Awesome New Things

CHICAGO — Chicago Bulls general manager Gar Forman said Tuesday that talks to extend the contract of coach Tom Thibodeau were initiated before the season and were tabled, but theyll resume once the season is over.

WASHINGTON, April 4 (BERNAMA-NNN-ANDINA) — The Secretary General of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza, on Tuesday welcomed the release of the 10 members of the Colombian security forces kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The release of these 10 hostages, who had been in captivity for as long as 13 and 14 years, is good news and we are happy for them and their families, from whom they were unfairly separated for so long, said Insulza.

The top representative of the OAS reiterated his demands that all the people who continued to be held hostage by the FARC should be freed without conditions, which he described as a necessary prerequisite to achieve peace.

At the same time, Insulza praised the efforts of the governments of Colombia and Brazil, the International Red Cross and other NGOs who made possible the release of the ten hostages.

It fills me with satisfaction to see that this release has been achieved thanks to international collaboration, the efforts of governments and social organisations in the hemisphere, working together to end these crimes against humanity, he added.

–BERNAMA-NNN-ANDINA

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Mitt Romney’s campaign is moving straight into Pennsylvania after completing a three-contest primary sweep on Tuesday night, as he looks to close the deal in the Republican nominating contest by challenging Rick Santorum on his home turf.

Pennsylvania is just one of the five states voting in the next set of primaries on April 24. Santorum, though, is portraying the contest as a game-changer – predicting victory in the delegate-heavy state he used to represent in Congress.

Santorum urged party leaders Tuesday night to let the rest of America have a chance to weigh in on the race, and claimed Pennsylvania would “kick off the second half” of that battle.

But with Santorum far down in the delegate count, Romney is looking to deprive his rival of that trophy. His campaign plans to move resources into Pennsylvania, where Santorum leads in recent polls by single digits.

Following his primary wins Tuesday night in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, Romney is trying to pivot from Republican front-runner to presumptive nominee and emerge as the lone challenger to President Obama.

Romney, in some of his clearest language to date, used his victory speech in Milwaukee to map out what appeared to be his general election message. He portrayed Obama as an enemy of business, himself as its promoter. He portrayed Obama as the steward of a government-centered society, himself as the champion of a revitalized opportunity society.

In the most memorable line of the night, Romney accused out-of-touch liberals like Barack Obama of saying they want a strong economy while showing they dont like business.

Its a bit like saying you like an omelette, but you dont like eggs, Romney said. He said Obamas vision would lead to high unemployment, crushing debt and stagnant wages.

Romney also crossed a symbolic threshold Tuesday night, passing the halfway mark in his march toward the 1,144 delegate needed to clinch the nomination. He now has over 650 delegates, more than twice the number Santorum claims.Romney will win most of the 92 delegates at stake Tuesday.

Santorum, though, pledged to press on Tuesday night and outlined a path — however narrow — to victory in the nomination battle.

He hammered the point that only half the total delegates available in the GOP contest have been awarded, and predicted the April 24 primary in his home state of Pennsylvania could turn the tide.

We have now reached the point where its half-time, he told a Pennsylvania crowd, having long since left Wisconsin. Whos ready to charge out of the locker room in Pennsylvania for a strong second half?

Santorum continued to say Republicans need to pick somebody who can demonstrate a clear contrast with Obama in the fall.

We dont win by moving to the middle, he said, claiming Republicans win by getting the middle to move to us.

Though four other states are also voting on April 24, Santorum predicted a Pennsylvania win would effectively reset the mood.

The clock starts tonight, he said. After winning this state, the field looks a little different in May.

According to the latest delegate tally, though, Romney is at 655 delegates. Santorum is far back at 278, followed by Newt Gingrich at 135 and Ron Paul at 51. Santorum would have to win an overwhelming majority of the remaining delegates to surpass Romney. Even preventing Romney from hitting 1,144 before the convention is becoming increasingly difficult.

Romney dominated the field in Tuesdays contests. He appeared to have a double-digit lead over Santorum in Maryland, though his Wisconsin victory was a bit tighter. He blew past Gingrich and Paul in DC, where Santorum had failed to qualify for the ballot.

With Romney moving ever-closer to the nomination, Obamas team is training its attention on the GOP front-runner. His campaign launched a new TV ad blasting Romney for the first time by name — accusing him of backing Big Oil at a time of high gas prices.

Romney fired back in his Wisconsin speech, telling Americans that when they drive by the gas pump, Ask yourself, Four more years of that?

Santorum has claimed all along that Romney is buying his support by spending millions on TV ads, and that his own campaign is backed by grassroots conservatives.

Indeed, Romney continues to face questions about his appeal among the conservative base going forward. Exit polls in the contests held Tuesday, though, showed the former Massachusetts doing well across several different demographic groups.

In Maryland, he captured almost half of the Tea Party vote and won 61 percent of support among seniors.

In Wisconsin, Romney saw some of the strongest support to date among those who describe themselves as very conservative. Romney captured 46 percent support among those voters, compared with 40 percent for Santorum.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine approved an amendment that could help overturn the states ban on same-sex marriage.

Auditor General questions Australia Network tender process

Posted

April 03, 2012 21:52:00

The Commonwealth Auditor General has criticised the Federal Governments handling of the tender process for the government-funded international broadcasting service.

The Auditor-General has launched a wide-ranging inquiry into the Accident Compensation Corporation in the wake of the row which has consumed one cabinet minister and embroiled another.

Auditor-General Lyn Provost this afternoon announced an inquiry into ACC at board level, targeting not only the privacy breaches surrounding aggrieved ACC claimant and former National Party official Bronwyn Pullar, but also conflict of interest issues among staff and board members, along with privacy issues raised after a confidential file listing more than 6700 ACC claimants was sent to Ms Pullar.

The Privacy Commissioner is already examining the privacy aspects of the issue, and the corporation is already holding an internal inquiry of its own.

The Auditor-Generals inquiry stems from a request made by Labour MP Andrew Little and Green MP Kevin Hague.

The terms of the inquiry are extremely broad.

The Auditor-General lists the inquiries focus as being on:

• The policies and practices at ACC for managing risks relating to conflicts of interest, legal compliance and communications between board members and clients and staff.
• The policies and practices that apply when claimants personally contact board members.
• How any matters relating to Ms Pullar that came to the attention of the board or individual board members were dealt with.
• Any other matters that the Auditor-General considers it desirable to report on.

2 days ago 

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — In the four years since Texas authorities swarmed the polygamist ranch of sect leader Warren Jeffs, state prosecutors have spent more than $4.5 million racking up swift convictions against him and 10 loyal followers on child sex and bigamy charges, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Combined with other state agency costs surrounding the April 3, 2008 raid, documents show the price tag is approaching $20 million for what began as a chaotic roundup of nearly 400 children and grew into one of the largest criminal cases in recent Texas history.

The saga is now all but over. Last week, state prosecutors convicted the last of 11 men arrested at the Yearning for Zion Ranch. All received prison time, including a life sentence for Jeffs.

“This was never about validation,” said Jerry Strickland, spokesman for the Texas attorney general’s office. “… It was always about, first and foremost, protecting children. There were a lot of people who wanted to make this about something it was not.”

Jeffs, 56, is the head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and is still considered God’s spokesman by his followers despite being in prison. He and several of his convicted followers still face separate charges of bigamy.

Strickland said Tuesday his office has not yet decided whether to also prosecute the bigamy allegations. When asked whether spending more taxpayer dollars would factor in that decision, Strickland said he did not know.

Spending records obtained by AP were broken down by year, not by defendant, though the biggest expenses by far came during the run-up to Jeffs’ highly publicized two-week trial in August. The attorney general’s office spent more than $1.8 million in 2010 and another $884,000 last year.

By comparison, Strickland said the attorney general’s office spent $19.5 million total on all criminal prosecutions in 2010 and 2011.

Driving up the FLDS case costs was more than 21,000 case hours spent by investigators sifting through a staggering amount of evidence hauled off the secretive ranch in remote Eldorado. Authorities seized nearly 1,000 boxes of physical evidence and another 6 terabytes of digital files.

Strickland said Tuesday the manpower the case required makes it the largest ever in the decade since Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott took office.

The most disturbing evidence wasn’t revealed until Jeffs finally went to trial. Prosecutors played lengthy audio tapes of Jeffs allegedly sexually assaulting one of his 12-year-old brides, and jurors saw wedding photos of the polygamist leader posing with other underage wives.

Among prosecutors’ expenses was more than $24,000 to Utah-based Beall Psychological Services for expert testimony. The state also paid Rebecca Musser, a former FLDS member who was once a wife Jeffs’ father, Rulon, more than $17,000. Strickland said the payment was for her testimony and assistance with the investigation.

All but three of the 11 arrested FLDS members went to trial; the others accepted plea deals. All of the jury trials appeared to end as nothing short of uncompetitive cakewalks for prosecutors — in only one case did juror deliberations last more than two hours. Jeffs fired several high-powered attorneys during the course of his trial, and at one point represented himself in the courtroom.

Attorneys for the FLDS defendants have argued that the search warrant authorizing the raid on the 1,700-acre ranch was invalid. An appeals court last year, however, ruled that authorities had sufficient grounds for probable cause.

Prosecutor costs provided to AP were through February. In December 2008, the state released a 21-page report about the raid that broke down costs per agency, which added up to $12.4 million.

The Department of Family and Protective Services spent more than $10 million temporarily rounding up nearly 400 children from the ranch in what became one of the largest custody cases in U.S. history. All were eventually returned to their families.

A Texas appeals court last week dismissed Jeffs’ appeal, writing in a two-page order that Jeffs had failed to meet filing deadlines and had altogether not responded to notices from the court.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Yuri Fedotov, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told a daylong General Assembly meeting on trafficking that 17 percent are trafficked to perform forced labor, including in homes and sweat shops.

He said $32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks, and two out of every three victims are women.

Fighting these criminals is a challenge of extraordinary proportions, Fedotov said.

At any one time, 2.4 million people suffer the misery of this humiliating and degrading crime, he said.

According to Fedotovs Vienna-based office, only one out of 100 victims of trafficking is ever rescued.

Fedotov called for coordinated local, regional and international responses that balance progressive and proactive law enforcement with actions that combat the market forces driving human trafficking in many destination countries.

Michelle Bachelet, who heads the new UN agency promoting womens rights and gender equality called UN Women, said its difficult to think of a crime more hideous and shocking than human trafficking. Yet, it is one of the fastest growing and lucrative crimes.

Actress Mira Sorvino, the UN goodwill ambassador against human trafficking, told the meeting that modern day slavery is bested only by the illegal drug trade for profitability, but very little money and political will is being spent to combat trafficking.

Transnational organized crime groups are adding humans to their product lists, she said. Satellites reveal the same routes moving them as arms and drugs.

Sorvino said there is a lack of strong legislation and police training to combat trafficking. Even in the United States only 10 percent of police stations have any protocol to deal with trafficking, she said.

M. Cherif Bassiouni, an emeritus law professor at DePaul University in Chicago, said to applause that there is no human rights subject on which governments have said so much but done so little.

Laws in most of the world criminalize prostitutes and other victims of trafficking but almost never criminalize the perpetrators without whom that crime could not be performed, he said.

Bassiouni said the figure of 2.4 million people trafficked at any time is not reflective of the overall problem because at the end of 10 years you will have a significantly larger number who have gone through the experience.

He urged a global reassessment of who is a victim and who is a criminal and called for criminalizing not only those on the demand side using trafficked women, children and men, but all those in the chain of supplying trafficking victims.

In addition, Bassiouni said, we must change attitudes of male-dominated police departments throughout the world who place this type of a crime at the lowest level of their law enforcement priorities.

General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged donors to contribute to a new trust fund aimed at helping victims of human trafficking.

At the start of the meeting, Fedotov said the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking had pledges of around $1 million but just $47,000 in contributions, and he urged those who offered money to send their checks.

At the end of the meeting, Al-Nasser announced three new pledges — $200,000 from Australia, $30,000 from Russia, and 30,000 Euros from Luxembourg — and encouraged other UN member states to follow their example.

ORLANDO, Fla., April 2, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
In a keynote address to open the National Postal Forum in Orlando, FL, Patrick R. Donahoe, Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Postal Service, today discussed the transformative power of technology and innovation in the mailing industry.

Speaking at the nation’s largest annual gathering for the mailing industry, Donahoe described a technology and data-centric mailing industry poised to benefit from innovations to increase the value of mail for both senders and receivers.

“As an industry, we have to retain what differentiates mail and physical delivery, and bring it into the future,” said the Postmaster General. “It’s astonishing how much is changing in the ways people communicate. Mail has to be a part of these changes.”

Donahoe described a rapidly evolving technology landscape that is changing the ways businesses and people are communicating. “We have to look at potential changes in technology and think about how to use those technologies to enhance the positive characteristics of mail,” he said. “The same goes for the Postal Service. We have to take the best attributes of the Postal Service and bring it into the future.”

The Postmaster General also advanced themes relating to the Postal Service as a national delivery platform, and of using technology and innovation to help extend the platform and provide growth opportunities for the mailing industry and America’s businesses.

“Where we start is with the idea of delivery. That’s the core function of the Postal Service. We deliver what you create. And if we can expand our delivery platform beyond what it is today, we can provide you with even greater opportunities,” said Donahoe.

The Postmaster General discussed the four core business strategies of the Postal Service: strengthening the business to consumer channel; improving the customer experience; growing the package business; and continuing to become leaner, faster and smarter as an organization.

“We have left nothing off of the table in terms of rethinking how we perform our core function of delivering,” said Donahoe. “The best way forward is to embrace the potential of change. As an industry, and as individual businesses, we need to think about the rewards of a more dynamic future.”

A video of the speech will be posted online when it is available at
www.usps.com/news .

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at
http://about.usps.com/news/welcome.htm .

For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to
http://about.usps.com/news/media-contacts/usps-local-media-contacts.pdf .

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

Follow the Postal Service on Twitter @USPS and at Facebook.com/usps

SOURCE U.S. Postal Service

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve did not help the Watergate burglars get cash, stonewall congressional inquiries into the 1970s political scandal or help former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein get a $5.5 billion loan to buy weapons in the 1980s, the agencys inspector general said in a report posted on the Feds website on Tuesday.

The report is the result of a political tiff in 2010 that touched off a sizeable government investigation on topics seldom associated with the US central bank.

The Federal Reserve has become a punching bag in the Republican presidential race because of its easy-money policies after the recent financial crisis.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernankes aggressive efforts to support the economy have further enraged long-time Fed critics such as Representative Ron Paul, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

The watchdog report is based on charges Paul made at a congressional hearing in February 2010, in which he questioned whether the Fed has been used to funnel money to illicit causes, including the Watergate scandal that brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon and weapons purchases by Saddam Hussein.

Following the hearing, then-House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank asked the Fed to investigate what, if any, inappropriate role the central bank played in those areas.

The result was a roughly 16-month government investigation that involved extensive fieldwork.

We did not find any evidence of undue political interference with Federal Reserve officials related to the 1972 Watergate burglary or Iraq weapons purchases during the 1980s, the Feds inspector general told Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke in a letter dated March 30.

Specifically, regarding the first Watergate allegation, we did not find any evidence of undue political interference with or improper actions by Federal Reserve officials related to the cash found on the Watergate burglars.

The inspector generals office operates independently of the Fed. It said in its report that the Feds general counsel reviewed the findings and stated that our report confirmed past statements by Federal Reserve officials.

EVIDENCE, INTERVIEWS

The federal watchdog reviewed more than 3,000 pages of transcribed testimony of congressional hearings that included accounts from 37 witnesses on the break-in at the Democratic National Committees offices located in Washingtons Watergate complex in 1972.

Boxes of Watergate-related documents, including memos, photographs, and summaries of the investigation were examined during the inspector generals inquiry.

The staff involved in the report also visited the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to review the collection of then-Fed Chairman Arthur Burns.

The inspector generals office wanted to show whether or not Burns tried to block investigations on the source of cash found on the burglars.

Employee interviews were also conducted at regional Federal Reserve Banks to better understand cash processing in the 1970s and to gather more information about the money found on the Watergate burglars.

To obtain more evidence regarding the Iraq allegation, the watchdog searched the Federal Reserve archives. While attempting to find any evidence of loans connecting the Fed and Hussein or Iraq during the 1980s, the inspector general consulted legal staff and reviewed supervision of foreign banks.

They also looked for evidence that would connect the central bank with any foreign institutions dealing in unauthorized loans that benefited Iraq, and obtained records to look for any unusual lending practices.

To address the allegations that Fed bank examiners in Atlanta failed to note $5.5 billion being funneled to Iraq from a local branch of an Italian bank, the inspector generals office conducted numerous interviews among Fed officials and bank examiners.

The report did not find any evidence of undue political interference with Federal Reserve officials to indicate that the Fed help secure a $5.5 billion loan to Iraq for weapons.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)