Facebook Messenger allows sign-ups with just a name and phone number on Android devices

Facebook Messenger lets us sign up with just a name and phone number on Android today, iOS soon

Facebook Messenger might as well be as ubiquitous as SMS text messaging for some, but there's a catch to getting everyone to agree: despite there being over a billion Facebook users, not everyone is able (or willing) to fire up a social networking profile to get started. Some of the Android users among us won't have to go through that trouble as of today. An imminent update to the Facebook Messenger app will let anyone sign up using just their name and a phone number; any initial friends will come directly from the newcomer's own mobile contact list. The rollout is currently focusing on Australia, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Venezuela, but should spread to the rest of the world in short order. iOS users are also in line to get the update, although the timetable is less definite. Whatever the platform, Facebook is clearly eager to give those seemingly few holdouts from its service an easy way to test the waters -- and possibly save on their messaging rates in the process.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/04/facebook-messenger-lets-us-sign-up-with-just-a-name-and-number/

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Pope gets more than half million Twitter followers

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Even though he hasn't sent a single tweet yet, Pope Benedict had more than half a million Twitter followers in eight languages on Tuesday, the day after the Vatican unveiled his handle: @Pontifex.

They included people ranging from the simple Roman Catholic faithful to a Jewish head of state.

"Your holiness, welcome to Twitter. Our relations with the Vatican are at their best & can form a basis to further peace everywhere," tweeted Israeli President Shimon Peres, who at 89 is four years older than Benedict.

The Vatican said on Monday that Benedict will start tweeting on mostly spiritual topics from December 12.

The pope actually has eight linked Twitter accounts. @Pontifex, the main account, is in English. The other seven have a suffix at the end for the different language versions. For example, the German version is @Pontifex_de, and the Arabic version is @Pontifex_ar.

On Tuesday afternoon, the English version had the most followers, with nearly 400,000. The next largest was Spanish, with some 93,000. The lowest number of followers was the Arabic, with about 3,500. Benedict's native German had about 10,000.

But the pope, leader of some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, won't be following anyone but himself, the Vatican said.

A look at his official Twitter page on Tuesday showed that he is "following" seven people but they are merely versions of his own Twitter account in different languages.

The first papal tweets will be answers to questions sent to #askpontifex.

The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

The tweets will come primarily from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays. They will also include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

He will push the button on his first tweet himself on December 12 but in the future most of the tweets will be written by aides, and he will sign off on them.

The Vatican, whose website has been taken down by hackers in the past, said it has taken precautions to make sure the pope's certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican's Secretariat of State will be used for the tweets.

The pope's Twitter page is designed in yellow and white - the colors of the Vatican - and his picture over the backdrop of a St Peter's Square packed with pilgrims.

The page may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pope-gets-370-000-twitter-followers-24-hours-142230094.html

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Latest news, rumors from 2012 Winter Meetings

Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez

Even with Zack Greinke and Anibal Sanchez still up for grabs, the National League already seems set to sport some excellent rotations in 2013. How about this for the top four: Nationals: Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, Dan Haren, Ross Detwiler Giants: Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Tim Lincecum, Ryan Vogelsong, Barry Zito Phillies: Roy?

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/

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Telling History vs. Making Art: Killer Angels, real and fictional ...

Part five in a?series.

In my last post, I began to discuss Michael Shaara?s aesthetic choices for constructing?The Killer Angels?as he did, and how he adopted a Lost Cause-interpretation of Robert E. Lee as a central choice for his novel.

Where Shaara deviates significantly from Lost Cause tradition, though, is his choice to make Confederate Lieutenant General James Longstreet a hero of the novel. Longstreet was Lee?s left hand and second in command. However, Lost Cause advocates, particularly Confederate generals Jubal Early and Fitzhugh Lee, scapegoated Longstreet (and others) for the Southern defeat at Gettysburg?all in an attempt to absolve Lee and preserve his Marble Man status.?Longstreet didn?t help his own case after the war by becoming a Republican, accepting various government jobs, and criticizing Lee. History has not been kind to Lee?s ?Old Warhorse.??Shaara?s sympathetic treatment of him in?The Killer Angels?almost single-handedly resurrected public interest in Longstreet?s controversial career.

On the Federal side, Shaara focuses on cavalryman John Buford and, most significantly, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine Infantry. Posted at the far left flank of the Union army on a piece of topographically important ground, Chamberlain?s men had to beat back a series of Confederate attacks on July 2, 1863. ?You cannot withdraw,? Chamberlain?s commander tells him in the novel. ?Under any conditions. If you go, the line is flanked. If you go, they?ll go right up the hilltop and take us in the rear. You must defend this place to the last.?

The action as depicted in the novel and, later, in the movie?Gettysburg, and as recounted in Ken Burns??The Civil War, has become the stuff of legend?in fact, ?far more legend than history,? says historian Tom Desjardin. ?Shaara?s novelized version of Chamberlain?s day at Gettysburg exceeds by any measure the historical fact of the event.?

But Desjardin points out that Shaara isn?t attempting to chronicle Chamberlain?s day. Rather, he says Shaara ?meant to expose a wonderful, glorious, and tragic past to a generation of Americans still soured on the idea of war as a just and honorable entity. He sought perhaps to reinstill a sense that America and Americans had once been something more noble and honorable than the legacy of Vietnam made them seem.?

Those ideas, very much in keeping with the heroic deeds of valor central to the Reconciliation Tradition but given a 1970?s spin, drive an agenda far different than the objective conveyance of facts a historian would advocate. ?Novels are not bound by fact,? Desjardin says. ?They have an emotive quality that only fiction can provide and often must provide in order to succeed.?

?Shaara?s story is told so well, his character portrayals are so believable, that the unknowing reader might believe what they are reading?is?history,? writes historian Scott Hartwig, the National Park Service?s acknowledged expert on Gettysburg.?Hartwig had to discard initial prejudices against the book as a historian??or tried very hard to,? he admits:

and found that there was more to this novel than met the eye. It held deeper meaning than simply to tell the story of the Battle of Gettysburg, and it was beautifully written?. Still, the number of people who read this novel and came away thinking they had read a history of the battle, annoyed me.

The blurry line between fact and fiction in?The Killer Angels?is best exemplified by Buster Kilrain, a fictitious sergeant in the 20th Maine who serves as Shaara?s personal voice (for more on Kilrain, check out this piece).??It does not seem to bother people that the character is a middle-aged, overweight private who follows his commanding officer around telling him what to do while calling him ?darling,?? says Desjardin.?The fictitious Kilrain interacts with the historically real characters because Shaara needs him, as a literary device, to do so. If Chamberlain is the American hero in the classical style, Kilrain contrasts against him as the modern everyman, too cynical for his own good yet someone who can still see the value in Chamberlain?s goodness and appreciate it. Shaara?s myth-building uses Kilrain?s voice to help sculpt Chamberlain?s heroic stature:

You are damned good at everything I?ve seen you do, a lovely soldier, an honest man, and got a good heart on you too, which is rare in clever men?. The strange and marvelous thing about you, Colonel darlin?, is that you believe in mankind, even preachers, whereas when you?ve got my great experience you will have learned that good men are rare, much rarer than you think.

In service to his myth-making, Shaara isn?t afraid to subvert facts. For instance, on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg, he repositions the 20th Maine squarely behind the Union center along Cemetery Ridge. ?[A] lovely spot,? a lieutenant tells Chamberlain as the regiment gets ready to move. ?Safest place on the battlefield. Right smack dab in the center of the line. Very quiet there.??Most readers know the area won?t be quiet at all, so not only does Shaara create a touch of irony that serves as a foreboding end-of-chapter cliffhanger, it positions his hero to witness the climactic Pickett?s Charge. ?We?re right in the path,? Chamberlain thinks as the Confederates hit. ?Would not have missed this for anything, not anything in the world.?

?This is pure fiction,? says Hartwig.?In reality, the 20th Maine was positioned some three-quarters of a mile away from the battle?but because Shaara literally is creating ?pure fiction,? the move to Cemetery Ridge serves several artistic functions and contributes to the myth of his noble hero.

Shaara?s son, Jeff, has not inserted himself as a Kilrain-style literary device into his own Civil War books the way his father did?as a stylist, he?s not nearly that sophisticated?but he otherwise takes similar liberties with his characters. ?If you have read any of my books, you know that these stories are driven not by events, but by characters,? he writes in the introduction to his most recent novel,?A Blaze of Glory, about the battle of Shiloh. ?For me, the points of view of the characters in this story are more appealing than the blow-by-blow facts and figures that are the necessary products of history textbooks?. [M]y goal is not to offer a complete detailed history of the event. If that?s what you seek, then by all means, read Shelby Foote or Jim McPherson. I hope that when all is said and done, you will accept that what I am trying to offer you is a good story.?

Nonetheless, Shaara professes to engage in ?painstaking (and voluminous)? research, making ?a strenuous effort to be historically accurate, to get the facts straight.??As a result, he almost seems to begrudge the fact that his book ?has to be described as a novel because there is dialogue, and you are often inside the thoughts of these characters.??He tips his hand further in the introduction to?Gods and Generals, his first novel, which he dedicates to ?those who learned their American history in often impersonal textbooks.??The implication is that they?re about to learn some history from him.

When his readers walk into the Jackson Shrine, I?m delighted that the book has inspired them to stop. From that point on, the onus rests on me to be sure they leave with the story set straight.

Next: The Civil War?s great storyteller

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Source: http://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/12/04/telling-history-vs-making-art-killer-angels-real-and-fictional/

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Third storm in less than week drenches NorCal

A traffic control vehicle transits a flooded underpass in San Rafael, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012. Days of heavy rains have left the region saturated and several rivers are expected to flood their banks Sunday afternoon. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

A traffic control vehicle transits a flooded underpass in San Rafael, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012. Days of heavy rains have left the region saturated and several rivers are expected to flood their banks Sunday afternoon. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

A vehicle transits a flooded underpass in San Rafael, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012, as utility workers work to repair a downed power line. Although sunny skies reappeared throughout the region Sunday afternoon, flood warnings remain for several rivers. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Kimberly Masklyne looks at her flooded car, Sunday Dec. 2, 2012, in Windsor, Calif. The National Weather Service issued flood warnings yesterday for both the Napa and Russian rivers. (AP Photo/The Press Democrat, Kent Porter)

Utility crews work in the wind and rain to repair a power pole that was damaged by the overnight storm along Hall Road in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Sunday, Dec. 2, 2012. The National Weather Service issued flood warnings yesterday for both the Napa and Russian rivers. (AP Photo/The Press Democrat, Kent Porter)

(AP) ? Residents of Northern California endured the brunt of another powerful storm that drenched the area with yet another round of pounding rain and strong winds, but damage from the storm was less than expected, officials said.

The latest storm system ? the third to hit the area in less than a week ? moved across the region late Saturday and early Sunday dropping as much as an inch of rain per hour in some areas, toppling trees and knocking out electrical service to tens of thousands of people, officials said.

Rivers across Northern California swelled from the deluge, but did not flood as extensively as had been expected, officials said.

Forecasters had issued flood warnings for the Napa and Russian rivers, two rivers north of San Francisco with a history of flooding, as well as the Truckee River, near Lake Tahoe, but by Sunday afternoon had canceled the warning for the Russian River.

"It (the storm) moved through a lit bit faster than it was looking like it would, so it didn't plant on top of us and keeping raining," said Austin Cross, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "The period of heavy rain didn't last as long."

In Napa, where officials had handed out more than 8,000 sandbags and about 150 tons of sand before the storm hit, officials breathed a sigh of relief Sunday afternoon after the heaviest rain moved out of the area and the city appeared to avoid any major damage from the storm.

"We've had some minor street flooding and some of the intersections were flooded," Napa city spokesman Barry Martin said.

Flood construction projects were credited with keeping the river within its banks through the city, while most of anticipated flooding, expected around 6 p.m. Sunday, was expected to hit a mostly agricultural area outside of the city, officials said.

In Truckee, 30 miles west of Reno, city officials were focusing on snow removal Sunday afternoon instead of flood control after the town received 4 to 5 inches of snow in the morning, said Assistant City Manager Alex Terrazas.

"We continue to keep an eye on the river, but things are certainly better than they could have been," he said. "We'll transition back to flood management if we need to."

Besides the speed in which the system moved through the area, weather officials were heartened by colder temperatures than expected in the mountains, meaning more snow and less rain fell.

In far Northern California, flood warnings remained in effect Sunday for the Eel, Navarro and Mad rivers.

Meanwhile, as Pacific Gas & Electric crews worked on restoring power, about 57,000 people from Santa Cruz to Eureka, including about 13,000 people in the San Francisco Bay area, remained without electricity Sunday afternoon as the powerful winds from the storm knocked down trees and sent broken tree limbs and branches across power lines, officials said.

"It really did broadside California," PG&E spokesman Joe Molica said of the storm.

About 2,000 PG&E crews were working Sunday to try to restore power, Molica said.

Wind gusts, recorded as high as 60 miles per hour in parts of the Bay area, were blamed for knocking over a big rig truck as it drove over the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge at around 5 a.m. Sunday.

Tow crews had to wait for the winds to subside later in the morning before they could remove the truck, officials said.

Also, train service on the Bay Area Rapid Transit system was disrupted for about an hour Sunday morning because of an electrical outage blamed on the weather.

___

Associated Press writer Martin Griffith contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-12-02-California%20Storm/id-7ed1bebee67a4a1ebce8c38845ebaa5f

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EYEMAGINE Gets the Edge With Toshiba's IPedge EP VoIP ...

IRVINE, Calif., Dec. 4, 2012 ? Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division (Toshiba) ?www.telecom.toshiba.com, helped EYEMAGINE Technology, an Irvine, Calif.-based eCommerce innovator, meet its communications goals with a new IPedge? EP Voice over IP business telephone system. Founded in 2003, EYEMAGINE empowers Fortune 500 clients nationwide to meet and exceed eCommerce goals by delivering effective eCommerce solutions, including design, development, mobile applications, systems integration, conversion optimization, enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration, custom online payment solutions, and more.

Cindy Natoniewski, EYEMAGINE?s operations manager, specified the need for an IP business telephone system that would meet EYEMAGINE?s communication objectives, which include:

  • Establishing a voice communication presence with an affordable IP business telephone system;
  • Replacing the previous system, which had been outgrown, with the latest in IP technology;
  • Delivering the scalability that allows new users, features, and applications as the company grows;
  • Having an Automated Attendant with different time-of-day outgoing greetings so that incoming calls are always answered; and
  • Allowing users to personalize their telephone features, including their voice mailboxes.

EYEMAGINE turned to smplsolutions of Lake Forest, Calif., an Authorized Toshiba Dealer since 2001.? Mark Gallagher, sales engineer smplsolutions, recommended Toshiba?s IPedge EP Voice over IP business telephone system.? He said, ?Toshiba?s IPedge EP is the perfect telephone system for growing small businesses.? It has all the bells and whistles of a bigger system but is designed for companies with less than 40 users per server.?

Solution:? Toshiba?s IPedge EP Delivers Scalable and Effective Voice Communication Presence

Installed and serviced by smplsolutions, EYEMAGINE?s Toshiba business telephone system consists of:

Result #1: An Effective and Efficient Communication Solution for Callers

Toshiba met EYEMAGINE?s requirement for a scalable telephone solution by providing features required by growing small businesses.? With Automated Attendant, EYEMAGINE?s telephones are always answered with appropriate outgoing greetings, based on time of day.? Users now also have direct-dial extensions, individual voice mailboxes, and the ability to manage multiple lines while receiving important voice mails via email.

Result #2: Unified Messaging and Automated Attendant Improve Efficiency

Unified Messaging enables users to access their faxes, voice and email messages right from their inboxes.? Adding Automated Attendant and direct-dial extensions empowers employees to be more efficient as they receive only the calls that are actually meant for them.? It also improves client communication.? The IPedge EP processes hundreds of incoming calls every month, helping EYEMAGINE employees increase productivity and profitability.

Result #3: Ability to Scale the Phone System Along With the Business

With Toshiba?s IPedge EP, EYEMAGINE has an affordable, feature-rich IP business telephone system that can grow as the business grows.? EYEMAGINE can add and network its IPedge EP with additional IPedge systems and/or Toshiba?s Strata? CIX? business telephone systems.? For remote users, EYEMAGINE can simply add IP telephones without having to install a system.

Bottom Line:? Centralized Toshiba Business Telephone System Saves Costs and Improves Communication

Toshiba?s IPedge EP Voice over IP telephone system met and exceeded EYEMAGINE?s communications objectives.? Bottom-line benefits include:

  • An effective voice communication platform with an Automated Attendant and direct-dial extensions;
  • An affordable Voice over IP telephone system designed for a small business;
  • Flexibility of IP telephones, which can be moved around with plug-and-play efficiency;
  • Cost savings over a digital telephone system as less cabling was needed and Unified Communications was included with the IPedge EP; and
  • The ability to scale the telephone system as the business scales.

?Together, Toshiba and smplsolutions exceeded expectations, giving us exactly what we wanted: an effective telephone communication platform in an affordable IP business telephone system that was designed for small businesses,? said Natoniewski.? ?And, we have room to grow.?

?With Toshiba?s IPedge EP single server solution, EYEMAGINE?s users are empowered to communicate more effectively, be more efficient, and have greater access to their customers, partners and each other,? added Gianna Santi, marketing manager for smplsolutions.

For an Authorized Toshiba Dealer, Visit:? www.telecom.toshiba.com

Source: http://www.telecomreseller.com/2012/12/04/eyemagine-gets-the-edge-with-toshibas-ipedge-ep-voip-business-telephone-system/

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New York's most famous shoeless man stashes new boots

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The homeless man who received a new pair of boots from a police officer in New York's Times Square last month in what became a nationally celebrated act of kindness is once again walking the streets barefoot, having hidden the boots.

Unidentified for days after a photo of him with the boots and New York City Police Officer Larry DePrimo attracted national media attention, Jeffrey Hillman, 54, was spotted without shoes on Sunday evening on Manhattan's Upper West Side, according to the New York Times.

"Those shoes are hidden. They are worth a lot of money. I could lose my life," Hillman, 54, told the Times when asked about the boots.

Despite not wearing DePrimo's gift, Hillman still said he was grateful for the officer's charity.

"I appreciate what the officer did, don't get me wrong. I wish there were more people like him in the world," he told the Times.

Hillman, originally from South Plainfield, New Jersey, served as a U.S. Army food service specialist in the United States and Germany until the early 1980s, according to the Times. He declared bankruptcy in New Jersey in 1993 and has been homeless in New York for most of the past decade, according to the Times and the New York Post.

Exactly how Hillman ended up living on the streets is unknown. His family had not heard from Hillman in nearly a year before they recognized him in the viral photo but said they would welcome him into their homes.

"Jeffrey has his own life and he has chosen that life but he knows that our hearts and home are always open to him," Hillman's niece Alegra Hall told the Post.

(Reporting by Peter Rudegeair; Editing by Dan Burns and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yorks-most-famous-shoeless-man-stashes-boots-182026486.html

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Flaherty: Canada economy to grow modestly, debt trend encouraging

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Monday he is encouraged by steps Canadians are taking to lower their personal debt obligations and that the economy is on track for modest growth.

"We are on track, as we anticipate, for modest growth, moderate growth, in the next fiscal year," he told reporters in Ottawa.

"When it comes to consumer debt, I am encouraged by the reaction of Canadians. More Canadians are paying down their mortgages, more Canadians are paying their credit cards on time. This is very desirable," he said.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Writing by Alastair Sharp in Toronto; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/flaherty-canada-economy-grow-modestly-debt-trend-encouraging-190850641--business.html

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'E1' may be one Israeli settlement too far

E1, West Bank (Reuters) - The hillside called E1 is one of the few places around Jerusalem that Jesus Christ might still recognize: a stony, dusty, barren slope on the way down to the desert and the Dead Sea.

If Israel carries out plans announced this week, it is destined to be the site of another Jewish settlement city, on occupied land that the Palestinians believe must be part of the state for which they have just won de facto U.N. recognition.

Roads that seem to go nowhere run up its rocky slopes and streetlights provide slivers of shade from the often fierce sun. There is an Israeli police station, but no houses or shops.

Known simply by its administrative name, E1 (East One), this exposed stretch of West Bank land is at the centre of a growing diplomatic dispute pitting Israel against both the Palestinians and also many of its Western allies.

Stunned by the vote last week in the General Assembly that accorded Palestine the status of a "non-member state" at the United Nations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government resurrected an old plan to build on the empty outcrop.

Critics immediately warned that populating E1 with Israelis would cut off East Jerusalem and carve up the West Bank, effectively thwarting any chance of viability for a Palestinian state and thereby extinguishing the Middle East peace process.

"This is not a routine settlement. This is the doomsday settlement," said Daniel Seidemann, the founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, an Israeli non-governmental organization that monitors urban development in and around the holy city.

"The message Israel should have learned from the U.N. vote is that we are on very thin ice," he added. "By threatening E1 you are standing on thin ice and jumping up and down."

That view is rejected by supporters of the project, who say construction is long overdue and represents natural expansion from the neighboring Maale Adumim settlement - a city of red-roofed apartment blocks that is home to more than 30,000 people.

Over half a million Israelis now live on land taken in the 1967 Middle East war, claiming historical and biblical ties to territory that the Palestinians say belongs to them.

The E1 site covers only some 4.6 square miles (12 square km) but is geographically sensitive because it not only juts into the narrow "waist" of the West Bank, but also backs onto East Jerusalem, where Palestinians want to establish their capital.

CORRIDORS

Building on this area would complicate efforts to draw the contours of a contiguous state for the Palestinians, making it more difficult for surrounding Arab communities to link up.

However, supporters of the project say it is not a deal-breaker for any peace treaty, arguing there would be enough space on either side of the hill to enable a broad corridor that could connect the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem, respectively north and south of Jerusalem.

"The media are telling lies about this conflict all the time," said Eli Har Nir, the municipality general director of Maale Adumim.

"You can't even see Jerusalem from here. There is still six kilometers of open land that does not belong to E1 or to Maale Adumim," he said, arguing that this space could be used to build roads for Palestinians.

Israel's closest ally, the United States, sees it differently and successive administrations have cautioned against any building on the largely unpopulated expanse of E1.

The White House swiftly denounced Friday's announcement, which came along with news that the government also plans to build 3,000 additional homes in other, undisclosed West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.

A number of European Union governments went further, with Britain, France and Sweden summoning their respective Israeli ambassadors to protest at what they saw as an unacceptable reprisal against the Palestinians for the U.N. vote.

The mood in neighboring Maale Adumim was more celebratory of the Israeli move. Locals urged Netanyahu not to buckle under pressure but to push ahead with the long-delayed E1 plans.

"Successive governments have all promised to build here, but what you can see around me are empty hills, rocks and sand, not apartments," said Maale Adumim mayor Benny Kashriel.

"I hope that this government, with this decision, will come through immediately," he told reporters gathered on top of E1.

Israelis have already named the prospective settlement Mevasseret Adumim - Tidings of Adumim. Maale Adumim itself means Red Heights - a reference to the surrounding mountains that glow at sunset.

Preparation for building started long ago and a sealed-off bridge stands ready to link Maale Adumim with its projected sister settlement, while a major road intersection swings up into E1 from the highway that heads down to the nearby Dead Sea.

If you take the exit today, the only people you are likely to find are Bedouin shepherds following their ragged goat herds in search of the occasional tuft of grass.

Israeli authorities drew up plans in 2006 to move the Arab Bedouin to another site. They have yet to act on it, but rights groups say the project is specifically designed to clear the way for E1 development.

Israel's Maariv newspaper said on Monday that the Israeli planning committee for the West Bank would convene on Wednesday to approve plans for public review. Without further delays, the earth-movers could be sent in within a year.

(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/doomsday-hill-may-one-israeli-settlement-too-far-162433380.html

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Mercedes-Benz Leasing eyes MNCs - The Nation

Sucheera Pinijparakarn
The Nation December 3, 2012 1:00 am

Managing director Supavut Jiramanusnakorn said last week that the company will segment its target market based on age, country and income so that it can offer appropriate financial programmes to customers.

The company will go after successful executives aged under 30 in line with its study that showed that those young professionals prefer comfort, flexibility, individual lifestyles and firm financial status, he said.

Its loan portfolio of Bt14 billion represents mostly individuals and SMEs, while multinational corporations (MNCs) account for less than 3 per cent. The share of corporate customers is set to jump to 10 per cent next year.

The company earlier aimed at capturing individuals and SMEs, but it realised that segmentation is important for developing financial programmes and growing its portfolio.

MNCs are expected to move towards investing in Asean especially in Thailand because it is the best transit country for foreign businesses looking to expand in the region. Thailand is a country that welcomes investment, while Asean is in the spotlight of many European countries that want to build their business amid the economic slowdown in the eurozone.

More Japanese companies are expected to come here after they experienced that investing in China was uncomfortable for them.

Marketing activities will be aggressive next year, when the company will promote financial lease programmes to MNCs through associations such as the German-Thai Chamber of Commerce. It will also rope in

Japanese companies that are not involved with the automobile industry.

Besides their investing, MNCs are interesting because of their policy of giving car allowances ranging from Bt60,000 to Bt100,000 per month to their executives.

"We will chase companies with an allowance budget of Bt60,000-Bt70,000 because current financial programmes such as SmartDrive, which was introduced in the first half of this year, will draw MNCs from Europe and Japan," he said.

SmartDrive is a leasing scheme for corporate customers wanting to qualify for tax benefits with flexibility in the form of instalment plans and a chance to change to a newer vehicle at the end of the term.

The programme was popular in Europe, where this kind of financial lease is 40-50 per cent of the loan portfolio.

In Thailand, customers still prefer vehicle ownership rather than trading up to a newer vehicle, but the new generation, especially younger executives or executives who graduated abroad, will play a role in changing the market.

Financial programmes like SmartDrive in Thailand will grow more popular in five years. SmartDrive will increase to 30-40 per cent of the loan portfolio in five to seven years from 5-10 per cent this year.

The stable interest rate is a positive factor for leasing companies and Mercedes expects its loan portfolio will be at least 15 per cent bigger next year, he added.

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Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Mercedes-Benz-Leasing-eyes-MNCs-30195461.html

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