Why did boarding school grad join al-Qaida?

Moeed Abdul Salam didn't descend into radical Islam for lack of other options. He grew up in a well-off Texas household, attended a pricey boarding school and graduated from one of the state's most respected universities.

But the most unlikely thing about his recruitment was his family: Two generations had spent years promoting interfaith harmony and combating Muslim stereotypes in their hometown and even on national television.

Salam rejected his relatives' moderate faith and comfortable life, choosing instead a path that led him to work for al-Qaida. His odyssey ended late last year in a middle-of-the-night explosion in Pakistan. The 37-year-old father of four was dead after paramilitary troops stormed his apartment.

His Nov. 19 death went largely unnoticed in the U.S. and rated only limited attention in Pakistan. But the circumstances threatened to overshadow the work of an American family devoted to religious understanding.

Mom: 'Have to let go'
And his mysterious evolution presented a reminder of the attraction Pakistan still holds for Islamic militants, especially well-educated Westerners whose Internet and language skills make them useful converts for jihad.

"There are things that we don't want to happen but we have to accept, things that we don't want to know but we have to learn, and a loved one we can't live without but have to let go," Salam's mother, Hasna Shaheen Salam, wrote last month on her Facebook page.

The violence didn't stop after Salam died. Weeks after his death, fellow militants killed three soldiers with a roadside bomb to avenge the raid.

It is not clear to what extent Salam's family knew of his radicalism, but on his Facebook page the month before he died, he posted an image of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, beside a burning American flag.

He had also recently linked to a document praising al-Awlaki martyrdom and to a message urging Muslims to rejoice "in this time when you see the mujahideen all over the world victorious."

After his death, the Global Islamic Media Forum, a propaganda group for al-Qaida and its allies, hailed Salam as a martyr, explaining in an online posting that he had overseen a unit that produced propaganda in Urdu and other South Asian languages.

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official said Salam's role had expanded over the years beyond propaganda to being an operative. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

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The family, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the U.S. decades ago. Salam's father was a pilot for a Saudi airline, and the family eventually settled in the Dallas suburb of Plano. Their cream-colored brick home, assessed at nearly $400,000, stands on a corner lot in a quiet, upper-class neighborhood.

Studied history
The family obtained American citizenship in 1986. Salam attended Suffield Academy in Connecticut, a private high school where tuition and board currently run $46,500. He graduated in 1992.

A classmate, Wadiya Wynn, of Laurel, Md., recalled that Salam played varsity golf, sang in an a cappella group and in the chamber choir, and that he hung out with a small group of "hippie-ish" friends.

She thought he was a mediocre student, but noted that just being admitted to Suffield was highly competitive.

Salam went on to study history at the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 1996. His Facebook profile indicated he moved to Saudi Arabia by 2003 and began working as a translator, writer and editor for websites about Islam.

"Anyone can pick up a gun, but there aren't as many people who can code html and understand the use of proxies," said Evan Kohlmann, a senior partner a Flashpoint Global Partners, which tracks radical Muslim propaganda.

Salam, who had apparently been active in militant circles for as long as nine years, arrived three years ago in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, and became an important link between al-Qaida, the Taliban and other extremists groups, according to an al-Qaida operative in Karachi who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is wanted by authorities.

'Open-minded'
Salam traveled to the tribal areas close to the Afghan border three or four times for meetings with senior al-Qaida and Taliban leaders, the operative said. He would handle money and logistics in the city and deliver instructions from other members of the network.

Back in the United States, Salam's mother is a prominent resident of Plano, where she is co-chairwoman of a city advisory group called the Plano Multicultural Outreach Roundtable, as well as a former president of the Texas Muslim Women's Foundation.

The founder of the latter group, Hind Jarrah, said Shaheen and her husband are too upset to speak with anyone.

"She's a committed American citizen. She's a hard worker," Jarrah said, calling her "one of the nicest, most committed, most open-minded" women she had ever met.

Salam's brother, Monem Salam, has traveled the country speaking about Islam, seeking to correct misconceptions following the 9/11 attacks. He works for Saturna Capital, where he manages funds that invest according to Islamic principles ? for example, in companies that do not profit from alcohol or pork. He recently moved from the company's Bellingham, Wash., headquarters to head its office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

After the 2001 attacks, he and his wife made a public-television documentary about his efforts as a Muslim man to obtain a pilot's license. They also wrote a column for The Bellingham Herald newspaper that answered readers' questions about Islam.

Both Salam's parents and his brother declined numerous interview requests from The Associated Press.

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, dozens of U.S. citizens have been accused of participating in terrorism activities, including several prominent al-Qaida propagandists, such as al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, who was killed alongside him. Perhaps best known is Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman believed to be in Pakistan.

'Children crying'
Of 46 cases of "homegrown terrorism" in the U.S. since 2001, 16 have a connection to Pakistan, according to a recent RAND Corporation study. Salam's background as college-educated and from a prosperous family isn't unusual among them.

Salam divorced his wife in October, but was contesting custody of their three sons and one daughter. The children were staying with him in the third-floor apartment when a squad of paramilitary troops known as Rangers arrived around 3:30 a.m.

Officers said they pushed through the flimsy door, and Salam killed himself with a grenade when he realized he was surrounded.

The Islamic media group and the al-Qaida contact in Karachi disputed that account, saying Salam was killed by the troops.

Through the windows, blood splatter and shrapnel marks were visible on the wall close to the dining table. There were boxes of unpacked luggage, a treadmill and two large stereo speakers. Residents said Moeed had only been living there for five days.

Neighbor Syed Mohammad Farooq was woken by an explosion. Minutes later, one of the troops asked him to go inside the apartment and see what had happened, he said.

"He was lying on the floor with blood pooling around him. One of his arms had been blown off. I couldn't look for long. He was moaning and seemed to be reciting verses from the Koran," he said. "I could hear the children crying, but I couldn't see them."

Hours later, Salam's wife and father-in-law, a lawyer in the city, came to collect the children from the apartment in Gulistane Jauhar, a middle-class area of Karachi, Farooq said. On the night he died, Salam led evening prayers at the small mosque on the ground floor of the apartment building.

"His Koranic recitation was very good," said Karim Baloch, who prayed behind him that night. "It was like that of an Arab."

Johnson reported from Bellingham, Wash., Brummitt reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. AP news researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report, along with reporters Ashraf Khan in Karachi, Pakistan; Zarar Khan in Islamabad; Adam Goldman in Washington; Danny Robbins and Linda Stewart Ball in Plano, Texas; and Paul Weber and Will Weissert in Austin, Texas.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46037238/ns/us_news-life/

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In Libya, a Salafi Campaign against Tombs and Heineken (Time.com)

The Libyan revolution has not been kind to Mahmud al-Arabi. Last March, forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ransacked his grocery store in Zuwara after he fled to Tunisia, stealing about $6,000 worth of supplies. When he returned in September, facing mounting debts, al-Arabi turned to selling beer and liquor -- an illegal enterprise in a country where alcohol has been banned for four decades. His new business drew the attention of Islamist rebels who helped to overthrow Gaddafi. After they threatened the store's landlord, they blew up Arabi's shop. Out of money and out of work, Arabi spends his days in his trailer home lamenting the turn his country has taken. Says he, "I got nothing but suffering from this revolution."

Throughout this country, Libyans are discovering that their hard fought battle to win freedoms is at risk. Puritanical Muslims known as Salafis are applying a rigid form of Islam in more and more communities. They have clamped down on the sale of alcohol and demolished the tombs of saints where many local people worship. The small town of Zuwara near the Tunisian border, dominated by a heterodox Muslim sect despised by the Salafis, is quickly becoming the battlefield for competing visions of Libya's future. (PHOTOS: Libya Celebrates Liberation)

Arabi's trailer sits on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by crushed Heineken beer cans. Inside, bowls strewn around the floor capture the rain drops that leak through the porous ceiling. "I prefer selling alcohol to begging," he says, explaining how he lost his entire savings during the revolution. After Gaddafi loyalists took the town, he was a wanted man for supporting the anti-regime fighters and had to be smuggled to Tunisia at a cost of 3,500 dinars. "I lost everything in my store and had no money. So I decided to sell alcohol."

He shows off a room with 3,000 small cans of Heineken beer and a dozen liquor bottles. "Business was very good," he boasts. "I had more than a hundred customers a day who bought Absolut [Vodka], J&B and [Johnny Walker] Red Label." But when the Salafis came knocking, Arabi knew his days as an alcohol vendor were numbered. "They said this was a Muslim village where alcohol is forbidden," he relates. "I didn't want any trouble with them and agreed to stop selling alcohol at the store. But the Salafis weren't satisfied with that and destroyed it." (VIDEO: Libya to Citizens: Give Up Your Guns)

It is not only Arabi who has faced the Salafis' wrath. The estimated 200-to-400 members of the local Salafi movement have demolished shrines belonging to adherents of the Ibadi sect, long considered heretics by orthodox Sunni Muslims. In the town's cemetery, large blocks of stone surround what was once a mausoleum. The large conical shaped structure that once adorned it now lies collapsed in the debris. Salafists are intolerant of other strands of Islam and have physically attacked Muslim minorities in other parts of the Arab world such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims frequent the shrines of saints, believing they have powers of intercession with the divine. Salafis, however, believe these are pagan rites that must be obliterated from Islam. "The situation has gotten much worse lately," says Ibadi Sheikh Walid Darder. "We may have not had political rights under Gaddafi, but we did not live in fear of going to the mosque."

Throughout Libya, Gaddafi's fall has emboldened Salafis, who were persecuted and imprisoned under the now deceased leader. They have increased their public presence, taken over mosques, and even hoisted the flag of al-Qaeda over the courthouse in Benghazi where the revolution began eleven months ago. In the capital of Tripoli, Salafis have destroyed more than six shrines. In one incident, dozens swarmed mausoleums belonging to two Muslim mystics and dug up their bodies so that worshippers could no longer visit their tombs. They also burned the relics around the shrines.

Arabi however is not concerned with the destruction of obscure tombs he does not frequent. "I just want my life back," he pleads. "I fought in the mountains here against Gaddafi. My payback is blowing up my shop," he says, turning to dump a bowl full of rainwater on the soggy field outside his trailer.

MORE: Libya's Army Tries to Reassert Itself as Militias Have Their Way

VIDEO: Why They Protest: Egypt, Libya and Syria

View this article on Time.com

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20120118/wl_time/08599210457800

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Brazil: Police probe allegations of rape on TV (AP)

RIO DE JANEIRO ? Brazilian police are investigating allegations of sexual assault on the country's Big Brother reality TV show.

Rio de Janeiro police spokeswoman Camila Donato says participants were to be questioned as part of the probe on Tuesday. That's a day after the wildly popular program announced that contestant Daniel Echaniz was being thrown out over suspicions of "gravely inadequate" behavior.

The 31-year-old male model was booted off the show after allegations emerged that he engaged in sexual behavior with contestant Monique Amin after she'd passed out.

The alleged incident took place following a party Saturday. Program footage shows the two in a bed, the leopard print sheets moving as Amin lays inert.

The video is on Brazilian websites.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_brazil_big_brother_expulsion

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Big Brother Brazil participant probed for rape (Reuters)

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) ? A participant in the Brazilian version of reality TV show "Big Brother" is being investigated for suspected rape of a fellow housemate while she apparently was asleep during the program.

Police on Tuesday questioned male model Daniel Echaniz, 30, who was shown in live images in bed with 23-year-old Monique Amin apparently having sex under the covers.

"The young woman denies she was raped and has not pressed charges," Rio police spokeswoman Edileide Macedo said. "We continue to investigate the case because it is a public matter."

Television network Rede Globo expelled Echaniz from the program on Monday after a seven-minute video of the bed scene was posted on the Internet and police were called in to investigate.

Police collected possible evidence from the set of the reality show, including the bed sheets, the police spokeswoman said.

"Big Brother" is a television show in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but are continuously watched by television cameras. Housemates try to win by avoiding periodic evictions from the house. Localized versions run in countries around the world.

It was not clear from the images taken with a night camera whether Amin was asleep. In the video, she barely moves. Brazilian media reported she had passed out from drinking alcohol at a party before going to bed.

Her mother was sure she was out of it. "Without any doubt, my daughter was asleep," Claudia Amin told a local newspaper.

(Reporting by Pedro Fonseca and Anthony Boadle; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120117/tv_nm/us_brazil_bigbrother_rape

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Samsung Group plans record $41 billion investment in 2012 (Reuters)

SEOUL (Reuters) ? Samsung Group, which includes Samsung Electronics Co, said on Tuesday it is raising its 2012 investment to a record $41.4 billion, as the South Korean conglomerate seeks to consolidate its leading position in mobile chips and flat screens.

Best known for making massive investments in new technologies ahead of rivals, Samsung is now banking on logic chips and OLED displays to repeat its roaring success in flash chips, computer memory chips and LCD flat-screens, even as a gloomy global economic and IT spending outlook make its peers stick to conservative plans.

Samsung Group, South Korea's biggest business group, did not provide a breakdown of the 47.8 trillion won investment. But analysts have widely expected it to raise investment in mobile chips and next-generation OLED (organic light emitting diode) flat-screen displays.

"Samsung's got strong cash flow to make bold bets in new technologies. No other IT company can beat it in terms of investment and that's how Samsung finds new revenue sources ahead of rivals and widen its gap," Lee Sun-tae, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities.

Of the total investment, capital spending will amount to 31 trillion won, up 11 percent from a year ago, Samsung said in a statement.

Analysts expect some 25 trillion won, or 80 percent of the capital spending, will be from Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest technology firm by revenue, and its display unit, mainly to boost capacity of system chips and OLEDs.

Investment in system chips such as mobile processors and sensors used in smartphones, tablets, and cameras is likely to exceed spending on its bread-and-butter memory chips for the first time, reaching 7.5 trillion won, or some 1 trillion won higher than investment in memory chips, according to analysts.

Investment in OLED is likely to rise to 7 trillion won from last year's some 5 trillion won, and the rest will be spent on LCDs, rechargeable batteries and LEDs, analysts said.

Samsung Electronics makes mobile processors to power Apple's iPhone and iPad as well as its own Galaxy line of mobile products. Its display unit, Samsung Mobile Display, is also a near monopolistic supplier of OLED displays, which are mainly used in high-end mobile gadgets and are set to become dominant in TV screens to replace LCD.

OLED display revenues are expected to exceed $20 billion by 2018 to account for 16 percent of the total display industry, up from the current 4 percent, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

DIVERGES FROM KEY RIVAL

The record spending, which is up 12 percent from last year's 42.8 trillion won, comes as its key home rival, LG Group, which owns LG Electronics Inc and LG Display, cuts its 2012 investment by some $3 billion amid uncertain global business outlook.

Samsung is South Korea's biggest business conglomerate and has around 80 companies. Its total revenues account for some 20 percent of South Korea's annual gross domestic product which is valued at 1,200 trillion won.

With this year's investment, Samsung's spending since 2009 will total 148 trillion won ($128.2 billion).

By 0230 GMT, shares in Samsung Electronics, Asia's biggest technology firm by market value, rose 0.6 percent, lagging a 1.4 percent rise in the broader market. Samsung Elec has a market value of about $144 billion.

($1 = 1154.8000 Korean won)

(Editing by Jonathan Hopfner, Ken Wills and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120117/bs_nm/us_samsung_investment

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Pakistani court orders contempt notice against PM (AP)

ISLAMABAD ? Pakistan's Supreme Court ramped up the pressure on the nation's beleaguered government Monday, beginning contempt proceedings against the prime minister for failing to carry out its order to reopen a corruption case against the president.

The court ordered Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to appear on Thursday to explain his refusal to reopen the graft investigation, injecting fresh uncertainty into the political crisis threatening to engulf the country. If the court convicts Gilani of contempt, he could serve up to six months in prison and be disqualified from holding office.

The government already is locked in a bitter conflict with the army, and Monday's Supreme Court ruling boosted the sense the administration could fall, squeezed between the court and Pakistan's powerful generals. The government is also grappling with an ailing economy and a dangerous Taliban insurgency.

The escalating political crisis is a deep concern for the U.S., which is worried about instability in the nuclear-armed country and also needs the government's help with the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

"The Supreme Court and the government are in an open clash now, and it seems fairly obvious the court is unwilling to back off," said Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Dawn newspaper.

"Once the Supreme Court, the army and the political opposition agree the government needs to go sooner rather than later, it seems very difficult for the government to stay on," Almeida told The Associated Press.

Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan told reporters later in the day that the prime minister would appear before the court on Thursday as ordered.

The Supreme Court has ordered the government to ask Swiss authorities to reopen a corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari that dates back to the 1990s and involves the jurisdiction of the Swiss courts. The government has refused, saying Zardari has immunity, and supporters say the court is pursuing a vendetta against the country's civilian leadership.

The government also is at odds with the army over an unsigned memo delivered to Washington last year offering the U.S. a raft of favorable security policies in exchange for its help in thwarting a supposed military coup.

The army was outraged by the memo and pushed the Supreme Court to open an inquiry into the scandal, against the government's wishes. Some observers believe the court's pressure on the graft case is being orchestrated by the military to put maximum strain on the government.

Pakistan has long been plagued by tension between the civilian government and the army, which has seized power in three coups since the country was founded in 1947. The government has given the generals control over foreign and security policy, but the civilian leadership and the top brass have never seen eye-to-eye since Zardari and Gilani took office in 2008.

The head of the Supreme Court, Mohammad Iftikhar Chaudhry, has also clashed with Zardari.

The court initiated contempt proceedings against Gilani on Monday after the government failed to respond to an order outlining a series of punitive options the judges could take if the government did not reopen the case against Zardari. Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq told the court he had not received instructions from the country's leaders on how to respond to the order.

The government has vowed to see out its term, scheduled to end in 2013, and oversee elections ? something that has never happened in the country's history. But the crisis threatens to upend that, and some lawmakers in Zardari's party speculate that elections could be called earlier to try to ease tensions.

Gilani criticized the army last week for cooperating with the Supreme Court probe into the memo scandal. He has said the standoff is nothing less than a choice between "democracy and dictatorship." Gilani's comments followed a warning from the generals of possible "grievous consequences" ahead.

Zardari has been vulnerable to prosecution since 2009 when the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty granting him and other leading political figures immunity from past graft cases. The court deemed the amnesty, which was granted in 2008, unconstitutional.

The court has zeroed in on one corruption investigation taken up by the Swiss government against Zardari that was halted in 2008 when Pakistani prosecutors, acting on the amnesty, told Swiss authorities to drop the case.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120116/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

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Evidence of past Southern hemisphere rainfall cycles related to Antarctic temperatures

Evidence of past Southern hemisphere rainfall cycles related to Antarctic temperatures

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Geoscientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Minnesota this week published the first evidence that warm-cold climate oscillations well known in the Northern Hemisphere over the most recent glacial period also appear as tropical rainfall variations in the Amazon Basin of South America. It is the first clear expression of these cycles in the Southern Hemisphere.

The work by Stephen Burns and his doctoral student Lisa Kanner at UMass Amherst is reported in the current issue of ScienceXpress. Burns says, "The study also demonstrates that rainfall in the Southern Hemisphere of South America is, though to a lesser extent, also influenced by temperature changes in the Antarctic, which has not been previously observed."

The last glacial period, from about 10,000 to about 120,000 years ago, saw North America and Western Europe covered in a thick continental ice sheet, the geoscientist points out. Yet climate was also highly unstable during the period, cycling every few thousand years between warm and cold, dry periods in the high northern latitudes. Temperatures could change by as much as 10 to 15 degrees Celsius.

Known as Dansgaard/Oeschger (D/O) cycles, these millennial-scale rapid climate events were first recognized in the Greenland ice cores, but have since been found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, Burns points out.

The UMass Amherst climate researcher is an expert in reading past climate data from the ratio of oxygen isotopes found in calcite in speleothems, another name for stalagmites, stalactites and other water-deposited cave features. Analyzing radioactive isotopes and stable oxygen isotopes in the calcite sampled from ancient cave formations can provide information on past rainfall over many thousands of years, Burns says.

He and Kanner used oxygen isotopic analyses from a 16-centimeter (about 6.3 inches) stalagmite recovered from a cave 2.4 miles (3,800 meters) above sea level in the Peruvian Andes for this study. The sample grew from 49,500 to 16,000 years ago, providing a 34,000-year-long record of rainfall changes in the Amazon Basin. Kanner and colleagues found that cold periods in the high Northern latitudes are associated with an increase in precipitation, the South American Summer Monsoon, in the Amazon Basin.

They found that cold periods in the Northern Hemisphere are associated with an increase in precipitation, the South American Summer Monsoon, in the Amazon Basin.

"This relationship is the exact opposite of changes in rainfall in the Northern Hemisphere tropics, where cold intervals result in a decrease in rainfall," Burns says.

Revised chronology for several major climate events that took place in the last glacial period proposed in this study could lead to a better understanding of Antarctic warming during the same period and its relationship to warming the subtropical North Atlantic, the authors state.

###

University of Massachusetts at Amherst: http://www.umass.edu

Thanks to University of Massachusetts at Amherst for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116802/Evidence_of_past_Southern_hemisphere_rainfall_cycles_related_to_Antarctic_temperatures

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Kid Rock apologizes after cigar complaint (AP)

WARREN, Mich. ? Kid Rock has apologized after a man complained that the musician smoked a cigar at a nonsmoking venue in the Detroit area.

Randy Snell says Kid Rock lit the cigar while attending country singer Travis Tritt's show Friday at Andiamo Celebrity Showroom in Warren.

Spokesman Nick Stern told The Detroit News ( http://bit.ly/x6Z4Co) that Kid Rock offered his "most sincere apologies" to patrons he may have offended. He said he had been drinking alcohol.

Fifty-eight-year-old Snell of Trenton has asthma and says he plans to file a health department complaint. Michigan law prohibits smoking at workplaces including bars and restaurants.

Kid Rock was born Robert Ritchie. He grew up in and lives in suburban Detroit.

___

Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120116/ap_on_en_mu/us_people_kid_rock

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Microblogging use in China quadruples in 2011: report (Reuters)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? Use of microblogging in China quadrupled in 2011 compared with the previous year, with nearly half of all Chinese Internet users now taking to the near-instant service to gather news and spread views, a government Internet think tank said Monday.

Microblogging, or "Weibo" as it is known in China, allows users to send short messages of 140 characters or less to their followers. Twitter, the most popular microblogging platform in the world, is blocked by China's censors.

Sina Corp and Tencent Holdings both run popular Weibo platforms in China, both firms claim to have more than 200 million users.

Last year was a watershed year for Weibo with major events such as the Wenzhou high-speed train crash in July fuelling intense discussion on the platform.

The vibrant discussion and rapid dissemination of information on Weibo caused hand-wringing within the Communist Party, which fears that losing control of information and opinion could threaten its authority.

In December, city governments announced rules to regulate microblogging operators, requiring new users to register with their real names.

The total number of Weibo users rose 296 percent to 249.9 million in 2011, data from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) showed, meaning nearly half of the Chinese Internet population used Weibo.

CNNIC said in its report that by the end of December, there were 513 million Internet users in China, representing an Internet penetration rate of 38.3 percent. (http://www.cnnic.cn/research/ttdt/201201/W020120116374539281086

.pdf) Another spot of high-growth in the Internet sector was the group-buying industry that saw a 244.8 percent user growth in 2011, bringing the total to 64.7 million users at the end of December.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120116/wr_nm/us_china_internet

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Video: Happy birthday to Muhammad Ali and Betty White

>> two american icons are celebrating big round-number birthdays today. how about that couple? both are beloved by millions of americans. for starters, the champ turned 70 today. we got a glimpse of muhammad ali on saturday surrounded by his family. preparation for his big day . and perhaps you saw the tribute in prime time last night on nbc. a tribute to betty white who turned 90 today and could still put most of us to shame. happy birthday to both of the greatest.

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46032086/

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