Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, defeated her liberal rival Moon Jae-in in South Korea’s presidential election.
Park Geun-hye will be South Korea’s first female leader.
Votes are still being counted, but Moon Jae-in has admitted defeat. Turnout was high in a poll dominated by economic and social welfare issues.
Park Geun-hye, 60, will replace her party colleague Lee Myung-bak.
He is stepping down as the law requires after his five-year term.
Combined figures from the networks released after polls closed gave Park Geun-hye 50.1% of the vote over Moon Jae-in’s 48.9%.
“This is a victory brought by the people’s hope for overcoming crisis and economic recovery,” she told supporters in the capital Seoul.
Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, defeated her liberal rival Moon Jae-in in South Korea’s presidential election
Economic growth has fallen to about 2% after several decades in which it averaged 5.5%.
With the country having split almost equally along party lines, Park Geun-hye will have to work hard to improve relations with her detractors.
From the moment polls opened at 06:00 on Wednesday, millions of South Koreans queued to cast their ballots despite freezing temperatures.
Park Geun-hye’s supporters, wearing red party scarves, cheered as poll figures emerged.
Both bolstered and dogged by the legacy of her father, who built South Korea’s economy while crushing dissent, she apologized in September for human rights abuses under his administration.
Moon Jae-in of the Democratic United Party is a former human rights lawyer who served under former President Roh Moo-hyun. He was briefly jailed by Park Geun-hye’s father in the 1970s.
Both candidates put forward broadly similar policies, promising to boost social welfare spending, close the gap between the rich and poor and rein in the family-run giant conglomerates known as chaebol.
The issue of North Korea did not feature heavily in the campaign despite its recent rocket launch.
Both candidates promised more engagement with Pyongyang – though in Park Geun-hye’s case, more cautiously than her rival.
Ties between the two Koreas deteriorated during Lee Myung-bak’s term.
Robert Bales, the US soldier accused of killing 16 Afghans and injuring six others, could face the death penalty if found guilty of murder, the US Army says.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 38, will face a court martial on murder and assault charges for a March attack on two villages in southern Afghanistan.
No date has been set for the trial, which will take place at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
No US service member has been executed in more than 50 years.
Seventeen victims were women or children, with most shot in the head.
Robert Bales, the US soldier accused of killing 16 Afghans and injuring six others, could face the death penalty if found guilty of murder
Milan’s famous La Scala theatre has cancelled the opening day of its ballet season due to a strike by performers.
Chorus members in the production of Romeo and Juliet walked out over a request by the choreographer to perform dance moves along with the ballerinas.
The singers wanted special payments if they were to appear on stage.
But La Scala claimed “nothing extraordinary” was requested from the performers and said it could not afford to pay any additional money.
The chorus members’ strike comes shortly after ballerinas involved in the production complained a sloping platform used in the performance had given them backache and muscle pain.
A spokeswoman from La Scala said the dancers had now backed down from threatened industrial action, and were “really interested” to perform.
The ballerinas “only wanted to focus” attention on “some difficulties of this stage project”, she added.
The chorus, however, has confirmed its intention to strike.
“It was not our intention to get the premiere cancelled,” said Mauro Peconi, choir member and union representative.
“The theatre’s direction has closed the door to any negotiations and called off the premiere. We were willing to continue negotiations.”
Milan’s famous La Scala theatre has cancelled the opening day of its ballet season due to a strike by performers
Mauro Peconi said the new production of Romeo and Juliet “is different from others” as the chorus “are in costume” and “interact with the ballet”.
Appearing on stage meant that they would have to perform from memory, without a score.
“So the contractual conditions are different and we should be compensated in accordance,” he claimed.
Wednesday night’s premiere of Romeo and Juliet was to launch the theatre’s new ballet season.
A statement on the La Scala website said the opera house “deeply regrets” the cancellation of Romeo and Juliet and apologized to ticket holders.
Mauro Peconi said the union would attempt to renegotiate with representatives from La Scala before the second performance, which is due to take place on December 28.
La Scala has been forced to cancel several performances in recent years owing to walk-outs by performers, in a country prone to wildcat strikes.
In September 2011, an Austrian production of Beethoven’s Fidelio was scrapped while in March 2012, the premiere of the ballet L’altra meta del cielo, had to be called off due to industrial action.
Dutch police are investigating how the body of skydiver Mark van den Boogaard lay undetected in a field for more than a week.
Mark van den Boogaard was not reported missing and his body was discovered by chance by rabbit hunters. His parachute had failed to open.
He organized his jump with the largest skydiving club in the Netherlands.
But the club said it had not launched a search as it was not usual for skydivers to report back after their jump.
Police information officer Anton De Ronde said a local team had visited Mark van den Boogaard’s family to inform them, but that he was not close to any of his relatives – which is, the police believe, why no-one reported him missing.
Dutch police are investigating how the body of skydiver Mark van den Boogaard lay undetected in a field for more than a week
Simon Woerlee, manager of the Nationaal Paracentrum skydiving club, in the village of Teuge in Gelderland province, described his members as “shocked”.
He described Mark van den Boogaard as “a friendly and happy man, but a loner, someone who did not really talk to anyone and was always on his own”.
He was self-employed, so no-one from work called to see why he was absent.
Mark van den Boogaard was a regular and relatively experienced skydiver, according to club records, completing approximately 120 jumps since joining up in summer 2011.
The Royal Netherlands Aeronautical Association is examining the equipment to try to work out why neither the main chute or the reserve chute opened.
Simon Woerlee of the parachute club said there was no system to make sure that a jump had been completed safely.
“We never check, there is no law, no regulations,” he said.
“They have tried it in America but it didn’t work. Sometimes people come back to the club for a cup of tea and a chat, but sometimes they just pack up and leave.
“If you are forced to find out where everyone is, there can be a big drama for nothing. You can call all the emergency rescue teams and helicopters, then discover the person is sitting at home having tea with his granddad – that has happened before.”
Former first granddaughter and daughter Jenna Bush spent scores of Christmases at the White House while her grandfather and father were President.
Jenna Bush was more than qualified to sit down with Michelle Obama to compare notes about the holidays at America’s most famous address.
During the interview, aired this morning on Today, Jenna Bush recounted treasured memories including helping her grandmother, Barbara Bush, put the star on the tree when she was a child.
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama said the smells and sounds of the White House and opening it up to the public were the most magical things of the festive season.
“It’s the most special time to be in the White House,” Michelle Obama said.
“It is the one time of the year when the White House really opens up. We have thousands and thousands of visitors streaming through each day.
“Everything looks great. The smells are magnificent. I feel very blessed to be able to be here during these times.”
Michelle Obama said her daughters, Sasha and Malia, equally loved the holidays but were less involved now they’re getting older.
“We have a teen and a pre-teen so there is less involvement from them because their lives are so full,” she said.
“But they do still enjoy every second of the holidays.”
Jenna Bush and Michelle Obama compare notes on Christmas at the White House
Jenna Bush added that her and her sister Barbara’s favorite part was “the cookies”.
One member of the Obama family who will never grow out of Christmas is Bo – the family’s Portuguese water dog.
“We always find a way to incorporate Bo in our Christmas themes,” Michelle Obama said, agreeing that he was the family’s muse.
“He is the most popular member of the family,” she said.
“The President is clear on that. There are times when people recognize Bo and don’t even see him.”
When it comes to the Christmas meal, Michelle Obama, who refers to herself as “hostess-in-chief”, likes to serve up traditional fare, adding that it’s a time when diets go out the window.
“(The meal is) very traditional. There’s turkey, there’s string beans and stuffing, a little mac and cheese,” she said.
“Everybody deserves their mac and cheese.”
The family actually spends Christmas day in Hawaii, where President Barack Obama was born and went to high school.
“We go out there, and we spend time with friends and family,” she said.
“That tends to be our gift to each other, the president and I. We don’t exchange gifts. We say: <<We’re in Hawaii. Merry Christmas>>.”
Asked by Jenna Bush whether the First Family was looking forward to a relaxing vacation more than ever this year, Michelle Obama said yes, but that the family was prepared for anything.
“We are going to see,” she said.
“This job never stops. It’s a wonderful privilege. It’s a blessing. We’re so glad to be here for four more years.
“But you don’t have control over where the wind blows.”
However, one thing was certain.
“Whatever happens, we’ll be together. It really is just a time to be together and be thankful.”
During the slot on Today, Jenna Bush recounted a few more of her favorite memories from Christmas at the White House with presenter Susannah Guthrie.
“Reading with my sweet grandpa the night before Christmas, that was a tradition,” she said.
Jenna Bush agreed with Michelle Obama that the music and the festive scents wafting through the halls made the residence a magical place to be during the holidays, and she thanked the “amazing people” who put it all together.
“I have such precious memories… and it was really lovely being back,” she said.
Police are still searching for the motive of Adam Lanza’s killing spree, but one working theory is that he was angry that his mother was planning to commit him to a psychiatric facility because he was becoming too difficult for her to handle alone.
Given his decision to kill his mother Nancy Lanza while she lay sleeping in her bed at their Connecticut home and then drive to his former elementary school to purposefully kill innocent children, there had to be a strong connection in his mind between his anger and the school.
Nancy Lanza, 52, was thought to volunteer at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and so the theory extends to the fact that Adam felt he loved those children more than she loved him, since she was planning to send him away.
Fox News quotes a neighborhood figure, whose father works as the pastor of an area church, as saying that the 20-year-old shooter found out that his mother was in the legal process of having him committed and was upset.
That news, coupled with his jealousy of the time she allegedly spent with a group of kindergarteners at Sandy Hook, is thought to have served as the basis of the killing.
A number of factors are still unconfirmed in the theory, and it appears that they may remain as such for some time.
Records of conservatorship filings, which Nancy Lanza would have needed to make in order to commit her son since he is over 18-years-old, are sealed by the courts so if any such filings were made they will not be released publicly.
Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza feared his mother was planning to have him committed to psychiatric home and targeted the children that she loved more than him
“Adam Lanza believed she cared more for the children than she did for him, and the reason he probably thought this (was the fact that) she was petitioning for conservatorship and wanted to have him committed,” Joshua Flashman told Fox News.
One of the biggest questions remaining ever since the shooting was reported on Friday was Nancy Lanza’s connection to the school which was clearly singled out as a target by Adam.
The majority of his shooting was limited to the reception, where he forced his way into the building and killed those standing in his way, and then to a single first grade classroom.
Those children are thought to be the ones that Nancy Lanza grew close with during the last academic year, when they were in kindergarten.
Initial reports immediately after the shooting claimed that Nancy Lanza was a full time or even substitute teacher at the elementary school, though as the chaos of the day slowed, school officials said that she was not on any records of having worked there in any formal capacity.
That option leaves the possibility open that she volunteered her time with the young children.
That was echoed by Lillian Bittman, a former school board member who told the Wall Street Journal: “No one has heard of her. Teachers don’t know her.”
Though the court records will never back up the claim that Nancy Lanza was trying to have her son committed, her actions do lend credence to the idea because she had spent much time over the course of this year traveling to different schools to find a suitable place to send Adam.
Former babysitters of Adam Lanza’s said that she warned that she could never turn her back on the young boy, meaning that when she went to visit prospective schools, Adam was either with her or very aware of the fact that she had gone shopping for his next home.
In a Facebook conversation between Nancy Lanza and her former sister-in-law Marsha, Nancy revealed that she had wanted to downsize from her $1.4 million home in Newtown.
“I am still in the same place but getting to the point where I may want a smaller house. I travel a lot, spend time with friends, work with a couple of charities,” she wrote in one of the messages.
When Kate Middleton wore a delicate pair of imitation diamond-and-pearl earrings to the Diamond Jubilee service at St Paul’s Cathedral earlier this year, she could not have anticipated the chain of events she would set in motion.
The £48 fake pearl and cubic zirconia earrings were instantly familiar to Belinda Hadden who was at home watching the TV coverage.
They were part of a range of jewellery sold on her website Heavenly Necklaces – an online business selling convincing, understated fake jewels which Belinda Hadden used to describe as a “well-kept secret”.
But shortly after those earrings were worn by Kate Middleton, her secret was out – and life hasn’t been quite the same since. Belinda Hadden, 55, is no stranger to celebrity clients and the essence of her cottage industry has been its polite, discreet service.
Belinda Hadden has smiled at photographs of Hollywood stars wearing her fake gems on the red carpet – keen to look a million dollars, but not prepared to insure against the loss or theft of real jewels worth a million dollars.
One client came to her after losing a real diamond earring on a beach in Kenya. Not daring to tell her husband, she contacted Belinda Hadden, asking if she had something similar. To this day, the woman’s husband remains blissfully unaware that she is sporting fakes.
Having kept her client list secret, Belinda Hadden was disconcerted when she received an email from one customer, with a photograph attached to it of the Duchess of Cambridge at the Jubilee, asking: “Could these by any chance be the same earrings that I have?”
“There was a problem with client confidentiality,” says Belinda Hadden now.
“So I emailed back saying <<it’s possible>>, because <<no>> would have been a lie, but <<yes>> a betrayal.”
She thought that would be the end of it, but soon internet chatrooms and websites such as www.whatkate wore.com, which catalogues everything that the Duchess wears, were abuzz with news about where the Duchess had bought her earrings.
Kate Middleton wore a delicate pair of imitation diamond-and-pearl earrings to the Diamond Jubilee service at St Paul’s Cathedral earlier this year
Orders started rolling in – from all over the world.
Heavenly Necklaces was swamped, selling out of the earrings almost instantly. More than 400 orders were placed within 48 hours – as many as the company might normally expect in a year. Belinda Hadden hurriedly set up a waiting list to cope with demand.
The company generated a year’s worth of business in a matter of days, as customers from the U.S. to Japan, disappointed at having to wait for up to two months for “Kate’s earrings”, consoled themselves with shopping from the rest of the catalogue. They bought everything from the cheapest £16 stud earrings to a fake diamond necklace costing just over £2,000.
But this extraordinary surge in orders threatened to overwhelm the small company. Belinda Hadden’s bank, viewing her sudden jump in income as “unusual activity”, froze her account.
“Thatwas not helpful,” she says, with measured understatement.
Eventually, the problem was sorted out but Kate Middleton’s decision to wear the firm’s earrings has utterly transformed the business. Belinda Hadden had to register for VAT, to take on new staff to cope with the backlog of orders and the website had to be redesigned to handle large amounts of internet traffic and a vastly greater volume of orders than before.
Belinda Hadden is a grateful beneficiary of what has been dubbed “The Kate Effect” which describes the phenomenon whereby when Kate Middleton wears a pair of shoes, a high-street dress or a fascinator hat, sales sky-rocket.
She says: “Here was the future Queen of England wearing fake diamond jewellery and everybody celebrated it. I think there’s a feeling that anyone can look great on an unlimited budget but the people with real style are those who can look good on a limited budget, particularly if they do that combination, Topshop-Prada thing.
“Those are certainly the people I admire . . . and the Duchess of Cambridge is the patron saint of that message.”
Anyone searching for proof of the Duchess’s ability to mix high and low need look no further than the £2,900 Kiki McDonough earrings she wore at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards last Sunday night – a sharp contrast to Belinda’s £48 pair.
Six months on, orders continue to flood in, and so do notes from other retailers, congratulating Belinda and hoping that Kate Middleton’s magic dust will fall on their own businesses.
“I had a message from someone who makes funky crutches – fabulously colorful, floral things – joking <<Congratulations on your success. If you could now just persuade the Duchess to break a leg. . .>>.”
Belinda Hadden’s own lucky break came after nearly 20 years of hard work building Heavenly Necklaces from a kitchen-table start-up to a business with a global client base.
The concept of fake jewellery became big in the Thirties when people went on cruises, left their jewels in the bank and wore replicas onboard.
When Belinda Hadden started her business in the early Nineties, after quitting a job in PR to spend more time with her three young daughters, her aim was to do fakes with a modern twist.
“At first it was semi-precious stones on invisible thread, but it morphed into the whole fake thing. Then I found a supplier in Hatton Garden [London’s jewellery quarter] who made very clever pieces that looked like the real thing, then I started designing and commissioning my own pieces.
“You don’t have to insure them or worry if they get lost, and everyone thought, <<How clever to sparkle without the risk>>.”
Even the wife of one of Bond Street’s top jewellers is a customer.
“If she borrows from their shop, it has to be delivered under armed guard.
“But when she wears one of my pieces she says everyone assumes it’s real and that if she loses the item, <<it’s 40 quid instead of 40,000>>.”
Another customer told Belinda that when she was burgled recently, the thieves ignored laptops, TVs and other luxury items – and took two of her rings, worth just £76.
Many stars now see the benefits of luxury fakes. Although rapper Jay-Z proposed to his pop star wife Beyonce with an 18-carat diamond ring worth $5 million, he also gave her an imitation to wear on stage.
Belinda Hadden says: “What has changed is that people now see it as an intelligent rather than a cheapskate thing to do.”
That means her “superb client list” continues to grow. This list – Hollywood stars, wives of millionaires, and now, thanks to Kate Middleton, royalty – is anything but fake.
French judges have decided to press ahead with the prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn for pimping.
Lawyers for the former International Monetary Fund chief said they would appeal against the decision.
DSK has admitted attending sex parties in northern France, but says he did not know that some of the women present were paid prostitutes.
Last week he reached a settlement with a hotel maid who said he had raped her.
DSK had been accused of trying to rape Nafissatou Diallo in a hotel in New York in May 2011.
The civil case was settled for an undisclosed sum. A criminal investigation was dropped by US prosecutors last year.
On Wednesday, a court in the northern French town of Douai rejected a request by Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers to drop the inquiry into pimping.
The decision removes the prospect of a quick conclusion to the last inquiry DSK faces.
French judges have decided to press ahead with the prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn for pimping
The case is the last major inquiry DSK faces, and the ruling Wednesday’s ruling removes any prospect of a quick conclusion.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s defence lawyers accuse the investigating judges in the case of being biased.
“Dominque Strauss-Kahn’s defence team is certain that he will ultimately be cleared of these absurd accusations of pimping,” lawyer Henri Leclerc said in a statement.
The lawyer added that he planned to take the matter to the supreme court.
The inquiry is known as the Carlton affair – after the name of the hotel in Lille in which the alleged orgies took place.
Consorting with prostitutes is not against the law in France, and DSK has acknowledged that he was at some of the parties with the women.
But DSK’s legal team says he had no idea they were prostitutes, and that there is no evidence to support a formal charge of pimping.
“I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman,” his lawyer has said in his defence.
His lawyers have also argued that the investigation should be annulled due to insufficient grounds.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is reportedly taking steps to reinvent himself as a highly paid consultant and conference speaker, has said the authorities are trying to “criminalize lust”.
Other cases against him have already been dropped.
In October, French prosecutors ended an investigation into allegations of “gang rape” at a hotel in Washington after the woman who made the claim retracted her evidence.
Magistrates also dropped a sexual assault case brought by French author Tristane Banon on the grounds that the alleged 2003 incident had taken place too long ago.
The United Nations has suspended an anti-polio campaign in Pakistan after three more health workers died in the latest of a spate of gun attacks.
Attacks in the Peshawar region killed a female vaccination supervisor and her driver, as well as a student volunteer.
Coming after five deaths on Tuesday, the UN said it was suspending its three-day vaccination drive.
No group has claimed responsibility, but the Taliban have issued threats against the UN’s anti-polio campaign.
Pakistan is one of just three countries where the disease is still endemic.
The UN children’s agency Unicef and the World Health Organization were suspending work on the programme nationwide after Wednesday’s bloodshed, said Unicef spokesman Michael Coleman.
The programme was halted in Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces on Tuesday after four female health workers were shot dead in the city, while another female worker was killed in an attack in Peshawar.
The vaccination supervisor and her driver died when their car was sprayed by gunmen riding motorbikes in Charsadda district, north of Peshawar, police said.
The student volunteer was shot in the head when gunmen on two motorbikes fired at a team of vaccinators in a northern suburb of Peshawar.
The UN has suspended an anti-polio campaign in Pakistan after three more health workers died in the latest of a spate of gun attacks
Gunmen riding motorbikes also shot at polio vaccinators in another area of Charsadda and in the adjoining district of Nowshera, although no injuries were reported.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Tuesday condemned the attacks and praised the work of the polio vaccination teams, calling on regional authorities to guarantee their safety.
Wednesday is the final day of a three-day nationwide anti-polio drive – during which an estimated 5.2 million polio drops were to be administered.
There has been opposition to such immunization drives in parts of Pakistan, particularly after a fake CIA hepatitis vaccination campaign helped to locate Osama Bin Laden in 2011.
Militants have kidnapped and killed foreign NGO workers in the past in an attempt to halt the immunization drives, which they say are part of efforts to spy on them.
Afghanistan and Nigeria are the only other countries where polio is still endemic.
Pakistan is considered the key battleground in the global fight against the disease, which attacks the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis within hours of infection.
Almost 200 children were paralyzed in the country in 2011 – the worst figures in 15 years.
Earlier this year, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative warned that tackling the disease had entered “emergency mode” after “explosive” outbreaks in countries previously free of polio.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said polio was at a tipping point, with experts fearing it could “come back with a vengeance” after large outbreaks in Africa and Tajikistan and China’s first recorded cases for more than a decade.
Declaring polio a national emergency, the Pakistani government is targeting 33 million children for vaccination with some 88,000 health workers delivering vaccination drops.
Rihanna has hinted she’s once again split from Chris Brown.
Rihanna and Chris Brown reconciled earlier this year even though Chris is still on probation for beating her up in 2009 but she took to her Instagram account on Tuesday to post a message which appears to confirm reports the couple have called time on their relationship.
She posted an “R Card” which read: “Being single sucks. The only thing I get to do anymore is whatever the f**k I want to do.”
Rihanna, 24, was left reeling recently after her on/off boyfriend Chris Brown was pictured partying with scantily-clad girls on tour in Paris and enjoying a meal with his ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran in Dubai and vented her feelings in a note to her fans.
She uploaded a photograph to Twitter of a heartfelt letter, thanking fans for their constant support and telling them to stand up for what they believe in and refusing to be defeated by mistakes and “curve balls”.
Rihanna has hinted she’s once again split from Chris Brown
The handwritten note contains the lines: “There’s no question that life throws us curve balls, we do our best to deal with them, take the lessons and keep it moving without regrets…
“I look forward to embarking on this ride with you, unwilling to sacrifice what we believe in, taking our lessons and growing from them. Don’t let one thing shake your core. Let our inspirations drive us, never steering from who we truly are….”
Rihanna also took to Twitter to vent her feelings, writing: “Examine what you tolerate’, ‘Goodbye muthaf*****’, ‘You give, you get, then you give it the f*** back’ and ‘Claps for the basic b****** (sic)”
In between posting raunchy images of herself, she followed it up yesterday, musing: “Never underestimate a man’s ability to make you feel guilty for his mistakes.”
Bradley Cooper revealed during the Ellen DeGeneres show on Tuesday that he has five nipples.
Bradley Cooper, 37, offered to take his shirt off but warned viewers that he had a “disgusting” secret.
Not only did he claim to have a third nipple underneath his regular one – not uncommon – he also has one on his arm and one on his leg.
The hunky bad boy said to Ellen DeGeneres: “Shall I take my shirt off?”
Bradley Cooper continued, while pulling down his shirt to reveal his chest: “You asked me before but I didn’t want to reveal too much…I’ll show you why.
“I have a third nipple – is that not weird? It’s disgusting.”
Bradley Cooper revealed during the Ellen DeGeneres show on Tuesday that he has five nipples
He then went on to confess to having two more nipples.
Bradley Cooper said: “I have a fourth. It’s so sick.
“And I have a fifth on my leg.”
Ellen DeGeneres then joked that her show had turned into a “show and tell” session.
However, it turned out the nipples were a joke and was just a ploy to segue the show.
Millions of South Koreans have cast ballots in a presidential election seen as too close to call.
Park Geun-hye of the governing Saenuri party is looking to make history as South Korea’s first female president.
But she faces a tough challenge from Moon Jae-in of the Democratic United Party, who has been steadily eroding her lead in the polls.
Whoever wins will replace President Lee Myung-bak, who is stepping down, as the law requires, after his five-year term.
Economic issues including welfare provision and job creation have dominated campaigning.
Polls opened at 06:00 and closed 12 hours later. Three television stations were expected to release joint exit polls shortly after voting closed, with formal results expected early on Thursday.
Turn-out at 16:00 – with two hours of polling to go – was 65.2%, already past the final turn-out figure of 63% in the 2007 election, Yonhap news agency said.
A national holiday has been declared so people can cast their ballots.
“Though it’s cold today, I hope you will take part in the voting and open up a new era that every one of you has yearned for,” Park Geun-hye said after voting in Seoul.
Park Geun-hye of the governing Saenuri party is looking to make history as South Korea’s first female president
Park Geun-hye is the daughter of former military ruler General Park Chung-hee, a polarizing figure credited with transforming South Korea into an economic success story during his 1961-1979 rule, but accused of ruthlessly crushing dissent.
Both Park Geun-hye’s parents were assassinated – her mother in 1974 by a pro-North Korea gunman and her father in 1979 by his own spy chief.
Park Geun-hye, 60, who in September apologized for human rights abuses during her father’s era, said on Tuesday she would be “a president of the people’s livelihoods, who thinks only about the people”.
“I will restore the broken middle class and open an era in which the middle class make up 70% of the population,” she said in a news conference at her party’s headquarters in Seoul.
Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer, was once jailed for protesting against General Park’s regime.
He was a chief of staff to Lee Myung-bak’s predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun, who killed himself in 2009 while under investigation for corruption.
In his news conference, Moon Jae-in pointed to the current corruption and incompetency allegations surrounding Park Geun-hye’s own party.
“This overall crisis… will not be resolved by replacing the representative player. We must change the entire team,” the 59-year-old said.
Casting his ballot on Wednesday, he appealed for voters to turn out.
“If you have been unsatisfied over the last five years, please change the world with your votes,” he said.
For all their differences, the two candidates have put forward remarkably similar policies.
They have both promised to boost social welfare spending, close the gap between the rich and poor and rein in the country’s family-run giant conglomerates, known as chaebol.
On the issue of North Korea, which has not featured heavily in the campaign despite its recent rocket launch, both candidates have promised more engagement with Pyongyang – though, in Park Geun-hye’s case, more cautiously than her rival.
The electorate appears to be more engaged than usual, with one recent poll suggested more than 80% of voters are planning to cast their ballots
South Korea uses a first-past-the-post system, and so the candidate with the most votes will become president.
Astronomers have found that the nearest single Sun-like star to the Earth hosts five planets – one of which is in the “habitable zone” where liquid water can exist.
Tau Ceti’s planetary quintet – reported in an online paper that will appear in Astronomy and Astrophysics – was found in existing planet-hunting data.
The study’s refined methods of sifting through data should help find even more far-flung worlds.
The star now joins Alpha Centauri as a nearby star known to host planets.
In both those cases, the planets were found not by spying them through a telescope but rather by measuring the subtle effects they have on their host stars’ light.
In the gravitational dance of a planet around a star, the planet does most of the moving. But the star too is tugged slightly to and fro as the planet orbits, and these subtle movements of the star show up as subtle shifts in the color of the star’s light we see from Earth.
This “radial velocity” measurement is a tricky one; stars’ light changes also for a range of other reasons, and requires picking out the specifically planetary component from all this “noise”.
Now, Hugh Jones of the University of Hertfordshire and colleagues have refined their “noise modelling” in order to subtract it, and thereby see the smallest signals hiding in the data – starting with Tau Ceti.
“It’s a star on which we have a lot of data – an order of magnitude more data than we have for pretty much any other star,” said Prof. Hugh Jones.
“It’s a good test case for how low can we go, what size of signals can we pick up.”
Astronomers have found that the nearest single Sun-like star to the Earth hosts five planets
The team started with data from three planet-hunting missions: Harps, AAPS, andHiRes, all of which had data on Tau Ceti.
The trick to honing the technique was to put in “fake planets” – to add signals into the messy data that planets should add – and find ways to reduce the noise until the fake planets became more and more visible in the data.
“Putting all that together, we optimized a noise-modeling strategy which allows us to recover our fake signals – but in the process of doing that, we actually saw that we were finding signals as well,” Prof. Hugh Jones said – actual planets.
The quintet includes planets between two and six times the Earth’s mass, with periods ranging from 14 to 640 days. One of them, dubbed HD 10700e, lies about half as far from Tau Ceti as the Earth is from the Sun – and because Tau Ceti is slightly smaller and dimmer than our Sun, that puts the planet in the so-called habitable zone.
It is increasingly clear that in existing data from radial velocity measurements there may be evidence of many more planets.
On Monday, Philip Gregory at the University of British Columbia in Canada posted an as-yet unpublished paper to the arXiv repository, claiming to have seen three planets in the habitable zone of Gliese 667C, one of three stars in a triple-star system, 22 light-years away.
It is also clear that in almost every direction we look and in every way that we look, there are planets around stars near and far – the catalogue currently stands at 854 confirmed planets, and is growing with every new publication.
Swiss banking giant UBS has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to US, UK and Swiss regulators for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate.
UBS becomes the second major bank to be fined over Libor after Barclays was ordered to pay $450 million to UK and US authorities in the summer.
Regulators worldwide are investigating a number of banks for rigging Libor.
Libor tracks the average rate at which the major international banks based in London lend money to each other.
UBS said it had agreed to pay fines to regulators in three different countries:
$1.2 billion in combined fines to the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission
£160 million to the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA)
59 million Swiss Francs to the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority
It is the second-largest set of fines imposed on a bank to date, after the $1.9 billion that HSBC agreed to pay US authorities earlier this month to settle allegations of money-laundering.
The bank has also agreed to admit to committing wire fraud through its Tokyo office in the case of manipulating Libor rates for loans denominated in Japanese yen, among others.
It said it would seek a non-prosecution agreement with the DoJ covering the rest of the bank’s misbehavior.
UBS said the fines – along with other payouts for mis-selling mortgage debts in the US – were likely to result in the bank recording a loss of 2 billion-2.5 billion Swiss francs in its financial accounts for the last three months of the year, although it still expects to make a profit for the year as a whole.
UBS has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to US, UK and Swiss regulators for attempting to manipulate the Libor inter-bank lending rate
The Swiss lender acknowledged its staff had manipulated the borrowing rates it submitted, which were then used to calculate the Libor rate – a benchmark interest rate that is used to fix payments on hundreds of trillions of dollars-worth of financial contracts – in order to make money on their trades.
According to the FSA, UBS had even gone so far as to give its traders formal responsibility for handling the bank’s submissions to the Libor-setting committee at the British Bankers’ Association – creating a direct conflict of interest, as the traders could profit depending on what they submitted.
Significantly, UBS also said its traders had colluded with their counterparts at other banks and brokerages.
The FSA said that UBS’s Tokyo office had made corrupt payments to brokerages – which helped to bring borrowers and lenders together anonymously in the inter-bank lending market – in order to enlist their support in manipulating Libor.
Besides UBS and Barclays, about a dozen other major banks are involved in setting Libor rates each day across a range of currencies, and most of them are understood to be still under investigation.
UBS chairman Axel Weber said: “The authorities have recognized UBS for the thoroughness of our investigation and our exceptional co-operation.”
According to the FSA, it would have fined UBS £200 million, but gave the bank a 20% discount because it co-operated. Nonetheless, the £160 million fine was still the largest ever imposed by the UK authority.
Barclays – which was the first bank to come clean over the scandal – has previously indicated that its fine of $450 million would be overshadowed by the fines to be imposed on other culpable banks.
Like Barclays, UBS also accepted that management had also told staff to submit inappropriately low estimated borrowing costs for the bank during the financial crisis, in order to give a false impression of the bank’s ability to borrow cheaply and maintain market confidence in the bank.
“We deeply regret this inappropriate and unethical behavior,” said UBS chief executive Sergio Ermotti.
“No amount of profit is more important than the reputation of this firm, and we are committed to doing business with integrity.”
The FSA said that the misconduct at UBS was extensive and widespread and involved at least 45 individuals.
“At least 2,000 requests for inappropriate submissions were documented – an unquantifiable number of oral requests, which by their nature would not be documented, were also made,” the FSA said.
“Manipulation was also discussed in internal open chat forums and group emails, and was widely known.”
It was so common that the FSA said every single Libor submission by UBS during the period it examined, from 2005 to 2010, may have been tainted.
“The findings we have set out in our notice today do not make for pretty reading,” said the FSA’s head of enforcement, Tracy McDermott.
Despite this, five separate internal audits by the bank’s compliance department failed to pick up on the misbehavior.
This is a perfect eggnog recipe for larger parties. This traditional way to make the classic holiday beverage requires patience and time but is well worth the effort and sure to be a crowd pleaser.
There are many variations of Eggnog, some cater to special diets like the Low Carb and Vegan Eggnogs, and some are just easier to make like the Brandy Eggnog, which is commonly found in bars. Eggnog is loosing some of its appeal as a Christmas classic so you’ll want to be sure to serve alternatives for non-nog-loving guests.
Yield: 16 Drinks
Ingredients:
6 eggs, separated
1/2 cup super fine sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups brandy
1 cup milk
Nutmeg (use for garnish also)
Christmas Eggnog
Preparation:
Beat egg yolks, 1/4 cup sugar, nutmeg, salt and vanilla together until very thick and light yellow.
Slowly beat in brandy (rum and whiskey are also popular alternatives) and milk.
Cover and chill overnight.
Shortly before serving, beat the egg whites to soft peaks.
Gradually beat in remaining 1/4 cup sugar, beat this mixture to soft peaks again, creating a meringue-like cream.
Then slowly pour this cream over the chilled brandy mixture, folding in gently.
Serve the eggnog in a mug, Irish coffee glass, or punch cup and grate nutmeg over the top for garnish.
Nick Cannon has revealed that he dumped Kim Kardashian after she “lied” to him about the existence of her now-infamous sex tape.
Despite calling Kim Kardashian “one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet”, Nick Cannon explained that he couldn’t forgive her for denying the tape existed.
Nick Cannon, now happily married to Mariah Carey, briefly dated Kim Kardashian from September 2006 to January 2007.
Speaking on The Howard Stern Show last week he explained: “This was my issue. We talked about this tape…And she told me there was no tape.
“If she might have been honest with me I might have tried to hold her down and be like <<That was before me>> because she is a great girl.
“She’s actually one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. But the fact that she lied and told me that there was no tape?”
Kim Kardashian made the tape while with then-boyfriend Ray J in 2003. Its release brought her to a wide audience and directly led to her now-lucrative reality star career.
Nick Cannon revealed that he had always suspected that Kim Kardashian might have had something to do with the tape’s release.
“And I still think she might have even had a part to play with [its release],” he said.
Nick Cannon has revealed that he dumped Kim Kardashian after she lied to him about the existence of her now-infamous sex tape
It seems unlikely Kim Kardashian will be too concerned about losing out with Nick Cannon, however.
Since their breakup she has gone on to become one of America’s biggest stars, despite her lack of talent.
Nick Cannon seems to appreciate this, adding: “I think she’s a great businesswoman if you ask me.”
Kim Kardashian is now happily dating rapper Kanye West.
He certainly doesn’t seem put off by her tape – in fact The Stronger rapper appears to make reference to the reality star’s infamous 2007 tape in his track Clique.
The song – which will feature on his album Cruel Summer – includes the line: “Eat breakfast at Gucci. My girl a superstar all from a home movie.”
Kim Kardashian’s other ex-boyfriends include Gabriel Aubry and Nick Lachey. She is currently locked in a messy divorce with second husband Kris Humphries, after a brief and disastrous marriage.
Her rise to fame saw her introduced her to Hollywood’s socialite scene by her then close friend Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton soon came to regret the move, as she was overshadowed by Kim Kardashian when her sex tape was leaked, with pornography company Vivid buying the rights to the video for $1 million.
It was particularly galling for Paris Hilton, as a similar film featuring her had been leaked in 2003, briefly making her one of the world’s most notorious celebrities.
While Kim Kardashian has always claimed she was “devastated” by the release of the tape, it certainly made her a star.
It has even been alleged her mother Kris Jenner brokered the deal, with Kim Kardashian receiving a hefty advance worth between $250,000 and $500,000.
Kim Kardashian filmed the sex tape when she was 23, and Keeping Up With The Kardashians premiered eight months after its release.
Back in June reports emerged that Kris Jenner had allegedly instructed Kim to make the video and even had her re-shoot it because the first take wasn’t “pretty enough”.
Kim Kardashian’s younger sister Khloe was infuriated by the claims and said: “That is just disgusting and disturbing, and probably HIS fantasy!”
Honey Boo Boo, the 7-year-old beauty queen, whose real name is Alana Thompson, got a head start on Christmas as her family shopped at the Smiley’s Flea Market and Yard Sale in their home town of Macon, Georgia on Saturday.
As her family shopped, Honey Boo Boo rode around on her “new” pink and blue training bike that her father and fellow Here Comes Honey Boo Boo star Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson bought for her.
Honey Boo Boo, who is known for her wild costumes as that she wears for her beauty pageants, took an especially festive tone with her outfit, pairing bright green extensions with her red plaid dress over black leggings and sparkly Uggs.
Last week, Alana Thompson was named by veteran television journalist Barbara Walters as one of her most fascinating people of the year, a title also shared by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, teen pop sensation One Direction and the scandalous Prince Harry.
Proud of their new-found celebrity and fresh of a recent media tour of Los Angeles, construction worker Sugar Bear wore a Los Angeles Fire Department souvenir t-shirt while “Mama June” Shannon strutted her stuff in a black t-shirt with peacock feathers, a zip-up blue hoodie and black sweats.
Honey Boo Boo got a head start on Christmas as her family shopped at the Smiley’s Flea Market and Yard Sale in their home town of Macon
When she wasn’t showing off her new bike, Honey Boo Boo also proudly pushed along her newborn three-thumbed niece, Kaitlyn.
The rest of the brood, including Honey Boo Boo’s sisters Anna, Jessica and Lauryn, also tagged along, though whether any of them left with gifts is a mystery as Alana hogged the attention all afternoon.
The family famously celebrates the holiday in their neighborhood by hosting a toy drive and a Santa’s workshop at their home.
In one episode from the first season of the show, Sugar Bear wore a Father Christmas suit as neighbors came to make their holiday wishes and take photographs.
This year, fans can expect the family to have a memorable holiday after the TLC Network, which airs the show in America, ordered a special Christmas episode from its breakout star.
During the Christmas special, which airs on February 17, Honey Boo Boo explains why the mother-daughter-duo will be on Santa Claus’ “nice” list this year.
President Barack Obama wants to reinstate an assault weapons ban in the wake of the mass killings in Newtown, Connecticut, his spokesman Jay Carney announced today.
Jay Carney said the president was “actively supportive” of a Democratic senator’s plan to introduce a bill on the first day of the next Congress.
Barack Obama would also consider curbs on high-capacity ammunition and loopholes, Jay Carney said.
Gunman Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults in Friday’s attack.
Barack Obama has previously stated his support for the reintroduction of an assault weapons ban, which lapsed in 2004.
But he has not backed a specific move to do so before now.
“He is actively supportive of, for example, Senator [Dianne] Feinstein’s stated intent to revive a piece of legislation that would reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Jay Carney said on Tuesday.
President Barack Obama wants to reinstate an assault weapons ban in the wake of the mass killings in Newtown, Connecticut
The White House press secretary added that Barack Obama was also supportive of other gun legislation, including on high-capacity ammunition clips and against a loophole that allows for gun purchases at gun shows.
Senator Dianne Feinstein told reporters she would introduce the legislation when the new Congress met for the first time in January.
Correspondents say that Democrats are now less reluctant to pursue gun control legislation than before.
During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama expressed support for the ban on assault weapons during one of three televised debates against Republican candidate Mitt Romney.
“I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theatres don’t belong on our streets,” Barack Obama said in the second debate on October 16.
“And so what I’m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced.”
Standard and Poor’s has raised the credit rating of Greece’s sovereign debt by six levels, praising the “strong determination” of fellow European countries to help it stay in the eurozone.
S&P has increased Greece’s rating from “selective default” to “B-minus”.
The rating agency also praised the continuing efforts by Greece’s government to cut its spending.
Greece is currently receiving the second of two bailouts.
Last week, Greece started to receive the latest tranche of the bailout funds from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
They agreed to release 49.1 billion euros ($57 billion) after continuing austerity work by Greece, and a buyback of some of its debt.
A total of 240 billion euros has been earmarked for Greece from the two bailout loans.
So far, Greece has received nearly 149 billion euros ($191 billion) from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, out of that 240billion euros.
S&P said in its statement: “The upgrade reflects our view of the strong determination of European Economic and Monetary Union (eurozone) member states to preserve Greek membership in the eurozone.
“The outlook on the long-term rating is stable, balancing our view of the government’s commitment to a fiscal and structural adjustment against the economic and political challenges of doing so.”
Greece had to seek the bailouts to meet its debt repayments after years of overspending meant it could not keep up with its debt obligations.
The negative market opinion of Greece’s situation only worsened its position, as it pushed up the yield, or level of interest, that the country had to offer on the sale of its new government bonds, in order to attract buyers.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has been re-elected as leader of country’s governing African National Congress.
Jacob Zuma, 70, received an overwhelming majority of votes cast by some 4,000 delegates at the party’s Mangaung conference.
Kgalema Motlanthe has been replaced as deputy president by anti-apartheid veteran Cyril Ramaphosa.
Jacob Zuma had been favourite to secure the leadership after he was challenged for the top job by his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe.
Jacob Zuma won 2,986 votes out of the 3,977 cast – making it a decisive victory against his rival.
“We can boast that we’re a leader of our society, that therefore we have something to contribute to the democratic life of this country, to this democratic Republic of South Africa,” Jacob Zuma said after his win.
He stepped on to the stage beaming to shake hands with fellow ANC members.
“We are certain that at this course in our democracy we are correct, that what we do at all material times, it is in the interest, not just of our organization, but of our country and its people,” he said.
The ANC, which has governed South Africa since white minority rule ended in 1994, is widely expected to win nationwide elections due in 2014. Jacob Zuma is therefore likely to remain president until 2019.
South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma has been re-elected as leader of country’s governing African National Congress
There were deafening sounds of vuvuzelas, huge applause and singing as the results of the election were announced.
More than 4,000 ANC delegates crammed into the marquee, erupting into cheers as Jacob Zuma’s win became clear.
The election of Cyril Ramaphosa, a veteran of the anti-apartheid movement and a successful businessman, marks a return to the political front line for him.
His decision to run as Jacob Zuma’s deputy has been seen by analysts as a way of shoring up the president’s flagging support.
“With a man like Cyril, our country is going to be booming. Our economy is going to be tops,” ANC delegate Peter Rankoe told Reuters.
Jacob Zuma has been accused of failing to reduce poverty or tackle corruption within the ANC and government, while in August there was widespread shock when police shot dead 34 striking miners in the most deadly police action since the end of apartheid.
The country’s former President FW De Klerk has explained that a significant proportion of the South African population were unhappy with Jacob Zuma.
“If the head of state loses the respect, I think that person loses the capacity to govern effectively. I think it would be in the best interest of South Africa if there can be a change of leadership in the ANC,” he said.
Though he has also been dogged by personal scandals, his popularity within Nelson Mandela’s ANC is overwhelming.
“I don’t care what people say about Jacob Zuma,” another ANC delegate, Sinovuyu Kley, said.
“When you hear him sing, you know he is one with the people. He speaks our language and knows our struggles.”
It is less clear where the results leave Kgalema Motlanthe, who ended months of speculation by announcing his decision to run against Jacob Zuma for the leadership and declining to stand again as deputy leader.
Meanwhile, four white men have appeared in court accused of being part of a right-wing extremist plot to bomb the ANC conference.
The men were arrested on Monday in raids across the country and reportedly face treason and terrorism charges.
One was apprehended by police at a guesthouse in Mangaung, police said, according to the Associated Press.
Five female Pakistani polio vaccination workers have been fatally shot in a string of co-ordinated attacks – four within 20 minutes across Karachi.
The fifth woman was shot and wounded in the city of Peshawar in the north-west and later died of her injuries.
A UN-backed programme to eradicate polio – which is endemic in Pakistan – has been suspended in Karachi.
No group has said it carried out the shootings, but the Taliban have issued threats against the polio drive.
“These were pre-planned and co-ordinated attacks in various localities which took place within a span of 20 minutes,” Imran Javed, a police spokesman said of Tuesday’s attacks in Karachi.
Earlier reports said a male health worker had been shot dead in Karachi on Monday, but officials now say his death was not related to the polio vaccination drive.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has condemned the attacks and praised the work of the polio vaccination teams, calling on regional authorities to guarantee their safety, Pakistan’s APP news agency reported.
Five female Pakistani polio vaccination workers have been fatally shot in a string of co-ordinated attacks
Pakistani health officials said the latest three-day nationwide anti-polio drive – during which an estimated 5.2 million polio drops were to be administered – had been suspended in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city with a population of 18 million.
There has been opposition to such immunization drives in parts of Pakistan, particularly after a fake CIA hepatitis vaccination campaign helped to locate Osama Bin Laden in 2011.
Militants have kidnapped and killed foreign NGO workers in the past in an attempt to halt the immunization drives, which they say are part of efforts to spy on them.
However, the Pakistani government “would continue to mount its effort on polio eradication,” said Raja Pervez Ashraf’s special adviser Shahnaz Wazir Ali.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali said protection would be provided to workers, and campaigns would be staggered if necessary.
“Clearly, we are now so close to eradicating the polio virus,… acts of this type, which are intended to dissuade us, will not deter us,” she said.
Along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is still endemic.
Pakistan is considered the key battleground in the global fight against the disease, which attacks the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis within hours of infection.
Almost 200 children were paralyzed in the country in 2011 – the worst figures in 15 years.
Earlier this year, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative warned that tackling the disease had entered “emergency mode” after “explosive” outbreaks in countries previously free of polio.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said polio was at a tipping point, with experts fearing it could “come back with a vengeance” after large outbreaks in Africa and Tajikistan and China’s first recorded cases for more than a decade.
Declaring polio a national emergency, the Pakistani government is targeting 33 million children for vaccination with some 88,000 health workers delivering vaccination drops.
Dr. Bruce Aylward of the WHO said that vaccination programmes had been suspended in other countries before but that “when you’re dealing with something as basic as the health of children, usually there can be common ground found”.
He said he hoped for a “dialogue with community leaders who have positions of power to ensure root causes of this are being addressed and the perpetrators are brought to justice”.
Instagram, Facebook’s photo-sharing website, has updated its privacy policy giving it the right to sell users’ photos to advertisers without notification.
Unless users delete their Instagram accounts by a deadline of January 16th, they cannot opt out.
The changes also mean Instagram can share information about its users with Facebook, its parent company, as well as other affiliates and advertisers.
The move riled social media users, with one likening it to a “suicide note”.
The new policies follow Facebook’s record $1 billion (758 million euro) acquisition of Instagram in April.
Facebook’s vice-president of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson earlier this month had said: “Eventually we’ll figure out a way to monetize Instagram.”
A notice updating the privacy policy on the Instagram site said: “We may share your information as well as information from tools like cookies, log files, and device identifiers and location data with organizations that help us provide the service to you… (and) third-party advertising partners.”
“To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you,” it said in its terms of use.
But Instagram said that its aim was to make it easier to work with Facebook.
Instagram has updated its privacy policy giving it the right to sell users’ photos to advertisers without notification
“This means we can do things like fight spam more effectively, detect system and reliability problems more quickly, and build better features for everyone by understanding how Instagram is used,” it said in a statement.
However, the updated policy will not change how it handles photo ownership or who is able to see a user’s pictures, it added.
But the new policy has triggered a backlash among social media users, with some threatening to quit.
One user tweeted: “Good bye #instagram. Your new terms of service are totally stupid and nonsense. Good luck playing with the big boys.”
New York-based photographer Clayton Cubbit wrote on his account that the new policy was “Instagram’s suicide note”.
Analysts said that the new policies could deal a blow to Facebook’s reputation and alienate some users.
Richard Holway, chairman of TechMarketView, said: “Every time Facebook has altered their privacy policy it has led to a backlash and they’ve been forced to retreat. They tamper with people’s privacy at a cost. People are very upset.”
Alan Pelz-Sharpe, research director at 451 Research, added: “It’s a barefaced tactic that Facebook and Instagram have taken, and one that will likely meet with many challenges, legally and ethically.
“The fact is that Facebook has critical mass, and is quite confident that such moves may cause uproar, but not a flight of business.
“Larger firms like Facebook are essentially trailblazing before specific regulations can catch up with them, and as we have seen with Google in the past, regulations and laws have limited real impact on their business operations – so they tend to move forward regardless of opposition.”
Ron Hubbard has built a luxurious underground bomb-proof shelter in Montebello, California, with a leather sofa, plasma TV and wooden flooring – just in case the Mayans’ predictions about the world ending come true on Friday, December 21st.
The civilisation’s Long Count calendar which began 5,125 years ago in 3113 B.C. ends on December 21, 2012 – sparking fears among a small group of people that a major catastrophe could happen.
Ron Hubbard manufactures hi-tech underground “recreational bomb shelters” – and has seen his business boom from selling one a month to one a day in the past year.
The luxurious bomb, nuclear and chemical weapon-proof bunkers are kitted out with beds, kitchens, flushing toilets and even fireplaces – and sell for an average price of $70,000.
Ron Hubbard revealed that he is currently rushing the installment of two shelters – one in New York and another in Indiana – in time for the potential Doomsday anticipated by some people this Friday.
He said: “I will be heading into my shelter on December 21 just because I have one and if any of the astrophysicists are right, I would feel really stupid.
“I’ve sold shelters to astrophysicists who believe there is a possibility that we could be hit with a strong solar flare or large amounts of radiation.
“I’ll spend three days underground in the shelter just to be safe. If you have a shelter you might as well go in it. I don’t think anything will happen but you never know.”
The 500 sq ft cylindrical shelters – produced at Ron Hubbard’s based in California – each measure 10 ft in diameter and 50 ft long.
They have escape tunnels with one sided hatches which can only open from the inside, as well as sealed contamination rooms between the entrance and living areas.
But they have proved popular not just with those preparing for Armageddon, but hunters too.
Ron Hubbard has built an underground bomb-proof shelter in Montebello, just in case the Mayans’ predictions about the world ending come true
Ron Hubbard said: “I started making them because I wanted one for myself, but didn’t want to pay $1 million to $2 million for them.
“We get a lot of people who buy the shelters as a form of insurance for the worst case scenario. Just like someone would buy fire insurance in case their home suffers a fire.
“We have gone from selling one a month to one a day in the past year since Obama’s re-election.
“Many people are afraid of economic meltdown, others simply want to have one just in case something catastrophic does happen.
“People love them. They make a very nice hunting cabin or weekend retreat, so they don’t just have to sit there waiting for a catastrophe.”
The end – or a new calendar?
Inscriptions in Mexico refer to Bolon Yokte – a god associated with war and the underworld – “descending from the sky” at the end of a 13th period of 400 years on December 21 2012.
But many Mayan experts believe the “apocalypse” concept is a false interpretation of their 5,125-year Long Count cycle as Friday simply marks the start of a new calendar.
North Korea appears to be struggling to control Unha-3 satellite it put into orbit last week, a space expert has said.
The Unha-3 satellite was launched on board a long-range rocket on December 12, in defiance of sanctions and international warnings.
Pyongyang says the device, the size of a washing machine, is working and is beaming revolutionary songs to Earth.
But US astronomer Jonathan McDowell says it may be tumbling, and does not yet appear to be transmitting.
“Those two things are most consistent with the satellite being entirely inactive at this point,” he told the New York Times.
The satellite was designed to point towards Earth, but Jonathan McDowell said the light coming from it was repeatedly brightening and dimming, indicating it was not yet operating as intended.
“The preponderance of the evidence suggests that the satellite failed either during the ascent or shortly afterwards,” he said.
He told the Associated Press news agency that the device was still completing its orbits, and whether working or not, would remain in space for years to come.
North Korea appears to be struggling to control Unha-3 satellite it put into orbit last week
Stuart Eves, principal engineer at Surrey Satellite Technology in the UK, said it was too early to say that the satellite was dead.
He stressed that any spacecraft would be unstable immediately after launch, and that North Korea could be trying to rectify the problem.
“Depending on how they plan to stabilize it, they may have a problem,” he said.
“We take typically two or three days to get a satellite stable, and we know what we’re doing – whereas this is the North Koreans’ first try.
“It would be prudent to wait a little longer and monitor the tumble rate to see whether there’s any attempt to stabilize it.”
However, critics said the North Korean government was likely to view the launch as a success because the real purpose was to test rocket technology.
The UN Security Council condemned the launch, saying it violated two UN resolutions banning Pyongyang from missile tests, passed after its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009
The launch last week was North Korea’s first successful use of a three-stage rocket to put a satellite into orbit – a similar launch in April failed just after take-off.
It appears to mark another step towards North Korea’s ability to field an intercontinental range ballistic missile.
Such a missile could be used to carry nuclear warheads.
The rocket was celebrated extravagantly in North Korea, with a mass rally held in the capital, Pyongyang.
State media credited the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, with the success, praising his “endless loyalty, bravery and wisdom”.
Pyongyang has said it will carry out further launches.
The US, South Korea and Japan want UN sanctions to be strengthened.
But China – North Korea’s main ally – says any UN response should be “conducive to peace” and avoid escalating tensions.
Apple’s plea to ban sales of Samsung’s smartphones that violate its patents has been rejected by a US judge.
Apple had requested the ban after a jury ruled earlier this year that some Samsung products had infringed Apple’s patents.
Samsung was also ordered to pay $1.05 billion in damages, a ruling the South Korean firm has since challenged.
However, the judge said there was not enough evidence that the infringed patents had hurt Apple’s US sales.
“The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple’s patents,” District Judge Lucy Koh said.
“Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple, it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions.”
Since winning $1.05 billion damages in August this year, Apple has suffered setbacks in its various legal clashes with rivals.
Last month, Apple was asked to disclose the details of its patent-sharing deal with HTC to Samsung.
It has also lost an appeal against a UK ruling that Samsung had not infringed its design rights.
Apple’s plea to ban sales of Samsung’s smartphones that violate its patents has been rejected by a US judge
The US technology firm was also asked by a UK High Court to publish a statement on its website admitting that Samsung had not infringed its designs.
Meanwhile, sales bans sought by Apple against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus phone and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the US were also lifted in October.
In November, a judge in the US dismissed a case brought by Apple alleging that Google’s Motorola unit was seeking excessive royalty payments for patents.
“The momentum that Apple had gained in the wake of the big billion dollar judgement seems to be losing its steam,” said Manoj Menon, managing director at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.
“It appears that Apple will find it increasingly difficult to convince courts around the world that it has been hurt by alleged patent infringements.”
The smartphone market has seen tremendous growth over the past few years and Apple and Samsung have emerged as two of the biggest players in the sector.
The success of Apple’s iPhone has been a key driver of its growth, while Samsung has reported record quarterly profits helped by the popularity of its Galaxy range of smartphones.
However, as their market share has increased, so has the intensity of their legal battles with each other.
The two firms have filed legal cases against each other in more than 10 countries, each accusing the other of violating its patents.
However, analysts said that it was time the two companies sat down together and agreed on an amicable solution to their tussles – a move that has also been suggested previously by a judge in the US.
Manoj Menon of Frost & Sullivan said that as manufacturers look to develop even more advanced phones, they will eventually need to use technologies, the patents for which may not belong to them.
“What we are seeing is a convergence of different technologies into one device,” he said.
He explained that for innovation to continue in the sector it was key that various companies agreed to licensing terms for their patents.
Last month, Apple agreed such a deal with Taiwanese phone-maker HTC as it signed a 10-year licence agreement that ended their legal battle over patents.
