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Djokovic defeats Tsonga to win China Open

BEIJING: World number two Novak Djokovic overcame Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France in straight sets on Sunday to win the China Open for a third time.

The 25-year-old Serb defeated the world number seven 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 to maintain his unbeaten record at the ATP 500 tournament in Beijing and take the the winner's prize of $530,570.

Little separated the players throughout the entire opening set. The first four games went to serve before Tsonga made a breakthrough in the fifth game, breaking Djokovic without losing a point.

But the Serb immediately broke back and the next six games went with serve to force a tie break, where Djokovic raced to a 4-1 lead.

Tsonga won two quick points before Djokovic spurned an opportunity while 5-3 ahead, pushing a simple forehand shot well wide.

But two mistakes from the Frenchman, including a backhand half volley into the net, gave the tie break and set to Djokovic.

The first two service games of the second set were held before Djokovic broke in the third and was spurred on to take the next two games, racing to a 4-1 lead, then came from behind to hold serve in the sixth.

Tsonga held in the seventh before Djokovic did the same to take the set and the match in one hour and 41 minutes.

Djokovic has now won the China Open on the three occasions he has played, his previous titles coming in 2009 and 2010, and his record at the tournament stands at 14-0.

The Serb had won his previous five meetings against Tsonga, including three this year, and was ultimately too strong for the Frenchman, who was making his first China Open final appearance and only his third full match of this year's tournament.

Tsonga, making his fourth appearance at the China Open, started with a tough three-set win over Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin before receiving a walkover against Russia's Nikolay Davydenko.

He defeated Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-2 in the third round and won his semi-final match against Feliciano Lopez when the Spaniard, who was trailing 1-6, 1-4 at the time, retired with a wrist injury.

For his part Djokovic opened with a first-round three-set win against German qualifier Michael Berrer and followed it with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Carlos Berlocq of Argentina.

In the third round, the Serb dispatched Austria's Jurgen Melzer 6-1, 6-2 before defeating Florian Mayer of Germany in the semi-final 6-1, 6-4. -AFP

Published: Sunday October 7, 2012 MYT 6:26:00 PM
Updated: Sunday October 7, 2012 MYT 6:52:16 PM

WHO : Novak Djokovic

WHAT : overcame Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France

HOW : in straight sets

WHY : to win the China Open for a third time.

WHERE : Beijing, China

Element of Newsworthy : Timeliness

http://thestar.com.my/sports/story.asp?file=/2012/10/7/sports/20121007182621&sec=sports

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Rebels seize Syrian army outpost at Turkey border: witnesses

GUVECCI, Turkey (Reuters) - Syrian rebels have seized a government army outpost near the Turkish border province of Hatay and a rebel flag flew over the building on Sunday, while clashes could be heard in the area of a nearby Syrian village, a Reuters witness and villagers said.

The rebels took control of the three-storey white building, around 1 km (mile) from the border on a hill overlooking the Turkish village of Guvecci on Saturday, and raised the flag of the Free Syrian Army, villagers said.

"In the last four days there were heavy clashes going on here. We couldn't sleep. Yesterday morning, the Syrian army controlled this area. Now it is calmer," said villager Musa Sasak, 27.

Three mortar bombs fired from Syria landed near Guvecci village on Saturday, prompting a fourth day of retaliatory fire from Turkish forces. The Syrian mortar rounds hit empty land and there were no casualties.

The exchanges are the most serious cross-border violence in the Syrian conflict, which began as pro-democracy protests but has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones. They highlight how the crisis could destabilize the region.

Clashes could be heard on Sunday in the area of the Syrian village of Khirbet al-Joz, behind the hill where the military outpost was located. Smoke could be seen rising from the area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels seized control of Khirbet al-Joz and the land around it late on Saturday after a 12-hour battle.

The British-based group, which monitors the violence in Syria through a network of activists across the country, said at least 40 Syrian soldiers, including five officers, were killed. Nine rebels fighters also died, it said. That death toll could not be independently verified.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned Syria on Friday that Turkey would not shy away from war if provoked in the wake of artillery fire from Syrian forces which killed five Turkish civilians further east at Akcakale on Wednesday.

NATO member Turkey was once an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but turned against him after his violent response to an uprising in which, according to the United Nations, more than 30,000 people have died.

Turkey has nearly 100,000 Syrian refugees in camps on its territory, has allowed rebel leaders sanctuary and has led calls for Assad to quit. Its armed forces are far larger than Syria's.

By Hamdi Istanbullu | Reuters – 1 hr 18 mins ago

WHO : Syrian rebels

WHAT : have seized a government army outpost near the Turkish border province of Hatay and a rebel flag flew over the building on Sunday

WHY : clashes could be heard in the area of a nearby Syrian village

WHERE: Guvecci, Turkey

Element of Newsworthy : Conflict

http://news.yahoo.com/rebels-seize-syrian-army-outpost-turkey-border-witnesses-103753829.html

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F.B.I. Says Russians Smuggled Out U.S. Microchips

MOSCOW — Russian officials had a muted response on Thursday to a potentially embarrassing revelation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that it had uncovered a ring of Russian agents that was smuggling microchips out of the United States.

The scheme focused on chips and other electronic components that are commonplace enough in the United States to circulate freely in the domestic market. But their export still requires a license, lest the electronics wind up in the foreign military equipment of countries unable to manufacture the components themselves.

For Russia, the unraveling of this Houston-based network of chip buyers, if upheld in court, would signify a second major failure in spycraft since 2010, when federal agents arrested a circle of Russian agents posing as American suburbanites. Within weeks, members of that group — including a young woman, Anna Chapman — were traded for four men imprisoned in Russia.

The real blow to Russian scientific pride is the suggestion that the country’s military and intelligence agencies are still reduced to stealing commercially available chips from the United States, after years of failing to create a computer industry here.

The chips, which the F.B.I. said had been bought by a Houston company called Arc Electronics Inc. that falsely presented itself as a manufacturer of traffic lights, reportedly wound up in such vaunted Russian weapons as MIG fighter jets and anti-ship missiles.

The F.B.I. unsealed the indictment on Wednesday against 11 people, all from the former Soviet Union, some of them naturalized American citizens, including the man accused of being the ringleader Alexander Fishenko, co-owner of Arc Electronics, an electrical engineer from Kazakhstan who studied in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Eight are in custody; all are accused of various licensing and weapons trading violations punishable with long prison sentences of up to 20 years. Mr. Fishenko is also accused of being a Russian agent. Though the company was in Houston, the case will be heard in the Eastern District of New York because the group shipped microchips to Russia from Kennedy International Airport.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, took pains on Thursday to note that the defendants had not been accused of espionage, per se. The crime of failing to register as an agent of a foreign government can also apply, for example, to an improperly registered lawyer or lobbyist.

The charges “have no relation in any way with intelligence activity,” the Russian Information Agency reported, paraphrasing Mr. Ryabkov.

According to the F.B.I., the Russians posed as traffic-light makers — but not very well.

A sister company in Russia, Apex System, imported items from Arc Electronics. It was also partly owned by Mr. Fishenko and had pictures of airplanes and missiles on its Web site until the Russians got word of a pending check by the Department of Commerce, whereupon it took them down. In Russia, a subsidiary of Apex was licensed as a supplier to military industry factories, an exhibit filed with the indictment in the Eastern District showed.

The F.B.I. said employees of Arc once resorted to imploring their Russian-based counterparts to more cleverly falsify end-user certificates. They should indicate “fishing boats and not fishing/anti-submarine ones.”

The Russian inability to make microchips goes back decades and has sapped the confidence of generations of engineers here. In the late Soviet period it bared, dramatically, the ever-widening technological gap with the United States. Russians took to bragging darkly that Soviet microchips here were the biggest in the world.

The smuggled American chips, the F.B.I. said, could be used in missile guidance systems, radar, police surveillance equipment or bomb triggers.

“While some countries may leverage our technology for financial gain, many countries hostile to the United States seek to improve their defense capabilities and to modernize their weapons systems,” the Houston F.B.I. special agent in charge, Stephen L. Morris, said in a statement.

Through the day Thursday, Russian military companies came forward to deny that their products contained American chips, not to speak of those apparently first bought under the pretext they would be used in traffic lights.

One unnamed representative of the MIG fighter airplane company told the Russian Information Agency that there were no American chips in its latest, ostensibly high-tech airplane, the MIG-35. “We certainly don’t steal anything from the United States.”

Russia has a rich tradition of technology heists for its military industry, dating to the theft of atomic bomb secrets from the United States after World War II.

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

Published: October 4, 2012

WHO : Russian officials

WHAT : had a muted response  to a potentially embarrassing revelation by the Federal    Bureau of Investigation

WHY : it had uncovered a ring of Russian agents that was smuggling microchips out of the United States.

WHERE : Moscow

Element of Newsworthy : Progress

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/world/africa/fbi-agents-scour-ruins-of-attacked-us-compound-in-libya.html?_r=2&ref=world

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11 Sexual Harassment Settlements Cost the State $5 Million

ALBANY — The state paid out at least $5 million to settle sexual harassment cases from 2008 to 2010, according to newly released records provided by the New York attorney general’s office under the Freedom of Information Law.

Five of the 11 cases involved a single agency, the State Department of Corrections and Community Services, and three involved employees of public universities. The largest settlement, nearly $1.8 million, came in January 2009 after the state settled a nearly nine-year-old case involving allegations brought by Lisa Borrello, a cook at the Lakeview Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility. Ms. Borrello alleged that a supervisor sexually harassed and physically threatened her, and gave favorable treatment to male employees.

Scrutiny of the state’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against public officials and workers has increased since the Assembly acknowledged it had used more than $100,000 in public money to settle two accusations against a prominent Brooklyn Democratic assemblyman, Vito J. Lopez.

The attorney general’s office said the records it produced this week, all reflecting cases from the years when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, was attorney general, represented only a portion of the harassment settlements paid by the state; the office said it was continuing to review its files for other records.

The Lopez settlement has been controversial in part because it included confidentiality language intended to keep the allegations secret. None of the settlements for which records were released this week included confidentiality provisions, suggesting that the use of such language is not common in government settlements, although the state previously released documents indicating that in one racial bias case, Mr. Cuomo’s office had approved a settlement with confidentiality language.

The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, has said the confidentiality language in the Lopez settlement was a mistake, and two separate investigations are now examining the matter — one by the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics, and another by a New York City district attorney.

The fact that a large employer like New York State is paying out such settlements is not unusual.

Most of the cases for which records were released on Thursday involved state employees making complaints about other public workers. But in some cases, the alleged victims were not public employees. In one case, Stephen Lewis, an inmate at Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, sued in June 2008 after he said he was sexually assaulted by a guard. Mr. Lewis initially sought $7 million; two years later, the state settled for $300,000.

In both the Borrello and Lewis settlements, the state agreed to pay the complainants’ legal fees.

Two other cases involved women bringing claims against an official at the corrections department, Michael Cobb. Both cases were settled in March 2008, for a total of about $1 million. Mr. Cobb contributed $1,000 toward the settlement.

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: October 4, 2012

WHO : The state

WHAT : paid out at least $5 million

WHY : to settle sexual harassment cases from 2008 to 2010

WHEN : Albany

Element Of Newsworthy : Human Interest

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/nyregion/new-york-paid-at-least-5-million-to-settle-sex-harassment-cases.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&

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Son of prominent Mexican politician shot dead

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A son of the former chairman of Mexico's most powerful political party was found shot dead in a town south of the U.S. border notorious for drug traffickers, as the violence dogging the country struck the ruling establishment.

The body of Jose Eduardo Moreira, son of the embattled ex-chairman of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and former Coahuila state governor Humberto Moreira, was discovered near Ciudad Acuna, across the Rio Grande river from Texas, late on Wednesday, the state's government said on Thursday. He had been reported missing several hours before his body was found.

The centrist PRI ruled Mexico continually between 1929 and 2000 and is due to retake power in December, when Enrique Pena Nieto will assume the presidency.

Military reinforcements were sent into Coahuila to assist investigations into the killing, which hit one of the most prominent political families in the PRI and sparked outrage among party leaders.

A funeral service was held for Jose Eduardo on Thursday evening and television pictures showed his father breaking down in tears as he bore his son's coffin in Ciudad Acuna.

"I've had to put up with a lot of things, but I can't bear this," Moreira told reporters. "They killed my son. They shot him twice in the head. I expect justice," he added, calling his son a victim of Mexico's struggle with criminal violence.

Around 60,000 people have been killed in turf wars between drug gangs and their clashes with security forces since President Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) took office at the end of 2006.

Calderon staked his reputation on a military offensive to bring the gangs to heel. He has captured or killed many of the top bosses, but the violence has increased on his watch.

Pedro Joaquin Coldwell, who replaced Moreira as PRI chairman, said there could be no impunity in Mexico. "We need a crusade against violence with all tiers of government, society and religious organizations taking part," he said.

IMPUNITY

Pena Nieto has vowed to quickly reduce the violence after he takes power on December 1. He called the killing an "irreparable loss" to the Moreira family in a Tweet, and said the "murder should not go unpunished."

Critics of the PRI, which became a byword for corruption during its long domination of Mexico, say it is partly to blame for the impunity in the country, accusing it of having made deals with drug gangs in the past to keep the peace.

Jose Eduardo, who was in his twenties, worked for the Coahuila government now led by his uncle, Ruben Moreira.

Ciudad Acuna is a key transit point for cartels running drugs to Texas. It was not immediately clear if Jose Eduardo Moreira's murder was linked to organized crime in the city.

Some media reports said the killing may have been a revenge attack by the brutal Zetas gang on the Moreira family for losses suffered in recent clashes with security forces.

Humberto Moreira stepped down as PRI chairman in December due to a scandal surrounding a massive increase in Coahuila's debt when he was governor between 2005 and 2011.

Coahuila has become one of the states worst hit by drug violence. Though the number of killings nationwide linked to organized crime has eased somewhat this year, the death toll has surged toward its highest level under Calderon in Coahuila.

Calderon also condemned the killing, saying that he "deeply regretted this cowardly murder."

By Lizbeth Diaz | Reuters – Thu, Oct 4, 2012

WHO : son of the former chairman of Mexico's most powerful political party

WHAT :  was found shot dead 

WHERE : Mexico City (Reuters) 

WHY : drug traffickers, as the violence dogging the country struck the ruling establishment.

Element of Newsworthy : Timeliness

http://news.yahoo.com/son-prominent-mexican-politician-shot-dead-033242679.html