Ind. House Dem leader hints at possible walkout (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS ? The leader of Indiana's House Democrats hinted Wednesday that party lawmakers may walk out for the second year in a row to oppose the same Republican "right-to-work" bill blocked last year by their five-week boycott.

House Democratic Leader Patrick Bauer told The Associated Press that his caucus plans to meet Wednesday to debate how to handle the GOP proposal that would make Indiana the 23rd state to bar businesses and private unions from mandating that workers pay union fees for representation.

Bauer led the walkout last year. But new fines and lawmakers concerned about re-election in 2012 have made the group wary of another. A few hours before the session started, Bauer referenced the U.S. Senate's filibuster as the minority party's best tool for taking on the majority. He said a similar effort in Indiana would require the vast majority of his caucus to act in unison.

"Here it takes a caucus of at least a substantial minority," he said in an interview.

After Democrats walked out last year, House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, and his Senate counterpart, Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, passed new fines of $1,000 a day on each lawmaker who leaves the Statehouse for more than three days in a row.

House Democrats could also decide to stay meeting in their caucus room indefinitely, effectively denying Republicans the numbers needed to conduct business without actually leaving the state. It is unclear, though, whether that would be as effective in blocking the "right-to-work" bill.

Bosma said Tuesday he had not taken a tally, but is confident he can lock in the votes he needs to pass the measure.

Indiana's Senate Democrats lack the numbers needed to block the measure in their chamber ? Indiana's Senate has no filibuster ? where they are outnumbered by Republicans 37-13. Thus the focus has been squarely on the House Democrats.

Bosma and Long set a Friday hearing for both the Senate and House versions of the "right-to-work" bill. The respective measures will move through both chambers simultaneously.

"We have options so that we can react to whatever Rep. Bauer and his team have planned," Bosma said Tuesday.

A last-ditch option for House Democrats is trying to sway at least 10 Republicans to their side. Republicans hold a 60-40 majority in the House and would need at least 51 votes to pass the measure.

The Indiana AFL-CIO has been airing TV and radio ads targeting Republicans who may be vulnerable in the 2012 elections if they vote in favor "right to work." Bosma and Gov. Mitch Daniels have been airing their own ads throughout the state in support of the measure, and the National Right to Work Committee has sent staffers to the state to build grass-roots support for the measure.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120104/ap_on_go_ot/us_indiana_right_to_work

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Dems target Romney in Iowa (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Looking ahead to next fall, Democrats in Iowa and beyond sought to weaken Republican Mitt Romney in advance of Tuesday's lead-off presidential caucuses as polls show the former Massachusetts governor amassing support.

Democrats dispatched party leaders and surrogates in Iowa on Monday to assail the Republican field while paying close attention to Romney, who has led in national polls and could use Iowa and other early states as a springboard to secure the Republican nomination. Democrats have tried to portray Romney as lacking any core convictions while raising questions about his business background, which the former governor has offered as a chief reason to send him to the White House.

"When push comes to shove, Romney's economic vision could not be more out of touch with the needs of working folks here in Iowa and across the country," said Michael Fitzgerald, Iowa's state treasurer and a Democrat.

President Barack Obama is expected to compete heavily for Iowa's voters in next fall's general election after winning the state's caucuses in 2008 and carrying Iowa against Republican John McCain. Obama planned to address Democratic caucus attendees by web video Tuesday night.

A Des Moines Register poll released Saturday showed Romney with steady support at 24 percent, with Republicans Ron Paul and Rick Santorum competing closing with Romney in the caucuses. Half of likely caucus-goers viewed Romney as the Republican most likely to win the November election, putting him well ahead of Santorum and Paul on that question.

The Democratic National Committee held events with a union official who was laid off by a company that Romney's former private equity firm, Bain Capital, restructured more than a decade ago. The worker, Randy Johnson, said the layoffs show that Romney doesn't understand the needs of working people.

Democrats intend to make Romney's past a major focus of a head-to-head campaign, aiming to undercut the Republican's arguments against Obama on the economy. Johnson's former company, American Pad and Paper in Marion, Ind., was bought by Bain Capital in 1994 and the company closed the Indiana plant a year later, laying off about 200 people.

"He's always been in the business of making money," Johnson said by phone from Davenport, Iowa, where he met with reporters. Johnson currently works for the United Steelworkers union.

Under Romney, Bain Capital invested millions of dollars into dozens of private-equity ventures, with some producing giant profits. Romney has said his business attempted to make the companies more successful but he wasn't always able to succeed.

Romney's campaign has dismissed the efforts by Democrats to raise the case of the Indiana factory, which played prominently in Romney's 1994 campaign against Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy. Romney's campaign said Obama "and his cronies know that if they have to face Mitt Romney in the general election they are going to lose, which is why they continue their `kill Romney' strategy."

Democrats continued to pound away at Romney's record, calling him a serial flip-flipper who has shifted views on abortion and gun control.

In Florida, Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman, told reporters that "all of the Republican candidates support the failed policies of past" but singled out Romney, urging voters to "ask themselves if they know the real Mitt Romney and just how far he's gone to remake himself to win the nomination."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/democrats/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120102/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign_democrats

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Top 10 buyers of Iran?s oil

OPEC?s second largest producer ?Iran sells large volumes of oil to China, India, South Korea, Japan and Italy. But Turkey, South Africa and Sri Lanka rely most heavily on Iranian oil as a percentage of imports.

U.S. sanctions already forbid imports of Iranian oil. France is pressing the European Union to consider a ban on Iranian oil to discourage Tehran?s nuclear programme.

Iran produces about 3.5 million barrels a day of crude with another 500,000 bpd of condensate, exporting about 2.6 million bpd of which 50,000 bpd is refined products, the International

Energy Agency estimates.

The top ten buyers of Iranian crude are as follows. Data is for the second quarter 2011 from the IEA with the exception of China, India and Sri Lanka which are not IEA members. Data for

those countries is for first half 2011 from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Country????????? Imports k/bpd??? Percent Imports

1. China???????? 543,000????????? 10

2. India? ???????341,000????????? 11

3. Japan???????? 251,000????????? 5.9

4. Italy???????? 249,000????????? 13.3

5. South Korea?? 239,000????????? 7.4

6. Turkey??????? 217,000????????? 30.6

7. Spain???????? 149,000????????? 9.6

8. Greece??????? 111,000???? ?????34.7

9. South Africa? 98,000?????????? 25

10.France??????? 78,000?????????? 4.4

In addition Sri Lanka imported 39,000 bpd in the first half of the year. It is completely reliant on ?Iranian oil.

Iran holds around 137 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, or nearly 10 percent of the world total, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2011. ????Despite sitting on the world?s second largest reserves of gas, Iran?s growing appetite for its own gas, combined with tightening international sanctions that have throttled its fledgling liquefied natural gas (LNG) programme, have made it a net gas importer for most of the last decade.??????? ??? Natural gas accounts for 54 percent of Iran?s total domestic energy consumption, while most of the remainder of energy consumption is attributable to oil, ?according to the EIA.

(Complied by Daniel Fineren and Emma Farge; editing by William

Hardy)

Source: http://www.kippreport.com/2012/01/top-10-buyers-of-irans-oil/

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Jared's most-used apps of 2011

 

Applications come and go on a daily basis, some for testing purposes, others because they are new and shiny and well I think I have to have them.

Only a few applications make the daily use category, so hit the break to find out which those are!

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/0RJ4px6VTXo/story01.htm

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Snow, 50mph winds forecast for north, east US

As the holiday weekend wraps up, a cold blast of winter in on the way for millions of Americans as a deep freeze will blanket much of the East Coast and bring snow to some areas. The Weather Channel's Kelly Cass has the details.

By msnbc.com staff and news services

Snow storms and wind gusts of up to 50 mph were forecast for many parts of the U.S. on Monday as the year began with the coldest weather so far this winter.

Lake-effect winds are expected to dump up two feet of snow east of Lake Ontario as well as east and southeast of Lake Erie.

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Strong winds will blow the snow showers as far inland as eastern New York and central Pennsylvania, the Weather Channel reported, with a few inches of accumulation possible in New England.

Following a deadly windstorm in Colorado, windy weather will continue to affect the Midwest today. The Weather Channel's Alex Wallace has the forecast.

Across the whole of the Northeast U.S., gusts of up to 50 mph are forecast on Monday, it said.

?Cold and windy conditions are forecast to prevail across much of the northeastern quarter of the country,? the National Weather Service said in an alert issued at 2:48 a.m. ET.

?High temperatures are forecast to remain in the 20s across much of the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley on Monday before impacting the Mid-Atlantic and New England by the following day," it added. ?Snow will be plentiful over the Great Lakes."

The Detroit Free Press said blizzard warnings were in place for several northern Michigan counties and that the Traverse City area in northwestern lower Michigan can expect about 20 inches of snow.

However, urban Detroit is likely to escape the worst of the snow, it added.

Global losses to natural disasters are three times greater than they were in 1980. A look back at the natural disasters and extreme weather that devastated millions of lives in 2011.

?I don?t know too many people who are complaining,? about the lack of snow in metro Detroit, Mike Richter with the National Weather Service in White Lake Township told the newspaper. ?Except maybe for the ski resorts.?

In contrast, Orange County residents experienced one of the hottest starts to a New Year in almost 50 years.

By Sunday afternoon, temperatures in Santa Ana reached a high of 81 degrees, tying the previous record documented on Jan. 1, 1964, the Orange County register reported.?

Msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/02/9889185-snow-50mph-winds-forecast-as-coldest-weather-of-winter-hits-north-east-us

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Maldives closes hundreds of luxury resort spas

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) ? Maldives ordered hundreds of its luxury resorts to close their spas nearly a week after a protest led by opposition parties demanding a halt to "anti-Islamic" activities, the government said Friday.

A statement from the president's office said "the government has decided to close massage parlors and spas in the Maldives, following an opposition-led religious protest last week calling for their closure."

An official from the president's office said the tourism ministry notified the resorts Thursday but hasn't confirmed if the spas have been closed. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

The Indian Ocean archipelago with 1,192 tiny coral islands is known for its exquisite resorts.

Thousands at last week's protest called on the government to halt what they called "anti-Islamic" activities. Sunni Islam is the official religion in the Maldives and practicing any other faith is forbidden.

Last week's protest was called by the opposition Adhaalat, or Justice, Party and several other groups that accuse President Mohammed Nasheed's government of compromising principles of Islam and want strict Islamic law.

The protesters also want authorities to stop the sale of alcohol in the islands, shut down brothels operating in the guise of massage parlors and demolish monuments gifted by other countries marking a South Asian summit last month because they see them as idols.

They also wanted to halt a plan to allow direct flights to Israel.

Though the country does not allow stoning or executions, it is under scrutiny for its absence of religious freedom and for punishments such as public flogging.

Debates on religious issues have emerged since a group vandalized a monument gifted by Pakistan marking a South Asian summit last month with the image of Buddha. Buddhism was part of the present Islamic republic's history.

An angry protest last month followed a call by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay for the Maldives to end floggings of women being punished for adultery.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-30-AS-Maldives-Spas-Closed/id-beac896777a94b1a880245e844e65c2d

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Oil on Nigerian coast after major Shell spill

LAGOS ? An environmental group said Tuesday that an oil slick had approached Nigeria's coastline after a major Shell spill last week, but the company insisted that its spill had been largely dispersed.

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Nigerian group Environmental Rights Action, which closely monitors oil spills in the country, said oil was reported along the shoreline of fishing communities in Bayelsa state as well as Delta state.

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The group said it sent monitors out after reports from fishermen. It said it suspected the oil had come from the Shell spill, but the claim could not be independently verified.

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"In the course of the visit, spreading slick was sighted close to the coastline of Odioama and along St. Nicholas," it said in a report that included photos of streaks of what appeared to be oil just off the coastline.

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"The footprint comes from the ocean," the group's head Nnimmo Bassey told AFP. "We suspect it is from Bonga."

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Shell has said the spill from its offshore Bonga field, which it became aware of on Dec. 20, amounted to less than 40,000 barrels and that it had been "largely dispersed."

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Five vessels and two aircraft had been deployed to spread chemical dispersants.

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A Shell spokesman in Nigeria told AFP that "if there was any more spill found on the coastline, it must have come from a third party."

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"We found a third-party spill and we have told our team on the ground to clean it. If there is still a spill on the shoreline, it is a third-party spill," Precious Okolobo said.

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Bonga, which has a capacity of 200,000 barrels per day, is located some 120 kilometers off Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer and an OPEC member. Production has halted at the field.

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The company said the source of the leak was a flexible line linking a production vessel to a tanker.

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It was Nigeria's worst offshore spill since a 1998 Mobil incident, officials said, though onshore leaks have been estimated at levels far worse since that time in the oil-producing Niger Delta.

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Environmental group SkyTruth, using satellite imagery from December 21 it published on its website, estimated the slick had been 70 kilometers long and 17 kilometers wide at its widest.

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It said it had covered 923 square kilometers (356 square miles) of ocean.

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Source: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/oil-on-nigerian-coast-after-major-shell-spill

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