Japan's rebuilding money spent on unrelated jobs

In this Oct. 9, 2012 photo, the foundation of a house is seen in a deserted land near the Arahama beach, severely damaged by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, in Sendai, northeastern Japan. Japan's accounting of its budget for reconstruction from the disasters is crammed with spending on unrelated projects, while all along Japan's northeastern coast, dozens of communities remain uncertain of whether, when and how they will rebuild. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

In this Oct. 9, 2012 photo, the foundation of a house is seen in a deserted land near the Arahama beach, severely damaged by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, in Sendai, northeastern Japan. Japan's accounting of its budget for reconstruction from the disasters is crammed with spending on unrelated projects, while all along Japan's northeastern coast, dozens of communities remain uncertain of whether, when and how they will rebuild. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

In this Oct. 9, 2012 photo, with a backdrop of leaning pine trees, part of windbreak forests severely damaged by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, construction works continue near the Arahama Beach in Sendai, northeastern Japan. Japan's accounting of its budget for reconstruction from the disasters is crammed with spending on unrelated projects, while all along Japan's northeastern coast, dozens of communities remain uncertain of whether, when and how they will rebuild. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

In this Oct. 9, 2012 photo, construction works go on along the Arahama beach, severely damaged by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, in Sendai, northeastern Japan. Japan's accounting of its budget for reconstruction from the disasters is crammed with spending on unrelated projects, while all along Japan's northeastern coast, dozens of communities remain uncertain of whether, when and how they will rebuild. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

In this Oct. 10, 2012 photo, a yellow crane sorts out the rubble of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, at the rubble collection site near the Arahama beach in Sendai, northeastern Japan. Japan's accounting of its budget for reconstruction from the disasters is crammed with spending on unrelated projects, while all along Japan's northeastern coast, dozens of communities remain uncertain of whether, when and how they will rebuild. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

In this Oct. 10, 2012 photo, a yellow crane is seen in the heap of the sorted out rubble of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, at the rubble collection site near the Arahama beach in Sendai, northeastern Japan. Japan's accounting of its budget for reconstruction from the disasters is crammed with spending on unrelated projects, while all along Japan's northeastern coast, dozens of communities remain uncertain of whether, when and how they will rebuild. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

(AP) ? About a quarter of the $148 billion budget for reconstruction after the March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster has been spent on unrelated projects, including subsidies for a contact lens factory and research whaling, a Japanese government accounting shows.

The audit documents released last week buttressed complaints over shortcomings in the reconstruction effort. More than half the 11.7 trillion yen ($148 billion) budget is yet to be disbursed, stalled by indecision and bureaucracy, while nearly all of the 340,000 people evacuated from the disaster zone remain uncertain whether, when and how they will ever resettle.

Many of the non-reconstruction-related projects loaded into the budget were included on the pretext they might contribute to Japan's economic revival, a strategy that the government now acknowledges was a mistake.

"It is true that the government has not done enough and has not done it adequately. We must listen to those who say the reconstruction should be the first priority," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in a speech to parliament on Monday.

He vowed that unrelated projects will be "strictly wrung out" of the budget.

But ensuring that funds go to their intended purpose might require an explicit change in the reconstruction spending law, which authorizes spending on such ambiguous purposes as creating eco-towns and supporting "employment measures."

Among the unrelated projects benefiting from the reconstruction budgets are: road building in distant Okinawa; prison vocational training in other parts of Japan; subsidies for a contact lens factory in central Japan; renovations of government offices in Tokyo; aircraft and fighter pilot training, research and production of rare earths minerals, a semiconductor research project and even funding to support whaling, ostensibly for research.

Some 30 million yen ($380,000) went to promoting the Tokyo Sky Tree, a transmission tower that is the world's tallest freestanding broadcast structure. Another 2.8 billion yen ($35 million) was requested by the Justice Ministry for a publicity campaign to "reassure the public" about the risks of big disasters.

Masahiro Matsumura, a politics professor at St. Andrews University in Osaka, Japan, said justifying such misuse by suggesting the benefits would "trickle down" to the disaster zone is typical of the political dysfunction that has hindered Japan's efforts to break out of two decades of debilitating economic slump.

"This is a manifestation of government indifference to rehabilitation. They are very good at making excuses," Matsumura told The Associated Press.

Near the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, which suffered the additional blow from the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, recovery work has barely begun.

More than 325,000 of the 340,000 people evacuated from the disaster zone or forced to flee the areas around the nuclear plant after the March 11, 2011 disaster remain homeless or away from their homes, according to the most recent figures available.

In Rikuzentakata, a fishing enclave where 1,800 people were killed or went missing as the tsunami scoured the harbor, rebuilding has yet to begin in earnest, says Takashi Kubota, who left a government job in Tokyo in May 2011 to become the town's deputy mayor.

The tsunami destroyed 3,800 of Rikuzentakata's 9,000 homes. The first priority, he says, has been finding land for rebuilding homes ? on higher ground. For now, most evacuees are housed, generally unhappily, in temporary shelters in school playgrounds and sports fields.

"I can sum it up in two words ? speed and flexibility ? that are lacking," Kubota said. Showing a photo of the now non-existent downtown area, he said, "In 19 months, there have basically been no major changes. There is not one single new building yet."

The government has pledged to spend 23 trillion yen ($295 billion) over this decade on reconstruction and disaster prevention, 19 trillion yen ($245 billion) of it within five years.

But more than half the reconstruction budget remains unspent, according to the government's audit report.

The dithering is preventing the government, whose debt is already twice the size of the country's GDP, from getting the most bang for every buck.

"You've got economic malaise and political as well. That's just a recipe for disaster," said Matthew Circosta, an economist with Moody's Analytics in Sydney.

Part of the problem is the central government's strategy of managing the reconstruction from Tokyo instead of delegating it to provincial governments. At the same time, the local governments lack the staff and expertise for such major rebuilding.

The government "thinks it has to be in the driver's seat," Jun Iio, a government adviser and professor at Tokyo University told a conference in Sendai. "Unfortunately the reconstruction process is long and only if the local residents can agree on a plan will they move ahead on reconstruction."

"It is in this stage that creativity is needed for rebuilding," he said.

Even Sendai, a regional capital of over 1 million people much better equipped than most coastal communities to deal with the disaster, still has mountains of rubble. Much of it is piled amid the bare foundations, barren fields and broken buildings of its oceanside suburb of Arahama.

Sendai quickly restored disrupted power, gas and water supplies and its tsunami-swamped airport. The area's crumbled expressways and heavily damaged railway lines were repaired within weeks.

But farther north and south, ravaged coastal towns remain largely unoccupied.

More than 240 ports remain unbuilt; in many cases their harbors are treacherous with tsunami debris.

Like many working on the disaster, Yoshiaki Kawata of Kansai University worries that the slow progress on reconstruction will leave the region, traditionally one of Japan's poorest, without a viable economy.

"There is almost no one on the streets," he said in the tiny fishing hamlet of Ryoishi, where the sea rose 17 meters (56 feet). "Building a new town will take many years."

Even communities remain divided over how to rebuild. Moving residential areas to higher ground involves cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and complicated ownership issues. Each day of delay, meanwhile, raises the likelihood that residents will leave and that local businesses will fail to recover, says Itsunori Onodera, a lawmaker from the port town of Kesennuma, which lost more than 1,400 people in the disaster.

"Speed," he says, is the thing most needed to get the region back on its feet.

___

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-30-Japan-Disaster%20Reconstruction/id-83ccd1cb44ef4f97abee153f1f7215dc

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China eyes rating rules for inter-bank bonds: sources

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is readying new regulations governing credit ratings of bonds traded in the inter-bank market in a bid to boost activity in the fledgling sector, two sources close to the regulator told Reuters.

The new rules, to be published within weeks, cover ratings from firms that charge bond issuers for coverage, as well as those paid for by investors and ratings generated from publicly available information, the sources told Reuters, requesting anonymity as they are not authorized to talk to the media.

The National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII), appointed by the central bank to help supervise the inter-bank bond market, is finalizing the new rules. The existing supervision system was launched in 2006 by the central bank and covers only issuer-paid ratings.

"Compared with the broad-brush style of the existing rules, the new guidelines provide a clear specification for three kinds of rating models in the industry for the first time," said one source at a domestic rating agency who said he was aware of the planned rule change.

Critics of the issuer-paid rating model say it prevents objective risk assessment and say its lies at the heart of the 2008-09 global financial crisis, triggered when complex U.S. structured securities turned out to be excessively risky, despite their top-notch credit ratings.

To break with the mainstream western pricing model, China set up its first credit rating firm in 2010 that charges investors rather than borrowers for evaluating a new bond.

China's bond market is divided into three parts: debt instruments in the interbank market overseen by the central bank, enterprise bonds approved by China's economic planning agency, and a small listed corporate bond market overseen by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

The regulatory sources said the new rules are expected to apply only to products trading in the inter-bank bond market. But analysts said increasing convergence of the three bond markets could see effects felt by the other two.

The outstanding value of corporate debt instruments on the inter-bank bond market - including short-term financing bills and medium-term notes - totalled 3.7 trillion yuan ($589.45 billion) as of August, making up 60 percent of all corporate bonds in China.

China has three major ratings agencies - Dagong Global Credit Rating Co, China Chengxin international and China Lianhe Credit Rating Co - that have a combined market share of more than 95 percent, according to local media reports.

Dagong is the only wholly Chinese-owned firm of the trio. The other two are tie-ups with international partners, with Moody's and Fitch Ratings holding 49 percent stakes in each respectively.

Dagong said last week it would form a partnership with U.S. agency Egan-Jones and Russia's RusRatings to build a new international ratings agency to challenge the existing "big three" of Standard & Poor's, Moody's and Fitch.

Foreign ratings firms are not allowed to directly rate Chinese domestic currency bonds.

($1 = 6.2770 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Aileen Wang, Zhang Shengnan and Nick Edwards; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-eyes-rating-rules-inter-bank-bonds-sources-035833044--sector.html

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Sandy snarls flights: What you should know if you're traveling

1 day

If you had to define a travel nightmare, this would be it: Thousands of flights canceled, train service halted, public transit on pause and countless travelers going nowhere fast as Hurricane Sandy menaces the East Coast.

?There are travel messes and then there are travel messes,? said Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com.

?You have things like the Icelandic volcano, for example, which was only (affecting) trans-Atlantic traffic. This is bigger because it?s both trans-Atlantic and Eastern seaboard. The Eastern seaboard controls sort of the nation,?so it trickles down throughout the nation. Even if you?re flying on the West Coast you could be delayed because of what?s going on.?

Deteriorating weather conditions forced airlines to cancel nearly 14,000 flights through Tuesday, and that number is expected to grow, according to Jackie Butcher, a spokesperson for FlightAware.com.?Philadelphia International was most affected on Monday with 1,259 cancellations, followed by the three major New York City-area airports.

John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty International and LaGuardia remained open on Monday, but the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey discouraged travelers from even trying to get to the airports.The agency also began setting up cots for stranded passengers and placed sandbags at Newark Liberty. Photos showed flood waters from Hurricane Sandy approaching LaGuardia runways and taxiways on Monday afternoon.

The ripple effects are being felt across the country and even the world, as travelers trying to fly into the region to either get back home or make a connection are in limbo.?Even Capt. Chesley B. ?Sully? Sullenberger, the pilot made famous by the "Miracle on the Hudson" flight, tweeted that he was "stuck in PA" because of Sandy on Monday afternoon.

Hailey Walmsley was scheduled to return to Boston after attending a wedding in Atlanta, but she is stuck at the city?s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport ? often dubbed ?Hotel Hartsfield? when travelers in transit have nowhere to go???and told she won?t be able to fly out until Thursday.

?My flight was actually canceled twice,? she told Atlanta's?NBC?affiliate WXIA. ?So now it?s just kind of up in the air.?

In Denver, where about 50 flights to the East Coast were canceled, Steve Houston was trying to get home to Belfast, Ireland.

"My biggest concern was that I would leave Denver, get to New York, and then get stranded in New York and be sitting there in the middle of the hurricane," Houston told Denver's?NBC?affiliate KUSA.

JetBlue closed its New York City operations Sunday night and proactively canceled more than 1,000 flights through Wednesday morning, said airline?spokeswoman Sharon Jones.

?High winds are no bueno for flying machines, so we are sheltering our aircraft in other cities,? the airline said on its blog.

American Airlines suspended operations Sunday night until Wednesday at nine airports in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, including Ronald Reagan Washington National, Dulles International, Baltimore/Washington International, Norfolk International, Philadelphia International, Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Bradley International.

?First flights into?these cities will resume Wednesday. First flights out of these cities will take place after noon on Wednesday,? said spokesman Kent Powell.

Delta Air Lines, which has cancelled about 2,500 flights, expects to resume limited operations at its LaGuardia and JFK hubs on Tuesday afternoon, with a full restart targeted for Wednesday. Operations at other East Coast airports are expected to resume by mid-morning Tuesday. ?

Still, the good news is that the storm is hitting during a relatively slow travel period, FareCompare.com's?Seaney said. Airlines also had plenty of notice to move planes to safer grounds and pre-cancel flights, he added.

?They?ll be able to unwind (the backlog) in a day or two completely as long as there?s no major damage to airports,? Seaney said.

Related: Hurricane Sandy, by the numbers

All airlines now have hurricane-related travel waiver policies in effect, allowing passengers to change their reservations without a fee.

If you bought tickets through sites such as Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz,?call those companies and have them rebook, instead of calling airlines directly, because the carriers? phone lines may be jammed as everyone scrambles to change plans, advised?Airfarewatchdog.com founder?George Hobica.

Also keep in mind that if you are stuck at the airport, hurricanes are considered a "force majeure" event or an "act of God" by the airlines, which means that cancellations are viewed as out of the airlines' control and the only thing travelers are entitled to is a refund, Hobica said. In other words, you may not get a hotel voucher.

Here are some more tips if you have to fly into or out of the region this week:

  • Sign up for alerts from your airlines and follow them on Twitter to get the latest information on your flights;
  • Monitor the FAA?s flight information map for any airport delays or closures;
  • Have items like medications, your hotel and airline phone numbers, a change of clothes and toiletries with you, Hobica advised. If they're kept in checked luggage and you're stranded, you're most likely out of luck;
  • For JetBlue travel waivers, click here;
  • For United travel waivers, click here;
  • For Delta travel waivers, click here;
  • For American travel waivers, click here;
  • For US Airways travel waivers, click here;
  • For Southwest travel waivers, click here.

Air travel isn't the only mode of transportation impacted by Hurricane Sandy. Amtrak cancelled nearly all service on the eastern seaboard on Monday, and public transit was suspended in New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

It?s not a good time to be a tourist either. In New York, the Statue of Liberty crown reopened to the public on Sunday, but the monument will be closed Monday and Tuesday because of the storm. All Broadway and off-Broadway shows have been canceled for Monday.?

More hurricane?coverage from NBC?News:

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/sandy-snarls-flights-trains-public-transit-what-you-should-know-1B6737188

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19 workers trapped in New York power plant by storm, witness says

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/con-edison-workers-trapped-york-power-plant-sandy-022826732--business.html

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The Not-so-spooky Presidio Pet Cemetery - Hidden Histories ...

Welcome to Curbed's ongoing series titled Hidden History, where Curbed highlights a Bay Area location with a secret past. Maybe it's no longer there, maybe it's been converted into something else, but each spot holds a place in Bay Area history - even if not many people know it. Have a suggestion or know a place with a secret history? The tipline's always open or you can leave a comment after the jump.

Just in time for Halloween, this week's Hidden History focuses on the spooky ghostly world of cemeteries. But not just any ole eternal resting place - the Presidio Pet Cemetery.

The final resting place for hundreds of animals owned by families that were stationed at the Presidio, the pet cemetery dates back to the 1950's. According to the National Park Service, there are no official records for the site, meaning it probably sprung up from the families themselves with authorization from one of the commanding officers. There are legends of previous incarnations of the cemetery, which some believe was originally a burial ground for nineteenth-century cavalry horses or World War II guard dogs.

presidio%20pet%20cemetery%201957%20NPS%20v2.jpgThe sons of Capt. J. K. Moore pay tribute to their collie, Heidi, in 1957 [Photo: NPS]

The grave markers feature some heart-wrenching and historic details on the beloved pets, including their birthplace (like Patches the Cat born in Dachau), family names and owners' ranks, including majors, colonels, and generals. Some look like official military tombstones, due to Presidio Boy Scout volunteers who replaced crumbling markers sometime in the late 1980s or early 90s.

presidio%20pet%20cemetery%20tombstones%20bunky%27s%20pickle.jpgPresidio Pet Cemetery [Photo: Bunky's Pickle]

When the Presidio was in process of becoming a National Park, one (heartless?) congressman against the NPS conversion used the pet cemetery as fodder, sending letters to his supporters with a photo of the pet cemetery and the headline asking "Is This Your Vision of a National Park?" Apparently it was, because the Presidio became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 1994 (though the cemetery is not included in the official National Historic Landmark district).

presidio%20pet%20cemetery%20telstar%20logistics.jpgPresidio Pet Cemetery during construction of Doyle Drive [Photo: Telstar Logistics]

Today the cemetery is officially closed to new burials, but since it isn't patrolled, people still sneak in to bury their pets. When the Doyle Drive project began a few years ago, the pet cemetery was designated an "environmentally sensitive area," so it was protected from construction.
? Presidio Pet Cemetery [NPS]
? Presidio pet cemetery protected [SF Gate]
? List of Graves by Pet Name [Honan.net]
? Presidio Pet Cemetery Survives Toxic Scare [Found SF]

Source: http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2012/10/29/the_notsospooky_presidio_pet_cemetery.php

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Yemen's 'Death to America' rebels bring calm to northern Yemen

The Houthis, a Shiite rebel group that battled the government in northern Yemen for years, has brought stability and investment to its territory. Its rise could threaten US-Yemen cooperation.

By Adam Baron,?Correspondent / October 28, 2012

Members of the Shiite rebel al-Houthi group sit while guarding a group meeting in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 16.

Khaled Abdullah/Reuters/File

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Barely a decade ago, the Old City of Saada was tentatively placed on the list to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Once an impeccably preserved relic of medieval Arabia, the ancient settlement is now largely in ruins. Centuries-old homes lie wrecked, their mud brick construction crumbling. Bullet holes pock-mark the walls of ancient mosques.?

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For many here, the irreplaceable loss of one of Yemen?s most prominent historical sites exemplifies the senseless destruction wrought upon the region during years of clashes between government forces and the Houthis, a Zaydi Shi?a rebel group that has battled Yemeni troops and allied tribal fighters since 2004.

While a tentative calm has been restored in recent months, the violence continues to cast a pall over this rugged mountain town, which now lies under the effective control of the rebels.?Once forced to operate largely from secluded mountain hideaways, the Houthis? dominance is now unquestionable?in the provincial capital of Saada. The government managed to maintain control of the city throughout most of the years of fighting, but in the power vacuum that emerged as former President Ali Abdullah Saleh struggled to hold on to power in 2011, the Houthis were able to wrest control from government hands.?

Now signs bearing the group?s slogan, ?God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews, Power to Islam,? pepper the streets alongside tributes to fighters killed during the years of conflict. While government troops continue to man their posts, armed Houthis run checkpoints undisturbed, controlling the vast majority of Saada and parts of adjacent provinces.

Life has seemingly returned to normal now. Markets in the province bustle and newly constructed hotels welcome guests. But the group's bellicose anti-American rhetoric and unrestrained criticism of the US government's policies in Yemen worry Western diplomats. Houthi leaders have sharply criticized members of Yemen's current government for their cooperation with the United States, capitalizing on rising anti-American sentiment in the country.?

"We're not against a relationship based on mutual benefits and respect," says Saleh Habra, the head of the Houthi's political bureau. "But we must reject America's policies, which are meant to create chaos in Yemen and the region."

Many residents expressed enthusiastic approval of Houthi governance, saying the rebels? rule has lead to security and stability. And as the frequent sight of construction attests, some here are confident enough about the current calm to invest, pouring money into infrastructure projects in the impoverished province.

?We?ve seen so many difficult years,? says Abu Ahmed, a businessman in Saada overseeing construction work at his new soap factory. ?But now, Saada is at peace, and we can actually imagine a better future.?

Still, reminders of the past are ever-present. The war resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and bombed out buildings dot both the city of Saada and surrounding villages. Few families here were untouched ? over 20,000 people were killed in the fighting and tens of thousands of Yemenis were displaced. And while Houthi leaders claim overwhelming popular support in Saada, the group?s rise has not been without opposition.

Tensions between the Houthis and local salafis, an austere branch of Sunni Islam, erupted in months of fierce clashes last fall; a violent confrontation between supporters of the Houthis and backers of a rival Zaydi cleric left one dead earlier this month. Yemeni politicians and tribal leaders have watched the Houthis' rise with trepidation, characterizing them as a destabilizing presence operating against the best interests of the country.

Houthi leaders say they are committed to maintaining the peace. But the group remains heavily armed, appearing ready for any coming confrontation.?

Despite the current break in violence in Saada, friction between the Houthis and numerous local actors ? from Sunni Islamists to political and tribal adversaries who aligned with the government against them ? remain unresolved. ?And while many here optimistically put faith in the current calm, others confided that, as long as the situation stays tense, there?s ample reason to fear that it will be short lived.

Sporadic clashes between supporters and opponents of the Houthis in tribal areas between Saada and Sanaa have left many Yemenis anxious about a resumption of large-scale fighting, which would likely derail Yemen's tenuous post-Saleh transition and throwing much of the nation into chaos.

?There may be peace now,? said Ali al-Quhom, a Houthi representative in Saada, ?but those who fought us in the past still want war.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/2AXfBXRgPzM/Yemen-s-Death-to-America-rebels-bring-calm-to-northern-Yemen

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Superstorm Sandy slams into New Jersey coast

NEW YORK (AP) ? Superstorm Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coastline with 80 mph winds Monday night and hurled an unprecedented 13-foot surge of seawater at New York City, flooding its tunnels, subway stations and the electrical system that powers Wall Street. At least 14 U.S. deaths were blamed on the storm, which brought the presidential campaign to a halt a week before Election Day.

For New York City at least, Sandy was not the dayslong onslaught many had feared, and the wind and rain that sent water sloshing into Manhattan from three sides began dying down within hours.

Still, the power was out for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and an estimated 5.7 million people altogether across the East. The full extent of the storm's damage across the region was unclear, and unlikely to be known until daybreak.

In addition, heavy rain and further flooding remain major threats over the next couple of days as the storm makes its way into Pennsylvania and up into New York State. Near midnight, the center of the storm was just outside Philadelphia, and its winds were down to 75 mph, just barely hurricane strength.

"It was nerve-racking for a while, before the storm hit. Everything was rattling," said Don Schweikert, who owns a bed-and-breakfast in Cape May, N.J., near where Sandy roared ashore. "I don't see anything wrong, but I won't see everything until morning."

As the storm closed in, it converged with a cold-weather system that turned it into a superstorm, a monstrous hybrid consisting not only of rain and high wind but snow in West Virginia and other mountainous areas inland.

It smacked the boarded-up big cities of the Northeast corridor ? Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston ? with stinging rain and gusts of more than 85 mph.

Just before Sandy reached land, forecasters stripped it of hurricane status, but the distinction was purely technical, based on its shape and internal temperature. It still packed hurricane-force wind, and forecasters were careful to say it was still dangerous to the tens of millions in its path.

Sandy made landfall at 8 p.m. near Atlantic City, which was already mostly under water and saw an old, 50-foot piece of its world-famous Boardwalk washed away earlier in the day.

Authorities reported a record surge 13 feet high at the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan, from the storm and high tide combined.

In an attempt to lessen damage from saltwater to the subway system and the electrical network beneath the city's financial district, New York City's main utility cut power to about 6,500 customers in lower Manhattan. But a far wider swath of the city was hit with blackouts caused by flooding and transformer explosions.

About 670,000 customers were without power late Monday in the city and suburban Westchester County.

"This will be one for the record books," said John Miksad, senior vice president for electric operations at ConEdison. "This will be the largest storm-related outage in our history."

New York's transit agency said water surged into two major commuter tunnels, the Queens Midtown and the Brooklyn-Battery, and it cut power to some subway tunnels in lower Manhattan after water flowed into the stations and onto the tracks.

The subway system was shut down Sunday night, and the stock markets never opened Monday and are likely to be closed Tuesday as well. Schools were closed and Broadway theaters were dark.

"We knew that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our expectations," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "This is a once-in-a-long-time storm."

More than 200 patients ? including 20 infants from neonatal intensive care ? were moved from New York University's Tisch Hospital after its power went out and a backup generator failed. The patients, some on respirators operating on battery power, were taken to other hospitals.

A construction crane atop a luxury high-rise collapsed in the high winds and dangled precariously 74 floors above the street. Forecasters said the wind at the top the building may have been close to 95 mph.

The facade of a four-story building in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood crumbled and collapsed, leaving the lights, couches, cabinets and desks inside visible from the street. No one was hurt.

As the storm approached the Northeast over the weekend, airlines canceled more than 12,000 flights in the region.

Storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, meaning it could prove to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

Fourteen deaths were reported in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Some of the victims were killed by falling trees. At least one death was blamed on the storm in Canada.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney canceled their campaign appearances at the very height of the race, with just over a week to go before Election Day. The president pledged the government's help and made a direct plea from the White House to those in the storm's path.

"When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate," he said. "Don't delay, don't pause, don't question the instructions that are being given, because this is a powerful storm."

Sandy, which killed 69 people in the Caribbean before making its way up the Atlantic, began to hook left at midday toward the New Jersey coast.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said people were stranded in Atlantic City, which sits on a barrier island. He accused the mayor of allowing them to stay there. With the hurricane roaring through, Christie warned it was no longer safe for rescuers, and advised people who didn't evacuate the coast to "hunker down" until morning.

While the hurricane's 90 mph winds registered as only a Category 1 on a scale of five, it packed "astoundingly low" barometric pressure, giving it terrific energy to push water inland, said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of meteorology at MIT.

And the New York metropolitan area apparently got the worst of it, because it was on the dangerous northeastern wall of the storm.

"We are looking at the highest storm surges ever recorded" in the Northeast, said Jeff Masters, meteorology director for Weather Underground, a private forecasting service. "The energy of the storm surge is off the charts, basically."

Hours before landfall, there was graphic evidence of the storm's power.

Off North Carolina, a replica of the 18th-century sailing ship HMS Bounty that was built for the 1962 Marlon Brando movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" went down in the storm, and 14 crew members were rescued by helicopter from rubber lifeboats bobbing in 18-foot seas. Another crew member was found hours later and was hospitalized in critical condition. The captain was missing.

At Cape May, water sloshed over the seawall, and it punched through dunes in other seaside communities.

"When I think about how much water is already in the streets, and how much more is going to come with high tide tonight, this is going to be devastating," said Bob McDevitt, president of the main Atlantic City casino workers union. "I think this is going to be a really bad situation tonight."

In Maryland, at least 100 feet of a fishing pier at the beach resort of Ocean City was destroyed.

At least half a million people along the East Coast had been ordered to evacuate, including 375,000 from low-lying parts of New York City.

Sheila Gladden left her home in Philadelphia's flood-prone Eastwick neighborhood, which took on 5? feet of water during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, and headed for a hotel.

"I'm not going through this again," she said.

Those who stayed behind had few ways to get out.

Not only was the New York subway shut down, but the Holland Tunnel connecting New York to New Jersey was closed, as was a tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and several other spans were closed because of high winds.

___

Zezima reported from Atlantic City, N.J. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report from Washington. Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, N.C.; Jennifer Peltz and Tom Hays in New York, David Porter in Pompton Lakes, N.J.; Wayne Parry in Point Pleasant Beach, N.J.; and David Dishneau in Delaware also contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/superstorm-sandy-slams-jersey-coast-001843489.html

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iPad mini vs. Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD: On display size and density

When Apple introduced the iPad mini, they spent quite a bit of time comparing it to the Google Nexus 7, especially when it came to the merits of the iPad mini's 4:3, 7.9-inch screen over the 16:10, 7-inch screen of the Nexus 7. Physical screen size is only one factor, however. There's also screen resolution to consider, something Apple often touts with their Retina display products like the iPhone 5, iPod touch 5, iPad 4, and MacBook Pro. But not the iPad mini. So, when we put everything on the table, how well does the iPad mini stack up not only to the Nexus 7, but the similarly screened Amazon Kindle Fire HD?

Apple's math highlighted the 35% larger physical screen size (29.6 square inches vs. 21.9 square inches). When Amazon announced their quarterly loss last week, however, they switched the topic to screen resolution, and measured the iPad mini's 1024x768, 163 ppi display against the Kindle Fire HD's (identical to Nexus 7) 1280x800, 254 ppi display. Amazon's math worked out to 30% more pixels (1,024,000 vs. 786,432 pixels) and 33% higher pixel density (216 vs. 163).

Here's how the iPad mini and Nexus 7/Kindle Fire HD 7 compare in terms of physical screen size (left), and in terms of pixel count (right). For the purposes of these diagrams, the iPad mini will always be represented in RED and the Nexus 7/Kindle Fire HD in BLUE. The squares superimposed on top will provide a constant, relative measure for the pixel sizes of of the displays (the lower the density, the bigger the pixel size.)

That means things will look bigger on the iPad mini (bigger pixels), but you'll see more things on the Android tablets (more pixels). The iPad mini also has greater height (in landscape orientation) and width (in portrait orientation), thanks to its 4:3 aspect ratio. That's great for anything that requires reading, including ebooks, web pages, and even multi-column interfaces. Here's an example of a popular website on the iPad mini (left) and the and the Nexus 7/Kindle Fire HD 7 (right), in both landscape (top) and portrait (bottom). I've highlighted the interface chrome to better differentiate active content areas.

Thanks to the greater height in landscape, you get much more visible content on the iPad mini, and much bigger content, though it's not as sharp as it is on either the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire HD. Because it isn't as tall in portrait, however, the iPad mini shows slightly less content, though Android 4.1 Jelly Bean's persistent control bar at the bottom mitigates some of the aspect ratio advantage.

Here's an example of a list-view based app, in the case the native mail apps, on the iPad mini (left) and the and the Nexus 7/Kindle Fire HD 7 (right), in portrait orientation. I've highlighted the interface chrome to better differentiate active content areas.

Where the iPad mini shares exactly the same, consistent tablet interface as the iPad, with multicolumn, tablet-class apps, the Nexus 7 combines aspects of Android smartphone and tablet interfaces on an app-by-app basis. That's likely a stop-gap on Google's part, however, and we'll hopefully see more tablet-optimized interface from Google in the near future. Likewise, Apple has over 250,000 iPad-optimized apps on the App Store, all of which will run pixel-perfectly on the iPad mini. Android is still severely lacking when it comes to tablet apps. Again, that should change as Google's tablet platform matures. (The Amazon Kindle Fire isn't really a tablet, it's a media appliance, so while it's interface is good enough for that, it's not really directly comparable to either the iPad mini or Nexus 7).

However, that media content brings up another difference between the small tablets. The Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire 7 HD have an aspect ratio of 16:10, closer to the 16:9 of the iPhone 5, which offers greater width (in landscape orientation) and height (in portrait orientation). That's better for HD video and single column lists. Here's an example of a popular movie on the iPad mini (left) and the and the Nexus 7/Kindle Fire HD 7 (right), in both widescreen (top) and full screen (bottom). I've highlighted the interface chrome to better differentiate active content areas.

The iPad mini shows the wide screen version of the movie at a larger size, but downscales it from 1280 horizontal pixels to 1024 horizontal pixels (and vertically downscales from 720p to 585p). Full motion graphics, like movies and video games, however, are extremely resilient when it comes to screen density (just look at the variety of sizes 1080p television sets come in). So, it won't look terrible, but it won't look as good as the pixel-perfect Android tablets. At full screen, the iPad mini is much bigger, but also cuts off much more of the picture on both sides, an absolute deal-breaker for movie fans.

So what does all this mean? Apple is right in that you do get both bigger content on the iPad mini and more usable display area for most types of apps and media. Amazon is right in that their display is better. For most people, for most things, bigger beats better. Add to that Apple's huge advantage in both tablet software and international content, and it makes for a compelling argument that in this case, the iPad mini overcomes the relatively lower pixel density to provide a more compelling product overall.

I'm one of those people, however, for whom display density does matter greatly. I'm used to an iPhone 5 and iPad 3 (same as iPad 4) and MacBook Pro all with Retina display. Chunky pixels are like sandpaper on my pampered pupils. While the iPad mini is better than the iPad 2, it's identical to the iPhone 3GS, and going back to that is going to be tough.

Design is compromise, however. You can't have everything and you certainly can't have it all now. The iPad mini is 7.2 mm thin, thinner by half than an iPad 3 or iPad 4. If Apple had crammed a Retina display in now, not only would battery life have suffered, but it would have become much thicker and much heavier. If they'd used a 720p display like the Nexus 7 or Amazon Kindle Fire 7 HD, they would have broken compatibility with those 250,000 existing iPad apps. Likewise If they'd switched to the iPhone and iPod touch interface -- they would have made a big iPod touch instead of a small iPad. And Apple made a small (concentrated) iPad.

The iPad mini will likely go Retina with the second or third generation, and all of these concerns will disappear, like the pixels on the display. Until then, check out the example above and see if the difference in size and content area make the iPad mini a good compromise for you, at least for now.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/ntRvPqyHC9M/story01.htm

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Google Play closing in on Apple's store with 700K apps, says Bloomberg

Google Play store racks up 700K apps

Amidst all the Nexus excitement from yesterday, Google just hit the 700,000 Android app milestone in its Play Store, according to Bloomberg. That would put it near par with Apple, who announced just last month that its App Store hit that same figure. Like Cupertino's iOS shop, Play (which started off as the Android Market) has been peddling its robot wares since 2008, though the store opened several months after Apple's. Google may have been set to trumpet the new figure during the Nexus launch yesterday as they did last June at I/O, but a certain Sandy may have wrenched that plan -- so, we're still waiting for a formal announcement.

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Google Play closing in on Apple's store with 700K apps, says Bloomberg originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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