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What if someone told you the most promising company in America aimed to compete with multiple multibillion-dollar giants in a traditional industry with un-software-like profit margins? Then what if they told you that the same company had clocked explosive growth through the deepest recession in recent memory ? and it was just getting started?
Meet Smashburger, tops on our new list of America?s 100 Most Promising Companies ? privately held up-and-comers with compelling business models, strong management teams, notable customers, strategic partners and precious investment capital. Since 2007, the Denver-headquartered patty chain will have grown to 143 locations (half company-owned, half franchised) and $54 million in annual revenue by the end of 2011. Another 450 franchise agreements are already on the books.
Forbes.com slideshow: See which companies made the ranking
The companies on our AMPC list hail from 22 industries, with software-and-services taking the biggest slice (35 percent). Some fast facts: 90 have raised outside capital; 70 have a CEO who is also one of the founders; 12 have one younger than 35 years old; 7 have yet to generate revenue; and one sells a burger topped with pastrami. None of these outfits may blossom into the next Google or Apple, but all, it appears, have bright futures.
Take BOKU, at No. 2. Founded in 2008, the company (fiscal 2010 sales: $55 million) creates software that helps online merchants process payments using a customer?s cell phone number in place of a credit card; it then takes a small cut of each transaction. Big customers include Facebook and Electronic Arts. BOKU has raised $42 million in venture capital from stalwarts Andreesen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and others. Founders Mark Britto, Ron Hirson and Erich Ringewald have each sold companies they founded or lead.
Digital Broadcasting Group, at No. 3, launched in 2006. It produces online videos ? marketing disguised as entertainment ? for corporations and places them (as well as traditional video ads) among a network of 2,600 websites. Customers include Wal-Mart Stores, American Express, Coca-Cola and Ford. CEO Chris Young sold KlipMart, an online video ad company, to Doubleclick in 2006.
Those are the kind of ingredients promising companies are made of ? which leads us to the point of this whole exercise.
You?d have to be living under the dirt that?s under the rock not to have noticed that the business press loves rankings. Readers devour, dissect and debate them. More to the point, rankings sell advertising ? and that leads to more rankings.
Company rankings are a popular confection, if often an ultimately unsatisfying one. That?s because most are based on a single metric (such as revenue, assets or market capitalization) and don?t take a comprehensive approach to evaluating a business? health ? or more importantly, its potential.
Sizing up younger, privately held firms is even harder. Their fortunes can change very quickly, and they aren?t obliged to share their plans and finances with the public. The default: Cajole as many companies as possible into revealing their annual sales figures and stack them accordingly.
These short cuts are understandable given the effort, resources and skill deeper due diligence requires ? not to mention the abiding fascination with rankings, however unenlightening they might be.
How, then, to find hidden gems with scintillating prospects?
To sharpen our search, FORBES teamed up with CB Insights, a New York City-based data firm that tracks investment in high-growth private companies. With $650,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation, CB Insights has developed complex software called Mosaic to help lenders and investors dole out capital more efficiently. We married Mosaic?s data-crunching with old-fashioned reporting to assemble a list of up-and-comers with big growth potential.
Mosaic mines data from 30,000 sources (from press releases and social networks to job boards and court filings) to come up with one score that measures a company?s potential. Think of it as the SAT score for private companies ? something that lenders, investors and vendors can use to quickly gauge whom they want to do business with. ?Five years from now we expect Mosaic will help the best private companies access capital at more favorable terms and win more customers,? says CB Insights cofounder Anand Sanwal, 38.
Mosaic?s algorithms look at a host of signals that collectively paint a picture of a company?s health. Example: If turnover in the management ranks is ticking up, that?s a negative signal. A new distribution deal with a large strategic partner is a favorable signal. The hard part: extracting all those ?digital footprints? (job postings, product reviews, press reports, debt filings ? all in different digital formats) and assembling them in a meaningful way.
There are two powerful advantages to this approach. First, aggregating data from thousands of sources would take far too long to do by hand. Second: ?Mosaic assesses these dimensions not just on an absolute basis but relative to competitors,? adds Sanwal. ?It implicitly considers relative performance.?
Our hunt began with a free online survey. Entrepreneurs could nominate their own companies or be nominated by those familiar with their businesses (lawyers, accountants, p.r. types). Contenders had to be privately held, for-profit, stand-alone businesses (as opposed to divisions of bigger firms). Companies that hadn?t yet generated revenue but had compelling business models were given a look, too.
(To encourage participation, we offered contenders the chance to be selected to attend a two-and-a-half day small business boot camp at Aileron, in Dayton, Ohio, established by billionaire pet food titan Clay Mathile. Scroll down to the Video section of the America?s Most Promising Companies lander page to see Mathile conduct one-on-one mentoring sessions with four AMPC list members. Click here for highlights from our own 90-minute chat with Mathile.)
Using the Mosaic score as a preliminary ranking, we honed the list by gathering additional data via a second, more detailed survey (also free) to get a better sense of each company?s growth potential. We asked for annual revenue and the number of employees for 2008 and 2010, and estimates for 2011. (Companies had to verify existing revenue via a corporate tax return or an accounting opinion letter from an independent accounting firm.) We also took into account the size of the addressable market, the strength of major competitors, the experience of the management team, any significant customers and strategic partnerships, the amount of outside capital raised and how much of the founders? own stash was on the line (the more the better). Then we spoke with representatives of each company to confirm the information and get additional color on their operations.
Our ranking of 100 promising companies is chocked with interesting outfits poised to take off. Here are a few more names and nuggets from the Top 20:
No. 7 ? Allonhill
Annual revenue (latest fiscal year): $19.3 million
Founded in 2008, the company audits individual residential mortgage loan files for institutions that buy or sell mortgage-backed securities. Everything from the borrower?s income and property value to the authenticity of signatures gets a look from one of Allonhill?s 530 employees. Founder and CEO Sue Allon funded the company with proceeds from the sale of her last company, Murrayhill, which also managed risk for mortgage securities, in 2004.
No. 11 ? uSamp
Annual revenue (latest fiscal year): $22.7 million
Founded in 2008, the company makes online-survey software and has a network of 6.5 million respondents globally in its stable. The company charges according to the number and demographics of the respondents. J.D. Power & Associates is a marquee customer. Co-founders Gregg Lavin and Matt Dusig are childhood friends who together launched and sold two previous companies. They raised $10 million in venture capital from Openview Partners in 2010.
No. 14 ? Contour
Annual revenue (latest fiscal year): $15.1 million
Makes small, rugged cameras that athletes attach to their helmets or bodies for hands-free recording. Each camera comes with free video editing software; other features include a Bluetooth connection that turns a user?s mobile phone into a viewfinder. Sells through Best Buy and Dick?s Sporting Goods. Marc Barros and Jason Green started the company in 2003 after winning $20,000 at an undergraduate business plan competition. They raised $5 million from Montlake Capital and Black Oak Capital in November 2010.
No. 19 ? IntegriChain
Annual revenue (latest fiscal year): $5.7 million
Founded in 2007, the company makes software for pharmaceutical companies looking for a better window into their ?forward supply chains? ? that is, sales and inventory data from distributors and local pharmacies. (Say you wanted to tally the inventory at a single pharmacy, or even see the number of units that pharmacy sold on any given day.) Clients ? including Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline ? sign three- to five-year contracts for access to IntegriChain?s dashboard which can display data myriad ways to make sales teams more efficient. The company raised $3.25 million in venture capital in early 2011.
More from Forbes.com
? 2011 Forbes.com
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45618537/ns/business-forbes_com/
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) ? Banks gobbled up nearly 490 billion euros in three-year cut-price loans from the European Central Bank on Wednesday, easing immediate fears of a credit crunch but leaving unresolved how much will flow to needy euro zone economies.
Following a string of failed attempts by euro zone leaders to thwart market attacks on the bloc's weaker members, hopes of crisis relief before the year-end had been pinned on a massive uptake of the ECB's ultra-long and ultra-cheap loans.
The near half a trillion euro take-up of ECB funds exceeded almost all forecasts. A total of 523 banks borrowed with demand way above the 310 billion euros expected by traders polled by Reuters, making it the most the bank has ever pumped into the financial system.
"The take-up was massive ... much higher than the expected 300 billion euros. Liquidity on the banking system has now increased considerably," said Annalisa Piazza at Newedge Strategy.
The funding should bolster banks' finances, ease the threat of a credit crunch and maybe tempt them to buy Italian and Spanish bonds, thereby easing the currency area's sovereign debt crisis.
But analysts said there was little prospect of the cash being hurled at the debt of euro zone weaklings and, while an interbank lending freeze may have been averted, the lack of trust between banks to lend to each other remains unresolved.
Optimism that the lunge for funding would ease Europe's two-year old debt crisis quickly faded, sending the euro and stocks lower after an initial jump.
Banks have struggled to attract funding mainly because of worries about the underlying health of euro zone countries and their exposure to it, so becoming more reliant on the ECB and pledging more assets against those loans may add to the problem.
"It's helpful. It's more than a sticking plaster, although it's by no means the solution longer term," said Chris Wheeler, bank analyst at Mediobanca in London.
HELP FOR ITALY AND SPAIN?
The debt problems of Greece, Portugal, Ireland and now Italy and Spain have taken the euro zone's troubles to new heights in recent months and raised serious questions about whether the euro, the currency shared by the 17 euro zone countries, can survive in its current form.
While a lending crunch may have been avoided thanks to the ECB's latest move, it is much less certain that banks will use the money to buy Italian and Spanish government debt, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy has urged, given the competing pressures on them to cut risk, rebuild capital and lend to business.
"While this might help to address recent signs of renewed tensions in credit markets and support bank lending, we remain skeptical of the idea that the operation will ease the sovereign debt crisis too," said Jonathan Loynes, Chief European Economist at Capital Economics.
Banks will not increase their exposure to sovereign debt because European Bank Authority (EBA) rules discourage it, Italy's banking association (ABI) said.
"The EBA rules are a deterrent for buying sovereign bonds, so not even the ECB's important liquidity injection ... can be used to support sovereign debt," ABI director general Giovanni Sabatini told reporters.
Given those doubts, most market experts say only more aggressive and direct buying of government bonds by the ECB will help ameliorate the crisis, something it is reluctant to do.
Italy alone faces about 150 billion euros of debt refinancing between April and March and data on Wednesday showed its economy - the euro zone's third largest - shrank in the third quarter, while the ABI forecast a recession next year.
"The crisis is far from over. What I am particularly concerned about is the first quarter of 2012, because of financing needs which are very high," one senior euro zone policymaker told Reuters.
"The fact that the ECB has now made available the 3 year credit lines plus made the collateral more flexible will help banks a lot."
More than a dozen Italian banks, including top lenders UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, tapped at least 49 billion euros ($64.2 billion) of new three-year loans, according to data and banking sources.
One source from a Spanish bank said nearly all Spanish banks had participated in the 3-year ECB auction.
FUNDING JUGGLE
One of the key factors certain to have boosted demand is that banks are now more reliant than ever on central bank funds. The ECB on Monday said, in its semi-annual Financial Stability Review, that this dependency could be difficult to cure.
French banks have almost quadrupled their intake of ECB money since June to 150 billion euros, while banks in Italy and Spain are each taking more than 100 billion euros.
ECB President Mario Draghi had been pressing banks to take the money since announcing the plans earlier this month. He warned of a chance of a credit crunch on Monday and said that euro zone bond market pressure could rise to unprecedented levels early next year.
The 3-year funds were offered at an interest rate which will be the average of ECB's main interest rate over the next three years. That benchmark rate is, after a rate cut earlier this month, at a record low of 1.0 percent.
For some banks the new money could be more than 3 percentage points cheaper than they can get on the open market. As part of the deal, they were able to convert one-year loans they took from the ECB in October into the new three-year loans and also will be able to pay it back after just a year if they so wish.
The ECB was already lending banks 515 billion euros before Wednesday but the new loans will not simply stack on top.
Banks switched 45.7 billion euros out of the one-year loans they took in October. They also scaled down their three-month borrowing from the ECB to 30 billion euros from 140 billion and almost halved their intake of one-week loans this week.
Analysts at Royal Bank of Scotland said the actual amount of new money going in to the system as a result of that juggling reduced the headline number to around 200 billion euros.
"The key question now is whether this net new liquidity addition of close to 200 billion euros will be used to purchase sovereign bonds, lend to the economy or pay maturing bonds," said RBS economist Nick Matthews.
(Reporting by Marc Jones, additional reporting Luca Trogni, Gabriella Bruschi, Steve Slater, Jesus Aguado and Jan Strupczewski, editing by Mike Peacock)
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Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich listens to a question during a campaign stop at Al-Jon manufacturing in Ottumwa, Iowa, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Republican presidential candidate former House Speaker Newt Gingrich listens to a question during a campaign stop at Al-Jon manufacturing in Ottumwa, Iowa, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Republican presidential hopeful, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at a Hy-Vee store in Mt Pleasant, Iowa, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Republican presidential candidateformer House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista are led on a tour by owner Kendig K. Kneen at Al-Jon manufacturing in Ottumwa, Iowa, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
OTTUMWA, Iowa (AP) ? Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich lashed out at Mitt Romney on Tuesday, accusing his chief rival of a "negative smear campaign" fueled by a political action committee with close ties to the former Massachusetts governor.
"Understand, these are his people running his ads, doing his dirty work while he pretends to be above it," Gingrich told reporters after a campaign appearance at a heavy machinery plant in Ottumwa, Iowa. "I don't object to being outspent. I object to lies. I object to negative smear campaigns."
Gingrich has pledged to remain "relentlessly positive" as he campaigns for the GOP nod for the White House. He said on Tuesday that he wasn't violating that promise but simply correcting the record.
On Tuesday, Romney said in an appearance on MSNBC that super PACs have been "a disaster." But he refused to urge the group Restore Our Future to halt the attacks on Gingrich, saying that the law prohibits his campaign and such groups to coordinate.
"I'm not allowed to communicate with a super PAC in any way, shape or form," Romney said. "If we coordinate in any way whatsoever, we go to the big house."
A fired-up Gingrich read Romney's remarks to reporters and then promptly labeled them "baloney." He again urged Romney to demand that the negative spots be taken down.
Gingrich said Restore Our Future was created by Romney's former staff and funded by "his personal friends."
Gingrich's own former top aide, Rick Tyler, has joined a pro-Gingrich PAC called Winning Our Future. The former House speaker said he would expect the PAC to adhere to his positive strategy.
"If Rick Tyler runs a single negative ad, I will disown the PAC and discourage anyone from giving them a penny," he said.
"Now the governor had a very easy way to do the same thing and for him to say he couldn't find the people who gave that money and he couldn't get them to put pressure on the PAC to be reasonable is just purely dishonest," Gingrich said.
Gingrich has seen his candidacy slide in polls as a barrage of ads attacking him blanket the Iowa airwaves in advance of the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses Jan. 3. He has been trying to counter the assault while still maintaining a positive campaign.
Even so, questions over the sharp tone of the race have grabbed the spotlight, even among voters who decry heavy-handed tactics.
During Gingrich's remarks to about 100 people at the Al-Jon Manufacturing plant in eastern Iowa, one voter asked Gingrich about a political mailing he had received describing the former congressman as a globalist.
"I think these guys hire consultants who get drunk, sit around and write stupid ads," Gingrich replied. "Every one of these candidates should take responsibility for the lies they are putting up".
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/05/biggest-food-trends-2011_n_1126458.html
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DURBAN, South Africa (Reuters) ? The world's three biggest polluters China, the United States and India refused to move toward a new legal commitment to curb their carbon emissions Tuesday, increasing the risk that climate talks will fail to clinch a meaningful deal this week.
The European Union is leading efforts to keep alive the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only legal pact to tackle climate change, with a conditional promise to sign a global deal that would force big emitters to change their ways.
But with the planet's biggest polluters digging in their heels, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon acknowledged the almost 200 nations meeting in the South African coastal city of Durban could struggle to strike a deal backed by legal force.
"A legally-binding comprehensive agreement may not be possible in Durban," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the talks. "But this will have to be our priority."
The European Union is pressing for a pact by 2015 which would update Kyoto to reflect the emergence of developing countries such as China as big carbon emitters and impose cuts on them.
A vital clause in the pact which enforces binding cuts on rich nations expires at the end of 2012, but all parties have agreed there is not time to negotiate a complex global deal by then.
"The European Union would like to see things concluded as early as possible," EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told reporters when asked if it would accept a date late than 2015.
"We want a legally binding deal. We have really good reasons to want that," she said.
Although the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of next year, the European Union wants a deal agreed by 2015 that would take effect no later than 2020.
Scientists say greenhouse gas emissions need to peak and start falling by 2020 to avoid devastating effects, such as island countries being submerged and agricultural crops failing.
ROAD MAP
The European Union's condition for signing a deal is that other heavy polluters agree to a road map under which they would commit, at some stage, to binding reductions.
Without that, the bloc says, there would be no meaningful progress for the planet as the European Union accounts for only 11 percent of all emissions.
China, the United States and India together make up nearly half of the world's CO2 emissions and they all have reasons for not wanting to be part of a new global deal.
The trio want to put off any commitment on binding cuts until 2015. That would be after publication of a scientific review of the effects of climate change and work to measure the effectiveness of emissions pledges by individual countries.
Although China has moved toward domestic targets for cutting carbon, Beijin says it is not to blame for previous generations of industrial pollution and cannot allow its fast-developing economy to be shackled by the drive to cut carbon emissions.
Beijing gave positive signals last week that it was prepared to contemplate some form of binding targets but has since consistently refused to be pinned down on what China is prepared to accept and by what date.
The country's lead negotiator Xie Zhenhua told reporters China might be part of a deal if, after 2020, global efforts were in line with "common but differentiated responsibilities."
That wording, lifted from the Kyoto Protocol, places a heavier burden on rich nations for reducing pollution than poorer nations, who have historically been less responsible for the emissions that are changing the planet's climate.
However, the world economy has moved on significantly since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Developed nations are bound by its terms but developing nations are not -- including China, now the world's top carbon polluter.
For its part, the United States is held back by domestic politics at least until after a presidential election next year as Republicans and President Barack Obama's Democrats squabble over every attempt to pass environment legislation.
"We would be quite open to a discussion about a process that would lead to a negotiation for the thing, whatever it turns out to be, that follows 2020, and we are also fully willing to recognize that that might be a legal agreement," U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said.
India says it is a late-comer to industrial development and its economy lags China, making it reluctant to accept binding targets that could curb its growth.
"We believe strongly that we should consider the need of a further legal agreement (...) after assessing the actions of all under the 2015 review and look at the science," Jayanthi Natarajan, India's environment minister, said.
The EU's Hedegaard said she was holding bilateral meetings with all parties, not just the big emitters, in an effort to increase pressure for a solution.
Even without a deal by the end of this week, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol will still exist, but would not enforce carbon cuts.
Important agreements would remain in place which enable the monitoring and verification of carbon emissions, which provide practical data that could help form the basis of a future deal.
(Additional reporting by Agnieszka Flak, Jon Herskovitz, Andrew Allan and Michael Szabo; Editing by Jon Boyle)
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NEW DELHI (AP) ? Hollywood star Tom Cruise says his visit to India this week follows a lifelong desire to see the country.
He said while touring the iconic, white-marble Taj Mahal mausoleum in Agra that he is "very excited" about being in the country for a fan screening of his latest action-thriller, "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," days ahead of its world premiere on Wednesday.
Cruise joins Bollywood star Anil Kapoor for the red-carpet screening Sunday in Mumbai. The film sees Cruise reprise his role as secret agent Ethan Hunt, while Kapoor plays an Indian business tycoon.
Cruise told Press Trust of India on Saturday, "I wanted to come to India my whole life, so I am very excited."
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ISLAMABAD ? Battered by Pakistani military operations and U.S. drone strikes, the once-formidable Pakistani Taliban has splintered into more than 100 smaller factions, weakened and is running short of cash, according to security officials, analysts and tribesmen from the insurgent heartland.
The group, allied with al-Qaida and based in the northwest close to the Afghan border, has been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan over the last 4 1/2 years. Known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, or TTP, the Taliban want to oust the U.S.-backed government and install a hard-line Islamist regime. They also have international ambitions and trained the Pakistani-American who tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City's Times Square in 2010.
"Today, the command structure of the TTP is splintered, weak and divided and they are running out of money," said Mansur Mahsud, a senior researcher at the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) Research Center. "In the bigger picture, this helps the army and the government because the Taliban are now divided."
The first signs of cracks within the Pakistani Taliban appeared after its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a drone strike in August 2009, Mahsud said. Since then, the group has steadily deteriorated.
Set up in 2007, the Pakistani Taliban is an umbrella organization created to represent roughly 40 insurgent groups in the tribal belt plus al-Qaida-linked groups headquartered in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province.
"In the different areas, leaders are making their own peace talks with the government," Mahsud added. "It could help the Pakistani government and military separate more leaders from the TTP and more foot soldiers from their commanders."
The two biggest factors hammering away at the Taliban's unity are U.S. drone strikes and Pakistani army operations in the tribal region.
Turf wars have flared as militants fleeing the Pakistani military operations have moved into territory controlled by other militants, sometimes sparking clashes between groups. And as leaders have been killed either by drones or the Pakistani army, lieutenants have fought among themselves over who will replace them.
"The disintegration ... has accelerated with the Pakistan military operation in South Waziristan and the drone attacks by the United States in North Waziristan," Mahsud said, referring to the two tribal agencies that are the heartland of the Pakistani Taliban.
Another factor is the divide-and-conquer strategy Pakistan's military has long employed in its dealings with militants. Commanders have broken away from the TTP and set up their own factions, weakening the organization. Battles have broken out among the breakaway factions, and in one particularly remote tribal region the TTP was thrown out. These growing signs of fissures among the disparate groups that make up the Pakistani Taliban indicate the military's strategy could be paying off.
That would explain the mixed signals this month coming out of the tribal belt, where some militants are mulling the idea of peace talks with the government, others are offering to stop fighting and still others are disavowing both peace and a cease-fire. It might also explain a steady decline in suicide attacks in Pakistan, according to the privately run Pak Institute for Peace Studies.
The U.S. is eager to see some benefits in neighboring Afghanistan, where its troops have come under attack from militants based across the border in Pakistan. NATO forces in Afghanistan are trying to break the back of the Afghan insurgency before the end of the U.S.-led coalition's combat mission in 2014.
There is no evidence so far that fissures within the militant structure in Pakistan are helping NATO and U.S. forces.
The deadly Haqqani network, which has bases both in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is affiliated with al-Qaida, is one of the most lethal threats to coalition troops. It has long found safe haven in Pakistan's tribal belt and has used the Pakistani Taliban as a source of recruits. Senior U.S. officials say the Haqqanis also receive support from Pakistan's army and intelligence agency, a charge Islamabad denies.
Analysts predict that over time, however, the internecine feuding in the Pakistani Taliban will take a toll on militants fighting in Afghanistan, making it increasingly difficult for them to find recruits and restricting territory available to them.
Pakistan's military has rebuffed appeals from Washington to take on all of the insurgent groups in the tribal region, saying it has neither the men nor the weapons to do so. Instead, Islamabad has pushed its divide-and-conquer approach, which is gaining some traction in the United States, according to two Western officials in the region.
The officials say the success of this approach will be measured in Washington by its ability to curb Haqqani network attacks in Afghanistan. The officials requested to remain anonymous in order to speak candidly.
Cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistan suffered a serious setback a week ago when NATO aircraft killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border posts. The Nov. 26 incident seems certain to blunt any prospect of Pakistan taking direct steps to curb the Haqqani network, analysts say.
In the wake of the attack, intelligence sharing has stopped, military-to-military contact has been suspended, routes supplying non-lethal goods to NATO in Afghanistan have been shut, and Pakistan has withdrawn its offer to bring Taliban and representatives of the Haqqani network to the negotiating table.
Pakistan also announced it will boycott next month's conference in Bonn, Germany, to find ways to stabilize Afghanistan.
There is no independent figure on how many Taliban fighters operate in the tribal regions, but it is estimated to be in the thousands. There are upward of 130 groups in the area, Mahsud said, some of them small, violent offshoots of larger groups.
They have varying loyalties to a handful of key commanders like Hakimullah Mehsud, the current leader of the Pakistani Taliban.
Popular support dwindled for Mehsud after his group was driven out of South Waziristan by the military and relocated to North Waziristan, according to tribesmen in the area. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals from militants.
The Pakistani army has brokered agreements with some Taliban factions, according to a senior Pakistani security official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic. But there are no peace talks under way with Mehsud, who has declared war on the state of Pakistan, the official said.
A brash and heavy-handed insurgent, Mehsud has killed former allies, defied orders from the Haqqani network's chief and developed close links with criminal gangs who kidnap, extort and exploit the local population.
He also has made enemies of former lieutenants in other parts of the tribal region, like neighboring Kurram Agency, where a deputy, Fazl Saeed Haqqani, split with Mehsud three months ago and formed his own Islami-Tehrik-e-Taliban group.
In yet another tribal region of Orakzai, where Mehsud once held sway, members of feuding groups are now killing one another.
___
Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Pakistan and Afghanistan and can be reached on http://www.twitter.com/kathygannon
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Protestors shout during a climate change rally outside the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Protestors shout during a climate change rally outside the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Protestors march during a climate change rally outside a climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011. A report released late Thursday in London and discussed Friday at the U.N. climate conference in South Africa said that _ in theory _ reflecting a small amount of sunlight back into space before it strike's the Earth's surface would have an immediate and dramatic effect.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
South African Police prevents protestors entering the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011. Brighten clouds with sea water? Spray aerosols high in the stratosphere? Paint roofs white and plant light-colored crops? How about positioning "sun shades" over the Earth? At a time of deep concern over global warming, a group of scientists, philosophers and legal scholars examined whether human intervention could artificially cool the Earth _ and what would happen if it did.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
Protestors shout during a climate change rallyoutside the climate change summit held in the city of Durban, South Africa, Friday, Dec 2, 2011. A report released late Thursday in London and discussed Friday at the U.N. climate conference in South Africa said that _ in theory _ reflecting a small amount of sunlight back into space before it strike's the Earth's surface would have an immediate and dramatic effect.(AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)
DURBAN, South Africa (AP) ? The top U.N. climate official said Saturday she is confident industrial countries will renew their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions after their current commitments expire next year.
Further commitments under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an unshakable demand by poor countries, would avert a feared derailment of U.N. negotiations, but would mark little advancement toward the goal of a rapid and steep drop in worldwide carbon emissions blamed for climate change.
The protocol's future has been in doubt because rich countries have conditioned its continuation on an agreement by nations such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa to also accept binding emissions targets for themselves in the future.
"Countries are here these two weeks exactly talking about how they are going to go into a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol," U.N. official Christiana Figueres told The Associated Press.
"The discussion this week is not about the 'if,' it's about the 'how.' That doesn't mean that we are out of the thick of it," she said. Delegates are discussing participation, the legal form of the rules and all of the conditions that will define the second commitment period, she said.
Figueres, who is executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, spoke to AP to mark the halfway point of the two-week meeting in South Africa's eastern city of Durban.
Conference chairmen were also compiling the first draft of an agreement that will be given to government ministers arriving next week for the final four days of talks. Among them are 12 heads of state or government and ministers from more than 130 nations.
Outside the conference hall, several thousand activists, South African village women, and trade union members paraded through this port city for a march billed as a "global day of protest."
"It's all about our future. It's calling for a sustainable future. We've got to act and we've actually got to act urgently, so that we put this planet back onto a sustainable path," said Bishop Jeff Davies, Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute. "At the moment, we are destroying our very life support systems."
Figueres said that talks were in "good shape" in preparation for the more senior delegates.
One reason for an uptick in optimism may be a signal from China that it will in the future set absolute caps on its emissions, perhaps as early as 2020. Until now, China has spoken of emissions controls purely in terms of energy intensity, or the amount of energy it uses per unit of economic production.
The signal from Beijing came from Xu Huaqing, a senior researcher for China's Energy Research Institute, who was quoted Friday in the semiofficial China Daily. His remarks were confirmed privately by one of China's top climate negotiators, Su Wei, on the sidelines of the talks in South Africa.
China is the world's largest emitter of heat-trapping greenhouse gas and a main foil of industrial countries in the U.N. negotiations. Virtually every statement, even semiofficial comments, is parsed by delegates seeking departures from its public positions.
"It's part and parcel of a growing realization that all countries can contribute to the solution, that every one of them has to do it, of course, according to their respective capabilities," Figures said.
The 27 members of the European Union provide the bulk of those countries falling under Kyoto's targets. In return for signing up to another round of pledges, the EU wants all major polluters to agree to a legally binding regime for everyone to be negotiated by 2015.
The United States refused to join the Kyoto regime, which it said unfairly exempted major developing countries from any emissions constraints.
Associated Presskim kardashian and kris humphries kim kardashian and kris humphries chris morris chris morris mike stoops mike stoops end of the world
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? A fundraising campaign aimed at putting rhino poachers in jail was welcomed Friday by a South African conservationist.
Michael Knight, head of park planning and development for South Africa's national parks department, said money raised by the Florida-based International Rhino Federation would be used to support such efforts as teaching park employees how to safeguard evidence at crime scenes.
More South African rhinos were poached ? 341 ? in the first 10 months of 2011 than in all of 2010, which was a record poaching year with 333 animals lost. The International Rhino Federation project is for parks in South Africa and neighboring Zimbabwe, which also has seen increased poaching.
An Asian economic boom in recent years is believed to be behind the spike in poaching, with a growing middle class in countries like China and Vietnam able to afford exotic purported remedies like powdered rhino horn.
"We're losing animals like crazy," Knight, who also chairs the rhino specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said in an interview. "But the prosecutions are falling way behind."
Knight said police in isolated areas of South Africa are not always experienced in investigating environmental crime. He said rangers and others would be trained to support police and prosecutors.
In court, he said, "You need to have the most up-to-date information, you need to have the most convincing arguments."
The federation launched its fundraising this week. Donations will fund training in collecting evidence and information. The federation also plans to distribute basic crime scene kits containing cameras, fingerprinting materials and evidence bags.
In an interview, federation director Susie Ellis said that an anonymous donor kicked off the fund with $25,000. She said she spoke with South African security officials in March about how best to use the money.
"It's a small project that we hope will have a big impact," she said, adding tthat he first training session is set for early February in South Africa.
____
Online:
www.rhinos-irf.org
____
Donna Bryson can be reached on http://twitter.com/dbrysonAP
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ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) ? Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged voters and politicians on Friday to unite behind the government and prevent Russian politics turning into a "circus" after Sunday's parliamentary election.
Talking to a shipyard worker on the factory floor in St Petersburg, Putin echoed remarks by President Dmitry Medvedev calling for a strong parliament that amounted to an appeal for a big mandate for his and Putin's United Russia.
Their ruling party is expected to win the election to the State Duma lower house; but Putin and Medvedev have struggled during a lackluster election campaign to prevent its huge majority being cut after signs of weariness with the party.
Putin, seeking to avoid an electoral setback that might take some of the gloss off his plan to return as president next year, said bickering among politicians would undermine the government.
"If people behind their TV screens see how people are fighting, pulling each other's hair like in some neighboring countries, then we won't have coherent, effective work," Putin said during the visit to Russia's second city.
"If people want to see a show then they should go to the circus, theater or the movies," he said before laughing and shaking hands with a shipyard worker dressed in overalls.
Medvedev, who is leading the party in to Sunday's election and is likely to become premier next year, made clear it would be a step backwards if voters chose a Duma as divided as it was during the 1990s, when rival parties battled for supremacy.
United Russia has dominated the parliament since 2003, making it little more than a rubber-stamp body for Putin.
"Will this be a legislative body that is torn by irreconcilable differences and is unable to decide anything, as we have unfortunately already had in our history?" Medvedev said in a nationwide address.
"Or will we get a functioning legislature where the majority are responsible politicians who can help raise the quality of life of our people, whose actions will be guided by the voters' interests and national interests?" he said.
COMPLAINTS ABOUT CAMPAIGN
Opposition parties say United Russia has benefited from favorable television coverage and fear there will be voting irregularities, but Medvedev said: "In accordance with the law, conditions were created for free and equal competition."
Many voters say they are not planning to vote because they expect the voting to be rigged and they are fed up with politicians not fulfilling their promises.
"I'm not going to vote because there's no difference between all the political forces. They've all been around for 20 years, making the same promises and doing nothing," said a 35-year-old Muscovite who gave his name only as Dmitry.
Campaign posters for United Russia have dominated cities in the run-up to the election and opposition parties say the ruling party has had much more air time on television.
Kommersant newspaper, which publishes the daily average amount of television coverage given to competing parties, showed United Russia taking the lion's share of air time with over an hour. The liberal Yabloko party was second with 10 minutes.
The seven parties competing in the election were holding a series of rallies on Friday, the last day of campaigning across the world's largest country and the biggest energy producer.
Medvedev and Putin have appeared in numerous high-profile events to try to win votes for United Russia but opinion polls show it is unlikely to retain its two-thirds majority in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
Although Putin's personal ratings are still high, they have slipped from their peak and he was jeered when he spoke after a martial arts bout in Moscow last month.
He has reverted less often in the past few weeks to the kind of stunts that built up his macho image, such as shooting a tiger or riding a horse bare-chested, in a sign that advisers believe voters may have grown tired of such antics.
The biggest gainer in the election is expected to be Gennady Zyuganov's Communist Party, still the main opposition force 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Opinion polls suggest it will come second, but far behind United Russia.
Also hoping for gains are Vladimir Zhirinovsky's nationalist LDPR and Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko party, which had no seats in the previous parliament.
(Writing by Thomas Grove and Timothy Heritage)
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'The best thing about that job was the amazing group of actors I got to know,' Renner tells MTV News of 'Avengers.'
By Terri Schwartz
Jeremy Renner in "Avengers"
Photo: Marvel
What did Joss Whedon do to the poor cast of The Avengers to make them withhold every tiny bit of information about the upcoming Marvel superhero flick? He must have one member of each of their families holed up in a barn somewhere to keep the cast members so quiet about the film. In light of whatever threats or penalties of death he placed upon them, at least one star of the film wasn't willing to give too much of the plot away.
MTV News caught up with Jeremy Renner recently while he was promoting "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol," and he was quick to clam up when "The Avengers" was mentioned. His character Clint Barton, who goes by the alias Hawkeye, is one of the few Avengers who doesn't have any superpowers. When asked what Hawkeye brings to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier table, he wasn't able to tease too much.
"A bow and arrow. He's good with it," Renner deadpanned. "I can't give you anything on that one."
When asked to elaborate, Renner said he couldn't give any more information. "You know I can't talk about any of that stuff. Yeah, I play Hawkeye. He's got a bow and arrow and he's a badass. That's about all I can say," the actor said.
But that doesn't mean Renner isn't afraid to look into the future. While Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and the Hulk all got their moments to shine in stand-alone movies, Hawkeye had to rely on one tiny cameo in "Thor" to introduce him to audiences. So will there ever be a Hawkeye spin-off movie?
"I don't know. I think, yeah, there's a possibility for anything," Renner said. "Who's to say? I don't have a crystal ball. I'm not a soothsayer. But I was happy to be a part of that project. A great cast. That was the best thing about that job was the amazing group of actors I got to know."
Check out everything we've got on "The Avengers."
For breaking news and previews of the latest comic book movies — updated around the clock — visit SplashPage.MTV.com.
Related Videos Related PhotosSource: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1675126/jeremy-renner-avengers-hawkeye.jhtml
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WASHINGTON ? The Federal Election Commission has failed to reach agreement about whether a Republican-leaning group can coordinate with members of Congress when producing campaign ads.
The commission deadlocked along party lines Thursday after a lengthy and heated debate over how much coordination between elected officials and super political action committees would be against the rules.
American Crossroads is the Republican super PAC that sought an opinion from the FEC, following allegations two months ago that Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska unlawfully coordinated with his party on an issue ad. In essence, Crossroads asked whether Nelson could legally produce such an ad and whether it could do the same.
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