Jenna Miscavige Hill Pens Revealing Scientology Book















02/01/2013 at 08:00 PM EST







Jenna Miscavige and her uncle David inset


Michael Murphree; Inset: Polaris


What was it like to grow up inside Sea Org, the Church of Scientology's most elite body?

In her memoir Beyond Belief, excerpted exclusively below, Jenna Miscavige Hill describes her experiences at the Ranch, a San Jacinto, Calif., boarding school for children of Scientology execs. The niece of church head David Miscavige, she was raised away from her parents, then worked within Sea Org until leaving Scientology in 2005.

Now living near San Diego, married to Dallas Hill and mom to their children Archie, 3, and Winnie, 10 months, she's telling her story, she says, to increase awareness about Scientology: "I realize every day how lucky I am to have gotten out." (When asked to comment on the book's portrayal of its members, the church stated they had not read the book but that "any allegations of neglect are blatantly false.")

Jenna's parents, Ron and Blythe Miscavige, high-ranking members of Sea Org, sent both Jenna and her older brother Justin to the Ranch. There, at age 7, in accordance with Scientologists' belief that they are "Thetans," or immortal spirits, Jenna signed a billion-year contract.

I tried to write my name in my best cursive, the way I'd been learning. I had goose bumps. Just like that, I committed my soul to a billion years of servitude to the Church of Scientology.

Sea Org was run like the Navy: Members wore uniforms and managed all aspects of the church. Married members couldn't have kids; those who already did sent them to be raised communally.

A Sea Org member was required to be on duty for at least 14 hours a day, seven days a week, with a break for an hour of 'family time.' I was too young to understand that seeing your parents only one hour a day was highly unusual.

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Healthier schools: Goodbye candy and greasy snacks


WASHINGTON (AP) — Goodbye candy bars and sugary cookies. Hello baked chips and diet sodas.


The government for the first time is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful, a change that would ban the sale of almost all candy, high-calorie sports drinks and greasy foods on campus.


Under new rules the Department of Agriculture proposed Friday, school vending machines would start selling water, lower-calorie sports drinks, diet sodas and baked chips instead. Lunchrooms that now sell fatty "a la carte" items like mozzarella sticks and nachos would have to switch to healthier pizzas, low-fat hamburgers, fruit cups and yogurt.


The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have made improvements in their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.


Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunch rooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. And food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has not been federally regulated.


"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.


Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools, and 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.


The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.


The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.


Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.


"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.


Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.


The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.


Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.


Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says surveys done by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.


"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.


The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.


A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.


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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick


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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.


That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.


Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.


Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.


Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.


"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."


The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.


Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.


Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .


But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.


Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.


During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.


MOM AND POP STILL WARY


Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.


This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.


"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.


Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.


He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.


Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.


On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.


Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.


Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.


Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.


(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Explosion at Mexican oil giant Pemex offices kills 14


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A powerful explosion rocked the Mexico City headquarters of state-owned oil giant Pemex on Thursday, killing at least 14 people, injuring 100 and trapping others inside.


The blast battered the lower floors of the downtown tower, throwing debris into the streets and sending frightened workers running outside.


It was not yet clear what caused the explosion, the latest in a series of safety problems to hit Mexico's national oil monopoly. Media reports said the incident occurred when machinery apparently exploded. An ambulance service official at the scene, who asked not to be named, said it was caused by a gas leak.


Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said the blast killed at least 14 people and injured 100. As evening fell, dozens of employees were believed to be still trapped inside, and rescue workers at the scene said the death toll at the Pemex skyscraper could keep rising.


Mauricio Parra, a paramedic at the scene, said he believed at least 20 had died and that 100 could be trapped inside.


Police quickly cordoned off the building, and television images showed the explosion caused serious damage to the ground floor and blew out windows on the lower floors of the tower.


"The place shook, we lost power and suddenly there was debris everywhere. Colleagues were helping us out of the building," witness Cristian Obele told Mexican television.


Some people at the scene said the blast came from a neighboring building, also part of the Pemex facilities.


Pemex said initially its headquarters had been evacuated because of a problem with its electricity supply. It then said there had been an explosion, but did not say what caused it.


Helicopters buzzed around the building and lines of fire trucks sped to the entrance, while emergency workers ferried injured people through wreckage strewn on the street.


"Now we are in rescue mode and looking for people and for bodies," Osorio Chong said.


Search-and-rescue dogs were sent into the skyscraper, a Mexico City landmark more than 50 floors high and sporting a distinctive "hat" on top.


DEADLY ACCIDENTS


President Enrique Pena Nieto said via Twitter he "deeply regretted" the deaths and he headed to the scene of the blast.


Gloria Garcia, 53, a Pemex worker not in the building during the explosion, came to see if she could track down her son, who works in one of the floors hit.


"I'm calling his phone and he's not answering," Garcia said, weeping as she called repeatedly on her phone. "Nobody knows anything. They won't let me through. I want to see my son whatever state he's in."


Plaster fell from the ceiling of the basement, and the situation at the Pemex tower was dangerous, a spokesman for local emergency services said.


Pemex has experienced a number of deadly accidents in recent years and lesser safety problems have been a regular occurrence. In September, 30 people died after an explosion at a Pemex natural gas facility in northern Mexico.


More than 300 were killed when a Pemex natural gas plant on the outskirts of Mexico City exploded in 1984.


Eight years later, about 200 people were killed and 1,500 injured after a series of underground gas explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city. An official investigation found Pemex was partly to blame.


Alberto Islas, a security analyst at consultancy Risk Evaluation, said the explosion at the Pemex offices was another blot against the company's safety record.


"We've seen this time and again at Pemex. They don't have a well-integrated policy," Islas said, noting it would probably take several hours before investigators would be able to determine the cause of the explosion.


Pemex, a symbol of Mexican self-sufficiency since the oil industry was nationalized in 1938, has been held back by inefficiency and corruption and by the burden it shoulders of providing about a third of federal tax revenues.


Pena Nieto has pledged to open up the company to more private investment to improve its performance.


(Additional reporting by Krista Hughes, Cyntia Barrera, Gabriel Stargardter and Liz Diaz; Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Kieran Murray and Peter Cooney)



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Online bingo shows its worth at Rank






LONDON (Reuters) – It may lack the noisy camaraderie of a trip to the bingo hall, but the online version of the numbers game has proved more profitable for Britain‘s Rank Group than the original.


The merits of the online business were further emphasized when Rank said a snowy January had cost it 3 million pounds ($ 4.7 million) in revenue as Britons opted not to venture out to its bingo halls and casinos.






Operating profit from online bingo was 11.4 million pounds, just beating the 11.1 million earned from the venues themselves.


The company, majority owned by Malaysia’s Guoco, reported a 4 percent decline in pretax profit to 31.3 million pounds in the six months to December, with its loss-making Blue Square betting business proving a drag.


Many parts of Britain have seen heavy snow over the last two weeks and there are fears that the bad weather will hit economic activity and push the country back into recession.


Pub groups Enterprise Inns and Mitchell & Butlers both said the recent cold snap had hit sales.


“Allowing for the slow start to the second half we remain confident in our prospects for the remainder of the year and in our longer-term growth strategy,” Rank Chief Executive Ian Burke said.


Rank’s main activities are in Britain where it runs 35 Grosvenor Casinos and more than 100 Mecca bingo clubs.


Profits growth in its online bingo business mirrors that in the gambling industry as a whole where online betting is the fastest growing part of the market, helped by the popularity of smart phones and tablets.


However, Rank has said it is reviewing the future of its own struggling online betting business Blue Square, a relative minnow in a crowded sector.


“We felt the losses were not losses we could continue to sustain,” said Burke.


Blue Square reported an operating loss of 4.8 million pounds in the six months and Rank has now cut its spending on marketing the business.


“There were 11 or 12 competitors advertising and that spending just wasn’t cutting through,” said Burke.


He declined to comment further on the future of the business pending completion of the review.


Rank is awaiting regulatory clearance for a planned 205 million pound deal to buy the casino business of Gala Coral.


A preliminary report by the Competition Commission said Rank could have to sell six casinos to get the deal approved.


($ 1 = 0.6332 British pounds)


(Editing by Louise Ireland and Brenda Goh)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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30 Rock Finale Makes PEOPLE TV Critic 'Deliriously Happy'






TV News










01/31/2013 at 09:05 PM EST



Spoilers ahead!

The 30 Rock finale was one of the most delightful series wrap-ups I can remember. Not only were Liz Lemon and her fellow NBC colleagues not dead – there's really no getting over the end of Lost – but they were full of the sparkling, absurd liveliness that characterized the show at its best throughout seven seasons.

A light sentimentality in this last hour gave everything just enough of an emotional underpinning – which the show has sometimes needed.

With its endless supply of shiny, shapely little jokes, the show could feel like a wonderful salad served up without a bowl. You got tired of being showered with lovely microgreens. This time we got the bowl. It was a lovely burnished wood.

Liz (Tina Fey – but you knew that) had to create one last episode of TGS, her now-canceled show – otherwise an obscure clause would kick in and Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) would receive a payout costing NBC millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Liz's boss, capitalist king Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) finally landed the top corporate job, only to learn that this ultimate success wasn't the same thing as fulfillment.

Lemon, he realized, understood more about life than he did: "I used to be a shark," he told her, "and then you unshark-ulated me."

Deprived of his Ayn Rand glory, he sank into moroseness.

Baldwin, an excellent actor, does comic despair just as well as he does comic gloating.

This is perhaps the moment to note how strongly the show was rooted in the friendly but antagonistic relationship of Jack and Liz: Mentor and mentee, father and overgrown daughter, maybe platonic boyfriend and girlfriend. Their significance as a couple was richly elastic.

And the way they negotiated their political differences should be a model for our troubled partisan era, although I wouldn't be surprised if decades from now the show becomes some sort of divisive manifesto. Liberals will march around with protest posters of Liz, while conservatives consult apps containing every phrase Jack ever uttered.

The finale also included a ridiculous plot thread in which the lumbering, deeply perverse Lutz (John Lutz) went to diabolical lengths to be the one in charge of ordering a last takeout lunch for the writing staff. His heart and principally his stomach were set on Blimpie.

Of the seemingly hundreds of jokes in the course of the night, I liked these best:

• Kenneth the page (Jack McBrayer), now head of the network, offering Liz refreshment in his new office: "Can I get you anything? Chickpeas? Moonshine? Turtle meat?"

• After an adventurous session of lovemaking, Jack's old flame Nancy (Julianne Moore) lost her broad Boston accent and instead spoke like a posh Brit.

• Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) turning up for a guest part (a corpse) on Law & Order: "I am just so glad to finally return to my two loves, dramatic acting and sex crimes."

The show also reprised my favorite joke from the entire series: Jenna, fans will recall, starred in an obscure indie movie, a legal thriller with the endlessly mangled title The Rural Juror. (In one especially good episode, Rachel Dratch played Barbara Walters taking a stab at pronouncing it.)

Anyway, during the finale Jenna sang the title song from a musical adaptation of Juror.

The lyrics were virtually incomprehensible, except for "I will never forget you" and "turgid error." It made me deliriously happy.

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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella


NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.


In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.


The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.


Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.


Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.


In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.


Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.


Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.


The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.


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Online:


CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr


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S&P 500 posts biggest monthly gain since October 2011

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Thursday on caution ahead of Friday's all-important jobs report, but the S&P 500 still posted its best monthly gain since October 2011.


The benchmark S&P 500 advanced 5.1 percent in January as investors cheered a compromise that temporarily postponed the impact of the "fiscal cliff" and fourth-quarter earnings were better than expected.


The S&P 500 registered its largest monthly advance since a rise of more than 6 percent in October 2011 and the best January showing since a 6.1 percent jump in 1997. For the month, the Dow gained 5.8 percent and the Nasdaq rose 4.1 percent.


Investors expect a pullback in equities after the recent gains, though they have bought on dips over the past four weeks. The largest daily decline on the S&P 500 so far in 2013 was Wednesday's 0.39 percent drop after data showed the economy contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.


On Friday, the government is due to release January's employment figures at 8:30 a.m. (1330 GMT). Economists polled by Reuters expect non-farm payrolls to show employers added 160,000 jobs compared with a rise of 155,000 in December. The unemployment rate is likely to hold steady at 7.8 percent.


A survey by payroll processing company ADP on Wednesday showed private sector employment rose higher than expected last month, but the government's measure of jobless benefits claims increased last week.


"It's the calm before the potential storm. The uncertainty about tomorrow's numbers comes from that fact that we had a decent ADP report but the weekly claims were not so great," said Randy Frederick, managing director of active trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin, Texas.


In a separate report, the Commerce Department said American incomes rose 2.6 percent last month, the biggest increase since December 2004.


"We could see an overly sensitive market to a bad number tomorrow, given that we've been up without a major correction, and that makes the market sensitive to the downside."


Friday will also bring reports on consumer confidence, U.S. manufacturing, construction spending and car sales.


Limiting losses on the Nasdaq composite index, Qualcomm gained 3.9 percent to $66.02 after the world's leading supplier of chips for cellphones beat analysts' expectations for quarterly profit and revenue and raised its targets for the year.


Facebook shares fell 0.8 percent to $30.98 after falling as low as $28.74 a day after the social network company said it doubled its mobile advertising revenue in the fourth quarter. However, growth trailed some of Wall Street's most aggressive estimates.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 49.84 points, or 0.36 percent, at 13,860.58. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 3.85 points, or 0.26 percent, at 1,498.11. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 0.18 points, or 0.01 percent, at 3,142.13.


UPS shares lost 2.4 percent to $79.29 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that were below analysts' estimates on Thursday and forecasting weaker-than-expected profit for 2013.


Constellation Brands shares tumbled 17.4 percent to $32.36 after the U.S. Justice Department moved to stop Anheuser-Busch InBev from buying the half of Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo that it does not already own. Constellation would have distributed Corona beer in the United States if the transaction had been approved.


Thomson Reuters data through Thursday morning shows that of the 231 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 69.3 percent have exceeded expectations, a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.


Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose 3.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. That's above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season but well below a 9.9 percent profit growth forecast on October 1.


(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)



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French troops deployed in last Mali rebel strongholds


DOUENTZA, Mali/PARIS (Reuters) - French troops seized the airport in Mali's northern town of Kidal, the last urban stronghold held by Islamist insurgents, as they moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands.


France has deployed some 4,500 troops in a three-week ground and air offensive to break the Islamist rebels' 10-month grip on major northern towns. The mission is aimed at heading off the risk of Mali being used as a springboard for jihadist attacks in the wider region or Europe.


The French military plans to gradually hand over to a larger African force, tasked with rooting out insurgents in their mountain redoubts near Algeria's border.


Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French forces using planes and helicopters defied a sandstorm late on Tuesday to capture the airport but had been prevented by the bad weather from entering the town itself.


"The terrorist forces are pulling back to the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains which are difficult to access," Le Drian told a news conference. "There is support from Chadian and Nigerian troops coming from the south."


The deployment of French troops to remote Kidal puts them in direct contact with pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels, whose rebellion last year was hijacked by the Islamist radicals. Le Drian said France had established good relations with local Tuareg chieftains before sending in troops.


MNLA leaders say they are ready to fight al Qaeda but many Malians, including the powerful military top brass in the capital Bamako, blame them for the division of the country. They view Paris' liaisons with the Tuaregs with suspicion.


French and Malian troops retook the major Saharan trading towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend.


There were fears that many thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts held in Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, might have been lost during the rebel occupation, but experts said the bulk of the texts were safe.


The United States and European governments strongly support the Mali intervention and are providing logistical and surveillance backing but do not intend to send combat troops.


The MNLA rebels, who want greater autonomy for the desert north, said they had moved fighters into Kidal after Islamists left the town earlier this week.


"For the moment, there is a coordination with the French troops," said Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA spokesman in Paris.


A spokesman for the Malian army said its soldiers were securing Gao and Timbuktu and were not heading to Kidal.


The MNLA took up arms against the Bamako government a year ago, seeking to carve out a new independent desert state.


After initially fighting alongside the Islamists, by June they had been forced out by their better armed and financed former allies, who include al Qaeda North Africa's wing, AQIM, a splinter wing called MUJWA and Ansar Dine, a Malian group.


RISK OF ATTACKS, KIDNAPPINGS


As the French wind up the first phase of their offensive, doubts remain about just how quickly the U.N.-backed African intervention force can be fully deployed in Mali to hunt down the retreating al Qaeda-allied insurgents. Known as AFISMA, the force is now expected to exceed 8,000 troops.


Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France's military operation, codenamed Serval (Wildcat), was planned as a lightning mission lasting a few weeks.


"Liberating Gao and Timbuktu very quickly was part of the plan. Now it's up to the African countries to take over," he told the Le Parisien daily. "We decided to put in the means and the necessary number of soldiers to strike hard. But the French contingent will not stay like this. We will leave very quickly."


One French soldier has been killed in the mission, and Fabius warned that things could now get more difficult, as the offensive seeks to flush out insurgents with experience of fighting in the desert from their wilderness hideouts.


"We have to be careful. We are entering a complicated phase where the risks of attacks or kidnappings are extremely high. French interests are threatened throughout the entire Sahel."


An attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria earlier this month by Islamist fighters opposing the French intervention in Mali led to the deaths of dozens of foreign hostages and raised fears of similar reprisal strikes across North and West Africa.


NEED FOR RECONCILIATION


The French operation has destroyed the Islamists' training camps and logistics bases but analysts say a long term solution for Mali hinges on finding a political settlement between the northern communities and the southern capital Bamako.


Interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday his government would aim to hold national elections on July 31. Paris is pushing strongly for Traore's government to hold talks with the MNLA, which has dropped its claims for independence.


"The Malian authorities must begin without delay talks with the legitimate representatives of the northern population and non-terrorist armed groups that recognize Mali's integrity," French Foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.


After months of being kept on the political sidelines, the MNLA said they were in contact with West African mediators who are trying to forge a national settlement to reunite Mali.


"We reiterate that we are ready to talk with Bamako and to find a political solution. We want self-determination, but all that will be up to negotiations which will determine at what level both parties can go," Ag Assarid said.


There have been cases in Gao and Timbuktu and other recaptured towns of reprisal attacks and looting of shops and residences belonging to Malian Tuaregs and Arabs suspected of sympathizing with the MNLA and the Islamist rebels.


(Additional reporting John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, David Lewis and Pascal Fletcher in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Rosalind Russell)



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Rape trial of teenaged football players to be open to public: Ohio judge






(Reuters) – The controversial trial of two high school football players accused of raping a classmate will remain open to the public and will not be relocated to another town, an Ohio judge ruled on Wednesday.


Prosecutors and an attorney representing the accuser had sought a closed trial, arguing that public access to the juvenile trial would subject the accuser to unwanted publicity and make potential witnesses reluctant to testify.






Visiting Hamilton County Judge Tom Lipps said the presence of the media would prevent inaccurate reporting and enhance public confidence in the juvenile justice system, according to his written ruling, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.


“An open hearing is especially valuable where rumors, mischaracterizations and opinions unsupported by facts have reportedly been repeated in social media postings and other published outlets,” Lipps wrote. “An open hearing will diminish the influence of such postings and publications.”


Prosecutors have accused Ma’Lik Richmond and Trent Mays, both 16, of raping a classmate at a party attended by many teammates last August in Steubenville, a close-knit city of 19,000 near the Pennsylvania border.


The case attracted national attention after the hacker activist group Anonymous publicized a picture of two young men carrying a girl by her wrists and ankles and released a video showing other young men joking about the alleged assault.


Richmond’s lawyer, Walter Madison, said previously on CNN that his client was one of the young men in the photograph – which he said was taken out of context – but does not appear in the video. A lawyer for Mays has not publicly commented on the postings.


Community leaders have accused authorities of protecting the school’s popular football program by not charging more players who could have prevented the alleged attack.


Lipps also ruled on Wednesday that the trial will remain in Steubenville. He set a trial date for March 13.


Reuters generally does not identify people who say they have been victims of sex crimes.


(Editing by Paul Thomasch, Bernard Orr)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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