Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/168194874?client_source=feed&format=rss
trace cyrus hilary duff pregnant hilary duff pregnant psat psat brenda song mountain west
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Muslim Brotherhood says leads Egypt's vote count (Reuters)
CAIRO (Reuters) ? The Muslim Brotherhood's party said on Wednesday its bloc was leading the vote count in the first stage of Egypt's first election since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
No official results have been released.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) said early indications showed it was ahead in the races for seats allocated both by party list and to individuals. In the party list race it was followed by the Islamist Salafi al-Nour Party and the liberal Egyptian Bloc, it said in a statement.
Two thirds of seats will be allocated by party list and one third to individuals.
An FJP source, who declined to be named, said an FJP-led list had won about 40 percent of the party-list votes so far.
That result, if confirmed and repeated in the rest of the country during the staggered six-week poll, would give Egypt's oldest and best-organized Islamist group a powerful bloc in the next assembly, perhaps setting the stage for a power struggle with the ruling military.
An army council that took over from Mubarak has said the new parliament will not be able to dismiss a cabinet or form a new one, but the FJP's leader said on Tuesday the majority in parliament should form the next government.
The government resigned last week amid demonstrations in which 42 people were killed in clashes between police and protesters demanding an end to army rule. The generals picked a new prime minister days before the parliamentary election on Monday and Tuesday.
Monday and Tuesday's voting, the first of three rounds which will each be followed by run-offs, passed off mostly peacefully, but violence broke out on Tuesday in Cairo's protest hub of Tahrir Square where nearly 80 people were wounded.
Voting for the lower house lasts until January 11.
Initial first round results are expected to trickle out on Wednesday after a high turnout and only minor infringements were reported in the first free election since army officers overthrew Egypt's monarchy in 1953.
NEW GOVERNMENT
Monitors reported logistical hiccups and some campaign violations but no serious violence to disrupt the vote. Election posters and banners festooned towns and cities while judges officiated under the eye of troops, police and vote monitors.
The outcome of the election in the most populous Arab country will help shape the future of a region convulsed by uprisings against decades of autocracy.
Though the Brotherhood did not start the Egyptian revolt, it is among its major beneficiaries. Outlawed by Mubarak and his predecessors, the group has now edged closer to political power.
Islamist parties in Morocco and Tunisia have come out on top in parliamentary elections in the past two months.
In an implicit challenge to the military's authority, the head of the FJP said parliament should form the government.
"A government that is not based on a parliamentary majority cannot conduct its work in practice," FJP head Mohamed Mursi told reporters in Cairo's working-class district of Shubra, adding that a coalition government would be best.
On Friday, the military asked Kamal al-Ganzouri, 78, who was a prime minister under Mubarak, to form a government which he has said he expects to unveil by the end of this week.
The generals, already under pressure from Egyptians angered by their perceived desire to hold onto military perks and power, may face a new challenge from a parliament flush with the popular legitimacy gained from a big turnout at the polls.
UNDER PRESSURE
Several other Islamist groups are competing. The leader of the ultra-conservative Salafi Islamist al-Nour Party, which hopes to siphon votes from the Brotherhood, said organizational failings meant his party had underperformed.
But he told Reuters the party still expected to win up to half of second city Alexandria's 24 seats in parliament and, nationwide, 70 to 75 of the assembly's 498 elected seats.
One member of the military council has said turnout would exceed 70 percent. The FJP's Mursi put it at 40 percent.
General Ismail Atman, an army council member, was quoted as saying the poll showed the irrelevance of the Tahrir protests.
The latest violence there erupted when unidentified youths tried to enter the square, a protest organizer said. Petrol bombs were thrown toward protesters and guns were fired. Of the 79 wounded, 27 were taken to hospital, the state news agency said.
Criticizing the authorities, reformist politician Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on Twitter: "Thugs are now attacking the protesters in Tahrir. A regime that cannot protect its citizens is a regime that has failed in performing its basic function."
(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad in Alexandria, Yasmine Saleh, Shaimaa Fayed, Tom Perry, Tom Pfeiffer and Peter Millership in Cairo; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Peter Graff)
honey badger girl fight jacoby brissett danielle staub last of the mohicans last of the mohicans ryan howard
Week 11
It's makeover week with celebrity stylists Jeannie Mae and Ken Paves - and the Final Four are announced!
Source: http://www.ivillage.com/week-11-6/1-h-406697?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aweek-11-6-406697
gamestop albert haynesworth banana republic apple store academy barnes and noble nook bcs rankings
Microscopic worms could hold the key to living life on Mars
ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2011) ? The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking believes that if humanity is to survive we will have to up sticks and colonise space. But is the human body up to the challenge?
Scientists at The University of Nottingham believe that Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a microscopic worm which has biologically similarities to human beings, could help us understand how humans might cope with long-duration space exploration.
Their research, published Nov. 30, 2011 in Interface, a journal of The Royal Society, has shown that in space the C. elegans develops from egg to adulthood and produces progeny just as it does on earth. This makes it an ideal and cost-effective experimental system to investigate the effects of long duration and distance space exploration.
In December 2006 a team of scientists led by Dr Nathaniel Szewczyk from the Division of Clinical Physiology in the School of Graduate Entry Medicine blasted 4,000 C. elegans into space onboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. The researchers were able to successfully monitor the effect of low Earth orbit (LEO) on 12 generations of C. elegans during the first three months of their six month voyage onboard the International Space Station. These are the first observations of C. elegans behaviour in LEO.
Dr Szewczyk said: "A fair number of scientists agree that we could colonise other planets. While this sounds like science fiction it is a fact that if mankind wants to avoid the natural order of extinction then we need to find ways to live on other planets. Thankfully most of the world's space agencies are committed to this common goal.
"While it may seem surprising, many of the biological changes that happen during spaceflight affect astronauts and worms and in the same way. We have been able to show that worms can grow and reproduce in space for long enough to reach another planet and that we can remotely monitor their health. As a result C. elegans is a cost effective option for discovering and studying the biological effects of deep space missions. Ultimately, we are now in a position to be able to remotely grow and study an animal on another planet."
Many experts believe the ultimate survival of humanity is dependent upon colonisation of other planetary bodies. But we face key challenges associated with long term space exploration. Radiation exposure and musculoskeletal deterioration are thought to be two of the key obstacles to successful habitation beyond LEO.
The C. elegans has been used on Earth to help us understand human biology -- now it could help us investigate living on Mars.
C. elegans was the first multi-cellular organism to have its genetic structure completely mapped and many of its 20,000 genes perform the same functions as those in humans. Two thousand of these genes have a role in promoting muscle function and 50 to 60 per cent of these have very obvious human counterparts.
Dr Szewczyk is no stranger to space flight -- this was his third space-worm mission. Dr Szewczyk and his team at Nottingham collaborated with experts at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Colorado and the Simon Fraser University in Canada, to develop a compact automated C. elegans culturing system which can be monitored remotely to observe the effect of environmental toxins and in-flight radiation.
Dr Szewczyk said: "Worms allow us to detect changes in growth, development, reproduction and behaviour in response to environmental conditions such as toxins or in response to deep space missions. Given the high failure rate of Mars missions use of worms allows us to safely and relatively cheaply test spacecraft systems prior to manned missions."
The 2006 space mission, which led to this latest research, was followed up with a fourth mission in November 2009. Some of the results of the 2009 mission were published earlier this year in the journal PLoS ONE.
Together these two missions have established that the team are not only in a position to send worms to other planets but also to experiment on them on the way there and/or once there. More results, including a mechanism by which muscles can repair themselves are due to be published shortly.
The origins of Dr Szewczyk's worms can be traced back to a rubbish dump in Bristol. C. elegans often feed on bacteria that develop on decaying vegetable matter.
Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Nottingham.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/g_bAOIxfooI/111129193104.htm
christmas lights canon eos rebel t3 christmas photo cards ar 15 2012 nfl mock draft ben roethlisberger costco
Review: iTunes Match wins cloud music war by wisp (AP)
LOS ANGELES ? In recent weeks, Apple, Google and Amazon.com have each launched the missing puzzle piece in their wireless mobile music systems.
Apple enabled storage and delivery of your songs over the Internet through iTunes Match. Google started selling music digitally. Amazon shipped an electronic-books device, called the Kindle Fire, that does much more than books.
With those additions, each system now lets you buy songs, store them on faraway computers called the cloud and retrieve them wirelessly on devices connected to the Internet.
But which system do you want to live with? It's a choice you can't make lightly because these companies don't play nice with each other. Once you've adopted one, it's hard to switch.
If this were the Music Cloud Wars, then Apple's iTunes Match would be winning ? but not by much.
Here's a quick primer, along with a few ways to get in and around their digital barriers.
___
iTunes Match.
There's a good chance you are familiar with iTunes. The software is on millions of computers, and many of you have iPods, iPhones or iPads that let you consume content bought through the iTunes online store.
ITunes Match is a $25-a-year service on top of that. It sees everything you have in iTunes and matches it to copies Apple already has stored in the cloud. Songs not already there will be uploaded from your computer to a personal locker in the cloud.
It's alone among the three to let you download songs to iPhones and iPads wirelessly. That means a full copy of the song is stored for listening anytime, rather than streamed on demand over wireless networks, which can be spotty. There's nothing more annoying than having your songs stop and start as your connection flutters.
You can have up to 25,000 songs on the service, plus an unlimited number bought through iTunes ? great for those with large music collections. Of course, most of you won't fit 25,000 songs on your device, so streaming is an option for songs you haven't downloaded yet.
If there's a tune you want to listen to offline, just tap an icon. It takes only a few seconds, and you can start listening before it's done.
One major caveat: You need an Apple device to use this, and specifically a newer one with Apple's iOS 5 mobile software. You're out of luck if you have a phone running Google's Android system, for instance.
___
Google Music.
Using Google's free Music Manager program, you upload music you own into Google's cloud. Unlike Apple, Google doesn't have songs preloaded, so this can take hours or days.
Google Music works best with an Android phone or tablet computer. You simply download the Google Music app to your device. Voila, your songs will be available for streaming. You can save songs for offline playback by "pinning" them with a digital push pin icon.
The service stores up to 20,000 songs, not including those bought through a companion music store run by Google. That's not as many as iTunes Match, but it's free.
I like Google's music store because it offers plenty of bargains. I found Coldplay's latest album, Mylo Xyloto, for $5 ? half the price on iTunes. Google plans to release lots of free music, too.
I also like that if you buy from Google's music store, you can share the songs with friends on its Google Plus social network. They get one full listen for free ? that's something not available anywhere else.
One downside: Google's store isn't as extensive as Apple's or Amazon's. For instance, it's missing songs from Warner Music Group, which accounts for about 20 percent of music sold in the U.S.
Google Music also isn't a great option for users of Apple devices.
Google found a way to make the system work on iPhones and iPads through Apple's Safari Web browser. It has a surprising app-like feel because of the way menus respond to touch. But you won't be able to store songs on your phone for offline use.
There's also a trick for Apple users to take advantage of music deals: Download the songs onto a computer, put the music in iTunes and upload the songs into Apple's cloud through iTunes Match. It's not pretty, but it works.
___
Amazon Cloud Drive.
The new Kindle Fire completed Amazon's music system, though it's not required. It works fine on Android devices through the Amazon MP3 app.
Released in March, Amazon's cloud storage system is free for up to 5 gigabytes of storage ? roughly 1,250 songs. If you bought Lady Gaga's latest album, "Born This Way," in a 99-cent promotion in May, you'll have 20 GB of space ? good for about 5,000 songs.
Amazon's uploader works about the same as Google's. It could take hours or days to get your songs into the cloud. But once there, you can stream or download songs to the Kindle Fire or to Android devices.
Like Google, Amazon sells songs and albums at a discount to iTunes, and its long-running music store has a selection comparable to iTunes.
Amazon has also found a way to make its system work on Apple devices, using Safari as well, but that workaround is clunkier than Google's and doesn't support downloads either.
One other downside to Amazon's service is that you'll likely have to pay for cloud storage, as you do with iTunes Match.
Having 5 GB of storage for free is kind of meaningless because most mobile devices have that already. The Kindle Fire comes with 8 GB on board. For a limited time, you can get 20 GB of storage for $20 a year ? and most music files won't count against the total.
___
Although there are things to like about Google's and Amazon's systems, they both favor streaming, which isn't how I want to listen to music when I'm not at a computer.
Apple's iTunes Match is fundamentally more oriented to work with downloading in mind, and it meshes well with your existing song library, either on your device or on your computer.
The iTunes store is also set up better ? showing what's new and popular, and acting as a barometer of popular culture. Google promotes what's free and Amazon emphasizes its bargains, but those picks aren't always what I'm looking for.
Ultimately it's great to have cloud services out there. It has helped me organize my music collection and reconnected me with songs stuck in the recesses of my computer.
In the end, though, these services ought to be as free and easy to access over multiple devices as email is. Instead, they come across as tools to get you to buy this or that device. And we shouldn't be made to pay for a song once and then again when we store it.
Music in the cloud has promise, but it hasn't fully delivered just yet.
josh beckett 999 plan the village detroit weather detroit weather imessage imessage
Local Businesses Applaud NBA Agreement
BOSTON ? The Celtics appear poised to return to action next month after players and owners reached a tentative deal Saturday. That is good news for local businesses who say they?ve been hurting without the NBA.
Employers at bars and restaurants around TD Garden say on a normal game night they would have about 50 employees on staff. But this year staffing levels on what would have been game nights are closer to 10 employees.
Jim Taggart, the manager of The Four?s, a restaurant near the TD Garden, says patronage on days that the Celtics play makes up one-third of their annual gross.
?You don?t replace an NBA basketball game,? Taggart said. ?There?s a substantial amount of money. We made almost 40 percent less than we did last year, so that?s a lot of money.?
One bright spot, Taggart says, is that Bruins? business has been, as he puts it, ?off the charts.?
Source: http://www.wbur.org/2011/11/27/local-nba-agreement
patrice patrice tether new orleans saints hedy lamarr lana peters lana peters
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Why is Rep. Barney Frank retiring?
Rep. Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts, who has served for 16 terms, will not seek reelection. Here are three reasons he might have made that decision.
Rep. Barney Frank isn?t going to run for reelection. The Massachusetts Democrat with the acidic wit is calling it quits after 16 terms of sparring with Republicans, reporters, various administration officials, witnesses at hearings who displeased him, and even constituents who disagreed with him in public.
Skip to next paragraph?Barney Frank will not seek reelection. Congress just got a little bit dumber, and a whole lot duller,? tweeted liberal Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein when he heard the news.
Why is he calling it quits now? He?s an icon of the left, the inheritor of the seat of another icon on the left, the Rev. Robert Drinan. He could raise all the money he wants. He?s one of the few openly gay elected national officials in US history. He?d probably gain extra votes in 2012 due to President Obama appearing on the blue Bay State ticket.
Well, all that is true, but we can think of a number of reasons that Representative Frank might want to let somebody else run in the Massachusetts Fourth District.
He's not getting younger. Hard as it is to believe for those of us who remember a rumpled youngish guy knocking off Republican Margaret Heckler in an epic 1982 race caused by redistricting, Frank is now in his early 70s. If he wants a second career ? as a reporter, an administration official, or a Washington lobby ... oops, Washington consultant ? now is the time to make the change.
Democrats might not win back the House. Frank rose to the height of Washington power as chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services from 2007 to 2011. He helped push through financial reform legislation and championed the giant quasi-government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ? actions that have made him a GOP target. But Republicans took control of the chamber in the 2010 midterms, and they may well maintain their grip on the speakership after 2012. Frank?s retirement may indicate that top House Democrats don?t think that much of their chances in the upcoming vote.
He might have lost. Most important, Frank would not be running in the same district in 2012, geographically speaking. A new state redistricting map made necessary by relatively slow population growth shoved some conservative towns into Frank?s Fourth District, while depriving it of reliably Democratic New Bedford. Frank could have still counted on his liberal base of Newton. But he?d have faced another challenge from former Marine and presumptive GOP candidate Sean Bielat, who gave Frank a tough challenge in 2010. Why bother? Perhaps that was Frank?s attitude.
Frank may not be the only longtime lawmaker in such a predicament. The low regard in which voters currently hold Congress could affect the reelection prospects of many current legislators, predicts political analyst Charlie Cook.
?Voters hardly seem inclined to reward either party,? Mr. Cook wrote earlier this month. ?Instead, we may well see many incumbents ? those wearing blue Democratic jerseys as well as those wearing red Republican ones ? thrown out the window, not so much because of their uniforms but because of their proximity to windows.?
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/6t6fkLrW7kg/Why-is-Rep.-Barney-Frank-retiring
mean girls houston weather peter king hank williams jr hank williams jr tough love tough love
Sugarland?s Jennifer Nettles Weds Former Model Justin Miller
Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles Weds Former Model Justin Miller
Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles got hitched! The country star married her boyfriend of two years in an intimate ceremony on Saturday. Jennifer wore an Alexander [...]
Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles Weds Former Model Justin Miller Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stupidcelebrities/~3/f5oj5S9aPZE/
jamarcus russell sister wives st louis weather kryptos student loan forgiveness amy winehouse cause of death amy winehouse cause of death
Euro in danger, Europe races for debt solution (AP)
PARIS ? European leaders rushed Monday to stop a rampaging debt crisis that threatened to shatter their 12-year-old experiment in a common currency and devastate the world economy as a result.
One proposal gaining prominence would have countries cede some control over their budgets to a central European authority. In a measure of how rapidly the peril has grown, that idea would have been unthinkable even three months ago.
World stock markets, glimpsing hope that Europe might finally be shocked into stronger action, staged a big rally. The Dow Jones industrial average in New York rose almost 300 points. In France, stocks rose 5 percent, the most in a month.
More relevant to the crisis, borrowing costs for European nations stabilized. They had risen alarmingly in recent weeks ? in Greece, then in Italy and Spain, then across the continent, including in Germany, the strongest economy in Europe.
The yields on benchmark bonds issued by Italy and Germany rose, but only by hundredths of a percentage point. The yield fell 0.1 percentage point on bonds of France, 0.14 points for those of Spain and 0.22 points for Belgium.
Allowing a central European authority to have some control over the budgets of sovereign nations would create a fiscal union in Europe in addition to the monetary union of the 17 countries that share the euro currency.
Some analysts have said that would be a leap toward creating a United States of Europe. More delicately, it would force the nations of Europe to swallow their national pride, cede some sovereignty and agree to strengthen ties with their neighbors rather than fleeing the euro union during the crisis.
"The common currency has the problem that the monetary policy is joint, but the fiscal policy is not," Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said in a meeting with foreign reporters in Berlin.
The monetary union has existed since the euro was created in 1999, but the European Union, which includes the 17 euro nations and 10 others that use their own currencies, has no central authority over taxing and spending.
Countries like Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy overspent wildly for years and racked up annual budget deficits that have left them with monstrous debt. Italy holds euro1.9 trillion in debt, or 120 percent of the size of its economy.
A fiscal union could prevent excessive spending in the future. More important, it would be a step toward addressing today's debt crisis: It could provide cover for the European Central Bank to stage a massive intervention in the European bond market to drive down borrowing costs and keep the debt crisis under control.
So far, the ECB has resisted, in part because of concerns that bailing out free-spending countries would only encourage them to do it again, a concept known as moral hazard. Enforced budget discipline would ease those concerns.
A fiscal union would also pose a practical problem ? how to make such a body democratically accountable.
Another option is for the 17 nations in the euro group to sell bonds together, known as eurobonds, to help the countries in the deepest trouble because of debt. Germany has resisted such a plan, because it would raise borrowing costs for it and other nations that have good credit ratings.
While Europe buzzed over the possible solutions, finance ministers of the euro nations prepared for a summit beginning Tuesday evening in Brussels, to be joined the following day by ministers from the rest of the European Union.
Italy readied an auction of bonds designed to raise euro8 billion, or about $10.6 billion, and steeled itself for the high interest rates it will have to pay.
In Washington, President Barack Obama huddled with European Union officials, but the White House insisted Europe alone was responsible for fixing its debt problems.
Obama said failing to resolve the debt crisis could damage the U.S. economy, which has grown slowly since the end of the recession in June 2009 and still has 9 percent unemployment.
"If Europe is contracting, or if Europe is having difficulties, then it's much more difficult for us to create good here jobs at home," Obama said at an annual meeting between U.S. and EU officials.
Despite signs of possible progress on the debt crisis Monday, the euro has appeared to be in increasing danger the past few weeks. Experts said the currency could fall apart within days without drastic action, with consequences rivaling those of the 2008 financial crisis.
"Everyone knows that if the eurozone crashes the consequences would be very dramatic and in the race after that there would no winners, just losers," said Finland's finance minister, Jutta Urpilainen.
For countries that decided to leave the euro group and return to their own sovereign currency, the conversion would be wrenching.
If Germany broke away, for example, its national currency could rise in value quickly because the German economy is stronger than the European economy as a whole. But a stronger German mark would damage the German economy because Germany depends heavily on exports, and it would cost more for everyone else to buy German goods.
As for weaker countries that decided to leave, depositors would probably yank money out of their banks, fearing a plummeting currency. Savers in Greece would not want their euros replaced with, say, feeble drachmas.
If countries tried to repay their old euro debts with their own currencies, they'd be considered in default and would struggle to sell bonds in global financial markets. Corporations would face the same squeeze.
Overall, economists at UBS estimate, a weak country that left the eurozone would see its economy shrink by 50 percent.
Currency chaos and defaults by governments and companies would weaken European banks and also cause them to stop lending to each other. Because banks are connected globally, a credit freeze in Europe would spread. As it did in 2008, a credit freeze would cause stock markets to sell off worldwide, and another deep recession would probably follow.
Wolfgang Munchau, a columnist for the influential Financial Times newspaper, wrote Monday that the common currency "has 10 days at most" to avoid collapse. He called for decisions on a fiscal union and the creation of a powerful common treasury.
Unlike the United States, which has centralized institutions in Washington for raising taxes and spending money, the euro nations have 17 independent treasuries with little oversight from Brussels, the headquarters of the EU.
That would change under the fiscal union proposal being aired ahead of another summit of EU leaders that begins Dec. 9. Ten nations in the EU do not use the euro currency, most notably Britain.
While not explicitly backing a fiscal union, Germany and France have promised to propose measures that will make the 17 euro countries operate under strict and enforceable rules, so that no single country can wreak continent-wide damage.
Already, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international group devoted to economic progress, warned that the global economy would be rocky in coming months.
In its six-month report Monday, it said the continued failure by EU leaders to stem the debt crisis "could massively escalate economic disruption" and end in "highly devastating outcomes."
The latest turmoil came last week, after Germany tried to auction $8 billion worth of its national bonds and could persuade investors to buy only $5.2 billion. It was a sign that even mighty Germany was not immune from the debt crisis.
Investors around the world will watch the Italian bond auction Tuesday. If it receives a similarly poor reception, more European countries will be in danger of being locked out of the international bond market.
Exactly how a fiscal union would take shape in Europe is an open question.
Schaeuble, the German financial minister, said the proposal would require passage only by the 17 countries that use the euro currency. The other 10 countries in the EU, such as Britain, Poland and Sweden, could adopt it if they wanted to.
But analysts said such a move would take a long time to come to fruition.
"We do seem to be moving slowly towards more of a fiscal union but at a pace that may result in all the components being put in place after a complete meltdown of the financial system," said Gary Jenkins, an economist with Evolution Securities.
Many think the ECB is the only institution capable of calming frayed market nerves. But Merkel, the German chancellor, has continually dismissed the prospect of a bigger role for the ECB.
____
Pylas reported from London and Wiseman from Washington. Melissa Eddy, Juergen Baetz, Kirsten Grieshaber and David Rising in Berlin, and Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki contributed to this story.
aurora borealis s.978 larry ellison go ask alice go ask alice nflx john mccarthy
Eurogroup set to fix EFSF leveraging rules, deal with Greek aid (Reuters)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? Euro zone finance ministers are to agree on Tuesday on details of leveraging their EFSF bailout fund so it can help Italy or Spain should they need aid, and are likely to approve the next tranche of emergency loans for Greece and Ireland.
Documents obtained by Reuters on Sunday showed the detailed guidelines for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) were ready for approval by the ministers, opening the way for new operations and multiplying the fund's effective size.
The documents spell out rules for EFSF intervention on the primary and secondary bond markets, for extending precautionary credit lines to governments, leveraging its firepower and its investment and funding strategies.
"I would expect we will be in a position to approve the guidelines at a political level," a euro zone official involved in the preparations for the ministers' meeting said.
President Barack Obama pressed European Union officials on Monday to act quickly and decisively to resolve their sovereign debt crisis, which the White House said was weighing on the American economy.
The EFSF guidelines will clear the way for the 440 billion euro facility to attract cash from private and public investors to its co-investment funds in coming weeks.
The scale of potential private interest in the co-investment funds is unclear, as investors said they would look closer at the possibility when the operational details were made public.
The bailout fund will also be able to offer partial protection for private investors on their purchases of euro zone sovereign bonds, like those of Spain or Italy, at primary auctions, boosting demand and lowering sovereign funding costs.
Depending on interest in the schemes, they could even boost the EFSF's impact to 1 trillion euros. But the EFSF has recently played down that number, saying it was difficult in current market conditions of high aversion to euro zone debt exposure.
The European Central Bank, which is now buying bonds of Spain and Italy on the market to prevent borrowing costs for the two countries to get out of control, has been urging euro zone ministers to finalise the technical work on the EFSF quickly.
Officials have told Reuters that once the details are agreed the leveraging mechanisms could become operational in January.
That may be too late. With Germany rigidly opposed to the idea of the ECB providing liquidity to the EFSF or acting as a lender of last resort, the euro zone needs a way of calming markets, where yields on Spanish, Italian and French government benchmark bonds have all been pushed to euro lifetime highs.
GREECE, IRELAND
The ministers will also discuss the release of the next 8 billion euro tranche of emergency aid for Greece.
The ministers have made the money conditional on written commitment from Greek parties that they would support reforms that will underpin a second financing package for Athens worth 130 billion euros.
One of the Greek party leaders, Antonis Samaras, long refused to provide such written commitment, but finally sent a letter last Wednesday.
"This will be third time that we will decide on the sixth disbursement, so I guess it is third time lucky," one euro zone official said.
"I understand we should be in a position to acknowledge the receipt of commitments in a written form by the main political forces in Greece," the official said.
"We have to look at it, what it means on substance -- the fat lady has not sung yet, but if all goes well we should be in a position to agree on that."
A second euro zone official cautioned that while Samaras supported the goals of the reforms in his letter, he had distanced himself from some of the methods to achieve them.
But the official also noted that cross-party agreement on the precise ways of achieving the targets of the new Greek programme was not required for the release of the tranche and said that, with the letter, "it looks much better than before."
Euro zone ministers will also release the next tranche of emergency loans to Ireland, praising the country's performance.
"The Irish case shows that with the right determination and political constellation, what the international community is asking of countries is actually doable. It is a positive message in an otherwise not so positive environment," the official said.
BIG ISSUES REMAIN
The likely release of the money will not end Greece's problems, however. Athens, the euro zone, the International Monetary Fund and private bondholders still have to put together the next Greek financing programme, which includes a 50 percent reduction of privately held Greek debt.
Banks involved in a rescue plan for Greece have set up a steering committee to push forward talks on a voluntary bond exchange before the end of the year.
Euro zone leaders said on October 27 that the new financing programme would be put in place by the end of the year, but some euro zone officials expressed doubt that deadline could be met.
"No, I would be surprised. It still needs some work," the first euro zone official said.
Mario Monti, Italy's prime minister and finance minister, will attend the meeting to explain to his euro zone colleagues the reforms Italy plans to undertake to regain the confidence of markets and bring down its unsustainable borrowing costs.
Saddled with debt equal to 120 percent of GDP and soaring borrowing costs, Italy has been battling to avoid financial disaster, which analysts say would endanger the whole euro zone.
In a sign of intense market stress, short-term Italian yields last week climbed above those of longer-dated issues. Both are higher than the 7 percent level widely seen as unsustainable for the country's public finances.
IMF head Christine Lagarde denied on Monday press reports that Italy was in talks for an IMF loan programme.
"At this point in time the IMF has not received any request for assistance from, nor are we negotiating with, either Italy or Spain," Lagarde said in Peru.
Euro zone ministers are also likely to nominate senior French Treasury official Benoit Coeure as the successor to European Central Bank executive board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, who resigned from his post earlier this month.
(Reporting By Jan Strupczewski)
falcons paul mccartney adam savage adam savage mos def jack o lantern jack o lantern
Cubs entering Pujols-Fielder chase
There was some question as to whether they?d get involved in big free agent game hunting, but according to Ken Rosenthal they are: the Cubs are pursuing both Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols. Well, either/or. They wouldn?t sign both of them because that would be silly.
I think the why of it is more interesting than the mere fact of it: Rosenthal says the Cubs are worried that the changes to the draft in the new collective bargaining agreement ? caps on bonuses and heavy penalties for exceeding them ? are going to make it harder to build through the draft. That, combined with the fact that teams lock up elite sluggers way earlier now than they used to means that such beasts will be hard to come by going forward.
Such a thing makes sure things more desirable and, while there is a question as to the appropriate length of a Pujols or Fielder deal, there is little question that for the next few years, each will continue to be an elite slugger.
As for the Cubs, Rosenthal says that, despite the age difference, they?re somewhat more interested in Pujols because of his defense and conditioning and whatnot. ?Whether they actually step up to join the Cardinals and Marlins in bidding on El Hombre is an open question, however.
new iphone new iphone tmobile iphone van jones van jones dark energy dark energy
This iPhone 4 Spontaneously Caught Fire In a Flight [Apple]
cranberry sauce recipe mls cup amas 2011 black friday elliot elliot la galaxy
Monday, November 28, 2011
Sickle cell anemia as malaria defense
Sickle cell anemia causes pain, fatigue and delayed growth, all because of a lack of enough healthy red blood cells. And yet genetic mutations that cause it ? recessive genes for the oxygen-carrying hemoglobin protein ? have survived natural selection because they also seem to provide a natural defense against malaria. Scientists have long known this, and they have long wondered how it worked.
In a paper published this month in the journal Science, researchers describe their look into how mutated hemoglobin genes defend their cells against attacks by the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Study lead author Marek Cyrklaff, an electron microscopist and molecular biologist at Heidelberg University in Germany, explained the results.
How dangerous is this malaria parasite?There are a large number of casualties every year ? something like 500 million new infections and approximately 1 [million] to 2 million people who die every year. Of the various malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum is the most virulent of all.
When infected or damaged, red blood cells are normally supposed to be removed by the spleen or the liver. But the parasite inside the infected red blood cell sends molecules called adhesins to the cell's surface to make the red blood cell adhere to the blood capillaries, to make it sticky. So the infected cells do not get cleaned out of the blood circulation because they stay in the microvasculature, in the capillaries of the other organs. This is the strategy of the pathogen to survive and multiply.
The invaded red blood cells stick to the epithelium, to the capillaries, and block blood circulation to vital organs like the brain, or the placenta in pregnant women. Very often, this leads to death.
How does the parasite achieve this?
For the first time, we observed the role of what is known as the actin cytoskeleton in the process. Actin is a protein that is one of the skeletal elements in every cell; normally, among other tasks, these actin networks are responsible for maintaining the shape of the cell.
When the malaria parasite invades the red blood cells it hijacks the actin cytoskeleton and uses it to build a cable system out of actin filaments to carry the adhesins to the cell's surface.
Until now, the role of this actin cytoskeleton was not really proven. Our work is the first to show that actin is involved.
Where does sickle cell disease come in?
Some part of the human population has a mutation to their hemoglobin, which is the protein in the red blood cell that carries oxygen. Often, people of sub-Saharan African origins have two copies of this mutated gene, which leads to severe sickle cell disease.
Individuals with that disease suffer a lot, because their abnormally shaped, nonflexible blood cells block blood circulation and deliver less oxygen to the body. But, on the other hand, this trait is beneficial to humans because it prevents the most severe symptoms of malaria, including death. So throughout history, during endemic times of malaria, people who carried such mutations to the hemoglobin code had much better chances of survival.
For people with one normal gene and one mutated gene, the Plasmodium parasite makes itself very comfortable in the cells that they have. These patients also get the typical symptoms of malaria ? the recurring fever, anemia and so on ? but they do not die. This is an advantage from carrying the sickle cell gene ? which is why the mutation has survived in the population.
This has been known for a relatively long time, but the mechanism of this protection has not been understood. So we took sickle cells from sickle cell anemia patients; we infected them with Plasmodium parasites, put them in an electron microscope and studied this actin cytoskeleton.
Rather than the long cables of actin you would see in a normal infected red blood cell, in sickle cells we see actin filaments that are shorter, that are somehow not fully developed. In sickle cells, for some reason, the parasite is not able to form the fully functional actin network in the host cell.
Can we use these findings to defend against the parasite?
This is still in the area of basic science. However, our findings shed light on new and hitherto uncharted territory in the complex interactions between the malaria pathogen and its host. The logical step now is to identify the factors involved in this natural protection, and future studies will aim to develop inhibitors. But before we succeed in an efficient antimalarial strategy, it will take more years of work.
This interview was edited for space and clarity.
amina.khan@latimes.com
heavy d funeral oklahoma state university osu football osu football christopher walken ok state ok state
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Miley Cyrus ?Stoner? & ?Pothead? Admission A Joke or For Real? (Video)
The questions of the day seems to be is Miley Cyrus really a pothead and stoner the way she claims in the below video or was the whole thing one big joke. With Miley anything is possible. It seems to have been quite a while since former Disney star Miley Cyrus found herself in the midst of some not so great publicity, surprising I know but true. However now thanks to her running her mouth in a video where she admits to being a stoner and a pothead she finds her self back in the spotlight for being a bad girl. According to US Weekly what started this whole new scandal was Miley?s 19th birthday bash last week where she was served a Bob Marley cake. The singer then said ?You know you?re a stoner when your friends make you a Bob Marley cake?. That would have been enough to start the presses rolling much she goes on to talk about smoking to much weed. Soon after the video and reports of her admission starting running ramped on the Net Kelly Osbourne, who is also in the video, has stepped up to defend her friend saying the whole thing was [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/yzpF-W6z2Ho/
kelly slater kelly slater palindrome palindrome asana als disease brittany norwood
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)