India police use water cannon, tear gas as gang-rape protests intensify

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police used batons, tear gas and water cannon to turn back thousands of people marching on the presidential palace on Saturday in intensifying protests against the gang-rape of a woman on the streets and on social media.

The 23-year-old victim is battling for her life in hospital after she was beaten, raped for almost an hour and thrown out of a moving bus on a busy New Delhi street last Sunday. Five people have been arrested.

The protesters, largely college students, are demanding the death penalty for the accused and safety assurances for women.

New Delhi, home to about 16 million people, has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities. Police figures show a rape is reported on average every 18 hours and some other form of sexual attack every 14 hours.

Appealing for calm, India's junior minister for home affairs, R.P.N. Singh, said the government had listened to the protesters.

"We have assured on the floor of the house and on every platform possible that strictest action will be taken against the accused. The police have been asked to show restraint but I want to tell boys and girls that breaking barriers will not help," Singh said.

But the protests are growing amid widespread media coverage.

"If Rahul Gandhi claims to be a youth icon then he should have been here, talking to protesters and taking up the issue of women's safety," one protester said.

Gandhi, the 42-year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled India for most of its 65 years of independence, is widely seen as a future prime minister.

Marches, demonstrations and candlelight vigils have spread during the week to cities in states from the north of the country to the south.

In the northeastern state of Assam, hundreds of women and girls marched through the city of Guwahati on Friday, carrying placards and shouting "Hang Rapists" and "Stop Violence Against Women".

(Additional reporting by Anuja Jairam; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/india-police-water-cannon-tear-gas-gang-rape-105338680.html

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Real Estate: Not just another seaside cottage | Suffolk Times

KATHARINE SCHROEDER PHOTO | ?Kika Schoenfeld?had one condition for the kitchen, and it didn?t involve installing granite countertops or picking out stainless steel appliances. She just wanted morning sunlight.

Kika Schoenfeld didn?t have to think long or hard when designing her dream home overlooking Long Island Sound in Peconic.

She only had one condition for the kitchen, and it didn?t involve installing granite countertops or picking out stainless steel appliances.

Ms. Schoenfeld, 67, an interior designer and hat maker, just wanted the kitchen located in a specific spot ? with several windows positioned just so ? to capture the morning sunlight. Some of her other specifications for the house were for more double-pane windows, lots of exterior doors and a bedroom balcony, important design elements meant to grant her access to the outside within a moment?s notice.

?I wanted it to blend in and look as if it had always been here,? Ms. Schoenfeld said of her home, which she had built from the ground up. ?I wanted to have the combined sense of the traditional with the ease of the modern.?

And she isn?t the only person who admires the new two-story Cape Cod cottage.

When The New York Times Magazine asked, ?If you could have anyone?s house, whose would it be?? Bon Appetit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport answered wholeheartedly that he liked Ms. Schoen-feld?s home best because it ?is stylish without trying too hard.?

?When you get there, you just feel like exhaling ? you feel you are on the edge of the continent,? Mr. Rapoport said.

KATHARINE SCHROEDER PHOTO |?When visitors come to Ms. Schoenfeld?s house, which is secluded in a wooded area recently acquired for open space preservation by the Peconic Land Trust, they?re greeted by the sound of waves crashing on the beach below the bluff.

Ms. Schoenfeld, who was born in Israel and has lived in Manhattan for most of her life, said she first came across a house on Salt Marsh Lane after searching for ?seaside waterfront properties? on the Internet.

?I wanted to be at the end of a dirt road that was off another dirt road if I possibly could,? she said. ?I wanted to be on the edge of the water at the end of the world.?

When visitors come to Ms. Schoenfeld?s house, which is secluded in a wooded area recently acquired for open space preservation by the Peconic Land Trust, they?re greeted by the sound of waves crashing on the beach below the bluff.

Inside, Ms. Schoenfeld decided to paint the walls off-white because she tends to easily grow tired of interior colors. When family members visit they like to prowl through local thrift shops and items they purchase are placed throughout the house, along with small groupings of rocks found on the beach.

KATHARINE SCHROEDER PHOTO | The living room.

Comfort, said Ms. Schoenfeld, wearing a hoodie and slippers, is also an important part of her life. The couches and beds are bright and soft.

Although she doesn?t have a dog due to allergies, images and statues of man?s best friend are scattered throughout the living room. Ms. Schoenfeld said she uses them to play a counting game with her 4-year-old granddaughter.

?I move them around before she comes over and I ask her to count how many dogs are in the room,? she said. ?Then we snuggle on the couch.?

Ms. Schoenfeld said she fell in love with the location immediately, but disliked the? ?ugly vinyl? of the old house and decided to tear it down and create a new layout. The house she had torn down had replaced one that had been destroyed during the 1938 hurricane, she said.

?I knew I absolutely wanted to be on the open water,? Ms. Schoenfeld said. ?Not a creek. Not a river. I wanted big water. Big sky.?

KATHARINE SCHROEDER PHOTO | The bathroom.

She also wanted to have the original fireplace, located toward the edge of the bluff, moved into her new home, but said the builders just laughed at her request. Ms. Schoenfeld then had a replica made and painted it white. Slate slabs in the backyard mark where the fireplace had once been. She has since placed a simple bench there ? the prime seat to watch a sunset.

?I didn?t know I had a beautiful sunset until after I bought the house,? she said. ?It?s wonderful.?

Her advice to others looking to create a similarly tranquil atmosphere is pretty basic.

?Open up the space as much as possible,? she said. ?Turn windows into doors and never use curtains.?

jennifer@timesreview.com?

Source: http://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2012/12/36915/real-estate-not-just-another-seaside-cottage/

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Marvin Replacement Windows with Wide Ranges of Windows ...

Sometimes, we just feel not satisfied with the home look and also the parts of the home. It especially happens when we do not build it from zero. It is common that we get some unsatisfying condition on the house, for example for some parts of the house. However, when we have matched to a house, it would not be that big deal. We can easily make a bit renovation to make it better and to make everything becomes much more interesting and satisfying, for example the windows. We can choose one or some of marvin replacement windows to meet our need. There will be a lot of choices for the windows that might meet our need. We can find the windows on various styles and designs which can be totally a great advantage for us to get it. In addition, the size is also various and we can easily get one which is suitable for the size of the windows that we need.

As all people know that window is one of the most important parts for a house, besides other parts there such like the door, ventilation, and many more. It is because windows become the main parts for getting the proper air circulation so that we can get a fresh air in the room. In addition, lit also becomes the way for getting the natural light, which is the sunlight. Of course, there are also many other roles which are played by the windows, such like as the decorative ideas, and also as a means to get a relaxation inside the home because of its view outside. That is why when we plan to replace it, we should determine our aim before choosing one of the marvin replacement windows. It is important to make sure that we choose the right window. Besides the need of the window, we also need to choose the windows based on the condition of the room.

It would not be that difficult getting a right window for our home, since there are tremendous amounts of choices for the windows. We can get the various features, materials, sizes, designs, shapes, and many more. We can get what we really need and want easily. Surely, it is going to be that easy if we look for the windows at the right source. For the references, the wide ranges of marvin replacement windows can be a good idea to choose.

Source: http://alandsfiskare.org/marvin-replacement-windows-with-wide-ranges-of-windows.html

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Internet Marketing Rules Blog: Articles And Press Releases To Get ...

Most people online aren?t making money at all in their internet business. This can happen for a number of reasons. They may lack the discipline to keep going when times are tough. They don?t see ?instant? results so they quit. They don?t implement backend marketing into their mix. And they refuse to seek help from others who have been down their same path.

You can?t be this way. If you?re struggling online, you need to get as much help as possible if you want to remain competitive in your niche. If you?re currently on the edge of giving up and you?re tired of marketing online with no sales coming in, then you should re-evaluate what you are doing, and how you can make it better.

In today?s lesson, I want to share with you 2 internet marketing tips that you can use to bring your business back to life, and start getting the sales and profits that you are looking for. I assure you that these techniques are very easy, and they take no more than 30 minutes out of your day to do. Here?s the first thing that you can do to start taking your sales to the next level:

1) Submit articles

When you write up articles online, you give yourself a voice. Many people will ?hear? this voice and will follow you and read your articles on a weekly basis because they like what they read. Writing and submitting articles is one of the best ways that you can start getting traffic to your website immediately.

So where do you submit articles to? You should submit them to the article directories. I personally submit to only 2 article directories, as they are the top article directories on the net. It doesn?t make sense to submit to a massive amount of article directories because your efforts will end in futility.

People start their search at the search engines and type in a certain query. You want your articles to be found on the first page of the search engines - so that you can get this traffic to your articles. Here?s another great way to take your sales to the next. It?s just as easy as submitting articles:

2) Press releases

There?s a major press release company on the internet called ?PRweb? that offers a magnificent press release package to their consumers. Unfortunately, if you want to submit your press releases here, it will cost you $80 or more just for 1 press release. If you don?t want to spend that much on a press release, there are other options.

You could submit to the free press release websites. There are many of them online, and alot of them are very effective. Some of them offer paid services, but I think you can get your money?s worth if you just stick with the free submissions. You can definitely get traffic back to your website because of it.

These 2 marketing tips are things that you need to know if you want to have the thriving and successful internet business that you are looking for online. Articles and press releases are effective, and you should consider using them today.

Good luck with using these 2 strategies in your internet business now.

For more internet marketing secrets, simply visit the website below:
http://www.internetmarketing-rules.com/internetmarketing.html

Source: http://blog.internetmarketing-rules.com/2012/12/articles-and-press-releases-to-get-you.html

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John Boehner plays down setback of his fiscal 'fallback' plan

House Speaker John Boehner acknowledged Friday that too many GOP lawmakers saw his bill, which would have let tax cuts lapse for millionaires, as a tax hike. But the setback won't affect 'fiscal cliff' talks with Obama, he says.

By David Grant,?Staff writer / December 21, 2012

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) of Ohio, joined by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia, speaks to reporters about the fiscal cliff negotiations at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 21.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

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A day of rhetorical bluster in the House of Representatives ended with a slap-dash rush for the exits Thursday, as conflict among Republicans appeared to upend the course of ongoing talks between Speaker John Boehner and President Obama to avoid the package of tax hikes and spending cuts known as the ?fiscal cliff.?

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On Friday, Mr. Boehner argued that the vote debacle did not signal any changes for better or worse in his stalled negotiations with Mr. Obama.

"Nobody ought to read anything into this. We've got differences, but the country's got big spending problems and we've got to get serious about addressing them," Boehner said Friday. "The president knows that I've always been able to deliver on any promise I've made with him."

Boehner and House Republicans had spent the past week chiding Obama for not being serious about avoiding the fiscal cliff, noting that the speaker's "fallback plan," which would have let Bush-era tax cuts lapse for millionaires, showed their own willingness to compromise. The now-dead measure would have preserved those income-tax rates for 99 percent of taxpayers ? and would have allowed GOP lawmakers to counter the contention that Republicans are mainly intent on protecting the interests of the wealthy.?

But the House leadership badly miscalculated. House majority leader Eric Cantor had vowed that Plan B had enough GOP support to pass without a single Democrat, but a firestorm of dissent among the most conservative GOP interest groups evidently triggered second thoughts among lawmakers. Those groups decried Plan B as?tantamount to a tax hike and promised to hold lawmakers to account for supporting it???and whether by pressure from outside groups or lawmakers' own consciences, that issue is the one that sunk the vote.

"There was a perception created that that vote last night was going to increase taxes. Now I disagree with that characterization of the bill, ?but that impression was out there. And we had a number of our members who just didn't want to be perceived as having raised taxes. That was the real issue," Boehner said Friday.?

Streaming from a late-night, closed-door caucus meeting, lawmakers made clear that no vote would be held after all. Instead, they would be going home until after Christmas.

Moreover, House Republicans appeared to be throwing up their hands at deficit-reduction negotiations, with several GOP lawmakers leaving the meeting Thursday night falling back on cries of support for bills that their caucus approved months ago and that were left for dead by the Democratic-led Senate. ?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/EcsFQ74j4V0/John-Boehner-plays-down-setback-of-his-fiscal-fallback-plan

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State Department seeks more money, vows reforms after Benghazi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department will seek billions of dollars in new funds and revamp security procedures around the globe in response to criticism by an independent investigation of the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, senior officials said on Thursday.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's two top deputies appeared at a Senate hearing and conceded that U.S. officials had failed to "connect the dots" ahead of the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

"We learned some very hard and painful lessons in Benghazi," said Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. "We are already acting on them. We have to do better."

The State Department said on Wednesday its security chief had resigned and three other officials were relieved of their posts following the report, which cited leadership and management deficiencies, poor coordination and confusion over who had the authority to make decisions.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, tipped to be President Barack Obama's pick to replace Clinton when she steps down next month, chaired the session and led the call for increased funding.

"We need to make certain that we are not penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to supporting America's vital interest overseas," Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said.

SECURITY SPENDING EYED

Clinton, unable to appear at the hearing due to illness, has already asked for $1.4 billion in funds for the 2013 fiscal year to be re-allocated to improve security at U.S. diplomatic missions, a State Department fact sheet said.

The State Department is also expected to request $2.3 billion per year for the next 10 years to further this work.

Some Republican lawmakers challenged the call for more money.

"If the State Department intends to blame its long string of failures on inadequate funding, then perhaps it should take a closer look at the money that is being lavished on global climate change, culinary diplomacy programs and other favored projects," House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, said at an afternoon hearing.

But the panel's top Democrat, Representative Howard Berman, said the diplomatic security budget was cut so often it "created a culture at the State Department that is more preoccupied with saving money than with achieving its security goals."

Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides said the department had formed a task force to implement 29 specific recommendations in the panel's report and sent security assessment teams to 19 U.S. missions in 13 countries.

The department, in cooperation with the Pentagon, intends to send 35 additional Marine detachments, or about 225 uniformed personnel, to beef up security at medium- and high-threat posts and to boost staffing of its own Bureau of Diplomatic Security by about 5 percent, or 150 additional agents, Nides said.

"Implementation of each and every recommendation will be under way by the time the next secretary of state takes office," Nides said.

The State Department said Bill Miller, a diplomatic security special agent since 1987 who has served in Egypt and Iraq, was appointed deputy assistant secretary of state for high-threat posts - a new position in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

The job will focus on U.S. posts in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen, the State Department said.

The Benghazi incident could tarnish Clinton's four-year tenure as secretary of state but the report does not fault her specifically.

Burns said to his knowledge the security requests from diplomats in Libya "did not get as far as Secretary Clinton."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama endorsed the recommendations of the Benghazi report and expects them to be fully implemented.

"Immediately, accountability has been brought to bear with regard to four individuals who are very senior," he said.

'SCLEROTIC' DEPARTMENT

Republican Senator Bob Corker, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration's response to Benghazi, said the panel report revealed a "sclerotic" State Department that has failed to make good use of the resources already at its disposal.

"We have no idea whether the State Department is using its money wisely or not," he said.

Nides said the department still was coming to terms with widespread changes across the Middle East and defended the department's overall track record.

"We get this right about 99 percent of the time. We would like to be at 100 percent without question," he said.

Republicans have focused much of their firepower on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on TV talk shows after the attack and suggested it was the result of a spontaneous protest rather than a planned attack.

The report concluded there was no such protest and Rice, who had been widely seen as Obama's top pick to succeed Clinton, withdrew her name from consideration last week.

U.S. officials say the assault, which occurred on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, was the work of Islamist extremists and have pledged to bring those responsible to justice.

Burns said the attack highlighted the need to take a broader look at security rather than focus on "specific and credible" threats, which officials insist were absent in Benghazi.

"What happened in Benghazi was clearly a terrorist attack," Burns said. "We did not do a good enough job, as the report highlights, in trying to connect the dots."

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Bill Trott and Todd Eastham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/state-department-security-chief-leaves-post-over-benghazi-025244472.html

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After shooting, social media focused on gun control

By Bob Sullivan

While the White House and politicians said it was too soon to talk about gun laws in the immediate aftermath of last week?s Connecticut school shooting, social media users resoundingly disagreed.?

By Friday night, only hours after the shooting, roughly one-third of Twitter and blog posts about the shooting were about changing America?s gun laws ? with the authors arguing both for and against ? a radical change from previous high-profile shooting tragedies, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism reported Thursday. Twitter users and bloggers wanted to have the conversation immediately, and gun law chatter was more popular even than expressions of sympathy ? 28 percent to 20 percent.

The 28 percent figure represented the percentage of posts on Twitter and blogs related to the Newtown, Conn., shooting that mentioned gun laws over the first 72 hours after the shooting.? That compares to only 3 percent of the social media discussion in the aftermath of the Tucson shootings last year in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was seriously injured and six others were killed.

In Pew's analysis, 25 percent of Newtown-related tweets and 20 percent of blogs offered sympathy or prayers for the victims.

---

"There was this outpouring of emotion, but it was aligned with a sense that we have to do something about this," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. "What we're seeing is not only a good deal of conversation in general about gun law and gun law reform, which we haven't seen in other recent shootings, but that conversation came from the get-go."

There's no way to know if that surge in gun law chatter impacted the political debate in Washington, or has helped create an atmosphere more conducive to gun control debate, but the outpouring had at least one immediate impact. After receiving an avalanche of negative comments, the National Rifle Association temporarily took down its Facebook page last week. It's since been restored.

Supporters of tougher gun laws were a majority in Pew's study. On Twitter, 64 percent called for reform, while 21 percent defended gun rights and 14 percent offered neutral comments. Some 46 percent of blogs posts called for reform, with 21 percent opposed and 32 percent taking neither side, Pew says. Facebook posts were not considered in the study because privacy settings limit research, Mitchell said.

Social media chatter followed a very different tack after the Giffords shooting: While just 3 percent discussed gun control, 34 percent involved political commentary, ?mainly about the heated political discourse in our country and its possible relationship to the shooting, ? according to the study. Twenty-nine percent involved straight facts.

Pew also compared the Newtown social media reaction to posts published after the Trayvon Martin shooting in February. Anger at his alleged killer, George Zimmerman, accounted for 21 percent of chatter on Twitter, followed by sympathy for Martin, at 19 percent.? Discussion of gun laws, and specifically Florida's Stand Your Ground statue, accounted for only 7 percent of the posts.

Did all this social media chatter about gun control have an immediate impact?? Looking at President Barack Obama's reaction to the Newtown tragedy may be instructive.

When Obama delivered his initial comments on the Newtown shooting on Friday, he made only a vague reference to gun law reform, saying, "We?re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this." White House spokesman Jay Carney was more specific, saying "today is not the day" for the discussion in a press briefing.

Gun law reform supporters were deeply critical of the administration's reaction.

"The White House says 'today is not the day' to talk about gun legislation. Correct. That day was yesterday," became a common Facebook update and tweet, echoing a statement made by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

By Sunday, Obama's tone had changed.

"In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens ... in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have?" he said at a vigil service in Newtown.

Does Mitchell think the steady social media drumbeat helped nudge Obama toward action?

"We can't draw an exact cause and effect here," she said. "But clearly the conversation in social media is a very big part of the way information flows now," she said. "If you think about the cycle of information and reaction, and the way the government works, leaders are reacting to events and to the public, and what resonates with the public, and these things all continue to play off each other as time goes on.?

Social media expert Steve Rubel, an analyst at public relations firm Edelman, cautioned against giving social media too much credit for the current atmosphere in which discussion of gun control suddenly seems safe.

"Sometimes social media is directly responsible for driving shifts in public opinion,? he said. ?But what can get overlooked, however, is how it's a mirror and a magnifier of what's happening in society. (There's) a heightened interest overall. Social may be reflecting a larger conversation, much of which is happening offline as well."

Other research appears to confirm Pew's findings. For example, there's been a huge spike this week in search engine requests for the term "gun control" -- a much larger spike than after the Virginia Tech shootings, the Giffords shooting or the Aurora shootings.

"So yes, the social increase is unusual," Rubel said. But it's unclear if social media impact has staying power, and whether it's a match for the standard snail's-like pace of federal legislation. "What will be important to watch is whether the unprecedented interest is so large that the issue remains at the forefront," he said.

Even if the social media surge doesn?t last, Pew?s Mitchell says its impact should not be underestimated.

"If we think about the narrative and agenda that gets created around certain news events, more and more that narrative has many different players, and the public is one of them to the degree that they couldn?t be five or six years ago," she said.

* Follow Bob Sullivan on?Facebook.

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Source: http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/20/16053840-social-media-posts-on-school-shooting-immediately-turned-to-gun-control?lite

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