Mali Islamists say Algerian diplomat executed

Islamic extremists occupying northern Mali said Sunday they have executed an Algerian diplomat kidnapped five months ago, after an ultimatum given to his government to fulfill their demands expired.

The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) said Algerian vice-consul Tahar Touati was executed on Saturday morning, and threatened the three other hostages still in their hands if Algiers does not comply with their demands.

"We have carried out our threat. The hostage has been killed," Walid Abu Sarhaoui, president of the MUJAO council, told AFP.

"Algeria had the time to move negotiations along but did not want to. We executed the hostage on Saturday."

He said an Algerian soldier had delivered the government's "definitive" response on Saturday, indicating that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika had rejected an agreement with MUJAO.

"The life of the other hostages will soon be in danger if Algeria doesn't listen to us," said Sahraoui.

MUJAO had on August 24 given an ultimatum to Algeria, threatening to kill the hostage after Algiers rejected its demands for the release of three jihadists arrested in the south of the country.

Algerian authorities have said they are verifying the reports of the diplomat's execution which was first reported in a statement from MUJAO posted on internet sites in Algeria and Mauritania.

"The Algerian government must take complete responsibility for the consequences of its stubbornness and the misguided and irresponsible decisions of its president and its generals," read the communique.

Sunday's statement "is currently the focus of the necessary verification to ensure its authenticity," the Algerian foreign ministry said in a statement released by the official APS news agency.

"Contact has not been broken" with the kidnappers, it added.

MUJAO, an armed jihadist group, first surfaced in December 2011, presenting itself as a splinter group of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

The group, along with Tuareg rebels and Islamist fighters from Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) seized two-thirds of Mali's territory in the wake of a military coup in Bamako on March 22.

They have since sidelined their Tuareg allies and enforced strict Islamic law, whipping and stoning transgressors and in the case of Ansar Dine, destroying ancient world heritage sites in the fabled city of Timbuktu.

MUJAO claimed the April 5 kidnapping of seven Algerian diplomats from a consulate in the town of Gao, one of the main northern cities which has fallen into the extremists' hands.

In May they demanded the release of Islamist militants detained in Algeria and a sum of 15 million euros in return for freeing the Algerians.

Three of the hostages were freed on July 12.

A video MUJAO released on August 26 showed Touati pleading with the government to save his life.

"I ask Algerian authorities to find a solution to save my life," he said in Arabic, reading from a text.

The alleged execution comes as a team from the International Criminal Court is in Mali to investigate whether the Islamic extremists have committed war crimes.

The extremists are accused of summary executions of Malian soldiers, rapes, massacres of civilians, the enlistment of child soldiers and torture as well as the destruction of state buildings, churches, mosques and mausoleums.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/algeria-checks-reports-diplomat-killed-captors-000148987.html

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Labor Day jobs debate a convention warm-up

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) ? Republicans and Democrats jockeyed for economic high ground in a Labor Day warm-up to the Democratic National Convention, with Republican Mitt Romney labeling the holiday "another day of worrying" for too many Americans anxious about finding a job. Supporters of President Barack Obama worked to put a glossy sheen on economic progress after offering a more muddled message over the weekend.

Obama addresses a United Auto Workers Labor Day rally in Toledo before getting his first look at the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac in a stricken parish outside New Orleans. He's to meet emergency personnel who've been laboring since the storm hit last week to restore power and tend thousands of evacuees from flooded lands.

Romney issued a statement marking Labor Day as "a chance to celebrate the strong American work ethic." But he added: "For far too many Americans, today is another day of worrying when their next paycheck will come."

Obama's backers were up early to try a morning do-over of his supporters' less-than-rosy answers Sunday when asked to answer the classic campaign question: Are Americans better off than they were four years ago?

"Absolutely," said Stephanie Cutter, Obama's deputy campaign manager, speaking on NBC's "Today" show. "By any measure the country has moved forward over the last four years. It might not be as fast as some people would've hoped. The president agrees with that."

Martin O'Malley, Maryland's Democratic governor, had answered the same question with a "no" on Sunday before turning the blame to Obama's Republican predecessor. Appearing Monday on CNN, O'Malley tried a more positive turn of phrase, saying, "We are clearly better off as a country because we're now creating jobs rather than losing them. But we have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That's why we need to continue to move forward" under Obama.

In Boulder, Colo., on Sunday, Obama warned a college crowd that "the other side is going to spend more money than we've ever seen in our lives, with an avalanche of attack ads and insults and making stuff up, just making stuff up."

"What they're counting on is that you get so discouraged by this, that at a certain point you just say, you know what, I'm going to leave it up to somebody else." Obama did not mention his own side's arsenal of negative advertising.

The Republican convention behind him, Romney was staying low for a few days, preparing for the October debates as Democratic conventioneers gathered for the opening of their event Tuesday in Charlotte.

Younger voters gave Obama a big boost four years ago and he can ill afford to see their support drop off in a tight election where the sluggish economy is the dominant issue in the nation and a specific drag to many young people coming out of college or trying to afford it.

But his campaign surely has a more immediate need for young people, too ? helping to fill the seats for Obama's address Thursday. With 6,000 delegates at the convention and thousands more attached to the event, Democrats hope to pack the nearly 74,000-seat outdoor stadium for the prime-time speech.

Obama has only fitfully defended his health care law from the bully pulpit since its enactment but on Sunday took it on directly. The president declared, as he has on occasion, that "I like the name" Obamacare despite its Republican origins as an insult.

"I do care," he said. "I don't know exactly what the other side is proposing; I guess you could call it 'Romney doesn't care.' But this law is here to stay." Republicans have rallied around the idea of repealing the law, although Romney has not laid out a detailed alternative.

Taking a similar critical vein, a new Obama campaign ad running in six closely contested states ? Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia ? claims Romney's policies would "hit the middle class harder" and that he doesn't see the "heavy load" the middle class is carrying.

Vice President Joe Biden joined the fray, accusing Republicans of seeking to undermine the decades-old federal program millions of seniors rely on for health care. "We are for Medicare," he said. "They are for voucher care." That was a reference to a proposal in Congress by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP vice presidential nominee, to offer future retirees the option of buying health insurance with a government subsidy.

The president and vice president campaigned separately across three battleground states as delegates descended on the Democrats' convention city before their first official meeting Tuesday in the Time Warner Cable Arena.

Some 800 demonstrators marched through the streets around Charlotte's convention hall, protesting what they call corporate greed as well as U.S. drone strikes overseas, said to kill children as well as terrorists. Dozens of police officers walked along with the protesters' parade, carrying gas masks, wooden batons and plastic hand ties. One arrest was reported, for public intoxication.

Biden's itinerary, in particular, underscored the threat that a sluggish recovery and high, 8.3 percent unemployment pose to Democrats seeking another term in power. He was in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states that have received little attention previously as the candidates, their parties and outside allies concentrate on the areas of the country deemed most competitive. His presence suggested the race in both states was tightening.

Obama's aides and allies flooded the weekend talk shows. All talked down Romney, but had no glowing answer when asked if Americans were better off than four years ago. The president took office during a deep recession that ended in official terms six month later but yielded a paltry recovery with persistently high unemployment, now at 8.3 percent.

Said Obama White House David Plouffe: "We've clearly improved ... from the depths of the recession."

And another aide, David Axelrod: "I think the average American recognizes that it took years to create the crisis that erupted in 2008 and peaked in January of 2009. And it's going to take some time to work through it."

Romney spent Sunday at his Wolfeboro, N.H., vacation home, leaving only to attend church services with his wife, Ann. Aides said he would spend much of the Democrats' convention week preparing for three fall debates with Obama, beginning on Oct. 3.

Obama aides said they expected Romney and Republicans to outpace the president and his party in fundraising in August because Obama spent less time raising cash than in the month before and because the GOP held its convention ? usually a big money draw ? in August.

At the Democratic convention, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro delivers the keynote speech on Tuesday, followed by first lady Michelle Obama's remarks. Obama and Biden will be nominated for second terms on Wednesday night, when former President Bill Clinton takes the stage as star speaker. Biden and Obama close the convention Thursday night with their nomination acceptance speeches.

___

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Philip Elliott in York, Pa., Kasie Hunt in Wolfeboro, N.H., and Michael Biesecker, Mitch Weiss, Beth Fouhy and Ken Thomas in North Carolina contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/labor-day-jobs-debate-convention-warm-124423744--election.html

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S. Africa drops murder charges against miners

JOHANNESBURG?? South Africa's top prosecutor announced Sunday that she is withdrawing controversial murder charges against 270 miners for the killings of 34 striking co-workers shot dead by police.

The National Union of Metal Workers, meanwhile, demanded the suspension of the officers responsible for the shootings.

Sunday's announcement follows a barrage of criticism from political parties, trade unions, civil society and legal experts.

Even the justice minister had challenged the prosecutor's decision to charge the arrested miners under an apartheid-era law that opened President Jacob Zuma's government to accusations that it was acting like the former brutal white rulers.

Nomqcobo Jiba, the acting director of public prosecutions, did not say why she had reversed her decision to shift the blame from the police to the miners.

"The murder charge against the current 270 suspects ... will be formally withdrawn," she told a news conference.

She said the miners would be released from jail with a warning, providing police could verify their home addresses.

She said other charges, ranging from public violence and illegal gathering to illegal possession of firearms, would remain, but the cases were being postponed pending final investigations and the findings of a judicial commission of inquiry, which is to report to the president by January.

Most of the 270 miners were arrested Aug. 16 after police opened fire on striking miners, killing 34 and wounding 78. The shootings, the worst display of state violence since apartheid ended in 1994, shocked the nation.

Police said they acted in self-defense after the miners shot at them. Most miners were armed with homemade clubs and machetes but police said they recovered several handguns from the scene.

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Ten people had been killed in a week of violence over union rivalries that preceded the shootings. Some of those killed were officials of the National Union of Mineworkers, two police officers were hacked to death and two mine security guards were burned alive in their vehicle.

Another union, the National Union of Metal Workers, which includes some miners, called for the suspension of the police task force "that executed the Marikana massacre."

The union's central committee "calls on the commission to find out and make public who, between the minister of police and the national police commissioner, gave orders to shoot workers with live bullets when they peacefully assembled on that fateful mountain," the union's secretary general Irvin Jim told a news conference Sunday.

He said the police shootings confirm that South Africa has not transformed "the apartheid state and its violent machinery." Apartheid ended 18 years ago.

Since then, South Africa has become the richest country on the continent, but the wealth has remained in the hands of minority whites joined by a small and often corrupt black elite.

The killings, and the plight of miners who were demanding higher wages, has highlighted the failures of Zuma's government just as he prepares to run for re-election in December as president of the governing African National Congress, a position that would virtually guarantee him another term as president.

Zuma's government is criticized for failing to address the concerns of South Africans suffering high unemployment, housing shortages and growing inequality between rich and poor.

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

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48878611/ns/world_news-africa/

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Simple Way To Boost Comfort And Energy Efficiency

Las Vegas, Nevada (NAPSI) - Many homeowners are warming to a simple, cost-effective way to boost energy efficiency: fiberglass insulation.

Here?s why: Insufficient insulation in unheated garages, basements and attics provides ample opportunity for heat to escape, resulting in extra costs on energy bills. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average homeowner can save as much as 30 percent on energy bills simply by having the right amount of insulation. Here are some tips to help:

? Determine the appropriate R-value for your house. Check the attic and floors next to unheated spaces, such as the garage and basement, for the thickness of existing insulation to determine if it?s sufficient. Generally, the thicker the insulation, the higher the R-value and the better your home will resist heat transfer. Check with your insulation contractor or visit CertainTeed?s online insulation calculator at www.certainteed.com/itools to learn the recommended R-value for your home.

? Increase attic insulation. It?s one of the easiest ways to boost the energy efficiency of a home. CertainTeed?s InsulSafe SP fiberglass loose-fill insulation can not only improve heating and cooling efficiency but also sound control. Additionally, it won?t settle, absorb moisture or cause mildew. It contains no formaldehyde and will last the lifetime of a building while cutting energy costs.

? Insulate piping and air ducts. Insulation can keep hot water flowing in pipes and prevent them from freezing during the winter. Also, insulating exposed air ducts in basements and crawl spaces increases the overall efficiency of heating and cooling systems by delivering optimal conditioned air to where it?s needed most.

Having the proper amount of insulation creates a more comfortable environment. It decreases noise transmission, allowing for peaceful sleep, quiet time and privacy. Adequate insulation also helps maintain a more even temperature all around the house and keeps floors warmer in the winter and cooler during the summer.

Learn More

For further information or to find a contractor, visit www.certainteed.com/insulation.

Source: http://lasvegasnewstrip.com/index.php/news-center/green-living/1854-simple-way-to-boost-comfort-and-energy-efficiency

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Romney: It's okay to be disappointed with Obama

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Republican Mitt Romney has a message for the millions of Americans who voted for Democratic President Barack Obama: It's OK to be disappointed.

Romney used the biggest moment of his political career to tell Americans about his own background and family as he appealed to the feelings of anxiety that are rippling through the electorate as the nation faces stubbornly high unemployment and fears about its future place in the world.

"Hope and change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I'd ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama?" Romney said as he formally accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday night. "You know there's something wrong with the kind of job he's done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him."

In a deeply personal speech that had him visibly emotional at times, Romney sought to forge the kind of personal connection that has in some ways eluded him. While Americans trust him to handle the economy, polls show he's still not as well liked as Obama ? and the speech represented an effort to broaden his appeal and connect with women and with middle-of-the road voters who will ultimately decide his fate.

"Four years from the excitement of the last election, for the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future," Romney said. "It is not what we were promised."

Obama, he said, made huge, sweeping pledges ? instead of focusing on issues closer to home.

"President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet," said Romney. "My promise is to help you and your family."

In his quest to connect, he talked about his time as a young husband and father, with five rambunctious sons.

"Those weren't the easiest of days ? too many long hours and weekends working, five young sons who seemed to have this need to re-enact a different world war every night," he said, his eyes visibly teary in a rare display of emotion. "If you ask Ann and I what we'd give, to break up just one more fight between the boys, or wake up in the morning and discover a pile of kids asleep in our room. Well, every mom and dad knows the answer to that."

Romney's voice cracked as he talked about his mother, Lenore, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in Michigan, and his father George, who served as governor of Michigan and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968.

"My mom and dad were true partners, a life lesson that shaped me by everyday example," Romney said. "When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way."

Romney also made rare direct references to his faith.

"We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan. That might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really don't remember it that way," he said. "My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to."

As the speech ended and balloons fell from the ceiling, Romney was joined onstage by running mate Paul Ryan ? he said, "good job, good job," in Romney's ear ? and then by his wife, children and grandchildren. The grandkids chased balloons and caught confetti, with one grandson popping a balloon underneath his foot.

The whole night was orchestrated to help Romney tell his story. Speakers and videos introduced Romney as a businessman, Olympic savior and deeply religious family man. And the testimonials were intensely personal.

One couple, Ted and Pat Oparowsky, told the crowd about their 14-year-old son David, dying of cancer, who Romney would visit in the hospital. He bought the boy fireworks, helped him write a will, and, at David's request, delivered the eulogy at his funeral. Another woman, Pam Finlayson, talked about her daughter, born three months premature ? and Romney, her church pastor at the time, would come to the hospital and pray for the little girl.

"Like a lot of families in a new place with no family, we found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church," said Romney. "We prayed together, our kids played together and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways."

Before Romney spoke, a parade of speakers from his past took the podium to walk through different phases of his life: his time running the private equity firm Bain Capital, his years running the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and his experiences as governor of Massachusetts. Referred to inside the campaign as "character witnesses," the speeches were designed to showcase the man who friends say inspires fierce loyalty. Much of the list was drawn up by Romney's son Tagg.

Addressing the crowd were Bob White, a longtime friend and colleague from Bain Capital, and Tom Stemberg, the founder of Staples, the office supply store; Olympic speed skater Derek Parra and hockey player Mike Eruzione; and former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who is still a closer adviser.

To prepare for the big night, Romney spent months making meticulous notes about his experiences campaigning. He read numerous previous convention speeches and talked to a number of close friends and confidants about how to approach his address. He and his wife, Ann, spent part of last weekend rehearsing their speeches in an auditorium at Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H., near the family's lakeside summer home.

As he practiced, Romney staffers were working 16-hour days in a hotel suite in Tampa to cut a video showcasing their candidate. It included several old home videos of Mitt and Ann Romney at home with their children ? and even a few of just Mitt Romney when he was a kid in Michigan.

"What's your favorite type of car?" asked someone, standing outside the frame.

The answer, of course, was the car that helped his father save the automobile company he ran, American Motors.

"Rambler!" the young Romney said, laughing.

__

Follow Kasie Hunt on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kasie

Follow Steve Peoples on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kasie

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/romney-okay-disappointed-obama-044145790--election.html

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Ecosystem 101: The Six Necessary Categories To Build The Next Silicon Valley

Editor's Note: Benjamin Joffe is the founder of the Asia-focused digital research & strategy consultancy +8* | Plus Eight Star and has been living in Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia) since 2000. Benjamin has spoken at over 100 conferences (SxSW, TEDx, LeWeb, GamesBeat, etc.) on innovation, Asia, gaming and his keynotes gathered over 250,000 views on Slideshare. I was a resident mentor at 500 Startups during the last intake and all sorts of interesting visitors come through the door. Among them came journalists from Japan and South Korea who were asking: ?Can our country be the next Silicon Valley?? The topic is not new (see here articles on China, Japan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Singapore) and investors are also pretty excited about it (see Sequoia?s latest round). As I was answering by drawing from my 12 years across Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia), I had a sort of epiphany and started to write down the criteria I thought composed an ecosystem. I then proceeded to score several markets using those, which brought interesting comparisons. The initial draft expanded into this column. It is far from perfect and comments to improve it are welcome!

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_V57V_kyams/

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AT AMAZON, Deals On Automotive Tools & Equipment - PJ Media

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Source: http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/149850/

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