Chinese protest factory even after official pledge

NINGBO, China (AP) — Protests against the expansion of a factory are resuming in an eastern China city despite a local governmentpledge to halt the project.

About 200 protesters gathered outside Ningbo government offices Monday for a fourth straight day of protests. Police channeled the crowd from the front of the building off to a side street.

The protests have occasionally featured violent clashes between protesters and police, who have detained some demonstrators. On Sunday night, the government promised to halt the expansion of the ethylene plant belonging to state-run Sinopec, though the crowd continued to protest, leaving only late in the night.

The protest, the latest on environmental issues, comes as China'sauthoritarian government wants calm for a transfer of power in the Communist Party leadership at a party congress that starts Nov. 8.

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China wants to stop profiteering at temple sites

BEIJING (AP) — China is telling tourist-favored Buddhist temples: Don't let money be your mantra.

Authorities announced a ban this week on temples selling shares to investors after leaders of several popular temples planned to pursue stock market listings for them as commercial entities. Even the Shaolin Temple of kung fu movie fame was once rumored to be planning a stock market debut — and critics have slammed such plans as a step too far in China's already unrestrained commercial culture.

"Everywhere in China now is about developing the economy," complained Beijing resident Fu Runxing, a 40-year-old accountant who said he recently went to a temple where incense was priced at 300 yuan ($50) a stick.

"It's too excessive. It's looting," she said.

Centuries-old Buddhist pilgrimage sites Mount Wutai in Shanxi province, Mount Putuo in Zhejiang and Mount Jiuhua in Anhui all were moving toward listing on stock markets in recent months to finance expansions, according to state media.

The government's religious affairs office called on local authorities to ban profiteering related to religious activity and told them not to allow religious venues to be run as business ventures or listed as corporate assets.

Companies that manage temple sites may be able to bypass the prohibition on listing shares simply by excluding the temples themselves from their lists of assets. A Buddhist site at Mount Emei in Sichuan already has been on the Shenzhen stock exchange since 1997 but its listed assets include a hotel, cable car company and ticket booths — not the temples, which date back several hundred years. Shanghai lawyer Wang Yun said the new prohibition wouldn't likely affect Emei, but might make additional companies think twice before listing.

Turning religious sites into profit-making enterprises is certainly not limited to China, but it illustrates just how commercialized this communist country has become in the past couple of decades, with entrepreneurs seizing on every opportunity to make money. One businessman has started selling canned "fresh air" in polluted Beijing.

No one could have anticipated that the poor and egalitarian China of Mao Zedong's time would become a "Wild West" of commercialism, said Mary Bergstrom, founder of The Bergstrom Group, a marketing consultancy in Shanghai.

"There aren't the established checks and balances in China that exist in other countries ,so people are more willing and able to test the boundaries of what is acceptable, especially if the end result of these tests is potential profit," she said.

The Chinese government has strict controls on religion, with temples, churches and mosques run by state-controlled groups. Even so, religion is booming, along with tourism, giving some places a chance to cash in.

The ban on profiteering from religious activity is "just a reflection of the terrible reality of the over-commercialization in recent years of temples and other places," the Southern Metropolis Daily said in an editorial Wednesday. "People who have been to famous religious places should be familiar with expensive ticket prices and donations for all kinds of things."

Chinese entities from nature parks to religious sites are increasingly turning to commercial activities to pay expenses as government support dwindles in a society with little charitable giving. Temples face heavy costs to maintain centuries-old buildings and gardens.

But the State Administration for Religious Affairs says some local governments, businesses and individuals have built religious sites for profit, hired fake monks and tricked visitors into handing over money.

A notice on its website Monday, issued jointly with the police ministry and other authorities, warned of serious punishment for officials found to be involved in religious profiteering.

The new rules leave open when commercialism crosses the line to profiteering. No matter where the line might be, entrepreneurial officials and religious groups may not heed it.

An employee of the Wutai Scenic District Administration's propaganda office confirmed Wednesday that the local government was planning to pursue a stock market listing but said he couldn't give details. The man, who would give only his surname, Bai, said he didn't know whether the latest notice would affect that plan.

The notion that some temples were becoming more about dollars than dharma first came to the fore in 2009 with reports that the legendary Shaolin monastery and martial arts center might sell shares to investors on a mainland or Hong Kong stock market.

The 1,500-year-old temple has become a lucrative business enterprise and holds registered trademarks, but its managers have denied rumors of floating shares and reiterated that denial Wednesday.

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Associated Press researcher Flora Ji contributed to this report.

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Man in Afghan uniform kills 2 British troops

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A man wearing an Afghan police uniform shot and killed two British soldiers at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, international military officials said.

The assault appeared to the be the latest in a string of insider attacks that have threatened the partnership between international troops and the Afghan forces they are trying to train to take over responsibility for the country's security.

A statement from the NATO military coalition said only that the assailant was wearing a police uniform, leaving open the possibility that the attacker was a militant posing as a policeman. The statement did not provide details on the shooting, saying it was being investigated.

The British Ministry of Defense said the attack happened at a checkpoint in Helmand Province's Nahri Sarraj district.

"The loss of these soldiers is a huge blow," Maj. Laurence Roche, a spokesman for British troops in Helmand, said in a statement.

The two killed soldiers were with the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, he said.

At least 53 international troops have been killed in attacks by Afghan soldiers or police this year, and a number of other assaults are still under investigation, the international alliance has said.

The surge in insider attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops ahead of a planned handover to the Afghans in 2014. It has further undermined public support for the 11-year war in NATO countries.

The attacks have not been limited to members of the NATO-led international coalition. More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this in attacks by their own colleagues.

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Moscow rally urges release of opposition activists

MOSCOW (AP) — Several hundred demonstrators rallied inMoscow on Tuesday to press for the release of opposition activists on the same day that Russia commemorated the victims of Soviet-era repression.

Protesters demanded that authorities free more than a dozen people who are in jail facing accusations over their role in a May protest that turned violent, among other charges. The opposition calls them "political prisoners."

President Vladimir Putin has launched a multi-pronged crackdown on dissent since being inaugurated for a third term in May. He has signed off on several repressive laws and allowed numerous arrests and searches of opposition activists.

One of the jailed activists, Leonid Razvozzhayev, said he had been abducted from Ukraine while seeking a political asylum and smuggled back into Russia where he was tortured into confessing. Russian authorities say he turned himself in.

Participants in the rally, which ended peacefully, demanded punishment for those involved in the abduction and torture of Razvozzhayev.

Leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov, who himself is facing charges of plotting riots which he has rejected as politically motivated, called on opposition supporters to keep pressing for the jailed activists' release or face a "long totalitarian winter."

The rally came on the day when Russia paid tribute to the victims of Soviet-era repression. Mourners attended a church service Tuesday at a former firing range at Moscow's district of Butovo, where some 20,000 priests, artists and other "enemies of the people" were executed at the height of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's purges.

Millions of Soviet people were sent into prison camps and either died there or were executed in mass purges that continued until Stalin's death in 1953.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev marked the day by issuing a harsh criticism of Stalin, which contrasted with a more cautious stance taken by Putin, who has restored Soviet-era symbols and tried to soften public perceptions of Stalin in the past.

Medvedev told members of the Kremlin's United Russia party that Stalin and his entourage committed a grave crime by "waging a war against their own people."

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US, EU hopeful of new Iran nuke talks

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — The U.S. and the European Union said Tuesday they'll press on with sanctions against Iran, even as they hope the promise of new negotiations could lead to a diplomatic solution ending the nuclear standoff.

Appearing together at a news conference in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo before continuing a joint tour of the Balkans in Serbia and Kosovo, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said both diplomacy and pressure would continue until Iran makes significant concessions over its disputed uranium enrichment activity.

"We continue to try and find ways to move forward on our negotiations," Ashton told reporters in Sarajevo. She cited contact over the weekend between a top aide and an assistant to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, and said she would be reaching out to Jalili "in the near future."

Still, there appeared to be no significant advance in the process since world powers instructed Ashton last month in New York to speak with Jalili and gauge Iran's seriousness on coming into compliance with its international nuclear negotiations. The West fears Iran may be trying to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

The West has demanded that Iran must stop enriching uranium to 20 percent purity, shut down its underground Fordo enrichment site and ship its 20 percent stockpile out of the country. In return, Iran has been offered civilian plane spare parts and 20 percent-enriched nuclear fuel for its medical research reactor in Tehran.

Clinton said the U.S. message to Iran is clear. "The window remains open to resolve the international community's concerns about your nuclear program diplomatically and to relieve your isolation, but that window cannot remain open indefinitely. Therefore, we hope that there can be serious good-faith negotiations commenced soon."

Iran has sent mixed signals on its nuclear program. World powers cited increased flexibility from Iran in September when they agreed to lay the groundwork for a new round of negotiations, and on Tuesday Iran's Foreign Ministry said the standoff could be resolved if the U.S. and its partners recognize Iran's right to produce nuclear fuel.

But senior Iranian officials also have threatened to boost enrichment levels if the West doesn't ease sanctions. And the U.S. and its partners say measures that are crippling the Iranian economy will remain in force until Tehran first starts coming into compliance with its international obligations.

Clinton and Ashton spoke during the first leg of their tour of the Balkans, where they are urging rivals ethnic groups and governments to settle their differences for the good of their nations.

Seventeen years after the U.S.-led intervention ended Bosnia's civil war, Bosnia's Muslims, Serbs and Croats are split on how to unify the country or even to dissolve their federation entirely into separate ethnic parts. The Serb republic and the Bosniak-Croat federation have their own governments and parliaments, held together only weakly by a three-member presidency that Clinton and Ashton met with.

Clinton called efforts by some to roll back the Dayton Accords passed during the presidency of her husband "totally unacceptable," a reference to Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik's call for the dissolution of Bosnia. He has also denied the genocide of Bosnia's Muslims in the 1990s.

Clinton urged all Bosnia's leaders to "put aside their political differences, put aside the rhetoric of dissolution, secession and denial of what tragically happened in the war." She and Ashton said the country's slow pace of reforms and the inability of leaders to look past their ethnic constituencies are holding back its hopes of joining the EU and NATO, and leaving it behind neighbors such as Serbia,Croatia and Kosovo.

Later in Belgrade, the two met Serbia's nationalist president, Tomislav Nikolic, and Prime Minister Ivica Dacic.

Clinton told them that normalizing ties with Kosovo, which broke off from Serbia four years ago, is critical for Serbian aspirations of entering the 27-nation European Union. She urged progress in talks with Kosovo about issues such as freedom of movement, customs, utilities and government services, without calling for Belgrade to immediately recognize the independence of its former province.

After Serbia, the pair flew together on Clinton's plane to Kosovo's capital of Pristina, where they'll press top officials on similar matters on Wednesday. Afterward, Ashton will drop off the trip and Clinton will travel on to Croatia and Albania, NATO's two newest members.

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Associated Press writers Aida Cerkez in Sarajevo and Jovana Gec in Belgrade contributed to this report.

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Regional elections foretell turmoil in Italy

ROME (AP) — Italy risks heading into political turmoil after a regional election showed a huge level of voter distrust in mainstream political parties, a result that could also rattle financial markets that have no small role in deciding the fate of the economically troubled nation.

A protest party candidate from a movement launched by a TV comic made a strong showing in Sicilian elections Sunday, a vote seen as a test of popular sentiment before nationwide polls in the spring to replace the government of Premier Mario Monti. The Sicily vote also was marked by sharply lower turnout, down to 47 percent of eligible voters from 67 percent in the 2008 regional elections.

The populist Five Star Movement garnered 18 percent of the vote — not enough to win the governorship because other parties ran in alliances, but still making it the top vote-getting party and a force to be reckoned with. Movement leader Beppe Grillo attracted large audiences with his attacks on Monti's austerity policies and the seemingly endemic corruption among Italy's major political parties.

"Without doubt this result is not positive for market confidence and increases uncertainty ahead of the general election next spring," said an analysis by economists Chiara Corsa and Loredana Federico for UniCredit, Italy's largest bank.

Monti's government of technocrats imposed a painful austerity program and has started in on reforms that together have succeeded in bringing down Italy's borrowing costs, which had skyrocketed when his predecessor, media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, lost the confidence of markets that he could bring Italy's finances under control and balance the budget.

Italy's benchmark 10-year bond yield rose Monday after the release of the Sicilian election results — from 4.85 percent to 4.94 percent, a sign that investors have become somewhat more cautious about the country's financial future. The bond yield edged back only marginally to 4.92 percent on Tuesday.

But Monti's term ends in the spring and he has ruled out running for premier, although he has left the door open for a second term if no party wins a clear majority and he is tapped to head another government. There has also been talk of Monti serving as finance minister in a government next year, a move that would also please Italy's eurozone partners.

Monti, speaking at a conference of the World Economic Forum in Rome on Tuesday, directed himself to Italy's political class as he sketched a picture underlining the virtue of unpopular — but necessary — policy.

"The really important thing is, we have done very unpleasant things, unpleasant things for the receivers and even unpleasant for the doers. The perception of what this government is doing is not fully good. But it is higher than that of any of the parties," Monti said.

"This is an important message for future governments: Do not believe that you cannot do the right policies, otherwise you risk your position in the future," he said.

A further unknown is Berlusconi's intentions. He had been supporting Monti's government and recently suggested he planned to retire from politics.

But the 76-year media magnate may have changed his mind after a court in Milan convicted him Friday of tax fraud. He attacked Monti, complained that Germany had too much control over Italy's economic decisions, and said he would stay in politics to reform the justice system.

Political analyst Massimo Franco, writing in the leading Corriere della Sera, said Italy is paying the price for Berlusconi's "sad decadence and his system of power." He also wrote that the Sicilian election result is a warning that the country risks becoming ungovernable.

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Disarray, millions without power in Sandy's wake

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The most devastating storm in decades to hit the country's most densely populated region upended man and nature as it rolled back the clock on 21st-century lives, cutting off modern communication and leaving millions without power Tuesday as thousands who fled their water-menaced homes wondered when — if — life would return to normal.

A weakening Sandy, the hurricane turned fearsome superstorm, killed at least 48 people, many hit by falling trees, and still wasn't finished. It inched inland across Pennsylvania, ready to bank toward western New York to dump more of its water and likely cause more havoc Tuesday night.  Behind it: a dazed, inundated New York City, a waterlogged Atlantic Coast and a moonscape of disarray and debris — from unmoored shore-town boardwalks to submerged mass-transit systems to delicate presidential politics.

"Nature," said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, assessing the damage to his city, "is an awful lot more powerful than we are."

More than 8.2 million households were without power in 17 states as far west as Michigan. Nearly 2 million of those were in New York, where large swaths of lower Manhattan lost electricity and entire streets ended up under water — as did seven subway tunnels between Manhattan and Brooklyn at one point, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said. The New York Stock Exchange was closed for a second day from weather, the first time that has happened since a blizzard in 1888. The city's subway system, the lifeblood of more than 5 million residents, was damaged like never before and closed indefinitely, and Consolidated Edison said electricity in and around New York could take a week to restore.

"Everybody knew it was coming. Unfortunately, it was everything they said it was," said Sal Novello, a construction executive who rode out the storm with his wife, Lori, in the Long Island town of Lindenhurst, and ended up with 7 feet of water in the basement.

The scope of the storm's damage wasn't known yet. Though early predictions of river flooding in Sandy's inland path were petering out, colder temperatures made snow the main product of Sandy's slow march from the sea. Parts of the West Virginia mountains were blanketed with 2 feet of snow by Tuesday afternoon, and drifts 4 feet deep were reported at Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border.

With Election Day a week away, the storm also threatened to affect the presidential campaign. Federal disaster response, always a dicey political issue, has become even thornier since government mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And poll access and voter turnout, both of which hinge upon how people are impacted by the storm, could help shift the outcome in an extremely close race.

As organized civilization came roaring back Tuesday in the form of emergency response, recharged cellphones and the reassurance of daylight, harrowing stories and pastiches emerged from Maryland north to Rhode Island in the hours after Sandy's howling winds and tidal surges shoved water over seaside barriers, into low-lying streets and up from coastal storm drains.

Images from around the storm-affected areas depicted scenes reminiscent of big-budget disaster movies. In Atlantic City, N.J., a gaping hole remained where once a stretch of boardwalk sat by the sea. In Queens, N.Y., rubble from a fire that destroyed as many as 100 houses in an evacuated beachfront neighborhood jutted into the air at ugly angles against a gray sky. In heavily flooded Hoboken, N.J., across the Hudson River from Manhattan, dozens of yellow cabs sat parked in rows, submerged in murky water to their windshields. At the ground zero construction site in lower Manhattan, sea water rushed into a gaping hole under harsh floodlights.

One of the most dramatic tales came from lower Manhattan, where a failed backup generator forcedNew York University's Tisch Hospital to relocate more than 200 patients, including 20 babies from neonatal intensive care. Dozens of ambulances lined up in the rainy night and the tiny patients were gingerly moved out, some attached to battery-powered respirators as gusts of wind blew their blankets.

In Moonachie, N.J., 10 miles north of Manhattan, water rose to 5 feet within 45 minutes and trapped residents who thought the worst of the storm had passed. Mobile-home park resident Juan Allen said water overflowed a 2-foot wall along a nearby creek, filling the area with 2 to 3 feet of water within 15 minutes. "I saw trees not just knocked down but ripped right out of the ground," he said. "I watched a tree crush a guy's house like a wet sponge."

In a measure of its massive size, waves on southern Lake Michigan rose to a record-tying 20.3 feet. High winds spinning off Sandy's edges clobbered the Cleveland area early Tuesday, uprooting trees, closing schools and flooding major roads along Lake Erie.

Most along the East Coast, though, grappled with an experience like Bertha Weismann of Bridgeport, Conn.— frightening, inconvenient and financially problematic but, overall, endurable. Her garage was flooded and she lost power, but she was grateful. "I feel like we are blessed," she said. "It could have been worse."

The presidential candidates' campaign maneuverings Tuesday revealed the delicacy of the need to look presidential in a crisis without appearing to capitalize on a disaster. President Barack Obama canceled a third straight day of campaigning, scratching events scheduled for Wednesday in swing-state Ohio, in Sandy's path. Republican Mitt Romney resumed his campaign with plans for an Ohio rally billed as a "storm relief event."

And the weather posed challenges a week out for how to get everyone out to vote. On the hard-hit New Jersey coastline, a county elections chief said some polling places on barrier islands will be unusable and have to be moved.

 "This is the biggest challenge we've ever had," said George R. Gilmore, chairman of the Ocean County Board of Elections.

By Tuesday afternoon, there were still only hints of the economic impact of the storm. Airports remained closed across the East Coast and far beyond as tens of thousands of travelers found they couldn't get where they were going.

Forecasting firm IHS Global Insight predicted the storm will end up causing about $20 billion in damages and $10 billion to $30 billion in lost business. Another firm, AIR Worldwide, estimated losses up to $15 billion — big numbers probably offset by reconstruction and repairs that will contribute to longer-term growth.

"The biggest problem is not the first few days but the coming months," said Alan Rubin, an expert in nature disaster recovery.

Sandy began in the Atlantic and knocked around the Caribbean — killing nearly 70 people — and strengthened into a hurricane as it chugged across the southeastern coast of the United States. By Tuesday night it had ebbed in strength but was joining up with another, more wintry storm — an expected confluence of weather systems that earned it nicknames like "superstorm" and, on Halloween eve, "Frankenstorm."

It became, pretty much everyone agreed Tuesday, the weather event of a lifetime — and one shared vigorously on social media by people in Sandy's path who took eye-popping photographs as the storm blew through, then shared them with the world by the blue light of their smartphones. 

On Twitter , Facebook and the photo-sharing service Instagram, people tried to connect, reassure relatives and make sense of what was happening — and, in many cases, work to authenticate reports of destruction and storm surges. They posted and passed around images and real-time updates at a dizzying rate, wishing each other well and gaping, virtually, at scenes of calamity moments after they unfolded. Among the top terms on Facebook through the night and well into Tuesday, according to the social network: "we are OK," ''made it" and "fine."

Around midday Tuesday, Sandy was about 120 miles east of Pittsburgh, pushing westward with winds of 45 mph, and was expected to turn toward New York State on Tuesday night. Although weakening as it goes, the storm will continue to bring heavy rain and flooding, said Daniel Brown of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Atlantic City's fabled Boardwalk, the first in the nation, lost several blocks when Sandy came through, though the majority of it remained intact even as other Jersey Shore boardwalks were dismantled. What damage could be seen on the coastline Tuesday was, in some locations, staggering — "unthinkable," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said of what unfolded along the Jersey Shore, where houses were swept from their foundations and amusement park rides were washed into the ocean. "Beyond anything I thought I would ever see."

Resident Carol Mason returned to her bayfront home to carpets that squished as she stepped on them. She made her final mortgage payment just last week. Facing a mandatory evacuation order, she had tried to ride out the storm at first but then saw the waters rising outside her bathroom window and quickly reconsidered.

"I looked at the bay and saw the fury in it," she said. "I knew it was time to go."

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Contributing to this report were Katie Zezima in Atlantic City, N.J.; Alicia Caldwell and Martin Crutsinger in Washington; Colleen Long, Jennifer Peltz, Tom Hays, Larry Neumeister, Ralph Russo and Scott Mayerowitz in New York; Meghan Barr in Mastic Beach, N.Y.; Christopher S. Rugaber in Arlington, Va.; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa.: John Christoffersen in Bridgeport, Conn.; Vicki Smith in Elkins, W.Va.; David Porter in Newark, N.J.; Joe Mandak in Pittsburgh; and Dave Collins in Hartford, Conn.

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Follow Ted Anthony on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted

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Windows 8 inspires computer makers to creativity

NEW YORK (AP) — Can't decide if you want a PC or tablet? Now you won't have to. With the release of Windows 8, computer makers are doing their best to blur the boundaries with an array of devices that mash keyboards and touch screens together in different ways.

Some of these configurations are new, while others have appeared and disappeared on the market since at least 2002, when Microsoft Corp. released Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

Microsoft says it has certified 1,000 devices for use with Windows 8 and its sibling operating system, Windows RT. The two systems look the same, but under the hood, they're quite different.

Windows RT runs only on machines with the type of lower-energy, phone-style chips used in iPad and Kindle tablets. That makes for cheap, thin and light devices with very long battery lives — more than 10 hours. But those devices won't run any programs written for other versions of Windows. In fact, they can run only applications downloaded directly from Microsoft's online store, in a setup borrowed from Apple and its iPhone.

The ability of Windows RT devices to connect to peripherals such as scanners and printers is also limited.

Here's a selection of the devices that went on sale Friday or will hit stores over the next few months:

CONVERTIBLES — These are the Transformers of the bunch. They run Intel chips and may look like staid laptops at first glance, but one way or another, they convert into tablets.

Toshiba U925t — To convert this laptop into a tablet, push the 12.5-inch screen back, then slide it over the keyboard with the display facing out. Available now for $1,150.

Sony Vaio Duo 11 — Similar to the Toshiba but smaller, the folding mechanism on this model leaves no room for adjusting the angle of the screen. There's no room for a touchpad, either. Instead, there's a touch-sensitive "nub" in the middle of the keyboard that lets you guide the cursor. The 11.6-inch screen also works with a stylus. Available now starting at $1,100.

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge Twist — Like all ThinkPads, the Edge Twist is a business-focused machine. This one incorporates a mechanism that's been in use in tablet computers for at least a decade: The 12.5-inch screen connects to the base with a swiveling hinge. Flip the screen around, then fold it over the keyboard to turn it into a tablet. Available now starting at $849.

Dell XPS 12 — The 12.5-inch screen on this laptop is hinged inside its frame. It can be flipped around so the screen faces away from you, then folded over the keyboard for tablet mode. Sound original? Dell has actually tried this design before, for a 2010 laptop. Starts at $1,200, with an estimated ship date of Nov. 15.

Lenovo Yoga 11 — This 11.6-inch screen goes back — way back. You can push it so far back that it's flat with the underside of the laptop. Now you have a tablet with a screen on one side and a keyboardon the other. Luckily, the keyboard turns off when you fold the screen back, so you can hold the device. Unlike most convertibles, which run on standard Intel chips, this one uses Windows RT and a processor from Nvidia. Available in December for $799.

WINDOWS 8 TABLETS — These slates run Intel chips and regular Windows software. Computer makers are hoping they'll find a home among businesses that need employees to access their work applications while commuting or traveling, but they're also hoping to entice consumers.

Samsung ATIV Smart PC 500T — This tablet, with an 11.6-inch screen, looks much like a small laptop when docked into a keyboard base. The combination also folds up just like a laptop. Available now for $650. The keyboard costs another $100 and contains an additional battery to extend the workday.

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx — Similar to the Samsung model, the Lynx goes on sale in December for $599. The keyboard will cost another $149.

Hewlett-Packard ElitePad 900 — A 10-inch tablet aimed squarely at business users, the ElitePad is paired with "Smart Jackets" that extend its capabilities with extra battery life, a keyboard, a stylus or memory-card slots. Available in January at an as-yet undisclosed price.

Hewlett-Packard Envy X2 — The consumer equivalent of the ElitePad is slightly larger, with an 11.6-inch screen, but weighs the same: 1.5 pounds. A keyboard dock with an extra battery doubles the weight and turns it into a small laptop. Launches this holiday season. HP hasn't said what it will cost.

WINDOWS RT TABLETS — Though they lack the ability to run standard Windows programs, these light tablets include a version of the Office software suite for free.

Microsoft Surface — Yes, Microsoft is diving into the hardware business, making its own tablets and competing with its customers, the computer makers. The Surface will have a screen that measures 10.6 inches diagonally, slightly larger than the iPad's. Optional covers double as thin keyboards — with no real buttons, just printed "touch zones." Available now starting at $499. Keyboard cover is $100 extra with base model, included with $699 model. A full-fledged, non-RT version will come later at a price that hasn't been disclosed.

Asus VivoTab RT — This tablet looks very much like the Asus Transformer line, which runs Google Inc.'s Android software. The 10.1-inch tablet docks into a keyboard, which also extends the battery life to about 15 hours. The tablet costs $449 and the dock $149. Available now.

Dell XPS 10 — Another 10.1-inch tablet that docks into a keyboard. Starts at $499 and goes on sale some time later this year.

REALLY ODD PRODUCTS — Windows 8 has prompted some manufacturers to think well outside the box.

Sony Tap 20 — This is an "all-in-one PC" — a desktop computer with a built-in 20-inch diagonal screen. The difference here is that the Tap 20 has a built-in battery, so it can be lugged around as an enormous tablet computer. It's four times the size of the iPad screen. Place it face up on a table and have the family gather around. It can keep track of up to 10 fingers touching the screen at once. The Tap 20 will go on sale Wednesday starting at $880.

Asus Taichi — This laptop has 11.6-inch screens on both sides of the lid. When open, one screen faces the keyboard and the other faces away. That's convenient for presentations, Asus says. When closed, the outward-facing screen becomes a tablet screen. Taichi will go on sale in November starting at $1,299.

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Facebook used to kidnap, traffic Indonesian girls

DEPOK, Indonesia (AP) — When a 14-year-old girl received aFacebook friend request from an older man she didn't know, she accepted it out of curiosity. It's a click she will forever regret, leading to a brutal story that has repeated itself as sexual predators find new ways to exploit Indonesia's growing obsession with social media.

The junior high student was quickly smitten by the man's smooth online flattery. They exchanged phone numbers, and his attention increased with rapid-fire texts. He convinced her to meet in a mall, and she found him just as charming in person.

They agreed to meet again. After telling her mom she was going to visit a sick girlfriend on her way to church choir practice, she climbed into the man's minivan near her home in Depok, on the outskirts of Jakarta.

The man, a 24-year-old who called himself Yogi, drove her an hour to the town of Bogor, West Java, she told The Associated Press in an interview.

There, he locked her in a small room inside a house with at least five other girls aged 14 to 17. She was drugged and raped repeatedly — losing her virginity in the first attack.

After one week of torture, her captor told her she was being sold and shipped to the faraway island of Batam, known for its seedy brothels and child sex tourism that caters to men coming by boat from nearby Singapore.

She sobbed hysterically and begged to go home. She was beaten and told to shut up or die.

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So far this year, 27 of the 129 children reported missing to Indonesia's National Commission for Child Protection are believed to have been abducted after meeting their captors on Facebook, said the group's chairman, Arist Merdeka Sirait. One of the 27 has been found dead.

In the month since the Depok girl was found near a bus terminal Sept. 30, there have been at least seven reports of young girls in Indonesia being abducted by people they met on Facebook. Although no solid data exists, police and aid groups that work on trafficking issues say it seems to be a particularly big problem in the Southeast Asian archipelago.

"Maybe Indonesia is kind of a unique country so far. Once the reports start coming in, you will know that maybe it's not one of the countries, maybe it's one of a hundred countries," said Anjan Bose, a program officer who works on child online protection issues at ECPAT International, a nonprofit global network that helps children in 70 countries. "The Internet is such a global medium. It doesn't differentiate between poor and rich. It doesn't differentiate between the economy of the country or the culture."

Websites that track social media say Indonesia has nearly 50 million people signed up for Facebook, making it one of the world's top users after the U.S. The capital, Jakarta, was recently named the most active Twitter city by Paris-based social media monitoring company Semiocast. In addition, networking groups such as BlackBerry and Yahoo Messenger are wildly popular on mobile phones.

Many young Indonesians, and their parents, are unaware of the dangers of allowing strangers to see their personal information online. Teenagers frequently post photos and personal details such as their home address, phone number, school and hangouts without using any privacy settings — allowing anyone trolling the net to find them and learn everything about them.

"We are racing against time, and the technology frenzy over Facebook is a trend among teenagers here," Sirait said. "Police should move faster, or many more girls will become victims."

The 27 Facebook-related abductions reported to the commission this year in Indonesia have already exceed 18 similar cases it received in all of 2011. Overall, the National Task Force Against Human Trafficking said 435 children were trafficked last year, mostly for sexual exploitation.

Many who fight child sex crimes in Indonesia believe the real numbers are much higher. Missing children are often not reported to authorities. Stigma and shame surround sexual abuse in the world's largest Muslim-majority country, and there's a widespread belief that police will do nothing to help.

An ECPAT International report estimates that each year, 40,000 to 70,000 children are involved in trafficking, pornography or prostitution in Indonesia, a nation of 240 million where many families remain impoverished.

The U.S. State Department has also warned that more Indonesian girls are being recruited using social media networks. In a report last year, it said traffickers have "resorted to outright kidnapping of girls and young women for sex trafficking within the country and abroad."

Online child sexual abuse and exploitation are common in much of Asia. In the Philippines, kids are being forced to strip or perform sex acts on live webcams — often by their parents, who are using them as a source of income. Western men typically pay to use the sites.

"In the Philippines, this is the tip of the iceberg. It's not only Facebook and social media, but it's also through text messages ... especially young, vulnerable people are being targeted," said Leonarda Kling, regional representative for Terre des Hommes Netherlands, a nonprofit working on trafficking issues. "It's all about promises. Better jobs or maybe even a nice telephone or whatever. Young people now, you see all the glamour and glitter around you and they want to have the latest BlackBerry, the latest fashion, and it's also a way to get these things."

Facebook says its investigators regularly review content on the site and work with authorities, including Interpol, to combat illegal activity. It also has employees around the world tasked with cracking down on people who attempt to use the site for human trafficking.

"We take human trafficking very seriously and, while this behavior is not common on Facebook, a number of measures are in place to counter this activity," spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an email.

He declined to give any details on Facebook's involvement in trafficking cases reported in Indonesia or elsewhere.

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The Depok girl, wearing a mask to hide her face as she was interviewed, said she is still shocked that the man she knew for nearly a month turned on her.

"He wanted to buy new clothes for me, and help with school payments. He was different ... that's all," she said. "I have a lot of contacts through Facebook, and I've also exchanged phone numbers. But everything has always gone fine. We were just friends."

She said that after being kidnapped, she was given sleeping pills and was "mostly unconscious" for her ordeal. She said she could not escape because a man and another girl stood guard over her.

The girl said the man did not have the money for a plane ticket to Batam, and also became aware that her parents and others were relentlessly searching for her. He ended up dumping her at a bus station, where she found help.

"I am angry and cannot accept what he did to me. ... I was raped and beaten!" said the lanky girl with shoulder-length black hair. The AP generally does not publish the names of sexual abuse victims.

The girl's case made headlines this month when she was expelled after she tried to return to school. Officials at the school reportedly claimed she had tarnished its image. She has since been reinstated, but she no longer wishes to attend due to the stigma she faces.

Education Minister Mohammad Nuh also came under fire after making remarks that not all girls who report such crimes are victims: "They do it for fun, and then the girl alleges that it's rape," he said. His response to the criticism was that it's difficult to prove whether sexual assault allegations are "real rapes."

The publicity surrounding the story encouraged the parents of five other missing girls to come forward this month, saying their daughters also were victimized by people they met on Facebook. Two more girls were freed from their captors in October and are now seeking counseling.

A man who posed as a photographer on Facebook was recently arrested and accused of kidnapping and raping three teenage girls. Authorities say he lured them into meeting him with him by promising to make them models, and then locked them in a house. Police found dozens of photos of naked girls on his camera and laptop.

Another case involved a 15-year-old girl from Bogor. She was recently rescued by police after being kidnapped by someone she met on Facebook and held at a restaurant, waiting for someone to move her to another town where she would be forced into prostitution.

In some incidents, the victims themselves ended up recruiting other young girls after being promised money or luxuries such as mobile phones or new clothes.

Police are trying to get a step ahead of the criminals. Detective Lt. Ruth Yeni Qomariah from the Children and Women's Protection unit in Surabaya said she posed as a teenager online and busted three men who used Facebook to kidnap and rape underage girls. She's searching for a fourth suspect.

"It has been getting worse as trafficking rings become more sophisticated and underage children are more easily targeted," she said.

The man who abducted the Depok girl has not been found, and it's unclear what happened to the five other girls held at the house where she was raped.

"I saw they were offered by my kidnapper to many guys," she said. "I don't know what happened. I don't want to remember it."

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Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini contributed to this report from Jakarta, Indonesia.

On the Net: https://www.facebook.com/help/179468058793941/?q=trafficking&sid=0o4BpvxlcINe4Y6VV

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