe, such as U.S. government debt, and invest it in riskier assets like stocks. It is also a sign of increased confidence in the U.S. economy.

An out-of-control crisis in Europe would come just as the United States economy is beginning to pick up after it faltered in the spring and summer. It grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in July, August and September, the strongest since late last year.

It will take more than that to bring down unemployment in the U.S., which has been stuck at about 9 percent for more than two years, but the U.S. has added jobs for 13 months in a row. The government's next read on unemployment comes out Friday.

In Europe, countries like Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy overspent for years and racked up annual budget deficits that have left them with backbreaking debt. Italy alone owes euro1.9 trillion, or 120 percent of what its economy produces in a year.

The ECB has extended unlimited amounts of short-term credit to banks, but has balked at expanding a limited program to support the borrowing of troubled countries by buying their bonds on the secondary market.

To go along with the monetary union created by the euro, European leaders have explored creating a fiscal union ? giving a central authority control over the budgets of sovereign nations.

One reason the ECB has resisted major action so far: It worries that bailing out free-spending countries would only encourage them to do it again, a concept known as moral hazard.

The ECB has also worried that injecting too much money into the European economy would trigger inflation. Its single mandate is price stability. By contrast, the Fed has a dual mandate ? price stability and encouraging employment. Unemployment is above 20 percent in some European countries. If the ECB had employment as a mandate, it could use that as a reason to buy government bonds.

The coordinated action was a demonstration of how interconnected the world financial system is, and that the debt loads of countries like Italy and Greece are everyone else's problem, too.

Germany's economy depends heavily on exports, and if the euro collapses, weaker countries in Europe would be left with their own devalued currencies. If that happened, or if economic output collapsed, they couldn't buy as many German goods.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, the United States depends on Europe for 20 percent of its own exports. And if the debt crisis pulls Europe into a recession, that would drag down the U.S. economy just when it may be beginning to turn around.

Standard & Poor's, the credit rating agency, lowered its rating at least one notch Tuesday for the four largest banks in the U.S. ? Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo.

S&P was the agency that stripped the United States government of its top-notch rating last summer, when Congress was gridlocked over whether to raise the federal government's borrowing limit.

And China, one of the only places in the world where the economy is growing quickly, needs the U.S. and Europe both to stay healthy. Growth in Chinese exports has declined from 36 percent in March compared with the year before to 16 percent in October.

China will reduce the amount of money that its commercial lenders must hold in reserve by 0.5 percentage points of their deposits. It was the first easing of Chinese monetary policy in three years.

___

Wiseman reported from Washington. AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger contributed from Washington.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_on_bi_ge/central_banks

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EU data protection reform to replace national laws (AP)

BRUSSELS ? The European Union wants to replace a mishmash of national laws on data protection with one bloc-wide reform, updating laws put in place long before Facebook and other social networking sites even existed.

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Monday that social networks must become more open about how they operate. Under her proposals, businesses ? including Internet service providers ? would have additional responsibilities, such as having to inform users of what data about them is being collected, for what purpose, and how it is stored.

EU regulators have been concerned about how commercial online services use customers' personal data to attract advertisers, saying they want to make sure that citizens' Internet privacy rights are respected.

"All social network service providers active in the EU must fully comply with EU data protection laws," Reding said. "Companies have a specific responsibility when personal data is their main economic asset,"

Existing EU laws date to 1995, long before Facebook and other social networking sites existed. EU officials expect the draft legislation to be ready early next year, and after that, it could take up to 18 months for the bill to become law.

The EU has to iron out differences between its members over privacy issues. Countries like France and Germany favor stronger protections for privacy, while Ireland, Britain and others prefer more market-friendly rules.

A Eurobarometer survey this summer found that 75 percent of Europeans are worried about how companies ? including search engines like Google and social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn ? use their private information.

The proposed reform also would help businesses by replacing the current patchwork of 27 national regulations, she said.

"They need ... to have a 'one-stop-shop' when it comes to data protection matters, one law and one single data protection authority," Reding told the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU. "I want to drastically cut red tape."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_on_hi_te/eu_data_protection

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UN: 'Numerous' reports of child torture by Syria

A U.N. human rights panel expressed alarm Friday at reports it has received of Syrian security forces torturing children.

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The Committee Against Torture said it had received "numerous, consistent and substantiated reports" of widespread abuse in the country.

The chair of the panel, Claudio Grossman, told reporters in Geneva that the reports referring to the abuse of children were of "particular concern."

The U.N. human rights office says more than 3,500 people have been killed in the eight-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Meanwhile, Syria ignored a deadline imposed by the Arab League to allow an observer mission into the country or face economic sanctions, a senior Arab League diplomat said Friday.

The diplomat said the Friday afternoon deadline passed with no word from Damascus. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The 22-nation bloc had given Syria 24 hours to agree to the observer mission, saying it would meet to decide on punishing measures that could include a freeze on financial dealings and assets if the deadline was missed.

Patience 'running out'
Syria is the scene of the deadliest crackdown against the Arab Spring's eruption of protests and international pressure has been mounting on Assad to stop the bloodshed.

Earlier Friday, before the deadline passed, Turkey's foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Syria faced a test of goodwill over the proposal and said the country "must open its doors to observers."

Davutoglu said the patience of Turkey and Arab countries was "running out over the bloodshed in Syria."

He spoke during a joint news conference with Italy's new Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi in Istanbul.

Terzi described the situation in Syria as a "worrying tragedy."

Syria had previously slammed the Arab League's ultimatum, which increased the international pressure on Assad's government following France's proposal for "humanitarian corridors" to be set up to alleviate civilian suffering.

However, Russia, China and their partners in the BRICS group of emerging economies warned against foreign intervention without U.N. backing and urged Assad to start talks with the opposition.

Story: 5 children among 23 civilians killed in Syria, rights group says

Under an Arab League initiative, Syria had agreed to withdraw troops from urban centers, release political prisoners, start a dialogue with the opposition and allow monitors and international media into the country.

Since then hundreds of people, including civilians, security forces and army deserters, have been killed as the unrest which the U.N. says has claimed at least 3,500 lives since March continued unabated.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition group, said at least 47 people were killed in Syria Thursday, including 16 soldiers and 17 army deserters, mostly around the city of Homs and Rastan to the north.

"In the case that Syria does not sign the protocol ... or that it later violates the commitments that it entails, and does not stop the killing or does not release the detainees ... (Arab League officials) will meet on Saturday to consider sanctions on Syria," the Arab ministers said in a statement.

Story: Army defectors threaten to transform Syrian uprising into civil war

Possible sanctions, which are not intended to affect ordinary Syrians, included suspending flights to Syria, stopping dealings with the central bank, freezing Syrian government bank accounts and halting financial dealings.

They could also decide to stop commercial trade with the government "with the exception of strategic commodities so as not to impact the Syrian people," the statement said.

Syria's economy is already reeling from the eight months of unrest, aggravated by U.S. and European sanctions on oil exports and several state businesses.

The Arab League suspended Syria's membership two weeks ago, while this week the prime minister of neighboring Turkey ? a NATO member with the military wherewithal to mount a cross-border operation ? told Assad to quit and said he should be mindful of the fate of fallen dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Libya's deposed leader Moammar Gadhafi.

"The Syrian crisis may or may not have entered its final phase, but it undoubtedly has entered its most dangerous one to date," the International Crisis Group said.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45434540/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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FAA: 4 dead in Chicago-area plane crash

(AP) ? Authorities say four people are dead after a small plane crashed into a field near the northwestern Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham (EYE'-sham) Cory says the crash happened about 10:30 a.m. Saturday in unincorporated McHenry County. All four people on board were killed.

Cory says the plane was operating by so-called "visual flight rules," meaning the pilot looked out the window to see where he was headed. The plane was not in touch with air traffic control. Conditions in the area have been overcast and rainy.

The aircraft was a Cirrus-SR22 registered to the Marion Flying Club in Marion, Ind.

Officials say they don't yet know where the plane originated or where it was headed.

The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-26-Fatal%20Plane%20Crash-Illinois/id-257acb491ae14fe2ba10068c86eafcc3

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Nuclear waste shipment to Germany draws protests (AP)

BERLIN ? Police in northern Germany have used water cannons against demonstrators gearing up for the arrival of a shipment of nuclear waste from France.

News agency dapd reported that police said they used water cannons Thursday after fireworks and paint were thrown at officers. Protesters had previously blocked a crossroads at Metzingen, near the shipment's destination.

The trainload of waste set off from northwestern France on Wednesday. It wasn't immediately clear when it would cross into Germany.

The waste shipment to Germany is the first since Berlin decided after Japan's nuclear disaster to shut all its nuclear plants by 2022.

But officials haven't resolved where waste should be stored permanently. Activists argue the Gorleben storage site, where the waste is headed, is unsafe.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111124/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_nuclear_waste

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