Iraqi PM to visit White House in December (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The White House says Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (NOO'-ree ahl-MAHL'-ih-kee) will visit Washington next month, just as President Barack Obama prepares to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq after more than eight years of war.

Al-Maliki and Obama will hold talks at the White House on Dec. 12 regarding the partnership between their two countries, according to the White House announcement Friday.

Obama announced last month that the war in Iraq would be over by year's end and all U.S. troops would come home.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111104/ap_on_re_us/us_us_iraq

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Farmar shows NBA class as Maccabi beat Real Madrid (Reuters)

BELGRADE (Reuters) ? Former Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Farmar demonstrated just how much depth an influx of NBA players has added to the Euroleague when he steered Maccabi Tel Aviv to an 88-82 win over Real Madrid Thursday.

The clash of the titans in Europe's premier club competition produced an electrifying game in which Farmar, who won the 2009 and 2010 NBA titles with the Lakers, shone with 27 points after making 10 of his 12 shots from the field.

"Jordan deserves all the credit for his performance tonight, it had nothing to do with me," Maccabi coach David Blatt told the competition's official website (wwww.euroleague.net) after his team came out on top in front of a fervent home crowd.

"Our fans gave us a great push as always, they give us such great support and it's an advantage very few teams get in Europe," added Blatt, who won the European Championship with Russia in 2007.

The 52-year-old coach also singled out Greek center Sofoklis Schortsanitis, nicknamed by his peers "Baby Shaq" because of his uncanny resemblance to former Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal.

Schortsanitis had 16 points, five rebounds and four assists as last season's runners-up Maccabi improved their Group C record to two wins and one defeat.

"Sofoklis played a great game today, he jumped on the floor like a guard and lifted us with his hustle and that was a high-level performance our fans will remember for a long time," Blatt said.

With tough negotiations in North America on ending the NBA lockout seemingly hitting a dead end, Maccabi and other top contenders in the 24-team competition will hope to keep their imports from across the Atlantic for as long as possible.

Farmar -- now under contract with the New Jersey Nets -- and most other NBA players who flocked to Europe after talks on ending the trade dispute repeatedly broke down are set to return to North America when the lockout ends.

Partizan Belgrade guard Acie Law, who played for five different NBA teams since 2007, is one of the few players who made a permanent move after signing a one-year contract with the Serbian champions in July.

The 26-year-old playmaker was at the heart of Partizan's 91-81 home win over Belgians Spirou Charleroi with 26 points and seven assists, having nailed a crucial three-pointer in the last minute when the visitors closed in.

"He is a great guy and the most professional foreigner ever to play for Partizan, hence his good performances should come as no surprise because he works very hard in training sessions," Partizan coach Vlada Jovanovic said.

"He has blended into the team seamlessly and we are really delighted to have him in our ranks," Jovanovic added.

Six-time winners CSKA Moscow eased to their third straight win with an 89-47 away demolition of KK Zagreb while holders Panathinaikos Athens take on Lithuanians Zhalgiris Kaunas later Friday.

(Editing by Pritha Sarkar)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111104/sp_nm/us_basketball_euroleague_roundup

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Probe says hockey team crash caused by pilot error (AP)

MOSCOW ? A Russian jet crash that killed 44 people, including an entire professional ice hockey team, was caused by pilots inadvertently putting on the brakes during takeoff, investigators said Wednesday, blaming poor crew training and lax oversight.

The Interstate Aviation Committee said the Sept. 7 crash of the Yak-42 plane near the city of Yaroslavl in central Russia occurred because one of the pilots accidentally activated the brakes during takeoff and then pulled the plane up too sharply in a desperate attempt to take off.

It was one of the worst aviation disasters ever in sports, shocking Russia and the world of hockey, as the dead included 36 players, coaches and staff of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team. The only player who survived the crash later died of burns. A flight engineer was the sole survivor.

Alexei Morozov, who led the investigation, said the crew still had enough time to abort the takeoff safely at the moment when they realized that it had gone wrong.

He blamed the plane's owner, Yak-Service, for failing to observe safety standards and adequately train the crew. The company was closed in September by Russia's federal aviation authority following a check that found severe violations.

"The company practically lacked a proper system of flight oversight and controls over air safety," Morozov said.

Morozov said that both pilots had flown another type of plane with a slightly different cockpit layout and apparently had never learned the correct position for their feet on takeoff. He said in the Yak-42, like virtually all other existing Russian and Western planes, a pilot steers the aircraft by pressing the lower part of pedals and activates the brakes by pressing their upper part.

But instead of putting their heels on the cockpit floor as regulations require, the crew left their feet resting on the pedals, inadvertently activating the brakes and slowing the plane down on takeoff. They at first didn't notice they were putting on the brakes, and then made the fatal mistake of failing to abort the takeoff, he said.

Morozov added that a medical condition of the second pilot, and the prohibited medicine he had taken contributed to the disaster. He said the pilot's illness had passed unnoticed during an official medical certification, but had been diagnosed by private doctors whom the pilot had consulted on his own initiative.

The plane was already past half of the long, 3,000-meter (9,900 feet) runway, when the crew tried and failed to lift it. They then weighed on the steering wheel trying to lift the plane and at the same time applied even more pressure on the brakes.

The jet sped past the runway and ran 400 meters (1,320 feet) onto the grass before finally taking off. It went up so sharply that it banked on its wing and crashed on the side of the Volga River, 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Moscow.

The team had been heading to Minsk, Belarus, to play its opening game of the Kontinental Hockey League season.

Among the dead were Lokomotiv coach and National Hockey League veteran Brad McCrimmon, a Canadian; assistant coach Alexander Karpovtsev, one of the first Russians to have his name etched on the Stanley Cup as a member of the New York Rangers; and Pavol Demitra, who played for the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks and was the Slovakian national team captain.

Other standouts killed were Czech players Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek and Jan Marek, Swedish goalie Stefan Liv, Latvian defenseman Karlis Skrastins and defenseman Ruslan Salei of Belarus.

The crash raised new concerns about Russia's aviation safety and prompted the president to suggest replacing all aging Soviet-era aircraft with Western-made planes.

But industry experts say that recent air disasters have been rooted not simply in planes' age, but in a combination of other factors, including insufficient crew training, crumbling airports, lax government control and widespread neglect of safety in the pursuit of profits.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_crash_investigation

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Senator worried about European financial problems (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The leading Republican on the Senate Banking Committee says that if Greece defaults on its debt, it could tilt the United States into another recession.

Republican Sen. Richard Shelby says "we're intertwined with Europe," and America cannot escape economic shocks an ocean away.

Shelby tells MSNBC a critical question is whether Western Europe will "keep sputtering along." And he questions whether Chancellor Angela Merkel can sell German assistance politically at home.

The Alabama senator says that since the U.S. economy is so tightly tied connected to the financial fortunes of Western Europe, "what happens there affects us." He calls Greece "just the tip of the iceberg" of financial instability and that the European debt crisis "is just beginning. It's going to be a slow drift for a long time."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111102/ap_on_go_co/us_shelby_european_finances

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Dresden threatened with ban for unruly fans

Associated Press Sports

updated 12:03 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2011

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -Dynamo Dresden faces a ban from next season's German Cup because of the unruly and dangerous behavior of its fans.

The disciplinary panel of the German Football Federation (DFB) proposed the punishment on Wednesday, one week after Dynamo fans rioted at a cup match in Dortmund. The federation will rule next week on any punishment.

Dynamo supporters lit flares and threw firecrackers at the match in Dortmund, causing several brief interruptions. They also clashed with police. Dynamo lost 2-0.

The second division club from eastern Germany said it would contest the decision and was preparing an appeal.

"We consider the punishment very much out of proportion," Dynamo managing director Volker Oppitz said. "The DFB is under pressure to make an example out of a club."

The club has already decided not to take supporters to the next away match against St. Pauli in Hamburg at the end of this month.

Dynamo has been fined a dozen times in the past two seasons for violence caused by its fans. Dortmund faces a ?10,000 ($13,809) fine because its security services failed to detect flares carried into the stadium by Dynamo fans.

Such flammable material is officially banned in German stadiums, although they are often used, especially at lower division matches.

The DFB rejected appeals by fan groups to allow flares. The supporters have argued that such pyrotechnics help to create a better atmosphere.

Several violent incidents at last week's German Cup and league matches have increased pressure on the DFB to act. A police report last week said the number of people injured at matches in the top two divisions had reached a 12-year high last season.

The DFB said it will create a task force to study the problem of violence together with police and fan groups.

? 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45130588/ns/sports-soccer/

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Supporting Cain, GOP base evokes Thomas hearings

Republican presidential candidate, Herman Cain wipes his forehead before answering questions at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct., 31, 2011. Denying he sexually harassed anyone, Cain said Monday he was falsely accused in the 1990s while he was head of the National Restaurant Association, and he branded revelation of the allegations a "witch hunt.". (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, Herman Cain wipes his forehead before answering questions at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct., 31, 2011. Denying he sexually harassed anyone, Cain said Monday he was falsely accused in the 1990s while he was head of the National Restaurant Association, and he branded revelation of the allegations a "witch hunt.". (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, Herman Cain answers questions at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct., 31, 2011. Denying he sexually harassed anyone, Cain said Monday he was falsely accused in the 1990s while he was head of the National Restaurant Association, and he branded revelation of the allegations a "witch hunt.". (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Republican presidential candidate, Herman Cain speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, Oct. 31, 2011. Denying he sexually harassed anyone, Cain said Monday he was falsely accused in the 1990s while he was head of the National Restaurant Association, and he branded revelation of the allegations a "witch hunt.". (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

ATLANTA (AP) ? Conservatives rallied around Herman Cain as he battles sexual harassment allegations, likening the attacks on the Republican presidential contender to what they describe as the "high-tech lynching" of another prominent black Republican: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The forceful early reaction to the Cain firestorm ? fueled by racially charged rhetoric ? suggests the Georgia businessman's attempt to cast himself as a victim of the media and liberals is, so far, paying dividends among his conservative Republican base, who will hold considerable sway in selecting the party's nominee. But the accusations against Cain, an untested newcomer on the political scene, may give more moderate GOP voters pause and could cause would-be donors to shy away even as Cain works to capitalize on his rising poll numbers.

With the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus less than three months away, the harassment allegations ? and Cain's response to them ? have the potential to reshuffle the GOP race.

So far, the early cry from the right is to support Cain using a race-based defense and familiar targets. Becoming a target of the left and the media could bolster Cain's support among those who view those groups with disdain.

"I think the left is totally and completely terrified of a conservative black man coming to power and prominence," said Debbie Dooley, a leader of Atlanta Tea Party Patriots. "They are trying to do the same thing to him that they did with Clarence Thomas."

It was view that echoed loudly across talk radio and the Internet as conservative pundits weighed in.

"It's outrageous the way liberals treat a black conservative," fumed pundit Ann Coulter.

Radio show host Rush Limbaugh lashed out at the mainstream media for pursuing "the ugliest racial stereotypes they can to attack a black conservative."

"This is about blacks and Hispanics getting uppity," Limbaugh continued. "(Liberals) cannot have a black Republican running for office, can't have a Hispanic, the Left owns those minorities, those two groups can't be seen rising on their own."

The head of the conservative Media Research Center, Brent Bozell, labeled the story a "high-tech lynching," evoking Thomas' divisive Supreme Court confirmation hearings two decades ago, where he was confronted with sexual harassment allegations from a onetime employee, Anita Hill.

The allegations against Cain came to light Sunday night. Politico reported that at least two women who complained about sexually inappropriate behavior while working for Cain at the National Restaurant Association had signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them five-figure financial payouts to leave the association and barred them from discussing their departures. Neither woman was identified.

The report was based on anonymous sources and, in one case, what the publication said was a review of documentation that described the allegations and the resolution. Politico said Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told their publication that Cain himself had indicated to campaign officials that he was "vaguely familiar" with the charges and that the restaurant association's general counsel had resolved the matter.

On Monday, Cain ? who completed a round of Washington appearances amid a frenzy of media attention ? labeled the charges a witch hunt.

He said he was aware of the allegations made against him in the 1990s but called them "baseless" and denied he sexually harassed anyone. He said he had no knowledge of whether the association provided any such settlements, and he declined to address specifics of the accusations or the resolution.

While Cain seemed to benefit from an early burst of support in key quarters, the full impact of the charges is not yet known.

Women's rights groups expressed frustration that, 20 years after the Thomas hearings, sexual harassment complaints had again been reduced to a partisan fight.

Erin Matson, a vice president for the National Organization for Women, said the women in question should be given the benefit of the doubt.

"It is deeply insulting that this is being called political," Matson said. "Sexual harassment allegations are always about a woman who is simply trying to go to work."

Still, for some the desire to oust Obama could trump most anything else.

Sonia Conte, a 73-year-old retired accountant from Akron, Ohio, said the allegations about Cain don't change her opinion of him: She is concerned that he has little governing experience and prefers former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

"But I'd still rather vote for Herman Cain than Barack Obama," said Conte, a registered Democrat. Obama, she said, mishandled the economy and the end of the Iraq war. "Anybody but Obama."

Cain acknowledged the charges could harm his campaign at a critical juncture.

"Obviously, some people are going to be turned off by this cloud that someone wanted to put over my campaign," he said. "But a lot of people aren't going to be turned off. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

___

Follow Shannon McCaffrey at www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-11-01-Cain/id-d2a99582eeb941e5b1b2f61e80437aea

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Pete Townshend brands iTunes a 'digital vampire' (AP)

LONDON ? The Who's Pete Townshend on Monday branded Apple Inc.'s iTunes a "digital vampire" that profits from music without supporting the artists who create it.

Townshend said that faced with the Internet's demolition of established copyright protections, iTunes should offer some of the services to artists that record labels and music publishers used to provide. These include employing talents scouts, giving space to allow bands to stream their music and paying smaller artists directly rather than through a third party aggregator.

The guitarist was delivering the first John Peel Lecture, named in honor of the influential British radio broadcaster who died in 2004.

Townshend asked if there was any reason iTunes "can't provide some aspect of these services to the artists whose work it bleeds like a digital vampire" to make money.

ITunes declined to respond to Townshend's comments.

Apple's service is the market leader among legal download services, accounting for about three-quarters of music downloads.

Townshend said consumers, as well as the industry, needed to change their attitude to digital music.

"It would be better if music lovers treated music like food, and paid for every helping, rather than only when it suited them," he said.

"Why can't music lovers just pay for music rather than steal it?" he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111031/ap_on_hi_te/eu_britain_pete_townshend

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Never Try to Knock a Kid Off a Bike


Do not, for any reason, try to open your car door and knock a kid off a bike.

In this video, seen on Comedy Central's Tosh.0, one smart ass, sitting in the back seat of a moving car, attempted just that, swinging his door open and attempting to derail an unsuspecting biker. It probably seemed like a funny idea at the time.

Until karma, or just a car, came from the other direction ...

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/10/never-try-to-knock-a-kid-off-a-bike/

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Thais hope flooded factories back up in 3 months (Reuters)

BANGKOK (Reuters) ? Thailand hopes industrial estates swamped in its worst floods in half a century can be up and running within three months, the prime minister said on Monday, as the center of the capital finally appeared to have escaped a similar fate.

Nearly 400 people have been killed in months of floods, the lives of more than two million disrupted, economic growth has been set back and global supply chains for Thai-made computer and auto parts thrown into disarray.

But inner Bangkok, protected by a network of dikes and sandbag walls, appeared to have escaped the deluge with peak tides on the Chao Phraya river due to pass on Monday and clear weather setting in.

While the city center remained dry with business mostly as usual, neighborhoods on the wrong side of the protective ring, especially to the north and west, and provinces to the north, have been swamped by deep, fetid flows.

The government is planning to spend 900 billion baht ($30 billion) on reconstruction, flood prevention and helping industry, a government minister said.

But in the mean time, anger is rising in hard-hit communities just as water is in some places as it makes its way toward the sea.

Tension has boiled over into skirmishes with police in some areas as villagers try to pull down flood barriers keeping water high in their communities but protecting the capital.

Saving inner Bangkok from disaster would be a major victory for the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a political novice who took over this year after an election that many Thais hoped would heal deep divisions.

Bangkok's 12 million people account for 41 percent of Thailand's gross domestic product.

Another economically vital region is just north of Bangkok, in particular Pathum Thani and Ayutthaya provinces, which have been largely inundated for weeks.

Seven industrial estates that have sprung up over the last decade or two on what used to be the central plain's rice fields have been overcome by the exceptionally large volumes of water flowing down the Chao Phraya basin.

Yingluck said it should take three months to rehabilitate the industrial estates where some foreign investors have built regional production hubs.

"We expect after the water recedes the industrial estates will recover within three months if we can release the water and recover the machinery quickly," Yingluck told reporters.

Thailand is the second-largest exporter of computer hard drives and global prices are rising because of a flood-related shortage of major components used in personal computers.

Yingluck said she had been in talks with Japanese investors and had assured them of steps to prevent a repeat of disaster from the annual rainy season.

"They are still confident to invest in Thailand but we have to invest in a long-term flood-protection plan," she said.

DANGER, DISEASE

Energy Minister Pichai Naripthaphan said the government expected a recovery plan would cost 900 billion baht ($30 billion), including 800 billion baht for an overhaul of the water-management system and 100 billion for the rehabilitation of industrial estates.

"Every crisis has an opportunity. We are studying how to rebuild the country's economy and competitiveness. We have studied models from several countries," Pichai told Reuters.

"Solving the flood crisis is the main issue."

The president of South Korea's Samsung Electronics said on the weekend he expected Thailand's floods to hit the computer memory chip market further by hurting PC production until the first quarter of next year.

Japan's Honda Motor Co may keep its Thai factory shut for about six months which would hit 3 percent of its annual global car output, the Nikkei business daily reported on Sunday.

The Bank of Thailand has nearly halved its projection of economic growth this year to 2.6 percent from July's 4.1 percent estimate, and said the economy -- Southeast Asia's second largest -- would shrink by 1.9 percent in the December quarter from the previous three months due to the floods.

The floods have destroyed 25 percent of the main rice crop in the world's largest rice exporter as they submerged four million acres (1.6 million hectares), an area roughly the size of Kuwait.

The floods were caused in part by unusually heavy monsoon rain falling on a low-lying region but the weather has been largely clear for a week as the cooler, dry season begins.

But the danger is far from over with the run-off still flowing south and swamping new neighborhoods as fears of disease grow.

People living in Thonburi, on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, have been struggling in waist-deep water for days, as have those in suburbs and provinces to the north of Bangkok.

About 30 riot police were deployed in an area of Pathum Thani to maintain order after residents destroyed a barrier.

Yingluck assured flood victims in a Facebook message that they would be taken care of.

As well as a big risk of diarrhea and mosquito-borne diseases, skin infections area a major problem and in some areas, hungry crocodiles have escaped from flooded farms and snakes searching for dry land have slithered into homes.

(Additional reporting by Khettiya Jittapong and Bazuki Muhammad; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111031/wl_nm/us_thailand_floods

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