Makers Mark to stop watering down whiskey

LOUISVILLE, Ky. After backlash from customers, the producer of Maker's Mark bourbon is reversing a decision to cut the amount of alcohol in bottles of its famous whiskey.

Rob Samuels, Maker's Mark's chief operating officer, said Sunday that it is restoring the alcohol volume of its product to its historic level of 45 percent, or 90 proof. Last week, it said it was lowering the amount to 42 percent, or 84 proof, because of a supply shortage.

"We've been tremendously humbled over the last week or so," Samuels, grandson of the brand's founder, said of customers' reactions.

The brand known for its square bottles sealed in red wax has struggled to keep up with demand. Distribution has been squeezed, and the brand had to curtail shipments to some overseas markets.

In a tweet Sunday, the company said to its followers: "You spoke. We listened."

Fans of the whiskey applauded the move and questioned why the company moved to change in the first place.

"Some things you just got to leave alone," Todd Matthews, 42, of Livingston, Tenn., said.

Company officials said much customer feedback came from Twitter and Facebook. On those sites, comments on Sunday's change of course ranged from angry to celebratory to self-congratulatory. The statement on Maker's Mark's Facebook page drew more than 14,000 "likes" and 2,200 comments within two hours of Sunday's announcement.

The change in recipe started with a shortage of the bourbon amid an ongoing expansion of the company's operations that cost tens of millions of dollars.

Maker's Mark Chairman Emeritus Bill Samuels, the founder's son, said the company focused almost exclusively on not altering the taste of the bourbon while stretching the available product and didn't consider the emotional attachment that customers have to the brand and its composition.

Bill Samuels said the company tinkered with how much water to add and keep the taste the same for about three months before making the announcement about the change Monday. It marked the first time the bourbon brand, more than a half-century old, had altered its proof or alcohol volume.

"Our focus was on the supply problem. That led to us focusing on a solution," Bill Samuels said. "We got it totally wrong."

Both Bill and Rob Samuels said customer reaction was immediate. Company officials heard from "thousands and thousands of consumers" that a bourbon shortage was preferable to a change in how the spirits were made, Bill Samuels said.

"They would rather put up with the occasional supply shortage than put up with any change in their hand-made bourbon," Rob Samuels said.

The change in alcohol volume called for the recipe and process to stay the same, except for a "touch more water" to be added when the whiskey comes out of the barrel for bottling, Rob Samuels said.

When production restarts Monday, those plans are off the table, Bill Samuels said.

"We really made this decision after an enormous amount of thought, and we focused on the wrong things," Bill Samuels said.

Maker's Mark is owned by spirits company Beam Inc., based in Deerfield, Ill. Its other brands include Jim Beam bourbon.

Maker's is made at a distillery near the small town of Loretto, 45 miles south of Louisville.

Its bourbon ages in barrels for at least six summers and no longer than seven years before bottling.

The supply shortage at Maker's comes amid growing demand for Kentucky bourbons in general.

Combined Kentucky bourbon and Tennessee whiskey sales from producers or suppliers to wholesalers rose 5.2 percent to 16.9 million cases last year, according to the Distilled Spirits Council, a national trade association that released figures last week. Revenue shot up 7.3 percent to $2.2 billion, it said. Premium brands, generally made in smaller batches with heftier prices, led sales and revenue gains.

Kentucky produces 95 percent of the world's bourbon supply, according to the Kentucky Distillers' Association. There are 4.9 million bourbon barrels aging in Kentucky, which outnumbers the state's population.

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White House: Leaked Immigration Bill Draft Is Plan B

Feb 17, 2013 11:48am

Leaked draft legislation reportedly authored by the White House would be used as a backup proposal should negotiations fail in Congress over comprehensive immigration reform, administration officials said today.

White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough was asked about the USA Todaystory on political talk shows this morning. On ABC’s “This Week,” McDonough told Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl lawmakers would have to “make sure that it doesn’t have to be proposed.”

“Let’s make sure that that group up there, the ‘Gang of Eight,’ makes the good progress on these efforts as much as they say they want to,” McDonough said, referring to efforts of the Senate’s bi-partisan working group.

The president has previously stated that his administration would be prepared to offer their own bill should Congress fail to reach consensus. Some details of the draft, which has not been finalized or released to Congress, match previous White House proposals including a 2011 immigration blueprint.

Also appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host David Gregory asked him whether the draft signaled President Obama would drive any potential reform, over ongoing bipartisan work on Capitol Hill.

“The fact of this report, David, I think all it says to me is that we’re doing exactly what we said we’d do,” McDonough replied. “Which is that we’ll be prepared, in the event that the bipartisan talks going on on the Hill — which by the way we are very aggressively supporting — if those do not work then we’ll have an option that we are ready to put out there, as the president said in Las Vegas.”

The newspaper says it obtained the unfinished bill from an anonymous administration official, one not authorized to disclose the information.

Analysis: Leaked immigration proposal puts pressure on Senate.

Among its particulars, if passed, would be the creation of a “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” status, that could be applied for by the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented residents. The new visa would allow its holders to legally live and work in the United States, as well as leave the country for short periods of time. After eight years visa holders who passed the program would be allowed to apply for full citizenship.

Earlier this month Democratic Gang of Eight members Sen. Richard Durbin and Sen Bob Menendez indicated the group was weighing similar a proposal that would extend the wait to 10 years. But Saturday a leading Republican in the group, Sen. Marco Rubio, immediately lambasted the White House version as “dead on arrival” in Congress.

“This legislation is half baked and seriously flawed,” he said in a statement last night. “It would actually make our immigration problems worse.  If actually proposed, the president’s bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come.”

Rubio said Republicans had not been consulted regarding the hypothetical legislation. On ABC, McDonough denied the claim.

“We’ve been working with all the members up there [of the Gang of Eight.] We have our staff working this very aggressively with their staffs and with the members, and we’re working this very aggressively, as you think we would with such a high priority for the country,” he said.

USA Today’s article states that immigrants who seek citizenship under the White House draft would first have to submit to biometric screening, pass a criminal background check, and pay fees for the visa. Successful bids could still be disqualified for crimes, including those that would equal one year in prison, or three separate 90-day sentences.

Also included in the document are undisclosed increases to the Border Patrol, expansion of Homeland Security technologies along the border, and the hiring of an additional 140 judges to handle immigration violations.

As of press time White House officials have refused to comment directly on the specifics of the report. On NBC another Republican on the Gang of Eight, Sen. John McCain, suggested the leak might have been planned as a bargaining position.

“I believe we are making progress on a bipartisan basis. I believe we can come up with a product,” McCain said. “Leaks don’t happen in Washington on accident. This raises the question many of us continue to worry about. Does the president want a result? Or does he want another cudgel to beat up Republicans so that he can get political advantage in the next election?”

An administration official told ABC News that the White House had not intentionally floated the draft obtained by USA Today as a negotiating point. According to this official Obama aides were surprised to see the draft language in print media and thought it was unfortunate, given what they believed was substantive progress on Capitol Hill. Officials also reached out to  Gang of Eight members of both parties after the report was published to try to assure them it was not planned, they said.

Senator Rubio’s office confirmed to ABC they had received such correspondence.

ABC’s Jordan Fabian and Reena Ninan contributed to this report, which has been updated.

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Pope, near abdication, says pray "for me and next pope"

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict asked the faithful to pray for him and for the next pope, in his penultimate Sunday address to a crowded St. Peter's Square before becoming the first pontiff in centuries to resign.

The crowd chanted "Long live the pope!," waved banners and broke into sustained applause as he spoke from his window. The 85-year-old Benedict, who will abdicate on February 28, thanked them in several languages.

Speaking in Spanish, he told the crowd which the Vatican said numbered more than 50,000: "I beg you to continue praying for me and for the next pope".

It was not clear why the pope chose Spanish to make the only specific reference to his upcoming resignation in his Sunday address.

A number of cardinals have said they would be open to the possibility of a pope from the developing world, be it Latin America, Africa or Asia, as opposed to another from Europe, where the Church is crisis and polarized.

"I can imagine taking a step towards a black pope, an African pope or a Latin American pope," Cardinal Kurt Koch, a Swiss Vatican official who will enter the conclave to choose the next pope, told Reuters in an interview.

After his address, the pope retired into the Vatican's Apostolic Palace for a scheduled, week-long spiritual retreat and will not make any more public appearances until next Sunday.

Speaking in Italian in part of his address about Lent, the period when Christians reflect on their failings and seek guidance in prayer, the pope spoke of the difficulty of making important decisions.

"In decisive moments of life, or, on closer inspection, at every moment in life, we are at a crossroads: do we want to follow the ‘I', or God? The individual interest, or the real good, that which is really good?" he said.

FOR THE GOOD OF THE CHURCH

The pope has said his physical and spiritual forces are no longer strong enough to sustain him in the job of leading the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics at a time of crisis for the Church in a fast-changing world.

Benedict's papacy was rocked by crises over the sex abuse of children by priests in Europe and the United States, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it.

His reign also saw Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over his rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was convicted of leaking his private papers.

Since his shock announcement last Monday, the pope has said several times that he made the difficult decision to become the first pope in more than six centuries to resign for the good of the Church. Aides said he was at peace with himself.

"In a funny way he is even more peaceful now with this decision, unlike the rest of us, he is not somebody who gets choked up really easily," said Greg Burke, a senior media advisor to the Vatican.

"I think that has a lot to do with his spiritual life and who he is and the fact he is such a prayerful man," Burke told Reuters Television.

People in the crowd said the pope was a shadow of the man he was when elected on April 19, 2005.

"Like always, recently, he seemed tired, moved, perplexed, uncertain and insecure," said Stefan Malabar, an Italian in St. Peter's Square.

"It's something that really has an effect on you because the pope should be a strong and authoritative figure but instead he seems very weak, and that really struck me," he said.

The Vatican has said the conclave to choose his successor could start earlier than originally expected, giving the Roman Catholic Church a new leader by mid-March.

Some 117 cardinals under the age of 80 will be eligible to enter the secretive conclave which, according to Church rules, has to start between 15 and 20 days after the papacy becomes vacant, which it will on February 28.

But since the Church is now dealing with an announced resignation and not a sudden death, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Vatican would be "interpreting" the law to see if it could start earlier.

CONSULTATIONS BEGUN

Cardinals around the world have already begun informal consultations by phone and email to construct a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church in a period of continuing crisis.

The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.

New details emerged at the weekend about Benedict's health.

Peter Seewald, a German journalist who wrote a book with the pope in 2010 in which Benedict first floated the possibility of resigning, visited him again about 10 weeks ago.

"His hearing had deteriorated. He couldn't see with his left eye. His body had become so thin that the tailors had difficulty in keeping up with newly fitted clothes ... I'd never seen him so exhausted-looking, so worn down," Seewald said.

The pope will say one more Sunday noon prayer on February 24 and hold a final general audience on February 27.

The next day he will take a helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, where he will stay for around two months before moving to a convent inside the Vatican where he will live out his remaining years.

(Additional reporting by Hanna Rantala; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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WHO urges vigilance over SARS-like virus

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation on Saturday urged countries to be vigilant over the spread of a potentially fatal SARS-like virus after a new case in Britain brought the global number to 12.

"Based on the current situation and available information, WHO encourages all Member States to continue their surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and to carefully review any unusual patterns," the United Nations health agency said in a statement.

On Friday, British health authorities said that a third member of a family had been diagnosed with so-called novel coronavirus, but was not in danger.

"Although this new case offers further indications of person-to-person transmission, no sustained person-to-person transmission has been identified," said the WHO.

"Testing for the new coronavirus should be considered in patients with unexplained pneumonias, or in patients with unexplained severe, progressive or complicated respiratory illness not responding to treatment," it added.

Clusters of cases, and cases among health workers, should be thoroughly investigated wherever they occur, it underlined.

Britain's Health Protection Agency said the latest person to contract the virus was a relative of two other cases announced earlier this week.

The first member of the family, who was confirmed on Monday as having the virus, had recently travelled to the Middle East and Pakistan. The two relatives had no recent travel history.

A total of 12 cases have been reported to the WHO, with five of them fatal -- three in Saudi Arabia and two in Jordan.

Coronaviruses are to blame for most common colds but can also cause SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

A SARS epidemic killed more than 800 people when it swept out of China in 2003, sparking a major international health scare.

- AFP/fa

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PlayStation 4 to stream games in real time over Net, says report

At the end of January, Sony announced a PlayStation event but gave few details. We'll get the 411 this coming Wednesday in New York.

Sony's acquisition last year of cloud-gaming company Gaikai may be reflected in a big way in the upcoming PlayStation 4.

The Wall Street Journal is citing inside sources in reporting that Sony's new gaming console, expected to debut Wednesday at an event in Manhattan, will let people play games streamed in real time over the Internet.

The report says the streams will involve games designed for the outgoing console, the
PlayStation 3. That could be an effort to deal with backward compatibility: last month the Journal reported that for the PS4, Sony would "likely" go with chips from AMD, rather than the Sony-IBM-Toshiba-developed Cell chip that's in the PS3 -- a move that could cause compatibility issues with current games. The new report from the WSJ says the PS4 will be able to accommodate new games stored on optical discs. It's not clear if new games would be streamed as well.

Streaming could also help Sony go at least some way toward addressing the popularity of simple games on smartphones and other devices. As CNET's Rich Brown mentioned when Sony bought Gaikai, the acquired firm seemed to offer potential in terms of enabling higher-end mobile gaming: "Imagine playing a core PlayStation...[game] on your console, then picking the game up exactly where you left off on your cell phone or
tablet," he wrote.

Sony announced the Gaikai deal in July of last year. The cloud service allows for the streaming of beefier games than those commonly played on iPhones and the like (Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and so on). Company co-founder David Perry told CNET back in 2010 that the service was a bit like game arcades back in the day: "You wanted to play the latest machines, but they were $5,000 to $10,000. So you stuck your quarters in." Gaikai created data centers designed to run any modern-day game, at any settings, and then focused on piping streams to the end user.

The Journal said it's not clear how Sony might charge for the streams.

For more on the expected PlayStation 4, check out Jeff Bakalar's overview, here.

Also, CNET will be live at the Sony event in midtown Manhattan next week. Be sure to follow along with our live blog to get the very latest on all the announcements.

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Deadly end for fugitive who stabbed detective with eyeglasses

Updated at 1:33 p.m. ET

GRAPEVINE, Texas A Florida prisoner who escaped after stabbing a detective with his eyeglasses was shot and killed by Texas law enforcement officers early Saturday after police responded to a report of a home burglary, authorities said.

Alberto Morales was shot shortly after midnight when officers, with assistance from a police helicopter, spotted him in a wooded area near a lake in North Texas, Grapevine police Sgt. Robert Eberling said. Two hours earlier, officers responded to a report that jewelry and men's clothing had been stolen during a break-in at a home near where Morales was found.

Eberling said at a Saturday news conference that officers instructed Morales to lay on the ground and show his hands, but he rushed toward them, at which point they opened fire. He said the fugitive was still wearing part of his prison-issued jumpsuit as well as jogging pants, but Eberling said he couldn't comment on whether the stolen clothing and jewelry was found with Morales.

The residents arrived home around 10:30 p.m. Friday to discover the burglary at their home and called law enforcement officials, Eberling said.

Play Video

911 call: Alberto Morales allged stabbing victim

The 42-year-old Morales escaped Monday at a Wal-Mart store parking lot in Grapevine, a community near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Police said he used a sharp piece from his eyeglasses to stab a Miami-Dade detective who was transferring him by car to Nevada, where Morales was to serve a sentence of 30 years to life after being convicted of a sexual assault.

Det. Jaime Pardinas was expected to recover after being treated at a Dallas hospital for deep stab wounds to the neck, shoulder and back and a collapsed lung. It wasn't clear when he would be released.

Pardinas was accompanied by Miami-Dade Detective David Carrero during the transfer. They flew to Houston with Morales and then decided to drive the rest of the way after he became disruptive on the flight. They had stopped near the store while waiting for a third officer who was flying to the Dallas area to join them. Department policy requires three officers to be present for ground transfers of prisoners.

On a recording of a 911 call of the incident released Wednesday, Pardinas can be heard breathing heavily as he tells the operator that he's been stabbed. He described Morales' height, weight and appearance and then added, "He's a schizophrenic."

The escape set off a massive five-day manhunt in North Texas.

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Uncle: Pistorius Is 'Numb With Shock as Well as Grief'

Oscar Pistorius is "numb with shock as well as grief" his uncle told reporters Saturday as the Olympian amputee spent his second night behind bars in a South African jail for the allegedly killing his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

"All of us saw at firsthand how close [Steenkamp] had become to Oscar during that time and how happy they were," he said. "They had plans together and Oscar was happier in his private life than he had been for a long time," said Pistorius' uncle Arnold Pistorius.

The 26-year-old athlete, known as the "blade runner" because of the carbon-fiber blades he runs on, was charged Friday with premeditated murder.

Pistorius' family is "battling to come to terms with Oscar being charged with murder," Arnold Pistorius said, and still believe "there is no substance to the allegation."

Oscar Pistorius is suspected of shooting Steenkamp, 29, four times with a handgun early Thursday morning at his home in a gated community in Pretoria.

PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged with Murder

Prosecutors dismissed the reports that Pistorious mistook her for an intruder.

If convicted, Pistorius could face at least 25 years in jail.

According to South African newspaper Beeld, Steenkamp was killed nearly two hours after police were called to Pistorius' home to respond to reports of an argument at the complex.

Police said they have responded to disputes at the sprinter's residence before, but did not say whether or not Steenkamp was involved.

Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images; Mike Holmes/The Herald/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Oscar Pistorius Charged in Shooting Death of Girlfriend Watch Video

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Oscar Pistorius Murder Charges: Is He Capable of Killing? Watch Video

A memorial service for Steenkamp will be held in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday evening, reported SABC. Her body will be flown back for the service before being cremated, her family said.

"Her future has been cut short...I dare say she's with the angels," said Mike Steenkamp, Reeva Steenkamp's uncle.

Producers of the South African reality show Steenkamp competed in said the series will still premiere Saturday night on SABC as planned, but will now include a special tribute to the slain law school graduate whose modeling career was starting to take off.

RELATED: Reeva Steenkamp, Oscar Pistorius Girlfriend, Saw Self as 'Brainy, Blonde, Bombshell'

"This is the only time that you see the real Reeva," executive producer and director of "Tropka Island of Treasure" Samantha Moon told "Good Morning America." "She was kind and sweet and?so hard working.

"They will see the girl that we loved."

Meanwhile, the sprinter's sponsors ? including Nike, BT, Theirry Mugler, Oakley and Ossur, the Icelandic company that manufactures the prosthetic blades Pistorius races on ? are acting cautiously as the athlete awaits his bail hearing on Tuesday.

M-Net movies, a subscription-funded South African television channel has already pulled their ad campaign featuring Pistorius, tweeting, "Out of respect & sympathy to the bereaved, M-Net will be pulling its entire Oscar campaign featuring Oscar Pistorius with immediate effect."

Nike, who's ad featuring the double-amputee reads "I am the bullet in the chamber," released a statement saying the company is "continuing the monitor the situation closely."

Still, the athlete's' friends and colleagues said the murder charges have yet to sink in.

"When I heard, I was in shock and I'm just still trying to process it," Jamaican gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt told the Associated Press Friday night after the NBA All-Star celebrity game in Houston, Tex.

"I would just like to say, I have dated Oscar on and off for 5 YEARS, NOT ONCE has he EVER lifted a finger to me, made me fear for my life," his ex-girlfriend Jenna Edkins tweeted on Friday.

ABC News' Colleen Curry contributed to this report.

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NATO air strikes for Afghan security forces must end: Karzai

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan security forces will be banned from calling for NATO air strikes in residential areas to help in their operations, President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, three days after 10 civilians died in such a strike in the country's east.

NATO air strikes and civilian casualties have become a significant stress point in the relationship between Karzai and his international backers. The issue threatens to further destabilize a precarious international withdrawal, to be completed by the end of 2014.

Addressing a conference at Kabul's National Military Academy, Karzai expressed his anger about the strike and said he would issue a decree on Sunday preventing any resort to such measures by his forces.

"Tomorrow, I will issue an decree stating that under no conditions can Afghan forces request foreign air strikes on Afghan homes or Afghan villages during operations," Karzai told more than 1,000 officers, commandos and students.

If issued, such a decree would for the first time bar Afghan security forces from relying on NATO air strikes, and increase pressure on them as they increasingly assume control of security from international forces.

NATO and its partners are racing against the clock to train Afghanistan's 350,000-strong security forces, though questions remain over how they well the Afghans will be able to tackle the insurgency in the face of intensifying violence.

On Wednesday, a NATO air strike -- requested during an operation in eastern Kunar province involving Afghan and American troops targeting Taliban fighters linked to al Qaeda -- struck two houses in a village in the Shultan valley.

The strike killed 10 people, including five children and four women. Four Taliban fighters, who had links to al Qaeda, according to Afghan officials, were also killed.

STRIKES CRITICAL IN DIFFICULT AREAS

Foreign air power is crucial for Afghan forces, particularly in areas like Kunar and Nuristan, which are covered with forests and rough terrain, making ground operations difficult.

Nuristan and Kunar also share a long, porous borders with lawless areas inside Pakistan, known to be home to foreign fighters and al Qaeda members.

Karzai said he had been told that the air strike was requested by the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

"If this is true, it is very regrettable and it is very shameful. How could they ask foreigners to send planes and bomb our own houses?" he said.

According to Kunar officials one of the dead insurgents was identified as a Pakistani citizen and Taliban leader named Rocketi. A second was identified as a Taliban commander called Shahpour.

A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said there would be no comment on any presidential decree until it was actually issued.

In June last year, following the deaths of 18 civilians in a NATO air strike in the country's east, the ISAF commander at the time, General John Allen, issued a directive restricting their use against insurgents "within civilian dwellings".

In a meeting with ISAF Commander General Joseph Dunford following Wednesday's bombing, Karzai stressed Allen's 2012 directive and said such attacks must never recur.

Tensions have risen between Karzai and his foreign backers since his comments in October that the United States and its allies should target supporters of terrorism in Pakistan and stop fighting their war in Afghan villages.

The ISAF says it has reduced civilian casualties in recent years, and that insurgents such as the Taliban are now responsible for 84 per cent of all such deaths and injuries.

(Additional Reporting by Mohammad Anwar and Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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World Bank sees 'enormous potential' in Myanmar

WASHINGTON: A World Bank official said Friday that Myanmar has "enormous potential" as it undergoes reforms, which have led the Washington-based lender to launch a drive to bring electricity to millions.

World Bank East Asia and Pacific vice president Axel van Trotsenburg, who visited this month to open the bank's first office in Yangon since 1987, said he was "very, very encouraged" and sensed a feeling of optimism in Myanmar.

"All in all, we believe the country has enormous potential, provided the reforms are sustained," van Trotsenburg told reporters.

"We see that they will require a lot of hard work, but also there will be solid support by the international community when those reforms are happening," he said.

The World Bank has announced $245 million in assistance for priority needs of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, once the "rice bowl" of Asia, but which remains desperately poor after decades under military rule.

In a project announced during van Trotsenburg's visit to Myanmar, the World Bank is supporting the installation of gas turbines that aim to boost electricity production by two and a half compared to with the aging current sites.

Van Trotsenburg expected the effort to bring power to an additional five million people, lifting health, education and economic growth in a country where only one-quarter of the population now has access to electricity.

The World Bank last month also approved a $440 million zero-interest loan to Myanmar that will help the country improve its finances and pay back a bridge loan from Japan that allowed Yangon to clear its international arrears.

President Thein Sein launched a series of reforms after taking office in 2011, including freeing political prisoners, loosening censorship and allowing pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to enter parliament.

- AFP/fa

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Report: Google to open U.S. retail stores later this year

Google Chrome Zone section of PC World on London's Tottenham Court Road.

(Credit:
CNET Crave U.K.)

Google plans to open its own retail stores across the United States, according to a new report, giving the increasingly hardware-focused company a place to show off its growing number of physical products.

Citing "an extremely reliable source," 9to5Google says the company "hopes to have the first flagship Google Stores open for the holidays in major metropolitan areas."

The report says Google accelerated plans to build physical stores because customers are unlikely to buy expensive hardware, including the upcoming Google Glass, without first having a chance to try it for free.

Google already has set up Chrome mini-stores inside U.S. Best Buy locations and electronic retailers in the United Kingdom. From the start, those stores have prompted speculation that Google will open a full-scale retail presence. Google Stores could help bolster the company's brand image, showcase new products and win over
Android skeptics.

Still, Google is on the record denying any move into retail. In December, Google Shopping head Sameer Samat told All Things D that the company "had no aspirations to open a store."

"We aren't planning on being a retailer," he said. "We don't view being a retailer right now as the right decision."

CNET has contacted Google for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

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