EDF may bring Chinese partner to UK nuclear deal - report

PARIS (Reuters) - France's power group EDF is in partnership talks with China's state-owned Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding to build nuclear power plants in Britain, the Wall Street Journal said on Friday.

The deal could replace EDF's partnership with British utility Centrica for new plants in the country and ease doubts about whether the French company has enough funds for its nuclear ambitions in Britain, the paper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The talks are centred around Guangdong taking up the option for a 20 percent stake in new British nuclear projects that is held by Centrica, one of the people said.

The Chinese company could take a larger stake as well, another person said.

EDF declined to comment.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/edf-may-bring-chinese-partner-uk-nuclear-deal-065121679--finance.html

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Lawmakers release documents on Wal-Mart bribery

FILE - In this Nov. 18, 2011 file photo, a man pays at the cash register at a Wal-Mart Superstore in Mexico City. Lawmakers are making public emails that show that Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s CEO found out in 2005 that the retailer was handing out bribes in Mexico. (AP Photo)

FILE - In this Nov. 18, 2011 file photo, a man pays at the cash register at a Wal-Mart Superstore in Mexico City. Lawmakers are making public emails that show that Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s CEO found out in 2005 that the retailer was handing out bribes in Mexico. (AP Photo)

(AP) ? Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s CEO Mike Duke found out in 2005 that the retailer's Mexico unit was handing out bribes to local officials, according to emails obtained by lawmakers.

The lawmakers say the emails contradict earlier claims by Wal-Mart that executives weren't aware of bribes being made by the company.

Democratic Congressmen Elijah E. Cummings and Henry A. Waxman, who are investigating bribery charges at Wal-Mart's Mexico division, on Thursday released emails that indicate that Duke and other senior Wal-Mart officials were informed multiple times starting in 2005 about bribes being made in the country. U.S. law forbids American companies from bribing foreign officials.

The lawmakers shared the emails, which they say they got from a confidential source, with Wal-Mart on Wednesday, and sent a letter to Duke asking for a meeting to discuss them.

"It would be a serious matter if the CEO of one of our nation's largest companies failed to address allegations of a bribery scheme," according to the letter written by Waxman and Cummings to Duke.

Brooke Buchanan, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said on Thursday that the letter that Waxman and Cummings wrote to Duke "leaves the wrong impression that our public statements are contradicted by the information they released today."

Allegations first surfaced in April that Wal-Mart failed to notify law enforcement that company officials authorized millions of dollars in bribes in Mexico to speed up getting building permits and gain other favors. Wal-Mart has been working with government officials in the U.S. and Mexico on that investigation.

The company has been conducting an internal investigation into the matter. And last November, the retailer said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was looking into potential U.S. bribery law violations in Brazil, China and India.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Wal-Mart said that it has been providing information to the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the documents that were released by lawmakers on Thursday. The world's largest retailer also said that it is exploring other ways to make additional information available

"We are committed to having a strong and effective global anti-corruption program everywhere we operate and taking appropriate action for any instance of non-compliance," said Buchanan.

The bribery allegations were first reported by the New York Times. Last month, the paper published another story focusing on how Wal-Mart's Mexico division offered large payoffs to get things that the law prohibited.

The story focused on how Wal-Mart paid $52,000 to secure approval to build its store in Teotihuacan on the site of ancient ruins. Although local zoning would have prohibited Wal-Mart from building its store, the Times reported that the company allegedly bribed local officials to have that map redrawn.

In the Times article, Wal-Mart spokesman Dave Tovar denied that executives in the U.S. knew anything about the alleged corruption involving construction of the store in Teotihuacan. Buchanan, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said Tovar's comment in the Times article was focused on events in 2004.

The emails released Thursday include an email from November 2005 from Maritza Munich, then general counsel of Wal-Mart International, to Duke and other senior Wal-Mart executives. The email informed them of charges related to bribes paid to obtain permits for a store in Mexico.

The email contained a forwarded summary of an interview with Sergio Cicero Zapata, the former in-house counsel for Wal-Mart de Mexico who oversaw obtaining building through permits throughout Mexico.

The lawmakers also made public another email that Wal-Mart General Counsel Thomas Mars sent on Oct. 15, 2005 to Duke and Tom Hyde, the executive vice president of Wal-Mart. That email referenced to bribes paid to obtain permits for the Teotihuacan site.

"You'll want to read this. I'm available to discuss next steps," Mars wrote in the email.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-01-10-US-Wal-Mart-Bribery/id-0fd1b540fc4a491f93ea10f0a65c2b2f

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Designs so far for @rachel_baldwin_tattoos cancer research event...

Designs so far for @rachel_baldwin_tattoos cancer research event (check it out on Facebook if you haven’t already tinyurl.com/cm4q69m) These one off designs will only be available on that day for ?60 each. I will be doing walk ins all day. If I don’t tattoo the Stay Puft rose I will be very upset

Designs so far for @rachel_baldwin_tattoos cancer research event (check it out on Facebook if you haven?t already tinyurl.com/cm4q69m) These one off designs will only be available on that day for ?60 each. I will be doing walk ins all day. If I don?t tattoo the Stay Puft rose I will be very upset

5 hours ago

Source: http://thisisthemaxwellmurder.tumblr.com/post/40168397042

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St. Mary?s vs. Gonzaga NCAA Basketball Pick & Point Spread: January 10th 2013

Home > Free Sports Picks, NCAA Basketball Picks > St. Mary?s vs. Gonzaga NCAA Basketball Pick & Point Spread: January 10th 2013 Want more free picks? - $60 IN PREMIUM PICKS FROM DOC'S SPORTS SERVICE FOR FREE - CLICK HERE

St. Mary?s Gaels vs. Gonzaga Bulldogs
Point Spread: Gonzaga -9 Over/Under 146 (January 10th 2013)
College Basketball Prediction: CLICK HERE FOR TODAY?S PREMIUM PICKS

ATS Trends:
Bulldogs are 4-1-1 ATS in their last 6 games following a ATS win. Bulldogs are 3-1-1 ATS in their last 5 games vs. a team with a winning % above .600. Bulldogs are 3-1-1 ATS in their last 5 games vs. a team with a winning S.U. record. Bulldogs are 3-1-1 ATS in their last 5 games overall. Bulldogs are 11-4 ATS in their last 15 home games. Gaels are 4-0 ATS in their last 4 Thursday games. Gaels are 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games following a ATS loss. Gaels are 3-7 ATS in their last 10 games vs. a team with a winning % above .600. Gaels are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games vs. a team with a winning S.U. record. Gaels are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games overall.

Over/Under Trends:
Over is 6-1 in Bulldogs last 7 games following a S.U. win. Under is 5-1 in Bulldogs last 6 Thursday games. Over is 6-2 in Bulldogs last 8 overall. Over is 5-2 in Bulldogs last 7 games vs. a team with a winning % above .600. Under is 35-14-2 in Bulldogs last 51 home games. Under is 7-0 in Gaels last 7 road games. Under is 5-0 in Gaels last 5 road games vs. a team with a winning home record. Under is 5-0 in Gaels last 5 road games vs. a team with a home winning % of greater than .600. Under is 8-2 in Gaels last 10 games vs. a team with a winning % above .600. Under is 17-8 in Gaels last 25 road games following three or more consecutive home games.

CLICK HERE FOR FREE NCAA BASKETBALL PICKS
CLICK HERE FOR THE ST. MARY?S GAELS VS. GONZAGA BULLDOGS WINNING PICK

Head-to-Head Trends:
Under is 6-0 in the last 6 meetings in Gonzaga.

Recent Meetings
Date Home/Away Line M/L Home FG Away FG Reb
03/05/12 STM 78?- GONZ 74?(OT) STM 2 O 134 28/63 30/69 37-33
02/09/12 GONZ 73?- STM 59 GONZ -3.5 U 140 28/53 21/55 36-26
01/12/12 STM 83?- GONZ 62 STM -4 O 142 30/59 22/54 36-30
03/07/11 STM 63 -?GONZ 75 GONZ -2.0 U 144.5 20/50 25/51 24-31
02/24/11 STM 85 -?GONZ 89?(OT) GONZ 4.0 O 146 29/60 31/55 25-32
01/27/11 GONZ 71 -?STM 73 STM 3.0 U 148 25/56 28/58 29-26
03/08/10 GONZ 62 -?STM 81 STM 4.5 U 145 21/49 29/57 26-25
02/11/10 GONZ 80?- STM 61 GONZ -5.5 U 151 32/59 19/51 32-29
01/14/10 STM 82 -?GONZ 89 GONZ 4.5 O 152 33/69 37/63 25-45
03/09/09 GONZ 83?- STM 58 GONZ -7.5 U 141.5 34/62 19/66 33-37

Visit Touthouse.com for more NCAA basketball picks and sports wagering information from our handicappers.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/free-sports-picks/~3/cPgO2v8J_I8/st-marys-vs-gonzaga-ncaa-basketball-pick-point-spread-january-10th-2013.html

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Anyone interested in writing prompts here?

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Customer Empathy: The Key to a Successful Business Innovation ...

iTunes by far could be the most popular digital media player in the planet right now. Back in the day when digital piracy in the music industry is so rampant especially with the availability of cool software allowing people to download every song that they can think of, companies in the same industry argued that consumers won?t pay for digital music downloads specially if they can get it for free through file sharing sites and services.

Apple on the other hand thought otherwise.

Coming from a deep understanding of their target customers, Apple knew that what people want is a user-friendly way to search, download, organize and conveniently play digital music, to the extent that they are even willing to pay for such a solution.

It was not a hunch. Apple stepped in to the shoes of their customers and empathized with their needs, wants, pains and aspirations. They then designed a digital media player solution that would allow music lovers, young and old, to easily search, download and organize their favorite songs. The iTunes store was designed and integrated to the media player for easy purchase at close to insignificant costs. And of course this whole set up seamlessly syncs with mobile portable media player devices which lead to one of the most successful and innovative product in digital history: The iPod.

And with that, Apple?s iTunes media player dominated the digital music market, making both music lovers and music producers happy, and our old friend Steve Jobs a couple of millions richer.

To help you understand and empathize with your customers, I?ve created a mind map of the Customer Empathy Map which was based on the book Business Model Generation. You can download a PDF version of this mind map from this link. Check out also the short video I created below showing the content of this mind map:

?

Do this exercise and you will surely develop a new perspective on how you do business. Answer the questions provided. Conduct a customer survey. Organize a focus group discussion. Brainstorm with your business partners. Go on a business planning retreat and do this exercise with much focus. Then write down the answers to the questions in the mind map and don?t just let the answers float in the air. It doesn?t matter where and how you do this exercise. What?s important is that you do it and write down (document) your answers, even if it?s on a piece of table napkin.

Do this and you are surely on your way to be an innovative business (like Apple) that provides solutions that people are really looking for and creates a tribe of loyal and happy customers.

?

Source: http://www.benfrancia.com/internet-marketing/customer-empathy-the-key-to-a-successful-business-innovation/

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US troop plan in Afghanistan follows Iraq playbook

WASHINGTON (AP) ? It's the same debate, the same numbers and practically the same plan, but the White House is working harder to keep troops in Afghanistan than it did in similar but failed discussions in Iraq in 2011.

Security remains shaky in both war zones, but current and former U.S. officials say the Obama administration cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan after a dozen years of fighting and an ongoing threat by al-Qaida and its extremist Taliban allies. Defeating al-Qaida and bolstering Afghan forces to prevent the terror network's return there has been a top priority for President Barack Obama since he took office, while ending the war in Iraq was the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

"We've made a lot of progress against al-Qaida, but the job is not done," Doug Lute, the top White House military adviser on Afghanistan, told reporters this week. "The Afghan National Security Forces are a work in progress."

The U.S. has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of about 100,000 as recently as 2010. Just how many troops might remain is at the heart of widespread discussion in Washington, where Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai meets with Obama on Friday.

As initially in Iraq, U.S. officials are considering keeping between 3,000 and 15,000 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014. That would not happen, however, if U.S. troops are denied legal immunity from prosecution in Afghanistan ? which ultimately is what ended the same negotiations in Iraq.

"We've seen this movie so many times," said Sen. John McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who remains troubled over the Iraq withdrawal. In an interview Wednesday, he urged the White House to keep more than a few thousand troops in Afghanistan "to make a difference and not just become targets for attacks by a resurgent Taliban."

Karzai met Wednesday with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and three members of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees. Asked what number of U.S. forces he would like to see in the country, Karzai declined to answer and joked that he was told by the "organizer of the Senate" to keep quiet.

"I hope we get back to Afghanistan with what the Afghans expect of me to take back," Karzai told reporters.

A Pentagon report to Congress in December concluded that only one of 23 Afghan National Army battalions was judged to be capable of operating in the field on its own ? and even then needed international security advisers.

Afghanistan was dubbed "Obama's war" after the president surged troops there in 2009 to chase out extremist militants and eliminate their ability to return. By contrast, Obama as a candidate for president had called Iraq a "dumb war" and made ending it a campaign pledge.

However, the Obama administration negotiated with Baghdad throughout 2011 to keep U.S. troops in Iraq as a sort of insurance policy to block Iran from meddling in Iraq's Shiite-led government and, in turn, re-ignite the country's Sunni insurgency. Ultimately, Iraq's parliament refused to renew an agreement to give legal immunity to thousands of American forces, and the U.S. military left at the end of that year as required under a deadline set in 2008 by the administration of President George W. Bush.

Former Ambassador James F. Jeffrey, a career U.S. diplomat who oversaw the administration's failed negotiations in Baghdad in 2011, said "of course" Obama wanted to keep troops in Iraq and is trying now to keep them in Afghanistan.

"The numbers are eerily familiar and the missions are eerily familiar," said Jeffrey, who retired last year from the State Department. "I see him carrying out the same plan in Afghanistan that he tried to carry out in Iraq."

Jeffrey added: "But this isn't a war that Obama and the Democratic Party hate, and we haven't achieved a military victory there. Once you commit these troops to the ground, you are stuck until you get a military victory. We more or less won the ground war in Iraq; we have not won the ground war in Afghanistan."

A U.S. official in Baghdad, however, recently described a new low in escalating political tensions in Iraq that have prompted violence and protests. Baghdad political analyst Wathiq al-Hasehmi said in an interview this week that the U.S. troop withdrawal was "the biggest mistake ever made by the Americans."

In a conference call this week with reporters to preview Karzai's visit, Lute and deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the White House would consider withdrawing all American forces from Afghanistan at the end of 2014 ? again following the Iraq model ? if they are no longer needed or are not given legal immunities. White House officials also are quick to point to the costs of deploying forces ? at least an estimated $1 million per soldier each year in Afghanistan ? against competing security concerns elsewhere in the world.

However, that may be a White House negotiating gambit to spook Karzai, who has irritated Washington by accusing U.S. troops of being "occupiers" in Afghanistan when American-led offensives have resulted in civilian deaths. But Karzai also has said he wants the U.S. to continue training and equipping Afghanistan's army and air force, and help protect its people and regional interests.

At the same time, Karzai wants U.S. forces to stay out of urban areas and villages ? raising the question of what mission troops would undertake if they remain. Similarly, American troops stopped securing Iraqi cities in 2009, and morphed into a training-only mission in 2010. By 2011, most soldiers rarely left their secured bases and openly questioned why they were there. Just under 200 active-duty troops are currently in Baghdad, all with diplomatic immunity, to help the U.S. Embassy deliver weapons and equipment to Iraqi security forces.

Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry, the vice chair of the House Armed Service Committee, said the White House might as well withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan next year if it decides to strap the military's mission by only keeping a few thousand there.

"It's nearly worse to leave with too small a presence that endangers our people, than to get everybody out," Thornberry said Wednesday. "If people know you're not serious about staying there, and standing up for them, then they've got to cut deals because the bad guys are staying.

"I worry about the Iraq precedent," he said, "because we left too soon and we are feeling some of the consequences, and I am afraid we'll feel more."

___

Associated Press writers Robert Burns and Donna Cassata in Washington and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-troop-plan-afghanistan-follows-iraq-playbook-221659309.html

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Spartacus: War of the Damned - Episode 3.01 - Enemies of Rome - Promotional Phot...

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