Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker


LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.


The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.


Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.


With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.


"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.


In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.


The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.


The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.


— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.


— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).


— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.


Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.


While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.


"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.


Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.


Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.


"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.


He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.


"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.


___


Online:


www.lancet.com


http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org


Read More..

GOP losing public-opinion war over stalled debt talks


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Negotiations are expected to continue Thursday on the "fiscal cliff" with Republicans at a growing public opinion disadvantage and approval ratings for President Barack Obama rising to levels not seen since the killing of Osama bin Laden.


Senior Democratic Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota said on MSNBC late Wednesday that he thought Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner were edging closer to a deal.


He added that he hoped something will be announced next week to avert the steep tax hikes and budget cuts set for the start of 2013.


"I believe that they will have a framework agreement," Conrad said. "I believe they'll have it early next week. And I believe it will secure the votes in both the Senate and the House. We may miss some on the wings, but I think the center will hold."


Republican Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, in a Fox Business News interview Wednesday evening, disagreed with Conrad's assessment.


"I started pretty optimistic about this that we could get this done well before the holidays, but I don't feel that way anymore," Brady said. "It seems to me a decision's been made perhaps by the White House already to take us off this fiscal cliff."


Conservative Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said the economy had already been damaged by the uncertainty caused by the deadlock.


"We can't fix it Christmas Eve and expect it all to bounce back in January," he said Thursday on CBS.


Sharp differences remained between congressional Republicans and the White House in talks to avert the cliff, and negotiators warned the showdown could drag on past Christmas.


Both sides refused to give any ground in public, with the main sticking point being the expiring tax cuts, which Obama wants extended for all but high earners and Boehner wants extended for everyone.


Polling shows strong support for Obama's position. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey released late Wednesday, three-quarters of Americans say they would accept raising taxes on the wealthy to avoid the cliff.


Among Republicans, some 61 percent say they would accept tax increases on high earners.


An ABC News-Washington Post poll released Tuesday indicted that nearly half of Americans approve of Obama's handling of the negotiations versus the quarter of respondents who approved of Boehner's.


At the same time, Obama's public opinion rating has reached about 54 percent in the Real Clear Politics polling average, above the level where it peaked in May 2011, when bin Laden was killed.


Republicans are in a bad negotiating position, Conrad said, noting that the Democratic-controlled Senate has already passed a bill preserving tax cuts for the middle-class, leaving the Republican-controlled House standing in the way.


"And so Republicans are really in an awkward position," he said.


Boehner, meanwhile, faces increasingly conflicting pressures, from the right to hold firm, from the Republican center to be flexible and from the polls to abandon his position.


(Editing by Xavier Briand)



Read More..

Official: Syria fires Scud missiles at rebels


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Syrian government forces have fired Scud missiles at insurgents in recent days, escalating the 2-year-old conflict against rebels seeking to overthrow the regime, U.S. officials said Wednesday.


Speaking on condition of anonymity, two officials said forces of President Bashar Assad have fired the missiles from the Damascus area into northern Syria. These officials asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.


News of the missiles came on the same day that more than 100 countries, including the United States, recognized a new Syrian opposition coalition. That has further isolated Assad's regime and opened a way for greater humanitarian assistance to the forces battling to oust him.


One official said there was no indication that chemical weapons were aboard the missiles. Officials have said over the past week that they feared rebel advances were prompting Assad to consider using chemical weapons.


This official estimated that the number of Scuds fired was more than a half dozen, confirming details first reported by The New York Times.


State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Assad has fired missiles, but wouldn't specify what kind.


"As the regime becomes more and more desperate, we see it resorting to increased lethality and more vicious weapons moving forward and we have in recent days seen missiles deployed," she said.


White House press secretary Jay Carney, speaking to reporters, said he could not confirm the report, but said if true it would be a sign of desperation.


"The idea that the Syrian regime would launch missiles, within its borders, at its own people, is stunning, desperate and a completely disproportionate military escalation," Carney said.


The new development happened as officials planned an international conference to further assist opposition to Assad.


"This is the usual pattern of behavior that whenever there is an important decision that is anti-Assad taken by the international community, the Assad regime escalates the degree of violence to show its degree of displeasure," said Murhaf Jouejati, a specialist on Syrian affairs at the National Defense University. "Like saying, 'Oh, yeah? I'll call show you!' "


___


Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Matthew Lee, Pauline Jelinek and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report from Washington.


Read More..

Most Googled in 2012: Whitney, PSY, Sandy






LOS ANGELES (AP) — The world’s attention wavered between the tragic and the silly in 2012, and along the way, millions of people searched the Web to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, and a record-breaking skydiver.


Whitney Houston was the “top trending” search of the year, according to Google Inc.’s year-end “zeitgeist” report. Google‘s 12th annual roundup is “an in-depth look at the spirit of the times as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year,” the company said in a blog post Wednesday.






People around the globe searched en masse for news about Houston‘s accidental drowning in a bathtub just before she was to perform at a pre-Grammy Awards party in February.


Google defines topics as “trending” when they garner a high amount of traffic over a sustained period of time.


Korean rapper PSY’s “Gangnam Style” music video trotted into second spot, a testament to his self-deprecating giddy-up dance move. The video is approaching a billion views on YouTube.


Superstorm Sandy, the damaging storm that knocked out power and flooded parts of the East Coast in the midst of a U.S. presidential campaign, was third.


The next biggest trending searches globally were a pair of threes: the iPad 3 tablet from Apple Inc. and Diablo 3, a popular video game.


Rounding out the Top 10 were Kate Middleton, who made news with scandalous photos and a royal pregnancy; the 2012 Olympics in London; Amanda Todd, a Canadian teen who was found dead of an apparent suicide in October after being bullied online; Michael Clarke Duncan, the “Green Mile” actor who died of a heart attack in September at age 54; and “BBB12,” the 12th edition of “Big Brother Brasil,” a reality show featuring scantily clad men and women living together.


Some trending people, according to Google, were:


Felix Baumgartner, an Austrian skydiver who became the first to break the sound barrier without a vehicle with a 24-mile plummet from Earth’s stratosphere;


— Jeremy Lin, the undrafted NBA star who exploded off the New York Knicks bench and sparked a wave of “Linsanity”;


Morgan Freeman, the actor whose untimely death turned out not to be true.


The Internet also continued its rise as a popular tool for spreading addictive ideas and phrases known as “memes.” Remember LOL? If you don’t know what it means by now, someone may “Laugh Out Loud” at you.


This year, Facebook said its top memes included “TBH (To Be Honest),” ”YOLO (You Only Live Once),” ”SMH (Shake My Head).” Thanks to an endlessly fascinating U.S. presidential campaign, “Big Bird” made the list after Republican candidate Mitt Romney said he might consider cutting some funds for public broadcasting.


Yahoo said its own top-searched memes for the year included “Kony 2012,” a reference to the short film and campaign against Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony; “stingray photobomb” for an unusual vacation snapshot that went viral; and “binders full of women,” another nod to Romney for his awkward description of his search for women cabinet members as Massachusetts’ governor.


And people were happy to pass on popular Twitter posts by retweeting them. According to Twitter, the year’s most popular retweets were President Barack Obama‘s “Four more years,” and Justin Bieber’s farewell to six-year-old fan Avalanna Routh, who died of a rare form of brain cancer: “RIP Avalanna. i love you”.


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

'Modern Family' star's dad to handle her finances


LOS ANGELES (AP) — "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter's father will temporarily handle her finances and she'll continue living with her adult sister, at least for the next three months, according to a custody agreement reached Wednesday shortly before a trial was to start.


The exact terms of who will raise Ariel were not spelled out in court, but she will stay with adult sister Shanelle Gray until those involved meet March 29 to review the agreement.


Ariel held hands with Gray while in court. Her mother, who temporarily lost custody of Ariel in October, left the courtroom crying.


Ariel's father, Glenn Workman, was appointed temporary guardian of his daughter's finances.


The actress' mother, Chrisoula "Chrystal" Workman, has been accused of physically and emotionally abusing the 14-year-old. An initial report by child protective services found evidence of emotional abuse but claims of physical abuse were deemed inconclusive, Superior Court Judge Michael Levanas said last month.


Chrystal Workman denies she has ever abused the actress. She claims Gray is not a fit guardian and contends Ariel is a rebellious teen and should be returned to her home.


Since October, Ariel, who turns 15 in January, has been living with Gray, an actress who has appeared on "The Bold and the Beautiful" and operates acting studios with her husband. Gray's attorney has said she was subjected to similar abuse by her mother and that state authorities removed her from Workman's home when she was a teenager.


Ariel, who has been acting since age 7, plays Alex Dunphy on the ABC series, which is both popular and critically acclaimed.


Guardianship cases in California are public record. Gray's attorneys requested the case and its proceedings be sealed, but a judge refused. The case was filed under Ariel's birth name, Ariel Workman, in part to avoid attention.


Glenn Workman is estranged from his wife but states he would be willing to care for his daughter. The judge initially rejected his request, citing inconsistent statements Glenn Workman made in court filings and to child protective services investigators.


Ariel has several projects in the works and already has a lengthy resume of appearances on TV series such as "ER" and "Phineas and Ferb" and movies such as "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," ''Ice Age: The Meltdown" and "ParaNorman."


___


Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP


Read More..

Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL


WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.


Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.


The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.


Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."


Read More..

Police identify Portland mall shooter


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The gunman who killed two people and himself in a shooting rampage at an Oregon mall was 22 years old and used a stolen rifle from someone he knew, authorities said Wednesday.


Jacob Tyler Roberts had armed himself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and had several fully loaded magazines when he arrived at a Portland mall on Tuesday, said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.


The sheriff said the rifle jammed during the 22-year-old's attack, but he managed to get it working again. He later shot himself. Authorities don't yet have a motive but don't believe he was targeting specific people.


Two people — a 54-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man — were killed, and another, Kristina Shevchenko, whose age could not be confirmed, was wounded and in serious condition on Wednesday.


Roberts, wearing a hockey-style face mask, parked his 1996 green Volkswagen Jetta in front of the second-floor entrance to Macy's and walked briskly through the store, into the mall and began firing randomly, police said.


He fatally shot Steven Mathew Forsyth of West Linn and Cindy Ann Yuille of Portland, the sheriff said.


Roberts then fled along a mall corridor and into a back hallway, down stairs and into a corner where police found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said.


People at the mall were heroic in helping get shoppers out of the building, including medical personnel who rendered aid, Roberts said.


In response to previous mass shootings elsewhere, the first arriving officers were trained to form teams and go inside instead of waiting for SWAT. Employees at the mall also received training to handle such a situation.


"This could have been much, much worse," Roberts said.


The first 911 call came at 3:29 p.m. Tuesday and officers arrived a minute later. By 3:51 p.m., all the victims and the gunman and rifle had been found. Four SWAT teams spent hours clearing the 1.4 million square-foot mall, leaving shoppers and workers to hide in fear.


Roberts rented a basement room in a modest, single-story Portland home and hadn't lived there long, said a neighbor, Bobbi Bates. Bates said she saw Roberts leave at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday wearing a dark jacket and jeans, carrying a guitar case. An occupant at the house declined to comment.


The mall Santa, Brance Wilson, was waiting for the next child's Christmas wish when shots rang out, causing the mall to erupt into chaos.


About to invite a child to hop onto his lap, Wilson instead dove for the floor and kept his head down as he heard shots being fired upstairs in the mall.


"I heard two shots and got out of the chair. I thought a red suit was a pretty good target," said Wilson, 68. Families waiting for Santa scattered. More shots followed, and Wilson crept away for better cover.


Witnesses heard the gunman saying, "I am the shooter," as he fired rounds from a semi-automatic rifle inside the Clackamas Town Center, a popular suburban mall several miles from downtown Portland.


Some were close enough to the shooter to feel the percussion of his gun.


Kayla Sprint, 18, was interviewing for a job at a clothing store when she heard shots.


"We heard people running back here screaming, yelling '911,'" she told The Associated Press.


Sprint barricaded herself in the store's back room until the coast was clear.


Jason DeCosta, a manager of a window-tinting company that has a display on the mall's ground floor, said when he arrived to relieve his co-worker, he heard shots ring out upstairs.


DeCosta ran up an escalator, past people who had dropped for cover and glass littering the floor.


"I figure if he's shooting a gun, he's gonna run out of bullets," DeCosta said, "and I'm gonna take him."


DeCosta said when he got to the food court, "I saw a gentleman face down, obviously shot in the head."


"A lot of blood," DeCosta said. "You could tell there was nothing you could do for him."


He said he also saw a woman on the floor who had been shot in the chest.


Austin Patty, 20, who works at Macy's, said he saw a man in a white mask carrying a rifle and wearing a bulletproof vest. There was a series of rapid-fire shots in short succession as Christmas music played. Patty said he dove for the floor and then ran.


His Macy's co-worker, Pam Moore, told the AP the gunman was short, with dark hair.


Kira Rowland told KGW-TV that she was shopping at Macy's with her infant son when the shots started.


"All of a sudden you hear two shots, which sounded like balloons popping," Rowland told the station. "Everybody got on the ground. I grabbed the baby from the stroller and got on the ground."


Rowland said she heard people screaming and crying.


"I put the baby back in the stroller and ran," Rowland said.


Kaelynn Keelin was working two stores down from Macy's when the gunfire began. She watched windows of another store get shot out. She and her co-workers ran to get customers inside their own store to take shelter.


"If we would have run out, we would have run right into it," she said.


Shaun Wik, 20, was Christmas shopping with his girlfriend and opened a fortune cookie at the food court. Inside was written: "Live for today. Remember yesterday. Think of tomorrow."


As he read it, he heard three shots. He heard a man he believes was the gunman shout, "Get down!" but Wik and his girlfriend ran. He heard seven or eight more shots. He didn't turn around.


"If I had looked back, I might not be standing here," Wik said. "I might have been one of the ones who got hit."


Clackamas Town Center is one of the Portland area's biggest and busiest malls, with 185 stores and a 20-screen movie theater.


Holli Bautista, 28, was shopping at Macy's for a Christmas dress for her daughter when she heard pops that sounded like firecrackers. "I heard people running and screaming and saying 'Get out, there's somebody shooting,'" she told the AP.


She said hundreds of shoppers and mall employees started running, and she and dozens of other people were trying to escape through a department store exit.


Tiffany Turgetto and her husband were leaving Macy's through the first floor when they heard gunshots coming from the second floor of the mall. They were able to leave quickly through a Barnes & Noble bookstore before the police locked down the mall.


"I had left my phone at home. I was telling people to call 911. Surprisingly, people are around me, no one was calling 911. I think people were in shock," she said.


___


Associated Press writers Steven DuBois, Nigel Duara, Anne M. Peterson, Tim Fought and Sarah Skidmore in Portland, Michelle Price in Phoenix, Pete Yost in Washington, Manuel Valdes in Seattle and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.


Read More..

Taliban popular where US fought biggest battle


MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) — Nearly three years after U.S.-led forces launched the biggest operation of the war to clear insurgents, foster economic growth and set a model for the rest of Afghanistan, angry residents of Helmand province say they are too afraid to go out after dark because of marauding bands of thieves.


And during the day, they say corrupt police and government officials bully them into paying bribes. After 11 years of war, many here long for a return of the Taliban. They say that under the Taliban, who routinely punished thieves by cutting off a hand, they were at least safe from crime and corruption.


"If you had a box of cash on your head, you could go to the farthest part of Marjah and no one would take it from you, even at night," said Maulvi Daoud, who runs a cubbyhole sized-shop in the town of Marjah. "Today you bring your motorcycle in front of your shop and it will be gone. Now the situation is that you go on the road and they are standing in police and army uniform with weapons and they can take your money."


It was in the town of Marjah in early 2010 that some 15,000 NATO and Afghan forces waged the war's biggest battle. They not only fought the Taliban with weapons, they promised to bring good governance to Marjah and the rest of the southern province of Helmand — and demonstrate to the residents the advantages of shunning the militants.


But it appears the flaw in the plan was with the quality of Afghans chosen by President Hamid Karzai to govern and police the area after most of the fighting ended. And that adds to growing doubts about the entire country's future after foreign troops withdraw by the end of 2014.


Despite military claims of gains across the province and an overall drop in violence, Marjah residents told The Associated Press that NATO's counterinsurgency experiment has failed. A bleak picture also emerges from anecdotal evidence collected from dozens of interviews with residents elsewhere in the province, some from the most violent districts.


Many claim the U.S.-funded local police, a type of locally sanctioned militia, routinely demand bribes and threaten to accuse those who do not comply of being members of the Taliban. Good governance never came to Marjah, they say.


In villages of sun-baked mud homes, at crowded bus stops and in local tea houses where residents sit cross-legged on plastic-covered tables drinking tea and eating off communal plates, people scoffed at claims of security and development. They heaped criticism on the Afghan government and officials, accusing them of stealing billions of dollars in aid money meant for the people and on an international community that they said ignored their needs and pandered to a corrupt administration.


Daoud, the Marjah shop owner, said there was more security under the country's Taliban regime that was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.


"They were never cruel to us and the one difference was security. It was better during the Taliban," he said.


His partner in the rickety shop along Marjah's chaotic one-street bazaar, Mohammed Haider, said poppy farmers who planted substitute crops such as cotton are losing money because they cannot sell their harvests. He predicted poppy production would double when foreign soldiers leave in 2014.


At a bus stop in Helmand's provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, residents scrambled for dilapidated old buses and cars to go to parts of Helmand. Hamidullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, was waiting for a bus to Sangin district — the scene of some of the most violent fighting between the Taliban and British and U.S. forces.


Like the majority of those at the stop, he wanted foreign forces to leave Afghanistan.


"All these foreign soldiers are here and it is totally insecure everywhere in Helmand," Hamidullah said. "For the time that they are in Afghanistan we will always have war."


Several of the men scrambling on top the packed buses and jamming themselves into the back of cars seemed to growl at the presence of foreigners in their midst. A single question: "What is the situation like in Helmand today?" brought a cacophony of answers. Many of the voices sounded angry, some sounded weary and a few angry-looking men walked away.


"We are completely destroyed today," said Hamidullah.


"The situation is getting worse and worse," shouted a voice in the crowd. Another yelled: "There is no security because of the foreigners." And from a deeply wrinkled elderly man whose voice seemed both angry and sad: "If the foreigners are out of Afghanistan, all the problems will be solved. Are our lives any better?"


Analysts who know Helmand say a corrupt government poses one of the biggest hurdles to stability, alienating the local population and driving them into the hands of the Taliban.


The province is strategically important because of a massive poppy production that is financing the insurgency and fueling criminal activity. While some success has been achieved at getting farmers to plant substitute crops, Helmand is still one of Afghanistan's largest opium-producing provinces, often blamed on anti-government sentiment and collusion between corrupt government officials and the Taliban.


The NATO-led coalition, known as the International Security Assistance Force, claims there are tangible gains against the Taliban in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province.


"While insurgent activity remains problematic in several districts, primarily in northern Helmand and western Kandahar, data from the battle space shows a marked decrease in overall enemy activity," ISAF spokesman Jamie Graybeal said recently.


Despite a drop of 8 percent in militant attacks from January to October compared to the same period last year, Helmand and neighboring Nimroz province accounted for 32 percent of all such attacks reported across the country from October 2011 to October this year, according to ISAF.


Ryan Evans, a research fellow at the U.S.-based Center for National Policy, called Helmand the "most dangerous and violent" of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.


"From 2010 to early 2012, one of five ISAF soldiers was killed in this one province — Helmand. And the province has since taken more lives and limbs than any other province," said Evans, who worked with U.S. and British troops in Helmand during 2010 and 2011.


The larger question, of course, is whether what's happening in Helmand is a harbinger of what the rest of Afghanistan will look like after the departure of the international troops.


A report released last month by the British Parliament's International Development Committee offered grim statistics.


Afghanistan continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world, with the average person earning less than one dollar a day despite $32 billion in foreign investment.


The country has also tumbled in corruption ratings assembled by Transparency International. Afghanistan was ranked 117 out of 158 countries in 2005, then slid to 180 out of 183 nations last year. The scandal-ridden Kabul Bank milked millions of dollars from Afghans' savings.


Some Afghans believe their countrymen are responsible for the current state of affairs.


Haji Khalil who moved his family from Marjah to Lashkar Gah during the 2010 offensive, blamed Afghans for the spike in thefts and lawlessness since the defeat of the Taliban.


"During the Taliban no one would steal because we knew the punishment, but when they left everyone began to steal," Khalil said.


"We became worse after the Taliban," he said. "The problem is with us."


___


Kathy Gannon is AP's Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan. She can be followed on www.twitter.com/kathygannon


Read More..

Web host Go Daddy appoints former Yahoo executive as CEO






(Reuters) – Go Daddy, one of the world’s biggest Internet hosting firms, appointed Yahoo Inc‘s former Chief Product Officer Blake Irving as chief executive.


He will take over from interim CEO Scott Wagner on January 7. Irving left Yahoo, where he headed a centralized products group that straddled several client types, on April 27.






“Blake Irving’s deep technology experience and his history of developing new cutting-edge products and leading large global teams make him a … compelling choice to drive Go Daddy to the next level of its … growth,” said Bob Parsons, Go Daddy’s executive chairman and founder.


Irving also served in various positions at Microsoft Corp from 1992 to 2007.


Go Daddy, which describes itself as the top provider of domain names, filed to go public in 2006 but withdrew its IPO due to poor market conditions.


(Reporting by Neha Alawadhi in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das, Maju Samuel)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News


Read More..

Vindication for 2013 Rock Hall of Fame inductees


Randy Newman's glad he didn't have to do anything drastic to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The members of Rush are choosing to let bygones be bygones. And Quincy Jones, well, he's still mad.


For most of this year's inductees, inclusion was a long time coming.


"I'm very happy," the 69-year-old Newman said Monday from his home in Los Angeles. "I thought I'd have to die first, but I'm glad I'm around to see it."


Newman is joined in the 2013 class by the eclectic group of rockers Rush and Heart, rap group Public Enemy, "Queen of Disco" Donna Summer and bluesman Albert King. Jones and his friend Lou Adler will enter the hall as Ahmet Ertegun Award winners for their contributions to rock beyond performance.


They will be inducted into the hall of fame April 18 in Los Angeles. The ceremony will mark the end of a long wait for fans of five of those six acts, who've been eligible for entry for some time. Public Enemy was inducted on its first ballot appearance, swelling the ranks of hip-hop entries.


In many ways, the 2013 class balances the scales, though not nearly soon enough for some new members.


"Well, it's about time, man," Jones said late Monday night in an interview from his home in Los Angeles. "But I promise you I'm not sitting around worrying about it."


Summer, who passed away at age 63 in May, gains entry after six years as a nominee. King, a deep influence on Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn who died in 1992, now takes his place along all the other legendary blues guitarists in the hall.


Rush, one of the most-played staples of classic rock radio, gained entry following its first appearance on the ballot. But the Canadian trio became eligible in 1998 and was repeatedly left off the list, to the great consternation of its legion of fans who cried bias against prog rock. Heart also waited a decade to make it on the ballot, gaining entry during its second appearance.


After years of disappointment, then disinterest, Rush's Alex Lifeson said the band now feels "wonderful" about its entry into the hall and is especially happy for its followers.


"First of all it's all water under the bridge and it was a very tiny bridge," the 59-year-old guitarist said in a phone interview from his home in Toronto. "I think our fans are more upset than we were because they feel a real bond to this band and it's been an important part of their lives in some form, and to be snubbed was snubbing them at the same time. ... Perhaps there were times when I thought if this ever happens I'm not going to bother going, or who cares or whatever, but at the end of the day positive karma is an important thing and this is an important thing to a lot of our fans and people we know."


Jones was less forgiving of the long wait he had. The 79-year-old entertainment icon's fingerprints are all over the hall of fame. He pops up often at key moments in rock 'n' roll history and was even Ray Charles' presenter during the soul singer's induction at the inaugural 1986 ceremony. He never expected to wait so long for his own entry.


"I was pissed off about it at first because I saw how it was going down and who was going in and who wasn't," Jones said with a deep laugh. "But I'm used to it, man. I've been around a long time, and I know how it works, you know. It's still an honor, man."


The 2013 class also continues the process of opening the hall of fame's doors a little bit wider.


In many cases, the delayed entry of this year's inductees had to do with a debate among its membership over the hall of fame's direction. The rock 'n' roll family sits under a big tent, but just how big it should be has been a matter of debate for the Cleveland, Ohio, institution.


The class may signal a new direction.


"That is an eclectic group," Newman said. "Well that's nice. It seems like they're broadening what they think rock 'n' roll is. That's good. There's no point being doctrinaire about music. ... People get awful strict. It's a hell of a thing to get strict about, isn't it?"


There was clearly no debate among the hall's membership about Public Enemy, which gained membership on its 25th anniversary.


The openly militant, always angry group helped elevate and define nascent rap in the 1980s and '90s. MC Chuck D said the group's induction is about more than simple membership.


"It's a great piece of news for the genre and our intention was to spread the light that our music is as legitimate as any other music," Chuck D said as the group traveled through Wyoming on tour Monday. " ... So this is significant to be alongside Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC and the Beastie Boys and just to be able to say this accomplishment, we don't think it's solely due to us."


Lifeson hopes the hall's membership keeps up with the trend.


"Maybe it should be the Music Hall of Fame and not so much the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," Lifeson said. "But maybe it all is rock 'n' roll. It started as a little seed and grew into this great big tree with a lot of branches. That's why it's so sad the whole progressive movement, bands like Yes and King Crimson, are not included in this. And I hope one day that they are because they deserve to be in there way before we do. They were huge influences on us and so many other bands that have done fantastic work over the years. I know Deep Purple were up for this as well. It's a little unfortunate that they didn't make it in because they were extremely influential. I hope there comes a time when these other artists and bands are included because they were equally as influential as any of the ones that are being inducted today."


___


Online:


http://rockhall.com /


___


Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.


Read More..