How close is N. Korea to nuclear arms?


























Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military


Kim Jong Un and his military





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STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • North Korea has warned that it plans to carry out underground nuclear tests

  • Would be the third nuclear test Pyongyang has carried out since 2006

  • Comes after new U.N. sanctions for North Korea's December satellite launch

  • Experts say its unknown how close the North is to being able to launch a nuclear warhead




(CNN) -- North Korea's intention to carry out a new nuclear test, coming on the heels of December's successful satellite launch, suggests that Pyongyang is moving forward toward developing a nuclear warhead and a deliverable missile system, experts say. The question remains: How close are they?


The answer, like the cloistered "hermit kingdom," remains largely a mystery as does much of its nuclear program.


"It's a question over the delivery system and the reliability of those systems," said Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group covering Northeast Asia. "That is essentially unknown, or known by a few people inside North Korea."


South Korean rocket successfully puts satellite in orbit


A 2009 report by International Crisis Group suspects that North Korea "probably has somewhere between six and twelve nuclear weapons, or at least explosive devices," but notes that experts are divided whether any of these to be now useable as warheads -- small enough to be mounted on missiles and durable enough to withstand the hazards of flight.










"It's pretty clear that these are advanced technologies and the systems present a number of engineering challenges -- and to master these technologies requires a number of tests," Pinkston said.


North Korea on Google Maps: Monuments, nuclear complex, gulags


Last month, on the first anniversary of Kim Jong Il's death, North Korea successfully launched a three-stage rocket that put the satellite, Shining Star-3, into orbit. The launch also signaled that the North's long-range missile program now puts the United States within reach.


Last week, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that strengthened sanctions against the north in response to the December rocket launch. Declaring sanctions to be tantamount to "a declaration of war," North Korea is threatening further missile and nuclear tests which it said are a new phase of confrontation with the United States.


For the U.N. and North Korea: Game on


A new underground nuclear test would be the third, following tests in 2009 and 2006. While seismographs will be able to confirm if North Korea has an underground test, the size of the nuclear blast will be difficult to determine, Pinkston said.


"From what I understand it is virtually impossible to mask a nuclear event in terms of concealing it due to seismographs," Pinkston said. "But as far as the accuracy of the assessment of the yield, that's where the difficulty lies."


Koreas in 2013: Watch the generational politics


Estimates of the size, or "yield," of the 2009 nuclear test range from 2.5 kilotons to 6 kilotons, Pinkston said. By comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 16 kilotons.


While the specter of a North Korea able to send nuclear-tipped missiles is worrisome, equally troublesome to the international community is Pyongyang's atomic technology fuelling the black market for weapons.


"If its clandestine uranium-enrichment program has made strides, Pyongyang could demonstrate that it will gain access to a far larger pool of fissile material than simply its limited supply of weapons-grade plutonium," wrote Patrick M. Cronin, an Asian expert at the Center for New American Security, in a CNN op-ed. "A larger pool of fissile material is a dual threat: As a vital part of an expanded nuclear weapon program and as a commodity to be sold on the black market."


Timeline: North Korea's rocket-fueled obsession







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Super Bowl ratings down from a year ago









NEW ORLEANS—





Sunday's close Super Bowl contest between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers failed to beat last year's game in total viewers, CBS Corp said on Monday.


An average of 108.41 million viewers tuned in, compared with 111.3 million a year ago when the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots on NBC. CBS said it was the third-most-watched program in television history, behind last year's Super Bowl and 2011's match-up between thePittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers, which garnered 111 million viewers.








CBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether a 35-minute partial electrical blackout in the third quarter of the game affected ratings. Advertisers paid $4 million on average for a 30-second spot during the game.


Late Sunday, CBS said in a statement that "all commercial commitments during the broadcast are being honored."


 Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters on Monday an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the disruption. He said there was no indication that Beyonce's halftime show had anything to do with the outage.


CBS said earlier on Monday that the telecast earned an average overnight household rating of 48.1 in Nielsen's metered markets, up 1 percent compared with last year's Super Bowl. CBS said the rating excludes the blackout, which occurred just after the start of the second half, between 8:45 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. Nielsen's "metered markets" represent the top 56 U.S. TV markets.


The highest-rated period during Sunday's Super Bowl occurred from 10:30 p.m. to 10:47 p.m., when the game came down to the wire and the Ravens were able to hold off a furious second-half comeback by the 49ers to win 34-31. CBS said that over those 17 minutes, an average of 113.92 million viewers were tuned in.


The Super Bowl, which determines the NFL champion for the 2012 season, is broadcast live in more than 180 countries and in more than 30 different languages. The commercials during the game regularly net a record amount of ad revenue for the network that broadcasts the game in a given year.


Analysts said stand-out commercials included Chrysler's Jeep ad featuring a patriotic salute to U.S. troops and narration by Oprah Winfrey, an Oreo ad asking viewers to vote cookie or creme, and a scantily clad male Calvin Klein model.


Bluefin labs, a firm that tracks social media activity, said viewers produced 30.6 million social media comments, up from 12.5 million last year. The most talked about ad on social media was the Dodge Ram Trucks "Farmer" commercial, followed by Taco Bell's "Viva Young" spot featuring senior citizens behaving badly, Bluefin said.


The Super Bowl also gives the network that airs it an unprecedented promotional platform for its other programming, with the time slot immediately after the game among the most coveted in television. This year CBS chose to showcase its new crime drama "Elementary," a post-modern take on "Sherlock Holmes," in that time slot.


Just under 21 million viewers stuck around after the game to watch "Elementary," making it the lowest-rated post Super Bowl show in 10 years. Part of the blame for the weak rating can be cast on the game's 35-minutes blackout, which pushed "Elementary's" start time to after 11 p.m. on the East Coast.


Last year, NBC's "The Voice" scored 37.6 million viewers in the post-Super Bowl slot. ABC's airing of "Alias" in 2003 garnered only 17.3 million viewers.


"Elementary" averages around 10 million viewers during its normal airings.





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North Korea nuclear test would face "firm" U.N. action: South Korea


UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is united on North Korea's nuclear arms program and will undoubtedly approve tough measures against Pyongyang if it carries out a new atomic test as expected, South Korean U.N. Ambassador Kim Sook said on Monday.


"The North Korean nuclear test seems to be imminent," Kim, who is president of the Security Council this month, told reporters. "Obviously there are very busy activities going on at the (North Korean) nuclear test site, and everybody's watching."


"Everybody is unified and they are firm and resolute," he said. "I would expect very firm and strong measures to be taken ... once they go ahead with such provocation."


(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Sandra Maler)



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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.


That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.


Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.


Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.


Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.


"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."


The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.


Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.


Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .


But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.


Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.


During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.


MOM AND POP STILL WARY


Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.


This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.


"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.


Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.


He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.


Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.


On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.


Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.


Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.


Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.


(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Energy industry develops nontoxic fracking fluids






PITTSBURGH (AP) — The oil and gas industry is trying to ease environmental concerns by developing nontoxic fluids for the drilling process known as fracking, but it’s not clear whether the new product will be widely embraced by drilling companies.


Houston-based energy giant Halliburton Inc. has developed a product called CleanStim, which uses only food-industry ingredients. Other companies have developed nontoxic fluids as well.






Halliburton is in the business to provide solutions to our customers,” said production manager Nicholas Gardiner. “Those solutions have to include ways to reduce the safety or environmental concerns that the public might have.”


Environmental groups say they welcome the development but still have questions.


The chemicals in fracking fluids aren’t the only environmental concern, said George Jugovic, president of PennFuture. He said there is also concern about the large volumes of naturally occurring but exceptionally salty wastewater and air pollution.


It’s premature to say whether it will ever be feasible to have fluids for fracking that are totally nontoxic, said Scott Anderson, a senior adviser for the Environmental Defense Fund.


“But we are encouraged to some extent by recent industry efforts to at least reduce the toxicity,” Anderson said.


Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, has made it possible to tap into energy reserves across the nation but also has raised concerns about pollution, since large volumes of water, along with sand and hazardous chemicals, are injected deep into the ground to free the oil and gas from rock.


Regulators contend that overall, water and air pollution problems are rare, but environmental groups and some scientists say there hasn’t been enough research on those issues. The industry and many federal and state officials say the practice is safe when done properly, but faulty wells and accidents have caused problems.


Halliburton says CleanStim will provide “an extra margin of safety to people, animals and the environment in the unlikely occurrence of an incident” at a drilling site.


Gardiner said Halliburton has developed a chemistry-scoring system for the fluids, with lower scores being better. CleanStim has a zero score, he said, and is “relatively more expensive” than many traditional fracking fluids.


Both Jugovic and Anderson noted that one of the most highly publicized concerns about toxic fracking fluids hasn’t really been an issue: the suggestion that they might migrate from thousands of feet underground, up to drinking water aquifers.


“Most people agree there are no confirmed cases so far” of fracking chemicals migrating up to drinking water, Anderson said. But he added that simple spills of fluid on the surface can cause problems.


“The most likely of exposure is not from the fracking itself. It is from spills before the fracking fluid is injected,” Anderson said.


There also may be technical and cost issues that limit the acceptance of products such as CleanStim. There is tremendous variation in the type of shale rock in different parts of the country. For example, drillers use different fluids even within the same state, and the specific mix can play a large role in determining how productive a well is.


Gardiner wouldn’t say how widely used CleanStim is. “The customers who do use it certainly like the material,” he added.


Terry Engelder, a geologist at Penn State University, said he visited a well in that state last year that used just water, sand and three additives in the fracking fluid.


But Engelder added that “green” and “toxic” can be “soft words without real meaning.” He noted that consumers, businesses and farms use vast quantities of chemicals that can contribute to pollution, from cleaners and soaps to fertilizers and pesticides. Yet all those compounds are routinely flushed down the drain, ending up in nearby rivers and streams.


“Eventually industry would like to end up with a mix of just water, sand, and food-grade additives,” Engelder said of fracking. “Companies are learning to deal with fewer and fewer additives.”


Energy News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Gasol help Lakers hold on to beat Pistons 98-97


AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Pau Gasol had 23 points and 10 rebounds and was the last line of defense for Los Angeles, contesting Detroit's last-second alley-oop attempt and helping the Lakers hold on for a 98-97 victory over the Pistons on Sunday.


Los Angeles blew an 18-point third-quarter lead but went back ahead for good on Kobe Bryant's driving three-point play with 1:09 remaining. That gave the Lakers a 98-95 lead, and they held on despite missing four free throws in the final 16.8 seconds.


The normally reliable Steve Nash missed two with 2.7 seconds left, giving Detroit one more chance. Down by one, the Pistons inbounded from midcourt with 1.2 seconds to play. They tried a lob to rookie big man Andre Drummond, but with Gasol contesting the play, Drummond couldn't convert his one-handed dunk attempt.


The Lakers have won five of six, including their last two games without Dwight Howard. The All-Star center has been out with a right shoulder problem.


Detroit was still without guard Jose Calderon, who the Pistons acquired from Toronto on Wednesday. Calderon has not been available to play because of unresolved visa issues.


The Lakers trail eighth-place Houston by 3½ games in the Western Conference playoff race.


Bryant scored 18 points but shot poorly from the perimeter. After an airball with the score tied at 95, he decided to drive to the basket the next time down. Bryant muscled through a foul and scored a basket that was counted on a continuation call.


Detroit's Will Bynum cut the lead to one, and after Gasol missed, Drummond missed a baseline fadeaway that would have given the Pistons the lead. Earl Clark missed two free throws for Los Angeles with 16.8 seconds left, but Bynum's driving shot over Gasol went off the glass and rattled in and out.


Nash entered the game as a 90.4-percent free throw shooter for his career — the top mark in NBA history for players with at least 1,200 attempts.


When he missed two in the final seconds, the Pistons shockingly had a chance to win, but Drummond just missed his dunk attempt and looked surprised that no foul was called on the play.


The Lakers scored 10 straight points early in the third quarter to take a 72-54 lead. Bryant highlighted that run with a one-handed dunk while Detroit's Brandon Knight tried in vain to prevent an easy basket.


The Pistons rallied quickly, with the 6-foot-11 Drummond showing off his athleticism around the basket. Drummond's two-handed dunk over Gasol made it 76-70, and the Lakers led 78-72 after three.


Bynum had 18 points and 10 assists for the Pistons, and Greg Monroe added 20 points and 12 rebounds.


Clark had 17 points for Los Angeles. Nash had 11 points and 10 assists.


Detroit's Rodney Stuckey was called for his third foul in the first quarter, then picked up a technical to boot. The Pistons did their best to exploit the Lakers in transition, but Knight missed a layup in the second quarter, and Kyle Singler missed one of his own moments later.


Detroit turned the ball over nine times in the half, and the Pistons finished the second quarter with a terrible defensive breakdown. Bryant was inbounding around midcourt with 0.4 seconds left in the half, and Clark somehow slipped free for an alley-oop dunk at the buzzer that gave Los Angeles a 62-51 lead.


The Lakers did a better job defending that situation on the final play of the game.


NOTES: Knight became tangled with Metta World Peace of the Lakers with 1:43 left in the first half. That got a rise out of the crowd, which no doubt remembered World Peace's role in the infamous "Malice at the Palace" brawl on the Pistons' court in 2004. World Peace was assessed a flagrant foul this time, but the situation didn't escalate. ... Bryant had five assists, snapping his streak of five straight games with at least eight.


Read More..

Hillary: Secretary of empowerment




Girls hug U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a 2010 tour of a shelter run for sex trafficking victims in Cambodia.




STORY HIGHLIGHTS


  • Donna Brazile: Clinton stepping down as Secretary of State. Maybe she'll run for president

  • She says as secretary she expanded foreign policy to include effect on regular people

  • She says she was first secretary of state to focus on empowering women and girls

  • Brazile: Clinton has fought for education and inclusion in politics for women and girls




Editor's note: Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor and a Democratic strategist, is vice chairwoman for voter registration and participation at the Democratic National Committee. She is a nationally syndicated columnist, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and author of "Cooking with Grease." She was manager for the Gore-Lieberman presidential campaign in 2000.


(CNN) -- As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton steps down from her job Friday, many are assuming she will run for president. And she may. In fact, five of the first eight presidents first served their predecessors as secretary of state.


It hasn't happened in more than a century, though that may change should Clinton decide to run. After all, she has been a game changer her entire life.


But before we look ahead, I think we should appreciate what she's done as secretary of state; it's a high profile, high pressure job. You have to deal with the routine as if it is critical and with crisis as if it's routine. You have to manage egos, protocols, customs and Congress. You have to be rhetorical and blunt, diplomatic and direct.



CNN Contributor Donna Brazile

CNN Contributor Donna Brazile



As secretary of state you are dealing with heads of state and with we the people. And the president of the United States has to trust you -- implicitly.


On the road with Hillary Clinton


Of all Clinton's accomplishments -- and I will mention just a few -- this may be the most underappreciated. During the election, pundits were puzzled and amazed not only at how much energy former President Bill Clinton poured into Obama's campaign, but even more at how genuine and close the friendship was.


Obama was given a lot of well-deserved credit for reaching out to the Clintons by appointing then-Sen. Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state in the first place. But trust is a two-way street and has to be earned. We should not underestimate or forget how much Clinton did and how hard she worked. She deserved that trust, as she deserved to be in the war room when Osama bin Laden was killed.


By the way, is there any other leader in the last 50 years whom we routinely refer to by a first name, and do so more out of respect than familiarity? The last person I can think of was Ike -- the elder family member who we revere with affection. Hillary is Hillary.


It's not surprising that we feel we know her. She has been part of our public life for more than 20 years. She's been a model of dignity, diplomacy, empathy and toughness. She also has done something no other secretary of state has done -- including the two women who preceded her in the Cabinet post.


Rothkopf: President Hillary Clinton? If she wants it



Hillary has transformed our understanding -- no, our definition -- of foreign affairs. Diplomacy is no longer just the skill of managing relations with other countries. The big issues -- war and peace, terror, economic stability, etc. -- remain, and she has handled them with firmness and authority, with poise and confidence, and with good will, when appropriate.


But it is not the praise of diplomats or dictators that will be her legacy. She dealt with plenipotentiaries, but her focus was on people. Foreign affairs isn't just about treaties, she taught us, it's about the suffering and aspirations of those affected by the treaties, made or unmade.








Most of all, diplomacy should refocus attention on the powerless.


Of course, Hillary wasn't the first secretary of state to advocate for human rights or use the post to raise awareness of abuses or negotiate humanitarian relief or pressure oppressors. But she was the first to focus on empowerment, particularly of women and girls.


She created the first Office of Global Women's Issues. That office fought to highlight the plight of women around the world. Rape of women has been a weapon of war for centuries. Though civilized countries condemn it, the fight against it has in a sense only really begun.


Ghitis: Hillary Clinton's global legacy on gay rights


The office has worked to hold governments accountable for the systematic oppression of girls and women and fought for their education in emerging countries. As Hillary said when the office was established: "When the Security Council passed Resolution 1325, we tried to make a very clear statement, that women are still largely shut out of the negotiations that seek to end conflicts, even though women and children are the primary victims of 21st century conflict."


Hillary also included the United States in the Trafficking in Person report. Human Trafficking, a form of modern, mainly sexual, slavery, victimizes mostly women and girls. The annual report reviews the state of global efforts to eliminate the practice. "We believe it is important to keep the spotlight on ourselves," she said. "Human trafficking is not someone else's problem. Involuntary servitude is not something we can ignore or hope doesn't exist in our own communities."


She also created the office of Global Partnerships. And there is much more.


She has held her own in palaces and held the hands of hungry children in mud-hut villages, pursuing an agenda that empowers women, children, the poor and helpless.


We shouldn't have been surprised. Her book "It Takes a Village" focused on the impact that those outside the family have, for better or worse, on a child's well-being.


As secretary of state, she did all she could to make sure our impact as a nation would be for the better.


Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion


Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion


The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Brazile.






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Robbery suspects charged with threatening girls with baseball bat













Photo: Carlos Alvizo (left) and Elias Martinez


Photo: Carlos Alvizo (left) and Elias Martinez
(February 3, 2013)


























































Two Chicago men armed with a baseball bat are accused of trying to rob two 15-year-old girls during an attack  on Friday night that was foiled by two off duty police officers, police said.


Carlos Alvizo, 18, of the 5600 block of South Homan Avenue and Elias Martinez, 21, of the 2300 block of South Trumbull Avenue were both charged with two counts of attempted armed robbery of two 15-year-old girls that happened in the 3600 block South Hoyne Avenue in the city’s McKinley Park neighborhood, police said.


One of the suspects was wielding a baseball bat as they demanded “everything’’ from the girls, according to a police report.





One said: “Give me everything. I don’t want to whack you. Do you have any money? Do you have your cell phone? What do you have in your pocket?”’ according to the report.


Alvizo reached into a pocket of one of victims before but both men fled when they spotted two people – who happened to be off duty police officers from Chicago and Forest Park – who began running after them, the report said.


Both men jumped into a gray Dodge Neon but as Martinez turned on its ignition the officers were able to stop them before they drove away in the car, police said. 


The girls later identified them and they were arrested about 6:15 p.m.


rsobol@tribune.com


Twitter:@RosemarySobol1







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Iran hedges on nuclear talks with six powers or U.S.


MUNICH (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it was open to a U.S. offer of direct talks on its nuclear program and that six world powers had suggested a new round of nuclear negotiations this month, but without committing itself to either proposal.


Diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West suspects is intended to give Iran the capability to build a nuclear bomb, have been all but deadlocked for years, while Iran has continued to announce advances in the program.


Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said a suggestion on Saturday by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Washington was ready for direct talks with Iran if Tehran was serious about negotiations was a "step forward".


"We take these statements with positive consideration. I think this is a step forward but ... each time we have come and negotiated it was the other side unfortunately who did not heed ... its commitment," Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference where Biden made his overture a day earlier.


He also complained to Iran's English-language Press TV of "other contradictory signals", pointing to the rhetoric of "keeping all options on the table" used by U.S. officials to indicate they are willing to use force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.


"This does not go along with this gesture (of talks) so we will have to wait a little bit longer and see if they are really faithful this time," Salehi said.


Iran is under a tightening web of sanctions. Israel has also hinted it may strike if diplomacy and international sanctions fail to curb Iran's nuclear drive.


In Washington, Army General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the United States has the capability to stop any Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, but Iranian "intentions have to be influenced through other means."


Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his comments on NBC's program "Meet the Press," speaking alongside outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.


Panetta said current U.S. intelligence indicated that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.


"But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability," he said. "And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing."


The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, has said he will give diplomacy every chance of solving the Iran standoff.


THE BEST CHANCE


With six-power talks making little progress, some experts say talks between Tehran and Washington could be the best chance, perhaps after Iran has elected a new president in June.


Negotiations between Iran and the six powers - Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany - have been deadlocked since a meeting last June.


EU officials have accused Iran of dragging its feet in weeks of haggling over the date and venue for new talks.


Salehi said he had "good news", having heard that the six powers would meet in Kazakhstan on February 25.


A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates the efforts of the six powers, confirmed that she had proposed talks in the week of February 25 but noted that Iran had not yet accepted.


Kazakhstan said it was ready to host the talks in either Astana or Almaty.


Salehi said Iran had "never pulled back" from the stuttering negotiations with the six powers. "We still are very hopeful. There are two packages, one package from Iran with five steps and the other package from the (six powers) with three steps."


Iran raised international concern last week by announcing plans to install and operate advanced uranium enrichment machines. The EU said the move, potentially shortening the path to weapons-grade material, could deepen doubts about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's mission to stop its arch-enemy from acquiring nuclear weapons was "becoming more complex, since the Iranians are equipping themselves with cutting-edge centrifuges that shorten the time of (uranium) enrichment".


"We must not accept this process," said Netanyahu, who is trying to form a new government after winning an election last month. Israel is generally believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.


(Additional reporting by Myra MacDonald and Stephen Brown in Munich, Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty, Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Jim Wolf in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Will Dunham)



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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.


That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.


Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.


Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.


Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.


"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."


The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.


Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.


Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .


But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.


Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.


During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.


MOM AND POP STILL WARY


Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.


This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.


"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.


Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.


He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.


Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.


On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.


Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.


Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.


Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.


(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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