Clinton sustains concussion; Benghazi testimony postponed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who canceled an overseas trip last weekend because of illness, suffered a concussion after fainting due to dehydration, prompting the postponement of her scheduled congressional testimony on the attack on a U.S. mission in Libya, officials said on Saturday.

“While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion,” State Department spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement.

“She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors,” Reines said, adding that she would work from home and stay in regular contact with other top officials.

Clinton, 65, fell ill with a stomach virus last weekend and was forced to cancel a planned trip to the Middle East and North Africa. The virus also hit other members of her staff, who were returning with her from a European trip, and was described as uncomfortable, but not medically serious.

Clinton’s doctors, Lisa Bardack of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group and Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University, issued a statement saying that Clinton fainted as a result of “extreme dehydration” due to the virus.

“Over the course of this week we evaluated her and ultimately determined she had also sustained a concussion,” the doctors said in their statement, which was distributed by the State Department.

“We recommended that the secretary continue to rest and avoid any strenuous activity, and strongly advised her to cancel all work events for the coming week. We will continue to monitor her progress as she makes a full recovery.”

Clinton has often been cited as a potential Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2016 and frequently refers to her general good health. She said in an interview with ABC broadcast on Wednesday that she has “incredible stamina and energy.”

She has maintained a punishing schedule in her final weeks as the top U.S. diplomat, a position she intends to leave toward the end of January when U.S. President Barack Obama is sworn in for a second term.

Obama telephoned Clinton to wish her well, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

BENGHAZI TESTIMONY NEXT WEEK

Clinton had been expected to testify on December 20 before the House of Representatives and Senate foreign affairs committees on a report on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in September that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans and raised questions about security at far-flung posts.

Jodi Seth, a spokeswoman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee head John Kerry, said that given her condition, Clinton’s testimony would be postponed, but did not say until when. Seth said the planned hearings would be held with other senior officials appearing in Clinton’s place.

The Republican chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, issued a statement saying she was sorry to hear of Clinton’s ill health, but it was “unfortunate” she would be unable to testify before the committee next week.

“We still don’t have information from the Obama Administration on what went so tragically wrong in Benghazi that resulted in the deaths of four patriotic Americans,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

“We have been combing through classified and unclassified documents and have tough questions about State Department threat assessments and decision-making on Benghazi. This requires a public appearance by the Secretary of State herself.”

Ros-Lehtinen’s statement said William Burns and Thomas Nides, deputy secretaries of state, would provide testimony in Clinton’s place.

REPUBLICAN CRITICISM

Republicans have criticized the Democratic Obama administration for its early public explanations of the attack.

Much of the criticism focused on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who on Thursday said she was withdrawing her name from consideration to replace Clinton as secretary of state to avoid a potentially disruptive confirmation process.

Clinton has appointed a special panel known as an accountability review board to assess both the Benghazi incident and the official response to it.

The board’s report, which will contain both classified and unclassified sections, is expected to be complete next week and Clinton has promised to be as transparent as possible with Congress in sharing its findings.

Clinton, whose husband, Bill Clinton, was president from 1993 to 2001 and who herself came tantalizingly close to winning the Democratic presidential nomination four years ago, has used her star power to promote U.S. interests around the world since Obama named her to lead the State Department in 2009.

She has consistently been rated as the most popular member of Obama’s Cabinet, leading to speculation she might mount another White House bid in 2016, although she herself has played down suggestions that she still hopes to become president.

“I’ve said I really don’t believe that that’s something I will do again. I am so grateful I had the experience of doing it before,” Clinton told ABC’s Barbara Walters in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.

“I just want to see what else is out there. I’ve been doing … this incredibly important and … satisfying work here in Washington, as I say, for 20 years. I want to get out and spend some time looking at what else I can do to contribute.”

(Reporting by Andrew Quinn and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Will Dunham, David Brunnstrom and Mohammad Zargham)

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Hungary government, central bank in “alliance” from 2013

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – A leadership change at Hungary‘s central bank next year will allow the government to build a strategic alliance with the bank to boost the economy, Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy said on Saturday.

Matolcsy, a member of Prime Minister Viktor Orban‘s government that has often clashed with the bank over policy, also said the bank would have to focus on helping growth and employment as well as curbing inflation.

“I don’t think that in these crisis years any central bank in the world would and could keep only one aspect in the forefront: the aspect of inflation,” Matolcsy told public radio.

“Just look at how the European Central Bank has switched to an entirely different monetary philosophy in the crisis years post-2008.”

Orban’s government has put pressure on the central bank to do more to help the recession-hit economy and some analysts have said the appointment of a new governor at the National Bank of Hungary in March 2013 could usher in an era of unconventional steps, after a series of rate cuts this year.

Citing inflation risks, outgoing governor Andras Simor and his two deputies have opposed the bank’s recent rate cuts, which were pushed through by the four other rate-setters appointed by Orban’s party in parliament last year.

Simor’s six-year term expires in March, and his two deputies will also leave the bank next year. Orban is expected to pick a new governor loyal to his government.

Matolcsy’s name as a candidate has also emerged in the market and local media. When asked about this, he said:

“There are many names floating around these days and weeks, but I myself have not received such a request, but I am sure, as this has been mentioned, that next year Hungary‘s central bank will have a leadership that will be in a strategic partnership with the government.”

ECB President Mario Draghi said last week in Budapest that Hungary’s central bank must retain its independence to be credible – a rare public warning about undue political influence.

Matolcsy, who has been the architect of unorthodox policies that included heavy taxes on banks and a nationalisation of private pension funds, also said he was not sure Hungary should tap international markets next year, after it successfully financed debt from domestic issuance in 2012.

“As for myself, I’m not quite sure that we should issue a foreign currency bond in global markets next year,” he said.

Earlier this month, the minister in charge of Hungary’s stalled loan talks with the IMF, flagged a possible foreign currency issue in the first quarter of 2013.

Budapest has rolled over expiring debt from domestic issuance since it last tapped international markets in 2011 and has financing buffers deposited at the central bank.

Matolcsy also said Hungary’s economy could grow faster next year than the government’s current projection for 0.9 percent.

He said the economy could be able to grow faster than 1 percent, perhaps even closer to a rate of 2 percent.

Analysts in a Reuters poll this week forecast stagnation for 2013 after a contraction this year.

(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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Nigeria governor, 5 others die in helicopter crash

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa’s most populous nation, officials said.

Nigeria‘s ruling party said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta. The People’s Democratic Party’s statement described Yakowa’s death as a “colossal loss.”

The statement said the former national security adviser, General Andrew Azazi, also died in the crash. Azazi was fired in June amid growing sectarian violence in Nigeria, but maintained close ties with the government.

Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said four other bodies had been found, but he could not immediately give their identities.

The crash occurred at about 3:30 p.m. after the navy helicopter took off from the village of Okoroba in Bayelsa state where officials had gathered to attend the burial of the father of a presidential aide, said Commodore Kabir Aliyu. He said that the helicopter was headed for Nigeria’s oil capital of Port Harcourt when it crashed in the Nembe area of Bayelsa state.

Aviation disasters remain common in Nigeria, despite efforts in recent years to improve air safety.

In October, a plane made a crash landing in central Nigeria. A state governor and five others sustained injuries but survived.

In June, a Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane crashed into a neighborhood in the commercial capital of Lagos, killing 153 people onboard and at least 10 people on the ground. It was Nigeria’s worst air crash in nearly two decades.

In March, a police helicopter carrying a high-ranking police official crashed in the central Nigerian city of Jos, killing four people.

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Owner of Rivera plane being investigated by DEA

PHOENIX (AP) — The company that owns a luxury jet that crashed and killed Latin music star Jenni Rivera is under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the agency seized two of its planes earlier this year as part of the ongoing probe.

DEA spokeswoman Lisa Webb Johnson confirmed Thursday the planes owned by Las Vegas-based Starwood Management were seized in Texas and Arizona, but she declined to discuss details of the case. The agency also has subpoenaed all the company’s records, including any correspondence it has had with a former Tijuana mayor who U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected has ties to organized crime.

The man widely believed to be behind the aviation company is an ex-convict named Christian Esquino, 50, who has a long and checkered legal past. Corporate records list his sister-in-law as the company’s only officer, but insurance companies that cover some of the firm’s planes say in court documents that the woman is merely a front and that Esquino is the one in charge.

Esquino’s legal woes date back decades. He pleaded guilty to a fraud charge that stemmed from a major drug investigation in Florida in the early 1990s and most recently was sentenced to two years in federal prison in a California aviation fraud case. Esquino, a Mexican citizen, was deported upon his release. Esquino and various other companies he has either been involved with or owns have also been sued for failing to pay millions of dollars in loans, according to court records.

The 43-year-old California-born Rivera died at the peak of her career when the plane she was traveling in nose-dived into the ground while flying from the northern Mexican city of Monterrey to the central city of Toluca early Sunday morning. She was perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated Mexico regional style, and had branched out into acting and reality television.

It remained unclear Thursday exactly what caused the crash and why Rivera was on Esquino’s plane. The 78-year-old pilot and five other people were also killed. Esquino was not on the plane.

The late singer’s brother, Pedro Rivera Jr., said that he didn’t know anything about the owner or why or how she ended up in his plane.

Esquino told the Los Angeles Times in a telephone interview from Mexico City earlier this week that the singer was considering buying the aircraft from Starwood for $ 250,000 and the flight was offered as a test ride. He disputed reports that he owns Starwood, maintaining that he is merely the company’s operations manager “with the expertise.”

In response to an email from The Associated Press, Esquino said he did not want to comment. Calls to various phone numbers associated with him rang unanswered.

Esquino is no stranger to tangles with the law. He was indicted in the early 1990s along with 12 other defendants in a major federal drug investigation that claimed the suspects planned to sell more than 480 kilograms of cocaine, according to court records. He eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal money from the IRS and was sentenced to five years in prison, but much of the term was suspended for reasons that weren’t immediately clear.

He served about five months in prison before being released.

Cynthia Hawkins, a former assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case and is now in private practice in Orlando, remembered the investigation well.

“It was huge,” Hawkins said Thursday. “This was an international smuggling group.”

She said the case began with the arrest of Robert Castoro, who was at the time considered one of the most prolific smugglers of marijuana and cocaine into Florida from direct ties to Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s. Castoro was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to life in prison, but he then began cooperating with authorities, leading to his sentence being reduced to just 10 years, Hawkins said.

“Castoro cooperated for years,” she said. “We put hundreds of people in jail.”

He eventually gave up another smuggler, Damian Tedone, who was indicted in the early 1990s along with Esquino and 11 others in a conspiracy involving drug smuggling in Florida in the 1980s at a time when the state was the epicenter of the nation’s cocaine trade.

Tedone also cooperated with authorities and has since been released from prison. Telephone messages left Thursday for both Tedone and Castoro were not returned.

Esquino eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of concealing money from the IRS.

Joseph Milchen, Esquino’s attorney at the time, said Thursday the case eventually revolved around his client “bringing money into the United States without declaring it.”

However, Milchen acknowledged that a plane purchased by Esquino was “used to smuggle drugs.”

He denied his former client has ever had anything to do with illegal narcotics.

“The only thing he has ever done is with airplanes,” Milchen said.

Court filings also indicate Esquino was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to committing fraud involving aircraft he purchased in Mexico, then falsified the planes’ log books and re-sold them in the United States.

Also in 2004, a federal judge ordered him and one of his companies to pay a creditor $ 6.2 million after being accused of failing to pay debts to a bank.

As the years passed, Esquino’s troubles only grew.

In February this year, a Gulfstream G-1159A plane the government valued at $ 500,000 was seized by the U.S. Marshals Service on behalf of the DEA after landing in Tucson on a flight that originated in Mexico

Four months later, the DEA subpoenaed all of Starwood’s records dating to Dec. 13, 2007, including federal and state income tax documents, bank deposit information, records on all company assets and sales, and the entity’s relationship with Esquino and more than a dozen companies and individuals, including former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank-Rhon, a gambling mogul and a member of one of Mexico’s most powerful families. U.S. law enforcement officials have long suspected Hank-Rhon is tied to organized crime but no allegations have been proven. He has consistently denied any criminal involvement.

He was arrested in Mexico last year on weapons charges and on suspicion of ordering the murder of his son’s former girlfriend. He was later freed for lack of evidence.

The subpoena was obtained by the U-T San Diego newspaper.

A Starwood attorney listed on the subpoena, Jeremy Schuster, declined Thursday to provide details.

“We don’t comment on matters involving clients,” he said.

In September, the DEA seized another Starwood plane — a 1977 Hawker 700 with an insured value of $ 1 million — after it landed in McAllen, Texas, from a flight from Mexico.

Insurers of both aircraft have since filed complaints in federal court in Nevada seeking to have the Starwood policies nullified, in part, because they say Esquino lied in the application process when he noted he had never been indicted on drug-related criminal charges. Both companies said they would not have issued the policies had he been truthful.

Another attorney for Starwood has not responded to phone and email messages seeking comment, and no one was at the address listed at its Las Vegas headquarters. The address is a post office box in a shipping and mailing store located between a tuxedo rental shop and a supermarket in a shopping center several miles west of the Las Vegas Strip.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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Colorado Medical Provider Convicted of Medicaid Theft

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers announced today that an occupational therapist from Castle Rock has been convicted of stealing from the state’s Medicaid program. Here are the details.

* The Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Office of the Attorney General initiated an investigation of Cheryl Moss, a 47-year-old occupational therapist, following a citizen complaint alleging that she had improperly billed the Medicaid program.

* The investigation revealed 83 forged treatment records that were meant to support fraudulent bills to the Colorado Medicaid Program, the Attorney General’s Office reported.

* Medicaid paid Moss for services she never rendered, based on forged invoices for payment that were submitted between November 2009 and August 2011.

* Moss pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft and one count of felony forgery. She has been ordered to repay the Colorado Medicaid Program $ 54,332 in criminal restitution and will serve 60 days in-home detention and 300 hours of community service. She will pay all fees and court costs resulting from the case, the Attorney General’s Office stated.

* In addition, Moss has agreed to pay the Medicaid program $ 46,000 in order to resolve any potential civil issues and is required to report her conviction to the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, which is the state department responsible for licensing occupational therapists.

* The Colorado Medicaid Fraud Control Unit consists of criminal investigators, an auditor, a nurse investigator and prosecutors experienced in criminal and financial investigations.

* The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies reported that, as of fiscal year 2010-11, there were 2,497 registered occupational therapists statewide.

* Occupational therapy, as defined by the Colorado legislature, is the therapeutic use of everyday life activities with individuals or groups for the purpose of participation in roles and situations in home, school, workplace, community and other settings, the Department of Regulatory Agencies stated. Occupational therapists work with clients who may be mentally, physically, developmentally or emotionally impaired and occupational therapists help those individuals to develop, recover or maintain daily living and work skills.

* According to a report by Colorado Health Institute, around 65-70 percent of the licensed medical providers in Colorado accept Medicaid. Analysis from the institute found that Medicaid expansion authorized by the Affordable Care Act will create the need for an additional 83 to 141 primary care providers to care for the newly insured.

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Rent ‘to rise faster than prices’

14 December 2012 Last updated at 06:35 ET

Surveyors are predicting that the cost of renting a home will rise by 4% in 2013, double the predicted rate of UK house price growth.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said that a slight improvement in the UK economy would be reflected in the property price change.

But many potential first-time buyers would be squeezed and see rents rise.

Lenders have predicted that prices will stay relatively stagnant next year and sales remain well below their peak.

‘Tentative signs of recovery’

Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at Rics, said that mortgage lenders would continue to demand high deposits, and first-time buyers would continue to struggle to secure a mortgage.

This would add to demand for rental properties, and so raise rental costs.

He said that the group expected property sales in general to hit their highest level since 2007, although this would still be 40% lower than at the start of the credit crunch.

This increase would be assisted by the Funding for Lending scheme, which sees cheap funds supplied to banks by the Bank of England for them to pass on to small businesses and household borrowers.

He suggested the rise in activity would be seen in some of London, as well as the south-east of England and the north-east of England.

“These tentative signs of recovery in the sales market should not blind us to the very real problems that still exist,” he said.

“Even with the Funding for Lending scheme and some other government policies beginning to be felt in the mortgage market, many first-time buyers will continue to find it difficult to secure a sufficiently large loan to take an initial step on the housing market.

“Meanwhile, the alternative of renting is becoming more and more costly with a further increase in rents likely in 2013.”

He called for the government to put the conditions in place for house building to increase.

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NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.

Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father’s death.

The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.

Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country’s international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea’s military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim’s rule.

The launch’s success, 14 years after North Korea’s first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.

“North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader” who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.

Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.

Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.

North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star” — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.

Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il.”

But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.

Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.

“It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space,” Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday’s ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.

“The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again,” she told The Associated Press. “And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future.”

Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.

Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.

“Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige,” according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Noland, however, also mentioned the “Machiavellian argument” that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — “the only real threat to his rule.”

Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.

The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father’s legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea’s political and economic isolation, he said.

On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.

Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.

North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.

The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.

Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.

If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, “it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger,” Snyder said.

____

Jon Chol Jin in Pyongyang, and Foster Klug and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Jean H. Lee on Twitter: (at)newsjean.

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Microsoft, Motorola file to keep patent case details private

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp and Google Inc‘s Motorola Mobility unit have requested a federal judge in Seattle to keep secret from the public various details from their recent trial concerning the value of technology patents and the two companies’ attempts at a settlement.

Microsoft and Motorola, acquired by Google earlier this year, are preparing post-trial briefs to present to a judge as he decides the outcome of a week-long trial last month to establish what rates Microsoft should pay Motorola for use of standard, essential wireless technology used in its Xbox game console and other products.

The case is just one strand of litigation in an industry-wide dispute over ownership of the underlying technology and the design of smartphones, which has drawn in Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Nokia and others.

In a filing with the Western District of Washington federal court in Seattle on Friday, Microsoft and Motorola asked the judge to allow them to file certain parts of their post-trial submissions under seal and redact those details in the public record.

The details concern terms of Motorola‘s licenses with third parties and Microsoft‘s business and marketing plans for future products. During the trial, which ran from November 13-20, U.S. District Judge James Robart cleared the court when such sensitive or trade secret details were discussed.

“For the same compelling reasons that the court sealed this evidence for purposes of trial, it would be consistent and appropriate to take the same approach in connection with the parties’ post-trial submissions,” the two companies argued in the court filing.

The judge has so far been understanding of the companies’ desire to keep private details of their patent royalties and future plans, although that has perplexed some spectators who believe trials in public courts should be fully open to the public.

In addition, Motorola asked the judge to seal some documents relating to settlement negotiations between the two companies, arguing that keeping those details secret would encourage openness in future talks and make a settlement more likely.

Judge Robart is not expected to rule on the case until the new year.

The case in U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington is Microsoft Corp. vs. Motorola Inc., 10-cv-1823.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Richard Chang)

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One Direction named MTV’s 2012 Artist of the Year

NEW YORK (AP) — They’re platinum. They’re fascinating. And now One Direction is MTV‘s 2012 Artist of the Year.

MTV says the fivesome is “the clear choice for the top spot” after a year that included two No. 1 albums, hits such as “What Makes You Beautiful” and a sold-out world tour.

One Direction’s Louis (LOO’-ee) Tomlinson calls Thursday’s honor “the icing on the cake.”

MTV’s team of music staffers chose Carly Rae Jepsen‘s “Call Me Maybe” as song as the year.

One Direction placed third on the U.K. version of “The X Factor” in 2010 and made their U.S. debut in March with the No. 1 album “Up All Night.” Their sophomore album, “Take Me Home,” was the year’s third-highest debut.

The group also made Barbara Walters’ most fascinating people of 2012 list.

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