US diplomat sees "hope in diplomacy" with NKorea (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea ? The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia is reassuring South Korea that any diplomatic dealings with North Korea will be backed up by an unwavering U.S.-South Korea military presence.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said in a speech Tuesday at a dinner hosted by The Korea Society in Seoul that "there is hope in diplomacy" but that hope rests on "the reality of a very strong deterrence from the military."

He says North Korea must improve relations with rival South Korea before it can have better relations with the world.

Many are closely watching U.S.-North Korea ties for clues about the direction North Korea will take as new leader Kim Jong Un works to consolidate power after his father's Dec. 17 death.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/nkorea/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120131/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_us

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What's next for Occupy Wall Street? Activists target foreclosure crisis.

As the protest movement heads into spring, Occupy Wall Street activists are interrupting foreclosure auctions and helping families re-occupy their homes.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which cut its teeth last fall by occupying streets and parks across the country, is moving into a new phase as it gears up for spring: occupying homes.

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The movement that claimed to speak for ?the 99 percent? and made income inequality part of the national discussion now is organizing protests at housing auctions to support those affected by the foreclosure crisis.

?At first, we were occupying parks, then homes,? says Sofia Teona, an organizer with Occupy Atlanta, of the movement?s evolution. ?We are starting locally, but it?s a national movement.?

On Thursday, dozens were arrested when a group in New York interrupted a foreclosure auction in a courtroom, and Occupy organizers say more events are planned nationally in coming weeks.

According to Michael Premo, an organizer for ?Occupy Our Homes? in New York, ?the movement has carried out 50 similar actions nationally in the past month, including foreclosure disruptions, eviction defense actions, and home re-occupations.

Although sales by banks of foreclosed houses were down in the third quarter of 2011, they still made up 20 percent of all homes sold. At the height of the housing boom in 2005 and 2006, that number was less than five percent.

Foreclosure sales lower property values, and many economists don?t think that the economy will restart without dealing with the issue, says John Taylor, president and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit that urges banks to provide credit and investment capital to low-income communities.

?I think that it?s good that they are focusing on something the average person can understand and something specific like foreclosures,? Mr. Taylor says of the Occupy activists. ?It makes sense because foreclosures are the smoking gun. They are evidence of the malfeasance of predatory lending.?

At the foreclosure auction in Brooklyn on Thursday, nearly 100 protesters started singing to disrupt bidding on foreclosed homes. Approximately 35 people were arrested, according to the National Lawyers Guild. A video of the event posted on the Internet shows the protesters singing slightly off-key and out of sync as some are arrested and led out of the auction.

Websites organized by Occupy activists have sprouted up to help connect people across the country who are battling foreclosure, providing such information as where supporters can donate money. But some of the actions are very specific and center on saving one family home at a time.

In one such case in Hawaii, a letter-writing campaign organized by members of a family to stay in their home has met with some limited success. Wells-Fargo, the bank that issued the loan, has agreed to let them stay until mid-February.

Another case in Atlanta illustrates both the wrenching nature, and the complexity, of the foreclosure process.

The Pittman family thought they were going to inherit the house that their grandmother had lived in since 1953. Instead, they are now occupying it.

Eloise Pittman?s house in Atlanta was foreclosed on early last fall, but her family didn?t find out until shortly before she died in November.

In 2006, Pittman, a retired school secretary whose only source of income was her retirement checks, refinanced her house and got a loan of $300,000, according to her granddaughter. Pittman couldn?t keep up with the high payments and she avoided telling her family.

For the past 51 days, the Pittman family and members of the Occupy Atlanta movement have camped in a tent outside the house and stayed in the house to protest what they call Chase?s policy of predatory lending.

A spokesman for Chase has a different story, saying the bank did not originate the loan.

?We worked with Ms. Eloise Pittman in 2009 to modify her loan, and when her payments stopped in mid-2010, the foreclosure process started,? says Greg Hassell, a spokesman for Chase. According to Mr. Hassell, Chase is offering to let the family buy the house back for the market rate.

According to the Pittmans, the bank offered the family two options. Either they pay $100,000 to keep the house, or else accept $2,500 to leave.

They are choosing a third option ? joining Occupy Atlanta to march to the bank to demand the deed back.

?We are going to march to Chase to demand that they give back the deed,? says Carmen Pittman, Eloise Pittman?s granddaughter. ?We won?t stop fighting until justice is served.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cXojlR6yuvw/What-s-next-for-Occupy-Wall-Street-Activists-target-foreclosure-crisis

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States where people carry the most mortgage debt

By Michael B. Sauter, 24/7 Wall St.

How much residents of each state owe on their mortgages is an interesting statistic. For the most part, residents of the states with the highest average mortgage debt are not in trouble. While the average home price in these states dropped in value during the recession, the foreclosure rates in these states are among the lowest in the country. The reason: residents of these states can generally afford to lose and owe more money than their counterparts in other states. 24/7 Wall St. examined a recent report by Credit Karma to find the 10 states with the highest average mortgage debt.

Most of the states on our list have extremely high mortgage debt because of the size of their initial mortgages. States like Connecticut and Massachusetts, which have among the highest median home values in the U.S., also have among the highest mortgage debt. Hawaii, which has the second-highest average mortgage debt per person, has the highest median home value of $525,400.

Many of the states on the list also experienced the steepest declines in home value during the recession. Home prices in seven of the states with the highest mortgage debt declined during the recession. In states like California and Nevada, properties lost more than 30 percent of their value. Even in states like New Jersey and Maryland, which fared relatively well during the recession, homes lost between 7?percent and 10?percent of their value.

Sharp declines in home values, coupled with high mortgage debt, should translate to financial disaster. However, while home values dropped more than 7?percent in Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey?? states where mortgage debt is the highest? ? foreclosure rates stayed low.

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Meanwhile, states with the lowest median home value and relatively high mortgage debt tend to have the highest foreclosure rates. Illinois, Michigan and Florida all have median home values below the national average and relatively high mortgage debt compared to housing prices in the state. These states also have among the highest foreclosure rates in the country.

These are the 10 states with the worst mortgage debt.

10. Nevada

• Mortgage debt per person: $196,911
• Median household income: $51,001 (19th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $6,145 (7th lowest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010):?-44.5?percent (biggest decline)

No state had a more dramatic downfall in its housing market during the recession than Nevada. In 2006, nearly 40,000 building permits were approved in the state, a nation-high average of 15.8 per 1,000 people. By 2010, the number of permits declined 80?percent and median home values dropped 44.5?percent. This has left thousands of homeowners with underwater mortgages. According to Credit Karma, Nevada residents owe an average of $196,911 on their mortgages. But unlike residents of most of the other states with high debt, many Nevada residents are not affluent enough to shoulder this burden. The state has the highest unemployment rate in the country, 13?percent, and a median income that is only 19th highest in the U.S.

9. Colorado

• Mortgage debt per person: $198,117
• Median household income: $54,046 (15th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $7,533 (5th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010):?+1.6?percent (31st smallest increase)

Colorado?s average mortgage debt of just under $200,000 is the ninth-highest in the country. The state?s average credit card debt of $7,533 per person is the fifth-highest. Residents, however, have been able to pay some of these massive debts on time, as Coloradans also boast one of the best average credit scores in the country. However, it had the 12th-highest foreclosure rate in the country in December. While not as wealthy as some of the other states with extremely high personal debt, Colorado is certainly better off than Nevada. Poverty and unemployment are both quite low in the state.

24/7 Wall St.: States with the highest, and lowest, credit card debt

8. Connecticut

• Mortgage debt per person: $211,516
• Median household income: $64,032 (4th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $7,730 (3rd highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): -3.4?percent (13th biggest decline)

In 2006, Connecticut had the second fewest building permits per person issued, behind only Rhode Island. This suggests that fewer people were buying homes they could not afford at the height of the housing bubble. Indeed, just one in every 1,145 homes were foreclosed?on in the state in December, a much lower figure compared to states such as Nevada and California, where the foreclosure rates in December were 1 in 177 and 1 in 254, respectively. Along with the eighth-highest mortgage debt per person in the country, Connecticut also ranks third-highest both in credit card debt and student debt. Nevertheless, the average resident?s credit score is the ninth-highest in the country, meaning state residents can pay off their debts. Connecticut has the fifth-lowest poverty rate in the country, and the fourth-highest median income.

7. Virginia

• Mortgage debt per person: $221,873
• Median household income: $60,674 (8th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $7,298 (9th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): +2?percent (21st biggest increase)

The average Virginia resident has $221,516 in mortgage debt, the seventh-greatest amount of the debt in the country. This does not include the additional $50,000 in debt the average resident has accumulated between their credit cards, car payments and student loans. However, the average household makes more than $60,000 per year, the eighth-most in the country, and so, to a certain extent, Virginians are able to afford their IOUs. The average credit score in the state of 670 is the tenth-best in the country.

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6. Massachusetts

• Mortgage debt per person: $224,661
• Median household income: $62,072 (6th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $6,851 (16th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): -9.8?percent (8th biggest decline)

Massachusetts has the fifth-highest median home value of $334,100, which explains why the average resident owes nearly $225,000 in mortgage payments. But with the state boasting the sixth-highest median income and ninth-lowest poverty, residents are generally able to pay off their debts. While the number of new building projects has not declined as much as the rest of the country, home values still declined nearly 10?percent between 2006 and 2010. This decline affected some homeowners, demonstrated by the fact that the state had the 20th-highest foreclosure rate in the country last year.

5. Washington

• Mortgage debt per person: $225,581
• Median household income: $55,681 (11th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $6,825 (17th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): +1.6?percent (32nd biggest gain)

While Washington has the fifth-highest mortgage debt per person in the country, state residents tend to be more frugal in their other finances. Compared to other states, Washington has only the 17th highest credit card and auto debt per capita, and has the 13th-lowest?student debt. Washington?s median home value in 2010 was the ninth-highest in the country. Home values actually increased 1.6?percent during the recession. As a result, foreclosures in the state are low, despite the fact that the state has the 16th highest unemployment rate in the country and a high poverty rate of 12.5?percent.

24/7 Wall St.: 10 states that cannot pay their bills

4. New Jersey

• Mortgage debt per person: $236,017
• Median household income: $67,681 (2nd highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $7,608 (4th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): -7.5?percent (9th biggest decline)

Most of the states hit hardest by the housing crash had a great deal of new buildings approved in the first half of the decade. This was the case in places like Nevada, California and Arizona. Because all of these?new buildings were built at peak home prices, they had the farthest to fall when home prices collapsed. New Jersey, however, had the ninth-fewest building permits approved in 2006. Nevertheless, median home prices declined nearly $30,000, or the ninth-most in the country. However, since residents have the second highest median income in the U.S., they have been able to bear the loss in their home values. New Jersey had the ninth-fewest foreclosures in the country in December.

3. Maryland

• Mortgage debt per person: $242,445
• Median household income: $68,854 (the highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $7,226 (10th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): -9.9?percent (7th biggest decline)

According to Credit Karma, the average mortgage debt per person in Maryland is nearly $250,000. This is at least partially?a result of the fact that the state has the fifth-highest median home value in the U.S., as well as the highest median household income in the country. Like New Jersey, Maryland had a very small number of homes built before the recession. Also like New Jersey, home values still declined significantly. Nevertheless, wealthy Maryland residents have been able to weather the worst of this decline. The state had the 12th-fewest foreclosures in December, and the average credit score per resident is 12th best.

2. Hawaii

• Mortgage debt per person: $307,508
• Median household income: $63,030 (5th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $7,527 (7th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): -0.8?percent (15th biggest decline)

Hawaii has the highest median home value in the country at $525,000. This is $154,000 more than the next highest state. Needless to say, taking out a mortgage on a home in the island state is a tremendous financial commitment. But with extremely low unemployment, high median income, low poverty and the second-highest rate of health insurance coverage in the country, Hawaii homeowners can generally afford it.

1. California

• Mortgage debt per person: $313,749
• Median household income: $57,708 (9th highest)
• Credit card debt per person: $6,434 (30th highest)
• Change in home value (2006 - 2010): -30.8?percent (2nd biggest decline)

While most of the residents of the states with the highest mortgage debt have been able to support the massive mortgages despite the fact that their homes have lost significant value, California is a different story. In 2006, California had the most expensive homes in the country, with a median home value of $532,000. By 2010, that value had declined by $164,000? ? more than 30?percent. The effects of this massive decline in home prices had wide-reaching effects on the state economy. Unemployment in California is now the second-highest in the country, and 14.5?percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The average mortgage debt per person of $313,749 has been too much for thousands of residents. In December alone, one in every 252 homes was foreclosed upon.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/30/10219047-states-where-citizens-carry-the-most-mortgage-debt

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MS drug prevented fatal heart condition in lab study

Monday, January 30, 2012

A drug used to treat multiple sclerosis may also be effective at preventing and reversing the leading cause of heart attack, a new study has found.

Scientists found that Gilenya, a drug recently approved in the US for treating MS, was effective at reversing the symptoms of ventricular hypertrophy in mice.

Ventricular hypertrophy is a fatal cardiac disorder that can result in an abnormal heart rhythm (arrhythmia) and cardiac arrest. It is caused by sustained pressure on the heart due to stresses or diseases, such as hypertension (high blood pressure), valvular heart disease or myocardial infarction (heart attack), and is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death worldwide.

Researchers from The University of Manchester and the University of Illinois at Chicago have discovered that enhancing the activity of an enzyme molecule called Pak1 that is found naturally in our bodies using Gilenya produced remarkable results in mice with ventricular hypertrophy.

Study co-author Dr Xin Wang, a Lecturer in Molecular Cardiology in Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences, said: "Cardiac hypertrophy is the pathological state to respond to sustained stresses on the heart resulting in increases in ventricular wall thickness and muscle mass of the heart. The condition is often associated with fatal complications, such as, heart failure and rhythm disorders, such as ventricular arrhythmias, leading to millions of deaths worldwide each year.

"Our research had previously identified the effect of Pak1 in preventing tissue damage caused by reduced blood flow to the heart, known as cardiac ischemic injury. This latest study used mice with a genetic modification of the Pak1 gene to show how the enzyme, when stimulated by Gilenya, prevented and even reversed the symptoms of ventricular hypertrophy."

The research, led in Manchester by Dr Ming Lei, Dr Xin Wang and Dr Elizabeth Cartwright, and in Chicago by Professor John Solaro and Dr Yunbo Ke, is published in the leading cardiovascular journal, Circulation.

Dr Lei, who is based in Manchester's Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, added: "In recent years, escalating costs, risks, and uncertainty associated with drug development for treating cardiovascular diseases have posed daunting challenges to the pharmaceutical industry. Our discovery opens up fresh avenues for developing a new class of drug for treating several fatal heart conditions. The novel effect of this existing drug means that we have the potential to accelerate the availability of a new therapy for patients with these heart conditions."

###

'Pak1 as a Novel Therapeutic Target for Antihypertrophic Treatment in the Heart,' published in Circulation, (doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.111.048785)

University of Manchester: http://www.manchester.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Manchester for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117177/MS_drug_prevented_fatal_heart_condition_in_lab_study

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Norway court convicts two in bomb plot (Reuters)

OSLO (Reuters) ? A Norwegian of Chinese Muslim origin with alleged links to al Qaeda was convicted Monday of plotting to blow up a Danish newspaper that had printed cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Mikael Davud, who was accused of leading a bomb plot, had admitted he intended some day to attack Chinese interests like the Chinese embassy in Oslo but he was charged only with plotting to bomb the Danish newspaper.

Prosecutors had earlier recommended an 11-year prison sentence for Davud.

A co-defendant, Iraqi-Kurd Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak, was also convicted and sentenced to three and a half years in prison while a third defendant, David Jakobsen, an Uzbek with Norwegian residency, was convicted on a lesser charge and sentenced to 4 months, which he has already served.

It was Norway's first terrorism case with alleged international links. Under Norwegian law a charge of planning to commit a terrorist attack requires proof of a conspiracy between two or more people.

(Reporting by Walter Gibbs; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/wl_nm/us_norway_plot

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GOP Gangs Up on Gingrich to Protect Party, Public (ContributorNetwork)

Former Senator Bob Dole is the latest member of the GOP to say Newt Gingrich should not be the party's nominee. Nominating Gingrich would have disastrous down-ballot effects for other federal, state and local GOP candidates, Dole told the National Review. He noted Gingrich didn't work well with others, pointing out that hardly anyone who served with Gingrich endorsed him.

An increasing number of Republicans describe Gingrich as something akin to political plague, the National Review said. Here's what some prominent Republicans have to say about Newt Gingrich's candidacy:

* Speaker Gingrich set into motion the largest explosion of earmarks in the history of Congress. I was there, I saw the earmarks explode, I saw the corruption that it bred, and I saw the incredible waste of taxpayer dollars." -- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., 2008 GOP presidential nominee.

* "When you have a president of the United States, you have to have somebody that you believe in, somebody that has integrity. Poor ethics has no place in the White House. If you have a person of questionable integrity, it's very difficult to be a good leader, almost impossible." -- Dan Quayle, former vice president.

* " I'm not inclined to be a supporter of Newt Gingrich's having served under him for four years and experienced personally his leadership ? I found it lacking often times." -- Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

* "He's not really a conservative. ... He'll tell you what you want to hear. ? When he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined." -- Tom DeLay, former House majority WHIP.

* "I'm not his biggest advocate." -- George H.W. Bush, former president

* "Tom Coburn, Susan Molinari. Mickey Edwards, all these folks that were part of his inner circle who watched him on a daily basis said, 'Enough is enough. This man is not stable.'" -- John Sununu, former White House chief of staff

* "Nobody wants to be on the ballot with Newt Gingrich." -- Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah

* "He has to know he can't win unless he's totally delusional." -- Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120129/pl_ac/10898243_gop_gangs_up_on_gingrich_to_protect_party_public

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Activists: Shells hit oil pipeline in east Syria (AP)

BEIRUT ? Syrian opposition activists say an oil pipeline took a direct hit and caught fire as government troops shelled a town in the eastern oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees say Saturday's shelling of the town of Qoriah killed at least one person.

The groups also reported intense clashes between troops and anti-regime army defectors in the central province of Homs and suburbs of the capital Damascus.

The Syrian uprising, which began last March with mostly peaceful protests, has become increasingly violent in recent months.

The United Nations estimates that more than 5,400 people have died in the turmoil.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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SAG Awards menu is months in the making (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? When your dinner party guests include Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Kate Winslet and Glenn Close, and the whole affair is televised live, it can take months to plan the menu. That's why the team behind the Screen Actors Guild Awards began putting together the plate for Sunday's ceremony months ago.

It was still summer when show producer Kathy Connell and executive producer and director Jeff Margolis first sat down with chef Suzanne Goin of Los Angeles eatery Lucques with a tall order: Create a meal that is delicious at room temperature, looks beautiful on TV, is easy to eat and appeals to Hollywood tastes. Oh, and no poppy seeds, soups, spicy dishes, or piles of onions or garlic.

"It can't drip, stick in their teeth or be too heavy," Connell said. "We have to appease all palates."

The chef put together a plate of possibilities: slow-roasted salmon with yellow beets, lamb with couscous and spiced cauliflower and roasted root vegetables with quinoa. There was also a chopped chicken salad and another chicken dish with black beans.

To ensure the dishes are both tasty and TV-ready, Connell and Margolis, along with the SAG Awards Committee and the show's florist and art director, dined together at this summertime lunch on tables set to replicate those that will be in the Shrine Exposition Center during the ceremony. The pewter, crushed-silk tablecloths and white lilies you'll see on TV Sunday were also chosen months ago.

The diners discussed the look of the plate, the size of the portions and the vegetarian possibilities.

"We'd like the portions a little larger," Connell told the chef.

"And a little more sauce on the salmon," Margolis added.

Come Sunday, it's up to Goin to prepare 1,200 of the long-planned meals for the A-list audience.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_en_ot/us_sag_awards_menu

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List of dead or missing from grounded cruise ship (AP)

A list of those confirmed dead or missing in the grounding of the cruise ship Costa Concordia off Italy. Italian officials released a list of the missing. Those not listed as crew are passengers.

CONFIRMED DEAD (17):

Maria Dintrono, Italy, 30

Sandor Feher, Hungary, 38, crew

Horst Galle, Germany

Jeanne Gannard, France

Pierre Gregoire, France

Gabriele Grube, Germany

Guillermo Gual, Spain, 68

Egon Hoer, Germany

Giovanni Masia, Italy, 85

Thomas Alberto Costilla Mendoza, Peru, crew

Jean-Pierre Micheaud, France, 61

Erika Fani Soria Molina, Peru, 25, crew

Inge Schall, Germany

Francis Servil, France, 71

Luisa Antonia Virzi, Italy

Josef Werp, Germany

One other body has been recovered from the wreckage but not identified.

UNACCOUNTED FOR (List includes name of one body awaiting identification)

Dayana Arlotti, Italy

William M. Arlotti, Italy

Elisabeth Bauer, Germany

Michael M. Blemand, France

Christina Mathi Ganz, Germany

Norbert Josef Ganz, Germany

Girolamo Giuseppe, Italy, crew

Barbara Heil, United States

Gerald Heil, United States

Mylene Litzler, France

Margarethe Neth, Germany

Russel Terence Rebello, India, crew

Margrit Schroeter, Germany

Siglinde Stumpf, Germany

Maria Grazia Trecarichi, Italy

Brunhild Werp, Germany

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120129/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_cruise_aground_list

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Wendy Kopp: We Need to Put Education on the Global Agenda (Huffington post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192433787?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Apple?s Off-The-Charts iPhone And iPad Sales

Sometimes you have to see things to truly appreciate their magnitude. Apple's latest quarter was so massive that MG had to write two posts about it: $46 billion in revenues, 37 million iPhones sold, 15 million iPads. The chart above, which comes from Asymco (see a fully interactive version here), shows how unusual this quarter was for Apple.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_BqaTKfcgyg/

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01.28.12 // Deepwinter Bonfire : Toki Wright w/ Galactic Soul Arkestra, Coloring Time in Saint Paul, MN @ McNally Smith College of Music

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://rhymesayers.com/events/index/1356

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Iraq says to take legal action for Haditha victims (Reuters)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? Iraq plans legal action on behalf of families of victims killed by U.S. troops in a 2005 massacre after the last soldier involved was spared jail time by a guilty plea with military authorities, a government spokesman said Thursday.

The Haditha massacre that killed 24 Iraqis, alongside the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and shootings by U.S. contractors in 2007, stoked global outrage against the nearly nine-year U.S. military presence after the 2003 invasion.

The last U.S. soldier accused in leading the massacre, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, was spared jail-time Tuesday when he was sentenced after pleading guilty to dereliction of duty. Original charges of involuntary manslaughter were dismissed.

"We will seek legal means to maintain the rights of the innocents citizens who were killed in the incident," said Ali al-Moussawi, media adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

"We will follow whatever course we can follow legally," Moussawi said without giving details on actions.

The sentencing caused anger in Haditha, where a member of one of the victims' families called it an "insult to all Iraqis."

The killings were described by Iraqi witnesses and prosecutors as a massacre of unarmed civilians - including women and children -- carried out by Marines angered by the death of a member of their unit in a bombing.

"The ruling does not fit the crime," Moussawi said.

Wuterich was accused of being a ringleader when in November 19, 2005, a group of U.S. soldiers carried out a series of shootings and grenade attacks in Haditha, at the time a hotbed for insurgents fighting against American forces.

Six of the seven others originally charged had their cases dismissed by U.S. military judges. An eighth was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Wuterich apologized to the families in his sentencing and said civilians were not singled out. Defense lawyers had argued the deaths came during combat when the men believed they were under enemy fire.

The last U.S. troops left Iraq in December at the end of a security agreement. Talks to try to keep several thousand U.S. soldiers on Iraqi soil fell apart over the sensitive issue of legal immunity for troops involved in crimes.

In 2004, a scandal erupted over U.S. troops who photographed themselves humiliating and intimidating detainees in Abu Ghraib jail. In September 2007, U.S. security contractors killed at least 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, sparking protests and international condemnation.

(Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Roger Atwood)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120126/wl_nm/us_iraq_massacre

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Dutch plan ban on Muslim face veils next year (Reuters)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) ? The Dutch minority government plans to ban Muslim face veils such as burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face from next year.

The ban would make the Netherlands, where 1 million out of 17 million people are Muslim, the second European Union country to ban the burqa after France, and would apply to face-covering veils if they were worn in public.

"People should be able to look at each other's faces and recognize each other when they meet," the interior affairs ministry said in a statement Friday.

The ban will also apply to balaclavas and motorcycle helmets when worn in inappropriate places, such as inside a store, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen told reporters, denying that this was a ban on religious clothing.

Geert Wilders' anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV), which helps give the Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition a majority in parliament, has set considerable political store on getting the so-called burqa ban passed into law.

Few Muslim women in the Netherlands wear the Arabic-style niqabs which leave the eyes uncovered and Afghan-style burqas that cover the face with a cloth grid. Academics estimate the numbers at between 100 and 400, whereas Muslim headscarves which leave the face exposed are far more common.

The coalition has agreed to submit a new law to parliament next week stipulating that offenders would be fined up to 390 euros ($510), the ministry said.

Verhagen said the ban was intended to ensure that a tradition of open communication cherished in Dutch society was upheld, and to prevent people from concealing their identity in order to do harm.

Wilders, who condemned Dutch Queen Beatrix for covering her hair with a scarf on a recent royal visit to the Middle East, said on Twitter: "Great news: burqa ban will finally come to the Netherlands! Proposal approved by ministers' council. Excellent!"

Maurits Berger, professor of Islam in the contemporary West at Leiden University, said only a few hundred women wear the full face veil in the Netherlands.

"This is highly symbolic, it's part of the deal made with PVV," Berger said. "We are in the middle of a crisis. There are worse things to tackle."

The minority coalition is at odds with the Freedom Party over where to make further budget cuts, and the scale of the cuts needed.

The face-veil law, which still needs to win approval in both houses of parliament, excludes clothing worn for security reasons such as that worn by firemen and hockey players, as well as party clothing such as Santa Claus or Halloween costumes.

The ban does not apply to religious places, such as churches and mosques, nor to passengers on airplanes or en route via a Dutch airport, the interior ministry said. ($1 = 0.7615 euros)

(Reporting by Gilbert Kreijger; Editing by Robert Woodward)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120127/wl_nm/us_dutch_burqa_ban

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Strategy Analytics: Nokia tops global handset shipments, Apple sees quarterly surge

Fresh off the publication of its latest tablet report, Strategy Analytics has come out with a new batch of statistics on the global mobile market. In a report published yesterday, the research firm crowned Apple as the world's largest smartphone vendor by volume, on the strength of the 37 million iPhones it shipped during Q4 2011 -- good for 23.9 percent of the market. Samsung wasn't too far behind, though, with 36.5 million smartphones shipped during the quarter, comprising 23.5 percent of the market. Nokia finished in third place, with 19.6 million smartphones and a 12.6 percent market share, though it fared notably better among handset makers on a global (i.e., smartphone and feature phone) level. According to Strategy Analytics, the Finnish manufacturer shipped 417.1 million handsets for the full year, 113.5 million of which were shipped during the fourth quarter of last year. For the year, Nokia accounted for 26.9 percent of the market, followed by Samsung, which shipped 327.4 million units shipped during 2011 and finished with a 23.1 percent market share. As for Apple, it accounted for 8.3 percent of the market in Q4 (its best showing, according to Strategy's metrics), with 37 million quarterly shipments. You can find more details in the pair of press releases after the break, or at the source link below.

Continue reading Strategy Analytics: Nokia tops global handset shipments, Apple sees quarterly surge

Strategy Analytics: Nokia tops global handset shipments, Apple sees quarterly surge originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/27/strategy-analytics-nokia-tops-global-handset-shipments-apple-s/

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Zynga called out by company its new game rips off

Twitter

The opening of Ian Marsh's open letter to Zynga.

Zynga doesn't have the best name around the block, to put it mildly. Various folks across the video game spectrum were quite delighted by news of their recently introduced stock's failure to light Wall Street on fire. Equally satisfying has been reports that their users have stopped playing their offerings in droves.

Much of the animosity stems from the fact that their games are accused of being unoriginal and derivative. Proof can be found in Zynga's latest iOS release "Dream Heights," which strikes a very close resemblance to "Tiny Tower" by NimbleBits, for the same platform. It was actually Apple's pick for best iPhone game of 2011.

This copycatting did not go unnoticed by the makers of the original game, who have voiced their two cents via Twitter. Perhaps the most compelling opinion was shared by David Marsh, one of the co-founders of NimbleBits. He states: "Even when you refuse to go work for Zynga, sometimes you end up doing work for Zynga anyway."

But it is his partner and brother Ian Marsh?who has gotten most of the attention, with side-by-side comparisons in a very tongue in cheek letter addressed to Zynga:

Twitter

Ian Marsh's open letter to Zynga in its entirety.

The open letter was first highlighted by the iOS-focused gaming blog?Touch Arcade, whichd?also reiterate the very hands-off approach Apple has when it comes blatant clones and other forms of copyright infringement in their App Store. But given how high profile the parties involved are, and especially since Apple itself also anointed "Tiny Tower" with high praise, perhaps Cupertino may be more proactive.

"Dream Heights" is currently available in the Canadian App Store. No word yet on when it'll appear in the U.S. variant, if ever.

Related stories:

Matthew Hawkins is a NYC based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, and Giant Robot. You can keep tabs on him via?Twitter?or his personal home-base,?FORT90.com.

Source: http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/25/10236389-zynga-called-out-by-the-company-its-new-game-rips-off

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Why is investment income taxed less than wages? (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Why do Mitt Romney and other wealthy investors pay lower taxes on the income they make from investments than they would if they earned their millions from wages? Because Congress, through the tax code, has long treated investment more favorably than labor, seeing it as an engine for economic growth that benefits everyone.

President Barack Obama and the Occupy Wall Street movement are challenging that value system, raising volatile election-year issues of equity, fairness ? and Romney's tax returns.

Romney, who released his 2010 and 2011 tax returns this week, has been forced to defend the fact that he paid a tax rate of about 15 percent on an annual income of $21 million. His tax rate is comparable to the one paid by most middle-income families. His income, however, is 420 times higher than the typical U.S. household.

The Republican presidential candidate's taxes were so low because the vast majority of his income came from investments. The U.S. has long had a progressive income tax, in which people who make more money pay taxes at a higher rate than those who make less. But for almost as long, the U.S. has taxed capital gains ? the profit from selling an investment ? at a lower rate than wages.

"There are two ways to look at: There is a moral argument and an economic growth argument, and they both point to lower taxes on capital gains," said William McBride, an economist at the conservative Tax Foundation.

McBride says it is unfair to tax income more than once, and capital gains are taxed multiple times. If you got the original investment from wages, that money was taxed. If the stock you own gains value because the company you invested in makes a profit, those profits are taxed through the corporate tax. And if that company issues dividends, those are taxed as well.

Lots of people are double taxed, says Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Check out your last pay stub: There's income tax and payroll tax, so you're double taxed, too," Marr said.

And, he noted, when you buy something, you probably pay a sales tax.

Under current law, the top tax rate is 15 percent on qualified dividend and long-term capital gains ? the profits from selling assets that have been held for at least a year. The top income tax rate on wages is 35 percent, though that applies only to taxable income above $388,350.

Congress started taxing capital gains at a lower rate than wages following World War I. The concern then was that high taxes on capital gains actually reduced revenue because people would simply hold onto their investments and restrict the flow of capital, according to the Encyclopedia of Taxation and Tax Policy.

At the time, however, the top tax rate on wages was a whopping 73 percent. In 1922, Congress lowered the top capital gains rate to 12.5 percent, a rate that lasted until 1934.

For much of the next 70 years, the top tax rate on long-term capital gains hovered between 20 percent and 30 percent, going as high as 39.9 percent in the 1970s but never falling below 20 percent until 2003, when Congress passed a gradual reduction to the current rate.

The 2003 law also started taxing qualified dividends at the same rate as capital gains.

Liberals and some moderates argue that lower taxes on investments are a giveaway to the rich because they are the ones who get the most benefit. Last year, two-thirds of all capital gains went to people making more than $1 million, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper for Congress.

Only 5 percent of capital gains went to people making less than $100,000, and only 13 percent went to people making less than $200,000.

"I'm a liberal person and I believe strongly that the wealthy should pay more than the working poor," Marr said, regardless of whether the income is from investments or labor.

Obama has taken up this argument, though his budget proposals have called for only small tax increases on capital gains and dividends, to a top rate of 20 percent.

Instead, Obama has developed the "Buffet Rule," named after billionaire investor Warren Buffet, which says rich people shouldn't pay taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries. To impose this rule, Obama said at his State of The Union address Tuesday that people making more than $1 million should pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.

"Now, you can call this class warfare all you want," Obama said. "But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."

The proposal has little chance of passing a divided Congress this year, and the Obama administration has released few details on how the tax would work.

Conservatives argue that increasing investment taxes would make it harder to for businesses to raise capital, restricting job growth and hurting financial markets, reducing income for people who rely on pension funds and 401(k) accounts as well as billionaires and millionaires.

"In my view the rationale for taxing capital gains and dividends at a lower rate has nothing to do with what an individual pays versus another individual," said Jim McCrery, who was a senior Republican member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee when the 2003 tax cuts were enacted. "It has everything to do with the creation of jobs in this country."

McCrery now works for the Alliance for Savings and Investment, a coalition of companies and business groups that want to keep the current tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_ge/us_taxing_investments

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Video: Faber Report: Roche Launches Hostile Bid for Illumina

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Arizona Gov. Brewer gets book critique from Obama

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer points at President Barack Obama after he arrived at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. Brewer greeted Obama and what she got was a book critique. Of her book. The two leaders engaged in an intense conversation at the base of Air Force One?s steps. Both could be seen smiling, but speaking at the same time. Asked moments later what the conversation was about, Brewer, a Republican, said: "He was a little disturbed about my book." Brewer recently published a book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," something of a memoir that describes her years growing up and defends her signing of Arizona?s controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants, which Obama opposes. Brewer also handed Obama an envelope with a handwritten invitation for Obama to return to Arizona to meet her for lunch and to join her for a visit to the border. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer points at President Barack Obama after he arrived at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. Brewer greeted Obama and what she got was a book critique. Of her book. The two leaders engaged in an intense conversation at the base of Air Force One?s steps. Both could be seen smiling, but speaking at the same time. Asked moments later what the conversation was about, Brewer, a Republican, said: "He was a little disturbed about my book." Brewer recently published a book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," something of a memoir that describes her years growing up and defends her signing of Arizona?s controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants, which Obama opposes. Brewer also handed Obama an envelope with a handwritten invitation for Obama to return to Arizona to meet her for lunch and to join her for a visit to the border. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama arrives at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)

President Barack Obama talks with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer after arriving at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. Brewer greeted Obama and what she got was a book critique. Of her book. The two leaders engaged in an intense conversation at the base of Air Force One?s steps. Both could be seen smiling, but speaking at the same time. Asked what the conversation was about, Brewer, a Republican, said: "He was a little disturbed about my book." Brewer recently published a book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," something of a memoir that describes her years growing up and defends her signing of Arizona?s controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants, which Obama opposes. Brewer also handed Obama an envelope with a handwritten invitation for Obama to return to Arizona to meet her for lunch and to join her for a visit to the border. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama arrives at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)

President Barack Obama signs autographs after arriving at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Matt York)

MESA, Ariz. (AP) ? Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer came to greet President Barack Obama upon his arrival outside Phoenix Wednesday. What she got was a critique. Of her book.

The two leaders could be seen engaged in an intense conversation at the base of Air Force One's steps. Both could be seen smiling, but speaking at the same time.

Asked moments later what the conversation was about, Brewer, a Republican, said: "He was a little disturbed about my book."

Brewer recently published a book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," something of a memoir of her years growing up and defends her signing of Arizona's controversial law cracking down on illegal immigrants, which Obama opposes.

Obama was objecting to Brewer's description of a meeting he and Brewer had at the White House, where she described Obama as lecturing her. In an interview in November Brewer described two tense meetings. The first took place before his commencement address at Arizona State University. "He did blow me off at ASU," she said in the television interview in November.

She also described meeting the president at the White House in 2010 to talk about immigration. "I felt a little bit like I was being lectured to, and I was a little kid in a classroom, if you will, and he was this wise professor and I was this little kid, and this little kid knows what the problem is and I felt minimized to say the least."

On the tarmac Wednesday, Brewer handed Obama an envelope with a handwritten invitation to return to Arizona to meet her for lunch and to join her for a visit to the border.

"I said to him, you know, I have always respected the office of the president and that the book is what the book is," she told reporters Wednesday. She said Obama complained that she described him as not treating her cordially.

"I said that I was sorry that he felt that way. Anyway, we're glad he's here, and we'll regroup."

A White House official said Brewer handed Obama a letter and said she was inviting him to meet with her. The official said Obama told her he would be glad to meet with her again. The official said Obama did note that after their last meeting, which the official described as a cordial discussion in the Oval Office, the governor inaccurately described the meeting in her book. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation between the president and the governor.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-25-Obama-Arizona%20Governor/id-25f082208b104d4ab4ce4b8f6ca9c59d

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An electrical engineer and a biologist walk into a bar? (Unqualified Offerings)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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New but feeling old

Well...

I'm the new guy I suppose you can say, but I just don't feel new. Might be cause I've been roleplaying for years and playing roleplaying games or maybe old age is kicking in for me at an early age. Whatever the case may be I'll still throw this thread out so that people will know that I'm here.

DR

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/B9_nsDy9Mxk/viewtopic.php

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Retired manager La Russa to manage NL All-Stars

Former St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa signs autographs for fans during the baseball team's annual Winter Warm-Up on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012, in St. Louis. La Russa is getting a victory lap with St. Louis fans following his retirement after the Cardinals' World Series win at the end of the 2011 season. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Former St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa signs autographs for fans during the baseball team's annual Winter Warm-Up on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012, in St. Louis. La Russa is getting a victory lap with St. Louis fans following his retirement after the Cardinals' World Series win at the end of the 2011 season. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Former St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa signs autographs for fans during the baseball team's annual Winter Warmup, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012, in St. Louis. After La Russa retired following the Cardinals' World Series win at the end of the 2011 season, he's now getting a victory lap with St. Louis fans. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

ST. LOUIS (AP) ? Tony La Russa will become the second retired manager to lead an All-Star team next summer, joining Hall of Famer John McGraw.

La Russa concluded a 16-season run in St. Louis with the team's second World Series title in five years last October, stepping down after 33 seasons overall. Commissioner Bud Selig announced Tuesday that the 67-year-old La Russa will manage the National League in this year's game July 10 in Kansas City.

"Tony earned this opportunity with the remarkable run the Cardinals completed last October, and I am delighted that he shared my enthusiasm about staying in this role," Selig said in a statement. "The All-Star Game celebrates all the best of our game, and it is very appropriate that we will have the chance to celebrate one of the greatest managerial careers of all-time as a part of our festivities."

McGraw retired after the 1932 season and managed the National League in the first All-Star game the following year.

Danny Murtaugh managed the NL All-Star team in 1972 after stepping down following Pittsburgh's 1971 World Series title, but Major League Baseball doesn't consider him retired for that appearance because he returned to manage the Pirates from 1973-76.

This will be La Russa's sixth time managing an All-Star team, three in each league.

Two managers led All-Star teams after moving to new teams, Dick Williams in 1974 after switching from the Athletics to the Angels and Dusty Baker in 2003 after switching from the Giants to the Cubs.

La Russa and Joe Torre are tied for fourth with six All-Star managing appearances, trailing Casey Stengel (10), Walter Alston (9) and Joe McCarthy (7).

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-24-BBO-All-Star-Game-La-Russa/id-172eef41d10f4b7aaefb3a3cc1e640b6

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Greece believes in debt deal despite interest cap (AP)

BRUSSELS ? Greece's finance minister indicated Tuesday that he still believes his country will be able to reach a deal with private bondholders to cut its massive debt, despite tougher terms set by its eurozone partners.

Athens is trying to get its private creditors ? banks and other investment firms ? to swap their Greek government bonds for new ones with half their face value, thereby slicing some euro100 billion ($130 billion) off its massive debt. The new bonds will also push the repayment deadlines 20 to 30 years into the future.

But Greece and representatives of the private creditors have been unable for weeks to agree on the interest rate those new bonds would carry. A high interest rate could buffer losses for the investors, but would also require the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund to put up more than the euro130 billion in rescue loans they promised in late October.

After negotiations that dragged deep into the night, eurozone finance ministers took a firm stand on the debt restructuring, capping the average interest rate over the lifetime of the new bonds "clearly below 4 percent," according to Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime ministers who chaired the meeting. For the period until 2020, the average rate will be limited at less than 3.5 percent, he added.

Those caps are far below average interest rates of more than 4 percent demanded by the Institute of International Finance, which has been leading the negotiations for the private bondholders.

They underline that the eurozone and the IMF are unwilling to increase new rescue loans above the promised euro130 billion, even though Greece's economic situation has deteriorated since then.

After already granting Greece a euro110 billion bailout in May 2010, the eurozone and the IMF are limiting their exposure to the country, which has repeatedly failed to hit budget and reform targets required in return for the financial aid.

But the caps will also seriously test the willingness of private bondholders to agree to a debt deal voluntarily. IIF head Charles Dallara over the weekend had characterized the bondholders' most recent offer as the best possible proposal.

Greek finance chief Evangelos Venizelos was nevertheless confident that the two sides could find common ground.

"We have the green light from the Eurogroup to close the deal with the private sector in the next few days," Venizelos said in Brussels.

The alternative to a voluntary deal would be to force losses onto investors ? a move that the eurozone has so far been unwilling to make. Officials fear that a forced default could trigger panic on financial markets and hurt bigger countries like Italy, Spain or even France.

But Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager has said that a voluntary deal was not a must and that getting Greece's debt down to a sustainable level was a bigger priority.

"Greece and the banks have to do more in order to reach a sustainable debt level," he told reporters Tuesday as he arrived for a second day of meetings with his European counterparts. "We have to await the discussions about that because a sustainable debt level is absolutely a precondition for the next (rescue) program."

Greek stocks opened lower Tuesday, shedding a collective 1.7 percent one day after optimism on the debt writedown deal sparked a 5 percent rally.

Meanwhile, updated budget execution figures released by the Greek Finance Ministry showed that despite massive spending cuts, the country's fiscal deficit for 2011 was actually higher than in 2010.

Last year's fiscal deficit hit euro21.72 billion ($28.27 billion) ? euro270 million ($350 million) more than in 2010.

Revenues were euro910 million ($1.18 billion) below target, but the ministry said this was offset by higher-than-anticipated spending cuts of euro896 million ($1.16 million).

These figures are on a cash basis, and exclude some categories of spending taken into account in calculating the final budget deficit for 2011 ? which Greece has pledged to cut to about euro20 billion ($26 billion).

__

Nicolas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, contributed to this story.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_europe_financial_crisis

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tumblecloud Unveils A Collaborative Take On Slideshows

An startup called tumblecloud is launching the public beta test today for its easy way to create high-quality slideshows. Founder and CEO Brian Andreas (an artist who also runs the boutique publishing house StoryPeople) describes the company's "clouds" as a new form digital storytelling, but they're probably easier to think of as multimedia slideshows. tumblecloud breaks the process down into three steps ? grab, mix, and share. You can pull photos, music, and other media from your computer or from other online services; use a simple drag-and-drop interface to assemble everything into a presentation; then share it with other users.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8-fReUEmocE/

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Listen to the silence in your lives, pope says (Reuters)

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) ? Pope Benedict is asking people to stop amid the noise and haste and listen to the sounds of silence in life.

Benedict dedicated the theme of his message for the Catholic Church's World Day of Communication to the relationship between silence and words.

"Silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist," he said in the message.

"In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves," he said.

Benedict, who is a shy and quiet man himself, said that today "silence is a precious commodity" in a world with a "surcharge of stimuli and data."

"It is often in silence, for example, that we observe the most authentic communication taking place between people who are in love: gestures, facial expressions and body language are signs by which they reveal themselves to each other," he said.

Joy, anxiety, and suffering can all be communicated in silence, sometimes more powerfully than with words and silence often gives people a chance to listen -- to God, to themselves and to others.

In short, the pope is asking everyone to turn down the noise, reflect, evaluate and analyze.

"For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of 'eco-system' that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds," he said.

But he said the world of social communications was not always the problem and could also be part of the solution.

Benedict said there were "various types of websites, applications and social networks" which can help people find time for reflection and authentic questioning.

The Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Communications is marked on May 20. The message is intended for parishes around the world to prepare for the best way to celebrate it locally.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/lf_nm_life/us_pope_silence

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Use a Parmesan Cheese Lid to Turn a Canning Jar into a Shaker [Kitchen Hacks]

Household weblog Plath's Adventures shares that the lid from a disposable parmesan cheese container fits a regular (not wide-mouth) canning jar perfectly.

The great thing about this is that you can use the shaker top with cheap second-hand canning jars to make food prep easier. The author uses this combination for bread crumbs or granulated garlic, but I'd also suggest using this as a powdered sugar shaker, sesame seeds for stir fry, nutritional yeast for vegans; really the sky is the limit.

A Thrift Store Find and a Canning Jar Tip | Plath's Adventures

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/u54xFT36FpM/use-a-parmesan-cheese-lid-to-turn-a-canning-jar-into-a-shaker

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Euro zone ministers reject private bondholders' Greece offer (Reuters)

BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) ? Euro zone finance ministers have rejected an offer made by private bondholders to help restructure Greece's debts, euro zone officials said on Monday, sending negotiators back to the drawing board and raising the threat of default.

At a meeting in Brussels to discuss Athens' debt problems, ministers said they could not accept a coupon of four percent on new longer-dated bonds expected to be issued to private bondholders in exchange for their existing Greek holdings.

Banks and other private institutions represented by the Institute of International Finance (IIF) want a 4.0 percent coupon on the new bonds, which will have a face value of half that of the bonds they replace, thereby cutting Athens' debts. Greece says the coupon must be closer to 3.5 percent.

"The ministers have sent the offer back for negotiations," one euro zone official with knowledge of the talks said, indicating that the ministers had effectively come down on the Greek government's side.

"The ministers want a lower coupon than presented in the offer (from the IIF)," the official said.

The disagreement increases the risk that it may prove impossible to strike a voluntary restructuring deal between Greece's creditors and the Greek government - an outcome that would have severe repercussions for financial markets.

The aim of the restructuring is to reduce Greece's debts from around 160 percent of GDP to 120 percent of GDP by 2020, a level EU and IMF officials think will be more manageable for the growth-less Greek economy.

Negotiations over what's called 'private sector involvement' have been going on for nearly seven months without a concrete breakthrough. Failure to reach a deal by March, when Athens must repay 14.5 billion euros of maturing debt, could result in a disorderly default.

As well as assessing Greece's debt restructuring, euro zone ministers discussed efforts to enforce stricter budget rules for EU states via a "fiscal compact," and steps to finalize the structure of a permanent euro zone bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), due to start operating in July.

The ESM will have an effective lending capacity of 500 billion euros and replace the European Financial Stability Facility, a temporary fund that has so far been used to bail out Ireland and Portugal and will be used to provide part of a second, 130 billion euro package of aid to Greece.

Germany has insisted that once the ESM is up and running, the combined potential outlay of the EFSF and ESM should not top 500 billion euros.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and IMF chief Christine Lagarde have said the ceiling should be raised, possibly up to 1 trillion euros, so it has more than enough capacity to handle any problems in major economies such as Spain or Italy.

The Financial Times reported Monday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was ready to see the ceiling of the combined firewall raised to 750 billion euros in exchange for agreement on tighter euro zone budget rules, but the report was immediately denied by her chief spokesman.

"It is not true. There is no such decision," Steffen Seibert told Reuters.

DEBT SUSTAINABILITY

Ahead of the ministers' meeting, French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said the elusive deal to convince the banks and investment funds that own Greek debt to accept deep losses on their holdings appeared to be "taking shape."

But his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble said any deal must help Greece cut its debt mountain to "not much more than 120 percent of GDP" by the end of the decade, something many economists believe will not be achieved by the existing plan.

"The negotiations will be difficult, but we want the second program for Greece to be implemented in March so that the second (bailout) tranche can be released," Schaeuble told a news conference in Paris with Baroin and the heads of the German and French central banks.

"Greece must fulfill its commitments, it is difficult and there is already a lot of delay," Schaeuble said.

Greece and its private creditors are converging on a deal in which private bondholders would take a real loss of 65 to 70 percent on their Greek bonds - giving a nominal reduction of 50 percent - officials close to the negotiations say.

Sources close to the talks told Reuters Monday that the impasse centered on questions of whether the deal would return Greece's debt mountain, currently over 350 billion euros, to levels that European governments believe are sustainable.

"There will likely be an updated debt sustainability analysis that will be discussed at the Eurogroup," a banking source in Athens said, requesting anonymity. "Talks will continue this week. The aim is to have an agreement by late next Monday."

In Brussels, European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said talks had been "moving well" and expressed confidence a deal could be sealed this week.

LAGARDE DEMANDS

Speaking in Berlin, Lagarde called on European leaders to complement the "fiscal compact" they agreed last month with some form of financial risk-sharing, mentioning euro zone bonds or bills, or a debt redemption fund as possible options.

Merkel told a news conference it was not the time to debate an increase in the euro zone's bailout funds.

"I don't think it is right to do one new thing then do another, let's get the ESM working," Merkel said, reiterating that Germany was prepared to accelerate the flow of capital into the ESM ahead of its planned introduction in mid-2012.

Euro zone leaders agreed in October that the second bailout would total 130 billion euros, if private bondholders forgave half of what Greece owes them in nominal terms.

But Greek economic prospects have deteriorated since then, which means either euro zone governments or investors will have to contribute more than thought.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Brown and Alexandra Hudson in Berlin, Leigh Thomas in Paris, Lefteris Papadimas and Ingrid Melander in Athens; Writing by Noah Barkin and Luke Baker, editing by Mike Peacock/Jeremy Gaunt/Rex Merrifield)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/bs_nm/us_eurozone_ministers

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