Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Earth Week: Free goodies for electric car drivers

To coincide with Earth Day and Earth Week, charging station network ChargePoint is giving away free charging cards for simply filling in a form.

By Antony Ingram,?Guest blogger / April 22, 2013

A man demonstrates charging up a Renault Zoe new electric car at a Renault automobile dealership in La Teste, Southwestern France. Electric car charging station network ChargePoint is giving away free charging cards in honor of Earth Day and Earth Week.

Regis Duvignau/Reuters/File

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It's Earth Day today, and if you're intending to roll it out a little, Earth Week all this week.

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To coincide with a week where we're all encouraged to do just a little more to consider the environment, charging station network ChargePoint is giving away free charging cards for simply filling in a form.

It's open to any electric car driver in the U.S. and Canada and you've got until Thursday, April 25 to claim your card.

You won't get it in time for Earth Week itself--delivery is expected to take around 6 weeks--but it's a good chance to get hold of an extra card, which normally costs $4.95. A $25 deposit is also normally required when setting up a new card.?

Cricket intros $40 per line family plan with unlimited talk, text and data, updates iPhone plans

Cricket's already firmly established itself as one of the more budget-minded carriers in the US, and it's now tweaking some of its plans a bit further in the hopes of attracting more customers. Leading those changes is a new family plan that will give you two lines for $40 apiece per month, each with unlimited talk, texting and data -- the catch, as is becoming increasingly common, is that the data gets throttled to a slower speed after 1GB. On top of that, the carrier has also now brought its iPhone plans in line with its Android offerings, giving folks the same options as that family plan for $50 a month. More demanding users can also opt for 2.5GB of unthrottled data for $60 or 5GB $70, both of which also add unlimited international messaging to the mix.

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Hutchison not targeting Telecom Italia fixed network: source

By Lisa Jucca and Paola Arosio

MILAN (Reuters) - Hutchison Whampoa is targeting Telecom Italia's mobile business and would not oppose a spin-off of its fixed-line network, thus removing a major political hurdle to a deal, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Italy's biggest phone operator and the Hong Kong-based conglomerate are in preliminary contacts over a possible tie-up that would see Hutchison owning 29.9 percent of Telecom Italia after selling its 3 Italia mobile business to the group and buying out some other shareholders.

Yet some Italian politicians have voiced their opposition to the idea of a foreign company ending up owning the country's fixed line telecoms network, considered a strategic national asset over which the Treasury has veto powers.

"The Chinese want to do this deal on the third and fourth generation mobile business. They are not interested in the fixed-line business," the source said.

If Telecom Italia was to carve out its fixed line network, "there should not be any political hurdles to the Chinese possibly taking over control (of Telecom Italia)," the source added.

Shares in Telecom Italia were up 2 percent at 0.5785 euros by 1349 GMT, off an earlier high for the session of 0.5855 euros.

Telecom Italia is currently assessing the feasibility of spinning off the fixed-line network, which analysts value at between 12 billion euros and 15 billion euros ($16-20 billion).

Analysts at Nomura said earlier in April Hutchison's interest in Telecom Italia might evaporate if the cash generating network is not included in any merger deal.

Several sources close to the situation said last week state-owned fund Cassa Depositi e Prestiti is the frontrunner to take a significant minority stake in the network business, which would take on a portion of Telecom Italia's debt, now exceeding 28 billion euros.

VALUATION

Meanwhile a valuation still needs to be agreed for 3 Italia, considered the weakest of Italy's four mobile operators, competing against Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Vodafone and Vimpelcom's Wind. Analysts reckon it could still be worth 1.5 to 2 billion euros.

The source said that a valuation of 1.5 billion euros for 3 Italia was "reasonable".

Taking on 3 Italia makes strategic sense for Telecom Italia as the deal would generate significant cost synergies and eliminate a competitor in a sector that is struggling under falling margins and a deep economic recession in Italy.

The new mobile group, which would end up with a market share of about 45 percent, will inevitably face antitrust concerns. But the competition remedies Telecom Italia is likely to face are not big enough to stifle a deal, the source said.

"This (the antitrust issue) is not a big problem even though the procedure is complex. The mobile phone market is very competitive, even without 3 Italia," the source said. "The main problem is the valuation of 3 Italia."

Telecom Italia declined to comment while a spokesman for Hutchison in Hong Kong would only say that "contacts between Telecom Italia and 3 Italia on possible business combinations are still very preliminary and of an exploratory nature."

A spokeswoman for Italy's competition regulator said the watchdog does not comment on prospective deals.

The source also dismissed media reports saying Hutchison would end up with a maximum 10 percent stake in Telecom Italia.

"The Chinese do not want a minority stake in Telecom, they want control. The 10 percent of Telecom Italia is what 3 Italia may be worth after an asset swap. Hutchison would buy the rest," said the source.

That 10 percent implies a valuation for Telecom Italia shares of close to 1.2 euros, equivalent to the book value of the stock in the accounts of the main shareholding consortium Telco and nearly twice the current market price.

Earlier in April Telecom Italia asked a committee of directors led by Chairman Franco Bernabe to determine whether to go ahead with formal merger talks with Hutchison.

The source said a decision on whether to open formal talks is expected by a May 8 Telecom Italia board meeting on results.

The board is controlled by representatives of Telco, a shell company owned by Italian banks Mediobanca and IntesaSanpaolo, Italian insurer Generali and Spanish telecoms rival Telefonica.

Intesa's chief executive Enrico Cucchiani said on Monday that an offer from Hutchison could be interesting and needed to be evaluated carefully before taking any decision.

"As for all offers it would be irresponsible and unprofessional not to do so," Cucchiani said at his bank's annual shareholder meeting in Turin.

Telco is the biggest shareholder in Telecom Italia with a 22.4 percent stake, followed by investor Marco Fossati with nearly 5 percent. ($1=0.7644 euros)

(Additional reporting by Gianluca Semeraro in Turin; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hutchison-not-targeting-telecom-italia-fixed-network-source-135839165--sector.html

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Monday, April 22, 2013

Jordan arrests 8 Syrian refugees in troubled camp

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? Police have arrested eight Syrians on suspicion of inciting riots at a refugee camp near the Jordan-Syria border, a Jordanian security official said Sunday.

The unrest in the harsh, sprawling camp accompanied renewed fighting in Syria itself between forces of President Bashar Assad and rebels trying to bring down his regime, along with a meeting in Turkey led by the U.S. aimed at securing more aid for the rebels.

About 100 Syrian refugees threw stones at Jordanian police on Friday for preventing some of them from sneaking out of their desert camp. Ten police officers were wounded, including two who remain in critical condition.

The security official, who requested anonymity in line with regulations, said a military prosecutor was set to question the eight suspects later Sunday.

If convicted, they face up to three years in jail.

The Zaatari camp houses 150,000 refugees from the Syrian civil war. Another 350,000 Syrians have found shelter in Jordanian communities.

Conditions in the overcrowded camp have worsened since it opened last July, and there have been several riots.

In Syria on Sunday, troops backed by pro-government gunmen pounded rebel-held areas near the Lebanese border, activists and state media said.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said there was no immediate casualty report from the fighting in Basatin in Homs province. The state television said the army was trying to "uproot all the terrorists from the area" ? the Syrian regime's usual term for the rebels.

Elsewhere, the Observatory said fighting was reported in the northern province of Aleppo and three areas in the suburbs of Damascus. It said the fiercest was in the northern province of Idlib, where at least five people, including children, were killed in an airstrike on a school in an village.

In the past two weeks, the Syrian military, supported by pro-government fighters backed by the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group, has pursued a campaign to regain control of areas near the Lebanese border.

The frontier region, near the provincial capital of Homs, holds strategic value because it links Damascus with the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria's Alawite minority, and includes the country's two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.

Syria's regime is dominated by Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while the rebels are primarily Sunni Muslims.

The Syrian National Coalition called on Lebanon's Hezbollah to withdraw its fighters from Syria, warning that fighting between the Iranian proxy group and the Free Syrian Army would lead to greater risks in the area.

In a statement Sunday, the group also urged the Free Syrian Army in Homs for "self-restraint and to respect Lebanon's sovereign borders."

Hezbollah is a close ally of Assad and gets weapons and support from Iran.

In Damascus Sunday, an Iranian lawmaker expressed support for Assad, saying the U.S.-led battle against him has failed.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of Iran's parliamentary?committee on national interest and?foreign policy, spoke to Iranian state TV before talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.

"We are happy that?the U.S., with its abilities and regional allies, has failed despite efforts" to oust Assad, he said. "Today, they are the losers in the game, no doubt." Iran is Syria's chief regional ally.

Al-Moallem said Syria was victim of a foreign conspiracy hatched by the United States in cooperation with Syria's neighbors. Syria has previously rebuked Saudi Arabia and Qatar for financing arms purchases to the rebels, and Turkey and Jordan for allowing arms shipments.

Last week, Assad criticized Jordan for providing training camps to the rebels, warning that the "fire will not stop at our border and everybody knows that. Jordan is exposed as Syria is."

In Turkey, the Syrian opposition leadership and its international allies gathered Saturday for a "Friends of Syria" conference on the Syrian conflict.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was expected to announce an additional $130 million in nonlethal military aid to the opposition, American officials in Washington said. The supplies could include body armor, armored vehicles, night vision goggles and advanced communications equipment.

Kerry met with Syrian opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib ahead of the talks in Turkey.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jordan-arrests-8-syrian-refugees-troubled-camp-080453599.html

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Man Witnesses Boston Marathon Bombing and Texas Plant Explosion

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: The Face of Another (NSFW)

Hardcore pharmaceuticals turning an apathetic, anonymous public into exhibitionists while conventional relationships crumble to dust. This totally not safe for work (unless you work at the Power Exchange) music video for Bot'Ox's latest single featuring Anna Jane was directed by Berlin-based Flokim Lucas. More »
    


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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Cops: Boston must stay in place amid terror hunt

This surveillance photo released via Twitter Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Boston Police Department shows a suspect entering a convenience store that police are pursuing in Watertown, Mass. Police say he is one of two suspects in the fatal shooting of an MIT police officer and tied to the Boston Marathon bombing. (AP Photo/Boston Police Department)

This surveillance photo released via Twitter Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Boston Police Department shows a suspect entering a convenience store that police are pursuing in Watertown, Mass. Police say he is one of two suspects in the fatal shooting of an MIT police officer and tied to the Boston Marathon bombing. (AP Photo/Boston Police Department)

Police officers aim their weapons Friday, April 19, 2013, in Watertown, Mass. A tense night of police activity that left a university officer dead on campus just days after the Boston Marathon bombings and amid a hunt for two suspects caused officers to converge on a neighborhood outside Boston, where residents heard gunfire and explosions.(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

This image provided by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center shows Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Authorities say Tsarnaev is still at large after he and another suspect ? both identified to The Associated Press as coming from the Russian region near Chechnya ? killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence into the early hours of Friday, April 19, 2013. The second suspect, who has not yet been identified, was killed in a shootout with police. (AP Photo/Boston Regional Intelligence Center)

A police officers rides in the back of a van with his weapons out Friday, April 19, 2013, in Watertown, Mass. A tense night of police activity that left a university officer dead on campus just days after the Boston Marathon bombings and amid a hunt for two suspects caused officers to converge on a neighborhood outside Boston, where residents heard gunfire and explosions.(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Police officers aim their weapons Friday, April 19, 2013, in Watertown, Mass. A tense night of police activity that left a university officer dead on campus just days after the Boston Marathon bombings and amid a hunt for two suspects caused officers to converge on a neighborhood outside Boston, where residents heard gunfire and explosions.(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

(AP) ? All residents of Boston were ordered to stay in their homes Friday morning as the search for the surviving suspect in the marathon bombings continued after a long night of violence that left another suspect dead.

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis made the announcement that the entire city should stay indoors at a news conference where Gov. Deval Patrick said the remaining suspect, described as a dangerous terrorist, was still on the loose.

The developments came after the suspects killed an MIT police officer overnight, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt, authorities said as the manhunt intensified.

The suspects were identified to The Associated Press as coming from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars. A law enforcement intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP identified the surviving bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old who had been living in Cambridge, just outside Boston, and said he "may be armed and dangerous."

Two law enforcement officials told the AP that Tsarnaev and the other suspect, who was not immediately identified, had been living legally in the U.S. for at least one year.

In Boston, authorities suspended all mass transit and urged people to stay indoors as they searched for the remaining suspect, a man seen wearing a white baseball cap on surveillance footage from Monday's deadly bombing at the marathon finish line.

"We believe this man to be a terrorist," said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. "We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people."

Authorities urged residents in Watertown, Newton, Arlington, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge and the Allston-Brighton neighborhoods of Boston to stay indoors. At least a quarter of a million people live in those suburbs. All mass transit was shut down, and businesses were asked not to open Friday. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home.

The shutdown came hours after the killing of one suspect, known as the man in the black hat from marathon surveillance footage.

All modes of public transportation were shut down, including buses, subways, trolleys, commuter rail and boats, said Joe Pesaturo, spokesman for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

The White House said President Barack Obama was being briefed on developments overnight by Lisa Monaco, his assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism.

The suspects' clashes with police began only a few hours after the FBI released photos and videos of the two young men, who were seen carrying backpacks as they mingled among marathon revelers. The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, and authorities revealed the images to enlist the public's help finding the suspects.

The images released by the FBI depict two young men, each wearing a baseball cap, walking one behind the other near the finish line. Richard DesLauriers, FBI agent in charge in Boston, said the suspect in the white hat was seen setting down a bag at the site of the second of two deadly explosions.

Authorities said surveillance tape recorded late Thursday showed the suspect known for the white hat during a robbery of a convenience store in Cambridge, near the campus of MIT, where a university police officer was killed while responding to a report of a disturbance, said State Police Col Timothy Alben. The officer died of multiple gunshot wounds.

From there, authorities say, the two men carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz, keeping him with them in the car for half an hour before releasing him at a gas station in Cambridge. The man was not injured.

The search for the vehicle led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer was seriously injured during the chase, authorities said.

In Watertown, witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 a.m. Friday. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighborhood and a helicopter circled overhead.

Watertown resident Christine Yajko said she was awakened at about 1:30 a.m. by a loud noise, began to walk to her kitchen and heard gunfire.

"I heard the explosion, so I stepped back from that area, then I went back out and heard a second one," she said. "It was very loud. It shook the house a little."

She said a police officer later knocked on her door and told her there was an undetonated improvised explosive device in the street and warned her to stay away from the windows.

"It was on the street, right near our kitchen window," she said.

Yajko said she never saw the suspect who was on the loose and didn't realize the violence was related to the marathon bombings until she turned on the TV and began watching what was happening outside her side door.

State police spokesman David Procopio said, "The incident in Watertown did involve what we believe to be explosive devices possibly, potentially, being used against the police officers."

Boston cab driver Imran Saif said he was standing on a street corner at a police barricade across from a diner when he heard an explosion.

"I heard a loud boom and then a rapid succession of pop, pop, pop," he said. "It sounded like automatic weapons. And then I heard the second explosion."

He said he could smell something burning and advanced to check it out but area residents at their windows yelled at him, "Hey, it's gunfire! Don't go that way!"

Doctors at a Boston hospital where a suspect in the marathon bombings was taken and later died are saying they treated a man with a possible blast injury and multiple gunshot wounds.

MIT said right after the 10:30 p.m. shooting that police were sweeping the campus in Cambridge and urged people to remain indoors. They urged people urged to stay away from the Stata Center, a mixed-use building with faculty offices, classrooms and a common area.

The suspects' images were released hours after President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama attended an interfaith service in Boston to remember the dead and the wounded.

At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Obama saluted the resolve of the people of Boston and mocked the bombers as "these small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build and think somehow that makes them important."

"We will find you," he warned.

In the past, insurgents from Chechnya and neighboring restive provinces in the Caucasus have been involved in terror attacks in Moscow and other places in Russia.

Those raids included a raid in Moscow in October 2002 in which a group of Chechen militants took 800 people hostage and held them for two days before special forces stormed the building, killing all 41 Chechen hostage-takers. Also killed were 129 hostages, mostly from effects of narcotic gas Russian forces used to subdue the attackers.

Chechen insurgents also launched a 2004 hostage-taking raid in the southern Russian town of Beslan, where they took hundreds of hostages. The siege ended in a bloodbath two days later, with more than 330 people, about half of them children, killed.

Insurgents from Chechnya and other regions also have launched a long series of bombings in Moscow and other cities in Russia. An explosion at the international arrivals hall at Moscow's Domodedovo airport in January 2011 killed at least 31 people and wounded more than 140.

___

Sullivan reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Pat Eaton-Robb contributed to this report from Boston.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-19-US-Police-Converge-Mass/id-58dbda034b45462a8f314c3fd1e5bc99

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