Feds seize 150 websites in counterfeit crackdown

WASHINGTON – Federal authorities have shut down 150 websites accused of selling knock-off or pirated merchandise to unsuspecting online bargain hunters.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lanny A. Breuer announced the results of the ICE and FBI three-month investigation on "Cyber Monday," the day that for many shoppers kicks off the online holiday shopping season.

The government seized the domain names for the sites that sold everything from fake replica NBA jerseys to replica Louis Vuitton handbags and imitation Ugg boots.

"This is straight crime," Morton said. "This is people being duped into buying a counterfeit."

The federal government has seized the domain names of 350 websites since first targeting online counterfeiters in June 2010. Each investigation, Morton said, has grown.

Visitors to the seized domains are now greeted with a message from federal authorities explaining that the site has been seized by the government and a warning that "willful copyright infringement is a federal crime."

Morton and Breuer said while the domain names were registered in the United States most of the websites were run from abroad, primarily in China. No one has been charged with a crime in connection with the most recently seized domains. But Breuer said the investigations are ongoing.

Earlier this year five people were indicted in Virginia on conspiracy and copyright infringement charges for their roles in operating a website that the Justice Department said allowed people to illegally download high-quality movies and television shows.

Four people accused of running NinjaVideo.net have pleaded guilty. A fifth person is being sought.

It's unclear how much money the seized sites have made, or potentially cost legitimate companies. Breuer said since the crackdown on counterfeit sellers started last year, Internet users have gone to the seized domains more than 77 million times.

"Typically we don't track the volumes of sales of these particular sites," Morton said, adding that criminal organizations often hide ill-gotten profits. "It is very large figures. Well, well above millions."

Morton said it may seem like a trivial thing to buy a knock-off football jersey or look-alike sunglasses, but the profits seized by counterfeiters can help fund far more nefarious activities.

"This is increasingly not simply a matter of mom and pop violations at the corner of Fourth and Main," Morton said. "We are worried about organized crime and (that profits) are going to fuel other criminal activity."

Morton would not say if organized criminal groups are suspected of running any of the seized sites to help fund other criminal acts.

Quoted from USAtoday

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40,000 troops to leave Afghanistan by end of 2012

Afghan villagers look on as a U.S. soldier keeps watch during a mission.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Drawdown plans announced by the U.S. and more than a dozen other nations will shrink the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan by 40,000 troops at the close of next year, leaving Afghan forces increasingly on the frontlines of the decade-long war.

The United States is pulling out the most — 33,000 by the end of 2012. That's one-third of 101,000 American troops who were in Afghanistan in June — the peak of U.S. military presence in the war, according to figures provided by the Pentagon.

Others in the 49-nation coalition have announced withdrawal plans too, even as they insist they are not rushing to leave. Many nations have vowed to keep troops in Afghanistan to continue training the Afghan police and army in the years to come. And many have pledged to keep sending aid to the impoverished country after the international combat mission ends in 2014.

Still, the exit is making Afghans nervous.

They fear their nation could plunge into civil war once the foreign forces go home. Their confidence in the Afghan security forces has risen, but they don't share the U.S.-led coalition's stated belief that the Afghan soldiers and policemen will be ready to secure the entire nation in three years. Others worry the Afghan economy will collapse if foreigners leave and donors get stingy with aid.

Foreign forces began leaving Afghanistan this year.

About 14,000 foreign troops will withdraw by the end of December, according to an Associated Press review of more than a dozen nations' drawdown plans. The United States is pulling out 10,000 service members this year; Canada withdrew 2,850 combat forces this summer; France and Britain will each send about 400 home; Poland is recalling 200; and Denmark and Slovenia are pulling out about 120 combined.

Troop cutbacks will be deeper next year when an estimated 26,000 more will leave. That figure includes 23,000 Americans; 950 Germans; 600 more French; 500 additional Britons; 400 Poles; 290 Belgians; 156 Spaniards; and 100 Swedes.

Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, told the AP that the number of Marines in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan will drop "markedly" in 2012, and the role of those who stay will shift from countering the insurgency to training and advising Afghan security forces.

Amos declined to discuss the number of Marines expected to leave in 2012.

There are now about 19,400 Marines in Helmand, and that is scheduled to fall to about 18,500 by the end of this year.

"Am I OK with that? The answer is 'yes,'" Amos said. "We can't stay in Afghanistan forever."

"Will it work? I don't know. But I know we'll do our part."

Additional troop cuts or accelerated withdrawals are possible.

Many other countries, including Hungary, Finland and Italy, are finalizing their withdrawal schedules. Presidential elections in Europe and the European debt crisis also could speed up pullout plans. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said this week that Australia's training mission could be completed before the 2014 target date.

Back in June, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that when the Obama administration begins pulling troops from Afghanistan, the U.S. will resist a rush to the exists, "and we expect the same from our allies." Gates said it was critically important that a plan for winding down NATO's combat role by the end of 2014 did not squander gains made against the Taliban that were won at great cost in lives and money.

"The more U.S. forces draw down, the more it gives the green light for our international partners to also head for the exits," said Jeffrey Dressler, a senior research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. "There is a cyclical effect here that is hard to temper once it gets going."

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings Jr. said the cutbacks that have been announced will not affect the coalition's ability to fight the insurgency.

"We are getting more Afghans into the field and we are transferring more responsibility to them in many areas," Cummings said, adding that many leaders of the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Haqqani militant networks have been captured or killed.

Afghan security forces started taking the lead in seven areas in July. They soon will assume responsibility for many more regions as part of a gradual process that will put Afghans in charge of security across the nation by the end of 2014.

Some countries are lobbying to start transition as soon as possible in areas where they have their troops deployed — so they can go home, said a senior NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss transition. The official insisted that those desires were not driving decisions on where Afghan troops are taking the lead. But the official said that because they want to leave, a number of troop-contributing nations faced with declining public support at home have started working harder to get their areas ready to hand off to Afghan forces.

"The big question (after 2014) is if the Afghan security forces can take on an externally based insurgency with support from the Pakistani security establishment and all that entails," Dressler said. "I think they will have a real challenge on their hands if the U.S. and NATO countries do not address Pakistani sponsorship of these groups."

Quoted from USAtoday

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Wifi-enabled laptops may be nuking sperm

The digital age has left men's nether parts in a squeeze, if you believe the latest science on semen, laptops and wireless connections.

In a report in the venerable medical journal Fertility and Sterility, Argentinian scientists describe how they got semen samples from 29 healthy men, placed a few drops under a laptop connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi and then hit download.

Four hours later, the semen was, eh, well-done.

A quarter of the sperm were no longer swimming around, for instance, compared to just 14 percent from semen samples stored at the same temperature away from the computer.

And nine percent of the sperm showed DNA damage, three-fold more than the comparison samples.

The culprit? Electromagnetic radiation generated during wireless communication, say Conrado Avendano of Nascentis Medicina Reproductiva in Cordoba and colleagues.

"Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality," they write in their report.

"At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the internet or what use conditions heighten this effect."

A separate test with a laptop that was on, but not wirelessly connected, found negligible EM radiation from the machine alone.

The findings fuel concerns raised by a few other research teams.

Some have found that radiation from cell phones creates feeble sperm in the lab, for example. And last year urologists described how a man's sitting with a laptop balanced on his knees can crank up the temperature of his scrotum to levels that aren't good for sperm. (See Reuters Health story of November 8, 2010, at http://reut.rs/gHmXpC.)

So between the heat and the radiation from today's electronic devices, testicles would seem to be hard-pressed.

But that is not at all clear, said Dr. Robert Oates, who has managed to father two kids despite having both a laptop and an iPad.

The president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology, Oates told Reuters Health he doesn't believe laptops are a significant threat to male reproductive health.

"This is not real-life biology, this is a completely artificial setting," he said about the new study. "It is scientifically interesting, but to me it doesn't have any human biological relevance."

He added that so far, no study has ever looked at whether laptop use has any influence on fertility or pregnancy outcomes.

"Suddenly all of this angst is created for real-life actual persons that doesn't have to be," said Oates, also of Boston Medical Center.

According to the American Urological Association, nearly one in six couples in the US have trouble conceiving a baby, and about half the time the man is at the root of the problem.

While the impact of modern technology is still murky, lifestyle does matter, researchers say.

Earlier this month, a report in Fertility and Sterility showed that men who eat a diet rich in fruit and grains and low in red meat, alcohol and coffee have a better shot at getting their partner pregnant during fertility treatment. (See Reuters Health story of November 18, 2011, at http://reut.rs/v9bobG.)

"You should be keeping yourself healthy," including staying lean, eating healthy foods, exercising, not taking drugs and not smoking, agreed Oates.

And for those laptop worries, he mused, "I don't know how many people use laptops on their laps anyway."

Quoted from MSN

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States With the Highest Car Insurance

A national survey of premiums lists the most expensive places to get coverage. Is where you live among the leaders of the pack?

By Des Toups, CarInsurance.com

Where you pay more for coverage

You can probably get the same deal, within a few dollars, on a new car in any of the 50 states. But you can't do the same for car insurance. In some states, you'll pay nearly three times as much for the same coverage on the same car, with the same driver. Here's a look at where rates are highest.

Our data from Quadrant Information Services sampled 10 ZIP codes and six carriers in each state, calculating rates on more than 2,000 new vehicles for a 40-year-old single male driver who commutes 12 miles. Coverage limits were $100,000 for injury liability for one person, $300,000 per accident and $50,000 for property damage, with a $500 deductible on collision and comprehensive coverage. The policy included uninsured motorist coverage.

These top 10 Highest car insurance rates by state

Michigan

Insurance on a 2011 model tops out at an average of $2,541 in Michigan, the highest rate in the nation. Its no-fault system provides what amounts to unlimited medical care, and about 19% of drivers were uninsured in the Insurance Research Council's most recent survey. "Driver responsibility fees" can add hundreds of dollars to the cost of keeping a driver's license, too. 

Louisiana

Elected judges hear cases for accident claims under $50,000, and you don't get re-elected by being stingy, Louisiana car insurance experts say. That reality contributes to an average bill of $2,453 for a 2011 model car, second highest in the nation. About 13% of Louisiana's drivers were uninsured. Louisiana is one of several states with a "no pay, no play" law that limits damages uninsured drivers can receive.

Oklahoma

Wild weather and uninsured drivers forced rates for 2011 models in Oklahoma up to an average of $2,197, third highest in the nation. Hailstorms routinely pummel thousands of cars in a few moments, and their owners face decisions over whether to wait for the next time or file a claim -- if they have coverage, that is. Nearly one in four Oklahoma drivers is uninsured, the second-highest rate in the country.

Montana

Montana's a big state, and that means more miles and more risk. The cost of insuring a 2011 model averaged $2,190, fourth highest in the nation. Montana's fatality rate of 2.12 per 100 million miles driven is nearly twice the national average. About 11% of Montana drivers are uninsured. A caveat: The highways are wide open, but they do ticket, and the ticket will follow you home.

Washington. D.C.

Rates for full coverage in Washington, D.C., averaged $2,146 for 2011 models, fifth highest in the nation, and about 15% of District of Columbia drivers lack insurance, slightly above the national average. Even a bare-bones, minimum-liability-only policy on a beater car would set you back $1,172 a year.

California

California drivers pay an average of $1,991 a year to insure their 2011 models, the sixth-highest rate in the country. Rampant auto theft and a large population of uninsured motorists -- about 15% of all drivers -- push up rates for all. California does offer a low-cost program for low-income drivers, though.

Mississippi

The nation's poorest state, Mississippi, has the highest rate of uninsured drivers and the seventh-highest average premium for 2011 models, at $1,896. About 28% of drivers in the Magnolia State drive without insurance -- something that's illegal in every state except New Hampshire.

New Mexico

Premiums for 2011 models in New Mexico average $1,837 a year, eighth highest in the nation. The biggest factor? About 26% of state drivers don't carry insurance, the second-worst rate in the nation and the reason why uninsured motorist coverage is becoming more critical.

Arkansas

Arkansans pay an average of $1,836 to insure a 2011 model car, the ninth-highest rate in the country and well above the national average of $1,561. About 16% of the state's drivers are uninsured.

Maryland

In Maryland, the average premium for a 2011 model is $1,807, the 10th-highest rate in the nation. About 15% of Maryland drivers are uninsured, slightly above the national average.

Quoted from MSN

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