African Union head wants NATO to help fight Mali rebels

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The head of the African Union, Benin President Boni Yayi, on Tuesday called for a global coalition that includes NATO to intervene against Islamist rebels in northern Mali.
"My understanding is that in reality when we talk of an international force it's not just (West African regional group) ECOWAS, it's not just the African Union, it's also other forces from outside the African continent, given the seriousness of the situation," Yayi told a news conference in Ottawa.
Islamist groups have seized the northern two-thirds of Mali, spawning concern that the region could become a center for radical extremists. On Monday, Mali's army repelled an attack on its advance positions by heavily armed Islamist groups, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
Islamist fighters who seized control of Mali's vast desert north in April have advanced towards government positions in the region of Mopti in recent days, sowing fears of a return to fighting after months of uneasy stalemate.
"NATO should join up with our African forces. Our African forces will show the way, I believe, as it was done in many other places, such as Afghanistan ... The threat of terrorism is in reality something for the international community to deal with," Yayi said.
In December, the 15-nation U.N. Security Council unanimously authorized deployment of an African-led military force to help defeat al Qaeda and other Islamist militants in northern Mali.
Yayi spoke after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said Canada would provide humanitarian aid but was not planning to join the U.N.-sanctioned force.
"Obviously, we are very concerned about the situation," Harper said. "The development of essentially an entire terrorist region in the middle of Africa is of grave concern to everybody in the international community.

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Kings beat Raptors 105-96 to halt Toronto's win streak at ACC at five games

TORONTO - DeMarcus Cousins poured in 31 points and grabbed 20 rebounds to lift the Sacramento Kings to a 105-96 victory over the Raptors on Friday, handing Toronto its first loss at home in six games.
Kyle Lowry scored 24 points to top the Raptors (12-21), who've lost just twice in 10 games.
Alan Anderson added 20 points, DeMar DeRozan finished with 14, Jose Calderon had 13 points and just three assists, and Ed Davis had 11 points and a team-high 13 rebounds.
John Salmons added 20 points for the Kings, who won for just the third time on the road this season.
The game was a sloppy affair for a Toronto team that was coming off one of its most solid performances this season just two nights earlier in a 102-79 victory over Portland.
For all the positive vibe around a team that had been digging out of its early-season hole with hustle and teamwork, the Raptors seemed to be able to do little right Friday.
They had no answer for Cousins, who hammered the home team inside all night long with the Kings outscoring Toronto 52-32 in the paint.
And while the Raptors have been on a hot streak, the Kings have as well, winning six of their last nine games.
Toronto had an eight-point lead in the second quarter, but the wheels fell off in a third quarter that saw the Raptors outscored 28-10. They trailed 82-63 heading into the fourth in front of a disgruntled Air Canada Centre crowd that had developed a taste for winning.
The Raptors pulled to within 13 points with six minutes to play on back-to-back three-pointers from Calderon and Anderson, but that was as close as they would come.
Before the game, Raptors coach Dwane Casey cautioned against getting too excited over Toronto's recent success too soon.
"We're still 12 and 20, I'm not jumping up and down and throwing snowballs," he said.
Both team were missing some key players as Sacramento played its 10th straight game without Tyreke Evans (knee injury).
The Raptors have played 10 straight without forward Andrea Bargnani, and fourth without rookie forward Jonas Valanciunas. Linas Kleiza sat his second straight game with a sore knee.
Cousins had nine points and four boards as the Kings led for a good chunk of the first quarter — but never by more than six points. The visitors took a 23-22 advantage into the second.
The Raptors went on a 17-5 run early in the second to take an eight-point lead, but the Kings headed into the locker-room at halftime up 54-53.
Cousins continued to pound Toronto — to the tune of 10 points and eight rebounds — in the third quarter as the Kings outscored the Raptors 28-10 and took a 82-63 lead into the fourth.
NOTES: Sacramento took the first meeting between the two teams 107-100 on Dec. 5. . . The Raptors host Oklahoma City on Sunday. . . The Blue Jays' Jose Bautista and Adam Lind chucked autographed balls up into the crowd during a timeout.

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Notre Dame women shock No. 1 UConn 73-72

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — Skylar Diggins and Notre Dame just seem to have Connecticut's number.
The Irish have turned one of the best rivalries in women's basketball into a one-sided affair lately, winning five of the past six meetings.
The senior All-American scored 19 points hitting big shot after big shot in the second half to lift fifth-ranked Notre Dame to a 73-72 victory over the top-ranked Huskies on Saturday.
This was the latest victory for the Irish (12-1, 1-0 Big East), who also ended UConn's season the past two years by beating the Huskies in past two Final Fours.
"I think when we play them, there is a lot on the line, whether it is a Big East Championship or them being ranked higher than us or in the Final Four," Diggins said. "This is good for us."
No team has had this kind of success against UConn in the past 20 years.
The last team to beat UConn five out of six times was Miami back in the early 1990s — before the Huskies started winning national championships.
The Irish were expected to be down this season with three starters graduated. It didn't matter with Diggins still on the team.
With UConn poised to pull away in the second half, Diggins hit back-to-back 3-pointers to keep her team in the game.
Later with the shot clock about to run out, Diggins hit a leaner from the wing.
Finally, with the Irish down by one with 49 seconds left, she got fouled on a drive and calmly sank both free throws. It would be the last points of the game.
"I think Skylar has changed things for us," Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw said. "She believed we can win and has the confidence and that is contagious."
The Huskies (12-1, 0-1) had a few chances to pull out the win in the final 30 seconds, but in front of a sellout crowd of 10,127, they fell short.
Breanna Stewart had her shot blocked in the lane. The Huskies maintained possession and then after a timeout, Stewart missed a jumper from the top of the key. Kelly Faris grabbed the rebound giving UConn one more chance, but Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis caught the ball in the corner and her wide-open 3 fell off the rim.
The Irish grabbed the loose ball and Diggins ran out the clock.
"How many times can we put up our defense," McGraw said. "I thought about our football team getting that goal line stand (against Stanford) three times in a row, if they can do it, we can do it."
The Irish women were headed down South after the game to get ready for Tuesday's contest against South Florida. Notre Dame was going to first spend a day in Orlando.
McGraw laughed at the thought that her team would head to Disney World after beating the No. 1 team in the country. She put the victory in perspective.
"It's great to win when they are ranked No. 1," she said. "It's great for our team, but it's still January 5. We're just trying to get better."
The Huskies had come into the game unbeaten and a week earlier had stunned then-No. 1 Stanford 61-35 on the Cardinal's homecourt ending their 82-game home winning streak. They had already beaten five ranked teams by an average of 24 points.
"It's definitely been an up and down week" said Stefanie Dolson, who scored 17 points to lead Connecticut. "We were all extremely excited and on a high when we beat Stanford the way we did. We came into this game and we weren't ready. I don't think we were ready for how hard Notre Dame was going to come at us. They out-toughed us."
UConn trailed by two at the half and took a 48-44 lead on Dolson's layup with 16:18 left in the game. The Huskies led 63-60 with 8 minutes left before Notre Dame scored five quick points. Neither team could get more than a two-point lead the rest of the way.
Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma was OK with the shots his team got in the end.
"You got the best 3-point shooter in the country with a wide open 3 to win it and it doesn't go in," he said. "I'd be more upset if the wrong guy took the wrong shot at the wrong time. We came out of timeout and got the shot we wanted and it didn't go in."
Mosqueda-Lewis finished with 17 points.
Stewart, the high school player of the year last season, scored all 10 of her points in the second half after missing her first five shots. She also had six blocks and nine rebounds.
"She looked out of sorts a little bit, struggled a little bit," Auriemma said. "But then again you think about what she did, 10 points, nine rebounds, six blocks, that's not a bad day. I think that's what we expect from her. Shots she missed we come to expect she'll make all those."
The Irish won both regular-season meetings last year, before being blown out in the Big East championship game. They won the decisive meeting in the Final Four, 83-75, in overtime.
Notre Dame's lone defeat this season came at home to No. 2 Baylor, 73-61, on Dec. 5.
The two teams, who have played 12 times over the past four seasons, will play again in South Bend on March 4, in the final game of the regular season.
It's not certain if the two teams will play again after Notre Dame leaves for the Atlantic Coast Conference.
UConn led 18-15 midway through the first half before Notre Dame went on a 12-2 run sparked by Kayla McBride, who led Notre Dame with 21 points. She had back-to-back jumpers. Michaela Mabrey hit a 3-pointer and Natalie Achonwa a free throw to cap the burst.
Mabrey's second 3-pointer of the half gave the Irish a 34-26 lead with 5 minutes left in the half before UConn closed with a 12-4 burst to make it 38-36 at the break.

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Kelly wants Notre Dame keeping bar at title height

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Win or lose, Notre Dame's Brian Kelly doesn't want his team aiming any lower than the national championship game in the future.
Kelly said Sunday "it's unacceptable for the standard to be any less than being back here again." First things first, his top-ranked Fighting Irish will face No. 2 Alabama Monday night hoping for their first national title since 1988.
Kelly has been in national title games before. He led Division II Grand Valley State to championships in 2002 and 2003. For the last one, the team stayed mostly unnoticed in a Best Western and there was so much less buildup that it "was just another game."
He says "it's a totally different feeling for this one."
As for his pregame message, Kelly says he typically goes 80 percent by what he senses from his team.

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Kuwaiti journalist jailed for Twitter 'insults'

KUWAIT CITY (AP) — A Kuwait newspaper says an online journalist has been sentenced to two years in prison for posts deemed "insulting" to the Gulf nation's ruler — the second such ruling this week.
The decision reflects a widening social media crackdown across the Gulf Arab states to quell perceived political dissent.
Kuwait's pro-government Al Watan newspaper reported Monday that Ayyad al-Harbi, a journalist at news website Sabr, was charged with posting Twitter messages considered offensive to the nation's Western-allied emir. No other details were given.
Kuwait, which hosts thousands of U.S. troops, has been gripped by months of political unrest led by anti-government groups, including Islamist factions.
On Sunday, Kuwaiti media said a social media activist also has received a two-year prison term for Twitter posts that allegedly insulted the emir.

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Mark Zuckerberg faces fine in Germany over Facebook privacy violations

Facebook (FB) founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg could face a fine of $26,000 for not allowing German citizens to maintain anonymous identities on Facebook, The Guardian reported. Thilo Weichert, the data protection commissioner for the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, said that Facebook is breaking a German law by requiring users to provide their identities, adding that “it is unacceptable that a U.S. portal like Facebook violates German data protection law, unopposed and with no prospect of an end.” The company has previously come under fire in Germany for policies surrounding its “like” button and facial recognition feature. Nominal fines aside, data protection experts have said that Facebook is unlikely to change its policies.

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181,354 People on Twitter Think They're Experts at Twitter

Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media "maven", "master", "guru", "freak", "warrior", "evangelist" or "veteran"? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you've got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals on Twitter, people who adorn their profiles with credentials like "social media freak" and "social media wonk" and "social media authority."
RELATED: Teens Hacking Their Friends's Twitter Accounts Is All the Rage
B.L. Ochman at Advertising Age, whose heroic research produced the final tally, first noted the trend three years ago — when she recorded, among other distinctions, 68 "social media stars" and 79 "social media ninjas" on Twitter alone — and has been keeping track ever since. This isn't just the stuff of legitimate Twitter news-breakers like Anthony DeRosa and Andy Carvin — Ohman provides a helpful breakdown of the terms she looked for — you know, like "social media warrior." (We're tempted to argue that such diligence makes Ochman something of a social media warrior herself.) Ochman also warns of using "guru" — a Sanskrit term — to describe oneself:
While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let's save "guru" (Sanskrit for "teacher") for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.
I'd argue, in fact, that "social media" and "guru" should never appear in the same sentence.
Whatever the term, social media seems to be a growth industry: there were only 15,740 "mavens" (or whatever) in 2009 — less than a tenth of those represented today.

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Global stocks, commodities rise on U.S. fiscal deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global stocks jumped 2 percent or more and commodities rallied on Wednesday after U.S. legislators struck a deal to halt a round of automatic fiscal tightening that threatened to push the world's largest economy into recession.
The deal reached on Tuesday to avert the "fiscal cliff" put off the immediate pain of income tax hikes for almost all U.S. households but did nothing to resolve other political impasses on the budget that loom in coming months, including the debt ceiling.
Oil prices pared some gains but Wall Street rallied at the close, with the benchmark S&P 500 posting its best day in more than a year. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX <.vix>, a gauge of investor anxiety, dropped 18.5 percent to 14.68 at the close. The VIX has fallen 35.4 percent over the past two sessions.
The markets' reaction to the U.S. budget deal was a "sigh of relief that a recession in the world's largest economy has been averted," said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York.
Copper rose to its highest in more than two months, while silver and platinum group metals also rose sharply. The S&P 500 achieved its biggest one-day gain since December 20, 2011, pushing the index to its highest close since September 14.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> closed up 308.41 points, or 2.35 percent, at 13,412.55. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 36.23 points, or 2.54 percent, at 1,462.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 92.75 points, or 3.07 percent, at 3,112.26.
Still, the rally may be short-lived. Spending cuts of $109 billion in military and domestic programs were only delayed for two months, and a fight over the limit for U.S. government debt also looms.
"There was the fiscal cliff euphoria, but the markets are a little overdone and people realize you still have the debt ceiling battle, social security taxes going up and dealing with spending sequestration and budget cuts," said Mark Waggoner, president at Excel Futures Inc.
The deal boosted investors' appetite for riskier assets and depressed the U.S. dollar against major currencies. Brent crude oil hit an 11-week high of nearly $113 per barrel and gold prices rose nearly 1 percent.
Brent February crude rose $1.36 to settle at $112.47 a barrel, after reaching $112.90. U.S. crude for February delivery rose $1.30 to settle at $93.12 a barrel.
The vote in Congress removed a major uncertainty hanging over markets, but some analysts cautioned that the optimism could fade if U.S. economic data later this week, including the December payroll report, disappoints.
U.S. manufacturing expanded slightly in December, bouncing back from an unexpected contraction the prior month, according to an industry report released on Wednesday.
The MSCI all-country world equity index <.miwd00000pus> rose 2.05 percent. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <.fteu3> closed 2.1 percent higher at 1157.40.
In currency markets, the euro retreated after reaching a two-week high earlier in the session to trade down 0.15 percent at 1.3183. The U.S. dollar rose 0.06 percent against a basket of major currencies <.dxy>.
Prices of safe-haven government debt fell. Germany's Bund future posted its biggest daily fall since early September, settling down 1.57 points at 144.07.
Yields on U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury notes hit a more than three-month high, with the price falling 24/32 to yield 1.8406 percent.
Venezuela's U.S. dollar-denominated sovereign bonds rallied across the yield curve on Wednesday in a sign of increased appetite for risk. The benchmark 2027 Global bond gained 1.536 points in price to bid 99.79, yielding 9.273.
The Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index <.trjcrb> of 19 commodities rose 0.85 percent, with metals dominating gains.

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Swiss bank to pay $57.8M in US tax evasion plea

NEW YORK (AP) — Switzerland's oldest bank became the first foreign bank to plead guilty in the United States to tax charges when it admitted Thursday that it helped American clients hide more than $1.2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.
Wegelin & Co., founded in 1741, entered the plea in federal court in Manhattan, agreeing to pay $20 million in restitution to the IRS, a $22 million fine and an additional $15.8 million, representing the gross fees earned by the bank on the undeclared accounts of U.S. taxpayers between 2002 and 2011. U.S. authorities said the money, combined with an April forfeiture of more than $16.2 million by the bank, meant the U.S. had recovered about $74 million.
The bank had been accused of helping at least 100 U.S. clients conceal large sums of money from the federal tax collection agency in overseas accounts.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the bank became a haven for U.S. taxpayers looking to cheat on taxes through secret off-shore accounts.
"The bank willfully and aggressively jumped in to fill a void that was left when other Swiss banks abandoned the practice due to pressure from U.S. law enforcement," Bharara said.
He called it a "watershed moment in our efforts to hold to account both the individuals and the banks — wherever they may be in the world — who are engaging in unlawful conduct that deprives the U.S. Treasury of billions of dollars of tax revenue."
Wegelin, headquartered in St. Gallen, Switzerland, said in a statement that it had cooperated with the probe "within the bounds allowed for by Swiss law" since learning that it was under U.S. investigation.
U.S. authorities said Wegelin had no branches outside Switzerland but accessed the U.S. banking system through a correspondent bank account that it held at UBS AG in Stamford, Conn.
Prosecutors said Wegelin in 2008 and 2009 opened and serviced dozens of new accounts for U.S. taxpayers as it tried to capture clients lost by UBS after word surfaced that that UBS was being investigated for helping U.S. taxpayers evade taxes and hide assets in Swiss bank accounts.
Wegelin employees told U.S. taxpayer-clients that their undeclared accounts would not be disclosed to U.S. authorities because the bank had a long tradition of secrecy, prosecutors said. They added that the employees persuaded U.S. taxpayer-clients to move money from UBS to Wegelin by claiming that, unlike UBS, Wegelin did not have offices outside of Switzerland and would be less vulnerable to U.S. law enforcement.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said, Wegelin took additional steps to hide the accounts, including by putting them in the names of sham corporations and foundations formed under the laws of jurisdictions that included Hong Kong and Panama and by using code names and numbers to minimize references to the actual names of U.S. taxpayers on Swiss bank documents. They said the bank also was careful not to send account statements to U.S. clients in the United States and corresponded with clients through private email accounts.
In February 2009, UBS entered a deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. authorities and agreed to pay $780 million in fines, penalties, interest and restitution.

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Updated: 2013 Federal Income Tax Brackets And Marginal Rates

When you file your federal income tax return before April 2013, you're filing your 2012 taxes, and the 2012 income tax brackets define the amount of tax you owe to the government before credits and after-tax adjustments. The first paycheck or consultancy fee you earn in 2013 falls under new rules, however. The 2013 income tax brackets apply to money you earn during that year, although you may not notice how this affects you until you file your income taxes in early 2014. If you pay estimated taxes throughout the year, you may be more aware of the change in brackets.
Now that Congress has passed a new law to avoid the fiscal cliff, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, we have a better picture of the marginal tax rates for 2013 ahead of the official announcement from the IRS. With the changes to the top tax bracket set by the law and the remaining brackets adjusted by inflation with help from The Tax Foundation, this article includes the likely tax scenario.
In 2013, the Bush-era tax cuts have been extended -- made "permanent" -- for all taxpayers but the highest tax bracket. This is similar to one of the scenarios predicted earlier, but the question up until the last minute has been at what income level would the older, higher top marginal tax rate be effective.
Republicans wanted this number to be high, where the top tax rate would affect only those taxpayers earning over $1,000,000, while President Obama was aiming for the top tax rate to affect more taxpayers, including those earning over $200,000 or $250,000. The Congress settled on a compromise of $400,000 for taxpayers filing single as the threshold for the top tax rate, which is very close to what the top tax bracket would have been anyway, due to inflation.
As a result, these are the tax rates you can expect in 2013.
Rate    Single Filers    Married Joint Filers    Head of Household Filers
10%    $0 to $8,925    $0 to $17,850    $0 to $12,750
15%    $8,925 to $36,250    $17,850 to $72,500    $12,750 to $48,600
25%    $36,250 to $87,850    $72,500 to $146,400    $48,600 to $125,450
28%    $87,850 to $183,250    $146,400 to $223,050    $125,450 to $203,150
33%    $183,250 to $398,350    $223,050 to $398,350    $203,150 to $398,350
35%    $398,350 to $400,000    $398,350 to $450,000    $398,350 to $425,000
39.6%    $400,000 and up    $450,000 and up    $425,000 and up
Keep in mind that the tax rates listed in these tables are marginal rates. That means that you do not owe your rate on all of your income. For example, if you single, you earn $100,000 per year, you would not owe 28% on all of your income -- you would not owe $28,000 to the federal government. You would owe 10% of $8,925, 15% of $27,325 (the difference between the top and the threshold of the second tax bracket), 25% of $51,600, and 28% of $12,150 (the difference between your income and the threshold of the third tax bracket).
That calculation results in $21,293, or an effective (not marginal) tax rate of 21.2%. That will be further reduced by any credits, assuming your taxable income is the same as your gross income. Your effective tax rate could be much lower if deductions have already reduced your taxable income to $100,000 from a larger gross income. For example, if a 401(k) contribution reduced your taxable income from $115,000 to $100,000, you would still use the same tax calculation I've described here, but your effective tax rate would be 18.5%.
Income tax isn't the only concern for workers' paychecks in 2013. With the elimination of the temporary cut to payroll taxes, employees earning less than $110,100 will go back to paying their full share of the tax. For someone earning $50,000, that's $83 less in his take home pay each month than he would receive if the cut had been extended.
With the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 now law, rather than Congress needing to extend the Bush-era tax cuts every year, they will be permanent. Congress can, however, create a new law at any time to change the rates or the tax brackets, but the end-of-year political dance about whether to renew these specific tax cuts will no longer exist.

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