JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African military aircraft on an unknown mission to an area near the village where former President Nelson Mandela lives crashed in a mountain range, officials said Thursday. It was unclear whether there were any survivors.
The Douglas DC-3 Dakota, a twin-propeller aircraft, had taken off from Pretoria’s Waterkloof Air Force Base on Wednesday night, said Brig. Gen. Xolani Mabanga, a military spokesman. On Thursday morning, soldiers found the wreckage of the airplane in the Drakensberg mountains near Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal province, some 340 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of the air base, Mabanga said.
Mabanga said soldiers had been sent to the scene to look for survivors. Mabanga said he did not know what the mission of the aircraft was, though it had planned to land in Mthatha in the country’s Eastern Cape. Siphiwe Dlamini, a Defense Ministry spokesman, declined to immediately comment Thursday morning.
Mthatha is about 30 kilometers (17 miles) north of Qunu, the village where Mandela now lives after retiring from public life. South Africa‘s military remains largely responsible for the former president’s medical care. However, military officials declined to say whether those on board had any part in caring for Mandela.
In November, another South African military flight crash landed at Mthatha, sending several people to the hospital with injuries. However, at that time, the military denied that those on board had anything to do with Mandela’s care.
Mandela, 94, was imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against apartheid before becoming the nation’s president in the country’s first fully democratic vote in 1994.
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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .
(Reuters) – Apple Inc is planning to bring back some of its production of Mac computers to the United States from China next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, according to a report published Thursday.
The company will spend more than $ 100 million to build the computers in the United States, Cook was cited as saying in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.
“This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money,” Cook said.
He told NBC in an interview to be aired late Thursday that only one of the existing Mac lines would be manufactured exclusively in the United States.
Higher-tech products are largely made overseas, often in subcontracted factories not owned by the brands whose products they are making.
Cheaper labor costs have been key in encouraging U.S. manufacturers to have move production to China, but with Chinese wage and transport costs increasing, the advantage against the U.S. has narrowed in recent years.
(Reporting by Nicola Leske; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Community” might be losing a Chevy Chase, but it’s gaining a Jason Alexander.
Former “Seinfeld” star Alexander, who played neurotic bumbler George Costanza on the series, will guest-star on the beleaguered NBC comedy, and while the actor is tight-lipped on the details, he promises that the episode will be a doozy.
“Filming a crazy episode of ‘Community’ this week,” the actor tweeted early Tuesday. “Can’t say much about it but it’s a fun one.”
It is not known what role Alexander, who guest-starred on “Two and a Half Men” earlier this year, will play on the series, or if he will appear on more than one episode. A spokeswoman for the NBC series has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Last month, news broke that Chevy Chase – who plays Pierce Hawthorne on the series – is leaving “Community,” following an ugly standoff with the show’s creator and former showrunner, Dan Harmon, and an incident when he reportedly tossed out the N-word, after complaining about his character’s racism. Chase will appear in most of the episodes of the upcoming fourth season.
George Osborne: “There will be no fuel tax rise this January”
Chancellor George Osborne has scrapped a planned 3p rise in fuel duty, but benefits face a further squeeze as he admitted the UK economy was struggling.
There will be more money for roads, London’s Underground and schools, but councils were warned of cuts to come.
Austerity measures will be extended to 2018, as debt-cutting targets are missed, his Autumn Statement revealed.
“Turning back now would be a disaster” for the UK, he said. But Labour said his economic plans were “in tatters”.
Mr Osborne had said debt would start falling as a proportion of GDP by 2015/16 – the year of the next general election.
But he has been forced to delay that target by a year because of the worse than expected state of the economy, which is now expected to shrink this year by 0.1%.
The Office for Budgetary Responsibility says the UK has a “better than 50% chance of eliminating the structural current deficit in five years time”, said the chancellor – meaning his other key objective has been pushed back by a year to 2017/18.
This move heralds a fresh benefits squeeze and a raid on the pensions of the wealthy.
‘In this together’
Most working age benefits, such as Jobseekers Allowance and Child Benefit, will be go up by 1%, less than the rate of inflation, for the next three years.
Continue reading the main story
What is the Autumn Statement?
One of the two major statements the chancellor has to make to Parliament every year
Since 1997 the main Budget – which contains the bulk of tax, benefit and duty changes – has been in the spring before the start of the tax year in April
The second statement has tended to focus on updating forecasts for government finances
Over the past few years this distinction has become blurred, with the Autumn Statement becoming more of a mini Budget
Under the last Labour government it was called the pre-Budget report
And there will be a further cut in tax relief on large pension pots, saving £1bn a year.
He told MPs: “I know these tax measures will not be welcomed by all; ways to reduce the deficit never are. But we must show we’re all in this together. When you’re looking for savings, I think it’s fair to look at the tax relief we give to the top 2%.”
Income tax personal allowances will go up by £1,335 – £235 more than previously announced – so no tax will be paid on earnings under £9,440.
The threshold for the 40% rate of income tax is to rise by 1% in 2014 and 2015 from £41,450 to £41,865 and then £42,285.
The basic state pension will rise by 2.5% next year to £110.15 a week.
Mr Osborne announced a fresh crackdown on tax avoidance and a squeeze on Whitehall budgets to pay for a new road and school building programme.
He told MPs: “It’s taking time, but the British economy is healing.”
But Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, for Labour, accused Mr Osborne of breaking his own rules on falling debt on which his credibility depended.
“Today after two and a half years we can see, and people can feel in the country, the true scale of this government’s economic failure,” Mr Balls told MPs,
He said the average family with children on £20,000 a year would be “worse off” – even with the personal allowance changes.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
At a time when his critics – and Ed Balls in particular – are able to say “I told you so”, George Osborne looked and sounded confident whilst the shadow chancellor looked the reverse.”
End Quote
Mr Balls claimed Mr Osborne’s plan to raise £1bn from pension tax relief on the well-off raised less than £1.6bn given away in Mr Osborne’s first Budget on the same reliefs.
CBI director general John Cridland welcomed the promised investment in infrastructure and new tax relief measures for small firms but said businesses now “need to see the chancellor’s words translated into building sites on the ground”.
“It is no surprise that after a difficult year the economic realities dictate that austerity and debt reduction will take longer,” he added.
“The chancellor has stuck to his guns on deficit reduction – avoiding deeper cuts or more borrowing in order to retain international credibility.”
But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “What is missing today is any vision of a future economy that can deliver decent jobs and living standards – it’s pain without purpose.”
He added: “When you are self-harming you should stop, not look for better sticking plasters.”
(Reuters) – Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene has warned his team to be wary of a backlash from Australia in their three-test series after the hosts were stung by their series defeat to South Africa earlier this week.
Australia’s hopes of snatching the Proteas’ top test ranking ended in a crushing 309-run defeat in the third and final test in Perth on Monday, but Jayawardene took little comfort from the home side’s disappointment.
“I see them as wounded soldiers – they could come back stronger against us,” Jayawardene told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday, on the eve of a three-day tour match against a Chairman’s XI side.
“So we just need to make sure we are ready for that and start well.
“We can’t be complacent – we need to make sure we know from ball one we give them a good go at it.”
Sri Lanka have their own problems coming into the first test at Hobart next week, losing their last test at home to New Zealand by 167 runs to level a two-match series 1-1, with key batsmen out of form.
Kumar Sangakkara scored five, nought and 16 in his three innings against New Zealand, but Jayawardene backed the veteran to bounce back in Sri Lanka’s bid to win their first test Down Under.
“I am happy that he went through a lean phase because he’ll be really hungry for runs – that’s Kumar for you,” Jayawardene said of the 35-year-old stalwart.
Jayawardene also said he would weigh up his future as captain after the series, which includes tests in Melbourne and Sydney, after taking on the role for a second time in the wake of Tillakaratne Dilshan’s sudden resignation in January.
“After this, we get a well-deserved four weeks off, after about three years, so it gives me a bit of time to think (about) what I need to do,” said Jayawardene, who captained the team for more than three years in his first stint from 2006.
“We need to groom another leader as well. It’s very important to have that changeover done smoothly while the senior players are still in the side.”
Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News
VIENNA (Reuters) – Dumping a bottle of milk over your head and filming it for a video post on the Internet has become a popular youth craze, but Austrian farmers say the spillage is a crying shame.
“Milking”, as the trend is known, is among a variety of tongue-in-cheek stunts in which young people shoot pictures or videos of themselves posing as owls, planks of wood, or famous people and then share them on YouTube and other social media.
Austria’s AMA farm lobby on Wednesday launched its own “true milking” campaign to decry the wanton waste of dairy resources and to encourage consumers to drink it instead.
“At a time when too much food already lands in the trash, it is worth questioning dumping milk. This is a valuable product of nature that our farmers provide daily with lots of love and labor,” AMA milk marketing managerPeter Hamedinger said.
Milking has become an Internet hit, with one video from Newcastle in England getting more than half a million clicks on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtJPAv1UiAE
AMA’s marketing arm said the milking craze seemed to reflect a strange youthful protest against authority. It sought to one-up the video trend with its own clip featuring a young man who holds a carton of milk high above his head and drinks the contents without spilling a drop.
“In line with the nature of the medium, this message is not communicated in a commercial way and absolutely not with finger pointing, but rather with a wink of the eye for the Internet generation,” the farm products board said in a statement.
(Reporting by Michael Shields, editing by Paul Casciato)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Eddie Murphy was once among Hollywood’s top box office draws, but he now has the dubious honor of being crowned its most overpaid actor, according to Forbes magazine.
In its annual list, determined by the misalignment between star salaries and their films’ box office take, Murphy, once a one-man gold mine with 1980s hits such as “Trading Places” and “Beverly Hills Cop”, displaced Drew Barrymore for the top spot.
“Murphy‘s career has just collapsed,” Forbes said, citing such recent box office bombs as “Imagine That”, “A Thousand Words” and “Meet Dave”.
Weighing box office receipts against paychecks, Forbes calculated that for every dollar Murphy was paid for his last three films, they returned an average of just $ 2.30 at the box office. Murphy placed second on the list a year ago.
Popular actresses such as Katherine Heigl, and Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Sandra Bullock, made the top five, with “returns” ranging from $ 3.40 to $ 5.
Forbes took issue with Witherspoon’s “questionable” choices such as the star-laden, James L. Brooks romantic comedy “How Do You Know”, which was one of 2010′s worst-performing films. It cost $ 120 million, much of which went toward star salaries, but grossed a paltry $ 49 million.
The cast included two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington, as well as actors generally considered solid at the box office such as Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller.
“Washington‘s films do fine at the box office but he can demand an outsized paycheck on those movies,” Forbes noted. His current hit “Flight” was not included for this year’s list.
Washington‘s return was the same $ 6.30 calculated for Sandler, whose comedies Forbes said were consistent performers — except when they’re not, such as the disappointing “Jack and Jill”.
It was the same with Stiller, whom Forbes said “earns so much money per film that one miss can make him seem overpaid. That’s what happened with “Tower Heist”, in which the actor co-starred with — Eddie Murphy.
Will Ferrell, who topped the list for two of the last four years and came in third a year ago, didn’t place.
The full list can be found at www.forbes.com/overpaidactors.
(Reporting by Chris Michaud; editing by Patricia Reaney and Andrew Hay)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two of the most conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have been kicked off the House Budget Committee, a rare move that could make it easier for the panel to advance a deal with Democrats to cut fiscal deficits.
Representatives Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Justin Amash of Michigan – both favorites of the anti-tax Tea Party movement – are among those Republicans voting most often against House Speaker John Boehner.
Huelskamp and Amash, who both will begin second terms in the House next month, voted against last year’s deal to raise the federal debt limit and staunchly oppose any tax increases. Boehner has now included new revenue in his latest offer to avert the “fiscal cliff” of year-end tax hikes and automatic spending cuts. Given their voting records, winning support from Huelskamp and Amash for such a compromise seemed an uphill battle.
Huelskamp released a statement saying the Republican leadership “might think they have silenced conservatives but removing me and others from key committees only confirms our conservative convictions.
“This is clearly a vindictive move and a sure sign that the GOP establishment cannot handle disagreement,” he said.
Huelskamp and Amash had said that despite sweeping changes to the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs, committee chairman Paul Ryan’s budget did not make deep enough cuts to entitlement programs and military spending.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to be specific on the reasons for their ouster by the House Republican Steering Committee, which occurred Monday in a closed-door meeting.
“The Steering Committee makes decisions based on a range of factors,” Steel said.
Huelskamp said he was given “limited explanation” for his removal from the Budget Committee, a move he called “vindictive.” A spokesman for Amash could not be immediately reached for comment.
Huelskamp and Amash cast the only House Budget Committee votes against Ryan’s budget plan earlier this year.
While there is often wrangling over committee chairmanships just before a new Congress takes office, it is rare for rank-and-file committee members to be stripped of their assignments.
The 34-member Republican steering committee is headed by Boehner and includes members of House leadership, committee chairs and other lawmakers representing different regions of the country.
The same group last week recommended that Ryan, the conservative former Republican vice presidential candidate, be renewed as Budget Committee chairman.
The government is expected to change the way it raises money for public projects such as schools and hospitals to ensure a better deal for taxpayers.
Chancellor George Osborne is set to announce the changes to the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in Wednesday’s Autumn Statement.
Under the plans, the taxpayer will take a share of up to 49% in new projects.
The current PFI regime has been criticised as being too generous to private contractors.
As well as allowing the taxpayer to take a share in profits from public infrastructure projects, the coalition says the new scheme, expected to be called PFI 2, will be quicker and more transparent.
It will allow the public sector to appoint directors to the boards of individual projects, as well as requiring the projects to publish financial performance figures every year.
The government has also renegotiated existing PFI deals to save £2.5bn, according to the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston.
Rachel Reeves, Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said the chancellor must explain “which frontline services, like the police and social care, he will cut further to pay for this latest U-turn”.
“In last year’s Autumn Statement, ministers boasted that their infrastructure plan would boost the economy, but none of the road schemes they announced have even started construction. The government needs to ensure that this funding urgently gets through on the ground.”
‘A way forward’
The previous government engaged the private sector to provide major funding for large numbers of schools and hospitals, in return for payments from the public sector.
But the Treasury has decided that this financing model is no longer appropriate at a time when government debt levels are so high.
Nick Bliss, a lawyer who has worked on PFI contracts for 20 years, told the BBC the changes should provide more of a partnership between the public and private sectors.
“From the private sector’s perspective, what has really irritated them has been for the last year or two, there has been a total lack of consensus about the way forward.
“This at least will provide a way forward and these are the rules of the game, like them or loathe them.”
