Russian parliament endorses anti-US adoption bill

Defying a storm of domestic and international criticism, Russia moved toward finalizing a ban on Americans adopting Russian children, as Parliament's upper house voted unanimously in favor of a measure that President Vladimir Putin has indicated he will sign into law.
The bill is widely seen as the Kremlin's retaliation against an American law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. It comes as Putin takes an increasingly confrontational attitude toward the West, brushing aside concerns about a crackdown on dissent and democratic freedoms.
Dozens of Russian children close to being adopted by American families now will almost certainly be blocked from leaving the country. The law also cuts off the main international adoption route for Russian children stuck in often dismal orphanages: Tens of thousands of Russian youngsters have been adopted in the U.S. in the past 20 years. There are about 740,000 children without parental care in Russia, according to UNICEF.
All 143 members of the Federation Council present Wednesday voted to support the bill, which has sparked criticism from both the U.S. and Russian officials, activists and artists, who say it victimizes children by depriving them of the chance to escape the squalor of orphanage life. The vote comes days after Parliament's lower house overwhelmingly approved the ban.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday it regretted the Russian parliament's decision.
"Since 1992, American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, providing them with an opportunity to grow up in a family environment," spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement from Washington. "The bill passed by Russia's parliament would prevent many children from enjoying this opportunity ...
"It is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations," he said.
Seven people with posters protesting the bill were detained outside the Council before Wednesday's vote. "Children get frozen in the Cold War," one poster read. Some 60 people rallied in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city.
The bill is part of larger legislation by Putin-allied lawmakers retaliating against a recently signed U.S. law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. Although Putin has not explicitly committed to signing the bill, he strongly defended it in a press conference last week as "a sufficient response" to the new U.S. law.
Originally Russia's lawmakers cobbled together a more or less a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. law, providing for travel sanctions and the seizure of financial assets in Russia of Americans determined to have violated the rights of Russians.
But it was expanded to include the adoption measure and call for a ban on any organizations that are engaged in political activities if they receive funding from U.S. citizens or are determined to be a threat to Russia's interests.
Russian children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told the Interfax news agency that 46 children who were on the verge of being adopted by Americans would stay in Russia if the bill is approved — despite court rulings in some of these cases authorizing the adoptions.
The ombudsman supported the bill, saying that foreign adoptions discourage Russians from adopting children. "A foreigner who has paid for an adoption always gets a priority compared to potential Russian adoptive parents," Astakhov was quoted as saying. "A great country like Russia cannot sell its children."
Russian law allows foreigners to adopt only if a Russian family has not expressed interest in a child being considered for adoption.
Some top government officials, including the foreign minister, have spoken flatly against the adoption law, arguing that the measure would be in violation of Russia's constitution and international obligations.
But Senator Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Council's foreign affairs committee, referred to the bill as "a natural and a long overdue response" to the U.S. legislation. "Children must be placed in Russian families, and this is a cornerstone issue for us," he said.
Margelov said that a bilateral Russian-U.S. agreement binds Russia to give notice of a halt to adoptions 12 months in advance. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that the president would consider the bill within the next two weeks.
The measure has become one of the most debated topics in Russia.
By Tuesday, more than 100,000 Russians had signed an online petition urging the Kremlin to scrap the bill.
Over the weekend, dozens of Muscovites placed toys and lit candles in front of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament after it approved the bill on Friday, but security guards promptly removed them. Opposition groups said they will rally against the bill on Jan. 13, and several popular artists publicly voiced their concern about the legislation.
While receiving a state award from Putin on Wednesday, film actor Konstantin Khabensky wore a badge saying "Children Are Beyond Politics." Veteran rock musician Andrey Makarevich called on Putin Monday to stop "killing children."
During a marathon Putin press conference Thursday, eight of the 60 questions the president answered focused on the bill. Responding angrily, Putin claimed that Americans routinely mistreat children from Russia.
The bill is named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. A Russian television report showed Yakovlev's blind grandmother who claimed that the U.S. family that adopted her grandson forged her signature on documents allowing them to take the boy outside Russia.
Russian lawmakers argue that by banning adoptions to the U.S. they would be protecting children and encouraging adoptions inside Russia.
In a measure of the virulent anti-U.S. sentiment that has gripped parts of Russian society, a few lawmakers went even further, claiming that some Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army.
Americans involved in adoption of Russian children find the new legislation upsetting.
Bill Blacquiere, president of New York City-based Bethany Christian Services, one of the largest adoption agencies in the U.S., said he hopes Putin won't sign the bill.
"It would be very sad for kids to grow up in orphanages," Blacquiere said. "And would hurt them socially, psychologically and mentally. We all know that caring for children in institutions is just not a very good thing."
Joyce Sterkel, who runs a Montana ranch for troubled children adopted abroad and has adopted three Russian children herself, said she is concerned for the estimated 700,000 children who live in state-run institutions in Russia.
"I would prefer that the Russians take care of their own children. I would prefer that people in the United States take care of their own children," Sterkel said Wednesday. "But if a suitable home cannot be found in that country, it seems reasonable that a child should be able to find a home outside.

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India gang-rape victim in Singapore for treatment

A young woman who was gang-raped and assaulted on a moving bus in the Indian capital was flown Thursday to a Singapore hospital for treatment of severe internal injuries that could last several weeks, officials said.
The 23-year-old student, who is in critical condition, arrived in Singapore on an air ambulance and was admitted to the Mount Elizabeth hospital, renowned for multi-organ transplant facilities.
The hospital said in a statement that she was admitted to the intensive care unit "in an extremely critical condition." It said "she is being examined and the hospital is working with the Indian High Commission (embassy)."
The Dec. 16 rape of the woman and her brutal beating triggered widespread protests in New Delhi and other parts of the country and calls for the death penalty for the perpetrators of rape. It is punishable by up to life in prison.
All six suspects in the case have been arrested.
The rape has highlighted the extensive harassment that Indian women face daily in cities and towns, ranging from unwanted hands being placed on them to being blamed for causing the sexual violence. Even rape victims rarely come forward to complain because of the social stigma. Many women say they have structured their entire lives around protecting themselves and their children, and restricting their movements to avoid being molested.
In a written statement, the Indian High Commission, or embassy, said it has received "many offers to help" the woman, who is "receiving full medical attention." Her family is also being provided all assistance" by the embassy, it said.
The nearly daily protests in the heart of New Delhi following the rape have been frequently quelled by police using tear gas and water cannons. One policemen died of injuries suffered in the clashes.
Police said she was traveling with a male friend in a bus when they were attacked by six men who took turns to rape her. The men also beat the couple with iron rods, stripped them of their clothes and threw them off the bus on a road. They were found by bystanders before being rushed to New Delhi's Safdarjang Hospital. The bus, which was empty except for the attackers and the couple, drove through the city for hours during the assault, even passing through police checkpoints.
Press Trust of India quoted hospital medical superintendent, B.D. Athani, as saying Wednesday night that the woman suffered severe intestinal and abdominal injuries. She underwent three surgeries and parts of her intestines were removed, he said.
He said the Indian government, "based on the advice of a team of doctors," made arrangements for her to be shifted to Singapore's Mount Elizabeth hospital because it has state of the art multi-organ transplant facilities. Also, the travel time of 5 ½ hours from New Delhi was considered less arduous.
"With fortitude and courage, the (woman) survived the aftereffects of the injuries so far well. But the condition continues to be critical," he was quoted as saying. "The treatment (in Singapore) might take longer."
The woman was on ventilator support during the 10 days she was at Safdarjang Hospital.
Press Trust of India said the Indian government will bear all expenses of the woman's treatment. Doctors have described her as "psychologically composed and optimistic about future."
It said her condition worsened late Wednesday after her pulse plummeted briefly, and that periodic bouts of infection were also a source of concern.

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India's Singh says 8 percent growth target "ambitious"

 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh struck a downbeat note on the challenges facing the Indian economy on Thursday, dubbing a five-year plan for average growth of 8 percent "ambitious".
India's GDP growth has languished below 6 percent for three straight quarters, a far cry from the near-double-digit pace of expansion before the 2008 global financial downturn.
Economic growth for the fiscal year ending in March is expected to be 5.7-5.9 percent, India's slowest since 2002/03.
"I must emphasize, that achieving a target of 8 percent growth, following less than 6 percent in the first year, is still an ambitious target," Singh told a conference of state chief ministers to finalize the government's 2012-2017 economic plan.
The downturn prodded Singh, castigated for years of policy inertia, to launch the most daring initiatives of his tenure in September, including raising subsidized diesel prices and opening the retail and other sectors to foreign players.
However, one of Singh's key policy advisers, Montek Singh Ahluwalia warned at the meeting that growth could get stuck at 5.0-5.5 percent if a policy logjam continues.
"A high growth scenario will not be realized if we follow a business-as-usual policy," Singh said, echoing his adviser.
"Our first priority must be to reverse this slowdown. We cannot change the global economy but we can do something about the domestic constraints which have contributed to the downturn."
Analysts say the government must take more reform steps quickly, including speeding up the process for approval of investment projects, overhauling the tax system and reducing a swollen fiscal deficit by reining in its subsidy bill.
Singh said that subsidies on energy products should be limited, with a phased adjustment of prices.
"Unfortunately, energy is under-priced in our country. Our coal, petroleum products, and natural gas are priced well below international prices. This also means that electricity is effectively under-priced," he said.
"Immediate adjustment of prices to close the gap is not feasible, I realize this, but some phased price adjustment is necessary.

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Nelson Mandela "not yet fully recovered": spokesman

 Former South African President Nelson Mandela is doing well after being discharged from hospital, although he is still not fully recovered, a government spokesman said on Thursday.
"He is not yet fully recovered, but he has sufficiently moved forward so that he can be discharged," Mac Maharaj told local broadcaster eNCA.
"He is sufficiently well to be home."
The 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, ending a nearly three-week stay during which he was treated for a lung infection and had surgery to remove gallstones.
Mandela, who has been in frail health for several years, is now receiving care at his suburban Johannesburg home.
Mandela has a history of lung problems dating back to when he contracted tuberculosis while in jail as a political prisoner. He spent 27 years in prison, including 18 years on the windswept Robben Island off Cape Town.
The former president was admitted to a Pretoria hospital on December 8 and this was his longest stay in a hospital since he was released from prison in 1990.
Current President Jacob Zuma visited Mandela on Christmas Day and said the former South African leader was doing much better, making progress and in good spirits.
Mandela was also admitted to a hospital in February because of abdominal pain but released the following day after a keyhole examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with him.
He has spent most of his time since then in another home in Qunu, his ancestral village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province.

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China tightening controls on Internet

 China's new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.
The measures suggest China's new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors' anxiety about the Internet's potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence on controlling information despite promises of more economic reforms.
"They are still very paranoid about the potentially destabilizing effect of the Internet," said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "They are on the point of losing a monopoly on information, but they still are very eager to control the dissemination of views."
This week, China's legislature took up a measure to require Internet users to register their real names, a move that would curtail the Web's status as a freewheeling forum to complain, often anonymously, about corruption and official abuses. The legislature scheduled a news conference Friday to discuss the measure, suggesting it was expected to be approved.
That comes amid reports Beijing might be disrupting use of software that allows Web surfers to see sites abroad that are blocked by its extensive Internet filters. At the same time, regulators have proposed rules that would bar foreign companies from distributing books, news, music and other material online in China.
Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but bans material deemed subversive or obscene and blocks access to foreign websites run by human rights and Tibet activists and some news outlets. Controls were tightened after social media played a role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia.
In a reminder of the Web's role as a political forum, a group of 70 prominent Chinese scholars and lawyers circulated an online petition this week appealing for free speech, independent courts and for the ruling party to encourage private enterprise.
Xi and others on the party's ruling seven-member Standing Committee have tried to promote an image of themselves as men of the people who care about China's poor majority. They have promised to press ahead with market-oriented reforms and to support entrepreneurs but have given no sign of support for political reform.
Communist leaders who see the Internet as a source of economic growth and better-paid jobs were slow to enforce the same level of control they impose on movies, books and other media, apparently for fear of hurting fledgling entertainment, shopping and other online businesses.
Until recently, Web surfers could post comments online or on microblog services without leaving their names.
That gave ordinary Chinese a unique opportunity to express themselves to a public audience in a society where newspapers, television and other media are state-controlled. The most popular microblog services say they have more than 300 million users and some users have millions of followers reading their comments.
The Internet also has given the public an unusual opportunity to publicize accusations of official misconduct.
A local party official in China's southwest was fired in November after scenes from a videotape of him having sex with a young woman spread quickly on the Internet. Screenshots were uploaded by a former journalist in Beijing, Zhu Ruifeng, to his Hong Kong website, an online clearing house for corruption allegations.
Some industry analysts suggest allowing Web surfers in a controlled setting to vent helps communist leaders stay abreast of public sentiment in their fast-changing society. Still, microblog services and online bulletin boards are required to employ censors to enforce content restrictions. Researchers say they delete millions of postings a day.
The government says the latest Internet regulation before the National People's Congress is aimed at protecting Web surfers' personal information and cracking down on abuses such as junk e-mail. It would require users to report their real names to Internet service and telecom providers.
The main ruling party newspaper, People's Daily, has called in recent weeks for tighter Internet controls, saying rumors spread online have harmed the public. In one case, it said stories about a chemical plant explosion resulted in the deaths of four people in a car accident as they fled the area.
Proposed rules released this month by the General Administration of Press and Publications would bar Chinese-foreign joint ventures from publishing books, music, movies and other material online in China. Publishers would be required to locate their servers in China and have a Chinese citizen as their local legal representative.
That is in line with rules that already bar most foreign access to China's media market, but the decision to group the restrictions together and publicize them might indicate official attitudes are hardening.
That comes after the party was rattled by foreign news reports about official wealth and misconduct.
In June, Bloomberg News reported that Xi's extended family has amassed assets totaling $376 million, though it said none was traced to Xi. The government has blocked access to Bloomberg's website since then.
In October, The New York Times reported that Premier Wen Jiabao's relatives had amassed $2.7 billion since he rose to national office in 2002. Access to the Times' Chinese-language site has been blocked since then.
Previous efforts to tighten controls have struggled with technical challenges in a country with more than 500 million Internet users.
Microblog operators such as Sina Corp. and Tencent Ltd. were ordered in late 2011 to confirm users' names but have yet to finish the daunting task.
Web surfers can circumvent government filters by using virtual private networks — software that encrypts Web traffic and is used by companies to transfer financial data and other sensitive information. But VPN users say disruptions that began in 2011 are increasing, suggesting Chinese regulators are trying to block encrypted traffic.
Curbs on access to foreign sites have prompted complaints by companies and Chinese scientists and other researchers.
In July, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said 74 percent of companies that responded to a survey said unstable Internet access "impedes their ability to do business."
Chinese leaders "realize there are detrimental impacts on business, especially foreign business, but they have counted the cost and think it is still worthwhile," said Lam. "There is no compromise about the political imperative of controlling the Internet."

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JelliJar – New Online Specialty Food Marketplace in Beta Release

JelliJar is pleased to announce that its online food marketplace is accessible to select food producers and customers. The full site will launch in the first week of January 2013.

Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) December 20, 2012
JelliJar is pleased to announce that its online food marketplace is accessible to select food producers and customers. The full site will launch in the first week of January 2013.
JelliJar is a marketplace where all types of food products can be discovered and purchased. The marketplace allows small producers that make products in small batches or have dedicated production facilities to be discovered by consumers with discerning tastes.
Small Food Producers, Chefs, Restaurants and Specialty Food Retailers can:

1. List their products, story, recipes, photos, videos, and contact details;

2. List retail locations where their products are sold (Shop Local);

3. Enable ecommerce transactions through PayPal;

4. Have customers subscribe to products;

5. Participate in Tasting Box subscriptions; and

6. Social Media Integration with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter.
To learn more about JelliJar, please visit: http://www.jellijar.com
About JelliJar:
JelliJar is an online marketplace dedicated to providing food lovers with the ability to discover food that caters to their taste preferences. Its focus is on providing users with the ability to make informed choices when shopping for food for in the following categories: Gourmet and Artisan, Specialty Diets and International Cuisines.
Consumers will be provided with many resources to discover hidden treasures from the following types of producers: Small Food Producers, Independent Restaurants, Chefs and Independent Retailers.

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The sale of the NYSE and the death of stocks

T

o the general public, it's quite a "shocker," says David Weidner at MarketWatch. IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), an upstart derivatives exchange, based in Atlanta, is buying NYSE Euronext, the company that owns the iconic, 220-year-old New York Stock Exchange, in a deal worth more than $8 billion. To long-time market professionals, however, this merger merely confirms something they've known for quite some time. They've been witnessing the slow death of stocks — as the lord of the marketplace — for years, as new regulations and decimalization of trades once done using rounder fractions "effectively squeezed the margins — and the potential for graft — out of the system." Initial public offerings offered healthy profits, but even those have dried up recently, leaving the NYSE and other exchanges "searching the globe for a merger partner," hoping they could buy their way to growth. But the lucrative futures and options exchanges that seemed like natural buyers of the stock exchanges turned up their noses, asking, "Why would we need them?"

There was an exception. The newcomer to the derivatives party, the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) needed something to vault it into the conversation — even though it not only had profits, but market share and a valuation to rival any exchange in the world.

For all of its lackluster financial cosmetics, the NYSE is still the Big Board. It is the venue where the great corporations of the world are listed. The announced deal will have some opportunities for technology sharing and other efficiencies, but mostly its an $8.2 billion deal for a brand.

As if that weren't already humiliating enough for the Big Board, says Felix Salmon at Reuters, "stock trading is a complete afterthought in this deal" for ICE. "The real reason that ICE wants the company is Liffe, NYSE Euronext's London-based financial derivatives subsidiary." Derivatives exchanges, you see, are few. They compete only with each other, so they make money hand over fist. "There are lots of stock exchanges," so they compete fiercely with each other, "and none of them make much money."

You can almost hear ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher rolling his eyes and wondering why on earth he needs to hang on to what at this point is little more than a heavily-guarded tourist attraction... [But] it's actually a good thing that stock trading has become a low-margin, low-value business: that's what's meant to happen when you have lots of competition. Think of it as one of the few areas of the financial-services sector where capitalism works as advertised. 

This deal, once unthinkable, really does underscore "what a dog the stock trading business has become," say Zachary M. Seward and Matt Phillips at Quartz. There's just no denying it. But if all this gloom is driving down the value of stocks in everybody's eyes, maybe equities markets will soon be so undervalued that they'll bounce back.

If we were contrarians, all of this Death of Equities talk — reminiscent of the 1979 Businessweek cover that nearly nailed the bottom of the markets before surges of the 1980s and 1990s — might get us a little more interested in the markets.

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Koomkin.com the new b2b marketplace that connects companies throughout all the Americas

Looking to the global trends, American companies will have to look more and more south of the border for qualified suppliers. Koomkin is already helping companies do that: Enrique Suarez Romo co-founder of the Mexican portal.

Mexico City (PRWEB) December 20, 2012
Ancient Mayans are not just responsible of writing prophecies about the end of the world while drinking hot chocolate; actually they were very good scientists and traders. Honoring this legacy, a group of Mexican entrepreneurs took a Mayan word, Koomkin (that means “to shorten”) to name their new online marketplace. This name was taken in order to bring together a group of new online tools for companies with the purpose of giving all registered firms better web visibility, increase competitiveness and create more business opportunities.
In Mexico, the number of Internet users has been significantly increasing every year, however, many Mexican companies are still reluctant to use the Web to promote their products or services and do business. “We want to provide them with an economic and efficient tool so they can easily show their offer to the world. It is time for Mexican and other Latin American companies to make the most of being now more competitive and cheaper related to their competitors in Asian markets”.
The portal creates an own web page with contact information, chat and pictures for those companies that register for free, as well as a program to make online quotations.
Companies that register through paid memberships can enjoy some services that provides them with competitive advantages: statistics in real time, online marketing campaigns in order to facilitate companies to be identified by search engines, and also the possibility of obtaining a quality certificate with Applus, a business group of certifiers present in more than 40 countries.
The certification gives confidence not only to the companies that offer their products and services in the Koomkin platform, but also to those who are looking for qualified suppliers, increasing exportation and competitiveness.
“We estimate we will be able to have near 37 thousand registered companies basically in Mexico and gradually in the United States (through an alliance with Free Trade Alliance, a San Antonio based organization with a renowned expertise in global trade), Spain and Latin America-, among those around 500 will have a paid membership” Enrique Suarez Romo, co-founder of the Mexican platform that started operating in September, explained. Besides Suarez, the founders of Koomkin are Pablo Garcia (who conceived the idea of the platform), Santiago Miranda and Daniel Alvarez.
Finally the co-founders of Koomkin reported that the companies that dedicate time and resources to digital media get one cost quotation per week, while by being registered at Koomkin they can get up to 300% more than they could get by their own means.

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Fox Web Creations Presents the New World Trade Center Kansas City Website

Web Design in Kansas City is a little more global today with the release of the World Trade Center Kansas City Website, chock-full of great information for international businesses.

(PRWEB) December 20, 2012
Fox Web Creations and The World Trade Center Kansas City have launched a new website - http://www.wtc-kc.com/. Designed for companies already doing business globally, as well as those considering entering the global marketplace, the site boasts resources on everything from the paperwork involved in international business to options for visiting the countries in question.
With experience and operations in Switzerland, Morocco, and France already under their belt, the Kansas City based Web Design firm Fox Web Creations was an excellent partner for this project. CEO and Lead Developer ElAmri "Red" Rida has a personal understanding of the importance of international business and worked closely with the WTC-KC staff to develop the new site. “We wanted the site to be easy to navigate, interactive and helpful to the business community. We also wanted to make sure that the staff of the WTC would be able to easily manage the content themselves, allowing them more freedom to make decisions about their content." Fox Web Creations focuses on web design in Kansas City, and on assisting small and large businesses with their internet marketing and development needs.
“The new site offers everything from help with export documentation and lead generation, to trade data, visits and education,” says Mehgan Flynn, Director of the WTC-KC. “We’re also part of the largest trade network in the world – you’ll find World Trade Centers in 330 cities and 100 countries around the planet. The new website ties into our mission to connect the KC region to the people, data, companies and government agencies that make up the fabric of global commerce.”
Some of the New Website features include:

    A comprehensive calendar of international events in the local community, including:
--    International market briefings

--     International business workshops

--     Intercultural sensitivity workshops

--     Group Trade missions

    ECertify – an easy, online app for Certificates of Origin
    SphereAccess – lead generation for buyers and suppliers.
As a member of the World Trade Center Association (WTCA), WTC-KC can also offer additional resources and services to support the business community in reaching out to international markets. The services include:

    Global market research
    Trade lead identification
    Global trade intelligence
    Intercultural communication training
    International liaison programs
    Discounted access to SphereAccess - a retail buyers and suppliers matchmaking system.
“Now that the new site is launched, we’re gearing up for a new year of WTC-KC programs and services,” says Flynn. “We’ll continue our popular ‘Doing Business In…” programs featuring various countries – China, for one. And, based on a survey of our members, will be offering a series of cultural sensitivity sessions starting this April. We’re also working with the state of Missouri on an intense, three-month export training program for local businesses. So the new year looks pretty full!”
The World Trade Center Kansas City is a partnership of the Greater Kansas City Chamber, the Kansas City Area Development Council, and KCSmartport. Fox Web Creations is a full service Kansas City Web Design, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO/M), and Responsive Web Design (RWD) firm, located at 4345 State Line Road, in Kansas City, MO 64111. They are dedicated to assisting all businesses, regardless of size, with their web design and development needs.

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Top Realtor in Gainesville VA, Linton Hall Realtors, Launches Interactive Web Experience

A top performing realtor in Gainesville, VA - Linton Hall Realtors - is pleased to announce the launch of an interactive live chat system to aid their website visitors, who are looking to buy or sell homes in the Gainesville, VA area. The addition of the interactive service will allow for expanded real estate client service in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Gainesville, VA (PRWEB) December 20, 2012
Linton Hall Realtors, one of the highest producing realtors in Gainesville, VA, is pleased to announce the launch of an interactive system to allow real time communications with website visitors. The system will be used to help prospective home buyers search the Gainesville, VA home listings on Linton Hall Realtor's company website. By offering a live chat solution, Linton Hall Realtors expects to help sellers get information they need about listing a home, aid home buyers in finding the right home in the right area, and lead to greater levels of client satisfaction.
Finding homes for sale in Gainesville, VA can be a daunting task. From the Piedmont community in the north down the entire length of Linton Hall Road neighborhoods and communities are springing up. Even as new developments are emerging, some of the older areas are now 15 years old or more. This makes for an area where many families are upgrading and moving within the same community. This is when sellers frequently begin looking for a local agent representative.
Listing a home includes many dynamics. Listing price, marketing the home, and even staging and curb appeal are all important considerations. By implementing the live chat system on the website, people selling their home in Gainesville, VA will be able to interact with a real estate professional right at the moment they begin looking for information. "By providing this type of real time information, we can make the home selling process much easier," said Ashley Leigh, founder of Linton Hall Realtors. "The live chat feature allows us to get critical information to home sellers quickly and easily," he added. Indeed, with programs like the Guaranteed Sale Program, the Move Up to Savings program and even specialized help with short sales, there is a huge quantity of information.
Although there is so much to learn and investigate when selling your home, most sellers conduct extensive research when they are planning to buy new home. Searching for new homes in Gainesville VA is often the more exciting part of the process. That's another reason why Linton Hall Realtors implemented the live chat website feature. "The first thing a buyer/seller does is start searching for their new house. By providing them information when they first begin their search, we can make the entire process work better and smoother," Leigh said. Questions about are schools, planned expansion; home builders and community amenities are all popular questions.
When a user comes to LintonHallRealtors.com, they typically start browsing for a new home and then examining all the program information available to sellers. This process usually continues for weeks or months. When an agent is right there, available for quick questions or even more detailed phone consultations, the home buyer/seller gets exactly the information he or she needs, right at the moment in time it is needed. This leads to an overall improved client experience. "By providing excellent information with real-time technology, we can begin our work with them much earlier in the sales cycle and create a better overall client experience," said Leigh.

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Malians express dismay at intervention timeframe

Malians living under the grip of al-Qaida-linked militants expressed dismay Friday that it could be nearly a year before a regional military intervention to oust the Islamists from power.
The U.N.'s most powerful body on Thursday authorized an African-led force but made no mention of size and set no timeline for military action.
U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said recently he does not expect a military operation to begin until September or October of next year.
"We want rapid military action to liberate our cities," said Alphadi Cisse, who lives in Timbuktu. "There is no school, there is no work and no money. We are fed up with this situation."
The mayor of Timbuktu, which is controlled by the Islamist group Ansar Dine, has described conditions there as "a living hell." The al-Qaida-linked militants have imposed their version of strict Islamic law known as Shariah.
They have stoned to death a couple accused of adultery, hacked off the hands of thieves and have recruited children as young as 12 into their ranks. Heavily armed men also have attacked bars that sell alcohol, and banned men and women from socializing in the streets.
The turmoil has decimated the economy of Timbuktu, once a thriving tourist town.
Thursday's resolution adopted unanimously by the U.N. Security Council welcomes troop contributions pledged by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS and calls on member states, including from the neighboring Sahel region, to contribute troops to the mission.
Council diplomats say the best-trained African troops in desert warfare are from Chad, Mauritania and Niger.
The resolution stressed that there must be a two-track plan — political and military — to reunify the country, which has been in turmoil since a coup in March. Islamist groups were able to take hold of northern Mali, an area the size of Texas, after the March coup created a power vacuum.
Coup members created new political turmoil earlier this month when they arrested the country's prime minister and forced him to resign — a move that raised new concerns about the ability of the Malian military help regain control of the north.
The U.N. resolution also emphasizes that further military planning is needed before a force could be sent and it asks Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to "confirm in advance the council's satisfaction with the planned military offensive operation."
France's U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters Thursday that it's premature to say when the military operation will take place because African and Malian troops must be trained and much depends on the political process and the country's extreme weather.
Northerners in Mali say the longer the world waits, the more entrenched the militants are becoming.
Hamadada Toure, a teacher from the city of Gao, urged the international community to follow through swiftly on its pledges to help free the north.
"If the resolution is not acted upon to chase the Islamists out of towns, all the comings and goings of diplomats and the mobilization of the international community are a bluff," he said from southern Mali where he sought refuge earlier this year.

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Talks adjourn between Congo government and rebels

Uganda's defense minister says that talks between the Congolese government and the M23 rebels are being put on hold for two weeks.
Crispus Kiyonda said Friday that the talks will resume on Jan. 4.
Critics say the talks, which began earlier this month, have failed to make much progress as tensions deepen in eastern Congo.
Uganda's defense minister, though, said progress had been made toward finalizing procedural rules and the agenda for the talks.
He also said he would continue to consult with both sides by phone until negotiations resume next month.
The rebels accuse Congo's government of failing to honor the terms of a 2009 peace deal that incorporated them into the national army. Rwanda is believed to be backing the rebels, a charge its government denies.

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Sierra Leone diamond strike ends after 2 killed

 Officials say a deadly strike at a Sierra Leone diamond mine is now over.
Two people were killed in the violence at the mine in Koidu in eastern Sierra Leone, where workers went on strike over bonuses and work conditions.
Government officials condemned the violence, saying people also beat up miners who tried to work during the strike.
OCTEA diamond mining company spokesman Ibrahim Kamara said Friday that the company is increasing the year-end salary bonus for workers from 20 percent to 30 percent.
Sierra Leone's diamond wealth fueled a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002. Despite the West African country's mineral wealth, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world, where some 60 percent of people get by on $1.25 a day.

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Kenya Red Cross: 39 people killed in clashes

At least 39 people were killed when farmers raided a village of herders in southeastern Kenya early Friday in renewed fighting between two communities with a history of violent animosity, a police official said.
Thirteen children, six women, 11 men and nine attackers were killed said police official Anthony Kamitu.
Forty-five houses were set on fire during the attack, Kenya Red Cross spokeswoman Nelly Muluka said.
Kamitu who is leading police operations to prevent attacks in the region, said that the Pokomo tribe of farmers raided a village of the semi-nomadic Orma herding community at dawn in the Tana River Delta. He said the raiders were armed with spears and AK-47 rifles.
At least 110 people were killed in clashes between the Pokomo and Orma in August and September.
The tit-for-tat cycle of killings may be related to a redrawing of political boundaries and next year's general elections, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Kenya, Aeneas C. Chuma, said late August. However, on the surface the violence seems driven by competition for water, pasture and other resources, he said.
Dhadho Godana, a member of parliament from the region and Defense Minister Yusuf Hajji have been accusing each other of involvement in the fighting. The two have testified before a commission of inquiry led by a High Court judge investigating the clashes
Political tensions and tribal animosities have increased due to competition among potential candidates in the March election.
Violence after Kenya's last general election, in late 2007, killed more than 1,000 people. Officials are working to avoid a repeat during March's presidential election, but episodes of violence around the country are raising fears that pockets of the country will see violence during the voting period.
The Tana River area is about 430 miles (690 kilometers) from the capital, Nairobi.
The utilization of the Tana River water has been at the middle of a conflict pitting the Pokomo against the Orma, according to research by the Institute of Security Studies in 2004, following clashes in the Tana River area in 2000 to 2002.
The Pokomo claim the land along the river and the Orma claim the waters of the river, said the research by Taya Weiss, titled "Guns in the Borderlands Reducing the Demand for Small Arms." At least 108 people died in the 2000-2002 clashes, according to the parliamentary record.
The longstanding conflict between the two tribes had previously resulted in relatively low casualties but the increased availability of guns has caused the casualties to escalate and more property to be destroyed, said the report.
It said a catalyst to the conflict was the collapse of three irrigation schemes at Bura, Hola, and Tana Delta, which influenced residents' lifestyles in terms of employment and sources of income.
"The collapse of these schemes forced the nomadic pastoralists to move during the wet season, while the farmers remained along the river. During the dry season the pastoralists move back to the river in search of water and pasture," it said.
The Tana River area has the characteristics of any other conflict-prone area in Kenya: underdevelopment, poor infrastructure, poor communication and social amenities, and social marginalization, according to the report.
"Communities are arming themselves because of the need to defend against perceived attacks," said the report. "They feel that the government security machinery has not been able to effectively respond to violence. Isolation has led to increased demand for guns.

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Liberian children pay tribute to Conn. victims

Twenty Liberian schoolchildren from a school sponsored by the Newtown Rotary Club in this West African nation on Friday gathered at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia to give their condolences over the Connecticut school tragedy.
Each child from the Caroline Miller School in Monrovia deposited a flower on a poster bearing the name of a victim of the deadly shooting.
"Life is so sweet, and our friends wanted to live and enjoy it; but death could not permit them," said 10-year-old Frances Komoyan. "Their deaths were too sudden and unexpected; it could have been you or me; this is why we have come to say sorry."
The pupils arrived one after another calling the name of a child killed in the shooting and depositing a flower on a poster bearing the name of the deceased. They also presented to U.S. Embassy officials individual sympathy cards.
One card presented by a 9-year-old in memory of 6-year-old Benjamin Wheeler read: "Why this time, Lord? We are so sorry for the loss of lives."
Math and Science teacher Philemena Tolbert of the Caroline Miller school urged their families "to take heart; we share your pains."
"We have been very touched by the outpouring of support and sympathy that we have received from Liberians across the board," U.S. Ambassador Deborah Malac said.
In addition to sponsoring the Caroline Miller School, the Newtown Rotary Club helped to repatriate Liberian children from Ghana at the end of the 1989-2003 Liberian civil war, according to Robert Dolo, founder of an organization that has a partnership with the Rotary club.

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Nintendo’s amazing triumph in Japan may doom the company internationally

According to Japanese gaming bible Famitsu, Nintendo (NTDOY) 3DS sold 333,000 units in the week ending December 16, while Sony’s (SNE) PS Vita limped along at 13,000 units, the new Wii U did an okay 130,000 units and the PlayStation 3 managed to sell 46,000 units.  The utter hardware domination of the 3DS is reshaping the Japanese software market. Franchises that were thought to be fading have been revitalized in their portable versions. The 3DS version of the ancient Animal Crossing series, famed for being the game where nothing happens, hit a staggering 1.7 million units last week in Japan. Inazuma Eleven sold 170,000 units in its launch week, up from 140,000 units its DS version managed in 2011.
[More from BGR: RIM, HTC and Nokia could all be headed the way of Palm]
Nintendo’s portable console 3DS had a muted start in its home market in the spring of 2011. Many thought that Sony would have a fair shot at competing with Nintendo once Playstation Vita launched at the end of 2011. But once Nintendo executed an aggressive price cut for 3DS in the summer of 2011 and then launched a large-screen version of the console in mid-2012, the gadget has grown into a Godzilla in Japan, demolishing both Sony Vita and aging tabletop console competition.
[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]
3DS is doing well also in America, where its lifetime sales are moving close to the 6 million unit mark this holiday season. According to NPD, the 3DS sales in the United States topped 500,000 units in November. That’s a decent number, though far from the torrid volume the portable is racking up in its home market. The U.S. November video game software chart was dominated by massive home console juggernauts: new installments of Call of Duty, Halo and Assassin’s Creed franchises shifted more than 13 million units in retail. At the same time, the Japanese software chart remains in a ’90s time warp, dominated by Nintendo’s musty masterpieces: Super Mario Brothers, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, etc.
Japanese and American tastes have always been different. But what we are witnessing now is a particularly fascinating divergence. American consumers are spending more of their time and money on smartphone and tablet games, while console game spending is increasingly focusing on massive, graphically stunning blockbuster titles on Xbox360 and PS3. The casual gamers are shifting to mobile games, while hardcore gamers remain attracted to sprawling epics on home consoles. The overall video game spending in America keeps declining month after month, as casual titles and mid-list games slide. But the Triple A whales like the Call of Duty series are doing better than ever.
In Japan, Nintendo has been able to battle back iPhone and Android game invasion with a nostalgic series of portable games that basically recycle the biggest hits of ’80s and early ’90s. Mario, Pokemons and other portable heroes are slowly losing their grip on U.S. and European consumers. But in Japan, some form of national nostalgia is keeping Nintendo on track.
The problem here is that the Japanese success of the 3DS may now be convincing Nintendo that it does not have to reconsider its business strategy. The smartphone and tablet game spending continues growing explosively across the world. Unlike console games, mobile game sales in China are legal. The global gaming spending is shifting towards new hardware platforms even as console mammoths like Halo still reign in America. At this critical juncture, Nintendo has managed to cocoon its home market in a web of nostalgia, turning the 3DS console and its Eighties left-over franchises into epic bestsellers yet again.
This means that there is no sense of urgency to push Nintendo into rethinking its long-term plans. The company may continue simply ignoring the smartphone and tablet challenge, designing new portable consoles and the 28th Mario game to support it. Twenty years ago, Japan’s insularity doomed its chances to succeed in the mobile phone business. And now the idiosyncratic nature of Japan may be leading its biggest entertainment industry success astray.

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European Commission wades into global tech patents war

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU regulators are poised to accuse Samsung of breaking competition rules in filing patent lawsuits against rival Apple, in the EU's first formal challenge to the consumer electronic industry's patent wars.
"We will issue a statement of objections very soon," the European Union's competition chief Joaquin Almunia said on Thursday, referring to the Commission's charge sheet.
Technology companies are increasingly turning to the European Commission as the EU's competition authority, to resolve their disputes, with the EC also investigating Google and Microsoft.
Apple and Samsung, the world's top two smartphone makers, are locked in patent disputes in at least 10 countries as they vie to dominate the lucrative mobile market and win over customers with their latest gadgets.
The filing of competition objections is the latest step in the Commission's investigation. After notifying Samsung in writing the company will have a chance to reply and request a hearing before regulators.
If the Commission then concludes that the firm did violate the rules, it could impose a fine of up to 10 percent of the electronic firm's total annual turnover.
Other current cases under investigation by the EC involve Google-owned phone maker Motorola Mobility, Microsoft and Apple. Microsoft has also complained about Google while Google has complained about MOSAID, a so-called patent enforcement company which makes money by licensing the use of acquired patents.
PATENT WAR
Patent lawsuits can result in a competitor being barred from selling its products in a jurisdiction while the case in investigated and can yield huge fines.
In August Apple won a major victory in the smartphone patent war when a jury in a California federal court ordered Samsung to pay $1.05 billion in damages.
The court found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPad and iPhone. The Samsung products run on the Android operating system, developed by Google.
On Tuesday, Samsung said it was dropping an attempt to stop the sale of some Apple products in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, though it did not say it would halt its court battle for compensation.
But Samsung has also had successes. U.S. patent authorities rejected Apple's "pinch-to-zoom" touch screen patent case in an initial ruling on Thursday, and Samsung also won a preliminary invalidation of Apple's "rubber-banding" patent in October.
That patent allows a user with a touch screen to bounce back to the image on the screen if the user goes beyond the edge.

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Acer will beat Google to market with its own $99 tablet

The Nexus 7 is still an amazing value at $249. But word around the block is that Google (GOOG) and ASUS (2357) are working on a $99 Nexus tablet. But now, per PhoneArena, it’s apparent that Acer (2353) is preparing to beat Google to the punch with a 7-inch Android 4.1 2Jelly Bean-powered tablet that will reportedly sell for $99. Naturally, a lower-priced tablet will come at the expense of less powerful specs. Acer’s Iconia B1 looks to have a Mediatek dual-core 1.2GHz processor, PowerVR SGX 531 GPU, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of storage, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, microSD card and SIM card slot. For $99, its display also has a much lower resolution than the Nexus 7: 1024 x 600 pixels. The Iconia B1 has already cleared the Federal Communications Comission and will likely make an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

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Arris rises on plans to buy Google's set-top unit

 Arris Group's stock rose to its highest level in more than five years on Thursday following news that it is buying Google's TV set-top business for $2.35 billion, which could be a transformative deal for the relatively small company.
But not everyone was upbeat about Arris' ability to benefit. One analyst cut his rating on the company, saying it may have paid too much.
THE SPARK: On Wednesday Google Inc. said it was selling the division, which it had swallowed up in its acquisition of Motorola Mobility earlier this year, to Arris in a cash-and-stock deal.
THE BIG PICTURE: The transaction gives Arris Group Inc., a provider of high-speed Internet equipment, an opportunity to become a bigger player in the delivery of video.
In the past year ending in September, Motorola's set-top operations generated $3.4 billion in revenue. That makes it twice as big as Arris, whose revenue totaled $1.3 billion during the same period.
If the deal wins regulatory approval, Arris expects to take over the division before the end of June.
THE ANALYSIS: Arris may have overpaid for the Motorola business, said Jefferies' James Kisner in a client note Thursday. He had anticipated a sale price between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, given his worries that the division's revenue will decline.
While he acknowledged that the deal could hold some benefits for Arris, such as providing a new, strong influx of cash from the business, Kisner said that buying the set-top business "dramatically tempers" Arris' growth rate.
Kisner cut Arris to "Hold" from "Buy" and reduced its price target to $14 from $17.
SHARE ACTION: Shares of Arris Group Inc. rose 47 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $15.01 in afternoon trading. The stock hit $15.90 earlier in the session, its highest point since July 2007.

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Competition hots up for 4G mobile phone airwaves

 Seven companies were named on Thursday as bidders for the superfast 4G mobile broadband radio frequencies to be auctioned off in Britain next month by industry regulatorOfcom.

Existing mobile network operators EE, Vodafone, O2 owner Telefonica and Hutchison, which is behind Three, will be vying with O2's former owner BT, managed networks firm MLL Telecom and Hong Kong's PCCW Limited, the regulator said.

EE, the UK's biggest mobile network operator, is a joint venture between France Telecom andDeutsche Telekom and has already launched 4G services in some major British cities by reallocating its existing airwaves.

Ofcom calculated that giving EE a head start this year would put an end to the networks seeking to delay the auction further in a squabble over who should be offered what spectrum and therefore give Britain a chance of catching up with the United States and other European countries in the deployment of superfast mobile networks.

"I think you'll find the UK's position in relative terms transformed very fast," said Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards.

The auction has been designed, he said, to deliver maximum benefit to consumers by getting mobile broadband networks built, which are capable of operating at five to seven times the speeds of 3G, while ensuring that operators pay the right amount of cash rather than the most possible to the government.

The sell-off of 3G airwaves in 2000 raised 22.5 billion pounds for state coffers, but left the operators saddled with debt, prompting complaints that they could not afford to invest in all the infrastructure needed to roll out new services.

"The backdrop to this is utterly different," Richards said. "When the 3G auction was done you were still at the height of the dotcom boom. We are in the so-called age of austerity now."

Earlier this month the government budgeted for a 3.5 billion-pound windfall from the auction next year, but Richards said that prediction had not come from Ofcom.

"The real economic benefit here is in the benefit to consumers and the economy from the deployment of these highly valuable services," he said. "If we were to calculate the estimated economic benefit of that it would massively dwarf the revenues from the auction."

Analysts at Espirito Santo said they were not surprised by the bidders, and they did not expect an overheated auction as was seen in the Netherlands, where 3.8 billion euros were raised in a 4G spectrum sale last week.

They noted that fixed line operator BT had previously said it only wanted to pick up niche amounts of spectrum to support its existing strategy and the other two potential new entrants were also likely to bid on a speculative or opportunistic basis.

"The way the auction is designed ... ought to allow the incumbent mobile network operators and niche players to pick up what they need without going head to head," they said.

"We remain comfortable with the 1 billion pounds ... we have pencilled in for each licence into our Vodafone, France Telecom/Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica models."

MLL Telecom said it was bidding to complement its existing spectrum allocation, and to increase the infrastructure it has available for its mobile operator customers. "We are not looking to supply a consumer or enterprise service," chief commercial officer Karl Edwards said.

SPECTRUM COMBINATIONS

Ofcom said a mix of 28 blocks of bandwidth were up for grabs this time, whereas only five licences were available for 3G.

Operators need to use a combination of different blocks to provide superfast coverage across the country, typically using 800 megahertz radio frequencies to serve rural areas and high-capacity 2.6 gigahertz frequencies for urban areas. The lower-frequency 800 MHz band was freed up when analogue terrestrial TV was switched off.

One portfolio of spectrum has been reserved for a fourth national operator, whether Three, which is the smallest operator today, or another, Richards said.

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