Soccer-Lyon must sell and Gomis could go, says president

PARIS, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Olympique Lyon need to continue cutting their payroll and are in talks to sell top scorer Bafetimbi Gomis, president Jean-Michel Aulas said on Friday.
Lyon, who have not taken part in the Champions League this season for the first time since 2000, already sold top players Hugo Lloris, Aly Cissokho and Kim Kallstrom during the last transfer window in a bid to cut costs.
They have still managed to challenge Paris St Germain and lie second in the Ligue 1 standings, level on points with their rich rivals, but are the only French club listed on the stock exchange and have yet to comply with financial constraints.
Aulas confirmed that Argentine full back Fabian Monzon, who signed from Nice in the off-season, has joined Brazilian side Fluminense on loan for six months.
Other players will leave in January.
"There will definitely be other moves during the winter transfer window," the club's owner told reporters.
"The ideal solution would be a big transfer (...) Otherwise, a couple of players will leave on loan.
"Our strategy is to cut the payroll. The club has to be well run ... so we will stick to our strategy, whatever the (sporting) price will be."
Lyon have been in talks with several clubs who have shown interest in France striker Bafetimbi Gomis, who has scored 11 goals in 19 league appearances so far this term.
"It will speed up in the last 15 days of the window," Aulas said, suggesting Lisandro Lopez's departure could be an option if Gomis was to stay at the club.
The Argentine striker has asked to relinquish the captain's armband.
Aulas also confirmed that Turkish side Besiktas have made an offer for France forward Jimmy Briand.
Lyon, eliminated as French Cup holders in the last 64 round when they lost on penalties at third tier Epinal last weekend, visit 19th-placed Troyes on Saturday.

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Soccer-Bulgaria keeper Stoyanov returns home to Ludogorets

SOFIA, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Bulgaria goalkeeper Vladislav Stoyanov has headed home to join champions Ludogorets after three years with Moldova's most successful club Sheriff Tiraspol.
"I want to win everything with Ludogorets," Stoyanov told a news conference on Friday. "I return to the Bulgarian championship more mature and more experienced, with many matches in European competitions."
Stoyanov, 25, became Ludogorets's third new signing during the Bulgarian league's mid-season break after Serbian midfielder Nemanja Milisavljevic and Colombian midfielder Sebastian Hernadez.
Ludogorets, who won their maiden league title last year, top this term's standings with 38 points from 15 matches.

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Soccer-Boss Appleton joins Blackburn after 66 days at Blackpool

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Blackburn Rovers appointed Michael Appleton as manager on Friday with the 37-year-old leaving Blackpool after 66 days in charge.
Indian-owned Rovers, Premier League champions in 1995 but relegated from the top flight last season, confirmed the news on Twitter having sacked Henning Berg last month after 57 days.
Blackburn are 13th in the Championship (second tier), one place above north west rivals Blackpool who were in the Premier League two years ago.
Both clubs have seen long-running supporter unrest towards their respective owners while Blackpool fans on internet message boards slammed former Portsmouth boss Appleton for a perceived lack of loyalty after such a short stint in charge.

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Red Hat shares up on acquisition and 3Q results

Red Hat Inc.'s shares jumped Friday on the software company's solid third-quarter results and plans to acquire cloud-based software company ManageIQ.
THE SPARK: Red Hat said late Thursday that it would buy privately held ManageIQ for $104 million in cash.
The Raleigh, N.C., company also reported that it earned 29 cents per share for its fiscal third quarter on an adjusted basis, up a penny from the prior year and in line with analyst expectations. Its revenue for the period increased 18 percent to $343.6 million, which beats the $338 million that analysts polled by FactSet had forecast.
THE BIG PICTURE: ManageIQ's software helps businesses deploy and manage private clouds. Red Hat said the deal will expand the reach of its public-private cloud setups for its customers. The acquisition is expected to have no material impact to Red Hat's revenue for its fiscal year ending in February.
THE ANALYSIS: Stifel Nicolaus analyst Brad R. Reback said that the company has been able to maintain momentum even in a difficult environment and he thinks the latest deal offers an interesting longer-term angle for its business. He thinks the company is well positioned to generate at least 15 to 20 percent billings growth in the future. He reiterated a "Buy" rating and a $65 price target on its shares.
SHARE ACTION: Shares gained $2.25, or more than 4 percent, to $54.86 in afternoon trading. Shares have traded between $39.19 and $62.75 in the past 52 weeks.

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Dozens of Android Games, Apps Discounted for Google Holiday Sale

The Google Play store -- that's the name of the Android "app store," or the "Android Market" for those of you new to the change -- is featuring dozens of game and app sales for Android smartphones and tablets. Well, actually, it's not; you can see some of the discounted apps on the front page, but there's no special section of the website or on-device market that says where the ones on sale are, or even how to find them. And the "Holiday Surprise" feature is only a handful of deals picked by Google itself.
Here's a look at some of the major game publishers' Android sales, along with discounted creativity apps and where to find more details.
Gameloft's "Android Christmas" sale
It may be too late for Hanukkah this year, but top-tier Android publisher Gameloft has put a dozen of its titles up for sale for Christmas just $0.99 . These games are normally in the $5-7 range, making them among Android's priciest.
Besides its licensed games based on movies -- like superhero films "The Dark Knight Rises" and "The Amazing Spider-Man," and (inexplicably) "The Adventures of Tintin" -- Gameloft is best known for creating mobile versions of popular PC and console games. Not in the sense that they are official ports, so much as that they're remarkably similar, to the extent that they arguably could be official ports if the serial numbers were filed off. With that in mind, several of its Modern Combat (which are totally not Modern Warfare) and N.O.V.A. first-person shooters (which are totally not Halo) are included in the sale, although the most recent installment of the former -- Modern Combat 4 -- is not.
Superhero fans may also want to check out Marvel Games' Avengers Initiative, which isn't a Gameloft title but is also on sale for $0.99 .
Square-Enix's "Winter of Mobile" sale
Best known for having invented the jRPG genre, Square-Enix has brought several of its most popular titles to Android, and most of them are discounted (from their extremely high launch prices) for the holidays.
Crystal Defender, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy have all received numerous 1-star reviews on Google Play for technical issues, and reviewers complain that the titles haven't been optimized for Android hardware. The Chaos Rings titles, however, fare much better with reviewers, and are much more steeply discounted as well, at $3.99 each compared to their usual price of $12.99. They're ports of the iOS originals, which were Square-Enix's first attempts at making "real" jRPGs for mobile devices.
SEGA's Holiday Sale
SEGA's games are on sale for the holidays across the board, on pretty much every platform. On Android, that mostly amounts to Sonic 4 (episodes 1 and 2) and Sonic CD, all of which are on sale for $0.99 . Strategy title Total War Battles and rollerblade platformer Jet Set Radio, meanwhile, are on sale for $1.99.
Creativity / productivity apps on sale
Android phones and tablets aren't just for gaming. If you didn't pick up Microsoft Office-compatible OfficeSuite Pro 6+ during Google's earlier $0.25 sale, it's discounted to $0.99 now from its regular price of $14.99. Autodesk's professional drawing apps, SketchBook Mobile and SketchBook Pro for Tablets, are $0.99 and $2.99 compared to $1.99 and $4.99 regularly, and the Jotter handwriting app -- which requires a Samsung Galaxy Note -- is half-off at $1.99.
Stay up to date
Many more Android games and apps are being discounted for the holidays. Apps such as (the aptly-named) AppSales can help keep you apprised of the latest additions. Meanwhile, the Android Police blog is maintaining an up-to-date "Enormous List" of all holiday sales.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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El MIDI, la tecnología que le abrió la puerta a la música digital, cumple 30 años

Un pequeño teclado y un ordenador portátil: hasta que apareció la tecnología MIDI, hace 30 años, nadie imaginaba que sólo con ese equipo se podría dar un concierto. Dicen los entendidos que para apreciar realmente el tema Shine on you crazy diamond , de Pink Floyd, es mejor escucharlo en vinilo.
Las emisiones de los sintetizadores estallan a través del crepitar de la púa sobre el disco, mientras la guitarra y la batería marcan un ritmo ondulante. Es un sonido enorme que define toda una época, y uno puede sumergirse por completo en el espíritu de esos años con esa versión en vinilo.
Pero más allá de la impresionante creatividad de la música, el sonido evidencia una importante limitación en la forma en la que los instrumentos musicales electrónicos se controlaban en aquel momento.
"Una banda como Kraftwerk, por ejemplo, utilizaba 200 teclados analógicos distintos", explica el músico argentino Cineplexx.
Pero la tecnología de la Interfaz Digital de Instrumentos Musicales (MIDI, según sus siglas en inglés) permitió conectar los instrumentos a una computadora y entre sí, lo que supuso un cambio enorme.
"Yo cuando doy un concierto utilizo un teclado con 20 teclas y un ordenador portátil", cuenta Cineplexx .
Con estos elementos es posible componer, secuenciar, programar, modificar y reproducir el sonido de cualquier instrumento, como "un vibráfono o un sintetizador".
Un lenguaje común
El protocolo MIDI nació en California, de la mano de Dave Smith, un fabricante de sintetizadores, que convenció a sus competidores para que adoptaran un formato en común que permitiera controlar de forma externa a los sintetizadores, con otro teclado o incluso a través de una computadora.
MIDI pronto se convertiría en el estándar industrial para conectar diferentes instrumentos electrónicos, cajas de ritmo, samplers y ordenadores. Esta tecnología abrió una "nueva era de procesamiento musical".
"Lo que hizo MIDI es permitir el nacimiento de los primeros estudios de grabación caseros", cuenta Smith en conversación con Tom Bateman, de BBC Radio 4.
El Prophet-600 de Sequential Circuits en acción

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Analysis: Modi's Gujarat growth model might not work across India

SURAT, India (Reuters) - Turning a single Indian state with a long tradition of entrepreneurship and a solid political majority into an investor-friendly economic powerhouse is one thing.
Replicating that experience across a diverse country of 1.2 billion would be a tougher prospect for Narendra Modi, whose leadership of booming Gujarat state has led to his being touted as a potential candidate to become India's next prime minister.
While Modi wins praise even from critics for cutting red tape and making government more responsive and predictable, many ingredients for Gujarat's run of growth were in place well before he took office in 2001.
"It is like an icing on cake sort of thing. You have a nice cake and Modi has done a lot of good icing," said Rakesh Chaudhary, director of Pratibha Group, a textile manufacturer in Palsana on the outskirts of the Gujarat city of Surat.
Industry in Gujarat is helped by a long coastline and plenty of barren land that is easy to turn over to factory use.
The power that comes from a long-standing and heavy majority for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state also gives Modi an advantage that he would not enjoy on a national stage marked by fractious coalition politics.
Despite a controversial past - Modi is accused by critics of not doing enough to stop or of even quietly encouraging religious riots in 2002 that saw as many as 2,000 killed, most of them Muslims - he has established a reputation as an economic reformer in part by building on the strengths of Gujarat and marketing them heavily.
Modi's marketing savvy, aided by the Washington lobbying and public affairs firm APCO Worldwide, will be on display at the biennial "Vibrant Gujarat Summit" that begins on Friday.
Initiated by Modi in 2003 to attract investment after the violence and an earthquake in 2001, the event is attended by thousands of corporate officials who pledge billions in investment, although in reality only a fraction has seen the light of day. Of 12.4 trillion rupees ($225 billion) in investment proposed at the 2009 event, just 8.5 percent had been spent as of November 2011, according to state government data.
"Under Modi's regime, there has been significant improvement in infrastructure growth, significant improvement in industrialization, as well as agriculture," said Jahangir Aziz, senior Asia economist at JPMorgan. "But what has been overplayed is initial conditions were actually pretty decent in Gujarat."
HIGHER OFFICE?
The stocky Modi, who favors traditional Indian attire and a clipped white beard, plays down any prime ministerial ambitions.
But his popularity in Gujarat - the BJP won 115 of the state assembly's 182 seats in a December election - has fuelled speculation that he could lead his Hindu nationalist party in 2014 against India's ruling Congress party, which has been beset by corruption scandals and overseen a sharp economic slowdown.
"His economic record in Gujarat is obviously something which matters a lot to the middle classes. That, coupled with strong leadership," said Swapan Dasgupta, an analyst with links to the BJP who expects Modi to be the party standard-bearer in 2014.
Critics say that while Modi has indeed encouraged investment and helped bring reliable electricity and law and order, double-digit growth has not been shared broadly enough. In the five years through March 2010, some states - including Tamil Nadu and Karnataka - did better at bringing down poverty levels.
"Big business people get a lot from the government and scheduled caste people (minorities) get a lot, but people like us who are in between get nothing," said Bhupendra Thakkar, 50, who earns 6,000 rupees ($109) a month selling fruit near Surat's decrepit railway station.
FRIEND OF BUSINESS
Modi lured Tata Motors to the state in 2008 after the company's plans to build a factory for its low-cost Nano car were thwarted by farmers in West Bengal.
Ford Motor Co and Maruti Suzuki are also building plants in the western state - high profile investments that carry the added benefit of acting as marketing tools.
In the seven years through March 2011, Gujarat's economy grew an annual 10.08 percent at constant prices, against 6.45 percent in the eight years through March 2002 (Modi took office in October 2001), which was still ahead of the all-India average of 6.16 percent. A handful of states, including Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, clocked bigger gains over the same recent period.
By comparison, policy gridlock at the national level has contributed to a drop-off in corporate investment, putting India on track to record its slowest annual growth rate in a decade.
Accustomed to getting his way, Modi, 62, could struggle to negotiate the coalition politics that have become the norm at the national level and have hindered attempts at reform by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress-led administration.
"Policymaking has benefited from the fact that the BJP has had absolute majority in the state legislature - an advantage it certainly will not enjoy in the federal parliament," said Anjalika Bardalai, an analyst with the Eurasia Group in London.
Modi has also been able to leverage the business acumen of Gujaratis, a group that has long been known for trading and entrepreneurship and includes a prosperous global diaspora as well as billionaires such as Adani Group chief Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, who controls Reliance Industries, India's most valuable company.

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Lawyer: 3 Delhi rape suspects to plead not guilty

NEW DELHI (AP) — Three of the suspects in the brutal rape and killing of a young woman on a New Delhi bus will plead not guilty, their lawyer said Thursday, hinting that police had tampered with evidence in the attack that has transfixed India.
"They are innocent," said Manohar Lal Sharma, who said he took the case in part to confront the police over "how manipulated evidence is placed for fixing the innocent people."
Five men have been charged with attacking the 23-year-old woman and her male companion on a bus as it was driven through streets of India's capital. The woman was raped and assaulted with a metal bar on Dec. 16 and eventually died of her injuries. Rape victims are not identified in India, even if they die, and rape trials are closed to the media.
Sharma spoke briefly to reporters on his way to a hearing for suspects in a New Delhi court complex. He says he represents bus driver Ram Singh, Singh's brother Mukesh, and another man, Akshay Thakur. Another lawyer, V.K. Anand, says he also represents the two Singh brothers. It's not yet clear if the other defendants have lawyers.
Thursday's hearing is expected to result in the case being sent to a special "fast-track" court. India's legal system is painfully slow, corrupt and inefficient, with many cases lasting years, even decades. But Indian officials have come under immense public pressure over the attack, accused of doing little to protect the country's women, and are eager to make sure the high-profile case moves quickly. Large protests have taken place across India since the attack, with women telling relentless stories of abuse — from catcalls to bus gropings to rapes — and of a police and judicial system that does little to stop it.
Authorities have charged the men with murder, rape and other crimes that could bring the death penalty. A sixth suspect, who is 17 years old, is expected to be tried in a juvenile court, where the maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.
Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan said last week that a DNA test confirmed that the blood of the victim matched blood stains found on the clothes of all the accused.

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Storm leaves Gaza man dead, Jerusalem snowed in

• Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. In Gaza, civil defense spokesman Mohammed al-Haj Yousef said …more 

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Gaza health official says a Palestinian man was electrocuted after being struck by a power cable snapped loose by ferocious winter winds, while a rare snowstorm paralyzed traffic inJerusalem, its suburbs and the nearby West Bank.

Ashraf al-Kidra says the 24-year-old died late Wednesday in the accident, which left four others injured. While heavy rains have subsided, wind gusts continue to wreak havoc with the territory's electrical supply, and power has been cut off this week for up to 14 hours a day.

On Thursday, several inches of snow piled up in Jerusalem, its environs and the West Bank for the first time in five years, shuttering schools and crippling transportation.

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Canadian Ryder Hesjedal leads 2013 Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda cycling team

Canadian Ryder Hesjedal leads a 2013 Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda team that will be without the suspended Tom Danielson, David Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde until March.
Hesjedal, named the Canadian Press male athlete of the year this week, is the defending Giro d'Italia winner.
"We had our strongest season in the history of the team in 2012, with our first Grand Tour win at the Giro, and we'll be looking to build on that success in 2013,” Jonathan Vaughters, CEO of Slipstream Sports which runs the cycling team, said in a statement Friday announcing the squad.
Danielson, Zabriskie and Vande Velde are serving six-month suspensions after providing information to the U.S. Anti-Doping-Agency about the use of performance-enhancing drugs on Lance Armstrong's former team.
Slipstream called the 2013 team its youngest roster ever, with new faces Rohan Dennis, Caleb Fairly, Lachlan Morton and Steele Von Hoff.
Dennis was Australia's under-23 road race and time trial national champion in 2012. A former track cyclist, he finished fifth in the 2012 Tour Down Under.
Fellow Australians Morton and Von Hoff and American Fairly are graduates of Slipstream’s developmental program.
Veteran Nick Nuyens, winner of the 2011 Tour of Flanders, also joins the team.
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2013 Team Garmin-Sharp-Barracuda Roster
Jack Bauer, Tom Danielson, Thomas Dekker, Rohan Dennis, Caleb Fairly, Tyler Farrar, Koldo Fernandez de Larrea, Nathan Haas, Ryder Hesjedal, Alex Howes, Robbie Hunter, Andreas Klier, Michel Kreder, Raymond Kreder, Martijn Maaskant, Dan Martin, David Millar, Lachlan Morton, Ramunas Navardauskas, Nick Nuyens, Jacob Rathe, Sebastien Rosseler, Peter Stetina, Andrew Talansky, Christian Vande Velde, Johan Vansummeren, Steele Von Hoff, Fabian Wegmann, David Zabriskie.

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Cycling champion Wiggins knighted in UK New Year Honours

LONDON (Reuters) - Bradley Wiggins, the first Briton to win the Tour de France cycling race, has been knighted in a special United Kingdom New Years Honours list which acknowledges the success of the home team at the 2012 London Olympics.
Just over a week after winning the Tour, Wiggins won a gold medal in the Olympic time trial, one of 65 medals collected by the British team who finished third in the medals table behind the United States and China.
Ben Ainslie, the most decorated yachtsman in Olympic history with gold medals in four consecutive Games, is also knighted as are David Brailsford, the performance director of British cycling and David Tanner, the performance director of British rowing. All four can now be addressed as "Sir".
Cyclist Sarah Storey, who won four gold medals at the Paralympics, has been made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
London Olympic gold medalists Jessica Ennis (athletics), Mo Farah (athletics), Katherine Grainger (rowing), Victoria Pendleton (cycling) and David Weir (wheelchair athlete) were named Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Sebastian Coe, the chairman of the London organizing committee, is awarded a Companion of Honour (CH) on the main honors' list.
There were also awards for Olympic men's tennis champion and U.S. Open winner Andy Murray and Olympic women's boxing gold medalist Nicola Adams among others.

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Olympics, elections and horsing around in odd 2012

LONDON (Reuters) - Presidential preening, golden Olympic gaffes, a royal windfall for a skydiving British queen on her diamond jubilee and the endless end of days marked the odd stories in 2012 which pranced across the news in Gangnam Style.
The year opened with a tale that flocks of magpies and bears had been spotted in mourning for North Korea's "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il who died in December 2011 and was succeeded by his 20-something son Kim Jong-un.
Winter weather was so cold in Brussels that the Manneken-Pis, a bronze statue of a young boy urinating had to stop peeing because of sub-zero temperatures.
There was slightly warming news about Mondays in Germany, where crematoriums are struggling to adapt to an increasingly obese population and a boom in extra-large coffins.
"We burn particularly large coffins on Monday mornings when the ovens are cold," one crematorium said.
In March Polish media reported that kite surfer Jan Lisewski fought off repeated shark attacks and overcame thirst and exhaustion in a two-day battle of survival on the Red Sea with just his trusty knife as protection.
"I was stabbing them in the eyes, the nose and gills."
In other animal news, dairy cows across the world mourned the loss of "Jocko", the world's third most-potent breeding bull and Yvonne the German cow who evaded helicopter searches and dodged hunters landed a film deal: "Cow on the Run".
A Nepali man who was bitten by a cobra snake bit it back and killed the reptile after it attacked him in his rice paddy.
"I could have killed it with a stick but bit it with my teeth instead because I was angry," Mohamed Salmo Miya said.
A scathing resignation letter of a Goldman Sachs executive published in the New York Times inspired a sheaf of online spoofs, including Star Wars villain Darth Vader.
"The Empire today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about remote strangulation. It just doesn't feel right to me anymore," Vader wrote in a published letter.
Austerity in Europe saw a once-thriving Greek sex industry become the latest victim of the country's debt crisis with Greeks spending less on erotic toys, pornography and lingerie.
But lust appeared to be in the rudest of health elsewhere.
Turkish emergency workers rescued an inflatable sex doll floating in the Black Sea and a German disc jockey vowed to press charges against a woman who locked him in her apartment and ravaged him for hours until he rang the police.
"She was sex mad and there was no way out of the flat," Dieter S. told police.
@ROYALFETUS
Britain's Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 60th year on the throne with Diamond Jubilee celebrations that saw a 1,000-ship rain-sodden flotilla sail down the River Thames, a massive party in front of Buckingham Palace, street parties across the country and a spoof incarnation of her majesty on Twitter.
"OK, fire up the Bentley. Let's rock," tweeted "Elizabeth Windsor", the comic online alter ego of the British monarch in a typical tweet from the spoof Twitter account @Queen_UK, a virtual monarch with a razor-sharp wit and a penchant for gin.
And Twitter positively exploded with spoof royal accounts later in the year when Elizabeth's grandson William and his wife Kate announced she was pregnant with a future monarch.
"I may not have bones yet, but I'm already more important than everyone reading this," was the tweet from @RoyalFetus.
Leadership and change was a theme which ran through a year in which socialist Francois Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Mimi the clown to become French president, Vladimir Putin was elected Russian president again and U.S. President Barack Obama won re-election over Republican Mitt Romney.
Amid the tight election race, Obama met a gaffe-prone Romney for an exchange at a charity dinner ahead of the November poll, where America's first black president poked fun at Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood for lecturing an empty chair as if it were Obama during the Republican convention.
"Please take your seats," Obama told the crowd, "or else Clint Eastwood will yell at them."
"THE MODFATHER"
Sporting news was dominated by the London Olympics during the summer, where the opening ceremony included a vignette of Queen Elizabeth being escorted by James Bond before apparently skydiving into the Olympic stadium for her arrival.
"Good evening Mr. Bond," was her only line.
Olympic embarrassments were few, but they began early with organizers forced into apologies for displaying the South Korean flag on a video screen for North Korea's women's soccer team.
British cycling sensation Bradley "the Modfather" Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, sparking a craze among fans for cutout cardboard sideburns modeled on his own and shouting "here Wiggo" as he raced to Olympic gold.
London's eccentric and loquacious Mayor Boris Johnson fell rather awkwardly silent when he got stuck dangling from a zip wire, waving two Union flags in drizzling rain.
Olympic chiefs urged youthful athletes to drink "sensibly".
But there was anything but restraint for Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who declared an early night at one point only to be photographed later with three members of the Swedish women's handball team. Early one Sunday morning Bolt also dazzled dancers at a London night club with a turn in the DJ booth.
"I am a legend," Bolt shouted out to a packed dance floor from the decks with his arms raised in the air.
Towards the close of the year, tens of thousands of mystics, hippies and tourists celebrated in the shadow of ancient Maya pyramids in southeastern Mexico as the Earth survived a day billed by doomsday theorists as the end of the world.
"It's pure Hollywood," said Luis Mis Rodriguez, 45, a Maya selling obsidian figurines and souvenirs.
Finally, a chubby, rapping singer with slicked-back hair and a tacky suit became the latest musical sensation to burst upon the world from South Korea, via a YouTube music video that has been seen more than a billion times.
Decked out in a bow tie and suit jackets varying from pink to baby blue, as well as a towel for one sequence set in a sauna, Psy busts funky moves based on horse-riding in venues ranging from playgrounds to subways.
The video by Psy has been emulated by everyone from Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei to students at Britain's elite Eton College, gurning politicians, spotty teens and embarrassing dads worldwide.
"My goal in this music video was to look uncool until the end. I achieved it," Psy told Reuters.

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White House defends offer as 'good faith effort'

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is defending President Barack Obama's proposal to set a higher threshold for tax increases than what he vowed to do during his presidential campaign. The White House says Obama has moved halfway to meet House Speaker John Boehner on a "fiscal cliff" deal that raises $1.2 trillion in tax revenue, down from the $1.6 trillion Obama had initially requested.
White House spokesman Jay Carney says that offering to raise taxes on taxpayers earning more than $400,000 rather than the $200,000 he ran on demonstrates, in Carney's words, Obama's good faith effort to reach a compromise.
The new tax proposal is contained in a broader plan that Obama gave Boehner Monday that would cut spending further and lower cost-of-living increases for most Social Security beneficiaries.

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Factbox: U.S. House "Plan B" tax bill likely to have short shelf life

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote this week on what is being called "Plan B" on avoiding the "fiscal cliff."
The Republican-sponsored legislation aims to extend current low tax rates for most families. Without such action by Congress, across-the-board income tax rates will rise on January 1.
The combination of $500 billion in tax hikes and $100 billion in spending cuts, which are scheduled to start in the new year, could push the U.S. economy into recession, according to experts.
House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, and Democratic President Barack Obama have been trying for weeks to avoid the fiscal cliff with an alternative tax and spending-cut deal. Boehner says he is offering this very limited alternative in case negotiations with Obama fail.
Here are key elements of Boehner's Plan B:
* A House vote is expected on Thursday.
* Boehner expressed confidence on Wednesday that the measure would pass but some House Republican aides were not yet predicting that.
* The White House has said Obama would veto the Boehner Plan B in the unlikely event it made it to his desk.
* Democrats are viewing Plan B as nothing more than a diversion from attempts to reach a broad deficit-reduction deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. They see it as a way for Boehner to give his conservatives a vote on a measure that they can tout as a tax-cut bill for all but the wealthiest and inoculate them against Democratic accusations of obstruction.
* Republicans argue that they are acting responsibly by providing a backstop against massive tax increases in case the Obama-Boehner negotiations fail.
* Once Plan B is dealt with, all attention will shift to whether Obama and Boehner can work out a broad agreement by December 31 or whether the country will go off the cliff. If that happens, there is speculation that some sort of deal might be worked out in the early weeks of January to avoid the full brunt of the tax hikes and spending cuts.
* Under Boehner's Plan B, current low tax rates would be made permanent for families with net annual incomes of up to $1 million. The measure would let tax rates rise on income above $1 million. Without action by Congress, all income tax rates are set to rise on January 1 with the expiration of tax cuts enacted a decade ago by then-President George W. Bush.
* Plan B includes a grab bag of other expiring tax provisions. It would permanently fix the alternative minimum tax so that middle-class taxpayers do not creep into a tax bracket intended for the wealthiest. Annual AMT fixes have prevented tens of millions of households from paying a higher tax rate.
Also included are moves to maintain estate taxes at their current 35 percent rate per individual after a $5 million exemption. The White House backs reverting to the 2009 estate tax levels of 45 percent tax after a $3.5 million exemption per individual, though some moderate Democrats back keeping the current law.
Plan B legislation would raise dividend and capital gains tax rates for those earning $1 million and over to 20 percent, from its current 15 percent for most who pay such taxes. Most Democrats back raising the current 15 percent tax rate on investment income to 20 percent for households earning more than $250,000.
* The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the plan would reduce U.S. revenues by around $4 trillion over 10 years.
* The plan does not address spending issues, including automatic across-the-board spending cuts also looming at year's end.
* The bill does not address how to resolve a looming stand-off over the government's borrowing authority. The government will need to raise the "debt ceiling" in the next few months to avoid default, and Obama wants higher borrowing authority approved promptly. House Republicans continue to want to hold back and use it as leverage in ongoing fiscal cliff talks, according to aides.
* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid already has warned there are not the votes in his chamber to pass Boehner's plan. But if the House sent the Senate such a bill, Reid could respond in one of a few ways. He could declare that the Senate in July passed its version of this legislation, but with a $250,000 threshold, and take no further action. Or, he could offer a variation of the Senate-passed bill. Obama has proposed a $400,000 cut-off for maintaining low income tax rates. Reid could embrace that level or another one.
* The legislation is being inserted into an existing bill that originally had to do with Burma trade policy. A House Rules Committee spokesman said this was being done to avoid some potential procedural delays.

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U.S. charges three Swiss bankers in offshore account case

Three Swiss bankers accused of conspiring with American clients to hide more than $420 million from the tax-collecting U.S. Internal Revenue Service were indicted, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan said on Wednesday.
The indictment named Stephan Fellmann, Otto Huppi and Christof Reist, all former client advisers with an unnamed Swiss bank. None of the bankers have been arrested, authorities said.
Their attorneys were not immediately known.
The indictment said the unnamed bank did not have offices in the United States.
Banking secrecy is enshrined in Swiss law and tradition, but it has recently come under pressure as the United States and other nations have moved aggressively to tighten tax law enforcement and demanded more openness and cooperation.
In April, two Swiss financial advisers were indicted on U.S. charges of conspiring to help Americans hide $267 million in secret bank accounts.
In January, prosecutors charged three Swiss bankers with conspiring with wealthy taxpayers to hide more than $1.2 billion in assets from tax authorities.
UBS AG, the largest Swiss bank, in 2009 paid a $780 million fine as part of a settlement with U.S. authorities who charged the bank helped thousands of wealthy Americans hide billions of dollars in assets in secret Swiss accounts.

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Will game live up to hype in BCS championship?

MIAMI (AP) — Sometimes, the buildup to a game can overwhelm what actually happens on the field.
Certainly, No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Alabama would have to play nothing less than a classic to live up to all the hype for Monday night's BCS championship.
Before either team stepped on the field in balmy South Florida, this was shaping up as one of the most anticipated games in years, a throwback to the era when Keith Jackson & Co. called one game a week, when it was a big deal for teams from different parts of the country to meet in a bowl game, when everyone took sides based on where they happened to live.
North vs. South. Rockne vs. Bear. Rudy vs. Forrest Gump.
The Fighting Irish vs. the Crimson Tide.
College football's two most storied programs, glorified in movie and song, facing off for the biggest prize.
"It's definitely not any other game," said Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley.
For the Crimson Tide (12-1), this is a chance to be remembered as a full-fledged dynasty. Alabama will be trying to claim its third national championship in four years and become the first school to win back-to-back BCS titles, a remarkable achievement given the ever-increasing parity of the college game and having to replace five players from last year's title team who were picked in the first two rounds of the NFL draft.
"To be honest, I think this team has kind of exceeded expectations," coach Nick Saban said Sunday. "If you look at all the players we lost last year, the leadership that we lost ... I'm really proud of what this team was able to accomplish."
That said, it's not a huge surprise to find Alabama playing for another title. That's not the case when it comes to Notre Dame.
Despite their impressive legacy, the Fighting Irish (12-0) weren't even ranked at the start of the season. But overtime wins against Stanford and Pittsburgh, combined with three other victories by a touchdown or less, gave Notre Dame a shot at its first national title since 1988.
After so many lost years, the golden dome has reclaimed its luster in coach Brian Kelly's third season.
"It starts with setting a clear goal for the program," Kelly said. "Really, what is it? Are we here to get to a bowl game, or are we here to win national championships? So the charge immediately was to play for championships and win a national championship."
Both Notre Dame and Alabama have won eight Associated Press national titles, more than any other school. They are the bluest of the blue bloods, the programs that have long set the bar for everyone else even while enduring some droughts along the way.
ESPN executives were hopeful of getting the highest ratings of the BCS era. Tickets were certainly at a premium, with a seat in one of the executive suites going for a staggering $60,000 on StubHub the day before the game, and even a less-than-prime spot in the corner of the upper deck requiring a payout of more than $900.
"This is, to me, the ultimate match-up in college football," said Brent Musberger, the lead announcer for ESPN.
Kelly molded Notre Dame using largely the same formula that has worked so well for Saban in Tuscaloosa: a bruising running game and a stout defense, led by Heisman Trophy finalist Manti Te'o.
"It's a little bit old fashioned in the sense that this is about the big fellows up front," Kelly said. "It's not about the crazy receiving numbers or passing yards or rushing yards. This is about the big fellas, and this game will unquestionably be decided up front."
While points figure to be at a premium given the quality of both defenses, Alabama appears to have a clear edge on offense. The Tide has the nation's highest-rated passer (AJ McCarron), two 1,000-yard rushers (Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon), a dynamic freshman receiver (Amari Cooper), and three linemen who made the AP All-America team (first-teamers Barrett Jones and Chance Warmack, plus second-teamer D.J. Fluker).
"That's football at its finest," said Te'o, who heads a defense that has given up just two rushing touchdowns. "It's going to be a great challenge, and a challenge that we look forward to."
The Crimson Tide had gone 15 years without a national title when Saban arrived in 2007, the school's fifth coach in less than a decade (including one, Mike Price, who didn't even made it to his first game in Tuscaloosa). Finally, Alabama got it right.
In 2008, Saban landed one of the greatest recruiting classes in school history, a group that has already produced eight NFL draft picks and likely will send at least three more players to the pros (including Jones). The following year, the coach guided Alabama to a perfect season, beating Texas in the title game at Pasadena.
Last season, the Tide fortuitously got a shot at another BCS crown despite losing to LSU during the regular season and failing to even win its division in the Southeastern Conference. In a rematch against the Tigers, Alabama romped to a 21-0 victory at the Superdome.
The all-SEC matchup gave the league an unprecedented six straight national champions, hastening the end of the BCS. It will last one more season before giving way to a four-team playoff in 2014, an arrangement that was undoubtedly pushed along by one conference hoarding all the titles under the current system.
"Let's be honest, people are probably getting tired of us," Jones said. "We don't really mind. We enjoy being the top dog and enjoy kind of having that target on our back, and we love our conference. Obviously, we'd rather not be a part of any other conference."
This title game certainly has a different feel than last year's.
"That was really kind of a weird national championship because it was a team we already played," Jones remembered. "It was kind of another SEC game. It was in the South, and it just had a very SEC feel to it obviously. This year is much more like the 2009 game (against Texas) for me. We're playing an opponent that not only we have not played them, but no one we have played has played them (except for Michigan). So you don't really have an exact measuring stick."
In fact, these schools have played only six times, and not since 1987, but the first of their meetings is still remembered as one of the landmark games in college football history. Bear Bryant had one of his best teams at the 1973 Sugar Bowl, but Ara Parseghian and the Fighting Irish claimed the national title by knocking off top-ranked Alabama 24-23.
If you're a long-time Notre Dame fan, you still remember Parseghian's gutty call to throw the ball out of the end zone for a game-clinching first down. If you were rooting for the Tide, you haven't forgotten a missed extra point that turned out to be the losing margin.
Of course, these Alabama players aren't concerned about what happened nearly four decades ago.
For the most part, all they know is winning.
"There's a lot of tradition that goes into Alabama football," Mosley said, "and our plan is to keep that tradition alive."

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ASU tops No. 25 Kent St. 17-13 in GoDaddy.com Bowl

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — Arkansas State's offense was held in check Sunday night after piling up big numbers this season. It was the defense that led the Red Wolves to a breakthrough victory.
Ryan Aplin threw for 213 yards and a touchdown, J.D. McKissic caught 11 passes for 113 yards and Arkansas State edged No. 25 Kent State 17-13 to win the GoDaddy.com Bowl.
Arkansas State's usually prolific offense struggled against Kent State, but the consistent Aplin-to-McKissic connection and a stingy defense was enough to help the Red Wolves (10-3) to their first bowl win since joining the Football Bowl Subdivision in 1992.
Kent State (11-3) was driving late in the game when quarterback Spencer Keith tried to scramble on fourth down and was stopped a few yards short of the marker with 52 seconds left. Linebacker Qushaun Lee made the shoestring tackle for the Red Wolves and finished with a team-leading 13 stops.
"That was a good one," Arkansas State interim coach John Thompson said. "Our guys stepped up with a minute to go. We really needed a play, and our guys made one. It wasn't anything except for ballplayers. It was anything special at all. We just made plays."
Darrell Hazell roamed the Kent State sideline one more time in the Golden Flashes' first bowl game since 1972. He is leaving the program to take over at Purdue.
Thompson, a veteran defensive coordinator, coached the Red Wolves after Gus Malzahn left to take the Auburn job last month. It was the second straight season Arkansas State had to play its bowl game without the coach that led it to a Sun Belt championship — Hugh Freeze left for Mississippi in 2011 before last year's GoDaddy.com Bowl, which the Red Wolves lost 38-20 to Northern Illinois.
The results were much better this time — and the defensive-minded Thompson was especially pleased with that side of the ball.
Arkansas State's offense was dominant during the last half of the regular season, averaging more than 41 points during a seven-game winning streak.
But the Red Wolves had to rely on their defense in this one while the offense slowly warmed up. Kent State took a 7-0 lead on Dri Archer's 16-yard touchdown run and the margin could have been worse, but Arkansas State linebacker Nathan Herrold picked off a tipped pass in the end zone to end a promising drive for the Golden Flashes.
David Oku rushed for a tying 10-yard touchdown with 5:40 remaining in the second quarter, and then Aplin hit McKissic for a 31-yard touchdown minutes later to make it 14-7.
"Our offense did exactly what it was supposed to do," Thompson said. "They did a great job. Ryan Aplin took some shots — I guess I can say it now — some unnecessary shots that weren't good. But our defense — we've got men over there. Grown men."
Kent State responded with a 42-yard field goal by Freddy Cortez just before halftime. The teams traded field goals in the third quarter, but neither team could score in the fourth.
The Golden Flashes put together one last drive in the final minutes, with Keith completing a clutch 15-yard pass over the middle on fourth down with less than two minutes remaining. He was headed for another fourth-down conversion just four plays later, but was tripped up on a scramble deep in Arkansas State territory. The Red Wolves then began to celebrate on their sideline.
"I saw their defense drop back really fast, and I thought I had enough room to get the first down," Keith said. "But they were able to get me on the ankle."
It was a disappointing end to an otherwise breakthrough season for Kent State, which set a school record with 11 victories, including a 10-game winning streak that lasted nearly three months. But they dropped their last two games, including a 44-37 double-overtime loss to Northern Illinois on Nov. 30 in the Mid-American Conference championship.
One reason Kent State was able to win 11 games was a dynamic rushing attack that averaged more than 250 yards per game. But the duo of Archer and Trayion Durham didn't have a particularly good game against the Red Wolves.
Archer, who missed much of the second half with an apparent injury, led the Golden Flashes with 77 yards rushing while Durham added 68.
Aplin completed 21 of 30 passes in his final college game. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound senior owns nearly every school passing record and is the Sun Belt two-time player of the year.
This wasn't one of his most spectacular games, but he was consistent, made very few mistakes and had no turnovers.
That was no small feat against Kent State, which led the nation with 38 takeaways coming into the game. The Golden Flashes couldn't get one against the Red Wolves.
"That was a huge part of our game plan," Aplin said. "We knew we couldn't afford to give them momentum. Our guys did a great job taking care of the ball and giving our defense a chance to help us win."

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Nuggets survive Kobe fireworks to ice Lakers

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Denver Nuggets dropped the stumbling Los Angeles Lakers further into the doldrums on Sunday with a 112-105 win despite some fourth-quarter fireworks from Kobe Bryant.
Ty Lawson scored 21 points and 10 assists and Danilo Gallinari hit five of his 20 in the final seconds to kill the Lakers' rally and send them to a third successive defeat.
The Lakers (15-18) left with more than their pride bruised, Pau Gasol exiting the contest in the fourth quarter after having his nose bloodied by an elbow from JaVale McGee.
Center Dwight Howard also aggravated a right shoulder injury and will undergo scans on Monday.
"It's a great win for us but I'm not going to inflate it," Nuggets coach George Karl told reporters.
"I told the team before the game I don't remember the last time we won in here in the regular season."
Bryant did his best to rescue Los Angeles again by scoring 18 of his 29 points in the final quarter but the Lakers fell just short in front of a frustrated home crowd.
Los Angeles trailed by 10 midway through the fourth, although they fought back as Bryant twice made three-pointers to pull them within three in the final minute.
Gallinari drained a three of his own to halt the comeback with 13 seconds remaining and Denver (20-16) made four straight free throws to ice the game for their third win in four.
The Nuggets scored 60 points in the paint to punish Los Angeles inside. Howard put in a solid shift, recording 14 points and 26 rebounds in the loss but his injury will cause concern.
The Lakers have now lost four of five and are tumbling down the standings under new coach Mike D'Antoni and his star-studded roster.
Tempers flared as Steve Nash and Gasol were both assessed rare technical fouls.
"I think because of our record probably the pressure is building," admitted D'Antoni, whose team is currently out of the playoff picture. "But so be it. We have to overcome it."

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Stomach bug knocks Nadal from Australian Open

Just when Rafael Nadal had recovered from a knee injury, a stomach virus has delayed his return to tennis by a couple of months.
Nadal announced Friday he will miss next month's Australian Open and probably won't play again until the end of February. The Spaniard said he needs time to recover from the virus that already prevented him from coming back this week at Abu Dhabi.
Nadal has been sidelined since June with a knee injury, which forced him to miss the London Olympics and U.S. Open. He had planned to rejoin the ATP tour at the Qatar Open in Doha next month before the Jan. 14-27 Australian Open, but pulled out of both.
"We just hope he gets better quickly and we see him back on the tour as soon as possible," Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley said. "Tennis fans across the world have been missing him."
While he is expected to recover from the virus in time for the year's first Grand Slam tournament, Nadal and his team said he wouldn't have the proper preparation for a five-set event.
Nadal stressed that his decision had nothing to do with the tendinitis in his left knee. That injury prompted him to take a break following a second-round loss to then 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol at Wimbledon in June.
"My knee is much better and the rehabilitation process has gone well as predicted by the doctors," Nadal said in a statement from his hometown of Manacor on the island of Mallorca. "But this virus didn't allow me to practice this past week and therefore I am sorry to announce that I will not play in Doha and the Australian Open."
The former No. 1 hopes to return at a tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, starting Feb. 27. He left open the possibility of playing at an earlier tournament if his recovery went well.
"As my team and doctors say, the safest thing to do is to do things well and this virus has delayed my plans of playing these weeks," Nadal said. "I always said that my return to competition will be when I am in the right conditions to play and after all this time away from the courts I'd rather not accelerate the comeback and prefer to do things well."
Nadal's doctor, Angel Ruiz-Cotorro, said in the same statement that the player needed at least a week to recover from the virus. That ruled him out for the Qatar Open, which starts Jan. 2.
Nadal's coach and uncle, Toni Nadal, said going straight to a five-set tournament after being sidelined so long was "not appropriate."
"It is simply not conceivable that his first event is a best-of-five sets event," he said in a statement. "He wouldn't be ready for that."
Nadal's knee injury prevented the 11-time Grand Slam winner from defending his Olympic singles gold medal at last summer's games, where he was supposed to be Spain's flag-bearer in the opening ceremony. He also had to pull out of the U.S. Open and Spain's Davis Cup final against the Czech Republic, which his teammates lost without him.
Nadal, ranked No. 4, won the Australian Open in 2009. Last year, he lost to top-ranked Novak Djokovic in a title match that lasted 5 hours, 53 minutes, the longest recorded Grand Slam final.

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Tennis-Distracted Williams sounds ominous warning in season opener

BRISBANE, Dec 30 (Reuters) - An angry and impatient Serena Williams overcame blustery conditions at the Brisbane International on Sunday in an ominous beginning to her only tournament before her charge at a 16th major title at the Australian Open next month.
The American threw her hands in the air, shook her head, gesticulated towards her coach and stomped her feet in petulant protest - but that did little to help compatriot Varvara Lepchenko who suffered a 6-2 6-1 first round defeat.
Howling with frustration in her first match since winning the WTA Championships at Istanbul in October, lacking rhythm in swirling winds on Pat Rafter Arena, Williams still delivered enough booming serves and punishing groundstrokes to prevail in a formidable if cantankerous display.
The reigning Wimbledon, Olympic and U.S. Open champion told reporters a calendar-year grand slam was very much on her mind at the start of the season.
Williams held all four major titles in the so-called Serena Slam of 2002-2003 but the holy grail of professional tennis is to win the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open tournaments in the same calendar year.
The American claimed world number one Victoria Azarenka and number two Maria Sharapova, and perhaps a few fringe-dwellers, were eyeing off a near-impossible feat not achieved since Steffi Graf's unbeaten run through 1988.
"I think whoever wins the Australian Open will have that same thought," Williams said.
"I think there is no way that Victoria or Maria or maybe some other players don't have that same thought. I think I definitely feel that way."
Both Azarenka and Sharapova are in a red-hot Brisbane field with Williams. Of the world's top 10, only Agnieszka Radwanska and Li Na are missing.
The predictability of her defeat of Lepchenko was matched by the level of emotion surrounding Australian wildcard Jarmila Gajdosova's victory on the opening day.
HIGH EMOTION
Playing her first tournament since the passing in September of her mother, also named Jarmila, and with her world ranking having plummeted from a career high of 25 to 183 in the last 18 months, Gajdosova roared home from a one-set deficit to stun Italy's world number 16 Roberta Vinci.
Gajdosova wept after a 4-6 6-1 6-3 triumph that set up a second-round showdown against French Open champion Sharapova.
"There have been a lot of things happening in my life," Gajdosova said.
"As you all know, my mom passed away in September. It's been a difficult time. First Christmas, as well, without her. My dad is here. My brother and his wife and son. It was my first match in front of them and my first match in Australia, after a long time, without my mum."
Sixth-seeded Czech Petra Kvitova recovered from a pre-tournament asthma scare to defeat Spain's Carla Suarez-Navarro 6-3 6-4.
Kvitova has been gasping and wheezing in Brisbane's humid weather and revealed one of her recent attacks had been her worst in three years.
The 2011 Wimbledon champion was unaware she was asthmatic until she nearly collapsed during an event in New York in 2009.
"I was playing a tournament in the Bronx and after about five minutes I had to sit down and relax and have a drink because I just couldn't move and I couldn't play," she wrote in a column for the Courier-Mail newspaper.

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Distracted Williams sounds ominous warning in season opener

BRISBANE (Reuters) - An angry and impatient Serena Williams overcame blustery conditions at the Brisbane International on Sunday in an ominous beginning to her only tournament before her charge at a 16th major title at the Australian Open next month.
The American threw her hands in the air, shook her head, gesticulated towards her coach and stomped her feet in petulant protest - but that did little to help compatriot Varvara Lepchenko who suffered a 6-2 6-1 first round defeat.
Howling with frustration in her first match since winning the WTA Championships at Istanbul in October, lacking rhythm in swirling winds on Pat Rafter Arena, Williams still delivered enough booming serves and punishing groundstrokes to prevail in a formidable if cantankerous display.
The reigning Wimbledon, Olympic and U.S. Open champion told reporters a calendar-year grand slam was very much on her mind at the start of the season.
Williams held all four major titles in the so-called Serena Slam of 2002-2003 but the holy grail of professional tennis is to win the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open tournaments in the same calendar year.
The American claimed world number one Victoria Azarenka and number two Maria Sharapova, and perhaps a few fringe-dwellers, were eyeing off a near-impossible feat not achieved since Steffi Graf's unbeaten run through 1988.
"I think whoever wins the Australian Open will have that same thought," Williams said.
"I think there is no way that Victoria or Maria or maybe some other players don't have that same thought. I think I definitely feel that way."
Both Azarenka and Sharapova are in a red-hot Brisbane field with Williams. Of the world's top 10, only Agnieszka Radwanska and Li Na are missing.
The predictability of her defeat of Lepchenko was matched by the level of emotion surrounding Australian wildcard Jarmila Gajdosova's victory on the opening day.
HIGH EMOTION
Playing her first tournament since the passing in September of her mother, also named Jarmila, and with her world ranking having plummeted from a career high of 25 to 183 in the last 18 months, Gajdosova roared home from a one-set deficit to stun Italy's world number 16 Roberta Vinci.
Gajdosova wept after a 4-6 6-1 6-3 triumph that set up a second-round showdown against French Open champion Sharapova.
"There have been a lot of things happening in my life," Gajdosova said.
"As you all know, my mom passed away in September. It's been a difficult time. First Christmas, as well, without her. My dad is here. My brother and his wife and son. It was my first match in front of them and my first match in Australia, after a long time, without my mum."
Sixth-seeded Czech Petra Kvitova recovered from a pre-tournament asthma scare to defeat Spain's Carla Suarez-Navarro 6-3 6-4.
Kvitova has been gasping and wheezing in Brisbane's humid weather and revealed one of her recent attacks had been her worst in three years.
The 2011 Wimbledon champion was unaware she was asthmatic until she nearly collapsed during an event in New York in 2009.
"I was playing a tournament in the Bronx and after about five minutes I had to sit down and relax and have a drink because I just couldn't move and I couldn't play," she wrote in a column for the Courier-Mail newspaper.
"I still feel really uncomfortable when I'm in this sort of hot and humid weather and it was at practise on Friday that I started to feel a bit similar to what I did in The Bronx.

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