Dueling Santa trackers are off and running

A screen grab from Google's Santa Tracker. (Google / December 24, 2012)

By Deborah Netburn

December 24, 2012, 1:11 p.m.

All year long Santa keeps an eye on you. Now it's time to turn the tables.

One day a year, you are invited to keep an eye on Santa as he whips around the world in his sleigh, delivering a dizzying number of presents to children all over the world.

If you'd like to see where Santa is at the moment, you've got choices. Google and NORAD, which used to team up for your Santa tracking pleasure, have gone their separate ways this year and created two distinct tracking options.

Google's Santa Tracker is the slicker of the two. It takes you to Santa's Dashboard, where you can see Santa's current location, his next location, the number of miles traveled, and the number of presents delivered. Santa is also adding Twitter like status updates. The most recent one as of this writing: "Rudolph's nose just turned red." 

PHOTOS: Google Doodles of 2012

You can also click on the map and see where Santa has been, as noted by little present icons on the map. Click on the icon and you'll see how many presents Santa has delivered in each city. When Santa is on the move, you'll see him flying on the map in a sleigh. When he's stopped to deliver presents, you'll see him shoving presents down a chimney.

Over at the official NORAD Tracks Santa website you'll also find a running tally of how many presents Santa has delivered as well as what city he just left and what city he's currently headed toward. NORAD also offers Santa Cams that show animations of Santa flying around the world. 

Both Santa tracking services offer loads of extras. If you visit Santa's Village on Google's tracker you can send a message from  Santa to a friend or family member. And NORAD has more than 1,200 volunteers staffing a Santa hotline to answer all your Santa questions.  (877-HI-NORAD).

In the spirit of the season you might try them both out, but hurry up. The trackers shut down a few hours before Christmas morning. 

Happy tracking!

ALSO:

Rumored iPad 5 to be thinner -- and land in March

Battle of the Santa trackers: Google takes on NORAD

deborah.netburn@latimes.com

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Facebook Shrugs Off Instagram’s New Class Action Lawsuit

For Instagram, there’s good news and there’s bad news about the class action lawsuit just filed against them. Bad news first: Somebody just filed a class action lawsuit. Good news: the lawyers from Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, have plenty of practice getting rid of these pesky things. That might explain why they’re so dismissive about the legal inconvenience a group of disgruntled Instagram users left under its tree this year. “We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,” says Facebook spokesman Andrew Nusca. It’ll obviously take more than the half-hearted apology Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom made at the end of last week.

RELATED: It’s Time to Accept the Existence of a Social Media Bubble

The lawsuit’s complaint is somewhat understandable. If you’ve so much as heard the word “Instagram” you’ve heard about how much their new terms of service stink. In it, the company declared that it “may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data)” with Facebook, its subsidiaries and its “affiliates.” Instagram users understood this to mean that Instagram could sell their photos to advertisers, though Systrom pushed back at that in his blog post when he more or less said that the company would revert to its old terms of service. “We don’t own your photos – you do,” he said. 

RELATED: And the Actual Retail Price for Instagram Is…

Instagram kept three key new details in place, though. One, the company maintained the ability to serve ads in your feed. Two, it said “that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.” Lastly, it left in place the mandatory arbitration clause that it added with the new terms of service, forcing users to waive their right to participate in class action lawsuit. That obviously didn’t discourage this group of plaintiffs who said in the lawsuit that “Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us.’”

RELATED: Mark Zuckerberg Disappears from Google+ Due to Privacy Settings

No big deal. Instagram is a part of Facebook now, and Facebook has dealt with class action lawsuits before. Just seven months ago, it got slammed with a $ 15 billion class action suit from users who said that the social network was ”improperly tracking the internet use of its members even after they logged out of their accounts.” They haven’t settled yet, but if it winds up anything like the class action lawsuit over the Beacon advertising program a few years ago, it could take years to resolve and could cost Facebook millions. With some good lawyering, though, this latest lawsuit won’t cost as many millions as it could. But Instagram will never be the same.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Thousands sign US petition to deport Piers Morgan

LONDON (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the U.S. over his gun control views.

Morgan has taken an aggressive stand for tighter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Last week, he called a gun advocate appearing on his "Piers Morgan Tonight" show an "unbelievably stupid man."

Now, gun rights activists are fighting back. A petition created Dec. 21 on the White House e-petition website by a user in Texas accuses Morgan of engaging in a "hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution" by targeting the Second Amendment. It demands he be deported immediately for "exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens."

The petition has already hit the 25,000 signature threshold to get a White House response. By Monday, it had 31,813 signatures.

Morgan seemed unfazed — and even amused — by the movement.

In a series of Twitter messages, he alternately urged his followers to sign the petition and in response to one article about the petition said "bring it on" as he appeared to track the petition's progress.

"If I do get deported from America for wanting fewer gun murders, are there any other countries that will have me?" he wrote.

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News Analysis: Getting Polio Campaigns Back on Track

How in the world did something as innocuous as the sugary pink polio vaccine turn into a flash point between Islamic militants and Western “crusaders,” flaring into a confrontation so ugly that teenage girls — whose only “offense” is that they are protecting children — are gunned down in the streets?

Nine vaccine workers were killed in Pakistan last week in a terrorist campaign that brought the work of 225,000 vaccinators to a standstill. Suspicion fell immediately on factions of the Pakistani Taliban that have threatened vaccinators in the past, accusing them of being American spies.

Polio eradication officials have promised to regroup and try again. But first they must persuade the killers to stop shooting workers and even guarantee safe passage.

That has been done before, notably in Afghanistan in 2007, when Mullah Muhammad Omar, spiritual head of the Afghan Taliban, signed a letter of protection for vaccination teams. But in Pakistan, the killers may be breakaway groups following no one’s rules.

Vaccination efforts are also under threat in other Muslim regions, although not this violently yet.

In Nigeria, another polio-endemic country, the new Islamic militant group Boko Haram has publicly opposed it, although the only killings that the news media have linked to polio were those of two police officers escorting vaccine workers. Boko Haram has killed police officers on other missions, unrelated to polio vaccinations.

In Mali, extremists took over half of the country in May, declaring an Islamic state. Vaccination is not an issue yet, but Mali had polio cases as recently as mid-2011, and the virus sometimes circulates undetected.

Resistance to polio vaccine springs from a combination of fear, often in marginalized ethnic groups, and brutal historical facts that make that fear seem justified. Unless it is countered, and quickly, the backlash threatens the effort to eradicate polio in the three countries where it remains endemic: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

In 1988, long before donors began delivering mosquito nets, measles shots, AIDS pills, condoms, deworming drugs and other Western medical goods to the world’s most remote villages, Rotary International dedicated itself to wiping out polio, and trained teams to deliver the vaccine.

But remote villages are often ruled by chiefs or warlords who are suspicious not only of Western modernity, but of their own governments.

The Nigerian government is currently dominated by Christian Yorubas. More than a decade ago, when word came from the capital that all children must swallow pink drops to protect them against paralysis, Muslim Hausas in the far-off north could be forgiven for reacting the way the fundamentalist Americans of the John Birch Society did in the 1960s when the government in far-off Washington decreed that, for the sake of children’s teeth, all drinking water should have fluoride.

The northerners already had grievances. In 1996, the drug company Pfizer tested its new antibiotic, Trovan, during a meningitis outbreak there. Eleven children died. Although Pfizer still says it was not to blame, the trial had irregularities, and last year the company began making payments to victims.

Other rumors also spring from real events.

In Pakistan, resistance to vaccination, low over all, is concentrated in Pashtun territory along the Afghan border and in Pashtun slums in large cities. Pashtuns are the dominant tribe in Afghanistan but a minority in Pakistan among Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis and other ethnic groups. Many are Afghan refugees and are often poor and dismissed as medieval and lawless.

Pakistan’s government is friendly with the United States while the Pashtuns’ territory in border areas has been heavily hit by American Taliban-hunting drones, which sometimes kill whole families.

So, when the Central Intelligence Agency admitted sponsoring a hepatitis vaccination campaign as a ruse to get into a compound in Pakistan to confirm that Osama bin Laden was there, and the White House said it had contemplated wiping out the residence with a drone missile, it was not far-fetched for Taliban leaders to assume that other vaccinators worked for the drone pilots.

Even in friendly areas, the vaccine teams have protocols that look plenty suspicious. If a stranger knocked on a door in Brooklyn, asked how many children under age 5 were at home, offered to medicate them, and then scribbled in chalk on the door how many had accepted and how many refused — well, a parent might worry.

In modern medical surveys — though not necessarily on polio campaigns — teams carry GPS devices so they can find houses again. Drones use GPS coordinates.

The warlords of Waziristan made the connection specific, barring all vaccination there until Predator drones disappeared from the skies.

Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian who is chief of polio eradication for the World Health Organization, expressed his frustration at the time, saying, “They know we don’t have any control over drone strikes.”

The campaign went on elsewhere in Pakistan — until last week.

The fight against polio has been hampered by rumors that the vaccine contains pork or the virus that causes AIDS, or is a plot to sterilize Muslim girls. Even the craziest-sounding rumors have roots in reality.

The AIDS rumor is a direct descendant of Edward Hooper’s 1999 book, “The River,” which posited the theory — since discredited — that H.I.V. emerged when an early polio vaccine supposedly grown in chimpanzee kidney cells contaminated with the simian immunodeficiency virus was tested in the Belgian Congo.

The sterilization claim was allegedly first made on a Nigerian radio station by a Muslim doctor upset that he had been passed over for a government job. The “proof” was supposed to be lab tests showing it contained estrogen, a birth control hormone.

The vaccine virus is grown in a broth of live cells; fetal calf cells are typical. They may be treated with a minute amount of a digestive enzyme, trypsin — one source of which is pig pancreas, which could account for the pork rumor.

In theory, a polio eradicator explained, if a good enough lab tested the vaccine used at the time the rumor started, it might have detected estrogen from the calf’s mother, but it would have been far less estrogen than is in mother’s milk, which is not accused of sterilizing anyone. The trypsin is supposed to be washed out.

In any case, polio vaccine is now bought only from Muslim countries like Indonesia, and Muslim scholars have ruled it halal — the Islamic equivalent of kosher.

Reviving the campaign will mean quelling many rumors. It may also require adding other medical “inducements,” like deworming medicine, mosquito nets or vitamin A, whose immediate benefits are usually more obvious.

But changing mind-sets will be a crucial step, said Dr. Aylward, who likened the shootings of the girls to those of the schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn.

More police involvement — what he called a “bunkerized approach” — would not solve either America’s problem or Pakistan’s, he argued. Instead, average citizens in both countries needed to rise up, reject the twisted thinking of the killers and “generate an understanding in the community that this kind of behavior is not acceptable.”

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Online holiday shoppers spent $1 billion on 'Free Shipping Day'

Shoppers scrambling to buy last-minute presents but avoid the malls spent $1.01 billion on this year's Free Shipping Day.

The annual event is scheduled to take place on the last day that orders delivered by ground can be guaranteed to arrive by Christmas. This year, that was Monday, Dec. 17, when more than 1,000 retailers offered free shipping.

Free Shipping Day was the beginning of a hectic workweek for online merchants, who raked in $3.69 billion during last week's five weekdays, up 53% from the same period last year, according to research firm ComScore.

"The fact that Free Shipping Day occurred on a Monday, combined with the fact that so many retailers extended their promotions into the middle of the week -- with guaranteed shipping by Christmas -- helped deliver an encouraging late-season surge," said ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni.

The busiest online shopping day of the year was again Cyber Monday -- Nov. 26 this year -- with a record $1.47 billion of spending, followed by Tuesday, Dec. 4, and then Dec. 10 (also known as Green Monday).

During the holiday shopping season online retailers racked up a dozen days that each surpassed more than $1 billion in spending, topping last year's total of 10 days.

ALSO:

Stores offer same-day delivery to compete with Amazon

Best Buy extends deadline for founder to make takeover bid

Stores hope last-minute Christmas shoppers revive holiday sales

Follow Shan Li on Twitter @ShanLi

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Raging fire guts Kabul market

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Firefighters battled through the night to contain a raging fire that swept through a market in the Afghan capital.

No injuries were reported, but the blaze destroyed hundreds of stores and millions of dollars worth of merchandise, Afghan police and firefighters said at the scene. 

Dealers at the neighboring currency exchange, the city’s largest, said they evacuated cash, computer equipment and records from their shops as the flames approached during the night. But in the morning, the market was jammed with people haggling over thick stacks of notes as smoke billowed overhead.

Col. Mohammed Qasem, general director of the Kabul fire department, said he suspected an electrical short was to blame for the fire. 

Gas canisters used to heat the stores propelled the flames, along with the cloth and clothing sold by many of the vendors, Qasem said. “It made it very big in a short time.”

Firefighters from the Afghan defense department and NATO forces were sent to assist. But the city’s notorious traffic and the market’s narrow lanes made it difficult for responders to maneuver their vehicles, Qasem said.

Abdulrahman, who like many Afghans has only one name, squatted near a fire truck with his head in his hands  as responders aimed a hose at the blackened ruins of a building still smoldering at noon Sunday, more than 12 hours after the fire broke out.

He said the building had contained three shops that he owned and a warehouse full of glassware, crockery and kitchen utensils. 

“I lost everything,” he said.

Shirali Khan complained that police hadn't allowed him to remove the goods from his four clothing stores.

“They thought we were all robbers,” he said.  “There’s only ashes left.”

ALSO:

Pope pardons former butler convicted of theft

Bombing kills local official, 7 other people in Pakistan

Tensions high as vote on proposed Egyptian constitution continues

Special correspondent Hashmat Baktash contributed to this report.

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How to Get Free Last-Minute Shipping

First, the bad news: the cut off for free shipping on most online sites was Tuesday, Dec 18^th. But the good news – we’ve got some sneaky ways to finagle free rush shipping and a list of sites still offering free shipping guaranteed to arrive before December 25^th.

Free Rush Shipping
Some of the biggest online retailers are still offering free last minute shipping:

• Barnes & Noble – free shipping on Nook HD through Dec. 22


• MacMall – free 2-day shipping on orders over $ 299 and under 25lbs – through 6 p.m. PST Dec. 22.


• Macy’s – free shipping on orders over $ 99. Place order 11:59 p.m. EST Dec. 20.


• The Northface – free 2-day shipping on everything through 11:59 p.m. Dec. 19.


• Walmart.com has extended free shipping through December 19^th on some items (check product page for eligibility)


• Overstock.com – free shipping on select gifts. Place order by Dec. 22 to receive by Christmas.


• Newegg   Free 2-Day shipping on over 200 items


• Target – free shipping on Daily Deals


• Victoria’s Secret – free shipping on orders over $ 100 using code “SHIP12.” Order by 5 p.m. EST on Dec. 20.


• Zappos – free shipping for all items with guaranteed Christmas delivery if ordered by 11:59 p.m. PST Dec. 22.

And the biggest of the big online retailers, Amazon, has a limited set of items available for free expedited shipping. These include jewelry, watches, clothing, video games, laptops, headphones, and kitchen items.

[Related: Great Gifts for Under $ 25]

But since many of the above deals are limited to select items, take a look at…

How to Get Free 2-Day Shipping on Just About Everything
Amazon Prime is a yearly subscription service. In exchange for a $ 79 fee, you get free 2 day shipping all year long. And yes, that also applies at Christmas (must order by 3 p.m. EST Dec. 22 to receive on time). Best deal is that you can get a free 6-month trial.

And here’s the real sneaky surprise: Do you have a family member who already belongs to Prime? They can nominate up to four people for the same free shipping benefits. Prime members nominate someone by going to their account, clicking “Settings” and “Manage Prime Membership.”

Also, Amazon Student is a free 6-month membership to Prime with all the benefits, providing you have an email address that ends in .edu.

But you don’t have to limit yourself to Amazon. Shoprunner.com also offers free 2-day shipping, though the membership service costs $ 8.95 a month – so not entirely free, but if you have numerous items still to buy, you could save a bundle.  And Shoprunner has tons of participating online retailers like Toys R Us, Sports Authority, Claire’s, PetSmart and EMS. Say you want to buy something from PetSmart.com, if you sign in with Shoprunner, many of the items on the site will be eligible for free 2-day shipping. One more thing to try: I was able to sign up for a free 1-year membership to Shoprunner using the promo code RUNNER. The site implied I had to be an American Express member, but it never asked for my details about the credit card, and now I have a membership. Good luck.

Ship to Store
Finally, the best last-minute option for many is to ship to store. You peruse all the options from home, pay online, and then pick up your selection at your local store. Tons of big retailers offer this service, and it guarantees your item will be in stock and waiting for you at customer service. Major retailers offering free Ship to Store include:

• Best Buy


• Target


• Toys R Us


• Walmart


• Sears

[Related: Best E-Reader for Under $ 100]

Brad Marshland contributed to this story.

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'Hobbit' extends No. 1 journey with $36.7 million

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tiny hobbit Bilbo Baggins is running circles around some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" took in $36.7 million to remain No. 1 at the box office for the second-straight weekend, easily beating a rush of top-name holiday newcomers.

Part one of Jackson's prelude to his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the Warner Bros. release raised its domestic total to $149.9 million after 10 days. The film added $91 million overseas to bring its international total to $284 million and its worldwide haul to $434 million.

"The Hobbit" took a steep 57 percent drop from its domestic $84.6 million opening weekend, but business was soft in general as many people skipped movies in favor of last-minute Christmas preparations.

"The real winner this weekend might be holiday shopping," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

Tom Cruise's action thriller "Jack Reacher" debuted in second-place with a modest $15.6 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday. Based on the Lee Child best-seller "One Shot," the Paramount Pictures release stars Cruise as a lone-wolf ex-military investigator tracking a sniper conspiracy.

Opening at No. 3 with $12 million was Judd Apatow's marital comedy "This Is 40," a Universal Pictures film featuring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann reprising their roles from the director's 2007 hit "Knocked Up."

Paramount's road-trip romp "The Guilt Trip," featuring "Knocked Up" star Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand, debuted weakly at No. 6 with $5.4 million over the weekend and $7.4 million since it opened Wednesday. Playing in narrower release, Paramount's acrobatic fantasy "Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away" debuted at No. 11 with $2.1 million.

A 3-D version of Disney's 2001 animated blockbuster "Monsters, Inc." also had a modest start at No. 7 with $5 million over the weekend and $6.5 million since opening Wednesday.

Domestic business was off for the first time in nearly two months. Overall revenues totaled $112 million, down 12.6 percent from the same weekend last year, when Cruise's "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" debuted with $29.6 million, according to Hollywood.com.

Cruise's "Jack Reacher" opened at barely half the level as "Ghost Protocol," but with a $60 million budget, the new flick cost about $100 million less to make.

Starting on Christmas, Hollywood expects a big week of movie-going with schools out through New Year's Day and many adults taking time off. So Paramount and other studios are counting on strong business for films that started slowly this weekend.

"'Jack Reacher' will end up in a very good place. The movie will be profitable for Paramount," said Don Harris, the studio's head of distribution. "The first time I saw the movie I saw dollar signs. It certainly wasn't intended to be compared to a 'Mission: Impossible,' though."

Likewise, Warner Bros. is looking for steady crowds for "The Hobbit" over the next week, despite the debut of two huge newcomers — the musical "Les Miserables" and the action movie "Django Unchained" — on Christmas Day.

"We haven't reached the key holiday play time yet," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner. "It explodes on Tuesday and goes right through the end of the year."

In limited release, Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt saga "Zero Dark Thirty" played to packed houses with $410,000 in just five theaters, averaging a huge $82,000 a cinema.

That compares to a $4,654 average in 3,352 theaters for "Jack Reacher" and a $4,130 average in 2,913 cinemas for "This Is 40." ''The Guilt Trip" averaged $2,217 in 2,431 locations, and "Monsters, Inc." averaged $1,925 in 2,618 cinemas. Playing just one matinee and one evening show a day at 840 theaters, "Cirque du Soleil" averaged $2,542.

Since opening Wednesday, "Zero Dark Thirty" has taken in $639,000. Distributor Sony plans to expand the acclaimed film to nationwide release Jan. 11, amid film honors and nominations leading up to the Feb. 24 Academy Awards.

Opening in 15 theaters from Lionsgate banner Summit Entertainment, Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor's tsunami-survival drama "The Impossible" took in $138,750 for an average of $9,250.

A fourth new release from Paramount, "The Sopranos" creator David Chase's 1960s rock 'n' roll tale "Not Fade Away," debuted with $19,000 in three theaters, averaging $6,333.

Universal's "Les Miserables" got a head-start on its domestic release with a $4.2 million debut in Japan.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $36.7 million ($91 million international).

2. "Jack Reacher," $15.6 million ($2.5 million international).

3. "This Is 40," $12 million.

4. "Rise of the Guardians," $5.9 million ($13.7 million international).

5. "Lincoln," $5.6 million.

6. "The Guilt Trip," $5.4 million.

7. "Monsters, Inc." in 3-D, $5 million.

8. "Skyfall," $4.7 million ($9 million international),

9. "Life of Pi," $3.8 million ($23.2 million international).

10. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," $2.6 million ($6.6 million international).

___

Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $91 million.

2. "Life of Pi," $23.2 million.

3. "Rise of the Guardians," $13.7 million.

4. "Skyfall," $9 million.

5. "Wreck-It Ralph," $7.3 million.

6. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," $6.6 million.

7. "Pitch Perfect," $6 million.

8. "Les Miserables," $4.2 million.

9. "Love 911," $3.2 million.

10. "De L'autre Cote du Periph," $3.1 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Swiss watch sellers gear up for Chinese New Year

Even before the Christmas tree went up at 124-year-old Bucherer watch boutique in the lakeside town of Lucerne, Switzerland, the shop was already planning decorations for the year of the snake.

Chinese symbols marking the start of the lunar new year Feb. 10 will greet the busloads of Asian shoppers who visit Lucerne every day and invite them inside to see watches from Tag Heuer, Rolex and more than 20 other brands.

Less than half the timepieces bought at the Lucerne store in December may be for Christmas, said Joerg Baumann, Bucherer's marketing director.

"Other parts of the year have caught up" with Christmas, Baumann said, "which is good news for retailers because everyone wants a stable business and not an extremely seasonal one."

Asian consumers are easing the Swiss watch industry's reliance on Christmas. While December is still the most important sales period, it's diminishing in importance and may be surpassed by the Chinese New Year within seven years, said Jean-Claude Biver, chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton's Hublot watch brand.

"When I started 38 years ago, December and Christmas were 30% of the business, but that has weakened as sales have become more and more constant during the 12 months," Biver said in his office overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps. Christmas now accounts for 15% to 20% of watch industry revenue, he said.

China and Hong Kong make up the biggest market for Swiss timepieces, accounting for 30% of exports of the country's roughly 200 brands in 2011, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. Exports to those two destinations rose 10% in the first 10 months of 2012.

Chinese interest in high-end watches remains strong despite concerns about an easing of economic growth, according to research and marketing company Digital Luxury Group. The number of online searches for luxury watch brands in China increased about 40% during the first half of the year, the company said.

Buying watches abroad allows Chinese consumers to sidestep three layers of taxes imposed on watches in China: an 11% import duty, a 20% tax on high-end watches and a 17.5% value-added tax, according to HSBC.

Cie. Financiere Richemont, the maker of Vacheron Constantin and Cartier watches, said last month that the weakness of the euro was luring more Asians to vacation in Europe, helping boost revenue in the region.

"Local consumption in Switzerland is not bad and there's probably even some growth, but the main driver is tourism," said Patrik Schwendimann, an analyst at Zuercher Kantonalbank.

Bucherer's six-story flagship store in Lucerne gives visitors from China greeting cards in red envelopes called hongbao that are supposed to bring luck. A sign at the entrance lists some of the 20-plus languages spoken by sales staff, while display cabinets describe watch features in Chinese.

To cope with the steady stream of Chinese shoppers, about 30 of the roughly 200 staff members speak Mandarin. Bucherer also offers Chinese-language lessons for employees, as well as training on how best to interact with Asian shoppers.

Among the key sales periods for Bucherer, which has more than 20 stores in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, are the week around Chinese national day Oct. 1, as well as Chinese New Year in January or February and the Thai New Year in April, Baumann said.

"The planning starts one year ahead in our themes and how we decorate the stores," Baumann said. "People want to know they're in Switzerland, but it's a little gesture so they're aware we know it's their holiday."

As many as 3,000 Asian tourists a day visit the Bucherer flagship store in Lucerne after sightseeing in the surrounding Alpine landscape. Sales at the shop could reach $1.1 million daily at peak times, said Rene Weber, an analyst at Bank Vontobel in Zurich. The store doesn't disclose revenue.

More than 200,000 visitors from greater China stayed in Lucerne or the surrounding area during the first nine months of this year, more than double the number during the same period in 2007, according to the town's tourism bureau.

The winding streets around Bucherer, lined with ornate, century-old buildings, show the growing importance of Asian tourists. At some watch stores in the area Chinese signs are bigger than those in European languages, and shop windows sometimes display phonetic renderings of brand names in Chinese characters.

Outside Bucherer, mobile phone salesman Zheng Xianjun took in views of the bustling town center and lake after spending about $3,000 for a Longines watch for his wife.

"I'm not buying it for any special occasion," said Zheng, who was visiting from China's Guangdong province. "I don't go abroad all that much and my wife wanted me to get her a watch while I was here."

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Meat company owner sues USDA for right to slaughter horses

Rick de los Santos wants to reopen an animal slaughter business that's been banned in the U.S. for years. Along the way, he's also opened a can of worms.

The Roswell, N.M., meat company owner sued the federal government last week, alleging that officials ignored his application to resume domestic horse slaughter for food because the practice had become an emotional political issue throughout the West.

After waiting a year for permits, De los Santos, 52, says he's using the courts to force the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resume inspections necessary to open what would be the nation's first new horse slaughterhouse since 2007.

"I've submitted all the paperwork and have been told all along 'Oh, it won't be long now,'" said De los Santos, who owns Valley Meat Co. "I followed all their guidelines. I put more than $100,000 in upgrades and additions on my facilities to handle equine slaughter. And then the government comes back and tells me, 'We can't give you the permits. This horse issue has turned into a political game.'

"So what else do you do? I figured it was time to go to court."

The slaughterhouse owner, whose business had been slaughtering cattle, is also suing the Humane Society of the United States, Front Range Equine Rescue and Animal Protection of New Mexico, accusing those groups of defamation and causing loss of income during the dispute.

The dispute over killing horses has raged for years. Equine advocates have accused the Bureau of Land Management of failing to protect tens of thousands of mustangs that wander government-owned land in 10 Western states. Many of the animals are corralled each year and sent to long-term holding facilities. And reports surfaced this fall that the BLM was knowingly selling wild horses for slaughter, an outcome banned annually by Congress. The agency is investigating the claim.

In 2007, the last three domestic slaughterhouses in the United States were closed. Since then, unwanted domestic animals have been shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter.

Many animal protection groups and public officials were outraged at the idea of resuming domestic horse slaughter, including New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, who has opposed the plan.

Many animal advocates says horse slaughter has no business in the U.S.

"Everything is wrong with this idea," said Sally Summers, founder of Horse Power, a Nevada-based equine advocacy group. "The economy has done just fine without this type of slaughter. And these plants are toxic to the community. They hurt these towns; they don't help them."

Summers said that many of the drugs that U.S. owners give their horses to ensure longevity and peak performance are carcinogenic. "This stuff gets into the water table through the drains," she said. "It's a nightmare. This man is smoking a pipe and I don't know what's in it."

The USDA declined to comment last week on the pending litigation. The agency has until January to respond to the suit, filed in federal court in late October.

De los Santos says his lawsuit will show that a recent "marked change in cooperation" by the USDA is due to pressure the government is receiving on the horse issue.

Some support a return to domestic horse slaughter. The American Quarter Horse Assn. says a 2011 report from the federal Government Accountability Office shows horse abuse and abandonment have been increasing since Congress essentially banned horse slaughter by cutting funding for USDA inspection programs in 2006.

The number of U.S. horses sent to other countries for slaughter has nearly tripled since domestic horse slaughter ceased. Most animal advocacy groups agree that some of the worst abuse occurs in the slaughter pipeline that often takes horses to inhumane facilities in Mexico.

Last year, 68,429 horses were shipped to Mexico and 64,652 to Canada, according to USDA statistics compiled by the Equine Welfare Alliance, a nonprofit group dedicated to ending horse slaughter. That compares with total exports of 37,884 of the animals in 2006.

De los Santos says he is tired of sitting in southern New Mexico and watching countless truckloads of horses en route to Mexico for slaughter.

"I've seen 130,000 horses a year on their way to Mexico — they go right through our backyard — and I wanted to tap into the market," he said. "I could have hired 100 people by now. Everyone in our community agrees we need this type of service. And I'm tired of waiting."

De los Santos says he is ready to start killing horses humanely.

"Everything that has four legs that walks can be slaughtered the same way, but we're ready to do this humanely," he said. "We've upgraded our knocking chutes for giving them that lethal hit."

He says he can't understand why everyone is so upset. Americans kill cows; why not horses?

"My wife says horse is on the menu all over Europe, but the moment you mention horse slaughter in the U.S., you've got a problem," he says.

john.glionna@latimes.com

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