Monti, in Twitter Q&A, says new voting law priority for Italy

ROME (Reuters) - Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Saturday if he wins February's parliamentary election one of his first acts would be to overhaul the voting law to improve democracy and government stability.
Monti, 69, who last week confirmed he would lead a centrist coalition in the February 24-25 vote, called himself a "bit of a pioneer" in politics during nearly 2 hours of #MontiLive tweets.
The electoral law is unpopular because party leaders select candidates and voters cannot choose their representatives. For technical reasons, it also makes forming a stable majority more difficult, leading to broad and unwieldy coalitions.
"This electoral law is not worthy of a country like Italy," said Monti of the 2005 legislation passed when centre-right rival Silvio Berlusconi was in power.
Monti and Berlusconi trail the centre-left in opinion polls and have made multiple appearances, mainly on TV, over the past week as they seek to recoup support and motivate voters who have said they do not intend to vote.
A poll by the Tecne research institute released on SkyTG24 on Friday showed Monti's grouping would likely attract slightly more than 12 percent of the vote.
That compared with 40 percent for the centre-left bloc led by Pier Luigi Bersani's Democratic Party (PD); and 25 percent for the most likely centre-right coalition of Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) and the Northern League.
In a separate tweet, Monti indicated he would "dialogue" with anyone after the vote whether he wins or not, as long as they are "reformists".
BERLUSCONI BROADSIDE
Speaking at the same time in a live interview on the website of Corriere della Sera newspaper, Berlusconi said he would never again ally himself with Monti even though he offered him the leadership of the centre-right just a few weeks ago.
"All Italian citizens, in one way or another, are suffering" as a result of Monti's 13 months in power, said Berlusconi, who says austerity has led the country into a recessionary spiral.
Monti took over in November 2011 when Italy was scrambling to avert a financial crisis and after Berlusconi, besieged by a sex scandal involving an underage prostitute, stepped down.
Berlusconi repeated on Saturday that his resignation was the result of an international plot to oust him and denied having made mistakes during his more than nine years in power.
"My only error is that I have not been able to explain what I have done for the country," Berlusconi said.
"By now (Monti's) image has become that of a person with whom I could not possibly collaborate," Berlusconi said, calling the prime minister's new alliance with two of Berlusconi's former allies a "triple disaster".
Berlusconi said a renewed accord with the Northern League may be finalized on Sunday. The Northern League has said the 76-year-old billionaire must not be the bloc's prime ministerial candidate for a sixth time.
"Monti is an enemy of the north, and stopping him from returning to government is a categorical priority for us. Who is against Monti is an ally of the League," Northern League leader Roberto Maroni tweeted on Saturday.

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Ohio sheriff confronts protesters in football rape case

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STEUBENVILLE, Ohio (Reuters) - A county sheriff under fire for how he has handled a high school rape investigation faced down a raucous crowd of protesters on Saturday and said no further suspects would be charged in a case that has rattled Ohio football country.
Ma'lik Richmond and Trenton Mays, both 16 and members of the Steubenville High School football team, are charged with raping a 16-year-old fellow student at a party last August, according to statements from their attorneys.
Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla, accused of shielding the popular football program from a more rigorous investigation, told reporters no one else would be charged in the case, just moments after he addressed about 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse.
"I'm not going to stand here and try to convince you that I'm not the bad guy," he said to a chorus of boos. "You've already made your minds up."
The "Occupy Steubenville" rally was organized by the online activist group Anonymous.
Abdalla declined to take the investigation over from Steubenville police, sparking more public outrage. Anonymous and community leaders say police are avoiding charging more of those involved to protect the school's beloved football program.
The two students will be tried as juveniles in February in Steubenville, a close-knit city of 19,000 about 40 miles west of Pittsburgh.
The case shot to national prominence this week when Anonymous made public a picture of the purported rape victim being carried by her wrists and ankles by two young men. Anonymous also released a video that showed several other young men joking about an assault.
Abdalla, who said he first saw the video three days ago, said on Saturday that it provided no new evidence of any crimes.
"It's a disgusting video," he said. "It's stupidity. But you can't arrest somebody for being stupid."
The protest's masked leader, standing atop a set of stairs outside the courthouse doors, invited up to the makeshift stage anyone who was a victim of sexual assault. Protesters immediately flooded the platform, which was slightly smaller than a boxing ring.
Victims passed around a microphone, taking turns telling their stories. Some called for Abdalla and other local officials to step down from office for not charging more of the people and for what they called a cover-up by athletes, coaches and local officials.
Abdalla then climbed the stairs himself and addressed the protest over a microphone.
Abdalla said he had dedicated his 28-year career to combating sexual assault, overseeing the arrest of more than 200 suspects.
Clad in a teal ribbon symbolizing support for sexual assault victims, Abdalla later told Reuters that he stood by his decision to leave the investigation with local police. He would have had to question all 59 people that the Steubenville Police Department had already interviewed in its original investigation, he said.
"People have got their minds made up," he said. "A case like this, who would want to cover any of it up?"

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Canada meets key aboriginal demand amid blockades

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's prime minister will meet with native leaders next week to discuss social and economic issues, an olive branch to an angry aboriginal movement that has blockaded rail lines and threatened to close Canada's borders with the United States.
Stephen Harper made no mention of the aboriginal protests in a statement on Friday announcing the January 11 meeting.
But the meeting is a key demand from native Chief Theresa Spence, who has been on a hunger strike for 25 days on an island within sight of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa.
Spence's spokesman Danny Metatawabin told reporters, on the snowy ground outside her traditional teepee, that she would continue her hunger strike until she was satisfied with the outcome of next week's meeting.
Spence's hunger strike has been one of the most visible signs of a protest movement called Idle No More, which had announced plans for blockades on Saturday all along the U.S.-Canadian border.
It was not clear if these blockades would now be called off, or if there would be any disruptions at the border crossings between the two big trading partners.
The movement is not centrally organized, and Metatawabin said he would not tell others what to do. Several hours after Harper's announcement, the Idle No More website still had a call up for blockades on Saturday.
Demonstrators blocked a Canadian National Railway Co line in Sarnia, Ontario, for about two weeks until Wednesday, and there were shorter blockades elsewhere in the country, including one that delayed passenger trains between Montreal and Toronto for several hours on Sunday.
Harper said next Friday's meeting would address economic development, aboriginal rights and the treaty relationship between the government and native groups. He described it as a follow-up to a meeting with aboriginal leaders last January as well as talks in November with Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo.
"While some progress has been made, there is more that must be done to improve outcomes for First Nations communities across Canada," Harper said in a statement.
DISMAL CONDITIONS
Many of Canada's 1.2 million aboriginals live on reserves where conditions are often dismal, with high rates of poverty, addiction and suicide.
Treaties with Ottawa signed a century ago finance their health and education in a way that many experts say is now dysfunctional.
Speaking to reporters in Oakville, Ontario, Harper sidestepped a question on whether he had agreed to the meeting because of Spence's hunger strike and fear the protests could snowball like last year's Occupy Movement.
Asked about the demonstrations, he said: "People have the right in our country to demonstrate and express their points of view peacefully as long as they obey the law, but I think the Canadian population expects everyone will obey the law in holding such protests."
Idle No More was sparked by legislation that activists say Harper rushed through Parliament without proper consultation with native groups and which affects their land and treaty rights. But it has broadened into a complaint about conditions in general for native Canadians.
In her meeting with reporters after Harper's announcement, Spence said she planned to attend the meeting in person along with three of her supporters and she wanted the governor general - Queen Elizabeth's representative - and the Ontario premier to attend as well.
She stood flanked by her daughter and several supporters, some of them holding up feathers. There were several minutes of drumming and singing before she and her spokesman began talking.
When asked what she needed to hear from the prime minister in order to start eating again, she said, "a positive result because there's a lot of issues we need to discuss" and that they should discuss the issues as equal partners.

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Kuwaiti gets two years for insulting emir on Twitter

Kuwaiti gets two years for insulting emir on Twitter
KUWAIT (Reuters) - A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison for insulting the country's ruler on Twitter, a lawyer following the case said, as the Gulf Arab state cracks down on criticism of the authorities on social media.
According to the verdict on Sunday, published by online newspaper Alaan, a tweet written by Rashid Saleh al-Anzi in October "stabbed the rights and powers of the Emir" Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.
Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal, the lawyer, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
Kuwait, a U.S. ally and major oil producer, has been taking a firmer line on politically sensitive comments aired on the Internet.
In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.
Two months later, authorities detained Sheikh Meshaal al-Malik Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform, a rights activist said.
While public demonstrations about local issues are common in a state that allows the most dissent in the Gulf, Kuwait has avoided Arab Spring-style mass unrest that toppled three veteran Arab dictators last year.
But tensions have intensified between the hand-picked government, in which ruling family members hold the top posts, and the elected parliament and opposition groups.

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Samsung sees record-high 4Q profit

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest technology company by revenue, expects record earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012 as shoppers continued to snap up its smartphones and tablets.
The company said Tuesday its operating profit for the October-December quarter would be about 8.8 trillion won ($8.3 billion), up 89 percent from a year earlier and higher than expectations. It will release its full quarterly result including net profit at the end of this month.
The maker of Galaxy smartphones and tablets said fourth quarter revenue likely rose 18 percent from a year earlier to 56 trillion won.
Analysts said nearly 70 percent of the operating income for the quarter was likely generated by Samsung's mobile division that makes and sells smartphones and tablets.
Samsung's mobile business, which recently overtook Apple in smartphone sales and Nokia in mobile handsets, has driven Samsung's earnings growth in recent quarters. Samsung's quarterly operating profit has risen steadily since the final quarter of 2011, while rival mobile-phone makers such as Nokia, Research In Motion and HTC have experienced falling market share and profits.
Samsung shipped at least 60 million smartphones in the last quarter of 2012, according to analysts' estimates, about 10 percent growth from the previous quarter.
The launch in September of the Galaxy Note II, a giant smartphone with a 5.5-inch screen and a digital pen, helped Samsung retain its market dominance during the Christmas holiday season despite competition from Apple's iPhone 5, analysts said. Samsung's flagship Android device, the Galaxy S III, also sold strongly.
Jin Sung-hye, an analyst at KTB Securities, estimated Samsung shipped 15 million S III smartphones and 7 million of the Note II during the final three months of 2012. The surprise popularity of the Note II device prompted other handset makers to increase the screen size of their smartphones as consumers embrace a wider mobile-phone screen to watch videos.
Market watchers speculate that Samsung will introduce a new Galaxy S smartphone, likely to be named the Galaxy S IV, before the end of April. Samsung usually rolls out the latest iteration of its Android-based flagship smartphone before the end of the second quarter, taking advantage of the time when rivals are months away from introducing new smartphone models.
With the early rollouts of the new Galaxy S model and an update to the Note series later in the year, analysts predict Samsung will sell at least 300 million smartphones in 2013, widening its lead over Apple. Samsung's smartphone shipments likely surpassed 200 million for the first time in 2012.
The company plans to act more aggressively to increase its share of the tablet PC market this year, which is still dominated by Apple's iPad, its executives said in an October conference call. The release of mini tablets that are between the size of smartphones and standard tablets also opens up a new growth area for Samsung.
While the mobile phone division has replaced Samsung's semiconductor business as the biggest profit generator, robust demand for smartphones around the world is benefiting Samsung's semiconductor operation as well. The company is the world's largest supplier of TVs and memory chips.
Analysts said Samsung's semiconductor division fared better in the last quarter than the quarter before as higher Samsung phone sales and launches of new mobile products by its customers lifted demand for Samsung's mobile processors.
In the first quarter of this year, market watchers said the strengthening of the South Korean currency against the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen could hurt Samsung's component businesses, which is facing seasonally weak demand for TVs and display panels. But others predict Samsung will ship more smartphones than the previous quarter, which could outweigh lower TV and panel sales.
The South Korean company has been in global legal battles with Apple, one of its biggest clients, for nearly two years. Last month, Samsung dropped its bid to seek a sales ban against Apple's mobile products in Europe, saying it would like to protect consumer choice. Samsung, which is under investigations by the European Commission over its practice of licensing key mobile patents, is maintaining its lawsuits against the iPhone maker in other countries.
Shares of Samsung Electronics fell 1.3 percent in Seoul after earnings release. Samsung's shares, which gained 11 percent in the fourth quarter, hit a record high level earlier this month.
If Samsung's fourth quarter results are in line with Tuesday's guidance, the company will report 29 trillion won ($27.3 billion) operating profit on revenue of 201.1 trillion won ($189 billion) for 2012.

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World stocks down ahead of US corporate earnings

BANGKOK (AP) — World stock markets headed lower Tuesday as investors turned cautious before U.S. earnings season kicks off this week.
Investors will get a feel for corporate America's outlook as earnings reports start coming. Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. will unofficially launch the reporting season for the fourth quarter of 2012 on Tuesday after U.S. markets close.
Events during the quarter such as Superstorm Sandy, the presidential election, and worries about the narrowly avoided "fiscal cliff" could lead to some unexpected results.
European shares were lower ahead of the release of November unemployment data for the region.
"The contrast with Friday's improving US employment data is likely to be quite stark," said Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets UK.
Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.1 percent to 6,060.15. Germany's DAX shed 0.3 percent to 7,709.13. France's CAC-40 lost 0.1 percent to 3,699.55. Wall Street appeared headed for losses. Dow Jones industrial futures fell 0.2 percent to 13,285 and S&P 500 futures lost 0.3 percent to 1,452.10.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index tumbled 0.9 percent to 10,508.06 as the yen crept upward against the U.S. dollar. The rebound in the yen led some investors to sell export shares that had surged as the currency weakened in recent weeks. Toyota Motor Corp. fell 2 percent while Mazda Motor Corp. plunged 5 percent. Nintendo Co. shed 3.1 percent.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.9 percent to 23,111.19. South Korea's Kospi lost 0.7 percent to 1,997.94. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand fell, while Malaysia and the Philippines rose. Mainland Chinese shares were mixed.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.6 percent to 4,690.20. That came as the government announced the country's trade deficit widened in November and a report by the Australian Industry Group and the Housing Industry Association showed the country's construction industry slowing for the 31st consecutive month.
"Investors are taking a wait-and-see attitude," said Evan Lucas, strategist at IG Markets in Melbourne, adding that many investors went for profits ahead of the release Wednesday of weekly jobless claims in the U.S. and the European Central Bank's rate-setting meeting Thursday.
"A lot of eyes are watching what will happen in Europe and America over the next couple of days," he said. Another closely watched development will be the Bank of England's monthly announcement on its key interest rate, due Thursday.
Major indexes surged last week after U.S. lawmakers passed a bill to avoid a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases that have come to be known as the fiscal cliff. The deal, however, remains incomplete. Politicians will face another deadline in two months to agree on more spending cuts.
"The looming budget battle in the US has also prompted some hesitancy to buy risk assets," said analysts at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong.
Among individual stocks, Agile Property Holdings Ltd. fell 6.5 percent after the Hong Kong developer said police charged its chairman with two counts of indecent assault. The company said the charges would not affect its business operations.
Benchmark crude for February delivery was down 13 cents to $93.06 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 10 cents to close at $93.19 a barrel on the Nymex on Monday.
In currencies, the euro fell to $1.3105 from $1.3112 in New York late Monday. The dollar fell to 87.42 yen from 87.84 yen.

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Futures dip ahead of start to US earnings season

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock futures are heading lower as the U.S. kicks off the first earnings season of 2013.
Dow Jones industrial futures are down 10 points to 13,297. The broader S&P futures have given up 1.8 points to 1,454. Nasdaq futures are down 2.25 points to 2,715.50.
Alcoa posts fourth quarter earnings after the markets close Tuesday and analysts that follow the company are looking for a profit of 6 cents per share. That would be a rebound for the aluminum producer, which lost $191 million, or 18 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.
There is early pressure on markets from overseas.
The number of unemployed people in the European Union is now 18.8 million, the most ever. Almost 11 percent of people living in the 17-nation bloc don't have jobs.

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