'Warrior monk' at center of growing scandal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Marine Corps General John Allen, the soberly formal, spit-and-polish head of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, is not a military leader whose image immediately conjures up the word "flirtatious."

The four-star general, who succeeded General David Petraeus last year as head of the International Security Assistance Force, is known for his ability to work with tribal sheikhs, a skill that helped him turn the tide against al Qaeda in Anbar Province in Iraq five years ago and has served him well in Afghanistan.

So the news that Allen, a 36-year veteran of the Marine Corps, had been snared in the same investigation that prompted the resignation of Petraeus as CIA director last week was greeted with surprise at the Pentagon and elsewhere in Washington.

John Ullyot, who served under Allen at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in 1993, said he was all about "setting the example" for those under him and it was "hard for anyone who ever served under Allen" to believe he had been pulled into the probe.

Allen, who is married and has two daughters, "was known as a kind of warrior monk," said Ullyot, who was a spokesman for former U.S. Senator John Warner, a Republican who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Allen's connection to the probe that snared Petraeus was revealed early on Tuesday when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced he was putting Allen's nomination as head of U.S. European Command on hold pending an investigation.

A senior U.S. defense official said Panetta had asked the Defense Department's inspector general to investigate what the Pentagon called "inappropriate communication" between Allen and Jill Kelley, a Tampa, Florida socialite who is involved in volunteer causes that support the military.

Kelley is the woman who told the FBI she had received anonymous harassing emails about Petraeus. The FBI investigation into the emails uncovered an extramarital affair between Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, who was found to be the source of the emails to Kelley, officials have said.

The FBI investigation also uncovered 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails between or copied to Allen and Kelley. While defense officials were unable to say exactly how many emails there were between the two, the volume in pages raised concerns, they said.

A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the emails were "flirtatious" in nature, but did not deal with security or military business. The official said he had not seen the emails and could not say whether they were merely friendly or sexually explicit.

The investigation came just two days before Allen, the first Marine to serve as Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, was to testify at a confirmation hearing naming him to replace Admiral James Stavridis as head of the U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

RECOMMENDED BY PETRAEUS

Allen and Petraeus have long known one another and served together. Allen was Petraeus' deputy at U.S. Central Command, based in Tampa.

Petraeus personally recommended Allen for the ISAF command. During Allen's confirmation hearing for the job, Senator John McCain told Allen he could "think of no higher compliment to pay a military officer" than to have the kind of support Petraeus had given him.

Allen has served as the head of ISAF since July 2011, managing the drawdown of U.S. forces following a surge that helped push Taliban insurgents out of major cities across the country.

His time in Afghanistan also has been marked by a spate of incidents that have enraged Afghans. They include video images of troops urinating on Taliban corpses and the burning of Korans and religious texts taken from a prison library. There also has been a surge in attacks on international forces by their Afghan partners.

Allen has handled the incidents with sensitivity, even as tensions have increased, his supporters say.

"I think General Allen has done a good job under very difficult circumstances in Afghanistan," said Senator Susan Collins, a member of the Armed Services Committee.

McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said he was surprised by the probe of Allen's emails and urged people to withhold judgment until the inspector general had finished his investigation.

"I have great respect and appreciation for the work that General Allen has done," he said. "If we fail in Afghanistan, which we are, it's because of decisions that were made by the president, not by General Allen."

"General Allen has said that he is not guilty of any improper behavior," McCain added. "He deserves to have us withhold judgment until the investigation is completed."

Allen, a 1976 Naval Academy graduate, served from 2008 to 2011 as deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military dealings with countries from Egypt to Kazakhstan, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He was a deputy commanding general of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq from 2006 to 2008.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell. Editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)

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Panetta: Don't jump to conclusions about Allen

PERTH, Australia (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cautioned Wednesday against reaching early conclusions about the veracity of allegations against the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, who is under investigation for what Pentagon officials have said may be "inappropriate" correspondence with a Florida woman linked to the David Petraeus sex scandal.

At a news conference in Australia's Indian Ocean coastal city of Perth, Panetta sought to tamp down a wave of speculation about the nature of Allen's actions, which have added a new dimension to the Petraeus matter.

"No one should leap to any conclusions here," Panetta said in his first public comments on the matter when a reporter asked what Allen might have done wrong. Panetta declined to characterize Allen's actions in any way.

Panetta said he supports Allen, who has been in command in Kabul since July 2011. He took over that summer for Petraeus, who retired from the Army to head the CIA.

"He certainly has my continued confidence to lead our forces and to continue the fight," Panetta said.

The Pentagon chief declined to explain the nature of Allen's correspondence with Jill Kelley, the Florida socialite connected to the scandal that led to Petraeus' resignation last week as director of the CIA.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who appeared with Panetta and their Australian counterparts at Wednesday's news conference, declined to comment on the Allen case except to suggest it has not harmed the war effort.

She said U.S. officials have discussed the matter with allied officials.

"There has been a lot of conversation, as you might expect, but no concern whatsoever being expressed to us because the mission has been set forth and it's being carried out," Clinton said.

Panetta announced Tuesday while flying to Australia that he had ordered the Defense Department's inspector general to investigate Allen based on material referred to the Pentagon on Sunday by the FBI. Pentagon officials said the material included at least 20,000 pages of Allen correspondence.

Allen told Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that he is innocent of misconduct, according to Col. David Lapan, Dempsey's spokesman.

Lapan said Wednesday that Dempsey called Allen on Tuesday from Perth, where Dempsey attended meetings with Panetta. Dempsey has not commented publicly.

Panetta had also announced Tuesday that the Obama administration put on hold Allen's nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the top NATO general. Allen's Senate confirmation hearing was to have been held Thursday.

Panetta said in Perth that putting a hold on the nomination was the "prudent" thing to do.

Allen, who was in Washington when Panetta announced the investigation and has not yet returned to his headquarters in Kabul, has not publicly commented on the matter.

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Cellphones may get smaller Holiday lift: Gartner

(Reuters) – The pre-Christmas shopping season is likely to boost cellphone sales less that usual this year as a weaker global economy forces consumers to cut back, research firm Gartner said on Wednesday.

“It will be a cautious quarter. Consumers are either cautious with their spending or finding new gadgets like tablets, as more attractive presents,” Gartner analysts said.

Gartner said sales of cellphones declined 3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, falling for the third quarter in a row, while sales of smartphones grew 47 percent.

Smartphone growth this year is boosted by strong demand in China, where annual sales will grow to 165-170 million from 78 million a year earlier, it said.

“There is huge growth coming from the Chinese market,” said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta.

This is helping local players to climb in global cellphone rankings, with ZTE, Huawei and TCL now among the seven largest cellphone vendors globally, Gartner said.

Samsung Electronics continues to lead the global cellphone sales ranking, ahead of Nokia and Apple. In smartphone sales Nokia, which still lead the market early last year, dropped to No 7, Gartner said.

(Reporting By Tarmo Virki)

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'Gangnam Style' star joins Madonna onstage at MSG

NEW YORK (AP) — Madonna has gone "Gangnam Style."

Korean pop star PSY joined the pop icon Tuesday night during her second show this week at Madison Square Garden. They danced to his pop culture anthem "Gangnam Style" and to her jam "Music" in front of nearly 20,000.

Madonna said PSY flew "all the way from Frankfurt, Germany this morning." She also said she was a big fan of the rapper and loved his suit, which was bright red.

He added that he's had a lot of experiences in the last few months, and that performing at MSG with Madonna topped his list.

Madonna also collected money for those affected by Superstorm Sandy. Fans threw money onstage while she sang "Like a Virgin." She said she collected $3,000 at Monday's show.

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Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several problematic incidents, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because in recent weeks public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but first came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less severe consent decree with the state.

Massachusetts officials indicated Tuesday they are still investigating why NECC escaped the more severe penalty.

"I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision," the state's interim health commissioner Lauren Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony released a day ahead of delivery. Smith is one of several witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday, including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The committee will also hear from the widow of 78-year-old Eddie C. Lovelace, a longtime circuit court judge in southern Kentucky. Autopsy results confirmed Lovelace received fungus-contaminated steroid injections that led to his death Sept. 17.

Joyce Lovelace will urge lawmakers to work together on legislation to stop future outbreaks caused by compounded drugs, according to a draft of her testimony.

"We now know that New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. killed Eddie. I have lost my soulmate and life's partner with whom I worked side by side, day after day for more than fifty years," Lovelace states.

Barry Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

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Petraeus probe ensnares top U.S. commander in Afghanistan

PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged "inappropriate communications" with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen's communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.

Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus' biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen's problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen's communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

"Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter," the official said. If Allen was found to have had an affair with Kelley, he could face charges of adultery, which is a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.

But the Allen investigation adds a new complication to an Afghan war effort that is at a particularly difficult juncture. Allen had just provided Panetta with options for how many U.S. troops to keep in Afghanistan after the U.S.-led coalition's combat mission ends in 2014. And he was due to give Panetta a recommendation soon on the pace of U.S. troop withdrawals in 2013.

The war has been largely stalemated, with little prospect of serious peace negotiations with the Taliban and questions about the Afghan government's ability to handle its own security after 2014.

At a photo session with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard shortly after he arrived in Perth, Panetta was asked by a reporter whether Allen could remain an effective commander in Kabul while under investigation. Panetta did not respond.

The FBI's decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta's decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.

Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.

In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen's nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold "until the relevant facts are determined." He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.

The military official said Allen is in Washington, where he was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.

The senior defense official said Panetta has not talked to Allen about the investigation, nor has he discussed the matter with President Barack Obama, although he consulted with unspecified White House officials before making the decision to seek a postponement of Allen's confirmation hearing.

Panetta did talk about the Allen matter with Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who happens to also be in Perth for a meeting of American and Australian diplomatic and defense officials. Those talks were starting Tuesday with an official dinner.

With a cloud over Allen's head, it was unclear Tuesday whether he would return to Kabul, even though Panetta said Allen would remain in command. The second-ranking American general in Afghanistan is Army Lt. Gen. James Terry.

NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen's appointment.

"We have seen Secretary Panetta's statement," NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. "It is a U.S. investigation."

Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama's nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford's hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.

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Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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Afghan killings case testing military system

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. military has been criticized for its spotty record on convicting troops of killing civilians, but a hearing against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales involving a massacre in Afghanistan has shown that it isn't like most cases.

Government prosecutors have built a strong eyewitness case against the veteran soldier, with troops recounting how they saw Bales return to the base covered in blood. And in unusual testimony in a military court, Afghan civilians questioned via a video link described the horror of seeing 16 people killed, mostly children, in their villages.

Law experts say the case could test whether the military, aided by technology, is able to embark on a new era of accountability.

Bales faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder. The preliminary hearing, which began Nov. 5 and is scheduled to end with closing arguments Tuesday, will determine whether he faces a court-martial. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The U.S. military system's record has shown it is slow to convict service members of alleged war crimes.

A range of factors make prosecuting troops for civilian deaths in foreign lands difficult, including gathering eyewitness testimony and collecting evidence at a crime scene in the midst of a war.

At Bales' preliminary hearing, the prosecution accommodated the Afghan witnesses, including children, by providing the video link and holding the sessions at night. The military said it intends to fly the witnesses from Afghanistan to Joint Base Lewis-McChord if there is a court martial.

"I think it shows they're going to prosecute this case no matter what it takes," said Greg Rinckey, a former Army prosecutor from 1999-2004 who is now in private practice. "This was an atrocity. This is not the fog of war. It's not like we were calling in artillery and an artillery shell landed in a village."

Prosecutors say Bales, 39, slipped away from remote Camp Belambay to attack two villages early on March 11, killing 16 civilians, including nine children. The slayings drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan, and it was three weeks before American investigators could reach the crime scenes.

Through a video monitor in a military courtroom near Seattle, Bales saw young Afghan girls smile beneath bright head coverings before they described the bloodbath he's accused of committing. He saw boys fidget as they remembered how they hid behind curtains when a gunman killed people in their village and one other.

And he saw dignified, thick-bearded men who spoke of unspeakable carnage — the piled, burned bodies of children and parents alike.

From the other side of that video link, in Afghanistan, one of the men saw something else — signs that justice will be done.

"I saw the person who killed my brother sitting there, head down with guilt," Haji Mullah Baraan said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press. "He didn't look up toward the camera."

Baraan was one of many Afghan witnesses who testified in Bales' case by live video link over the weekend.

"We got great hope from this and we are sure that we will get justice," Baraan said.

Throughout history, troops have been accused of heinous crimes involving civilians in countries where wars are waged. But rarely have villagers who witnessed the horror testified in a U.S. military court — often because of the costs and logistics of bringing them to the United States.

Villagers may be leery to leave their homeland to go to a foreign country and confront members of one of the mightiest militaries in the world. And as foreign nationals, they cannot be subpoenaed.

While there have been cases of troops being sentenced to life in prison for committing atrocities, the vast majority of those convicted for extrajudicial killings have been let off with little to no jail time for crimes that in civilian courts could carry hefty sentences, legal experts say.

Former U.N. Special Rapporteur Philip Alston — who was invited by the United States to examine extrajudicial killings in Iraq and Afghanistan — pointed out the January 2006 sentencing of Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer Jr.

He was given two months confinement to his base, a fine of $6,000, and a letter of reprimand after being found guilty of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty for the death of an Iraqi general who had turned himself in to military authorities.

"Military records released in Freedom of Information Act litigation make clear that the Welshofer sentence is not an anomaly," Alston wrote in a 2010 report.

The military hasn't executed a service member since 1961, when an Army ammunition handler was hanged for raping an 11-year-old girl in Austria.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the death penalty is possible if Bales is found guilty.

Afghan witnesses recounted the villagers who lived in the attacked compounds and listed the names of those killed. The bodies were buried quickly under Islamic custom, and no forensic evidence was available to prove the number of victims.

The witnesses included Zardana, 8, who sipped from a pink juice box before she testified. She suffered a gunshot wound to the top of her head, but after two months at a military hospital in Afghanistan and three more at a Navy hospital in San Diego, she can walk and talk again.

None of the Afghan witnesses were able to identify Bales as the shooter, but other evidence, including tests of the blood on his clothes, implicated him, according to testimony from a DNA expert.

Several soldiers testified that Bales returned to the base alone just before dawn the morning of the attacks, covered in blood, and that he made incriminating statements such as, "I thought I was doing the right thing."

Prosecutors say he also made a mid-massacre confession, returning to the base to wake another soldier and report his activities before heading out to the other village. The soldier testified that he didn't believe Bales and went back to sleep.

Bales, an Ohio native and father of two from Lake Tapps, Wash., has not entered a plea and was not expected to testify at the preliminary hearing. His attorneys say he has post-traumatic stress disorder and suffered a concussive head injury while serving in Iraq.

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Watson contributed from San Diego. Associated Press Writer Mirwais Khan in Kandahar also contributed to this report.

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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Belize wants to quiz anti-computer virus guru McAfee in murder probe

BELIZE CITY (Reuters) – Police in Belize want to question U.S. anti-computer virus software pioneer John McAfee in connection with the murder of a neighbor he had been quarrelling with, but they say he remains a person of interest at this time and is not a suspect.

McAfee, who invented the anti-virus software that bears his name, has homes and businesses in Belize, and is believed to have settled in the country sometime around 2010.

“He is a person of interest at this time,” said Marco Vidal, head of Belize’s police Gang Suppression Unit. “It goes a bit beyond that, not just being a neighbor.”

Police officers were looking for the software engineer, said Miguel Segura, the assistant commissioner of police.

Asked if McAfee was a suspect, he said: “At this point, no. Our job … is to get all the evidence beyond reasonable doubt that Mr A is the one that killed Mr B.”

“He (McAfee) … can assist the investigation, so there is no arrest warrant for the fellow,” added Segura, who heads the Criminal Investigation Branch.

McAfee’s neighbor, Gregory Viant Faull, a 52-year-old American, was found on Sunday lying dead in a pool of blood after apparently being shot in the head.

McAfee has been embroiled in controversy in Belize before.

His premises were raided in May after he was accused of holding firearms, though most were found to be licensed. The final outcome of the case is pending.

McAfee also owns a security company in Belize as well as several properties and an ecological enterprise.

Reuters was unable to contact McAfee on Monday.

Segura said McAfee had been at odds with Faull for some time. He accused his neighbor of poisoning his dogs earlier this year and filed an official complaint.

“There was some conflict there between (them) … prior to the death of the gentleman,” Segura said. “But those dogs didn’t have a post mortem to see if the toxicology would confirm what type of poison, if any.”

McAfee previously accused the police Gang Suppression Unit of killing his dogs during the May raid.

McAfee was one of Silicon Valley’s first entrepreneurs to amass a fortune by building a business off the Internet.

The former Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in 1989, initially distributing its anti-virus software as “shareware” on Internet bulletin boards.

He took the company public in 1992 and left two years later following accusations that he had hyped the arrival of a virus known as Michelango, which turned out to be a dud, to scare computer users into buying his company’s products.

(Reporting by Simon Gardner and Gabriel Stargardter in Mexico City and Jim Finkle; Editing by Kieran Murray and Todd Eastham)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Storm volunteers mingle with stars at Glamour fest

NEW YORK (AP) — Sandra Kyong Bradbury was star struck. She had just spied Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a few feet away.

"How can you top that?" asked Bradbury, a New York City neonatal nurse who had helped evacuate infants from a hospital that lost power during the height of Superstorm Sandy. She was amazed that she was being honored at the same event as a Supreme Court justice — the annual Glamour Women of the Year awards, where stars of film, TV, fashion and sports share the stage with lesser-known women who have equally impressive achievements to their name.

Few events bring together such an eclectic group of honorees, not to mention presenters. At the Carnegie Hall ceremony Monday night, HBO star Lena Dunham, creator of "Girls" and a heroine to a younger generation, was introduced by Chelsea Handler and paid tribute in her speech to Nora Ephron, who died earlier this year. Ethel Kennedy was praised by her daughter, Rory, who has made a film about her famous mother. Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas, 17, was honored along with swimming phenom Missy Franklin, also 17, and other Olympic athletes, introduced by singer Mary J. Blige and serenaded by American Idol winner Phillip Phillips. Singer-actress Selena Gomez was lauded by her friend, the actor Ethan Hawke.

But the most moving moments of the Glamour awards, now in their 22nd year, are often those involving people of whom the audience hasn't heard. This year, the most touching moment came when one honoree, Pakistani activist and filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, brought onstage a woman who'd been the victim of an acid attack in her native Pakistan. Obaid-Chinoy won this year's documentary short Oscar for a film about disfiguring acid attacks on Pakistani women by the men in their lives.

The evening carried reminders of Superstorm Sandy, with Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker introducing some 20 women who'd been heavily involved in storm relief work. "They held us together when Sandy tried to blow us apart," Booker said. The women worked for organizations like the American Red Cross, but also smaller volunteer groups like Jersey City Sandy Recovery, an impromptu group formed by three women in Jersey City, N.J., who wanted a way to help storm-ravaged communities.

Singer-rapper Pharrell Williams introduced one of his favorite architects, the Iraqi-born Zaha Hadid, 62, who designed the aquatic center for the London Olympics and is now at work on 43 projects around the world.

Activist Erin Merryn was honored for her work increasing awareness of child sex abuse — a horror she had endured during her own childhood. A law urging schools to educate children about sex abuse prevention, Erin's Law, has now passed in four states. "I won't stop until I get it passed in all 50 states," Merryn insisted in her speech.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour saluted a fellow fashion luminary, honoree Annie Leibovitz, the creator of so many iconic photographs over the years. Jenna Lyons, the president of J. Crew, got kind words from her presenter, former supermodel Lauren Hutton. Chelsea Clinton brought up a stageful of women from across the country who had been involved in politics this year, noting that, while there is still a long way to go, progress was made in 2012.

The lifetime achievement award went to Ginsburg, 79, who made a few quips about being honored by a fashion magazine. "The judiciary is not a profession that ranks very high among the glamorously attired," the justice said. She also noted that although she was only the second female Supreme Court justice (Sandra Day O'Connor came first), she was the first justice to be honored by Glamour.

An affectionate tribute to the late Ephron followed, with three actresses — Cynthia Nixon, and two Meryl Steep daughters, Mamie and Grace Gummer, reading from a graduation speech she had given at Wellesley College.

Actress Dunham, in her speech, touched on politics and expressed her own relief that President Barack Obama had won re-election, saying she felt it was crucial for reproductive freedom and other issues of women's rights. "I wanted control of my womb before I really knew what my womb was," she quipped.

After the ceremony, which was presided over by Glamour editor in chief Cindi Leive, honorees and presenters headed to a private dinner. There, Sandy volunteers mingled with the stars. One woman, Lynier Harper, had spent six nights during Sandy at the Brooklyn YMCA where she works, taking care of other people. "When I finally went back home, my house was totally destroyed," she said. She has moved in with her sister while she seeks a new home.

A group of seven nurses came from New York University's Langone Medical Center, which lost power during the storm. The neonatal intensive care nurses had to carry the babies down nine flights of stairs, in the dark, squeezing oxygen into their lungs, to get them to safety.

And there were the three women from Jersey City Sandy Recovery, sinking in the proximity to the so many impressive people.

"I just shook Ruth Bader Ginsburg's hand," exulted one of them, Candice Osborne. "How awesome!"

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British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

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Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

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