Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315685980?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Saturday, 29 June 2013
Obama sees 'moral imperative' to help feed Africa
By Jeff Mason and Mark Felsenthal
DAKAR (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, wrapping up the first leg of an African tour, said on Friday Washington had a "moral imperative" to help the world's poorest continent feed itself and he then left for South Africa hoping to see ailing Nelson Mandela.
White House officials hope Obama's three-nation tour of Africa - his first substantial visit to the continent since taking office in 2009 - will compensate for what some view as years of neglect by America's first black president.
Before departing Senegal after a two-day stay, Obama met farmers and local entrepreneurs to discuss new technologies helping to raise agricultural output in West Africa, one of the world's most under-developed and drought-prone regions.
Standing in front of the agricultural displays at an event hosted by "Feed the Future", the U.S. government's global hunger initiative, Obama said his administration was making food security a top priority of its development agenda.
"This is a moral imperative. I believe that Africa is rising and wants to partner with us: not be dependent but be self sufficient," he told reporters. "Far too many Africans endure the daily injustice of poverty and chronic hunger.
"When people ask what's happening to their taxpayer dollars in foreign aid, I want people to know this money's not being wasted. It's helping feed families."
But the health of Mandela, the 94-year-old former South African president and anti-apartheid hero clinging to life in a Pretoria hospital, dominated Obama's day even before he arrived in Johannesburg.
Asked on Thursday whether Obama would be able to pay Mandela a visit, the White House said that was up to the family.
"We are going to completely defer to the wishes of the Mandela family and work with the South African government as relates to our visit," deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Senegal.
South African President Jacob Zuma said Mandela's condition improved over Wednesday night but he remains in a critical state.
Some 200 trade unionists, student activists and Communist Party members protesting against American foreign policy gathered on Friday a few blocks from the hospital where Mandela is being treated for a lung infection.
MANDELA A "PERSONAL HERO"
Obama sees Mandela, also known as Madiba, as a hero. Whether they are able to meet or not, officials said his trip would serve largely as a tribute to the anti-apartheid leader.
"I've had the privilege of meeting Madiba and speaking to him. And he's a personal hero, but I don't think I'm unique in that regard," Obama said on Thursday. "If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages."
Like Mandela, Obama has received the Nobel Peace Prize and both men were the first black presidents of their nations.
Air Force One departed Senegal's coastal capital Dakar just before 1100 GMT (0700 AM ET) and was due to arrive in South Africa around eight hours later. On Friday evening, Obama has no public events scheduled and could go to the hospital then.
He is scheduled to visit Robben Island, where Mandela spent years in prison under South Africa's former white minority regime, later during his trip. Obama's last stop on his tour will be Tanzania in East Africa.
Obama only previous visit to the continent was a one-day stopover in Ghana at the beginning of his first term.
Food security, along with anti-corruption measures and trade opportunities for U.S. companies, are topics the White House wants to highlight on Obama's eight-day tour.
While acknowledging that Obama has not spent as much time in Africa as people hoped, the administration is eager to highlight what it has done, in part to end unflattering comparisons to accomplishments of predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Food security and public aid are two of the issues the Obama team believes are success stories. USAID head Raj Shah told reporters that Africa had seen a steady increase in resources under Obama's administration despite a tough budget environment.
(Writing by Daniel Flynn and Jeff Mason; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-heads-south-africa-mandela-mind-020643222.html
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Sanofi wins diabetes drug approval in Japan
DEAR ABBY: I have been divorced for almost 15 years. In that time, my ex-husband has been self-employed and works out of his home. He rarely leaves his house, and I think he suffers from depression.At a school honors event for our daughter for which most of the attendees dressed for the occasion, he arrived in dirty shorts and a T-shirt. I sat next to him to be polite, until I realized he also smelled awful. When I tried to excuse myself saying I needed a "better seat for my camera," he got up, too! It was an unpleasant two hours. I felt bad for the others in our vicinity. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sanofi-wins-diabetes-drug-approval-japan-061321216.html
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Paramount announces plans for 'Terminator' trilogy
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The "Terminator" is coming back.
Paramount announced Thursday that it is rebooting the "Terminator" franchise and planning for a new trilogy of films, but it's keeping mum on whether Arnold Schwarzenegger would play a role.
Schwarzenegger starred as the title character in the original 1984 movie. It spawned a trilogy that earned more than $1 billion at the box office worldwide.
Paramount says it will release the new "Terminator" in July 2015.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paramount-announces-plans-terminator-trilogy-000841755.html
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Labster Gamifies Bio-Tech Teaching So Students Can Use Their iPads To Blow Stuff Up
Educational games to make learning more engaging for students are nothing new, but Labster, a bio-tech education startup founded back in 2011 and just now coming out of stealth, has gone further than most by creating an entire virtualised laboratory for teaching bio-tech students without the need to purchase expensive lab equipment or conduct potentially hazardous experiments for real.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/TP9JG-tfjuE/
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Homeless mom gets 9-18 years in twins' starvation
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? A mother of six whose infant son starved to death at a homeless shelter was sentenced Friday to nine to 18 years in prison.
A jury previously convicted 34-year-old Tanya Williams of involuntary manslaughter in 2-month-old Quasir Alexander's death, which occurred just before Christmas 2010. Quasir's twin nearly died. Williams was also convicted of aggravated assault of the surviving twin.
In court Friday, she expressed remorse for Quasir's death and said she hopes to be reunited someday with her five surviving children.
Defense lawyer Gregory Pagano said there was plenty of blame to go around, given that a caseworker saw Quasir 36 hours before he died.
Prosecutors did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Williams was the only person charged in the case, although two Lutheran Children and Family Service workers lost their jobs.
A Philadelphia hospital had released the low-weight twins to live with Williams and her four older children at the West Philadelphia homeless shelter.
Pagano also argued at trial that his client has an IQ of 65.
"She never intended for this to happen," he said Friday. "It's unfortunate that she's carrying the full brunt of it."
A city-funded caseworker had seen the 2-month-old boys 36 hours earlier and deemed them healthy. The caseworker also released Williams from a voluntary parenting class. The now-fired caseworker never saw the twins unclothed, her boss at Lutheran Children and Family Service testified.
The caseworker invoked her constitutional right not to testify when called by the defense.
Executive Director Richard Gitlen issued a statement after the verdict calling the infant's death "a horrible tragedy."
"Through the years we have dedicated ourselves to tens of thousands of children," he said. "It is that commitment that compels us to learn from this loss so that we may continue to serve children and families."
Assistant District Attorney Peter Lim told jurors that Williams failed to take advantage of help offered by caseworker, a shelter worker and the visiting nurse.
Williams' case files suggest that she repeatedly made appointments to take her children for vaccines or checkups or to apply for food stamps or other programs but rarely followed through.
The twins were born at a hospital on Oct. 21 and 22 and were released on Oct. 25. Their mother had not had any prenatal visits and did not know she was carrying twins.
Williams had become homeless in September after arguments with her mother and a church friend who later took her in.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/homeless-mom-gets-9-18-years-twins-starvation-152233659.html
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Friday, 28 June 2013
Plaintiffs in gay marriage case wed in SF, LA
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? The four plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned California's same-sex marriage ban tied the knot Friday, just hours after a federal appeals court freed gay couples to obtain marriage licenses in the state for the first time in 4 1/2 years.
State Attorney General Kamala Harris presided at the San Francisco City Hall wedding of Kris Perry and Sandy Stier as hundreds of supporters looked on and cheered. The couple sued to overturn the state's voter-approved gay marriage ban along with Jeff Katami and Paul Zarrillo, who married at Los Angeles City Hall 90 minutes later with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa presiding.
"By joining the case against Proposition 8, they represented thousands of couples like themselves in their fight for marriage equality," Harris, who had asked the appeals court to act swiftly, said during Stier and Perry's brief ceremony. "Through the ups and downs, the struggles and the triumphs, they came out victorious."
Harris declared Perry, 48, and Stier, 50, "spouses for life," but during their vows, the Berkeley couple took each other as "lawfully wedded wife." One of their twin sons served as ring-bearer.
Although the couples fought for the right to wed for years, their weddings came together in a flurry when a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a brief order Friday afternoon dissolving, "effective immediately," a stay it had imposed on gay marriages while the lawsuit challenging the ban advanced through the courts.
Sponsors of California's same-sex marriage ban, known as Proposition 8, called the appeals court's swift action "outrageous." Under Supreme Court rules, the losing side in a legal dispute has 25 days to ask the high court to rehear the case, and Proposition 8's backers had not yet announced whether they would do so.
"The resumption of same-sex marriage this day has been obtained by illegitimate means. If our opponents rejoice in achieving their goal in a dishonorable fashion, they should be ashamed," said Andy Pugno, general counsel for a coalition of religious conservative groups that sponsored the 2008 ballot measure.
"It remains to be seen whether the fight can go on, but either way, it is a disgraceful day for California," Pugno said.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that Proposition 8's sponsors lacked authority to challenge the ban after Harris and Gov. Jerry Brown, both Democrats, refused to defend the ban in court.
The decision lets stand a trial judge's declaration that the ban violates the civil rights of gay Californians and cannot be enforced.
The Supreme Court said earlier this week that it would not finalize its ruling in the Proposition 8 case until after the 25-day period, which ends July 21. But San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who joined the two couples in the lawsuit, said Friday that the 9th Circuit panel had the power to lift the stay it imposed.
"The fact of the matter is the only thing holding up the weddings was the stay that the 9th Circuit had in place," Herrera said. "The fact that there is a separate 25-day period allowing the petition to go for a rehearing is separate and apart from that stay."
Brown directed California counties to start performing same-sex marriages immediately after the appeals court's order. A memo from the Department of Public Health said "same-sex marriage is again legal in California" and ordered county clerks to resume issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.
Given that word did not come down from the appeals court until mid-afternoon, most counties were not prepared to stay open late to accommodate potential crowds. The clerks in a few counties announced that they would stay open a few hours later Friday.
A jubilant San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced that same-sex couples would be able to marry all weekend in his city, which is hosting its annual gay pride celebration.
___
Associated Press writers Jason Dearen, Paul Elias and Mihir Zaveri contributed to this story.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/plaintiffs-gay-marriage-case-wed-sf-la-015212241.html
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Michael Jackson's nephew says singer happy in final days
By Dana Feldman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Jackson's nephew and co-guardian to his three children testified on Thursday in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the late pop star's family that the "Thriller" singer appeared happy at a family party about month before his death in 2009.
"He was in a good mood, he was happy, making jokes," T.J. Jackson, 34, the son of Jackson 5 member Tito Jackson, told jurors in a Los Angeles courtroom about the last time he saw the self-styled "King of Pop."
"We talked primarily about the children," T.J. said. "I wanted to have more kids, so did he."
Jackson died about a month later at age 50 in Los Angeles from an overdose of surgical anesthetic propofol ahead of a run of 50 concerts in London.
T.J. said he could not gauge Jackson's health at the party, a wedding anniversary for the singer's parents, Joe and Katherine Jackson.
"I wasn't in the mentality to check him out," T.J. said, adding that Jackson wore a suit. "He seemed happy, jolly."
Jackson's 83-year-old mother, Katherine, is suing privately held AEG Live, which was promoting Jackson's "This Is It" comeback concert series in London, for negligence in hiring Dr Conrad Murray as his personal physician.
Murray was caring for the singer as he prepared for the shows and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011 for administering the propofol that killed Jackson.
T.J. is the second Jackson family member to testify in the trial. He followed Jackson's eldest son, 16-year-old Prince, who took the stand on Wednesday, four years and one day after the pop singer's death.
Jackson's nephew said he had never heard of propofol and did not know the singer was using it at the time he died.
When asked by an attorney for AEG Live if he believes Jackson was murdered, T.J. said, "I do."
'HE WAS JUST THERE FOR ME'
"He (Jackson) would tell me and my brothers that he was going to be murdered because of his position (celebrity), that he was a target," T.J. said of recurring conversations he had with Jackson from the mid-1990s to early 2000s.
AEG Live has said that Jackson had prescription drug addiction problems for years before entering into an agreement with the company and that the singer chose Murray as his physician.
AEG Live also has said it could not have foreseen that Murray posed a danger to Jackson.
T.J.'s older brother Taj, 39, also testified on Thursday, and the brothers offered a view into Jackson's private life. They described him as a humble family man who supported his family in times of need, telling jurors that he helped and comforted them after their mother was murdered in 1994.
"He kept me inspired and ambitious. He was just there for me," said T.J., who broke down in tears.
"I still feel lost sometimes without him here," Taj testified, adding that Jackson gave him moral support and helped pay for him to attend college.
T.J., who is in the R&B group 3T with Taj and a third brother, echoed Prince's testimony that Jackson's death has been hardest on the singer's teenage daughter, Paris, who has spent time in a hospital after an apparent suicide attempt this month.
"The loss of my uncle has hit her at a different level," T.J. said. "She was daddy's girl; my uncle was her world."
Paris, 15, and Jackson's youngest son, 11-year-old Prince Michael II, also known as Blanket, are not expected to testify during the trial, which began in April.
Testimony over the past two days has focused on Jackson's relationship with his children, with the family's attorneys showing home videos and photos of the pop star with his kids.
(Reporting by Dana Feldman; Writing by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy, Sandra Maler and Eric Beech)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/michael-jacksons-nephew-says-singer-happy-final-days-012030093.html
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Thursday, 27 June 2013
Buddies Help Monkeys to Survive Tough Times
Barbary macaques with lots of friends are more likely to live through natural disasters than those who are less gregarious
Snuggling together in the cold may help Barbary macaques get through harsh winters. Image: Bodo Schackow/dpa/Corbis
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When it comes to friendship it may be quantity, not quality, that matters ? at least for Barbary macaques in a crisis. Scientists have long known that sociable humans live longer than their solitary peers, but is the same true for animals?
A harsh natural experiment may offer some answers. It also raises intriguing questions about the type of social ties that matter.
Endangered Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) in the mountains of Morocco are accustomed to cold, but the 2008?09 winter was devastatingly hard for them. Snow covered the ground for almost four months instead of the usual one, and the monkeys, which eat seeds and grasses on the ground, began to starve.
Richard McFarland, a behavioral ecologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and his colleagues were studying the animals as part of a wider project on the monkeys' social lives launched in January 2008. When they went looking for the macaques in January 2009, they found corpses, says McFarland.
Of the 47 adults in two troops that the team studied, only 17 survived, making for a 64% mortality rate, McFarland and his colleague Bonaventura Majolo of the University of Lincoln, UK, report today in Biology Letters. Analysis showed that the more friends a monkey had, the more likely it was to have survived. Individuals with whom a monkey had exchanged grooming or had had bodily contact with at least once during observation sessions were deemed as social contacts.
Perhaps the animals with more buddies had more partners with whom to huddle against the cold, the researchers suggest. Monkeys with large social networks may also have been able to look for food with fewer interruptions from hostile group members.
However, what did not predict survival was the quality of the macaques? friendships, as measured by factors such as how much time two macaques spent close together. Previous studies in baboons have shown that longevity and reproductive success are linked to quality of social contacts, rather than quantity. But McFarland argues that it makes sense that sheer quantity matters for surviving a catastrophe.
Cold comfort
In a disaster, an individual who loses his few close friends is ?left with nothing?, he says. ?Compare that to someone who has ten relationships. If one of their friends perishes during the winter, they still have nine more friends to go to.?
Other researchers praise the work, but have mixed opinions on the nature of the social ties that count.
The study ?is a really nice piece of natural history? that adds to the evidence that sociality is important, says Joan Silk, a primate behavioral ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has worked on sociality in baboons. But she is ?less convinced? by the study?s finding on relationship quantity.
Guy Cowlishaw, a behavioral ecologist at the Institute of Zoology in London, agrees with the finding that monkeys with lots of superficial ties might do better in this situation than those with a few deep friendships.
He adds that McFarland's paper is valuable for shedding light on how extreme events brought on by climate change will affect primates, nearly half of which, he points out, are already at risk of extinction.
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on June 26, 2013.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/ScientificAmerican-News/~3/F42L5DjMYgk/article.cfm
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Merkel: Risks of arming Syrian rebels too high
BERLIN (AP) ? German Chancellor Angela Merkel is warning against shipping weapons to Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad.
The German leader told Parliament on Thursday that she understands why Britain, France and the United States are considering arms deliveries to some rebel groups in Syria, who are facing strong resistance from Syrian government forces and its Hezbollah allies.
But Merkel said that in her view, "the risks would be incalculable."
She did not explain why but critics fear Western arms would only prolong the conflict without tipping the scales decisively. And Western weapons including anti-aircraft missiles could fall into the hands of Islamic extremists who might use them against Western interests someday.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/merkel-risks-arming-syrian-rebels-too-high-083515423.html
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Emigrating for a cheaper education | Generation Emigration
Liam Duffy
In 2011, the final year of my degree in public and social policy, my class had a seminar on funding third level education led by a PhD student who argued that the system of ?free fees? (due to rise to ?3,000 for 2013) was unsustainable. He argued more sources of funding had to be found, and should come from students, those who benefit most. His bottom line was that the State must cut exchequer funding of education for the good of the country.
I have lived in Ireland for just one of the last four years. Before my final year I had the privilege to participate in an exchange programme at the University of Helsinki. I made many friends, not only Finns and Europeans but from throughout Asia, Africa and the Americas as well. Those studying full-time secured a place to study in Finland by no other means than their merit. You see, Finland offers a fully free education, not only for Finns, or Europeans but anyone who can cover their living expenses and meet the appropriate academic acquirements. Those who live and work in Finland can also avail of monthly financial support and subsidised housing to help them in their studies to doctoral level.
At home it took two years of arguing with my council before they released the grant I was entitled to. Luckily I had a part-time job to help support myself. With each budget putting more strain on families and individual students attempting to fund their education, many of us participated in a variety of protests against the rising registration fee. These protests were either aimless annual marches organised by student unions or else occupations and other forms of direct action which came under attack for their use of civil disobedience.
In Finland, the education system and social system wished to invest in my development for no reason other than I had potential and they had the methods and knowledge to help me reach it.
After watching Ireland fall further into crisis from afar, I returned determined to get more out of my studies with a belief that educational development is a right which the Anglo-sphere is unique in constructing as a privilege. Coming to the end of my degree in Ireland I began looking for a masters programme. Aware of the opportunities abroad I only limited my search by cost and the content of the course. I applied for and was accepted for a unique programme called the 4Cities UNICA Euromasters in Urban Studies, which takes students through six Universities, in four countries over two years. I pay ?17 a semester to the University of Vienna in order to participate in this programme.
The opportunities this course offers in terms of content are exceptional, and the ?68 I pay for this degree is insignificant compared to the ?4-8,000 I would expect to pay at home. I?ve been able to cover my costs of living through a combination of savings, support from my family and part-time work, much as I would have done if I stayed in Ireland.
I?m the first Irish person to do this programme and moving to different countries with such a diverse group has resulted in some interesting perspectives on the different societies and cultures we move to, and how we perceive ourselves as emigrants.
I have learned many things during this programme and have been able to watch our current financial crisis unfold in different ways, but what is most noticeable is the inaction of the Irish people. My first few months in Brussels saw their first general strike in over two decades, in Vienna students took to the streets over threats to limit access and raise fees for non-EU students (they previously engaged in mass occupations and protests in 2009 which quashed attempts to raise fees), while in Copenhagen I saw thousands of students protest against a proposal to limit the financial support the government provides to students from six to five years. I?m now in Madrid to finish my course where hundreds of thousands of students have been marching since 2011. Yet in Ireland, civil disobedience is attacked in the face of growing inequality, rising fees, cut grants and non existent support past graduate level.
I think back to that seminar two years ago and I wonder how we can ever hope to be ?competitive? by putting up more and more barriers to education as the rest of the world seeks to support its students. I wonder about the complacency not only of Irish students, but our society in general. We are bearing some of the worst austerity and reacting the least. I agree that ?something?s got to give? but if it?s at the expense of students, we?re going to find that those who could be most capable of renewing the country will leave or worse, waste away on the dole. Until we join the rest of European society and provide at least the international minimum of support that students require, for ever more ?shall our children, like our cattle, be brought up for export?, to quote De Valera.
For more about studying abroad, see When an education means emigration.
Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/2013/06/26/emigrating-for-a-cheaper-education/
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Myanmar's telecom race enters final stretch
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? Foreign companies will tap into one of the world's final telecom frontiers Thursday when Myanmar hands out licenses to operate two new mobile phone networks ? part of efforts by the long-isolated nation to use technology to spur economic development.
Currently less than 6 million of country's 60 million people have mobile phones, putting it on par with North Korea when it comes to connectivity. The government hopes it will be able to push mobile phone usage rates to 80 percent within three years by releasing its grip on the industry.
Those are the kinds of numbers that have left international telecom consortiums salivating.
Of the 90 that initially submitted bids, 11 have been shortlisted including Singapore Telecommunications, Bharti Airtel of India, KDDI Corporation of Japan, Telenor of Norway and Digicel of the Caribbean ? some opening offices and even recruiting staff in gleeful anticipation of the announcement.
"It's a great first start," said Richard Dobbs, director of the McKinsey Global Institute. "My only hope is that the winners will move quickly to get broadband ? either 2G, 3G or 4G ? rolled out countrywide."
He said the government views the opening of telecommunications to foreign investment as an opportunity to spur the type of rapid economic growth that has raised living standards in other developing countries.
"This should not just be about profit maximizing," he said. "It should be about enabling other services," Dobbs said.
By using mobile banking and e-commerce the country may be able to spread banking and other consumer services more widely and at a reduced cost. Mobile telecommunications could also extend health and education services to even the remotest villages.
Myanmar, located in the heart of one of the fastest growing regions in the world, became one of the most isolated and poorest nations during its half-century of iron-clad military rule.
After taking control of a quasi-civilian government in 2011, former general Thein Sein started implementing promised political and economic reforms.
But the country faces monumental development challenges. Some roads are almost unnavigable, with pot holes several meters wide. Electricity blackouts are routine. Real estate prices in the commercial capital Yangon rival New York City due to limited supply and a surge in demand brought on by the country's emergence from isolation.
The communications industry, long-neglected by the country's military rulers, is in need of a complete overhaul. That's in part because the original network set up by the country's military rulers was intended for only a tiny number of subscribers ? mostly the rich. Up until a few years ago, the cost of SIM cards could reach $2,000.
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, says there are tremendous advantages to starting from scratch.
"You all will have an opportunity to skip all the previous ... generations of technology," he told a group of young business leaders during a visit to Yangon earlier this year.
"You'll have fiberoptic cable in your cities. You'll have 3G and 4G networks that will connect to smartphones. You will literally leapfrog 20 years of difficult to maintain infrastructure."
Experts are quick to point out, however, that while the potential returns for the winners of Thursday's bid are staggering, so are the risks.
Investors preparing to invest billions of dollars are rightly nervous about how political reform will evolve, whether the government can maintain the fragile peace between ethnic groups, and how regulation and ownership rights will develop.
The government insists a new industry regulator will take over within the next few years, but the job is still effectively in the hands of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. A telecom bill to set the legal framework for the industry is stuck in parliament.
Foreign companies "will be entering the market while the process is still taking place and major reforms are yet to happen," said Peter Evans, a senior analyst at the telecom research group, BuddComm.
It's also unclear what role the state-owned incumbent telecom operator, Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications, will be playing. The idea is that it will eventually be divorced from state control but what its structure, funding and role will be at this time remains unclear.
Yatanarpon, which is majority government-owned and primarily an Internet service provider until now, has a much smaller network. And also newly on the scene is the army-owned Myanmar Economic Corporation.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/myanmars-telecom-race-enters-final-stretch-072823693.html
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Obama takes on power plants as part of new climate plan
By Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama launched a new plan to tackle climate change on Tuesday with a call to limit carbon pollution from all U.S. power plants and a signal that he would block a proposed pipeline from Canada if it boosted greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama's long-awaited plan, detailed in a speech at Georgetown University, drew sharp criticism from the coal industry, which would be hit hard by carbon limits, and Republicans, who accused the Democratic president of advancing policies that harm the economy.
Obama's first-term attempt to reduce climate-warming carbon emissions in a "cap and trade" system was thwarted by Congress, and his administration's long process of studying whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline has raised hackles from business groups and Republican opponents.
His comments on the TransCanada Corp pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada to refineries in Texas, were his strongest signal yet that its environmental costs could outweigh the project's economic benefits. The administration will decide whether to approve the pipeline later this year or in early 2014.
"Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," Obama said.
"The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward," he said.
Using his executive powers, Obama said he was directing the Environmental Protection Agency to craft new emissions rules for thousands of power plants, the bulk of which burn coal and which account for roughly one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
"We don't have time for a meeting of the flat earth society," Obama said, referencing critics who do not believe climate change is happening.
Share prices for major U.S. coal mining companies slipped again on Tuesday after falling sharply on Monday in anticipation of the Obama plan.
The EPA is routinely challenged in court, both by industry groups seeking to quash rules, and by green groups trying to push the agency to set tougher standards.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican-leaning states have petitioned the Supreme Court to review rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The details of the new regulations will be drafted over the next year, and their costs are still to be determined. Obama wants them to be finalized by June 2015.
"Laying out a specific schedule makes it a lot more difficult for the president to turn back," said Michael Levi, head of the Council on Foreign Relations' energy and climate program.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Valerie Volcovici, Steve Holland, and Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Ros Krasny and Leslie Gevirtz)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-takes-power-plant-emissions-part-climate-plan-114147504.html
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These Ads Were Named The Best Creative Work ... - Business Insider
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Cinder won the Mobile Grand Prix. See what it is in the slideshow.
Every year, the top advertisers in the world gather in Cannes, France to vie for the most prestigious ad awards in the world.Prizes are given in subjects ranging from mobile ads to outdoor ads that are more than your average billboard.
The best work receives a Grand Prix Cannes Lion.
We've collected the ads that won the top honors.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-ads-were-named-the-best-creative-work-in-the-world-2013-6
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Judge taking no action in Jackson guardianship
FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2011 file photo shows Paris Jackson on stage at the Michael Forever the Tribute Concert, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. A judge overseeing a guardianship of Michael Jackson's children said Tuesday June 25, 2013, that he was making no changes to oversight of the children after receiving an investigator's report on their well-being and speaking with lawyers for their guardians, Katherine and TJ Jackson. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, file)
FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2011 file photo shows Paris Jackson on stage at the Michael Forever the Tribute Concert, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. A judge overseeing a guardianship of Michael Jackson's children said Tuesday June 25, 2013, that he was making no changes to oversight of the children after receiving an investigator's report on their well-being and speaking with lawyers for their guardians, Katherine and TJ Jackson. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan, file)
FILE - This Jan. 27, 2012 file photo shows, from left, Blanket Jackson, Paris Jackson, and Prince Michael Jackson at the opening night of the Michael Jackson The Immortal World Tour in Los Angeles. Paris Jackson is physically fine after being taken to a hospital early Wednesday, June 5, 2013, an attorney for Jackson's mother said. Perry Sanders Jr. writes in a statement that Paris Jackson is getting appropriate medical attention and the family is seeking privacy. Fire and sheriff's officials confirmed they transported someone from a home in Paris' suburban Calabasas neighborhood for a possible overdose but did not release any identifying information or additional details. (AP Photo/Dan Steinberg, file)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A judge said Tuesday that he will make no changes to the guardianship of Michael Jackson's three children after receiving an investigator's report on their well-being and meeting with attorneys for their caretakers.
Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff ordered the inquiry after 15-year-old Paris Jackson was hospitalized on June 5. Authorities reported she took Motrin pills and cut her arm with a kitchen knife.
The judge ordered an investigator to interview Jackson's children and report back to him.
Beckloff also met with attorneys for the children's guardians, grandmother Katherine Jackson and their adult cousin TJ Jackson.
"I'm taking no further action," Beckloff told attorneys for Jackson' estate.
The decision was announced during a hearing at which Howard Weitzman, an attorney for the estate, raised the issue of potential harm to the singer's daughter that might come with unsealing "salacious details" of a choreographer's recent molestation allegations against the pop superstar.
Beckloff told attorneys he will consider which portions of Wade Robson's complaint to unseal and inform attorneys of his decision. Robson claims the acts occurred when he was a child.
Another hearing will be held to determine if Robson can pursue that allegation.
Perry Sanders Jr., an attorney for Katherine Jackson, has said Paris Jackson is physically fine and receiving proper medical attention. He has not provided further updates on her condition.
Sanders and Charles Shultz, an attorney for TJ Jackson, have said the judge's inquiry was an expected move and they supported his decision.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
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Master P, Maino And The Mafia To Mob 'RapFix Live'
P and Maino will sit down with Sway Calloway on MTV Jams and on RapFix.MTV.com this Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET.
By Rob Markman
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1709558/master-p-maino-rapfix-live.jhtml
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Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Merck & Co wins injunction against Indian firm over diabetes drugs
MUMBAI (Reuters) - MSD, a unit of U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co, said it has won an injunction against India's Aprica Pharmaceuticals and a source said this will stop Aprica launching generic versions of two diabetes drugs in India.
Global pharmaceutical firms have had a series of patent disputes with Indian makers of generic drugs and several recent Indian rulings have gone against the international giants.
MSD holds an Indian patent on sitagliptin, a chemical compound sold under the Januvia and Janumet brands used to treat type-2 diabetes.
"MSD confirms that we have received an ex-parte injunction against Aprica Pharmaceuticals," an MSD spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Tuesday, declining to identify the drugs involved.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter, declining to be identified, confirmed that the injunction by the Delhi High Court covered the two diabetes drugs.
Merck sued another Indian company, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, over the two brands in April, saying Glenmark had directly infringed MSD's intellectual property. The same court is due to hear that case on July 15.
Aprica Pharma could not be immediately reached for a comment.
Diabetes treatment is a growing market in India where about 65 million people take medicines for type-2 diabetes.
(Reporting by Kaustubh Kulkarni; Editing by Tony Munroe/Ruth Pitchford)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/merck-co-wins-injunction-against-indian-firm-over-112547965.html
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Supreme Court 2013: The Year in Review
Does today?s ruling mean that schools should keep doing what they?re doing? Photo by Molly Riley/Reuters
Well, we have the kind of anticlimactic ruling from the Supreme Court, on affirmative action that leaves the big question for another day. In a 7-1 ruling (Justice Elena Kagan sat this one out), the court sent back to the lower courts Abigail Fisher?s challenge to the admissions policy of the University of Texas, Austin. Fisher is the white plaintiff who says she didn?t get admitted as an undergraduate because UT Austin considers race, as one factor among many, in admitting part of each entering class. She didn?t win, but neither did UT. Instead, the court made it somewhat harder for schools to defend race-based preferences in admission?but not impossible. Now schools have to show that ?no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity.? In other words, that the use of race in admissions is a last resort. So, affirmative action is still allowed, and the basis for that hasn?t changed?the goal remains diversity. But lower courts shouldn?t ?accept a school?s assertion that its admissions process uses race in a permissible way.? Instead, courts should give ?close analysis to the evidence of how the process works in practice.?
The key is that Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, and as usual, Justice Kennedy made clear that he has some doubts about the race-based preference in front of him, but he?s not ready to shut the door entirely on the whole enterprise of increasing diversity. Justice Clarence Thomas, on the other hand, is ready to slam that door once and for all. That?s what his separate opinion is about. No one signed on to it, though, because Abigail Fisher and her lawyers didn?t ask the court to reconsider whether affirmative action is at odds with the Constitution?s guarantee of equal protection?in other words, to find that white university applicants have a constitutional right against reverse discrimination. So Justice Kennedy just says, ?there is disagreement? about whether the court?s 2003 ruling, about the University of Michigan, allowing affirmative action to continue ?was consistent with the principles of equal protection in approving this compelling interest in diversity,? and leaves it at that.
I?m going to post more on this later today, but for now, a few questions. Does today?s ruling, which is kind of a punt, mean that schools should keep doing what they?re doing? Or should they read the writing on the wall, assume that the court will soon take the next step and ban the use of race in admissions, and begin to shift, for diversity?s sake, to an admissions policy that concentrates on admitting more low-income students? The court has already decided to hear a case next term about whether it was constitutional for Michigan to bar racial preferences?a case that?s a mirror of Abigail Fisher?s. Michigan?s ballot initiative, passed in 2006, says that the state?s public universities?"shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." The appeals court in the Michigan case?the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit?has twice struck down Michigan?s law, saying it?s unfair to minorities. Both rulings were split, though, 2-1 and 8-7. What, if anything, does today?s ruling from the Supreme Court suggest about the outcome of this new case next year? I would say nothing directly, but I bet the court?s conservatives plus Justice Kennedy uphold Michigan?s law. And with 10 states now banning affirmative action, that will matter a great deal in the long run for how colleges do admissions.
And what did you make of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?s interesting and lone dissent? Ginsburg is the only justice who would have approved UT Austin?s admissions policy. She likes it, she said, because it?s transparent: The university ?is candid about what it is endeavoring to do: It seeks to achieve student-body diversity,? she writes. Take away overt consideration of race as a factor in admissions, she warns, and you will just drive this practice underground. That?s an implicit critique of some class-based affirmative action programs, which arguably use class as a proxy for race. But is this kind of substitution?admitting more African-American and Hispanic students through preferences for low-income students?actually a bad thing?
More soon, once I digest Justice Clarence Thomas? concurring opinion calling for an end to affirmative action entirely.
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Excited, but cold: Scientists unveil the secret of a reaction for prebiotic synthesis of organic matter
June 24, 2013 ? How is it that a complex organism evolves from a pile of dead matter? How can lifeless materials become organic molecules that are the bricks of animals and plants? Scientists have been trying to answer these questions for ages. Researchers at the Max Planck Institut f?r Kohlenforschung have now disclosed the secret of a reaction that has to do with the synthesis of complex organic matter before the origin of life.
Since the 1960's it has been well known that when concentrated hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is irradiated by UV light, it forms an imidazole intermediate that is a key substance for synthesis of nucleobases and nucleotides in abiotic environment. The way how UV radiation acts in this reaction to produce complex organic matter was, however, never clarified. Dr. Mario Barbatti and his colleagues in Germany, India and Czech Republic have now shown how this process occurs via computer simulations.
Using diverse computational-chemistry methods, the team has arrived at astonishing conclusions: For example that the reaction does not take place in the hot spot created by the solar radiation. "This has nothing to do with heat, but with electrons," says Mario Barbatti.
The reaction proceeds through a series of electronically excited intermediates. The molecules get into the "electronic excited state" because of the UV radiation, which means that their electrons are distributed in a much different way than the usual. That changes the molecule's attitudes. "But this takes some time," says Mario Barbatti. They showed that the radiation energy is dissipated too fast, and because of that each reactant molecule absorbs hundreds of UV photons before it finally gets converted into the imidazole intermediate.
"This is very inefficient -- and quite extraordinary," says Mario Barbatti. That is why it was quite challenging to comprehend the reaction, explains the physicist from Brazil. He and his colleagues have calculated a lot of possible intermediates, tried -- and discarded most of them. Finally they found out that there is only one single pathway that is consistent with the fast energy dissipation and previous experimental observations.
But why did they work on the computer? Isn't it the case that chemical reactions are worked on in laboratories? "Some intermediates are too elusive to analyze them in the laboratory -- they disappear before we may see them," Barbatti explains. Computational Chemistry allows the scientists to comprehend the reactions in a theoretical way.
"As I said before, this reaction has nothing to do with heat," says Barbatti. The transformation works in a cold environment, as in comets and in terrestrial ices, where spontaneous HCN polymerization is most expected to occur.
The team has published their results, which help to understand the role of solar radiation on the origin of life, in the recent issue of Angewandte Chemie.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/Q7w5RJO2C7M/130624104213.htm
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Merkel launches campaign with populist but costly promises
By Erik Kirschbaum
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched her re-election campaign on Monday with promises her coalition partners dismissed as unaffordable and even one party ally said would never see the light of day.
Merkel told leaders of her Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party that if she is re-elected she wants to raise child benefits, pensions for women with children and pensions for low-income workers.
At the same time as preaching austerity to other euro zone nations struggling under high debt, Merkel said she wanted to see Germany invest billions more in infrastructure projects on top of the other multi-billion euro promises.
The pledges were criticized by the opposition and German media as expensive voter giveaways. One newspaper, Bild, estimated the increase in child benefits and pensions would total 15 billion euros per year. Most proposals have little chance, Bild said.
Merkel and CSU chairman Horst Seehofer, the Bavarian state premier who is also up for re-election in September, said there would be no tax increases to pay for the promises. The German economy is in solid shape with low unemployment.
Party leaders believe tax revenues will rise to 700 billion euros in 2017 from 600 billion in 2012 so no tax increases are needed. The government expects to have a balanced budget in 2014 and could even post a surplus soon.
"That would be the wrong way to go," said Merkel, referring to tax increases. She learned her lesson after nearly squandering a sure win in 2005 by pledging to raise value added tax (VAT) to 18 percent from 16 percent before the vote.
The conservatives were at 42 percent in polls just before the 2005 election but fell to 35.2 percent, in part due to Merkel's tax increase pledge, and were forced into an unwanted grand coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
Merkel, who is well ahead of the SPD in opinion polls but may not have enough support to renew her centre-right coalition with the FDP after the September 22 election, has been pushing hard to appeal to voters on the conservative and liberal wings of her party.
On Friday, in a gesture bound to appeal to voters on the conservative side, she told Russian President Vladimir Putin on a trip to St Petersburg that Germany wanted art looted by Soviet armies after World War Two repatriated.
Merkel's pledge to raise pensions has a historic precedent. Another CDU leader, Konrad Adenauer, won West Germany's only absolute majority (50.2 percent) in the 1957 election after promising to link pension increases to wage increases.
But those promises carry no appeal for her coalition partners, the Free Democrats (FDP). FDP chairman Philipp Roesler warned the conservatives against being led astray by the "sweet poison of spending money" before the election.
Also opposed to the spending spree, which the CDU calls a "government program" rather than an election program, is Kurt Lauk, head of the CDU economic council. He said these were only campaign promises and should not be taken seriously.
"Campaign promises are the things that parties promise to get elected," he said. "It's never happened before that election promises were turned directly into government programs. And all the voters know that from past experience."
Merkel's challenger, Peer Steinbrueck of the SPD, called the CDU/CSU campaign program "pre-meditated fraud".
(Editing by Alison Williams)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/merkel-launches-campaign-populist-costly-promises-145212868.html
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Samsung denies giving up on desktop PC tower business
Yesterday, The Korea Times reported that Samsung was to close its "unprofitable" desktop PC business as "demand for conventional desktop PCs is going down," according to an unnamed spokesperson. The weirdly written article also quoted another Samsung official saying "tablets, all-in-one and hybrid PCs are Samsung's current focus," thus suggesting the company seemed to be singling out desktop PC towers or boxes.
Even though it's been a while since some of us last saw a Samsung desktop PC tower (the latest models we covered date back to 2006, though there have been more recent efforts), something didn't smell right here so we reached out to Samsung directly. The response we got was that this rumor is all "groundless," and the company also specifically said it'll keep an open mind about its PC tower business. Here's the full statement:
"The rumor that Samsung is withdrawing from the PC desktop business is groundless. Samsung will continue to offer diverse products according to market needs, including our recently announced ATIV One 5 Style, a stylish all-in-one PC. We will continue to open all possibilities in PC business including our PC Tower business, to satisfy consumer's diverse lifestyle and needs."
So in a nutshell: nothing to see here, move along. And technically speaking, the Chromebox kinda counts too, right?
Filed under: Desktops
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/BUKG0CvPss4/
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NBC's Gregory: Why shouldn't Greenwald be charged?
WASHINGTON (AP) ? NBC "Meet the Press" host David Gregory got a rise out of Glenn Greenwald on Sunday by asking the Guardian reporter why he shouldn't be charged with a crime for having "aided and abetted" former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden.
Greenwald replied on the show Sunday that it was "pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies."
Greenwald first reported Snowden's disclosure of U.S. government surveillance programs. On Sunday, Ecuador's foreign minister and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said that Snowden was headed to Ecuador to seek asylum.
During his interview with NBC's Gregory, Greenwald declined to discuss where Snowden was headed. That refusal seemed to prompt Gregory to ask: "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?"
Greenwald said Gregory was embracing the Obama administration's attempt to "criminalize investigative journalism," citing an FBI agent's characterization of Fox News journalist James Rosen as a probable co-conspirator of a State Department contractor who was suspected of leaking classified information to Rosen. Rosen was not charged.
"If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal, and it's precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States," said Greenwald, a former constitutional and civil rights lawyer who has written three books contending that the government has violated personal rights in the name of protecting national security.
Gregory responded that "the question of who is a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you are doing." Gregory also said he was merely asking a question.
"That question has been raised by lawmakers as well," Gregory said. "I'm not embracing anything, but, obviously, I take your point."
Later, Greenwald tweeted, "Who needs the government to try to criminalize journalism when you have David Gregory to do it?" and, "Has David Gregory ever publicly wondered if powerful DC officials should be prosecuted for things like illegal spying & lying to Congress?"
____
Follow Fred Frommer on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ffrommer
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nbcs-gregory-why-shouldnt-greenwald-charged-170757003.html
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5 Things iOS 7 Tells Us About Your Next iPhone and iPad
One of the wonderful things about getting your first iPhone was the sheer self-sufficient simplicity of the thing?here was a device that served as a map, mp3 player, notebook, phone, and anything else you might need, all crunched into a beautiful little package. But if this year's WWDC was any indication, that era of autonomous Apple devices is nearing an end.
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Israeli chief rabbi suspends self amid fraud probe
JERUSALEM (AP) ? One of Israel's two chief rabbis has suspended himself amid a police probe into an alleged money laundering scheme.
Yona Metzger's lawyers said Sunday he decided to refrain from carrying out any official roles while a police investigation continues. Metzger was questioned last week over fraud and bribery allegations. Police raided his home and office following a months-long undercover investigation into his financial dealings. He denies the allegations.
Metzger is mere weeks away from ending his 10-year term as the country's chief rabbi for Ashkenazi, or European-descended, Jews. Along with a second chief rabbi from the Sephardic, or Middle Eastern lineage, Metzger has led the country's supreme body for overseeing Jewish services.
In 2005, Metzger was also questioned over fraud allegations. No charges were filed.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-chief-rabbi-suspends-self-amid-fraud-probe-095826455.html
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Monday, 24 June 2013
There'll Be Nowhere to Hide When These Robot Apes Take to the Trees
If you thought the prospect of being chased down by one of DARPA's terminator-wannabes
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