China says plane hijack attempt thwarted

Six members of China's Uighur minority tried to hijack a plane flying from a restive city in the far-western Xinjiang region on Friday but crew members and passengers thwarted them, authorities said.

The plane returned safely to the airport in Hotan city -- which has seen a spate of violent clashes between mainly Muslim Uighurs and police due to simmering ethnic tensions -- and the suspects were detained, authorities said.

"The six hijackers are Uighurs," Hou Hanmin, a spokeswoman for the government of Xinjiang told AFP.

"For the moment, we don't know the purpose of the hijack. It's still under investigation," she said, adding at least seven crew members and passengers had been injured in the incident.

Two security personnel were also seriously injured, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The aircraft took off at 12:25 pm (0425 GMT) from Hotan, then 10 minutes into the flight the six suspects tried to "violently hijack" the plane, according to tianshannet.com, the Xinjiang government's news website.

But crew members and passengers soon brought them under control and the aircraft returned to the city, the website said.

The plane -- which belongs to Tianjin Airlines, according to Xinhua -- had been bound for the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi, it added without providing further details.

Xinjiang is home to around nine million Uighurs, many of whom complain of religious and cultural repression by Chinese authorities -- a claim the government denies -- and the region is regularly hit by unrest.

The exiled World Uyghur Congress (WUC) disputed the government version of events, claiming that a fight over seating broke out onboard the aircraft between a group of Uighurs and Han Chinese, who vastly outnumbered them.

"The Uighurs of Hotan believe that this story about taking hostages is a lie," Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the organisation told AFP.

"We call on the international community to demand an inquiry. The Uighurs of Hotan believe the government is taking advantage of this incident to reinforce repression," he added.

Exiled Uighurs have accused authorities of launching a crackdown ahead of the anniversary of deadly July 2009 clashes between Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi, among the most violent ethnic unrest in China in recent years.

Earlier this month, 12 children were injured when police raided an Islamic school in Hotan, amid the crackdown that has also targeted "illegal" religious activities.

Police said they descended on an "illegal religious study centre" on June 6 to free children being held there when criminal suspects "ignited a flammable explosive device".

They said officers had to fight to put out the fire, and 12 children suffering from burns were sent to hospital. Authorities have since launched house-to-house searches in the city.

The WUC, however,cited sources on the ground as saying police tossed tear gas into the school and caused the confrontation.

In July last year, at least 20 people -- including Uighur protesters -- were killed in Hotan in a clash with police.

State media quoted an official in the region as saying the clash was a "terrorist" attack and said four people including a police officer were killed when a crowd set upon a police station in the remote city.

But Uighur activists called it an outburst of anger by ordinary members of the minority, and accused authorities of attempting to block information on the deadly incident.

Xinjiang, a vast resource-rich region that borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has been under heavy security since the July 2009 ethnic riots.

Rights groups say the violence in the region stems from long-held grievances among Uighurs, who complain of decades of repressive rule by Beijing and say an influx of Han is eroding their culture.

The government, however, says it has provided much-needed development to the region, and blames much of the violence there on what it calls the three "evil forces" of religious extremism, separatism and terrorism.

Source: http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_says_plane_hijack_attempt_thwarted_999.html

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RIM delays new BlackBerry launch; sales crumble

TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd delayed the make-or-break launch of its next-generation BlackBerry phones until next year, in a devastating setback to the once-dominant technology company whose sales are crumbling.

Shares of the company, which also announced a steeper-than-expected quarterly operating loss and deep job cuts on Thursday, plunged 14 percent after it said it would release its revamped BlackBerry 10 devices early in 2013. It conceded the development had "proven to be more time-consuming than anticipated."

The delay in releasing the devices - RIM's last best hope of stemming its eclipse at the hands of Apple Inc's iPhone and phones using Google Inc's Android software - confirmed the worst fears of analysts and investors.

The size of the loss, RIM's first in eight years, and the likelihood that sales keep sliding into 2013, severely reduce the options for the company if it is to survive.

RIM's announcement that it would slash 5,000 jobs, or 30 percent of its workforce, only reinforced the impression of a company that could be in terminal decline.

"It's like watching a puppy die. It's terrible," said analyst Matthew Thornton of Avian Securities in Boston.

"Wow, what a disaster," said Edward Snyder, managing director of Charter Equity Research in San Francisco.

RIM is now in "a handset death spiral," he said. "From a numbers point of view, it could hardly be worse, and it's going to deteriorate from here," he said.

RIM, which virtually invented mobile email, has fallen from a leadership position to an also-ran in smartphones over a few years filled with delayed and uninspiring products, service outages and other embarrassments.

Now the new BlackBerry line will miss both the back-to-school and Christmas shopping periods, while the competition brings out new phones with more bells and whistles.

Apple is widely expected to unveil an iPhone 5 later this year, while a slew of manufacturers using Android are constantly pushing out new gadgets. Microsoft Corp is also planning to update its Windows software for mobile devices.

"There's really no guarantee that once they come out on the other side of BlackBerry 10 that it's going to be something that people will want," said Eric Jackson, a hedge fund manager at Ironfire Capital in Toronto.

The sharp deterioration may push to RIM into one of the more radical options it is considering with its investment bankers. Licensing, partnerships, a split in the company or its outright sale are all on the table.

Even so, freshman Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins gave no indication on a Thursday conference call that he was losing faith in the current tack of cutting costs while waiting for the BlackBerry 10 launch, which is now due more than a year after it was initially promised.

The new devices are now set to land in a slow period when consumers are tapped out after their holiday spending.

"It's akin to launching fireworks underwater," said IDC analyst Kevin Restivo.

JOB CUTS

RIM expects the job cuts to cost $350 million in the current fiscal year. It has pledged to slash $1 billion from its operating costs in the year.

RIM now considers that $1 billion target as a minimum it will pursue, given the additional BlackBerry 10 delay. It said it had already cut layers of management, streamlined its supply chain and outsourced repair work.

Analyst Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee in San Francisco said RIM would now have to be very careful.

"Layoffs are not free - there's a use of cash with that," Wu said. "They have to be very careful with their cash balance. It's a matter of survival now."

RIM's cash position - which has become a focus of concern for analysts as the company dips into the red - increased to $2.2 billion by the end of the quarter, and it aims to maintain that level this quarter.

The company conceded that may slip as it pays severance to reduce the workforce, but it declined to estimate the cash position going into 2013.

Shares of RIM, which have dropped about 70 percent over the past year, were down 14 percent at $7.86 in after-hours Nasdaq trading. At that price, the market is valuing the company at $4.12 billion, a far cry from its once-lofty market capitalization of about $84 billion.

OPERATING LOSS

RIM had warned it would post an operating loss but did not provide specifics.

Excluding special items, the loss came in at $192 million, or 37 cents a share, for the first quarter ended on June 2. Revenue declined 43 percent to $2.81 billion.

Analysts on average expected a loss of 7 cents a share on revenue of $3.07 billion, according to an informal Reuters poll.

For the year-earlier quarter, RIM reported a profit of $695 million, or $1.33 a share, on sales of $4.91 billion.

RIM said it expected to post another operating loss in the current quarter, as it ships fewer smartphones.

The company said it had shipped 7.8 million BlackBerry smartphones in the last quarter, only about half of the more than 14 million of two quarters ago. Until now, it had shipped more than 10 million devices every quarter since late in 2009.

RIM sent out 260,000 of its poor-selling PlayBook tablet computers, which it has discounted sharply after initially pricing them at levels comparable with Apple's iPad.

Apple sold more than 11 million iPads last quarter. RIM said last month that it would no longer produce the cheapest model of the PlayBook, which uses the same QNX-based operating system that the company is struggling to integrate into its future phones

(Additional reporting by Euan Rocha, Susan Taylor, Cam French, Allison Martell, Jennifer Kwan in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty, Martin Howell and Lisa Von Ahn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rim-delays-blackberry-launch-sales-crumble-001816172--sector.html

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Marathon Swimmer Prepares For Florida To Cuba Swim; 'It's Further Than I've Ever Swum Before'

?I looked down, I could see this beautiful stretch of water, and wow!? she said. Palfrey got home and immediately began researching currents in the strait and its water temperatures, which are similar to a swim she made last year between Little Cayman and Grand Cayman islands.

?By then I?m already hooked,? Palfrey said.

Australian Susie Maroney made the Cuba-to-Florida crossing in 1997 at the age of 22, but she swam with a shark cage. American Diana Nyad made two cageless attempts last year on either side of her 62nd birthday, but they were cut short by asthma attacks and jellyfish stings. Nyad plans to try again this summer.

Palfrey will be swimming without a wetsuit or a cage and relying on battery-powered Shark Shields attached to the boat and an accompanying kayak to keep the sharp-toothed predators at bay. The equipment generates an electrical field in the water that Palfrey will not notice, but will annoy sensitive-snouted sharks enough so they stay away.

To guard against Portuguese man o? war stings, which sunk Nyad?s second and best attempt last summer, Palfrey will don a Lycra bodysuit that covers her down to her wrists and ankles whenever it seems jellyfish may be a problem.

?It?s porous and non-buoyant so it doesn?t aid me as a swimmer,? she said. ?In fact it?s harder to swim because it creates drag and there?s a lot more seams, so there?s some chafing issues.?

Palfrey had to call off two previous Hawaii swims due to Portuguese man o? war stings.

She was meeting with her crew and carbo-loading with a pasta dinner Thursday night in preparation of her morning departure from the Hemingway Marina in Havana. She expects to take 40-50 hours to swim to Florida, and said the currents will dictate where she lands.

A 44-foot (13-meter) catamaran dubbed the Sunluver will shadow her, carrying a support crew of navigators, kayakers, handlers, medical personnel and observers on hand to verify what would be a record swim. Every half-hour she?ll sip a carbohydrate drink for nourishment.

Palfrey traversed the English Channel twice and also has completed a continuous swim from Gibraltar to Morocco and back.

Last year?s 67-mile (108-kilometer) Caymans crossing is her personal best, but Palfrey said she?s in good shape and 20 years of marathon swimming has her well-prepared for the 103 miles of the Florida Straits.

?It?s further than I?ve ever swum before,? she said. ?I expect it to be very challenging, but I?m very excited about it.

Her attempt at the Florida Straits was delayed slightly by Tropical Storm Debby. Palfrey said Thursday that the weather and sea conditions look good for the next few days.

___

Follow Peter Orsi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.underwatertimes.com/link.php?url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/marathon-swimmer-palfrey-readies-for-swim-through-shark-filled-florida-straits-without-cage/2012/06/28/gJQAPdrs9V_story.html

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Hockey Coach Trips 13-Year-Old

Tourists flock to Croatia's Plitvice lake park Plitvice lake park, Croatia's first national park established in 1949, covers 296.85 km2 of natural splendor. It is the largest of the eight national parks in Croatia. Ranging in altitude from 367m to 1279m above sea level, the park was inscribed on the UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1979, in recognition of its "outstanding natural beauty and undisturbed production of travertine through chemical and biological action". The park harbours a grand collection of waterfalls, gallery of lakes, forest and diversity of animal life. The sixteen lakes are formed by natural dams of travertine. About eight km of pathways and wooden walking trails around lakes are accessible to visitors. More than 900,000 tourists visit the park each year. Duration: 00:33 Watch now

Source: http://video.id.msn.com/watch/video/hockey-coach-trips-13-year-old/1j5skcxsf?from=

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You Can Find Out About Home Businesses Online ? Yapperz.com ...

Not everybody is cut out to own their own home-based business, but that doesn't imply you shouldn't give it a shot. This is especially true now, when at an insignificant cost you can create any of a number of home-based businesses with a computer. All it takes is an inexpensive, high-speed Internet access, and the enthusiasm to spend a bit of time doing the research. Unlike a local brick-and-mortar business, which is expensive to set up, and is restricted to local customers, your computer business can be world wide. All that's necessary for somebody to be a potential customer is for them to manage to connect to the Internet.

If you seriously wish to try an internet business, there are lots of ways of going about it. You could get rolling on the Internet without being a computer geek, but knowing about using a computer helps. Rather than technical skills, what is a lot more important for success online is your level of knowledge regarding something you enjoy doing. As one example of this, those who are proficient at creative writing could give some thought to a web-based copywriting business. Writing could also be done freelance, doing jobs for individuals who either can't stand writing or aren't any good at it. What it comes down to is pinpointing a group of folks who have a need for something, like say, content, and providing them with it. Create a portfolio of your work, do a little bit of marketing, and, hey presto! you've got a business. Once you installed Comment Luv Premium on your WordPress website or blog, you will start observing the highest results in commenting visitors.

Online auction sites are another avenue from which a lot of people are making a nice income. You may have a lot of products already that can be sold online, or you can buy items at wholesale and sell at full price. Getting your product offers seen by potential customers is taken care of for you by places like eBay and other online auction web sites. All you should do, is determine a price for your product, list it available for purchase, and then wait until a shopper chooses your product. You will get payment if somebody makes a purchase, and then you fulfill your side of the deal by sending the customer their purchase.

Life is getting easier in several ways through the advances in technology. Given a personal computer anybody can now start a business. Not only does the internet have a lot of products to sell, but there is enough information on the web to show you how to sell them. If you could easily identify a business model that appeals to you and apply it to your own start-up business, that would be great.

You might only want to make some extra cash, rather than have a full time business, and the Internet is ideal for that. Connect your computer up to the Internet and you will be able to find huge amounts of information about setting up a business online. The sooner you get going on your research, the sooner you are going to start seeing money come in.

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pastapadre: @jdewiel Are these rosters on Teambuilder, and old unis for teams like Missou and Rutgers, accurate to NCAA 13? Or incorrect in Teambuilder?

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Video: Sweet summer treat: Icebox cakes

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