Russian investigators suspect Navalny of fraud

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russian investigators have launched a probe against a prominent opposition leader on suspicion of fraud and money laundering.

Investigators said Friday they suspect Alexei Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, and his brother of defrauding a transportation company of 55 million rubles ($1.8 million).

The anti-corruption activist spearheaded a series of rallies in Moscow that drew up to 100,000 people to the streets ahead of the March vote that handed Putin a third presidential term.

The 36-year-old was charged with theft in July for allegedly organizing a plan to steal about $500,000 in assets from a state timber company. He denies the charges.

Russian opposition is gearing up for another major demonstration on Saturday although the Moscow City Hall has refused to authorize it.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-investigators-suspect-navalny-fraud-081721785.html

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Judge Derek Johnson's Rape Comment: If Sex Isn't Wanted, Body 'Will Not Permit That To Happen'

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A Southern California judge is being publicly admonished for saying a rape victim "didn't put up a fight" during her assault and that if someone doesn't want sexual intercourse, the body "will not permit that to happen."

The California Commission on Judicial Performance voted 10-0 to impose a public admonishment Thursday, saying Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson's comments were inappropriate and a breach of judicial ethics.

"In the commission's view, the judge's remarks reflected outdated, biased and insensitive views about sexual assault victims who do not `put up a fight.' Such comments cannot help but diminish public confidence and trust in the impartiality of the judiciary," wrote Lawrence J. Simi, the commission's chairman.

Johnson made the comments in the case of a man who threatened to mutilate the face and genitals of his ex-girlfriend with a heated screwdriver, beat her with a metal baton and made other violent threats before committing rape, forced oral copulation, and other crimes.

Though the woman reported the criminal threats the next day, the woman did not report the rape until 17 days later.

Johnson, a former prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney's sex crimes unit, said during the man's 2008 sentencing that he had seen violent cases on that unit in which women's vaginas were "shredded" by rape.

"I'm not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something: If someone doesn't want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage is inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case," Johnson said.

The commission found that Johnson's view that a victim must resist to be a real victim of sexual assault was his opinion, not the law. Since 1980, California law doesn't require rape victims to prove they resisted or were prevented from resisting because of threats.

In an apology to the commission, Johnson said his comments were inappropriate. He said his comments were the result of his frustration during an argument with a prosecutor over the defendant's sentence.

Johnson said he believed the prosecutor's request of a 16-year sentence was not authorized by law. Johnson sentenced the rapist to six years instead, saying that's what the case was "worth."

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/13/judge-derek-johnsons-rape_n_2297379.html

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NKorea still years away from credible missiles

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? They don't call it rocket science for nothing.

North Korea's first successful launch of a three-stage, long-range rocket has outraged world leaders who consider it similar to a missile capable of attacking the United States, Europe and other far-away targets. But experts say Pyongyang is years away from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland.

A missile program is built on decades of systematic, intricate testing, something extremely difficult for economically struggling Pyongyang, which faces guaranteed sanctions and world disapprobation each time it stages an expensive launch.

"One success indicates progress, but not victory, and there is a huge gap between being able to make a system work once and having a system that is reliable enough to be militarily useful," said Brian Weeden, a former U.S. Air Force Space Command officer and a technical adviser to the Secure World Foundation, a think tank on space policy.

North Korea's satellite launch Wednesday came only after 14 years of painstaking labor, repeated failures and hundreds of millions of dollars.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Thursday the satellite is orbiting normally at a speed of 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles) per second, though it's not known what mission it is performing. North Korean space officials say the satellite would be used to study crops and weather patterns.

Though Pyongyang insists the project is peaceful, it also has conducted two nuclear tests and has defied demands that it give up its nuclear weapons program.

The U.N. Security Council said in a brief statement after closed consultations Wednesday that the launch violates council resolutions against the North's use of ballistic missile technology, and said it would urgently consider "an appropriate response."

"This launch is about a weapons program, not peaceful use of space," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. Even the North's most important ally, China, expressed regret.

North Korea has long possessed the components needed to construct long-range rockets. Scientists in Pyongyang, however, have been trying and failing since 1998 to conduct a successful launch. Only this week, on the fifth try, did they do so, prompting dancing in the streets of the capital.

Making even a single long-range missile or rocket hit its target is mind-bogglingly complicated. But it pales in comparison to the task of building an arsenal of missiles that could be relied on in a war to strike the far-off places they're programmed to attack.

North Korea's far more advanced rival, South Korea, has failed twice since 2009 to launch a satellite on a rocket from its own territory, and postponed two attempts in recent weeks because of technical problems.

North Korea has trumpeted its long-range capabilities. Earlier this year, former North Korean military chief Ri Yong Ho bragged that the country was "armed with powerful modern weapons ... that can defeat the (U.S.) imperialists at a single blow."

Each advancement Pyongyang makes causes worry in Washington and among North Korea's neighbors. In 2010, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that within five years the North could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.

Wednesday's launch suggests the North is on track for that, said former U.S. defense official James Schoff, now an expert on East Asia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But he and other experts say the North must still surmount tough technical barriers to build the ultimate military threat: a sophisticated nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile, something experts say will be the focus of future nuclear tests.

And despite Wednesday's launch, Pyongyang is also lacking the other key part of that equation: a credible long-range missile.

"If in the future they develop a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a rocket, they are not going to want to put that on a missile that has a high probability of exploding on the launch pad," David Wright, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists who has written extensively about North Korea's missile program, said in an email.

To create a credible missile program, experts say, North Korean technicians need to conduct many more tests that will allow them to iron out the wrinkles until they have a missile that works more often than it fails. Pyongyang's past tests have been somewhat scattershot, possibly because of the heavy international sanctions the rocket and nuclear tests have generated.

North Korea must build a larger missile than the one launched Wednesday if it wants to eventually carry nuclear weapons to distant targets, analysts said.

The satellite North Korea mounted on the rocket weighs only 100 kilograms (220 pounds), according to the office of South Korean lawmaker Jung Chung-rae, who was briefed by a senior South Korean intelligence official. A nuclear warhead would be about five times heavier.

Other missing parts of the puzzle include an accurate long-range missile guidance system and a re-entry vehicle able to survive coming back into the atmosphere at the high speeds ? 10,000 mph ? traveled by intercontinental ballistic missiles. Both are seen as being years off.

"Those are pretty serious tasks," Wright said.

History also shows that first-generation, long-range missiles need dozens of test flights before they are accurate enough to be deployed.

The world's "ICBM club" has just four countries: the United States, Russia, China and France, according to Markus Schiller, an analyst with Schmucker Technologie in Germany and a leading expert on North Korean missiles.

If North Korea "really intended to become a player in the ICBM game, they would have to develop a different kind of missile, with higher performance," Schiller said. "And if they do that seriously, we would have to see flight tests every other month, over several years."

Wright said the Unha-3 rocket launched Wednesday has a potential range of 8,000 to 10,000 kilometers (4,970 to 6,210 miles), which could put Hawaii and the northwest coast of the mainland United States within range.

But even if North Korea builds a ballistic missile based on a liquid-fueled rocket like the 32-meter (105-foot)-tall Unha-3, it would take days to assemble and hours to fuel. That would make it vulnerable to attack in a pre-emptive airstrike. Solid-fueled missiles developed by the U.S. and Soviet Union are more mobile, more easily concealed and ready to launch within minutes.

But Victor Cha, a former White House director for Asia policy, warned there has been an unspoken tendency in the United States to regard North Korea as a technologically backward and bizarre country, underestimating the strategic threat it poses.

"This is no longer acceptable," he wrote in a commentary.

Money, however, is another problem for Pyongyang. A weak economy, chronic food shortages and the sanctions make it difficult to sustain a program that can build and operate reliable missiles.

"I don't think the young leader (Kim Jong Un) has any confidence that the home economy could afford a credible deterrent capability," said Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University.

Zhu said Pyongyang's recent launch was a negotiating chip, not an immediate threat. He said it was intended to stoke tensions abroad in order to improve Pyongyang's position in future international negotiations.

Weeden said North Korea may want to create the perception that it poses a threat to the United States, but is not likely to go further than that.

"I expect North Korea to milk this situation for everything they can get," he said. "But I don't think that perception will be matched by the actual hard work and testing needed to develop and field a reliable, effective weapon system like the ICBMs deployed by the US, Russia and China."

North Korea already poses a major security threat to its East Asian neighbors. It has one of the world's largest standing armies and a formidable if aging arsenal of artillery that could target Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Nearly 30,000 U.S. forces are based in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice, not a formal peace treaty.

The North's short-range rockets could also potentially target another core U.S. ally, Japan.

Darryl Kimball, executive director of the nongovernmental Arms Control Association, said those capabilities, rather than the North's future ability to strike the U.S., still warrant the most attention.

___

Matthew Pennington reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Alexa Olesen in Beijing contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nkorea-still-years-away-credible-missiles-115038751.html

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Russia says Syrian rebels might win; car bomb kills 16

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels are gaining ground and might win, Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday, in the starkest such admission from a major ally of President Bashar al-Assad.

"One must look the facts in the face," Russia's state-run RIA quoted Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. "Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out."

Bogdanov, who is Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, said the Syrian government was "losing control of more and more territory" and that Moscow was preparing plans to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary.

Advancing rebels now hold an almost continuous arc of territory from the east to the southeast of Damascus, despite fierce army bombardments designed to drive them back.

A car bomb killed at least 16 men, women and children in Qatana, a town about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of Damascus where many soldiers live, activists and state media said.

The explosion occurred in a residential area for soldiers in Qatana, which is near several army bases, said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He put the death toll as 17, including seven children and two women. State news agency SANA said 16 people had died.

State television blamed the blast on "terrorists" - its term for rebels - and showed footage of soldiers walking by a partly collapsed building, with rubble and twisted metal on the road.

The attack follows three bombs at the Interior Ministry on Wednesday evening, in which state news agency SANA said five people were killed, including Abdullah Kayrouz, a member of parliament from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Apart from gaining territory in the outskirts of Damascus in recent weeks, rebels have also made hit-and-run attacks or set off bombs within the capital, often targeting state security buildings or areas seen as loyal to Assad, such as Jaramana, where twin bombs killed 34 people in November.

BACK TO THE WALL

Insurgents launched an offensive on Damascus after a July 18 bombing that killed four of Assad's closest aides, including his feared brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, but were later pushed back.

With his back to the wall, Assad is reported to be turning ever deadlier weapons on his adversaries.

U.S. NATO officials said on Wednesday that the Syrian military had fired Scud-style ballistic missiles, which are powerful but not very accurate, against rebels in recent days.

Human Rights Watch said some populated areas had been hit by incendiary bombs, containing flammable materials such as napalm, thermite or white phosphorous, which can set fire to buildings or cause severe burns and respiratory damage.

The British-based Syrian Observatory said war planes were bombing rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and artillery was hitting Daraya and Moadamiyeh, southwestern areas near the centre where rebels have been fighting for a foothold.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests which were met with gunfire by Assad's security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

The United States, European powers and Arab states bestowed their official blessing on Syria's newly-formed opposition coalition on Wednesday, despite increasing signs of Western unease at the rise of militant Islamists in the rebel ranks.

Western nations at "Friends of Syria" talks in Marrakech, Morocco rallied around a new opposition National Coalition formed last month under moderate Islamist cleric Mouaz Alkhatib.

Russia, which along with China has blocked any U.N. Security Council measures against Assad, criticized Washington's decision to grant the coalition formal recognition, saying it appeared to have abandoned any effort to reach a political solution.

Bogdanov's remarks were the clearest sign yet that Russia is preparing for the possible defeat of Assad's government.

"We are dealing with issues of preparations for an evacuation. We have mobilization plans and are clarifying where our citizens are located," Bogdanov said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-says-syrian-rebels-might-win-car-bomb-111631714.html

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Personal Finance Daily: 10 years of stupid investments - eWallstreeter

From: MarketWatch.com - Top Stories - 2:44pm - December 13, 2012

Columnist Chuck Jaffe has been writing his Stupid Investment of the Week column for nearly 10 years, and as the column ends its run he?s compiled a list of some of his favorite stupid investments. Read that and more in today?s Personal Finance Daily.

Continue reading this article ?

Source: http://ewallstreeter.com/personal-finance-daily-years-of-stupid-investments-5048/

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How to get started with Passbook on your iPhone

How to get started with Passbook on your iPhone

Passbook is a great way to store loyalty cards, flight information, coupons, gift cards, and members cards right on your iPhone. Many participating merchants will even scan your iPhone in order to take payment or redeem points. As long as you've got iOS 6 or higher on your iPhone, you've got Passbook.

Follow along and we'll get you set up and utilizing Passbook in no time.

How to add cards and other items to Passbook

There are many apps in the App Store that already support Passbook. They aren't always loyalty cards or gift cards either. Airlines such as American Airlines and United allow you to store boarding passes in Passbook while Klout allows you to view your score in one place without ever having to open the actual app.

The process for adding cards may differ from app to app depending on how the developer chose to implement Passbook. For this example, we're going to use Starbucks app.

  1. Launch the Passbook supported app of your choice, in this case, Starbucks.
  2. Somewhere within the app there should be settings for Passbook. In this case, I can tap on the Manage button underneath the myCard tab.
  • Now tap the Manage button.
  • Tap on Add Card to Passbook.
  • The app should show you a preview of your card. In this instance, I tap Add in the top right corner.
  • That's it, I can open the Passbook app in order to confirm that the card is there and ready for use.
  • How to access your items in Passbook

    1. Launch the Passbook app from the Home screen of your iPhone.
  • Here you will see any card you've added to Passbook. Simply tap on the card you'd like to view or use.
  • Once you are done using that card you can either tap the Home button to exit out of Passbook, tap it again to return it to your Passbook stack or swipe downwards. Any of these gestures will return you to the main Passbook screen.
  • How to refresh items in your Passbook

    Every one in a while apps don't refresh as often as we'd like in Passbook so if you don't think your balance or point value is right, you can manually refresh that card on your own.

    1. Launch the Passbook app from the Home screen of your iPhone.
  • Tap into the card you'd like to refresh.
  • Tap the small info button in the bottom right hand corner of the card.
  • The card will turn over to reveal some information. This may vary from card to card but across all cards you can see the last time it was updated at the very top.
  • To refresh it manually just pull down and release on the screen in order to update the card yourself.
  • Tap the Done button in the upper right hand corner to flip the card back over.
  • The data on your card should now be updated.
  • How to delete items and cards from Passbook

    Things that expire such as coupons are probably something you'll want to delete on a regular basis so they don't clutter up your Passbook app. It's very simple to delete a card from inside Passbook itself.

    1. Launch the Passbook app from the Home screen of your iPhone.
  • Tap into the card you'd like to delete from the main screen.
  • Tap the small info button in the bottom right hand corner of the card.
  • Tap on the trash icon in the upper right hand corner.
  • Confirm that you want to delete the card by tapping on Delete.
  • Passbook will now run the card through a virtual shredder and delete it from Passbook.
  • Need help finding Passbook apps?

    We all know Apple's list of Passbook apps on the App Store is nowhere near complete. Our forum members have found quite a few Passbook compatible apps that you may want to check out. Hit the link below for some new ideas and as always, leave anything interesting you find either in the forums or in the comments below!

    Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/AtUggl5ksAk/story01.htm

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    Japan survey shows business sentiment darkening

    TOKYO (AP) ? Japanese manufacturers are growing increasingly pessimistic, according to a survey released Friday that added to gloom over the economic outlook ahead of Sunday's parliamentary election.

    The Bank of Japan's "tankan" index for the December quarter slumped to minus 12 from minus 3 in the previous quarter, a result that was much worse than expected. A reading below zero means pessimistic views outnumber optimists.

    The report largely blamed tensions with China, which have slammed exports to one of Japan's biggest markets, for the deterioration in sentiment.

    The survey raises the likelihood of further monetary easing by the central bank at its policy meeting next week.

    "It seems there has been some deterioration, especially in manufacturing, and it is expected to continue to decline," government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said Friday in a regular briefing.

    He said the government would continue to push ahead with stimulus measures.

    The ruling Democratic Party of Japan nonetheless is widely expected to suffer a harsh rebuke from voters in a parliamentary election on Sunday, partly for having failed to instill a sustainable recovery following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disasters.

    The front-runner to replace the DPJ's Yoshihiko Noda as prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has pledged to raise spending on public works to help generate demand and help the economy break out of a deflationary trap of lax demand and falling prices.

    At midday Friday, the Japanese yen was trading at 83.87 to the U.S. dollar, its lowest level in nearly 20 months, on expectations Abe will push for policies to further weaken the currency if he replaces Noda.

    The U.S. Federal Reserve's decision earlier this week to stimulate the slow-growing U.S. economy by spending $85 billion a month to help keep interest rates low also has helped weaken the dollar against other currencies.

    The yen's prolonged strength has made Japanese exports relatively more costly in overseas markets, while eroding any profits repatriated to Japan.

    Such factors have helped push Japan's economy into what economists forecast will be its third quarter of contraction ? and its fifth recession in 15 years.

    The protracted European crisis sapped a recovery earlier in the year of its oomph. Then, a late summer resurgence in tensions with China over disputed islands in the East China Sea compounded the drag on exports.

    The Bank of Japan survey showed manufacturers anticipate sentiment will remain negative in coming months, with the index forecast at minus 10.

    The outlook among auto manufacturers, whose sales in China were battered by a spate of violent anti-Japanese protests, plummeted to minus 9 from positive 19.

    Non-manufacturers also predicted sentiment would worsen slightly, to plus 4 from the current plus 5.

    The outlook among smaller manufacturers was significantly more dismal than for larger ones, at minus 18.

    The Bank of Japan surveyed 10,654 companies between mid-November and mid-December. About 99 percent responded.

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/japan-survey-shows-business-sentiment-darkening-033436795--finance.html

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    European court: German was victim of US rendition

    PARIS (AP) ? A European court issued a landmark ruling Thursday that condemned the CIA's so-called extraordinary renditions programs and bolstered those who say they were illegally kidnapped and tortured as part of an overzealous war on terrorism.

    The European Court of Human Rights ruled that a German car salesman was a victim of torture and abuse, in a long-awaited victory for a man who had failed for years to get courts in the United States and Europe to recognize him as a victim.

    Khaled El-Masri says he was kidnapped from Macedonia in 2003, mistaken for a terrorism suspect, then held and brutally interrogated at an Afghan prison known as the "Sand Pit" and run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for four months. He says that once U.S. authorities realized he was not a threat, they illegally sent him to Albania and left him on a mountainside.

    The European court, based in Strasbourg, France, ruled that El-Masri's account was "established beyond reasonable doubt" and that Macedonia "had been responsible for his torture and ill-treatment both in the country itself and after his transfer to the U.S. authorities in the context of an extra-judicial rendition."

    It said the government of Macedonia violated El-Masri's rights repeatedly and ordered it to pay ?60,000 ($78,500) in damages. Macedonia's Justice Ministry said it would enforce the court ruling and pay El-Masri the damages.

    United States officials have long since closed internal investigations into the El-Masri case, and the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama has distanced itself from some counterterrorism activities conducted under former U.S. President George W. Bush.

    But several other legal cases are pending from Britain to Hong Kong involving people who say they were illegally detained in the CIA program. Its critics hope that Thursday's ruling will lead to court victories for other rendition victims.

    The case focused on Macedonia's role in a single instance of wrongful capture. But it drew broader attention because of how sensitive the CIA extraordinary renditions were for Europe, at a time when the continent was in fear of terrorist attacks but divided over the Bush administration's methods of rooting out terrorism.

    Those methods involved abducting and interrogating terror suspects ? without court sanction ? in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A 2007 Council of Europe probe accused 14 European governments of permitting the CIA to run detention centers or carry out rendition flights between 2002 and 2005.

    The CIA declined to comment on Thursday's ruling.

    El-Masri's lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic, said he hoped the ruling would inspire El-Masri to resume contact with his lawyers and family, which he broke off after he was sentenced to two years in prison in 2010 for assaulting the mayor of the German town of Neu-Ulm.

    "I hope this will give him a little bit more confidence again that even a little person who has come into a crime of great nations has the chance to have his rights," he said.

    Macedonian authorities had argued that El-Masri was detained on suspicion of traveling with false documents, then traveled on his own to neighboring Kosovo ? an argument the court called "utterly untenable."

    Jim Goldston of the Open Society Institute said the ruling "serves as a wake-up call to the U.S. government and judiciary to re-examine how the CIA has treated rendition victims. ... and offers an opportunity to re-examine the (U.S.) position of looking forward instead of backward."

    Goldston said that even if the ruling has no impact in the United States, courts in other countries are likely to take it into account. He expressed hope that it will encourage "victims who have been denied redress or have simply not come forward."

    A U.N. special rapporteur on human rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the International Committee of Jurists and Amnesty International were among others hailing the ruling as a long-awaited breakthrough.

    The court's rulings are binding on the 47 member-states of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog.

    ___

    David Rising in Berlin, Konstantin Testorides in Skopje, Macedonia, and Kimberly Dozier in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

    Source: http://news.yahoo.com/european-court-german-victim-us-rendition-130125707.html

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    Inquest: Nurse in British royal hoax found hanging

    FILE - Undated handout photo of the late nurse Jacintha Saldanha of King Edward VII hospital, provided by Saldanha's family in Shirva north of Mangalore, India after she was found dead in central London on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. An inquest on Thursday Dec 13 2012 heard that Saldanha was found hanging by the neck from a wardrobe door at her room at the hospital. Australian radio hosts managed to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential information about the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition, in a hoax phone call to the King Edward VII hospital where the pregnant Duchess was staying and which was broadcast on-air. (AP Photo/Saldanha Family, File)

    FILE - Undated handout photo of the late nurse Jacintha Saldanha of King Edward VII hospital, provided by Saldanha's family in Shirva north of Mangalore, India after she was found dead in central London on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. An inquest on Thursday Dec 13 2012 heard that Saldanha was found hanging by the neck from a wardrobe door at her room at the hospital. Australian radio hosts managed to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential information about the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition, in a hoax phone call to the King Edward VII hospital where the pregnant Duchess was staying and which was broadcast on-air. (AP Photo/Saldanha Family, File)

    A policeman stands on duty outside Westminster Coroner's Court where the initial inquest into nurse Jacintha Saldanha's death is being opened, in London,Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. Saldanha, the nurse who passed a hoax call into the hospital room of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, apparently killed herself three days later, with a coroner's officer saying Tuesday she was found hanging by the neck and a detective saying she left three notes. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

    A policeman stands on duty outside Westminster Coroner's Court where the initial inquest into nurse Jacintha Saldanha's death is being opened, in London,Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. Saldanha, the nurse who passed a hoax call into the hospital room of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, apparently killed herself three days later, with a coroner's officer saying Tuesday she was found hanging by the neck and a detective saying she left three notes. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

    A policeman stands on duty outside as media gather at Westminster Coroner's Court where the initial inquest into nurse Jacintha Saldanha,s death is being opened, in London,Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. Saldanha, the nurse who passed a hoax call into the hospital room of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, apparently killed herself three days later, with a coroner's officer saying Tuesday she was found hanging by the neck and a detective saying she left three notes. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

    FILE - Undated handout photo of the late nurse Jacintha Saldanha of King Edward VII hospital, provided by Saldanha's family in Shirva north of Mangalore, India after she was found dead in central London on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012. An inquest on Thursday Dec 13 2012 heard that Saldanha was found hanging by the neck from a wardrobe door at her room at the hospital. Australian radio hosts managed to impersonate Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles and received confidential information about the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition, in a hoax phone call to the King Edward VII hospital where the pregnant Duchess was staying and which was broadcast on-air. (AP Photo/Saldanha Family, File)

    (AP) ? A nurse duped by a hoax call from Australian DJs about the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was found hanging in her room and left three notes, a coroner's inquest was told Thursday.

    Coroner's officer Lynda Martindill said nurse Jacintha Saldanha was discovered hanging by a scarf from a wardrobe in her nurses' quarters on Friday by a colleague and a member of security staff at London's King Edward VII Hospital. She also had injuries to her wrists.

    Martindill said an attempt to revive Saldanha failed. The case is being treated as an apparent suicide.

    Police detective chief inspector James Harman said Saldanha, 46, also had injuries to her wrists.

    He told the inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court that two notes were found at the scene and another among Saldanha's belongings. He said there were no suspicious circumstances, meaning nobody else was involved in Saldanha's death.

    Harman said that police were examining the notes, interviewing the nurse's friends, family and colleagues and looking at emails and phone calls to establish what led to her death.

    He also said detectives would be contacting police in the Australian state of New South Wales to collect "relevant evidence."

    Saldanha answered the phone last week when two Australian disc jockeys called to seek information about the former Kate Middleton, who was being treated for severe morning sickness. The DJs impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, and Saldanha was tricked into transferring the call to a nurse caring for the duchess, who revealed private details about her condition.

    The DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, apologized for the prank in emotional interviews on Australian television, saying they never expected their call would be put through. The show was taken off the air and the DJs have been suspended indefinitely.

    Australia's media watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, said Thursday it was launching an official investigation into whether radio station 2DayFM breached its broadcasting license conditions and the industry code of practice.

    Coroner Fiona Wilcox opened and adjourned Saldanha's inquest until March 26.

    Wilcox expressed "my sympathies to her family and everybody who has been touched by this tragic death."

    In Britain, inquests are held to determine the facts whenever someone dies unexpectedly, violently or in disputed circumstances. Inquests do not determine criminal liability or apportion blame.

    Saldanha, who was born in India, lived in Bristol in southwestern England with her husband and two teenage children.

    The family was not in court. Lawmaker Keith Vaz, who has spoken on their behalf, said the nurse's loved ones "need time to grieve."

    Vaz said a memorial Mass would be held Saturday at London's Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral.

    ___

    Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

    Associated Press

    Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-13-Britain%20Royal%20Pregnancy%20Hoax/id-77c31d9bf8e64642bac7b6db087aa52b

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