China Is Said to Consider Plan to Deal With Failed Banks

HONG KONG — China’s new leadership is preparing to introduce bank deposit insurance as the first step in financial reforms to be started soon at a top-level meeting in Beijing, a government official and banking policy advisers said.

Sheng Li/Reuters

Residents waiting to deposit money at an Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Shenyang.

A consensus has formed among China’s leaders that the country needs a formal system of bank deposit insurance as banks have rapidly ramped up lending and begun offering a wide variety of increasingly risky investment products that do not appear on their balance sheets, the official and advisers said.

Introducing deposit insurance could also help the government steer the financial system toward providing more credit for small and medium-size private enterprises. These now receive as little as 3 percent of bank lending even as they account for at least half the country’s economic activity.

Without a clear system until now for closing banks that lend unwisely, banks have been encouraged by regulators to lend overwhelmingly to state-owned enterprises that appear certain to repay loans. That has left smaller businesses and private companies starved for credit.

The first public indication of the government’s intense interest in deposit insurance is likely to come at the Central Economic Work Conference this month, said the official, who discussed internal government matters only on the condition of anonymity. Held each December since 1994, the conference is the most important economic policy-making event in the Chinese calendar and sets the agenda for the coming year.

This month’s conference, the exact dates of which are still secret but which could start as soon as this weekend, is being watched with particular scrutiny by economists and investors as a clue to the agenda for the next decade of Xi Jinping, the new general secretary of the Communist Party. The conference is jointly overseen by the cabinet and by the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

Mr. Xi startled many analysts by rushing down to Shenzhen in southern China last weekend for an inspection tour of the city, known within China for its embrace of free-market capitalism. He is following in the footsteps of Deng Xiaoping, who restarted China’s economic liberalization after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 with a trip three years later to the same city.

Until now, the government has quietly paid off all depositors in full, regardless of the size of their deposits, when small banks and rural cooperatives have failed; no large banks have been allowed to fail. The government’s fear has been that allowing any depositors to sustain losses, even at the worst-run institutions, would undermine confidence in the financial system.

China’s banking industry is divided on the need for deposit insurance. As in other countries, including the United States, the biggest banks are the least enthusiastic. With a little more than half the country’s deposits, China’s Big Four banks are widely viewed as much too big to fail but are likely to owe hefty premiums for the deposit insurance plan being developed.

“The debate over the deposit insurance scheme is that the larger banks that would contribute more feel as though they would be subsidizing smaller banks,” said Andrew Sheng, a former head of Hong Kong’s securities regulator who for the last 10 years has been the convener of the international advisory council of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

China’s current five-year plan calls for the government to study deposit insurance, but not necessarily to adopt it. Mr. Sheng expressed surprise when told that the subject was likely to be on the agenda of the Central Economic Work Conference and said that “it means that they are taking it more seriously.”

But Mr. Sheng cautioned that even once the leadership approves the concept of deposit insurance, it could take a full year just to draft the necessary legislation.

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Well: Life, Interrupted: My Mother's Cooking

Life, Interrupted

Suleika Jaouad writes about her experiences as a young adult with cancer.

For many of us, the holiday season triggers memories of food and family. That’s certainly the case for me. I can always tell when my mother, an artist who grew up in Switzerland, starts to feel nostalgic for home. It is the smell of the crispy apple tarts, the ginger cookies, and the creamy muesli full of nuts and fresh berries. The scent alone delivers a rush of childhood memories for me.

Food has always been an important part of my family. But since I was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago, food has taken on an especially central — and complicated — role in my life. My incredible doctors have been in charge of deciding which chemotherapy treatments and medications I will take. Their role has always been clear. But for my mother, who has always been in action to take care of me but often feels powerless against my mysterious disease, the prescription she draws upon is often a remedy from the kitchen.

My mother comes from a small village on the Lac de Neuchâtel where there is one bakery, one butcher and one grocery store. Even after decades in New York, she prefers home cooking to ordering in. So when I fell ill at the age of 22 and had to move back home with my parents, my mother tailored and amended the vaunted Swiss recipes from her childhood to make them as nutritious and immune system-boosting as possible. It wasn’t infrequent that a red lentil soup or zucchini stuffed with risotto was the highlight of a day otherwise spent in bed staring at my childhood bookshelves and pondering my future.

But my relationship with food has been complicated since my cancer diagnosis. Chemotherapy can wipe out the biggest appetite. It can render delectable food not only inedible, but downright unviewable, unsmellable, unthinkable. After my first hospitalization, a six-week stay in isolation, I quickly learned to be careful about which foods I chose to eat when I was in the depths of sickness. Some of my all-time favorites, like my mother’s rice pudding (extra cinnamon, with cardamon and grated almonds, plus my mom’s T.L.C.), no longer represented comfort food but triggered memories of nausea, the beeping of the I.V. machine and the fluorescent lights of the hospital room. Like other dishes, it has become a food casualty of chemo.

Having cancer changed the way I ate and thought about food. My symptoms dictated my eating habits. The sores in my mouth and the bouts of nausea, for instance, stole the pleasure of eating and made it an ordeal. At some points in my treatment, eating wasn’t even an option. During my bone marrow transplant last April, my only food came in the form of yellow-green liquid hanging from an I.V. pouch. It was the first time I considered how the physicality of eating — the cutting with a knife or slurping with a spoon or chewing of tender meat — was a big part of what I enjoyed about food. In the transplant unit, I remember wanting, more than anything, to bite into a stick of celery. I dreamt about the “crunch.”

Now, more than a year and a half since my first chemotherapy treatment, I’ve come up with a plan to preserve the memory and delight of my mother’s favorite recipes. I only eat the very best of her cooking when I am in-between chemotherapy treatments. I try to make sure not to mix nausea and my favorite foods — because I have found that it confuses not only the taste buds, but also the emotion and memory of eating itself.

As I continue to cope with the effects of cancer and treatment, I am determined to preserve one of my favorite things in life — my mother’s cooking and the many childhood memories that go with it. As a result, I have to refuse her cooking once in a while, saving her food for only my best days. I hope there are a lot of those ahead.

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Birchermuesli

The original “muesli” was invented by Dr. Maximilian Oskar Bircher-Benner (1867-1939), a Swiss physician who fed his patients a small portion of this dish before each meal in his health clinic near Zürich. Derided by his colleagues for his belief in the importance of fresh food for health, he is now considered the guru of the raw food movement. The original recipe has been adapted by muesli lovers all over the world, who have swapped in seasonally available and ripe fruit where appropriate. For individuals with dietary restrictions, oats can be replaced with spelt flakes, millet flakes or other grains. In Switzerland, muesli is simply called “bircher,” after its inventor, and many Swiss eat bircher every day for breakfast or as a light meal. Muesli, a word from the Swiss German dialect which means “little purée,” and mostly known today in its commercialized version, is very different from this homemade recipe. Use whatever fresh ripe fruit you like and is seasonally available to you.

1 cup rolled oats, soaked overnight or for several hours
1 1/2 cups whole, almond, soy or other milk, or orange or apple juice
1/4 cup dried fruit, such as raisins or diced dates
1/4 to 1/2 cup hazelnuts, walnuts or almonds, finely chopped
1 large apple, grated
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup plain yogurt, plus additional to taste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or more
Finely grated zest of organic lemon, to taste (optional)
1/4 cup fresh grapes, halved
1/2 cup raspberries, blackberries, blueberries or chopped strawberries, plus a few additional berries to garnish
1/2 orange or peach, chopped
1 apricot or kiwi, chopped
Brown sugar or stevia, to taste (optional)
1 tablespoon flaxseed oil (optional)

1. Soak the oats in milk overnight or for a few hours. In the morning, add the dried fruit, nuts, apple, banana, yogurt, lemon juice and zest, if using, and mix to combine. Add the grapes, berries, the remaining fresh fruit, brown sugar and flaxseed oil, if using, and gently fold the fresh fruit into the mixture. Garnish with a few fresh berries and serve.

Bircher, a raw food recipe, makes a great breakfast or snack, and will keep refrigerated for up to two days, and a day-old bircher is even better.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

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Croûte Aux Champignons (Mushrooms on Toasts)

These mushrooms on toasts are delicious and work with any mix of mushrooms, but if you can find a mix of wild mushrooms, it makes the toasts particularly wonderful. Try serving them with a simple green salad or the “Carrot and Celery Root Salad,” below.

4 to 5 slices country or whole wheat bread, preferably day-old, or more slices from a baguette
2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
1/2 medium onion or 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
1 pound mixed mushrooms, sliced
1 cup white wine or stock
Fine sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup heavy cream (optional)
Finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, for garnish
1/4 cup grated cheese, optional (see below)

1. In a large skillet set over medium high heat, melt the butter until foaming or warm the oil until shimmering. Add the onion or shallot, and cook, stirring, until transparent, about 4 minutes. Add the mushrooms, and cook until the mushrooms have released their liquid and the pan is dry, about 3 minutes. Add the wine or stock and cook until the liquid reduces by half, about 5 to 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the cream and cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.

2. While the mushrooms cook, lightly toast the bread in the toaster. Spoon the mushrooms on toasted bread. Sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Optional: Heat the oven to 400 degrees with the rack positioned in the middle. Place the mushroom toasts on a shallow baking sheet and sprinkle with the grated cheese. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and lightly browned. Garnish with more black pepper to taste, and serve immediately.

Variation: Replace mushrooms with spinach. Or use half spinach and half mushrooms, adding the spinach once mushrooms has softened. Cook until the spinach has wilted before adding wine or stock. Proceed with the rest of the recipe as written above.

Yield: 4 servings

 

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Carrot and Celery Root Salad

This crunchy and delicious salad makes for a great accompaniment to “Mushrooms on Toast.”

1 1/2 cups finely grated carrot (from about 8 ounces of carrots)
1 1/2 cups finely grated celery root (from about 8 ounces of celery root)
Fine sea salt, to taste
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon mustard
3 tablespoons olive or toasted sesame oil
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place the carrot and celery root in a large bowl and toss to combine. In a small bowl, add the salt to the vinegar and let sit for 1 minute for the salt to dissolve. Add the mustard and whisk to combine. Add the oil and black pepper, and whisk to combine. Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss to combine. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready.

Variation: Add 1 tablespoon grated hazelnuts or almonds, or 1 tablespoon or more of plain yogurt mixed with 1 teaspoon chopped chives.

Yield: 4 servings

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Lentil Soup With Tomato

1 cup red lentils, rinsed
1 dried bay leaf
1 tablespoon unsalted butter or olive oil
1 teaspoon ground coriander, plus additional to taste (see below)
1 teaspoon ground cumin or ginger
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper, plus more to taste
1 pinch sugar
1 pinch ground cloves
1 (7-ounce) can peeled tomatoes, chopped (or 2 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped)
Fine sea salt, to taste
1/2 cup sour cream (optional)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (optional)

1. Place the lentils in a medium pot set over medium-high heat, add 3 cups water and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer. Cook until the lentils are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. In a large pot set over medium heat, add the butter or oil, coriander, cumin, curry, cayenne, sugar and cloves, and warm the mixture until the spices are fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, with their juices, and 1/2 cup water, and bring everything to a boil. Add the reserved lentils and their liquid, reduce the heat to low, and simmer about 5 minutes. Add salt to taste and purée the soup, in batches, in a blender, until smooth. If you prefer, you can thin the soup out with more water. If you like, mix the sour cream with parsley, and add ground coriander to taste. Serve the soup with a dollop of the herbed sour cream.

Yield: 4 servings

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Suleika Jaouad (pronounced su-LAKE-uh ja-WAD) is a 24-year-old writer who lives in New York City. Her column, “Life, Interrupted,” chronicling her experiences as a young adult with cancer, appears weekly on Well. Follow @suleikajaouad on Twitter.

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North Koreans Launch Rocket in Defiant Act

KCNA, via Reuters

This photo released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean technicians monitoring the launch of an Unha-3 rocket carrying the satellite Kwangmyongsong-3, or Shining Star-3, into orbit on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — The United States and its Asian allies began an effort on Wednesday to impose additional sanctions on North Korea after its largely successful rocket launching, but this time Washington added a warning to China: Failure to rein in Kim Jong-un, the North’s new leader, will result in an even greater American military presence in the Pacific.

The Chinese government, which sent a delegation to Pyongyang last month to warn against the missile test, said it “regrets” the launching, which put a 200-pound earth surveillance satellite into orbit.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said that North Korea’s right to a peaceful space program was subject to “limitations” by United Nations Security Council resolutions. But he declined to say whether North Korea had failed to live up to those obligations, which include a prohibition on launchings like the one on Wednesday morning that could be used to advance missile technology.

In fact, after a preliminary meeting of the Security Council members in New York, it was far from clear how far the Chinese are willing to go in further punishing an ally they once called as close as “lips and teeth.” Beijing’s biggest fear has always been destabilizing North Korea, and setting off a collapse that could put South Korean forces, and perhaps their American allies, on China’s border.

But the essence of the American strategy, as described Wednesday by administration officials, was to force the Chinese into an uncomfortable choice.

“The kinds of things we would do to enhance the region’s security against a North Korean nuclear missile capability,” one senior administration official said in an interview, “are indistinguishable from the things the Chinese would view as a containment strategy” aimed at Beijing.

They would include increased patrols in waters the Chinese are trying to claim as part of their exclusive zone, along with military exercises with allies in the region. “It’s the right approach, but whether it works is another matter,” said Christopher R. Hill, who was the chief negotiator with North Korea during President George W. Bush’s second term, and is now dean of the Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, on Wednesday. “The approach of thickening up the antimissile effort is something that would get China’s attention.”

Many of those efforts are planned anyway as part of President Obama’s “rebalancing” strategy to ensure a continued American presence in Asia. The president has repeatedly said he has neither the desire nor the ability to contain China’s rise, but the rebalancing is clearly intended to keep the Chinese from nudging the United States out of the region.

Already, the Chinese believe that America’s antimissile efforts from Alaska to the Pacific are designed to counter their own nuclear arsenal.

Administration officials said that while the launching was successful — and advanced the North’s missile program — it was hardly a threat to the United States, despite a warning by Robert M. Gates in 2011, when he was secretary of defense, that the North would have a missile capable of reaching the United States by 2016.

“I am not disparaging this demonstration of 1950s Sputnik-quality technology,” the administration official said, referring to the Soviet satellite that prompted the space race during the cold war. He then went on to disparage it, noting that Mr. Kim “is in the family business, like his daddy before him, and it’s a form of extortion.”

South Korean officials sounded similar themes, saying that the North’s effort was to extract a higher price — in aid, investment and diplomatic concessions — for restraining future launchings or nuclear tests.

Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a private group in Washington, called the North Korean satellite launching “a fundamental breakthrough” that showed the main elements of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and William J. Broad from New York. Choe Sang-hun contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea.

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New Flickr iPhone app to compete with Instagram and Twitter with 16 filters

Hot on the heels of its email redesign, Yahoo (YHOO) announced on Wednesday that it has completely redesigned the Flickr iPhone app. The new app borrows heavily from Instagram and focuses on what makes Flickr special: photos and communities. Yahoo’s new Flickr app also includes 16 filters with their own fancy names to go head-on with Instagram and Twitter’s recently updated app that added eight filters. Users can now access the Flickr app with numerous accounts including Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOG) and photos can be shared to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or via email. The new Flickr app is available for free on iPhone but to our disappointment, there isn’t an iPad-optimized version.

Ellis Hamburger from The Verge penned an interesting editorial on how Twitter misses the mark by simply adding filters to its app without having the close community that makes Instagram so addictive. Led by CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo seems aware that mobile apps thrive on the communities that sprout up. The new Flickr app’s emphasis on how the images are displayed and shared in visually appealing and digestible thumbnails suggests Yahoo finally understands mobile.

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Williams testified he wanted to stop bounties

Former New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams testified that he tried to shut down the team's bounty system when the NFL began investigating but was overruled by interim Saints head coach Joe Vitt, according to transcripts from appeals hearings obtained by The Associated Press.

According to the transcripts, Williams said that then-assistant Vitt responded to a suggestion that the pay-for-pain setup be abandoned with an obscenity-filled speech about how NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell "wasn't going to ... tell us to ... stop doing what won us the Super Bowl. This has been going on in the ... National Football League forever, and it will go on here forever, when they run (me) out of there, it will still go on."

Williams and Vitt were among a number of witnesses whose testimony was heard by former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who on Tuesday overturned four player suspensions in the case. Tagliabue was appointed by Goodell to handle the final round of appeals. The AP obtained transcripts of Tagliabue's closed-door hearings through a person with a role in the case.

Vitt was a Saints assistant who was banned for six games for his part in the scandal but now is filling in for head coach Sean Payton, who was suspended for the entire season. Williams was suspended indefinitely by Goodell. Others who testified included former defensive assistant Mike Cerullo, the initial whistleblower and considered a key NFL witness.

Transcripts portray the former coaching colleagues, all part of the Saints' 2010 Super Bowl championship, as bitterly disagreeing with one another and occasionally contradicting how the NFL depicted the bounty system.

Vitt, Williams and Cerullo appeared separately before Tagliabue and were questioned by lawyers for the NFL and lawyers representing the players originally suspended by Goodell: Jonathan Vilma, Will Smith, Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove.

Tagliabue's ruling found that "Saints' coaches and managers led a deliberate, unprecedented and effective effort to obstruct the NFL's investigation. ..."

The transcripts, which could be entered as evidence in Vilma's pending defamation case against Goodell, include numerous testy, and sometimes humorous, exchanges between witnesses and attorneys — and between Tagliabue and the attorneys.

Offering to take a lie detector test, Vitt challenged versions given by Williams and Cerullo. Vitt vowed to sue Cerullo and described Williams as "narcissistic." He referred to both as disgruntled former employees who were fired, even though, publicly, the Saints said Williams' departure for St. Louis was by mutual agreement. Vitt depicted Cerullo as incompetent and said he missed work numerous times and offered bizarre, fabricated excuses for his absences.

Vitt was asked whether he oversaw Cerullo's attempts to destroy evidence related to bounties, which the NFL determined the Saints sanctioned from 2009 to 2011, with thousands of dollars offered for hits that injured opponents and knocked them out of games.

"No. The answer is no," Vitt said. "Cerullo is an idiot."

Williams referred to the case as "somewhat of a witch hunt." He said he wants to coach in the NFL again, "took responsibility so that nobody else had to," and that Vilma has "been made a scapegoat."

Williams stood by his earlier sworn statement that Vilma pledged a $10,000 bounty on quarterback Brett Favre in the Saints' game against the Minnesota Vikings for the NFC championship. But Williams also said that the performance pool he ran was aimed at team bonding, not bounties, and that he saw a difference between asking players to hit hard legally, which he said he did, and asking them to purposely injure an opponent, which he said no one in the organization condoned.

"The game is about a mental toughness on top of a physical toughness," Williams testified at one point. "You know, it's not golf."

Williams, however, acknowledged he suggested Favre should be knocked out of the game.

"We want to play tough, hard-nosed football and look to get ready to play against the next guy. ... Brett is a friend of mine, and so that's just part of this business," Williams said. "You know, at no time, you know, are we looking to try to end anybody's career."

Williams described player pledges to the pool as "nominal" and said they rarely kept the money they earned, either putting it back in the pool or offering it as tips to equipment personnel. In the case of the large amounts pledged during the playoffs, Williams described it as "air" or "funny money" or "banter," adding that he never actually saw any cash collected or distributed and had no idea what would have happened to the money if Cerullo collected it.

Cerullo testified that league investigators misrepresented what he told them, and that, during the playoffs following the 2009 regular season, he kept track of large playoff pledges on note pads but didn't collect the money.

Cerullo said hits for cash started with Williams telling the staff that "Sean kind of put him in charge of bringing back a swagger to the defense ... so he wanted to brainstorm with us as coaches what we thought we could do. ... At one point in one of those meetings, Joe Vitt suggested (his previous teams) had a pay-for-play, pay-for-incentive program that the guys kind of bought into and kind of had fun with, and, you know, that was his suggestion. At that point, Gregg also admitted that other places he was at, they had the same type of thing. And at that point, Gregg kind of ran with it."

Cerullo described pregame meetings during the playoffs, when the Saints faced quarterback Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals and then Favre.

He said Vitt told players Warner "should have been retired" and "we're going to end the career tomorrow of Kurt Warner." Cerullo also quoted Vitt as saying of Favre: "That old man should have retired when I was there. Is he retiring, isn't he retiring — that whole (thing) is over, you know, tomorrow. ... We'll end the career tomorrow. We'll force him to retire. ..."

Cerullo testified that, once word came that the NFL was investigating, Williams told him to delete computer files about bounty amounts and that Vitt checked on his progress.

Asked what motivated him to come forward as a whistleblower with an email to the league in November 2011, Cerullo replied: "I was angry for being let go from the Saints."

Later, he testified: "I was angry at Joe Vitt, and I wanted to show that I was fired for lying and I witnessed Joe Vitt lying and he still had a job. So, that was my goal of reaching out to the NFL."

The transcripts also portray Tagliabue's command of the proceedings, including his efforts to rein in the lawyers.

"I'm going to intervene much more significantly, going forward," Tagliabue interjected at one point, "because I am extremely concerned that this is getting to be cumulative, confusing and useless, and I do not preside over proceedings that are cumulative, confusing and useless."

There also were lighter moments, such as when Tagliabue announced: "I thought I was going to get through this proceeding only by drinking coffee. I'm getting to the point where I need a Bloody Mary."

___

Connect with Brett Martel on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brettmartel

Connect with Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

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State of the Art: Google Maps App for iPhone Goes in the Right Direction - Review

It was one of the biggest tech headlines of the year: in September, Apple dropped its contract with Google, which had always supplied the data for the iPhone’s Maps app. For various strategic reasons, Apple preferred to write a new app, based on a new database of the world that Apple intended to assemble itself.

As everybody knows by now, Apple got lost along the way. It was like a 22-car pileup. Timothy Cook, Apple’s chief executive, made a quick turn, publicly apologizing, firing the executive responsible and vowing to fix Maps. For a company that prides itself on flawless execution, it was quite a detour.

Rumors swirled that Google would create an iPhone app of its own, one that would use its seven-year-old, far more polished database of the world.

That was true. Today, Google Maps for the iPhone has arrived. It’s free, fast and fantastic.

Now, there are two parts to a great maps app. There’s the app itself — how it looks, how it works, what the features are. In this regard, few people complain about Apple’s Maps app; it’s beautiful, and its navigation mode for drivers is clear, uncluttered and distraction-free.

But then there’s the hard part: the underlying data. Apple and Google have each constructed staggeringly complex databases of the world and its roads.

The recipe for both companies includes map data from TomTom, satellite photography from a different source, real-time traffic data from others, restaurant and store listings from still more sources, and so on. In the end, Apple says that it incorporated data from at least 24 different sources.

Those sources always include errors, if only because the world constantly changes. Worse, those sources sometimes disagree with one another. It takes years to fix the problems and mesh these data sources together.

So the first great thing about Google’s new Maps is the underlying data. Hundreds of Google employees have spent years hand-editing the maps, fixing the thousands of errors that people report every day. (In the new app, you report a mistake just by shaking the phone.) And since 2006, Google’s Street View vehicles have trawled 3,000 cities, photographing and confirming the cartographical accuracy of five million miles of roads.

You can sense the new app’s polish and intelligence the minute you enter your first address; it’s infinitely more understanding. When I type “200 W 79, NYC,” Google Maps drops a pin right where it belongs: on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Apple’s Maps app, on the other hand, acts positively drunk. It asks me to clarify: “Did you mean 200 Durham Road, Madison, CT? Or 200 Madison Road, Durham, CT?”

Um, what?

And then there’s the navigation. Lots of iPhone owners report that they’ve had no problem with Apple’s driving instructions, and that’s great. But I’ve been idiotically misdirected a few times — and the trouble is, you never know in advance. You wind up with a deep mistrust of the app that’s hard to shake. Google’s directions weren’t great in the app’s early days either, and they’re still not always perfect. But after years of polishing and corrections, they’re right a lot more often.

The must-have features are all here: spoken driving directions, color-coded real-time traffic conditions, vector-based maps (smooth at any size). But the new app also offers some incredibly powerful, useful features that Apple’s app lacks.

Street View, of course, lets you see a photograph of a place, and even “walk” down the street in any direction. Great for checking out a neighborhood before you go, scoping out the parking situation or playing “you are there” when you read a news article.

Along with driving directions, Google Maps gives equal emphasis to walking directions and public transportation options.

This feature is brilliantly done. Google Maps displays a clean, step-by-step timeline of your entire public transportation adventure. If you ask for a route from Westport, Conn., to the Empire State Building, the timeline says: “4:27 pm, Board New Haven train toward Grand Central Terminal.” Then it shows you the names of the actual train stops you’ll pass. Then, “5:47 pm, Grand Central. Get off and walk 2 min.” Then, “5:57 pm, 33rd St: Board the #6 Lexington Avenue Local towards Brooklyn Bridge.” And so on.

Even if public transportation were all it did, Google Maps would be one of the best apps ever. (Apple kicks you over to other companies’ apps for this information.)

E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com

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Well: Why Afternoon May Be the Best Time to Exercise

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

Does exercise influence the body’s internal clock? Few of us may be conscious of it, but our bodies, and in turn our health, are ruled by rhythms. “The heart, the liver, the brain — all are controlled by an endogenous circadian rhythm,” says Christopher Colwell, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles’s Brain Research Institute, who led a series of new experiments on how exercise affects the body’s internal clock. The studies were conducted in mice, but the findings suggest that exercise does affect our circadian rhythms, and the effect may be most beneficial if the exercise is undertaken midday.

For the study, which appears in the December Journal of Physiology, the researchers gathered several types of mice. Most of the animals were young and healthy. But some had been bred to have a malfunctioning internal clock, or pacemaker, which involves, among other body parts, a cluster of cells inside the brain “whose job it is to tell the time of day,” Dr. Colwell says.

These pacemaker cells receive signals from light sources or darkness that set off a cascade of molecular effects. Certain genes fire, expressing proteins, which are released into the body, where they migrate to the heart, neurons, liver and elsewhere, choreographing those organs to pulse in tune with the rest of the body. We sleep, wake and function physiologically according to the dictates of our body’s internal clock.

But, Dr. Colwell says, that clock can become discombobulated. It is easily confused, for instance, by viewing artificial light in the evening, he says, when the internal clock expects darkness. Aging also worsens the clock’s functioning, he says. “By middle age, most of us start to have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep,” he says. “Then we have trouble staying awake the next day.”

The consequences of clock disruptions extend beyond sleepiness. Recent research has linked out-of-sync circadian rhythm in people to an increased risk for diabetes, obesity, certain types of cancer, memory loss and mood disorders, including depression.

“We believe there are serious potential health consequences” to problems with circadian rhythm, Dr. Colwell says. Which is why he and his colleagues set out to determine whether exercise, which is so potent physiologically, might “fix” a broken clock, and if so, whether exercising in the morning or later in the day is more effective in terms of regulating circadian rhythm.

They began by letting healthy mice run, an activity the animals enjoy. Some of the mice ran whenever they wanted. Others were given access to running wheels only in the early portion of their waking time (mice are active at night) or in the later stages, the equivalent of the afternoon for us.

After several weeks of running, the exercising mice, no matter when they ran, were found to be producing more proteins in their internal-clock cells than the sedentary animals. But the difference was slight in these healthy animals, which all had normal circadian rhythms to start with.

So the scientists turned to mice unable to produce a critical internal clock protein. Signals from these animals’ internal clocks rarely reach the rest of the body.

But after several weeks of running, the animals’ internal clocks were sturdier. Messages now traveled to these animals’ hearts and livers far more frequently than in their sedentary counterparts.

The beneficial effect was especially pronounced in those animals that exercised in the afternoon (or mouse equivalent).

That finding, Dr. Colwell says, “was a pretty big surprise.” He and his colleagues had expected to see the greatest effects from morning exercise, a popular workout time for many athletes.

But the animals that ran later produced more clock proteins and pumped the protein more efficiently to the rest of the body than animals that ran early in their day.

What all of this means for people isn’t clear, Dr. Colwell says. “It is evident that exercise will help to regulate” our bodily clocks and circadian rhythms, he says, especially as we enter middle age.

But whether we should opt for an afternoon jog over one in the morning “is impossible to say yet,” he says.

Late-night exercise, meanwhile, is probably inadvisable, he continues. Unpublished results from his lab show that healthy mice running at the animal equivalent of 11 p.m. or so developed significant disruptions in their circadian rhythm. Among other effects, they slept poorly.

“What we know, right now,” he says, “is that exercise is a good idea” if you wish to sleep well and avoid the physical ailments associated with an aging or clumsy circadian rhythm. And it is possible, although not yet proven, that afternoon sessions may produce more robust results.

“But any exercise is likely to be better than none,” he concludes. “And if you like morning exercise, which I do, great. Keep it up.”

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North Korea Launches Rocket, Defying Likely Sanctions

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Wednesday morning that appeared to reach as far as the Philippines, an apparent success for the country’s young and untested new leader, Kim Jong-un, and a step toward the nation’s goal of mastering the technology needed to build an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Geoeye

The Sohae rocket launching facility in Cholsan County in North Pyongan Province, North Korea.

KNS/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Kim Jong-un, shown last month, wants to be seen as a leader hailed at home and feared abroad.

South Korean and Japanese officials said the initial indications were that the first and second stages of the Galaxy-3 rocket, called the Unha-3 by the North, fell into the sea along a route the country had previously announced.

But the timing of the launching appeared to take American officials by surprise. Just an hour or two before blastoff from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri on North Korea’s western coast, near China, American officials at a holiday reception at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Washington said they thought the North Koreans had run into technical problems that could take them weeks to resolve.

For President Obama, the launching deepened the complexity of dealing with the new North Korean government, after four years in which promises of engagement, then threats of deeper sanctions, have done nothing to modify the country’s behavior.

In the days before the launching, Mr. Obama’s aides were talking about “Iran-style sanctions” against North Korea if it ignored warnings from the West and from China to forgo it. “We think this time the Chinese are angry enough that they are serious about sending a message,” a senior American official said before the launching. “But they’ve told us that before.”

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said that the rocket succeeded in the ostensible goal of putting an earth-observation satellite named Kwangmyongsong-3, or Shining Star-3, into orbit.

Kim Min-seok, the spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said his government was trying to verify the North Korean claim.

But the rocket appeared to fly along the trajectory North Korea had previously given to international maritime and aviation authorities, crossing over the western sea border between the two Koreas two minutes after blastoff. Six minutes later, it flew over waters west of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, Mr. Kim said, citing data from antimissile ships deployed to track the rocket.

The rocket launching was expected to set off a flurry of diplomacy in the region. In Seoul, President Lee Myung-bak, who is coming to the end of his term in office, convened a National Security Council meeting to discuss its implications, as well as punishment against the North Korean government, which is banned from launching the rocket under United Nations resolutions.

For the young North Korean leader, barely a year in office, the launching was important in three respects. Its apparent success, after a test of the same rocket failed spectacularly seconds after takeoff in April, demonstrated what one American intelligence official called “a more professional operation” to diagnose and solve rocket-design problems similar to those the United States encountered in the 1960s, when its rocket and missile programs were still in their early days. He built credibility with the powerful North Korean military, whose ranks he purged in recent months, replacing some top leaders with his own loyalists.

He also advertised that the country, despite its backwardness and isolation, could master a missile technology that it has previously marketed to Iran, Pakistan and others. Some American officials, who have privately warned of increased missile cooperation between Iran and North Korea over the past year, have argued that the North Korean test would benefit Iran as much as North Korea.

The North has a long way to go before it could threaten neighboring countries, and perhaps one day the West Coast of the United States, with a nuclear-armed missile. It has yet to develop a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop its missile, experts say, and it has not tested a re-entry vehicle that could withstand the heat of the atmosphere. Nor is it clear that the country knows how to aim a missile with much accuracy

Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

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Facebook helps FBI bust cybercriminals blamed for $850 million losses

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Investigators led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and aided by Facebook Inc, have busted an international criminal ring that infected 11 million computers around the world and caused more than $ 850 million in total losses in one of the largest cybercrime hauls in history.

The FBI, working in concert with the world’s largest social network and several international law enforcement agencies, arrested 10 people it says infected computers with “Yahos” malicious software, then stole credit card, bank and other personal information.

Facebook’s security team assisted the FBI after “Yahos” targeted its users from 2010 to October 2012, the U.S. federal agency said in a statement on its website. The social network helped identify the criminals and spot affected accounts, it said.

Its “security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats,” the FBI said.

According to the agency, which worked also with the U.S. Department of Justice, the accused hackers employed the “Butterfly Botnet”. Botnets are networks of compromised computers that can be used in a variety of cyberattacks on personal computers.

The FBI said it nabbed 10 people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States, executed numerous search warrants and conducted a raft of interviews.

It estimated the total losses from their activities at more than $ 850 million, without elaborating.

Hard data is tough to come by, but experts say cybercrime is on the rise around the world as PC and mobile computing become more prevalent and as more and more financial transactions shift online, leaving law enforcement, cybersecurity professionals and targeted corporations increasingly hard-pressed to spot and ward off attacks.

(Reporting By Edwin Chan; Editing by Matt Driskill)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Saints' suspensions tossed out in bounty case

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Finding fault with nearly everyone tied to the New Orleans Saints' bounty case, from the coaches to Roger Goodell, former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue tossed out the suspensions of four players Tuesday and condemned the team for obstructing the investigation.

In a surprising rejection of his successor's overreaching punishments, Tagliabue wrote that he would "now vacate all discipline to be imposed upon" two current Saints, linebacker Jonathan Vilma and defensive end Will Smith, and two players no longer with the club, Browns linebacker Scott Fujita and free-agent defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove.

Tagliabue essentially absolved Fujita, but did agree with Goodell's finding that the other three players "engaged in conduct detrimental to the integrity of, and public confidence in, the game of professional football."

It was a ruling that allowed both sides to claim victory more than nine months after the league first made "Saints bounties" a household phrase: The NFL pointed to the determination that Goodell's facts were right; the NFL Players Association issued a statement noting that Tagliabue said "previously issued discipline was inappropriate."

Vilma, suspended by Goodell for the entire current season, and Smith, suspended four games, have been playing for the Saints while their appeals were pending. Fujita is on injured reserve; Hargrove is not with a team.

Tagliabue, appointed by Goodell to oversee a second round of player appeals, criticized the Saints as an organization that fostered bad behavior and tried to impede the investigation into what the NFL said was a performance pool designed to knock targeted opponents out of games from 2009 to 2011, with thousands of dollars in payouts.

A "culture" that promoted tough talk and cash incentives for hits to injure opponents — one key example was Vilma's offer of $10,000 to any teammate who knocked Brett Favre out of the NFC championship game at the end of the 2009 season — existed in New Orleans, according to Tagliabue, who also wrote that "Saints' coaches and managers led a deliberate, unprecedented and effective effort to obstruct the NFL's investigation."

The former commissioner did not entirely exonerate the players, however.

He said Vilma and Smith participated in a performance pool that rewarded key plays — including hard tackles — while Hargrove, following coaches' orders, helped to cover up the program when interviewed by NFL investigators in 2010.

"My affirmation of Commissioner Goodell's findings could certainly justify the issuance of fines," the ruling said. "However, this entire case has been contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints' organization."

Tagliabue said he decided, in this particular case, that it was in the best interest of all parties involved to eliminate player punishment because of the enduring acrimony it has caused between the league and the NFL Players Association. He added that he hoped doing so would allow the NFL and union to move forward collaboratively to the more important matters of enhancing player safety.

"To be clear: this case should not be considered a precedent for whether similar behavior in the future merits player suspensions or fines," his ruling said.

Tagliabue oversaw the second round of player appeals to the league in connection with the cash-for-hits program run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams from 2009-2011. The players initially opposed his appointment.

Goodell had given Vilma a full-season suspension, while he gave Smith, Fujita and Hargrove shorter suspensions.

Tagliabue cleared Fujita of conduct detrimental to the league.

The former commissioner found Goodell's actions historically disproportionate to past punishment to players for similar behavior, which had generally been reserved to fines, not suspensions. He also stated that it was very difficult to determine whether the pledges players made were genuine, or simply a motivational ploy, particularly because Saints defenders never demonstrated a pattern of dirty play on the field.

"The relationship of the discipline for the off-field 'talk' and actual on-field conduct must be carefully calibrated and reasonably apportioned. This is a standard grounded in common sense and fairness," Tagliabue wrote in his 22-page opinion. "If one were to punish certain off-field talk in locker rooms, meeting rooms, hotel rooms or elsewhere without applying a rigorous standard that separated real threats or 'bounties' from rhetoric and exaggeration, it would open a field of inquiry that would lead nowhere."

Saints quarterback Drew Brees commented on Twitter: "Congratulations to our players for having the suspensions vacated. Unfortunately, there are some things that can never be taken back."

The Saints opened the season 0-4 and are now 5-8 and virtually out of the playoffs after appearing the postseason the three previous seasons, including the franchise's only Super Bowl title to conclude the 2009 season.

Shortly before the regular season, the initial suspensions were thrown out by an appeals panel created by the NFL's collective bargaining agreement. Goodell then reissued them, with some changes, and now those have been dismissed.

Now, with the player suspensions overturned, the end could be near for a nearly 10-month dispute over how the NFL handled an investigation that covered three seasons and gathered about 50,000 pages of documents.

"We respect Mr. Tagliabue's decision, which underscores the due process afforded players in NFL disciplinary matters," the league said in a statement.

"The decisions have made clear that the Saints operated a bounty program in violation of league rules for three years, that the program endangered player safety, and that the commissioner has the authority under the (NFL's collective bargaining agreement) to impose discipline for those actions as conduct detrimental to the league. Strong action was taken in this matter to protect player safety and ensure that bounties would be eliminated from football."

The players have challenged the NFL's handling of the entire process in federal court, but U.S District Judge Ginger Berrigan had been waiting for the latest round of appeals to play out before deciding whether to get involved. The judge issued an order Tuesday giving the NFLPA and Vilma until Wednesday to notify the court if they found Tagliabue's ruling acceptable.

Vilma also has filed a defamation lawsuit against Goodell, which also is being handled by Berrigan. Vilma's lawyers, Peter Ginsberg and Duke Williams, said by email to The Associated Press that they would "pursue the defamation action vigorously."

NFL investigators found that Vilma and Smith were ringleaders of a cash-for-hits program that rewarded injurious tackles labeled as "cart-offs" and "knockouts." Witnesses including Williams also said Vilma made a $10,000 pledge for anyone who knocked then-Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC title game. However, Tagliabue found it was not clear if the pledge was genuine or simply a motivational prop.

"There is more than enough evidence to support Commissioner Goodell's findings that Mr. Vilma offered such a bounty" on Favre, Tagliabue wrote. "I cannot, however, uphold a multi-game suspension where there is no evidence that a player's speech prior to a game was actually a factor causing misconduct on the playing field and that such misconduct was severe enough in itself to warrant a player suspension or a very substantial fine."

The NFL also concluded that Hargrove lied to NFL investigators to help cover up the program. The players have from the beginning denied they ever took the field intending to injure opponents, while Hargrove has said he never lied about a bounty program, because there wasn't one.

Goodell suspended Williams indefinitely, while banning Saints head coach Sean Payton for a full season.

Tagliabue's ruling comes after a new round of hearings that for the first time allowed Vilma's attorneys and the NFLPA, which represents the other three players, to cross-examine key NFL witnesses. Those witnesses included Williams and former Saints assistant Mike Cerullo, who was fired after the 2009 season and whose email to the league, accusing the Saints of being "a dirty organization," jump-started the probe.

"We believe that when a fair due process takes place, a fair outcome is the result," the players' union said in a statement. "We are pleased that Paul Tagliabue, as the appointed hearings officer, agreed with the NFL Players Association that previously issued discipline was inappropriate in the matter of the alleged New Orleans Saints bounty program.

"Vacating all discipline affirms the players' unwavering position that all allegations the League made about their alleged 'intent-to-injure' were utterly and completely false."

Smith said he was pleased that Tagliabue vacated his suspension.

"I continue to maintain that I did not participate in a pay-to-injure program or facilitate any such program," he added. "I appreciate that Mr. Tagliabue did not rush to judgment, taking into consideration all facts presented to him, before ruling — something that was clearly not done by Commissioner Goodell in previous hearings."

A statement released by Vilma's lawyers on his behalf said the linebacker is "relieved and gratified that Jonathan no longer needs to worry about facing an unjustified suspension.

"On the other hand, Commissioner Tagliabue's rationalization of Commissioner Goodell's actions does nothing to rectify the harm done by the baseless allegations lodged against Jonathan. Jonathan has a right and every intention to pursue proving what really occurred and we look forward to returning to a public forum where the true facts can see the light of day."

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