Thousands rally against European austerity in May Day protests

By Renee Maltezou and Clare Kane

ATHENS/MADRID (Reuters) - Trains and ferries were canceled and hospital staff walked off the job in Greece on Wednesday and thousands were due to demonstrate across Spain as May Day triggered protests against harsh government spending cuts.

Separately, Turkish riot police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse crowds gathering in central Istanbul for a rally on what has become a traditional labor holiday.

In Spain, where the unemployment rate stands at a record 27 percent, the two largest trade unions, CCOO and UGT, called on workers and the unemployed to join over 80 demonstrations across the country.

In a column in financial newspaper El Economista, CCOO Secretary General Igancio Fernandez Toxo criticized the government's "huge irresponsibility" in allowing unemployment to rise to such levels.

Candido Mendez, head of UGT, said having more than 6 million people unemployed meant there had "never been a May 1 with more reason to take to the streets".

In Athens, about 1,000 policemen were deployed to handle any violence during rallies and strikes called by public and private sector unions.

It is the latest in a long line of strikes and protests in the debt-laden country ravaged by its sixth year of recession and popular fury over wage and spending cuts.

"Our message today is very clear: Enough with these policies which hurt people and make the poor poorer," Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of public sector union ADEDY, told Reuters.

"The government must take back the austerity measures, people can't take it anymore."

Participation, however, was expected to be well below the levels of major protests last year when as many as 100,000 Greeks marched to the central Syntagma square chanting slogans.

Unions themselves expected turnout to be low in Greece with the traditional May 1 holiday falling just a few days before Greek Orthodox Easter, which meant public schools were shut and many workers had already left for vacation.

Public transport in Athens was disrupted with buses and subways halted, while ships and ferries stayed docked at ports after seamen also walked off the job. Bank and hospital workers also joined the one-day strike.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has sought to maintain a hard line against striking workers in a bid to show European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders - as well as the public - that he is determined to push through unpopular reforms.

TURKEY, RUSSIA

In Istanbul, thousands of police were stationed across the city center to block access to the main Taksim square as crowds of protesters converged in different parts of the city early in the morning attempting to storm police barricades.

The incidents followed the pattern of recent years, when May Day demonstrations in Turkey's largest city have often been marked by clashes between police and protesters.

Authorities often use force to prevent the rally happening in the center of the city, having this year already denied large trade unions permission to march on Taksim, saying major construction work there would make it too dangerous.

Two officers were wounded by stones and metal objects thrown at police lines, state-run TRT television said, citing the Istanbul governor's office.

In Russia, around 1.5 million Russians were expected to participate in May 1 parades - a fraction of the millions that used to march in the Soviet times.

(Additional reporting by Deepa Babbington in Athens, Lidia Kelly in Moscow and Murad Sezer in Istanbul Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/greeks-strike-turkish-police-fire-teargas-may-day-084226990.html

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2 police shot outside Italian premier's office

ROME (AP) ? An unemployed Italian gunman shot and seriously wounded two policemen Sunday in a square outside the premier's office in Rome just as Italy's new government was being sworn in elsewhere in the city, the interior minister said.

Shots rang out in Chigi Square near a busy shopping and strolling area shortly after 11:30 a.m. just as Premier Enrico Letta and his new ministers were taking their oaths at the Quirinal presidential office, about a kilometer (half-mile) away.

The suspected gunman, dressed in a dark business suit, was immediately grabbed by other police in the square, wrestled to the ground and taken away.

The shooting "was the tragic gesture of an unemployed man," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told reporters after briefing Letta and his new Cabinet about the attack.

A woman passing by during the shooting was also slightly injured, Rome's mayor said. It was unclear if she was grazed by a bullet or hurt in the panic sparked by the gunfire.

It was not immediately clear if the shooting outside the Chigi Palace, which houses the premier's office and other government offices, was timed to coincide with the swearing-in ceremony. But tensions have been running high in Italy following inconclusive elections in February that left the country mired in political deadlock amid a deep recession.

The 46-year-old Letta nailed down a coalition deal only a day ago between two bitter political enemies ? his center-left forces and the conservative bloc of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Reporters inside the Chigi Palace press office heard the shots and raced outside. An AP television producer saw the two wounded Carabinieri officers in the square outside the palace. One of them lay on the pavement with blood pouring out of his neck.

Alfano said the alleged gunman ? 49-year-old Luigi Preiti ? wanted to kill himself after the shooting but ran out of bullets. He said six shots were fired.

Security was immediately stepped up near key venues in the Italian capital, but Alfano said authorities were not worried about related attacks.

"The general situation of public order is not causing any worry," he said. "Our initial investigation indicates the incident is due to an isolated gesture, although further investigations are being carried out."

Doctors at Rome's Umberto I Polyclinic said the more seriously injured of the two police officers was a 50-year-old brigadier. They told reporters that a bullet had entered the right side of the officer's neck, damaged his spinal column and was lodged near his shoulder.

The doctors said it wasn't yet known if the spinal column injury had caused any paralysis.

The other victim was a 30-year-old officer who was shot in the leg and had suffered a fracture, hospital officials said.

Preiti was taken to another Rome hospital. News reports said a protective collar was seen around the man's neck.

Italian media reports said the assailant was from southern Calabria and had lived for several years in northern Italy before moving back to Calabria after his marriage fell apart.

Sky TG24 TV quoted the man's brother as saying the alleged attacker had lost his job in a construction firm and was upset over marital problems.

An aide to Foreign Minister Emma Bonino told reporters at the presidential palace that the new Cabinet members were kept briefly inside for security reasons until it was clear there was no immediate danger.

The shooting sparked ugly memories of the 1970s and 1980s in Italy, when domestic terrorism plagued the country during a time of high political tensions between right-wing and left-wing blocs.

The new Cabinet ministers were seen smiling in a group photo as news of the shooting broke and it was apparent they weren't immediately aware of the attack.

"The news arrived after the swearing-in," said Dario Franceschini, one of the new ministers. "Premier Letta is following the situation."

Metal fencing closes off Chigi Square, which flanks Via del Corso, one of Rome's most popular streets with strollers. The public can cross the square by showing identification, and sometimes people can cross it without being stopped. It was unclear if the assailant had asked permission to enter the square.

Rome was jammed Sunday with tourists and residents enjoying a warm sunny morning on the last day of a four-day weekend.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2-police-shot-outside-italian-premiers-office-115304512.html

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Maverick operator Digicel takes on the big boys in Myanmar

By Jeremy Wagstaff

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Cellular operator Digicel Group Ltd jumped into Myanmar early and big, hiring staff, funding local sports, negotiating land deals for thousands of cell tower sites and signing up hundreds of partners for retail outlets.

The strategy helped propel it onto the shortlist for a mobile license in one of the world's last mobile frontiers, putting an operator that ranks 65th globally in terms of customers up against giants such as Vodafone Group Plc.

Whether its strategy pays off or not, industry insiders say, Digicel, largely unknown outside the Caribbean and some Pacific islands, has shaken up a usually conservative industry.

"They have been a disruptive force," said Roger Barlow, a Hong Kong-based telecommunications consultant who has worked in Asia for more than 25 years. "Some of the big guys tend to look down their noses at them but they shouldn't because they're becoming a credible player."

Myanmar this month short-listed 12 consortia for two licenses it plans to grant foreign operators in late June. The government wants to expand mobile penetration from less than 4 percent to up to 80 percent by 2015-16.

While Digicel is up against behemoths such as Vodafone, China Mobile Ltd and Telenor ASA, several other big players failed to make the list - among them South Korea's SK Telecom Co Ltd and Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holding SAE.

It's a vindication of sorts for Digicel's long-term approach. Business development director Frank O'Carroll led the charge into Myanmar in 2009. In early 2012 he persuaded the company to commit funds to build a local brand and prepare the ground so that if it did get the go-ahead it could roll out a service in a matter of months.

That entailed deploying hundreds of workers across the country to negotiate thousands of leases for base station sites, months before the government had even begun the tender process.

"There's not one square inch of the country we haven't been in," O'Carroll said in an interview in Singapore.

Its sponsorship of the national football federation has built brand awareness - of sorts. Lots of locals have heard of Digicel, O'Carroll said, though at least initially they were as likely to think it's a brand of battery as a cellphone operator.

It's a strategy, he said, that Digicel has been pursuing in much smaller markets for more than a decade.

"What we are doing in Myanmar is not unique to Myanmar," said O'Carroll. "The first country that Digicel as a company looked to get a license was Trinidad and Tobago. We did very the same thing. We were there, we leased the land, we rented local offices, we started a local team, sponsored big sports."

SMALL AND NIMBLE

Digicel has since set up shop in 31 markets, gaining 13 million customers. While none boasts a population above 10 million people, the company has taken on some major rivals, including America Movil SAB, Vodafone, Telefonica and Cable & Wireless.

"I don't think there's any fantastic science to it, but I do think it's our ability to move fast because we're small, we don't have this complex machinery that takes months and months to make decisions," said Vanessa Slowey, Singapore-based CEO of Digicel Asia Pacific, in an interview.

Making those decisions is Digicel owner Denis O'Brien, an Irish billionaire who first focused on small markets in the Caribbean after noticing that spectrum was being auctioned off in Jamaica. Eventually the Pacific beckoned.

Telecoms executive David Borrill recalls meeting O'Brien in his office after three years working for the incumbent operator in Samoa. "He went straight over to his library and opened the biggest atlas he had, turned to the Pacific and said, 'Tell me about this, where would you put an office here?'"

A few weeks later Borrill was back in Samoa, this time working for Digicel. The company bought out Telecom New Zealand's stake in the incumbent operator in 2006, and within six months had more than doubled its customer base.

Last financial year the company reported revenue of $2.5 billion, year-on-year growth of 14 percent and EBITDA of $1.08 billion, up 13 percent. It has 87 percent market share in Haiti, at least 75 percent in Jamaica and 92 percent of Papua New Guinea, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

"Digicel is very astute in selecting the markets it enters," said John Hibbard, an Australia-based telecoms consultant. "It has to be convinced it will win a reasonable market share."

When it isn't, it's prepared to abort. In East Timor, for example, Digicel went so far as building cell towers, and assured the government that if granted a license it could cover more than 90 percent of the population within four months.

But, Digicel said, the government dragged its feet and ignored advice to issue only one license. So when it did eventually win one of the two on offer last year, Digicel turned it down. "Why would we invest $50 million to compete with two other operators, for the 40 percent that is left? It's crazy. So we handed our license back," said O'Carroll.

Digicel sold its assets to the other licensee Telin, a unit of Indonesia's PT Telkom. The company broke even on its Timor investment, said Digicel's Slowey, without giving details.

Such an approach is at odds with the industry's more conservative approach, where investment decisions must be highly rational and based on certain outcomes.

"Digicel doesn't have the institutional memory of other telcos," said Rob Bratby, a Singapore-based telecoms lawyer with Olswang LLP. "It's an example of a company with a different mental framework."

SOROS PARTNERSHIP

Digicel, however, has not had a free ride in Myanmar. The government turned down its proposal in 2012 to set up a joint venture with the incumbent operator, Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications, in favor of an open tender.

That has meant facing the diplomatic and financial muscle of some of the world's biggest and best-connected operators, prompting Digicel to take on its own partners: Yoma Strategic Holdings, owned by Serge Pun, a powerful businessman who, unlike many tycoons in Myanmar, isn't entangled in Western sanctions. The other member of the consortium: Quantum Strategic Partners, owned by financier George Soros.

The Soros-funded Open Society Foundations have long worked with exiles, refugees and dissidents, according to its website. Last year Soros said he would set up an office in Yangon.

Digicel shrugs off criticism that it lacks the experience of working in big markets like Myanmar, arguing that it's harder to work in lots of countries, whatever their size. Among the shortlistees, only France Telecom SA matches Digicel in the number of markets covered.

"Whether it's the smallest country in the world you deploy in or the largest, it's still the same building blocks, still the same issues that you must go through," said O'Carroll. "A lot of those same things, whether it's Nauru's 9,000 people or Myanmar's 60 million, we think are going to be identical."

(Additional reporting by Jason Szep in Bangkok; Editing by Emily Kaiser)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/maverick-operator-digicel-takes-big-boys-myanmar-210540502.html

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Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review

More Info

• Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 shipping this month for $1,099, ARM-powered Yoga 11 coming in December
• Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 review
• Microsoft Surface with Windows RT review

Normally, when a company releases two laptops in different sizes (the MacBook Air, anyone?) we review just one: we assume you'll get the gist about the design and trackpad the first time, ya know? So it's funny, then, that we're taking a look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 after we've already tested the Yoga 13 and named it one of our favorite Windows 8 convertibles. They look alike, with an inventive hinge allowing you to fold the screen back like a book cover. The keyboards are the same too, though the 11-incher's is understandably a tad more crowded. They even have the same oddly shaped power port.

Except, of course, they're totally different products. Whereas the Yoga 13 is a proper laptop, with a Core i5 processor and full Windows 8, the Yoga 11 runs Windows RT, and is powered by a Tegra 3 chip (yes, the same one you're used to seeing in Android tablets). That means a big dip in performance, but exponentially longer battery life. Legacy x86 apps are off-limits too, given that this is Windows RT and all. Now that we've set up that equation for you (weaker performance plus longer battery life minus standard Windows apps equals what?) let's meet up after the break to see if this is just as good a deal as its big brother.

Gallery: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 review

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Lenovo

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/LOZWwcx5Ph8/

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FAA says air travel system to be normal Sunday night

(Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Saturday it had suspended all employee furloughs and that it expects the U.S. air travel system to return to normal by Sunday evening Eastern Time.

The suspension follows passage on Friday of a bill allowing the agency to shift money within its budget to halt furloughs of air-traffic controllers that started April 21.

The furloughs, prompted by automatic budget cuts, caused thousands of flight delays and hundreds of cancellations throughout the week. The FAA said in a statement on Saturday that it expects staffing to return to normal levels over the next 24 hours.

Airports around the country were reporting that flights were arriving and departing on time at 1 p.m. EDT, with the exception of San Francisco, where arrivals were delayed 44 minutes on average because of construction, the FAA said.

Earlier on Saturday, President Barack Obama chided Republicans in his weekly radio address for approving a plan to ease air-traffic delays while leaving untouched budget cuts that affect children and the elderly.

Congressman Bill Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and a Republican from Pennsylvania, said the FAA could have complied with the automatic budget cuts, known as sequester, in a way that avoided inconveniencing travelers.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/faa-says-air-travel-system-normal-sunday-night-171531869.html

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Google Now Launches On iOS

Google just released Google Now for iOS through an update to the Google Search app for iOS. Google maintains that the service is exactly the same as Google Now on Android, though certain flourishes like swiping upward to launch the application sadly cannot carry over to Apple's closed iOS ecosystem. In other words, Google Now pulls in information from all of Google's services. So even if you're an iPhone user, chances are you have a Gmail account, a Chrome account, a Google calendar account, etc. Google Now for iOS isn't built into the OS the same way Siri is, but because users will already have various Google accounts, the service maintains almost all the same functionality as Google Now for Android.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/eEEnNUm1NgU/

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Inbee Park wins North Texas LPGA, 3rd win in '13

IRVING, Texas (AP) ? Inbee Park was already preparing to congratulate Carlota Ciganda for winning the inaugural North Texas LPGA Shootout.

Park, the top-ranked woman in the world, was in the middle of a solid final round and still trailed by two strokes after the playing partners both had birdies at the par-5 10th.

Everything changed in a two-hole stretch, when Park went ahead with consecutive pars. The 24-year-old South Korean went on to a bogey-free 4-under 67 that put her one stroke ahead of Ciganda, good enough for her third victory this season and fifth in her last 18 starts.

"She was hitting fairways and greens and making putts," said Park, who finished at 13 under. "And I thought I played really great today, but I just missed a lot of birdie opportunities, so I thought this tournament might not be mine because I missed that many opportunities and Carlota was playing great golf. But she made a couple mistakes on the back nine."

Ciganda's drive at the 416-yard 14th hole settled in the right rough with a tree between her and the green, and her shot from about 130 yards clipped a branch and came up short. She had a chance to save par but her 6-foot putt was short, and Park's par had her within a stroke of the lead.

After stepping away from her approach at No. 15, to a green surrounded by water on three sides, Ciganda hit a shot that went to the right and then rolled down into the water. Ciganda had to go back to a drop zone, where the 22-year-old Spaniard had a decent pitch before her first putt rolled over the left edge of the green for a double bogey 6.

Park had another par and never trailed again.

"I'm very happy with my round and with my week. ... I had two bad holes on the back nine," Ciganda said.

With the $195,000 check for first place, Inbee exceeded $6 million in career earnings and will be No. 1 for the third week in a row. It was her sixth career LPGA victory, along with four more wins in Japan.

Fifth-ranked Suzann Pettersen from Norway, the winner in Hawaii last week, had a closing 66 to get to 10 under and finish third. Hee Young Park (64) and So Yeon Ryu (68) tied for fourth at 275.

Ciganda played last season on the Ladies European Tour, where she was the top rookie and the top money winner ? the first player since Laura Davies in 1985 to accomplish that feat. She won twice in Europe last year and now has her best LPGA finish.

At the 403-yard 8th hole, Park made a birdie before Ciganda followed with one of her own and responded with a slight fist pump when her ball dropped into the cup. They both had pars at No. 9, where Park was closer to the hole even though she was missed the green to the left, and they traded birdies again at the par-5 10th.

"I was happy and playing good and having fun and enjoying the day," said Ciganda, who had a closing 70. "And then I think, let me see, the hole it bounced to the right, but I had a bogey there and then hit it to the water on 15."

Caroline Masson had a 75 and finished eight shots back. The LPGA Tour rookie from Germany led after each of the first two rounds and started the final round tied for second with Park.

Hee Young Park's 64 was the best round of the day on the 6,439-yard course with plenty of sloping fairways and raised greens.

Stacy Lewis, the Texas native and No. 2 player in the world, had a closing 66 when all six birdies and her only bogey came between Nos. 7-17. She tied for seventh for her sixth top-10 finish this season.

At the end of her round, Lewis signed the back brace of a 6-year-old Dallas girl who was diagnosed with scoliosis at 18 months old. Lewis wore a similar brace 18 hours a day for seven years after being diagnosed with scoliosis at age 11 and missed her first collegiate season after a spinal fusion.

Third-ranked Na Yeon Choi, among the four players tied for seventh, had 44 consecutive bogey-free holes and was 9 under before consecutive bogeys at Nos. 10-12. She went on to a 72.

Inbee Park sank a 4-foot birdie putt on the par-5 18th after Ciganda also birdied even after her final drive went into the right rough. But they had an unusual wait after hitting their drives, when Jee Young Lee, playing two groups ahead of them, had to replay the hole.

Before Lee signed her scorecard, officials determined she took an improper drop after her drive at No. 18 went out of bounds. Lee carded a 10 before Ciganda and Park got to play out the hole.

"It was all right. I mean it was actually really good, it ended up really good for me because I made a birdie," Park said of the delay. "Maybe if I hit it in the water maybe I could have blamed it on them."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/inbee-park-wins-north-texas-lpga-3rd-win-220908451.html

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