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Sunday, October 27, 2013

Georgia votes for president to succeed Saakashvili

Georgian Dream ruling coalition's presidential candidate Georgy Margvelashvili, left, kisses his daughter Anna, outside a polling station during presidential election in Tbilisi, Georgia, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. Georgians are voting Sunday for a president to succeed Mikhail Saakashvili, who during nearly a decade in power has turned this former Soviet republic into a fledgling democracy and a staunch U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Georgy Abdaladze)

Georgian woman crouches as she leaves a voting booth during the presidential election in Tbilisi, Georgia, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. Georgians are voting Sunday for a president to succeed Mikhail Saakashvili, who during nearly a decade in power has turned this former Soviet republic into a fledgling democracy and and a staunch U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Georgian woman and her son cast a ballot at a polling station in the presidential election in Tbilisi, Georgia, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. Georgians are voting Sunday for a president to succeed Mikhail Saakashvili, who during nearly a decade in power has turned this former Soviet republic into a fledgling democracy and a staunch U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Georgy Abdaladze)

Georgians cast their ballots in the presidential election in Tbilisi, Georgia, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. Georgians are voting Sunday for a president to succeed Mikhail Saakashvili, who during nearly a decade in power has turned this former Soviet republic into a fledgling democracy and and a staunch U.S. ally. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgians voted Sunday for a president to succeed Mikhail Saakashvili, who during nearly a decade in power has turned this former Soviet republic into a fledgling democracy and a staunch U.S. ally.

For Saakashvili, it's a bitter departure. The vote is expected to cement the control of his rival, billionaire Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose coalition routed Saakashvili's party in a parliamentary election a year ago.

Ivanishvili's chosen candidate, Giorgi Margvelashvili, a former university rector with little political experience, is expected to win Sunday's election. But much uncertainty remains.

Ivanishvili has promised to step down next month and nominate a new prime minister, who is almost certain to be approved by parliament. Under Georgia's new parliamentary system, the next prime minister will acquire many of the powers previously held by the president.

Ivanishvili has not yet named his choice to lead the country. And he says he intends to maintain influence over the government, although how is not entirely clear. But his fortune, estimated at $5.3 billion, gives him considerable leverage in this country of 4.5 million people with a gross domestic product of $16 billion.

Much uncertainty also hangs over Saakashvili's future. Since last year's election and what was in effect a transfer of power, dozens of people from Saakashvili's team, including several former government ministers, have been hit with criminal charges and some have been jailed, including the former prime minister.

Ivanishvili confirmed in an interview with The Associated Press that Saakashvili also is likely to be questioned by prosecutors once he leaves office next month.

Prosecutors have reopened a criminal inquiry into the 2005 death of Zurab Zhvania, who was Saakashvili's first prime minister. Zhvania's death was attributed to accidental carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty gas heater, but his brother has accused Saakashvili of hiding the truth.

Saakashvili also may face questioning over the 2008 war with Russia, which ended with Russian troops in full control of two breakaway Georgian republics. His opponents accuse him of needlessly antagonizing Russia and giving Moscow a pretext to invade.

Saakashvili repeated Sunday that he has no plans to flee the country. "No one can forbid me either to leave the country or to stay, but I do not intend to leave Georgia," he told television journalists while jogging along the Black Sea coast in western Georgia.

His party needs its candidate, former parliamentary speaker David Bakradze, to finish a strong second among the 23 candidates to maintain political influence. Bakradze now leads the opposition faction in parliament.

Bakradze faces the biggest challenge from Nino Burdzhanadze, a veteran politician who boasts of good relations with Moscow and has called for Saakashvili to be jailed.

While Ivanishvili made his money in Russia and has had some success in restoring trade ties with Georgia's hostile neighbor, he has maintained the pro-Western course set by Saakashvili.

"Nobody can change this. This is the will of the Georgian people, to see their country in the EU and in NATO," said Alexi Petriashvili, one of Ivanishvili's ministers. "The majority see the U.S. as Georgia's strongest strategic partner."

If not for Washington, Georgia most likely wouldn't have survived as an independent state, Petriashvili told the AP. He pointed to Washington's support for the closing of Russian military bases in Georgia in 2005.

The U.S. supports Georgia diplomatically and financially, with assistance in 2013 totaling about $70 million.

Ivanishvili's government has come under pressure from U.S. and EU officials to show that the justice system isn't being used to settle political scores and to refrain from jailing Saakashvili.

Many Georgians became deeply disillusioned with what they saw as the excesses and authoritarian turn of the later years of Saakashvili's presidency.

The achievements of the early years, however, are difficult to deny. Saakashvili brought the economy out of the shadow, restored electricity supplies, eradicated a corrupt traffic police force, and laid the foundation for a democratic state.

Georgia's GDP has quadrupled since Saakashvili became president after leading the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution.

"Yes, everyone forgot how we sat in the darkness and what kind of roads we had," Marina Vezirishvili, 46, said after voting in Tbilisi. "But just so you know, I'm not a member of Misha's party and I didn't vote for their candidate."

Saakashvili, commonly known as Misha, has earned wide international respect for allowing the government to change through the ballot box rather than through revolution for the first time in Georgia's post-Soviet history.

"We have to recognize, whatever our position is inside Georgian political fights, that Georgia has been a great example," said Joao Soares, head of an election monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-27-Georgia-Election/id-1f6d71f5c27347e9b5b9f507dea41439
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Pastor who banned fried chicken leads Mississippi Obamacare push

By Julie Steenhuysen

HERNANDO, Mississippi (Reuters) - When Dr Michael Minor first became pastor at Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Hernando, Mississippi, in 1996, he discovered a population overcome by an epidemic of obesity.

"It was so bad, I was having a funeral every weekend," he said.

Minor took dramatic action for a Southern preacher, banning fried chicken at church potlucks and setting up a walking track around the church perimeter.

He has had marked success. "You can see the difference. People are much better sized, way better. And once they get it off, they want to keep it off," he said.

Now he is taking on the much bigger task of trying to get the state's nearly 275,000 uninsured people to sign up for health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

With technology problems dogging enrollment on Obamacare health insurance exchanges, the roles of people like Minor are becoming increasingly crucial in determining the success or failure of President Barack Obama's healthcare law.

His church is one of only two organizations in the state to get a federal "navigator" grant to help the state's uninsured sign up for policies provided through Obamacare.

He has his work cut out for him.

Mississippi ranked last in a 2012 study comparing the health of the states, tying with Louisiana, and consistently ranks at the top for rates of obesity and diabetes.

The local political environment has been far from friendly to Obamacare. Republican-led Mississippi rejected federal funds for an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor - while its application for a state-based exchange was rejected by Washington, leaving it to use the faulty federal exchange.

"That man is essentially heading up outreach enrollment of the ACA for Mississippi. It's staggering," said Roy Mitchell, executive director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program.

Mitchell and other health advocates initially wondered just how this pastor of a tiny church on the Northwestern edge of the state won its grant.

"I applied for it," said the 48-year-old Harvard graduate and health advocate who grew up just miles away in the town of Coldwater.

"I'm a firm believer that people are limited because someone tells them they are limited," Minor said. "I tell my members we can do whatever we want to do. Let's just go for it."

'NO FRY ZONE'

In the foyer of Oak Hill Baptist hangs a picture of Minor and his wife, Lottie, in the White House, a proud reminder of the heights this tiny church of 100 or so has already reached under his leadership. His efforts caught the attention of First Lady Michelle Obama, who in 2009 invited Minor to help promote her "Let's Move" anti-obesity campaign and has invited him to the White House on several occasions.

Off to the side is a room housing a machine donated by the American Heart Association that allows parishioners to get regular readings of their blood pressure and body-mass index.

In the church kitchen hangs a plaque reminding the congregation that it is a "No Fry Zone," a sign of the church's commitment to offer healthier fare at church gatherings.

"It's a symbol, especially with people of color," Minor said of the ban on fried chicken. "You've got to rally around symbols."

Seeing the success in his own congregation, Minor began expanding his gospel of healthy living. His church started sending teams of "health ambassadors" and health professionals to make regular checks on people in rural areas in the Mississippi delta, the poorest region in the poorest state in America.

He started organizing ushers in Northwest Mississippi to promote health among churches in the region, an effort that has grown into a national outreach program through the National Baptist Convention, the largest predominantly African-American Christian denomination in the United States.

Minor sees his work promoting health-care reform as a natural next step. "The ACA fits a niche," he said.

"The way we see it is, we're already doing a decent job with the spiritual aspect of it. The ACA affords us the opportunity to rescue the body and the mind."

HEAVY LIFTING

As a navigator, Minor's initial plan was to recruit ministers in the 41 counties in the Mississippi delta, but when he realized that the other group with federal navigator funding, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, was initially only planning to target current and past patients, Minor decided to set up a statewide network.

To stretch his $317,742 grant, Minor joined forces with Cover Mississippi, a network of consumer and patient advocacy groups and community health centers organized by the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program.

Building awareness will be critical. According to a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released last month, two-thirds of the uninsured said they did not have enough information about the law to know how it will impact their families. And a survey commissioned by the MHAP of nearly 1,000 residents who would be eligible to buy insurance on the exchanges showed that three-fourths did not know enrollment began October 1.

The U.S. government has not released figures on how many people have signed up so far, but Chad Feldman, who's leading the navigator program at UMMC, said the center has assisted more than 3,000 people, including 1,000 phone calls and more than 2,000 visits.

"The Mississippians we are interacting with are very interested. People are engaged and wanting to learn more," Feldman said.

The hospital has been reaching out to the 200 or so uninsured patients who seek treatment at the hospital each day, and early next year it plans to use its telemedicine network to offer video counseling to walk people through the application process in 100 sites across the state.

That would mean there would be no in-person navigators in some of the state's neediest counties.

So Minor has spent the past three weeks patching together a network of patient advocacy groups and church volunteers, who have gone through the needed 20 hours of navigator training, with the blessing of the Department of Health and Human Services.

He is also tapping into the network of some 20 community health centers and organizations that shared nearly $2.5 million in federal grants to become certified application counselors - trained individuals stationed in health centers that can offer face-to-face enrollment assistance.

As of last week, Minor and his coalition partners had built a network of 75 to 100 navigators and counselors.

"I was so happy I jumped up and down," he said. "We have navigators within an hour's drive of everywhere in the state."

The coalition crosses denominational lines and racial and ethnic lines. "People are just so excited," he said.

Minor's organization will be hitting its stride around the second week of November, when he expects to be signing up thousands of people for coverage that begins on January 1. The plan is to organize enrollment events ahead of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in the hopes that people will share their good news during family gatherings.

"We feel like once you get people in churches and families, they will become de facto navigators," he said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Prudence Crowther)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pastor-banned-fried-chicken-leads-mississippi-obamacare-push-120227102.html
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'Zombie' Tea Party Won't Stay Dead

With the predictability of Halloween decorations flooding your local CVS, the Tea Party is once again being pronounced dead. Unable to defund Obamacare, unhappy about funding the government, the far right’s nihilist wing has nowhere to go but the grave.

Or so we are told. But in a very seasonal irony, it won’t stay buried.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/24/039zombie039_tea_party_won039t_stay_dead_318554.html
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More evidence buyers are shunning Windows Phone: Carrier discounts

What's going on with discounted prices for Windows Phone 8 smartphones like the recently launched Samsung ATIV S Neo and Nokia's Lumia 1020?

Carriers won't say much, but they seem to be clearing their shelves of excess smartphone stock that's getting stale by cutting prices for some Windows Phone 8 phones that have been on the market for barely two months.

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In one example, AT&T on Thursday said it would begin selling the Samsung ATIV S Neo for $99.99 with a two-year contract starting Nov. 8. The 4.77-in. Neo will be AT&T's first Windows Phone 8 smartphone from Samsung and will run on the carrier's 4G LTE network.

At that price, the Neo has plenty going for it, but Sprint is now offering the same smartphone for half of AT&T's price, $49.99, plus a two-year contract.

What's more, the Neo first went on sale at Sprint on Aug. 16, when Sprint charged $149.99 with a two-year contract and a rebate. Sprint had already been selling the HTC 8XT, also with Windows Phone 8, in July for $99.99 with rebate and a two-year agreement.

Nokia is normally the big name associated with Windows Phone 8, making about 80 percent of such devices, including the Lumia 1020 with a 41-megapixel camera.

AT&T put the Lumia 1020 on sale exclusively in the U.S. for $299.99 and a two-year agreement in August. But now, AT&T is selling the Nokia Lumia 1020 for just $199.99 online.

AT&T will also be the exclusive U.S. carrier of the coming Nokia Lumia 1520 with its 6-in. display, also on Windows Phone 8, the carrier revealed earlier this week.

So, are the discounted prices really that significant -- possibly a sign of Windows Phone 8 weakness in the U.S.? Or are the discounts part of a wider pattern caused by having so many smartphones on various platforms with an array of new features hitting the market at the same time?

And why would AT&T begin selling the ATIV S Neo, weeks after rival Sprint did, when a phone's shelf life is considered to be so short?

The answers to these questions are somewhat obscure. To be sure, carriers constantly adjust prices for many smartphones -- especially the slower selling ones --as they recognize that new models, such as the iPhone 5S, will capture buyers' attention of buyers for just a few hurried weeks before year-end sales come to a close.

In such a crowded and fast-paced marketplace, Windows Phone 8 will suffer heavily because it has only 3.3 percent market share, according to research firm Gartner's numbers for the second quarter. Gartner placed Windows Phone 8 third behind phones running the Android mobile operating system and Apple's iOS, but ahead of BlackBerry for the first time.

Analysts theorized that Samsung could be reaching out to AT&T for sales of the ATIV S Neo by offering the carrier some sort of discounted wholesale price to reduce Samsung inventory.

Meanwhile, Sprint's discount on the same phone could be Sprint's way to quickly reduce its own ATIV S Neo inventory. Sprint offered an explanation on Thursday for its Neo discount of 66 percent, indicating concern for its cost-conscious customers. "Sprint is regularly reviewing our product pricing to be sure our offerings are as accessible as possible for our customers," a spokesman said.

Source: http://podcasts.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/more-evidence-buyers-are-shunning-windows-phone-carrier-discounts-229566?source=rss_mobile_technology
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China Fights Choking Smog With New Regulations

China's central and local governments are releasing a slew of new regulations aimed at cutting severe air pollution and mitigating its deadly effect on citizens. The seriousness of the problem is obvious in China's northeast, where smog in one city this week cut visibility down to a few yards, and particulate matter soared to 60 times the level deemed safe by the World Health Organization.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish.

Cool autumn temperatures are moving into Northeast China. And Sunday, many cities turned on their coal-fired heating systems for the first time this season. This contributed to severe air pollution, which has largely shut down Harbin, a city of 11 million people. China has recently announced new regulations aimed at cutting smog and mitigating its deadly effect on citizens.

But as NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing, any fundamental solution seems a long way off.

(SOUNDBITE OF A ROADWAY)

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Schools, highways and airports remain closed for a second day in the city of Harbin. State television showed images of cars with flashing hazard lights and pedestrians wearing face masks, appearing and disappearing in a thick grey miasma. A mix of soot, dust and other tiny particles, that get into people's lungs, was recorded at levels as high as 60 times the concentration of the World Health Organization considers safe.

Many officials are blaming this emergency in part on the weather. Fang Li, the vice director of Beijing's Environmental Protection Agency, spoke at a press conference in the capital.

FANG LI: (Through translator) The heavy pollution in Harbin is due to weather conditions. We have noticed that the entire northeastern region is shrouded in heavy fog. Under these conditions, it's not easy for these pollutants to dissipate.

KUHN: Indeed, there has been no strong winds and heavy rain to lower wash the manmade pollution away. Today, Fang outlined the Chinese capital's new plan for dealing with pollution emergencies. After three days of heavy pollution, schools will close; factories will scale back production; and private cars will only be allowed on the roads on alternating days, depending on their license plates.

LI: (Foreign language spoken)

KUHN: And when it really gets smoggy, Fang added, the capital will also ban fireworks and barbecues.

Before last year, China did not disclose detailed data about air pollution. The Chinese language did not even have a word for smog until very recently. Wang Jingjing is vice director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. She displays a map which shows that most of the pollution in China comes from industry.

WANG JINGJING: (Through translator) We can see that there are more than 4,100 major sources of air pollution. These sources emit more than 65 percent of all the sulfur dioxide, nitrides and particulate matter.

KUHN: Wang welcomes a series of recently announced government plans to tackle pollution. Last month, China announced a plan to cut its coal consumption to below 65 percent of primary energy use by 2017 - a reduction of less than 2 percent in five years. She says China's government is determined to avoid the mistakes the West made when it industrialized.

JINGJING: (Through translator) We've seen the historical experiences and lessons that have come before. We don't want to take that path. We must control the pollution beforehand, instead of cleaning up afterwards.

KUHN: Whatever is learned from the West's experienced, it seems clear that China already faces a lengthy process of cleaning up its air, land and water.

Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NprProgramsATC/~3/LigaaF1TskA/story.php
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'Maria' case raises fears of booming baby fraud

In this police handout photo taken on Thursday , Oct. 17, 2013, Christos Salis, 39, right, and his companion Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40, or Selini Sali — as the woman has two separate sets of identity papers. pose with the little girl only known as "Maria" in the Larisa regional police headquarters, Greece. Police in Greece have released the photographs of a couple alleged adductors of a girl known “Maria” after they were formally taken onto pre-trial custody and an international search for the girl’s parents intensified. (AP Photo/Greek Police)

In this police handout photo taken on Thursday , Oct. 17, 2013, Greek Roma, Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40, or Selini Sali —a woman who has two separate sets of identity papers. is seen in the Larisa regional police headquarters, Greece. Dimopoulou and her companion have been charged with abducting a little girl found living with them in a Gypsy settlement. Police in Greece on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, have released the photographs of a couple alleged adductors of a girl known “Maria” after they were formally taken onto pre-trial custody and an international search for the girl’s parents intensified. (AP Photo/Greek Police)

In this police handout photo taken on Thursday , Oct. 17, 2013, Greek Roma, or Gypsy, man Christos Salis, 39, is seen in the Larisa regional police headquarters, Greece. Salis and his companion have been charged with abducting a little girl found living with them in a Gypsy settlement. Police in Greece on Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, have released the photographs of a couple alleged adductors of a girl known “Maria” after they were formally taken onto pre-trial custody and an international search for the girl’s parents intensified. (AP Photo/Greek Police)

Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Council of Europe, speaks to The Associated Press in an interview at the start of his two-day visit to Athens, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Greek lawmakers are to vote late Tuesday on a proposal to suspend state funding for political parties accused of criminal activities, a measure targeting the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn group. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Prosecutors across Greece were ordered Tuesday to conduct emergency checks of birth records from the past six years, after the arrest of a Gypsy couple on suspicion of abducting a little girl triggered fears of widespread welfare fraud.

The blond-haired, fair-skinned girl, known as Maria and believed to be 5 or 6, drew the attention of police during a raid on a Gypsy camp last week because she looked unlike the couple raising her. DNA tests showed they were not her biological parents as claimed on her birth certificate.

The mystery of the girl's identity has attracted the interest of investigators and parents involved in missing-child cases around the world. The case has also raised concern among human rights groups that Europe's Roma, or Gypsy, community is being unfairly targeted.

The Gypsy camp suspects, Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40, and Christos Salis, 39, received more than 2,500 euros ($3,420) in monthly welfare payments after declaring they had 14 children, eight of whom are unaccounted for and presumed not to exist, authorities said. They were jailed on charges of abduction and document fraud.

They deny the abduction allegations, claiming they received Maria from a destitute woman to raise as their own.

A Supreme Court prosecutor ordered a review of thousands of birth certificates issued after Jan. 1, 2008, amid growing criticism that the country's birth registration system is wide open to abuse.

Families cheating the welfare system typically declare the same birth in multiple cities or produce false birth certificates for children who may not exist.

Up until five months ago, there was no central national registry, so births declared in different municipalities were not cross-checked.

"The case of the underage girl Maria does not appear to be an isolated one," the order signed by prosecutor Efterpi Koutzamani said.

Benefit fraud has become a powerful issue in Greece, which is suffering through its sixth year of recession and has an unemployment rate of nearly 28 percent. Most Greeks have seen their income and pensions drastically cut since the country was bailed out in 2010.

Police spotted Maria during one of dozens of raids they have carried out on Roma camps in the past few weeks in a crackdown on drug smuggling and burglary gangs.

Police said Maria's birth was falsely declared in Athens by Dimopoulou in 2009, but they did not elaborate. A charity in charge of the girl's temporary care said a dental examination indicated she is 5 or 6, not 4 as originally thought. It is not even certain the child was born in Greece.

Her DNA has been entered into an Interpol database to check for matches.

On Monday, the mayor of Athens suspended three officials in charge of record-keeping after an emergency review revealed multiple instances of birth certificates issued without proper documentation.

In Ireland on Monday, police seized a young blond girl from a Romanian Gypsy couple in Dublin in a move spurred by the case in Greece.

The couple said the 7-year-old child was theirs, but a Dublin maternity hospital they cited had no record of the birth. No arrests have been made.

Europe's top human rights official said he is worried about a possible backlash against the Roma.

"Of course it is a danger," said Thorbjoern Jagland, secretary general of the Council of Europe. "If a Roma family, a Roma people are involved in this, this should not lead to condemnation of the whole Roma society."

___

AP writers Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Nicholas Paphitis in Athens and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-22-Greece-Mystery%20Girl/id-c39b142f927d4173accd8197dc298fa2
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LinkedIn tool shares user info on iPhone email

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — LinkedIn just gave its users another reason to ensure their resumes are up to date. The online professional network has introduced a mobile feature that shows information about people's careers in emails being read on iPhones.

The tool, called Intro, pulls details from the profiles of LinkedIn's more than 238 million users so the recipient of an email can learn more about the sender.

The information will be limited to what the email senders already allow anyone to be seen on their LinkedIn accounts, unless they already have granted the recipient broader access through a connection on the service.

The feature released Wednesday works with Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail and Apple Inc.'s iCloud when any of them are plugged into the iPhone's built-in email app. LinkedIn Corp. plans to update the feature so it also works with Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook.com and Exchange email. It's available at https://intro.linkedin.com/ .

Intro also works on Apple Inc.'s iPad, although the feature isn't tailored for that device. LinkedIn eventually will release a version of Intro designed especially for the tablet format.

LinkedIn imported the technology powering the Intro feature from its acquisition last year of Rapportive, a startup that had already been mining online social networks to include personal information in correspondence sent to Gmail accounts.

Intro is part of LinkedIn's push to make its network indispensable on mobile devices as more people manage their personal and professional lives on smartphones and tablets.

LinkedIn says about 38 percent of the traffic to it networking services now comes through mobile devices, up from just 8 percent in early 2011. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner predicted Wednesday that mobile devices would be reeling in more than half the service's traffic at some point next year.

As part of its effort to make its network more alluring on mobile, LinkedIn also released a new version of its service's app for the iPad.

LinkedIn's strategy has been paying off since the company went public nearly two-and-half years ago. The Mountain View, Calif. company has consistently been delivering earnings that exceed analyst projections, helping to lift its stock by more than five-fold from its initial public offering price of $45.

The shares shed $3.60 to $241.35 in Wednesday afternoon trading, as the broader markets ticked down..

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-23-LinkedIn-Email%20Intro/id-374c55e19a154efda29c761d7542dea2
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