Nineteen firefighters killed battling Arizona blaze: U.S. Wildland Fire Aviation agency

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Nineteen firefighters were killed battling a fast-moving wildfire menacing a small town in central Arizona, the U.S. Wildland Fire Aviation service said on Sunday.

The firefighters perished in the so-called Yarnell Hill Fire, near the small town of Yarnell about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix, the agency said in a Facebook post.

"It has been confirmed that 19 wildland firefighters have lost their lives on the Yarnell Hill fire Arizona," the post said, adding that the agency was asking "for prayers for the families and friends of these brave men and women."

No immediate details on the circumstances of the firefighters' deaths were provided.

The blaze has charred about 1,000 acres of tinder-dry chapparral and grasslands since erupting Friday amid heat wave conditions baking the Southwest, prompting the evacuation of scores of homes near Yarnell.

The Daily Courier Prescott newspaper said the dead were members of the Prescott Fire Department's Granite Mountain Hotshots team. The newspaper put the death toll at 18, citing reports from the fire department.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Steve Gorman and Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/19-firefighters-unaccounted-battling-arizona-wildfire-023551408.html

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China factory workers hold US boss over wage dispute

An American factory boss in China held hostage for five days by workers told AFP Tuesday he won't be released until a labour dispute is resolved and that authorities have declined to intervene.

Chip Starnes, who had come from the US-based Specialty Medical Supplies company to lay off 30 employees, said the remaining 100 then barred him from leaving until they reached a resolution.

Incidents of workers detaining bosses are not frequently reported, but labour disputes are common in China, with many workers fearing bosses will shut operations and disappear without paying wages.

"They adamantly said, I'm here to stay, live in my office and live on the cot until this gets done," Starnes said by phone.

"And they said that my office is very nice so I have nothing to complain about."

Starnes said dozens of employees were guarding the exits of the work site, located in the northern Beijing district of Huairou.

Meanwhile local authorities were providing three meals a day and made sure no violence broke out. But, Starnes said, officials won't intervene.

"The police? They will not get involved in this whatsoever."

The district police could not be reached for comment.

An AFP photographer at the scene said there were eight unmarked police cars and uniformed police officers.

A dozen people were standing inside the grounds, set in an industrial park with several other factories, but no workers were available to be interviewed.

Starnes -- standing near a barred window in a bluish shirt, having worn the same clothes for days -- sounded upbeat despite his constraints.

"Put everybody in a playpen together and that's where you stay until someone wins, I guess, and that's what we're going through right now," he said.

Chu Lixiang, an official from the Huairou labour union involved in the negotiations, declined to say if Starnes had freedom of movement.

"It's his office and his factory, and he's just been staying here negotiating," she told AFP.

Starnes said the Chinese general manager and controller of the factory were also being held.

The nature of the disagreement was itself under dispute.

The Xinhua state news agency cited a statement from Huairou authorities as saying that the 100 workers were seeking two months' overdue wages.

But Starnes said that they were demanding to be laid off so they could receive severance packages like the 30 who were let go had obtained.

For longtime employees at the factory, opened 10 years ago, the compensation could amount to a year's pay, Starnes said.

The company preferred to keep the 100 workers employed, Starnes said.

He said that due to an oversight the 30 laid-off employees had not received their last two months' salary, but added that the error was fixed Monday.

"Everybody is 100 percent up-to-date on payment," he said.

The Florida-based company has 200 employees altogether.

Geoffrey Crothall, spokesman for the Hong Kong-based advocacy group China Labour Bulletin, said it recorded 200 labour disputes in the first four months of 2013, though the actual figure could be much higher.

Workers harboured a particular fear of bosses closing down operations without distributing final paycheques, he said.

"A lot of workers are highly sensitised to this kind of thing because they see it happening across China all the time."

Even if the fear was unfounded, Crothall said, such misunderstandings were "very typical" and "the cause of many, many disputes in China".

Local authorities usually only intervened if violence broke out, and preferred such incidents to be resolved quickly, he said.

"Having the boss in a place where they know where he is, that facilitates that process," he said.

US embassy spokesman Nolan Barkhouse said its officials had visited Starnes on Monday and confirmed that he was safe.

Source: http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/China_factory_workers_hold_US_boss_over_wage_dispute_999.html

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HP: We're Going to Make Another Smartphone

Despite a shaky track record, it seems HP is keen to stay involved with the smartphone market?with one of its execs insisting that it's planning to release a handset. At some point.

When asked by The Indian Express about whether a future HP phone was on the cards, the company's Senior Director of Consumer PCs and Tablets for Asia-Pacific, Yam Su Yin, explained:

"The answer is yes but I cannot give a timetable. It would be silly if we say no. HP has to be in the game... Being late you have to create a different set of proposition[s]. There are still things that can be done. It's not late. When HP has a smartphone, it will give a differentiated experience."

Of course, webOS is no longer on the cards, so the chances are that HP will probably possibly be thinking of an Android handset. Whether its "differentiated experience" can prove compelling enough to lure in the customers remains to be seen?but if track record is anything to go by, we're not entirely confident. Let's wait and see. [The Indian Express via Engadget]

Image by oskay under Creative Commons license

Source: http://gizmodo.com/hp-were-going-to-make-another-smartphone-632511284

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Blast in Pakistani city of Peshawar kills 14

(Reuters) - Fourteen people were killed in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Sunday when a powerful roadside bomb attack narrowly missed a passing convoy of security forces but ravaged a busy market area, police said.

Two paramilitary personnel riding with the convoy were wounded but the brunt of the blast was borne by passers-by in the tense Badhber neighborhood of Peshawar, a frequent scene of attacks on the police and army by Pakistan's Taliban militants.

"The blast was so powerful that it destroyed 10 shops and eight vehicles," said Mir Ajab Khan, the head of a police station in Badhber, where militants project considerable influence. "Many of the wounded were women and children."

All the dead were civilians apart from a policeman. Four children and a woman were among those killed. Health officials said 25 people were wounded.

"Some of the wounded were brought in critical condition and have been shifted to an intensive care unit of the hospital," said Mohammad Iqbal Afridi, medical superintendent of the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar.

A senior official with the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) said two of its men had been wounded.

"All the FC men remained unhurt in the attack except two who suffered injuries and were admitted to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar," the official said.

A spate of attacks in Pakistan in recent weeks have underlined the challenge militancy poses to the new government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who won a landslide victory at May 11 general elections.

Before the election, Sharif said he would be willing to negotiate an end to years of fighting with the Taliban in Pakistan's rugged tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. But the group withdrew an offer of talks after a May 28 U.S. drone strike killed deputy leader Wali-ur-Rehman.

The group has since vowed to "teach a lesson" to Pakistan and the United States for the killing. It believes the Pakistani government cooperates with Washington on drone attacks.

Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban have carried out many attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians. It is a separate entity to the Afghan Taliban.

(Reporting by Jibran Ahmed; Writing by Matthew Green; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blast-pakistani-city-peshawar-kills-14-114754858.html

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ANTHONY STASTNY: Former athletes vs. NCAA: Imagine that

The most important play in college sports won?t unfold on a football field.

Instead, in the excitement-parched environment of a court room, amid the ties and suits and volumes of text that could leach the drama out of a moon landing, a judge will rule in a case that could stand college athletics on its head.

No small feat, considering how pointy it is.

Some former athletes, including former UCLA basketball player Ed O?Bannon, want to strip the NCAA and member colleges of the source of much of their power ? their cash flow.

I won?t lay out all the legalities. I would probably get something wrong and there would go my case, besides which, I get paid too little to be that bored but too much to be that boring.

Essentially, former athletes are taking the NCAA, the entity that governs college sports in reality and the multi-verse in its own mind, to court over licensing of images, names and a host of other things.

Very profitable things. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth for the NCAA and member institutions.

The haggling right now is whether the suit can go forward as a class action suit that includes current athletes as well.

One minor sticking point ? no current NCAA athletes are a party to it.

Gee, I wonder why. Maybe for the same reason college athletes sign the NCAA?s licensing agreement ? no sign, no play.

Legal types believe the possibility of a class action suit is a big deal. It would multiply the stakes tremendously, instead of limiting any damages to licensing agreements, transactions and athletes long discarded.

But to me, as rivetingly uninteresting as all that is, the essential point is a lot simpler and more interesting.

Where besides college athletics can a person not own their own image or profit from their highly valuable labor?

Sure, college athletes attend college on a free-ride scholarship (and I?m equally sure a choice few get free-ride rides). The NCAA believes (or least argues, not the same thing), that a college education is payment of a sort for all the hundreds of millions of dollars athletics generates.

And it is true that the majority of athletes in most sports (they don?t call them nonrevenue for nothing) aren?t household names with the earning potential of a new MacBook.

But what does any of that have to do with the Johnny Manziels of the world?

The Texas A&M quarterback can?t sell so much as T-shirt with his face on it, pose for a calendar for coffee money or do any of a number of lucrative things that you or I could do. Except we can?t, because nobody cares about us. They do care about guys like Johnny Football.

And the NCAA and member institutions make the most of it.

I find it supremely ironic that NCAA colleges, most funded by their respective states, fire off carefully worded agreements with their mandatory credential applications for athletic events.

There is a lot of legalese (sort of computerese but less understandable) in these, but basically they say the college retains the rights to all images, and you can?t take photos, videos, drawings, sketches, cave paintings or doodles except for the severe limits set by the school.

Punishable by revocation of the press credential.

OK, so sometimes that might be a blessing.

But the point is this: This is an institution that won?t let an athlete benefit a nickel from the same skills that will make him a millionaire when class is dismissed.

This is an institution that belongs to a governing body that produces nothing, nada, zip, but sells the labor and images of unpaid teenagers.

The NCAA collects money from colleges, manages playoffs, such as the NCAA Tournament, and collects the fat proceeds.

In fairness, the NCAA does look out for its member schools, particularly the smaller schools, and makes a gesture at watching such things as eligibility and recruiting, and routinely produces insanities like the Academic Progress Report.

And if the NCAA loses control over the earning power of its top athletes, no can predict what that will mean for the college sports we all love. And we do love them ? that?s why there is so much money at stake.

It would certainly mean more change in store for athletics and less change in the till for the NCAA and member institutions.

The upheaval that might bring isn?t only scary to the NCAA.

But there is something unfair about anything that denies someone the right to make pennies off his potential, then lets others rake in millions off that same potential.

Class action? More like no-class action.

Anthony Stastny is sports editor of the Savannah Morning News. Contact him at 912-652-0356 or anthony.stastny@savannahnow.com.

Source: http://savannahnow.com/sports/2013-06-29/anthony-stastny-former-athletes-vs-ncaa-imagine

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Obama Visits Mandela's Former Island Prison (Voice Of America)

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Play iTunes movies on Surface RT-iTunes to Windows tablet converter

This article will show you how to get music, movies or TV-shows purchased from iTunes to Microsoft Surface RT for smoothly playing.

When I started this collection of Microsoft Surface tips some months ago, I began by focusing on answering the most common questions I received about Microsoft's new OS. But today's tip, oddly, was one I had planned to write from the very beginning, one that about how to sync and transfer your purchased iTunes music and videos to Surface RT for enjoyment.

Before answering the question, keep in mind that the Windows RT based Surface tablet can not play any iTunes purchased with Apple Digital Rights Management (FairPlay DRM). As we all know, iTunes has not used DRM on music since April 7, 2009. If anyone has downloaded music from iTunes any time in the past 3 years it is 100% DRM free and will play on any music player that can play ACC files; or just convert them to mp3s. For the little copyrighted iTunes songs, in .m4p format, you can upgrade these songs to DRM-free files for US$0.30/song or use DRM removal software to strip DRM from them.

For iTunes videos, if they are video podcasts from iTunes, you can play them on your Surface RT without any problem. But if they are Movies, TV-shows or Music videos which you purchased directly through iTunes store, they are all with DRM protection. DRM can not stop you transferring iTunes video purchases to Surface RT tablet, but the videos will say "this file is not supported" or "this video can't be played" when you tried to play these iTunes m4v video files on your Surface RT.

To get iTunes movies/TV shows work on Surface RT tablet, you need to get rid of DRM restriction from the iTunes movies and then encode/re-encode the m4v to a playable format (e.g. h.264 mp4) by Microsoft Surface. Here I will take the popular iTunes movie DRM decoder entitled iTunes to Sutface RT Converter (iTunes to Windows tablet converter)for instance to show you the DRM removal process.

Instructions: Overall, iTunes to Windows tablet converter is an easy-to-use yet intuitive and stable DRM converter which can help you strip DRM protection from iTunes, Amazon, Zune, BBC iPlayer, Napster, Blockbuster, etc. and convert videos to all popular video formats like MP4, MOV, MKV, WMV, AVI, FLV, etc. for playing and sharing anywhere you like. The audio/video synchronization is very good and the quality of the converted videos too. It's completely free for Audio files.

The Steps

Step 1: Add iTunes movies to the software. After installing, Launch iTunes to Windows tablet converter and import your iTunes files (including the copy-protected music, movies, TV shows) to the program. Batch conversion is supported so that you can add multiple files to convert at a time.

Step 2: Select output format. Click "Video Files To" bar and move mouse to "Common Video" column, you can easily find the profile of "MP4 (AVC)". The output videos could fit on Surface RT tablet perfectly. If you like, you can click "Settings" to change the video encoder, resolution, frame rate, etc. as you wish.

Step 3: Start the conversion. After above steps, just hit the "Start" icon to start converting iTunes M4V videos to MP4 videos for Surface RT. Once the process completes, just copy and transfer the DRM-free MP4 videos to your Surface RT and enjoy the movies/TV shows with ease.

How to get iTunes on Windows tablet?

How to play iTunes movie on Windows tablet?

Playing iTunes movies/music on Windows tablet

Play iTunes movies on Surface Pro Windows tablet

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/recentlyposted/~3/VSRXiBEXgRE/Play-iTunes-movies-on-Surface-RTiTunes-to-Windows-tablet-converter-bid-V8cz2EMx15195467.html

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