Poland probes artist's claim he used Holocaust ash

WARSAW, Poland (AP) ? Polish prosecutors are investigating a Swedish artist's claim that he used the ashes of Holocaust victims to make a painting, an act that could carry a prison term.

The artist, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, wrote on the website of a gallery in Lund, Sweden, last year that he made a painting using ashes that he took from crematorium furnaces in Majdanek, a former Nazi German death camp located in eastern Poland, on a visit there in 1989.

Spokeswoman Beata Syk-Jankowska said Tuesday that local prosecutors have opened an investigation to check whether there is truth to the artist's claim. She said there is no evidence and prosecutors are acting on media reports. Swedish investigators will be asked for assistance in gathering evidence, she said.

It could be difficult, even impossible, to determine whether von Hausswolff is telling the truth or staging a publicity stunt. If he did actually use the ashes, it would likely be extremely offensive to Holocaust survivors and many others. He also could be charged in Poland with desecrating human ashes or a resting place and face up to eight years in prison.

In 1989, there were still some human ashes remaining in furnaces from World War II from the burning of the Nazi's victims. Removing any ash would be a crime, but there were no security cameras on the site at the time to register such an action, Agnieszka Kowalczyk, a spokeswoman for the museum at the site, told The Associated Press.

The AP has made multiple attempts to get comment from the artist's gallery, but in one case the owner refused comment and on Tuesday no one answered the phone. The exhibition closed in December in reaction to the scandal involving the painting, which Polish media have described as small with just brown and gray lines.

Between 1941 and 1944, some 150,000 people were held at the Majdanek camp. An estimated 80,000 of them died, most of whom were Jewish.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/poland-probes-artists-claim-used-holocaust-ash-140734007.html

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Cambridge Soundworks Oontz XL and Ultra hands-on

That slick-looking piece of hardware we know you looked at while clicking in here is Cambridge Soundworks' Bluetooth Oontz XL. Also on display was its bigger brother -- at least as far as price and battery is concerned -- the Oontz Ultra. The Oontz XL rings in at $149 and has been battery tested to run for 10 hours. The Oontz Ultra lacks the garish orange swath of branding but picks up an extra 6-hours of battery life, speakerphone functionality and the requisite price bump bringing it up to $199. Both of the Oontz portable speakers sounded good even in a room filled with constant aural distraction, heck, the fact we could hear them at all was a bit of a surprise. The housing is soft touch plastic with a metal grill up front, power, Bluetooth and volume buttons up top and DC in, AUX in and a USB port on the back. No word on when these'll hit retail but we'll update should we find out more.

Gallery: Cambridge Soundworks Oontz XL and Ultra hands-on

James Trew contributed to this report

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Q76TqItgTvM/

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Without a Wall Charger? The Nectar Powers Devices for Up to Two Weeks

LAS VEGAS -- You know how it goes -- you're camping and there's nowhere to charge your phone. Or maybe you're a university student who needs to plug in a laptop during class but you're too far away from an outlet on the wall. And let's not even get started with the airport, where outlets are almost always in use.

To put a plug in your pocket, portable power company Lilliputian launched at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday a device called the Nectar, which can keep electronics running for about two weeks. Unlike typical backup batteries, it never needs to be plugged into a wall outlet. Plus, it eliminates the need to lug around cables and power adapters. Hello, business travelers.

[More from Mashable: Canon PowerShot N Thinks Creatively So You Don?t Have To]

The $299 device -- which will be sold exclusively at Brookstone starting in the summer -- works with any device with a USB 2.0 (this means anything from a tablet and smartphone to digital cameras and Bluetooth headsets). But for the device to work, users must insert a Nectar power charge cardtridge ($10 each). When the power runs out, it can be tossed in a recycling bin and a new cartridge is needed. Although this is a setback -- who wants to keep replenishing a cartridge stash -- the overall concept trumps the setback.

[More from Mashable: Turn Your Windows 8 Laptop Into a Touchscreen Device With This Gadget]

In addition, the Nectar spokesperson said it will charge devices for about two weeks based on a typical charging session (about one hour to reach 100% power) one time each day, so the supply isn't unlimited during that time. But even still, this is a device we want with us on our next camping trip. Or next year at CES.

The CES drink louge

Click here to view this gallery.

[wp_scm_ces_2013]

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/without-wall-charger-nectar-powers-devices-two-weeks-010220084.html

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Retail Sales Index November 2012 - Central Statistics Office

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Source: http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/services/2012/rsi_nov2012.pdf

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Report: Iran oil revenues down 45 percent

Fahmideh gas refinery and storage facility is seen outside the central city of Qom, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2012. Iranian state TV says the country has inaugurated its first natural gas storage facility. The Saturday report says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened the facility at Sarajeh outside the central Iranian holy city of Qom. Iran is under Western oil and gas sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. (AP Photo/ISNA, Amir Kholousi)

Fahmideh gas refinery and storage facility is seen outside the central city of Qom, Iran, Saturday, Jan. 5, 2012. Iranian state TV says the country has inaugurated its first natural gas storage facility. The Saturday report says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened the facility at Sarajeh outside the central Iranian holy city of Qom. Iran is under Western oil and gas sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. (AP Photo/ISNA, Amir Kholousi)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's revenues from vital oil and gas exports have dropped by 45 percent because of sanctions over its suspect nuclear program, a senior lawmaker said Monday, a clear admission that sanctions over Iran's suspect nuclear program are having a severe impact.

Iran's sanctions-driven financial crisis has led to collapse of the currency, proposals for an austerity budget and government demands that local airlines clear their debts pay cash for fuel, or faced grounding ? but its leaders have given no indication that they might give in to the pressure and scale back their nuclear development program.

Gholam Reza Kateb, head of the parliament's budget committee, said oil exports have dropped 40 percent in the last nine months compared to the corresponding period last year. He said banking sanctions also contributed to the 45 percent reduction in revenues.

Iran is under U.N. sanctions and Western oil, banking and trade restrictions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which is a potential pathway for nuclear weapons development. The U.S. and its allies believe Iran might be on a path toward producing nuclear bombs.

Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, aimed at generating electricity and producing radioisotopes to treat about 1 million cancer patients a year.

Crude oil exports account for nearly 80 percent of Iran's foreign revenue.

Kateb said details of the steep revenue drop emerged Monday in a report by Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi to the parliament on the status of crude oil and liquid gas sales.

"On the basis of the report, oil sales are down 40 percent and income has dropped 45 percent in the last nine months," Kateb was quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying.

The Iranian government is preparing to present an austerity budget to parliament for the next Iranian calendar year that begins March 21. It would substantially increase income taxes as a way of avoiding a budget deficit.

The government is already facing a cash crunch from the drop in oil revenues as a result of Western sanctions that Iran calls it an "economic war."

The International Energy Agency says Iran's oil exports plunged to 1 million barrels a day in July last year from 1.74 million barrels a day in June after an embargo by the European Union, which accounted for around 18 percent of Iran's exports. But it said exports picked up to about 1.3 million barrels a day in November.

Kateb said experts are predicting that Iran will be able to export 1.5 million barrels of oil a day over the next year. Iran has also sought to increase its export of oil byproducts as a way of bypassing the sanctions.

In another sign of the effectiveness of the sanctions sanctions, most flights operated by Iranian airlines to domestic and international destinations have been cancelled because of unpaid debts.

Abdolreza Mousavi, an aviation official, said Monday the Oil Ministry would supply fuel to airlines only if they pay their debts and buy fuel with cash. He was quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency.

Jalil Salari, an Oil Ministry official, said Iranian airlines owe the government more than 4,600 billion rials ($144 million).

Mahmoud Rasoulinejad, another aviation official, said the Oil Ministry has given the airlines 24 hours to settle their debts or be grounded.

Iranian airlines nearly doubled prices of plane tickets in November because of higher fuel prices and the plunging value of the Iranian rial against foreign currencies.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-07-Iran-Nuclear/id-8c62bafde0e94ae8a0defa7602b581f9

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Man in Calif. school shooting not fit for trial

FILE - In this April 30, 2012, file photo, One Goh appears in an Alameda County Superior courtroom in Oakland, Calif. A judge ruled on Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, that Goh, accused of killing seven people at a small Northern California Christian college, is not mentally fit for trial. A public defender representing?Goh said a psychiatrist has determined that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia that dates back several years. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

FILE - In this April 30, 2012, file photo, One Goh appears in an Alameda County Superior courtroom in Oakland, Calif. A judge ruled on Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, that Goh, accused of killing seven people at a small Northern California Christian college, is not mentally fit for trial. A public defender representing?Goh said a psychiatrist has determined that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia that dates back several years. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) ? A judge ruled on Monday that a man accused of killing seven people at a small Northern California Christian college is not mentally fit for trial.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Carrie Panetta temporarily suspended the case against One Goh after two psychiatric evaluations reached the conclusion that Goh suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

An initial psychiatric evaluation found that Goh has had the disorder for several years.

Alameda County Assistant Public Defender David Klaus said after Monday's brief hearing that both doctors who examined Goh had similar experiences. Goh's condition causes him to have hallucinations and delusions and distrust people, including those trying to help him, Klaus said.

"He's certainly a deeply troubled man," Klaus said. "He's locked up in shame, remorse and sadness. He's not eating, he's not taking care of himself."

Klaus said he and his co-counsel have trouble talking with their client because of his mental state.

Goh is charged with seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in the April 2 attack at Oikos University in Oakland.

He has pleaded not guilty and remains in jail.

Authorities have said Goh, a former Oikos student, planned the killing spree at the school that caters to Korean immigrants after becoming angry with school officials over a tuition dispute. He previously decided to drop out of the school's nursing program.

Panetta ordered Goh to return to court on Jan. 28, when Klaus said discussions will likely focus on where his client should be placed in order to regain his competency.

Eventually, Klaus said, the plan would be for Goh to go to a facility where "he is expected to be restored to competency with a combination of medication and therapy."

Klaus said that facility would likely be Napa State Hospital in Napa County.

Victims' family members, including Efanye Chibuko, have suggested Goh may be faking his condition.

In November, Chibuko, whose wife Doris was one of the seven killed, said he believed that Goh was acting and playing the legal system.

Klaus said his client is not trying to avoid anything.

"I just want to make sure it's understood that this is a temporary suspension of proceedings in this case," Klaus said. "This is really about his present mental status and the Constitution demands he be competent and be able to understand and rationally participate in the proceedings.

"And, right now, he can't do that."

After Monday's hearing, Chibuko dashed out of the courtroom into a waiting elevator and declined to comment to a reporter.

There is no timetable on when Goh could stand trial, Klaus said.

Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Stacie Pettigrew, who is seeking murder charges against Goh, declined to comment after Monday's hearing.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-01-07-Religious%20School%20Shootings/id-342f490b733646a1994a5bb088f86158

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How to Trade the New Year Market | Breakout - Yahoo! Finance

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) has come out of the gates screaming in 2013. The broad index has already gained about 3% for the year, pushed higher by an agreement on the fiscal cliff removing the dreaded "uncertainty" that plagued stocks at the end of 2012. Those looking to put money to work now are stuck wondering whether buying now is chasing or getting in before the rally really picks up steam.

Bill Baruch, market strategist at iiTrader.com is in the latter camp. "You've got to look at the market from the long side," he says in the attached video. He has a 1,510 target for the S&P in the first quarter --a potential 3% gain from where the benchmark opened today. A week ago 1,510 was a gutsy call, but much less so now. The target is less important than how stocks move higher. On that count Baruch is encouraged.

Related: Shake Hands With This New Year Rally, Don?t Hug It

One thing traders use to judge the quality of the rally is the value of currency. If the dollar is falling in value relative to the rest of the world, stocks may move higher, but only because it takes more dollars to buy anything. What makes Baruch optimistic is that stocks have managed this rally despite the dollar moving higher early in 2013. It may seem like a wonky point, but of such observations are fortunes made in the trading pits.

Related: January Barometer: How to Trade the New Year

Looking ahead Baruch cautions against ignoring the debt ceiling debate coming next month. He's hedging his bullish bet by selling calls and buying puts. Selling calls will lock in any gains if and when markets move above his strike prices. Buying the puts takes advantage of historically low Vix (^VIX) levels to get long some protection at low prices.

As befitting his hedged posture, Baruch has a stop level just below where we started the year at 1,425 on the S&P. As for the upside, if stocks can get above his 1,510 target he thinks a blow-off rally could be in the offing.

"A lot of people missed the move last year staying on the sidelines," he notes, "they're not going to let that happen two years in a row."

Related: Two Sectors and a Stock Pick for 2013

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/trade-rally-now-160725742.html

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