China to improve land compensation scheme to help stability

 Chinese officials will this week discuss improving compensation for expropriating farmland, state media said on Monday, in a move to help deal with growing rural anger about forced land seizures.
A draft amendment to the Land Administration Law will remove a previous ceiling for calculating compensation which has been judged to be too low and also ensure money is paid out before land is expropriated, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Compensation will in future include rural residences, crops already planted, a relocation allowance and social security fees, the report added.
"Farmers' protests over land seizures have occurred in villages across the country in recent years, prompting calls for better protection of farmers' property rights," Xinhua said.
It did not say when the new rules would go into effect and provided no other details.
Some academics have pushed for the government to grant farmers greater control over their land, conflict over which is rising, a worry to the stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party.
Chinese farmers do not directly own most of their fields. Instead, most rural land is owned collectively by a village, and farmers get leases that last for decades.
In theory, villagers can collectively decide whether to apply to sell off or develop land. In practice, however, state officials usually decide. And hoping to win investment, revenues and pay-offs, they often override the wishes of farmers.
The number of "mass incidents" of unrest recorded by the government grew from 8,700 in 1993 to about 90,000 in 2010, according to several government-backed studies. Some estimates are higher, and the government has not released official data for recent years.
Conflict over land requisitions accounted for more than 65 percent of rural "mass incidents", the China Economic Times reported this year, citing survey data.

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Russia investigates protest leader for theft of party funds

Russian authorities have opened a third criminal investigation into opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying on Monday that the critic of President Vladimir Putin is suspected of stealing millions of dollars from a political party in 2007.
Navalny, 36, the most prominent leader of large street protests that erupted last December against Putin's nearly 13-year rule, already faces up to 10 years in jail if convicted on existing charges of theft from a state timber company.
Earlier this month, investigators also charged Navalny and his brother of cheating a mail-transport company out of $1.79 million. That move followed a December15 opposition rally at a memorial to victims of Soviet-era repressions outside the headquarters of the FSB security service, formerly the KGB.
Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption blogger, denies any wrongdoing and says the accusations aired by the Investigative Committee, a federal agency that answers to Putin, are intended to persuade him to stop his opposition activities.
"Aie, aie, aie, yet another case against me. Investigative Committee, what are you doing? ... That's enough," Navalny tweeted minutes after the new investigation was announced.
The Interfax news agency quoted him as saying the charge was "absolutely absurd".
On its website, the Investigative Committee said it suspects an advertising company headed by Navalny stole up to 100 million roubles ($3.24 million) paid it by the liberal, pro-business Union of Right Forces Party (SPS) for campaign advertising.
It said there was evidence Navalny's company, Allekt, siphoned the money off into bank accounts of shell companies.
A former SPS party leader, Leonid Gozman, dismissed the charges as nonsense and said the party had no accusations or complaints against Navalny, Interfax reported.
Navalny said the fact that investigators had initiated the case without a complaint from the party showed that it was politically motivated, and he vowed not to give up his activism, Interfax reported.
The Investigative Committee said it had encountered the evidence related to SPS while investigating its case against Navalny on the timber theft charge.
Navalny is a key leader of an opposition council, elected in an online vote in October, that is trying maintain the momentum of a protest movement that drew crowds of up to 100,000 people onto Moscow's streets at its peak last winter, but failed to prevent Putin winning a six-year third term as president.
Since then, pro-Kremlin lawmakers have passed a series of laws that the opposition say are intended to stifle dissent. Several opposition leaders and dozens of activists are facing criminal charges or investigation.

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Ukraine central banker named first deputy prime minister

 Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich on Monday named Serhiy Arbuzov - who has until now run the central bank - first deputy prime minister in the new government, making him an important player in upcoming talks with the IMF.
The appointment to the No.2 government position also makes Arbuzov, who is a member of Yanukovich's inner circle, a likely successor to Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.
Ukraine's government resigned on December 3 after October's parliamentary election and its members have since served in an interim capacity, apart from Azarov who was reappointed on December 13.
The first major task of the new cabinet will be to secure a new bailout program from the International Monetary Fund.
An IMF mission is due to visit Ukraine late in January for what are expected to be tough talks on nailing down a new stand-by arrangement to help Ukraine repay, or refinance, more than $9 billion debt falling due to foreign creditors in 2013.
This includes $6.4 billion already owed to the IMF which Ukraine says it hopes to refinance.
The IMF has urged Kiev to cut subsidies on household gas and heating prices but Azarov has so far refused to take the unpopular step. However, Kiev may have to become more flexible.
Arbuzov, 36, will take over as first deputy prime minister from Valery Khoroshkovsky who quit the cabinet this month in protest at Azarov's re-appointment.
According to a separate decree issued by Yanukovich on Monday, Arbuzov will be in charge of economy, trade, state finances, agriculture and social policy.
Yanukovich's office also announced that Yuri Kolobov, Arbuzov's former deputy at the central bank, would keep his job as finance minister.
The president named former Energy Minister Yuri Boiko and former regional governor Olexander Vilkul as deputy prime ministers.
It was not clear who would succeed Arbuzov at the central bank but last week Boris Pryhodko, head of treasury at state-run Oshchadny Bank, was named its new first deputy chairman.
FAMILY TIES
Arbuzov emerged from relative obscurity to become a major figure in Kiev in September 2010 when he was named first deputy chairman of the central bank in a surprise reshuffle.
Less than four months later, Yanukovich named him central bank head, a position he has held since.
Before joining the central bank, Arbuzov, who was born and educated in Donetsk - Yanukovich's home region and power base - spent four months working at the state-owned Ukreximbank and his earlier career as a financier was in the private sector.
In particular, Arbuzov had worked at the Ukrainian Business Bank, a Donetsk-based lender which according to Ukrainian media is linked to Yanukovich's elder son Oleksandr.
Arbuzov's mother Valentina Arbuzova is the chief executive of the All-Ukrainian Development Bank, another private bank owned by Oleksandr Yanukovich.
Upon taking over the central bank, Arbuzov reshuffled its senior management but largely continued the policies of the previous administration such as maintaining the hryvnia's peg to the dollar.
Although Arbuzov comes across as media-shy and avoided open arguments with the government, official statements and leaked documents from the central bank indicated his opinions on economic matters sometimes differed from those of Azarov.
In June 2011, for example, UNIAN news agency published a leaked letter in which Arbuzov told Azarov his government was losing credibility after refusing to carry out reforms advised by the IMF.
More often than not, though, the government and the central bank worked together smoothly and Azarov has avoided public criticism of Arbuzov's policies.
The two will need to work hard to revive Ukraine's economy which shrank by 1.3 percent year-on-year in the third quarter as global demand for steel, the main Ukrainian export, fell.

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Afghan policewoman kills US adviser, police say

An Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American adviser outside the police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, the latest in a rising tide of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies, senior Afghan officials said.
The woman, identified as Afghan police Sgt. Nargas, had entered a strategic compound in the heart of the capital and shot the adviser with a pistol as he came out of a small shop with articles he had just bought, Kabul Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa told The Associated Press.
The woman was taken into Afghan custody shortly after the attack.
Earlier, she had asked bystanders where the governor's office was located, the governor said. As many Afghans, the policewoman uses only one name.
A NATO command spokesman, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lester T. Carroll, said the woman was arrested after the incident. The slain adviser was a contractor whose identity wasn't immediately released.
The attack occurred outside the police headquarters in a walled, highly secure compound which also houses the governor's office, courts and a prison. Kabul Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Daoud Amin said an investigation was under way.
"We can confirm that a civilian police adviser was shot and killed this morning by a suspected member of the Afghan uniformed police. The suspected shooter is in Afghan custody," Carroll said.
The killing came just hours after an Afghan policeman shot five of his colleagues at a checkpoint in northern Afghanistan late Monday. The attacker then stole his colleague's weapons and fled to join the Taliban, said deputy provincial governor in Jawzjan province, Faqir Mohammad Jawzjani.
More than 60 international allies, including troops and civilian advisers, have been killed by Afghan soldiers or police this year, and a number of other insider attacks as they are known are still under investigations. NATO forces, due to mostly withdraw from the country by 2014, have speeded up efforts to train and advise Afghan military and police units before the pullout.
The surge in insider attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops and has further undermined public support for the 11-year war in NATO countries. It has also stoked suspicion among some NATO units of their Afghan counterparts, although others enjoy close working relations with Afghan military and police.
As such attacks mounted this year, U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington insisted they were "isolated incidents" and withheld details. An AP investigation earlier this month showed that at least 63 coalition troops — mostly Americans — had been killed and more than 85 wounded in at least 46 insider attacks. That's an average of nearly one attack a week. In 2011, 21 insider attacks killed 35 coalition troops.
There have also been incidents of Taliban and other militants dressing in Afghan army and police uniforms to infiltrate NATO installations and attack foreigners.
In February, two U.S. soldiers — Lt. Col. John D. Loftis and Maj. Robert J. Marchanti, died from wounds received during an attack by an Afghan policeman at the Interior Ministry in Kabul. The incident forced NATO to temporarily pull out their advisers from a number of ministries and police units and revise procedures in dealing with Afghan counterparts.
The latest known insider attack took place Nov. 11 when a British soldier, Capt. Walter Reid Barrie, was killed by an Afghan army soldier during a football match between British and Afghan soldiers in the restive southern province of Helmand.
More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. Taliban militants claim such attacks reflect a growing popular opposition to both foreign military presence and the Kabul government.
In Sunday's attack, Jawzjani, the provincial official, said the attacker was an Afghan policeman manning a checkpoint in Dirzab District who turned his weapon on five colleagues before fleeing to the militant Islamist group.

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Analysis: Ethnicity and ICC cases heat up Kenya presidential race

Alliances forged by Kenya's main presidential contenders for elections in March are lining up a repeat of a largely ethnic-based contest for political power which exploded into bloodshed in the 2007 vote.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya's founder president, lead the two main opposing camps for the March 4 presidential and parliamentary elections.
The head-on rivalry between Kenyatta, from the predominant Kikuyu tribe, and Odinga, a Luo, raises the specter of the tribal clashes that followed the 2007 election and killed more than 1,200 people, uprooting thousands more from their homes.
"I don't want to be a pessimist... but, historically, every time the Luo and the Kikuyu have been on different sides there has been violence," said Mzalendo Kibunjia, who heads a national agency formed to reconcile tribes after the violence.
"What do you expect? Our politics are about ethnicity. In Africa, democracy is about ethnic arithmetic not ideology."
Another factor that could lead to post-election instability for East Africa's economic powerhouse is Kenyatta's date a month after the March vote with the International Criminal Court (ICC). The former finance minister faces a trial in the Hague over his alleged role in the election violence five years ago.
Should Kenyatta win the presidency and then travel to the court hearings, a power vacuum could result soon after his inauguration. The ICC accuses him of directing youth from his Kikuyu ethnic community to fight Odinga's Luo kinsmen during the 2007/2008 bloodletting. He denies any wrongdoing.
To win in the March 4 first round, a candidate needs to gain an outright majority from the 14.3 million registered voters. An immediate victory for either contender is not assured, which could then mean a nail-biting run-off in April.
Odinga leads the race according to most opinion polls, but Kenyatta is running close second. The closeness of the political contest is exacerbating the ethnic tensions, and vice-versa.
Kenyan polls since independence from Britain in 1963 have often been marred by tribal violence, typically stemming from long-standing disputes over land. But the bloody feuding after the 2007 vote was by far the worst in Kenya's history.
Luos say Odinga was robbed of victory by the incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu in a bitter and close vote. Many Kikuyus argue Odinga's Luo tribe got off easier than they did in the ICC probe of the 2007 events, and so are determined to have the election go their way this time.
There are those who believe the ICC's pursuit of alleged ringleaders of the 2007 killings could act as a deterrent.
"I doubt there will be violence of the scale we witnessed last time. Kenyans are extremely wary of the ICC and its activities in the country," said Ken Wafula, a rights campaigner who works in Rift Valley, epicenter of the clashes.
"Fear of running foul of the ICC will serve as a restraint."
ICC FACTOR
The charges from the war crimes court against Kenyatta, a deputy prime minister and scion of independence hero Jomo Kenyatta, is undoubtedly a hindrance to his presidential bid.
He has teamed up in the Jubilee alliance with former cabinet minister William Ruto, who was indicted with him by the ICC for inciting youth to fight in 2007.
The other men charged are the head of the civil service, Francis Muthaura, and radio presenter Joshua Arap Sang.
Kenyatta's arch-rival Odinga has formed a competing alliance, the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (Cord) backed by Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, to try to break the traditional Kikuyu dominance over the presidency.
Two of Kenya's three presidents since independence have been Kikuyu, the exception being former president Daniel Arap Moi, a Kalenjin like Ruto.
Although Kenyatta and Ruto have insisted they will cooperate with the ICC, most Kenyans do not believe the two will appear at the Hague should they win the election, according to a survey by pollster Ipsos Synovate released in early December.
In a country where the political elite has long been considered above the law, many believe Kenyatta would see becoming president of the nation as a way of spurning the ICC.
They point to the example of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has defied a 2009 ICC indictment for alleged war crimes committed by his forces in the western Darfur region.
A failure by an elected president of Kenya to cooperate with the ICC would concern foreign investors and Western governments, which have urged Kenyan leaders to be tough against impunity.
"This election is one issue: ICC, nothing else," said anti-corruption campaigner and political commentator John Githongo.
Political commentators said Kenyatta, if elected, could end up being afraid to leave his country like Bashir.
Kenya, East Africa's largest economy, and its assets are at risk of a discount similar to the 'Khartoum' one being given by investors to Sudan, said independent analyst Aly Khan Satchu.
In the past three decades, Kenya has had its lowest growth periods in, or just after, election years, the World Bank says.
The government has forecast growth of around 5 percent this year, up from 4.3 percent last year, but any flare-up could affect tourism and investment and regional trade and transport.
"The Jubilee alliance where two ICC indictees have teamed up is entirely problematic," Satchu said.
"Kenya is more deeply embedded and interconnected with the global economy than most African countries and in some respects that alliance is the equivalent of giving the two finger salute to the international community. There will be consequences and particularly economic ones (sanctions)."
Rights groups have also filed a suit at the Kenyan High Court challenging Ruto and Kenyatta's suitability for elective office, given their ICC cases at the Hague.
"GAME OF NUMBERS"
Odinga faces challenges too after falling out with several of his former allies who helped him in the last vote, including deputy prime minister Musalia Mudavadi. This has somewhat weakened his third attempt to win the presidency.
Analysts say much of the campaigning by Odinga and Kenyatta will focus on swing tribes, including Mudavadi's Luhya ethnic community, Kenya's second-largest, to try to tilt the vote.
"This game is a game of numbers. It does not require magic, this is the strategy," says Ruto.
Odinga and Kenyatta's rivalry mirrors an old feud that goes back to when Odinga's father was vice president to Kenyatta's father. They fell out, and Odinga's father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, became a vocal opposition critic of Jomo Kenyatta.
Odinga and Kenyatta have vowed to focus on issues, such as improving the economy, rather than ethnic differences or the ICC issue, to avoid whipping up emotions during the campaigns.
But Kenya is already hurting from violence this year in the coastal east where hundreds have been killed in tribal clashes over land and water, the most recent this week.
Such battles over resources have occurred for years, but human rights groups blame the latest fighting on politicians seeking to drive away parts of the local population they believe will vote for their rivals in the elections.
This is reinforcing the fears of a repeat of the ethnic mayhem that followed the disputed 2007 vote.
"This kind of violence can engulf the entire nation. It takes incitement by leaders preaching hate," Kibunjia said.

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Changes in law aim to protect kids' online data

Aiming to prevent companies from exploiting online information about children under 13, the Obama administration on Wednesday imposed sweeping changes in regulations designed to protect a young generation with easy access to the Internet.
Two years in the making, the amended rules to the decade-old Children's Online Privacy Protection Act go into effect in July. Privacy advocates said the changes were long overdue in an era of cellphones, tablets, social networking services and online stores with cellphone apps aimed at kids for as little as 99 cents.
Siphoning details of children's personal lives — their physical location, contact information, names of friends and more — from their Internet activities can be highly valuable to advertisers, marketers and data brokers.
The Obama administration has largely refrained from issuing regulations that might stifle growth in the technology industry, one of the U.S. economy's brightest spots. Yet the Federal Trade Commission pressed ahead with the new kids' privacy guidelines despite loud complaints — particularly from small businesses and software apps developers — that the revisions would be too costly to comply with and cause responsible companies to abandon the children's marketplace.
As evidence of online risks, the FTC last week said it was investigating an unspecified number of software developers that may have illegally gathered information without the consent of parents.
Under the changes to the law, known as COPPA, information about children that cannot be collected unless a parent first gives permission now includes the location data that a cellphone generates, as well as photos, videos and audio files containing a human image or voice.
The Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus commended the FTC for writing the new rules. "Keeping kids safe on the Internet is as important as ensuring their safety in schools, in homes, in cars," caucus co-chairman Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said at a Capitol Hill news conference.
Data known as "persistent identifiers," which allow a person to be tracked over time and across websites, are also considered personal data and covered by the rules, the agency said. But parental consent is not required when a website operator collects this data solely to support its internal operations, which can include advertising, site analysis and network communications.
The rules offer several new methods for verifying a parent's consent, including electronically scanned consent forms, video conferencing and email.
The FTC sought to achieve a balance between protecting kids and spurring innovation in the technology industry, said Jon Leibowitz, the agency's chairman.
The final rules expand the definition of a website or online service directed at children to include plug-ins and advertising networks that collect personal information from kids.
But the rules were also tightened in a way favorable to some Internet heavyweights, Google and Apple. Their online apps stores, which dominate the marketplace for mobile applications, won't be held liable for violations because they "merely offer the public access to child-directed apps," the FTC said.
Google and Apple had warned that if the rule were written to include their stores, they would jettison many apps specifically intended for kids. They said that would hurt the nation's classrooms, where new and interactive apps are used by teachers and students.
A Washington trade group that represents independent apps developers criticized the agency for addressing the concerns of large businesses while doing too little for the startups that make educational apps parents and teachers want. The FTC's belief that the apps industry will figure out how to thrive under the new rules is akin to jumping off a cliff then building a parachute, said Morgan Reed, executive director of the Association for Competitive Technology.
"While that may work for big companies, small companies lack the silk and line to build that parachute before they hit the ground," Reed said.
Companies are not excluded from advertising on websites directed at children, allowing business models that rely on advertising to continue, Leibowitz said. But behavioral marketing techniques that target children are prohibited unless a parent agrees. "You may not track children to build massive profiles," he said.
The agency included in the rules new methods for securing verifiable consent after the software industry and Internet companies raised concerns over how to confirm that the permission actually came from a parent. Electronic scans of signed consent forms are acceptable, as is video-teleconferencing between the website operator or online service and the parent, according to the agency.
The FTC also said it is encouraging technology companies to recommend additional verification methods. Leibowitz said he expects that this will "unleash innovation around consent mechanisms."
Emailed consent is also acceptable as long as the business confirms it by sending an email back to the parent or calling or sending a letter. In cases of email confirmation, the information collected can only be used for internal use by that company and not shared with third parties, the agency said.
The FTC's investigation of apps developers came after the agency examined 400 kids' apps that it purchased from Apple's iTunes store and Google's apps store, Google Play. It determined that 60 percent of them transmitted the user's unique device identification to the software maker or, more frequently, to advertising networks and companies that compile, analyze and sell consumer information for marketing campaigns.

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US, China economies 'inseparable': China official

 The economies of China and the U.S. have become "interdependent and inseparable," a top Chinese official said Wednesday after high-level trade talks which were being watched for signs of how the two powers will cooperate after their respective political transitions.
Vice Premier Wang Qishan was speaking after the annual U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. Tackling dozens of thorny, detailed trade issues, the two days of talks were short on big outcomes but set an upbeat tone for relations after President Barack Obama's re-election and the elevation of new leaders of China's ruling Communist Party.
Wang, who last month was elevated to a spot in the elite seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, said recovery of the world economy in the next five years will be sluggish, so the U.S.-China economic relationship has acquired critical importance.
"Our two countries have to strengthen our economic relationship. We have to come to terms with the fact that we have become interdependent and inseparable," he said.
The two nations share more than $500 billion in two-way trade, heavily weighted in China's favor. That is a longstanding bone of contention for Washington, which has stepped up its trade complaints against China. It also wants Beijing to stimulate domestic demand so its economy is less reliant on export growth and allow more market access for American companies.
New Chinese party leader Xi Jinping, who will succeed Hu Jintao as the nation's president in March, is already under domestic pressure to revive a Chinese economy that has slowed some after three decades of rapid growth.
Speaking to American business executives at a glitzy dinner after the trade talks, Wang drew a direct comparison between Xi and Obama, saying both had a "very heavy weight to bear" to make good on promises they have made to their peoples during the campaign for "election."
Wang said China was sticking to the path of economic reform. He said China would honor its promises to observe trade rules and give fair treatment to foreign companies — amid concerns over the reach of China's hulking state-owned enterprises and restrictions on investment in some sectors of the economy.
"When we say we are opening up in China, it's not just empty talk," said Wang, who has been China's point man on financial and trade policy with the United States. He will soon be giving up that portfolio to focus on the fight against corruption.
Both sides were upbeat about the wide-ranging trade talks.
The U.S. cited progress on intellectual property protection, market barriers and Chinese government procurement policies but said there was much more to be done.
"We have provided a new platform for a strong U.S.-China relationship," acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank told a news conference.
China pointed to U.S. reforms of its controls on high-technology exports and a commitment to fair treatment for Chinese companies investing in the U.S. China claims its companies are discriminated against in national security screening procedures.
Commerce Minister Chen Deming sounded a note of caution, saying China still needed to wait for a while to observe "what kind of measures the U.S. side is going to take." Wang contended that Chinese investors were being subject to political background checks.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said China's concerns on the investment screening would be referred to Treasury but defended the screening procedures as having affected few investors. He said Chinese direct investment in the U.S. had grown to $9 billion from $2 billion in just three years.

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Reported sex assaults spike at military academies

Reported sexual assaults at the nation's three military academies jumped by 23 percent overall this year, but the data signaled a continued reluctance by victims to seek criminal investigations.
According to a report obtained by The Associated Press, the number of assaults rose from 65 in the 2011 academic year to 80 in 2012. However, nearly half the assaults involved victims who sought confidential medical or other care and did not trigger an investigation. There were 41 assaults reported in 2010.
Reported sexual assaults have climbed steadily since the 2009 academic year. The Defense Department has urged the academies to take steps to encourage cadets and midshipmen at the Army, Navy and Air Force academies to report sexual harassment and assaults in order to get care to everyone and hold aggressors accountable. The number of assaults reported by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., increased, while reports at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., declined.
In addition to the sexual assault report, the military also is releasing the results of its biannual anonymous survey of academy students, which showed that 12 percent of the women said they experienced "unwanted sexual contact" and 51 percent said they were sexually harassed. Of the men, 2 percent experienced unwanted contact and 10 percent said they were sexually harassed.
Officials are concerned whenever the number of reported sexual assaults goes down while the anonymous survey suggests that unwanted sexual contact goes up or stays the same. That's because military officials want victims to feel comfortable going to their superiors to report incidents.
The report divides the assaults into two categories, restricted and unrestricted. Unrestricted reports rose slightly from 38 last year to 42 this year, and those are provided to either law enforcement or military commanders for an investigation. Restricted reports jumped from 27 last year to 38 this year, and in those cases victims sought medical care and advocacy services but did not seek an official investigation.

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Census: US population growth rising again

America's population is now increasing a bit faster thanks to an improving economy, but not enough to lift growth above its lowest level since the Great Depression.
New 2012 estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau offer the latest snapshot of the U.S. population, whose growth has slowed dramatically since the recent recession.
"After decades of wars, a depression, immigration surges, baby booms, boomlets and busts, we are entering a new era of modest growth," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution, who analyzed the numbers.
As a whole, the U.S. population grew by 2.3 million, reaching 313.9 million people. That growth of 0.75 percent was higher than the 0.73 percent rate in 2011, ending five years of slowing growth rates. Nevertheless, growth levels remains stuck at historically low levels not seen since 1937, restrained by reduced childbirths.
Over the last year, the economy has shown improvement, with the unemployment rate declining modestly and U.S. migration edging up after hitting a record low in 2011. As a result, states including Texas, North Dakota, Colorado, Oregon and Virginia posted population growth increases as many young adults moved out from their parents' homes, seeking to test the job market in areas with thriving economies in energy or technology.
Still, the nation continues to get older, due to aging baby boomers and fewer people in their child-bearing years. Newly released census projections now show that U.S. growth may have largely peaked, barring a significant and sustained increase in new immigrants. The numbers put U.S. growth in the next year or two at just under 0.8 percent, before flattening and gradually falling to rates of about half a percent, a level unseen in more than a century.
U.S. growth reached a high in 1950 of more than 2 percent, lifted by the post-World War II baby boom.
Foreign immigration also was back on the uptick in 2012, after falling significantly during the downturn, although it remained far from the level seen during the mid-2000 housing boom. Congress is expected to debate an overhaul of immigration law next year.
"We will now need to cope with population challenges that past growth has left us — notably, the needs of a large aging baby boom population which will require resources for its medical care, and the social and economic integration of first- and second-generation immigrants," Frey said.
The Census Bureau released state population estimates as of July 1, 2012. The data show annual changes through births, deaths, and domestic and foreign migration.
The data suggest that the impact of the recession on formerly fast-growing Sun Belt states may be waning. Nevada had more residents move into the state this year after suffering migration losses in previous years. Arizona and Florida, two other housing boom-and-bust states, also showed renewed migration gains after seeing their growth drop off sharply at the end of the last decade.
In all, 26 states grew faster this year compared to the previous year, of which 19 are in the South and West region.
"These gains remain far smaller than those each state experienced during the economic boom, but reflect considerable improvement over the situation at the depths of the recession," said Kenneth Johnson, a sociologist and senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire, referring specifically to Arizona, Nevada and Florida.
In contrast, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey saw more of their residents move out compared to the previous year.
North Dakota grew faster than any state in the nation, climbing by 2.2 percent from July 2011 to July of this year. The District of Columbia was next-fastest growing, followed by Texas, Wyoming and Utah.
Two states lost population: Rhode Island and Vermont.
Kimball Brace, president of Election Data Services, said if the 2010 census had been held this year, Minnesota would have lost a seat in the House of Representatives and North Carolina would have picked up one due to the shifting population figures. Based on continuing losses, Rhode Island is now on track to lose one of its two seats with just 33,000 people to spare — potentially to the gain of Oregon, which is about 59,000 people away from gaining a sixth seat.
"We are seeing some signs of revival and change," Brace said.
California remained the most populous state, followed by Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois.

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Groups: $12 million mystery donation was crime

Two election watchdog organizations on Thursday urged the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission to investigate more than $12 million in campaign contributions that were mysteriously funneled through two little-known companies in Tennessee to a prominent tea party group. The origin of the money, the largest anonymous political donations in a campaign year filled with them, remains a secret.
The watchdog groups said routing the $12 million through the Tennessee companies appeared to violate a U.S. law prohibiting the practice of laundering campaign contributions in the name of another person. They also said the lawyer in Tennessee who registered the companies, William S. Rose Jr. of Knoxville, may have violated three other laws by failing to organize each company as a political committee, register them as political committees and file financial statements for them with the government.
Rose did not return a telephone message, text message and email from The Associated Press and could not otherwise be reached immediately for comment. He previously told AP that his business was a "family secret" and he was not obligated to disclose the origin of the $12 million routed through Specialty Investments Group Inc. and Kingston Pike Development Corp. Business records indicate that Rose registered Kingston Pike one day after he created Specialty Group, in the final weeks before Election Day. Rose previously complained that phone calls and emails from reporters were irritating.
The watchdog organizations, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, said a criminal investigation by the Justice Department was necessary "because the integrity of U.S. elections depends on the effective enforcement of the nation's campaign finance laws." They noted that, although the FEC traditionally enforces campaign finance laws and imposes civil fines for violations, the Justice Department can conduct criminal investigations of "knowing and willful" violations under the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act. Violations could carry up to 5 years in prison. The groups separately urged the FEC to investigate.
The contributions "raise serious questions about whether this was an illegal scheme to launder money into the 2012 elections and hide from the public the true identity of the sources of the money," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. He said no one should be permitted to "launder huge, secret contributions through corporate shells into federal elections."
The money went to the tea party's most prominent "super" political committee, FreedomWorks for America, which spent the money on high-profile congressional races. The $12 million accounted for most of the $20 million the group raised this year. A spokeswoman for the FreedomWorks organization, Jackie Bodnar, did not return a telephone message left with her. FreedomWorks has previously declined to identify who was behind the donations to its super PAC or discuss them further.
The contributions represent a glaring example of the murkiness surrounding who is giving money to politicians in modern elections, shaped by new federal rules allowing unlimited and anonymous donations. The law has allowed wealthy executives, corporations and other organizations to establish shell companies and mail drops to disguise the source of the money they give to political groups and politicians. But the mysterious donations linked to Rose by far eclipse any suspicious money sent to support the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney.
More than half the $12 million in contributions was routed through Rose's companies in the final days before the election even as the AP and Knoxville News Sentinel were jointly investigating $5.2 million in suspicious donations traced to one of the companies during October. That company, Specialty Group Inc., filed incorporation papers in September less than one week before it gave FreedomWorks several contributions worth between $125,000 and $1.5 million each. Specialty Group appeared to have no website describing its products or services. It was registered to a suburban Knoxville home.
Rose subsequently renamed the company Specialty Investments Group Inc. That firm and Kingston Pike Development Corp. — which Rose also registered and owns — were used to steer $6.8 million more in contributions to FreedomWorks. Among other amounts, FreedomWorks spent more than $1.8 million of the money on Connie Mack's unsuccessful Senate campaign in Florida and a similar amount opposing Tammy Duckworth, who was elected to Congress in Illinois.
Under U.S. law, corporations can give unlimited sums of money to outside groups supporting candidates, but not if their sole purpose is to make campaign contributions.
"These companies appear to have been created to hide the identities of one or more donors that pumped millions of dollars into a super PAC anonymously in the final weeks before an election," said the senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, Paul S. Ryan. He said such contributions could allow foreign governments, companies or citizens — all of whom are prohibited from donating to U.S. politicians — to launder money into American elections using similar practices.
Rose said in a statement last month that he formed Specialty Group to buy, sell, develop and invest in a variety of real estate ventures and investments. He declined interview requests from the AP over three weeks and complained in his statement that reporters had contacted his ex-wife and business colleagues. He also disputed any characterization that his company was "shadowy."
"The business of Specialty Group is my family secret, a secret that will be kept — as allowed by applicable law — for at least another 50 years," Rose said in his statement.

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