Single family home sales are up

Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their Existing Home Sales Report for December showing an increase in sales with total home sales climbing 5.0% since November and 3.6% above the level seen in December 2010.

Single family home sales increased 4.6% from November and rose 4.3% above the level seen in December 2010 while the median selling price declined 2.5% below the level seen in December 2010.

Inventory of single family homes declined 10.7% from November dropping 19.7% below the level seen in December 2010 which resulted in a monthly supply of 6.1 months.

The above chart (click for full-screen dynamic version) shows national existing single family home sales.

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/F7MrnPtbDbE/Single-family-home-sales-are-up

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Chart: Android Is Catching Up To iOS In Mobile Video Views

mobile video chart encodingA year ago in January, 2011, Apple dominated mobile video views, with iOS devices accounting for 87 percent of all mobile views, according to data from video encoding and short-url service?Vid.ly. Android had a scant 5 percent. By December, 2011, Android's share of mobile video watching grew to 32 percent, while Apple's shrank to 52 percent.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ro2JoQ5_M3w/

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PFT: Dolphins will first focus on QB

GYI0063799378_crop_450x500Getty Images

The pursuit of public funds for football stadiums carries with it certain obligations that wouldn?t apply if football teams would simply build their own buildings.? In Florida, the powers-that-be previously passed a law requiring venues that receive public funds to discharge an important public duty:? provide shelter to the homeless when the buildings are otherwise not in use.

To date, the three NFL stadiums located in Florida, along with numerous other facilities, have failed to comply.? Now, a pair of Republican legislators hope to force the stadiums to comply ? or to refund the public money previously received.

?These organizations have failed to follow the law for over 20 years,? Representative Frank Artiles (R-Miami) said in a statement, via the Tampa Bay Times.? ?This is the simply the State of Florida holding them accountable.?

Per the Palm Beach Post, Senator Mike Bennett claims that none of the 17 facilities that have received public assistance have complied with the law.? This includes Tampa?s Raymond James Stadium, Jacksonville?s EverBank Field, and Miami?s SunLife Stadium.

Under a measure introduced by Bennett, counties and/or franchises that have received state money would have to prove the existence of a homeless shelter for use on non-event evenings or refund the money.

According to the Times, SunLife Stadium has received $37 million, Everbank Field has received $35.1 million, and Raymond James Stadium has received $30 million.

It?s a great move.? Florida has subsidized pro sports franchises with a clear expectation that the pro sports franchises will help the homeless.? The pro sports franchises have pocketed the money while ignoring their obligations.

Here?s hoping that Stephen Ross, the Glazers, and Shad Khan will make this right without having to be forced to do so.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/22/philbin-ross-say-quarterback-is-dolphins-highest-priority/related/

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Aid group: S.Sudan clashes show "extreme violence" (AP)

JUBA, South Sudan ? Thousands of South Sudanese civilians fled a wave of ethnic clashes and face the danger of being attacked in hiding in what an international medical group on Tuesday called a pattern of "extreme violence."

Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that wounded patients are still coming to their hospital with gunshot and stab wounds, weeks after the last attack in Jonglei state, a remote and volatile region of the new nation of South Sudan.

"One recurring characteristic of the attacks in Jonglei is their extreme violence," the group said in a statement, describing the account of one woman who said she ran away from attackers for 11 hours. She and her 15 family members were then found by a group of men who beat her daughter and shot at them, she said, wounding her in the thigh and her son in the chest. The boy survived.

The group said they had seen dozens of gunshot and stab wounds at one hospital and that 25 of their local staff of 156 are missing. The group said one of their clinics in the village of Lekwongole was largely destroyed.

"A deeply worrisome pattern is emerging, where people and their scarce resources are deliberately targeted by all the armed groups in this inter-communal violence," the statement said. "Hospitals, health clinics, water sources ? these have become targets for armed groups on all sides, suggesting a tactic of depriving people of their basic life essentials just when they will need them most, after fleeing into the bush."

The U.N. has said that more than 120,000 people need humanitarian aid after a wave of clashes between the Lou Nuer and Murle communities in the remote and volatile region.

No reliable death toll for the clashes has yet been established. Officials have given tolls ranging from 160 to more than 3,000.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in July.

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

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RIM's new leader raises doubts among investors (Reuters)

TORONTO/LONDON (Reuters) ? The new leader at Research In Motion on Monday dismissed talk of drastic change at the BlackBerry maker, a declaration seized on by impatient investors who say Thorsten Heins has only 12 to 18 months to turn RIM around.

Takeover talk, swirling around RIM for months, picked up steam as Heins took the helm at a once-dominant smartphone company that now struggles to compete. But RIM's shares tumbled more than 8 percent as investors wondered whether Heins could reverse RIM's decline.

"I don't think that there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving ... but this is not a seismic change," said Heins, who joined RIM in 2007 and previously served as a chief operating officer.

RIM's co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the men who engineered RIM's rise, resigned on Saturday after intense investor pressure. Their presence had been seen as a big obstacle to a possible sale of the company, although Heins insisted that was not an option he was considering.

Shareholders and analysts have grown impatient in recent months and calls for Lazaridis and Balsillie to step aside had reached a crescendo. RIM has lost market share and market value after being comprehensively outplayed by Silicon Valley tech giants Apple and Google.

"If Thorsten really believes that there are no changes to be made, he will be gone within 15 to 18 months. He will be a transitional CEO and this will be a transitional board," said Jaguar CEO Vic Alboini, who leads an informal group of 16 RIM shareholders calling for a radical restructuring. The group holds a little less than 10 percent of RIM's stock.

Lazaridis and Balsillie - two of RIM's three largest shareholders with more than 5 percent each - will remain board members, while Lazaridis will also head a newly created innovation committee. Their new roles suggest continuity was a goal in the transition.

Critics have called for a new leader who can rejuvenate both the design and operational sides of the business, or prepare it for sale to one of a raft of rumored buyers.

Heins, a former Siemens AG executive, said during a conference call on Monday that he would hone rather than abandon current strategy at RIM, which after years of massive growth needed to start operating like a mature business, not a startup.

The new CEO, who scored his last major promotion as RIM was shedding some 2,000 jobs last June, said no further job cuts were currently planned and that with RIM's $1.5 billion in cash he had no qualms in spending on the right projects.

"If I have a great strategic project or a good business case I can go to the board anytime and ask for approval for additional investment and the money's in the bank to do this," he said.

INVESTORS DISAPPOINTED

Analysts were cautious.

"People may have been a little disheartened that he was defending the current RIM strategy," said Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Gelblum. "I think (investors) might have wanted to hear a mea culpa."

"People would have been happier hearing 'we are on the wrong path'. We didn't hear a lot of talk about change."

Jaguar's Alboini criticized the retention of Balsillie and Lazaridis on RIM's board and called for several other board members to step down before RIM's mid-year annual meeting.

"If we're wrong, prove us wrong," Alboini said in an interview, referring to the group of shareholders who support his view. "This group is not going anywhere. This is just putting RIM in a position where it might be able to get back into the game. It's early days."

Barbara Stymiest, a former banking and exchange executive, will replace Lazaridis and Balsillie as the chair of the board. Stymiest, a RIM board member for five years, is also viewed as an insider tied to the old regime.

LOOKING AHEAD

Heins' immediate concerns are to generate sales of RIM's current lineup of BlackBerry 7 touchscreen devices, deliver on a promised software upgrade for its PlayBook tablet computer by February, and rally RIM's troops to launch the next-generation BlackBerry 10 phones later this year.

But even if he had a credible overall plan to foster change, some analysts question whether RIM had fallen too far behind its competitors to catch up.

Its existing product lineup has struggled to compete with Apple's iPhone and iPad and the slew of devices from Samsung and others using Google's Android operating system. In North America particularly, RIM has hemorrhaged market share during a year marked by product delays and a botched launch of the PlayBook.

"If RIM's going to grow in the U.S. ... they have to have products better than the iPhone or Android," said Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette. As of now, "they don't have products that are competitive with those, let alone better."

But RIM has also shown a renewed seriousness about getting its message delivered, hiring crisis management firm Sitrick and Company as strategic counsel.

Sitrick helps companies in crisis and celebrities navigating scandal. Clients have included Paris Hilton as she faced jail time and Michael Vick, an NFL quarterback involved in a dog-fighting ring. The firm also helped Roy Disney remove Michael Eisner as chairman of Walt Disney.

SEEKING A PLAN

Analysts circled their calendars for an analyst day in early May as the first opportunity for the new leader to lay out a detailed plan for reversing the decline.

The event "will now become the focal point to the unveiling of Thorsten's vision," CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood told Reuters. "The speed with which you make strategic changes and implement them is absolutely critical because the mobile phone business will not stand still."

"If there are no meaningful signs of an imminent turnaround, then I think the spotlight will turn back on to the assets that RIM holds and who they might be attractive to."

Investors have seized on any rumor of a deal involving RIM as a reason to celebrate, whether talk is of a pact with Amazon as reported by Reuters in December, or with Samsung last week.

Analysts have said logical buyers for RIM also include fellow-struggler Nokia, perhaps with support from Microsoft, and Facebook which is increasingly pushing its content to users via their mobile phones.

If there is no obvious buyer, Heins has more immediate options to add value to the business.

RIM could license its software or integrate its email package, a strategy that many analysts and investors have thought the company might pursue. Heins said it would be wrong to focus on that option but he is still open to discussions.

"RIM have had big challenges in the past and they succeeded in moving from a corporate product to be also a consumer product, to get a foot in the consumer market and very few people expected them to do that," consultant John Strand said.

"Now they have to reinvent themselves again."

RIM's U.S.-listed shares closed 8.5 percent lower at $15.56, for a market capitalization of little more than $8 billion. In the company's heyday, just three and a half years ago, it had a market capitalization around $80 billion.

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Andrea Hopkins in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty and Janet Guttsman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/tc_nm/us_rim

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Column: Ravens focused on the wrong body part (AP)

Most of their fans and more than a few guys on the Baltimore Ravens' side of the ball spent the past week arguing over the strength of Joe Flacco's arm. Turns out they should have paid more attention to Billy Cundiff's leg.

Their normally reliable placekicker trotted out toward the south end of Gillette Stadium early Sunday evening with 15 seconds left and a slight breeze in his face, eyeing a 32-yard field goal to force overtime against the Patriots in the AFC Championship. Rather than use his last timeout, coach Jim Harbaugh sent his kicking team out in a rush, a situation they had simulated in practice dozens of times.

This time, though, the result was anything but routine. Koch kept his eyes on the spot for a split second after the kick, then raised them to trace the arc of the ball. It duck-hooked just left of the upright, leaving him standing stock still for a moment in stunned silence.

"The timing was a little off and I just didn't convert. It's that simple," Cundiff said. "It's a 32-yard field goal. Between training camps and regular season games, I probably kicked a thousand of those. No excuse."

Before walking out the door a moment later, he paused.

"If you play long enough, you have games where things didn't go your way. You don't get this kind of adrenaline rush sitting behind a desk," Cundiff said softly, "or this kind of pressure."

Then again, guys who work behind desks rarely have the job security of presidential candidates, flit from one job to another, or have to convince co-workers at every shop that they aren't a breed apart. Kickers do all the time. The Ravens are Cundiff's ninth stop during 10 years in the NFL. Only in Dallas, where he began his career and played four seasons, and Baltimore, where Cundiff has played the last three, did he manage to hang on more than a few months.

Maybe that's why so few teammates get close to kickers, and why even fewer had much to say to him after the game. In the locker room afterward, Harbaugh told Cundiff, "You'll be fine. You've got broad shoulders." Sam Koch, the punter who had the locker next to Cundiff's and was the holder on the field-goal attempt, leaned over at one point and asked if he was OK. But that was about it

Across the nearly silent room, Baltimore's veteran tough guy linebackers Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs sat knee-to-knee with their heads lowered, quietly commiserating. That scene may have saddened Cundiff most of all.

"I feel like this is a team when you first arrive, it's a tough group to get into because you have to earn their respect. And you do that by playing well," Cundiff said. "I've given the guys a lot of reasons to believe in me. So, if anything, the real disappointment is me letting my teammates down.

"To know that Ray poured his heart out, and he's had a long career and who knows how many years he's got left," he added, "to let him down is pretty tough."

Almost as painful for Cundiff was walking into the interview room as Flacco was finishing up. The Ravens' fourth-year quarterback was batted around last week after veteran safety Ed Reed questioned his command of the offense in Baltimore's narrow escape from the Texans in the previous round. The remarks left his teammates facing a steady stream of questions about whether Flacco had the goods to lead a championship team.

This time out, he silenced that debate by outplaying Tom Brady, throwing two touchdowns against one interception, and nearly doubling the New England glamour-boy's quarterback rating.

"We put ourselves in position to win it," Flacco said, unaware that Cundiff was off to the side, sipping from a bottle of water. "We just weren't able to pull it off."

Kicking is as much an art as a science, and never more daunting than during the playoffs. During the last regular season, kickers converted 87 percent of tries between 30 and 39 yards, according to research by STATS LLC. In the playoffs, going back to 1990, the rate drops to 81.5 percent.

It's one reason you see their teammates holding hands, kneeling in prayer, or burying their heads in a towel when the kick matters most.

"I definitely feel bad," said Pats kicker Stephen Gostkowski. "It just kind of humbles you. That could just as easily have been me. It's a bittersweet moment. My heart definitely goes out to him. That's just not something you wish on anybody."

Not exactly true.

"I had my eyes closed. I wasn't going to watch that one," recalled Patriots guard Matt Light. "That's a little too much stress for this guy. Unbelievable, man. Things happen for a reason."

"My heart was beating fast and hoping for that miss," New England's Aaron Hernandez recalled. "And the miss came."

___(equals)

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org and follow him at Twitter.com/Jim Litke.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_sp_fo_ne/fbn_afc_championship_jim_litke012212

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BlackBerry maker's CEO: No drastic change needed

In this Feb. 5, 2009 photo, Research In Motion co-CEOs Jim Balsillie, left, and Mike Lazaridis talk to media after an Ontario Securities Commission hearing in Toronto. The company on Sunday, Jan. 22 2012 says Balsillie and Lazaridis are stepping down, and will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, a chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette)

In this Feb. 5, 2009 photo, Research In Motion co-CEOs Jim Balsillie, left, and Mike Lazaridis talk to media after an Ontario Securities Commission hearing in Toronto. The company on Sunday, Jan. 22 2012 says Balsillie and Lazaridis are stepping down, and will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, a chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette)

This undated photo provided by Research in Motion shows Thorsten Heins, who on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Research In Motion. Heins succeeds co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who announced they are stepping down. (AP Photo/Research In Motion via The Canadian Press)

(AP) ? The new chief executive of Research in Motion said Monday that drastic change is not needed, even as the once iconic maker of the BlackBerry smartphone confronts the most difficult period in its history.

The Canadian company turned the smartphone into a ubiquitous device that many couldn't live without. But following the departure of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who stepped down as co-CEOs and co-chairmen, Thorsten Heins assumes the chief executive role at a time when Americans are abandoning their Blackberrys for flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple's iPhone and various competing models that run Google's Android software.

RIM's U.S. market share of smartphones dropped from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2011, according to market researcher NPD Group. The company still has 75 million active subscribers, but many analysts believe the company will lose market share internationally, just as it has in the U.S.

Heins, formerly a little known chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG, replaces RIM's founders after the company has lost tens of billions in market value. Balsillie acknowledged in December that the last few quarters have been among the most challenging times the company has seen.

Even so, Heins said on a conference call on Monday that he didn't think significant change was needed. He said the leadership change was not a "seismic" event. Heins said he's committed to switching the company's phones over to a new operating system, which is expected late this year. That's the same plan favored by Lazaridis and Balsillie, who announced Sunday they would step down from the top jobs, but serve in other roles.

Heins said RIM has to improve its U.S. marketing to go beyond the traditional corporate customer.

"I want us to have a bit more of an ear towards the consumer market, understand trends, and not just do what the Street is telling you," Heins said.

Shares of RIM fell eight percent, or $1.39 cents to $15.61, following his remarks. The stock had initially moved up almost 4 percent in premarket trading.

Heins said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that RIM doesn't have plans "right now" to put the company up for the sale or to split it up. He reiterated there is no reason for a "shake up" of RIM. He explained that he would consult with Lazaridis and Balsille on major decisions because they remain board members.

"I've worked really well with Mike in the past. He is a founder of an iconic company, a great innovator. For sure, I will seek his advice and his counsel where needed and I will have my discussions with him, but the company is run by the CEO and that's what you'll see," Heins said.

Heins' top priority will be to release smartphones that run the company's long-awaited Blackberry 10 software. "I will do everything I can to make that happen, but I cannot commit to a very specific date. But, yes, we will ship BlackBerry devices later this year on BlackBerry 10," he said.

Vic Alboini, president of Jaguar Financial Corp. in Toronto, which has been pushing for a change in leadership, said the drop in stock price on Monday meant the market saw the leadership adjustment as "more of the same."

Many shareholders and analysts have said a change or sale of the company has been needed, but the sudden departure of the two founders from their top jobs wasn't expected despite their promises that they would examine the co-CEO and co-chairmen structure.

Balsillie and Lazaridis have long been celebrated as Canadian heroes, even appearing in the country's citizenship guide for new immigrants as models of success. They headed Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM together for the past two decades.

"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now," Lazaridis said in a statement.

Lazaridis will take on a new role as vice chairman of RIM's board and chairman of the board's new innovation committee. Balsillie remains a member of the board. The two remain two of RIM's biggest shareholders.

"I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company," Balsillie said in the statement. "I remain a significant shareholder and a director and, of course, they will have my full support."

Analysts have said RIM's future depends on its new software platform as RIM has tried and failed to reinvigorate the BlackBerry.

RIM said last month that new phones deemed critical to the company's future would be delayed until late this year. And its PlayBook tablet, RIM's answer to the Apple iPad, failed to gain consumer support, forcing the company to deeply discount it to move the devices off store shelves.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in late 2010 that RIM would have a hard time catching up to Apple because RIM has been forced to move beyond its area of strength and into unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company.

BlackBerrys made email mobile and were dominant in the North American smartphone market until the iPhone came along. Under Lazaridis and Balsillie, the company struggled to adjust to the times and match the iPhone's facility with Web browsing, third-party applications and multimedia.

Heins, who is 54, said Lazaridis and Balsillie took RIM in the right direction and they are "more confident than ever that was the right path."

Barbara Stymiest, a former chief operating officer of the Royal Bank of Canada who has been a member of RIM's board since 2007, has been named chair of the board of directors. RIM also announced that Prem Watsa, the chief executive of Fairfax Financial Holdings, is a new board member. Watsa has become a significant shareholder.

Lazaridis said he was so confident in the future direction of the company that he intends to purchase an additional $50 million of the company's shares on the open market.

RIM was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago but now has a market value of around $8.2 billion. Some industry analysts believe RIM is following the same trajectory as struggling Finish handset maker Nokia or former Canadian tech giant Nortel, which declared bankruptcy in 2009.

BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis agrees that a change in marketing is needed, but it will take more than that to reverse the decline. Gillis said the move is two years late and said he'll get more excited when RIM announces positive news about their new software platform.

"It's just a shuffling of the deck," Gillis said. "He's got a pretty rough road to drive up. The other part is that Mike and Jim are still around. Think about Jerry Yang in Yahoo. When he finally stepped down people said he was still a really big influence on the company."

Stuart Jeffrey at Nomura Securities said the management switch could remove an obstacle toward selling the company, but still believes a buyer is unlikely to surface. The value of the company is uncertain, since the new operating system, BlackBerry 10, is unproven.

Private-equity buyers might be enticed to buy the company for its cash flow, he said, but the fair value for the company is about $15 per share on that basis, meaning private-equity firms are unlikely to pay much above $10.

___

Associated Press Technology Writer Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-23-RIM-CEOs%20Resign/id-f5d16b6695f145229c6eeae47de4a1c5

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Iran's Gulf smugglers feel blowback from tensions

(AP) ? By dawn, the unmarked speedboats from Iran pull into port. By dusk, they are racing back across the Strait of Hormuz loaded with smuggled consumer goods ranging from Chinese-made shoes to cut flowers from Holland.

Even as sanctions squeeze Iran ever tighter, there's one clandestine route that remains open for business: A short sea corridor across the Persian Gulf connecting a rocky nub of Oman and the Iranian coast about 35 miles (60 kilometers) away.

Yet even this established smugglers' path is now feeling the bite from the pressures on Iran over its nuclear program.

Business is sharply down, the middlemen and boat crews say, as the slumping Iranian currency leaves fewer customers for the smuggled wares. At the same time, the risks of interception are higher as Iranian authorities step up patrols near the strategic oil tanker lanes at the mouth of the Gulf.

The strait, which is the only access in and out of the Gulf, has been the scene of Cold War-style brinksmanship between Iran and the West after Tehran last month threatened to block the passageway for about one-sixth of the world's oil in retaliation for new U.S. sanctions.

"We used to make two or three trips across every day. Now, it's maybe one," said an Iranian middleman, who gave only his first name Agheel to protect his identity from authorities in his homeland.

He watched crews load up a pickup truck with bolts of fabric from Pakistan and table-size boxes of cut flowers from the Netherlands, before the trucks headed off through the treeless mountains to Khasab port.

The operation smuggles in merchandise to avoid Iranian tariffs and to bring in American and European products that have disappeared from Iranian markets because of international sanctions. Experts note that the consumer items post no real challenge to efforts to block material with military or nuclear uses.

"Still, it shows you can't close off all channels into Iran no matter how hard you try," said Paul Rogers, who follows security affairs at Bradford University in Britain. "People will find a way."

On this side of the Gulf, the smugglers operate under a tacit tolerance from authorities, even though Oman and the United Arab Emirates are close U.S. allies and have pledged to enforce sanctions. The port lies in a sparsely populated peninsula enclave belonging to Oman but encircled on land by the UAE, a legacy of how the area was carved up in the final days of British rule here in the last century that resulted in Oman holding joint control with Iran over the strait.

The goods are legally imported into the UAE and truck drivers take them across the border, paying the customary 50 dirham ($13.50) entry fee, according to the smugglers interviewed by The Associated Press. In Khasab, the merchandise is taken to warehouses and then piled on the docks less than 100 yards (100 meters) from the port police headquarters.

Omani authorities did not respond to requests for comment on the traffic.

The Khasab speedboats are far from the only back channel into Iran. Drug traffickers easily cross the hinterland borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, and black market networks stretch across the frontiers with Iraq and Turkey. Authorities in Iraq's Kurdish region have been under pressure for years to crack down on fuel trucks heading into Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

But Khasab stands out for its openness and for lying on the highly sensitive Strait.

A shipment arranged by the Iranian smuggler Agheel this week was done with practiced efficiency.

A pickup truck backed into a wood-floored warehouse with hundreds of cases of cigarettes bundled three together and wrapped tightly in gray plastic weave ? in total 3,000 cigarettes under south Asian brands such as Ruby Menthol. The truck was soon sagging under the weight of boxes piled five high.

Agheel did some quick calculations: Each three-case load cost him about $1,200 and he could sell them to merchants in Iran for the equivalent of about $1,350 under current exchange rates. The truck pulling out of the warehouse represented a potential return of about $4,500.

"If we don't get caught," he added.

The smugglers have their ways of avoiding Iranian authorities.

Spotters off the coast ? on the island of Qeshm and near the port of Bandar Abbas ? call in coast guard movements to Khasab. The speedboat drivers keep close attention to the water conditions on the Strait and try to approach the Iranian coast just after sunset. The trip can take as little as 90 minutes in calm seas and up to four hours in rough water in the stripped down stripped-down 16-foot (five-meter) fiberglass boats.

Agheel's truck passed through the Khasab customs station at midday and then down a strip of hardscrabble road.

At the port ? almost in the shadow of a Costa cruise ship making a day stop ? dozens of boats were being packed and secured for the trip. There were no names or markings on the speedboats. But the items loaded on carried familiar logos: LG 42-inch flatscreen TVs, Discovery Channel DVDs, Panasonic microwaves, Yamaha motorcycle parts. Also in the stacks were textiles, satellite dishes and Chinese-made clothes and shoes.

One boat driver, who gave his name only as Aziz, had a breakfast of eggs, beans and Mountain Dew as he waited for the day's shipment to be loaded for the return run to Qeshm, a long arrow-shaped island near the Iranian coast and a main waystation for the smugglers.

Months ago, he could make as many trips as possible because the merchants in Iran were demanding goods.

But now the struggling Iranian rial ? dragged down partly by U.S.-led sanctions that could target Iran's Central Bank ? has put many things out of reach for Iranians, he said.

"No one wants to buy because the (rial) rate is not stable," he said.

He also said the Iranian coastal patrols have been boosted amid the escalating tensions over the Strait.

On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the American military is "fully prepared" to deal with any Iranian effort to close the waterway. Next month, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard plans naval exercises in the area.

If spotted by patrols, Aziz said the two-man boat crews try to heave the goods overboard. They then must pay back the smuggling network, which can amount to thousands of dollars.

But it's worth the risk, he said.

"The situation is getting worse now," he said. "All the prices are up and Qeshm has nothing else" except smuggling.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-22-ML-Smugglers-in-the-Strait/id-e2bd6b95b8ef45589402dbff56f3a2b1

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Woman's body found on stricken Italian cruise ship

Seemingly minute shifts in the position of the cruise ship that partially sank in an Italian port is hampering the underwater search for 21 passengers and crew missing for more than a week. NBC's Michelle Kosinki reports from Giglio, Italy.

By NBC News and msnbc.com news services

Updated at 11:10 a.m. ET: GIGLIO, Italy -- Italian Coast Guard divers on Saturday found a woman's body in a corridor of a submerged section of the capsized Costa Concordia, raising to at least 12 the number of dead in the cruise liner accident.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro told The Associated Press that the victim, who was wearing a life vest, was found during a particularly risky inspection of an evacuation staging point at the ship's rear.

"The corridor was very narrow, and the divers' lines risked snagging" on objects in the passageway, Nicastro said. To permit the coast guard divers to get into the area, Italian navy divers had preceded them, setting off charges to blast holes for easier entrance and exit, he said.

The woman's nationality and identity were not immediately known.

The body was brought to Giglio, the Tuscan island where the cruise liner hit a reef and ran aground on Jan. 14. Twenty people remain?missing.

DigitalGlobe

The Costa Concordia ran aground Jan. 13 off the coast of Italy, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of passengers as the ship began heavily listing.

Search and rescue efforts for survivors and bodies have meant that an operation to remove heavy fuel in the Concordia's tanks hasn't yet begun, although specialized equipment has been standing by for days.

On Saturday, light fuel, apparently from machinery aboard the capsized Costa Concordia, was detected near the ship.

But Nicastro said there was no indication that any of the nearly 500,000 gallons (2,200 metric tons) of heavy fuel oil has leaked from the ship's double-bottomed tanks. He said the leaked substance appears to be diesel, which is used to fuel rescue boats and dinghies and as a lubricant for ship machinery.

There are 185 tons of diesel and lubricants on board the crippled vessel, which is lying on its side just outside Giglio's port. Nicastro described the light fuel's presence in the sea as "very light, very superficial" and appearing to be under control.


NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.

Updated at 9:30 a.m. ET:? The captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which struck a rock and capsized off Italy, told magistrates he informed the ship's owners of the accident immediately, denying he had delayed raising the alarm, judicial sources said on Saturday.

Capt. Francesco Schettino has been blamed for causing the January 13 accident in which at least 11 people died. He is under house arrest, accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship before all passengers were evacuated.

His statements to prosecutors investigating the disaster, reported in the Italian press and confirmed by judicial sources, underline the growing battle between him and Costa Cruise Lines which operates the 114,500 ton vessel.?

According to transcripts of his questioning by prosecutors leaked to Italian media, he said that immediately after hitting the rock he sent two of his officers to the engine room to check on the state of the vessel.

As soon as he realized the scale of the damage, he called Roberto Ferrarini, marine operations director for Costa Cruises.

"I told him: I've got myself into a mess, there was contact with the seabed. I am telling you the truth, we passed under Giglio and there was an impact," Schettino said.

"I can't remember how many times I called him in the following hour and 15 minutes. In any case, I am certain that I informed Ferrarini about everything in real time," he said, adding he had asked the company to send tug boats and helicopters.

Costa Cruises Chief Executive Pier Luigi Foschi says Schettino delayed issuing the SOS and evacuation orders and gave false information to the company headquarters.

"Personally, I think he wasn't honest with us," Foschi told Corriere della Sera Friday. He said the first phone conversation between Schettino and Ferrarini took place 20 minutes after the ship hit the rock.


Published at 5:40 a.m. ET:
Divers resumed the search of the wreckage of the capsized Costa Concordia after data indicated the cruise ship had stabilized in the sea off Tuscany.

Italian coastguard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro told NBC News Saturday that the navy had punctured two holes in the carcass of the ship, which has been lying on its side near the port of Giglio island since shortly after it crashed into a reef on Jan. 13.

Divers were expected to search the area around bridge number four, an emergency meeting point near to where other bodies were found. They had been hoping to reach that area for days, NBC reported.

They are searching for bodies or survivors, although it is unlikely any of the missing in the accident could still be alive. The search was suspended on Friday after the Concordia shifted, prompting fears the ship could roll off a rocky ledge of sea bed and plunge deeper into the sea.

There are also fears the Concordia's fuel could leak, polluting pristine waters.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/21/10204464-womans-body-found-aboard-stricken-italian-cruise-ship

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Utah school passes on 'cougars' as mascot

(AP) ? A Utah school district has decided against using "Cougars" as a mascot for a new high school in part because of the negative connotation of the word in popular culture.

Canyons School District Superintendent David S. Doty says the selection of "Chargers" as mascot was driven by the desire for originality, despite a poll of some future students that showed 26 percent in favor of using the cougar.

At least three Utah schools, including Brigham Young University, use cougar as a mascot.

Doty says public comments reflect a desire to be different, but he also notes that some see the word cougar as carrying a "negative double entendre."

The term cougar in popular culture can refer to women in their 40s who have sex with younger men.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2012-01-20-Cougar%20Controversy/id-9913c8de278040c3a8f987ba08152951

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