Suicide bomber attacks Pakistani mosque, 21 dead

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) ? A suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a Shiite mosque in northwestern Pakistan as worshippers were leaving Friday prayers, killing at least 21 people and wounding 36 in the latest apparent sectarian attack in the country, police said.

Shiite Muslims in Pakistan have increasingly been targeted by radical Sunnis who consider them heretics, and 2012 was the bloodiest year for the minority sect in the country's history.

The attack on the mosque took place in the town of Hangu in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which has experienced previous clashes between the Sunni and Shiite communities that live there.

The bomber staged his attack at one of the mosque's exits leading to a bazaar, said Hangu police chief Mian Mohammad Saeed.

The blast damaged several small shops and peppered a wall with shrapnel, leaving scores of pockmarks, according to local TV footage. Ambulances rushed in to pick up the dead and wounded, as police tried to keep back onlookers in the crowded bazaar.

At least 21 people were killed and 36 wounded, said Saeed. One policeman who was guarding the mosque was killed and another was injured, he said.

Most of the dead and wounded were Shiites, but some of the casualties were also from the country's majority sect since there is a Sunni mosque nearby, said another police officer, Naeem Khan.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion will likely fall on the Pakistani Taliban or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which have both carried out bombings against Shiites.

The worst sectarian violence in Pakistan in recent years has been in southwestern Baluchistan province, which has the largest concentration of Shiites in the country. A twin bombing last month at a billiards hall in the provincial capital, Quetta, killed 86 people, most of them Shiites.

According to Human Rights Watch, more than 400 Shiites were killed in targeted attacks in Pakistan in 2012, including over 120 in Baluchistan.

Sectarian militant groups, such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have increased their strength through alliances with al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban, which has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for the past several years.

Rights organizations have criticized the Pakistani government for not doing enough to crack down on the attacks against Shiites.

Pakistan's intelligence agencies helped nurture Sunni militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the 1980s, to counter a perceived threat from neighboring Iran, which is mostly Shiite. Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2001, but the group continues to operate fairly freely.

___

Associated Press writer Hussain Afzal contributed to this report from Parachinar, Pakistan.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suicide-bomber-attacks-pakistani-mosque-21-dead-105649934.html

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PolitiFact: Sunrise mayor?s statement about Baker Act half-true

Following the shooting at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., Sunrise Mayor Mike Ryan has become one of the leading advocates in Broward County for changing laws to improve school safety.

Ryan called for several gun control measures, including the need to address mental health and guns, in the political blog browardbeat.com.

?Now someone committed involuntarily for 72 hours under the ?Baker Act? (as a danger to themselves or others) will have their guns returned to them by the police automatically and immediately upon discharge after 72 hours AND their commitment is never entered into a background check database,? said Ryan. ?As a result, there is also no impediment or second thought given to someone being released and purchasing a gun.?

Ryan?s claim, made in a guest column for the blog on Jan. 14, suggests that it?s a cinch for someone ?committed? under the Baker Act to reclaim their guns and then stay off lists that would ban them from getting a new one. We decided to check it out.

Under the Baker Act, law enforcement can take someone against his or her will to a facility for a mental health evaluation if the person is a danger to themselves or others. A person can?t be held involuntarily for longer than 72 hours, but a medical expert needs to examine the person and sign off on his or her release.

The simple act of being held under the Baker Act doesn?t mean the person is mentally ill or in need of commitment. In 2010, less than 1 percent of about 140,000 involuntary examinations led to involuntary placement in a mental health treatment facility, according to the Florida Department of Children and Families. (That number doesn?t account for people who voluntarily remained in facilities.)

We couldn?t find data regarding how often someone who is Baker Acted has a firearm taken.

?Most individuals don?t have weapons at the time of the Baker Act,? said Miami-Dade County Judge Steve Leifman, who chairs judicial committees on mental health.

But interviews with attorneys, law enforcement officers and experts on the Baker Act revealed that it does happen.

Whether the law enforcement agency takes the gun for safekeeping depends on the specific case, they said.

For example, if a wife reports that her husband is despondent and has a gun and he is Baker Acted at home, police would take the gun, said Col. Jim Previtera of the Hillsborough County Sheriff?s Office. But if someone is Baker Acted on the street and didn?t have a gun with him, the sheriff?s office wouldn?t go to the home and seize the gun.

For evidence of Ryan?s claim, he pointed us to a 2009 Florida attorney general?s opinion. It specifically states that law-abiding people who are released under the Baker Act should get their guns back.

?In the absence of an arrest and criminal charge against the person sent for evaluation under Florida?s Baker Act, [law enforcement] may not retain firearms confiscated from such persons and retained by that office,? concluded then Attorney General Bill McCollum.

The opinion didn?t outline procedures for gun retrieval. So in practice, that means ?there is absolutely no consistency around the state in how this is being practiced,? said former state Baker Act director Martha Lenderman, who now trains law enforcement.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/30/3209180/politifact-sunrise-mayors-statement.html

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Economic jitters compete with Obama agenda

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Just as President Barack Obama is pushing new initiatives on gun control and immigration, the gloomy old problem of a sluggish economy is elbowing its way back into prominence. Consumer confidence is falling, the economy is contracting and large automatic spending cuts are threatening to hit the Pentagon and other programs, with uncertain consequences.

These troubles arise as Obama's public approval is improving and as he begins to use his sway to promote the key features of his second-term agenda. The White House, the Federal Reserve and independent economists attributed the shrinkage in gross domestic product and the drop in consumer confidence to one-time events and said underlying economic factors were still showing encouraging signs.

But in politics, power resides in the moment. Any immediate economic setback ? or the perception of one ? could weaken Obama's clout or at least distract him as he carefully tries to put his imprint on initiatives dealing with immigration and gun violence.

At the White House, there was no evidence of a course alteration. And White House officials expressed confidence in consumption and investment trends that showed evidence of strength.

But the Commerce Department announcement Wednesday that the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.1 percent came a day after the Conference Board reported a sharp decline in consumer confidence in January. That drop, together with one in December, erased consumer confidence that had built up in 2012.

What's more, the new data comes just two days before the government releases the January unemployment report, which economists believe will stay at the still-high rate of 7.8 percent, where it has held for two months.

"What's most critical to consumer confidence is employment," said Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at the Conference Board. "We've had spurts where we've had strong job growth and we've seen a rebound in confidence, and then suddenly you have a pullback in employment and you get a pullback in confidence. So we need a convincing story, and that's going to take several months of jobs growth."

Analysts said the economy is still on track to grow steadily if modestly at a roughly 2 percent pace, as long as the housing and auto industries continue to recover.

The Commerce Department attributed the economic contraction mainly to companies restocking at a slower rate and to reductions in government spending on defense. While companies will ultimately have to rebuild their inventories, the cuts in defense spending could offer a hint of things to come.

The administration argued that the 22 percent reduction in defense spending was partly in anticipation of automatic spending cuts that were going to take effect at the beginning of the year. Obama and congressional Republicans averted that so-called fiscal cliff by extending Bush-era tax rates to all but the wealthiest Americans.

But the deal simply delayed the automatic cuts until March 1. At that point, the Pentagon faces across-the-board cuts of 7 percent, while domestic programs will have to shrink by 5 percent. Some analysts believe that if those cuts are allowed to occur, as some Republicans are now suggesting, the economy could lose a half a percentage point of growth.

Some in the business community hope the experience in the last quarter will alert lawmakers to the potential economic damage the automatic cuts could create.

"I don't think any time you see a reduction in economic growth that it's good news," White House press secretary Jay Carney conceded Wednesday.

But he cautioned, "We need to make sure that in Washington we are not taking actions that undercut that progress that we have been making and can continue to make and will continue to make."

Carney said letting the automatic cuts take effect is a "sort of political brinksmanship of the kind that results in one primary victim, and that's American taxpayers, the American middle class."

Still, the White House insists the only alternative to those cuts is a mix of savings and new tax revenue. Republicans say the $600 billion in revenue they already gave Obama as part of the New Year's fiscal cliff deal is enough. They insist that if he wants different spending cuts than those due to start on March 1, he should submit a new plan.

But the White House has been eager to move away from fiscal and budget fights, ready to use the president's re-election and the uptick in his popularity to push his noneconomic agenda.

On Tuesday, he traveled to Las Vegas to push for an overhaul in immigration. On Monday, he is traveling to Minneapolis to promote his proposals to reduce gun violence.

The issues are not simple ones for Obama. The economy and the nation's debt still rank higher than immigration and guns as issues in the mind of the public. Moreover, Obama has to navigate gingerly with Congress on immigration, where a fragile coalition of Democrats and Republicans is assembling legislation that, among other things, could provide a path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Obama has vowed to use his bully pulpit to build public support for his new agenda. Defending his economic stewardship was not supposed to be part of the playbook.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/economic-jitters-compete-obama-agenda-081854479--finance.html

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Coffee Fungus Outbreak Resumes

Researchers are marshaling technology in a bid to thwart the harvest-threatening outbreak in Central America

By Daniel Cressey and Nature magazine

Coffee growers are worried that a fungal outbreak will affect the next harvest of coffee berries. Image: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Where there is coffee, there is ?coffee rust?. But the long stalemate between growers and the fungus behind the devastating disease has broken ? with the fungus taking the advantage. As one of the most severe outbreaks ever rages through Central America, researchers are reaching for the latest tools in an effort to combat the pest, from sequencing its genome to cross-breeding coffee plants with resistant strains.

Caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, coffee rust generally does not kill plants, but the Institute of Coffee of Costa Rica estimates that the latest outbreak may halve the 2013?14 harvest in the worst affected areas of the nation. This outbreak is ?the worst we?ve seen in Central America and Mexico since the rust arrived? in the region more than 40 years ago, says John Vandermeer, an ecologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who has received ?reports of devastation in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Mexico?.

At his research plot in Mexico, Vandermeer says that the situation is so bad that the leaves are simply dropping off the plants. More than 60% of the trees have at least 80% defoliation, and 30% have no leaves at all.

On 22?January, Costa Rica enacted emergency legislation to speed up the flow of government money towards fighting the fungus. Other nations are also stepping up the fight. Last week, the Nicaraguan government reportedly declared that it would include coffee rust on a list of special research projects designed to safeguard the country?s agriculture.

The fungus first emerged as a significant problem by 1869 in Ceylon ? now Sri Lanka ? before spreading around the world. Stuart McCook, a historian at the University of Guelph in Canada who studies the rust, says that the wet weather in some areas of Ceylon was ideal for the spread of the fungus, and more than 90% of coffee crops were wiped out in those regions. Faced with an economic catastrophe, the country abandoned coffee for the tea it is associated with today. The disease is so universal that it ?is not going to be eradicated; or the only way to eradicate the disease in practice is to eradicate all of the coffee?, says McCook.

By 1970, the fungus had been detected in Brazil, and severe outbreaks were seen in Costa Rica in 1980 and Nicaragua in 1995, says Jacques Avelino, a plant pathologist at Costa Rica?s Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center, based in San Jos?.

But changes to management practices had brought the disease mostly under control. ?Coffee rust was considered a solved problem by most of the coffee growers and coffee institutes of the region?, says Avelino. ?People didn?t fear the disease.? The outbreak may have taken hold because of patchy use and effectiveness of fungicides.

And in Africa, Noah Phiri, a plant pathologist working in Nairobi for the not-for-profit development organization CABI, says that rust has been causing ever-greater problems, although in Kenya, varieties resistant to the rust have held it at bay.

Colombia could be the closest to a solution. Marco Aurelio Cristancho, a researcher at Cenicaf?, the National Center for the Investigation of Coffee in Chinchin?, says that the government has supported research into developing resistant strains of coffee through crossbreeding. The introduction of resistant strains, together with improved weather monitoring to help predict rust outbreaks, has meant that fewer than 10% of plants now need to be treated with fungicide, down from 60% four years ago, Cristancho says. The government has also supported work on the genetics of both the fungus and the plant.

Research programs have started in other countries, too. At the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Valdir Diola is working to isolate resistance genes in coffee and to find molecular markers that distinguish between different strains of the pathogen and that could be used to develop tailored strategies for its control. And in the United Kingdom, Harry Evans is working on the genome of H.?vastatrix at CABI in Egham. In Nairobi, Phiri is using money from the intergovernmental agency the Common Fund for Commodities, as well as from Kenya, India, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, to screen for resistant coffee plants and to analyze varieties of the pathogen.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=880de4d91414aaa872c31570a1787b20

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Suit claiming Hebrew National hot dogs not kosher dismissed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - ConAgra Foods Inc has won the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by consumers claiming the company's Hebrew National hot dogs and other products are not kosher.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank in St. Paul federal court ruled on Thursday that he does not have jurisdiction over a dispute that he described as "intrinsically religious in nature."

Eleven consumers filed the lawsuit last May, asserting that ConAgra misled customers into believing that its products were kosher according to "the most stringent" Orthodox Jewish standards by including a symbol on its packaging.

The lawsuit alleged that ConAgra's contractors, meat processor AER Services Inc and kosher supervisor Triangle K, failed to follow proper religious procedures. The plaintiffs sought unspecified damages and an injunction against the labels as well as class-action status for consumers who have bought Hebrew National products since 2008.

But Frank said he was constrained by clear Supreme Court precedent barring civil judges from resolving faith-based disputes.

"Any judicial inquiry as to whether defendant misrepresented that its Hebrew National products are "100% kosher" (when Triangle K, an undisputedly religious entity, certified them as such) would necessarily intrude upon rabbinical religious autonomy," Frank wrote.

He noted that ConAgra, the only named defendant in the lawsuit, is a secular entity, while the plaintiffs chose to leave Triangle K and AER out of the lawsuit.

"It is Triangle K and its Orthodox rabbis who make such determinations," Frank said. "Naturally, therefore, this court cannot determine whether defendant's Hebrew National products are in fact kosher without delving into questions of religious doctrine."

Hart Robinovitch, the plaintiffs' lawyer, did not immediately return a call for comment on Thursday evening.

In a statement, ConAgra spokeswoman Becky Niiya said the company has "always stood by our kosher distinction and status."

"We know how important kosher quality is to our consumers, and we look forward to continuing to make Hebrew National 100% pure kosher beef franks and other kosher offerings," she said.

The case is Wallace et al v. ConAgra Foods Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, No. 12-01354.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suit-claiming-hebrew-natl-hot-dogs-not-kosher-005925753--finance.html

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Fidelity Sees Flurry of Charitable Giving in 2012 | On Wall Street

Fidelity Sees Flurry of Charitable Giving in 2012

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Donors ratcheted up their giving last year at Fidelity Charitable as outgoing grants and incoming contributions reached record highs.

Fidelity?s independent public charity and donor advised fund program reported a 24% increase from 2011 in dollar amounts going to grants and charitable accounts. In 2012, donors recommended more than 428,000 grants totaling $1.6 billion and contributed $3.6 billion to charitable accounts as an improved stock market and tax concerns helped drive up giving. Moreover, the number of new charitable accounts rose 32%.

?Throughout 2012, donors took advantage of the improved stock market and economic conditions to contribute more to their charitable accounts and in turn better support the causes they care about,? Sarah Libbey, president of Fidelity Charitable, said in a statement. ?We also saw many donors discover the benefits of using a donor-advised fund for the first time as the uncertain tax environment prompted more discussions about philanthropy between advisors and clients.?

The fourth quarter, which generally represents some of the highest levels of charitable giving, was especially active in 2012. Donors made 172,000 of the 428,000 grants during that time and contributed $2.4 billion, or 66% of the annual total, to charitable accounts. Generally, fourth quarter contributions reflect about 60% of the year?s contributions, Fidelity said.

According to Amy Danforth, senior vice president of Fidelity Charitable, the combination of information campaigns from nonprofits as well as uncertainty about the tax policies in 2013 helped to dive those numbers up.

?Americans? awareness and knowledge of what was going on in Washington and in particular seeing the charitable deduction mentioned time and time again really spurred conversations with people with their advisors,? Danforth said in a phone interview with On Wall Street. ?So we definitely saw increased results because of that.?

Fidelity Charitable augmented its giving operations in response. The charity released an app that enabled donors to recommend grants using a mobile phone, enhanced their website and extended business hours to accommodate donors and advisors.

Advisors are also becoming more involved. Seventy percent of the contributions in 2012 came from advisor referrals and according to Danforth, Fidelity is looking to help advisors open up more conversations on philanthropy in order to deepen their client relationships.

?It really pays dividends for advisors,? she said.

Source: http://www.onwallstreet.com/news/Fidelity-Sees-Flurry-of-Charitable-Giving-in-2012-2683074-1.html

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HSBC hires U.S. expert on drug cartels after Mexico lapses

LONDON (Reuters) - HSBC is hiring a former U.S. deputy attorney general with a background in fighting drug cartels to help the global bank avoid a repeat of lapses in its anti-money-laundering controls that led to a $1.9 billion fine.

The penalty, the largest ever paid by a bank, followed a long U.S. investigation into HSBC's Mexican and U.S. operations that concluded last month with scathing criticism of the systems it used to stop the proceeds of organized crime passing through its accounts.

Jim Comey, who was U.S. deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005, will join Europe's biggest bank as a non-executive director in March and will be a member of a new committee to combat financial crime.

As U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York from 2002 to 2003, Comey set up a specialized unit to prosecute international drug cartels and supervised the prosecution of executives on fraud and securities-related charges.

He will be joined by two other non-executives - Rona Fairhead and Simon Robertson - and five independent advisers, including Bill Hughes, a former head of the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency, and Dave Hartnett, who retired last year as the permanent secretary for tax at Britain's tax authority.

HSBC said on Wednesday the Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee would help Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver simplify its business activities and enhance risk management and control by improving standards across the bank.

It will help HSBC meet tax transparency and compliance standards, the prevention of terrorist financing and association with illegal drugs activities.

HSBC said the committee would identify areas where the bank could be exposed to financial crime or system abuse, or where its bankers might "abuse their participation in the system by undertaking transactions or activities that are reputationally damaging to HSBC, even if not actually illegal".

Comey is the latest big American name hired by the bank to improve its controls and structure.

Stuart Levey, a former undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence in the U.S. Treasury, joined last year as chief legal officer. Bob Werner, who had headed sanctions action against drugs traffickers and money launderers, became head of financial crime compliance, a new role.

(Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Matt Scuffham and Tom Pfeiffer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hsbc-hires-u-expert-drug-cartels-mexico-lapses-131156791--finance.html

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