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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45102630#45102630
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Monday, 31 October 2011
Attack near UN guest house kills 4 in Afghanistan (AP)
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan ? A suicide vehicle bomb struck a checkpoint in a neighborhood housing United Nations and international aid groups' offices and guest houses in the southern city of Kandahar early Monday, killing four people, Afghan officials said. Attacking insurgents broke into the offices of an aid group.
Gunmen rushed into the neighborhood and seized control of at least one building, and were exchanging fire with security forces, Kandahar police chief Gen. Abdul Razzaq said. NATO said that Afghan troops were "leading the efforts against the attackers" in the city, a traditional Taliban stronghold.
The combined bombing and assault was the second major attack in three days targeting foreigners or NATO troops in the country, and spotlighted the insurgents' ability to continue to carry out major attacks despite a 10-year NATO campaign against them. The U.S.-led coalition is gradually handing over security responsibilities to its Afghan counterparts and plans to withdrawing its combat forces by the end of 2014.
Immediately after the 6:15 a.m. bomb attack, two insurgents rushed into the area and seized control of an animal clinic near the office of the International Relief and Development organization, said provincial police spokesman Ghorzang, who like many Afghans goes by one name.
The insurgents then managed to enter the IRD's office through the neighboring UNHCR building, Ghorzang said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with spokesman Qari Yousef saying the insurgents were targeting what he claimed was a guest house affiliated with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. But UNAMA does not operate a guest house in the area.
The clinic and IRD offices entered by the attackers are, however, near guest houses affiliated with both the IRD and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, Ghorzang said, and the area is also home to several other international NGO offices and guest houses.
Earlier reports said three security guards in the area were killed, but Mohammad Faisal, spokesman for the Kandahar governor's office, said three civilians and one policeman were killed. Three civilians and a Nepalese guard were also wounded, said Faisal.
UNAMA said it was aware of the situation, but that "all our staff, both Afghan and non-Afghan ... have been accounted for," said agency spokesman Dan McNorton.
The attack comes two days after the Taliban launched a brazen midday suicide bombing in Kabul, striking a NATO convoy on Saturday and killing 17 people ? five NATO service members, including one Canadian soldier; eight civilian contractors, including two from Britain; and four Afghans, including a policeman.
Saturday's attack in Kabul underscored the urgency behind the U.S.-led coalition's efforts to expand a security bubble around the city.
With most of the attacks in Kabul blamed on the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, that assault reinforced U.S. and Afghan demands that Islamabad do more to curb militant activity and sanctuaries on its territory. Last month, then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said the al-Qaida and Taliban-linked Haqqani network "acts as a veritable arm" of Pakistan's intelligence agency ? an accusation that Pakistan has denied.
While there is no specific information linking Saturday's convoy attack to the Haqqani, investigators say they soon will have evidence the bombing was "Haqqani-related," a western diplomat said Sunday.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation, said it was "very possible" the Kabul attack was the work of Haqqani fighters.
At least 11 of about 15 major attacks in the capital this year can be blamed on the Haqqanis, according to a senior official with the coalition who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss undisclosed investigative reports on the incidents.
The Haqqanis were the focus of two military operations this month that involved tens of thousands of Afghan and NATO troops.
The operations were conducted over nine days in several provinces along the border with Pakistan, More than 200 insurgents were killed or captured. At least 20 of them had ties to the Haqqani group, including 10 identified as leaders of the network.
Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that the operations against the Haqqanis were conducted in preparation for next year's plan to step up operations to keep insurgents from infiltrating across the Pakistani border and into the capital, especially from the south.
The United States has stepped up criticism of Pakistan and its counterterrorism cooperation, but at the same time has worked to cajole the increasingly angry and resistant Pakistanis into doing more to squeeze militants on its side of the border.
During her visit to the region last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered an unusually blunt warning to the Pakistanis, saying they "must be part of the solution" to the Afghan conflict.
Clinton said the Obama administration expects the Pakistani government, military and intelligence services to "take the lead" in not only fighting insurgents based in Pakistan but also in encouraging Afghan militants to reconcile with Afghan society.
___
Associated Press writers Tarek El-Tablawy, Deb Riechmann and Amir Shah contributed.
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Cain says he was 'falsely accused' of harassment (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Denying he ever sexually harassed anyone, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain declared Monday he was falsely accused in the 1990s while he was head of the National Restaurant Association and the allegations are surfacing now as part of a "witch hunt."
The former pizza company executive was responding to a Politico report that said the trade group gave financial settlements to at least two female employees who had accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior.
But throughout the day, Cain offered conflicting responses as to whether he remembered the specifics of the allegations or the existence of settlements with the women. That raised new questions about the candidate who now is at or near the top in many polls on the GOP race.
At an appearance at the National Press Club Monday afternoon, Cain said he did not know if the trade association provided any settlements, and he declined to address specifics of the accusations or any resolution.
"I am unaware of any sort of settlement. I hope it wasn't for much, because I didn't do anything," he said.
But in an interview later with Fox News, Cain said he did know about it. "Yes, there was some sort of settlement or termination," he said.
During his appearance at the press club, he declared: "There's nothing else there to dig up. ... We have no idea the source of this witch hunt, which is really what it is."
In an interview with The Associated Press immediately afterward, Cain first said he had some memory of specific allegations ? and then said he was not aware of any.
"Some of them," he responded initially.
When pressed, he said: "That was 12 years ago. So no, I don't remember."
Still later, in an interview with PBS NewsHour, he said he remembered that "once I referenced this lady's height and I was standing near her" and that the woman "thought that that was too close for comfort."
Cain defended himself. "It was in my office, the door was wide open, and my secretary was sitting right there, and we were standing there and I made the little gesture," he said.
Cain started the day with a breakfast appearance at the American Enterprise Institute, and he said, "I do have a sense of humor and some people have a problem with that." In the interview with AP, Cain said that comment did not refer to the sexual harassment allegations.
"I was just referring to my natural sense of humor. So it was not related to that, OK?" he said.
He also had said in humorous fashion, "As a result of today's big news story, I really know what it feels like to be No. 1."
The trade association declined to comment on the allegations.
"The incidents in question relate to personnel matters that allegedly took place nearly fifteen years ago. Consistent with our longstanding policy, we don't comment on personnel issues relating to current or former employees," National Restaurant Association spokeswoman Sue Hensley said in a statement.
Cain ? a self-styled outsider relatively new to the national spotlight ? is facing a new level of scrutiny after a burst of momentum in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.
He's been at or near the top of national surveys and polls in early presidential nominating states, competitive with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, long considered the Republican to beat. Cain has been pointing to his long record in business to argue that he has the credentials to be president during a time of economic strife.
So far, Cain has seemed to weather a series of stumbles; the former radio talk show host had to clarify recent statements on abortion, the treatment of terrorism suspects and the placing of an electrified fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. He's also shrugged off questions that have started to surface about his management style, including criticisms about a lackluster approach to his own presidential campaign. He lags his top competitors in organization and fundraising.
The new allegations could hurt Cain's efforts to reassure the Republican establishment that someone with so little political experience ? and who hasn't been fully vetted on a national stage ? is prepared to go up against President Barack Obama next fall.
But there were signs that conservatives were rallying behind him, attacking the report as inaccurate and perhaps racially motivated.
The head of the conservative Media Research Center, Brent Bozell, called the Politico story a "High-tech lynching of Herman Cain." That was a reference to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' response to a former worker's allegations during his confirmation hearing.
"In the eyes of the liberal media, Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation," Bozell wrote on the conservative website Newsbusters.org.
The allegations came to light Sunday night when Politico reported that at least two women who complained about sexually inappropriate behavior while working for Cain had signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them five-figure financial payouts to leave the association and barred them from discussing their departures. Neither woman was identified.
The report was based on anonymous sources and, in one case, what the publication said was a review of documentation that described the allegations and the resolution.
Politico said Cain refused to comment when asked specifically about one of the woman's claims. And when asked if he had ever been accused of harassment by a woman, the publication said Cain responded by asking the reporter, "Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?"
Despite the controversy, Cain pressed ahead with his full slate of campaign appearances in Washington on Monday.
At the speech at the American Enterprise Institute, he refused to answer questions about the allegations. Still, as he was leaving the stage, he stopped, turned to the crowd and talked about his sense of humor without providing any context. He said his staff tells him to be himself ? or "Let Herman be Herman."
He added: "Herman is going to stay Herman."
An hour later, he was on Fox News.
"If more allegations come, I assure you, people will simply make them up," Cain said. Besides his job as CEO of Godfather's Pizza, he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
"What you can expect from my campaign is for me to stay on message, for us to continue to do the things and execute our strategy in order to win the nomination," Cain said.
"Obviously, some people are going to be turned off by this cloud that someone wanted to put over my campaign," he said. "But a lot of people aren't going to be turned off. We'll just have to wait and see what happens."
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Conservative, leftist up for Bulgaria presidency (AP)
SOFIA, Bulgaria ? Bulgarians on Sunday are choosing between a member of the ruling center-right party and a leftist ex-foreign minister in an election run-off for the presidency of the impoverished, corruption-plagued country.
Although most of the power in Bulgaria rests with the prime minister and Parliament, the president leads the armed forces and can veto legislation and sign international treaties.
Polls opened at 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Sunday and close at 7 p.m. (1700 GMT). Some 6.9 million people are eligible to vote.
A vote last Sunday yielded two top candidates, neither of whom achieved the 50 percent required for outright victory. Ruling conservative party candidate Rosen Plevneliev garnered just over 40 percent of votes, while Ivailo Kalfin ? who ran on the opposition Socialist party ticket ? got nearly 29 percent.
With the gap between the front-runners just over 375,000 votes, both candidates have tried to rally support outside their parties' traditional voters.
Plevneliev, 47, a former entrepreneur, has been lauded for pushing through several large-scale infrastructure projects as regional development minister in the incumbent cabinet. He has pledged to reduce the budget deficit and pursue business-friendly policies in the economically struggling country.
Kalfin, 47, has pledged to safeguard democracy and the rule of law. The European Parliament member is one of the few top left-wing politicians seen as largely untainted by the Socialist party's communist past. During his term as foreign minister, Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007.
The winner replaces Georgi Parvanov, a former leader of the Socialist Party who has often criticized the government and used his powers to veto legislation or key judicial office or diplomatic service appointments. Parvanov has served two five-year terms, the legal limit.
Former European Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, running as an independent, came in third in last Sunday's vote. But Kuneva has refused to endorse Kalfin or Plevneliev for the second round, saying they both stand for things she cannot agree to.
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Big Trouble In Little China: Kurt Russell Does Not Know What Is...
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Source: http://everythinginthesky.com/post/12092713814
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Sunday, 30 October 2011
OmniFocus (for Mac)
- Type
- Business, Personal
- OS Compatibility
- Mac OS
Editor's Note: This product has not yet been tested. The following coverage is based on information provided by the manufacturer or developer.
OmniFocus ($79.99) is a powerful productivity management application for Mac computers, with versions for iPad and iPhone as well. The program helps you manage your tasks, stay on top of deadlines, and break down complex tasks into more manageable to-do list items. The OmniFocus app is more complex than a standard listmaker app, with an inbox, Web clipper, and the ability to easily separate personal goals from professional assignments.
One of its features is the ability to capture miscellaneous to-dos on the fly with a quick entry panel, which moves new items into an inbox until you're ready to process and organize them. Other features include the ability to add start dates, due dates, time estimates, and task recurrence schedules. You can also upload attachments.
The $80 app comes with a syncing service, which puts your task database into the cloud so that all your Apple devices (Macs, iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad) have the most up-to-date information.?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/o7fW9T3NGBs/0,2817,2395241,00.asp
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Clemson, KSU tumble; top 5 stay same in AP ranking (AP)
NEW YORK ? Clemson and Kansas State tumbled in The Associated Press college football poll after losing for the first time this season, and the top five teams in the rankings held their ground heading into the showdown between No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama.
Clemson slipped five spots after losing 31-17 at Georgia Tech and Kansas fell seven spots to No. 17 after getting thumped 58-17 by Oklahoma.
LSU received 47 first-place votes from the media panel, Alabama had 10 and No. 5 Boise State had one.
No. 3 Oklahoma State and No. 4 Stanford held on to their spots after victories, while the Broncos were idle.
Georgia Tech's upset pushed the Yellow Jackets back into the rankings at No. 22 and Auburn jumped back in at No. 25.
The losses by Clemson and Kansas State leave six undefeated teams in major college football ? the top five and No. 14 Houston.
The rest of the top had Oregon at No. 6, Oklahoma moving up four spots to No. 7, Arkansas at No. 8 and Nebraska and South Carolina right behind.
Clemson at 11th was followed by Atlantic Coast Conference rival Virginia Tech.
Michigan is No. 13, its best ranking since Nov. 4, 2007.
Michigan State is No. 15, followed By Penn State, Kansas State, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona State.
The final five were Southern California, Georgia Tech, Cincinnati, West Virginia and Auburn.
The defending national champion Tigers have fallen out of the rankings three times this season, only to work their way back in.
Falling out after losses were two Big 12 teams.
Texas A&M (5-3) was upset at home 38-31 in overtime by Missouri and is unranked for the first time this season.
Texas Tech moved into the rankings last week for the first time this season by beating Oklahoma. The Red Raiders followed that up with a 41-7 loss at home to Iowa State and are unranked again.
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Western Michigan University Sky Broncos wins regionals, soars to natinal competition
KALAMAZOO ? Western Michigan University's precision flight team took first place at a regional competition this week and will compete in a national competition next year.
The 13-member Sky Broncos team took second place in both the flight and ground events at the National Intercollegiate Flying Association's Region III event at Ohio University. They finished first overall with 211 points.
Teams competed in five ground events and four flying events between Monday and Friday.
Ohio State University was second with 186 points and Ohio University came in third with 180 points. Five collegiate teams competed in the Region III event.
"This was a true team effort as evidenced by the fact that they took second place in both ground events and flying events but were still able to take first place overall," Faculty Advisor Ryan Seiler said in a news release. "The team was very deep and balanced, which allowed them to take the regional title."
Individual honors won by Sky Broncos at the regional event included:
- Second place in the Top Pilot standing, John Robbins Jr. of Auburn, Mich.
- Third place in the Top Pilot, Kyle Mallory of Rochester, N.Y.
- Top scoring female contestant at the event,Kaitlin Klingler, of Hillsdale.
The national competition will take place from May 14-19, 2012 at Kansas State University.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kzgazette_news/~3/yUNJAQv_OMo/western_michigan_university_sk.html
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Video: Dishing it out
Cards rally past Rangers in 11th, force Game 7
David Freese homered to lead off the bottom of the 11th inning, and the St. Louis Cardinals forced the World Series to a Game 7 by rallying from two-run deficits against the Texas Rangers in the 9th and 10th on Thursday night.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45068426#45068426
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Saturday, 29 October 2011
Video: Asian US population now more than 17M
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45069232#45069232
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Stocks close mixed; Dow headed for monster month
NEW YORK ? Stocks closed mixed Friday afternoon as traders scrutinized a plan to contain Europe's debt crisis that sent the market soaring a day earlier.
According to preliminary calculations, the Dow Jones industrial average finished the trading day up 22.03 points, or 0.18 percent to 12,230.58. The Dow surged 339 points the day before, its biggest gain since Aug. 11. The Dow is headed for its biggest monthly gain since 1987.
"It's a kind of sobering-up after a day of partying," said Jerry Webman, chief economist with Oppenheimer Funds in New York.
European leaders unveiled a plan early Thursday to expand their regional bailout fund and force banks to keep bigger cash buffers. Banks agreed to forgive half of Greece's debt. The Dow and the Standard & Poor's 500 index both gained more than 3 percent.
Optimism ebbed on Friday as analysts raised questions about the plan, which lacks many key details. It is not yet clear how the rescue fund will work, for example. European markets mostly fell, and the euro declined against the dollar.
"We got back to what's more of a square position, closer to where we want to be, and now we're going to take a couple of deep breaths and reassess what this really means," Webman said. He said there are still plenty of obstacles to overcome before the crisis is resolved.
One troubling sign: Borrowing costs for Italy and Spain increased, signaling that traders remain worried about their finances.
The S&P 500 index rose 0.38 points, or 0.03 percent, to 1,284.97. The Nasdaq composite index slipped 1.48 points, or 0.05 percent, to 2,737.15.
The Dow is up 11.9 percent this month, the S&P 13.4 percent. Both indexes are on pace to have their best month since January 1987.
In less than four weeks, the Dow has risen 14.5 percent from its 2011 low, reached on Oct. 3. The S&P has gained 16.6 percent in that time. However, the Dow remains 4.8 percent below this year's high, reached on April 29. The S&P is 6.1 percent below its high.
Whirlpool Corp. slumped 14 percent, the most in the S&P index, after the appliance maker said it would cut 5,000 jobs, citing weak demand and higher costs for materials. Another household name, Newell Rubbermaid Inc., soared 12 percent after its adjusted earnings beat Wall Street's expectations. The maker of tubs and markers maintained its outlook for the year.
Cablevision Systems Corp. fell 13 percent after reporting that its third-quarter net income dropped sharply and it lost cable TV subscribers.
Thursday's stock rally led to a sell-off in Treasurys, which traders hold to protect their money when other investments are falling. Demand for Treasurys increased sharply Friday, pushing the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to 2.31 percent from 2.39 percent late Thursday.
Markets have been roiled for months by fears about the impact of Europe's debt crisis. Greece couldn't afford to repay its lenders, and banks holding Greek bonds faced billions in losses. A disorganized default by Greece threatened to spook lenders to other countries with heavy debt loads such as Spain and Italy. Traders feared that a wave of defaults by countries would cause financial panic and mire the global economy.
Some analysts expect traders to refocus on U.S. economic news next week after months spent watching Europe. The government releases its jobs report for October next Friday. A news conference by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke might offer clues about the Fed's economic outlook. Key reports on manufacturing and business sentiment are due out as well.
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India fans vent anger after Metallica show nixed
India fans vent anger after Metallica show nixed
AP
US heavy metal and rock band Metallica members from left to right Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and Robert Trujillo pose for media during a press conference, in Gurgoan on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. According to Indian news agency Press Trust of India, rock band Metallica's maiden concert in India failed to kick off Friday triggering chaos at the venue and leaving thousands of fans disappointed. After citing technical problems for the postponement, the concert organizers said concert will be held tomorrow. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
US heavy metal and rock band Metallica members from left to right Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and Robert Trujillo pose for media during a press conference, in Gurgoan on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. According to Indian news agency Press Trust of India, rock band Metallica's maiden concert in India failed to kick off Friday triggering chaos at the venue and leaving thousands of fans disappointed. After citing technical problems for the postponement, the concert organizers said concert will be held tomorrow. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
Indian fans of U.S. band Metallica shout slogans near the stage after the concert was postponed, in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. According to Indian news agency Press trust of India, Heavy Metal and Rock band Metallica's maiden concert in India failed to kick off Friday triggering chaos at the venue and leaving thousands of fans disappointed. After citing technical problems for the postponement, the organizers said the concert will be held Saturday. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
Indian fans of American band Metallica vandalize the stage after the concert was postponed, in Gurgaon, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. According to Indian news agency Press Trust of India, rock band Metallica's maiden concert in India failed to kick off Friday triggering chaos at the venue and leaving thousands of fans disappointed. After citing technical problems for the postponement, the concert organizers said concert will be held tomorrow. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
US heavy metal and rock band Metallica members from left to right, James Hetfield and Robert Trujillo pose for media during a press conference, in Gurgoan on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. According to Indian news agency Press Trust of India, rock band Metallica's maiden concert in India failed to kick off Friday triggering chaos at the venue and leaving thousands of fans disappointed. After citing technical problems for the postponement, the concert organizers said concert will be held tomorrow. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
US heavy metal and rock band Metallica members from left to right Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and Robert Trujillo pose for media during a press conference, in Gurgoan on the outskirts of New Delhi, India, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. According to Indian news agency Press Trust of India, rock band Metallica's maiden concert in India failed to kick off Friday triggering chaos at the venue and leaving thousands of fans disappointed. After citing technical problems for the postponement, the concert organizers said concert will be held tomorrow. (AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
NEW DELHI (AP) ? Thousands of disappointed fans have broken chairs and torn posters after organizers canceled a Metallica concert on the outskirts of the Indian capital.
The Press Trust of India news agency says police arrested four people from the company that had organized the concert on charges of cheating people who had waited for hours for the scheduled Friday performance by the American heavy metal band.
Organizers said the concert was called off due to technical difficulties.
Metallica promised full refunds to those who had bought tickets.
The concert was part of the buildup to Sunday's Indian Grand Prix Formula One race in New Delhi.
Metallica is scheduled to perform in the southern Indian city of Bangalore on Sunday.
Associated PressPeople, Places and Companies: India
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Rise in Medicare premiums less than feared in 2012 (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Medicare's basic monthly premium will rise significantly less than expected next year, the government announced Thursday. That could pay political dividends for President Barack Obama and for Democrats struggling to win over seniors in a close election.
The new Part B premium for outpatient care will be $99.90 a month for 2012, or about $7 less than projected as recently as May.
The bottom line: most seniors will pay an additional $3.50 a month next year, instead of $10.20, as forecast earlier.
Some younger retirees who enrolled recently have been paying up to $115.40 a month. Instead, they'll get a sizable break next year.
Premiums have been frozen at the 2008 level of $96.40 a month for about three-fourths of Medicare beneficiaries. That was due to the lack of a Social Security cost-of-living adjustment during the depths of the economic downturn. But Social Security recently announced a raise in monthly checks averaging $39 for 2012.
The Medicare news means the majority of seniors will have to fork over only a small part of their long-awaited COLA for premiums.
The reason for the lower-than-expected premiums has to do with the interaction between Social Security COLAs and Medicare premiums. But the Obama administration is hoping seniors will get a simple takeaway message: Medicare is under sound management.
Older voters went decisively for Republicans in the 2010 elections, after Obama's health care overhaul law cut Medicare spending to help finance coverage for uninsured working-age adults and their families.
Since then, the administration has doubled down to try to reverse any perception that Obama is steering Medicare into decline.
Earlier this year, officials had announced that premiums for Medicare's prescription benefit would remain unchanged for 2012, on average. Similarly, average premiums for popular Medicare Advantage plans will dip slightly in 2012. But those announcements do not have as much impact. Averages used by the government don't reflect individual experiences. And fewer beneficiaries are enrolled in either of those two benefits.
The Part B premium is one number that most of the 49 million people on Medicare can connect with.
Upper-income retirees pay more, and premiums for low-income beneficiaries are covered by Medicaid. But middle-class beneficiaries on tight budgets watch the Part B figure.
In a statement accompanying release of the Medicare premiums, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asserted that seniors have nothing to fear from the new health care law.
"The Affordable Care Act is helping to keep Medicare strong and affordable," she said. "People with Medicare are seeing higher quality benefits, better health care choices and lower costs."
A leading nonpartisan expert on Medicare said she doubted election-year politics are behind the lower-than-expected premiums for 2012.
"Changes in premiums are obviously important to seniors but the numbers are based on what the law requires, and determined by independent actuaries, rather than politics," said Tricia Neuman of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Neuman said the explanation is likely due to the complicated relationship between Social Security COLAs and Medicare premiums.
By law, the Part B premium is set to cover 25 percent of the cost of Medicare's outpatient care benefit.
But premiums have been frozen for most beneficiaries in recent years because federal law also says that ? with some exceptions ? an individual's Medicare premium cannot go up more than their Social Security COLA.
That left a relatively small share of beneficiaries, including recent enrollees, bearing the brunt of higher Medicare costs. Indeed, the so-called "standard premium" for 2011 rose to $115.40.
Back in May, when government experts originally forecast a premium of $106.60 for 2012, they were also projecting a Social Security COLA of just 0.7 percent. But the final COLA increase turned out to be much bigger, a 3.6 percent raise. And that meant rising Medicare costs could be spread among many more people, resulting in smaller increases for each individual.
"It has been an odd several years because of what has been going on with the COLA," said Neuman. "Not everybody was paying in the standard amount. Because more people are contributing, the effect of that is that the amount should go down."
Indeed, baby boomers who signed up for Medicare this year and were paying $115.40 a month will save $15.50 a month next year, an annual total of $186.
HHS also said the 2012 premium figure takes into account a fix for the biggest problem hanging over Medicare. Unless Congress acts by the end of the year, doctors will be hit with a 30 percent pay cut. But the department said since Congress is almost certain to override that cut, the cost of keeping doctors whole has been factored in to the premium calculations.
Medicare's Part B annual deductible, the amount beneficiaries pay before their coverage begins, will also drop next year to $140, a decrease of $22.
___
Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.
Friday, 28 October 2011
Young South Africans call for jobs, end to poverty (AP)
JOHANNESBURG ? Young South Africans brought their frustration over poverty and joblessness to the streets Thursday, responding to a call by the tough-talking youth leader of the governing African National Congress who has clashed with older party leaders over economic policy.
"Shoot the boer!" the crowd of thousands sang, a black liberation war-era chant that South Africa's highest court has ruled is racist and that the ANC ordered youth leader Julius Malema and his followers to stop singing. "Boer," farmer in the language of Dutch-descended South Africans, is sometimes used for all whites.
Malema led the crowd in chants of "Down with white monopoly capital!" as they approached the Chamber of Mines headquarters. Malema has been demanding nationalization of the country's lucrative mines, though the ANC-led government has said it has no intention to do so.
A banner at the mining headquarters declared "We agree with you that unemployment is too high, poverty is too high, inequality is too high."
Police and ANC Youth League marshals kept a close watch as the crowd of about 5,000 marched in 80-degree (27-degree Celsius) heat with dance music blaring from speakers.
Protester Tsholofelo Stephina Bester said the ANC must act faster to help the poor. Bester said that when she graduated from high school 10 years ago, she couldn't afford further studies to pursue her dream of becoming a social worker. She has been looking for steady work since. For the last two years, she has volunteered as an AIDS counselor, earning "pocket money" of 1,500 rand (about $190) a month. She and her 7-year-old daughter get by on that and welfare assistance.
"I want them not to promise without delivering," she said of ANC leaders. "I want them to deliver."
A quarter of the South African work force was unemployed even before the worldwide slowdown led to hundreds of thousands of lost jobs here. Unemployment among young people is even higher than the national average.
Malema took the lead in the "economic freedom march" that will go to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, then on foot and by bus about 40 miles (60 kilometers) north to Pretoria, the seat of government. After an overnight vigil in a Pretoria sports stadium, Malema will present government officials with his demands, which include jobs, housing and other help for the poor, and nationalizing the mines.
ANC leaders say talk about nationalizing mines undermines investor confidence, while Malema calls them "cowards," accusing them of being afraid to take on powerful mine bosses. Malema also says whites remain privileged 17 years after the end of apartheid, and that big business largely remains in white hands.
Thursday's protest may be aimed as much at influencing ANC economic policy as showing older leaders Malema cannot be ignored. Next year, President Jacob Zuma faces an internal party leadership vote that could also determine who will be South Africa's next president. Malema helped put Zuma in power after turning against predecessor Thabo Mbeki.
The main ANC grudgingly accepted Malema's plans to march after asking Malema to tone down his anti-government rhetoric. He also pledged the march would be peaceful.
In August, pro-Malema demonstrators burned ANC flags and ran through the streets of downtown Johannesburg holding up flaming T-shirts bearing the image of President Zuma. That protest was sparked by the start of a disciplinary hearing for Malema and five other youth league officers accused of bringing the ANC into disrepute with calls for the ouster of the democratic government of neighboring Botswana. They face expulsion or suspension from the party in a process that has not yet concluded.
In a speech to parliament earlier this week, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said creating jobs, reducing poverty, building infrastructure and expanding the economy would be the work of many decades. In what many analysts said was a veiled reference to Malema's calls for nationalization, Gordhan said South Africa's mining industry, a key sector of the country's economy, had not benefited from a global boom in mineral prices, in part because of "uncertainty in the regulatory environment."
"Anger is not enough," Gordhan said. "We have to act, we have to be bold and farsighted in our resolve to move ahead with the reforms that will build a better future not just for ourselves but for generations to come."
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New pathway critical to heart arrhythmia
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers have uncovered a previously unknown molecular pathway that is critical to understanding cardiac arrhythmia and other heart muscle problems. Understanding the basic science of heart and muscle function could open the door to new treatments. The study, published recently in the journal Cell, examined the electrical impulses that coordinate contraction in heart and skeletal muscles, controlling heart rate, for example. Unraveling how the body regulates these impulses is key to understanding serious health conditions such as paralysis, muscle relaxation and heart arrhythmia.
Researchers in the Cell study examined ion channels ? membrane proteins that allow the electrical charges to flow into and out of the cell. The number and location of channels on the cell's surface are critical to the heart's rhythm. The University of Maryland School of Medicine scientists found a new, previously unknown intracellular trafficking pathway that controls the number and location of the ion channels on the cell surface, affecting the passage of electrical charges and controlling the beat of the heart and other muscle activity.
Ion channels are proteins that form pores at the cell's surface. The pores open with careful regulation, allowing the passage of ions like potassium, sodium or chloride. These ions carry distinct electrical charges, and their regulated passage into and out of the cell stimulate and coordinate contractions such as the heart's rhythm.
"This study illuminates a new pathway for therapeutic intervention," says Paul Welling, M.D., professor of physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "Drugs that interfere with or augment this signal may be used to control the number and location of ion channels in such a way to fight arrhythmia and other muscle disorders, potentially saving lives."
"Dr. Welling's research is an example of the world class basic science discoveries taking place at the School of Medicine, discoveries that we hope one day will lead to relief and new treatments for patients and their families," says E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A. vice president for medical affairs for the University of Maryland, and John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Until recently, scientists have focused on the regulatory mechanisms that control the way that these ion channels open and close and how that action affects muscle contraction and heart rate. Years of research have shown that it is not simply the action of these ion channels that affects heart arrhythmia Scientists have found that the location and number of channels on the cell's surface are just as important to the heart's rhythm. The study in Cell describes a new intracellular trafficking pathway that controls the number and location of these ion channels on the cell surface.
"Previously, we were unsure how the ion channels get out to the surface of the cell," says Dr. Welling. "We found a new mechanism that operates like a molecular zip code, ensuring that the appropriate numbers of ion channels are sent to the correct cellular location, the cell surface. It also functions as a type of proofreading mechanism, making sure that only correctly made ion channels make it to the cell surface."
Dr. Welling and his colleagues examined the molecular pathology of the genetic condition Andersen-Tawil Syndrome, characterized by uncoordinated muscle contractions, paralysis and disruptions in the normal heart rhythm. The syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene known as KCNJ2, which encodes a potassium channel in the heart and skeletal muscle known as Kir2.1.
The scientists examined how mutations in the potassium channel affects its passage through a key intracellular sorting station called the Golgi apparatus. The Golgi apparatus modifies, sorts and packages molecules for the cell's use. Dr. Welling's lab found that the Golgi apparatus selects the Kir2.1 channel to travel to the surface of the cell in an unusual, signal-dependent manner. The signal determines where the Golgi apparatus sends the potassium channel and how many it sends and verifies that the channels are of quality. In patients with Andersen-Tawil Syndrome, the signal is faulty and fails to properly regulate the ion channels and their path to the cell surface.
"Elucidating the mechanisms behind this rare disease provides insight into more prevalent forms of arrhythmia such as heart failure," says Dr. Welling. "There is great interest in understanding the mechanisms by which cardiac ion channels are regulated. This new pathway may be an excellent target for therapeutic intervention for both Andersen-Tawil syndrome and the far more common condition, like arrhythmias associated with heart failure."
The study has implications beyond the science of the heart, he added. The class of ion channels the researchers examined includes about 12 other ion channels that control various body processes from cognition to the salt balance in the kidneys. The next step for his lab, Dr. Welling says, is to study this pathway in relation to the kidneys. It is possible the same pathway affects the entire class of channels and helps regulate all the body processes associated with them.
###
University of Maryland Medical Center: http://www.umm.edu
Thanks to University of Maryland Medical Center for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114657/New_pathway_critical_to_heart_arrhythmia
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AP IMPACT: NYPD shadows Muslims who change names
FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2011, file photo, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly listens during his testimony about NYPD intelligence operations to the New York City Council public safety committee in New York. Three months ago, one of the CIA?s most experienced clandestine operatives started work inside the New York Police Department. His title is special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. Since The Associated Press revealed the assignment in August, federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this CIA officer, a seasoned operative who handled foreign agents and ran complex operations in Jordan and Pakistan, was assigned to a municipal police department. Kelly said the CIA operative provides his officers "with information, usually coming from perhaps overseas." He said the CIA operative provides "technical information" to the NYPD but "doesn?t have access to any of our investigative files." (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 6, 2011, file photo, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly listens during his testimony about NYPD intelligence operations to the New York City Council public safety committee in New York. Three months ago, one of the CIA?s most experienced clandestine operatives started work inside the New York Police Department. His title is special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence. Since The Associated Press revealed the assignment in August, federal and city officials have offered differing explanations for why this CIA officer, a seasoned operative who handled foreign agents and ran complex operations in Jordan and Pakistan, was assigned to a municipal police department. Kelly said the CIA operative provides his officers "with information, usually coming from perhaps overseas." He said the CIA operative provides "technical information" to the NYPD but "doesn?t have access to any of our investigative files." (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The NYPD monitors everyone in the city who changes his or her name, according to internal police documents and interviews. For those whose names sound Arabic or might be from Muslim countries, police run comprehensive background checks that include reviewing travel records, criminal histories, business licenses and immigration documents. All this is recorded in police databases for supervisors, who review the names and select a handful of people for police to visit.
The program was conceived as a tripwire for police in the difficult hunt for homegrown terrorists, where there are no widely agreed upon warning signs. Like other NYPD intelligence programs created in the past decade, this one involved monitoring behavior protected by the First Amendment.
Since August, an Associated Press investigation has revealed a vast NYPD intelligence-collecting effort targeting Muslims following the terror attacks of September 2001. Police have conducted surveillance of entire Muslim neighborhoods, chronicling every aspect of daily life, including where people eat, pray and get their hair cut. Police infiltrated dozens of mosques and Muslim student groups and investigated hundreds more.
Monitoring name changes illustrates how the threat of terrorism now casts suspicion over what historically has been part of America's story. For centuries, immigrants have Americanized their names in New York. The Roosevelts were once the van Rosenvelts. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz. Donald Trump's grandfather changed the family name from Drumpf.
David Cohen, the NYPD's intelligence chief, worried that would-be terrorists could use their new names to lie low in New York, current and former officials recalled. Reviewing name changes was intended to identify people who either Americanized their names or took Arabic names for the first time, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne did not respond to messages left over two days asking about the legal justification for the program and whether it had identified any terrorists.
The goal was to find a way to spot terrorists like Daood Gilani and Carlos Bledsoe before they attacked.
Gilani, a Chicago man, changed his name to the unremarkable David Coleman Headley to avoid suspicion as he helped plan the 2008 terrorist shooting spree in Mumbai, India. Bledsoe, of Tennessee, changed his name to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad in 2007 and, two years later, killed one soldier and wounded another in a shooting at a recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark.
Sometime around 2008, state court officials began sending the NYPD information about new name changes, said Ron Younkins, the court's chief of operations. The court regularly sends updates to police, he said. The information is all public, and he said the court was not aware of how police used it.
The NYPD program began as a purely analytical exercise, according to documents and interviews. Police reviewed the names received from the court and selected some for background checks that included city, state and federal criminal databases as well as federal immigration and Treasury Department databases that identified foreign travel.
Early on, police added people with American names to the list so that if details of the program ever leaked out, the department would not be accused of profiling, according to one person briefed on the program.
On one police document from that period, 2 out of every 3 people who were investigated had changed their names to or from something that could be read as Arabic-sounding.
All the names that were investigated, even those whose background checks came up empty, were cataloged so police could refer to them in the future.
The legal justification for the program is unclear from the documents obtained by the AP. Because of its history of spying on anti-war protesters and political activists, the NYPD has long been required to follow a federal court order when gathering intelligence. That order allows the department to conduct background checks only when police have information about possible criminal activity, and only as part of "prompt and extremely limited" checking of leads.
The NYPD's rules also prohibit opening investigations based solely on activities protected by the First Amendment. Federal courts have held that people have a right to change their names and, in the case of religious conversion, that right is protected by the First Amendment.
After the AP's investigation into the NYPD's activities, some U.S. lawmakers, including Reps. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., and Rush Holt, D-N.J., have said the NYPD programs are blatantly racial profiling and have asked the Justice Department to investigate. Two Democrats on congressional intelligence committees said they were troubled by the CIA's involvement in these programs. Additionally, seven New York Democratic state senators called for the state attorney general to investigate the NYPD's spying on Muslim neighborhoods. And last month, the CIA announced an inspector general investigation into the agency's partnership with the NYPD.
The NYPD is not alone in its monitoring of Muslim neighborhoods. The FBI has its own ethnic mapping program that singled out Muslim communities and agents have been criticized for targeting mosques.
The name change program is an example of how, while the NYPD says it operates under the same rules as the FBI, police have at times gone beyond what is allowed by the federal government. The FBI would not be allowed to run a similar program because of First Amendment and privacy concerns and because the goal is too vague and the program too broad, according to FBI rules and interviews with federal officials.
Police expanded their efforts in late 2009, according to documents and interviews. After analysts ran background checks, police began selecting a handful of people to visit and interview.
Internally, some police groused about the program. Many people who were approached didn't want to talk and police couldn't force them to.
A Pakistani cab driver, for instance, told police he did not want to talk to them about why he took Sheikh as a new last name, documents show.
Police also knew that a would-be terrorist who Americanized his name in hopes of lying low was unlikely to confess as much to detectives. In fact, of those who agreed to talk at all, many said they Americanized their names because they were being harassed or were having problems getting a job and thought a new name would help.
But as with other intelligence programs at the NYPD, Cohen hoped it would send a message to would-be bombers that police were watching, current and former officials said.
As it expanded, the program began to target Muslims even more directly, drawing criticism from Stuart Parker, an in-house NYPD lawyer, who said there had to be standards for who was being interviewed, a person involved in the discussions recalled. In response, police interviewed people with Arabic-sounding names but only if their background checks matched specific criteria.
The names of those who were interviewed, even those who chose not to speak with police, were recorded in police reports stored in the department's database, according to documents and interviews, while names of those who received only background checks were kept in a separate file in the Intelligence Division.
Donna Gabaccia, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, said that for many families, name changes are important aspects of the American story. Despite the myth that officials at Ellis Island Americanized the names of people arriving in the U.S., most immigrants changed their names themselves to avoid ridicule and discrimination or just to fit in, she said.
The NYPD program, she said, turned that story on its head.
"In the past, you changed your name in response to stigmatization," she said. "And now, you change your name and you are stigmatized. There's just something very sad about this."
As for converts to Islam, the religion does not require them to take Arabic names but many do as a way to publicly identify their faith, said Jonathan Brown, a Georgetown University professor of Islamic studies.
Taking an Arabic name might be a sign that someone is more religious, Brown said, but it doesn't necessarily suggest someone is more radical. He said law enforcement nationwide has often confused the two points in the fight against terrorism.
"It's just an example of the silly, conveyor-belt approach they have, where anyone who gets more religious is by definition more dangerous," Brown said.
Sarah Feinstein-Borenstein, a 75-year-old Jewish woman who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was surprised to learn that she was among the Americans drawn into the NYPD program in its infancy. She hyphenated her last name in 2009. Police investigated and recorded her information in a police intelligence file because of it.
"It's rather shocking to me," she said. "I think they would have better things to do. It's is a waste of my tax money."
Feinstein-Borenstein was born in Egypt and lived there until the Suez Crisis in 1956. With a French mother and a Jewish religion, she and her family were labeled "undesirable" and were kicked out. She came to the U.S. in 1963.
"If you live long enough," she said, "you see everything."
___
Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org
Read AP's previous stories and documents about the NYPD at: http://www.ap.org/nypd
Follow Apuzzo and Goldman at http://twitter.org/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.org/goldmandc
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Exclusive: Medtronic probes insulin pump risks (Reuters)
BOSTON (Reuters) ? Medtronic Inc has asked software security experts to investigate the safety of its insulin pumps, as a new claim surfaced that at least one of its devices could be hacked to dose diabetes patients with potentially lethal amounts of insulin.
While there are no known examples of such a cyber attack on a medical device, Medtronic told Reuters that it was doing "everything it can" to address the security flaws.
Security software maker McAfee, which has a health industry business, exposed the new vulnerability in one model of the Medtronic Paradigm insulin pump on Friday and believes there could be similar risks in others.
Medtronic and McAfee declined to say which model is involved or how many such pumps are currently used by patients. It has two models of insulin pumps on the market and supports six older versions, with about 200,000 currently in use by patients.
The finding points to a broader issue -- the potential for cyber attacks on medical devices ranging from diagnostic equipment to pumps and heart defibrillators, which rely on software and wireless technology to work.
"This is an evolution from having to think about security and safety as a healthcare company, and really about keeping people safe on our therapy, to this different question about keeping people safe around criminal or malicious intent," Catherine Szyman, president of Medtronic's diabetes division, said in an interview.
Szyman, whose nephew uses a wearable Medtronic insulin pump, said the company turned to McAfee rival Symantec Corp and other security firms after an independent researcher exposed less serious vulnerabilities in the pumps in August.
Since then, a research team at Intel Corp's McAfee said it has developed code that allows it to gain complete control of the functions of one Medtronic insulin pump model from as far away as 300 feet.
"We found a way around all the restrictions and all the limitations," said Stuart McClure, a senior vice president with McAfee who heads up the research team.
McClure, formerly a security expert at healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, says he is exposing such problems to draw them to the attention of manufacturers and regulators.
McClure's team used a Windows PC and an antennae that communicates with the medical device over the same radio spectrum used for some cordless phones.
The type of vulnerability discovered by McAfee could theoretically be used as a new cyber weapon. A hacker could launch a "drive-by" attack aimed at a high-profile target, such as a politician or corporate executive, who uses this type of insulin pump, McAfee researchers said.
In August, Medtronic acknowledged that security flaws in its implanted insulin pumps could allow hackers to remotely take control of the devices.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration noted that there is no evidence of widespread problems from medical device security breaches. It says that device manufacturers are responsible for the safety of their software.
"Any system with wireless communication can be subject to interception of data and compromised privacy as well as interference with performance that can compromise the safety and effectiveness of the device," FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson said. "We continue to closely monitor for safety or security problems."
HOSTILE ACTORS
Medtronic is a leading makers of insulin pumps along with Johnson & Johnson's Animas Corp and Insulet Corp. McAfee did not report vulnerabilities in models from other manufacturers.
The fresh concerns over the pumps made by Medtronic, the world's largest medical device maker, follow a high-profile recall of heart defibrillator leads in 2007 and a more recent Senate probe into whether doctors it had paid failed to report problems from a spinal surgery product.
The company said it is also consulting with McAfee and has informed patients, through its website, to check their insulin pumps if they have a suspicious encounter with another person.
Medtronic officials have said it would be difficult to make changes to pumps already in use because of FDA regulations that require device makers to get agency approval before altering their products, including issuing software patches.
The company would likely have to first get FDA approval and then recall each pump, which uses wireless communications technology dating back 12 to 15 years, so that technicians could install the new software and check the equipment to make sure that it still accurately delivers doses of insulin.
Szyman said she could not say how long it would take Medtronic to come up with a fix for the vulnerabilities because its investigation is still ongoing. It is also unclear how long it might take the FDA to approve changes to the pumps.
"There's different pathways to approval," she told Reuters, noting that the agency typically takes six to 12 months to approve a new medical device.
Medtronic's diabetes products, which includes its insulin pumps, accounted for more than $1.3 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year, out of a total of nearly $16 billion.
The Medtronic pump vulnerability was discovered by Barnaby Jack, a well-known security expert who joined McAfee last year after gaining notoriety by finding ways to hack into ATMs used at convenience stores, then force them to literally spit out cash. The manufacturers have since fixed the flaw by updating the software that runs those machines.
The nightmare scenario, according to McAfee, involves a hostile actor launching a potentially fatal attack by taking control of an insulin pump, then ordering it to dump all the insulin in its canister.
That is something that was hard to imagine when the product was first designed - long before the recent rash of hacking attacks: "We are talking about code that was written over ten years ago," said Jack. "They never expected anybody to pop these devices open and look under the hood. We are trying to spark some change and get a secure initiative under way and get these devices fixed."
Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas that converts glucose into energy. In patients with diabetes, the body makes no insulin, or insulin levels are too low. This can cause the amount of glucose in the bloodstream to rise, a condition known as hyperglycemia.
When too much insulin is released into the blood stream, a person's blood sugar can become too low, a condition known as hypoglycemia. Symptoms of hypoglycemia range from nausea and confusion to, in severe cases, seizures, coma and death.
McClure declined to say how many models in Medtronic's line of insulin pumps were vulnerable. He said there is no evidence anybody else has identified the flaw or tried to exploit it.
"We just tested one model number," McClure said. "But we believe that more than that are vulnerable." His team demonstrated the vulnerability at a McAfee users conference in Las Vegas on Friday.
McAfee has consulted with experts at the Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, or ICS-CERT. That agency works with private companies in industries including healthcare to help investigate potential cyber vulnerabilities in their products.
Officials with ICS-CERT and Symantec could not be reached for comment.
(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston. Additional reporting by Toni Clarke in Boston, Anna Yukhananov in Washington and Susan Kelly in Chicago; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Edward Tobin and Martin Howell)
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Tunisia's moderate Islamists win landmark vote
Tunisian leader and founder of the moderate islamist party Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, center right, chairs an executive board at the party's headquarters in Tunis, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011. Authorities say the latest results from Tunisia's landmark elections indicate the moderate Islamist party is holding onto its lead, taking at least 44 percent of seats counted so far for an assembly tasked with writing a new constitution. (AP Photo/Benjamin Girette)
Tunisian leader and founder of the moderate islamist party Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, center right, chairs an executive board at the party's headquarters in Tunis, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011. Authorities say the latest results from Tunisia's landmark elections indicate the moderate Islamist party is holding onto its lead, taking at least 44 percent of seats counted so far for an assembly tasked with writing a new constitution. (AP Photo/Benjamin Girette)
Tunisian leader and founder of the moderate islamist party Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, chairs an executive board at the party's headquarters in Tunis, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011. Authorities say the latest results from Tunisia's landmark elections indicate the moderate Islamist party is holding onto its lead, taking at least 44 percent of seats counted so far for an assembly tasked with writing a new constitution. (AP Photo/Benjamin Girette)
Tunisian leader and founder of the moderate islamist party Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, chairs an executive board at the party's headquarters in Tunis, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011. Authorities say the latest results from Tunisia's landmark elections indicate the moderate Islamist party is holding onto its lead, taking at least 44 percent of seats counted so far for an assembly tasked with writing a new constitution. (AP Photo/Benjamin Girette)
The Tunisian leader of the moderate Islamist party, Ennahda or Renaissance, Rachid Ghannouchi, is pictured as he gets into an elevator at his party's headquarters in Tunis, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011, Authorities say the latest results from Tunisia's landmark elections indicate the moderate Islamist party is holding onto its lead, taking at least 44 percent of seats counted so far for an assembly tasked with writing a new constitution. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)
The Tunisian leader of the moderate Islamist party, Ennahda or Renaissance, Rachid Ghannouchi, arrives at his party's headquarters in Tunis, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011. Authorities say the latest results from Tunisia's landmark elections indicate the moderate Islamist party is holding onto its lead, taking at least 44 percent of seats counted so far for an assembly tasked with writing a new constitution. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) ? Tunisia's moderate Islamist party Ennahda, banned for decades, emerged the official victor in the nation's first free elections, taking 41.47 percent of the vote and 90 of 217 seats in an assembly that will write a new constitution, the electoral commission announced Thursday.
The announcement of final results in Sunday's landmark voting capped an ebullient period for this small North African country, which inspired the Arab Spring as it moves toward democracy after more than a half-century under one-party systems.
However, protests linked to the party placing fourth in Sunday's voting erupted in and around Sidi Bouzid, the town where the uprising that drove this North African nation's strongman from power.
The leader of Areedha Chaabiya, or Popular Petition party, Hachemi Hamdi, announced on national television that he was withdrawing the 19 seats his party won after the electoral commission invalidated six of its lists.
The results carried other surprises, like the second place, and 30 seats, won by the Congress for the Republic party, founded in 2001 by noted human rights activist Moncef Marzouki, a doctor who had lived in exile in Paris.
The third-placed party was the center-left Ettakatol, or the Democratic Forum for Labor and Freedoms, led by Mustapha Ben Jaafar, also a doctor. It won 21 seats in the constituent assembly.
The final results remain provisional until after any appeals are studied, a process that could take up to two weeks, according to Ridha Torkhani, a member of the electoral commission.
In Sidi Bouzid, soldiers fired warning shots after hundreds of alleged supporters of Areedhya Chaabiya flooded the streets and burned tires, according to a witness reached by telephone, Attia Athmouni.
The official TAP news agency said people were angry over the invalidation of the six lists of Areedha Chaabiya.
However, earlier in the day, some residents had already expressed displeasure with reported remarks from an Ennahda official scolding the population for letting money sway their votes.
Areedha Chaabiya's leader, Hachemi Hamdi, a native son of Sidi Bouzid and owner of the Mustaqila satellite television channel based in London, had broadcast promises to give Tunisians free health care, new factories and thousands of jobs.
Electoral officials ultimately invalidated five lists tarnished by financing violations and one led by a former member of the ruling RCD party ? now banned.
Protests spread to nearby Menzel Bouzayane where more than 1,000 people demonstrated, union official Mohamed Fadhel said by telephone.In Meknassy, 50 kilometers from Sidi Bouzid, demonstrators set fire to Ennahda's party office, Fadhel said.
Ennahda's leading role in fashioning a new Tunisia was evident shortly after the vote. However, electoral authorities had said they were slow in announcing full results because they were taking care with counting and verifying.
Officials of the party have said they are seeking a broad-based coalition government to replace the interim team in charge of this small North African nation since protests forced President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee in January. He took refuge in Saudi Arabia.
Ennahda has also vowed to wary Tunisians that democratic liberties such as gender equality will be respected in line with Muslim Tunisia's strong secular tradition.
International observers praised Tunisia for an exemplary election.
Tunisia's path forward is under scrutiny after it led the way for Arab neighbors in casting off dictators, in Egypt and later in Libya ? proclaimed liberated last Sunday as Tunisians went in droves to the polls.
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