Cuba cardinal to give TV address about papal visit
The Roman Catholic Church says Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega will give a televised speech about Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit.
Church spokesman Orlando Marquez says Ortega's speech is to air Tuesday evening on state-run channel Cubavision.
A similar address will be given next week by the archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, another planned stop on Benedict's March 26-28 tour.
The Cuban government controls all TV and radio broadcasting.
The church has had occasional access to the airwaves since Pope John Paul II's historic visit in 1998, but far less than it would like.
Masses are sometimes televised, as were recent processions marking the 400th anniversary of the appearance of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/13/2691325/cuba-cardinal-to-give-tv-address.html#storylink=cpy
Former Guatemalan soldier gets 6060-year sentence in massacre
A former member of an elite Guatemalan military force extradited from the United States last July was sentenced to 6,060 years in prison Monday for his role in the killings of 201 people in a 1982 massacre.
Pedro Pimentel Rios was the fifth former special forces soldier sentenced to 6,060 years or more for what became known as the "Dos Erres" massacre, after the northern Guatemala hamlet where the killings occurred during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.
The sentence was handed down by a three-judge panel is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a convict can serve is 50 years. It specified 30 years for each of the 201 deaths, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity.
Pimentel Rios, 54, is a former instructor at a Guatemalan training school for an elite military force known as the "kaibiles."
Pimentel lived in Santa Ana, California, and worked in a sweater factory for years until he was detained by immigration authorities in May 2010.
He was extradited to Guatemala the following year.
Guatemala's civil war claimed at least 200,000 lives before it ended in 1996.
The country's US-backed army was responsible for most of the deaths, according to the findings of a truth commission set up to investigate the bloodshed.
In December 1982, several dozen soldiers stormed the village of Dos Erres, searched homes for missing weapons and systematically killed men, women and children.
Soldiers bludgeoned villagers with a sledgehammer, threw them down a well, and raped women and girls before killing them, according to court papers filed in a case brought by US prosecutors against another former kaibil.
Guatemala opened an investigation into the killings in 1994 and unearthed 162 skeletons. Several years later, authorities issued arrest warrants for 17 kaibiles but the cases languished.
In August 2011, a Guatemalan court sentenced three other former special forces soldiers to 6,060 years in prison each for the massacre, and sentenced a former army second lieutenant to 6,066 years.
--AP
Moss, 49ers agree to one-year deal
Randy Moss is ready to show the world he can still be that dynamic deep threat who once dominated NFL defensive backs.
Even after a year away. Even at age 35. Even with a reputation he says isn't all it's made out to be.
Moss is getting a another chance in the NFL, signing a one-year contract with the San Francisco 49ers on Monday only hours after he worked out for the team and with former NFL quarterback and current coach Jim Harbaugh.
"I'm not a free agent. I'm a guy straight off the couch, straight off the street," Moss said. "One thing I want the sports world to understand is the love and passion I have for football."
Moss will fill a big void for the reigning NFC West champions in Harbaugh's version of the West Coast offense.
While he didn't go as far as to promise not to pout when times are tough, he did say all the right things, and that he plans to be a positive presence in a locker room known for its blue-collar, unselfish approach. Moss has no interest in reflecting on his past, either.
This is a fresh start.
--AP
Tiger Woods says he hopes to play next week at Bay Hill
Tiger Woods said Monday night his left Achilles tendon is mildly strained and he is hopeful he can still play next week at Bay Hill.
Woods withdrew from the Cadillac Championship at Doral on Sunday after hitting his tee shot on the 12th hole.
"Got good news from doc tonight," he posted on his Twitter account. "Only mild strain of left Achilles. Can resume hitting balls late in week and hopeful for next week."
Woods is scheduled to play the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, which starts March 22, his final tournament before the Masters. He has played Augusta National every year since 1995.
He said his left Achilles tendon, which caused him to miss two majors last year, felt tight as he warmed up on the practice range before the final round of the Cadillac Championship, and it got worse from there.
It was the second time in 10 months that Woods had to withdraw from a tournament because of his Achilles. He also left after shooting a 42 on the front nine of The Players Championship last May, causing him to sit out three months until it was completely healed. There were some in his camp who did not want him to compete in The Players to give the injury more time.
Woods said in a statement Sunday after withdrawing, "In the past, I may have tried to continue to play, but this time, I decided to do what I thought was necessary."
--AP
US, EU and Japan challenge China on rare earths at WTO
The US, Japan and the European Union have filed a case against China at the World Trade Organization, challenging its restrictions on rare earth exports.
US President Barack Obama announced the filing at the White House, accusing China of breaking agreed WTO rules.
Beijing has set quotas for exports of rare earths, which are critical to the manufacture of high-tech products from hybrid cars, to flat-screen TVs.
It is the first WTO case to be filed jointly by the US, EU and Japan.
They argue that by limiting exports, China, which produces more than 95% of the world's rare earth metals, has pushed up prices.
Environmental concerns
"We've got to take control of our energy future and we cannot let that energy industry take root in some other country because they were allowed to break the rules," Mr Obama said in a Rose Garden press conference.
"If China would simply let the market work on its own we would have no objections."
In the press conference, Mr Obama also said his new trade enforcement unit - which he established last month, with China the primary target - was ramping up its operations.
China has denied the allegations in the WTO case, saying that it had enforced the quotas to ensure there was no environmental damage caused due to excessive mining.
"We think the policy is in line with WTO rules," said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.
"Exports have been stable. China will continue to export, and will manage rare earths based on WTO rules," he said.
The 17 metals are used in electrical products, as well as many renewable energy devices.
There have been concerns that Beijing has implemented the quotas in a bid to ensure that prices remain low within China, which would give its manufacturers an advantage.
But Ivor Shrago, chairman of the mining services firm Rare Earths Global, said the US was in trouble because it took the wrong decisions in the past.
"They took a deliberate decision about 20 years ago not to develop [rare earth mining] and instead to buy the completed products," he told BBC News.
"Because of the deliberate decision that was taken, in China we have developed skills and expertise that the others do not have."
Welcoming Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping to the White House last month, Mr Obama warned that China must play by the same rules as other major powers in the world economy.
Yahoo sues Facebook over 10 disputed patents in the US
Yahoo has filed an intellectual property lawsuit against Facebook.
Yahoo claims the social network has infringed 10 of its patents including systems and methods for advertising on the web. Facebook denies the allegation.
The move comes ahead of Facebook's planned flotation later this year.
Patent litigation has become common between the smartphone makers, but this marks a new front in the battles between the tech giants.
A statement from Yahoo suggested the web portal believed it has a strong case.
"Yahoo's patents relate to cutting edge innovations in online products, including in messaging, news feed generation, social commenting, advertising display, preventing click fraud and privacy controls," its suit said.
"Facebook's entire social network model, which allows users to create profiles and connect with, among other things, persons and businesses, is based on Yahoo's patented social networking technology.
The social network signalled that it believed that Yahoo had not tried hard to settle the matter without involving the courts. It described Yahoo's action as "puzzling".
"We're disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation," it added.
The case has echoes of Yahoo's decision to sue Google ahead of its flotation in 2004. That dispute centred over patents that Yahoo had acquired the previous year as part of its takeover of pay-per-position specialist Overture.
Google ultimately settled the case by issuing 2.7 million shares to its rival.
"It's reasonable that Yahoo would want to try this tactic again as it worked in the past," BGC Partner's New York-based technology analyst Colin Gillis told the BBC.
"But there's an air of desperation about this - it's unlikely that they will get easy money from Facebook. This isn't going to derail the IPO."
Yahoo recently overhauled its board appointing Scott Thompson as its chief executive in January. The former Paypal executive replaced Carol Bartz who had been ousted in September.
Yahoo's co-founder, Jerry Yang, also resigned from the board in January. The firm's chairman and three other board members announced their decision to step down shortly afterwards.
The Wall Street Journal had reported that many Yahoo employees expected fresh job cuts following consecutive quarters of revenue declines.
Mr Thompson's decision to sue may secure fresh funds or other assets if the courts rule in his favour.
"This is particularly interesting as it is one of the first patent cases concerning social media," said Andrea Matwyshyn, assistant professor of legal studies at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
"The patentability of computer code is uncertain and recently several groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Computer and Communications Industry Association have asked the US Supreme Court to examine the state of the law and accept a case to clarify when computer code can be protected through patent.
"This may be a case that advances past the district court and at least reaches the appellate court level - one notch below the Supreme Court - if the two parties do not settle first."
The latest suit was filed in the US district court for the northern district of California.
BBC
Hungary aid frozen by EU over budget deficit
The European Union has decided to suspend 495m euros ($655m; £417m) of funds due next year to Hungary, because of the country's budget deficit.
This is the first case of the EU taking action over the budget deficit of any of its members.
But the EU will allow three months for Hungary to pass more budget cuts.
The decision came as the EU also allowed Spain to run a higher deficit, leading Austria to accuse the EU of applying "double standards".
Spain will have to cut its deficit to 5.3% of GDP this year - higher than the 4.4% that Spain was originally told to target.
But the EU's monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said that "different deadlines" meant direct comparisons of the Spanish and Hungarian cases were not valid, as Hungary had already been given an extension.
The EU's Excessive Deficit Procedure rules say EU member states should keep their budget deficits below 3% of national output (GDP) and government debts below, or sufficiently declining towards, 60% of GDP.
Hungary is forecast to run a deficit of 3% this year and 3.6% next year. Its total debt is 82% of its output.
Danish economy minister Margrethe Vestager said that the EU would reassess its decision on Hungary in June.
Hungary's neighbour, Austria, had wanted to postpone the decision to suspend funds because of worries that Hungary would not be able to get a IMF loan.
Vienna would have "preferred to give Hungary more time to adjust," said Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter.
Hungary had been in talks with the IMF and was given a 20bn-euro standby loan by the IMF in 2008 to prevent it having to default on its debts.
New Spain target
Spain was supposed to reduce its public deficit to 6% last year, but the most recent estimates put the 2011 deficit at 8.5%.
On Monday, eurozone finance ministers allowed Spain to run a deficit of 5.3% of GDP this year.
However, last week, Spain said that its deficit would be 5.8% in 2012, with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy saying that this still represented "significant austerity".
The country has the highest jobless rate in the EU, with almost one in four people out of work.
Spain will have to bring its deficit back down beneath 3% by next year, the EU said.
BBC
UK trade gap less than expected in January
The UK's trade deficit was less than expected in January, thanks to strong exports of cars to the US, China and Russia, official figures have shown.
The deficit on seasonally adjusted trade in goods and services was £1.8bn in the first month of the year, compared with £1.2bn in December.
Car exports from the UK in January were worth £531m more than in December.
The UK's goods trade deficit widened to £7.5bn in January, while the services surplus narrowed to £5.8bn.
The goods deficit compares with £7.2bn in December, while the services surplus in the last month of 2011 was £6bn.
'Recession avoided'
David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "Taking monthly fluctuations into account, the figures confirm a steady improvement in Britain's trading position, although progress is not as strong as it should be.
"Exports are growing more quickly than imports, and it is reassuring that the economy is gradually rebalancing.
"These figures support our belief that the economy returned to positive growth in the first quarter of the year, and a new recession will be avoided."
However, Mr Kern also cautioned that "the road ahead will be difficult".
He said: Given the problems facing the global economy and the debt crisis in the eurozone, British exporters still face huge challenges to maintain their position in international markets."
US, EU, Japan File WTO Case Against China Over Rare Earths
The United States, the European Union and Japan are accusing China of unfairly limiting its exports of so-called “rare earth” minerals that are key components of many high-technology products.
The U.S., Japan and the 27-nation EU filed a complaint against China on Tuesday with the World Trade Organization in Geneva to seek a resolution of the dispute. They alleged that China, which controls 95 percent of the world's supply of rare earth metals, has imposed export restrictions that violate world trade rules.
It is a contention that Beijing rejects.
U.S. President Barack Obama said he is pursuing the trade complaint so American companies can compete fairly against foreign businesses in the production of goods that require the use of the rare earths. He accused China of violating trade rules by limiting export of the minerals.
“Now if China would simply let the market work on its own, we'd have no objections. But their policies currently are preventing that from happening and they go against the very rules that China agreed to follow.”
The rare earth minerals are essential to the production of such common consumer items as flat-screen televisions, smartphones and hybrid cars, as well as advanced weaponry, small motors that raise and lower car windows, and wind turbines.
China says it adheres to WTO rules in exporting the minerals. But U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said that China has reduced its export of the minerals in recent years, giving Chinese companies an unfair advantage in the production of high-technology products. He said China's export restraints result in massive distortions and harmful disruptions in the supply of the rare earths throughout the world.
China says it has restricted the exports in recent years in order to meet its own domestic manufacturing needs, and to ease the environmental impact from excessive mining.
But Patrick Chovanec, a professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, tells VOA that the WTO has already ruled against China in a similar case.
“The WTO ruled, in a ruling last year, regarding other raw materials, not rare earths but other similar raw materials, that if China wanted to conserve natural resources, or it wanted to protect the environment, that export constraints were not a legitimate way of doing so.”
Washington says the restrictions give Chinese companies an unfair advantage by increasing production costs for foreign firms, and Chovanec suggests Beijing is trying to force high-tech manufacturers to relocate their operations to China.
Chovanec said the Chinese restrictions have prompted other countries to begin scrambling for new sources of the materials.
“The reason why China has a monopoly isn't because it has a stranglehold on the supply, it's just that it's the lowest-cost producer and everyone else got out of the business. There are Australian companies, American companies, Japanese companies are looking around in Central Asia and other places and even on the ocean floor for these materials.”
The complaint over rare earths is the latest action taken by the Obama administration against Beijing over what it claims to be unfair trading practices. The administration imposed a series of tariffs on Chinese tires in September 2009, claiming that surging imports of Chinese tires were hurting U.S. tire manufacturers and threatening jobs.
Mr. Obama has also announced the creation of a new trade enforcement center to ensure that China and other nations abide by WTO rules.
Obama, Cameron Tout Relations, To Attend Basketball Game
U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron are attending a U.S. college basketball game Tuesday, as the two leaders highlight their strong transatlantic ties.
The White House says the game in Ohio is one of the events during Mr. Cameron's official visit that “underscore the special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain.
President Obama, an avid basketball fan, and Mr. Cameron travel to Dayton to attend the NCAA basketball tournament game. The two return to Washington late Tuesday.
At the White House Wednesday, Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron are expected to discuss Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and the upcoming G-8 and NATO summits. The British prime minister will also be honored with a state dinner.
In a newspaper opinion piece, the president and prime minister hailed the U.S.-British alliance as a “partnership of the heart, bound by the history, traditions and values” the two countries share.
They write in the Washington Post that they are working with G-8 and G-20 partners to put people back to work, sustain the global recovery, stand with Europe in resolving the debt crisis while curbing the “reckless financial practices” that have been costly to taxpayers.
President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron also say they are proud of the progress that their troops have made in Afghanistan, while noting that recent events — which they did not specify — show that the mission remains difficult.