Cuban dissident blogger met by small protests in Brazil

RECIFE, Brazil (Reuters) – Cuba‘s best-known dissident, blogger Yoani Sanchez, was greeted on Monday by a small group of protesters calling her a CIA agent upon arriving in Brazil, the first stop on a whirlwind tour that will take her to a dozen countries.

A smiling Sanchez brushed off the student demonstrators who sympathize with Cuba’s communist government, saying she wished Cubans had the same freedom to protest back home. Sanchez’s arrival in Brazil kicked off her first trip abroad since the Cuban government finally granted her a passport after more than 20 refusals in the past five years.

The protesters, about eight leftist students from a local university, shouted “Sell out” and “CIA agent” as Sanchez arrived in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife, according to a Reuters photographer who was at the airport.

“Viva la democracia! I want that democracy for my country too,” she responded.

The Cuban government labels dissidents as mercenaries on the payroll of the United States, its decades-old ideological foe. Sanchez, a 37-year-old Havana resident, has incurred the wrath of Cuba’s government for constantly criticizing its communist system in her “Generation Y” blog, www.desdecuba.com/generaciony, and using Twitter to denounce repression.

Sanchez, who was starting an 80-day tour, was granted a passport two weeks ago under Cuba’s sweeping immigration reform that went into effect this year. She has won several international prizes for her blogging about life in Cuba but has been unable to collect them until now.

“I am so happy. It has been five years of struggle,” Sanchez told local media.

“Unfortunately, in Cuba you are punished for thinking differently. Opinions against the government have terrible consequences, arbitrary arrests, surveillance,” she said in an interview with GloboNews television.

Sanchez’s visit touched a political nerve in Brazil, where the left-leaning government of President Dilma Rousseff is often criticized for not taking a more critical stance with Cuba’s one-party system and the repression of political dissent there.

According to local news magazine Veja, Cuban diplomats recently met with militants from Brazil’s ruling Workers’ Party in Brasilia and asked them to organize protests against Sanchez during her stay in the South American country. One junior official in the Rousseff administration was present at the meeting, Veja said.

The report prompted some opposition legislators in Congress to accuse the Rousseff government of tacitly endorsing a Cuban-led smear campaign against Sanchez. One senator, Alvaro Dias, said he would demand that the government formally explain its role in what he called the “unacceptable monitoring” of Sanchez.

In the interview with GloboNews, Sanchez said recent reforms undertaken by President Raul Castro have been positive but minimal, such as the lifting of bans that prevented Cubans from buying new cars and other goods.

“There is a difference between the reforms we dream of and the reforms that are being carried out,” she said. “We dream of freedom of association, freedom of expression, but it does not look like we will get this too soon.”

Sanchez, considered Cuba’s pioneer in social networking, told Reuters earlier this week in Havana that she planned to travel to Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, and visit the headquarters of Google, Twitter and Facebook in the United States.

(This story has been refiled to fix a typo in the first word.)

(Reporting by Helia Scheppa; Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Todd Benson and Sandra Maler)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Cuban dissident blogger met by small protests in Brazil
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/cuban-dissident-blogger-met-by-small-protests-in-brazil/
Link To Post : Cuban dissident blogger met by small protests in Brazil
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Danica Patrick Makes History as First Woman to Win Daytona 500 Pole Slot

By Andrea Billups

02/18/2013 at 11:30 AM EST

Danica Patrick made racing history on Sunday, becoming the first woman to win the coveted pole position for this year's Daytona 500 in just her second season of racing NASCAR after years as an IndyCar driver.

"I was brought up to be the fastest driver, not the fastest girl," Patrick, 30, told CBS News. "That was instilled in my from very young, from the beginning.

"I've been lucky in my career to be with good teams and have good people around me," Patrick said. "I don't think any of it would have been possible without that."

Patrick started in eighth position in qualifying rounds on Sunday, clocking her fastest lap at 196.434 mph in her No. 10 Chevrolet SS stock car at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida. Two hours and 37 other competitive drivers later, her time put her on top, letting her start the famed race, set for Feb. 24, in the most-coveted position.

Patrick posted photos of her Pole Award on her Facebook page. She crashed last year in her first Daytona 500 try.

Previously, the photogenic Patrick, who has modeled and directed TV ads, became the first woman to win an IndyCar race, when she led the pack in 2008 in Japan.

Her personal life faced scrutiny last year when she announced her split from husband Paul Hospenthal, 47, a physical therapist and personal training expert for golfers. The couple had been married for seven years.

Read More..

Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior

SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.

The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.

"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.

The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.

Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.

At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.

By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.

"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.

The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.

Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.

Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.

"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.

Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.

During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.

Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.

"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.

____

Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

___

Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship

Read More..

Yen resumes fall after G20, U.S. holiday thins trade

LONDON (Reuters) - The yen resumed falling on Monday after Japan signaled it would push ahead with expansionist monetary policies having escaped criticism from the world's 20 biggest economies at the weekend.

Industrial metals also dipped and European shares were soft on lingering worries about the economic outlook, especially for the euro zone. While the risk of an inconclusive outcome in Italy's forthcoming election added to investor concerns.

However, activity was curtailed by the closure of markets in the United States for the Presidents' Day holiday.

The yen, which has dropped 20 percent against the dollar since mid-November, fell further after financial leaders from the G20 promised not to devalue their currencies to boost exports and avoided singling out Japan for any direct criticism.

The dollar rose 0.5 percent to 93.95 yen, near a 33-month peak of 94.47 yen set a week ago. The euro added 0.3 percent to 125.40 yen, to be midway between Friday's two-week low of 122.90 and a 34-month high of 127.71 yen hit earlier this month.

Strategists said the yen was likely to stay weak, though its decline could lose momentum until it becomes clear who will be taking the helm at the Bank of Japan when the current governor steps down on March 19.

"The yen probably will weaken a little further in anticipation of more aggressive easing under a new leadership team at the Bank of Japan," said Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is poised to nominate the new governor in the next few days. Sources have told Reuters that former financial bureaucrat Toshiro Muto, considered likely to be less radical than other candidates, was leading the field.

Meanwhile the euro dipped slightly against the dollar when European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said the currency's recent gains made any rise in inflation less likely and added that he had yet to see any improvement in the euro zone economy.

Speaking before the European Parliament, Draghi said the euro's exchange rate was not a policy target but was important for growth and stability, adding that appreciation of the euro "is a risk".

The comments left the euro down 0.2 percent at $1.3334.

Elsewhere in the currency market, sterling hit a seven-month low against the dollar, after a key policymaker made comments about the need for further weakness and recent poor data which has kept alive worries of another British recession.

Sterling fell 0.25 percent to $1.5476 having earlier touched $1.5438, its lowest since July 13.

DATA LOOMS

A big week for data on the outlook for the world's economy weighed on other riskier asset markets following the recent dire fourth-quarter growth numbers for the euro zone and Japan, along with Friday's soft U.S. manufacturing figures.

In European markets, attention is focused on the euro area Purchasing Managers' Indexes for February and German sentiment indices due later in the week which could affect hopes for a recovery this year.

Analysts expect Thursday's euro area flash PMI indices, which offer pointers to economic activity around six months out, to show growth stabilizing across the recession-hit region, leaving intact hopes for a recovery in the second half of 2013.

Concerns over an inconclusive outcome in the Italian election on Sunday and Monday have added to the weaker sentiment as a fragmented parliament could hamper a future government's efforts to reform the struggling economy.

The worries about the outlook for Italy were encouraging investors back into safe-haven German government bonds on Monday, with 10-year Bund yields easing 3.5 basis points to be around 1.63 percent.

"Political uncertainty will keep Bunds well bid this week," ING rate strategist Alessandro Giansanti said, adding that only better than expected economic data could create selling pressure on German debt in the near term.

Italian 10-year yields were 4 basis points higher on the day at 4.41 percent.

EARNINGS HIT

European equity markets were taking their lead from corporate earnings reports which have been reflecting the sluggish economic conditions across the region.

Danish brewer Carlsberg , which generates just over 60 percent of its sales in western Europe, became the latest to report a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit, sending its shares to their lowest level in almost a month.

The 5.8-percent drop for shares in the world's fourth biggest brewery helped send the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares down 0.2 percent. Germany's DAX <.gdaxi>, France's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Britain's FTSE-100 <.ftse> ranged between 0.4 percent up and 0.15 percent lower.

Earlier, the G20 statement and subsequent comment from Prime Minster Abe indicating a renewed drive to stimulate the Japanese economy lifted the Nikkei stock index <.n225> by 2.1 percent, near to its highest level since September 2008.

MSCI's world equity index <.miwd00000pus> was flat as markets extended a two-week period of consolidation that has followed the big run-up in January, when demand was buoyed by the efforts of central banks to stimulate the world economy.

Data from EPFR Global, a U.S.-based firm that tracks the flows and allocations of funds globally, shows investors pulled $3.62 billion from U.S. stock funds in the latest week, the most in 10 weeks after taking a neutral stance the prior week.

But demand for emerging market equities remained strong, with investors putting $1.81 billion in new cash into stock funds, the fund-tracking firm said.

CHINA RETURN

In the commodity markets, traders played catch-up after a week-long holiday last week in China, the world's second biggest consumer of many raw materials, which had kept activity subdued, with worries about the economic outlook weighing on sentiment.

Copper, for which China is the world's largest consumer, dipped to a near three-week low at $8,125.25 a metric ton (1.1023 tons) on the London futures market. Benchmark tin and nickel also touched three-week lows.

Gold managed to edge away from six-month lows as jewelers in China returned to the physical market after the Lunar New Year holiday but a lack of demand from U.S. markets saw the precious metal slip back to be down 0.1 percent to $1,607.06 an ounce.

Crude oil markets were mostly steady after the weak U.S. industrial production data on Friday [ID:nL1N0BF44A] was seen dampening demand, while tensions in the Middle East lent some support.

"We continue to see a mixed picture out of the United States. Industry output was lower than expected but that shouldn't affect the general upward direction," Olivier Jakob, analyst at Geneva-based Petromatrix, said.

Brent crude was down 20 cents at $117.46 a barrel after posting its first weekly loss since the first half of January. U.S. crude slipped 24 cents to $95.62.

(Additional reporting by Marius Zaharia and Ron Bousso; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald)

Read More..

Time to refer Syrian war crimes to ICC, U.N. inquiry says

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations investigators said on Monday that Syrian leaders they had identified as suspected war criminals should face the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The investigators urged the U.N. Security Council to "act urgently to ensure accountability" for violations, including murder and torture, committed by both sides in a conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 people since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began in March, 2011.

"Now really it's time...We have a permanent court, the International Criminal Court, who would be ready to take this case," Carla del Ponte, a former ICC chief prosecutor who joined the U.N. team in September, told a news briefing in Geneva.

The inquiry, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, is tracing the chain of command to establish criminal responsibility and build a case for eventual prosecution.

"Of course we were able to identify high-level perpetrators," del Ponte said, adding that these were people "in command responsibility...deciding, organizing, planning and aiding and abetting the commission of crimes".

She said it was urgent for the Hague-based war crimes tribunal to take up cases of "very high officials", but did not identify them, in line with the inquiry's practice.

"We have crimes committed against children, rape and sexual violence. We have grave concerns. That is also one reason why an international body of justice must act because it is terrible."

Del Ponte, who brought former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the ICC on war crimes charges, said the ICC prosecutor would need to deepen the investigation on Syria before an indictment could be prepared.

Pinheiro, noting that only the Security Council could refer Syria's case to the ICC, said: "We are in very close dialogue with all the five permanent members and with all the members of the Security Council, but we don't have the key that will open the path to cooperation inside the Security Council."

Karen Koning AbuZayd, an American member of the U.N. team, told Reuters it had information pointing to "people who have given instructions and are responsible for government policy, people who are in the leadership of the military, for example".

The inquiry's third list of suspects, building on lists drawn up in the past year, remains secret. It will be entrusted to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, upon expiry of its mandate at the end of March, the report said.

Pillay, a former ICC judge, said on Saturday Assad should be probed for war crimes, and called for outside action on Syria, including possible military intervention.

Pinheiro said the investigators would not speak publicly about "numbers, names or levels" of suspects, adding that it was vital to pursue accountability for international crimes "to counter the pervasive sense of impunity" in Syria.

SEVEN MASSACRES IDENTIFIED

The investigators' latest report, covering the six months to mid-January, was based on 445 interviews conducted abroad with victims and witnesses, as they have not been allowed into Syria.

"We identified seven massacres during the period, five on the government side, two on the armed opponents side. We need to enter the sites to be able to confirm elements of proof that we have," del Ponte said.

"For example, in the attack on the university of Aleppo, there is information that it came from the government side and from the rebel side. If we had been able to enter and examine the site and carry out a scientific investigation, we would have a definitive answer," she said.

The U.N. report said the ICC was the appropriate institution for the fight against impunity in Syria. "As an established, broadly supported structure, it could immediately initiate investigations against authors of serious crimes in Syria."

Government forces have carried out shelling and air strikes across Syria including Aleppo, Damascus, Deraa, Homs and Idlib, the 131-page report said, citing corroborating satellite images.

"In some incidents, such as in the assault on Harak, indiscriminate shelling was followed by ground operations during which government forces perpetrated mass killing," it said, referring to a town in the southern province of Deraa where residents told them that 500 civilians were killed in August.

"Government forces and affiliated militias have committed extra-judicial executions, breaching international human rights law. This conduct also constitutes the war crime of murder. Where murder was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, with knowledge of that attack, it is a crime against humanity," the U.N. report said.

Those forces have targeted bakery queues and funeral processions to spread "terror among the civilian population".

Rebels fighting to topple Assad have also committed war crimes including murder, torture, hostage-taking and using children under age 15 in hostilities, the U.N. report said.

"They continue to endanger the civilian population by positioning military objectives inside civilian areas" and rebel snipers had caused "considerable civilian casualties", it said.

"The violations and abuses committed by anti-government armed groups did not, however, reach the intensity and scale of those committed by government forces and affiliated militia."

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Read More..

Cuban dissident blogger prepares “victory” tour

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba‘s best-known dissident, blogger Yoani Sanchez, says she plans to make good use of “my victory” when she leaves on an 80-day-tour of more than a dozen countries on Sunday.

Sanchez, under Cuba’s sweeping migration reform that went into effect this year, was given her passport two weeks ago, after being denied permission to travel more than 20 times over the past five years.

Sanchez, considered Cuba’s pioneer in social networking, told Reuters on Thursday that she would visit the headquarters of Google, Twitter and Facebook, and travel to Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, the United States, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and other nations.

“This is a victory after fighting five years for my right to travel, using patience, energy, legal and journalistic tools, and most of all the solidarity of many people,” she said, as she left her home Thursday morning to pick up a visa at a local embassy.

“I feel like a runner who has run the 110 meter hurdle. Tired, exhausted but happy to have met the challenge,” she added.

Sanchez, a 37-year-old Havana resident, has earned the wrath of Cuba’s communist government for constantly criticizing the system in her “Generation Y” blog, and using Twitter to denounce repression.

Sanchez, one of the world’s best known bloggers, has tens of thousands of followers abroad, but few in Cuba where the Internet is severely restricted by the government.

Her blog is named after the penchant of Cuban parents during the Cold War era of Soviet backing for the island to choose names for their children starting with “Y,” in a nod to the many popular Russian names starting with that letter.

Cuba’s leaders consider dissidents traitorous mercenaries in the employ of the United States and other enemies, and official bloggers regularly charge Sanchez’s international renown has been stage-managed by western intelligence services.

Sanchez, who has won a number of international prizes for her blog but was denied permission to collect them, said she would now do so during her travels.

‘VARIOUS OBJECTIVES’

“I have various objectives. I am going to give conferences at various universities, present my book (a collection of her blogs), receive the prizes I wasn’t given permission to collect before and meet my readers, many of whom have followed me for six years,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez’ case is viewed as a test of the Cuban government‘s commitment to free travel under reforms that require only a passport, renewed every two years, to leave the country.

Other leading dissidents have also received passports, though two less well known government opponents, Angel Moya and Gisela Delgado, have been denied.

The old travel law was put in place in 1961 to slow the flight of Cubans after the island’s 1959 revolution.

The new law got rid of the much-hated need to obtain an exit visa and loosened other restrictions that had discouraged Cubans from leaving.

It was one of the wide-ranging reforms President Raul Castro has enacted since he succeeded his older brother, Fidel Castro, in 2008.

There are still travel restrictions, mainly for reasons of national security and for those with pending legal cases, which may affect a number of dissidents like Moya, who is on parole after being jailed in a 2003 crackdown on dissent.

“It’s sweet-and-sour news. Yoani will travel to Mexico, Spain, Germany, and visit New York and Washington, DC., and that’s ‘sweet’ for Cubans everywhere. But, as with most things emanating from official Cuba, it’s also ‘sour,’” said Marifeli Pérez-Stable, Interim Director at Florida International University’s Latin American and Caribbean Center in Miami.

“That she was given a passport and others have been denied underscores the arbitrariness of the migration reform,” she added.

Sanchez said the travel reform fell short of “granting to anyone born on this island the inherent right to come and go,” but nevertheless was a step forward that will have an “incalculable political and social impact,” including for the government.

“In a way I am the flag bearer of this new era that’s beginning, where civil society is going to have access to international spaces and an international microphone and return with more information, knowledge and contacts,” Sanchez said.

(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by David Adams and Vicki Allen)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Cuban dissident blogger prepares “victory” tour
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/cuban-dissident-blogger-prepares-victory-tour/
Link To Post : Cuban dissident blogger prepares “victory” tour
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Katy Perry Gets a Heart-Shaped Ring from John Mayer

02/17/2013 at 11:45 AM EST

Katy Perry and John Mayer on Feb. 14 with her ring (inset)

David Tonnessen/Pacific Coast News

John Mayer put a ring on Katy Perry's finger – just not the kind you might expect.

After the couple was photographed leaving Vincenti, an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles, on Valentine's Day, Perry was spotted wearing a ruby on her ring finger, leaving many to ask if Mayer, 35, had popped the question.

Although Perry, 28, is beaming in the photo, a source tells PEOPLE the couple is "not engaged."

While the one-of-a-kind ring was created by Daniel Gibbings, a Santa Barbara based jeweler and designer, it may have nothing more than a Valentine's Day gift that a rep for Gibbings says the singer-songwriter selected himself.

Mayer was "really super nice" while shopping for his girlfriend, the rep adds.

But as for speculation over whether the heart-shaped ring could be seen as a possible engagement ring, the rep says that while it's not a traditional design, "it can be."

"[Gibbings] uses a lot of texture. The style of his engagement rings are not the usual Neil Lane looking ring. They are definitely more trendy or boho," the rep adds.

• With reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA & JESSICA HERNDON

Read More..

UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.

Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.

He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.

Read More..

Florida hit by "tsunami" of tax identity fraud

MIAMI (Reuters) - Bruce Parton was only a few weeks from retirement after 30 years as a mail carrier in sunny Florida.

He never lived to fulfill his retirement plan of moving back to a quiet life in the Catskill mountains of New York, not far from where he grew up on Long Island.

Instead, he was gunned down on his daily mail route in December 2010 by members of an identity theft ring who stole his master key as part of a scheme to claim fraudulent tax refunds.

Using stolen names and Social Security numbers, criminals are filing phony electronic tax forms to claim refunds, exploiting a slow-moving federal bureaucracy to collect the money before victims, or the Internal Revenue Service, discover the fraud.

Parton was a victim of what officials say has ballooned into a massive, and dangerous, illegal industry that could cost the nation $21 billion over the next five years, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

While that is a relatively small sum compared to the $1.1 trillion collected from individual tax payers in the last fiscal year, the crime has been growing by leaps and bounds in the last three years.

"We are on the top of a national trend that is causing a hemorrhage of tax dollars," said Wifredo Ferrer, United States Attorney for south Florida. "It's a tsunami of fraud."

While the IRS says it has detected cases in every state except North Dakota and West Virginia, the fraud's epicenter is Florida, and it is mostly concentrated in Miami and Tampa.

Miami has 46 times the per-capita rate of false tax refund claims than the rest of the country, and 70 times the national average in dollar terms, Ferrer told Reuters.

"For whatever reason, we always tend to lead the nation when it comes to fraud," he said, noting that his office has been battling massive Medicare fraud in recent years that has since spread to other parts of the country.

Florida's high proportion of older residents, who can be more vulnerable to fraud, may be one reason for the high levels of fraud in the state.

Nationwide, the number of cases of tax identity theft detected by authorities sky-rocketed to more than 1.2 million cases in 2012 from only 48,000 in 2008, according to the Treasury Department.

The real number of phony tax filings is likely much higher as the fraud is hard to track, according to a November General Accountability Office report.

GANG LINKS

The tax ID theft problem is particularly troubling as, unlike Medicare fraud, it is associated with violent crime and armed gangs.

Tampa police first detected it in 2010 when officers discovered wanted street criminals engaged in tax fraud. "They were holed up in hotels with laptops churning out tax claims," said congresswoman Kathy Castor, who represents the area and is pressing the IRS to get tougher on the fraud.

When agents raided a Howard Johnson in East Tampa in late 2010, they found suspects smoking marijuana and four laptop computers being used to file fraudulent tax returns on Turbo Tax, the tax preparation software, according to police records.

The suspects had lists of personal information containing more than 1,000 names and confidential personal information, multiple re-loadable debit cards, and records of numerous financial transactions. The investigation revealed that the suspects had been camped out in the hotel room for more than a week filing claims.

Tax identity fraudsters are apparently drawn by the ease of the crime, officials say.

"The scheme is very basic, it works virtually the same in almost every case," said Ferrer. "All they need is your name and the tax ID number."

Armed with that information a refund claim can be filed electronically, making up other details on the form, including addresses, employer data, income and deductions.

Criminals obtain the vital numbers using various tactics, often by bribing office workers with access to personnel files inside companies, as well as large public institutions such as hospitals and schools, according to prosecutors.

Last summer a hacker stole 3.8 million unencrypted tax records from the South Carolina Department of Revenue in what is believed to be the largest security breach of a U.S. tax agency. Authorities say they do not know the hacker's motive.

One North Miami man, Rodney Saint Fleur, was charged last year with using the LexisNexis research service account at the law firm where he worked to access names and Social Security numbers of 26,000 people as part of an identity theft scheme, according to court documents.

Victims in Florida have varied from hospital patients, to Holocaust survivors at an elderly Jewish community center, as well as active duty military serving overseas.

In December, a former U.S. Marine from North Miami was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for stealing the identities of more than 40 fellow Marines stationed at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan as part of a plot to claim $54,000 in fraudulent income-tax refunds.

In Parton's case the criminals were after his master key that gives postal workers access to mail drop-off boxes and apartment mailboxes. He was shot twice in the chest by a gunman as part of a plot to steal identities in people's mail for tax refund fraud.

The gunman, Pikerson Mentor, 31, was sentenced last month to life plus 42 years.

More than 600 people turned up for Parton's funeral, including postal workers and people who got to know him on his route. "He had been doing that mail route for 10 years and he always had a smile for everyone," said his daughter, Nina Parton.

The criminals stay under the radar using identities of the elderly or the very young, who are unlikely to be filing for earned income, as well as the deceased. They typically claim small refunds, around $3,000, but use multiple identities, with payments often made to pre-paid debit cards.

FIGHTING BACK

The IRS said last week it is intensifying a crackdown on identify theft, with 3,000 agents devoted to tackling the problem, double the number assigned in 2011.

The number of IRS criminal investigations into identity theft more than tripled in the year to September 2012, and it was on pace to double again this year, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller told reporters.

The tax collection agency prevented $20 billion in attempted tax refund fraud in fiscal year 2012, up from $14 billion a year earlier, he said.

"It's one of the biggest challenges that faces the IRS today," Miller said. "We're doing much better on all fronts but we have much more to do."

Despite the increase in investigations, the agency still had a backlog of 300,000 cases of people waiting for legitimate refunds after they were victims of fraud. It takes an average of six months to resolve a case, Miller said.

"The IRS have put a lot of resources on it, but they always seem to be behind the curve," said Keith Fogg, a tax professor at Villanova University School of Law.

Electronic filing, which now accounts for 80 percent of returns and was introduced to speed up delivery of refunds, has made the system more vulnerable to fraud.

The IRS is seeking to speed up the loading of data from W-2 payroll forms issued at the beginning of the tax season, a time lapse which gives fraudsters a window of opportunity to file using false data.

The IRS is also looking for ways to authenticate the identity of tax filers at the time of filing to pre-empt fraud, as well as working with the Social Security Administration to limit access to a registry of social security data of deceased tax payers, the so-called "Death Master File", a frequent target of fraud.

"We will not be prosecuting our way out of this. That's not going to be the answer. We're going to have to make it more and more difficult for criminals to profit from this behavior," said Miller. "If they're not successful they will move onto something else."

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Claudia Parsons)

Read More..

Pope, near abdication, says pray "for me and next pope"

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict asked the faithful to pray for him and for the next pope, in his penultimate Sunday address to a crowded St. Peter's Square before becoming the first pontiff in centuries to resign.

The crowd chanted "Long live the pope!," waved banners and broke into sustained applause as he spoke from his window. The 85-year-old Benedict, who will abdicate on February 28, thanked them in several languages.

Speaking in Spanish, he told the crowd which the Vatican said numbered more than 50,000: "I beg you to continue praying for me and for the next pope".

It was not clear why the pope chose Spanish to make the only specific reference to his upcoming resignation in his Sunday address.

A number of cardinals have said they would be open to the possibility of a pope from the developing world, be it Latin America, Africa or Asia, as opposed to another from Europe, where the Church is crisis and polarized.

"I can imagine taking a step towards a black pope, an African pope or a Latin American pope," Cardinal Kurt Koch, a Swiss Vatican official who will enter the conclave to choose the next pope, told Reuters in an interview.

After his address, the pope retired into the Vatican's Apostolic Palace for a scheduled, week-long spiritual retreat and will not make any more public appearances until next Sunday.

Speaking in Italian in part of his address about Lent, the period when Christians reflect on their failings and seek guidance in prayer, the pope spoke of the difficulty of making important decisions.

"In decisive moments of life, or, on closer inspection, at every moment in life, we are at a crossroads: do we want to follow the ‘I', or God? The individual interest, or the real good, that which is really good?" he said.

FOR THE GOOD OF THE CHURCH

The pope has said his physical and spiritual forces are no longer strong enough to sustain him in the job of leading the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics at a time of crisis for the Church in a fast-changing world.

Benedict's papacy was rocked by crises over the sex abuse of children by priests in Europe and the United States, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it.

His reign also saw Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over his rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was convicted of leaking his private papers.

Since his shock announcement last Monday, the pope has said several times that he made the difficult decision to become the first pope in more than six centuries to resign for the good of the Church. Aides said he was at peace with himself.

"In a funny way he is even more peaceful now with this decision, unlike the rest of us, he is not somebody who gets choked up really easily," said Greg Burke, a senior media advisor to the Vatican.

"I think that has a lot to do with his spiritual life and who he is and the fact he is such a prayerful man," Burke told Reuters Television.

People in the crowd said the pope was a shadow of the man he was when elected on April 19, 2005.

"Like always, recently, he seemed tired, moved, perplexed, uncertain and insecure," said Stefan Malabar, an Italian in St. Peter's Square.

"It's something that really has an effect on you because the pope should be a strong and authoritative figure but instead he seems very weak, and that really struck me," he said.

The Vatican has said the conclave to choose his successor could start earlier than originally expected, giving the Roman Catholic Church a new leader by mid-March.

Some 117 cardinals under the age of 80 will be eligible to enter the secretive conclave which, according to Church rules, has to start between 15 and 20 days after the papacy becomes vacant, which it will on February 28.

But since the Church is now dealing with an announced resignation and not a sudden death, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Vatican would be "interpreting" the law to see if it could start earlier.

CONSULTATIONS BEGUN

Cardinals around the world have already begun informal consultations by phone and email to construct a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church in a period of continuing crisis.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

New details emerged at the weekend about Benedict's health.

Peter Seewald, a German journalist who wrote a book with the pope in 2010 in which Benedict first floated the possibility of resigning, visited him again about 10 weeks ago.

"His hearing had deteriorated. He couldn't see with his left eye. His body had become so thin that the tailors had difficulty in keeping up with newly fitted clothes ... I'd never seen him so exhausted-looking, so worn down," Seewald said.

The pope will say one more Sunday noon prayer on February 24 and hold a final general audience on February 27.

The next day he will take a helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, where he will stay for around two months before moving to a convent inside the Vatican where he will live out his remaining years.

(Additional reporting by Hanna Rantala; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Read More..