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The Incredible Optical Magic of a DSLR Transformed to Slow Motion [Video]

Posted by on January 27, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: DSLR, gawker. Leave a Comment
Click here to read The Incredible Optical Magic of a DSLR Transformed to Slow Motion

The mechanism inside a DSLR that converts your press of a button to a giant, detailed JPEG is concealed by a click and an instant. But in that instant lies some incredible engineering—watch it all happen super slowly. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/lfXT-dHFud0/the-incredible-optical-magic-of-a-dslr-transformed-to-slow-motion

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Apple’s Q1 hardware sales: 37 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, 5.2 million Macs, 15.4 million iPods

Posted by on January 27, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: macbook, percent, q1 earnings. Leave a Comment
We touched on the numbers in our report on Apple’s Q1 earnings, but the company’s throwing out a lot of “record” figures so we thought we’d take a moment to focus on just how its hardware sales stack up. The standout number is, of course, the 37.04 million iPhones sold during the quarter, which is up 128 percent from the same quarter a year ago (and up from 17 million in the previous quarter, a jump of 117 percent). That notably puts Apple back ahead of Samsung, which sold a total of 35 million smartphones in its most recent quarter. And as if that wasn’t enough, Apple’s Tim Cook also said on the company’s earnings call that it could have sold even more if it had more supply.

iPad sales also set a new record with 15.43 million units sold during the quarter, which is a 111 percent jump from the 7.3 million sold a year ago, and a 39 percent increase from the 11.1 million moved in Q4 2011. Once again, however, iPods are the one category that continues to decline in the face of the growth of smartphones. Apple sold a total of 15.4 million iPods — over half of which were iPod touches — which represents a 21 percent decline from the 19.4 million sold a year ago. The holiday shopping season did boost sales considerably from the 6.6 million sold in the previous quarter, though.

Mac sales were also on the upswing, totaling 5.2 million units — a 26 percent increase year-over-year. Breaking things down further, that translates to 1.48 million desktops (including iMac, Mac Mini and Mac Pro), and 3.7 million laptops (including the basic MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro). As for the company’s “hobby,” the Apple TV, it rang up 1.4 million in sales for the quarter, and 2.8 million for the 2011 fiscal year. Fans of charts can get their fix after the break.

Continue reading Apple’s Q1 hardware sales: 37 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, 5.2 million Macs, 15.4 million iPods

Apple’s Q1 hardware sales: 37 million iPhones, 15.43 million iPads, 5.2 million Macs, 15.4 million iPods originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/DznFGeYwvH4/

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‘Big Brother’ vets, clowns join 20th ‘Amazing Race’

Posted by on January 27, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: season. Leave a Comment

Like a nasty cold sore, “Big Brother’s” Rachel Reilly and Brendon Villegas just keeping coming back.

The oft-reviled reality romancers are competing again on the small screen as teammates on “The Amazing Race’s” 20th season, CBS announced today.

Story: New ‘Survivor’ twist is revealed

Rachel, last season’s “Big” winner, first met ? and hooked up with ? fianc?e Brendon as houseguests on the claustrophobic series’ 12th installment. Their “Big Brother” showmance continued last summer alongside fellow vets Jordan Lloyd and Jeff Schroeder, who also competed on “The Amazing Race” (they were the sixth team eliminated on season 15).

  1. More Entertainment stories
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      After two weeks of constant 3-0 votes, viewers finally saw an incredulous J.Lo find herself on the wrong end of a series o…

    2. Colbert gets wild with author Maurice Sendak
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Do Brenchel stand a chance against the other 10 “Race” teams, or are they battling a bunch of clowns?

RELIVE RACHEL’S BIG MOMENT: “Big Brother” 13 Finale: Who Won and Who’s All Wet?

Make that a couple of clowns ? two self-proclaimed “ambassadors of laughter” are among the globe-trotters whose stops will include Paraguay, Azerbaijan and Tanzania. In all the racers will visit five continents, 22 cities and nearly 40,000 miles.

Emmy-winning executive producer Bertram van Munster told us the route “is so off the wall and so crazy that it almost killed us. It’s really very original ? the whole ensemble, the cast and the route and the challenges are really unique, it’s probably one of the best (seasons) we’ve ever done ? and very competitive.”

Because they all have the drive to win, van Munster revealed we won’t see season 20′s sharing clues and answers that all but destroyed the competitive spirit in recent seasons. “These guys are not doing it (sharing information) this season,” he assured us. “They get the drift. Sometimes it happens, but at the end of the day they have to all screw each other, if they want the million bucks.”

Here are the 11 teams competing for that million-dollar prize:

MORE: Meet the new cast of “Survivor: One World”!

Brendon Villegas, 31; Westwood, Calif.; Ph.D. student; Rachel Reilly, 27; Westwood, Calif.; event hostess (engaged) Dave Gregg, 44; New Port Richey, Fla.; “Ambassador of; Laughter”; Cherie Gregg, 44; New Port Richey, Fla.; “Ambassador of Laughter” (married clowns) Art Velez, 43; Temecula, Calif.; border patrol agent; J.J. Carrell, 42; Carlsbad, Calif.; border patrol agent (friends) Nary Ebeid, 32; Los Angeles; federal agent; Jamie Graetz, 33; Los Angeles; federal agent (friends) Vanessa Macias, 31; San Antonio; freelance writer; Ralph Kelley, 36; San Antonio; bar owner (dating divorcees) Misa Tanaka, 27; San Diego; car buyer; Maiya Tanaka, 25; San Diego; professional golfer (sisters) Dave Brown Jr., 33; Madison, Wis.; U.S. Army Officer; Rachel Brown, 30; Madison, Wis.; project manager (married) William “Bopper” Minton, 41; Manchester, KY.; motorcycle mechanic; Mark Jackson, 45; Manchester, Ky.; former state inspector (best friends) Joey “Fitness” Lasalla, 29; Whitestone, N.Y.; trainer/supplement; company owner; Danny Horal, 27; Holbrook, N.Y.; nightclub promoter (friends) Elliot Weber, 28; Scottsdale, Ariz.; musician; Andrew Weber, 28; Menlo Park, Calif.; professional soccer player (twins) Kerri Paul, 30; Gulfport, Miss.; program coordinator; Stacy Bowers, 30; Gulfport, Miss.; self-employed/”basketball” wife (cousins)

AMAZING RACE SEASON 20 PHOTOS: Check out Brenchel’s competition!

“The Amazing Race’s” 20th season premieres Sunday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. on CBS. What do you think of this season’s cast ? and the controversial return of Rachel and Brendon?

? 2012 E! Entertainment Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46131061/ns/today-entertainment/

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Video: GOP insults go local

Posted by on January 27, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: home. Leave a Comment

Surprising 30 percent rise in home births

??A small, but growing trend of women in the US are choosing home births, a new government report finds. These mostly over 35, non-Hispanic white women are “consciously rejecting the system” of hospital deliveries, says the researcher.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46138400#46138400

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U.S.-based polygamist sect buys newspaper ads urging repentance (Reuters)

Posted by on January 27, 2012
Posted in: oust. Leave a Comment

SAN ANGELO, Texas (Reuters) ? A breakaway Mormon sect loyal to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs has placed a series of ads urging repentance in major U.S. and Canadian newspapers that display purported revelations from God via their faith’s self-proclaimed prophet.

Jeffs, the 56-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting two girls he wed as spiritual brides when they were 12 and 14 years old at his sect’s Texas ranch.

“Repent ye; now be of full humbling; all peoples shall be humbled in full way; as I send full judgment,” reads one of the ads, versions of which have appeared during the past week in newspapers including the New York Times, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Vancouver Sun.

It was not immediately clear to whom the ads were directed, but Jeffs had complained repeatedly during his Texas trial last year that he was being persecuted because of his religious beliefs.

Jeffs’ sect, which teaches that for a man to be among the select in heaven he must have at least three wives, is estimated to have 10,000 followers in North America.

The ads appeared less than a month after Jeffs, whose sect has been condemned by the mainstream Mormon Church, lost his prison phone privileges after being accused of preaching to his followers from behind bars via a phone call in violation of prison rules.

That had been seen as the latest indication that Jeffs was trying to maintain sway over his sect, which is accused of promoting marriages between older men and girls.

The sect appears to be spending thousands of dollars on the ads, which have appeared in a variety of sizes including a quarter-page ad in the Washington Post. An ad of that size in the Post could have cost between $10,000 and $12,000, according to Marc Rosenberg, an advertising manager at that paper.

The recent newspaper ads said more revelations were for sale for $2 to $10, but a contact person listed on the ads, Vaughan Taylor, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Such revelations have been sent to public officials and government representatives across the country, some calling for Jeffs’ release and detailing natural disasters predicted to hit nations such as Australia, Russia and China, including tidal waves.

The documents also ask that Israel be protected and care be given to widows, orphans and the elderly, and urge an end to abortions and homosexuality.

Ken Driggs, a Georgia attorney who has written for academic journals about the FLDS, said the advertisements were unprecedented for the sect and that the goal may be to encourage sect members to follow Jeffs.

“It may be more for an internal audience,” Driggs said.

But Willie Jessop, a former FLDS spokesman who still lives in an FLDS community but says he has disavowed Jeffs, said he doesn’t think Jeffs’ followers will see the revelations.

Most of his followers aren’t allowed to read newspapers or the Internet, nor are they allowed to look at the revelations, Jessop said, adding that Jeffs was controlling the sect through his brothers.

“If people had access to all of his revelations, they would see there is no validity or credibility to them,” Jessop told Reuters.

(Reporting By Matthew Waller; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/us_nm/us_jeffs_ads

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O2 UK network security blunder exposes customers’ phone numbers to websites

Posted by on January 27, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: o2 uk, phone, security blunder. Leave a Comment

Phone number exposed via HTTP headers

Update: It seems O2 has now tweaked things to prevent its network from including phone numbers in HTTP headers. We'll keep you updated with any further developments.

If you're browsing the web on your phone or tablet on O2 UK, then the network could be exposing your phone number to every website you visit. O2 customer Lewis Peckover recently discovered that when you're browsing over 3G on O2, your handset's phone number is often included in the HTTP headers sent to each website you visit, in plain text.

HTTP headers are information exchanged between your browser and the web server before a page is loaded. In theory, the way O2 includes your phone number — alongside more mundane information like your IP address, browser and OS — means that any website you visit could easily find out your number. It's worth pointing out that the header used by O2 to send phone numbers — "x-up-calling-line-id" — isn't one that's routinely logged by web servers. However, just a couple of lines of code would allow a malicious server to find your phone number just by having you visit a website over 3G.

Lewis Peckover has set up a site to allow O2 customers to see whether they're affected. We've tried this with an O2 SIM in our Galaxy Nexus, and sure enough, there our phone number was in the list of "headers received". If you're on O2, make sure you've got Wifi disabled on your device, then click here and see if you spot your phone number among the HTTP headers. For what it's worth, early reports indicate that not all O2 customers are affected, though a large proportion apparently are.

This isn't an Android-specific problem, however due to the fact that it's a network-level issue, it'll affect Android phones just the same as any other device that's browsing over O2's data network. For this reason, just about anything that connects via HTTP over O2's network could potentially access this information. For its part, O2 says it's "investigating" the issue, and while this is a big deal for O2 customers, the fact that this is a network-level problem should mean that a fix will be relatively quick and easy to deploy.

More: Lew.io; via: ThinkBroadband



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/W0LTWSsLFNU/story01.htm

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H&M profits down on discounting, higher costs (AP)

Posted by on January 26, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: fashion, fashion retail industry, latest fashion trends. Leave a Comment

STOCKHOLM ? Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz AB on Thursday posted a 2.4 percent drop in fourth-quarter net profits, slightly weaker than market expectations, due to higher materials costs and heavy discounting to attract customers during an economic downturn.

Still, the company said it continued to gain market share during the period and remains optimistic about the future.

It plans to open 275 new stores in the coming year ? in Bulgaria, Latvia, Malaysia, Thailand and Mexico, the group’s first foray into Latin America. It will also launch online sales on the world’s largest online market, the United States.

H&M, which is headquartered in Stockholm, said net profit dropped to 5.36 billion kronor ($790 million) in the September-November period from 5.49 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, despite a rise in sales to 36.19 billion kronor from 34.79 billion kronor.

The company blamed currency fluctuations, higher purchasing prices ? mainly due to more expensive cotton ? and discounts it had to make to fend off competition during what it called “one of the toughest years for a long time for the fashion retail industry.”

It said it also focused on higher quality and more sustainable materials.

H&M, whose main competitor is Spain’s Inditex, the owner of Zara, specializes in offering the latest fashion trends at low prices. It has collaborated with international designers and fashion icons, such as Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Madonna and David Beckham.

The closely-watched gross margin, an indicator of profitability, fell to 61.9 percent in the fourth quarter from 63.2 percent a year earlier.

However, the December sales figures, released in conjunction with the report, pleased market watchers. They showed a 13 percent increase, including sales tax, compared with the same month a year earlier, while the company said the development for January looked “strong.”

Analysts had feared that the warmer-than-usual weather would have negative effects on the sale of its autumn- and winter collections during the Christmas season.

For the full year 2011, the group posted a net profit of 15.82 billion kronor, down from 18.68 billion kronor the previous year.

In mid-morning trade, shares in the company had fallen 0.6 percent to 220.90 kronor ($32.65) on the Stockholm stock exchange.

Simon Kjellstrom, an analyst at Pareto Ohman in Stockholm said that although the squeezed margins disappointed slightly, the positive news about strong sales in both December and January largely offset that gloom. “The first quarter has started off well,” he said, “and it balances it out.”

CEO Karl-Johan Persson said that despite the economic uncertainty experienced in many of the company’s markets in 2011, “the fact that we have gained market share, proves that our customers appreciate our collections.”

Looking ahead, he said the macro-economic challenges are likely to continue also in 2012, “but we have a strong belief in our offering and are convinced that H&M will continue to maintain its strong position as the year goes on.”

H&M, founded in 1947, has 94,000 staff and around 2,500 stores in 43 countries. It also owns other brands like higher-priced COS and urban fashion labels such as Monki, Weekday and Cheap Monday.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_sweden_earns_h_m

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2nd Freddie Mac contract with Gingrich is released (AP)

Posted by on January 26, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: Gingrich. Leave a Comment

NAPLES, Fla. ? GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich began receiving payments from Freddie Mac in 1999 under a contract that paid his consulting business $25,000 a month to work with the mortgage giant’s chief lobbyist, according to a second agreement released Tuesday night.

The contract specifically excluded lobbying services, stating “nothing herein is or shall be construed as an agreement to provide lobbying services of any kind or engage in lobbying activities.”

The Center for Health Transformation, founded by Gingrich, provided the second contract a day after releasing a 2006 agreement for Gingrich’s services. The two contracts paid Gingrich’s consulting business $1.65 million and required Gingrich to report to Freddie Mac’s lobbying office.

The 1999 contract was signed in July and renewed through 2002, and the 2006 contract was renewed for one year in 2007, said Susan Meyers, a spokeswoman for the Center for Health Transformation.

Gingrich’s work with Freddie Mac has received renewed scrutiny as GOP rival Mitt Romney has criticized the arrangements as influence peddling by the former House speaker. Gingrich has blasted Romney, saying he has mischaracterized his work in a desperate attempt to regain momentum in the Republican presidential race.

Gingrich in the past described his work for the government back mortgage company as that of a historian, and later he said he served as a strategic adviser. For months he has said he could not provide the Freddie Mac contracts related to his work because they were confidential, the property of a consulting business that he no longer ran. But after Romney’s repeated criticism on the issue, Gingrich persuaded his former business partners to release the contracts.

Gingrich’s ties to Freddie Mac could be a liability for him in Florida, where the next GOP primary is scheduled Jan. 31. The housing crisis hit the state particularly hard, and Freddie Mac has been blamed for contributing to the crisis.

Romney has pressed Gingrich further to release details of his work for Freddie Mac, including any work product or reports completed for the company that would show exactly what type of services he provided. Gingrich urged the consulting company he left last year to release the contracts, but no other materials have been released.

The second contract released Tuesday night provides more detail on the work Gingrich was hired to perform, including “serve as advisor to Freddie Mac in the areas of strategic planning and public policy.” It also called on Gingrich, who is mentioned by name in the second contract, to “engage in discussions” with Freddie Mac’s chief lobbyist and senior officers “to strategize on approaches to Freddie Mac business opportunities and challenges.”

Gingrich, who was hired to help the company reach out to Republicans, also was expected to “contribute to Freddie Mac corporate planning and business goals” and to “meet with major stakeholders of Freddie Mac.”

The contract also states that “neither The Gingrich Group nor Newt Gingrich will provide lobbying services of any kind nor participate in lobbying activities on Freddie Mac’s behalf.”

The second contract also provided up to $1,000 a month for Gingrich’s expenses.

Freddie Mac reserved the right to cancel the 1999 contract if Gingrich, who resigned his House leadership after a poor showing by Republicans in the 1998 election, decided to get back into government.

Other terms of the contract are similar to the first provided by the Center for Health Transformation, which was created by Gingrich in 2003 to focus on health-care issues. Gingrich left the center, formed as a part of his Gingrich Group consulting business, last year before announcing his candidacy for president.

___

Blackledge reported from Washington.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_el_pr/us_gingrich_freddie_mac

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US military raid in Somalia frees American, Dane (AP)

Posted by on January 26, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: raid. Leave a Comment

MOGADISHU, Somalia ? U.S. Special Forces troops flew into Somalia on a nighttime helicopter raid early Wednesday, freed an American and a Danish hostage and killed nine of the kidnappers in a mission that President Barack Obama said he personally authorized.

The Danish Refugee Council confirmed that the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted, were freed and “are on their way to be reunited with their families.”

The raiders came in very quickly, catching the guards as they were sleeping after having chewed the narcotic leaf qat for much of the evening, a pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told The Associated Press by phone. Hussein said he was not present at the site but had spoken with other pirates who were, and that they told him nine pirates had been killed in the raid and three were missing.

A second pirate who gave his name as Ahmed Hashi said two helicopters attacked at about 2 a.m. about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Somali town of Adado where the hostages were being held.

Buchanan, 32, and Thisted, 60, were working with a de-mining unit of the Danish Refugee Council when they were kidnapped in October.

The U.S. military’s Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, confirmed that nine kidnappers were killed.

“Last night’s mission, boldly conducted by some of our nation’s most courageous, competent, and committed special operations forces, exemplifies United States Africa Command’s mission to protect Americans and American interests in Africa,” said Gen. Carter F. Ham, commander of U.S. Africa Command.

Obama seemed to refer to the mission before his State of the Union address in Washington Tuesday night. By then it was already Wednesday morning in Somalia. As he entered the House chamber in the U.S. Capitol, Obama pointed at Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in the crowd and said, “Good job tonight.”

“As Commander-in-Chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House Wednesday. He said he had authorized the rescue mission on Monday.

“Jessica Buchanan was selflessly serving her fellow human beings when she was taken hostage by criminals and pirates who showed no regard for her health and well-being,” Obama said. “The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice.”

A Western official said the helicopters and the hostages flew to a U.S. military base called Camp Lemonnier in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti after the raid. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been released publicly.

The timing of the raid may have been made more urgent by a medical condition. The Danish Refugee Council had been trying to work with Somali elders to win the hostages’ freedom but had found little success.

“One of the hostages has a disease that was very serious and that had to be solved,” Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal told Denmark’s TV2 channel. Soevndal did not provide any more details.

Soevndal congratulated the Americans for the raid and said he had been informed of the action.

Panetta visited Camp Lemonnier just over a month ago. A key U.S. ally in this region, Djibouti has the only U.S. base in sub-Saharan Africa. It hosts the military’s Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.

The Danish Refugee Council said both freed hostages are unharmed “and at a safe location.” The group said in a separate statement that the two “are on their way to be reunited with their families.”

Ann Mary Olsen, head of the Danish Refugee Council’s international department, was the one who informed the family of Hagen Thisted of the successful military operation.

“They (the family) were very happy and incredibly relieved that it is over,” she said.

The two aid workers appear to have been kidnapped by criminals ? sometimes referred to as pirates ? and not by Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab. As large ships at sea have increased their defenses against pirate attacks, gangs have looked for other money making opportunities like land-based kidnappings.

The Danish Refugee Council had earlier enlisted traditional Somali elders and members of civil society to seek the release of the two hostages.

“We are really happy with the successful release of the innocents kidnapped by evildoers,” said Mohamud Sahal, an elder in Galkayo town, by phone. “They were guests who were treated brutally. That was against Islam and our culture … These men (pirates) have spoiled our good customs and culture, so Somalis should fight back.”

Buchanan and Hagen Thisted were seized in October from the portion of Galkayo town under the control of a government-allied clan militia. The aid agency has said that Somalis held demonstrations demanding the pair’s quick release.

Their Somali colleague was detained by police on suspicion of being involved in their kidnapping.

The two hostages were working in northern Somalia for the Danish Demining Group, whose experts have been clearing mines and unexploded ordnance in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East.

Several hostages are still being held in Somalia, including a British tourist, two Spanish doctors seized from neighboring Kenya, and an American journalist kidnapped on Saturday.

___

Associated Press reporters Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya, and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark contributed to this report. Houreld reported from Nairobi.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_af/af_somalia_helicopter_raid

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

Posted by on January 25, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: police. Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

Associated Press writer Salisu Rabiu contributed to this report.

___

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

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

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

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    Analysis: China’s “severe” export outlook (Reuters)

    (Reuters) ? China could record a rare trade deficit next year, which would test both Beijing’s resolve to go slowly on policy easing and its trading partners’ ability to adapt. The first quarter is shaping up to be especially tough because of slow European and U.S. demand, coupled with the normal spike in imports that [...]

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