Ivory Coast's Gbagbo appears before int'l court (AP)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands ? Ivory Coast's ex-president appeared at the International Criminal Court on Monday, the first former head of state to face judges at the world's first permanent war crimes court. Laurent Gbagbo vowed to fight the charges against him.

Gbagbo, 66, was calm and smiled at supporters in the public gallery as the 25-minute hearing opened. He told judges he did not need them to read the charges.

Gbagbo was extradited to the Netherlands last week to face charges that his supporters committed murder and rape as he rejected an election result and tried to cling to power.

Prosecutors say about 3,000 people died in violence by both sides after Gbagbo refused to concede. President Alassane Ouattara took power in April with the help of French and U.N. forces.

The former president, speaking in French, said he wanted to see the evidence against him.

"I will challenge that evidence and then you hand down your judgment," he told the three-judge panel.

Gbagbo also complained about his arrest by opposition forces backed by French troops in April, saying he saw his son beaten and his interior minister killed in the fighting.

"I was the president of the republic and the residence of the president of the republic was shelled," he said.

He also complained about his transfer to The Hague last week from northern Ivory Coast where he was under house arrest.

"We were deceived," he said, adding the official in charge of his transfer "did not have the courage to tell me I was going to The Hague."

Monday's brief hearing was to confirm Gbagbo's identity and ensure that he understood his rights and the charges. According to court papers, Gbagbo is charged as an "indirect perpetrator" in a carefully orchestrated campaign of violence against supporters of Ouattara.

Presiding judge Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi of Argentina scheduled a hearing for June 18 where prosecutors will present a summary of their evidence and judges will decide whether it is strong enough to merit bringing Gbagbo's case to trial.

Before that, judges will schedule interim status conferences to discuss progress in the case. Gbagbo could challenge his detention at such a conference and seek to be released pending further hearings.

Even before Gbagbo was led into the courtroom, his lawyers called his arrest and transfer to the court French "neocolonialism."

"It's a neocolonialist trial," Gbagbo's adviser Toussaint Alain told reporters in The Hague. "The (ICC) has become an instrument of France ... to empower friends and punish the ones who don't follow along."

Gbagbo's lawyer Habiba Toure also challenged the legitimacy of the Gbagbo's detention last week on an ICC warrant while he was under house arrest.

"In principal, an arrest warrant is delivered to a free individual or a person on the run, which was not the case for Mr. Gbagbo because he was already in the hands of Ivory Coast officials," Toure said.

A handful of supporters outside court also condemned France's role in his ouster.

"This is a masquerade by French President Nicolas Sarkozy," said Abel Naki, who traveled from Paris to be at the court. "Sarkozy orchestrated this coup d'etat."

The protesters' anger underscored lingering tensions between Gbagbo and Ouattara supporters in Ivory Coast.

The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, stressed last week that both sides of the political divide in Ivory Coast committed crimes in the postelection chaos and that his investigation was continuing.

Human rights groups say grave abuses also were committed by forces loyal to Ouattara, who enlisted the help of a former rebel group to force Gbagbo from office.

Gbagbo is the sixth suspect taken into custody by the court, which has launched seven investigations, all of them in Africa. A further 12 suspects remain at large and the court has no police force to arrest them.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_on_re_eu/eu_international_court_gbagbo

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Dunn, ex-HP chairwoman, dies after cancer bout

FILE - In this March 30, 2005 file photo, Hewlett-Packard Company's Patricia Dunn speaks during a news conference at HP headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Dunn, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman who authorized a boardroom surveillance probe that ultimately sullied her remarkable rise from investment bank typist to the corporate upper class, died Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. She was 58. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - In this March 30, 2005 file photo, Hewlett-Packard Company's Patricia Dunn speaks during a news conference at HP headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Dunn, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman who authorized a boardroom surveillance probe that ultimately sullied her remarkable rise from investment bank typist to the corporate upper class, died Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. She was 58. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - In this March 30, 2005 file photo, Hewlett-Packard Co. new president and CEO Mark Hurd, center, speaks as he sits next to Patricia Dunn, left, HP's non-executive chairwoman, during a news conference at HP headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Dunn, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman who authorized a boardroom surveillance probe that ultimately sullied her remarkable rise from investment bank typist to the corporate upper class, died Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011. She was 58. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Patricia Dunn, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chairwoman who authorized a boardroom surveillance probe that ultimately sullied her remarkable rise from investment bank typist to the corporate upper class, has died after a long bout with cancer. She was 58.

Dunn died Sunday morning at her home in Orinda surrounded by her family, according to her sister, Debbie Lammers. She said Dunn's ovarian cancer had returned.

Once one of the most powerful women in corporate America, Dunn saw her career tarnished in 2006 when she was ousted from HP and brought up on criminal charges ? which were ultimately dropped ? for approving the company's plan to snoop into the private phone records of board members, journalists and HP employees to catch people leaking to the media.

The scandal unfolded as Dunn continued to battle a disease that had haunted her through a sparkling investment banking career and a stormy nine-year stretch on the board of HP, one of the world's largest technology companies.

Dunn had spent time on philanthropic matters in the years since the scandal, Lammers said. Dunn and her husband, Bill Jahnke, endowed a faculty position at the University of California, San Francisco's Department of Surgery named in honor of her mother, who also died of cancer.

Lammers said she wanted people to remember her sister's "incredibly influential rise in her professional life and her courage and valiant battles over the course of her treatments."

"Her example of leadership, courage and poise throughout her professional and personal life was exemplary," Lammers told The Associated Press on Monday.

Dunn's time at HP coincided with some of the most contentious and challenging periods since the Palo Alto-based company was founded in 1939.

Dunn joined HP's board in 1998 and was instrumental in the hiring and firing of CEO Carly Fiorina, whose flamboyant personality and ferocity in securing the $19 billion purchase of Compaq Computer Corp. ultimately helped hasten her ouster amid a sagging stock price and disappointing results from the combined company.

Dunn was the one who announced Fiorina's ouster in February 2005 and named her low-key successor, Mark Hurd, previously CEO of NCR Corp. Hurd himself was ousted last year after an investigation into a sexual harassment claim found inconsistencies in expense reports filed.

Dunn also assumed Fiorina's role as chairwoman at the time. Dunn was forced out in that role in September 2006 in an embarrassing scandal involving spying on the telephone records of board members and journalists to ferret out the source of leaks to the media.

Just a month later, California's attorney general charged Dunn and four others with four felony counts each ? conspiracy, fraud, identity theft and illegally using computer data ? for their roles in the probe. That came just two days before she started chemotherapy treatments for advanced ovarian cancer.

The criminal charges against Dunn were eventually dropped, as prosecutors said she had little involvement in the actual "pretexting" ? the ruse used by investigators to view private telephone records by pretending to be someone else ? and because of her ailing health. Charges against the other defendants were also dropped, with a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge calling their conduct "a betrayal of trust and honor" at worst that was not criminal behavior at the time it occurred.

Once an aspiring investigative reporter, Dunn, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, found more immediate and lucrative work in the financial world and made her mark in investment banking.

After working briefly as a part-time reporter for a community newspaper in San Francisco, Dunn began her corporate climb by capitalizing on a temporary typist gig that she landed at an investment firm in the 1970s.

She was able to turn the two-week typing assignment into full-time work and managed to quickly rise through the ranks by earning a reputation as a hard-edged businesswoman. That reputation eventually helped her earn the promotion to CEO of fund management behemoth Barclays Global Investors in 1995.

Dunn's life had been far from charmed.

Financial difficulties dogged her family throughout her childhood, and her father, a vaudeville actor, died of a heart attack before she was a teen. After the death, the family moved to Marin County, north of San Francisco, and her mother's emotional health deteriorated.

Dunn's mother later died of breast cancer.

It was at the height of Dunn's corporate success when she was diagnosed with cancer herself, forcing her to step down in 2002 from her role as Barclays CEO to fight breast cancer and melanoma.

Two years later, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and in fall 2006, she underwent surgery for a metastasized tumor ? three weeks before the public learned of the HP investigation that spawned congressional investigations, criminal probes and forced Dunn's resignation.

As Dunn and others involved in the probe grappled with the fallout, the public was given a rare view of the workings of a board consumed with bitter rivalries and dysfunction.

The probe Dunn authorized ultimately identified renowned physicist and former presidential adviser George Keyworth as the director who spoke anonymously to a technology news website about a confidential board retreat. Some viewed the article as innocuous, and venture capitalist Tom Perkins resigned from the board in protest over the investigators' tactics and took his case to investigators to force HP to disclose the reason for his departure.

The family is planning a memorial service in San Francisco.

Dunn is survived by her husband, Jahnke; three adult children, Janai Brengman, Michelle Cox and Michael Jahnke; ten grandchildren; a brother, Paul Dunn, and a sister, Lammers.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-12-05-Obit-Dunn/id-ead354f7eda2427999559e9e293c2808

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(Sorta) Debate Live-Blogging, Pt.2 (talking-points-memo)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/169520036?client_source=feed&format=rss

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'Pets 101!' to feature Chandler location

by Weldon B. Johnson - Dec. 3, 2011 06:01 AM
The Arizona Republic

Local fans of the Animal Planet television program, "Pets 101!" might notice some familiar scenes and faces on Dec. 10 episodes of the show.

Lisa Limbert, a Gilbert resident who rehabilitates mammals and birds, will appear on the two episodes of the program to be broadcast that night. Limbert and three of the 59 animals in her care were filmed for the show at Chandler's Environmental Education Center.

On the 8 p.m. episode, Limbert will be featured with her brush-tail bettong as well as a cuscus named Brisbane for a segment titled "Australian Invaders." The bettong and cuscus are Australian marsupials.

In the 9 p.m. show Limbert takes part in a segment, "South American Invaders," along with her Patagonian cavy named Quinn. The cavy is a large rodent native to Argentina and other parts of South America.

"Animal Planet is used to reaching out to people in the animal world," Limbert said. "I'm part of the zoo community as well. There are some things that I raise that are very rare that the zoos want to get their hands on. It's not that hard for people to get my name."

Limbert is licensed through the Arizona Game and Fish Department to care for 59 different types of animals. She serves as a wildlife rehabilitator with East Valley Wildlife, a network of individuals licensed to take care of animals.

She regularly uses the animals in her care for educational purposes through the Chandler and Gilbert parks and recreation programs. When she was contacted by producers at the Animal Planet network last May, she arranged to conduct sessions of her "Meet the Creature" classes at the Environmental Education Center.

"We're very excited about it," said P.J. Conover, assistant naturalist at the Environmental Education Center. "It's wonderful working with Lisa because of the type of opportunities she can bring to Chandler."

Limbert said she wanted to stress that even though the show is called "Pets 101!", she would not recommend keeping animals such as the ones featured as pets. She is trained and licensed to handle such creatures and said it requires significant work to care for them properly. The animals at her home are not dangerous - she said the largest mammal in her collection is a beaver - but they aren't the average pets.

"They really wanted to feature the cuscus; there aren't many of them in this country," Limbert said. "But to call it a pet is ludicrous. I told them if they wanted to film my animals they had to do it in the context that I use them. I'm proud of my collection, but I do not recommend these animals as pets. I'm hopeful that when the show airs, they'll come off in the context I recommend, but I have no control over that."

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/12/01/20111201chandler-pets-101-location.html

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The Best Package Tracker for Android [Android App Directory]

There are so many package tracking applications available for Android that there's no way we could highlight them all, but after testing several, we think Parcels delivers the right package of useful features for the price tag?free. You still have to enter your tracking numbers manually, but where other apps may have more gimmicky features, Parcels is clean, to the point, notifies you of changes, and gets the job done.

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• Supports dozens of shipping services, including the major ones in North America and the UK
• Supports background notifications of changes in package status
• Allows you to track multiple packages at once, labeled and color coded for easy reference, and marked with icons for in-transit and delivered
• Displays package status in an all-in-one view, tap any package to see detailed status and scan history
• Can display package status and history on a Google Map so you can see where it has been
• Can shift from an in-app status display to the carrier's web page, complete with current status of your packages
• Can be set to automatically delete delivered packages after a set time, and removes completed packages from the notifications list

Parcels' may not have the UI flair that some of its iOS counterparts do, but what it lacks in design it makes up for in functionality. You do have to enter your tracking numbers manually (the developer recently removed the requirement that you link the app with your Google account for shipping notifications), but once you do you can see package status at any time on one screen. You can drill down to see all of the updates from the carrier, check the package's progress on a Google Map, or jump over to the carrier's web site to see detail the app may not have picked up, all without having to re-enter the tracking number. Best of all, Parcels does all of this for free, ad-free. There is a donationware version of the app that will set you back just over $4 USD if you want to contribute to the app's development.

The major downside to Parcels is that you have to enter each of your tracking numbers in manually (unless you're tracking outgoing packages, in which case you can scan the barcodes.) Other package tracking apps have found various ways to get around that (more on this later), but as it stands, you'll have to copy and paste from your shipping email into the app, or type it in while looking at another screen. Also, one of the app's drawbacks is that it doesn't support the wide variety of shipping carriers that some of its competition does. Where other apps boast hundreds of services, Parcel has a few dozen?that's a drawback for some international users, but most people will find their carrier supported, especially in North America and Europe. Plus, the developer is open to adding more carriers, and invites users to email or comment on the project page to help him choose which ones make it into each update.

Package Buddy (Free, ad supported/$1.99 to remove ads) is another robust package tracking tool for Android, and while it supports more carriers and shippers than Parcels, the UI is a bit more difficult to read and the app offers virtually the same features, only ad-supported. You'll have to shell out a few bucks to remove the ads. Package Buddy tries to get around the need to enter your tracking number manually by giving you a web site you can visit to create QR codes for your tracking numbers, but frankly it's just as much work to create the QR code and then scan it into the app as it is to just type it in once. Plus, Package Buddy's automatic update was buddy in our tests, and we missed the background notifications Parcels offered.

TrackChecker (Free) is another great alternative. It too supports tons of international carriers, including many in eastern Europe, Russia, and Asia, so if you're reading from there, this might be a better option for you than some of the apps that focus on the western hemisphere. The downside however is that TrackChecker is a "just the facts" kind of tool. You enter you tracking numbers manually, and you get a list of all of the packages you entered. Icons with number indicators let you know if there have been any changes and if any of them occurred since you last looked at the status.

Shiprack Package Tracker (Free, ad supported/$0.99 to remove ads) supports largely North American carriers, including some enterprise freight and delivery services. While it's lacking in supported carriers, Shiprack fixes the problem of entering tracking numbers very well. Simply forward your shipping notifications to Shiprack from your Google account, and the service associates your notification with your phone and displays the current status of that package in the application. If that sounds familiar, it's the same way apps like TripIt allow you to send all of your travel arrangements to one address, log in to your account, and see them together. Sadly, Shiprack doesn't allow you to enter tracking numbers manually even if you wanted to, so we have to ding them for that. Aside from that, the app does offer package history on a Google Map, and detailed package history via the carrier's mobile site.

Package Tracker Pro ($1.99) offers most of the features that the other utilities do?the only difference is that Package Tracker Pro costs money. For your two dollars, you get the ability to sync with a file full of tracking numbers on your computer, so you don't have to enter them into your phone manually, you get background notifications on your phone (complete with flashing LEDs), and the ability to organize and label your packages the way you prefer, or by carrier. There's also a Package Tracker Pro version for Android Tablets, so if you're comfortable spending money to track your packages, the app is worth a look?but there isn't much you get here over other free options.

Packetracer (Free, ad-supported/$1.72 to remove ads) is the app for you if you're looking for a utility that works across multiple platforms and have to have the same app on your iOS, Android, Blackberry, or WIndows Phone. Still, the app supports close to 200 carriers internationally, so it's a great option if you do a lot of international shipping. The carriers are organized by region, which can be a pain to switch between if you have to track a lot of packages in different places. Still, it's the app with the most supported carriers we could find. Plus, Packetracer gets around you having to enter tracking numbers manually (although you still have to) by allowing you to scan tracking numbers from your computer screen, or labels from your packages. The trouble with this though is that the app has a tendency to think something's a tracking number when it's not, and you have to know where the tracking information is on the label to scan it.

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Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

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You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter or Google+.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/EdIKeOGvnvc/the-best-package-tracker-for-android

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New Flu Strain Makes Health Experts Nervous

News | Health

Is a new strain of H3N2 swine flu a danger to public health or just to the reputations of public health experts?

By Helen Branswell ?| December 2, 2011?|

Image: Flickr/gilt gluttony

A new variant of a flu virus that circulates in pigs has been jumping occasionally into people, providing a surprisingly early opportunity for public health officials to test out some of the lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

Since the virus was first spotted in July, there have been 10 cases, all but one of which were children under the age of 10. (The exception was a 58 year old.) All the cases have been in the United States; there have been no reports of this virus in people or pigs anywhere else

The most recent infections, in three young children in Iowa, almost certainly involved person-to-person spread. The Iowa cluster is likely larger ? no one in the first child?s family had exposure to pigs, suggesting an unidentified person was the source of virus.

The cases leave public health authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere wondering if a new swine-origin influenza virus is circulating at low levels among humans ? and what needs to be done if that is indeed happening. (Read ?Flu Factories? in the February Scientific American (preview) to learn why health authorities fear the next pandemic virus may emerge as a result of industrial farming? practices.)

Given the mercurial nature of influenza viruses?which can easily mutate into lethal pathogens?ignoring the new virus is not an option, even though to date there have been no deaths and most of the infections have produced only mild symptoms. But the widespread perception that the 2009 swine flu pandemic was much ado about nothing means health authorities risk further damage to their already battered credibility if they sound an alarm and this virus turns out to be a dud. And they know it.

The World Health Organization is working to be ready to react if needed, but wants to make sure it neither under-plays or over-plays its response to this potential new threat, which is technically known as a swine origin influenza A virus of the H3N2 subtype. The new virus has acquired the M gene of the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus; studies suggest that this gene may enhance transmissibility of the virus.

"We are closely following the information coming out of the U.S. And we just are making sure that if we need to be more active, we will be more active, or if we need to stand down we can do so,? says Keiji Fukuda, the UN health agency?s assistant director-general for health security and environment.

Among the things the WHO is working on is finding a scientifically correct yet politically sensitive name to call this virus. Sales of pork plunged in 2009 when the new H1N1 was identified as swine flu, a reference to the fact it was comprised mainly of genes from influenza viruses that circulate in pigs.

This H3N2 poses similar naming challenges. There is already a human H3N2 ? a distant cousin of this pig virus ? so some way to differentiate the viruses is needed. Pork producers are concerned about how communications about the virus will be handled, admits Paul Sundberg, vice-president for science and technology for the National Pork Board, who says his group has already met with officials at the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control in Atlanta to discuss the naming challenging.

Fukuda says the WHO is trying to draw on the experience of 2009 as it maps out its response to the new virus. ?It frequently comes up as a question: ?What did we learn from that pandemic that we ought to be thinking about in terms of this situation???

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=575cdfee86c80b969bf0ece47d58a323

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Ex-FAMU band director: 'Zero tolerance' for hazing

Florida A&M drum major Robert Champion was laid to rest Wednesday in his Georgia hometown. Blayne Alexander of NBC station WXIA of Atlanta reports.

By NBC News and msnbc.com staff

ATLANTA ? The former director of Florida A&M University's marching band, who was fired last week after the death of a band member in a suspected hazing incident, said Thursday that he always enforced a "zero tolerance" policy toward hazing and that his dismissal was premature.

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In an interview with NBC station WXIA of Atlanta, Julian White, who had directed the famous Marching 100 since 1998, said he still does not know why drum major Robert Champion collapsed Nov. 19 at a hotel in Orlando, Fla., after a football game. He later died at an Orlando hospital.

??Read the full report from WXIA's Blayne Alexander at 11alive.com

Authorities have yet to issue an official cause of death, but they have said hazing likely was involved.

"What (the students) did, I don't know," White said. "I think that is something that is part of the ongoing investigation."

White said he didn't ask others students what had happened because he was preoccupied with getting Champion to the hospital.

Two students have filed lawsuits claiming they were hazed during White's 13 years in charge of the world-renowned band. White received notice from the university that he would be dismissed, a ruling he is appealing.

? Another person claims hazing by Florida A&M band

"In all cases where I suspect there's hazing involved, I take immediate action," White said. "My job is to report it to the proper authorities, which in this case is the university police department, and that I have done."

White's comments came a day after Champion was buried Wednesday in Decatur, Ga., his hometown. He was wearing his Florida A&M University Marching 100 uniform and held a baton in the open casket.

This article includes reporting by NBC station WXIA at 11alive.com and msnbc.com staff.

Source: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/01/9145562-ex-florida-am-university-band-director-i-had-zero-tolerance-for-hazing

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