Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet
and the winds long to play with your hair. ~Kahlil Gibran

The Flextronics plant that will be building the new Motorola  smartphone”Moto X” is pictured in Fort Worth, Texas  September 10, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Stone

By Dan Levine, Reuters, May 16, 2014
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc and Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility unit have agreed to settle all patent litigation between them over smartphone technology, ending one of the highest profile lawsuits in technology.

In a joint statement on Friday, the companies said the settlement does not include a cross license to their respective patents.

“Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform,” the statement said.

Apple and companies that make phones using Google’s Android software have filed dozens of such lawsuits against each other around the world to protect their technology. Apple argued that Android phones that use Google software copy its iPhones.

The two companies informed a federal appeals court in Washington that the cases should be dismissed, according to filings on Friday. However, the deal does not appear to apply to Apple’s litigation against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, as no dismissal notices were filed in those cases.

The most high-profile case between Apple and Motorola began in 2010. Motorola accused Apple of infringing several patents, including one essential to how cell phones operate on a 3G network, while Apple said Motorola violated its patents to certain smartphone features.

The Apple logo is pictured on the front of the company’s flagship retail store near signs for the central subway project in San Francisco, California January 23, 2013. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

The cases were consolidated in a Chicago federal court. However, Judge Richard Posner dismissed it in 2012 shortly before trial, saying neither company had sufficient evidence to prove its case.

Last month, the appeals court gave the iPhone manufacturer another chance to win a sales ban against its competitor.

Google acquired Motorola Mobility in 2012 for $12.5 billion, and this year announced was selling Motorola Mobility’s handset business to Lenovo, while keeping the vast majority of the patents.

(Reporting by Dan Levine. Editing by Andre Grenon)

By MOHAMMED SAEED and HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press, May 16, 2014

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — A pregnant Sudanese woman who married a Christian man was sentenced to death Thursday after she refused to recant her Christian faith, her lawyer said.

Meriam Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but mother was an Orthodox Christian from Ethiopia, was convicted of “apostasy” on Sunday and given four days to repent and escape death, said lawyer Al-Shareef Ali al-Shareef Mohammed.

The 26 year old, who is eight months pregnant, was sentenced after that grace period expired, Mohammed said.

Amnesty International immediately condemned the sentence, calling it “abhorrent.” The U.S. State Department said it was “deeply disturbed” by the sentencing and called on the government to respect the right to freedom of religion.

Christian church-goers pray during Sunday service on January 16, 2011 in Majak, Sudan. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Mohammed, the lawyer, called the conviction rushed and legally flawed since the judge refused to hear key defense witnesses and ignored constitutional provisions on freedom of worship and equality among citizens.

Ibrahim and Wani married in a formal church ceremony in 2011 and have a son, 18-month-old Martin, who is with her in jail. The couple runs several businesses, including a farm, south of Khartoum.

Sudan’s penal code criminalizes the conversion of Muslims into other religions, which is punishable by death.

As in many Muslim nations, Muslim women in Sudan are prohibited from marrying non-Muslims, though Muslim men can marry outside their faith. By law, children must follow their father’s religion.

Sudan introduced Islamic Shariah laws in the early 1980s under the rule of autocrat Jaafar Nimeiri, a move that contributed to the resumption of an insurgency in the mostly animist and Christian south of Sudan. An earlier round of civil war lasted 17 years and ended in 1972. The south seceded in 2011 to become the world’s newest nation, South Sudan.

Sudanese President Omar Bashir, an Islamist who seized power in a 1989 military coup, says his country will implement Islam more strictly now that the non-Muslim south is gone.

A number of Sudanese have been convicted of apostasy in recent years, but they all escaped execution by recanting their new faith. Religious thinker and politician Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, a critic of Nimeiri and his interpretation of Shariah, was sentenced to death after his conviction of apostasy. He was executed in 1985 at the age of 76.

Mohammed said he intends to appeal Ibrahim’s conviction.

“The judge has exceeded his mandate when he ruled that Meriam’s marriage was void because her husband was out of her faith,” Mohammed told The Associated Press. “He was thinking more of Islamic Shariah laws than of the country’s laws and its constitution.”

He said Ibrahim’s Muslim father left her mother when she was a child and her mother raised her as a Christian.

The court in the capital, Khartoum, also ordered that Ibrahim be given 100 lashes for having what it considers sexual relations with her husband, Daniel Wani, a Christian from southern Sudan who has U.S. citizenship, according to the lawyer and judicial officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. Wani was acquitted of a charge of harboring an apostate, according to another defense lawyer, Eman Abdul-Rahim.

Wani fled to the United States as a child to escape the civil war in southern Sudan but later returned, she said.

Amnesty called the sentence a “flagrant breach of international human rights law.”

“The fact that a woman could be sentenced to death for her religious choice, and to flogging for being married to a man of an allegedly different religion, is abhorrent and should never be even considered,” Amnesty said in a statement, quoting its Sudan researcher, Manar Idriss.

Ibrahim’s case first came to the attention of authorities in August, when members of her father’s family complained that she was born a Muslim but married a Christian man.

They claimed that her birth name was “Afdal” and that she changed it to Meriam. Mohammed said the document produced by relatives to show she was given a Muslim name at birth was a fake. Ibrahim refused to answer Judge Abbas Khalifa when he called her “Afdal” during Thursday’s hearing. Meriam is a common name for Muslims and Christians alike.

“I was never a Muslim. I was raised a Christian from the start,” she said.

Authorities first charged her with having illegitimate sex last year but she remained free pending trial. She was charged with apostasy and jailed in February after she declared in court that Christianity was the only religion she knew.

___

Hendawi reported from Cairo.

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CBS/AP/May 16, 2014

The U.S. Transportation Department announced Friday it is fining General Motors (GM) $35 million for safety issues stemming from its delayed recalls of 2.6 million cars due to faulty ignition switches.
This action represents the largest civil penalty ever paid as a result of a government investigation of violations stemming from its recalls. GM has signed a consent order, agreeing to pay the fines and submit to additional oversight, according to the Transportation Department.

In a press conference to announce the settlement, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Fox said GM had “failed to meet their public safety obligations.” He also said the sanctions against the company serve as a warning to other automakers.

“Together these penalties should put all automakers on notice that there is no excuse and zero tolerance for failing to notify the federal government when a defect puts safety at risk,” Foxx said.

Acting Administrator David Friedman added that “there is no such thing as an automaker overreacting to a safety defect.”

David Goldman, AP

Federal law requires all auto manufacturers to notify the government within five business days after they find a safety-related defect or learn that a vehicle is not in compliance with federal motor vehicle safety standards. GM admits in the consent order that it did not promptly issue a recall as required.
GM chief executive Mary Barro said the company has learned its lessons from the recall.

“We will now focus on the goal of becoming an industry leader in safety,” she said in a statement. “We will emerge from this situation a stronger company.”

The agencies have been investigating GM’s delayed recall of 2.6 million small cars due to faulty ignition switches. GM has acknowledged knowing about the problem for at least a decade but didn’t recall the cars until earlier this year. The company says at least 13 people have died in crashes linked to the problem.

David Zalubowski/AP

“It’s critical to the safety of the driving public that manufacturers promptly report and remedy safety-related defects that have the potential to lead to deaths or injuries on our nation’s highways,” Friedman said.

Also on Friday, GM announced its sixth recall of the week. It recalled 8,200 mid-sized cars to fix a problem with front brakes. It was GM’s 24th recall this year involving about 11.2 million cars and trucks.

“GM’s ultimate goal is to create an exemplary process and produce the safest cars for our customers – they deserve no less,” Barra said Friday. GM’s stock price was unchanged in mid-morning trading Friday.

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By ASHOK SHARMA
Associated Press, May 16, 2014

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian opposition leader Narendra Modi and his party
won national elections in a landslide Friday, preliminary results
showed, driving the long-dominant Congress party out of power in the
most commanding victory India has seen in more than a quarter century.

The
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party captured a commanding lead for
at least 272 seats in the lower house of Parliament, the majority
needed to create a government without forming a coalition with smaller
parties. The Congress party trailed well behind with leads in only 42
seats, its worst showing ever.

Full results are expected later in
the day but it’s unlikely that Modi’s party would see a significant
reversal, putting him on track to be the next prime minister.

With a note of triumph, Modi tweeted: “India has won!” as the results came out.

Television
channels showed an emotional Modi meeting his mother and touching her
feet, a traditional gesture when Hindus seek the blessings of an older
relative.

Caption: Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi (L), the prime ministerial candidate for
India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), seeks blessings
from his mother Heeraben at her residence in Gandhinagar in the western
Indian state of Gujarat May 16, 2014. Modi will be the next prime
minister of India, with counting trends showing the pro-business Hindu
nationalist and his party headed for the most resounding election
victory the country has seen in thirty years. (REUTERS/Amit Dave)
           

His mother then marked his forehead with vermilion and fed him sweets.

The
BJP’s slick and well-financed campaign promised a revival of economic
growth, and took advantage of widespread dissatisfaction with the
Congress party, plagued by scandals and led by a young scion of India’s
Nehru-Gandhi family who was seen as privileged and out of touch with the
people.

The Congress party, which has been at the center of
Indian politics for most of the country’s history since independence
from Britain, conceded defeat.

“I admit that in 2014 the result
is worse than our worse-case scenario. The result is a shock. But the
Congress party has a deep reservoir of strength,” party leader Jairam
Ramesh said.

Outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Modi to congratulate him, his office said, adding that Singh would send his resignation to President Pranab Mukerjee on Saturday.

At BJP headquarters in New Delhi, workers handed out sweets, set off firecrackers and danced outside in the streets. BJP President Rajnath Singh congratulated party workers for what he described as a “historic victory.”

“In the history of independent India, no political party has defeated the Congress party with such a wide margin,” Singh told a news conference that opened with the blowing of a conch shell, a traditional start for most Hindu rituals.

There was a record turnout in the election,
with 66.38 percent of India’s 814 million eligible voters casting
ballots during the six-week contest, which began April 7 and was held in
stages across the country. Turnout in the 2009 general election was
58.13 percent.

Final results were to be announced later Friday.
If the BJP stays ahead of the 272-mark it would be the first time a
single party has won a majority since the 1984 national election.

Caption: Supporters of Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shower confetti from atop a bus in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad May 15, 2014. (REUTERS/Amit Dave)

Exit
polls by at least six major Indian TV stations had predicted a BJP-led
coalition would win between 249 and 289 seats in the 543-seat Lok Sabha,
or lower house of Parliament.

The Nehru-Gandhi family, which has
ruled India for all but 10 years since the country won independence
from British rule in 1947, was suffering its worst-ever political
drubbing.

The
Congress party attempted to position its 43-year-old leader, Rahul
Gandhi, as youthful and capable of boosting the country’s struggling
economy. But many Indians see him as being out of touch with reality.
His privileged background has made him appear aloof and removed from the
concerns of most people.

In comparison, Modi’s campaign was seen
by many as a media and marketing coup for a man whose background ties
him to bloodshed in his home state of Gujarat, where communal rioting in
2002 left more than 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslims. Modi is
accused of doing little to stop the rampage, though he denies any
wrongdoing and has never been charged with a crime.

He managed to
hammer away at Gandhi — specifically the perception that he is nothing
more than a feudal prince from a family that views ruling the country as
its birthright.

In sharp contrast to the street parties outside
the BJP office, a sober scene played out in front of Congress
headquarters, where few showed up despite barricades erected to protect
supporters from passing road traffic.

One small group of women
sat on the sidewalk, lighting a ritual prayer fire to invoke divine help
for the party while a handwritten sign standing by read, “May Rahul
Gandhi be the next prime minister.”

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