Software pioneer McAfee says framed for murder in Belize

BELIZE CITY (Reuters) – Computer security industry pioneer John McAfee says he has gone into hiding in Belize because he believes authorities there are trying to frame him for the murder of a neighbor, a crime he says he did not commit, according to Wired magazine.

Belize police are searching for McAfee as “a person of interest” in a murder investigation.

“You can say I’m paranoid about it, but they will kill me, there is no question. They’ve been trying to get me for months. They want to silence me,” Wired quoted McAfee as saying on its website. “I am not well liked by the prime minister. I am just a thorn in everybody’s side.”

The magazine reported that McAfee, 67, contacted one of its reporters by telephone after his neighbor Gregory Faull, was found dead on Sunday in a pool of blood. The 52-year-old American was apparently shot in the head in his home on the island of Ambergris Caye.

Police say McAfee had a history of conflict with Faull, whose post-mortem was expected to be conducted on Tuesday.

McAfee, who amassed a fortune by building the anti-virus company that bears his name, has homes and businesses in the Central American country where police say he has lived for at least two years.

It was not the first time McAfee, who has tattoos, a goatee beard and mustache, and a penchant for guns, has drawn police attention in Belize.

His premises were raided earlier this year after he was accused of holding firearms, though most were found to be licensed. The final outcome of the case is pending.

He was also suspected of running a lab to make the synthetic drug crystal meth.

“He was suspected (of making crystal meth) but he was not convicted nor was he charged. He was only suspected,” said Belize police spokesman Raphael Martinez.

McAfee also owns a security company in Belize as well as several properties, an ecological enterprise and a water taxi and ferry business.

Reuters could not reach McAfee, who police want to question.

“It would be quite nice for him to come in and answer some of the questions that could lead to the closure of this case,” Martinez said. “He is not wanted for murder, but he is wanted for questioning as a person of interest.”

One man in Belize who knows McAfee well told Reuters he believed the American’s troubles began when he turned down requests for donations to the ruling United Democratic Party (UDP) to help fund its successful re-election bid in March.

“He rejected them because he doesn’t believe in participating in politics,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, calling McAfee an “honorable person.”

McAfee said earlier this year he had refused to donate to the UDP, which could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Belize police department has reached out to counterparts in neighboring Mexico and Guatemala, asking them to detain McAfee if he leaves Belize overland.

McAfee was one of Silicon Valley’s first entrepreneurs to amass a fortune by building a business off the Internet.

The former Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in 1989, initially distributing anti-virus software as “shareware” on Internet bulletin boards.

He took the company public in 1992 and left two years later following accusations that he had hyped the arrival of a virus known as Michelangelo, which turned out to be a dud, to scare computer users into buying his company’s products.

McAfee currently has no relationship with the software company, which has since been sold to Intel Corp.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston, Jose Sanchez in Belize City, Simon Gardner and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Editing by Kieran Murray and Eric Walsh)

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Accuser recants sex claims against Elmo puppeteer: report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The man who claimed he had underage sex with the puppeteer behind “Sesame Street” character Elmo recanted his claims on Tuesday, U.S. media reported.

The unnamed man, now 23, had claimed that Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash had a sexual relationship with him when the accuser was 16 years old, potentially engulfing one of the biggest childhood brands in an underage sex scandal.

“He wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship,” the law firm Andreozzi and Associates, who represent the man, told U.S. media outlets in a statement.

Clash, 52, who had denied the allegations, said in a statement obtained by Reuters on Tuesday: “I am relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest. I will not discuss it further.”

New York-based Sesame Workshop said on Monday that its own inquiry had concluded that the claims of underage sexual conduct against Clash were unsubstantiated.

“We are pleased that this matter has been brought to a close, and we are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode,” Sesame Workshop said in a statement on Tuesday.

Clash, 52, the voice of Elmo for nearly three decades, had acknowledged a past relationship with his accuser but said on Monday the pair were both consenting adults at the time. He termed the allegations “false and defamatory.”

“I am a gay man. I have never been ashamed of this or tried to hide it,” Clash said on Monday, saying he was taking a break from the TV show to deal with the situation.

Sesame Workshop said the allegations involving Clash came to its attention in June when the accuser first contacted the company by email. A company executive said it had found “absolutely no evidence that the allegations were true.”

The Elmo character debuted on “Sesame Street” in 1979. While Clash was the third performer to animate the child-like shaggy red monster, Sesame Workshop credits him with turning Elmo into the international sensation he became.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey and Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Cynthia Johnston)

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3-D Imaging Improves Breast Cancer Screening

The mammograms most women receive are decidedly two-dimensional. An x-ray machine takes images of the breast from the sides, and radiologists examine the resulting image to see if it offers up any hits of potentially cancerous irregularities. These tests, however, are far from perfect. Normal calcium deposits and fibrous tissue can align to create a composite image that resembles a suspect mass. And small lesions can go undetected if they are hidden among normal tissue. A team of researchers has added a new dimension to screening for better accuracy. This new technique allows traditional x-ray machines to capture images of the breast in three dimensions and provides a new display to let radiologists examine width, length and depth. The multidimensional snapshot may help to avoid false-positives of tissue that is not really cancerous as well as well as missed lesions that can go on to develop into tougher-to-treat cancer. Stereographic digital mammography produces an inner view of the breast in a similar manner to the way our eyes and brain create the three dimensional representation of the world around us. “Our eyes see the world from two slightly different perspectives,” Carl D’Orsi of Emory University School of Medicine, co-author of a paper in the November 13 issue of Radiology, noted in a prepared statement. “In this technique, the x-ray tube functions as the eyeball, with two different images providing slightly different views of the internal structure of the breast.” To create this stereoscopic view, the x-ray technologist shifts the x-ray tube 10 degrees (standard, straight-on x-rays would be at 0 degrees, so the two images are +5 and -5 degrees off center, respectively) to collect two different angles that can be reassembled into a more three-dimensional image of the breast. For the study, 779 women identified to have a high risk of breast cancer (related to family history or other factors, such as a previous history of the disease) volunteered to have two mammograms completed during a single visit–one with traditional 2-D x-rays and another with the 3-D, stereoscopic technique. For the stereoscopic view, the system fuses both images and conveys the depth perspective. The research team created a display system that fed the two different perspectives onto respective display monitors that were connected top-to-bottom, with the top monitor angled in toward the viewer, creating a 110-degree angle. The two displays were cross-polarized. A glass plate covered with reflective coating on the top separated the two screens and reflected the top image to a viewer while letting the bottom image through. The technician wore cross-polarizing glasses. “The radiologist’s visual system then fuses the two images into a single, directly visible in-depth image of the breast,” the researchers described in their paper. Some 12.9 percent of scans done by traditional x-ray indicated that a woman needed a follow-up visit for further testing, but only 9.6 percent of the scans required this with 3-D imaging. The percentage of women who were called for subsequent examinations based on the screening and found to actually have cancer was double that with the 3-D data than with the 2-D approach (although the overall numbers are small, four of 83 and three of 126, respectively), suggesting that the false-positive rate was lower with the new technique. The researchers are not sure if these findings will carry over to the general population, as the women in the study were already at a substantially increased risk for breast cancer. The additional x-ray snapshot required only an extra 90 seconds for scanning. But it is unclear whether the new technique would increase costs (due to additional equipment and training) or reduce them (because of reduction in false positives and unnecessary follow-up procedures). Concern has also been mounting that the radiation exposure during mammograms could slightly increase the risk for breast cancer. And the stereoscopic x-ray technique exposed subjects to twice as much radiation as the traditional, single-perspective scan because “we acquired each of the images comprising the stereo pairs with a full standard x-ray dose,” D’Orsi said. But they are working to reduce these levels. “Now that we know the technique is worthwhile, we’re repeating the study in the general population with a dose comparable to routine screening mammography.”

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
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UK unemployment continues to fall

14 November 2012 Last updated at 06:01 ET

Live: Bank of England inflation report and news conference

The number of people out of work in the UK has fallen to its lowest total for more than a year.

Unemployment fell by 49,000 to 2.51 million in the three months to September, taking the jobless rate to 7.8% from 7.9%.

The Office for National Statistics said that almost all the 49,000 fall was due to a decline in youth unemployment.

But the ONS said that the claimant count rose by 10,100 last month to 1.58 million, the highest since July.

The unemployment total is now 110,000 lower than for the July-September quarter last year, the ONS said. The number of people in work increased by 100,000 in the latest quarter to just under 30 million, a rise of more than half a million over the past year.

However, economists suggested that the figures indicated that the pace of job creation is slowing.

“The data therefore add to recent signs from business surveys that growing uncertainty about the economic outlook is causing increasing numbers of firms to retrench and focus on cost cutting,” said Chris Williamson, economist at economic research firm Markit.

Continue reading the main story

Even if employment in the private sector rises modestly rather than falls, it will likely not be enough to offset job cuts in the public sector as well as cater for an increasing labour force”

End Quote Howard Archer IHS Global Insight

Speaking at a news conference to present the Bank of England’s quarterly economic outlook, governor Sir Mervyn King said the figures showed that the labour market was “pretty strong”.

But he said it was hard to reconcile this with the weak growth in the economy.

Sir Mervyn said the economy had barely grown over the past two years and forecast that the recovery would be “subdued”.

“The road to recovery will be long and winding, but there are good reasons to suggest we are travelling in the right direction,” he said.

Other figures from the ONS showed that long-term unemployment – those out of work for over a year – increased by 12,000 in the quarter to September to 894,000, while 443,000 people have been jobless for more than two years, up by 21,000.

Part-time employment increased by 49,000 to 8.1 million, close to a record high, while there were 51,000 more people in full-time jobs, at 21.4 million. Unemployment among women fell by 10,000 to 1.09 million, and by 39,000 among men to 1.43 million.

Although the latest fall in unemployment was due to a reduction in youth unemployment, the ONS said that the jobless rate among 16 to 24-year-olds was still 963,000. This figure includes 315,000 unemployed young people in full-time education, the ONS said.

‘Challenges’

Nick Palmer from the ONS: “The basic message is that unemployment has continued to fall”

Mark Hoban, the Employment Minister, told the BBC: “This is another good set of figures. We’ve seen the number of people in work increase by 100,000 and youth unemployment is below a million again.”

But he insisted that there was “no room for complacency and that much hard work” remained to be done to get people back to work. “There are still some real challenges out there. We still need to tackle… long-term unemployment.”

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight, said the figures suggest “signs of some softening in the labour market’s recent impressive resilience”.

He said: “The most obvious sign of softening in the labour market came in a 10,100 rise in the number of claimant count unemployed, which was the largest increase for 13 months and followed a small rise of 800 in September.

“Even if employment in the private sector rises modestly rather than falls, it will likely not be enough to offset job cuts in the public sector as well as cater for an increasing labour force.”

The breakdown showed wide disparities across the UK, with unemployment falling in the North East and North West, but rising in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The ONS also released pay data showing that average earnings increased by 1.8% in the year to August, 0.1% up on the previous month.

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General investigated for emails to Petraeus friend

PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen’s communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.

Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus’ biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.

Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.

The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta’s decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.

Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.

In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen’s nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold “until the relevant facts are determined.” He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.

Panetta said President Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that Allen’s nomination should be put on hold. Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.

NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen’s appointment.

“We have seen Secretary Panetta‘s statement,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. “It is a U.S. investigation.”

Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama’s nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.

___

Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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Head of Microsoft’s Windows unit steps down

(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said the head of its flagship Windows division and the driving force behind Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, will be leaving the company with immediate effect, days after the software giant launched the Surface tablet.

Sinofsky, who presented at the launch of the Windows 8 operating system in New York City last month, will be succeeded by Julie Larson-Green, who will head the Windows hardware and software division, the company said in a statement.

Tami Reller will remain chief financial officer and chief marketing officer and will assume responsibility for the business of Windows.

Both executives will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft said.

At the launch event in October, Sinofsky and his team showed off a range of devices running Windows 8 from PC makers such as Lenovo Group Ltd and Acer Inc, but devoted most of their energy to the second half of the presentation and the Surface tablet, the first computer Microsoft has made itself.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad and Nicola Leske; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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Storm volunteers mingle with stars at Glamour fest

NEW YORK (AP) — Sandra Kyong Bradbury was star struck. She had just spied Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a few feet away.

“How can you top that?” asked Bradbury, a New York City neonatal nurse who had helped evacuate infants from a hospital that lost power during the height of Superstorm Sandy. She was amazed that she was being honored at the same event as a Supreme Court justice — the annual Glamour Women of the Year awards, where stars of film, TV, fashion and sports share the stage with lesser-known women who have equally impressive achievements to their name.

Few events bring together such an eclectic group of honorees, not to mention presenters. At the Carnegie Hall ceremony Monday night, HBO star Lena Dunham, creator of “Girls” and a heroine to a younger generation, was introduced by Chelsea Handler and paid tribute in her speech to Nora Ephron, who died earlier this year. Ethel Kennedy was praised by her daughter, Rory, who has made a film about her famous mother. Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, 17, was honored along with swimming phenom Missy Franklin, also 17, and other Olympic athletes, introduced by singer Mary J. Blige and serenaded by American Idol winner Phillip Phillips. Singer-actress Selena Gomez was lauded by her friend, the actor Ethan Hawke.

But the most moving moments of the Glamour awards, now in their 22nd year, are often those involving people of whom the audience hasn’t heard. This year, the most touching moment came when one honoree, Pakistani activist and filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, brought onstage a woman who’d been the victim of an acid attack in her native Pakistan. Obaid-Chinoy won this year’s documentary short Oscar for a film about disfiguring acid attacks on Pakistani women by the men in their lives.

The evening carried reminders of Superstorm Sandy, with Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker introducing some 20 women who’d been heavily involved in storm relief work. “They held us together when Sandy tried to blow us apart,” Booker said. The women worked for organizations like the American Red Cross, but also smaller volunteer groups like Jersey City Sandy Recovery, an impromptu group formed by three women in Jersey City, N.J., who wanted a way to help storm-ravaged communities.

Singer-rapper Pharrell Williams introduced one of his favorite architects, the Iraqi-born Zaha Hadid, 62, who designed the aquatic center for the London Olympics and is now at work on 43 projects around the world.

Activist Erin Merryn was honored for her work increasing awareness of child sex abuse — a horror she had endured during her own childhood. A law urging schools to educate children about sex abuse prevention, Erin’s Law, has now passed in four states. “I won’t stop until I get it passed in all 50 states,” Merryn insisted in her speech.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour saluted a fellow fashion luminary, honoree Annie Leibovitz, the creator of so many iconic photographs over the years. Jenna Lyons, the president of J. Crew, got kind words from her presenter, former supermodel Lauren Hutton. Chelsea Clinton brought up a stageful of women from across the country who had been involved in politics this year, noting that, while there is still a long way to go, progress was made in 2012.

The lifetime achievement award went to Ginsburg, 79, who made a few quips about being honored by a fashion magazine. “The judiciary is not a profession that ranks very high among the glamorously attired,” the justice said. She also noted that although she was only the second female Supreme Court justice (Sandra Day O’Connor came first), she was the first justice to be honored by Glamour.

An affectionate tribute to the late Ephron followed, with three actresses — Cynthia Nixon, and two Meryl Steep daughters, Mamie and Grace Gummer, reading from a graduation speech she had given at Wellesley College.

Actress Dunham, in her speech, touched on politics and expressed her own relief that President Barack Obama had won re-election, saying she felt it was crucial for reproductive freedom and other issues of women’s rights. “I wanted control of my womb before I really knew what my womb was,” she quipped.

After the ceremony, which was presided over by Glamour editor in chief Cindi Leive, honorees and presenters headed to a private dinner. There, Sandy volunteers mingled with the stars. One woman, Lynier Harper, had spent six nights during Sandy at the Brooklyn YMCA where she works, taking care of other people. “When I finally went back home, my house was totally destroyed,” she said. She has moved in with her sister while she seeks a new home.

A group of seven nurses came from New York University’s Langone Medical Center, which lost power during the storm. The neonatal intensive care nurses had to carry the babies down nine flights of stairs, in the dark, squeezing oxygen into their lungs, to get them to safety.

And there were the three women from Jersey City Sandy Recovery, sinking in the proximity to the so many impressive people.

“I just shook Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s hand,” exulted one of them, Candice Osborne. “How awesome!”

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Head Injury Linked to Parkinson’s

Adults who reported ever having had a head injury and who were exposed to the herbicide paraquat had nearly a three-fold increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, according to a survey published Monday in the journal Neurology.

Researchers at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health surveyed more than 1,000 adults ages 35 and older who lived in central California. Some 357 of the participants were diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a movement disorder characterized by tremors and loss of coordination.

Participants with the disease were nearly twice as likely as those without the disease to report having had a head injury in which they lost consciousness for more than five minutes.

Using a geographical tracking system, the researchers also found that those with Parkinson’s disease were also more likely to live within 500 meters of a spot where paraquat was used. Paraquat is a chemical liquid commonly used to kill plants and weeds.

“While each of these two factors is associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s on their own, the combination is associated with greater risk than just adding the two factors together,” Dr. Beate Ritz, lead author of the study, said in a public statement.

The trauma from the brain injury may leave brain cells more vulnerable to the exposure of the toxic pesticide, Ritz said.

While there are no definitive causes for Parkinson’s disease, the study is one of many to suggest that environmental factors, not just genetic variations, may be likely triggers in some cases, many experts said.

“This demonstrates the importance of considering multiple risk factors in combination when assessing a person’s risk of [Parkinson's disease],” said Dr. David Simon, associate professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The study also adds to growing data on the harmful effects of pesticide exposure.

“Based on the current study, this recommendation to avoid heavy pesticide exposure may be particularly important for people who have a history of significant head trauma with loss of consciousness for more than 5 minutes, as they may be particularly susceptible to the subsequent effects of pesticide exposure,” said Simon.

But besides recommending that adults avoid brain injury and exposure to chemicals — which doctors would do anyhow — “it would be inappropriate for clinicians to do anything with this information, other than be aware,” said Dr. David Cifu, chairman of the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond.

The study is not strong enough to suggest that pesticides or even a traumatic brain injury can cause Parkinson’s disease, only that in this group, some kind of link can be made between the three.

“There are likely hundreds of such linkages that may be found in any data set,” said Cifu.

However, many experts said the findings warrant further study, since more definitive identification of triggers can lead to tailored treatments.

“Understanding the critical role of environmental and genetic factors will help us to gauge better, and more directed treatments for this disease,” said Dr. Michael Okun, medical director of the National Parkinson Foundation.

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To Forgive Is Divine (Then Comes the Tax Bill)

The people who brought you Occupy Wall Street have come up with an extremely clever idea: raising money to buy random citizens’ overdue debt, and then—poof!—forgive it. One day a debtor is fielding calls from a collection agency; the next day, she’s not.

If this vanishing act sounds too good to be true—and it might be, but we’ll get to that—it helps to start at the beginning. Debt is easiest to think about as a negative thing: It’s money you owe somebody. From that somebody’s perspective, though, debt is money coming due. That makes it an asset that can be bought and sold—at a discount based on the likelihood it will be repaid.

When debt becomes overdue, it gets cheaper, and when it becomes really overdue, it sells for pennies on the dollar. Whoever buys debt can do whatever they like with it—including forgive it. That’s the idea that Strike Debt, a group that grew out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, says it will put into practice with a project it calls the Rolling Jubilee. For every dollar contributed, the group expects to be able to buy and forgive $ 20 of distressed debt.

David Rees, a humorist best known for his Get Your War On comic and How to Sharpen Pencils book, wrote on his blog that Strike Debt has successfully tested the idea with a $ 500 purchase of $ 14,000 in debt, a ratio of 1 to 28. “Now, after many consultations with attorneys, the IRS, and our moles in the debt-brokerage world, we are ready to take the Rolling Jubilee program LIVE and NATIONWIDE,” Rees wrote, “buying debt in communities that have been struggling during the recession.” Strike Debt is advertising the effort as “a buyout of the people, by the people.”

It’s a laudable idea—although the $ 1 million target Strike Debt has floated amounts to a drop in the bucket of American consumers’ overall indebtedness, which stood at $ 11.38 trillion as of June 30, according (PDF) to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. (That’s actually a generous comparison, given standard measurements of drops and buckets.) So if this is a people’s bailout, it’s a symbolic one, dwarfed by the lifelines that major financial institutions got during the crisis.

Slate’s Matthew Yglesias quibbles that the Rolling Jubilee benefits people who have racked up debt while it ignores those who are simply poor. “Given two struggling families, one of which is indebted and one of which isn’t, it’s not clear why you’d think that the family that’s borrowed heavily in the past is more worthy of assistance,” he writes. “And similarly, for any particular indebted family it’s not obvious that on a dollar-per-dollar basis debt forgiveness is more helpful than just handing over some cash.”

This is all nitpicking, though, compared with the big, inevitable catch: taxes. A person’s debt can’t truly disappear with no consequences. The amount forgiven is technically income—“cancellation of debt income,” in Internal Revenue Service terms. It’s a dollar-for-dollar conversion, says Robert Willens, a tax expert based in New York. For example, a person with regular income of $ 50,000 who has $ 25,000 in credit-card debt discharged will be taxed on April 15 as if she earns $ 75,000.

“There’s not any doubt about the tax outcome at all,” says Willens. “That’s almost always the case with debt discharges—you wind up with this tax problem that almost always mitigates the benefit of the discharge.”

There are exceptions—such as when the taxpayer is insolvent, in which case taxes are only due on the amount of the forgiveness that exceeds her insolvency, says David Miller, a tax attorney at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Bankruptcy is another exception.

Strike Debt didn’t make a representative available for an interview despite several requests, so I wasn’t able to ask about the particulars of who the group plans to buy debt from, or about its legal structure. Miller suggests that the group form a 501(c)3 organization that negotiates directly with credit-card companies on behalf of individual debtors and structures its payments as grants. Solvent people would still owe tax, but donors to the cause would be able to get a tax deduction. (Strike Debt, if you’re reading, Miller says he is happy to help you set up this structure pro bono.)

Credit scores also go down when debt is written off, as opposed to repaid.

David Graeber, whom Bloomberg Businessweek profiled as “the anti-leader of Occupy Wall Street” in an October 2011 cover story, wrote about the concept of jubilees in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. They’re rare today, but in ancient Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt, rulers regularly forgave their subjects’ debt during lean years as a means of staving off revolt.

A fundraiser to kick off the Rolling Jubilee is scheduled for Nov. 15 in New York, featuring Janeane Garofalo, Max Silvestri, Jeff Mangum, Tunde Adebimpe, and other artists. The cheapest ticket goes for $ 25 (enough to erase $ 500 in debt).

Businessweek.com — Top News

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Clarke’s 218 puts Australia on front foot

BRISBANE (Reuters) – Australia captain Michael Clarke scored a brilliant unbeaten double century to give the hosts a remarkable 37-run first innings lead on the fourth day of the first test against South Africa on Monday.

Supported first by a maiden century from opener Ed Cowan in a record stand of 259, and then by Mike Hussey‘s 86 not out, Clarke’s 218 helped lift Australia from 40 for three when he took to the crease on Sunday to 487 for four when stumps were drawn.

It was Clarke’s sixth test century, and his third double hundred, in the 15 tests since he was named captain last year in the wake of the Ashes humiliation and Australia’s quarter-final exit at the World Cup.

Although by no means a chanceless knock, the 31-year-old played with patience when South Africa’s vaunted pacemen got anything out of the Gabba track before punishing anything loose with some fine shot-making.

When he carried his bat back to the pavilion at the end of the day to the raucous cheers of a sparse crowd at the famous Brisbane ground, Clarke had faced 350 balls over 504 minutes and scored 21 fours.

“I’m very happy with that,” Clarke, who accumulated his 1,000 test run of the year during the innings, said in an interview on the boundary.

“I didn’t feel great at the start and I think Ed Cowan batted beautifully.

“We’re in a great position with a 30-odd lead. I’d like another 70 odd runs in the morning and then I want to have a crack with the ball. We’ll see what happens.”

Cowan departed for 136 in heartbreaking fashion just before tea, run out at the non-striker’s end when Dale Steyn got a finger to a Clarke drive that hit the stumps and the opener was caught out of his crease backing up.

RECORD PARTNERSHIP

His partnership with Clarke was an Australian record for the fourth wicket at the Gabba, beating the 245 Clarke and Mike Hussey made against Sri Lanka in 2007.

Cowan’s wicket was the only wicket to fall on the day and Hussey started pouring on the runs as if determined to get the record back for his own partnership with his captain.

The 37-year-old bucked his poor recent form against South Africa by reaching his half century off just 68 balls with a drive through long-off and was closing on a century of his own when play ended.

It was Hussey’s cut four off Morne Morkel with which Australia overhauled South Africa’s first innings tally of 450 and put themselves in with an unlikely chance of even winning a test which lost an entire day to rain on Saturday.

Clarke’s negotiation of the “nervous nineties” for his century had been fraught and he was nearly run out going for a second run that would have brought him to the hundred mark.

There were no such jitters on his approach to the two hundred mark, which he passed by slapping the ball through mid-on for two runs before giving the badge on his helmet another kiss.

Cowan’s century was a retort to those critics who have consistently questioned his place in the team since he made his debut in last year’s Melbourne test against India.

The 30-year-old lefthander reached the mark two overs after lunch by pulling a short Vernon Philander delivery for four to the square leg boundary, beginning his joyous celebrations before the ball hit the rope.

South Africa’s number one test ranking is on the line in the series, which continues with matches in Adelaide and Perth after Brisbane.

Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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