[unable to retrieve full-text content]The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM130.78 per gramme, down 14 sen from RM130.92 at 5pm last Thursday.-- Bernama
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Peyton Manning's eyes got wide as the ball zipped past his helmet and into the end zone.
Manning spent the past two weeks trying to envision and work through every possible scenario that he and his Denver Broncos could face in the Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks. It's hard to believe that even once Manning imagined not being able to catch the game's opening snap.
Yet just 12 seconds into Super Bowl XLVIII, before Manning had thrown a pass or handed off to a running back, the Broncos trailed 2-0. For a team that scored 606 points in the regular season, 2-0 hardly seemed insurmountable. Neither did 5-0, or 8-0, nor maybe even 22-0 at halftime — not when Manning could remind his teammates about that time they rallied from down 24-0 to the San Diego Chargers in 2012.
But it was just mistake after mistake after mistake, so many errors, by so many Broncos, that the first snap and safety will be remembered as just the first bad moment in a night filled with them for Denver in the 43-8 loss.
Still, the bad snap was the moment that seemed to change so much for Manning, who on Saturday night received his fifth NFL MVP award.
Suddenly, the quarterback who had been so upbeat in the days leading up to the Super Bowl, telling jokes and stories, reflecting on his career-altering neck surgeries and deflecting talk about potential retirement, was rattled, and his brilliant 2013 season, perhaps the best of his brilliant career, ended with his worst game since signing with the Broncos last year.
"We knew they were fast, it was still a matter of us doing our jobs better and we didn't do that tonight," Manning said.
And it didn't happen from the beginning. Seattle fans roared as Manning lined up for the opening snap of his third Super Bowl. It was so loud that it felt like a road game, yet the Broncos were trying to operate using Manning's cadence rather than a silent snap count.
"We weren't able to. I thought I heard him, and I snapped the ball," Ramirez said. "I was shocked. You never expect anything like that to happen. Of course I'll take full blame for that."
But it was just mistake after mistake after mistake, so many errors, by so many Broncos, that the first snap and safety will be remembered as just the first bad moment in a night filled with them for Denver, which lost 43-8.
"They came out right from the jump and punched us around. Anytime you have a team out there that punches you around, you have to punch back. it seemed like the harder we fought, the quicker we failed," Broncos cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie told USA TODAY Sports. "It was like we were in quicksand out there."
The first snap seemed to change so much for Manning, who on Saturday night received his fifth NFL MVP award.
Manning also threw two first-half interceptions, including one that was returned 69 yards for a Seattle touchdown, failed to lead the Broncos to a first down in the first quarter, and lost a fumble in the second half. Both interceptions came on poorly thrown passes – off-target wobblers Manning tossed with Seattle defenders in his face or batting at his arm.
"Certainly to finish this way is very disappointing," Manning said. "It is not an easy pill to swallow, but eventually, you have to."
Those mistakes were Manning's, but he wasn't the only Bronco to falter. Two days after Broncos head coach John Fox said in his final pre-Super Bowl news conference that the "star players have to be great in championship games," few of the Broncos who were so special in leading Denver to its first Super Bowl appearance in 15 years played well.
Seattle, much like it was when the Seahawks blew out the Broncos in a preseason game in August, were the aggressors. Broncos cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, the only Denver defensive player who had played in a prior Super Bowl, only shook his head when asked how to explain such a blowout.
Rodgers-Cromartie said he believed that a team that had already survived – and even thrived – despite the loss of five defensive starters, as well as All-Pro left tackle Ryan Clady, and spent a month without their head coach while he recovered from heart surgery, would be able to overcome Seattle's hot start.
The offensive line that had barely allowed Manning to be touched in two AFC playoff games (and hadn't allowed a sack) couldn't handle Seattle's ferocious front seven, as Manning had little time to throw and rarely looked comfortable in the pocket. Even if there was time for Manning to throw, the Broncos' receivers struggled to get open deep against Seattle's physical defensive backs.
Even the Broncos' best offensive player Sunday, receiver Demaryius Thomas, lost a fumble in the third quarter while trying to extend a 23-yard catch with a stiff-arm to kill the Broncos' first promising drive. Thomas scored the Broncos' first touchdown later in the quarter, on a 14-yard pass from Manning, but that score (and subsequent two-point conversion), only cut Seattle's lead to 36-8.
"What probably hurts more is to turn it over, and turn it over that many times, especially in this game, against a good football team," Broncos executive vice president John Elway said.
Denver's defense, meanwhile, a group that held Tom Brady and the New England Patriots and Philip Rivers and the Chargers to three points each in the first three quarters of their previous playoff games, held Seattle to a pair of early field goals and largely contained Marshawn Lynch, yet struggled against the Seahawks' passing game that was rejuvenated by the return of Percy Harvin.
"He was a factor for them, with his runs, and his speed," Rodgers-Cromartie said.
Harvin, who scored a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the second half, was dangerous on end-around and sweep plays, while Seattle's other receivers found plenty of separation from Denver's defensive backs. When Jermaine Kearse broke four tackles on his way to the end zone on a third-quarter touchdown, Denver's defense was done.
If the Broncos' were devastated by their 2012 playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens – a loss they used as motivation throughout this year – this game left the team and its fans stunned, with good reason. Denver hadn't been held to less than 20 points all season, and had never been blown out in the Manning Era. In 35 previous games, the Broncos lost only seven times, and never by more than 10 points.
"Just a total let down," left tackle Chris Clark said. "It hurts because we're way better than what we showed."
VIDEO: Manning talks about disappointing Super Bowl
Elway was Denver's quarterback the last time the Broncos were here, leading Denver to consecutive titles in 1997 and 1998. This Super Bowl though felt more like Elway's earlier trips to the Super Bowl, like the 55-10 loss to San Francisco and a 42-10 loss to Washington.
Elway shook his head when asked if Sunday felt similar.
"No, those are separate," Elway said.
Elway was young in those early losses, unlike Manning, who plans to return to the Broncos next year at age 38 to try to make another run at his elusive second Super Bowl ring. Elway didn't have much to say now that could make Manning, nor the rest of his players, feel much better.
"It's just one of those nights," Elway said. "We had a tremendous year. We'll use his and hopefully we'll learn from this and we're going to go at it again next year."
The man was found on a Marshall Islands atoll on Thursday
Castaway says he's Jose Ivan Alvarengo, 37
Man says he lived off turtles and rainwater while adrift
Companion died four weeks after pair left Mexico, Alvarengo says
(CNN) -- A mysterious castaway claiming to have been lost at sea for 13 months is now safely back on land, but many questions remain about how he could have lived on his small boat for so long as it drifted across the Pacific Ocean.
The man calling himself Jose Ivan Alvarengo turned up in a heavily damaged boat on a remote coral atoll in the Marshall Islands, claiming that he had been living off fish and turtles he had caught and relying on rainwater, and sometimes his own urine, to drink.
Authorities are trying to determine the veracity of Alvarengo's story.
He was found on sparsely populated Ebon Atoll, a 22-hour boat ride from the capital of Majuro, on Thursday. The southernmost of the Marshall Islands' atolls, Ebon has only 2.2 square miles of land, one phone line and no Internet service. The government airplane that services the atoll was not working, so Alvarengo did not make it to Majuro until Monday morning.
Alvarengo, who says he is 37, is now in a local hospital recovering from his ordeal, said U.S. Ambassador Tom Armbruster.
"He's in much better shape than one would expect after such an ordeal," Armbruster said.
"I had just killed a bird to eat and saw some trees," he is quoted as saying.
"I cried, 'Oh, God.' I got to land and had a mountain of sleep. In the morning, I woke up and heard a rooster and saw chickens and saw a small house. I saw two native women screaming and yelling. I didn't have any clothes; I was only in my underwear, and they were ripped and torn," The Telegraph quotes Alvarengo as saying.
People on the island where he was found Thursday say the 26-foot fiberglass boat was in very bad condition, covered in barnacles and with the carcasses of several turtles littering the deck.
Alvarengo claims to have set off from a port near the southwestern Mexican city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, for what was supposed to be a one-day expedition to catch sharks on December 21, 2012.
He claimed that he and a teenage companion were blown off-course by northerly winds and then caught in a storm, eventually losing use of their engines.
According to Anjenette Kattil of the Marshall Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alvarengo said that four weeks into their drift, he lost the young man because he refused to eat raw birds. There are no details on what Alvarengo did with the young man's body.
Alvarengo told the Telegraph his companion's death had him contemplating suicide.
"For four days, I wanted to kill myself. But I couldn't feel the desire; I didn't want to feel the pain. I couldn't do it," he is quoted as saying.
Kattil said Alvarengo worked for a company named Camaroneras de la Costa in Mexico. He has told authorities that he is a citizen of El Salvador but has lived in Mexico for the past 15 years and wishes to be repatriated back to Mexico.
Armbruster, the U.S. ambassador, said Alvarengo indicated that he had relatives living the United States and U.S. officials would attempt to locate them.
Government officials have been in contact with Mexico's ambassador to the Marshall Islands, who is based in the Philippines, concerning Alvarengo in hopes he can contact El Salvadoran authorities.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying it has sent personnel from its embassy in the Philippines "to learn directly about the case."
If Alvarengo's story proves true, the trip across the Pacific would have taken him across roughly 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of open ocean before ending in the Marshall Islands, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, in the northern Pacific.
Such an amazing journey isn't unheard-of in the small Pacific nation, as three Mexican fishermen made a similar drift voyage in 2006 that lasted nine months. Those men lived off fish they caught and rainwater, and they read the Bible for comfort.
Conditions in the Pacific make the timeline of Alvarengo's journey plausible, according to Judson Jones, a producer for CNN Weather.
Jones said the currents between Mexico and the Marshall Islands would have carried a boat about 27 miles (42 kilometers) a day. That would mean the journey would take about 208 days if the boat stayed in the current. But Jones said a meandering journey in and out of the currents was most likely, making a 13-month journey believable.
CNN's Nick Parker and Brad Lendon and journalist Jack Niederthal contributed to this report.
NEWARK — Cold weather in New Jersey at this time of year in unavoidable.
The frigid temperature expected for Sunday's Super Bowl in East Rutherford doesn't bode well for the pass-happy Denver Broncos offense — even more so when the Seattle ground game and top-ranked defense is factored in.
Any precipitation just adds to the Seahawks advantage in a game where a neutral playing field is the main idea.
"It's cold in Seattle, but not this cold," Seattle WR Golden Tate said at Media Day Tuesday. "I've played here before and we are definitely comfortable. I don't think it's going to effect how we play as much.
"It's not so much the cold weather, but maybe bad weather. For a receiver, if there is rain, you have to change your gloves and it's tougher to catch. You have to really focus. And if there is wind, that pushes the ball around."
The forecast has brightened some for Sunday, with game-time temps expected to hover above freezing with just a 10 percent chance of precipitation. That percentage is down from the 40 percent mark forecasters had it at earlier this week.
"We don't worry about the weather," Seahawks defensive lineman Chris Clemons said. "The weather is what it is and there is bad weather in Seattle. We don't really think weather will be a problem for us, but both teams understand that it's going to be an issue."
A man of few words, Marshawn Lynch gave his brief take on the conditions Thursday afternoon. The Seahawks running back will play a big factor regardless, but poor weather would likely force the ball into his hands early and often.
"Sounds like a fun day," he said. "I mean, I get to run into a lot of people."
Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is often criticized for his play in low-temperature games and has enough pressure on his shoulders to cement his legacy as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, to ever play the QB position. Add in a Seattle defense that boasts a secondary with standout corner Richard Sherman and safety Earl Thomas and a below 40-degree situation that Manning is just 8-11 in during his career.
"Every game takes on its own identity," Manning said Thursday. "I still think it has a lot more to do with the opponent than the elements. I've always felt that way, that if you are moving the ball or not moving the ball, it has something to do with how you are playing as an offense and how the defense is playing. I still believe that it comes down to how you are executing."
There shouldn't be any doubt that Manning can win his second Super Bowl Sunday. The playing field, however, lends the advantage to the team that reached the game by running the ball effectively and playing great defense, not the team that has one of the scariest aerial attacks in the history of the league.
"If you're running bad plays on first down, and having second and 12s and third and 10s, you are probably not moving the ball whether you are playing in 80-degree weather or playing in cold weather," Manning said. "That's what we are focusing on this week, just trying to be on top of our execution, knowing that you have to be on top of it against a defense as good as this one."
A key New Jersey Democrat said Sunday that a new accusation about Gov. Chris Christie's knowledge of the bridge closing scandal enveloping his administration is unproven and raises credibility questions about the accuser.
New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski said on NBC's Meet the Press that the allegation from former Christie ally David Wildstein that there is evidence Christie knew of the George Washington Bridge lane closings last September as they were occurring doesn't match the documents Wildstein has given the investigating committee.
Wildstein, a former Port Authority executive, "submitted over 900 pages of documents in response to the committee's subpoena. Apparently what's he talking about must be something other" than what he has already given the committee, Wisniewski said.
The New Jersey politician leading the investigation into the Chris Christie bridge scandal discusses the latest information in the case.
He added that it was "a great question" why Wildstein did not turn over to the legislative panel evidence of Christie's knowledge of or involvement in the bridge closing scheme if he in fact had any such evidence.
"It really raises questions," Wisniewski said when asked about Wildstein's credibility.
In a letter Friday to Port Authority, Alan Zegas, an attorney for Wildstein, said "evidence exists… tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly."
Christie said last month, "I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution."
In the letter, Zegas did not say what the evidence was nor did he say whether Wildstein or someone else had the evidence to which he referred.
Commenting on the Zegas letter, Wisniewski wondered about "the use of the words 'evidence exists' as opposes to saying 'I have documents" or 'I have an e-mail.' It's a curious choice of words… maybe he knows somebody else that has information, maybe this is a conversation he had."
The Democratic lawmaker added, "We don't have any proof right now that the governor said, 'Go and close the lanes.' We know that somebody who was in his office, Bridget Kelly, ordered the lane closures."
Based on the documents his committee has examined so far, Wisniewski said, "Nothing yet implicates the governor directly." He said the question remains, "Who told Bridget Kelly to close the lanes?"
Some saw the lane closings as political retribution by Christie's forces, targeting Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for not endorsing Christie's re-election bid.
Last month, appearing before the New Jersey state Assembly Transportation Committee, Wildstein invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The investigation of the lane closings has caused a severe political headache for Christie, a potential contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
But the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, came to Christie's defense Sunday on ABC's This Week. "I think he's been a fantastic governor," Ryan said. "Right now, all we know is one person's word against another. You can't base any conclusion on such a thing. And so unless something else is known or made clear, I don't see you would change what's going on right now."
Ryan said he does not think Christie should quit as head of the Republican Governors Association "because nothing has been proven, and you always give a person the benefit of the doubt in those kinds of situations."
This story was originally published on Sun Feb 2, 2014 10:56 AM EST
ROME (AP) — The judge who presided over Amanda Knox's second murder conviction says he suffered over the verdict, but that he and the jury reached agreement that she was guilty in the death of British student Meredith Kercher.
Judge Alessandro Nencini also suggested in an interview with Corriere della Sera published Saturday that the decision of Knox's ex-boyfriend and co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, not to testify may have worked against him.
''It's the defendant's right, but it certainly deprived the process of a voice,'' Nencini was quoted as saying. ''He limited himself to spontaneous declarations. He said only what he wanted to say without letting himself be cross-examined.'' Knox did not appear at the trial, but sent a letter to the court saying she feared wrongful conviction.
The newspaper said Nencini consented to the interview because he knew the sentence would create a media storm. The case has been top international news since Kercher was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit on Nov. 2, 2007, in the apartment Knox and Kercher shared in the university town of Perugia.
As the case has moved through Italy's court system, prosecutors have offered differing explanations for Kercher's killing, asserting in the first trial that Kercher was killed when an erotic game went awry and in the latest trial saying the violence was rooted in a longstanding disagreement over cleanliness. Both Sollecito and Knox deny involvement.
Nencino did not give a specific reasoning behind the verdict, saying the court settled on a motive that would be made clear in the written explanation, expected within three months.
Nenci, another judge and six lay jurors reinstated the guilty verdicts on Thursday against Knox and Sollecito that were first handed down in 2009, sentencing Knox to 28 ½ years and Sollecito to 25 for the murder. An appeals court had acquitted the pair in 2011 and ordered them freed from prison, but Italy's supreme court threw out the acquittals and ordered a third trial, in Florence.
Lawyers for both Knox and Sollecito have said they would appeal, saying there was no proof that the two had committed the crime. Knox has said she will never willingly return to Italy to serve any sentence if the verdict is upheld.
Nencini said the court worked long and hard to process what he called a ''half-room'' worth of documentation in these months. Asked if the final verdict was unanimous after 12 hours of deliberations, Nencini hedged, saying it was a ''shared'' decision.
''I can say that in all these months, and in particular in the last meeting, we sensed the gravity of a sentence against young people and entire families,'' he was quoted as saying. ''This is something that has affected many lives.''
''I feel liberated because the moment of the decision is the most difficult,'' he was quoted as saying. ''I also have children, and inflicting a sentence of 25 and 28 years on two young people is emotionally very tough.''
A third person, Rudy Guede, was convicted in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence.
Nencini hinted at what the court had found to be the most plausible explanation for what happened, saying that up until 8:15 p.m. on the night of the murder, Knox and Sollecito had other plans: In Knox's case, she was supposed to have gone to work at a bar, and Sollecito was supposed to have gone to a train station to pick up a friend's luggage.
''At the moment I can say that up until 8:15 of that evening, the kids had other plans, but they skipped them and an opportunity was created,'' Nencini was quoted as saying. ''If Amanda had gone to work, probably we wouldn't be here.''
While the changed plans that night have been well established by evidence presented to the courts, Nencini didn't explain how those details factored into a motive for the murder.
He justified not imposing any restrictive measures on Knox, who remains free in the United States. If necessary, the court would re-evaluate the measures imposed on Sollecito to prevent him from leaving the country, he said.
Sollecito had attended the morning session of Thursday's court hearing but then drove to Italy's northern frontier with Austria and Slovenia. While the judges and jury deliberated, he and his girlfriend visited Austria, but came back to Italy to spend the night.
In an interview with U.S. broadcaster NBC News on Friday, Sollecito said he wasn't trying to flee Italy by going to Austria. He said he had been planning to take a trip outside Italy if acquitted, but turned back as soon as he learned he had been convicted.Continued...
Andrew Seidman and Julia Terruso, Inquirer Staff Writers
Last updated:
Saturday, February 1, 2014, 1:08 AM
Posted:
Friday, January 31, 2014, 10:27 PM
When David Wildstein invoked the Fifth Amendment at a hearing on the same day that Gov. Christie denied involvement in the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge, Assemblyman Thomas Giblin (D., Essex) exhorted him: "Don't let David Wildstein be the fall guy."
On Friday, Wildstein seemed to comply, accusing Christie directly in the scandal now threatening his political career.
In a letter to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from Wildstein's attorney, Wildstein said evidence exists that Christie "had knowledge" about the lane closures in Fort Lee when they were occurring - something the governor denied in a statement hours later.
The criminal defense lawyer, Alan Zegas, whose clients have included longtime Newark Mayor Sharpe James, did not respond to requests for comment. James served 18 months on a fraud conviction.
Wildstein, who resigned from the Port Authority on Dec. 6, citing "the Fort Lee issue," became the catalyst for the scandal when his August e-mail correspondence with Christie's deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, discussing the lane closures was released last month.
Wildstein grew up in Livingston, N.J., and attended Livingston High School, graduating a year ahead of Christie.
While political insiders have described Wildstein as Christie's insider at the Port Authority and a fierce loyalist, Christie downplayed their friendship in his first public appearance after the scandal broke.
"David and I were not friends in high school. We were not even acquaintances in high school," Christie said at the Jan. 9 news conference. "We didn't travel in the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don't know what David was doing during that period of time, and then we reacquainted years later in, I think, 2000."
Before his Port Authority post, Wildstein was known to many as Wally Edge, a pseudonym nod to former New Jersey Gov. Walter Edge. Wildstein used the name as editor of politickerNJ, an insider website. Wildstein's identity was revealed when he took the helm of the Port Authority in 2010.
Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R., Morris) described Wildstein - whom he knew only by the pseudonym - as having "just a spectacular grasp of New Jersey political history."
In an interview this week, Carroll, who had himself been accused of being Wally Edge, said the two would correspond via AOL Instant Messenger.
"He would be up at 2 o'clock in the morning asking political trivia questions you couldn't even Google, they were that extreme," Carroll said. "He should have been writing for Boardwalk Empire," the HBO show about Atlantic City crime and politics.
Wildstein's interest in politics began early. At 16, he tried to get on the ballot to join the Essex County Republican Committee. He ran for the school board at age 17 and joined the township council at age 23. Wildstein was elected mayor of Livingston in 1987.
Thomas L. Adams, deputy mayor alongside Wildstein at the time, in December described Wildstein's term as "tumultuous."
"Sometimes David made moves that were not productive for his career. There was a lot of political bickering," said Adams, who said he has since had no contact with Wildstein. "Maybe his ambition ran too far."
Zegas is a force in the legal community. He has taught at Rutgers-Newark Law School and is a former president of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey.
He represented Bryan Grober in a case that involved the alleged assault of a mentally challenged woman by high school athletes. He also went up against Christie, then U.S. attorney, in a 2003 case against a British citizen accused of selling missiles to terrorists.
Zegas has not been shy about claiming that Wildstein has information and will present it - if protected.
In a Wall Street Journal article last month, Zegas said such information "would make for a fascinating story."
The Kercher family say they may never know what really happened to 21-year-old exchange student Meredith in the Perugia flat she shared with Amanda Knox in 2007.
She had chosen the central Italian city over Milan and Rome because she believed it would be safer.
"She fought so hard to get out there," her father John has said.
"There were quite a few setbacks but she was determined to go and kept persisting and eventually got what she wanted."
Known as Mez to her friends, Meredith saw her time in Italy as a dream trip. Her parents said she was excited about learning the language, meeting new friends and immersing herself in a different culture.
But three months after leaving the University of Leeds to start her year-long exchange in Italy, she was found dead.
The European studies student was embarking on a modern history, political theories and history of cinema course and had moved into a flat she rented with Knox.
It was there that Italian police discovered her body; she had been stabbed to death.
Knox and Sollecito were arrested in November 2007
Her flatmate and Raffaele Sollecito, Knox's then boyfriend, were convicted of the murder in 2009.
At the time, prosecutors said the pair had been involved in a sex game with Miss Kercher that had gone wrong.
They have since alleged that the murder resulted from a heated argument over cleanliness in the Perugia apartment.
Miss Kercher was found in her bedroom, partially covered by a duvet. Her throat had been cut and the bedroom door was locked but the window had been broken.
'Sociable and loving'
She was, according to an Italian she was said to have dated, a very different character to her American flatmate.
"The two were like chalk and cheese - totally opposite in character," 24-year-old Giacomo Silenzi has said.
"Meredith was calm, sweet and shy. Amanda was an extrovert and always showing off."
Described as sociable and loving by friends and family, Miss Kercher was often seen in photos smiling broadly.
She grew up in the suburb of Coulsdon, in the southern outer reaches of London.
The Kercher family have said they want justice for their sister
Before heading north for university, she was educated at the £10,000-a-year private Old Palace School in nearby Croydon.
She was the youngest of four children, with older brothers John and Lyle and sister Stephanie.
The family have kept up a campaign to find out what happened in Perugia.
"It's very difficult being without my sister," Stephanie said on hearing the news that Knox and Sollecito's guilty verdicts had been reinstated.
"There's so many things that happen that I want to tell her about or want to call her about."
Rudy Guede was convicted of murder in 2008
She says she hopes the latest ruling and the possible extradition of Knox and her former boyfriend means their ordeal is now coming to an end and they can begin to "remember Meredith".
Only one person remains in jail for her sister's murder.
Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2008 but that verdict included a ruling that he did not commit the crime alone.
And for the Kercher family, there is still no closure.
"I think we are still on a journey for the truth and it may be the fact that we don't ever really know what happened that night, which is obviously something we'll have to come to terms with," Stephanie Kercher said.
Lawyers for Knox and Sollecito have said both plan to appeal.
Ukraine's opposition on Thursday vowed further protests after defiantly rejecting an amnesty bill to free activists and ease the ex-Soviet country's worse crisis since independence.
Video provided by AFP Newslook
Olga Rudenko, Special for USA TODAY 11:51 a.m. EST January 31, 2014
KIEV, Ukraine -- Protesters praised President Viktor Yanukovych's signing into law Friday an amnesty for protesters and a repeal of anti-protest laws but said the move does not change their ultimate goal - Yanukovych's ouster.
"People came out onto the streets not for the amnesty, and not out of desire to riot," said Viktor Andrusiv, a protestor in Kiev. "They have demands – the resignation of the Yanukovych, government and the punishing those who are guilty (of violence against the protestors). All this still needs to be negotiated."
The new law offers protesters amnesty if they leave the government buildings they have been occupying and stop filling the streets with demonstrations. Protesters currently hold one city hall in Kiev and 10 governor's offices, mostly in the western regions of Ukraine. They also occupy several non-government buildings in the central Kiev.
Some political leaders opposed to Yanukovych call the deal "the hostages law," as did protesters.
"The amnesty is good for the families of detained protesters but for everyone else it's just a step in the direction of repression," said Olexander Kravchenko, a protester from Kiev. "If people vacate the buildings, the arrests will start. I will be arrested, too, for an insulting banner about prime minister I made for the protest."
Since the protests began in late November, hundreds of thousands have taken to the street to demonstrate against Yanukovych's drift away from ties with Europe and toward closer relations with Russia.
Ukraine, Europe's second-largest country, declared independence in the 1990s from Russia's previous incarnation, the Communist Soviet Union. Protesters want to align the country with democratic nations in Europe, and not a Russia government under authoritarian President Vladimir Putin.
Yanukovych aggravated the forces for stronger ties to Europe with his decision to reject a long-planned political and economic treaty with the European Union and instead accept a bailout and gas delivery package from Russia.
The protests that began in November had remained largely peaceful but turned violent last week as protesters clashed with police, leading to at least four deaths, according to police, although others say the toll is higher. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested as well.
Even so, the protesters won the resignation of the Prime Minister, Mykola Azarov, earlier this week as well as the repeal of a law restricting protests. But protesters insist they are not done. They say they want not only the resignation of the president, new elections and political reforms.
"The amnesty law shows that government doesn't understand what is going on and sees the protest as a small group of people who are upset," says Andrusiv. "But people's positions have not changed – they will make a stand to the end."
Meanwhile, police on Friday opened an investigation into the kidnapping of an opposition activist, who said he was held captive for more than a week and tortured in the latest in a string of mysterious attacks on anti-government protesters in the two-month-long political crisis.
Dmytro Bulatov, 35, a member of Automaidan, a group of car owners that has taken part in the protests against Yanukovych, vanished Jan. 22. Bulatov was discovered outside Kiev on Thursday.
He said his kidnappers beat him severely, drove nails into his hands, sliced off a piece of ear and cut his face. He said he was kept in the dark all the time and could not identify the kidnappers. After more than a week of beatings, they eventually dumped him in a forest.
"They crucified me, they nailed down my hands. They cut off my ear, they cut my face. There isn't a spot on my body that hasn't been beaten," Bulatov said on Channel 5 television. "Thank God, I am alive."
Bulatov's face and clothes were covered in clotted blood, his hands were swollen and bore the marks of nails. Opposition leader Petro Poroshenko rushed to the hospital where Bulatov was taken Thursday night.
"Dmytro asked to pass his greetings to everyone and to say that he has not been broken and will not be broken," a grim-looking Poroshenko told Channel 5. "That he is full of energy and despite the fact that his body has been beaten, Dmytro's spirit is strong."
Oleksiy Hrytsenko, Bulatov's friend and fellow activist, said Automaidan members had come under tremendous pressure during the protests with their cars burnt and activists detained, harassed and threatened.
Bulatov disappeared one day after Igor Lutsenko, another prominent opposition activist who had also gone missing, was discovered after being taken to the woods and beaten severely by unknown attackers.Lutsenko was kidnapped from a hospital, where he had brought a fellow protester, Yuri Verbitsky, to be treated for an eye injury. Verbitsky was also beaten severely and was later discovered dead.
The disappearances prompted an outcry from protesters, who accused the government of intimidating the opposition.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton issued a statement saying she was "appalled by the obvious signs of prolonged torture and cruel treatment" of Bulatov. She also condemned the death of Verbitsky.
"These are but two cases of the continuous deliberate targeting of organizers and participants of peaceful protests," Ashton said. "All such acts are unacceptable and must immediately be stopped."
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), one of the most prolific and successful lawmakers of the modern era, has decided to retire at the end of this congressional session.
"Forty years have gone by very quickly. I have a great deal of satisfaction in our legislative accomplishments. There's obviously more to be done," Waxman, 74, said Wednesday in an interview. "But I'm in good health, and my family is in good health. This is a good time to move on and have another chapter if I am to do anything after Congress."
The walls of his suite in the Rayburn House Office Building are covered with picture frames holding pens that were used by every president since Jimmy Carter to sign legislation that Waxman played a crucial role in writing.
Among that legislation were laws to make infant formula safer and more nutritious (1980), bring low-priced generic drugs to market (1984), clean the air (1990), provide services and medical care to people with AIDS (1996), and reform and modernize the Postal Service (2006). He was also instrumental in the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
The secret to effective legislating, Waxman said, is "you outlast [the opposition]. You keep working. You keep looking for combinations."
"Everything I ever passed into law, with one exception, had bipartisan support," he added. "And the exception was the Affordable Care Act, where the Republicans should have been working with us but didn't want to give President Obama a victory, even though the law was based on a lot of Republican ideas." (Waxman had once advocated a single-payer, Canadian-style health-care system.)
Many Republicans would disagree with the unapologetically liberal Los Angeles congressman's assessment of himself as a builder of bridges across the aisle.
For all the finesse he showed at writing laws as he rose on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Waxman was also legendarily aggressive in his role as the Democrats' chief inquisitor on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
With one of the most highly regarded staffs on Capitol Hill, he led investigations that delved into the tobacco-industry marketing practices, the use of steroids in professional sports, the 2008 collapse of Wall Street and the flawed intelligence that was used to justify the Iraq war.
Bald, soft-spoken and standing only 5 foot 5, Waxman appears surprisingly unintimidating for one who was dubbed the "Democrats' Eliot Ness" by the liberal Nation magazine. The answer to a 2012 "Jeopardy!" question about him was: "The mustache of justice."
The scope and number of legislative achievements that Waxman can claim — through Democrats and Republicans in the White House, and while serving in both the majority and minority in the House — would seem nearly unimaginable in today's gridlocked, polarized Congress.
But he insisted that his decision to leave Congress was not the result of frustration or the fact that Democrats appear unlikely to regain the House in 2014.
"Things are always difficult," Waxman insisted.
"For the most part, those laws have been very important and successful and are now taken for granted," he said of his accomplishments. "People don't realize that it was a big fight over many years to get a Clean Air Act adopted and signed, which is one of the most effective environmental laws that we have ever had in this country. And it took a long time just to get nutritional-labeling information so that people can follow their diets and control what they eat.
"Even the HIV/AIDS legislation known as the Ryan White act was not accomplished for almost a decade after we held our first hearings just to find out what was going on when gay men were dying from a rare cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma, and no one knew why this was happening and seemed to be happening in geometric progression," Waxman recalled.
Waxman's departure also marks the end of an era. He and fellow Californian George Miller, who announced his retirement this month — are the last two continuously serving House Democrats from the huge class of "Watergate babies" elected in 1974, just three months after President Richard M. Nixon resigned.
Seventy-five Democrats in all and half younger than 40, they were hailed as a reform-minded generation that would upset the old order and remake Washington.
In their first years in office, they toppled three change-resistant Democratic committee chairmen, which was a nearly unheard of act of insubordination.
They also passed laws, such as the War Powers Resolution and the Budget and Impoundment Control Act, which were designed to give Congress more say in domestic matters and national security.
But by Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the center of political gravity had swung back to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Yet Waxman found ways to expand programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, even as Reagan was cutting taxes and taking aim at social programs.
"The sine qua non of Henry's accomplishments came during the Reagan administration," said congressional scholar Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. "It wasn't just holding the line. He managed to get half a loaf here and half a loaf there, and he wound up with a bigger loaf of bread for things he cared about. It wasn't that he had a lot of leverage. He just knew how to negotiate."
Republicans will mull proposals to overhaul the nation's immigration system Thursday, casting a new spotlight on possible reforms that have been stalled in Congress since last year.
Jim Watson / AFP - Getty Images
Speaker of the House John Boehner (R), R-Ohio, speaks during the House Republican Leadership press conference at the House Republican Issues Conference in Cambridge, Maryland, January 30, 2014.
House Speaker John Boehner told reporters Thursday morning that the issue of immigration has "been turned into a political football."
"I think it's time to deal with it, but how we deal with it is going to be critically important," he said.
Thursday is a key day for the reform debate, as GOP House members huddle at a retreat in Maryland to discuss their strategies on immigration and the debt ceiling.
Leaders are expected to discuss broad "principles" for immigration reform with Republican members later Thursday afternoon.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said on MSNBC Wednesday that those principles will include allowing undocumented immigrants to receive "probationary status" and the ability to work while border security criteria are being implemented.
Rep. Paul Ryan joins Chuck Todd to give his reaction on the State of the Union and talk about the Republican retreat, where they will circulate a framework for legal status, but not citizenship, for undocumented immigrants.
"If those things are met -- you satisfy the terms of your probation, you're not on welfare, you pay a fine, you learn English and civics, and the border's been secured and Interior enforcement independently verified -- then you can get a regular work permit," he said. "And if you want to get in line to get a green card, like any other immigrant, you can do that, you just have to get at the back of the line so that we preference that legal immigrant who did things right in the first place."
Boehner repeated Thursday that border security is the "first step in meaningful reform."
"Listen, you can't begin to process of immigration reform without securing our borders and the ability to enforce our laws," he said.
But forging such legislation will be a high-wire act for pro-reform House Republicans, who are mindful that their support from Latinos will likely continue to shrink if they are perceived as jamming an overhaul of outdated laws.
A sizable block of conservatives are resisting those proposed changes, saying that such "amnesty" would be unfair to American workers and legal immigrants.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a leading opponent of the Senate-passed immigration bill that stalled in the House last year, distributed a memo to House Republicans this week outlining why the proposal would be a "hammer blow to the American middle class."
Opponents like Sessions say that an influx of new legal workers would flood the labor market and drive up American unemployment. And some of the most strident critics of the Obama administration argue that – even if any new law included tough requirements for border security before legalization could go into effect – the federal government can't be trusted to enforce the law.
Ryan alluded to that concern Wednesday, saying that Republicans "want to make sure that we write a law that [Obama] can't avoid, meaning with respect to securing the border and interior enforcement."
Even if the GOP leadership proposal garners support from a majority of Republicans in the GOP-dominated House, however, it faces an additional test: whether it goes far enough for Democrats.
Many longtime Democratic advocates of immigration reform say that any proposal that bars undocumented workers from eventually obtaining citizenship – either directly or by requiring unrealistic border security criteria to be met before the citizenship process can begin -- would be unacceptable.
President Barack Obama offered few specifics in his State of the Union address, giving Republicans a wide berth as they begin their discussions.
"If we are serious about economic growth, it is time to heed the call of business leaders, labor leaders, faith leaders, and law enforcement – and fix our broken immigration system," Obama said. "Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have acted. I know that members of both parties in the House want to do the same."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also struck an optimistic note this week, telling reporters she believes that Republicans are acting 'in "good faith" while working on the principles for reform.
"I'm assured by the speaker that they will be good and acceptable to probably all of us and I hope that is the case," she said.
This story was originally published on Thu Jan 30, 2014 11:46 AM EST
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM131.59 per gramme, up RM1.68 from RM129.91 at 5pm yesterday.-- Bernama
Short-term interbank rates are likely to remain stable today following Bank Negara Malaysia's intervention to absorb excess liquidity from the financial system.
The central bank estimated today's liquidity at RM30.561 billion in the conventional system and RM11.699 billion in Islamic funds.
Bank Negara will conduct a RM7 billion range maturity auction for five days to 60 days and two repo tenders comprising RM300 million for 29 days and RM700 million for 60 days.
The bank will also call for a RM3.5 billion Wadiah tender for seven days to 43 days.
At 4pm, the central bank will conduct up to RM22.6 billion in conventional overnight tenders and a RM8.2 billion Al-Wadiah overnight tender.-- Bernama
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