Tennis-Murray knows must do more to become 'Sir Andy'

BRISBANE, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Andy Murray is coming off a season in which he became the first British man in 76 years to win a Grand Slam singles title and won Olympic gold at the London Games but the Scot does not think he has done enough to deserve a knighthood yet.
The 25-year-old received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in a special U.K. New year Honours list, though some of his supporters thought his victories at the US Open and Olympics warranted a higher honour.
Bradley Wiggins, the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France, and Ben Ainslie, the most decorated Olympic yachtsman, received knighthoods but Murray said he would have to accomplish much more before he could perhaps one day join them.
"You need to do a lot, for a long time, to deserve an honour like that," Murray told a news conference at the Brisbane International on Tuesday.
"A lot of the sportsmen and women have been given that just because their sport isn't necessarily in the spotlight all the time, it's easy to forget what they've done for 10, 15 years.
"I mean, some of them have won 10 gold medals in world championships, four or five Olympic medals, and have been doing it for years.
"I've only been doing it for a couple years, so I think I'll definitely need to win a few more matches and have more tournaments to have a chance of getting that."
Sir Sean Connery and Sir Alex Ferguson were in Murray's corner as spectators during the US Open but he said he only referred to them as Sean and Alex.
"I think with the people around you, I think everyone just kind of stays the same, and then it would be people that you don't know that will come up to you and address you as that," Murray said.
"But I would hope I wouldn't want my friends and family to call me that."
BETTER PREPARED
Murray's win over Novak Djokovic at the US Open in September has finally freed him of the questions about when he would make his grand slam breakthrough.
The world No. 3 said winning Olympic gold and his first major in the same year had had its perks but with a coach like Ivan Lendl to guide him he was never likely to get carried away by the success.
"The few weeks afterwards around the Olympics time and the US Open, I got a few upgrades on flights and things like that, which is nice, but that's died down a little bit over the last few months," he said.
"Life hasn't changed too much. Obviously the few weeks afterwards were very busy. Then once you start travelling and playing tournaments again, and get back into the routine of training and practicing, it hasn't really changed that much, to be honest, which has been nice.
"Also having someone like Ivan around me as well, he went through a similar sort of thing so that's obviously helped as well. He's given me some advice on how to deal with certain things that come with winning big events.
"I've had a lot of congratulations because I think a lot of people that follow tennis, and were sort of general sports fans, kind of knew my story a little bit.
"Of how long it had been since any British player had won a slam and how many times I had lost in the finals. Especially after Wimbledon, when I was very upset this year.
"It was very nice for me to finally be able to move on and not worry about that stuff anymore. I got a lot of congratulations for that."
Having shed the nearly-man tag, Murray said he would be better prepared than ever in his bid to become the first British man since Fred Perry in 1936 to win Wimbledon.
Murray endured heartbreak in the 2012 Wimbledon final when he was beaten Roger Federer.
"There will be a lot of pressure again, but I don't think there will be more pressure than what I went through last year, to be honest," he said.
"I mean, that was a tough tournament for me. It was quite stressful. The Olympics was the same. The US Open - that was a tough, tough three months mentally for me.
"I think whatever happens at Wimbledon this year, I'll be able to deal with it better than I have done in the past."

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Murray knows must do more to become 'Sir Andy'

BRISBANE (Reuters) - Andy Murray is coming off a season in which he became the first British man in 76 years to win a Grand Slam singles title and won Olympic gold at the London Games but the Scot does not think he has done enough to deserve a knighthood yet.
The 25-year-old received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in a special U.K. New year Honours list, though some of his supporters thought his victories at the US Open and Olympics warranted a higher honour.
Bradley Wiggins, the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France, and Ben Ainslie, the most decorated Olympic yachtsman, received knighthoods but Murray said he would have to accomplish much more before he could perhaps one day join them.
"You need to do a lot, for a long time, to deserve an honour like that," Murray told a news conference at the Brisbane International on Tuesday.
"A lot of the sportsmen and women have been given that just because their sport isn't necessarily in the spotlight all the time, it's easy to forget what they've done for 10, 15 years.
"I mean, some of them have won 10 gold medals in world championships, four or five Olympic medals, and have been doing it for years.
"I've only been doing it for a couple years, so I think I'll definitely need to win a few more matches and have more tournaments to have a chance of getting that."
Sir Sean Connery and Sir Alex Ferguson were in Murray's corner as spectators during the US Open but he said he only referred to them as Sean and Alex.
"I think with the people around you, I think everyone just kind of stays the same, and then it would be people that you don't know that will come up to you and address you as that," Murray said.
"But I would hope I wouldn't want my friends and family to call me that."
BETTER PREPARED
Murray's win over Novak Djokovic at the US Open in September has finally freed him of the questions about when he would make his grand slam breakthrough.
The world No. 3 said winning Olympic gold and his first major in the same year had had its perks but with a coach like Ivan Lendl to guide him he was never likely to get carried away by the success.
"The few weeks afterwards around the Olympics time and the US Open, I got a few upgrades on flights and things like that, which is nice, but that's died down a little bit over the last few months," he said.
"Life hasn't changed too much. Obviously the few weeks afterwards were very busy. Then once you start travelling and playing tournaments again, and get back into the routine of training and practicing, it hasn't really changed that much, to be honest, which has been nice.
"Also having someone like Ivan around me as well, he went through a similar sort of thing so that's obviously helped as well. He's given me some advice on how to deal with certain things that come with winning big events.
"I've had a lot of congratulations because I think a lot of people that follow tennis, and were sort of general sports fans, kind of knew my story a little bit.
"Of how long it had been since any British player had won a slam and how many times I had lost in the finals. Especially after Wimbledon, when I was very upset this year.
"It was very nice for me to finally be able to move on and not worry about that stuff anymore. I got a lot of congratulations for that."
Having shed the nearly-man tag, Murray said he would be better prepared than ever in his bid to become the first British man since Fred Perry in 1936 to win Wimbledon.
Murray endured heartbreak in the 2012 Wimbledon final when he was beaten Roger Federer.
"There will be a lot of pressure again, but I don't think there will be more pressure than what I went through last year, to be honest," he said.
"I mean, that was a tough tournament for me. It was quite stressful. The Olympics was the same. The US Open - that was a tough, tough three months mentally for me.
"I think whatever happens at Wimbledon this year, I'll be able to deal with it better than I have done in the past."
Murray is taking part in the Brisbane International tournament as part of his preparations for the Australian Open, which begins on January 14.

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How to Sync All Your Calendars Onto One Smartphone

It’s a simple request: I just want my online calendars to sync with my smartphone… is that too much to ask? It took some initial research and finesse, but I’ve discovered the best ways to get your Yahoo and Google calendars to appear on either an Android or Apple IOS mobile device.
Google Calendar on Android Phone
When you first set up your Android phone, you had to create or enter your Google account info, so the phone already has the login info for your Google Calendar. Now you can go to your phone’s Settings, choose Accounts, click the Google account and then make sure “Sync Calendar” is checked. Then go to the Calendar App on your Android phone and it should be there.
For multiple calendars, hit the Settings button and then Calendars to customize which Google calendars you see.
Yahoo Calendar on Android Phone
Although it seems like it should be easy to add the Yahoo Calendar to your Android, I never got mine to sync. Theoretically, you would open the Android calendar on your phone, hit the Settings option, and Add Account. But depending on the flavor of Android I tried, I either couldn’t add a Yahoo account or when I did, it didn’t sync. It could just be me, but I found a lot of people online with the same issue. So I tried one of the most recommended apps to solve the problem – Smoothsync for Yahoo. It costs just under three dollars, and once you install it, you can sync all your Yahoo calendars into the native Android calendar. Ah, sweet relief.
[Related: New Tricks for New (and Old) Androids]
Yahoo Calendar on iPhone
On your IOS device, hit Settings. If you haven’t added your Yahoo Account yet, do so by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.” Once you’ve input your Yahoo login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure calendars is on. Hit the Home button, open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see all your calendars listed under Yahoo. If you only have one Yahoo calendar, make sure you check to have it show in your IOS Cal. Also, many people have multiple Yahoo calendars: a family calendar, a work calendar, a soccer team calendar for the kids, and a personal calendar. You can customize which of these Yahoo Calendars show up by checking or unchecking them in this screen.
Google Calendar on iPhone
It’s a little more complicated, but you can also put a Google or Gmail calendar on the iPhone. Here’s how:
If you only have your one personal Google calendar to sync, you do things the same way as with Yahoo: Go to Settings on your IOS device, add your Google account (if you haven’t done so yet) by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.”
Once you’ve input your Google login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure Calendars is on. Hit the Home button, then open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see your calendar listed under Google. You can track those Google dates in the IOS calendar and multiple Yahoo calendars at the same time.
But if you want multiple Google calendars, you need an app for that. Google does let you do this through their mobile site, but that’s basically just a website without the power of notifications and all the extras you like from your calendars. So I suggest getting the CalenMob app. It’s free with ads or $5 ad-free. It syncs all your Google calendars to the app (not the native IOS calendar) and adds in notification options, SMS functions and email alert options. It also syncs simultaneously to your Yahoo calendars.

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Hutchison closes deal to become No. 3 in Austria

 Consolidation of Austria's cut-throat telecoms market moved ahead on Thursday when Hutchison Whampoa Ltd completed its 1.3-billion-euro ($1.7 billion) takeover of Orange Austria, making it the country's third-biggest mobile operator.
Its purchase from Mid Europa Partners (MEP) and France Telecom-Orange followed extensive negotiations that finally won European and Austrian regulatory approval last month.
"We are delighted that, after undergoing a lengthy regulatory process, we have finally been able to close this acquisition," said Jan Trionow, head of local unit Hutchison 3G Austria.
"I am particularly looking forward to working ... to push forward with building a nationwide LTE network in Austria within the next two years," he said, referring to the next-generation high-speed networks that will speed data delivery to users.
France Telecom said it would get around 70 million euros in cash from selling its 35 percent stake in Orange Austria. Private equity group MEP held the other 65 percent.
In a separate but related deal, market leader Telekom Austria wrapped up its purchase of discount brand Yesss from Orange Austria.
Both transactions have won regulatory approval, but Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile Austria unit has tried to throw a spanner in the works by lodging a court appeal against the accompanying re-allocation of radio frequencies.
Hutchison and Orange Austria are the country's two smallest operators and have a combined market share of about 24 percent. Their deal will cut the number of mobile operators in Austria from four to three.
Austrian operators serve a population of just 8.4 million and have been extremely competitive, with all-inclusive no-strings deals starting at 7 euros per month.
Telekom Austria agreed last February to buy frequencies, base station sites, mobile phone provider Yesss and other intellectual property rights from Orange Austria for up to 390 million euros.
It said in a statement it had also completed the acquisition of intellectual property rights for the "One" brand on Thursday, while closing on the other assets "follows gradually".

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German magazine mistakenly publishes Bush obituary

 Germany's respected news weekly Der Spiegel mistakenly published an obituary Sunday for former U.S. President George H.W. Bush, hours after a family spokesman said the 88-year-old was recovering from illness.
Bush was hospitalized in Houston Nov. 23 for treatment of a bronchitis-related cough and moved to intensive care on Dec. 23 after he developed a fever. On Saturday, spokesman Jim McGrath said Bush was moved out of intensive care into a regular hospital room again after his condition improved.
The unfinished obituary appeared on Der Spiegel's website for only a few minutes Sunday before it was spotted by Internet users and removed.
In it, the magazine's New York correspondent described Bush as "a colorless politician" whose image only improved when it was compared to the later presidency of his son, George W. Bush.
"All newsrooms prepare obituaries for selected figures," the magazine said on its Twitter feed. "The fact that the one for Bush senior went live was a technical mistake. Sorry!"

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Reports: Russia sends another naval ship to Syria

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian news agencies say the navy is sending another ship to the Syrian port of Tartus, where Russia has a naval base.
The reports Sunday by the ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agency cited an unidentified official in the military general staff as saying the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, has set sail from the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The ship is expected to arrive in the Tartus area in early January.
The reports gave no information on the ship's intent. But Russian diplomats have said that Moscow is preparing a plan to evacuate thousands of Russians from Syria if necessary. The Defense Ministry announced two weeks ago that several ships were being dispatched to the Mediterranean.

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UK Catholics urged to lobby against gay marriage

 The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales has urged followers to write to their representatives in Parliament to oppose the government's plans to allow gay marriage.
In a letter read to congregations over the weekend, Archbishop Vincent Nichols called for Catholics to express their views "clearly, calmly and forcefully."
Nichols says he is concerned about how a change in the law would affect what children are taught about marriage.
He says he wants members of Parliament to "defend, not change, the bond of man and woman in marriage as the essential element of the vision of the family."
Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative-led government plans to introduce legislation in January to allow gay marriages. Recent opinion polls suggest a large majority of the public supports the change.

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Housing equity injection lowest since Q1 2010

 Britons' mortgage repayments exceeded new borrowing during the third quarter of 2012, but by the smallest margin since early 2010, figures from the Bank of England showed on Monday.
The net injection of housing equity totalled 8.043 billion pounds in the third quarter, equivalent to 2.9 percent of post-tax income - down from 9.439 billion pounds in the second quarter and the lowest figure since Q1 2010.
Before the financial crisis, rapidly rising house prices enabled some British households to boost their spending by remortgaging their properties and withdrawing some of their increased housing wealth.
Since the financial crisis, which caused British house prices to fall by around a fifth, this has ceased to be an option.
"The further substantial net injection of housing equity in the third quarter of 2012 suggests that there is an ongoing strong desire ... of many people to improve their personal financial balance sheets given high debt levels and still serious concerns over the economic situation," said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.
However, the Bank has said net injections of housing equity mostly reflect a lower number of house purchases and new mortgages, rather than existing home-owners paying back their mortgages faster.
In August, the Bank opened its Funding for Lending Scheme, which aims to boost mortgage and business lending by offering banks and building societies cheap finance.
Mortgage approvals in Britain were 1.5 percent lower on the year in November, numbering 33,634, seasonally adjusted data from the British Bankers' Association showed last week.
A Reuters poll this month showed British homeowners will have to wait a long time before they recoup losses from the last few years on their properties as a weak economy and high unemployment keeps demand in check. The median forecast was for UK house prices to rise 0.6 percent in 2013, having dropped by the same amount this year.

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About 25 arrested in Moscow New Year's Eve protest

About 25 people reportedly have been arrested in Moscow on New Year's Eve for trying to hold an unsanctioned protest.
The gathering at Triumphalnaya Square in central Moscow on Monday attracted 50 to 100 people.
Among those arrested was prominent radical writer Eduard Limonov; the Interfax news agency cited activists as saying about 25 people were taken into custody.
For about two years, activists have tried to rally on the 31st of each month with that many days, a reference to Article 31 of the Russian constitution that guarantees free assembly. Authorities routinely deny permission for the demonstrations. Limonov's faction has fallen out with other elements of the wave of opposition to President Vladimir Putin that arose last year.
In his New Year's Eve address, Putin made no reference to the protests of the past year, saying only of 2012 that "it was very important to us," according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
"We believe that we can change the life around us and become better ourselves, that we can become more heedful, compassionate, gracious" he was quoted as saying. Russia's fate "depends on our enthusiasm and labor.

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Analysis: Democrats' discord undercuts Obama estate tax push

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Divisions among Democrats are undermining President Barack Obama's push to raise the U.S. estate tax on inherited wealth, just weeks before the arrival of the "fiscal cliff" could drive the present estate tax rate even higher than Obama proposes.
Action on the estate tax could be postponed. But in his successful re-election campaign, Obama called for wealthy Americans to pay more in taxes - and it is overwhelmingly the wealthy who pay the estate tax.
The outcome may hinge on whether Obama insists on his estate tax proposal - or something close to it - as forcefully as he has insisted on raising individual income tax rates for high income-earners, or whether he lets the issue be put off.
If a single facet of the complicated partisan stand-off over taxing the wealthy best captures Capitol Hill's fiscal gridlock, it may be the estate tax - a long-standing and volatile issue - that may finally be coming to a head.
"If you look at where the public is on tax issues compared to the last time this was debated - it is night and day," said Frank Clemente, campaign manager for left-leaning Americans for Tax Fairness. "They are deep into this tax fairness position."
The "fiscal cliff" is a collection of federal tax increases and automatic government spending cuts that, if allowed to take effect as scheduled early in 2013, could push the U.S. economy into recession, according to economists' forecasts.
Part of the picture is the estate tax.
Under laws signed a decade ago by former Republican President George W. Bush, the estate tax is applied to inherited assets at 35 percent after a $5 million exemption. That means a deceased person can pass on an inheritance of up to $5 million before any tax applies.
Inherited wealth passed to a spouse or a federally recognized charity is generally not taxed.
Obama wants to raise the rate to 45 percent after a $3.5 million exemption. If the Bush rates are allowed to expire and Congress does nothing, the rate will shoot up next year to the pre-Bush levels of 55 percent after a $1 million exemption.
SCHUMER ON ESTATE TAX
New York Senator Charles Schumer on Thursday said the Democrats' proposal to avert the "fiscal cliff" involves $1 trillion in immediate deficit reduction that includes new revenue from raising the estate tax to the level proposed by Obama.
No less a power broker than Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said this week, however, that he wants to hold the estate tax steady at current rates.
Baucus is up for re-election in 2014 from Montana. He says ranch and farm owners in his state would stand to lose if federal taxes rose on passing property to heirs.
"Rural Montana is much different than urban America," Baucus told Reuters in a brief interview in the U.S. Capitol.
He told a Montana newspaper on Sunday that he would even support scrapping the estate tax altogether, as most Republicans favor. A spokesman for Baucus - the Senate's top tax law writer - said he will seek as much estate tax "relief" as he can get.
At least three other rural-state Democratic senators have proposed extending current estate tax rates: Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
Spokesmen for Pryor and McCaskill said everything is on the table as Congress struggles to deal with the "fiscal cliff."
But one thing is clear: the voice of farming lobbyists is registering with Democrats on the volatile estate tax issue, although it is only marginally about farms and ranches.
BEYOND FARMS AND RANCHES
The estate tax's impact extends beyond farmers and ranchers. It applies mostly to very wealthy Americans, whose taxes have been specifically targeted for increase by a president whom voters returned to the White House just three weeks ago following a tough campaign in which taxes were a key topic.
Of the 3,600 estates subject to the estate tax this year, only 100 are classified as farming estates, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans pay nearly all of the estate tax under current rates, according to the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan fiscal policy think tank.
The number of estates subject to the tax would double under the plan proposed by Obama. About 300 farming estates would be subject to the tax under Obama's terms, which would raise about $100 billion in new revenue for the government over 10 years.
Republicans have benefited previously from Democratic division over the tax. In July, Senate Democrats shelved a plan to raise the estate tax with a symbolic extension of the Bush tax rates for the middle-class.
A senior Senate Democratic aide said the tax was pulled from the bill because Obama felt strongly about boosting the tax. It is unclear how hard he will fight for his position this time.
BY ANY OTHER NAME
The divide between the political parties over the tax is so wide that they cannot even agree on a name for it. Democrats call it the estate tax, as it is described in law.
Republicans, who generally want to repeal it, have another, more provocative name. They call it the "death tax" and characterize it as a penalty on being wealthy and successful.
First enacted nearly a century ago to combat the rise of dynastic wealth and check income disparity, the estate tax is the most progressive tax there is. That means it hits the wealthy much more than lower income groups.
It was a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, that proposed the first permanent inheritance tax, arguing that inheritance of "enormous fortunes" does a society no good.
"No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax," Roosevelt said.
Another decade passed before it was adopted in 1916, partly to fund World War I. The rate has waxed and waned, hitting a high of 77 percent prior to World War II.

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