Saturday, December 24, 2011

UK's Prince Philip, 90, has heart surgery (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Britain's Prince Philip, the 90-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth, had heart surgery to ease a blocked artery on Friday after being rushed to hospital with chest pains as he prepared to celebrate Christmas with the royal family.

Britain's longest-serving royal consort, known for his outspoken and sometimes brusque manner, needed an operation to fit a small tube known as a stent that keeps the blood vessel open.

Philip had been preparing to spend Christmas with other members of the royal family, reportedly including Prince William and his wife Catherine, at the Sandringham royal estate in eastern England.

He was taken to the Papworth Hospital, one of Britain's main heart and chest centers, about 60 miles away in Cambridge, a palace spokeswoman said.

"The Duke of Edinburgh was found to have a blocked coronary artery which caused his chest pains," the palace said in a statement. "This was treated successfully by the minimally invasive procedure of coronary stenting."

He will stay in hospital "for a short period" under observation, it added. The hospital declined to comment.

Philip had attended a lunch for staff a week ago and had been on "very good form," the BBC reported.

"He has had these chest pains before and I don't think it's anything untoward, but given his age they are being safe rather than sorry," former royal press spokesman Dickie Arbiter told the BBC.

PIVOTAL FIGURE

Despite his age, Philip generally has been in good health and has continued a busy round of charity work and social engagements, recently visiting Australia and Ireland.

A pivotal figure in the House of Windsor, Philip has a reputation as a fiercely loyal consort who prefers outdoor pursuits to introspection.

"The Queen is monarch, but within the family setting, the Duke of Edinburgh is hugely important," royal commentator and author Penny Junor told Sky News.

"He has always been the one who has called the shots in family matters. He has really made the major decisions."

Britain's tabloid newspapers have delighted over the years in recounting his many public gaffes.

He once told British students in China: "If you stay here much longer, you'll be slitty-eyed."

Philip was accused by critics of being cruel to Princess Diana before her death in a car crash in Paris in 1997. However, the prince's aides rejected those claims at an inquest in 2007 and released letters purporting to show a close relationship between them.

Born on the Greek island of Corfu in 1921, Philip served in Britain's Royal Navy before marrying Elizabeth in 1947. They have four children, including the heir to the throne, Charles.

The prince has no clear-cut constitutional role. In private he is regarded as the unquestioned head of his family, but protocol obliges the man dubbed "the second handshake" to spend his public life one step behind his wife.

In a rare public tribute to her husband, the queen said in a speech in 1997:

"He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I...owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know."

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111224/wl_nm/us_britain_royal_philip

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SI_PeterKing: NFL won't want to take 2d Dal-NY game from FOX+will take win-and-you're-in option over all else. If KC-Den AFC West is title game, that's it

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Source: http://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing/statuses/150377840192389120

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Regulators expected to extend Volcker rule comment (reuters)

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Amazon may benefit as digital goods sales jump (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Digital goods are the fastest-growing category online this holiday, led by e-books, suggesting Amazon.com Inc's strategy of blanketing the world with cheap e-readers and tablet computers may be producing some early gains.

Sales of digital goods, which also include music and videos, are up about 30 percent this holiday season, compared to the same period last year, according to comScore data.

That is ahead of sales of consumer electronics and jewelry and watches, which are up about 25 percent versus last year's holiday season, and apparel and accessories, which are growing in line with overall e-commerce at roughly 15 percent, comScore data show.

The only other holiday season that digital goods grew the fastest was in 2006, when sales jumped 83 percent from a smaller base, according to comScore. At that time, Apple Inc's iTunes music store drove a lot of the growth of the category.

"Music is a much more stable market at this point. The real new growth is coming from e-books," said Andrew Lipsman of comScore.

"The increased proliferation of devices, such as tablets and e-readers, has led to more forms of digital content being downloaded," he added. "People are downloading e-books in a way they had not previously."

Amazon launched its $199 Kindle Fire tablet ahead of the holidays and slashed prices on its range of Kindle e-readers.

Earlier this month, Amazon said customers were buying more than one million Kindles a week and analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate the company will sell 14 million units during the fourth quarter.

Amazon priced these products aggressively and many analysts estimate the company is making little or no profit on the devices. Instead, Amazon is hoping to make money from higher sales of digital goods, according to Aaron Kessler, an analyst at Raymond James.

"Tablets and Kindles are selling a lot this season and that should ultimately benefit Amazon's digital sales," he said.

A DIGITAL CHRISTMAS

Still, a lot of these devices were bought as gifts this holiday, so the full impact on digital content sales will probably not come until Christmas Day and the weeks that follow, Kessler added.

Indeed, the 30 percent growth rate of digital goods so far this holiday season will likely increase next week, comScore's Lipsman said.

Christmas Day is the heaviest day of the year for digital content sales and downloads. Last year, about $10 million was spent on this category on Christmas Day. The second busiest days were Dec 26 and Dec 27, according to comScore.

Spending on digital goods during the week between Christmas and New Year's last year was three times more than the average week in 2010, comScore data also show.

In the past, such spikes have been caused by people using new Apple iPods, iPads and iTunes gift cards to buy and download music, videos, apps and e-books, Lipsman said.

"We think it will be even bigger this year as more tablets and e-readers make it onto the market," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon is a major beneficiary of this."

Historically, Christmas Day is the largest day for digital sales on Amazon.com, followed by Dec 26. Last year, from Christmas Eve through Dec 30, Amazon's digital content sales were over three times higher than the weekly average for 2010.

"With the introduction of Kindle Fire this season, millions more customers will be shopping for new digital content," said Craig Pape, director of music at Amazon.com.

Amazon is planning to run discounts on digital goods, including e-books, music, video, apps and games, on Christmas Day and the days that follow.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/internet/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111223/wr_nm/us_amazon_digitalgoods

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Friday, December 23, 2011

Seattle falls short in loss to No. 24 Virginia (AP)

SEATTLE ? In its first two seasons making the transition back to Division I, Seattle made headlines with wins over Oregon State and Virginia.

The Redhawks almost added the Cavaliers to the list again Wednesday night, this time as a ranked team, only to fall short in the closing moments.

Aaron Broussard scored a career-high 29 points and Sterling Carter added 17, but Seattle couldn't complete its rally from 14 points down in the final 8 minutes, and No. 24 Virginia held on for an 83-77 victory.

Tired of underperforming for the first month of the season, Seattle finally found life and energy for more than just a few spurts. The result was Seattle's best effort of the season, but still not enough to knock off a ranked team for the first time during its move back to the top level of college hoops.

"It's good to have energy and enthusiasm and have a display like this as you're doing it, because it helps you keep going and gives you a little more buzz to keep going," Seattle coach Cameron Dollar said. "But it doesn't stop the fact that you've got to keep going."

Mike Scott scored a career-high 33 points, including 19 in the first half, as the Cavaliers (10-1) won their eighth straight and improved to 10-1 for the first time since 2000-01. They also avenged a shocking 59-53 home loss to Seattle last season.

Meanwhile, the Redhawks dropped their sixth straight, but at least left with an idea of how they want to play going forward.

"We were going to go out give our all attitude. I don't feel like we had that at the beginning of the year," Carter said. "It wasn't purposely, it's just that time where we feel like we're a better team than we've been showing."

Virginia was on its way to an easy victory after Seattle missed eight of its first nine shots to begin the second half. Scott's three-point play pulled the Cavaliers within 43-42 and Chelan, Wash.- native Joe Harris gave Virginia its first lead on a baseline leaner with 15:12 remaining.

The Cavaliers' lead continued to grow until Dollar finally snapped with 8:45 left when he walked out to midcourt yelling about Scott's rebound putback while being fouled and was quickly issued a technical foul. Scott converted one of the two free throws for the technical, then completed the three-point play to give Virginia a 14-point lead with 8:45 remaining.

The technical woke up the Redhawks and instead of Virginia coasting to an easy road win they started crumbling under Seattle's pressure.

"I feel like we panicked a little bit. I feel like we could have been more sure with the ball," Virginia's Malcolm Brogdon said.

Using an aggressive, trapping defense, Seattle scored 19 of the next 23 points following Dollar's technical, the only Virginia points coming on free throws from Harris and Brogdon.

Broussard scored nine points and Carter had eight as Seattle went back in front on Broussard's leaner with 3:29 left to take a 68-67 lead.

After a quick Virginia timeout, came the clutch plays Virginia needed. Sammy Zeglinski hit an open 3 to retake the lead, the Cavaliers first field goal in more than 5 minutes, and he added two free throws to push the lead to 72-68.

Brodgon hit four straight free throws sandwiched around Carter's 3-pointer and Broussard hit another 3 to cut the lead to 76-75 with 1:24 left. Assane Sene missed two free throws, but Clarence Trent's hook shot in the lane failed to draw rim. Brogdon added two free throws with 1:05 left and the lead was three.

Broussard failed to connect on either of two free throws, but got his own rebound and scored, only to see Virginia break Seattle's press and lead to an easy basket for Scott and an 80-77 lead with 40 seconds left. T.J. Diop missed an open jumper for Seattle and Scott hit two free throws with 33.1 seconds left. Seattle failed to get a clean look in the final 30 seconds.

"You've got to be able to handle adversity. We didn't do a great job with it but there is a point as a coach where you try and say `We've got to get some stops, we've got to take care of the ball, we've got to come together' and either it's going to happen or it's not," Virginia coach Tony Bennett said.

Harris finished with 14 points and Brogdon added 10 for the Cavaliers.

It was the return to the state of Washington for Bennett, who previously coached at Washington State before taking the Cavaliers job. It was also a homecoming for Harris, who grew up about 175 miles east of Seattle and was largely the reason behind Virginia scheduling a home-and-home series with the Redhawks.

Harris originally committed to play for Bennett at Washington State before he left to take the job at Virginia. More than 300 residents of the small town about 3 hours east of Seattle made the trek over the Cascade mountains to see Harris, many sporting his No. 12 Cavaliers jersey.

___

Follow Tim Booth on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ByTimBooth

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111222/ap_on_sp_co_ga_su/bkc_t25_seattle

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RIM Calls Report of BlackBerry 10 Flaws 'Uninformed' (NewsFactor)

Struggling manufacturer Research In Motion is standing by its initial statement about the delayed release of BlackBerry 10, following a published report that the operating system is too flawed to release.

"RIM made a strategic decision to launch BlackBerry 10 devices with a new, LTE-based dual-core chip set architecture," the company said in an e-mail Thursday. "As explained on our earnings call, the broad engineering impact of this decision and certain other factors significantly influenced the anticipated timing for the BlackBerry 10 devices. The anonymous claim suggesting otherwise is inaccurate and uninformed."

RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said in an earnings call earlier this month that the release of BlackBerry 10 won't be ready in the first half of 2012 because dual-core, long-term evolution chipsets to give the devices 4G data speeds would not be available in time.

Trashed, Anonymously

However, Boy Genius Report, citing an unnamed source described as a high-level RIM employee, reported Thursday that the delay is because "RIM is simply pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don't have a working product yet."

BGR's source also said that looking at the current operating system used in RIM PlayBook tablets offers some insight into problems with e-mail and BlackBerry messaging that may affect phones using the upgrade, and that "there's no room for a fourth ecosystem" of independently developed apps after Apple's iOS, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7.

But RIM said it "will not launch BlackBerry 10 devices until we know they are ready, and we believe this new chip set architecture is required to deliver the world class user experience that our customers will expect. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false. "

In other BlackBerry news, Comwave, which makes an application allowing free voice over Internet protocol long-distance calls to dozens of countries, announced a version for the platform.

The app had previously been available for Apple's iPhone, and a version for phones powered by Google's Android operating system was announced earlier in the week. After registering for the service at Comwave's Web site for an annual fee of $30, BlackBerry users can download the app for free from the BlackBerry App World and call people in 57 countries without long-distance charges.

'Cheaper Than Skype'

The service is not unlimited, though. It includes 250 minutes per month for one year. Both Comwave and RIM are based in Canada. The company also created the ePhone app for BlackBerry's PlayBook tablet. Comwave promises that its rates for overage are cheaper than video-calling service Skype.

"With consumers loving our iPhone and Android apps, a BlackBerry version was a natural progression," said Yuval Barzakay, president and CEO, in a press statement.

But while added VOIP capability may increase the appeal of BlackBerry devices at a time when they are losing ground to Android and iOS, analysts see a new operating system as Priority One.

"I don't think apps, no matter how popular, will help RIM in the short term," said J.D. Power and Associates wireless tech analyst Kirk Parsons. "They need an updated OS platform badly and the longer they wait the harder it will be to regain share."

In October, comScore said RIM dropped 5 percent in market share during the previous three months, to 19.7 percent of the market, as Android rose 5.6 points to lead with 43.7 percent.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20111222/bs_nf/81495

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Thursday, December 22, 2011

New tour offers glimpse of New Orleans movie sites (AP)

NEW ORLEANS ? Sitting near the New Orleans streetcar line aboard a van equipped with video screens and a speaker system, tourists watch actress Vivien Leigh ride the city's vintage electric rail vehicles in a scene from the 1951 film "A Streetcar Named Desire."

In the French Quarter, passengers look on as Bruce Willis escapes attackers outside a praline shop in the 2010 film "Red." They also watch a young Kirsten Dunst bite into a woman's neck in Jackson Square in one of her early roles as a bloodthirsty child vampire in 1994's "Interview With a Vampire."

A new multimedia tour being offered in New Orleans takes passengers to locations where famous movie scenes were filmed and shows them a clip from the film on site. The tour also includes peeks at the New Orleans homes of actors Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock and John Goodman.

"It really is a different way to see the city," said Debbie Carroll, a self-proclaimed movie buff from Springfield, Mo., who took the tour earlier this month. "I love movies, so I was excited to take this tour, but I also like that I got to see parts of the city I had never seen before."

Besides the tourist-heavy French Quarter, New Orleans Movie Tours includes stops in lesser-known neighborhoods such as Treme and the Faubourg Marigny. Clips from those neighborhoods include an action-packed fight sequence with Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1993's "Hard Target" and scenes from 2004's "Ray" about the life of singer Ray Charles, which landed Jamie Foxx an Academy Award.

The HBO television series "Treme," which frequently films in both the Treme and Faubourg Marigny neighborhoods and is currently filming its third season in New Orleans, is also in the tour.

The tour is approximately two hours long, includes popcorn, and is packed with location stops and clips from roughly 30 films shot in New Orleans, among them 2008's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" starring Pitt; 1965's "The Cincinnati Kid" with Steve McQueen and Ann-Margret; 1969's "Easy Rider" with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, and 1958's "King Creole" starring Elvis Presley.

New Orleans Movie Tours was launched this past summer by the husband-wife team of Jonathan and Michelle Ray, movie lovers from Willington, Conn., who moved to New Orleans roughly 10 years ago.

"We fell in love with the culture, the music, the people, the food, basically everything that we didn't have in Connecticut," Jonathan Ray said.

The couple followed the growing film culture in the city, he said.

Since Louisiana film tax credits were introduced in 2002, movie production hubs have popped up in cities across the state, including Shreveport, Lafayette and Baton Rouge. But New Orleans continues to see most of the activity. This year alone, roughly 45 projects ? almost half of all those filmed in the state ? were shot in the New Orleans area.

"If there's something filming, we try to include it on the tour, so the tour can change slightly from day to day," Jonathan Ray said.

During the hot summer months, the temperature-controlled van is a comfortable alternative to the walking tours the city offers, he said.

The movie tour appears to be a growing draw for tourists and locals alike, said Jennifer Day, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau and former director of the New Orleans film office. Day said the movie tour fills a void that's existed for some time.

"When I worked at the film office, we got calls all the time from movie buffs wanting information on where movies were filmed and from visitors in the city who wanted to keep an eye out for the movie they saw filming," she said.

The tour appears to be one of only a handful like it in the U.S.

"You have to be at a site where a lot of movies have been filmed for it to work," said Doug Lumsden, owner of Monterey Movie Tours in Monterey, Calif., one of fewer than a dozen multimedia movie tours in the United States. Besides New Orleans, such tours are also offered in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and Savannah, Ga., Lumsden said.

One of the first movie tours opened on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in 1995. That tour, Hawaii Movie Tours, includes more than a dozen stops at such locations as Wailua Falls, where the TV show "Fantasy Island" was made, and Kapaa Town, where the 1993 Steven Spielberg-directed blockbuster "Jurassic Park" was filmed.

Lumsden said his tour takes movie lovers through Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel and Pebble Beach. Among the highlights is The Lodge at Pebble Beach, where Doris Day ran through the entry in the suspense drama, "Julie."

Lumsden said the Rays visited California and took his tour before launching their own venture in New Orleans.

"They are really good," he said. "They did their homework, and they really know their stuff."

___

If You Go...

NEW ORLEANS MOVIE TOURS: Daily, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

RESERVE ONLINE: http://www.nolamovies.com or call 800-979-3370

PRICE: Adult tickets are $39, children ages 4-12 are $29

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111221/ap_en_mo/us_new_orleans_movie_tours

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Midwives use rituals to send message that women's bodies know best

ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) ? In reaction to what midwives view as the overly medicalized way hospitals deliver babies, they have created birthing rituals to send the message that women's bodies know best.

The midwife experience uses these rituals to send the message that home birth is about female empowerment, strengthening relationships between family and friends, and facilitating participatory experiences that put mothers in control, with the ultimate goal of safe and healthy deliveries less focused on technological intervention.

These are some of the findings from an Oregon State University researcher and licensed midwife who witnessed more than 400 home births in order to document an extensive list of practices utilized by midwives to express the symbolic difference between home and hospital births.

In a study now online in the journal Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Melissa Cheyney, an assistant professor of medical anthropology at OSU, charted specific rituals used by midwives. In addition to witnessing and documenting home deliveries, she also conducted more than 50 in-depth interviews with midwives and their clients.

"This is about invoking the mind-body connection," Cheyney said. "We know, for instance, that midwives have better health outcomes in some areas, such as reduced rates of surgical delivery and labor induction, than hospitals. But I wanted to examine how ritual might play a part in producing these positive health outcomes."

Cheyney said evidence shows that hospital births result in about triple the rate of cesarean section for low-risk women compared to midwife-attended home births. Because of her unique role as both a researcher and midwife, Cheyney was able to gain access to hundreds of home births in various parts of the United States, and also witnessed more than 60 hospital births.

What she found was a network of common practices, messages and beliefs that resulted in midwives constructing woman-centered rituals around pregnancy and birth that were set up in opposition to what they believe are the overly medicalized practices of hospitals.

For instance, Cheyney found that midwives conducted many of the same diagnostic procedures as a physician would prenatally, from blood pressure and weight checks to blood testing and fetal heart tone evaluation. But midwives chose to get the entire family involved, often asking the partner to palpitate along with the midwife or allowing older children to hold the equipment used to listen to fetal heart tones.

"The participatory nature was a key component to creating a ritual that empowers the woman and her family to feel in control," Cheyney said. "Many midwives also downplayed the centrality of monitoring and resuscitation equipment setting them off to the side, or placing them under baby blankets during labor so women would not be reminded of the technology in the room. Mothers and babies were still monitored closely, but the monitoring was not made the central focus."

The differences aren't so much in practice, she argues, but in performance.

Cheyney also documented the use of common phrases to create birthing mantras. She lists phrases such as "don't fight it," "let your body do it," "open," and "let it be strong," as key components to the home birth ritual. Many mothers that Cheyney interviewed reported feeling strong and capable during their labors, and women who compared their hospital birth to their home birth reported feeling like they were "doing something, rather than just lying there passively waiting." Midwives also commonly expressed the statement that they were simply "guardians," and that women have all the tools inside of them to birth their own babies.

Cheyney said she was interested in documenting these home birth rituals in part because past anthropological studies have already looked at the rituals that characterize hospital deliveries. It is Cheyney's belief that both of these sets of rituals have caused a wide chasm between the 99 percent of the U.S. population that chooses hospital births and the 1 percent who choose home births.

"Just as women and their doctors who deliver in the hospital often feel convinced that their birth was the only safe and 'correct' way, women and midwives who deliver at home feel strongly that they have the solution," Cheyney said. "They believe it with every cell in their body because they have lived it."

The result, said Cheyney, are two deeply entrenched belief systems that have trouble meeting in the middle, prompting many of the tensions between midwives and obstetricians -- a major concern for Cheyney and other researchers as the number of home births in the U.S. is on the rise.

In contrast, countries such as Canada require midwives to be trained in home, birth center, and hospital deliveries. And Dutch physicians are required to complete midwifery training if they want to attend low-risk deliveries.

"How can you speak across divides unless you experience both sides?" Cheyney said. "To use a travel metaphor, it's easy to criticize a country you've never visited."

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111216150301.htm

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Saturday, December 17, 2011

China's Xi to visit Vietnam in test for tricky relationship (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? China's Vice President Xi Jinping, likely to take over as top leader late next year, will visit Vietnam for three days from Tuesday in what could be a test of how he handles festering territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin also said on Friday Xi will then make a three-day visit to Thailand, according to the ministry's website (www.mfa.gov.cn). The brief announcement gave no details about what issues or agreements Xi will take up in either country.

The visit to Vietnam will, however, expose Xi to one of Beijing's trickiest regional relations.

Xi, 58, has received a series of promotions that show he is almost certain to succeed Hu Jintao as Chinese Communist Party chief late next year, and then as state president in early 2013.

China and Vietnam share a fraternal history of communist struggle against foreign occupiers, but also a history of tensions over territorial claims and Vietnamese wariness of its much larger neighbor. They were briefly at war in 1979, when Chinese forces crossed Vietnam's frontier.

Vietnam and China -- as well as the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan -- maintain conflicting claims over parts of the South China Sea, a potentially oil and gas rich body of water crossed by key shipping lanes.

In May and June, Vietnam accused Chinese vessels of harassing Vietnamese ships within Vietnam's exclusive economic zone. China denied that its ships had done anything wrong.

In October, China and Vietnam signed an agreement seeking to contain their dispute over the sea.

China has also warned foreign energy companies against exploration in the disputed sea after U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp said it had discovered hydrocarbons off central Vietnam in August, an area also claimed by China.

Before the East Asia Summit in November, China sought to keep the South China Sea off the agenda, but Premier Wen Jiabao bowed to pressure from Asian governments and the United States and begrudgingly addressed the maritime disputes.

Xi is also due to visit the United States early next year, burnishing his leadership credentials.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111216/wl_nm/us_china_vietnam_xi

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China villagers defy government in standoff over death (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? Villagers in southern China on Thursday defied authorities and continued protests over a death in custody and land dispute in the latest outburst of simmering rural discontent that is eroding the ruling Communist Party's grip at the grassroots.

Many hundreds of residents in Wukan Village in Guangdong province held an angry march and rally despite moves by authorities to halt a land project at the center of the months-long unrest and detain local officials involved.

"The whole village is distraught and enraged. We want the central government to come in and restore justice," said one resident who described the scene.

He and another resident, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said villagers remain enraged over last weekend's death in custody of Xue Jinbo, 42, who was detained on suspicion of helping organize protests against land seizures.

"We won't be satisfied until there is a full investigation and redress for Xue Jinbo's death," said the second resident.

"If you say he wasn't beaten to death, then you can show us the body," another villager who had his face hidden from the camera by the hood of his jacket told Hong Kong's Cable TV.

"If there really isn't any injury on the body, then why would you not return the body to us?"

Rural land in China is mostly owned in name by village collectives, but in fact officials can mandate its seizure for development in return for compensation, which residents often say is inadequate and does not reflect the profits reaped.

The government of Shanwei, a district including Wukan, said on Wednesday a "handful" of Communist Party members and officials accused of misdeeds over the disputed land development were detained and that the main land development project had been suspended, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

In a bid to allay suspicions that other villagers detained over protests in September had been abused, the local government put online footage of four suspects being visited by relatives and reassuring them of their wellbeing. (http://www.shanwei.gov.cn/163661.html)

FURY

But for the two residents interviewed it was not enough to defuse fury over the death of Xue, whom villagers believe was the victim of police brutality -- a charge the government denies, citing an autopsy that found he died of heart failure.

Wukan has been surrounded by police and anti-riot units.

China's leaders, determined to maintain one-party control, worry that such outbursts might turn into broader and more persistent challenges to their power.

But they usually stay local and Beijing's grip remains strong, said Kenneth Lieberthal, an expert on Chinese politics.

"Is there a risk of disruption? Yes, absolutely. Is this a place just waiting to explode? No," said Lieberthal, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C. think tank.

"The chances of long-term, systemic instability are very, very small. The chances of some major disruption -- like 1989, but on a much larger scale -- are considerably greater, but still the odds are they can avoid it," he said.

Wukan, with its clannish unity and big stake in rising land values, is an example of the kind of slow-burning discontent that is corroding party power at the grassroots.

Residents say hundreds of hectares of land was acquired unfairly by corrupt officials in collusion with developers. Anger in the village boiled over this year after repeated appeals to higher officials.

Although China's Communist Party has ruled over decades of economic growth that have protected it from challenges to its power, the country is confronted by thousands of smaller scale protests and riots every year.

One expert on unrest, Sun Liping of Tsinghua University in Beijing, has estimated that there could have been over 180,000 such "mass incidents" in 2010. But most estimates from Chinese scholars and government experts put numbers at about half that in recent years.

The Chinese government has not given any unrest statistics for years.

The real worry for Beijing is not the sheer number of such protests, but their tendency to become more persistent and organized - both features on display in the unrest in Wukan, where there were torrid riots in September.

(Addition reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington D.C. and Stefanie McIntyre in Hong Kong, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Yoko Nishikawa)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111215/wl_nm/us_china_unrest

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Friday, December 16, 2011

China officials shut down outdoor Christmas party (AP)

BEIJING ? Chinese police and government officials scuffled with Christians and smashed sound equipment for a public Christmas celebration in an eastern village known for unofficial house churches and producing ornaments.

Christians in Xintan village said Friday that the officials wrecked a mixing console, turned over an electric piano and pushed and punched worshippers, injuring five, Tuesday night. A local official said the believers hit first, sending a deputy village head to the hospital.

"There were a few hundred of us. And the village heads were there too, and they were even more violent," said Wang Jingfeng, one of the Christians present. "This is like a dog biting a rat."

Setting off the scuffle was an attempt by an unregistered local church to hold a Christmas gala on a stage set up in a village square.

The Xintan Village Church, in a video posted on YouTube, said the local government authorized the event. But a higher-level official in charge of religious affairs said the believers were asked a day earlier to cancel because regulations forbid worship outdoors and Buddhists in the community complained.

"We told them that any outdoors event of a religious nature is strictly banned from being organized, and that's what it states in the government rule on religion," said Zeng Jianhua, deputy director of religious affairs in Ruian city, which oversees Xintan.

Though small on the surface, the to-do underscores the blurry status of religion in a fast-changing China. Belief in all faiths is soaring while the officially atheistic, communist government is wary about religious groups growing popular and beyond its control.

Some Communist Party members are getting caught up in the revival, violating party rules and becoming active religious believers in a trend that drew a high-level admonition Friday. "If we let party members believe in religion ... this will inevitably result in the splits in the party organization," Zhu Weiqun, a vice minister for the United Front Work Department, wrote in an essay in the party magazine "Seeking Truth."

The hills and rocky coastline around Ruian are teeming with Buddhist shrines and Christian churches mixed in among small, privately owned factories producing clothes and other consumer goods. While many of these Christian congregations, often called house churches because they originally operated in people's homes, are unauthorized, officials often turn a blind eye to them as long as they're discreet.

Ruian has become home to makers of toys and Christmas ornaments. Xintan bills itself as "Christmas village." Local factories produced more than $78 billion, or 500 million yuan, in Christmas products this year, prompting local officials to stage a Christmas arts and culture fair last Saturday in celebration. That inspired the Xintan Village Church to hold its own nighttime Christmas party Tuesday, the church statement said.

The video the church posted online showed people putting up decorations on a stage with a red backdrop that says "Silent Night" in Chinese and English and below that "2011 Christmas Village Christmas Party" while Christmas music plays in the background. Uniformed police then cut the electricity, killing the sound, while throngs flood the stage pushing and shoving.

Zeng, the religious affairs official, said the church members had been obstinate, turning down government requests to call off the event. The authorities acted, he said, because they were worried that the party might rile the local Buddhist community.

"There has long been tension between the Christians and the Buddhists, " Zeng said. "And among the village officials, some are Christians and some are Buddhists. Some of the village officials wanted to beat them, and we stopped them. Nobody beat anyone."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_as/as_china_christmas_raid

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Olympus announces power zoom, weather-sealed lens for MFT cameras (Digital Trends)

lensIt?s not all bad news for Olympus?or at least fans of its digital camera products. As rumors of a sale to Fujifilm hit this morning, the company also announced its new micro-four-thirds lens. The M.ZUIKO digital ED 12-50mm F3.5-6.3 is a hybrid product for the MFT series: it?s both an electric and manual zoom lens.

With a zoom ratio of 4.2x, it should be versatile in a few other ways as well. Wide-angle and telephoto-range shots can be accomplished with the same lens?macro mode focuses between 8-20 inches. However the F6.3 at 100mm is a bit shallow for your max aperture?which is a bit of a let-down. But there are features to make up for it, such as AF suspension. You can turn AF bracketing off when you?re zoomed in on something and an object suddenly flies by your barrel, throwing the focusing system off.

Olympus also says the new lens should relieve some video capture headaches. While we?re fans of movie recording quality and capability from the MFT line-up (the E-PL2 has specifically been praised for its video production), we?ve found AF and zooming somewhat noisy during use. This new addition to the line has a new linear motor for quieter autofocusing and altogether smoother use?shaky hand syndrome be damned! This is really a lens made for those who don?t only use their MFT for stills but for video regularly as well.?

It will also be the first MFT lens for Olympus to be able to take a beating???at least more of a beating. It will include multiple sealing rings to keep the lens a little safer from dust and water.

The lens will be available in mid-January 2012 for $499.99.?

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Rumor: Fujifilm interested in buying Olympus

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111214/tc_digitaltrends/olympusannouncespowerzoomweathersealedlensformftcameras

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Afghans weary of yet another summit ahead of Bonn Conference

An international conference on Afghanistan's future opens Monday in Bonn, Germany. But on the streets of Kabul, Afghans have low expectations a decade into the western presence here.

As leaders from around the world gather in Bonn, Germany to discuss the future of Afghanistan the stakes could not be higher.?Question marks hover over NATO and Afghan forces' progress against the insurgency, the future of US involvement after its 2014 withdrawal deadline, and which factions in the conflict Pakistan will ultimately support.

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Yet for many Afghans, the second Bonn Conference is little to be excited about. International summits like it have taken place on a nearly annual basis over the past ten years and most Afghans say they?ve seen little change as a result.

?I don?t think these conferences are for the good of Afghanistan. We?ve seen many other conferences where hundreds or even thousands of people came. During conferences here in Afghanistan, they closed the roads and people suffered due to strict security policies or even died in attacks during the conference, but they changed nothing,? says Zmary Sapai, a wholesale food merchant in Kabul. ?These conferences are just throwing dirt in the eyes of the Afghan people.?

On Monday the second Bonn Conference will take place 10 years after the first one gathered shortly after the fall of the Taliban government. A decade ago Afghan and international leaders gathered to create a transitional government and pave the way for a new constitution.

Today the political and security situation in Afghanistan remains far from settled and Afghan leaders at Bonn will likely be looking to secure continued international support for the decade to come as they seek to create lasting stability.

The first Bonn Conference and the years immediately following it were marked with much hope following the ouster of the Taliban government and violence staying at relatively low levels. Within five years, however, the Taliban resurgence was well under way and the promises of reconstruction and peace seemed distant to most Afghans.

?If the coming 10 years are like the last 10 years, it will make the Afghans very concerned. After the first Bonn Conference they were saying that they were bringing democracy to Afghanistan, but they gave the country to warlords and jihadist groups,? says Babrak Shinwari, a former member of Parliament from Nangarhar.

Despite billions of dollars of international investment in Afghanistan?s reconstruction ? more than $70 billion from the US alone ? the nation has seen questionable progress.

Human Rights Watch was one of several organizations to issue a cautionary statement in the days leading up to the conference. The rights organization warned of a situation ?dominated by poor governance, lack of rule of law, impunity for militias and police, laws and policies that harm women, and conflict-related abuses.?

Still, there is hope enough time remains to overcome the mistakes of the last ten years. In addition to time, many say improvement will also require enduring international funding.

The Afghan government currently gets 90 percent of its public spending budget from international donors and the World Bank recently warned that it will depend on billions of dollars in foreign assistance for years to come in order to stay afloat.

?From the Bonn Conference what we hope is that the Afghan government makes their demands and suggestions in a fair way that can convince the international community to keep their political and economic assistance for the long-term and maintain these achievements we?ve made over the last several years with the support of the international community,? says Zaifnoon Safi, a member of parliament from Laghman Province.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/x2uTyZ0AFLI/Afghans-weary-of-yet-another-summit-ahead-of-Bonn-Conference

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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Brinkley hit with $531K tax lien by IRS

Christie Brinkley vows she'll immediately repay the $531,000 she owes in back taxes. New York's Daily News recently reported the Internal Revenue Service has filed a tax lien against the supermodel.

Brinkley says in a statement the lien was a "result of an error" and pledges it will be paid in full by Wednesday.

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Brinkley says she regrets not paying more attention to her accounting. She says she's been focused on her parents, who are dealing with "serious health issues."

The 57-year-old Brinkley was married to Billy Joel and appeared in his "Uptown Girl" video. She made her Broadway debut this year playing Roxie Hart in the musical "Chicago."

She says she considers herself "lucky to have been employed" since she was 17 years old.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45565751/ns/today-entertainment/

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Mexico top presidential contender can't name books (AP)

MEXICO CITY ? Oops!

Politicians north of the border aren't the only ones struggling with gaffes this campaign season.

Mexico's leading presidential contender floundered in confusion for about four minutes when the audience at a book fair asked him to name three books that had influenced him. He was able to correctly name only one he has read "parts of:" the Bible.

Former Mexico State Gov. Enrique Pena Nieto holds a comfortable lead in opinion polls for Mexico's July 1 presidential election, but his appearance was reminiscent of the campaign-denting moment that Texas Gov. Rick Perry suffered at a Republican debate in November. The GOP hopeful said he couldn't remember one of the three government agencies he pledged to eliminate if he were president. "Oops!" he finally admitted.

The floundering by Pena Nieto, a strikingly handsome man married to a television actress, fed into the images critics have tried to spin around him: telegenic but hollow.

"I have read a number of books, starting with novels, that I particularly liked. I'd have a hard time recalling the titles of the books," Pena Nieto said during a question-and-answer session at the weekend book fair in the western city of Guadalajara.

Pena Nieto said that as an adolescent, he had been influenced by the Bible, and had read "parts of" it.

He then rambled, tossing out confused title names, asking for help in recalling authors and sometimes mismatching the two.

He said he liked "La Silla del Aguila, a novel whose title roughly translates as "The Presidential Chair." But he said it was written by historian Enrique Krauze, one of Mexico's most famous historians. It was actually written by Carlos Fuentes, the country's most famous novelist.

That was about as close as the former governor came to correctly identifying a book he has read in the past decade.

"The truth is that when I read books, the titles don't really sink in," he said after several minutes.

Pena Nieto is the leading hope of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, to return to the presidency it held for 71 years without interruption before losing the 2000 elections to conservative Vicente Fox.

Television images of Pena Nieto's struggles ignited glee among PRI critics on Twitter.

Several referred to him as "the Justin Bieber of the PRI," referring to Bieber's difficulty in naming all seven continents during a television appearance in November.

But Bieber was at least able to work out the answer with some prompting from host David Letterman.

Pena Nieto couldn't. He looked to his aides for help and drew laughter from the audience, saying at least twice "I can't remember the title." He mentioned he had read a political thriller by Jeffrey Archer.

Several demonstrators showed up at party headquarters in Mexico City on Monday to symbolically give him books on Mexican history.

"It's really very shameful that a person wants to be president and doesn't know a single book," said Hugo Giovanni Aguirre, a university law student.

Pena Nieto accepted the gaffe in Twitter posts Monday, apparently hoping that good grace would calm the controversy.

"I'm reading some tweets about my error yesterday, some are very critical, others are even funny. I thank you for all of them," he wrote. Later, he tweeted "Freedom of expression is a central pillar of democracy. Criticism of those of us who aspire to or hold political office is fundamental."

But efforts to smooth over the issue were not helped when Pena Nieto's teenage daughter Paulina re-tweeted a comment that described people gloating over the gaffe as "the bunch of idiots who form part of the proletariat and only criticize those they envy."

Pena Nieto quickly apologized on his own Twitter account for the message, which stings in a country with deep social and economic inequality.

"Paulina's re-tweet was an emotional reaction to my error," Pena Nieto wrote. "It was definitely excessive and I publicly apologize for it." He later added "I have had a talk with my children about respect and tolerance."

Mexican intellectuals were aghast, though some took into account Pena Nieto's explanation that he had been too busy in politics to have time to read.

"I myself, and I suppose all of us ... have moments when we forget authors, we forget books," historian Lorenzo Meyer told a local radio station. "We can't jump on Pena Nieto because he forgets his writers."

"But I believe that a deep knowledge of Mexican history is fundamental for someone who wants to be president," Meyer added.

Members of Pena Nieto's party had their own moments of fun mocking former president Fox, a fountain of verbal flubs who angered U.S. blacks by saying Mexicans took jobs "not even" blacks want, and who prompted hilarity by mispronouncing the name of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges during a speech before one of Spain's most important literary gatherings.

"This thing with Pena Nieto touches a nerve that is still very sensitive," Meyer said.

While the other political parties piled on the criticism of Pena Nieto, they weren't immune to literary confusion.

Former Finance Secretary Ernesto Cordero, a contender for the top nomination of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, said in a radio interview Monday that Pena Nieto's gaffe raised "serious doubts" about his qualifications. But he then misidentified the author of what he described as one of his three favorite books, mixing up her first name with that of another writer.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_political_gaffe

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Monday, December 5, 2011

Amy Winehouse Foundation makes first donations (AP)

LONDON ? Amy Winehouse's father says meeting the first children to be helped by the foundation set up in his late daughter's name has been both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

The Amy Winehouse Foundation was officially launched 10 weeks ago to support vulnerable youth, and has pledged to donate 500,000 pounds ($780,000) in its first year.

The singer's parents, Mitch and Janis Winehouse, visited Little Havens Children's Hospice in Thundersley, east of London, on Wednesday to meet children benefitting from a 10,000-pound ($15,600) donation.

Mitch Winehouse says "it was heartbreaking actually . . . I'm starting to well up now, but heartwarming at the same time."

A British coroner ruled the singer, known for her beehive hairdo and hits like "Rehab," died of alcohol poisoning.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111202/ap_en_mu/eu_britain_amy_winehouse

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Only two PGA documentary nominees on Oscars shortlist (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Reinforcing that the 2011 documentary-awards picture is almost as confusing as the Oscar Best Picture race, the Producers Guild of America nominated five films for its top doc award on Friday -- and only two of the five even made the final 15 in the Oscars doc category.

The five films competing for the PGA's Documentary Theatrical Motion Picture award are "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest," "Bill Cunningham New York," "Project Nim," "Senna" and "The Union."

Only "Cunningham" and "Nim" made the Academy's shortlist of 15 feature documentaries. None of the five are competing for the top award at Friday night's International Documentary Association Awards, and only "Nim" and "Senna" are in contention for the Cinema Eye Honors' Nonfiction Feature award.

The nominees are notably light on hard-hitting issue-oriented documentaries, and do not include either Steve James' "The Interrupters" or Werner Herzog's "Into the Abyss," both of which drew attention when they were left off the Academy's shortlist.

The winner will be announced on January 21, 2012 at the Producers Guild ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

The PGA will announce its television series nominees on December 7 and all other nominees on January 3.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/media_nm/us_documentaries_dga

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Murder charge filed in Occupy Oakland slaying (AP)

OAKLAND, Calif. ? A fugitive has been charged with murder after a protester was killed last month near the former Occupy Oakland encampment outside City Hall, authorities said Friday.

Norris Terrell, 20, is awaiting extradition to California after being arrested Sunday in Lexington, Ky., for the Nov. 10 slaying of Kayode Ola Foster, 25, who had been staying at the anti-Wall Street site in Oakland for at least two weeks, police said.

Terrell left Oakland on a bus the day after the shooting and fled to Kentucky, where authorities found him at a friend's house, interim police Chief Howard Jordan said.

Police said Foster was shot in a fight, possible over alcohol, on the City Hall plaza. At least six gunshots were fired, creating chaos among occupiers and eyewitnesses and sparking community outrage that led police to shut down the camp four days later.

Police arrested three other men in connection with the attack.

Joseph Anthony Gholston, 32, Excell McKinley, 20, and Carleon Roberson, 18, all of Oakland, were charged Thursday with assault with a deadly weapon for beating Foster before the shooting, police said.

Jordan said cooperation from the public and surveillance video led to the arrests.

"We've been following a bunch of leads since that day, and we received a lot of calls from citizens who provided us with key information," Jordan said.

Terrell also was charged with shooting into an occupied dwelling when a bullet meant for Foster went through a window and grazed a worker inside, police said.

It was unclear whether Terrell has a lawyer. Attorneys for Gholston, McKinley and Roberson could not be reached for comment. The three men charged with assault are due in court on Dec. 7.

An investigation was ongoing.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111203/ap_on_re_us/us_occupy_oakland_shooting

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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Cain announces he's suspending his campaign (AP)

ATLANTA ? The Cain train has come to a stop.

Herman Cain suspended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Saturday following a steady drumbeat of sexual misconduct allegations he said were harming his family and drowning out his ability to deliver his message.

With just one month to go until the lead-off Iowa caucuses, Cain's announcement is tantamount to a concession. Still, he told supporters, he planned to continue his efforts to influence Washington and announced "Plan B" ? what he called a grassroots effort to return government to the people.

Cain denounced the accusations of impropriety against him as "false and unproven" but said that they had been hurtful to his family, particularly his wife, Gloria.

"So as of today, with a lot of prayer and soul-searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign. I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distractions and the continued hurt caused on me and my family," a tired-looking Cain told about a 400 supporters.

It was a remarkable turnabout for a man that just weeks ago vaulted out of nowhere to the top of the GOP field, fueled by a populist, outsider appeal and his catchy 9-9-9 tax overhaul plan.

Saturday's event was a bizarre piece of political theater even for a campaign that has seemed to thrive on defying convention.

Cain marked the end of his bid at what was supposed to be the grand opening of his new campaign headquarters in Atlanta. Minutes before he took the stage to pull the plug with his wife, Gloria, at his side, aides and supporters took to the podium to urge attendees to vote for Cain and travel to early voting states to rev up support for his bid.

"Join the Cain train," David McCleary, Cain's Georgia director, urged the audience.

Cain said he would offer an endorsement in the near future and he predicted a scramble among Republicans in the field to win the backing of his conservative, tea party base.

Former GOP rivals quickly issued statements Saturday praising Cain's conservative credentials and appeal. His withdrawal could help those seeking to run as an alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, seen by some as too moderate.

Cain's announcement came five days after an Atlanta-area woman claimed she and Cain had an affair for more than a decade, a claim that followed several allegations of sexual harassment against the Georgia businessman.

"Now, I have made many mistakes in life. Everybody has. I've made mistakes professionally, personally, as a candidate, in terms of how I run my campaign. And I take responsibility for the mistakes I've made, and I have been the very first to own up to any mistakes I've made," he said.

But Cain intoned: "I am at peace with my God. I am at peace with my wife. And she is at peace with me."

Cain, the former Godfather's Pizza chief executive who has never held elected office, rose just weeks ago to lead the volatile Republican race. But Cain fumbled policy questions, leaving some to wonder whether he was ready for the presidency. Then it was revealed at the end of October that the National Restaurant Association had paid settlements to two women who claimed Cain sexually harassed them while he was president of the organization.

A third woman told The Associated Press that Cain made inappropriate sexual advances but that she didn't file a complaint. A fourth woman also stepped forward to accuse Cain of groping her in a car in 1997.

Cain has denied wrongdoing in all cases, and continued to do so Saturday.

Polls suggest his popularity has suffered. A Des Moines Register poll released Friday showed Cain's support plunging, with backing from 8 percent of Republican caucusgoers in Iowa, compared with 23 percent a month ago.

But Cain said Saturday he would not go away and would continue trying to influence Washington from the outside,

He announced the formation of CainSolutions.com, which he said was a grassroots effort to bring government back to the people.

"I am not going to be silenced, and I am not going away. And therefore, as of today, Plan B. Plan B," he said.

_____

Follow Shannon McCaffrey: http://www.twitter.com/smccaffrey13

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111203/ap_on_el_pr/us_cain

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Periodic Table To Welcome Two New Elements

The first part is named after a person or place of scientific significance, usually in the field of particle physics.

The -ium ending is pretty common for elements. Just look at some of the older entries on the periodic table, as you recommended: helium, lithium, beryllium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, titanium, vanadium, chromium, gallium, germanium, selenium, rubidium, strontium, zirconium, molybdenum, palladium, cadmium, iridium, platinum.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/1aQMWtgk2uM/periodic-table-to-welcome-two-new-elements

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Friday, December 2, 2011

Catastrophic Climate Could Be Forestalled by Cutting Overlooked Gases [Slide Show]

Features | Energy & Sustainability

Carbon dioxide gets all the attention, but there are a host of compounds responsible for global warming


methane-flameOVERLOOKED GASES: Methane, like that burning in the flame pictured, is one of several often overlooked greenhouse gases. Curbing their emissions could be both cheaper and easier than cutting carbon dioxide. Image: ? iStockphoto.com / Chris Pole

When the world talks climate change?as is currently under way in Durban, South Africa?the main issue is carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 is emanating from the negotiators' mouths and the power plants and cars of their home countries?and that simple molecule is responsible for the bulk of global warming to date.

But CO2 isn't the only molecule trapping heat in the atmosphere. The warm conditions of the earth get a big boost from water vapor as well as several other culprits, some of which never existed in the atmosphere prior to human influence. Together, the other greenhouse gases account for roughly a third of the molecules trapping heat in the atmosphere ? and more than a third of the overall warming of average temperatures globally.

What's more, cleaning up emissions of some of these other greenhouse gases may prove quite a lot simpler than cutting back on CO2?forestalling catastrophic climate change. In fact, some of the measures?such as capturing the methane released during oil production?actually save money in addition to the climate. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that cutting back on methane and soot emissions alone could prevent 0.7 degree Celsius of additional warming by 2040?and those cooling benefits could come faster than comparable cuts in CO2.

View a slideshow of the other greenhouse gases

?

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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=0646d0f387729e5830b8c7fccf53250b

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Talks on Iraq NATO mission stall over immunity

FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 file photo, Iraqi police officers demonstrate anti-riot policing techniques during a training session at Camp Dublin in Baghdad, Iraq. The Italian Carabinieri police team, a part of the NATO Training Mission to Iraq, conducted the specialized training for the Iraqi National police. The issue of legal immunity for foreign troops in Iraq, which already torpedoed plans to keep a U.S. military presence in that country, has emerged as a key stumbling block in talks over the extension of a NATO training mission here. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 file photo, Iraqi police officers demonstrate anti-riot policing techniques during a training session at Camp Dublin in Baghdad, Iraq. The Italian Carabinieri police team, a part of the NATO Training Mission to Iraq, conducted the specialized training for the Iraqi National police. The issue of legal immunity for foreign troops in Iraq, which already torpedoed plans to keep a U.S. military presence in that country, has emerged as a key stumbling block in talks over the extension of a NATO training mission here. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 file photo, an Iraqi police officer demonstrate combat techniques during a training session at Camp Dublin in Baghdad, Iraq. The Italian Carabinieri police team, a part of the NATO Training Mission to Iraq, conducted the specialized training for the Iraqi National police. The issue of legal immunity for foreign troops in Iraq, which already torpedoed plans to keep a U.S. military presence in that country, has emerged as a key stumbling block in talks over the extension of a NATO training mission here. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009 file photo, Iraqi policemen demonstrate combat techniques during a training session at Camp Dublin in Baghdad, Iraq. The Italian Carabinieri police team, a part of the NATO Training Mission to Iraq, conducted the specialized training for the Iraqi National police. The issue of legal immunity for foreign troops in Iraq, which already torpedoed plans to keep a U.S. military presence in that country, has emerged as a key stumbling block in talks over the extension of a NATO training mission here. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)

BAGHDAD (AP) ? The issue of legal immunity for foreign troops in Iraq, which already torpedoed plans to keep a U.S. military presence in the country, has emerged as a key stumbling block in talks over the extension of a NATO training mission here.

As with the U.S., Iraq is insisting that all troops in its country must be subject to its laws and judicial system. The U.S. and NATO are leery of that, fearing that servicemen could not receive fair trials in a county where anti-Western sentiment runs high.

Iraq bases its demand on past incidents of violence.

Prominent among them are the 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in which 17 Iraqis were killed by private American security guards and an incident in Haditha, when U.S. troops killed 24 Iraqi civilians.

The impasse forced the Obama administration to stick to a previous agreement to withdraw all American troops by the end of the year. The same issue could torpedo an extension of the NATO trainers, despite Iraq's stated wishes.

In July, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki requested that the alliance extend the NATO Training Mission in Iraq until the end of 2013.

The goal of the training mission is to help develop Iraqi commanders at or above battalion level. The Iraqi forces have received training on individual weapons and how to maneuver as small units, but they have never been trained on how to maneuver as a large unit or to coordinate air and ground forces, for example.

Advisers mentor faculty at Iraq's National Defense University and conduct an exchange program in which Iraqi officers are sent for staff training in participating countries.

Officials and diplomats familiar with the situation say talks on an extension of the training program ? which NATO has operated for the past eight years ? are stuck on the issue of legal protection for the roughly 130 advisers from 13 NATO nations and Ukraine who would stay in Iraq next year.

"The immunity issue is the main complicating factor," said a diplomat from a non-NATO nation who could not be identified under standing rules.

"Lawyers are currently looking at options," the diplomat said. "The whole issue of trainers in this field is very much caught up in the wider internal political battles."

Another official said there are concerns "...about the direction of negotiations right now because the Iraqis do appear to be holding fast to their position that there will be no discussions of granting legal protections to NATO personnel."

Speaking separately, three Western officials also said it remains unclear whether a compromise can be forged on the immunity issue by the year-end deadline. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

NATO operates under the same agreement forged in 2008 between the U.S. and Iraq that allows U.S. troops to operate in Iraq without being subject to the local judicial system, but that agreement expires at the end of the year.

A member of the Iraqi parliament's security and defense committee, Qassim al-Aaraji, acknowledged that the immunity issue is the key sticking point.

"The same immunity problem of the American trainers' agreement is facing us today with NATO," he said. Al-Aaraji said Iraqis are especially sensitive to the immunity issue after incidents in which coalition forces or security contractors injured or killed Iraqis and did not face trial in Iraq.

Any eventual agreement between Iraq and NATO must be approved by NATO's 28-nation governing body.

Working with NATO would be a way for Iraq to expand its relationships with respected international organizations and end some of the isolation that their military and country has suffered for decades.

One official said the Iraqis' current negotiating stance is jeopardizing that relationship.

Another problem that the NATO mission must overcome is the loss of its main source of logistics support when the U.S. presence ends, the officials said. Alternative plans have been made for participating countries to provide transport and other services to the contingent.

Also, negotiators are also looking at the issue of sharing the costs of the mission between participating nations and the Iraqi government.

In Brussels, NATO declined to confirm details of the negotiations, but said alliance staff had conducted a technical visit to Baghdad in recent weeks to discuss the training program.

"The Iraqi government has asked NATO to extend its mission, and this visit and the ongoing dialogue is helping to work out the details for such an extension," said a NATO official who could not be identified in line with alliance rules.

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Lekic reported from Brussels.

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Follow Slobodan Lekic on Twitter at http://twitter.com/slekich

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Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-01-ML-Iraq-NATO/id-24cefc5bdd4b4b26ac3aecbcd4a2e6c9

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