Mali official says Islamists driven from Konna

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Islamist militants have been driven out of Konna, a city the extremists captured earlier this week, as French forces have launched military operations in north Mali, a Mali military official said Saturday.
Lt. Col. Diarran Kone said the military does not yet control the city of Konna and are still searching for any hidden Islamist extremist elements there.
"The Islamists have been chased out of the city of Konna. We are doing sweeps of the city to find any hidden Islamist extremist elements," said Lt. Col. Kone. "The full recover of the city is too early to determine as we do not yet control the city, and we remain vigilant."
Sanda Abu Mohammed, spokesman for Islamist group Ansar Dine, told The Associated Press he could not confirm if his fighters were still in Konna because communication networks have been down since late Friday.
"I cannot tell you if our fighters are still in the city of Konna or if they are not, because since yesterday afternoon I have not had contact with them as the telephone network has been down in this zone," Mohammed said.
For the past nine months, the militants have controlled a large swath of northern Mali, a lawless desert region where kidnapping has flourished.
France launched airstrikes Friday to help the government of Mali defeat the al-Qaida-linked militants who captured Konna on Thursday, pushing closer to the army's major base in central Mali and dramatically raising the stakes in the battle for this vast desert nation.
French President Francois Hollande said the "terrorist groups, drug traffickers and extremists" in northern Mali "show a brutality that threatens us all." He vowed that the operation would last "as long as necessary."
France said it was taking the action in Mali at the request of President Dioncounda Traore, who declared a state of emergency because of the militants' advance.
"French armed forces supported Malian units this afternoon to fight against terrorist elements," Hollande said in Paris on Friday.
He did not give any details of the operation, other than to say that it was aimed in part at protecting the 6,000 French citizens in Mali, where seven of them already are being held captive.
French commandoes also reportedly attacked an Islamist base in Somalia to try to rescue a French hostage.
The raid early Saturday in Somalia could have been aimed at preventing al-Shabab fighters from harming the kidnapped French security official in reprisal for the French military intervention in Mali. A Somali intelligence official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the case with the news media, said the raid in Bulomarer killed "several" al-Shabab fighters but he had no information on the hostage.
An al-Shabab official confirmed the fighting and said the group held one dead French soldier. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
However, the office of Col. Thierry Burkhard, the French military's main spokesman for overseas operations, said it had no information about any Somalia action.
France has led a diplomatic push for international action in northern Mali but efforts to get an African-led force together, or to train the weak Malian army, have dragged.
The United Nations Security Council has condemned the capture of Konna and urged U.N. member states to assist Mali "in order to reduce the threat posed by terrorist organizations and associated groups."
Late last year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the U.N.
The Security Council authorized the intervention but imposed certain conditions. Those include the training of Mali's military, which has been accused of serious human rights abuses since a military coup last year sent the nation into disarray.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed that in Mali, France had carried out airstrikes. He refused to give details for security reasons.
France is operating helicopter gunships in Mali, two diplomats told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation publicly. French special forces, who have been operating in the region recently, are also believed to be taking part in the military operation, one diplomat said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the AP that Senegal and Nigeria also responded to an appeal from Mali's president for help to counter the militants.
The fighting Wednesday and Thursday for Konna represents the first clashes between Malian government forces and the Islamists in nearly a year, since the militants seized the northern cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
The Islamists seized the town of Douentza four months ago after brief standoff with a local militia, but pushed no farther until clashes broke out late Wednesday in Konna, a city of 50,000 people, where fearful residents cowered inside their homes. Konna is just 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of the government-held town of Mopti, a strategic port city along the Niger River.
Al-Qaida's affiliate in Africa has been a shadowy presence for years in the forests and deserts of Mali, a country hobbled by poverty and a relentless cycle of hunger. Most Malians adhere to a moderate form of Islam.
In recent months, however, the terrorist group and its allies have taken advantage of political instability, taking territory they are using to stock weapons and train forces.
Turbaned fighters control major towns in the north, carrying out amputations in public squares just as the Taliban did. And like in Afghanistan, they are flogging women for not covering up. Since taking control of Timbuktu, they have destroyed seven of the 16 mausoleums listed as world heritage sites.

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Mali official says Islamists driven from Konna

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Islamist militants have been driven out of Konna, a city the extremists captured earlier this week, as French forces have launched military operations in north Mali, a Mali military official said Saturday.
Lt. Col. Diarran Kone said the military does not yet control the city of Konna and are still searching for any hidden Islamist extremist elements there.
"The Islamists have been chased out of the city of Konna. We are doing sweeps of the city to find any hidden Islamist extremist elements," said Lt. Col. Kone. "The full recover of the city is too early to determine as we do not yet control the city, and we remain vigilant."
Sanda Abu Mohammed, spokesman for Islamist group Ansar Dine, told The Associated Press he could not confirm if his fighters were still in Konna because communication networks have been down since late Friday.
"I cannot tell you if our fighters are still in the city of Konna or if they are not, because since yesterday afternoon I have not had contact with them as the telephone network has been down in this zone," Mohammed said.
For the past nine months, the militants have controlled a large swath of northern Mali, a lawless desert region where kidnapping has flourished.
France launched airstrikes Friday to help the government of Mali defeat the al-Qaida-linked militants who captured Konna on Thursday, pushing closer to the army's major base in central Mali and dramatically raising the stakes in the battle for this vast desert nation.
French President Francois Hollande said the "terrorist groups, drug traffickers and extremists" in northern Mali "show a brutality that threatens us all." He vowed that the operation would last "as long as necessary."
France said it was taking the action in Mali at the request of President Dioncounda Traore, who declared a state of emergency because of the militants' advance.
"French armed forces supported Malian units this afternoon to fight against terrorist elements," Hollande said in Paris on Friday.
He did not give any details of the operation, other than to say that it was aimed in part at protecting the 6,000 French citizens in Mali, where seven of them already are being held captive.
French commandoes also reportedly attacked an Islamist base in Somalia to try to rescue a French hostage.
The raid early Saturday in Somalia could have been aimed at preventing al-Shabab fighters from harming the kidnapped French security official in reprisal for the French military intervention in Mali. A Somali intelligence official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the case with the news media, said the raid in Bulomarer killed "several" al-Shabab fighters but he had no information on the hostage.
An al-Shabab official confirmed the fighting and said the group held one dead French soldier. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
However, the office of Col. Thierry Burkhard, the French military's main spokesman for overseas operations, said it had no information about any Somalia action.
France has led a diplomatic push for international action in northern Mali but efforts to get an African-led force together, or to train the weak Malian army, have dragged.
The United Nations Security Council has condemned the capture of Konna and urged U.N. member states to assist Mali "in order to reduce the threat posed by terrorist organizations and associated groups."
Late last year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the U.N.
The Security Council authorized the intervention but imposed certain conditions. Those include the training of Mali's military, which has been accused of serious human rights abuses since a military coup last year sent the nation into disarray.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed that in Mali, France had carried out airstrikes. He refused to give details for security reasons.
France is operating helicopter gunships in Mali, two diplomats told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation publicly. French special forces, who have been operating in the region recently, are also believed to be taking part in the military operation, one diplomat said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the AP that Senegal and Nigeria also responded to an appeal from Mali's president for help to counter the militants.
The fighting Wednesday and Thursday for Konna represents the first clashes between Malian government forces and the Islamists in nearly a year, since the militants seized the northern cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
The Islamists seized the town of Douentza four months ago after brief standoff with a local militia, but pushed no farther until clashes broke out late Wednesday in Konna, a city of 50,000 people, where fearful residents cowered inside their homes. Konna is just 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of the government-held town of Mopti, a strategic port city along the Niger River.
Al-Qaida's affiliate in Africa has been a shadowy presence for years in the forests and deserts of Mali, a country hobbled by poverty and a relentless cycle of hunger. Most Malians adhere to a moderate form of Islam.
In recent months, however, the terrorist group and its allies have taken advantage of political instability, taking territory they are using to stock weapons and train forces.
Turbaned fighters control major towns in the north, carrying out amputations in public squares just as the Taliban did. And like in Afghanistan, they are flogging women for not covering up. Since taking control of Timbuktu, they have destroyed seven of the 16 mausoleums listed as world heritage sites.

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Radical Islamists hold on to gains in Mali

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Radical Islamists held on to a city in central Mali Friday after sending the Malian military reeling in retreat. With the militants showing the capability to press even further into government-held territory, international aid organizations began evacuating staff from the narrow central belt of the country.
French President Francois Hollande said France, which used to rule Mali as a colony, is ready to help to the stop the Islamist extremists. He did not specify what assistance it is prepared to offer. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian wrote on his Twitter account Friday: "On the phone with (U.S. Defense Secretary) Leon Panetta about the Malian crisis. This afternoon with my European counterparts."
Residents who live near an airport about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the captured town on Konna reported hearing planes arrive throughout the night. Who, or what, the planes were bringing could not be immediately determined.
The United Nations Security Council condemned the capture of Konna and called on U.N. member states to provide assistance to Mali "in order to reduce the threat posed by terrorist organizations and associated groups."
A regional military intervention to take back northern Mali from the Islamists was not likely before September, though the advance by the al-Qaida linked forces in the desert nation in northwest Africa creates pressure for earlier military intervention.
"France, like its African partners and the entire international community, cannot accept that," Hollande said in a speech to France's diplomatic corps, referring to the Islamists' advances.
A top French diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said that France is now able to deploy military assets — notably air power — over Mali "very quickly."
He insisted that Hollande's speech is "not just words. ... When you say that you are ready to intervene, you have to be."
However, he declined to provide details about how such military action might take shape. France's position has been complicated because kidnappers in northern Mali hold seven French hostages.
For months, Hollande has said France would not send ground forces into Mali, and France is sticking to those plans, the official said. But Hollande's speech suggested that French air power could be used, the official said.
The fighting Wednesday and Thursday over the town of Konna represents the first clashes between Malian government forces and the Islamists in nearly a year, since the time the militants seized the northern cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
The Islamists seized the town of Douentza four months ago after brief standoff with a local militia, but pushed no further until clashes broke out late Wednesday in Konna, a city of 50,000 people, where fearful residents cowered inside their homes. Konna is just 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of the government-held town of Mopti, a strategic port city along the Niger River.
"We have chased the army out of the town of Konna, which we have occupied since 11 a.m.," declared Sanda Abou Mohamed, a spokesman for the Ansar Dine militant group, speaking by telephone from Timbuktu.
A soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, acknowledged that the army had retreated from Konna. He said several soldiers were killed and wounded, though he did not have precise casualty figures. "We didn't have time to count them," he said.
While Konna is not a large town, it has strategic value as "the last big thing ... on the road to Mopti," said J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Atlantic Council.
"I think the real target here is to seize the airstrip in Mopti, either to hold it or blow enough holes in it to render it useless," Pham said. "If you can seize the airstrip at Mopti, the Malian military's and African militaries' ability to fly reconnaissance in the north is essentially clipped."
Al-Qaida's affiliate in Africa has been a shadowy presence for years in the forests and deserts of Mali, a country hobbled by poverty and a relentless cycle of hunger. Most Malians adhere to a moderate form of Islam, where women do not wear burqas and few practice the strict form of the religion.
In recent months, however, the terror syndicate and its allies have taken advantage of political instability to push into Mali's northern towns, taking over an enormous territory they are using to stock weapons, train forces and prepare for jihad.
The Islamists insist they want to impose Shariah only in northern Mali, though there long have been fears they could push further south. Bamako, the capital, is 435 miles (700 kilometers) from Islamist-held territory.
The retreat by the Malian military raises questions about its ability to participate in a regional intervention.
Late last year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the United Nations.
The U.N. Security Council has authorized the intervention but imposed certain conditions. Those include training of Mali's military, which has been accused of serious human rights abuses since a military coup last year sent the nation into disarray.
___
Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Paris and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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Ichiro's patience snaps with Yankees: report

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese outfielder Ichiro Suzuki has lost patience with the New York Yankees over a contract extension and has begun talking with other teams, his agent said on Friday.
The Yankees have been busy locking up their principle pitchers, paying Hiroki Kuroda $15 million, Andy Pettitte $12 million and Mariano Rivera $10 million, drawing frustration from Ichiro.
"At the beginning we talked a lot but since that time, zero," Ichiro's agent Tony Attanasio told Friday's New York Post.
"As far as we are concerned we don't care what the Yankees do. We have had conversations with multiple clubs. If we see something we like he will go through with it."
Only a week ago Attanasio said the 39-year-old outfielder preferred to stay with the Yankees despite interest from several Major League Baseball teams.
Ichiro, who holds MLB's single-season hits record with 262, one of several he set at the Seattle Mariners from 2001-12, had become a fan favorite in New York.
During a seven-game streak in August, Ichiro, Japan's most successful sporting export, batted .526 - going 10 for 19 - and finished .322 for the season in 67 games as a Yankee.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman refused to rule out Ichiro staying.
"Our focus was first on pitching and see the amount of dollars we needed to secure pitching," said Cashman. "Now we will focus on players who want to talk to us."

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Yankees' Rodriguez to have hip surgery

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez will likely miss the start of the 2013 Major League Baseball (MLB) season because of hip surgery, the team said on Monday.
The 37-year-old Rodriguez, MLB's active home runs leader, must complete a four-to-six week pre-rehabilitation regimen before having a left hip arthroscopy in January that will require four to six months of recovery, the Yankees said in a statement.
That means the 14-times All-Star and three-time American League Most Valuable Player, who was benched in the playoffs after struggling at the plate, will likely miss at least the start of the Yankees' season set to begin on April 1.
Doctors believe there is a strong possibility that the hip condition might have had a negative effect on Rodriguez's playoff performance, according to the Yankees.
The surgery to repair a torn labrum, bone impingement and the correction of a cyst is similar but not identical to the one performed on Rodriguez's right hip in 2009, according to the Yankees.
Rodriguez, who has a career 647 home runs, is coming off a disappointing season in which he hit 18 homers, drove in 57 runs and batted .272, and slumped during the postseason with a .120 batting average and no runs batted in.

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Ex-baseball star Lenny Dykstra sentenced in bankruptcy fraud case

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Lenny Dykstra, the 1980s World Series hero who pleaded guilty earlier this year to bankruptcy fraud, was sentenced on Monday to six months in federal prison and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service.
The 49-year-old former ballplayer - who is already serving time in state prison for grand theft auto, lewd conduct and assault with a deadly weapon - was also ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution.
In the federal case, Dykstra pleaded guilty in July to bankruptcy fraud and other charges.
According to the written plea agreement, he admitted defrauding his creditors by declaring bankruptcy in 2009, then stealing or destroying furnishings, baseball memorabilia and other property from his $18.5 million mansion.
He also admitted giving false or misleading testimony about the property he removed from the Los Angeles-area home, which he had purchased from hockey great Wayne Gretzky, according to the court documents.
Dykstra, nicknamed "Nails" during his playing days, spent 11 years in the major leagues, mostly as an outfielder for the Mets and Philadelphia Phillies.
He is perhaps best remembered by Mets fans for the 1986 season, when he struck a walk-off game-winning home run in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
And in Game 3 of the World Series, he hit a key lead-off home run, sparking a comeback by the Mets from a 2-0 series deficit to win the championship over the Boston Red Sox.
But in recent years Dykstra has become embroiled in a series of criminal cases.
In March of this year, he was sentenced to three years in state prison after pleading no contest to grand theft auto in what Los Angeles County prosecutors said was a scheme to lease cars using phony business and credit information.
And in April, the former athlete was sentenced to 270 days in jail and 36 months probation after pleading no contest to lewd conduct and assault with a deadly weapon.
Those charges stemmed from accusations that Dykstra exposed himself to women who answered his Craigslist ad for an assistant and housekeeper. One of the women told authorities the former athlete held a knife and forced her to massage him.
A no contest plea is the legal equivalent to pleading guilty under California law.

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Go Ahead, Keep Being Mean to Celebrities on Twitter

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:
RELATED: The Honey Boo Boo Nature Special; Everyone's Favorite Sleepwalking Mom
We usually don't condone being an impolite jerk to anyone, especially on social media. But we kind of make an exception because, well, if everyone was nice to everyone all of a sudden, we'd run out of fun Jimmy Kimmel segments where celebrities read their tweets:
RELATED: Ai Weiwei's 'Gangnam Style' Isn't Bad
RELATED: So Which Boyfriend Is Taylor Swift Singing About Now?
Oh man, this giant squid is like the most famous sea creature celebrity of the moment. And yes, it's way freakier in motion:
RELATED: Katie Holmes Goes Bust on Broadway
RELATED: Justin Bieber is Coming to Town
So fine, this is sort of bending the rules per se because this isn't really a video-video. It's the Game of Thrones introduction with beatboxing by the Stark children.
And finally, here is one minute of a man singing all the songs involving the word "baby." And in case you were wondering, yes, Justin Bieber is officially in the Baby Pantheon of Music.

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Samsung seeks broader chip base as Apple cuts loose

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co is looking to supply chips to more Chinese and other emerging smartphone makers, the head of its system chip business said, to counter any fall-off in demand from Apple Inc, which is weaning itself off Samsung chips used in its iPhones and iPads.
Samsung and its main U.S. rival, and biggest customer, together account for more than half the global smartphone market, and the South Korean group is the main supplier of mobile processors, or application processors (AP), powering both Apple devices and its own range of Galaxy phones and tablets.
But, as Apple looks to be less reliant on its rival for parts for its gadgets - it is already buying fewer Samsung memory chips and display screens as the two have gone to war over patents - concerns have grown that Samsung may see its processor revenues tumble.
"As there are just two smartphone makers that are doing really well, chipmakers supplying them have grown in tandem. So we plan to bolster our relationship with those key customers," Stephen Woo, president of Samsung's System LSI business, which makes processors for Apple products, said in an interview.
Supplying processors for Apple products has been the mainstay of Samsung's system chips business.
Goldman Sachs estimates Samsung's AP chip sales to Apple will rise to 9.3 trillion won ($8.8 billion) this year, or nearly 80 percent of Apple's spending on Samsung processing chips, memory chips and flat screens. But that could tumble to just 2.5 trillion won next year, as Apple will shift 30 percent of its AP business from Samsung and eventually 80 percent by 2017, according to Goldman.
"(We) should diversify our customer base and are making such efforts already, adding some Chinese customers," Woo told Reuters ahead of his first keynote speech at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
China's Meizu, one of the local smartphone newcomers, uses Samsung's Exynos quad-core chip for its MX smartphone, and Lenovo's K860 LePhone is also powered by Exynos.
Still, Samsung's mobile processor business is almost entirely tied to the fortunes of Apple and its own mobile business - the Galaxy range. By comparison, chip rivals such as Qualcomm Inc, Texas Instruments and Nvidia have a broader client base - from LG Electronics Inc and Nokia to HTC Corp, Huawei Technologies Co and Google's Motorola.
"We see emerging players who have potential to grow in smartphones and we will continue to make efforts to supply them with our chips," Woo said.
EYEING BASEBAND
The mobile processor market, driven by roaring sales of smartphones and tablets, is a bright spot for a semiconductor industry that is struggling with falling computer sales. Research firm Gartner estimates the mobile processor market will grow 30 percent this year to $13.5 billion and hit $16.5 billion next year.
To strengthen its chip capability, Samsung bought UK chipmaker CSR Plc's mobile phone connectivity and location technology for $310 million last year, and it is now looking at how it can improve modem chip technology, especially the baseband chip solution that enables wireless devices' radio communications.
"Baseband is a very important segment, but we don't have it. Given its importance, we're reviewing various options," Woo said, suggesting Samsung could be scouting for potential targets.
Qualcomm is the biggest baseband chip company with nearly 50 percent of the market, followed by the likes of Mediatek, Texas Instruments and Broadcom.
SINGLE CHIPSET
Chipmakers are increasingly seeking to produce a single chip solution that combines AP, modem chip and connectivity chips that support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and near-field communication functions, in one chipset. This combo-package is popular among low-end smartphones as it allows phone makers to cram various chips into compact devices.
Woo said Samsung, however, was not considering expanding into a single chip solution and will instead continue to focus on pure AP chips favored for high-end phones, as it allows manufacturers to differentiate their hardware offerings with various chip combinations.
The explosion of mobile devices has opened a big opportunity to Samsung as Intel Corp, the world's top chipmaker, struggles to crack the mobile processor market dominated by the makers of ARM Holdings licensed chips. Samsung is the biggest maker of ARM-based chips, such as Apple chips and Samsung's Exynos brand.
Intel's market share in mobile devices is just 1 percent, as UK chip designer ARM holds a near monopoly.
Woo said Samsung was not looking to break into the desktop computer or server processor market - which Intel dominates, but is under threat from ARM-based chips that boast low-power consumption and compact design.
"For the time being, our focus will pretty much be on enhancing our AP offering, especially for high-end mobile devices," he said.
NEW POWERFUL CHIP, FLEXIBLE DISPLAY
At his keynote speech, Woo unveiled Samsung's latest "Exynos 5 Octa" processor, tailored for high-end smartphones and tablets.
The new processor boasts eight cores: four to handle processing-intensive tasks and four to take on lighter workloads, to conserve battery life.
Glenn Roland, vice president and head of new platforms at Electronic Arts, demonstrated its processing power by running the high-octane, fast-paced "Need for Speed: Most Wanted", on a Samsung reference tablet.
Other guests at Woo's speech included ARM Chief Executive Warren East, Microsoft chief technical strategy officer Eric Rudder, and former U.S. president Bill Clinton.
Samsung also unveiled a prototype phone with a flexible display that can be folded back and forth - almost like paper - by replacing a glass panel with super-thin plastic to make it bendable and unbreakable, as well as a smartphone equipped with a curved display.
"It won't break even if it's dropped. This new form-factor will really begin to change how people interact with their devices, opening up new lifestyle possibilities ... allow our partners to create a whole new ecosystem of devices," said Brian Berkeley, senior vice president of Samsung Display, a flat-screen unit of Samsung Electronics.

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Aereo CEO: Hollywood Apathy, "Irrelevant" Ads Inspired the Controversial Service

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Sorry, networks, but Aereo - the streaming TV service you love to hate - has no plans to go away. In fact, CEO Chet Kanojia and company are planning a major expansion thanks to $38 million in new spending money.
That's not just to fund the service's move from New York into 22 other major cities, as announced Tuesday, but onto videogame consoles, Smart TVs and the Android operating system. (Currently, Aereo is available via web browsers, set-top boxes like the Roku and Apple devices.)
Aereo has one very important backer in its corner, media mogul Barry Diller, who IAC/InterActiveCorp has invested millions in the startup. However, not everyone is enamored of the technology.
TV networks feel that Aereo, which uses clusters of tiny antennas to stream mostly broadcast channels directly to devices like tablets and smartphones, is stealing their content.
The court is not so sure. A federal court in July denied a plea by broadcasters for an injunction to block the service in New York. Kanojia said that decision emboldened Aereo to move into markets like Chicago and Houston.
TheWrap spoke with Kanojia at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas about Aereo's planned expansion, Hollywood apathy and his least favorite commercials.
What convinced you now was the time to expand?
Consumer engagement data and the volume of requests we were getting from different cities - when are you coming to Atlanta? When are you coming to Detroit? It was a consistent theme.
The data that we saw from New York in terms of engagement, the utilization of our product and the quality we were able to provide made us want to scale things. We don't have all the data or all the answers - but enough to give us confidence that we have a great product here that people really really like.
You mentioned "trends" in New York. How many users do you have now?
We don't disclose that, but it's an incredibly positive trend.
How did you select the cities?
Obviously, this is phase one. We wanted to concentrate on the Eastern corridor. The location of the company is east coast, and it's still a small company relatively speaking.
Also, age and demographics. There's a huge Latin population in some of these markets, and 90 percent of viewership of Latin content is on broadcast.
You raise the Latin market, but there's no Los Angeles included here.
No Los Angeles, no Seattle - pretty much nothing west of Denver with the exception of Salt Lake City. The focus is eastern, and in stage two we'll focus on the west.
What does Aereo have to do in order to expand? What kinds of costs are associated with it?
We go in and establish the facility, which is really a data center that we lease from data-center providers. We put in rooftop antenna systems. We can get that done in about 60 days at any given system, and we have teams working at all the main sites.
Our operation and execution is centralized. We're not building out people and offices in every location.
How much concern remains about legal roadblocks?
We firmly believe in our position. Nothing that we've seen or heard gives us any less confidence in the basic premise that consumers have the ability to do this today. We have the right to be able to do this. There is nothing prohibiting technology from being implemented in the ways we have.
We've made an incredible amount of effort to comply with the law.
Like?
Building the technology to comply with the law the way we did. We're clearly within precedent. We're more conservative than precedent.
The Dish CEO spoke at CES on Monday and struck something of a populist tone. Television is the medium of the masses but one owned by a select few. Do you sense a wave of democratization? It really comes down to lack of competition and innovation. They haven't kept the consumer in the forefront because they don't have competition; distribution is locked up. They have guaranteed payments, and it's getting worse with the increasing costs of cable.
There's been no innovation in advertising - the same, more irrelevant stuff you don't care about.
Do you have a truck?
No.
Do you intend to buy one?
No.
Well, how many times have you seen that same damn commercial? We're wasting consumer engagement with this. There's so little innovation in how content is distributed, user experience and all of that. Apathy is the biggest enemy.
You can't only feel this way about broadcast. Do you intend to add more channels to the service?
The sequence of events is as follows - markets, devices and make barriers go away. We need to get to a certain amount of the population base and given the general trends out of New York that's a doable exercise. Once we get to that point, we'll think about adding additional content.
What devices are you missing right now?
We don't have an Android app, and that's a big priority for us. Game consoles make a lot of sense. Smart TVs.
What isn't being discussed about Aereo?
There's so much attention and drama with the litigation that people are ignoring the importance of what's going on. For the first time, someone is coming out with a way consumers can get quality access to TV at an incredible price on any device. The change we're causing with cloud-based implementation is something that's a much bigger story at the end of the day than litigation drama.
In two years the company has gone from not being in existence to building out to 22 markets.

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Celebrity, Inc.

What can four drunk airplane passengers, first time parents, and a delightful new book called Celebrity, Inc. do for your wallet?
Plenty.
Let me start with the drunks and new parents. Monday night I boarded a very delayed flight from Houston to Los Angeles. Behind me were four 20/30-somethings boisterously swigging from "coffee" cups. (Our gate was across from a Cantina and you could practically smell the tequila in their paper cups.)
As the boarding continued they grew increasingly animated. Their frenetic energy seemed to wind up not just each other but everyone around them. Fellow passengers were visibly agitated.
Just before the plane doors closed, a young couple came on with a sleeping baby. The last two open seats were amongst this motley crew.
Suddenly, everything changed.
The presence of the earnest and exhausted parents had an immediate calming effect on both the inebriated passengers and those around them. It was as if a mirror had been placed in the center of the plane to remind us all of our humanity.
Enter, Jo Piazza's delicious new book, Celebrity, Inc: how famous people make money.
To me, this book is the figurative version of the newborn's parents getting on the plane. It serves as a mirror reflecting back the reality what's in the "coffee" cups of the celebrity scene.
That got me wondering what other financial lessons the author of Celebrity, Inc. might have stumbled across while writing this fascinating book. Thankfully, Jo Piazza was willing to share with us...
Q: Of the celebrities you profile in Celebrity, Inc. whose money attitude were you most impressed with and why?
Jo: Despite current controversy I was completely impressed with the Kardashian's money attitude and their work ethic. I have never met a celebrity crew who works so hard to maintain their brand. I don't necessarily agree with the massive amounts they are paid to do what they do, but unlike a lot of celebs they truly do work for it. And beyond that they manage their money well. They budget, they funnel funds back into new projects, they try not to spend excessively and they do donate a portion of their income to charity each year.
(2) What surprised you the most about the money habits you observed during your Celebrity, Inc. research?
Jo:  So many of the people I talked to over-spent their budgets on a consistent basis even though they were making crazy amounts of money. Spencer Pratt told me he and Heidi Montag pulled in about $10 million in 4 years but because they thought it would keep coming at the same rate they blew through it all. That's a common thread I found with a lot of celebs. They're making so much but they're spending just as quickly. They buy $5 million houses and spend half a million on a security detail and they rarely save a dime. I just don't think they realize the shelf life of fame is shorter than ever and they may not be famous tomorrow.
(3) What personal finance lessons do you think the rest of us can take away from the way famous people live their lives?
Jo: Budgeting for a rainy day is the best thing we can learn from celebrities in terms of personal finance. I saw so many cases of celebs who thought it would last forever and then forever came up really... quick.
I was inspired by the extent to which celebs expand their personal brands. Tim McGraw went from country singer to fragrance king. When Valerie Bertinelli's career as an actress seemed like it was over she reinvented herself through a weight loss campaign. I don't think we see these instances of celeb entrepreneurship as inspiring enough and I truly think they should be a lesson in taking chances, building a new business and making lemonade out of lemons.
In many ways our celebrity culture is like a group of chaotic drunk people. It lurches rapidly from one topic and fad to the next. In the heat of the excitement money can feel like no object. But the financial hangover of being, or trying to emulate, that lifestyle can result in a serious financial crash.

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Pension Red Alert: 70% Of Pensions Are Never Audited

Chances are that your pension or 401k plan has never been audited. No one's checking annually to see if the money's really there. Worried yet? It should freak you out, in my opinion. According to regulators, seventy percent of the nation's pensions have never been audited.
Lest you think I'm an alarmist, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Labor earlier this year in his Semiannual Report to Congress wrote that plans lacking full audits "provide no substantive assurance of asset integrity to plan participants." That's a pretty dire assessment. In layman's terms it means that if your money is invested in a pension that has never been audited, no one knows for certain the money is actually there. That, I would submit, should be of concern to every investor in an unaudited retirement plan. You need to find out if your pension is unaudited and, if so, demand a true audit before it's too late.
Is this the familiar tale of an agency of the federal government being asleep at the wheel while an outrageous compromise to the integrity of the nation's pensions came to pass? A regulator who woke up far too late to abuses?
Not exactly. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Would you believe that every year since 1989, the Inspector General of the DOL has sounded the alarm about the risks to pension participants related to failures to audit? For over twenty years, the Inspector General has recommended that Congress close the loop-hole in the federal law applicable to pensions, ERISA, that allows this state of affairs to persist.
Counsel to the Inspector General recently stated to me “we have long believed that this is an important issue. A lot of pension dollars have not been properly audited.”
I am told that this year, for the first time in over two decades, the Inspector General is considering dropping the recommendation to Congress to address this issue of critical importance to retirement savers. Why? Because the recommendation has been rejected so many times. I can't blame the Inspector General's office from being discouraged but, in my opinion, it would be a collosal mistake to give up at this point in time because we are only now on the cusp of determining the harm related to unaudited plans.
What's going on here? Under ERISA,  a pension sponsor may instruct the auditor to a pension not to perform any auditing procedures with respect to investment information prepared and certified by a bank or similar institution. That's right-- no auditing procedures. The bank simply certifies the accuracy and the completeness of the information submitted to the auditor and the auditor includes it in his financial report with the following gargantuan caveat: Because of the significance of the information that we did not audit, we are unable to, and do not, express an opinion on the accompanying financial statements and schedule taken as a whole (emphasis added). In the words of the Inspector General, these so-called "limited scope audits" are "no opinion audits." They're worthless. The auditor is saying to you, "because I have been instructed not to look at certain pieces, I cannot tell you what the whole is worth."
But it's not just a sliver of plan assets that the auditors are not examining  -- it's often all or virtually all of the assets in plans. To make matters worse, plans are increasing their high risk bets by loading up on hard-to-value assets, such as private equity and hedge funds, in a desperate attempt to close their funding gaps. What are these hard-to-value assets worth? Who knows? Nobody's checking, or even concerned. The custodian banks have provisions in their contracts which specify that they may conclusively rely upon values that these lightly-regulated managers provide to them. Of course, since these managers are paid a fee based upon the value of the assets they manage, they have every incentive to inflate valuations. Let's hope they're committed to telling the truth-- even if it means their rich fees dwindle. The net result is that the auditors rely upon unverified statements provided by custodian banks and the banks, in turn, rely upon unverified valuations provided by hedge fund managers handling plan assets. Nobody is required under the law to check that the money is there. Sounds Madoff-ish to me.
Here's some background on this impending train wreck. In November 1989, the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Labor issued a report titled “Changes Are Needed in the ERISA Audit Process to Increase Protections for Employee Benefit Plan Participants.” According to the Inspector General, the most critical recommendation made in that report was to amend ERISA to require full scope audits-- real audits, not bogus no opinion audits.  In September 1996, the Inspector General issued a report entitled “Full Scope Audits of Employee Benefit Plans Still Needed” which stated that “the need for full scope audits of employee benefit plans is as important today as it was 7 years ago.” This review confirmed that, at that time, almost half of the plans reviewed received limited scope audits and disclaimers of opinions. The Office of the Chief Auditor “concluded that this is a disservice to plan participants in terms of protection and in terms of useful information the participants need to monitor their plans’ ability to pay benefits.”
In 1990, 1992 and 1998, the GAO recommended that the limited scope audit exemption should be repealed. According to the GAO:
“Under this limited scope audit, the auditor is required to obtain financial statements from the company holding the investments and a certification from that company that the statements are accurate and are a part of the company’s annual report. However, the auditor would not perform the normal procedures designed to provide certain basic assurances about the existence, ownership, and value of a plan’s assets held in trust. The resulting lack of audit work can result in an auditor disclaiming an opinion on the financial statements."
No normal procedures performed to establish basic facts like the assets ...  exist? That's a pretty basic fact that, in my book, somebody ought to know -- with absolute certainty.
But the GAO had more to say:
"The disclaimer can cause two problems. First, it can diminish the value of an audit by leaving a significant gap in the information intended to help participants evaluate their plan. For example, plan participants would have no basis for judging whether excluded investments are vulnerable to mismanagement, fraud, or abuse. Second, the disclaimer language could confuse the participant. It says that the auditor does not express an opinion on the financial statements and supplemental schedules, but that the auditor does provide some assurance that the form and content of information included in statements and schedules comply with the Department of Labor rules and regulations. As a result of this potentially confusing wording, users of limited scope audit reports could be uncertain about what, if any, assurance these reports provide.”
For those of you participating in an unaudited plan where signifcant assets are invested in hedge funds and other hard-to-value investments, I can assure such investments, if excluded, are "vulnerable to mismanagement, fraud, or abuse,"  and you should be very concerned.
The GAO is right that users of limited scope audit reports should be uncertain about what, if any, assurances these reports provide. I can assure you that, when and if sued, auditors who issue such opinions will claim that the opinions plainly warned that no assurances were provided.
As mentioned earlier, this year the Inspector General in his Semiannual Report to Congress recommended repeal of ERISA’s limited-scope audit exemption. According to the Inspector General, “This provision excludes pension plan assets invested in financial institutions such as banks and savings and loans from audits of employee benefit plans. The limited audit scope prevents independent public accountants who are auditing pension plans from rendering an opinion on the plans’ financial statements in accordance with professional auditing standards. These “no opinion” audits provide no substantive assurance of asset integrity to plan participants or the Department (emphasis added).”
You should be concerned if your retirement savings are held in a retirement plan that has never been audited. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Call me crazy, but it does matter whether procedures designed to verify the existence, ownership, and value of a plan’s assets have been performed. I predict that we are on the verge of learning just how worthless no opinion audits of pensions really are.  I am confident that in the future it  will become apparent that lack of scrutiny has resulted in widespread misrepresentation of pension asset values. Take action now to protect your retirement security.

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Rate on 30-year mortgage ticks up to 4 pct.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The average rate on the 30-year mortgage stayed hovered above the record low for a third straight week. But cheap mortgage rates have done little to boost home sales or refinancing.
Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan ticked up to 4 percent from 3.99 percent. Six weeks ago, it dropped to a record low of 3.94 percent, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage rose to 3.31 percent from 3.30 percent. Six weeks ago, it hit a record low of 3.26 percent.
Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks this year. Yet this year could be the worst for home sales in 14 years.
Mortgage applications fell 10 percent this week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many Americans don't want to sink money into a home that could lose value over the next three to four years. And most homeowners who can afford to refinance already have.
The low rates have caused a modest boom in refinancing, but that benefit might be wearing off. Most people who can afford to refinance have already locked in rates below 5 percent. Refinancing fell 12.2 percent last week, according to the mortgage bankers group.
The average rates don't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fees for the 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages were unchanged at 0.7.
The average rate on the five-year adjustable loan fell to 2.97 percent from 2.98 percent. The average rate on the one-year adjustable loan increased to 2.98 percent from 2.95 percent.
The average fees on the five-year and one-year adjustable loans were both unchanged at 0.6.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country Monday through Wednesday of each week.

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Pitcher Adams agrees to two-year deal with Phillies

(Reuters) - The Philadelphia Phillies and relief pitcher Mike Adams have agreed to a two-year, $12 million contract, Major League Baseball's website said on Saturday.
The deal is pending a physical.
Adams, 34, posted a 5-3 record with a 3.27 earned run average in 61 appearances with the Texas Rangers last season.
Regarded as one of the major league's top setup men, Adams underwent surgery in October for a condition in which a rib bone presses against a nerve, causing pain and numbness in the arm. He is expected to recover in time for spring training.
In eight Major League seasons, Adams has an 18-15 record with a 2.28 earned run average.

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Hamilton to give Angels everything on and off field

(Reuters) - Josh Hamilton was introduced as a member of the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday and the slugger immediately promised to give everything he has to the team on and off the field.
A five-time All-Star who overcame drug and alcohol addictions to become one of Major League Baseball's most feared hitters, Hamilton signed a five-year, $125 million deal with the Angels earlier in the week, leaving the Texas Rangers after helping them to consecutive World Series appearances in 2010 and 2011.
"Excited to be here, excited to think about the next five years, excited to think about this lineup and what it's capable of," Hamilton told reporters.
"It's going to be a good run and I'm going to give everything I've got to the organization on and off the field."
Hamilton joins a high-powered Angels lineup that includes three-time National League Most Valuable Player (MVP) Albert Pujols, a 32-year-old slugger who signed a 10-year, $240 million deal with the team last year.
Hamilton, a 31-year-old hard-hitting outfielder, broke into the major leagues in 2007 with the Cincinnati Reds but was traded to the Rangers after the season.
Hamilton has a career .304 batting average, 553 runs batted in and 161 home runs, including a career-high 43 last season.
The Rangers stood by Hamilton as he battled to control his addictions, including a relapse before the start of last season.
But the slugger got the campaign off to a sizzling start and looked to be a Triple Crown threat after slamming 18 homers in the Rangers' opening 34 games.
Hamilton, however, saw his production fall off in the second half of the season finishing with a .285 batting average and 128 runs batted in.
"His qualities on the field really don't need much rundown -- five consecutive All-Star appearances, an AL MVP, batting champion, Silver Sluggers, you name it," said Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto. "But more importantly, a fascinating story. And we look forward to this being the next chapter in his life and our organization's history."
The Rangers had been hopeful of re-signing the 2010 American League MVP and admitted they were caught off guard by Hamilton's jump to their American League West division rivals.
Hamilton said he was just as surprised that the Rangers did not try harder to get his name on a contract.
"I gave (the Rangers) everything I had for five years," said Hamilton. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me a little bit that they didn't put the press on.
"The relationships I created in Texas, I love (manager Ron Washington), I loved spending time with him, talking to him.
"There's no reason I can't be in the offices with (manager Mike) Scioscia over here, spending time with him, talking to him, picking his brain - he's got a lot of knowledge about the game and I'm sure life as well.

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Blue Jays acquire Cy Young winner Dickey from Mets

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Toronto Blue Jays bolstered an already formidable starting rotation by acquiring reigning National League Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey in a seven-player swap with the New York Mets, the team said on Monday.
Dickey, a 38-year-old knuckleball pitcher who went 20-6 with a 2.73 earned-run average last season, is the centerpiece of a trade that also sends catcher Josh Thole and a prospect to Toronto, the Blue Jays said in a statement.
The deal, which was contingent upon Dickey securing a three-year, $29 million extension from the Blue Jays, sends catcher John Buck, blue-chip prospects Travis D'Arnaud (catcher) and Noah Syndergaard (pitcher) and another prospect to New York.
The acquisition marks the third major offseason move by a Blue Jays team that is suddenly a contender in the American League East after years of toiling near the bottom of a tough division that includes the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.

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End-of-the-Year Checklist for Divorcing Women

Most women wait until after the holidays to move forward with their divorces --and that’s completely understandable. Many don’t want to disrupt family traditions for their children. Some welcome the distraction offered by the hustle and bustle of the season. And, of course, others want to avoid the discussions that inevitably seem to arise whenever and wherever relatives gather.
Interestingly, though, January is the month when most divorces are filed. Obviously, turning the page towards a New Year inspires a fresh start –and that’s completely understandable, too. If you’re headed in that direction, it makes sense to spend a little time this month planning ahead. You can do so discreetly, and then know that you’ll truly be ready to start the New Year on the right foot.
To help get you begin, here are a few things you can do now to help make the divorce process smoother in 2012:
1. Start collecting financial documents. Watch the mail for year-end statements from banks, credit card companies, etc.  As we outline in our Divorce Financial Checklist, preparing for divorce requires gathering all the relevant documents related to your bank and brokerage accounts, credit cards, mortgages, etc. Once you have collected them, make copies, and take them to a trusted friend/family member, or use a safe deposit box that your husband can’t access.
2. Check your credit report. While you’re gathering your financial records, keep a careful eye on your credit card statements, and if you haven’t already done so, request a copy of your credit report. Once you have the report, monitor your score carefully so you’ll be the first to know if any unusual activity occurs.  (For example, is your husband using your joint credit cards to buy his girlfriend gifts this holiday season?)  See my post, How To Protect Your Credit Score During Your Divorce, for more tips
3. Research divorce professionals in your area. If you want to ensure the best possible outcome for your divorce, take the time to build a qualified divorce team. I recommend you start with these three players: a matrimonial/family law attorney, a divorce financial planner and a therapist/counselor. Spend some time this month researching divorce professionals and create a short list of candidates for each position. Schedule interviews with each top contender in January, and rest easy knowing that by February 2012, you’ll be benefiting from the expert guidance of a top-notch divorce team.
4. Open new accounts in your name. Moving forward as a single woman in 2012 will require that you have a bank account and credit cards in your name. Lay the groundwork now.  Don’t use the bank where you currently have your joint accounts. Go to a different bank and open both a savings and a checking account in your name. You’ll need your own credit card, too, so you should start that process now, as well. New federal regulations are making it harder than ever for women with little or no income to establish credit on their own. You can do it. But, plan accordingly and know that securing credit is going to be more complicated than just filling out an application or making a single phone call.
5. Remain vigilant. Is your husband using the good cheer of the holidays as cover while he dissipates family assets? Be attentive, and if you are concerned at all about financial shenanigans by your husband, you may want to think twice about filing a joint return with him for 2011.
Some women who are considering divorce let the holidays get them down. Don’t be one of them. Use this opportunity to start planning ahead, and you’ll be able to start the New Year confident that you are on the way to a more stable and secure financial future.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey A. Landers, CDFA™ is a Divorce Financial Strategist™ and the founder of Bedrock Divorce Advisors, LLC (http://www.BedrockDivorce.com), a divorce financial strategy firm that exclusively works with women, who are going through, or might be going through, a financially complicated divorce. He also advises women business owners on what steps they can take now to “divorce-proof” their business in the event of a future divorce. He can be reached at Landers@BedrockDivorce.com.
All articles/blog posts are for informational purposes only, and do not constitute legal advice. If you require legal advice, retain a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author, who is not an attorney.

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It's Not Too Late: Year-End Tax Moves

Once you’ve reached the last month of the tax year, your options are limited to minimize your income taxes. But there are a few things that could still be done, so don’t give up hope.
For example, you could double up your real estate taxes by prepaying next year’s tax during December. Doing this with, for example, a $3,000 per year real estate tax bill could result in a reduction of tax for the year of $750 if you’re in the 25% bracket. Keep in mind though, that you’ll have forked out this money long before it is actually due in most cases, and for the next year you won’t have this deduction available if you used it in this year.
The same could be done with your charitable contributions - there’s no reason that you can’t make additional contributions to your favorite charities at the end of this year instead of waiting until next year.
You could also send your final estimated state income tax payment due in January of next year during December and claim that payment on this year’s itemized deductions as well.
Prepaying your January mortgage payment will credit that mortgage interest to this year as well, further increasing your itemized deductions.
Other itemized deductions could be “stacked” in one year, such as medical expenses (subject to the 7.5% floor) and miscellaneous deductions (subject to the 2% floor).
It’s important to keep in mind that the moves that you make this year might reduce your tax now - but you might have an adverse impact on next year’s income tax by doing so. It will pay to run the calculations based on what you know about this year’s tax and next year’s tax to make sure that it is in your best interest to do this.
Here’s how it might play out: if you prepaid your next year’s real estate tax during this year, it might reduce your deductions below the Standard Deduction - which could be a good thing. In doing this, you would get to use the Standard Deduction to increase your tax deductions on next year’s return when you specifically reduced your deductions for that year by prepaying the deductible real estate tax in during this year. In this fashion you might be making the most of the standard deduction and your itemized deductions year after year - one year using the “stacked” deductions, the next using the standard deduction.
These prepayment options could have a negative affect if you are subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Prepaying your state tax, mortgage interest and some medical expenses might trigger or cause an increase in AMT. One tactic that you might consider is selling a taxable investment that has an inherent loss; this is especially useful if you’ve sold another investment at some point in the tax year that has resulted in a taxable gain. Losses can be used to offset those capital gains dollar for dollar, and an additional $3,000 in capital losses can be used to reduce your ordinary income as well.
You can also make up for underpayment of estimated tax by taking a withdrawal from an IRA (especially if you’re over age 59½) and having tax withheld from the withdrawal. This can also be accomplished by having more tax withheld from your paycheck if you’re still working, by filing a new W4. Another significant move you can make includes the Qualified Charitable Distribution from your IRA, 401(k) or 403(b) - allowing you to bypass recognizing that income, including your RMD. This can only be done if you’re at least age 70½ and subject to Required Minimum Distributions. The charity receives a contribution, and you get to lower your year-end balance in your account, therefore reducing your RMD for next year.  For more details on this, you should check out the IRA Owner's Manual.
You can also delay your first RMD (if you reached age 70½ this year) until as late as April 1 of next year, although that will mean you have to take two RMDs next year. But in some circumstances that may be the better option.
You can also make a deductible contribution to your IRA, if you qualify - but you don’t have to do that before the end of the year, you have until April 15 to do that.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of year-end tax moves, just several of the more prominent ones. Hopefully you’ll find what you need here to help with your year-end tax plans.

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New Website Takes Social Approach To Personal Finance

The Internet is a great source of information on personal finance, but often this information lacks the personal touch. The new website MyMoneyCircles.com aims to provide that personalized element by taking an interactive, social media-style approach.
Though it focuses on the human element, MyMoneyCircles is anything but soft and fuzzy. The website refers to its approach as a "boot camp" for personal finance. But what exactly does a personal finance boot camp entail?
Getting financially fit
The boot camp method at MyMoneyCircles involves pushing participants to get their personal finances in the best shape possible. And the boot camp analogy is apt, because it highlights the simple fact that financial responsibility often isn't easy, and building robust savings accounts is often an act of sacrifice.
MyMoneyCircles will conduct a series of boot camps to address a variety of financial goals, including:
Saving money
Managing credit and debt
Protecting family and assets
Planning for the future
The personalized support system at MyMoneyCircles is designed to help users make the changes necessary to meet these goals. By engaging participants throughout the process, and providing advice tailored to their needs, the site aims to lead them each step of the way toward financial improvement.
Here are some of the methods MyMoneyCircles will use to engage, encourage, and energize those who want to improve their personal finances:
Personal assessment. A 10-question quiz will kick off each boot camp, to provide users with a clearer picture of their needs on each topic.
Customized advice and education. Participants will receive emails related to their areas of interest and access to online materials. Online resources will allow users to submit questions to financial experts through MyMoneyCircles.
A defined action plan. MyMoneyCircles will present participants with specific steps designed to get them to stop procrastinating and to start meeting their goals.
Community support. MyMoneyCircles is designed for users to share their personal experiences with other members of the community, especially those with similar needs and goals. In this way, users can help each other make progress.
Continued growth opportunties. MyMoneyCircles aims to provide multiple levels of informative material, allowing users to build on what they've learned.
Access to expertise
Central to the program is the expertise of Lynnette Khalfani-Cox. Khalfani-Cox, also known as "The Money Coach," is a best-selling author and frequently-quoted expert in the national media. Khalfani-Cox's input drives both the design and content of MyMoneyCircles, and she will answer individual participant questions too. A variety of financial specialists--full disclosure, this author will be one of them--will also be available to provide advice.

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Chavez's VP says ailing leader still 'delicate'

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's vice president is returning home Wednesday from a visit with Hugo Chavez in Cuba and says the ailing president's condition remains "delicate" three weeks after his cancer surgery.
With rumors swirling that Chavez had taken a turn for the worse, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday that he had met with the president twice and had spoken with him.
"He's totally conscious of the complexity of his post-operative state and he expressly asked us ... to keep the nation informed always, always with the truth, as hard as it may be in certain circumstances," Maduro said in the prerecorded interview in Havana, which was broadcast Tuesday night by the Caracas-based television network Telesur.
Both supporters and opponents of Chavez have been on edge in the past week amid shifting signals from the government about the president's health. Chavez has not been seen or heard from since the Dec. 11 operation, and officials have reported a series of ups and downs in his recovery — the most recent, on Sunday, announcing that he faced new complications from a respiratory infection.
Maduro did not provide any new details about Chavez's complications during Tuesday's interview. But he joined other Chavez allies in urging Venezuelans to ignore gossip, saying rumors were being spread due to "the hatred of the enemies of Venezuela."
He didn't refer to any rumors in particular, though one of them circulating online had described Chavez as being in a coma.
Maduro said Chavez faces "a complex and delicate situation." But Maduro also said that when he talked with the president and looked at his face, he seemed to have "the same strength as always."
"All the time we've been hoping for his positive evolution. Sometimes he has had light improvements, sometimes stationary situations," he said.
Maduro's remarks about the president came at the end of an interview in which he praised Venezuelan government programs at length, recalled the history of the Cuban revolution and touched on what he called the long-term strength of Chavez's socialist Bolivarian Revolution movement.
He mentioned that former Cuban President Fidel Castro had been in the hospital, and praised Cuba's government effusively. "Today we're together on a single path," Maduro said.
Critics in Venezuela sounded off on Twitter while the interview was aired, some saying Maduro sounded like a mouthpiece for the Cuban government. In their messages, many Chavez opponents criticized Maduro for the dearth of information he provided, accusing him of withholding key details about Chavez's condition.
Chavez's political opponents have complained that the government hasn't told the country nearly enough about his health, and have demanded it provide the country with a full medical report.
Even some of his supporters say they wished they knew more.
"We're distressed by El Comandante's health," said Francisca Fuentes, who was walking through a downtown square with her grandchildren Tuesday. "I think they aren't telling us the whole truth. It's time for them to speak clearly. It's like when you have a sick relative and the doctor lies to you every once in a while."
Chavez has been fighting an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer since June 2011. He has declined to reveal the precise location of the tumors that have been surgically removed. The president announced on Dec. 8, two month after winning re-election, that his cancer had come back despite previous surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
"There's nothing we can do except wait for the government to deign to say how he is really," said Daniel Jimenez, an opposition supporter who was in a square in an affluent Caracas neighborhood.
Jimenez and many other Venezuelans say it seems increasingly unlikely that Chavez can be sworn in as scheduled Jan. 10 for his new term. If he dies or is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution says a new election should be held within 30 days.
Before his operation, Chavez acknowledged he faced risks and designated Maduro as his successor, telling supporters they should vote for the vice president if a new presidential election was necessary.
Maduro didn't discuss the upcoming inauguration plans, saying only that he is hopeful Chavez will improve.
The vice president said that Chavez "has faced an illness with courage and dignity, and he's there fighting, fighting."
"Someone asked me yesterday by text message: How is the president? And I said, 'With giant strength,'" Maduro said. He recalled taking Chavez by the hand: "He squeezed me with gigantic strength as we talked.

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Venezuela opposition: Chavez secrecy feeds rumors

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's opposition demanded that the government reveal specifics of President Hugo Chavez's condition Wednesday, criticizing secrecy surrounding the ailing leader's health more than three weeks after his cancer surgery in Cuba.
Opposition coalition leader Ramon Guillermo Aveledo said at a news conference that the information provided by government officials "continues to be insufficient."
Chavez has not been seen or heard from since the Dec. 11 operation, and Vice President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday said the president's condition remained "delicate" due to complications from a respiratory infection.
Chavez's elder brother, Adan, arrived in Havana on Wednesday, said Jorge Arreaza, the president's son-in-law and science minister. "We're meeting with him, Vice President Maduro and Attorney General Cilia Flores," Arreaza said in a message on Twitter.
"The medical team explains to us that President Chavez's condition continues to be stable within his delicate state," Arreaza said in another message, adding that Chavez "continues battling hard and he sends all his love to our people."
Maduro and other government officials have urged Venezuelans not to heed rumors about Chavez's condition.
Aveledo said the opposition has been respectful during Chavez's illness, and said that "the secrecy is the source of the rumors, which increase the uncertainty and cause distress."
"They should tell the truth," Aveledo said, noting that Maduro had pledged to provide full reports about Chavez's condition. He reiterated the opposition's call for the government to release a medical report and said all indications are that Chavez won't be able to be sworn in to begin a new term Jan. 10.
If Chavez can't take office on that date, Aveledo said the constitution is clear that the National Assembly president should then take over temporarily until a new election is held. He said what happens next in Venezuela should be guided by "the truth and the constitution."
If Chavez dies or is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution says a new election should be held within 30 days.
With rumors swirling that Chavez had taken a turn for the worse, Maduro said on Tuesday that he had met with the president twice and had spoken with him.
"He's totally conscious of the complexity of his post-operative state and he expressly asked us ... to keep the nation informed always, always with the truth, as hard as it may be in certain circumstances," Maduro said in the prerecorded interview in Havana, which was broadcast Tuesday night by the Caracas-based television network Telesur.
Both supporters and opponents of Chavez have been on edge in the past week amid shifting signals from the government about the president's health. Officials have reported a series of ups and downs in his recovery — the most recent, on Sunday, announcing that he faced the new complications from a respiratory infection.
Maduro said on Tuesday that Chavez faces "a complex and delicate situation." But he also said that when he talked with the president and looked at his face, he seemed to have "the same strength as always."
The vice president said he planned to return to Caracas on Wednesday, though there was no confirmation of a return trip as of Wednesday night.
His remarks about the president came at the end of an interview in which he praised Cuba's government effusively and touched on what he called the long-term strength of Chavez's socialist Bolivarian Revolution movement. He mentioned that former Cuban President Fidel Castro had visited the hospital where Chavez was treated.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department said procedures under the Venezuelan Constitution should be followed if Chavez is no longer able to carry out his duties as president.
"We want to see any transition take place in a manner that is consistent with the Venezuelan Constitution, that any election be fully transparent, democratic, free and fair," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters on Wednesday.
Asked if Chavez being out of the picture would make it easier to improve long-strained ties between Venezuela and the U.S., Nuland said, "Obviously we will judge our ability to improve our relationship with Venezuela based on steps they are able to take."
The U.S. Embassy in Caracas has been without an ambassador since July 2010. Chavez rejected the U.S. nominee for ambassador, accusing him of making disrespectful remarks about Venezuela's government. That led Washington to revoke the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador.
But recently U.S. and Venezuelan diplomats began high-level conversations aimed at improving relations, a U.S. government official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
The official confirmed recent reports that Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, spoke by telephone with Maduro in November and discussed ways of improving relations. He also confirmed that U.S. diplomat Kevin Whitaker had a subsequent conversation with Roy Chaderton, Venezuela's ambassador to the Organization of American States.
Venezuelan diplomats could not be reached to comment about those recent contacts with U.S. officials.
In Bolivia, meanwhile, President Evo Morales said he is concerned about his friend and ally.
"I hope we can see him soon," Morales said at a news conference Wednesday. "But it's a very worrying situation."
"I've tried to make contact with the vice president, and it's been difficult. I hope all of their aims are achieved to save President Chavez's life."
Before his operation, Chavez acknowledged he faced risks and designated Maduro as his successor, telling supporters they should vote for the vice president if a new presidential election were necessary.
Maduro didn't discuss the upcoming inauguration plans, saying only that he is hopeful Chavez will improve.
"Someone asked me yesterday by text message: How is the president? And I said, 'With giant strength,'" Maduro said. He recalled taking Chavez by the hand: "He squeezed me with gigantic strength as we talked.

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Venezuelan gov't: Chavez fighting lung infection

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela's government says President Hugo Chavez is being treated for a respiratory deficiency after complications from a severe lung infection.
Information Minister Ernesto Villegas provided the update on the ailing president's condition Thursday night. He read from a statement saying that Chavez's lung infection had led to "respiratory deficiency" and required strict compliance with his medical treatment.
The government expressed confidence in the medical team treating Chavez in Cuba.

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Most countries offer the Pill over-the-counter

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Unlike women in the U.S., Canada and much of Europe, most women in the world can access the birth control pill without a prescription, according to a new study.
As medical organizations and other groups push to ease the prescription requirements for the Pill in the U.S. and elsewhere, "we can start to use this information to... get a sense of the safety of women having access to this method where no prescription is required," said Kari White, who studies birth control at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
The Pill is generally considered safe, said White, who was not involved in the new work, and some studies have shown that, without a doctor's input, women can accurately screen themselves for risk factors to steer away from using the Pill if it's not appropriate for them.
Earlier this year, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a leading group of women's doctors, endorsed the idea of making the birth control pill available without a prescription (see Reuters Health report of November 20, 2012 here: http://reut.rs/UH0Zz9).
In a survey of government health officials, pharmaceutical companies, family planning groups, medical providers and other experts in 147 countries Dr. Daniel Grossman, of Ibis Reproductive Health in Oakland, California, and his colleagues found that women in the U.S. and 44 other countries need a prescription to get birth control pills.
The group reported in the medical journal Contraception that while another 56 countries had laws requiring prescriptions, in practice women could access the contraception over-the-counter.
Thirty-five countries legally allowed access to oral contraceptives over-the-counter, and 11 countries allowed over-the-counter access as long as the woman is screened to ensure that she is a good candidate.
"The patterns we saw were interesting," said Grossman. "Higher income countries - western Europe, Australia, Japan and North America - generally require a prescription."
Grossman told Reuters Health he couldn't explain why these patterns have emerged.
"Perhaps in places like China and India that have pills available over-the-counter formally without a prescription might be consistent with strong national family planning programs," he speculated.
Dr. Ward Cates, of FHI 360, a research organization in Durham, North Carolina, said the lack of a prescription requirement might also reflect a general approach to making health care more accessible in countries where it is less available.
In some countries, "healthcare tends to be more fragmented and healthcare oversight tends to be more fragmented. Therefore the availability of products tends to percolate to outlets that tend to be more accessible to the public," said Cates, who was not part of the study.
Grossman said it will be useful for countries looking to ease restrictions on birth control access to look to the experiences of these countries.
"Will this information about the availability of pills being over-the-counter in other countries influence policy here? Probably not," Grossman told Reuters Health.
"But I do think it helps to put it in perspective that this is not something revolutionary."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/S51BnH Contraception, online December 10, 2012.

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Annual Pap tests? For some in U.S., old habits die hard

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An increasing number of younger women in the United States are delaying their first Pap test for cervical cancer until after they reach 21, reflecting new U.S. guidelines, health officials said on Thursday.
But 60 percent of U.S. women who have had a total hysterectomy and no longer have a cervix are still getting the tests, a sign that old habits may die hard, experts said.
Although an annual Pap test was once the standard of care, most professional groups including the American Cancer Society, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-backed panel, now recommend that most women get tested every three to five years, and that younger women delay their first test until 21.
And these same three groups agree that screening is unnecessary for most women who have had a total hysterectomy - the removal of the uterus and cervix - for non-cancerous reasons. Likewise, women over 65 who have had years of negative tests no longer need to be screened.
The guidelines are meant to curb overscreening, which increases the risk of unnecessary surgery and preterm birth in younger women, and adds unnecessary cost to the care of women over 65 who have never had a problem Pap and those who have had their cervix removed.
In light of the changes, two teams at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed Pap test data from 2000 to 2010 to see how well doctors were adjusting to the call for less frequent screening.
They found the number of women aged 18 to 21 who had never been screened doubled, rising to 47.5 percent in 2010. The team also found that in 2010, women age 30 and older were less likely to report having a Pap test in the last three years.
And while Pap testing fell among women who had a hysterectomy, dropping to 60 percent in 2010 from 73 percent in 2000, the number still reflects significant overtreatment.
Meg Watson, an epidemiologist with CDC's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, said there are some women who need to continue screening after a hysterectomy, including those whose surgery was done to remove cancers. But that number is small.
"We feel that this would still be a minority of women, and it should not be the 60 percent that we're seeing now," she said.
CDC researchers said the guideline changes are recent, but the trends do reflect a shift toward adhering to them.
TEST 'DEEPLY ENTRENCHED'
Dr. David Chelmow, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, who helped write the latest ACOG guidelines, concedes that it makes little sense to continue to give regular Pap smears to so many women who already have had a hysterectomy.
"It's tough to get cervical cancer without a cervix," he said.
Chelmow said widespread cervical cancer screening has significantly reduced cervical cancer rates in the United States, which have fallen by 70 percent in the last four decades.
The practice of annual Pap tests is "deeply, deeply entrenched," he said.
Although overscreening adds to health costs and unneeded worry and procedures for everyone, overscreening young women may carry even greater risks because treatments can weaken the cervix and hamper a young woman's chances of carrying a child full term, said Watson of the CDC.
Cervical cancer is a slow-growing cancer caused by exposure to certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexually transmitted disease that causes precancerous abnormalities of the cervix.
In women under 21, HPV infection is very common, but cancer itself is "vanishingly rare," occurring at a rate of about one in 1 million, Chelmow said.
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide, with about 500,000 new cases and 250,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization.
In the United States, about 12,000 women developed new cases of cervical cancer last year, and 4,220 women died from their cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
Most deaths occur in women who were infrequently screened or were not screened at all.

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Julia Roberts to star in HBO film on early AIDS epidemic

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Julia Roberts will star as a paraplegic physician treating patients early in the AIDS epidemic in the stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning drama "The Normal Heart," U.S. cable television network HBO said on Friday.
"The Normal Heart," set to air on HBO in 2014, tells the story of the dawning of the epidemic in 1980s New York.
Oscar-winner Roberts plays Dr. Emma Brookner, who treats several early patients infected with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Co-star Mark Ruffalo plays Ned Weeks, an eyewitness to how the disease ravaged the city's gay community.
The film will be directed by "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy and was adapted by the play's author, Larry Kramer, an early advocate for AIDS prevention and care.
"Ryan has assembled an extraordinary cast to bring Larry Kramer's landmark theatrical achievement to the screen for the first time, and we couldn't be more thrilled to bring this important film to HBO," Michael Lombardo, HBO's president of programming, said in a statement.
"The Normal Heart" debuted on stage in 1985 in New York and was revived on Broadway in 2011, winning the Tony Award for best revival.
The movie version was originally envisioned as big screen release before HBO took it up as a television film.

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Presidents of Sudan, South Sudan to meet Friday

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan, two countries which were at the brink of all-out war last year, are to meet Friday in Ethiopia's capital.
Spokesman Dina Mufti said Thursday that Ethiopia is optimistic the meeting will advance stalled peace deals.
Sudan President Omar al-Bashir and South Sudan President Salva Kiir signed deals in September to restart the south's oil industry. South Sudan's oil flows through Sudan's pipelines, bringing in revenue for both countries. The south shut down its oil industry last year after accusing Sudan of stealing its oil. Disagreements on the implementation of the September deal persist.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and African Union mediators are expected to push the two leaders for a rapid implementation of the September deals.

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Ethiopian police says Qaida terror cell arrested

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia's spy agency says that security forces have arrested 15 people alleged to be members of a terror cell linked with al-Qaida.
The spy agency says military training manuals, videos and weapons were seized from the suspects. The agency announced the arrests late Wednesday.
Authorities said the suspects were trained by al-Shabab militants in neighboring Somalia and Kenya. They alleged the group was planning to launch attacks based in Ethiopia's Somali and Harara regions.
On Tuesday the country's federal high court convicted 10 people on similar terror charges.

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AP names Torchia as bureau chief in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Christopher Torchia, The Associated Press bureau chief in Turkey who has reported from five continents, has been appointed chief of bureau for AP for southern Africa.
The appointment was announced Thursday by Africa Editor Andrew Selsky.
"Torchia is one of the best foreign correspondents in the business and has the experience and talent to deliver fascinating stories from this important and diverse region," Selsky said.
As southern Africa bureau chief, Torchia, 45, will oversee coverage of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Angola, Madagascar, Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi. He will be based in Johannesburg and report directly to Selsky.
He joined the AP in Albany, the New York state capital, in 1989 after a stint at The Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico. He moved to the AP's Boston bureau and the international editing desk in New York, and then transferred to Colombia in 1994, covering drug cartels and rebel and paramilitary groups.
He was posted to Indonesia during the Asian economic crisis that helped oust President Suharto in 1998 and served as bureau chief in South Korea and Singapore, reporting on events including the North Korean nuclear standoff and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. In late 2006, he moved to Istanbul, where he drove coverage of Turkey's rising diplomatic and economic profile and contributed to reporting on the Mideast and on the Arab spring uprisings and Syria's civil war.
He also has reported frequently from Iraq and Afghanistan, covering the 2006 execution of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, among other stories.
Torchia holds a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University. He is the co-author of "How Koreans Talk" and "Indonesian Slang: Colloquial Indonesian at Work."
An American, Torchia lived in South Africa as a youth. His father, Andrew Torchia, a foreign correspondent for AP before retiring in 1994, also served as AP's bureau chief in Johannesburg in the 1980s.

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Nigeria airline in June crash resumes flights

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The Nigerian airline involved in a June crash that killed at least 163 people resumed domestic flights Thursday, even though officials acknowledge they still don't know what brought the aircraft down and that the families of the dead still haven't received insurance settlements.
Government authorities cleared Dana Air to again fly the same type of planes involved in the crash, despite public outrage over the disaster in a nation with a long history of airplane tragedies. Meanwhile, passengers still nervously board flights, even though the country's aviation industry remains mired in financial problems and is governed by lax oversight.
Smiling staffers stood Thursday at empty check-in and ticket counters at a domestic wing of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, as only a few passengers paid for seats on its 4:20 p.m. flight Thursday to Nigeria's capital, Abuja. The private airline planned to have a flight Friday morning carrying local celebrities, government officials and journalists to the capital and back as a sign that the carrier was again open for business, said Tony Usidamen, a Dana spokesman.
The carrier was offering tickets as cheap as 14,400 naira ($90) one-way to the capital, about half the price of its competitors, as a means of luring back passengers. However, Usidamen said the carrier planned a limited flight schedule for the coming weeks and acknowledged it would be a while before its flights were full again.
"It's going to take time to publicize the resumption of flights and to regain the public's confidence," the spokesman told The Associated Press.
On June 3, a Dana Air MD-83 twin-engine jet crashed in a crowded neighborhood on the outskirts of Lagos, killing all 153 people onboard and at least 10 on the ground, authorities have said. The pilots told air traffic controllers that the plane lost power to both engines just before the crash. The reason for the power loss remains unclear. Crash investigators in Nigeria have said the flight data recorder on the plane melted in the ensuing fire.
Dana will fly its remaining stock of five MD-83s, airplanes built by McDonnell Douglas, which was later bought by Boeing Co. The aircraft series is a mainstay of airlines around the world, with a large number still flown by American Airlines, owned by AMR Corp. Joe Obi, a spokesman for Nigeria's Aviation Minister Stella Oduah, pointed to that when asked if authorities had any concerns about Dana continuing to fly that model.
"Until we are sure what caused the crash, we can't make a decision on the MD-83," Obi told the AP.
Federal officials have given Dana Air a two-month window to complete insurance payments to the bereaved, Obi said. That could prove difficult, as Usidamen said the airline's insurers have made full payments to only five families of victims so far. Usidamen blamed the delays on families not getting needed documents from probate courts.
Nigeria has suffered a series of plane crashes over the last decades, with authorities never offering clear explanations for why the disasters happened. Obi said Nigeria's government planned to immediately publicize the cause of the Dana crash as soon as it knew, but the government has previously declined to publish the causes of other crashes.
Other airlines in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, have collapsed or faced dire financial straits over the last year.
Air Nigeria, the nation's second-largest carrier, collapsed in September amid allegations of financial mismanagement. Arik Air Ltd., the country's largest and perceived safest carrier, recently halted domestic flights after its management alleged Oduah had a financial interest in seeing the airline fail. The carrier later resumed its flights, but raised its prices as authorities halted other smaller carriers from flying due to financial and safety issues.
Air travel, despite its perils, represents the quickest way for those who can afford it to travel across Nigeria, a nation twice the size of California and with decrepit and dangerous roads. However, experts say Nigerian aviation authorities remain overworked and safety regulations are laxly enforced in a nation where bribery is an epidemic.
The Dana Air crash represented the worst airline disaster in the country since Sept. 27, 1992, when a military transport plane crashed into a swamp shortly after takeoff from Lagos and killed all 163 people onboard. The worst air disaster in Nigeria happened in 1973, when a Jordanian Boeing 707 crashed at Nigeria's Kano international airport and killed 176 people.

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C. African Republic leader fires son from post

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — Facing an insurgency by a new rebel coalition, the president of Central African Republic consolidated military power under his control Thursday after dismissing his own son as acting defense minister along with his army chief of staff.
President Francois Bozize said in a decree read on state radio late Wednesday that he was taking over the position held by his son, Jean Francis Bozize as neighboring countries sent troops to help.
Hundreds of soldiers from Chad, Republic of Congo, Gabon and Cameroon have been in arriving this week in this desperately poor, landlocked country where rebels have seized 10 towns in a month's time.
Rebel spokesman Col. Djouma Narkoyo reiterated Thursday that they were holding their position at the transportation hub of Sibut pending negotiations in Gabon. They have apparently made no further advance toward the capital since taking the town on Dec. 29.
"Our position today is that we respect the decision of the Economic Community of Central African States," he said by satellite phone. "That's why we are staying in Sibut and are not advancing."
In New York, France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said there will be a meeting in Libreville, Gabon on Jan. 8 to promote a political solution to the crisis, mediated by President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo.
"The goal is to have a political agreement in Libreville, a national unity government ... and eventually a peaceful settlement," he told reporters after a closed-door briefing to the U.N. Security Council Thursday on the latest developments in the Central African Republic by U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman.
Araud said the African Union and regional groups are in the lead and have been very active, and the Security Council is supporting them and will likely issue a press statement Friday. He said France planned to circulate the text to the 14 other council members on Thursday evening.
"They have stopped the rebels, and they have ideas about a national unity government," Araud said of the AU and regional groups. "So everything will be discussed in the meeting in Libreville on the 8th, and after the meeting in Libreville we'll see whether the U.N. has to do something."
Residents in the capital of Bangui said Bozize's decision to fire his own son was not surprising given the recent military losses. But some noted Bozize may be making his moves too late.
"It's coming too late because the security of our country is already in the hands of rebels," said Jean Nestor Kongbu as he watched fishermen cast their nets in the Obangui River that separates Central African Republic from Congo. ... They say they won't advance, but the government could provoke the rebels or the rebels could provoke the government. They need to negotiate for the Central African people."
The sudden military reorganization also suggests that Bozize's regime may be weakening, said Thierry Vircoulon, the project director for Central Africa at the International Crisis Group.
"If he is dismissing his own son, it means he is getting more and more isolated," Vircoulon said.
Jennifer Cooke, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said people see Bozize "as a losing ticket right now."
"People are losing confidence in him and he has every reason to be a bit paranoid right now watching the disintegration of the country," she said.
The United Nations called for talks between the government and rebels and the Security Council scheduled closed consultations on the Central African Republic on Thursday afternoon.
The rebels have indicated they will participate in upcoming talks in Gabon but are also insisting that Bozize go. The president says he will not leave before finishing his term in 2016.
Bozize himself took power in 2003 following a rebellion with the help of Chadian forces. He later went on to win elections in 2005 and 2011, though the opposition and international observers have called the votes deeply flawed.
The rebels behind the latest challenge to Bozize's rule are made up of four separate groups all known by their French acronyms — UFDR, CPJP, FDPC and CPSK. They are collectively known as Seleka, which means alliance in the local Sango language, but have previously fought one another. In September 2011, fighting between the CPJP and the UFDR left at least 50 people dead in the town of Bria and more than 700 homes destroyed.
Just 70 miles (112 kilometers) to the south of Sibut, government and regional forces are fortifying the town of Damara, where truckloads of Chadian troops patrol with rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.
Gen. Jean Felix Akaga, who heads the regional force known as FOMAC, says a push on Damara, 45 miles (75 kilometers) north of the capital, would be "a declaration of war" on the 10 Central African states.
"For us, Damara is the red line that the rebels cannot cross," Akaga said Wednesday. "If they attack Damara, we will attack.

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