Idle No More stages national day of protest

Hundreds of First Nations protesters waved flags, chanted slogans and shook a collective fist at the federal government as they gathered on Parliament Hill to put Canada on notice they would be "idle no more."

More than 1,000 protesters, a group stretching several city blocks, marched through the streets of the capital Friday after meeting with Theresa Spence, the chief of northern Ontario's troubled Attawapiskat First Nation, who is on a hunger strike.

"We are tired of having the boot put to our head," Algonquin Chief Gilbert Whiteduck told the gathering beneath the Peace Tower under a steady barrage of snow.

"We want the government of Canada to come to the table in a spirit of unconditional openness and transparency."

Other rallies were held in various cities across the country. Demonstrations in support of Spence's cause also took place in the United States.

Hundred of people briefly blocked one of the busiest intersections in Toronto in solidarity with Idle No More, a grassroots aboriginal protest movement gaining traction on social media. Several Manitoba First Nations groups also rallied at the Winnipeg International Airport, congesting traffic.

In Montreal, more than 100 supporters of Idle No More gathered peacefully in Cabot Square, while dozens of members of the Listiguj Mi'gmaq community blocked Highway 132 and slowed traffic on the interprovincial bridge that connects Quebec to the Maritimes.

Supporting treaty rights, opposing Bill C-45

Idle No More organizers oppose the Harper government's recently passed omnibus budget legislation, Bill C-45, and accuse the Tories of trampling on treaty rights.

Julie Vaux, a spokeswoman for Harper, said the rallies did not change the government's position. The Conservatives insist they are taking strong action to address aboriginal concerns.

As recently as Nov. 28, Harper and Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan met with Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo and others to review progress to date and discuss a range of issues, Vaux said.

"Our government hosted an historic gathering of the Crown and First Nations this past January," she also noted.

"Since then, the government has been working with First Nations leadership to make progress in several areas, most notably education and infrastructure on reserve."

For First Nations people, however, that progress has been far from enough.

And many see Spence as a warrior standing up for all Canadians.

Hunger strike ‘warrior’

Spence has been on a hunger strike since Dec. 11, living in a tipi on an island in the Ottawa River that many aboriginals consider to be sacred land. Atleo met with her Friday and said she appeared weak from 10 days of ingesting mainly water and fish broth.

Shelly Young, an aboriginal activist from Nova Scotia, wept during a panel discussion Friday in Halifax as she spoke of how Spence is inspiring others.

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence is conducting a hunger strike and demanding a Crown-First Nations meeting to deal with the pace of assistance to First Nations communities. (Canadian Press)

"She is a warrior in our eyes because she's standing up to the government, she's saying the pain is too much," Young, 30, said in an interview.

"I think sometimes we have to do the extreme to get the attention of the government, because they're ignoring us."

Protesters in Nova Scotia also held a peaceful demonstration along Highway 102 in the Truro area, causing about eight kilometres of traffic gridlock.

The Canadian Auto Workers and civil service unions across the country have also shown support for the movement, saying they stand in solidarity with First Nations in a struggle against Bill C-45.

Spence did not take part in the Ottawa rally, but on Thursday, she wrote to Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston, urging them to start a national discussion about poverty in First Nations communities.

Thousands of flights disrupted across US as storm hits Northeast

Holiday travelers across the country were feeling the effects of the first big storm of the season, with hundreds of flights canceled and thousands delayed Friday -- many disrupted by the ripple effects of stormy conditions in the Northeast and Midwest.

Delays of an hour or more were reported at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Across the country, nearly 700 flights had been canceled and 9,300 delayed by late Friday afternoon,according to FlightStats.com. The majority were in storm-impacted cities like Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Newark, New York and Philadelphia.

The combination of low clouds, rain and hing wind gusts disrupted major Northeast airports. Those delays could continue into Saturday, when the tail end of the system is expected to leave a few more inches of snow in Pittsburgh and western New York.

Full storm coverage at Weather.com

At Chicago's O'Hare airport, travelers who spent Thursday night there included Patricia Oliver, who called her attempt to get from California to Waterloo, Iowa, "a nightmare." 

"They keep pushing us and bumping us and booting us back," she told NBCChicago.com. "We slept two nights on the floor."

Airlines on Thursday canceled more than 1,000 flights as the storm dumped up to 20 inches of snow across parts of the Midwest, caused blizzard conditions that led to seven deaths and even spawned a twister in Mobile, Ala., that damaged property.

In Iowa, two people were killed and seven injured Thursday in a 30-vehicle pileup on Interstate 35. Drivers were blinded by blowing snow and didn't see vehicles that had slowed or stopped, causing a chain reaction of crashes, state police said.

The storm was blamed for traffic deaths in three other states: two deaths each in Nebraska and Wisconsin; and one in Kansas.

In Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died Tuesday night. 

Power outages caused by the storm continued Friday. More than 320,000 homes and businesses were without power in the eastern half of the U.S. The hardest hit states were Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin.

Outages that started Thursday also remained in Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska and Texas.

Although the storm has become largely a wind and rain event for much of the Northeast, the snow belts around the Great Lakes and Appalachians on Friday are likely to continue to see wind-whipped snow that could top a foot in many areas, Weather.com reported.

Steve Jobs' high-tech yacht impounded over bill dispute

Steve Jobs' luxury yacht Venus has been impounded in Amsterdam harbour

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Venus, the minimalist high-tech yacht commissioned by the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, has become embroiled in a row over a disputed bill.

French designer Philippe Starck claims Mr Jobs' heirs still owe him 3m euros of a 9m euro fee for the project, according to Dutch paper Het Financieele Dagblad.

Mr Starck called in the debt collectors and had the yacht impounded,

The Port of Amsterdam confirmed that the boat is not allowed to leave.

Jeroen Ranzijn, spokesman for the Port of Amsterdam told the BBC: "The boat is brand new but there is a 3m euro claim on it. The parties will have to fight it out."

Roelant Klaassen, a lawyer representing Mr Starck's company, Ubik, told the Reuters news agency that the boat would remain in port pending payment by lawyers representing Mr Jobs' estate.

"These guys trusted each other, so there wasn't a very detailed contract," he said.

Mr Starck was unavailable for comment.

Gerard Moussault, the lawyer representing the owners of the Venus told the BBC: "I cannot comment at all on this, sorry."

The sleek, 260ft-long (80m) aluminium super-yacht cost 105m euros ($138m; £85m) and was launched in October, at Aalsmeer, The Netherlands.

Mr Starck is known for his striking designs for the Alessi company, including an aluminium lemon squeezer that is shaped like a spaceship.

He collaborated with Steve Jobs for five years on the project, describing the boat as "showing the elegance of intelligence."

The vessel is minimalist in style and is named after the Roman goddess of love and its windows measure 3m (10 feet) in height.

Mr Starck has said that Venus "looks strange for a boat" but said its shape comes from design ideas he shared with Mr Jobs.

Mr Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 and never saw his boat go to sea.

John Kerry nominated as next US secretary of state

US President Barack Obama: John Kerry is the "perfect choice"

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US President Barack Obama has nominated Senator John Kerry to succeed Hillary Clinton as his next secretary of state.

Mr Obama said Mr Kerry's "entire life" prepared him for the role, and praised him for the "respect and confidence" he has earned from world leaders.

Mr Kerry ran as Democratic presidential candidate in 2004 and is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

His nomination comes after the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, withdrew from consideration last week.

Republicans had fiercely criticised her role in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in September.

Influential senator

Speaking at the White House, Mr Obama said Mr Kerry understood the need to "harness all elements of American power", and said the veteran senator was "not going to need a lot of on-the-job training".

Food waste a new opportunity for entrepreneurs

Two years ago, the sight of pristine-looking peas that had arrived all the way from Kenya to London made an impression on a would-be entrepreneur, Jenny Dawson. The peas had been tossed aside at a wholesale food market, getting ready to be sent to the landfill.

Soon after that, on a friend's farm, crates of apples, deemed too small for their buyer, were left out to rot.

Seeing all this waste pushed Dawson, 27, who formerly worked for a hedge fund, to start a business using surplus produce. The model for Rubies in the Rubble, her jam and chutney business, was born, with the goal using food that would otherwise get tossed to create foods that people would buy.

"Preserves seemed almost a natural thing to be doing with a glut of fruit and veg, because it then lasts up to 10 months," Dawson said.

Julian Assange: WikiLeaks to release 1 million new documents

WikiLeaks is preparing to release more than a million documents next year, the controversial website's founder said Thursday.

Julian Assange did not provide details about their contents but said they "affect every country in the world."

He spoke from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been holed up for more than six months. Ecuador's government granted him asylum in August, but British authorities have said they will arrest him if he leaves the premises.

"I came here in summer," Assange said. "It is winter now."

Assange disregards questions on free press, his reported ill health

"This building ... has become my home, my office and my refuge," he said.

 "Thanks to the principled stance of the Ecuadorian government and the support of its people, I am safe in this embassy to speak from this embassy."

Assange fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy in June to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he raped one woman and sexually molested another. Assange has said he fears Sweden will transfer him to the United States, where he could face the death penalty for the work of WikiLeaks if he were charged and convicted of a crime.

Assange: How notoriety has changed a trapped man

He has repeatedly said the allegations in Sweden are politically motivated and tied to the work of his website, which facilitates the publication of secret documents.

Assange has not been charged in the United States, though Assange and his supporters claim a U.S. grand jury has been empanelled to consider charges against him.

"My work will not be cowed," Assange said Thursday. "But while this immoral investigation continues, and while the Australian government will not defend the journalism and publishing of WikiLeaks, I must remain here."

Staffordshire hoard site yields 90 more fragments

More gold and silver, including a gold and garnet cross, an eagle-shaped mount, and what could be a helmet cheek piece, have been churned up by ploughing in Staffordshire in the same field which three years ago yielded one of the most spectacular Anglo Saxon hauls.

Staffordshire hoard: part of a helmet was among the pieces unearthed in the Hammerwich field last month [Credit: Staffordshire county council/PA]

When archaeologists first scoured farmer Fred Johnson's field in Hammerwich and discovered the hoard, which comprised more than 3,500 fragments of metalwork including sword, shield and helmet mounts inlaid with pieces of garnet and enamel, they left convinced they had emptied it of every scrap of treasure. Now a 90 further pieces have been found.

The workmanship in the new finds appears identical to pieces from the original haul; the helmet cheek piece appears to match one found three years ago.

Experts from English Heritage and Staffordshire county council, who were confident they had uncovered the field's secrets when the hoard was found by amateur metal detectorist Terry Herbert, believe the latest finds must be connected, but a formal decision on that will be taken by the local coroner, Andrew Haigh, in a treasure inquest next month.

Some of the items discovered in the field where the Staffordshire Hoard was found [Credit: Staffordshire county council/PA]

If the finds are indeed linked, it will be particularly valuable to the archaeologists because no evidence was found of how such a hoard – 5 kg of gold and 1.5 kg of silver, described at the time as the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne gospels or Sutton Hoo treasure – came to be in the field: there was no grave, hut or trackway, though it is close to the Watling Street Roman road.

It has been suggested the items form part of a war booty, found in the heartland of the Mercians, and either awarded to the winners or looted from the losers of some long-forgotten battle. Apart from the enigmatic crosses, almost all the pieces are warrior swagger. Most are twisted as if wrenched from their original mounts – including the crosses, one of which bears the wonky Latin inscription: "Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate the be driven from thy face".

The latest find was announced at the Potteries museum in Stoke-on-Trent, which has a major exhibition on the original hoard. The finds were made last month, with gold apparently brought to the surface by ploughing.

The original hoard was bought by Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent museums for £3.3m with a substantial grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and donations from all over the world. Some of the pieces have toured the US and been viewed by more than 1m people.

Syrian crisis has Mesopotamian precedent

Research carried out at the University of Sheffield has revealed intriguing parallels between modern day and Bronze-Age Syria as the Mesopotamian region underwent urban decline, government collapse, and drought.

Urkesh, today a small village known as Tell Mozan, was a major political and religious center of the Hurrians – an elusive population of the ancient Near East [Credit: http://www.urkesh.org]

Dr Ellery Frahm from the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology made the discoveries by studying stone tools of obsidian, razor-sharp volcanic glass, crafted in the region about 4,200 years ago.

Dr Frahm used artefacts unearthed from the archaeological site of Tell Mozan, known as Urkesh in antiquity, to trace what happened to trade and social networks when Bronze-Age Syrian cities were abandoned in the wake of a regional government collapse and increasing drought due to climate shifts.

"Unfortunately," explained Dr Frahm, "the situation four thousand years ago has striking similarities to today. Much like the fall of the Akkadian Empire, a governmental collapse is a real possibility in Syria after nearly two years of fighting. Some archaeologists and historians contend that the Akkadian Empire was brought down by militarism and that violence ended its central economic role in the region.

View of Tell Mozan from the north [Credit: Wiki Commons]

"Additionally, farming in north-eastern Syria today relies principally on rainfall rather than irrigation, just as in the Bronze Age, and climate change has already stressed farming there. But it isn't just climate change that is the problem. Farming, rather than herding, has been encouraged at unsustainable levels by the state through land-use policies, and as occurred during urbanisation four millennia ago, populations have dramatically increased in the area."

The diverse origins of the obsidian tools, which date from the rise of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia to several centuries after its fall, revealed how social networks and trading routes evolved during this period.

Dr Frahm explained the motivation behind the research: "This time of transition in Mesopotamia has received great attention for the concurrence of aridification, de-urbanisation, and the decline of the Akkadian Empire about 4,200 years ago. However, our current understanding of this 'crisis' has been almost exclusively shaped by ceramic styles, estimated sizes of archaeological sites, and evidence of changing farming practices. Trade and the associated social networks have been largely neglected in prior studies about this time, and we decided obsidian was an ideal way to investigate them."

Obsidian blade [Credit: University of Sheffield]

Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, is smooth, hard, and far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making it a highly desired raw material for crafting stone tools for most of human history. In fact, obsidian tools continued to be used throughout the ancient Middle East for millennia beyond the introduction of metals, and obsidian blades are still used today as scalpels in specialised medical procedures.

"Our discovery that obsidian in Urkesh came from six different volcanoes before the crisis, whereas they normally came from just two or three at surrounding sites, implies that Urkesh was an unusually cosmopolitan city with diverse visitors, or visitors with diverse itineraries. During the crisis, however, obsidian only came from two nearby sources, suggesting that certain trade or social networks collapsed. It was two or three centuries before diverse obsidian appeared again at this city, and even then, it came from different quarries, signalling the impact the crisis had on trade and mobility throughout the wider region.

"One compelling interpretation of our findings is that the regional government of the Akkadian Empire shaped Urkesh's local economy. This city might have specialised its economy in response to demand from the Akkadians for certain commodities, such as metals from the nearby mountains. With climate shifts and the end of the empire, Urkesh's inhabitants might have had to refocus their economy on local production and consumption, covering their own needs rather than engaging in specialised long-distance trade.

Dr Ellery Frahm investigates an obsidian outcropt [Credit: University of Sheffield]

"By drawing these parallels to the current situation in Syria, we are not making light of it," explains Dr Frahm. "Quite the opposite. The situation in Syria is heartbreaking, horrifying even when I see the images from Syria via social media. As an archaeologist, there is nothing that I can do to help the situation right now. But those of us who study people and the past are in a unique position to consider what could happen after the immediate crisis ends. What happens to cities when a state falls? How do the residents sustain themselves if that infrastructure collapses? Will they move to another area? Droughts are known to increase wars. As climate change increases, could fighting start again over scarce water resources? This is the type of contribution that archaeology can make towards improving the future."

Dr Frahm's team used a variety of scientific techniques to analyse the obsidian artefacts, including an electron microscope outfitted for chemical analyses, a handheld chemical analyser that can be used at archaeological sites, and a series of sophisticated magnetic analyses at one of the world's best facilities for studying rock magnetism, the Institute for Rock Magnetism at the University of Minnesota.

Ancient city of Troy rebranded itself after war

Even ancient cities knew about rebranding. Troy was destroyed by war about 3200 years ago - an event that may have inspired Homer to write the Iliad, 400 years later. But the famous city rose again, reinventing itself to fit a new political landscape.

Trojan Horse from the movie "Troy" [Credit: Warner Bros/Everett/Rex Features]

Troy lies in north-west Turkey and has been studied for decades. Pottery made before the war has a distinct Trojan style but after the war its style is typical of the Balkans. This led archaeologists to believe that the locals had been forced out and replaced by populations from overseas.

But when Peter Grave at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, and his colleagues examined the chemical make-up of the pottery, they realised that both pre and post-war objects contained clay from exactly the same local sources, suggesting the same people were making the pots.

"There is substantial evidence for cultural continuity," says Grave. So if the Trojans never left the city, why did their pottery style change?

Before the sack of Troy, the city looked east towards the powerful Hittite Empire. But this political powerhouse collapsed around the time that Troy was destroyed. Grave says the post-war pottery is Balkan in style because the Trojans were keen to align themselves with the people there, who had become the new political elite in the region.

Article reference:
Peter Grave et al, Cultural dynamics and ceramic resource use at Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Troy, northwestern Turkey.

Shreveport Station Brings New Weather Guesser on Board

I am running behind with this but.....KTBS/Channel 3/Shreveport has hired a new meteorologist.  Brian Fowler has been on board since December 4th.  Brain has ties to the area.  His facebook profile states he attended high school in McKinney, Texas.  KTBS hasn't put his bio up on its website but here's what I found from his bio from the WAFF/Huntsville, Alabama website where he had been on staff since Novemver 2010.

Brian has more than a dozen years experience in weather forecasting, most recently as Chief Meteorologist for WMGT-TV in Macon, Georgia.  Brian has also worked at TV stations in Mississippi and Dallas.  He holds a Bachelor's Degree in GeoSciences from Mississippi State University and is a member of the American Meteorological Society and the National Weather Association.

Shreveport Station Breaks Silence Concerning Fired Employees

KTBS/Channel 3/Shreveport has commented officially about the firings of Rhonda Lee and Chris Redford.  The following was posted on the station's facebook page:

Typically this station does not comment on personnel matters, but due to the publicity and interest about this issue, the station has included the following statement.

On November 28, 2012, KTBS dismissed two employees for repeated violation

 of the station’s written procedure. We can confirm that Rhonda Lee was one of the employees. Another employee was a white male reporter who was an eight year veteran of the station. The policy they violated provided a specific procedure for responding to viewer comments on the official KTBS Facebook page. Included is an email that was sent to all news department employees informing them of this procedure. This procedure is based on advice from national experts and commonly used by national broadcast and cable networks and local television stations across the country.
 

Unfortunately, television personalities have long been subject to harsh criticism and negative viewer comments about their appearance and performance. If harsh viewer comments are posted on the station’s official website, there is a specific procedure to follow.
 

Ms. Rhonda Lee was let go for repeatedly violating that procedure and after being warned multiple times of the consequences if her behavior continued. Rhonda Lee was not dismissed for her appearance or defending her appearance. She was fired for continuing to violate company procedure.

KATV Parent Company Founder Passes Away

Allbritton Communications founder Joe Allbritton died Wednesday, according to WJLA Washington. He was 87 years old. The company owns eight ABC-affiliated TV stations, including WJLA/Washington DC, and KATV/Little ROCK along with co-owned cable news channel, News Channel 8, and political newspaper/news site, Politico. Allbritton, who made his fortune in banking, bought the Washington Star and its broadcast properties in 1974. He sold the newspaper in 1978 -- it eventually folded -- but expanded his broadcast holdings. He was born in D'lo, Miss., and raised in Houston. He was a Navy veteran of World War II and graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. "Joe Allbritton was a larger than life figure in business, in media and in philanthropy," said National Association of Broadcasters president Gordon Smith. "His contributions to local television are reflected every day in the programming excellence on display at WJLA-TV in Washington and seven other Allbritton-owned ABC affiliates across America. NAB salutes a visionary media entrepreneur for a life well lived." Allbritton is survived by his wife, Barbara; son Robert, who launched Politico; and two grandchildren.

End Of The World 2012? Not Just Yet

MERIDA, Mexico — Dec. 21 started out as the prophetic day some had believed would usher in the fiery end of the world. By Friday afternoon, it had become more comic than cosmic, the punch line of countless Facebook posts and at least several dozen T-shirts. At the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, thousands chanted, danced and otherwise frolicked around ceremonial fires and pyramids to mark the conclusion of a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar. The doomsayers who had predicted apocalypse were nowhere to be seen. Instead, people showed up in T-shirts reading "The End of the World: I Was There." Vendors eager to sell their ceramic handicrafts and wooden masks called out to passing visitors, "Buy something before the world ends." And on Twitter, (hash)EndoftheWorld had become one of the day's most popular hash tags. For the masses in the ruins, Dec. 21 sparked celebration of what they saw as the birth of a new and better age. It was also inspiration for massive clouds of patchouli and marijuana smoke and a chorus of conch calls at the break of dawn. The official crowd count stood at 20,000 as of mid-afternoon, with people continuing to arrive. That surpassed the count on an average day but not as many as have gathered at the ruins during equinoxes. The boisterous gathering Friday included Buddhists, pagan nature worshippers, druids and followers of Aztec and Maya religious traditions. Some kneeled in attitudes of prayer, some seated with arms outstretched in positions of meditation, all facing El Castillo, the massive main pyramid. Ceremonies were being held at different sides of the pyramid, including one led by a music group that belted out American blues and reggae-inspired chants. Others involved yelping and shouting, and drumming and dance, such as one ceremony led by spiritual master Ollin Yolotzin. "The world was never going to end, this was an invention of the mass media," said Yolotzin, who leads the Aztec ritual dance group Cuautli-balam. "It is going to be a good era. ... We are going to be better." Ivan Gutierrez, a 37-year-old artist who lives in the nearby village, stood before the pyramid and blew a low, sonorous blast on a conch horn. "It has already arrived, we are already in it," he said of the new era. "We are in a frequency of love, we are in a new vibration." But it was unclear how long the love would last: A security guard quickly came over and asked him to stop blowing his conch shell, enforcing the ruin site's ban on holding ceremonies without previous permits. Similar rites greeted the new era in neighboring Guatemala, where Mayan spiritual leaders burned offerings and families danced in celebration. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla attended an official ceremony in the department of Peten, along with thousands of revelers and artists. At an indigenous South American summer solstice festival in Bolivia, President Evo Morales arrived on a wooden raft to lead a festival that made offerings to Pachamama, Mother Earth, on a small island in the middle of Lake Titicaca. The leftist leader and 3,000 others, including politicians, indigenous shamans and activists of all stripes, didn't ponder the end of the world, just the death of the capitalist system, which Morales told the crowd had already happened amid "a global financial, political and moral crisis." "The human community is in danger because of climatic reasons, which are related to the accumulation of wealth by some countries and social groups," he told the crowd. "We need to change the belief that having more is living better." Despite all the pomp, no one is certain the period known as the Mayas' 13th Baktun officially ended Friday. Some think it may have happened at midnight. Others looked to Friday's dawn here in the Maya heartland. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History even suggested historical calculations to synchronize the Mayan and Western calendars might be off a few days. It said the Mayan Long Count calendar cycle might not really end until Sunday. One thing, however, became clear to many by Friday afternoon: The world had not yet ended. John Hoopes, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, was at the ruins, using the opportunity to talk about how myths are created. "You don't have to go to the far corners of the earth to look for exotic things, you've got them right here," he noted. End-of-the-world paranoia, however, has spread globally despite the insistence of archeologists and the Maya themselves that the date meant no such thing. Dozens of schools in Michigan canceled classes this week amid rumors of violence tied to the date. In France, people expecting doomsday were looking expectantly to a mountain in the Pyrenees where they believe a hidden spaceship was waiting to spirit them away. And in China, government authorities were cracking down on a fringe Christian group spreading rumors about the world's end, while preaching that Jesus had reappeared as a woman in central China. Gabriel Romero, a Los Angeles-based spiritualist who uses crystal skulls in his ceremonies, had no such illusions as he greeted the dawn at Chichen Itza. "We'll still have to pay taxes next year," he said. As if to put the final nail in the coffin of such rumors, Bob McMillan of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory confirmed Friday that no large asteroids are predicted to hit anytime soon. And Bill Leith, a senior science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey, noted that as far as quakes, tsunamis and solar storms for the rest of the day, "we don't have any evidence that anything is imminent." Still, there were some who wouldn't truly feel safe until the sun sets Friday over the pyramids in the Yucatan peninsula, the heartland of the Maya. Mexico's best-known seer, Antonio Vazquez Alba, known as "El Brujo Mayor," said he had received emails with rumors that a mass suicide might be planned in Argentina. He said he was sure that human nature represented the only threat Friday. "Nature isn't going to do us any harm, but we can do damage to ourselves," he said. Authorities worried about overcrowding and possible stampedes during celebrations Friday at Mayan sites such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal, both about 1 1/2 hours from Merida, the Yucatan state capital. Special police and guard details were assigned to the pyramids. Yucatan Gov. Rolando Zapata said he for one felt the growing good vibes, and not just because his state was raking in loads of revenue from the thousands of celebrants flooding in. "We believe that the beginning of a new baktun means the beginning of a new era, and we're receiving it with great optimism," Zapata said.

John Terry could miss Christmas period because of injury

Chelsea captain John Terry could miss the entire Christmas period, with manager Rafael Benitez refusing to guarantee the centre-back's fitness. Terry, 32, hurt his knee in the 1-1 draw with Liverpool on 16 November. But despite the original prognosis of a three-week absence, Terry is yet to return to full-contact exercises in training and will definitely miss Sunday's game with Aston Villa. "It's one step forward, one step back," said Benitez. "The knee is quite complicated [but] at least he's now on the pitch - that is positive news - but we cannot say, we cannot predict how long it will take." When asked if Terry would return within the next fortnight, ahead of games against Norwich, Everton and Queens Park Rangers over the festive period, Benitez was non-committal. "I hope so but I am not a doctor, so I cannot guarantee anything," said the Spaniard, who was confident Terry would not require further surgery. Benitez, who has not had Terry available for selection since he took charge, would not discuss reports the former England captain was close to beginning talks on a new contract. His current deal expires in June 2014. Also related to this story Chelsea name Benitez interim boss 21 Nov 2012 CHELSEA Terry set for three-week lay off 16 Nov 2012 CHELSEA Chelsea 1 - 1 Liverpool 11 Nov 2012 PREMIER LEAGUE Terry pens five-year Chelsea deal 31 Aug 2009 CHELSEA

Mario Balotelli: Man City will give striker another chance

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini says he is willing to give Mario Balotelli another chance but the striker needs to "deserve it". Balotelli this week dropped tribunal action against City, who had given him a two-week fine for missing 12 games last season because of suspensions. When asked if Balotelli would be given another opportunity, Mancini said: "Sure. I am his manager and, like the other players, if he deserves another chance I'll give him another chance. But Mario now needs to deserve this." The hearing between the player and his representatives and the Premier League champions had been due to take place on Wednesday, but the issue was resolved following "amicable" talks on Tuesday night. And Mancini believes the Italy international, 22, who will miss Saturday's match against Reading through illness, made the correct decision not to pursue his action against the club. "This is an old situation and it is normal when someone does a mistake he should take his responsibilities and Mario did this. It's normal," added the 48-year-old manager. "He [should] respect himself, not me, because it's important for him to respect himself, very important." City began the disciplinary process after Balotelli was sent off against Arsenal in April 2012. In total, he received nine yellow cards and three reds - one of them retrospective - during the season. Last Saturday, Balotelli was left out of the squad that defeated Newcastle 3-1 at St James' Park. After the match, Mancini revealed the striker was "not in good form" and that was the only reason he had been excluded.