Margaret Thatcher in hospital after operation

 Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the country's first woman elective leader, is in hospital recovering from surgery to remove a growth on her bladder, a source close to the family said on Friday.
After experiencing pain in her bladder earlier in the week, he 87-year-old went to hospital where she underwent a minimally invasive operation, Tim Bell, a public relations executive who once served as image maker to Thatcher, said.
"The operation was completely satisfactory. She's now recovering in hospital and as soon as she's recovered she'll go home," Bell said.
Known as the "Iron Lady," Thatcher, who stepped down in 1990, embraced free market policies, challenged trade unions and privatised many state-owned companies during her 11 years in power, polarising British voters.
Britain's only woman prime minister, who led her country in a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982 and was close to the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was forced to step down by her own party.
Thatcher suffered a series of mild strokes in late 2001 and 2002, after which she cut back on public appearances and later cancelled her speaking schedule.
She was hospitalised in 2010 for tests relating to a flu illness.
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British retailers start online sales early

 British retailers have brought forward their Christmas clearance sales online in the hope that shoppers will log on to buy bargains and offset lackluster spending in stores.
Marks & Spencer launched its sale online at midday on Monday, it said on its website, while department store John Lewis said it would cut online prices when its stores close at 1700 GMT. Debenhams has already started its online sale.
Retailers in recent years have started sales online on Christmas Day, ahead of the clearances in stores from Boxing Day, but are increasingly launching their online offers before Christmas after delivery deadlines for the day have passed.
Hard-pressed shoppers have been leaving it later to buy presents in the hope that retailers would slash prices, the British Retail Consortium said.
It was forecasting that 5 billion pounds ($8.1 billion) would be spent in the shops on Saturday and Sunday combined, the last weekend before Christmas.
Richard Dodd, the BRC's head of Media and Campaigns, said weekend trading had met expectations.
"Christmas, ultimately once all the final sums are done, will turn out to be acceptable but not exceptional," he said.
He said the sector expected a modest increase in cash spending against a year go, but not necessarily any significant increase in real terms once inflation was stripped out.
Many British families' budgets are stretched, according to a survey from Markit that showed the biggest deterioration in household finances for seven months.
Analyst Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight said the weakening in household finances could not come at a worse time for retailers, and it highlighted why many people appeared to have been careful in their Christmas shopping this year.
"The suspicion has to be that consumers will be especially keen to take advantage of genuine major bargains in the sales to acquire items that they cannot otherwise afford or are reluctant to make at the moment," he said.
"However, we suspect that people will likely to be more careful in buying - or reluctant to buy - items that they don't really want or need in the sales."
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China may require real name registration for internet access

BEIJING (Reuters) - China may require internet users to register with their real names when signing up to network providers, state media said on Tuesday, extending a policy already in force with microblogs in a bid to curb what officials call rumors and vulgarity.
A law being discussed this week would mean people would have to present their government-issued identity cards when signing contracts for fixed line and mobile internet access, state-run newspapers said.
"The law should escort the development of the internet to protect people's interest," Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily said in a front page commentary, echoing similar calls carried in state media over the past week.
"Only that way can our internet be healthier, more cultured and safer."
Many users say the restrictions are clearly aimed at further muzzling the often scathing, raucous - and perhaps most significantly, anonymous - online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for open debate.
It could also prevent people from exposing corruption online if they fear retribution from officials, said some users.
It was unclear how the rules would be different from existing regulations as state media has provided only vague details and in practice customers have long had to present identity papers when signing contracts with internet providers.
Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina Corp's wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.
The government says such a system is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online and that many other countries already have such rules.
"It would also be the biggest step backwards since 1989," wrote one indignant Weibo user, in apparent reference to the 1989 pro-democracy protests bloodily suppressed by the army.
Chinese internet users have long had to cope with extensive censorship, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.
Despite periodic calls for political reform, the ruling Communist Party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.
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Tajikistan blocks scores of websites as election looms

 Tajikistan blocked access to more than 100 websites on Tuesday, in what a government source said was a dress rehearsal for a crackdown on online dissent before next year's election when President Imomali Rakhmon will again run for office.
Rakhmon, a 60-year-old former head of a Soviet cotton farm, has ruled the impoverished Central Asian nation of 7.5 million for 20 years. He has overseen constitutional amendments that allow him to seek a new seven-year term in November 2013.
The Internet remains the main platform where Tajiks can air grievances and criticize government policies at a time when the circulation of local newspapers is tiny and television is tightly controlled by the state.
Tajikistan's state communications service blocked 131 local and foreign Internet sites "for technical and maintenance works".
"Most probably, these works will be over in a week," Tatyana Kholmurodova, deputy head of the service, told Reuters. She declined to give the reason for the work, which cover even some sites with servers located abroad.
The blocked resources included Russia's popular social networking sites www.my.mail.ru and VKontakte (www.vk.com), as well as Tajik news site TJKnews.com and several local blogs.
"The government has ordered the communications service to test their ability to block dozens of sites at once, should such a need arise," a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"It is all about November 2013," he said, in a clear reference to the presidential election.
Other blocked websites included a Ukrainian soccer site, a Tajik rap music site, several local video-sharing sites and a pornography site.
VOLATILE NATION
Predominantly Muslim Tajikistan, which lies on a major transit route for Afghan drugs to Europe and Russia, remains volatile after a 1992-97 civil war in which Rakhmon's Moscow-backed secular government clashed with Islamist guerrillas.
Rakhmon justifies his authoritarian methods by saying he wants to oppose radical Islam. But some of his critics argue repression and poverty push many young Tajiks to embrace it.
Tighter Internet controls echo measures taken by other former Soviet republics of Central Asia, where authoritarian rulers are wary of the role social media played in revolutions in the Arab world and mass protests in Russia.
The government this year set up a volunteer-run body to monitor Internet use and reprimand those who openly criticize Rakhmon and other officials.
In November, Tajikistan blocked access to Facebook, saying it was spreading "mud and slander" about its veteran leader.
The authorities unblocked Facebook after concern was expressed by the United States and European Union, the main providers of humanitarian aid for Tajikistan, where almost a half of the population lives in abject poverty.
Asomiddin Asoyev, head of Tajikistan's association of Internet providers, said authorities were trying to create an illusion that there were no problems in Tajik society by silencing online criticism.
"This is self-deception," he told Reuters. "The best way of resolving a problem is its open discussion with civil society."
Moscow-based Central Asia expert Arkady Dubnov told Reuters that Rakhmon's authoritarian measures could lead to a backlash against the president in the election. "Trying to position itself as the main guarantor of stability through repression against Islamist activists, the Dushanbe government is actually achieving the reverse - people's trust in it is falling," he said.
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Netflix suffers Christmas Eve outage, points to Amazon

An outage at one of Amazon's web service centers hit users of Netflix Inc.'s streaming video service on Christmas Eve and was not fully resolved until Christmas day, a spokesman for the movie rental company said on Tuesday.
The outage impacted Netflix subscribers across Canada, Latin America and the United States, and affected various devices that enable users to stream movies and television shows from home, Netflix spokesman Joris Evers said. Such devices range from gaming consoles such as Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 to Blu-ray players.
Evers said that the issue was the result of an outage at an Amazon Web Services' cloud computing center in Virginia, and started at about 12:30 p.m. PST (2030 GMT) on Monday and was fully restored Tuesday morning, although streaming was available for most users late on Monday.
"We are investigating exactly what happened and how it could have been prevented," Evers said.
"We are happy that people opening gifts of Netflix or Netflix capable devices can watch TV shows and movies and apologize for any inconvenience caused last night," he added.
An outage at Amazon Web Services, or AWS, knocked out such sites as Reddit and Foursquare in April of last year.
Amazon Web Services was not immediately available for comment. Evers, the Netflix spokesman, declined to comment on the company's contracts with Amazon.
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Netflix blames Amazon for Christmas Eve outage

 An outage at one of Amazon's web service centers hit users of Netflix Inc's streaming video service on Christmas Eve and was not fully resolved until Christmas Day, a spokesman for the movie rental company said on Tuesday.
The outage impacted Netflix subscribers across Canada, Latin America and the United States, and affected various devices that enable users to stream movies and television shows from home, Netflix spokesman Joris Evers said. Such devices range from gaming consoles like the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 to Blu-ray DVD players.
Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, California, has 30 million streaming subscribers worldwide, of which more than 27 million are in the Americas region that was exposed to the outage and could have potentially been affected, Evers said.
Evers said the issue was the result of an outage at an Amazon Web Services' cloud computing center in Virginia and started at about 12:30 p.m. PST (2030 GMT) on Monday and was fully restored before 8:00 a.m. PST Tuesday morning, although streaming was available for most users by 11:00 p.m. PST on Monday.
The event marks the latest in a series of outages from Amazon Web Services, with one occurring in April of last year that knocked out such sites as Reddit and Foursquare.
"We are investigating exactly what happened and how it could have been prevented," Evers of Netflix said.
"We are happy that people opening gifts of Netflix or Netflix capable devices can watch TV shows and movies and apologize for any inconvenience caused last night," he added.
Officials at Amazon Web Services were not available for comment. Evers, the Netflix spokesman, declined to comment on the company's contracts with Amazon.
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Census: US population growth rising slowly

After two centuries of boom and bust, America's population growth may finally be leveling off.
In all, the U.S. population is now increasing a bit faster, thanks to an improving economy, but not enough to lift growth above its lowest level since the Great Depression.
The nation is getting older and is less likely than before to be married, with women waiting longer to have children, if at all. Immigration from other countries is on an upswing after years of sharp declines during the recession but may never return to the peak level it reached in the early 2000s.
New 2012 estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau offer the latest snapshot of the U.S. population, showing signs of revival and change in pockets of the U.S., especially in Sun Belt states hard hit during the recent recession.
"After decades of wars, a depression, immigration surges, baby booms, boomlets and busts, we are entering a new era of modest growth," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution who analyzed the numbers. "This is a result of our aging population, lower fertility rates and immigration levels that will probably not produce sharp population spikes."
As a whole, the U.S. population grew by 2.3 million, reaching 313.9 million people. That growth rate of 0.75 percent was higher than the 0.73 percent rate in 2011, ending five years of slowing growth rates. Nevertheless, the rate of growth remains stuck at historically low levels not seen since 1937, restrained by reduced childbirths.
Over the last year, the economy has shown improvement, with the unemployment rate declining modestly and U.S. migration edging up after hitting a record low in 2011. As a result, states including Texas, North Dakota, Colorado, Oregon and Virginia posted population growth increases as many young adults moved out from their parents' homes, seeking to test the job market in areas with thriving economies in energy or technology.
Still, the nation continues to get older, due to aging baby boomers and fewer people in their child-bearing years. Newly released census projections now show that U.S. growth may have largely peaked, barring a significant and sustained increase in new immigrants. The numbers put U.S. growth in the next year or two at just under 0.8 percent, before flattening and gradually falling to rates of about half a percent, a level unseen in more than a century.
U.S. growth reached a high in 1950 of more than 2 percent, lifted by the post-World War II baby boom.
Immigration to the U.S. was on the uptick in 2012 after falling significantly during the downturn, although it remained far from the level seen during the mid-2000 housing boom. Congress is expected to debate an overhaul of immigration law next year.
"We will now need to cope with population challenges that past growth has left us — notably, the needs of a large aging baby boom population which will require resources for its medical care, and the social and economic integration of first- and second-generation immigrants," Frey said.
The Census Bureau released state population estimates as of July 1, 2012. The data show annual changes through births, deaths, and domestic and foreign migration.
The data suggest that the impact of the recession on formerly fast-growing Sun Belt states may be waning. Nevada had more residents move into the state this year after suffering migration losses in previous years. Arizona and Florida, two other housing boom-and-bust states, also showed renewed migration gains after seeing their growth drop off sharply at the end of the last decade.
In all, 26 states grew faster this year compared to the previous year, of which 19 are in the South and West region.
"These gains remain far smaller than those each state experienced during the economic boom, but reflect considerable improvement over the situation at the depths of the recession," said Kenneth Johnson, a sociologist and senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, referring specifically to Arizona, Nevada and Florida.
In contrast, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey saw more residents move away compared to the previous year.
North Dakota grew faster than any state in the nation, climbing by 2.2 percent from July 2011 to July of this year. The District of Columbia was next-fastest growing, followed by Texas, Wyoming and Utah.
Two states lost population: Rhode Island and Vermont.
Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, said if the 2010 census had been held this year, Minnesota would have lost a seat in the House of Representatives and North Carolina would have picked up one due to the shifting population figures. Based on continuing losses, Rhode Island is now on track to lose one of its two seats with just 33,000 people to spare — potentially to the gain of Oregon, which is about 59,000 people away from gaining a sixth seat.
California remained the most populous state, followed by Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois.
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Woman sentenced to 1 year for export violations

A judge has sentenced a woman to one year in prison for conspiring to ship material to Pakistan for a nuclear reactor.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on Thursday also ordered Xun Wang to pay a $100,000 fine and perform 500 hours of community service.
Wang, a former managing director of PPG Paints Trading Co. of Shanghai, admitted helping send three shipments of high-performance epoxy coatings from the U.S. to Pakistan through China without the required export license.
She pleaded guilty in November 2011. As part of the plea, Wang agreed to cooperate with the government's investigation.
The Justice Department says her cooperation led to this month's guilty plea by the China Nuclear Industry Huaxing (Wa-ZING) Construction Co. for conspiring to violate nuclear export restrictions on Pakistan.
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Assange addresses supporters at Ecuadorean Embassy

 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange emerged for a rare public address Thursday, praising jailed U.S. soldier Bradley Manning in an address delivered from the balcony of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
Addressing supporters on a cold and wet English evening, the 41-year-old Australian looked fit and healthy despite half a year spent in trapped inside the small apartment he shares with Ecuador's diplomatic staff.
He gave no hint that he would end the standoff, which has seen him spend six months as a fugitive from European justice, saying he was holed up at the embassy for fear of the U.S. investigation into his activities.
"While this immoral investigation continues, and while the Australian government will not defend the journalism and publishing of WikiLeaks, I must remain here," he said.
While the U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into WikiLeaks' spectacular disclosures of U.S. secrets, Assange is currently wanted by police over allegations of sexual assault stemming from a trip to Sweden in mid-2010.
Many WikiLeaks supporters have suggested that the allegations are a ploy to extradite Assange, first to Sweden and then to the U.S. The Swedish government and Assange's alleged victims deny it, saying they are simply seeking justice.
Assange's address name-checked a series of jailed figures, including Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab and alleged Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond. But the biggest cheers came when he praised Bradley Manning, the alleged source of WikiLeaks' most earth-shaking revelations.
He said the 25-year-old "has maintained his dignity after spending more than 10 percent of his life in jail, some of that time in a cage, naked and without his glasses."
Manning, who was arrested in 2010, currently faces trial on 22 charges, including aiding the enemy. Testimony in pre-trial hearings has recently focused on the conditions under which he was detained — including times at which he was forced to strip naked and at least one incident in which he says he was made to stand at attention while nude.
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Judge allows evidence against man in GPS case

A federal judge is allowing prosecutors to use evidence in a drug conspiracy conviction that had been overturned because police used a global positioning system without a warrant.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle in Washington said in a ruling Thursday that Antoine Jones had not established that police would not have discovered the house in Fort Washington, Md., allegedly used to stash money and drugs but for the GPS. She ruled that, "to the contrary," police had identified the property as a likely "stash house" before the GPS was attached to his car.
In 2010, an appeals court reversed Jones' conviction because police used the GPS to track him. The Supreme Court affirmed, agreeing to bar police from installing GPS technology to track suspects without getting a judge's approval.
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