Storms move across Georgia; tornado watch issued

ATLANTA (AP) -- Strong storms moved through Georgia Thursday evening, and emergency dispatchers reported damage in the Rome area, Gordon County and elsewhere, mostly in northwest Georgia.

Georgia Power estimated that more than 19,000 customers lost electricity early Thursday evening.

Power was reported out in much of west Rome.

Georgia Power spokeswoman Carol Boatright said about two-thirds of the outages in the state were in the Rome area. "Our crews are used to working in bad weather, and they'll be out there working this evening," she said.

Damage in Floyd County "seems to be the result of straight line winds and confined to an area of West Rome, mostly businesses reporting windows blown out," Ken Davis of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency said in a statement.

There were two reported minor injuries in Rome, caused by cuts from flying glass, Davis said.

Davis said utility crews were en route to restore lost power in the area.

A rehab center, described by Davis as a place to get a warm drink and out of the weather, was being established at Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Gordon County reported a couple of homes with damages ranging from major to being destroyed by straight line winds, and some minor injuries. Some power outages were reported in Gordon county, Davis said.

In Adairsville in Bartow County, the National Weather Service said many trees were down and homes were damaged.

Emergency management officials said numerous trees were down in southern Gilmer County.

Trees were reported down in Polk, Meriwether and Douglas counties.

Power lines were reported down in Coweta County.

Source: http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=244518

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RIM stock sinks yet again as floor proves elusive (Reuters)

TORONTO (Reuters) ? The precipitous decline in the price of Research In Motion stock has left the market capitalization of the BlackBerry maker below the value of its cash, receivables and other current assets.

Shares in the Canadian smartphone maker fell another 4 percent, to less than $13, on the Nasdaq on Monday.

The shares fell 11 percent on Friday after RIM offered a dismal outlook and said it was delaying release of its make-or-break new smartphones until late 2012.

They have lost more than half their value since the day before reporting second quarter earnings back in September.

The fall gives RIM a market capitalization of less than $7 billion. RIM last week said it had current assets - which include short-term investments and discounted inventory - of $7.2 billion.

That does not include long-term investments, property and intangible assets such as patents. RIM values those additional assets at about $7 billion.

"The problem is it's a tech stock where revenue and earnings are declining year-over-year and the fundamentals are deteriorating," said Susquehanna Financial analyst Jeff Fidacaro, who considers $12 a possible floor, based mostly on a valuation of RIM's patents and its services business.

RIM is struggling to move its smartphones across to the QNX operating system that powers its poorly-received PlayBook tablet computer. Even at the current price, potential acquirers are seen as likely to sit back until the switch is done, meaning there is no takeover premium to limit the fall.

"The challenge becomes for a natural acquirer to see that integration challenge internally," said Fidacaro, who points to a February software update for the PlayBook as the next potential positive catalyst for the stock.

RIM has suffered this year through a massive network outage, a deteriorating U.S. market share and a string of botched and delayed product launches, with its shares slumping from a high of more than $70 in February to the current level, the lowest since early in 2004, when RIM was just adding a color screen to its "email pagers".

But it's still posting solid quarterly sales - cash flow from operations was $1.8 billion in the third quarter - unlike the failed or struggling companies it is often compared to.

"It's not Palm which everyone is worried about," Fidacaro said, referring to a former rival which burned through cash as it fought to reinvigorate itself. Palm was later bought by Hewlett-Packard.

RIM said it will spend $100 million to promote its BlackBerry 7 phones, which JMP Securities analyst Alex Gauna said will be destructive to sentiment.

"Investors are likely to worry over a shift to cash consumption and hence erosion in tangible book value that the stock is closing on," he wrote.

"Worse, consumers that fall prey to promotional activities likely come away disappointed in poorly performing and buggy devices, hence deepening damage to the brand ahead of Blackberry 10," he said, referring to the QNX-based devices initially promised for early in 2012 but now due out late next year.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; editing by Janet Guttsman and Jeffrey Hodgson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111219/tc_nm/us_rim

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Mini Touch Golf Holiday Edition

Mini Touch Golf Holiday Edition

Developer: Try This Networks Inc.

Price: $1.99

* Supports the iPad natively in 1 universal binary!*

Celebrate Christmas and Hannukah with a brand spanking new edition of Mini Touch Golf. Putt your way through 18 holes, dodging candy canes, ice traps, and Christmas tree ornaments.

Touch the ball and pull back your finger to determine the power of your shot. Glide your finger in any direction to point the ball wherever you want. Lift your finger to release your shot, but don?t let the flying Santa distract you.

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Source: http://appcrab.com/mini-touch-golf-holiday-edition/

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Egypt's military clashes with protesters; 9 killed

Egyptian protesters carry an injured fellow protester during clashes with military police near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011. Egyptian soldiers clashed with hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in central Cairo for a second consecutive day on Saturday, in a resurgence of turmoil just days after millions voted in parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)

Egyptian protesters carry an injured fellow protester during clashes with military police near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011. Egyptian soldiers clashed with hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in central Cairo for a second consecutive day on Saturday, in a resurgence of turmoil just days after millions voted in parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)

Egyptian protesters throw stones toward military police during clashes near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011. Egyptian soldiers clashed with hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in central Cairo for a second consecutive day on Saturday, in a resurgence of turmoil just days after millions voted in parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)

Egyptian army soldiers arrest a woman protester during clashes with military police near Cairo's downtown Tahrir Square, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Activists say the clashes began after soldiers severely beat a young man who was part of a sit-in outside the Cabinet building. (AP Photo/Str)

A protester injured during clashes with military police receives medical treatment near Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Soldiers stormed a protest camp outside Egypt's Cabinet building, expelling demonstrators calling for an end to military rule, just as officials were counting votes Friday in the second round of Egypt's parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Mohammed Abu Zaid)

An Egyptian protester flashes anti-military ruling council banner, as others throw rocks at military police during clashes near Cairo's downtown Tahrir Square, Egypt, Friday, Dec. 16, 2011. Activists say the clashes began after soldiers severely beat a young man who was part of a sit-in outside the Cabinet building. The Arabic banner reads " over my dead body if the military council rule us and welcome to be a martyer" . (AP Photo/Ahmed Ali)

(AP) ? Hundreds of Egyptian soldiers swept into Cairo's Tahrir Square on Saturday, chasing protesters and beating them to the ground with sticks and tossing journalists' TV cameras off of balconies in the second day of a violent crackdown on anti-military protesters that has left nine dead and hundreds injured.

The violent, chaotic scenes have brought to the fore the simmering tensions between the ruling military council that took power after Hosni Mubarak's ouster and activists demanding the generals transfer power immediately to civilians. The clashes also serve as a near repeat of the deadly street fighting between youth protesters and security forces in November that lasted for days and left more than 40 dead.

Early Saturday, hundreds of protesters hurled stones at security forces, who set up a concrete wall and barbed wire to seal off streets between Tahrir and the nearby parliament building. Soldiers on rooftops pelted the crowds below with stones, prompting many of the protesters to pick up helmets, satellite dishes or sheets of metal to try to shield themselves.

Stones, dirt and shattered glass littered the streets downtown, while flames leapt out of the windows of a two-story building set ablaze near parliament, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky.

Witnesses said soldiers wielding batons and dressed in riot gear then chased protesters through the streets and into Tahrir Square, which served as the epicenter of the uprising that toppled Mubarak in February. Footage broadcast on the private Egyptian CBC television network showed soldiers beating two protesters with sticks, repeatedly stomping on the head of one, before leaving the motionless bodies on the pavement.

Soldiers set fire to tents inside the square, and swept through buildings where television crews were filming from and confiscated their equipment and briefly detained journalists.

In one case, soldiers charged up the stairs of a hotel from which Al-Jazeera TV was filming the turmoil below and demanded a female hotel worker tell them where the media crew was or else they would beat her up, a member of the Al-Jazeera crew said. "The woman was screaming and saying I don't know," the crew member said speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. The soldiers, who were in plainclothes, found the Al-Jazeera crew and threw their equipment from the balcony, including cameras, batteries and lighting equipment to the streets, landing on a sweet potato cart whose stove started a fire.

Protester Islam Mohammed said that he saw the army forces storming a filed hospital held next to a mosque in Tahrir Square and throwing medicine and equipment to the streets before chasing protesters away from the square.

At least nine people have been killed and around 300 people injured in the two days of clashes, the Health Ministry said.

Egypt's prime minister defended the security forces' response. While he acknowledged that people have died from gunshot wounds, he denied the military and the police had fired at protesters. Instead, he said "a group came from the back and fired at protesters" and that his government is for "the salvation of the revolution."

He charged the anti-military protests outside the Cabinet building as "anti-revolution."

"I feel very sad and in so much pain," he told reporters in a press conference broadcast on Egyptian state TV. "I stress here that the armed forces didn't engage with protesters and didn't leave the building."

The military in the past has blamed unidentified third parties for incidents in which protesters have been shot.

Rights groups and activists, however, charge that the military is carrying on the practices of the old regime, including arresting and beating dissidents. Many Egyptians have grown increasingly frustrated with its handling of the country's transition period, and activists accuse the ruling generals of trying to hang on to power.

Mustafa Ali, a protester who was wounded by pellet shot in clashes last month, accused the ruling generals Saturday of instigating the violence to "find a justification to remain in power and divide up people into factions."

The military council polished its reputation in the past few weeks with two peaceful rounds of voting in parliamentary elections that are widely viewed as the fairest in the country's modern history.

The second round of voting took place Wednesday and Thursday in nine of the country's 27 provinces. It covered vast rural areas where the religious stand of Islamist parties has strong support.

Images of troops protecting polling centers and soldiers carrying the elderly to the polls have served to boost the military's image as guardians of the country. The military remains the ultimate authority on all matters of state in absence of a president.

The latest round of violence touched off late Thursday after soldiers stormed an antimilitary protest camp outside the Cabinet building near Tahrir Square, expelling demonstrators demanding an end to military rule and an immediate transfer of power to a civilian authority. Witnesses said troops snatched a protester, taking him into the parliament building and beating him.

Funerals were expected Saturday for those killed a day earlier. Among the dead was Sheik Emad Effat, a cleric from Al-Azhar, Egypt's most eminent religious institution. Effat had taken a pro-revolutionary position, criticizing the military and issuing a religious decree forbidding voting for former members of the regime in elections. He was shot in the chest after joining the protesters outside the Cabinet.

In a statement read on state TV Friday night, the ruling military said its forces did not intend to break up the protest and said officers showed self-restraint, denying the used any gunfire. It said the clashes began when a military officer was attacked while on duty and protesters tried to break into the parliament compound.

The young activists who led the protests against Mubarak have not translated that success into results at the polls, where Islamist parties won a clear majority of seats in the first round of voting last month over the more liberal parties that emerged from the uprising. Results from this week's second round are expected in the coming days, with the rest of the country set to vote next month.

Members of a civilian advisory panel created by the military this month as a gesture to protesters suspended their work, demanding an immediate end to violence against protesters and a formal apology from the ruling military council. The panel is also seeking an independent investigation into the clashes. Eight of its members resigned in protest.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-17-ML-Egypt/id-d7053e012fbe4623a9f475c9d6d82249

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Ford's Focus Electric hits the production line, could be yours in January

After waiting eleven months just to profess your intent, what's another two before taking delivery of your Focus Electric? That's right, electric hatchback lovers, your pre-ordered chariots just went into production and will be rolling out of Ford's Michigan plant come January. Despite the looming delivery, the automaker has yet to reveal its official range. AutoBlog Green muses that with its 23-kWh pack it'll probably be good for about 70 miles -- comparable to its slightly cheaper competition, the Nissan Leaf, which eked out 73 miles from its 24-kWh juice box in official testing. Will Ford spill the beans before CES 2012? Definitively maybe, but in the meantime hit the source to see a bevy of snaps from the production line -- go on, with some luck it might just be yours.

Ford's Focus Electric hits the production line, could be yours in January originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 08:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/vNBIoVYkUFY/

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Daily Deal: Case-Mate Barely There Case for iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 only $12.95

US lifts sanctions on Libya

The United States on Friday lifted most of the economic sanctions it had in place against Libya before the fall of former ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

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"After careful consultation with the new Libyan government, the United States rolled back most U.S. sanctions on the government of Libya to keep our commitment to the Libyan people,'' the White House said in a statement.

The action unfreezes all government and Central Bank of Libya funds within U.S. jurisdiction, with limited exceptions. Assets in the U.S. of the Gadhafi family and former Gadhafi regime members remain frozen.

The move was announced the same day the U.N. Security Council lifted sanctions on Libya's central bank and a subsidiary, clearing the way for their overseas assets to be unfrozen to ease a cash crisis, a council diplomat said.

The Central Bank of Libya and the Libyan Foreign Bank, an offshore institution wholly owned by the central bank, were taken off the council's sanctions list drawn up earlier this year amid civil war in the Arab state.

Gadhafi killing may be war crime, ICC says

After a rebellion broke out in February against Gadhafi, the Security Council froze Libyan assets abroad, estimated at $150 billion. Most of that sum has remained beyond the reach of the oil-rich country's new rulers.

Gadhafi's 42-year rule collapsed when his forces fled Tripoli in August, and the last of the fighting in Libya ended in October when he was captured and killed by rebels.

Yet by late November only about $18 billion in seized assets had been released by special provisions of the Security Council's Libya sanctions committee, and diplomats said only about $3 billion of that had been made available to Tripoli.

A U.N. resolution in September eased sanctions on Libya, removing them from the national oil company but leaving them largely in place on the central bank and LFB because of legal problems over unfreezing their foreign assets.

Last week, senior figures in Libya's new leadership wrote the committee asking it to delist the two banks, which had been sanctioned along with two Libyan investment authorities.

The move was "essential for the economic stability of Libya; for confidence in the banking sector; for the smooth execution and settlement of both domestic and international banking transactions; and to underpin the social and microeconomic stability of the new Libya," said the letter, obtained by Reuters.

Frustration at the delay in releasing the assets has been growing inside Libya, where the interim government says it urgently needs the cash to pay the wages of public sector workers and to start re-building state institutions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45702880/ns/world_news/

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Acer To Cut Product Lines By Two Thirds In 2012, Bet Heavily On Ultrabooks

ned-stark-game-of-thronesAcer is in a bit of trouble. The company saw two consecutive quarters of net losses. Sales in the third quarter were up slightly from earlier in the year but still trailed year-over-year numbers by 30%. Things aren't looking good for the house of Acer/Gateway/Packard Bell. The company's acting CEO, J.T. Wang, is a man with a plan. In an attempt to realign the company, he is going to cut two-thirds of the company's vast product line up from current levels. It's a drastic move considering the sheer amount of pink slips the company will hand out. In the United States market alone, Acer currently sells 101 individual notebook, netbook and chromebook SKUs. The company's desktop, peripheral, and accessory lines are just as deep. Acer's acting CEO wants to trim the fat and make things a bit more simple (and cost-effective).

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8sa__-bVt5M/

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Senate passes two-month extension of Social Security tax cut, additional unemployment benefits (Star Tribune)

Arabs may take Syria peace plan to United Nations (Reuters)

BEIRUT (Reuters) ? Arab states may take their proposals for ending Syria's crackdown on protests to the U.N. Security Council next week unless Damascus agrees to implement the initiative, Qatar's foreign minister said on Saturday.

Expressing frustration that Syria had not carried out the plan, six weeks after it was first agreed, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said the window for an Arab solution to the crisis was closing.

"If this matter is not solved in the weeks ahead, or couple of months, it will no longer be in Arab control," he told journalists after an Arab ministerial committee meeting in Qatar. "That is what we told the Syrians from the beginning."

Arab ministers would vote on Wednesday on whether to ask the Security Council to approve the initiative. "I believe that December 21 will be decisive, and we hope that the brothers in Syria will sign (the deal) before this date," Sheikh Hamad said.

Syria has conditionally approved a plan to send monitors to oversee implementation of the November 2 Arab League initiative, which calls on Assad to withdraw the army from urban areas, release political prisoners and hold talks with opponents.

But Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said Damascus was objecting to the League's call for protection of Syrian civilians, saying members of the security forces were also being killed in the turmoil.

The United Nations says Assad's crackdown on the protests, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world this year, has killed more than 5,000 people. Authorities blame gunmen for the violence and say 1,100 soldiers and police have been killed.

The Arab League suspended Syria and declared economic sanctions against Damascus over its failure to implement the initiative, joining the United States, European Union and neighbouring Turkey who have also imposed sanctions.

Long-time Syrian ally Russia took a step closer to the Western position on Thursday when it presented a surprise draft resolution at the United Nations which stepped up its criticism of the bloodshed in Syria.

Sheikh Hamad said that, in response to Moscow's move, the Arab League would meet on Wednesday to decide whether "to ask the Security Council to adopt the Arab initiative and Arab resolutions instead of resolutions from other states."

"We are not talking about military action but we will ask the Security Council to adopt the Arab initiative," Sheikh Hamad said, adding Syria should take heed of events in the Arab world where three leaders have been overthrown this year.

"Procrastination and banking on things quieting down or being controlled by security methods will not work," he said.

Any referral of the Arab plan to the United Nations would be likely to anger Damascus, which has accused unnamed Arab countries of trying to set the stage for foreign intervention.

GROWING INSURGENCY

The unrest is the most serious challenge to the 11-year rule of Assad, 46, whose family is from the minority Alawite sect and has ruled majority Sunni Muslim Syria since 1970.

An armed insurgency has begun to eclipse civilian protests, raising fears Syria could descend into civil war.

Two days ago army deserters killed 27 soldiers and security personnel in the southern province of Deraa, an activist group said. On Saturday activists said at least 10 people were killed, most of them in the southern province of Deraa in clashes between security forces and army rebels.

Shi'ite-led Iraq, which opposed the Arab League sanctions on its neighbour and fears unrest in Syria will spill across the frontier and upset its own delicate sectarian balance, sent a delegation to Damascus on Saturday.

Assad met the Iraqi delegation that included National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayad and "affirmed that Syria dealt positively with all proposals submitted to it," the official news agency SANA reported.

An Iraqi official said the delegation was heading to Cairo to brief the Arab League on the talks. "The meeting was very good," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's media advisor Ali al-Moussawi told Reuters in Baghdad.

The main exile opposition Syrian National Council was meeting in Tunisia on the first anniversary of the self-immolation of a jobless Tunisian graduate Mohamed Bouazizi, the incident that set off a wave of revolts around the Arab world.

Syrian protesters have expressed growing frustration that the Arab League, which surprised many when it suspended Syria and subsequently announced sanctions against Damascus, has since then extended the deadline for Syrian compliance several times.

Hundreds of thousands demonstrated on Friday, according to the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, under the slogan of "The Arab League is killing us."

(Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad and Sami Aboudi in Dubai; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/un/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111217/ts_nm/us_syria

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