Go to McClatchy newspapers original
WASHINGTON — A White House aide has resigned amid a Justice Department investigation into allegations that he misused an unspecified amount of U.S. grant money intended to promote democracy in Cuba.
Felipe Sixto, a Cuban-American from Miami, was the special assistant to President Bush for inter-governmental affairs, dealing with Cuba, Native American issues, state legislators, Latino elected officials and Puerto Rico.
The White House announced his resignation Friday. Before joining the administration last summer, Sixto had been chief of staff to Frank Calzon, the head of the Washington-based Center for a Free Cuba, which receives some of the funds through the U.S. Agency for International Development.
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Saturday, March 29, 2008
Clinton urged to quit presidential race
Go to Financial Times original
Hillary Clinton faced calls on Friday to drop out of the presidential race as senior Democrats warned that her divisive battle with Barack Obama was harming the party’s chances of winning the White House in November.
Patrick Leahy, the powerful Vermont senator, said it was almost impossible for Mrs Clinton to win the nomination and urged her to step aside and allow the party to unify around Mr Obama. “There is not a good reason for drawing this out,” he said.
Recent opinion polls have indicated that more than 20 per cent of Clinton and Obama supporters would defect to Mr McCain in November if their favoured candidate failed to win the nomination.
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Mexico deploys troops to US border
Go to Al Jazeera original
Mexico is deploying about 2,500 troops to its US border to tackle mounting violence between drugs gangs that has left hundreds of people dead, authorities say.
The troops, including 425 federal police and 100 agents from the attorney general's office, will be sent to Juarez city in Chihuahua state, Mexico's interior minister, said on Friday.
"Criminal networks that make their living from growing, distributing and consuming drugs have taken over this land, where for some breaking the law and crime have become a way of life," Juan Camilo said.
Guillermo Galvan, the defence minister, said that the military force will be supported by "180 tactical military vehicles, three airplanes and 13
molecular [drug] detection units".
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Mexico is deploying about 2,500 troops to its US border to tackle mounting violence between drugs gangs that has left hundreds of people dead, authorities say.
The troops, including 425 federal police and 100 agents from the attorney general's office, will be sent to Juarez city in Chihuahua state, Mexico's interior minister, said on Friday.
"Criminal networks that make their living from growing, distributing and consuming drugs have taken over this land, where for some breaking the law and crime have become a way of life," Juan Camilo said.
Guillermo Galvan, the defence minister, said that the military force will be supported by "180 tactical military vehicles, three airplanes and 13
molecular [drug] detection units".
more...
Siegel heirs awarded Superman Action Comics #1 copyright
The question of the Siegels' rights to SuperBOY is as of yet unresolved.
Go to New York Times original
LOS ANGELES — Time Warner is no longer the sole proprietor of Superman.A federal judge here on Wednesday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130 — were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright to the character. The ruling left intact Time Warner’s international rights to the character, which it has long owned through its DC Comics unit.
And it reserved for trial questions over how much the company may owe the Siegel heirs for use of the character since 1999, when their ownership is deemed to have been restored. Also to be resolved is whether the heirs are entitled to payments directly from Time Warner’s film unit, Warner Brothers, which took in $200 million at the domestic box office with “Superman Returns” in 2006, or only from the DC unit’s Superman profits.
Still, the ruling threatened to complicate Warner’s plans to make more films featuring Superman, including another sequel and a planned movie based on the DC Comics’ “Justice League of America,” in which he joins Batman, Wonder Woman and other superheroes to battle evildoers.
If the ruling survives a Time Warner legal challenge, it may also open the door to a similar reversion of rights to the estate of Mr. Shuster in 2013. That would give heirs of the two creators control over use of their lucrative character until at least 2033 — and perhaps longer, if Congress once again extends copyright terms — according to Marc Toberoff, a lawyer who represents the Siegels and the Shuster estate.
“It would be very powerful,” said Mr. Toberoff, speaking by telephone on Friday. “After 2013, Time Warner couldn’t exploit any new Superman-derived works without a license from the Siegels and Shusters.”
Time Warner lawyers declined to discuss the decision, a spokesman said. A similar ruling in 2006 allowed the Siegels to recapture their rights in the Superboy character, without determining whether Superboy was, in fact, the basis for Warner Brothers’s “Smallville” television series. The decision was later challenged in a case that has yet to be resolved, said Mr. Toberoff, who represented the family in that action.
This week’s decision by Stephen G. Larson, a judge in the Federal District Court for the Central District of California, provided long-sought vindication to the wife and daughter of Mr. Siegel, who had bemoaned until his death in 1996 having parted so cheaply with rights to the lucrative hero.
“We were just stubborn,” Joanne Siegel, Mr. Siegel’s widow, said in a joint interview with her daughter, Laura Siegel Larson. “It was a dream of Jerry’s, and we just took up the task.”
The ruling specifically upheld the Seigels’ copyright in the Superman material published in Detective Comics’ Action Comics Vol. 1. The extent to which later iterations of the character are derived from that original was not determined by the judge.
In an unusually detailed narrative, the judge’s 72-page order described how Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster, as teenagers at Glenville High School in Cleveland, became friends and collaborators on their school newspaper in 1932. They worked together on a short story, “The Reign of the Superman,” in which their famous character first appeared not as hero, but villain.
By 1937, the pair were offering publishers comic strips in which the classic Superman elements — cape, logo and Clark Kent alter-ego — were already set. When Detective Comics bought 13 pages of work for its new Action Comics series the next year, the company sent Mr. Siegel a check for $130, and received in return a release from both creators granting the company rights to Superman “to have and hold forever,” the order noted.
In the late 1940s, a referee in a New York court upheld Detective Comics’ copyright, prompting Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster to drop their claim in exchange for $94,000. More than 30 years later, DC Comics (the successor to Detective Comics) gave the creators each a $20,000-per-year annuity that was later increased to $30,000. In 1997, however, Mrs. Siegel and her daughter served copyright termination notices under provisions of a 1976 law that permits heirs, under certain circumstances, to recover rights to creations.
Mr. Toberoff, their lawyer, has been something of a gadfly to Warner in the past. In the late 1990s, for example, he represented Gilbert Ralston, a television writer, in a legal battle over his rights in the CBS television series “The Wild Wild West,” which was the basis for a 1999 Warner Brothers film that starred Will Smith. The case, said Mr. Toberoff, was settled.
Compensation to the Siegels would be limited to any work created after their 1999 termination date. Income from the 1978 “Superman” film, or the three sequels that followed in the 1980s, are not at issue. But a “Superman Returns” sequel being planned with the filmmaker Bryan Singer (who has also directed “The Usual Suspects” and “X-Men”) might require payments to the Siegels, should they prevail in a demand that the studio’s income, not just that of the comics unit, be subject to a court-ordered accounting.
Mrs. Siegel and Ms. Larson said it was too soon to make future plans for the Superman character. But they were inclined to relish this moment.
“I have lived in the shadow of this my whole life,” Ms. Larson said. “I am so happy now, I just can’t explain it.”
Go to New York Times original
LOS ANGELES — Time Warner is no longer the sole proprietor of Superman.A federal judge here on Wednesday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130 — were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright to the character. The ruling left intact Time Warner’s international rights to the character, which it has long owned through its DC Comics unit.
And it reserved for trial questions over how much the company may owe the Siegel heirs for use of the character since 1999, when their ownership is deemed to have been restored. Also to be resolved is whether the heirs are entitled to payments directly from Time Warner’s film unit, Warner Brothers, which took in $200 million at the domestic box office with “Superman Returns” in 2006, or only from the DC unit’s Superman profits.
Still, the ruling threatened to complicate Warner’s plans to make more films featuring Superman, including another sequel and a planned movie based on the DC Comics’ “Justice League of America,” in which he joins Batman, Wonder Woman and other superheroes to battle evildoers.
If the ruling survives a Time Warner legal challenge, it may also open the door to a similar reversion of rights to the estate of Mr. Shuster in 2013. That would give heirs of the two creators control over use of their lucrative character until at least 2033 — and perhaps longer, if Congress once again extends copyright terms — according to Marc Toberoff, a lawyer who represents the Siegels and the Shuster estate.
“It would be very powerful,” said Mr. Toberoff, speaking by telephone on Friday. “After 2013, Time Warner couldn’t exploit any new Superman-derived works without a license from the Siegels and Shusters.”
Time Warner lawyers declined to discuss the decision, a spokesman said. A similar ruling in 2006 allowed the Siegels to recapture their rights in the Superboy character, without determining whether Superboy was, in fact, the basis for Warner Brothers’s “Smallville” television series. The decision was later challenged in a case that has yet to be resolved, said Mr. Toberoff, who represented the family in that action.
This week’s decision by Stephen G. Larson, a judge in the Federal District Court for the Central District of California, provided long-sought vindication to the wife and daughter of Mr. Siegel, who had bemoaned until his death in 1996 having parted so cheaply with rights to the lucrative hero.
“We were just stubborn,” Joanne Siegel, Mr. Siegel’s widow, said in a joint interview with her daughter, Laura Siegel Larson. “It was a dream of Jerry’s, and we just took up the task.”
The ruling specifically upheld the Seigels’ copyright in the Superman material published in Detective Comics’ Action Comics Vol. 1. The extent to which later iterations of the character are derived from that original was not determined by the judge.
In an unusually detailed narrative, the judge’s 72-page order described how Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster, as teenagers at Glenville High School in Cleveland, became friends and collaborators on their school newspaper in 1932. They worked together on a short story, “The Reign of the Superman,” in which their famous character first appeared not as hero, but villain.
By 1937, the pair were offering publishers comic strips in which the classic Superman elements — cape, logo and Clark Kent alter-ego — were already set. When Detective Comics bought 13 pages of work for its new Action Comics series the next year, the company sent Mr. Siegel a check for $130, and received in return a release from both creators granting the company rights to Superman “to have and hold forever,” the order noted.
In the late 1940s, a referee in a New York court upheld Detective Comics’ copyright, prompting Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster to drop their claim in exchange for $94,000. More than 30 years later, DC Comics (the successor to Detective Comics) gave the creators each a $20,000-per-year annuity that was later increased to $30,000. In 1997, however, Mrs. Siegel and her daughter served copyright termination notices under provisions of a 1976 law that permits heirs, under certain circumstances, to recover rights to creations.
Mr. Toberoff, their lawyer, has been something of a gadfly to Warner in the past. In the late 1990s, for example, he represented Gilbert Ralston, a television writer, in a legal battle over his rights in the CBS television series “The Wild Wild West,” which was the basis for a 1999 Warner Brothers film that starred Will Smith. The case, said Mr. Toberoff, was settled.
Compensation to the Siegels would be limited to any work created after their 1999 termination date. Income from the 1978 “Superman” film, or the three sequels that followed in the 1980s, are not at issue. But a “Superman Returns” sequel being planned with the filmmaker Bryan Singer (who has also directed “The Usual Suspects” and “X-Men”) might require payments to the Siegels, should they prevail in a demand that the studio’s income, not just that of the comics unit, be subject to a court-ordered accounting.
Mrs. Siegel and Ms. Larson said it was too soon to make future plans for the Superman character. But they were inclined to relish this moment.
“I have lived in the shadow of this my whole life,” Ms. Larson said. “I am so happy now, I just can’t explain it.”
Zimbabweans vote in tense election
Go to Al Jazeera original
Zimbabweans are voting in an election which opponents of Robert Mugabe, the current president, say is being rigged in his favour.
Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni, the two other presidential candidates, have accused Mugabe's Zanu-PF party of adding phantom voters to the electoral roll and restricting access to state media.
About 9,000 polling stations began opening at 7am (0500 GMT) in elections for the presidency, parliament, senate and local councils. The vote is due to end 12 hours later.
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High prices spark fresh gold rush in California
Go to Financial Times original
It has been almost 160 years since the first California gold rush but, with prices hitting record highs, prospectors are once again flocking to the state’s rivers and deserts in search of the precious metal.
Gold’s ascent – prices crossed the $1,000 an ounce barrier this month and remain well above $900 – has sent sales of mining equipment soaring.
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Friday, March 28, 2008
'Earth Hour' Friday 8pm local time: Turning off your lights for one hour
Go to Yahoo original
SYDNEY (AFP) - Twenty-six major cities around the world are expected to turn off the lights on major landmarks, plunging millions of people into darkness to raise awareness about global warming, organisers said.
'Earth Hour' founder Andy Ridley said 371 cities, towns or local governments from Australia to Canada and even Fiji had signed up for the 60-minute shutdown at 0900 GMT on March 29.
"There are definitely 26 (cities) that we think, if it all goes to plan, we are going to see a major event of lights going off," he told AFP.
Cities officially signed on include Chicago and San Francisco, Dublin, Manila, Bangkok, Copenhagen and Toronto, all of which will switch off lights on major landmarks and encourage businesses and homeowners to follow suit.
Ridley said it was also likely that other major European cities such as Rome and London, and the South Korean capital Seoul, although not officially taking part, would turn off lights on some attractions or landmarks.
The initiative began in Sydney last year and has become a global event, sweeping across 35 countries this year.
From 8:00 pm local time in Sydney, the energy-saving campaign will see harbourside icons such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House bathed only in moonlight, restaurant diners eat by candlelight and city skyscrapers turn off their neon signs.
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